kids. speaking of the kids, good luck on your s.a.t. exams. >> i prepped really hard. >> you prepped hard. >> a lot of note cards. >> i hope it goes well. if it's "way too early," what is your test? >> "morning joe" and now up for chuck todd and "the daily rundown." >> you passed the audition. >> nailed it again. >> buckeye is wide open. they're running to be president of all 50 states, looks like they're run to go commander in chief in chief of just one, ohio. still on the ground as both campaigns swamp this state. we've got a big senate fight in ohio. the candidates battled in their final debate last night. one of several key senate races in presidential battlegrounds that will determine the balance of power on capitol hill and there's hurricane sandy that heads for the east coast getting weaker but can turn into a more dangerous storm as it moves north.

we'll have the latest on this big storm bearing down just a week before the election. folks, we have our october surprise. its name is sandy. good morning from cincinnati. 11 days till election day, friday, october 26th, 2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd and i'm still living on the air in cincinnati. so let's get right to my first read. president obama wrapped up a 48-hour, 8-state battleground blitz in cleveland late last night and with a hoarse voice went after a message he's been dealing all week long. romney's trustworthiness. >> trust matters. you know what, ohio, after all these years, you now know me. you know that i mean what i say. >> and almost the exactly same moment 150 mys west mitt romney took the starj in one of the great names in battleground

politics, defiance, ohio, and he borrowed a page from the president's 2008 page book calling himself the president of change. >> this is a time when america faces big challenges. we have a big election and we want a president who will actually bring big changes and i will and he won't. >> well, we know ohio has been the ultimate bellwether in presidential elections for the last 50 years and the president's been putting a big emphasis on early voting both here and in other battleground states which is why he decided to be the first president, well, early vote and dit yesterday in chicago. >> we need some i.d. >> oh, no. >> i got my driver's license here. >> yes, by law even the president has to show i.d. to vote early in illinois. meanwhile, both sides are dealing with unexpected let's call them political speed bumps, if you will on the trail. for romney it's been indiana's

senate public candidate richard mourdock. he ignored questions about him three different times on the trail thursday. >> governor, do you wish mourdock would -- >> which way are we going? >> governor, do you disavow mourdock's comments on rape? >> thank you. and in that exclusive interview with brian williams, the president, though, did his best to talk about mourdock and try to capitalize on it. >> these attempts to redefine rape in some way make no since to me. i think what these episodes point to is the fact that you don't want politicians, majority of them male, making a series of decisions about women's health care issues. >> and in what appears to be an

unforced error, if you will, team romney and republicans, national campaign co-chair john sununu who made these e eyebrow-raising questions about colin powell's endorsement of president obama. >> when you take a look at colin powell, you have to wonder whether that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring president obama. >> what reason would that be? >> well, i think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the united states, i applaud co colin for standing with him. >> race-based endorsement and sununu issued this "colin powell is a friend and i respect the endorsement decision he made and i do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president's policies." he didn't deal with that and seemed to claim that wasn't the question. imagine if the other side had

alleged if ross perot made his endorsement of mitt romney solely because mitt romney was white. anyway, the president has his own set of problems to deal with. brian williams asked the president whether he was happy with the intelligence he received as the benghazi attack was unfolding and with what he was able to learn in its aftermath. here's how the president responded. >> we'll do a full investigation. obviously when four americans are killed, you know, you have to do some soul searching in terms of making sure that all our systems are where they need to be. >> and then there was this little kerfuffle, in an interview in "rolling stone" he joked he does well in the 6 to 12-year-old demographic set and he added, you know kids have good instincts. they look at the other guy and say, well, that's a bser, although he did not shorthand that.

