>> joining me today former hillary clinton adviser and deputy new york city mayor howard wolfson. nbc political analyst, former pennsylvania governor and current governor of "now," ed rendell, msnbc contributor and queen bee of thegrio.com joy reid and frank bruni of the new york times. last night a long and winding apology tour took place on the debate stage but it was not led by president obama. governor mitt romney appeared to walk back nearly every foreign policy position he's ever taken and instead, make nice with president obama. right out of the gate moderator bob schieffer teed up a question on perhaps the biggest vulnerability the handling of the attack in benghazi. instead of continuing the criticism romney has kept up since the first 24 hours of the incident he pivoted to mali. >> we see in libya an attack,

apparently by i had think we know now by terrorists of some kind against our people there, four people dead, our hearts and minds goes to them. mali has been taken over by al qae qaeda-type videos. >> the pattern would continue on nearly every major issue romney stood with the president. >> we're going to have to recognize that we have to do as the president has done. i congratulate him on taking out osama bin laden and going after the leadership in al qaeda. would you have stuck with mubarak? >> no. i believe as the president indicated and said at the time i supported his action there. >> i don't want to have our military involved in syria. >> what you heard governor romney said he doesn't have different ideas. >> i will stand with israel if they are attacked. >> first of all, i want to underscore the same point the president made. we will stand with israel. they laid out seven steps. crippling sanctions were number one and they do work.

you're seeing it right now in the economy. >> i'm glad that governor romney agrees with the steps we're taking. we're able to transition out of afghanistan. >> when i'm president, we'll make sure we bring our troops out by the end of 2014. it's widely reported drones are being used in drone strikes and i support that and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology. >> governor romney found any ground for disagreement it was with himself. before he agreed with the president about pulling out our troops from afghanistan in 2014 he believed this -- >> he announced the date of the withdraw of our forces based upon a political calendar not the calendar the commanders on the ground said was based for our mission. this president has made it difficult for our troops to be successful in that mission, number one announcing a withdraw date for our troops. >> i think it was a mistake to say the date we withdraw. >> while romney trumpeted the pursuit of peaceful and diplomatic means with regard to

iran last night he said this during his mantle of leadership speech two weeks ago. >> for the sake of peace, we must make clear to iran through actions, not just words, that their nuclear pursuit will not be tolerated. >> and as taking out osama bin laden and pakistan, president obama did some of his own live fact checking. >> when you were a candidate in 2008 as i was and i said if i got bin laden in our sights i would take that shot, you said, we shouldn't move heaven and earth to get one man. you said we should ask pakistan for permission and if we had asked pakistan for permission we would not have gotten him. it was worth moving heaven and earth to get him. >> at a florida rally this morning, the president questioned romney's about face. >> we're akous tommed to see politicians change their positions from like four years ago. we are not accustomed to seeing politicians change their position from four days ago.

>> and even vice president joe biden, that old poker face, couldn't hide the surprise. >> governor romney seemed to be rushing to agree with everything the president had done. rattling the saber to being doves. >> getting in on the action even conservative radio host glen beck tweeted i am glad to know that mitt agrees with obama so much. no really, why vote? so, will mitt romney have to apologize to conservatives for abandoning the neocon foreign policy positions he's been promising throughout the election? perhaps. but perhaps the gop has finally resolved the paradox of the mittens. namely, that what you see isn't really what you get. in fact, it might not ever have existed to begin with. joining us now from washington to resolve these and other presses issues is david wood, senior military correspondent with "the huffington post." david, before i go to you, i just want to bring in our panel first on a few things before i get your expert opinion on all things military.

