actual vote total before we can project a winner in north carolina. megyn: fox news can project a winner in west virginia where, as expected, mitt romney will claim that state s five electoral votes. although the mountain state has a democratic majority. the president s policies on energy and social issues are unpopular there. bret: back with the panel. steve, one place where the obama campaign did not do the negative ad rush was pennsylvania. they thought pennsylvania was in the bag. they didn t put a lot of those ads like they did in ohio. and now it looks like pennsylvania is a race. could be somewhat competitive the interesting thing is the republic didn t think pennsylvania was competitive or gettable. you had both candidates on the presidential level saying we want hands off. i talked to people with what happened in pennsylvania. the romney team and the rnc was a month ago so sure that pennsylvania wasn t going to be competitive they sent one of their top officials to ohio
beyond party. they re not republicans and democrats in new jersey, they re just americans in need. and those messages, of course, resonate with americans in general. they also happen to be part of what the president and what governor christie is talking about. you know, this is the kind of politics that independent voters, moderates, the gettable, undecided that tiny number. that s what they want to see. they want to see a system that works. and when you have frankly, someone who is brash and outspoken and conservative, working with a president who s supposed to be polarizing, christie and obama working together with a single focus, i think it actually encourages people about politics, about government, and about these two individuals. because it does take leaders, it does take individuals, full credit to the two men involved. indeed. i would say a hearty amen to that. eugene, the president has been pretty evenhanded in the way he s responded to this storm. he tells fema, no bu
important the republican party it was a giant wasted opportunity. problem isn t really christie talks so much about himself, it is that he talks so little about what his party actually believes in. he told us over and over that we face big problems as a country and we need real leaders to tackle them and leaders who aren t afraid to tell the country the hard truths polling be damned. who is against that? he didn t spell out what the hard truths actually are. here is an example. christie mentioned the slow economy and deficit and mentioned education as major problems. what should we do about them? well, take a look. it is simple. we need politicians to care more about doing something and less about being something. so that s the secret. jonathan, really smart political blogger put it, nothing wrong with a big themes type of keynote speech. there is a difference between big themes and cliches. christie s problem is his
groups. they are not just demographics. bulk of people that show up in elections. majority of women you cannot lose women by double digit margins and come close to winning a presidency. major problem. you can depress parts of the core democratic disenfan fries. you can do that, too. you know, you can try to say that the other day other side is so awful don t bother and try to drive up your own numbers. it is very risky when you are losing those big margins among seniors who do show up to vote and women who are often the independent gettable swing voters in the suburbs. indeed. i want to play you a clip. new romney ad hitting the president yet again on medicare. watch this. obama is raiding $716 billion from medicare and changing the program forever. taxing wheelchairs and pacemakers. isn t that the most ridiculous thing you have heard? taxing wheelchairs? pacemakers? yes.
details, but they understand ç bipartisanship. now he has a conservative vote for health care and it came from a man named john roberts. from the reaction of some of the republicans, they seem to be caught flat footed and they hadn t thought up a narrative on what to say to the american people on how they re going to foyt this thing. let s try the tax thing. maybe that s going to work. you know, that s really what it looks like to me. but your thoughts. look, you have to believe. you have to lead people to believe that everyone s going to pay the tax. that means no one s buying health insurance anymore. what kind of fantasyland is that? you can only do this by distorted things. and you know, if you people believe that, maybe their base believes that, maybe the tea party folks believe that, but those aren t the ones they need in this election. they need independent voters, the gettable, the squishy middle, and they re not going to buy this stuff anymore that the president is un-am