she's been portrayed in the press as someone who dumped yogurt on the president of the united states. not true, she says. she put it on the ground and a photographer kicked it over. falsely accused. >> and it's a parfait. not even yogurt. it was a par it fait. >> we'll see you back here. stick around for chuck. after a five state northeastern sweep mitt romney officially accepts the unofficial title of presumptive nominee. he makes his best case for why president obama should leave the white house. but that's just half the battle. he still hasn't made the why me case yet. meanwhile, the president mixes it up with college students in speeches, fallon, even a little bar hopping. is this an official trip or a se series of campaign stops? the fine election year line between policy and politics plus another compelling car crash like day of testimony in greensboro at the john edwards

criminal trial, sex, money, ambition, and politics. hollywood couldn't have written it better. but do prosecutors really have a case? good morning from new york. it's wednesday, april 25th, 2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. right to my first read of the morning. mitt romney made his best case yet why the president doesn't deserve a second term in what was basically for many an acceptance speech in new hampshire. but rom think fell short of the second test for any challenger which is making the persuasive argument why he is the guy to replace the president. he formally declared an end to the primary process in the state where he announced his bid for president last june. >> after 43 primaries and caucuses, many long days and more than a few long nights, i can say with confidence and gratitude that you have given me a great honor and solemn responsibility, and together we are going to win on november

6th. >> romney swept primaries in pennsylvania, delaware, rhode island, connecticut and new york. he won no less than 56% of the vote in all five of the states. and delaware where newt gingrich declared his last stand, custer failed the christine test. and moments ago beginnigingrich crowd in north carolina that he thinks it's pretty much clear that romney will be the nominee. he said, quote, i think obviously that i would be a better candidate but the objective fact is the voters didn't think that. over the next few weeks the romney campaign will staff up from about 80 employ yes, sir to around 500. they're going to find a second building for their expanded staff in boston. the process of intergreati tegr campaign will take off in earnest. and mitt romney has found his general election message, a fleshed out version of you may like obama, but we can can't afford obama. last night obama tried to strike

an optimistic tone while assailing the president's economic policies. >> for every single mom who feels heartbroken when she has to explain to her kids that she needs to take a second job and won't be home as often, for grandparents who can't afford the gas to visit their grandchildren anymore, for the mom and dad who never thought they'd be on food stamps, i have a simple message. hold on a little longer. a better america begins tonight. >> you know, romney played the prosecutorial role, if you will, that eventually falls to a running mate. tradition ago the designated campaign hitman. he made the case against obama's economic policies, even the winning line borrowed from bill clinton's 1992 campaign. >> because he has failed, he will run a campaign of diversions and distractions and distortions. it's still about the economy, and we're not stupid.

>> you know, romney didn't seem to realize that the line need add punchier, even smirkier delivery but, still, message was gotten across. nearly 60% of americans believe the country is on the wrong track. the easy hinge is making the why not obama case. the harder part is why romney? and last night romney tried to begin the reintroduction of himself to voters who they claim are now starting to pay attention. >> you may have heard that i was successful in business. yep, that rumor is true. but you might not have heard i became successful by helping start a business that grew from ten people to hundreds of people. you might not have heard that our business helped start other businesses like staples and the sports authority and a new steel mill. >> but, again, what we didn't hear is why romney as far as why him to lead the economy for the next four years. we talked to some republican strategists, they'll say that begins at the convention in the next three months or about three months of romney making the case

against the president. now while romney declared victory, president obama spent tuesday on a college tour which he wraps up today in iowa city. took his pitch to young voters in two swing states, late night tv, even made it to a dive bar. the president used this supposedly nonpolitical trip to draw contrasts with romney while pushing for congress to keep student loan interest rates low. >> michelle and i, we know about this firsthand. this is not something i read in a briefing book. this is not some abstract idea for us. we've been in your shoes. we only finished paying off our student loans about eight years ago. think about that. i'm president of the united states. >> now the president delivered that contrast message in every possible form, even via slow jam in his first ever appearance on "late night with jimmy fallon." >> what we said is simple. now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people.

