where i want them to be or where you want them to be. they re not that much better than they were four years ago but they re getting better thanks to my policies. one fits on a bumper sticker, one barely fits in a 60-second ad. that s the difficult message question and complication the team faces. clearly they re aware of it because they re going at it with that first ad. $25 million, they are not messing around. not messing around at all. chris cillizza and than $25 million ad buy is in nine states where the president and the campaign believe the election will be fought. spending a lot of money to reintroduce the president to voters. meanwhile, two new battleground state polls show mitt romney has closed the gap with the president in key swing states. stephanie cutter, deputy campaign manager for the president s campaign joining us from chicago. thanks so much. that is a lot of money. $25 million, nine key states. but as chris was just pointing
get baited into the trap of always talking about what we re against. governor romney has made it very clear what he s for. he s for the traditional sangity of marriage between a man and a woman. he s made that very clear to people who care about the issue and he stood by the issue. and there s no evolution. there won t be any evolving for mitt romney on this subject? no, when this question comes up. if he s elected president. when this question comes up, he s made it clear a marriage is between a man and woman. we re the party of traditional marriage and he s made that very clear to republicans and tleer to people during this campaign. and six months out, we re talking about a $25 million buy in nine key states. we look at battleground polls now today. the politico poll other polls showing it s basically a virtual tie. how do you that s not a bad place to start from the challenger to the president. sure. but it does show that there is some big advantages that the presid
next question is, the republicans providing a clear articulate alternative to this president, but the first question is a referendum on barack obama. but it s also a choice, of course, and while the republicans, you would like to say it s a referendum on obama s record, what the democrats are saying is that there s a choice. are they moving in the right direction and would romney take them in the wrong direction. let me ask you about this whole issue of gay marriage and give you a chance to what has been said by both the president, the vice president, and this north carolina vote that s coming up tomorrow. what is the latest position of mitt romney and the republicans on this issue? well, i think governor romney and the republican party have been pretty clear. we believe marriage is between one man and one woman. we believe ultimately that you can t federalize that kind of mandate which is why we believe that individual states can make those decisions on their own and they re doing
i think as we begin to go around the country and governor romney carries that message he has a better way forward, we re going to be in a very good position on election day. is rob portman, a former twice a cabinet member and from ohio, is he at the top of the list? look, you re always very smart to ask me these questions. i would be very dumb to answer. i can always hope that you re dumb. sometimes you ll probably catch me. not so far. look, this is going to be a very long process. i think there s going to be a lot of information involved about which one of these many very worthy candidates would make the best vice president. and then ultimately it comes down to a one-man decision. that s governor romney s decision based on ho thinks is the best person to help him put the american economy back on track. when mitt romney was running against teddy kennedy, he promised if elected that he
dispute play if the campaign? adviser stephanie cutter gave me her take moments ago on mitt romney s position regarding gay marriage. mitt romney wants to the write discrimination into our u.s. constitution. he wants a federal anti-marriage amendment denying same-sex couples from marrying. there s a big difference here. so number one, gay and lesbian supporters believe this president has accomplished a lot. which is why they re supporting this president and they also fully understand that mitt romney wants to roll back the protections that they have and actually instates where states have the adopted marriage, mitt romney has funded efforts to roll back those protections. kevin madden is an adviser to the romney campaign and joins me now. you heard testifyny cutter. she s made it very clear, there are very big differences. the question occurs, you know, why is mitt romney so opposed even to civil unions? i think i would not try to