into the huge battleground state of florida. speaking of class warfare, it's the texas governor playing the class card nin the gop primary when comparing backgrounds with mitt. and no republican has won pennsylvania since 1988. so the state gop wants to drastically change how electoral votes are divvied up there. a move that could hurt the president, have a huge impact on the 2012 political map, or could it all just backfire on republicans? it's monday, september 19th, 2011. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. right to my first reads of the morning. we begin with the debt plan answering critics who say he never presented a specific plan during the summer debt talks, president obama will do just that. he'll roll out a plan to cut the federal deficit by $3.2 trillion over the next decade. largely by raising taxes on the wealthy. a 10:30 a.m. speech in the rose garden the president will promise to veto any legislation which cuts entitlement without raising taxes on the rich. half of the plan's savings comes from tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, letting the bush tax rate expire, scaling back loop hohol and deduction. also $1.1 trillion in savings from troop drawdowns in iraq and afghanistan and cuts about $580 billion in mandatory spending. about half of that is from medicare and medicaid. the white house is not proposing an increase in the medicare eligibility age and has taken changes to social security off the table. yesterday republicans quickly rejected one principle in the plan, calling the idea of a new minimum tax rate for millionaires class warfare. the so-called buffett rule is named after billionaire investor warren buffett who has complained that he's taxed at a lower rate than his employees. there is no specific tax provision connected to the buffett rule. instead, as white house advisers told me last night, consider it a guiding principle that millionaires should pay as much of their income in taxes as middle class taxpayers do. moving on, if you think house speaker bane e eer boehne make it clear enough, republicans laid out yesterday any plan to go big whether it's on jobs or the debt is dead on arrival. senate republican lead mitch mcconnell slammed the president's job plan saying stimulus provisions in it are not the way to go. this is what he said on "meet the press." >> if you look at the stimulus bill, david, what did we get out of that? turtle tunnels and sin lynn dra. there's no education in the second kick of a mule. we've been there. we've done that. now he's asking us to do it again. >> then you had house budget chair paul ryan downplaying any expectations for what the super committee is going to produce. here's what he said on fox. >> we see the super committee as an opportunity to get another down payment on debt through spending cuts. if we're going to just do class warfare and try and get tax increases out of this, i don't think much will come of it. we should hold our expectations down on the select committee and let's just get another down payment on debt. >> whether this was the intention or not, it seems pretty clear congressional republicans have decided on a four corners offense, if you will. the old north carolina basketball offense. which is do as little as possible while looking like they're cooperating with the president. don't give him any big wins, no grand bargains on the debt or tax reform. so in big things like that. ergo taking that off the table for the super committee. no big things on the jobs bill either. but maybe enact a piece here or a piece there. of course, congressional republicans hope what that means is the intia will hurt the president come the next election. white house is counting on the fact that inertia will hurt congressional republicans more. we'll see. this thing starts to play out at 10:30 this morning in the rose garden. finally this week, mitt romney and rick perry take their fight to florida. the republican candidates, they debate thursday in orlando ahead of a florida republican party straw poll. speaking of straw polls, ron paul won another one this weekend in california. he picked up 45% of a vote in a contest sponsored by the state's republican party. meanwhile, in iowa, rick perry tested the talking points he's probably going to bring to thursdays's debate. he's questioning romney's record, his character and even his upbringing. >> for sure i was not born with four accaces in my hand. while he was the governor his job ranking was 47th in the nation. romney carr romneycare has driven health care costs up. it is bad medicine. >> michele bachmann is back in iowa today. she returns to waterloo where, of course, she was born. on "the tonight show" friday, yes, she was on "the tonight show" with jay leno, she continued to attack perry from the right. >> there was a situation where it was an abuse of exec tiff ut power. that's something the governor admitted. there's concern there's side effects that could come with that. it gives a false sense of ass e assurance when she has that, if she's actually active she doesn't have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases. >> let's get to what perry's up to now with the comparison of the romney background. romney born into wealth. rick perry, not so much. the theme is class warfare. president talking about populism, millionaires, versus the middle class, and rick perry on the campaign