jarrett and the piece in the "washington post" today. a must read for any who wants to learn something opposed to throwing up all over themselves on our set. >> that's what i was just going to say, kids, if you want to run for office, rule number one, when you're in a debate, brit hume will tell you, don't vomit on yourself. willie, if it's way too early, what time is it? >> time for "the daily rundown" and chuck todd. that is one to grow on. rick perry is down but is he out? his bopoor debate led to a poor showing in the straw poll. what's his next step to convince conservative americans he's their guy. once again we're hearing a call for governor chris christie to run. how much of it is just conservative thinking? president obama out to raise

a bundle of cash and taking a sharp aim at republicans in speeches. it's who he's talking to off-camera that got our gaga attention. this is the dal "the daily run,m chuck todd. could washington be headed to the brink for another government shutdown, deja vu all again. to governor perry and the pressure is on him. republicans are looking at perry's candidacy and seeing a flashing red light. from new jersey to washington to florida, republicans are wringing their hands after a vote last week turned into a protest against him the key florida republican straw poll this weekend. >> i think rick perry is not prepared for the pressure of the presidential stage yet. >> these are very weak front runners. >> perry really did throw up all over himself in the debate after he needed to raise his gain.

>> over the weekend, former pizza owner her man cain surprised. taking 37% to perry's 15%. perry did eke out second place over mitt romney. perry's loss in florida is blamed on his debate showing both in substance and style and seeming inability to effectively attack romney. >> was it was before he was before the social programs from the standpoint he was for standing up for roe versus wade before he was against roe versus wade. >> perry defended his performs at saginaw island, michigan where he was competing in that state's romneyesque straw poll. >> there may be slicker candidates and smoother debaters. i know what i believe in. i will stand on that belief every day. i will guide this country with a

deep, deep rudder. >> mitt romney handily beat perry in his former state of michigan where his father was governor and romney grew up. beat perry by 34 points. they know if romney this is nominee, their state may be in play. there was a sympathetic play on perry's bad 96 hours came from somebody who had to deal with bad debate performances before with clients, that was mary madeline. what she said on abc. >> rick perry is not the best debater. he has to say, i may have the worst debate record but the best jobs record. if you're a president, you're called on to decide, not to debate. >> that is the message team perry is hoping they can get in the next few weeks but a sure sign a poor debate performance will be hard for perry to debate. it's already been spoofed in the season premier of "saturday

night live". >> was it was he was before border control? >> that concludes tonight's debate. as a remind tore chris christie, it's wide open, buddy! >> well, the calls are increasing for new jersey governor chris christie to jump in the race. he's still answering the phone and he's still saying no. this is not about family hori anything else, about governor christie believing he's not yet ready to run for president. he may be on to something when you watch what happens when somebody late gets in whether wesley clark in 2003, whether fred thompson and rick perry has seen running for president is hard. i thought mark kirk made a great point on "morning joe," it's not a marathon, it's an "ironman" competition. in that case, that's where perry is still trying to get up to speed. he has to perform better, their team knows it at the next debate in the words of brit hume, not throw up all over yourself but he also has to start a

conversation about mitt romney. the only thing perry's folks are taking solace in is mitt romney's not benefitting yet. >> it's not being called a campaign swing but president obama acting like a candidate. on the west coast for seven fund raisers in five cities over three days. he's throwing in other events but mostly campaign stuff. a chance to find his campaign voice with his base and sell his jobs plan. at 2:00, he participates in a jobs themed town hall followed by spammers linked in. so far all the good stuff has been off-camera. last night, at a fund-raiser, the president went after rick perry and republicans saying, has anybody been watching the debates lately. you have a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change, audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don't have health care and booing at a serviceman in iraq because they're gay. that's not reflective who they

