>> romney may break into another cold sweat as he and the president spend their last two weeks on the campaign trail feverishly criss-crossing the nation to boost turnout to swing states . both candidates have begun major swinging through states that will prove critical to the eventual winner. this includes florida, ohio , iowa, colorado, virginia , and nevada. if you thought you detected a domestic policy debate in foreign policy clothing last night, well, you might just be right.
>> we've got to make sure that we reduce our deficit. unfortunately, governor romney 's plan doesn't do it.
>> when it comes to our economy here at home, i know what it takes to create 12 million new jobs.
>> what we've done is reformed education working with governors, 46 states.
>> let me get back to foreign policy , can i just get back --
>> joining us now is my colleague steve kornacki, one of the hosts of "the cycle" and in washington the great clarence page , a columnist for the chicago tribune . we were hearing the president just now and we'll continue to show live pictures referring to romney 's disease of romnesia, but paul ryan has problems with mathematics and his electoral math is a problem, isn't it, because he has a problem if the president wins ohio and wisconsin . he's got a big problem then, doesn't he?
>> there's a couple problems here with this map for romney . the ohio , wisconsin , and iowa, he's got to make some inroads there. before that there's these four obama '08 states that are necessary for romney to flip over. starts with north carolina . he's well positioned to do that. florida, more likely than not to do that, but he also has to flip virginia and colorado before we can start talking about the ohio / wisconsin scenario. i think those are right now both of those at best 50/ 50 states for romney . i think the real -- there's a telling statistic out there. if you compare the exit polls from 2008 with the gallup polls from right now. if you look at the regional breakdown --
>> you mean the gallup tracking poll.
>> if you look at the regional breakdown, in 2008 in the south, in the exit poll , it was even, obama versus mccain. today in that gallup tracking poll, it's a 22-point lead for mitt romney . so i think what you've seen is almost -- it looks like there's been an explosion of anti- obama sentiment in very, very red states which might be inflating romney 's standing in that national horse race but then you start looking at those battleground states and it's a different story.
>> clarence, romney may have lost this election when gm filed for chapter 11 on june the 1st, 2009 , and the government, as you know, provided up to $30 billion in financing. i have to say when i watched romney last night, i thought he delivered the most sophisticated lie of this election when he suggested absolutely shamelessly that he would have guaranteed or offered a guarantee to the auto industry , and perhaps he's assuming that we voters don't understand that you don't have a guarantee unless you have a loan. someone has to give you the money. a guarantee is pointless without the equity.
>> that's quite right, and i think when i heard governor romney said that, i thought where were you when ohio needed you, when michigan needed you? that's what the voters out there are saying now. it's very well-known that the banks just weren't there to finance a bailout or loans for the auto industry , and obama tookt into it and got them on their feet. it was a very successful venture. and the people out in michigan and ohio in particular remember it.
>> indeed. steve , why do you think romney talked about building up the navy, aside from the fact he was concerned about virginia and new hampshire?
>> i think he was desperate for distinction, for what would sound like politically palatable distinctions.
>> didn't someone say to him 1916 ships and so on are not comparable to, you know, submarines that carry cruise missiles ?
>> this is a symptom of a candidate in a party that have really when it comes to foreign policy have taken the last four years off. the very crude calculation in the republican party when barack obama was elected was that the economy was collapsing and that they were going to oppose everything and that when the economy wasn't healed four years later, they would be able to say, looking he's failed. there's really no role for foreign policy in that other than to say obama has failed at that, too. but they have not built, they have not gone back and developed and articulated a distinct vision of america's role in the world. i think it really showed in the debate last night where romney was not going to be attacking obama from the left and raising questions on drones or something like that. he was not going to be beating the war drums like bush did -- like the bushies did a decade ago, and that left him really i think scrambling to find distinctions and i think that's one of them.
>> that was ludicrous, wasn't it?
>> of course, pnd that's the point. i don't think he has much to say on the subject.
>> early voting tends to favor democrats and ohio 's secretary of state says today more than three-quarters of a million votes have been cast. that and the bailout may be the two pillars, i suspect, that swing ohio for the president. is that fair?
>> well, ohio has been very heavily in the president's column in most of the polling so far. certainly romney got a bump after that first debate, but he didn't close the gap . nevertheless, ohio is so important for romney , like other republican candidates, that they're still fighting it out, and it looks doubtful at this point that ohio sf going to swing over toward romney . if it did, i think we'd see a cascade across the country that hasn't materialized.