trail talking about his own personal upbringing versus mitt romney's. another form of personalized class warfare of sorts. should be fascinating to see how all this plays out. president obama may share common ground with republicans when it comes to the amount of money he needs to save. by now we all know the devil is in the details. nbc's kristen welker is live for us at the white house. we know some of the details here and there still seems to be some confusion over how the buffett rule works. is it an actual piece of tax legislation, sort of a tax penalty, if you will, or simply what the white house said last night, a guiding principle? do we have any idea what the president's going to say in about an hour? >> right now, chuck, it's really more of a guiding principle. the president is going to say that the buffett rule is really one of the main principles that is leading this change, this tax reform that he's going to lay out. and essentially says that millionaires can't be taxed at a lower rate than middle-class families. we don't have an exact figure, though. but, again, it is going to be a guiding principle. remember, chuck, democrats were really -- some of them, at least -- frustrated with the president after the debt ceil teg bait. they felt as though he just gave in too much to republicans. they have already come out and started cheering this plan, saying that they're happy that there's this large focus on tax reform. you have nancy pelosi coming out and saying she is encouraged by the focus on tax reform in this plan including letting the bush tax cuts expire as well as rolling back some of those tax breaks for large corporations. they're also encouraged by the fact that it's light on entitlement reforms. that's precisely why you see a lot of republicans coming out and saying we're not going to get behind this plan. mitch mcconnell, paul ryan saying they don't like what they hear, chuck. >> all right. of course, the president gives that speech and then he takes off and has 2 1/2 days in new york city. does a fundraiser tonight. and does the united nations general assembly opening. we'll see you at the jack lue briefing. >> one more thing to point out in the president's debt plan. in this focus on millionaires. a little bit of a message victory for chuck schumer who is a big advocate of trying to create the millionaire line, if you will, the proverbial drawing that line on this. the white house pushed back big time at the time when it was done. now they're embracing that populism today. interesting side note. speaking of what i was talking about at the united nations. u.s. officials are trying to head off a dramatic showdown over whether to admit an independent palestine to the united nations. hanging in the balance, aid to palestinians, relations with israel and the president's own political future. nbc's john ray is live for us in tel-aviv. in a perverse sort of way, isn't the ewe united states happier today that the palestinians are going to go to the security council rather than the general assembly when it's looking for increased recognition on the world stage? >> i think what the u.s. is desperate to avoid is for the palestinians to go to the security council with a very hard line demand for statehood which will leave the united states in the position of having to make good its promise to israel that it will veto that move. because from america's point of view, that's very, very bad news for the nation's reputation in the rest of the middle east and the arab world. they will be charged with hypocrisy in the extreme, having had warm words and support for arab springs in egypt and elsewhere, to be seen, to be torpedosi torpedoing the palestinian's efforts for statehood. what the americans and tony blair are desperately trying to do in the last 48 hours something all sides have failed to do in the past year, which is to get the pal stin januarys and israelis back around the negotiating table to try and hammer out some final peace settlement. >> john, i guess what i was trying to get at is, by having them go to the security council rather than the general assembly has a whole, looking for say observer status, ala the vatican, but by going to the security council it at least presents, give options to delaying the vote essentially, postponing keeping negotiations going. whether they went to the general assembly it would be an even bigger international rebuke of the u.s. and israel, would it not? >> that is correct. i mean, there is no pain-free option here. if it goes to the security council, my understanding of the proceedings is that due to the security council's deal with the mat nerter in a few days. that might mean them shunting this off to a committee for any amount of time. you're right when you talk about the vote at the general assembly. 