are. the president got questioned by lady gaga at a fund-raiser. she thanked the president for the anti-bullying initiative and asked him to keep working on that front, off-camera. lawmakers have until friday the end of the fiscal year to pass a stop-gap funding bill or the government will run out of money. >> last friday they blocked the house bill over what they say is inadequate disaster aid in the bill and opposed spending cuts to pay for the bill. leadership aides say no compromise was reach over the weekend and late today, the senate will vote on its own version of the bill. on friday, john mccain said i wish every high school student in america could observe their government in action, taxpayer dollars at work. democratic mark warner called it all embarrassing. if everybody's upset, let's get it done. >> president obama is expected to rake in at least $4 million

during this west coast string and squeeze in a town hall in california. live very early in mountain view, california. let's talk about this linked de town hall. the last time he did a fund-raiser, he did a facebook town hall. what's different today with linkedin? >> reporter: hi there, chuck. president obama will be taking questions from an audience. there will be a live audience. he will also be taking questions folks have submitted before hand, so that will be sort of a nice back and forth, according to the administration. what's interesting, chuck, we will hear him talk about jobs, the economy. his jobs plan. as you say, the focus of this trip not events like this, really the fund-raising.

he will be attending seven different fund raisers over this three day trip in seattle, san jose, san diego, los angeles, and denver. the tickets for these events range from about $100 on the low end to $35,000 on the higher end. they're trying to make up for a little bit of lost time here. you remember over the summer, they had to cancel 10 fund raisers for the president due to the debt ceiling debate, really trying to get back on track in that regard. that is really the main focus of this trip. the other focus is rallying his base. president obama won krar overwhelmingly in 2008 and now for the first time, fewer than half of californians actually approve of the job he's doing. he has been going after congressional republicans during his speeches and trying to urge some of his discouraged constituents to stay on board. here's a little snippet of what he had to say during a

fund-raiser yesterday. take a listen. >> i need you guys to shake off any doldrums. i -- i need you to -- to decide right here and right now. we're not finished yet. we've got more work to do. we are going to build an america that we believe in. >> reporter: so, chuck, publicly going after congressional republicans privately, as you say, going after the 2012 candidates, tonight he heads on to san diego and then los angeles for more fund raisers. there will be another likely star-studded event in los angeles at the house of blues a little later on tonight. >> all right. kristen welker out in california very early. a september 30th deadline on the fec end of the third quarter, why you're seeing a frenzy of fund-raising with all the presidential candidates, the current president included.

a quick update in the war zone. in the second major breach of embassy security, an american is condominium a killed and another wounded after an afghan employee opened fire at the cia station. live at the pentagon, i understand you have new information. the part of the embassy attacked is the semi well-known cia aspect annex of the embassy? >> that's right, chuck. that's what u.s. officials tell us. apparently it was a private contractor, afghan civilian, a plumber perhaps what we're hearing, who walked into the job sunday and pulled out a weapon, killing one american and wounding another. so far, the u.s. has not identified either one of those individuals, leading us to believe it probably was a cia employee or operative of some kind that was killed and perhaps even the one who was wounded. not only was this the second

attack recently on the u.s. embassy compound or at least the annex of the compound, there in kabul, it's the second brazen attack against the cia in a couple of years. back in december of 2009. an alleged informant walked into a u.s. base in eastern afghanistan near coast and blew himself up, killing seven cia employees at the time. what's new this morning, according to u.s. officials, they can find no connection, no evidence, no intel, no intercepts, that would link this individual to the network bleached to have been responsible for a massive truck bomb against a u.s. facility that wounded 70 american forces, only 90 wounds fortunately on 9/11 and the most recent attack on the u.s. embassy that killed about a half-dozen or so afghan civilians, no americans injured or killed in ott

operation. no intel to indicate the hakani network was involved in this attack. it appears to be a lone wolf. >> no links to that network in pakistan and no links to the taliban either? >> not so far. we had a couple of instances in afghanistan where it usually involves troops suddenly fired upon by a lone individual, who for whatever reason, decided to take out his grievances with a gun against american forces, in this case, it appears to have been at cia headquarters. it's only preliminary they haven't found any link to the network so far, chuck. >> jim, thanks very much. up next, we dig deeper on the trail for perry as his problems pile up, the chris christie buzz gets louder again. how much of it is an issue for gop their field as far as

republican fund raisers are concerned, is influx. risky business congress trying to agree on temporary funding, not the full budget! unbelievable. a look at the president's schedule. as we told you, you have now not responded to your linkedin invitation. don't forget to respond to your linkedin invitation. ♪ ♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] ♪ [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose -- to make the world a safer place. that's the value of performance.

