>> location, location, location. >> president obama heading to ohio. >> yeah, kind of a two for one. >> the president takes his campaign for jobs to a bridge in ohio and kentucky. >> it spans into two congressional leaders' states. >> in front of the brent spint bridge. >> this bridge is ke caig. >> 15 miles from house speaker john boehner's district. >> ohio is one of nine states that president obama won in 2008. >> directly across the river from senate minority leader mitch mcconnell's home state. >> now, that's just a coincidence. >> coincidence? >> purely accidental that that happened. >> try to draw a line in the sand essentially between himself and republicans. >> and i'm fighting hard to make sure that we get this bill passed through congress. >> i think everything is hard to solve with this president. >> but it's florida that has the republicans' attention. ♪ come to the florida sunshine tree ♪ >> another battleground state, florida. >> the two-man race in the sunshine state. >> romney leads obama.

obama leads perry. >> and governor perry, who's also, as you know, running for president. >> it's a low bar. but he has not met it. >> perry is up by six in florida. >> rick perry has surged to first place in the state. >> polls don't really mean very much. >> it's going to be rick perry the pinata. >> jon huntsman's got some traction. >> right. >> romney's naturally going to do better in a state like new hampshire. >> rick perry calling mitt romney obama light. >> we don't need to nominate obama light. >> i can't see anything which suggests it makes any sense whatsoever -- >> the difference between the republican nominee and president obama. >> thanks, sweetie. thank you, sweetie. ♪ orange juice with natural vitamin c ♪ ♪ from the florida sunshine tree ♪ ♪ he

it's florida week in the republican presidential primary. tonight, nine republican presidential candidates will debate in orlando, ahead of the florida conservative political action conference tomorrow and the florida republican party straw poll on saturday. the mitt romney and michelle bachmann campaigns say their candidates will not participate in saturday's straw poll events. but their names will be on the ballot. unlike its iowa counterpart, florida's straw poll actually has demonstrated some predictive value. it's been held three times in the past. reagan won the straw poll in 1979. george h.w. bush won in '87. and bob dole won in '95. all three went on to win the national republican nomination. a new quinnipiac poll that assumes correctly that sarah palin will not be on the ballot shows that amonged florida republican voters texas governor rick perry leads the field with

31%. mitt romney trails with 22%. the rest of the candidates all poll in the single digits. one asked if the primary came down to a choice between perry and romney, florida republicans prefer perry 46% to 38%. when republican and democratic voters in florida were asked if the general election came down to perry and president obama, rick perry, who called social security a ponzi scheme, trails the president 42% to 44%. mitt romney runs stronger one on one against the president, leading president obama in florida 47% to 40%. at the faith and freedom coalition rally in orlando today, the republican candidates reviewed how they will define their candidacies tonight. >> i'm proud to be the son of tenant farmers. and i can tell you one thing. i wasn't born with four aces in

my hand. we weren't wealthy in material things. but we were sure rich in a lot of other things. we were rich in spirit. we were rich in values. >> there are plenty of people who are running for president who are politicians. nothing wrong with that. but to beat barack obama and to get america back on track to creating jobs and having a strong, stable foundation that will rebuild our economy, i think it helps to have someone who's had a job to create jobs for the american people. >> president obama's approval numbers are at their lowest level. so we don't have to go to the side. we don't have to sit on the back of the bus in this election. we need to stand up and be counted and have a candidate this time that is a true social conservative that will stand for our issues. >> joining me now, former senior adviser to the mccain/palin campaign and newly appointed msnbc analyst, steve schmidt. thank you very much for joining us tonight, steve.

>> great to be with you, lawrence. >> steve, after that first debate that rick perry participated in, you told me here on msnbc that you thought the obama campaign after watching that first debate was hoping to get perry as a nominee rather than romney as a nominee. that florida poll, going one on one, perry against obama, romney against obama, bears that out. there's a very significant difference there. are voters going to start making their decision here based on electability, or when in the republican primary do voters start turning in the direction of electability? >> i think that as long as you see two things, polls that have rick perry ahead of mitt romney and polls that have mitt romney ahead of barack obama, you're going to see the romney campaign making a really big issue out of electability, saying that we're the stronger candidate in the race, that mitt romney's the

republican who can beat barack obama. and i think when you look at the florida primary, which is a big, important primary. it was four years ago, it will be very important in the general election, the single most important influence on that is the outcome of the new hampshire primary and the south carolina primary. and you saw polls today in new hampshire that show mitt romney gaining in his lead. and you show rick perry falling there. so i think the numbers in florida, lawrence, are an indication of what we're seeing at the national level, and we'll see in the debates going forward how rick perry continues to stack up. but for sure this is going to become an increasingly big part of mitt romney's campaign so long as we see numbers like that. >> does rick perry have to find a way to back off, to distance himself from his past statements on social security? >> i think those statements on social security, there's a strong case to be made that they render him unelectable.

