and when governor says the challenges are obama didn't try, that's not true. >> and production of gas is not 9%. >> it's just not true. very little of what governor romney just said is true. >> very little of what governor romney just said is true. it was the theme we heard all night on issue after issue. the 47%, the phony romney economic policy, the romney tax giveaway to the rich, on women's rights, on immigration, on the auto bailout. but the most striking response of the whole night came on the suggestion that he played politics over the death of the libyan ambassador. president obama showed presidential leadership and made the governor look small. >> the day after the attack, governor, i stood in the rose garden and i told the american people and the world that we

were going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror, and i also said that we're going to hunt down those who committed this crime. and then a few days later i was there greeting the caskets, coming into andrew's air force base and grieving with the families. and the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our u.n. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. that's not what we do. that's not what i do as president, that's not what i do as commander in chief. >> it was a powerful moment. he took on the bully in substance, demeanor, and style.

he was far more effective than mr. romney. joining me now is former pennsylvania governor ed rendell, now an nbc news political analyst and ana marie cox. >> good to be here. >> governor rendell, let me go to you first. how does president obama's perform man last night impact the race with 20 days to go? >> i think it does two things and they are both beneficial. one, i think as you can see from the flash polls, not only did people generally think he won the debate, but independent voters by a fairly wide margin thought he won the debate and i believe there is still 8 or 10% that haven't made up their mind. you know, the pollsters say they are 4% undecided but a lot of people lean that can still be persuaded. so i think he made a very compelling case. he looked like the leader that he is, he addressed the issues forthright and called governor

romney on the mistakes and misstatements and he actually left a few of them out like governor romney said he would grow the pell grants and the romney/ryan budget cuts them, not grows them. so that helps with the undecided voters. but, two, for our base. our base is whipped up, just as down in the math as we were two weeks ago and enthusiastic and whipped up and ready to go now. >> ana marie, what do you think? >> i agree with governor rendell, that progressives are excited about the president obama that they saw last night. that guy last night knows how to win a debate and he, i think, definitively won one. i think it's hard to call someone actually winning it because what do you really judge it on?

on facts, on rhetoric, on the optics? i think obama won on almost all point last night and definitely you call this standing up to bullies. he definitely stepped to romney. it's just a coincidence. actually, it's a national anti-bullying awareness month and certainly obama made us all aware of that. and i was just thinking, you know, to support anti-bullying month, you're supposed to have it mix it up at lunch day, have people sit by different people that they don't know about. who should romney sit with? a woman, a poor person? it seem like there's a lot of people that this bullying romney doesn't really have a good touch with. >> no, he sure doesn't. well, let me get to some of the substance of the debate, governor. let me go back to you. the president repeatedly went after romney on both the vagueness and unfairness of the economics of his plan. take a listen. >> governor romney says he has a five-point plan? governor romney doesn't have a

five-point plan. he has a one-point plan and that plan is to make sure that folk at the top play by a different set of rule. now, governor romney was a very successful investor. if somebody came to you, governor, with a plan that said, here, i want to spend seven or eight trillion dollars and we're going to pay for it but we can't tell you until maybe after the election how we're going to do it, you wouldn't take such a sketchy deal. >> i thought that was an effective point, governor, a sketchy deal. i mean, and we still don't know what this sketchy deal is with governor romney. >> no, we don't know. it's the 5 trillion that we get from the cross the board tax cuts, plus 2 trillion even though the joints chief of staff. it's 7 trillion.

he has to account for that before he has a so-called deficit reduction. so there's no way it adds up. the only thing that he put on is maybe a cap on reductions of 25,000. well, if you do that, that doesn't even begin to come close to $7 trillion. nobody should take that sketchy deal and you cut the president off before he said that final line. he said, governor, you wouldn't take that sketchy deal and then he turned to the audience and said, and neither should you. >> ana marie, i want your view on that as well as an interesting exchange on the pension. let me play that for you before we get the responses to both. >> any investments that i have over the last eight years include a blind trust, including chinese companies. mr. president, have you looked at your pension? have you looked at your

pension -- >> i've got to say -- >> mr. president, have you looked at your pension? >> you know, i don't look at my pension. it's not as big as yours so it doesn't take you as long. i don't check it that often. >> you hear the laughter in the room on the pension exchange which people were not supposed to laugh but i guess they couldn't help it. both on this exchange, which was clearly the president dealing with mr. romney's chinese investments and the deal that the gorve nor and i were discussing that he said americans should buy and romney. give me your response, ana marie. >> i think romney opened him up and gave him more material to the charge that he doesn't understand how normal people think about their money and their taxes and their own investment. you know, when he answered that woman's question about the deductions, he used that line like, pick a number, as though that would help us understand,

