what time is it? >> it's "morning joe." for all of these years going late to chuck, we'll give him a few extra seconds. take it away. >> thank you, chuck. >> it's a full scramble. our new "wall street journal" poll reveals the state of the race preconvention showing president obama holding steady. not much of a paul ryan bump. the headline may be the republican brand is an akin. can mitt romney shrug that off and turn it around at his convention? not helping, a defiant congressman akin says he's not going anywhere after two days of noisy pressure to get him to drop out. republicans want the mess to go away for a while but akin will not be ignored. he's doing the morning talk shows. this morning we do the math and show you just how damaging this week has been for republican chances of taking back control of the senate. plus, more storms looming. no. not political ones. actual ones before the tampa convention. isaac zeroing in on florida.

will likely gain hurricane strength the weekend before the convention starts. hurricane disrupted a convention held in minnesota four years ago. do you think a hurricane can disrupt the convention actually being held in florida if it hits florida? good morning from new york. it's wednesday, august 22nd, 2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. busy first reads of the morning, first deadline for congressman akin to resign has passed. akin is still on the ballot and no plans to exit the race. this morning on the "today" show, he responded to the outrage and apologized again. >> legitimate does not -- should not be in the context of rape at all. that's completely wrong and what i understood i had been offensive to people and that i had misspoke, i first off

apologized. while i apologized for the misuse of that word, at the same time i don't apologize for the fact that i am strong in my belief of pro-life. >> in an interview taped midday tuesday with nbc's reno affiliate, mitt romney condemned akin but did not make an outright demand that he step down. >> i have indicated that's a decision he is going to have to make but i also indicated i can't defend what he said and i cannot defend his candidacy. >> that was early in the day yesterday. as a defiant akin showed he had no plans to quit, the romney thinking changed. romney then issued the following statement. "today his fellow missourians urged him to step aside and i think he should accept their counsel and exit the senate race." akin fired back at romney. >> if you were in romney's position, don't you think that he may have bid this thing up and made a bigger deal about it than he needed to?

why couldn't he run his race and i run mine? >> the hammer came down on akin particularly hard from those senate republicans who have seen their chance to regain control of the senate come into real jeopardy. senator john mccain went so far as to call akin an indiot. >> this guy should drop out. very seldom does anything a politician say surprise me. he astounded me. >> when the future of our country is at stake, sorry is not sufficient says mitch mcconnell. the national republican senatorial committee issued another statement. there should be no mistake if he continues with misguided campaign it will be without the support and resources of the nrsc. akin responded to those party leaders on the "today" show. >> a number of us ran for the u.s. senate. we took our messages to the people of the state of missouri. they had an opportunity to hear us on repeated occasions.

my message was one of standing in principle and not politics. the people of the state of missouri elected me. so this was a decision made by the citizens of our state and not by party bosses. >> what does that mean for republicans hoping to take control of the senate? let's break it down. republicans need a net four seats if the president wins re-election. three if romney wins to take control of the senate. let's look at the map, folks. before the akin debacle, republicans believed ten democratic seats were in play in order of best pickup opportunities, nebraska, missouri, north dakota, montana, wisconsin, virginia, florida, ohio, new mexico and hawaii. of their ten targets, they believe that because of the presidential ballot, they were favored in the first four including missouri. assuming they could hold their vulnerable republican seats, a big assumption, maine, new jersey, nevada, arizona, could

be enough to regain control. however, start peeling away everything now. you have the issue in maine. that's likely going to king. that means the number is now five or four if romney wins. you have the elizabeth warren candidacy. obviously a ton of money. there's been polling. dead even race. obviously that's a coin flip. if that goes, then suddenly it's five or six. start going down that lineup. you take away missouri, the only sure bet is nebraska. after that they've got to sweep a whole bunch of tossups, montana, north dakota, virginia, florida, they got to somehow hope they make a comeback with new mexico and they got to try to put ohio in play. you'll see -- watch this. watch a lot of the outside money that was designated for missouri to either go to ohio or maybe michigan. the republicans got to figure out how to expand their playing field because they are playing defense in a few areas. now the entire todd akin story is a mess for the republican

