his partners when he left. so the question for voters is, who cares. at a certain point, kind of getting into the nitty-gritty of where was he, how much power did he have, but the fact is, this company he was on leave from and still basically had control of in a legal sense, was doing a lot of investments and he and his staff won't say that they think the investments were a bad idea and the answer is probably of course they didn't, because that was what bain did. that was their business model, buying and selling companies, streamlining, making money. >> who is going to make money off those investments? >> he is. he still makes money off the investments because the way you buy somebody out of a private equity fund is to -- or firm, when they're an executive, to give them a declining share of the profits over a very long period of time, in his case, ten years. in essence, he still profited from these deals, he didn't object to them, he didn't call his partners or step back in and say we shouldn't do this deal. >> did he set this trap for himself, because even if he wasn't hands-on, he was going to make money off it and if people

decide they care, that some of the things he was making money off of were bad, if they think outsourcing is bad enough, did he set a trap with this timeline? >> here's what he did not set a trap. when you see that the ball is coming at you and you could duck or you could hit it, bain has been an issue when he ran for governor. in january of this year, newt gingrich and the dnc started in on bain. they knew this was coming. in the past week's newest episode, the newest chapter in this ongoing controversy about bain is exactly when did he leave. i agree, the issue is what did he do and when. now, david axelrod, the top strategist for the obama campaign, is trying to raise the ante by calling for release of the board minutes -- >> which will be a lot of fun. >> that's a tough one. lot of the research going on now is because there's public documents but the political problem is that this is an issue that puts the romney team on the defensive and lets obama go on

the offensive and politically there's more sorting out to do on the romney side and it's an easier political case to make on the obama side, that this man running on his business credentials didn't act in a way that helped most people, he did things that helped himself. >> he's running on his business credentials. he said that would show us something about the type of president he would be. i want to play what rahm emanuel had to say about this looking at the idea that the president can't just walk away from anything that he owns. >> he signed it. he said chairman, he said ceo, sole shareholder, president. you can't as president of the united states, you can't have a sign on your desk said "gone fishing." you can't put that on your desk. the buck stops there. you can't say to the s.e.c. i was the ceo, chairman and president but i'm not responsible, i'm not accountable. >> joy-ann reid, rahm emanuel coming on strong with the

analogies. does that work to say this is like a president who is m.i.a. is that a reach? >> mitt romney wants credit for being in the business world and being in the business world means being the head of bain. he wants credit for his business leadership, meaning he could lead the country, right? you then also have to take responsibility for what happened under your leadership. in an ironic way, what the obama campaign has maneuvered him into, lynn was right, he maneuvered himself into it, while he just wants to run on the obama economy is bad, the obama economy is bad, now he has to take responsibility for what his firm did to the economy. he's actually now sharing responsibility for the economy because a lot of voters believe that people like bain, businesses like that, that private equity, that wall street tanked the economy. he's actually giving himself shared responsibility for the economy. >> that goes back to nick's point and nick's reporting which is he's profiting off it no matter what. >> let's go to the point rahm emanuel raised. he's actually wrong. there actually is an s.e.c. distinction between managing and

controlling something. these are all s.e.c. documents of companies that bain owned a part of. they were required to file on them because they were owners, they controlled them. you can say that sounds like you ran the thing, you were in charge. it's a reflection of ownership, not about who manages it. we are harvey pitt on the record saying the s.e.c. doesn't care in this context who's managing it. the question is he's making money from all of it. >> then why is it that nick confessore can explain that better and fairly quickly, better than the romney campaign? >> it's tricky. when you start getting into business jargon you start to reinforce an impression of yourself as just a kind of out of touch business guy. look, it's clearly true that he had less responsibility for what bain did after february '99 than he did before. the question is whether he had any responsibility, when what romney wants to say his responsibility went from 100% to 0% and that's kind of what we're trying to litigate now. nick's article gets at it a little bit, is it 50%, 20%? kind of hard to say.

