looking at them on television, and you see everybody has dreams and everybody has the capacity to get close to those dreams, anyway. and there are some remarkable examples of some schools whose children have performed very well in extremely poor areas. there's a public high school operated by the kip group in one of the poorest counties in arkansas, in the heart of the mississippi delta. virtually all the kids on subsidized meal programs, all from low-income families, and in the state test that we give every year at the four4th, 8th, 11th grades, they rate second of all the high schools in the state on performance of the 11th grade test the year before last, because they lived in a culture

that understood what their obstacles were, and they built in both high aspirations and a system to allow the young people to achieve them. but on the whole, would we do better if the poverty rate went down and poor people had a way to work their way into the middle class? you bet we would. would we do better if young people could see their parents toiling away at work and know they were being rewarded for it? of course we would. >> i was talking this morning about the famous recorded phone call between your predecessor, lyndon johnson, and the late sergeant shriver. shriver didn't know that he had just been hit by a bus. johnson calls him and says, on top of running the peace corps, guess what, it's your lucky day. quote, i want you to fix poverty in the united states. lbj back then, 1964, thought it was possible. he went to his grave thinking it was possible. the new numbers, mr. president, fully 15% of our fellow

citizens, a 52-year high, living in poverty. as someone who's had that job, who's sat where lyndon johnson was sitting when he made that phone call, that can't help but let you down from time to time. >> yes, it does, but let's go back to the conditions of the '60s. the economy in the 1960s had a very low base unemployment rate. so when lyndon johnson looked at the poor, he could believe it was because either of their race, most of them were african-americans then, the mexican americans in south texas where johnson grew up, and rural whites in places like appalachia, the ozark mountains in my home state, who were far away from the center of any economic activity.

and then things began to change. in world war ii to 1980, the bottom 90% of americans claimed 65% of the national income, the top 10% got 35%. that was enough equality to build the world's greatest middle class, and enough inequality to encourage people to work hard and award them for innovation. it made it work. in the last 30 years, those numbers have changed a lot. the bottom 90% have gone from 65 to 52% of the national income. the top 10% have gone from 35 to 48% of the national income. the top 1% have gone from 9 to 21% of the national income. and so there's not as much to go around. now, we were beginning to reverse that in my second term, when the labor markets got so tight, for the only time in 30 years, the incomes of the bottom 20% of workers, in percentage

terms, rose as much as the top 20%. you have to create jobs, you have to provide a path from poverty into the middle class, you have to support parenting and work at the same time. i think one of the reasons that we were able to move, we literally had 100 times as many people move out of poverty as in the 12 years before i served and the 8 years after i served combined. and i think one of the reasons was that we cut taxes on lower income working people -- wait, wait. we cut tax on lower income working people and we supported working families. i worked very hard on education policy. and because of what happened in the economy, a lot of that is not remembered, but i've often asked myself, when we had eight years of rising s.a.t. scores, and we reached a 30-year high in s.a.t. average in 2000, how much of it was due to poor families

becoming middle class families and giving their kids the time, giving their kids the support, giving their kids the aspirations that they need? it cannot be an excuse not to make every school better. there are just too many schools that i've seen -- i've spent a lot of time back in the 1980s, and thomas jefferson junior high school, which is about a mile from the capital, it was built and launched when ulysses grant was president. it's a very old school. when i was there, they had an african-american principal who was as tall as i was, a woman from south louisiana who didn't let any of the kids go in the front door. they all had to walk in a side door, so she could physically touch every child. they had a building maintenance person, one guy took care of the whole building. you could go there without notice any day and sit down on any floor and eat breakfast. and they had a culture that

worked. when i moved to harlem with my office, i went to the frederick douglas academy, a public school, very close, and i looked at the culture that works. at the 98% on-time high school graduation rate, 98% of the kids going on to college, an extraordinary percentage of those kids finishing. so i still believe, yes, i think we need an economic strategy which lowers poverty and swells the middle class again, but all of us who care about education can't wait around for that, because all these kids, this is the only life they have. this is the day they have. this is the year they have. this is the future they have. and you have to do the best you can. >> there was a -- in light of all the good works you've been doing, in light of all the good works so many of the people in this audience have been doing, we have, as is often the case, we hear great things from people who come to this conference, people in the audience. and one participant asked this weekend, why do our kids have to