party. consider this is the story just days before the republican convention. it draws attention to the republican platform on abortion which has been the same for nearly 12 years. mitt romney tried to distance himself from that plank yesterday. >> i made it very clear i'm pro-life. but i believe there should be exceptions in the case of rape and incest and when the life of the mother is at stake and those circumstances i think abortion may be appropriate. >> interestingly, one of the critici criticisms akin made of romney, i agree with. the romney campaign helped drive the akin story, if you will, over the past two days. now the campaign needs the story to disappear. romney is reeling from a double digit gender gap and it doesn't help him when akin is telling conservative radio that women lie about get raped to get abortions. that's what he said yesterday. comments he was asked about on the "today" show this morning. >> do you believe that many

women -- i don't mean just a few, but many women lie about being raped to gain access to abortions? >> well, i don't believe that's the case. that was as i said the comments were misspoken. particularly on the word legitimate. >> again, that was a sprieparat set of comments he made. they sent out this e-mail from a supporter and women's right advocate, sandra fluke. mitt romney and paul ryan tried to distance themselves from the remark but the fact is they're in lock step with akin on the major women's health issues of our time. the uproar over todd akin's comments highlights the issues with the republican plan.

mitt romney is saddled with a republican brand that is approaching the worst rating ever. the image of the democratic party is slightly better. it's not great. it's better than where the republicans are. 42% viewing the party positively. 40% negatively. problem for gop is that it knew the republican brand has been upside down in every poll we've conducted since december 2010 and negative views for romney are as big a challenge as the struggling economy is as a burden for the president. romney hoped his choice of paul ryan as a running mate would offer a clean slate and a chance to shake up the campaign. >> i guess you think i made the right decision. the right choice. [ applause ] i know i did. >> but the ryan pick hasn't given the romney the bump they hoped for. president leads romney by four points. 48-44. a small change from a month ago when obama was up 49-43.

only silver lining for the romney campaign in this poll is in battleground states. romney closed the gap. he trails obama by only three points 49-46. last month romney was behind by eight points. three straight months in our battleground state demographic it was an eight-point gap there. overall just 22% say the choice of ryan makes it more likely to select romney. there are two ways to look at the race. the president's numbers are not budging and pessimistic views about the economy are baked in. president's approval isn't moving either. stuck in those high 40s. 48% in this one. and only 31% of voters less than a third of the country believe the country is better off than it was when obama became president. 42% said the country is worse off. the worst say no change. all of this should spell doom for the president. except the president is not trailing. so why is he ahead?

here's another reason. he's beating romney in what i call the gut check questions. more on the poll in just a few minutes with our pollsters and take you through it but it's this who cares about average people, things like that. we'll go into detail in a minute. ever since romney picked ryan the campaign trail has been all about medicare by the way and there are a couple red flags for the romney campaign in our poll of the people in our poll who had an opinion of the ryan plan for medicare, this is the first plan that he had, that idea beat good idea two to one. half of the folks polled had no opinion and could be persuaded. on the question of who can better deal with issues relating to seniors, president obama has a double digit lead over romney. hoping to narrow that gap, the romney campaign has a new ad out today that hits the president on health care. >> some think obama care is the same as free health care. nothing is free. obama is raiding $716 billion from medicare changing the program forever.

