knowledge. >> are you okay, honey? >> i'm broken. >> how's your ass? >> it's broken. you have a broken ass. >> stop. stop it. >> battle of the bands. mitt romney jobs speech today, president thursday. nothing happening in the end. it will be great. >> what have you learned? >> micah brzezinski. >> what have you learned? >> i learn anybody who thinks perry can't win should probably talk to that coyote. >> all right, pat buchanan. >> i -- >> you know what, i give up. if you want to nominate a guy that's going who lose, go ahead and do it. >> use both hands. >> you go. >> i'm going to talk to phil about the new tv documentary. >> we're very sorry, we owe you

20 seconds. >> what time is it? >> it's "morning joe." stick around for chuck and the "the daily rundown." >> this morning, we reveal the results of the new nbc news "wall street journal" poll. president obama hits all time lows. less than one in five think the country is headed in the right direction. there's at least one silver lining for the white house. congress fares even worse. over ae80% disapprove of how they're doing their job. republicans getting hit hardest over the country's death rating downgrade. most voters would toss every member out if they could in one fell swoop. many more results and what it all means straight ahead. in 2012 news, michele bachmann's campaign manager and deputy are calling it quits. not a good sign for a campaign that has struggled since winning the aim straw poll. it's tuesday, september 6th, day

after labor day. i'm chuck todd. also this morning, check out the political historian with a formula he says obama will win re-election despite low poll numbers. he's been right since 1984. let's get to my first read of the morning. we begin with the new nbc news "wall street journal" poll. as the president prepares to unveil his jobs plan before a joint session of congress on thursday, he is promising to move forward with job creation proposals with or without cooperations from congressional republicans. yesterday before a labor day crowd in detroit, he said this. >> we're going to see if we've got some straight shooters in congress. we're going to see if congressional republicans will put country before party. there is work to be done and there are workers ready to do it. labor is on board, business is on board. we just need congress to get on board. >> well, the president's campaign to jump start the

campaign comes as ratings of his presidency have sunk to all time lows. 44% approve of how he's handling his job. that's the lowest rating ever in our poll. 51% disapprove. obama's job approval rating on the economy is at another all time low. 37% approve of that. 59% disapprove. only 44% of americans have positive feelings toward the president. that's his lowest favorable rating also that we've ever recorded. in the words of our pollsters americans are starting to wonder if it's time to give up on the guy as the guy who can solve the country's problems. a majority, 54% believe the president is facing a long term setback which is unlikely to get better. couple of trouble spots there as you saw, the merging, the convergens of the job rating and the personal favorite rating. 54% say they gave up on him. when president bush didn't hit that number until just after

katrina. at that point, the policy part of the bush presidency was over. there's a silver lining or two for the president. 70% still find him likeable, so he has the potential. they haven't given up on him personally. the question is have they given up on him professionally. he does give a 50% job rating for his handling of foreign policy. we have a new republican front runner as eight prepare to face off tomorrow night in the debate, rick perry has rocketed into first place in our poll. 38% of the voters, a largest share that any republican candidate has gotten. romney trails with 23%. no other republican even cracks double digits. six weeks ago, mitt romney led the field by nearly 20 points. over the weekend romney and perry stepped up their attacks on each other, both clearly recognize this has become a two person race. >> best shot at taking back the

white house and our best shot at turning around the country is if this -- this sounds a little self-serving is if we select someone whose experience is not just politics. i don't think a career politician can fix what career politicians have messed up. >> there are going to be some that say i've created jobs. that's true. there's one in particular that's created jobs all over the world. but while he was the governor of massachusetts, he didn't create very many jobs. >> there you go. in romney previewing his economic plan in "usa today," he began with career politicians. clearly there's no longer -- it's no longer about romney trying to contrast himself with obama, he's trying to contrast himself with perry. the biggest victim may very well be michele bachmann whose support has been cut in half to throw salt into that wound, her

