got a couple of people who are willing to come out. and who knows, there may be more? krystal ball and joe watkins, thanks for your time tonight. i think herman cain needs to do the right thing and step out. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> good to have you back. >> thank you. if you're a civics dork or even just a politics dork, election day is kind of like secular christmas. no matter what your religion is. every single year, even when it's an off year election, election day is an exciting thing. but if you have a job like we do here at msnbc, it is like christmas, but it's christmas where you're the parent, not christmas where you're the kid. meaning that even if you are totally psyched about it and it's your favorite day of the year, and it is, it's also a lot of work. it's a fast-moving live production, a million moving parts, sort of high-stress night of making television. it is exciting, it can be exhilarating, but it goes way later than a normal night on tv.

you're tap dancing the whole time. and the next day, particularly early in the day,y a little bit spent. so today, early this afternoon here from the rachel maddow show, we spent most of the afternoon figuring out which politicians in today's news are most suited for the musthair treatment. by the magic of photo shop, a man's mustache doubles as his hairdo. here's another good one. this guy very, very sharp looking. it's the musthair, everybody. it is very disturbing, and yet very awesome, all statement. the musthair tumbler and the laughing squid blog inspired us here at "the rachel maddow show" today to create our own examples from some politicians in the news. here, for example, herman cain, difficult because he doesn't have any hair on top to blend, but there you have it.

incidentally, as ed noted last hour, the the american mustache association did rescind its herman cain endorsement today, for what's that worth. here's the musthair version of john bolton, former u.n. ambassador. here, i hope he does not mind, because he's about to be our guest, here is raul greelva. and here's a man name terry branstad. terry branstad looks the most amazing of anybody i have ever seen with the musthair treatment. the mustache as hair treatment. and that might be the only way terry branstad is ever going to become nationally famous. just being the governor of iowa right now is not making terry branstad nationally famous. i mean, like john kasich and scott walker and rick scott and rick schneider, terry branstad was elected governor of iowa in the great tide that was the huge republican election in 2010. he, too, has pursued an jagenda

in his state that's very, very conservatively, both economically and socially. but unlike those other very well known nationally famous governors, terry branstad has not become nationally famous from iowa, and i think that's because in large part he hasn't been able to get a lot of his stuff passed. republicans in iowa have the amazing mustacheio terry branstad in the house, but the democrats hold the state senate. so big conservative priorities like, for example, getting rid of same-sex marriage rights in iowa, those priority have said stalled because of divided government. but terry branstad is no fool. and in september of this year, when it came time to appoint someone to an available full-time gig on the state utilities board, he bypassed a whole bunch of people that really wanted that job, a whole bunch of republicans who really wanted that job. donors, elected officials, everybody else, and instead he appointed a conservative democrat to the job. now, why is that a genius move? it's because the democrat he appointed to that job was a

state senator. a state senator from a republican-leaning district. so that promotion of that democrat out of the state senate left democrats with just a one-seat advantage in the state senate. so you get rid of that democrat, you force a special election in that democrat's district, which is a republican leaning district, and then you replace that democrat. it's easy peasy, right? thanks to branstad's move, republicans thought they could replace that democrat with a republican, and then iowa would be under 100% republican government. iowa would become wisconsin west. terry branstad could get nationally famous now for something other than the amazing mustache/hair thing. it was a genius political move. and it utterly failed. iowa voters did pick a new state senator last night, but they picked another democrat. a democrat named liz mathis. and perhaps they picked her because they were treated to calls like this against her. >> so before you support liz mathis, call her and ask her which homosexual sex act she

endorses. >> yes, that's how the campaign went in iowa. we'll have more on that coming up later in the show tonight. so the democrat won that race in iowa. the democrats, there, hold on to the state senate in iowa. and the genius republican plan by the genius republican governor there is foiled. that happened in iowa. even though there was national focus on ballot measures in a few different states last night, off-the-radar places like iowa and new jersey and kentucky had some pretty striking results. in kentucky, a number of statewide office holders were up for election, and it was nearly a clean sweep for the democrats, in kentucky. democratic governor steve bashir and abramsome won re-election by a 20-point margin. the state auditor's race and the attorney general's race, despite some big national guns weighing in on that attorney general race on behalf of the republican, people like mike huckabee, rudy giuliani, sarah palin, the republican in the ag's race just

