so this had a big impact on mitt romney. >> when he returns home, romney is a changed person. now deeply committed to his family's religion. he attends the mormon church's brigham young university along with ann davies. mitt and ann marry and eventually move to boston where romney gets a difficult combined mba and law degree from harvard. the romneys settle in massachusetts and mitt serves in higher and higher official positions in the mormon church. first as a bishop, then as head of the boston stake which is similar to a dioceses. mitt romney might be one of the more devout major party presidential nominees in american history. >> he spent up to, they say, 25 or 30 hours a week being the volunteer bishop. their religion is their life in many ways. >> but in addition to tending to religious matters, mitt romney is also in the process of building a major business. one that would make him a millionaire many times over. >> during the 15 years that i was there and that mitt was there, i believe bain capital probably had the most successful track record of any investment firm ever

romney. if he exploits the debates to his favor and increases his standard beyond that of obama, he will fit right in. the bad news, romney has to beat obama to do it. and what a big night for politics, history and our bloled country. that's "hardball" for now. "the ed show" starts right now. >>> good evening, america. welcome to "the ed show" from new york. 43 days until the 2012 election. only nine days until the first presidential debate. mitt romney thinks it's fair to pay a smaller tax rate than americans who earn $50,000 a year? you like that? this is "the ed show." let's get to work. >> what's your big idea? >> freedom. >> now we know. mitt romney loves freedom and he loves his low tax rate. >> you think it is fair? >> yeah, i think it's the right way to encourage economic growth. >> tonight, richard wolf on mitt romn romney's definition of fair and dean baker on romney's ability to game the tax code with chinese investments. >> my expectation would be in the crunch in october, governo

first and foremost, a romney. the romney name has been in the public eye for the last half century, a family of great wealth will and business achievement, political success as well as failures. mitt was the fourth and last child for george and lenore romney. born march 12, 1957, some recall him as the favorite. george wrote to the family in september 1956 -- mitt is growing like a weed, as full of ideas and energy as ever. tom mccaffrey grew up with romney. >> mitt as a child was extremely energetic, the kind of kid who could never sit down. his mind was going 100 miles an hour. >> george was much the same way. >> you know, he's just got that energy. >> phillip maxwell lived down the street from the romneys in a wealthy detroit suburb. >> george would go out on the golf course. and he had fluorescent golf balls, and he would hit the ball and he would run after the ball, jogging, hit the ball again. and that was his exercise. >> young mitt not only had his father's energy -- >> there seems to be a special bond bet

but team romney is fighting the fallout from the lies of mitt romney about 47% of this country. with more lies. >> mitt romney is about to hit the ground in what could be hustle territory. >> mitt romney back on the campaign trail today. >> his first time since friday. >> and in damage control mode. >> the question in this campaign is not who cares about the poor and the middle class. >> i'm not concerned about the very poor. we have a safety net there. >> i do. he does. >> pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. >> the question is who can help the poor and the middle class. >> i like being able to fire people who provide services to me. >> strengthen medicare, save social security, this is the essence of compassion and conservatism. >> we have frankly two different views about america. >> with less than 50 days to go, the vultures are circles. >> a wide spread panic. >> open rebellion from the right. >> criticism from romney from fellow republicans is coming in fast and furious. >> why? >> they are not seeing mitt romney out on the trail enough. >> a brilliant fundraise

no one is calling mitt romney stupid. >> mitt romney is drowning in stupid people. they work for his campaign, they send clint eastwood out on the convention stage, they contribute money to his campaign. they ask him incredibly stupid questions at his fundraisers when we now have on tape. but as that same tape proves, the very stupidest person in mitt romney's life tonight is mitt romney. >> well, okay, but that was like 24 hours ago, which is like a year ago in this story so i forget about that part. what i meant to say is no republicans are calling him stupid. but wait, i guess a few are. so some are calling him stupid, but not all of them. but they will, all be calling him stupid around 9:00 p.m. on election night. tonight, nate silver of the new york times blog's forecasts that on that night, president obama will win 305 votes and ploim has a 75% chance of winning the election. >> that was a long lonely piece of tape. he was not for romney at the beginning. it was the establishment types that were for romney. rush was hoping for someone real and conservative and

