49 years later, it is least we can do. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. msnbc's special coverage of the republican national convention starts now. >> after losing the white house to the democrats four years ago, the republican party is back with a variation on the theme. the old e establishment repeat presidential candidate and i don't thinker lesser known conservative hardliner for a running mate. >> don't you think i picked a great guy to be my running mate? >> the first day of their convention lost again this year to the storm season. hurricane isaac bearing down on the gulf coast. republicans citing their convention in the crucial swing state of florida for the first time in 40 years. democrats, meanwhile, see their own opportunity in florida on the republicans' platform and pledge to privatize medicare.

target lag tino voters that tampa's schedule includes speeches from every statewide elected latino republican in the entire country. for women voters, the todd akin legitimate rape controversy and the republican platform's hard line on abortion stays center age i'm very proud of my pro-life record. >> the last round of republican presidential leadership banished from the convention stage. but the new round of gop governors will talk pride of place. tonight the keynote from new jersey republican governor chris christie. highly anticipated speech from the would-be first lady ann romney. msnbc's prime time coverage of the 2012 republican national convention begins right now. ♪

>> thanks for joining us. i'm rachel maddow, msnbc headquarters. reverend al sharpton and chris hayes as well as the mccain/palin team senior strategist from 2008, steve schmidt. lawrence o'donnell will join us as well. leading our coverage from tampa is, of course, my colleague and frie is chris matthews. a from a cuss on the floor but with the business of the nomination done, big picture, what else do the republicans need to do with all of this attention and with this big event? >> to get elected president, that's what's elected. tonight it is all about strategy, target zone, working class, noncollege white american

voters. the way to get to them is with chris christie, a regular guy, cab driver wloshgs can say it is none of your business, jersey way, and aiming directly at the reagan democrats, working class perhaps catholics as a group and romney, kind of soften up her husband and the weight that hasn't been done before and the third one, you may call this the ugly piece tonight. that's when rick santorum comes back, tasked with the job of raising what's to many people dishonest message is that barack obama, the president, is basically allowing people to get welfare checks without doing any work. this is obviously that racial overtones. that's going to be the third message tonight. big ones, christy fkri christie working class guy. ann romney to show the female side of mitt romney, the cuddly side, if she can find it. these are the big messages tonight. >> in terms of the santorum choice, reverend al was focusing on this on his show the last hour as well, why santorum being

given the headline job on the first night of the convention of talking about welfare? one of santorum's big trip-ups during the primary was when he talked about, in his words, blah people, that sounded to a lot of other people black people, not needing to be giving other people's money. he's talking about the safety net. seen as a racially charged directly racial comment on that during the campaign. why pick him as the messenger for the welfare stuff? >> he came across on his positive side during the campaign as a guy with a hard knocks background. not a romney prep school kind of background. they want a guy like that to talk to people like that, men and women like that. who had it sxruf didn't get a good education at that time higher level. they are strongly resentful of anyone getting a free ride. it has racial overtones in way they are singling this. start this is strategy. nobody is a racist here. it is the way they play the game in politics. just like you may argue totally fair democrats play on the resentment of working people to

the super rich in this country, may be playing games to keep themselves super rich. democrats do that, republicans play on the resentment of the people toward the people further down economically. and i think that's -- classic politics on the republican side. >> i think you are right. it is -- whenever you are talking about race, class is never far away. whenever you are talking about race, class is never far away. welfare attack, obviously, embodies both of those. thank you. while the romney campaign and rnc wanted today's formal nomination proceedings to go without distractions, republican delegates on the floor in tampa had other ideas. during the usually mundane act of adopting party rules this afternoon, this happened. >> all those in favor signify by saying aye. >> aye. >> all those opposed no. >> no. >> the ayes have it. resolution is adopted.

without objection, the resolution is on the table. >> conventions aren't supposed to look like that anymore. vocal delegates were objecting to rules put in places en essentially by john sununu, chairman of the rules committee, convention drama in the afternoon that i think the rnc tried very hard to avoid. andrea mitchell is on the convention floor for us in tampa. do we know what that was about on the convention floor and how it resolved? >> it was resolved in mitt romney's favor. they completely muscled the ron paul people. this is where insurgents like ron paul and others like sarah palin believe the party rules should allow as they have for the last four years, should allow those kinds of -- to be able to go to state conventions after a primary or caucus and try to roll up delegates which they did. ron paul got 190 delegates here tonight. not enough, obviously, to draw

the nomination but draw attention and cause an embarrassment. if he had one more state, iowa, nevada, nebraska, he would have been able to get on the official ballot. they actually sent top operatives, one of the top advisors to mitt romney, to nebraska to make sure. now the rules changed so the party's nominee, person who really rolls out the delegates, make sure those state conventions have that kind of power. sununu who knows something about the conventions. actually the last republican nomination fight was 1976. a lot of excitement. you and mitt romney didn't want that kind of excitement. what do you say the ron paul supporters who are very disappointed today? >> you know, let's understand fundamentally what the concern of the party is.

iowa is a great example. mitt romney and rick santorum each got about 35% of the vote. 70% of the vote and the rest was distributed amongst the other candidates. ron paul's numbers were close to single digit. but they go and they cram the next caucus part of it and they -- in essence come away with all of the iowa votes. that -- that undermines the vote of a million iowans who went to the caucus. and that's not fair. so they like to abuse the process, in my opinion, when it serves them. but when people follow the rules as we did here, and they got upset at the rules committee but the -- vote on the issue they were concerned about was 78-14. that they really have nothing to complain about. >> you think it is going to be hard to get them to be enthusiastic about mitt romney after this fight, is this --

just a dust-up? or is this something more important? >> no, no. i think it is a dust-up. i think ron paul himself is smart enough to know that this country can't be saved unless we get rid of this president. and i think he will be very helpful in the long run. >> thank you very much. the judgment here is that ron paul wants a future, political future, for his son, rand paul the senator, of course, from kentucky. that's why he didn't push this fight beyond where it went today. >> thank you very much. good to get john sununu on the record about that 37 what was remarkable in part was to see not just the ron paul folks but people like michelle, big constituency on the right, freedom works, the dick armey, astroturf tea party group, lot of other people take their side on this one. not leaving the ron paul folks out their own. it is interesting to see sununu dismiss it as a ron paul only phenomen phenomenon. we will have to see if that dissent rolls on forward. >> that's what the mitt romney

people hope. >> all right. appreciate it. we will be back with you later. >> thank you. >> the convention schedule was upended because of hurricane isaac. that delayed the start of the republican convention by one day. and in doing so it scrambled the carefully chosen order of speakers for the convention. while the speakers' schedule got condensed and jostled because of the storm, there's still rhyme and reason at work here in terms of who is getting to talk and what order and on what night. for more on that we turn total ex-. what's important about the speaker lineup here? where it ended up after hurricane isaac. >> we still have major players on the main stage tonight. speaker of the house john boehner, former presidential candidate rick santorum. cincinnati candidate ted cruise of texas. governor of south carolina, nikki haley. of course, headliners ann romney and new jersey governor chris christie. in a few minutes boehner is expected to offer criticism of the president's economic record following his logic that, quote, american people probably aren't going to fall in love with mitt

romney. 95% of people are going to show up to vote for or against barack obama. rick santorum follows boehner and at 10:00 p.m. ann romney takes the stage. she's expected to cast her husband in soft focus, if you will, by talking about love and their not necessarily storybook marriage. mrs. romney will be followed by chris christie who gives the keynote around 10:30. christie says he has gone through 14 drafts of his speech. today he said his job was to, quote, set out the vision of the party for the next four years. which is not exactly an undersell but then again, this is chris christie we are talking about. >> thanks, alex. i appreciate that. i will say i will not be disappointed if we don't only hear about love from ann romney. i would like to hear john boehner talk about love. >> i -- no way john banker talk about love and not cry. so i say the more john boehner talks about love, the better off we are. >> i am in favor of politicians crying at inappropriate and appropriate moments. all right.

because the number of nights of the republican convention has been reduced by one, the number of big speakers per night has gone up. that's basic math. first up is going to be the highest ranking elected official in the country, man who sometimes gets emotional in a good way. third in line to the presidency after the president and vice president. he is republican house speaker john boehner. john boehner will be kicking off the night when we come back. this is msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. stay with us tonight if for no other reason you know we will be having more fun than anybody else doing this as their job tonight. humans -- even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why, at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com.

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republican house speaker john boehner, highest ranking republican official in the country, is at the podium. >>er in to have say he's moving us forward and the audacity to hope we are going to believe him. allow me to illustrate. i'm what you call a regular guy with a big job. i have v 11 brothers and sisters, my dad and uncle on the bar in cincinnati. i worked there growing up, mopping floors, waiting tables, tending bar. so believe me when i say i learn how to deal with every character who walked in the door. so let's say right now some guy walked into our bar full of guys looking for work, having a tough go of it, and the guy said, well

the private sector is doing fun. you know what we do? that's right. we throw them out. think about this. guy walked into our bar full of people paying more for health care, pay them more for gas, paying more for everything, and this guy would say, well, we are better off than what we would have been. well, you know what we would do. we would throw him out. now the guy walks into our bar full of folks who couldn't tell -- couldn't tell thank you last time they got a raise or their house was above water, and the guy said well, we tried our economic plan and it worked. you know what we would do. we would throw him out. now let's say i got locked into our bar and before he could say anything, he overheard a regular telling his story. turns out this guy ran a small business, got involved in it while he was in school.

then out of nowhere his business partner died. they had just one customer. so he fought like hell through sleepless nights and close calls and made it, thank god. paid their due, proud of what they managed to do. now the guy walked into a bar and heard that story and he said, well, if you have a business, you didn't build that, well, you know what we do with him, don't you? we would throw him out. by the way, that small business guy is my story. that was our business and we did build that. but you know, it could have just as easily been the story of anyone who has built something from nothing. no guarantees, no government there to hold your hand. just a dream and the desire to do better. president obama doesn't get this. he can't fix the economy because he doesn't know how it was

built. so in 70 days when the american people walk into the voting booth, what should we do? we should throw him out. because we can do better and we can do a lot better. and it starts with throwing out the politician who doesn't get it and electing a new president who does. you know, mitt romney comes from family of builders. his father built houses, bit businesses, built industry. george romney was a can do kind of guy. and he was fond of the old saying when things are at their worst, that's just the place and the time that the tide will turn. delegates, this is that time and this is that place. [ applause ] we are here to preserve this country the same way we built it. by exercising our god-given trite set a new course.

so who better to turn this tide than the man who is -- has dedicated his can rear rear to doing just that, for spaolympic games? president obama, boy, i like the sound of that. president romney will keep his word and he will keep his courage, too. he will keep faith with the idea that government exists to serve the people and that people who built this economy. mitt's jobs plan will build a stronger jobs plan, schools for our kids, not the teachers unions come first. free trade, path to a balanced budget and answer to the uncertainty and tax hikes that threatens small businesses. it is a big job. so we are fortunate that mitt has chosen his running mate as a leader who is second to none when it comes to rooting out and fixing washington's worst habits. when i'm at paul ryan's -- met

paul ryan 22 years azbo hooves a student volunteering on my first campaign for congress. soon he will be our party's nominee for a vice president of the united states. who says this isn't the greatest country on earth? >> republican house speaker john boehner giving the first significant address of the republican national convention. chris, you were just talking about how it is not -- it is not only race when they are talking about matters of economic resentment in this country. it is a class. he's giving guy walking into a bar speech, bouncing guys out of the bar. >> they don't expect the delegates or people watching on television to fall in love with mitt romney. maybe ann romney has but they don't expect people to vote for him with love. you see it throughout the day. it has been basically a message of how terrible obama is and you got to vote for romney. he is going to fix the problems

created by obama. even if they are fictitious like story about welfare and story obama said he doesn't believe in individual enterprise. you know, you think a party that has good numbers to fight from, like the unemployment rate, and the growth in jobs rate, they are pretty good numbers to get elected on. they still resort to these sort of deceptive rhetorical slurs against the president on the health care issue and medicare issue. across the board. and instead of relying on the basic gut rational thinking of the american voter they might want to change. lawrence o'donnell joins me now with some thoughts. it is great to have you alongside us all. >> the boehner speech, i thought, was -- particularly strange. to get to the point of using barroom analogy. we are going to throw him out. there's -- an ugly physical imagery to this and it is something that the republican speech writers -- you know, these speeches are all written over there under the supervision

of romney world. they have the -- the most insensitive approach to everything. the physical imagery they were conjuring up of this man in the oval office being grabbed by the collar and literally thrown out into a street, that is the image that he tried to get that hall to just cheer along to. luckily he was speaking earlier enough in the night you know it is like in those halls, completely ignoring everybody at the podium until they get to prime time. i'm glad that that speech wasn't featured in a way he could really get the crowd going over that. very ugly imagery of grabbing this president and throwing him out physically. >> it is always dangerous -- >> let me judgment in. i was sitting next to ed schultz and that was the remarks ed was making. i thought this was the speech -- sounded like a joke was about to start. guy walks into a bar. you reacted to this as this is the speech of a bouncer. >> bar bouncer.