obama campaign admitted that the remark occurred but said it was during a casual conversation at the end of the interview. the campaign did not deny mr. obama was referring to romney with that little name-calling. today the president will do ten what i would call get out the vote interviews from the white house including interviews with syndicated radio host michael smerconish and april ryan of the american urban radio networks trying to fire up african-american voters and sway callaway on mtv targeting young voters there and makes his closing argument on the economy and has a speech in ames, wawa before north canton later tonight. of course, ohio is not just a critical presidential battleground and happens to feature a contentious senate race and last night i moderated the third and final debate between ohio senator sherrod

brown and josh mandel. outside the studio you can see dozens of supporters chanted slogans and nearly as contentious inside, slightly more polite. >> you can't close tax loopholes when these companies that outsource jobs. if you sign the grover norquist pledge -- not that your chances going to the senate are that high. >> for a guy running since president nixon was running, don't you have a couple of good things to say about your own record? >> it's a fight for the presidential fight but romney has blurred distinctions between his original position on the auto bailout and mandel is running a different race in his very -- offers a lot of clarity on his position on the auto bailout. >> is there a bailout you would have supported? >> i'm not a bailout senator. there's no government bailout i could think of that i would ever support. if you're watching at home and looking for a bailout senator,

that's sherrod brown. >> would you have not followed what george join rich and i wanted to do with president obama, just let the industry fall apart. i know it's good empty slogans and poll-tested kind of statements but i just wonder what you would have done to help the middle class of the state. >> throughout the night mandel attacked brown as a creature of washington, accusing him of washingtonspeak and using that phrase over and tried to distance himself from the national republican party, mandel. >> if elected would you vote for the ryan budget plan, yes or no, why or why not? >> i have not come out in support of that plan and do not have plans to come out in support of it. i will have my own plan when i go to washington to save medicare and save social security. >> you might have heard that answer before, tom, on eight or ten or 15 different issues. when you go to washington you vote -- i know this sounds like washingtonspeak to josh but you actually vote yes or no. >> in a january survey for an

anti-abortion group right to life, mandel checked yes next to a box asking whether he supports federal and state legislation to ban abortion. he did not check the box that supported any exceptions. the campaign says in a subsequent survey he did make it clear he supports a very narrow abortion exception. >> i do support an exception to protect the life of the mother. sherrod brown is an extremist on this issue and actually supports tax dollars to fund abortions. >> unlike josh i trust ohio women to make their own decisions about -- about their health care, period. and my opponent has the most extreme position of no exceptions, no exceptions for anything, no exceptions for rape, no exceptions for incest. there are tens of thousands of women in this country, they get pregnant from rapes every year. >> finally i asked both candidates what message ohioans would be sending to them if they split their ticket re-electing president obama and putting mandel in office or electing and

re-electing senator brown for another term but of picking mitt romney. here's how they responded to the question. >> if the voters of the state of ohio go in that direction, i think they're probably saying that they want to check and balance and don't want someone like brown who will be a rubber stamp and vote with president obama 95% of the time. >> if that happens they think sherrod brown is his own guy, stood up to the president of his own party when it was bill clinton and when it's barack obama and, of course, i'll work with mitt romney if he's the president of the united states. >> it was -- the one thing i came away with in the senate race, the differences were similar as the difference between obama and romney, except they didn't make the same attempts to blur the differences. they both wanted the clarity between their two visions versus what we've been seeing in the last couple of weeks between president obama and mitt romney. finally as competitive as the race for ohio may be, all there's some conflicting information there are other

states that are really closer and it's producing a very close race. our white house senior advice david blouf talked about whether he expected it to be so close. >> we knew we wouldn't get the same vote as we got in 2008 so this is the race we prepared for. here's the great thing, in 13 days there will be no more bluffing. one of us is right and one of us is wrong in our position on the race. >> this morning we have new nbc news/wall street journal marist polls. tied at 48%. last month the president had a five-point advantage and the president is at the magic 50% mark. romney, though, only trails by three points at 47% all within the margin. the president has been able to stay even with romney by winning big margins with latino voters and leads among them, 63/34 in colorado and winning ready for this with latino voters in neve

day by 74/23. anyway the race for colorado tighteninged. why has it become such a close race? romney has gained among key groups since we last polled a month ago by 14 points a month ago, 54/40. it's been cut in half and the president only leads by 7 points. now, the president led independents, 50-39. now, that 11-point margin is a virtual draw and romney is up a point among independents. leader of the marist poll joins me now. colorado, we sit here, we talk about ohio, lee, we talk about -- but colorado, tell me this, what was the raw vote difference between the two because obviously statistically 48/48, a total tie? >> single digits. one handful. i think what's interesting, we talked about ohio throughout the campaign as being the bellwether, but, you know, obama