the romney campaign is not disputing that that video is of romney. my job is not to worry about those people, i'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. the romney campaign is not disputing that that video is of romney. they issued a statement prompted by the recording, quote, mr. romney wants to help all americans struggling in the obama economy. as the governor has made clear, he's concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent upon the government. the 23 million americans struggling to find work. mitt romney's plan grow es the economy and moves americans off government dependency and into jobs. also republican party chairman is not only defending the remarks tonight, he's saying that mitt romney was on message when he made these remarks. the obama campaign issued their own statement. the campaign manager says, quote, it's hard to serve as president for all americans when you have disdainfully written off half the nation. in terms of how we got this information today, got this fo

vote for mitt romney? the romney campaign is in serious trouble. but you do what you've got to do in these situations you've got to put one foot in front of the other and they have decided the way they're going to get out of these problems and the way they're going to take these steps is going to be baby steps. welcome to america? seriously, who's making the decisions in this campaign right now. >>> okay. best new thing in the world today. specifically, it is the best new thing in mitt romney's world today. it was a chance for him to get on television without having to answer questions about what he said at that fundraiser. he got that chance through the magic of time travel. also known in the tv world as a pretaped interview. >> so as you know, we have a huge show today. >> yes. >> we taped an incredible interview with presidential candidate governor mitt romney and his wife ann which we're going to show you today. >> that is a person named kelly ripa and a person named michael strahan. they are teasing forward with mitt and ann romney which they

mitt romney was knee-deep in it. a rising star at a boston consulting group, bain and company, which has a great pitch -- help businesses make money by cutting costs. >> and by all accounts, mitt romney was very successful in advising companies how to improve their business operations. >> but soon romney's boss had a better idea. instead of just advising companies, why not buy them with investor money to generate huge profits? and bain capital was born. early partner, jeffrey reinert. >> a lot of late nights, a lot of learning. but a lot of success. >> what kind of a leader was mitt romney during those early years? >> i would say in the early years, mitt was a lead-by-example kind of leader. he dug in, did analysis side by side with us. >> and it paid off. bain capital invested in more than 100 companies, nearly doubling its returns for clients annually. >> how are you doing? >> romney made a lot of money. and he would later claim created a lot of jobs. but a former bank colleague who talked off camera about whether

mitt romney contradicted once again, mitt romney. and in the rewrite tonight, the things paul ryan can't say anymore thanks to mitt romney. for example, paul ryan never talks about the cayman islands anymore. and he used to talk about the cayman islands. and tomorrow is the last day that crazy congressman todd akin can drop out of the senate race whichever republican including mitt romney wants him to do. so why was newt gingrich at todd akin's side today urging him to stay in. newt can't stop making trouble for mitt. that's coming up. i'm so g lad you called. thank you. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity, you could also set up free account alerts. okay. [ female announcer ] at wells fargo we're working around the clock to help protect your money and financial information. here's your temporary card. welcome back. how was london? [ female announcer ] wells fargo.

mitt romney released his taxes. it turns out he has already disqualified himself from being president. >> i don't pay more than are legally due and, frankly, if i had paid more than are legally due, i don't think i'd be qualified to become president. >> tonight the epic campaign day that ended an epic campaign week with former ohio governor ted strickland and the nation' ari melber. a full analysis of romney's sketchy tax return with david cay johnston. and bernie sanders joins me to look at paul ryan's attempt to fool people at the aarp convention. >> the first step is to repeal obama care because it represents the worst of both worlds. >> and tom aiken is forced to answer for his illegitimate rape remarks for the first time. >> they say a lot about how he views thing. >> good to you have with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. the dynamics of the presidential race changed this week and there's no turning back. for the next 46 days the two candidates will be dealing with the fallout of the reaction of what hap

