what do you do when your numbers among a certain segment of the population aren't just under water but are literally at the bottom of the ocean? if you're governor romney you hold your breath, jump in at the deep end and hope you've got enough air in the tanks to make it back to the surface. in other words, you visit the naacp, criticize president obama and pray for the best. it's wednesday, july 11th and this is "now." joining me today, msnbc political analyst and georgetown university professor, the golden throat, michael eric dyson. msnbc political analyst, david corn of mother jones is here. fredrick harris is professor at columbia university and author of "the price of the ticket, barack obama and the rise and decline of black politics." and hugo lindgren, mr. sunday

morning, the editor of the "new york times" sunday magazine. earlier today, mitt romney went in search of something he had not looked for before, the african-american vote. despite an awkward start -- >> i do love that music. i have to tell you, i do love listening to that organ music. >> -- things hummed along smoothly until he decided to take on the president's health care plan. >> i'm going to eliminate every nonessential expensive program i can find. that includes obamacare and i'm going to work to reform and save -- [ audience booing ] >> and sell the idea that he would be the best president for african-americans. >> if you want a president who will make things better in the african-american community, you are looking at him.

you take a look. >> joining us now from washington is ken blackwell, former secretary of state from ohio. ken, thanks for joining the program. >> good to be with you. >> so i wonder, having watched that, having watched those excerpts, having watched the speech, how would you grade governor romney's performance and do you think he has convinced anyone in the african-american community to vote for him? anyone who might not have the day before? >> i gave him a b-plus. i think he went into it where he had to be authentic and he had to be cognizant of the fact that he was not only speaking to the folks in the hall, he was speaking to a broader audience. so people would look for inconsistencies if in fact he came across as pandering and inauthentic to the crowd. so i thought he got a b-plus.

look, i would have approached the contrast with the president in a little different fashion, and the other point that i would make is that my dad used to tell me, and i have a friend who also says this, tell me who you walk with and i'll tell you who you are, and one of the things that i want to know and folks in that hall wanted to know, and i'm sure you want to know, is who has been around him in terms of advocating policy positions, you know. who is in his closest circle that is african-american or latino, and what impact have they had on the policy direction that he has gone in the past and he will go in the future. i don't think he closed the sale on that front. now let me talk to you about what i thought he focused on. he focused on the family.

we are a very family oriented community. we are concerned about the next generation and i thought he hit the ball out of the park focusing on the family. and that was a key. >> that was certainly a moment i noted as well, his use of the phrase traditional marriage. we know the president in coming out in support of gay marriage, marriage equality in some circles, took a risk in terms of alienating some of those folks in the african-american community who are not on board with the notion of marriage equality. that seemed to be almost a political calculation on the governor's part to try and perhaps curry favor with an audience that he has not found a -- >> that's not fair, alex. he has supported marriage as a union between one man and one woman. the republican platform speaks to it. he embraces that platform. so i think he was authentic on it. i don't think it was political calculation there. i think that was his strong suit

in his own personal life and his political policy dimensions. he in fact could say that with great confidence. >> i want to open this up to our panel but i do want to ask you in terms of the policy prescriptions, i thought he led off with -- he did give some kind of a list in terms of what he would like to do. the keystone pipeline, having a stronger more aggressive relationship with china over trade, reducing government spending and saying that he would do means testing for social welfare programs, that would of course affect a lot of african-americans, given the fact that 27% of african-americans are covered by medicaid. we know that governor romney has said he thinks that the paul ryan budget is marvelous in terms of details as far as what he would do if he was elected president. it looks like a lot of programs that are now currently helping african-americans and will help them in the future would be gutted by such a budget. >> well, no, i would disagree. i think what he was saying when he focused on the energy

initiatives, he was saying we got to get this economy growing again. energy and all of the above approach is what i will use. bringing down the cost of gasoline, bringing down energy costs, is going to drive our economic expansion and job creation. he knew going into that, this was a political calculation, that there is dissatisfaction in the african-american community that after three and a half years, there is an unemployment rate of about 14% in the african-american community, and blaming it on bush is getting old, even in the african-american community. and look, there's not going to be a sea change in the african-american vote in november, but if he can go from mccain's 4% to 8% or to bush's

