3:00 eastern, we'll look at some cool back to school gadgets. our expert tells us it's all about broadband, blogs, and bluetooth. and our movie reviewer is in the house. she takes us behind the scenes of movie reviews rottentomatoes.com and does whitney houston's latest film sparkle? "your money" begins right now. governor romney made his choice. now it's your turn. does the selection of paul ryan change the conversation in an election that continues to be focused on the economy? i'm poppy harlow. this is "your money." ali has been warning of us of an impending economic storm that could hit our shores. yet, since romney tapped ryan to be his running mate, it sure seems the conversation on jobs and economy has been overtaken by a debate on entitlements and budget cuts. that's odd because when it comes to the u.s. economy, president obama has a lot to answer for.

take a look at these numbers. it's gross domestic product. the broadest measure of the economy. it has fallen steadily from a far more healthy 4% in the final quarter of last year to a very sluggish 1.5% in the most recent reading. and those figures are consistent with how americans are feeling. a recent cnn/orc poll, you see it here, what it found is 63% of respondents say the economy is doing poorly. that's an increase of 6% from april. and jobs, nothing is more important to our recovery than creating jobs. unemployment remains high at 8.3%. but the even more important number that you should look at each month in this report is how many jobs were created. in july, 163,000 jobs were added. that is an improvement. but tell that to the 12.8 million americans still out of a job and looking for work. so while mitt romney made his choice, it's now up to america

to make its. >> paul ryan and i believe in america. we believe in you. >> obama-nomics is not working. you know what? the recovery starts november 6th when president obama is not working in the white house any longer. >> the direction that you choose when you walk into that voting booth in november is going to have an impact not just on your lives but on your children's lives, your grandchildren's lives for decades to come. this one counts. >> stephen moore is an editorial writer with "wall street journal." i have to tell you, you know, one word i haven't heard all week is bane capital. i haven't seen a focus on jobs and economy. does the ryan selection take voters away from an economy that is still very much struggling? >> let me first say for full disclosure, i've been friends

with paul ryan for 20 years. so i have a personal bias. i just love the guy. i think he was a great pick for the republicans. you know, what i think that the impact of paul ryan being on this ticket is that it kind of raises the stakes. it makes this campaign even more so about big substantive issues, not just jobs and the economy. you're right, those are issues number one and number two. but also what are we going to do about this big budget deficit? what are we going to do about the tax probe? >> take on issues one and two head on first. >> because, poppy, i think that the case that paul ryan and mitt romney have to make is these are all tied together. that just as you need a strong economy to get the ducks to sit down, we need reform in the entitlement program. we need reforms in the tax system if we're going to get back to that path we should be on. paul ryan, whether you like him or don't like him, he is very conversed in these issues. there is nobody in washington who knows the kind of back rooms of the budget an those numbers

better than he does. i think this is going to be an education of the american people about the budget. >> i don't think anyone is debating whether he is smart on budgets. it's whether he has the right plan. i want to bring in the chief political strategist with the potomac research group from washington, d.c. greg, conservatives got vp pick in paul ryan that they can certainly may agree with him on policy and vision. but it's interesting there was this fascinating political article that came out on monday. it showed that a lot of republicans are very much questioning this and whether they feel good about this choice politically. you bring up the point of republican congressman and women in some pretty hot contests right now think this could hurt them. >> it could. paul ryan is like my friend stephen moore. great guy. very knowledgeable on the issues. but at the same time, they might be a little too bold for a lot of american voters. to me, the name of the game is getting 270.

