falling since last year have jumped about 6% in the last three weeks. march sales of existing homes fell 2.6% and factory output slipped in march after rising in february. then there was this iffy forecast for europe from the managing director of the international monetary fund. we are seeing light recovery blowing in a spring wind, but we re seeing some dark clouds on the horizon. if, as the economy goes so goes the election, then it was a worrisome week for the president s re-election team. joining me now president obama s senior re-election strategist david axelrod. good to see you. good to be here again. let me show you and our viewers the nbc news/ wall street journal survey this week on who has good ideas to help the economy. and it said president obama 34%, romney, 40%. how do you account for that? i account for it by the fact that people don t know mitt romney very well yet. they see businessman. they hope he has new ideas. but, candy, i think here is the p
right now. any time you move a central player like this from a lot spot and a challenging one is going to be disruptive and you can t replace ambassador holbrooke s strategic and his relationships and all those dhithings. in a certain sense this is such a big challenge that the loss of any one figure is prominent as influential as ambassador holbrooke was is not going to be a make or break thing and we ll have to find a way to compensate in some way for that loss of relationship and experience. amy, the things you compensate for is that depth of knowledge, that experience, those relationships. you cannot replace the kind of personal relationships that he forged, not just over years, but in many cases over decades. certainly. and all of those are very valuable valuab valuable at ributes to be bringing to the table.