11% in 2004, he in fact will tip the scale in his direction. competitively speaking. >> ken blackwell, thank you, sir, for your time and thoughts. i'm sure we will try and lure you back on the program as the election season continues. >> just throw the bait. i'll bite. >> you got it. michael eric dyson, let's talk about this performance, organs and all at the naacp conference. what ken blackwell says is can mitt romney actually do better than john mccain in the african-american community? is this the beginning of some sort of movement on those numbers? >> we don't know but he's got to try. i'm going to tell you what, i want to give him credit for stepping up into the arena, so to speak. he knows beforehand that this is not going to be his natural ally. he knows that the overwhelming majority of those folks are on president obama's side. but you know, if you're going to talk to minorities, you should at least for a day experience

what they experience. that is, they don't have the luxury and leisure to say hey, let me blow off a community because i don't like it because i got to go in there and convince them, persuade them. he had to actually go in as a minority today to persuade the majority of people there that his view, his vision, his perspective and his prescription, are something that could be recommended with integrity to them. i give him credit for that. but the horrible character of, you know, the programs he suggested, i wasn't even insulted by the organ. look, after listening -- >> i thought that was more for comedic flourish. >> it was unintentional comedic. >> the podium was the right size. >> actually sounded like a wake. >> yeah. so he could be what they call multiple evidential in philosophy. it could swing both ways. but i think he had to step up in there, he did a good job of that. i think the obamacare, he doesn't even understand the reason people were upset is

because the affordable health care act was about affordable health care, not about obamacare. so the tone deafness is what's more revealing here than anything he prescribed. >> emanuel cleaver was on msnbc on the thomas roberts hour talking about that being someone on the speech writing team did not understand how that would play with the audience. david corn, we talk about sort of the political reality here. was the naacp speech for an african-american audience or for those independents who just want to see this guy extending an olive branch to the minority community? >> the people i know in the romney campaign are not fools. i don't think they can get -- they believe they can get to 10%, 8%, 7% of the african-american vote. i would give him an a-plus for the speech today, only because he did not say some of my best friends are african-american nascar owners. but the speech was really about showing that he's not severely

conservative, a tea party pandering, you know, racist to moderate suburbanite. he wants to be able to say i can go talk to people who i don't agree with, i can get booed and i can be reasonable. i can tell them what i think in a polite, respectful way. i can take their criticisms and just show them that i care about what they think and give them a chance to throw a few mud pies at me and be graceful about it. that works well with people who are wondering who is this guy, is he a tea party guy, is he severely conservative as he boasted or is he a reasonable player who i can sort of take a risk on. >> i think you're right. i think that moment where the obamacare line, he had this little george w. bush kind of smirk on his face, like he kind of like he knew he was going to get it, he kind of wanted it and sort of enjoyed it a little bit. >> well, i thought -- >> i don't agree with it but he went in there wanting to get booed for something. he didn't want to just get -- >> i'm not sure of that. i think this is really as david

said, a replay partly of 2000. when you had george bush who went out as a compassionate conservative and he wasn't really trying to be necessarily compassionate to black voters. he was really trying to tell swing voters, swing white voters, independents, that you know, i'm not as bad as you think i am, nor is this party. i think this is a part of a replay in a very closely contested race. >> and it's worth noting that george w. bush eventually gave up on relations with the naacp saying he had a virtually nonexistent relationship with them. i do wonder if it does change the minds of independent voters who saw that. the best moments were when romney was being self-effacing, even in the beginning when he said he was speaking before the vice president and hoped the naacp didn't think he was playing favorites. >> it helps, right? because if as martin luther king argued vociferously that african-american people were the bellwether for the moral center and the moral gravity of the nation, then to have a photo op

with them ain't a bad thing. number two, i think that to make the effort is not for the folk in the room. his counterpart, president obama, has brilliantly mastered the fact that it's global. it's not just the folk who are sitting before you. it's the folk who are listening in, the folk who are looking in, and in that case, romney looks to swing voters like hey, i'm reasonable. he also looks like to his base hey, he's willing to include other people in this larger theory of conservativism. >> that is interesting, whether the base accepts that theory. >> of course not but they want to believe they do as they reject it. coming up, president obama's complex relationship with the african-american community has his history-making presidency taken a toll on minority concerns? that is up for discussion next. [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news

