msnbc contributor and managing editor of postpolitics.com, chris cillizza joins us.ost"/abc poll is a strikingly bad pole for the white house. the approval rating overall, losing nine points. what else in there are you looking at? >> yeah, well, andrea, you hit on it. we spend so much time, i do, talking about the republican field, is it weak, is to strong enough? can they beat president obama? what we probably should be paying more attention to is what's the unemployment rate and do people think the economy is moving in the right direction? the answer at least in the "washington post" poll today is clearly no. that's a big problem for president obama. let me highlight one number in there. we asked who do you trust more to handle the economy better? republicans in congress, 45%, president obama 42%. three months ago, president obama had a 12-point edge in that question. that's a disturbing trendline if you're sitting in the white house or chicago trying to plot how to get president obama re-elected to a second term. >> and it may be within the margin of error, it cle

. >>> chris cillizza, and a real challenge for jeff johnson.a word in edgewise. jeff, welcome to you. he was all about the social conservative message. >> this is the new message, which is he is going to talk about the economy to the exclusion of almost everybody else. >> mitt romney is not going to deviate. the argument will be he's authentic. he talked about, i'm not going to back away from this, even though it might be political exceed i didn't know for me to do so. >> he wants the issue. >> there's some others that want them, too. >> can somebody get nominated who really doesn't have much support in the conservative movement? >> i think it's very tough. as long as you're okay on the cultural issues, you have the freedom to talk about the fiscal stuff, primarily. the problem is when you have somebody who is wrong in the first place, it's tough to get beyond -- >> when you say a rudy-like candidate, that brings us to jon huntsman. he gave this quote about his support for civil unions. >> i stand tall and proud for traditional marriage. you ca