>> the romney campaign is flailing on the stump and they are getting slammed in the polls. tonight richard wolf on the obama bounce and the romney collapse. former reagan budget director david stockman on romney's tax loophole train wreck. and jan schakowsky on romney's preexisting problems with obama care. and the national media is portraying chicago's striking teachers as overpaid and greedy. >> chicago teachers are the best paid of any school district in the country. >> the average chicago teacher makes about $76,000 a year. >> nearly four times higher than what the average american receives. >> we'll tell you what the chicago teacher strike is all about. >> good to have you with us. thanks for watching. the romney campaign says that the 2012 election will follow a similar pattern to the election of 1980. they compare mitt romney to the republican challenger ronald reagan who came from behind in the polls to defeat a democratic president. now the romney team was banking on a bounce like ronald reagan got after the republican national convention. the chairman predicted a significant post convention bounce for the candidate. >> i think we're going to get a bump. we have a better opportunity for a bump as a challenging party so when people get to know mitt romney and get to know who he is and the decent man he is and his story of the american dream and his generosity, i can tell you that i think it's going to be real and visible. >> it's pretty clear things vice haven't worked out the way republicans hoped. there was no bounce for romney. and there's a substantial bounce for president obama out of their convention. in the new cnn poll taken after the democratic national convention, president obama leads mitt romney among likely voters by six points. republican pollsters have the president with a similar lead in its latest poll. mitt romney's reagan plan didn't work. now it's time to bring on plan "b". the only problem is the romney camp doesn't appear to have a plan "b". plan b. they are throwing everything they can against the wall to see what sticks. his latest attempt is to go after the christian conservative vote. he even changed his stump speech to say president obama is threatening to take the word god off u.s. currency. >> i will not take god out of the name of our platform. i will not take god off our coins and i will not take god out of my heart. >> as president obama anywhere said anything about taking god off the coins? this is how desperate they are. romney did a lot of pandering to the crowd this weekend. he took the stage with pat robertson, the guy who says natural disasters are god's punishments for making deals with the devil. congressman king is the new romney buddy. he says birth control leads to a dying civilization and same-sex marriage contributes to the national debt. but to mitt romney, he's a top endorser. >> don't doubt this man's faith or conviction and do not doubt his patriotism or his faith and his love for jesus christ our savior. >> romney was so happy to have king's endorsement he returned the favor. >> i'm looking here at steve king. that man needs to be your congressman again. i want him as my partner in washington, d.c. >> when romney wasn't looking for the religious conservative vote, he was knocking his own running mate. this was what mitt romney said when talking about federal defense spending on "meet the press." >> the sequestration idea of the white house which is cutting our defense is an extraordinary miscalculation. >> republican leaders agreed to that deal. >> it's a big mistake. i thought it was a mistake on the part of the white house to propose it. it was a mistake for republicans to go along with it. >> it put paul ryan in an awkward position on "face the nation." >> he said it was a mistake by republicans. he's talking about you because you voted for those cuts. >> i did. you know why? because i was working to find common ground to get a down payment on deficit reduction. >> but this isn't romney's only confused message. he's taking heat for failing to mention his troops in his convention speech. romney is blaming the people asking the questions. >> i find it interesting that people are curious about mentioning words in a speech as opposed to policy. so i went to the american legion the day before i gave that speech. what i found is wherever i go, i am speaking to tens of millions of people. >> romney had the same react when asked about the troops on fox news. >> do you regret opening up this line of attack, now recurring attack by leaving out that issue in the speech? >> i'm going to regret you repeating it. >> despite all the mixed messages and vote pandering, the romney campaign says there's nothing to see here. they are telling supporters, settle down, don't get worked up about latest polling while some voters will feel a sugar high from the conventions. the structure of the race has not changed significantly. and then there was this old favorite. political historians will recall jimmy carter led ronald reagan by a near double digit margin late in the fall of 1980. really? if romney is still banking on the reagan comparison, he needs a little history lesson. reagan led jimmy carter in the polls before the conventions were held in 1980. romney's poll numbers are going in the opposite direction. an anonymous romney advisor chalked the bad poll numbers up to a conspiracy. the advisor told the national review, sometimes i think there's a conscious effort between the media to get republicans depressed. i hope people realize these media analysts are democrats who want us to lose. the romney campaign is dealing with the latest reality of the campaign in two ways. denial and hysteria. and mitt romney himself is firmly in denial mode. >> i have really two months to be able to convince people i can do a better job than the incumbent. so i'm in a better spot than i was before the convention. >> mitt romney sure has a funny definition of the word better. get your cell phones out. tonight's question, does mitt romney have a coherent message for voters? text a for yes or b for no. leave a comment on our blog. we'll bring you the results later on in the show. i just think this election is so well-defined, the issues. it's amazing to me we're inside 60 days and the romney campaign can't figure out what the middle class in this country is going through. it is a huge voting bloc. they have no plan, no message, nothing for the middle class. joining me tonight is msnbc political analyst