disappointing, discouraging? depends on who you ask? >> struck in the middle who who? is that a mistake or masterful strategy. >> aim happy to be back here in new york. former governor gone wild. one of the our favorite moments outside primetime. >> i'm crystal ball. the presidential fashion police are in the house today. >> i'll tell you why jfk led me to become a democrat. you're emerged in "the cycle" for this friday, september 7th. >> this is a double-lead. the speechls is part one and the new jobs numbers is part dux. we'll start with the numbers and democrats seizing on the rate

drop to 8.1% and the republicans seizing on the disappointing fet gain of 96,000 jobs. >> today we learned after losing around 800,000 jobs a month when i took office, business once again added jobs for the 30th month in a row. a total of more than 4.6 million jobs. >> it's been 43 straight months before 8%. there are today 23 million americans out of work or stopped looking for work or underemployed. it's a national tragedy. >> we'll have more with the dynamic duo. before that we have to go back to last night's pep rally wrapped in a convention in charlotte. first up, the vice president. >> and because, because of all the actions he took, because of the calls he made, because of the determination of american workers and the unparalleled bravery of our special forces, we can now proudly say what

you've heard me say the last six months. osama bin laden is dead, and general motors is alive! >> there was this, the president's most memorable moment. >> times have changed, and so have i. i'm no longer just a candidate. i'm the president. >> and he talked a little trash about the other side. >> they want your vote, but they don't want you to know their plan. that's because all they have to offer is the same prescriptions they've had for the last 30 years. have a surplus? try a tax cut. deficit too high? try another. feel a cold coming on? take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations and call us in the morning. >> one thing is clear from both charlotte and tampa, this is an

election aimed at the bases and little effort is extended to win the few remaining voters. i thought last night's speech was great. not soaring oratory on purpose but it was campaigning on prose. it was the mark of a mature writer to not go for the poetry we saw in '04 and '08, but strong, confident, and resolute and the foreign policy smackdown was devastating. feels good as a democrat to own foreign policy and not run from that. in the end when he's appropriating the marine language, we leave no one behind, he's the commander in chief saying if you like what i did militarily you'll like what i accomplish domestically. >> i think you're being aj litte generous, not surprisingly, these were great speeches from michelle obama and bill clinton. they were great speeches. his felt like a thud.

reporters think president obama's speech was lame, meandering and sounding like a state of the union address. people at the after-parties seemed baffled that he didn't lift his game for the big moment. i will say i very much appreciated his i am the president moment. i think had this might have been a nod to my friend aaron sore kin. can we play that clip? >> my name is andrew shepherd, and i am the president. >> from "the american president." i loved it. it was great. it works. that's what that audience wanted to see, president looking presidential and owning it. >> i think there's been a lot of comments you alluded to there of people saying this is not the obama we've come -- this is not the big speech obama that we've come to see from denver, boston and all these things. i agree it wasn't. i'm not sure it was the right decision. my sense of why that was is because they were spooked by one

of the republican lines in the attack against president obama. 23 million is the number. 23 million out of work, chronic economic pain in this kuncountr and this guy is sfuk in the clouds. sort of ab tract stuff. people struggle day to day. think of the line in romney's speech and a lot of people at the left mocked it about the oceans and healing the planet sxaul of that. it wasn't about the ecology but to make the point that obama is up there in the clouds and i'm saying i want to help you and your family. that's what romney's pitch was. it was designed to address that. what obama was trying to do is intentionally avoid the big speech obama we came to know and focus on the meat and potatoes recitation of we did this, we did this. make it stound to the casual viewer not so much they're caught up in the policy details but that you take it all as a whole and it sounds like this is substance. this is take guy in there. this is a workman-like

