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Unemployment Rate Finally Under Eight Percent; Jobless Rate Dip Crosses Race; Romney About The 47 Percent; Tainted Meds Sent To 23 States; Boy's Rap Halts Stutter; Courting The Latino Vote. Courting the Latino Vote; Looking Ahead to Next Presidential Debate; Accuracy of 7-Eleven Coffee Cup Poll; How Facial Expressions Shape the Debate

Aired October 05, 2012 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: And we are also looking at a dangerous form of meningitis blamed on contaminated steroid shots that claim more victims. I want to get right to it.

Thirty-day days until the election, now this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This morning, we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since I took office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The reason it's come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work. And if you just drop out of the work force, if you just give up and say, look, I can't go back to work, I'm just going to stay home, if you just dropped out altogether, why, you're no longer part of the employment statistics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

This is what everybody is talking about this morning and this afternoon. The nation's unemployment rate now dropping below eight percent for the first time in almost four years. Now, the Labor Department figures show unemployment now at 7.8 percent.

Christine Romans, she's joining us live from New York to break it down. And, Christine, we've got 114,000 more folks that are working. What does it mean in the big picture about the economy and where the jobs are?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It means that the economy is slowly healing, slowly. Very slowly healing. And the 7.8 percent unemployment rate definitely an improvement. You had people who were getting part-time work, who were working from home, who are starting their own businesses. That's why that number moved a little bit more than the other one. Let me show you -- let me show you some of the sectors. A third of the jobs were in health care, 44,500 jobs.

And a health care economist just told me that those jobs on average are paying, Suzanne, about $59,000 a year, so they're paying better than the median income of the rest of the country. Transportation warehousing, 17,000 jobs there. But we lost 16,000 jobs in manufacturing. This has been a spot we've been closely watching for 20 years. We've been losing manufacturing jobs. It's been showing some signs of life recently, but in the most recent months, down 16,000 jobs. Of course, that plays -- that plays in those swing states for sure, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Christine, we heard Mitt Romney, in the last hour, just say that the reason unemployment is down because there are so many people that stopped looking for work. And what he says is that if you take a look at the number of people who were all seeking jobs, if they were actually included in that number, the real unemployment rate would be 11 percent because it would include all those folks that are searching for work, instead of dropping out. Does that look accurate?

ROMANS: Yes. And here's why. If you look at something called the labor force participation rate, meaning the share of adult workers who are either in the labor market or looking for work, that has gotten smaller and smaller. It's the smallest since 1981 right now. That means people have left the labor market. So, if you were -- and a lot of economist read these numbers -- if you were to look at the labor force participation rate from the day President Obama took office and use that same size of the labor force today, you would have an unemployment rate more like 11 percent, not 7.8 percent. So, on the very basis of that statistic, he is correct, but many economists will tell you we are slowly starting to add jobs. The jobs growth is going in the right direction.

MALVEAUX: All right. Christine Romans, thank you.

The jobs report came to -- again, as really a surprise to many, but a Georgia Tech economics professor, Danny Boston, has been banging the drum about the strength of the economy. So, you can kind of say, I told you so.

THOMAS DANNY BOSTON, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, GEORGIA TECH: (INAUDIBLE.)

MALVEAUX: You have been talking about this. I mean, you've been saying that steadily things have been getting better.

BOSTON: Yes.

MALVEAUX: Why? When you take a look at this, and particularly the fact that there's so many people who are not in that --

BOSTON: Yes.

MALVEAUX: -- number, they've dropped out of the job market completely, they're so discouraged, why are you so encouraged by this number?

BOSTON: Well, if you look at more deeply into the economics figures and just look beneath the surface, you can see a lot of developments that are very, very positive, and these developments have been there for months and months. What has been a surprise to me is that they weren't revealed earlier in the employment numbers.

MALVEAUX: So, specifically what are you talking about when you say that?

