gwen: governments try baby steps, at the white house and on capitol hill. plus, taking a closer look at herman cain and rick perry. tonight on "washington week." putting together puzzles. why is herman cain leading in the polls? >> politicians want to poll stuff that they think they can pass. businessmen propose stuff that fixes the problem. gwen: how is rick perry changing his strategy? >> this postcard, this is the size of what we're talking about right here. taxpayers will be able to feel this out and file their taxes on that. gwen: can president obama regain the upper hand on the economy. >> we should be doing everything we can to put a college education within reach for every american. gwen: and is the congressional

supercommittee moving forward or treading water? >> today we may be debating the pennies, nickels and dimes in a debt crisis that is demanding half dollars and dollar bills. >> if this committee's going to work, and i believe that it must, we all need to be willing to make some tough decisions and real compromises. gwen: the fall temperatures are dropping but the debates are heating up. covering the week, john dickerson of "slate" magazine and cbs news. john harwood of cnbc and "the new york times." jackie calmes of "the new york times," and janet hook of "the wall street journal." >> award-winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill.

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promise. norfolk summit, one line, infinite possibilities. >> corporate funding is also provided by -- boeing. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. one of the most intriguing twists in the republican presidential primary race in recent weeks has been the rise of herman cain and the deflation of texas governor rick perry. polls don't lie, and they are snapshots capturing moments but the picture they show right now puts cain, unconventional former pizza c.e.o., federal reserve board member and radio talk show host in the top tier. he has fumbled on foreign policy, stumbled on did domestic policy and still managed to

rise. >> i am not going to change my approach because i'm afraid that i might make a misstatement because trying to be perfect and have the perfect response every time is not my objective. my objective is to be honest with the american people. gwen: honest with the american people, john. is that honesty getting him up in the polls real or ephemeral? >> about a month ago, sarah palin said he was the flavor of the week. now he's at least, he's sort of a regular special on the menu. he is now at the top of some polls being the cbs poll, he's beating mitt romney. state polls in iowa and south carolina he's now tied with romney. so what we know is he's popular but we know after a month he's able to endure, that he's able to have a few gaffs and he's able to sustain his support within the republican party and also what's happening with him that didn't happen with bachmann and perry, others who shot up, the more people get to know him, the more they like him.

with bachmann and perry, the more people get to know him, the more problems they found and numbers plummeted. that's a special part of his rise. gwen: is it genality, is it people like his message? the simplicity of it? >> yes, yes and yes. let's start with the fact he's a winning -- has a winning personality. people just like him. he hasn't been to iowa in a while, in certain parts of iowa, and they're still drafting off the fumes of when he was there months ago. they like him. the other thing is in the republican party, the majority of voters don't like mitt romney. they're looking for an alternative. they went through perry and bachmann and even flirted with trump for a period so they're looking for somebody. and also he's not a politician. and this is the key to it. because when people talk about why they like him, they say, you know, he is a plain-spoken person. so he has a few gaffs, gaffs that would kill other candidates but with him, they let him off the hook and also when people pick at his 999 tax play, people like cain say the people picking

at the plan are lawyers and bureaucrats who benefit from the current system so he has a lot of cushion from voters in terms of his ability to have a few gaffes and he still does fine. >> are republican voters, especially conservatives in iowa, is he going to lose support from them as they get to know his abortion position isn't quite as rigid as they would like? >> this is one of these perfect examples of a gaffe that should kill other candidates, in fact has. he was asked about abortion in an interview and he says, no abortions allowed under any exception bufment then as a former aid to him once said, if you just let him talk, he will argue himself out of his own position and he started to do that. he started in the end to say in the case of rape or incest, it was really up to the person involved. rick santorum, who was always the first to jump on these kinds of things said that's essentially the pro-choice position. he came back and said that's not t. i'm against abortion in all situations.

