Romney’s new focus – rescue his campaign

>>> after his two toughest weeks at the presidential romney , mitt romney is insisting the race remains a toss-up. ed gillespie with matt lauer on the "today" show.

>> by just about every estimate this was a bad week for his campaign, would you agree?

>> i argue the other side of that matt. it was a bad week for president obama . if you look at polling data, president obama dropped six points in the gallup poll over several days.

>> joining me alex burns. nothing like spin to start off your 1:00 hour. start with this, does ed gel gillespie have a point? the daily tracking poll gallop moved downward but we've seen other data suggesting obama's opening up his league. does ed have a point?

>> he does when it comes to national polling there may have an a moment a week or two ago maybe obama had broken open the race and that doesn't seem to have happened nationally. swing state by swing state , math is intimidating for romney .

>> you reported on what the reboot of the romney -- running out of re words, regot, reset, what the re is going to look like. it includes this bus tour in ohio, less fund-raising, more sort of on the ground events, more paul ryan and mitt romney joint appearances. is there a sense of this is what is needed? the optics of earlier in the week, when mitt romney 's struggling to get by the 47% video, and he's in salt lake city and then dallas raising money were not great. is this a recognition, no matter what ed gillespie said the last two weeks have not been great for the romney campaign and something needs to change.

>> there is nothing wrong with mitt romney can't be fixes by what's right with mitt romney . for the umpteenth time, if romney could get out and be more articulate, more assertive, passionate what he's proposing for the country, his jobs plan, that kind of thing, that maybe you could start to see a breakthrough for him out of the 45, 46% ceiling he seeps to have. we've heard this before. a lot this romney rebooting, a lot of the romney self-criticism, it does come back to fundamentals who he is as a candidate what his personal limitations seem to be.

>> go back to monday when we were on a conference call with ed gillespigillespie. this is pre the 47% video coming out. let's play that from ed.

>> polls show that voters now recognize that governor romney has a plan to ton our economy around, and they're open to hear more from him on this front. they are eager to hear some of the specifics.

>> so, one thing that's left out of the second romney reboot this week, i would say, ises the specifics. that was the focus of ed gillespie 's talk in the conference call . do you have any sense they're going to get more specific on the economy, five-point plan what the positive vision, or has that been lost in the 47% controversy?

>> going back to plonds before the video there was uncertainty what exactly this specific new strategy was going to entail. on that conference call , ed said they're going to be reinforcing specifics not coming out with new policy details in areas like taxes and job creation . i think you probably will hear mitt romney talk more about the sort of underlying issues in his five-point plan. i don't know that you're going to hear him taking any big risks when it comes to topics like health care , taxes, jobs that kind of thing.

>> they haven't done it yet, i don't see why they will now. great young reporter at politico, alex burns.