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.... .. ..... ..... .... .. ..... ..... .... .. it had the republicans trying to explain why this was one tax cut they didn't want. it's a small deal. it's not clear to me that president obama will be able to engineer circumstances this again as weme and go ahead. >> this is only probably a big pivot point for john boehner. we may not know it for a few months. his speakership will probably because they don't have anyone that the party and the house can rally around instead. gwen: not eric cantor? >> probably not.

the expression at the white house this week was that the speaker cannot deliver a pizza. they know now and i'm sure mr. boehner now knows that his effectiveness inside his own caucus is at an all-time low. that's not good on any front in 2012. gwen: one thing we know for sure is that everyone in the white house, on capitol hill and on the campaign trail, they're all reading tea leaves, all of them running against washington. >> i am an incredibly proud american. and i know something, america is not broken. washington, d.c. is broken. >> having spent my life in the private sector. i understand where jobs are created. >> let's be candid. the only reason you didn't become a career politician is you lost to teddy kennedy in 1994. >> we know the rubber will hit

the road in iowa in just over a week. how much is running against washington going to be helpful for people now trying to succeed, helene? >> i think it's going to be enormously helpful. i think americans right now are sick of washington. you look at the congressional approval ratings and they are -- they're lower than they've ever been. have people in polls saying they believe this is the worst congress in history and so i think that can help, which is really interesting. you hear the people at the white house talking about this, as well, and they talk as if president obama is not in washington, he's stoked up his outsider credentials and he's been able to do that because in some ways he's held some of washington at bay. he's not had relationships in washington which has hurt him when he's trying to get bills past and trying to do real negotiating but i bet you on the campaign trail we'll see president obama talking about

washington as this other being. gwen: i'm always amused about people running against washington who desperately want to get to washington and i wonder how they figure it out, especially if they're not speaking a language american voters want to hear. >> i think they're focus grouping this. the president will campaign on change again even though he's been on the white house for 3 1/2 years and the only way to do that is to make it seem that congress was the problem that needs to be changed. >> if you're looking back over the year the republicans have spent out there trying to unseat obama on the campaign trail has brought, it's a real mixed bag for robberies. think -- republicans. think about the conversations that party has had in the last couple of weeks and months. they're second guessing the the republicane party, such as u.s. involvement overseas, for years, not a

debatable point in the republican party. the ambiguity -- integrity of the federal reserve, not on the table until this year. newt gingrich made a ploy for rounding up judges. while trying to keep the focus on the government, they have managed to pull the conversation in this party much further to the right and i would guess so much for that even ron paul is to fight for his right to drink unpasteurized milk. >> and the president feels he benefits from that because to the extent that mitt romney or whoever the nominee is that pulls to the right, he think that improves his chance to appeal to those in the middle. >> to me, the underlying question is, have they timed it wrong, is the tea party over? there's a lot of polling that suggests americans have had time to look at the tea party, the candidate in this race who is the embodiment of the tea party, michele bachmann who invented

the tea party caucus, ain't doing so hot right now. >> and that, again, goes -- i don't mean to keep par paron parparrotting, you go too far and it ends up being so many are disenchanted. does that mean that the republicans are overreaching and they're disempowered or are the tea party more powerful? they're the ones that pulled john boehner this week. >> i think this is the existential crisis they face, they begin their second year trying to unseat the president. whether they can find a fom me to that can -- nominee who can unite the two wings, the tug of war has been going on all year. i think it's possible it may not be timed well enough to pull them back together. >> does that explain this interesting and weird precampaign year we've seen so far where every week on this program there's been a different front-runner and they've been up

and they've been down and the up usually corresponds with their outsiderness and the down, they take themselves down or someone else decides they're not the solution. whatever it is, a weak president and they can't settle unconventionally for republicans on a strong challenger. >> that's part of it but this is a pattern we've seen with a party out of power before. the true blue base of the party, whether republican or democratic base, has a kind of moderate choice in front of it. in this case, it's mitt romney, who, in a sense, is the establishment, the candidate. and that's not satisfying in the out year when you really want fundamental change, when you really want to do something radical. so you try each one on more size and it's a process of elimination. gwen: you go back over this year and a lot of things didn't happen and we got caught up in washington, some of the crazier things which lead to a deadline and then it falls apart or comes

together but there are big things that did happen not only here but around the world and you think to yourself, does anything that happened in washington speak to those issues, let's take them apart. michael mentioned a couple of them. one is the foreign policy issues. we have seen the rise and the, in some cases, victory of the arab spring, in some cases, not so much. in libya and egypt, yes. in syria, no. we have seen u.s. forces pull out of iraq but stay in afghanistan. we have seen the death of north korean tyrant who has been our enemy for his entire lifetime. do we hear any domestic conversation about it? do these events drive any of the conversation we've been having in 2011? >> not really, gwen. from my standpoint, the most theppointing thing about republican campaign as a foreign policy one is that there really hasn't been a coherent foreign policy debate here. there's been a series of attempts to take shots at

president obama, and at times that has put the republican candidates in paradoxical positions, in the case of newt gingrich, being in favor of intervening in libya a week before he was against intervening in libya. gwen: the president poked back at mitt romney by saying, ask bin laden whether i've been too easy or not. and to take an issue that should be core to most americans, afghanistan. how long are we going to be in afghanistan? what's the strategy going to be? mitt romney has answers, newt has some answers but you haven't seen a fully rounded debate on that. >> you just got back from afghanistan. are they having that kind of rounded debate on the ground? >> the military is having that kind of rounded debate because president obama has given them a set of deadlines and set of numbers. they're at 94,000 troops now. they're going to be at 68,000 troops in september of 2012 in the middle of the election campaign. they'll be at a smaller number