president. this guy is working. i think that's what they want in this show. >> i think that's right. you have to acknowledge overall it really was a fantastic convention. the level of emotion, quality of the speeches, the quality of the multimedia presentations and the way it came together, i think it was spectacularly done. in terms of the president, in a way i think his speech last night is representative of his entire first administration in that he had the expectations for him in this speech were so high. there was no way that anyone -- i mean, people expected him to rotate the planets. there was no way he could meet those expectations. i think in a lot of ways his first term has been a reckoning between the fact between the fact here's this guy with a improbable rise, so rapid that people ascribe to him supernatural abilities that were just totally unrealistic. his entire first term there's been a reckoning between what a person can actually do in this office versus the supernatural

vision of him during the election. this speech is representative, too. i think it was a very good speech. i think there were incredibly solid moments and accomplished what he needed to accomplish, but there was no way he could meet the expectations that people have for him. >> we'll see if it gets him a bounce at all. much more on the convention later. but now the jobs report. glass half-empty or half-full? the unemployment rate fell to 8.1%, about the only 96,000 jobs added well below expectations. how can the rate drop with so few new jobs created? the work force dropped and more took part-time job. peter and jared, two of our favorite economists. peter, you're a glass half-empty gull and jared is the glass half-full guy. peter, explain why this is bad news, and jared, where is the silver lining? >> 96,000 people found jobs, but 581,000 quit the labor force

altogether. that's the enduring theme of the obama administration. if the same percentage of adults were looking for work today z when he was president, unemployment would be 11%. it's been through fewer people looking for work. the most effective jobs program of this administration is to convince adults, hey, i don't need a job anyway. >> let's get jared to say where is the silver lining? >> i'm not going to pretend this was not a weak report. peter's right, and so is tori about the decline in the unemployment. unemployment can fall for two reasons, one, more people get work and two leave the job market and it's the latter. the president is absolutely right when he says this is the 30th consecutive month of private sector job creation. we're moving in the right direction. that's the silver lining, and it's more than silver. it's important. we're moving there too slowly. then he's perfectly within his

rights to say compare moving in the right direction with me and my ideas to the kinds of ideas you heard last week and the week before from the republicans. the supply side trickle down stuff that got us into this mess in the first place. i happen to agree with that. the historical record for that tax cut at the top and deregulation is terrible for jobs and growth. we need to do more to accelerate, to speed up the rate of job growth, but there's no question we're moving in the right direction. >> jared, i thought there was a really interesting op ed in the news times from paul krugman who is one of the more pessimistic and realistic p voices about where we were in terms of the economy. this is a very optimistic column today, and he said that the forces holding the economy back seemikely to fade away. the next four are better than the last four. the housing recovery is basically beginning the debt-to-gdp ratio is down. business investment has come back since the end of 2009.

i was reading from what krugman was saying, the mistakes to address the crisis is in the past. we could have done more, but now we seem on track for something positive. do you see that? >> very important set of observations just to clarify one thing. he wasn't talking about the debt-to-gdp ratio. that means public debt. he was talking about household debt relative to the size of the economy has come back down. if people are de-leveraging and paying off debts, they're not consuming. this is a 70% assumption economy. what are the recipes for improving the economy after we've been through the terrible crash we went through is time. so you've got the housing market finally carving out a bottom. you've got the de-leveraging cycle nearing an end. and i would argue and i think i have great evidence to make this case that the recovery act, the actions of the federal reserve, the autos, even the much

distasteful t.a.r.p. helped to accelerate those corrections. >> peter, can we expect the fed do you think will do another round of quantitative easing? if we get a qe-3, project out for me what does that do, do you think, to october jobs numbers, the last numbers before the november election? >> i do think we'll get another round of quantitative easing, thousand it will be redundant because of all the money from europe and already pushed down rates. it won't have a lot of consequence for october. i think jared and i, you know, both have studied economics for many years would agree those are consequences with a lag, and there's little the fed can do to influence the outcome of the election. ingts sad that the fed will act, because i don't think it will do much good. they're doing it because of political pressure, and i believe it is a mistake. >> do you agree with that? >> it's totally agree with the point about the lag, but no. the fed has said continuously that if things get worse, don't get better we will act with some more unconventional sfuf.