>> i want to bring in something governor walker said, to give the republican perspective, because people are getting nervous on that side. he basically said look, never fight a battle on your heels. romney's got to be forceful about fighting back. >> here's the thing. the romney team has to decide what is it they're fighting and what is it they want to explain. pick something and start chipping through this story. there is a distinction as everyone on this table is making between having a title and having responsibility. okay, explain that, because what has happened in the last few days is there's just too many things happening that are easy political ads for the obama team to make. they can show a picture of a document, here's his signature, you can see that right now, then people say oh, my god, must be bad. >> he has been to this rodeo before. he has been to it three times before. how have they not taken the time to sit down with journalists -- they do, but just prepare for it, be ready to explain these things in a way that feels

natural and that makes sense. >> the question of taxes has come up and people like to invoke his father. here's my question. why doesn't romney just say you know what, we're in a different era, there's twitter, there's liberal bloggers, i'm not releasing them, tough luck. why does he sound so defensive about this and what's in this? >> these are two issues on disclosure which is something the obama team is pushing, because they think it's good for them. on the taxes, i talked to one of the guys awhile back, they know there's no end in sight, if he gives one more year of taxes, they'll want more. you give two years, ten. the less hurtful alternative is to let people who are probably not going to vote for romney anyway, so just the campaign people and democrats complain that he's not releasing rather than have the tax returns out. also, the romney team, even this morning in a conference call, once again declined to disclose

but they're happy to put together the stories of bundlers, these are people so people know who obama and all federal candidates used to help them raise money. he discloses them and since their names are out and what they've done, it's helped put together stories of some negative stories about their ties with federal government. romney stays immune because he won't disclose. but that's another issue. >> i'm glad you brought that up. we will pick that up coming up. first, we are also going to look at what president obama is doing, mixing in basically a dose of attacks on governor romney and the campaign message that typically have come from lower level surrogates. is that a good look for president obama? my volt is the best vehicle i've ever driven. i bought the car because of its efficiency. i bought the car because i could eliminate gas from my budget. i don't spend money on gasoline.

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♪ for purple mountain's majesty above the fruited plain ♪ ♪ america america god shed his grace on thee ♪ ♪ and crown thy good with -- >> that was a new tv ad that the obama campaign released this weekend. today the president will rachet up the attacks portraying governor romney as an outsourcer. in an afternoon rally in cincinnati, the president is expected to bring up his opponent's proposal to tax companies on foreign incomes. that plan from governor romney, it is estimated, would add 800,000 jobs overseas. as we mentioned just before the break, the big thing here is not that there's an idea that mitt romney has participated in or

profited from outsourcing of jobs. the record shows that and the obama campaign has hammered that, just hammered it, in ads and videos. people may feel we heard all about it. what we're seeing now in the past couple days and today is the president coming out and doing it himself. is that a good idea or is it overkill? >> you only have so much capital if you're president obama, sort of what you could call nice guy capital, to spend down on getting personally involved in your campaign's attacks. i think what they think is this is the moment, this is the moment when they're destroying what was supposed to be the biggest selling point that romney had on his own behalf, his business experience. i think they think this is it. this is when they're going to define him completely. >> you read it as an indication that this is going really well so they're willing to take a risk? >> i think so. you can't do this if you're obama all the time but this is a moment to do it. another interesting thing that you're getting at, what obama is trying to do, he's tapping into powerful currents of economic nationalism. this is always something that polls really, really well.

