york? in the wake of a shocking attack on gay men in the bronx, the republican candidate for governor tries to explain himself to matt lauer on "today" after saying homosexuality is not how god created us. >> i was training to define myself very clearly as opposed to mr. cuomo. mr. cuomo took his daughters to a gay pride parade. is that normal? your children to the gay pride parade? only 22 days to go. president obama is campaigning as if his name were on the ballot. and where he is not popular he's got a presidential surrogate. >> so we have dug this hole for eight years and they want to throw us out and put them back in. be mad. they are playing you. >> with the latest on the democratic campaign, national committee chairman tim kaine. and a republican candidate for congress has a disturbing

wardrobe choice. we've got the reporter who broke that story. the white house's $50 billion plan to improve roads, rails and runways. is it good for the deficit or bad for the stimulus or both? mayor antonio villaraigosa direct from the meeting with president obama today. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. new york's republican candidate for governor carl paladino is understood fire for remarks made on sunday. >> my approach is live and let live. i just think my children and your children will be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family. and i don't want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. it isn't. >> chuck todd is nbc's chief white house correspondent and cohost of "the daily rundown."

this is the latest in his campaign, but this is a pretty big fallout especially because of the incidents in new york, the arraignment in the bronx of these men in this horrendous attack on gay men in new york. this is getting resonance. >> reporter: there's the issue of bullying gay americans right now. this is an inappropriate remark at this point in time when you brought up the issue in the bronx with the suicide at rutgers, we have what's going on with the student president at the university of michigan. of all times to throw out aç remark like this, this seemed completely inappropriate. this is not new for this guy. he's been sort of -- there's a reason why the mainstream republican party was trying to distance themselves from this guy. they were secretly hoping he wouldn't win the primary. then he did. they don't know how to handle him on the republican side. democrats aren't sure what to do with him.

he had that one lone poll that could turn out to be a completely incorrect poll that showed him in a potential race, and he's gotten more attention than he deserves for some of his outrageous things he likes to say, which do strike you as attempts to simply get attention. >> chuck, today he was on with matt lauer on the "today" program, and he tried to explain his remarks. in fact, talking about the gay pride rally, i think that was back in june, where andrew cuomo did attend with his kids. and his grown daughters or teenager daughters, in any case, he tried to say he had not written those remarks from yesterday. this is how it played out with matt. >> that section, okay, of my presentation was written. and it was handed to a staffer and put into -- i crossed it out. >> but is that the way it works, you agree to go speak to a group

and the group gets to write the comments you make before the group? >> no, it was with the discussion, but they went too far in the discussion and i crossed all that stuff out. >> if you are running for the highest office in the state of new york and show up at events and they hand you a piece of paper and say, mr. paladino, here's what i want you to say. >> i read it beforehand and crossed out that section. that is not me, period. >> so there you go again. it was the gay pride parade that the cuomos attended. so the new york race is just full of these kinds of incidents. but then you had -- it is not a governors race, it is a senate race, illinois on "meet the press" david gregory did stump both of the candidates, mark kirk on his resumé enhancement about his military career, but alsoç jeweljulius about his

family bank. let's watch. >> there are individuals with those with colorful pasts we didn't want to do business with. i didn't know the extent of their activity. >> david grabbed him on that and said he didn't know the extent of it. you were a senior loan officer, how did you not know there were crime figures getting loans from the bank. is this damaging? >> reporter: the word extent, it just feeds into the narrative republicans are trying to hit him on, which is the idea that, you know what, he did know of some of the ties that this bank had with some questionable figures, so just an awful way to answer that question. and as you brought up, mark kirk seemed just as stumped when having to explain why he spent so much time exaggerating his duties when in the reserves. >> chuck, bottom line going into this final three weeks of the campaign, the president is out

