Theres a storm brewing, a hurricane thats been building for months, maybe years, one so big america cannot escape it and will make landfall all across this great nation on november 6th, a direct hit that will change the country forever, im talking about the election. What did you think i was talking about, that literal storm thats taking aim, hurricane sandy. Theres that too. They are calling it frankenstorm. More on that in a minute. In preparation for the frankenstorm romney camp cancelled a weekend rally in virginia. Hes back in ohio after pushing his economic plan earlier today in iowa. This is an election of consequence. Our campaign is about big things because we happen to believe that america faces big challenges. And together we can bring that kind of change, real change to our country. Speak being of change, president obama is taking a breather after clocking more than 6,000 miles in 37 hours. Thats a road trip four. With 11 days to go the president continues to campaign with a round of radio interviews. After the election and i believe ill win to bring the republicans together with my administration and democrats and say to them the election is over, we still have some big problems to solve, and the goal of making me a one term president is behind us. Lets bring in times Deputy Washington Bureau chief michael crowley. How are you . We just saw the president talking to michael smirkonish, he was on rock center, the tonight show and morning joe. Hes doing a lot of interviews. Meanwhile romney said no more interviews for the ref of the election, what do you make of these two different strategies . Well im a little surprised because i think that all though it seems like the popular vote right now in the polling is at least tied and romney may even have a little bit of an edge, i think obama has the electoral advantage. My analysis of the race is that romney needs to work a little bit more to get it, to get over the top and it looks a little bit like obama is the one working it harder. May make the calculation that romneys to gap ratio is higher so maybe the stakes are lower from the obama camp to go out and do that. The thing that strikes me more is that visual you played, its probably artificial and manufactured but great for the campaign, the president running on the gang plank with his sleeves rolled up, jogging down the tarmac. Hes after that first debate where people were so disappointed and a lot of talk that he didnt want it, he was half awake. They are putting out the perfect photo op of a guy working, jogging, sleeves rolled up. Part and parcel of that heres a guy working for it. People you got to turn out and rote for him because hes working hard and you got to work for him. Thats all about optics. Speaking of which the media may have been looking at the wrong thing the last few years. Chuck todd points out we look for what was previously a big swing state to be the big swing state. In 2000 we were surprised it was florida. In 04 it was ohio. In 08 it was virginia. This year were running for the presidency of ohio but chuck todd says maybe were running for the presidency of colorado. Maybe colorado will be the thing that makes the difference. Do you think that the media in focusing on ohio is focusing on the wrong thing and maybe there will be a different state that on november 6th say look it was all about this state. Well if youre kg me do i think that when all the media is focused on one thing it end up being another thing i would say frequently yes. We always get it right. Right. I think theres some truth chuck has been talking about this for a while. Its an interesting theory. He said there might be some time zone bias, colorado is further away, harder to get to and not as interesting to people. I think theres some truth to that. However, ohio has more electoral votes and really does seem to be incredibly close and its also this coalescing of so many of the really Critical Issues in the race, china, the auto bailout, the economy is getting better. The one thing that it doesnt have so much of is the hispanic voters that are really important in colorado and do i think at the end of the day they could be the defining story in this election if the president wins or if their turnout is disappointing and he loses and thats huge in colorado. Thats an importanter to line. You dont get as much in ohio but in colorado and other swing states. Michael, one of your tweets earlier today just one . Do we think portman, rob, on the ticket might have been enough to tip ohio and thus the race to romney . Its an intriguing question and i think if romney doesnt win paul ryans wisconsin or ohio, he will probably look back and have a similar thought. But i want to reference one of our show favorites nate silver in the New York Times who said look Major Party Nominees for president since 1920 have carried the running mates home states only 65 of the time and overall theres a net gain of two points for the top of the ticket in the vps home state. In a year like this, two points in wisconsin could be big, but really is paul ryan going to have that much impact over what happens to mitt romney . Well, i think possibly not. You know you make a good point. Before the vp pick i think i wrote a couple of things telling tomb settle down. Im familiar with hat nate silver wrote. We are looking at a vote in ohio that could come down to two points or even less and it could be consequential. On the other hand remember when paul ryan was picked a lot of democrats gleefully said and it was partly spin but some was sincere a lot said paul ryan is a game changer in our favor. This guy cant elected running on the ryan plan. Its a disaster. I wrote a story, i went down to florida and saw ryan there and at the time several weeks ago i thought the medicare thing, the medicare sort of voucher component that the ryan plan of hurting romney and that want stems have blown away. The dynamics of the race have changed. Were not hearing so much about ryan and the ryan plan. Maybe not. I think if