cheering going on in the obama headquarters. >> an amazing dynamic we'll see how it unfolds one week from tonight. jonathan alter, richard wolffe great to have you with us here on "the ed show." that is "the ed show" i'm ed schultz, listen to me on siriur radio. follow me on twitter and like "the ed show" on facebook. the "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, ed, thank you. thank you at home for joining us this hour. pop quiz, republican primary pop quiz. 1988, ronald reagan has finished the second term, vice president is papa bush, who wants to be the next republican nominee. he does have to win the nomination of the republican party. his main rival for the

nomination that year? if it wasn't going to be papi bush? it would be senator bob dole, right? he came in second in the republican primary that year. so here is your pop quiz. 1988 republican presidential primary. who won hawaii and alaska? was it papi bush? [ buzzer ] >> it was bob dole. [ buzzer ] >> neither of them. in alaska and hawaii and nevada and washington state, in the republican nominating contest in 1988, neither papi bush nor bob dole one, it was pat robertson, he carried those four states in 1988. in iowa he beat papi bush but came in second, he had a bang-up year, got a speaking spot at the republican convention that year, he released his delegates to support the eventual nominee, papi bush and returned to his teleevangelist college, or university i should say. ten years before he ran for president, pat robertson of the christian broadcasting network,

had founded something called the christian broadcasting network university. remember when glenn beck tried to do that? eventually pat robertson would change the name of the christian broadcasting network university to regent university, what it's called now, at the time of the presidential run it was cbnu. and at that time, the year after pat robertson's presidential run, a young executive at a company called the american hospital supply corporation decided he would jump off the corporate merry-go-round and follow in pat robertson's footsteps, first to the telehe -- that was bob mcdonnell. in the mid 80s he was moving up the corporate ladder but something was missing.

that something was pat robertson. specifically pat robertson's school the year after mr. robertson ran for president. bob mcdonnell was not a kid at this point in his life. he was married, had kids of his own, a mid-career change undertaken by an adult. at pat robertson's university while bob mcdonnell was in his mid-30s, the republican's party vision for the family the compelling issue of the decade. leaders, bob mcdonnell argued correct the folklore of church and state. to punish could habitate tors, homosexuals or fornicators. man's basic nature is inclined toward evil, when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse or homosexuality, hey, that is me, the government must restrain,

punish and deter. bob mcdonnell said the supreme court ruling in griswold versus connecticut which says states can't criminalize contra shin he said that was i will lodge kay. he raged against the perverted notion of liberty, each individual should live out his sexual life in the way he chooses, without interference from the state. that was bob mcdonnell's vision for what exactly the state should interfere with in your life and why while he was at pat robertson's university when he was in his mid-30s. now of course, bob mcdonnell these days is being considered as perhaps the top candidate for the republican party's vice president shall nomination. >> romney said mcdonnell would be on any candidate's short list

for vice president. >> whomever the nominee is i hope they would choose bob mcdonnell as their vice president. >> i could be looking at the next running mate here. >> let's let everybody else worry about that. >> you would be open to it? >> if you could help your country any of us would think about it. >> the guy sitting across from me would be a number two -- i think any governor you get a call that says you can help the party, our country, of course you would consider doing that. >> bob mcdonnell has all but said he would like to be picked for vice president, please. his eagerness, even though he's governor of michigan he's governor of virginia, he was in michigan campaigning for romney. when he gets home he can look forward to decision making. both houses have passed legislation that would force women seeking an abortion in virginia to have an internal vaginal probe ultrasound at the direction of the state, that is

not medically necessary, and they will do it against her wishes and even if the doctor objects. bob mcdonnell said he will sign the measure and that is no surprise when he was in the state legislature in virginia himself, he sponsored a bill a lot like this. two years after he wrote thesis he started his political career. got elected to the virginia legislature, by the time a decade-and-a-half later he was running for attorney general and then governor of the state. a washington post analysis looked at that thesis found of the 15 things that were listed in bob mcdonnell's university thesis what government should do, of his 15 action points in his anti-fornicator thesis, he wrote for the pat robertson university he worked on legislation to address 10 of those 15 points. that mean his anti-abortion ultrasound bill and numerous other anti-abortion measures.