is mitt romney among those? we'll never know since he refuses to release his tax returns for the years before he was running for president. >> do you think that this renews the pressure for romney to release more returns? or is just harry reid having fun with this whole thing? >> no, i agree with harry reid. i mean, we've got a candidate for president, mitt romney, writing off half the country, and calling them victims and dependent on government, because supposedly, they don't pay income taxes. well, they pay state and local taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, and mitt romney, who has invested overseas in the cayman islands and has money in swiss bank accounts, and in bermuda, and won't release anything more than a year and a partial year of his tax return, has the nerve to call half of america victims? it's -- >> i think another key point in all of this, the man who hosted that fund-raiser back in may in boca raton has apologized to mitt romney, and it's now out there, of course, everyone was told that this

less than 60 seconds after romney said president obama puts americans against each other, romney answered this question. >> romney claims the president is causing resentment mean americans. but romney himself is outlining a class war between two distinct halves of the country. romney stumbled to address the comments he made at a fundraiser in a late news conference last night. >> romney claims the president is causing resentment mean americans. but romney himself is outlining a class war between two distinct halves of the country. romney stumbled to address the comments he made at a fundraiser in a late news conference last night. but romney made the matters only worse for himself. >> it's not elegantly stated. i'm speaking off the cuff in response to a question. i'm sure i could state it more clearly in a more effective way than i did in a setting like that. and so i'm sure i'll point that out as time goes on. we don't even have the question nor the full response and i hope the person who has the video would put out the full material. >> hold on, wait a minute. don't have the question? j

vote for mitt romney? the romney campaign is in serious trouble. but you do what you've got to do in these situations you've got to put one foot in front of the other and they have decided the way they're going to get out of these problems and the way they're going to take these steps is going to be baby steps. welcome to america? seriously, who's making the decisions in this campaign right now. [ thunder crashes ] [ male announcer ] if you think all batteries are the same... consider this: when the unexpected happens, there's one brand of battery more emergency workers trust in their maglites: duracell. one reason: duralock power preserve. it locks in power for up to 10 years in storage. guaranteed. so, whether it's 10 years' of life's sunny days... or... the occasional stormy one... trust goes a long way. duracell with duralock. trusted everywhere. try this... bayer? this isn't just a headache. trust me, this is new bayer migraine. [ male announcer ] it's the power of aspirin plus more in a triple action formula to relieve your tough migraines. n

there was no bounce for romney. and there's a substantial bounce for president obama out of their convention. in the new cnn poll taken after the democratic national convention, president obama leads mitt romney among likely voters by six points. republican pollsters have the president with a similar lead in its latest poll. mitt romney's reagan plan didn't work. now it's time to bring on plan b. the only problem is the romney camp doesn't appear to have a plan b. they are throwing everything they can against the wall to see what sticks. his latest attempt is to go after the christian conservative vote. he even changed his stump speech to say president obama is threatening to take the word god off u.s. currency. >> i will not take god out of the name of our platform. i will not take god off our coins and i will not take god out of my heart. >> as president obama anywhere said anything about taking god off the coins? this is how desperate they are. romney did a lot of pandering to the crowd this weekend. he took the

today romney lost this argument. the bur pro of labor statistics announced a provision to its jobs count from march of 2011 to march of this year. the revised number incdes an additional 386,000 jobs. this mns morthan million joavenedince president obama took office. the bottom line here? there are more jobs now than when the president took overor george w. bush in january of 2009. thasn ofne mattacks on e president. and now, it's off the table. romney isn't in a position where he can afford to lose any of his weapons. i think he's scrambling big-time. all the polls show that. on a personal note i can't wait for the debates. one of the lines bng used by reicrinohe conservatives is that mitt romney is just this great debater. i mean, he is a great debater. can somebody remind the american people, and i'll do it right now, that we have a smart guy on our side? president oba, let me remind you, is a fierce competitor. he will prepared. nohoisia he knows his accomplishments and he knows exactly where he wants to take thi

