is losing ground and fast. whenever the cautious mitt romney made his decision today in norfolk virginia, he talked about massive cuts in the social safety net, leave defense alone and pass most of his savings to the wealthy. romney is with the right and it gives his campaign the spring of enthusiasm and i believe a spine of conviction. this election will no longer be about president obama. mitt romney has lashed himself

to ryan's budget and his candidacy may live or die based on whether romney can defend it. joining me now is the moderator of nbc's "meet the press" david gregory and nbc's political director, chuck todd, also a white house correspondent. let's start with david. we have been watching this all day and thinking about it. in the early returns, does it look to be a smart move picking ryan for vp? >> on your final point, which i think is important, the spine of conviction in this campaign, i do think it's a smart choice on this first day of this rollout. what is mitt romney achieved just today? it's a very attractive picture of romney and ryan, you know, it falls easily off the tongue. ryan has a terrific looking family. he'll be an energetic campaigner. he can raise money. he can make romney more enthusiastic as i thought he was throughout virginia today. and he can be, not only a strong surrogate, but he can really take the fight to president obama. but that spine of conviction

doesn't take away the negatives, chris. i think northeast a target-rich environment. the medicare proposals, his budget, all of that is something romney has to own. and you said it, he's got to defend it now. this is a race to define ryan before ryan can even define himself. and there's not a lot of time to do this. >> let me go to chuck on this. it seems to be the most thinking people out there paying attention to this election, people who watch programs like this and keep up with the news, know something big and bold has to be done to fix the economy. they know it will involve pain. well they have already discounted the fact democrats will jump this guy for his budget cuts. >> no, i don't think so. look, i think this pick today was good for mitt romney. he needed definition. he needed -- he's a great line, this sort of spine of conviction. he needed that sense to send this message to the electorate that he was not a guy that sort of, you didn't know where he stood, you weren't quite sure about it, that there was more to him than simply the rich guy,

the rich woman, this or that. >> the choice or the guy that he picked? >> but -- well, no, i think the issues themselves will, but i tell you that i feel like this election went from being something that was going to get fought at a 51/49 margin, a tighter margin, a high floor, low ceiling, that there's suddenly going to be a widening, if you will. this is -- this is going to be a clear contrast. this is going to be an argument on substance. it's not going to be a campaign of distractions anymore, if you will, on either side. it really is, i think in the high-minded folks should be happy about that, it's going to be a good substantive debate, but i think there will be a clear winner or a clear loser. one thing i'll say, and i can tell you this, i get the sense that privately republicans are more nervous today about this pick. republicans not connected to the

romney campaign, but republicans that are connected to the house and senate race. little phenomenon i noticed, saw a lot of press releases from the democratic releases today, didn't see much from the republican candidates talking about ryan. saw a lot of house republicans put out a statement praising ryan, but the guys that sit there that have to win swing voters in statewide elections, boy, i'm sensing a hesitancy and a nervousness. >> here's a look at congressman ryan hitting president obama hard for how slow the economic recovery has been coming. let's take a listen. >> it is our duty to save the american dream for our children and theirs. no one disputes that president obama inherited a difficult situation. and in his first two years with his party in complete control of washington, he passed nearly every item on his agenda. but that didn't make things

better. in fact, we find ourselves in a nation facing debt, doubt and despair. this is the worst economic recovery in 70 years. >> david, you can hear it in his voice, the man is a crusader. he sticks his chin out and takes his punches. he's going big picture and he knows the little pictures are always going to be painful. ape he's bets betting the american people are going forward with some pain rather than sticking with what we've got. and that's the kind of thing chuck's talking about. it is not going to be a hard election to make your decision as a voter. you'll see two different guys here, two different teams. >> big campaign, big problems, big ideas, and a big debate about what it is government aught to do in this economy with regard to the social safety net, with regard to trying to create economic growth. you know, this is the debate that americans should want to have. the reality is that it's still a