campaign manager is out after telling "the washington post," "the perry-romney race is now the story with us the third candidate." he's supposedly still sticking around as an adviser, not the best way to put it. the fact is, if you look at our poll numbers, that's right. when you look at it here, the first and second place among tea party supporters, perry, romney. first and second place among non-tea party supporter, perry and romney. she's in fourth overall. she's had a very tough couple of weeks. finally the absolute disdain americans have for washington is reflected in this number. for the first time in the history of our poll, disapproval of congress is over 80%. 82% days prove. 13% approve of the job congress is doing. that's higher than during the check bouncing scandal of 1992. that's higher than impeachment, it's higher than the throw the bums out in 1996. if given the choice, 54% would

vote out every single member of congress. it's a new question we've been tracking the last couple of years. that's at a new high as well. both political parties have double digit net negative ratings. that's only happened three times at the same time. usually as one goes up, one goes down. or excuse me, as one goes down, the other doesn't go down as far. that's not the case right now. let's go to the 2012 race. republican candidates for president are gearing up for their debate tomorrow after testing out applause lines in south carolina. the road to the nomination could go through that state. senator jim demint, nbc's kelly o'donnell is live in colombia for us this morning. jim demint played debate moderator yesterday of sorts. >> this is a different kind of forum. here in south carolina, the people who attended said they liked it that way. that means there weren't journalists asking questions. it wasn't about bringing up a

candidate's past and picking apart trying to bring in new information. it was talking about issues that mattered to conservatives, the meaning of the constitution, talking about social issues like abortion, gay marriage a little bit, also the health care law and what should be done with some of the things that are happening in the economy. it was not as much about the president as it was about the conservative values and issues that matter to these candidates. it had a really different feel. for mitt romney who is considered a bit of a longer shot in a state like south carolina, because he doesn't have a natural constituency here that perhaps rick perry would have because of his southern roots, that kind of thing, it was interesting to see romney take on one of the issues that might be his big challenge among conservatives, the health care law in massachusetts, many call it romney care. he said it would actually be one of his greatest assets in a general election with the president saying he turned to the president in a debate why didn't you call me, i would have

told you it wasn't a good idea. here's a moment from the forum. >> it's bad law, bad medicine and on day one in my administration, i'll direct the secretary of health and human services, it has got to be stopped. i know it better than most. >> one of the interesting things with michele bachmann you were talking about her struggling a bit. she took on the president in a different way. she said one of the jobs of being president is to uphold the constitution and uphold the country's laws. she said the president is not doing that because of the defense of marriage act. he says that isn't a good law. even things like the epa regulations saying those are going to be rolled back. she cited those as reasons that barack obama may not be living up to the constitution in the way conservatives would like to see it. it was different from what we'll see tomorrow night. >> all right, kelly o'donnell in south carolina. we should note rick perry was supposed to be a participant yesterday but he did leave early in order to head down to texas.

one republican name you're going to hear a lot over the next 24 hours is president ronald reagan. the gop candidates are jockeying over who can claim the mantle of the late president who. better to help us figure that out is craig shirley. his new book is "december 1941" 31 days that changed america and saved the world. craig is with me now. nobody has studied reagan. >> objective. >> but you can help me out on this question. define what a reagan republican is, because we're going to hear all eight tomorrow night claim basically claim, if ronald reagan could vote today, he would support me. >> reagan republican is not what republicans think a reagan republican is. when reagan ran in 1980, he was very much an anti establishment candidate. he challenged the status quo. the republican candidate at the time was balanced budgets, not tax cuts.