he doesnt carry wisconsin and ohio, romney lose ohio by a point there will be that second guessing. Michael in my view two contradictory things have been taking shape. One weve gotten arguably the best Economic News of Barack Obamas presidency in the last month. Housing starts are up. The Unemployment Rate back one 8 . Mists saying they see good things coming on the horizon over the next couple of years. And theres polling evidence as well more americans are saying yes we are better off than four years ago. Yet in that same time, in this past month obama is standing against romney on the question of who do you trust to hand tell economy has dropped. They were learning even on that question when obama was ahead now in the latest abc tracking poll the advantage for romney on that question is nine points. That want seems to be driving the come back he had in october. How do you acquire those two things . You know its a bigamistry and i wish i had a simple answer for you. I think one part of it is romney has gotten better at presenting his economic platform. He talks about this fivepoint plan. I find the five points to be extremely vague and it sounds like a more coherent plan that it really is. A lot of it is five aspirational things like energy independence. Hes done a pretty good job at presenting it in the debates and in addition key to it and related to what i just said his discussions of the tax plan and hes doing this in the debates have beat back this narrative that hes favoring the rich his jepd is a huge tax cut for the wealthy. Taxes will be a lot lower under mitt romney than president obama thats the reality. But romney has done a good job of reframing in his own terms his tax plan and making it sound like its a broad tax reform. Im not favoring the rich and i think that people probably just trust him more. Hes beaten back a narrative that hes this vulcher capitalist. It does beg the question if romneys strategy of going quiet in terms of media is smart since he has done a better job of articulating his economic plan but i want to ask you about an october surprise, something late in the game could totally shake things up and change the results on election day. Our friends wrote in reuters point out election day is happening in a lot of places across the country and in fact one in three americans will vote before actual election day. So in some ways doesnt that mitigate the possibility of any real october surprise and make the case so its already baked . Its funny. I was about to use that phrase the cake is partway baked. I think youre right. I would say thank goodness for that because, you know, in some ways i see the whole election now is like a guy at a bar who needs to be cut off. Last call, go home because youre just saying dumb things. Candidates all around the country, congressional and senate races that i wont mention specifically. They need to stop talking. We know where everybody stands. What this comes down to now is gaffes and gimmicks and quotes taken out of context. Its for the best. A lot of people who work for john derry in 2004 believed when Osama Bin Laden came out and made a videotape statement on the friday before election day that that really had a potentially pivotal effect on the race, that it did push a few voters over the brink. In hindsight that statement meant nothing. Fewer people who are exposed to irrational and emotional stimulus in the last few days and changing their votes the better. We are miare mitigating this oc goofiness. I love it. Michael crowley, thank you so much. Up next our state of the day. Heres a hint live free or die but first speaking of granite, i felt like granite yesterday. Yesterday, professor Steve Kornacki had a debate over a musical selection. It was the four tops, he was right. So this one is dedicated to steve. So i test. A lot. Do you test with this . Freestyle lite test strips . I dont see. Beep wow that didnt take much blood. Yeah, and the unique zipwik tab targets the blood and pulls it in. So easy. Yep. Freestyle lite needs just a third the blood of onetouch ultra. Really . So testing is one less thing i have to worry about today. Great. Call or click today and get strips and a meter free. Test easy. We put a week of her familys smelly stuff all in at once to prove that febreze car vent clips could eliminate the odor. Then we brought her family to see if it worked. Tell me what you smell. Something fresh. A beach. Take your blindfolds off. Oh look at all this garbage febreze car. Eliminates odors for continuous freshness, so you can breathe happy. Have you tried this yet . Save on febreze car and other Innovative Products with the october 28th p g brandsaver. A cup of johan is a 600 horsepower sports coupe that likes to hug curves. Your curves. Smooth, rich, never bitter, gevalia. A thing that helps you wbuy other things. Hing. But plenty of companies do that. So we make something else. We help make life a little easier, more convenient, more rewarding, more entertaining. Year after year. Its the reason why we dont have customers. We have members. American express. Welcome in. 11 days. That music is weird. Ill just say it. Its weird. Thats the whole point. Very 70s. Motown weird. 