and i want to ask governor rendell who i know must be champing at the bit to give his impressions about last night's performance be and specifically how this nets out in terms of the election? does this help the president measurably? >> well probably not. i was tweeting with a friend of mine during the debate who works for the foreign policy institute and she said the president's mopping the floor with him. romney seems naive. i tweeted back do you think to the average joe and she tweeted back probably not. i think governor romney did enough to convince the average american that he was conversant with foreign policy and by a aligning himself with the president he absolutely reassured americans that there's not going to be hawkish guy in the white house, that they're going to have to worry about having another ground war in asia. i thought president obama won the debate dramatically on points. in terms of changing votes i think what the romney campaign did was very smart because all the walk backs, they're viewed

by a million people. last night was viewed by 50 million people. >> howard, i think what you're seeing today in the aftermath of this debate is the president trying to make the walk backs and romnesia a character issue to undermine any belief that americans may have, okay. i can trust this guy that's not an elite plutocrat. >> the president has been making that since the first debate and it's not clear it's working all that effectively. when people are watching the debate you have 50 million people watching in real time making assessments about the candidates for themselves. if they're watching ads or reading the newspapers that's a different way they're judging the candidates. sometimes people are more interested in looking with their own eyes and listening with their ears than reading a newspaper or what someone else says about a candidate. this is so far we were promised an etch a sketch moment. it came. >> we're getting several of them. >> several of them.

one a day. >> tidal wave. it's come later than a lot of us thought it was going to but it's come and you'll -- you see president obama doing everything he can to try to keep romney in that box that he was in for the longest period of time. it's not clear how effective it is. >> dave wood, the president used a term last night air brushing history. and my colleague rachel maddow speaking after the debate said it's one thing when trying to air brush your position on light rail, another thing when talking about war and tens of thousands of americans who have been involved in this war still serving overseas. what was your impression of romney's whitewashing of his previous positions? >> well, actually, alex, you know, i tried to watch the debate through the eyes of army and marines corps infantry men in afghanistan and i think i would have been hugely disappointed and felt het down for this reason. when they talked about afghanistan they were both saying by the end of 2014 the afghans will be able to take over and we can go home.

in the words of president obama, none of that is true. the afghans aren't going to be ready. they're not ready now. they're going to be hugely dependent on american military power to stave off the collapse of their government and to keep the taliban at bay. neither guy addressed that. there was a huge opening for somebody to say, you know, we're facing a cliff in 2014 at the end of 2014 and we better get ready for it. i think there was a huge missed opportunity on both their parts. and the other thing that i thought was curious was, mitt romney bringing up north mali twice. >> yes. why -- what was that. >> whoever heard -- i've been to north mali so i have a little -- i don't think there are many of us who have been. >> and north mali, was that basically an opportunity for mitt romney to say hey, look, i'm such an expert bringing up parts of the world we don't usually talk about on the national stage? >> perhaps that was it. i know about north mali.

really, there's been fighting back and forth across that part for decades and decades. it has little to do with core american national security issues. >> frank, you know, you have been writing about this, the back and forth in these debates and have a piece out today. in terms of romney and his performance, "the new york times" editorial board, perhaps you're familiar with them, writes -- so setting aside the actual substantive policy pivot, the actual performance, a beauty pageant contestant groping for an answer to the final question.

>> i think it goes back to the north mali comment. there was this element, i thought, last night of rifling through the almanac and say i can name all these places and leaders. almost sensed a hesitation before the pronoununciation of country or world leader to show he could get it right because had he's trying to show the average voter who's less cynical than us and "the new york times" editorial board i am conversant. i don't know what we can guess to the average voter passes for conversant. as far as the overlap of obama's positions, that was fascinating. the romney's campaign's belief strategy from the beginning have been if we are not a scary alternative to obama there are many americans who would like to not vote for the president but need reassurance. how much more can you be than say i'm just the same. different sir name, same foreign policy, nothing to be scared of here. >> it's the opposite of i am rubber you're glue. >> we're all rubber, all glue?