got creamed. and in fact, in all of those other races. actually, a quick correction on the attorney general thing. i have been calling the republican attorney general candidate from kentucky todd pa-pool, because it's spelled p'pool, but it's pronounced pe-pool. the website politico today managed to find a silver lining for the kentucky republicans. a silver lining specifically for kentucky senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell. "mcconnell quietly helped direct the agricultural commissioner campaign from washington." so the one republican race that won, mitch mcconnell now trying to take credit for it. that attempt to essentially shine up a the turd led some to

laugh out loud for mitch mcconnell to even trying to spin this as a positive, but also to think politico.com to being the totally credulous stenographer for whatever it was that mitch mcconnell wanted them to report, no matter how ridiculous it was on their face. gamely spinni inning kentucky a it was a big win for republicans and mitch mcconnell as they lost all state-wide races except ag commissioner. yeah, right, politico, that'll do. one perhaps unremarked upon feature from last night's election results that the there were really big margins in a lot of the races that were expected to be hard-fought. that iowa state senate race wasn't close. the democrat won there by 12 points. in maine where voters citizen vetoed a voting laws, by reinstating same-day voter registration, the margin was 20 points. the mississippi personhood amendment not only lost but lost by 16 points. more on that coming up in a

moment. in ohio, the most high-profile race in the country, the bid to recall the union-stripping law, it lost by 22 points with an blowout. all those polls predicting a high margin of victory, those impossible margin of victory policy turned out to be exactly accurate. that particular result last night doesn't just have reverberations for ohio. you'll hear about the sb-5 vote in ohio, this vote against john kasich last night, you'll hear about this for an entire year in republican politics, particularly in republican presidential politics. back in june, you may remember that republican front-runner mitt romney came out in support of john kasich's union-stripping law in ohio. mr. romney saying at the time, "i stand with john kasich." then just a couple of weeks before the big vote on john kasich's union-stripping law, mr. romney scheduled a campaign event, an event at a phone bank in ohio to fire up republicans fighting to save john kasich's bill.

at that campaign appearance, mitt romney refused to say that he supported the measure. even while he was there. cnn's peter handly tweeting at the time, "incredible moments in politics. romney visits ohio gop phone bank to rally troops opposing sb-5 repeal, but refuses to take a position on sb-5." after getting just flogged on the right -- flogged in the press -- for refusing to say he supported this thing, even while supposedly rallying its supporters in ohio, a day later, the romney campaign came out and said, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, he's 110% behind it, we guess. so mitt romney's last known position on the ohio union-busting issue is that he's 110% for the union-stripping bill. now that that thing has lost by 22 points in the polls in ohio, stay tuned! maybe we'll get a new mitt romney position on it. even more flabber gasting is the contortion that mr. romney is now trying to do on that

personhood initiative in mississippi. back in october, mitt romney appeared on mike huckabee's fox news channel program, and he told mr. huckabee that he absolutely would support a constitutional amendment establishing the definition of life as beginning at conception. after us asking his campaign to clarify that position repeatedly and him not answering repeatedly, the democratic party then hit him on it through this web ad. and again, mr. romney chose just not to respond. so mitt romney's position, his on the record position to the question of, do you support a life begins at conception constitutional amendment, which is what mississippi voted on yesterday, mitt romney's stated position on the record on that, on tape was the word "absolutely." that constitutional amendment then fails in mississippi by 16 points and the new headline on politico.com today -- wait for it -- "mitt romney says he's being falsely characterized as supporting a proposed amendment to define a fertilized egg as a