>> there is this regular guy theme that the republicans are trying to connect with. mitt romney has had a hard time connecting with middle class and he's had a hard time being a regular guy on the campaign trail. so they have to let these disenfranchised, disaffected lunch balk bucket guys know we are regular guys. you know, i know you have been in a bar before after work and you saw some guy get thrown out. that's kind of the way we think really is where we are. it is window dressing of -- fakery is what it is. that's not who her. they can't play that role. anybody with a half a brain can see exactly what they are doing. it is almost embarrassing that the republican party, first night of prime time coverage, they are talking about bar bouncing. they can't come up with anything better than that? >> we talk ad lot about in general how mitt romney's li

likability is one of the things they have to bring up, main thing they talk about is warming them up by featuring his family, talking about his wife. a key part of the likability issue is class, is the idea he's so removed from people's regular experience he doesn't understand what people who aren't -- >> the other thing they are coming out with, he's a nice guy. he cares about people. his budget doesn't show that. and his business doesn't show that. because he's had a very callus attitude in the way he has thrown workers to the side and outsourced jobs. at his level of executive lifesty lifestyle, you have to have an executioner's attitude to reach the bottom line. that's where he's been. that's the only world he knows. he's trying to connect with those guys in the bar who just can't do it. >> we are not going to hear any of that from the republican side on the main speech tonight. boehner stuff is gone entirely from the discussion now. >> i think that there were would other things i heard. one, clearly the bar usage was a

little weird. but aside from that, he slipped in there that the president couldn't solve the problem of american business because he doesn't know how american business was started. so if you have the setting and in a neighborhood bar and as john boehner's family's bar, and here's the guy who doesn't understand us, doesn't understand america, he goes back to this other than american theme, that he suddenly dropped in and also i thought it was interest when he makes the statement that we need a guy that knows how to take things at their worst and do something with it. well, yes. this guy did take things at his worst and bankrupted them. that's what bain -- where bain comes in. that's why we want to know what happened to bain. he took businesses at their worst, bought them, leveraged them, bankrolled -- interrupted many of them and laid off the workers. so if you are going to use this

theme that here's a guy that can take things at his worst and turn it around, up can't do that and then hide what you did at bain at the same time. tell us how you did it since you took things at his word. give me an example. oh, it is better for me being in the bar inebriated by that line. >> i wanted to get lawrence on a thought in here. he didn't get to finish. >> i'm learning from everything i'm hearing on the panel. i think -- we have covered the bar story which is what captured me when john boehner was up there. >> back to you. >> all right. i was going to say that the common wisdom here, i want to bring in steve here, senior strategist from mccain/palin in 2008. democrats had done a better job defining mitt romney's bain record than the romney campaign had been able to. they were not as much talking about his business record. mr. romney told chuck todd in an interview for a documentary his business record should now be off-limits. then at the end of last week we got mitt romney's open -ed in "

wall street journal" of what i learned running bain. >> over the course of the summer the campaign that controlled mitt romney's biography is the obama campaign. that's going to have to change over the course of this convention, over the course of the debate if mitt romney will be elected president. the argument john boehner is making, barack obama has been an infective steward over the course of his presidency is one the majority of americans already agree with. the american people have arrived at a moment that they are willing to make a judgment on the obama presidency that's negative for obama. the place they have not yet gotten to is comfort with mitt romney. that he is a plausible commander in chief. strategic challenge for the romney campaign over the course of this convention, over the course of the debates that are coming up, is for him to pass that threshold and he has some work to do. >> he has to do it not only by in what he says by in deciding what subjects he gets discussed and had a harder time keeping

control of that. >> what's striking to me is that the best argument they have is just a simple pragmatic argument. the -- you know, unemployment is still high. economy isn't gas as you would like it to be. vote the guy out. what keeps happen sing the rhetoric and strategy keeps getting pulled in these extremely ideological directions, keep fighting ideological battles because that's what the base wants to hear and feels like they need to secure the base and b, because i think there's this echo chamber effect which republican strategists think the american people are more primed to see this election in ideological terms than they actually are. >> weaned up having discussions about -- >> what's the vision of government? exactly. >> all right. there are a lot of big, big, big stories to cover tonight. including what the republican party says is its official theme of the evening. and that has proven to be more complicated than they wanted it to be. the speeches of mr. romney's primary rival rick santorum. also from virginia governor bob mcdonnell. this year became much more famous for the issue of abortion rights than anything he wanted to be famous for. also, the two most hotly

anticipated speeches tonight. those of mr. romney's wife, ann romney, keynote address by new jersey's famously combative governor chris christie. that's all ahead. we will be back with all of it. you are watching msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america and supporting wind and solar. though all energy development comes with some risk, we're committed to safely and responsibly producing natural gas. it's not a dream. america's natural gas... putting us in control of our energy future, now. nah. [ dennis' voice ] i bet he's got an allstate agent. they can save you up to 30% more by bundling your policies. well, his dog's stupid.

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welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the republican national convention. chuck todd is inside the convention hall where swing state politics are being made manifest in part by the physical placement of the various state delegations. hey, chuck. >> rachel, let me show you where i'm at. samoa. if i was in the american samoa in the past i would need binoculars to see the podium.

that's not the case this year. american samoa on this side if you go -- u.s. virgin islands is in the second row. puerto rico is in the second w row. ripe behind michigan, front row and center. the point is this. republicans have been criticized in convention past for a while having a diverse list of speakers, that the audience is not very ki verse. this time every delegation that has any sort of diversity to it, they are getting much more -- much better seating so that when the cameras catch the delegates, reacting to speeches, it is a more diverse and delegation looks like america. now i do need to remind folks, people in puerto rico, people in guam, people in american samoa, their votes for president do not count in november. all these folks, they get great seats here you about they don't get to cast their vote for mitt romney on november 6. >> chuck, some of the folks who

have been also looking at that seating chart are seeing not only that those delegations that don't usually get front row seats are getting front row seats but a lot of delegations that do usually get good seats are in the nose bleeds and those seem to disproportionately be those states that did have a lot of ron paul delegates. after that track us on the floor today is that why louisiana, maine, minnesota got moved essentially up to the nose bleeds? >> no doubt in mind bit. because, frankly, when you think about an iowa or nevada these are perhaps would of the most important battleground states. i was shocked at where they got placed and where they got seated. as we know, both state republican parties have been taken over by ron paul folks. the chairman of both parties were -- are pon ron paul supporters. that has a lot to do with it. i think one of the times we spoke this year has to do with on the night of the iowa caucuses. if you recall on the night of

the iowa caucuses, mitt romney was declared the winner. on the night of the south carolina primary, cedric santorum was the winner. i learned today during the roll call ron paul won by a landslide. all of that work we did on the iowa caucuses and the guy who finished third apparently finished first. go figure. >> thus upsetting the romney folks enough that they changed the rules today which created that on the floor and justified the nose bleed seats. people tell me republican party politics are sort of, you know, sideline issues, what's going on internally in the republican politics. i get this grief from liberals. why don't you talk more about democrats? nothing going on inside the democratic party is as interesting as the way republicans are fighting amongst themselves to figure out who they are post-bush and, frankly, post-mccain. let me bring chris matthews in here on this issue of the swing states. and the sort of divided part of the republican party. chris? >> yes. chuck, it is interesting because

you are talking about the smart showcasing of diversity by the party that makes perfect sense. how do you put that together with what looks to be a 94%-0 among african-americans for p, president obama, leaving basically the white votes and hispanic votes to the republicans. this effort to show themselves as diverse and at the same time they know that the hunting ground for votes is white working class. tell me how that works together. >> well, i would say that the swing vote of this election is suburban white women. and it has always been the case that when you are talking about this outreach to -- to minorities and softening on social issues, that it isn't about winning over -- going to the naacp and to mention -- wasn't about winning over african-americans and it was about making suburban white women in northern virginia feel better about mitt romney and the republican ticket and that there's somehow not trying to proactively alienate minorities. i think that that's what -- you

start looking at about what's the strategy, that's the strategy. i want to pick up on something rachel was say being this sort of interparty politics. it is amazing to me now we are not seeing anywhere near the in-fighting among democrats as you are of the republicans. i was speaking with some del, missouri delegation. and, you know, they are not even talking -- then don't want to talk about the todd akin story. they say that they feel like -- one of them said inwouldn't wear a t-shirt that says hello, i'm from missouri, please don't ask me about todd akin. they don't know what to -- they all have their personal opinions. some of them don't like the idea of them pushing a candidate out. one woman that didn't support akin, i'm uncomfortable about shoving somebody out of the race but it just goes -- there really is the big party bosses are not very powerful inside the republican party these day. >> which makes for -- which makes the republican party the most interesting thing in american politics. it has been, i think, since bush left office. chuck, thank you. we will be checking in with you

again. you may have already seen pictures of the big fancy prop that they have set up inside the convention hall. did you see this? the big debt clock. whole story behind that. why it is really ticking quite so fast and the analysis of our favorite policy one ezra klein is coming up. what then want us to talk about and what they don't want us to talk about. [ female announcer ] they can be enlightening.

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mitt romney spent his life turning around failing enterprises. america needs a turnaround. specifically we need barack obama to turn around and go back to chicago. >> stage craft is everything at political conventions. republicans this year even brought in a former nbc news producer to help them produce this year's event. just saw republican national committee chairman reins priebus there. among the more striking individuals inside the convention hall in terms of the way they are staging this thing, you have these two huge debt clocks. inside the convention hall. one with the really big number shows the total national debt. and then there is a smaller number that they are showing which is debt accrued since the convention officially began yesterday. the reason the debt clock is

there, stage craft wise, is republicans think those ticking numbers speak for themselves. we will have ezra klein to help those numbers speak with a little better el kugs. first, let me go the chris matthews. let me ask you if you have seen that debt clock prop in the hall. what kind of impression does it make? >> well, it would -- dare where was tonight 2000 when bill clinton was shrinking the debt? where was it in 2008 when w., george w. bush, was boosting the debt bass of two wars that weren't paid for and the bush tax cuts that weren't paid for, and a huge 2008-2009 drop in employment and growth which caused a tremendous add to the debt. it is only reborn religion the republicans discovered fizz cam responsibility. the most recent republican president didn't veto one single spending bill when he had the chance to do it. this decision to pretend they are somehow the party of fiscal responsibility is a bit late to

the action. i think that's what came to me when i saw this. who are these guys to brag? clock is there tonight. it is not for keeping time. >> ezra klein has been looking into this trying to tie the politics of this, optical politics of this with some of the policy that you are talking about. let me bring ezra klein in now. thanks for joining us thank you for having me. yes, chris is right. those clocks are not for keeping time tonight. the idea -- you are not going to keep atmospheres from going on at the convention running late. it is ball the debt and particularly the idea is to blame obama and democrats for all of the national debt. the problem when you try to do that, though, republicans end up blaming mr. obama for policies they pushed in the george w. bush years and recession that began on that republican president's watch. and for a continuation of tax cuts that they, house republicans, supported. this chart they made, it shows what happened to the national debt since 2001. which was the last time we actually saw surplus in this

country. you can see it looks like a layer cake. they actually call it the parfait chart. top layer, orange one, that right there is the bush tax cuts. there is no single policy we have passed in the last decade that's added as much debt so far or stands to add as much debt in the future as the bush tax cuts which republicans will remember passed in '01 and '30 and president obama and the republicans extended in 2010 in a deal. in second place, behind the bush tax cuts, the economic crisis in blue. recessions drive tax revenue way down when you don't have an income, you can't pay taxes. and then recessions drive associate am spending way up because we have to help the people that lost their jobs. then you see in red comes wars in iraq and afghanistan. and then you get -- recovery measures like the stimulus. that's right there in the light blue. and compared to the other things on the chart it is small. that's a part you can really blame mr. obama and democrats for. although it is worth remembering senate republicans propose ad $3 trillion tax cut stimulus at the

time. now republicans have got to blame president obama for all these policies and events that happened before because if they didn't if there were no bush tax cuts and wars and financial crises, there wouldn't be much debt left to blame him for at all. now if you look forward, if you look at what mitt romney is proposing to do if he is president, it is to make his numbers add up. by the end of the second term he would have to cut everything in the budget, everything, that is not social security, medicare or defense by 57%. that's a cut so drastic that it is just function -- functionally impossible. on top of that he has trillions of dollars in new tax cuts on top of the bush tax cuts and he promises to pay for them without raising tax owes the middle class or losing revenue. independent analysts looked at this a bunch of times. governor romney's -- promiseses are mathematically impossible and can't work. either have to trim his tax cuts, hike taxes on the middle class, or he will have to watch that debt clock go up a lot faster. >> ezra, another very good visual ruined by mathematical

fact checking. rain order that parade. tonight has a theme at the republican convention as we mentioned. the theme tonight you may have seen up on the wall, we have been showing the live shots at the convention floor, is "we built it." we built it tonight. republicans try to capitalize on one of the most blatantly misquoted statements by president obama. why it ends up being more complicated than they want it to be. that story is coming up. ♪

