let's start with john heilemann. john, what did you learn today?. >> okay. >> it's terrible. what did you learn, mark? >> obama wins and the fiscal cliff is solved in november and december. that's what schumer said. >> that's good. what golden nugget will you take with you throughout the day? >> i learned that liz grod watching morns joe and she's a beautiful bride. married saturday. couldn't possibly look more beautiful. >> do you flow why she's smiling? >> she's smiling because she didn't work the overnights for about a week. >> she's in the trenches for us every day, does a great job. she had great day. she reports on saturday. now off on her honeymoon and she'll be back in a week or so. >> i'm so proud of you, liz. >> congratulations. what did you learn? >> that we need to talk about it every day and i think the headlines today drive that point home. >> our men and women in uniform that have been serving there now since the fall of 2001 have given their all, they've done a fantastic job. i'm so proud

. >> rose: john heilemann?> charlie, you know, the first, hain thing i thought at the end of this debate, man i can't wait to see what saturday night live does th i there is jt a lot of wonderful, a lot of lampoonable moments and lampoonable behaviors and stylistic stuff as mark was mentioning about joe biden. >> i thought this debate was even on both sides very, aimed very much at the base of both parties and not only will democrats be enthused and i will get back to that in a second but republicans who had invested a lot of hope in paul ryan as a bright shining hope they heard a lot of things from him and a lot of things that sounded to me like canned talking points but i think there will be a lot of enthuse yasms a a lotf republicans rallying around paul ryan, i don't know how much undecided will be moved, one issue and the paramount strategic thing joe biden had to do is staunch the detrimentally panic post denver and i think he will have done that and one place where paul ryan, the one place where paul rya

john heilemann yesterday said something i've also been saying. as we get further away from the first debate, barack obama's failure took on sort of an urban legend. had an urban legend feel to it where the night of the debate you're going, boy, he's off. you know, i had a guy, a big democrat yesterday come up to me going i think the president's suffering from depression. really? he just had an off night. reagan had an off night in '84. but it did really change the dynamic of this race and has gotten everybody to the point now where even democrats are starting to see this slip away. talk about historically, how quickly that narrative the change in one night. if mitt romney looks awkward tonight. if he can't interact with the audience well. if he does what 41 did, he looks at the watch, looks board. talk about how huge tonight is. it can also go, of course, the other way, if mitt romney has a great night tonight and barack obama looks awkward around all these people, then you really could start to see slipping of support. but tonight, this is one o

and national affairs editor for "new york" magazine, john heilemann.lie is coming in the room right now. >> willie sort of sauntering in. >> he is. wow! got a lot of presidential polls to get to, and we will. >> i tell you what, important ones that really narrow the focus of this race. >> right. first we're going to start with the aftermath of sandy. the united states pledging quick relief for the millions of victims of the hurricanes. today president obama is scheduling to arrive in atlantic city to survey the damage alongside governor chris christie. this morning the associated press reports the storm killed at least 50 people. there are more than 8.2 million households still without power across 17 states. and many of the outages could last beyond election day. between damage to property and the economy, the total impact expected to reach a staggering $50 billion. the damage is perhaps nowhere worse than the coastline of new jersey where sandy came ashore laying waste to an amusement park and historic boardwalk at seaside heights. as for the airport

in new york magazine yousafzai john heilemann explores the relationship between barack obama and billining me now, msnbc political analyst and new york benghazi m magazine affairs editor john heilema heilemann. what a great piece. brings me back to all of the campaigns past, present and perhaps future. talk about the clinton/obama relationship. back in 2008 a very rocky start and they as you describe in "new york" magazine had the get together in the harlan office of president clinton and it was still edgy. how has this come together so you have bill clinton being not only the most effective speaker at the convention, for president obama, but now going out this thursday and joining the boss in ohio, can you imagine the big dog and the boss both in ohio? the critical state. >> god, how much -- >> for president obama's re-election. >> how much i wish i could be there that day i would pay money to see that concert. >> exactly. >> the thaw, a lot of raw feelings on both sides by the end of 2008 but the thaw began when president obama reached out and put hillary clinton in his cabinet, off

john heilemann and ron reagan join us. tt has a tendency to assume whatever political profile he thought would best help him win. in 2007 facing a relatively moderate john mccain and rudy giuliani, he tacked to the hard right. everything could always be tweaked, reshaped, fixed, addressed said one former aide describing his outlook. saying it was foreign to him on policy issues that core principles mattered, that somebody would go back and say, well, three years ago you said this. as the president said today, let's take a listen. >> we're accustomed to seeing politicians change their positions from like four years ago. we are not accustomed to seeing politicians change their position from four days ago. >> john heilemann, this is a unique thing like we've always talked, you can't hold onto a greased pig, it just slips away. this is almost an illusory being, this romney person. what does he believe? he was talking last night like he was george mcgovern, no disrespect to george mcgovern, we just lost him, but this idea of i w

