not exactly early in the game but early enough to warn the republicans that if you want to get the most votes this november remember where the most votes lie, with that rather large majority group that you left out of that first group of witnesses today on the issue they know best. that's "hardball" for now. schultz starts right now. >> good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show" from new york. ugly racist attacks are on the rise. republicans in washington refuse to hear the truth about women's rights and rick santorum is on a radical rampage and how about sarah palin? she thinks she could be a game changer? i need two shows tonight but i only got one. stay with me. this is "the ed show." >> congresswoman, you saw what happened to whitney houston. step away from the crack pipe. it's going to get you in trouble. >> racism is rearing its ugly head across america.

maxine waters, jeremy lin and the late whitney houston victims of disgusting racist attacks. why is there an uptick in racist comments? dr. james peterson is here with reaction. >> back in my days they used by a bayer aspirin for contraceptive and it wasn't that difficult. >> republicans on the hill won't allow a woman to testify about women's health. >> imagine having a panel on women's health and they don't have any women on the panel. duh. >> tonight, sandra fluke, the woman republicans tried to silence joins me tonight exclusively here on "the ed show." and the republican field is such a disaster that sarah palin thinks she might jump back in. >> if that involves running for public office at some point in the future, i'm game for that.

>> richard wolffe will give us the latest. good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. who is guarding the fort of racial decency in america? ingrain racism is rearing its ugly head in major ways. even one of the most positive news stories to come along in a long time is being tainted by the stench of racial stereotyping. jeremy lin, water cooler conversation in every workplace in america. hottest thing going in the nba. it's the hottest thing the nba has had in a long time and it's a great underdog success story. last night after the knicks won their seventh game in a row, the msg network showed this image. in case you can't tell, it's jeremy lin's head coming out of a fortune cookie. msg said the image was not created by the network, it was a sign created by a fan. the network doesn't explain why it decided to show the sign on television. at best this is racial

insensitiity at the highest order. would msg show a watermelon with black athlete? i don't think so. it gets better from there. family and friends of whitney houston are mourning her death but two conservative talk show hosts out of los angeles decide to make names by themselves nationally by calling houston a racially offensive slur. >> here comes the crack ho again. what's she going to do? hand stands next to the pool. very good, crack ho. everybody is exhausted. then you find out she's dead. it's, like, really? took this long? >> the station airing the show suspended the two hosts today. they say they do not condone, support or tolerate statements of this kind. really? was that a paid vacation until a couple weeks from now? i'm not sure the punishment fits the crime. here's a guy who does still have

a job. eric bowling from fox news. dat he had something despicable to say about a sitting congressional woman who is black and that's maxine waters. she said john boehner and eric cantor looked like demons in a photo. >> what is going on in california? how is this? congresswoman, you saw what happened to whitney houston. step away from the crack pipe. step away from the xanax. it's going to get you in trouble. >> we should mention that his show was canceled on fox business but he's still on the other fox network. how is it acceptable to tell an african-american congressional member, a woman, to put down the crack pipe? later, bolling said, he was just kidding around. but he has a history of comments like this. >> mr. obama, you've decided that chugging a few 40s and

rediscovering your irish is more important than a presidential visit to a community trying to figure out what just hit them. what's with all of the hoods a month after the white house hosted the rapper common the president opened his doors to one of africa's most evil dictators. how does increasing taxes count as spending cuts in your world, mr. obama? maybe in kenya but certainly not here. >> eric bolling has made air ball racially charged comments on a network and gets away with it. i don't think these comments will go away any time soon. i think we'll see more. it reminds me of the atmosphere in america from about four years ago when barack obama was going full steam ahead toward the presidency. we saw a lot of stuff like this. >> this is little hussein who wanted to see truth and good americans.