270 electoral college votes. i think this pick makes it a little tougher to win florida. kint s i can't see romney winning the election without florida. so that hurts. the other thing that is instead of speaking about obama's very mediocre record on jobs and the economy, we're now going to talk about entitlements. i think that takes away a more lucrative, more fertile battleground for the republicans if they're talking about medicare. >> i want to bring in wall street correspondent ben white. when you talk about this issue, when you talk about the president, if president obama had to sell his economic record to voters without mentioning bush and what he was given without mentioning romney or ryan, could he do it? >> he's had a hard time doing it. that's why you see a lot of attacks against mitt romney and talk about his tax returns and all that stuff. what he has to say is that things would have been a lot worse if we didn't do what we did which is pass the stimulus act and keep us away from a

great depression. >> people don't want to hear that. >> they don't. that's why the obama campaign wants to talk about romney and what his ideas are. i think the paul ryan pick helps them talk about the alternative that romney prevents. >> you get substance. >> it's substance they like talking about. they like medicare, social security, the romney campaign is going on attacks saying that obama will cut medicare which isn't true. the obama campaign wants to talk about the issues. >> listen to this quick spot from paul ryan. clearly focusing on the president. >> president obama cannot run on his record. just think about it. this is the worst economic recovery if you call it that in 70 years. he promised he'd keep unemployment from going up above 8%. >> he has a point there. that is that it has been quite a long time since the president got elected with unemployment this high. that is just history. >> it really hasn't happened since fdr. absolutely history. that's true. you look at where we came from. this is the obama campaign is trying to sell.

it is a difficult sales job. we were headed to a great depression, headed to 10% more unemployment. they made two rosey projections early on. that's the big problem, the initial response to the crisis and the passage of the system tlous say we're going to get below 8% unemployment. probably shouldn't have said that. it's tough to return from the financial crisis. they go very deep. they take a long time to recover from. it puts the obama campaign in a tough spot. we took these steps and here's what we're going to do in the future. romney campaign i think with the ryan pick is getting off of it. >> i want to take you on a little bit on this issue of the politics of picking paul ryan. look, greg, i respect your political opinion. i read your stuff all the time. i defer to you on this. i think here's why you might be a little wrong on this. think what paul ryan has done for the ticket is energized conservative voters. >> stephen? stephen? >> they were not all that excited about mitt romney in the first place. the fact you have conservatives really supporting this ticket, the intensity issue is

important. >> so did sarah palin. >> where are they going to go? >> in montana, you have a senate candidate who is running in a conservative state or conservative candidate for the united states senate. he is running on the vote against the ryan budget. the fact is that congressional candidates are running away from paul ryan and the ryan budget. >> all right. stephen moore, thank you very much. greg, thank you. we'll get back to both of you after the break. ben, thank you for joining us. >> pleasure. >> up next, was mitt romney's choice of paul ryan and his controversial plan for medicare a senior moment? >> my plan already extended medicare by nearly a medicare. president obama on the attack. the romney-ryan ticket firing back. a key member of obama's re-election campaign is here and we're going to find out just exactly what happens to medicare, the truth, what happens to medicare under obama care. that's next. ♪

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together you get quality services on your terms, with total customer support. legalzoom documents have been accepted in all 50 states, and they're backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. so go to legalzoom.com today and see for yourself. it's law that just makes sense. . paul ryan's plan to limit federal funds for entitlement programs including medicare has come under intense scrutiny

since ryan was named as romney's running mate, especially from seniors. since 1965, medicare has provided federal health insurance to americans 65 and older. according to the pugh research center, 88% of americans believe that medicare is "good for the country." ryan's plan, if implemented, would apply to people who are now 55 and younger. in other words, it would not touch today's seniors. americans who reach retirement age can opt to get a federal subsidy or voucher projected to be about $8,000 a year to use to buy private insurance. seniors could also choose traditional medicare instead. but some do make the argument that medicare system could be weaker than it currently lly is. people talk about cuts in medicare to ryan's plan and the affordable health care act or obama care which is law of the land now. that is true. both plans do try to cut costs. they have to. this program, it's running out of money. it is unsustainable in the long