very tough thing to bring to voters. voters certainly want to cut the deficit. they are worried about the debt. but they don't want you to mess with the programs that they really like. that's always the difficulty. and, you know, ryan has said that one of the strengths he has, why he's been reelected in a more democratic district, is that folks he talks to like the fact that he tells it to them straight. and he levels with them about what the choices are and the pain that they have to experience. well, we'll see how that plays on a national scale. look, he was somebody who was a proponent of privatetizing partially social security. went even farther than the bush team thought. they were willing to go, and that became a losing effort for them. medicare is such a tough issue to win in a presidential campaign. republicans even before the ryan pick were worried about what team obama would do to romney on this particular issue. and to your point about style, you know, i've been around congressman ryan, i have interviewed him on "meet the press" four times, you know, he's an intense guy, he's a

cerebral guy, and he's a true intellectual, that strategic thinker. very serious views here about the economy and how the government may operate. is he a true legislator? is he a classic politician? can he move people? this is a big test for him now. >> chuck, to your point, republican strategists may not love the ryan pick as much as the tea party will like it. this is from a gop strategist involved with the 2012 campaign today. we might as well have just picked a random heritage foundation analyst. the good news is that this ticket now has a vision. the bad news is that vision is basically just a chart of numbers used to justify policy that is are extremely unpopular. i would argue, you guys are as political as i am, you have an ideological choice here, especially with the contribution of ryan. ryan is a objectionist, he's a libertarian guy that believes the wealthy people with sort of smarts and am box ambition should be given encouragement of

the way they are. we are encouraging the winners. we don't worry too much about the losers in society. the other side, you have a guy trained as a community organizer who cares deeply about people in trouble, who worries about the working poor, that haven't gotten a break in their life. it seems to me you're really getting a choice here, not an echo. >> well, i do think, yes, i hear you on that. i think there's going to be this bright choice, but i think ryan has a couple challenges here and i think that on one hand he is thought of as the sbree bral guy inside the party, sort of the conservative soul, the economic conservative soul of the republican party. and at the same time he's going to be making this argument, tackling entitlements, this is what you have to do to debt and all of these things. then he'll have the answer for, okay, you're asking for sacrifice on the social safety net. but you are not asking for sacrifice when it comes to tax cuts. and you were talking about, hey, it's time to do some tough

things on the lines of bole simpson, and he's spoken positively about bole simpson and voted against it. he has his own credibility issues he'll have to be careful about and sortd of explain now that he's on the national ticket and basically leading the republican party. >> let's take a look at the match-up for vice president now. he goes against what it looks like joe biden will net get the nod, pretty sure he'll be on the ticket. what do you think the debate is going to be like? he's a guy psychiatry cerebral against a guy that is not exactly a wonk or something else. >> i think biden is going to handle that. i think there's no question that paul ryan is going to know how to handle himself on the issues. he's a -- he's a guy that can put a laser focus on the economy and on the debt as what he's studied so much and as budget chairman, he really knows how to

argue it and take a punch. but can he sell some of these more dry coneian approaches to the broad audience out there and take some of the punches from biden on what chuck was just talking about, about tax cuts that affect positively the wealthy. not touching a defense spending by and large. and not even living up to his own pronouncements about what government should do in terms of investing and infrastructure. what romney talked about today, investing in job training and competitiveness, what should government be doing to try to help an economy along? because what you look at, what you see in the ryan budget is really an incredible contraction of government. and philosophically what you're talking about is the emphasis of the individual's vablt to prosper on his or her own and get the collective out of the way, get government out of the way. i mean, is he going to be able to make that sell with joe biden in the course of a debate?

and by the way, foreign policy is not an area he has experience on and he'll have to catch up in that. >> i noticed that. here's paul ryan speaking in manassas, virginia, along with mitt romney. >> let's just review things for a moment. let's see where things stand. you think the economy is heading in the right direction? >> no! >> you think we're getting our debt and deficit under control? >> no! >> you think the country is on the right track? >> no! >> you know why? >> yeah! >> because president obama is our president and he has put all of his policies in place and they are just not working. take a look at the results. we've had the worst recoverfully 70 years. we have the largest deficit in the biggest government since world war ii. one out of six americans are in poverty today, the highest rate in a generation. unemployment has been up 8% for