>> it seems like the more president obama achieves, accomplishes, the frequency of the racial overtones just increasing everywhere. unemployment is going down, the economy is recovering, our foreign policy pretty successful but comments about race can motivate people who are unhappy that we have black man in the white house. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question will racially charged comments in the media increase during the election season? text a for yes and text b for no to 622639. you can go to our blog and leave a comment. we'll bring you results on the poll later in the show. i'm joined by dr. james peterson. associate professor of english at lehigh university. go to have you with us. >> thanks for having me. >> why is this happening? why is this ingrained racism still a problem in 2012? it's just like water off a

duck's back and yet a lot of people get away with it. how do you feel about it? >> it's disheartening and disappointing. there's a couple reasons why. i think you're right that the president's election causes a backlash that's been ongoing since he was elected. it's sad but there are people that are frustrated and mad and hateful just because we have black president. there's that piece of it. and then as your show and other folk have been talking about for the last six months, sadly republican presidential politics has been embracing sort of racially insensitive discourses as well. when that's going on from the grassroots up from a small group of folk who hate the fact that we have a black president, put that in conjunction with politics and pandering and small minority of folk within the republican party hanging onto racial discourses and create an environment where shock jocks and different folk are piling on. i'm really curious to see when

we'll sort of stand up as a community and start top reject these things outright. >> do we need a discussion in this country about corporate responsibility? i mean, obviously those two talkers in los angeles felt brave enough to go on the air. maybe they didn't know the boundaries. msg showing what they showed without thinking about it whether a fan put it together or not and a broadcaster who tells a congressional member to drop the crack pipe. i mean, how do we move forward? >> there's a couple things. >> how do we get better at being american? >> corporate responsibility in a capitalist society is a tricky thing sadly. i think we need to have more public conversation. people think we're post-race. we can't even have the right kinds of constructive productive conversations about race. also we have to progress that conversation to understand the intersectionality between gender and race. the term crack ho is a gender

bias term. men smoke crack as well. i would bet dollars to doughnuts that women become targets because they're women and because they are black. there's an intersectional discussion we have to have to move things along and have public conversations and public discourses around the ways in which raisin infiltrates. >> if we had seen a black player's head in the middle of a watermelon, there would have been tremendous outrage. we have an asian athlete. that's not seen in the nba too often. there was a comfort level that it was okay to put his head in the middle of a fortune cookie. the knicks good fortune. someone decided to put that on the air. i'm amazed at it. there's a lot of things i could have led with tonight to start this show out. i'm just driven to make sure that this conversation happens in america because i think we

teach hatred and we teach racism. young kids don't grow up with it. they are taught this. >> that's true. >> when we don't call people out on what's going on in this country, when people in front of cameras and in front of microphones are given the license and they just get a little slap on the wrist and go, i have made my share of mistakes. i've been publicly embarrassed. i know i've changed. i know i have. but how -- what do we do? the response from the black community, they got to feel beaten down all the time when they see stuff like this. >> it's an uphill climb and it's an ongoing battle. black folk fighting this battle for a long time and will continue to do so. there are blind spots in our racial discussions and sometimes racism against latino hispanic communities and sometimes against asian america. the problem with what msg did with that fortune cookie mishap is endorsed the ways in which we enact biases against the asian

american community. that kind of endorsement at that level is problematic. think about the various asian communities within new york city. how are they supposed to take that kind of representation of someone who is being elevated with a great story, great talent, and then you sort of take the wind out of the sails with that kind of negative imagery. bottom line is we have to be vigilant and wrestle with them directly and the only way to get out of these sorts of situations recurring is through education. we have to fight that through media and different platforms and engage it in the most critical way possible. >> it's being presented as entertainment on some talk shows around the country as it was on that one on kfi in the middle of misery when people suffer the loss of a loved one, it's okay call her a crack ho. no buying deal. they took the license to do it. and then of course there's

probably some asian parents who were watching this jeremy lin and now they have to explain to their kids who are 7, 8, 9 years old of an impressionable age what that really meant and how we have to deal with it and it forces parents and kids at a young age to have to deal with this stuff. that's why we have to call them out to be responsible. >> we have to give people tools. sadly i've had those conversations with my children and i want to plug a book called american born chinese. a great novel that excavates a lot of the different asian american stereotypes that we have in our society. it will make you laugh but it will also make you think about the ways in which we think about certain groups of people. we have to have those conversations with our children and these kind of conversations on your show and same kind of discourses in our classrooms so we can sensitize people to this insensitive language. >> thank you for joining us. i appreciate it. share your thoughts on twitter. we want to know what you think. coming up, the republicans war on women's health continues. a mostly male panel testifies to

congress about contraception. sandra fluke was not allowed to testify. she is my exclusive guest next. and later, general motors posts a record profit and unemployment claims hit a four-year low. all good news for the economy. bad news for mitt romney. robert reich with the conversation. stay with us. we're right back.