it's not rolling back the soviet union, soviet aggression. he introduced new ideas to the republican party which were a threat. he was a threat to the establishment, which is why so many in the republican party in the late '70s and into the early '80s opposed him at every turn. a reagan republican, the philosophy puts itself in the individual, not in the state. his philosophy matured over the years. he started out as a garden variety man of the right. he studied social needs and thomas payne, he reached a point in his life where he realized that the dignity of the individual and privacy of the individual were the most important things. >> you said tax cuts not balanced budgets. what you're making the argument, you think all of this republican push right now for balanced budget amendment, balanced budget that, reagan wouldn't necessarily -- >> no. he was for a balanced budget

amendment, but the tax cut has to understand the way he understood them. it was about stimulating the economy, but it was about putting confidence back in the individual and taking it away from the state. the part of high school physics i didn't sleep through, i remember the professor saying power can be created, only moved away. reagan wanted to take power away from the state and give it to the individual. he said this about the tax cuts. he said the tax cuts in 1981, reorganized man's relationship to the state. you don't give politicians talking like that much anymore. he understood that the individual needed to have tools to pursue his own dreams, his own american exceptionalism. >> there's a purity test inside the republican party, lindsey graham said ronald reagan would have a hard time being elected today. >> nonsense. >> the reference he was making was that reagan was pragmatic

when he had to be while trying to stick to his principles. so he signed a tax increase when he had to. he increased government spending. >> most of the government spending came as a result of defense increases not on the social side. >> to get to this argument a little bit, this purity test, do you think it's gone too far? that reagan would think the purity tests have gone too far? >> no. reagan was the original tea party candidate. you look at his speeches. '60s and '70s, it was always about anti-establishment, it was upon taking on the republican establishment as well as the democratic establishment. when he announced in '75 for the '76 nomination, when he took on ford, he attacked the buddy system of big labor, big government and big corporations. >> i only hear sarah palin talking that. she used crony capitalism over the weekend. >> well, she's saying that, but

what is missing with all the candidates, if you look at reagan and what he was talking about in 1980, he didn't talk about himself. he talked about the american people and the future. none of the republican candidates are talking about what the american people want to hear about. that is what is their next president going to do for them. >> craig shirley who stays enormously busy as a writer and author, one of the most knowledgeable people i know on ronald reagan. great to have you here. >> thank you. >> don't miss the debate at the reagan library tomorrow night at 8:00 eastern right here on the place for politics, msnbc. all time low, that's the phrase of the day. tough to find many bright spots for president obama in our new poll. there is one, he's not a member of congress. plus what our poll says about the tea party's power. our pollsters are here to crunch the numbers in only the way that hart and mcen turf can. >> we've got a presidential historian who says there's no way president obama can lose

re-election. his formula has picked the popular vote winner in every election for more than 150 years, popular vote winner. a look ahead at the president's schedule. you're watching the "the daily rundown" on msnbc. [ groans ] you okay? i'm not looking forward to my flight. try this. bayer aspirin? i'm not having a heart attack. it's my back. no, this is new bayer advanced aspirin... clinically proven to relieve tough pain twice as fast as before. what, did you invent this or something? well, my team did. i'm dr. eric first, from bayer. wow. look. it has microparticles. it enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief right to the site of pain. better? great! thanks. [ male announcer ] new bayer advanced aspirin. extra strength pain relief. twice as fast. test our fast relief. look out for your coupon in this sunday's papers.

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>> less than 14 months from election day, 2012. our new nbc "wall street journal" poll shows governor perry's star rising while president obama's numbers hit all time lows or bad highs. with me now, the men who conducted the poll, bill mcenturff and bill hart. gentlemen, quite the day after labor day way to start for president obama. peter, i want to start with you. we got into the hole about where

the president is personally versus professionally. on one hand, the numbers have aligned. his favorable rating and job rating both at 44. he still got the 70% who say they still like him personally, but 59% disapprove of his policies. >> well, it's a great thing and a terrible thing. his policies obviously have not produced and the voters are unhappy, but the interesting thing is they haven't given up on him personally. they see him as honest. they see him as friendly, likeable and at the same time, they have positive feelings. that's his plus. >> bill, let me look at these characterizations that peter was just referring to. he's down on everything, handling a crisis, down 14 points, achieving his goals, down 14 points, strong leadership goals, 12 points, good commander in chief, down 10 points. these were just after the bin laden capture, he had gotten nice bumps.

