we will speak to jonathan turley who argues that the electoral college is irrelevant. alan simpson will defend the electoral college. ♪ .host: morning and welcome to "washington journal." the republican and democratic presidential candidate's head into a final weekend of preparation ahead of monday night's foreign policy debate. bob will moderate the final matchup of the candidates and florida. we will talk about farm policy and the campaign 2012 later this morning. but first, president obama and mitt romney met in a different setting. were jokes and wit replaced the seriousness of the campaign. here are the numbers to call -- republicans 202-585-3881. democrats -- 202-585-3880. independence -- 202-585-3882. send us a tweet by writing you can send us a tweet @cspanwj. our question for you this morning is -- how important is a sense of humor and a presidential candidate? it is inappropriate time and place? how much does it run true to you? let us look at coverage of the dinner last night. obama and romney go for laughs. switching from -- switching to jokes. they set asi

we will speak with a professor jonathan turley. alan simpson will defend the electoral college. we will speak to a policy analyst with bloomberg government. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. >> with the focus on presidential debates, c-span is asking students to send a message to the president. this is part of the student cam documentary series. all for a chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. c-span student cam competition is open to grades 6-12. >> president obama and mitt romney spoke last night at the al smith dinner last night. this is 40 minutes. >> thank you. i hope you all enjoy your meal. first off, i would like to say that henry kissinger is up here on the stage. [applause] he told me it is his favorite dinner. we have many distinguished guests tonight. governor andrew cuomo is here. [applause] the governor is working on some material for his 2016 announcement dinner speech. [laughter] i noticed he gets closer and closer to the podium every year. just like jaws. [laughter] charles schumer is here. [laughter] there was recently a story in the pap

jonathan turley will be in our studio will question the relevance of the of a coral colleges. and alan simpson will join us by phone to defend it. we will look at trends in wages and benefits with willian and christopher flavelle. we will show you a part of bruce springsteen's concert. >> thank you. thank you. [applause] >> are we going to send betty sutton back to congress? [applause] folks, we need her in congress. ohio needs her. her district needs her. america needs her. we have to have a congress that will work to keep this country moving forward, and i hope you will make sure in this new district that you get enough votes out. it is all about turnout. if you do it, she will win, and we need her. [applause] i am glad to be back. i want to thank the mayor for welcoming me, and the congressman for what he is doing for all other democrats. my friend, mervyn jones, the son of stephanie tubbs jones, one of the best friends hillary and i have ever had. county executive, thank you. i have a native of cuyahoga county working for may. i want to say thank you to her because i want

jonathan turleywe did nots democratically pictures another comment coming in from twitter. victor writes -- i support the electoral college. let us hear from fox al on our line for independents. hello. caller: i agree with jonathon turley, we are supposed to be a democratic republic. and this is called democracy one hand power to a group where we do not know how they get in power. no one knows anything about the electoral college except it controls who gets elected. that was invented before there was even a mass communication. even back then, many people like james madison thought it was a mistake not to go to a popular election. many arguments made for the electoral college reducing arguments made for the election of united states senators by united states legislature. we got rid of that in 1913 with the 17th amendment. it worked pretty well. most citizens today would find it bizarre not to be able to directly elect their senators. it is even more important to do that in terms of electing a president. i think we got it in reverse. at the 17th amendment was correct. what we should have started as to whether direct election of the president. represent all of america. host: falls church, virginia. on our line for republi