coming up, republicans on the hill refuse to let a woman to testify at a hearing about women's health. the witness who was denied the chance to testify is my exclusive guest next. mitt romney's disaster in michigan continues. good news on the economy are sinking republicans in the polls. robert reich will join me with the latest. sarah palin is back from alaska and she has the white house on her mind. richard wolffe will tell us if we need to worry about the half governor. share your thoughts on twitter using the hash tag ed show. we'll be right back.

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>> this contraceptive thing, my gosh. it's so inexpensive. back in my days you used bayer aspirin for contraception and the girls put it between their knees. >> the money man for the leading candidate for republicans which would be rick santorum summing up the republican party's attitude toward women's reproductive rights. the gop war on women's health continued in the house today. the oversight committee held a hearing on the obama administration's decision to mandate coverage for birth control. here's the first panel of witnesses. >> reverend william lori. reverend matthew anderson.

dr. mitchell. rabbi. dr. craig mitchell. >> you got it. republicans called an entirely male panel to talk about women's health. women did not testify until this afternoon when two women joined three more men on a second panel. not only were the vast majority of witnesses male, they were all called to testify by republican members. because they seem to have all of the answers. the democrats witness was rejected by committee chairman darrell issa. carolyn maloney was not pleased with issa's decision. >> mr. chairman, i was deeply disturbed you reject our request to hear from a woman, a third-year student at georgetown law school named sandra fluke. your staff told us you personally rejected ms. fluke's testimony saying that and i quote, the hearing is not about reproductive rights and

contraception." >> the entire motivation for the hearing was president obama's rule on contraception. darrell issa's bogus accuse for granting the witness proves his hearing was a complete farce. joining me tonight is sandra fluke, the woman congressman darrell issa rejected as a witness today. ms. fluke is a law student at georgetown university. great to have you with us tonight, sandra. i understand that you already planned your testimony. you were going to cite examples of people who could have benefited from president obama's mandate for birth control coverage. share with us what you would have told that committee today. >> that is what i was there to speak to the committee about. that's why i was so stunned when chairman issa made the decision to not allow me to speak on behalf of those women and to say that i was not an appropriate witness and that those women's stories were not appropriate for this committee.

i cannot think of who would be more appropriate for the committee to hear from than the women affected by this policies whose lives were affected. one of the women i wanted to talk about today is a close friend of mine. she needs to take contraception for medical reason to prevent cysts from growing on her ovaries and not to prevent pregnancy. that technically means it should be covered on georgetown student health insurance which does not cover contraception for prevention of pregnancy but unfortunately when university administrators and employers and insurance companies get involved in deciding whose health needs are legitimate and whose aren't, what happens is women's health needs take a back seat to that type of ideology and that's what happened in her case and we found that that happens in 65% of the female students' cases so for her she was unable -- they

repeatedly refused her contraception coverage claims and verification from her doctor. it didn't matter. she had to pay out of pocket about $100 a month for her month after month after month and eventually she just couldn't afford it like many students just cannot afford that kind of a cost. she had to stop taking it. i have to tell you, so what happened is that after a few months of her not taking the prescription, a massive cyst grew on her ovary and she woke up one night in the middle of the night in excruciating pain and told me it felt like she had been shot. i can't imagine what that felt like for her. what ultimately happen is she had to have that ovary surgically removed. as a result of that she would have problems conceiving a child but even more it just hasn't stopped for her.

since the surgery she's experienced symptoms of early menopause and her doctors are very concerned that at the age of 32 she is entering early menopause which means that there will be nothing any doctor can do to help her to conceive a child and it will also put her at risk for increased risk for cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis and that's where she was this morning when i was attempting to tell her story to the public and to members of congress, she was at the doctor's office trying to cope with the symptoms she's experiencing. >> sandra, you know, i know our audience appreciates the story you just told. that was tremendous testimony. it's very powerful. i wish you would have had an opportunity to testify in front of darrell issa but they are politically bent. i want to know, what's it like -- you're a third-year law student at georgetown.