193 nations in the general assembly having to give their verdict on this intractable dispute. it would seem that the palestinians already have pretty much a two-thirds majority to give themselves that enhanced status. you're right, that would be a supreme moral and diplomatic victory for the palestinians. a humiliating defeat for the united states and for israel. but would it really advance the cause of peace? the israelis say not. they're saying the palestinians are tryi ining to do the deal o getting a state without having to do the hard work of negotiating the difficult intractable issues. >> john ray covering this for us in tel-aviv, thanks very much. this is what the u.n. week is going to be about. mostly this issue of the palestinians and the israelis. even though the president spends most of his day tomorrow talking about the new libyan government. coming up, more on the president's plan to try to save $3 trillion over the next ten years. raising taxes on the wealthy. it's a tough sell to congressional republicans and even some senate democrats. but is it the best way to tackle the debt crisis? what about that plan to get americans back to work? we'll ask two of our favorite experts next. plus, playing the field. republican lawmakers in pennsylvania are trying to rewrite election law and could have fascinating unintended consequences on the presidential race. right now it's targeting president obama, but it could backfire. first, the president's schedule today. rose garden at 10:30 then off to new york city. a fundraiser today, folks. watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. coffee doesn't have vitamins... unless you want it to. new splenda® essentials™ no calorie sweetener with b vitamins, the first and only one to help support a healthy metabolism. three smart new ways to sweeten. same great taste. new splenda® essentials™. ben and his family live on this block. ben's a re/max agent, and he's a big part of this community. re/max agents know their markets, and they care enough to get to know you, too. nobody sells more real estate than re/max. visit remax.com today. ♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] ♪ [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose -- to make the world a safer place. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. that didn't just hide your breakouts... but actually made them go away. neutrogena skin clearing makeup has our proven blemish fighting formula so it clears your breakouts. now that's beautiful. neutrogena®. one aspect of the president's debt reduction plan puts a renewed focus on the wealthiest americans, the so-called buffett rule would target the top .3% of earns under the proposal. millionaires would no longer be taxed at a lower rate than the nation's middle class. there's a way to decide whether they're actually taxed at a lower rate or not. jim tankersley writes about the economy for the national journal and economist greg ipit is author of "the little book of economics." gentlemen, thank you both. first of all, jim, let's remind people that congress has to deal with the tax code by the end of the calendar year 2012 because at that point in time, if they do nothing, rates automatically go up. by the way, that would be some $2.8 trillion in deficit savings if they simply did nothing. >> right. yeah. the bush tax cuts are set to expire. this would be depending on the state of the economy, quite possibly a vacuum of demand out of the economy. the exact sort of thing that the president has talked about not wanting to have. this is sort of -- by pushing in more spending now -- >> there's almost unanimous bipartisan consent. the middle-class version of the bush tax rate have to be somehow protected. but right now they're not decoupled. they can't product one and not the other. >> we went through this last time. they couldn't decouple it so they just extended it. this time the president has signaled he's going to fight it to the mat. he's not going to sign an extension of the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. that puts in jeopardy potentially all of the stimulative nature of the across the board tax cuts. >> greg, we know the president's throwing this to the super committee. we've seen both john boehner and now paul ryan, two very influential figures in the house republican caucus, have said, no, the super committee shouldn't touch taxes. well, who's going to do tax reform if they don't do it? >> it's a good question. now, there are a few small areas of common ground between the republicans and obama. they would both like to see corporate tax reform. republicans would like to lower corporate taxes more than obama would. >> boehner will argue you can't do that without doing the personal tax. too many people -- individuals hide under llcs and things like that. >> there will be that. plus there's the issue of what do you do about all the foreign money that's waiting over there that companies would like to bring back. but the main problem is that obama when he does tax reform wants to raise additional revenue in the process. the republicans don't. i think that today's deficit is most important because it determines whether or not the president manages to get his jobs -- short-term jobs program through. that depends in part on finding these deficit offsets. if he doesn't because the politics are so difficult, that sets up a big problem for the economy. as soon as this january, not just when the tax cuts expire next year. because a whole bunch of other stuff like that temporary payroll tax cut will expire. that could be a hit to the economy when it really doesn't have a lot of resources to withstand it. >> jim, it seems the white house is in a little bit of a box even in regards to the tone. at 10:30 this morning, what the president says. on one hand you'll have some of the washington/new york elite argue the president needs to be the adult in the room, have a larger conversation. on the other hand, he's going to sit there and say