>> indeed. clarence page and steve kornacki, thank you, both.
>> we've got to make sure that we reduce our deficit. unfortunately, governor romney 's plan doesn't do it.
>> when it comes to our economy here at home, i know what it takes to create 12 million new jobs.
>> what we've done is reformed education working with governors, 46 states.
>> let me get back to foreign policy , can i just get back --
>> joining us now is my colleague steve kornacki, one of the hosts of "the cycle" and in washington the great clarence page , a columnist for the chicago tribune . we were hearing the president just now and we'll continue to show live pictures referring to romney 's disease of romnesia, but paul ryan has problems with mathematics and his electoral math is a problem, isn't it, because he has a problem if the president wins ohio and wisconsin . he's got a big problem then, doesn't he?
>> there's a couple problems here with this map for romney . the ohio , wisconsin , and iowa, he's got to make some inroads there. before that there's these four obama '08 states that are necessary for romney to flip over. starts with north carolina . he's well positioned to do that. florida, more likely than not to do that, but he also has to flip virginia and colorado before we can start talking about the ohio / wisconsin scenario. i think those are right now both of those at best 50/ 50 states for romney . i think the real -- there's a telling statistic out there. if you compare the exit polls from 2008 with the gallup polls from right now. if you look at the regional breakdown --
>> you mean the gallup tracking poll.
>> if you look at the regional breakdown, in 2008 in the south, in the exit poll , it was even, obama versus mccain. today in that gallup tracking poll, it's a 22-point lead for mitt romney . so i think what you've seen is almost -- it looks like there's been an explosion of anti- obama sentiment in very, very red states which might be inflating romney 's standing in that national horse race but then you start looking at those battleground states and it's a different story.
>> clarence, romney may have lost this election when gm filed for chapter 11 on june the 1st, 2009 , and the government, as you know, provided up to $30 billion in financing. i have to say when i watched romney last night, i thought he delivered the most sophisticated lie of this election when he suggested absolutely shamelessly that he would have guaranteed or offered a guarantee to the auto industry , and perhaps he's assuming that we voters don't understand that you don't have a guarantee unless you have a loan. someone has to give you the money. a guarantee is pointless without the equity.
>> that's quite right, and i think when i heard governor romney said that, i thought where were you when ohio needed you, when michigan needed you? that's what the voters out there are saying now. it's very well-known that the banks just weren't there to finance a bailout or loans for the auto industry , and obama tookt into it and got them on their feet. it was a very successful venture. and the people out in michigan and ohio in particular remember it.
>> indeed. steve , why do you think romney talked about building up the navy, aside from the fact he was concerned about virginia and new hampshire?
>> i think he was desperate for distinction, for what would sound like politically palatable distinctions.
>> didn't someone say to him 1916 ships and so on are not comparable to, you know, submarines that carry cruise missiles ?
>> this is a symptom of a candidate in a party that have really when it comes to foreign policy have taken the last four years off. the very crude calculation in the republican party when barack obama was elected was that the economy was collapsing and that they were going to oppose everything and that when the economy wasn't healed four years later, they would be able to say, looking he's failed. there's really no role for foreign policy in that other than to say obama has failed at that, too. but they have not built, they have not gone back and developed and articulated a distinct vision of america's role in the world. i think it really showed in the debate last night where romney was not going to be attacking obama from the left and raising questions on drones or something like that. he was not going to be beating the war drums like bush did -- like the bushies did a decade ago, and that left him really i think scrambling to find distinctions and i think that's one of them.
>> that was ludicrous, wasn't it?
>> of course, pnd that's the point. i don't think he has much to say on the subject.
>> early voting tends to favor democrats and ohio 's secretary of state says today more than three-quarters of a million votes have been cast. that and the bailout may be the two pillars, i suspect, that swing ohio for the president. is that fair?
>> well, ohio has been very heavily in the president's column in most of the polling so far. certainly romney got a bump after that first debate, but he didn't close the gap . nevertheless, ohio is so important for romney , like other republican candidates, that they're still fighting it out, and it looks doubtful at this point that ohio sf going to swing over toward romney . if it did, i think we'd see a cascade across the country that hasn't materialized.
>> indeed. clarence page and steve kornacki, thank you, both.