candidate. the latest ohio poll shows president obama ahead by eight points. romney hasn t made any gains for almost a month in that state. i promised i d get to the bottom line. here it is. winning a tdebate, real nice, important for the moment. romney needs to win ohio if he wants to be president of the united states. we ll see if a single debate can make a difference for him. joining me tonight, ohio state senator, nina turner. senator, good to have you with us tonight. thanks, ed. do you think romney s debate performance was enough to change the dial a little bit in ohio? not at all, ed. as you outlined, ohio is trending in favor of president obama. ohioans get governor romney does not understand that being president of the united states is not a business venture, it s a service venture, and governor rommy does not get it. he hasn t been in elected office since 2007 so it was easy for him to talk last night about hypotheticals and what he would
reelected. but at the same time, he needs to present a compelling, alternate vision, and that s one of the reasons he s stalled in the polls. people realize that obama has not delivered, but romney hasn t effectively delivered that message. so he needs to do that tonight, joe is right. but at the same time, the challenge to obama is he has not explained how his second term would be different, and if he doesn t do that, then he s going to have a hard time making the sale as well. megyn: joe, is there, you know, is there, is there more opportunity for mitt romney tonight than we ve seen on any other night? i mean, is this really like, this is his chance to do it? certainly in past debates the challenger seems to do very well in the first one, again, partly just because being there with the president of the united states regardless of party adds to your stature and puts you on an even playing field, so i think romney benefit from that. but the other side of this is, look, a lot of the
that somebody, either jim lehrer or the president himself, won t bring up the 47% video because it has been devastating to romney. obama has used it in ads and it plays into the perception of romney as a very rich guy who is completely out of touch with ordinary voters. however, i can t imagine that romney hasn t are practiced responses to that. he s already had an ad where he sits down, faces the camera, he tries to assure voters that he wants to help 100% of americans, everybody. but the danger for romney is seeming fake or false when he tries to connect. he has, no doubt, practiced a lot, rehearsed a lot. he has a lot of answers already planned but can he seem genuine when he s given that answer those answers as something to
clear about what he s going to do to social security, to medicare. romney hasn t either but it s not like one candidate totally filled out that ballot. i think this is a situation where mitt romney comes in with a much bigger hill to climb but yet more opportunity. in minds of a lot of people they re thinking of 47%, they re thinking of they re thinking of the sort of monty burns car ka tour. what debates are good at are getting through caricatures. this is one time in the cycle we ll get the two candidates standing next to each other and cuts through caricature and the falsehood as well. john, part of romney s strategy reporter: me? yes, john. reporter: i was going to say, i totally agree with michael. first of all, president obama in several significant areas, like entitlement reform going forward, has also not laid out specifics. but i find it a little puzzling
say the biggest challenge that mitt romney has is he s in a box. no matter what he says, it s likely he says the complete opposite in his past. look, people are wanting to see the real mitt romney. they want to know who he really is. i think his biggest challenge is not being himself. now, your dad, jon huntsman, was a candidate against him and debated against him. did you have a problem, which romney is going to show snup. that s what people are asking, is the conservative romney or moderate romney when he ran against senator kennedy or a whole different version of romney? but i will say, the only way he s going to knock president obama off message is if he does show a side of himself that none of us have ever seen and that s the only way he s going to hit it out of the ballpark, is if he shows us who he really is: