has made mitt romney 34% favorable rating, has made him unpopular, has lost ground in the middle of the electorate. so all of this is about trying to seize territory in the middle of the electorate. to control the 50 yard line, where these elections are won and lost. even though you see some numbers showing the president opening up the lead, i think the reality that both sides look at is that this is a race that both sides start out with about 47%. so the president is trying to use this ryan budget to try to paint republicans and thus mitt romney is out of the mainstream and he s off to the offensive start on that today. howard, do you buy into that analysis of the politics of this? because my gut reaction was to say, having watched the president, okay, the rs are going to portray this as an attempt by paul ryan and the republicans to rein in reckless spending and the ds are going to say, as usual, you republicans are out to hurt the poor. where s the praise for the is,
today. first of all, in terms of a budget, we have to pass a proposal that causes this economy to keep growing. and without job creation at a robust levy, and we begin to see it coming back in the automotive industry, for example, people go back to work, they pay their taxes, we don t have these huge social costs borne because of unemployment. and the economy can roll. we see that in auto motive country, rail country, steel coils moving across the midwest. people being hired. we thank president obama for helping to resurrect this sector. general motors, chrysler now at the top of their game. who would have said that was possible three years ago? we have more work to do. i think with natural gas coming on, moving toward energy independence as a country, this president has done an enormous amount to begin to turn an economy around that was truly dead in the water. under the last administration. so my answer is, job creation is the answer, and we can experience it today, right here in t
doing what clinton in 96 connecting bob doyle to newt gingrich. i think it will be interesting to see how mitt romney talks about the ryan budget. what he says tonight in his speech. that will be the elephant in the room because you saw the president today really pivot so strongly to the general election mentioning mitt romney s name for the first time. it will be interesting tonight to hear what mitt romney says in this speech. a lot of his speeches have been very much hammering president obama after these victories he s had in several primaries. it will be interesting tonight whether he really pivots to the general election and lay out his vision. i feel the need to point out that it s my home state and it s a beauty contest. in other words, if he stays in and he successful in pennsylvania, he could win the primary and walk out having lost the delegate count.
image. but he certainly risks going into pennsylvania and losing all of that, because you can imagine that romney is going to go in there and use the full strengtho try to wrap this thing up there. you know i m not permitted to nor do i have data that will allow me to forecast what will happen. we talked about the evangelical vote and if 30% of those that came out, that would bode poorly for santorum. wisconsin could have been a good state for rick santorum. i think we ll look back and say michigan was his chance. if he had been able to win michigan, wisconsin could have set up better for him as would have ohio and illinois. this is a perfectly good state for mitt romney. if you look at every demographic overlay, almost all of them suggest if the vote turns out the way the nbc poll turns out, almost every demographic is good
specifically by name today ask that s what i was making reference to with jay carney. watch. one of my potential opponents, governor romney, has said he hoped a similar version of this plan from last year would be introduced as a bill on day one of his presidency. he said he s very supportive of this new budget. and he even called it marvelous. which is a word you don t often hear when it comes to describing a budget. it s a word you don t often hear generally. steve schmidt, read those tea leaves. what s going on with the president calling him out for the word marvelous. is that intended to further portray governor romney as an outlier? well, look, michael, i think what s going on here is that the obama campaign is turning on. the general election is starting. they know that mitt romney is going to be the opponent in the fall. they see the same poll numbers that everyone else has, that this republican primary process