run. but the plan's address cost cutting in different ways. obama care saves money by capping payments to health care providers like hospitals or insurers. ryan's plan will work in two-ways. first off, he believes that competition from the private sector would bring costs down. keep them down. secondly, his plan would cap the amount that government pays out in vouchers. it's a different philosophy on who would bear the burden. now let's get to the politics of it all. according to pugh, 51% of seniors oppose ryan's plan to offer credit towards purchasing private health coverage. only 25% favor it. our guests are still with us. i want to bring in an obama campaign spokesperson and former deputy white house press secretary. thank you, jen, for joining us. we know you're very busy these days. you know, jen, the president says his plan extends medicare

for a decade and says the ryan budget is going to end medicare as we know it. but is that fair given the fact that there is that option under the ryan plan for seniors to opt to stay under traditional medicare? >> first i'll say don't take our word for it. the aarp has also said that the president's plan would strengthen medicare, would extend the solvency of the program and has said that romney-ryan plan would undermine medicare and could pass costs along to seniors up to $6,000. >> i know you're citing that $6400 number. that is actually what the cbo marked on ryan's previous budget released in 2011. so into doesn't apply to the most current one. >> which mitt romney said he would have signed. >> it doesn't apply to the most current one. i want our viewers to know that. >> okay. regardless of that, this is an important debate we're going to have. we know that seniors in florida are waking up to headlines across the state that are saying

be concerned about the romney-ryan budget. worry about what it means for medicare. we know what the president's plan represents and stands for. he was raised by his grandparen grandparents. that's what he's done throughout his presidency. so we're happy to have this debate. >> i want to bring in stephen moore. wa i want to show you this map. this is florida. florida has the greatest proportion of people that are at least 65, that is followed by west virginia, maine, pennsylvania, and iowa. so here's what our team was talking about and thinking about. could the campaign here, the romney-ryan campaign have had a senior moment that could cost them a crucial swing state like florida? >> don't forget, the crucial statistic about the ryan plan is that anybody over the age of 55 is not affected by the ryan plan. those seniors in states like florida and ohio that are being scared that they're going to lose their medicare simply isn't

true. >> those seniors aren't just thinking about themselves. they're thinking about their grandkids and kids. >> hold on. this is the whole point. if those seniors are really thinking about their grandkids, then the ryan plan is the only plan that saves medicare. the one point you didn't make that is so important for every american to understand is if we don't save money for this program, even president obama himself said in nine years the program is going to be bankrupt. that is to say there will be no medicare because there's no money to pay for it any longer. the costs of medicare right now are $500 billion. in ten years, it will be close to a trillion dollars. this program is crowding out everything emphasis lse in the . >> i want to bring in greg. weigh in on this. i was reading your writing. you said something interesting, too, when it comes to the broader markets which do impact our economy that the markets, wall street loves romney. the ryan pick could undermine that. how does that all play in here? >> i'm not affiliated with

either party. let me make a cynical comment more than a political comment. we live in an era now of sound bites and bumper stickers. when anyone says let me explain how this works, but a lot of people's eyes glaze over. i know what stephen is saying. there is any merit in any plan that will strengthen medicare. but in a bumper sticker campaign, i'm not sure this is going to play very well. i think people realize this is the third rail. when you touch that third rail, people get burned. >> jen, i want to bring you back in here. we heard paul ryan say this week we are happy to have this debate over entitlements, over medicare. but i do agree with greg. a lot of people's eyes glaze over. it's very complicated to explain it. is the president ready to take on this battle? what's your play here? >> we would be happy to have a debate about our economic plans and our tax plans.

you know, we know that we're going to keep talking about the tax policy center report and what it said about what the romney-ryan plan would do by aleving the burden of extending tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires on the middle class. but this is a debate they brought up. it's a debate we're happy to have. i think another important piece of this is that mitt romney and paul ryan have been very straight forward about their desire to end the affordable care act. we know we need to do more educating on the affordable care act. but the affordable care act has actually lowered the cost of prescription drugs for millions of seniors by hundreds of dollars. it's helped cover people with pre-existing conditions. these are pieces we'll also be talking about beyond the budget. >> i want to bring greg in and give him the last word. where should the focus be right now, greg? it's clearly shifted this week. we'll see if it shifts back to jobs and the economy or if it shifts and focuses on taxes. what's your final take here?