richard wolf. great to have you with us tonight. >> thank, ed. >> how can we be, or the romney camp, be so close to the election yet be so far off message? what can we compare this campaign to? >> they have dozens of different messages. the path was to say we're only going to talk about the economy. the problem is that their idea was if we talk about the economy, they are going to say that's obama's fault. it never worked because some blame the president. there are plenty of people who blame the bush administration. so the argument hasn't stuck. there was another track for them, which is to say let's go for reform. a non-washington crowd, as your clip showed. if you pick someone like paul ryan as your vp, you get tied into a pretzel. there are things you'd like to say, but you have picked someone from washington so they have reform off the table now. you have got the economy, there's a mixed message. and that's how you end up in this hole of trying to talk about social policy when you've got a very flawed message on this and everything else. >> here's a bump. there was a news in the fundraising race. obama campaign raised more money than the romney campaign in the month of august. how concerned should the romney camp be ann about fundraising drying up if the polls continue to go in the direction they are going? >> the polls are going to come down. democrats should not roll out the flags because -- >> but there's a momentum for the democrats. >> there is but there will be debates and people are going to want to try to even it out a bit. but money is not something the romney campaign ever has to worry about. even if their own fundraising falls away, there's always the super pacs to fill it out. democrats are changing that dynamic when you see rahm emanuel coming in to beef up the democrat super pac. but it looks more of an even contest on money moving forward. >> today rush limbaugh was talking like president obama had already won. here it is. >> give me an example of a loophole that you will close. >> taxpayers will have fewer deductions and exemptions. those numbers are going to come down. otherwise they'd get a tax break. i want to make sure people understand. >> what does it mean that there's people openly talking about what kind of trouble they are having on the campaign trail? can't get on message when it comes to taxes, medicare, there's some double talk going on there. and when it comes to the budgeting process, romney is not on the same page with ryan when it comes to what they want to do with defense. >> you just heard him talking about numbers coming down. they are going to come down for people in the upper bracket. they will come down for the middle class too. the problem he has now with the polls where they are at this close to election day is you start getting more of the second guessing stories. he should have done this, he should have done this. republican advisers saying he needed to take a different track. that's two, three, four more weeks before he can turn it around. the number of opportunities he has now comes down to the debate to even this up. remember, john kerry went into the debates ten points down. his debate performance was outstanding. if you start from that far behind, it's hard to even it up. >> that's where i think president obama is so strong. i think he'll go right after it on the debates. there's been so many positions mitt romney has had, how can the president not point that out? which makes romney extremely vulnerable. >> target-rich environment, as i like to say. >> well put. great to have you with us, richard. remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of the screen. share your thoughts on twitter and on facebook. we want to know what you think. coming up, mitt romney's tax plan doesn't add up and even conservatives can't depend on it or explain it. david stockman joins me next. stay with us. in america today we're running out of a vital resource we need to compete on the global stage. what we need are people prepared for the careers of our new economy. by 2025 we could have 20 million jobs without enough college graduates to fill them. that's why at devry university, we're teaming up with companies like cisco to help make sure everyone's ready with the know how we need for a new tomorrow. [ male announcer ] make sure america's ready. make sure you're ready. at devry.edu/knowhow. coming up, mitt romney and paul ryan get grilled on their tax plan. but they still won't get specific. former budget director david stockman weighs in next. he has a lot to say. then the romney camp flips and flops after mitt says he wouldn't get rid of all of obama care if elected. we'll look at the candidate's preexisting problem with the legislation. and later teachers are on strike. why? i'll speak to a chicago teacher about what's at stake for the students. share your thoughts with us on facebook and on twitter. use the #edshow. most of the pain i experience is neck pain that also becomes headaches. i was very skeptical about aspirin. bayer advanced was completely different. it really did get rid of the pain. put bayer advanced aspirin to the test for yourself at fastreliefchallenge.com. welcome back to "the ed show." president obama says he's not going to ask the middle class to pay for another tax cut for millionaires. and mitt romney still doesn't have a counterargument. he can't answer basic questions about his tax plan. >> give me an example of a loophole you will close. >> people at the high end, high income taxpayers will have fewer deductions and exemptions. those numbers are going to come down. otherwise, they would get a tax break and i want to make sure people understand, despite what the democrats said at their convention, i'm not reducing taxes on high income taxpayers. >> he won't name a single loophole he would actually close. under his plan, the wealthiest americans get a tax cut. mitt romney's running mate doesn't do any better answering the simple question. >> don't voters have a right to know which loopholes you're going to go after? >> so mitt romney and i based on our experience think the best way to do this is to show the framework, show the outline and work with congress to do this. that's how you get things done. >> isn't that a secret plan? >> no. what we don't want is a secret plan. >> he won't answer the question because he can't. the math doesn't work. even conservatives have no way of defending romney's plan. here's george will. >> there is uncertainty surrounding the