BOSTON: Well, if you look at, for example, over last month, we had an increase in consumer confidence. We had increase in consumer spending and retail sales. The purchasing managers' index was up. Auto sales were up. Home sales were up. Those things have been happening. Now, what's unique about it this time around is that they're all happening at the same time, and so in a more coordinated fashion, and that's why you see this significant unemployment report.

MALVEAUX: The specific groups, I found this surprising, are really benefitting now. And you and I have talked a lot about the Hispanic, black population here, they are doing better now. I mean, you have unemployment that went from 14.1 percent to 13.4 percent for the black community. What is happening?

BOSTON: Very, very significant. Well, what's happening -- what explains that is the fact that you have this large increase in employment overall. And, unfortunately -- and it's still the case, blacks and Latinos are always sort of brought into that cue, but the cue was so big this time in terms of the entrants into the labor market, some 873,000 new people -- more people employed, and so that obviously created more jobs for blacks and more for Hispanics.

MALVEAUX: We know the growth rate is still pretty weak, it's only at 1 percent. How does the economy actually grow? How does it become more healthy?

BOSTON: I would expect that next quarter around it will be much greater. It's 1.3 percent now, but the signals that is we're seeing now, those signals will play themselves out. And, you know, the thing that we've been saying for months is that the economy has not been slow because lack of profitability. In fact, corporations have been experiencing record profits. They have record amounts of cash. We have record low interest rates. So, all of the conditions for growth have been there, and so what we're seeing now happening is that they're beginning to materialize.

MALVEAUX: And, finally, there's always the political aspect of all of this, and there's some -- there are some conservatives who say, look, you know what? We think you're fudging the numbers here, or we think you're cooking the books because this is a good thing for the Obama administration, Jack Welch being one of those.

BOSTON: Right. Well, what I would say to those that say that we're cooking the books, first of all, it insults the integrity of the Labor Department. But secondly, it also means that they're not looking closely enough at the numbers, and typically what happens is that analysts put too much emphasis on the jobs report number. That number by virtue of the way in which it's collected from some 130,000 establishments, and it's done through submittals by fax machine and others, that number is always going to be very variable. It's much like the ADP number that we get earlier than even that number, so it's adjusted up and down every month. And so, some months it will be down and adjusted upward, and other months it will be up and adjusted downward.

MALVEAUX: There's a balance.

BOSTON: Yes. So, that's going to happen. But what's interesting is that --

MALVEAUX: Tell us real quick what's interesting.

BOSTON: Last month it was adjusted upward, and so we would expect it to happen this month.

MALVEAUX: All right, Danny, so it's good news all around.

BOSTON: Good news.

MALVEAUX: OK, thank you. You predicted it.

BOSTON: I did, I did.

MALVEAUX: We'll keep that on record here. Thank you, Danny.

Here's what we're working on for this hour.

(voice-over): Mitt Romney tells Fox he was completely wrong when he said 47 percent of Americans are victims who think they're entitled to government aid. Just two weeks ago, he was defending those remarks. Is Romney becoming more moderate as the election draws closer?

And after a weak debate performance by the president, what can we expect at the next one? Just a week and a half away? This time it's town hall style and the audience gets to ask the questions?

And more patients have gotten meningitis infections after being contaminated by steroid shots. We'll take a look at how it happened.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: When word of the unemployment rate falling below eight percent came out today, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, he lost something. He lost the attack line that he had been hammering the president on for quite a while. I want to bring in our Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin. And, Jessica, first of all, we saw that Romney reacted to the numbers by saying, they're not good enough, but he has even suggested they're not accurate. How important is this number -- this unemployment number for both sides?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's remember where the eight percent number came from. When the president passed his stimulus plan, his -- what his chief economist projected wasn't a promise, but projected that with the stimulus, unemployment would be below eight percent in the U.S. And now, that number has become a political football with the president's critics saying it was a promise that it would be below eight percent, and it's a promise that's been unkept.