is sort of getting in ohio what he got last time. and that may be because of the car industry and the whole auto bailout. around the rest of the country and in these states looking add today he's not getting anywhere near what he got. ohio may not be the bellwether but the other swing states and could be exception this time to the pattern. obama is not getting his marker in these states although there's still obviously very competitive both of them. nevada, a little more favorable. >> look, i want to throw up -- i want to focus on colorado and spend our time here. what's interesting, it's hispanics versus the suburbs, if you will, romney, big move for him, denver suburbs likely voters here in september, the president led 51/44. now in this poll we have romney ahead in the denver suburbs, arapaho, skwlefrson county, 51-46 and basically the only reason the president doesn't trail when you usually if you lose in the denver suburbs you don't win the state it's this

massive lead he has among latinos. >> not getting his marker among suburban voters, among women voters. when you compare it to last time where he won the state handily so doesn't have to do it this time but it is the latino voters and it is the strength he has at his base, not in these swing voters and the question is, how many are there and what's the early vote? colorado is a huge early vote state. three-quarters will vote before election day and right now they are also within one point of each other in terms of their preferences, so this just is, you know, if it comes down to colorado, not only will the time zone make it really late for us to tally, but, boy, it may well keep us push us into extra innings. >> i want to just point out the job approval ratings in both states for the president because among likely voters we know job approval and incumbent's ballot number are usually the same and look at this. it doesn't lie here. the president's job approval rating, 48% approved.

49% disapprove. that looks like a ballot test and look at nevada. 50% approve of his job, 46% disapprove. you got to -- you get this feeling that we could just go with job approval rating. wherever the president is at 49 or 50 he probably carries that state and wherever he's below 49 it'll be a total recount state if it's sitting at 48 or if it's lower than that he'll end up losing it. >> it may very well be that and we also see his right direction of the nation numbers have picked up but then ben mitt romney used to be upside down in terms of his likability. that's no longer the case, gosh, there's just so many cross currents there and that's why these states are just as close as they could be. >> all right. lee, we'll try to do a whole bucketful of polling in the last week and see how much we can get done. lee, always a pleasure. thank you, sir. much more to come on "the daily rundown." i'll take a dive into the down ballot races in a few minutes but, my man, we're doing a two

qb set and we'll talk to je nchn saki and gdp is out and improving economy, still time to move voters. hurricane sandy is on course to blend with a winter storm and wreak havoc on the east coast. the latest on the october surprise that neither campaign was waiting for. but first a look ahead at the schedules of mitt romney and president obama. romney, of course, iowa and ohio today, that big speech in ames and the president, it's get out the vote interview day today. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. we'll be right back. welcome aboard! [ chuckles ] ♪

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i think we've seen again this week, i don't think any male politician should be making health care decisions for women. i believe women are capable and should make their own health care decisions for themselves. that's why the health care law we passed puts those choices in your hands where they belong. >> president obama takes a jab at republican richard muourdocks recent remarks and critical female votersment joining me is jen saki. >> good news for you as i showered this morning after two days on the plane. >> this time around, it seems

like you guys are taking a page out of the bush '04 playbook and trying to push these wedge issues, trying to get out your base. let's look at the gender gap problems you're having. it narrowed. in nevada and colorado from our new nbc news/marist poll, in september your victory with women over mitt romney was 14 points in nevada. 16 points in nevada. 14 in colorado. now down to 6 in nevada and 7 in colorado. why is this tightening too much? >> well, we know there are polls every hour. we don't buy into every poll. the important thing about the clip you just played is that this is a fundamental difference in this race. president obama as you saw heard him say believes women should make their own choices. doesn't mean we should defund planned parenthood. this issue this with with mr. mourdock reminded women at what's at stake. it's perplexing to us for days

the romney campaign has gone into hiding to avoid answering questions because mitt romney is up on the air with an ad for this candidate. but it's really about the larger issue of women's health. this is a very big issue in a state like colorado. you know, women care very deeply about this across the country but especially there and something we'll continue to talk about and we expect, you know, this race is going to be very, very close to the end. but we know that women voters when they're paying attention to the issues and know what's at stake and an opportunity to talk about it, the choice will be clear to them. >> is it fair to say when you have such a large debt, $16 trillion debt, you have wars abroad, you have a lot of folks have a ton of economic anxiety here your message in the last ten days of the campaign seems to be about women's health. this is really trying to turn out the base. >> no, look, this is an issue the president talks about. he couldn't hold himself back from speaking to this given how outrageous the comments were but 99% of what the president talks about every single day is what he's done to help bring this