there, the president is trying to make the case there could be foreign money, the democrats and we'll talk to tim kaine in a second, they are coming up with a new advertisement saying foreign money is about to take over american elections. have they found their voice yet? have they found their theme to try to compete with republicans, with energized tea party republicans or not? >> reporter: well, ed rendell, you are about to have the mayor, the governor was also here, and i asked him, he said in the last three weeks they are starting to get it right. he thinks it does motivate the base with some of this talk. we'll see. it certainly isn't an issue for swing voters and not the number one, number two, number three or number four issue. but i want to close on one final note about going back to the illinois senate debate. it is something i want to bring up. it is the longest general election campaign in the country, both nominees happened in february. the one thing that struck me about the two more than anything

is how beaten down both of them are. they have been exchanging these blows, you're a liar, you're a mob banker, this back and forth, you can see the exhaustion on both their faces. granted, this is what politics is today, but itç really is so of -- when you sit there and say, boy, how exhausted are the candidates, are the voters, what's going on with american political discourse, look no further than alexei and kurr. it has been low blows on both of them. it made them look like two pessimistic guys who can't wait for this to be over. >> the voters probably have the same sentiments. don't mischuck and savannah weekday mornings at 9:00 eastern on "the daily rundown." democrats struggling to retain control of both houses of congress.

of the 18 democratic held seats up for grabs, 12 of them are leaning republican. that's the challenge for tim kaine, chairman of the democratic national committee who is joining us now. >> hey, andrea. >> great to see you. mr. chairman, what about some of these races because some of these campaigns frankly seem like freak shows with some of the candidates, but people don't seem to care that much yet. democrats have not been able to go up against some of these really outside the mainstream candidates. the action seems to go on the republican enthusiasm of the tea party inspired republicans. >> we do think the dynamic is different before labor day. i'm traveling everywhere and talking to you from ohio today. i was in louisiana yesterday. and we are seeing our voters basically pick up the enthusiasm and understand the stakes of the election. we are seeing many of our polls close in our favor. the question is, how much more work can we do between now and election day? you want to be on the uptick on election day. we feel like we are, but it is a

challenging climate. people are hurting out there, but democrats do tough. there's nothing new in that for us. we are out there battling and still maintain the optimism to hold on to both houses. >> what about the allegation of foreign money? what proof because when david axelrod was on television yesterday he didn't have actual proof. what is your proof that the foreign money is actually coming in to the independent organizations? >> very important question about t it is something we said, andrea, if the citizens united case was decided to open the flood gates to money, this very thing could happen. so we have a number of organizations, the chamber of commerce being one that is bragging about how much money they are putting into the midterms. it is acknowledged that they raised money from foreign entities and they successfully raised money, they received money from foreign entities. and now they are doing millions and millions of dollars worth of negative advertising but refuse

to disclose thou ads are being funded. they put out a brief statement that says, oh, yeah, we do take foreign money but we have internal controls and don't use that for politics. i have done a lot of budgets in my life. moneys come into an organization and we use it to pay staff and take the staff money to be used in ads. >> but what if these are dues from the chamber of commerce, there are chambers of commerce in all the capitals where american businessmen have help from the chamber. these are dues or fees they pay to the american chamber. how do you separate that? >> well, there might be ways to separate it, but we won't know because they won't disclose. and that's the point, andrea, that's the point. >> disclosure. >> in politics since watergate, one of the best moves in politics, other things have been challenged, but the better moves are openness and disclosure about the ways campaigns are financed. we have seen a concerted effort on the republican side to push as many of the contributions as possible into manners and techniques and groups that don't

have to disclose who is giving. and that is a fundamental perversion of the system we have that undermines 25 years of protransparency developments. the chamber can answer the question, karl rove's group can answer it, we had a big up to do that. the republicans filibustered the bill to stop the american public from knowing who is contributing to this onslaught of negative ads people are seeing on tv every day. >> since you are in ohio, i have to ask you what your comments are on the ohio republican that apparently has a very strange weekend hobby, or had a strange weekend hobby of dressing up in a gnat zee uniform, josh greene uncovered that, and he'll be on with us shortly. >> well, i will just say to you, it is rare that i get asked a question where i sayç the act speaks for itself. a candidate dressing for congress dressing up in a gnat

nazi uniform. people will make their own conclusions about it. >> governor tim kaine, democratic party chairman, thank you for joining us from ohio today. >> thank you, andrea. in less than an hour tamron hall will be talking to valerie jarrett at 2:00 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. up next here, the major of los angeles straight from his meeting with the president over infrastructure. plus josh greene, we have been telling you about the story he uncovered the ohio republican's strange fetish. you can find me on twitter at mitchell reports. this is andrea mitchell reports on msnbc.