they can't take the interest rate down any further so they do the quantitative. if they don't act at this point when things are not getting better quickly enough, i think it sacrifices their credibility. i think they should and will act. >> on a political note you were part of this administration, what do you expect the conversations are like in the white house today? >> i think it's probably a matter of this message i started out with, which is look, month to month the white house has been i think very consistent on this point. month to month these numbers are going to jump around. the question is is the underlying trend positive? the answer to that is yes, about 140,000 jobs per month so far this year. is it fast enough? no. that's probably the conversation. >> if you were advising mitt romney, what would you tell them? >> i think he needs to explain better how he's going to do better, and one of the first things to do is correct the contrast. the contrast isn't between pl obama and mr. bush but mr. obama

and mr. reagan. he had a deeper hole. unemployment peaked in november of the second term one month later than it did for mr. obama at 10.8%. by this time he had unemployment down to near 7% with with a rising labor force participation rate. if that was steady, he would be at full employment at in the point. to say his policies or republican policies don't work is a short view of history. the difference was between a competent republican president and frankly not one particularly competent at all. >> to me -- peter veered into some spin there. this is the cycle. not the spin. >> those are facts. >> i have numbers in there. >> peter knows as well i do that all that stuff that steve was just pauking did, that paul krugman was writing about this morning, the credit crunch, housing bubble and frozen credit markets was very unique to this recession relative to the he reagan recession. that was a quick bounce back.

you won't get that with the historical collapse of the credit markets. >> i knew he veered into some spin when i saw the frown and burrow over here. >> do i get to sfond? >> yes, peter, go ahead and respond. mr. reagan had a deal with double-digit inflation and double digit interest rates. he really did accomplish a dwraet deal, and it's unreasonable to say that all republicans are going to look like mr. bush. the fact about spin, mr. krugman is closing ranks with other progressives. most economists and the majority of economists and democrats see the growth rate continuing to be slow into the new year, about 22% or less. most of the baj economists are democrats. >> quick point about mr. reagan. actually, reagan was a pretty ka kainianism economist. he was an aggressive spender and it did help boost the economy. >> one last chance for spin here.

you worked for vice president biden. how did he do last night? >> i thought he did absolutely great. >> was he literally great or figuratively great? >> literally. >> please, don't go there it, because i'm so confused as to which means which at this point. no, i thought he really connected. >> jared, peter, you guys make economy fun. i love it. >> take care. >> we'll see you soon. >> sure. coming up up, the opening acts that had us begging for more a raert variety of reasons friday, september 7th. ♪ you know, ronny... folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. and how happy are they jimmy?

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in pennsylvania 34,000 jobs, in florida 35,000, in ohio 150,000 jobs and in the great state of michigan, 211,000 good-paying american jobs. all across america manufacturing is back and autos are back. why? you know what i'm saying. usa, usa! >> usa! >> oh, my god.

it was a mix of oprah on you get a car day, howard dean circa 2004 and a little unhinged but i kind of loved it. the dnc crowd ate up former michigan governor-general fehr granholm's manic speech last night on how president obama saved the auto industry and all the jobs associated with it. if we can muster up a quarter of that energy in the spin cycle, we're in for an exciting time today. >> that was an excellent oprah impression. >> thank you, i learned from jennifer. i was watching on c-span, as i do, and absolutely right. the crowd totally ate it up. that does not mean it wasn't weird. it was weird. she kind of reminded me of like a late night infomercial pitchman, you know? are you selling me a sham woman or slap chop?

it was so strange. i don't know. >> it was a lot. we were all e-mailing about it like what is going on right now? i think you saw how hard it is to get up there and rock the krould. it's not just go up there and go nuts and scream and yell. it's about a controlled passion that you have to build to. >> that was not controlled. >> she was out of control and looked possessed. that's not what she normally does, so it was way out of character. that's also really weird, too. >> the skwen fehr granholm from "meet the press," weird. it was weird. >> she has a lot of rage, you know? >> that's one way of putting it. >> she owned it. >> you mentioned the howard dean one, and the thing is when you talk to people in that room when howard dean screamed in 2004, they'll always tell you, it didn't sound anything in that room like it did on television. i was --

