we're in the first week of the general election campaign. but romney wants to talk solely about the president. i mean, it's nothing else but the president and the economy. what about romney? what about selling something about himself? >> right. for mitt romney, he wants us to be solely a referendum on barack obama's performance on the economy. he wants to crowd out everything else. foreign policy. >> don't ask don't tell. don't talk about anything but just the economy. that's really what he staked his entire campaign on. the problem with that and the challenge for him is that it depends on the economy being bad. his message is sort of a negative message. things are awful. you have to get rid of this guy because it's horrible. it's bad. if people don't feel that way in november then he hasn't left himself any positive message for people to say i'll still switch to that guy. >> that's why he approaches it in this way. we've seen the great likability gap between romney and the president. president obama leads romney by a solid 27 points in the u

so that's a look at where we are right now in the general election. neshes week, the candidates will be back out on the campaign trail. we understand they plan to do fundraising. my mitt is going to be in las vegas, with none other than donald trump and newt gingrich will be at the event and june , the president will also hold a high profile fundraiser, that one is going to be with former president, bill clinton. >>> i'm roosevelt leftwich, coming up, new at 6:00, new information tonight about the death of a father and his two sons in a manure pit in kent county. still thinking of replacing the truck? i just don't know where to start. glad you made it. start by choosing from over 30,000 used cars and trucks. carmax. start here. >>> consumer aler, a picture worth a thousand words or insta gram, $1 billion, the price facebook paid for insta gram and photo sharing tool. as karen reports, another sign that video apps are gaining more traction. >> reporter: after explosion by visually oriented tools like insta gram and pinterest , the trend in pictures is m

democrats are saying this is what three will focus on through the general election. >> we'll see you tomorrow. in the studio now -- >> i'm right here. coming up at 6:00, they're supposed to give more accurate readings on how much electricity we use. a look at why some customers love them but others are against the smart meters. >>> how one local woman is turning her hearing loss into a dream come true. if you have copd like i do, you know how hard it can be to breathe and what that feels like. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms by keeping my airways open a full 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that does both. and it's steroid-free. spiriva does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate. these may worsen with spiriva. discuss all medicines you take, even eye drops. stop taking spiriva and seek immediate medical help if your breathing suddenly worsens,

virginia is especially going to big issue in the general election. one of a of battleground states determiningnd up the outcome of the election. democrats and republicans will be focusing in the commonwealth. romney will be here this morning at 10:00. tonight he has another fund- arlington ass in well. talk about the republicans being in virginia. gingrich is expected to be in arlington at 3:00 event to ,ormally suspend his campaign making romney the presumptive republican nominee. from newt gingrich site talkings web about suspending his campaign, had about 180,000 people donating to that campaign, but was time to step aside. this will all play a big part next 24 hours in shaping what the general election will look like. there's a lot to come that we will follow throughout the day. brianne carter reporting from chantilly. >> the president headed back to b.c. after a surprise visit to afghanistan on the anniversary laden's that. >> he met with u.s. troops today agreement with afghan president karzai if. u.s. troopsal, some stay in afghanistan to terr

the big cash all isn't helping walker which is a promising sign for we the people heading into a multi billion dollar general election this year so what will we learn from wisconsin over the next few months you could give us some insight into how the general election on the nation might play out with working people going up against big money for more on this ben manske joins me from wisconsin he's an attorney democracy advocate and campaign manager for green party presidential candidate dr jill stein welcome back great to be your time thank you we've seen different polls different results so this latest poll out of marquette shows that that scott walker is losing ground. each of the last four months where is the recall effort stand in your in your pain. why the reality is that the recall effort has never stood at all back and have been running nonstop the fact that you had almost two million signatures in this recall in a state of just over five million people the fact that you have just this incredible level mobilization of leading to a recall of republican state senators and challengers emerging around the state sa