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haqqani. it's got be something you and your family really believes it's not only the right thing to

do but i think what you must do at that time in your life, both for you and for your country. and for me, the answer to that was, it isn't. >> new jersey governor crist christie is still trying to come up with a new way to say no to republicans urging him to run. those calls have only gotten louder since rick perry's disastrous debate last week. editor of the cooke political report, stu rothenberg, editor and columnist and contributor to "roll call." gentlemen, you're both here. last week, before the debate performance, you said rick perry's nomination to lose. still his nomination to lose? >> yeah. i think he's doing a pretty good job. >> i see. >> the thing, the party wants to nominate somebody from where he is, very very conservative. does he grow? the guy is stepping on body parts every week and doesn't seem to be feeling pain or

establishing cause and effect relationships. that continues, he's not going to be the nominee. >> what the perry people are taking small comfort in, not a lot, it was her main cain that became the protest vote that won that straw poll where the base conservatives, they went to him and romney still finished behind him. there's clearly, as charlie put it, there's a lot of energy to not nominate romney. >> there is resistance to nominating romney just as there was in the 2002-2003 period there was resistance to nominating john mccain but they nominated him. >> there was resistance to hillary clinton and they didn't nominate her. >> that's true. rick perry has a big problem, simply this. running for president is different than running for anything else. we'll elect pro wrestlers governors of minnesota and body builders governor of california but the president has a different kind of test. he just hasn't seemed presidential.

>> charlie, the fund-raising aspect to all this, that's what this week -- if there's a consequence for perry, he will have a hard time closing the sale. they're not going to romney, and making calls to christie. he keeps saying nobody keeps answering the phone. >> if chris christie, your point earlier was exactly right. if christie says, i'm not ready, i think people should listen to him. the thing about it, when you're only two years into state-wide office, maybe you shouldn't run. maybe that was a lesson a certain state senator of illinois should have listened to. >> talking to points to republicans, too, about obama and makes it harder to defend if you put up a chris christie. >> christie has a great future. don't push the future any sooner than it has to be. >> lay this out. rick perry has to right his ship how? it does strick me romney is in this unenviable position where if he has one bad debate

performance, everybody will pounce on him and rick perry has to not throw up on himself. >> he lowered the bar. one good debate. ronald reagan came out. >> george bush didn't have good debates either. >> i think it's silly -- i've read people writing rick perry off. >> that's ridiculous. >> that's way premature. i think he has to be much more substantive, much more serious and measured and thoughtful and drop some of the cowboy stuff. >> interesting, this has been a substance and style problem. here's perry on immigration. i want to talk about immigration versus health care. >> if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there, by no fault of their own, i don't think you have a heart. we need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society. >> conservatives would be okay if he defended his position

without -- they felt as if, by him saying you're heartless if you don't, it was a step too far when he went after them. >> perry has a modulation issue. trying to calibrate things just right. er part of it comes when you're from a one party state, you don't have to be careful what you say and how you say it. that's where he has to learn or he's going to fail. >> would you rather be defending your immigration stance if you're rick perry or health care stance mitt romney the end of the day, if we're going to talk substance. if these are the final two, conservatives have to swallow hard on one of these two issues? >> perry's appeal is so much stronger it's easier for him to confirm them. but mitt romney has had a problem but so far he has sounded and looked more

presidential and that matters. >> i thought everybody got bill mcintyre's memo how damaging the fighting was to parties. this last minute thing between what's going on between the house and senate is crazy. >> i'm beginning to wonder whether they read anything at all. we saw a gallup poll confidence in government is at a record low. it's half of what it was or disapproval half or twice what it was back during for a 20-year period, during clinton and gone on w. bush. this is unbelievable what these folks are doing. we've got a bomb sending shrapnel in every direction wounding both ends over pennsylvania avenue and seem to be unaware of it. >> seem to be totally oblivious? >> yankees are the poor underdog? >> you saw all the predictions, red sox were overwhelming favorites, poor yankee

