>> i'm john heilemann. >> and mike mark halperin. >> and this is the one where we bring the goop. >> shaking up our lineup tonight, hollywood love obama. and george will deeply hearts chris christie. mary landrieu has side lined her campaign manager. making a move like this less than a month before election

day, not unheard of but not on a good day. how much are democrats panicking? >> always worry, always worry in washington that she will micro manage if she gets her family too involved. she is bringing in new people. democrats never thought they were going to win this. all about the runoff. however badly she does, they are going to a runoff and things change. can they flood the place with outside money? she's won the runoffs and think she can do it again. right now, she is not surging and going to get the run off. >> what is the race. we know democrats are most pessimistic about. possibility that l.s.s.u. on the

day that the runoff takes place. first saturday in december. if we get fl on saturday, that means a lot of republican voters republicans fear go to the game in atlanta and lose thousands of votes. >> even if it is not l.s.u. that could hurt the republicans. >> another senate race, yesterday we broke the news that democrats are pumping a million bucks in the south dakota race and hold onto the seat that is occupied by tim johnson. political junkies are trying to figure out if this is a sane hail mary pass by the democrats. everybody is thinking about the four candidates. you have the former governor, form senator who is now an independent and yesterday he would be a friend of president obama if he got elected and the democrat who has been traveling

around south dakota doing a poor man johnny cash impression and doing these videos. are ♪ i'm running i'm going everywhere jefferson, arlington, marion. ♪ >> the republicans are saying, this shows democrats are desperate to find a place to win. the problem for the republicans you are will get a lot of outside money in here, not on behalf of him. but the problem is the news coverage in the state is dominated by the scandal involving the browns and doesn't believe in negative ads. what happens in this race? >> one thing about that guy he is no phoenix in terms of his johnny cash imtation. you are going to see -- republicans are going to go in

negative against pressler. going to try to take him out. they say great. wyland. get up to 35 36 you could win this race. it's still a long shot. stale a hail mary. but sometimes you have to catch that pass. >> pressler has no staff. and negative on rounds. two guys being pummeled. not a crazy thing to do. still a long shot, but a reasonable investment for a committee that has a lot of money. >> if you are driving around los angeles, buckle up, because president obama is in town raising dough and clogging up the streets. he is at a dinner at gwyneth paltrow. shakespeare was in love with her. >> a lot of people in that room,

even the ones that bring big checks are going to sound like the one we talked to. sound like opinion etta and lindsay graham. climate change is a big issue. some of them are very strongly supporters of israel. so this is a crowd that is writing checks but there are people in that room that are not as enthusiastic about that. >> not just from the left or the right, but the personal thing. a lot of these people that wept a long way, back in 2008, hollywood turned against the clintons in a dramatic move, backed president obama and felt they didn't get the kind of gratitude. these are fragile egos people who want to be invited to the white house. >> people who want to be stroked? >> strangely enough. even some agents are upset.

the love is not there, but when jeffrey comes in and says consider the alternative, they will write a check. >> with a month to go before election day, ebola is going to be the dominant story, president obama are going to have adjust their plans and messages. let's say it stays in the news and the mid-terms which party does it favor, how does it play out? >> any politician who exhibits cool, calm and command, there is some degree of benefit to them. this is the kind of a test for presidents and everyone has to stay calm and cool and not exploit this thing politically. >> are we going to see ads saying the democrats are going to mishandle it? >> we have seen republicans go

over the lines and may sneak in. >> right now this is still filling up the vacuum most of these candidates aren't running on any issues. the earned money is part of the races. >> hard to say what they would do differently. >> 28 months from the iowa caucuses and we may have known who is run the george will poll. and that is chris christie. mark, is this a gold-plated victory? >> george will is not the jinx but candidates he has supported haven't run or won that will. this is a gang of 500. he is raising a lot of money for the r.g.a. and pretty successful campaign appearances staying away from the national media,

but this shows that people are thinking in a jeb bush free world. if he doesn't run, christie is the choice. >> there is no doubt that he has weathered the storm a little bit. >> pending a grand jury investigation. >> john mccain has been on meet the press more than five dozen times and has been on this show. his inaugural appearance the arizona senate man joins us next.

>> welcome and thank you.

and could i say, congratulations on your new show, but could i say, i have never known of a greater oxymoron than you two guys entitled "with all due respect." that is a great contradiction. >> we will pars that out. >> i want to ask you about the news of the day and syria and iraq and turkey. they are a nato ally. and turkey was dragging its feet and said, quote, this is how a nato ally acts when hell is a stone's throw. are you disappointed in turkey. >> i'm very disappointed in turkey to a large degree.

but i would also point out when we are taking half-hearted measures, which we are, and they are -- this administration incredibly is only striking and only against isis and not against assaad. "new york times" talked about how assaad is taking advantage of the attacks on isis in order to kill free-syrian people. it is immoral on our part saying we aren't going to go after assaad. and the turks fear assaad and fear his violence just as much as they do isis. i'm disappointed in turkey. but this is unbelievable. we would take 5,000 syrians train them and send them to be barrel-bombed by assaad. what everyone wants is a no-fly

zone. if you are going to change this momentum, you have to have a buffer zone and no-fly zone and this has been rejected by this president. >> your friend joe biden got into a little trouble saying not only turkey but the u.a.e. and were a big part of the problem in terms of syria. i'm curious if you are here to apologize. on u.a.e. and saudi arabia, whether he was right or do you think he is doing more blame shifting there? >> i think it's obvious that there are wealthy people in those countries you just named, including qatar, that have been providing support for isis al qaeda, that they have been providing that help. qatar has probably been the most

duplicitous in many respects. he shouldn't have said it. i have great affection for joe biden, but he should have had an understanding of a statement like that and the impact it has not only with the relationship of our allies and frankly on him. and joe, as nice a guy as he is you expect more than that from the vice president of the united states. >> you are out and about campaigning for republican candidates. both sides have advantages and disadvantages. one advantage the democrats seem to have is bill clinton who is out there in fine form. i don't know if you have seen him out there. just describe what makes bill clinton a great person?

