dispel what both campaigns have said about the other. the hope is that people will see truth for what it is, and mitt romney knows that in order to win if he s going to win those critical swing states he s got to relate to african-american voters, to hispanic voters, senior citizens, to white democrats, to undecideds. he s got to relate to everybody. so his message is to all americans like it was the other day. he made the point the other night he wishes that president obama had succeeded so that we d have a better america. well, that s completely untrue. we know from the beginning in 2009 he didn t wish him well on his economic program. guys, i ve got to go. interesting conversation. look at all the questions i intended to talk about. we ll have to come back. guys, thank you. today s office politics, journalist and msnbc political analyst richard wolf takes a look at. would well, it s not whoo it
only option he has. he s boxed in somewhat. he did get some things done. he does strongly believe that he avoided a depression and did make progress. but, at the same time, you can t tell people that things are wonderful now, you know, because with so many americans out of work, they just don t believe it. when you mentioned earlier the quote of president obama saying this is like popping a blister, what did he mean by that? how did you interpret that? i can t read the president s mind, but what i think he meant is this, republicans have taken an obstructionist strategy in washington, that they ve really, from the get-go, have tried to prevent obama from clean claiming victories are regularly in congress. so i think what he s hoping and i don t know how realistically this is if he wins a second term, mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leaders, his famous line, the republicans number one job is to keep obama to one term. na hope is gone, if he can win a second term, republica
they re the ones to turn things around. in conversations i ve had with advisers lately, they say anything else you talk about, whether it s clint eastwood, some argument the president is making about anything else, they say at the end of the day people s decisions it will be made by the economy. their hope is not to cede ethe spotlight heading into the democratic national convention but to continue with the attacks and travel and with the campaigning. it s been tradition in the past that campaigns would basically shut down when the other candidate held its convention. obviously president obama did not do that this past week, and romney and ryan have no intention of doing that in the week lexander, many thanks. today president obama is kicking off his road to charlotte tour before the democratic convention that starts tuesday. the president campaigns today in iowa, sunday colorado, ohio, virginia on tuesday, all battleground states. nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker is
entertainment next week on the dnc. some more entertainment, mary j. blige, earth wind and fire and james taylor. a new poll today shows some gains in the wake of the republican convention. the new poll shows 31% of registered voters find governor romney likeable following his speech thursday night, a five-point jump. joining me now, washington bureau chief of the washington post ryan grim and chief correspondent for the national journal, michael hirsh. thanks for joining me. michael, i ll begin with you. we re seeing a slight bounce in the polls particularly among independents for mitt romney. how long might any bounce last? well, romney had better hope that it lasts longer than this coming week when obama will give what is expected to be his usual rousing speech in the giant stadium filled with people because there s a serious likability gap in this race. it has been one of the things
i think what s really amazing is see how much his rhetoric has changed over the last four years. 2008, he was talking about hope, change, healing the planet. now he describes what needs to happen after the election akin to popping the blister. the president said in this wide-ranging interview that he believes that one of the good things about this election, here s the quote, it s going to give voters a very clear choice. gauge the level of optimism that you sensed. i think that there s a certain amount of optimism he needs to convince vote errs that there s more work to be done and there s more work that he can do in another four years in office. but i also think that he has a big job, you know, to convince voters that things were really bad four years ago and things are still bad and that they need him to bring them out of it. at the same time, he really does need to blame the republicans for preventing him from getting more done. so you think he ll play a lot of the momentum