>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> we begin with an assessment

on ukraine. president obama will stop in estonia ahead of the summit in wales. the ukrainian government accuses russia of invading and in a private conversation, president clinton reportedly said he could take kiev in two weeks. -- resident who reportedly said he could take kiev. -- president putin said he could take kiev. they haven't broken a two month siege and a video shows the beheading of u.s. journalist steve sotloff. joining me now to talk about the latest developments in the u.s. role in both conflicts is president of the council of foreign relations. of the new yorker magazine joins us later. you wrote a piece in the headline was the assad government might the evil but it is a lesser evil.

evil.is a lesser it does not have a global reach alike isis does not have global ideology. when you look at isis, you simply cannot fight them and iraq. you have to find them and syria otherwise they have sanctuary. we need a ground partner. we need someone there to hold the ground, take the ground from isis. ideally, it would be the syrian opposition. the problem is they are weak and divided. we are talking years before they would ever be strong enough harshly because we wasted time by not doing more. others but again, history shows it's very hard to organize because arabs are not willing to often provide the foot soldiers. what are you left with? we will not have an american intervention are a force. no boots on the ground. then you are left with, by process of elimination, a

process of working with the syrian government and try to cut a deal with them. you lay off the internal opposition, you lay off your own people and we will lay off of you and they can begin to retake territory. we start working gradually with opposition and it means having some kind of tacit or formal arrangement with the syrian government that we do not much like that sometimes in life you have to choose. >> is that in any way similar to what's going on in iraq where shiite militias have been the force and they have been helped by american air attacks? we have no relationship with them, but someone is coordinating with happening in the air to what's happening on the ground and the defective result is we are working with them. the parties of her killing each other not long ago are at least now not shooting at each other and in some cases working together or through third

parties working together in the other thing that is similar his country such as iran and the united states and possibly syria , russia, saudi arabia, they may have to coordinate their policies. we've been on the opposite sides an enemywars but when emerges that is an enemy to one and all, you have to be willing to work together at least in a limited fashion. yes, there are some interesting possibilities. >> what about countries like saudi arabia, a large sunni nation, who have been supportive of the united states? will they sit back now or support this effort knowing that she are involved? -- shia are involved. >> they're strategically opposed to iran on every account. they have real problems with the shia. they have in one way or another

facilitated the rise of isis by "private donations." the saudis have belatedly woken up to the fact that at the end of the day they are in the crosshairs of isis because they will be seen as the impure places.ns of two holy it is in their self-preservation to get isis out of syria. what is unimaginable a few months ago that they would find ways of parking some of their differences, whether they can park some of the differences to the side and find ways of coordinating, that is now a real possibility. now they can deal with ukraine as well as this. tell me how you categorize, assess, measure the threat of security,r national to the national security and the general security of the middle east and europe. charlie,seriously,

indirectly like you i worry about these guys with american and european passport to going home after this graduate school and terrorism. to takeork, we have this extremely seriously. i fear this, quite honestly, down the road. these guys are not content just to destroy. they call themselves the islamist state or the caliphate, they have ambitious designs not looking just that iraq and syria but potentially jordan, potentially lebanon, other parts of the middle east. u.s. interests in this part of the middle east and beyond, this is not a self-limiting group. this is not a group with a national or territorial set of ambitions. >> far different from al qaeda. >> far greater capacity. of money, financing, all whole range of things that give you power to go beyond where you are. >> plus they have the momentum.

initially breaking the momentum in iraq slowed down some of the recruiting and then you need to take the battles of them in syria. they have the luxury of mainly being on the offensive. we need to go after their positions inside syria. >> nothing but this kind of relationship will be able to stop them. you cannot do it by air power alone. you cannot do it with troops on the ground. >> air power is necessary but it's not sufficient. it has its limits. it cannot acquire territory. people can hide their. air power alone cannot ferret out a group. it can get them to act defensively and put them in a crouch but ultimately you have to go after them on the ground. we're not going to do it ourselves. we need a local partner or in the case of iraq, a set of local partners. who reads a lot

