ta @randikayecnn is where you will find me. "state of the union" is next. "state of the union" is next. see you next week. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com i'm jim acosta in for candy crowley, and this is "state of the union." today, wisconsin could be in play, and florida is a gamble and the attacks are coming fast and furious. >> he put forward a plan to let governor romney pay less than 1% in taxes each year. now, here's the kicker. he expects you to pick up the ta tab. >> his campaign strategy is to smash america apart and then try to cobble together 51% of the pieces. >> talking key tactics and politic politics with the key gop cal pain adviser eric fehrnstrom, and democratic strategist

stephanie cutter. >> you are misrepresenting the facts. you don't know what you are talking about. >> and rick santorum offers the insights of running against romney and what looks to be a brutal fall campaign. and has the ryan pick altered the electoral map? jackie kucinich and mark preston are here today on "state of the union." with paul ryan's pick on the gop ticket, medicare is suddenly a top campaign issue. >> this is my mom, betty. >> congressman ryan took his message to the largest place for medicare recipients is florida. >> and we want to empower seniors and not bureaucrats to make decisions on how they get

their health care. mitt romney and i will protect and strengthen medicare so that the promises that were made, that people organized their retirements around, like my mom, will be promises that are kept. >> the president took his turn in another important battleground state, new hampshire. >> since i have been in office, i have strengthened medicare. i've made reforms that have extended the life of the program that have saved millions of senior seniors with medicare hundreds of dollars on the prescription drugs. the only changes to your benefits that i have made on medicare is that medicare now covers new preventive services like cancer screenings and wellness visits for free. >> joining me now from boston is eric fehrnstrom, senior adviser to the romney campaign, and eric, thank you for joining us

this morning. >> thank you for having me, jim. >> and eric, i wanted to ask you about some of the president's comments this week. he is accusing mitt romney and paul ryan of seeking a medicare system that would end medicare as we know it. we know that romney and ryan would put in place a voucher-like system where people would receive a premium support payment as republicans call it to buy into medicare or buy a comparable plan. how does that not end medicare as we know it? >> well, i think that it is important to understand, jim, that going forward one of the principles that romney, the romney/ryan ticket will follow in reforming medicare is that none of the changes would affect current beneficiaries there. is only one candidate in the race who has made cuts to medicare that have affected current seniors, and that is president obama. in order the pay for obama care, he raided the medicare piggy bank and took $700 billion out of the medicare program and

shifted it to obama care. that's wrong. and mitt romney will restore that money to medicare and of course as i said, one of the important principles he will l follow in reforming the entitlement is making sure that none of the changes affect current seniors and that is people age 55 and above. >> it may not affect current seniors, eric, but it is a dramatically different medicare system in the future, isn't that right? >> well, not dramatically different. for future workers, those who are under the age of 55, medicare will still be there as an option. the existing program, but we are going to introduce choice and competition through more private plans. this is a good thing. what president obama did was to take $700 billion out of the exist i existing medicare program and affecting current beneficiaries and shifted it ever to obama care in order to pay for the massive new entitlement. we believe it is wrong and that money will be restored under a

romney/ryan administration. >> but about the $700 billion cuts, aren't those same cuts in the ryan bucket, and hasn't mitt romney said that the plan for medicare virtually the same as ryan's plan? what is the difference here? >> well, if you have heard and listened to representative ryan over the past few years or few days, excuse me, he has said that he has signed up for the romney program, which is slight sli different than what you saw paul ryan bring forward. but look, in terms of the operating principles, they are the same. no changes to medicare that will affect current seniors, and of course, when we introduce more choice and competition, we will preserve medicare as an option for those who want it. >> so as president, governor romney would take the $700 billion and put it back over into medicare which is different are the the romney budget? >> well, we believe it is a mistake for president obama to cut medicare the way he did. i know you have stephanie cutter on the program after me, and

last week she said it was an achievement of the president to have made those cuts, but we believe it is a mistake. people out there right now many of whom are probably watching the program who are now shopping for new medicare or new private health care because their medicare advantage program is being cut by this president. as i said, whatever changes get made to medicare under a romney/ryan admistration, they will not affect the current seniors, and this president cannot say the same, because he went in and raid ed medicare to pay for obama care, and jim, this is first election cycle i can remember in a long time where the democrats are on the defensive because of medicare. the reason they are on the defensive is because of the mistake that they made to go raid medicare in order to pay for a massive new entitlement called obama care. >> this is a concern for your campaign. you wouldn't have paul ryan with his mother down there in the villages of florida if you d didn't have some selling to do.

