you can safely surmise about christmas at the coach's house -- >> all the stockings were hung by the chimney with care -- >> reporter: jeanne moos, cnn. ♪ until all of the stockings returned ♪ and a quick note, we are off tomorrow and back monday, so we would like to wish all of the viewers in the united states and around the world, a very merry christmas and a happy new year. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the "situation room." "john king usa" starts right now. thanks, wolf. new warnings from the tea party, and other grass roots players who helped the republicans to the huge wins last month. now they are accusing the party establishment of ignoring them in the year-end congressional session, and warn that things better shift to the right in january. but don't count all of the republicans to listen. remember lisa murkowski who lost

to a democratic opponent, but then won in a write-in vote. and here is murkowski on sarah palin. >> well, she is absolutely wrong. >> you have the stay with us a bit to hear the question and what oprah thinks of palin 2012. and get this, the tea party is counting on rand paul of kentucky to shape up washington and give the democrats fits, but in the exclusive conversation with harry reid, we learned this -- >> i had dinner with rand paul, and i find him to be a very, very sincere person. i think that he is not going to be the flame-thrower that people think he is. >> leader reid talked strategy for deficit reduction and one of the biggest slash points of the coming year. so why is the right so disappointed this year, and are there clues in the disappointment of how washington will look and work in january. erick erickson is the editor of the con ser vative site

avalon.com, and kor dell boettcher. and i want to get to the grumbling, because you write this on redstate.com, from "don't ask, don't tell" repeals to s.t.a.r.t. and you name it, it was a party of capitulation, and it was about moving the senate gop right, and not moving the senate to the gop. this past week makes my case for me. you say that it is fighting except in odd circumstances, and it understands that mike lee, ranld paul, ron johnson and pat toomey and marco rubio are headed for the senate reins forments for jim demint. you think that the heart and soul will carry over into january? >> yes, it will. there are going to be a lot of fights where the right and the scepter line up perfectly, and a lot of the behind the scenes negotiations where they won't. i think that people should be

focusing not only rand paul for example in kentucky which is a tough seat, but focus on mike lee from utah who is moving his family to washington so he can be there on a thursday afternoon to object to the unanimous consents. it is a fight to be dragged out. not a bitter fight. you won't see the acrimonacrimo a lot of huffing and puffing and complaints along the way, and what you are going to see for sure though, and why i think that the republicans scrambled to fast to cut the deals they did at the end of december is because with ranld paul and mike lee and jim demint, and pat johnson and pat toomey, they will not compromise as much as olympia snowe and mitch mcconnell are planning for. >> it is not just mitch mcconnell planning for the arrival of the tea party senators, but jim demint knows they are coming now, and more conservative republicans to do more business across the aisle. i want you to listen to harry reid, because mitch mcconnell

said if the democrats don't like it now, listen to next year. listen to how conciliatory he is to mitch mcconnell and then what happens. >> i'm not going to be challenging what mitch said in whatever setting he was in, and other than to say that my conversation has been positive about the next year. >> and he will have in the caucus a couple of tea party members. ran rand paul, and you ran against him and defeated sharron angle and how much will that change leader mcconnell's job and how much presence that is in the senate? >> i had dinner with rand paul and i found him to be a very, very sin veer persocere person not if flame-thrower that people believe he is. and he is my neighbor, and my son and rand were friends and he is a fine man. >> and you hear about mike lee and rand paul talking to nice, and that has tho send up a

chill. >> well, that is what they are going to say, and wait until next year. you see a good cop, bad cop from utah and probably he will be staying to the right, so he can be the bomb thrower that rand paul from kentucky can't b and i suspect that harry reid is going to see something he doesn't expect, but what else do they say at this time of the year? >> well, john avalon, he is committed to reaching across the aisle, and whatever you think of harry reid, and the democratic aed just mea aed -- agenda, that is how is it going to be. >> well, the civility is suspect? well, that is what a vast majority of the people are sick of. we came out of the most productive lame duck, because the white house and the leadership realize the message that was sent and it is not a conservative mandate, but the need for checks and balances and showing that divided government does not need to be gridlock.

