president obama's pollster joel benenson along with republican pollster kellyanne conway. the president's approval numbers are, in a word, bad, in two words, not good. here's where he rates against other presidents at this time during their presidencies. he's got bush level numbers, and we all know bush did not come back. you're the pollster, tell me what's not working with obama's messaging? >> well, first of all, i think putting it in perspective, i've heard and experienced a lot of public poll numbers that were at variance with where the president's standing was with the american people. i went through a whole election in 2011 and '12 as a pollster where people said his numbers are terrible, he can't come back -- >> so you're saying don't believe the polls? >> i've often said don't believe the polls. i've spent a lot of time talking about the poll numbers out there. when you look at the president's numbers and democratic numbers and who people think care about them and you're talking about the economy where we're still fighting back and still slowly making progress, the

president obama's pollster joel benenson along with republican pollster kellyanne conway.ent's approval numbers are, in a word, bad, in two words, not good. here's where he rates against other presidents at this time during their presidencies. he's got bush level numbers, and we all know bush did not come back. you're the pollster, tell me what's not working with obama's messaging? >> well, first of all, i think putting it in perspective, i've heard and experienced a lot of public poll numbers that were at variance with where the president's standing was with the american people. i went through a whole election in 2011 and '12 as a pollster where people said his numbers are terrible, he can't come back -- >> so you're saying don't believe the polls? >> i've often said don't believe the

we saw the example of this in the campaign where his pollster led by joel benenson from new york completelyutfoxed the republican nominee. they slice and dice the electorate in ways that pollsters have not done. they used a lot of corporate methods where they would have researchers actually almost live with families for multiyear set a time to get an idea of what was going on in the lives of everyday americans. that was very expensive to do and president obama raised a million dollars. he had the money when he wasn't challenged in primaries. they came up with the fabulous series of analyses of the american public or ticket early swing voters. they understood them far far better than the romney campaign did. the republicans are now trying to play catch-up but you see some of these memos and you realize why he did some of the things he did in the phrases he used and so on. the focus coming back to the middle class, the economy and so on. that was one thing he did. he does read the letters and i said i'd come back to that in a moment and i will come back to it now. he gets about 40,000 e-mails