why mitt romney should feel inspired by john kerry? you are in "the cycle" for wednesday, september 19th. in just a few hours mitt romney will be heading back out on the campaign trail. his first time since friday and the first time since that hidden video of a private fund-raiser made not so private. first mitt is speaking at a meet the candidate event with univision and facebook and then miami. romney did let two cameras in to the two fund-raisers on tuesday, first time allowed for him and didn't mention the hidden video of may. >> the president and i offered two very distinct paths. and his path is one which has been not just spoken about. we have seen it. this idea that the president has of redistributing. i know there are some people in our country who want to have a

government take from some to give to the others. they'd like to be the others on the receiving end of that and feel that the redistribution model makes sense. >> romney expanded in "usa today" writing, quote, i'll sur sue policies to grow the economy and lift americans out of poverty. the 47% comment isn't hurting the wallet. two fund-raisers and welcomed news for borrows and now actually $11 million in debt. while we're talking about fund raising, president obama himself brought in $4 million last night in new york city and although had some help of beyonce and jay-z and dropped in on david letter mn. >> when i won in 2008, 47% of the american people voted for john mccain. they didn't vote for me. and what i said on election night was, even though you didn't vote for me, i hear your

voices and i'm going to work as hard as i can to be your president. my expectation is that if you want to be president you got to work for everybody, not just for some. >> all right. let's welcome back to show david druker, the associate politics editor at "roll call." thanks for joining us. there's things to pore over there. there's a new poll of nbc news and "wall street journal" with obama ahead of romney by five but there's one finding in there that really jumped out at me. that is the personal image of mitt romney. which right now stands at about 38%, you know, favorable, 43% unfavorable. that's really not changed at all from the last month at 38-44. david, i guess the question is, i guess there's two questions. is this a waste opportunity in the last month for romney with the convention and the chance to reintroduce himself and can the

guy be elected with personal approval numbers like this? >> clearly, i think mitt romney probably if he's smart regrets the last week and a half and probably wishes that some things at the convention had gone differently and i think we have seen that. i think, steve, we saw in terms of how the president and his supporters did in charlotte. they had a much more energized convention and polls were up and sub categories of the internals with him doing better or people feeling better about the country. having said that, i think that mitt romney's still has a chance to get where he wants to simply because the economic indicators for the country are still so bad that it puts the president potentially at a disadvantage and a lot of this is going to have to do with whether mitt romney in the last six weeks of

this campaign can get out of his own way. he's had a habit since the beginning of the campaign, we saw it in the primary where some things might go a little right for him and then he'd step on his own fan fare and what we have seen i think over the past few days when the president could have been under fire for what happened in libya, when's happening in the middle east, the jobs numbers that came out at the end of last month and nobody's been able to focus on that because mitt romney's made sure he's the story. >> let's talk about that 47% comment. there's an interesting piece i think of ron brown steen at the national journal talking about romney embracing the idea behind the comments, the makers versus takers argument popular on the right and tieing that in with the welfare steph of romney, with the medicare message and basically saying that what romney is doing here from a tactical standpoint is targeting the message of an older, more white electorate with the idea, hey, you have something to lose in this election.

whether people are taking the money and using it for welfare and don't deserve and taking the medicare or sort of people who aren't paying taxes like you are and taking advantage of the system. he's sayinging this skewed to a more older white population and an activist says basically it reinforces the framing of forward and back ward. i wonder what you make of that. is that the best way to read this, the romney campaign is going after a narrow, specific demographic here and driving up the support with that group? >> well, i agree with ron bro brownstein's analysis that mitt romney is targeting a particular demographic and a sentiment in this election. i don't think it's just older white voters but middle class and white working class voters. and i can tell you from talking to voters over the past couple of years there is a real sense whether or not people understand what kind of taxes they're

paying or not paying there's a sense among a lot of voters that they're helping to fund people who aren't carrying their own weight and that it goes beyond simply helping people in need which most americans agree the government should be for. that it goes to people simply taking advantage of the system. and i think both politically and from a policy perspective it makes a lot of sense for mitt romney to go after to pursue this kind of a strategy because there's a lot of receptiveness to it. that the way you want to do it, though, the way he sounded in his "usa today" op-ed which is i want to try to lift all boats and get everybody out of poverty opposed to the strategic clumsy way he discussed it in the not so secret video. i don't think it helps the president's message. but i think that it's -- if romney wants to be successful with it he has to frame it in a way that's unifying and not