civil libertarians should applaud the eight republicans who had the courage to end "don't ask, don't tell," and s.t.a.r.t. treaty was supported by every living secretary of state, and they should applaud the 13 republicans on the other side of the aisle, so those who are calling them traitors f fundamentally misread the senate. >> and colonekocornell, you hav people who saw the rand pauls and the marco rubios and the mark lees and the pat toomey, and they are coming, but what about, they don't like to compromise to get, and you could make the same argument about the democrats after the obama victory, and head strong and we control everything, and governing is harder than campaigning. >> that is right. because when you start to govern in a way that is ideological and extremist, you will lose it, and you will lose elections. >> by 63 seats? >> yes, you will lose elections. so, you know, the flame throwers

and the fire throwers come n but when you look at the long span of the senate history, you know, flame throwers and people who are partisan don't get making big ways in the senate. it is problematic to come in and try to make big waves and it will hurt them politically. >> well, let's bring in our senior political correspondent ed henry, and everybody can get mad at him at once, and that is why, because we want to talk about the challenges going forward and he is not only with the president in hawaii, but got there early claiming that the exclusive white house correspondent, ed, exclusively. and so running up the deficit is easy and whether it is necessary or not, it is easy, but what happens next year will test the kumbaya spirit, because of the spending cuts. the republicans have said their budget will push for spending cuts, and they want deficit reductional which the democrats say is a priority, and do you put social security and health

care on the table, and maybe the president wants to talk about the broad tax reform, and the republicans do, too, but do they get along? and the president said he will fight for investment, and more research investments, and the republicans say no way, and of course, the republicans will deal with a house that wants to repeal health care. and so, ed, one of the reasons that the president wants to recharge is because he knows as good of a two weeks he had, it is going to be very, very different. >> it is, because, i mean, look, two big factors that helped the president get a lot of the victories in the final days of the lame duck. one, you had the fact that nancy pelosi was still the speaker of the house, so when "don't ask, don't tell" repealed the first time, they jammed it through the house. come early january, that not the case when john boehner is the speaker, and secondly, we all know once the members of congress in both parties started to smell the jet fumes and wanted to get home whether it was hawaii or ohio orr wherever it was, theyability withed to get out of tlo, and there is a lot of republicans angry thinking that too many of the

capitulated and gave into things like the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. the president will not have that environment, but instead, as you are noting the tea party and others pressing the new republican leadership, and they are the same players, but new power in the house, and new power in the senate to stand firm on the issues, and that could change the whole dynamic that the president had in the lame duck, john. >> so the question for all of us is what happeneds? the president had the debt commission, and the recommendations and no supermajority, and i asked leader reid, why not bring it to the floor and show leadership and bring it to the floor and test both parties. call the bluff of the liberals to vote to make them raise the social security minimum age, and also to raise revenues in washington, and reid said no, he does not like that approach, but go back to military base closings, have a commission who comes up with recommendations and bring it to the congress and vote up or down.

but leader reid said he is still prepared to do that. >> we have to belly up to the bar and vote yes or no, and we closed scores of bases. if we do it the same thing on the base closing commission, and the same type of thing as the deficit reduction commission, we will get it done. >> eric, the leader says we will get it done, but you know resistance in the own caucus to that, because it puts social security and medicare on the table, and what about the republicans if the issue between now and the next presidential election is a plan like that most likely would include a tax increase? >> well, first, i'm not sure i can process the question after looking at ed's shirt, but generally, you know, the republicans are probably willing to come up with something. a lot of them are like that and a lot of the republicans want a brak style commission on spending cut, but if they say, we want spending cuts and tax increases they may go with the

commission and vote down the recommendations, but harry reid raising that is a interesting twist, because thep republicans have said, that and much like the democrats using the payroll holiday in the compromise which is a conservative think tank idea and heading in that direction might work. >> and john and cornell, i want you to weigh in, but first, here is kirsten jigillibrand, and sh does not rule it out, but she is hoping as many politicians are hoping that economic growth will make the economic choices easier. >> the president has chosen pro growth policies that will make a difference. if you want to pay down the debt and reduce the deficit, the best way is to have a growing economy once again. >> you hear that john avalon and what they are hoping is that boy, by the time we get around to this, and we have had a couple of months of economic growth and more tax revenues coming into washington, and it is a hell of a lot easier. >> yes, i love to hear kristen