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it should not take another collapsing bridge or failing levee to shock us into action. so we are already paying for our failure to act. and once more, the longer our infrastructure erode the deeper our competitive edge erodes. >> president obama this morning

calling america's crumbling infrastructure one of the country's greatest challenges as he proposes a $50 billion. and joining us now, antonio villaraigosa with the president. thank you so much for being with us on our coast. let's talk about this because there is a big republican push. and you can see the results in the tea party against big spending. this is another $50 billion.ç governor chris christie rejected the tunnel in new jersey. the white house is trying to talk him into it. is it good or bad politics? >> well, since the 19th century, the whig party talked about the investments in infrastructure and the frontier. so republicans, democrats and their predecessors have been talking about infrastructure for a long time. it shouldn't be a partisan issue. it is an issue about jobs. it is an issue about america's competitiveness. we have a $2.2 trillion need over the next five years according to the american

society of civil engineers. a $264 billion need over the next five years for transportation alone. we've got to put people back to work and make these investments. and what happened today was two former secretaries, one republican and democrat, there were five total at the meeting today. democrat or republican who have all come together to say we have to start making a down payment on the infrastructure needs that america needs to get people back to work. >> of course, none of this will help at all before the elections coming up. so what do you say to the voters in california? are you -- the state finally has a budget from last week, but the problem of unemployment across the country in california and elsewhere is critical. and there's going to be no fix certainly in the next three weeks. >> that's why i was here today because in california and los angeles, specifically, we are investing about $120 billion over the next 30 years.

a penny and a half we have taxed ourselves. recently we did a half a penny that we want to accelerate for public transportation projects in a ten-year period of time, create 166,000 jobs, we think it is a template for what cities and counties can do across the country to leverage that $50 billion with a 30 to 1 match. >> mr. mayor, i'm going to ask you about the california race because so much happen has beening between jerry brown and meg whitman. we'll talk to tom brokaw tomorrow night moderating the debate. what do you think about meg whitman and what this has done to jerry brown's campaign. the slur was overheard as you know on a telephone conversation, the governor -- the former governor brown did not say it himself. we think it was an aid, but he certainly was part of that conversation. >> well, very clearly, there's no proof that he actually said

it. in fact, he's denied that he did. it may have been said by someone on the phone. the fact is that the term is unacceptable. what's important is we have to be focusing on the issues important to californians. that issue is jobs, jobs, jobs. as you just mentioned a few minutes ago, education, we've got to reform our schools, make our workers more competitive. the issue of transportation, there are a lot more issues, frankly, than the back and forth that you've seen over the last couple of days. >> on the subject of education, as you know, education nation has been our big focus here on msnbc and nbc news and all of our networks. and you had an agreement with the union after a lawsuit, i believe, with the aclu saying that three of the most challenged schools were discriminating against kids because they were laying off the most recently hired teachers, some of whom were the best

teachers, and now there's a workout with the union. how is that going to be implemented and who will oversee to make sure the unions are not getting rid of some of the more talented teachers? >> well, first of all, kuddos to you and msnbc for highlighting this crisis in public education. i was supposed to be in new york and wasn't able to make it. just a few minutes ago the waiting for superman folks were here visiting the white house as we speak. i tell you, the movie is a call to action. and yes, in los angeles, i have a partnership in schools, 21,000 kids in our schools, two years in a row we have increased our api scores, or academic performance index scores, better than the school district and the state overall. but we were -- because many of our teachers are the senior teachers in the performing schools, we are losing 60% and 50% of our teachers. so we sued -- we first went to

