tv Hardball With Chris Matthews MSNBC June 6, 2012 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT
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sharpton, "hardball" right now. osh kosh bagosh. let's play "hardball". >> good evening, i'm chris matthews in philadelphia. let me start with the big loss in wisconsin. if labor is united, why didn't they vote united? was it because 65% of the voters think it should be reserved for official misconduct? and was the victory by the governor a preview of the presidential election? why it president obama outpoll
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mrp in the exit polls by seven points, 51% to 44%. let's get the answers from howard feinmann and joe williams. what went wrong for democrats last night? look at what they told pollsters about elections. 60% responded they're only appropriate in cases of actual official misconduct and abuse of office. look at another interesting number for the exit polls. unions were not as monolithics and some thought. what do you make of those two numbers? >> first of all, chris, we have to be careful in interpreting wisconsin. i just talked to steve law, the big independent spending group that was a master on the republican side. he cautioned me not to overdraw
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the lessons of wisconsin, and i think what you focused on, the recall -- he was a better candidate than tom barrett. the democrats put up the same guy that got beat by him last time. and what was bigger was the money from the outside. it played in specific ways in wisconsin that may not be repeated elsewhere. that's the good news. the bad news is the republicans found a wedge issue here. they can divide what's left of the labor movement, the public employee unions and nonpublic employee unions, and if they focus on benefits that public employee unions get as opposed to collective bargaining rights, they can force the democrats as law said to me to defend the indefensible which are some of the pensions and benefits that public employees have amassed
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over recent years. mitt romney talked about this today and analyzing wisconsin, i predict you can expect republicans from mitt romney on down to focus on public employees even though their risks, they're going to do it. >> let's go to joe williams, howard is focussing on the number i'm fascinated by. 30% of familys with a member of a union in their family voted with walker, the republican. it was supposed to be about the rights of labor. >> i think another factor here is if the election had been held in the early months of 2011 when this issue started to take fire, it's almost certain that the outcome would have been defer t different. they had a cooling off period. he gathered money, and then
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mounted a very aggressive campaign against barrett. barrett only had a couple months to not only secure the nomination, but also raise money, not a lot of time to do that. the democrats are feeling that the money advantage was just too big to overcome. they feel very good about the organized labor movement, but it shows signs of fraying. >> you're dodging my question. why did union households vote against what was supposed to be a union vote. >> i think public sector unions and private sector unions, it's a battle. we're looking at private sector unions where barely 10% of the working public are members of unions today. and those unions have different interests than public sector unions when framed on the issue of spending and spending of tax money. people don't like to hear the fact that public employees are
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asking for higher salaries or libraries be open every other sunday, and you see public sector employees arguing for more money, that's distasteful to a lot of people. >> president obama still showed a lot of strength in the exit polling. he has a seven point lead in the exit poll. that's a good news if you believe the exit polls. i'm not sure how good they are, i'm very conceptble in this environment. i'm skeptical in polling this year. in terms of turnout and everything, it's too hard to figure who will vote and how they will vote. >> i agree, since you brought up the exist polls, i think there are lots of concerns about them and why, one reason i think is in wisconsin. i was astonished in how firmly and strongly people are divided. this information says that most
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people, like 90% of voters in wisconsin decided which side they were on for this in may, last month. so it's harder to poll them and predict who will turn out. if was i president obama i would be relieved about that 51-44 number you mentioned, but i would be concerns in a way about another number in there which is 18% of the people who voted for scott walker said they would support president obama for reelection. so the question is how does the president reassure those people and make sure he keeps that 18% of walker supporters so he can win wisconsin. this is exactly what the republicans are going to try to do. heir they're going to try to get him to defend employee reunions, and that takes the tension away from the fact that it was the
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republican congress and the republican president that's primarily responsible for the huge increases of the federal debt and deficit before barack obama came into office. this is a wedge issue of their dreams and they're going to push it. >> i think the logic on forcing him to defend pensions and benefits, i think the way you defend that is by saying these pensions and benefits are contributors to the economy. if people have money in their pockets, money they earned by the way that the public sectors have agreed to under legitimate bargaining and contracts, that puts money in people's pockets and creates demand and stimulates the economy. that does not fit on a pumper sticker. that takes too much explaining to do. if the republicans forced the president to defend on that issue it will be very, very difficult. if you have him talking about why this is important, why
