she says she disagrees with mr. romney. mark meadows, running for congress as a republican in north carolina, says that he is different from mitt romney. lamontagne, running in new hampshire, promising not to be a partisan -- is promising not to be a partisan governor in the style of mr. romney and his 47% speech. but here's maybe the biggest panic button that there is on the republican side right now. it's from the "huffington post" today. a republican operative working on congressional races, quote, warned that in key swing states, mitt romney's support and internal polling is well below that of republican candidates in districts where the presidential nominee needs to get big support to have a chance at winning. this is the quote from the republican operative. "he is just well under all of our other guys," this republican said, "i'm very concerned." think about what that means for a second. what they're talking about here is key districts in key swing states. ones where mitt romney really needs to win big in order to win

mr. romney said that wasn't the case, but he got caught. after he got caught, he admitted, yeah, he had been filing as a utah resident, but he was retroactively, now that he was running for governor, he was going back a few years and was going to change that retro actively, but it was a huge mess. i mean mr. romney had told a local newspaper reporter in utah that he had declared utah his primary residence for tax purposes. he had claimed a giant permanent resident of utah tax credit on his big utah house out there. he saved $54,000 in taxes by doing that. he had signed multiple years of tax returns as a part-time only or nonresident of massachusetts. but all of that, he said, how are you going to explain doing all that? he said it was all other people's mistakes. the reporter he talked to in 2000 who noted that mr. romney had declared his utah home his primary residence, well, mr. romney said that must have been a mistake on the reporter's part. mr. romney told the massachusetts state ballot commission, quote, i have met with that reporter

mr. romney is winning with older voters. so if you are a political technician and trying to win the state of florida for your candidate, this polling pattern is not just an interesting fact about how this state is likely to vote. what you are looking at right there is actionable intelligence. what political messaging is going to be most effective for winning this state given these age-specific numbers. again, you do not have to guess. it's an empirical question with an empirical answer. it is in the numbers. look from that same fox news poll. regardless of how you might vote, which presidential candidate do you prust to do a better job on protecting medicare? look at the margin. president obama winning that question in florida by a 13-point margin. so the people who want barack obama to win florida are pressing that advantage right now and the people who want mitt romney to win florida are trying to eliminate the president's advantage on that right now and they are both doing it in an intensely targeted way with this crucial

romney next month. and as mr. romney returns from this trip, it is announced that former vice president dick cheney will not be going to the convention either, mr. cheney telling abc news he plans go fishing instead. so the olympics, not just the trip, but the metaphor, is apt here. this is a passing of the torch. the republican party this week is insuring that the existing torch holders are, in fact, going to hand it over. but the guy they're trying to hand it over to at this point in his campaign seems more apt to light himself metaphorically on fire with that torch than to run it anywhere. joining us now is john harwood, cnbc's chief washington correspondent and a political writer for "the new york times." mr. harwood, thank you for your time. nice to see you. >> hi, ms. leader. >> you can call me anything. after five days of vacation at this point, i'm impervious to insult. john, how are republicans in d.c. reacting to this -- to the romney overseas trip? is it accomplishing the goals the campaign had for it?

romney had declared his utah home his primary residence, well, mr. romney said that must have been a mistake on the reporter's part. he told the massachusetts state ballot commission, quote, i have met with that reporter at least 100 times over the last three years and i don't recall a specific conversation about my residence in utah. that reporter got a subpoena to appear in massachusetts and testify as to whether or not mr. romney told her that, and the paper resisted that subpoena. in terms of the tax break that mr. romney got on his utah house for being a full-time resident of utah, he blamed a clerk in the tax assessor's office in utah saying he had never asked for that tax break. somebody accidentally gask gave it to him and accidentally saved him $54,000. the county assessor took the heat for it, although she said at the time such an error had never before occurred in her 12 years in office. what about all those tax returns for those multiple years that mr. romney signed saying he wasn't a massachusetts resident? can't blame that on this repor

mr. romney said we shouldn't have left iraq. that we would be better if american troops were still there. i wonder if you feel like there is any sort of foreign policy or military foreign consensus about what we should have learned from iraq, about what we won't do as a country because of what we learned from the iraq war. >> i think there should be a consensus because i think a lot of the lessons are very clear. i think the first bush administration rushed into war based on intelligence that turned out to be wrong, to go after weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist and to end up occupying a country without having thought through a strategy, without having a plan, and finding -- got ourselves deeper into the middle of an insurgecy campaign that cost us thousands of lives and put america's blood and treasure on the line for a cause that was really in the end questionable. i think when president obama came in, he was very clear that he wanted to responsibly end that war. and he did that. the discussion here, the question of

the very sources of mr. romney's income. the president speaking just a few hours ago explained why mr. romney needs to disclose more. >> the american people have assumed that if you want to be president of the united states, that your life's an open book when it comes to things like your finances. it's what the american people expect. >> you see, mr. romney, it's not us who have put taxes on the table. it's you.

