0 because it's not going to end. >> we thought it was possible at the beginning of this presidential race that there might be a republican knee who would be to the president's left, and we don't have that. we have a guy who is muchly on his right who talks about keeping troops there but not with enough specifics to give people a sense of why and what his plan is. >> what would be different. >> i tell what you, there are a lot of small-government conservatives that don't think we should be spending over $2 billion a week in afghanistan, who don't think the president should have tripled down the number of troops when he had a chance to pull back and bring those troops home. a lot of conservatives believe that. i think this is a missed opportunity. >> well, and foreign policy clearly is going to be an area where mitt romney will want to make a turn in terms of the narrative of the campaign. one other issue that is now coming into the forefront is the benghazi attack and news over the weekend that the four americans including the u.s. ambassador there who were killed according to politico, romney advisers are now split over how broadly they should hit the president over his handling of that attack. and why it took so long to acknowledge that it was an act of terrorism. while some romney advisers argue they should keep their focus on the economy, politico says plans are in the works for mitt romney to deliver a major foreign policy speech shortly after wednesday's debate. what do you think of that? you think he should do that? >> yes. i think, as i said, right after the killing, that wasn't the time to talk about this. >> right. >> now is the time, several weeks later, to talk about it. john heilemann, the lead in "the new york times," mistake in faith and security seen at libya mission before benghazi raid. response to the june bomb raised confidence in local guards. this benghazi story is an absolute mess. i think -- i've heard stuart stevens as saying let's focus on the economy. i think stuart stevens is exactly right. americans don't care as much in the polls about foreign policy. but several weeks later after this, i think it's very legitimate now that the press is going in and a couple of weeks have passed since the ambassador's death, now, yes. i mean, he's got a responsibility to talk about how badly the white house bungled this. >> i think he does. and indeed, you know, i think right now, the focus is a little misplaced. the notion that -- i think the white house is pretty credible in saying that they're learning more, that their initial instiblgt -- they didn't know the situation was initially, that they've explained it better as they've done intelligence assessments, but it raises the more fundamental question which is why was the consulate not secure? how was it that security issues, as opposed to their stories afterward, these are american lives at stake in an unstable region, what are the intelligence failures? what were the security failures? those are fundamental questions. >> there were intelligence failu failures, there were warnings, mark halperin, one story after another has come out over the past several weeks. and you have the ambassador worrying about his own safety. and now you can't even send in fbi agents to investigate because they say benghazi is unstable. if that's the case, then where was the security before the attack? >> there are a lot of republican complaints in terms of liberal bias about this media campaign. some more credible than others. the president has mostly been covered as a candidate rather than as an incumbent whose record needs to be scrutinized. this is an area where there are questions, dealing with security overseas and also what are our goals in libya and are they being achieved in the right way? that line of argument and attack with press scrutiny and mitt romney making the case should be part of the debate. and i think will be because this story does have a lot of unanswered questions. >> mika, as we've been saying for some time both on and off the air, if the president was george w. bush and he had said that the middle east going up in flames was a, quote, bump in the road, george w. bush would have been absolutely skewered by the press. >> at the same time, is it fair to say that the romney campaign and mitt romney himself have seized upon things too quickly and almost looked a little almost like a dog pulling on someone's leg? >> they've been hand-fisted. >> let me ask you this. >> they made a mistake. in fact, even internally inside the romney campaign, they know now that the libyan press conference, the day after, they will all tell you, was an absolute mistake, and that showed up in the polls. >> here's my question, then. because congressman peter king is calling on susan rice to step down, to resign as u.s. ambassador to the u.n. and yesterday, here's the response as they try and move forward and turn the majpage. congressman paul ryan and paul mccain. take a look at this approach. >> the response was slow. it was confused. it was inconsistent. they first said that it was a youtube video and a spontaneous mob. we now know that it was a planned terrorist attack. if this was one tragic incident, that would be a tragedy in and of itself. the problem is it's part of a bigger picture of the fact that the obama foreign policy is unraveling literally before our eyes on our tv screens. >> i think it interferes with the depiction that the administration is trying to convey, that al qaeda is on the wane, that everything's fine in the middle east. >> you think it's political? >> i think there are certain political overtones. how else could you trot out our u.n. ambassador to say it was spontaneous? >> maybe it was. >> five days later? that doesn't pass the smell test. it was ever ignorance or willful intelligence. >> whether you agree with him or not, senator mccain has the credibility, a war hero, with great experience in washington dealing with foreign policy, how do you