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Latest in Election Polls; Town Hall Debate Tomorrow; Malala Arrives in the UK; Talks in Syria; Are We Better Off?; Felix Baumgartner Breaks Speed of Sound; 2nd Presidential Debate Tomorrow; 200-Plus Cases of Meningitis in 14 States; Cars, Gas, IPhones Drive Spending

Aired October 15, 2012 - 11:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM": Thank you for your responses and thank you for joining me this morning. I'm Carol Costello.

"CNN Newsroom" continues right now with Ashleigh Banfield.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM": Thanks very much, Carol Costello.

Hi, everybody, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. It's 11:00 on the East Coast, 8:00 on the West Coast and we begin with this.

The presidential race and the number and here are a couple of critical numbers. Twenty-two, the number of days left until election day. Forty-seven, the percentage of the country Mitt Romney says will vote for Obama, no matter what. And 7.8, the current unemployment rate, which is dropping, but is still very high.

These are numbers that are leading to shifting polls. Let's bring in CNN political editor, Paul Steinhauser, who's in Hampstead, New York, the site of tomorrow's -- the second, big presidential debate.

Good to see you, Paul. It's a big day tomorrow and the numbers start today, a fresh new week, and what do they tell us?

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Yes, here's an important number. The horse race, right? So, let's take a look at this.

This is a brand-new CNN Poll of Polls, Ashleigh. There have been seven -- seven national surveys, live operator, non-partisan, since that first presidential debate.

Take a look at this. We average them all together and there you go. That's about as close can you get, 47 percent of likely voters for the President, 47 percent of likely voters supporting the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. That is pretty tight, Ashleigh.

You know, you look at some of these new national polls that have come out just in the last day and you also see some other numbers behind the numbers. Mitt Romney's favorable rating seems to be rising a little bit and that is very interesting and very important, as well. Also, let's not forget this. The battle for the White House is not a national battle. It's a race for the states and their electoral votes and, if you look at the state polls, those crucial swing-states, guess what? It's pretty tight, as well, in the states.

Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: They say that they don't necessarily pay attention to all the polls. They say that they do their internal polls, but my "Spidey-senses" say they look at all the polls, ours included.

What does that mean in terms of preparing for the debate, though? Do the polls make a difference on what they're doing today for tomorrow?

STEINHAUSER: You know, maybe not make a difference, but they realize that so much is at stake at tomorrow's debate. Why? Because the race is so close, both nationally and in the important states, and both candidates are getting ready.

Mitt Romney has been in Boston since yesterday, back home. He's kind of under lock-and-key right now, getting ready for the debate, a lot of the same preparations he did for the first debate. He had rave reviews after that first debate whereas the President, since Saturday, has been in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Same thing, basically under lock-and-key, though he did have a few minutes to go to a local Obama campaign office, handed out some pizzas. He realizes he's got a lot at stake in this next debate because of his poor -- perceived poor performance in that first debate.

One of his top aides was with our Candy Crowley on "State of the Union" just yesterday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT GIBBS, OBAMA CAMPAIGN ADVISER: He knew when he walked off that stage and he also knew as he watched the tape of that debate that he's got to be more energetic.

I think you'll see somebody who's very passionate about the choice that our country faces and putting that choice in front of voters.

ED GILLESPIE, SENIOR ADVISER, ROMNEY CAMPAIGN: The President can change his style. He can change his tactics. He can't change his record and he can't change his policies and that's what this election is about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEINHAUSER: That's the spin from the campaigns.

A live picture now, right behind me, this is inside the debate hall, here at Hofstra University on Long Island in New York state, a very different format from what we saw in the first two debates. There's going to be a town hall, this time around. And, not only will questions come from our moderator -- the moderator, our own CNN's Candy Crowley, questions will also come from some of the undecided voters in the audience, both international affairs and domestic issues at stake here we'll be listening to at this debate, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: That's what we like to called the wild card where things can actually get sort of wild.

All right, CNN political editor Paul Steinhauser, thank you for that. Do appreciate it.

There is a lot riding on the second presidential debate. I don't think you need me to tell you that. And, as Paul just told us, the candidates are spending a lot of time getting ready, but they are not the only ones that we're going to be watching tomorrow night.