and i think there's a strong case to be made that his statements on social security are enormously problematic in a republican primary. if you look at the migration into south carolina, the coastal areas, and horry county among northeastern retirees, and obviously you look at the retiree population in the state of florida, many of whom will be voting and participating in a republican primary, a debate about social security as opposed to the republican candidate going and being able to talk about economic growth, expanding the economy, keeping the focus on the president's economic reco record, republicans clearly want it to be the latter, not the former. so i think the social security issue is going to be a defining issue not just in our general election if rick perry were the nominee but i think it would be a big issue in the primary election. ? let's bring in editorial director for aol, huffington

post, msnbc, howard fineman. >> i'm glad we have steve on our side. we used to call him bullet during the campaign. >> we've got someone who can guide me through republican politics. i need a guide. howard, on social security, for the obama campaign, is it helpful to them to watch mitt romney basically complaining in effect, tonally anyway, as a defender of social security against rick perry? will that help mitt romney going into a general election against president obama, make it more difficult for the democratic campaign to say that this republican candidate is a threat to social security? >> well, i think mitt romney has to hope that. i'm not sure that the obama campaign would agree with that. in fact, i know they won't. i think for right now president obama can use all the help he can get in defending the idea of the usefulness of government. and to the extent that it's kind of two against one here, meaning

president obama and mitt romney against rick perry, that helps barack obama. but if mitt romney were to get the nomination, you can be sure that whatever comradeship there might have been will be over and that the obama campaign, led by david axelrod, whose nickname was ax, by the way, when he was consulting in his earlier days, will go after mitt romney should he be a nominee as a tool of the tea party, as somebody who really doesn't have any firm beliefs. they'll separate him from social security as fast as they possibly can. >> steve, i want you to listen to what peggy noonan said today in the "wall street journal" about rick perry's statement about israel. she said, "in his first foreign policy foray the gop front-runner looked like a cheap, base-playing buffoon. as i said, mr. obama can't win this election, but the republicans can lose it by being small, by being extreme, by

being -- are we going to have to start using this word again -- unnuanced." there's peggy noonan calling the leading republican presidential candidate a buffoon on possibly the single most important foreign policy issue for a candidate to get right, israel. >> well, the premise of the speech, of course, is that the united states is appeasing the palestinians in the same week where the united states government will be vetoing, you know, the palestinian aspiration for statehood. so you know, at a very basic level the speech made no sense. and i think that she has called that out. and there has not been great reaction to the speech. and as we move forward into the campaign, i think expectations will clearly, you know, continue to rise for governor perry to show that he is able to perform at a presidential level. and there seems to be universal opinion that he didn't meet the bar when it comes to that speech. >> howard, how does a mistake

like that get made? we kind of presume that there's enough talent on the bench in both parties staffwise for campaigns, that when it comes time for the candidate to give the israel speech they just take, you know, every, you know, boilerplate statement that works and has worked in the past, you plug it in there, you say it, you just try to sound credible saying it. how can you go this far astray? >> well, it's because rick perry deliberately doesn't want to be nuanced. he's proud of being unnuanced. he's beyond unnuanced. he wants to use whatever hot-button word he can use in any context he can use it. thus the use of the word "appeasement." which was not only an overreach rhetorically but missed the fundamental fact that barack obama was going to pull -- the president was going to pull the rug right out from under rick perry in a speech later that day. so it is -- i think it's partly that rick perry is running on

shock value rhetorically. he's done it from the very beginning. a lot of the tea party really likes it. they wear criticism from people like peggy noonan as a badge of courage. that works in some contexts. but it certainly doesn't work on complex foreign policy issues in general, and it doesn't work in the mine field of the middle east issue in particular. >> steve, let's take a look at what the polls are telling us about what florida voters are thinking about the issues. there's a quinnipiac poll that says they were asked is it fair or unfair to describe social security as a ponzi scheme? that of course is rick perry's term for it. 52% of republicans said it was fair. 33% of all voters said it was fair. obviously, there's a problem there in a general election in 234r0r flu florida with that ponzi scheme phrase trailing him around. how much of a problem does he have among republican voters in florida in a primary with that ponzi scheme label on him?

