our guide for the journey, pollster peter hart, produces the nbc-"wall street journal" poll that we so often referred to. he says that at this juncture, the election is no more than a 50/50 shot for the president 2/3 of the american people say we are on the wrong track. sure, the voters are still feeling very glum about what lies for them and their children. >> we feel that the first time in 13 generations, this country is going to hand the baton backwards rather than four words. the next generation is not going to be better off. if you are the incumbent president, the problem for the country is are we going forward, can we go forward? >> we will get back to peter later. let me ask you washington insiders, as you look back on your many years covering this capital and politics, is there anything about where we find ourselves now that strikes you as particularly unique and troubling wick? >> particularly unique? boy, that is a good question. everything is troubling. headed in the right direction, people up at pessimistic, the decline of american optimism, defining a psychic characteristi

our guide is peter hart, who produces the nbc news-"wall street journal" on which we rely. he says it is a 50/50 shot for the president did 2/3 of the american people say we are on the wrong track. lousy number, but ahead of where we were in november of last year voters are very glum about what lies ahead for them and their children. >> this kind of attitude makes people on certain trade for the first time in generations, this country is going to hand the baton backwards rather than forwards. if you are the incumbent president talking about forward, the problem for the country is are we going forward, can we go forward? >> we will get back to peter later. let me ask you washington insiders, as we look back on your many years of covering this capital and politics, is there anything about now that strikes you as a particularly unique or troubling? mark? >> particularly unique? that is a good question. everything is troubling. the fact we are headed in the wrong direction, people are pessimistic, the decline of american optimism, which has been the defining a psychic character

our guide for the journey pollster peter hart, who produces t nbc news-"w wall street journal" poll to which we so often refer. he thinks the election is no more than a 50/50 shot for the president. 2/3 of the american people think we are on the wrong track. lousy number, butt ahead of where we were last year, 19%. votersre very glum about what is ahead for t them and their children. >> it makes people very uncertain. we feel for the firstime i in 13 generations that the country is going to hand the baton backwards rather than for words. the next generation is not going to be better off. if you are the incbent prident and u are talking about forward, the problem for the couountrys are e weoing forward, can we gogo forward? >> we will get back to peter later. let me ask you washington insiders, you look back on your manyears covering this capital and politics, is there anything about where we find ourselves now that strikes you as a particurly unique or troubling? mark? >> particularly uniqu? that is a good question. everything is troubling to the fact we are headed in the wrong directc

but the peter hart is the activism director at fair a us media watchdog group he says an increasing number americans are abandoning mainstream media for alternative independent or foreign news outlets once people shift and say c.n.n. is not for me fox is not for me on the sunday she is doing what i really want them to do i need them to do that it's hard to get them back how do you convince somebody that your media system works when their experience tells them that it doesn't work when last autumn's biggest global story was born in new york city it was largely ignored by most mainstream news outlets but. they are at the store going on as they look at any one of the protesting nobody seems to know until it became impossible to suppress. this spring the fight against corporate greed is still being waged but at this event in times square demonstrators are surrounded by news tickers but no mainstream t.v. cameras the occupied. movement is it waiting for the almighty powerful networks to show up and report about their demonstrations instead the grassroots group has made immediate distribution al

as peter hart one of our polsters summed it up never has so much money been spent by so many to persuadefew. what do we know with those few? they overwhelmingly think the country is headed on the wrong track. yet while their views of obama are mostly negative with romney scores even worse with them. you know, i think this is fascinating, chuck. i know have you been talking with others, producers, and i almost think of them as ross perot people. they don't like the way people run this government. they don't like maybe people in general. they've add hard life. but they don't like the cut or jib of mitt romney at all either. >> let me explain what we did. every month, we have this 7 to 10% that's decided. so we pulled the undecided from three or four straight polls to get a larger number of folks so you can figure out who they are. boy did we figure out who they are. they are very negative on the president, very negative on romney. but the person that are not negative on, is ron paul. these are the no bs voters. burned out on the bs. they don't want to tinker with washington around the edge