rely on philanthropy and these huge donor pledges to fix our public education system? why can't that change come from within? and my subset question to you, mr. president would be, if i gave you the u.s. education system as a lump of clay, especially where funding is concerned, how would you design it from the get-go? >> well, let me answer the first question, and then i'll answer the second question. you shouldn't have to rely on philanthropy, but right now you shouldn't be ashamed to ask for it and to seek it. because look what's happened. we have -- some time, i think in my second term, we finally got a school population bigger than the baby boomers. and for all of you that worry about america's long-term debt, that should make you feel good, because it means social security is going to be about a 25-year program, after which the demographics will level up again and it won't be as big a

problem, the retirement. but a relatively -- in spite of the high home ownership rates, a relatively small percentage of the parents, compared to the '50s and '60s and '70s, were homeowners. and therefore, were direct property taxpayers. so it became more and more difficult to pass school millage rates in a district where you didn't also have a lot of parents who were property taxpayers. then we got a lot of embedded costs in our tax system that we hadn't fully re-examined. and the whole thing is crazy. if you think about the states have constitutional responsibility for education, and many places, the local government's paid for most of it, and they're supposed to have local control, and the federal government zooms in with 6 or 7 or 8% of the total, whatever it is now, maybe it's a little

higher, designed to help specific problems, and now, since we went for the national education goals, at the end of the first president bush's term, we've been work on trying to lift the overall quality of education. this is a -- if i were doing it again, what i would i do? if we were starting from the beginning. i would fund the schools at the state level, so you could have equal funding. and then i would permit school districts a very limited millage option, if they wanted to do extra things in their schools. and i'd leave the property tax for true local government. so that would correct a lot of these problems. if i were starting all over again, that's what i would do. then, on the -- at the national level, i would try to convince the american people that while

some -- a lot of local control is a good idea, there are differences from district to district. differences from school to school. and all the most successful schools have a good principal, good relations between their principal and the faculty and the parents and a definable culture, a clearly definable culture. we're in a global economy, and i would start with the national education standards, which we almost developed in my second term, and then there was kind of a bipartisan resistance to it in congress, even though i took it out of politics, the process, on the theory that i was interfering with the states and the localities. i just talked to my old friend, michael cohen, he's been working with this on me for 30 years, i guess now, and he told me that the national governor's association, the national association of the achieve's state school officers and achieve has developed a set of

national education standards and 45 states have tentatively agreed to implement them. i would start with that. and then, if i were starting again, i would have a longer school year. and give more time on task. i would have every school open after school and on the weekends. we had no federal funding for that when i became president and we were sporting somewhere between $1.3 and 1.6 million kis in after-school programs when i left. i think that is really, really important. a lot of this is just time on task. particularly for kids whose first language is not english. a lot of this dropout rate is caused by kids reaching the eighth grade, and if they don't read well and can't assimilate the learning material, then why stay? it's boring. you can't learn. why -- if you show up for school and you feel like a failure every day. and i would re-examine the

administrative superstructure of education and the allocation of funds to all the various things, putting a first priority on instructional materials and teacher pay. if i were starting again, that's what i would do. >> what about the competition base of something like race to the top? i think the race to the top is basically a well-conceived program, starting from where we are. but if you -- you asked me if i started from scratch, everybody would be involved in a race to the top from the beginning. if you look at -- that's a little country, a little country like finland, it's easy to say, that's one of those nordic countries, they're all the same ethnic group. that's not true, there are 40 or 50 different ethnic grown ups in finnish schools. but it's the most admired profession in the country. all the new teacher -- ten

applications for every one teacher job filled. all the teachers graduate in the top third of their class. they work it out so that the system works for them. and, you know, i think that's got to be a big part of this. but i like race to the top. the problem i have with no child left behind, even though i thought it had -- first, it had more money, which was good, and it had the idea of accountability, which is always good. but the way it worked, it could only really help the schools that were, let's say, in the lowest 5 or 10% performing schools. and i felt it had a requirement for too many tests. and i'm not against tests, but when i was governor of arkansas, we actually were the only first state in the country to have an eighth grade exit test. you couldn't go to high school unless you passed the test. but we gave the test at the 4th, 8th, 10th, and 11th grade.

not the 12th grade, like the new york regency exam, because i wanted to still be able to do something if there was something wrong with the kids. and i tried to mirror what the international statistics showed, that our children, even with all their diversity, are more or less nationally competitive at elementary school. there's a definable gap by middle school that widens into a chasm by high school. so i figured if we tested at those levels and used that to try to improve instruction and supports, that we might figure out how to eventually close the gap. if i had to start from the beginning, i would do that. race to the top, i think, is very well conceived, and i think it's because arne duncan was a school superintendent. i don't think this is rocket science. i think the guy had actually been out there in schools, knew how it was doing and what was going on, and i like it. >> probably didn't hurt that his mom was an educator too.

