Ad Runs Romney "47 Percent" Comments; Romney's "I Dig It" Trust
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now: an extraordinary moment at the United Nations. Israel's prime minister literally draws a red line in a dramatic fashion on Iran's nuclear program. But will the U.S. do the same? The presidential candidates make simultaneous stops in the same state and even target the same set of voters. Plus, the Obama campaign combines Mitt Romney's words with some potentially devastating pictures. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. As of today, we're just 40 days away until the presidential election. And for the second day in a row, both Mitt Romney and President Obama have been campaigning in the same battleground state. This time, it's Virginia, where both men targeted the same group of voters. Let's walk over to CNN's national political correspondent, Jim Acosta, who's been out on the campaign trail watching what's going on. Another dramatic day. Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, pretty important place.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. A rare visit to Washington for me. But it's good to be home, Wolf. All politics is local. So it was no surprise to hear both candidates hit on national security themes today in their speeches in Virginia. But the state is much bigger than that. It's really a Republican firewall for Mitt Romney.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): In battleground Virginia, both President Obama and Mitt Romney pulled out the heavy artillery. Before a group of veterans, Romney slammed the president for the massive defense cuts that are part of the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is still a troubled and dangerous world. And the idea of cutting our military commitment by a trillion dollars over this decade is unthinkable and devastating. And when I become president of the United States, we will stop it. I will not cut our commitment to our military.</s>ACOSTA: The president once again blasted Romney's hidden camera comments on the 47 percent of Americans he dubbed victims of government dependence.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think we can get very far with leaders who write off half the nation as a bunch of victims who never take responsibility for their own lives.</s>ROMNEY: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what who are dependent upon government.</s>ACOSTA: The Obama campaign turned Romney's secretly recorded remarks into a devastating new ad, playing the GOP nominee's words under the faces of families and veterans.</s>ROMNEY: And they will vote for this president no matter what. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I will never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.</s>ACOSTA: Romney, who has courted veterans two days in a row, is out to link national security to the nation's sluggish recovery. He's seizing on new economic data showing the Commerce Department revised down the country's GDP in the second quarter of the year from 1.7 percent to 1.3.</s>ROMNEY: This is not just one quarter. This has been going on now for years. China's growing much faster than we. Russia's growing faster than we. Our economy needs to be reinvigorated.</s>ACOSTA: But not all of the numbers paint a gloomy picture. The Labor Department announced it undercounted nearly 400,000 jobs in 2011, meaning that 4.4 million jobs have been created since the president's inauguration, slightly more than the number lost in that same period. But the president said there's still measuring work to do.</s>OBAMA: We're not where we need to be. Not yet. We have got a lot more folks who have to get back to work. We have got a lot more work to do to make the middle class secure again. But the question is, whose plan is better for you?</s>ACOSTA: An Obama win in Republican-leaning Virginia could deal Romney a crushing blow. The president won here four years ago, becoming the first Democrat to do so since Lyndon Johnson. But in this state, the military vote is not the only game in town. Football fans are everywhere. So it's no surprise a reporter asked Romney about the deal to end the dispute between the NFL and its referees, a question Romney appeared to fumble.</s>QUESTION: So what do you think about the NFL refs...</s>ROMNEY: I sure hope they do.</s>ACOSTA: Well, the refs will be back and they will be back tonight playing in Baltimore. But Romney continues his push on national security issues at an event at a military college in Pennsylvania tomorrow. That is a state where he is trailing the president according to recent polls. But it's one the campaign thinks it could put into play, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Why do they think that? Because the polls have been very lopsided in Pennsylvania for not just recently, but for weeks and weeks.</s>ACOSTA: They have looked at that state for some time. They think it's something they could put in play. Obviously, they know it would be an uphill battle because obviously in recent elections that state has been pretty solidly blue. But, Wolf, I have to tell you even though these recent battleground polls have shown Romney falling behind in places like Ohio and Florida, if you look at the posture, if you look at attitude of the campaign, they are showing no worry, no concern. They are very confident at this point that they will start to make up some ground during these debates and that this will still be a tight election come Election Day.</s>BLITZER: Still plenty of time to go. Three debates. A lot can clearly happen. I haven't seen the Romney folks though put a lot of money in advertising in Pennsylvania. That's a sure sign that they're maybe not convinced it's really in play.</s>ACOSTA: We will see if that changes.</s>BLITZER: Yes. That could change. You're right. Thank you very much. Today is the first day votes can be cast in one of the battleground states that will help decide the 2012 presidential election. Our chief national correspondent John King is in Iowa right now where in-person absentee voting actually started today. It's pretty early, but they're voting not only in Iowa, but in other parts of the country as well, John.</s>JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, 35 states plus the District of Columbia allow some form of in-person early voting. As you noted, the Iowa voting kicked off today. We're here in Iowa City. We saw a pretty healthy line. Mostly students, mostly Obama supporters at public library here. Floyd Yarmouth, one of our photojournalists, is in Des Moines. he saw a line there before he drove out to join us here, again mostly Obama supporters on day one. Now, Republicans say that's overblown. They say if you have made up your mind to vote even before the debates, you are going to be for one candidate or the other no matter what and you are going to vote. So if you're voting early, voting later, it doesn't matter. But one of the places the Obama campaign thinks it helps and the reason I'm on the University of Iowa campus is they had a big swell in the youth vote last time. They had the support in the polls of the youth vote, but, Wolf, frankly they think turnout could be down this time. It's not history making. Youth unemployment is pretty high. Sometimes college students get a bit distracted. One of the things, Kathy Valde is the president of the University of Iowa Democrats, her job is to tell all of her friends, all of the fellow students vote now.</s>KATHERINE VALDE, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA DEMOCRATS: Things come up. You can have an exam. You can wait until Election Day and realize you don't know where your precinct is. A lot of student haves to go to elementary schools around town, they don't have cars, they don't really know where it is. Any extra obstacle can keep students home on voting day. With early voting, it just gives us 40 more chances to catch people.