when in doubt, attack the preacher. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews. in washington leading off tonight the great chicago fire. are you as surprised as i am that the people who don't like the president can't think of anything better to hit him with than preacher he had in chicago. the right that john mccain missed his chance years ago.

and it seems that if the country really knew about jeremiah wright they never would have voted for barack obama. in the key to the right to win the white house this time, it is about the which angry dirty pac will take up the cause. and also what to know about mitt romney's bain capital issue. as long as he doesn't have a response, the obama people will hit him hard. look at the interactive map of the bain that hit him around the country. and most of them seem to be from the swing states. and why the vets may be voting democratic. and also tonight, on how to connect with his son that he barely knew. and finally we continue with the closet "w." joining me is jeremiah wright and david corn from the

washington bureau chief and author of "showdown." >> i like how you say that, chris. >> well, some people say this is beyond television media right now, and the reason they get the big 54-page deal on this and hannity is on it, is because they want us to keep ringing the jeremiah wright bell one more time. is that smart thinking? >> well, it could be. i frankly don't know how far this gets them this time. it is not as if everybody doesn't know about jeremiah wright. this is kind of red meat for the -- >> well, i hear about the guy ricketts is the guy who owns the cubs is still about it. >> and these are people who have not heard of jeremiah wright. >> what did black theology have to do with the auto bailout or

other issues, because it is like other political consultants, fred davis in this case, to find these venting billionaires who say we have to kill a book and you gave us $500,000 and whatever it is, we can take it out. >> it is not for the audience. >> right. it's a vanity production. that you can go back to the club and say i took out obama with that ad. >> and here is the guys on television who thinks like them, but hand -- hannity disagrees. and i cannot tell sean what he believes and what he is putting out there. but there he is, mitt romney repudiating the attacks and the pledge of the economy, but how

can you disagree with what mitt says. here he is sicking him on the president. >> well, governor romney, i have to respectfully disagree with you. i feel that every candidate needs to be fully vetted. that is something that the mainstream media failed to do in 2008 with barack obama and i believe that the president's relationship with the reverend jeremiah wright, a man who influenced him for over 20 years and inspired him is an important campaign issue, because afterall, it is a matter of character. >> okay. watched this guy in the press for four years and people watch him astutely with care. we are not seeing the president? this geronimo character and this lefty crazed wild person buried in the soul of the guy that is going to leap out after jeremiah wright. >> well, four years in office is what i call vetting. it is a full vetting, and you have got the job and done it for four years and people can decide. they like what he has done or don't like, and they like what he might do or might not do. >> let's do a psychoanalysis of

this guy sean hannity. >> oh, no. >> is this showmanship or does he have a doubt that there is some other person under this guy we are watching that is a debonair president who is a bit cool and elite in some ways, but underneath that is some crazed revolutionary. >> well, you saw newt gingrich in the campaign talk about sal linsky and this guy is waiting to be a dictator. and listen to sean, there was not a vetting of barack obama on jeremiah wright? it went 24/7, wall to wall on the fox news. what are they thinking? >> well, it sounds like a communist back in the day. >> yes. >> and he is like a black revolutionary with the automatic weapon and the big sunglasses and the beret, and is that sean's image of this president? this is not a guy who likes to play golf. and as a matter of fact, he spent time trying to learn how to play golf. >> that is right. >> and he is trying to learn,

and he won't tell us the score, because he is trying to learn. and there is a lefty if ever. >> and the bill ayers and sarah palin saying he is palling around with terrorists and back to the notion that he is not us, and he is not american, whether it is that he is black or socialist or whatever he is. >> and he never figured it out and now it is time to figure it out. >> and look at michelle, and isn't she one of the lefties from the campus and straggly haired around the campus, because she is a fashion plate. >> well, no, she is an angry black woman. >> and she has perfect kids and well turned, and they are mr. and mrs. perfect everything. >> they are some kind of kids. >> and they are meeting in the middle of the night with the -- >> it's a rouse. >> and we bail them out? >> and somewhere somebody must be believing this stuff, this crap. >> it is good for the ratings on fox, right? >> well, did you hear that, dear? come in here, did you hear what sean says. he is one of these people.