>> on tv you were like whoa. >> i was in that room last night, and i watched that speech from a couple hundred yards away and imt not watching it on the big monitor and watching the podium and i'm listening to the crowd and i'm saying to myself -- she had that crowd as fired up. that place was loud, and that was an early speech. it was only when i got back afterwards on television, i said on television, it's a completely different experience when you actually see her face. >> ffs funny watching it, the mixed reactions on twitter. the moment that surprised me the most last night was john kerry. where has he been all my life? >> too bad he didn't run in '04. >> we have a match-up of the two speeches. let's take a look. >> i want to address these next words directly to president george w. bush. in the weeks ahead let's be optimists, not just opponents. let's build unity in the

american family, not angry division. no nominee for president should ever fail in the midst of a war to pay tribute to our troops overseas in his acceptance speech. mitt romney was talking about america. they are on the front lines every day defending america, and they deserve our thanks. >> i mean, i really thought his entire speech last night was fantastic. it had to have been for him so satisfying, like a triumphant comeback moment. here he is on stage making the case for the foreign policy that he believes in and advocated for. that was so his -- his character was so despicably undermined in the election as well. i thought this was a great moment for john kerry. >> it was a great speech. i had another favorite moment. let's play that clip. >> mr. romney, mr. romney,

here's a little advice. before you debate barack obama on foreign policy, you better finish the debate with yourself. >> i mean, not only was that a great line, it is, but the person who delivered it, this is so ripe with irony if you think about the story around john kerry last time. he's accusing the mitt romney of not reconciled his own opinion. it's amazing. >> it's very rich as you say for kerry to talk about somebody else's flip flops. maybe you're such a flip flopper that even kerry can call you a flip flopper. it reminded me of bill clinton, and it takes some brass to criticize a guy for what you did. >> yeah. i don't think anybody in that room last night read that as irony. they read that as justice, because in the minds of the democratic party and 95% of the people there, john kerry was unfairly and unjustly called a flip-flopper and called the

other things by the bush campaign. eight years later it still stings for them and him. this was a great moment for him to throw back in the face of the other side what they threw in his face and for his party to say that was all junk. they beat him with it. we're going to throw it back at them now, and he's the one to do it. they ate it up. >> maybe secretary of state in the next administration? >> yeah. i think he might be three or four on the list for that. >> got some redemption last night. that's for sure. up next, both conventions are now adone deal, so which party should be celebrating? as we head to break, a person we're all rooting for last night. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indevise i believe with liberty and justice for all.

a writer and a performer. i'm also a survivor of ovarian and uterine cancers. i even wrote a play about that. my symptoms were a pain in my abdomen and periods that were heavier and longer than usual for me. if you have symptoms that last two weeks or longer, be brave, go to the doctor. ovarian and uterine cancers are gynecologic cancers. symptoms are not the same for everyone. i got sick...and then i got better. oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners.

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the essence of america, what really unites us is not nationality or ethnicity or religion. it is an idea, and what an idea it is. >> an another president once said, there they go again. >> after so many struggles and try jumps and moments that have tested my husband in ways i never could have imagined, i have seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are. no, it reveals who you are. >> college graduates shouldn't have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms staring up at fading obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life. >> president obama began his presidency with an apology to

america he said it dictated to other nation. no, mr. president, america has freed other nations from dictators. >> if you believe in a country where everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules, then i need you to vote this november. >> the conventions are over. millions watched. millions were spent and promises were made. did it change anything? michael crowley, senior correspondent from "time" magazine. i think the democrats had the better convention and made a compelling case, but will it ever better or will there be any bounce at all? what do we have in sfor? >> i'm not sure there will be a significant bounce. the electorate is divided as you know, and the pool of persuadable vote sers is tiny. it's hard to know how people are