taxing wheelchairs and pacemakers. the romney/ryan plan will restore medicare funding and protect and strengthen the program. >> as everyone gets ready to go back to school, the president's campaign is shifting focus to the other end of the spectrum in an attempt to target young voters and their parents and try to get some enthusiasm there that they've been missing with an ad that hits romney on education. in reno, the president hammered romney on the cost of higher education. >> here's what he said. the best thing i can do for you is to tell you to shop around. to shop around. so this is his plan. that's his answer to a young person hoping to go to college. shop around. borrow money from your parents if you have to. >> make no mistake, the president's campaign knows they have issues with young voters and trying to regain enthusiasm of four years ago. romney is in iowa. vice president biden campaigns

in detroit and paul ryan hits virginia and north carolina. ryan seems to be enjoying his traditional running mate role of attack dog. check out the jab at the president when he was in pennsylvania on tuesday. >> hey, i am a catholic deer hunter. i'm happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion. >> and then there was this more serious assertion last night. >> i've had to vote to send men and women to war on more than one occasion. i've been to those funerals. i've talked to widows and parents. i've gone to afghanistan and iraq to meet with our troops to learn from them. obviously i have a lot more experience than barack obama did when he became president. >> interesting assertion there. for his part vice president biden did little to define the rhetoric and tone of the campaign with this in minnesota. >> over the objections with a squealing pitch, over the objections of romney in all his

allies, we passed some of the toughest wall street regulations in history. >> he's gone to squealing pigs. he was more careful when he stopped by a football practice in minneapolis and he previewed his plans to crash the republican convention next week. >> are you going to be in florida? i'm the speaker at the convention. i'll be down there. >> as you know, we think he's actually going to be touring disaster preparations in the state of florida. investors will hunt for clues when the minutes from the fed july policy meeting are released today. is more easing ahead? let's get to the market rundown earlier than normal. becky quick is here. there is still only one qe-2 in the world. queen elizabeth ii. will there be a qe-3? >> that's the big question. that's what wall street is sitting and waiting for. if you look at the futures, indicated flat and maybe

slightly lower. we'll get answers to this come 2:00 when we get the minutes from the last fed meeting and what wall street really wants to see are the details of who is arguing back and forth. we know a lot of voting members are split. we know there's been a lot of discussion. individual members have come out and made their thoughts clear. you have hawks and you have doves on the board. when we get a look at this we'll get a feel for how the balance plays out among voting members but what discussions are taking place as to how exactly a qe-3 would come about. how would quantitative easing come about? will they buy more mortgages or do other things along those lines? we're waiting to hear this because we have seen better economic news since that date. that's why people are wondering if these minutes are going to tell us the reality of what's happening right now. the biggest thing is trying to figure out which members want what and how that argument plays out. we'll get those thoughts later this afternoon. until that point the market is probably not going to make major

moves. >> these are-month-old thoughts? >> they are month old thoughts. >> important point. becky quick, always great to talk to you, my friend. developing now, look at this, folks. live pictures vice presidential candidate paul ryan is campaigning in roanoke, virginia. as we told you, ryan is campaigning in virginia and north carolina today. next, we're digging deeper into the new "wall street journal" poll with our pollsters and those intangibles that are making it tough for romney at the top of the ticket and one thing everyone can agree on. congress has united america. everybody hates capitol hill apparently. we'll show you the one answer about congress that actually really surprised us. still to come, secret service agents arrest an armed man accused of threatening the president. we'll tell you where that happened. first, a look ahead at the schedules. here's president obama's schedule and mitt romney's schedule. president wakes up in vegas. don't think tmz is there tracking him like they did

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the final preconvention poll, here's where things stand heading into the conventions. mitt romney has some work to do to repair his image and the party's image. the president's approval which mirrors the test, four points, 48-44. is that a gap that romney can close? joining me now, republican pollster and a democratic pollster. two halves of our polling team.

