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tv   Washington Week  PBS  August 24, 2012 9:35pm-10:05pm EDT

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gwen: hello and welcome to st. petersburg, florida, just ofoss the bay from the site next week's republican national convention. here here to tell you everything you need to know tonight on "washington week." a senate candidate goes rogue. >> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. >> as republicans prepare for next week's nominating convention, their standard bearers get caught up in an internal fight about abortion. >> his comments about rape were deeply offensive and i can't
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defend what he said, i can't defend him. >> and external fight about medicare. >> president obama treated medicare like a piggy bank to fund obama care. >> governor romney said if you want to be successful, if you want to go to college or start a business, you can just -- i'm quoting here, borrow money from your parents. gwen: what is on the plate as the apart's future stars head to tampa? we preview the 2012 republican national convention with dan balz of the "washington post," john dickerson of "slate magazine" and cbs news, beth reinhard of "national journal," and amy walter of abc news. >> award-winning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens, this is a special
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election 2012 edition of "washington week" with gwen ifill produced in association with "national journal." corporate funding for "washington week" in st. petersburg, florida, is provided by -- >> we know why we are here, to connect our forces to what they need when they need it. >> to help troops see dangers before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together to support and protect all who serve. >> that's why we are here. >> this rock has never stood still. since 1875, we have been there for our clients through good times and bad, when their needs changed, we were there to meet them. through the years, from experience to investment management, from real estate to retirement solutions, we've
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new ideas for the financial challenges ahead. this rock has never stood still, and that's one thing that will never change. prudential. >> additional corporate funding is provided by norfolk southern and american queen steamboat company, proud to support "washington week" on pbs. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from the historic palladium theater in st. petersburg, florida, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: hello, tampa bay! [applause] gwen: thank you, thank you for
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that warm welcome and thank you for joining us here in the beautiful palladium theater. republicans have enjoyed quite an eventful week leading up to their nominating convention here. apart leaders spent the bulk of their week trying to toss one of their most promising senate candidates out of the pool. the backwash from that effort has forced mitt romney and paulson into a debate over social issues they mostly agree about instead of about the economy. even the weather seemed to be conspiring against the g.o.p. as tropical storm isaac threatened to become a hurricane that could knock the convention all schedule. are republicans scrambling this week, dan? >> the convention next week will be a completely scripted event and this week has been completely unscripted and it has caused problems for the romney campaign, problems for the republican apart as a whole and it is obviously not the way they hoped to do the run-up to tampa.
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most of us had not heard of todd akin, congressman from missouri, until last week and you in he's probably the most famous member of the apart. how did he become such a story? >> his name will be synonymous with many things, the first is making -- not only inappropriate but nobody could understand what he was thinking about kind of comments, saying if there's a legitimate rape, whatever that term means, that women have this ability to shut their system down and not get pregnant and this was his way of defending his prelife status and saying no matter what, the life of the baby is the most important thing and this is why he does not agree with life of the woman or rape or incest as an exception. the problem, of course, is that politically is that democrats saw that as an opportunity. gwen: you think? >> yes, just a little bit.
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used that opportunity to make sure they could tie a apart that they already were trying to prove was out of step, too extreme, to an actually literal person and when you talk to the obama campaign, one term that love to talk about is the gender gap and we are seeing that in our own polling, all of our organizations showing the president is up double digits romney on these issues. for those of us who sit in a media market that gets saturated as you do but we are sitting in the northern virginia media market where there are a lot of women voters that they are targeted, i am seeing an ad every minute probably specifically about women's issues and abortion. gwen: usually when this sort of thing happens, someone says something way off message and everybody comes down on them from the chairman of the apart, disinviting them to tampa, every leading member of the house and senate.