are people on campus, are they talking about this story or has this really hit the attention of women that you interact with professionally in the school setting? >> oh, my goodness. unless you studied at one of these schools i can't even explain to you what it is like on campus. we have been following these regulations ever since the affordable care act was passed. it's a fight we've been having for years literally decades students have been struggling for this. this makes such an incredible difference in our lives, in the lives of so many women. my friend is just one of the women who would benefit from this. so when we hear the regulations announced and when we hear updates on this situation, these policies, there is such jubilation, celebration on campus. people are excited. they know i'm involved in this issue and they come and ask me questions about it and they are so excited about it. they are so grateful that this policy is going to help protect

vulnerable students in this way. we've tried to convince our universities to cover contraception and students at many other universities around the country have tried the same thing and they've turned a deaf ear to us. this is our hope. this is what we hope will help the women that i wanted to talk about this morning. >> sandra fluke, i appreciate you being here tonight. i know they watch on capitol hill. great testimony here on "the ed show." i think you'll probably get an opportunity to talk more with people who will be in a position of making a decision that will affect the lives of women. i really appreciate you being with us tonight. thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. >> you bet. the testimony sandra was going to give can be found on our blog. now, let's turn to caroline heldman. your reaction to that, professor? >> well, ed, i'm wondering what darrell issa is so afraid of. he's afraid of a young woman in her 20s testifying about this?

he's afraid of dissenting opinion? i think it is sham politics. it's politics partisan politics being played out on women's bodies. and frankly, there is no issue here. 98% of catholic women already use contraceptives. more than half of the states in the union have requirements similar to what can be found in the obama health care act and 77% of campuses, college campuses that have a catholic affiliation already provide this. any time there is smoke in politics but no fire, you have to ask what's going on. i think it's really clear that republicans are trying to use this as a wedge issue to scare people that obama is persecuting religious people and also to paint him as not being christian. one in five americans believe he's muslim and perhaps that number will go up after this campaign of misinformation. >> caroline, what kind of political price do you think the republicans could pay for this? is this really on the radar

screen and is this such a terrible political misstep? i feel bad asking that question because this is such a serious issue for women's health in america that it would turn out to be a political football. i can't believe they're going down this road. to give you an example, today when that gentleman who supports rick santorum -- i use this comment on my radio show. i interviewed senator barbara boxer on my radio show today. i read her the quote that we played at the beginning of the segment where the guy bankrolling santorum's super pac talked about women heading aspirin between their knees as contraception. it was the first time senator boxer had heard the quote. here's her reaction. i want to play it for you. >> the billionaire who was supporting rick santorum says that did you no he that gals just used to put aspirin between their knees for contraception. >> what? >> yeah. yeah. i'm just reading it now.

it was just a simpler time. there was other ways to deal with female sexual desire. >> oh stop. >> the senator was left speechless. that pretty much sums up where women in america are, you think? >> this is new information. i don't think a lot of women know about aspirin. it sounds painful to me. perhaps if you were a woman or listened to women, he would know that. it's fascinating that we live in a society where certain segments embrace that men's bodies are valuable and women's are not. we are back in 1973 with roe v. wade here. it's such a ridiculous argument. >> caroline heldman, thank you for joining us tonight. i appreciate it. rick santorum went off the rails in fargo, north dakota, last night. i'll show you the tape not many people are playing but i am. the republican front runner's radical comments that everyone will be talking about tomorrow.

stay with us.