about international affairs. i was struck about a piece today from winston churchill. war, this is the unnecessary war. it did not have to happen if we had done more. is there some kind of corollary there? just as consequential in what you do in foreign policy, people are often so much more rigorous about assessing the pros and cons of actions. if we do this, this will be the risk. it is rarely as rigorous when it comes to assessing the cost of inaction or the status quo. hackneyed phrase, theyysis by analysis showed every course of action was risky or costly and they ended up being paralyzed and they did not assess with the same degree of rigor the cost of not acting in syria. >> do you think they have changed now and they are on the road where they recognize the

threat and are prepared to change? andt's happening slowly incrementally but also quite reluctantly. what worries me is there's a lot of history to suggest that incrementalism can be a bad way to go about things. to break thent momentum. you really want to send the message. i warily that we are not doing that. >> what's the risk of doing it? but are a stop isis there other risks and other intended consequences that would be very bad? is the pressure for escalation. the risk that you do something and you kill, as will happen, some innocent people and you alienate the population which could then reverberate against you. you may motivate more people to join the other side and that will be seen as the latest example of the west killing muslims which is again one of the reasons that this is

essential that we have local partners. >> that's part of the reason that the president has been slow trying to assemble local partners. >> it's not enough to say that we don't have very good options. >> or a strategy. have could have and should done more to develop an international partner in syria. it's been more than three years since the struggle has begun and it was never a priority to develop a serious syrian opposition. >> there is a fear we could not come to an end that the time. so let's assume you stop. what happens then? what do you do about syria? do you go to assad and say we have finished off isis and now we have to talk about what's going to happen in syria and he says, what do you mean? . help to defeat isis i'm elected. you want to defeat me? let's make a deal. >> this is not a permanent

answer to the challenge of syria. he will not be able to regain territory over his entire country but it is beyond. >> it is 200,000 syrians that have died. >> you probably end up with a new political map inside of syria. that is again one of the reasons you want to have a diplomatic complement to whatever you do on the ground militarily and you want to have a circle of countries, friends and syria, a contact group to meet including the iranians, the saudi's, the russians, and others to begin to sort out with the future political character or personality of syria will be. there has to be a special place for the allies -- the aloe lights. there has to be something where the sunni will have a much more secure place. you could end up with tremendous degrees of autonomy within what is nominally syria but you could really have a dimension of syria

and separately a syria sunni dimension. >> we will be right back. steve coll joins us. ♪ >> as i said, steve coll joins us, a staff writer for new yorker but dean of the columbia university school of graduate is -- journalism. another tough day for journalism. we learned another journalist has been beheaded. give me some sense of context on this. >> there extraordinary number of journalists at risk in jihadist-controlled syria and i don't think the full number have been publicized. casesng held for some ransom? countries held by al qaeda-related groups or others but apparently the bad news today is that the second

and two american journalists we knew isis was holding has been executed as isis threatened it would do when they beheaded james foley about a week ago. richard handler were just talking about syria that we have to do something and if in fact we have to make some sort of temporary relationship with assad then we have to do that. how do you see what has to be and with respect to isis all of the shifting sands of alliances that are coming into play? >> isis is a grotesque organization, a very serious problem in and of itself and its a symptom of a deeper failure of international policy in iraq and syria. isis feasts off the suffering of sunnis as well as the grievances of sunni in iraq. as a manifestation of desperation among tribal populations, ex military

officers, other people rallying to its black flag to try to rebalance the situation. >> part of the general core. and low of mid-level level sunni officers from the military have come over to the rebel side and ended up in isis there. tribal leaders you have oil engineers, people who can maneuver in battle and are experienced in military organization. sociopaths,e teenagers, and foreign volunteers. a kind of eclectic organization. it may not be very stable internally but how do you break it up and build a deeper stability in the region? is fighting a desperate war with assad that both sides may want him a letter it is really wise for the united states to stand back and watch more syrian's suffer and die while

the war plays itself out and kind of owl full because it is through that suffering the extremism has arisen. if the alternatives were easy, they would have been pursued by now. has the president been paralyzed by overanalysis and waiting for the right form of government, the right combination of forces to come to their? what has happened is isis has grown in strength starting in syria and iraq? >> it's hard for the outside to understand the options charts and why they have taken the kind of restrained decisions they've taken that from the outside, there are a couple of failures that seem evident on the ground. there has been an enormous inimism or overinvestment the development of a national unity government in baghdad which could lead an army into

battle in sunni heartland's where i just do not think there is any evidence that the shiite-led government can control territory and address the grievances of sunni who are defecting. first, you have to be realistic about the capacity of the iraqi state and realistic about this project. >> you cannot stop isis without going to syria. alsoat is correct but you have to have a strategy to cross the fictional border and it includes strategy in iraq. the second thing is the hard problem of syria where this room risks of take the arming, equipping, building out the free syrian army or moderate groups are a substantial risk. you cannot wish them away. tacit or explicit, this question at whether at this stage to tacitly or explicitly ally with

assad, i would be interested in richard's views about it. it would be deeply disturbing and cynical, even tacitly. the least about potentially option that is feasible is a desirable know. you look at the range of options from doing it ourselves to organizing a force to building up a viable syrian resistance anytime soon. you may say it is too hard and a tacit division of syria where we leave assad alone and we work in the others with the sunni might need a least bad of the options now available. ing's deteriorated over the last three years as you know better than anybody. -- things have deteriorated. tacit division of syria as an end state, sure, that is where stability will arise from. >> what is assad prepared to do? >> he's prepared to survive.

[laughter] >> what is the order -- what is he willing to do in order to survive? >> ma decide his routable target is no longer syrian oppositions but is isis. we need to incentivize him to get to that point. >> do we incentivize him or make a deal with him? >> we make a deal with some of his backers to encourage them to see the wisdom in a deal that he focuses on isis, which he has not done heretofore, and he lets others essentially do what they're going to do. >> you accept the idea that he invited the rise because it feeds? >> he did not make it a strategic priority to eliminate. >> does he want to go all-out in order to recapture the original syrian state? it gets reallye interesting. you have an interesting moment in the region where everyone is

waking up and there's a bit of a frankenstein here. isis is really dangerous and we could ultimately be a target. that has everybody thinking. ,> you mentioned two options the pan-arab force or building up an opposition. have we really tested that proposition? >> i do not think we have tested the pan-arab force but i'm skeptical based on history. i'm told by people who have looked at the moderate opposition force that it is very tough going. you talk about risk. you have to assume loss of equipment, assume it will be heavily infiltrated. it's tough on steroids now. >> what about iran? enemye are come are great to go shooting like crazy to try to get them to do something about their nuclear policy and here's an opportunity where we have the same enemy. >> we've been trying to develop for grand bargain with iran

a number of years now with nuclear programs resolution being essential to that. >> what is the grand bargain? >> we cap, freeze, or otherwise make a deal around their nuclear program in order to create a path to normalization in which the natural partnerships and shared interests that the u.s. clearly has with iran, they are very easy to list, stability in afghanistan, drug stuff, that has always been on the agenda. al qaeda is another one. the difficulty at the moment is that iran's interest and iraq are perhaps not the same as ours. >> shiite control. ourn the region, if partners in stabilizing the sunni areas of serious and iraq jordan, saudi arabia, the uae, turkey. they all live in texas 10 show dread of iran and particularly c.r. bard getting as something

that undermines their interest. i'm not sure how it is that we are going about trying to untie that not, but i feel the presence of that. i don't know if you would agree, in the way that we are trying to play both sides of this problem. >> it's difficult. we have to try to resolve the nuclear issue to come up with an outcome that is enough for them and not too much for the israelis. at the same time, we have to understand it opens up the possibility of other forms of operation. then we will have a crisis with iran. the question beyond that is if ,e can find these limited areas like afghanistan, if they can never sort out their elections, syria, iraq. given the internal politics here

we lease talking about linkage. non-linkage, can you find the spheres of cooperation. what happens to it? saying we need to find out what we can do. where are we? in two monthly mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the cold war. they went through two and a half decades of an identity crisis. we have to worry about russians. the real thing is to build up