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so each night of the republican national convention has a theme. on thursday night, mitt romney's big night, the theme is "we believe in america." yesterday was "we can do better," which became unintention fally funny when ron paul fans turned that into a "ron paul with k do better" sign. today's theme is we built it, rhetoric from president obama during a speech of his in virginia on july 13th. >> if you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that we have that allowed you to thrive. somebody invested in roads and bridges. if you've got a business, you

didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. >> the public builds our national infrastructure and everyone benefits, including businesses. that was what the president said. of course, within seconds of him saying it, his opposition and the campaign clipped his words to make him seem like an entrepreneurs. we this. tonight at the convention in tampa, there will be "we built it" video packages playing for the crowd. a country singer will sing a song that's called "i built it." and there are business owner "we built it" speakers, four of them. but this has been a tough case to make for the republican campaign. one of tonight's speakers was featured in a romney campaign ad with a "we built it" theme. until it emerged that his i didn't get any help from the government message was undercut by the fact that he did actually get hundreds of thousands of government help from small business administration loans, from government-backed tax

exempt bonds and from government contracts. the romney campaign actually took down the ad featuring that business owner after doing a photo on with him. another of tonight's "i didn't get any help from the government i built it" speakers actually got about $15 million in government contracts and millions more in government loans. she is even featured in a video from the small business administration touting the success of the help that federal administration offered to her business. >> hi, we're an example of what can happen when good ideas connect with high impact resources like the s.p.a. >> it's so awkward. the republicans have picked the poster child for the success of federal government loans to businesses to speak on their theme night denouncing the idea that government ever helps businesses. awkward, right? it should also be noted that the

whole kit and caboodle, the whole convention of which they are denouncing the idea of government helping build anything, the whole convention is taking place in a sports arena for which roughly 2/3 of the financing was put up by the government. theme nights are a useful thing for driving home political messages. but what the message is that gets driven home, sometimes depends as much on the details as it does on the signage. chris hayes, let me bring you in on this. the facts have been getting in the way of the "we built it" storyline. photo on after photo on of these business owners have revealed that all of these benefits did benefit from something that the government had done specifically for their business. what is the political power of this line from the republicans that survives the hypocrisy and embarrassment that comes up? >> it's a bizarre politics of resentiment. because it is hard to be a small business owner. it's hard to be a coal miner. it's hard to be a domestic worker. doing work is difficult.

and a certain class of people who are small business owners feel very imperilled by the tenuous nature of our economic recovery. and it's a way of trying to appeal to this kind of resentment. the problem is that there's two levels at which it's ridiculous. one level are the specific programs which keep cropping up. let's note the ultimate irony here. mitt romney's biography point in his resume about turning around the olympics in salt lake city that was about $1.3 billion of federal money, about twice what we spent at atlanta, more than we had ever spent on an olympics, so much that john mccain, fiscal hawk, took to the floor to denounce the whole thing. mitt romney said i know what to do, go where the money is and washington is where the money is. aside from these specific examples of hypocrisy, the broader theme is we're all part of a social contract living in an amazing civilization, which is america in the 21st century, which has things like safety and security and roads and all the basic underpinnings of what allows for flourishing private enterprise. it's not even a controversial point.

the point the president was making is so basic, i don't even think anyone actually disagrees with that. it's just another way of motivating the sense of resentment that this president doesn't understand you, and if you're feeling squeezed right now, which a lot of americans are, he doesn't care. >> i will also know that the same hypocrisy problem applies to the republicans and their speakers, but also to the outside groups, americans for prosperity, the big astroturf prosperity group is hosting a salute to entrepreneurs. and the entrepreneurs they are saluting are david cook and art pope, both of whom inherited businesses from their dads. they picked good parents. >> exactly. >> a slew of high-profile republican governors are scheduled to speak tonight, including ohio's john kasich and virginia's bob mcdonald. we'll have those remarks as well as the even more interesting slew of prominent republicans who are absent from the party's big party this year. this is coverage of the

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welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the republican national convention. i'm rachel maddow in new york along with chris matthews. tonight's marquee speakers are ann romney and keynote speaker, new jersey governor chris christie. but for all of the republicans convened in tampa right now, it is also newsworthy to consider which republicans are not at the rnc. hurricane isaac, of course, which has just made landfall, it forced four governors of the

region to cancel their convention plans. florida's rick scott, louisiana's bobby jindal, mississippi's phil bryant, alabama's robert bentley. are there are a ton of republican governors speaking tonight, but none of the gentlemen from those four states because of the storm. because of politics, you will also not be seeing former utah governor john huntsman. john huntsman has been at every republican convention since 1984. he's older than he looks. john huntsman announced next month, i will not be attending this year's convention nor any republican convention in the future until the party focuses on a bigger, bolder, more confident future for the united states, a future based on problem solving, inclusiveness and a willingness to address the trust deficit, which is every bit as corrosive as fiscal and economic deficits. some other republican candidates facing tough elections are not criticizing their own party as broadly as mr. huntsman, but they have spoken out specifically against the paul ryan so called kill medicare budget and they are keeping their distance from tampa as

well, including new mexico republican senate candidate heather wilson, connecticut senate candidate linda mcmahon, and west virginia congressman david mckinley. he sent fliers that said congressman mckinley voted against the plan against northern virginia seniors. we will expect a bunch of democrats in close down ticket races to sit out their party's convention next week as well. but frankly, the similarities end there. this isn't one of those mirror image of the two parties situations. the democrats, of course, will be proudly front paging their party's previous resident of the oval office. bill clinton is keynoting the democratic convention in north carolina next week. on the republican side, neither president bush, nor dick cheney, nor sarah palin, none of them will even be attending tampa at

all. chris matthews is in tampa and he's back with us. he's also with our former rnc chairman michael steele. chris? >> i think the most democratic absence is sarah palin, who was on the ticket last time. think of a party having someone run for vice president, selecting that person for the second highest honor you can give them at a convention, and the next time around basically not inviting them. but there's so many others. you mentioned some of the big once. think of steven king from iowa, a real far-righter. or joe walsh. or michele bachmann. there's so many out there that are so far to the right in terms of their positions on abortion rights. or there's birtherism like louis gohmert. they don't want them up there. two messages, one to sell them at the working class. that's the way they're headed. you may not like it, but that's the goal. the second is to keep quiet. the fringe people, the john

boltons, the people like that on the hawkish right, or the tea party types, or the religious right, or the elements in the platform they agree to tonight, keep them away from the middle, because the middle doesn't want to hear that stuff. they're looking for a practical solution. i'm sitting with michael steele, the former chair, who probably disagrees with my assessment because he has to. here he is. [ laughter ] >> the interesting thing with your analysis is you're wrong. i will agree with you to this extent. i think it was a little bit of a mistake not to have a sarah palin here. i think she brings a level of energy and excitement that's going to be important going forward into the general campaign. you just don't want -- you set it up well. she's the vice presidential nominee from 2008, extend the invitation, give her a moment to speak to the delegation, to the candidates and families.

>> michele bachmann, where is she? she was running for president. >> i think those decisions are also made by the campaign. it's also correct to the extent that how they're trying to frame this thing. but i wouldn't be as sort of mean about it as you've been and say like purge these people from the party. no. i think the romney team is trying to create a dynamic here that reaches middle of america, obviously. independent voters. and also brings the base to the table. >> i'll be back to you in a second. but i think it's interesting what chuck todd showed us there about the choreography, rachel, where they've had the front pews filled with the diversity crowd. of course, that gives them a better picture of where they are. in other words, you showcase people who will not even vote in the election, and then you hide all the crazy ents in the attic is. that fair advertising? i'm only asking. it may not be. >> the way you say it, the crazy aunt in the attic?

>> let me jump in here on the sarah palin for a second. if nothing else, i am your friend, michael steele. but you've got to think about the cost and benefit that the republicans and the democrats have to consider here. what could be worse about having sarah palin speak in an invited role in this convention than what happened to democrats' vice presidential nominee? joe lieberman went to the republican convention in 2008 as the immediate previous democratic vice presidential nominee and he gave a speech saying don't vote for barack obama, he's not ready. i'm here with my friend john mccain. there's nothing that sarah palin could do for her party that would be worse than what joe lieberman did to the democrats in 2008, right? >> i agree with that, and that's why i think the opportunity to have her come out here to be a part of this evening or this week would be important. i think it's important long-term. as i said before, i think in a very significant way, having her

here would be this way of saying look, the romney team is embr e embracing here, and she's embracing them. they're going to come out of this convention together to defeat brausm i think that'sara. you create a little dissonance with the ron paul delegates that were upset with the rules and the way the rules were forced on them. so all these dynamics aren't a good narrative underneath the overarching themes that the romney campaign wants to create. >> would you have donald trump here tonight? would you have donald trump talking his birtherism here, if you could? >> not going to get up and talk about birtherism. >> that's all he talks about. >> you talk about business, an economy that's in the tank right now. >> the a google search on trump and see if you find business. you'll find birtherism. >> we can't have a conversation about the various factions within the republican party, similarly sarah palin and how they get handled on the national

stage, without tapping the wisdom of steve schmidt. steve, someone who was instrumental in all the strategic actions of mccain-palin in 2008. is there more of a risk than potential reward in putting sarah palin out there now? obviously, she doesn't stand for the party in a centrist way, but she does have a big constituency, doesn't she? >> look, if i was running the convention, i would have had sarah palin there in a speak role. not in primetime. not one of the main speakers. but sometime late afternoon, early evening would have been a great time slot. but no one's going to hold the sarah palin speech against mitt romney. the election is not about sarah palin. it's about the future. it's about romney. it's about ryan. it's about their vision. and i think as you look at this whole week, i mean both parties have as a strategic goal to keep the "star wars" bar scene characters that reside in both parties out of the convention

limelight. and so you want people who have the ability to attract people to the movement. there's a couple important speeches tonight. ann romney, chris christie. those are retractant type politicians. >> they need everybody. they're pulling so poorly with african-americans, with the latino vote. we talked earlier about how mitt romney is having a hard time connecting with the regular guys. they need everybody they can get. sarah palin does have a following whether they like it or not. and so there's still this mystery guest that is going to be showing up on thursday. maybe it will be sarah palin. it would be great entertainment. >> i assume that's going to be donald trump. they have been willing to engage with the birther thing. they don't have any black supporters to alienate with the birther thing. they're at 0%. >> they can go less than seay row. i think sarah palin would be primetime, no matter what time she spoke, because i think she's

more exciting than the roster than you have. and i think she has a base. but i think what they really ought to be, rachel, is since tonight is "we built it," tomorrow night, they should have george bush speak and call it "we broke it." >> i think we should point out that eric cantor is not involved. the majority leader in the house does not have a platform in primetime. the man who is the majority leader, who led the obstruction. you know why? because they have nothing to talk about. >> if i were running the convention, i would want the same thing. focus on romney and ryan. it's not about the party, it's not about the republican party or the congressional house caucus, god forbid. it's about these two gentlemen. the republican party in the house particularly has been as disciplined as any party in the modern era. the totality of who is there, the ted cruzs and the sarah palins and everything that is the modern institutional party

