At the top of Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory announced Mitt Romney was backed "against the wall" in the presidential race and proceeded to ask both New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Obama advisor David Plouffe: "Is the race over?" [Listen to the audio [1]]
After Christie rejected the notion and suggested Romney's performance
in the upcoming first debate on Wednesday would reset the campaign,
Gregory incredulously replied: "Why isn't it too late to believe that
the presidential debates, after you announce your running mate, after
you have your own convention including keynoter Chris Christie, that you
can restart with the presidential debates?"
Like Christie, Plouffe dismissed the idea of the race being over,
prompting Gregory to observe: "But you don't look like a guy who thinks
that they're going to come back and tie it in Ohio." Plouffe then
laughably responded: "We know the news media is anxious to write the
Romney recovery and comeback story."
Gregory seemed more anxious to write the Romney campaign obituary.
Filling in for Matt Lauer on Monday's Today, Gregory kept up
the drumbeat of Romney being on the ropes. Wrapping up an interview with
Callista Gingrich about her new patriotic children's book, Gregory
turned to politics: "Big debate coming up this week....How do you
handicap this one?...Is his back against the wall here? Is there a sense he's behind and this is sort of his last moment?"
Here are relevant portions of the September 30 Meet the Press:
10:30AM ET TEASE:
DAVID GREGORY: This morning on Meet the Press, Mitt Romney needs a game
change. Is the first presidential debate it? He's back now against the
wall. Romney is behind in all of our battleground polls. The candidate
presses for a rebound.
(...)
10:32AM ET SEGMENT:
GREGORY: Joining me now, the Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. Governor, welcome back to Meet the Press.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Happy to be back, David. Good morning.
GREGORY:
Let's look at the state of the race. The key battleground states, nine
of them, we've done polling in all and here's the result. In all nine,
it's Obama advantage across the board. Look at Ohio, plus seven. Look at
Virginia, plus five. These are key states. Is the race over?
CHRISTIE: Absolutely not. And that happened pretty quickly, right,
David? I mean, you saw the change in those polls happen very quickly.
And – and I'm here to tell you this morning, it can happen very quickly
back the other way, and I think the beginning of that is Wednesday night
when Governor Romney for the first time gets on the same stage with the
President of the United States and people can make a direct comparison
about them and their visions for the future. And Wednesday night is the
restart of this campaign and I think you're going to see those numbers
start to move right back in the other direction.
GREGORY: How do you restart a campaign, Governor, at that last moment
where you can reach tens of millions of people? Why isn't it too late to
believe that the presidential debates, after you announce your running
mate, after you have your own convention including keynoter Chris
Christie, that you can restart with the presidential debates?
(...)
10:46AM ET SEGMENT:
GREGORY: Is this race over?
DAVID PLOUFFE: Absolutely not.
GREGORY: But you don't look like a guy who thinks that they're going to come back and tie it in Ohio.
PLOUFFE: Well, three o'clock in the morning I wasn't sleeping because
you worry about everything. So no, no. We – first of all, there's some
benefit from be – going through this before. There's going to be ups or
downs. We know the news media is anxious to write the Romney recovery
and comeback story. So we understand that – first of all, we're not
going to win battleground states by 10, 12 points. This race is going to
tighten. We – we've built the presidential campaign with the belief
that it's going to come down to a few votes in a few states. So this
race is going to tighten.
(...)