So, now that the number has fallen below eight percent, the administration can seize on that to say, look, it's proof that our economic measures are getting traction, that they're working. Not good enough yet, but making movement -- forward movement, which is they are campaign slogan. One other thing I'd point out that's meaningful about this, Suzanne, is that for the first time in a long time, the number has fallen not because more people are leaving the work force and not looking for work, actually, by a tiny, tiny amount more people entered, so it's fallen while more people are actually looking for work, and that's a good sign, too, for the economy.

MALVEAUX: OK. And then, let's talk a little bit about Mitt Romney. He is backtracking on his comment about 47 percent of a population feeling like they're victims and needing government aid. He told Fox News that now he was completely wrong and he doesn't feel that way. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: Clearly, in a campaign with hundreds, if not thousands, of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then, you're going to say something that doesn't come out right. In this case, I said something that's just completely wrong. And I absolutely believe are, however, that my life has shown that I care about 100 percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Jessica, two questions here. First of all, why do you think is he bringing this up now? The video came out last month. And secondly, do you think it was something he actually wanted the president to bring up during the debate and since the president didn't, he is now speaking about it?

YELLIN: Well, first of all, he did say, I care about the 100 percent. That was -- as a reaction after the tape came out.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

YELLIN: So, the new piece is, I'm completely wrong, and I do think that was probably their response -- a planned response. The president didn't bring it up. Jim Lehrer didn't bring it up. Since the president missed an opening to do in and -- in that last debate, no doubt it's going to come up in the next debate, and now Romney has a chance to get ahead of that and sort of pre-message on it, shape the debate and discussion about it, and sort of try to neutralize it a little bit for himself even before that debate happens so that when the president, if he does try to bring it up, Romney can try to inoculate himself a little bit from the attacks saying, look, I have already said I was wrong. No doubt -- you know, expect the Obama team to say he is flip-flopping, this is something we've seen before, but now the governor, former governor, has about two weeks to sort of massage his message, and you see a real political game going on here.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

YELLIN: It's a real fight.

MALVEAUX: Yes, OK. Jessica, thank you, appreciate it.

American Airlines now blaming passengers for jamming the lock that caused the seats on three flights to come loose. Now, a spokeswoman says the locks, like the one shown here, got stuck after passengers, quote, "gunked them up with spilled coffee and soda." The airline promises it's not going to happen again. The seats problems, just the latest in a series of troubles for American. The company has also been dealing with labor issues, flight delays, and cancellations.

Tainted medication in 23 states now being linked an outbreak of meningitis. We're going to take a look at what is being done to stop it and how you can protect yourself.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: A deadly meningitis outbreak is now growing. Thirty-five people in six states are now fighting it. That is up from just 26 yesterday. Elizabeth Cohen, he's joining us to talk a little bit about should we be worried? Where is this located? What's happening here?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm going to tell you about the one group of people who should be worried, because only one group should be worried, and that's people who have had steroid injections in their backs. That's the only way that you're going to get sick from this because what it is, is they're worried about a medicine. They're worried that this medicine has fungus in it. And it how people are getting sick. It doesn't spread person to person. But if you do get stick and if it's not caught earlier, it is tough to fight. And we've already seen six deaths.

MALVEAUX: So where did the FDA actually discover this?

COHEN: The FDA started -- they notice that all these people who were getting sick all had the same medicine injected into their back that was made in a place called the New England Compounding Center. So they went in to investigate. And, Suzanne, what they found was a vial of medicine with fungus in it that was visible to the naked eye. You could look in the vial and they saw some gunk, for want of a better word. They put that guck into the microscope and it was fungus.

MALVEAUX: So and this went to 23 states? Do we expect that this is going to be widespread? Is it just in those 23 states?

COHEN: We expect that we're going to hear about more illnesses. Now, to be clear, no one is getting -- well, hopefully, no one is getting infected as we speak, because doctors know not to use this. You know, they know to check what medicines they're use and never ever, ever to inject this medicine made by this company. But people may have been injected last week or the week before or the week before that and they may be getting sick now. So those numbers are going to go up. But, again, doctors should know by now not to use this medicine. But if they used it in the recent past, people might be just now getting sick. MALVEAUX: Can they track that? Can they figure out -- do the doctors know, OK, we know that this person who got this medicine went back to this facility here and they can warn people and say, we think you might be vulnerable to meningitis.