the district and tried to work it out. when we couldn't work it out we went to the aclu and public council and said, weç need you help. and as a result of that lawsuit we've come to an agreement which says in up to 45 schools where you have low-performing students and a disproportionate amount of teachers, there will be no layoffs. no matter what the economic situation is. we have to address this issue of seniority. you can be for seniority but not in an absolute way where we it dictates assignments, transfers and layoffs. and the least, senior teachers are always in the least performing schools. >> mr. mayor, thank you so much on the progress report. we'll stay on it and maybe can come out to l.a. to look at some of the schools ourselves. thank you. it is great to see you. and some of the children from the movie are right now heading into the oval office for a private meeting with the president. so that's a big moment in their young lives. and coming up next, the

comeback kid hitting the campaign trail is bill clinton. what democrats need in the stretch. and a light at the end of the tunnel literally for chile's 33 miners trapped underground. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. [ female announcer ] you use the healing power of touch every day.

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and start reversing. and join the myboniva program. join today and get a free month of boniva at myboniva.com, or call 1-877-313-1828. they say all republicans are motivated, the tea party crowds are all motivated, and the young people won't show up, working people won't show up. there is nothing wrong with this country as i've said a thousand times. you can't be played. >> bill clinton in kentucky today on behalf of the senate candidate jack conway. he's not the onlyç vulnerable democrat hoping to borrow campaign magic. bill clinton is hitting 11 states in 11 days to shore up the campaigns of a host of vulnerable democrats. many fending off criticism they are too close to the current president. john harris is editor and chief

of politico and joins me now. john, great to see you. how does the clinton campaign surrogacy work? first of all, 11 states, 11 days, that's an active schedule for the guy. >> it is. especially for somebody who told me a couple weeks back, i'm not involved in politics anymore. i want to do other things. but he clearly seems to still have some zest for it judging by the schedule. democrats are happy for it in a difficult year. there are not a lot of surrogates to go out and help the cause, and bill clinton is certainly one of them. >> what we have seen is that he's needed, in particular, in places like west virginia, other places like kentucky and west virginia, where obama didn't do that well. president obama did not do well in the primaries. these are hillary clinton states. >> right. west virginia is a perfect example. that was a blowout in her favor at the end of the campaign, log after the point where it made a difference in the nomination,

but still unmistakable west virginia democrats favored and many with the heartland ohio river valley states where a lot of the midterm elections will be decided. >> there are a number of senate ads which are anti-obama ads being run against democrats who are trying to avoid any connection to the white house. let's take a look. >> jack conway has given me a stamp of approval. conway supported me for president, bankrolled my campaign and even fought to pass my health care plan. >> joe manchin will do anything to avoid talking about being a rubber stamp for barack obama. >> michael bennett cast the deciding vote for obama's stimulus. michael bennett is their vote, not colorado's. >> reporter: colorado is a place where another surrogate is going to show up this week, michelle obama is hitting the road on wednesday to be in wisconsin and illinois and in colorado among other places. so she's the other really

powerful and important surrogate, popular surrogate this year. >> sure. that's not çuncommon, even whe george w. bush suffered the worst approval ratings, his wife was still popular on the road. you have to move the argument to what are democrats going to do during the next two years. he feels other people are not making the case so he's happy to make it. >> we both remember how he stubbed his toe a little bit in 2008 when there were all the issues that came up when he was campaigning in the carolinas and elsewhere, but boy he has regained whatever mojo he didn't have if he didn't have it back then. he's got it now and is the surrogate everyone wants to see. thank you so much, john harris, great to see you today. >> you too. coming up next, an ohio republican candidate caught on tape. it isn't even halloween. you will not believe his costume. and we will be live in chile where the trapped miners are now

