mr. romney won. and so i sat at this event that even though romney won that night, won on debate night, there wasn't any day two story that could explain to people why it was that he won. i said, really, thinking about it, the only line, the single line that survived the debate, the only line that i think anybody can remember from the debate, i said this to a room of 2,000 people. there's one line that everybody can remember from that debate and that was -- and everybody in that theater simultaneously said back to me "big bird." 2,000 people all at once "big bird." the morning after the debate, "the new york times" reports that the romney campaign surprised democrats with the decision not to hold a big post debate rally for mr. romney. they did not try to capitalize on the triumph in the debate by doing a big event the next morning. the next day news coverage of the results of that it late night debate. the first presidential debate did not include follow up, post debate footage of mr. romney but did

mr. romney. mr. romney kept introducing himself to doherty over and over again and he thought that pathetic. >> the ultimate count by the end of the night was four times. romney actually approached him using this private gathering as a political venture to further his image and glen just believed it to be very insincere and stale. you know, he said it was pathetic and comical to have the same person come up to you within only, you know, a half hour reintroduce himself to you, having absolutely no idea whatsoever that he just did this 20 minutes ago and did not even recognize glen's face, whether it be republican, democrat, it doesn't make a difference. this guy is using our great friend, our humble and honorable great friend that we know is just a regular guy who is truly larger than life. he has become an actual part of the soap box routine for politics in a presidential race. i think glen would feel almost embarrassed for romney. i think he would feel pity for him. >> glen doherty's mother barbara h

mr. romney went on vacation. mr. romney, even after he had such a big win at the first presidential debate, he did not have any big, morning after the debate rallies or anything. he went and did an event that was off his public schedule, but nobody knew for sure he would be anywhere, and there wasn't a big crowd of people around him while he was rallying the troops to his big win. it was a very quiet morning. and then again today, after the second presidential debate, mr. romney did no public events in the morning. i mean, i don't know if it means anything important, but it is an unusual choice for this candidate that no other modern candidate has done. and mr. romney, it wasn't just a fluke. he keeps doing it after big events. that said, mr. romney did not take the whole day off today. this afternoon, he did a rally in virginia and then he stayed in virginia for the day to do another virginia rally tonight. on the democratic side, vice president joe biden did an early afternoon rally in greeley, colorado, today. he w

mr. romney after big events. i mean, traditionally, candidates see, and campaigns see big marquis events like debates or conventions as springboards for the next day's public attention and momentum. but the romney campaign is not like that. after his convention, mr. romney did not do a traditional bus tour or barn storming campaign trip. after his convention, you will recall that mr. romney went on vacation. mr. romney, even after he had such a big win at the first presidential debate, he did not have any big, morning after the debate rallies or anything. he went and did an event that was off his public schedule, but nobody knew for sure he would be anywhere, and there wasn't a big crowd of people around him while he was rallying the troops to his big win. it was a very quiet morning. and then again today, after the second presidential debate, mr. romney did no public events in the morning. i mean, i don't know if it means anything important, but it is an unusual choice for this candidate that no other modern cand

mr. romney tease binders. of course, as all of that was happening last night and today, the romney campaign fired up their patented mien doubling machine. they tried to make it seem like president obama was the one with the big, embarrassing binder problem. the republican party put out this picture of a binder, an empty binder and said, this is president obama's binder, his binder of policies. see how it's empty?! see, obama's the one with the hilarious binder! did you hear a binder thing from the debate! it was a thing about obama! this is insane, right? but this is what they do. this is their trick. war on women? your war on women. the overall problem here is that mr. romney brought up the binder story as a way of avoiding answering a very direct question on policy, which is, does he support fair pay for women? his running mate, after all, voted against the lily ledbetter fair pay act, and the question's first response about that question, the response was memorably noncommittal. >> does governor romney suppo

mr. romney into the lead, then statistically speaking, mr. od shape for the november election. if the debates are not enough to flip the polls in plm mr. romne favor, he would have to pull off a modern american miracle to win the election in november. chuck todd joins us from the debate site at the university of denver. chuck, what are you watching for tonight? >> the buzz word, the buzz phrase of "middle class." essentially, the reason romney is behind is because he's been losing that attribute to president obama by double-digit margins. i think it's been the most important attribute of the campaign, because it explains why is the president in a tough economic times, why has he been winning or at least neutralizing the economic argument and staying ahead in the polls. it's because he has been winning that attribute, if you will, of who's more in touch with the middle class, who looking out for the middle class. obviously, 47% was a huge body blow to romney. he was already in a deficit on this issue, of not being, looking out for the middle gu