underdogs. derek jeter hitting .300 now. >> he was washed up. >> too bad they don't have a payroll. >> i'm with the detroit verlander, s. can wall street bounce back after last week's abysmal performance. the run down next. that looming government shutdown we were talking about certainly isn't helping the markets after a week of zero progress and the latest on capitol hill. president obama says no child left behind was hurting america's students instead of helping them. we'll talk to key governors trying to change our education system part of education nation this week. first, today ae's trivia questions, one time presidential nominee served in the senate while his son served in the house? the first correct answer gets a follow monday from us. [ female announcer ] so you think your kids are getting enough vegetables?

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it looks like things are going to start on a positive note. cnbc's bertha coombs joins me now for the market rundown. why? >> a little bit of hope and a prayer, i guess. we were down 6% last week in terms of the dow, the worst week since october of 2008. we all know what happened then with the financial meltdown. investors didn't get anything over the weekend from the meetings of european finance ministers or imf. there's hope we might see a t.a.r.p. fund to shore up european banks and rate cut next month from the ecb version of the fed. a number of big votes loom in europe and germany needs to approve whether they will go for that next installment of bailout money for greece. a strike going on there against the austerity measures. then here at home question have a lot of data on tap starting with new home sales for august

and later this week a final reading on second quarter gdp. how much did the economy slow down last spring and how much did it slow down this summer. new data out of the chicago fed this morning showed economic activity turned negative in august and wall street is watching this senate vote on short term spending bill this afternoon. one analyst said he's putting the odds of a government shutdown of 1 in 4, a 25% chance it could happen which seems unthinkable after what we saw last august. >> i am stunned myself and yet it does seem as if we're on the brink. thank you, bertha. "the daily rundown" will be back in 30 seconds.

just before the bottom of the hour now, quick look at what's driving the day. president obama is on a west coast swing, pushing the jobs message but raising a ton of money and participating in a linkedin town hall this afternoon. mitt romney trying to raise money meets with donald trump in what's turning into a required campaign stop for candidates. romney has a fund-raiser of his own later in the evening, one week into the third quarter. and trading will be under way on wall street, investors hoping to begin the week with simply hope that gains and some good news about european leaders stepping up efforts to solve

debt problems. we shall see. a few other stories making headlines. members of the u.n. security council will formally begin considering palestinian's request for state hood after making his bid at the u.n. on friday. president mahmoud abbas returned to a hero's welcome on the west bank. israel prime minister benjamin netanyahu accused of palestinians of trying to circumvent peace negotiations. >> the palestinians want a state but they have to give peace in return. what they're trying to do in the united nations is get a state without giving israel peace or giving israel peace and security. i think that's wrong. that should not succeed. that should fail. elsewhere in the middle east, women in saudi arabia will soon be allowed to vote for the first time in modern history provided they can get a lift to the polls. they're not driving yet. saudi king abdullah also granted women the right to run as candidates in municipal

elections and be part of the king's advisory body. activists have long been pushing for rights for women that still forbids driving. russian vladimir putin says he will run for government again. since the last time he ran, presidential changes have extended four to six years and includes president medvedev take over as prime minister. quite the fledging democracy. i'm sure he did not lose the straw poll. the senate votes to keep the government running through november 18th but their bill doesn't have the cuts republicans want for disaster relief. it sets the stage for impasse with days to go before the money runs out. luke russert covers capitol hill for us. i'm in a daze of disbelief that the leaders of both --