COHEN: Right, doctors are being asked to look back and to see, gee, what medicine did I give my patient who I gave that injection to last week and to check their records. Doctors are being asked to do that.

But, you know, honestly, that's not a fool proof system. I mean a doctor could miss that as they go through their records. So, really, patients should be aware. If you had an injection in your spine, a steroid injection in your spine, and you even have a headache -- like even just a headache, get yourself to a doctor because the sooner that you catch this, the better.

MALVEAUX: All right, Elizabeth, thank you. Appreciate it.

COHEN: Thanks.

MALVEAUX: Jake Zelden, he is 13 years old and he stutters. But when he takes to the stage as a rapper, his words, they're crystal clear. No sign of stuttering at all. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has an amazing story in this "Human Factor" report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE ZELDEN, 13-YEAR-OLD RAPPER (rapping): (INAUDIBLE). Are you Jay-Z or Kanye? You can go and join my circle.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Listening to Jake Zeldon rap, you have no idea that he suffers from a speech disorder that's to debilitating that this 13-year-old used to keep to himself.

ROBYN ZELDEN, MOTHER: He started speaking at the age of two and pretty much -- I mean with single words it wasn't so bad. But then when he would get into sentence with a couple of words, two or three words, that's when it started to come out.

ZVI ZELDEN, FATHER: Those who love Jake knew he needs to get the words out. Let him finish what he's speaking or saying.

GUPTA: But many others tormented him. He was bullied. Not only by his classmates, but by his teachers as well.

J. ZELDEN: One teacher was like -- I was just doing this voice in drama class, and I was, like, hi, and then, like, the teacher is, like, I don't know what's more annoying, that voice or your stutter.

GUPTA: Jake's parents, Robin and Vee, invested a ton of time and money into therapy for their son. But nothing worked. Then when he was 10 years old, a profound breakthrough at a summer camp.

J. ZELDEN: I was doing this rap battle and it was, like, hey, I'm kind of good. GUPTA: Now Jake is performing as Lil Jake. Smooth as can be. The rhythm or cadence of rapping makes it easier for him to get the words out without stuttering.

J. ZELDEN: (INAUDIBLE) clap your hands. Come on.

GUPTA: And for all those who used to torment him, the haters, they now serve as motivation for Jake to perform for crowds of up to 20,000 people.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Way to go, Jake. You can learn more about Jake's accomplishments in his own words at cnnhealth.com.

Seventy percent of Latinos say they are voting for President Obama, but Democratic Latino leaders, they aren't leaving anything to chance. We're going to talk to Soledad O'Brien about what they're doing to get the vote. We're going to preview her CNN documentary "Latino In America."

And, don't forget, you can watch CNN live on your computer while you're at work. Head to cnn.com/tv.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Welcome back.

With only 32 days until the election, the White House got some welcome news this morning. The monthly jobs report showed unemployment dropped to the lowest level since the president took office. It comes as a boost for the president after a disappointing performance at the first presidential debate. Well, throughout the next 30 minutes we're going to take a look at this week in politics with our CNN election team.

Latino voters, they are being heavily courted by both parties in the election. We're taking an in-depth look. How they cast their ballots could make or break the swing states like Colorado, Nevada, Florida. Our latest CNN poll conducted before Wednesday's debate shows that only 33 percent of Latino voters feel Republicans have done a good job of reaching out to minorities. This is compared to 77 percent who think Democrats have done a good job. Only 32 percent of Latinos think the Republican Party can fix the economy. This is compared to 62 percent who think Democrats can do it.

So, while those numbers paint a picture of how the candidates are doing, we're going deeper. This weekend we're bringing you an in-depth look with our documentary special "Latino In America: Counting Their Vote." Soledad O'Brien, she went to the (INAUDIBLE) state of Nevada. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): January 24, 2012, Washington D.C.

