but clearly, you go to southeastern ohio, chuck, you really notice that there is a change. you see a ton of the oil and nat gas delivery trucks driving around. a lot of construction trucks. especially in those rural towns, this is having a huge impact and one last thing, chuck. that's also coal country. you drive around down there -- i know you've been down in that part of the state -- there's no shortage of signs that say stop the war on coal, fire obama. they're all over the place down there because that's the dynamic here as fracking grows, coal has fallen off in terms of the amount of use by utilities. >> there is going to be a concern that if coal goes away. phil lebeau, been a while. good to see you. >>> cnbc and msnbc news will have special coverage all day long -- america's quest for energy independence in all of these new places. by the way, look how it merges with the presidential battleground map. >>> unemployment benefit numbers that went down sharply last week jumped back up this week hitting their highest levels in four months. i'm sure somebody messed with nu

ohio. more specifically, the voters in the southeastern portion of the state that is coal country.e who work in that industry are understand bli worried about their future and their livelihood. coal has had a bit of a rough stretch over the last few years as it makes up a shrinking portion of our domestic energy consumption. the inconvenient truth is that there is a war on coal but it's not being waged by the obama administration. the relent lgs assault on coal is coming from the natural gas industry. it can now produce energy that's relatively cleaner and cheaper than coal. the folks whose livelyhoods depend on the antique planet endangering technology of coal and the 1 percenters who own the mines are spooked. we have this asymmetry of passion. on one side of the ledger a concentrated interest of voters who care in a near life and death way of the exploitation of dirty energy and on the other side a weak nonchalant preference for us to do something about the whole climate change thing. barack obama isn't going to rectify this imbalance. the only way to get a sustained climate deb

also cultural issues because there are a lot of democrats in southeastern ohio but not many liberal democratsou also say that because of regionality of ohio, 96 field offices, three times the number that romney has, does that mean he can be more segmented in his messaging? >> it does. in some ways that's a little misleading because the romney people are using republican hea headquarters. they have these little offices in a box. they set up instant phone banks, what have you. they're very mobile. they can get around the state. it's two competing things. i guess we'll see on november 7th which is better. >> right. you know ohio senator, rob portman. he's been governor, romney's sparring partner in the practices for the debates. he said this about team romney's new focus on the house. take a listen. >> you can probably win the presidency without ohio but i wouldn't want to take the risk. no republican has. >> so governor romney has been there 23 days in ohio so far this year. president obama, 15 times in that same amount of time. what do you think about what he said there? is there a path to vic

>> it could decide the state especially southeastern ohio where coal mining is important.west virgina, in a primary voted 40%, voted for a convict, compared to president obama. because of the war on coal i believe. and you also have virginia and pennsylvan, still involved with coal. so this could be a big issue but there is no doubt epa's war on coal is forcing these utilities to close. every time a utility closes, utility workers aae getting thrown out. there is nowhere to ship the coal because they're not buying it. melissa: okay. i don't know. i hear you. have people on here say natural gas. we have to have both sides. thanks for coming on. appreciate it. >> thanks. melissa: time for today's energy report where we break down the biggest headlines impacting the industry and their impact on the economy. natural gas prices we were talking about, extending recent gains. coal snap in the midwest is you will tooing rally. natural gas prices are at the highest level since early december last year. 3.52 though. >>>. epa giving green light to natural gas-fired power plant. blich

advising the president i would be giving him the advice he's getting if this election comes down to southeastern ohio we have someone from the mining union from that part of the country on our show tomorrow, you know, that's what they're thinking about and i'm not sure the political advice is the wrong advice. >> chris hayes and his scintillating and talented panel, wow. just reaching -- >> you don't know who they are. >> they're going to be great. >> we know who one is. >> we have an intense scintillation screen. >> tomorrow, tune in for more. thank you jonathan, andrew, chris and ben. chris see tomorrow and sunday right here on "up" at 8:00 eastern. and andrew can next be seen on his daily cnbc show "squawk box". >> thank you for that. >> you're welcome. that's all for now, see you back here monday at noon when i'm joined by richard wolffe, john heilemann and mr. sunday morning himself hugo lin gren. find us at facebook.com/now with alex. andrea mitchell reports is next. happy friday, andrea. >> same to you. thanks so much. coming up, campaigning and comedy, we'll check in with the campaigns before

