bush won southwestern ohio by about 100,000 votes.f you look at all the political data, it looks like that's probably going to be the decider in this race as well. southwestern ohio, richard, is very conservative, it's very rural. they swing back and forth. there's a lot of reagan democrats there. the question -- and barack obama won that in 2008. the question is whether mitt romney can take that back from him in 2012. if, in fact, he can, and hold on to florida and maybe swing back virginia, he wins 270. >> robert, lacking all the way back to 1960. you've got some time on your hands, my friend. richard, the "tampa bay times" endorsed president obama. unemployment in florida was 8.7% in september, above the national average. so when you look at this richard, this would be a concern in states like this where the polls have clearly tightened? >> sure, look, we saw nationally that unemployment was down in 41 states. this was a report that came out just yesterday. yes, florida is slightly above the national average. i think the political

that's the may be reason we won southwestern ohio. george w.h would not be president if in fact we did not win southwestern ohio by 100,000 votes. it was the social issues but it was also that peer to peer picking up the phone, your friend telling your friend or your neighbor telling your neighbor to vote for the president for re-election. >> robert traynham, steve elmendorf, thanks, guys. >> thank you. >>> also making news this morning, tropical storm watch in effect for parts of florida's east coast as well as the upper keys. tropical storm sandy is heading toward jamaica now expected to drench the island with as much as ten inches of rain. forecasters say it isn't expected to directly hit florida but they could see high binds and rip currents through saturday. >>> investigators at the massachusetts pharmacy linked to the meningitis outbreak say they found visible fungus, standing water and other unsanitary conditions at the facility. the state plans to vee roek the license of the center and ordered surprise inspections on other pharmacies. i

northeastern ohio, central ohio, southwestern ohio. one interesting thing to note. en we were in franklin, ohio, columbus, about a month ago all the ads on tv were about president obama. here in cincinnati now, all the ads on tv we have seen support governor romney. those ads are taken from the debates. debate number one and debate number three, making the case for governor romney here in southwestern ohio. jenna. jenna: very interesting observation. great to have you there. great to have you on the program as well. >> okay. jenna: thank you so much. jon? jon: we are just hours away jenna, from the landfall of hurricane sandy. take a look at this thing from space. the good folks at nasa have provided as you shot of what sandy looks like from outer space and it is swallowing the east coast. it is a historic storm expected to be and not for good reasons, expected to make landfall in central to southern new jersey in the next few hours. we are going to continue to monitor this storm. 50 million people potentially affected and then there is the after effects, the winter

goit a good taste of southwestern ohio. last time, obama carried ohio. it is rob portman's base.they're very, very proud of them. republicans told me they believe they're going to carry hamilton county maybe by 23,000 votes. that would be a swing of 50,000 votes by itself that would guarantee carrying ohio. people in lebanon and warren county very republican. tremendously enthusiastic. they're going to vote bigger than they voted last time for mccain. in delaware county it was a very rural area we were in. i couldn't find any obama voters. obama is going to be competitive. he's going to have cleveland and areas around dayton. i think ohio probably going to end up electing josh landel to the senate. all energy development, natural gas, oil coming out in canton, youngstown, then along river valley. the war on coal which you'll remember is a hunl story all of the things coming together. i think ohio will now go for rom nee. he has momentum. i tell you that when you start talking auto thing, you realize obama administration gave chrysler to fiat for zero dollars? i mean, you can't im

goit a good taste of southwestern ohio. last time, obama carried ohio. it is rob portman's base.they're very, very proud of them. republicans told me they believe they're going to carry hamilton county maybe by 23,000 votes. that would be a swing of 50,000 votes by itself that would guarantee carrying ohio. people in lebanon and warren county very republican. tremendously enthusiastic. they're going to vote bigger than they voted last time for mccain. in delaware county it was a very rural area we were in. i couldn't find any obama voters. obama is going to be competitive. he's going to have cleveland and areas around dayton. i think ohio probably going to end up electing josh landel to the senate. all energy development, natural gas, oil coming out in canton, youngstown, then along river valley. the war on coal which you'll remember is a hunl story all of the things coming together. i think ohio will now go for rom nee. he has momentum. i tell you that when you start talking auto thing, you realize obama administration gave chrysler to fiat for zero dollars? i mean, you can't im