It's that audience that I just alluded to that's going to be playing a pretty big part this show and CNN's Athena Jones tells us why that's key.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Round two, President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney face off in their second debate Tuesday, a town hall moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley who says the format presents unique challenges for the candidates.

CANDY CROWLEY, MODERATOR FOR SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: The challenge is that they've got to connect not just with the people that are looking into the television and watching them, but to the people that are on the stage with them, some 80-or-so undecided voters as chosen by Gallup.

So, they have to keep those folks in mind. It's a much more intimate and up-close adventure with voters.

JONES: President Obama is under pressure after his last turn on the debate stage got bad reviews.

ANA NAVARRO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: One bad debate is losing a battle. Two bad debates could very well mean he loses the war.

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: And I think you're going to see a very different President Obama this time around.

He's got to be seen as being aggressive, but yet, he can't be seen as being overly aggressive.

JONES: Romney has enjoyed a post-debate bounce in national polls and a boost of confidence on the campaign trail.

MITT ROMNEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There's more energy and passion. People are getting behind this campaign.

JONES: At a town hall without a podium and with audience interaction, the candidate's style and body language can take on added weight.

At the first town hall-style presidential debate in 1992, President George H. W. Bush repeatedly checked his watch, a sign some thought that he didn't want to be there.

Commentators said Bill Clinton, walking toward the audience to answer a question about the recession, highlighted his ability to connect with the voters.

One thing that can make it hard for a candidate to be aggressive is a question like this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can we focus on the issues and not the personalities and the mud?

JONES: Analysts say the format could be good for the President.

CARDONA: He will absolutely be able to draw from that energy, from the energy of the public and the crowd.

JONES: As for Romney ...

NAVARRO: One of his big challenges during this entire campaign has been not being able to connect with the common man and woman and child. He's got to be able to come across as connecting. He's got to come across as genuine, as caring, as likeable.

CROWLEY: The candidate that makes a connection with the person asking the question is also, I think, making a better connection with folks back home.

JONES: The stakes couldn't be higher.

Athena Jones, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: And, remember, you can see the second presidential debate live right here on CNN.

It'll be moderated, as you just heard, by our own Candy Crowley. CNN's special coverage starts at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. tomorrow night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Fourteen-year-old Malala Yousufzai, who is now the face of education for the girls' movement in Pakistan, has just arrived in England for medical treatment. You're looking at pictures of her plane arriving on a runway there.

And you may know that the reason this is such a critical story is that she was shot in the head by Taliban men who boarded her school bus. This happened last week and, by all accounts, it was because she had been defending the rights of girls to simply go to school.

She left Pakistan this morning on a flight bound for Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It's in Birmingham, England. There you have it, the plane landing, and, hopefully, getting her to better medical care.

Our senior international correspondent Dan Rivers is now outside of that hospital. When I say better medical care, Dan, I want to be very clear. There is excellent medical care in Pakistan. Why is it going to be better where she's arriving in Birmingham?

DAN RIVERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think just because they've got the level of expertise that they can provide long- term care that they wouldn't be able to provide in Pakistan for an extended period of months.

This is a center that specializes in trauma and, particularly, in treating soldiers, for example, who are shot and injured in Afghanistan, for example.

This is where the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine is based, so they're very used to dealing with head trauma, with gunshot wounds and with the logistics of getting people and transferring them from the airport to the hospital. So, for all of those reasons, it was a good idea to bring her here.

In addition to that, coincidentally, some doctors from this hospital happened to be in Islamabad at the time that she was rushed to hospital there and went to see her. So, that was another link with this particular hospital.

The plane that she's in now that you've just seen the pictures of there, it's landed at Birmingham airport provided by the United Arab Emirates, a special air ambulance, if you like, equipped with all the necessary equipment on board to make sure she's OK.

She's in a sort of medically-induced coma and has remained unconscious since the shooting and, so, they obviously have to be very careful in the way that they're transporting her and so on.

A little bit delayed, that flight, but we expect her to be here, hopefully, within the hour.

BANFIELD: So, Dan, just, if you would, some of the updates out of Pakistan about her condition have been a bit confusing. We had heard just stable progress and then we'd heard other varying accounts.

