the republican primary. so i think the key now is to go out and deliver the message. a lot of folks have talked about governor romney needing to have a game changer. i don t know if a campaign really fully believes that. i think they need to they want him to be himself and present his ideas in a very presidential way. at the end of the 90 minutes, they hope the voter out there that s still undecided might be swayed to pull their support for him. ron mott, here in the studio, a guy who spends more time with paul ryan than just about my man in america. wearing down my shoes. good to see you. good to see you. garrett, i look forward to seeing you in person one day soon. thanks, craig. have a great sunday. three days before his first national debate since 2008, president obama entering the home stretch time, facing a growing amount of criticism over his reaction to the middle east conflict. the latest hit came from paul
think if everyone is speaking honestly and openly, if you re the romney campaign, you look at where you are, you re behind in almost every key battleground, you have to have a change in the narrative. there s only a few big events left. those are the debates to change narrative. he s got to go in the debate. not just do well, he s got to significantly rock the president. so that people come out of the debate saying wow, that s a new, that s a new romney candidate we didn t see before. joe watkins, is that possible? can you rock the president? is mitt romney capable of no. no. chris, why did you say it was possible? i know chris kofinis is actually being honest. president obama is an awesome debater. he s an excellent campaigner. i think that chances of rockinging him of course, that s a steep mountain to climb. think where the opportunity lies is for mitt romney to really get the attention of americans and really kind of bring him back to point. the way ronald reagan did in
anyone i know. could there be an october surprise? and if there is one in those numbers that you look at, where might that surprise be? anything is possible. we have 37 days until the election. there is the opportunity for a big game-changer. i will tell you one of the big ironies of this entire presidential contest over the five or six months of the general election, when it started, every momentous event, whether it was president obama coming out in favor of gay marriage, every monthly jobs report number, the numbers barely budged in the press de s presidential contest. three events have had a big event on the presidential race, the democratic convention, the republican convention and mitt romney s remarks on the 47%. so the romney campaign is hoping that there is something coming up in the upcoming debates, first on wednesday and then the remaining debates that they can actually change the contours of this contest. you even had chris christie on the sunday show saying that the deb
debate prep. what are we talking about here? are we talking lights and makeup, everything? this is the whole nine yards, craig. this is the romney campaign s attempt to simulate game speed, if you will. the hardest thing to do is to get it to really feel like the real deal. this is at an event space here. they ll be under the lights, in front of the cameras, try to make it feel as real as possible for governor romney. have the top strategy and policy aids in place. portman s place will be to try to get under romney s skin. garrett, how would you characterize the amount of debate prep that governor romney has had so far? craig, it s sort of hard to say. the campaign very quickly started to deny essentially that they were doing debate prep. they described these sessions as private meetings. he s had a handful of full
place for politics. it s 37 days until election day. just three days until the big first debate. and two new polls out this morning from these key swing states, who are giving the edge to president obama. a significant number of voters in one of those states say they still could be persuaded to change their minds. here s what s happening right now. in iowa this afternoon, the dnc making a push to get out the vote. congresswoman gabby wasserman-schultz firing up supporters today in des moines. we re so incredibly close to the finish line. we need to be in a full-on sprint all the way to election day over the next 37 days. and this week s debate will be a game changer. that s according to new jersey governor chris christie. he acknowledged on nbc s meet the press that romney is trailing in the polls but promised that s about to turn around. wednesday night s the restart of this campaign.