>> i am mark halperin. >> i am john heilemann. we don't hope you cut anything out of your speech on tuesday. happy ice cream day, sports fans. on our playlist tonight, we are family. let's go to the movies. with a real conservative candidate pleased stand up. first, mitt romney will speak tomorrow night at the rnc meeting. his advisors are scrambling to put the band back together. his family is apparently gung ho about him launching his third white house bid. it looks like romney is running. do you think he is?

>> john, after spending a day in san diego, i've gone from yes to maybe. there is some news here. bloomberg politics reporting exclusively that lou eisenberg is going to transition out of his investment job and become the national finance chair of the republican national committee. he is a great fundraiser. some people speculate that he is doing it to avoid having to choose between jeb bush and chris christie. that is a big get for the rnc. he is becoming the finance chair of the rnc. the previous fianance chair is leaving to go work -- i have talked to people here who have lobbied him. they said they don't want him to run. they are wishful because they don't want to work for his campaign. they are doubting that he will make the race. he is getting some discouragement about whether this makes sense.

>> i am hearing some of the things you are hearing. there is a question of whether he decided to dip his toe in the water. the problem is -- the other side of that coin is the family seems to be gung ho about him running. they want him to get in. that is still the thing that would drags him in. >> if you put a gun to my sun dappled head, i would say he would do it. he's getting enough encouragement. the romney's thought they were going to win election in 2012 because they were listening to people who were telling them what they wanted to hear. it's not a sure thing. >> now we have a message pertaining to a handful of our viewers, including rick perry, rick santorum, and others.

it is time for us to find someone to say this is our son with whom we are well pleased. the grassroots conservative wing of the republican party needs to unify around a single candidate. is that possible? i would say it is unlikely. if you think about the different parts of the republican base the christian right, the populist part of the party, each of those pieces will have a different potential candidate. if we had this big giant scrum mark, it will be hard. it will be hard to get a unity movement in any party. in this race, it will be harder than ever. >> conservatives always want to do it. they say we can't let the establishment win. there is one person who can do it.

you have to raise a lot of money. rising national poll numbers poll numbers in iowa, and you have to convince conservatives you could beat the establishment candidate. i think mike huckabee can do that. i do think rick perry can do it. that does not mean they don't end up being the conservative establishment choice, but in terms of coalescing and getting behind somebody, mike huckabee is the one. >> just on the basis of communication skills and constituency, that might be true. the biggest problem for mike huckabee continues to be whether he can raise enough money. even though it is less important, the money thing, it still matters. especially in a split field. >> if he does what a lot of these republican candidates are doing, embraces the super pac, and finds two or three people to write multi-million dollar checks, that gets him well past where he needs to be the player here. >> how many do you think mike huckabee knows who would do that? not many. president obama signed an order

to give federal workers six weeks of paid leave to care for a new child or sick family member. at the same time, he is asking congress and local governments to allow workers to get seven paid sick days year, along with a proposal for states for the paid the program. this is how obama made his case today. >> when they make that investment in their employees, it pays dividends. employees are more productive, there's lower turnover, there's greater productivity. any organization is only going to be as good as its people. >> mark, this kind of proposal is overwhelmingly popular with voters. i'm curious with you think this is another instance where president obama, despite not controlling any house of congress any longer, has the upper hand over the gop? >> this is something. if bill clinton or anyone who served in his administration what did you hear from real people. a lot of them will say, family and medical leave. it is extraordinarily popular, very politically shrewd of the

white house to put this out now. i bet it will poll really well. it will test really well. republicans, we talked about it yesterday, are still struggling to have a middle-class message. john boehner put out a message about how he talked at a republican retreat about middle-class voters. this is so concrete, so specific. it is really smart politics. a lot of americans will think it's good policy. >> i think president obama is doing this thing we have seen other presidents do. there's very little chance that this will pass in this congress. lamar alexander has come against it. he is putting the republcian party in a bad place. the party did not do well with electorate in 2012. they sent a bad signal to hispanics yesterday on immigration. if they oppose it, they will sending bad signal to a lot of women, a lot of single women who have kids. the oscar nods are out.

