mark: i mark halperin. john: and i'm john heilemann and with all due respect to halloween, we are too tired to go trick-or-treating because we have been working our fingers to the bone. [organ playing] john: oooh! ooh! ok. mark: happy cabbage night, sports fans. john: in our haunted house tonight -- a hunt for trump and

carson, the night of the living jeb, and our potion making poster. but first, the thing. marco rubio. supporters are happy that he was trick-or-treating in the part of town where the king size baby ruths reside. they say he is now the go-to guy in the non-grievance candidate bracket. speaking of swagger, a memo today saying that marco is only one of four candidates who can win the nomination. who was left out of that? john ellis bush bush. and david brooks went even further than that saying that review is the most likely standardbearer. it is the rubio stock currently overpriced? mark: it is hot. it is rising in a lot of metrics, but until he rises in the polls and shows that he can turn this good fortune into money, he is overvalued. but make no mistake in the file

psy-ops war between rubio and bush, rubio is winning. it is intentional -- john: provocative. mark: it is meant to crush bush's spirit. john: not just to crush bush's spirit but to draw him into attacking mark moore. they want him to attack him to attack them over the voting records because they think it makes bush look small and defensive. mark: the other thing that rubio has going for him, the social media on the conservative side are becoming pro-marco. they love him a lot more than they love jeb bush. john: a democratic pollster says to smart people, insiders -- a republicans -- lot of republicans as well. 71% say that the nominee will be marco rubio. that's not overvalued stock. marco may be rising but he is not 70% --

mark: that's only national. we will see how much he rises. you think he is going to rise, i think, more than i do. if he rises in the polls, momentum will get supercharged. and everyone will have to figure out what to do about it. john: it tells you how inside the beltway establishment is pro-rubio, not just because of the debate performance. but they look at him and say, young, hispanic -- he is the one who makes sense. mark: democrats are not as afraid of marco rubio as some people think. all right, jeb bush's campaign in a tough place. the storyline is bad. the latest sign of trouble for bush, his chief operating officer abruptly left the campaign with no explanation as to why. bush is still trying to assuage donator concerns after that poor debate performance. he is launching a jeb can fix it tour in florida and south carolina. is this a deathwatch or is he

at the beginning of the come back? john: im still checking the polls. i have not seen him do anything except promise donors he would get better in some undefinable way. i have not seen them do anything that made me think they are turning the corner. th mark: the reason he will be coming back is there is a lot of money. message, message, message. the problem for bush is everybody is on death watch. everybody has turned against him. he needs some good news. the super pac went on tv with ads. that did not raise his numbers. he needs rising poll numbers, a strong debate performance in milwaukee, or something else. the book is probably not enough. he has to turn around so he can go after rubio. he did not go after rubio when he was strong, and now he is weak. john: all of those things are fair enough. it is still the case he does not have, on the basis of everything you and i jointly listed in early states, he does not have

voters, human being saying i want to vote for this guy. mark: a problem. some democratic notes. john: bernie sanders's campaign has received contributions from more than 750,000 people. that's a lot of people. and hillary clinton is not releasing e-mails with correspondents from president obama citing executive privilege. and in atlanta, clinton was interrupted by protesters from the black lives matter movement. so mark, as the week ends, what is the state of the democratic race? mark: bernie sanders needs another debate to get the national conversation going. he continues to raise money. hillary clinton still sees problems, as you just saw in the things you were talking about. the next debate is key for bernie. the next debate is key for jeb. just as jeb is flummoxed about whether he can go after marco,

bernie is flummoxed about whether he can go after hillary. both of them need to sort that out because they are going to have to do contrast. john: when i wrote about the debate, they did about 15 hours of debate prep and they said they needed 150. they will focus on getting bernie sanders ready, and try to figure out a way to do contrast on the issues only -- not personal, not about character, but on the issues only. there's a little bit of baloney. the issues really contrast of the goto character. but can sanders execute? mark: the other thing, there is so much confidence in the clinton campaign. if you ask republicans who the democratic nominee is going to be, they almost all say hillary clinton. the other thing sanders has to do is get back to convincing people he can win. joe biden's departure mathematically makes that a taller order for him.

we all know it is all about new hampshire. he has to convince people in those states that he can beat her in the states. john: it's all looking like an iowa race. if hillary clinton wins in iowa, she probably will be the nominee, pending some weird thing that would happen. if sanders wins iowa, he could win new hampshire and then it's all crazy. the question is, what is sanders' iowa operation like? what do reliable polls say? sanders has to show some life out there. these last polls put him way behind. i do not think anybody thinks he is that far behind, he has to be close. mark: big news from the white house. american special ops forces, fewer than 50 according to the administration, will be on the ground in syria for the first time to help fight isis rebels. press secretary josh earnest played it down, saying it is not part of a new strategy. paul ryan and lindsey graham already questioning this decision.

