>> 100 house races are toss ups, control of the senate could hinge on pennsylvania and california. the tea party's surging, and bill clinton is back. all that tonight on "washington week." it is getting hot out there. >> how ridiculous are you? you embarrass this race. >> and who says, if elected, he'll ask voters for more new taxes? jerry brown. governor jerry brown again? hide your wallet. >> i don't know that all of you are latino. some of you look a little more asian to me. >> i really don't know what my opponent was talking about, because you all look like nevadans to me. >> meanwhile, labor unions and

corporations are pouring money into key races from coast to coast and both sides say they'll win. >> we don't work for you anymore, nancy pelosi! you're fired. >> their whole campaign strategy is amnesia. >> countdown to election day with the reporters covering the story -- charles babington of the associated press, doyle mcmanus of the "los angeles times," karen tumulty of the "the washington post" and kate zernike, of the "new york times." >> this is "washington week with gwen ifill" produced in association with national journal. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by. >> we know why here -- we're here, to connect our forces to

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advisers, and e-harmony. additional funding for "washington week" is provided by the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation, the ananberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator, gwen ifill. >> good evening. we couldn't decide where to start tonight so we're going to roll everything together. polls are standing and shrinking, money is raised and spents and the electoral map is changing literally every day. if you don't live in a state where campaigning is already underway or where voting has already begun, here's a sample of what's crowding the airways and the debates. >> insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. >> insanity is doing the same

thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. >> i built businesses. >> i built business. >> met a parole. >> met a parole. >> i will owe my office to no one except to you. >> i will owe my office to no one but you. >> who supported higher state income taxes? jerry brown, and who said if elected he'll ask voters for more new taxes? jerry brown. governor jerry brown again? hide your wallet. >> what i'm most concerned about are those extreme candidates that are taking advantage of the extreme fringe of the tea party. >> i welcome all allies in this effort to get a government that's out of control under control so that we can have the prosperity that we need and we deserve. >> that's what it looks like in two states, california and pennsylvania, where karen tumulty and doyle mcmanus have been most recently. let's start with your take on the landscape in california.

>> meg whitman at this point has spent so much money on this race, more money than any candidate for any office has before -- gwen: for governor, not president. >> for governor, right. she's running 1300 ads a day. these days, jerry brown is also at parity on the ad front so these days this is really what the airwaves in california do look like. meg whitman is an interesting case, though, because as that first ad that you showed indicated, you would normally think that an outsider, sort of independent-minded republican would be the perfect fit for this election year. and it would be in every state except california, which went for exactly somebody like that last time and arnold schwarzenegger right now is at 23% approval in the polls. >> which is what the ad was all

about, linking them. but they're neck-and-neck, those two, now. >> absolutely. but one big question is, one of the things that meg whitman has done with this money is she has built a ground operation, both said believe, unlike anything any republican have tried before. she has people phone banking in farsi, running ads in chinese. so one thing that is a mystery is how well this will work on election day. gwen: let's go to pennsylvania where you were, doyle, another senate race but completely different circumstances. >> very different. pennsylvania is interesting because it's a traditional bellwether state, it's always a tight race and important to a presidential race, it sometimes anticipates what's going to happen in the country later, not california does 10 years in advance, but a couple of years in advance. and in pennsylvania, there were signs the race may be narrowing

and democrats who were looking for signs of life in their party looked at pennsylvania this week because joe sestak had been given up for dead, basically, in the summer. but over the last month or so, as he's put out some television advertising, he has picked up some ground against pat toomey, the conservative tea party republican. pat toomey was tea party before there was a tea party. gwen: before tea party was cool. >> before it was invented, never mind cool. and the polls show that race is now neck-and-neck, a dead heat. what's going on there is the big mystery. part of it is that democrats who actually have a registration edge in pennsylvania -- there are more democrats than republican although some of them vote republican on election day -- democrats are coming back to the fold a little bit. some of this you would have expected all along, but -- and everybody expected this race to narrow up a little bit. but part of it is, one of the

things you saw in those ads but also in the debate clip, negative advertising. every voter hates negative advertising but every politician knows that negative advertising works and sestak has hammered away charging that pat toomey, the conservative tea party republican, would cut social security, privatize social security is one charge, of course, a long story we could get into, and that he's against roe v. wade, against abortion rights, which is true and that is driving traditional democrats back into the fold. gwen: chuck, you've been watching how the president and the other side has been trying to hold on to the ground they have laid here, the groundwork, in two very different states, and another hundred house races. >> the president's most recent trip is out to the west coast but repeatedly he's going to democratic states, california,

washington, he's been in wisconsin. he's really trying to hold on to seats -- democrats have almost no hope of picking up senate seats, for example. they're trying not to lose very many so the president is really trying to fire up the base which has been lethargic so far. we know the energy has been on the side of the republicans all along. but -- so while he's doing that, the other thing that i think is really interesting and i've been pennsylvania, as well. you always see guilt by association ads in campaigns. there's an awful lot of them this year and particularly what the democrats are doing and joe sestak is a classic example, is that they are saying, my republican opponent is extreme, he or she is too far to the right, and he's also associated with the tea party, including christine o'donnell. they keep talking about christine o'donnell. she's the candidate in delaware, given very little chance of winning that race but they love to talk about her because they think she has enough notoriety