mr. romney woke and shook the etch-a-sketch once more venturing out to soak in conservative praise makingurprise visit to colorado's sea-pac conference. romney was greeted with a standing occasion and seized the oprtunity to repeat one of his favorite zingers ad nauseam. >> trickle down government. trickle down government. trickle down government. trickle down government will not create the jobs americans need. >> trickle down government, zing. the crowd there clearly energized by romney's debate performance last night and obama's senior adviser david axelrod praised it as well suggesting it was oscar-worthy, though not worthy of the white house. due to some basic problems with simple veracity. >> i'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut. i can't understand how you can cut medicare $716 billion for current recipients of medicare. pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan. an unelected board, appointed board who are going to decide what kind of treatments you ought to have. >> not true, not true, not true, not true. and since mr. romney got the last word at the debate last night,

mr. romney is quite rightly

mr. romney on this issue. sort of defending him. >> you know, those ads saying mitt romney would ban all abortions and contraceptions seemed a bit extreme. so i looked into it. turns out, romney doesn't oppose contraception at all. in fact, he thinks abortion should be an option in cases of rape, incest, or to save a mother's life. this issue's important to me, but i'm more concerned about the debt our children will be left with. >> so she goes on to say, i voted for obama, but i'm going to not vote for him this time because romney is not so bad, right? the message here is this is not at important an issue. debt is a real issue, that's something to really vote on, but don't vote on this because "a" this is not a real issue, and even if it is an important issue for you, be assured that mitt romney does not have an extreme position on the subject. sure, what you might have heard may sound extreme, but he's not really extreme. not when you really look into it and type on your computer and ask politifact. no commen

i will tell you, mrs. romneybalance to strike here as the wife of a national candidate where she is to validate -- you know, bring some validity to his values, offer a gentler, softer side, to showthy family in a positive light. some of the things we've seen mrs. romney say out on the campaign trail, comparing the president to a child, in a sandbox, that kind of a thing, is starting to look like "desperate housewives," to tell you the truth. it's unfortunate that they had not given her the level of media training that maybe they had given to many of their other surrogates. but it's going to get tougher as time goes along 37 we have just over 25 days left in this campaign and the spotlight will continue to be on mrs. romney. you know, and she's got to stop burning the butter. >> stop it, goldie. >> very quickly, ken. >> this morning on "good morning america" she was very humanizing and sort of had a chance to adopt a softer tone. on fox, ironically, a very friendly format, she took a harder edge, sharper tone whic

mr. romney's lies. i don't know if you know this, joy, but mr. mney scolded the president saying 580,000 women had lost their jobs during his tenure of president. according to the bureau of labor statistics, that figure is 82,000. but, hey, what's half a million jobs between friends and i guess a guy who supports the blunt amendment. >> in addition to that, even when you look at those numbers, that only works in romney's favor if history itself began on january 20th, 2008. >> which, of course, in his world it did snp. >> exactly. they forget what we were digging out of, those numbers as of february 2009 the president had officially taken office before the stimulus had even kicked in. we were in an economy where you were losing 700,000 jobs a month. we've gotten to a point when we have as a whole created a net plus in jobs. when you break down that figure on female unemployment, that figure is, unfortunately, dragged down because of minority women's unemployment. unemployment in white women in this country is between 6% and 7%. it has been for mont

mr. romney's policies at all. ually looking at current trends and current policies, which is to say president obama's policies. finally, the romney campaign says we get 2 million jobs if china would just stop violating our intellectual property rights, that would be great, but no one seriously thinks any u.s. president can make that happen, just by sort of cracking down on china. so when you ask the romney campaign to back up the claim of 12 million jobs over four years, it turns out what they really mean is 7 million jobs over ten years of an economy that is already at full unemployment when we start, which our economy will not be, plus 3 million jobs over eight years, which have nothing to do with any particular policies that romney is proposing, and 2 million jobs if businesses in china suddenly became very respectful of u.s. intellectual property laws. which is to say, as has become sadly common with the romney campaign, that whatever you think of their actual policy ideas, the numbers are giving us to sell the

mr. romney's wife went on "the view" and talked about why mr. romney and all five of his sons never served in the military, but that was it for the whole republican campaign today. on the democratic side most of the heat and light was generated outside the actual ticket today because it was former president bill clinton today campaigning with bruce springsteen. >> i came here today because i'm thankful for universal health care. you know, the lack of which, the lack of which was for so long an embarrassment to our country. i'm thankful for more regulated wall street. i'm thankful gm is still making cars. >> after that event in ohio today, bruce springsteen then left to do another event for president obama tonight in iowa. but in terms of the actual candidates, vice president joe biden held an event today, a ruckus event today in las vegas. president obama held a very large event in manchester, new hampshire. campaign said this is going to be president obama's last personal appearance in new hampshire before election day. they got 6,000 people to

