Romney hopes for repeat debate performance

>>> how he's preparing. now how is mitt romney preparing for tonight's challenge? joining me now, romney campaign senior adviser kevin madden. welcome.

>> good to be with you. thanks for having me.

>> great to be out here. he won the first debate, now people in pew are expecting president obama to win tonight's debate. what's -- what is the sort of game plan , battle plan you're facing a town hall format very different. as many as 20 questions from undecided likely voters chosen by gallup.

>> what we like about the debate formats in general is that it allows governor romney to cut through a lot of the clutter of just 30-second negative advertising that's been launched by president obama 's campaign.

>> or by both sides. the advertising has been fierce on both sides.

>> it is great for the governor to cut through all of that and talk directly to voters about how it is they're managing their way through this obama economy. and when we have an ability to do that and talk about what governor romney would do as president romney and implement a recovery, what he would do to bring down tax rates , put the country back on the right direction, a lot of that really helps him. i think that's the one thing we want to do. the second part of it is having this ability to personalize his message, talk directly to the voters about how his plans would genuinely affect their lives. what it would do to help people who don't have a job find a job and what it would do to those that have a job and worry about health care costs and a clear choice, that's the one thing that came out of the debate that we think had helped move voters once they had a choice and saw the contrast between the two candidates on the campaign stage --

>> i think what we're hearing is --

>> governor romney did very well.

>> this is marine one.

>> right.

>> this is -- this is marine one. the president is coming for a 1:30 walk through. both candidates as you know very well -- we're looking at live pictures right now of marine one landing here at hofstra university .

>> that's one of the advantages of incumbency there.

>> that is one of the advantages. let's talk, though, about ross perot .

>> right.

>> you've rolled out ross perot 's endorsement in the des moines register . ross perot after the 92 campaign pretty much faded from view. at one point he was leading the polls in june of 1992 . he was ahead of bush '41 and bill clinton . but eventually he did fade in the polls. what is the virtue of having ross perot appealing to iowa voters? is this the deficit hawk and tea party support.

>> i think there's a very big sliver of voters out there that are anxious about the direction of the country as it relates to spending and deficits and bringing reform and bringing a new sensibility to washington . we haven't seen that for the last four years. ross perot i think speaks to a lot of those voters. i don't want to make too much of endorsements but it does say something about this -- the voters out there who care about those issues that governor romney does have that type of support. the independent swing voters that many years ago looked at somebody like perot who could bring a change to washington , i think they see the same in governor romney right now. somebody who can really tackle deficits bring down spending and reform washington with a new sense of putting the country back on track.

>> now the joint committee on tagsation, highly regarded the congressional bipartisan committee, these are the real experts on the hill.

>> right.

>> they took a look at your plan and you just said that the president -- that the -- mitt romney excuse me wants to be specific about how he would contrast himself to the president on helping middle class and other americans economically. but according to the joint committee on taxation , there is no way even if you eliminated all of the deductions and he has not been specific about which ones, but if you eliminated about all of the deductions in the tax code you could not do more than a 4% tax cut , not nearly the 20% tax cut and be revenue neutral.

>> governor romney 's tax plan is designed to spur more growth because it does bring down the marginal rates 20% and when you bring down those rates and tackle some of the spending problems we have and find efficiencies in the system.

>> will he be more specific tonight about which.

>> one of the reasons governor romney came out of that first debate so much better than the president he offered more specifics and he did give voters a better sense he has a better plan for rejuvenating the economy and institutes a real recovery in this country. when governor romney talks about all of those issue particularly on tax reform and help small businesses, the middle class he's going to come out better in this campaign.

>> kevin madden great to see you.

>> great to be with you as always.