it's not something that democrats really believe but it's something that they can sell to the voters and they poll it out from time to time and use it in campaigns. they don't really use it to govern. but by economic nationalism, i mean this idea that there's a competition for our jobs versus jobs in other countries, and they pull out the proposals, often small proposals about the tax treatment of overseas income that tap into these larger themes. they're not really using it as part of their governing agenda but they poll so well it's almost irresistible. >> you're talking about the fact the policy agenda doesn't reflect and the rhetoric often has to be changed because we have two nominees who have ivy league law degrees, who have a great sophistication but -- >> both for free trade. >> right. now they have to get into making it sound like every s.e.c. rule is silly. i want to play something from the president, sort of striking that tone, and saying there's unanswered questions here. >> now, my understanding is that mr. romney attested to the

s.e.c. multiple times that he was the chairman, ceo and president of bain capital, and i think most americans figure if you're the chairman, ceo and president of a company, that you are responsible for what that company does. >> now, joy-ann, i want to be clear. whatever you think about outsourcing, most americans have that understanding of ceo. the president isn't one of those americans because he understands the finer distinctions. do you think this works? he's just appealing to that sort of concern? >> absolutely. in the beltway, here in new york where we go over all these things and are fascinated, we may care about the difference between managing the company and owning the company. in the real world, in the joe biden world, if you can play joe biden for a minute, people understand the very simple concepts. outsource jobs, money overseas at a swiss bank account, something about that sounds vaguely un-american to your average person listening to it. the idea of foreignness was used

against barack obama when he ran in 2008. this sort of veil of foreignness thrown over him. barack obama is trying to beat mitt romney, not befriend him. if they can throw that sort of veil of you know what, his money's overseas, he's not investing in america, he's not creating jobs in america, he's taking jobs from here and outsourcing them over there into the foreign lands, this works with average voters. it's working now. it's working in swing states. that's why they're doing it. >> one of the things, if you want to do a self-focus group, i think the story about the olympic uniforms that ralph lauren designed were made in china, just resonates with people, like what? and you might not be able to exactly articulate what policies behind that decision you agree or disagree with, but it kind of goes to the gut, and the obama team is using this gut check and i think using in their paid advertising the themes that you talk about, and when you look at where the key battleground states are, this is kind of a

made-to-order set of policies, set of issues that began, i'm just surprised the romney team didn't anticipate coming. remember, though, it's early in election time, it's like dog years. the damage that team romney has is this has been litigated now sooner than later. >> that is really a big question, something alex wagner was talking about on the show on friday, which is there's a conventional wisdom particularly in washington that people tune out during the summer and there are definitely elections that never really got competitive or got clarified until the fall and the presidential debates, conventions, those inflection points. there are other races like 2004 where what happened in the middle of summer gelled into perceptions about the challenger. here you see basically the polling from august, in 2004, with the swift boat attacks everyone remembers, george w. bush pulled away from john kerry. it was actually very tight before that as you see from this nbc news numbers, and once bush pulled away in late august and the very first week of september, he never looked back.

this idea that no one's paying attention is sometimes disproven by the fact that if you get branded with maybe not the details, but the notion that you're not being straight, you're not trustworthy or the thing you're running on turns out to be bankrupt and you have to run from it, right, does that have a risk that by the time the conventions come it's too late for mitt romney? >> if i recall correctly, karl rove has always said he beat john kerry in like the spring of 2004, when they were hammering him with ads, where they created perception of him as an elite foppish flip-flopper. these earlier perceptions even if you're not paying attention can be very powerful. people do, are like tuned in. they do have it in the background. they understand something about bain and swiss bank account and in some ways it can be even more effective if it's kind of vague and not carefully attuned to. all you hear are these vague things about the candidate that seem odd or weird or foreign to you or to your experience, and as you said, it really is, he really is turning the foreign

card on mitt romney in a pretty ruthless way. >> they have been doing this. if you want to distill this to its essence, there is a belief you are for a candidate like me, you are not for somebody like me. this is true of everybody running but we see this between romney and the obama team, the obama team is working to define him in free media, paid media, social media, not like you and me. because the reality is because of his enormous wealth, he's the 1% of the 1%. so they have a running start in that argument anyway, then they have stuff to build on to get to that essence. obama is still more like you than he is. so it gets away from the '08 campaign, something to deal with different in 2012. >> right. it gets away from just saying we're hopeful or here's the message but however you think things are going, this 1% set of problems in swiss bank accounts and sort of foreign shelters that people don't relate to,

overlaps with the policy. that's what paul krugman is arguing today, there's a 1% economic plan. after the break, we will talk about a once critical obama donor who is keeping some of her dollars on the sideline. does her inaction illustrate something larger for the president's campaign? we have all the answers next. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com.