>> romney is a strikeout. >> if we don't run chris christie, romney will be the nominee and he'll lose. >> it is a big day in the big apple. >> president obama is in new york right now. >> america wants to resolve this issue through diplomacy. >> there was president obama giving a speech. >> i accept people are going to call me awful things every day. >> then there was mitt romney. >> the few words from bill clinton can do a man a lot of good. >> if he's going to double down on that 47, that will cause difficulties. >> wait a couple of days for that bounce. >> he has no past that i can ever spot. >> i can appreciate your kind words. >> when i was a boy i used to think that becoming rich and becoming famous would make me happy. boy, was i right. >> yeah, he said that. with just 42 days until the presidential election and with a new poll showing mitt romney's path to the presidency rapidly narrowing, paul ryan is rapidly realizing that he is well on his way to becoming the next losing vice president candidate. so he is desperately trying to avoid the stench of romney. yes, the stench. th

will mitt romney's problems pass? text "a" for yes, text "b" for no to 622639. you can always go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com and leave a comment there. we'll bring you the results later on in the the show. i'm joined tonight by howard fineman, nbc news political analyst, and the editorial director of the "huffington post" media group. howard, great to have you with us. >> hi, ed. >> why do i feel like the romney campaign is like a rural america, first time ever city commission race? >> well, that's the way a lot of other people see it, including priva privately, i would say, karl rove. if you read the rest of that piece, he said, this too shall pass, but the next naphase is crucial, meaning mitt romney has to get on message, whatever that message ultimately is and perform at a superhuman level and deliver a hard to imagine knockout blow to the president in the first presidential debate. i've covered a lot of these campaign, ed, and i watched some succeed and i watched them fall apart. this one at this point, 47 days b

romney and mr. ryan want the owners, some of whom romney counts as personal friend, to get a deal done as quickly as possible so tha the real pros can get back to officiating. rete heaven forbid, police o those dreadful teacher, well, what's the rush? bleed them dry. for their latest hypocrisy, this time concerning organized labor, we throw our own penalty flag at mr. ro a mr. ryan. that's ten yards for pandering and now your back's squarely against the goal. stay with us. but that doesn't mean we should be penalized for it. that's why liberty mutu insurance policies come standard with accident forgiveness, if you qualify. powerful trading tools for all. like o all-in-one trade tict. weutategs, cining tools potionall. all on one screen. start trading today with optionsxpress by charles schwab. >>> woeth po t greatest athlete of the 20th century. here's today's "top lines," stop it! >> thank you for joining us, i lost the emmy. speaking of losing -- >> this is one thing he did not do in s first four

terrible, romney was wrong on the facts, romney was wrong on substance. romney was wrong as a matter of policy." "the lath times" editorial today says, "in mixing sympathy with specious attacks and self-promotion, romney has diminished himself." even bill o'reilly had a problem with mitt romney's criticism of the obama administration. >> the statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to apology. and i think it was a severe miscalculation. >> now, i'm not sure the governor's correct on that. the embassy was trying to head off the violence. being conciliatory in that kind of a situation seems logical. >> romney apparently agrees with his bad reviews and has decided to back down from a fight with the president. >> no direct response. when the president says you shoot first and aim later. >> well, this is politics. i'm not going to worry about the campaign. >> president obama spoke today in colorado. >> we are going to bring those who killed our fellow americans to justice. i want people around the world to hear me, to all those

romney/ryan. romney/ryan. romney/ryan, there we go. that's great. thank you. >> the already weird interpersonal dynamics on the republican ticket reached a poible dezooe knit of awkwaressterys rn romney campaigned with his running mate. as with all complex relationships it wasn't always like this. square jauds and earn had nest as a 1950's sitcom star he sounded ke a lost member of the romney tribe. re reminding people who is the campaign pate tree yashg. >> i'm putting it back into medicare and i'm the guy running for president, not him. >> ryan doesn't always seem to get the message. in days he's been reportedly acting like a rebellious teageroingk t hld ways and giving power point presentations at campaign rallies. >> we can't keep spending money we don't have. today our federal government for every dollar it spends it borrows cents on that dollar. ouy at the top there,ks ar our debt is going to be 2.5 times the size of our economy. >> according to the former political director of the iowa republican party, ryan may have no choice, quote, i hate