>> i think it's a big problem because, you know, poll numbers are moved by message and you're going to see massive amounts of advertisement that go after elements of governor perry's book. i suspect both from the romney campaign, maybe from other campaigns, and certainly from a group of -- you know, certainly from the outside groups. at the end of the day the question of whether there should be a social safety net, the question of whether social security is a good thing or a bad thing has been settled largely since the 1950s. there are debates about whether it should be reform, how should it be reformed. you know, those debates color -- you know, midterm elections, they color congressional elections. but at the end of the day what rick perry wrote about in his book seems to be on the far side of public opinion in this country. and i think it's going to be a very problematic issue for him as he proceeds forward in the general election. and i may add, you have a lot of senior citizen voters in the

state of iowa who are labeled as tea party voters who rely on and don't want tampering with their social security. and i think that as the debate begins to boom around this it's going to be a hard debate for him. >> howard, does rick perry have to win this debate tonight? he came out of the gate really running away with the polls but not running away with the debates. i think steve and i both scored romney as the winner of their first confrontation in a debate. does perry need a clean debate win somewhere along the line here soon like tonight? >> yeah, i think the expectations have risen for him, lawrence. the poll numbers bump up the expectations. the fact that he's now been in a couple. a lot of people thought he would fall flat on his face the first time he was out. he didn't. he did pretty well. better than expectations. he's got to keep meeting and exceeding expectations. i talked to top advisers in both camps about the state of play these days.

the romney people seemed very confident that over time rick perry's going to wear out his welcome, that he's not really ready for primetime, that he doesn't have the knowledge, he doesn't have the ability. they're pretty confident to the point of quietly being cocky. and on the perry side they're saying that mitt romney just doesn't have a message, he has no message, and so they're willing to go pretty far on the language that we were discussing because they're confident that romney just doesn't really stand for anything. those are the basic stances of the two sides. and if that's the case, you know, rick perry's got to put up. he's got to show that he does have a message. that it's clear and it's not sfrientin in frightening. and it's the kind of message ha can be a presidential run. >> steve, who of the also rans do you think might cause the most trouble to the front-runners on the debate tonight? mooishl michele bachmann, ron paul. >> well, any of them could cause trouble. but i think you'll see reliably going forward, you will see

michele batchmchmann constantly undermining rick perry from the right, trying to undermine his conservative credentials because she needs to do that in order to get some oxygen back in iowa. >> msnbc political analysts howard fineman and steve schmidt, thank you for joining me tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. >> thank you, lawrence. coming up, a look at what's possible for president obama in 2012 in florida. and in the rewrite tonight, a look at why they were protests against thetion execution of one of these men and no protests for the other one. ♪ i like dat

♪ ♪ i like dat, all right [ male announcer ] mio. a revolutionary water enhancer. add a little...or a lot. for a drink that's just the way you like it. make it yours. make it mio.

what can he do to win florida again? and later, levi johnston's triumphant return to "the last word." he's got a new book.

it is -- you're going to have to hear what's in this book. we're going to read it to you right here on "the last word." ♪ ♪ ♪ when your chain of supply ♪ goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there ♪ ♪ track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that ♪ hurry up no time flat that's logistics. ♪ ♪ all new technology ups brings to me, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪

president obama spent the day in john boehner's home state of ohio, where he pushed the american jobs act in front of an aging bridge that connects to mitch mcconnell's home state of kentucky. >> there's no reason for republicans in congress to stand in the way of more construction projects. there's no reason to stand in the way of more jobs. mr. boehner, mr. mcconnell, help us rebuild this bridge.

