o'donnell has introduced a new interview technique that will be taught at the school in columbia. >> cut and paste katie couric. >> an e-mail about donny. apparently. it's what i'm going to learn. you're going to give me megan mccain, because she's on my show tonight. after this show. >> we're going to do that right new. >> we'll read donny interview later. if it's like all the over donny e-mails, it says he sucks. if it's way too early, what time is it? >> "morning joe." but right now it's time for "the daily rundown" with chuck and savann savannah. >> rahm emanuel's last full day as white house chief of staff. it's getting down to the wire. friday's coming soon. and water, water, everywhere. if you're anywhere on the east coast, chances are you have wet socks right now. and on alert. why terror officials worldwide are sounding the alarm. we'll bring you the latest on the terror lets all over western europe. it's september 30th, the last

day of september, savannah, 2010. >> you know what comes after that? >> apparently october. >> is that how it works? if you haven't figured it out. i'm chuck todd. she's savannah guthrie. let's get to the rundown. white house chief of staff rahm emanuel expected to step down as soon as tomorrow. and widely expected to take his place, at least for now, senior adviser pete roust. someone very much respected and beloved in ds the white house. >> and don't assume this idea the interim is somehow going to be. there's a lot of talk that if he will agree to stick around, he very much could be the chief of staff all the way through the rest of the term. and if he does not want to do it, it might be another person. ron plain is the other name you hear. as for rahm emanuel, as soon as

he is legally not an employee of the federal government, they have the website ready to go. they are turning on, he may -- there will be a presence on the campaign, according to some sources i've talked to, beginning on saturday. the website, though, actually, the light switch could go on friday, if they can. it's all ready to go. the one caveat on all of this is that emanuel and the entire chicago team, very sensitive to the fact that there is another election that's taking place in the state of illinois and he doesn't want to suck up all the oxygen. >> sucking up oxygen and money too soon. >> the worst-kept secret in washington may finally be coming to an end soon. now to the nasty weather pounding the mid-atlantic at this hour. what's left of tropical storm nicole is bringing torrential rain, damaging winds all over the east coast. the weather channel's mike seidel joins us from myrtle beach in south carolina. man, we're all wet. you're dry, but we're soaking wet. how long is this thing going to stick around on the coast?

>> reporter: it's going to be about another day or so before it completely clears the northeast coast, chuck and savannah. down here in north myrtle beach, 117 golf courses and a lot of golfers waiting to get back out after a very rainy period. let me show you some of the pictures from yesterday. wilmington, north carolina, has now set three, four, and five-day rainfall records, even wetter than hurricane floyd. they've had upwards of 21 inches of rain since sunday. so a lot of flash flooding there. we also have a tornado watch now, which covers eastern north carolina, all the way up towards d.c. and baltimore. that includes where you are in d.c., until 1:00 this afternoon. there could be some small tornadoes. but you get a sense of all the flooding from the rainfall. these low-lying areas tend to break pretty quickly. so if you get away from the rain, it goes away. we have what's left of nicole, a lot of tropical moisture. and a new storm has developed now in the carolinas. that's going to be the main storm, but it's still drawing up this big hose. line a pineapple connection,

which we often talk about across hawaii, across the west coast in the wintertime. all this is coming at you. and the winds will ramp up. some of these winds could gust 50 to 60 miles per hour. that could lead to power outages, and that's not good. also, guys, if you're trying to fly today, long delays. laguardia posting a delay of 2 1/2 hours. it moves out of the way by friday. the coldest weekend so far, the coldest air mass of the season coming up this weekend. back to you. >> mike seidel, as we show some of the airport delays, a rough day if you've got to travel anywhere on the east coast. thanks, mike. well, overseas now, u.s. forces are caught in the middle of a growing international standoff. today pakistan blocked a key supply route leaving american commanders scrambling for a way to get food and fuel to troops in afghanistan. john yang is live for us in kabul. john, explain why pakistan took this measure. >> reporter: well, this happened, savannah, just hours

after an apparent -- well, there was a helicopter strike on a checkpoint on the pakistani side of the border. killed three pakistani forces. they say the pakistani government officials say it was a nato helicopter, a coalition helicopter. nato forces say, yes, there was a helicopter attack in the area, but that the helicopter never crossed the border into pakistani airspace and that the targets were insurgents preparing to fire rockets on coalition bases on the afghan side of the border and that the insurgents were on the afghan side of the border. there's still -- nato officials say they're still trying to figure out exactly what happened. but it's clear that the pakistanis are very angry about this. this is the second helicopter attack, cross-border helicopter attack this week. this has long been an issue with the pakistanis, having u.s. forces and coalition forces carrying out military operations on their side of the border. but this is the sharpest

