what we saw in 1976 with jimmy carter and jerry ford, jerry ford on foreign policy made a big blunderign policy does -- when you give the reins of government to somebody you have to have the sense they understand how to run the country and do foreign policy policy. this debate could prove crucial. at the end of the day you both to spend every dime you got get people out. >> great to see both of you. thank you. also making news this morning, cycling's governing body agreed to strip lance armstrong of his seven tour de france titles and ban him for life in light of the new dropping scandal. armstrong spoke briefly yesterday. >> obviously it's been an interesting and as i said other night very difficult few weeks. people ask how are you doing? i tell them i've been better but i've also been worse. >> they found overwhelming evidence that armstrong was involved quote the most sophisticated pea gravelized successful doping program in the history of sports. >>> services have been announced for former senator and presidential nominee george mcgovern who died yesterday at the age of 90. a pub

you had jerry ford talking about the soviet union not in poland. make a big difference. >> and it would appear, i don't want to put undue pressure on them but given the state and nature of the campaign we have had thus far with both candidates refusing to talk in substance and specifics about things like medicare and afghanistan which is barely mentioned at all, the moderator's role tonight might be really, really key. >> if this is all we get as a country, the ads, the stories in the ads which turn out not to be true and then 35 minutes or 40 minutes of what might be genyn and spontaneous maybe the whole thing doesn't work very well. on the other hand there is no interest in changing it. >> it puts a lot of pressure to say let's do something different. let's try something different and call out the lack of it. >> ronald reagan won because the americans became comfortable with him. it is not the specifics as much as americans getting the chance. over 90 minutes you can look at a guy and say he gets it. or he doesn't get it. >> that's what i'm going

poll before and after since 1960, and the only candidate who gained substantially from debates, jerry ford who blew the biggest debate night of his career. so i'm skeptical, particularly with a rather small group of persuadeables, even though mike murphy may be right i'm skeptical this is really going to change the playing field a lot. >> rose: mike murphy, how would you convince him. >> i think what happens now is romney has a huge opportunity because what happened tonight is not really a static thing, it's part of a dynamic process. so now, obama will fight off the process stories for a while. there's new interest in romney. they saw a guy tonight that a lot of the country would see romney through the filter of advertising saying wait a minute this is an interesting guy. the romney campaign is going to have to harness that moment and put the mitt we saw out there tonight was free of the duct tape of the republican base politics to get out and be the pragmatist he is. i thought romney was so much better than the romney campaign, and obama was so much worse than the technically proficient

yet, from jerry ford to jimmy carter to ronald reagan, there has been a bipartisan consensus in favor of modernizing the land based missiles. now, you have ruled out the mx and the midgetman. more recently, some of your aides have hinted at some flexibility you might show about some other new form of missile. can you tell us tonight why you have rejected the wisdom of people as diverse as sam nunn, henry kissinger, al gore, people in both parties, and what type of land based missile would you consider? >> well, andrea, today we have 13,000 strategic nuclear warheads, on land, on air and in the sea. that's an incredibly powerful nuclear deterrent. i don't rule out modernization, and there are discussions going on now in the congress, i know with the pentagon, about a less expensive modernized land-based leg of the triad. but there are limits to what we can spend. there are limits to this nation's ability to finance these weapons systems. and one of the things that the vice president either ignores or won't address is the fact that you can't divorce our military security from our econom

megyn: she talks about how you never would have seen this from j.f.k., jerry ford or the bushes. an aesthetic distance. you know the height of the office you hold. is that what president obama was trying to do? >> i don't think so at all. i aparole juice for laughing like joe biden. i agree with everything joe trippi said. the president lives in this bubble where he rarely talks to the media and if he does they are on his terms with softball "the view" type questions an has been put on this pedestal. his ego we all know is massive and big as chicago where he's from. megyn: so unusual in a president. >> i think he slept walked through the whole thing. he has such disdain for governor romney he those didn't have to work for this. megyn: i want to ways another points. charles krauthammer raised a separate point about the debate. that moment on libya where candy crowley jumped in and president obama expressed offense that anybody would question the motivations of the administration in the changing stories. that he says is a huge gaffe and it will prove expensive in monday night's deb

i think he was nervous about not making a big jerry ford kind of goof.'re all an inch deep. so i think that there was a calculation that look, we do not want to get into a back and forth. peel back the onion. so when obama would attack, romney's response, a number of times was just well, attacking me doesn't solve the problem. but of course you could say about any attack or any -- you could say that no matter what. and it kind of gets you through in a way but it also fends off any extended -- any extended back and forth because when you peel back, he hasn't articulated beyond the talk and beyond the bluster, he hasn't articulated here is my defined strategy that really differs from what you're doing in key areas in iran, libya, syria what is it? what is the policy? >> bill: no. you know what? i think today we still don't know. other than he says -- be a better obama. i don't know. better the obama we have. all right. i can't believe it. judd, we just got started here. >> time flies. >> bill: it is always that way. thank you so much for coming in. we'll s