divisive. >> david, in the last 24 hours, i have gotten deluged with tweets and e-mails and calls of people total casual watchers of the political scene saying to me, what's going on with this secret video from romney? it seems to resonate with low information voters or casual voters. my cyst who's not in to this stuff at all called me and said when's up with the secret video? saying secret video people's ears perk up and think something negative is going on there and the mother of brian, our senior 0 pro producer, she was leaning obama until this 47% thing and then told brian i can't go with romney anymore. i'm not happy with him anymore, i don't think he's ready. i think it's resonating with low information voters and the other thing to notice is put up the poll, that state by state map. a lot of the people who romney's talking about 47% paying no

income tax are romney voters. these are the red states are the ten states that pay the least in income tax. you notice all of them except for florida are solid red states so has romney with the map, has romney insulted a lot of people to vote for him and perking up the ears of low voters and saying, wait a minute. we need to take another look at this guy? >> well, i think time will tell looking at the polls. my read on this an s that the electorate is so divided and polarized you are unlikely to see it move a lot of voters but on the margins one way or the other. i wouldn't be surprised there's wavering conservatives in the country that thought that mitt romney was too weak and hearing him keeping this up trying to reframe his revealed comments, now talking stronger in terms of this particular issue and they're going to feel a little bit better for him and voters on

margins not sure about him saying i don't know if i like him now. but i just think that we're not dealing with an electorate to be moved in a large sense. and i'd also say and again we'll find out if, you know, if this is true or not but most of the people that are a part of, you know, this -- whatever the percentage is that don't pay taxes and government benefits and whatever you want to call it, the truth is they all pay taxes in some sense whether they're paying payroll taxes or local property taxes and i found this over the years in talking to voters. they feel like they're paying way too much in taxes collectively of what they're getting. they don't make a delineation of what they giving the government in washington and county. they don't think they're getting a lot in return and seeing people that they feel are being helped when they don't need it, in other words, that people are taking advantage of the system, they feel as if their hard work is taken advantage of and fall

in to the category that, you know, it appears romney is talking about and therefore i don't know how much it hurts them because they don't think that's them. that's an important distinction. >> to that point you said that's an electorate that can't be moved on a large scale even with this. the president is up in the poll by about five points and generally up by a few points. so if nothing is going to change this electorate, does the president basically have it in the bag? >> well, no. i don't think the president has it in the bag. >> what do you think could move people if something like this is not going to do it? >> either way. i think mitt romney would have to say something for instance that lost him voters on the right. that had conservatives and people who tend to vote republican convinced that voting for him just wasn't worth it because he wasn't going to govern the way that they had

hoped. this is not a guy they have been in love with. they have decided that they think he would do good enough job of governing from the right and where the paul ryan pick helped. or -- the president's case, the economy would have -- literally the bottom just come out from under it or the middle east would have to literally go up in flames with a war of some sort and people would decide it's his fault but if we're just talking today on where things stand i think it's a race plus or minus a couple of points and one of the things we don't know about the polls and i don't think there's nefarious about the polls and they're good pollsters, we don't know the exit polls tell us in terms of samples and why i'm skeptical of almost all polling. >> well, david, david, i think -- >> we know in 2008 that democrats had a seven-point advantage. but we know historically their advantages about three points and that can make a big

difference in to how a poll looks and what do you know yet. >> david, i think nate silver makes that point in "the new york times" today, exactly. he says the news media often jumps the gun in declaring events like this 47% moment to be game changers when they later prove to have little effect on the numbers. the comments of libya, last week, for instance, supposed to be very damaging to him but if anything the numbers moved toward him. do you think that most voters are desensitized to the moments on the campaign trail or opting for substance or waiting for the debates? what do you think? >> i think it's a little bit of both. the campaign so brutal and so in everybody's faces that it takes a lot to shock people. >> yeah. >> i think we will have to see how the debates go and have a large determination on whether the thing stays for obama or breaks for romney. >> right. >> david drucker, we thank you for joining us. see you soon, again, i'm sure. up next, will this have an impact on the polls? breaking down the numbers as the