</s>KING: Now, Republicans traditionally don't invest as much time in early voting. But, Wolf, as you know, this comes as a time, this is one of the battleground states, Iowa is, that's gone from a tie to breaking at least breaking a few points in the president's favor. And that has some Republicans here and elsewhere in the country a bit nervous. They're worried now about congressional races and other races. They think if things don't turn around soon, Governor Romney could be a drag on the ticket. I talked to Steve Grubbs. He's a veteran Iowa organizer, a veteran Republican, former state party chairman, and he says, yes, people are voicing those worries, but he also says be calm, that Governor Romney has time.</s>STEVE GRUBBS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Clearly if a candidate loses by more than five, it starts to affect down ballot. That's a big issue for Republicans. But the way I look at it, we're starting the fourth quarter, we have a strong quarterback. And anybody that knows football knows that fourth quarter's when most of the action happens. So October will be big. And if Romney has a good start to the month, we will be fine.</s>KING: You hear him say there October will be big. That starts the month. That would be the first debate, Wolf, on October 3. And, again, the Republicans say this is overblown. If you identify your voters, doesn't matter if they vote early or on Election Day. But look at just the request for early mail-in the Democrats have a 5- 1 advantage. In the county I'm in, more than half the votes were cast early last election. That's where most of the students are. It will be fascinating to watch. One thing Republicans are worried about as this early voting opens, the president has momentum at the moment. They say it's critical that Governor Romney switch that momentum as that voting continues, Wolf, 40 days right up to Election Day.</s>BLITZER: Everyone agrees, John, Iowa very much in play right now, right?</s>KING: Yes. It's one of the states that's -- we have nine states we call tossups. This is one of them. Seven of those nine states allow some form of in-person early voting. Iowa is still in play, but Iowa is one of those states that have drifted a bit in the president's favor. And, again, this is a state where Republicans did very well in 2010. They believe they have some energy on the ground. But they have watched the last 10 days, Wolf. If you talk to them privately, they're not happy with the Romney strategy. They're not happy with the Romney advertisements. And they think first and foremost he must have a very, very strong debate on the question of which candidate can better handle the economy. They say he must do that in that first week of October to turn the tide here.</s>BLITZER: All right. John will be joining us later in THE SITUATION ROOM as well. Thanks, John, very much. Today, we learned the president plans a Friday phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Over at United Nations earlier today, the prime minister literally, literally showed the world where to draw a red line to stop the Iranians from enriching enough uranium to make nuclear weapons.</s>BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: If these are the facts, so if these are the facts, and they are, where should a red line be drawn? A red line should be drawn right here, before, before Iran completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment necessary to make a bomb.</s>BLITZER: Truly historic and extraordinary moment at the U.N. General Assembly. Let's discuss the political fallout with our senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. He's the editorial director of "The National Journal." What is the political fallout when the visiting prime minister of Israel shows up at the United Nations General Assembly and he draws a red line and he suggests by next summer, as he said earlier, six or seven months, it will be too late? This is the time. It's got to be done. That puts enormous pressure I assume on the president.</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This has been extraordinary watching this over the past few weeks as Prime Minister Netanyahu in a series of media appearance speeches and now this U.N. appearance has really I think tried to maximize the leverage afforded by the U.S. presidential campaign to put the most pressure possible on President Obama to align with him on this idea of establishing a red line that would trigger military action. The president so far is saying no. Polling this week shows the country divided evenly on who would better handle the challenge, Romney or Obama. But it's also true there's been no appetite I think in the American public for another war in the Mideast. In that sense, I think Netanyahu has kind of an uphill argument here to push.</s>BLITZER: How important is this issue though out there for those undecided voters specifically the undecided voters in those key battleground states that will determine who gets 270 Electoral College votes? We're talking about Florida, Ohio, Virginia and a few others.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, this is overwhelmingly an economic election. To the extent it isn't, it's really about the role of government. Kind of ideological divergence between Romney and Obama over that. Those are the two critical issues here. On foreign policy, generally the president has had an advantage. Somewhat unusual for a Democrat. He's been seen as more capable handling foreign policy. His job approval rating on foreign policy have been better than his ratings on domestic policy. But certainly with Netanyahu raising the question -- with the differences being Netanyahu and Obama being made so visible by Netanyahu's own visibility, the question for the president is whether there is some erosion in Jewish support in a couple places where that could matter, particularly Florida. So far, we haven't seen that much of it, but it's not inconceivable given the extraordinary visibility of these arguments from the Israeli prime minister.</s>BLITZER: The Israeli prime minister and the American president, they're not going to meet face-to-face. They're both obviously here in the United States. But there will be a phone call tomorrow. What's the political fallout from this decision that someone made that the president should not get together with Netanyahu during these final weeks of this election?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, relationships are fraught between President Obama and Netanyahu as they were between Clinton and Netanyahu. Netanyahu in his view of the world and what it takes to make Israel secure is clearly closer to kind of a neocon Republican view of what it takes to achieve security for Israel. There is that inherent tension there. I don't think the president wants there to be the sense of a complete and utter breach politically at least in the U.S. going into the election, nor in fact does he want that in practice. The underlying relationship is very solid. The immediate relationship between these two current leaders clearly has some differences, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Ron Brownstein. We will be speaking in the next hour with the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. We will get some more on this subject, a dramatic moment indeed at the</s>U.N.  BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely.</s>BLITZER: Ron, thanks very much. There's important news out today about jobs. And it may have pulled the rug out from under one of the Republicans' favorite attacks on President Obama. Stand by.