will be mitt romney. >> hold on, one second. as the republican convention continues in tampa, this is important. just minutes ago, hurricane isaac did make landfall in southeastern louisiana. we are responsible for covering that because it's as big a story, frankly. and for the latest on that we're turning to bill karins. what can you tell us about the status of isaac? >> we're lucky it made landfall now and hopefully it won't get any stronger. this storm looks as impressive as it's looked the last few hours. let me show you the latest radar imagery. storm looks a lot more impressive right now than it did earlier today. it made landfall right at that little part of louisiana. juts out there into the gulf. it's going to be over the open water for the most part for the next six to 12 hours. don't expect a lot of weakening. the weather is quickly going downhill. we have 60,000 power outages in louisiana and those numbers are going to grow. we've had a wind gust of 62

miles per hour in new orleans along lake pontchartrain. the next big thing to watch is the next high tide cycle. that's when the storm surge and the worst of the flooding is going to happen. that's when the levees will be tested and that's when we'll see the highest water rises up around gulf port, biloxi and mobile bay. as we go throughout the night tonight, the storm will move just south of new orleans. the worst weather in new orleans will be from now for about the next 18 hours. this is a slow-moving storm moving up through louisiana. winds will weaken as it moves inland. the heavy rain will be with us right throughout the night tonight and all day wednesday. the big two stories here is we have to deal with the storm surge, the high tide cycle tonight, and how much rain we get in the next 24 hours. it's a weak category 1. but the effects will be pretty widespread the next 24 hours. >> and just to be clear, in terms of the number of people affected, in terms of population density, the urban area that will be most affected by this is new orleans, but it's a big

enough storm that lit cause problems beyond that, too. >> yeah, it's a huge storm. it wasn't all that intense of a storm, but the size is just incredible. we saw rain bands today that were still in florida and related to the storm, the heavy rains and flooding that we've seen in south carolina, especially the charleston area. the size of the storm, you can see it on the satellite imagery here. it's gotten more impressive. it looks like a classic hurricane right now. we are just very lucky this was only a category 1. if it had developed earlier, we easily could have been talking about a devastating blow for areas like new orleans. everyone is going to want to see are the levees going to hold, are the pumps going to work, and the billions of dollars of upgrades they have there, we'll find out those answers over the next 24 hours. >> bill karins, i appreciate that. it's great to have that much specificity about it with the intensity of the rain, and of course, at exactly the seven-year anniversary of the devastation of katrina. it's not just a regional issue. this is an issue for the country. this an issue for basic

governance. and this is an issue for how modern we are as a society and how we handle these things. this is a big deal. whenever you hear a weatherman say something looks impressive, that means the opposite of what it means in other types of conversation. chris? >> i think it's interesting how these elements coincide. if we hadn't had this storm, this hurricane developing over the gulf, which is the big side story, the prelude story to this republican convention, in a way it's been challenging it, the todd akin story was the one that was challenging the republican convention, as the news story dominating the prelude to this convention. in fact, enveloping it. if you talk about an act of god helping a guy. this in a weird way helps todd akin, because it kept the pressure off him. all the pressure of the storm, took away from the prelude aspect of his predicament. now the paefrt, i believe it's a good bet, is stuck with this guy. he's going to be the nominee of the republican party for the united states senate in missouri, right through election night. he's going to be there.

the party will have to defend him. of all the people they wanted to keep off the stage tonight, no one compares to todd akin in terms of notoriety. so in a way, they've got a bad break here because of this storm, because it means todd akin is still one of their partners in this re-election. >> i think that's right, chris. and for that reason, i am most -- the speech i am most anticipating all week long at the republican convention is mike huckabee's speech. mike huckabee has a primetime speech on a primetime night and he has been todd akin's biggest defender and he has been viciously attacking the republican establishment for having expunged todd akin in the wake of these comments. i'm really looking for a 1960 barry goldwater moment from mike huckabee in his speech. may not happen, but he's been that way leading up to it. i think that could be really interesting and sort of unscripted moment in this convention this week. but we'll have to see. right now, chuck todd is down on the convention floor

with new york congressman peter king. chuck? >> thank you, rachel. congressman king. i'm going to ask you about being a northeast republican in a party that hasn't been too friendly to northeast republicans. and you're having to defend the party platform. describe what it takes to sort of survive in that atmosphere. >> president obama did carry it four years ago. right now the polling shows he won't. but in the end, it's going to be a tough, competitive race in my district. paul ryan especially is going to resonate with middle income families. his personality, his style, and the way he can describe how it's going to help working families. and mitt romney, it's up to him to present himself to the american people. so i feel very good, also because of president obama. i mean, he has really lost a lot of support the last four years. >> one of the things we've seen in the polling and one of the concerns of the romney campaign is the fact that particularly

among women in suburban america, you represent a lot of women in suburban america, that we were just talking about the todd akin story, but it sort of exemplified the idea that they are pushing suburban women away. how does mitt romney fix that? >> i think first of all, ann romney is going to help that tremendously tonight. once mitt romney presents himself to the american people, a guy as a family man, honest, a regular guy, as is paul ryan. i think the two of them together, their personality, their character is going to mean a lot and their policy is going to be a distinct change for president obama's, which have not worked. >> do you wish the platform were different on abortion? >> i'm pro-life. ronald reagan in 1980 -- >> wait a minute, it has gotten significantly more pro-life, no exception for reagan. >> but how -- mitt romney himself, george w. bush before him all made the exceptions. i think the american people see that. as this election goes forward, the more the democrats focus on issues like that, the more it's going to see they're rung away

from the issue of the economy. >> peter king, new york congressman. >> give my love to rachel. >> hear that, rachel? pete king says he gi gives hise to you. >> i receive it gladly and look forward to the opportunity to reciprocate. i don't know what to say. we will hear from another northeast republican, the new hampshire u.s. senator speak. let's dip into her speech. >> in both the private sector and as governor of massachusetts, mitt romney always asked how can i help small businesses grow, innovate and compete. it's the right question and it's the question that this administration never thinks to ask. but why should we be surprised, president obama has never even a lemonade stand. and you know what?

it shows. for the sake of the future of small business, we need to replace barack obama with mitt romney. [ cheers and applause ] we need to replace barack obama with mitt romney because mitt truly gets it. mitt understands the hopes and dreams of small business owners throughout our great country. but don't just take my word for it. i want you to hear from someone who is directly on the front lines of small business. >> new hampshire u.s. senator kelly ayotte speaking tonight, another one of those northeastern republicans, which we had thought were an engaged species, but there are some around, including peter king and kelly ayotte. saying that the president has never run so much as a lemonade stand. which i think is a sleight at

the united states of america. john kasich is going to be on deck when we come back. this is msnbc's coverage of the republican convention. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if we took the nissan altima and reimagined nearly everything in it? gave it greater horsepower and best in class 38 mpg highway... ...advanced headlights... ...and zero gravity seats? yeah, that would be cool. ♪ introducing the completely reimagined nissan altima. it's our most innovative altima ever. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪

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tonight is sort of republican governor night at the republican national convention. the keynote, of course, is the

famously combative chris christie, and whether you like him or dislike him, you have to admit that everybody in the country is looking forward to watching him speak because he is fun to watch speak. i feel that way about newt gingrich. apparently not everybody thinks that, though. also tonight, we will be hearing from scott walker, who became the face of the union rights stripping movement among republican governors and legislatures this year. and john kasich. john kasich of ohio, who is up next. he just as much as scott walker went after union rights in his state. even more aggressively, in fact, than scott walker did. but in ohio, a quirk of ohio law meant that ohio voters had the opportunity to repeal just that thing that john kasich did about union rights instead of going after kasich himself. ohio voters repealed his union stripping law by 22 points. john kasich, the governor of ohio himself never faced recall the way scott walker did. scott walker survived that and became a republican hero. john kasich still in office,

too, but without that much of a reputation. here he is. >> i don't know about you, but i've got a feeling -- you know, i got a feeling, and i got a feeling that we're about to elect a new president for the united states of america! [ cheers and applause ] and let me tell you why it matters, because it really matters. we need a president who will restore the strength and the power of the american people so that we, the people, can rebuild our economy, and so we the people can rebuild the united states of america. plain and simple. you know, we've made real progress in ohio in restoring confidence, because that's what so much of life is about. and we are setting people free

in order to build success. but we need a new partner in washington. this relationship is just not working. it is holding us back. i'm going to tell you our story. i'm going to tell you the story of ohio and the story of lessons learned. i took office in 2011, and when i came into office, we were 48th in the nation in job creation. 48th. we had an $8 billion budget deficit, the largest in the history of the great state of ohio, and we had 89 cents in our rainy day fund. most toddlers have more than 89 cents in their little piggy banks, let alone what was in our treasury. our credit rating was headed down the drain. and we had suffered a loss of 400,000 jobs. and ladies and gentlemen, tonight, the greatest moral issue in america today is job

creation. we had lost 400,000 jobs, our people were hurting, and our families were hurting as a result of the recession. in ohio, we were following a policy of tax, spend, and dock. and that's too much of what politicians do. they want to avoid the tough issues. but when we came into power with my leagues in the legislature, we took our problems head-on. we balanced our budget, that $8 billion deficit was eliminated without a tax increase in the state of ohio. [ cheers and applause ] and we could not raise taxes because we were not competitive. so you know how we did it? we did it the way that a family does it. we sat down and set priorities. we eliminated those programs that we no longer needed. and when government people spend our money, they're very wasteful about it. so we went through it and

eliminated those things we didn't need, but we prioritized those things that we really did need, and i'll give you an example. we allowed mom and dad to stay in their own homes if able, instead of going in to a nursing home where the costs were five times as high, and when they're in their own home, they're healthier and happier, and frankly, more independent. and that saved us a lot of money because we made government work better. and that made a heck of a lot of sense for us. we also cut taxes because ohio needed to be competitive. we were $8 billion in the hole. we balanced the budget, but we cut our taxes, and we cut the income tax. the reason we cut it so that ohio could be competitive. and at the same time, we killed the death tax. we killed the death tax. [ cheers and applause ] and we killed that death tax because no person should have to visit the undertaker and the tax

man on the same day, and small businesses and farmers should be able to pass on their hard work to the next generation. and we need to do it in washington as well. and we restored common sense in our regulations, and you know what? we still protect the environment. we protect our families. but we don't overregulate and kill the job creators in our state. in fact, we want to honor the job creators in our state and work with them because they help our families. now, i want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, just like what mitt romney is going to face, the actions that we took were not always easy. and the actions that we took were not always popular. but you know what? when you get yourself in public service, you must lead and you must do what is necessary, and i want to tell you the good news of where we are today.

i told you a minute ago that when we came into office, we were 48th in job creation. you know where we are today? we're 4th in america in job creation and number one in the midwest. [ cheers and applause ] we went from 89 cents in our rainy day fund to $500 million in surplus, a half a billion dollars in surplus, from being in the hole. and you know i watched in horror as we saw the italians and the french and the spanish and the greeks have their credit downgraded, and i remember the night i watched america's credit go downgraded. but in ohio, instead of our credit going down the drain, our credit outlook has been improved because it's been recognized that we are managing our finances and creating jobs.

but ladies and gentlemen, when over those last four years we have lost 400,000 jobs, in ohio today, we have grown new jobs by 122,000. 122,000 families better off. but you know what? the wind is in our face. the president has given us headwinds. president obama has doubled the national debt. i was chairman of the budget committee when we balanced the budget in '97 and i look up in horror at that clock that shows $15 trillion in the national debt. that's what's hanging over our children's head and the president is doing nothing about it. in fact, each year, he's increasing that by $1 trillion. and let me also tell you that the president says his answer to these problems lie in this, more taxes. let's take more money out of the

pockets of the american people and send it to, of all places, washington, d.c. can you even believe it? we not only need to balance budgets, we need to cut taxes, not raise them to get on the right track. and his regulations have had a smothering effect on businesses, and it has paralyzed the job creators. folks, this is the wrong philosophy. these are the wrong policies. and we need a new leader. and that is exactly why i am for mitt romney for president of the united states. [ cheers and applause ] you know, i want to tell you about mitt. he's a business leader. if there is anything we need in government today, it's people who understand how to create jobs, plain and simple. and the people that criticize folks in business just simply don't get it. they've put us in this hole. and mitt romney has a history of

being a great job creator. secondly, he was a great governor. he went from billions of dollars in the hole when he became governor to billions of dollars in surplus when he left, and he went from the loss of tens of thousands of jobs when he became governor, to the creation of 40,000 new jobs when he left office. and he did it in massachusetts, of all places. remember this, beyond his work in business and beyond his work this government, he's a natural leader. he took those salt lake city winter olympics and took them when they were in pearl and headed down the drain, he fixed the olympics and made every american proud of what he did in salt lake city, and built a shinier and brighter america as a result. folks, i want to tell you this. joe biden disputes a lot of those facts.