some nato capability. we want to spend intelligently. in particular strengthening the other members of nato. ukraine,u worry about you have to worry about the countries to whom you have specific article five obligations and nato would be hard-pressed to meet them right now. they have to close the gap between commitment and capability. >> i was listening to an interview with the estonian prime minister of all people this morning. capitals the west nato and north american capitals understand the seriousness of what's going on but they are still having trouble thinking 3, 6 months ahead as to how far putin might push this if he feels that he can with a population in places other than eastern ukraine. each time we wait to see how far he's willing to test his expansion as proxy policy, he

pushes it 10% further down the road. building the supply lines to crimea basically building a permanent russian speaking de facto state, this was completely predictable because it's exactly what they pursued in georgia and other places. to start contemplating instability in places like the baltics where there are article obligations, is nato really capable of providing the kind of deterrence, rhetoric, fact, policy, to get him to back down from such conversations? a partassume this is all of his conversations and in the end they will not do anything to force them to evacuate? part of me assumes it's a heavy improv quality to him.

unlike the associates where you had the heaviest the tuition allies to bureaucracies, a lot of this is putin making it up as he goes along. besides bolstering nato, we want to ratchet up sanctions and be able to keep the diplomatic out, life. is an alternative between continuing to press on and having a total loss of face back down. >> doesn't he have to already know that? he knows ornow what seriously believes, but i think .e ought to repeat that again, with the rest of nato, this is not a symbolic or rhetorical organization. it's a military alliance at its core. right now, the military dimension is seriously under nowhere where they need to be. toughest moment in the obama administration.

>> was a pretty lousy economy that he inherited but international affairs. administration, again, empathetic to their outcome in general. they do look tired. the travel, the planning, there's just a sense of being a time when they were not really prepared for the degree and variety of crises they have to manage. poor that a product of intelligence, poor anticipation, all of that that reflect somehow not being as savvy and paying sufficient attention? the president is of course right. the united states does not shape global events. it cannot control all of the .oals that arrives

you may see errors. you're still unsure as to what would have unfolded. if you cannot control the chaos, then the chaos of restraint and pessimism, there is this rhetoric that surfaces from this administration. we cannot force the world to come to our agenda. the world falls apart, it's not on us. it's a bias about working -- worrying about the operation rather than inaction. what it essentially closed down which was the "war on iraq." there getting close to

point in afghanistan. it is not great at cooperating. the world is responding to this. there is a sense that they are less active, less reliable with problems from congress, domestic issues, to what we did not do with domestic issues and syria. to me as yousting are seeing the spread of saudis,-making, the others. what do we want to do? we are not going to rely as much as we used to or deferred to what washington wants. it's a world in which american influences someone is going down even more than american capability because they do not believe we are as ready to use it. >> one more time. what are the options for the president with respect to russia? there has to be leadership to continue to signal deterrents to her sanctions and preparations. >> merkel and others.

has beenoad framework created. i don't know exactly what the next increment of sanctions should be. deterrence and preparation are not influencing his decisions in eastern ukraine sufficiently. >> when you think about this president, i remember being in line at one of those washington things early on in the , because youn serve this administration, the person in front of me said something -- bush 41. he said, well you know, he and i totally agree on foreign policy. i've adopted his foreign-policy. that is something you have heard early on. it turns out not to be true. >> inducted the sense of limits and restraint. i don't think they adopted a

sense of international leadership or energy. they did not want to lead or both? this administration's priorities are not to play as active of a role. it was to limit the pull on resources which would allow greater resources at home. in addition to sanctions and energy. up nato, also we have to have a serious transatlantic energy project. the goal has got to be to reduce energy independence, oil and gas, on russia. that is their principal strategic tool. we have to begin to take that away from russia. >> richard and steve, thank you so much for coming. ♪

>>." the midterm elections are just 63 days away and the republicans are expected to mena power. all eyes on a few hotly contested senate races.