you do have some selling to do down in florida, isn't that true? >> actually, it is not a concern. >> not a concern? >> and in fact, if you look at the last few days of the campaign, you will see that paul rye ian was down in florida as you mentioned with his mother talking about the romney/ryan plan to strengthen and protect medicare. mitt romney wrapped up a bus tour to five state where is he was out talking about our plans to strengthen the middle-class and create more jobs in the country, and then you look at president obama and vice president biden and where they we were? well, vice president biden was in virginia suggesting that if the republicans are elect ed, they will put everybody back in chains. president obama was on a radio program down in new mexico, not talking about jobs, not talking about the fiscal crisis in this country, and not talking about the rapid inkrecrease in debt t has occurred under his administration, an instead, he was talking about his favorite chili peppers and look, we have serious challenges in the country and a jobs crisis, and a

fiscal crisis and the romney/ryan ticket has plans to address both of the challenges. we have a sitting president who has no policy agenda at all for a second term. >> and eric, one of the reasons why paul ryan wanted the $700 billion was to help balance the budget, but earlier in the week, paul ryan and one of the senior advisers ed gillespie had trouble saying when a president romney would balance the budget. let's take a listen. >> i don't know exactly when it balance, because i don't want to get wonky on you, but we haven't run the numbers on that specific plan. the plans in the house balanced the budget. >> well, wolf, i'm not sure exactly myself and we will get that to you. it is on the website and i should know it and i am embarrassed on the air that i don't have the number on the top of my head. >> so, eric, when does the budget get balanced under president romney. >> well, look, president romney has published a deficit reduction plan that will cut the deficit by 2016. it is going to take a while to achieve full fiscal balance.

this president has doubled the annual deficit and never before in our country before president obama's election have we had a trillion dollar annual deficit and that is all we have had since he has been in office, four in a row, so it is going to take a while tole balance the budget, but the governor has said that he will cut $500 billion from the deficit by the year 2016 and i ask you, jim, to go back to look at governor romney's -- >> and you are saying it won't be balanced by the end of the second term, and he has said out on the campaign trail he hopes to have it balanced by the second term, but that is not in the cards this morning? >> well, that is an achievable objective by the end of the the second term, but what he has published is a deficit reduction plan to cut the deficit by $500 billion by the year 2016, but i would say go back to look at governor romney's record in massachusetts and he came in 2002 in massachusetts and the circumstances were not that much different than what the country is experiencing now and the state was in recession, and the budget was massively out of balance, and we balanced that

budget four years in a row without raising taxes. by the time the governor left, we were creating thousands of jobs every month and net new jobs to the tune of 40,000, and that is huge achievement and economic management that governor romney will bring to the white house. >> and earlier this week, governor romney offered that he had not paid more than 13% in his tax records, and why won't mitt romney prove it and just put the tax returns out there? >> well, mitt romney has said he will put out two years of tax returns and put out the full 2010 tax return and hundreds of pages that is on the website and he will put out the 2011 once it is complete and filed. he has had financial disclosures going back to 2002 when he was governor of massachusetts and those, too, can be found on the mitt romney website. taxes are not an issue, and it is not what the american people are talking about.

just last month we learned in july that 44 states saw the unemployment rates go up, and what is obama's answer to that? higher taxes and more spending. if you are unemployed in america, you must feel like a drowning person who has just been thrown an anchor. >> all right. eric fehrnstrom, thank you for your time this morning. we appreciate it. up next, president obama's deputy campaign manager makes the case for four more years. le. [ bridesmaid ] blacked out... but i'm a bridesmaid. oh! "x" marks the spot she'll never sit. but i bought a dress! a toast... ...to the capital one venture card. fly any airline, any flight, anytime. double miles you can actually use. what a coincidence? what's in your wallet? [ all screaming ] watch the elbows ladies. there's so many choices. the guests come in and they're like yeah i want to try this shrimp and i want to try this kind.

