new york. i'm wolf blitzer. thanks for watching. the news continues next on cnn. good evening, everyone. it is testing time in american politics. one leading republican presidential contender, texas governor rick perry, is about to make his debate debut and is drawing a political spotlight as his state deals with punishing wildfires. >> at this point we're urging people to avoid any outdoor activity which could conceivably start a fire. >> another top-tier gop contender the former mches governor mitt romney took issue with the democratic incumbent as he outlined a 59-point plan to spur job creation. >> what he's doing is taking quarters and stuffing them into the pay phone and thinking -- can't figure out why it's not working. it's not connected anymore, mr. president. all right, your pay phone strategy does not work in a smartphone world. >> and that indumb bent, governor romney speaks of, president obama, he's at a new low point in his political standing as the president prepares to unveil his own jobs program this week, thursday night, three stunning new numbers to set the table. 6 in 10 americans disapprove of how the president is handling the economy. nearly 8 in 10 say the economy will either get worse or stay in the same deep funk in the year leading up to the 2012 presidential vote, and more voters now say they plan to vote republican for president than vote democratic. add it all up, and the veteran democratic pollster peter hart for the first time tonight says you can no longer consider the president as favored to win re-election. peter hart is with us tonight along with cnn chief political analyst gloria borger and in new orleans cnn contributor mary matalin which includes the presidential victories of george h.w. bush and his son, george h. bush. and peter, the president is no longer favored to win re-election, and it's a collection of very bleak numbers. >> bad news. a lot of bad news. but let's understand one thing. it's not quite the same thing as saying you're going to lose. he's no longer the favored. and i would have said that george w. bush was not the favorite in 2003, so the president's got a lot of work to do. but the other thing that's fascinating about this poll is that on a personal basis they still like the president, so for all the bad things that are happening, they like him, and secondly they make the distinction between how he's handling the economy and how he's handling foreign policy. 50% give him a positive rating on foreign policy. so, does he have a lot of problems? you bet he does, but the other side is they give him good news on foreign policy. >> mary, i'm going to guess you get a sense of deja vu when you hear numbers like this and you hear peter hart say they still like him and give him foreihighs on foreign policy. when people as they do now looked out at the economy and did not feel at all optimistic and indeed felt quite pessimistic, let's look at the numbers from the nbc/"wall street journal" poll, is the country headed in the right direction? 19% say yes. 73% of americans think the country is on the wrong track. do you approve of the job obama is doing as president? 44% say yes. a majority, 51%, say no. that's a low for the president. and do you approve, peter mentioned this, the job the president is doing handling the economy, 37% approve, 59% disapprove. having gone through it with george h.w. bush, he had two candidates, bill clinton and ross perot, i'll ask you to put your partisan hat aside. give the president some advice. what lessons did you learn going through an environment like this? >> well, this is going to sound partisan, but i don't mean it. there is -- i guess the other silver lining for him, he has personal popularity which continues. i wouldn't put foreign policy up there. that's not the issue at this time. and they don't like the other side either, so it's they hate everybody, so there's still a contest there, but this is always -- re-elections are always a referendum on the incumbent. he's not going to be able to escape that and in the case of the '92 race that you referenced, john, the perception was reality, that the economy was in bad shape, it was actually growing at 5.5%. now reality is reality and the job situation copts to dete s ss to deteriorate, and it's not the static numbers where people are today, which is low but consistent with where this president has been, it's that looking forward, because elections are about the future, and you say how do you ask these respondents, they don't see any end in sight. they think a year from now some 80% close to 80% think the economy's not going to get better. that's a bad turning point. that's a katrina turning point, some have been calling it, it was in our case when buchanan primaried us in new hampshire and perot got in. it's this attitudal thing that voters are starting to think that there is no forward way for this president. and i don't say that as a partisan. i say it as somebody who has lived through it a couple of times. >> mary makes an important point i think a key distinction, at this moment, some people say if the numbers go don't, won't some democrat feel the urge, oh, why not, let's primary him. no evidence of that. >> no. and that's good for barack obama if you're looking for the silver lining, it's not getting primaried. but the other thing is that when you do the matchups against specific candidates, it's close. when you do -- you know, when you do it against a generic republican, obama doesn't do so well, but the question is, okay, who is obama going to be standing there with debating a year from now? so, we don't know yet, and so far, the american public hasn't seen anybody it absolutely is in love with to go up against barack obama. >> and so, peter, to mary's point about the funk people are in, they have a pessimistic long-term view which is going to make them less likely to support an incumbent unless they think the incumbent is turning things around. this is the president yesterday in detroit, it's labor day, he's trying to give some optimism and hope if you trust him and support his policies, the economy will get better. listen -- >> so, we got a lot more work to do to recover fully from this recession. but i'm not satisfied just to get back to where we were before the recession. we've got to fully restore the middle-class in america. >> now, i understand from a political standpoint, a branding standpoint, and optimism standpoint the president needs to do that. but