>> production assistance for "inside washington" was provided by allbritton communications and "politico," reporting on the legislative, executive, and political arena. >> excuse may. excuse me! >> this week on "inside washington," the adventures of herman cain. is mitt romney the inevitable nominee? >> we must show the world we can live up to our obligations. >> the european debt crisis and the occupy wall street protests -- is there a connection? don't we have a debt crisis of our own? >> i am more read you are going to fail the country.

>> barack obama as a populist. how is that working? >> it makes absolutely no sense when there is so much work to be done that they are not doing the work. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> last week you may recall that i began to broadcast by asking about the herman cain phenomenon. i asked if he was for real. here we are back again with more on mr. cain. according to a well-sourced "politico" report, he is alleged to have sexually harassed women in the 1990's at the national restaurant association. the women left with settlements after agreeing not to discuss the matter publicly.

>> i have never sexually harassed anyone, and those accusations are totally false. i am unaware of any sort of a settlement. i hope it was not for much. there was a financial settlement, and it was somewhere in the vicinity of three to six months' severance pay. >> that is the way it went all week long. we are hearing about a third accuser and a 45 at thousand dollars average -- $45,000 severance package. broadcast youek's want us not to count him out. i'm wondering if you are willing to repeat that again. -- 5,'s look at the count 6, 7, 8 -- we are about at 9. [laughter] >> how about you, mark? >> the evolving explanations or

a textbook example of how not to handle scandal -- get everything out quickly, is that by your original statement. this has been a disaster. they ended up by accusing one of their opponents, rick perry, and then saying is the left behind a whole thing, a la clarence thomas. they are pointing fingers but not explaining much. >> evan? >> it does not matter what we think, it is the voters of iowa. he might get away with this as a media elite lynching thing, but there are problems with that. one is that he has accused perry, a conservative, of leaking the whole thing. second, if he is going down, is because one of these women comes forward and says it was not just joking around. he invited me to his room. it looks like an actual overt

sexual pass. if that becomes the fact that she is out there saying that, where it counts with the voters of iowa -- that has not happened yet, but that would be the final straw. >> nina? >> watching a herman cain throughout this process, you knew there was going to be a moment where that you-know-what hit the fan, and this is it. his numbers have not gone down. i am not ready to write him off yet, because i don't see a commensurate drop in his support in the polls. >> people are donating to his campaign. the argument. i think it is going to catch up. there is a time lag here, and an impression that comes across. "politico," as i understand it, it gave cain 10 days to disclose the i -- 10 days to recall what

happened, to reflect on it, go to the restaurant association and ask them part, prepare for what was going to come. he has come out and given this evolving story. >> i'm really not saying he will survive this. i am saying that most people would have already had a calamitous reaction in fund- raising and in numbers. it hasn't happened yet. >> two things, just to reinforce colby's point. any republican you talk to, however they are backing, they at end with a conversation with "we have to beat barack obama." doesn't matter what candidate they are supporting. second thing is that he has used

what is one of the oldest tricks in the game, and that is instead of responding to the substance of the charge, i accuse the source. for those too young to remember, when joe biden was exposed in 1988 for having lifted entirely the speech of a british leader, labor leader, for his stump speech without attribution, the biden people and others in the press said it was leaked by the dukakis campaign. it was true but makes no difference where it came from. if the charge is true, the charge is true. >> who leaked to the story in the first place? he says is perry, perry's people says it is romney. >> that is beside the point, who leaked the story.

the question is whether it is true or not. going back to dan beat barack obama, ann coulter has a view on this thing, herman cain at versus barack obama. she reminded me of something that i thought was settled with the emancipation proclamation. she said, "our blacks are better than their blacks." i did not know we were still owned, but every day in every way i get smarter and smarter . she thinks that having herman cain up with barack obama, he is better. the next day she said, "because ours are more impressive." >> i do want to say good word about rick perry. he came out with what i said -- with what i thought was a cleverest phrase of the campaign, "are you better off

than you were $4 trillion ago?" >> but he is on a down slope. can he come back? >> of course he can. $17 million -- that is a trampoline. >> the reason why cain is in the ballpark and all -- he is not a serious candidate -- is because th nobody loves it romney. >> the president's philosophy and those of the people around and is extraordinarily miss eddy. they take their inspiration from those who believe government knows better than a free people. >> that is mitt romney at town meeting in new hampshire. he has been running against barack obama from day one, forget the others. friday's "washington post," columnist eugene robinson writes about the inevitability of romney. but he says, "is hard to see how

romney can win it either." who, mark? >> mitt is the prohibitive favorite, but there will be a stumble between now and the coronation if there is a coronation. this is never a direct linear experience. hey, don't count out the chubby fellow from georgia, the rehabilitated newt gingrich, carrying along a bogus iq and other baggage -- >> his numbers are coming up. >> never counted out his ability to say something completely outrageous that will get him in terrible trouble. he is as likely as herman cain to do that. >> there is a story in thursday's "washington post" that describes a meeting mitt romney had when he was governor of massachusetts with pro-choice people. "you need someone like me in