11 days out and were focus on the seven states to watch. Your Election Night cheat state. Today New Hampshire is in the spotlight with four electoral voes. With the National Race as close as it is those four votes could mean winning the white house or going home empty handed. New hampshire is in our backyard at least for me and steve. Im heading back up to the state this weekend for another round of wood cocking grass hunting. Obama has a narrow lead only. 8 percentage point in a state he won by 10 points in 2008. Libertarian is on the ballot here. Lets bring to it the table. You know, guys, romney is not taking New Hampshire for granted and i think the fact that its close means he thinks he can win it, and hes microtargeting in that state in an interesting way, hes got a new ad up targeting Ship Builders. Lets play a little of that. The state of our navy, the state of our entire u. S. Military is crucial for america. Our freedom depends on it. And so do many of our jobs, 3600 in New Hampshire alone. Does president obama know how much his defense cuts will hurt us . Sure his flippant remarks insult mitt romney, but do they also expose how president obama views the world and americas place in it . So obviously, i mean if there were any sort of hurt feelings over the bayonet remark mitt romney is doubling down in New Hampshire. I was up there for the primaries, and during the republican primaries it was all ron paul all the time. His signs were every where. Ron paul fans are big in New Hampshire. And im just wondering back to that gary johnson sideline who is going to get all of those vote votes. Some will go to gary johnson, some will go to mitt romney and some will go obama. Those are what i think are the votes up for grabs. Its interesting. One thing about New Hampshire that people dont realize its the designated three state. Its zionism for libraertarians. Its like boca. The estimate was last time i looked a couple of years ago about 2,500 people had done this. New hampshire itself even before the free state had been unusually friendly to libertarian candidates in elections. Would you have gubernatorial gubernatorial races where a libertarian candidate can pull 5 of the vote. I do think theres a factor there. My take on New Hampshire is first of all it has been decisive before. We remember the 2000 election. We say florida. It was actually New Hampshire. The margin was 7600 votes bush versus gore. Only state in the northeast that went republican. If bush didnt win by a tiny majority he wouldnt have been president. It was one of the most republican states in the country as of 1988. Gave george bush sr. A 26 be point lead. Its basically friendly to democrats since then but still is a place where there are more registered republicans than democrats and if you look in the southeast part of the state the two most populace counties across the massachusetts border theres a legacy of people there that fled massachusetts, moved into these bedroom communities. They are actually, they are the people romney is counting on because they dont like taxes or government. This guy i go hunting with said to me last weekend, you know, these ron paul voters, they are great but too busy writing their manifestos to take time out to vote. You pointed out how close it has been in. These elections. New hampshire has gone democratic in the last four out of five elections. Its hard to flip a state. One of those historic moments of flipping, obama won this by nine points in 08. Silver has obama up by two and a half points. These people know romney really well. If they still havent come around to say its romney then i dont know what will do that. Speaking of coming around you said that with smiling face at the top. No that was rolling stone. I only heard a few bars of it. Two bars. You requested it. Of course you know who it was. I only knew it last night. Have we settled this. Were back there. I have to say im fascinated by this libertarian colony. You pointed out something yesterday about how in some ways this election is coming down to discomfort with the economy versus discomfort with the Republican Party in a mitt romney on social issues and to me New Hampshire is the perfect example of that. It has a long history of feminism. It was the first state to ratify the era. If the democrats sweep this time around youll have for the First Time Ever a state whose entire congressional delegation and governor are all women which is an incredible thing which may help them. The president has a huge gender gap in the state. While romney is microtargeting Ship Builders im confident the president will be targeting women, suburban women talking about social issues, reminding them of the extreme position of the Republican Party and Richard Mourdocks comments didnt help. Dont discount the influence of kelly out there. Shes got a big voice in New Hampshire. Straight ahead well gate check on the very latest projection for hurricane sandy, the monster storm threatening the east coast. [ male announcer ] rogaine is proven to help stop hair loss. And for 85 of guys, it regrew hair. Save up to 42 now at rogaine. Com. Hurricane sandy is leaving the bahamas right now after cutting a destructive path through the caribbean killing at least 34 people. South florida got a glancing blow with rough surf, high winds and heavy rain. Now all eyes turn to the rest of the east coast. A wide area from new england all the way down to the Midatlantic States including maryland and my home state the commonwealth of virginia. Weather channel hurricane expert Bryan Norcross has some answers for us when it comes to who can get the worse and when. Whats the latest . The bottom line is everybody will get a tremendous storm here. Were looking at, at our forecast when have we last seen one like this. We never have. The next comes somewhere between as you said virginia and on up there to new york but the extent of the storm is the entire area and look at the timing so this is overnight monday into early tuesday that were thinking the center will come ashore but the winds will actually pick up through the day on monday. For your planning all preparations, all getting ready for having your power go out, everything youre is going to do has to be done on sunday with the winds increasing on monday. We have an alert up for every where from boston down the carolinas for extensive power outages, probably millions of people without power and we have an aware up all the way up to the Canadian Border all the way over to ohio and down further south for potentially very heavy snow out in the mountains well inland, flooding from extensive rains perhaps up to a foot of rain and just continuous winds lasting a day to a day and a half including new york city and boston and potentially a threat at the high rise levels of buildings that well talk about as we go here. We do n