he said it was just unpresidential. but other campaign strategists who are not involved with the romney campaign told me they weren't surprised. they said this race has been contentious and over the next two and a half weeks, they said, it's only going to get worse. on the campaign trail, romney has tried to turn the attacks back on the president. >> his campaign is about smaller and smaller things and our campaign is about bigger and bigger crowds fighting for a bright future. >> reporter: but in recent weeks, romney has also grown increasingly aggressive. this was last tuesday's debate. >> this is a president who has not been able to do what he said he'd do. he said he'd cut in half the deficit, he hasn't done that, either. in fact, he doubled it. >> reporter: he's hitting mr. obama for what he calls his failed record. >> i just think the american people have expected that the president of the united states would be able to describe what he's going to do in the next four years, but he can't! he can't even explain what

> a romney campaign advisor said that he was stunned by the president's remarks saying it was unpresidential. both candidates will spend the weekend gearing up for their third and a final debate in florida on monday. you can watch the final presidential debate live on cbs 5. >>> gas prices in california are still relatively high but they're coming down. here's a look at current average for gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. 4.41 in san jose, 4.51 in oakland. they are 17 to 19 cents less than they were just a week ago. >>> a diesel spill caused a mess in more ways than one in north san jose during yesterday's afternoon commute. a big rig jackknifed after 3:00 on northbound 101 near 13th street. one lane and one onramp had to be closed as crews cleaned up the mess and try to keep the fuel from spill nothing the storm drains. >>> tonight is supposed to be the best night to view that meteor shower. how to get the best possible view of mother nature's light show. >>> and how a california woman survived an attack by a black bear. >>> in the weather department, ladies and gentlemen, that was summ

obama's romnesia remarks, calling them unpresidential. on the campaign trail in florida tonight, romney tried to turn the attacks back on the president. >> have you been watching the obama campaign lately? it's remarkable. they have no agenda for the future. no agenda for america. no agenda for the second term. it's a good thing. they won't have a second term. they have -- they've been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games. just watch it. the obama campaign has become the incredible shrinking campaign. >> reporter: i don't know about you, but i can't wait till monday night when the candidates face off in florida. it will be their third and final debate. we'll have special live coverage, beginning right here at 6 on cbs 5. >>> it's completely full. >> uninsured and left waiting for hours. a new film gives an unprecedented look inside the waiting room at one of the bay area's toughest hospitals. >>> bike thieves, your favorite trick won't work any more. the easy new way to recover your stolen bike. >>> i just lit up on fire, everywh

>> mitt romney can't make any misstatements that make him look unpresidential. people are trying to perceive mitt romney as a future president. if he says something or does something or makes a flippant remark, then it hurts his overall image. in terms of the president, he's got to act like what a president z. maybe he needs a little dose or a big dose of bill clinton, of empathy, of concern, of being there, of showing that he's in command and in charge. >> political analyst mark plott. the campaign hasn't taken a back seat but like co-pilot. >>> a comment on national tv that's causing controversy. and we're continuing to track sandy. we'll have another live update within this special broadcast. you're watching the news edge you decide 2012. we'll be right back. anncr: seven-hundred-thousand jobs. that's what the planan george allen supports... would cost our economy. newspapers called it "economically destructive." like allen's votes to give tax breaks to companies... that ship jobs overseas, his economic plan would... help big corporations, devastating the mid

, of course, illustrates the potential downsides for the president that he risk being seen as unpresidentialunserious. one other note, diane, because of the pending arrival of hurricane sandy, some events with the presidential campaign have been canceled including one with joe biden in virginia beach and one with michelle obama in new hampshire. we'll keep you posted on other changes. diane? >> okay, thank you, jake. could be messy out there. >>> and, as president obama, as jake said, looks to secure the young voters, governor romney is ahead by about the same margin in a very different group. and counting on them to show up and vote. abc's david muir tells us who. he's traveling with the governor in ohio tonight. david? >> reporter: hey, diane. great to see you. after the governor visited iowa today, he is back here in the buckeye state. he needs ohio to unlock the map on election night. and in that new abc news poll you speak of, a key group that might help him get there. mitt romney's closing argument in one of the battlegrounds he needs. >> i'm counting on iowa. >> reporter: today, romne

risk being viewed as being unpresidential in those kind of attacks. the other striking thing i think is what joe pointed out. this was mitt romney trying to be presidential bipartisan, sort of above the fray and obviously an effort not to sound like george w. bush and the result, i think, was that in this effort not to sound like george w. bush he spent a good part of the night sounding like barack obama, making those sound arguments that the president made. >> megyn: that is a comparison that team obama tried to paint to paint romney ryan as the next bush-cheney. bret? >> bret: i was really surprised about the libya thing. i think the president even tried to go back to libya to draw him out and possibly get engaged on the libya topic. let's go back to fox news senior political analyst brit hume and "fox news sunday" anchor chris wallace, both in washington. brit, first your thoughts. >> brit: well, one thought would be, i thought bob schieffer did a good job in the same way jim lehrer did which was by keeping a light hand in letting the candidates go