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people need to have a higher wages because wages have been stagnant for so long, and public sector employees deliver great services, this could be something that people could more easily relate to. >> the other thing to remember is the rifts of reductions in state and local employees over the last few years which the real within we have an unemployment problem. it's public sector that's been going down because of the terrible economy this president -- by chuck todd of nbc, let's watch. >> they're hungry. they are saying i don't care about the next election, i care about the next generation, and this is what i'm going to do. they are laying out something similar to what paul ryan has done. >> the same old song, people
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care about the future not who is responsible for the past. both romney, and here is romney's booster, walker who won saying you have to talk the future, not complain about the past. >> yeah, you have to talk about how people are going to get jobs. of course one of the ironies here is the president tried to get another jobs bill through and the congress refused to do it and that resulted in cut backs in state and local spending results in the pressure of the public employees, so they're coming at the president from all directions at once on this and they're going to try to make it difficult for them. scott walker said he would rule out seeks or wanting to be on the ticket with mitt romney, but the scott walker i saw last night seemed like a guy with an awful lot of advice to give to mitt romney and would like to give it at close range. >> you think he might be
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eukering for a spot? >> scott walker has the luster of battle on him, he just won this big victory, and conservatives are saying that he is the guy who showed the way forward, thousanded the mechanics and the message. just reflecting what i heard from republicans today. >> out of all of the possible vps, nobody has lit up the pinball machine yet. thank you for copping on the show. coming up, most days he is your best alley, other days he is ammo to the other side. and another top al-qaeda leader gets droned. when is president obama going to get some credit for nailing the terrorist network, and the most overlooked group of voters of all, men, why are men, es spshly white working class men
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bill clinton made three fundraiser appearances this weekend as a defender of the president and his policies. he made the best case we have heard yet against mitt romney, but he has given fauder to republicans on their part to use. what is the cost benefit analysis as having bill as a major surrogate out there. we have joan walsh, an msnbc political analyst. let's look at what's coming in today, let's look at the interview he had the other day, the former president. >> i don't have any problem with extending all of it now including the current spending level, but the real issue is not whether they should be extended for another few months, the real issue is whether the price the republican house will put on that extension is the permanent
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extension which i think is an error. >> well, realizing or expecting how bill clinton's tax remarks there would be supposesman put out the following statement. as he said many times before, he supported extending all of the cuts in 2010 for the budget agreement but does not believe the cuts americans should be extended again. he doubted an agreement was made until after the election. >> joan walsh, the republicans distorted what clinton said last night, but the question is did he give them enough wiggle room to do so. >> i don't know, i heard it the way he meant it and so did you. so you know, i really do think they were being unfair there. the remarks last week about mitt romney having a steriling business record, and taking bain capital off the table, i happen to disagree with him, but i
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think we both agree that the president, president clinton is a net gain for president obama because for dishonest republicans, brazen republicans, are now acting like they loved bill clinton in the '90s. when at the time they is a advantaged him and impeached him, so i think it's really important that clinton is saying you can't use me that way. he's a star. there's a downside we'll talk about, but i think the republicans will being disingenuous at every turn. >> joe cline, he is not on the side with the president for everything. but then people jump on him. they may disagree on donald trump or the record at bane, but they're in agreement that we
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should not have a permanent continual extension in tax cuts for the rich. >> that's absolutely clear. the stuff that you're getting from republicans now speaks of desperation to me. i saw it coming out of the gore campaign, it's not unique to the republican party, but clinton says weird things sometimes. i can't imagine anybody saying anything nice about donald trump unless they wanted trump money for their global initiative, perhaps. you were just talking about the white male-blue collar vote. they loved bill clinton, he was dating lounge singers and going to mcdonalds. he was the last democratic president that those guys kind of liked. >> i agree with you completely. i think you're right, you want