three years. and the president's answer to this is more crony capitalism, more corporate welfare, more so lynndrums. we don't think the secret to economic growth is politicians in washington and bureaucrats picking winners and losers in our economy. the secret to economic growth is letting people keep more of what they earn and letting small businesses grow and compete and keep jobs. you see, the president has shown us his aspirations for a government-centered society with a government-run economy. it's not working. it's never worked before. and so president obama is not going to be able to run the election on his record, because it's a terrible record. and he didn't change tune, he didn't moderate, he stayed hard

left. so what does he have left? not only nothing, he's going to divide the country to distract the country to try to win this election by default. hope and change has now become attack and blame. you know what? we are not going to fall for it. >> no! >> we are not going to fall nor for this kind of rhetoric that says to people that they are stuck in their station in life, victim of circumstances outside of their control and only the government is here to help them cope with it. you know what? that's not who we are, that's not the american idea, that's not the america we know and that's not the america we are going to have starting next year. [ cheers and applause ] >> somewhere out there on that horizon is the dream you have for yourself and for your children. above the discord and the delay

and the distractions of day, it's there. it's getting farther away because the president has given us policies that have put our nation on a path of debt, doubt, despair and decline. here's the good news. we don't have to put up with this. we can turn this thing around. we can get ourselves back on the right track. it's going to take leadership. it's going to mean that politicians have to think about the next generation instead of their next election. and it's going to take a person with experience in leadership. mitt romney in all the things he has done in his life, he's the kind of person who is made for this moment. he's the kind of man with the integrity, the experience that we need. when he ran bain he created

jobs, he turned around failing enterprises. he has firsthand experience that if you have built, started or run a small business, you did that! [ cheers and applause ] >> you remember the olympics? 1999? people have forgotten how ugly it had gotten for a moment. it was bloated, wasteful, corrupted, that sound familiar? when his country needed him, mitt romney answered the call and he saved the olympics and made us proud. >> usa! usa! usa! usa!

usa! usa! usa! usa! >> when he was governor of massachusetts, unemployment went down, the credit rating went up and household incomes increased. under president obama, unemployment has gone up, household incomes have gone down and the first time in our nation's history our credit was downgraded. the contrasts could not be more clear. and the choice could not be more clear. here is our commitment to you. you deserve to decide. you deserve to decide what kind of country we are going to have, what kind of people we are going to be. it is our obligation to give you our fellow citizens a choice of two futures. you're going to decide. because if we do this right and we reapply the principles that

built this country, we honor you by letting you decide the choice and the course of this country. we will get our country back on november the 6th. [ cheers and applause ] >> this takes special leadership. this takes courage. this takes our country coming together. and you know what? when we do this, we are going to get this done and we are going to do it because we have a man who is running for president who has the courage, the integrity, the honesty, the experience to put us back to work, to get us back on offense, to make us proud again, to reignite the american dream. ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the united states, mitt romney! [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you!

thank you so much. manassas, you are very kind to welcome us like this. this is a terrific welcome and a pretty clear indication that come november 6th virginia is going to vote for romney/ryan. we are going to take back the white house! now today -- today was a good day for me, i got to tell you. it was also a good day for america. we have taken the next step to restoring america's promise with paul ryan as our nominee for vice president! [ cheers and applause ] >> this is a man who i think you know pretty well. if you said one word about paul ryan, it would probably be leader. this is -- this is a man who

learned leadership young because leadership is a function of character and courage. as a young man, a high schooler, his dad died and he was forced to grow up quickly. he and his family came together and instilled in him were the kind of hard working ethics that are associated with the midwest of america. he carries those things in his heart. he's worked in washington over the past 14 years, but you know what? in his heard is still janesville, wisconsin, a small town still refines a great man like paul ryan. he didn't go there with ambition to become something big, he went there with ambition to accomplish something big. and he's taken -- he's taken our party and with his intellectual leadership has helped make sure we focus on values that we fight for things we believe in. sometimes our party has gone astray over the past years.