you would think this would hurt him in iowa state where there are a lot of evangelical voters but hasn't so far. yet when people see the gaffes and talk to voters like cain, he's not a polished politician and doesn't have teleprompters and they love that. they so distrust politicians and politicians from anywhere else. >> i was talking to a romney adviser who said what they like about him is somebody who's been a successful businessman but still totally accessible to the average person. gwen: romney or people in general? >> what they like about him. gwen: oh, ok. i didn't think romney people. >> i don't think they mind him either. the more herman cain stays at the top of the polls, the more difficult it is for somebody else to consolidate support. what i wonder about cain is he's playing a different game than other people. he said in the clip gwen just played that my goal in this is to be honest. he's likable. he didn't say my goal is to be

president to be elected and i wonder whether that's really what's going on and whether what people like him and then we'll get serious when we get to the -- >> some people think this is the longest addition possible for a spot at fox news. if you look at his organization, he's at alabama. no early primary state. here's what your competitors think. it's very hard to attack him because he's so likable. where cain ultimately falls would be a situation where voters start to look at imin the oval office. there was peter hart did a focus group and people in the focus group loved him but as dan balls reported, when you think about him in the oval office, they stopped loving him and that's where the break is. gwen: there was another puzzle this week. rick perry, he was supposed to be barnstorming by now but the same polls that show herman cain surging, those same polls put the texas governor in the single digits. at the beginning of the week in an interview with john harwood

here, he was reviving deplunk speculation about president obama's citizenship. >> sounds like you really do have some doubt about it. >> look, i haven't seen -- i haven't seen his -- i haven't seen his grades. my grades ended up on the front grades of the newspaper. if we're going to show stuff, let's show stuff. but that's all a distraction. i mean, i get it. i'm really not worried about the president's birth certificate. it's fun to poke at him a little bit and say, hey, how about, let's see your grades and your birth certificates. gwen: by the end of the week he was not saying it was so much fun anymore after he got blow-back from that but he was also hinting he might cut back on debates. so what's really going on with rick perry, john? >> i think what's going on with rick perry is he as a candidate and new team that he's put together is trying to figure out how to get him back on his feet again. he started out like a rocket. he went to 38% nationally in the republican race. he immediately became the vessel for all of the misgivings that

people had about mitt romney and seemed to have the promise to consolidate tea party support on the right and also establishment's support of somebody who had been for a long time governor of the second largest state in the country but after the debate performances that he had, after people got a closer look at him, a lot of that fell away very fast. gwen: you got a close look. you had probably longest sit-down interview i have seen in which you talked about mostly his economic plan, even though he made that comment about birth erism. did he seem like he was back on his feet to you? >> no, i can't stay that because of the way he stepped on his story. remember, he was trying to talk about a tax and economic plan and in talking about the birther issue, because i asked him because it was in "parade" magazine, expecting him to bat it away, and he didn't do that. that was not a communicator performance by him. he has a tax plan that has the potential of rallying economic conservatives to join with other

conservatives to get behind him. you will hear romney people say it's unaffordable, will not work, it will blow out the deficit. at least it gives us something fresh to talk about expect for the fact he appeared to be lackluster and lacking energy and ar tick lace at some of the debates. >> if both cain and perry, their fantasies had been fueled by the anybody but romney sentiment, i'm wondering do you think perry can restore his place as the alternative to romney? is he basically now competing with herman cain more than romney? >> i don't think so. i think he's still in the game with mitt romney. he has $15 million in the bank. there are only two candidates right now who demonstrated they have a lot of money to put on television which ultimately, i think, is where the thing is going to get serious. but there's no slam dunk certainty of that. one of the questions is somebody like herman cain who doesn't have the war chest, is there something viral about his appeal

that will float his candidacy not in the traditional way. this could be an untraditional cycle, but by all of the metrics that we have all used in the past, rick perry is going to dump a huge amount of television on iowa, on south carolina, on florida. we've got to see whether he can hurt mitt romney and lift himself up a little bit and the jury's still out on that. >> his tax plan helps with economic conservatives. in the cbs poll it showed a month ago his support among tea party people who are affiliated with the tea party is 30%. it's now 7. how does he work that part of the party? >> that's where birther stuff came in. a lot of the -- i think rick perry looked at what happened this year, meteors that have risen and fallen. donald trump had a moment there where he rose in the polls and going around everywhere talking about this birther controversy, which most people think is ridiculous and there's no basis to it. but he rose in the poll when's that happened. rick perry, when we did our

interview, had come from a meeting with donald trump and i think he was playing to that a little bit. by the end of the week he's saying i was joking, i wasn't serious. but by engaging in that conversation, that was a signal to some of voters, hey, i relate to some of the things you said gwen: you about meteors rising and falling and then romney, who's not rising or falling, staying around 25% in these polls. is he just sitting back, letting this play out or does he have a strategy for taking these people out? >> i think his strategy is keep doing what he's doing. focus on obama. let the other vote split itself and they're hoping once people worry about herman cain actually sitting in the oval office, his support will drop. perry will get some, it will all split. his problem though is that he was attacked this week on the flat tax and they said he was a flip-flopper. that was an unfair charge. his position on the flat tax has been consistent, but almost as if to fill the vacuum with a flip-flop, he came up in ohio