here's my question to you -- as a president, the candidate that ran as a transformational, aspirational, said washington would change, set the high hopes that things would be different, is there a risk in setting a high hope again, i want to make it back to not to only where we were before the recession, but to restore the middle-class. if the economy created 208,000 a month, it would take 12 years to get us to back to where we were at the beginning of the recession. >> okay. what it comes down to is he has to persuade the american public we've come so far across this lake, you have a choice. you can go back to the shore that you have seen before or we've done the hard part and we should move ahead. that's what his challenge is as much as anything else. the other thing i'd like to say is when you look at that speech on thursday night, he's on trial, but all the people in the congress are equally on trial. you have to understand, 54% of the american public would vote out every single member of congress if there were a lever on their ballot, and that tells you, they, too, have something to prove thursday night. >> that's another silver lining for barack obama. >> everybody stay put. we'll pick up on the point, the burden on the republicans in congress and the burden on republicans running for office. libyan army vehicles cross the border into niger carrying gadhafi regime leaders the united states wants arrested and detained. and three weeks after joining the republican presidential field, rick perry leads the gop pack, but three debates over the next three weeks will test his staying power. 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[ male announcer ] each of these photos was taken by someone on the first morning of their retirement. it's the first of more than 6,000 sunrises the average retiree will see. ♪ as we're living longer than ever before, prudential's challenge is to help everyone have the retirement income they'll need to enjoy every one of their days. ♪ prudential. bring your challenges. rick perry has few complaints about his first three weeks as a republican presidential candidate but the next three weeks will tell us more about the texas governor's staying power. there are three debates including a cnn event monday night in florida and as he prepares for the new scrutiny, his handling of the devastating wildfires offers a glimpse at his leadership style. >> when you got people hurting, when you got lives in danger in particular, i really don't care who the asset belongs to. if it's sitting on some yard somewhere and not helping be part of the solution, that's a problem. >> now, we know governor perry enters this critical stretch in a strong position nationally. the new nbc/"wall street journal" poll shows 38% support perry, 23% support former massachusetts governor mitt romney, 9% support ron paul and 8% congresswoman michele bachmann. and we know he's about to get deep pocketed help, cnn confirms a superpolitical action committee run by a former top perry political aide is planning to spend $50 million, $50 million, to support his candidacy. should we consider perry the gop front-runner? still with us, mary matalin, and peter hart and cnn's gloria borger. you run republican campaigns for a living, mary, heading into the next stretch, what is the biggest question for governor perry to prove, that after the initial boomlet, he has staying power? >> he's a very solid front-runner. peter's polls show he's got the highest front-runner number of any previous front-runner and i think also peter's poll shows among the most intense activists, the so-called self-identified tea party activists, he's 2-1, holds a 2-1 lead and all this happened in three weeks. but he has to show that he can withstand the front-runner assault, the comparable period in the last cycle hillary clinton and rudy giuliani and fred thompson were the front-runners, so you have to stand up to having the target on your back, which i think he -- his political skills as are evidenced in his longest-serving governor in texas are considerable and misunderestimated as we adopted texans say, so we'll get through the debates. and i think it's got down to the two-man races as ed rollins was saying last night on cnn. >> to continue the metaphor, i guess the question is what is his stratergey heading into the edates? cnn has a debate september 12th in tampa florida and september 22nd the month of debates ends with a fox news/google/florida republican party debate. rick perry eclipses mitt romney and national polls can be deceptive. you got to win iowa and new hampshire and then we go state by state, what is your sense that in three weeks he's changed the race? what are the strengths and the question marks? >> the real question mark is it doesn't mean anything. mary's right, great number, 39%. but the reverse is, we had donald trump as the leader for one period of time, and then we had sarah palin, and then we go to michele bachmann, it's the flavor of the month, he has to prove that he can withstand scrutiny. his real problem is showing that he has a grasp that is beyond texas and something that can appeal to a broader group of people. he -- yeah, go ahead, gloria. >> people judge candidates by how they do against the people they're standing next to on these debate podiums and i think we're going to take a look at rick perry and we're going to see how he does standing next to mitt romney or standing next to michele bachmann or ron paul. and they are more practiced on the national stage than he is, and you're just going to have to get a sense of how he performs, right? i mean -- >> yeah, it's too early. >> and, mary, how much of these superpacs have rewritten how presidential campaigns play out, $55 million, and the perry campaign said we have nothing to do with these guys, they all happen to be former top perry political aides, and maybe they are being careful legally and not coordinating. and he's not the only one, president obama has one, governor romney has one of these. we live in a new world. >> yes. and as you know, john, there are two -- peter's so right, the numbers don't count. there's two things that do matter. follow the money, where these money guys were sitting on their stash, and they have come pretty quickly to the game for rick perry. the other thing that really counts is in south carolina before he had to rush back to deal with the fires in texas, he did attend a town hall for tim scott, a very influential new young