i know you're fond of the kip program. love it or hate it, no one forgets the first time they walk into a kip classroom. added to that, you're a musician. you must have thought you'd died and gone to heaven when he first with witnessed kip in action. >> well, i like the charter school idea, because a lot of people have forgotten this, but i remember when i was -- this weekend will mark the 20th anniversary of when i started my campaign for president. we're going to celebrate down in little rock. i can't believe that. i used to be the youngest person doing whatever i was doing. one day i woke up and i was the oldest man in every room. i have no idea how it happened. but anyway, there was one charter school in the country in minnesota. and only two states had even authorized them, but it struck me as this was a much better deal than the voucher program

because the vouchers would take a relatively large amount of public money to help a relatively small number of students. so i though this was a way to get some competition into the public school arena. now, the only place i think the charter school movement hasn't succeeded is when there hasn't been sufficient accountability about whether their charter should be renewed or whether they're taking all the kids they should take and, you know, all the things that have been said about that. but the kip schools have worked, and they have a definable culture and they spend more time on task. i'm really old-fashioned. i think it matters at how hard you work at something. so it's great. you mentioned the music. i wanted to say one other thing about that. one of the roles that i think philanthropy could play that would be uniformly positive, is that a lot of these schools that are really strapped for cash have had to scrap their physical education programs, their arch

programs, and their music programs. and with america's number one public health problem being childhood obesity, i think it's a mistake to get rid of physical education. and my foundation's out there trying to help all these schools improve their meals and all that. but there is a massive amount of brain research, which shows that we do not all learn the same way. and that when you take out the arts and music, when you take that out of the curriculum, you're also diminishing the ability of a significant percentage of students to learn science and math and technological subjects, pause they get it in a totally different way. and i noticed the governor of oklahoma is on your panel, these a-plus schools in oklahoma, you ought to look at them. they're all in low-income areas and they're all performing above the state average in oklahoma. and they just perform -- they just formed an alliance with the

biggest foundation in my native state, arkansas, founded by my best childhood friend, in honor of his daughter, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver on her way to get an award from the mothers against drunk driving, a national award, ten years ago. but they put all these arch programs in the schools, and every place they to it, the scores go up on the s.a.t.s. the scores go up in math. the scores go up in science. so that is a place, it's a definable area, where it's legitimate to ask philanthropy to go in and do that. either to fund these programs or to stop the parents of low-income people having to come up with fees for their kids to participate, which is a wider and wider thing in america today. >> final question, mr. president, you, more than most folks in this room, have this incredible perspective on the

globe, given your travels, on this country, all of it thanks in large part to your work these past few years with cgi. where do we fit, vis-a-vis the world? we keep hearing about china. we keep hearing about things like our poverty issue. things like education, in terms of the national security risk it poses. in terms of losing our edge in competing in the global economy you've been talking about for years. where do we stand? sum it up from your perspective as we thank these fine folks for coming. >> well, it's a bad news/good news thing. we'll start with the bad news. every year, universities all over the world compete in solving computing problems. the last time i saw the competition, the highest-ranked

american university in the competition was the university of illinois at champaign urbana, which gets the westing house science scholars every year. very impressive. but they ranked 16th. and there were two russian and two chinese universities that were in the top five. in the recent global ratings of, based on selective tests around the world, kids in shanghai did very, very well. and i will say again, i believe -- i wouldn't be spending all my time trying to help haiti and africa and poor places in latin america and east asia if i didn't honestly believe that ability and effort are more or less evenly distributed and aspiration if they're structured right. but some 24 years ago, when i was still a governor, obsessed with all this, i saw a study

done or reported in the publication of the woodrow wilson school at princeton. on the performance of various students by ethnic group in new york city schools. and, you know, the asian kids did the best, but the most interesting thing was that the researchers spent lots of time on this and they concluded they did the best because their parents believed that what they learned was a function of effort, not a function of their ethnic or personal or family superiority, and that it was their job to organize that effort so that it would produce the desired result. a couple years later, right before i left the governorship, there was a study of freshman at cal berkeley, showing that the asian kids were doing the best and trying to analyze why, the

