domenico, what are we going to see in this convention? to be mostly about mitt romney's vision for the future, or an endless series of teleprompter jokes and maybe even birther jokes? >> i think that mitt romney and the republicans are certainly waiting out this storm to see what happens here. they canceled most of today's activities. we're going to see most of those speeches moved into the next three days. and certainly mitt romney is going to need to fix a little bit of his image issues, where he's going to, you know, try to talk a little bit of that personal story, but we're going to see a lot of doubling down on that business experience and confidence, martin. >> okay. now, jimmy, we're learning that another gop senate candidate has been caught airing his views on the issue of rape and abortion. tom smith of pennsylvania was asked how he would convince a daughter or a granddaughter to keep a child that was the product of rape. now, smith tells the reporter that he actually lived through the scenario. that he convinced her to keep the

we will watch more closely for september 25th. >> domenico, the previous deadline was 5:00 p.m. time today. this would be drawn out until september 25th? >> as we written in first read, there are two deadlines. the one today that he could get off of the ballot freely. he would not have to pay any charges. what the state likes to do by september 25th, they have to print the ballots. they want to make sure that people don't pull out. in a serious situation where he wants to pull out and pay the ballot printing costs, they would allow. >> domenico, thank you, sir. for all of the latest on the political news, download the political app available on itunes. joining me is ed o'heath. he is the author of the blog all about congress. two who just returned from the road in the midwest. i'm sure you have good behind the scenes. ed, you traveled through five districts. iowa and illinois. what have you learned about the travels of the races there? >> that they remain pretty close and voters are just beginning to form opinions. more focused on the presidential contest. many realize the vote

joining me now domenico montanaro. >> good morning. >> have we heard anything about afghanistan on the recently. in polling, most people overwhelmingly concerned with the economy and issues of foreign policy have taken a back seat. the president gets high approval ratings on foreign policy. one reason why it's been difficult for mitt romney to make the case that the president is -- is not doing a great job on foreign policy. you did hear some foreign policy this week, but paul ryan talking about china and mitt romney talking about iran. they don't want to touch afghanistan. mitt romney has not been very specific about afghanistan. i think they would be perfectly fine with the timeline that's in place, and let the president have to deal with the two hot wars. >> one of the big stories that i thought at least from the past week, that i saw you report on, the amount of money that has been spent so far in this campaign, absolutely eye popping. what is it? >> we've crossed the half billion dollar mark in campaign advertising spending. more than $512 million has been spent in this campaign.

so joining me for more front page politics, nbc news deputy political editor domenico.d morning to you. >> good morning, alex. >> so we're going to talk about the front-runner right now in terms of the veepstakes. we have ohio senator rob portman. a layman might say, hey, he'd give mitt romney a key swing state, it's a slam dunk. but it's not that simple, is it? >> no. we've seen in a lot of different polls that, in fact, in ohio, where rob portman is from, maybe he makes a difference by a point or two, maybe. and that's within the margin of error. of course a point or two could matter in a very close state. he brings a lot to the table as far as confidence, trusted in d.c. he could give someone like romney, someone like what biden does for obama where he's sort of a lee sayson to capitol hill. but the big negative for rob portman is he was george w. bush's budget director. we've already seen him try to put some distance between himself and the former president this week. even though he says he's not. because he said he was frustrated by budgets and spending and that he

deputy political editor, domenico, thank you. keep tabs by downloading the nbc political app available on itunes. >>> there was talk about whether paul ryan was the right v.p. for romney. there's bound to be the resounding approval. why, you ask? three words, privatizing social security. steve moore is an editorial board member and senior economic writer for "the wall street journal." good to have you here. paul ryan has been an advocate investing somewhere around 50 to 80% of social security into stocks with the rest being in bonds. explain to everybody why he feels that would be such a good thing, especially for wall street. >> i'm not so sure this is going to be an issue in this campaign. it's something paul ryan has advocated for in the past. to clarify for your viewers, it's not something that's got an idea that goes back 20, 25 years of creating personal accounts for young workers, for the authority that right now, as you know, is going to get a lousy deal under social security. when i talk to young people, it's going to be

. >> deputy political editor domenico montenegro.e want to join you to watch our 20 hours of daily cover rage, kicking off with "way too early." andrea mitchel and chuck todd live with continuing coverage and rachel maddow and chris matthews leads prime time coverage a little more than a week from now. >>> time for today's strategy talk and that week to go until the rnc convention. romney/ryan ticket crisscrossing the country. appear together at a town hall meeting in new hampshire tomorrow before separating for campaign stops in eight states next week. joining me is leslie dono had you, consultant for mitt romney's 2008 campaign and senior adviser to michele bachmann's 2012 campaign. and also a vice president of skc knicker bocker. >> good afternoon. >> i want to play this video that the good folks at chris hayes dug up. from paul ryan early 2002. take a listen. >> what we're trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed. now, i've just recently read in our local