economy back from the brink of collapse and what he wants to do moving forward. he's been waving around his plan that he's been talking about since the convention, he's talked about continuing to create manufacturing jobs, increasing oil imports, winding down our war in afghanistan. this race is about the economy, that's what he talks about every day. but, look, there are issues that perk women's ears across this country and the comments of somebody like mr. mourdock and the lack of response from the romney team, i think that wakes people up. >> let's talk about another issue the president is having where numbers have tightened immensely with the white voters. recent "the washington post" poll said this, "nearly half of all those who supported obama in 2008 but now say they back romney are white independents." overall, whites make up more than 90% of such vote switchers." why such a fall from grace from president obama amongst this voting bloc? well, we certainly don't look at it as a fall from grace. as i said before, there are lots

of polls out there. you look at a state like ohio which i think everybody thinks is a pretty pivotal state in this election. that's a place where the president's message and the president's record of saving the auto industry continuing to fight for manufacturing, you know, really resonates with working voters, white voters, african-american voters, latino voters. you know, we're not looking at this as a breakdown of their every demographic group and have to be where we were in 2008 but a different year than in 2008. it's been through a tough time. all we want to do is get to 270 electoral vote. >> can you winning 38% of the white vote nationally? >> look, i'm not going to break down all the specific numbers. you know we all look at them, but our goal is looking at the 6 to 9 states in play, how we're going to get across -- >> it's 38 tear to say -- >> there's lots of polls out there, luke. but state to state.

different things going on. different dynamics. at the end of the day when you look at a manufacturing base, working base like states in ohio and wisconsin and iowa, those are places where the president's message is really resonating. that's what we're focused on. >> jen psaki from the obama campaign, thanks for joining us. hurricane sandy has weakened to a category 1 as it leaves the bahamas and heads up the east coast, the biggest fier, though, it turns into a much more devastating storm as it churns towards the northeast. weather channel meteorologist mike seidel is on singer island, florida, as the hurricane closes in and, mike, those shots already look a little bit treacherous. give us an update point storm and how close should the northeast prepare to it? >> hey, good morning, luke. yes, we're getting what we expected. a brush-by by from hurricane sandy today. winds in the squalls are gusting 45 to 50 miles an hour. right now out of a squall but

the steady wind blowing the sand off the top of the beach so getting wind erosion. towards the water and watch how i kind of disappear from the camera shot because i'm walking down a big slope here. we've lost about four or five feet of beach so a lot of beach erosion. these winds will turn northwest, blow offshore and cut down on the beach issues going into tonight and tomorrow. if you're coming to florida this weekend you'll have sunshine, still windy, though, tomorrow and breezy on sunday. then we turn our attention to the northeast. both models, european and american model bring a megastorm into the northeast. now where it makes landfill determines the impacts on the coast because north of landfill you have much more worse situation with erosion and surge and a whole kind of a whole litany of coastal issues. inland this will be a giant windstorm for the entire northeast corridor, philadelphia, d.c. and if you think back to the derecho and washington, how long it took back to get back on then and

coming up is the one-year anniversary of the big snotober, some folks without power for three weeks, i'm speculating now if this storm verifies will have some impact on voter turnout on election day. if your power is out -- >> really. >> if the power is out for two or three weeks, i think some folks will have more important things to do, fortunately these days we have a lot of early voting and ab sen si voting. this has the potential. we've never seen a storm do this, a hurricane come in from the west and certainly this late in the season. this is very unusual. >> fascinating, both campaigns will look at that perhaps as some sort of divine intervention if it works in their favor. mike seidel, thank you very much from the weather channel. very interesting. the sandy effect. something political scientists start writing soon after the election. chuck will be back in just a few

minutes with a deep dive in some of the hottest showdowns and how will wall street go? but today the trivia question. how many tafts have represented ohio in the senate? tweet us @dailyrundown. the answer and more coming up in "the daily show." a great taft statue on the way to union station when you walk over from the russell senate building on the way to the dubliner. take care. we'll be right back.