>> general motors is once again the number one automaker in the world. >> gm posts record profits and jobless claims drop. good news for the country. bad news for mitt romney. robert reich is here with the latest. rick santorum reveals his radical plan to gut public education in america. >> should education be a federal government issue?

okay. that's pretty simple. >> e.j. dionne will tell us why santorum could take out romney. and just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water -- >> if that involves running for public office at some point in the future, i'm game for that. >> america's worst nightmare could come true. richard wolffe on president sarah palin.

welcome back to show "the ed show." more good news on the economy and bad news for the republicans and especially mitt romney but it's the kind of news that's so great. general motors hit a record profit in 2011. $7.6 billion. its last record year was way back in 1997. there's more. manufacturing orders skyrocketed 66% in 2011. strongest year in more than a decade. jobless claims are at a

four-year low and dropped once again last week. i mean, it's just happening, isn't it? mitt romney says we need him to rescue us from a bad economy. he says president obama, he's in over his head. but romney is twisting in the wind right now, folks. here's what he said at a business roundtable. >> this is the number of manufacturing jobs from 1975 to 2010 and you'll see manufacturing jobs have come down a lot. but all of that has come through union jobs and i think in many cases as in the case of the uaw where a union asks for too much and the management gives in. you end up in some cases killing the company or killing an entire industry. >> it's those union workers. the united autoworkers. you've been the problem all along. you can't make cars. you make too much money. it's your pension. it's your health care. you're the problem. i tell you what, i know that there are some guys in the united autoworkers who in the past voted for republicans.

that's the only sound bite you need to see right there to get your head screwed on right. republicans have nothing for you. mitt, let me tell you something. union jobs decreased because of the sustained decades long assault on workers. let me give you some free campaign advice here, dude. here's the chart you should be showing if you want to speak effectively to the middle class in america. as union membership declines, so does the middle class share of the national income. but don't bother mitt romney with any facts. today he announced that he would skip the cnn debate on march 1st, a week before super tuesday so the debate was canceled. let's turn to robert reich, former secretary of labor under president clinton and now a professor at uc berkeley and author of the book "after shock." i don't know what it is about conservative republicans and even republicans. they always want to blame labor. if labor is the problem, how in the world do we have this success right now?

what's the best conversation you could come back with to mitt romney saying that it's the unions that hurt manufacturing? >> you can look at the record, ed, and that's something they don't do. manufacturing declined for years. it took a huge plunge under ronald reagan and unfortunately continued to decline somewhat under bill clinton, not nearly as much. but then it took another huge plunge under george w. bush and as manufacturing declined, well, you know, a lot of very good jobs were lost. the republicans have cause and effect backwards. they say that manufactuing declined because of the unions. manufacturing declined despite the unions. a lot of people, a lot of very, very strong working class people tried to maintain america and made an america mean something but it was a lot of republican governors and republican presidents that presided over shipping a lot of these jobs abroad. now that is being reversed.

we are seeing in general motors one of the mote dramatic comebacks in recent industrial history. that company was written off by a lot of republicans. they said don't bail it out. don't do anything for gm. president obama stuck to his guns and he helped gm and we now have a success story. very hard for romney to respond to that. >> especially in his home state. he's kind of in a funk right now. forced to say things like the economy is getting better despite president obama. at the same time, in the same event should i say in michigan, romney called for right to work legislation but also said unions play an important role in our economy and here's romney before the michigan chamber of commerce. >> my impression is from some government people they don't like you very much. i love you. all right. i like the fact that you're entrepreneurs and working to create jobs and build enterprises and that makes america stronger. >> he's all over the place, isn't he?

>> completely all over the place. he knows he has to appeal to working people in michigan. that's a big union state still. it's a big industrial state still. yet his record, not only in terms of what he said, ed, but also as a private equity manager and a head of a private equity firm was basically getting rid of unionized workers and cutting wages of a lot of people and getting rid of a lot of jobs. what he said in that clip you played just a moment ago about, look, the big problem for american manufacturing was unionized workers. that's been his m.o. for all of his career with regard to private equity and it has caused havoc with regard to a lot of manufacturing companies and a lot of good unionized and nonunionized wages. >> politically naive to throw out the united autoworkers. he's just alienating workers. it amazing me. robert reich -- >> especially in michigan of all places. it's extraordinary.