and paul ryan said, no, bring it home to the things we care about. make sure we care for our seniors, we care for our kids and we stop spending what we don't have. and, you know, washington is a place where a lot of people get by just throwing stones at one another. but he took a different approach. he tried to reach across the aisle with friends in our party and people on the other side of the aisle. he's one of those who realizes that honest people can have honest differences. so he's worked with democrats and republicans to work on major pieces of legislation that help people. right now there's one that he's put out there, you see, the president has put a plan on medicare. he cuts medicare, $700 billion through his obama care plan. what paul ryan and senator white

have done is to restore medicare, that's what our party will do. and this comes at a critical time. as you know, as paul just said to you, this is a critical time for america. you know that. when you have a country as prosperous as ours, but 23 million people are out of work or stopped working or are underemployed, you know something is wrong. you know you have a nation that invented public education and our kids are getting scores in the bottom third of the world. you know something's wrong. when you know a nation is prosperous as ours put together $16 trillion of debt passing on our burdens of our generation and the next generation, it is not just wrong, it is immoral for us to put out the obligations to our kids. [ cheers and applause ] >> candidate obama said he was

going to cut the cost for an arch average family by $2,00, has your premium gone down? has anybody here seen their premiums go down? >> no! >> as a matter of fact, the average family has seen their premiums go up by $2,500. a $5,000 difference in a nation with a medium income just about $50,000. think what that means. gasoline prices have doubled, these are credit call times in this country. and so you have a choice. america's going to have a choice. i think i know what you guys are going to do, right? >> yea! >> america's going to have a choice. they have seen the product of the obama plan. it's been executed over the last three-and-a-half years. it hasn't worked. middle income families are getting squeezed, people can't find work. we have a very different plan. we don't want america to become europe with high unemployment, high unemployment, no wage

growth, economic calamity at the doorks we want to restore the principles that made america the hope of the earth. and so we'll do this, we are going to do five things. five things that will get this economy going again. with more jobs and more take home pay. these five things. one, take advantage of our energy resources, oil, coal, gas, nuclear, renewable. get america energy independent. that's number one. number two, we need to make sure that our people have the skills to succeed, not just those in the workforce today, but also our kids. we will make sure that our schools are focused on the needs of our kids and the parents and the teachers and the teachers union is going to have to take a backseat. [ cheers and applause ] >> we want -- we want trade, that's number three. trade that works for america.

we want to open up new markets for our goods, particularly in latin america. but when people cheat in trade like china's treated, we are going to hold them accountable and call them on the carpet. we are going to stop unfair trade. so number one, energy, number two, skills, number three, trade. number four, we are going to finally do something politicians have talked about for years. and that is we are going to cut spending, cut the deficit and finally get us on track to a balanced budget! and one more. and one more. we are going to champion small business. we are going to help small business. [ cheers and applause ] >> we want low taxes for small business and regulators that encourage small business. by the way, there's a big cloud hanging over small business

today. you go ask them what they are worried about and one of the things they'll tell you is they are worried about the cost of health care because of obama care. we'll get rid of obama care and replace it with something that works for the american people. [ cheers and applause ] >> the other day -- the other day here in virginia, the president said something i just couldn't believe. i couldn't imagine he actually said it, you know? and i looked it up. he said, if you have a business, you didn't build that, someone else did that. i guess he thinks that government somehow should take responsibility for all the achievements of people in this country. i have a very different view. i believe america was founded on a principle of individuals pursuing happiness as they choose achieving and reaching

for accomplishment and excellence. so when a young person, when a young person makes the honor roll, i know it took a school bus to get them to school, but i don't give the bus driver credit for the honor roll. [ cheers and applause ] >> and i know if in your work you spend some extra time finding a way to do the things that other people perhaps can't do at that work site and you get a promotion, i know that to get to work you had to have a driver's license, but i don't give the person at the dmv the credit. i give the person who achieved that promotion the credit. now the president -- the president says that we are taking him out of context with that quote. yeah, go back and take a look at the whole speech.