response from the pakistanis, that if they're trying to get the attention of the united states and nato, they have succeeded. this point, this crossing point, which is near the khyber pass between afghanistan and pakistan is responsible for 80% of the nonlethal supplies -- water, food, and other material -- that goes in to the nato troops. they're still trying to work this out. they're still trying to figure out just what happened. chuck, savannah? >> john yang in kabul with the news on that. thanks very much. well, now to rutgers university. two college freshman have been charged with secretly taking video of a sexual encounter by a fellow student and streaming that video on the internet. three days later, the student committed suicide. nbc's mike taibbi is live at rutgers university in new brunswick, new jersey, with this just tragic, awful story. mike? >> reporter: yeah, it really is, chuck. this is my alma mater, by the way, and i talked to a lot of

people at rutgers yesterday. there are grief counselors that have been here for a week. as you said, these two freshman had videotaped the sexual activity and encounter of a classmate and they tweeted, one of them did, while it was happening, that he was making out with a dude, yay. that's an exact quote from his tweet. three days later that student, tyler clementi, according to two witnesses, and police i spoke to yesterday confirmed this, jumped to his death off the george washington bridge into the hudson river. a body's been recovered, not confirmed that it's him yet, but it's logical. i spoke to the vice president of student affairs. he made the point that these incoming freshman at 18 are really smart, they've grown up with the internet. they know the internet can be abused as easily as it can be used, but in his view, serious misuse of the internet rarely happens. >> mostly, what happens in our residence halls is students develop a close-knit trust relationship. a sense of community and

attachment to one another. for a student to do this, it violates that trust relationship that usually exists within a residence hall and it's shocked our entire university community. >> reporter: all right. as i said, the two students who are suspects in this case now face privacy violation charges that could, if convicted, result in jail sentences of three to five years. they are both home now with their families awaiting arraignment. an unbelievably tragic story. chuck, savannah? >> mike taibbi on the campus of rutgers university this morning, thanks. we'll shift gears to those terror threats in europe. roger caressy is an nbc news analyst. roger, this sounds, from the news reports like one of those occasions where, to borrow a phrase, the system is blinking red. how can we determine how serious this chatter is? how seriously are officials

taking it? >> well, this one is serious, savannah, for two reasons. one, because it's a credible threat emanating from pakistan. and two, because it has the hallmarks of an al qaeda central inspired plot. this has been goinging on now for several months. u.s. and western european officials have been on it since the summer. it's unclear as to what stage the plot may be at right now. some people say it's not that imminent. others say individuals have already started to go into europe. we don't really know, but it's very serious. and it is very credible. >> you know, roger, what a lot of folks are talking about that this intelligence was gotten, thanks to some captures in afghanistan. what can you tell us about that? >> well, chuck, this one individual, ahmed siddiqui, a german, who has been held now for some time and who has been talking a lot and has given one stream of threat reporting, talking about a mumbai-style of

attack. but that's not the only stream of threat reporting that concerns official. there are other potential threats emanating from south africa, particularly targeting france, which is of concern. it's a combination of human intelligence, these interrogations, and other forms of intel that they're gathering. but it paints a very compelling picture of a very serious threat right now. what we don't know is the timeline. how close it is to execution and whether or not all the u.s. activities inside pakistan, particularly the predator attacks, have had an impact on the operational planning. >> yeah, exactly. roger cressey, thanks for your report this morning. appreciate it. it's interesting, american intelligence officials are being very leery of being able to say, we're safe over here, that this is isolated to european, but it's clear this really is a europe-focused terror threat, but they never want to say, oh, nothing to worry about. anyway, coming up. the new normal. delayed marriages, fewer children, and living at home longer. up next, how the recession is changing america fr the inside

out. plus -- >> you send another goon to my daughter's house and i'll take you out, buddy. >> you're going to make me out? >> yeah! >> how you going to do that? >> watch. >> politics gets personal when new york's republican for governor, the republican candidate, goes toe to toe with a longtime statehouse reporter. the story behind this heated exchange, coming up. but first, have a look at the president's schedule today, meeting with democratic leader at the white house. you're watching "the daily rundow rundown" on msnbc. wall street is getting back on its feet.

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well, the impact of the bad economy has forced americans to do more than just pinch pennies. it may have permanently altered

the way we all live. >> with us now, greg ip, he's author of "the little book of economics." >> that's adorable. >> also joining once cnbc economic reporter, steve liesman. let me start with some news of the day. jobless claims down a little bit, some good news on the employment front. tell us about it. >> yeah. jobless claims came in better thanne than expected, chuck, 453,000. we were up approaching that 500,000 number, which just to explain to people, 500,000 people, half a million americans were going in, having lost their jobs, filing for unemployment insurance a week. that number has ticked down to 450,000, which is okay. it kind of suggests we may be growing jobs at around 80 to 100,000. so it's better news, but that number of claims at 450 still remains very high. >> let's turn to the census report that came out. there's this treasure-trove of data for economists to pore

over, and it's really giving some indications of how our culture is changing in the wake of this recession. whether it's how many cars you own, how long you live at home, whether you get married. explain. >> i think it's really cool. now, this isn't the ten-year census that comes out in december, but every year the census takes what they call, sort of like the long form census, we used to have ten years ago, and asked even more detailed questions. one of the things we discovered is that combining with some other data, fortunately, households which were getting smaller for years has people had smaller children have started getting larger. the children they have are spending more time at home. a bigger share of adult children are staying with their parents. why is that? well, it's harder to find jobs right now. and not only is it harder to find jobs, even if you have one, it's harder to buy a house. so the logical thing is to shack up with mom. and houses are harder to sell. >> i saw an advertisement for an

in-law suite. i think a lot of baby boomers are seeing their parents potentially coming into their house too. >> sure. think about it. back when almost everybody could get a mortgage, everybody wanted to live on their own. now we're discovering the joys of being choozy again. >> sometimes you say, home depot's numbers go up, or walmart's numbers go up when people are doing things themselves. what other little signs on wall street do you see of, quote, the new normal? >> well, i think what's amazing is that wall street went through such little change in the aftermath of the financial crisis. there was a lot of trading going on. an awful lot of profit remained on wall street. they're suddenly, chuck, coming to a realization this quarter, volumes have ticked down and some of the profit outlook for the big banks have really ticked down. that's one thing. really big question, i actually broke atory this morning that international regulators are

talking about a new capital charge for the biggest banks around the world. maybe 20 to 25 banks around the world are going to have to pay an additional 2% or 3%, because they represent more risk. so here's a big question. if they have to pay these additional capital charges, where does that money come from? should it come from salaries? is that part of the new normal, that you have a stepdown in salaries on wall street? we really don't know how it all plays out. we know there are going to be tougher regulations. we know that profits are a little bit less than we were. so change is on on wall street and where it shakes out remains to be seen. >> we've seen in the past, greg, people change, they become a little more austere for a wile, but then go back to their old ways. there have been moments in history, though, the greaeeat depression being one of them, where it really changed the society. do you think we'll see that here after this great recession? >> i really think we will. because we got used to thinking that everybody could have five credit cards by the time they were 22 and that was normal and

we're discovering that it's not. now, you were asking, where do we see this new normal? let's look at car sales. the industry used to think that we should sell 17 million vehicles every year. now we think 10 million or 11 million is a good year. one of the reasons why, we used to be able to take our home equity loan and use that to put a down payment on a car. no home equity, no down payments. one of the things the census data found, the number of families with two or more cars has been dropping over the last few years. so people are being a little more frugal. the other thing you see when it comes to investing on wall street, not only depression-era folks were never aggressive in how much they invested in the stock market. and that was something you hear already from financial advisers. they think that younger folks are going to be that way going forward. but does this explain the spike in gold, that that is why you have these people sort of fearful of all things wall street. so gold feels safer? >> so there's two things going on there. i think one aspect of the gold trade is people looking just for greater security from inflation.