♪ oh, yeah you should listen to the president. or, as i like to call him, the presi of the united stesi. >> the president had this to say about the guy he's now running against. >> do you know mitt romney? >> i've met him, but we're not friends. he seems like somebody who cares deeply about his family and his wife is lovely. >> by the way, that is interesting. the president and mitt romney, they really don't have a relationship. they don't know each other well. and it's kind of striking. that doesn't happen very often. usually the two guys who are running against each other have some sort of previous relationship. arguably not since bush/dukakis two people that didn't know each other very well at all, no past interactions. now obama's appeal to the youth

vote continued. an interview with "rolling stone" which hits newsstands friday, he singled out romney without naming him. i don't think that their nominee is going to be able to suddenly say, everything i've said for the last six months i didn't mean. i'm assuming that he meant it. when you're running for president, people are paying attention to what you're saying. translation, they want to run against the romney, the conservative, even if conservatives didn't believe he was a conservative, they want to run against romney as a conservative. now the perils of the college tour were on display at an unscheduled stop at a boulder bar and grill called the sink, reported as divy and more about the beer than the food. on the rope line the president got more than he bargained for. >> thank you for coming. whose yogurt got on me? the president wiped himself off with a towel after the yogurt spill which made for a laugh line at his next stop. >> she got very excited and

spilled yogurt on me. more hazardously she spilled yogurt on the secret service. the agent just stood there. just looking at her. >> as you learned on "morning joe" apparently they're blaming the still. we always blame the still. both gingrich and santorum are testing romney's patience making it less and less hikely they'll appear at the convention anywhere with tv lights turned on. though he failed the christine o'donnell test, gingrich didn't drop out but he is hinting that he will do so soon. >> over the next few days we are going to look relalistically where we're at. i'm confident we'll have lots of folks to talk with and we'll talk about a lot of key ideas. i also want to do that as a uni unifier. >> rick santorum appears to be doing his best case to lobby for an afternoon speaking slot in tampa. >> do you believe that mitt romney is the right guy? >> i believe he's -- obviously i believed i was the better

choice, but then i'm not in the race anymore. >> he's won the race. is he therefore the right guy? >> yeah, absolutely. >> finally, two more members of congress have to clean out their desks a little bit sooner than they thought. two conservative democrats who voted against the president's health care plan went down in defeat last night. pennsylvania's longest serving congressman, democrat tim holden, lost in the new 17th district to personal injury attorney matt cartwright by nearly 15 points. and in the 12th district altmire was out organized by his colleague mark critz. most of them in member/member races, but a couple of them have been ousted by outside primary folks. and you have to think about the tim holden thing. you're the longest serving is member. should we be surprised that when congress has a job rating of under 20% that incumbents lose? maybe john boehner is on to something when he says there's a one in three chance the republicans lose control.

finally last night we learned who senator bob casey's republican challenger will be. former coal company owner tom smith. he won a five-way race, notable for its lack of star power, calling into question is pennsylvania really a swing state. i want to go over to the supreme court. just weeks after they gave us the judicial fireworks over the president's health care law, the justices are back at the bench this morning. they're hearing both sides of the debate on key pieces of arizona's immigration law and, guess what, it's two familiar faces, justice correspondent pete which wiilliams has our pr from the supreme court. same two guys arguing a different case. >> reporter: the solicitor general defending the law tore the obama administration and paul clement who argued against the health care law for the states is back for arizona. now in his brief, he uses the word relaxed to describe the federal government's enforcement policy on immigration and says arizona has decided it has to step into the breach because he

says the state spends millions of dollars in the state's words to educate, medicate and incarcerate people who have no legal right to be in the u.s. so arizona passed a law two years ago. it was blocked by the lower courts. it hasn't gone into effect. but most controversially it requires police, when they stop anybody for a traffic stop or make an arrest, to detain anyone that they suspect might be in the country illegally and hold them until their immigration status can be verified. the administration verified it. it prevailed in the lower courts. they say a couple of things. first of all, immigration is fundamentally a felled federal responsibility not a state one, that if all states did what arizona has done and many have followed its lead, we'd have 50 different approaches to law enforcement and immigration. secondly the government says it has priorities for enforcement, trying to get at the most dangerous immigrants, those with criminal background or those who present a terror threat and it says arizona's enforcement at all costs approach would basically flood the system with

people who don't have the right papers. so the state says it has the right under federal law to do this and has an inherent constitutional right to step into the federal breach. >> we shall see how they do this afternoon. i know you have to get in there, pete. thank you very much. >> reporter: you bet. up next, will romney's clean sweep give him any more credibility among conservative this is we'll ask ron johnson about that. plus, is the tea party almost out of steam? we'll ask him about that as well. plus new developments in the secret service scandal as they prepare to grill homeland security secretary janet napolitano. first a look ahead at the president's schedule. he wakes up in youaurora, color, then heads to iowa, back to d.c. in time for a campaign event tonight. [ woman ] oh, my gosh -- it's so good! [ kristal ] we're just taking a sample