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four years ago, then senator barack obama addressed the annual naacp conference, but this year, the president is not going and is sending vice president joe biden in his stead. the white house says the president has a scheduling conflict but does his absence raise questions about whether he's taking the black vote for granted, a vote he won by 95% in 2008. joining the panel now is msnbc contributor and queen bee of the grio.com, joy-ann reid. let's get your thoughts on this first. we talk about joe biden as a surrogate. he is now the emissary to the conference. that is something the president should have gone to himself? >> it's interesting. joe biden is becoming the

surrogate to the black community. he also did the national association of black journalists conference. first of all, barack obama will still get 95% of the black vote. they understand that. they know that. the black community in terms of the polling is still solidly behind the president. i think that maybe they feel like they can kind of be a little bit more flexible about having him have to be the face of it. they're letting joe biden do it. i don't know how that will resonate with african-americans but i don't think it will hurt him at the polls. >> fred, i want to talk about your book. we have mentioned it, you had an op-ed in the "washington post" which we discussed and we talk about sort of the impact of the president on race relations in america and concerns among the african-american community which has been disproportionately affected by the economic downturn. you write obama's race neutral campaign strategy has spilled over to his approach to governing. the strategy has exacted a heavy cost positilitics once dominate strategies. though his success as a presidential candidate is a testament to the success of

coalition politics as well as to the effectiveness of race neutral campaign strategies, these approaches to black politics have marginalized rather than elevated race specific issues on to the national political agenda. >> yeah. this is a contradiction because what we see here is presidential silence around issues around racial inequality mostly because he ran a racially diffuse candidacy but also, he has to govern in that way so as a byproduct of that we get silence on these issues and i think it's really unfortunate. it's actually partly the president's fault. part of the responsibility also lies with black voters and black leaders. we have seen progress around very difficult policy issues with the gay and lesbian community, with the immigration community, and the big difference is that those communities pushed the president on issues they thought were important. so what we have here is a move to protect the president rather than to pressure him into action. >> michael eric dyson, we did

talk about this tan great jonathan capehart sort of rebutted some of the points in your op-ed, saying the president has done a lot for african-americans and the community, though not specifically targeting them, enacting policies that will help them, whether health care, whether reforming penal codes, whether speaking to the family structure and african-american sort of fatherhood issues on father's day. what do you make of that thesis? >> professor harris is one of our leading intellectuals and enlivened the debate that has gone on for so long that people are unaware of, especially outside the african-american community. this ain't nothing new. what professor harris is talking about is race-specific targeted outcomes for african-american people so that the policies that are crafted speak directly to the issues that they are concerned with, and that has been a heroic legacy as they enjoyed a heroic legacy in african-american communities, as newer black politicians have arisen, what they have had to see is i have to govern people

who are not just african-american people and when professor harris talks about latinos in immigrant communities and gay and lesbian people, obama has not self-identified as latino or gay. which means this. that if you are the person, when disraeli was the first jewish prime minister, he had to say i'm not trying to diss christian people. it's unfortunate, but real. what black people see, and i'll be quiet -- >> really? >> hold on. they see every day that the enemies of barack obama have been racially motivated with subtle racial animus towards him and no matter what we say about criticizing him, they know this man is under assault. >> we are in an election cycle -- >> we are in an election cycle. he was elected in an election cycle. it's an open question whether the first black president could have run with an overtly explicit racial agenda in terms of policy prescriptions. you know, i think it's something we debate and consider

ourselves, to what degree are people willing to vote for somebody who they identify as being from a different community, whether they're racist or anti-religionist or whatever. if you look at the attacks from the birthers, all this, there was a tremendous impact, tremendous attempt to have an impact and portray him as something different and at worse, if not different, just concerned with his own, you know, people, his own community. so maybe he has to try harder than others to show that that's not the case. >> wait, wait, wait, wait. >> when the first woman president is elected the exact same thing will apply. she will constantly be on guard for evidence that she is favoring women in her policies. >> wait, wait. >> i think in some ways it's a more poisonous -- >> especially with this president. >> i want to go back. i think there is amnesia going on here. we need to look back to what happened prior to the victory in iowa during the primaries.