approach that mitt romney has no moral core and says things like liar, he will be accused of being unpresidentialolitician he believes in one thing; that he is meant to be president. and through that prism all of his flip flops make perfect sense. so i think president obama can easily shade that by saying i know governor romney has had a new positions on this issue dot, dot dot -- if he allows himself to whatever he is subtly do to put a wedge between mitt romney and the middle class, i think you'll see a different ow come. >> eliot: i because his performance was so lackluster but he didn't present his affirmative case, so before he can go after mitt romney he needs to make his affirmative case, and explain why he want him to continue as president. and then go after mitt romney. i think it's a little dicey if he goes right after mitt romney. >> jennifer: that's for sure. >> eliot: we near a townhall setting. in the vice presidential debate it was the three in the first debate it was really mitt romney and nobody else, so mitt romney had the entire stage. tonight you have a real person a citizen -

i don't know if the can bring up that hypocrisy without seeming unpresidential, but our embassy in cairo because of this movie. and if we're going to use bad. >> al gore: ntell for invading a country that never attacked us, i think the president will come into this strongly armed to answer any question about bengahzi, and i'm looking forward to see if he can put mitt romney in a corner. >> jennifer: the question is it acceptable for there to be a delay as an investigation is ongoing. is it acceptable that there might be conflicting accounts as they sort it out. >> john: keep in mind, the moderates are trying to keep this from blowing up. >> al gore: one of the reasons why there used to be a tradition of rallying around an incumbent president in the mid-of a foreign policy crisis is you don't want to force a trade-off between rushing to present a statement before you know exactly what the facts are. what they're being accused of is actually nothing more than presenting what the intelligence agencies were willing to say in describing the event at the time. was there a time lag in the ongoi

the point is his ridicule of mitt romney is was unpresidential and frankly in my view unacceptable. >> the truth is that attacks on me are not an agenda. we have gone through four debates, vice presidential debate and my debate we haven't heard an agenda from the president. that is why his campaign is taking on water and our campaign is going ahead. >> before the debates general impression of romney, he was very stiff and that if he happened to be elected in president it would be a disaster. what you have after the debates, people feel this is qualified man and intelligent man and this is man we don't describe as stiff and totally out of touch. >> president obama has decided that his path to reelection is to distort, distract and see if he can win this election by default. >> if you come down with a case of romnesia, if you can't remember the policies on your website, if you can't even remember what you said last week don't worry. obamacare covers preexisting conditions. we can fix you up. we can cure this disease! >> we saw obama the community organizer. we saw a panic i think barack

unpresidential, and it's difficult to do when your opponent has higher favorable ratings than you do.dana: take a look at the front page at the "des moines register" today. this is a paper in iowa, one of battleground states with president obama, slightly ahead in the polls. the headline today, reads obama sharpens criticism and governor romney reads "romney expresses optimism." that is not the editorial beige. earlier in week there was a small flap whether or not an interview that obama did on the phone with the editorial board would be on the record or not. the white house said no. paper complained. the paper signaled they would love to reveal the interview because it was so insightful and brilliant. all of a sudden, the white house released the interview. tell me about iowa and your thoughts on carl's thoughts on the strategy. >> bob: carl's thoughts on iowa, his general thoughts, if you continue in iowa is probably right. they're good headlines for romney in the state of iowa. iowa is not a state that goes big on negatives. and so, i think that probably make sense. let's keep in m

it comes across as unpresidential. there's something odd about it. the twitter feed, it's bullying. doesn't like to live by rules that he hasn't set. it has come out in every debate and it is not his most presidential quality. he doesn't seem fully in control of this aspect of this debate stop. >> the president looked very different at this debate than at the debate before. small things, like in the last debate, he would be looking down taking notes. smiling or you know, he had his facial expressions. is this going to be enough for him? >> well, as weak at the performance was the first time, i think he is very strong this time. and you're right. there were things that seemed as if he was talking faster. he certainly talked in a way that ordinary viewers at home would understand what he was talking about more. i don't know that this debate necessarily will win the election for him, but i would imagine that it would stop governor romney's momentum and make it closer race going into the home stretch. it wasn't just that romney was bullying. i think he was really somewhat disrespectful

