Page 114 - Ryan Grim News Today

To break for the leader because americans like to be with a winner. so if he gets more than 50 people of that 7% undecided vote, hell have a pretty substantial victory. >> ryan, i want to focus a little bit on the states themselves. we know that pennsylvania has basically been take ounce of convention. the president has got that one. ohio will be a battle ground state, carries 18 electoral votes. the issue happening on the state level, youre seeing unemployment rates that are below the national ...

Entertainment next week on the dnc. some more entertainment, mary j. blige, earth wind and fire and james taylor. a new poll today shows some gains in the wake of the republican convention. the new poll shows 31% of registered voters find governor romney likeable following his speech thursday night, a five-point jump. joining me now, washington bureau chief of the "washington post" ryan grim and chief correspondent for the national journal, michael hirsh. thanks for joining me. michael, ill be...

Despite very high 9.6% unemployment rate in north carolina, obama and romney are fairly deadlocked. ive talked to both campaigns in the state recently, both acknowledge its too close to call. so its a very interesting divide in north carolina. its not a typical southern state, yet, at the same time, its one that even the romney campaign can concedes it really has to win along with florida and virginia, the only other southern battleground states. so i think as someone said to me for that article...

Way. hell have a speaking role at the convention. and today hes featured in a new add. >> this election to me is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment. this is a clear choice. the republican plan is to cut more taxes on upper income people and go back to deregulation. thats what got us in trouble in the first place. president obama has a plan to rebuild america from the ground up. it only works if there is a strong middle class. thats what happened when i was presi...

Budget surplus, when george w. bush left, his successor, there was a debt of $11.9 trillion. those are the facts. >> yeah. and its easy to understand those facts, if you understand basic math. you did not increase revenue. we spent money on two wars, republicans were reckless in their domestic spending and that is how you blow a surplus and end up in debt. without even needing to invoke the bush name, i think he managed to hail back to those times and help americans remember how things were and ...

You could see when he was asked about this. one cnn debate he was very slippery about it. he was frustrated about the precedent with his father giving more returns out. the strange thing about this is hes been running for president about eight years. hes been thinking about running and ran in 08 and ran this time. hes had a lot of time to fix his taxes. its a mystery to what he was thinking. this was an obvious problem that was going to come up. but he seems not to care enough about it to fix it...

The media whatever you want to say about them they do want information. if youre trying to keep information from them, theyre going to go out and try to get that. hes going to face a punishing few months if hes going to try to get all the way to the white house without releasing this. >> but perry, ryan makes another point that i think is interesting. and that is that he may say well this is the least damaging. because when you look at the fact that a new gallup poll shows president obamas ads o...

Bill clinton eight years. ronald reagan at least six years. romney -- willard romney, just two years. even his father when he was running for president, george romney, released 12 years. so its the appearance that youre not being transparent. >> right. whats really remarkable about this is that mitt romney very well could become president and he could do it while going through less of a vetting than his own nominees will go through. you know, you cant be a deputy assistant secretary at the depar...

No one is questioning whether he paid taxes legally. no one questions if he gave money to charity. we know he does. it goes to the broader point. the president laid out a plan he would not cut taxes for the rich. and romney has favored this cutting the tax for the rich plan. this is about a broader issue of which candidate is for the rich and which isnt. romney has to address these things in the broader context before voters get a sense hes not a candidate, hes not open. and he is the candidate ...

Criticize the president and avoid criticizing romney. >> if the obama mandate is a tax on the middle class, isnt the romney mandate a tax on the middle class? >> well, i think governor romney will have to speak for himself about what was done in massachusetts. >> and senator marco rubio tried to say the mandate was somehow okay when romney did it but not okay when the president did it. >> this is a guy who supported an individual mandate in massachusetts. isnt that an issue? >> what a big differ...