republicans have cut me off at the knees. boehner last week said -- basically ruled out most of the jobs bill. mcconnell doubled down on that on sunday. so did paul ryan. he may get feistier. republicans say that poisons the well. >> the winner is going to be the one who does not look like they're playing washington politics and trying to win that cutting off at the knees battle but the one who looks like they're trying to do something for the 14 million americans who are still unemployed. you have to be the one out there saying, look, we need to do my plan because it will help this very struggling economy right now and help these people get back to work. if you cast it in terms of i want to beat the republicans or need to do it my way or we believe in a certain ideology of how government should go, that's not the winning argument with the american public right now. the winning argument is create jobs. >> speaking of winning argument, greg, i want to throw up two quick poll numbers from the cbs/"new york times" poll over the weekend. should taxes on incomes over $250,000 be raised to reduce the deficit. pretty overwhelming majority, 56% say yes. this one. how should we save money? only tax increases? only spending cuts? both tax increases and cuts? both tax increases and cuts 71%. the public is already basically frankly on the president's side. yet he seems to have no ability to take what is on public -- he has public opinion and be able to somehow sell that in washington. because don't forget, senate democrats aren't there on these taxes. >> exactly. he can't even sell this to his own party. any democrat that's in cycle in 2012 is going to be very reluctant to raise taxes. >> remember where they are in cycle. missouri. montana. pennsylvania. these aren't places that are going to be open to this sort of argument. >> what i think is ironic, after that debt ceiling debacle everyone said enough of the brink m brinkmanship. we're heading into another bringmanship. the republicans and the president desperate to have something they can show the voters. neither of them at this point willing to give any ground. >> to watch paul ryan say, hey, we just want a down payment. you brought up deadlines. we have payroll tax at the end of the year. another deadline. the bush tax cuts at the end. at some point do republicans -- are they going to deal with the white house or are they not? >> the question is how much pressure do they feel to do something, anything right now to stimulate the economy? because the economic news, it's very unlikely it's going to just naturally get better over the next few months. much more likely et gets a lot worse. to the extent those external circumstances turn up the heat, then you might see republicans and the white house forced a little more to the table. >> that's twwhat the white hous keeps thinking. jim tankersley, greg ip, thank you. we want to hear what you think about the president's plan. do you think the millionaires' tax sort of guiding principle would help or hurt the economy? and should people earning over # $1 million or more a year pay a higher income tax than those earning less? up next, if it's monday, get ready for another wild week on wall street. we'll get a preview of the markets next. we'll see if the markets believe any of these plans are based in reali reality. still to come, rocking the vote pennsylvania style. the pennsylvania plan to change how electoral votes are awarded in that state could change the 2012 political map. but the unintended consequences are all over the place. we're going to dig into it in a little bit. first, today's trivia question. who was the last reagan to run for office? name the office and year. tweet me the answer @chucktodd and @dailyrundown. i habe a cohd. yeah, i toog nyguil bud i'm stild stubbed up. 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[ deep breath ] thank you! that's the cold truth! the opening bell is about to bring on wall street. and so we turn now to cnbc's courtney reagan for the market rundown. no, you're not part of our trivia question today as the last reagan to run for office. courtney, will the president's debt plan have any impact on the markets today? >> more than likely not. we kind of know what to expect. we know it probably won't go very far, at least as far as those tax increases are concerned. we're going to have a hard time getting that past anyone that is in that republican camp. but it does look like the rally that we've had for the last five days could be running into some roadbloc roadblocks. futures sharply lower ahead of the open. we saw stocks in asia close lower. europe is in the red. really, chuck, it's sort of the same story. investors continue to be disappointed in european leaders. they weren't able to make much progress as far as the talks went this weekend to resolve greece's debt crisis. despite the fact expectations were pretty low, everyone's hoping for some kind of a small miracle. the greek government is outlining a new round of budget cuts because it's trying to secure more bailouts to try to stave off the possibility of a default. but then outside of the european debt debacle, investors are going to be focussing on the federal reserve. they meet tuesday and wednesday this week. the fed is widely expected to announce new steps to try to boost the economy. namely these measures intended to lower long-term interest rates