it was a controversy between him and hillary clinton, and in the general election. but what he is doing is he's trying to build an infrastructure in afghanistan to leave whoever the next president is, republican or democrat, so we can have our drones based there, so we can have a c.i.a. presence and not just abandon the country the way we did in the 80s. >> i'll turn to mr.-- okay. the political angle. >> it was also a political motive perhaps for mr. obama's trip to engage in some chest thumping over bin laden's demise. the week began with an ad questioning mitt romney's commitment to hunting down the al-qaeda founder. in contrast to mr. obama's accomplishment, with bin laden. the democratic ad featured this mitt romney quote from 2007. "it's not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just catch one person." question, on wednesday, president obama told nbc that the day bin laden died was the "most important single day of his first term in office." how much does president obama stand to gain which biresurrecting osama this week? >> i agree wit

and what does it mean for the general election in the fall? >> i don't think the tea party ever left. gwen: i was going to say. >> i do think there is -- the most hostile group probably of voters right now are republican primary voters. it's not just about dick lugar. anybody that has seniority in washington, that has an r after their name, if they are not mindful of that base, they're going to have trouble facing re-election. gwen: tea party activists in indiana this week described it to me as a purity purge. that tells you what you need to know. >> a purity purge is what then happens to the senate? either take it -- mourdock comes and if he wins or what does it mean to no longer have dick lugar in the senate? >> it's probably a little bit broader than dick lugar. we've seen it in the last couple of election cycles. there's an element of senators that were considered centrists and moderate who is have opted to leave or retired. olympia snowe of maine is one good example who decided that it was better to exit than to try -- run the race they'r

the first big ad of the general election campaign. t's watch. >> what would a romney presidency be like? day one, president romney immediately approves the keystone pipeline creating thousands of jobs that obama blocked. president romney introduces tax cuts and reforms that will reward job creators not punish them. he begins the order to begin replace obama care with health care reform, that's what a romney presidency will be like. >> i'm mitt romney and approve this mission. >> and james? >> a don't answer the strategy, let's not answer the bain capital, let's not go in that debate. go against obama on the economy, smart strategy? >> i think it's a good message for him. at some point he's going to need to defend his business career and i think he's got something there worth defending and for the community of organizers, the goal is not to destroy the company. you want to create that asset value just like if you're in private sector. >> obama is going to be running against jp morgan, the banks and-- >> dan, why play that game. why not

he would never win the general election. you don't think the

we will see just how costly that is in the general election. i mean, the most obvious place is what he's done on immigration, where he went much farther to the right than i think most people believe he needed to. but i think if you step back and try to put yourself in the shoes of the romney campaign, i think they believe that rick perry was going to be a real tough opponent and in many ways a much more natural nominee for the matter than mitt romney would have been. so they took the perry campaign in a way they i don't think had taken anybody up to that point quite as seriously, they took that seriously and felt they had to knock it down. i think that they felt that the immigration piece was one where they could make him terribly vulnerable to the base and they went ahead and did it and then he went farther than that through the course of the campaign. so the romney who has emerged from the nomination battle is somebody who has tried to be comfortable with a two-party republican party and yet as you watch him and listen to him and just the gene

if the manifesto had not been published, it would have been written six weeks or so before the general election because we know the general election was in 1997. >> i would have to check exactly when was the manifesto. it was published right after this because the campaign had not been announced, but i don't think we were announcing anything new in this piece at all. >> okay. so you were to characterize what happened as perhaps slightly irritating, if not causing a degree of discomfort but amounting to no more than rhetoric because it didn't amount to a policy change, if i correctly summarized it? >> yes. also, could i say there, there may well have been positions related to "the sun" or other newspapers where he might have set out policy changes and any policy change he might have been communicating through the press. this is an area where i say we're meeting him with rhetoric, and it didn't, therefore, there was no sense of any tradeoff implied or unimplied. >> the media set issue -- >> yep. >> -- was covered on mr. murdoch, and it was clear that mr. prody made the call at the end of the day.