person." falsely characterized as supporting it? >> would you have supported the constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception? >> absolutely. >> it's like, when newt gingrich said, you know, if you quote that thing i said about paul ryan, you're lying. don't quote me. if you quote me, it's a law. mitt romney says that us right now playing that tape of him answering that question is falsely characterizing his position. it's amazing. i did not -- i knew that he would flip-flop on it somehow. i didn't know that it would happen in less than 24 hours and that he would deny that he ever held the previous position, which he said on tape. mitt romney, you're amazing. mitt romney and rick perry, as well, both came out in favor of the mississippi personhood thing that got voted down yesterday by more than 20 points in mississippi. this thing that would ban all abortions, no exceptions, and hormonal birth control and iuds and the morning after pill and in vitro fertilization. now that it has been beating in

mississippi, mitt romney says he was never for it. in 2006 and 2008, democrats had huge electoral victories, right? democrats in '06 and '08, they took the house, took the senate, took the white house, swung more than five dozen seats in congress from red to blue over those two elections. in 2010, the pendulum swung back the other way, right? republicans had a huge year in 2010. they took back all of the democratic gains in congress from the previous two elections and then some. now, the next big election is in 2012. is the pending lumbulum staying republican side or is it swinging back? joining us now is democratic pollster, celinda lake. miss lake, thanks very much for joining us tonight. nice to have you here. >> thank you. nice to be here. >> what did you think we learned in terms of yesterday's results about turnout? about voter enthusiasm. about who actually showed up to vote. >> well, we learned that we have been terrified about the disenchantment of voters, and particularly the democratic base. and what we learned is two things. one, when democrats and

progressi progressiprogres progressprogres progressives get behind a message, our voters come out to vote. and we've learned what the tea parties have done for a year can be very mobilizing and very empowering to democratic voters. and i think the occupy wall street crystalized that and ting election results in 2012 showed what can happen when democrats unite and turn out to vote. >> looking ahead, as a democratic pollster, is there a particular result or a particular state profile or results from last night that seems like a bellwether for you for next year's election? something that democrats should be looking to for particular lessons? >> i think that the ohio vote was really a lesson in the sense that voters across the board thought that the kasich message would hurt jobs, hurt health care, hurt their state's budget, hurt their state's education system. they saw this as a very broad economic hatchet job taken to their state, and they rejected it. and you know who rejected it first? women voters and union voters.

and that's a very powerful combination for the 2012 elections. >> based on that profile, that demographic profile, and whatever research you have done on electoral issues, what are you seeing as the most powerful message that democrats have going into the 2012 campaign season. what are democrats going to be strongest running on? >> i think democrats will be strongest running on, it is time for this economy to work for the 99% of us, not the 1%, not the wealthiest 1% who don't pay their taxes. not the ceos and not the corporations that take our jobs overseas and our money to the cayman islands. >> on the issue of the republican race against president obama, his re-election race, anything could happen. so i don't want to say that mitt romney's going to be the nominee, but mitt romney's going to be the nominee. >> i think you're right. >> and when i talked to democrats about that, and particularly when i talked to washington democrats about that, i keep hearing pushback from

democrats on the idea that mitt romney, as a flip-flopper, is a good way to run against him. there seems to be skepticism on the democratic side that mitt romney's inability to hold a single position on any major issue is a real electoral liability for him. do you see that as a liability for him? or are people going to need to go after him from a different way on the democratic side? >> i think it's a huge liability. democrats may be getting confused because they don't know which mitt romney to run against, but of all of the mitt romneys we're presented, when we talked to voter last week, the number one thing they said they wanted was people who stood for something. he's like a 360-change. it's like those dolls whose head goes around. you don't know what you're getting. that's not what the public wants. and that's not what people think will steer this country towards

