pursuits around world president clinton has recognized arkansas's depth chart at wide receiver. impressive. impressive. >> unbelievable. willie, if it's way too early, what time is it? >> it's "morning joe." see everybody back here tomorrow. stick around for "the daily rundown" with chuck todd. mitt romney and rick perry. they're not waiting until tonight's debate in orlando to go after each other. romney has been hammering at perry on issues critical to floridians such as social security. perry fired back that romney is acting like a good democrat. tensions swell as the stakes grow higher, especially for perry tonight. also, building a bridge for the 2012 re-election fight. president obama heads to cincinnati. talk of infrastructure in need of repair. the bridge that connects the home states of john boehner and mitch mcconnell. fears of another government

shutdown loom yet again after a temporary funding bill. not even a full-fledged one. goes south. a rare bipartisan rebuke for the republican leadership. it's thursday, september 22nd, 2011. this is "the daily rundown." i'm back in washington. i'm chuck todd. let's get to my first read of the morning. we begin with orlando. all eyes on the political world today are on the two battleground states that could decide the 2012 presidential race. florida and ohio. first in florida, nine republicans gather in orlando tonight for the sixth presidential debate. the third in 15 days. and the third match-up between rick perry and mitt romney. the pressure for tonight's debate is clearly on perry whose debate performance last week in tampa was enough to worry some republicans. especially donors. already eyeing the general election. in case there was any doubt that we're going to see a slug fest tonight, yesterday the top two republicans did nothing but pummel each other. it started simply with a flurry of press releases. romney's campaign called perry

governor sub zero, saying governor perry criticizes president obama for an economy that added zero jobs in august, yet texas added even fewer. perry's campaign shot back, rick perry's texas created more private sector jobs in the past two months than mitt romney's massachusetts did during the entire four years as governor. then romney shot at perry's position on social security at a miami town hall. >> he said by any measure, social security is a failure. social security itself is a failure. that social security isn't something the federal government ought to be doing. that social security should be handed back to the states. to end social security as a federal entitlement. i believe in social security. i want to protect it. i want to save it. >> is he talking about social security? i didn't know if he brought that up. perry's campaign shot back, romney is again sounding like a democrat. a line of attack perry repeated on the trail. >> to imply the age-old democrat

trick that we're going to go scare our seniors, that's pretty irresponsible. that's a classic example of what the democrats have tried to do for 40-plus years of trying to scare our seniors to keep their votes. >> last night on fox news, perry went even further. >> we don't need to nominate obama light. we don't need to nominate someone who's going to blur the lines between president obama and our nominee. when you take a look at what mitt did from the standpoint of romneycare in massachusetts, you're going to have a hard time finding a difference between obamacare and romneycare. >> tonight's debate is going to be interesting to watch rick perry. rick perry, the first two debates, seemed to have the first half hour down and then struggled the rest of the time fending off charges. the other problem that perry has is he's got a fired up rick santorum who's ready to go after him. a fired up ron paul who's ready

to go after him. the only thing we've heard from is maybe herman cain is interested in going after romney, but unlike perry there's a lot more people, and this helps romney, that want to go after perry than necessarily want to go after romney. so how perry performs tonight, a big deal. he needs to have one of these debates where people aren't scratching their head, particularly republican voters. tonight's debate kicks off a week. it ends on saturday with a straw poll sponsored by the florida republican party. a quinnipiac poll out this morning, perry has surged into first place in the sunshine state. up double digits from a month ago when he was pulling at just 14%. romney has held steady. when republicans are asked who would they pick in a two-person race, perry leads that one. pretty narrow. 46% to 38%. importantly, though, for romney, his new hampshire firewall appears to be holding. in a suffolk university poll of likely republican voters, romney