where you have a first stage of election a primary one time and that's where all the candidates run against each other and then the top two vote getters go on to the general election so it takes two elections to do that so some voters if their favorite candidate was kicked off in the primary and they'd have to have a second choice in the general election all with instant runoff voting arrange choice voting you do that on one ballot and that's how the. australian you australia does it with their house of representatives and also cities like san francisco and i minneapolis minnesota portland maine you say yeah the green party's got it over three hundred communities around the united states if i think that they do it for. there are internal elections as well ok and that's something that also would not require a constitutional amendment any state could put that into place right and it depends on your state constitution but as far as the united states house is we have to decide what we want are we going to take it that these political insiders are gerrymandered every state ok so now we've gone through redistricting ok and so we have these insiders are colludin

between there is the real mitt romney, and i think we're going to find out more as we go through the general election exactly where he wants to come down. i mean, through this whole discussion, i mean, the kind of, you know, the elephant in the room, if you will, is ow did how did this party we are talking about that is has lost every shred of moderation, supposedly. no right wing end up nominating a person like mitt romney to be its presidential candidate this jeer part you could say he was blessed with a terribly weak field. which is certainly true. you could say that he had more money than anybody else, and so the weapons they was able to bear against whoever popped up at any given moment were far greater than that person had to defend himself as they were going through it. but, also, you know, it's a -- it's a reality that what romney decided to do or felt he had to do was -- was become more like the party of today. at least in some nominal ways, to get himself the nomination, and we will see at this point whether that -- just how costly that is in the general election. i mean, the most obvious p

by the opposition to question electoral system as a political tactic to say if they lose the next general election it was not because of popularity because it was the electoral system. >> they say they're not planning any more demonstrations but if a general election is called here for june, the opposition parties may have little choice but to try and compete in that process their regard as being fundamentally flawed. >> the government in peru has said that it is safe to eat fish from the ocean despite the deaths of hundreds of pelicans in recent months. since february, 5000 pelican carcasses and 900 dolphins have been cleared from the northern beaches and the capital itself. >> four months [unintelligible] dead dolphins started appearing in the north of the country in february. while the experts tried to understand what caused the death of these mammals, thousands of pelicans were found as far south as limit. the authorities issued a health warning and recommended residents not to swim in the ocean. fish sales went down and the government was pressured to issue a statement there was no reason to

let's start with bain capital's introduction to the general election. d that mitt romney still has not seemed to learn how to respond to this issue. what do you mean? >> well, craig, you know, a lot of the attention this week with the first introduction of the bain capital ad by the obama campaign focused on whether it was fair or focused on the fact that president obama continues to raise money from wall street, but mitt romney was asked about this, and it was a little bit uncomfortable. we actually have some sound of him responding to it. and actually let's take a listen. >> there's this fiction that some have that somehow you can be highly successful by stripping assets from enterprise and walking away with lots of money and killing the enterprise. there may be some people who want to do that. i sure don't. >> so, craig, what was interesting there there are examples with what the obama campaign pointed out in their new ad as well as back in the 1994 race with ted kennedy, examples of people losing their jobs, and pensions, and salaries, and benefits,

now we can formally get on with business of the general election. your partners have a story about beillion dollars likely to in the general election by the gop. is heald trump helping or a porn in the side of romney? >> it will be interesting to see how romney will approach the situation. indicates how mitt romney might be as a president. will he be able to deal with own party who in a way thathim more forceful or will he step back and say i cannot control the people will support me? it seems that mitt romney is not going to be what to sayld trump as he disavows donald more extreme views on president of united states was born. >> thank you. >> 67 degrees on this wednesday. >> we have more coming up. a life-size chessboard popping up in the region. a and a unique way to get one-of-a-kind playhouse while helping those in need. we will talk to the organizers. first, traffic and weather every >> welcome back. traffic and weather every ten minutes. we start with adam caskey on morning.esday this is from the rooftop camera, looking over the federal city.

the president did kick off his general election campaign in ohio over the weekend. mitt romney held a rally of his own there. this is the third trip to ohio weeks for mitt romney. a new poll puts from the nearly dead even with the president in ohio and 11 other swing states. >> today is the first day that california voters can start casting their ballots by mail. grace lee explains what has changed this year that could make a big difference >> we now have an open primary since california voted in proposition 14 so that means you do not need to vote within your party. some people believe that this could really shake up the election year. >> for the june primary, you have more choices. you can vote for any candid it no matter what party or an. the top two candidates from the primary will move on to the general election. >> it will be a wild election season and i don't think anyone knows exactly what will happen >> there will no longer be the traditional republican vs. democrat >> advocates for this reform say that gives people more choice and potentially collects more