getting out of this recession. it's a huge vulnerability. and i think democrats might be bemused by which romney they get to run against. democratic pollster, celinda lake, good to talk to you. >> thank you. >> at our news meeting today when we talked about the results of the mississippi personhood bill, the way i presented the issue to the staff today, i said, you know, this is going to be a real issue for mitt romney going forward, because mitt romney has been so shellacked on the flip-flopping thing, that he can't come out and say, i wasn't for the personhood amendment. he had said he was absolutely for this thing that got completely beaten, horrifically in mississippi. what's he going to do? he can't come out and say he wasn't for it. he can't do that. he already looks like such a flip-flopper, what's he going to do? by the time the news meeting was out, politico was already reporting he wasn't for the personhood amendment. i sent that out to the staff with the subject line "ha-ha

ha-ha." we'll be right back. ed the u.s.? done. this is fantastic ! music is my life and i want to make the most of it without missing a beat. fly without putting your life on pause. be yourself nonstop. american airlines.

[ chuckles ] you think that is some information i would have liked to know? i like tacos. you invited eric? i thought eric gave you the creeps. [ phone buzzes ] oh. [ chuckles ] yeah. hey.

[ male announcer ] don't be left behind. get it faster with 4g. at&t. ♪ last night the great state of mississippi elected its next governor in a landslide. this guy, haley barbour's lieutenant governor, phil bryant, beat the democrat in the rates by more than 20 points, so the republican candidate, phil bryant, won in mississippi last night. but according to phil bryant's own logic, satan also won in mississippi last night. going into yesterday's election, this is how phil bryant described the vote on a mississippi ballot measure that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person. >> this is a battle of good and

evil. the evil dark side that exists in this world is taking hold. and they're saying, what we want you to be able to do is to continue to extinguish innocent life. you see, if we could do that, satan wins. >> see, in the governor-elect al gory there, is what satan wants is to ban all abortions and hormonal birth control, it was satan who wanted that to fail in mississippi. as it turns out, that measure did fail in mississippi, but a huge margin, by double digits. so the state's next governor has the voters of mississippi to thank both for his and for satan's victories in last night's mississippi election. and now he is faced with the unique challenge of governing an electorate that he has accused of voting for satan by a 16-point margin. which would be awkward. the mississippi electorate is a

very conservative one. these fertilized egg as person ones have not done well elsewhere in the country. but it's mississippi. in 2001, mississippi voted to keep the confederate flag as a part of its state flag by a 28-point margin. in 2004, mississippi voted to ban gay marriage by a 72-point margin. 72 points was the margin of victory. every single county in mississippi voted in favor of the gay marriage ban. that's a simple map. this year in 2011, a public policy polling survey found only 40% of mississippi republicans think that interracial marriage should be legal. so mississippi has a really radical, really conservative record when it comes to their opinions and their voting record on other mississippians' rights. survey usa served all 50 states on abortion rights in 2005. the national average was 56% of americans identifying themselves as pro-choice. in mississippi, though, you can

drop that by nearly 20 points, please. only 39% of mississippians said they were pro-choice. so the ban abortion and birth control and ivf folks probably figured if they could get this fertilized egg as a person thing passed anywhere in the country, it would be in mississippi. they got mike huckabee and bret favre's wife to be celebrity endorsers. they produced a bunch of really slick-looking ads. they had a ton of religious right money. but, ultimately, a mostly grassroots opposition effort came together against the personhood amendment and to the surprise of lots and lots and lots of people, this happened. the scrappy, mostly home-grown dui opposition group defeated the personhood bill in mississippi by a ton. the no on personhood folks won more than 060 of the state's 82 counties, including haley barbour's home county. look at mississippi last night as compared to mississippi in 2004 with the gay marriage vote. which is not to same that this same electorate wouldn't vote to ban gay marriage again if given the chance, but the egg as person thing really, really

unpopular. which is why today, suddenly, the the mitt romney campaign is suddenly flailing around trying to make it sound like he never supported something like this, when he told mike huckabee he would have supported something like this in massachusetts. >> would you support that? >> absolutely. >> when we first saw that clip last among, we among the staff here we wonder if mitt romney had really meant what he'd just said. if he'd maybe somehow been tricked by mike huckabee. mike huckabee giving him the business about his totally communist abortiony romney care health reform. so maybe he just felt pressured. we kept asking the romney campaign if he really meant it. if he really was for a 100%, no exception abortions ban, and banning the pill and banning in vitro fertilization and making miscarriages a site for a criminal investigation. but the romney campaign never returned our e-mails. other people asked him about it too.