while propping up short-term interest rates. the idea is that that policy, referred to as operation twist, will stimulate the capital investment while attracting overseas investors to support the dollar. a lot of that's already priced in, chuck. i'm not sure we're actually going to get a bump from that. as you can see right now, we are skidding into this open. >> all right. thank you, courtney. "the daily rundown" will be back in 30 seconds. zbrvrjts bottom of the hour. a quick look at what's driving the day. president obama will speak in the rose garden later this morning to announce his plan to reduce the nation's deficit by at least $3 trillion. in addition to the $1.2 trillion agreed to in the budget control act for an overall ten-year decrease of over $4 trillion. world leaders are convening in new york city today as the u.n. general assembly begins its 66th annual session. president obama traveling to new york as well following this morning's deficit announcement. two big things on his schedule for the u.n. have to do with libya. then dealing with this palestinian statehood situation. and the opening bell is 28 seconds away from ringing on wall street. much of the focus this week will be on the meeting of the federal reserve as investors are hoping for a new plan to help bolster the economy. reports this morning indicate that the fed may hint that they may do something in the future, but not do something this week. we shall see. here are the stories making headlines. there's a new candidate in the race for new hampshire's governor. republican ovide lamontagne vying to replace john lynch stepping down after five terms. it may be he's going to stay out of being a primary king maker in the new hampshire presidential race. proregime forces in yemen killed at least 23 people today in a second day of clashes that have rocked the yemeni capital of sana. nearly 50 people have died in the latest round of violence there as discontent continues over president ail abdullah saleh's refusal to step down. a move that came as a surprise. the university of pittsburgh and syracuse will be taking their talents to the acc, leaving behind the big east conference that they helped found and build. further south, the board of regents of both texas and oklahoma will meet today to discuss their fates in the ever growing craziness of conference realignment. the rumor is texas and oklahoma will bring oklahoma state and texas tech to the pac 12, 16, whatever they're going to call it. then the acc somehow goes and grabs uconn and rutgers unless now the acc convinces texas to come. it is nuts out there. gadhafi loyalists have lost tripoli but are still fighting hard in other cities. nbc's mike taibbi joins us from typicalpi tripo tripoli. here we are, opening of the u.n. general assembly. yet we still have a war. >> reporter: we still have a war. in fact, chuck, if you wanted to characterize this, that's an accurate way. the libyan government, transitional national council, is recognized authority now, is having trouble starting the peace. at the same time militarily they're having trouble finishing the war. there's fierce fighting in sirte and bani walid. there have been repeated attempts in both of those towns, i should say outside both of those towns since friday for anti-gadhafi forces to go in and take control and plant the flag which they did with relative ease in many of the spots along the way to tripoli. of course, with the essential help of nato bombing. in those two towns the resistance has been fierce. they've been turned back again and again and again. the fighting yesterday in bani walid was said to be particularly fierce and violent. at least 20 anti-gadhafi forces killed. chaotic as well. described in some reports from the front line, the ground forces thought they'd get artillery and truck mounted guns to help them on the way in. either the ground forces went in early or the trucks never got there. ground forces went in alone. they were repelled by grenade and rpg fire and came back complaining to each other. in the presence of some reporters that everything seemed to be disorganized. they're regrouping again hoping to make a move into both of those towns. that would effectively at least end that part of the war. they're not there yet, chuck. >> a little ways to go. mike taibbi in tripoli for us, thanks very much. some pennsylvania republicans want the keystone state to award its presidential electoral votes to the winner of individual congressional districts. a move that could drastically change the 2012 political map. under the proposed changes if president obama were to win pennsylvania again in 2012, even in somewhat of a landslide, he may end up getting less than half of the state's 20 electoral votes. to help us wade through it all, we're joined by former pennsylvania governor and nbc political analyst ed rendell and former rnc chairman and msnbc political analyst michael steele. chairman steele, i'll get to you in a second. the pennsylvania man first, governor rendell, there seems to be a lobbying effort here that's growing somewhat nationally to try to stop pennsylvania republicans from doing this. make your best case of why you think this is a mistake. >> well, first of all, it's embarrassing. it's embarrassing because pennsylvania could wind up essentially saying that some votes are worth more than others. it would be like, chuck, if we changed