RUBEN KIHUEN (D), NEVADA STATE SENATOR: You know, I get the chills every time I walk by this building.

O'BRIEN: Congressional Candidate Ruben Kihuen has traveled across the country as a guest of his mentor, Senator Harry Reid, to attend the State of the Union Address.

KIHUEN: This is maybe a once in a lifetime opportunity. God willing, we win this election in June, and in November, and next year I'll be serving in this body as a member of Congress listening to that speech.

O'BRIEN: While in Washington, Ruben makes a point to meet with key Latino congressmen.

KIHUEN: Should be there. A few more offices.

O'BRIEN: Like Congressman Becerra from California.

KIHUEN: Congressman. (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

CONGRESSMAN XAVIER BECERRA, CALIFORNIA: How are you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States.

O'BRIEN: Then, the next morning, an important meeting. Senator Harry Reid, Ruben's mentor and a king maker in Congress.

O'BRIEN (on camera): So, for the folks in Washington, D.C., how important was it that you were a Latino in a district that was heavily Latino, 40 some odd percent, and that you're an immigrant.

KIHUEN: Nevada is a battleground state. It's a purple state. It's gone Republican. It's gone Democrat.

O'BRIEN: They wanted Latino voters?

KIHUEN: They wanted Latinos to come out and vote. So they know that by having a Latino on the general election ballot, it was going to help increase that turnout. So, you know, they had their own vested interest in this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Soledad O'Brien, she's joining us now.

Good to see you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Hey, Suzanne. Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Sure. Sure.

I had a chance to go to (INAUDIBLE). It's one of the largest Latino leader political groups. And both Mitt Romney and the president, they were both trying to win support. And there seemed to be an open- mindedness to both of them. On the ground, what did you find in the community?

O'BRIEN: You know, I find a lot of frustration, actually, on both sides of the aisle when it comes to politics. Latinos, as you well know and as some of your statistics are pointed out, one of the reasons they're being so heavily courted, of course, is because in the demographics game Latinos win fastest growing demographic in the country. So -- and especially among the young. So, of course, if you're a politician, this is a group you want to capture. Yet, the actual amount of power and clout is not commensurate with those actual numbers. So I think that that's some of the frustration that we see among the Latino population. On the one hand, a very visible, large population. Everybody wants to talk to them. But sometimes they feel like they're being left out of the power game and that people only come and court them every four years, they don't actually want their voice in politics.

MALVEAUX: Do they appreciate just how powerful they are this go- round? Do you think they realize that they could determine who the next president is?

O'BRIEN: It's a big if, right? That's if a large number vote, if a large number have registered, if you turn out to the polls. Sure, and that's going to be key. I do think there's a sense that Latinos, if, in fact, they leverage all their powers in numbers, they could be very powerful. They could have a lot of clout. But what our documentary is really about is sort of frustration on both the Republican side and the Democratic side and saying we don't want to just be, you know, people to chase us for our numbers. We want to have some of that political power as well. That's where we see a lot of frustration --Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: All right. We'll be watching.

Thank you, Soledad. Appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: CNN follows the fight to win Latino vote. You can watch Soledad as documentary "Latino in America, Courting Their Vote." That is this Sunday night 8:00 p.m. eastern.

We are just 32 days away from the election. We have two more presidential debates left. After the president's unpopular performance of the first debate, we're going to see how he does. The voters ask questions in a town hall-style. We'll talk to the woman that's moderating the next debate, our own Candy Crowley.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: One down, two to go. We're looking ahead to the next time President Obama, Mitt Romney will be facing off. That is on October 16th. Our own Candy Crowley will be moderating the debate. She joins us from Washington.

Candy, good to see you, as always. It's a big responsibility, and, of course, everybody is turning to what is it going to be this time around, because it's a very different format here, the town hall. Explain how you think this might play to either one of the candidates in terms of their style and how they communicate.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT & HOST, STATE OF THE UNION: Well, certainly, President Obama, as you know from the campaign, at times during his administration, has done these kinds of town hall meetings where people get up and ask questions. So I -- but, on the other hand, Mitt Romney has probably had some experience, obviously has had some experience throughout the primaries.

