His ballot. Romney campaigning throughout ohio today then hes in worthing on the industries and later the northwestern part of the state. Now live at 1 15 eastern well bring you president obama in richmond live here on cspan. Would you support military action in iran . If need be, yes. As a last option, yes 6789 under what conditions . If sanctions dont work. If they are about to have the ability to develop a nuclear bomb, we use every option possible as would israel and that would be the last option wed use. I think we stand with israel and do not let them develop a nuclear weapon. Under what conditions would you recommend it . I dont know right now but we better exhaust everything else. And at the end of the day if that is what is needed, im still serving. Ill be the first volunteer but were going to have a darn honest discussion about what is needed. With less than two weeks before the election follow the races on cspan in campaign 2012. Tonight live coverage with several debates when we take you to ohio for the senate debate. At 8 00 the debate for the 4th district for the house race. At 9 00 eastern new mexicos First District squars off against healther wilson. This time around the two candidates are going for new Mexicos Senate seat. Thats at 9 00 eastern. Cspans campaign 2012 coverage tonight. Next a round table with charlie cook and abc news amy walter. This is at the Aspen Institute in washington. Its an hour and twenty minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I am here with the institutes Vice President. It is a great honor to have you here and these great folks here. On behalf of the washington ideas roundtable and the Michelle Smith foundation. We thank you for being here. A lot of us are very interested in the politics for the next couple of weeks. I see old politicians up front. There is the congressmen and ambassador, i know there are others as well. We appreciate folks being here. I recognize gary nell, a friend of minewe have a great program. Is here. That soothing, wonderful voice. It livens me. You do a great job. I will let steve introduce charlie cook and amy walter. Charlies son just came back from afghanistan. Last month, he was 82nd airborne. I am sure he is delighted to be back safely and we all are, as well. [applause] steve is the cohost of morning edition. I will turn it over to steve. Thank you very is an honor to talk to both of you folks. Much. I grew up watching abc news. I Pay Attention to abcs reporting. It is great to meet amy walter. She tells them what to do. When i first moved to washington in 1996, very early on i had some political question i was putting to a colleague. They said, you really ought to call up charlie cooke. It is true then and it continues to be true now. For those who dont know, he is the editor of the political report and a columnist for the national journal. I want to begin with a really straightforward question. I am sure the answer is simple. Who is winning the president ial election . You really had to put it out there. So, you look at the News Coverage and you look at the data and you get two different answers. If you look at the News Coverage, especially since the first debate in denver, it would be romney is the guy who has ascended after a terrible summer and a terrible september and what looked like a race that was a runaway obama victory. The momentum is all mitt romney. Looking at the polls and National Polls, he was ahead. There was a poll right after that first debate in denver. Other polls show the race a dead heat. Momentum going his way. Then you look at the data, especially in the states. We learned that people do not elect the president. The Electoral College elects the president. When you look at those polls, the underneath numbers suggest it is still obamas race right now. Fundamentally, he has got an edge in the Electoral College, in some of those big states like ohio, wisconsin, nevada, and that his path to victory has been he is on multiple paths. Whereas romney what is really excited early on that they would fight on the same path rather than trying to expand it. The pennsylvania, michigan, minnesota states they talked about putting in place, they never spent time there. I hear you telling me that even if i look at a list of polls, it may show romney plus two, romney plus five, there are obama leading polls as well, but you are telling the obama has the edge. Structurally, he has an advantage. If those states happen to flip, they have gotten closer. There is a debate. Charlie will have a lot to say about what polls to believe. Our polls even trust for the now . Everybody seems to have their own poll. I do not know there are actually that many people in ohio. Maybe there are professional polltakers in ohio. That may be a good business. There is so much data coming out that you almost to not know what to believe. You have to read what is happening during a campaign. It is clear there is, when you talk about a few of the states, where the obama edge, as slight as it may be, is still there. Charlie cook, who is winning . Let me say how much i appreciate. It has been a wonderful experience every time i represent anything with the Aspen Institute. I took my son to a conference in aspen. Bob gates before he was the director. Over there is al. Here i am and saying, how did i get here . The Aspen Institute is wonderful. I got my start working for a senate race in 1972. Anyway, thanks. I would look at it. A popular vote, the National Polls, it is about even. I want to get into a conversation about polls. I agree about 80 that the Electoral College situation looks a little different and it is a little bit more uphill for romney. The way i would describe it is this. President obama was on the verge of putting this race away. It was all but done. You have a lot of voters that were not considering thinking about considering mitt romney but were not terribly enthusiastic about president obama. Suddenly, it pushes romney up into the race. Obama drops. In the next two debates that president obama technically one, the feeling that opened the doors for people considering