"selma" was snubbed. many thought it would do better than a paltry two nominations. i can't tell you whether the snub was just or unjust. the biggest outrage of this year's nominations was the absence of "life itself," the great documentary about roger ebert. it did not get a nomination for best documentary. it's an incredible movie. not just about the movies themselves, but about this extraordinary writer. this snub is really surprising. it's a great movie. it is a snub to the memory of roger ebert. mark, what's your view? >> the injustice of jake gyllenhaal not getting a nod for

best actor for nightcrawler. incredible performance. the guy is a great actor, but this is a great performance. you look at the people who got nominated, they are all fine strong. i do not think any of them are as good. i thought jake gyllenhaal was going to win the oscar. instead, not even nominated. that's like my outrage of not just the oscars, but of the award seasons today. >> by the time we get to the end of 2015, it might be the outrage of the year. jake gyllenhaal was incredible in that movie. coming up, i guessed who is named for brunei recipes. he is a very big deal in the republican party. mark will talk with him next in san diego. ♪

welcome back to san diego. why is nobody running against you? >> i don't know. i have no idea. i think we did pretty well in the midterm.

the things we have talked about are actually starting to work. what i always tell people about our party is that we are starting to get our act together as a national party. we have a ways to go. the midterms don't mean we will be great in the presidential but it means were starting to get things right. >> why is joni ernst being chosen to give the republican response? why is she the right choice? >> the first female combat veteran in the senate. obviously, a new face in our party. it is important for us to start promoting different people different backgrounds, different everything in our party. that is part of it. >> one role that chairs have played in the past is to enforce president reagan's 11th commandment. among your potential presidential candidates, ted cruz and others are bomb throwers.

ted cruz said a third run would be insanity. marco rubio said he is a cheap cheerleader for obama. does that violate the 11th commandment? do you play a role, saying to people about not talking trash? >> differentiating each other is one thing, but talking trash taking cheap shots, i don't the we should be doing that. >> is that a cheap shot? you are fine with all those. >> these are big boys and girls that are involved at this level. i think it would take -- >> where is the chairman line? what do they have to do? >> i don't know. >> you said you thought running against hillary clinton, that bringing up the monica lewinsky issue is an old issue. >> it is a little old.

>> what about her record at the rose law firm? >> if there are new revelations, but i don't know what they are or if there is new evidence, new questions, sure it's all fair game. >> are you familiar with that? >> i do not. we are writing a hillary clinton book now. we have a research team in little rock. we are not going to be shy. we're sending two or three to little rock. >> are they setting up residency? >> i'm not sure about that, mark we are going to be active. we are going to get whatever we have to in order to share with the american people the truth of hillary and bill clinton. >> when you say new stuff about bill clinton, what you talking about? >> anything. business dealings. travels. whatever it might be that would be important for people to know about bill and hillary clinton

that is not old and stale stuff that we already know. i think it's fair game. i can't tell you what it is. i'm not hiding it from you. i'm not going to be a chairman who is going to sit here and say, we are not going to do it. not talk about anything other than fair trade with china fracking, and clean coal. >> what about things from their person life? are those things fair game? >> it is what it is. >> is that fair game? >> it depends what it is. if it is something that is clearly egregious and something that most people would give a frown to, it is fair game. we are playing this hypothetical game.

>> a few years ago, the conventional wisdom was it is better to have your convention later in the cycle. you made the decision it is better to have it earlier. i see the advantages of going early. are you taking any risks by having an early convention? is there a potential downside to that? >> every choice is risky, but i happen to believe that going early, getting on with the general election sooner, allowing our candidates to capture general money sooner rather than later, i think it's a no-brainer for us. the democrats have a different choice to make. if we have 7-9 candidates running, and our candidate is broke at the end of april, i need to get them on to the general election money. that person won't be up to get a nickel of that money until they get on the floor the convention. if the democrats don't have a primary or a very limited primary, then they are going to

have the primary bucket full in march and april, when our candidates going to be broke. for me, it is a smart decision. >> is mitt romney getting into the race? what is your sense of the reaction amongst republicans to governor romney's word that he might run? >> interested. >> interested. >> what about sunday? >> the nice thing is there is not a ton of pressure on the packers. >> congratulations. john, i'm wondering what you think about the chairman and what he said about risk and rewards. >> i think the chairman makes good sense. these no doubt these parties are fighting. there is logic to this. if there are a lot of republican candidates that spend all their

money, hillary clinton will be well financed and could be really bad for republican nominee to spend the whole summer without any money to spend getting defined by a very well-financed and politically whole clinton campaign. >> the fallacy to me is your message gets dissipated. they can drive their message through the general election. the flaw is that mitt romney did not have a great super pac support. he was left naked between the nomination and the election. i see the outside, but there is real risks. >> the thing that struck me from your interview was the fact that the republican committee has a couple of people in little rock, arkansas, digging up dirt on the clintons. it's not surprising.