washington, because i can soften the the republican hard line on abortion, gay rights, the environment," so forth, colby. >> it paints the picture of romney that everybody is criticizing, who will tack which ever way he passed to. that is not going to go away. that will intensify. there will be a lot of instances of this. >> romney has been amazingly disciplined, and that his whole game here. everybody knows he's a flip- flopper. the question is if he does more flip-floping or reacts badly did he slipped in ohio if you weeks ago, he wasn't a great in the debate against perry. little cracks in his armor. his ability to take a punch and keep cruising along has been remarkable. he has got to keep atop. >> -- keep it up.

>> at the town meeting, he talked about the situation in greece, he said that if it comes to default in america, there is nobody big enough to bail us out. he is talking about serious stop. >> -- serious stuff. >> he is the grown-up in the room. he may be that ken doll grown up, but he is the ground up. and i think the way he has handled the health care flip- flop is it really masterful. the only way to describe it. he signed a bill in massachusetts that became the model for obamacare, and he found a way to navigate through those patrols without coming to a total shipwreck. been,ney's strategy has in my judgment, the wisest one. he has not gone after the president personally. it is always on policies. the others had been really, in

many cases, just in temperate in their accusations and indictments of the president. as a consequence of that, the white house, firing back as hard as they and ronnie, are making them the heavy in the drama between the two. the other thing he has not come up with yet is some sort of epiphany to explain why he moved from the positions you outlined to where he is now, beyond just political expediency. there has to be some personal experience he has gone through, moving from pro-choice to pro- life -- . >> i think he just needs to show she is steady. the election turns on middle- class, suburban housewives who are fearful. they want to see somebody who they think it is a steady and reliable and they can trust. if he can maintain his current persona -- he does that have to get into the elaborate explanations of why he was this or that. he ought to explain where he is

now and that ought to do it. . >> disagree. >> i am not sure i about that. -- not sure about that. >> it is no surprise we spent most of our conversation focused on strengthening the global economy. >> if italy were to default, it would be absolutely unsalvagable. >> we hear a lot about greece, but what happens if italy goes belly up? >> i disaster to hit it will drag in the united states in a big way. it will not be contained to europe. a lot of the american financial institutions will have a paper affected by italy going down, the french banks and all that. the theory is that because it is such a disaster, it cannot happen. that is the logic of this, that europe, no matter what, might let greece go away, but italy

-- whatever gets it necessary, they will prevent that. i am not sure its european central bank can save italy. it has the sense of a slow- motion car wreck, but it is just intolerable for italy. >> i don't think italy is going to go down to it has close to a balanced budget. it has a huge debt, and it has burlesque on a -- berlusconi, which is a big problem the immediate problem is in greece. as we sit here, we don't know what is going to happen in greece. >> can you draw a connection between the wall street protests, spreading across the country, and what is going on in europe? >> i can say that the street demonstrations in greece that a lot like the demonstrations here, but the causes are different. we would be a little stretched to draw correlations between the two.

what was interesting about greece was papandreou talked about having a referendum, and europeans let it be known that this would be a disaster, because the greeks will reject this package. and you will get out of the road. please, around on that so that we don't have a referendum. >> how do you convince people that don't want to pay taxes and don't pay taxes that it is time to pay in a society where the maximum social security payment is $40,000, as opposed to $20,000 in the united states? >> how do you convince a republican in this country that we ought to pay taxes? [laughter] >> same thing. >> political well. >> the only good thing about this crisis, and it will affect us no matter what, because europe is the biggest market for china, biggest market for us -- everybody is buying american

bonds. in a world of midgets, we are >> as you were saying.the >> we owe much to greece, from philosophy to democracy to drama. so much of our culture. but they have brought a free lunch to a concept that no one has matched around the world. that is painful. we ought to keep our eyes concentrated on the administration and the opinion in the democracy. >> several years ago they were way, way beyond their means. they had a tough time of reckoning, but had to come for it. >> at the beginning of this broadcast, i should a -- i showed a small clip of erskine bowles saying, "i'm worried it

will fail the country." where to they stand on this stuff? >> failure. almost sure bet that they will not get it done. the automatic cuts will be triggered, but they will be unwound by congress. nothing will happen in the wake of fiscal sanity between now -- >> and the election. >> the rating agencies will have no choice but to downgrade us if not only the committee fails, but we fail to allow the cuts to take place. the absence of political will in the united states -- why rate us as good paper when we don't have a. >> the cuts don't take place for a year and congress will figure out a way to wiggle out of date. >> the administration is trying

to get pieces of its jobs bill passed. >> i think this is important for 2012. that is where we are, quite frankly, on this legislation. as far as the debt reduction committee, i think that an analyst put it very well. we are now in the time of negative sum politics, where we had a fiasco in the summer about the debt ceiling, and it hurt the president, yes, but it also hurts the republicans. that is what the two parties are facing. it is going to heard both. -- hurt both. whatever deal they come up with, it cannot be fine-tuned. it has to be voted up or down as it comes out of the committee. i still think there is hope for action. >> it is interesting to watch the conversation.