romney and mr. ryan are trying to suggest that an insult to half the nation was actually a philosophical statement of difference between their ticket and the president. do you buy stage two in their tale of the tape, the tape you brought to the nation's attention? >> thank you, martin. thank you for pitching the book for me. >> pleasure. >> this is really a grand game of bait and switch here. there is a debate to be had. you read "showdown" and it's interesting, i wrote that barack obama -- i guess mitt romney, too -- wanted this campaign to be one about clashing values between, you know, over the role of government, community action, individual liberty, tax rates and all that stuff. that's sort of what we're getting. but what mitt romney said at that may 17th fund-raiser was not about policy or ideological difference. i mean, the great thing about this story is that people can go and just look at the tape again and again and again and see that he was dismissing everyone who votes for obama. all 47%

romney, ryan, romney, ryan, romney, ryan. there we go. all right, that's great. thank you. >> it's possible to forgive poor mitt romney for feeling a little overshadowed by his running mate. after all, it's hard to compete with a guy who can catch fish with his bare hands while at the same time promoting a budget that would rob kids of their free lunch meals. how much of mitt romney's campaign belong to mitt romney? you can't help but wonder if mr. romney is just going along for the ride. joining us is tim dickinson of "rolling stone." his new article is in the current issue of the magazine and an excellent read it is, too. tim, i'd like to show you something before we delve into your article. just take a listen to this, tim. >> the only thing that limits you is your god given talent and your own effort. we need to have that dynamic economy returned. do you that by growing the economy and getting people a hand up, not a hand out. teach a man how to fish, he can feed himself for a life. don't simply feed fish. >> right. sow doesn't believe in handouts. he won't ev

we got a call from a romney staffer asking if i wanted to do a one-on-one interview with romney. when i agreed, i was told that there was a condition. i not ask about abortion. i later clarified what this meant. i planned to ask about the candidate that said the woman's body shut down, but aiken was part of this stipulation. >> it's not uncommon to try to shape the interviews their candidate is subjected to. but you're supposed to do it off the record. you're supposed to say those it negotiations are offhe record so you're not giving the reporter about what your candidate is afraid to be asked about. then what the candidate is afraid of becomes a bigger story than what did eventually make it into your carefully-stage managed interview. colorado has just been tough for the romney campaign this year. it's like they are jinxed. you might remember this happening the night of the colorado republican caucuses in february. watch. >> i can tell you this room, we talked about this a few moments ago, this room was not even half full. it's started to fill in a little bit, but this room is s

a 16% chance for mitt romney a new lofor mitt romney. bags, a crash management system and the world's only tridion safety cell which can withstand over three and a half tons. small in size. big on safety. ♪ that nobody else could do is efficiently absorbed in small continuous amounts. citral slow release ntusels iu pl with efficient absorption in one daily dose. citracal slow release. [ male announcer ] the exceedingly nimble, ridiculously agile, ight turni,ndr2013ma ♪ >>> in tonight's rewrite. ry ta we heard what he thinks of 47% of us. that he thinks of us as takers dependant on government. here is a picture of him in 1968. that is mitt romney on a beach taken a special draft deferment. there he is, the very picture of abfiousness to the fact that while he was playing in the sand on french beaches, beaches where 2500mericans died in one day on world war ii, thousands and ousas ofngri h age were dying in vietnam for a foolish war that american he was on its way to losing that the young mr. romney fully supported. he also supported t

it's romney! no one could have damaged mitt romney's campaign as much as mitt romney just did. he's in a lot of trouble! eliot spitzer will tell you more about that next on "viewpoint." >> eliot: good evening i'm eliot spitzer. this is "viewpoint." when a presidential candidate is forced to leave a scheduled fund-raiser for an impromptu news conference, it can only one mean one thing. trouble. >> good evening. i understand there is a video that's been on the internet for a few weeks that has attracted some attention and i thought i would make some comments about it. >> eliot: that was mitt romney last night after mother jones posted video excerpts of his of its web site of romney taking questions from potential donors at a private $50,000 a plate fund-raiser may 17th at the florida home of private equity manager mark leeder. we played part of the tape monday. we're going to play a lot more of it tonight starting with the most controversial excerpt. >> there are 47% of the american people who will vote for him no matter what. they believe they're victims who believe government h