how do you think the storm is going to affect that especially in ohio where in southeastern, ohio, they're suffering the effects of snowfall right now. >> absolutely, they are. >> i go back to what i said earlier and without trying to politicize this thing, i believe that this event reminds us once again that there is a proper role for government and that we need government as a partner with our state and our local communities and the federal government is essential to that, and, you know, i remind people appropriately so that during the primary season mitt romney was talking about the advantages of privatizing fema or turning these responsibilities over to the state. weira you will in this together and i think this storm is going to remind people that there are some things government must do and can do and should do and we need to support it, and our firefighters, our nurses, our police officers are putting themselves in harm's way during these terrible times also reminds us of the value of our public employees and how we should honor them and the heroes that they are. >> the first respon

closest drops to us are across parts of southern and southeastern ohio.se are aiming mostly into western pennsylvania. we don't need to worry about rain here. if you're traveling up into the mountains of west virginia later on this afternoon you may have a couple little rain drops to worry about. on the whole not much to be worried about on your saturday. partly cloudy to mostly cloudy today. cooler than yesterday. feeling a little bit more like october. yesterday we mean. 76 degrees in washington. and again the rain drops stay well to our north and west. clearing skies through the overnight hours tonight and that will set the stage for a beautiful day coming up tomorrow. bright and sunny tomorrow. dry as well. and an increasingly warm and dry weather pattern as we get into the week ahead. so perfect weekend to get on outside. probably going to be the best of the weekend across the high spots of western maryland into central p.a. this weekend. next weekend likely to be the peak weekend right through the heart of the shenandoah valley and the weekend after

on that day, as much as he's this lord over southeastern ohio, you know, it's kind of a throwback kindg. he's presiding over the state. everyone owes work or livelihood to them. on that day, he's one vote. really must kill these guys. >> i want to thank you for joining us. that was a great conversation. thank you. >>> making sense of the polls. please god with nate silva when we come back. i'm done. are you thinking what i'm thinking? ♪ give me just a little more time ♪ okay. all right. oh! [ female announcer ] the 2-in-1 swiffer sweeper uses electrostatic dry cloths to clean better than a broom. and its wet mopping cloths can clean better than a mop in half the time so you don't miss a thing. mom, have you seen my -- hey! hey! he did it. [ female announcer ] swiffer. better clean in half the time. or your money back. begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. bp has paid overthe people of bp twenty-threeitment to the gulf. billion dollars to help those affected

in the southwest and the working class culturally conservative appalachian communities along ohio's southeasternvirginia. so if this an election about the economy, it's worth noting that ohio's jobless rate has dropped from 10.6% in early 2010 to 7.2% last august. there is debate over who gets the credit for that. president obama points to the auto bailout for helping save and create 72,000 jobs in the state. ohio's republican governor john kasik says his policies, including bringing more businesses and manufacturing to the state, have made the difference. the obama and romney campaigns have all but suffocated ohio airwaves with more than $75 million in ads. since june the candidates, their running mates and wives have campaigned in the state 65 times. that's an average of about four visits per week. before mitt romney's well reviewed debate performance, an nbc-wall street journal poll found obama leading romney 51% to 43% among likely ohio voters. can a debate change ohio's democratic drift? the state's attorney general mike dewine and former governor ted strickland are next. 50 let's talk abou

. >> there is a what a wide area reaching from parts of kentucky, ohio into southeastern canada.f the storm producing bands of heavy flooding rain and snow in areas. so it rages on. tomorrow nationwide, stormy weather in the northeast continues but calmer, milder weather virtually everywhere else. that is including the state of california. mild conditions but raintm 0ájre yeeka. we'll have rainfall here by afternoon tomorrow into the north bay. most of the remainder will be dry for daytime hours. which is good news for giants parade. looks like partly sunny skies, temperatures upper 50s to low 6s, into evening hours, rain pushing throughout the city into points south. and east of san francisco. if you want to revel, do it in the daytime. >> thank you, spencer. >> bright and early. >> there you go. >> a woman knows what is cool online before it's cool is the newest member of our team here at 4:00. >> calling her one of the most influential women in technology last year. >> huffington post says she's one of the women to follow on twitter. >> a look at today's hottest videos on you

ohio? >> oh, absolutely. and the race is deadlocked there. the voters in the southeastern part of the state are completely hardened against obama because of the war on coal. we'll be waiting up for that one. but there are other paths here, including wisconsin, and including iowa and colorado there. are a lot of different paths for romney. people aren't giving him credit. you should go to one of those website and play around with the math because romney has a lot of different paths right now. >> let me just introduce a fact to you. wisconsin, michigan, iowa. three states where president obama has never trailed at any time in the real clear politics ing average. and as for ohio this is another state where obama has never trailed and the real clear politics average -- >> the democrats' lead has shrunk. >> one at a time, one at a time. >> seven polls came out in the last 48 hours. >> but you're under 50. >> obama is leading in every single poll. >> i'll say it at this time. as listening as obama is under 50, then romney has a very good chance in these races. keith boykin, i wi