this president, when he was down -- or candidate, when he was down with black voters, i want people to go back and hear speeches he did, particularly before majority black audiences, specifically at howard university in 2007, the most bold plan for criminal justice reform i have ever heard from any presidential candidate. this guy promised a federal level racial profiling act. he promised loan forgiveness to law students who decide to become public defenders. he said that he would encourage states to do away with the death penalty. we haven't heard about it. the difference is that black constituents have not held his feet to the fire on those very important issues. >> congress won't pass much of that. >> not for two years. the first two years, we had a black attorney general, we had a black chair of the judiciary committee and we had a black president. >> you had four months of a 60 vote majority in the senate. >> you raise a great point. at the same time, most black

people on the ground realize that no matter what we say theoretically, the very fact of his existence constitutes such an advantage to future generations of black people that nothing he does now can counteract that. whether you agree with that or not -- >> the long game versus the short game. this is not a conversation that will end before this break. but unfortunately, we have to leave it there. thank you, professor harris. his book is "the price of the ticket, barack obama and the rise and decline of black politics." after the break, the house's 33rd attempt at repealing the affordable care act conjures images of a certain classic comedy. we'll compare the republican caucus and bill murray when lawrence o'donnell joins the conversation next. hey. hey eddie. i brought your stuff. you don't have to do this. yes i do. i want you to keep this.

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a bill where we work together to cut taxes for small businesses that put americans back to work but we are not. >> you make congress once again engage in this crude kabuki which is totally without meaning. >> never in the history of this congress, and i feel perfectly secure in saying this, has anybody voted this many times on a single issue. >> once again today, the chamber will be focused on a dead bill walking. there will not be a vote for american jobs or extending tax cuts. instead, in a few hours, the house will hold the 33rd vote to repeal the affordable care act. we may have seen this movie before. >> a groundhog day. ♪

>> joining us now is broadway enthusiast and expert on political kabuki theater, the man who always has the last word here on msnbc, the great lawrence o'donnell. >> more bill murray. just go back. come on. cue up some more. >> lost in translation would be better. >> we'll keep that in mind. lawrence, we know nothing is going to come out of this, but i do -- there is a question which e.j. dionne poses in the "washington post," saying one of the central skirmishes over the next four months will be over whether obama takes the blame for washington gridlock or whether voters place the onus squarely on republicans in congress. by challenging congress to do what we agree on, obama is trying to highlight what is actually going o>> well, there' there's this obligation to base supporters who had their moment of rage when the supreme court

said that the affordable care act can stay mostly intact, and this is the only thing they can do in reaction to that. they have to be -- they have to say to those people yeah, we're back at it and here we go, one more of these things and look, both bodies have always had these kinds of stunt votes. when i was there we used to try to pass things that we knew couldn't pass because we just wanted to get the recorded vote, so then someone could go out and run a senate campaign against a republican, saying you voted against this. >> is it 33 or 34? >> i reported on this last night. i actually thought this was like i don't know, the third or fourth time. and i'm told it's the 33rd time. >> i figured it out. they're not trying to appease the base. they're going for a guinness record. that's what they're doing here. >> they passed it. >> a long time ago. >> you never know.

you never know who's behind it. >> i get the base thing, right? but at a certain point, this is an election cycle -- >> look, i pay average attention to the news. i thought this was the third or fourth time. >> average attention. >> so there are days you can't hit this right. we flogged this dead horse enough. there's still the dead horse. we're going to kick it again. >> you're vulnerable in election season for obama making his point, which is to say look how they're wasting our team. the supreme court has ruled. this congress has acted. we signed the legislation. for god's sake, what are we going to do now? >> i can't imagine that boehner's happy about this. from boehner's perspective, he must want this to be the very last one, guys, please. please. because this argument is supported that -- the obama argument is supported by this behavior. >> it also leads to okay, you have repealed it and now what are you going to replace it with. >> no, no. no.