several compelling gubernatorial races also hang in the balance in the outcome of have wide-ranging implications for president obama's final two years in office. and john heilemann join me, managing editors of bloomberg politics. i'm pleased to have you at the table for the umpteenth time. >> happy fall. >> summer was great. i love vacation. great to be back. big issues we have on this show, politics and foreign policy. midterm election. give me an overview. one thing is key for each party. can they do enough mechanically, sages to remake the electorate in these targeted states in the sum of the races younger roaders, african-americans, hispanics, single women turn out to vote in a midterm?

on the republican side they need a message. strategists will tell you they don't think they could live up to the possibility of running races in the 60 year unless they stand for something that fails. stool, of the reagan largely not in their favor. foreign policy, there's a lot going on in the world. you do not see a lot of strategists saying they will win on foreign policy. --ht now they are events against obama care, against raising the minimum wage. they need to be a party of ideas. me.ou completely confused i thought the republicans were going to clearly when the house. it was the democrats who were on the defensive. you come here saying they don't know what they stand for. up maybe sixpick house seats, but that range is pretty set. if the game is the senate, there

are three double almost certainly win. go race by race today and the next three are not obvious. >> and those three are? go ahead. there was no ago, doubt that people thought republicans were in the perfect place to gain control. the story has really changed in the last six months. we do not have an internal election that looks like the previous two. we had a big wave, unified, republican year. it was a very big democratic year before that. that's number the data shows about the selection. they thought this would be a big wave year. what has happened over the last six months as the law has become more accepted and the problems were ironed out and as democrats found a way to talk about the popular parts of the law, that issue has not totally dissipated.

republican lot of still driven by anti-obamacare sentiment and they will come out to vote against that one issue. the heat has come out of that issue and now it is very much a state by state thing. you have a huge amount of popularity both parties. they are incredibly unpopular. republicans are more unpopular which has helped. a littlemy is doing better. tore is no one galvanizing find a unifying theme and democrats have then been able to engage in kind of trench warfare state-by-state against a lot of spending. they are still very much in the race. you're looking at one of the his work easily republicans could end up with 53 seats and they could also end up a few short. >> money will play a big role or not? .> and always plays a big role

it is interesting, as i suggested a second ago, how much money has already been spent and how in the key six or seven senate races, how little has -- arkansas,n song those bases have been static and they are all within the margin of error. or has not been enough disparity of money and there is not enough you seee where suddenly anything appreciable moving in these hotly contested seats. this sixth year of obama's term, anti-obama is not a decisive factor that somehow that game has been played out? >> to win the majority of the senate -- and that is what we're talking about here -- they have to beat some number of democratic incumbents. hard to beat incumbents who are

not scandal-ridden and are focused. there are focused on keeping their jobs. yes, a lot of republicans will turn out but to be a well-known, in most cases pretty well-liked incumbent, well-funded democratic senator you need a strong challenger. republicans have all the challenges they can hope to get. none have really present themselves -- proven themselves as incumbent giant beaters. can change thes electorate in they can convince voters they deserve another chance, another term, i keep saying to people is going to be a huge republican year and they will go race by race. you are talking about mary landrieu in louisiana, mark pryor in arkansas him a kay hagan, or the alaska race.

most likely is maybe the open seat in iowa. that's easier than beating an incumbent. the incumbents in the red states, a lot of them are legacies. theypryor, mary landrieu, all have parents who were involved in politics and they are well known brands. in most states, that matters. >> is the game plan jim messina put together the game plan that the democratic party needs in 2014? there's no way you can run a midterm election the way they run a presidential election. jim messina had the opportunity to not be challenged. they had four years basically to husband resources and pick the counties in the seven or eight states they really cared about

the focus on those individual voters who question to go and talk to them over and over again and drive up the polls. waycannot do that the same in a congressional election but the notion of expanding the electorate, as mark just mentioned, what mussina and plouffe understood, it's always a different electorate in a presidential and nonpresidential year. african-american voters, single women, college-educated they needed them to come out and really big numbers to offset the headwinds. they need to do that on a state-by-state basis. you see targeted efforts that are being undertaken in all of these contested races. in louisiana try to get the american -- african-american vote out. that has become the science of micro-targeting and now it is no longer just a presidential level. they're trying to the extent possible take away the lessons