researchers concluded it was because they grew up in a culture where they were not ashamed to admit they didn't know. and they studied together. and they found that all these first generation striving, hard-working african-american kids were actually spending more time in the schoolbooks than the asian kids, but they were overwhelmingly doing it alone. so they then organized group study for them, and there was almost no difference than in their learning manifestations. so what does that tell you? a couple of things. number one, it tells you something about the way washington ought to work too. all this rhetoric about the government being evil and all taxes are bad, conflict is good politics, i guess. it seems to be, anyway, from time to time. and it makes for more

interesting news coverage for brian's ratings. and one of the reasons i really respect nbc news is they're doing things like this on the news. they're trying to educate us about what works. and i'm just telling you, they're -- and some people were saying, i wonder how much market share he's giving up by telling us a happy story, with actually useful information. cooperation works better than conflict, in the real world. and we need victories in the real world. you look at all these schools that are working, definable cultures of cooperation work better. that's the first thing. the second thing is, it works better for poor people who are trying to work their way into a different future. and so, that's the first lesson you should draw. the second lesson you should draw is this. the education problems we have are a manifestation of two things. one is something we should be proud of. we still, our country is open to

everybody. when you're trying to teach a school, a classroom full of people who come from all over the world and they come to you at different stages of development with different kinds of problems, it presents a whole different set of challenges. but the other problem is one that in different ways is now being faced in europe. and in a completely different way in japan. poor countries, like poor people, need systems, which can organize their abilities, their aspirations, and their efforts. rich countries have those systems, that's how they got rich. they built systems on the road to prosperity. at some point, the people who run them become more interested in holding on to their position than advancing the purpose for which they were established, and the people who partake in them become more interested in holding on to broader benefits. this is no attack on anybody. you go back to the smarian

civilization 8,000 years ago and what is now iraq, you will see it always happens. when that happens, the country involved have to find a way to get back in the future business. education is the sample of our commitment to the future. but we need a new energy policy, a new economic policy, a new health care policy, we need a different set of finance rules, we need a different relationship between government and business, we need to deal with our long-term debt problem. we've got all these problems out there, every single one of them can be reduced to one sentence. we've got too reoccupied with the present and lost sight of the future. the children embody our future. and so, whenever you ask yourself, should i do this, that, or the other thing in education, ask yourself a simple question. will it put you back if the future business? all that matters when all of this is over is whether people are better off when you quit than when you started and if the kids have a brighter future.

all the rest is just background music, really, if you think about it. so that's how i think you should look at it. yes, we have real problems, but there are fabulous things going on. one of the things i wish you could organize a debate on maybe next year when you do this, is just about every challenge in american education has been met somewhere by somebody. you agree with that, don't you? >> yes, i do. >> and you've seen pinpoiit. >> i've seen it. >> so here's the argument, that especially the democrats ought to have to answer, people like me. i've been fighting this all my life. if every problem in our country has been solved by somebody somewhere, why are we so lousy at copying the competition and adapting it to our own circumstances? and those of us who believe in public education, how do you get that spirit of innovation and adaptation if you leave the public schools with monopoly on

revenue and customers? i tried to answer that a little bit with the charter school movement. i don't believe, as i said, in privatizing the public money, but this is a future question. what is it about the present state of things that retards the adaptation and the embrace of innovation that is working somewhere else? for 30 years, it has been the problem that bedeviled me the most and one that i could not totally unravel either as a governor or a president. if you do that, we'll be halfway home. >> want to come back and moderate a panel next year? >> sure. >> all right. ladies and gentlemen, the former president of the united states. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. president. that was great. >> well, a standing ovation there for president clinton, who was simply speaking there on the subject of education. as you probably know, america spends the second most of any

nation in the world on education. we are one of the greatest spenders that exists on the subject -- not on the resource of education, yet the results we get from our spending are an embarrassment. it is not a lack of resources that we try to spend on these things, perhaps it is that the policies for how those resources are allocated, whether it is in education or anything else, is so heavily corrupted by special interests that we are simply being stolen from. it's tuesday. i am dylan ratigan. it's nice to see you. it's a big day here. and it's a big opportunity for all of us. you've been hearing about it for weeks and finally we are now moments away from unveiling not only the text for the draft of a constitutional amendment to get the money of politics so we can stop spending so much in everything from education to health care and getting so little, but a petition to organize all of us so that we can then become an unrelenting, overwhelming force for our