>> i think, though, that if we talk about -- i think in some ways, after the supreme court's decision, the left has not done a good job of messaging what the affordable care act is going to do. the blow-back from republican governors saying hell, no, we're not going to expand our medicaid rolls. the fact that nobody is really pushing the republicans in congress to say what they are going to do. george h.w. bush had a plan to insure 30 million americans. >> this is a problem not so much for the republicans in congress. it's a problem for mitt romney because he's still out there saying as he said today i will repeal obamacare. i'm going to repeal myself. and he needs the replacement part. i don't think boehner needs it. i think these guys, they are running basically mostly in safe districts, they can appeal to

their base and have a grand time but romney has this problem. every time he talks about repeal, obama comes out and says okay, what about kids who are covered up to 26, or pre-existing conditions for children or others, what about the doughnut hole. for that, romney has no answer. >> i don't know if obama -- sorry, i don't know if romney does need it because the minute he comes out with something, he just opens himself up to all kinds of very specific attacks. if he can keep it in the kind of conceptual level where it is now, he just looks like he's kind of a freedom fighter to lift america from this curse. i think -- then he can shift the conversation back where he wants to have it, on the economy and hammer away at that. >> that strategy may work. the only way to test it of course is to see whether you win or lose. so it's a high risk venture there. >> lawrence, there are starting to be rumblings from some parts of republican circles, folks are saying mitt romney has this notion that he can skate through november just being vague, but he's going to have to put some policy on the table.

some kind of economic policy -- >> forget his 59 point economic plan. we can go back and look at that. >> do you think he can skate through? >> it's been done. it wouldn't be the first time. you know, look, rush limbaugh said yesterday something that is true. it happens from time to time. he said look, romney doesn't matter. this is nothing but a vote against obama and he went on to fill it up with his hatred of obama and that is really what this is. it's an anti-obama campaign. that's it. so from that side of it, you don't have to -- romney doesn't have to get specific about anything. >> except when you have bill kristol and rupert murdoch, it makes enough of a balance, just like romney going to the naacp today, every bit counts. if you can sway from 4%, 5% up to 6%, 7%, that's a big difference and if you can get some of the conservatives who are trying to really come at you by saying we don't know what you're thinking about, how can

you convince other people, then it becomes a kind of imitation and it has some significant consequence. >> this election is not even being played between the 40 yard lines. it's being played between the 47 yard lines. there are 6% undecided at this point and i don't think they take their cues from rupert murdoch, bill kristol, as much as he may think so. it's about impressions. i think romney doesn't have to be very specific in his policies to convey the impression he wants to as he's trying to do, as a successful mr. fix-it. >> i'm thinking about the fact that if rupert murdoch and all these people, not saying the average conservative watches out for them, but if the wind begins to move in a different direction and those people begin to feel its impact, i do think it makes a big difference. >> they're going to rally around romney. >> keep in mind there is another campaign operation that is working to fill in the blanks on mitt romney and that's called team obama. where mitt romney dare not tread, the president's campaign seems more than willing and able

to. unfortunately, we have to leave it there. msnbc's lawrence o'donnell. be sure to catch him tonight -- >> what time? >> well, i think -- >> glad you asked. >> 10:00 p.m. eastern. >> you might see some of the people here on the show. we won't say who. >> a deep tease to the 10:00 p.m. hour, lawrence o'donnell, thank you as always. of note, the house is expected to vote on the health care repeal between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. eastern today. we will have coverage for you of course right here on msnbc. coming up, tax code of the icing. that's next. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state.

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america and i'm proud of it. we're proud of it. this is not wealth envy. wealthy people are just as patriotic as poor people but nothing has been asked of them to get us out of this godawful hole. >> that was vice president joe biden yesterday in las vegas, pushing back against republican accusations of class warfare. the obama campaign has ramped up scrutiny over mitt romney's foreign bank accounts with robert gibbs saying this week that romney should swap the believe in america slogan for business in bermuda. joy-ann, we talk a lot about patriots. who is a patriot, who is not a patriot. there seems to be a development that keeping your money offshore is un-american, outsourcing is un-american. do you think that is a powerful line of attack vis a vis mitt romney in this election cycle? >> i think actually, this time, class warfare because of the,

you know, the shock of the 2007 recession, the bush recession as the democrats call it, created in the body politic, it does create an opening to put that wedge in between middle class voters and wealthy people. the idea that you have people like the guy from facebook or denise rich leaving, exporting their money overseas to avoid taxes, and this notion that you have this sort of plutocracy that wants to avoid participating in the country's tax base and wants to hoard all of their money, i think that message is kind of working, at least in the rust belt and swing states and places where people are seeing their jobs outsourced. the idea that someone running for president isn't investing here and prefers to invest somewhere else, invest in foreign shores, i actually think it will resonate in certain parts of the country. >> it's not a matter of class envy. i think with a lot of people. except there are a different set of rules. you saw this with the occupy movement, the 1%, 2%, however far down you want to go, get to live and play by a different set of rules. the economy took this tremendous