leads the field by nearly 30 points at 41%. look at this. jon huntsman is showing a pulse. he cracks double digits. 10% in this poll in a state he's thrown all of his eggs in. look at that. he's actually ahead of rick perry in a poll that matters in a state that matters. for huntsman who is moving his entire operation now to new hampshire, we're hearing stories of florida staffers being either let go or transferred to new new hampshire. tells you it's a one-state strategy for huntsman at this point. one other note on that quinnipiac poll. romney leads obama. obama leads perry. expect that to come up as well. finally, the president, he pitches his jobs bill today in ohio. his backdrop will be the brent spence bridge. today's most famous bridge, apparently. one of the approximately 69,000 bridges in the u.s. in need of some repair. and one that happens to span the home states of speaker john boehner and senate republican

leader mitch mcconnell. a fact mcconnell commented on yesterday on the senate floor. >> president obama may think the best way to distract people from the challenges we face is to stand near a bridge in a swing state and pit one group of americans against another. and hope his critics look bad if they don't go along with him. but i don't think he's fooling anybody. >> well, nbc's kristen welker is in cincinnati for us. kristen, i got to ask you, we're already hearing the republican pushback this morning. they said, hey, this bridge isn't shovel ready. and it may not be until 2015 that any actual work could get done on this bridge. but, clearly, the setting is what the white house cares about. >> that's right. it's all about the setting right now, chuck. you can see behind me the brent spence bridge. the president's going to use it as a backdrop to try to sell his jobs plan to make the case that if congress passes his jobs bill, the infrastructure

projects like this one will get fixed. check this out. to your point, chuck, what you were just saying, the cincinnati enquirer says the obama visit won't build the bridge. there's no doubt this visit has huge political undertones. the president will try to draw a line in the sand, essentially, between himself and republicans and make the case that, look, he is a leader on jobs and fixing infrastructure projects and that republicans have stood in the way of that. republicans have come out swinging already. the president hasn't even arrived. they've accused him of staging a political stunt. there is no doubt that ohio is going to be key to president obama in 2012. he's been here twice already since announcing his jobs bill. this is one of nine states, chuck, that president obama won in 2008 that bush won back in 2004. so this is going to be a hard fought state. we've been talking to folks here in cincinnati who say, look, the

brent spence bridge is one of the hot button topics here, something we've been talking about for the past ten year. president obama knows this is something voters in ohio care about and he knows he has to win ohio in 2012. it's another implication that 2012 is really getting under way. chuck? >> right. the campaign has begun. kristen welker in cincinnati. thanks very much. the u.s. government says if persuasion doesn't work, then a veto pen will. this is, of course, on the issue of the israeli palestinian peace process. the obama administration is prepared to single handedly stop the palestinian bid for u.n. recognition. that is unless some kind of compromise can be hammered out first. jamie ruben is a former state department spokesman under president clinton and now executive editor of "the bloomberg view." jamie, yesterday president obama met with abbas. and before he had that meeting, the palestinians let it be known that they're going to be patient about this application to the

security council. that's a small victory for this administration, is it not? >> well, yes. i think the worst thing that could happen right now is if the palestinians and their supporters pushed for an immediate vote in the security council. the number of countries that have stated support for this kind of idea of a palestinian state before the negotiations have been successful is high enough that it could cause the united states to have to veto the resolution. that's what we're -- the u.s. is trying to avoid as much as possible. but i think it's fair to say that nothing in the dynamics of the last two days changes the isolation of israel and the united states in the united nations. yesterday the french president made clear that -- that they didn't see why the palestinian status shouldn't be upgraded in a vote in the general assembly.

so my best guess at this point is that the discussion in the security council will be slowed down through procedural mechanisms, but the palestinians will push for a vote in the general assembly. and they will win that vote by a large margin. their status will be increased. and the israelis having lost their relationship with turkey and egypt, which they've had, will now be further isolated in the world. >> and has president obama -- he was as clear as could be about, quote, standing with israel yesterday in both of the -- the one on one meeting with netanyahu but also in his speech to the united nations. but that brings up the question, is the united states -- can president obama be the neutral -- the neutral party that helps the negotiations move forward between the israelis and the palestinians or does somehow the united states now have to take a backseat and let the europeans take the lead here? >> i think it's a very good

