from massachusetts and quote michael dukakis in a republican race. on the other hand, his numbers have been getting worse with independents. the longer he goes on, it also brings all of the stories into the conversation, which hurt his numbers. in talking to strategists this week, there are not just in the romney campaign, who are, of course, going to say this is all very good for him but they say a couple good things are happening. one, he's learning how to take a punch. have you to learn how to take a punch and react quickly. he did that very well between south carolina and florida. now, he took the punch and learned how to punch back and he's learning now this week how to do different things, be a little more personal. one of his problems, many people say, needs to speak like a conservative, not just say i am a severe conservative. the other thing is he's getting some of these issues out there he will have to face in the general. gwen: you slupet to say what you are. at some point have to be able to show it. well, there's a beneficiary obviously o

(cheers) >> the 88 campaign against massachusetts governor michael dukakis was a tough battle for bushe president jimmy carter called this the worst campaign ever. >> he pushed cut backs in education. >> weekend furloughs to first degree murderers not eligible for parole. americans can't afford that risk. >> destroyed my record. full of lies and he knows it. >> whoever started down this road first to negative campaigning the american people from all coming up are completely fed up. >> america can't afford that risk. >> it turned to negative campaigning. i don't want to sound like a kid in the schoolyard, he started it. >> george bush would defeat michael dukakis in a land slide. >> the people have spoken. >> still to come, how president bush used his personal diplomatic experience to deal with old enemies and new threats. emily's just starting out... and on a budget. like a ramen noodle- every-night budget. she thought allstate car insurance was out of her reach. until she heard about the value plan. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. try bayer advanced aspirin. it h

if you look at the republican lineup -- [laughter] it is like michael dukakis in an oversized tank hat. >> the idea that newt gingrich is now at the top of the heap. >> you do not want to be the top because they get shot out. >> it is seems like anybody but romney. >> herman cain is a breath of fresh air. [laughter] >> i am not going to reassess him as he reassesses his campaign. >> herman cain is fabulous. >> newt gingrich -- i am going to get serious on you. newt gingrich is an error lobbyist -- uber lobbyist. barney frank talk about michele bachmann. he also called out newt gingrich and said he held him responsible for the demonization of opponents that has contributed to the atmosphere we live in today. i do think he came into the house. he slashed all of the caucasus and civility. we are seeing this. this is a man who a few days ago talked about education reform in the context of firing the janitors in schools and putting the kids to work. a lot of the media called that unconventional. [laughter] let's repeal child labor laws that we fought hard for in this country. bring in dicke

michael dukakis balanced it for ten years. >> reporter: polls put them in a dead heat. experts didn't think this round was enough to call the fight. >> if you like romney going in you probably thought you won. if you didn't like santorum you thought he lost. >> reporter: gingrich kept his attacks on the president. even going for a laugh when asked to describe himself in one word. >> cheerful. >> reporter: the topic that got the biggest response from the live audience was this. >> which candidate believes in birth control and if not why? >> romney and gingrich used their answers to criticize the president. >> if we are going to have a debate about who the extremist on these issues it's the president who is a state senator who voted to protect doctors who killed babies. >> i don't think we have seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious freedom that we have seen in obama. >> reporter: while santorum defended his stance on the dangers of beneficiary controls. >> bottom live is we have a problem and the family is fracturing. over 40% of children bor

michael dukakis balanced the budget for 10 years. >> they are in the virtual dead heat. political analyst joe too made to this latest round of jabs was enough to call the fight. >> if you like it wrong romney going and you probably thought he won. >> newt gingrich kept up his attacks on president obama and even giving up all laughed. the topic that garnered the biggest response was this. >>> romney and gingrich used their answers to criticize the president. >> if they are going to debate about who the extremist is on these issues, as president obama who was state senator and voted to protect doctors to kill babies. >> religious freedom and religious tolerance that we have seen with barack obama. >> while santorum defends his stance on what he calls the dangers of contraception. >> we have problems in this country and the family structure. >> whatever these male candidates think, is worth noting. the cdc says 98% of american women have used some form of birth control in their lives and ever since the 1980's, more women have voted in presidential elections than men. >> san

michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years. does that make him qualified to be president of the united states? i don't think so. >> and oddly romney only talked about his new tax plan he unveiled yesterday one time and it was in response to a hit by santorum. >> governor romney even today suggested raising taxes on the top 1% adopting the occupy wall street rhetoric. >> i say today that we're going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20% including the top 1%. >> probably one reason why you can't say romney was a run away winner of this debate. could be summed up in this last exchange during the debate of the night last night. moderator john king gave the candidates an opportunity to address any questions or misconceptions republican voters might have about them and instead of being humble or showing a more personal side romney dodged the question and oddly decided to snap back as if it was some sort of gotcha. >> is there a misconception about you? the question is a misconception. >> lack, you get to ask the question

ads and occasionally, you know, maybe more often than not, you have people like john kerry and michael dukakis that are confident when it comes to knowing how to respond in an effective way. using, marshaling the -- they engage people in a way that i don't think positive ads go. . >> are there serious problems in america? yes, are incentives for our political leaders to pay attention to our problems? yeah, are statements taken out of context in speeches or news reports? or statements taken out of context 100 years ago in yellow journalism? absolutely. i grew up in massachusetts with a mother in democratic politics in massachusetts. but we can pick on massachusetts democratic politicians, our system at some point demands someone responding. dukakis had the money to respond, had the chance to respond, decided not to. professional decision. there plenty of ads that i think are clearly unaccurate. but i don't think it's my job or your job as journalists to say i bless that ad and i don't bless that ad. and sometimes the market doesn't work, let's be honest, but there's a lot of reporters out there

. >> michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years, does that qualify him to be president of the united states? i don't think so. >> reporter: romney fired back accusing santorum of being a creature of washington's excessive spending. >> while i was fighting to save the olympics, you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. >> reporter: as romney prepares to give a major economics speech tomorrow at the home of the detroit lions, his supporters will begin to air this ad. re-telling romney's accounts that helped bring home a former business partner's missing daughter. >> mitt's done a lot of things that a lot of people say are nearly impossible, but for me the most important thing he's ever done was to help save my daughter. >> reporter: one more thing about romney's super-pac it's nearly identical to the ad four years ago. it purchased the footage from romney's old media team and while that follows the letter of the law, it again, blurs that line between campaigns and super pacs. >> peter alexander on the campaign trail, millford, michigan, tonight. thanks. >>> tonight invest

what michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years. does that make him qualified to be president of the united states? i don't think so. >> a lot of sparring going on there. cnn political editor paul steinhauser is live in mesa, arizona. a couple of things that stuck out, they were sitting. awkward. romney and santorum really don't like each other. kind of an understatement, wouldn't you say? >> reporter: you know, the sitting was an idea to make it a more intimate setting. it did make it more uncomfortable with the two front-runners sitting there. you can tell there was not a lot of love between them. for santorum, he was forced in a way to defend some unpopular decisions with conservatives. his vote in favor of no child left behind, his vote in favor of supporting planned parenthood, his support in the past of earmarks and his support back in 2004 of arlen specter's re-electi re-election, the moderate senator at the time. take a listen to this exchange between santorum and romney. >> the reason we have obama care is because the senat

the willie horton ad which helped to topple michael dukakis is now reeding leading the ad wars. >> good evening keith. >> first point, so that was a compliment. i mean apart from the fact that the rice paddy that she's in looks like a nice country rode in the the upper peninsula of michigan and sounds like an american using a bad dialect, that is a compliment to bilingual? >> even his explanation is so bad tells me he had no idea he was going to get this kind of push on his ad. it was amazing to me that almost immediately it was republicans who were attacking this ad. they immediately saw it as a problem. remember this nation is getting brokenner and less white every single day and republicans if they're going to compete long term cannot be turning up every group that is not a white southern male. they've gone through african-americans. they've done a number on latinos. now it's asian-american turn. >> it used to be okay to make jokes or do particularly dialect bits whether you were kidding or trying to represent some foreign element that people had to be scared of. i don't remember the