>> and there are people who believe this stuff, but they were not going to vote for barack obama. >> so, the person who seriously puts mitt romney in a difficult position on this, because as they press him, he is going to have to answer. >> and this is, himself, brought up reverend wright with sean hannity about black history month, and he responded about the country's increasing diversity, and here is romney hitting them left and right, and too secular and here is what he must think. listen. >> i think that, again, the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard not from those who are ardent believers in various faiths but instead from those who would like to see america more secular and i'm not sure what is worse him listening to reverend wright or him saying that we must be a less secular

nation. >> and hit him on the left and the right. goes to church or doesn't go to church. and yesterday, this is what mitt romney had to say. >> i am actually going to say that i am not familiar with precisely whatever i said, but i stand by whatever i said whatever it is. >> and there it is. >> i personally deny whether i said whatever i said. i don't know. >> well, listen, you know, to not joke about it, and for him to say that he wants the country to be less christian and he professes the faith, and it is insulting and where does he get it from? it is feeding into the notion of something weird or revolutionary and he wants to subvert america and the grand traditions, and in other instances he says that barack obama does not understand what is special about america, and he does not get american exceptionalism, and it is part

of a sort of playbook that he does in a more subtle way, but it is all of the same thing. >> do we want to get into what mitt romney said in the pew in church all of those years until 1978 when he heard what was -- >> and he called up sean and said, you opened up the religious issue, and that is not smart. >> and he said that black people are cursed and cannot be in the mormon priesthood because they carry the curse of cain. >> and you know, why would he want to open up that book? >> i don't think he would. >> i don't think he should. it will not help him. he has to pander to both sides of the equation in that one statement. >> well, what bugs me is that he does not believe in american exceptionalism, and this president does look to the rest of the world not as evil and notion and it is part of the world we live in, but nobody has been more poetic about this country when he says nowhere in this country is it possible for someone like me. >> and this is a consistent theme for mitt romney.

>> and talk about the practicality as we go into the playoffs if you will, the debate, are they going to go into the area and do reverend wright? i see sean pushing it, and advertising fred davis who tried to get mccain to use it and people tell me they will push it and some of the wealthy guys as you said they love it and eat it up, and there is a market for it, and the money guys, they like it. >> i think that establishment is going to like it a lot less to tell you the truth. >> this is a pretty rot gut campaign if you ask me. thank you. mitt romney has still not figured out a good response to bain capital that he gets hit on it. he has a glass jaw on it, and we will talk about this more when we come back on "hardball" the place for politics. you can see everything ok? just stay off the freeways, all right?

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wonder of wonders. welcome back the "hardball." mitt romney has not come up with a response to the issue that torpedoed that 1994 senate campaign of his against ted kennedy when he handed a win to newt gingrich in south carolina. the same thing, the criticism of the leadership of bain, and he cannot defend it. now 18 years after kennedy branded him with his work with bain as a liability, the same tactic is showing up with great success. it shows up here. bob schwab who worked with ted kennedy back then with the anti-bain ads and led to kennedy defeating mitt romney in the massachusetts senate race, and also jo walsh, political editor, and this is fun, they used to

say with the bayonet, you keep sticking it until you are mushed and when you hit bone, pull back. it seems, bobby, every time you hit him with bain capital, you got mush, and squeeze it and turn around and with the reference to the bayonets and obama is doing the same thing that you did without the bone matter, and it is just mush in there. >> well, he was paralyzed in 1994, and a worker hired boss came to see him in massachusetts, and would not see him, and as a result kept the story a live. this is the central part of his candidacy, he is a mr. fix-it for the economy, and this is a narrative arc moving from what he did in the private sector to the positions of public policy like destroying medicare and destroying lavish health care, and if that narrative is told

and told effectively and told unimpeded by the end of this process, he is the candidate of the few by the few and for the few. >> well, joan, it is amazing how the language gets twisted and i hate phrases like wmd and all of this homeland crap and all of this, but the worst is bailout which w. created, because we had to have so many. and job creators and anybody who makes a buck is a job creator, and if you want to make a living or more money, he is like the king of this notion of b.s. which is that you make this -- you know, i went to work today and i went out to create jobs today, and that is what i did? no, you went out to make a paycheck. and this guy, mitt romney look like a guy who cares about creating jobs or a guy who wants to make money. nothing wrong with it, and you don't brag about it, you just do it. your thoughts? >> and he has changed the story. 100s of thousands of jobs or 10,000, and every time he is

challenged on it, he comes around with a different explanation, and that is why when what bob did way back when is powerful and more powerful now. i was sitting here thinking that 18 years ago the babies who were born that year are going to college next year if they can get into college and if they can afford college and you have a man mitt romney -- >> that is if the old man or mother didn't lose the jobs because of bain. >> and romney is saying, go borrow money from the parents to go to college. he doesn't get it, and he didn't get it back then and he has a glass jaw on this, and it is character assassination. >> i like my bayonet better. well, here is the obama campaign launching a website now and clever stuff and romneyeconomics.com and it goes hand in hand with the cut throat bottom line business guy. here it is, they select the swing states and five of them with running ads and eight states and doing five of the ads in those states and including the numbers of worker s laid off, and showing you systematically how many jobs