point, chuck. we're at a new moment in diplomatic history. for decades now, the crucial players have been in washington. the president, the secretary of state, any special negotiator like george mitchell used to be. and the two sides. t the israelis and the palestinians. and america's unique role, having leverage and influence in both the palestinian territories and israel made america the place -- the address for discussions on this issue. that's changed a lot in the last couple of years for a variety of reasons. but i think you're absolutely right that president obama gave a very unique, i would say, full throated endorsement of the security dilemma the israelis face during his speech at the united nations. it was remarkable. it hasn't happened very often that an american president goes through the attitudes and feelings that the israelis have over the years to that audience. >> you know, jamie, let me ask

you this. who has more leverage? the united states over israel or israel over the united states? >> well, look. israel has always been a close friend of the united states. and it's certainly true that when the administration wants to get congress to do something, often now they ask the israelis to ask the congress rather than asking the congress directly. which is quite unusual. but the real problem here, chuck, and i say this with some pain, is that the uniqueness of the united states has been a function of the president's ability to persuade israelis, the public, the population, the political system there, of america's support and of america's position when we disagree with the israeli government. and for better or worse, it's the simple fact that president obama is -- does not have the level of support in israel that previous american presidents

have had. that means that the israeli prime minister, this case prime minister netanyahu, is very comfortable going around the white house and going directly to congress or ignoring white house calls for changes in his policy. >> actually, i don't think people realize how stunning of a change of events the last 48 hours has been in the u.s./israeli relationship. anyway, jamie ruben, always good to have you on sf. still to come, brinksmanship is back. just in case you didn't get enough of it during the summer. a government shutdown, not kidding, could be looming again after republicans fail to deliver the votes on a bill to keep the government running. plus, like vegas bookies, we're taking bets on tonight's fight in florida. who will emerge victorious in this crucial battleground state? we'll have more on the increasingly bruising battle between mitt romney and rick perry. first, look ahead at the president's schedule. you know what it is. it's a bridge over troubled

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with primary season around the corner nbc news is extending our reach into key battleground territory. our political team is joining force with amerus poll research center with the twists and turns of the republican race for president. lee, we're making this official today. we're partnering to poll on the state level. obviously we have our nbc/"wall street journal" poll on the national level. this is what we're going to be

doing on the state level, polling in the early primary states, polling in the general elections. lee, it's a challenge this year to poll republican primary voters. and there's a lot of people trying to do it and it's hard. explain why maybe it's harder this year than it has been in years past. >> yeah. well, it's always difficult in primaries when turnout is not as large as in the general election to define the likely voter. this time we're looking at first-time voters. the tea party movement and whether that will swamp the primary process. we need to be ready to sort of gauge what that is because it may have a very big bearing on some of the early states, key primaries, key caucus states. and we're going to be following this march to the nomination state by state. >> what is it when you are looking at a poll? i mean, that somebody else conducts, that tells you, okay, this is a good poll or this is a poll i'm nervous about? because i want you to say it, because i want you to sort of

give viewers, this is how you should judge our polls when we start releasing them. >> i should say, chuck, you know, we're really all about transparency and disclosure. and what this partnership saul abo is all about is opening up the marist classroom to the public. clearly, you want to look at the dates of when the poll was conducted. look at the question's wording. look at the important element. were they calling cell phones? four years ago, eight years ago, we didn't have to worry about the cell phone only population. now that's a critical part of every electorate. we're going to let the public aware of all those things that we're doing in this nbc news/marist poll so people can sort of, as they say, get in on the secret. we're going to have a laboratory, in essence, for this

political dialogue. >> that is an important part of something both you and i wanted to bring to this partnership. we know everybody is growing. there's so much numbers out there, some of it is automated, robocalling and stuff like this. we want people to get a sense of, look, we're going to let everybody in. kick the tires. you know what, guess what? we might have a poll number that doesn't look like all the other poll numbers every now and then because every once in a while, that's what statistics does, does it not? >> yeah. i think also it's very important to look at when the polls are conducted. clearly, the poll that counts is the one on primary day. in order to get the information to the public to analyze what's going on, we're going to be in the field several days before that. a lot can happen. so i think it's probably a mistake to look at each poll as necessarily predictive. especially these early polls. we have so much to go between now and the actual voting in iowa and new hampshire and south carolina and florida. so we need to look at the poll

