Ann Romney’s enthusiasm gap for questions; voters’ enthusiasm gap for her husband

>> let's get right to our panel. i'm joined by my colleague, toure , co-host of "the sicycle" and goldy taylor. before we talk about the post convention phase, let me ask you about something. a local affiliate in iowa sat down with mrs. ann romney by satellite today. she faced some specific questions regarding women's issues. she was asked do you believe a lesbian mother should be allowed to marry her partner? you know, i'm not going the talk about the specific issues. question, do you believe that employer provided health insurance should be required to birth control? ann romney . again, you're asking me questions that are not what this election is going to be about. it seems she prefers if her husband answers the specific questions, but we never get any specific answers from her husband.

>> i think really the truth is if you are the wife of a candidate, whether that candidate is running for congress, for mayor, dogcatcher or president of these united states , you are his or her number one advocate. you are his or her's number one surrogate and so, certainly, ann romney has to be as prepared as any other surrogate on the campaign. not really to speak to the minutia of the issues, but in broad and sweeping terms, her husband's issue on same-sex marriage.

>> the right to choose or the todd akin and paul ryan 's joint attempts to introduce this notion of forcible rape. again, this has come from them and yet, she cannot answer a question.

>> i think that this comes down to how well she's prepped to be out on the campaign trail and if you judge by today's interview, she clearly isn't. we've got 60 days left to go in this campaign and these kinds of missteps really, you know, he can't afford them.

>> toure , she stood up and said i love you women. is that not good enough?

>> as long as you're straight women, but too women who love each other, that's weird. i don't want to talk about that.

>> what about that response and to goldie's point? because nobody wants to articulate her husband's.

>> romney is presenting himself as a totally vanilla candidate with no edges. i don't have any specific things. he want to be sort of that generic brand that you get. we're not going to make any big ads about or make any fun, but just it's generic brand . so either you choose barack obama , which comes with fireworks or generic brand x.

>> okay, now, the enthusiasm gap is one of the central ten dants of political wisdom as you know and if you look at some of the polls t race is tighter among some than it is among registered voters and latinos and younger voters indicate they're less interested in the election than seniors. do you think the convention that's just within carried out in charlotte, do you think that's going the fix this problem?

>> i think it's always true that older voters are more interested, more likely to vote. older white voter, you should say, more likely to vote than nonwhite and younger voters. so that is always true, but it's especially true this year with the onslaught of negative campaigns and ads that have come from these suh p per pacs. that tends to depress people's interest in electoral politic. what these conventions have done, the rnc and it's sort of negative, it's very frustrated type of atmosphere, did not engender a lot of excitement. i've been told by folks who went to both that the energy was markedly more positive and so you saw a real surge, i think, in excitement among those grass roots . they're going to take that back to their neighborhoods.

>> and the core message difference.

>> what about the enthusiasm issue?

>> the core message at the dnc was we're in this together. barack obama used that marine term of we leave nobody behind. the rnc message is we built it by ourself and if you're struggling, you need to learn character, you're going to do it by yourself because we did or do you want to hear we're going to help you. this idea of the gap is kind of funny. enthusiasm canyon. they don't even like mitt romney . anybody in the country than this guy, but it looks like we're stuck with him. we're in the reverse of the '04 campaign when democrats hated bush, but republicans loved him. did democrats love kerry? no, we did not love john kerry . we cannot say that with a straight face and now, they have a candidate they don't love. they really don't even like him. they're stuck with him. he's not a true conservative. he's just renting the party. we have a candidate who we love and especially the democratic brand after we saw michelle obama give that amazie ingamazing, stirring speech. it was like going to church and then what barack obama did and what bill clinton did versus the todd akin wing of the party?

>> absolutely. toure and goldie taylor, i'm sorry to cut short your enthusiasm, but we've run out of time. thank you,