JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now: More secretly recorded video surfaces of Mitt Romney talking candidly with donors. Find out what's in the latest release.
Romney's complaint that 47 percent of Americans support the president because they're dependent on government already has his campaign in 100 percent damage control mode.
Also, an important new poll shows President Obama pulling ahead in yet another important swing state.
Wolf Blitzer's off Today. I'm Joe Johns in a very rainy Washington, D.C. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
We begin with the fallout over Mitt Romney's complaint that 47 percent of Americans will vote for the president no matter what he says. Those 47 percent are -- quote -- "dependent on government, believe they are victims" and in Romney's words, "My job is not to worry about those people."
The remarks are from a nearly hour-long secretly recorded video of a Romney fund-raiser last May. The video was obtained by the left- leaning magazine "Mother Jones" which started running snippets on Monday and this afternoon posted the entire video.
Let's bring in chief political analyst Gloria Borger.
Gloria, fascinating story. So much has happened over the last 24 hours. You had quite an article online today. And I just want to read part of that. "Romney has a businessman's approach to politics, which means he sizes up a situation or an audience and figures out what he needs to cut the deal. Then he does it and expects it to work."
That's sort of a salesman's approach, almost, isn't it?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Romney is a businessman and he was talking to a business group and he wanted them to write checks.
What do you do when you ask people to write checks? You tell them what you think they want to hear. JOHNS: But what's wrong with that?
BORGER: Well, when you're running for president, first of all, there are different kinds of politicians. Some people come to politics because they have a strong belief system.
Others come to politics because they think it's the time in their lives they ought to be doing that. And I think for Mitt Romney whose father was a politician always told him succeed in business first and then do politics, right, Romney's approach is, OK, I know how to fix things. But I have to get there. What do I need to do to get there?
Well, in the primaries, be more conservative perhaps. When he was governor of Massachusetts, be more moderate. And in the end, that leaves people feeling, you know what, we don't know what he really stands for or who he really is. The question they had at the outset of this campaign, they still have heading into the home stretch.
JOHNS: CNN chief national correspondent John King here now.
This 47 percent that Romney talks about on this tape we have heard so many times here today on CNN and other networks, is he right if he's talking just about the 47 percent of core supporters for President Obama?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think he's actually talking about -- I believe very strongly based on some reporting and research that there's two sets of numbers he's talking about.
He says 47 percent twice and then he talks about 48 percent and 49 percent. When he says 47 percent, I'm convinced he's talking about the president's base support because his own pollster comes from a firm that produced these slides which they gave me several months ago and said I could use in my research.
They talked about the president's support among Latinos, African- American, other non-white voters and college educated white women. When they add that up, they get to 47 percent. They have researched this because despite this anemic economy, the president's coalition has stayed pretty solid.
When Mitt Romney says there are 47 percent who will vote for the president no matter what, his own pollsters say almost no matter what. That's where that comes from.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: This 48 percent and 49 percent is I assume the people who don't pay taxes.
JOHNS: Let's just go back and run that videotape so we can talk about it just a little more.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.
All right, there are 47 percent who are with him who dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has the responsibility to care for them, who believe that they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.
But that's -- that's an entitlement, and that the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: There's also this issue of victimization and entitlements and it all sort of gets mishmashed in there.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: And dependency.
It's the notion that senior citizens who get their Social Security, veterans who get their veterans benefits, people by the way who pay payroll taxes, may not pay more than that or who get benefits because they have children.
It seems that he was sort of writing off half of the electorate as dependent. And that's the real question I have about what he was saying.
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