at the time it's taken and then look at the numbers. if the tea party is 20% of the vote in a primary state, what does that do for perry's chances? if it's 25%, what does that do? it's that kind of information we want to provide so people have an understanding of just the dynamics. because that's what the campaigns are looking at. they're doing their own polling. we need to have an independent, hopefully accurate, poll, that this poll at nbc and marist will provide. >> lee miringoff, head of the marist institute there for polling. good to have you as a partner, brother. we'll see you along the trail. first polls will be coming out in about a month. >> good luck to both of us. >> all righty. thank you, sir. well, pessimism from the fed pushed stocks way down wednesday. we'll get a preview of where the markets are heading today. plus, the path to the republican nomination runs through the sunshine state. we've got your front row seat to tonight's fight in florida. first, today's trivia question. of the eight u.s. presidents who died in office, how many were from ohio?

tweet me @chucktodd or @dailyrundown. we'll be right back. man: my electric bill was breaking the bank.

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specialist.go, coach. as with all medicare supplement plans, and help pay for what medicare doesn't. call this toll-free number now... the decnbc's courtney regularreagan is here with the market rundown. they didn't like what they heard from the fed even if they liked the actions. >> exactly, chuck. we already were suffering losses yesterday ahead of that statement. despite the fact that the fed did announce what was expected as far as the actual action, like you said, it was the wording that was used that was especially worrisome. a bit more cautious and concerning than what we had heard out of the fed in the past. as a result, stocks really

tumbled. investors sold out of stocks, moving into treasuries, which are the more safe haven vehicles. at least that's sort of the perception, usually. but then that means that those yields are going to be pushed lower. as a result, we're actually seeing the lowest yields on record for the ten-year treasury. so confidence really is in short supply today. we're seeing markets around the world tumble. asian markets tumbled. europe is trading lower by more than 4%. and they still have two hours left to go. all of that is putting our futures precipitously lower ahead of the opening bell. it looks as if the dow could open lower by about 300 points. anything can happen in just a couple of minutes, as you know. but right now, it's not looking so good. there really aren't many positive items for investors to really grasp ahold of today. >> well, it sounds like one of those ugly rides, then. courtney, thanks very much from cnbc's world headquarter.

"daily rundown" will be back in 30 seconds. bottom of the hour now. quick look at what's driving the day. president obama is in hoff hooh today. the backdrop, a bridge that he sites as an example of infrastructure improvements that can create those jobs. it's a bridge that connects ohio and kentucky, home of boehner and mcconnell. nine presidential hopefuls will descend on orlando, florida, tonight for the third

republican debate in the last 15 days. one twist this time around. gary johnson, former new mexico governor, joins the fray. but, of course, all the focus will be on perry v. romney. the opening bell is about to ring on wall street. the president of poland has the honor of ringing the bell today. dow futures as you just heard point to a sharply lower open a day after the fed warned of major economic risk. a few other stories making headlines. a milestone for the u.s. mission to libya. this morning the american flag was raised at the u.s. embassy in tripoli for the first time since being attacked back in may. the move comes as transitional government forces confront stiff resistance in the last pockets of gadhafi loyalists. despite a last ditch plea to the supreme court, a convicted murderer was put to death last night by state of georgia. troy davis was convicted of murdering an off duty police officer in 1989. serious doubts arose in his case including 7 of the trial's 9