What exactly is her condition and what is her prognosis? Could she ever return to the way she was? Has she potentially got any permanent brain damage?

RIVERS: I think that's exactly what they're hoping to ascertain when she arrives here.

The first thing that will happen will be a full medical assessment to the damage to her brain and, you know, what kind of reconstructive surgery is going to be needed to repair her skull and her face.

The bullet sort of went -- she was shot at point-blank range in the head. It's amazing that she survived, but the bullet kind of passed through part of her head and ended up lodged at the bottom of her neck, sort of almost between her shoulder and her neck.

So, that bullet has already been removed in Pakistan, but now, she will come here to have an assessment on the damage to her brain, so that's the key thing.

She hasn't been conscious yet, so they have no real idea at the moment of what the extent of the brain damage is.

But I think the good news is that she will be treated among the world's best brain surgeons and experts here. There's no better place to be. This hospital is a very new hospital. It was only built a couple of years ago and they have an enormous capacity here, one of the biggest in the world, in fact, for this kind of trauma.

BANFIELD: Dan, just quickly, the cost involved, I mean, I saw the private jet and the amount of care that she will require in only in the initial offings of her treatment, but then in the follow-up.

Who is going to be footing the bill, ultimately, for the entire process?

RIVERS: It will be the United Arab Emirates. I mean, she'll be treated here by NHS, doctors in the National Health Service. It's a publicly-funded hospital and doctors, but, eventually, that bill will be passed on and paid for by the United Arab Emirates, which have stepped up on this occasion, obviously because they feel her case is so important, so symbolic for women's rights in Pakistan and as a stand against the Taliban who have repeatedly threatened her since way back since she started this blog and very publicly criticized the closing down of girls' school in the Swat Valley right back in 2007.

Eventually, of course, the Taliban were kicked out of Swat in 2009 and she sort of went on to become a kind of almost a spokeswoman for women's rights in that area and for children and then, last Tuesday, was so brutally shot.

BANFIELD: And these men who decided to pick off school children on a bus have vowed that if she survives this, they will be back to end her mission, once and for all. It's unbelievable.

Dan Rivers, thank you. Keep an eye on it for us. Let us know as things develop this hour. Do appreciate it, live from Birmingham, England.

I want to take you to Syria now where an international envoy has arrived today, really just desperate, at this point, to find any kind of solution to the bloody civil war there.

And, now, the Syrian landmarks have also become a target. This is a 12th century mosque in Aleppo. It is one of the world's older and largest mosques, considered extraordinarily important in Islam. It caught fire during a fierce gun battle between government and rebel troops.

Just weeks ago, a fire was set in Aleppo's medieval markets, as well. And, also today, amidst tightening European Union sanction on Syria, all flights that were operated by Syrian Arab Airlines, if you didn't already think they were, they were not, but now they are -- banned from European Union airports.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: If I'm president, I will create -- help create 12 million new jobs in this country with rising incomes.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This country created over half-a-million manufacturing jobs in the past two-and-a-half years. We can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four-and-a-half years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Jobs, jobs, jobs seems to be all anybody wants to talk about. Certainly, for those presidential candidates, they're critical, both sides promising people that they've got the answer as to how to bring down unemployment.

Mitt Romney saying that President Obama hasn't done much about it or, at least, not fast enough and the Obama campaign saying that Romney's jobs' plan is -- let's quote Joe Biden, shall we? They say it's malarkey.

So, are we any better off than we were four years ago in terms of just trying to get this economy moving when it comes to jobs and where are we headed?

Hal Sirkin is a good person to ask. He's with me, live today. He has advised the President, in fact, on how to bring jobs back home here to America, repatriate them, so to speak. He's a senior partner and managing director of the Boston Consulting Group.

So, let's talk a little bit about -- you and I talked two weeks ago about how to get the jobs home. Now, I want to talk about, if the jobs do come home, do we have skilled enough people here?

I keep hearing that we're not skilled enough in this country. What's the real story about our skill level and whether we can fill those skilled jobs?

HAL SIRKIN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP: Well, there's a lot of talk about a "skills' gap" and a lot of people are very worried about it. And, of course, we can never have too many skills. That is a good thing for all our workers.