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topping the headlines right now on "andrea mitchell reports" general petraeus is launching an investigation into the death of a u.s. aid worker. the woman was killed last week. americans may have thrown the grenade that actually killed her. a chief executive of a factory responsible for the massive toxic sludge spill in hungary has been arrested on charges of federal negligence. this as workers raced to build the new containment wall after cracks were found in the old one raising fears of a second spillç word today that 58 million americans who receive social security benefits likely will not get a cost of living increase this year. this would be the second strait year without an increase. that because inflation has been

tamed. and for those of us who still feel safer down here on earth, general motors officially unveiled their new chevy volt. the electric car with a backup gasoline engine. and in chile an extraordinary story of survival is nearing its dramatic climax. we are a day or two away from the trapped miners emerging finally into freedom, fame and fortune. kerry sanders is in chile for us now outside the mine. one thing that i read earlier that was intriguing is that the miners had some reluctance to be first to come out. they were not only facing wives and families but wives and mistresses. is that true? >> reporter: i know, can you imagine that? of all the things they have to worry about wanting to get out of the mine to get up here and welcome back to the real world, the thing that i thought was so brave is that these men were all fighting for the same position to be last because of that brotherhood. but there may be some choosing to be last for other reasons.

that said, there's a high degree of confidence here -- go ahead. >> i'm sorry, i was going to say there's the possibility that whoever is the last man out might have a special guinness world record? >> yes, of course. that is also the case, because we are at 68 days. if they bring them out, let's say tomorrow night or into wednesday, they will be at 69 to 70 days. we are already passed the world record. this is amazing. if i take you back to the beginning, the first 17 days, nobody knew they were alive. they were down there and surviving on what were two days of rations of peaches and tuna. they ate just little spoonfuls to get through the 17 days. they had a lot of weight loss then. then they had to build them back up. they get food down to them and start building their strength back. and now the doctor says they put them through all the stress

tests. one of the guys is running five miles a day down there. they are ready to come up. just the finalç pieces have toe put into place, andrea. >> it is an amazing story. we are going to be fascinating as we watch this the next couple of days. a candidate who dresses as a nazi could get elected to the house of representatives. we are going to find out. the atlantic magazine uncovered these photos of him taking part in world war ii reenactments dressed as a soldier. joshua greene, senior editor of "the atlantic" wrote the article. thank you so much for joining us. how does this happen? >> well, i called mr. ayelot last week and asked to explain the pictures. they are unusual for someone seeking the political office. he explained for a number of years he was involved in the nazi world war ii reenacted group called the vikings that

reenacts the world war ii division. >> we are talking about the ss -- >> yes, the picture you showed shows mr. iott in his corporal uniform. he was very specific on what kind of -- >> it was just a low ranking -- >> he was working his way up. but at the end these pictures surfaced. this has created sort of a firestorm in his district, which is the ninth district of ohio. it has upset a lot of people in the community, as you would expect it would. it will probably be a subject of discussion in tonight's candidate debate, which he has with his opponent, marcy captor. >> presumably, there's a jewish district there. what does he say to them? >> he expects they will take it in context that -- i think his quote was people reenact anything, and this wasn't meant

to offend jews or anyone else who might have been upset about it. but what it showed was his devotion and love of the german army and history. >> we should point out the house whip eric cantor has spoken out against what iott has done. >> yes. they are not happy ab]ut this. >> are they going to run away from him? are they going to deny him money? >> he was listed as part of the young guns programs of up and coming republican candidates. and he was mysteriously dropped from the list after the news broke, so presumably he's not a candidate touted and abraced by the national republican party at this point. >> is he ahead or behind in the polling? >> he is trailing in the polls. i believe his campaigns have been within five points. it will be interesting to see what the next poll looks like. >> do you support or not a

candidate who dressed up like an s.s. officer as a bonding moment with his son? >> and that was -- hissics cla mags was he got involved in this with his teenager son doing the father/son bonding thing. together they dressed up and reenacted this. a lot of reenacting going on in the iott family. >> can you imagine the iott family thanksgiving dinner? just hard to believe, or halloween -- >> every day is hol lo halloween. >> josh greene, thank you very much. up next, the west virginia air war. joe manchin strikes back at the hickey casting call. and msnbc is on sirius xm radio. msnbc on seer use channel 90. this lighting is awful.