>> all in a rubber room. >> were you surprised how closely romney skewed to the president's positions? >> no. s there is the pattern he's been on. i came away thinking barack obama can new count you one undecided voter in his camp and his name is mitt romney. i think he won him over. >> that's good. that's good. >> and i think that we sort of take for granted and assume that voters know nothing. and i think sometimes we get so cynical in the media we presume voters come in as a blank slate. i was just watching the debate on social media paying attention to what was going on and what's come away from this debate in plr is essentially a joke about mitt romney which is the whole horses and bayonets idea. i think people can spot unprepared. i don't think you have to be deeply conversant foreign policy scholar to spot someone who as "the new york times" said appears to have crammed the night before. i thought romney came across as someone who doesn't know a lot about foreign policy but sort of reciting the words, i thought

that physically the sweating and just the whole demeanor of him pleading almost with the moderator to give him more time made him seem like a person unprepared to be president. and i think that the social media response to him was sort of to mock him. i'm not sure that's -- that lend itself to seeming presidential. >> look, i just want to say joy, i wish you were right and i don't think the social media twitter responses is indicative of average american. i think -- i truly wish you were right because i think you're dead on. but the second debate was such a clear obama victory and didn't seem to move the polls at all in the president's favor. that's what scares the living daylight out of me. >> that's partly because the media response to the second debate to declare it sort of a bit more than a tie and i think the response it -- >> no. the media declared obama the winner. a lot of people -- it's one thing who wins a debate, another thing what people go in looking to be reassured about or looking to be convinced of.

i think to the extent that romney sits there and doesn't kind of fold his tent and run away, a lot of voters just need to see that to move it. >> isn't it extraordinarily low bar? when you think about it, the president lost the first debate and was declared someone who self-emulated on the national stage, looking down at his desk, making notes and not having more sort of camera action. substantively didn't push back as much as he should have. compare that to how we judge mitt romney by existing and not disappearing into a cloud of smoke or sand he's okay still our guy. >> exactly. >> shifting expectations. >> this was a box that romney campaign needed to check. there's going to be a debate upon foreign policy needed go there, seem presidential and cross a low bar or a low threshold. i think he did that. they don't want this campaign to be waged on foreign policy. president obama has real advantages on foreign policy and the economy where president obama is weak. they want to spend today and every day between lee lex day

talking about the economy. if there were real disagreements we would be talking about foreign policy on the trail. that's not what mitt romney wants to talk about. he will be back talking ability the economy because the economy is where he's strong and foreign policy where president obama is strong. >> you have an interesting piece out in "the huffington post" talking about how armed service -- military servicemen and women are not necessarily reliably breaking for the republican party. do you think anything last night did anything to change them from one side or the aisle? >> absolutely not. this is a generation of veterans who have been ten years at war, they went off to war having to make decisions on the ground, be creati creative, ignore the rules set up by the pentagon. they're used being out there cutting through the b.s. and adapting to the situation and so they, you know, they're coming back into this countries first of all feeling like they really earned the right to vote and

they're determined to make it count and second of all, being very clear eyed and hard eyed about what choices there are. and so i think the veterans are going to be a big factor in this election. i'm not sure which way they're going to break but i think they're going to be an interesting factor. the other thing is from, again, from their point of view, that whole thing about horses and bayonets was really, it was funny but it was disturbing because there's a real point behind that and that is, that defense spending has got to be based on strategy and we don't really have one. mitt romney doesn't have one and, you know, i'm sorry to say, i think the one the administration has is way outdated and needs to be updated. we're really, you know, talking about the defense budget. we're really sort of flailing through the air without it resting on anything actual, real and i think that the military and military families of veterans are going to look hard at that particular issue. >> fascinating and fair point from david wood of "the

huffington post." always great to see you and have you answer our defense and existential questions. >> thanks, alex. >> after the break, wipi went t fight and a hockey game broke out. last night a foreign policy debate but domestic affairs kept coming up. how the candidates tried to change the subject next on "now." hahahaha! hooohooo, hahaha! this is awesome! folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico sure are happy. i'd say happier than a slinky on an escalator. get happy. get geico. melons!!! oh yeah!! well that was uncalled for. folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico sure are happy. how happy, ronny? happier than gallagher at a farmers' market. get happy. get geico.