processing these conventions from their living rooms around the country. when you're in the hall experiencing it up close, i don't think you have the most accurate -- you see a different way than most americans do. my sense is what we saw might be indicative of the respective base of the parties. what i saw in tampa was a republic crowd giving polite, enthusiastic applause. they like mitt romney and paul ryan. they feel pretty good about themselves, but then you saw i thought in charlotte the democratic base reawakening. this real energy, enthusiasm, emotion, and tears. my theory is that it may be that while a 2010 election was defined by this huge gap between base motivation where the conservative republic base was so fired up, we may see it's evening out. it's possible the democrats are getting more fired up. i think some of the old memories of '08 are being rekindled, and

i think that would be good news for the democrats. i don't know that the middle will move that much and you'll see that much of a bounce in the polls. i think it would be critical if obama has begun to activate that base that was pretty diseffective for the last couple of years. >> we played earlier in the show the clip from biden, the clip everybody is plays about osama bin laden is dead and general motors is ahive. i want it to ask you about biden's speech last night and what it means long term. he was in an interesting position in the convention the re-election for the vice president, al gore in 1996 for the next time around. biden is making it clear he's very interested in running for president after barack obama's done, but i thought if you want to think long term, the big winner out of this convention wasn't joe biden but maybe hillary clinton. >> right. interestingly, hillary wasn't there, as you know, but bill really kind of stole the show this week. maybe he and michelle were the two emotional high points, but

bill took it a level higher. to the extent bill is a proxy for hillary, if you look at it through the lens of a 2016 showdown subplot within the main story, the clintons probably won. i would add that in a way it was kind of classic hillary or the hillary that we've come to know in the last couple of years. you guys saw the picture of her watching bill's speech from a drab office in east timor. she just got harassed by the chinese state media and the leadership in beijing, so she was out there working her tail off. that's her image. she's working constantly. i think advantage to the clintons on that score. >> ever since she entered the senate, she cultivated that workhorse rather than showhorse image. but glaring omission from the rnc was any mention of afghanistan from paul ryan or romney maens speech. i want to read you something that bill cristol wrote last

week. leave aside the question of the political wisdom of romney's silence and the opportunities it opens up for president obama next week. what about the sift proceed pry rit of a presidential nominee failing to mention a war we're fighting. how much of a miss was this for republicans? >> it was a pretty big one. i find it so bewildering things have played out the way they have on national security. republicans have completely seeded any superiority they had on these issues that define most of the oos. i think mitt romney, you get the sense that he's nervous talking about it. he's uncomfortable talking about. he has no military or foreign policy background. president obama did not really until he became president, but now, you know, he killed osama bin laden and led the military for four years so it's different. if you think about the conventions eight years ago, for

instance, the whole gestalt of the republican party was to support the troops. democrats were defensive about that. now it's reversed, and although obama does have this inherit advantage because he commands the military and ordered the raid to kill bin laden, i think republicans could do more to roll out generals and credible, national security spokesmen to pick up the slack for romney or ryan who seem either uninterested or uncomfortable talking about these issues. it's a completely amazing reversal. john kerry's speech was so effective. it was a reminder how vulnerable the republican ticket is on the issue not only about the inexperience and how sloppy and confused their positions have been on things like afghanistan. >> i agree with you, it was a strange omission, but i will say they've been accused, republicans have been accused in the past of pandering patriotically and pandering to that notion.

real quick, the conventions are over and now we look ahead to the debates. what do we expect frr both sides in the weeks to come, other than debate preparation? will we see them on the campaign trail? will we see a lot of ads? will they hunker down and go away for a little bit? >> there's no hungering down. i think they're both in new hampshire and iowa in the next few days, so they bump into each other. we have a narrow pool of states they're fighting intensely over. there's so much money, the republicans will have a significant money advantage. the question is whether there's -- you start to get into the margins, whether another 10, $20 million makes a difference with the airwaves so saturated. i think the debates will be pretty critical. mitt romney did a lot of debates in the primaries. obama is a better, more comfortable public speaker. basically what you have right now is a situation where if you look at the electoral map going state by state and i've been playing with these maps and i'm sure you have, too, online where