>> it is amazing. he thinks the home cooking is going to help him out. we'll see. thank you, mr. reich. appreciate your time tonight. rick santorum is on a role and he's talking up his hardcore radical right views more than ever. e.j. dionne will join me next. ey was thought up and built and run to save people money? what if that company was born online, with tools and apps to make people feel like geniuses? and what if that company was now backed by the stability and reliability of allstate? well, what if that company was esurance and this wasn't just a bunch of hypothetical questions? could be cool-ish. esurance. insurance for the modern world. click or call.

rick santorum would be the most radical republican nominee since barry goldwater and he's proving it. you just have to listen to him. e.j. dionne with me tonight for the discussion. don't forget to tweet us using

hash tag ed show. right back.

all right. you be the judge if this is radical. rick santorum's radical views have largely flown under the radar screen because he's been really low standings in the polls until now. and now that he's taken the lead in several national polls, you know his extremist views are getting more attention. last night out in the middle of the country of all places good old fargo, north dakota, he told a crowd that he wants to, listen up, he wants to completely gut public education. >> get rid of all of the federal money that goes to primary and secondary education. not just get the federal government out but let's get the state government out and get it back into the local communities and to the parents. >> and they want the teachers to work for free in fargo now, is that what it is? cutting off funds to education.

let me tell you something folks, it's just of the tip of the iceberg. here are more examples of santorum's radical views. states should have the right to outlaw contraception. radical feminists convinced women they had to pursue careers. women should not serve in combat roles in the military because emotions will get in the way. it's better for children to have a parent in prison than to have gay parents. there's santorum's famous comparison of homosexuality and bestiality. he can't wait to bomb iran. barry goldwater was famous for his doom's day rhetoric. i'm kind of hearing the same stuff coming out of rick santorum's mouth. i get the feeling that he knows where the nuke button is and he's reckless and can't wait to get to it.

one more thing about santorum, he talks a good game about made in america but his tax returns from 2008 she was driving a german made audi a6. not good if mr. american manufacturing. i wonder what 2012 presidential candidate santorum would say about that? >> elite snobs. >> elite snobs? joining me now is msnbc contributor e.j. dionne, senior fellow at the brookings institution and columnist for "the washington post" and may i also say a professor and i've been in your classroom at georgetown and i know you care about education so i'm just going to throw this out to you, e.j. what would america be like if we cut all funding on a federal and state level to public education? >> first of all, let me say this chevy malibu driver is happy to be with you. >> good for you. i've got a silverado at home. >> when your booking producer called me and read me that quote, i couldn't believe it was what he said.

i asked are you sure? she actually sent me the text of the quote. what's really amazing is it's not just that he's proposing cutting federal education aid which has been with us in some form since world war ii but has really been part of our life and helping schools especially poor kids since the '60s. but when he says get it out of the state government. i mean, my word. we use the state governments to try to arrange at least a little bit of equality between school districts. a little more equality. we live out in bethesda, maryland, an affluent community. we moved there because the public schools are great. some of my state tax money goes to help inner city schools in baltimore and a lot of rural districts around maryland good education too. i was just astonished he said that. >> i tell you what, it's amazing. this is a guy who homeschools his kids, okay, and this is a guy that has no problem with the defunding of public education

where teachers in his home state of pennsylvania have voted to work for nothing and they have gotten a big scrap with the governor right now about getting funds to run it. i want to play a sound bite of rick santorum yesterday in north dakota talking about iran. >> right now the big issue of the day is iran. the development of a nuclear weapon and let me assure you they do not respect us. they are promoting terror all over the world. there are plans here in the united states that iran is planning to do terrorist attacks here and what does the president do? he appeases. this is a fundamental threat to your security. no one is safe. no one is safe from asymmetric threats, terrorism. that's what iran is all about unless we stop them from getting that nuclear weapon. >> we should point out factually that the stated position of the president of the united states is that he will not allow iran to have a nuclear bomb. i guess we have got to have all of this testosterone on the republican trail for campaigning.