yesterday, showing romney down 8. ohio has been a problem for romney since the primaries when of all the midwestern states it with us the closest one where rick santorum nearly pulled off an upset. it's certainly the toughest in the badleground. the problem for romney is if he concedes ohio to obama, the president is simile one state away from a win. it's not a florida or virginia. he's a wisconsin away, a nevada away. that's the real problem here. the romney campaign needs ohio back. like this line yesterday, they tried to hammer obama on taxes. take a listen. >> he's got one new idea. i admit this. he has one thing he did not do in his first four years he said he's going to do in the next four years which is to raise taxes. is there anybody who thinks raising taxes will help grow the economy? >> no. >> ryan's expression back there when he looks over at portman, kind of intriguing. it would be curious what a thought bubble would be going on over there. but it's a little bit of a change for romney. he had often been a

romney was on message according to some. in some strange way, could this help romney with his base? >> i don't know. i think the folks who are going to respond positively to this were already voting against president obama. few people will turn out. but i just don't see how this statement helps him. there's so many people he is putting in that dependent category who think of themselves as hardworking republicans. so i don't see how this helps. >> social security, medicare, i don't think he was talking about that. i think he was talking about medicaid. people who are on medicaid -- the elderly, no fault of their own, they don't want to be there. no one wants to be in poor circumstances. no one wants to be unemployed. is he talking about unemployment benefits as well? the 9e9ers, the whole group? i think this is a definition that we have heard in the past of two americas and he doesn't want to care about a portion of our society, which i find absolutely amazing. >> i do too. but to get to 47% of all of us, you've got to get up into the middle class. so he's talking about a vast swath

romney. the obama campaign is hammering home who the real romney is and what he stands for. he's a candidate who has no problem writing off the country, something that this president refuses to do. >> i'm not fighting to create democrat or republican jobs, i'm creating jobs. i'm fighting to improve schools in the united states of america. i'm not fighting on behalf of rich values or poor values or 53% value. i'm fighting for american values. he's fighting for american values. but the other candidate, the man behind the mask, he's offering us a budget that takes care of the rich but leaves everyone else in the dust. >> show me your budget. i'll tell you what you've got. let's take a look at their budget. why are they doing it? well, they are doing it because they have to. and here's the reason they have to. they cannot possibly, possibly continue to add to the tax cuts of the super wealthy. >> that's what is behind the romney mask. that's what the next 39 days to the election are all about. and a special thank you to our fake president and mitt romney for helping us to predic

right at mitt romney. tell us what you really think about this. >> well, first of all, it is probably the case that people he is denigrating in such a dismissive fashion pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than he does. we don't know that because he's refusing to reveal it but you know, i'm still struck by ann romney having said that oh, if we were to release mitt's returns or our returns, it would give the other side ammunition. that's about as damming an admission as you can get. there are people who work, every penny of their income is subject to the payroll tax. and that may very well be a higher effective rate than romney pays with his shelters. and the other point that strikes me is this. it is a very hard conception -- not a hard one. a scary one. apparently to him, people don't have views on public policy. they don't have emotional feelings. they don't have concern for others. in his mind, it is pure economic determinism. people are apparently reduced to being sleighs of where their mo

bad week for romney. his response to what happened was universally either ignored or panned. he got almost no backup from the republican establishment in his critique, saying that they were essentially apologizing for america. noke else really bought into that. it was also a difficult week for president obama because when events spiral out of your control and there is unrest and when people feel nervous that's not good fon -- for an incumbent. gwen: except that then what we look for especially in foreign policy, which isn't very manageable, is who is the better leader? who is more credible? mitt romney tried to make the argument that it's not president obama. what would mitt romney have done with this or any of the other sticky issues? has he laid out an approach we can look to and say this is the kind of president he would be in this situation? >> well, he has but it's been with as with much of the romney campaign at the level of generalities. so there's not a list of six things he would have done. he do

romney is romney. romney is tone-deaf, bill. he can't do it. >> bill: now what makes you think that? >> every single interview he gives, he says something which all of us just go are you kidding me? and i think the problem too is whin you get a campaign -- when you get a campaign in this kind of shape, we saw with mccain as things go south they panic. they're looking for the home run and the big hit. they started with ryan. ryan was a terrible pick. so was sarah palin. you know, they -- they start sniping. the fund-raisers start to close their checkbooks. there was a story in the paper today about the big event in new york city and there was a table. ten people that had given $2500 each for that event. many had raised as much as $50,000. they took a poll around that table. and they asked how many of the folks -- the ten romney supporters thought he would win. zero. >> bill: get out. >> nobody thought he would win. >> bill: of his own supporters. >> of his own supporters. i think we're not popping champagne corks. there a lot of