i was in a victory center in southwestern ohio yesterday, another key part of the state. folks were showing up who had never been involved in politics, the phones were all staffed. there is something going on that is different. we have a lot more energy and enthusiasm than we had in 2008 and that will make a big difference. >> how does g.m. play into this? one of the last polls a saw, everyone thought it reflected the fact that governor romney opposed the bailout of g.m. and so president obama was a hero to the g.m. workers, in ohio? >> well, it's an interesting situation because people are finding out a lot more about t. president obama took general motors and chrysler through a managed bankruptcy, which is what mitt romney suggested be done, but to do it sooner to avoid the taxpayer funds, taxpayers were out $20 billion or more. what mitt romney intended what was what happened except without the problems we have had with the way the obama administration did it, costing the tarks payer more, picking and choosing. tonight i was with a bunch of workers, delphi workers, lef

bush won ohio in southwestern ohio and we didn't know that until the day after election day. >> wouldt romney have written government checks to detroit. >> well, i think -- >> yes or no. yes or no. >> no. >> the president picked up this key endorsement from colin powel and we are just learning that the president has called colin powell to thank him for that. do you think this will help the president in states like virginia? >> i think it doesn't hurt. i don't think endorsements really matter. when you have colin powell who does enjoy such bipartisan support and has such stature as a level-headed, moderate republican, tossing his support behind barack obama and he did the same thing in 2008. i do think it's a big deal and a talking point for democrats to use on the stump in states like virginia where those issues like the navy military issues will certainly matter also in the states like florida. >> colin powell coming out for the president like he did in '08 and coming out again this morning for his support. >> my thanks to all three of you. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >>> i want t

bill: if you look at the radar, martha, on the far western edge, southwestern ohio, literally, that is how far and how large this storm stretches here. a chilly cold morning in ohio. hurricane sandy having a big impact on the campaign trail. bear in mind only eight days away. tomorrow is election day. president obama canceled an appearance in orlando the could so he could return to the white house to monitor. president clinton will speak in his place in orange county, florida. vice president biden will be back here in the state of ohio. on the republican side, governor romney has been all throughout the state. but he will hit three battleground states in total today. first ohio, iowa and later wisconsin. paul ryan, the vice-presidentialal nominee is crisscrossing florida with three events across the state after he spent two days, friday and saturday throughout the state of ohio. but the campaign taking a back seat to sandy. maria molina live in the fox news extreme weather center with the latest on the track for sandy. maria, what do you see this hour. >> bill, good to see you. unfortu

the question becomes whether or not rural areas of the state, southwestern ohio, which george w. out in droves. if in fact it does it could go towards the romney camp as senator poertman said a few moments ago. >> the electoral moth is almost impossible for romney if he loses ohio. >> i don't know if you want to put eve single egg in the ohio basket. but i think the campaign expected the polls to tighten like this i think one of the dangers that the democrats faced was complacency. polls were showing for a while that republicans were more energized. and the upside of the race tight tightening, i think it will energize more voters who need to turn out to vote. when you're heading to polls, it doesn't do you a bit of good unless the people vote. i think the president is focused on the fundamentals of getting out the voters who said they wanted to support the president and make sure they put their money where their mouth is and do it. >> we'll blister through the must-reads next. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if we took the nissan altima and reimagined nearly everything in