1.3% in the second quarter and opening bell is just ringing so let's see how wall street is

going. blek ki. >> wall street's reaction reflects that and the markets opening about flat but earlier this morning we had seen the futures indicating a drop of about 80 points for the dow so count this as a victory. they looked at it and saw better then expected growth but hard for either cane to claim this as a victory particularly when you consider 2% growth is not enough to bring down the unemployment rate and that's the big picture. let me walk you through some of the numbers this. is a micro come of what's happening on the economy. consumers are hanging in there. they were spending 2%. that's right in line with the headline number. housing was a big uptick and saw it increase by 14.4%. the big problem is business spending and business investment. it was down by 1.3% and that's where we've seen all the troubles lately. this is the first read on gdp. only two of the three months involved and the government estimates what happened in the last month and showed a real increase in government spending.

in federal spending in particular. federal government spending was up by 9.6%. state and local governments was relatively flat overall and helped offset things because that added up to total overall government spending but you dig through it, it's the consumer hanging in there. housing seems to have turned a corner but the business investment is the real problem and that's what people are focused on. luke, i will a send it back over to you. >> business still sitting on cal tall. we appreciate it. nix, chuck is back with the lowdown on the down ballot races. get your wonk on. a deep dive into the senate showdowns in the battlegrounds. don't want to miss that. "the daily shodelta "the daily rundown" will be back in 30 seconds.

we're back down with "the daily rundown" and bring back chuck. how are you sir? time for the deep dive. we're taking a break from the presidential race to look down the ballots. look, there's three big story lines out of the battle for the senate. democrats trying to make inroads in red state, indiana, missouri. there are republicans trying to flip some blue states. think, for instance, the biggest one being connecticut but today taking the deep dive into the races where the battle for the white house and the battle for control of the senate come together. in a handful of toss-up states. there's five in particular that

fit this -- fit in this, ohio, virginia, wisconsin, nevada and florida. and what we're watching here is how the dynamics have played out on the national level. how will they translate down the ballot. how much will some over and underperform. when sherrod brown was elected, look at his map, the blue and red, rolled up huge wins around the cities which is normal but also threw out the iron part of the state. just a dominance there. two years later look at the map, president won ohio, he beat john mccain but he lost a number of those counties that sherrod brown had won. you can see a lot more red in the center in the eastern part of the state so the question this year, can brown overperform in some of those counties, regain some of that former '06 or see more of a partisan map like the 2008 win or a smaller one that some might expect in 2012 in that shrinking territory? now to virginia. republican george allen is battling tim kaine there.

handful of counties all in the d.c. suburbs. loudon county, home of manassas and prince william. go back to 2000. george allen was elected. >> when president obama ran in 2008 he won those three by more than 140,000 votes combined. if allen craig can repeat his victories in loudon and prince william and hold down caine, he'll have the edge and tommy thompson and timmy baldwin in a tight race. a state president obama won by double digits in 2008. but when republican and tea party favorite ron johnson ran for senate two years later we saw huge changes in the electorate. take a look at two of the

giggest counties, brown and winnebago county. president obama won them by a combined 21,000 in 2008. in 2010 johnson flipped them in a big way winning brown by 13,000 and winnebago by 7,000. he also built on republican margins in whssuka county. watch the margins in those three counties, they could very well be the difference between a win for tommy thompson and one for baldwin. now to nevada. dean heller is trying to hang on to this seat against democrat shelley berkley. two counties are key here. clark county, home of las vegas, very democratic and the one home of reno. al gore won clark by six points and lost washoo and lost the state. kerry won clark by five points and lost washoo and lost the

state. 2008 obama won it but even more important, he ran up the score in clark county. beating john mccain by nearly 20 points. hence that visit he had with some casino workers the other day unprompted in las vegas. the key for berkeley is to follow that path even if thee doesn't win washo ochlo she has win big in clark county. in florida both the presidential election and the senate contest are likely to be decided along the i-4 corridor when senator bill nelson ran in 2000 he won polk, pasco, brevard and the president flipped all three winning them by a combined 52,000 votes. now republican connie mack will have to overperform in swing counties like those if he's going to win -- if he's going 0 have a chance to win nelson's seat and, chuck, we're back. that's why we had the dual -- >> yeah. >> that's why we have the dual quarterback setup. you fumbled it and i picked it

