jeff greenfield, the guru. i should have had you write the trivia question today. n odd question or two and that was major garrett. jeff, you'll like this one. if romney wins today, what will he have done that hasn't happened since 1928? >> i have no idea. >> a republican will win the white house without a bush. >> steve schmidt? >> those are those in-depth, unknown facts. >> if we assume this is all about white vote versus nonwhite vote then why wasn't mitt romney favored in ohio and pennsylvania earlier when there is this intense older white vote? what happened? >> let detroit go bankrupt. so you have with the auto industry the definition of mitt romney over the spring, over the summer. he's underperforming with the white vote compared to where he is with the rest of the country and that early definition of mitt romney by the obama campaign if they go on to win ohio tonight will have paid off big time for them. >> melanie barnes, i just did this via the coalitions we talked about. we're going to go mitt romney. iowa and florida and if you assume this coalition of

and jeff greenfield of "need to know" will weigh in on this question: how can we predict which candidates will become successful presidents? but we begin with a look at the most pressing problems facing the nation today, and how the candidates plan to remedy them. after all, the election is a fundamental a clash of ideas. and no matter who is elected tuesday, those problems are not about to go away soon. judy woodfruff of the pbs newshour kicks off our coverage. >> thanks, hari. from the beginning of the 2012 presidential campaign, probably no issues have received more attention than jobs and taxes. and perhaps no issues matter more to millions and millions of voters. so that's where we begin tonight. >> four million jobs. >> five million jobs. >> twelve million new jobs. >> twenty three million new jobs. >> good jobs. >> manufacturing jobs. >> part time jobs. >> jobs of the future. >> president obama repeatedly touts the fact that private employment has now grown every month for the past two and-a-half years. >> and what i want to do, is build on the five million jobs that we've created

there are three states, jeff greenfield, the swing states, florida, north carolina, and virginia thatlooks like north carolina's moved into romney's camp. florida, the obama people think they can still win it, but the poll suggests otherwise. virginia closes at 7:00, that's going to tell us a lot. >> but those two states, they're not southern in the way we think about southern. virginia is no longer the home of bogard picering iii. >> do not insult my friend. >> know your roots. you go on the other side of the potomac, you're in maryland, lobbyist country, lawyer country. and in florida, you know the old saying, the further north you go in florida, the further south you get. so that -- one of the reasons why obama has a chance, he carried both of those states four years ago, they're not southern in the way that the south and alabama, georgia, mississippi move solidly republican. demographically, they're very different. >> i would just say defense contractor country also. virginia, that defense pitch which is what the republicans, we had eric cantor on yesterday and what mitt romney ha