the nbc news "wall street journal" poll peter hart said never before so much money is going to be spent to an incredibly narrow slice of the elect tore rat for the president and mitt romney. >> the president went on television with his ad after he launched his campaign in nine states. some of those states are more protection efforts than actual swing states. if you ask the romney campaign and obama campaign in a careful way, what states are really in play, you're down to like four or five that are going to -- make the difference in the election and you know, i think you know, a billion dollars on the democratic side in total, the president's super pac money, labor union money, $1.3 billion, $1.4 billion on the republican side all together, $2.5 billion way more money than ever spent on a presidential election spent mostly in four five, six, states and there's only one conclusion. if you live in one of those states, you must throw your television set away tomorrow. it's just going to 24 hours a day of negative ads, unrelenting. >> the night is dark and full of terrors. coming up, mitt ro

peter hart, the democratic half of the polling team point out the similarities we saw in 2004 with georgent obama's are now and virtually identical on economic handling, george b. bush was at 41% in may 2004 and president obama was at 43%, and george w. bush's approval rating was 47% in may 2004 and president obama's overall approval rating is 48%, and george w. bush at this stage was leading john kerry by 3 percentage points, 48 to 45, and in our poll as you just point out you have president obama with a 4-point lead over mitt romney and 47 to 43, and big similarities. i would point out one difference. the 2004 election was always seen as a national security election coming so closely after 9/11, and this has been built up more as an economic election. however, it is still is worth noting that there are those similarities. >> mark, chris was on with andrea mitchell in the last hour and raving about the fact that you take a look at different states and swing states and that certainly will be watching on that big night in november. >> and that's right. one thing that our pollsters did in t

by the way, the only other great democrat that agrees with me is peter hart who is the sage of our partycolorful, but any incumbent that thinks they're a shoo in, and anybody that thinks it's a shoo-in for re-election hasn't met james carville. >> are you living in that world, david? >> some incumbents do better than others. there are economies that are growing. the polish economy is growing, those economies that are doing well have economies that are more secure. the american economy has not done that well over the past four years and as tough as it was in the start the trajectory has been disappointing. >> david and james? >> i just have to point out that obama's sector has been worse than being in office. two-thirds of the jobs created have been by democrats. i don't know where these republicans get off about talking about sorry numbers. >> i beat the spread and it isn't much of an argument. >> unfortunately, we are out of time and this discussion will continue. gray guys have a great weekend. we have undercover video that shows trainers putting things like diesel fuel on the animals.

>> peter hart calls this the businessman halo effect.ny pollster, and you have a biography -- an initial biography of a candidate running for office and you say businessman, immediately that is a net positive for most voters. and that's what you see in these numbers. now, it's a generic business background. well, now look at the bain capital fave unfavoriting already sitting at a-10. there's a bunch of people that don't know enough to have an opinion. but of the people that do it starts at the -10. why is obama trying so hard to discount his business background? because voters believe the best in the businessman when it comes to certain things on economic issues, which is why they are trying to redefine his background on their terms. and that's why i think the next 60 days, defining romney's background at bain and business and who wins this mini skirmish, if you will, preconvention and before the fall, will tell us whether romney will have the personal connection, be able to sell his background as enough to go into the oval office. >> yo

in general you should look at a lot of polls and i think peter hart said it's going to be a 50/50 raceagree with him. if you look at all these polls together, it's tight. >> your gut, andy? >> i would agree. if you take the aggregate of the polls, really this is a dead heat race, and they're competing over a few percentage points and that will make a difference in november. the president has had a couple of months where the economic data has not been all that encouraging. the employment rate might have dropped a little bit, but that's mostly from folks leaving the workforce, not jobs created. just like we heard, this is a neck and neck race and the poll also show that with a little fluctuation all the way through the fall. >> just back to your point john, on the middle class, a new poll from lake research asked voters who would stand up for the middle class, obama or romney? and obama gets 58% to romney's 35%. should numbers that bad cause the romney team to seriously reconsider the overall strategy of painting obama as a failure on the economy? >> well, i think that they need to stick