eyewitnesses recanting their testimony. also yesterday evening the state of texas executed white supremacist lawrence brewer, convicted of helping kill a black man in 1998 by dragging him behind a truck. here we go again. a new continuing resolution to fund the government through november 18th failed to pass the house last night. at the center of the congressional disagreement, disaster relief spending. the current measure runs out next friday. prompting yet another scramble to avoid a government shutdown. nbc's kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill. kelly, the thing to remind people, this is simply a continuing resolution for a couple of months that failed. >> reporter: just gets us through november 18th. >> yeah. help us out here. what's going on? >> reporter: you know, one of the things that made this a bit of a surprise is that typically house leadership does not bring a bill to the floor that they think will lose when they have urged their members to support it. nearly 50 house republicans bucked their own leadership and voted this down. now, that is giving senate democrats a bit of a spring in

their step today because they think it gives them some new authority, new power, kind of a momentum shift. and much of this centers on what to do about fema. there are many members really on both sides of the aisle and both chambers who know that people back home have been dealing with disasters like hurricane irene, the flooding, the tornadoes in joplin, missouri, all of those issues that are still very real for them. and their constituents. so they're fighting to get more money. the house measure which would have funded the full government through kind of mid-november, but also included some extra money for fema, that was really the bone of contention. because democrats said it was not enough. some of those conservative house republicans who voted against it said there was too much money being spent. it's the classic kind of fight. now we'll have so see. as early as today they may try another way of doing this. if they don't get it resolved between now and the end of next week, we're looking at government shutdown. nobody says that is likely. they're all saying it can be worked out, but it will be another kind of arm twisting

battle over how to provide enough money to fema to satisfy those members who have those disasters in their home states and districts and how to just keep the money going to keep the lights on around here. chuck? >> unbelievable that we're looking at a fight over about six weeks of funding. anyway, kelly o'donnell on capitol hill. always interesting. we'll see what happens today. well, it's romney versus perry, in case you didn't realize that. round three at tonight's republican debate. if the last two are any indication, we're probably in for some more fireworks. >> michael dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, mitt. >> as a matter of fact, george bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you did, governor. if you're dealt four aces, that doesn't make you necessarily a great poker player. >> mitt, you were doing pretty good until you got to talking poker. >> believe it or not, there are seven other republican hopefuls on the stage. they'll be in orlando for the third debate in just over two weeks. can any of them steal the show

from the two front-runners? chris cillizza, jonathan martin, i will try to get a word in edgewise. >> good luck. >> j. martin, let me start with you. we've seen the preview of the fight. the importance of this debate for rick perry, can it be underestimated? >> no. i think this is a huge debate for him. he's got to show after a fairly rocky performance in tampa that he's actually made some adjustments, he's improved his game, that there is a capacity for growth there. that's what i think a lot of folks in the party will want to see. especially donors still sitting on their wallets. can he improve his game? if he shows he can he will sort of get a rebound. if not, if he has a second bad debate in a row, after some of these polls coming out showing romney better positioned to take on president obama, i think it's going to create a serious problem for perry. >> what's interesting, chuck, to add to that, it feels like the whole republican world is just

basically saying to rick perry, just give us something. >> they don't want a lot, do they? >> no! it's a low bar. he gets into the race. two weeks later he's the front-runner. they just want something. they want to feel this guy could stand on a stage with barack obama and show out, do what he needs to do to win it. he didn't do it in the last debate. >> the irony to these debates as we point out, shameless plug coming up here, the first read is, barack obama never won any primary debates. john mccain never won any of the primary debates. hillary clinton, john edwards and joe biden won the debates. mike huckabee kept winning. it doesn't matter if you win. you just can't lose. >> the republican party does not want to new mexico nate mitt romney if they can find an alternative. they've been looking for an alternative for two years. they will nominate romney if they have to. but first they want to exhaust every other possible option. >> in all this polling, it's

fascinating. people say republicans vote with their heart, not their head. not true. i think the distaste for -- i think it's like the dynamic in '04, chuck, with bush. the distaste for bush drove democrats to say, we like dean but we're going to go with kerry. that's what romney has to bank on. >> i want to talk about the social security bit. to my understanding, even among some folks in romney world there's been disagreement about how hard to hit perry on the left on social security. could potentially open up where perry's campaign went yesterday, which is, there you go again, you're acting like a democrat. >> you sound like ted kennedy. that's a danger there. which is why i think they're increasingly making it more of a stand in for electability. >> seems like they're backing off. although he did say the words social security 17,000 times. >> romney in florida yesterday talking about how we need a nominee who can win not just the base, but democrats, independents and women. today putting out tim pawlenty's