. >> george bush would defeat michael dukakis in a landslide. >> the people have spoken. >> still to come, how president bush used his personal diplomatic experience to deal with old enemies and new threats. >> announcer: meet mary. she loves to shop online with her debit card, and so does bill, an identity thief who stole mary's identity, took over her bank accounts and stole her hard-earned money. now meet jack. enough to enjoy retirement.saved angie, the waitress at jack's favorite diner, is also enjoying his retirement. with just a little information, she's opened up a credit line, draining the equity in jack's home. unfortunately, millions of americans just like you learn all it may take is a little misplaced information to wreak havoc on your life. this is identity theft, and no one helps stop it better than lifelock. see, ordinary credit monitoring services tell you after your identity has been stolen. they may take up to 60 days to alert you-- too late for jack. lifelock has the most comprehensive identity theft protection available. if mary had lifelock's bank account alerts

before mitt and michael dukakis rarely talks to the press. and spent a half our with me tonight. watch it. hello, everybody, i'm eric biology along with kimberly guilfoyle, dana perino, greg gutfeld, bob beckel. the new york giants hometown and this is "the five." ♪ >> to our top story tonight. has president obama earned a second term? he seems to think so, take a listen. >> i deserve a second term, but we're not done. look, when you and i sat down, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. and in fact, we've found out a few days before we sat down at that we'd lost that much. 750,000 jobs and now we're creating 250,000. we created 3.7 million jobs over the last 23 months. we created the most jobs since 2005, manufacturing jobs since 1990. but we're not finished. >> really, mr. president, you deserve more time in the oval office, more rounds of golf and flights aboard air force one more access to money? that's not what you promised three years ago, remember, sir, what you don't love? >> i will be held accountable, i've got four years. >> you know quickly how people feel about what hap

michael dukakis balanced the budget for 10 years.at qualify him to be president of the united states? i don't think so. how was that? >> that was pretty good. i mean, mike dukakis is my former boss. i ever to be nice. i don't know how effective that dig is in 2012, by the way. >> i hear you on that. that reminds me of putting chester arthur. ok, all right. but now mainly santorum got attacked here. he was on the defense for most of the night, and he was challenged about no child left behind. let's watch that. >> he was against the principles i believed in. when you're part of the team sometimes you take one by the team for the leader. politics is a team sport folks. >> yeah, so he took one for the team, which sounds disastrous. ok. >> i actually thought that was a very bad answer to be honest. >> it was a terrible answer. rick santorum has taken it for the team before. he stayed with george w. bush until the bitter end on iraq and got thrown out of office because of it. that was really the tie-breaker if there even needed to be one f

michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years. does that make him qualified to be president of the united states? i don't think so. >>> political gurus mark preston and paul steinhauser were at the debate. mark, let's go ahead and start with you. romney and santorum definitely throwing heat, but it looked like santorum felt the burn maybe a little bit more. >> reporter: yeah. you know, i wrote yesterday right before the debate, kyra, that rick santorum does very well when he's the hunter but how would he do as the hunted? he was the hunted last night. and i've got to tell you what, i think it was very unsettling for him to really be in the middle of it all. for someone that was taking heat not only from mitt romney, but, boy, he took it from ron paul last night as well. so this morning as we wake up here in arizona, as people wake up across the country after watching the debate, the question is will rick santorum continue to have the momentum that we've seen him build up over the past ten days or so? i think last night was not his

