questions. tonight, i want to ask and answer a few of these tough questions. it's a fitting tribute to people like jerry and richard holbrooke and chuck. they liked to pose difficult questions, and then push us to answer them, and in richard's case, that meant even following me into a lady's room in pakistan one time. [laughter] as we live this history day by day, we approach these questions with a large dose of humility because many of the choices ahead are honestly not ours to make. ..

at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: at the table, molly ball, national political reporter for the atlantic. " -- guest: thank you for having me. host: we want to get to one of your recent pieces. "religious right still lacking a champion in 2012." what is going on? guest: when you think about the evangelical community, the republican party is a key part of the base. recall how important they work? this time around, there is not a candidate that they feel that they can rally around. in a lot of ways, they are

frustrated, dissatisfied. they do not like the tone of the discussion around immigration. the leaders of the christian right are still not sure what they're going to do. host: what might they do in the year ahead? do they come out? coalesce? of what do you see happening? guest: this particular leader that i spoke to, richard lamm, insists that they will come out and be motivated, because they are -- because they want so badly to defeat president obama. but that negative motivation is different from a positive motivation of having someone that you actually want to vote for. the question is -- will they come out or stay home? before they became politicized and activated in the 1990's, with the christian coalition, there was a strong feeling that maybe they should not be

involved in politics. that may be their religious sphere was not the sphere of government. they may retreat back into the private sphere. host: the phone numbers are on the bottom of the screen for our guests. molly ball, a national political reporter for "the atlanta," here to take your calls on politics. there is this headline as well, molly ball. there is a new poll that shows mitt romney is electable, but that many republicans are still hesitant. more hesitancy in the party. they are saying that he has a significant advantage over the rivals except in that one area, collectability. what does that mean? guest: i find this very interesting on the campaign

trail. activists, the electability means something different to them than it does to the pundits. there is a feeling that mitt romney is the most electable candidate. he matches well against president obama, but many republicans and do not feel that way. they want a champion who is as angry as they are about the situation in america, about president obama. in someone like mitt romney, they see someone who is too much like obama to be elected. host: according to this poll, the best chance to be obama, mitt romney has 33%, herman cain has 21%. you can read more at "the washington post."

a little bit more story. herman cain was all the rage in the news last week, continues to be headed into this week. "the new york daily news," has this, "slip showing, sexual harassment scandal." they write that it is great -- cutting into his popularity. another one says, in "usa today," that he has raised $2 million amidst this uproar. guest: i am not sure of that particular poll is reliable. i believe that it is an online poll. but i think we need to look at more polling to see if there is a trend in his support. but there was a knee-jerk reaction amongst supporters to rally around him and take his side against what they saw as a hit on him by the liberal media.

also, it is important to add that we do not know if that fund raising is real or not. the claim from his campaign is that we have no way of checking on the exposure to find out how much money these candidates are raising. host: also in the post, in the obama tenure, a resurgent wall street thriving under the president. what might that kind of headline mean to the gop field in the broader race? of guest: on the one hand, the financial industry does not seem particularly grateful for what has happened to them under the broader administration. certainly, they turned against him in terms of the general sentiment of a lot of the donations. i think we are going to see wall street being the big villain in

this coming election. we are going to see democrats working to associate the republican nominee with wall street, whether it is mitt romney with his past in the financial industry, or really any other republican candidate that is the line of attack. the extent to which obama distances himself from wall street, it hurts him in some ways in terms of fund-raising and his friendliness with the establishment, it might be a good thing for him in terms of being elected. host: first guest, virginia, good morning. thank you for waiting. caller: good morning [no audio] our god given freedom, our right to life, liberty, and the

pursuit of happiness, as america should be, not as aggressive as want it to be. progressives are worse than liberals. they want to tax and spend you into oblivion. thank you. god help america. host: a strong voice. guest: that is one view that we have heard a lot of. a very strong anger in a lot of votes moving against obama. host: an interesting piece, "christian politics makes unholy alliances." about a professor in -- written by a professor in georgia.

guest: farewell, i would guess that i would say to the writer, good luck with that. politicians talk about these things because they work. you can decry it as a way to manipulate people or a play on tribalism, but politicians will seek advantages wherever they can find them. host: florida, independent line, good morning. caller: what do you mean when you say christians? the only presidential candidate that i see with religion is what

we all want. not just questions, we all want that, in obama. i do not see obama doing anything wrong. the united states was messed up when he got in there and i think we're better than we were then. why not keep him in there doing that job? guest: it is important to remember that the religious right, which consists mostly of evangelical christians, particularly older evangelical christians, is a distinct part of what we could call the overall christian vote. people that identify themselves particularly as born-again christians, not all types of questions, although many catholics are also in that very conservative bloc. there is a younger generation of evangelicals and many of them are more liberal than that older cohort, caring more about

environmental issues, helping the port. -- poor. obama mobilized many of those voters in 2008. in the past they have remained aggressively secular. he did have some success with those voters. i think that we will see that the evangelical vote less monolithic as time wears on. host: adding abortion to all of this, "the wall street journal," brings this back up as a headline. host: first, there is a new dnc

advertisement out regarding mitt romney and abortion. here's a look. >> under the constitutional amendment would you establish life as the moment of conception? >> voters will vote for a candidate in a key position and specific issues. one issue that has become controversial, the personhood amendment. >> i could have died because of my ectopic pregnancy. with him in place, i would have died. >> absolutely. host: the gop and abortion? guest: this will be taken up tomorrow, the declaration of a