politico, says, for example that he would not respond to them when they asked about it. but now that the romney campaign realizes that this personhood thing is really unpopular, so unpopular that it lost in a landslide even in uber conservative mississippi, the romney campaign now telling politico that mr. romney is being falsely characterized as supporting the mississippi bill. see, clear as day, he doesn't support that thing that everybody hates. he just said that he would support it, absolutely. don't you see the difference? wow. joining us now is terry o'neill. i know last night you spent last night refreshing your browser every five seconds for election retu returns, so thanks for being here. >> it's great to be here. >> do you have an opinion about why mitt romney cannot make up his mind about personhood? >> you know, i don't understand it. and i'm really disturbed by his suggestion that this should be thrown out to the states and allow the states to make a decision. the last time i checked, a woman's life is a life worth

saving. and you are just as much worth saving if you live in the state of mississippi if you live in the state of new york or new jersey. i don't know where he's coming from with let's let the state decide when a woman can actually take steps to protect her own health and when she can't. >> the thing is, though, in this case, it was mississippi trying to decide as a state. mitt romney said that he would absolutely support something like that. now that mississippi has voted no for it, he says, no, no, no, don't say i was in favor. is there a -- is there a secret anti-abortion language by which what he's doing is making sense in some level? is this one of those things where there's jargon within the anti-abortion movement that might make this a consistent position, or is he just changing his mind about what he's for? >> i think he's just changing his mind about what he's for. but it's very interesting to me that the catholic bishops did not support the mississippi personhood amendment. in fact, phillip slafly's eagle form didn't support it either. and this thing has come up in

colorado. we've beat it back twice in colorado. but when it comes up in other places, when it's proposed, it's very often couched in the way that mike huckabee couched it, in that life begins at conception. conception is a lot more fuzzy term. i looked that up on a medical dictionary online, and on the same website, i saw one definition that said conception is fertilization of an egg, and on the very same website it said, well, conception is implantation on the uterine wall. and hormonal birth control works to prevent implantation. so on the second definition, there is no conception. on the first definition there would be conception. and i think that there's this debate going on within the right wing, not only about what conception means. i think there is that debate. and it's a religious and philosophical debate. but i think there's also a debate going on inside the right wing about what is the best way,

frankly, to raise money on this issue. and to march in a very solid and predictable way towards overturning roe versus wade. >> well, we have seen, i think -- we have seen sort of parallel but purportedly separate movements against abortion rights and against access to contraception. access to contraception is becoming a much more open battlefield for the right in the past year or two. i mean, we have a republican presidential candidate, rick santorum, who is openly campaigning against contraception. we've had house republicans in the past month convene hearings on trying to limit access to contraception through health insurance regulations. we've got in wisconsin, at a special jobs related session, the special session of the legislature, wisconsin republicans voted to ban all discussion of contraception in wisconsin schools. i'm not exactly sure what that's going to do for jobs. are we seeing something that was sort of a proxy fight for a long

time, really become a frontline war in reproductive rights politics? >> you know, i think we are. and i think the good news, from my point of view, is that the mask has really been ripped away from these right-wing organizations that keep talking about abortion and keep talking as if all they want to do is ban abortion, when, in fact, they are interested in banning abortion and birth control. and you know, all of this talk on the right wing in washington, d.c., about defunding the title ten family planning clinics, it's not just banning abortion and birth control, it's std screening, it's mammograms and cervical cancer screenings. it's the entire range of reproductive health care that women really need. i think what we're seeing now is the proof, and the mississippi personhood amendment fight, i think, really revealed this, that what is it stake is whether women will have control over their own sexuality. this withholding health care from women who are sexually