if you want to get -- if you want to get a full dose of what the president believes, you watch that whole speech. he says in there if you're successful and you think it's because you're smart, well, lots of people are smart. if you think it's because you're working hard, it's because there are a lot of people working hard. i wondered where he was going with this argument. my own view is we welcome and celebrate people who work hard to improve their skills and reach for achievement. this is the nature of america. america was founded on a principal that our rights did not come from government, our rights came from the reecreator. [ cheers and applause ] >> and among those rights, among those rights were life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. in this country we're free to pursue happiness as we choose. and people striving and achieving are what make america the powerhouse that it is.

this is the nature of america. the president is changing into something which is government dominated, government e centric. lit not work in america, it will not work anywhere. what works here, what works around the world is free people pursuing their dreams. we want those dreamers here. we can establish our dreams! [ cheers and applause ] >> and so -- and so looking at that kind of record that the president has and contrasting it with our vision of optimism, bringing back a dynamic and powerful economy with more jobs and more take home pay, the president understandably has resorted to a very unusual campaign. and that is in some respects i think he disrespects the office by taking the campaign down to the very lowest point i can recall in my lifetime. we are going to have a very different view. the next vice president of the

united states and i are going to lay out a vision of hope and opportunity and progress and achievement and individual accomplishment. we are going to stand for america and we are going to win! [ cheers and applause ] >> i love this country. i love america. i know you love america. that's what brings you here. this is not about me, it is not about him, this is about america, the country we love. it's in trouble. it needs our help. we are going to take it back and make sure america remains the hope of the earth! thank you so much! ♪ >> that's, of course, mitt romney. obviously, well enthused by his selection today. he got a lot of juice in there, unusual for romney to show such brio is the right word for this. let's go back to david gregory, david, i have not seen this romney before. >> that's it.

look, this is rollout saturday. and it's a good one for mitt romney. he's happy with the day, it's a good day for his campaign. look, i talked to romney advisers in the past few days who said a window is opening here. it is a new look time, a way to restart this campaign. americans post olympics getting back to the fall, the end of summer, really going to start focusing on this choice. so there is now an important choice. romney is taking his campaign in a new direction, as you said, a more ideological direction with a clear contrast. and he's got the juice today. and you heard in paul ryan, i mean, you got to think romney's watching ryan thinking, hey, that's pretty good, why don't i try to do that? >> exactly what you thought david, right? he said, this kid is raising my game. he's not changing it, he's raising it. notice the teleprompters, guys. these guys were both speaking from the stump. i was impressed by that. >> ryan is going to go out there and is going to take the fight to president obama all around the country in some of the same places that joe biden is going

to be able to go to and appeal to working class voters, cat cat thick voters and beyond. he's going to reenergize the base. these are the things you want to pick. and it says a lot about romney and the kind of message he wanted to send. >> you know, chuck, i used to say that joe biden put the apos two see in obama, he made him a regular guy. he brought him down to the street corner level. the first time he was talking about a biography today, not his but ryan's. he is not comfortable talking about his birth and growing up in boarding school, but he really got into the story of paul ryan's coming up. >> well, how about the reverse? how about how well i thought paul ryan told mitt romney's story in a way that we have not heard anybody, mitt romney or anybody talking about mitt romney's biography in the olympics and so on.

it was very effective. you got a glimpse of what paul ryan's speech at the convention is going to sound like. but there's a couple of points, let's not get lost here. number one is the entire premise of the romney campaign for six months has been this is a referendum. this isn't going to be a choice election. well, they conceded the argument and said, no, the obama folks are right, it is a choice election. fine, we'll go that direction. we'll do it your way. so they made a concession and made a pivot in a relaunching in that direction. the second thing is, and i want to go back to the battleground now, yes, there's ways you look at this and there's help in the industrial midwest and the agricultural midwest. i think that ryan can help take wisconsin, which is a lean democratic state and make it a toss-up, but that's the best he can do. make he brings it over the finish line, maybe he doesn't. may help in iowa, but if you look at the battleground, i looked this up in the century cuss, the states older than the