help us rebuild america. help us put construction workers back to work. pass this bill. >> the president also gleefully answered the republicans' accusation that his policy proposals are class warfare. >> they say, well, this is class warfare. you know what? if asking a billionaire to pay their fair share of taxes, to pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare, then you know what? i'm a warrior for the middle class. i'm happy to fight for the middle class. i'm happy to fight for working people. because the only -- the only warfare i've seen is the battle against the middle class. >> there will surely be more talk of class warfare at the

republican debate tonight in florida. president obama won florida in 2008 with 51% of the vote. he beat john mccain by roughly 230,000 votes. but it will be an uphill battle in 2012. the unemployment rate in florida is 10.7%. more than a point and a half above the national average. a new quinnipiac poll out today shows president obama's approval rating in florida at just 39%, with 57% saying they disapprove of the job the president is doing. and only 41% say he deserves to be re-elected, while 53% say he does not. joining me now is adam smith, the political editor for the "st. petersburg times." thanks for joining me tonight, adam. >> glad to be here. >> adam, is there any precedent in florida for an incumbent president with that kind of

polling, approval polling, turning that number around in a re-election campaign in florida? >> you know, i am not aware of any precedents coming back from that low a point, but it is very early. we're more than a year out. and it's worth remembering that as late as april 2008 obama was 15 points behind john mccain in florida. so he's certainly got a lot of time. >> now, florida gave president obama 27 of the 365 electoral votes that he won in 2008. when you look at the numbers that way, it looks like he can get to an electoral majority without florida. is there a possible obama campaign strategy that doesn't include florida? >> you know, the rule of thumb has always been florida is a must-win for the republicans. it's not really a must-win 23fo the democrats. obama, if you looked at the overall electoral map, he's got a lot of flexibility there. he could lose florida. he could lose indiana.

don't think people know that's in play. he could lose north carolina, virginia. he'd still get past 270 electoral votes. >> where are the areas in florida where you think the president could gain ground? certainly in the polling we were looking at in florida about rick perry, for example, and the social security issues, it looks like the president -- certainly if rick perry's the nominee would be able to gain ground on the social security issue in florida. is there anything else he could do there? >> you know, elections in florida really are won in the middle. and it's the i-4 corridor from st. petersburg to daytona, which is really the swing voter area of florida. and that's really where obama's in trouble. those approval ratings among independent and swing voters are just as bad as they are among overall. so he's got a lot of work to do in that range. there's sort of a myth from 2008 that he won with a really hyped-up base and an excited base. he really won because he won independents. he won independents by 7 percentage points. >> and i notice that the governor, rick scott, in this

poll is really in a bad a 37% a. he's a tea party republican type governor. 37% approval rating. a 50% disapproval rating. so the approval-disapproval we're seeing on those two incumbents, the president and the governor of florida in florida is certainly a bipartisan disapproval. it's not party-based, it seems. >> it is. and believe it or not, rick scott's actually come up a little bit in his approval rating. so now he just has lousy approval ratings instead of absolutely terrible approval ratings. >> and is there any indication that going forward that in general the -- there's a condition in florida that might change and might change the voting landscape? is there any hope for some sort of economic surge in florida that might be different from the national economy? >> you know, i wish i could say there was because we are really hurting in florida and the anxiety here is very, very deep.

you just don't hear a around in any significant way over the next year. so if there's hope for obama, like you were touching on, right now he's not running against a person. eventually he'll be running against a person, a mitt romney or rick perry, and it may than that person's unpalatable. >> right. adam smith of the "st. petersburg times," thanks for joining us on debate night in florida tonight. >> thanks for having me. coming up, for every execution in america there is someone who is the executioner, someone whose job it is to kill. that's a government job that we should not be trying to create. and troy davis wasn't the only person executed in america last night. and there was an execution tonight that you've probably heard virtually nothing about. that's in tonight's "rewrite." ns are spoiling our picnic. i know what works differently than many other allergy medications. omnaris.

omnaris, to the nose. did you know nasal symptoms like congestion can be caused by allergic inflammation? omnaris relieves your symptoms by fighting inflammation. side effects may include headache, nose bleed, and sore throat. got allergy symptoms out of my way. now life's a picnic. [ man ] omnaris. ask your doctor. battling nasal allergy symptoms? omnaris combats the cause. get omnaris for only $11 at omnaris.com. two of the most important are energy security and economic growth.

north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. at our kearl project in canada, we'll be able to produce these oil sands with the same emissions as many other oils and that's a huge breakthrough. that's good for our country's energy security and our economy.