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what's the best way to answer a question about the ouster of former egyptian president hosni mubarak? talk about energy and education. >> we've done experiments in

nation building in places like iraq and afghanistan. and we've neglected, for example, developing our own economy, our own energy sectors, our own education system and it's very hard for us to project leadership around the world when not doing what we need to do. >> throughout the night both candidates took a page from the same playbook and pivoted from forren to doughic affairs using any chance they can get. a trade war with china turned into a debate about romney's 2008 op-ed let detroit go bankrupt. >> if we had taken your advice governor romney about our auto industry we'd be buying cars from china instead of selling cars to china. >> i'm a son of detroit. my dad was heard head of a car company. i like u.s. cars. i would doing nothing to hurt the industry. my plan to get the industry on its feet when it was in real trouble not to start writing checks. president bush wrote the first checks.

i disagree with that. these companies need to go through a mgsds bankruptcy. >> the candidates got off track so many times one point moderator bob schieffer had to remind them about what they were supposed to be debating. >> let me get back to foreign policy. >> listen -- >> i need to speak a moment. >> okay. >> let me, bob. >> with only 4% of the american public ranking foreign affairs as the most important problem this election, sometimes when life gives you hosni mubarak, you have to turn him into solyndra aid. i worked hard for that pun, joy. >> i like that. >> timed it out at 9:30, they began at 9 and by 9:30 on to domestic affairs. i will say, to put the cynic in the closet, richard house of the council on foreign relations made the point on sunday -- i mean, foreign policy is in

many ways tied to domestic policy. that said i am deeply disappointed these debates are over, there has not been any substantive discussion about energy, climate change, immigration, drug trade which is a foreign policy problem. >> sure. >> the eurozone. >> or that place called europe. >> the world was very small last night. the middle east and there was israel, and the middle east, china and that's where the world ended. we didn't get into so many of the issues that have a much more direct effect on our economy and what happens in europe has a direct effect on what happens here. that wasn't discussed. as you said issues with mexico, the drug trade. they become more about sort of each of the two candidates' agendas going in, consultants pivot to the economy make the debate about this and the moderator that has a narrow set of issues they want to cover and so much of the rest of what matters to voters at the end of the day don't get covered. the debate was limited in. >> governor, did you think when

they did talk about domestic affairs, the auto bailout and some bit of gas prices and so forth, that resonated with the american public osh just campaign -- >> i think a little more so, although again, governor romney has consistently in these debates shown a wanton disregard for the facts. he said his plan was a managed bankruptcy and that he did favor some form of government aid. he talked about loan guarantees. guarantees are only valuable if someone's willing to loan you the money. >> right. >> and the point of it is and where president obama saved the auto industry nobody was willing to loan them the money or to invest, not bain capital not anybody else. only government intervention could have saved the auto industry and the government had to write a check. i thought it was interesting governor romney said he balanced the budget of the olympics. he balanced the budget because the federal government wrote him a $1.2 billion check. >> keep in mind he kept hammering the president on sequestration which is i think one of the great -- of the many

whitewashes, how somehow sequestration is a problem for the white house and hammered him on the fact he wants to cut government spending on defense spending. it's okay to cut spending across the board for the poor and working class but nor to the defense sector. >> don't you think the president was very effective when he said that the ten biggest spenders in the world don't spend more than we do on defense. i think the american people have to hear the truth on that. >> yeah. >> sorry, alex. >> these are two guys who managed to turn a question about gun control into a discussion about the importance of two parent family. so they're going to talk about what they want to talk about. you're right. their consultants say people care about the economy, pivot, talk about the economy. romney was told, hug the president as much as you can on foreign policy. >> or quite literally. >> also told women, women, women. right in the first minute. >> yeah. >> the very -- >> we learned last night governor romney's principle aim for foreign policy is to bring

pes peace in the world. he used that phrase talked about peace. he's not going to start another war. he's not george bush. we're not going to go into the middle east. very much aimed at women, dissociating himself from the failed republican foreign policy misadventures prior to president obama's tenure. look, at the end of the day, be you get the question that the moderator wants to ask and then you get to answer it however you want. >> aim to it not being scary. remember he comes out of this republican primary process in which a lot of voters in the middle, a lot of moderate swing voters were where did these people come from. we're shocked it took him this long to pivot to the center but he had to say i'm not scary not michelle bachmann or herman kaine. if you looked at everything he said in the subtext it's i am not a scary alternative. >> tommy franks and john bolton advising him on foreign policy. i can almost see "whatever happened to baby," i almost felt

