leading off today, what about the right wing billionaires and the money billionaires who can elect or destroy wherever they wish. the koch brothers and the americans for pros tear ti is

dumping into eight states to take down presidentm y and what about the interest to control the senate races. and back in the ussr, and are mitt romney and the ideologues trying to bring back the cold war and bring back russia? the republicans can't wait to get in power and back to the cold war and yet it seems that these people can't wait to have another war to fight. we know thoo tat the republican have a goal to defeat obama, but do you believe they started from the first day of the inauguration. and funny is money, and so the tough crowd at the white house

dinner, but we have a comedy writer who came up with gags like this for president obama. >> others say i'm arrogant, but i found a really great self-help tool for, this my poll numbers. we are gare going to look back some past moments as we get ready for the next evening which you can watch right here. and also, let's talk about what we treasure as a democracy, and we begin with the angry money. both men are msnbc political analysts. i was struck this morning by a small item this morning, gentlemen, in the "examiner" which is a eye opener. this there is a group founded by the brothers charles and david koch and also spent about $a

billion on these ads. >> $1.8 billion to a group from mex koeshgs and hundreds of billions to build traffic lights in china. president obama wasted $34 billion on risky investments and the result is failure. american taxpayers are paying to send their own jobs to foreign countries. tell president obama american tax dollars should help american taxpayers. >> well, think progress, a progressive organization says that two of the claims about jobs in finland and mexico are made up by bloggers. and it is said that these two

brothers don't like alternative fuel fuels and they are out spending millions off dollars to trash an escape route down road in the future for oil and gas. >>? a two-fer for the president, they don't like democrats and they don't support the president and they really don't like democrats who like alternative fuels so they are attacking president obama with blogs that have not been fact-checked and making it sound like anybody who likes green jobs is for mexico and finland and not the united states. >> i don't care if you are or right, but you only get one

vote. so the koch brothers can go all over the country, and dump tons of money and just switch the race around. >> they can and will. >> look, we have had a series of decisions made starting with the supreme court back in buckley valet owe in 1972 and progressively seen the system of campaign and finance destroyed by the influence and the raging influence and every cycle, it gets worst. this is the worst in a string of decisions that have gotten worse and worse and it is hard to imagine that it is worse in which unregulated private money is getting involved in the election cycle. but as a strategic matter, it is a huge problem for the president, because even though there are a lot of people who like barack obama and supported him in 2008 he is in danger of

not only being outspent in this election, but dramatically outspent in this election. >> but what is driving these corporations? they hate obama? >> yes, and some of them are not ideological, but businessmen who want regulations repealed and not reinstated and they have specific business interests and then there are those who hate the president. >> and he was brilliant, but anybody who watches can understand this, they go to a simple congressman or woman who is doing a job and say, if you don't vote for this creepy deal for the corporations that gives them a tax break for debt that nobody in the district has heard of, we are dumping a half billion against you and blowing you a wway and the congressman says, well, we will do it. >> well, the thing is that they don't have to say it. these ads can happen with a week left when the candidate does not

have the ability to come in to put up an ad and they can buy up all of the ad time in the district and so people are preemptively looking out for what not to do. >> and so they kiss the butt of the right wingers. and now looking at the staggering difference of the spending of the superpacs. while obama had a 10 to 1 campaign cash advantage, now when you look at romney's arsenal, it is almost even, and the obama super pac had $9 milli million, romney raised $80 million. and now pack to you, john. i know you are running this all of the time and how do to people

keep up the morale when they go the vote knowing they are up against this amount of money thrown at them? >> well, this is a progressively degenerating system in the last 30 or 40 years of american life. cycle by cycle, it is worse and voters look at it as an issue, and maybe it is a tipping point, but politics is dirty and corrupt and there is a lot of money and i don't care. >> i don't carry a torch for santorum, although he ran a gutsy campaign and newt gingrich is interesting to watch and i did not rout for either of the guys, but they went up against romney and the money machine and watching this in iowa and florida and michigan and iowa and they weren't in the race because of the money, and the money ran the primarieprimaries >> well, the election is becoming and john is right, it has been happening for decades, but we are getting to the curve

of when it is going to hyperspeed if you remember "star wars" and you have angry billionaires and call them venting billionaires who can come in to tip the balance. >> the koch brothers. and shelled aelm ed a adelman. >> and before we get to the general election, remember it is going to vote six, eight, ten state elections and not nationally, but take $6 or $10 billion and put them in the key states, and it is a lot of influence at those tipping points. >> thank you, david corn and john heilemann. >> thank you. and if you listen to him, they are fighting the free world and the ussr and the old lingo out there talking it up. well, do you want to go back to

the days of duck and cover? this is "hardball." do you eve

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americans know, americans know that we can't go back to the future and see the world through a cold war prism that is totally out of touch with the realities of the 21st century. >> back to "hardball." does mitt romney want to refight the cold war, and the vice president has left no doubt that he believes that mitt romney is out of touch with the foreign policy, but before the biden speech, the romney campaign set up with reporters to set up a prebutal before the biden speech, and the problem is that they wound up making the point of being old cold war terms without making them. >> russia is another example of where we give and we get nothing in return.