I think it is harder to dodge the question when -- it's easier to ignore us. Let's face it. Politicians do it all the time. That's always been a problem. It's not quite as easy to ignore. Mind you, these are going to be undecided voters as picked by Gallup. It's not going to be all that easy to talk over them.

MALVEAUX: One of the things I thought was interesting, Carol Kinsman, she moderated the 1992 presidential debate, and that was when you saw Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ross Perot, they were the candidates at the time. And she said the town hall-style doesn't allow -- specifically she said for a female moderator to ask some of the tough questions because it really is just kind of passing the mike from person to person. What do you think of that, what she's -- her critique?

CROWLEY: I'm not sure what the -- actually, I have Carol's debate on a DVD in my office, and I was going from the most recent back to Tom Brokaw and Charlie Gibson, and I want to take a look at here. This debate has -- once the table is kind of set by the town hall- questioner, there is then time for me to say, hey, wait a second, what about X, Y and Z? Or you said this or you said that. So you're sort of the -- they launch the discussion, and then the moderator furthers the discussions, as you said this and now you say that, that kind of thing. We hope that kind of group effort can pin down both of these men on a variety of issues.

MALVEAUX: And watching the last debate, Candy, what do you take away with that in terms of how both of these candidates reacted to Jim Lehrer? Is there anything that you learned from it or that you saw that you'll take into the next one?

CROWLEY: You know, the interesting thing to me is that everybody was talking about Jim when it was over, and I paid no attention to him, simply because I'm sitting there writing down where I saw holes in their arguments thinking, oh, this would be good, oh, this would be a good follow-up, oh, what happened here? That kind of thing. I wasn't as sort of tuned in. I was in the debate hall, so that's, as you know, kind of a wholly different thing.

So what I take from it is that they certainly are both going to take whatever time they feel they can get to put their views out. I get it. This is an important debate. I think there are times when the time structures drive people crazy. But you know, it's kind of what they agreed on. You know, obviously at some point you need to take control, but I don't think you take control because you can or you should, but I think you take control because you want the conversation to move and not kind of be stuck on it.

MALVEAUX: Sure. All right. Well, we know you will take control. You will handle both of them very well.

Candy, good to see you, as always. Really looking forward to it.

(LAUGHTER)

CROWLEY: Good to see you, Suzanne. Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Sure.

The next debate is between Vice President Joe Biden and Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan. You can catch all the action. That's next Thursday right here on CNN, CNN.com, starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern.

Not everybody does well in a town hall style-debate, especially not the president's former opponent, that being John McCain. We'll talk to a presidential historian about how the format either has helped or hurt past candidates.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: The next presidential debate, October 16th. It's a Tuesday. The moderator CNN's own Candy Crowley. The first debate was all about domestic issues. You're talking about health, the economy, taxes, all that. And the next one is a town hall, and most of the questions will come from the audience.

Doug Brinkley is with us from Austin, Texas. He is a presidential historian, teaches history at Rice University.

And I understand as well, you are actually going to be delivering a pre-debate lecture at Hofstra University just in the next couple of days to really get people a sense of what this means and how this could impact the race. Tell us a little bit about what you think about the town hall format.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN & PROFESSOR, RICE UNIVERSITY: Well, that's right. First of all, these are a great boon for our university, Hofstra, to be a student there and to have all this excitement coming here to campus. The town hall-format, I think it's much better than what we saw with the Jim Lehrer-moderated one. At least you feel that the -- in this case, President Obama and Mitt Romney are going to be actually looking at citizens.

Now, it's become very scripted over the years. In 1992, it was the Wild West in these town halls, meaning somebody from the audience can ask a question. Now they've been prescreened to the point that it is a little bit less open forum than one might think.

MALVEAUX: And I'm assuming that the candidates certainly don't know the questions, but the moderator would get a sense of who they're going to go to, what kinds of questions that they're actually be posing there. This is not the best format for everybody. We saw the last go-round with Obama and Senator John McCain, McCain seemed a little uncomfortable, stiff there in that format, and the president walked around and seemed very casual and very comfortable, making a connection with the audience. How important is that?