peter said they haven't given up, but the 54% saying this is a long term setback for the president, when bush hit that, it was as if his presidency ended. >> yeah, in the bush case, it was two months after hurricane katrina, to reset the stage. in our survey, over seven out of ten people say we're on the wrong track. that's only happened in 2008, 1992 and when economic pessimism is as difficult and confidence is that bad, it is very hard for a president to recover. takes a substantial event to try to change those kind of numbers. >> you can't beat somebody with nobody. although i think if the republicans could run nobody, they definitely would win as our poll shows. let's go to peter hart, we know rick perry has the big lead. we split it up with tea party supporters and nontea party supporters. perry at 45, romney 18.

he also leans among non-tea party supporters. getting twin%. romon those who describe themsees as moderate or liberal republicans, which is still a quarter of the republican party. >> okay. problem for on the republican side. they haven't settled. the voters month after month after month there is somebody new that's hot or whatever else it is. >> this 38 is a big number. romney has yet to hit that number when he was the front runner. >> exactly right, but in the bottom line, they're all still being tested. none of them have proved that they're ready, because we looked at them not only in terms of feeling thermometers and not in terms of how interesting they are as president. every element, they have to prove themselves. as you say, for the president, it's tough times. the republicans, they're going to go through tough times this fall and in the spring. >> bill, both republicans, the two front runners, rick perry and mitt romney start with a net

negative feeling thermometer rating, the rez is still at 44-44. one to one, not good at all, but romney and perry start with a net negative. that's tough to start a general election with. >> it is, but part of it is because the way we do the poll. we do positive, neutral, negative. what it means is, i like it. it's a smart idea, because it means that a lot of people are neutral and don't know. three out of ten people still say they can't decide about rick perry. now, that's smaller with romney, but a lot of people are sitting in neutral, because for most americans, whatever we do in washington, how focused we are, this campaign on the republican side has not started. they have ways to go. for example, governor palin on the other perspective has a 50% negative. on our survey, that's a terrible number. she would have a terrible time trying to reset that number in terms of public opinion. >> peter, let's talk about broken washington. we said 54%, if they could do

this would throw them all out, throw every member of congress out. that's a high. we started tracking this over the last two years. that's a high. naturally we asked about a third party. 52% said it has real problems but keep it. 34% so seriously broken it's time for a third party. the 34% number it's the highest we've measured over the years. considering how badly the process polled in the debt ceiling negotiations, 70% disapproved of it, i thought that number would be higher. i was surprised. >> you got 80% who identify with the democratic party or the republican party and to end up with a third. americans saying hey, i would get rid of both parties and go for a third party, everything in this poll tells us not only that they're unhappy with the president of the united states but they're equally unhappy with the congress and equally unhappy with everything going on. it is a country that is struggling. we're about to come up on the

9/11 anniversary, and all of this says look, get back to work. do your job. people are struggling and they want washington to understand it and they want the president to be able to get something done. >> you mentioned 1992 in your earlier part of this interview. 1992 saw the rise of ross perot, outside force, we had the check bouncers in the house democratic party. we had president bush who people thought didn't look like he cared about the domestic issues and too focused on foreign policy. >> in october of 1991, wrong track went through the roof in the nbc "wall street journal" poll, bush's approval dropped, rising hard independence. guess what? we're exactly reporting that same sort of story. i would say in the same way. no one sat there in october of 91, september of 91 and said we're going to have a third party who getting the highest

percentage since teddy roosevelt. unstable, unpredictable year ahead between now and the next election. you cannot have this kind of instability and believe we're on some predictable path. we're going to see unpredictable stuff. >> i always listening to buffalo springfield, there's something happening out here. i have to run i'm catching a plane to california to get ready for tomorrow night's big debate. chris is picking up the batten aft baton after the break. showing how the new perry superpack plans to take out the rivals and how much they plan to spend. the mathematical formula that shows president obama has a lock on re-election. the formula has been right every time since 1984. but first, today's trivia