op-ed in politico, shameless plug, talking about how romney's the one that can win. to me this has always been a shorthand for electability. they're making it more explicit. tissue itself carries risk. >> to jonathan o's point, thinkf it as head versus heart, mitt romney is never going to win a heart based republican primary. cannot do it. someone else other than him would win that. he has to win the head argument. the head argument is, you may not love me, but i'm the guy who can win and ultimately -- >> a lot of republicans in the state of florida quietly were trying to make the argument rick scott couldn't win. and he won. >> that's always the question. >> a lot of republican primaries -- >> in a great year against a flawed opponent with a lot of money. >> it shows you, chuck, the argument -- remember how barack obama wasn't going to be able to win because he was too inexperienced if he was a democratic nominee. >> one of the keys is for mitt to have help from the bachmanns,

santorums. >> palins of the world. >> we do know santorum is fired up to go after perry. we know ron paul wants to go after perry. herman cain kind of told one of you are imbeddeds that he wants to go after romney on his economic plan. how important is it to romney tonight that everybody gangs up on perry again? does that end up helping perry, though? >> in a perverse sort of way. >> it doesn't if he stumbles. if perry can take on all that fire from across the board and still come out standing and look like a serious guy and front-runner and take the heat, i think he emerges stronger. >> look at me. i'm the big guy. >> if he melts like the last debate -- >> in the last debate, i think he was so ready for the romney attack. opposition researcher. you did this. what actually hurt him, he wasn't expecting the santorum, bachmann attack. >> remember there was a bad "saturday night live" sketch where the guy comes wup a great

comeback five minutes later. >> like costanza. >> right. it does seem like perry has, the next day, come up with his responses. >> he does not think that well. we've seen this through his time in texas as a debater and in these first couple debates. he is not as quick on his feet as romney, not as good of debater as romney. >> are you aware this third debate will mean he has increased the number of political debates he's ever participated in by a full 50%. he had only done six in his entire political career. >> at the end of october he will have done more in this campaign than he did in ten years as governor of texas. he just hasn't done debates. romney having done a dozen of these things last time around. >> he's good at them. >> in massachusetts, those races they debate all the time. >> he's done these things before, and it shows. >> the thing is, i always think back to your point, chuck, i'm vicinitiy convinced it doesn't even matter at the point what rick perry says. does he look like he can belong

on a stage? does he look like he belongs on a republican primary stage? does he look like he can stand one on one with barack obama? it's a low bar. but he has not met it. i don't think. do you think? >> we'll see tonight. >> always good to see you both. in ten years, we'll only speak to each other in twitter handles. up next, more on that bridge over troubled waters in ohio and the president's push for jobs. plus all the latest from the campaign trail. our political panel joins us next. first, it's the white house soup of the day. my favorite one that i've never tasted over there. black bean chorizo. sounds like this could be a really delicious soup. put a dollup of sour cream on it. that's a delicious meal. [ woman ] my grocery bill isn't wasteful spending. [ woman ] my heart medication isn't some political game. [ man ] our retirement isn't a simple budget line item.

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it was on this day in 1862 when president abraham lincoln issued the preliminary emancipation proclamation declaring all slaves would be free as of january 1st, 1863. as the president explains his jobs bill to ohio voters today, one observer says the quick rollout of the stimulus plan and a week later the debt plan to pay for it may confuse his message. who's that observer? former president bill clinton who spoke to the conservative website news max. >> the speech that the president gave to congress, you know, he didn't propose any new taxes. i personally don't believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending, either one, until we get this economy off the ground. this has been a dead, flat economy. the timing on this president obama thing was somewhat confusing. because i think everybody's all confused about whether he's proposing all this stuff at once. >> political editor for

