we have interests that we have had as a common effort, seen greater peace and prosperity. >> while milliband took two questions from the british press -- >> we'll take a quick question from our side. >> romney answered those, but took no questions from u.s. reporters. press secretary andrea saul said milliband took questions because that was his choice. that's why romney didn't call on american reporters. we said we were doing a photo spray. it's not protocol once you end upstanding next to a leader from another country. the u.s. press corps followed mr. romney a long way. with tony blair romney stuck to pleasantries. he also met with william hague. they faced challenges in europe, syria, egypt, the arab spring

and their mutual love of kit-kat bars. romney pressed the point that he doesn't plan to criticize the president abroad. he did so again in the meeting with milliband. >> while i'm on foreign soil i'm careful not to be critical of my own policies. i would be more remiss if i were to be critical of any other government's policy. >> that was a response to the question from the british press corps asking romney about the sort of definite-first approach the uk has taken and how it's affected economic growth. in a wide-ranging interview with mr. brian williams, brian asked romney ahead of the trip to israel what assurances he can give to jewish-americans who are disappointed with the administration's policy toward israel. >> i don't want to be in any way critical of the president or to be fashions foreign policy departure from the president

while on foreign soil. i can tell you with regards to any nation that feels security is at risk that they should have a firm conviction that america is securely behind them. >> brian asked romney why he doesn't talk more about his faith and heritage. he quoted the new york times's david brooks. >> what's relevant is who the guy is, speaking of governor romney. he has an amazing personal story. his family was an exodus story going across the west. poverty, building an empire. he can't talk about it because it involves mormonism. he's a decent guy. for some reason he's not willing to talk about it. he's a hidden man. are you a hidden man? >> well, no. as a matter of fact, i'm happy to talk about my heritage. i speak actually regularly about the fact that my dad was born in mexico. that with revolution in mexico, my dad then, i think aged 5 or 6 came back to the u.s. with his

family. they went broke multiple times. his dad was a contractor. my dad didn't complete college but was head a of a car company and a governor. it's a remarkable story. i'm very proud of my heritage. without question, i'm a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. some call it the mormon church. fine with me. i will talk about my experiences in the church. they have helped shape my perspective. >> probably the most expansive answer we have heard from governor romney about his personal story and his faith. a couple other questions asked and answered by mitt romney, one on whether to release more tax returns, governor romney stuck to the same answer he's been giving before which is he's released hundreds of pages, plenty, and said if he releases more it will give democrats to pick through which is an odd answer. that implies there might be something worth picking through. the other thing he did is he confirmed held not make a v.p. selection or announce a pick

while traveling abroad. finally, in just a few hours president obama and mitt romney offered a contrast on another issue. it was on guns in the wake of last week's shooting in colorado. speaking before the national urban league in new orleans, the president spoke more on gun control than he has since he took office. >> i, like most americans, believe the second amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms. i think we recognize the traditions of gun ownership are passed on from generation to generation. that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage. but i also believe a lot of gun owners would agree that ak-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not criminals. [ applause ] >> and though the president said americans, especially those who are mentally ill or have criminal records shouldn't have access to assault weapons, if you are a gun control advocate

these comments could hardly have been heartening. >> as we convene these conversations, let's be clear. we have to understand when a child opens fire on another child there is a hole in that child's heart that government alone can't fill. >> in his interview with brian williams romney stuck to the answer from guns we have heard saying he doesn't believe america needs new gun laws. then he seemed to leave an opening for stricter background checks. take a listen. >> you're saying there is no legislative remedy to prevent in advance what we have just seen in aurora? >> we'll all hear what ideas come forward. i will hear the ideas as well. in the past there has been an effort to say let's do background checks on people who seek to obtain weapons. and those kinds of background checks are often times able to find people who are disturbed or

committed crimes in the past. i have indicated that those kinds of background checks are consistent with the law. they can help prevent crime. >> let's talk more about romney's interview with brian williams. one part that jumped out at me was his answer to the question, are you a hidden man, who is the real romney? this gets at the heart of what's keeping romney from ever being able to overtake the president in many polls, at least in favorability ratings. let's bring in msnbc columnist. deputy national political editor for the washington post and former congressman from indiana chris chipola. now the president and ceo of the club for growth. let me start with you. when you heard -- do you agree with the david brooks premise that romney has been guarded and some of it is the fear of talking about faith? >> i think he's been guarded. i think the coverage of him, not

to blame the press, but the coverage of him is focused on his wealth, focused on his uncomfortableness with wealth. i think the natural progression would be he's uncomfortable with his faith. he has to overcome some of the perceptions that have been created throughout the course of the campaign. communication matters. i think it is up to him to be able to make people comfortable with the things that people say he's not comfortable with. whether he is or isn't. so it's an extra hurdle his campaign has to go through. >> what do you make of the answer? it was the most expansive but of course it was drug out of him. >> exactly. >> you drag it out of him. there is a story to tell. i have been saying it for a while. he has three stories he can tell. in all cases whether it is his record of governor of massachusetts, the business background, the fact that he's a man of faith.