saying he wasn't going to talk about the local issue, too, which he previously had a position on and the next day he did in fact offer a position. >> collective bargaining initiative, yeah. >> that is a big vulnerability and will he have to survive that when rick perry and others attack him. however, i think you have to look at the state of this race and say his strategy is working pretty well so far. he's done better than anyone else on fund-raising, he's been level in the polls, he's got a big lead in new hampshire and running his general election campaign against president obama right now. very few republican front-runners had the luxury of doing that. the more the rest of the republican field is fractured and filled with people who seem to be hobbled in one way or another, that strategy's looking very good. >> the question is do the others fall away, as they inevitably will, does he get their support? he hasn't been able to crack 25% barely. >> no, so far he hasn't. and -- >> there is the electability, inevitability thing republicans do often.

>> right. but he beats barack obama in polls nationally and statewide head to head or does better than any other republican candidate and that has not brought voters to him and george will has a column this weekend in which he goes right at the idea that he's wishy-washy and so forth. gwen: we have to talk about the president. while the republicans were taking care of each other, the president was going small this week. effectively conceding his bill jobs bill can't pass, he instead embraced a microapproach designed to give at least the appearance of movement on issues americans worry about, including housing and college affordability. >> i need you guys involved, i need you active. too many people out there are hurting. too many people are out there hurting for us to sit around and do nothing. gwen: jackie, who is the president targeting that message to? >> the message is generally to everyone because it's as if he's saying i'm not powerless just because the republicans in

congress are obstructing every major piece of legislation i put forward. and then as each of these proposals to dribble out as they have been, they have a separate message to the constituency he's aiming at. take these student loan proposed to ease the terms of repayment to people with federal student loans. that was aimed, just as his audience he made it to in denver, aimed at younger voters who were critical of his election, and like other demographic groups, he's got weaker support there. they're not as energized and so that's aimed at that group. two days earlier in las vegas, he had talked about his changed rules in to ease refinancing for people who are facing -- may not be facing foreclosure yet but they want to refinance their house to save money but their home values are lower than their -- the mortgage. so that was in hispanic

neighborhoods, aimed at hispanic voters. gwen: this microtargeting, is it as strategic as is necessary? >> yes. gwen: yes and yes, my favorite answer. >> the main thing would be right now attention legislatively, his jobs plan is at the mercy of congress as he said in his intro. it's clearly not to anyone and it's blocked. a couple demme graphs to keep it being a question of whether it may pass by a majority. so he has to do this just so he doesn't look like he's on the sidelines powerless. >> he's not the first president that resorted to this. when bill clinton had a republican congress, he also tried doing some smaller initiatives and things that could be done by executive power not relying on congress. the famous school uniforms initiative is kind of a response to social problems. in this case, though, isn't there a risk for obama in that this is a really big, bad

economy and to be going around talking about these little microthings, it seems like the mismatch between the problem that he's tackling and the solutions that he's proposing. >> there is that risk that it looks small but he does have the fallback of arguing that he's got this big package that's in congress. it polls well. he talks about it when he's been out on the stump this week. he talks about these little proposals do not negate the need for this big plan. so he's still -- he's got both but it does -- you know, the criticism is that these kind of executive actions, executive orders, memoranda, they have been done before. he's been doing them before. >> speaker boehner said he's exceeding his authority. might not be constitutional. but that doesn't hold up to scrutiny? >> i don't think so. we have yet to see some of these but i think, first of all, the white house is smart enough and has enough lawyers in house that they should know before they put

something out whether it exceeds his constitutional authority. but the criticism from republicans and others is -- is sort of both a, he's exceeding his authority, b, these are so minor, they're laughable. so, you know, the truth is somewhere in the middle. you know, in fairness, just as a lot of us sat around 10, 15 years ago and ridiculed president clinton for things like school uniforms -- gwen: questioned, i think ridiculed would be rather harsh. >> some people ridiculed. we questioned. but they proved quite popular with the public. the difference is, this is a different economy. >> checking on the big picture, he did get decent news on economic growth this week that the economy grew to more rapid rate that people expected. so on the issue of the inadequacy of the initiatives, i wonder if he gets any lift from the fact we're grown 2 1/2%. >> it couldn't hurt and it did exceed expectations but the expectations are all that it cannot be sustained.