msnbc.com. jackie kucinich. and columnist at bloomberg view. i'm going to start with my old partner in crime. that's bill clinton being bill clinton. i support everything president obama said, but i'm going to second guess you on some of the timing issues. does he have a point? >> he has a very good point. i think what he's missing there is there are two things going on at once here. there is the long-term fiscal outlook of the country which is the tax and cut spending part of it. which is not being talked about right now. it's being talked about down the road. but it is contributing to the uncertainty that a lot of people are feeling, either on the markets or businesses. these things need to be taken care of, both the short term and the long term. the problem is, they're intertwined at this point and the long term is getting much and much closer. >> did the president have any choice but to -- he sort of had backed himself into a corner saying i'm going to release a debt plan. then he had his jobs -- he sort of had no choice but to do it this way.

but does bill clinton have a point here as far as public opinion? >> well, you know, i'm thinking that the president's probably stopping and thinking every once in a while, i wish some of my other cabinet secretaries, you know, i never hear about any of their spouses causing trouble for me. you know, interesting thing i find about this is the actual stimulus elements of the obama administration's plan are less popular than the anti-debt elements of the plan. the anti-debt elementses wi, th increases, have at least pleased some people. it's pleased the left and helped consolidate them. it doesn't seem the stimulus provisions in themselves are getting anywhere. >> the scalpel, when it comes to the president's pitch, jackie, to increase taxes on corporations, 70% favor that idea. increasing taxes on $250,000 or above, 66%. it has always astounded me that the president has had no ability to take the -- the jobs plan overall, i think, frankly the magic word, four letter word of

jobs actually influences public opinion. magic word of jobs that seems an easier sell politically even though his debt plan doesn't seem to be easy to sell. >> i think everything is hard to sell for this president right now. particularly he's got to convince people in congress who don't even want to vote to extend funding for a couple days. i think at the end of the day, yeah, he's got -- there are just a lot of people that don't think it's going to work. i think that's his biggest hurdle. i mean, he can say these things. but you have a lot of congressional republicans as well as people out there that really don't -- don't see some of the other programs he has implemented working. so, you know, there's a lot of pessimism out there. that's what these polls are showing. >> the other big story, president in ohio today. tonight the republicans going after each other. one line of attack romney's folks i think are going to bring up, vaughn, since the last debate, we've gotten some new job numbers out of texas and they're not so hot. >> yeah. well, they're still -- perry will still push back and say they're still a lot better --s a he's been doing -- they're still a lot better than what you did in massachusetts, mitt romney.

i think that perry has a much bigger challenge than romney in this debate tonight in terms of presenting himself as somebody who can really take control of the situation. he hasn't been able to do that at times in these debates. he stumbled a little bit. he looks unleaveven on his feet >> i'm in the camp there is no republican establishment. what does the national review establishment want to hear from rick perry to feel more comfortable about rick perry over a mitt romney or vice versa. >> i think that in the previous debates, governor perry has come across as unprepared. he hasn't had crisp, convincing responses to predictable lines of attack. and i think not just my colleagues at national review but a lot of voter interested in electability and like a lot about his record -- >> do you buy he has this low bar? he doesn't have to win the debate he just can't drop a stink bomb? >> i think he's got to do a little better than that. he didn't bomb in the previous debates, but he didn't do well.

i think one of the things people want to see is will he do a good job if he is standing up against president obama in a debate sometime next year sfwl all right. we're going to hand on here. jackie, vaughn, ramesh, stick around. we've got more politics to dig into. trivia time. we asked of the eight u.s. presidents who died in office, how many were from ohio? the answer is four. i didn't know it was four. william harrison, james garfield, william mckinley and warren harding all called ohio home. and all died in office. the most presidents elected and the most to have died in office. we'll be right back. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. ♪ ♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] ♪ [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose -- to make the world a safer place.