>> reporter: 83. >> -- and the house didn't read the debt ceiling debacle political memo that made the rounds how disastrous these little spats have become for the overall faith in government people have. >> reporter: well, chuck, for the third time in the last six months, the country's close, at least on paper, to a government shutdown, in a body that has 82% disapproval rating, that does not play well around the country. a lot of congressional leaders know that and the thought around hill aides expect this to be figured out by wednesday or thursday at the latest and don't want to push it to friday. what do we expect to see tonight? the senate will have a vote on the bill that will extend government funding through nov 18th. $3.65 billion for fema, the republican number. harry reid came down from his original number of $7 billion, however this one has no offset. reid's strategy is he thinks the 10 republicans and senators who came along with him for the $7

billion bill the last vote will come along last time. three of them, toomey in pennsylvania and rubio of florida and another from pennsylvania said they will not vote for this. reid needs every republican to stick with him. it's unclear what will happen. aid mitch mcconnell told me they're very confident this bill will go down tonight and the strategy from harry reid, what can he do? his idea, maybe if i hold out long enough republicans will see this as the only bill on the table. that also is the strategy of the house gop essentially trying to jam their bill, saying, look, reid won't have the votes for this in the senate, we're the only one that passed this in the house, 219 votes there, you have to take it or leave it. brinksmanship on a monday. >> it is sort of pat let hetic, sides trying to take advantage. >> reporter: fema is the loser

that runs out of money wednesday or thursday and the coffers need to be replenished. >> real issues. unbelievable. thanks very much. connecticut's governor has announced he will seek relief from the federal no child left behind act. the move comes after president obama announced friday he'll wave the most contentious provisions of the law if states improve their own accountability and improvement systems. governors, thank you both. let me start with you, governor, when it comes to no child left behind. i have yet to meet the governor that says, i love no child left behind. i take it as a given you're pleased with some of the relief. what federal accountability should there be over education? >> no child left behind is not perfect but it was a great attempt by those working in education many, many years, to

set some standards, especially standards for children at risk, those in poverty areas, for states to be able to have some guidelines of standards to go by. one of my main concerns as governor is unfunded mandates we have seen come down from no child left behind and how it affects our state weather. looking at possibility of waivers for the states, we want to make sure we have national accountability standards that we have a system to make sure america is still competitive when it comes to our education system. america ranks like 14th in the world when it comes to education. >> governor hickenlooper, you were a mayor and on the front lines of the local level, now getting a state perspective. what is the difference from where you stand as a governor versus a mayor dealing with education standards? >> certainly, as a governor, you can help a lot more kids a lot faster. when i first got elected mayor,

i promised in a campaign speech i would visit every school if he elected. no one told me there were 153 schools in denver. i spent a lot of time in classrooms. arne duncan, the secretary of education ramped things up, got a lot of states to commit themselves to higher levels of accountability, higher standards. what was happening was no child left behind was dragging all of us behind. now being able to get a waiver and become aggressive how we measure student improvement and growth and hold ourselves accountable is continuing to move forward. >> governor fallin, i want to pick up on something you said you were worried about an unfunded million date but at the same time you want accountability, standards put in place. how do you walk that line if you're the federal government, forcing accountability but making sure you don't stick states with the bill. >> give us flexibility.

that's one of the things we think we could look at with possibility of waivers, flexibility how we spend title money that comes down to the states. one of the areas unfunded, i iba funding that comes in. we only get 36% of the money we need to pick up that program. the state has to pick up the rest of the costs and there are areas of flexibility we'd like to see like growth model measure a child from the start of the school year and end of the school year instead of using an annual yearly testing system to where we just know how a child performs at the end of the school grade versus modeling them and watching how they're doing progressing throughout the school year. weighed like to have more flexibility with the growth model and how we measure our students and accountability. >> you both are governors and have state flexibilities in the middle of this football

conference and college athletic mayhem. governor, let me start with you, do you feel you should have more of a say of what's going on with oklahoma and oklahoma state and what they're trying to do. on one hand, it's amusing but on the other hand, there's a lot of state tax money that goes to these institutions. you should have some say. >> we're very proud of our football teams in oklahoma. had a great weekend this weekend. oklahoma is ranked number one and oklahoma university in the top 10. certainly, we love our football. we're very committed to high academic standards and higher education also. we take that very seriously. it's certainly been a very stressful month as are various colleges and units units -- universities throughout the nation deciding where they're going and different checker pieces moving around and our conference area, looks like we're going to be staying in the big 12 and that's good news for