congressman in south carolina. and i'm told he was beloved by those town hall people and he got the endorsement of a south carolina -- another south carolina republican. these are -- these -- congressmen have been sitting on the sidelines and the moneyed people have been sitting on the sidelines and they're coming over for perry and that is a significant demonstration of his strength. far more so than these numbers. >> and so does this matter? ron paul is the texas congressman, he doesn't like anyone in the republican establishment, he clearly doesn't have a good relationship with his governor, so he's put up a video reminding republicans that back in the day this is where i first met rick perry, he supported this guy, named al gore. >> rick perry helped lead al gore's campaign to undo the reagan revolution. fighting to elect al gore president of the united states. >> that's 1988 i believe it was. rick perry was a democrat back then. >> so ald reagan. >> a lot of republicans were democrats back in those days. does it matter? >> i think it depends on what part of the republican electorate you're talking to. i think for lots of republicans, they may say, you can't trust what he says, he supported al gore. a lot of republicans will say it doesn't matter, what we want is the candidate that is the most electable and if that means he can appeal to independent voters and maybe some democrats, we'll take im. >> peter hart, when you look at the strength and weaknesses of the numbers, when you're president obama do you worry more about rick perry or governor romney or governor huntsman as a general election candidate? >> i think you worry most about yourself. he has to correct his problems and for rick perry i would tell you that he's got the tea party behind him. we've looked at those numbers, but he's actually ahead of romney with non-tea party people, so he's creating a lot of problems for romney, and i think the early polls show the problems with romney, and that is he's thin and everybody's looking for somebody else. >> so an interesting month. it's only september, 2011, but a very interesting month of presidential politics. thank you for your help. ahead we look at the key points of the job plan unveiled today, peter just mentioned, mitt romney. >> a crackdown on the cheaters and china is the worst example of that. and also look at this, we'll take you -- wow -- to the front lines of the nasty texas wildfires. than many other allergy medications. omnaris. omnaris, to the nose. did you know nasal symptoms like congestion can be caused by allergic inflammation? omnaris relieves your symptoms by fighting inflammation. side effects may include headache, nose bleed, and sore throat. got allergy symptoms out of my way. now life's a picnic. 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[ male announcer ] if you're in a ford f-150 and you see this... it's the end of the road. the last hurrah. it's when ford's powertrain warranty ends. but in this ram truck, you've still got 39,999 miles to go. ♪ guts. glory. ram. ♪ welcome back. if you're just joining us, here's the latest news you need to know right now. a senior pentagon official said the obama administration is considering an option to keep only 3,000 troops in iraq next year. 40,000 are stationed there now. senators john mccain and lindsay graham say they're deeply troubled by the prospect of such a deep drawdown, pointing out it's dramatically lower than what military leaders say to safeguard the hard-won gains in iraq. dick cheney said he has no regrets about his time as vice president and mr. cheney defends the big deficits run up by the bush administration -- >> but i think with respect to the wars and the war on terror and the threat that we inherited, that we had to face and that we had to deal with, we didn't have any choice but to spend a lot of money. >> officials in the african country of niger say two libya convoys passed through their country this week fueling speculation that the ousted libyan leader moammar gadhafi and members of his family may be on the run. right now the reuters news agency quotes a libyan official who is coordinating the manhunt saying gadhafi was last tracked in southern libya heading towards the borders with niger and chad. ben wedeman is with us live from tripoli tonight. ben, we've heard reports like this before, any sense of whether this one is true? >> reporter: none whatsoever, john. we have to keep in mind that that area, south -- in southern libya is the sahara desert. it's a vast area and it's very difficult, especially for the rebels themselves, to really know where anybody is down there. that area at the moment still seems to be in some form or another under the control of gadhafi loyalists. so, i think we need to approach these reports with real skepticism. let's also keep in mind that in the past rebel officials have put out reports, for instance, that saif al islam and gadhafi had been captured, it turned out not to be true, it may be part of an an effort to undermine the areas of the country that remain loyal to moammar gadhafi. outside of bani walid, they are trying to work their way, the rebels are trying to convince the local inhabitants to trust them to allow them to go in. there are battles outside the town of sirte along the coast, the hometown of moammar gadhafi, so there is sort of an attempt to undermine the resolve of those parts of the country that until now have resisted the rebel rebel rebels' advances, john? >> and some hoped there might be a negotiated settlement between the rebels and what's left of the regime forces and loyalists, but you were part of covering those talks today, and things didn't go as planned, right? >> reporter: they certainly did not. in fact, ntc officials tell us that they were up all night last night with the elders from bani walid trying to give them these assurances that there would be no retribution, no revenge killings, no looting, no plundering if their forces went into that town, and they seemed confident earlier in the day that they had made progress, that these elders were seriously considering these pledges. however, later in the day, when the elders after the talks went back to the outskirts of bani walid, they came under fire from loyalists, and the latest is that negotiations have come to a screeching halt. next step could be a military move into bani walid, john? >> ben wedeman, reporting from tripoli, ben, thank you. the texas wildfires now have kill