. >> bill: why it have been unpresidential since you worked for a president to show concern that we don't know after all of this time. >> twice he said last night in his long explanation of what -- you know, here is how bad the region is and here are all the bad things he touched on. >> in libya four dead americans. >> he touched on it last night. and, look, the fact of the matter is he he has won that debate. is he going to continue to win that argument which is the american people are looking saying president obama doesn't seem to be on top of this at all. what the heck was he doing out there campaigning? >> bill: i think romney could have gotten that point across in a much more dramatic way than he did. all right. he played it safe and now you say going forward i think that debate last night was a watch. it's not going to matter in the polls. >> sure, that's right. >> you agree with me. >> historically the third debate unless you make a critical mistake does not change the ark of the narrative. the first debate establishes the arc of the narrative. by the third debate. >> bill: you are

it was unpresidential i think. it is interesting governor romney in the debate didn't go after him on these things. i must say, i suppose it's the undecided voters would feel president romney was presidential and didn't go on the attack on this, but eventually it will all come out and it should, because you know you have an administration that does not want to seem to even admit there are such thing as radical islamists who are determined to kill innocent men, women and children. they don't want to use those words. and in the debate that point came out that this effort against terrorists is really not going to be one with bullets. it's an ideological task that's going to take more time more like the cold war than hot war. and it requires people being willing to describe precisely what the enemy is and what the threat against the country is, and this administration has no strategy to deal with that partly because they are unwilling to even identify the threat. >> with 2020 hindsight seemed actually apauling we didn'

one is that he was coached it would be unpresidential to attack, that it may be a particular problemack president, he doesn't want to fall into this angry black man kind of mental image. but i think he also may have just not been -- not been training adequately and been unused to being targeted that directly. i think when you're president people tend to defer to you. >> michael moore tweeted we don't need to hear any more of obama lost the debate. want to know why and how it happened. he wasn't off his game. something happened. he believes he got some awful bit of news before he walked out, trying to explain why his demeanor was so flat. >> you know, when it was happening, i was tweeting that maybe obama was distracted because a s.e.a.l. team was off arresting zawahiri. but who knows, maybe it's true but i don't buy it. i think in almost any situation, the best explanation is incompetence rather than conspiracy, and if you look back, when gerald ford made his catastrophic comment in presidential debate about eastern europe not being under the subjugated by the soviet union, that was

if he is seen attacking people with zingers, which are completely unprofessional, completely unpresidential, i mean, this sort of street fight combative thing, that's not where he wants to be. i was talking to martin bashir before the show. he doesn't want to do that, and his entire life is wrapped around that, about not being combative in that way. he doesn't want to do that. that's his entire life wrapped around that. i mean, i also saw, you know, a guy who is leading. the likability is more important than winning this debate. i know i'm winning this thing. it's this dynamic we've seen a lot in las vegas or perhaps atlantic city when we get a champion and challenger. the challenger has nothing to lose and goes nuts and flings punches everywhere. what does he have to lose? i don't need to mix it up with you. i'm going it to win on points and layback. sometimes that strategy wins and sometimes it doesn't. >> it's always frustrating if you're a fan to watch it fully. >> it's bizarre. >> you don't want it. s.e., i understand you were checking out some of the coverage from our friends at curre

i thought he seemed very petty and unpresidential in those statements and if you were just watching theate simply on form and style, i think that mitt romney definitely came across looking more presidential. >> ron? >> absolute disagreement. mitt romney had nothing to say about most issues. he didn't go after the president on benghazi or libya because the cia report came out backing up the president and the administration's account of what happened and their appreciation of what happened in benghazi so you had nowhere to go on the big gotcha issue there and then on afghanistan, syria, et cetera, pakistan, he seemed to simply ate the president's position on everything and say i'd do it a little better maybe. >> third time's the charm but for who? thanks. happy birthday to you, megan mccain, ron regan. >> thank you both. >>> joining me now, the focus of the debate shifting from foreign policy but it didn't stop the candidates trying to reach out to women voters. >> number two, better education. number three, gender equality. number four, the rule of law. we have to help these nations crea

it looks unpresidential, a bit silly, a bit school play ground, latching on one quite light-hearted althoughgood point to it, i thought the pbs point romney made, whether you agree with it or not it's a reasonable point to make. but going after him in the wrong way. if i was going after mitt romney and i was a democrat president right now, i would be going after him hard and serious about his plan to get america back to work, his plan to revive the economy, the tax plans at the moment have no real beef to them. >> i think you're exactly right. a lot of republicans look at that and they say keep doing that, because they're going to lose. i think the obama campaign really doesn't have a message right now. they've tried contraception, they've tried fuzzy math, they tried mitt romney's just lying. they're really grasping at straws for just anything and this big bird ad is just the latest. i think let them keep doing that, because they don't really want to talk about the economy. i think what the american people saw the other night was the true barack obama, when he doesn't have a teleprompter, w

because some republicans are suggesting that it smacks of desperation and they think it's unpresidential that the campaign has been suggesting that mitt romney is a liar. >> i don't think that we can really understand where mitt romney stands on the issues. he talked about not taxing the wealthy. now he says he will tax the wealthy. he talks about energy independence now but didn't support the president on his programs to create alternative forms of energy for our country, which this president did. he talks about tax changes to help business development. who did that? president obama, with 100% tax credit in manufacturing, for example, which has just sizzled across the industrial midwest with the business start-ups that we see. even art furnaces being installed on the ohio republic steel. we haven't seen this in two decades. so, he can talk as a candidate, but the president has done it in a very difficult situation that he inherited from the bush administration, where the whole country's economy collapsed because of those titans up on wall street that tied up the finances of this country