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warn withed the dow may start down, but it is down big. it's already down 360 points, 20 minutes in to trading. the hangover from what the fed wrote clearly carrying over to

this morning. we will be tracking it to see if this is where everybody sold last night and starts to dig itself out or if it gets worse as the day goes on. let's bring back our panel. i want to start with jon huntsman, jackie. actually showing a pulse. >> double-digits. >> in new hampshire. the suffollk poll showing him 10% ahead of rick perry. the same poll that has romney at 41%. this is big for huntsman because this probably keeps him in the debates going forward. >> he was 1%, 2%. >> not moving any where, even in new hampshire where he is planted and lived. >> this shows a blinking of life for that campaign. we will see more of him because of this. >> during the break you were saying big trouble for mitt romney, why? >> all of the other candidates in this race are competing with rick perry for conservative voters. that's why he is the pinata as

he called himself in the debates except for jon huntsman. romney badly needs huntsman not to break out. >> vaughn, you and i in our years at the hotline have seen these. it would be a september, new hampshire poll coming out and bradley going 30 to 15% against al gore or john mccain going from 2 to 17% against bush. you would see that sign of life. it is amazing how new hampshire voters snowball it. >> it can snowball. huntsman has based so much of his campaign of attracting independent debs which there are many in new hampshire. >> it's the one place. >> it is the one place his campaign fits. i don't know that it fits well enough to so the snowball affect we have seen in the past. huntsman is not where the republican electorate is right now and i think that applies to many conservatives in new hampshire. >> huntsmans problem is so if he

catches romney, so what? he still hasn't caught perry. >> that's the rieng. i don't know if this is possible but if romney and huntsman are fighting for votes in new hampshire maybe there is room for someone else to come in and spoil it for romney. >> one of the games -- we know florida will be a big decisive primary that perry and romney have to play in but they may split up the states and say, romney might say you can have iowa and south carolina and i will take new hampshire and nevada. perry may do that and look at 8% and say forget it. >> at the end of the day it is hard to see how romney gets the nomination without winning new hampshire. it is not just that huntsman is gaining but he is gaining in the one place that romney needs to worry about. >> back to the bridge business. mccon nell just hit the senate floor. this is what he said. oh, we do have it, i'm told. let's listen to what mcconnell said on the floor. >> i would suggest, mr.

president, that you think of ways to actually help the people of kentucky and ohio instead of how you can use their roads and bridges as a backdrop for making a political point. >> well, one way you know a political hit is working is when you get your opponents to be defensive. mcconnell seems to be upset about this. >> he is defensive. i think this is a bigger thing going on. if you look at what the president has done in the last couple of weeks and see what the republicans have been talking about, we are in a general election argument at this point. this is all about the philosophical argument going forward. let's battle this out next november and let the voters decide which side they are on. >> >> it is weird, you hear he wants to ramp up more, he thinks that will be a distinguishing feature against perry. >> the ceo of the ladders has a

blog. he has some interesting posts about linkdin and why he doesn't like it. >> that's the thing that spams me all the time. >> that's why i don't like it. >> and live tweeting on the blog tonight. all things you need to know about the campaign trail. >> the one song we banned was "stand." . that's it. a simple prop to occupy your time. that's what we were this hour. that's the edition of the daily rundown. up next chris jansing and company. and we will speak to susan rice, the u.s. ambassador to the united nations. my name's jeff. i'm a dad, coach, and i was a longtime smoker. in my heart i knew for the longest time that did not want to be a smoker. and the fact that i failed before. i think i was discouraged for a very long time. ♪

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looking at wall street where stocks are sharply lower on wall street. down 372 at the moment. the federal reserve says the economic slump could last for years. the fed is taking new steps to boost the economy, though. and in a new report this morning that shows first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 9,000 to 423,000. cnbc has what is moving your money. we will keep an eye on the drop so far. an endless protest urging a review of the case. troy davis was executed last night at 11:08 p.m. after the u.s. supreme court denied a request for a stay of execution. it is a story that sparked out raj across the country and around the world. last night ed shultz and rachel maddow interviewed a former georgia warden who oversaw executions for georgia and authored a letter asking them not to