we will see whether -- how costly that is in the general election. the most obvious place is on immigration where he went much farther to the right then most people believed he needed to. if you step back and try to put yourself in the shoes of the romney campaign, they believe to rick perry was going to be a tough opponent. in many ways a much more natural nominee then mitt romney. they took that campaign in a way they had not taken anybody up to that. . they took it seriously and felt they had to knock him down. there were things they did in the first debate on social security that they felt the immigration piece was where they could make him vulnerable. then he went even farther to that through the course of the campaign. the romney who has emerged from the nomination battle is somebody who has tried to be comfortable with a tea party republican party and yet as you watch and listen to him and the general demeanor tells you that is not who he is. the struggle he is going to have is to present himself in the most comfortable way possible that also k

released its first ad of the genereal election today. he commercial, titled "day one", details what romney's first day of his potential presidency would look like. the ad promises romney would immediately approve the keystone pipeline, introduce tax cuts and reward job creators. it shows videos and photos of the candidate with u-s workers. the ad will run in the battleground states of ohio, north carolina, virginia and iowa. facebook users are "liking" this: the company's stock is now public. c-e-o mark zuckerberg rang the opening bell for the nasdaq market today... from his headquarters in menlo park, california. the company priced its i-p-o at 38-dollars a share. that price jumped by 13 percent to 43 dollars at one point but that quickly fell. there were so many last-minute orders that trading, initially set for ten o'clock this morning, was delayed nearly 30 minutes. tom skilling as coming u [ female announcer ] research suggests the health of our cells plays a key role throughout our entire lives. ♪ ♪ one a day women's 50+ is a comple

the right timing. chris: it's where they get caught with general election votes, women voters? exactly. >> vocational education has been on high inner 30, 40 years. but they turned things on their head. and the most ambitious kids are trying to get to those classes because they lead directly to jobs. chris: what are the examples of what they're teaching? >> medical aides, nurses aides, auto shops have jobs for auto dealers. these kids are more likely to pass the diagnostic test, get jobs and they're more likely -- scroist and they see the connection between school -- chris:, and they see the connection between school and money. as soon as this election is over, another will begin. will joe biden the vice president run for president next time. even if it appears hillary clinton is going to. be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] for our families... our neighbors... and our communities... america's beverage companies have created a wide range of new choices. developing smaller portion sizes and more low- & no-calorie beverages... adding clear calorie labels so you know exactly what

the right timing. chris: it's where they get caught with general election votes, women voters? ctly. >> vocational education has been on high inner 30, 40 years. but they turned things on their head. and the most ambitious kids are trying to get to those classes because they lead directly to jobs. chris: what are the examples of what they're teaching? >> medical aides, nurses aides, auto shops have jobs for auto dealers. these kids are more likely to pass the diagnostic test, get jobs and they're more likely -- scroist and they see the connection between school -- chris:, and they see the connection between school and money. as soon as this election is over, another will begin. will joe biden the vice president run for president next time. even if it appears hillary clinton is going to. be right back. >> i'm in the best shape i've been in my life. i'm doing pretty well. i'm enjoying what i'm doing. let's get the president re-elected. >> you're not closing that door? chris: welcome back. this week's huge question, will joe biden run for president? and will he run even if hillary

. >> the general election is less than six months away, and more is being focused on the president's record. what has kept, and which has the broken? nikole killian takes a look. >> we are moving forward. >> as president obama kicked off his reelection bid this month, more than 500 promises from his last campaign, rating them on the so-called obama-meter. >> he has kept 36% of them. he has broken 14% of them, and we have rated the 11% as a compromise. >> what present -- what did he keep >> he is beginning to draw down. >> other pledges, stimulus and the health-care law, but that one could be in jeopardy. >> if the supreme court strikes down the law, depending on what the court does, a promise broken. >> so what about those broken promises? >> he made one about ending the revolving door for lobbyists, and that one that we raided a promise broken because he has actually issued waivers to several people said they could work in his administration. >> another failed pledge, creating a national infrastructure deal. >> he made a deal with republicans in the house that in order to extend the