the rules for governor and i won my first election, 15 out of the state's 67 counties but i was elected governor because i won the more populous counties. if we said the governor gets elected by how many counties he carries. it's disenfranchising voter. president obama could win by a landslide. after this redistricting that's going to come up, he'll lose 12 of the congressional districts, win 6, get two votes for carrying the state and lose by four electoral votes the state of pennsylvania. that's not fair. it's not right. it's a disgrace republicans are trying to do this. particularly after they lost five straight presidential elections. do you think they're interested in good government? not on your life. >> how serious is this, though, in pennsylvania? have you talked to the current governor, governor corbett, have you talked to him about this? was this a serious proposal or a brain child of a couple republicans and it's gotten blown out of proportion? >> no, senator palegi is probably the most impactful republican in the state. the senate majority leader. not just a harebrained scheme being pushed by some legislator. governor corbett already on record is saying he's for it, saying that the philadelphia region has too much influence. and our votes are disenfranchising people in the other parts of the state. it's ridiculous. this is somewhere between reprehensible and disgraceful. >> michael steele? >> yes, sir. >> we're seeing here if you were the chairman of the republican party, where would you stand on this? would you be asking pennsylvania republicans, yeah, do it? or -- and say, you know what, i'm going to call the florida republicans and do the same thing because we've gerrymandered that state to the point where we can risk losing? >> i think as national chairman i would pretty much largely stay out of it. individual states on the political side are driven by legislators. legislators are really setting the tone and pace. just as you saw in florida. >> what do you think of it? >> i get the politics of it absolutely. it's like saying in maryland where elections are started by three counties, baltimore city, brins georges and montgomery counties decide statewide elections. you want to try to create a situation in which their votes are less impactful on the overall outcome? >> you can't. they've got the political where wi wherewithall. >> keith sessions, heish shoo - this proposal will have minimal effect on the presidential race at the expense of negatively altering the political landscape for republicans in pennsylvania's house races. governor rendell, is pete sessions right? >> he's absolutely right. for example, if philadelphia is not going to be able to weigh in terms of its margins statewide, we won't spend money in philadelphia. we'll take that money and spend it in the swing suburban districts an it'll be much more difficult for the three republican incumbents in the suburban districts to get re-elected. because the money will be substantial because we won't have to worry about turnout in philadelphia. >> that's exactly -- that's exactly right. that goes back to the analogy in maryland. if you tried that same type of situation where republicans do have some strength in a state like maryland, obviously not pennsylvania politically, you wind up diminishing the opportunities for republicans to win because the democrats are going to ship those resources into those areas that are much more vulnerable, could be potentially vulnerable. pete sessions is right. the legislature has to be very careful here how they try to take the political ax and carve up the state for presidential politics. because it's the local stuff that really matters the most. >> i want to ask both of you this. governor rendell, i'll start with you. there's a movement afoot of trying to make it -- trying to create a state compact so that the popular vote essentially wins out. so if enough states that add up to 270 electoral votes agree that, you know, they will send their electoral votes to vote for the popular vote winner, then all the sudden we would go that way. where are you on that? do you think we should sort of go around the constitution which is what this would do and go to the popular vote route? >> well, i'm not sure we should go around the constitution. but i think we should change the way we elect the president. i think popular votes should be the deciding factor. and, look, i appreciate michael's candor on this. but we shouldn't analyze this, chuck, by republican or democrat. we should analyze it by is it fair and is it right? and it isn't fair. i don't understand the republicans. they have their best chance to carry pennsylvania in a presidential election in a long while. i don't understand why they're doing this. it looks so unfair. it looks like they're trying to take the election by sort of subversive means. >> i was just going to say, i echo -- here they have -- i'm one of those who doesn't buy that republicans have -- at the end of the day they'll come up short. but the fact is they actually have a chance. so why would they undermine their chance? in many ways they probably -- they've now probably hurt the cause even more because now at this point this is going to be used to rally votes. >> absolutely. that's, again -- >> bad politics. >> it's bad politics. i just think it's much more work on the republicans' part than they really need to do. >> very