welcome, gentleman. bill, let me start with you. we were having this conversation yesterday on our conference call discussing the results. 48-44. you say in a senate or governor's race this would be a coin flip election. are presidential elections different from the way senate and gubernatorial elections move at the end? >> i think presidential elections are more like a governor's race. there's a rhythm to a campaign. in the last moment of october, people take a long pause and say are we really going to give this person another four years? and we have 15% of this poll that is up for grabs. those voters tell us almost eight out of ten they think the president is on the wrong track. what we know over time is if you think the country is on the wrong track, they disapprove of the job that obama has done and disapprove as economic reform,

they don't break equally. they break heavily toward a challenger and it becomes a coin flip election. >> fred yang, this was the argument that many democratic pollsters said on the john kerry campaign back in 2004. >> i agree with bill. when you look through the data, it will be a very close election. as bill mentioned, some of the structural questions in the poll, right direction, wrong track, state of the economy, it's a tough environment for the president, for any incumbent. there is news in here that suggests maybe one reason why the president still maintains a lead is there are certain opportunities that romney hasn't taken advantage of. for example, if this election is about the economy, it should be disconcerting that he hasn't improved this mark that much being able to handle the economy. >> i want to go through things. i'm going to go through fast. bill, let me start with you. the ryan bump. i'm putting up a comparison.

paul ryan more likely, less likely on helping romney and comparing it for palin, biden, edwards, lieberman and cheney. all of the other ones i mentioned added a plus factor to that nominee when they were named. paul ryan did not. what do you explain -- why do you think that's the case? >> here's what he added. if you look at mitt romney's personal feeling thermometer of republicans, it's the highest it's ever been at 74% positive. republicans have an intensity advance in ter advantage. we are watching the ryan pick excite the republican base and i think that's the positive contribution he's made. i also think that we have this 20-year historic model. i admire. we're in a campaign today where $500 million has already been spent on tv. i think our historic comparisons have to be washed away in all of

this campaign spending. >> i'm with you on this, bill. fred, do you believe days of bounce s considering where we ae in the campaign and how well defined the campaign apparatus is, those days are gone? >> if you have a bounce for more than 30 minutes, you've done a good job. i think in terms of the ryan pick, it's late august and the ryan pick did help mitt romney energize the republican base. >> we'll go through a couple things. we tested 15 traits between obama and romney. obama led on 12 of them. eight of them he led by double digits. bill, the one that jumped at me, 22 points about caring about average people. would the president take that over losing by single digits to mitt romney when it comes to the economy? >> no. i went back and looked at all of these attributes over all of our polling, what you find is the biggest single predictor is how

well and how close campaigns are based on who can handle the economy. we're an economy election. i'm not saying romney has a lot of terrain. the terrain he has which is better ideas for the economy and make changes in washington out of all of that list, that's the terrain you want in this cycle. i think again, fred and i look at the same data. we see things the same way. i think in terms of the individual rating for confidence for running the economy, i wish that were stronger. that's what he has to accomplish. i think from kind of what we know, that advantage romney has in terms of who is better with the economy is a big deal. >> fred, it is. romney leads on three issues but if you could pick three wouldn't you pick improve the economy, executive experience and changing business as usual in washington? >> of course. i think bill and i read the polls the same and come to the same interpretations. the president needs to be doing

better versus mitt romney on the economy. that's probably the biggest challenge for the president. biggest challenge for mitt romney in this poll, only 27% of americans as bill referred to are confident that mitt romney, the former businessman, has what it takes to improve the economy. that's his challenge. he hasn't really solidified that himself despite campaigning for more than a year. >> very quickly. 82% disapprove of the job congress is doing. democrats lead by five points on the ballot test. i think the number that told me the most was 43% said their member deserves to be re-elected. it's the highest that number has been in our poll since 2004. they hate congress but they're going to reelect this congress, aren't they? >> i think there will be incumbents who will lose in the primary but the structure of the house race given the new congressional districts still

favors the republicans and we know how many points it takes to throw out a congressional majority. this is not enough margin for democrats to in this poll to be having a conversation that's going to happen. >> fred, are you prepared to say publicly it's out of reach for the democrats? >> ask me on november 7th. i think we're going to get some gains in the house. how much obviously is an open question. it is interesting the reelect is higher. i don't want to do too much from the past couple days. this is an economy election. the republican party is talking about abortion. >> anything other than the economy. >> and another thing i agree with bill. there's a long way to go between now and late october. >> all right. i got to leave it there. a great poll to dig into, folks. we put the whole thing online. you know we do that. we'll have more later. we have nbc news poll coming later today. up next, it's not just todd akin

