politico's jake sherman has our play by play this week. how is it going? >> good.hanks for having me. >> nbc has a new poll out, new battleground map and despite difficult economic numbers, joe biden's chains gaffe, the you didn't build that controversy, todd akin, everything going on, basically nothing has really changed. is there anything that could happen that could actually shake up this race? >> two things i think are really important. we haven't yet seen how the medicare debate will play out. in states like ohio and florida it is going to be key. i cover the house. i cover congress. i've seen how this has played out for the last two years and it's gone both ways. we've seen elections where republicans have gotten pummeled on medicare and a special election in nevada where it went in their favor. i don't think that is fully formed with ryan on the ticket yet. i think it's early and the conversation is just starting. coming out of the conventions it will be interesting to see how that plays out. >> it is interesting to see w. is in hiding but elvis is still ali

we're going to pre-game here quickly with jake sherman, young man. jacob, little bit of a big night. how is kid rock? >> lovely. made a couple of obama-romney jokes so definitely a political guy. pretty crowded. we saw some members of congress even getting down with kid rock. successful event for him. >> anybody you can mention? >> yes, i have to think though. come back to me on that. i have to jog my memory. there are so many freshman, but it's tough to keep them straight. >> jake sherman is one of or congressional reporters. he was early to recognize the potential and the power that ted cruz came to see. i wonder if you could give us a little ted cruz 101. tell us why he's important? >> for many reasons. this is a guy who announced his candidacy on a blogger conference call. so someone from the beginning kind of harnessed the power, the outside power, there are two kinds of powers in washington. there's the power that you derive internally from the building, from the capitol, the power that comes along with the institutions that have defined washin

. >> jake sherman with politico, thank you for being with us this morning. >> reporter: thank you. >>> now to one congressman's statement that has stirred so much outrage even the gop's presidential ticket has had to weigh in and step way back. the well known conservative candidate who is hoping to win a big senate seatrom the democrats was asked about his staunch opposition to abortion. >> in the case of rape, should it be legal? >> well, you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. it seems to me, first of all, from what i understand from doctors, if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down, but let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something, you know, i think there should be some punishment but it ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child. >> i don't probably need to explain how wrong his statement was and, by the way, he may be acting like he's back tracking but he didn't say he was wrong. all he said was he now is ack

with it are the lame excuses that some of the members gave to our reporters john breshhan and jake shermanho called everyone who was on the trip that they possibly could. some said, this will probably make the sea of galilee gazette, some said they went in because of the religious significance. >> amen. >> of the waters. this goes with the -- >> after they had communion by drinking a lot of wine. >> right. little bigger cups than we have at redeemer arlington. some said they were hot and tired. >> yeah. >> some of the more honest and said we'd been drinking. >> you know, this is -- and mark halperin, this is, you know, a lot of people hear this story and go oh, gosh, liberal media and democrats will jump up and down on this. mark halperin, this is so bad, for the republican party -- they talk about the republican brand yet it's been really hurt over the past five, ten years. the conservative brand still pretty darn good. 40% of americans tell gallup they're conservative, twice as much as say they're liberal and still conservatives out there who don't believe republicans think -- believe wh