i thought we had the latest poll average, here it is up on the screen. um, this is an average by real clear politics of a bunch of polls. the president almost at 50%, governor mitt romney at 44.5%. elizabeth crumb join us, co-anchor of the agenda, a daily political talk show. thanks for being with us, elizabeth. it would seem as though the housing crisis in your state, not to mention the incredibly high unemployment rate, would actually favor the challenger, mitt romney. true? well, you would think so in conventional wisdom, it would certainly say so. but if you look at the polls throughout the summer really but even most recently in september, most of them do lean president obama s way, and so i think there s a question in nevada as to whether voters believe that mitt romney s got a better plan for fixing what ails nevada than simply staying the course with president obama.
he s been spotted in the president s hotel, reading glasses on, pile of papers in front of him as if he s really studying hard, trying to press the president, push some of his buttons in these debate sessions. the president trying to project a kind of calm, cool attitude, i suppose, carrying some pizzas in to his volunteers office here in the local area in nevada yesterday to talk to them, fire up the troops, if you will. and then the president picked up a cell phone and started calling some of the volunteers. take a listen. that was very nice, you know? we re, you know, although basically they re keeping me indoors all the time. it s a drag. [laughter] they re making me do my homework. [laughter] reporter: the president says he s doing his homework there. interesting because what his staff is trying to do in their conversations with us over the last 24 or 48 hours is really down play expectations by say, boy, the president hasn t debated in four years, mitt romney got all that pr
moment when the president actually holds a news conference and we have video of one of his news conferences he s forced to defend himself with vigorous questions from the reporters, and he sometimes really bristles at the questions, becomes kurt or aeu brace i have. listen to charles krauthammer on special report. here is. i think his one week point is that he is thin skinned. you occasionally will see it in a press conference. if romney can manage to get under his skin in some way i think that actually happened in 08 in one or two of the clinton debates i think it could puncture that aura that obama has. gregg: remember that debate. he was accused of being smug with hillary clinton when he said likable enough, hillary. he s got to be careful, right. that was a regrettable moment. i think that he has got to that s why i said likability, relate built, very, very important. he cannot be the smartest guy in the room, and i think that he must go on offense. he must talk about how bad
greg greg as i understand it, the demographics favor the president. is he counting on hispanic votes to carry him through? absolutely. that s a big part of the picture here. hispanics now make up about 27 percent of the population in nevada. we ve really seen those numbers grow over the past ten years according to the census. turnout expected to be anywhere from 15-17%, and if the democrats can turn out hispanics in those higher numbers and hispanics in nevada by most polls estimation are leaning towards the president by about 70%, that ll definitely be a key to the win here. gregg: and there s a sizable mormon population, and, you know, the betting money is that governor mitt romney is sort of counting on that. but isn t he also counting on a republican party that has really been energy eyesed from the campaigning he did there during the primaries? well, you d think so, but one of the keys, gregg, that s going on right here is the voter
be abandoning hopes for a peace deal with the taliban. what is next for us inside the war-torn country? jennifer griffin is here to break down the details. plus, on the eve of the first presidential debate both president obama and governor mitt romney are hard at work on their final preps. we ll have an update from the campaign trail next.