is he building an argument for bombing that country? >> i think that's what he's trying to do. by the way, somewhere in there he said president obama called iran a tiny country and in fact the actual quote from president obama which was before he was president was that it was tiny compared to the soviet union. it was a very different quote than the one that i understand he said. i think the problem santorum is creating for himself with all of those quotes you had on social issues at the beginning and with some of this rhetoric is if he blows this lead he has in michigan to romney, one of the reasons is that women voters are abandoning him. women that vote in republican primaries are not liberal but there are moderate and moderately conservative women who don't like that rhetoric at all and i think that's something he should be careful about and the schools quote will also affect those voters. >> e.j. dionne, thanks so much. a good day for romney is what you're saying because that kind

of out of the main street rhetoric could actually help a guy like mitt romney so there's a real tussle with republicans on which way to go on that. thank you, e.j. appreciate your time. sarah palin gives the green light for being drafted at a convention. richard wolffe weighs in on that. [ male announcer ] that. right there -- reminds you

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if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial. tonight i asked will racially charged comments in the media increase during this election season? 98% of you said yes. 2% of you said no. coming up, sarah palin has been on the sidelines this election year but now she says she's willing to be drafted. richard wolffe joins me on whether she has a shot at the nomination. could it really happen? that's next. ♪ round, round, get around, i get around ♪

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pretty much everywhere. and swiffer dusters traps 3 times more dust than a feather duster. and locks it away. ♪ swiffer cleans better or your money back. ♪ get around >> the big finish tonight. sarah palin says she's open to being drafted in a brokered republican convention. in an interview with eric bolling she was asked about her future. >> i know that, i've got the fire in my belly to try to help, to try to make a difference, and if that involves running for public office at some point in the future, i'm game for that. >> and then she was asked about the possibility of a brokered convention. >> well, for one, i think that it could get to that. and, you know, if it had to be kind of closed up today, the whole nominating process, then we would be looking at a

brokered convention. nobody is quite there yet. so i think that months from now if that's the case, then, you know, all bets are off as to who it will be willing to offer themselves up in the name of service to their country. i would do whatever i could do help. >> sarah palin is the entitlement candidate. she doesn't work for it by going through a messy primary and caucuses. interested in campaigning for two months and serving for two years like she did when she was governor of alaska. that's why she encourages voters to keep gingrich's campaign alive up to the convention. richard, there would be nothing greater for cable news than to have brokered convention and sarah palin come away as the nominee. i mean, is she giving the green light here? what do you think she's saying? >> maybe cable news interests or not the country or the world's

interest given that it's an evenly divided country. her eloquence in that interview speaks for itself. if she thinks she's going to light up the convention floor with speeches like that, all credit to her. you know, things have moved on. i know that you can be delusional. maybe you're delusional just by being sarah palin but you can be delusional because people are out there, thousands of them, chanting your name when you get picked to run for vice president or you actually run for president, something she didn't do. that delusional aspect is hard to shake off and for her i think she doesn't realize the country has moved on, the party has moved on and her brand of craziness has now been trumped by a whole bunch of other people. >> is she a political asset in a strange way at this point? she's a media star no doubt. she commands the camera quite often where she works. she draws good crowds where she goes. is she a factor?

>> she did draw good crowds. there was evidence as she was playing around with the idea of running for president she wasn't going to keep those crowds for very long. by the time she decided not to run, she only had 20% of republican voters saying they were enthusiastic voting for her. 20% in this race is pretty much where everyone has been including mitt romney at various points. i don't know what enthusiasm is out there. it's like herman cain thinking he has a base that will go out to bat for him. they're not there. they moved on. they have two other populist that are still in the race. who does she speak for? >> would it be smart for the nominee to put her on the ticket again and let her run wild so to speak. we keep hearing stories about how she was pretty much harnessed as far as a candidate is concerned and not being able to speak freely on the campaign trail. would she be a good vp for romney or santorum?

>> i don't know. she said she was harnessed. the people who worked with her in that mccain campaign said that she just couldn't speak for herself. what were they harnessing here? there's a difference of opinion on that one. she has 60% disapproval among the general electorate. you would have to be pretty weak as a nominee to think that you need the conservative base that she would bring with her for all of the people that she would alienate and again she is old school crazy and extreme. she goes after fruit flies. today's republicans go after birth control. she's behind the times. >> great to have you with us. thank you so much. i'm ed schultz. you can listen to me on the radio, sirius xm radio monday through friday noon to 3:00 p.m. we'll follow-up tomorrow with our discussion on race. you can follow me on twitter and like "the ed show" on facebook. rachel maddow starts right now.