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nobody came to todd akin's defense yet he's still in the race. can he survive? is it possible? does he see an opening among the conservative christian anti-abortion supporters he has? does he see a path of survival against claire mccaskill? >> i think we are all surprised he's hung on as long as he has. when the presidential nominee of your apart says it's time to go. gwen: you get a call from the vice presidential nominee, saying, listen, buddy. >> most people take a hint. his money is drying up. i'm sure the polls will quickly show him in a very daunting position against claire mccaskle. gwen: at the very least, we have a discussion about disagreement a week before the big unity moment, huge distraction. >> it is a big distraction and
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there was a period this week where it looked like republicans were saying more mean things about congressman akin than they would about a democratic candidate and that sense of panic is also not something you want. so you have this instance in which they're talking about abortion which there's always a little wrinkle that comes up before a convention which is the platform that covers abortion is usually much more strict than the candidate's position on the matter and that was true with george w. bush who had an exception with his pro-life views for rape and incest and also for john mccain. mccain tried to add that exception and there was a firestorm and he said, no, we are not going to do that. it put this in the front pages. they were trying to show the apart was unified and talk about the economy, talk about barack obama, keep the pressure on him and not have this little sort of firestorm of coverage and the campaign, the romney campaign says oh, this is only something
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you-all in the press talk about in the green room. what made this different was the herd of republicans that were trying to get rid of him and this was a made-for-television event and made-for-television disaster and it operated in the same environment as the whole next week is supposed to be about. >> it is remarkable that two weeks have gone by since paul ryan was picked as the nominee and republicans have talked about anything but the economy and barack obama. gwen: and speaking of distractions and taking the topic off point again, today, the nominee, mitt romney, was campaigning in his home state of michigan and had this to say in a little joke before a home-town crowd. >> i love being home in this place where ann and i were raised, where both of us were born. ann was born at henry ford
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hospital. i was born at harper hospital. no one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. they know this was the place we were born and raised. [laughter] gwen: dan, what could he have been talking about? >> i have no idea. it's baffling, the birther issue, of course, has been out there among a number of republicans and for mitt romney on the friday before his convention is open to make any kind of reference to it is shocking, frankly. i don't know what possessed him. they were suggesting that he was making a joke or he was just trying to remind people that he did come to michigan to a michigan audience. one of his spokesman immediately said he's long said that the issue of where president obama was born is settled, et cetera, and yet, it has given rise to this again and just at the wrong
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moment. >> it was also, i thought, as sort of surprising as mitt romney's statement was, was the barack obama campaign's very fast, very strong reaction to it where they suggested governor romney was now an enlister in the birther movement. this went much farther than what his statement was and so to me that says they actually want to bring more attention to this because as romney campaign has been so frustrated by, they don't want to talk about the economy because that's not a good reflection on the president now. >> i was on the phone with an adviser from the romney campaign earlier today and they were saying the only thing the obama campaign does is throw up obstacles in front of us because they can't talk about the economy. well, here, governor romney was making an obstacle for himself.
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>> it also goes to the heart of this election and our electorate in general which is we have such a polarized electorate -- dan balz can speak to this -- but the fact is that we do have very few really truly swing voters or undecided voters so the two camps will throw these terms back and forth. when you say that comment that mitt romney did, it engages his group, just as much as it engages democrats. gwen: and you raise a question which i have been struggling with this week, we've all been saying this is an election about independents, swing voters, battleground states or is it really about getting your base to the polls, suppressing the other guys any way you can, but bringing your folks out? >> i think it's actually about both but because the polarization in the electorate is so solid, the first thing that both of these campaigns have to do is maximize the vote among the people they already know are with them.