have been laid off, and the pro pac usa is up there with ohio, pennsylvania, colorado and virginia and let's watch it. >> with romney and bain capital, the objective was to make money. whether the companies they came in and made money was irrelevant or not, because bain capital made money. if we lost, they made money. if we survived, they made money. simple as that. he promised us the same things that he is promising the united states. he will give you the same thing he gave us, nothing. he'll take it all. >> priorities usa action is responsible for the content of this adverting. >> that is strong stuff, bob. >> it is really powerful, and it is really powerful for the same reason that the '94 ads were powerful, and it is real people talking to real people, and reagan democrats talking to blue collar democrats talking to swing voters and romney had to

know it was coming for months and years and it is amazing to me that they seem paralyzed. what they will do ultimately is to put some people from staples out there to say he created jobs, but bain had two jobs, one was venture capital and the other was what i -- i don't quote him often but what rick perry called vulture capitalism, and take over a company and squeeze it, and load it with debt, and then fire them, and fly off. >> and let me get back to this, joan. great politicians like tip o'neill and ted kennedy and even reagan in an interesting television way were able to connect with the guy working on the line, and they heard the voice of the politician, and they say, he was with me, the reagan democrats voted for him for that reason, and he talks to me, and this guy romney is at a particular disadvantage here, but a guy here looks like a job killer, and looks like one of

the efficiency experts who comes in and not like the guy who is the foreman or the guy who works with you or the business agent at the labor union, and he does not look like he connects with workers, does he? >> no, he does not look like it or sound like it, and he has not been able to fake it. you know, i mean, we have a good laugh out of that aircraft line, and who talks like that? right? we are from france, and coneheads do. and somebody who is doing an invitation of a human being talks like that. >> earthling. >> and he simply cannot master it. it is a crisis, and you know bob was saying that he did not seem to anticipate it, and we were saying the same thing, bob, a few months ago when the tax return issue came up, and he did not seem to anticipate it, and it is an entitlement where he has been sheltered from certain key questions and how dare you question me, and now in the rough and the tumble of they politics and the class issues just keep hitting him, and hitting him and he is never

ready for it. >> thank you, great friends. and now, guess who says that attacking mitt romney over bain capital is a bad idea? newt gingrich. the newtster. don't listen to him. he is like freddy krueger, he keeps coming back. it is friday and the place for politics. this mom has been doing it for years. she's got bounty. in this lab demo, one sheet of new bounty

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back to "hardball." this is surely the stuff of sideshow. the obama campaign is out with a this is surely the stuff of "side show." ad paints romney as a corporate villain type and not from team obama. you have heard it all, right. >> bain model was to go in at a very low price, borrow and immense amount of money, pay

bain a great deal of money and leave. now i will let you decide if that is really good capitalism. >> get this now. newt offered advice to the obama campaign beginning rich said his experience should be a lesson to obama. that dog won't hunt. it will not resonate in voters minds. you want me to be mad because at one company somewhere someone may have lost their job. while you as president have been involved in millions of people losing their jobs. reminder to newt, your bain attacks helped you win the south carolina primary, and remember why you backed off, mr. gingrich? your fellow republicans blasted you for knocking free enterprise and not because it was not working. and yesterday gop congressman mike kauffman offered a half hearted apology for spouting birther talk. we had him on last night, and now ken bennett, the secretary of state for arizona, and the person responsible for running the state's elections says he is

awaiting proof that the president's birth certificate is authentic and something that the state of hawaii has confirmed more than once. and here he is the secretary of state in a radio interview yesterday. >> i'm not a birther. i believe that the president was born in hawaii. or at least i hope he was. but, my responsibility as secretary of the state is to make sure that the ballots in arizona are correct and that those people whose names are on the ballot have met the qualifications of the office they are seeking. >> if you don't get an answer from hawaii and they refuse to comply with this, will you remove the president from the ballot? >> that is possible. or the other option would be that i would ask all of the candidates, including the president, maybe to submit a certified copy of their birth certificate, but i don't want to do that. >> you know, you are a birther and you talk like one. that guy won't quit, will he? but earlier in the year arizona governor jan brewer vetoed a

so-called birther bill to require the candidates to prove their birth certicertificate, and she called it too far. coming up next is "your business with j.j. ramberg." [ male announcer ] what's in your energy drink? ♪ power surge, let it blow your mind. [ male announcer ] for fruits, veggies and natural green tea energy... new v8 v-fusion plus energy. could've had a v8.