, the author of the forthcoming book thomas jefferson, and mark halperin of time magazine and john heilemann of time magazine. >> albert hunt, executive editor of bloomberg news and david leonhardt the bureau chief of "the new york times", joining us shortly from washington, katty kay of bbc world news of america, and slate magazine, we have a really fascinating group of people here to talk about what was a remarkable debate. i begin first with al hunt. >> charlie, if the barack obama who was on stage at hofstra had showed up in denver two weeks ago, he might have put this race away. i don't think mitt romney did poorly tonight, i thought he actually did, you know, fairly well but barack obama was the ago press sorry. he set the agenda. he did everything he failed to do in deb very, denver, both in defending his record and in challenging some of governor romney's inconsistencies. my guess is that he let romney back in two weeks ago and this won't change, this is a very, very tight race and there was hemorrhaging, all indications were really that this was continuing that he probably stopped t

i thought obama clearly wins that battle. >> are you with us on this, john heilemann?o you think the high road works now? we're calling it the closing arguments. does he go with dismembering romney's tax plan? does it mean going after romney's elitism, government by, for, and of the rich? or going at him basically reminding you can complain a bit about what's going on, but look where i started, look what i have done? >> these are kind of premonitions of closing arguments. the president's ad is getting closer to what they want on the positive side to be the closing argument. i don't think we've seen the last of negative campaigning from the obama campaign and the last of contrast or the last of attacks on governor romney along the lines you were just suggesting. the romney ad is even further away from a closing argument in the sense that i think it's a typical or characteristic of them. it's a very tactical ad in the sense it's kind of trying to play on just on the joe biden performance. that ad only works because of biden's facial expressions. if you just had paul ryan

today, emmy darling msnbc political analyst and national affairs editor for new york magazine, john heilemann. the lovely rana fa ru har of "time" magazine and the host of totally bias, the person who is much, much funnier than me all the time, [ inaudible ]. trial by water. it's stumping in the rain is the true test, the test of a true contender. >> not letting a little rain chase us away. >> ladies, i do apologize for your hair dos getting messed up. >> then mitt romney has his game on. addressing a crowd of screaming virginia voters yesterday, amidst a downpour. >> people wonder why it is i'm so confidence we're going to win. i'm confident because i see you here on a day like this, this is unbelievable. thank you so much. >> he does have a rain coat on. what of the storm within the romney ranks. according to politico a shakeup in the romney campaign has created a stronger weather mitt. the candidate's family prevailed on mitt romney and the campaign operation to shake things up dramatically according to campaign insiders. the family pushed for a new message, putting an emphasis on a softer

and inside here, we have john heilemann and richard haass still with us.nbc chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell, and msnbc political analyst, nyu, former democratic congressman harold ford jr. and squjoe, you're late. >> what's that? i know, it's kind of busy out there. they've been out since 2:30 this morning, and they came here to see andrea and harold. >> i told her the republicans are outside which is why you went to go say hi. >> i actually saw three guys in romney shirts out there, and they're still in one piece. pretty good. >> let's take a look at the polls. we have a lot to talk about. a new nbc/"wall street journal" poll has the race dead even among likely voters nationwide, 47%-47%. that's before the debate season began, in early september, the president held a five-point lead then, so that's a change. a majority 62% want the president to make major changes if he's re-elected. that's something that stands out in this poll. among women voters, the president's lead is shrinking, now down to ei

john heilemann, thank you very much. congressman aaron shock, same things. coming up tonight. why should president obama be re-elected? what's his case? four years of economic failure. he's got overspending. overborrowing, a middle east foreign policy crisis and now a massive cover-up over benghazi and libya. what kind of case can joe biden make for obama when obama couldn't make the re-election case for himself? our next panel will try to break through on it. uncer ] how do you make 70,000 trades a second... ♪ reach one customer at a time? ♪ or help doctors turn billions of bytes of shared information... ♪ into a fifth anniversary of remission? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. . >>> welcome back to "the kudlow report." so the democrats are putting huge pressure on vice president biden to deliver in the wake of the president's denver debate failure and the failure the following week. they are putting all their eggs in joe biden's basket. okay. republicans baited a trap with big bird. the democrats fell right into it

if you're, john heilemann, a month out and it's 49%-44%, i would call that a close race. if you are 12 days out and you're behind five points in consecutive polls, i'd say, you know what? it's kind of an uphill lift. if you are mitt romney running against barack obama's get-out-the-vote machine, i would say five points looks more like a mountain than a mole hill. we're getting to the point now that if these polls don't start closing to two or three points, tie goes to obama in every single state outside the deep south because of his turnout operation. nobody's even suggesting in the romney camp that they've got a turnout operation as good as obama's, right? >> the romney campaign -- there is no romney turnout operation. it is all handled by the rnc. they're not even doing it. so really the romney turnout operation is driven by how good a state party's operation is and the national party within that state. there are some states where it's very good, and there are some states where it's very poor. ohio, there's just no question that the obama campaign has a much better turn

from boca raton, mark halperin of time magazine and john heilemann of new york magazine. chuck todd of nbc news, from washington albert hunt, executive editor of bloomberg news joining us shortly gwen ifill of pbs and raddatz of nbc and john dickerson of, and slight magazine i am pleased to have each of them here this evening for this important debate and as always i begin with al hunt in washington. al. >> carlie, i think mitt romney went into this debate and the calculation was all he had to do was hold his own, he would win a draw and just show he could be commander in chief. in many ways it was very similar to the strategy barack obama had ironically in denver and in both cases i believe it misfired. almost from the beginning romney was on his heels and as the debate shaped up he ended up agreeing with barack obama's policies on just a stunning number of issues on bin laden, on drones, on pakistan, on getting out of afghanistan, in 2014, iranian sanctions, syria defending israel, even to some extent on libya. so i don't think this debate changes the dynamics a great de