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you can find out for yourself. the obama campaign is looking for money, though, of course, wherever they can find it. there's a new article out by nick confessore in the "times" that examines this inner conflict. president obama's 2008 campaign finance woman said her role in the campaign made perher a puncg bag for the labor union. her fortune was making her quote, radioactive and she was expressing private frustration that merged with the white house's quote harsh tone about wealth and corporate greed. nick, you went in on a deep dive here and penny is not your average cajillionaire. she basically created barack obama's political future before he was barack obama. what happened there as you report? >> i think it's really a story about what happens when you go from the excitement and energy and unity and in some ways, fun of a winning campaign into kind of the drudgery and frustrations

and pressures and trade-offs and compromises of governing, of being in the white house. it's just not as fun and those relationships often get strained. >> you say relationships. wasn't it partly a social problem? she's an adult, she is a business woman, she's a serious person, she's able to play hardball. what seemed to come through in your story was a lot of people were coming to her in her social circle and asking her to defend things that they felt was the president attacking them. >> exactly. she swims in the circles of wealthy people, influential people, business people, republicans, independents, and as the president's relationship with the business community kind of tanked, there are exceptions obviously and i'm sure you could find a million executives who love him, but as that relationship soured in many quarters, as some jewish donors became upset with the president on israel, they vented to her. she took a lot of that abuse from her peers, people that she had raised money from, asked favors of, put in touch with the

campaign, and that takes a toll on you over time. you try to make it better, you talk to the white house, you try to weigh in, and they keep doing the same things, it doesn't really help. >> we got to jump from money to medicaid but it is a great article. people should take a look at that. coming up, we will look at the group of republican governors who are waging a tug-of-war over the expansion of medicare and medicaid. we will separate the costs and concerns from the politics and the posturing, next. juicy brats grilled up on a thursday. the perfect use of the 7th inning stretch. get that great taste anytime

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♪ our current dividend tax rate will expire this year, sending taxes through the roof and hindering economic recovery. the consequences? millions of americans will see their taxes on dividend income spike, slowing investment in u.s. companies and jeopardizing development in energy projects that create american jobs. ask congress to stop a dividend tax hike -- for all of us. a couple governors have said we're not going to do it but most of us are not saying that. we're saying we don't have all the answers. we don't know a lot about what the implications are. for virginia, it's $2.2 billion of new entitlement spending over the next ten years in a program that's already busting the budgets in every state in the country. >> that was virginia's governor

saying he hasn't made up his mind about whether to expand his state's medicaid program. after the affordable care act was passed two years ago, of course, republican governors from across the country ran kicking and screaming to the courts. now that the supreme court has ruled the federal government cannot force the states to cover more people through medicaid, many of those governors are sitting on the fence. joining us now from washington is health policy reporter at the "washington post," sarah cliff. how are you? >> good. how are you doing? >> doing well. thanks for being with us. who exactly is going to benefit or potentially be denied coverage under the expanded medicaid proposal here? >> so the group we're looking at is mostly adults who are not parents and anyone earning less than 133% to the federal poverty line, a little less than $15,000 a year. those are the folks we are really talking about. most of them don't get covered right now. it's a common misconception that medicaid covers all low income folks. but actually, if you're an adult without children, you don't tend to get coverage.