>> i think it should be on the economy and jobs. there's been a fundamental realitiering of this campaign. it's now on entitlements. we didn't even talk about social security. i think bringing all these issues in is maybe it will succeed. but it's a very risky move for the republicans. >> we've seen in past in history what happened when you bring up privatizing social security. but that would make for an even more wonky debate. we'll see if maybe that is next week, guys. maybe that's next week. thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. up next, before he was picked as vice-presidential candidate, we sat down with paul ryan one-on-one to find out which democrat he would pick to sit down with in a room and work out a budget deal. >> i would like to work with president mitt romney and with the senate that's run by him. >> can you choose somebody who is in office right now? . >> he didn't. so if elected, is the guru behind the republican economic agenda capable of compromising

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governor mitt romney picked a numbers guy in paul ryan. ryan who is the republican chairman of the house budget committee is pretty much the architect of the gop's economic agenda. but some say that could hurt rather than help the party's chances come november. ryan liz is the author of the ryan piece which was published a few days before he was selected to join the romney ticket. i want to read the tweet you put out there. you said he's a very nice guy, talking about ryan, but i would be flabbergasted if romney picked him as a vp. so you along with many others were shocked by this decision. but what stood out to me in your piece, ryan, is you said when people envision what republicans would do come november, if they win the election, you don't need to understand romney. you need to understand paul ryan. frankly, he has so many more

details out there in his proposals than we know from romney. romney's camp is very shy on any details. do you sense that ryan is at all concerned that his proposals, his budget proposal, for example, could hurt romney? does he have that concern? >> i don't think he does. in fact, quite the opposite. one of the things that came up when i interviewed him and interviewed him a couple times in july and there was this debate in republican politics. do you run the safe campaign and just wait for obama to sort of collapse because the economy is so bad and then you're just standing there as the default alternative? or do you run a big, bold ideas driven campaign and make the campaign not just a referendum on the current president but a choice between two visions of america? and ryan was arguing to me that that's the kind of campaign he wanted r eed romney to run. >> so compromise. compromise is not something we're seeing in washington right now. so you want to see that for whom

ever you're going to vote for. our ali velshi sat down with ryan and talked about compromise. >> could you and the president sit in a room or a starbucks or a room we provide and hammer out a budget? notwithstanding all of the outside concerns? >> i would love to try. the president has given us four jujt budgets. he's never once attempted to do that. i've always wanted to do that. i always wanted to try. when i first put budgets out, maybe i was naive. i thought if i put this plan out, then others will put their plans on the table and start debating each other's plans and get to a consensus. the problem is we put our plan out there and nobody followed suit. and now what we found is the president decided not to put out a plan to solve the problem. the senate hasn't passed a budget in over 1,000 days. they simply attack it for the election purposes. >> but you have said -- >> i just don't see that kind of leadership from this president

if we were going to get this kind of leadership from this president, we would have gotten that by now. >> ultimately, you have to deal with this before that. >> i don't think that's right. i don't think -- if the president wanted to have a budget agreement, he would have given us a budget that attempts to solve the problem. harry reid would be passing budgets. harry reid decided not to pass a budget. >> if we put new a room and you have three days to work it out, who on the other side you would most like to work with? i'll try to get it done. i'll try to get you that person. >> i would like to work with president mitt romney and the senate. >> can you choose somebody who is in office right now on the democratic side? who on the democratic side do you think has the wherewithal? >> to me it's not about the people or party but the ideas. where are the best ideas to saving and shrinking the problems? >> no answer. no answer for a single person across the aisle that he would sit down with. this is a very smart man. a man who is respected from people in both parties whether they agree with his policies or not and well liked.