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there's a way to do that and a lot of rhetoric we've seen this summer is aimed at that, getting your folks mobilized, energized and i expect we will see that in the hall next week in tampa. gwen: that's what conventions are for. >> right, but to reach the other group, which is a very small group, you have to talk differently. we did a study with the kaiser family foundation that the "post" published this week and the one thing that distinguished independents from republicans and democratic partisans is they hate the fighting in washington so to reach them you have to talk about working across party lines, cooperation, occasional compromise which is exactly what the base doesn't want to hear right now. >> in 2000 when george bush was running for president at his convention, they did away with what was traditionally the attack night on the other party because they wanted the
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convention to be about building a bipartisan washington and here we are, and the number of attacks on the sitting president, this will be one of the main themes. gwen: let's talk about what it is the republicans would like to accomplish with the schedule, what we've seen, what we know about it, who we know will be speaking and whether there will be an attack night. are we expecting an upbeat, positive star-spangled convention or does this have to be the first blow for the fall in reminding people not to re-elect the president? >> the most important thing for mitt romney in this convention is the remaking of the mitt romney message and identity. for the past few months it's democrats who've identified and have made mitt romney who he is. his identity has been shaped by millions and millions of dollars of attack ads. he goes into the convention now with the highest negatives of
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any major party candidate since 1984 so he has work to do to build the favorables up and give the image he wants to present to the american public. at the same time they are trying to still define barack obama but proactively so if you look at the themes each day, "we built it," "we can do better." so to say, we, republicans, are going to do a better job than democrats and barack obama. gwen: in an election year like this with the economy where it is, where the unemployment rate is what it is, this should be a runaway for some challenger, shouldn't it? >> it's interesting poll after poll shows romney has had success in convincing people he would do a better job with the economy. a lot of polls show him ahead on that measure but the same polls, poll after poll, show people
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just like the president more. they think he is -- understands their struggles, he gets them. it's interesting that we have been talking so long about this election, about the economy, but yet people seem to be as close as the polls are, kind of going more with their heart than their head at this point. gwen: it was interesting to me this week, the congressional budget office came out with a report showing that if we cross the fiscal cliff without action from conditioning, it's recession, dire report. either campaign picked up on that. i was surprised. >> they don't want to talk about that right now. gwen: why not? >> because it involves speaking frankly to voters about very tough choices. now, we may hear some of this from paul ryan next week because he has a budget blueprint aimed at bringing the data and deficit more under control.
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gwen: that's what he's known for. >> that's right but there are a lot of questions about that and things the democrats have attacked and will continue to attack about that. the president has been very slow to address that issue. the republicans, i suspect, will attack him this week for a failure of leadership, as they'll describe it. but neither side wants to engage on that. gwen: who are the voters who are being targeted in all of this? who are -- i mean, i have this idea that we are just trying to turn out the people that were going to turn out anyway. but maybe there's something broader than that. >> i tend to agree with dan, it's both. it's a tricky balance for the romney campaign because they want to appeal to the whole -- and the paul ryan pick helps with this. conservatives are fond of paul ryan and they're excited so there's more momentum and energy and that's good because the more excited the base is, the more they can turn this into a commercial for people who are
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just wandering by their televisions and seeing the image and commercial of the republican apart and mitt romney and the question is what's the trip wire in terms of likability? can people -- do they just need to like mitt romney a little bit and boom they're off to the races with him because the economy is so bad? a romney adviser was saying the economy is like one big negative ad that's always running and if that's out there they don't have to like mitt romney too much and it will be interesting on thursday night when they talk about mitt romney, they'll talk about his whole life, a discussion of his period at bain capital, at the olympics and also his religion. when he was a bishop in his ward helping people down on their luck and all that was a part of that. they've been reluctant to talk about it but they'll talk about it thursday night. gwen: does that resonate in battleground states in we are in one. we are all watching the same handful of states which could determine selection. >> we talk about the convention