>> communication, affability. i never seen anyone outside of ronald reagan, that has the ability to communicate with a crowd. when he comes before a crowd whether it is a large or small number of people, he can sense them and he starts feeding off of them and bounces back and forth. i never seen anybody who could do it, except for ronald reagan, as well as bill clinton does. and so there is a likability factor there that is pretty significant. i congratulate him on his skills. i hope he doesn't use them to too great an effect. >> hillary clinton is out on the campaign trail. and down in philadelphia doing a fundraiser for the governor there. and many see this as a run to 2016. will she be a formidable

opponent to whoever the republican nominee will be? >> i think so. she does president have the same skills as her husband does, but she has honed her appearances and rhetoric down pretty well. this latest statement of leon panetta about the attack on benghazi and that he had told the president it was an attack by terrorists the night it happened, well this secretary of state told the families when the caskets came back that she was going to make sure she get the people who made the hateful video. this statement and comments by leon panetta raises the benghazi issue again to a significant degree. >> do you think that will be a real problem her? that issue is old history. do you think that will dog her in a general election if she is

the nominee? >> i agree it was kind of yesterday's news until, until what leon panetta gave us was a smoking gun. i was on "face the nation" right after susan rice gave her routine and i said people don't come to spontaneous demonstrations with r.p.g.'s and mortar and what panetta said, was they told the president that night, two weeks later he and hillary clinton said it was a upon tainyouse demonstration sparked by hateful video. that sparks it. >> around here you are known as the steven wright of the political world. you have retold a joke or two on the stump or two. sleep two hours, wake up, cry

up. two, you are down to paid staff and blood relatives and it is just the o'reilly twins getting drunk again. >> there's one more. after paid staff and blood relatives, i say my mother is 102 years old and i got a call from my mother the other day and we are now down to paid staff. >> my question is if you could only hold on to one of them which would be the one you would still tell? >> sleep two hours, wake up and cry. >> you stole it from bob dole. >> and let me mention one that i stole from mo udall and that is this business all from arizona running for arizona and arizona may be the only state where mothers don't tell their children that someday they can grow up and be president of the

united states. >> that's a good one. i like the o'reilly twins. i stole it from you and thank you from that. >> i know you are a big baseball fan. your arizona team no longer not in the playoffs this year. washington nationals under peer pressure you adopted, no longer in the playoffs. who are you liking in the series? >> cardinals showed a lot of class. i think the orioles are quite good. but i'm still in mourning over the dodgers being eliminated. when they won last year, they jumped in our swimming pool in our stadium. i'm really heart broken that the richest team in baseball is eliminated. >> that sarcasm is not the most attracting thing i have ever

seen. >> orioles. baseball has shown a lot of class and i love matt williams but a lot of questions going on about a lot of the questions. >> you have been on "meet the press" 69 times. this is your first time on our show. how many times will you be on "meet the press." ? >> when i run for re-election in 2002, it will be at that number by 2002 or maybe running for president. >> or you may be a substitute host on this show? >> knowing you two guys, we are going to need a replacement soon. >> senator john mccain of arizona joining us from phoenix.

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>> prohibitive favorite to be the next democratic nominee as she steps out. anita, i'm talking about hillary clinton and starting to get around and show a little leg. you know her strengths and weaknesses. what are you likely to see as hillary clinton hits the stump? >> i'm interested to see her relating to a whole new generation of women as the baby boomers have aged and it is a special kind of communication. i think you know this and chatted about it before, she was one of the best candidates i had

ever seen somewhere around ohio, 2008. she had an ability to connect with audiences. she was authentic, genuine and very good. and i'm curious to see if that shows up. >> if you were one of her advisers and said i want to get to election day in the mid-terms having accomplished as much as i could and position myself to be president, what would you say she needs to hit between now and election day? >> she's not a traditional candidate facing those kinds of situation. she doesn't need to build relationships in these states or name i.d. or collect political checks. she and former president clinton have been collecting political checks for over two decades now. this is not your typical of let's do mid-terms or raise money for this person or meet somebody in this state.

her metrics are different from any potential candidate. >> what are they? >> the first one is going to be performance because at the end of the day, that's where a lot of the scrutiny is going to be, how does she perform on the stump, is she connecting with people or hone a message. she did a book tour earlier this year and criticized for not having a presidential campaign message. she was talking about a book that looked at the past. she does now need to talk about the future and very different kind of message from what she was doing earlier this year. is she starting to hone in on a message that's going to connect for 2015. >> you worked for bill bradley. he took on a prohibitive favorite back in the 2000 race. if you were advising another democrat to take on hillary clinton, what is the angle you would go after?

>> the first thing i would say, this would be a much tougher primary race than the one we were looking at in 1999 when former senator bradley challenged then sitting vice president al gore. and i know that seems unlikely. but the reality is hillary clinton since 2008 has deepened her hold on the democratic electorate. but you know clearly, there is a progressive, economic wing of the democratic party. it is a really strong, interest ing message and i think that's where people will look at to see if she is vulnerable and national security. two big areas since 2008. >> anita dunn. thanks for joining us. we will be right back.

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