why is he putting the troops on the ground when he said there -- that he was not. john: because the situation is deteriorating. he is trying to get a handle on a deteriorating situation. i think republicans who claim it is too little, it's not part of a conference of strategy, they got a strong point. mark: i think the pentagon probably told the white house they needed this to make sure the airstrikes were coordinated. this move is not nearly as process. as the peace the white house needs to figure out with these discussions going on with john kerry -- can they live with an interim government? i think the u.s. is headed toward that and that will make the military stuff much less significant. john kerry has said there is no military solution. john: there is only a political solution. i think you and i have been seeing there is more openness in the administration, assad has to go, not right now.

let's get the stabilized and we can figure out the political in game later on. mark: there must be more special in that areoing secret. the price you pay for doing it versus the 50 -- the pentagon must have pushed hard to say, we cannot do what you're asking unless -- john: so you say 50 when you're sending 500. mark: i doubt it is 500. but a larger force. john: i think you are right. who will crawl out of our wadr crypt when we come back? stay with us. we will be right back. ♪

♪ [organ playing]

mark: our guest tonight is not the least bit spooky. it is ann seltzer, who joins us on a pilgrimage from the mecca right now. a lot of polling going on in iowa right now. mp and carson are ahead in the iowa poll. they are counting on bringing a lot of first-time voters. how does your polling pass the question of whether they can be successful? is it possible your polling would understate how they were doing because you are oversampling regular voters? ann: actually i am not oversampling regular voters. my poll is designed to show the science of rolling, everyone who shows up at caucus night has an equal chance of being contacted by my poll. all i can do is whether you are registered to vote right now. does that lose some people? there are people who register on caucus night.

you can be 17 and participated you're going to be 18 by november. but it is a pretty small sampled frame for the universe. mark: but in the universe that trump and carson are going for, like obama did, trying to bring in new people, many of those people are not registered. they may just show up on caucus night. is there a way to capture that? ann: there is not a way with my method to do that. i don't like feeling uncomfortable about my method. my goal is not to regret anything that we do. it is a small universe of people who show up on caucus night and if suddenly there was an influx, that would be problematic, but the campaigns are getting them registered ahead of caucus night. they don't want a big line of -- out the door. so, we are updating our list all of the time -- mark: so in 2008 when you are really close and accurate on tracking barack obama's progress, if you had called someone to poll them in 2007, they may not have said they were a voter and you would have skipped them. but later on --

ann: later on caught them. our polls show that 50% of the voters to show up on the democratic side were first time. that was an alarmingly large number. mark: what are they now? ann: 30% for both parties. as it gets closer, things get more exciting. it is in the candidates' best interest to have those people registered before -- mark: a as soon as possible. ann: if it is their first time, there is a big long line, they go home. john: there's a lot of talk about various lanes. the protest candidates, the grievance candidates, whatever you want to call them. right now in iowa pretty consistently you see that group, what ever you want to call them, over 50% -- carson, trump, fiorina. the establishment candidates get way less than 50% right now,

18%, 17%, under 20%. where is the establishment vote right now? are they undecided? or has the electorate shifted? ann: it is a little bit of a misnomer to decide you have two or three units. an establishment candidate, an outsider. we asked is there a greater risk to have an outsider who does not know what they are doing ? if you break those apart more, republicans, 60% said it is a greater risk to keep doing the same thing. in that since they wanted an outsider. trump and carson lead in that group and they lead with those who say the greater risk is having people who do not know what they are doing. people are not lining up the way that you might wish them to. iowa looks at everybody first. their job is to keep an open mind and try everybody on.

right now they are trying on trump and carson. that is not to say they won't change. john: sure, but have you thought about that segment of the electorate that is undecided right now? who are they? ann: it's not that big a group. 15%, 12%. who are the? y? they tend to be people who are not paying as much attention. they tend to be younger. john: establishment voters seem to decided between bush, christie, who that group is. ann: i don't have perfect data for you, john. mark: we talked earlier that marco rubio is the hot candidate. please spend some time in iowa but not as much. according to a reporter he has not built much of an organization in iowa. has iowa changed? is it possible to do well on caucuses without building an organization? ann: steve forbes tried to do

that. he did not do very well. he thought money would cure it all. we saw rick santorum who had a pickup truck and spent a lot of time and he did not have a lot of county chairs, did not have a lot of people who were, in the traditional way, organized. there are lots of ways to win the iowa caucuses. bet ifa more secure you have a good organization that has a lot of people that is , a persuasion events, that you are now committed to show up on that night in support that person, you will have more people show up on the night and support you. john: normally there's a relatively clear divergence between the iowa polls -- especially on the republican side, different electorate. this year it has been pretty close tracking between the two. do you think they will diverge, the national and what we see in iowa or will iowa reflect the , national mood of the republican party? ann: i wish i could predict how that is going to go.