romney in a way they had never considered him fee for. Nationally, this is a very close race. It is actually tide. I think there is a lot of scar tissue in the seven swing states that saw the brunt of the aim capital plant closings, layoffs, outsourcing, income tax, cayman islands, switzerland, bermuda, all of that stuff. The Romney Campaign made a huge error by not going in early on as soon as they nailed down the nomination and try to tell people about mitt romney. He was a blank piece of paper. Instead, one of the things you have got to do is define your candidate before the other side defines them. Think of the boy scouts. Creating reservoir of goodwill in a teflon coating before the slime hits. The Romney Campaign opted not to do that. Their view was any dollar spent talking about anything other than the economy was a dollar wasted. They basically went into the swing states with a baseball bat and beat on thes trains in. There is still a lot of scar tissue. After that debate, romney went up. I am sure his numbers went up in all 50 states. There are six or seven as he went up less in because of that scar tissue. So, even if you assume romney takes North Carolina and virginia is about even, and florida is about even, it is a tough path for him to get there. Iowa, colorado, wisconsin, there is a lot of scar tissue there. That is why it is uphill for romney even though it is incredibly close. That raises the question people talk about. Is there a legitimate possibility that one candidate wins the popular vote and the other when the electoral vote . There is. Look at the states that are red. If you do when florida, North Carolina and virginia, even ohio. Look at the blue states. This is where the Romney Campaign says they are doing better. The polls suggest it. They will not lose by the same margins. Even like a place like illinois. Mccain lost some of these districts by 20 points. That will not happen. You can see those numbers going up, even in states that romney will lose. Because some of the states are completely off the map, places like pennsylvania, michigan, that means his pathway has to go through a place like colorado, nevada, or ohio. One of the problems is you are on the record. A few months ago, i wrote a column. I was talking all of these people who were spending so much time putting together combinations of electoral votes like they were trying to solve a rubiks cube. Could it happen . Of course it could happen. It is unlikely. Now i think there is a fair chance of that. If that happens, and romney would be the one who would be more likely to come out of the popular side, and obama in the electoral vote side. That is what we are talking about. All of the republicans who saw a great benefit in the Electoral College back in 2000, may be rethinking that. Vice versa for liberals. One thing i remember about the 2000 campaign is that there was also talk of the possibility of a split between the popular and electoral vote. The talk was al gore was surely going to lose the popular vote but still had a shot at the electoral vote. It turned out to be the opposite. I am wondering if that is something to remember now. We are talking about this possibility. Are the odds still against that really happening . Yes. It is greater than it normally is. If you did not know who the candidates were or anything, i would assume normally that a democrat would be better off in the popular vote because they run up the score in enormously popular states like california, new york. Really, the only popular state republicans were up to score is taxes. Democrats waste more votes than republicans do. It is that would be the norm if you had a divided electoral votes. This time, it is different. If that happens, it would be more likely to go the other way because of the last Electoral College we are talking about. Amy talked about pennsylvania being off the map. Pennsylvania is put as a swing state. Some electoral maps have it that way. I would look to follow the money. If a campaign has spent approximately 0 on a state, that says to me they are not invested in that state and considerate of a battleground state. That is what has happened. They talk about that. People on the ground. Organizations, that is nice. But nobody has put a dime, from either campaign, recently, in terms of advertising, some of the out side groups put a little bit of money in there, but only a little. Most of this money is going, and the poor people of ohio have been innovative for month. I completely agree with charlie. When you saw these ads going up, going after bain and mitt romney, surely we would get a response ad from the Romney Campaign. Here is what a good guy he is or here is what his business experience is. Charlie and i listen to the same focus groups. You hear the swing voters disappointed in president obama but they kept saying i do not know anything about mitt romney. Sometimes, they would just say things without being prompted that were from ads. I remember sitting in one group where a woman said, that mitt romney, he is a businessman. We have problems with our economy, but if you shut factories down, in northern virginia, voters were out in the suburbs, a number of women talking about romney and the economy, but they are worried about the womens healthcare stuff. Why is he doing that with abortion . It is penetrating. All we would talk about citizens united, and the influence of money from outside groups, they do not get as much bang for their buck as a campaign does. Look at how much spending where we talk about the massive amount of spending going into these groups, the Obama Campaign has more ads on television and all the republicans combined. Number two, all those ads republicans put up were negative, too. They are now putting up positive spots about the boy we heard about who died of cancer, and mitt romney was with him and help him pick up his boy scout uniform. It is a really touching story. Why did we not hear that story before . They did not know about that story until the convention. That is the problem with being an outside group. You do not know your