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bill clinton at his side, he is certainly the most popular politician in the world right now. here we have republicans on capitol hill jumps at the chance to read their talking points written for them by their dutiful staff written for them by the rnc and the romney campaign. here is a few of them sports utter dishonesty. >> i want to thank you for having president clun tinton on is the gift that keeps giving. >> with regard to the tax increases, i make the same argument, the same one that former president bill clinton has been making and that is that we need took tend these tax rates. >> bill clinton came out for it before he was against it. >> president bill clinton gets it, he knows you should not be raising taxes on anybody. >> president clinton not wanting
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to further undermine our economy recommended a short-term extension of all the tax relief. >> it took warren hatch to say what he said, he said a short-term extension to get us through to the election and we get the policy straight. joan, the dishonesty there, of mccain, thune, and boehner, who writes this from them? anybody has a newspaper, go check it right now, see what bill clinton said last night the first time he said it, we'll get through this campaign and then deal with the long-term extension and not give to the rich. sometimes politics amazes me, the absolute dishonesty. i can only forgive them if i realize some dinky staff member wrote this. >> you could not pass a lie
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detector with this. >> they have well paid think tankers, fox news, bloggers w, d they talk all day long and decided this was the line. president clinton really is a boon to try to get some, just some of the white working class men, but they didn't just like him because he got to hang around with starlets and eat mcdonalds, he talked about the underlying economic rot in this country and he did things, he expanded the earned income tax credit. there was a economic core at the heart of their liking for him as well as a cultural affinity. on the flip side, and this goes to donald trump and bain capital, president clinton did something i don't admire. when he was telling the white working class i'm for you, he made a decision that the democratic party would become the party of wall street and the
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financial sector. honestly, maybe there were good reasons for that at the time, but now we see with the financialization of our economy has done to the country, most importantly to the country, but also to the democratic party. that white working class guy without a job that feels like he is at the bottom doesn't have anybody really looks out for him because the democrats have become almost as bad as the republicans on wall street issues. >> you know what joe and joan, i have to take a minute here, would somebody tell the people that didn't go to good colleges, and have to go work hard, often with their hands, let's face it, we had two republicans on born on second and saying they're on third. you have the other guy born into a mixed family, his father skips
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down after two or three years. they had to work through their brains in hard work. tell the working stipthese guys were not born with a silver spoon. the democratic guys although they made it did it through work and brains, the other guys did because they were born into it. >> all that was said about clinton and deregulation is correct. but he had this ability to explain complicated things fp shim on a bus tour and i can't find a single person that knows what's in obama care. the president should be ot explaining and telling it everyday. i think the folks and the american public realizes this is a serious, serious situation for our country. and, you know, talking points lined up, you know the way the republicans do it, is a kind of insult to their intelligence and
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to their country at this point. we need to have a serious conversation right now. >> joan, if this guy romney with limited abilities was about to convince the country he is a regular guy at looking out for regular people which he has never done, that will be one of the great jokes in history. >> well, i think and that is partly what bothered me about pc defend, taking bain capital off the table. it's not that he is a bad man. president obama put it much better, he said his economic experience gives him, you know the background to be a good president and grow the economy, absolutely not that did not happen under mitt romney, bain capital had nothing to do with that and then on embracing donald trump was inexplicable, you can't embrace this man asking our black president to show his papers, you should usher him off the stage and take
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him golfing. >> a lot of this lands on obama's doorstep. he has to be a lot peter. if he is going to make the case against bain capital it's more than just layoffs. that's a phoney issue. private equity was all about paying executives more money. stockholders more money, and it was about short term profits and long term planning and growth, they stripped out the research and development departments of all these plays. you to be specific if you're running for president. barack obama is still campaigning like way over everybody's head, including mine sometimes. >> thank you joe cline, i hope he is listening or somebody is listening over there in the white house or in chug. thank you, joan as always, i think we got this right tonight. the former president and president are together, they may have slight differences about who to go after personally, but they agree completely on policy. thank you for joining us. up next, when did a supporter
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it's not just though weird moments, but how about his team's issue with spell check. first it was the iphone app that misspelled n they did a sneak-p instead of peek, and something close to official. jimmy kimmel has ideas about what would happen if that expanded into campaign ads. >> america faces enormous chejs, unemployment. >> we knead a real leader.