all of them -- he's afraid to talk about them because he fears the negatives. >> he chose to tell the story of his father. that was the duration of the answer. that's comfortable because it's not about him. >> that's a human thing. always easier to talk about our parents' background or something. >> by now with all the months to practice you think he would have figured out how to talk about his own self-made qualities. in his answer about faith he did use the language of the church of latter day saints first and then say, some people call it mormonism. he's been careful not to use mormonism first. >> mormons don't use the word mormon. >> fair enough. >> that's something people maybe didn't realize. that is a fact. >> he said the word "mormon" and that's something he hasn't always done. >> to the point you're making he could be defining his own narrative. part of the reason there's focus on discomfort with his wealth is

they haven't given us much else. this is the first time i have heard him talk about his father to that length since the primaries. there is a narrative there. as you know, in politics, you define the narrative or it is defined for you. >> when you ran for office, did you run a bio spot? >> i had to teach people how to pronounce my name. i was a business guy before i got into politics. business people are hesitant to brag or tell their story. they are focused on results, not on how good i am, how smart i am. naturally because of his business background he says, i don't want to talk about how smart, how competent i am. i want to talk about the results i have achieved and what i can achieve pause of my experience. politicians talk about -- a lot of politics is not -- >> story telling. >> looking like you are doing something rather than doing something. business people is about doing something and not looking like you are doing something.

it's a natural reaction that he'll have as a business guy. >> much of a story to tell about what he did in his business record. he said, this is part of what makes me a candidate for president. what's the story? >> tell the story. show an ad on it. >> tell it. >> or the other side will tell it. fun way of doing the show today. not red versus blue. wait until you see this county stuff. stick with us. up next, forget red states and blue states. we have a fascinating way to look at how america is really divided. first, today's trivia question. which secretary of state had the shortest tenure? see if you can figure it out. it's not in the modern era. here's a look at the president's schedule and mitt romney's schedule today. the president having a cabinet meeting at the white house today. mitt romney, of course, continues in london. you're watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. ok! who gets occasional constipation,

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is it time to say good-bye to the red-blue divide? for years it's been shorthand to break down the demographics. our map shows different categories. blue shows shades of support for the president. shades of red are for romney. the toss-ups are in yellow. some say the breakdown is simplistic and misleading. and a map that truly reflects

america would look more like this. showing a patchwork nation, if you will, where the economy, politics and culture break the country down into a wider variety of groups. the patchwork nation project identifies a dozen different types of communities that make up our country. we can focus on ohio, a swing state in 2012, even in this one state seven different categories of counties are represented from service workers to boom towns to evangelical epicenters. with me now to explain what it means is the co-author of the book "our patchwork nation" dante cheney. he's director of the project at the jefferson institute. we give him all of our nbc wall street journal data by county. he's been using it for the last couple of years to do work for the wall street journal and for us. welcome. let's talk about -- quickly

here, and i want to get everybody in on the conversation. you broke down the country into 12 groups. uh i will put it on screen. boom towns, campus and careers, empty nests, evangelical epicenters, industrial me rop police, military bass chons, majority central, moned burbs, mormon outposts, service workers, tractor country. boom towns, give me the one-sentence explanation and example. >> boom towns, a lot of places you would call bus towns. they are places with a big explosion in population in the first half of the last decade. a lot of them took a hit in foreclosure. clark county, nevada, is an example. >> campus and careers. what kind are those? >> these counties hold a lot of the research, academic institutions or several small ones. it's a lot of young people, well

educated people, whole foods, starbucks cafes. >> uhi'm told i better speed up because we have a half hour and not a full hour. i want to bring in everybody else here on this. ann cornbluth, you know the examples. you have a question. >> yeah. i'm wondering. a lot of polling shows partisanship trumps everything and people are dug into positions. you are saying they are separated not by party identification but by where they live, what their interests are. how do those things square? >> it's more complicated than that. there are a lot of small cultural and economic differences that lead them to certain political affiliations. i can tell you now with a pretty good degree of certitude how nine of them will go in the fall. i know which will go democrat and republican. it's not complicated. it's about margins, about whether or not you can pare points off the service worker

centers or if obama or romney can take some off the moneyed burbs. the moneyed burbs are often close. the immigration nation counties are often tight. >> let me stop you. why is immigration nation tight? you would look and say this is where a lot of new -- describe a county that's immigration nation that's moved around a little bit. >> one we can talk about, it hasn't changed a lot. but you might think of maricopa with joe arpaio in arizona. when you take them you have latinos, anglos and tensions between the groups. you have a split in the vote. you have the latino vote. >> the county, but it's not like -- it's not an identifying -- it's not like the entire population of the counties have one view. >> right. it's never going to swing one

way. it will always be tight. >> go ahead. >> this is part of why campaigns do micro targeting. >> right. >> and as they look at the pathways to 270 -- voters county by county and getting your turnout higher than the other as a way to win.