cycle rolls on for wednesday, september 19th. did you hear it? did you write that down? the people who don't pay income tax. these 47% of this country that will never be convinced to take personal responsibility for their lives. they're unconvincible. even by a man as persuasive abilities as mitt romney. even he whose charisma compared with a chrysler le baron. even he. who are the 47 percenters? let's examine it. it turns out of the 47% who pay no income taxes, nearly two thirds of those do pay payroll taxes and working but ain't working hard enough. you know, like a family of five making $50,000 a year. aka the amount of money it takes to see mitt romney [ bleep ] on them in person.

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with less than seven weeks until the election the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" concludes 12% of the voters quote/unquote up for grabs and concludes they aren't really too happy with either of the candidates. romney leads obama by 3% among these voters and nearly half of them still haven't made up their mind. independents in particular are extremely pessimistic about the future. 7 out of 10 believe that the economy is going in the wrong direction and 60% disapprove of the president's job. mitt romney also doing dismally with the approval rate with this

group. they're predominantly white, married men and looks on paper like they would be prime voters to break for mitt romney so what's stopping them from leaning towards the former governor? let's put that through the spin cycle. i think one interesting thing that chuck todd brought up this morning is these are people who don't actually look like voters at all. like they're either not going to show up or election day or might be willing to cast a protest ballot and i will put out there gary johnson, libertarian party candidate, former governor of new mexico -- >> yes. >> is on the ballot in 47 states and i personally think in particular in new mexico where he was governor and maybe in nearby colorado he could pull a couple of points and make a difference there. >> is he going to run away with it? >> it's going to be a landslide. >> i hope so. >> that's my prediction. >> you heard it first. >> wait for the exit polls. >> we'll find out then.

>> yeah. i'm skeptical generally of a third-party candidate and it's always a favorite thing to throw the third-party candidate in the polls and 6%, 7%, wow. almost always happens is that that number melt away election day because people get to the booth no matter what the intentions and there's two guys. i vote for a winner. john anderson is a famous example. >> famous. >> hey, he was at 24% in the polls in spring of 1980 and melts down to -- >> steve is saying. a little faster. >> i want to get steve's list of top ten famous people. >> all the independents. >> i'm sorry. 1980 you also had barry commodore. >> famous. >> the great, you know, environmentalist. >> people want to vote for one or the other and not the third-party candidate. the other option is staying at home or not pulling either

lever. the 15th segment of independent voters and you said and we said, there are none. the arteries are hardened. there's no middle ground. the parties have diverged so much and talking about before it starts with the bourque hearing and republican anger of that and the mood of gingrich to d.c. and response to impeachment and builds until 2000 and the parties diverging so much there's no middle ground and now there's really no middle ground and there's -- i don't understand these people who when we say might be choosing, i don't think they really exist. and this will continue to 2016 and maybe 2020 unless something drastic happens to change it. >> yeah. i go back further. i'd say that the current, you know, political alignment and divide back to 1950s and 1960s and civil rights movement and you had conservative white democrat s united with liberal northerners in the republican party and united with the far right goldwater righters but

polarization is the rule in american history. it was the middle part and the early -- really the middle part of postwar years of last century the exception of that and heading back to where we always were. if you don't have the peer toss-up voters, you have soft voters. soft republicans and i think -- i won't get in to it but the po polling data with obama taking a small but significant lead right now i think what that is is soft democratic voters who have been motivated to come home and get in to the election in the last month. probably thanks to the convention. >> professor steve, let me ask you this because i mean, i'm excited about the debates and i think there are some people, some vote earls who are waiting for the debates. a lot of us peg this to the convention. waiting for the convention. when they start to pay attention. i think it's actually a debate. do you expect any movement in that soft middle towards either candidate after the debate? obviously based on performance. >> yeah, no.