the female vote, very important to the general election in terms of that's where the swing voters are. he needs to drive up that gender gap. he is working toward the general election imperative. that's really about a primary season. that's about his base. about sure there won't be a revolt within the republican party. i think it's a problem that he is still stuck on that. put that aside. did he accomplish what he needed to accomplish? i think the answer to that is basically yes. did he put the nod in there in a speech at liberty saying, i believe marriage is between a man and a woman. that went over well with the audience. the conservative christian opinion leaders were happy with what he said. he did not have to go so far out on a limb. he did not have to put so much red meat into the speech that he made headlines just for that. we can clearly see the republicans from romney on down really do not want to be caught in sort of a 2004 style nationalized election about gay marriage. they're trying to keep this on the economy and keep this sort of culture war stuff to a minimum. i think h

gingrich says he'll still support romney during the general election because he's the best available option. >>> we are following a developing story now. a few hours ago, the chinese foreign ministry gave a blind activist permission to study abroad and leave the country. chen guangcheng says he needs to leave the country as soon as possible. he has asked the u.s. for help in leaving china. last week he escaped house arrest and sought refuge at the american embassy. chen says his family must be able to come with him. otherwise, they'll be targeted for attacks from the government. >>> for the first time, we're getting a chance to read firsthand some of the letters osama bin laden sent in the years before his death. west point's combating terrorism center just published more than a dozen documents and letters from the al qaeda leader on its web site. they were written between 2006 and last april. and they show bin laden focused on major terror plots in the aftermath of 9/11. they also show bin laden concerned about the direction al qaeda was headed. >> this shows an organization in decl

the core. >> we stand for free and fair elections. we are a civil society movement. our aim is to ensure that there is a level, certainly in the next general election, and we want to see a total reform of the electoral system. >> the turnout at the rally was -- the government claims that it is a front for the opposition parties. >> we are quite confident, with some minimal measures taken, we would still be able to make it. >> malaysia's prime minister has promised to investigate the rally violence. his officials say changes have already been made to the voting system. >> i believe this is a strategy by the opposition to question electoral systems as a political tactic. >> they are not planning any more demonstrations, but if a general election is called, the opposition parties may have little choice but to try to compete in a process they regard as being fundamentally flawed. >> we are live from singapore and london. still to come, fashion pioneer and stylus to the stars died at the age of 84. -- stylist to the stars dies at the age of 84. >> let's take a look at newspaper headlines around the world. the leftist leader a failed bid to form

in the general election, then senator obama carried it quite convincingly. is was hillary clinton country. you have white, blue collar workers. i am going to bring the state back. hillary clinton carried ohio big-time. president obama winning where you have african-american population. white blue collar workers, a big problem for barack obama. why will this be a battleground in the fall? because it always is. this is the 2008 election. senator obama winning a decent margin, 52-47. that's pretty close. george w. bush just barely winning. what's different about 2008 and 2004. look down here. hamilton county, cincinnati, president obama then senator obama carried it then. make that go off. president bush carried it in '04 and 2000. the suburbs around cleveland and columbus and cincinnati, those are the big battle grounds in a general election in ohio. watch for the candidates to be there in the weeks ahead. governor romney not in ohio. he was in another huge battleground state. he had the industrial states as he drew this contrast. >> we are able to help create

&p 33 3 --adblib weather tz-- 3 we'rr only six monthssbefore the general election...buu preeident obamatum. 3 both campaigns criss-crossed each other in virggnia last these two states many think wwll determine thh road to the white house. 3 "now, after a long and -3 spirittd primary, the republicans fooud a nnmiiee who has prooised to rubber stamp this agenda if he gets the chance." chance."president obama has visittd ohio more than 20 times since taking office....rrmney has & campaigned there at ass 6 times in the last 90-days. & 3 russia's vladimir puuin starting his third term as presiient...prooising washington he will not tolerate what he calls "interference" in his countryys "internal affairs." theeinauguratiin comes a day after an opposiiion protest pttracted more ttan twenty- thousaad people.riot police peat back tte crowds with batons and detained more than four-hundred people. putin wws first ellcted - president in two-thousand ... him n power until & twenty-eighteen. - 3 if you could meet one celebrityy.. who woold you choose and what would you ay during the meetiig? -3 meeti