but joe biden told me that he was a good golfer. and i've played golf with joe biden. i can tell you that's not true, as well as all the other things that he says. folks, for the good of our kids, i know we're at a republican convention, but this is not about republican and democrat. this is about somebody that's going to get this country moving again. restore the strength of our country. energize the people. set them free in a free enterprise system. that's what this is all about. it is about our children. it is about our families. it is about our country. and frankly, ladies and gentlemen, it's about the world, because even though you don't want to admit it, they depend on the united states of america to lead and to bring moral purpose to the globe. ladies and gentlemen, we've got to leave here and march and make sure paul ryan and mitt romney

are vice president and president of the united states. thank you all very much. >> ohio governor john kasich. always a very animated speaker. his tendency to ad lib. i'm going to assume when he said mitt romney will make a shinier america and that joe biden is a bad golfer, that those were ad libs. but other than that, i think it was a good speech. i'm sitting between reverend al sharp on the and joe schultz and i felt that both men were about to pop at moments listening to that speech. let me go to chris matthews first. chris? >> well, i thought it was a barn burner. i've always liked john kasich. i thought one thing about him, he's a working class guy who's had problems. he lost his parents in a terrible accident. the guy comes across in one way "romney can." he's saying what i've done before, i'll do now. i've been a good, tough governor on job creation, etc., etc. we can check the numbers. but at least he's proud of what he's done as governor. if he were running for president, he'd be in great shape. romney is not proud of his

record. he's not proud of what he's done in health care. he's not proud of being pro-choice up in massachusetts. he's not proud of being a moderate republican as governor. and so you have real meat and potatoes from john cakasich tha you can't get from mitt romney. the end of that speech was boilerplate. but i like the fact that he talked about specifics and what he's done. david clark, the great new york political advertiser, a democrat, said before somebody tells you what they're going to do, first ask them what they've done. and the problem, the big disconnect between john kasich there and mitt romney is that john kasich is proud of his work. mitt romney is not proud of his work in public life. sooner or later, he's going to have to answer for that. i think case sick an example of a politician who's built toward what he had to do, whereas romney is basically embarrassed by his own public policy past, and that's a problem, rachel. a big problem. >> that was an interesting point, because in part because

of the rescheduling, we did get the night of republican governors, which is therefore the night of republican governance, because it's the only place where republicans are in charge is in these states. it does raise the question of mitt romney's time as governor of massachusetts, something that he really has not been running on. maybe it's a way they're telling us that he'll pivot to running on that, but you're right, chris. hasn't done that so far. in terms of responding to john kasich, though, ed, i know you were about to explode. >> i'm not as high as chris is on john kasich's speech. we just heard the governor of ohio totally omit the automobile loan and the automobile industry where one in eight jobs in the state of ohio is affected by the biggest loan that any state's ever gotten from industry. he says that when he took of as governor he inherited all this stuff. those were all bush policies. he didn't talk about the environment, how he wants to be a big digger on public lands when it comes to drilling and fracking. he's a drill, baby, drill guy.

if he hadn't had the government loan from the obama administration, he wouldn't have anywhere near the economy he's got in ohio. so i do not share chris's enthusiasm on that. i just think he sells better than mitt romney. >> he's a charismatic guy. but to be clear, john kasich was against the bailout. he was against the auto bailout. >> he was against the auto bailout, but his state's economy has benefited from it. one other thing. the easiest thing for a politician to do is attack a public worker. he went after wage earners. it's easy to attack a union and hey, blame those people over there. he's gone after public school teachers. in fact, there's a number of public school teachers that i met in ohio, about 20 of them, that are running for the state legislature, they're so fed up with the cuts that they've had to take. he's gone after public workers and he waves a banner saying see what i'm doing for the economy? the easiest thing for somebody to do in running a business is cut. you've got to figure out how to make it better. i don't think john kasich has done that.

>> i have to totally agree with what ed is saying. the fact that he tried to act as if the job growth was something he did, and not based on the fact that ohio has a huge boost from what was done with the auto loan. the fact that he starts by saying we need a better partnership with washington and then talks about what he did as governor. if he did all of that under president obama, then what's his problem? what he also didn't talk about is he's one of the faces of voter suppression in this country. it is ohio that has become one of the models, how to end early voting, how to try to do weekday voting. kasich is as anti-voting rights and anti-civil rights as you can get. he has mobilized labor against him. i think that he is a better salesman, only because the chief salesman can't sell what they're trying to push this week. >> chris matthews? >> that's all true. everything you say is true.

in fact, there's a disconnect because, of course, when john kasich brags about the economic upturn in ohio in the last two years, he's basically making the president's case. he's saying things are getting better. you've got to share the rewards here. however, i will challenge both of you gentlemen. i know you're thinking this. this guy is a great salesman. this is the kind of guy that can turn this campaign from rich guy against the other 99% to a guy who can argue effectively, more than romney will ever be able to argue, that there's something in this republican victory if it comes for regular people. this guy kasich looks like a regular person. and i think it's obvious he is. he's a working class white guy. he's exactly the target audience the republicans are going for this next couple months and he's one of them. and i think that has power. >> if john kasich had been as successful as scott walker, he might be on the ticket tonight. >> the fact that we heard ten, the 12 minutes of kasich's speech and 90% of it was on

kasich, not romney. the fact that he can give such a great average guy speech about what he did in ohio, and could only give off one line for romney doesn't speak well for this convention, because he couldn't tell us what jobs romney created. and unfortunately, we have a little technicality. kasich is not the nominee. romney is. >> well, he probably doesn't like romney either any more than these other republicans do, so he'd rather talk about himself. my point is meat and potatoes, economic arguments sell. this cheap slashing like boehner did earlier tonight. i'm going to throw him out of my bar. give me a break. like a drunk. what cheap politics that is. this is good politics compared to cheap politics. that's all i'm saying. >> and also, john kasich, he's a former cable news host, which we all know is a key swing demographic in this election. so that's real regular person

appeal. if you look at the republican party, what they want to tell you, the story they want to tell you about a mitt romney administration is lower debt and deficit, smaller government. at the federal level and the state level, that's not what it is. it is cutting taxes and at the national level, increasing defense budgets. one thing you can be sure republicans will do is cut taxes in a way where the biggest benefit is for people at the top. and that's been true. we'll see the republican governors parading before us tonight. everything else, who knows what's going to happen. depends on a lot. but that is the one thing they will pursue. and john kasich bragged about it tonight. >> the one other thing i think is lost about the john kasich record -- and it tells you what an impact his speech had, but john kasich is not just a former fox news host. he is a former fox news host for whom a current fox news host turned his show over to campaign and fundraise for him. sean hannity became the john kasich for governor tv show for a long time, which really helped him. but the other thing is that he's a lehman brothers guy. he's a wall street guy in the

era of the wall street financial collapse. so while he's able to cultivate this regular guy image and those may be his roots, he's as much a wall street guy as john boehner as a bar owner. >> in the beginning of his speech, talking about what he inherited, those were all bush policies. those were all things he supported in the past. so i think what we're seeing early tonight in the convention, we haven't seen any of these speeches tell us what you're going to do for the middle class that's being hit so hard in this country. tell us what you're really going to put on the table. they talk in generic terms about entrepreneurship. we're going to cut government. cutting government is easy to do if you don't invade anybody. but what are they going to do? president obama has put tax cuts on the table for the middle class. president obama has done as much or more than george bush ever did for small businesses in this country. you'll hear mitt romney talk a lot about take home pay. he's losing this argument with the middle class right now to the obama campaign. so they're going to come through the back door and say we're

going to do a better job with take home pay. you're going to hear a lot of conversation about take home pay, because we can all relate to take home pay. every worker can relate to take home pay. you know what? president obama has done a better job with take home pay. so i think the republicans are boxed in with the middle class. they are boxed in trying to make the argument that they are the problem with state government. the obama policies have helped state government dramatically. we're going to hear from scott walker later. scott walker since the recall, they've lost jobs. >> steve schmidt, in terms of republican messaging here. it seems to me like the parade of governors. one thing it is doing is trying to give a middle class message. trying to talk in terms of governance rather than in terms of ideologicals. >> the most effective leadership in the republican party is with the governors. the house republican brand, for instance, totally toxic, which is why you're not seeing house republican leadership up on the stage en masse. what i will say, though, from the right side of the stage

here, in answer to chris, we don't hear a lot of president obama talking about his record in this election either. i live in a swing state. i live in nevada. those ads are about mitt romney. those ads are about mitt romney is a weird guy. mitt romney is a rich guy. mitt romney is not a person like you. and fundamentally, if president obama had been able to deliver on what he campaigned on in 2008, he would be running on a record of accomplishment, not attacking mitt romney in the way that he is. so both sides are going after each other tooth and nail. it's not just limited to the republicans. >> although, if you were advising the obama campaign, wouldn't you be telling them define mitt romney? >> well, there's no question that the obama campaign is running the only campaign they can run given the economy. they have to disqualify mitt romney from getting over that crucial second bar. but it's a remarkable departure from the hope and change strategy of four years ago, quite a million miles away. >> but if you had 27 months of private sector job growth, would

you talk about it? i mean, would you talk about it? if you've got 27 months of private sector job growth, would you talk about it? >> i think that the dynamics of the election in this, is both sides have records that lead thoem go after the other side and try to impeach the other side and i think that's the context the election has taken. >> chris matthews? >> steve, let's get common ground here. let's try to find some logic across the aisle here. i think it was fair of john kasich to come out tonight and talk about the hell he inherited from strickland. he talked about job growth going up to fourth in the country. he made all the comparisons against a baseline. i think that's fair. now, meet me on this, steve schmidt. would it be fair for president obama next week in charlotte on thursday night to basically say look, i inherited hell from w. would you say that was fair next thursday night if he did what i think he should be allowed to

do, state his baseline when he came in? >> i think he is going to do that and i think he's been doing it over the course of the last four years. the problem, i think, chris politically, i think there's a lot of fairness to the extent of the troubles that the president inherited. but after four years, i think the middle of the electorate doesn't want to hear blame on the predecessor to expect the president after four years to have been able to deal with the problem to move the country forward. and the fundamental disconnect is that the president's campaign slogan is forward and the majority of the american people, if you look at all the polls, don't believe his policies. >> so you have a different standard for republicans and democrats. republican governors complain aboutinherited, but a democratic president can't do that? >> well, all's fair in this. president obama's been for the last four years, he's obviously blamed president bush. i think to blame president bush

entirely for every problem that the country has is a bit unfair to president bush, but the reality is that both sides, when you look at that clock, bear responsibility for it. i think the legitimate criticism of president obama with regard to the defer instance, there's no legitimate plan to put forward the deal with something that at the end of the day is an existential crisis for this country, which is $16 trillion of debt with no end in sight. republicans are responsible for it as well. >> i'm going to intervene on behalf of my friend, virginia governor bob mcdonnell, so we can hear a little bit. he's at the podium now. >> if you dream big, if you follow the rules and pursue opportunity, the sky is the limit in the united states of america. we cannot lose that dream.

unfortunately, many americans are hurting badly. too many americans are looking for work because this president's policies simply haven't worked. washington today has a surplus of rhetoric, and a deficit of leadership and results. and you know the problems. unemployment for 42 straight months. the national debt, immoral, at $16 trillion and growing. new business start-ups at the lowest level in 30 years. and now, the epa is the employment prevention agency. these times call for new leadership to get this great country out of debt and back to work. the choice is very clear. the status quote of the entitlement society versus a dynamic change to an opportunity

society. that's what we need in america. we need a president who will say to a small businesswoman, congratulations, we applaud your success. you did make that happen. you did make that happen. you did build that in america. big government didn't build america. you built america. small businesses don't come out of washington, d.c. premade on flat bed trucks. that coffee shop, that florist in virginia beach, that bakery in radford, virginia, they were all built by american entrepreneurs with big dreams. not a big-spending government.