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bounce. traditionally whichever candidate had better convention, they get this chance to present their case. gwen: i remember mike dukakis' convention. it really worked. >> it worked. the one who -- wasn't it bill clinton who got a 30-point bounce after his convention. those don't happen too much anymore, partly because we have a back-to-back convention. but i think it goes to john's point which is what voters are looking for right now -- and this is why it's so dangerous for president obama -- they do like him personally. they don't think he's lived up to his promises. they don't want believe he can necessarily do the job. they don't know enough about mitt romney. they're waiting to hear about mitt romney and so i think for them the convention will give them that one place for the first time they'll get a look at him from his perspective and the debates will be the place where they'll make that choice. gwen:-- >> one of romney's top advisers
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told me this week, people don't have to like mitt romney, they just need to think he shares their values, was the way he put it so i think you'll see a lot of that family values, religious values. you're going to come away from the convention, they hope, with a much warmer feeling about mitt romney. you'll see his wife, his kids, probably all of his grandkids. you'll have a lot of heartfelt testimonials and that could go a long way in filling that void. gwen: that said, is there a risk in vice president biden coming here to campaign in the midst of republicans' big victory lap? it just seems like kind of unnecessary? >> well, it's unprecedented, but -- [laughter] >> -- to say the least but it strikes me that it is a reminder that conventions today are not what we think of conventions as. we used to describe it as a
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four-day infomercial in which the party had free run to do whatever it wanted and the partying stood back. that's not the case. the vice president will be here, president obama is on the campaign trail, the networks not covering this wall to wall which they haven't for a number of years. gwen: not like we are. >> so in many ways this may look like a more typical campaign week than a traditional convention week and i think that's one of the problems for the romney campaign is that they can do a lot of things but will it get mashed together with whatever vice president biden says or president obama says? gwen: what are you watching for, john, this week? >> i'm watching to see how much they can put -- not new clothes on mitt romney, but how much they can show him as who he is because of course if they go too far, what the obama campaign is
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trying to do is say, in 1992, bill clinton had a similar problem to the kind mitt romney has and they relaunched him at his convention so this is a democrat using hollywood techniques to relaunch himself as the man from hope. the democrats, if you use hollywood or madison avenue to make your candidate look better, they're saying it's because the candidate doesn't have a core. will they be able to say it's a mask, it's not the real thing. what this week was about with congressman akin was the idea that mitt romney says he's going to fix the economy, but that's a mask, say the democrats, and behind that mask are a bunch of people. that's the boogie man story they're trying to tell so to the extent they can claim this is all about a mask this week, they hope it energizes the idea that behind the mask is something scary. >> this is the first convention that the tea party plays a part
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and it's reflected on the podium the you have a lot of those folks elected in 2010 who make their debut. what are they going to say to that point about trying to make this look like a party that can reach out beyond just the core of the base, and we even have somebody who hasn't been elected yet but is the new tea party rising star, ted cruz from texas, with a prime speaking spot. that's what i'm watching for, too, how well does the tea party mesh with the old guard. gwen: i'm watching to see how the people who ran against mitt romney and said mean things in the primaries, how they keep their faces together at a convention. how about you, betting? >> -- beth? >> conventions have been used to show the diversity of the party even if they're not diverse. republicans have been doing that for years and we will see that again. to their credit, the republican
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party has done a very good job of electing hispanics. they have several prominent statewide hispanics, marco rubio is a household name at this point. amy mentioned ted cruz. they have susana martinez, governor of new mexico. governor of nevada, brian sandoval, all these hispanic rising stars but what are the numbers behind that for romney? not good. gwen: brief thought? >> i'm anxious to see governor christy. gwen: i'm also looking forward to governor christy and the keynote addresses and see whether we can survive it. they move on to charlotte next week. thank you, everyone. this was such a good conversation, we don't want it to end. we will keep taking questions from our audience. you can go online and watch the "washington week" elections 2012
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town hall florida edition. next week's a big one. judy woodruff and i will anchor "newshour's" comprehensive coverage of the republican convention every night and we will broadcast from the campus of u.n.c. college. our thanks to st. petersburg college and the staff of the palladium theater. see you next week on "washington week." good night. [applause] >> corporate funding for
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"washington week in st. petersburg, florida," is provided by -- wherever our trains go, the economy comes to life. norfolk southern, one line, infinite possibilities. >> additional corporate funding is provided by boeing, prudential financial and american queen steamboat company, proud to support "washington week" on pbs. additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to our pbs station from

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