he sponsored four bills to make divorce more difficult in virginia. he co-sponsored legislation that could have made it illegal to swear in an e-mail that was sent from virginia. everybody agrees swearing, very, very bad, right? but a government big enough to be able to regulate whether you swear in your e-mails? that is a very specific kind of conservatism. bob mcdonnell's thesis said the trend of working women was "ultimately not good for the family." the resolution said we think men and women ought to get paid the same if they do the same work. bob mcdonnell voted no on that. by 2009 when he was running against a democrat for of the state, he referenced thesis in an interview, not previously discussed. when he brought up during the campaign that sent "the washington post" to the school to go to the school's library to look up thesis he mentioned on

the campaign trial. in the resulting hulabaloo over the evil of women having jobs, in this is thesis, he promised he did not hold those views anymore. for example he told reporters when he was running for governor now he no longer believed that government should discriminate on the basis of sexual or yen tax. he no longer believed government should ban contraceptions. bob mcdonnell got elected governor. one of the first acts to make discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation legal in the state of virginia. he just said he didn't believe that, he said that before the election, one of the first things he did right after he got elected. we covered it at the time. the new governor, mcdonnell in the first month in office, went to the trouble of rescinding an

order. thanks to bob mcdonnell's overt action, his overt order in the case, you can be asked what your sexual orientation is in a job interview in virginia and your answer can be the reason you don't get the job. apparently since then my chair has grown, did you notice that? usually just my hair goes like this when we see clips. that was just the sort of thing that bob mcdonnell could do by executive order, making sexual orientation discrimination legal in the state. he could do that as governor cht he started getting what he wanted this year when republicans took control of both houses of the virginia legislature. back when he was at college, he said that states ought to be able to make contraception illegal, right? in order to get elected governor, he said he no longer believed that.

but now, now that he is governor and now that republicans control both houses of the state legislature, and now thanks to his old buddy with whom he co-sponsored you can't swear in an e-mail bill, now as governor, bob mcdonnell will get his chance, he will decide whether virginia ought to ban contraception, at least hormonal, the kind most women use. thanks to virginia's personhood bill which would ban all abortion in the state and likely the pill as well. before he had republican control of the legislature, the bob mcdonnell administration changed regulations in the state about adoption. the state approving rules last year allow adoption agencies to discriminate against couples for being gay, and for much, much more. the new rules on adoption in virginia brought in under bob mcdonnell, those new rules reserved the right to discriminate against you in adoptions, not just on the basis sexual orientation, age, gender,

disability, religion, political beliefs, family status. they changed the rules to say you can be blocked from adopting a child in virginia because you're a registered democrat or jew, they changed those rules. now that republicans control the entire state legislature, bob mcdonnell will get a chance to make that permanent, to sign a version of that new rule in law. so it can't be reversed by somebody else's executive order. the legislature passed a bill allowing adoption agencies explicitly to discriminate against anybody who doesn't share their religious beliefs. you could be block forward adopting in virginia because you're gay, blocked for any reason anybody claims has anything to do with their religion. any reason, anybody thinks you don't follow their religious beliefs, no adoption for you. of course there is the ultrasound bill. which republicans seemed to have spooked themselves. after yesterday's protest delay

wlad was expected to be a final vote on the measure in the house, republicans today again delayed that vote. so here's the big picture, put yourself in the shoes of bob mcdonnell, or put yourself in the shoes if you can't imagine yourself as bob mcdonnell, put yourselves in the shoes of a republican political consultant trying to advise bob mcdonnell how to achieve his ambition of becoming the vice presidential nominee of republican party. what would you tell him about that bill? would you tell him to sign it? think about what he has on his desk, the forced ultrasounds, the awore shun and contraception ban, adoption rules. if you want to be the vice presidential nominee for the republican party as badly as bob mcdonnell plainly does, is stuff like this radioactive? or is this exactly what you need because this is what the republican party is looking for? a nominee in 2012.