tonight, alabama executed a man who killed a store clerk during a robbery in 1994. the third execution in this country this week. what happens to the person whose job it is to execute someone on death row? a former warden of san quentin who oversaw four executions joins me to discuss the people who do our killing for us. and this man was executed last night. why you didn't hear much about that. that's in the "rewrite." [ beep

ing ] ♪ hush, little baby ♪ don't you cry ♪ soon the sun ♪ is going to shine ♪ [ male announcer ] toyota presents the prius family. ♪ walk if i want, talk if i want ♪ [ male announcer ] there's the original one... the bigger one... the smaller one... and the one that plugs in. they're all a little different, just like us. ben and his family live on this block. ben's a re/max agent, and he's a big part of this community. re/max agents know their markets, and they care enough to get to know you, too. nobody sells more real estate than re/max.

visit remax.com today. it feels like help is never far away. it feels like you're protected against life's little mishaps. it feels like you'll make it home. that's what it feels like to be a member. do you have an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, or afib, that's not caused by a heart valve problem? are you taking warfarin to reduce your risk of stroke caused by a clot? you should know about pradaxa. an important study showed that pradaxa 150mg reduced stroke risk 35% more than warfarin. and with pradaxa, there's no need for those regular blood tests. pradaxa is progress. pradaxa can cause serious, sometimes fatal, bleeding.

don't take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding, and seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding like unusual bruising. pradaxa may increase your bleeding risk if you're 75 or older, have kidney problems or a bleeding condition, like stomach ulcers. or if you take aspirin products, nsaids, or blood thinners. tell your doctor about all medicines you take, any planned medical or dental procedures, and don't stop taking pradaxa without your doctors approval, as stopping may increase your stroke risk. other side effects include indigestion,stomach pain, upset, or burning. if you have afib not caused by a heart valve problem, ask your doctor if pradaxa can reduce your risk of a stroke. for more information or help paying for pradaxa, visit pradaxa.com.

at 11:08 p.m. last night this country's most recent death penalty debate climaxed in the execution by lethal injection of troy davis in jackson, georgia. most arguments raised against the execution of troy davis focused on the particulars of his case, the possibility of his innocence, the room for reasonable doubt. but there is another problem present in every execution that is usually ignored. and that is how can we as a society ask anyone to do this kind of killing for us? what are we asking of the firing squad that is still an execution option in utah? what are we asking of the people who deliver the lethal injections, the people who've done that 36 times this year?

no one wants to grow up to be an executioner. but someone does. someone somewhere in a kindergarten class in this country today is going to grow up to be an executioner. no one hopes that for any student in any american classroom today. no one wants that. we don't know who the actual executioner of troy davis was last night. that information is not released. that person lives with this knowledge, goes home with this knowledge, goes home to his or her children with this knowledge. what are we doing to those people? joining me now, jeanne woodford, the executive director of death penalty focus, which opposes capital punishment. she is a former warden at san quentin prison in california, where she oversaw four ex-koougsex

executions. thanks for joining me tonight, jeanne. >> thank you for having me. >> tell me about this job. we have a job in this country, a government job in this country, executioner. we keep it secret. we don't want people to know who it is. it's a combination of shame and the safety of the person, but we do after the execution, we send that person home from their government job to just deal with this. who are we doing that to? what are we doing to those people? >> well, i think that it's a very difficult job. and you know, i describe this job as starting far before that night. i ask people to imagine waking up in the morning and going to work 30 or 60 days prior to an execution, and that is about when you know there's going to be an execution. and you go to work planning to kill a human being. and you go to work to practice that and to plan for that. so it has an impact far before that night. and certainly it has an impact after the execution.