the political conversation outside of washington has moved from the debt crisis to the income gap. what that means for solving the debt crisis in any immediate sense, i just don't know. >> the president as populist. >> if they will not act, i will. and that is why today i am announcing that we are actually going to expedite loans and competitive grants for new projects all across the country that will create thousands of new jobs for workers like these. >> you have president obama at the keybridge, connecting doors down and d.c. to arlington, virginia. he is going to order the transportation department to make the road and bridge repair grants. this is him as a populist. >> it is not going to hurt him,

but it is not going to win re- election for him. yes to win independence -- he has to win independents. the polls are showing independence is going two out of 34 republicans. -- two out of 3 for republicans. presumably he will tack back -- >> i actually don't agree evan with youagree. -- i think it is i actually don't agree with you, evan. i think it is working. when he tries to put together a jobs bill based on a tax on millionaires, it resonates with people. you don't want to be running against that. you don't want to be running against redressing some of this inequity to make jobs. >> those in key 12 battleground

states evenly divided between the president and mitt romney. >> i think obama is doing the right thing in the sense that he has a comprehensive package and he is going piece by piece, putting them on record, vote after vote after vote. you get a vote like the other day with 51-49, and it still lost because he could not -- >> the republicans say "we have jobs bills of our own and the democrats won't meet us halfway." >> it is all noise and chatter. i don't think has any impact on national politics at all. >> the fact that the president is running even it with anybody is quite good. congress gets a 9% approval rating, and as john mccain puts it, that includes blood relatives and staff. [laughter] that is about it. >> the unemployment rate drops to 9%, still leaving nearly 14

million people out of work to an awfully big rock to roll they'up the hill. >> this time next year -- i don't think we will. you will see gradual ever met. -- gradual improvement. >> voters in the battleground states are not happy about the direction of the country, and that is true in national polls as well the feeling is that the nation is in decline, that the kids will be worse off than we were. how do you run against that? do you run against that? . >> it is against the grain of america that we, my actual measurement, are the most optimistic people on the earth. it is the atmosphere, the environment of this campaign, that we cannot do what we used to do, whether it is building here state highway or whatever

else. it is a problem for the democrats more than for the republicans, because the democrats are the party of government. to the degree that government is seen as not working, being flawed and a failure, it does not hurt republicans at all, because they are the anti- government party. the democrats have to be able to point out that some of the things we do make a difference in your lives and make this country better, or else they are going to lose that debate. >> how do you stand in front of a bridge and say, unless we build this thing, the country is in trouble? the country that does not take care of infrastructure is a country that is in decline -- >> you take the measure of productivity, as the world and our -- world economic forum does, we are way down in productivity. we are watching countries like china and india, on a real strong. >> where is that "morning in

america"? where is the ronald reagan? >> it is hard to campaign on this, but we are making an adjustment to our new face in the world economy. globalization has affected all of us. >> reality is rearing its ugly head here? >> since ronald reagan, but really part of the american tradition, to say that america is the best -- >> american exceptional some. >> -- american at exceptionalism. >> that is a hard wired in american rhetoric. we are in a time when newspapers tell you the opposite, that america is in decline, measured many ways. >> newspapers themselves are in decline. >> that may add to the gloom. >> measured as so many ways, america is not in great shape politicians are stop with this upbeat rhetoric one of the

reality is different. the 2012 campaign will turn out whatever politician it figures out how to square that circle. >> as an old campaign war horse, let me suggest -- what are the greatest universities in the world? american? why does the world come here? we have the greatest universities. when somebody gets sick, why do they come here? we have the best health care. we have great stories from backgrounds, we are still the beacon of hope. you have to show success stories. >> steve jobs is america, bill gates is american. >> you cannot just do that, because people look at their own lives. you have to bridge over from what you are saying. that is the first paragraph. the second paragraph has to be "but we have lived beyond our

means for it too long --" >> there is a third part. this is what we now need to do to regain what we were. we need to do something about infrastructure, we need to do something about education so that our kids can be competitive in the 21st century. you go down that road and cite examples of where it could happen and individuals who are clearly doing that, and there is a political argument. >> the problem here is the complete gridlock of ideology. to do something, you have to do something. we cannot seem to do that i. >> we have to say goodbye. see you next week.