>>in a striking example of an attack ad changing the course of a campaign, democrat michael dukakis sawtunes "tank" in 1988 when the opposition aired this spot. >>michale dukakis has opposed virtually every defense system we've developed. >>dukakis in a tank wearing that helmet reinforced his image as northeastern technocrat running against george bush an actual war hero. >>this was a photo opportunity staged by the dukakis campaign. the bush campaign brilliantly took that footage and used it against dukakis. the election results actually were swayed by the tv commercials because this was a very close election. >>the tank ad also proved that in politics some of the most painful wounds are self-inflicted. >>current tv's look at campaign ads that changed history is brought to you by pradaxa. >> so rupert murdoch's many were not just bribing cops and military officials but had a network of government folks that they were bribing on his behalf. the scandal widens. the governor of arkansas and his wife announceed their the birth of their first child, the father was bill clinton and the child

. >> michael dukakis balanced the budget for 10 years, does that qualify him to be the president of the united states? i don't think so. >> reporter: they neck-in-neck? arizona and michigan. don't count ron paul out. he, too, had a strong debate performance. >> and i think one of the reasons that people are drawn to ron paula is because he doesn't mince words. >> reporter: newt gingrich is trail negligent polls but did get a bost -- trailing in the polls but did get a boost from the debate from rick perry. he was there as a stomping gingrich supporter. gen -- sta unch gingrich supporter. >>> president obama is getting out his message about high gas prices. the president said the u.s. must start taking control of our energy future. he said that requires much more than just drilling our way to lower gas prices. >> we need to keep developing the technology that allows us to use less oil in our cars and trucks. less energy for our building and our plants and our factories. na is the strategy we're pursuing and that is the only real solution to the challenge. >> president obama also said tha

. >> michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years, does that make him qualified to be the president of the united states? i don't think so. >> i can't believe i'm losing to this guy. ♪ here we go >>> we begin with the president who just wrapped up remarks on energy in the battleground state of florida showcasing a robust economic agenda even as his republicans have any point to beat him. mitt romney sweating it out in arizona today speaking to a group of builders and contractors and trying spaetly to beat mitt the working stiff. >> my dad was skilled he could take a handful of nails, spit them out pointy and forward. even watching him as he got older, his skill was something to behold. i know how tough it can be. >> right. the guy who doesn't know how much he's worth somewhere between 200 and $250 million does now how tough it is. it's a hard knocked life for mitt. signs of a blooming economy cong year. the four week rolling average of unemployment falling for the sixth consecutive week to 359,000. it's lowest point in four years. not only that, american voters are in a distinctly b

michael dukakis balanced it for ten years, does that make him qualified to be president of the unitedn't think so. >> joining me now, cnn contributor and strategist, maria cardona and lenny mcallister. did rick santorum miss a big opportunity or score points? mar maria? >> deb i think he missed the opportunity it didn't seem he was well prepared to receive the attacks to be the big target, going in this as the front-runner, nationally, he should have understood that he was going to be the one that was receiving all these attacks from all sides and should have been ready with more pivot, it seemed that romney was able to get under his skin, having said all that, i do think that he still performed well in terms of showing that he is the consistent conservative, that he is still the candidate that can be the anybody but romney and what we've seen from romney, especially this week in michigan, is he still hasn't been able to seal the deal. so i think that santorum still has a chance here, he's still neck-in-neck in michigan and arizona and looking forward to super tuesday. >>> mitt romney

every single one -- almost every one of my voters had given money to michael dukakis, and barry manilow was in my precinct. he was a committed dukakis supporter, did not have much work to do, so i decided to help this person. >> there's a picture of him that the audience can see with your kids. how long ago? >> that was taken about two years ago. >> how old are the kids now? >> my daughter is nine. my son is 6. >> what does your husband do now? garcia's a painter. he has been an artist ever since that time and has a gallery in new york and pants down here. >> go back to mrs. clinton. did you work on her senate staff? >> i did. only for a time. i was her legislative director. i oversaw policy positions and legislation issues former. i was that from 2003 through 2005. >> you have a yale law degree. >> i do. >> has that been important in of what you have done? >> it has been vital. yale is a non-traditional law school in a sense that a lot of the law professors over there like to think about what the law should be rather than teach what the law is. my law school class is were all in some s