question, who was the last democratic presidential nominee to win texas in a general election? tweet the answer to@daily run down. first correct answer will get a follow tuesday for us. the answer coming up on "the daily rundown" coming up. [ agent ] so your policy looks good, is there anything else? why did you buy my husband a falcon? thanks for the falcon. i didn't buy anyone a falcon. sure, you did. you saved us a lot of money on auto insurance. i used that money to buy a falcon. ergo, you bought me a falcon.

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california to prepare for the republican debate. i'm chris cillizza. let's get to the markets where futures are driving down again. chris sorkin is here with the market rundown. >> off maybe 300 points on the dow. that's coming after yesterday's real problem in europe. we saw the markets down 4% in europe, 2% across the board. that's a function of the worries

of the banking system. one little piece of business news coming out of washington this morning, the carlisle group, the private equity firm going public, private equity firm going public, a little ironic. that is the news this morning. "the daily rundown" is coming back in about 30 seconds. >> bottom of the hour now. i'm chris cillizza. this is "the daily rundown." chuck todd has left the building. he's on his way to california to

prepare for wednesday night's republican debate. coming up this half hour, we'll talk to the political historian who predicts president obama will win re-election based on a formula he's developed. he's been right in every election since 1984. pretty good run. first, some other stories making headlines this morning. new wildfires cropped up overnight in texas, adding to a catastrophic situation there. nearly 500 homes have been reduced to ash. thousands of familyings have been forced to flee. the post master general appears before congress today. the post master general needs lawmaker's approval to change employee health plans and cut thousands of jobs to address an $8 billion shortfall. there's speculation moammar gadhafi may be fleeing to nyger. escorted by well armed libyan troops across the border. there's no word on whether

gadhafi or members of his family were part of that convoy. super packs with almost bottomless cash flow and few restrictions are planning an all out blitz to get their candidates the 2012 nomination. the latest on the scene is make us great again, a super pack supporting rick perry. here's one of the group's first ads. nbc news exclusive. >> the sun shines brighton america, but three years of barack obama have brought clouds of recession, unemployment and debt. rick perry can make america great again. as governor of texas, perry created 1 million new jobs, cut taxes and reduced waste. true conservative leadership that works. we've weathered obama storm long enough. rick perry for president. >> nbc news national investigative correspondent michael is cough joins us now with more of his exclusive report. mike, what can you tell us?

>> the real story here is the budget that make us great again has put together $55 million to secure the nomination for perry by next spring. 40 of that million would be spent before march 25th. now, what this really -- those are pretty staggering numbers. they may actually eclipse the amount of that the official perry presidential campaign spends itself. so the super pack, which is run by a long time confidant of perry, mike toomey, his former chief of staff, backed with infusions of cash from long time perry donors may be the real operation here. this is a vivid illustration of how these super packs are transforming the presidential nominating process. >> mike, people who haven't campaign finance nerds like yourself and me, explain to people what's different between

the superpac do? what can it do that perry's campaign can't do? >> very simple. it can collect unlimited amounts of money from wealthy donors, labor unions and corporations directly. presidential campaigns are still restricted by limits and post watergate reforms that were enacted back in the 1970s. today, any donor who contributes to the perry presidential campaign, the obama presidential campaign, the romney presidential campaign, cannot give more than $2500 for the primary. there's an army of bureaucrats making sure that each and every donor doesn't exceed that amount. he lists his name and occupation. these superpacs, thanks to the ruling last year by the supreme

court are completely unconstrained by those. we're already seeing six figure and even seven figure donations to the superpacs. when the romney superpac filed with the fec, a couple months ago, they reported million dollar contributions. i think we can expect to see the same from the perry superpac. >> if chuck, you and i all think superpacs are a big story in 2012, i think we may be on to something. thanks for staying on top. president obama's poll numbers may be slipping, but one political historian says his re-election is still in the bag. he's developed a formula that has picked the winner of every presidential popular vote since 1984. allen lickman, pretty good streak. i haven't done anything since breathe since 1984. >> i started when i was nine.