it is remarkable in 236 years of the american experiment what the ingenious people of this magnificent nation can do when they're given the opportunity. every american deserves the opportunity of a limited responsible government that performs its core functions well, and then gets the heck out of the way. that's when good things happen in the united states of america. look at the results of republican policies in the states -- in states with republican governors, the average unemployment rate is a full point lower than in states with democratic governors. it makes a difference. republican governors lead seven of the ten states with the lowest unemployment rates. and 12 of the 15 states that have been ranked best for business have republican

governors. the obama administration borrows now thr$3 billion a day just to keep the lights on, republican governors have raised budget short falls without raising taxes. in virginia over the last two years, with republicans and democrats working together, our unemployment rate is down 20% to 5.9%. we've added 151,000 net new jobs in virginia. we've had nearly $1.4 billion in budget surpluses and we've done it by keeping regulation and litigation to a minimum and haven't raised taxes. so while the president talks, republican governors lead.

talk is cheap. results matter. conservative fiscal policies are working and so are more americans in the states with republican governors today. now, just think what we could do if we had a president who would support us and not obstruct us. someone who has created jobs in the private sector, who understands the economy and who has actually balanced a budget. for that matter, somebody who's actually passed a budget. we need president mitt romney. i can tell you when mitt romney and paul ryan get together and they work with scott walker or john kasich, governors from both

parties from across the country, we will get people back to work in this country. our great country can no longer afford the job destroying policies coming out of washington, d.c. but we don't just have to hope for change. we can make the change this november. we will lift up and grow the middle class. we will celebrate job creators again. we will restore that great american dream that led my grandfather here from ireland 100 years ago. and that all starts with electing mitt romney and paul ryan this november. thank you very much! >> virginia governor bob mcdonnell giving a nonbarn

burner of a speech. not a bad speech, but not as emotional or as engaging as the man who spoke before him, john kasich. and i'm guessing not as emotional or engaging as the guy who's about to come after him, scott walker. i want to bring in melissa harris perry. governor bob mcdonnell, better known for his policies on women's health and on forced ultra sounds than he is on the economic issues that he was discussing in that speech tonight. when you saw him speak there, did you see a vice president who might have been? >> no. only in the sense that i think ultimately, mcdonnell would have done very, very little for this ticket, especially after the fight around women's reproductive rights. what we saw in virginia is despite the relatively robust economy, back in may of this year, after the long fight, his approval ratings dropped by almost ten percentage points. folks started saying that virginia was moving in the wrong direction, even though his ratings have been far more robust than that of the president, just given that the virginia economy has been doing

better. we saw an immediate impact among the very folks who are swing voters. when i look at that i think not there was a vp who could have been, but rather that's exactly the problem that this current presidential and vice presidential ticket for the republicans has. >> in terms of mcdonnell as somebody who campaigned openly for the vice presidential spot, he was an early endorser of mitt romney. he did a lot of appearances with romney on the trail. he started running positive ads for himself in virginia, even though he's not running for re-election, which was kind of a giveaway. is having him here in this way, and having him with the very visible role since the paul ryan process in this campaign, is that sort of a make nice amid the various republican factions? does it have that effect in republican politics to have him so prominent? >> virginia is a swing state, there's no way around that. it's a battleground. both the president and governor romney are going to be down there batting it out. as you saw from the sort of we

built that discourse here, remember that the president said the you didn't build that statement while in roanoke, virginia. so they're wanting that sort of particular governor to respond. it feels more like that to me than coalition building. i think folks have got to be a little bit nervous about standing next to a governor who represents a vision of small government that is small enough to put on the end of a transvaginal probe. it's exactly that complex position where they say oh, we don't want any government, but on the other hand, we would like government to come in and intrude on the most personal decisions of your life. and every time the republican party finds themselves standing at that sort of ridiculous intersection between not wanting to provide government assistance, but wanting to have government intrusion, and mcdonnell is just the embodiment of that, and that is exactly where swing voters sort of catch on to what the story is. >> and melissa, the other part of this, continuing with the

"you didn't build that" theme, is bob mcdonnell presides over a state that has benefited dramatically from the amount of money that has come out of washington, d.c. during this period of time. the short-run deficits that have been run have gone out the door and they have written checks to contractors who are located in the commonwealth of virginia, and they have seen their economy do quite well. the metro d.c. region has done quite well. bob mcdonnell, it's very easy to complain about big government. but actually, big government is what is employing a huge number of his constituents in the state of virginia. it is what has made virginia essentially recession-proof. >> we should also point out that norfolk naval air station is the largest station in the word. their economy is always pretty good as long as the pentagon is sendi ining checks. >> that's also true about tampa. i should say that we are waiting -- momentarily, the appearance of wisconsin governor scott walker. if there was a man who defined the american politics in 2011,

that off year, it was scott walker. scott walker's fight to strip union rights in wisconsin was not that different policy-wise from what happened in a number of other states. but what happened in wisconsin is that the state erupted. the streets of madison and of cities across that state were filled with tens of thousands of protesters for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks on end, as the state just erupted against what he was trying to do. ultimately, that could not be channelled into recall of the law. it had to be channelled into a recall of the state senate, which democrats achieved, and the tempted recall of scott walker himself, which failed. and the failure of that effort by the democrats is what made scott walker the hero he is being greeted as right now at the republican convention. let's listen. >> on june 5th, voters in wisconsin were asked to choose between going backwards to the days of double digit tax increases, billion-dollar budget

deficits, or moving forward with reforms that lowered the tax burden, balanced the budget, and helped small businesses create more jobs. on june 5th, voters in my swing state were asked to decide if they wanted elected officials who measure success by how many people are dependent on the government, or if they wanted leaders who believe success is measured by how many people are not dependent on their government, because they control their own destiny in the private sector. on june 5th, voters in wisconsin got to determine who was in charge. was it the big government special interest in washington, or the hard working taxpayers of our state? the good news is that on june 5th, the hard-working taxpayers won. [ cheers and applause ]

just ask why that's important. when the economy took a dive a few years ago, andy breadth took a pay cut. not long after that she lost her job. today she's working at g3, one of those companies that added jobs during the past year, and now has plans to add even more. the owner told me that he's creating additional jobs in wisconsin because he likes the way we're moving our state forward. and he's even more committed since the last election. without our positive changes, he told me he would not have had the confidence to grow business in wisconsin. improving the business climate is not only good for small business owners, it's good for people like sandy and her family. we need more stories like hers in america because the last couple of years have been, well, pretty tough. like many places across the country, wisconsin lost more than 100,000 jobs from 2008 to

2010. unemployment during that time topped out at over 9%. but because of our reforms, wisconsin has added thousands of new jobs, and our unemployment rate is down from when i first took office. equally as important, we improved the economic climate for job creators. today, 94% of our employers believe wisconsin is headed in the right direction. [ applause ] that compares to just 10% who thought the same thing just two years ago. elections have consequences. as was the case in wisconsin two years ago, too many americans think our country is headed in the wrong direction. but mitt romney understands, like i understand, that people -- people, not governments create jobs. with that in mind, my administration is making it

easier for people to create jobs in wisconsin. our reforms put the hard-working taxpayers back in charge. people like sandy breadth. sadly, the federal government seems to be going in the opposite direction. nationally, we've experienced 42 consecutive months of unemployment above 8%. last month, 44 of the 50 states saw an increase in the unemployment rate. more than 12 million of our fellow citizens are unemployed. we need someone to turn things around in america. that leader is governor mitt romney. [ cheers and applause ] mitt romney turned businesses around in the private sector. he saved the winter olympics, and he balanced state budgets without raising taxes. in a way that helped the private sector create more jobs. then with the announcement of paul ryan as his running mate, governor romney not only showed

that he has the experience and the skill to become president, he showed he has the courage and the passion to be an exceptional president. [ applause ] with this pick, he showed that the "r" next to his name doesn't just stand for republican, it stands for reformer. now more than ever, we need reformers. leaders who think more about the next generation than just the next election. that's what you get. that's what you get from mitt romney and paul ryan. now, in a few weeks, we will celebrate the anniversary of our federal constitution. moments like that remind us that what makes america so great, what makes us exceptional is that throughout our history, in moments of crisis, be they economic or fiscal, military or

spiritual, what makes america amazing has been that there have always been men and women of courage who think more about the future of their children and their grandchildren than they did about their own political careers. >> governor scott walker of wisconsin greeted with a huge ovation in the republican national convention arena tonight, finishing up his speech now. obviously, it is about paul ryan and it is about mitt romney, but it is more than implicitly about himself and his own political struggles over the course of his governorship, those struggles that have made him a hero to many republican activists and conservative activists who have supported him and have made him a symbol of extremism in republican governance to his progressive critics, like ed schultz. >> about six months before the recall, he pivoted and ran against the recall, the concept that we shouldn't be having this recall, and in the exit polling, most people were against the recall. he outspent his opponents 7-1.

let's get to the job numbers. he promised 250,000 jobs. he hasn't delivered that. before the recall election, he said the reason why we're not adding jobs is because people are not concerned about this recall. since june 5th, that state has lost 19,200 jobs. they're still in the negative after the recall. so his policies mirror exactly what the republicans want. you show me a winner, i'll show you a winner. the guy at the podium, he won. that's true. but he's not hitting the core area of what the republicans have to address, and that is true job creation. again, he's trying to cut his way into positive numbers and he's not getting it done. >> and i think that's critical, because if you're going to talk about job creation, and then even after you survive a recall, you're losing jobs. if you're going to talk about freedom, as they like to talk about in this party, and you are suppressing and doing all kinds of things to the vote as walker

is as well. and let's remember, not one republican primary or caucus this year, rachel, had voter i.d. that's only for november. if they really wanted voter i.d., why didn't they do it during their own nominating process when you and i and ed sat up here all night and steve and ended up with the wrong winner in iowa. no one said maybe there was fraud. because that's only reserved for certain people who have i.d. that's what walker means and that's what we're seeing tonight, and i think we need to just expose it to the american people. he should have won, but things go better with the coke brothers. >> you're right that one very material consequence of republican governance has been the change in voting rules in the state where is republicans are in control. we'll be talking about that in detail a little bit later on this hour, over the course of this evening. i want to break in here with the other big story tonight that is just as important as the republican convention, and that is hurricane isaac, which is a hurricane and has made landfall.

republicans cancelled the convention essentially yesterday because of the threat that the storm posed to tampa. earlier tonight, it did make landfall in southeastern louisiana. made landfall as a category 1 hurricane. the weather channel's mike seidel is now joining us from orange beach, alabama. mike, what can you tell us? >> reporter: hey, rachel. well, it's a slow-moving hurricane. that's the issue. it's going to be a long duration event, now heading into plaquemines's parish. may make a second landfall. it's slow moving. we've had wind gusts up over 80, sometimes 90 miles an hour. here at orange beach, we've been getting gusts over 50 miles an hour all afternoon long. some of the tropical downpours, you can't even see two hotels down the beach. the rainfall inland is going to be just tremendous. 12 to 20 inches in parts of louisiana. six to 12 inches in parts of alabama, and there's a tornado threat continuing through

tomorrow, tomorrow night and maybe into thursday, and because it's moving so slow and this wind is piling up the water, surges are running up now at eight to fine feet on shell beach. parts of mississippi and the alabama coast will see surges anywhere from four to nine feet. so there will be issues on the coast. fortunately we've got a good dune line and the beach front property is up on stilts. plus, we have a nice beach due to the beach replenishment. irene will be downgraded to the tropical storm sometime later tonight or tomorrow, but it's got to rain itself out. it's not moving very fast. so this is going to be a story in the front page for the next couple of days, rachel. out here, it's dermabrasion and now the rain moves back in. not the best beach day. this will all be out of the way for anybody coming down to the gulf coast for labor day weekend. this will be long gone by thursday, things should start to improve. new orleans, the worst is yet to come. they've spent $14 billion following katrina, which we're on the eve of the eighth

anniversary, so we'll see how those pumps handle the tremendous amount of rainfall that's coming in in the next 12 to 24 hours. >> mike, i just want to follow up on one thing you just said. describing those nine feet storm surg surges and the rainfall. how do those match up with what we know about the quality of our infrastructure, our ability to handle those things in beach replenishment and the levees that protect new orleans? do we know that we are up to handling a storm of this size? >> well, we spend millions of dollars every year. a lot of beaches, noting on the gulf coast, but where i'm from, they pump the sand in. you've got the naysayer saying it's a waste of tax dollars. saying we have to have a beach. so that battle continues up and down the beaches, and also in washington. we're going to see how these

pumps handle this rainfall rate. because new orleans is like a giant bathtub, it sits below sea level. so tonight and tomorrow, it will be very, very interesting, and also the levees. we think they're going to hold. we don't feel like the levees aren't going to hold, but they're going to have to pump a lot of rainfall over the next day or so out of the big easy, and back into lake pontchartrain and down into the mississippi. >> mike seidel, thank you, and i hope you can get inside at least to a sturdy vehicle. coming up, we'll be hearing from rick santorum and also from texas senate candidate and tea partier ted cruz. that's coming up shortly. and we'll be looking at the republican campaign around the issue of welfare. it has become central to the republicans' battle plan for november. there's quite a bit of data to analyze on that. we'll get right to it. this is msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. [ "human" by the human league playing ]