as though that would make it look like he had a plan. that underscores the fact that he hasn't shared with us any specific. and another thing, do you really want to take tell a family that's struggling to pay groceries and their gas on a weekly basis that they won't have to pay taxes on their stock investments? i don't think that makes a lot of sense to a family that's really struggling. i don't think that makes a difference to them if they are thinking that way. as for the pension exchange, that was sort of an incredible moment. it shows romney being a real bully, as we've been talking about, getting in the president's personal space and really overego to drop this line, have you seen your pension, have are you seen your pension? and then the president playing it cool under pressure like we know he can and delivering that leet tal stiletto of a line to him. >> and never answering about his own chinese investments, by the way. >> that's true. >> but one of the reasons, governor, i called him a bully

last night and today is he kept badgering the moderator, badgering the president. i mean, look at how rude he was behaving. watch this. >> governor romney, there will be plenty of chances here to go on but i will let you absolutely -- >> the rest of the answer way off the mark. >> you'll get your chance in a moem. i'm still speaking and the answer is i don't think that's the case -- that wasn't a question. that was a statement. >> i mean, it was like unnecessarily rude and there was no reason to get that edgy with his voice and his attitude. >> right. and, you know, it's interesting, when you prepare for multiple debates, reverend, and i've done it a few times and you probably have, too. when you prepare for multiple debates, you have to have a different change of pace. it worked for governor romney in the first debate because

president obama didn't challenge him and jim lehrer didn't challenge him. but he should have known that president obama wasn't going to do the same thing twice. he should have known that candy crowley is no jim lehrer and he should have are been ready for that and he should have had a much softer approach through this debate. you can be soft, polite, and still get your points across but i'm not sure that he's capable of that. i think he's the atypical boss who wants to control the room wherever he goes and it doesn't work that way in politics. >> ana marie, i'm running out of time but i want to go back to the moment that everyone is talking about and that's when governor romney insists that the president never said act of terror. first, let me show you the moderator, candy crowley correcting him. take a listen. >> i think it's interesting the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack he went in the rose garden and said that this was an act of terror. >> that's what i said. >> you said in the rose garden

the day after the attack it was an act of terror. it was not a spontaneous demonstration. >> please proceed, governor. >> i want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in benghazi an act of terror. >> get the transcript. >> he did, in fact, governor romney. >> can you say that louder, candy. >> he did call it an act of terror. >> ana marie, we have the tape where he did clearly call it that and i'm sure this is going to be central in monday night's debate on foreign policy. i'm sure that romney's going to try to clean up his big mistake there. and i'm sure benghazi is going to be a big issue monday night. >> well, and i kind of hope it is because i think the president still has a lot to answer for when it comes to the benghazi attack.

the romney campaign really handed obama a gift when they made this about semantics, when they made it an act of terror. yes, he did. what happened and what are we going to do about it and obama's statement that the buck stops with him is all well and good so we have to examine that buck at some point. we kind of have to see what happened and learn from it. of course, as president, he's really the only person that can do that and that's what i'm looking forward to hearing more about in the next debate. >> governor rendell, real quickly, how much did the benghazi mistake by governor romney hurt him? >> it hurt him a lot because it gave president obama the ability to stare down governor romney and look like the commander in chief and it's all about leadership in the end and president obama looked like a strong, be effective leader. >> governor ed rendell and ana marie cox, thank you for your time this evening. one quick note. as i've said many times on this show, you can have your own opinions but you can't have your own facts. all day we've had our team

researching the biggest whopper from last night's debate. we've now fact-checked them and put them on our facebook page for you. please check it out. go to facebook.com/politicsnation for our special fact check of mitt romney. coming up, never did i think i would hear the quote, binders full of women in a national debate. but do governor romney's binders even exist? we've got big news out of boston today and a president on the attack. i've got to tell you, we don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find driven, young women and ready to teach in these fields right now. and the whopper's gain came faster than a burger king drive through but there's one that really stood out and makes his problem with women even worse.

all of that, plus, boo, boo, fox news, rush limbaugh, and all of the usual suspects, they won't stop wining and complaining about the referee. but why are they attacking the first lady? you're watching "politicsnation" on msnbc. bob, these projections... they're... optimistic. productivity up, costs down, time to market reduced... those are good things. upstairs, they will see fantasy. not fantasy... logistics. ups came in, analyzed our supply chain, inventory systems... ups? ups. not fantasy? who would have thought? i did. we did, bob. we did. got it.