candidate. There was an obama at in the last few days that had one of the most brutal attack lies i have seen. Mitt romney, not one of us. Airing in ohio. That is an alienating line. If the republicans ran that, yes. I think you know what the interpretation of it might be. It is an outstanding point. It sounds like that is what you are saying. They would not have gotten away with running an ad like that if mitt romney had done that. It would not resonate. What they done this is what they have done is the most effective job. We see the national police. If you look at a place like ohio, where mitt romney has closed the gap on who you think can do the better job on the economy. He is tied. On who do you think represents middleclass values, a 14point gap. There are people saying he is good at what he does, he made a lot of money. That is good, i guess. Except that, will he make a lot of money and think about me . How am i going to be part of the equation . At the same time, coming out of the debates, the wall street journal had a survey. They asked to has a plan for the future and to create jobs. While the debt numbers improved somewhat for romney, when you looked at him on the independence, it is 20points. Romney has not closed the sales with these people, but he has opened up the conversation. A focus group in columbus, ohio, that was fastening work. And one fascinating work. She said, i looked through romneys eyes. That is different from where things were. Romney had a horrible summer, a horrible trip to europe, the convention, he got one lousy point out of it. Basically until october 1, after winning the nomination, nothing went right. And you had the debate on october 3, and october was a great month. Amy mentioned something. You talked about the narrative. You referred to the fact that everyone went through the events you described, charlie cook. The question is, how long will the media stick with that or what will happen. How important a factor is that in the real world, simply the way it political reporters assume it is going and the way they cast their stories as a result . In terms of swing voters, i do not think they are hearing it at all. The thing about it is independent voters typically read newspapers less, they watched Television News less, they listen to npr less. Conservatives and republicans have passions. Liberals and democrats have passion. Moderates and independents have lives. They are not spending their lunch hour in a room in washington listening to a discussion or watching it on cspan. They typically do not like politics or politicians, they are very cynical about washington, and they show up for one or two reasons. A civic obligation or they are angry at somebody or a bunch of people. They are not watching fox and they are not watching multiple sclerosis nbc. Much of the chatter going on is going past these people. They are not watching rachel and they are not watching john kennedy. Independence and moderates. It was written the other day about the way the narrative changes. Basically, political porters take a look at the polls. Obama gets out there and says romnesia. If you perceive obama as winning, that is great. If you perceive obama as was in, that is embarrassing. Does it color the news they get . It does depend. Getting the news by watching something on saturday night live, which we use as a great arbiter. A lot of folks who are very passive, and i agree with charlie, you are wonderful people but no one here is normal. We spend how many minutes talking about the possibility of a popular and electoral vote. I would love to pull people around america how much they have actually thought about that. That show, for many people, does give them an image of that. The image that was created was crafted of mitt romney, both on comedy shows and on traditional media, and by the ads, that mitt romney was staff but also a super rich guy who does not really know what it is like to be an average person. That is what you hear in the focus group, peter asks, what would mitt romney be like as a neighbor. They said things like, i am sure he would be nice and pleasant. I do not think i would be good enough to be invited to his house. I would be embarrassed to bring the casserole over. Who would they most likely want to have to be invited to a backyard cookout . You know who it is. They would love bill clinton and joe biden to come by. Charlie is right on about why this race is not over. The door did open after those debates. There were a lot of people getting a second look at what they see from mitt romney. But the question this goes back to the earlier Point Charlie made about defining yourself what are the closing arguments mitt romney is making for them . For many, he is saying things are not getting better, or they are not getting much better but i do not know if i would give obama much credit. If i were to switch horses, what would i get from mitt romney . They still have not answered that question. One of the things we have talked about is which mitt romney . The guy who came by our Office Running for the u. S. Senate in 1994 was really bright, an analytical mind. He was more of the problem solver. He was a management consultant. He thought he could do a better job. He was fairly nonideological. If i had to put him on a scale of a football field, i would put among the 35 or 40 yard line on the right side, but nowhere near the reds on. That was the guy then. That was the guy who started to run for president in 2007. Somewhere during the 2008 campaign, he realized it was not working and he had to go hard right. For the last four years, he has been running as far to the right as he possibly could. When you had that fox news debate back in september of last year when he said, if you were offered a budget deal, 101, would you go . Not one of the eight republican candidates raised their hands. The thing about it is, that is one hell of a deal. He really did not hit us back until not even at the convention. It was the first debate. It was a different romney. People have to sort out for themselves which is it. This is closer to 1. 0. That mitt