of 2012 and apply them now. takingher page they are because they have no real message, they can say implicitly we don't have that many new good ideas but we are for equal pay medicare, for keeping medicaid, social security going, immigration reform. that thenomic issues middle-class cares about, they can basically say, as joe biden says, judge us in comparison to the alternatives. they can say, we are for raising minimum wage. we are for equal pay for women. that tests really well. we're for preserving social services and medicare. they do not have the ideas to counter those things so even though the economy for a lot of people does not feel better. they have the ability to say, forget everything else. look at what we are doing with the economy and your economic

security. this is a page you saw from the president and vice president in labor day. it sounded very much like what the president talked about in 2012. >> there's a reason why republicans are so unpopular at the congressional level. congressional republicans are historically unpopular. withhave become associated voters in the middle of the electorate who might be undecided, they are nothing but nihilism. that is what a lot of voters have seen. they saw that in the shutdown and it hurt republican candidates in the off year elections and then we saw it again this him or when the border crisis flared and republicans were calling for action and congress not able to do what they said they wanted to do, take action in that area. theystand up and saying want president obama to take unilateral action even though they were suing him. for a lot of voters who do not watch politics up close, all

they see is republicans saying "nein, nein, nein, nein, nein." the german nein, not the number nine. you cannot do that if you have no affirmative measure. >> that's the way to do it, throw in a little german. [laughter] make it annual. go ahead. [laughter] >> unions. can they make a difference? >> the beauty of the president's message was not only that it helps to cleave some of them towards the democrats but it's a big base turnout in the president was remarkably, given the tenor of the time, prounion. we will see some fast food workers striking trying to get an increase in their pay and the president was very encouraging of that effort. by state,state

alaska, for instance, very large union presence. less so in arkansas thomas louisiana. there is no doubt that the president -- the democrats want to replicate this notion of a center-left coalition with messages that can simultaneously inspire people on the further left, union members, as well as in the center and an advantage democrats have with union members that they did not always have in the past is with social issues off the table, union workers are facing less cost cutting pressure. a purple ray red state in the past, they would say that party is for gay marriage and it makes me uncomfortable. now it's a purely economic message and republicans and there he could have a strong economic message that they don't talk about it because they are afraid. they are more associating with dashing. the one issue that you do not hear democrats talking much about is guns. you don't hear a lot of

democrats talking about gun control in the context of midterms because they want that populist middle-class working class message to be dominant. the stakes for 2016 in 2014? >> the stakes are always high. shifting towards presidential politics, for presidential obama, maintaining democratic control of the senate is on one hand essential if you want to try to get anything done in the next two years. even finding it hard to get some things done in the beginning of his term even with democratic control. given the relentlessness and reluctance of the opposition to talk about agenda, if he loses both houses, he's pretty much out of luck. with filibuster politics, even narrow control does not turn into functional control buffer president obama the stakes are really high. for the republican party, to let it senate slip away when

seemed easily graspable, if that were to happen, it would be an incredible disappointment to the party at possibly a wake-up call about the need to figure out this positive agenda that is required in order to win at a national level. policy, let's be clear. these are the last two years of a second term presidency, not use that are historically productive. foreign policy sometimes can get accomplished if the world does not let america rest, but these are not two years where we would expect a lot of productivity especially hotly contested contest, wide-open race. >> in addition to the question you answered well, is any particular candidate or likely by thete to be enhanced midterm elections? >> there are three ways that could happen. in terms of a party being benefited, let's see what happens with these big governor races.