gillibrand talk about pro-growth tax cuts, but the brak style commission is a good idea, but that is the idea behind the deficit commission as well. and there should be ground to build on. the folks on the far left or the far right who rejected to the tax compromise hit on the deficit. the reality is that there has to be entitlement reform and spending cuts and some revenue increases. maybe that is done with tax reform that closes the loopholes, but people who are serious about the debt need to lead on it and the president needs to lead. he can pull a nixon on the china reform, and that will help him reduce the deficit and the debt, and seal the deal with the voters going forward. >> you belief he can do that where a tough election campaign ahead? >> yes, he has to. >> he has to and he will. by the way, it is also politically smart, because that is what the american people are looking for, and we are under the idea to not tell you all of the things that you want to

hear, and so the tough, centrist, and bipartisan leadership is exactly where he needs to be. there is going to be fighting on both sides of the ideological purists when you talk about medicare or social security or taxes. it will be interesting how the ideological purists will put taxes on the table like the tea party people. >> well, i think that they can find common ground of getting rid of the tax loopholes applying to the businesses and industries and start on that and move forward. >> and put the mortgage interest on the table, and everybody goes, ah! we will take a quick time-out and when we come back, we will not talk about ed's shirt, but we are going to talk about some of the year's most memorable political moments and when we come back, sarah palin, and oprah, you don't want to miss it. i would love to have been a musician but i knew that i was going to need a day job. we actually have a lot of scientists that play music. the creativity, the innovation, there's definitely a tie there. one thing our scientists are working on is carbon capture and storage,

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all right. this is more pop culture and fun than serious business, buzz oprah was a big player in helping barack obama, and so we will hear from her about sarah palin. and now, this is oprah winfrey in the upcoming issue of "parade" magazine and she knows tv and giving high marks to the reality show, and she says i don't know her, and i don't know about her campaign, but when i saw that first episode, i went, whoa, she is charming and very likable. but the question is, does she know politic, because she is asked about the potential palin

2012 candidacy for president, and she says, it does not scare me, because i believe in the intelligence of the american public. and erick erickson, we call it a dis. >> well, she is a supporter of barack obama, and i would be shocked if she says anything to support sarah palin. >> well, you know what, that was nicer than what most of the establishment republicans are saying about sarah palin. including, you know, saying some harsh things about her, and ed, our friend ed says she was not ready for primetime. so that is one of the nicer things said about her. >> yeah, i was surprised she was oso complimentary about the tv show, because that is an area she does know, and i was not expecting the shout out there, but when 6 of 10 americans say they won't consider voting for sarah palin, that pretty much, you know, it is over but the shouting. we will have fun covering the he

said/she said about it, but that is a definitive judgment from a very smart electorate. >> but is it a permanent determination, because as the president looks ahead and mr. axelrod goes back to washington, and right now, they are saying, we'd love to have sarah palin, and love to have her, because they see the same polling, but we went through an incredibly volatile election, where i'm not sure that the rules apply, and the country just elected the first african-american, and that in itself is saying, don't say it can't happen. >> well, you are putting the finger on why oprah winfrey said good things about the tv show, because obama intimates want to say, she is poplar and a great tv show, and i look at that with a grain of salt, because they won't to promote the heck of her, because people like david axelrod would love to see sarah palin as a republican nominee, but be careful what you wish, because, you know, vice

president joe biden said that on larry king live a few weeks ago that you never quite know what will happen in american politics and some democrats raised the eyebr eyebrows, but he may have been shooting straight on that, because the electorate is volatile and the democrats think they have a 60/40 election in their favor if sarah palin runs, but who knows, especially with a third party possibilities there, and we are a long way off. >> and can i jump in real quick, it would be crazy for her not to run, and erik agree, because she speaks to something in the grass roots of the american party that romney cannot speak to and jindal cannot speak to, and she would be crazy not the run. >> she speaks to something, but i am not sure it is exclusive to her, and there are others who say the same. but the grass roots out, there she would be crazy not to run, but that said, i remember a lot of republicans in 2008 encouraging people to support barack obama to pick off clinton, because he would be the easy guy to beat in 2008.

