denver. the number i predict i think with great confidence that the number is higher on tuesday because a lot of people in the country want to know, if barack obama going to rise to this challenge or not? let s bring in patrick gaspar, dnc executive director, former white house director for the obama administration. patrick, great pleasure having you on. we played a clip from john hileman earlier and we played one from him as well saying when this it president has faced adversity and challenges, he always in john hileman s assertion has come out victorious in this. ho how will the president meet the challenges of this debate? thanks for having me on, tamron. sure. john hileman is completely right about the president s past performances. he improves steadily over the course of a campaign. i disagree with your panelists in one instance. i think there s more pressure on mitt romney in this debate because no lie can stand forever, tamron. in the last debate mitt romney
put in the exact same policies that created the crisis in the first place. that s the tone that the new president has that is voiced by morgan freeman. it starts with a story line of where this country was when he took office. i believe it said something along the lines no one had faced these kinds of challenges going into the white house. if he doesn t flub and it s a draw, a wash, they both step up to the expectations and have a good debate, what does that mean, michael? a wash leaves us exactly where we are, which is that the larger race is a wash, i would think. i would think that obama needs to do a little bit better than a wash. romney was a very good debater in that first debate. it s true. a lot of stuff about his tax plan and so forth weren t really true, but it s obama s job to point that out. it s not really the media s job. it s obama s job first and foremost to point it out. that s the third thing he has to do tomorrow night.
ally/frazier fight in 1971 where frazier knocked the champ down. no one expected ali won the second and third fights. he can t overcorrect, and he needs not protect his likability too much. he s comparing it to 1971. here we are in current year, current time. what adoes the president need to do, david, tomorrow with this platform of a town hall debate as well? i would focus on my strengths if i was president obama, and something that mitt romney cannot touch, no matter what, is president obama s ability to connect with people and say, i m like you. i experienced what you experienced. if i were president obama, one of the things i would do is say, hey, look, if you re a student. i had student debt up until a couple years ago, so did michelle. if you re unemployed, my grandfather was unemployed. i grew up in a household led by
i think the metric system here, because he had a phenomenal debate performance to get it to even to him as an acceptable alternative. that s the phrase we re using today. now you wonder if the president comes out and hits a home run in a town hall format that you think might benefit him with his charisma, maybe it goes back to a couple of weeks ago. i m interested to see how romney will perform here. he s really good when he has prepared text, but in a crowd he comes across at the guy who shows up at the party with a sweater vest and it is, you want to play yahtzee? this is the logical question anyway, our first read team says will this be his in touch or out of touch moment? they refer this to blowing up the stereotype, that he does not understand the plight of the average americans. does he understand, steve diese, the plight of the average
anne we ll invite you for the third and final debate, since you re the only one it still matters to. david, thank you very much. coming up, cheap shot the son of republican senate candidate tommy thompson caught on camera making offensive remarks about the president. we ll play it for you next and play what tommy thompson said he s now apologizing for his son s remarks. senator lindsey graham is leading the charge that the obama administration was involved in a deliberate cover-up over the response to the deadly afak in libya. they never believed the media would investigate and congress was out of session and this caught up with them. will the president have an opportunity tomorrow during the foreign policy discussion of the debate to push back on this allegation from graham and others? patrick gaspar from the dnc will join me live. plus, three states consider laws to legalize pot for recreational use. if they pass that would be in direct conflict with federal