and it seems like anytime there's an increase in risk or a sense of higher risk in the market, people tend to go into gold. that's on the one side. torre side, i think you raised a really interesting point about. first of all, we've already lost a generation, about ten years or so, half a generation when it comes to stock market returns. then you put in the flash crash trade where the market dropped 1,000 points because of some electronic stuff. there's a spreading lack of confidence, i believe, among investors in stocks and in the stock market. and that's a serious issue that the market has to address and i think you're right. there are echos from this that will be around for a generation as to how people invest. but hey, remember malcolm gladwell's book, "outliers," decline in population during the great depression. the new york city school district was terrific back then. >> there's a silver lining to every cloud. >> we need a little optimism these days. >> we could take a silver lining. steve liesman from cnbc, greg ip

from the economist, thanks. great discussion. still ahead, a massive recall from fisher-price. why the government is calling more than 10 million products off the shelves. and in today's decision 2010, california's meg whitman rocked by allegations that she knowingly employed a illegal immigrant. how she's responding to that claim very fast. but first, washington speak today. this is a favorite, a made-up word, prebuttal. for example, when a politician anticipates there'll be a bad story, sometimes they'll put together a story to rebut it before it even happens. we saw that yesterday with meg whitman's team. >> and already this morning, we saw the white house do a prebuttal of another john boehner event. it was essentially a prebuttal of what they think he might say. >> if you have some washington speak you would like us to clarify, send us an e-mail, dailyrundown@msnbc.com. ♪ for he's a jolly good fellow ♪ the meeting's tomorrow in dallas ♪

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well, let's start with the latest out of california's governor's race. former ebay ceo, meg whitman, is denying allegations this morning that she knowingly hired an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper and then kept her on the payroll for years. celebrity lawyer de jure, gloria allred, who's representing whitman's former made, nicki diaz, claims she has evidence that whitman knew about diaz's legal status as far back as 2003. well, whitman pushed back on those charges this morning in an interview. watch. >> so you think jerry brown and gloria allred coordinated this work together to get this story out? >> you know, i don't know, but, you know, clearly she's a democrat, she's contributed to his campaign, they've been, you know, working together for many years. >> well, look, the big danger here for meg whitman is not necessarily, frankly, with hispanic voters. the real worry is that it just is a way to reinforce this idea

that she's a mega-rich billionaire out of touch, and that's why you see such an aggressive pushback from her campaign. they have even put up highway billboards in spanish. when you have billions of dollars, you can do all of those things on a campaign. now with 33 days to go until decision 2010. you know what that means, there's just 34 days to go before the 2012 campaign begins. and the one big change that everyone is bracing for is the new presidential battleground map. remember, all of those census forms that you filled out a few months ago, well, here's why it matters. because it decides how much house seats each state has. and of course, based on that is the electoral math. what does that do? it changes the presidential battleground map. so we're going to look at some winners and losers, these are based on estimates, these aren't official. this is the obama/mccain map as you see here.

all of the blue states are the ones that obama carried, all of the red states are the one that mccain carried. well, two huge battleground states, of course, over the last four years have been ohio and florida, and there's going to be big changes in both. florida was 27 electoral votes. now it's going to be 29. that's a plus two. that's good news, you would assume, for, frankly either, at this point, but for obama. now let's go to ohio. in ohio, of course, as everybody learned over the past decade, it's been 20 electoral votes. well, not anymore. it looks like it's only going to be 18. and i'll be honest, there's something about the fact that it's no longer in the 2s that makes it seem like just less of an important state. still going to be a swing state. 18 electoral votes still matter. but it certainly does change the math. let's go back, the big winners in all of this, frankly the biggest winner is texas. they're gaining four. it's now going from 34 electoral votes probably to 38.

new york, by the way, a big loser. they're losing 2. it's going to go down from 31 to 29. california, by the way, for the first time, i believe, in a century, is not going to gain, it looks like, any electoral votes. by the way, here are some winners on the democratic side, winners for the states that obama carried. nevada gains one, washington's likely to gain one, and we told you about florida. but more losers on the blue state side. michigan's going to lose one, illinois's going to lose one, we told you about ohio, pennsylvania, and new york. all said and done, if you were to do the new math again, instead of 365 electoral votes for obama, he starts, assuming this map stays the same and assuming he carries that one electoral vote in nebraska, he now starts at 360 when all is said and done. but of course, it's a whole new ball game in 2012. get to know these new numbers. 29 is florida. 18 is ohio.

being able to go with 10s and 20s, doing the math on the fly, it delays you half a second. >> i know you're equal to the task. i have faith. still ahead, hollywood marks the passing of a screen legend. plus, the entire east coast on storm watch at this hour as remnants of tropical storm nicole bring heavy rain and damaging winds from the carolinas to canada. and they turned out big for obama in '08, so what's going to get younger voters to do it again in 2010? but first, today's trivia question from the al "the alman american politics". what vulnerable democratic incumbent is a former mary kay cosmetics sales woman? >> you love this. >> i love this one. it's obvious. >> did he have the pink cadillac? >> maybe the pink car. the answer and more coming up. d on me -- very hard.