>> and do we have any programs that deal with what the executioners go through? this is not easy for them. even if they think it's easy for them, they are suppressing all sorts of feelings and have to manage all sorts of feelings before and after the fact. what treatment do we -- counseling of any kind do we provide for them? >> well, i can speak for this state, california. and in this state we do provide pre and post counseling for everyone involved in the execution process. we really do try our best to help people through the process. and i want to tell you that for all intent and purposes it is the warden who is the face of the execution. it is the warden that people believe carries out the execution. and that is done to protect the staff who are involved in the process. >> exactly. and we protect it because we're

at some level not proud of what we've done. >> well, i think that's certainly true. you know, many people don't want their families to know that they're involved in this process. they're concerned about what their children might think of them. and i don't -- i agree that it often doesn't hit people right after the execution and sometimes it's years later. and i do know that it has an impact on people. and that is why i'm with death penalty focus, seek to abolish the death penalty in this states. >> when we think about the inhumanity of the death penalty, we ignore the people we're asking to do this for us. >> we are ignoring the people that we ask to do this. and is it right to ask a public servant to kill out -- the killing of a human being? in my mind it is not. and certainly, i have been involved with capital punishment for over 30 years. so i know it from all points of view. not only are we causing harm to the staff, but i do not believe

that it brings any kind of remedy to the victims' families. it is a costly, ineffective process. and that's why we're going forward to try to end capital punishment in the state of california. >> jeanne woodford, thank you very much for joining me tonight. and thank you for the work you're doing. >> thank you so much for having me. coming up, the execution of troy davis drew an unprecedented amount of media attention. but where was the outrage over derek mason, who was put to death in alabama just over an hour ago? that's next in the "rewrite." e ] cut! [ monica ] i have a small part in a big movie. i thought we'd be on location for 3 days, it's been 3 weeks. so, i used my citi simplicity card to pick up a few things. and i don't have to worry about a late fee. which is good... no! bigger! bigger! [ monica ] ...because i don't think we're going anywhere for a while. [ male announcer ] write your story with the new citi simplicity card. no late fees. no penalty rate. no worries.

get started at citisimplicity.com. she won't eat eggs without hot sauce. she has kind of funny looking toes. she's always touching my hair. and she does this dancing finger thing. [ male announcer ] with advanced technology from ge, now doctors can diagnose diseases like breast cancer on a cellular level. so that women, like kristy's mom, can get personalized treatment that's as unique as she is. [ kristy ] she's definitely not like other moms. yeah, my mom is pretty weird. ♪ my subaru saved my life. ♪ i will never forget that. [anncr:] love.

it's what makes a subaru... a subaru. you feel it working, so you know it's working. and that means you're good to go, for whatever the day brings.

new crest complete. unlike ordinary toothpaste, you feel a deeper clean. it's a signal that tells you your whole mouth is clean. you're also protected. because most of life happens outside the bathroom. feel it working, know you're covered. with new crest complete, life opens up when you do. this is not how witness protection works! when we set you up with that little hardware store we didn't intend for your face to be everywhere. but fedex office makes it so easy. not only do they ship stuff, they print flyers, brochures -- everything i need to get my name out there. that's the problem. now we need to give you a third identity. you're paul matheson. and you're gonna run your business into the ground. erik gustafson would never do that! there is no erik gustafson. hey that's erik gustafson!!! there is no erik gustafson!!!!! [ male announcer ] small business solutions. fedex. solutions that matter.

time for tonight's "rewrite." america had its annual media spasm over the death penalty yesterday, and now it's back to business as usual. at 6:49 p.m. central time this evening in atmore, alabama derek o'neal mason was executed. and no network shifted to live coverage of the event or even bothered to report it. no coast-to-coast expressions of outrage. there was no argument over derek o'neal mason's guilt or innocence. he confessed and was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt

of the execution-style shooting of a convenience store clerk in the store that mason was in the process of robbing. before shooting 25-year-old angela kagel in the face twice, derek o'neal mason forced her to take all of her clothes. how am i doing on eliciting your sympathy for derek o'neal mace snon how about outrage over the death penalty? i know what you're thinking. you're thinking derek o'neal mason is not the case to use to build outrage over the death penalty. nor is the case of lawrence russell brewer, who was executed at 6:21 p.m. central time yesterday in huntsville, texas. many of you will remember his crime. he was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the 1998 hate crime murder of 49-year-old james byrd jr. lawrence russell brewer and two

of his friends chained james byrd to the back of a pickup truck and then drove along a bumpy asphalt road at 2:00 in the morning. they drove for at least three miles with james byrd dragging 24 1/2 feet behind them at the end of that chain. six hours later, when what was left of james byrd's mangled body was found, the sheriff who found him at first thought he was looking at animal road kill. lawrence russell brewer's execution yesterday passed virtually unnoticed by the national media at the very moment when they were covering minute-by-minute developments in a possible stay of execution for troy davis. which was then followed by troy davis's actual execution at 11:08 p.m. in jackson, georgia. many death penalty protesters were heard on this network and others all focusing on the injustice being done to troy