hit because of wall street's shenanigans and 14 million people lost their jobs and a lot of the people running those funds are back on top, they still have their houses in the hamptons and their yachts and they are able to get rid of their citizenship or find bermuda offshore havens like mitt romney did, and that's where i think the breakdown is. if democrats, politicians are going to talk about it, that's the thing. not that the rich people are bad, but they don't play by the same set of rules as the rest of us. >> what has emerged is a sense of entitlement, like we need to be able to make as much money as possible and i draw everyone's attention to a choice quote from lindsay graham saying it's really american to avoid paying taxes legally, as long as it was legal, referring to mitt romney, i'm okay with it. i don't blame anybody for using the tax code to their advantage. it's a game we play. every american tries to find a way to get the most deductions they can. i see nothing wrong with playing the game because we set it up to be a game. >> this is the explicit

articulation of the idiocy and the contradiction at the heart of assigning patriotic virtue to people who act most unpatriotically because given what david just said, deconstructing the mythology of wealth that accrues around those who are wealthy, the point is that the old school wealthy people used to say let's pay our fair share and help out people who don't have. this is where the fusion of christian theology on the one hand and capitalistic ethic on the other was coming together. now, there's a divorce of those two and you have reassigned the virtue to those who can accumulate as much money as possible without helping somebody else. my late friend james washington used to say we're the kind of christians who go to church to love god instead of our neighbor. what we're doing, we're loving god but the heck with the neighbors because we are not interested or invested. >> love the rich neighbors. >> as long as they are rich neighbors. that is a powerful point insofar as you talk about mitt romney's father, george romney, and anecdotally there has been a lot of analysis. george romney always paid his

taxes. george romney disclosed -- >> he was considered a social liberal. he was praised for leading that sort of liberalism that has the noblesse oblige you were referring to. >> i was in detroit when he was governor of michigan. there's a hugely different value associated with that romney versus this one and he's ridden the coattails of the older romney to sever his connection to the very people -- >> frankly, he is talking about what actually happens. you may disagree with it and think the system sucks which it does, but i go to my accountant and i also try to minimize my taxes. i don't have enough money to put stuff in the cayman islands, i don't know how that works and i don't qualify for it. >> unless you're a billionaire it ain't the same. >> the notion an elected official will stand up there and say it's a game, it's an attitude towards your reality and our reality and -- >> you hit it. it's entitlement.

>> and that you don't have to explain. that's the thing with mitt romney. i'm not going to tell you what i've done or explain because you know what, i don't have to. >> the other issue i think that republicans have set up for themselves is they have created this sort of worshipful term, job creators. if you say it breathlessly it sounds like worship. they basically said these people are your betters, the job creators, but they have no obligation to the country. they don't have to participate in taxes. they have different rules for themselves. >> it's not that he didn't pay his taxes. >> we are going to talk more about breathless job creators and outsourcing after the break, when we return next on "now." [ male announcer ] research suggests the health of our cells plays a key role throughout our entire lives. ♪ one a day men's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age.

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to support cell health. ♪ hello...rings ♪ what the... what the... what the... ♪ are you seein' this? ♪ ♪ uh-huh... uh-huh... uh-huh... ♪ ♪ it kinda makes me miss the days when we ♪ ♪ used to rock the microphone ♪ back when our credit score couldn't get us a micro-loan ♪ ♪ so light it up! ♪ even better than we did before ♪ ♪ yeah prep yourself america we're back for more ♪ ♪ our look is slacker chic and our sound is hardcore ♪ ♪ and we're here to drop a rhyme about free-credit-score ♪ ♪ i'm singing free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ dot-com narrator: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com. we were discussing what it means to be a patriot and whether that involves paying your taxes and/or offsourcing --