with the "i'm not a witch and all of that." >> they're doing that in pennsylvania. >> they are mentioning her name in other places, as well. not as much as in the philadelphia area where you get the bleed-over of the delaware media. but sestak, in that film clip, the debate you showed, dropped her name several times and lumped -- repeatedly lumped pat toomey with christine o'donnell and sarah palin. gwen: let's get a sense, kate, you've been covering the tea party movement and have written a book about it. give us a sense about the degree to which efforts like this are energizing the tea party or maybe are overestimating it. >> i think there are two things in the election. one is the tea party enthusiasm, which has been huge. no one thought christine o'donnell could win that primary and that was the result of grass-roots fervor and people believing beyond hope that she could win and she did. on the other side is the tea party extremism which is what

democrats were hoping for, hoping to tag the tea party candidates with extreme positions, getting rid of social security and abolishing the department of education. so i think christine o'donnell was in some ways a jump-the-shark moment for the tea party. >> in how many states and how many race are tea party candidates -- whatever that means -- how many states are they a factor? >> i saw 139 candidates in my analysis. they either came up through the movement, maybe their first political event was a tea party rally, including ron johnson who is a senate candidate from wisconsin who may win. and then there are other politicians who have run before and have been in office and have gotten a surge from the tea party activity this year. so that's 139 in the house and senate. of those, most are running in districts where the demographics are stacked against them.

even if they get every republican vote, every independent vote, the democrat is still likely to win. and also, where the tea party candidates are doing well are in districts where republicans tend to do well. there aren't a lot of democratic-leaning districts where the tea party has shifted to the republican's favor. gwen: let's talk about the message. there seems to be a million different sides because i think a lot of tea party candidates are not necessarily friends of the republican party. there are messages pretty much funneled through president obama and through other surrogates. in this case, we're going to listen to president obama and then listen to newt gingrich, former speaker of the house. >> in just 11 days, in just 11 days, you have the chance to set the direction of this state and of this country, not just for the next two years, but for the next five years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years. and just like you did in 2008,

you can defy the conventional wisdom. >> i believe obama is just the culmination of a long process in which the left has gotten steadily more and more distant from american principles, more and more distant from the american constitution, more and more distant from our history and now represent a fundamentally different world, a secular socialist machine that has nothing to do with the traditions that have made this country historic. gwen: there is incredible clarity on either side. you know exactly what you're voting for. let's start talking about president obama. he was in california today campaigning for senator barbara boxer who is running against carly fiorina, the former h.p. executive who today for the first time since the primary wrote herself a million dollar check to get over the final hump. is the president showing up and reminding people of the glory days of 2008? does that work? >> i was with him last sunday

night in columbus, ohio, as well. it really was an effort to catch lightning in a bottle again. at one point he acknowledged that "yes we can" was a great campaign slogan and now everyone is looking around them saying "well, i don't know." but what's different about this is two years ago barack obama was running as a transcendent figure, who was more than just politics, but about reaching across the aisle and bringing people together. now he is going after the democratic base. he's in washington state trying to appeal to women. he is in nevada trying to get latinos. the message is the same, but the frame is so different this year. gwen: but the frame is the same for newt gingrich. it seems like i've heard him do this before, what he's saying. the president is at a distance from our traditions, there is something alien about this presidency and this leadership.

is that resonating? >> that's resonating on the right and both sides are talking to the base. this is about getting people to vote and wishy-washy independents who are in the middle, who like bypartisanship. gwen: that would be you. >> are not hearing anything at all that resonates with them this year and probably will not vote in great numbers. so what you are hearing, the word that came up in the pennsylvania debate, from both candidates in pennsylvania, was extreme. he's extreme right. he's extreme left. they're both trying to pigeon hole each other and it's a way of whipping up the base on each side. gwen: is there risk in dismissing these candidates, whether they are considered extreme or not, dismissing these new voters or energized people? i noticed some democrats have recently started saying things like, oh, the tea party is not anything, they're taking it on. there's a risk in that, isn't

there? >> absolutely. if you knock down the tea party, they bounce up harder. you remember the special election last year in new york, which became a huge cause for the tea party. the republicans nominated a moderate republican, the tea party nominated a conservative republican and campaigned so hard for him that the moderate republican dropped out three days before the election day and endorsed the tea party candidate. but what the tea party did, they said, okay, next time we're really going to get them and they doubled back and the next one was a stop round race where campaigned for him and he won gwen: so chuck, to the rescue for the democrats, bill clinton. how could we have kept him away? >> the funny thing is that people do remember him and maybe it's like child birth, they