active is really, i think, motivated by this strange but persistent desire to control women having sex. and i like the fact that in mississippi, the voters of mississippi, who voted basically, 60-44, a very conservative, republican governor. they also voted virtually 60-44, 58-42, to say, no, we really do want women to have access to birth control. and we really do want women to be able to survive an eck topic pregnancy, which could kill them, and could have killed them had this personhood initiative had passed. and we really do want women to have the basic right to protect their own health. when faced squarely with that question, even the very conservative community in mississippi said, no, they really want women to have access to health care. >> terry o'neil, president of the national organization for women, thank you for your time tonight. nice to have you here. thanks. >> thank you so much. there were issues on the

ballot last night and individual people on the ballot last tonight. there's a reasonable debate about what was the most fascinate issue, but there's a pretty clear-cut most significant person. that's coming up next. es, slashing service, and want to lay off over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses, but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains 5 billion a year from post-office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. congress created this problem, and congress can fix it. innse shadfrgi ew wt'thlast yere ♪ [ gong ] strawberry banana!

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title of best new thing in the world today. that video, mike tyson as herman cain video from funnyordie.com was not the best new thing in the world today. it was edged out to the actual best new thing in the world today, which is related to that. that! it's coming up. ♪ we're centurylink... a new kind of broadband company committed to improving lives with honest, personal service, 5-year price lock guarantees and consistently fast speeds. ♪ impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.?

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before last night, no lawmaker had ever lost his or her job in a recall election in the history of the great state of arizona. before last night, no state senate president had ever been recalled in the history of the united states of america. both of those precedents were established last night by this guy, russell pearce, recalled from office bay big margin. he has been the most powerful republican in the state of arizona who is not the governor, jan brewer. and some say he's been even more powerful than she is. russell was the architect of sb-1070, the law to demand documentation, to demand papers from anyone who looked like they might be an illegal immigrant. >> what does an illegal immigrant look like? does it look like me? >> i do not know. i do not know what an illegal immigrant looks like. i can tell you that i think that

there are people in arizona that assume they know what an illegal immigrant looks like. i don't know if they know that for a fact or not. >> russell pearce was the lead sponsor of the papers, please, law in arizona. at the time, he was head of the senate appropriations committee and reportedly a maxed out recipient of campaign donations from two of arizona's largest for-profit prison companies. one convenient consequence of sb-1070 is that it would result of lots more people locked up in arizona on suspicion of immigration crimes. immigration crimes are federal crimes. federal detention facilities are run by these for-profit prison companies. so more people picked up on immigration charges, more money for the federal prison industry. those dots are not that far apart. even before the papers please, law, russell pearce has been tryings to privatize the prison system in arizona, so that every time anybody got locked up for anything, it would benefit these for-profit prison companies. it's not hard to imagine how

some state lawmakers get to be very, very powerful in their states. and it's not hard to understand how some state lawmakers get to be very, very radical in their stays. but russell pearce is one of those guys who makes you wonder how a politician can get so powerful while still being so radical. russell pearce as state senate president, in a state in the united states of america, talked about nullifying federal laws in that state, essentially arizona seceding from the nation. he tried to conjure up ways to impeach president obama from arizona. >> this is the first time in the history of the united states a sitting president has sided with a foreign governor -- government, to sue the citizens of its country. for defending our laws, for defending and protecting the citizens of the state of arizona, it's outrageous and it's impeachable. >> russell pearce once sent an e-mail to his supporters that included a racist white national screed, saying the media was pushing on the unsuspecting

public a view of the world, "in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the inner rant nature of the, quote, jewish holocaust tale, the wickedness of attempting to the halt the flood of non-white aliens pouring across our borders." russell pearce sent that out to his supporters in arizona, then later half-apologizing, saying that he didn't really know what it was. and he's also been assailed by his relationship with this neo nazi. but now as one of the most powerful republicans in the state with a huge amount of money, he outspent his opponent three to one and created a fake democratic opponent to try to split the vote against him. russell pearce has been recalled to office and replaced with a guy who's kind of a normal republican. the only thing that is harder to believe than the fact that russell pearce is gone now is that he was there in the first place. that somebody that radical could be that powerful in a state like arizona. joining us now is democratic