do you get a sense that paul ryan is part of the problem in washington or part of the solution? >> to be very honest, he's not had a background in forging bipartisan agreements. in the last few years if you look at his record on the budget issues, he was a part of simpson bowls. that was the commission, bipartisan commission that got together to put together a plan to deal with the long-term deficit issues. he was a dissenting vote on that bipartisan plan. boehner and obama, they got together. they were this close to having an agreement inside the republican caucus. this is less well known. inside the republican caucus, ryan was along with eric cantor and other conservative members saying don't do it. we don't like this agreement. let's take this issue to the american people. win the election and institute our budget into 2013. >> so no agreement so that president doesn't get

re-elected? >> he's not known as someone forging bipartisan consensus. he's known as someone that is deeply conservative, has very set ideas about these -- about the budget and wants his ideas to prevail. nothing wrong with. that but there's no reason to assume he's -- if he's vice president he's going to be good at building bridges. >> the record shows votes very much along his party lines. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> all right. ryan lizza. don't go anywhere. we'll be back with you. coming up next, the hometown that shaped a world view. jamesville, wisconsin, home of paul ryan. it's a town searching for an identity years after an auto plant closing put thousands out of work. i went to jamesville to find out how it could play into the presidential election. so we invented a warning you can feel. introducing the all-new cadillac xts. available with a patented safety alert seat. when there's danger you might not see, you're warned by a pulse in the seat. it's technology you won't find in a mercedes e-class.

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. jamesville, wisconsin, it's a blue collar town of 64,000 people and home of the presumed republican party's vice-presidential nominee, paul ryan. it's a town that is still reeling from the closing of a massive gm plant that employed thousands of workers.

i spent time in jamesville this summer. folks there told me it's a town that is searching for an identity. jamesville is also a town that traditionally votes democrat. it is a very union based town. that could change in this upcoming election. todd rollins reports. >> reporter: it's still hard to believe that his little brother whom he shared a bedroom with could be the next vice president of the united states. >> we're still coming off of a cloud. and we learned about the acceptance, you know, friday night like most everybody did. >> reporter: it really hit home at sunday's rally in wisconsin when paul, his wife jana and his mother teared up with emotion. >> to see paul and jana and the tears on their face, it really dawned on us that we were at a special moment in time. >> reporter: at 42, paul ryan is the youngest of four children, his father paul sr., an attorney, died of a heart attack when paul was 16. >> he's the one that found his

father and home alone at that time. i think he grew up a lot faster than he otherwise would have. >> tony hummel runs a company in jamesville, wisconsin. he's known paul ryan since elementary school. he says his friend who often comes across as mr. serious has a great sense of humor. >> he has this witty side of him that not a lot of people get to see. >> reporter: some of that come across in this interview he did two weeks ago with ryan for a local comedy program. >> you have a beautiful family, jana, kids. >> i do. >> you do, too. >> thank you. which one is your favorite? >> all of them. that's pretty good. >> one of my most vivid memories, we're 27 years old. we sit down and he said i think i'm running of congress. and we both just laughed. are you kidding me? what? >> reporter: ryan's run for congress did not surprise his high school government affairs teacher. >> he was one of those kids that you could pretty much predict

that he would go places. >> reporter: he says he kept in close contact with ryan every year before retiring he took his class to washington to visit ryan. and was ryan's guest for the 2001 george w. bush inaugural. even though they're such good friends, he says ryan knows he'll never get the vote of his former teacher. >> there's no doubt about it that he's a great guy, great family guy, cares a lot about the community. but we just don't see eye-to-eye on politics. >> reporter: and he says that he's a life long democrat. so he won't be voting for his former high school student or mitt romney. but he says along with other people here in jamesville, wisconsin, he is absolutely proud of what paul ryan has been able to accomplish. ted rollins, cnn, jamesville, wisconsin. great piece by todd roll inz there. we both have been to jamesville. this is very much a working class town. as you say in your piece, the ryan family is an established well known family there. certainly not blue collar. they did run a construction