national average, there are seven of them. three of them are in the battleground, florida, pennsylvania, new hampshire. of the states that are the youngest, the seven youngest states, none of them are in the battleground. because i do think ryan could appeal to younger voters who aren't as sensitive to the medicare issue. but when you look at florida, and i was surprised to see new hampshire on the list and pennsylvania, any hopes that republicans had they thought they were going to make pennsylvania in play, i think are completely gone when you look at it demographically as described. and florida is a challenge. florida is a bigger challenge today than it was yesterday for mitt romney. >> great work with you guys. david gregory and chuck todd. our congressman is the top democrat in the budget committee whose chairman is paul ryan. you work right next to this guy on every committee, you have to duke it out every day, what are the pluses and minuses of this guy as a politician who could be next vice president of the united states?

>> well, look chris, i get along very well with paul ryan personally. we work on the budget committee together, but i strongly disagree with his vision for the country. and i think this is sharpened the debate in a way that will help the president, because at the end of the day what mitt romney is demonstrating through this choice is that he wants to follow an economic agenda that's good for people like mitt romney. at the expense of the rest of the country. and if you look at the ryan/romney plan, that's what it does. and i don't think people want to go back to a souped up version of trickle-down bush economic policy. we tried that, it didn't work. the economy crashed. millions of people lost their jobs. why in the world would we want to go back to something like that? >> let's talk about the reality in life. you have constituent services on one of your constituents obviously, i live in the district, but older people when they get past 65, not just young retirees but old retirees come to the pen tremendously on

medicare for long-term care. i'm just wondering what you think will happen if the government all of a sudden says you don't get medicare, you get a voucher and have to buy an insurance policy. some 78-year-old person or couple, how are they going to deal with that when they realize it doesn't cover everything? >> well, they are not going to be able to deal with it because that's a violation of the social contract. let's be very clear, if you pass the ryan/romney plan, some things happen right away, immediately. they reopen the prescription drug donut hole we closed as part of the affordable care act. they now say if you want preventive health services, you have to pay more. that's what happens right now. then when the voucher plan kicks in, you're going to have seniors whose median income is $23,000. having to pick up that burden, the extra costs, while their plan is giving these big tax breaks to the very wealthy. i mean, that is a plan that is going to be unacceptable to the country. >> here's a tough one for the

democrats. i think everything you said is obviously true and i believe in it, but here's one tricky point. we have the proudest point in the nbc/wall street journal poll, it's our question, do you think the country is going in the right direction, wrong direction? what these two guys are offering is a wrong direction? how can you sell if you're obama and biden the same direction we are on right now when only about 30-some percent of people think it's the right direction? how do you do sna? >> first of all, the american people are fair. they understand that the president inherited an economy that was in total freefall and i think they also recognize that we've seen dramatic improvement. after all, we've gone from losing 800,000 jobs per month to more than 25 consecutive months of positive private sector job growth. now, are we where we want to be? no, but i don't think the american people want to go back to that set of policies that tanked the economy to begin with. and if you listen to romney and ryan, and if you look at the republican plan, it's just a

souped up version of the bush trickle-down theory. if you look at their plan, chris, they don't ask one penny more from folks making a million dollars a year to help reduce our deaf set. how do they reduce the deficit in they sock it to everybody else. they sock it to seniors on medicare and medicaid. they cut education. they cut investments in our infrastructure and things needed to help the economy grow and be competitive. again, ask nothing of the folks like mitt romney, but ask everything of the rest of the country. >> you have a unique perspective, not only are you a leading democrat in this country, you sit next to this guy with a totally different philosophy. what does he say when he comes out with the budget, he gives a break to the richest people in the country and really screws people who desperately need programs like that. when you ask him, how can you do this and reward rich people with all the breaks in this country and hurt the people with no breaks, what does he say? what's his answer? >> well, chris, i have to say i have not heard a good answer.

that's what this campaign is going to be about. look, there's a reason that, you know, romney picked ryan so that he will excite the tea party/right wing base. i think there's no doubt it will energize that base, but for independent century tryst voters, i think this decision says you guys take a hike. we are not interested in compromise. we are not interested in balance. we are interested in its our way or the highway-type of budget plan that we have seen from house republicans in general. so for those folks who are looking for solutions and a balanced result, i don't think this does it for romney. >> i would like to see you debate this guy. it would be great on television. thank you, chris, from maryland. up next, we'll break down the ryan plan and talk about what this guy speaks from, not just on the stump, which was pretty good today. but what's he going to do on television? we'll find out the stakes in this campaign right now when we