making waves. ahead of the republican national convention, i'm packing up my weather gear. first, today's trivia question. a scientific analysis of the supreme court justice's remarks during oral arguments concluded that scalia is the funniest justice. who is the least funny? stie scientifically of course. coming up, we have time to make up. i'm talking faster. bye-bye. for fastidious librarian emily skinner, each day was fueled by thorough preparation for events to come. well somewhere along the way, emily went right on living. but you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality. ...which meant she continued to have the means to live on... ...even at the ripe old age of 187. life well planned.

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months. it took nine years to get to the first 1,000 casualties. the sudden rise in casualties happened soon after president obama sent a surge of troops in the country to intensify u.s. and nato led fighting. the troops are now beginning to withdrawal ahead of the deadline. a washington state man is in police custody after making threats against president obama. the 31 year old is under investigation for sending threatening e-mails to a general purpose fbi e-mail address and for assaulting a federal officer. the secret service has not said what exactly he wrote in the e-mails but that it was a threat to kill the president. he's scheduled to appear in federal court today. and finally, as convention attendees prep and prep for the rnc convention, they should consider taking batteries and rain boots. isaac could make landfall in florida.

convention organizers knew it was a possibility and do have backup plans for a worst case scenario. it's hard to know if the storm will take a direct hit. if it does, it will be the first hurricane to directly hit tampa if it did that in 90 years. the likelihood of it hitting florida is very high. is there bad blood between the justices on the supreme court and what does justice scalia think about chief justice roberts changing his vote on health care? pete williams in is one-on-one interview coming up. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. there are projects.

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because he has a new book out that he hopes will guide judges and lawyers on how to interpret the law. pete williams sat down with him to talk about his judicial philosophy and how his colleagues manage to get along even after strongly disagreeing with one another like this year. >> should a judge do his or her job dispassionately, that is to say without passion? >> no. i wouldn't put it that way. should do it impartially. no. i care passionately about the right and the wrong way to decide a case. you should not let your passion distort your intellect but there's no sin in caring passionately about doing the right thing. >> not surprising that you knew where i was headed with that question. many of your opinions are full of passion, wouldn't you say?

>> yeah. there are some mistakes that one should feel passionately about. mostly my dissenting opinions you are talking about. yes. i care very much about changes to the constitution that are simply not justified. >> can you explain something that many people don't understand. you nine are together for an awfully long time and sometimes some pretty harsh things are said in dissents especially about how wrong you think your colleague is. how is it that you're able to zing someone especially your dear friend and be pals and go to the opera. >> because the next day she'll be zinging me. it's equal opportunity zingers. no. i care passionately about the ideas. i don't translate that into hostility toward the people who are expounding those ideas. and if you cannot do the one

without the other, you ought to look for another job. it's a very unhappy place if you're personally antagonistic to people you disagree with. >> are you concerned when you hear reports such as the one after the health care ruling that the court's conservatives were upset with the chief justice? >> was i upset by it? >> concerned to hear that sort of thing. >> i'm surprised anybody believed it. when you hear anything about the inter workings of the court, you know that one of two things is true. either it's a lie and it's easy to pull off that lie because the tradition is we don't respond. we're not going to write letters to the editor. or number two, if it isn't a lie, it is a betrayal of confidence by someone probably a lawyer and hence an ethical

violation in which case you're talking about a person who is not reliable so why should you believe it? either way, it's not worthy of credence. >> what you said earlier applies that grudges are not held around here? >> that's absolutely true. absolutely true. >> there was some question about whether it's proper for a justice having initially voted one way to change his or her mind before the opinion comes out. have you ever done that yourself? >> i have not only done that, identify been assigned to write an opinion and have found that it wouldn't write. so i have written it the other way, coming the other way, persuading my colleagues that that was the right approach. >> anything wrong with that? >> nothing wrong with it, no. the opposite would be wrong. if at the time you release the opinion you think it's wrong,