up and took it to the end zone. >> i'm not going to use the word fumble. i don't think it was nye fumble. night satellite blip. some of these guys have to overperform and some need the president to drag them across. berkeley, she desperately needs president obama to win by four or five points in nevada for her to get to 50%. you look at george allen, he needs romney to overperform. ditto with mack and thompson. it is interesting, tammy baldwin, the wisconsin one is the one that intrigues me the most, it is this thrash there isn't an obvious play. there were some folks that thought tommy could overperform because of people having good memories of his days in the 90s but he's -- if we're in a change election environment, is it -- will there be romney/baldwin voters, you know, ideologically

some thought that could never happen. i think we're seeing some evidence that might happen in wisconsin too so, look, most of these are going to break, you know, 95% of their voters are going to be the same but it's that last slice that's going to be the difference between brown winning or losing in ohio, baldwin, heller, mack and those things so it'll be fun to watch on election night. >> wisconsin, almost seems like they'd want to have a split delegation and would fit the political acumen of the state. good to see you in cincinnati. our political panel will be here next and a programming note this sunday on nbc's "meet the press" a look at the ground game in the swing states where the governors of ohio, wisconsin and colorado. but first white house soup of the day, very autumnal. butternut squash. you can have it in october and november. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. had is the song two days ago. zac brown's "colder weather" all

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i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios s richard mourdock muddied the waters with his comments. will it erase the game. we have our guests on today. welcome, team. how are you? >> morning. >> good morning. >> just great. >> gender politics, it's all the rage this close to election day. we have jen psaki on earlier and she said this about the gender gap and mr. mourdock. >> this issue this week with

senator -- with mr. mourdock has reminded women of what's at stake in the electric. it's perplexing to us for days the romney campaign has gone into hiding to avoid answering questions on this issue because mitt romney is up on the air with an ad for this candidate. >> we'll go around the table here but, liz, how long can the obama campaign keep this alive? >> well, they'll try to keep it alive right up until the end. i think what they're saying is the same thing we're saying in polls, a narrowing of the advantage that president obama has with women and the more that they feel that, you know, they can ink flame the issue of whether or not romney sticks by mourdock, whether that -- in keeping abortion and rape in the front of this campaign is -- the more they can do it, the more they think they can try to grow that gap again. but it's -- it could be a real problem for romney in the long run if he doesn't answer this, because at this point he's

letting the obama -- >> it's starting to fester. is it because mystique is growing. >> two problems. if he does respond that gives them even more fodder so you're kind of -- in a situation either way. in a lot of ways i think they're hoping to -- only 11 days left. evening in the longer run if romney wins this could hurt him. if he doesn't have these extra senate seats, it's going to be a tough -- >> to me this is a play almost out of the bush '04 playbook, which is this idea of trying to move in on cultural issues. we saw those exit polls in '04. everyone was amazed and thought it would be about terrorism and the war. cultural issues had a huge impact. is this the obama's campaign on that. do you see -- >> it is interesting. as you know in the aftermath of the 2004 elections, the

conventional wisdom was they had gone too far left and been a problem for them in the election. since then public opinion is only moved in a row life direction yet the democrats are betting they can get a lot of votes on this issue and it'll be interesting to see if that plays out. >> indeed, indeed. let's look at the issue of abortion. mitt romney has had certainly a few positions that he's had to clarify on it. let's play this. >> no legislation with regards to abortion that i'm familiar with that would be become part of my agenda. >> i think i've said time and again that i'm a pro-life candidate. i'll be a pro-life president. the actions i'll take immediately are to remove funding for planned parenthood. >> in afghanistan, the surge was right, but announcing a withdrawal date, that was wrong. the taliban may not have watches but do have calendars.

