[Tom Foreman, Cnn Correspondent:] OUTFRONT next, Mitt Romney is staring down a hurricane but it could be President Obama who is headed for very rough seas. We've got new numbers, new money, and a whole new fight. A deadly shooting at the height of rush hour just outside the Empire State Building, New York police commissioner and an eyewitness OUTFRONT tonight. And a Dallas woman is dead after she called 911, pleading for her life. Why did it take 50 minutes for police to show up? And why did two days go by before her body was found? Let's go OUTFRONT. Good evening. I'm Tom Foreman in for Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, a new storm warning. Forget the hurricane, forget the vice president cruising Tampa looking for a fight, forget everything you know about this election so far because in Florida tonight Mitt Romney's team is preparing to unleash a flood of money that could dramatically change the political landscape. Listen to him today sounding confident in his home state of Michigan.
[Mitt Romney , Presidential Candidate:] I don't want four more years of what we have, do you?
[Romney:] I want to get America on an entirely different track, a track of greatness and strength and vitality and prosperity and I know how to do it.
[Foreman:] With the Republican Convention looming, new polls show the race is still very tight. Take a look. President Obama has a slight overall lead, two-points. That's in the margin of error. He's boosted with a 12-point edge with women, same margin with younger voters, a 29-point lead among big city folks. And he's done it with ads like this.
[Unidentified Female, Political Ad:] He's made his choice, but what choices will women be left with?
[Unidentified Male, Political Ad:] He supports Paul Ryan's budget which could cut education by 20 percent.
[Unidentified Female, Political Ad:] Now Mitt Romney is attacking the president on Medicare?
[Foreman:] But consider the cost. To get that small overall advantage in the polls, the president and his supporters have had to outspend the Republicans, not just Mitt Romney, but also all those outside groups supporting Romney. Let's compare some of the spending just by the candidates alone in battleground states since April. In Colorado, the president has spent $8.5 million, Romney, a bit more than four. In Ohio, again, the president has more than doubled Romney's spending, 21.6 million to 9.4 million, Virginia, same thing, 8.4 million to just under four million, Florida, nearly triple, 21.9 million to 8.5 million. All of that has left Mitt Romney with substantially more money in his campaign treasure chest, which over the next few days is kind of complex money there, but look at the bottom line there, cash on hand, 197 million for Mitt Romney there. As this convention takes off, he's expected to start pouring that money out there. OUTFRONT tonight to talk about the impact of that financial storm, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen glad you're here Republican strategist Reihan Salam, and "Politico's" Ken Vogel. Ken, let me start with you. You know Romney supporters have spent an awful lot on his ads, but why has he spent so little compared to the president?
[Ken Vogel, Chief Investigative Reporter, Politico:] Well because he's been able to rely on these outside groups that thanks to a couple of federal court decisions in 2010, are able to accept unlimited funds from people, corporations, even unions, though we see that more on the left, to air really hard-hitting ads attacking President Obama. And we've seen these groups give Mitt Romney air cover, bombarding the president with negative ads while Mitt Romney sort of sits back and stockpiles funds just waiting for the opportunity which is probably nearing for him to come out with his own advertising campaign. It's a huge advantage that Democrats have been scrambling to try to offset by dispatching some of their stars to try to get their biggest donors to give money to outside groups set up on the left. But so far they have yet to come off the sidelines in a way that matches what Republicans have done.
[Hilary Rosen, Cnn Contributor:] It makes me really nervous and I think it makes the Obama campaign nervous. You know, in some respects it's money well spent. In many respects it's money well spent. One place I think gives me extra pause is in Colorado where the numbers are just not moving far enough towards the president than I'd like to see. But what we've what Democrats have done in spending that money has been to really define Mitt Romney in a way that has driven up his negatives. I mean, you know he has much higher negatives in polling than President Obama does. And I think it was important, when you knew that you were going to face an onslaught of, you know, not just 100 million or 200 million, maybe a $500 million difference in advertising in this campaign that you kind of get first out of the box to define the opponent and that was the strategy of the Obama campaign. Define Mitt Romney first knowing that the negative advertising is going to come later and hope that you've built enough of a wall to sustain you.