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bottom of the hour now. a quick look at what's driving this very wet thursday. >> well, you gave it away. we are following major storms soaking most of the eastern seaboard today. tornado watches and flash flood warnings are in effect throughout the mid-atlantic and soaking rains are pounding cities up the northeast, affecting a lot of travel today too. the pakistani government has closed a key border crossing for trucks supplying nato-led coalition troops in afghanistan. american commanders are now seeking alternate routes to get those crucial supplies to the troops. and the ceo for johnson & johnson will testify on capitol hill today. he'll be asked to explain tylenol's so-called phantom recall for millions of bottles of over-the-counter medicine. the company insists that the public was never at risk. other stories making headlines on a thursday. take a look at an fbi test which shows just how devastating that botched times square bombing in may could have been. prosecutors say faisal shahzad, the suspect, planned a second bombing for new york city two

weeks later following his first attempt. manufacturer fisher-price is recalling millions of toys deemed dangerous for children. the company recalled baby play areas with inflatable balls because of problems with choking. fisher-price tricycles, highchairs, and ramps were also included in that recall. and hollywood legend tony curtis has died. curtis was nominated in an academy award for his role in "the defiant one." he had two children, including jamie lee curtis. we'll have more on his life throughout the day here on msnbc. well, to chile now and those 33 miners still trapped underground. rescue efforts that were supposed to take until christmas could now come much sooner. >> and the miners stuck about 2,000 feet underground are doing what they can to speed up the process on their end. nbc's kerry sanders is live in

chile. kerry, what are they doing to help out this effort now? >> reporter: well, it's remarkable when you consider that the 33 miners have been trapped underneath in this mine now for 57 days. and what we've seen primarily is, well, what you see over my shoulder here, and that's the work. let me pause for a moment and just listen to that sound. that rumble is the rumble of hopefully more success. so you hear that work, that goes on 24 hours a day here, around the clock, as they're drilling down. they have three drills going. what they call plan a, plan b, and plan c. but it's what we see down below that's remarkable. look at this footage that has just been released by the government here. what we're looking at is the 33 miners down below in remarkably good shape, clean shaven, down there doing their work. and what they're doing, as you see, with very large machinery, it kind of gives you an idea of the space that they're working in down there, part of this

shaft that they're in is two kilometers long. they're in an area moving out the debris that the drills on the surface are causing to drop down. so they have about 20 tons of debris that falls every day. so they have to push that out of the way. plus, they have hundreds of gallons of water going in there. so they're working very hard for their own safety down below, and waiting for those drill bits to get to them so they can get out. maybe mid-october. very close, when you consider it's been 57 days, guys. >> i'll say. and initially, they said it might be until christmas. so that's some good news. kerry sanders in chile for us, thank you. >> that's a good october surprise. >> the pleasant kind. especially for those poor miners. this week, we're continuing nbc's in depth look at education. this morning, we're looking at how hispanic americans are doing in the classroom. >> the numbers are staggering for a minority group that's rapidly growing across the country. nbc's rahema ellis is in new

york this morning on this. so tell us about these new numbers and then tell us how school districts around the country are dealing with this. >> well, one of the things that wn is that the hispanic population is growing, as you point out. 20% of the students in american public schools right now are hispanic students. that means one out of every four. take a look at this full screen we have for you of what their numbers are in terms of their ability to stay in school. the dropout numbers are disturbing. for hispanics, it's 18.3%. african-americans and blacks, it's 9.9%s. so hispanic is almost double that's what's happening in the black community. and whites, the number of dropouts is 4.8%. very disturbing numbers. you look at what might be some of the reasons for this. a new study or a recent study came out that said, of those who drop out of high school or college, 74% cite the need to help support their families. i was talking with janet gregio,

which is the chairman of the national council of la roza, she says, we have to get back to basics. we have to make certain that there are more teachers who are in our public schools who speak spanish. there's got to be a way to encourage people who do understand the language to go goo the teaching profession. >> rahema, isn't -- >> -- make certain they have more support for those families. that they can actually keep their kids in school. >> you mentioned the language barrier, but bilingual education is extremely controversial, right? >> it is controversial, but at the same time, people are saying there does need to be a way to not only communicate with a child, but to communicate with a child's family. we've been talking all this week about that parental component. how important it is, that you communicate with the parents. and if the teacher and if the school district and the principal can't communicate with the student's parents, you've lost a very important element in trying to make certain that these children stay in school. >> and rahema, is there a split, sort of an urban versus rural.