i didn't see just in your framework taking advantage of the fact that the internet actually connects some of the communities not in a geographic way, but by values and issues they care about and frankly self-selecting ourselves for content and information that we want so we don't have to hear the other side. >> that goes on a lot. it's true. you could be the most liberal person in america may live in the farm land of nebraska. i have no idea. the point is the community. when you talk about small differences, the micro targeting andgregate it up to a county or community level you have more people coming from a certain place. you're right. you could pick up votes in a county. but the weight in the county, the weight of the majority of the voters is definitely going to push in the rural county in nebraska with the very liberal voter mat and places matter. do you think the fact that you point out the country is complicated and people are in different places that we ought to push government to the local level where we can get better results because local governments respond to the needs of complicated places and communities better than big federal government with big national laws? >> it's a really interesting idea. i think the one thing i have seen. i have been doing it for four years and the one thing i have seen is we talk about how the country is divided and we can't

get anything done in congress. part of it is the red-blue divide. but the fact of the matter is these places want and need different things from the federal government. some need big things. rural communities need farm subsidies. you get to the big inner city counties. you want to talk about philly, wayne in michigan or cook in illinois. you know, would it be -- do they know best how to implement what's needed? maybe. do they have the resources to do it? that's a very different question. i think you are right in terms of -- there are places that want and need different things out of the government. that's why it's very difficult to get anything done. that's especially true of where we are now economically in particular where everything is tight. everybody needs something and there is not a lot to go around. >> uh i am on a short enned time.

i will leave it there. we have more, example counties and more on the website. go to rundown.msnbc.com. we'll take you to dante's website. we'll be right back. more with the panel but first the trivia answer. we asked which secretary of state had the shortest tenure. it was not larry eagleburger. it was elihu benjamin washburne while grant restructured the cabinet. he served for 11 days. by the way, the soup of the day at the white house, roasted fall vegetable. it's not fall. you can always a follow us on facebook. you are watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. we'll be right back. with the spark cash card from capital one,

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♪ tum...tum...tum...tum... tums! ♪ [ male announcer ] tums freshers. fast relief, fresh breath, [ male announcer ] introducing new dentyne split to fit pack. it splits in to two smaller, sleeker packs that fit almost anywhere so you can take them everywhere. dentyne split to fit. practice safe breath. let's bring back the panel. i'm going to ask you before shameless plugs, most fascinating thing you learned out of patchwork nation. >> that we are a complicated nation and i live in a place i didn't think i lived. >> what's your county? >> elkhart, indiana. a service worker center. we are manufacturing. >> manufacturing has been slowing down. >> i look forward to talking more about it with dante later. >> it's more complicated than i thought. and the geographic around here. >> you're in the moneyed burb?

until you get to prince william which is a boom town. >> what's d.c.? >> industrial metropolis. karen? >> i grew up in new york and berkeley, california. >> campus & careers. >> i thought it was interesting how it tracks with what pugh said in to. >> shameless plugs. >> my son is 22 today. >> we have a piece about brady dennis traveling across country who stopped in aurora unfortunate unfortunately. >> and a book about domestic affairs. >> that's it for "the daily rundown." we'll see you back here tomorrow. first, msnbc's olympic coverage of the men's soccer qualifying rods. spain will whip up on japan, i assume. that's as little as i know about soccer. that's coming up live from london. one day to go until the opening

ceremony of the xxx olympiad. bye-bye. ♪ the imagine jestic palace of westminster, more commonly known as parliament, big ben will chime nonstop for three minutes tomorrow as part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 london olympics. here in the heart of new york, we when come you inside the nbc olympic headquarters, hello, i'm kelly tilghman. before tomorrow night's pomp, these games have had plenty of circumstance, leading to unexpected fireworks. as competition got under way in the group play for women's soccer yesterday, the big news was the flap created when a north korean play her a south korean flag shown prior to a match in glasgow on the video tron. the major headline of the day on the field was the play of the

u.s. women's team which began its quest for a third straight golded me in dramatic fashion. the americans fell 2-0 behind france but then team usa suddenly hit the "on" switch. >> rapino will take the corner. it will be right-footed. she will look for the head here of abby wambach. the back post. there and is a goal. brilliantly executed by the united states. they are back in it! 9 united stat the united states with an opportunity. the united states are level! what a first half we have here. opportunity to drive. oh! absolutely magnificent. into the penalty for the united states. cross comes over. far post. alex morgan. 4-2! >> the u.s. women's team elicited quite a reaction from soccer royalty on the twitter sphere, this from mia hamm, the legend herself. great win for the "usa today." way to fight and stay