joining us now is meghan mccain, contributing for "the daily beast" you a good to see you. >> i don't know how to follow all that. >> i talk too much. >> hey kids, republican after all that, it's crazy. >> you have progressive views on gay rights and stuff but you're anti-abortion, you are pro-life. >> i'm not pro-vaginal probing. i feel like i have to go on dell vision and delineate between the two things. i'm horrified by the bill as a woman, as a republican woman i'm horrified. it scares me that this can go on, scares me a woman could be vaginally probed without consent or doctor's consent, this is completely radioactive for governor mcdonnell and i have no idea why he would even go on any form and say he would pass it. >> the radioactivity, invading against contraception would be radioactive, like that would be a mistake or something that would accidentally hint at invading against con dra accept

shun -- this year maybe it's not radioactive. maybe this is how you lobby to be vice president. >> i think it gets a lot of media attention, a lot of play on right wing blogs and conservative movement, when it comes to mainstream, more moderate republicans, especially with independents it's radioactive. governor mcdonnell may get a lot of the evangelical vote but will alienate every single woman possible. if he becomes the nominee think marco rubio is the candidate. >> there is a total different discussion, i'll book you again. i think marco rubio has the rick perry perry he's great on paper but when he talks, who is this guy? >> no, i love him. >> you're coming back to talk about him. >> talk about this personhood thing. personhood was which says from the moment of fertilization or

conception, a woman is two people. you define life that way throughout the state code and that was rejected by voters twice by more than 40 point margins in colorado, then figured they could get it passed in mississippi, sure, it lost by double digit margins. all of the republican presidential candidates are in favor of this. if bob mcdonnell vetoes it, is that a vote to say that the republican party ticket will be roughly to the left of the mississippi electorate or is that poison? would he be seen as not pro-life enough? >> i think this is toxic, i think there are some things that hit the main stream, i would say moon colonization is the last one. vaginal probing is something i had friends texting me about i'm not politics, what does this say? this is something that will penetrate beyond politics, will

make him a toxic candidate and end his life-long dream of being a vice president. >> what about the contraception stuff. personhood is not just forced ultrasound thing, but we had that big fight about access to contraception as part in terms of health insurance. but the personhood stuff has failed, a lot of pro-life people have been against the personhood stuff. women identify as anti-abortion pro-life women and i still need to have guaranteed access to the pill. >> i always say the best way to prevent abortions, supply birth control. i'm pro-birth control, something alienated me with pro-lifers, i'm not an extremist. >> i think the politics are fascinating and moving so fast it's hard to know where they are going next. >> it's scary, i'm a young, single woman the idea of this regressing in the 1950s, entering pleasantville is daunting. >> meghan, will you come back and talk to me? >> any day. >> we'll do on it neutral

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i know what you're thinking, hold on i thought he was newt gingrich's billionaire. turns out, not really. sort of. in the sense that anybody who is keeping newt gingrich in the race right now, by which i mean this guy, this billionaire not only given $11 million to newt gingrich already about to give another $10 million, floated the idea in an interview with forbes he might give $100 million to newt gingrich. anybody who is keeping newt gingrich's campaign alive right now is mitt romney's best friend. and i can prove it, data. look at this. this is the latest that we have out of the state of washington. washington holds their caucus on saturday, march 3rd, right before super tuesday. right now, rick santorum is leading in the state of washington. okay? that is rick santorum on the left there. he leads mitt romney 38-27. ron paul has 15%, newt gingrich 12%. if newt gingrich were to quit the race, if newt gingrich were to drop out before the

washington caucus on march 3rd, watch what happens to the results. boing. santorum goes from beating mitt romney by 11 points to trouncing him by 21 points. santorum gets all of newt gingrich's supporters there if newt quits. here is the latest out of michigan. right now rick santorum leads mitt romney in michigan 37-3 p. ron paul, 15, newt gingrich 10. take newt gingrich out of the equation and watch what happens. boing, santorum takes a 4 point lead and blows it open in a 9 point lead. newt gingrich dropping out kills mitt romney in michigan. now let's go to arizona. finally a little bit of good news for mitt romney in arizona, mitt romney has a small lead in arizona right now, beating rick santorum 36 to 33. watch what happens if you take newt gingrich out of the picture. watch. oop, hey that is a reversal.