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a clean sweet for mitt romney as he made the turn to the general election. are tea party conservatives rallying in favor of romney or is it being anti-obama enough? freshman senator of wisconsin who rode the tea party wave into the senate. he joins me now. good morning, senator johnson. >> good morning, chuck. how are you doing? >> i'm okay. let me ask you this question about where the tea party is, where the conservative movement is in regards to mitt romney. are you comfortable that mitt romney is conservative enough to represent sort of the tea party wing of the republican party? >> well, i sure am, chuck. i ended up endorsing mitt right before the wisconsin primary

because i had a chance to meet with him and talk to him over the phone, and i came away if those meetings entirely and 100% convinced that he understands the problem and he has the experience and he's willing to lead us toward real solutions. a big problem here, chuck, is that in this administration president obama certainly has no private sector experience. members of his administration don't. they don't even respect the private sector. mitt romney obviously does understand the private sector. he's been successful. if you want to take a look at his speech, it was optimistic. you have to have had some success to be optimistic versus the president. his speech has been pessimistic because the last 3 1/2 years have been a big failure. >> well, you just said that the president or his administration doesn't respect the private second interest tore. what evidence of that? i mean, that's a harsh charge. >> well, take a look at how divisive this president is, how he tries to punish success. the buffett rule, for example.

he said when he proposed the buffett rule it would stabilize our debt and deficit. let's face it, it pays for 11 hours worth of government. it's all designed to divide americans, to punish success. and, let's face it. when you attack business, when you vilify success, you get less of both and if we're going to create jobs, if we're going to grow our economy, we actually need businesses to succeed, mitt romney understands that. i'm afraid this president doesn't at all. >> and clearly that's what the debate is about. i want to reach a quote david plouffe said about mitt romney. he said he's the most conservative republican nominee since barry goldwater. do you agree with that statement? >> i'm new on the scene here. i'm not going to compare one conservative versus another. again, from my standpioint, the reason i decided to run, we're bankrupt in this nation. we added $5.3 trillion of debt in the four years of this president's administration. and governor romney understands that, and we need someone who is willing to acknowledge the

problem and work towards real solutio solutions. >> let me ask you about this problem of austerity and watching europe and spain in particular that they've taken some austerity measures, some measures, frankly, that you and other republicans are advocating that the u.s. do, and it's wreaking havoc on their own economy. is there a line here that you can cut too quickly too soon and hurt the economy too much in the short term? are you concerned about this? >> chuck, i think the line is how much more debt can we pile on onto the back of our children and grandchildren? from 1970 to the year 2000 our average borrowing costs in the u.s. was 5.3%. over the last three years we've been borrowing at a very unrealistic 1.5%. if we revert to the norm of 1970 to 2000, that would add $600 billion to our annual interest expense. that's 60% of our discretionary spending. that's what i am concerned about so we're not talking about austerity here. our federal government has almost doubled spending in just the last ten years and the

argument moving forward do we spend instead of $3.8 billion, ten years in the future $5.8 billion or trillion versus $4.8 trilli trillion. it's a stark difference. that's an important distinction. we're not cutting anything, just reducing the rate of growth. >> do you believe that in a downward -- when we're in a down economic period, i mean, it's just sort of -- it's what happens. the government is going to be charged with having to borrow morme money to fulfill some responsibilities that the private secotor can't, right? >> we didn't have to take the share of the federal government from about 20.2% of our economy to 24% and 25% and, quite honestly, we're on a trajectory to hit 35%. this president's administration is all about growing government. it's a very government centered society. that's his vision. governor romney, our vision, is about an opportunity society led by free people, free enterprise

system. that's what made america great, not large government. >> are you comfortable with this sort of conventional wisdom that's developing that no matter who wins, that when the tax code is rewritten, and it has to be rewritten, or at least dealt with, we've got sort of a tax bomb ready to go off at the end of the year, that some federal -- the tax bill for some of the wealthiest americans is going to go up, the rates may come down but the amount of money they send to the federal government is going to go up. are you willing to say that's probably going to happen? >> it's going to be almost impossible to dramatically reform the tax code without having individual taxpayers, their share of the income tax go up and down. the whole principle is lower the rates, incentivize people and when you lower the rates you can reduce a lot of the tax expenditures, the special deals, the special carveouts which certainly i, as one republican, am totally against.

