‘The Brew Factor’: Which candidate would you rather have a beer with?

>>> president did take some good natured jabs at his opponent.

>> take mitt romney . he and i actually have a lot in common. we both think of our wives as our better halves. and polls show to an alarmingly insulting extent the american people agree. we also both have degrees from harvard. i have one. he has two. what a snob. his campaign criticized me for slow jamming the news with jimmy fallon . in fact i understand governor romney was so incensincensed, he asked his staff if key get equal time on the merv griffin show .

>> laugh it up, says the romney campaign. top advisers are trying to paint the president's lighter moments as off key and out of touch. they say this election won't be about who is cooler, but who americans trust to run the economy. let me bring in richard wolffe and goldie taylor. good morning to both of you. richard, you were surrounded by people saturday night. i didn't get a chance to say hello. but i'm wondering, do you think the romney campaign has a point, in the end, will it matter who is hipper, who is cooler, who you would rather have a beer with?

>> all the time that were not surrounding me, i thinks of just part of the crowd. but who is cooler, look, it's not going to be what voters decide on. but there are data points that people look for about the character judgments that hers looking for in a leader. you're not going to decide because you like jimmy fall on that ut vote for him. but if you're trying to reach younger voter, then being relevant, finding what they're viewing and delivering those messages, yes, that's important. when he makes a joke about rec santorum saying having a college degree makes you a snob, when he makes that kind of joke, yes, it's fun if i, there's a bit of self deprivation in there, too, but it'ses also speaking to people about those values that were expressed through the republican contest. so there is politics down at the bottom of it.

>> and we on team jansing did some in-depth research and take a look at this list that we put together. it's about recent ma'amups for the presidential race . and we call it the brew factor, who would you rather have a beer with. ronned ald reagan or jimmy carter ? reagan or walter mondale . bush/dukak bush/dukakis. clinton/bush. and then we could go on to the races '96, 2000 . and when we went through them, the consensus was that in every case, the person you'd rather sit down and have a beer with was the person who won. are we underestimating that sort of niceness, coolness relate ability factor?

>> i like the phrase the brew factor. and, yes, it does matter. but what also matters is what's inside the bottle. and so if i don't like the beer, i'm for the going to try it again. and so but you are right, packaging does matter. the way messages are parlayed really does matter. but at the end of the day , it is about policy. if you look at taking an incumbent president out of office, no second term, it really has taken a transformational creature, someone like a bill clinton , someone like a ronald reagan , someone who you'd really love to have a beer with to do just that job. and so substance does matter, but the label, the packaging also matters. and i think the president certainly plays well into that. as for mitt romney , he'll have a harder time. i mean, this guy was a suit before he got his first suit. he's very, very sort of tightly wound. and you got to wonder if he drinks beer at all. and so that's going to be a problem for him.

>> itch richard, it's hard not to make the comparisons if you were on the campaign trail with al gore when they were saying he's a funny guy, really. that's what we'll baeeen hearing are romney 's folks. if you get to know him will, he's hilarious. it's an acknowledgement of a problem.

>> and let's all face it, these are performances. when you see the president making a joke, that's a performance, too. the question here is are they comfortable asking people as bush would say, asking people for the vote. are they happy campaigning. are they comfortable in a public space . and part of the job is rchl fromming and part of is also the voters want to feel like this is someone they want to spend time with. so while it's imperfect and all sorts if i can of fakery associated with it, there is a i go is natural being given out about whether he's candidates want to be there, whether you want to spend time with them as a result. so there's not a lot else that voters can go on. it's a character decision.

>> great talking to both of