ohio. southwestern part of the state, hamilton county. gauge to figure out what the state is it thinking what they're feeling. we've been there three times the past few months. we started our tour in the northeast near stark county where romney and ryan will be later tonight. he went to the center part of the state, columbus and franklin county. now we two to the southwest. we get a true measure trying to pick up little anecdotal data points to tell us what the state is sympathying. martha: i will be in new york trying to break it down county by county. new jersey we're not sure about that one either. i will stay here and break down those counties for you and you do that in ohio. bill: we

in ohio the auto bailout, in southwestern virginia concerns that obama and the epa may be stifling thel industry. so there are a lot of specific issues in each of those states. we'll get as good of sense as you can get sunday nine days before the election of where things stand in the states that will decide the election. >> let me ask as we get down to the wire here, it seems like ever since that first debate we started to see the momentum swing a little bit in mitt romney's favor. the next two debates people would say the president won. other people say mitt romney was still very strong. do you think the romney campaign is still swinging on that momentum because we're seeing the polls start to get closer together? >> yeah. i think that has turned the race around, not saying romney will win, but at that moment in early october obama had the possibility, he was really beginning to open up margins of six, eight, nine points in some of these key swing states, had he done as well as romney if the first debate and romney did as poorly as the president did, i think this race would be over an

have the potential for heavy snows in the mountains of west virginia, up into southwestern pennsylvania, perhaps even ohiot of the storm could be tuesday. it could linger, drenching some spots for days. some areas may get up to 6 inches of rain. 80 mile per hour wind gusts. 20 to 30 foot seas. and extreme coastal flooding. to make matters worse, it will happen during a full moon when tides are higher. >> it will affect practically the entire east coast, from the carolinas, up into new england. the types of weather associated with it will all make for a major weather event. >> reporter: chuck severtson, abc news, new york. >>> unbelievable. computer models are still showing several different possibilities for the storm's path. >> accuweather's jim dickey is joining us this morning with the latest. hey, jim. >> good morning, rob, paula. here is hurricane sandy. center of circulation you see the bright colors showing up around the center. still a strong storm. still a hurricane. winds, 90 miles an hour. tracking its way north, northwest out of the bahamas here. not expected to make direct landfall on florida

will be further eastward across northern portions of mississippi, kentucky and also southwestern parts of iowa -- of ohio. several days of ongoing possible severe weather. it is typical to be seeing this type of activity but the primary concern with severe weather is during the months of spring. we have cold air dipping from canada and it's reacting with the warm air left over from summer so more active weather here. >> gregg: and storm chasers have their gasoline tanks filled up. >> we hope everybody that lives there is ready. >> gregg: listen to your weather alerts. maria, thanks very much. >> patti ann: desperate search for a missing mother and two daughters. we'll have the very latest on developing story next. >> plus, dozens of military vets returning from the battlefields of iraq and afghanistan are taking on a new mission. how they will now be saving lives here at home. [ bag pipes playing ] 4 >>. >> gregg: at least 17 people now dead, 40 more injured after a car bomb tore through a crowded marketplace in western pakistan. blast went outside an office for anti-taliban tribal leaders. they are sear

the issue of coal, you hear a message that is being aimed squarely into pennsylvania, into ohio, into southwestern virginia. clearly, i think the president had an enormous advantage on the immigration issue. i think it was one of his most effective parts of the debate. that will have resonance, it will matter a great deal in nevada, it will matter a great deal in colorado. romney's weakest moment was clearly on libya. he stick his chin out and got walloped on it. i think the fact that he was wrong there even in other areas where he was correct, for example the decline of drilling of public lands even though it was stated a little bit misleadingly, i think that undermined his veracity on other issues. and lastly, as chris points out, i agree with this. the last word matters in these things and the president hit him real hard right on the nose with the 47% comments. and it's interesting that romney would choose in his last at bat, not having been hit on the 47%, you know, to bring it on. knowing that the president was going to have the last word. that was a big mistake. >> i thought the moment of th