that is wrong. it seems to me at the time it's released you have to believe in its correctness. >> your colleagues accepts here justice scalia going one way and oops, i think it should come out the other way? >> it happens. it happens. >> you sound like you are enjoying what you do. >> i'm not doing it for the money. i'm very much enjoying what i do. i don't know what i would do otherwise. i suppose i would go back to teaching. this is a wonderful job. i like thinking about the law. i like figuring out the right answer to legal problems. it's sort of a top of the heap for a lawyer who has those interests. >> sort of? it is, isn't it? >> very probably is. >> you intend to keep on doing it?

>> as long as i think i'm doing it well. at the moment when i think i've lost a step, i think that's true for all of us on the supreme court. the people that get there take pride in their work and i'm the senior associate justice so i've sat with a lot of justices who have left the court and there's not one of them that left the court too late. they all left when they thought the work was getting a little bit beyond them. >> what's it like to sit in that seat right next to the chief and be the senior associate now? does it feel different? >> being the senior associate -- i'm introduced now as the senior. i feel like i ought to come in with a walker all the time. it was a big deal for john paul stevens because the senior associate justice, the only thing that goes with the title is that when the chief is in

dissent, it's the senior associate justice who assigns the opinion or writes it himself. so if you disagree with the chief a lot as john paul stevens did, it's a big plum. you get to write a lot of important opinions or assign them. he don't disagree with the chief that much. if it wasn't for the honor of the thing, i would rather not be introduced as the senior associate justice. >> thank you very much for your time. >> i enjoyed it very much. thank you. >> joining me now with more on his interview with justice scalia is nbc justice correspondent pete williams. did you ever start writing an opinion of a dissent and go the other way. i wonder where this came from with the speculation about chief justice roberts and health care. >> he knew what i was asking. >> he knew what you were up to. unusually busy term. what's going to come in the next one? >> affirmative action, possibly gay marriage, possibly a review

of the voting rights act. it's going to be a big term next term. i should say one thing about the interview. the reason he did it is because he has this new book out called "reading the law." what he told me is there are hundreds of judicial cannons. things that guide justices in their work. for 100 years or so there's never been a book like this collecting them all. he gives a point of view about the way he believe it is should be done and describes himself as a textulist meaning they should be guided by the bear next and not by what history is. you can see the whole interview at www.nightlynews.com. >> always fascinating. very engaging. pete williams, thank you, sir. >> my pleasure. >> the political panel joins me next to discuss the fallout from the congressman's defiant decision. first, soup of the day,

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nancy, i saw these photos. the clips will make their way around. paul ryan specifically did not answer the question about whether there should or should not be an exception for rape and incest for abortions. >> he has a long record as does now as we know the republican party platform about no exceptions. i think what's ironic about this is this is the flip side of the problem liberals have had about majority of americans, 61%, believe that abortion should be illegal in most circumstances. the exception is rape and insist. that's not where ryan has been and that's front and center. i think because of romney's position allowing for that exception and because of the akin scanneddal, he has had to move. >> he says i disagree with the top of the ticket but the top of the ticket sets the policy. >> an odd quirk of wisconsin law, paul ryan is running for re-election to congress at the

same time. he has to satisfy positions he took in a local race with his new national position. he has to do both on the same day in the same election. >> he was asked specifically about the rape issue. he said this. "his statements were outrageous, over the pale. i don't know anybody that would agree with that. rape is rape period. end of story." the fact of the matter is we are five days before the republican convention and having a discussion about rape and abortion. >> what's fascinating is the polite version of what akin was trying to say was forceable rain or so we assume. we don't have a good answer from these guys as to what that means. we're having this whole deep conversation about forceable rape and what they met by that bill and no one will answer the question about it. >> i think a lot of this feeds into this issue of the republican party's brand.