what i see happening is more candidates are spending time in iowa, the more they are advertising in iowa -- and that is much less expensive than doing it nationally -- you will see who gets traction first. what we just outward to polls -- just solver two paul's that showed carson leading and it took a while before national polls began to reflect that. iowa is influential in a lot of ways. it is the most important thing a candidate can do is win. it is the first place to win. they will be spending their time there. i would not be surprised if national polls follow iowa. john: what about the democratic side? when people can't understand how sanders and clinton are so close -- it's interesting that the democratic polls are much tighter in iowa than nationally. ann: the warning i would have on the sanders side of the equation is he has very concentrated

clusters of supporters that only get the same number of delegates. the statewide poll is very bad it picking up that. it might look like he has more delegates than he will end up having. mark: ann selzer, thank you very much. when we come back, craig shirley, author of a new book. after this word from our sponsors. ♪

♪ [organ playing] moore: wait until you see what we do for arbor day. you might get a sense that the candidates for president really, really like ronald reagan. recently we were visited by one of the most prolific reaganites on the planet, craig shirley. his latest book is "last act," one of many books about ronald reagan.

so what sets the book of part? -- of part? apart? you have written many books about president reagan. what is different about this book? craig: it is about the end of his life. i was working on a previous book. my 11-year-old son mitchell was highlighting all of these binders -- binders of news clips and materials for the reagan library and he was supposed to go through it and every time reagan's name came up he was supposed to highlight it. my books of always been family affairs. my wife does all of my editing and creative input. my boys have done research and my girls have done fact checking, things like that. he says, dad, has anybody ever done a book about reagan after he was president? and i thought, no. i looked into it. realized he lived for 16 years after he left the white house. there was a lot of living that went on in the 16 years. john: talk about that. there are presidents now where the post-presidency matters a

lot. jimmy carter bill clinton, big , post-presidency's. what were the highlights of reagan's post-presidency? craig: reagan never use the word retirement. but i think he was tired. he was the oldest president. he left office and he was tired. there was no doubt about it. he needed to get back to california, get back to the ranch, recharge his batteries. he was active, too. he did not worry about his legacy the way carter did and others did because he left so popular and successful. lou cannon once told me he interviewed reagan many times, but reagan never used the word legacy. he resisted talking about it. his sense was the american people think i did a good job and that will be good enough for me. he was not upset. he did have a presidential library. he did two books afterward. he was knighted by the queen. london,re speeches in

there were speeches in moscow. he met with gorbachev three or four times. he was always active. he went white water rafting, blimp ride. but he also -- i think the way he compartmentalized his time in washington and put that aside, and his diary entry, his last diary entry says "going home to california, start of a new life." he was done being president and he was going to do something else. mark: one of the things that gets most discussed about this time in his life with the illness. craig: yes. mark: there has been debate about that, the trajectory of that, the timing of that. talk about the debate and what you see is the truth. craig: aides came and saw him for a years. there is a schedule, his diary, his letter rising. -- writing. to a person, all of the key people who were there, all eight years or part of the eight years

or the end of the eight years say that reagan was just as vital and active in january of 1989 as in january 1981. there was no sign of the alzheimer's. he went to the mayo clinic every year to be diagnosed for an , annual medical checkup, physiological, psychological, and he passed every year with flying colors. mark: when do you think it started to show? craig: mayo says the first detection of alzheimer's was in the spring of 1994, which would have been six years after leaving the white house. john: the way that they handled the illness, right, also became a milestone in a way, right? a lot of presidents had gotten ill, they could feel their -- they concealed their illnesses, nobody knew they were sick until they were dead. talk about the way that decision was made to bring the illness into the public. craig: he made that decision himself.

he wrote about it. nancy, breast cancer, surgeries, his own bout with colon cancer and things like that. they decided almost to the day he was told by the doctors, he sat down and wrote the letter to the american people. i think now the modern standard is always -- disclosure, absolutely. i don't think you can keep things from the american people. mark: our thanks to author craig shirley. his book "the last act" out now. we will be back with our thoughts from the iowa state fairgrounds and mr. donald trump after this. ♪

♪ john: we are live 24/7 on bloombergpolitics.com. on the two twice a day, but starting monday, we will be on for one full hour -- that's right. you asked for it.

you will have to deal with it. laura: our guest on monday will be donald trump and we will talk to him in central park.

announcer: "brilliant ideas," powered by hyundai motors. narrator: the contemporary art world is vibrant and booming as never before. it is a 21st century phenomenon, a global industry in its own right. "brilliant ideas" looks at the artists at the heart of this, artists with a unique power to provoke, astonish, and inspire. in this program, abraham cruzvillegas undertakes the prestigious tate turbine hall commission. ♪