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...we inspected his brakes for free. free is good. free is very good. my money. my choice. my meineke. here now is stephanie cutter the campaign manager for president obama. stephanie, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> you heard some of eric fehrnstrom's comments there, and we will get to those in a moment. first, i want to show you that you are from massachusetts and the "boston globe" over the weekend ran an editorial that had the headline "biden should apologize for "back in chains" remark." i want to read this to you, stephanie cutter, team obama's deputy campaign manager, said the president would have no problem with those sxhents. but imagine if republican paul ryan uttered comments like that. mitt romney's pick for vice

president would be pill lored for racial insensitivity, and so would romney. in the fight for civility and substance, there should be an apology. but he's an offender nonetheless. should we expect an apology? >> no. speaker baoehner has been going around the country saying that we need to unshackle the country, and vice president biden was taking the metaphor more, and the word chains is a distraction from the larger argument, and the "boston globe" agrees with this that we should not deregulate wall street and we should not repeal wall street reform and have wall street play by a different set of rules than main street, and that is the point that the vice president was making and a point that the president wholeheartedly agrees with. we cannot go back to the day where is the taxpayers bail out people because of their own

reckless behavior so it is a point that the vice president was making and point we will continue to make. and if you want to talk about words on the campaign trail, that are poor choices of words, let's talk about mitt romney's what he has been traveling for the last two years basically calling the president un-american and saying that he wanted to -- the president want wanted to make it a less kritsian nation, and those are poor choices of words, and that is what we find completely offensive. so this faux outrage by mitt romney complaining and whining about the tone of this race is really completely hypocritical. i mean, even his own opponents in the republican primary, rick santorum said that the only way that mitt romney is winning is because he is bludgeoning the opponents and newt gingrich said that mitt romney was trying to destroy him with lies and i appreciate that the tone of this campaign needs to stick to the issues, but we won't be lectured by mitt romney on that, because it is completely hypocritical.

>> and not the belabor it too long, but at the very least, wasn't it a poor choice of words? >> it is a distraction and the word distracted from the larger point, and the point is that wall street shouldn't be unshackled. wall street shouldn't be deregulate and wall street and main street need to play by the same set of rules and the middle-class can't carry the burden any longer and that is what happened in the last decade and they had to bail out wall street. >> on to the medicare discussion and i am sure that you saw what paul ryan had to say down there in florida, but wi want to playa sound bite for you, because he brought up this medicare advisory board looking for savings in the medicare program as part of the p president's health care law, and let's listen to what paul ryan had to i is a and talk about it on the other side. >> he puts a board of 15 unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of medicare, who are required to cut medicare in a way that will

cut medicare for current seniors. >> so he is accusing the president of having a health care program to ration health care for seniors, a kindergarten you pledge that is not a part of the president's health care law? >> well, by law, that board is not allowed to. jim, i want the take a second and talk about medicare and i think that the most disappointing thing this week is that mitt romney picked paul ryan, because he was the intellectual leader of the republican party. because paul ryan decided to join mitt romney's ticket, he is completely reversing himself on some of the issue hsues he has strong on like $700 billion savings in two of the budgets. let's talk about the president's medicare plan versus mitt romney's medicare plan. the president strengthened medicare by finding savings by cutting subsidies to insurance companies and ensuring that we were rooting out waste and fraud and used the savings and putting it back to medicare. this is not from us, but independent analysis and because of the steps that the president