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last night mr. romney had a chance to provide some details when a voter asked a simple question. which deductions would he target to pay for his big tax cut? >> concerning the -- these various deductions, the mortgage deduction, the charitable deductions, the child tax credit, what would be your position on those things which are important to the middle class? >> simple question. but today we are still waiting for an answer. once again, mr. romney refused to get specific about his tax plan. >> in terms of bringing down dedud

deductions, one would be that everyone gets $25,000 in deductions, pick a number. >> pick a number? this isn't lotto. this is a real presidential debate. the simple truth is, romney's tax plan doesn't added a up. the definitive study of his plan says it's, quote, not mathematically possible. last night on issue after issue romney could have actually given some answers. but instead he just left the american people with a lot more questions. joining me now is rick, the managing editor of "time" magazine. good to see you. >> good to see you, al. >> thank you for coming on tonight. mitt romney stayed vague, especially on the big issues of taxes. why has he decided to avoid specifics? and i know you've taken both sides at test. i'll put that out front. i know you've done a cover story

of mitt romney. have you been able to lock him down on specifics and why not? >> i did interview governor romney before the convention. i asked him what would be the deductions that you would take in order to pay for a 20% across the board tax cut? you know, there aren't that many options. there's the income tax deduction and philanthropic. at this point in the campaign, what would go wrong to say that? he's been saying all along, the democrats will pick me apart. again, what we've seen in the last two or three election cycles is that specificity does harm to candidates. obama lacks a lot of specifics about the things he's talking about as well. they are afraid of being specific. >> afraid of what? >> well, they are afraid that it will have them lose some votes, they will lose more votes than they will gain by being specific. i think that's the bottom line for both of them. >> let's deal with this. there is some positive economic news beginning to happen.

september housing starts at 872,000 is the best in four years. that's on top of on top of the other recent positive data, jobless claims, 339,000, that's the best in 4 1/2 years. september auto sales, 119 million cars, best in four years. we've got the best unemployment numbers in four year. so there are some specific things that work to the president's benefit. clearly, wouldn't romney need to answer how he would have even done better and specifically how if of he's going to counter some of the good news that i've just brought up? >> although i would be wary about some of the good news. when you're coming out of a trough in the economy, every month there are good number and bad numbers. one of the things that i think has been a mistake for people, particularly on the left, is to

make a fetish out of the unemployment number. it not representative of the economy as a whole. most people think of the economy as a whole in terms of how he or she or himself or herself are actually doing and the numbers about people being optimistic about the economy are going up which definitely benefits the president. >> all right. let me ask you a bigger question because i know -- >> i'm the big picture guy. >> no question about it. >> okay. >> last night, romney and the president were answering the question about how romney is different than george bush. let me play that answer for you. >> president bush had a very different path, very different time. my path is designed in getting small businesses to grow and help people. >> george bush didn't propose turning medicare into a voucher. george bush embraced comprehensive immigration reform. he didn't call for self-deportation. george bush never suggested that we eliminate funding for planned

parenthood. so there are differences between governor romney and george bush but they are not on economic policy. in some ways he's gone to a more extreme place when it comes to social policy. >> now, what's interesting about that, rick, you've got governor romney saying the difference between bush and himself is different eras, different time. you have the president really dealing with the bigger issue of how the republican party has shifted on social issues even more to the right than george bushes time and really raising some specifics. what's happened to the party and romney that is the personification of the party 2012 as opposed to george bush who did reach out on immigration and some of these other issues? >> right. well, remember when george bush ran for the first time he was running more as a moderate republican, a republican with humanity and empathy. >> and compassion.

