Presumptive Frontrunner News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

They portended it to be. >> joining me now is alena maxwell for sirius xm and nbc political analyst. rick tyler, also an nbc political analyst. and former assistant to president obama chris lieu. he is a senior fellow at the miller center. welcome to all. good to see you. let's get going on this one, rick. the senator was attempting to downplay senator harris there. do you think he's beginning to see her more of a threat based on her performance? specifically a debate threat. >> sure, it seems like it. she came out of that second debate the most talked-about candidate who went after joe biden,...

Display. this is a community joe biden needs to win over in order to become the democratic nominee and so i'm not sure how his strategy of sort of lying low and doing only the events he really wants to do is going to work out for him in that way. at the same time, though, i'm not really sure that he can win over that crowd ultimately and i think that it's still early enough in the process that you could see one of these progressives to his left break out and really give him a run for his money. rob: it does almost feel like biden in a way has already moved past the primary, has almost assumed ...

Candidate. he has a great credentials as governor, sort of that, you know, tough talk and we need to make some difficult decisions type of governor and will be that type of presidential candidate. the fiscal responsibility message that the republicans feel so strongly about in terms of discipline, reducing the debt, deficit, building businesses and jobs he has that in his background. he is viable. the only thing from a constructive standpoint, let's take a look at it, governor mitt romney has been running for president consistently for at least the seven years. i think that has to say at this ...

many ran to seek safer ground, but boy, the devastation is coming to light today. >> that's right. 12 hours later life has changed in joplin, missouri. a powerful tornado ripped that city apart. the red cross said 75% of the town is virtually gone with reports of at least 30 people killed and dozens more injured. 50,000 people live in the city. no phone service, power lines are down, cars and trucks smashed and flipped. the governor calling out the national guard and declaring a state of emergency this morning. >> to make matters worse the city's main hospital st. john's medical cent...

Those numbers say there's not a front runner yet. but we also know that debates can make a candidate or break a candidate and someone can break away from the quote unquote dwarves in the process. >> republican strategists are always saying that the message they feel they've got is winnable for them as we look toward 2012. do you think they're right? >> if i were them, i'd be saying that. all the polling data i see right now suggests to me the president's in pretty strong shape. the economy's going to get better. the republican field is relatively weak. you don't have bush running, you don't ha...