took, we extended the life eight years and expanded the benefits and 75% of today's seniors have taken advantage of preventive care whether it is a mammogram or cancer screenings or wellness visits because of medicare without out of pocket costs. seniors are saving money every year on prescription drugs because of closing the doughnut hole, and those are tangible actions that the president took. they know that the $700 billion in savings had nothing to do with the senior benefits, but it expands the senior benefits. if you want to put it back into the system this is what it means, that i will use the taxpayer dollars to insurance companies, and overpayments and allow for the fraudsters to take advantage of the medicare system. is that what we want? the last point on this, if they put that savings back into the system, it means that medicare will go bankrupt in just four years. so if mitt romney and paul ryan

get elected to the white house, medicare will be bankrupt by the end of their first term is what that means, and these are facts. it is a complete distortion to say that the president is taking anything away from the seniors. >> let's get to the tone of the campaign. >> and we are running out of time and we have other issues to talk about. and one is the tone of the campaign. i want the play for you some of what the president said in iowa earlier in the week, and he talked about mitt romney as a young father strapped the family dog seamus to the roof of the f family's car, and he mentioned it at three different events in iowa earlier this week. let's play that for the viewers. >> governor romney even expl explained the energy policy this way, and i'm quoting here, you can't drive a car with a windmill on it. that is what he said about wind power. maybe he has tried it. he has put other things on the roof. >> stephanie, is the president

running a serious campaign when he talks about dogs being strapped to roofs? >> well, jim, that was a light hea hearted comment to play off of what mitt romney said about strapping -- >> it was not so light hearted because it was brought up three times and sounds like a serious attempt to inject that into the president's remarks on three occasions and sounds like he is making a mockery out of his opponent. is that what he is doing? >> well, jim, i am sure that you saw the president's entirety, and the entirety of the remarks where he talked about the importance of clean energy to the people of iowa, because it has created thousands of jobs on the ground there through the wind energy tax credit and wind energy has boomed in the state of iowa because of the wind energy tax credit and because of the policies that the president has put in place, and mitt romney wants to repeal the wind energy tax credit. >> why go after seamus and can you make that point without going after the dog seamus. >> well, he made that point, jim, and i'm sure you saw the full remarks, but he did

discredit the importance of wind energy for the all of the above strategy to make this country energy independent made fun of wind energy and said that you can't put a windmill on the top of your car. so that is what the president was repeating that remark and he made a light-hearted comment about mitt romney strapping his dog to the top of the car. >> as a young faer, this i have to say we all make the mistakes. well -- >> have you strapped your dog to the car, jim? >> i have not done that, no, i have not, but let me ask you, stephanie. >> that is a mistake you haven't made. >> and let's draw another contrast. mitt romney had two news conferences and president obama had zero and as a matter of fact the president has not had any news conferences in two months. when should we expect one? >> well, the president was talking to the reporter s to th ground in iowa and do you think that is less important than talking to somebody like you?

everywhere that the president goes he is talking to reporters. >> well, in addition to. >> and it is important because he is traveling the country and running for re-election and iowa is a critical state and we will spend our time talking to media all over the country. sglt and "entertainment tonight" and "people" magazine and he did that and are they more important than the national news media? >> well, not more important, but equally important and that is where a lot of the americans get their news, and the president will continue doing that, and mitt romney might have had two media availabilities, but what did he tell you in the media availabilities? he told you he would not release the taxes, because he was afraid of getting attacked and spouted out lies about the president's plan. and is that media availability important if he is spouting lies and misstating the president's plan? >> well, i will take a pass on that, stephanie. to a attacks are getting stronger as you heard there, and it is only august. rick santorum spent the early

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>> he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. unenchain wall street. they are going to put y'all back in chains. later that day in a campaign rally in iowa, romney fired back condemning the tactics with a razor sharp speech of his own. >> take your campaign and division and anger and hate back to chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting america. >> obama campaign spokesman ben lebolt offer ed no ap poll i je for biden's comments and had this for romney's comments. he said, romney's comments seem ed unhinged and particularly strange coming at a time when he's pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads that are demonstrably false.

mitt romney fired back the next day. >> the campaign of the president is to bring jealousy and anger. >> three months to go until election day. up next presidential candidate rick santorum who was early on at the receiving end of some of the romney attacks. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing,