politicians. until it changes, we'll never be able to stop correcting the real problems facing our nation. most money spent in the world on health care, atrocious health. most money spent in the world subsidizing a banking system, no investment in lending or foreclosure crisis, unemployment, and 15% poverty. spend the most in the world on energy, most inefficient, most energy wasteful nation on the planet, us. the list goes on and on. quite simply, money has bought our politics and what is getting spent is going to greedy bastards, not us. and only we can take it back. so now, our goal is to transform all that mad as hell anger from this summer, mine, yours, everybody else's into positive change that begins this fall. and here for the unveiling of the petition and the amendment is our washington insider, jimmy williams, a former lobbyist, who in consultation with a series of constitutional scholars penned the text, and mark mckinnon,

republican strategist and cofounder of no labels, an organization with a direct agenda to try to drive issues-based debate around health care, around energy, and surely, mark, you run into the barrier that is money. give us a sense how hard it is to engage in any debate you might want to have against the girded steel of bought parties on both sides? >> well, more power to you, dylan and jimmy, for taking this on. it's so important. i've been working on this issue for years. let me tell you a quick story. 30 years ago in texas, i worked for a governor. after he was elected, he typically appointed his campaign manager as an appointments chief, a plum job. he was meeting from his counterpart from wisconsin, which has very strict campaign finance laws, and the guy from wisconsin told him that they capped their contributions at $500. the guy from texas could not believe it. sat there for a minute, looked at him, and then seriously said, well, then, how do you know how

to appoint? and that was 30 years ago, dylan, and it hasn't changed. i see things now like citizens united and i see the amount of money going to these superpa pa. here's another jaw-dropping notion. the candidates for president get $100 million if they agree to public financing, no one agrees to it anymore because it's not enough money. this is absurd, pornographic, it's out of control. we know the congress won't amend themselves and the only way to do it is to go around them. >> and the only way to go around them is have a very well organized, very large group, maybe not with the same ideas, maybe not with the same mechanics, but with the same core principle that we must get money out so we can all return to the spirited debate we seek on the issues that are critical to our nation. with no further ado, jimmy, give us the setup for the philosophy that you used in drafting this and in your consultation with constitutional scholars and then we'll get into the amendment.

what's the logic? >> first and foremost, every single time congress has tried to clean up the system, to get money out of politics were or at least to limit the number of -- the amount you can give to them and their campaigns, the court, the supreme court of the united states, has struck this down. and they've done it simply because of one reason. the court has interpreted that under the first amendment, money is speech. and since speech is protected under the first amendment of the constitution, nothing that the congress can do can stop that. >> can intervene. >> that's the basis of what our problem is. so how do you do it? do you say that a $25 donation is speech were do you say a $250 million donation to a super pac is speech? >> so you're saying the only way to solve it is money isn't speech? >> all money is speech under the supreme court of the united states interpretation of the constitution. so you either ban it or you don't, it's just that simple. >> i want to go to the amendment itself. it is simply three sentences. i want to read the whole thing once, and then i want to go back

to each sentence. >> that reasonable? >> yes. >> do i have a graphic so folks can read at home along. "no person, corporation, or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, has been allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for federal office." you go on to say, "notwithstanding, any other provision of the law, campaign contributions to candidates for federal office shall not constitution speech of any kind as guaranteed by the u.s. constitution or any amendment to the u.s. constitution." last sentence, "congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purpose of voting for candidates for federal office." first off, before we get into the analysis, mark, what is your first response to the general framing and language in that draft? >> well, i love it. it's really bold, dylan. and what jimmy's done is really

taken a full slate on this. people try to take different cuts at it, but they've always kind of stopped short of pulling the full monty here, and that's what i think is both bold and in many ways brilliant about it. because, really, that is the only way. and what would surprise a lot of people is how many people would actually agree with this approach. candidates hate raising the money, the donors hate being hit up for the money, the system is awash with the money. and i can tell you as the greedy bastard who used to spend the money on the advertising campaign, 90% of the money is wasted. >> we're all greedy bastards, depending on the day and time and the system we put ourselves in. and at the end of the day, a system with money in politics brings out the inner greedy bastard in everybody. i want to look at the individual sentences quickly, and we have a bunch of feedback from both of you for the social media universe. this was originally posted on the internet a few hours ago, so we had some questions. but sentence number one, jimmy,