republicans are looking strong. wisconsin is competitive. >> scott walker is in a tough place. wins, that helps them personally. if k-6 wins, he's clearly an underdog candidate. you are going to finally see hillary clinton give political speeches. these will not be book events or foreign-policy speeches were sitting down with interviewers and talking about questions. >> what's on their mind rather than what's on the political -- >> it's a different format. can she give a stump speech on where america is? it's possible someone who runs thean get to the end of cycle and not made much of again and still do well but you get a leg up in national exposure and honing your message, paul ryan as an underrated stump speech,

one of the best in the republican party. if he goes out for candidates he will build more of the following. there is a middle class message, working class message, but it is also just technically he's more comfortable. he is saying something that is so rare in politics, a stump speech from the heart about what he really believes. going to see a lot of these are or punitive candidates, those thinking about running or will definitely run, they will all be out for the next few months. we're not going to see just hillary clinton but a lot of them. >> but you guys will be there. >> the political press corps will be following them around. >> as will donors. even if republicans take the senate, there is a huge vacuum in the party. won is immigration, developing a populist economic

message, building infrastructure showing people you can run against a clinton campaign. all of that starts the day after the midterms in earnest but even now -- >> are you impressed or less impressed by what hillary clinton plans to do? the failuretour and to respond to some of the controversies involving personal wealth has not spoken well of her skills or operation. i don't think any of it matters if she performs well going forward because she is so far and away above the class and the field. >> on both sides. >> there is still time. when people underperform early emma one of the good things is that it can either be foreboding, pretentious, we saw these thing coming early when they have problems later or it can turn out to be a wake up call. should a really tough go with the pre-launch of her campaign.

she learned a lot of lessons about it. i will tell you to watch for, mark and i will be watching very carefully not just hillary clinton but bill clinton who will be out a lot over the course of the next two months. >> what will we learn from him? >> he is still a from edible political figure. i find it amusing and illustrative because you know he will be keeping score in every race that he goes to. afterwins in arkansas bill clinton has been there six or seven times, he's thinking, i did that. >> where he goes versus barack obama is going to be a fascinating thing. in of these targeted senate races -- >> bill clinton might win. it will not be his first election cycle victory and probably night his last. >> he wins even when he's not running. >> who's ahead in terms of where all of the candidates are?

times " has a story today on chris christie. knowing who's going to run or the result of grand jury robstigations are jeb bush, portman, chris christie. they are establishment candidates and they have dominated. >> why not ron paul? >> i don't think the establishment will let him be nominated. as long as they think hillary clinton is the person they have to go against, they need someone who can win states against hillary clinton that obama the romney in. i do not think they would that on rand paul for that right now. beste person who's had the 2013 is rand paul. he has made himself into a national figure and he's doing the thing we want them all to

do. the thing he wrote about ferguson is what they want them to do, to challenge the stale orthodoxies of their own parties. he's taking some courageous stands in building a real organization. i don't think you can be the nominee but he's had a really good run so far. is what islook for the overriding arc of a narrative. maybe paul ryan has it that the thing i'm looking for from hillary clinton, whoever wants to be president, help me in a way that i can understand and resin night -- a resume shows me a shrewd look at america today, its fortunes, and how you combine an understanding that makes the public believe that you are the best way to meet the challenge of the future. and that it is human, as you say. >> and has a little pixie dust to it. hillary clinton challenges the original narrative, the original vision because people want elections about the future.

are about there future not a referendum of the past. >> the bar is so high for her. those are high bars but in the absence of a republican who can win 270 electoral votes, she might not need clear that by a whole lot. she can graze it going over unless they find a strong republican. >> candidate's job is to tell theire american story and story are meeting at a certain moment. >> like clinton. overink about her story her life, there's a lot of material to work with. she has a compelling story to tell. >> she has lots of things that remind you about the past. >> there is a way that biography can benefit you. she has to figure out a way to talk about it. >> that is moving forward. >> but that's not enough, as we

saw last time. >> thank you. i look forward to your show which premieres when? >> october 6, a monday. >> something you cannot miss. you want to be there to find out what's going on. ♪

>> this is "taking stock" for wednesday, september 3, 2014. i am pimm fox. today's theme is tilling the fields. tractor supply company, the country's largest retail and ranch store chain. i will talk to the company executive on how he tills the fields for profit. plus, can casinos offer tips for protecting your privacy? a brother collecting very big data. samsung unveils four new devices today. will they reso