But let's just look at some of the facts. We are 33-percent more productive than France -- sorry, than Japan and 25-percent-more productive than Germany and that's a big advantage for the U.S.

And, over the last 40 years, the U.S. has produced two-and-a-half times as much in terms of manufacturing value-added as we did with 30- percent less workers. BANFIELD: So, it's not true? We don't have the skills' issue that I keep hearing, the skills' gap problem that is a big crisis that we have to bring more employees -- employers from outside our borders to fill these skilled jobs?

SIRKIN: Well, at this point in time, we really don't need to. We've looked at the basics and we have a less-than-one-percent gap in terms of total manufacturing employment and only an eight-percent gap, which is relatively small, than -- in very high-skilled jobs.

So, we don't really need to bring a lot of workers in. This is a big advantage for the U.S. Now ...

BANFIELD: So, the labor -- yeah, we're just popping this up on our screen right now. The labor gap is not nationwide, but it's localized. What does that mean?

SIRKIN: Well, it's very localized. There's a few places where the skills' gap is severe. So, places like Baton Rouge where we have a lot of energy being produced and, because of that, there's a shortage of people. Miami is another city.

There's five or six cities where we have some fairly substantial skills' gaps, but, for the most part, the nation does not have a skills' gap.

BANFIELD: And then what about just the notion that we have an aging baby-boomer population and, as they all jump out of the workforce, do we have a problem coming down the pike or is the problem leaving the pike?

SIRKIN: Ashleigh, that's a big problem. We've got to look down the road through the end of this decade and we are basically facing a very major skills' shortage because our average age of a manufacturing worker that's highly skilled is 56-years old.

Now, they've been working for a long time. They're very skilled, very productive, but what we haven't done is put in the apprentice programs and the training programs to make sure that when those workers finally retire that we have people to replace them.

We think there may be a gap of at least 900,000 by the end of the decade, but right now we're OK. But, if we do nothing, we're going to have a very severe problem in the next few years.

BANFIELD: So, this all coming from one of the studies that you and your group have just recently released.

Have you met with the Department of Labor? Have you shared these studies? I know that you met with them, originally, met with the Obama administration on repatriation, but what about this material? Are they looking carefully at this and saying, you know what? Yeah, we've got to do something about this?

SIRKIN: Well, as a courtesy we went and did share this with the Department of Labor. I think their views are that -- and I don't speak for them in any way, shape or form, but their views are this is pretty much in the right direction.

And, of course, they've been doing some things to try to deal with this, building advanced manufacturing centers. They have given out a set of $10 million, $20 million grants to create training centers in advanced manufacturing for others. There's a whole bunch of job's training programs.

So, I don't think the Department of Labor is falling down on the job. Of course, the funding may not be there to do a lot of the work.

BANFIELD: So, one last question, it doesn't have to do with skills so much as it does with numbers. We keep seeing graphics. Our Christine Romans puts up a graphic saying here's the trends in the jobless rate.

We had pretty good numbers last week, but is it enough? Are we still in crisis mode or does the trend to you and your group suggest that we're actually -- Democrats say we're doing better. We're on our way. Republicans say, not fast enough. What is it in your estimation?

SIRKIN: Well, it's a difficult thing. We've got to remember that it wasn't that long ago that we were look at a depression, potentially, in the country, so we had to take some action, which pushes the problem out, which is the right thing to do.

But the fundamentals are that there's -- you know, there's some good signs in the country that are very strong right now. The housing market, which was basically almost zero, housing prices are now on the rise. The home builders are starting to build and we're seeing lots of other things, including, you know, increases in exports from the U.S., so, there are some good things for the U.S.

On the other hand, there are some things that could slow our economy down, the crisis in Europe with the euro and other factors that could -- and including slowdowns in China, that could fundamentally make this a little bit more difficult than we'd want.

BANFIELD: Well, you're an important guy because this is what everybody's talking about right now and, certainly, the economy and jobs seems to be issue number one for voters as the head into this, 22 days away. Did I say that? Did I already mention ...

SIRKIN: It's 22 days away.

BANFIELD: Hal Sirkin, nice to see you.

SIRKIN: We're all waiting to find out what happens.

