joining us, mark preston and jack jackie kucinich.things that stands out for me is florida. i was down there and talked to marco rubio. he said, no, we are going to win florida, no doubt about it. i don't know if it is going to be that easy. quinnipiac university poll, barack obama beating mitt romney right now in florida. among senior voters, mitt romney is up by seven points among voters over 65. you take paul ryan's plan and try to win in florida, it is not going to be easy. >> it is a tough sell. that's why we saw paul ryan flanked by his mother, a part-time florida resident and herself a medicare recipient. if mitt romney loses florida, he pretty much loses the election. cnn has eight toss-up states we are looking at. he would have to sweep seven of those states if he were to lose florida. that's why it has become so crucial. that's why we saw him down there this weekend. expect tens of millions of dollars in superpac ads to flood into the state in the coming months. >> i think it is important to say where he went too. the villag

jackie kucinich and mark preston are here today on "state of the union." >>> with paul ryan's pick on the gop ticket, medicare is suddenly a top campaign issue. >> this is my mom, betty. >> congressman rya took his message to the largest place for medicare recipients is florida. >> and we want to empower seniors and not bureaucrats to make decisions on how they get their health care. mitt romney and i will protect and strengthen medicare so that the promises that were made, that people organized their retirements around, like my mom, will be promises that are kept. >> the president took his turn in another important battleground state, new hampshire. >> since i have been in office, i have strengthened medicare. i've made reforms that have extended the life of the program that have saved millions of senior seniors with medicare hundreds of dollars on the prescription drugs. the only changes to your benefits that i have made on medicare is that medicare now covers new preventive services like cancer screenings and wellness visits for free. >> joining me now from boston is eric fehrnstro

. >> let me bring in "usa today" political reporter jackie kucinich and the grio's politics editor perry bacon. hello to both of you. so paul ryan called todd akin, asked him to get out. mitt romney has said publicly it's time to go. here was akin's response this morning. >> if you were in romney's position don't you think he may have bid this thing up and made a bigger deal about it than he needed to? why couldn't he run his race and i run mine? >> why couldn't he run his race and i run mine, jackie? he doesn't seem to care that he's alone on an island. >> well, yeah. he is alone on an island and he has given up his house seat so he really has nothing to lose here. the problem is the republican party has a lot to lose. they're looking at the senate. they had a real shot at taking over the senate when he was a viable candidate. now that he's not so viable, they want him out of there because it's not so much about mitt romney as it is about the republican party. it is about mitt romney but not as much as the bigger picture here. >> when you step back and you look at it, it doesn't make se

and jackie kucinich covers politics for "usa today."to "the daily rundown". >> great to see you, luke. >> let's start right out on paul ryan, because robert, you've been studying him quite closely, and this akin story that is chasing him all the way until thursday. he's going to be in missouri tonight, albeit for fund-raising. he said this to kdak about abortion. >> you sponsored legislation that has the language "forcible rape." what is forcible rape as opposed to -- >> rape is rape, period. end of story. >> so that forcible rape language meant nothing to you at the time? >> rape is rape. and there's no splitting hairs over rape. >> robert, you know that paul ryan is a very wonky guy. he's not into the red meat politics, he's not a flame thrower, usually. how much do you think that this is personally upsets him that he's being weighed down by this story and can't get to the nuts and bolts economic argument that he's pretty good at? >> i think every single republican is bothered by this story, it keeps festering, it's continuing to be a

. >> for more, let's bring in jackie kucinich from "usa today" and analyst jonathan alter. of you. >> thanks. >> let's pick up where kristen left off. let's use the chains comments and other comments that the vice president has made, is he bo more of an asset or what of a liability at this point as well? >> i think he's neither. i mean, he's been making gaffes since 1972. this is knotted a new thing. the difference between chained and shackled, such a dopey debate when we have such big issues. medicare on the table to be discussed, and horribly distorted by one side. i believe by one side. we don't always want to have phony balance where we say even steven. we have a situation where paul ryan was in florida, saying that the big, bad obama administration took 716 billion from your medicare. first of all, the exact same $7 is 16 billion, same amount of money, is in the ryan budget. accusing them of raiding the piggy bank, then he did the same thing. this is just one small example of the level of misinformation that's going on back and forth on this issue. where it is truly le