in power after the second term or might have rejected them as they did say jimmy carter. in terms of the interesting thing is that there s a great deal of correlation between what history says and what the voters say. but there s a lot of distinction as well. harry truman is a great example. he was essentially shown the door by the american people. they were very unhappy with him. gallup poll rating of 22% in his last year in office and yet almost immediately he was a near great among historians. the point i make about this is that the voters and historians look at presidents very differently. historians look at the presidents in terms of their overall record, what did they accomplish during their tenure. the voters look at the president as they were invited to by the constitution in four-year terms. so his first term was absolutely heroic. if you just think about all the things he accomplished. the second term was really not much better than a disaster. sputtering economy, a war he co
the president s job rating is actually a huge improvement since the last time we tested it. but new hampshire is such a fickle state with the independents. the fiscal message can play well there for republicans, but the social, as soon as the social issues popped a couple months ago that s when you saw the president s numbers pop back up again. new hampshire is a weird state. romney was just there last week. a lot of feel forget the history of states like new hampshire, maine. these are states that went solidly republican and not just in the 50s and 60s democrats didn t win either of those states until 92. but by 68 to 88, republicans won them all the time. let s go to michigan. i ve got to say, this number is a lot closer than i expected. mitt romney only four points behind in michigan. what s happened there? . this is one you ve had some republican ad spending in
burgers. i had a sack of crystal burgers. and a pack of menthols. that s exactly it. i would watch them. thune and harold, man, they re good. they re very good. it was in the days before they banned smoking in the house. so yeah, i m guessing that yeah. john, let me ask you a question, once we get past the health care conversation today and the coverage that will come, as you well know, members of the business community and for that matter i think the country are deeply concerned about what happens if congress doesn t act on the tax cuts and entitlements and sequestration. two things, is there truth to these stories that there s some in the senate, maybe including you, trying to draft a map, draft a plan, a path to some sort of outcome that will avoid some of these things before the election and if not, do you have is there a map being drafted for what happens after the election? well, there are people on both sides, harold, who would love to see this addressed before
bake that was brought up yesterday. oh. holy cow. we re going to let these two guys work it out. kelly, you and i will talk while they work this out. i ve derailed them. lay out what today looks like in washington as you sit there, obviously this is a historic day either way it goes. i ll be over at the court with our colleague pete williams, such an expert on these things. one thing i think people may be surprised about who have not followed a lot of supreme court big decision days, is this isn t like a jury verdict in a state crime where there is one answer and it comes very quickly. this could be more complicated than that because the justices have had to look at four questions, it is a very complicated set of issues they need to deal with. so it is possible that they won t all agree on the same issues. there might not be the sort of instant score card if you will. it may take a little time to play out. politically we ll be watching for reaction and one of the things we
as big an issue in this campaign as we think it might be? well, i think it s a big issue because mitt romney wants to stay on the offensive about health care, regardless. it s kind of a difficult issue for him, given what he did in massachusetts, but it represents to a lot of conservatives government overreach and so that is really the symbol of it. i don t think the issue goes away. i think the high anxiety that i ve, you know, talked to people about within the white house is that it will have such a political impact, particularly of any part of this is struck down. because it would force the president to do a couple of things. one, he s got to try to make the case to the american people about what s left why it s important and what the implications are of anything that is struck down as part of the bill, and that s and then the second part is, he s got an opportunity to explain and sort of close the argument in a way he has not yet done. a lot of americans still don t understand