>> coupmpassionate conservative. the tea party has dragged them more to the right. still the nixon doctor, you run but because of the tea party shifting everyone in that direction, had he to be way more conservative than he probably really is and certainly more than he was as governor of massachusetts which by the way is the opposite of a conservative state. >> let me ask you another -- a tactical question. at the end of the debate, we're getting ready to wind down and we are going to get ready to do our spin and interpretations and then this happens, where governor romney mentions the 100% and the president then takes on the 47%. watch this. when he said behind closed doors that 47% of the country considers themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility,

think about who he was talking about. folks on social security who have worked all their lives, veterans who sacrificed for this country. people who are working hard every day, paying payroll tax, gas taxes, but don't make enough income. and i want to fight for them. >> now, what was interesting to me about that is governor romney had just said his last statement, he brought up the 100%. either the president followed saying that he was going to answer that with the 47% or he planned to use that anyway as his closing but there's nothing more frustrating in a debate in leaving something that you can't answer. how bad is that 47% lingering out there in the bigger picture in terms of the american electorate, in your opinion? >> you know -- >> whether you think it's fair or not? >> here's the thing. the question is whether it's going to be -- whether it's a base election or an independent election. >> okay.

>> i'd argue that it's a base election and what the president did there is he was speaking to his base. his base wanted him to address that issue. romney opened the door with it, which is probably convenient for him but people who support obama wanted to hear him say that. the question is whether independents and the polls show that independents are two minds about it and we'll have to see. >> and i think that's the problem. sometimes one cancels out the other. >> exactly. >> rick stengel, thank you for coming on the show tonight. >> good to be here. >> still ahead, the real story behind mitt romney's binders full of women. it turns out it may be even worse than a horrendous gaffe. plus, the right-wing freakout over obama's victory. they are complaining about everything, including the first lady. stay with us. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool

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hello. i didn't know we were back. i was just taking a look at governor romney's binder. you know, that binder, the one he brought up last night when asked about equal pay. >> and so we took a concerted effort to go and find women who had back problems that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. i said, can you help us find

folks? and they brought us whole binders full of women. >> binders full of women. yes. that actually happened. it was the third fastest rising google search. with 310,000 likes. a spoof twitter account has more than 33,000 followers. binders full of women went up showing governor romney's record of women's issues and hilarious pictures are making the round on the internet. in one, hillary clinton asks, romney still using binders, lol in and patrick swazye says, no one puts baby in a binder. senator john kerry got in on the fun. he tweeted out his picture that says, i'm in character.

i even brought my binder full of women. but while we got a big kick out of romney's awkward line, his record on women's issues is no laughing matter. that story is next. what we need are people prepared for the careers of our new economy. by 2025 we could have 20 million jobs without enough college graduates to fill them. that's why at devry university, we're teaming up with companies like cisco to help make sure everyone's ready with the know how we need for a new tomorrow. [ male announcer ] make sure america's ready. make sure you're ready. at devry.edu/knowhow. ♪

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transform your investing with the e-trade 360 investing dashboard. > we're back with the story that everyone is asking today. how mitt romney answered the question about women making less money than men. >> i had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all of the applicants seemed to be men and i said, can't we find some women that are also qualified. we took a concerted effort to find women who had background who could qualify to become members of our cabinet. they brought us whole binders full of women. >> whole binders full of women. he needed to sift through binders to find qualified women and he never answered the

question. how would you specific inequality in the workplace. >> they brought us whole binders full of women. >> we're having some fun but it's serious. it's like women are objects. and the president pushed that in iowa. >> we should make sure all young people, our daughters, our sons, are thriving in these fields. this should be a national mission. we don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find talented, driven young women ready to learn and teach in these fields right now. >> governor romney has a serious issue with women's issue. is there a binder for damage control? joining me now is abby huntsman and irin carmon, editor at

salon.com. abby, when you first heard romney say binders of women, what was your response? >> well, when i first heard the question i knew it was going to be a huge challenge for him to answer. romney is given internet ammunition to mock him for the rest of the week which is a really bad place to be with less than three weeks to go. but, listen, the question that was asked was about equal pay rights for women and not only did he not answer the question but he went on to say that women need more flexible hours, that they should be home making dinner for the kids. i think romney is still living in 1968 when in fact we are in the 21st century, where women want equality. we don't want to be treated any differently. >> irin, if you look at the fact that david bernstein reports the binder did exist but it was put together by a bipartisan group called mass gap before he was even elected to, quote, from

bernstein, they did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agencies and authorities and commissions. they presented this binder to the governor -- to governor romney when he was elected. so it may not even be accurate that he sent out for this. >> it sounds completely inakinnagi inaccurate. this is a group of women that came together and they said this was important. mitt romney sounded like he wanted an award. he was being asked about policy. unfortunately, he doesn't have that much to offer in terms of policy to help women in the workforce. >> now, abby, let's get to policy. the lilly ledbetter act, asked the campaign where they stood. watch. >> does governor romney support the lilly ledbetter act?