i'm totally against those types of special deals. the croney capitalism that gives tax credits to things like cylindra, that we can eliminate. there will be winners and losers but hopefully america will be the winner as we grow our economy and start creating jobs. i mean, do what america wants to do, and that's grow our economy. >> all right, ron johnson, republican senator, freshman senator from wisconsin. thanks for coming on this morning. >> thanks for having me on, chuck. well, will apple's sky high earnings boost wall street today? what you need to know before the opening bell and the market rundown comes next. plus, sex, lies and videotape. you can't look away, can you?ve the case of john edwards. we keep trying to look away but it keeps dragging us back. what is the shortest term ever served by an ohio governor? yes, it's your random trivia question. the first correct answer gets a follow wednesday from us. ♪

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a live picture from capitol hill. homeland security secretary janet napolitano minutes away from a full-court press by senators this time on the secret service scandal following three more resignations over allegations of misconduct during the trip to colombia. president obama weighed in on the whole mess with jimmy fallon last night. >> the secret service -- these guys are incredible. 99.9% of them every day they're putting their life on the line and they do a great job. so a couple of knuckle heads shouldn't detract from what they do. what these guys were thinking, i don't know. that's why they're not there anymore. >> another wild day of testimony in the john edwards trial.

andrew young said edwards said it was legal to accept a truckload of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars from campaign dounors to help keep te presidential candidate's pregnant mistress quiet. the trial is drawing a lot of attention for the salacious details but raising questions from critics who question the wisdom of prosecuting a case on what they say are murky legal standards, a potential waste of taxpayer money and, of course, the criminalizing of what's been called simply politics sometimes. even the dirty, seedy side. we're minutes away from the opening bell. so it's time are for the market rundown. jackie deangelis is here. apple dominates. the futures are higher right now and this is definitely on the heels of apple's blow-out earnings after the close yesterday. second quarter profit jumping 94% to $12.30 on revenue of $39.2 billion, well above the analyst estimates. apple sold 35 million iphones across the globe.

we saw the stock up 7% in the after hours session, adding about $40 billion to apple l's market cap just yesterday. meantime, we're following a walmart story very closely as vice chairman eduardo castro wright resigned from met life's board saying that it was for personal reasons and he needs to focus on what's going on with the company. this after the report over the weekend walmart covered up a huge bribery campaign at its mexican subsidiary. the stock down another 3% yesterday in that session. and today the second day of the latest fomc meeting investors awaiting a decision around 12:30 with economic forecasts due at 2:00 and bernanke's presser at 2:15. not expecting to hear any changes to interest rates but investors listening for any clues about further quantitative easing, chuck. >> they secretly want it. jackie, thank you very much. up next, we're taking a deep dive into how the president nixes politicking. the cost of campaigning can be a tricky business when air force one is involved.

the deputy campaign manager stephanie cutter will be here. plus, betting on the house. party leaders fighting over who has the odds-on advantage in this year's elections. what's not in dispute, apparently, though, is the house is in play. bet some of you were surprised to hear that.

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could you hold on a second? it's your money. roll over your old 401(k) into a fidelity ira and take control of your personal economy. this is going to be helpful. call or come in today. fidelity investments. turn here. well, there's a fine line between the presidential visit and a political trip, one that can get blurry in an election year. a deep dive into the question whether your taxpayer dollars are supporting the president's re-election campaign. on the one hand it's simple, if it's an official trip, you're footing most if not all of the bill. but what makes it owe figures? two weeks ago he spoke at florida atlantic university, an event he used to push the buffett rule. considered an official trip. he was able to use air force one. on the same day he hit three fund-raisers, one in palm beach gardens, hollywood, and golden beach, florida. doesn't that mean the president's campaign which raised $35 million last month