when michael dukakis ran for president, he was afraid to call himself a liberal.he live debate episode of the nbc series "the west wing" in 2005 and i finally got the chance to hear a fictional democrat say what i think they should all say when the word liberal is thrown at them. they should take it as an opportunity to rewrite who the word liberal has become in our politics. >> now, an unthinking liberal will describe the airline bankruptcies as the evil capitalists screwing the -- >> i didn't say that, senator. >> i know you like to use that word liberal as if it were a crime. >> i shouldn't have used that word. i know democrats think liberal is a bad word, so bad you had to change it. what do you call yourselves now? progressives. >> it's true, republicans have tried to turn liberal into a bad work. liberals ended slavery in this country. >> a republican president ended slavery. >> yes, a liberal republican. what happened to them? they got run out of your party. what did liberals do that was so offensive to the republican party, senator? i'll tell you. liberals

michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years -- >> i would put a ban on earmarks, i think it opens the door to excessive spending. he voted for the bridge to nowhere. while i was fighting to save the olympi olympics, you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. >> that seems to be the sound bite of the night. while i was fighting to save the olympics, you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. >> rick santorum having an awful difficult time explaining his support for earmarks while he was a member of congress. didn't do too well. >> this is one of his vulnerabilities, he goes out on the campaign trail and says i'm all for -- i'm a fiscal conservative, i'm the only true conservative in the race, but when you look in his record, he's got some glaring issues when it comes to that argument. at the same time, you know, he's really trying to shed this idea he was an insider. this electorate wants an outsider. and his candidacy has been about the insurgency within the gop electorate. and now he's blasting into senate speak, right, and this long-winded explanation that most ameri

almost every single one of my voters had given money to michael dukakis. barry manilow was in my group. he was a committed dukakis supporter. i did not have much work to do, so i had to help this person. >> here is a picture of him, so the audience can see, with your kids. how long ago was mistaken? >> that was taken two years ago. >> how older the kids? >> that is my daughter, nine years old, and my son who is 6 years old now. >> what does your son do? >> he is a painter. he has been an artist. he has a gallery in new york. >> go back to mrs. clinton. did you work on her senate staff? >> i did. only for a perio of time. -- a period of time. >> you have a yale law degree. >> i do pierre >> has that been important in all the work you have done? >> yale is in non-traditional law school in the sense that a lot of the law professors there actually like to think about what the law and should be rather than teach you what the lot is. my law school classis were, in some sense, public policy classes. why the laws were created, incentives to affect human behavior --

. >> michael dukakis balanced the budget for ten years. make him eligibility for president of the united states? i don't think so. sometimes you take one for the team as a leader and i made a mistake. >> that's what is the problem with washington, that's been going on so long.

>> michael dukakis, presidential candidate in 1988 got in a dank and put on a helmet and looked sillyut this -- much less soviet country. officials here look less oppressive. there they like to look more impressive. >> since becoming an internet sensation, the mayor continues to combat parking violators in new and unique ways. >> so they printed this special sticker and they distribute this for free for the citizens in vilnius. >> his latest ino rags is a three-step sticker system. >> step one, if you see a car parked in bad way, you just put the sticker on the glass. step two, if you will see the same car, you will put much bigger sticker. and if you will see for the third time, please call to me and i will come. ♪ >>> coming up, a black belt black bear. >> it's, like, always on the verge of going out of control. >> but is he a master of kung fu or a master of trickery? >> how the hell did it do that? that's crazy. >> it looks fake. it's just so fast. [ female announcer ] to get a professional cleaning system you could spend as much as $200. olay says challenge that with an instrumen