>> sam, we'll get back to you on that. >> we'll get back to you on that. then, ed gillespie on the same lilly ledbetter act, the governor would not repeal the lilly lilly led led better act. he was opposed to it at the time. he would not repeal it. and then he said, i was wrong when i said last night governor romney opposed the lilly ledbetter act. and then on and on. the contradictions when you're dealing with inequality of pay with women, whether he was with lilly ledbetter or not, we're going into other areas. i mean, he has a problem with women's issues. >> he absolutely does, reverend. i would say beyond the gaffe, the bigger issue is the fact that he cannot take a stand on

really any issue and last night we saw that this pertained to women. he can't take a stand when it comes to women that are an important part of the voting population. he was making strides. we saw in the latest usa today poll that he was doing pretty well. i don't know that that is going to continue after last night's comment. we see how awkward it is for him to interact on a debate stage like that. >> how did you see him on last night's issues, irin? >> i think the most telling moment was when romney was asked about gun violence and he decided to stigmatized single mothers and somehow blame that on them. he had nothing to say on gun control and went and ran and said, single mothers need to get married. i think that's actually kind of a racial dog whistle. i think he was blaming single mothers for their own poverty when he wants to cut head start, food stamps. you can't say that you care about the lives of women and be

so divorced from their realities. >> abby, you're a republican but last night you seemed critical of mr. romney's performance. you tweeted, obama won debate as commander in chief while romney struggled to express warmth or compassion. binlders aren't a way to a woman's heart. and then you tweeted something that in my mind was different than others. you wrote, imagine if romney used another minority group. pretty sure a binder full of african-americans or muslims would have cost him the election and i thought that was a good point. but you know what was interesting to me, if he said he sent out for a binder ad because there wasn't enough women and he was looking for women, is he not endorsing affirmative action? i thought that was the big debate, that we're not supposed to be looking for women and minorities, that affirmative action was no longer needed. that is affirmative action for a

governor to say, go find qualified women. he definitely made women -- i don't care if you're republican, independent, democrat, he made women feel like a second-class citizen and that's why i wrote that tweet, that we almost feel like we are in the minority group when in fact we are not. he makes us feel that way. it's as if mitt romney is sitting on top of a mountain that he owns and everyone is in their different place. that women are in this binder and african-americans are in this one. that's not the way the world acts today and he cannot treat us that as it is that way. >> irin, i see a bipartisan tour. abby huntsman and irin carmon, thank you both for your time tonight. >> thanks. coming up, rush limbaugh tells you all you need to know about how nervous the right wing is today. and in spanish it says, if you want to vote, show it.

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complaining about the debate president obama won last

night's debate and the right can't handle it. just 32 seconds after the debate ended, fox news went into full spin mode questioning of all things, the questions in the debate. >> the questions equal pay for women. in fact, there were a lot of women's issues discussed. abortion, contraception, women's pay, as i mentioned. some might argue it was objevio pandering to women. there will be some questions about those selections. >> equal pay and contraception. it was ridiculous but it soon got even worse. >> president obama with 43 minutes, 57 seconds and governor romney with 40 minutes, 58 seconds. so president obama getting the time jump there on the am of time spoken. >> i'm not going to wine about the rules or the moderator.

i will say, though, that tonight, point blank, the president lied to the american people about libya. i think the moderator may have helped that along as well. >> the president got caught? >> he got caught and candy crowley had no business doing a realtime if you will trying to fact check because she was dead wrong. >> oh, the injustice of it all. the moderator was too tough. the president had too much time. boo-hoo, hoo. it's laughable, it's desperate, and a sure sign of who was on the losing ends of the debate. joining me now is joe madison, nationally syndicated radio host of mornings with madison, and president and ceo of vote latino and msnbc contributor. thanks to both of you for being

here tonight. >> thank you. >> joe, get these right wingers a handkerchief, please. >> it was four, five, six years ago wining was the thing they said we did. i used to have these debates and they would say, oh, you're wining, you're wining. and now they are here once again. but they do this. they always accuse the other side of doing something that they are actually doing. look, you know, counting three minutes more, well, somebody said that mitt romney used more words than barack obama did. it's absolutely absurd and whenever you -- you know when you've lost the debate is when you start looking at the style. i'm surprised they didn't criticize the tie he was wearing but they knew they lost. so this is how they deal with

it. >> that may be neck. maria, have you ever seen anything like this before? >> no. and i think exactly what we're saying is it was all smoke and mirrors. canned dee candy crowley fact checked them. they know how high the stakes are. look, romney actually had less talking time than the last debate. president obama had four minutes more and he lost. they got upset because candy crowley said, we're going to do it now. >> maria, i keep hearing people say that and it's true that she said that the president did call a terrorist attack but she also said, you're right, mr. romney. it took a while for them to not continue to say that there had been a rally out there. so, i mean, they didn't have a problem with her agreeing with part of what romney said. he was just so blat antly wrong on what he emphasized. it wasn't her emphasis. it was his. >> when the president said, proceed, governor.