should pay for some of that bill? >> the president is the president 24 hours a day seven days a week and he has to fly on air force one. he has to have security and communications. there are elements of his job that are always with him regardless whether he's in a campaign event or an official event, and, you know, costs are a portion. >> in fact, the democratic party does reimburse the taxpayers for some of the travel costs. records show they have paid back more than $1.5 million this election cycle. so how do they figure out how much to pay? here is the formula. it was hatched more than 30 years ago during the carter administration. a white house lawyer michael burman said the administration should pay for something for all the traveling. the campaign would pay the equivalent of one first class ticket for each political person on the plane. the formula stays the same, believe it or not, tore 30 years until the ftc altered it in 2010

upgrading it to a seat on a charter flight. now as you might imagine that doesn't even begin to cover air force one costs in the neighborhood of $180,000 an hour to operate. do the math. $1.5 million, has covered about eight hours of flight time, barely one roundtrip flight to the west coast. that's not counting the cost of security, the motorcade are or other planes associated with the campaign. joe carney says that's the way it's always been done. >> and with regards to the way every president who has been running for re-election in our lifetimes deals with these matters, i mean, it is by the book, very carefully done, and appropriately done. >> and he's right. presidents have been doing it the same way for decades, although this president appears to be picking up the pace. according to the president's official schedule so far in 2012 president obama has traveled to at least 39 campaign events. another name for fund-raisers, by the way.

several were held either just before or after official stops in neighboring states. for instance an official visit to the master lock facility in february was followed by a visit to san francisco. this isn't unique to president obama. between january and april of 2004, president george w. bush squeezed in at least 16 fund-raisers for his re-election campaign that also included official trips. they included trips to big money states like new york and california as well as swing states like pennsylvania and florida. president clinton, he racked up 27 visits to swing states in the first part of 1996, nearly half of all those trips he took at the time. now joining me now stephanie cutter, deputy campaign manager for the president's re-election campaign and i bring this up today, stephanie, because it's this 48 hours of trips where the president, it's all official, and yet he picked three universities in three swing states when he could have picked any other of the -- let's say we

agree there are 12 swing states, a big state university in any of the other 38 states. are you guys walking a fine line here? >> well, why shouldn't he pick those universities, chuck? they are big universities where students care about what interest rate they're paying on their student loans. this is an issue that the president has been talking about and fighting for for a very long time. he fixes the problem in his budget as opposed to the romney/ryan budget which locks interest rates in. this is not a new issue to him, and it is an issue that is very much on the front burner in washington because the senate is going to vote on this to see if they can try to fix it. the deadline is looming. interest rates are going to double in a matter of months. so we need to do something about it. he's the president of the united states. he is traveling the country to get people involved and have them speak out and tell washington to fix this. there's intransience because

they don't want to find funding for $6 billion fix for our students, which is an investment in our long-term economic growth, and strengthening the middle class, but they can find, you know, $45 billion for tax cuts that go to millionaires and billionaires. >> let me ask you about this specific issue because it's about a provision, esesential isly for a previous piece of legislation to look better, look deficit neutral, look bet earp in the eyes of the cbo, this was added in as sort of a sunset provision. it's not dissimilar to what we've seen with the bush tax cuts, but every time it seems that somebody is going to have to take tough medicine, you know, either a tax cut or an interest rate is going to rise, one party or the other says, no, no, no, we can't do it now. is it no wonder we have the deficit problem we have? >> well, i think, chuck, you would probably agree with me that you want to reduce the deficit, you have to make some

is pretty tough choices. and that's what this whole debate is about right now, it's the debate on the campaign trail, too. what are these choices we need to make? the president believes we shouldn't be shortchanging students. we shouldn't be shortchanging education, that everybody should pay their fair share which includes millionaires and billionaires who are doing just great in this economy and can afford to pay at least what middle class americans pay and their tax rate. it's all about choices. you're right, when these debates come to the fold in washington, somebody is going to say we can't do this now. but if you look at the evidence and the facts about what you can and cannot do in terms of economic growth, i think the facts are on our side. having millionaires and billionaires pay at least their fair share, the same as middle class families, is not going to impact our economy at all. we've seen this experiment in the previous decade where we thought we would have enormous job growth because we were given a disproportionate amount of tax breaks to the wealthiest americans. well that didn't work. we had the slimmest job growth