after his convention, you will recall that mr. romney went on vacation. mr. romney, even after he had such a big win at the first presidential debate, he did not have any big, morning after the debate rallies or anything. he went and did an event that was off his public schedule, but nobody knew for sure he would be anywhere, and there wasn't a big crowd of people around him while he was rallying the troops to his big win. it was a very quiet morning. and then again today, after the second presidential debate, mr. romney did no public events in the morning. i mean, i don't know if it means anything important, but it is an unusual choice for this candidate that no other modern candidate has done. and mr. romney, it wasn't just a fluke. he keeps doing it after big events. that said, mr. romney did not take the whole day off today. this afternoon, he did a rally in virginia and then he stayed in virginia for the day to do another virginia rally tonight. on the democratic side, vice president joe biden did an early afternoon rally in greeley, colorado, today. he

on is this, one is the economic plan that mr. romney is proposing. brand new analysis out that does show consistent analysis all along the shows what mr. romney is offering, which is what congressional republicans are offering as well, is in effect a package of huge economic benefits for the wealthiest americans, one that would make things harder economically for the vast majority of people, for the middle class. that sort of tax plan, that sort of an anti-populist economic plan that is bad for most people but good for the rich people, that could be a political liability even in the best of times, but in bad economic times when the only people doing well are the already wealthy, being able to describe a candidate's tax plan like that is essentially a political shiv you can use against them. the twist to that knife is the personal part of it. this is to new development in the campaign. beyond the question of whether mr. romney's proposals will help wealthy people like him essentially as a class, there is also now the specific personal question of how

mr. romney told that same story about meeting mr. doherty yesterday while campaigning in iowa. >> he skied a lot, he skied in some of the places i had. we had a lot of things in common. he told me that he keeps going back to the middle east. he cares very deeply about the people there. you can imagine how i felt when i found out that he was one of the two former navy s.e.a.l.s killed in benghazi on september 11th. and it -- it touched me, obviously, as i recognized this young man that i thought was so impressive. he -- according to the reports on cnn international that i read, he was actually in a different building, in an annex, a safe place, somewhere else across town when he and his colleagues there heard that the consulate was around attack. and they went there. they didn't hunker down where they were in safety. they rushed there to go help. this is the american way. we go where there's trouble. we go where we're needed. and right now we're needed. right now the american people need us. >> politicians repeat the same stories on t

mitt romney. mr. romney has, in fact, argued repeatedly that he supported a national health care plan based on what he did in massachusetts, including, specifically, the individual mandate that he now decries. he may find this politically inconvenient now, but that is the truth, and it's easily accessible by anybody with the google. and he still lies about it, all of the time, over and over again. this is not a normal amount of politician lying. mr. rom lies about himself, he lies about the president, he lies about policy. he lies about everything. it is beyond a normal amount of politician lying. >> while we've got $15 trillion of debt, he's said, look, i'm going to put another $1 trillion of debt for obama care. >> that is mitt romney lying. every congressional estimate shows that the president's health reform law actually cuts the definite by hundreds of billions of dollars. now, you cannot like it for other reasons, but mr. romney says all the time that health reform adds to the deficit when in on

this is mr. romney's new hello babies add. the phrase hello babies was coined by one cat.com, but it's less awkward language than the language which this ad actually starts. >> dear daughter, welcome to america. your share of obama's debt is $50,000 and it grows every day. welcome daughter. >> to this obama hell scape. don't with you wish you could go back to where you came from. >> is she a foreign baby? maybe she did a trimester abroad? hello, foreign babies. welcome to america. 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 televisio

romney, but it was not very much about mr. romney at all. but what is maybe more surprising about how little we heard of mitt romney last week was how much we heard of a man named george w. bush. we made a big deal on this show about the fact that george w. bush was not going to the republican national convention. we noted it, everybody noted it. it seemed important. right? after leaving the country fighting two wars and in financial catastrophe, financial ruin four short years ago, mr. bush's party seemed not ready to embrace him or his legacy. and it is true that mr. bush did not go to the convention. he was not there in person. but it turned out he didn't really need to be there in person. his stamp was all over the place in tampa. beyond the glossy "he was a nice guy" video, substantively, george w. bush's foreign policy was the foreign policy of this republican convention. and apparently it is the foreign policy of the republican party's presidential nominee this year. mr. bush's brother, jeb, front paged his convention speech with a we