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minute womney. isn't romney supposed to be the tough, smart business manager? next, losing is a slap in the face, get this after his concession speech last night, tom barrett went down into the audience to thank supporters. apparently one of them was peeved that barrett conceded before all the votes were tallied and offered to slap him. he suggested a hug instead, but when he laned in, he stunned him with a slap. when you lose, and it's clear you lost, you say it, that's how it's done. these days it could be tough to imagine some democrats in the same room as republicans, how about bunk mates? like in prison. two former speakers of the representative state house of pennsylvania. they laned in prison after being convicted in separate corruption
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schemes. according to a piece, he was uncomfortable with his first roommate, the former chief of staff that testified against him, the republican exspeaker, and then proposed a switch that lead to a comment of the day. "john, we don't get to pick who we here" read and blue don't matter when you're both wearing orange. and president obama won another huge victory against terrorism with the death of al qaeda's number two leader. can he turn success on the battlefield into success at the ballot box? this is "hardball," place for politics. e princesses. i'm an expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown.
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happening. representatives from 15 countries have agrees to form a coordination group to provide support to serious opposition. leon panetta was in india today where he defended u.s. drone strikes in pakistan and said they would continue. and jurors have been chosen for the trial of jerry sandusky. now back to "hardball." >>. >> we're back, president obama's quiet campaign to kill al qaeda's leadership is this monday. they killed the number two in charge, abu yahya al libi in pakistan again. why is the president not getting credit for his campaign against al-qaeda. michael hersh is a chief
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correspondent for the national journal. hear is jay carney trying to explain the significant can of al-libi. >> there is no clear successor to take on the his duties. they removed the number two leader for the second time in less than a year. further injuring the groups moral and cohe thinks and bringing it close tore demise than ever before. >> let me go to brian on this. it seems like w. would be hot dogging on the white house steps in cowboy boots if this was on his watch, and now obama is doing it in a quiet way. they're not paying attention to this killing at the top are they? >> it's clear the economy is the number up with issue, but the record on national securities that been so strong, it's like people have not noticed.
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we decimated al-qaeda, and we dealt with a lot of the props that four or five years ago everybody was worried about. so, i think the president, when you look at the poll ratings, he performs very, very well on national security, stronger than other areas, and it is as asset. it neutralized this national security deficit disorder that some thought the democrats suffered from. i think the big issue is the jobs and the economy and will be where the election is fought out. >> it sounds like when you dealt with inflation and there wasn't any, you didn't get any credit for it because there was nothing to complain about. this time, if you're dealing with a foreign threat to really scare the heck out of us in 2001, and did frighten us and hurt as badly as a national woupd, and here we are feeling pretty secure i think to where we were a few years ago and nobody gives anybody credit for
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it. >> no question a certain amount of complacency has set in. you have apart from the bin laden targeting that did make big news and give obama a bump for a little while, you have a drip, drip, drip of one leader after another, most americans have never heard their names before, in total, i think it has been enormously effective against al-qaeda to the point where tradition than inly, it's no longer the main threat, it's the new offshoot of al-qaeda. as brian said, the economy has become so much the all embracing issue, that this is, at best, will be a slight edge for balob. >> let's look at candidate obama, who was hammered by his
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opponents for saying he would take out terrorists with or without that country's permission. >> if we have axble intelligence about how value terrorist targets, and they will not act, we will. >> we will risk the confused lip of an inexcused candidate that suggested bombing our alley, pakistan. >> last summer he basically threatened to bomb pakistan, which i don't think was a particularly wise position to take. >> brian, so he stuck his neck out, determined it would not be a drone strike to get bin laden, it would be a direct action by the seals. let me ask you when you look at the world right now, who has the capability to help america here in america. who can hit us. who can do real harm to this country right now?