think, though, paul ryan did with that? is that turning the page? did that ring true? does that ring as credible saying president obama's foreign policy is unraveling? did that work? >> there is a time and a place for everything. the day after an ambassador's death is not the time to rush out and hold a press conference in america. and by the way, i said the same thing. well, i thought democrats were shameless during the iraq war. but here we are, how many weeks later? >> i'm asking if it works coming from paul ryan. >> can i ask you a question? how many weeks later? >> 2 1/2. >> 2 1/2 weeks later, i think we're good because what did paul ryan say, willie? he said the response was slow. he said it was confused. and it is. and in the middle of all this, with the middle east going up in flames, the president dismisses it as a bump in the road, i think is now 2 1/2 weeks later not time to ask these questions? i mean, the biggest problem before was they did it the morning after all of this erupted. >> yeah, it was a bad job by them on the press conference, but the larger idea, one we pointed out early on, is that it was insulting to americans to propose the idea that this was based on a youtube video that people showed up with heavy weapons, rpgs and things like that to talk about a video that, as i've said before, some mouth breather in the united states produced that 3,000 people on youtube had seen. that was the insult, that it wasn't some larger public, that they believed publicly it was based on the video. >> my bottom line, mark halperin, you look at all the polls, americans want to get back to work and want the economy to turn around. while this is an extraordinarily important story, i don't know that this, as goes benghazi, so goes toledo. i don't think so. the romney people do have a difficult decision to make here because it's a very legitimate story. now is the time to go after it, but do americans care? >> well, if you look at the polls -- >> let me restate that. americans do care. is it going to move people from obama to romney? >> unlikely for two reasons. one is that the president is still seen as stronger on foreign policy. there's been some up and down, but in the latest polls he's still seen as pretty strong, and also people care more about the economy. i think governor romney has an obligation to talk about foreign policy, though. and the linkage is what i still think is their strongest case. why do you think the next four years would be any different than the last four years? primarily they've got to make that argument on the economy. i think making it on the arab spring and ton the middle east s not a bad political line. >> we'll get to the polls in just a second. i'll try this on you, john, do you think hearing paul ryan talk about president obama's foreign policy is going to move people from obama to romney? >> i'm not -- i don't think paul ryan matters very much, certainly on a foreign policy story. >> do you think it worked? >> i think there's a sequence of things that's going to happen here. this links up the first two. mitt romney has a paramount goal. he must get past this first debate and still have life in this campaign. if he can get through that first debate and as mark was saying earlier, convince republicans that he's still in the race, not have his fund-raising dry up, not have all the republican outside groups abandon him as a lost cause and have a sense that he's still in the game -- >> right. >> -- he then has options how to spend the last 35 days of the campaign, on foreign policy, on the economy, prosecuting his case against the president. this all depends on wednesday night. if he walks out of that debate wednesday night with the world having concluded that this race is over, it is exactly the case that some republicans -- republicans, conservatives, the money are going to say, you're bob dole, we're done. we're going to focus on the house and senate. he's got to get past that first. >> there is new polling on the presidential race this morning, just two days before the candidates square off in their first debate. first the national picture. according to "the washington post"/abc news poll, 49% say they would vote for obama and 47% for romney. those numbers are unmoved from early last month. >> so nationally we're in the margin of error in this poll. >> all right. in the critical swing states, the president's lead grows to 11 points among likely voters. 52% to 41%. in ohio, a state where early in-person voting begins tomorrow -- >> wow! >> -- a new "columbus dispatch" poll shows the president leading 51%-42%. in august that same poll had the two candidates tied at 45%. >> at 45%. if you want to know how badly things have gone over the past month for mitt romney, how bad september was for mitt romney, just look at the "the columbus dispatch" poll. he's lost nine points in ohio. it's absolutely critical that he does change the narrative, he does turn things around. you know, we always talk about -- i've always talked about 1980, the final weekend, it's tied between reagan and carter. this isn't 1980 anymore. he's got to kick start it now because let's say he wins the final two weeks. he still loses the election. you can't just win on election day anymore. i mean, it starts this week, really. >> well, let's go to iowa where paul ryan will be campaigning today. "the des moines register" has the president leading 49% to 45% among likely voters, just 2% are undecided. those numbers are raising the stakes for the romney campaign ahead of wednesday's debate in denver. and right now expectations seem to be with the president. 