[Foreman:] That's a big question there, isn't it, Reihan? This question of, is this too much money too fast and now in the homestretch suddenly here comes Mitt Romney and the Republicans chugging out the money. What do you think?
[Reihan Salam, Cnn Contributor:] I think Hilary made some great points. I think that that money has been pretty well spent and the Democrats have another big advantage that flows from one of those court decisions that Ken Vogel mentioned before. One of the lesser known provisions of the Citizens United decision is that before labor unions couldn't engage in direct voter contact with folks who did not belong to a labor union. Now they can get their disciplined cadres out there to knock on doors, whether or not that household is a member of a union or not. And a lot of the ways that Democrats capitalize is by having those disciplined union folks actually getting out the vote in a very direct fashion. And that's something money can't buy. It's very expensive for Republicans to mimic that kind of thing just by hiring folks.
[Foreman:] Let me follow up on that with you, Reihan, because here's the other problem for Mitt Romney it seems to me think about what he said today. He made this crack today that everybody said sounded like a birther comment about the president. Listen to this.
[Mitt Romney , Presidential Candidate:] Now, I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised where both of us were born. Ann was born at Henry Ford hospital. I was born at Harper hospital.
[Romney:] No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.
[Foreman:] The Obama campaign is already raising money off of this. They're calling it a cheap shot. They're calling it a new low. For all these advantages and money that Mitt Romney may be able to turn here pushing into the home stretch is this stuff hurting him or helping him?
[Salam:] One thing that everyone will agree on is that in the final stretch of a campaign earned media counts for a lot. And if President Obama can turn a gaffe of that kind, a joke of that kind into a huge advantage, if the media covers stories about that rather than about unemployment, that's a huge advantage. And I think that the Obama campaign from their 2008 experience, from very bare-knuckle politics knows how to generate earned media very well, so again, money can be neutralized by ginning up stories of this kind and distracting folks.
[Foreman:] Let me jump back to Ken real quick here though. But can money really be neutralized? As a practical matter in almost every race, if you spend more, you win.
[Vogel:] Yes, well, there are studies that produce mixed results on that and certainly we've seen self-funders who have put a ton of their own money into campaigns and lost because there is some backlash to it. The Obama campaign is trying to gin up that backlash. They're trying to use in the same way that they use that gaffe by Mitt Romney about the birth certificate, they try to use the spending disadvantage that they have with some of these outside groups to encourage their small donors and their ground troops, the folks who Reihan alluded to, whether they're in unions or otherwise, to become energized and become mobilized and try to offset that advantage that Republicans have in outside cash. In the end, the outside cash is helpful. I should also add that money can, in fact, buy the ground game and that's one thing that the Obama campaign has invested heavily in, putting offices in a lot of these key states. In some places, some key states like Ohio, we see the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party there with four times more staff than the Romney campaign and the Republican Party, so that's an area where Democrats do have an advantage. And it is both a result of money and also having
[Foreman:] I'm going to have to jump in real quick here. Hey, Hilary, really quick, a very short answer here. In the name of that, good idea, bad idea, sending Joe Biden down to campaign in Tampa while the Republicans meet?
[Rosen:] Oh, good idea. You know, just keep them on their toes. I think we have to be in their face every time. And you know who better to do it than somebody with as much heart and energy and passion than Joe Biden
[Foreman:] He'll say what he thinks, that's for sure. Thank you all for being here
[Rosen:] That's for sure.
[Foreman:] We appreciate it. OUTFRONT next, new details on the path of Tropical Storm Isaac. Plus, we'll take you live to Haiti, a country which is bracing for the impact from this huge storm. Plus, details of an alarming threat made to a classmate months before months before James Holmes allegedly killed 12 people in that movie theater in Colorado. And a Dallas woman calling 911, screaming for help, but when police show up, 50 minutes later, they never even go inside. Two days later, her family finds her dead. The victim's sisters are OUTFRONT ahead.