rick santorum goes to losing to beating by 2 points. the next three contests on the republican side are michigan, arizona and washington. the latest polling shows if newt gingrich gets out of the race before those contests, rick santorum wins all three. the tipped presence of newt gingrich in the race is the only thing keeping the words front-runner and mitt romney anywhere near each other. and that brings us back to the billionaire casino guy. when newt gingrich received his first $5 million injection from the casino guy last month, mr. gingrich supporters spent the money going after mitt romney. remember the half hour long king of bain documentary they purchased and aired in south carolina? that was thanks in larnl part to sheldon adelson's $5 million. according to new reporting in "time" magazine, the casino guy was not all that psyched about how his money got spent there.

mr. crawley said adelson was not thrilled with the mitt dashing his hon money funded in south carolina. he's not a fan of rick santorum, he doesn't want him to be the nominee but would be all right with either newt gingrich or mitt romney. it's being hinted at that any new infusion of cash to newt gingrich from sheldon adelson comes with a string attached. the string attached is, do not use this money to make mitt romney look bad. go after rick santorum but leave mitt romney alone! the quote from mr. crawley's reporting, "it's possible adelson is giving on the condition gingrich's camp doesn't disembowel romney. spend it slamming santorum in michigan, but go easy mitt. mitt romney needs two things right now. he desperately needs newt gingrich to stay in the race. so, mr. gingrich supporters don't flock to rick santorum and beat mr. romney. also, mr. romney needs the gingrich camp to please stop

attacking him. so how about killing both of those birds with one $10 million stone? or one $100 million stone? see i told you he's mitt romney billionaire. joining us is steve kornacki, good to see you again. >> good to be here. >> horse race stuff is not my favorite politics, i find this dynamic to be fascinating. do you see it this way, do you think that is what is going on here is the three-way dynamic? >> absolutely. when you look at the demographics, it gets pronounced beyond the next three contests and move to super tuesday in the middle of march, that is when the race shifts back to the south, the deep south. we've seen at least the basis, the foundation for a regional cultural divide, where romney has done well in the coasts moreorless, broadly defined. santorum the candidate of the midwest, gingrich in south carolina and in the panhandle region of florida has done well with the sort of white evangelicals down there.

they tend to be more sort of pentecostals. there is a resistance to mormon candidates, but there may be an issue for rick santorum in terms of being a northern, pennsylvania born roman catholic, he may not be an ideal outlet for them if they don't consider mitt romney to be an idle nominee. it may be that gingrich by virtue of his southern roots, he's not originally a son of the south. >> a catholic convert. >> late in life catholic convert. he does have the georgia thing going, maybe the name newt has resonance. santorum going so far to the right on the social issues the last few days, i wonder if he feels the pressure he needs to prove the southern evangelicals, that newt gingrich can be spending a lot of money here they should not consider him a

viable option, consider santorum one of their own, that is a live dynamic down there. >> so much of the campaign this year has been about parsing the individual whims and motivations of specific billionaires. the post citizens united world is a specific world. we know them by first names. what do you think the odds are sheldon adelson as newt gingrich's sole funder is keeping gingrich in the game in order to protect mitt romney's flank? >> it's one of those we may never know the full story, because we have to get in his head for that but we have seen evidence, clear evidence of outreach, sustained outreach from mitt romney himself and the people in the republican establishment who are sort of supportive of romney and who are in touch with sheldon adelson, we have out reach, if you think back to the debate in florida where there was a palestinian republican questioner and put a question to mitt romney about

the insensitivity of the republican party to palestinian, romney gave a hard-line harsh answers that i've seen him give as a candidate, i wonder if the sub text was that he knew sheldon adelson was watching. >> the hard liner. >> he doesn't like rick santorum his issue is israel. he may know if i can make sheldon adelson comfortable i'm with him on this issue and more comfortable to win maybe it brings about what we're seeing now. >> supports newt gingrich, nothing dishonest about support but if it has the benefit of helping mitt romney in the end so much the better. fascinating. creepy we have to try to get in one guy's head to figure it out. that is the world we live in. steve kornacki, thank you. appreciate it. senator bernie sanders is here for the interview, that is we put a w k's worth of bad