and we will continue to have slow growth. some of that growth may be from the tax cuts he and republicans agreed to last december, which need to be extended if they're going to live on past december. so if you take away the macro economic forecasters say tax cuts, payroll tax reliefs, unemployment for long-term unemployed, if those expire at the end of december that could take a full percentage point away from the economy next year. >> jackie, is there any worry -- they used to worry about leadership credentials when they say we're trying and republicans in congress are doing nothing and blaming republicans. do they worry at all and people look at that say, look, you're the president. you're totally powerless. is some of this about showing he's a leader? >> exactly. they do worry about that and should worry about that. despite the fact they show in the most recent poll, congressional approval rating single digits, 9%. that's small consolation to the

president. i mean people are going to vote to re-elect him largely based on his own record. it's not a question of barack obama or republicans in congress. >> thanks, jackie. while the president was traveling the country back in washington, we may have seen signs of movement on capitol hill where members of the supercommittee assigned to come up with a deficit reduction agreement came out from behind closed doors. right now they don't agree on taxes or spending but the deadline is still a whole 3 1/2 weeks away. isn't that so? >> that is. sad to say on capitol hill 3 1/2 weeks is a long time. this is an institution that only works when its nose is is up against the headline. have a big jobs bill so they better start writing it soon. they're supposed to come up with a bill, proposal that cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion by november 23rd. that's less than a month away. this week they didn't exactly

come out from behind closed doors. this committee, special bipartisan house plan committee that came up under tight secrecy, really uncharacter lack of information and leaks. they held a few hearings but all of their serious negotiations are behind closed doors. so they didn't come out from behind closed doors this week but cracked the door open a little bit so we could hear a couple weeks about what happened. and what happened was the democrats offered their first comprehensive offer to the republicans of where they're coming from on this, and then the republicans outright immediately rejected it and offered it and the democrats rejected that. truth to tell, there wasn't anything too surprising about the different proposals. democrats had a big plan for reducing the deficit by $3 trillion and they wanted to include a lot of tax increases. the republicans had somewhat smaller deficit reduction package, $2 trillion rather than $3 trill an and they didn't want any tax increases. so i don't know where we go from

here. >> i what i wonder, janet, is whether the exchange this week showed that in all of the work that's being done hush-hush behind closed doors, there's actually nothing going on at all or whether or not we have seen the choreography of something that is too nuisanced for us to understand at this moment. because it looks like exactly what happened. gwen: we're hoping for the latter actually. >> it's been very hard to figure. it's kind of like waiting for a jury to break and kind of deliver the verdict and you're kind of won wondering in the meantime, are they playing ticktacktoe there or what? but they haven't been doing nothing. they haven't found the magic key to unlock the puzzle. i do think there's a couple little pieces of common ground in these proposals that maybe could take them somewhere. one is both republicans and democrats chose to put out a proposal that went beyond the $1.2 trillion minimum that the law sets out.

so they're trying to think big but i think what this shows is that the best they can do when they go think big is a little bit irreconcilable. i think they are wondering, we won't even get to 1.2. you can still wonder about that.s0 the other thing is they both actually take pretty big cuts out of medicare, including democratic proposal takes big savings out of medicare and medicaid. and that caused a lot of trouble for the democrats. a lot of liberals and democrats who really are mad at the democrats on the super committee that put these cuts on the table. like why are we making this big concession on spending if they're not going -- >> isn't the democratic position that they will agree to these medicare -- future medicare reductions only if the republicans agree to some higher revenues on the wealthy? >> yes, that's their position. remains to be seen whether they will get any ground on that. gwen: that was a nice quick answer and i appreciate it very much. we're out of time.

we have to move on. the conversation will continue online. you can tell we have a lot more to talk about. "washington week" webcast extra. it will post by 11:00 p.m. eastern. while you're online and not watching the world series, you can read my blog about the last start of washington compromise. be with me on the next newshour and we will see you on pbs here next week on "washington week." good night. every thursday get a preview of our topics and panels with our "washington week" e-mail alert, available at washingtonweekonline@pbs.org. >> "washington week" was produced by weta, which is slowly responsible for its content. >> funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. to connect our forces to what they need when they need it.

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