after that so they have to adjust. there is a robust debate on exactly what strategy you use and what number you get to. gwen: do we hear that debate happening here at state department or the white house or are they completely consumed with domestic re-election? >> there's definitely a debate at the white house particularly about afghanistan. there is a wing at the white house that thinks that even our aggressive pullout time table is not aggressive enough and there are people who are pushing for, come next summer, for president obama to come out and announce something even more aggressive as a pullout. they think the americans have completely lost their appetite for war and they look at that as an opportunity for president obama to reap political benefits in saying we're pulling out of afghanistan. when it comes to foreign policy, where he's on his firmest ground, when he starts talking

about what he's done in the past three years, he can stand up and you can hear him say, i've taken out more bad guys, ask osama bin laden if i'm an appeaser. he can literally say he's taken out al qaeda leadership in pakistan and afghanistan. so he feels he would be on firm ground there but whether that translates to the rest of the american populace, whether american voters are thinking that, i don't -- >> the polls show he's favorably viewed by americans on foreign policy and unfavorably viewed on the economy. gwen: except on iraq. it looks like it's crumbling. the moment we decided to leave and there have been critics, including john mccain, saying that is what would happen, the treasure we invested in iraq is falling apart because we pulled out too soon. does anybody agree with that? especially after a week like this? >> i think people could look at the events of iraq this week and say, yeap, i was right, we

theldn't have been there in first place because he's conflicts have been going on for centuries with or without american troops on the ground and other people writing this is the reason why obama was wrong to pull them out or pull them out so quickly but i agree the president has a very strong base right now on foreign policy and he probably has greater latitude to do things than he he did six months ago and you can see that in the way the republicans on the campaign and in congress talk about the president. at midsummer, they were talking about competence and management here in washington by the president. they are not talking about competence and management anymore. they are talking now, in mitt romney's case, about looking for the soul of america, whatever that means. that mean?does >> i think it's a different conversation that might be more cultural, might be more about mitt romney's view of the world. but not about competence, not about management. it's going back to ideology, i think. >> maybe on foreign policy. on the economy -- they're not going to attack him on foreign

policy because that's where he's strong but they'll attack him on the economy because that's where he weak. gwen: the attack on the economy, it could be broader than just what's happening here. we saw what happened with the euro zone, huge, perhaps with potential for huge ripple effects back home. do we see that and can it play a role in this campaign debate? >> definitely will play a role in the debate. we've written that it's unusual for a president to be reelected with such high unemployment. the president is hoping that the recent signs of favorable momentum in the economy will continue and people will think it's in better shape by the time of the election. the concern is, the shockwaves from europe, if europe continues to fumble, could disrupt our recovery. and the rest of the world is slowing down, too. china and the rest of asia are slowing down so it's a very uncertain things. the economy is uncertain but this time they really mean it so it's a tug of

war between the natural vibrancy of the american economy and does it get going again or is it once again pushed down by the events from outside. >> this is the one area that could really have a huge effect on president obama's re-election chances, on the american economy, and it's the one area where he has so little leverage. there's nothing he can do about it. he can run at merkel and sarkozy and call the europeans and say, we need you to be more aggressive but at the end of the day, they're doing what they're going to do and the people at the white house are really, really worried about that. he met with funders last -- fundraisers last week and they asked him, what are you most worried about and his answer was the euro. gwen: there are three constituencies out there who have expectations for 2012 -- the public, the partisan battlelers and the political candidates. what are their expectations, if you can find a way, doyle, toum up, and all of you, what the expectations are for 2012 in those constituencies?

i think the american people are still looking for answers to the right questions that the tea party posed. the american people do think washington is broken and they're looking for someone who's going to give them a convincing answer on why it's broken and how they're going to fix it and that one isn't resolved yet. that's what a lot of the campaign will be about. gwen: what about the political combatants, david? >> sure. i think the people, i was going to say, are going to ask, am i better off than four years ago. gwen: that question never gets old. >> right. and it's a great question to ask because people do worry. i think the political combatants are, as we talked about earlier, trying to figure out, how tough is this guy. we know president obama gives a great speech. but it's going to be a tough campaign. there's going to be a lot of money on both sides and i think people are wondering, he's never had a tough re-election in his career so this will be a real test. gwen: he's had charmed election campaigns.

>> haven't had that many elections. gwen: exactly. aren't the white house feeling good about themselves, feeling they've proven themselves tough in the latest big battle? >> today they are but as we know, washington is a sickle being and political fortunes can turn on a dime. remember how long the bin laden bounce lasted for president back in may, two or three days. but there is also a belief that this guy is about to face the fight of his political life. i'm actually really excited about next year because i think, as exciting as 2008 was to cover, i think 2012 is going to be huge, because i think most people assume that it's going to be a very, very close election and i think for president obama to pull it out, he's going to have to dig deeper than he ever has and whether he can do it or

not is going to be fascinating to see. gwen: i agree. and all the people running against him know that. the funders want is money, as much as they can get and it's really that simple. gwen: the funders? the combatants? >> yes. we'll see a huge amount of money. the president believes he can raise between $750 million and $1 billion. the republicans know they can not. a lot of it will be raised behind the scenes by secret groups. that adds another element thanks to the court case from two years ago that allows all kinds of groups to play in all kinds of ways in places that we'll never be able to keep track of and even already in iowa next week, the super pacts, the special groups, are spending more than the campaigns themselves. that will happen also on the democratic side so it's a circus and we can only see a couple of the rings. >> one of the rings is the supreme court scheduled to weigh in on hugely consequential

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