so you have these fledgling hispanic communities that are now popping up in sort of the upper part of the south, in the midwest, where there are almost no education support networks, not a lot of english as a second language, but in a place like new york or miami or l.a., where they've been dealing with it for a generation. >> you're absolutely correct. that's why janet says, we've got to get back to the basics in places all across the country. particularly in those rural communities, where they are just springing up, if you will, around work sites. you have to make certain that we provide some way for those communities to continue to be viable. and the way that they can become viable, she says, and almost everybody agrees, is first you've got to educate the children. but you've got to get everybody on board in wanting to do that. they also talk about the need for early childhood education in those communities. a lot of time ifs people do have those early childhood centers at all, they often end up just being baby sitting centers and they're not really preparing the children so they're ready once they enter kindergarten and

first grade to have that advantage going in. so there's a lot of work to be done. but thankfully there are folks working on it. >> i'll say. a very complex problem. rahema ellis, our nbc correspondent, busy woman, always, but particularly this week. thank you for sharing your time with us. appreciate it. well, president obama took a break from the backyard discussions on tuesday to fire up students at the university of wisconsin. >> and vice president biden was at penn state that same day. it's all part of the administration's plan to get young americans to vote this election. sarah hail mare yam is with campus progress and a spokesperson for voteagain2010.com. so clearly we see it in our own polling. we saw that enthusiasm rates for voter 18 to 24 is at 35%. for seniors, it's at 65%. it's not news in a midterm election that young voters turn out. are you guys having extra problems or normal problems? ? it's absolutely a challenge in an election cycle, which is why

we developed vote again 2010. it's a coalition of other 30 youth groups and media partners working to increase voter turnout this fall. we're operating under the assumption and belief that we can excite young voters by pointing out the obvious. election day puts n s in a posi of power. there's no reason to believe that we're not going to see young voters turn out. and above and beyond even that, turnout goes down across every demographic in the midterm election cycle, so we're -- i personally am excited to see the administration pay attention to young voters. i encourage candidates from both party to reach out to young voters. there's no reason why we shouldn't be turning out. this is a very important cycle. >> there were a lot of people back in 2008 that said, sure, candidate obama is able to get all these people out to these arenas and they're loving him, but will they really show up when push come to shove? and in 2008, they did. but barack obama is not on the ticket, to state the obvious, so

how do you address that challenge? >> about 70% of young voter who is turned out in 2008 stated that a candidate's position on the issues was the most important issue in determining who they voted for. members of congress may be able to vote for or against legislation, but we have the power to vote for or against every one of them. every single thing that has stalled, every single policy that young voters that have favored that haven't come to be is a consequence of congress. so voting in the midterm elections is a way of addressing our agrievances and frustration. >> so this week, you're like, that's nice, because election day is five days away. could they have done better over the last six months in talking to young voters? >> yeah. 2008 was actually my first election cycle. one of the most discouraging things was kind of seeing how the messaging strategy changed. in 2008, yes, we can, was candidate obama and his supporters. over the course of the last two years, it's been him and congress. whenever he invokes the term "we." we saw him bring back the "we"

in the '08 way on tuesday and it was encouraging. and fundamentally, this is also the same message that the tea party is using. really making this about take ownership, not only over a campaign or a candidate or a policy, but our country. so young voters, we're interested in not only -- weaver interested in not taking our country back, but moving our country forward. so voting again in 2010 is way of doing that. >> we know you have your work cut out for you in these waning days of the campaign season. sara, thanks for being with us. >> thanks so much. let's do our trivia. i did enjoy this question. what vulnerable democratic incumbent is a former mary kay cosmetic sales woman? >> the answer is illinois congresswoman debbie halvorson. but did she ever have the pink cadillac? >> the pink car. >> it was the cadillac at time. >> congresswoman, if you're watching, let us know. coming up, which tea partier holds the biggest edge heading into the 2012 election race.

