something as well. got a lot of people close to him inside that were saying this on friday, saying, you know, our internals just. soed. the crowds are huge. their crowds are huge. you followed romney and said the crowds you told me what everybody else is telling me, romney s crowds are absolutely electric. i saw the president in ohio and governor romney in ohio over the weekend. and there s no question that governor romney s crowds are big. the president s drew some big crowds this weekend, too, including saturday night in virginia with bill clinton, but there s no question that one of the things the romney people can seize on is the potential that they have more enthusiasm. plenty of enthusiasm for the president, too. but there s a lot of enthusiasm for mitt romney and for beating the president on that side. and people get upset when you say this, but i get to talk to a reporter, jeff zellny said it yesterday, new york times, great reporter talked about how the energy is o
in the middle east. attacking me is not an agenda. attacking me is not talking about how we re going to deal with the challenges that exist in the middle east. on the obama side, in terms of strategy, dana, do you think that the president is nervous? do you think that the campaign made a decision? we need to try to take mitt romney down a notch? chris, it was surprising how aggressive the president was last night and it does suggest a sense that he at least internally in the campaign that they feel that he s in an underdog position which i think comes as a bit of a surprise to those of us looking at the national polls of being a close race but not with the president at this point looking like a losing position and certainly the opposite true of romney. he seemed to not want to get mix it up with obama, to stay above the fray. i think a lot of this was compensation for that awful first debate the president had when the roles were entirely reversed but it is probably
i thought when he said that, it was so clear, wow, that was really good. cricket from obama side. but i thought obama was trying to be mitt romney. he was saying my tax cuts are better. he wasn t the hope and change kind of guy. he really was trying to imitate mitt mz. the piece on the chinese investment that was my second favorite. besides the hypocrisy aspect, when obama doesn t even look at it. he doesn t even look at his pension. if he isn t worried about his own money he isn t going to be worried about ours. i thought the exchange on the pension i don t look at my companies my mutual fund is investing in either. you and puppy mills. yes, in china. but dana, you would never say
i was struck by how confident they were. and romney s level of performance on two of the three events i saw was quite high. on the obama side, they continue to believe that of course they re not going to win most of these battleground states by six or seven points. so if the polls close to more like two or three, that s where they think the race will end up. their confidence is based on three things. one is they still think they have the better candidate despite denver, the better ground game by far and that that s going to make a two or thr three-point difference in a lot of these states. and they still think demographically they can target and energize in the end young voters, hispanics, african-americans and women in a way that will provide the advantage in these nine states. john heilemann, i want to follow up on something that mark is saying. it s one of the most interesting things that i found in talking to team romney. and that is the fact that when i talk to people who all al
romney won the debate. what do you think is important about it? i think what s important about it is it gives governor romney a chance to get a second look from the electorate. when he was in a bad patch after the 47%. you said, what does he need? not to make any more big mistakes and needs an outstanding first debate. the advantage for romney now, a lot of people, most importantly independent swing voters and undecideds in the key battleground states, he has an opportunity to get a second look. i would say the danger there s a danger for the obama people. the danger for the romney people is that they start moon dancing in the end zone, begin high fiving saying we ve turned this whole thing around. i think it s very dangerous for them. on the obama side, important to remember, yes, they were beaten, but you take the view, i can be beaten but never defeated. this doesn t mean he s lost the whole election by any stretch of the imagination.