Tom Beavin News Today

>> no, thats right. for much of the summer we were talking about the historic likeability gap between the two candidates. president obama is always likeable figure and remains so despite voters dont necessarily like some of his policies or the direction the economy is going in. romney, his likeability, numbers were way down. he was trailing obama by 15, 20 points. that gap is now gone. theyre basically tied. if you look at our average of the favorability ratings of both candidates, it disappeare...

In 10 key gaat he will ground states, identified as competitive by "politico". that is according to a "politico" george washington university poll. joining us executive editor of "real clear politics", tom beavin. tom, according to your distillation of these polls, at this point in time it is advantage romney but just by a hair? >> well, certainly at the national level thats true. and that "wall street journal" poll that you mentioned was taken after the deck debate. so looking, sort of at the d...

Jon: well, while the president only mentioned governor romney by name once, he repeatedly attacked republican plans for medicare, defense spending and taxes saying their policies would take america in the wrong direction. tom beavin, executive editor for "real clear politics". lets talk with him now about all of this. the president said ill tell you the truth. those jobs numbers that are out this morning throw a big wet blanket on a lot of what he had to say last night, dont they? >> they do, jo...

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Effect on the election. it is really sort of fixed right now on the economy, on jobs. that remains good news for romney so long as the jobs numbers sort of stay where they are. the president is hoping that the jobs picture improves but there is no indication that it will be that. so again, you know, barring some sort of external event, you look around the globe, there are a lot of hot spots where foreign policy could in fact become a major part of this election down the road. right now the thing...

These are issues that are particularly of importance to republican voters out there, they will become probably part of the election dynamic but again, overall, its, you know we just had a poll come out the other day. it is all about jobs and the economy. jenna: there is also, when we talk again about this story, issues about trust, accountability and leadership. those are other things that come up. going to, what is sticking on your web site, tom, i would just like to ask you a little bit about ...

Jon: congress is hard at work churning out plenty of bills but very few of them will become law this election year. both parties accused of crafting legislation just to make the other side look bad come novembers election. with democrats and republicans both focused on fighting for control of congress, can they actually get anything done before november? lets talk about it with tom beavin the executive editor at "real clear politics".com. or reel clear politics i should say. tom, thanks for bein...

Dont like this argument very much either because theyre part of congress and obama is portraying them as part of the problem. he can try to portray republicans in the house that way. on the other hand republicans can portray democrats leading the senate, point to the fact harry reid and democrats are supposed to be leading have not passed a budget in over three years. this issue will cut both ways. you will see both sides angling as best they can to make the arguments come november. some say --....

Candidates. i think were probably, i dont think it is a pluto scenario. might be 20%, one in five chance we could see that depending what happens here on tuesday and on march 6. bill: democrats argue they saw enough of this in 2008. well see where it ends. tom, thank you. tom beavin out of chicago today. nice to have you. julie: fox news alert to a dramatic boat rescue in iranian waters. this is new video coming into to us from iranian state television. as you can see that boat is burning. the c...

Chance to stop romney. bill: when youre talking there in chicago, were watching mitt romney in greer, south carolina, is the field too divided with too many challengers to affect romney or not, tom? >> i think the field is too divided. if i look at the three, non-romney candidates, santorum, gingrich and rick perry, theyre at 45% of the vote. mitt romney at 29.3, 30%. if two of the three non-romney candidates were not in the race, and coalesce behind one candidate, romney would be in some troubl...