romney/ryan tax cut plan because they have not specified the deductions that will be closed and we know where the big money is. mortgage interest deductions, charitable deduction, employer-provided health insurance and state and local taxes. all of those you either hit only the rich, in which case you don't get much money, or you hit the middle class. >> this is backed up by the tax policy center. under romney's plan, the middle class pays more while the wealthy pay less. 65% of people who use the mortgage interest deduction make less than $100,000 a year. 91% of people who use the deduction make less that $2 hundr $00,000 a year. let's turn to david stockman, former budget director and director of office and management of budget for president ronald reagan. great to have you on the program. >> great to be here. >> george will says the romney tax plan doesn't add up for the middle class. what's your assessment? >> that it doesn't add up and his budget plan doesn't add up. he has a secret plan to cut the budget. after all, the republicans were the party of fiscal rectitude. when you ask them in this budget what is it you're going to cut, it's not defense. $700 billion, we don't have industrial enemies left in the world. we have been fired as the policeman of the world. why is he wanting to increase the $700 billion? second, he complains about entitlements and so forth. i know you disagree with that, but i think we need to means test. and reform social security just for the affluent retirees. not for the mom and pop who only have a social security check. they haven't said a word about $800 billion in social security needs testing. medicare, it doesn't take effect until 2023. what are they doing in the interim. so my point is, they have a secret plan to close loopholes and cut taxes, which makes no sense to me when you look at the loopholes. they have a secret plan to cut spending that they are not really talking about. and so the thing doesn't add up. neither party is adding up. frankly because we're getting the same kind of role reversal. if i can say this, from the white house. the democratic party historically was the peace party, the working man's party. and unfortunately after four years, president obama hasn't cut a dime out of defense. he should be taking on the generals, the military industrial complex. he's not doing it, so therefore, his position isn't credible. we're having an extension of the bush tax cuts for everybody. i agree on the 2%, but we can't afford them for the other 98% either given the fact that half of the population, the poor and lower income don't pay income tax any way. so the progressive ought to be no more tax cuts. we can't afford them for anybody. we're going after that pentagon and we're going to cut back dramatically this huge defense establishment we don't need. neither party is doing that, so we have this silly debate going on of one fairy tale versus another. and the country is in the trouble for it. >> president obama said let's go big. he was ready to go big on the deficit reduction package and the republicans didn't come to the plate. in fact, paul ryan played a real role in that telling his own leadership that if we do that, this is going to walk president obama right into a second term. so president obama was willing to put -- >> i agree. >> he's also willing to raise taxes. go back to the old rates and let the bush tax cuts expire, which would bring more money into the treasury. but no one talks about how much money that would actually be. do you know? >> yes, i know. it would be for the top rates, it's over a trillion dollars. >> so it would help. >> it would help a lot but we need to let them expire for everybody. that's $2.5 trillion. there's a trillion dollars worth of loopholes easy. cut the rates, give everybody a big tax rate and they ought to be paying their fair share. $200 billion is due to capital gains and other investment preferences. how do you think mitt romney got a 14.9% tax rate. are they going to get rid of the health deduction for employer plans and so forth? are they going to get rid of retirement deductions? are they going to get rid of state and local tax exemptions? >> the the answer to those questions is probably not because the people don't want it. there's no march to get rid of medicare or social security and have they not raided social security and borrowed against it, it's a solvent program and has been for 77 years. >> but ed, the problem is for the last 40 years we have been raiding social security and spending it on aircraft carriers. >> we don't pay for anything. >> the problem is the $2.8 trillion of ious in the trust fund have nothing behind them. they are pieces of paper. and they will never be funded unless we tax somebody. >> but from an accounting process, the truth hasn't been there with social security. social security when it's not raided has worked. and of course, i think the republicans are after the new deal. they have been for a long, long time. cut back government where you want it. and this would be the president to do it, if he gets in. what about offshore accounts. what about people not paying their fair share. how much of a damage does that do? we have tax laws that allow this to happen and people make money in this country and take it overseas and park it and don't pay what they would pay if they had it here. >> my view is the top 2% are so lucky from the boom we have had over the last 30 years. half of which wasn't real. it was the federal reserve printing money and all of the speculation that was going on. they ought to stop whining about paying a little more in taxes because we are in deep trouble fiscally in this country. >> if you want to save the country financially, you have to go where you get the money fast. it's like a sales tax. if they expire the bush tax cuts, the top 2% over 250,000, you're going to get a lot of money fast. why? because they can. that's where i'm at. if you're going to fix it fast, that's where you got to go quickly. i don't think it's going to hurt job creation. great to have you on the program. thank you so much. mitt romney says he likes some parts of obama care. his campaign says that's not true. jan schakowsky weighs in. then the rude awakening for the republicans. they thought they could win control of the senate. we'll talk to one democrat causing serious problems for the gop in the heartland. stay with us. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. everyone in the nicu, all the nu