i mean, it was one of those things and you take a step back and say, do you really want to walk off that edge? because you're going to walk off and you're not paying attention. they choose to decide who is leading and had mit t romney wo, they would feel fine. it was, again, because candy crowley kept her integrity and said, the president did say that but you're right, governor romney, you're actually right that it did take the administration a while. so she was doing her job as a moderator but also keeping the journalistic fact checking that she should do as her profession is. >> now, joe, conservatives tweeted nasty comments about crowley throughout the debate and rush limbaugh also attacked crowley on his show today, calling her a liar. let me show you rush limbaugh. >> today, the day after, the only people who are accused of saying things that are not true are barack obama and candy

crowley. not mitt romney. i kid you not. you know, in a real world she would have committed career suicide. if she had committed journalistic terror last night, what she did last night would have been the equivalent of blowing up her career like a suicide bomber but there aren't any journalistic standards anymore and she's going to be praised and celebrated. >> joe, i mean, is he livid. all kinds of nasty things. i can't imagine what is going to happen after monday night's debate if they are doing this with candy crowley. >> absolutely. she was -- and you pointed it out. we've all pointed it out. she was fair and balanced. you know, i think one of the highlights, quite obviously of the evening, and most people haven't talked about it, i'm glad she told governor romney to sit down. i mean, that to me was showing that she took control and the

reality is, look who's talking. i mean, what journalism school did he go to? as a matter of fact, what school did he ever finish? i mean, so he's not in a position to talk about journalistic standards. and here's the bottom line with me. the far right wing that rush limbaugh represents and the rest of them represent, they really don't like mitt romney. they are stuck with him and what they are going to allow him to do is lie and stretch the truth just to get elected because they don't care if mickey mouse is the candidate for the republican party, they just want obama out of there for all kinds of reasons. >> maria -- go ahead, maria. >> something about rush limb ba bau's tone, when he's attacking candy it's incredibly sectionist and i bet it had sexist.

if it had been a man who moderated, it wouldn't have been such an issue. >> no. and i'm going to have to leave it there. thanks for your time tonight. >> thank you, reverend. these billboards are on display in key swing states. they are wrong and they are secretly funded and they could suppress voters. so why are they still up? that's next. [ female announcer ] he could be your soulmate. but first you've got to get him to say, "hello." new crest 3d white arctic fresh toothpaste. use it with these 3d white products,

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reach one customer at a time? ♪ or help doctors turn billions of bytes of shared information... ♪ into a fifth anniversary of remission? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. the debate is over but the gop effort to suppress democratic votes in key states is still in overdrive and we must fight it. billboards have appeared in wisconsin and ohio, trying to scare people away from the polls, scary warnings about voter fraud. in pennsylvania, the harsh voter i.d. law there was blocked by the courts but republicans are

not giving up. now there's a full effort to confuse voters. radio and tv ads by a mitt romney supporter begins with this misleading message. >> if you care about this election -- >> if you care about this election -- if you have an opinion. >> if you want a voice. >> if you want a voice. >> if you want to make a different. >> then show it. >> show it. >> show it. >> show it. >> show it. but the disclaimer only comes later and there's more. in philadelphia, a billboard tells spanish speaking voters they still need to show i.d. and at least five pennsylvania counties are still falsely claiming i.d. is required to vote. a week after the court order and the state's main energy company admits to sending out misleading mailers to hundreds and thousands of customers. they all say they are working to fix the mistake. the energy company is sending hundreds and thousands of

creek corrections. but the damage might already be done. this election is too important to let scare tactics or confusion get in the way of your vote. stand up for your right. get educated and go to the polls. don't guess. don't be tricked. find out what is required and vote. don't let anything or anyone turn you around. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. time of reckoning. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris in new york. let me start with this, president obama won last night. he had good lines, lines of