that's really what's on the line here for about 17 million americans. >> so that's about $270 a week, those individuals would be making, right? >> right. that's right. >> what are their options if they are in one of these states and don't get medicaid? >> they could buy a private plan that would more than likely be out of their price range. the average private plan will eat up a huge amount of their income. they could go to the e.r., they could kind of use any resources for indigent care but there aren't a lot of resources if you're in that situation. chances are you're kind of hoping for the best and turning up at the emergency room when you really do need care. >> under federal law, for any hospital that does take medicare funding, they can get treated but only on that emergency basis, obviously that's not ideal. tell us a little about how this whole thing started, because when medicaid was first introduced, there was also a scuffle. how many states signed in at first? >> very few. when medicaid launched in january 1966, only six states were actually enrolled. very, very small.

you saw that number snowball over the years as more and more states were kind of lured in by the federal funding. it didn't reach all 50 states until 1982, 17 years after the program launched, and that's when arizona, the very last holdout, came into the program. >> so based on that history and the very intense politics of health care here, is this just a big bluff from a lot of republican governors, or what do you think, what does your reporting show they want to get out of this? >> it's hard to tell. on the side where we would think they would sign up is the match is really, really good. usually medicaid bills are split 50/50 between the state and federal governments. with this expansion for the first three years, it's 100% financed by the federal government. that gives us some evidence that states might decide to sign up. on the other side, it wasn't as political, wasn't as heated and wasn't as much of kind of a partisan issue when medicaid was launched in 1966, so it's a little difficult to tell how

this exactly will pan out from what we know from history. >> i want to bring in the panel. to sarah's point, lynn, would we even be going through this if it wasn't an election year? >> states are burdened, even democratic states are burdened, but when you ask who benefits from it, it's not only individuals who don't have health care, it's hospitals in every state. that is going to be a powerful force on governors, no matter what party, because hospitals with their own constituency, their own political funds, are going to pressure governors. this is a big, big source of potential revenue and right now, hospitals are the ones that suffer the most when they have no third party to go to to collect payments. this is probably an issue that will work out over time. the money that the federal government is offering is very good, it's up front, it's not permanent, republican governors know that, but it takes care of a very big problem with dollars that don't have to be spent by the state right now.

>> how about that, joy-ann? what the supreme court basically did was make it easier for states to get away from this. before the health care ruling, which was of course mostly covered because it upheld the constitutionality of most of the affordable care act, but before that ruling, basically the states thought they would have to do it or risk their entire federal health care money. this way, they can sort of get out through door number three, that's a new door that's sort of the more conservative, that's open for them on the court. what does that do for you? do you think lynn's right about the way the hospital constituency can kick into gear? >> i predict most of these states in the end will sign on to it. if you look at the states on the list you just showed, they are overrepresented in medicaid patients. they are already paying huge bills. some of the states have 30%, 35% of their children already on medicaid. hospitals have always complained about the match, the medicaid match is insufficient. this match is higher, it's a better deal for hospitals than they got before. think about rick scott that used to run a hospital company that's

now the republican governor of florida. okay, the political pressure from the tea party is don't take dirty federal money but what about when your hospital interests are saying wait, you're sending the money to california that we need, that we want for reimbursement? not going to happen. >> isn't that the point here? we heard the republican critique go from unfunded mandates to oh, 100% or 90%. actually we're not interested in any kind of health care funding. isn't this sort of a level of extremism that's hard to believe if they're serious? >> that's right. looking at it from the perspective of self-interest, i think misses a big part of the picture. a big part of the picture is that the conservative base is waging jihad against the affordable care act, and the next stage of this jihad is turning down the money from medicaid. i don't think they're interested in practical effects. frankly, i don't think they're idealogically interested in helping poor people buy health care. >> i want to bring sarah back in here. i know you focus more on the wonk side than the jihad side but is it true that basically,