"no person, corporation, or business entity of any type, next or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money directly or indirectly, to any candidate for federal office or contribute money o on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign or federal office." it's like the ncaa. if you're going to play college sports, you can't take money. if you're going to be a federal politician, you can't take money. it's the ncaa model, in the framing of this, and also, why the additional language, where it says, contributors on behalf of or opposed? >> let's start with the second clause of the sentence and work backwards. assist majority of the money in politics, as we saw in the 2010 cycle, as we have been seeing increasingly over these cycles, is not what you raise for your actual campaign coffers and then spend on tv. it's what somebody else raises

for your campaign coffers, for your candidacy, or against your candidacy. >> is that the super pac? >> it's super pac. it's any kind of -- >> so the super pac is addressed in this first sentence? >> in the second part of the first sentence, because you are not allowed to raise money or spend money -- >> why catching money as opposed to giving money? why the ncaa structure, if you will? >> well, the point being that, listen, it's simple. i don't want the burden on this to be necessarily on individuals or their rights. >> so you're saying catching mark mckinnon or catching whoever it is, dylan ratigan, and giving money, it's not about a citizen giving money, it's about a politician taking it? >> i don't think that politician, by nature, are corrupt. i don't think lobbyists, by nature, are corrupt. i don't think fund-raisers, by nature, are corrupt. every one of those entities is operating within a system that they only know. if you just take it all out, then every single one of those groups, people can do their job. members of congress won't have to fund-raiser. lobbyists won't have to raise

money. fund-raisers can just go out and either become lobbyists or they can help run campaigns or whatever. >> you agree? what do you think about what you're hearing, mark? >> i like it. and the question i wanted to ask, and i hope i'm not jumping ahead -- >> please do. >> i'm familiar with public financing ideas and have pushed them for a long time. this is the first time i've heard it extended to the whole notion of banning individual corporations as well. and i like it. the question is, if that's the case, and i know they're different funding mechanisms that we might look to, but how to you determine who gets to qualify for that? and how do you keep everyone from qualifying, if it's a public funding mechanism like that? >> and we got a lot of that the social media universe. okay, this is great. you banned the money, got the money out, but how do you plan on actual financing elections and what's the mechanism and who's going to solve that problem? >> how one qualifies to run for federal office is state law. it has nothing at all to do with the feds. that's an interesting way of looking at it, this sort of

bicameral system, if you will. if you want to run for congress and you're from the commonwealth of virginia, you have to go through the machinations that the commonwealth of virginia has set out to actually qualify for office. >> i get that, but there's a bigger question here, which is, how are you going to finance elections, if this amendment passes? and who's going to decide that? >> let me be clear. this amendment does not touch how you finance federal elections going forward. all it does is say you can't contribute money to an election. what do i think happens? federally -- >> so the idea, i guess, mark, in this, if i interpret jimmy is, we're bleeding. we want a health care debate. we want an energy debate. we want an education debate. we can't get it because there is a green curtain of money around washington, d.c. that is preventing us from having these debates. do you think it's appropriate, to jimmy's point, that we simply make this somebody else's problem? in other words, that we are here to say, get the money out, and it is on -- there are a lot of smart people that should be able

to figure this out. fair? >> i think that's really smart too. let them solve that part of the r problem, but take on the first part of the problem, which is the real issue, and just prohibit the funding by corporations, candidates, pacs, or people. >> i hate to use this analogy, but the alcoholic needs to dry out. we've got to take the liquor out of the system at this point. for lack of a better analogy, i hate to use it, my father was a drunk, i hate to use it, but it's the truth. congress is drunk on money >> go ahead, mark. >> and if that's the case, we may get into a discussion, where there's access to public airwaves and those sort of solutions. >> and let us hope that this movement to get money out precipitates a debate that goes to where you're going, mark. what, if anything, could i -- what would be an appropriate thing for me, having sort of put myself in this position, quite by my own choice, and with great gusto, i might add, but what

could no labels do to help us? and would you be up for signing a petition like this, mark? >> well, my only problem is i've called for a pledge not to sign any petitions for anybody anymore. >> fair enough. i realize that. but i'm curious, though, with no limits. i would love to talk about what we can do with you. >> well, we're trying to change the process. and this is a great discussion about how you change the process of how congress works and how politics works. so i think there's lots of organizations out there, lawrence lessig, who's been working on this, just had a constitutional convention this weekend, and it was packed to the walls with people. there's all kinds of organizations out here. i think when you pierce this, as you're doing right now, you're going to find a -- i think you're going to see an eruption, a volcanic wave of support headed your way. and i'm glad to do all i can from my end. >> and we appreciate that, and appreciate your efforts and your contributions to catalyze the focus of this conversation,

jimmy. jimmy sticks around with the g mega panel. we let mark go. there has been an overwhelming response, as you might imagine, to our conversation about getting money out of politics this fine day. so much so that the petition site has been repeatedly taken down, but last i heard, was back online. bear in mind, it will be back up quickly if it is not working when you go. if you go to getmoneyout.com, you can add your name and join the campaign to get money out of politics. it is only our unrelenting nature, our persistence that will not only make this petition what it could be, but will make the agenda that underlies this petition a reality. if you don't want to go to the web or the website's not working, you can text, as well, your signature to the number on your screen, 917-720-6888. we're back with jimmy and the

