Romney finds a bounce after the debate

>>> well if the new pew poll is to be believed, the romney bounce -- ate point lead in september. it's a large swing, this is one of those goods polls amount of people do watch. on the question of who's a strong leader, romney 's turned a 13 point obama lead into a tie. romney now holds an eight-point lead. zrak strategist and principal at the romney group. sarah i want to start with you, you've been in odd way in this situation before, you had a good lead, not out of the margin, but in a similar place. what was that conversation like with the president?

>> you know, i think what you have to do is take a step back and get back in campaign mode. so what happens a lot of times with presidents is they are so focused on the job at hand, they assume that they can do this and do it very well because they do it every day. although this is a very different game, the debate stage. and it really did look to me like president obama did not take mitt romney seriously. and i think that really came through and you see that boost in the numbers and mitt took advantage of it.

>> how did president bush at the time, did his attitude change about kerry, like oh, wait a minute, this isn't going to be as easy as i thought.

>> i don't think the president ever didn't take john kerry seriously, but i think presidents like bush and others, reagan did the same, think that they're better at this than maybe they are and they really have to take advantage of prep time and thinking through it and there's also a lot more people at the table when there's a president.

>> too many people giving too much advice.

>> you need to have the rite people potentially.

>> jamaal, i want to play a clip of what the president said last night again, it struck me as an odd criticism to make, because it's the biggest criticism a president make of himself.

>> after the debate, i had a bunch of folks come to me, don't be so polite, don't be so nice. i want everybody to understand something. what-what was being presented wasn't leadership, that's salesmanship.

>> isn't part of being a leader being able to make the sale?

>> oh, absolutely.

>> so it seems to me that -- and frankly there's a lot of democrats who are going to listen to that line and say yeah, and you didn't sell health care , and you didn't sell stimulus, you're pretty lousy at sellsman ship.

>> i i do think the white house has not done a good job of -- i think this is probably maybe the last time you hear the president talk about this debate before the election. it's time for him to move on.

>> we're at stay six, and it's funny, the big bird add, it's clear it's not a battle ground state ad. but he calls it whining. that's a tough word. they certainly peep talking about the debate. why?

>> it feels like it's a little bit in the president's head, i feel like it's in the president's head, but you have to move on. campaigns are like elephants, from the front there you see the trunk and the ears but there's a lot going on behind them. there are avltd of things that are happening behind what we're seeing on television which i think are going to be helpful to the democratic campaign, and while the president didn't give a good performance, some of these things about mitt romney are baked back in.

>> let's talk about to me, we won't know whether this is a new race until we see what the midwestern states are at. ohio, iowa, they have not written them off and they're really trying to get them back in play. if you're seeing the first ohio polls and you see the president still sitting at 49, does it matter to you if romney 's at 47 or 44?

>> it's a very different game when you're down 7 or 8 in the polls. at the end of the day , the president under 50 is a weak incumbent. what we're going to see is the turnout operation and i think the romney campaign has built a really good get out the vote operation.

>> are you confident it's as good as '04.

>> it's as good as '04 and will be by the time election day rolls around. obama has spent so much money on the ground game. but if you don't have much enthusiasm as we saw in the pew poll, it's difficult to get the turnout.

>> the obama campaign has turned their '08 operation into like the new star wars .

>> he's in columbus ohio today for a reason.

>> i went to four campaign offices for a reason. they did 10,000 voter -- they really have volunteers, they have people on the ground, they feel very confident people are now focused on that.

>> and the republicans have an edge on absentee -- it's a sign of organization.

>> you've got to have boots on the ground tracking voters.

>> there's only a concern in that there was a big influx of requests. so you have to -- that's how democrats have always done really well in iowa.

>> florida is a republican absentee state.

>> john mccain got 47% when barack obama was as popular as he's ever going to be.

>> we have a race.