as crucial, i would say, as newspapers and, in fact, as we cut closer to the general election, i'd say more so. >> can i just ask you, planning your strategy in relation to the print media, other media on the sell, two key elements to this. first of all, you had to do your best to secure this support of the sun in due course. are we agreed? >> that was certainly a name. >> and in order to secure the support of the sun, the best way in, as it were, the best way was rebecca brooks. are we also agree? >> while editor of the sun? >> yes. >> i wouldn't describe it in that way. i was keen, actually, that we had good relationships throughout as much as we could throughout much of the paper. same goes for, if i can keep adding to this, the same goes for other newspapers. it is not -- newspapers don't work that way. you know, you can't -- you can't rely on a call to an editor to guarantee anything, nor should you. what you are attempting to do is build a serious of relationships -- series of relationships where when you had something positive to say, you give yourself the best possible coverage

election appears to have weakened chancellor angela merkel's concern of the cdu party. a new poll shows the party is down 1%. social democrats meanwhile have gained two. spirit 18 months before the general election, the gap between germany's biggest parties is now down to a single percentage point. >> this comes after a humiliating defeat for merkel party. merkel fired her environment minister, who was the cdu's main candidate. he also happens to the christian democrats deputy leader. he did take part in the handover ceremony earlier on tuesday. the president's war in the new environment minister. he will now take charge of one of angela merkel key policy initiatives, germany's nuclear switch off. the spotlight is on as a rise in -- azerbaijan as it gears up to host the your vision sun cost us, but can i deal with the international player. >> and and that as governor protest was broken up on monday, and dozens of arrests were made. >> it raises questions about the country's record of human rights. then the glitzy, gigi, and camp. for over half a century, the provisions of contest has been entertaining europe. performers are gearing up for the first semifinal heat tonight. outside the cr

half laugh nation, the general election is underway, and i'm as giddy as a schoolgirl who will soon be denied birth control. [ laughter ] so far, the big players in 2012 are the super pacs, like colbert super pac - you know our [cheers and applause] motto, "making a better tomorrow, tomorrow!" i like you. [ laughter ] and i'm not the only one throwing around my unlimited corporate cash. campaign spending by groups like super pacs has jumped by more than 1100 percent since 2008. to put 1100 in perspective, that's the number of arabian nights plus the number of problems jay-z has. [ laughter ] those crumb-bums in washington are hearing our voice -- our bitchy bitchy voice. [ laughter ] because so far this year 70% of all presidential ads have been negative. that's not even counting the positive gingrich ads, which are still kind of negative because they include newt gingrich. [ laughter ] but all this negativity can have a downside for the donors. just listen to the ceo of karl rove's superpac american crossroads, steven law. he's so worried about the billionaires. >> we have some very l

it he has backed himself into a couple of corners that i don't think will serve him in the general election, the main one being very harsh stance on immigration which are not only short-sighted, but in my mind, immoral. he was trying to set himself up for a different attitude towards women when he was asked one question about birth control and said dismissively, nobody is going to try to outlaw birth control. there will be republican party platforms that will coalesce around their convention. unless i miss my guess, it will be considerably more conservative on these issues. i think that will give americans a clear set of choices. tavis: is the gender gap going to factor in? >> it looks like it will favor the president, particularly among white suburban women. i certainly think the most important thing will be turned out. can the president bring out the voters that were so enthusiastic about him in 2008 and seemed a little disenchanted now? can he bring the young people, the latinos, the white suburban moms. i think that governor romney has to worry that his turn out is going to be low. he i

likely is a better indication as you actually get in to the general election period. although we have had campaigning for weeks and weeks and months and months we are not in the general election yet. >>neil: you are right. three close states the president won and took what usually republican territory, north carolina, virginia and ohio they are title now. does this issue tip them to romney if all things are equal. does this issue tip them to republicans? >>guest: i think the two states that are tipped to the republicans with gay marriage on the economy are north carolina and month -- missouri. indiana was going to revert to republican ways before the same-sex marriage issue came up. virginia has changed more since 2008 when president obama won it. that we will have to wait-and-see. >>neil: professor, good to see you. $1 million to a super pac supporting romney and then was listed on obama website among eight wealthy individuals with less than reputable reports a multi-millionaire who runs a wellness company in idaho and people are digging into his divorce reports and h