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the key to winning this election, getting you a job. good morning, everyone, i'm christine romans. it's a presidential race that comes down to the haves and have notes. a president who until eight years ago still had student debt and his likely republican rival who has no debt at all and millions in the bank. which one is likely to guarantee you a job? joining us now to talk more about the politics is cnn's chief political analyst, gloria borger. good morning, gloria. >> good morning, christine. >> mitt romney claims that president obama broke his promises on jobs and the economy. he says median household income has declined by $4300. the unemployment rate has been above 8% for a record-breaking 38 straight months. nearly 23 million americans are unemployed, underemployed or have stopped looking for work. but the obama campaign has its own video touting accomplishments on jobs. >> over the last 25 months, 4.1

million new private sector jobs. and while there's still more to do, there's been real progress. >> so, gloria, the facts are both of those ads are correct. >> right. >> they're both right. but the man who better convinces voters. >> right. >> is he the one who wins the election? >> i think it's true. i think you've got to convince voters that you're the person who can get us out of the mess we're in. one thing voters seem to agree on when you look at the polling, as i do every day, is that a majority of americans in this country believe that things are going badly. when you compare president obama to mitt romney on the economy, they're about at parity right now. when you ask the question who's better able to get us out of this mess. so it's clear that the opportunity for the romney campaign right now is not on foreign policy. we've been hearing a lot of talk about osama bin laden and all the rest of it.

but the opportunity right now for mitt romney is to convince people that he's got the competency and the business experience to get us out of the mess we're in. >> and this is going to play differently in different battleground states. i want to show you the battleground states and how it's going to play out here. since president obama stepped in the white house in january, 2009, six of the 15 swing states have seen a drop in their unemployment rates. they're the states highlighted in highlighter yellow here. iowa, indiana, ohio, wisconsin, michigan and virginia. the jobless rate in new hampshire is pretty much steady at 5.2%. let's focus on michigan first here. 11.3% to 8.5%. the last gop candidate to win michigan was the elder bush in '88. the economy there is still weak, but the unemployment rate has dropped there. now to ohio, another really important state. the unemployment rate has dropped there as well. the past 11 elections, buckeye voters correctly picked the next president. the jobs market improving in ohio and the unemployment ralt

is below the national average overall. let's look at the states in orange because these tell the other story, the swing states where the unemployment rate has gone up since the president became president. 109 delegates at state in these orange states here. the western states have had it the worst. the unemployment rate in nevada is some 12%. and missouri one of the states that serves as a proxy in the nation, that one has seen a big spike as well, 7.4%, more than two percentage points over the president's term. 29 delegates in florida, that's another key one that might be a hard sell for democrats. my question for you, gloria, how much credit and how much blame to do voters put on the president for their state's unemployment rates? >> well, you know, you're in charge. you're the president of the united states and you own the economy. >> michigan is a tough one as well because even when things are improving, they still -- people don't feel good about their circumstances. >> that's right. don't forget the president had the bailout, okay, and that helps him with voters. but when you look at the numbers

in the state of michigan, a majority of the voters there believe the economy is on the wrong track. a majority of republican voters weren't in favor of the bailout anyway. and the president and mitt romney are kind of at parity. so the romney campaign, taking a look at michigan, calls it a wild card state, so they believe it's doable. >> the president is saying forward, that's the theme of the campaign. and right now what you're hearing from the romney camp is broken promises, right? >> right. >> so those are the two messages that i think define how you're going to take the numbers and decide what it means for you. >> here's the interesting thing right now and this is the problem for the obama campaign, which is that a majority of people like the president in this country. but only 50% or 49% approve of his policies. so they like him more than they think he's doing a good job. and that's where their problem is and that's mitt romney's opportunity. >> gloria borger as always, have

a great weekend. nice to chat with you. >> you too. >> if you want a breakdown of this and where the jobs are in this week's jobs report head over to cnn.com/yourbottomline. coming up, jobs. a big part of occupy wall street's frustration. but have they lost support amongst the very people they count on. later, is your son struggling at school? are you worried about your teenage boy finding a job? lisa bloom joins us with a call to action for all parents. those surprising little things she does still make you take notice. there are a million reasons why.