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when are rnc and the romney campaign drew up a schedule of speakers tonight, they made what has turned out to be an interesting choice of speakers. we're expecting to hear from former senator and former presidential candidate rick santorum. but instead of santorum talking about what he is known for, instead of talking about social issues, republicans decided to have mr. santorum speak about welfare. this has been almost lost to history of the primaries this year, but rick santorum fans will remember this particular moment from the republican primaries. >> i don't want to make people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. i want to give them the

opportunity to make their own money. he insisted what he said was blah people, and not black people. but what he was talking about was the issue of food stamps and welfare, and as he put it, getting other people's money. before mitt romney started rung ad after ad about how president obama has attempted to gut welfare reform by taking the work requirement out of it, a charge that has been universally debunked by fact checkers, that was sort of rick santorum territory. he was the guy who was saying this. not giving free money to blah people. his attempt to run on the issue of welfare reform has proved to be tricky for mr. romney. as governor, romney sought a waiver on the issue of welfare reform, as did a number of other republican governors, including brian sandoval from nevada. these governors are trying to backtrack from the fact that they have done that in their own records as fast as possible. but also, making welfare reform a signature issue has also

likely contributed to this. this is the preference of african-american voters this year. 94% for president obama. zero for mitt romney. here's what it looks like among latino voters. there is a 35-point gap in favor of president obama over mitt romney. if the republican party is trying to appeal to african-americans and latinos this week, what they are offering is rick blah people santorum on a false charge about welfare and him being the president of lazy people who are taking your money and a republican party platform that seems to nationalize arizona's papers please immigration law, setting that up as a model for the country if this is supposed to be policy chasing people, i don't see how it works. chris matthews? >> you know, i think that people that don't recognize the code about welfare and food stamps are really being dishonest. i think if you look at our history from ronald reagan, who would talk about the young buck

in the line using food stamps to buy t-bone steaks, or certainly wallace or david duke. they all talked about welfare. welfare has been a classic tool to pry apart working class whites from working class blacks. it's brilliant, because everybody sees it who wants to see it. certainly blacks can't avoid seeing it. whites can deny it because it isn't technically racial or sectarian, but everyone knows what's going on here. everyone knows. this and now for mitt romney, who should be able to win on the arithmetic, on the unemployment rate, on the job creation, on a number of factors, growth in this country not being what it should be, for some reason has resigned himself to the fact that he'll get no black votes and therefore he might as well work for the working class white vote. this isn't prejudice on his part. there's no evidence of that. it's really about engineering the country politically. it's a very bad sign of this ability to still be able to do it in our country.

it's amazing. in the 21st century, 2012, and what worked 60 or 70 years ago is still working today. say welfare, people think black because politically they've been taught to say so. i get back to living in d.c. all these years. i've lived there 40 years, a black majority city. anybody who wants to get up early in washington and drive down north capital and drive past florida avenue sees nothing but black people up and 6:30 in the morning going to work. that's where they're going. to work. and not at big wage jobs and not to get a welfare check. they're out work hard all day and not coming home with a fantastic paycheck. so this notion that blacks live on welfare and whites live on work is a brilliant political ploy, but it's not true, rachel, and you know it, i know it. >> in terms of the truth of this, we are about to hear from rick santorum. if they tell us what he's going to say, it's that president obama gutted the welfare reform. it has no basis in raesmt does

rick santorum have the burden of having to prove that that is true, or do they ignore -- >> i'm waiting for the governor. i think it's a hard find. you know there's always an argument about the truth of these ads and they somewhat are gray. this is one, as you pointed out, is a thousand percent wrong. it's called dishonest on front pages of quality newspapers, but let's see what santorum does. will he try to play this card dishonestly tonight. >> if rick santorum tells you that president obama gutted the work requirement from welfare reform, he is not telling the truth. >> thank you. thank you very much. thanks. >> thank you. thank you. thank you. it is a great honor for me to be here tonight with the love of my

life karen over here. and my 93-year-old mother from florida. and some of our children. my oldest son john wanted to be here tonight, but he's a first year cadet at the citadel. [ applause ] so i just want to say to you, john, proud of you, son. thank you. i am a first generation american. at the age of 7, my dad came to johnstown, pennsylvania, from the mountains of northern italy. on a ship named providence. how prove denial, that one day his son would announce for

president just down the road in the deep mines mined coal until he was 72 years old. when my grandfather died, i remembered as a kid kneeling at his casket and not being able to take my eyes off his thick, strong hands. hands that dug his path in life and gave his family a chance at living the american dream. working the mines may not have been the dream he ever dreamed. i never dared to ask him. but i think his answer would have been that america gave him more than he had ever hoped. america believed in him. that's why he believed in america.

[ applause ] my grandfather, like millions of other immigrants, didn't come here for some government guarantee of income equality, or government benefits to take care of his family. in 1923, there were no government benefits for immigrants, except one -- freedom. [ cheers and applause ] under president obama, the dream of freedom and opportunity has become a nightmare of dependency with almost half of america receiving some sort of government assistance. it's no surprise fewer and fewer americans are achieving their dreams, and more and more parents are concerned their children won't realize theirs. president obama spent four years and borrowed $5 trillion trying to convince you that he could make things better for you, to

put your trust in him and the government, to take care of every problem. the result, massive debt. anemic growth. and millions more unemployed. the president's plan didn't work for america. because that's not how america works. in america -- [ applause ] in america, we believe in freedom and the responsibility that comes with it, to work hard to make the dream of reaching our god-given potential come true. we believe it, we believe it because it still works. even today, graduate from high school, work hard, and get married, and have children, and the chance you will ever be in poverty is just 2%.

yet if you don't do these three things, you're 38 times more likely to end up in poverty. we understand many americans don't succeed because the family that should be there to guide them and serve as the first wrung on the ladder of success isn't there, or is badly broken. the fact is that marriage is disappearing in places where government dependency is the highest. most single mothers do heroic work and an amazing job raising their children. [ applause ] but if america is going to succeed, we must stop the assault on marriage and the family in america today.

from lowering taxes to reforming social programs, mitt romney and paul ryan are dedicated to restoring the home where married moms and dads are pillars of strong communities, raising good citizens in our neighborhoods. [ applause ] a solid education should be the second wrung on the ladder to success. but the system is failing. president obama's solution has been to deny parents' choice, attack private schools, and nationalize curriculum and student loans. mitt romney believes that parents and the local community must be in charge of our schools, not the department of education. [ applause ]

yet we all know there is one key to success. that has helped people overcome even the greatest of obstacles. hard work. that's why work was the centerpiece of the bipartisan welfare reform law. requiring work as a condition for receiving welfare succeeded. and not just because the welfare roles were cut in half. but because employment went up, poverty went down, and dreams were realized. it's a sturdy ladder of success that is built with healthy families, education, and hard work. but president obama's policies undermine the traditional family. weaken the education system.

and this summer, he showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency, by waiving the work requirement for welfare. i helped write the welfare reform bill. we made the law crystal clear. no president can wave the woive requirement. but president obama rules like he is above the law. americans, take heed. when a president can simply give a speech or write a memo and change the law to do what the law says he cannot do, we will no longer be a republic.

[ applause ] yet as my family and i crisscrossed america, something became so obvious to us, america is still the greatest country in the world, and with god's help and good leadership, we can restore the american dream. why? because i held its hand. i shook the hand of the american dream. and it has a strong grip. i shook the hands of farmers and ranchers, who made america the bread basket of the world. hands weathered and worn and proud of it. i grasped the dirty hands with

scars that come from years of labor and the oil and gas fields, mines and mills, hands that power and build america and are stewards of the abundant resources that god has given us. i've gripped hands that work in restaurants and hotels, hospitals, banks, grocery stores, hands that serve and care for all of us. i collapsed hands of men and women in uniform and their families. hands that sacrifice and risk all to protect and keep us free, and hands that pray for their safe return home. i held hands that are in want,

hands looking for the dignity of having a good job, hands growing weary of not finding one, but refusing to give up hope. and finally, i cradled the hands, the little broken hands of the disabled. hands that struggle. hands that bring pain. hands that bring great joy. they came to see us. oh, did they come to see us when they found out that karen and i were blessed with caring for someone special, too, our bella. [ applause ] four and a half years ago, i

stood over a hospital bed, staring at the tiny hands of our newborn daughter who we hoped was perfectly healthy. but bella's hands were just a little different. and i knew different wasn't good news. the doctors later told us that bella was incompatible with life. and to prepare to let go. they said even if she did survive, her disabilities would be so severe that bella would not have a life worth living. we didn't let go. [ applause ]

today bella is full of life and she has made our lives and countless others much more worth living. [ applause ] i thank god that america still has one party that reaches out their hands in love to lift up all of god's children, born and unborn. [ cheers and applause ]

and we say -- and we say that each of us has dignity, and all of us have the right to live the american dream. and we also say that without you, without you, america is not keeping faith with its dream, that all men, all men are created equal, and endowed by their create we are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [ cheers and applause ]

ladies and gentlemen, you know we are stewards of a great inheritance. in november, we have a chance to vote for life and liberty, not dependency. a vote for mitt romney and paul ryan will put our country back in the hands of leaders who understand what america can, and for the sake of our children, must be to keep the dream alive. thank you, and god bless you, and god bless america. thank you. >> well there you saw rick santorum, actually making news by what he didn't do tonight. this has been declared throughout the day as an opportunity for rick santorum to come out and defend the -- i think we all agree, rachel and i and everyone else i know, the bogus position of the romney campaign about welfare reform. he didn't even mention welfare reform. i also admire his position on the way he's raised his family. that's his position. he and his wife have handled it

quite well and admirably. there were some disconnects. he mentioned pennsylvania. pennsylvania didn't re-elect him for the primary reason that he used county funds from western pennsylvania, if a poor county, to pay for his online home schooling of his children down in virginia. now, he did that using public funds. he didn't use it through self-reliance. he didn't simply home school his children. he used taxpayer funds from a rather poor county to educate his children down in virginia. this is a disconnect from the biography we just heard of self-reliance and the poor work that government does in our lives. here's a man who directly used government funds for the home schooling of his children. i think that's a very important part for all of us to remember about this guy. i used student loans to get through college. our family is middle class because my father had the g.i. bill coming back after serving this world war ii. this is a part of our lives that the people on the right don't want to acknowledge. most american families can point

to scholarships. they can point to g.i. bill. they can point to defense education act loans. they can point to opportunities where the government has helped out. most pointedly, rachel, this fellow depended on the county in pennsylvania for the financing of his home school for his children. this is something he's always left out in his otherwise well-advertised personal life. >> and i will also say when he was talking about his father and his father's immigrant, which is an inspirational story, he talked about the 1920s and his father coming over at that time. the 1920s being a sort of golden age, because there were no benefits for immigrants at that time. as if the 1920s then led into, should be seen as a golden economic era. i will mention that he did say the thing i said he was going to say about welfare. he said this summer president obama showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the

work requirement for welfare. the whole speech wasn't about it, but he did say the lie i said he would say about president obama's policies. >> i missed that. i was caught up by his more inspierg rhei inspiring rhetoric. i do deeply respect the way he and his wife have raised a child who has so many challenges. there's nothing but admiration i think anybody feels for that. it's their decision, their life and they chose to protect the life of their child. how can you not respect that decision? i think it's wonderful. i don't know what it has to do with politics. i don't really know what it has to do with this election. but it's inspirational. >> the strongest ovation that mr. santorum got in a wide-ranging speech, and a good speech, a very well-delivered speech. he's much better scripted than he is off the cuff, no matter what his advisors tell him, is when he mentioned god's children, born and unborn. he riffed a little bit there about his belief that abortion should be criminal, in part because of the biographical details that he shares about his own family. rick santorum is always