in '76, iowa went for jerry ford by a point, wisconsin went for carter by a point and a half.george bush by 10,000 votes. and wisconsin went for john kerry by 11,000 votes. those states have historically tended to vote together. so if romney is able to break through in one of those states, it may mean that he could break three this both. >> another state chuck has been talking about, colorado. what do the trend lines look like there? >> well, romney's up. a little bit. we have some -- this is a state we have -- one poll showing obama up by three points. another poll showing romney up. balance of the evidence now shows that romney has a very small lead there. i hi as chuck mentioned in ohio, in -- colorado, you mentioned earlier, joe, same thing. both democrats and republicans feel like they are winning. and -- it is a situation where, you know, it is going to come down the latino vote, 21%. in colorado. also, you know, suburban vote which is where lit come down to in a lot of the swing states. >> did you know also this year will be extraordinarily close. the closest election m

. >> steve: jerry ford widely liked in washington d.c., but a lot of of people did not like the factard nixon. i didn't realize how close it was until the very end. >> yeah, actually the closest election in the 20th century for a sitting incumbent. had he not pardoned nixon probably would have won and history remembers the pardon a good thing. and ford lost and knew he would lose if he pardoned nixon, he did it anyway. >> steve: herbert hoover is synonymous with the depression in the 30's and trounced by fdr? >> yeah, he stood foe chance, it was the biggest drubbing of the 20th century, i think he won two states and the depression did him in. but his failure to do anything in response to the depression really did him in as wellment. that along with carter with a the two biggest drubbings, in the 20th century. >> steve: it's interesting those who did lose had so much to do with the economy. and on this president's watch, with president barack obama, the economy is sputtering along. >> if the president is elected it would be a historical anomaly. with an economy this weak, that could b

yet, from jerry ford to jimmy carter to ronald reagan, there has been a bipartisan consensus in favorizing the land based missiles. now, you have ruled out the mx and the midgetman. more recently, some of your aides have hinted at some flexibility you might show about some other new form of missile. can you tell us tonight why you have rejected the wisdom of people as diverse as sam nunn, henry kissinger, al gore, people in both parties, and what type of land based missile would you consider? >> well, andrea, today we have 13,000 strategic nuclear warheads, on land, on air and in the sea. that's an incredibly powerful nuclear deterrent. i don't rule out modernization, and there are discussions going on now in the congress, i know with the pentagon, about a less expensive modernized land-based leg of the triad. but there are limits to what we can spend. there are limits to this nation's ability to finance these weapons systems. and one of the things that the vice president either ignores or won't address is the fact that you can't divorce our military security from our economic securit

guest: he was a ford looker forward looker. kurt cobain sent jerry brown $100.was into jimmy carter. does he sound like a radical anarchist? i don't know. host: we have a picture of you with kurt cobain. do you remember when that was taken? guest: that was taken in seattle. we had a concert right before halloween. there were these evangelical buff weight lifter dudes who would rip phone books in half, and then they would preach the word of the lord in the meantime. host: if you want to talk to krist novoselic, give us a call on the republican line. the democratic line -- and independents -- can you talk a little more about the specific electoral reforms that you are pushing for at fairvote? guest: right now we are promoting our fair voting plan. since we had the census a couple years ago, there has been redistricting throughout the united states in been some states had independent commissions. some have bipartisan commission's. some have legislators do the redistricting. if you go to fairvote.org, you can look at the partisan makeup of the united states. host: w

ford problem. >>> california refineries are close to starting production of that winter blend gasoline, even though they don't have win thor in california. the change comes two days after governor jerryrown authorized its sale to tame skyrocketing retail gasoline prices. >> it's not helping yet. the wholesale prices have been coming down on this news, but i think yesterday the average was $4.67 a gallon still for the state of california at the pump. >> let's talk about microsoft. microsoft ceo steve ballmer has signalled a new direction. he's pointing to hardware and online services as its future, taking a page from longtime rival apple. he suggests microsoft may eventually build its new phones. >> that's a big shift. >> it's a huge shift for them to get into real hardware. they did make one of the -- i don't know if it was the surface or -- one of the prototypes for their tablet is manufactured by them. and it may be ultimately that you need to actually do the software. >> the software gets stolen by china and all these other places. they don't pay for it. so i guess you eventually want to shift to where -- >> i think that's part of it. but i think part of sit the seamless nature of

. >> eliot: the jerry ford statement was a fundamental statement about global politics and the role of the soviet union and eastern europe at that time. that was an insight into his grasp of where we were at the global level at that moment. but do you think that mitt romney can stand up to barack obama tomorrow? does he have the stature? will he look an equal on the stage tomorrow? >> just by standing next to him he will be able to do that. both of them will look like they belong in the room. they're both very skilled debaters. they're -- neither of them has given particular passionate outbursts. they're both very controlled debaters. it is a switch for romney. during the republican primary debates, he was really the front-runner and everyone was trying to tear him down. he was supposed to stand up to them. here he's coming in as the underdog. he needs to be on the attack. >> eliot: wanna if you needed to say to mitt romney, here is what you must accomplish tomorrow because you are down ten points in the swing states, you only have this one moment to capture the public's excitement and