in a generation. in 50 years the slowest job growth. >> is that what you want this campaign to be about, stephanie, which we hear -- you know what the president's economic vision is and, yes, it's a little sluggish, but this is where he's building the economy and you want to paint mitt romney as essentially the bush policies? is that your goal of this campaign? we know what the romney folks are trying to do. is that your goal? >> the romney folks are trying to say he has bush policies? >> no, i'm asking you. that's what you seem to be accusing him of doing. is that what you guys are trying to do? >> no. this election is not about george bush. this election is about mitt romney. the unfortunate thing for mitt romney is the policies he's put on the table really do take us back to the future, back to a decade where we did have the slowest job growth, where the middle class was extremely squeezed in the ability to save for retirement, send their kids to college, own a good home and ultimately led to the greatest economic crisis since the great depression. so those are the facts. it has nothing to do with george bush but it has to do with the

policies that we tried and didn't work. mitt romney wants to go back to those policies and i think that's an absolutely critical issue to be discussed in this campaign. >> stephanie, what do you say, what does the president say to this independent voter, i'd say living outside of pittsburgh, you know, a swing area, that's sitting there and they don't feel like the economy has gotten better for them yet and they say the president has been in office for 3 1/2 years. it hasn't gotten better for me yet. what does the president say to that person? >> i think that independent voter understands that the economic crisis the president faced coming into office wasn't created by his policies. but his policies did get us out of that crisis and has begun to rebuild this economy in a way that will be meant to last where that independent voter outside of pittsburgh will be able to earn a good wage and be able to do all that before. they may not be feeling it,

chuck, but they know what the president has done. they know what the impact of his policies is are. let me point out some of those. there are tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs created outside of pittsburgh because of the president's policies. the auto industry, which has enormous reach into pennsylvania, is thriving for the first time in generations. so, you know, 4.1 million jobs over the course of the last 25 months since our policies began to work, those are real facts and real statistics and real impacts on people's lives. that's 4.1 million people who have good, private sector jobs now compared to the previous administration. it's seven times more private sector jobs in our recovery period compared to the bush and that paled in comparison to what we face coming into office. again, all of this means that you have a choice in this election. a choice continuing on a steady path of growth, rebuilding an economy that's meant to last, hard work pays, responsibility is rewarded. as opposed to going back to the

old ways of outsourcing, risky financial deals, tax cuts for the very wealthy, hoping that they trickle down to the middle class. we know those policies don't work. >> let me ask you this, when will we see the president have his first campaign rally? how soon? before memorial day? >> i am not going to wager a date on your show. i think some time soon since we are officially in the general election, according to mitt romney last night. so, you know, we will let you know when it happens. >> fair enough. stephanie, thanks for coming on this morning. >> thank you for having me. >> happy wednesday. our hump day panel is here next. but first, the white house soup of the day, gazpacho. ♪ oh.

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these are live peck tours of a senate judiciary hearing where homeland security secretary janet napolitano is giving a statement. she is expected to be grilled on the scandal surrounding an agency under her umbrella, the u.s. secret service. all right. after a five state win last night mitt romney is serving up a new line of attack against the president. take a listen. >> this america is fundamentally fair. we will stop the unfairness of politicians giving taxpayer money to their friends' businesses. and we will stop the unfairness of one generation passing larger and larger debts on to the next. >> my panel today today, let me start with you, mitt romney trying to say, okay, you want to run on fairness, i'll rupp on

fairness, too. very much a response, it seems, to what the obama message has been over the last two months. >> yeah, and it's also a different conception of fairness, arguably conception of fairness that will resonate with a different group of voters but will resonate strongly. >> it seems a base group of voters. it didn't strike me who he's talking to there aren't swing voters. >> i disagree almost entirely with you, chuck. i think the model here is actually bob mcdonnell's gubernatorial campaign, staunchly conferen staunchly conference, he talked as though his views were on energy and tax policy and jobs, were entirely mainstream and uncontroversial because he didn't use ideological buzz words and romney was careful to do the same thing. >> the unfairness theme is that this is yet another effort by the romney campaign to fuzz everything up. it's like a static or flak kind

of strategy. remember, baby says that romney and the republicans want to end medicare as we know it. so what do they do? they put out a press release. no, it's obama who wants to end medicare as we know it. obama comes up with this whole thing about shamus the dog. and what do they do? they respond with obama ate dog meat himself. so now they're doing it again on fairness, and what -- the reason it's relevant, jonathan, the reason i bring it up, is every time they bring up -- obama brings up some kind of a charge, romney gets into the same space for low information voters they can't tell who is the untear ness candidate. who is the dog candidate? and it confuses everything which helps them go to the default position which is romney. >> beth, after digesting the speech, you hear it immediately last night and after digesting it, it struck me he has laid out the why not obama argument. but what is missing is the why