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the occupy wall street movement shows that free speech and protests are alive and well in america, and not just limited to tea partiers. occupy's successes are clear. it branded the concept of the 99% versus the 1%, the very rich against everyone else. occupy successfully encouraged people to dump their banks and move to credit unions. lots of people in the 99% are now asking themselves six months on does occupy represent everyday americans? what's the message, what's the end game? are they now the 1% of the 99? ty is a professor, the author of the new e-book "occupy nation." he's a former leader of the '60s movement students for democratic society. pete was born in the '60s -- >> '75. >> and will cain is a cnn contributor. welcome to the program, everybody. >> thank you. >> occupy wall street started

back in september and many thought it might have died down over the winter, but tuesday's theme this week, no work, no shopping, no banking, a day without the 99%. it may have reignited this movement. an ows spokesman said the popular media narrative is that occupy is dead. but what we're here to show is that that's far from the truth. the issues that we're talking about are too important to go away. pete dominic, there's a lot of talking. the issues we're talking about, i named some successes. what else are they doing? how have they changed america? is it a success? >> yeah, absolutely. i mean the tea party worked within the system to elect people to work in the system. the occupy movement has a problem with the system and wants the system to change. what did it do, it created awareness for so many americans about economic inequality and now so many more people know about it. more a-1 articles about income inequality. even paul ryan agreed that's

there. and the move their money campaign was a metric. moving away from corrupt wall street banks into credit unions and community banks. those are all good things. awareness is key. >> here's where some people in the middle started to separate a little bit this week. threats to disrupt traffic, banking, arrests and then the idea of staying out of work and staying out of school to protect for better jobs and a better education. are the -- is occupy the 1% of the 99%, will? >> i think so. but look, radical means for radical goals. let's not be unclear about this. they have radical goals for changing the system. four years ago we accepted a debate and accepted the tellers of what was hope and change. not enough people asked change from what to what. let's ask this about occupy. change what system? when i look up and see pictures about rip capital and save the world, kill a capitalist, i ask are you trying to change the greatest economic system man has ever brought himself into, that pulled more people out of

poverty than any system out of earth, is that what we want to change? >> ty, you have been fighting for people a very long time, your whole career. do you see what you see here happening now, this assault i guess against capitalism, how does it compare? how is it different from what was the movement that really changed this country in the '60s? >> this is a much more popular movement than all of the movements of the 1960s. they were all minority movements. this starts with a great popular understanding that money has taken over politics, that inequality is unconscionable, that the system is rigged. >> isn't it a by product of capitalism? isn't -- if you don't have inequality, then what do you have? >> capitalism has lots of by-products. but when you produce products and some of the by-products are poisonous, you should actually do something about them. that's what people are saying. some people want to undermine capitalism in this movement. some people want to reform it. some people don't know exactly what they want to do about it. but one thing they converge on

and it's a central thing they converge on is that there's other work for the society to do than simply genuflect to capitalism. >> will calls it radical. i would ask the professor, is the black liberation movement, this branding 99% is great because it's everybody versus the elitist who are in control of the system. is it radical? >> yeah, radical means goes to the root. and the root is that we have an oligarchy that has taken over our politics. when you have one man can plunk $10 million into a political campaign just in the primaries, this is crazy. >> but barack obama was somebody nobody heard of eight years ago with student loan debt. he pam president of the united states. >> yeah. >> is he part of the oligarchy? >> no. but the oligarchy can stop. >> newt gingrich would not have been running for a year without

one person. >> you can't organize a political campaign without money. but you cannot actually arrest the power of the oligarchy by doing business as usual. >> it's just an impossible debate to have. >> no, it's not. it's a great debate. go ahead. >> it is when you can't speak. it's why it's impossible to have with occupy because you can change the purpose, you can change the movement every time i speak. if it's about capitalism, no, it's about money and politics. let me ask you this, in the end there's one common theme and it's almost autocratic. i ask you, who are you to say the right amount? who are you to say the right amount of free speech? >> i'm a scitizen of the united states who thinks i have as much right to voice in american politics as sheldon adleson. >> but do you have the right to shut down his voice? >> he can get on a street corner and talk as much as he wants. >> look, he didn't make it,

gingrich didn't make it with all that money behind him. rick perry had so much super pac money behind him. he didn't make it either. so my question is some of this that we've seen lately, i don't know if the money is actually working. there's so much money that crossed purposes. >> but it drowns out everything else. it drowns out the people who want to talk about equality. >> it drowns out public interest. the issues of the public, the issues in this case of the 99%. will and many people can be against this movement. it's not so much a political movement. it is about the vast majority of the american people who don't have an opportunity that the entitled upper class, 1% have and want to hold on to. >> i want to ask tad something. when you watch this movement, are there lessons learned from the '60s where they could clarify what their mission is or where they could have maybe a set of goals that the people can agree on, legislature -- the point of occupy for so long is that we don't do that.