BANFIELD: I'll bet you are. All right, thanks so much. Good to see you and thanks for coming in.

SIRKIN: You're welcome. Thank you.

BANFIELD: Appreciate it.

We've got Christine Romans coming up. You just heard Hal talk about housing. She's going to have some numbers for you with regard to that and what it means in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: He just may be among the most daring and greatest explorers of our time and we're talking about a real pioneer here, groundbreaking discoveries like Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan and Neil Armstrong.

And now you can add to those names Felix Baumgartner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FELIX BAUMGARTNER, STRATOSPHER JUMPER: (INAUDIBLE) That's really high. Sometimes you have to get up really high to see how small you are. I'm going home now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Whoa. That is just way awesome. That was one small step and look at it.

That man is doing what no man has ever done before and there was absolutely no guarantee that he was going to survive this.

In fact, the odds were really against him and he still did it. There were so many unknowns about this space jump, what space would do to the human body if just one little thing went wrong.

Science unable to answer if we could actually even survive the speed, mach speeds, that he was going to travel at. These speeds have only been traveled by supersonic jets and space shuttles until now.

Take a good look at history unfolding. Felix now sits among the giants, men and women who have defied death and tested science and redefined our knowledge of the human body and the world we live. And he survived it.

And there it is. If this is the only part you saw, well, this was just the tip of the iceberg, a perfect landing. And, as the story goes, the rest is history.

Our resident space and science buff, meteorologist Chad Myers joining us now. I could just see you with your giant vat of popcorn in front of the television set as this was all taking place.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, I sat right here, right with Fredricka Whitfield yesterday.

BANFIELD: Oh, that's awesome. Listen, for anybody who was watching, they hear Red Bull and they think, oh, this is an Evel Knievel kind of thing, but this is really huge, what he was able to tell us about our bodies, ourselves, and what we mean in the world we live in.

MYERS: Yeah and it -- you kind of want to take that Red Bull away just because they were the sponsor. They paid for it. This wasn't a government-sponsored entity. So, without Red Bull and without that money, there's no way that this could have happened. So, that's why it seemed a little bit more commercial, but let me tell you. This was not a commercial.

There was science fact that we turned out of science fiction. No one knew that a man could fall from space, literally hit 833-miles-per- hour and then hit the atmosphere below, slow down, survive it and land literally -- watch this, watch this -- he hit the ground, as we say, running.

We knew at that point in time he was completely fine. We watched the press conferences later. He was ecstatic.

I tell you what, though. He knew he was in trouble. At one point, he was in the big spin, couldn't get out of it, didn't know what to do, finally fought that spin because, as you spin around, you have to understand, all the blood wants to go to your head or to your feet and that's bad because all of the sudden you could get too much pressure in your head at about 3.5 gees, almost the exact opposite of what fighter pilots get into when they're pulling positive "G" and all the blood wants to get out of their ahead. This is the opposite of what Felix was feeling yesterday. He did not break the free fall time record because he went so fast. He pulled the chute at about 7,500 feet.

The suit will be used, from my opinion, for space tourists. You're going to go 7,500 miles into space and if something goes completely wrong, Felix Baumgartner may have saved that person's life because of the technology.

BANFIELD: We all covered the space shuttle "Columbia" disaster. If we knew more about suborbital bailouts, do you think what Felix has done might have saved their lives as the space shuttle disintegrated as it came into orbit?

MYERS: Yes.

BANFIELD: Really?

MYERS: We don't know what happened to the capsule on "Columbia Challenger." But that's what this proves. If the capsule it in fact and they can get out, they can get back out to earth alive.

BANFIELD: Awesome. I want people to know this was less of a stunt than it was magic for humanity.

Chad, I knew you'd be the guy. You're awesome. Thank you.

MYERS: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Space geek.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: By the way, Felix Baumgartner says he plans to retire from the death-defying business and wants to land a job as a helicopter pilot and do some rescues. Something tells us, after seeing this, he ain't going to have any problem finding a job.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Debate night is just a day away. Do you remember, before the first debate, how everyone was talking about two things, A, how poorly their candidate was going to do, that's the expectations game and, B, how the debate really didn't matter? Oh, we all saw how that turned out. Mitt Romney has been on a roll since his strong debate performance and Barack Obama not quite so much. Now we have debate number-two coming up and the pressure is already on.