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i'm proud to stand with a man who understands what it takes to foster job creation in our economy. someone who knows from experience that if you have a small business, you did build that! >> welcome back to "hardball." that was vice presidential candidate ryan. now the democrats are a clear target themselves. joining me no talk about the paul ryan budget is ezra klein, also the msnbc contributor. ezra, you are one of the smartest guys around. i just want to suggest something before we get into numbers here. paul ryan is one of those kids, a young guy, still 42. back when he was 20 or so he read "the fountain head." we all loved it but grew up that not everybody is a winner, not everyone gets great breaks in life. you have to lookout for that in a wide society with all kinds of breaks and people with no breaks. he seems to be that young 20-year-old who just ran for the first time. a complete objectionist, there's not a word in that speech about

helping people, it is just about not doing anything basically and leaving them alone. >> i would say ryan is an unusually committed ideological politician. i find it somewhat pleasant. but to each their own. i do the budget work. >> okay, let's talk about this. you point out effectively in the last few weeks in your column if you look at romney's plan basically, you're going to raise the tax of the middle class person watching television right now. the average person has to go up because the total number of loopholes that romney promises to close, even if you put them all at the top, there's not enough loopholes to close to make up for the 20% cut in taxes at the top, which is so wonderful for those people that get such a a tremendous break because they're paying 35% now, take a fifth off that, they only pay 28%. that's a huge amount of money going right to the rich. and you can't make up for that closing loopholes, even at the top. you made that point. now the ryan plan. what is that? >> the ryan plan, it is

important to realize the ryan plan goes much further on taxes than the romney plan. so ryan, one thing he would do that romney has not talked about doing is zero out the capital gains tax. you would take mitt romney, this is a problem for the ticket, if the ryan plan passed tomorrow, mitt romney would pay effectively about a zero percent tax record, federal income tax rate, because he just wouldn't be paying, he pays most of his money capital gains and it wouldn't exist anymore. >> no rate at all. you're sitting there, if you're a coupon clipper, someone sitting around a ton of money you inherited perhaps or from your husband or wife or whatever, and you're just sitting on money and just collecting money, dividends, interest, et cetera, there would be no tax. >> right. so right now we tax that money, investment income at half the rate we tax normal earned income. that would go away under ryan's plan. it wouldn't go away under romney's plan but it would go away under ryan's plan. >> what's the marital way going to be? going toward capital gains and giving a bigger break to the

rich? >> romney says he opposes that. in one of the debates herman cain suggested something similar, but he opposes that. ryan's tax is going to cost about 4 to 5 trillion over ten years, that's after you pay for extending the bush tax cuts which nobody explained how you pay for in the first place. now you're dealing with 5 to 10 trillion or 5 to 9 trillion in tax breaks. ryan doesn't do as much on medicare at this point as people think he does. he softened that in the second it ration of his budget and decreases defense spending. so this money is coming out of the hide of the poor. he does domestic cuts in the first ten years. his budget cuts about $750 billion off medicaid. >> would you tell your grandma to vote for this guy? >> i don't tell my grandma how to vote, she's a strong woman. >> if she asks for advice? >> i'm a journalist, i don't tell people how to vote. >> if you tell a senior in their early 70s, they ask your advice what would the candidates hurt them with, what would you say?

>> in their early 70s, this is important because that's why he ends up taking a hit out of the poor, they do not touch folks over 55 that much. they have kept current beneficiary promises alone. that means if you're increasing defense spending, cutting taxes and you're leaving a i alone this generation of seniors, the only major expenditure of the federal government you can take your money out of all of that to pay for all that and the deficit reduction is the poor. that's why his medicaid cuts are so dramatic, the housing subsidy cuts are dramatic. frankly why i don't think the math of the plan would end up working if he had to specify how to pay for his tax cuts, i don't think it would work. >> the people he doesn't expect to vote for him won't. thank you. is romney a game changer or a game raise her? we'll have the author of game change here with melissa harris perry both coming here in this special edition of "hardball." the place for politics. asn't ea.