i wouldn't say expect but i'm absolutely open to the possibility. >> but that will move some people? >> here's the tease. i'll talk about a classic relatively recent example where we saw that. >> what? no names? >> stay tuned for that. >> calling that graphic back. >> people we have heard of before? >> on steve's list. >> people of massachusetts, i bet. >> actually, yeah. one of them. everybody's heard of them. >> all right. straight ahead, even notable republicans running away from romney in the guest spot, a man this knows the feeling. meet a one-time rising star of the gop ousted when the tea party turned on him and what he has to say about the party today. he knows the frustration of

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seems like forever since mitt romney was able to string together a few good days in a

row. now with 48 days until the election, some republicans unsettled over state of his campaign. fallout of that secret recording created a party split about romney. a group of republicans is distancing themselves from him and his 47% remarks. senate candidates done so. while other conservative voices are urging him to own the statement. 47% does turn in to the republican party's platform going forward it would basically cement the shift we have seen to the far right and evident in the tea party revolt of the 2010 election cycle. and our guest spot today, probably the most prominent victim of that revolt, former south carolina republican congressman bob englis. he is now the director of george mason university and joining us now. thanks for stopping by. i wanted to talk to you, sort of about where the republican party is right now and how it got here and i think you're a -- your story really is in many ways the

republican party in the obama era. you actually played a role in bill clinton's speech at the democratic national convention a few weeks ago. he mentioned you, not by name but by example and i wanted to play what he said and get your reaction to it. >> they beat a republican congressman with almost 100% voting record on every conservative score because he said he realized he did not have to hate the president to disagree with him. boy, that was a nonstarter and they threw him out. >> so, so you're now a talking point for a former democratic president. but what do you make of that? >> it was very nice that the president mentioned me but not by name and to mention the scenario, so surely it's a case. we don't have to hate our opponents. just show the ideas are better than theirs. >> your story is so interesting to me because you had a lifetime

rating of 90% or 95%. you weren't just a republican. you were a conservative republican congressman. you'd been there for -- it was your second stent when you were defeated and basically your crimes against conservatism as far as i could tell were you told people out of frustration you told some people to stop listening to glenn beck. you voted for t.a.r.p. and i guess you'd been sort of publicly respectful toward the president. how did it turn in to a situation to lose in the republican primary with the conservative record? >> well, yeah. it wasn't even close. that's the problem, wasn't it? anyway, yeah. it was '93 american conservative rating. 0% with the americans of democratic action. pretty conservative fellow but i think really to add to the list of things going wrong, steve, i was focused on the future, especially on energy and doing now. trying to show that

conservatives have the answer to energy and climate and as a result i think people in the pain of the great recession were saying you're focused on things far away. we are worried about the mortgage and the paycheck. i understand what happened to me. i think i got in a position of looking a little bit too forward, i suppose, when people wanted an immediate addressing of their pain that they were feeling in the great recession. >> congressman, just to add a little bit balance to this conversation, i think you 'll agree that this sort of abandoning of the moderate middle has happened on both sides. i mean, blanch lincoln, they no longer have a home in the democratic party. not like i heard of pro-life voices at the dnc and clear we're living in a time where the moderate middle has been squeezed out on both sides. i mean, folks like lincoln and shuler tried to corral the

party, the democratic party away from the far left and they were sort of politely told the services are no longer needed. >> yeah. you know, it's interesting. not so much moderation as people seeking solutions. it's one thing to be a moderate. well, that's what you heard from the numbers. not what my voting record reflects but to be about solutions rather than skcapegoas because when the great recession is on, it's easy to offer up a scapegoat and say that it's his fault. you can focus people's pain on somebody to say it's all his fault. rather than having the harder conversation which is, listen, i'm a conservative and you may be a progressive but let's find a solution to this thing. we have a structural deficit. let's figure it out. we have a challenge of energy and climate. solutions are available to us. that's -- so it's not moderat n moderation. it's just a solution orientation

that doesn't really fit with the pain of the great recession so somehow you have to get through that pain and decide really what you want is a solution, not a scapegoat. >> congressman, i want to go back to what you said before. we don't have to hate our opponents. definitely republicans and some democrats have really come to hating their opponents and that sort of helps paralyze washington and part of the obstruction policy going on that president clinton talked about that they sort of hate the president. how do we learn to get back to a conversatio idea-based conversation and not the hatred? >> i don't think they hate each other. they sort of like each other. seeing each other in the gym or whatever, you find out that people really get along fine. it's just when thelights go on they decide they got to play their roles. and so, if we get the lights off a little bit, you know, and have a conversation without the lights maybe then maybe we'll find solutions but people go in to the role playing and they got