you can change the colors from red to blue, it's hard. the path for romney right now is hard based on the current polling, and i think romney needs to change the game a little bit. something has to change. i don't think the money alone is going to do it, and the conventions certainly didn't do it. right now advantage obama, and maybe the debates could be pivotal. >> the debates will be pivotal in the race we have right now. "time" magazine's michael crowley, thank you very much. the voters left out of the convention activities. we are here to nominate a president. i want barack obama to come the next president of the united states. >> i can't. i already served my two terms. i get what you're saying, man. just the constitution is what

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[ cheers and applause ] there was a lot of hard core republicans in florida and love for democrats in north carolina but what about the love in the middle? we have different opinions about where this is a pure race for the base, but we will bring in our expert on the swing vote in a minute. president obama's speech last night, do you think it was a pitch to the middle or base? >> yeah, i think he punctuated a dnc pitching to the base aside from clinton with his choice lines throughout his speech. he says this is the clearest choice in a generation. it's not about how much we have in common. you have over here or over here. you have this america or this america. there's nothing in between, so you have to make your choice. they are stark.

i think that's a clear message to the base. >> yeah. i totally disagree. i think confrontational rhetoric that calls out the other side. this election -- the swing voters in an environment like this when economic anxiety is this high are programmed to treat this program as a referendum. our anxiety is high, so we vote the indumb bent out. the most famous example here, think of harry truman, 1948 railing against the do nothing congress. that was something after swing voters in 1948. >> think about the humility that obama shows drirven to his knee many times. that says u can truce me. i get it. >> linda killian is here, she's also the author of "the swing vote: the untapped power of independents."

i don't know if you heard that debate we were having, but what did you make of president obama's speech, more pitch to the base or middle? >> i think bill clinton was fantastic in the way that he talked to independent swing voters. he talked about the deficit. he talked about, gee, we want to get along. he quoted ronald reagan and turned it on the republicans. he teed it up for barack obama, and barack obama whiffed. when it comes to the independent swing voters. i think it was totally about exciting the base, but i don't understand why he couldn't do both. excite the base and talk about specific ways we're going to get out of this economic hole. bill clinton did that, i thought, very successfully. >> yeah. linda, i actually don't agree with that framing. i think it was much more broadly pitched, but even if it was pitched to the base. nate silver was writing that 35%

of voters nationwide identified as democrats and 30% at republicans. democrats have an advantage there to energize their people. is it a smart strategy for democrats to play to energize their base? >> they have to do that. there's no doubt about it. democrats can be better at voter turnout efforts. they will have to pour a lot of energy into that to excite young voters, to excite the same constituencies that obama got in 2008. this is going to be such a close election. the latest columbus dispatch poll about ohio, which as we talk about over and over, no republican has won the presidency without ohio, it may come down to ohio or florida, that is so tight that i think swing voters are probably going to make the difference. >> linda, quickly here, you know, the election seems kind of locked into place, and the electorate is so polarized. how many people are really swing voters out there?

is everybody sort of locked into place? >> no, they're not. the best polling i've seen is about 10% or under 10%, 7%, 10%. we haven't seen post-democratic convention polling, but i think that's about the number. i feel pretty confidently that these conventions did not convince them and that they are going to wait for the debates to hear more specifics. >> all right. we're excited for that. linda killian, thanks so much. >> thank you for having me. up next on friday afternoon, an important question, what's in a neck tie? apparently when it comes to winning the white house, fashion matters more than we think. i love that steve will lead the next segment. >> me, too.