Our wonderful Wolf Blitzer joins us as he does every day.

Wolf, you've had a chance to sit through dozens and dozens of these. We know incumbents don't particularly perform well in the first debate. Is there a template for the second debate? Do we have some history to show us what they need to do, what they often do and how this works out for them?

WOLF BLITZER, HOST, THE SITUATION ROOM: In the first debate when he was an incumbent, Ronald Reagan challenged by Walter Mondale, did not do well. He did much better in the second debate and went on to win reelection decisively in 1984. The challenge for President Obama this time -- he didn't do well the first time. Romney did very well -- will be for him to come back in the second debate, which is a town- hall format. It's a little more complicated because undecided voters will stand up and ask a question. So the room is a little bit different, the atmosphere is a little bit different. We'll see if the president comes through this time and the public responds, and answers passionately and for the right-- forthrightly.

BANFIELD: No one has the control over the audience and what the audience members will ask, correct?

BLITZER: Well, there is a format that they've announced. Our own Candy Crowley is the moderator. I checked to see because there's been some confusion over the past 24, 48 hours of what that format is. When they announced this second debate at the end of July, the Presidential Debate Commission put it clearly what the format for this second presidential debate, the town hall format would be. I'll read it to you: "The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting in which citizens will ask questions of the candidates on foreign and domestic issues. Candidates each will have two minutes to respond and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion. The town meeting participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup organization." So there is a format agreed to by the Presidential Debate Commission going into the second presidential debate.

BANFIELD: So Mark McKinnon, an adviser to John McCain said something to our Soledad O'Brien about the expectations for the president. I want to play for you what he said and then ask you on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MCKINNON, FORMER ADVISOR FOR SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: There are going to be real questions asking questions that are a little off beat, which I think is good for the president. He has to look like the happy warrior. He has to look like he wants to be there. He has to engage. He has to be empathetic with the audience, which I think is a natural instinct for him. That's a little tougher for Mitt Romney. The challenge for Romney is going to be that he's gotten very good at this sort of formal debate and he needs to step up his game in an informal setting where he can engage and be empathetic with the audience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Wolf, does mark make a point? We know President Obama is great with people. Much like Bill Clinton was great in this venue. He walked right up to the audience and locked gaze and answered questions fairly well. Do you think, having seen what Mitt Romney has been able to do on the campaign trail, that he can engage in the same way?

BLITZER: Let me start off with the assumption that Bill Clinton is unique in that sense. He feels your pain. He's a unique politician. He does these town hall meetings. And I covered him for eight years when he was president and the lead up to his winning back in '92. He's way, way beyond Mitt Romney and President Obama in a setting like this.

But having said that, I think President Obama and Mitt Romney are strong it this setting but they're not perfect or great. Mark McKinnon is right. The president has to show that he wants throb, he's engaged, he's not bored. Some of those aspects apparently he failed on during the first presidential debate. And I think Mitt Romney has got to show that he can relate to these average folks as well, which has been a problem occasionally for him in the course of all of these town hall meetings he's done.

Having said all that, both of these guys got to this level because they're good, they're strong. You don't get to be the president of the United States or the Republican presidential nominee unless you're really, really good. They beat a lot of other opponents in the process so I'm looking forward to it tomorrow night. I think they're both going to be good.

BANFIELD: I always like the town hall best. I think it's the best. Again, because the audience plays such a big part. You never know what you're going to get.

Wolf Blitzer, as always, thank you. I appreciate it.

Blitzer: Thank you.

BANFIELD: You can watch the second presidential debate live. It will also stream live on CNN.com.

Former Senator Arlen Specter is a name you'll hear a lot today. He'll be remembered for his dedication to the country. He died after a long battle with cancer. He was first elected to the Senate as a Republicans in 1980 but he finished his career there as a Democrat. He's being praised by both sides for his long and principled career. It's come from so many to remember him as just a fighter, pure and simple, a fighter. A public funeral service will be held team in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania. Mr. Specter was 82 years old.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: If you have at one time in your life gone to the doctor and been given a shot and just assumed that that shot was safe, then this story is for you. Contaminated pain injections have caused 205 people to fall ill, 15 of them ding from fungal meningitis. There are real people behind those numbers, real people like you, like me and the person you're about to meet. They went in for medical help and ended up dead.

CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, spent time with the family of one man.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lord, give us the strength to go forward.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Something's missing in the Lovelace house. Five generations gather in mourning. Eddie Lovelace, husband, father, grandfather, great- grandfather, Sunday School teacher at his church and a circuit court judge in Albany, Kentucky, dead, a suspected case of fungal, meningitis.

(on camera): What do you feel?

CHRIS LOVELACE, VICTIM'S ON: He was the center of our universe as a family.

COHEN: Judge Eddie Lovelace was a healthy 78-year-old man, worked full time, walked three miles a day when, in the middle of September, he started feeling dizzy and slurring his speech.

JOYCE LOVELACE, VICTIM'S WIFE: He was in the kitchen and he said my legs don't work right, there's something wrong with my legs.

COHEN: Lovelace had had a stroke. He died five days after being admitted to the hospital.

JOYCE LOVELACE: It was a nightmare.

COHEN: Later, the doctors put it together. Lovelace had been in a car accident and received three injections with steroids for back and neck pain. The medicine he received was likely made by the New England Compounding Center. After his death, these injections were recalled due to contamination that can cause strokes.

Now all the family can do is remember the devoted public servant, the grandfather who let his granddaughters play with Barbies behind the bench while they were little while he heard court cases.

(on camera): What kind of man was your date? CHRIS LOVELACE: He was the most intelligent man I've ever met. His memory was uncanny. If you needed advice, regardless of what the subject was, you could always take his and trust it.

COHEN (voice-over): His family looks back and asks why.

CHRIS LOVELACE: The decisions to save money, the decisions not to regulate drugs, decisions not to oversee these facilities, those decisions affect lives every day. If different decisions had been made at certain points along the way, my father would be here today.

COHEN (on camera): Your father just went in for really a very routine --

(CROSSTALK)

CHRIS LOVELACE: He did. And he went there for pain relief. He went there to get help.

COHEN: And he got --

LOVELACE: Death.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Elizabeth Cohen joins me now live.

You know, watching that story and listening to judge Lovelace's son, it made me wonder if that recall is also being overseen. If we know all those bad drugs have effectively been recalled, are not longer out, there notwithstanding the regulation issue still standing out there.

COHEN: From what I've been told from experts who are steeped in this, it has been recalled. At first they recalled the tainted lots and now they have recalled everything. The hospitals are responsible for getting it off the shelves. One would think because there's such a legal liability here that they certainly pulled it.

BANFIELD: Elizabeth Cohen, it really bring it is to light. It's not just a bunch of statistics. It is just horrible.

Elizabeth Cohen, thank you. Appreciate it.

And for more on fungal meningitis and to see a complete list of the hospitals that may have received that contaminated drug, visit CNN.com/empoweredpatient.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: You don't need me to tell you that when you spend money, you help drive the economy. Two-thirds of the economy is driven by spending. We have new retail numbers released today for September. They look pretty good. And this is important because if it drives the economy. And we're feeling good about spending again. Those trends that are your friend, you always say, will show we're in a good way right now.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I like to look within these numbers to see what we're spending our money on and what that says about what kind of consumer we are. It's so interesting. Retail sales up 1.1 percent in September. What we were spending more money on? We were spending more money on consumer electronics. You can see the release of the iPhone in some of the retail numbers, because people are spending money on consumer electronics. We were spending it on food and gas.

BANFIELD: OK. That worries me. When you say food and gas, that doesn't make me feel like we're confident. We feel like we're stuck.

ROMANS: It's not necessarily because you wanted to spend more, but you were spending more on two things that are very important. When you take out food and gas, we still had 1 percent growth in spending because we're buying things like consumer electronics and things like cars. That was another thing that drove this number. Some pretty good stuff in here overall. Department stores -- it's not like we're running out to department stores. It's really consumer technology, cars. A lot of incentives for cars out there right now. Then food and gas.

It's also curious, too, because today you have a couple of the toy maker stocks that are down sharply because Goldman Sachs says we're spending less money on toys and games. So we're being picky on our spending. We're spending it on food, cars, gasoline, and consumer electronics.