to reward their bases. you are talking about this -- the lack of persuadable group and rather just a partisans on both sides and why politicians play to them is that you have that sort of bifurcation of the audience. if we could somehow figure out a way to say, no, really, have all of us say to leaders, really, want solutions. stop, stop typecasting or play acting for us. tell us a solution. don't just tell us what we want to hear. i happen to think that the first party that does that will ultimately win and sort of a realignment situation to the adults on the scene. because really the country does look for adults. even in the midst of the troubles of the great recession and the pain of it. that's going to end at some point and then looking for people who actually were offering a solution. so the first party that does that i think is the one to potentially be the one to

realign to. >> you talked about governor romney based strategy around blaming the president and being a sort of generic alternative to him. how is he doing in terms of a solution orientation in your book? >> well, the thing i'm hoping particularly in the day job now working at the energy enterprise industry of a free enterprise solution to energy and climate and a chance with mitt romney being who he is, a champion of free enterprise, to actually embrace that kind of concept and sell it well to the american people. so, i think that the advice to give him is be who you are and sell that strength and it is an incredible strength he knows about free enterprise. >> are you looking at a cap and trade type of system? >> no. quite different. in fact, i voted against cap and trade. it is a cap in tax and hopele hopelessly complicated and embarrassing in the free aloe

cases. this is different to reduce taxes on something we want more of which is income and we change what we tax by shifting the tax on to carbon dioxide. you do that in a revenue neutral way. in other words, no increased take to the government and set the economics right and suddenly free enterprise is delivering solutions and making money at it which is an exciting thing. >> first acknowledge that climate change is a problem, i suppose. >> all right. well, getting in a dig at the end but former congressman bob inglis, thank you for joining us. a key ally of the united states in the middle east, saudi arabia.

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droid does. and does it launch apps by voice while learning your voice ? launch cab4me. droid does. keep left at the fork. does it do turn-by-turn navigation ? droid does. with verizon, america's largest 4g lte network, and motorola, droid does. get $100 off select motorola 4g lte smartphones like the droid razr. french government today announced to shut down 20 embassies and schools in the middle east after a french magazine published cartoons of

prophet muhammad and stoked fears of violence in the region and a mud lick state, an american ally, managed to escape the unrest. oil-rich saudi arabia. what makes the country different than the rest? with us is reporter karen elliott house and spent 30 years writing about saudi arabia and author of "on saudi arabia: its people, past, religion, fougaul lines and future." >> thank you. >> you maintain they're working for the status quo in the election and which you very much like. i think we have all seen where israel and netanyahu ratcheted up the aggressive talk but explain how saudi arabia's getting in the way of obama's re-election efforts? >> saudi arabia is giving as much support as it can to the rebels in syria. and obviously, obama would also

like that -- the syrian problem to remain status quo but iran and saudi arabia are basically having a proxy fight in syria and that's not something that obama would like to see explode big time before the election. >> yeah. well, i was reading a report earlier today a saudi prince said this week that only a minority were involved in the anti-u.s. protests in saudi arabia. he said that the film is despicable and shouldn't be given quite this much attention, he said that getting swept up in this violence is going to weaken the nation, and that islam is actually a lot stronger than a film. is that a representative perspective in saudi arabia? and if so, how's the kingdom managed to escape the kind of unrest we have seen elsewhere in arab states? >> he is not a representative spectrum in saudi arabia.