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frank, the guy to tells republicans to say stuff like jt job creators" he tells republicans don't say government spending, call it waste. he is the one who told republicans to called health reform a government takeover. so republicans call it a government takeover. according to frank the words "climate change" are less frightening than global warming. he is a republican consultant who calls himself a wordsmith. message is words matter.gure in

he is not just a guy on fox, this past thanksgiving in iowa, he hosted a presidential candidates forum in iowa. last night in michigan he warmed up the crowd at a campaign event for rick santorum. reporter cory morris posted the video for the grand rapids press. >> i want your forgiveness here when i came in to grand rapids, i stopped in mcdonald's, did you see they have that new obama happy meal? order anything you want and the guy behind you has to pay for it. or i would stand up here and tell you i actually have a run barack run bumper sticker but put it on the front of my car. that of all the places hillary clinton could choose to live she chose new york, do you know it's

indian for separate bedrooms. that is the normal stuff i do. can we play the second joke? >> i would stand up here and tell you i actually have a run barack, run bumper sticker but put it on the front of my car. get it? the sticker is on the front of his car like he's trying to run down the resident of the united states with his car. so says the republican party words matter wordsmith guy. we have been looking for follow-up remarks, any apologies from mr. santorum, whose event that was, we have not seen any yet.

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just 'cause i teach preschool doesn't mean i shouldn't look good. so, i use the bar to help repel lint. hmm. if only it repelled paint. [ boy ] that's not paint. [ male announcer ] how do you get your bounce? [ woman ] less lint on me. if you watched the top of the show and maybe thinking bob mcdonnell virginia's republican governor won't be the party's vice presidential nominee. maybe it could be mitch daniels, the republican governor in indiana?

maybe it could be. i suppose. maybe if rick santorum is the nominee he might pick mitch daniels, also maybe not. in indiana right now one of the things going on in republican politics is the on-going legal trouble of a man named charlie white the secretary of state. that makes him the top elections official, in charge of elections and voting and making sure the process is by the book and executed with integrity. charlie white was the guy in indiana until earlier this month he was found guilty of six felony charges including voter fraud. when charlie white voted in an election in indiana m may, turns out he was registered at his ex-wife's house even though he had moved in with his new fiance across town. so there, finally a documented case of voter fraud with an actual conviction. only republicans that self-appointed voter fraud hawks are fighting this thing in indiana the day after tomorrow, he has a sentencing hearing and if the judge reduces his six felony convictions to misdemeanors, then mitch daniel,

the governor and potential vice presidential nominee might give charlie white his old job back. that is his old job overseeing integrity of indiana's voting. when charlie white was convicted of voter fraud the government appointed mr. white's deputy but made sure to point out he was making that appointment on a temporary basis only. he said "i have chosen not to make a permanent appointment out of respect for the judge's authority to lessen the verdict to a misdemeanor and reinstate the office holder." so mitch daniels says the guy maybe gets his job back supervising state elections if the judge softens the voter fraud charges for which he was convicted. do as i say, not as i do. indiana's top election official could be a guy convicted of voter fraud, really? elsewhere, dick lugar is running for reelection not just

against a democrat but a tea party nominee. the address on his house is one he sold in 1977. that is the primary challenger standing in front of said house in which he does not live. dick lugar voted for federal voter id a few election cycles ago would presume him from voting in his home state, depending on what address is on his driver's license and how you're supposed to qualify to get that. so do as i say, not as i do. in iowa the republican party trying to push through a bill require to you show photo identification in order to vote they want that for the whole state, particularly for general elections in which democrats and republicans are both voting and the two parties running against each other. whether iowa republicans were running their own election last month. only republicans were voting in the iowa caucuses, they chose