congressman, raul grijalva of arizona. thank you very much for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> why do you think that russell appea pearce was recalled? >> i think at some point, the basic decency of the people in arizona and certainly in this district came to force. excellent work on the part of many people to organize, certainly the now-elect senator lewis put together a wonderful team. people like randy paris, falcone did ooflt work to energize, build a coalition of people that were -- wanted decency returned to our policy making. russell pearce has been a power in this state. he's now gone. and so his defeat sends a ripple effect not only across the state, but i think across the nation. because many people have tried to mimic what he does and use that as a call per to keep themselves in office or get

elected. it was a resounding message, and for those of us in arizona that feel that decency should take over, it was a really good night. >> the man replacing russell pearce in the senate is not a democrat. he seems like a mainstream republican. his name is jerry lewis. is this being seen as a progressive victory? or is this really more about russell pearce, almost beyond partisan politics? >> i think almost beyond partisan politics. it's about, you know, senator-elect lewis is a republican. he's a moderate, he's a pragmatist. but there's a level of civility to what he brings to the table, which has been missing in arizona politics since the extreme wing of the republican party took over. you know, without russell pearce, i don't know what jan brewer's going to do. she's got no one to take direction from. russell pearce was the architect of all this debacle we're having with our redistricting

commission. and so his defeat is a domino effect. and many people in this state are going to have to reconsider that they can't use those same politics, those anti-immigrant politics to cover up the fact that there's a legacy of failure. so i think the people in arizona are looking for solutions, they're tired of the rhetoric, it hasn't worked, and they're tired of the reputation this state has acquired as a consequence of people like russell pearce and the policies that he promoted, and unfortunately got passed through this legislature. >> u.s. congressman raul grijalva, democrat of arizona. thanks very much for joining us tonight, sir. thanks for being here. >> thank you, rachel. appreciate it. right after this show on "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell, lawrence will be breaking down tonight's republican presidential debate. lots to talk about there. and here among other things, yesterday's elections were also sort of gay. yeah, i know, but i'm telling you, it's true. that story's next. ♪

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on a night that was pretty bleak for republicans across the country, one place where republicans thought they would have a huge night was in the commonwealth of virginia. democrats control the state senate in virginia by a narrow margin and republicans heading into last night thought that they would take it back.

turns out it's close. democrats promising a recount effort in a deciding race where the sides are only about 200 votes apart right now. even as the question of who controls the virginia senate remains unsettled, one thing is sure from last night's results. virginia is getting its first-ever openly gay state senator. a democrat from the northern part of the state. turns out last night was generally a big night for gay candidates and causes. the cities of indianapolis and houston and charlotte, north carolina, all got their first-ever openly gay city counselors, as did cincinnati, cincinnati, ohio, where the city charter was once amended to make clear that it is a-okay in cincinnati to discriminate against people for being gay. the councilman elected last night in cincinnati had been instrumental in repealing that. the mayor of houston, texas, annise parker, is also openly gay. she won a second term yesterday, despite ads against her like this one. oh, no, if she's re-elected, this might happen!