it puts a fine point on how their only goal is how to defeat hillary clinton. they are girding for that war. >> the rose law firm better encrypt its files. >> incredible. when we come back, a former insider from mitt romney's campaign. how can he do it differently this time? should he do it all? his former campaign chairman will tell us, next. ♪

>> our guest tonight is a hardscrabble political intellectual. thank you for joining us. in 2012, you were a cochair for mitt romney's campaign. we know that governor romney is now thinking about doing a third run. if he throws his hat in a ring would you be a supporter? >> i have not decided yet.

i'm not happy with the way he has chosen to reenter presidential politics. i think his friends need to be honest with that. he is a great man. he would be a great president. there is not a a lot of precedent for people losing the election and coming back. unfortunately, i think that governor romney had two increasing the good years after losing the presidency. now he has had one bad week. >> have you talked to governor romney? >> i have not. i have talked to people around him. the people around him are very loyal. they should be. he is a good man. they want this to happen. i can't believe that most of them gave him the advice to handle this reemergence in presidential politics in the way that it was handled. it has not gone well for him. >> you think he has not handled his reentry well.

do not see any kind of rationale for a third run? is that the real problem for you? >> no, i think there is a rationale, but i don't think he has put it forward. i think the rationale you hear from moderate republicans was that he was proven right about saying it was a bad rationale. the next election will not be against barack obama. it is a bad platform to say, vote for me because you are wrong four years ago. i think the country is ready to turn a page on barack obama. i think there are very open to republican candidacy, but the candidate who will win will be one who can best layout a positive platform and a positive vision for our party and the country going forward. it's not that there is anything critical of this. i'm not naïve about politics, but if there is not a positive vision attached to the republican party this time, we will not win. >> it has been said by some that part of the motivation for

governor romney was that he saw jeb bush encroaching on his funders. what do you know about the strength of how jeb bush's fund-raising operations have gone in its early days? >> governor bush has moved systematically and aggressively. on the policy front, political front, and financial front. i think he is putting together a good financial base. i think he will make the goals that he talked about. governor romney has a very dedicated donor base that he is paid attention to over the last couple years. i think there are enough to go around. that rationale is not the rationale for mounting another candidacy for the presidency. >> if governor romney were to call you and ask for advice, your advice will be what? to stay out of the race? >> i guess that this point what i would say is that what i heard about governor romney's intentions up to the last week

or so made a lot of sense to me. he was emerging as the senior statesman of the republican party. he should wait and see how the field develops. if indeed nobody emerged that had a chance of winning the white house, let the party come to him. i think that was a plausible way of thinking about this. instead, to appear to get into this to preempt the first guy to emerge as a candidate for president, does it make them look like the elder statesman of the republican party that he ought to be. >> if i ask you today, which i'm asking you now, to name the three most likely nominees of your party for 2016, who are your top three today? >> first of all, mitt romney is strong. i think is a possible nominee. i think jeb bush is possible. number three gets hard to identify. i will split the decision and probably say either chris christie or john kasich from ohio, who has been not talked

about much lately. >> one of the charges against governor romney if he runs has been that he is yesterday's news. rand paul has made that comment. in that same kind of thing be said from within the party and outside the party about jeb bush? >> i think they will say about governor bush because it is a little different situation. the bush name has been around a long time. we have had two presidents. the last was controversial. the reality is, although the name is well known, governor bush himself, jeb bush, is not well known to most of the market people. he is wanted in florida. to party insiders. he has an opportunity to introduce himself for the first time to most americans who may have heard his name, but don't know much about him. >> last question real quick. do you think the republicans have an easy chance to be

hillary clinton or it will take a really strong nominee and a great race to beat her? >> i think would take a strong nominee in a great race, but it's most closer to being a 50-50 proposition than it would've been if you ask anybody a year ago or two years ago. i think the republican party look stronger after the last election. i don't think secretary clinton looks as nearly as indestructible as she did when she left the state department. we know she will have a powerful campaign. >> thank you for joining us. we will be right back after the break. ♪

>> one other thing i want to show everybody. i slowed with the attorney general of utah. he is a rising star with the rnc. he gave me a war dance.

>> there is more of the video on the website. we are off the air now.

>> he has been called tech's boy genius. perhaps the only ceo who has refused to keep a schedule. david karp started tumblr before he was 20. he sold it to yahoo! before he was 30. it is now one of the most creative and social blogging platforms, all from a guy who dropped out of high school. tumblr founder and ceo david karp. thank you for joining. us.