oklahoma. >> governor hickenlooper, do you ever envision a day state money will be used to pay college athletics? >> i can't imagine that. the question is whether we use some of that money that pours in through football and some of the other programs for academics? why aren't we doing a better job training teachers. we're talking about no child left behind. our university and other universities, i don't think we have done as good a job we need to to be sure teachers are prepared to be great classroom instructors. >> money just keeps getting poured back to the athletic programs. thank you for participating in our education summit this week. nbc's second annual education summit going on all week gathering policymakers and experts to gather in conversation for the state of education in america. everybody agrees we have to do something and now agree on what to do. coming up at 1:00, andrea mitchell will speak with former

colin pow bell and his wife, alma powell focused on improving the well-being of our nation's children. coming up, we're kicking off the week with our powerhouse political panel. the monday morning quarterback edition as president obama gets his groove back in the campaign trail. he's dropping gs, you know he's on the campaign trail. and rick perry appears to be losing mojo while everyone makes a dash for cash at the end of the quarter. the white house soup of the day. i'm worried they're messing with us. we had chicken noodle friday. we have it today. i know the president's not there. think you can throw in a weekend's worth of leftovers. come on, let's make an effort. you're watching "the daily rundown." [ cherie ] i always had a job, ever since i was fourteen. i could not make working and going to school work.

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in this the first discussion in a series of four appearance, the subject matter will be restricted to a series of internal domestic american matters. >> that's how one of the most influential debates in american history began, this week in 1960. 70 million people tuned in to watch senator robert kennedy and richard nixon. you know the story, the hand some kennedy was far more effective than richard nixon ushering in the visual age. rick perry has a new video arguing when mitt romney described the national health care plan in his book, he had a plan of attack. >> when i put my health care plan together and i met with the dan ball of the "washington

post" said is this a plan if you were a president put on the nation, have the whole nation adopt it. i said absolutely not. this is a state plan for a state. it is not a national plan. >> michelle is an msnbc political analyst. dan paules. how about that? "washington post" chief correspondent and author and jennifer a former white house press secretary and now president of the center for american progress action fund. >> dan, let's fact chieck the governor. said he said it was a state issue. >> he weighs right on one and wrong on the other. >> we'll give him half right. >> the interview took place in '07 right after a debate in new hampshire and we sat down for a web interview we were doing. i said, you talked about health care and what you had done in massachusetts but i didn't hear you say anything about taking the plan national if you were president. he said, no, absolutely not. it's a plan for the states.

i believe states are the laboratories of democracy, the old cliche. but he was not pushing it as something he would try to do as president to implement for the country. >> michelle bernard, obviously, a rick perry video, rick perry is desperately trying to turn the story away from him. he's had a bad 96 hours, comes in the last week before a major fund-raising deadline. if you're the perry campaign, they believe health care still worse for romney than immigration for them. are they right? >> i don't think so. i read dan's piece talking about the timeline. health care has been a problem for romney since the '08 election and it continues to be a problem but it is less problematic, i think, than the fact perry has had such a very difficult time in every debate he goes into, his performance seems to be declining, gets worse and worse and worse. it's not just immigration people have questions about, whether or not perry can actually be an effective presidential leader. >> you have to be a

communicator, "saturday night live," jennifer, so happened it went with the season premier of "saturday night live." >> i'd like to attack mitt romney as a flip-flopper. >> are you sure? it's late in the debate. this is normally when you get tired and confused. >> not tonight. i'm ready. mitt romney said he was for, against obama-care, but what about -- mitt romney? >> jennifer, there's two conversations i've had about where this goes from here. on one hand, perry's -- this could lead to the beginning of the end, could be like fred thompson and wesley clark. on the other hand, is mitt romney in the role of hillary clinton here where he has to continue be perfect at a debate until he's not? >> i don't think so. that's what you're doing really is comparing rick perry to barack obama.