also, this drag queen may appear in ads for gay stuff. and annise parker will greet women by air kissing them on the street. will this be your future, houston?! will it?! turns out it will. annise parker, re-elected. but that wasn't the weirdest thing. last night, maine voters rejected a republican bill that ended the ability to register to vote on election day in maine. the republican -- it had been a long-standing thing that you could do in maine, 38 years. republicans took it away. last year voters reinstated it. in the lead up to the vote, the maine state republican party cited a few reasons why they thought it was critical that maine reasons must not be able to register to vote on election day anymore, including this ad that the state's republican party ran in maine newspapers. "registering to vote on election day," according to the republican party of maine," it's a gay conspiracy." a gay experience meant to

corrupt democracy itself! that's not even the weirdest, tote i incongruous gay thing from yesterday's election. that distinction goes to a robo call by a shadowy group, person, lady voice against a democratic candidate who is not gay in iowa. the group says it's called citizens for honesty and sound marriage in iowa, and just before the senate election in iowa, which pitted democrat liz math cyst gend cindy golding, some unsuspecting iowa residents picked up their phones and heard this. this is amazing. listen to this. >> liz mathis also endorses homosexual marriage. homosexual marriage obviously involves homosexual sex. so before you support liz mathis, call her at -- and ask her which homosexual sex act she endorses. >> no one has been able to

figure out who was behind that call. this group, citizens for honesty and sound marriage, chasm, they don't have a website. a local reporter tried to trace their number and didn't come up with anything. the republican campaign for that senate race said they had nothing to do with it. the national organization for marriage, better known as nom nom nom, an anti-gay group, they also disavowed this anti-gay robo call. but it's amazing, right? call her up and ask her which gay sex act she's in favor of. the beltway keeps telling us this year that conservatives are over all the social issues, anti-gay stuff. that was karl rove era, that was bush administration era. they're all over that now. now it's all about fiscal issues. really? ask iowa about that. ask maine. ♪

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best new thing in the world today, confirmation of the long-standing but not necessarily defamatory rumor that president reagan did not exactly mind reading. but if he had the choice, he would prefer to receive his intelligence briefings in video format. and since a president tends to get what with a president want, the cia made briefings for president reagan into movies that he could watch. and now they have just declassified a bunch of them. >> the ninth day of your summit trip will be the final day in moscow. following some brief remarks and a mix and mingle session with embassy personnel and their families, you and mrs. reagan travel to st. george's hall for a farewell with general secretary and mrs. gorbachev. then it's off to the airport and the official departure ceremony. departure time will be 11:00 a.m., with air force one scheduled to arrive at london's heathrow airport early that

afternoon. >> since london's not in the middle of the atlantic, hopefully the president was not relying on these videos for too much geographical intel. other cia videos were designed to prime president reagan on soviet politics, on soviet media portrayals of the united states. there was also this totally awesome one on this soviet space program. look at this one. >> as it has evolved over the years, the soviet space program might be described as something with a dual personality, a jekyll and hyde, so to speak. that is, it exists of two parts. one that is highly visible and acceptable to the public, while the other moves in a sort of shadow land and is cloaked in high secrecy. >> a dual personality, jekyll hyde, and one in the shadow land. reagan liked that particular video so much, he wrote in his diary, he wrote, "saw a cia

classified video on the soviet space program, they are much farther ahead and their main effort has been militaryized. here's how he learned that. >> since the early 1970s, the soviets have focused their effort on space systems for military support. as mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, soviet space caverns can be divided into two parts. military and scientific. this is also true within the manned space station program. while one, four, and six are all involved in scientific research with some military applications, two, three, and five are clearly part of the military program. >> the military program. see, the spooky music makes it all so much more believable! the cia also put in movie form for president reagan what was going on in afghanistan in the 1980s. you can roll that one. this is great. >> moscow faces some formidable tasks in its efforts to prop up the unpopular marxist regime in

kabul. even the soviets can see that the insurgents dominate most of the country. the tribesman, although still alarmingly short of the weapons needed to combat tin vaders, continue to receive supplies from sources outside the country. it's unlikely that the soviets will be able to effectively close the afghan borders in the mountainous war zones. i've often wondered, said one of the rebels in a mountain encampment, while allah gave us mountains and ravines instead of rich, flat plains. now i know why. >> it's possible that video on afghanistan should still be mandatory presidential viewing. >> this teleprompter was produced in the director of intelligence. >> produced because the president likes movies, so that's how he'll get his intel. the cia's youtube channel now showing how president