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anybody? >> right now when you look at the al-qaeda affiliates in places like yemen and somali, those are cause for concern as we have seen. that's why getting this guy was essential. al libi was aey affiliate, and taking him out was essential. and we took him out in a place where, under the bush administration and those clips in 2008 that you just showed, we essentially had a situation that those areas were seated in triable deals at the time. we had a very passive approach, and what we had under obama is a very aggressive approach to go after the al-qaeda core. i would say it's the terrorist groups and yemen and somali. and i think the threats are very real and new threats. i think this administration is moving to address that, and
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obviously iran and the role it plays in the middle east and the gulf region and i tempts to support terrorist networks. they're a grave threat. >> i have to go to michael on this, can iran hurt us? how does it hurt us through hezbollah? who do you see as a threat to the united states now? >> i mean, i agree with what brian just said, i think the threats that we were concerned about, the ieds and those threats, and cyber threats from china in the homeland, and a threat from iran through hezbollah contacts, we have not seen anything very credible with that, butly say that the obama administration has been trying to get the message out that they're countering this. >> it's great to have experts, we have to go, thank you.
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i think that hezbollah concern unleashed by iran is always there and dangerous. men may be the most overlooked voting group out there, why are men deserting president obama, what can he do to win them back. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. home of the brave. ♪ it's where fear goes unwelcomed... ♪ and certain men... find a way to rise above. this is the land of giants. ♪ guts. glory. ram. and he didn't stop for three days and nights as he escaped life as a child soldier. twenty years later, he was still running,
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exit polls yesterday, but he has a problem with one significant determine graph ib. obama's support among wisconsin men took an eight point dive since 2008. eight points. nationally his disapproval number among men has risen to 50%. that's going up, up from two years ago. we talk about the significance on this program, fair enough, coming up in november, but what about the men. what can obama do to win more of them? we have two guests with us. it's great to have you on. i'm looking at these numbers and they're pretty depressing in this sense. a drp of eight points in the exist poll yesterday. and whatever you take it for whether you value it or not, that's a significant drop among men. what's going on? >> i think you're seeing a real problem with men, especially
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white men. remember only one in four men really think the economy is improving. if you look at this, i think particularly southern white older men, they're probably out of reach. my suggestion really is to go after soccer dads, the suburban better educated men who can appreciate a president like president obama who has been hunting down barack obama and has sensible economic and social policies. >> so you go after the more sensitive males, the less macho males? >> the republicans have taken a joe the plumber stance, and that's tough to get. >> the rougher guy is the image of the republican vote these days, is that what we're talking about? manner, style, income sf. >> education. i think the more educated men are, the more likely they are to go in obama's camp if he gives them a good economic plan and appeals to them.