like -- >> one opportunity the president missed, to link him to the bush foreign policy because of the same advisors. >> he should have name dropped tommy franks directly. this was a genius who thought disbanding the iraqi army was a good idea and the people advising mitt romney are interested in a much more militaristic attitude towards iran and syria. we have to presume voters come in virgins. they haven't seen anything they know nothing and some who may be in that camp but you literally have to know nothing about mitt romney to not understand what he was saying a week ago. >> should have pulled a scooby-doo. >> coming up president obama releases a new add that conjures memories of a certain ronald reagan spot. will the message move the needle? we will ask the obama campaign's ben labolt when he joins us live just ahead. questions?

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president obama barn storms swing states with a new second term outline and fresh message. while the campaign looks forward the president is reminding voters about yesterday. >> if you come town with a case of romnesia can't seem to remember the policies on your website, or the promises that you've been making over the six years that you've been running for president, if you can't even remember what you said last week, don't worry, obama care covers preexisting conditions. we can fix you up. >> good line. we'll discuss team obama's plan as well as the challenges ahead when ben labolt joins us next on "now."

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three weeks ago, president obama held a small lead nationally and enjoyed a healthy margin in each of the battleground states. after three presidential debates his national lead has been wiped out and the electoral map looks much more competitive. "the new york times" write us this morning quote -- an one more state with campaign advisors putting colorado at the top of the list. president obama begins a 72 hour blitzes to travel to six states at an event in florida this morning he unveiled a 20-page blueprint for america's future, 3.5 million copies of which are being distributed to counteract the critique he hasn't laid out a vision for a second term. >> in this campaign, i've laid out a plan for jobs, and

middle-class security, and unlike mitt romney, i'm actually proud to talk about what's in it. because my plan actually will move america forward. >> in conjunction with this the campaign released a sunny one-minute spot reminiscent of reagan's morning in america. >> there's no quit in america. you're seeing that right now. 5 million new jobs. exports up 41%. home values rising. auto industry back. and our heros are coming home. we're not there yet, but we've made real progress and the last thing we should do is turn back now. >> the ad will air in nine battleground states. joining us from chicago is national press secretary, for the obama campaign, ben the thunder labolt. ben, last night big night for the president. we could not help but notice that he kept bringing back, as

did mitt romney, the conversation to the economy. but that in conjunction with this blueprint and new add would seem to suggest the president still thinks he might need to close the deal on the economy with the american public. your assessment is it. >> well, we've said for a year and a half this would come down ato a choice between two economic visions. the president's building from the middle class out, education and research and development to create jobs, reducing the deficit in a balanced way and mitt romney the same ideas that crashed the economy and devastated the middle class in the first place. this isn't a new plan. the president talked about this on the stump throughout the campaign and in his convention speech. what we want to do is, it's an organizational plan to get it in the hands of undecided voters, into the hands of our supporters, everybody heading to the polls know what the president is going to do over the course of the next four years. >> hourd, master strategist that you are, what do you make about that 3.5 million copies of this blueprint handed out across the

country to give people the concrete facts with which to make the argument for the president or learn better about his policies for a second term. >> much of the communications from the obama campaign have been about disqualifying governor romney which i think made perfect sense from their perspective. you have heard criticism perhaps he haven't offered enough of a vision for the second term. there probably are lots of undecided voters who will like to know what the president will do in a second term. elections are always about the future. probably make sense to do this. i don't know if two weeks is the right time to do it. see how much of the paid advertising follows the pam pletts, how much the president will talk about this on the stump. the american people generally want to know what the candidate will do going forward so this makes sense from that perspective. >> probably worth noting ben, this is not the only strategy being pursued but the campaign is also running some aggressive ads regarding mitt romney and his career at bain. some people last night thought the president was too aggressive with the governor.

