night. we ve seen it before. you might as well have watched it on tv with rabbit ears. reporter: look at this video of the romney campaign bus is here in tow lead owe as well with the president. they ve been circling this high school and beeping the horn and they have a megaphone and they ve been saying take a look at mitt romney s visio future, his plan for the future. a lot of obama fans waiting outside the high school have been shouting back at it saying go home. here we are labor day, both sides fighting it out in the battleground state of ohio. doesn t get any better than this. bill. bill: that is a classic shot in ohio, wow. how does the obama team and specifically the president similar telephone reacting to the whole question we were talking about with carl a moment ago about whether or not you re better off now than you were four years ago. reporter: i think carl hit it on the head, this is delicate and dangerous for the obama camp. this was the question that ronald reagan
secretariry for the obama for america presidential campaign. thanks for being here. thanks for having me. martha: you watched report when we were in tampa last week. the thrust for the romney-ryan campaign was we deserve better. we can do better than with we re getting right now. what do you think?. the question is what they are offering? we certainly didn t hear much about that last week. we didn t hear about their budget plan which would turn medicare into a voucher program. if you re a student would be harder to get a loan. didn t hear about their $5 trillion tax cuts for the wealthiest americans on the backs of middle class and on the backs of seniors. that will be difference in charlotte this week. you will hear a road map from the president how we restore economic security for the middle class. we ve made progress but there is more work to be done. martha: there is the big question whether or not you get a bounce out of it. no doubt you hope to get a bounce out of the convent
charlotte with details on that. what is bracketing? reporter: call it bracketing, counter programing a counter convention. republicans are here making sure their message particularly the one they drove out in tampa, does not get lost in the huge megaphone of the democratic national convention in addition to paul ryan being here. they have nikki haley from south carolina. oklahoma governor mary fall lynn and virginia governor bob mcdonnell, all pushing the theme, are you betting off than you were four years ago. here is what sean spicer, communications director for the rnc told me about their messaging. we saw a lot of comments sunday morning where the top surrogates couldn t answer the fundamental question is america better off than four years ago. those kind of gaps give us a opportunity to drive our message on a daily basis. reporter: they have a nascar painted up romney-ryan 2012. that is something as well. something ronald reagan ran
conversation between 2008 and where we are today and the fact more work needs to be done. we were losing 800,000 jobs when the president came into office. manufacturing was in decline. the auto industry was on the brink. american retirement savings were being wiped out in the market. we made a lot of progress. businesses created more than 4.5 million jobs. gm was reborn into the number one automaker into the world defend. manufacturing is coming back. more than 500,000 jobs. the question where will we go from here? the president will lay out how we invest in education and research and development and build the economy from middle class out. martha: look at some of the numbers because the big question is and you heard it talked about over the over the course of the weekend. are you better off now than you were four years ago? when you look at unemployment and gas prices if we pull those up. you see this comparison. unemployment was at 7.89%. it is now 8.3. median income has dropped by
conventions. i suspect they are going to watch the debates. you do find that in polling that a lot of people are sick of the ads, they think the convention are shows and they are looking forward to that real test when they are side-by-side, they can do their comparison shopping april watch botand watch both of them take the tough questions. martha: it comes down to a very subtle question that happens that very last moment when they walk into the booth and say, do i want to stick with this guy or give this guy a chance. it s a big huge question for some of them. it will be a last minute kind of, all right, perhaps. it s important to remember too that campaigns are reaching voters in different ways too. voters can afford to be more passive in the way that they receive information because the information is coming to them from books and social media and other things. bill: thanks to both of you. see you throughout the week. thanks. martha: thanks, guys. so we re going to have more from