he's far more enlightened than the mainstream of saudi arabia. religion is used in saudi arabia to keep people under control. so, the government constantly says you must obey the ruler, the prophet muhammad said obey the ruler even if it's a raisin headed abosinian because the believer like a camel follows where he is led. that's the way government uses religion an it does not allow any -- much opposition. so, mostly people are fenced in and frustrated. >> karen, i guess following up on that, how sustainable do you think that is? i mean, i think the revelation to everybody throughout the arab spring and the last couple of years is how out of touch so many of the governments are with the spirit of the street in their countries. i can't imagine it's terribly

different in saudi arabia. how long can it last using religion the way you're describing to keep people in line? >> i personally think the ruling family has problems because young people do know what goes on, thanks to the internet, social media, satellite tv. they now hear other religious views besides the view that says obey your ruler. they know the huge disparities of rich and poor in saudi arabia and there are poor. 40% of people live on less than a thousand dollars a month. and they see the way religion is used and that the princes live in palaces that cover blocks. and yet, the prophet muhammad preached humility and equality and the's not a lot of that in saudi arabia.

either humility or equality. >> karen, obviously, our relationship with saudi arabia's very much centered around our dependence on them for oil. and i understand our dependence actually specifically on them has gone up but overall we are becoming less reliant on foreign imports of oil. if we could one day get to a state where we are energy independent, how would that change our relationship with them and how would that change sort of middle eastern political dynamics? >> well, if we are oil independent, it would help some but the rest of the industrial world is not oil independent, so it doesn't totally change the need for mideast oil on the market because it is a global market and the chinese, the indians, the europeans, we, everyone, is importing oil and even if you take us out, it wouldn't dramatically change but it would significantly i think

change the u.s. psyche of dependence. although the other thing is, obviously, their wahabi philosophy has been the wellspring of the jihadists that cause troubles, so we still have to worry about that. even if we didn't have to worry about oil. >> karen elliott house, thank you so much for joining us. up next, we're switching gears and talking football. >> yes! >> week three of 2012 nfl season and one way the league is out of step with the times. we'll explain next. ♪

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we're at our best. see how at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? ♪ when i was a kid i love watching the nfl with my dad. he rooted for two teams, the new england patriots any team to field the black quarterback. he loved to see black men in the leadership doing the sereball job and believed the more important thing is black head coaches to see black men showing the intelligence and ability to lead an army of strong men. but there were no black head coaches back then. when he was young, the playing barrier was the thing. when i was young, the coaching barrier was the thing. nowadays despite efforts to broaden sideline diversity, there are only five black head coaches in the nfl, a pittance

in a 32-team league dominated by black players. our guest jeremy darue written "advancing the ball." jeremy, welcome. >> thank you very much. i'm happy to be here. >> why are there still so few black coaches in the nfl and does it have to do with the carousel of same guys routed about and lose and get back another job and really when's going on sneer. >> i think it has a lot to do with the carousel and two facets to drive it. two theory why is the carousel operates in the way it does. one is that it's just kind of a standard old-boy network. a small group of folks and folks know folks and they have dinner with other folks and the growl group of people is who decides to get the jobs and tend to be in those rooms. the other theory is that traditionally and interesting. your father's position on the teams that he liked because, of course, aside from the patriots

there were very few black quarterbacks. >> no black quarterbacks at that point. >> okay. exactly. once black quarterbacks came, they trickled in and seeing the same thing with coaches and has to do with old stereotypes we have had that date back to slavery that perhaps the african-american does not have the intellectual strength to run a football team. now, obviously, it's discredited theory and i think still held on perhaps among many of us and it's interesting because you see in the national basketball association teams are a quarter of the size of nfl teams. major league baseball teams half the size of nfl teams. nfl teams have playbooks two inches thick, sets, formations, plays from the formations and i think a sense for a long time that perhaps while black person might be able to coach a smaller basketball team or a baseball team to have what it takes to be a personnel manager on that

level, strategist, a tactician, a leader on that level maybe tough to find among african-americans and i think that stereotype kept the numbers down over the course of the years and over 2002, 2003 we started to see an increase. >> let's talk about why some of which is the rooney rule, put in place a decade ago saying when you have a job opening, you must interview at least one black or brown person for that law. this is overt affirmative action. it's very easily circumvented. i'm not sure it's made any difference other than trotting black people in, having a prefunker to interview, going back out and hiring bill parcells. do you think it's had an impact? do you think it's working? >> i disagree with you. it's had an impact. not the impact we want but it's had an impact. there are circumstances where

coaches are trotted in to do an interview. coaches say, i want to hire so and so. but the rooney rule exists, i have to interview a person of color, i'll interview a person of color, send them on their way and later on hire the person i wanted to hire in the first place. that's one story and it's happened. another story is that the owner says i want to hire who i want to hire but i'll bring a person of color in because the rooney rule says i have to do so. they bring the person of color in and the person of color impresses in a way the owner did not anticipate the way the owner would impress. that happened with marvin lewis and lovie smith with the bears and certainly happened with mike tomlin and the steelers. there have been circumstances where the rule has worked the way it's supposed to. the idea is you get somebody who's generally been excluded from the room into the room. and you give that person a chance. sometimes it works, that that person actually gets the job. now, there are other circumstances where maybe that owner hires a person that owner wanted to hire from the beginning but that person who came in with the rooney rule

interview impressed the owner. the owner then in the small circle of friends says, i hired so and so, but this rooney rule candidate was really strong. when you're looking, maybe you should look at that person. i think those are some conversations gone ron river a shot in carolina. he had many interviews before that, maybe token interviews, but he impressed enough people with his foot in the door that he got the job ultimately. >> there's another pipeline to nfl head coaching jobs and that comes with college head coaching ranks. the story of nolan richardson, intense battles with athletic director and he's talked about, you know, the attitudes, the racial attitudes he confronted within the athletic department, boosters and more broadly within arkansas sports culture. you think of college programs that serve as a way to the pros,

nick saban, pete carroll. are there barriers at college level preventing coaches a shot in the nfl? >> that's a great point. you described -- you offered a lovely description of the time it's taken for blacks to get leadership positions in the nfl in the intro. the college numbers are worse. have been worse, have always been worse. so, because that is a pipeline into the nfl, if we don't address that problem, we're not going to really get the solution we want to get. what's been interesting is that the rooney rule has been effective there as well, in a different way. the ncaa itself has denied -- has resisted, i should say, efforts to get it to use a rooney rule type concept. the division 1-a athletic directors association, it's own group, led by a guy named dutch bowman at the time, has instituted best practice among

various athletic directors -- >> brilliant stuff. congratulations on the book. i wish we could do more on this and why there's not more black quarterbacks but we have to go. thank you very much. >> understood. thanks for having me. up next, professor kornacki says john kerry is a source of inspiration for mitt romney? [ horse neighs ] look! she wears the scarlet markings! [ man ] out! your kind is not welcome here! nor your odd predilections! miracle whip is tangy and sweet, not odd. [ man ] it's evil! if you'd try it, you'd know. she speaketh the truth! [ crowd gasps ] [ woman ] reverend? ♪ can i have some? ♪ a great clean doesn't have to take long. i'm done. are you thinking what i'm thinking? ♪ give me just a little more time ♪ okay. all right. oh!

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you remember 2004, good old days. people were blocking to see "anchor man," and people had more distus for john kerry, one

in that pile-on was mitt romney. he was governor of massachusetts and gearing up to run for president in 2008 and he saw a chance to impress national republicans by bashing his state's junior senator. so romney traveled all around the country, ridiculing kerry as an out of touch liberal elite and, yes, a flip-flopper. it's ironic now that eight years later with his presidential campaign enduring a brutal stretch of bad polling, self-inflicted wounds and some very public second-guessing from fellow republicans, romney has really only one source of inspiration left. that source of inspiration is john kerry. the problem for romney is simple. he's losing the presidential race. not by a landslide but by three points. that's a steady three points. the real clear politics average of all polls has had him running from behind basically all year except for a few days around the republican convention whether it was tied. it wasn't until about two weeks ago when democrats staged a highly successful convention and obama pulled back ahead that romney's fellow republicans

started to realize he was losing and they reacted by panicking and pointing their fingers. coverage of the race this month has been dominated by cries from republicans that romney is about to lose a race they swor should be unlosable. now that a truly awful video of romney disparaging, the alarm is getting more frantic. david brooks called romney's comments, country club fantasy. it's what self-satisfied millionaires to each sorry. bill kristol calls them arrogant and stupid. peggy noon writes, this is slipping out of their hands. all of this is terrible for romney. take a look back at daily poll averages from back in 2004. look at that. trajectory is fairly similar to what we're seeing now. close over the summer. kerry didn't get a convention bounce but bush did. gave bush a real