>> smart advice. mr. avalon, you want the last word? >> she is queen of the populous, but not only opolarizing in the populous, but in the republican party, and deeply polarizing and the american people made up the mind. her supporters love her, but the vast majority thinks that she is not qualified to be president. john, erik, and cornell stay with us, because ed henry has to shoot another episode of "hawaii", and some of the most memorable quote, and we have some of the staff, and contributors here, and one of the most fabulous contributors here, senator murkowski who defeated the tea party guy, and roared back. she is the new maverick gop. and romahm emanuel will be on t ballot of the mayor ballot in chicago. and who called rahm the great

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scott brown's election?

massachusetts was an early sign that 2010 would not be an ordinary political year. it was the rise of the tea party and the fall of the president's political standing and flatout amazing campaign. but first we asked the staff for their memorable moments and not the most important, but things that stuck out and made us laugh, smile, and maybe debate as a group. let's go through six of them here and we will play them through and then talk about them on the other side. number six, congressman joe barton in the bp oil spill, and tony hayward was in the ceo chair and joe barton apologized to him and then said this -- >> i'm ashamed of what happened in the white house yesterday. i think that it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what i would characterize as a shakedown. in this case a $20 billion shakedown. >> even tony hayward didn't know

what to say there. on to number five. well, five here, and it needs no introduction. christine o'donnell on the tv. >> i'm not a witch. i'm nothing you have heard. i'm you. >> didn't work out in the end, but it was a powerful ad. number four here, and this is early on in the year. and this is -- joe, story, four, if this video is right, it could be disturb, because it is from sarah palin's alaska and a memorable moment and a bit odd. >> it is coming, wait, wait, to take aim. and go ahead. [ gun fire ] >> there you go, baby! there you go. >> i got it. >> some people like that, and some people don't. sarah palin here again number three, and this sis an early moment in the tea party campaign and what she said here, like her

or not, framed the 2010 campaign. >> i have to ask some supporters, how that is hopey changey stuff working out for you? >> powerful message, and this is a reminder from a supporter directly to president obama that he has trouble. >> quite frankly, i'm exhausted. i'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, and defending the mantle of change that we are at. >> give the president credit for keeping the smile there. and as for covering the president for a long time and the president bill clinton for a long time. >> i am walkward that you leave me here all by myself. >> well, i will say that i have been keeping the first lady waiting for half an hour and i want to take off. >> i don't want to make her mad. take off. >> you are in good hands, and gibbs will call last question.

>> thank you. go ahead. >> i am surprise shed stid he i not there. mr. belcher, a moment? >> passing of the health care. and how many presidents have tried and barack obama and democratic congress got it done. history is funny, because it does not remember the battles, but the good from legislation, and history will be kind. >> excellent point. mr. avalon? >> well, after covering overheated hyperpartisan and in this some case hate-filled rallies, the jon stewart's "restore sanity" was a heartening moment where you saw a huge group of americans come out to cover the mall all with the message that you are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore and it was a good message after a long political season. >> mr. ericson? >> well, the glenn beck rally that was five times the stewart rally, and all of those supporters fired up -- >> erik. >> and the total meltdown on the

other network on election night, and that was hysterical to watch. >> that other network. okay. gentlem gentlemen, thank you for coming in. merry christmas to you, and for anybody out there watching, you, too. and a republican candidate who mounted a stunning comeback. in the new chapter, she wants to cast votes that make her tea party critics cringe. [ female announcer ] where are people with moderate to severe

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one of the more surprising players in this year-end lame duck sessions is of congress was to be one of the lame ducks meaning one of the lawmakers who lost and was not to be back. but after losing the primary to joe miller, lisa murkowski ran as write-in candidate and won for the first time in 50 years since that has happened. and her recent votes shows that perhaps the senate has a new maverick. she joins us from senate hill, because i suspect that when you

were a member of the leadership team, it would have been harder to cast these votes and one of three republicans to vote yes on the dream act to allow younger illegal aliens entering the country to be citizens if they go to college or join the military, and one of eight republicans who voted for "don't ask, don't tell", and now one of the republicans who broke with john mcconnell who voted for the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. are you liberated? >> i don't know that liberated is the word, but i certainly took a strong message from my write-in campaign in alaska. alaskans want to be heard on the issues. they don't necessarily want to be tied to a political label or party position, and if you look to some of the issues that presented themselves here in the lame duck, probably most notably was the tax package that president obama worked with our