just bring in the other, we were talking about ohio let a let's talk about virginia and the number one recipient of money for defense spending the southeastern portion of the state a lot of ship building, 45 percent of the hampton roads area of the economy comes from defense spending, so romney may have lost it on the policy there but he may have the politics right in terms of his defense spending, i would circle back o the issue of women. the number of time they both talked about rights for women in the middle east they kept come back to that and there was clearly an effort to go for women when they went into that, into that cull again sack on domestic, cul-de-sac on domestic policy they went back to. when romney talked about bipartisan solution and in massachusetts on education that was sort of a three for on the pandering to women front, so there was a lot of mess sick in domestic .. a lot of domestic politics embedded into what was supposed to be a foreign policy debate. >> rose: mark and john, how are the romney people spinning this after the debate? >> well, they executed their plan, some of our colleagues disagree with the plan, they

just bring in the other, we were talking about ohio let's talk about virginia and the number one recipient of federal money for defense spending, the southeastern portion of the state a lot of ship building going on there, 45 percent of the hampton roads area of the economy comes from defense spending, so romney may have lost it on the policy there, but he may have the politics right in terms of his defense pending. i would also adjust circle back to an issue of women, the number of times that they both talked about rights for women in the middle east they kept coming back to that and then there was clearly an effort to go for women when they went into that -- that cul-de-sac on domestic policy where they spent quite a bit of time, the number of times that mitt romney talked about bipartisan solutions and then bipartisan solution in massachusetts on education, that was sort of a three-for on the pandering to women front so there was a lot of domestic. (laughter.) >> there was a lot of domestic politics embedded into what was supposed to be a foreign policy debeant. (laughter.) >> mark and john, how were the romney people spinning this after the

the southeastern swing states of florida an north carolina and virginia are beginning to move romney and now have what seems to be their last -- this obama camp, the final firewall in the midwest, ohioconsin. >> absolutely. it is ironic, because not long ago i felt like we were talking about how romney was really having all the problems in ohio and should even pull out and find another path to victory. and, now you are actually hearing talk about whether obama should pull out of florida. and, "the new york times," there was something about that, this weekend, and, i think, you know, in that sense, the midwest is really where this is going to be won, and, although romney does have paths to victory without ohio he still very much would like to win ohio because it threads the needle awfully close if he doesn't and so far it has been obama's firewall. he has had a lead in that state throughout the entire campaign cycle and still is ahead, not by as much, certainly, romney narrowed the gap but pretty much every poll shows obama ahead in ohio and that makes romney's list that much harder. >> chris: bill, starting with the debate tomorrow night what do romney and obama need to do in these

ohio that heavy rain already coming down across the d.c. baltimore area. most of maryland dealing with that heavy rain right now. and some of it does stretch into portions of southeasternennsylvania. seeing the rain pick up across parts of long island. wind gusts already over 50 miles-per-hour across jfk. that center of the storm coming up tonight across central and southern new jersey. charles: marina thank you very much. -- maria thank you very much. >>> now to the election, the recent poll shows that governor romney's momentum might be slowing down. the latest washington post abc tracking poll of likely voters has romney leading president obama 49 to 48. joining us now is governor romney's policy director. governor romney's momentum obviously slowing down, maybe even starting to reverse. are you guys getting a little worried about that? >> well, good morning, charles. first of all, let me just say that our thoughts and prayers, governor romney, congressman ryan, our entire team are with those who may be affected by this storm. these polls are going to go up and down. we will see a lot of variation between now and election day. our campaign, we feel really good about

southeastern virginia, the rates are half an inch or greater. flooding is a concern and that is a bullseye of seeing accumulation . 10 inches locally will be possible. and it could be inland in parts was ohio portions of michigan will deal with the from sandy. it is spanning 800 miles from one end to the other. it is in portions of long island and over 30 miles per hour wind is picking up and newark airport and j.f.k. and lagaria . dark shading in blue is wind gusts over 50 miles per hour. it is inching toward the coast and portions of baltimore seeing the wind pick up as limp landfall forecast as we head in tonight and transition from a hurricane to a nor'easter type storm . big concern we talked about the storm surge in the new york area . because the center will make landfall to the south. we being see a storm surge in long island sound and new york harbor high as 11 feet. that is significant and why flooding is forecasting in east other than portions of manhattan we'll keep an eye on this and all of the other impacts from sandy. >> steve: maria thank you for the report . >> gretchen: it is time to go out to our reporters, peter doocy in delaware>> the roads have been closed for an hour