firm. very well off. you know it's interesting, right, you hear the criticism from the left that rye ynan's proposals help the rich. this town and his formative years do not seem like a time or a town that shapes someone that would do that. are the attacks from the left on that point misguided? >> look, i think -- i think his ideology comes out of a belief. this is what he said in the first budget he put out. the only way to be truly free so to take as much responsibility for yourself as possible. >> right. >> i think that's as clear a statement of his ideology and what drives him as anything. and so if you believe that, look, he got into the sort of libertarian philosophers at one point. if you believe that freedom is inherently tied to how much responsibility you take for yourself, then your view of the social safety net and your view of government programs is very,

very different. >> one other question. through 2007, before he renounced earmarks, paul ryan got a lot of earmarks like most congressmen and women do for his district. everything from highways to retraining for autoworkers. you pointed this out, tim, when you talked to him. a lot of what helped his hometown was government spending. how did he square that with you? >> you can't help but notice when you go to jamesville they're recovering from a dramatic loss of a major gm plant. and all of the success stories in jamesville right now are directly tied to some federal money, some state money and some city money but it's all government money. there is economic development thing happening there. >> there is. >> it's all about partnership between the private sector and public sector. unavoidable. i mentioned this to ryan. i said come on, you -- this whole campaign now is about the role of government and the economy. you guys are hammering president obama for his argument that, you

know, you didn't build that. >> you didn't do it alone. >> i went to jamesville and the government is building stuff there. he said, look, that is just a character tour of who i am. i'm not an anti-government fierce libertarian. of course i believe in the government. of course i believe that it should provide infrastructure and airports. so, you know, that was his response. the caricature of him is not quite right. >> he is the one in 2008 who helped push through banning earmarks. >> he did. so he's pretty pure now on earmarks. that is the process by which special process in the legislative process where you put in legislative language like, okay, business in jamesville is going to get $100,000. he stopped doing. that a lot of the businesses in jamesville are not that happy about it. he had tough conversations with people back home about that. on the other hand, as has been reported this week, he has done the sort of new version of earmarks which is as a congress

person you write a tloer the lee administration and you say -- >> he says he's doing his job. >> he says he's doing his job. some people say it's a more transparent process. you know, you're not actually writing into legislative language but lobbying for it. >> very interesting. fascinating stuff. good inside look at a man we're all just really getting to know. thank you so much, ryan. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. coming up, it's wall street versus hollywood and a battle for campaign cash. we're going to tell you where the billions, yes, billions of dollars are going. that's straight ahead. [ female announcer ] most whitening strips promise full whitening results in two weeks or more. rembrandt® deeply white™ 2 hour whitening kit is proven to quickly remove surface stains and deep stains in just two hours. [ female announcer ] rembrandt® deeply white™: whiten in just 2 hours. you want to make sure it goes up and stays up. [ chirp ]

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the economy is still the number one issue in this he legislatio election. we hear candidates talk about your money. but the real politics of this campaign seems to be campaign

cash. op opensecrets.org says the presidential race will cost $2.5 billion. so we hit the streets here in new york to ask how much is your vote worth? >> i don't really think it's worth much. >> i'm not too sure. >> maybe like $1.30. >> $50. >> $1,000? >> $500,000. >> it's priceless. what else can i say? >> my vote is worth everything to me. >> it should be worth everything to you. both president obama and governor romney are drawing millions from donors. romney raked in $101 million in july. the president pulled in $75 million last month. but where is the big money coming from? governor romney's got wall street. it looks like the president's got hollywood. romney's top five donor groups are all from the financial sector from goldman sachs to morgan stanley to bank of america. but to be clear here, we're talking about people who work at those companies, not the