>> no -- >> i'm saying rick perry is no barack obama. the thing that's hard for republican candidates, it seems like in the end, they pick the person who probably has the best shot at winning, i think mccain probably had the best shot at winning hand i think mitt romney has the best shot at winning and probably end up with him. he has the baggage of having moved to the right considerably and i think romney will be the nominee but i think he will be hurt because he had to move to the right too much. >> it's clear that has the romney strategy. at the end of the day, you will go with the guy with the best shot at winning. this is not your father's republican party, a different republican electorate than we've seen in president primary is in the past, is that right? >> it is. no question and romney and everybody else has been sliding or shifting whatever you want to say to get in tune and in touch. when perry got into the race, it was a sense he was authentically in tune -- >> looks like where the party is

today. >> in fact had been there before the party got there at least rhetorically. there is a question about who's capable 0 standing up against barack obama. i think the republican electorate will continue to measure these two in particular but perhaps some others and decide in the end which onethy think has a better shot at winning. >> should romney be concerned when florida conservatives decided they will not go with perry and sent a message and went with her man cain and not mitt romney. >> i find that fascinating and don't think any should count ont out herman cain out completely. >> he did very well in the straw poll. trivia question, which one time republican presidential nominee served in the senate while his son served in the house? the answer, barry goldwater, a senator from arizona while his son, barry goldwater junior was

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2 1/2 years later, we have turned the corner. we're no longer dropping like a rock. now we are moving forward. we have had 18 straight months of job growth. added 2.4 million jobs to the private sector month after month. passed the american recovery and investment act. >> it sounds like the new slogan is no longer hope and change it's "it could have been worse." >> let's bring back our panel. jennifer, i'll let you respond rhetorically there to the chairman of the republican pa y party. it's been hard, not easy. and it could have been worse. it's a tough message to sell. >> the message is, it will be worse with the republicans in charge. and you see this in the

president's speech to the cbc this weekend and the fund-raiser speech he gave on the west coast this weekend. there's a little bit of tough love with people saying, hey, i know there are disappointments here but the other guys are going to cripple america. the white house feels they're in a stronger position now that a view on the republican side is emerging that's very similar to what bush did. >> what's interesting about president obama is he has the same disease that president clinton and president bush had. when you get into campaign mode, you drop your gs. they all start a little bit of the preaching -- but we've all had these conversations with democratic donors. they're disappointed with the white house on this and on that. some believe he's moving too far one direction or the other. all this is coming together -- that ain't going to raise quite

as much money as everybody thought they were going to raise. >> this billion-dollar campaign is somewhat an inflated figure. it's closer to $1 billion than we thought at the time. they had almost $900 million. >> when you throw in the dnc money. >> but money is tight everywhere. you can see it in the republican race and in the democratic race. but i do find it interesting just the general sort of unrest and his advocacy to his base to get going, to be with him, it is very striking the rhetoric that we've heard over the last two days from this president. >> it does seem, quickly, michelle, that he is nervous that there's a growing lethargy. >> when you look at the nation's first african-american president and see the difficulty he's having within that community, with the congressional black caucus and with

african-americans in the south, if that base is as nervous and angry as they are, he's got a significant problem with the entire democratic base. we are hosting an education rally in columbus, ohio. >> we'll be looking for it. >> kate edwards started a foundation in her mother's memory. >> shoutout to the national book festival, one of the great events in washington that just concluded -- two days of authors on the mall in washington. >> did they have downloading stations? >> no. >> that's what i'm waiting for. can you imagine -- >> they had real books. >> i want to have a downloading station. we'd all go to bookstores again. i swear to god. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." we'll see you back here tomorrow.

coming up next -- i'm todd santos. chicago back through detroit, over towards the lake shores of cleveland, dealing with heavy chances for showers today. back towards new york city, low cloud ceilings. tomorrow, better chance for showers there. d.c., rain the next couple of days. ♪ it's a new day

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