fertilized human egg to be a person with all of the rights that a human has. this is something that will probably pass and has a lot of consequences that we do not understand, even with an anti- abortion activist communities there is a division over this kind of approach, with some groups thinking that may actually backfire. it is definitely going to be litigated. when it goes to the supreme court, there is a fear that they will lose and it will set back because of trying to outlaw abortion. host: may, good morning. guest: good morning. -- caller: good morning. why do you think that the christians so badly want to beat the president? he has done more for this country than any other president. i do not understand that very

well. i want to see what your answer is. thank you very much. host: something that you want to tackle, molly ball? guest: an interesting question. there has been a long history of very religious people being associated with the republican party and the right. not only on issues like these very divisive social issues, abortion and gay marriage, but also on economic issues. i think you would have to do some real parsing of historical trends to sort that out. that is something where, as you mentioned, even in an election that is focused almost entirely on the economy, these things almost always come out. candidates are always called to account for where they stand on these issues. particularly when they go to iowa. there are activists that demand to know where the candidates

stand on these divisive social issues. even in an election that is supposed to be about other things, we find ourselves talking about this over and over again. these are emotional issues that always turn into hot buttons. host: troy, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. the young christians, without exception, young christians are going to go for ron paul in this next election. she is right about different issues being important to us. like the environment. we are concerned about the gsa growing. camp trails over every state. -- chemtrails over every state. that is why from paul is our candidate. host: what do you think? guest: ron paul has been trying

to aggressively court the christian vote in this election in a way that he did not do four years ago. his campaign has run advertisements talking about him being pro-life. seeking to position himself as being more in tune with the social issues rather than emphasizing familiar hobbyhorses that we hear from him all over again, like hard money and the fed. we are still seeing that, despite the money he has in this campaign and despite his more professional operation, he has a hard ceiling where he pulls better than other candidates but is not able to break into that top tier, where he is actually giving romney a run for his money. someone like herman cain has a more conventional set of issues. host: mitt romney, rick perry, here is an ad from the former massachusetts governor.

♪ host: there is that immigration issue, coming up again. guest: it will become a point of contention between the parry and romani. but perry, despite the way he has fallen off the map, is still the one that mitt romney is attacking, not herman cain, who actually competes with them in terms of numbers. because rick perry seems to have the money and professional operation to have staying power

if he can come back with voters. also because his only hope is to be the conservative alternative to mitt romney and immigration is the one issue is where mitt romney is to the right of rick perry, so he is seeking to paint creek perry as too liberal. host: john, independent. caller: the country keeps talking about jobs, jobs, jobs. jobs are not coming back to this country. you and i both know that. unless the people in this country started working for $4 an hour. there is no reason for big corporations to big jobs -- bring jobs back to this country when they can go to libya, china, indonesia, mexico, and pay labour whatever it is -- $1 per day, 50 cents an hour. there are no jobs left in this country. topiclet's stick to the

at hand. caller: obama is correct, this is class warfare. people are saying that he is wrong. it is class warfare because everything is slanted toward the rich and corporations. people have forgotten that eight years under the bush administration, they collapse of the economy. obama took over with a collapsed economy under unprecedented conditions. eight years under the bush administration, he gave big corporations their own way. the result was a collapsed economy. host: the collapsed warfare argument came most recently from the speaker yesterday during one of the sunday shows. that idea of class warfare, a plug that into the race at this point. guest: recall that he explicitly said that this is not class

warfare. democrats are accustomed to this attack on them and are trying to turn it around. a familiar refrain every time that something is introduced. particularly taxes on the rich. we see in polls that there is generally overwhelming support for requiring the rich to pay more taxes. but, republicans have had a lot of success in turning that around. including class warfare that it's essentially on the american feeling that we are not the kind of society where these classes war against each other. we are not europe. we will see. i think that the caller hit on the key issue for the president. can he convince people that he is going in the right direction with the economy and that is not his fault? we have seen a lot less invoking of the bush

administration as they realize that even if people still blame bush for the state of things, they are tired of having that brought up and they want discussions on progress. back to rick perry. here's a look at his advertisement. >> if you want a slick person with advertising skills, we already have that. he has destroyed the economy. i am a do'er, not a talker. we cut a record $15 billion from the state budget. they say that we cannot do that in washington. they are wrong. they need to go. i am a carry and i approve this message. -- i am rick perry and i approve this message. host: what does he have to do to get his numbers up? guest: show that he can be as convincing in purpose -- in person as he is on camera. we have seen very erratic

performances from him when he comes on live. when he is on screen like that, he can be exciting, energetic, and convincing. but in other settings, like that strange speech that he gave in new hampshire, he just is not on all of the time. even if voters are not looking for what he calls a slick talker, they want someone with a know who he is an to can perform, to some extent, and be convincing. host: one last call from jerry, democratic line. huntington beach, california. caller: thank you. the republican party seems to have a tendency to nominate weak candidates, like bob dole and john mccain, as well as others. i think that they will do it again this time. the only one that i would

consider voting for would be ron paul. but we will not get a chance to vote for him. host: what are you looking for this week? guest: this is a point in the primary where you have a sense of despair in the field. this is true for both parties. no one looks good. everyone is afraid that they are picking up everything. host: we are joined by molly host: we are joined by molly