not to enforce the rule for themselves. do as i say, not as i do. or it's okay if you're a republican. if republicans do have this problem on voting issues, if they purport to be so concerned about voter fraud but don't live by their own proposed remedy to the problem when given the chance, what are the chances that with all these voting laws, these changes they are trying to push through, what are the chances they are really for something else? today a group of four u.s. senators sent a letter to the government accountability office asking for a study of just that issue. one of the senators joins us now for the interview. bernie sanders, the independent senator from the great state of vermont who caucuses with the democrats. nice to have you here, thank you for your time tonight. >> good to be with you, rachel. >> why did you request the study on voting law and voter registration law changes in the states? >> it's clear to me, rachel,

right wing republicans are trying to suppress the vote. what they are trying to do and i have to tell you i really think it's an absolute outrage, people can have differences of opinion, but to go out of your way to try to make it harder for poor people, minorities, students, older people to participate in our democratic process is totally unacceptable to me. so what we want is the general accountability office to document such issues as how extensive is voter fraud in this country? my understanding is thank goodness it is not a serious problem at all. and i want to use that study to expose what the republicans are doing. also, we want documentation of exactly how many people would be impacted by these voter suppression laws. >> we have been following a lot of these laws in individual states as they have been enacted. today in fact was the first election, a series of municipal elections in wisconsin which photo id was required.

these have been going in effect since republicans won so many governor ships in the 2010 elections. i heard people say that as many as 21 million americans may not have the id that republicans are trying to require to vote. do you think that these laws are so sweeping that they could affect the outcome in national elections? >> absolutely. what you're talking about is not everybody is middle class. a lot of older people don't drive as well, they do not have in many cases government-issued ids. and then what the states are doing is making it very, very difficult and sometimes expensive for poor people, for old people to get to the places they have to go in order to get these photo ids, very few people i think who study this issue doubt that what the republicans are about in this area is simply making it harder for those people who might vote against

them to participate in the political process. and if i might say, rachel, this is the other side of what citizens united is about. citizens united is to give billionaires and corporations the opportunity to buy elections and candidates and voter suppression is the effort to deny those people who will vote against the republican agenda the right to participate in the political process. >> because -- i was highlighting the it's okay if you're a republican the do as i say, not as i do aspects of this in order to point out this does not seem to be a universal concern about voter fraud. the groups you describe as having the least access to photo ids, which is the thing that is being put up as a hurdle to voting in this country tend to be people that vote democratic and therefore the changes will benefit republicans. when you look at all these things together it makes me

wonder if you as a senator, when you talk to your republican colleagues, when you talk to republicans in your home state of vermont, are there republicans who are concerned about how difficult these state law changes are making it to vote or this is really purely a partisan thing? >> i think this is 100% partisan. it goes even further than we've talked about. they are trying to create a situation where if you're a college student you can't use your college id card to register to vote. they are trying to roll back same day registration. eight states have same day registration where you can register on the day you vote. there are states that want to repeal that, they want to repeal or move back early voting which has been very, very successful in getting more people to participate. the bottom line is that some of us think that in a democratic society the goal is to bring as many people as possible in the political process. it's very clear what the republicans want to do is drive as many people, he is personally poor people, old people,

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i am hyper sensitive to visual stimuli. i can't have moving pictures around me or i get distracted and i can't concentrate on anything else. i'm not great with action movies any time after they started digitizing the explosions. it's also why my future career

as air traffic controller is not bright. the way it affects me every day to be hyper sensitive to visual stimuli when we look at more materials we have available to make the tv i have to look at transcripts. i look at transcripts of things that happen on tape rather than looking at the tape, itself. i'm not bragging about this. this actually makes me worse at my job and not better at it. sometimes the most important thing going on, even just in politics news, is not what's being said at on event and therefore what makes it into the transcript, but what's happening visually, while the words are being said. here's mitt romney speaking in newton, ohio. >> one of the people i'm running against, senator santorum, goes to washington, calls himself a budget hawk. then after he's been there a while he says he's no longer a budget hawk. i don't believe it's appropriate