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what do i have to do short of suicide to convince people i'm not running? apparently, i actually have to commit suicide. you have to believe, as i've said before, in your heart and in your mind that you're ready and i don't. i want us to have the best possible candidate in our party to run for president, but it's not going to be me. >> well, he's said it over and over, but republicans won't just take no for an answer, especially when calls are growing louder for new jersey governor chris christie to enter the presidential race from the billionaire crowd, and we all know, 94% of the time, the man who raises the most money wins. so when ken is on the phone, billionaire from home depot, and a string of others, does it suddenly make the noncandidate a candidate? and either way, who can blame the gop for wanting him? the current pack obviously has no front-runner. but another candidate, financed by billionaires, is that really

the answer? >> you want to add another candidate?! it's like the republican primary is a season of "american idol" in reverse, where every week, you just add some other idiot. first you guys wanted bachmann, then perry, now christie. you know what, republican base, meet me at camera three, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe your candidates aren't the problem, maybe it's you. >> jimmy's back for the tuesday mega panel, along with karen and susan. i don't think it's a surprise to anybody that chris christie is a desirable political figure at this point in the republican field. your thoughts on jon stewart's assessment of the republican primary process? >> well, it's the process that just the republicans going through right now. four years ago the republicans and the democrats had it and there were the same problems on both sides. but right now, there are people who are calling for another candidate to be out there.

mostly because you see these people come in, like rick perry, they shoot to the top, and they're not everything. and the problem is that no candidate's going to be everything. republicans have to realize that if i can agree with 80% of what someone says, maybe i can forgive someone the 20% just to go ahead and move on and elect a good candidate. >> what do you think, karen? >> i think that's right. i think part of what you're seeing in this field playing out is the fissures that we've seen within the republican party over the last ten years or so, in terms of being a fiscal conservative or a social conservative, the rise of the tea party. each kind of has their own -- >> pro-money. >> pro-money. each kind of has hair own niche, and like susan said, no one candidate sort of checks all the boxes. so the question is, can they find someone who checks most of them. now, chris christie is brilliant, because before he gets in, he's the ideal candidate, everybody's going to love him -- >> just like barack obama the day before he won. >> looked like rick perry before he got in. >> everybody looks good before. >> fred thompson last cycle.

>> like a guy or girl you like after the first day, you're like, oh, she's the greatest girl i've ever met. >> i think he's taking advantage of this three-state or four-state tour to raise more money for his race in 2013. >> at the end of the day, however, jimmy, will it be possible for any republican primary candidate or this president or anybody else that would theoretically primary this president, although that appears to be an absurd concept, have any credibility with the american people if they are bought? which is what they all are? >> well, i think everybody in politics is bought, whether they want to be bought or not. >> a system buys politicians, 94% of the time. >> i think the problem with this whole floundering and reaching and grasping for the perfect republican candidate or the perfect democratic candidate, like either hillary clinton or barack obama is this. why is it that they need a silver bullet to take out the current guy? is -- and that makes me -- that bothers me. >> what do you mean?

i'm confused by that. >> apparently the arsenal that is the republican weaponry right now is not good enough to be to beat barack obama. if it were, the vast majority of the republican establishment would not be out there clamoring for chris christie or someone else -- >> -- help him win back the senate, which is something that no one's really talking about. >> do the american people care either way? >> no. >> the republicans want to win, the democrats want to win. the american people have 22% children's poverty, they have -- >> -- jobs. >> right. right. and they want to not -- the interesting thing, is you've got a government that has done nothing for jobs, taxes, trade, or banking. you've got a media establishment that is perfectly well assembled to do great analysis on whether the republican or the democrat are any better than each other. but whether the republican or democrat are any better than each other is irrelevant to the public. is that not a recipe for disaster? >> it is. and jimmy talks about a silver

bullet, because we're all looking for a silver bullet to solve the problems you just talked about. we want it now or within two years or we're changing the congress. >> and silver bullets don't exist. and silver bullets are a way for me not to be responsible for it, because i'm now looking -- >> this goes to something bill clinton was just talking about in his conversation with brian williams, and that is, conflict drives ratings. it is more interesting for us to spend time talking about the fact that chris christie keeps answering the phone when people call him to >> why do you think my show has been so successful without participating in that methodology, to the best of my ability? >> -- instead of saying, let's look at each of the republican candidates, let's assess how they are on the issues that matter to the republican primary voters. forget the rest of america. >> i wouldn't say -- i partially agree with you. i think that the media is incentivized for low-cost, cheap, easily accessible content. the cheap, easy content is cheap, pro-wrestling politics.