davis. but the legendary civil rights hero dick gregory, who has been protesting the death penalty longer than anyone you heard from yesterday, was not one of the voices of protest heard in that coverage of troy davis. yesterday dick gregory was in huntsville, texas, protesting the execution of hate crime murderer lawrence russell brewer. dick gregory knows that there will always be unjust executions, there will always be some executions of the innocent as long as there is a death penalty. dick gregory knows that as long as you protest the death penalty only, only when you think it's being applied against an innocent man or if you protest the use of the death penalty only because you believe there is reasonable doubt and you don't protest the cases where there is no doubt, you don't

protest tonight's execution of derek o'neal mason or yesterday's execution of lawrence russell brewer, you are in effect saying there are right and wrong ways to administer the death penalty and we should just do it right, it's all we have to do, just do it right. but as long as we have derek o'neal masons and lawrence russell brewers, we are going to have troy davises. the death penalty is a human system created by human beings, run by human beings. that means there is human error built into it. a human system is not capable of perfection. government does nothing flawlessly. government cannot flawlessly kill people. if you give government the power to kill people, you are giving government the power to make mistakes, killing people, and government will make those mistakes. the protest against troy davis's execution was the largest protest against the death

penalty in 11 years in this country. in those 11 years we have executed 672 people, including derek o'neal mason earlier tonight. no more than one or two of those executions a year got national media attention. this year 34 people were executed in this country before troy davis, including lawrence russell brewer, who was executed three hours and 47 minutes before troy davis, over the protest of dick gregory. you couldn't stop troy davis's execution by just protesting troy davis's execution. the only way to stop troy davis's execution is to stop all executio executions. if you're outraged at troy davis's execution but weren't bothered by derrick o'neal mason's execution tonight in

alabama, weren't moved to protest the execution of lawrence russell brewer last night, then you're sure, you are absolutely sure to find yourself outraged and protesting another execution. maybe not for another year or two. but surely another one will come along where you're convinced that the condemned man or woman is actually innocent or at least had a grocery unfair trial that leaves any reasonable person with reasonable doubt about the guilt of the person to be executed. if you save your outrage for that execution, if that's the next one you're going to protest, then you will probably have troy davis deja vu. the time to fight that next unjust execution that's going to happen in the next year or two is right now. ♪

♪ [ dog barks ] [ birds chirping ] ♪ [ mechanical breathing ] [ engine turns over ] ♪ [ male announcer ] the all-new volkswagen passat. a new force in the midsize category. ♪ your core competency is...competency.

and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm getting an upgrade. [ male announcer ] as you wish, business pro. as you wish. go national. go like a pro. now through january earn a free day with every two rentals. find out more at nationalcar.com. a network of possibilities... ♪ in here, pets never get lost. ♪ in here, every continent fits in one room. it was fun, we played football outside. why are you sitting in the dark? ♪ [ male announcer ] in here, you're never away from home. it's the at&t network. and what's possible in here is almost impossible to say.

despite 72% of republicans saying they do not want sarah palin to run for president, sarah palin's political action committee is at it again. they're teasing her supporters with a potential palin 2012 run. the des moines register obtained a fund-raising letter sent tuesday that reads in part, "governor palin is on the verge of making her decision of whether or not to run for office. someone must save our nation from this road to european socialism. do you think it should be governor pail snlin in if so yo send your best one-time gift to sarah pac today to help her elect more common sense conservatives and show her that

we support her if she decides to run. >> we have new guidance here at "the last word" on the future of sarah palin. in the just released book written by her almost son-in-law, "deer in the headlights: my life in sarah palin's crosshairs," levi johnston writes about sarah palin as governor of alaska. "i hate this job," she used to say. "i could be making money instead." joining me now is friend of the show levi johnston. making money is what she's up to, right, levi? >> that's what it's all about. >> that's what i've been calling all along. i've been saying no chance of running for president. she's making money. this is working for her. and to make more money she wants to tease people into thinking she's a factor in presidential politics. >> definitely. as long as she can milk it, you know, make people think she's going to run, she's making a lot of money off of it. >> that's it, america. case closed. levi johnston says she's not running for president, right? it's ridiculous. >> yeah. i mean, there's times i think