>> let's talk about this. you've come up with 13 keys you call them. if anyone gets more, if the incumbent gets more than six, you believe he will be re-elected. >> if he loses six or more, he's out. fewer than six, the incouple bent party wins. >> i would love to go through 13. let's go through a few. the one that struck me, no democratic challenge, no primary challenge. we've seen kennedy against carter. this is a major issue, why is this such a problem? >> it's a huge problem. it's the best rededucter of all the keys, because if your own party divides, that shows that there's deep and abiding distrust and dissatisfaction with your own leadership. it also makes it far more difficult to come back and run a unified campaign. >> you've got to do it in relatively short order if the primary season goes on and on. you spend money doing that that you don't necessarily have. >> that's right.

>> one that struck me, at least one major military success. obviously, obama, afghanistan, bin laden, fair? >> the killing of bin laden. the americans don't pay attention to foreign policy unless there's a splashy success or failure. >> another one i thought was interesting, no social unrest. explain what that means and where obama fits in there? >> there have been times in american history during and after the civil war in the 1960s when the nation was seething with social unrest, despite all the economic problems, that hasn't happened. it happened in the great hoover obama does not have that affliction. >> we're now 14 months or so, i have a calendar, i rip the day off every day we get closer. we get to the election. we're still pretty far out. how confident are you? some of these things can change. i don't think a primary challenger is going to emerge.

we don't see big soebl unrecial on the horizon. do you change the model as we get closer? >> i have never changed the model since 1984. keys don't turn readily or rapidly. that's why last election, i published my prediction in february 2006 for the 2008 election so the democrats could pick a name out of the phone book and win in 2008, things looked that bad for the republicans. this time, despite my counting two economic keys against him, just about everything else lines up in favor of barack obama. >> i want to make sure we get the comprehensive view. you have 13 keys, how many does obama get? >> obama gets nine, even assuming there's going to be election year recession, if there isn't, he gets ten. he's only lost three or four. we need six to count him out. the lesson of the keys is, you can't focus on one factor.

you got to look at the big picture and performance overall. >> do you think the coverage we've spent this whole 40 minutes, we're going to spend more time today, i'll spend time writing it, chuck will spend trawicking about the economy, poll numbers, et cetera, are we overfocusing on that single factor and that's why you hear the doom and gloom talk. >> i hate to criticize you. >> i opened myself up to it. >> you are focusing too exclusively on the economy, but more importantly, you might as well be reading the end trails of birds, studying polls, 13 to 14 months out before the election. they mean absolutely nothing. i've often made my predictions in defiance of the polls and the pundits. >> thank you for joining us. >> you bet. >> we're looking at live pictures of governor rick perry updating the public on the w50i8d fires in texas. we'll keep you apprised with the latest. up next, our super tuesday panel joins us for more on what

the latest nbc "wall street journal" poll says about rick perry, the new favorite in the race for the republicans presidential nomination. plus we'll dig deeper into the shakeup in michele bachmann's campaign. first white house "soup of the day," miso. i don't like sue she, i don't like miso. my wife would punish me for saying that. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc.