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as your senator i'llprotect our second amendment rights. that's why the nra indivorced me. i'll cut federal spending and repeal the bad parts of obamacare. i sued epa and i'll take dead aim at the cap and trade bill. >> that is unbelievable, guys. pat buchanan here, and none of us can believe that's a

democratic ad. >> it's like his running after sarah palin. >> given it is joe manchin i'm not surprised. it is west virginia. it is a coal state. that's what you would expect. >> a guy with a 66% approval in the polls and she's in trouble in the senate race in his own state. he has to get the guns out and repeal obamacare. this is a tough year. it is a tough year, andrea. >> well, in fact, here's an ad by his opponent, the racy ad, which shows one of the reasons why he's in so much trouble. >> john racy thinks we are hicks. >> his people hired actors from philadelphia to attack joe manchin and told them to dress hi hicky. >> a carbon tax. manchin already signed west virginia's cap and trade into law. it is time we say no to rubber

stamp joe. >> so there you go. we know what happened with the hicks casting call shot in south philadelphia, no less. >> actors. >> actors who were supposed to look like they were from west virginia. but he has spent a ton of money. with his 66% rate as governor, he's got trouble. >> obama is at 29% in west virginia. that's down at the levels bush had at the end of his administration. >> in fairness to barack obama, he was nowhere in west virginia during the campaign for hillary clinton. >> he got a tremendous amount of voters undecided and were for hillary and decided to take a chance on obama. they came over to give him a seven-point victory. they are the ones who have completely departed. tease are west virginians. if there's a group more likely to be tea party folks, i don't know where it is. >> joe manchin is popular in the state and knows how to make an

ad to break through. when you are up against an opponent who had a lot of money to use against you, you have to break through in this environment. >> let's get some hicky looking guys up here in west virginia. >> i don't think those guys will be hired again. >> hopefully not, right. >> apparently i'm told that's a 22-rifle. >> 22-gauge? >> that's what he was shooting. in any case, you have the clinton -- >> a 22-gauge rifle? are you sure of this? >> i'm not sure at all. >> it is a big gun. just so you know. >> i won't want to be on the other end of it, we'll put it that way. and we have bill clinton scheduled today. so kentucky, west virginia, 11 states coming up, and these are states where people are running away from barack obama. >> look, as democrats we are lucky president clinton, former

president clinton is popular and able to get out there on the stump for democrats. i do still notice that republicans don't seem to have george bush out there on the stuff for them. so again, it is great to have clinton out there because he reminds people what it is like to have a president to balance the budget and have more money in their pockets. >> i think this. i think bill clinton -- the electric charge is out of bill clinton, both the positive and negative. people don't attack clinton for everything anymore, he is just a figure out there and sort of a positive figure. nobody goes after him. popular, but you notice -- >> very popular according to the polls. >> but he doesn't get the huge crowds that sarah palin can get or the huge negatives that sarah palin can get. clinton himself used to getç them. >> but in energizing the debate, i think he's a good person to do it. >> i don't know if he energizes it, but nobody is going to attack him. it is a good thing, but it doesn't have the charge.

>> but what about michelle obama and her campaigning this week? >> i'm sure they will send her where she helps and is more popular than the president. >> like wisconsin and illinois. >> bill clinton appeals to moderates. in a general election it is the moderate voters who it is unclear if they are going for the pea tea partiers. we need to keep them on our side. >> before i let you guys go, one of my favorite campaigns this year is california. the year we have the two very prominent republican women in california. this is their appearance at a hispanic gala friday night in california. meg whitman, carly fiorina, apparently they can handle their tequila. >> i think every speech should begin with a shot of tequila. >> now, here's something -- she is very tough on illegal immigration. she is down there getting cheers

