that was professor amy cuddy from harvard with gary tuchman. mitt romney was struggling in the primaries and turned it around with a strong debate performance in florida. lot of political professionals credit my next guest, brett o'donnell, as the man behind that debate performance. he helped mr. romney get ready. he joins us now to talk about the factors that may spell success for governor romney or for president obama on tuesday as well as what could doom each to failure. i appreciate you being with us. i know there's a lot of stuff obviously that you learned about governor romney that you won't be discussing which is obviously totally fine. i wouldn't expect you to spill all the beans. but we just heard about body language, nonverbal communication. in your opinion, how critical is that to the perceived outcome of a debate? >> well, audiences report they take as much as 65% of meaning in a communications experience, including debates, from how people say things, not just what they say. >> 65%. wow. >> yeah. so body language is very important.

. >> gary tuchman with harvard business school professor amy cuddy. it. >>> someone else who was watching the debate closely, alan schroeder, author of "presidential debates, 50 years of high risk tv" and journalism professor in boston, wrote about his take on last night's debate on cnn.com. he joins me now with historical perspective. it's interesting, you say incumbents usually fall flat on the first debate. why is that? >> well, there are several reasons for that, and actually, they make sense. first of all, the incumbent is out of practice. he or she has not been on a debate stage in four years and mitt romney, on the other hand, has had 20 plus primary debates this season. then also, they live in a white house cocoon. the incumbents are not used to being challenged directly, especially in a personal way as was the case last night with mitt romney. >> some people have said they thought president obama seemed almost irritated to be confronted like that. you think part of that, if it was irritation, that comes from the idea that he's been surrounded

amy cuddy is an associate professor at harvard business school who studies how people perceive othershat shapes the impressions we have of others. she joins me now. you say that when it comes to gestures, ones that convey power and warmth are really important to make an effective politician. you point to former president bill clinton as the master of warmth. i want to show a video of him during town hall with ross perot and then president bush back in 1992. kind of walk us through what we're seeing. >> okay. >> you know people who have lost their jobs and lost their homes. >> so he's walking toward this woman, toward this voter, away from the people onstage so he's focused on the voter, not on the other candidates. he's gentle. his body language is gentle. he's leaning toward her. he's even softened his voice. he's nodding. he makes incredible eye contact. he signals to people when he's talking to them you are the only person in the room. you're the most important person. it's that clinton tractor beam that really melted people. >> is that i feel your pain without actually saying it?