are working are living pay check to pay check trying to make falling incomes meet rising prices for foodas. more americans are living in poverty than when president obama took office, and 15 million more are on food stamps. gwen: interesting to me that picks up on what you were saying is this idea that people feel pretty good about the economy, but we have the democrats -- the republican talking about poverty and food stamps and the democrats preaching optimism, what's up with that? >> the democrats are in charge. if the role was reversed, you would hear different messages, although some things would be the same. president obama has talked about the middle class throughout the summer. and if you talked to the obama campaign, they think that is why their economic message has resonated so much because the middle class has been in trouble for a long time. the flip side of that is governor romney is having to try to sell voters on the idea that things are so bad that they can't re-elect the incumbent. the position was, they started from that position, voters aren't going to re-elect this guy a