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i tell mike what i can spend. i do my best to make that work. we're driving safely. and sue saved money on brakes. now that's personal pricing. >> and joining me now is rick santorum, former republican presidential candidate and senator from pennsylvania. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, jim. >> this week the mitt romney campaign accused the president of waging a campaign of hatred and it is nasty and tough, but you know perhaps more than any other republican candidate and perhaps next to newt gingrich how tough they can dish out over at the romney campaign.

i want to play for you an ad that mitt romney ran about you in the primaries and get your per sp perspective on everything that we are seeing these days. let's roll the tape. >> rick santorum, another economic lightweight. >> is rick santorum ready to be president? he has never run a business? never run a state. and a proud senator who voted for the bridge to nowhere. >> we voted him senator, a-- we senator, and why would we vote him president. >> let me catch my breath there. >> isn't it much for governor romney to be complaining about the negative attacks? >> i don't get the sense that governor romney is complaining about the negative attacks, but he will tell you as much as anyone else, you are in a political race and you are going to take the blows and go after each other, but he is talking about the tone of the obama campaign and it is divisive. and it is one thing to attack

him on his record, and fair game. go for it, but to go after him for dividing the kun tcountry, t is. it is class warfare at the worst, and then you saw vice president biden, and you know, play the race card in virginia. this -- >> did he play the race card? >> y'all? y'all is y'all. when you are in a group, and i have been in groups like that, and you know, it is very easy when you are in a group of people that, you know, when you are in a south or in up in different areas of the country and different groups of people, and you develop an affinity with the group that you are speaking in front of, and that is what vice president was doing, and he tried to develop the affinity and he did it in a horrendous way and he should apologize for it, but the tone of the campaign. governor romney is like any other campaign, and if you want to go after the record or what

he has said or done, fine. but that is not complaint of the romney campaign. the criticism is that he is going after him and not the campaign. >> and you had some critical things to say about the ryan budget at one point back in march of last year, and you talked about the ryan budget and said it is $5 trillion in cuts over ten years and it should be $5 trillion over five years. did they go far enough? >> yes, the complaint i have is that paul ryan's budget is a good start, but it needed to go further. and the complaint of course that barack obama saying that it goes way too far. it does not go way too far. it is a reasonable plan, and it is a plan that i believe is one that paul ryan design ed to try to put a, you know, a marker out there to try to bring bi-pa bipartisanship, and as you know, he did. he got ron wyden a sen fator fr oregon to join him in the proposal. so you have a proposal from paul ryan which is a bipartisan

proposal. >> one democrat does not make it bipartisan. >> of course, it does. i can guerarantee you other democrats saying out there quietly, it is not a bad idea and it is better than cutting $716 billion out of the medicare program. i just listened the obama spokesperson before this, i mean my head was spinning. to suggest that adding $700 billion back to the medicare program is going to cause its financial collapse, that -- you can only make that statement if you have been in washington way too long. the idea that president obama is strengthening medicare by ripping money out of it and by eliminating medicare advantage and by putting the patient advisory board that paul ryan talked about in a position to cut reimbursements to doctors and hospitals which will end up rationing care to seniors is strengthening medicare, only in the fantasy world of washington does that make sense. >> i remember in the campaign,

senator, you said that mitt romney would be the worst person to go up against the president on the issue of health care reform, and in the last few weeks, the romney campaign caused a controversy when andrea sol went up against that ad that it caused cancer. >> this is a plant that was closed years after governor romney left the company, and to that point, you know, if, if people had been in massachusetts under governor romney's health care plan, they would have had health care, and there are a lot of people losing their jobs and health care in president obama's economy. >> what did you think, senator, when you heard the comments? did that concern you at all, because one of your big concerns was that mitt romney would move to the middle for health care reform in time for the election, is that a sign to the middle? >> well, it is an unfortunate statement, but it is clear that the central issue in this