me argument and that still was missing last night. >> i would say it was a fantastic speech he gave in terms of laying out the broad theme if republicans, mitt romney will win the presidency, those are the teams that will do it for him. he's been reluctant to hang meat on the bones of all of those very general themes that he's outlined. the sense that things aren't getting any better, that the middle class is struggling, that the housing market is underwater. everybody knows that and those are strong messages that people do feel there's a sense of unfairness in this country and all that needs to be mitigated. where is the detail? where is mitt romney's sense of specifically what he's going to do? he has several months to lay it out. we were talking here, three months of waiting. >> three months of veep-stakes. i love it. >> 59 proposals to fix the economy, he has to pick three or four. >> what's interesting, also, we had a split screen of the two guys of who they are. mitt romney gave a power point presentation. he just didn't have the power point, and barack obama slow jam in the news.

doesn't it accentuate both strengths? in a way likability versus the businessman? >> and i think the romney campaign realizes that. they realize that you don't want to alienate all of these swing voters who embraced obama the last time around and beat them over the head and say you were fools to have done so. you say, look, this clearly is a likeable, apeeling figure, but i am the nerd, the candidate of competent ens that will deliver for you. >> it is not support levels, it is enthusiasm. >> it is enthusiasm, although actually the thing that drove obama's victory with younger voters last time was not turnout. the turnout among young voters was not substantially higher than in 2004. it was the margin. he just crushed. >> he still has the margin. >> that means that he doesn't have to do that much to match the turnout of the last time.

as long as he has the margin he will have a big advantage with younger voters although mccain won with older voters and you can stp that romney will do. >> the slow jamming the news, it was brilliant. he is a natural and an apeeling way to reach out to younger demographics. >> and contrasts with mitt romney. >> so much so and where they are in the middle is on student loans. the president is getting out there and standing up for the rates to stay the same and romney is there with him. >> he doesn't want to mess with this. >> stick around. we'll do a little bit more. the house apparently and trivia time, we ask for a random reason for picking today we ask this, what is the shortest term ever served by an ohio governor? the answer is 11 days. two ohio governors served that to short amount of time. nancy holster in the late 90s and john brown and in both cases resigned to become a u.s. senator. useless trivia today on hump day. if you're one of those folks who gets heartburn

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how math and science kind of makes the world work. in high school, i had a physics teacher by the name of mr. davies. he made physics more than theoretical, he made it real for me. we built a guitar, we did things with electronics and mother boards. that's where the interest in engineering came from. so now, as an engineer, i have a career that speaks to that passion. thank you, mr. davies.

battle for the control of the house, let's bring back the panel. beth, speaker of the house one in three chance saying the republicans can lose the house. they both agree there is a real chance and i was waiting for republicans to sort of admit. >> it will help the fundraising. crazy for them to say there is no chance. face it. we have gone through redistricting. we have incredibly unpopular republican controlled house. there is going to be a lot of volatility, a lot of people elected in 2010 that got in because of tea party and they will face a differenty lock trat this time. >> democrats particularly on the house level have no choice but to run with the president. they need him to win 52 or 53%

of the popular vote to have a shot. >> they have to gp can the coat tail type strategy. i think boehner was playing to the super pacs saying how about house. >> don't forget about us. >> screaming fire. >> i think there is a legitimate chance. you have republicans that won in districts where obama won comfort tli and they were always vulnerable. >> they redrew a lot of maps. >> the white house race go, it may take us weeks to decide who controls the house. >> and how about if nobody gets to 270 and no control of the house. >> very fast. >> my shameless plug nypd surveillance series, another award at the white house correspondents association dinner. >> front line on wall street and how we got into this mess, amazing series and probably the weakest person in it. really interesting. >> check out michael beckley and

international security on why china is not catching up with the united states. >> tomorrow on the show secretary tom vilsack and our deep dive into what's going on inside the john edwards trial. coming up next chris jansing. bye-bye. >> we have a few areas of storminess out there today and no big blockbuster storms, just a few areas with showers and thunderstorms and including chicago and minneapolis and we're okay in atlanta and new york and boston and on the west coast from seattle southward through san francisco and l.a., chance of rain for everyone. have a great day.

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