BRINKLEY: It's everything. I mean, the master of this form is Bill Clinton. In fact, it was Clinton in 1992 that kept saying I want more town hall forums because he can have such a great interpersonal relationship with people. He -- Clinton can lock on somebody. He felt like he was talking directly at you.

If you really think about what Barack Obama's problem was the last debate, he kept looking down at his notes and seemed to not really engage either Romney or the Jim Lehrer, for whatever his reasons. This time, it's going to be different. He will be talking to the voter. So you really want to go right at them and talk to them as if you're their best friend. I would be studying, if I were both of them, Bill Clinton tapes.

MALVEAUX: Some analysts say -- you bring up a good point because they say they thought the president perhaps misjudged here because he was speaking directly to the camera, directly to the American people, but he wasn't speaking to his opponent. He wasn't speaking to the moderator. And people didn't feel like he was quite engaged there. What needs to happen for both of them to have a strong performance? And how do you think the president might recalculate, recalibrate what he does next go-round?

BRINKLEY: Well, he is better -- you know, he is going to have to do much, much better, as we all know. I think he has to relax a little more. He has to seem like he wants to be there. He is going to have to really have a kind of different sort of body language. I hate it because it's ridiculous. Here you spend your life doing a doctorate in history, and you end up talking about body language.

(LAUGHTER)

But that's what people are going to hone in on -- how are you interacting with the audience? Do you seem to care? Are you stiff and wooden?

Ostensibly, this is a much better form for President Obama. He does very well at rallies connecting with people. Mitt Romney has struggled with it but, in the last couple of days, particularly the hours since the debate, he seems to be connecting these days with crowds too, Mitt Romney.

But one of the things that's a little disappointing on all this is that follow-ups aren't allowed. They got banned in 1996, so even though the questions being read by the audience member, that audience member wants to have a follow-up, they're not allowed to. There's a lot of policing going on in this debate.

MALVEAUX: We learned from Candy that perhaps she can go ahead and inject some of her own questions, too, in this, which is a good thing as well. Kind of a dance between the audience and the moderator.

Doug, good to see you as always. Thank you very much. We'll be watching.

BRINKLEY: Oh, thanks so much.

MALVEAUX: Sure.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have already, already voted for the president. Not in the voting booth -- we're not talking about that -- but 7-Eleven. We're talking about voting with your coffee cup? Seriously. Amazingly accurate in how it reflects current polls.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Political polls, you're hearing a lot about them these days, but polls with cream, maybe sugar? 7-Eleven, their stores may be on to something here. It is a Z-election coffee cup. And the company has been tracking coffee cup choices for the past few presidential elections, and if you take a look at the numbers here, 2004, 2008 -- within a percentage point of actual voter results. Wow.

Joining us, Kat Kinsman, managing editor of Eatocracy.

How do they do something like that, Kat? How does it work?

KAT KINSMAN, MANAGING EDITOR, EATOCRACY: Isn't this amazing? Shouldn't we have pollsters outside of every single 7-Eleven? What they do is, when you make your coffee choice, you can pick an Obama blue cup or a Romney red cup. And at the end of the day, each franchise scans the UPC code and updates the site real time, so you can see city-by-city who is ahead.

MALVEAUX: How is it -- 7-Eleven, how is it that they're so, so accurate. How does that happen?

(LAUGHTER)

KINSMAN: It is a mystery to me. They make sure that they say that it is just for fun, it is not scientific. But really, it has better, closer results within a percentage point than any of these scientific polls that they're paying a gazillion dollars to these firms to take these polls.

MALVEAUX: So we have been talking about these people who are undecided. You know, we're getting down to the wire here. People have to make up their minds here. Is there a cup you can actually choose, the undecided cup?

KINSMAN: You can get the regular 7-Eleven cup. It can be for people -- in the comments, they were saying, I don't want anybody to know. My vote, my business, so they get a regular 7-Eleven cup.

