Obama's final campaign day

>>> just eight hours until the polls open on the east coast . and in this hour we expect to see the last campaign event for president barack obama . he will be joined by first lady michelle obama and you'll see it here live. it will be the president's last speech in what has been a very, very long campaign.

>> 24 hours to go.

>> only one day left.

>> it is here.

>> and it is on.

>> oh, my goodness! yes!

>> where does this race stand.

>> i mean what i say and i say what i mean.

>> talk is cheap .

>> look to the record.

>> i said i would repeal don't ask don't tell. we repealed it.

>> talk is cheap . look to the record.

>> welcome home .

>> now is the time to deliver on health care .

>> all men and women are created equal .

>> same sex couples should be able to get married.

>> talk is cheap .

>> corporations are people, my friend.

>> i like to be able to fire people who provide services to me.

>> i was a severely conservative republican governor.

>> the optics are bad, the sound is even worse .

>> he can't help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

>> a razor tight race.

>> we've given all people need to know .

>> do you know who mitt romney is.

>> we know he doesn't want to answer.

>> there's going to be a civil war in the republican party .

>> he is the worst republican in the country.

>> are you calling mitt romney a liar?

>> yes.

>> are you think there's an issue on the flip flops .

>> pick any other republican in the country.

>> no, he can't beat obama .

>> republicans talking about excuses.

>> well i'll put it in a nutshell. if we don't run chris christie , romney will be the nominee and he'll lose.

>>> in this final day of campaigning, president obama began the day in madison, wisconsin, where he spoke before an estimated crowd of 18 thousands. then he headed to columbus ohio where he spoke before an estimated crowd of over 15,000. within the hour the president will make his final campaign speech of his career as a candidate in des moines , iowa . we will bring that to you live as well as michelle obama 's introduction.

>> today our businesses have created nearly 5.5 million new jobs. the american auto industry has come roaring back. home values are on the rise because of the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform. the war in iraq is over. the war in afghanistan is ending. al qaeda is on the path to defeat. osama bin laden is dead. we've made progress these last four years. and you know i will fight for you and your family every single day as hard as i know how.

>> and the president presented his vision of the next four years.

>> now is the time to keep pushing forward. to educate all our kids. to train all our workers, to create new jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, bring our troops home, restore our democracy, build the middle class , make sure that in this country, no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter how you got started, here in america you can make it if you try. that's why i'm asking for your vote. let's go vote. let's go do this!

>> this morning, mitt romney campaigned in florida before heading to virginia this afternoon. then columbus, ohio this evening. later tonight mitt romney will campaign in manchester new hampshire. here is mitt romney today in ohio .

>> if the president were to be re-elected, he still won't be able to work with the people in congress, of course, because he's ignored them, he's attacked them, he's blamed them. the debt ceiling will come up again and then there will be a threat of shutdown or defaults. and if that happens, the economy will become frozen and we'll have a harder time with jobs.

>> president obama will spend election day in chicago where he will observe his election day ritual of playing basketball. mitt romney will continue to campaign in cleveland ohio and pittsburgh, pennsylvania tomorrow. as of this hour, nate silver of the new york times 538 blog predicts that president obama will win 314, and mitt romney will win 227. the nate silver formula has increased the odds in favor of the president even more. i have very little faith in any of that, in any of the polling. it just feels and is in fact too close too call.

>> it is. but the president has held a significant, small but significant lead in the key battleground states . and it is hard to see how mitt romney pieces together enough states to get to 270. if you look at ohio , if you look at wisconsin, if you look at nevada, if you look at iowa , the president has been consist eventually in the lead there. and romney basically has to run the table to even have a shot.

>> but the republican argument, ari, which was the john kerry argument, which has always been the argument in these situations, is when the incumbent polls below 50, the incumbent is in danger no matter what the other number is. so if the incumbent is at 48, the challenger is at 46, the chal enner is probably in a better position, most of the time. however, we're making new mathematical history in these campaigns all the time. and you can see that argument, because it's an old argument. it's been around a while. it didn't work for john kerry and it's hard to say what's going to happen now.

>> yeah. i spent over a year working seven days a week for john kerry so i'm familiar with that argument, i remember that argument. i think the critical question then as now is whether the challenger is viewed to be credible by election day . if you look at polling of a generic republican versus obama , that imaginary generic republican through most of this year when polled does better than mitt romney . the fact that mitt romney is a flip flopper was bad. the fact that now in these closing weeks in ohio he's a liar and a liar who gets busted and keeps lying i think has hurt him in a very severe way and really scrambles some of those rules that you're talking about.

>> the number that i do think is in other meaningful is the gallup approval rating . the president has an approval rating of 52. there have been times when the approval number has not had a 5 as a first digit. that is more worrying, i would think.

>> i would take that poll with a grain of salt. they had romney up six now they've closed it up to romney just one. that approval rating at 52% has to be encouraging. there's been for a while this gap between the national polls and the state polls, where it looked like the president had an electoral college lead but in the popular vote was trailing 20 mitt romney . now the two sets of polls have converged so it does like the president has a slight lead and at the state level. the hope was that the state polls would converge towards the national picture. the opposite has happened.

>> now, a leading republican poll watcher has a different view than nate silver . admittedly rush limbaugh doesn't work the numbers.

>> more of a gut guy.

>> but he's got an opinion.

>> all of my thinking says romney big. all of my feeling, if you -- all of my feeling is where my concern is. but my thoughts, my intellectual analysis of this, factoring everything i see plus the polling data, not even close. 300-plus electoral votes for romney .

>> rush's intellectual analysis.

>> i want to zero in on the core of the argument there. romney big, this is the caveman political level view. obama bad, me good. that's the level of analysis you get from rush limb ba. i think the problem you get from republicans. it doesn't mean they're going to lose because they like everyone else is looking at things around making strategic judgments. but they clearly are concerned about a perception that mitt romney is a loser who's going to lose tomorrow and they've dialled it up as they always do there's a lot of bluster and they're trying to say that not only is it not close. you just said you think it's close. they're behind by most india that matter. which i look to as early voting and the balths that we can vote, thr 'down al this and they're talking about big land slide.

>> larry sabato is predicting 290 votes for president obama . there's a vote tonight about chris christie refusing to campaign with mitt romney . he turned down a request to appear with him on sunday night. it was held at a farm not more than 20 minutes from trenton. you can't tell me he couldn't have gone over there for a night rally, a romney campaign source told huffing ton post. romney people pushing back with other news outlets about whether that ever really happened as an invitation. of course chris christie couldn't leave his state.

>> he's a little busy right now.

>> those romney people don't understand that?

>> if they actually asked him to come to a rally, it's unbelievable to think that he could possibly say yes. besides the fact that he genuinely has his hands full, is working day and night, 24 hours a day , has made it quite clear that he is not interested in wading into presidential politics at this point, could you imagine what new jersey residents would do? i can't imagine they would think this would be a reasonable possibility.

>> it shows again this is not where you want to be. you want to be talking about the economy and the future. when you're talking about the sort of frenemy politics, that's not the kind of closing you want.

>> coming up, we'll have live coverage of president obama 's last campaign event where he will be joined by first lady michelle obama in iowa . and joy reid and richard wolf will join me. and up next, michael moore is here to talk about mitt romney 's big lie about the automobile industry . the lie that may have destroyed any chance of mitt romney winning ohio . [