mr. romney say, mr.sident, you've been on an on poll i go tour, you don't know what you're doing in the middle east, you're waiving the work requirement for welfare. if he keeps going like that, the president is likely to lose his temper, isn't he? >> reporter: oh, i don't think so. look, the challenge facing president obama -- >> you don't? >> reporter: -- is the equivalent of a football team ahead trying to run out the fourth quarter. i think his challenge is to deflect, to respond to those with some element of humor, bemouss bemousseement. he'll cite fact-checkers and say independent analysts say your welfare charge is wrong, that sort of thing. i would expect him to be as much above it and not peevish, arrogant, not condescending as is possible to be. this is a president who doesn't make too many mistakes. >> karen, tonight's focus is domestic. >> yep. >> no bigger domestic issue than the economy, as we know. we'll have a rather open format. do you think we'll actually hear a specific from mr. romney

six months after romney mr.ected governor in massachusetts, this is really telling, he expanded all of that state's policies on affirmative action. those rules that allowed women, minorities, people living with disabilities, protections, equal protections as being state employees. he did it proverbially in the dead of the night. there was no press conference. no press release. he snuck this in. when civil rights groups found out about it and took him to task, he appoints a weak-kneed commission that comes back with lackluster recommendations that still don't offer -- put in place those protections again. it took governor duval patrick to reinstate those practices when he was elected governor. mitt romney has a lot to explain about affirmative action, a lot to explain about his sxhimecomm to women. >> thinking about the issue of single parents, and how romney explained that. he linked his explanation or response to a question about firearms to the issue of single parenting. take a listen to this. >> we need moms

mr. romney's position on iran. he says mr. n has always been to find a diplomatic solution first, a military option last. new york magazine's john heilemann calls him on that falsehood. take a listen. >> yes, of course, he always said it should be the last resort. but if you're talking mostly about the military and you're doing it in israel, people are going to get the impression you're more bellicose than when you're talking about the need for talks, right? >> i think this is like splitting hairs. >> ana marie, tough love this guy. is there any republican who is more factually challenged? >> there are very few. for me dan is so intimately linked with iraq i sort of can't picture him without wearing combat boots. and i think, you know, it's not splitting hairs. dan is definitely hawkish on all of these things. again, so many people surrounding mitt romney have been former bush advisers, were pro-iraq war enthusiasts, have been pro-syria intention enthusiasts. these are people that want to go to war. sometimes it doesn't seem li

mr. romney. why would mitt romney get up in front of 12,000 people in ohio and tell them the auto bailout hasn't helped you at all. your jobs are going to china. i read it somewhere. where's the story? we found it. he was apparently trolling the nether regions of the right-wing press. he found it on a washington examiner blog post, which reported, quote, jeep, an obama favorite, looks to shift production to china. a move that would crash the economy in toledo. this is a misreading of a bloomberg report that was reporting good news. global demand for jeep has risen to the point where they can sell more in china and wants to build jeeps for china in china. this is good news for an american company, not bad news. they are not shipping american jobs overseas. this doesn't mean less work for americans. this means they are adding, they are expanding overseas. thanks to the auto bailout, chrysler stuck around to win again. yay! or as mitt romney put it -- >> jeep is thinking of moving all production to c

mr. romney is standing by his man recommending mr.ip the senate toward the republican party. >> there's so much at stake. i hope you'll downmi in supporting richard mourdock for u.s. senate. >> see how close they are? but do they seem like men who have a genuine interest in the victims of this horrifying crime? have they ever done anything to support women who may have been violated in this way? to follow that clown is the ring master himself, the man whose artificial appearance is only matched by the stupidity of his pronouncements. here was the latest, demanding the president release his academic history in exchange for a $5 million donation to charity. >> if he releases these records, it will end the question and, indeed, the anger of many americans. >> no, mr. trump. releasing those academic records will only fuel your racist anger because you know exactly what you're implying. so there you have it. trump, mourdock, and romney, a blue chip firm of fools comprising a bone head, a mutton head, and an air head. thanks so much for wat

mr. romney. mr. romney being a different mr. romney than we've seen him for the last 18 months or the last section years. do you think even with the new hit romney that showed up last night when he starts talking about states' rights, when he starts talking about regulation or deregulation, when he starts saying he doesn't advocate $5 trillion tax cut when in fact the numbers prove that he does and has been advocating that, will that resonate with independent voters and/or undecided voters in your state of ohio? >> i don't think so. i think people realize that governor romney is still wrong on medicare and still wrong on trade and still wrong on jobs and still wrong on the middle class. i think that's increasingly clear. again it goes back to which path do you go. do you want to go back to the trickle down economics you give tax cuts to the rich and hope it helps the middle class or do you focus on the middle class and that's trait enforcement, it's i don't think training at community colleges like columbus state and sinclair. it