campaign right now, and i think that it will be going forward, because it is a big issue is medicare. what i said about mitt romney had to do with obama care versus his health care plan in massachusetts. but i have no concern about what mitt romney will do and his plans on the issue of medicare. i think that his plans are consistent. >> you are con i f >> you are con iident he will repeal the president's health care plan? >> he will repeal obama care, and my argument was who best to make the case, and if he is better on health care reform, but he has been clear that he will appeal obama care, and the other thing he is clear about is that his medicare plan is consistent with what paul ryan wants to do, and people have to understand this, in spite of the incredible obfusication, they

have just witnessed, is that he wants to take a private health system within medicare and all he wants to do is to basically take that system to expand it so everybody has that opportunity. it is not radical reform, but it is how the medicare prescription drug program is run. seniors like that program now. this is common sense. why? medicare prescription drugs save 40% of what was proprojected. we need to get involved to help reduce the costs instead of man dating what the costs will be. >> sep tor santorum, thank you for joining us here, and we will see you out on the campaign trail. >> and coming up next the congressional divide. ial adviso, she had planned for every eventuality. ...which meant she continued to have the means to live on... ...even at the ripe old age of 187.

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welcome back. republicans see a generational fix to medicare and it may determine who wins in november, and joining me is our cnn political director mark preston and from "usa today" jackie kucinich. one thing that stands out for me from the pure strategy standpoint is florida by picking paul ryan.

marco rubio says no. but i don't know if it is that easy. a quinnipiac, and 51% over 45% with mitt romney -- excuse me, barack obama beating mitt romney. and in florida, he is up with voters over 65, and if you take the romney plan and try to sell it in florida, it is a tough sell, right? >> well, that is why we saw paul ryan with his mother who is a medicare recipient. that is why it is so important. if mitt romney loses florida, he loses the election and right now cnn has eight toss-up states that we are looking at right now to determine who is going to win the election and mitt romney would have to sweep seven of the states if he loses florida, and that is why it is so crucial, and that is why we saw him down there this weekend and expect tens of millions of dollars in superpac ads to come into the

country. >> jackie? >> well, it important to say where he went. the villages is a very republican community and a safe place to go the talk about this issue that could be, i mean, it depends who you talk to, but it was safe for republicans if you look at the ryan plan, but he is not talking tab ryan plan. he is essentially saying some of the things that are in the ryan plan are not what mitt romney would be for. so they are being and trying to walk the line here, but they haven't quite said what they would do yetment. >> and they are trying to turn it against the president and talk about the $77 $700 billion would take out of medicare to pay for the obama care law. they have ammunition. >> yes, and you showed the quinnipiac poll, but if you go back, john mccain won voters 65 and over, and so now living in the now right now, president obama needs to keep the voters and president obama barely won the voters over the age of 45 and he of course swept the young kids so mitt romney living in the now and trying to get the

base out. part of the base is the older voters and especially in voter. >> they did well in the primary and if you look at the exit polling in the primary, romney did consistently well across the board with the older voters and despite what state you went to, and that is a reliable constituency, and yes, he has to keep them. >> we will keep this up after a quick break. stay with us. congratulations you are our one millionth customer. people don't like to miss out on money that should have been theirs. that's why at ally we have the raise your rate 2-year cd. you can get a one-time rate increase if our two-year rate goes up. if your bank makes you miss out, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense.

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we are back with cnn political director mark preston and "usa today" columnist jackie kucinich. there is this from dan balz who says what is most striking about the campaign at this point is not just the negativity or the sheer volume of attack ads raining down on voters in the swing states, but the restraints are gone. the guardrails have disappeared and there is no incentive for anyone to hold back. the other guy does it, and so we're going to do it too. >> the primary was a good indicator that the gloves were off in the primary and this is an extension of that and it

won't get any better. >> and you heard stephanie cutter in the interview that the president's reference to seamus the dog in three vents was a light-hearted comment. >> i wrote about this how three words frame the campaign and seamus is one of the words and the fact that mitt romney described the obama campaign as anger and joe biden now with the comments in virginia. what we have seen now happen in august is what we would normally see happen in the maybe the last two weeks of the campaign, but there is so much at stake as we say every four years, but there is so much more at stake, and more importantly so much money into line from both side groups. >> do we have any chance she asked, do we, the national

