chris cillizza i noticed that you and your column and "the washington post" on your battleground map at least have put ohio in a toss-up state leaning democratic. why the change? >> well, you know, andrea, this is probably a change, i put it on myself, this is a change we should have made about five to seven days ago. i think you saw mitt romney move into certainly from down six to eight to down one to two to three in most polling after his debate performance. and that's stayed steady. we did in the write-up note that i do think barack obama is still ahead in the state. and as you mentioned, you can always follow their feet where they're going. mitt romney's spending a huge amount of time in ohio in the next few days, as is, i would say, barack obama. i think both campaigns recognize this is a not only a close race, because there are a lot of close races in states, but this is a place that mitt romney probably has to have. so, if ever there's going to be a place where they both fight because of the stakes are so high, i think ohio's it. i think it belongs where we now have it, which

affected if the country drops into a second dip of a massive recession in the first half of 2013. >> chris cillizza, john heilemann, thank you both very much. joining me now to discuss the fiscal cliff negotiations, from inside, the house democratic perspective, chris van hollen, ranking member of the house budget committee and someone who served on the super committee. we've not completely depressed you about what you face, you know what you face. you've been in talks that have reds during the campaign. i would argue there was nothing specific other than hints from either mitt romney or president obama during the campaign that would tell people exactly how they were going to deal with these cuts and what they were going to do and how to approach entitlements. you can argue they don't have a mandate to deal with this. how do you approach the fiscal cliff in. >> well, of course the fiscal cliff has two pieces. one the across the board meat ax sequester cuts which everybody agrees are a bad way to cut the deficit. and i do believe we'll find a way to buy down those cuts, find alternative ways to save

chris cillizza, let's talk about the election and mitt romney. mitt romney overheard on a tape speaking to contributors. nbc news does not know what the timing was. it was since the election we don't know when orr how it was recorded. listen to partial -- his partial explanation why he thinks he lost. >> the president's campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very agres herbalagresivel them out to vote. >> he goes on to talk about student loans and benefits part of the democratic policy, the democratic agenda, the president's campaign platform really. >> right. >> how does this strike you? there are many that say this sounds like him again trying to blame the recipients of benefits that the government has long offered to people. >> i tell you, andrea, i read about the comments last night. this morning i did a survey of folks on the republican side who are what i describe as the professional political class, people who run campaigns who advise campa

i'm chris cillizza in today for chuck todd. the president hits the road today to settle his proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff at a toy factory in the pennsylvania suburbs. the president's opening budget bid landed with a thud on the republican side of capitol hill. after meeting with the president's top negotiator treasury secretary tim geithner, some republicans are calling the white house offer a joke. that's a quote, and a fantasy. that's also a quote. leaving the talks in a familiar place, stalemate. >> no substantive progress has been made in the talks between the white house and the house over the last two weeks. >> we haven't seen any kind of proposal from the republicans. rates on the top 2%, the wealthiest earners going up. >> it's time for the president, congressional democrats, to tell the american people what spending cuts they're really willing to make. >> republicans know where we stand. we've said it. we've said it. we've said it so many times. >> he says that democrats have got to get serious about cuts, spendi

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msnbc managing contributor chris cillizza, jonathan martin, and then to help me moderate the hardesthad to bring in the ace here, the moderator of "meet the press," david gregory. when he found out -- he said, that's always such a mess of a show. let me come in and help. david, i want to start because we had a huge moment yesterday that none of us expected. the october surprise of chris christie and barack obama. >> you know, it's rare that you get a moment where you can play sound from the keynote speaker at the republican convention or subsequent to that saying, he's groping in the dark to find the light switch of leadership and he's not going to find it before he gets to the election and here he is yesterday in the last few days, governor christie can't say enough about the leadership that president obama has provided, that craig fugate has p provided fema and what is striking talking to people who were there, they have talked three or four times in the last 72 hours. by the time they got to the community center, there was a real bond there. i don't think they were more than two f

host: some reasons for epublicans to be optimistic -, chris cillizza writes -- you can read more that in the washington post. david is on the line from king george, virginia. caller: good morning. the future of the party is if we don't change, we are going to die. we need to stop listening to people like fox news, rush limbaugh, because they are not speaking for the republican party. they are speaking for themselves. they lie too much. when you look up the fax and find they're not telling the truth, they're not doing it for the republican party. they are doing it for themselves. we need to stop listening to them and find another news source. host: let's hear from another republican in mississippi, james. caller: good morning. i heard [indiscernible] one of the states want to secede from the union -- several states. is that true? like mississippi and texas? host: we have seen in things like that. what does that mean to you? caller: i was just wondering if that was the case, if that was true. i keep hearing different stuff. looks like our country is falling down. we need to find a way t