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welcome back to "hardball." i have john here and melissa harris perry. i think the question i want to ask you about is this a game change question, is it? >> yeah. well, i think it is in this sense. it's not a hail mary pass in the way that the hail was, but to

the point that chuck made earlier on the show, there were two different frames for this election. the frame for the romney campaign was it is a pure referendum on obama about his economic management stewardship, jobs, growth, wages, all that stuff. that was what they wanted to run on. the obama campaign said, this is a choice election that will be about two contrasting sets of values and divisions. what the romney campaign is admitting here is their strategy is not working. if their strategy was working you would ha seen rob portman or tim pawlenty. this strategy they have accepted it is a choice election and doubled down on let's do a big contrast here between one view of the world and another view of the world. one view of the world government and another view of the world government. and the no longer about the economy, it is about the deficit, indictments and taxes. those issues were secondary until today. now they are front and center. >> we are just not obama. now they offer a new brand, ideological right wing. that's the big change today. >> of course, as you well know,

the brilliance of the palin pick was the timing coming off the dnc convention, which was a perfect convention in many ways that didn't do the falling apart people thought after the obama/clinton primaries. now president obama gave an extraordinary smeech and then overnight they changed the media discourse, right? so it fell apart, but the truth is had the election been held at the end of september, beginning of october, even with the mccain/palin ticket they might have won. the problem on timing here is i think this might be a premature vp moment, and only in this sense. you are absolutely right as you said earlier. you see romney, like, on fire in a way you have never seen before. but this guy is not some newcome tore the political spectrum? this guy has a way of being. and he's going to go back to that way of being. and i do think there's a little premature vp there. >> this obama ad for america has released an ad hitting the obama team already.

let's take a look. >> the guy put on a very comprehensive plan rewriting the health care system. medicare or social security, our entire tax system. >> the cuts in here are so dramatic they are so painful. >> it gives a 4.3 trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthiest in this country. >> so mitt romney became president of the united states, you're convince head would follow through with a lot of reproductions you would make. >> yes. ♪ >> one question i raised before. this issue of direction. the american people know the economy needs something really different done to it. we are not getting anywhere right now. the direction in our polling shows 31% of people think we are in the right direction. how does obama defend the direction we are in right now against a guy who says i have a new direction to you. >> he points to specifics in the plan. just to what melissa said a

minute ago, i think the obama campaign is e lighted. they are now playing on the obama campaign's turf. the argument is when they go out and do polling and focus grouping on what's in the ryan budget, it is bad for -- before this guy was on the ticket, their attitude was we are going to wrap paul ryan around mitt romney anyway because what they see in swing districts is the way the ryan plan attacks or extensively hurts the elderly, hurts working class families, the working poor. they think that's a gift to them. and this -- they look at this and say, this is from heaven in our perspective. obama couldn't be happier with this pick. >> both sides seem to be happy. let me tell you about the e lucid polling, lately they have been going to obama. the inattentive voter out there, are they going to hear more they like from the romney team now or more from the obama team? >> this is a base shoring up

decision. this is about shoring up the base, but here's the one thing they have going. this guy has a 54% i have never heard of him rate, right? the one thing about that, and the thing i said about president obama when he was a senator running against senator clinton, when you have a large group of people who don't know you yet, then you can have a campaign. when people already know they like you or don't like you, there's no room for a campaign. that's where mitt romney is having running for president for so long. >> he's got a lot of unknowns out there. >> that's right. but this room is the room for a campaign. i think that's part of the value. my concern here if you're ryan, right, is that this is a guy who is great in retail politics. he's great on the ground in wisconsin, people like him. but can he translate to -- >> i like that debate. thank you to tom and melissa harris perry. much more to come on this edition of "hardball." you're watching this on msnbc, the place for politics. [ male announcer ] it's a golden opportunity...

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