leader on the republican side, mitch mcconnell to broker a bipartisan agreement that was very widely accepted. so, i think that was an indicator of hopefully things to come where we truly do come together on a bipartisan basis to figure out how to proceed and enact those policies that are good for the country. >> you casted it as a sign of hope to come, and i am sure you are aware of this, that the election is over, but the people who opposed you fiercely like the tea party thought that the tax package was not paid for and thought it should be extended termporarily and not perm permanently, and that you should hold out until the majority arrive after the first of the year, and they see this as a split in the republican party and establishment times that we will vote our conscious and we don't believe that bipartisanship or compromise is a bad thing against those who

say it is hell no parties. >> well, we should not get blocked into places where you must vote this way, but we need to sit down to figure out tow the deal with the difficult issues whether it is tax policy or what we are doing on the spending. we have enough that we need to do that we don't need to get weighted down in the partisan politics. coming out of the alaska election, that is what i heard loud and clear. you know, republicans clearly want to have their representative, but the people who have no party affiliation, and in alaska 54% of the voters choose not to align themselves with any structured party. so, they are saying, well, who is speaking to this sector of the electorate? why is it that we have to get so, so lined up on either side that never the twain shall meet, and that we can't get to where we need to get on policy?

this is where i hope to take things. >> i hear where you hope to take things and i wonder what you think it will be like when the new senator lee from utah comes, and rand paul from the tea party comes to washington, and will it be harder to get across when you have more republicans in the conference who disagree with you? >> i am not fearful of having people here who might not be in alignment with what i am trying to advance in alaska. our job is to figure out, again, how we get along. >> i want you to listen to the colleague, your republican colleague lindsey graham who was on the radio program giving his assessment of what happened in the lame duck session of congress, and from his perspective, it is not a good thing. >> when it is all said and done, harry reid has eaten our lunch. this has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn't have passed in the new

congress. >> lindsey graham right? harry reid eat your lunch? >> this is not a situation of harry reid eating our lunch. i think that there were some very, very strong wins for the republican side, and, again, i don't want it to be that the republicans gained, t two, and the democrats need three. if the ratification of the s.t.a.r.t. treaty is a way to make our nation safer, then, let's work to advance that. if -- go ahead. >> that is among the issues on which you have had profound disagreements and i know you think that we overplay this, but with the former governor sarah palin wrote online that she didn't believe that the treaty was in the best interests of america and it was rammed through using behind the scenes tactics that were used in the health care debate. is she wrong? >> well, she is absolutely wrong about the process, and if she had been here and a member of the foreign relations committee where that committee has been

working on this treaty for well over seven months now, and the time that it has been on the floor, and the nine days which is actually more than we typically have treaties on the floor, may seem like it is expedited, but in fact, this process that the senate has gone through to scrutinize this treaty has been one that is as good and sound as has gone through countless, countless hearings and debate and discussion. >> you have had an interesting year to say the least. >> yes. >> and when we talk about five weeks ago after it was clear that lisa murkowski's write-in campaign was going to win, and you were coming back into washington, i asked you about the intervention of jim demint who spent some money to help joe miller to win that race, and i talked to him and he said he had some making up to do with you, and this was your reaction. >> he has suggested that he has some making up to do. i will let him make that first

move. >> you been back a couple of week, and has he made that first move? >> we havean opportunity to wish one another well after the thanksgiving break, and shaken hands, but not a lot of talk about what is coming up in the next congress, but we have a lot of time to do that. >> do you view him as a force of good for the conference or rabble rouser? >> well, again, the media helps it, but when we try to create these personal divisions, this in-fighting amongst members, whether it is amongst thep republicans or the republican versus democrat, it does not help us within the process. as i mentioned, there is a whole new crop of incoming senators, and i welcome each and every one of them. i look forward to finding those areas where we can finding a greemt. i know that we are going to have our disagree emtdisagreements,

human nature and where we are from and who we represent, but to get down to saying he is not constructive or she is not helpful does not help the process. >> are you having any regrets of the republican party? >> no, no. >> lisa murkowski one of the more successful 2010s, and we will see you 2011. >> thank you, john. well, rahm emanuel got a big answer today, and the question, was he eligible to run for chicago mayor. and two of the most fascinating shifts, independent voters and senior voters. we will break it down. and when it does, men with erectile dysfunction can be more confident in their ability to be ready with cialis for daily use. ♪ cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day