areas of west virginia, southern ohio, southwestern, parts of pennsylvania.ts might see over three feet of snow? this. that's going to be a very windy snow. likely blizzard type conditions across this area. coastal areas we are talking about all rain. too warm of an event. and we're going to be talking about possibly significant storm surges. sturgeon like we haven't seen and like we prepared for last year with hurricane irene across areas of new york city and long island. this might be that storm where that kind of a storm surge comes in devastating effect in toward the big city. guys? >> that's going to be a problem, rick, all those trees still have a little bit of leaves on them. last year snow me g.e.d. den last year? >> that's what it was all the leaves on the tree. much stronger. >> i have a fancy black tie event. he he just laughed at me. >> thank you, rick for that. >> all right. meanwhile, let's get to your headlines. we have so much to tell you about this hour. the company linked to deadly meningitis outbreak apparently knew it had mold problems but

ohio, the third time in three months. we're taking hamilton county on, that is cincinnati, southwestern corner of the state. ar from voters and ohio newsmakers only days before the big vote. that is monday morning 9:00 a.m. eastern time. when you have here is eight days away, we'll be here live. governor john kasich will be with us. senator robb portman will be with us as well. they will be able to tell us whether or not romney can flip the state. whether or not he can take it from the president or whether or not they're still behind at that point because those guys know the state better than everyone. martha: in ohio, oh, there is another campaign ad. they're saying oh, there is bill hemmer again. i can't get away from that guy. he is in every corner of ohio. bill: we thought we lost him years ago but he's back. concerns about voter fraud in a vital battleground state as well. hundreds of suspected registered voters not citizens of the country. we'll investigate. martha: that is a problem. it is the interview president obama does not for some reason want you to hear. a very influential newspaper in a swing

that's snow, southern ohio, down to southwestern virginia. for us now, locally, our eastern suburbs, counties along the bay, getting pounded with very heavy rain. not a lot of wind yet. winds only 20 miles per hour. also the heavy rain around the tidal potomac. it is tracking to the west. this area of the heaviest rain moving through. this is the circulation of sandy passing north of us. actually may draw in some cold air out of the mountains. maybe even give us a few wet snowflakes here tomorrow morning. don't be surprised if you see that. the big story is we'll have the winds diminishing quickly tomorrow as far as the long distance future is concerned. we'll have continued snow in the mountains but drying conditions. the sandy potential wind by 8:00 p.m. will gust to nearly 70 miles an hour throughout our region. the wind gusts through the rest of the evening, to tomorrow morning, will gust over 60 miles an hour. that's when we'll have the wind damage, the power outages. back to you. >> all right, tom, thank you. across the area, first resp

ohio. bill: when we look at that storm you were in the southwestern quadrant of it.t can have perhaps the more favorable conditions, let's say. but what were things like overnight there in washington d.c. in the area around virginia and maryland? what did you feel? >> well, we had a lot of wind gusts. there were some that reached up into the 70s, 75-mile an hour peak range during the time the storm was coming down. the rain was very heavy. you know if you were lucky enough to be inside you'd look outside and see trees bending to the ground wondering how they would actually survive. many of them haven't. of course with them they take power lines. that com complicates things as well. 430,000 people without power in this area, bill. bill: shannon bream live in virginia for us there. martha become to you in new york. martha: just to give you a sense of how much devastation there is and how long it's going to take to get people on track we are getting word that the path train which is the main way to get to work for most of the folks from the new jersey side across the hu

ohio. look at this snow. this is up in the highlands in west virginia where some locations have had neardavis, west virginia, 16 inches of snow. this is wise county, virginia. this is in southwestern virginia. this is from this morning, predawn. it's still snowing there. they have a couple inches on the ground there. incredible, going from a hurricane to snow the next day. this storm system is affecting the weather here throughout much of the region all the way into tonight and tomorrow. we'll have the lingering effects. thankfully, sandy is winding down. it's snowing hard out of the mountains. areas of snow south and east of washington. you can see the areas in pink, gray and white. frederick county along the river, persistent snow there. much of it is melting the ground temperatures are so warm. the green and yellow, that's rain. light to moderate rain comes down. with all the run off from yesterday, four to eight inches of rain, many streams and creeks are flooding. tidal flooding at times of high tide. high water coming up two to four feet above average high tide for the next couple days. i'll be back with the forecast. improving news for the weekend in just a few minutes. kei