remember the good things about him and have forgotten the painful things about him. bill clinton has been a tremendous intuitive campaigner and has not lost a step whatsoever and people do harken back to the good economic times, which were pretty good. when he left office, there was a government surplus. and they very rarely talk about the negative aspects of his presidency so he is campaigning -- he's got more invitations from democrats than he can possibly fill and he is drawing remarkable crowds for someone who is not the president. he got 6,000 people at ucla, 5,000 at san jose, 2,000 all over the place. today i was in pennsylvania for rudy giuliani with pat toomey, he got maybe 200 people. when you get 2,000 people, that's a big crowd. and bill clinton still has a great ability -- he's the culmination of a back-slapper and policy wonk and he can

dissect policy quickly and succinctly. gwen: quickly, you say? >> he covers a lot of ground. >> what a difference 10 years make. as you might recall, al gore was criticized after the 2000 election for not wanting bill clinton. he thought he was poison on the campaign trail. gwen: isn't the goal, now, however, is to send clinton to the place where is barack obama is not necessarily welcome? >> sometimes they've been in the same places. they've both been to california and to nevada. the thing that's delicious about this is bill clinton is loving every minute of this, it's kind of a validation of everything he wanted to be. but bill clinton's friends say he's been seething all year long as what he sees as the inability of the obama administration to sell the things it has done. gwen: so the polls are saying things are tightening or not.

what do we know tonight about whether they are or not? >> it appears that there are -- the number of senate races in play, truly competitive at this point, is actually shrinking. there are probably five or six of them. but the number of house races that are very, very close, that number is actually growing and it looks like it could be -- who knows. people are throwing out numbers, up 60, 70, 80, 90. one set of numbers i saw just today, though, that i found fascinating, we already have early voting underway in 29 states and believe it or not, for all we're hearing about the enthusiasm gap, in most of these states, the democrats are actually turning in more ballots than the republicans. gwen: why do we think that is? >> i think there are a couple of things. one is that the democrats have perfected this early turnout operation and however, for instance, in a number of these places, the percentage of

african-americans in the electorate is bigger than it was four years ago so that does suggest that there is some realm nant of this great -- remnant of this great turnout machine that barack obama built. it is not entirely gone. gwen: i wonder whether some of his messages are resonating. one of the things the president has talked about in his speeches recently is the phony front groups, the people raising money and not disclose themselves. you've done writing about who the money people are behind some of the tea party movement. is he right? are there front groups? >> i think the tea party movement legitimately starts out as a grass-roots movement and o'donnell's election is proof of that. when they saw this grass roots building, there were groups that moved into heavily fertilize those grass roots, including groups like americans for

prosperity, funded by coke. freedom works is run by former house majority leader dick armey so absolutely they've had an effect and they're able to spend more money on ads. tea party express, for instance, which is run by two republican consultants out of california, they've spent a tremendous amount of money for tea party candidates across the country. gwen: how much money are we talking about? is there a counterpart on the democratic side? are the unions spending as much? i saw two different headlines indicating two different things. >> it depends. yes, the unions are spending as much money as they can scrape together and are taking advantage of the same supreme court ruling from citizens united. and if we're talking about the groups who don't say who their donors are, that's mostly republican money. you know who the unions are. if you want to know how much

money will be spent on this election by which side, the answer is, we don't know now because the money is being raised and spent so fast and it may be a long time before we ever no. so far, the best complicaton i found from citizens for responsive politics is that about $1.3 billion has been raised and spent across the board, $600 million, democratic, and $700 million, republican. but that number may reach $3 billion by the end of the cycle, twice as much. so it's premature to determine who's spending more. >> you have to wonder how effective this is. in philadelphia, if you keep your tv on, it's numbing. there's so many because of competitive house races. a senate race, and then you have the bleed-over from the delaware races. it becomes a blur, and you have

to be really sophisticated to even know which candidate is this? what's he running for? after a while people tune it out and are rooting for the phillies. gwen: i have to say, there was a moment where i was in the washington area and turned it on and saw an ad for robert mikulski and wondered if anyone was running against him. >> this may be the closest thing nevada has this year to economic stimulus. gwen: this has also been a nutty race. my favorite candidate is running in new york who says the rent is too damn high. does anyone else have a favorite candidate? >> it's hard to beat him especially when you find out he's not paying rent. >> my favorite is alan west in florida, grab your bao nets, but he has been raising more money

from the tea party group. >> it's too rich. gwen: it's a rich mosaic. we're going to be watching all of them and we're going to be talking some more of it because we still have a webcast in which i have a lot more questions to get to and we didn't even get to the poop ad from sestak in pennsylvania. if you watch the webcast, we'll tell you all about it. we're less than a dozen days to election day. if you don't vote, you can't complaint. who am i kidding? of course you can complain. our conversation ends here but continues online. find the "washington week" webcast extra at pbs.org. keep up on daily developments on politics and other things every night on the pbs newshour and we'll see you right here next week on "washington week." good night.

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