offshoring, outsourcing, what is the term anymore the romney campaign is using. outsourcing jobs. i want to call everybody's attention to robert samuelson writing in the "washington post" offshoring is a powerful political symbol because it seems unpatriotic, helping foreigners at the expense of americans, putting profits over people but economics is not politics. the success or failure of the next president in reducing unemployment will depend mostly on how much or how little his policies influence americans to spend, hire and shed their present pass micessimism. what do you make of that? >> the thing is if mitt romney wants to make the case that what he did was not involved in preserving jobs, he can do that but he can't say i created jobs while possibly offsourcing or participating in that and then say i will protect jobs when i'm president. in business, i think samuelson is right. he had the obligation to do what he did but it's a fair political shot now if he's saying all i care about is jobs. >> i think, look, you can't both say you're going to do stuff

great in foreign shores and not do it great at home. the problem is there's no contrast. you exploited people internationally. you are doing the same thing here. there's no sharp contrast between the domestic and international. that's the ultimate contradiction of the notion of patriotism being assigned to job creators. it's a bunch of baloney. >> breathless job creation does not equal patriotism. says michael eric dyson. coming up, calling all gym class heroes as in the people, not the band. we will discuss the destructive impact of physical ed cuts on the growing childhood obesity epidemic in this country, next. do you see it ? there it is ! there it is ! where ? where ? it's getting away ! where is it ? it's gone. we'll find it. any day can be an adventure. that's why we got a subaru. love wherever the road takes you.

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welcome back. time for "what now." the childhood obesity rate in america tripled over the past 30 years. in a study done by the centers for disease control, almost half of the high schools in america offer no gym class in an average school week. this is shocking stuff, actually. in san francisco, only 20% of

elementary schools were meeting california's requirement for physical education. in 2008, david corn, more than one-third of children and teenagers were overweight or obese. >> one thing that makes this so tragic is that unlike the days when i was a kid and certainly michael, maybe even you, when you came home -- >> just five years ago. >> maybe that. you come home and then you would go outside and you would play with kids or you would beat up kids or you would do something physical. >> very good exercise. >> nowadays, kids come home after school, i see this with my two girls who are 11 and almost 13, and they go right back on video texting, they go to the computer. the friends come over and they make videos together and they're not getting out. so the place where they need this exercise is back in school. schools cut back. >> what about budget cuts in schools? arts programs and gym. >> they're putting soda machines as well.

>> you're feeding them these soft drinks that are high sugar, high glucose, then feeding them incredibly horrible food and reinforcing it with the twitter generation that has little character. >> it's worth mentioning it's not just from the business perspective in terms of the sugary drinks and budget cuts on the economic level, it's also social change which is the breakdown of the american family structure, where you're not eating meals at home, sometimes it's not a two-parent home. your mom or dad is working. what the obesity epidemic reflects is a much broader, more significant breakdown of where we are as a country. >> this is one place where public policy could really kick in. to your point, i grew up in the age when we came home and watched tv. we were the tv generation. but at least during the school day, you had structured play. you had recess. you had gym. you had a lot more physical activity even before you got home. >> and you had jack lalanne on tv that you exercised to. >> you play sports as opposed to watching them. >> i hate to sound like a crank

but parents have to step up. there's no excuse for that. no gym classes in school is unforgiveable but at the same time, just as you were talking about at the break, you got to turn off the machines, get your kids doing something else. >> open the door and kick them out. >> we will be adding a calisthenics portion to this show. if there are any 12 year olds watching now, you shouldn't -- >> this is a public service. >> the twitter generation lacks character, i meant to say only 140 characters. therefore the larger political culture lacks character. play that one back. >> zingy pun. we'll leave it there. thanks to michael, david, joy-ann and hugo. see you back here tomorrow, noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific when i am joined by richard wolffe, josh green and catherine crier plus nicholas jackson talks about his piece on governor romney's offshore accounts. until then, find us at facebook. "andrea mitchell reports" is next.

good afternoon, andrea. thanks so much. good afternoon to you, alex. coming up here, it's like the movie "groundhog day." more heated debate right now over another attempted appeal -- repeal of the health care law. we'll have both sides. plus, mixed reaction to mitt romney's speech today at the naacp convention. and is he getting any closer to picking a running mate? that and the mystery over jesse jackson junior and trouble in scranton, p.a. every communications provider is different but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company. ♪ we link people and fortune 500 companies nationwide and around the world. and we will continue to free you to do more and focus on what matters. our current dividend tax rate

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