that's not what we're about. >> one of the lessons learned from the '60s is that the movement is strongest when it is resolutely nonviolent. now, will is going to chortle, but the pictures of the moment when some maniac cracks a window are the pictures that get on your air. the guy with the dreads does -- gets a lot of promotion. but the thing is, that was one thing that people learned from the '60s. the nonviolent tradition works. the second thing i think that a lot of people learned from the '60s and maybe overlearned is that you don't want hierarchical organizations, you don't want the media anointing your leaders, you don't want a rigid movement, you want a movement that moves. you want a movement that's flexible. >> would you have asked -- would the media have asked thomas jefferson in 1775 what are your goals? he probably would have said well, right now we want to get

out from under king george's boot and we've got some other things we're going to caucus about and we're working on that. that's what this is. it's a movement and it doesn't necessarily have to have a focus. >> i'm going to leave it with pete dominic doing this is thomas jefferson impersonation. very well done. guys, thanks so much. thanks, guys. coming up next, she was raised on picket lines for the rights of union workers, women and people of color. her philosophy on life is the old ibm motto, think. best-selling author and passionate advocate lisa bloom joins us with a startling look at teenage boys and her advice to parents. and later, are more people rethinking the american dream to own a home? we'll take a look. ♪ this is the age of knowing how to get things done. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. 20 million men already have. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex.

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welcome back. more evidence this week that not going to college doesn't just cost you, it also costs the economy. a new study predicts the u.s. won't achieve a 60% college

graduation rate by 2025 falling short by 24 million degrees. that will cost our economy about $600 billion a year in lost wages and income tacks. keep working. retirement is a little farther off these days. the average american is going to stop working at age 67. census data finds 32% of men stay home with their children at least one day a week in 2010 while their wives worked. six years ago it was only 26%. the concept of stay at home dad is not new to lisa bloom. that's how her kids were raised. good morning, lisa. >> good morning. he was home with them only for a

few months. but it is true and i'm in favor of stay-at-home moms, stay at home dads, whatever works. >> you've outlined the sources aligned against sons in this country. what are they? >> yeah. i was really surprised doing the research for this book, how our culture is hammering boys. boys are four times more likely to go to prison than i was a kid. the majority of hispanic and african-american boys drop out of school and only a minority of white boys. 18% unemployment, the same as arab spring. i want it is easier to raise strong sons than to repair

broken men. that's what the book swagger is all about. >> and that's an incredible reminder of that quote as well as we live in this modern culture with all of these things lined against boys. joblessness, thugs. you have a boy and a girl. you wrote an article about raising girls how as a society we teach them to value their beauty more than the smarts. and for boys, having been told since birth that they are not only handsome and talented as jamie foxx, 85% of american teens are confident of their math and science abilities. 43% very confident, 42 somewhat confident. that must feel good except for the uncomfortable truth is against reality. what is reality? why does society teach swagger over substance? >> in one area we're number one,

confidence. pride goes before a fall. kids overconfident do worse in school. we as parents think we are doing a good thing for kids, constantly praising them, but we're doing them a disservice. we need to praise effort. we need to praise hard work. we need to praise in the extra kid who did the extra hour for hard work. i call the book "swagger" because we're living in a swagger culture. if you ask a boy about swagger, ultimately that's harming them. we need to take that down a notch. >> very nice to see you. have a nice weekend, lisa. >> thank you, you're the best. why it will never be a better time to buy a home, but should you. that's why there's glucerna hunger smart shakes.

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is the american dream with a big backyard and white, picket fence? and is it fading? home oim is down 15%. home prices have fallen, too. they peaked in 2006 but home values are now back to 2002 levels. author of a new book called "worth it, not worth it." we're going to take that worth it, not worth it mantra and apply it to home prices. we're probably bottoming, right? >> it seems that way but the danger is, we have been there and then they keep bringing it lower. >> so rents are rising at the same time. is it worth it or not worth it to rent right now? >> i come down on the side of buying for two reasons. it's a behavioral argument, not an economic one. a house is a piggy bank that you

live in. you would be rich by the end of 30 years. the problem is, people don't do it that way. money that they spend is what they would rather spend on other stuff. most people pay off their mortgage after 30 years and have this great asset. that's why i think buying is a better deal. it's true n. a lot of places renting was cheaper as housing went up, up, up, and now buying is a little bit cheaper so that's another reason. and then finally, it's a depressed asset. you're using other people's money that you borrow at 4% and get a tax deduction. >> so it is worth it to buy? >> it is worth it to buy. we have talked about just because it's worth it to buy for some people, doesn't mean it's right for everyone. it's probably where we ought to be 65%. you might have a job offer halfway across the country. you meet the love of your life and she says, great, but i don't