quickly, when it comes to popular vote or electoral college, when somebody overseas asks you how we elect our presidents what do you say? >> i'm a electoral college guy. >> how do you explain it? do you think it's easy to explain to an international visitor? >> yeah, absolutely. >> governor rendell? >> i think it's almost impossible to explain. >> that's how i -- you know, at the end of the day, when a foreigner asks about the electoral college -- >> around 11:00, go to the state capitol and vote at midnight. it works. it's a good system. >> michael steele, governor ed rendell, thank you both for coming on. >> thanks, chuck. president obama is set to make a populist pitch in less than an hour from now. the big monday panel joins me next. as the fight for florida heats up, the romney/perry slug fest is getting personal. going into class area. first, it's the whiteohouse soup of day. i believe this was thursday's soup. five-day-old leftover chicken noodle. i hope not. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. 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[ female announcer ] only from aveeno. all right. this blew me away today. it was in 1982 when the emoticon was born. ka he also suggested using a sad face to mark nonfunny items. believe it or not, the emoticon is not five years old, ten years old. the emoticon is 29 years old. all right. the weirdest stat of the day. let's move to the big panel. obama white house is getting all sorts of advice from democrats, including james carville's call last week for the president to panic and fire people. former president bill clinton weighed in on that counsel from his former political adviser. >> should he follow mr. carville's advice? >> no. because he's got a good economic plan. you know, the president never does the country much good by panicking. i know what james meant. james meant that we need a political turn. as long as he's got a specific plan out there and the american people can evaluate it compared to what the republicans want and see what they do, i think that politically that's the best you can do. >> president clinton's hesitance there was fascinating. dan balls, "washington post" chief correspondent and author of "the take." msnbc karen finny. and pete c. visiting from indiana a former spokesman for president bush and communications director for the indiana republican party. welcome, all of you. dan, i'm going to start with you because you write about this september to remember issue. some of us think it's the august that drived the september to remember for president obama. you interviewed david plouffe who clearly felt the need he had to get out there with some sort of answer for the washington community. and plouffe said to you we understand the very perilous situation we're in, but we think we have a pathway forward, but we don't have much margin for error. david plouffe argued, anything like president george w. bush's situation in 2005, the public has not at all tuned him out. i completely reject the comparison to bush. i'll tell you, not a lot of confidence to say we don't have a margin for error. >> no. but i think they're being very realistic. i think they felt they had to be very realistic at this point. they're getting so much criticism. the idea they may be kind of bunkered there, i think they had to say to people, look, we understand why you're nervous. we see that we've got problems. but we also believe there is a way to win this election and we're beginning to try to put that in place. >> karen finny, you think the west wing gets it? >> i think they get it that they need to say they get it. i'm not so -- i'm not sure. i mean, in all honesty, i think we're going to have to see. what he says today on the deficit reduction package will be very important. will he continue to get out there and campaign for his ideas? that did him a lot -- on the jobs act. >> that's what president clinton seemed to say. look, i'm not going to criticize now because he's not doing some things that i would have criticized. it sounds like he's trying to say i would have been criticizing if he's not doing the plan but i want to see him out there. >> that's exactly right. now that they are actually making the changes, let's see how far that goes. again, where the left is really nervous is, what about medicare and medicaid? and will we see another capitulation when it comes to dealing with the republicans. >> take me inside the west wing when you have that moment, the comparison to president bush that dan was writing about. we saw it in our own polls. post-katrina there's a point where we look backs an ability to push policy. the bush presidency ended sometime in '06. it just continued through '08. you might take issue with that as far as some parts of it. but do you see that when you're in the middle of it? >> that could be a whole panel of just taking issue with that. let me follow up on what karen said. i don't know if david plouffe believes his own spin on this one. look at what the president is planning to propose today. it's clearly a play to their base. i mean, it's a political employ because they see democrats as being restless and starting to stray away from president obama. they see he's not getting the job done and they've got to do something, everything -- >> take me inside when you were there. when you're in there in the west wing, you're getting all this criticism, although