Nathan Straul News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Idea that one debate is going to be a game changer just simply isn't the case. in fact, our colleague john harwood had a great article about this in "the new york times" where he points out there are really few debates in history that have done that. one was the debate between nixon and kennedy. it was televised. kennedy came off as being much smoother, more likesable. that's an example of how high the stakes would have to be for there to be a real game-changer. i think what you're going to see more likely is viewers watching these debates in the aggregate. they're all very close together. and...

Seem to demonstrate why the united states is now ranked 25th in the world for mathematics. they both produced economic plans but neither appears to stand up to scrutiny. and this is particularly painful for paul ryan, who has described him as a policy wonk, a numbers guy, and a man who is always prepared to do the math. we're joined now by jared bernstein, former chief economic adviser to vice president joe biden and a man who eats numbers for breakfast. jared, we mention mr. ryan's problems with the math, so please take a listen. >> you're the master of the budget, so briefly lets go through ...

Last week the rnc severed all ties to him because the company was allegedly falsifying registrations on behalf of mitt romney. michael isikoff has been following this story and he joins us live from washington. mike, can you explain why the rnc would appoint this man's company when there were already allegations against him dating back to 2004? >> right. there certainly had been quite a bit of controversy around mr. stroul in the past. he had been accused of voter possession, throwing away democratic registration forms. there are more recently allegations relating to an electoral scheme in ari...

Past june, he acknowledges that he set up a separate company under this name, strategic allied consulting, so that it wouldn't trace back to the other names that he's operated under, lincoln strategy group is the main one, and so it was clear that they were concerned, both he and the rnc, and he says, sproul told me that he did this at the request of the rnc. so there was clearly concern on both parties' part that some of these past controversies would get some attention if it was known that he was conducting this very major nationwide battleground registration effort on behalf of the rnc. >> ...

At the beginning of a busy political week we're pleased to announce one congressional staffer will soon be back at work after a small problem. 25-year-old christian labella who wab working tirelessly for john shimkus was involved in a minor altercation with a 26-year-old actress here in new york. thankfully all the charges have been dropped and he's entirely exonerated of any wrongdoing. he apparently managed to secure valuable time with herman cain but never once did they discuss any shared experiences of sexual harassment. however, his real coup has been to spend time with a man who doesn't ...