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i think both on economics, his social policies i think fit with the better educate, and frankly he's a more sophisticated candidate than we have seen paro better educated men who lives in the suburbs, who has can kids. >> yeah. let me go to matt cooper on that. and that is an interesting question. i assume women, because of all the numbers we so in all of our lives, are more for same-sex marriage, are more for gay rights, generally. are more empathetic to the gay community. and number two, they're clearly more concerned about abortion rights and contraception issues. men are more conservative them, but does that mean you have to go after men who basically agree with women on social issues? >> well, to some degree, i think mark's right. i mean, you're trying to go after more affluent, better-educated men rather than white working class men who are starting to look like a lost cause for obama. you know, in our own congressional connection poll we do in "national journal," it just drops off the map on almost
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any question that you would think might be someplace where they could find common ground. for instance, we had a question this week about food stamps. why working class men overwhelmingly thought that, you know, there should be no extra money for food stamps. they like the cuts that the republicans are talking about. you would think these guys are kind of on the precipice of unemployment might be more sympathetic to that. they're not. >> let me ask you, mark, i always imagine driving along an old highway like route 40 or something, not 95 or 70 or 80, but a regular old highway, an interstate, and you stop and you see a little bar along the way, where men go after a hard day's work. they may be there late on a friday night talking at the bar. what are they saying about obama? working guys. what do you think those conversations are like? >> i think those conversations are pretty rough. i think i probably couldn't repeat a lot of them on the air. i think they're really upset about the health care mandate, they're upset about the state the country's in in terms of the economy. i think those are really tough
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conversations. i think you ought to go to the water cooler, right, in the offices of america, in the office parks and so forth, where you're going to find the kind of men who are going to have a reasonable conversation, who aren't going to think that romney and the republicans are the solution or the answer. >> yeah, matt, what do you think, that anecdotal factor of people who work in offices rather than work in road gangs or work in factory, you've got a better shot? >> yeah, i think that's right. although, there are parts of his record that are macho, as you mentioned, killing bin laden. prosecuting these wars. >> saving ford and gm. how about saving the auto industry? >> yeah, those are things it seems to me they can play up. i'm not sure it's going to work, but there are certainly things they can turn to. >> well, what is it about -- i want to give you a shot at this, matt. what is it about obama that turns off, we'll say it, white working class guys who didn't go to college? let's be demographic about it,
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but go ahead. what is that turns those guys off to obama? is it race, is it ethnicity? is it background? what is it, mostly? >> you know, i don't think we entirely know. i don't think, you know, it's not far fetched to think race is part of it, but part of it's also what's happening to the economy. working class men feeling more dispensable and vulnerable. feeling like the world's not theirs anymore. and part of it's the style of this president, much commented upon that he can seem a little academic or a little aloof at times. and you know, that probably doesn't help either, but, look, you know, politics is about forging alliances and constituencies and he's going to have to, you know, forge one that's not as dependent on white men. >> yeah. i think, though, there's been a comment in the last couple of days, guy, about him spending too much time with the glitzy people in hollywood, maybe doing too many gay events. i don't know if that offends the white working guy.
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i know one thing. they feel threatened. they feel humiliated by no jobs out there. they see their kids aren't getting jobs. it's a humiliation to be out of work and to face unemployment and they don't like it and i don't blame them one bit. i understand a lot of this is clearly rational. matt cooper, please come back, and as always, thank you, milwaukee penn. we'll be back in a moment. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. [ male announcer ] if paula ebert had her way,
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let me finish tonight with this. men, males, guys, whatever, what's you guy's problem with president obama? i think it would be interesting to know the answer. well, 60% of women in wisconsin said they'd vote for obama in november, compared to just 45% of men. we can imagine why women are pro-obama. he's put the focus on health care, he's been supportive of women's rights of equal pay and other concerns when the republican party's become suspect on these issues, or forthrightly hostile. now about the men. if you look at obama's foreign policy record, he's been surprisingly tough out there. he's carried out a smooth withdrawal from iraq, begun a similar pullout from afghanistan. he's gotten bin laden, and just this week he got the new number two guy in al qaeda, so, again, why the obama problem with men? well, the latest nbc/"wall street journal" number has his approval number at 50% and rising among men nationally. that's not good. and obama's losing to men among
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romney right now, 49% to 40%, a nine-point spread. the reason is something bill clinton's campaign hammered home, i think, in winning the white house back in '92. it's the economy, stupid. men are particularly sensitive to humiliation, as we all know. being out of work is a humiliation. it carries an insult as well as an injury. and they can argue that this shouldn't be any worse than it is for women. a woman out of work, especially. but there's a lot of history at work here and it is. i think the president would be better off if he were standing right now at the foot of capitol hill, demanding a big jobs bill. big in promise, big in unemployment, big in pride, to rebuild this country the way president eisenhower did in the 1950s. the trick is to do it now. a huge jobs bill that everyone understands, that rebuilds roads and fixes bridges and gets the trains moving fast like in today's europe and asia, would get this country moving again, liter literally. would also put a lot of men to work. mr. president, please. a huge jobs bill. the republicans would have to say yes or no to it. that's ticket. if they say yes, y
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