55% of likely voters expect him to win the debate, according to polling from a the washington post and abc news. >> a poll that means absolutely nothing. >> it's good for romney. >> because he's got lower expectations. >> underdog. >> i guess so. >> and people could be surprised simply by seeing them side by side. i mean, the symbolism, the symbiotics i don't think can be overstated. seeing them side by side, if romney does well, i think he'll get a bump no matter what the sort of intricacies are. just side by side with the president in terms of stature and in terms of people thinking he can win, on equal footing. >> willie, he does well during the debates. we saw this during the republican primary. he faced a challenge from newt gingrich, he won. he faced a challenge from rick perry. people would say hey, this is a do-or-die debate. mitt romney must prove he can deliver the knockout blow, and he did do it in the debates time and time again. >> he did look very presidential in that group. we'll see how he does next to president obama which i think is a little bit different. >> yeah. >> that ohio poll is interesting because the cbs one we had last week had it at ten points. now we have another one showing it at nine points. if you start to look at the map, if he doesn't take iowa, if it gets away from him, it becomes difficult to put a puzzle together to win. >> by the way, there has been this narrative that there is the grand conspiracy and that the polls are skewed. this is what walter mondale said in 1984. this is what moveon.org said in 2004, that all the polls were skewed against john kerry and moveon.org said you just wait. and now you're hearing it frantically on the other side, which ironically, again, they are putting fox news in the grand conspiracy. >> what about the conference call today that we have to plan and organize? >> exactly. my point is here we've got a couple of local polls that are showing this, and more importantly, and you guys talk to the romney people all the time. i certainly talk to them all the time. i can tell you, they're not pushing back on these ohio polls. they know they are down. how far? are they five down? six? seven? eight? yeah, probably. does anybody in the romney campaign think they're only down by a point or two in ohio? no. they know ohio is falling into troubled territory. >> and they're pretty far behind in new hampshire. they're fighting a dogfight right now in north carolina. >> yeah. >> it's october 1st. that was a state that among the swing states, that was a state that was supposed to be the relatively easy gift for romney. there's a one or two-point race in north carolina on october 1st. they're facing an uphill slide across the board and they know it. >> by the way, you can't run 30-second ads in enough places to do this. if you're going to win, if you're going to turn things around, i'll say the quote that drives liberals crazy, a rising tide lifts all boats, this first debate on wednesday, it's got to shock the campaign back to life. because if romney does well, you're not going to be able to buy enough ads to do what a great performance by mitt romney would do on wednesday night. that would tighten it in ohio. it would tighten it in north carolina. probably go ahead in north carolina. it would tie it in iowa, probably tie it up in iowa. that's why you can't buy your way out of this mess the romney campaign is in right now, but you can outdebate them. >> more than anything else what seemed to have happened in august was democrats got enthused by their convention more than republicans did. the latest polling shows the enthusiasm gap coming back towards republicans. a git debate could juice that nationally among republicans. >> the people going out to vote is still pretty close. >> they need to turn the page. >> the polls in these swing states, and if i dismissed every other poll but local polls, fox news polls and what the romney people are saying their polls are showing, mitt romney's in trouble. again, if you just look at the locals polls, the fox news polls and the polls that the romney team has internally, mitt romney's in trouble right now. that can all change on wednesday night. coming up, senator john mccain joins us on set. also, senator chuck schumer, "new york times" columnist frank bruni and tom brokaw. up next, mike allen up next with the top stories in the "politico playbook." first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> happy october, everyone. this is the month of change weatherwise, where we start to cool things off in a hurry and start to watch the leaves coming down. as we head through this month, expect a much cooler month than we've had in months past. we're looking at the middle of the country especially with below-average temperatures as we go throughout the first two weeks. now, as far as this morning goes, two big storms on the map. one has been plaguing northern new england all weekend long. the other one has been plaguing the deep south. they're both on the move today. and we are going to watch that rainy weather spreading. also severe storms are possible once again in alabama into georgia from atlanta to birmingham to montgomery, maybe even some isolated tornadoes. we'll keep an eye on that. of course, airport delays could be a problem down there. especially later on this afternoon. now, as far as what we're going to deal with forecastwise, the heavy rain is now mostly through tennessee and kentucky. the thunderstorms are more or less slicing through alabama heading for georgia. forecast for the northeast, this is one spot that should see a decent monday. clouds will increase in washington, d.c., late today. virginia and the mid-atlantic, best chances for rain for you will be late today. and oh, by the way, if you're watching us on the west coast on october 1st, we're expecting 100-degree temperatures in los angeles, of all places. kind of a wild start to the month of october. you're watching "morning joe," we're brewed by starbucks. ♪ ♪ [ 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. email marketing from constant contact reaches people in a place they're checking every day -- their inbox. and it gives you the tools to create custom emails that drive business. it's just one of the ways constant contact can help you grow your small business. sign up for your free trial today at constantcontact.com/try.