she will. but the more i think about it, i just -- i don't think she's quite dumb enough to try. >> now, last time you were here you were, speaking of dumb enough, thinking about running for mayor of wasilla. >> yeah. >> did you smarten up and rethink that? >> you know, yeah, i actually smartened up real quick. after they started throwing all the books and everything at me. you know, i quickly realized that i was not qualified for it and, you know, in years to come i might try it but as of right now -- >> let someone who desperately needs that, you know, do that. and besides -- it would cut into your nightclub time, this mayor thing. you don't want that. >> yeah. >> now, normally, when we have book authors on the show, we frequently will read passages of the books. but i realized you're here, you can -- why not just let you do the reading? can you do this passage here that gives us a little bit of a flavor of what your life was like in and around the -- >> i don't have to read it out of the book. i can just tell you.

>> why don't you just read that passage so viewers and book buyers will know what they're in for on this book? just the highlighted piece. >> that night sarah went out to a meeting. we were upstairs in sarah -- or bristol's room, when todd's diesel truck came up down the driveway. so we decided to chance it and take a shower together. >> it's in the book. >> you would pick this one. >> it's in the book. >> we heard the truck came come down. i was sham haoing my hair with one hand and hers in the other. as we pulled our clothes out of a pile on the floor i tried to make it downstairs before he got inside, but it was slow. we listened to todd coming through the open -- coming in and opening the fridge. then i heard the creak in his recliner. when i snuck on my cap and we rolled downstairs, i had to look like most obvious perp in

wasilla. bristol's dad was asleep. we were more careful when we went to sarah's jacuzzi. >> we can cut it right there on the jacuzzi. thank god for that recliner, huh? he would fall asleep right away. once you heard the creak in the recliner -- >> we knew we were good. >> you knew minutes away he was going to be snoring, right? >> that or watching a basketball game. >> levi, this was risky business for you in that house. >> it was, yeah. i mean, that -- i could have been dead right there. >> okay. so what would todd have done if he caught you? is he an angry guy? dp does he have a temper? >> well, i imagine if i had a daughter and i'd come home and the boyfriend -- >> wait a minute. if levi johnston has a daughter, if he comes home to that scene, isn't he going to be a little more understanding since he lived through that himself? come on. >> no. >> no? >> we'd be out back, i think. >> now, this is a little part that surprised me here. if you could just read that highlighted section there.

>> "i'm the one," bristol said. who should be having the baby. not sarah. the palin kids call their parents todd and sarah. bristol looked at me, "let's get pregna pregnant." that's it. >> yeah, that's it. that's how it happened? >> that's pretty close. you know, we had talked about a baby. after sarah got pregnant, had trig, that's when it really -- we really started going for it. >> but didn't you think, wait a minute, i don't have the income for this, how are we going to -- i mean, no thinking at all? >> i'll tell you. i started thinking it didn't work because, i mean, it hadn't happened yet anyway. so i was just young. i didn't -- if it happens, it happens. >> you had run the risk before? >> yeah. we had. yeah. and i mean, it never happened. so i was like, you know, i was young, i was like whatever, let's -- let me tell you, it happened real quick. >> but now that you are a father, there's nothing to regret. when there's a baby there and there's a kid in your life,

there's nothing to regret about that. >> nothing. trip being born was the happiest day of my life, and i wouldn't change it for anything. >> and if we sell enough of these, "deer in the headlights," on sale this week, we've got a college education right here. >> college education. i can go back home and get my pilot's license and become a guide in alaska. >> what are you doing? tank is here tonight. he takes you everywhere you go in new york city. he's there with my guy anthony, who takes me everywhere i go in new york city. i told anthony to find out from tank where you guys are going tonight so we can all hang together. where are you going after the show? >> i don't know where we're going. >> all right. i'm following tank. levi johnston, thank you very, very much for coming back and joining me this evening. you can have the last word online at our blog, thelastword.msnbc.com. you can follow my tweets, @lawrence. a special edition of "the last word" is coming up at 11:00 p.m. tonight. "the rachel maddow show" is up next. good evening, rachel. >> good evening. i know tank and i know antny