the actual amount of work that you would have to do to identify the fact that none of these politicians have any agenda on taxes, trade, banking, health, education, and then convert that into a media product that would be consumable would be so expensive and so risky, when i can simply make fun of rick perry's hair or barack obama's birth certificate, and the media making big, big money along the way, because there's money in politics. is that why? this isn't the money in politics that have to get spent with the media? >> listen, the american people feed themselves. would more people like the "jersey shore"? come on, really. >> i disagree with that, jimmy, because when the entire programming grid is crap, because it is set up to monetize crap, it's not fair to blame that on the american people. >> well, sure it is, because they eat it. if you don't want it, don't eat it. >> if all you're serving is crap -- >> i would rather starve to

death. >> public tv would have a lot bigger audience, frankly. >> coming up on "hardball," chris mathews dissecting the president's performance in colorado. but first, a daily rant from michelle bernard with a call to action for america's kids. a thanks to our mega panel for rolling with the punches, so to speak, today. just one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating. with three strains of good bacteria to help balance your colon. you had me at "probiotic." [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health.

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setting that goal to become a principal. but, i have to support my family, so how do i go back to school? university of phoenix made it doable. i wouldn't be where i am without that degree. my name is dr. carrie buck. i helped turn an at risk school into an award winning school, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] university of phoenix is proud to sponsor education nation. because we believe an educated world is a better world. well, here's our daily rant as we wrap up education nation here at nbc is michelle bernard. >> now, unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know that this week the networks of nbc news are showcasing our

excellent education nation initiative. now, some of the top minds in education reform along with teachers and parents have gathered to talk about ideas, problems, and solutions for putting america's schools back on top. there's a lot of positive, constructive discussion happening, and let's face it, a lot of rhetoric. now, one of the things that i've learned in my travels, speaking and debating with reformers, parents, teachers, teachers' union officials and children across the country is this -- there is no silver bullet to solve our nation's education problem. none. dumping obscene amounts of money into the public school system won't make america's children math whizzes on par with the rest of the world. handing out waivers for the federal mandates under the no child left behind act will do the nothing to help low-income children close the achievement gap. education reform that doesn't allow for merit pay for teachers or allow for the termination of ineffective teachers just will not work. now, before you decide to crawl back into bed and weep for the

woes of our education system, i ask you to remember this. there are a lot of people out there fighting for our kids. and as with any big idea, there is trial and there is error. that's why i support groups like national school choice week, a coalition that promotes school choice in all its forms and gives power to parents, because no one solution is best for all children. that's why organizations such as the parent revolution have so inspiring. ben austin and his team took on the california legislature and won the battle to now legally harness the power of parents to turn around the failing schools in the state of california. that's why when people criticize innovators like dr. ben chaves for his colorful and passionate language, i remember that his american indian public charter school is the highest performing middle school in the state of california. that's why people like bill cosby, rebecca huffman, and

virginia walden-ford are so important. they won't wait for the system to try to fix things. they work to try to fix problems in schools when they see them. and more often than not, they succeed. and that's why when state legislatures like those in ohio fight to expand voucher access to more financially disadvantaged children, i cheer. now, while we celebrate people out there fighting the good fight for kids, we have to remember that none of them, not a single one, will love our children more than we do. parents, you must be the greatest advocates for your which i wou child's education. you can't wait around for someone to figure out the solution, no matter how great these people are. you have to make informed choices. it's up to you. >> michelle, very well done. thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you, dylan. >> michelle bernard. that will do us -- do it for us today. i am dylan ratigan. as i leave you, i ask you to

take a moment and review the draft of the amendment. there'll be, i hope, plenty of debate over the next few weeks to refine and tighten aspects of that language. i hope that you will think about signing our petition and really, i mean, our petition, to get the money out of politics. it is, quite simply, at getmoneyout.com. the website has been having some challenges, shall we say, this afternoon, which i interpret as a good sign, that there is a significant demand to do this. and so you're having trouble with the website, you can always text your signature, so to speak, to 971-720-6888. "hardball" is up right now. birthers and other bad stuff. let's play "hardball."