BANFIELD: Why are we -- I have two kids, so I'm bucking that trend with that question. Why are we spending less money on toys and games? Are we spending more on our iPads or something?

ROMANS: Maybe. Maybe that's what it is. It's because you are spending -- you are buying it for the gadgets, not necessarily the board games.

BANFIELD: Talk to me about housing. We get drips and drabs of data all the time, and some pieces of data are far more key in terms of indications than others.

ROMANS: So we've seen consumer sentiment doing better. We had a gauge of that on Friday that was better. In part, probably because feeling are better about their housing situation. We've seen home prices going up, home sales going up, home construction going up. This is what it feels like at the bottom. I mean, some of you are telling me, oh, I'm still getting killed. My house is worth less, and my taxes are higher. That's me. Probably you, too.

BANFIELD: Yes.

ROMANS: You know, the housing market has stopped falling. It's a very bullish forecast for homes, but even if --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Yes.

ROMANS: It's been a long time since I have been able to even find a forecast like that.

BANFIELD: OK. So I suppose it begs -- if you are sitting in Florida right now or sitting in Nevada, you are, Christine Romans, doom my house, and you can see that we don't follow the national trend. Here before you, about 25 minutes ago, was talking about how locally we have issues with skilled, you know, labor gap. Do we also have these local issues with housing still, or do these states that have been drowning have any relief like that?

ROMANS: There's some relief in some spots, and other places it's difficult. If you have cash, the housing market is great for you right now. If you are able to refinance, you have a job and money in the bank, the housing market is your friend right now. There are still parts of a country that are blown out, and the people who are taking advantage are the international investors and the investors with cash. Those are the people who are -- who have been winning in the housing market recovery, but we're starting to see more real people. By real people we're talking about people living in their house, want to refinance their mortgage, and want to get extra money of month. That number of people is growing every month.

BANFIELD: That is also me.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: Trying to refinance this big behemoth of a pain in the butt. I say that because everybody --

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: Good luck.

BANFIELD: Everybody feels that it's hard to get that re-fi deal. It's sitting out there dangling.

ROMANS: It's so worth it. It's so worth it.

BANFIELD: Christine, thank you. Nice to see you.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

BANFIELD: Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The unemployment rate is now at the lowest level in nearly four years, which means, in part, more of you are getting back into the work force, but once you land the gig, how do you insure that you don't become part of the jobless statistics again?

Alison Kosik is here with the top tips from the New York Stock Exchange.

We all get excited when we land the new job. The secret is making sure you don't burn out maybe and then you're no good to anybody.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. You don't want to rest on your laurels. If you have a job, your work is just getting started. "Fortune Magazine" contributor, Verne Harnisch, has some great pointers to keep up the good work. And some of this I know is going to seep a little obvious, but it doesn't hurt to give you a nice reminder. This can be as simple as taking time for yourself. Go ahead and plan a weekly dinner date or even just a quick coffee break during your day. Verne also recommends stepping back for some perspective. It may be valuable to take time out to think about how you spend your time and how you can focus on what really matters. Another important part of your work life balance is vacation, and it's easy to put off a much needed vacation if you don't lock in the date and buy your tickets. The break will definitely reenergize you and help you to focus on your job. You know what, while you're at it, do something unusual. Go crazy. There are new seminars that mix work with outdoor activities like hike and kayaking. You know what, it would be a great way to learn some new skills and, hey, why not? Have a little fun. Go salsa dancing -- Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: I was thinking about anchoring news while kayaking. Do you think it can be done?

KOSIK: Sure. Anything can be done while anchoring the newscast, don't you think?

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: I will if you will.

All right. Alison, it's good to see you, my friend.

(LAUGHTER)

Great advice. We appreciate it.

Hey, everyone, thanks for watching NEWSROOM. I'm going to be back here an hour from now. Thought I would do double duty tonight -- today -- tonight. It's already showing.

(LAUGHTER)

NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL starts right now with my friend, Michael Holmes.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And, Ashleigh, thanks for that.

Welcome to NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL. I'm Michael Holmes, filling in for Suzanne Malveaux who is on assignment.