how dare romney say i'm a loser. and darryl says, we finally have proof of what the right-wing power elite really thinks about us. fans also loved this feet photo of president obama with jay-z and beyonce at a fund-raiser last night. rosemary stays is a great picture of the talented people all making a difference in this world. and jacqueline says, they are probably discussing their girls. we want to know what you think, too. go to facebook and search "politics nation" and like us to join the conversation that keeps going long after the show ends. r removal has to be painful? challenge that with new olay facial hair removal duo. even coarse, stubborn facial hair gently. plenty of gain, without all that pain... with olay. his morning starts with arthritis pain. and two pills. afternoon's overhaul starts with more pain. more pills. triple checking hydraulics. the evening brings more pain. so, back to more pills. almost done, when... hang on. stan's doctor recommended aleve. it can keep pain away all day with fewer pill

romney, by those that you do embrace. i guess you'll have to stay in a quiet room where you whisper about loopholes. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. >>> sweet and sour politics. let's play "hardball." >>> good evening. i'm chris matthews from washington. let me start with this tonight, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. you can lead a party to tampa but you can't make them like them. talk about a loveless marriage, this thick in tampa had the look of a shotgun marriage. is that any reason to make some guy president of the united states? is it. there's a reason obama got a bounce and romney did a thud. one guy people really love in charlotte giving the speeches of their lives, bill and michelle and deval patrick and castro. remember what romney got? chris christie up there giving testimonials to themselves. they barely got around to paying for their supper they were so full of themselves. romney has had two chippies, going over to get acquainted with the brits and

mitt romney is paying the price. romney is now the leader of the republican party that has spent the last four years doing what? trying to destroy president obama instead of creating a positive vision for the middle class in this country. they have badly missed the mark. today the romney campaign did something we rarely see in presidential campaigns. they held a press conference call in response to an article portraying its campaign in a free fal. the politico piece says romney's convention stumbles have weeks of public griping and internal sniping about not only romney but also his chief strategist. in other words, mr. fix it can't seem to run a campaign. so today romney's campaign strategists announced a shift in strategy. their new man tra will be "status quo versus change." it will include more specifics on policy. let's take a look at here's what mitt romney's brand new ad says. >> my plan is to help the middle class. trade has to work for america. that means crackdown on cheaters like china and open up new mark

be romney. the problem is let romney be romney, is that there is no romney to be. >> he's been flailing around trying to prove that he cares about 100% of the population for a week now. let's listen to one of his least eloquent defenders makes the case. >> i know some of you people are not excited about romney. but the bottom line is folks, i don't care who you are, if you are a gay, one-armed amputee on the upper west side, there's not one thing mitt romney has done to you yet. and there's not one thing mitt romney plans on doing to you. but whatever your economic circumstance is, mitt romney has had nothing to do with it. >> so bob reich, i guess he's right there for every gay one-armed a.m. u tea on the upper west side of manhattan. >> i can make almost less sense of that than i can make of mitt romney. there is a choice that has to be made. republicans are going to be making that choice. and the question, the narrative that is going to be coming out over the next few weeks is the problem her

romney. he's an investor in this chinese-owned oil company. or at least he was. his tax returns just released on friday showed seven months after it was reported this company was doing this huge deal with iran, nobody is supposed to be doing energy deals with iran, it was not a secret, seven months after mitt romney invested in that company doing business with iran. and then he invested some more with then. then went back a third time and invested more. then it was roughly this time last year when he was well on his way of securing the republican nomination for president of the united states that mr. romney finally sold those shares. he sold his shares the day before he appeared at this republican debate in iowa. i don't know if he thought he would get asked about them or not. now all of this it notes that he's not necessarily personally making the call on these investments. his money is kept in a blind trust. that said the idea you don't have to answer for investments made through a blind tr