companies themselves. meantime, hollywood a-listers are backing the event. harvey weinstein's beach front home where donors paid $38,000 a plate for some face time with the president. jeffery catsenburg and tyler perry are also big bundlers, alec baldwin and tom hanks are donors as well. 90% of the money they brought in july came from normal folks, folks day naturi donating $250 . we asked you, if you haved 2 e$ what would do you with the money? >> i would keep it for myself. i'm not going to lie. >> keep the money for myself. >> split it between me and obama? >> i probably give it to the obama campaign. >> i'll do half and half. >> i don't think they need the money. keep it for myself. yeah. >> i would keep it for myself, too, i think. i'm joined by will cane, he is a

cnn contributor. will is dying to jump in here. >> i love the guy whose vote is worth half a million dollars. it's not priceless but not cheap. >> it's not cheap either. we know millions coming in each month, billions is the projection at $2.5 billion campaign. will, i'll start with you. what do donors get for this money? >> i think the most obvious thing they get is influence. influence over all of us and who we choose as a candidate. that will go to advertising, trying to convince us who we should vote for. anything beyond influence now we're projecting. bribery, selling votes in the form of politician doing quid pro quo. that's against the law. we have to really peer behind the curtain if we're going to say what do the votes get donors from politicians? >> when you look at the top donors to the romney campaign and both of you clearly see this. it's a huge switch from what it was in 2008. obama had the backing of the big banks. now he doesn't.

a lot of that likely come down to rhetoric and the tone towards wall street. that's your point. >> i think that's one of the main things wall street is banking on getting for their donations. they want a tomorrow channal ch. look, i'll give you this as an example. j.p. morgan chase ceo jamie dimon said he is barely a democrat. he is a democrat but certainly displeased with what he is hearing out of washington. >> i agree with you that this shift of wall street money is really huge. it's a big deal in this campaign. it says a lot about the obama administration and definitely you talked to the guys on wall street and the first thing they'll say is we hate the tone. you know, why are we the villians? why are we the bad guys? some say my kids say that their embarrass that they're dad is a banker. i think it's more than tone. i think it is also about fear of more intrusive regulation. >> policy. >> there is real fear of dodd/frank and the volker rule

and also crucially worries about taxes and the truth is there is a clear divide between obama and romney and the truth is also if you are a wall street millionaire, your taxes will be significantly higher if obama is re-elected. that is a real personal reason to support romney. >> i want to take a look at the top donor groups for the president. the president has a lot more than just hollywood on his side. take a look at the top five contributors. microsoft, university of california, dla piper, google and harvard university. how do you read this? what's your read on that in terms of individuals of those institutions giving to the president? >> i think we do have to remember romney is outraising obama. this is significant. if you look at the super pacs, it's a bigger deal. they're not on equal footing. that is significant because incumbents usually outraise challengers. i think the people backing obama, it's hollywood, it's technology and it's what you might call the liberal

intellectual class. people who really socially identify with the president. >> so it's more about social issues in that group in your opinion? >> the support that obama is getting, for sure. these are people, you know, the rich donors to obama are in some ways voting against their own personal pocketbooks. >> that would make sense. it doesn't say as much. these are pretty traditional ideological institutions. it doesn't say much about -- >> you can't read it as clearly. >> absolutely. >> stay here. up next, both candidates say they care about the middle class. they hammer away at it. but how do they plan to actually help those in the middle class? we'll be right back with that. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] you've been years in the making. and there are many years ahead. join the millions of members who've chosen an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan

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that most americans would agree on especially in an election year, but a "washington post" survey does say that 95% of folks out there are either working, middle or uppel middle class. what people don't agree on is

which candidate puts the middle class at the top of their list of priorities. take a look at this poll. only 18% feels he favors the rich and 42% says he favors the middle class. same question about mitt romney, much different results. 64% says romney favors the rich. middle class gets just 27% and more than 2% think governor romney favors the poor. we'll lay it out for you. the focus is heavily on jobs, one, more drilling for oil, secondly, plans to train and educate workers, also changing trade laws to benefit american goods and services. fourth, cutting taxes and spending and basically shrinking the government and finally supporting small business and all of this in an effort to put more money in people's pockets. so let's bring back in will cain, cnn contributor and christiane freeland. the plan sounds like a plan that everyone would want and it also

sounds like as our candy crowley said, a lot of politicians put plans out there like that. the question is don't we need more details, many more details, will? >> yes. you do need more specifics and i will tell you there is a specific political purpose to not giving you specifics. that being said i fear that conservative economic philosophy will always leave you wanting more and here's why. i'll give you an analogy and i realize it's over simplistic, but that doesn't mean it's useless and conservative economic philosophy is a bit like planting the govern want, he hopes for sun and rain and hopes the economy grows from the bottom up. his plans grow from private business in the free market, and the chaos from the free market. that is opposed to an economic view and it is more like a constant gardener, that you can come in and prop up wilted plants and bailing out auto companies that you can plant adolescent plants like green energy companies and that is one that lends itself to specific policy proposals, action and

anecdote. it is always easier to answer the specifics question when you have these. >> here's the issue, with the philosophy in terms of lack of details and tilling and planting and hoping, that's a lot of hope and a lot of questions, but it does give you on the alternative side, if you do sort of put those plants in as you were saying democrats are doing auto bailout, for example, you get stories and christiane, this is a point will has made, you get stories out on the campaign trail. you can go to michigan and you can go to ohio and point to specifics. >> i think the auto bailout is turning out to be probably the most politically valuable act of the obama administration, and it's turning out to be particularly useful in the swing states where obama really, really needs to win in order to win the election. going back to will's garden analogy, which i love, my dad is a farmer so i'm particularly

close to that, although farmers don't till anymore. there's a no-till revolution and we'll get into that later, what i think it gets and the what is valuable about this election is there is a very clear, a very sharp ideological contract and mitt romney has chosen to embrace that with his selection of ryan as his running mate and it does ultimately come down to what kind of a society do you want to live in and what approach do you think is most likely to create economic crisis. do you believe a small state with low taxes and in particular, actually, low taxes on the rich because you want them to have as much money in their pockets as possible in order to invest, that would be the conservative view or do you believe that you need government, you need government to regulate and you need government to invest in common spaces like education, like

roads and actually, when it comes to the ricci think the contrast is sharpest because the democrats would say actually, we need to tax the rich significantly more than they are taxed now. right now romney pays 13% and all of us probably pay more than that. >> it's 14.5% over the past two years, but i do want to let will -- jump in here. >> i don't totally disagree with anything christiane said and we should say for the sake of the audience and neither of these guys, president obama nor mitt romney are pure avatars of these economic philosophies we just laid out. the choice is one that's directional. >> more than -- more than in most elections. >> yes. >> i think we are seeing quite a sharp and quite a ideological difference which they're embracing and i think that's a good thing. >> i do think that voters deserve details from both sides on how things are going get accomplished. when you're deciding who you're going to the polls and who you're going vote for and so many people are still, still struggling and that conversation

has gotten away from jobs and the economy this week and focused on entitlements and needs to talk about what matters to people most right now, in addition to entitlements and the future. >> like tilling. >> no. >> we need to bring back tilling. >> for the record i thought they tilled, too, and i'm from minnesota and i grew up around farms and stuff. thank you very much. appreciate it. you have heard the arguments from both sides of the election on this show. now it's your turn. i'll show you how to get in on the action. that's next. ♪

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pick of paul ryan as running mate means the conversation has changed? does president obama benefit in this struggling economy because we talk less about jobs? ali velshi may be away, but i know he still wants to hear from you. send help your tweets. he reads them all, even on vacation. his handle is @alivelshi and you can also find him at facebook at