we might miss the forest from the trees by looking at each of these component parts as a policy debate, when what we really have are certain governors looking for any way to posture against what has now been upheld as a constitutional health care plan? >> i think it is a question how much posturing is going on. i would point out that democratic governors also have some concerns about the medicaid expansion. if you look at governor sweitzer in montana said medicaid is expensive and we are very worried, even though the federal government is fronting most of it, we're worried about our ability to front the state's share. some of the folks are saying we're definitely not doing it, count us out. that might be posturing. some states with democratic and republican governors do have really policy concerns to bring it back to the wonk side about what this would mean. >> i knew you would do that. the other thought is democratic governors, since you mentioned them, vermont's governor made

the point he said the republicans will beat up the president for passing a great bill until he's re-elected, then join up and take the money because they know it's the best thing for their states. that's the timeline we will be watching. thank you for sharing your reporting with us. >> great. thanks for having me. after the break, the obama administration weighs in on the debate over the strict voter i.d. laws. we are going to i.d. some of the potential winners and losers, next. last season was the gulf's best tourism season in years. in florida we had more suntans... in alabama we had more beautiful blooms... in mississippi we had more good times... in louisiana we had more fun on the water. last season we broke all kinds of records on the gulf. this year we are out to do even better... and now is a great time to start. our beatches are even more relaxing... the fishing's great. so pick your favorite spot on the gulf... and come on down. brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ new voter laws in republican controlled states could decide this election before the first vote is even cast. well, on friday, there were arguments in a case aimed at preventing texas from implementing a photo i.d. law that the justice department says could disenfranchise more than one million voters. this came as the obama administration reluctantly agreed to give florida

permission to use a federal data base that will enable that state to move forward with a purge of voters who they believe are not registered properly or are noncitizens. a poll released yesterday on that shows that 54% of florida voters support that approach. joy-ann reid, we have talked a lot about voter i.d. we talk about it because it's important, it's a big story, and because it's political, because every voter i.d. law that has passed in the last four years has been a party line republican effort, although there have been some republican governors here and there who have pushed back. what you look at in texas is a little different. the supreme court has said look, you can require a photo i.d. they had that in a case in indiana. that is the current law. what's going on in texas relates more to the history of racism and segregation in voting and basically gives the attorney general the option to dip in if

he thinks there's actually discrimination going on. how is that different and does the politics of that actually make it a little dicier? >> i think that yeah, exactly. what's happening in texas is they are going to wait and see and allow it to sort of happen and the idea has been that it's not a poll tax, as the attorney general pointedly put last week, as long as the i.d. is free. if in the implementation of it, they are disproportionately challenging hispanic voters, then you do get into an issue of historic discrimination where essentially the republican party sees the demographic cliff they're about to fall off of, they haven't been successful at attracting hispanic and african-american voters so let's reduce the number of players on the other side of the field. that's the way democrats see these laws. >> i want to pick up on that and play you something from the attorney general, because the law says the issue is racial discrimination but the attorney general has been going much broader and trying to show that whatever that may be and whatever they have to argue in court, to the public, what he's saying is look, this doesn't make sense and it sounds unfair. >> under the proposed law,

concealed hand gun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo i.d. but student i.d.s would not. many of those without i.d.s would have to travel great distances to get them and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. we call those poll taxes. >> now, we know what poll taxes means and it refers to that history of racial discrimination. but what he doesn't up and say here, what they have to say in court, is basically that under the voting rights act, protection for minority voters, these type of identification requirements are impermissibly bound up with race. >> right. >> what is that argument going to do for them? >> it is bound up with race. the whole history of conservative politics invariably has evolved, making voting more difficult for people, putting up hassles. sometimes it's just stopping

you, sometimes it's actually using violence or the threat of violence but more often, it's just throwing up roadblocks, making it difficult to just, you have to pay money, you have to use time and they know the people who will be burdened by those requirements are going to be the more liberal voters. that's clearly what they're -- >> there's one other -- this whole area of early voting, easy voting, that has become fashionable and useful to a lot of people in current years, that also is under -- there's also a move by republicans to limit that. >> they want to make voting hard and inconvenient. >> if we're used to voting on one day which now that seems a little old-fashioned, obama benefited in many states, especially now the battleground states, from early voting. we're getting used to the idea now that there's not election day, it's election month. elections really start almost a month early in a lot of jurisdictions. there's moves on to curb that, to make it harder to vote, and it is seen basically as