southwestern pennsylvania. may have also been appealing to voters in ohio obviously a state that's very important. >> very closeat they can go to those places that they wouldn't normally start out at. >> that's right. three states this week shifted in our ratings from tossups to leans romney. those were florida, missouri, and north carolina. the romney campaign is diverting some resources to other places like pennsylvania now. >> very interesting. scott ra rasmussen, always greao see you. we'll await some new polls. hopefully next weekend we'll see how monday's foreign policy debate plays out. great to see you, scott. >> can't wait to see the polls after that. >>> still ahead, the obama administration still calling the fort hood massacre, quote, workplace violence instead of a terror attack. up next we'll hear from a police officer who took bullets that very day to save lives on the fight for justice. >>> plus, she became the youngest woman to head a fortune 500 company this summer, and she also made headlines for saying that she would be back to work within three weeks of giving birth to her baby. amazingly, s

southwestern part of the state that increasingly have voted republican in the elections. host:. . is 20 electoral votes. obama won by 10 percentage points. unemployment is mirroring what we have nationwide, 8.2%. neighboring ohio is getting an awful lot of attention with their 18 electoral votes. what is so different between ohio and pennsylvania that makes ohio more of a battleground than pennsylvania at the moment? guest: the essential differences ohio has a good many more moderate independent voters at this point which are likely to either vote republican or democrat. as i pointed out a moment ago, the recent democrats have done well is because they have captured the suburbs in our state in the recent presidential elections which has been the defining difference. in the middle of ohio and columbus, that is a battleground. there, obviously with cleveland, but in the northeastern part of the state being democratic and cincinnati and out west be more republican. ohio just has a larger pool of these swing voters, if you will, and are more evenly balanced between the democratic and republican regions of the state. pennsylvania has a huge portion of moderate independent-minded voters and they can swing the state

southwestern part of the state on monday. that will give us an opportunity over the past three months now to be in three different parts of ohio. near canton and akron, center part of the state, franklin and delaware county and southwest now. martha: rob portman made an interesting point. it was a great interview. he said in the end it comes down to him. comes down to what romney wants to say on that moment in that stage. you think about all the prep and all the commercials that goes into these things. it was that way in denver as well. he rose on his own strength in denver and reaction and demean norse. comes down to the two men in the end. bill: ultimately it is his call. martha: all right. there was a tense exchange between president obama and governor mitt romney over the war in iraq. >> we're going to have to recognize that we have to do as the president's done. i congratulate him taking out osama bin laden, and going after the leadership in al qaeda but what he can't kill our way out of this mess. martha: what did you think about governor romney's point there? we'll talk to former bush secretary of defense donald rumsfel

southwestern part of the state that increasingly have voted republican in the elections. host:. . is 20 electoral votes. obama won by 10 percentage points. unemployment is mirroring what we have nationwide, 8.2%. neighboring ohios getting an awful lot of attention with their 18 electoral votes. what is so different between ohio and pennsylvania that makes ohio more of a battleground than pennsylvania at the moment? guest: the essential differences ohio has a good many more moderate independent voters at this point which are likely to either vote republican or democrat. as i pointed out a moment ago, the recent democrats have done well is because they have captured the suburbs in our state in the recent presidential elections which has been the defining difference. in the middle of ohio and columbus, that is a battleground. there, obviously with cleveland, but in the northeastern part of the state being democratic and cincinnati and out west be more republican. ohio just has a larger pool of these swing voters, if you will, and are more evenly balanced between the democratic and republican regions of the state. pennsylvania has a huge portion of moderate independent-minded voters and they can swing the state ei