from a hispanic group. she is closer to barbara boxer than meg whitman is to jerry brown. >> now pat, when you are about to slam a shot of tequila, people are going to cheer you on. that's pretty obvious what was going on there. it is a different thing when say this look at her policies. >> well, in fact, we don't know which way the whitman/brown race is tipping right now because there have been so much controversy in the last couple days. and they have the big debate with tom brokaw. >> the polls will say what happened to meg whitman and the nanny incident or whatever it is and whether brown hurt himself. the cynics out there are using the same language as well. >> we have covered several things i know nothing about. shotguns and rifles. >> it is politics. >> great to see you guys. tomorrow on the program, tom brokaw is joining us live from

california where he'll monitor the gubernatorial debate between jerry brown and meg whitmanç tomorrow at 1:00 eastern right here. and what political story will be making headlines in the next 24 hours? that's next. stay with us. and here to follow the show online, go to andrea.msnbc.com. ♪ [ indistinct shouting ] ♪ another day ♪ another dollar ♪ daylight comes [ dogs barking ] ♪ i'm on my way ♪ another day ♪ another dollar ♪ working my whole life away ♪ another day ♪ another dollar ♪ another day ready to try something new? campbell's has made changes. adding lower sodium sea salt to more soups.

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which political story will be making headlines in the next 24 hours? chris cillizza, author of the fix blog joins us. we have debates coming up. >> this is debate season. 22 days away. the first one i'm looking at in kentucky. we have rand paul, ophthalmologist. ron paul's son. running against the state attorney general. this is closer than i think we

thought it might be. paul is ahead, but only by a few points. kentucky is a conservative state. in a year like this, he should win. he said some impolitic things. some would say many impolitic things. so a closer race than we think. and debates matter in situations like this because paul has to show that he can be senatorial. that it's not just about odd comments here or there, he can be a serious person. and i was going to add, same dynamic in colorado, another race, michael bennet against ken buck. same issue in this debate. buck has to show that he's up to the job. that he's not just about the tea party. he's not just about the right of theç right. he's about representing colorado. debates are very important crystallizing moments for voters. unlike you and i, they don't pay attention all the time. when they do pay attention, is

this somebody i want to represent me? >> this is a real test for tea party candidates. both of whom have been criticized in some quarters. and these are two states that the republicans have to really pick off if they're going to take the senate. >> absolutely, andrea. and i don't want to get us too far ahead to the next 72, but thursday there's a debate in nevada. sharron angle, the state assemblywoman against harry reid. can a tea party candidate stand up on the same stage with a senator and show they are up to the task and they can represent not just a narrow slice of people, but the state. for sharron angle, that may be the single most important moment of her campaign. >> and that is going to be a great debate. we'll have to talk about that in the next couple days. thanks, chris. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show online and twitter at andrea mitchell

reports. be with u.s. my colleague tamron hall has a look at what's coming up next. hey there, andrea. in the next hour, president obama hits the campaign trail to help out democratic candidates and raise money for the party. coming up, in our new show, "news nation", i will talk with valerie jarrett. also accepting special interest money from foreign countries. the allegations being made by the president and some democrats headed straight to the gop. i don't want you going out on those yet. and leave your phone in your purse, i don't want you texting. >> daddy... ok! ok, here you go. be careful. >> thanks dad. >> and call me--but not while you're driving. we knew this day was coming. that's why we bought a subaru.

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carl paladino, the republican candidate for new york governor says he does not saying kids, brainwashing and homosexuality in one thought. also miners in chile are perhaps just hours from seeing daylight. and brett favre accused of sending lewd pictures and inappropriate text messages to a woman who worked for the jets while he was the qb. does he owe fans an explanation now? that is today's "news nation" gut check poll. good afternoon. i'm tamron hall. the november midterms just 22 days away. president obama is scheduled to leave the white house within minutes, headed to florida. it is the president's latest strong push to get the democrats who helped elect him in 2008 to return to the polls on novemb