what do you make of that? you seem to think that aggression has worked and worked well for the president in the middle of the country? >> listen. i think last night the american people saw one commander in chief sitting on the stage and that's the commander in chief that they've known. he made absolutely clear after a decade of war it's time to bring our troops home and time to reinvest those funds in rebuilding in america. i think that mitt romney was uncertain and he was wasn't study because he wouldn't be held accountable for the positions he's been taking over the past several years. he was wrong on iraq, wants to keep 30,000 troops there. wrong on afghanistan. wouldn't commit to getting our troops out the end of 2014. wrong on osama bin laden. said we should get the permission of the pakistanis before going after terrorists in pakistan. and so it was important for the president to press that case and contrast and i think that governor romney was left exposed on the foreign policy front.

>> those are all substantive arguments worth noting. you are also running an ad that features scott pelley asking governor romney about his 14% effective tax rate, bringing that whole chestnut back to the fore. is that -- are we going to see more about the offshore bank accounts in the next two weeks? >> you might hear discussion of it. one of the economic issues on the table is tax reform and mitt romney is completely comfortable with somebody like himself, millionaires and billionaires paying a lower tax rate than middle-class families. the president doesn't believe he should pay lower than middle-class families and we should close those offshore loopholes and the wealthiest are playing by the same set of rules as everybody else. >> we have not heard the last of the cayman islands. thank you to ben labolt for your time, sir. >> thanks, alex. coming up, last night we saw another example of governor romney's march to the middle. but did we also see a little bit of flop sweat? we'll grade the performances when we go back inside the

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governor romney was a scary boss during the second debate which kind of boss was he at last night's showdown. at the very least he was a nervous one. ill at ease in the board room and plagued by a sweaty upper lip. perhaps not helping matters at all president obama launched a volley of zingers aimed at portraying romney as a throwback to a time long, long ago. >> 19080s are calling to ask fo their foreign policy back. the cold war has been over 20 years. our foreign policy you want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s like the social policies of the 1950s and economic policies of the 1920s. you mentioned the navy, for example, and we have fewer ships than in 1916. governor we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the

nature of our military has changed. we have these things called aircraft carriers with planes land on them, we have ships that go under water, nuclear submarines. the question is not a game of battleship where we're counting ships. it's what are our capabilities. >> here with a look at last night's final matchup, host of bravo's "inside the actor's studio" the legendary james lipton. i am -- as always, curious to find out what your assess ment of the performances was last night. let's start with governor romney if we might. what did his demeanor, the sweatiness, his behavior on stage last night say to you? >> the key word here is sweatiness. there's a word in our lexicon, the theatrical lexicon, flop sweat. he was -- he had that problem early on in the campaign when you felt he was tap dancing as fast as he could and sweating hard. there's another word, another term of ours i would like to introduce and apparently my final appearance.

>> certainly not your final appearance on the show. in the series, act three. >> okay. and the term is stage fright. he was -- i sensed it a bit, and stage fright is often becomes apparent when you see a little sweat appearing. he did not seem comfortable last night. he did seem comfortable in the first debate, of course. but he did not in this one. there's another term that i would like to introduce finally, and that is timing. timing is very important. it's important in the theater and very important in politics. his timing was impeccable in the first debate. he held his own sort of in the second debate but obama's timing came back at that point and i think that in his one, hes lost it -- romney lost his timing almost completely. for example, when they were

talking about his policies, he tried to take us back as we -- as the president pointed out to 1916 for military policies, to the 1920s when harding, coolidge and hoover tried to convince us what's good for business is good for the country. we all saw the result of that. 1950s for the social policies he sounded like a laudite at that point and began to sound old and i think that was a disadvantage for him in this debate. >> frank, "the new york times" i believe it was, had an article not many days ago about romney's weirdly inac crow nistic language and as mr. lipton points out, almost he uses a sort of -- >> golly and gosh, golly, gosh, beginning sentences with why i, the sort of dorothy in oz language. >> he does seem like a man who's in the quite of the modern world plagued him throughout the campaign and he's lived a very sheltered life in many regards. there's a truth to that.