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welcome back. we will check in with joe johns on the latest news that you need to know right now. joe? >> john, we now know why there are pepsi machines in teheran. the times says that over time, the treasury department gave kraft and pepsi and big banks special permission to do business in countries slapped with em bbargoeembargoes, and e

and now two notes were sent with bombs that exploded in rome today say "long live anarchy" and the bombs exploded in chilean and swiss embassies and injured several people. and the 747 dreamlines is being resumed with the testing. they had an electrical fire in the flight last month. and a chicago board of elections say that rahm emanuel is a chicago resident and h his name can go on the ballot for mayor even though he lived in washington, d.c. where he was president obama's chief of staff. so finally, that question asked and answered. >> well, asked and answered and if you can't cover politics in washington, well, go to chicago, because that election is in february now and you saw some polls in the recent days, and rahm emanuel the overwhelming

front-runner, and we will see if he can win. but even though he got the good news, you remember the hearings and the questions that the people were coming in and the critics are the ones who show up and he should not be here and he should not be here, and even today, as the good news was coming, there was more. >> he has no place being a candidate for mayor of the city of chicago in this election cycle. >> rahm emanuel is a great pretender. and he has hoodwinked and bamboozled the nation. he is a wicked individual, and ki say that, because i have witnessed this from his body language. from looking into his ice, which is the windows to the soul. >> wow. >> ouch! >> you know -- >> he does not say a word. rahm emanuel, silent. >> i have known him for a long time and you have to tip the hat to the point that we will let a

lot of people pick the mayor of chicago, but he remained stone-faced and kept the dream alive. >> well, good news for rahm. >> thank you, joe. >> thank you. >> one of the big shifts in the politics this year. we will look at two or three biggest shifts in 2010 and what do they mean headed forward to 2011 or 2012? i said "sure." "well, let's grow some algae." and that's what started it. exxonmobil and synthetic genomics have built a new facility to identify the most productive strains of algae. algae are amazing little critters. they secrete oil, which we could turn into biofuels. they also absorb co2. we're hoping to supplement the fuels that we use in our vehicles, and to do this at a large enough scale to someday help meet the world's energy demands. and to do this at a large enough scale three. two. one. ♪ don't cha wish your work phone was hot like me?... ♪ the droid pro by motorola knows you need business on the go. with its powerful 1 gigahertz processor...

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and when he's finally home... but hang on; just two aleve can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is steven, who chose aleve and 2 pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. this was an interesting year in politics to say the least. the republicans had huge

election gains because they enjoyed a huge intensity gap which means conservatives were more fired up to vote than the liberals. and that is a different trend. and from obama's landslide, it was just as pivotal to the republican insurgence, so as we close the year, what are the biggest challenges as we look forward. and we have the numbers crun crunched. i want to start with the voters in the presidential election, because president obama won colorado and virginia and what president obama did in 2008 and what happened in 2010, why? >> well, sol of it is >> well, sol of iolme of it is e distressed party starts to move out in wrong direction. some of it is turnout.

in a nonpresidential year to a presidential year, a lot of the voters were independent youth who voted for obama who did not participate in the election, but under the surface, it was a huge shift as you said. the democrats won by 18 point with independents in 2008 and we won by 19 points in this election, and quite frankly, up for grabs at this point. >> it has to worry you, because if you look at the historical data to the house races to 1998, close split, and 2000 and 2002 and then 2004 and then you win huge in 2008 and 2010, bam! >> we went to places in 2006 in places that made us scratch our head, and in 2008, quite frankly, a lot of us would say, we should have won that, because of the volatility in the electorate. you have the point to the independent voters swinging back and forth and they swung toward

the party in power with bush and then toward us, and they are the center of an anxious american electorate, and they are looking for the practical solutions. when the president stands up and says, you know what, i will cut this deal and be compromised, and you know why? because it is the independent voters looking for first and foremost bipartisanship, and they think that ed and i should get along. >> and we actually do. this is where i disagree with the president. the president said it is over frustrations of the economy. if you look at the election 53% who voted in the election for republicans said they were voting for the republican, because they liked the like th message. 30% to send the message to obama and the democrats in congress. when asked what was the message you want to send, it was 3 to 1 spending over the economy.

