and causing the high rates of unemployment we've seen, the low rates of growth, and reducing the regulatory burden. this administration has done more to crush business than anyone in history. >> joining me now for more front page politics, national reporter for the "washington post" amy gardner and reporter politico patrick gavin. good to have you here. patrick, what mitt romney said friday, the flames only seem to be growing hotter today. how far do you think this is going to go, and are either of their statements going to have long term impact on the election? >> this is going to go all the way to november, make no mistake about it. this is sort of kind of how the game gets played. whether any of the quotes that president obama's comment that the private sector will live on, is okay, but whether it will
jobs numbers but what are americans' perceptions of how the economy is doing, and on top of that, who do they trust to handle it? if americans don't like the way the economy is going but they still think the president is the right person to take charge of it, then he's okay, but if they decide romney is better, then the president will be in trouble. >> the comments were all on the context of tuesday's votes in wisconsin and how they knocked the public sector and the union. do you think they are overinterpreting the romney state results? >> i do think there is a risk of governor romney of alienating public and private voters who overrule the public sector as a nation. certainly there is peril for president obama in what he said on friday. the private sector is doing fine is a phrase that doesn't resonate for millions of americans who are deeply anxious and uncertain about the state of the economy and their own personal finances. however, there is a flip side to that which is if governor romney presents an argument of
the kind of fortitude like a ted kennedy or rick santorum, someone who actually stands up for what they believe in, i agree with the governor that there are a lot of elected officials that quite frankly do not have a leg to stand on but that's very, very different from the constituency out there. >> alex didn't read the subtitle of the book. the subtitle is about our leaders. >> so it is about elected o officia officials, okay. and your take on the wusses? >> i wonder if we need some kind of wussometer where the governor comes in, a fact checker who decides what's right and wrong. i'm surprised that nobody on this panel so far has blamed the 24-hour media environment for it because that so often takes the blame for why people feel a lot of pressure. but it's probably no excuse for why more people don't stand up to their convictions. we certainly see a lot of people change their mind certainly between a primary race and the
>> you hear from both sides here over the controversy on mitt romney's remarks. make an educated guess. whose comments are going to hurt more with swing, independent, middle of the road voters? >> i think obama's comments by far. i think it was such a blanket statement that's easy to cut into an ad. it's a very broad statement. the private sector is doing fine. nobody thinks that even people who think the economy is on the upswing doesn't think the private sector is doing fine, and i just think given where the country is now, debt and deficits and government spending, even what romney said is a little problematic, he's going to come out on top on this one because many people are questioning how much money we should be putting into the public sector rather than focusing on private sector job growth. >> anne, fundamentally speaking, don't the comments by president obama and mitt romney highlight the differences on jobs? you have the president saying local governments don't have enough money to hire, mr. romney says the government needs to cut costs.
billion bailout, which could put risk with more countries. >> which means the 25 hours of opening may not hold through the week. duncan, thank you so much. do the politics of escalating of words from obama and romney on the economy. rick santorum is slamming obama when he said the private sector is doing fine, and mitt romney's comments on cutting public sector jobs. >> he said we don't need any more teachers. 250,000 teachers have lost their jobs in the last couple of years. that is dramatically bad news for the country. it's certainly not good news for our future. what planet is he living on where he thinks we can take these kinds of hits in our education system and progress as a country? >> i think governor romney's plan is far superior. governor romney's plan is about lowering taxes and getting this economy going in the private sector, which has been dragging
general election, and i would expect we'll see more of it between now and november. >> and governor, i want to ask you, because you've gone out, you've been critical of the president on some issues of late, so does that mean that you are not a wuss? are you stepping out of that elected official and you don't want to put yourself perilously into that nation of wusses category yourself? >> remember, alex, i agree with our last commentator, absolutely right, the 24-hour news cycle does produce the wusses but it is no excuse. look, president obama, you know, he can fall for a number of things but he's no wuss. he did the auto bailout when it was manifestly unpopular. he did the financial bailout when it was widely unpopular. both of those work. he did health care at a time when his advisers say go slow, do insurance reform. he knew that was the last time he would have those type of majorities and he had to cover 31 million extra people with health care. it's a national disgrace we don't cover our people with health care.
seriously affect the november election, technically, no, but do the small quotes build up over time if they're repeated in other ways to paint this portrait of a candidate that might not be right for voters? in this case with president obama, a true gaffe is what plays into the perception of what his opponents have with him, which in this case he's not friendly with wall street. when romney makes a comment that it plays to poor people, that shows a perception he's too close to it. those comments can prove damaging. >> we had very well-pro duduceds that both campaigns were in them. amy, the private sector has lost 2 million jobs and the privaubl sector has lost 161,000. >> i think the scene we're seeing in the last couple days
and if you look at the west, demographic changes impact that as well as, you know, the energy that parties put into those states across a number of elections. >> okay. here we go to number 5. republicans can't win the presidency without ohio. now, this post says to forget all the pundit's rules. chip, your man at stake here. can romney win without the rules? >> sure, he can, but it becomes a lot harder. i mean, if you lose ohio, then you have to win florida, and then probably north carolina and virginia to make the math work. so, you know, the campaign is pretty simple. you've got about 15 so-called swing states, and your challenge is to move those swing states to your column as quickly as you can to get to 270 and that's what the fight is going to be about in the next few months, is to get those swing states as quickly as you can. >> karen? >> just quickly, i think it's probably a good thing for the country that we focus on not just an 18-swing state strategy
i think this is really simplifying, but in a nutshell, isn't that it? >> it's funny, these both got described in the moment as gaffes, but in fact there were substantive policy underpinning what they both had to say. now, i'm sure the white house would take back the private sector comment in a heartbeat. he didn't mean it was fine, he said it was relative and had to do with the rate of job creation, but you're absolutely right, there are very serious policy differences here, and i think before last tuesday, perhaps they would have tried to minimize them, but after the vote in wisconsin, mitt romney is not going to be apologetic about saying the public sector perhaps needs to be curbed. cutting firefighters and cops has never been popular, but it's not as dangerous as it once was. >> mitt romney's comments, they were all in context of wisconsin and the voters there, knocking public sector employees and unions. are they overinterpreting the wisconsin results?
president obama and mitt romney highlight their differences on jobs? you have president obama saying local governments don't have enough money to hire. you have mitt romney saying the government needs to cut costs. i know we're simplifying here, but in a nutshell, isn't that it? >> that is pretty much the debate we're going to have this fall. the president is in a uniquely different spot when it comes to this, because we saw this on friday, he not only needs to be active and cognizant of the troubles the american country is having, while also defending his policies and make clear that nothing bad is necessarily going on, and it wasn't his fault, which you hear talk all the time about what he inherited. obviously romney has his own record from the past he needs to defend. that was a long time ago, and it wasn't necessarily as applicable as the president because he's the president, obviously, so people look at his record of what have you done so far? i think the numbers you need to look at are not necessarily the