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president william mckinley was shot and wounded, an anarchist shot the president point blank twice.

president mckinley died eight days later. with rick perry surging in the polls, mitt romney argued that he's still the best candidate to unite the party, denying there's any distance between himself. >> we all like conflict. it's interesting. what you want is mr. romney came to speak at the group and there were two protesters that yelled at him. that's interesting. naturally, there's great interest to say oh, the tea party, mainstream republicans, they're fighting and they're different. look, the tea party has, as its center core, a belief that government is too big. sound familiar? >> we have a national political reporter and fred yang and susan molin

molinari is from new york. let's talk about the poll first of all. rick perry, 38, mitt romney, 23, ron paul, 3. among tea party supporters, which is what mitt romney was addressing. perry 45, romney 18. >> it depends -- let me be the typical politician. >> depends on how you look at it. >> depends on what happens this week. in a town that says this is the biggest hurricane and earthquake, this is going to be one of the biggest weeks as we near the 2012 election with the president giving his speech on jobs, how does he portray that, the way speaker boehner responds to it is going to have an awful lot to do with the future of the republican party. i think clearly this debate tomorrow night, when we see rick perry for the first time off script, under the demands of tough questioners, versus mitt romney, this is going to be about those two guys going head

to head is going to change what we may discuss on thursday. >> we got romney's job speech today in vegas. we got a politico debate wednesday night and obama's speech thursday night. >> huge week. >> if you're looking at these numbers and you work for mitt romney, perish the thought, what do you do? mitt romney largely played this game, he didn't engage. he let tim pawlenty fight with michele bachmann. he ignored it. all of a sudden rick perry has gone a half mile past you on the road. what do you do? >> the first thing would be, it would be interesting if i was mitt romney's pollster, if i'm romney, i'm looking at the results among the non-tea party supporters, perry is beating me 29-27. if i can't win with tea party voters or non-tea party voters i'm not going to be the republican nominee.

i don't think he should panic, having run before, having the experience, i think that will hold him. this is a marathon, not a sprint. >> he's got to start moving. >> exactly. >> you've been out on the campaign trail. you've seen mitt romney and rick perry. stylistically, they are so different, that's about as animated as mitt romney gets. rick perry, he's the cowboy, he's charismatic, he's shaking all hands. >> he connects. >> how do you close that gap if you're mitt romney? >> i think one of the -- >> the charisma gap. >> he's not even necessarily trying to be the charismatic, fire breathing kind of tea party guy. he was there on sunday in new hampshire in front of a tea party crowd. never even said the words tea party. >> in truth, regardless of what he says, we all three know this, mitt romney is not a natural tea party guy.

he's an establishment politician, for better or worse. >> exactly. that's in some ways what he's running as. his whole campaign is all about being a ceo. the problem is that he doesn't necessarily connect with the tea party folks who are all about populace. >> the question is, you watched the 2010 election. this is a different republican party that you got elected to. you watched what happened. we saw people without establishment support. is the establishment big enough for mitt romney, let's say mitt romney gets a lead over rick perry, is that enough to win the nomination at this point or does he have to do better among tea party people? >> he has to do better among tea party people. what we're talking about is the enthusiasm gap, the people who come out and support you. that's the difficult part for any primary, right? because you have to win the support of your base, which is our tea party right now, then you have to make the drastic turn and pull in the independents who largely helped to elect president obama and put the republicans back in charge two years ago.

>> don't move too far to the left or right. we'll come back to our full panel. we'll talk about obama and the. who was the last democratic presidential nominee to win texas in a general election? the answer georgia governor, jimmy carter who narrowly won the lone star state in 1976. we'll be back with more from our panel. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ thunder rumbles ] what is the sign of a good decision? in the world of personal finance, it's massmutual. find strength and stability in a company that's owned by its policyholders. ask your advisor, or visit massmutual.com. me too. you booked our room right?