the united states abandonbaando sights in czechoslovakia -- >> well, czechoslovakia has not existed as a country since 1990 when it split into two countries. and another foreign policy adviser said they have revived another cold war word. listen. >> the reality is that it is opening up huge new vulnerabilities and we are seeing the soviets pushing into the arctic with no response from us. >> well, that is john lennon of the 600 ship davie and did a good job, but the soviets are wrong and with foreign advisers like these, romney does not need any enemies. and we are joined now by chris and michelle. and this lingo is old lingo,

czechoslovakia, and soviet union and i remember when the old park in philadelphia was called scheib park and you start to sound like an old geezer? >> yes, and the folks surrounding romney are from george h.w. bush's policy team, and they can't run on the bush era so they go back to the cold war era, but the democrats are making an argument that it is a throwback, but romney is making the argument that in some ways that obama embodies the old soft democrats who are soft when it comes to defense policy and national security. >> and chris, it also seems more dangerous than comical to me, because it seems that neoconservatives that this group is made up of largely, and they

always have a war to fight. they were running into iraq and afghanistan and want to fight a war and now it is iran and now we are to be more aggressive in arming the aggressives in syria and push us into a war over there. it is not like a comedy team, because they are pushing and war hawks and always one little in the pez dispenser the next war waiting its turn, and it is always like that. they never say, oh, let's hold back and see what happens, but it is always let's get in there and fight. >> i agree it is serious stuff and chris, sometimes in the political dialogue we go down rabbit holes of misstatements and things that don't matter, but this stuff how you articulate america's role in the world does matter in a very real way. i was struck that i talked to norm coleman who is a former minnesota senator and foreign minister policy adviser to romney, and i talked to him yesterday and he said that barack obama represents a break with how america has presented

itself to the world since basically world war ii and the peace through strength idea, and obama wants to weaken tamerica through the world, and i think that the obama team would argue and i'm no foreign policy expert, but with some justification that the world has changed since the cold war and it is no longer us and russia and us and afghanistan and us and syria and a huge number of threats that exist out there so that the older approach does not work as well, but it is a fascinating line of argument on the foreign policy that if not romney is making all of the advisers are trying to craft. >> well, our presidents who have been popular in the world like kennedy and eisenhower and all have been smart about restraining the u.s. power and not hawks. anyway, there is a new ad out

there against bill clinton playing up obama's courage and taking out osama bin laden last year and questions if romney would have done the same. here is clinton. >> one thing that george bush said that is right, the president is the decider in chief and nobody can make that decision for you. look, he knew what would happen, and suppose the navy s.e.a.l.s had gone in there and it hadn't been bin laden, and suppose they'd been captured and killed? the downside would have been horrible for him. but he reasoned and i cannot in good conscious do nothing. he took the harder and the more honorable path. and the one that produced in my mind the best result. >> well, you can't do better than that. i mean, bill clinton giving a testimony like that is just for re

real. >> and it is in some ways the rejoinder to the ad that they came out. >> i'm cool. >> and the obama singing and that sort of stuff, but one of the things that is apparent here is that romney has not articulated yet what the foreign policy vision is. >> oh, you are being kind. he made wild statements about going to war with iran. >> he gave one major speech in october and i am told by his campaign, le ramp it up. >> and biden says he wants to get tougher with iran without going the war right off of the bat. >> well, that is true and his criticism of obama is that he would have really had tougher sanctions. >> and war. these guys have to bring a new war with every president. and the first bush had a gulf and the second bush with a couple more wars and these guys do like to have something on deck in the on-deck circles. >> yes. >> and chris? >> take one step back. and what romney has said and nia is right that there is a lack of specificity and he has made some statements, but a broad lack of

specificity because of the foreign policy. >> he has not given -- >> why? because he served as governor of massachusetts for four years and someone who at least is inexperienced in foreign policy as barack obama was when barack obama was elected. >> thank you. and both of you from the "washington post", nia and chris, thank you. and newt gingrich by the way lost his secret service protection, but he is still going to the zoos. this is one of the strangest things in history. and people are going to say, what did this guy have to do with running for president and going to the zoos? you can't believe it. he has created the "sideshow" and we will be right back.

♪ back to "hardball" and time for the "sideshow" and a slipup that says it all.

we see the republicans time and time again with republicans dancing around the religion of the president and whether he was born in the united states or not. >> the president says he is a christian and i accept him at his word. >> i believe that the faith that most americans are questioning is the president's faith in the government. the president says he is a christian and i tack him at his word. >> i take him at his word. >> the american people have the right to think what they want to think. >> i think it is very bizarre that he is desperately concerned to apologize to the muslim religious fanatics. >> he is a devout muslim and why isn't something being done to get him out of the government? he has no legal right to be calling himself the president. >> well, i'm doing my best to try to get him out of the government. >> oh, santorum had no problem with that ands week with dave spence who was independent governor candidate was caught when he was asked if the

president was a muslim, and then there was a go-to case of responses in case another blunder came up. the snafu. it was e-mailed to a group of supporters. so what was spence supposed to say when asked about the comment. plan a, this is not an issue that i felt was pertinent to my candidacy as governor and express those sentiments. if that is not the trick, there is plan b for the candidate. i will be clear that president obama says he is a christian and i take him at his word, and if all else fails the pivot point, return to jobs plan, and my question to the staffer and the consultant and the candidate, why not just say, i believe that president obama is a christian. that is pretty simple and gets it behind you. and while the real face-off between president obama and mitt romney is taking place center stage, we will be looking for the "saturday night live" imitations to help us along the way. david gregory caught up with

fred issedaikis and fred armist. >> i go across the country and i see so many happy and unhappy men and women and grandmothers. >> let me take an applause break. thank you, thank you. >> how do you compete with this guy? i can buy the fliphouwhite hous flip it. >> thank you, thank you. >> and that is the very best, and we look back at newt gingrich's greatest hits and the campaign trail and guess where newt gingrich decided to kick off the final week of the presidency? >> i have been to 100 zoos. when i was here they fed them and unbelievable. i never really understood --

>> well, that is what the secret service called you, too, right? >> well, it was the t-rex, but now it is in the smithsonian. >> i don't mind painting the rhino, but i don't want to be one. >> i wonder if he got the animal crackers. coming up next is "your business with j.j. ramberg." you think you take off all your make-up before bed.

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