news media, feel we're more important than local reporter out there s. that really the point? >> no. i don't think that's the point. one you have a news conference, you have spontaneity. you have spontaneity, there's a chance that the margin for error is larger. so i think, you know, they're looking to avoid that. no, i don't think -- there's no exactly what dan said, there's no incentive to start being nice all of a sudden. >> yeah. and jonathan martin at "politico" had an interesting piece talking about how the vice president's office was trying to influence pool report. we've had problems with the romney campaign with rope line restrictions. it's really both campaigns. mark, we're getting close to the republican national convention down in tampa. we know you've been working hard, making preparations for our coverage here at cnn. and that you've also gotten some insights as to what we'll be seeing the first couple of nights t convention. >> jim, they've done a good job of having this slow rollout of who the convention speakers are going to be, not telling us what nights the speakers will be, rolling them up. chris christie did a big

interview. they've done a good job of keeping us suspenseful. we'll learn tomorrow that they will unveil the first night of the convention, they'll tell us the theme and who the speakers are, and each corresponding day going forward this week will be that day next week. and what i'm told is that the person who will be the top headliner now, no surprise, is ann romney. and you know why this is important, jim, it's important because this convention is really the only time for a campaign now to focus on and be able to control the message ann romney kicks off monday. that could change, but we expect that to happen. >> and jackie, you know from covering the campaign extensively that the romney campaign loves to put that family out this. they love the norman rackwell, all the brothers and the grandchildren out there. i think that's going to be a big part of the imagery that we're going to see during this convention. >> absolutely. i mean, we both know, ann romney, people love her. she's a really good face for

this campaign. and she's a positive face hear it this campaign. why wouldn't they put her out in a prominent way? yeah, i think the family imagery is going to be big. >> thank you very much for joining us on "state of the union." good to see you guys. late night comedians are back from summer vacation and having fun with the candidate. thank goodness. that's next. energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy development comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing generations of cleaner-burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within self-contained well systems. and, using state-of-the-art monitoring technologies, rigorous practices help ensure our operations

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before we leave, a look back on the week in politics. the campaign trail felt more like the low road. and the airwaves offered no relief. all the more reason to look back at the week through the lens of comedy. >> mitt romney is hoping to energize republicans by announcing paul ryan as his running mate. [ applause ] >> bold! so daring. i mean, white, christian, and

male? that's a triple not threatening to me. >> wait, what? that -- that guy next to romney's not already a romney? [ laughter ] >> you sure that's not like -- brick romney or chad or fudge romney? >> i don't really know him well because i've never been to the tomb. >> that's right. jokes from house minority leader nancy pelosi. one late night comic, though, was not laughing. >> paul ryan, like mitt romney and like president obama, and like joe biden, is a good family man. we have four good family men in this presidential race. [ applause ] >> what about me? i don't need family men. i need a monologue, more herman cains, more john edwards, that's what i need. let's get herman cain, john edwards back in this case. >> maybe donald trump? >> donald trump says he has a big surprise in store for everyone at the republican national convention this year. a surprise he says people will love. so apparently he's not going.

>> senator john mccain said it would be wise for president obama to drop joe biden from the ticket. wait -- john mccain's giving advice about choosing a running mate? like donald trump giving advice about choosing a barber. that's like -- >> speaking of the vice president -- >> president obama said that he is sticking with joe biden as his running mate even though biden made a series of major gaffes this week. in response, joe biden was like, this is [ bleep ] great! [ laughter ] >> what i said. >> so hot today, joe biden is putting his foot in his mouth just to cool it off. >> president obama asked mitt romney -- mitch -- if he would fire -- ah. asked him if he would fire biden. true story. >> makes you wonder why anyone would ever run for president. >> the worst job in the world. and you have to run -- you have to beat youelf up before you get in to take over the worst job in the world. i mean -- would you be