>> i'll make sure we bring our troops out by 2014. >> the right process is not a bailout. >> i said we would provide guarantees and that was what was able to allow these companies to go through bankruptcy, to come out of bankruptcy. >> so you see a wide variety of some flip-flops on big issues there but my question would be to you guys, are you surprised the obama complain isn't jumping on that more, jackie? >> i think they have. i think they have jumped on it quite a bit. it's just whether -- >> at this point of the campaign, it seems that was the message from a few weeks ago. >> it hasn't worked. you know, the polls are still moving in a lot of places and romney's favor so you have to -- you have to pivot here. and, you know, once -- when you have the economy, how it is and et cetera, et cetera, everything we've been talking about for months if something is not working you got to kind of move on. >> it's also -- this is a campaign at the margins right now, right jo so i mean the abortion argument is all about picking off women and, you know,

you're seeing different arguments that the obama campaign is using at different place, not in overall centralized arguments but localizing it because it will be won and loss at the margins but not with a big sweeping message. >> are you surprised they backed off that plan of attack. >> huge argument as to whether the obama campaign should have gone off romney more of a flip-flopper or right wing extremist and there's this story in -- >> which we'll get to in the next segment. >> the charge somebody is an extremist is just a scarier charge. if he's a flip-flopper he can flip-flop to wherever you want him to be so i think they probably are right to focus on the right wing -- >> that's what the gop establishment has been saying for the last two years, their presidential candidate becomes a bill and they lose and understandable how that democratic line of attack is going. we'll be right back with this all-star panel but trivia time and asked how many tafts have represented ohio in the senate. the answer is three.

the first was robert a. taft, the son of our most big-boned the son of our most big boned president, and a distant relative named kingsley taft, and robert taft jr. grandson to the former president. it was the third senator taft who once asked a senate colleague to declare cincinnati the chile capital of the world. you can read more of that story on our new and improved website rundown.msnbc.com. tafts in ohio are like kennedys in massachusetts. a very big prominent political family. what if there was a new way to deal with money that focused less on fees and more... on what matters? maybe your bank account is taking too much time and maybe it's costing too much money. introducing bluebird by american express and walmart. your alternative to checking and debit. it's loaded with features, not fees. because we think your money should stay where it belongs.

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let's bring back our panel. liz sidoti, jackie kucinich and ramesh ponnuru and let's talk about this piece. a very interesting thing from "the new york times." it said, quote, how bill clinton may have hurt the obama

campaign. saying, quote, the white house had been portraying mr. romney as inauthentic and inconstant, a soulless climber who would say anything to get the job, but it was mr. clinton who forcibly argued to mr. obama's aides that the campaign had it wrong, the best way to go after mitt romney the former president said was to publicly grant that he was a severe conservative he claimed to be and then hang the unpopular ideology around his neck. does this work, liz? >> look, if bill clinton hurt the campaign at all at any point in this race, he has certainly helped the campaign in the homestretch. what you're seeing is a guy who laid out an economic argument arguably better than the president did during the convention and has hit the campaign trail in pivotal areas to turn out working class whites. we're going to see obama and the president campaign together early next week. if bill clinton was hurting this campaign, you would not see the two of them out on the road together. >> hard to be a severe conservative when romney's moderated so much recently.

>> i agree with liz, i think it's a net gain. if you look at bill clinton, i don't think he's hurt the campaign between the convention speech, exactly what liz said. i don't think that you could say that bill clinton has hurt this campaign. >> ramesh, you would rather be the nasty conservative or the flip-flopper? >> i think if the obama folks had gone after romney as a flip-flopper he'd be slightly worse off than he is now and there would be articles saying why didn't the democrats go after imas a right wing extremist. >> shameless plugs around the table, lead us off. >> eric cantor has a new report on obama's constitutional records that builds in part on my work. >> interesting. >> i'll say go ohio state buckeyes beat penn state this weekend. >> they can't do anything with their undefeated record. >> oh, come on, had to throw it in there. >> "the victory lap" -- >> great book. i've read it. and we have a shameless plug from chuck, for buskin in

cincinnati and the presidential poll cookies, you can certainly vote more than once, but according to the bakery's latest count president obama is ahead by about 2,000 cookies. only in america. that's it for this edition of the "daily rundown." thank you so much for watching me here. have a great weekend. thanks to the team, chuck will be back in d.c. on monday. if you like the goatee. coming up next on msnbc, chris jansing and company, you don't want to miss this. take care. [ female announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role

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