MALVEAUX: Tell us about coffee drinkers when it comes to the candidates here.

(LAUGHTER)

What is the coffee of choice?

KINSMAN: Well, you know, it is interesting. Actually President Obama perhaps should have gone decaffeinated the other night. We spoke with a neuropsychologist, David Salote (ph), our go-to scientist, about what caffeine can do to your brain to help your performance, before a debate or something like that, and Governor Romney, you know, since he doesn't drink coffee, he could have gone for some dark chocolate to improve his mental function.

MALVEAUX: Dark chocolate for Mitt Romney and a little bit more caffeine for the president.

KINSMAN: Yes, indeed.

MALVEAUX: Kat, thank you.

KINSMAN: You're welcome.

MALVEAUX: Thank you, as always.

There's a battle of words, but what can we learn from the facial expressions of the candidates? We'll take a scientific look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: President Obama, Mitt Romney face off in less than two weeks. Candy Crowley will moderate a town hall style-debate on October 16th. Who comes out on top could come down to facial expressions and body language.

Brian Todd looks at how they did Wednesday night, face to face.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chris Kowel wasn't focusing on policies, tax plans or track records in Wednesday's debate. He was looking at, well, how they looked.

CHRIS KOWEL, PROFESSOR, PURDUE UNIVERSITY: Governor Romney was much more expressive than President Obama was.

TODD: Kowel is an expert in the communication of emotions, an assistant professor at Purdue University.

(on camera): He employees software called Face Reader, traditionally used by marketers to measure peoples' responses to products and he applies it to political candidates. The software creates superimposed mesh masks on their faces, which Kowel says measures the movement of hundreds of muscle points on the face.

(voice-over): What did he measure on Mitt Romney's face?

KOWEL: In this feature here, you can see his eyebrows are slightly up, and this would suggest an emotion of surprise. But, at the same time, when you look at how his lips and nose are, that might represent something about a negative type of an emotion of disgust or something like that.

TODD: The clinched lips combined with the raised eyebrows, Cole says, he saw consistently from Romney. He said that helped Romney with his supporters angry over the economy.

KOWEL: By communicating specifically that type of anger and that type of scorn, Romney is building a bridge that connects to those voters.

TODD: By contrast, Kowel says, President Obama was expression neutral, aside from the occasional raised eyebrow, smile or smirk, which the Romney campaign leveraged into a new video ad.

KOWEL: In a sales term, the Obama can't close the sale. We're seeing that, if he were to be more expressive, and express the emotion that his voters are feeling, his voters then would start rating him as more charismatic.

TODD: What about body language? We measured that with Karen Bradley, a movement analyst at the University of Maryland. She says President Obama had the edge there at the beginning, a strong handshake, a clasp of Romney's arm that projected dominance. But within an hour, she says, the president wilted.

KAREN BRADLEY, MOVEMENT ANALYST, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: You see he's blinking here. He's tired here.

TODD: Also illustrated with one camera angle from behind them, Romney's upright, Bradley says, still energetic.

BRADLEY: Here, Barack Obama is dropping his focus, beginning to drop away from Mitt Romney. And here he comes down to his paper.

TODD: She says President Obama dropped his posture often, especially late in the debate. She says that was a signal to many viewers that Romney got the better of him.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Remember that crazy story about the little old lady who tried to restore a 19th century fresco of Jesus in her church in Spain? With Halloween around the corner, one man has now created a Halloween costume, a work of art, and it is trending on Twitter today -- Ruined Spanish fresco monkey Jesus. It is buzzing as one of this year's top costumes. The creative costume captures the tilted and blurred face of restored fresco perfectly.

(LAUGHTER)

CNN NEWSROOM continues now with Brooke Baldwin.

Hi, Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Suzanne. Thank you so much.

Hello to you. Happy Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Boy, oh, boy, a month and a day now, a month and a day until the election and, folks, we have a whole new conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This morning, we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since I took office.

(CHEERING)