incursions by republicans to stop democrats from voting, not the other way around. >> that's a key line. if you look in say florida or pennsylvania, big swing states, the margins there were narrow. obama won pennsylvania by about 600,000 and he won florida by 204,000 and we've got estimates here from the people who study this stuff saying, you know, in pennsylvania, it could negatively impact over 750,000 residents who, according to these estimates, don't have the i.d. there seems to be something fundamentally different here in the timing issues and the hurdles and saying well, maybe we don't want six weeks long elections. that might be an opinion that people have. in the same way that people criticize the iowa caucus for being unrepresentative because it's actually only an hour and 24 hours lets people with more job restrictions get in there and participate. but that seems different than what is being alleged in texas, which is that you have hispanic population, you have a history of racial discrimination under

the voting act, voting rights act, and the power that gives the attorney general and he's going in there and saying this is the problem. isn't that really a finer point and don't people have to deal with that? mitt romney went to the naacp and talked about obama care and it was good that he went, but he didn't deal with what his party is doing on these tough racial discrimination questions. >> it's one of these fairly arcane issues that is hard to describe and explain and argue about, so you -- >> took too long, didn't i? >> eric holder goes to the naacp and says they are poll taxing you, that is an appeal to democrats, black democrats, especially, to say the things they are doing down there are things you should care about and it's also a message to hispanic voters, i think. my personal opinion, have election day on a saturday and have mail-in voting. it's one of those policy no-brainers, yet it never goes anywhere. >> the irony is if you were to do, like some of the things republicans don't try to legislate, you talked about

shortening the early vote period and they say oh, this is about expense and cost. yeah, but they took away the sunday before which was souls to the polls sunday traditionally, they know that will hurt democrats. the one way you see fraud to the extent there has been voter fraud has been registration fraud, meaning register to vote as someone you're not. that's not touched by voter i.d. laws. and absentee balloting, the most rife for fraud. if fraud will take place it will be collecting absentee ballots and filling them out myself. those things have never been touched by voter i.d. laws and are not touched by the law in florida because absentee balloting happens to be the way that republicans do best in terms of voting. >> that goes to the real big partisan questions, the problem, of course, for what the attorney general wants to argue is that partisanship under the supreme court standard isn't enough. the fact that it's generally partisan hasn't been enough to invalidate these laws. we will watch these suits. coming up, we talk about congressman ron paul's last ditch effort to get to tampa. a,

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welcome back. time for "what now." we got a good one to start with. former new york congressman antho anthony weiner is planning his come back. he is thinking of running next year. nicholas confessore, do you think this man at least his public advocate, which is a city-wide race, can he win that kind of race? >> i think he can. here's the thing to remember. before his sex scandal, he was arguably the strongest candidate for city-wide office of the sort of top shelf democrats in new york city. he's from an outer borough, raises money well, speaks their language. he's not that liberal compared to some of the other candidates. most of the other candidates now are liberals from manhattan. he really has those kind of

credentials to be good. if he runs for public advocate while everyone else is tussling for mayor and some of the other candidates are sidelined with scandal, he can have a real go of it for that office. >> it seems to be a strategic pick. public advocate often comes and gets a lot of running, basically get a lot of candidates running for it who are vanity candidates or have one big idea. you don't usually get powerhouse former electeds running for that. >> this is an interesting story in that it does show a second act in politics and comebacks are possible. the public likes redemption. the fact that his scandal was a sex scandal, not an ethics scandal makes a real big difference and if he goes in for this public advocate job in new york which doesn't exist in many cities, it basically lets you not have a lot of operating responsibility that you get the blame for but if you have good ideas you can get gains. >> i think it was a cybersex