for us to keep raising the debt ceiling every year. he voted five times to raise the debt ceiling. >> so that's what mitt romney said in ohio. that was all in the transcript. what is important about that thing that happened in ohio what was it looked like. see, that's mitt romney at that event in newton, ohio. while he was giving that speech. who's that guy standing next to him at the event? there he is at the same event. right, there he is. same blue shirt, right? looking like he might grab mitt romney's belt loop there. who is that guy? that's ohio senator rob portman. while mitt romney is laying in to santorum in ohio for voting to raise the ceiling, like he is in all his ads now against santorum, while mitt romney is going hog wild on how awful it was to raise the debt ceiling, he's standing there with his endorser, ohio senator rob portman. >> we have in washington a malady that affects so many there, not your senator, but many others, that somehow think it's okay to spend money that

they don't have. >> not your senator. ha, ha. other senators. senator portman, ha, ha, would never do a thing like voting to raise the debt ceiling. right? quote, as mitt romney slammed gop rival rick santorum to raise the debt ceiling on tuesday, he was standing alongside rob portman of ohio. quote, portman during his time in the senate and house repeatedly voted to raise the debt ceiling most recently in august. here's a statement from portman's office at the time. he called it a step in the right direction, i support the agreement, he said. before rob portman was a senator for ohio, what was his previous job? george w. bush's budget director, george w. bush who raised the debt ceiling seven times. which mitt romney never complained about. presidents inevitably raise the debt ceiling. republicans do it.

democrats do it. george w. bush did it. ronald reagan did it. mitt romney has never seen it as a scandal before. now, though, he's try to make a scandal about it hoping nobody can bear to look at the pictures while we're also listening to him talk. how about you, senator portman? you're just going to go to appear at that event with mitt romney, with a big smile on your face and not going to peep while your candidate lies about your record? really, senator portman? you're happy to take credit for something you didn't do? ♪ get a free balcony upgrade when you book now. limited time offer. some restrictions apply.

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wheeeeeeeeeeeee! whee! whee! wheeeeeeeee! ah heads up. wheeeeeeeeeeee! everything you love about geico, now mobile. download the new geico app today. best new thing in the world. last may when rick santorum's presidential candidacy was a crazy long shot, a glean in the eye of foster friess, we at the rachel maddow show had the foresight to pick up santorum related internet real estate. this was a headline to the story in the sarasota "herald tribune" about an anecdote santorum told about how early in his career he was going door to door and found himself in a little old lady's living room with an incontinent

dog in his lap and got up and with a giant dog pee stain on his pants he kept right on campaigning. we found it hard to believe rick santorum would tell this anecdote about himself giving the problem he has what comes up as the first entry when we google the word santorum. we had the journalist in question place us the audio tape from the event over the phone to verify rick santorum really did tell the dog peeing on him story. the image of a rick santorum pee covered pair of pants could make him seem more presidential. once the journalist convinced us it happened, we decided to seize the opportunity. to help you out so no one else takes it and does something rude with it, we the rachel maddow purchased and safely thereby taken off the market d dogpeecan'tstopsantorum.com. it will now live forever as a redirect to our website. we still own that url to this day.

if you type dogpeecan'tstopsantorum.com into a web browser, it will take you to the maddow blog. we were smart to grab that because this weekend that piece of internet real estate got more valuable. we have video proof rick santorum tells the dog pee can't stop me story on the campaign trail. here he is saturday night, lincoln day dinner, akron, ohio. >> she hands me a glass of water, the dog jumps up and hops in my lap. okay. fine. so i pet the dog, have a sip or two of water. we're chatting. the next thing i know, there is a warm sensation on my lap. and i -- and i jump up and on my tan pants is a huge wet spot where you don't want a huge wet

spot. so i jumped up to look at it and she was aghast. she reached for my pants and said, let me dry that off. i backed away and said, no, that will be fine. she goes, let me get a hair dryer. heaven forbid. she goes, i said, no thank you very much, i start to move out the door. she goes, take your pants off, i'll put them in the dryer. that was the last i heard from her because i was out the door. so now i'm walking down the sidewalk at the end of the sidewalk, i'm two hours into my walk, i'm a mile at least from where my car is, it's still lots of daylight left. what do you do? undeterred, i soldiered on. >> so what did we pay for the url? 15 bucks? cheap at ten times the price. dogpeecan'tstopsantorum.com.