and we'll get to the bottom of a pretty heated exchange with carl paladino and a longtime statehouse reporter. >> yes. but first, the white house soup of the day. i have to say, it's chicken tortilla, i swear to god we just had chicken chilchili. i think this sounds a little recycled. >> i think chili is a heavier soup, tortilla's more brothy. >> i do hope it's rahm's favorite soup tomorrow. that they have something for him to say good-bye. >> for a sendoff. >> possible sendoff. ♪

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♪ sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name ♪ >> my favorite show of all time. it was on this date in 1982 that nbc had a hit show, "cheers" debuted on nbc. the show that's set in a bar if boston lasted 270 episodes, won

29 emmys. i'll tell you, you watch it today -- >> still funny. >> and it's still funny. you know, we live in a dog eat dog world and norm is wearing milkbone underwear. still one of my favorite ways that he would say to woody. >> it is a good show. speaking of everyone knowing your name, a presidential race sometimes might just be the ultimate popularity contest, so who has the edge going into 2012? yes, we're talking about 2012. >> well, it's 34 days until the start of the 2012 election. from columbia, south carolina, jonathan martin, and here with us in studio, chris slisza. i want to walk you guys through. basically, we think there was a big piece of news in the nbc/"wall street journal" poll that is one of those that you realize, oh, wow, i didn't realize that. and that is that mitt romney is

frankly not the front-runner for the republican nomination. newt gingrich at 42%. sarah palin at 55%. mike huckabee at 49%. romney, last among those four at 38. within the tea party, within the tea party, gingrich and palin get a huge bounce. double-digit bounce in favorable ratings, 65 for palin, 54 for gingrich. huckabee and romney, less of a bounce. 53%, 41%. frankly, jonathan martin, mitt romney, why do we still refer to him as the front-runner? if he is, he's the weakest republican front-runner going into a primary in the modern era. >> and his brand, chuck, right now, does not really fit the "mad as hell" moment. that's not romney. he's a button-downed business guy. and look, a lot can change, obviously, between cycles. we've seen that in the last two or three cycles. so let's in the assume what happened in '10 will be the same as what happens in '12 as far as the dynamics.

but romney right now within the republican coalition is not necessarily a great fit. that can change, but i think right now he doesn't capture th party energy in a way that a newt or a palin would. he's also got some tough stances. he was for t.a.r.p. and that, guys, is going to be a big litmus test in 2012 and just real fast the map, chuck, issic looi looking tough for romney, too. iowa and north carolina, what does he do in those states? >> i think you make a good point, which i would like to put to chris, we just can't assume that the most potent force in republican politics two years from now or a year from now would be the tea party. we shouldn't assume. >> you don't know, two years ago i don't think we would be lts ar.

[ ben ] shakira my skin looks - like, a huge improvement. i'm more outgoing with people, and i love going out places. like, even if it's just to the store, becauseou know fred dicker, look at this confrontation with carl paladino the sort of the interesting bombastic, i guess, republican nominee. >> there you go. >> do you have any evidence for the charge you made? it's a simple question.

>> of course, i do. you'll get it. >> you know, jonathan, he threatened dicker here, at what point does paladino fly and some people say we should take him seriously. moments like this, how bad are they for a candidate? >> it's not good gauze it's on video. we can play it again and again on tv. a political journalism i think it speaks to the fablth that this is somebody that this is somebody, obviously, if he was running in a state that wasn't new york it may have been easier. the scrutiny is so much easier because he's facing the new york media and he will say things and do things like this because he will hurt his own cause. yesterday, for example, my colleague had an interview with him where paladino would accuse him of having no evidence of having an affair.

him tossing those things out politically is very, very dangerous and as you mentioned today if he goes down ballot to cuomo, what does that mean for the house races in new york state? there are quite a few of them. >> i don't think you can highlight enough of jonathan's point that you cannot do things like this. don't pick fights with people who have ink by the gallon. what this makes me remember is how great politics is. let's take one step back. in truth, carl paladino is very unlikely to win this race. it's kind of a circus. he's playing into that. but i think we give him too much credit by taking him too seriously, honestly. he won this race spurred by tea party support and the fact that people did not like rick lasio. he was not going to win the race. anyway, it certainly didn't help himself. >> yeah, exactly.

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that's it for "daily rundown." coming up next chris jansing maybe or maybe not cizzala and j. mart still talking.