scandal. >> exactly. there was no actual sex in his sex scandal. he's got name i.d., he's got a lot of fans particularly among the left because of his advocacy against clarence thomas. he was sort of on a roll on the clarence thomas to recuse himself on health care before all of this happened. >> a new baby. >>. >> right. he's got a fabulous wife. i think he should run. >> we may have found the only three people in politics who can all agree he's a shoe-in. >> people like second acts and people are often forgiving. >> new york city is a better place for him than many others. want to run and look at ron paul, his supporters came up a little short on saturday but the texas congressman has now amassed at least 158 delegates, making him third in this presidential race. jonathan, ron paul ultimately got more delegates than newt gingrich. it's a race for delegates. now that we're learning the final numbers as they add up, are we learning the media paid

too much attention to the wrong candidate? >> no, i don't think they paid too little attention to ron paul. i know jon stewart thinks that. >> how did you know i think that? was it from the question? >> reading your mind. no, look, he's kind of gamed the system, right? he has a very small, extremely passionate fan base that he was able to motivate to just show up whenever anybody needed to show up. there's a lot of delegates you can pick up by showing up. but i don't think he really has a major chunk of the republican party behind him. >> correct. well, that may be. that is all the time we have. i want to say thank you again to nick, lynn, joy-ann and jonathan. that is all for now. alex will be back tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific. she will be joined by michael steele, john heilemann, steve kornacki and jane lynch. until then, find us on facebook. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. good afternoon, andrea. hi, ari. thanks so much. coming up, the bain battle

continues. the obama camp is not backing down. the president is in ohio today. plus, virginia governor bob mcdonnell with a full readout from the national governors association meeting, where the message to mitt romney from some republicans was get tough, get tougher. and as mitt romney already decided on a running mate? we'll talk about the latest with our experts. coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports." best chance of delays in the afternoon hours with thunderstorms in areas like atlanta and especially down in central florida. it's another hot day around the country. temperatures in the 90s pretty much everywhere. even a chance of 100 degree heat today up around minneapolis. the latest heat wave is gripping the country. [ male announcer ] it's simple physics...

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the perfect use of the 7th inning stretch. get that great taste anytime with kingsford match light charcoal. right now on "andrea mitchell reports" bain games. mitt romney tells president obama to back off. >> what does it say about a president whose record is so poor that all he can do in his campaign is attack me? i think it's finally time for us to talk about his record, the kind of failure he's had at being able to create jobs. >> his campaign aides explain just how you retire retro actively. >> there are technical and legal reasons why governor romney was

listed on that document but it doesn't distract from the fact. the fact still remains it's very simple, mittomney left bain in 1999. >> but who's sorry now? not president obama. >> you're not going to apologize? >> no, we won't be apologizing. >> the president campaigns today in cincinnati. trailing him in ohio, senator bob portman. does portman now top the list of possible running mates? and has mitt romney already made up his mind? we'll talk to the experts. plus in israel today, hillary clinton tries to mend fences with prime minister netanyahu after meeting egypt's new president over the weekend and facing anti-american protesters in alexandria. and who pulled the plug on the boss and sir paul? what were london police thinking when they killed the mikes in the middle of the hyde park encore?

good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. in our daily fix today, mitt romney's campaign is trying to turn the focus away from romney's personal finances and tenure at bain capital with a coordinated attack today on what they call the president's political cronyism. but the obama campaign is not letting up. this afternoon in cincinnati, the president is going to be racheting up the so-called outsourcing attacks in his first town hall of his re-election campaign. chris cillizza is an msnbc contributor and managing editor of postpolitics.com. welcome back, chris. nbc's peter alexander covers the romney campaign, of course, for us. chris, first to you. let's talk about the new strategy coming from the obama camp from what we've heard today. >> well, i think what president obama continues to do and you played the clip on the front end, is we're not going to apologize. we're going to stay on this. they will continue to stay on it. want to know why? know what we're not talking about is the jobs report. we're not talking about the economy.