it has been underwater. i have this theory that it why isn't mitt romney ahead considering the economy? because the republican party is viewed negatively by the country right now and romney hasn't separated himself enough. >> which is ironic since he's come through this long primary season where he really had to get to get to know and sell himself and make the case for a party. >> to know and sell himself to the republican party. >> and now he has to sell himself to a larger american public and obviously swing voters. this is a real challenge and a problem for a party. if people getting to know you better makes them like you less. this is why the akin debate is a problem. this is a main stream republican opinion which has become front and center. this is not what they wanted to be talking about. >> i'm having flash backs to when pat buchanan's monday speech at the houston convention in 1992 sort of defined the republican party in a way and it really set back bush 41 and really sort of over shadowed everything, was very -- the culture value speech, akin is

almost serving as this same role as buchanan did, sort of right as the party is trying to present itself to the public, bringing it in a way they don't want to. >> here is the difference. 20 years later there is virtually no undecided vote at this point and i agree with your pollster earlier. look, the president of the united states is probable y the best known person in the world. he has a hundred percent name recognition. you have to assume the six odd percent of undecided voters still out there are going to go other way and the republicans have to give them permission to take that step. that is really what all of this fuss is about. >> nick, look. they are trying -- they're trying to prevent not only akins but other people who might share his opinion are not getting primetime. >> he doesn't want a pat buchanan primetime but a tax on the economy and jobs and things they want to talk about. it is fascinating. in campaigns past when they wanted to talk about cultural issues, i can't remember a big conversation about forcible rape. now it's all economy, economy.

they can't stop talking about cultural issues. >> unbelievable. all right. stick around, guys. trivia time. the scientific analysis of supreme court justices' remarks during arguments conclude ed antonin scalia was the funniest justice. we asked who was the least funny. clarence thomas. his remarks prompted zero laughs. all right. do you have a political trivia question you think should be on the show? e-mail us. [ "the odd couple" theme playing ] humans. even when we cross our "t"s and dot our "i"s, we still run into problems --

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let's bring back our panel. nick, harold, and nancy. look, i've been saying that how do you explain the president's lead and it's all in these gut check questions. one we were just talking about during the break is this issue in the main stream out of step. nick, you were struck by the fact that a majority, the president has 54% saying he is in the main stream.

44% calling him out of step. for mitt romney, it's a majority that says he's out of step at 51%. to me it's sort of you're trying to have an explanation why is the president ahead. questions like this explain. >> it's fascinating given that, you know, on the right these charges of socialism, kenyan, unamerican, you know, the birthers. that has still left him ahead of mitt romney after a few months of the weird campaign from the obama guys. it's pretty amazing. >> the president is not just ahead of government but the head of state. these things matter. he is not just a manager of the economy. >> values questions. >> you've likened to this campaign to how closely obama was tracking bush four years ago. i think he is running that playbook. bush would say you may not agree with me but you know who i am. just as kerry played into voted for voted against romney switching positions doing the same thing. >> shameless plugs. nancy you first. >> we're partnering with four squares so if you head to tampa and want to find your friends go to four square.com/time. >> i try to hide. >> go to city and state ny.com a

listing of the most influential 22 people you don't know who are influencing new york politics. one is my wife the lovely and talented juanita scarlet. >> i love new york one. >> today's "new york times" will i will plug a profile not on the first page but fascinating worth reading of akin by my colleague. >> coming up chris jansing. bye-bye. i'm meteorologist bill karins with your business travel forecast. all eyes of course on florida in the next five days. that tropical storm isaac should be approaching. today just some scattered storms down there. much of the rest of the country looks great. eastern area, temperatures in the 90s, some thunderstorms in the west in billings and even in the deserts. have a great day. pitching is 100% mental. you have to be locked in.

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