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more convenient, more rewarding, more entertaining. year after year. it's the reason why we don't have customers. we have members. american express. welcome in. do the cloethes make the ma or woman, but what about president candidates? she says we may predict the winner of this presidential race based on a candidate's tie. we'll check out her article, "tied to the election" online at ft.com. i have to ask you, you say you've gone back and looked at this, i guess going back six or seven presidential elections, what is the key? what have we all been missing with economics and the policy? what are we missing? >> ties clearly don't matter,

but image matters incredibly. it matters more and more and more. before anyone listens to anything a candidate has to say, assuming they listen what a candidate has to say, they look at them and they think, do i like this guy? does this look like someone i want to vote for? we talk a lot about likability factor in this election. the fact that someone might or might not want to be a guy you have to have a beer with and those judgments are based on ima image. >> you say there's something specific about the color red? >> if you go back to 1976, about 90% of the winning presidential candidate wore a red tie when he made his acceptance speech. >> so, i think we have some pictures here. if you don't believe us, let's show you. 1996, bob dole, bill clinton. battle of the red ties.

2000, al gore, george bush, same thing. 2004, john kerry and george w. bush again. there's something different. a a blue tie. >> but that was his second term. makes a difference. >> so, and yeah, to 2008, we have red and red. 2012, this year, gold. 2012, there it is. second term, barack obama, what's the key to that? why is blue key to the second term? >> i think obama, i thought obama was going to wear blue if you look at what he wore on wednesday night. he wore a red tie. clinton wore a red tie. the fact that romney wore a red tie also drove him to this because you want a point of difference. don't want two presidential candidates that look exactly a like and if you're talking about men's clothing, there's not a lot of options for how different you can look. >> there is one other option. what about paul simon in the bow

tie? ties are phallic symbols an a bow tie is a symbol of castration, so you're never going to win in a bow tie. >> you ask most people about a bow tie, they say waiters and professors. is that the image you want to convey? i don't know. >> we got michael duca kis today. bruce babbitt on monday. thank you for joining us. up next, toure's take on another president. jfk's legacy in action this week. i i had pain in my abdomen...g. it just wouldn't go away. i was spotting, but i had already gone through menopause. these symptoms may be nothing... but they could be early warning signs of a gynecologic cancer,

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100 years of delay have passed since president lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. a great change is at hand and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. >> when i was a kid, it seemed like every black home had on the wall framed portraits of jesus, dr. king and president kennedy. this stretched from atlanta to boston, where i grew up in what felt like the shadow of the kennedy legacy. we visited his boyhood home, attended the the kennedy library, heard stories an waited for another like christians before the return of christ.

jack was on the wall in all those black homes because he was perceived as a heroic figure, an advocate for civil rights. it was his allegiance to the movement that first drew me towards the democratic party, which i perceived as the party who wanted to spread rights and liberty to people. i felt that to be true. it had to be true and as a boy, i believed that the democratic party would be more likely to drive america in that direction even if sometimes they do so with all deliberate speed. a "washington post" poll recently found that democrats tend to find that as the world change, people should adjust their values while republicans disagree and feel americans are too tolerant. to be socially progressive led to the current administration. obama himself is the embodiment

of that desire to expand liberty. as the world has changed and homosexuality has become more prominent, obama's administration has helped overturn don't ask don't tell -- proving dems don't always do the right thing and this year, obama and the democrats took a historic step and became full advocates for marriage equality. by supporting marriage equality, dems are offering people the chance shape their live, rather than forcing them to bend to fit the values of others. they are expanding liberty and p pursuit of happiness to americans who have not always had access to those things and by doing that, they have lived up to the party i thought i was joining when i was a kid. >> that quote, it's incredible to think how far we've come in the march towards equality for

lgbt citizens since clinton was in office because when he signed don't ask don't tell, that was the compromise. the other position was to ban gays from the military all together, so it's incredible to see that progress that we've made. >> sometimes, it takes steps. all right, that does it for "the the cycle." martin, you got a buarn burner today. >> i do, toure and don't you go yet because we want you on later. it's friday, september 7th and here's what's happening. just 60 days to go. >> we could create a million new jobs right now if congress would pass the jobs plan i sent to them a year ago. >> starting to look like republicans are cheering against any moves to try to help the economy. >> the republicans are fighting for moves to help the the economy. >> you might not be ready for diplomacy with beijing