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let's bring back our panel. fred yang, nia mallika, and former congresswoman susan molinari. fred, i want to show you two numbers and have you talk about them. this is going to be painful for you. number one, direction of the country in the new nbc/"wall street journal" poll. 73% wrong track. that's up 20-plus points from may. the other number, obama handling of the economy, about 60%, 6 in 10 disapprove.

we just had the professor on who said don't worry, everything is fine, president obama is getting re-elected. those numbers have to concern you, don't they? >> yeah, of course. the economy is not doing well. americans are worried. that's why the president's making his speech. in some respects, for them, it's the kickoff to 2012 campaign. i would note in the same poll that has these sobering numbers, he's still beating rick perry and he's still beating mitt romney in the head-to-head. >> but losing to generic republican 44-40. is that cause for concern? >> it's a cause for concern. but, he will not run against a generic republican next year. they will have -- >> they will not nominate a generic republican? >> right. >> congresswoman, i look at these numbers and i think, golly, this certainly looks like a ripe opportunity for republicans. >> sure. >> there are at times in his try where it hasn't mattered who the other party's nominated because people want the incumbent out so much. >> sure. >> they don't want "a" and they vote "b." is this one of those years?

or does it matter who you nominate? >> i do think it matters who we nominate for sure. but i do think that it's an uphill battle for this president who has already admitted in this campaign that unemployment is probably going to be at about 9%. i think if at this point in time if he continues to not change his strategy in terms of what he's going to put forth in the jobs package this thursday, that's why, we're really on hold until thursday to see who is that candidate that's going to come out on thursday night for 2012. how are the republicans going to frame themselves vis-a-vis the president of the united states. all of this will be answered probably by next week. but the economy, the economy of -- >> and whether it gets better. >> and whether jobs get better and whether the president is able to engage. >> and, nia, i want to turn to you and we want to pivot, a little television pivot, because i don't want to not have the panel without talking about michele bachmann. this is somebody who, from let's

say april until august was the bright, rising star. won the ames strong poll and nothing. what we've had now is ed rollins, i talked to him over the weekend, he told me the perry-romney race is now the story, with us as the third candidate. oh. nothing like advocacy from your guy. >> right. >> he's now taking a step back, they're bringing someone else in to manage the campaign. the deputy campaign manager is leaving. what do you make of all this? and i should mention nbc/"wall street journal" poll, 16% for bachmann, the last time they did it. 8% for bachmann. statistically significant drop. >> i think in some ways she may have peaked at ames. we saw her go out after ames and do those five sunday talk shows. you could sort of see the wheels coming off the bus even then. in terms -- >> off the bus which she rarely leaves. >> not being able to get beyond talking points. not really answering questions. and now you got perry coming out of nowhere and getting 38% of the vote, right in her space. >> i was going to say, it shows you 45 for perry among tear

party. 18 romney. she's in third among tea party folks. that's huge. >> she was the queen of the tea party. >> and if sarah palin, who i know you have a great story about in today's paper, if she gets in even more problems for her. folks that means we have to get to them. shameless plug. >> this will be even more shameless my partner peter hart was on earlier the nbc/"wall street journal" poll is excellent. there's a lot of great nuggets in here besides just the items that made it on the air. >> i have absolutely nothing to shamelessly plug. i'm sorry, america? >> the councilman's plugging the nbc/"wall street journal" poll. >> no, no, shameless plug for you guys. i think this debate, the timing of it -- >> couldn't be better. >> must-watch. >> nia? >> plugging dan bolts' book for america 2008 is a real great look back at the campaign and shows we've got a long way to go. >> i love it. read it. i'm plugging producer john bailey's 26th birthday today.

"the daily rundown," happy birthday. he's celebrating by being on a plane with chuck todd. what other better birthday gift could you have? that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." don't worry, chuck will be back tomorrow with a special show, very early on the west coast, live from the reagan library in simi valley, california, ahead of tomorrow night's republican debate. coming up next on msnbc, it's chris jansing and company and then at 1:00, don't miss andrea mitchell reports. >> c. with your business travelers forecast i'm weather channel meteorologist todd santos. heavy shield of rain moving across portions of the mid-atlantic, northeast as well. slow itself down through north georgia. could even see some severe weather firing up through portions of the carolinas. new york through d.c., philly, as well. atlanta getting some of the thunderstorms. dallas to chicago, looking pretty good. really? no. it comes with a hat. you see, airline credit cards promise flights

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