and last night you say saw him in the debate when it came to foreign policy and the sweat as mr. lipton was talking about. what's great about these debates is they have shown us very candid glimpses of the candidates. foreign policy is probably the one topic that mitt romney is least comfortable discussion and lo and behold he appears on camera and looks the least comfortable discussing it. i love the way this debate like others has gotten at the very central truths about the candidates. >> we talked about the split screen being sort of maybe sometimes an enemy, sometimes a friend. the other thing we haven't mentioned there are no commercial breaks. these men are on camera the entire time. if, for example, you have flop sweat as mitt romney did last night how can you do anything about it? >> he all know that during a commercial it's when somebody kind rushes out and makes us look be presentable again. >> i know that well. >> you look swell all the time. >> oh, you're invited next. >> i knew i would get back on the show somehow. that was my opening.

see how i seized it. >> timing. >> but go ahead. >> to that point, i mean, it is an unforgiving media. not only are you on camera the entire time you're on the split screen, no cans for a reprieve, and when you are dealing with something like foreign policy which mitt romney was clearly not comfortable with, there are little rooms you can go into for privacy and recollecting one's spirit. the president was on the aggressive last night and i wonder what you make of some of the complaints folks have said he was too aggressive with mitt romney. he almost just watching him in that split screen the way he looked at romney, at some points sort of looked like he wanted to tear his head off. >> i think he's unhappy with him. yeah. and i don't think he's disguising it very much or even trying to disguise it anymore. besides, a new romney keeps showing up. romney is as elusive as a phantom. the minute you think you've got

him pegged, he disappears in a puff of smoke and mirrors. i think that's very annoying to a debater. when you prepare for a debate, as the president did for the first one, and somebody else shows up, it's very disconcerting and can be ann annoying because all you say is this is isn't the real you and your opponent will say this is the real me. it's up to the public to decide. i had two assignments when i began this adventure with you. one was to offer romney my council. >> yes. >> and the other as it developed to search for the real romney. >> yes. >> and in my search for the real romney as you know i finally came to a conclusion and it was confirmed for me certainly in the second debate and confirmed really in the last debate in the final debate, and that is, that what the challenger is offering us in the end is a boss. now we talked about some of it

before, a lot of nicer words for a boss, ceo, job creator with the wonderful second word that has a religious aura to it, capitalize that "c" and the halo appears. but perhaps the more accurate term would be profit creator which is what the -- somebody who runs a business really does. but that's forbidden because it sometimes implies the elimination of jobs. i am now firmly convinced after this long search i have located the real romney, at least for my own. >> do we have a drum roll. >> yes. drum roll. he's a boss. he's the common word for the common theme. a boss could be very -- he can be benign, malevolent, he can be revered, he can be loathed but that's really what he's offering us. i think the american voters are really faced at last with this clear choice, at least from my point of view between a sitting

president with a record that can be criticized or praised and a boss. if the -- if it turns out that american public wants a boss in the oval office, on november 7th and they elect him, it's what they'll get. he'll be a boss. there's a difference between a boss and president. >> right. and inherent in the boss title is not necessarily values or moral core, but making things work and management and i think that is maybe what we've seen from mitt romney on the campaign. >> at least i have. >> i'm trying to identify him and perfectly willing to accept him as anything he presents himself as, but since i am the casting director at this table, i've been trying to cast him and got him and then finally i thought no, in the end, the real mitt romney, he's a boss. >> he's a boss. >> all that implies that can be very good or not. >> and it can be bad too. >> governor -- i almost gave you the title of governor perhaps you deserve it for the eloquent

assessment of last night. thank you to howard, governor rendell, mr. lipton, of course, frank and joy. that is all for now. i will see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific when joined by lawrence o'donnell, michael steele, jared bernstein and michael eric dyson. find all sorts of exciting tidbits at facebook.com/now with alex. "andrea mitchell reports" is coming up next.

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