mr. romney made those remarks at about 2:00 in the afternoon on may 3rd. and they drew an almost immediate rebuke from even staunch conservatives, like, for example, bill kristol, that very same afternoon. >> i mean, i'm happy to be critical of the obama administration, as anyone is, but i think this is an awfully fast-moving story, and if i was advising governor romney, i would say, you don't need to get in the middle of this story. to inject yourself in the middle of it, when there were all kinds of negotiations going on, and a fast-moving story, i think it's foolish. there's no reason to inject yourself in and say it's a day of shame for the obama administration. hillary clinton's waking up right now. let's see if she can pull this off in the next 12 hours or not. >> turns out secretary clinton was able to pull it off. just eight hours after mitt romney declared a day of shame for the obama administration, u.s. officials who were working on the problem at the time announced that they had reached an agreement with china that would allow chen to travel to

this is mr. romney could be baby ad. it was first coined -- hello davies is less awkward than the real language the that it actually starts with. >> welcome to america. that is what obama's policies have done. >> welcome, and daughter, to this obama healthy. don't you wish you could go back to where you came from? why does she need to be unwelcome to america? -ish e-4 in baby? congratulations! maybe she did a trimester abroad. hello foreign babies. welcome to america. vote for matt ronny? they are in serious trouble, but you do what you have to do. put one foot in front of the other. they have very quietly decided that the way they will get out is by taking these steps. their steps will be baby steps. welcome to america? seriously, who is making the decisions in the campaign right now? whoa. right? get. out. exactly! really?! [ mom ] what? shut the front door. right? woop-woop! franklin delano! [ male announcer ] there's oreo creme under that fudge! oreo fudge cremes. now in two new flavors. to compete on the global stag

in response to mitt romney this afternoon. mr. burns, in that place that he saw him there was being interviewed by the host of en masse and pc's andrea mitchell reports. it was so riveting it was like time stopped. thank you for being here. it has been a long day. >> such an interesting day because it was revealing. it was one of those moments where the character and policy were both revealed. >> let me ask you about the timing. as far as i understand it, you were trying to get confirmation on what happened in that in gauzy last night when this statement got e-mailed out. it is that unusual. what is important about that? >> i thought it was extraordinary. things have changed in a very strange way. we were trying to get confirmation. we were told we could not tell you whether or not the american diplomat was one of the people killed and that when we do know we are going to have to notify next of kin before we tell anybody. we would not broadcast that in any case. you were on the air, i was trying to get a report together. the next

of course, mr. romney doesn't talk about all that. he also doesn't talk about how he wants to take health care away from millions of americans. but in the crucial state of colorado, the president hit that point very hard today. >> mr. romney wants to reverse the affordable care act. obama care. let me tell you something. right now 6.5 million young people can stay on their parents' plan because of the health care law i passed. millions of seniors are seeing lower prescription drug costs. we are going to make sure that if you've got a pre-existing condition, you can now get health insurance. we're not going backwards. we're not going to take that away. and we're certainly not going to follow mr. romney's lead and go back to the days when women didn't have control of their own health care choices. women can make their own decisions. we don't need politicians doing it. >> the president wants our mothers, daughters, and sisters to make their own choices about health care. mr. romney calls that a war on religion. the president calls it fai

and that was the speech that was supposed to introduce mr mr. romney. mr. romney's big show in tampa was neat. it was mostly well produced. it was at times inspiring, particularly for people who already agree with mr. romney. but it was not really about mr. romney very much at all. but what is maybe more surprising than how little we heard of mr. romney last week, is how much we heard of the man george w. bush. we made a big deal of the fact he was not going to the convention. we noted it, everyone noted it. it seemed important. after having left the country fighting two wars and in financial ruin four short years ago, mr. bush's party seems not ready to embrace him or his legacy, and it's true he did not go to the convention. but it turned out he didn't need to be there in person. histamp was all over the place in tampa. beyond the glossy, he was a nice guy video, substantively, george w. bush's foreign policy was the foreign policy of this republican convention. and apparently, it is the foreign policy of the republican party's presidential nominee this y

the more mr. romney changes, the more he stays the same. joining us now is msnbc contributor and columnist for the bloomberg view, jonathan alter, msnbc political analyst michael eric dyson of georgetown university, and matt miller, msnbc contributor and the columnist for "the washington post." matt, the big reboot by the romney campaign is that the president believes in redistribution, and would you believe it, they've got him on tape saying this very thing 14 years ago. let's take a listen. >> i think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and, hence, facilitate summary distribution because i actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody has got a shot. how do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at a local level and can be tailored to particular communities. >> okay. matt, tell me, what's the big crime here? >> there is no