it was not the fact that the economy was not improving quick enough. and that's where you look at state after state if unemployment drops below 9%, spending becomes a number one issue. we have a 20-point advantage on it. the future has storm clouds for the democrats also in looking at this election. >> and both parties turn out the senior vote and if you look at 2010, a huge republican advantage. 2008, a relative split, 2006, 2004, slight republican advantage. why the big swing? can you write it off as a republican year? >> they are more up for grabs but they are growing as a small proportion as it grows younger disproportionately. i think the future for both parties, and it's going to be a task for both parties s. how do we compete for those younger voters that we know came out for barack obama who were not sort of this independent america but surge barack obama and he doesn't become president without

the surge. >> nice if if you're only winning or losing but all of a sudden they are a huge block and very important and, quite frankly, it comes down to one thing. it was obama care. while the -- many of the democrats like to point out that it's only a six, seven-point disadvantage as to whether you approve or disapprove of the obama care, the strongly disapprove is 40 to 13 and that's largely the seniors concerned over the cost of this bill to them and what it will be -- mean for their future. health care. it was very interesting in the campaigns and i worked in quite a few this year that every time the democrats talked about privatization, social security, all we had to do was say obama care and it popped right back. >> and actually that's a good point. truth of the matter is, you all did a marvelous job of scaring the heck out of seniors about what was in that bill. a lot of it you and i both know.

death panels for little old ladies. a percentage of americans still understood the crap out there. >> we had a tough roller coaster year. the approval rating has ticked up at the end of the year. slightly better shape than ronald reagan who went on to win in the 49 states. in the context of the new government, the republicans control the house, what's the president's challenge? >> i think his challenge is to find that bipartisan ground and look bipartisan. where independent voters -- you get any independent voters behind and they argue that they don't understand why they don't get along. if the president can stay in that bipartisan place while he's working and reaching across and working with republicans, he will be fine. >> do you agree? >> i do. except by partisan thip ship for the b the democrats have always made us do it our way. this is the thing i saw the

president doing wrong wrong and other presidents do the same thing, they walk out of the election thinking that the entire electorate agreed with them and they were smarter. i caution republicans not to walk away with the same example. we're not smarter than the other side. if we approach it that way, there road will be much better. >> they are not in love with either party. >> sober way to end the conversation. ed, thanks for coming in. to the holiday shoppers, time is running out. what do you do to avoid being the lame-duck gift give? if you haven't finished your holiday shopping, you're not alone. ugh, my sinuses... the congestion...

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well, i've got help for you here. pete dominic is an expert.

pete? >> oh, yeah, i would never wait until the last second to do my shopping, like many of the people that i met. christmas holidays motivate congress to get the last-minute gifts. take a look at this. >> hands off if you're doing last minute christmas shopper. last minute? last minute people? last minute christmas shoppers? >> we did all of our christmas shopping. >> when did you do it? >> about a month ago. >> did you get me anything in. >> i got a belt. for my son. >> you bought your son a belt? >> he's going to be stunned. >> thanks, dad. >> this is a kid of four lotions, hand and foot, big and small. >> for the wife? your wife has giant hands and feet? >> yeah. >> what are you waiting in the the last minute? >> just rotten. >> why wait until the last

minute? >> lies, lies, can you buy me a last minute gift? for my daughter. >> i've just run into santa doing his last minute christmas shopping. >> mrs. clause. >> what are you thinking for this year? what does she need? what does mrs. claus not have? >> she doesn't need anything. >> i'm french. >> you're french? >> yes. >> do you celebrate christmas in france? >> yes. >> you do? >> that's french for merry christmas. >> that's portuguese, right? >> merry christmas in dutch. >> merry christmas. mary