republicans seemed a little more disciplined about going to "the new york times" with their critique. they just send them in e-mails to you and karl rove and dan bartlett at the time. how did that feel at the time? did you, like, say we get it but you've got to understand what we're doing here? >> you need to push forward and show leadership. and that's something that president obama has not been doing. the buck stops with him. carville saying fire advisers, well, i think the better bet would be to just fire this president come next year. >> well, you're campaigning there. i hear you there. dan balz wk there's a couple poll numbers i want to throw up. one was does the president have a clear plan for creating jobs. 52% say he does not. 43% say he does. that 43% about equal to his job approval rating. i don't think that's an accident. do republicans have a clear plan for creating jobs? 67% say do not. 24%. so it's clearly -- that seems to be in the david plouffe interview, we're not doing well but they're doing worse. >> one of the points that plouffe has -- plouffe made to me, and that they will make to everybody, is that when they look at the data, when they do their focus groups, when they talk to people, they are convinced, we'll see, that the public opportunity want to go back to the policies that republicans are advocating. the republicans clearly believe there is a different argument that they can make which is that the obama policies have not worked. that they have failed. so that's -- that's the clash that we're going to see. >> pete, very quickly, though, pressure on republicans to do something? they have to produce something out of legislation, do they not? >> we've brought, i think, at least a dozen bills to the floor. >> but they've got to get something that can get passed. >> i'll agree with this. we need to do a better job explaining why we can't increase taxes. >> that's what the president always says. if he just does a better job communicating. >> we have to do a better job of how it hits small businesses, why letting the bush tax rates expire eventually hit job creators and we need to do a better job. >> come back on the other side, ready to jump in here. stick around. trivia time. we asked who was the last reagan to run for office. name the office an the year. the answer was maureen reagan. and the seat went to jane harmon. now, another reagan. a sibling of maureen's, could be getting into the political game. michael reagan confirms that yes, he is considering challenging dianne feinstein in 2012, but says he's not ready to talk about it. we'll be right back. is let's bring back our panel. karen, i want to start with you. it's about a republican primary and we clearly, rick perry and mitt romney have decided to, rick perry's decided to play the class card in another form of this. and this happens in primaries. if you don't disagree too much on issues, you go to background. >> you've got that playing out on the presidential side and yet paul ryan and the republicans in congress trying to make this argument that you know, we shouldn't be engaging in class warfa warfare. i think it's going to work for perry. he's got to find some ways of distinguishing himself from you know, the gentleman from massachusetts. so, not a bad way to do it. >> one bit of irony here. the dnc and obama campaign like to paint him as the same way perry likes to, this wall street type of guy and perry trying to go a little bit to background and class. >> i also think that part of what the dynamic is in the perry-romney fight is a cultural war. that there are cultural differences between those two. >> so, it's using the background instead of taking it up a notch. >> phil rucker has a good piece today about those two guys and those contrasts are really significant. >> before i get to your shameless comment, throughout the gauntlet, number one, he's been talking to three or four republicans trying to get them into this race and that he still thinks there is time. i think there's like ten days. jeb bush and chris christie at this point. you've got to have a big name to pull this off. >> he had talked about the fact he was talking to other potential candidates. i think the comments he is making are similar to what's in the book and that is we need to have an honest debate on these issues and really lay out to the american people. >> he doesn't like the ponzi scheme argument. here it is. >> as shameless as it can get. new book, "keeping the republic." coming out tomorrow, but chuck -- >> i get my copy now. karen finney. >> tomorrow, look at some of the contradictory statements when it comes to e-verify versus racial profiling. >> susskind, sure you didn't. >> laurie montgomery's piece in sunday's "washington post" saying we give away as much in tax breaks as we collect in taxes. >> thank you, all. mine is to congratulations to betsy fisher on 20 years at "meet the press." apparently, she started when she was 10 for those of you trying to do the math. that's it for this edition. i'll see you from new york tomorrow. transportation secretary will be among my guests. up next, chris jansing and company, then "andrea mitchell reports" at 1:00. see you later. helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating. with three strains of good bacteria to help balance your colon. you had me at "probiotic." 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