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this summer, he showed us once again he believes in go in government handouts and dependen dependency. president obama rules like he is above the law. >> rick santorum speaking just moments ago, hammering home the republican party line on welfare this year. that president obama has separated welfare from work, that president obama has somehow gutted the work requirements in welfare. that message has also been carried by mitt romney, of course, who not incidentally,

needs a very large majority of white voters in order to have a chance of winning. the romney campaign has put out a series of ads, five in the last two and a half weeks, saying the president has made welfare easier to get. it's made welfare easier to get specifically for lazy people and that is unfair to you working white person. an allegation is absolutely not true. ezra klein joins us now for more on that. ezra, how's life in the wonk box? >> it is incredibly wonky, rachel. we are hearing a weird amount about welfare. not just the convention, but in the election more generally. it is really weird that it's come up, like a strategy from 1992 went into a worm hole and popped up this year. welfare after '96, the reforms became the temporary assistance to needy families program. that's what it is now. and it is a shadow of its former self. you can see it on this graph here. during the clinton presidency in

'96, in a great economy when you would expect relatively few people in welfare, it was helping 68 of every hundred families in poverty. by 2010, in a terrible economy, when you think welfare would have to expand to catch the people falling out of the work force, it helped only 27 of every 100 families in poverty. so that is less than half of the reach the program had back in '96. what's weirder, in '96, the conversation about work requirements for welfare came in the context of a really tight economy, when people could find work. that was the whole point, you could go from welfare to work. the conversation now is coming in a terrible economy when they can't. the problem right now, nobody thinks the problem right now is that the poor don't want to work. it's that they can't find work, as many other people can't find work, no matter how hard they look, and that's what makes this a weird conversation to be having. in five separate ads now, romney has accused obama of taking the work requirements out of welfare. the romney ads, they're dishonest, they're untrue, that

has been the conclusion of everyone from the associated press, called the adds discredited to, my colleague glen kesler at "the washington post," gave the campaign four pinocchios. what makes the romney ad about welfare dishonest is that the obama administration isn't lifting the work requirements out of welfare. they're giving states more flexibility to figure out how to do the work requirements so they actually get more people back to work. that's not my opinion or my read of the bill or my interpretation. the text of the rule change itself reads the administration "will only consider approving waivers relating to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of leading the work goals." so the work part of welfare is not going away. the romney camp has been confronted by this a number of times. at a panel organized today by abc news, romney's pollster said, and i quote again, we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers. or, i guess, but facts. >> ezra, thank you for that.

when you are getting dinged for something being factually incorrect and you're getting dinged for that even after you have attacked your opponent for putting ads on the air that have been dinged by fact checkers, obviously there's something so politically compelling about that that you're willing to bear those criticisms. >> the president has given the republicans exactly what they want, ability to do something at the state level. he's basically saying look, we're going to give you the allotment of money, federal funds, and you're going to be able the use this to create jobs, to get people back to work faster. and the republicans are dinging them on it, saying that he's changing the work requirement. no, he's not. the federal work requirement is still there. but the flexibility for the states obviously -- >> which the republicans asked for. >> they want states rights. they want local control all the time. >> there was a direct request by two governors, one who's speaking tonight from nevada. if mr. santorum wants to know about this, he should have asked the governor from nevada who's waiting to come on why he was

the one of the two that made the request to the president. this is bogus. i don't think we should even sit and act like santorum really believes that. here is a man that talked about blah people, that no anthropologist in the world has ever heard of blah people, can find blah people. these blah people that are depending on other people's money. so if you can get away with creating a race to avoid saying that you were getting ready to say black people and really race bait, you can race bait by playing this they're lazy and shiftless and the black president is the one trying to empower it. this is what this speech was all about. then he turns around and goes at same-sex marriage. then he turns around and strives to deal with the whole thing of abortion. and then i'm supposed to go now to poor communities all over the country and tell people if you get married, you'll get a job. so why don't we just have mass weddings, senator santorum, and start marrying people in central

park, and all of a sudden the economic condition would rise. it is insulting to me what he stood up there and said tonight. the only one that should be more insulted is mitt romney, who he barely mentioned. >> and i would also say this. it wasn't just a welfare requirement law. he had a statistic. he said nearly half of americans on government assistance -- now, try and run the numbers of how you get to 160 million americans on government assistance. you've got about 40 million on food stamps. about another ten million on medicaid. i don't know how you get there, unless you count unemployment insurance, social security, medicare, the key parts of the social insurance fabric of the country. now, i would love to see the republicans go around and say to every person receiving social security or ssi or medicare or unemployment insurance that you are sucking at the teet of government. >> you're a sign of what's wrong

with america. >> there's a distinction to be made between things we do as part of the social contract, to catch people when they fall during times like this, which are extraordinary in every respect, with respect to the economy. >> santorum did say that romney would be the worst republican to take on president obama. i remember something about that. >> on the issue of health care. go ahead, chris. >> i want to go back to what i think is going on tonight, which is politics. it's not policy. i look at the list of speakers tonight. boehner, kasich, mcdonnell, santorum, christie, ted cruz with. the exception of walker, they're all raised roman catholics. this is an attempt tonight to try reach the reagan democrat. it's so obvious, it's about welfare, the average guy out there working hard says i don't want to be screwed by somebody that's not working hard. i have to tell you there's something really disorganized about tonight. i have to tell you the message was, because it wasn't clear what the message was tonight. i admit i missed the one line in santorum's speech when he mentioned this thing, he was

supposed to be talking about for ten minutes. what's so interesting about these people tonight is they weren't pushing romney. i mean, santorum talked about his family and the difficulties of childbearing. kasich talked about what a damn great job he's done in ohio. boehner trashed obama and said he's somebody in the bar i want to throw out with the other drunks. nobody said anything good about mitt romney. this is an extraordinary convention. we're here to carnate, to crown this guy, and nobody has a good word to say about him tonight. everybody's talking about their own biographies and their own value systems and you get back and about the last minute of every speech and they give this guy a bone. oh yeah, i better mention romney now. this is pathetic for the organized political party. >> chris, okay, here's the way they could fix that. the way they could fix it, all of them have been giving not just their own inspirational life story. they've all as republican governors been talking about what great jobs they've done as

republican governors. well, who else was a republican governor? mitt romney. and they haven't talked about his time as a republican governor. there hasn't even been one line about that. >> to answer your question, why? why don't they talk about mitt romney? because he was pro-choice? or c christie is going to give the great fairy tale, beautiful, shined up version of mitt romney's time as massachusetts governor when he left with an approval rating roughly around george w. bush's. maybe they're going to try to tell some beautiful story about massachusetts. you can tell the democrats think he's going there, because the pro-obama super pac today started running ads against romney's time as governor. they're betting that that's what romney's going to try to run on, starting tonight. but we'll have to wait for the keynote to see. >> i do think one of the things that's interesting about the speeches tonight is that all the speeches thus far have been directed at the converted already. none of these speeches have been about persuading anybody that's persuadable in the electorate. so, it will be interesting to see, as we look ahead, to the

two big speeches tonight, which i think have to be persuasion speeches. ann romney's speech, to humanize mitt romney. to give him a dimension that he's lacked so far in the election. and then, of course, chris christie's speech, who i think is probably, you know, we can all agree, one of those phenomenal, whether you agree or disagree with him, and i know many of you disagree with him, but one of the phenomenal political performers in the country. and someone up there to persuade, which we haven't seen so far tonight, which is interesting for a convention. >> chris won't be holding people's hands, i'll give you that. he won't be holding hands tonight. >> there's no big ideas coming out of these speeches tonight about where america should go. has anybody said anything about energy? this is the biggest issue that is facing america's future. how do we become energy independent? they haven't talked about any of that stuff. immigration was mentioned by santorum, but that was just on the surface. >> but there have also been discussions. because it is patently untrue to say that this president didn't deal with education reform.

he had newt gingrich not go on to education reform and deal with the whole question of charter schools. so for there to be things that are easily proven wrong, i guess can only be done by people that say fact checkers don't matter. >> and rick santorum, of course, took a shot at the department of education, the dreaded federal bureaucrats. of course, no child left behind being the signature piece of legislation signed in the first bush administration, signed as something that george w. bush ran on. and in fact, the entirety of the record of george w. bush is not that george w. bush isn't there, it's the entirety of what that record was. medicare part "d" that paul ryan was the deciding vote for when it came up in the house the first time around, right? that's nowhere to be found. so everything was that it was those eight years of governance. everything that was eight years of governance is gone as well. >> down the memory hole. i should mention, in terms of steve's point about persuadable people, one person who is speaking tonight, a lower profile speaker, because nobody's ever heard of him, is artur davis with, a low profile democratic congressman who was a

big supporter of barack obama in 2008. he is speaking tonight at the republican national convention as a converted republican who is making the case for why he left the democratic party and became a republican. personally, in terms of his own story, it was after he got absolutely destroyed in the democratic primary when he was running, trying to become the governor of alabama in that state. that's when he left the party. on the republican side, they've been able to get artur davis, they've been able to get joe lieberman, they've been able to get zell miller. the democrats very excited at the republican convention that they have former florida republican governor charlie chris speaking at the democratic convention. everybody loves a crossover artist. coming up, the headliners tonight, ann romney and chris christie. they're both still ahead. msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention continues after this. felennnc ]re flre regenerbe

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miracle whip is tangy and sweet, not odd. [ villager 1 ] it's evil! if you'd try it, you'd know. she speaketh the truth! [ villagers gasping ] reverend? ♪ can i have some? ♪ welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the republican national convention. the youngest serving governor in the country, the first-ever female governor of south carolina, nikki haley, is speaking. let's listen. >> -- business in the living room of our home. and 30 plus years later, it was a multi-million dollar company. but there wasn't a single day that it was easy. and there wasn't a single day that my mom and dad didn't put everything they had into making that business. so president obama, with all due respect, don't tell me that my

parents didn't build their business. almost 45 years after my parents first became americans, i stand before you and them tonight as the proud governor of south carolina. we build things in the palmetto state. we build planes, we build cars. we have three of the four largest tire producers in the world, and are about to become the number one tire producing state in the country. and not too long ago, "the wall street journal" said anyone still thinking the u.s. has lost its manufacturing chops hasn't been to south carolina. we have so much potential and so much to be proud of. but like so many states, we have our challenges.

whether they be unemployment or education or poverty, and like so many of my governors, i work day in and day out to try and improve the lives of the people of my state. and sadly, the hardest part of my job continues to be this federal government, this administration, and this president. as i said, my parents love that when they came to america, if you worked hard, the only things that could stop you were the limits you placed on yourself. unfortunately, these past few years, you can work hard, try to be as successful as possible, follow the rules. and president barack obama will do everything he can to stand in your way. south carolina recently passed

one of the most innovative illegal immigration laws in the country. what did this president, who has failed to secure our borders and address this issue in any meaningful way do? he sued us. if this president -- if this president refuses to secure our borders, refuses to protect our citizens from the dangers of illegal immigration, then states have to take it upon ourselves. we said in south carolina that if you have to show a picture i.d. to buy sudafed, if you have to show a picture idea to set foot on an airplane, then you shouldn't have to show picture i.d. to protect the one of the most valuable, most sacred, essential rights in america, the right to vote.

and what happened? president obama stopped us. and now we come to the most unbelievable of them all. in 2009, south carolina was blessed to welcome a great american company, that chose to stay in our country, to continue to do business. that company was boeing. boeing started a new line for their 787 dreamliner, creating a thousand new jobs in south carolina, giving our state a shot in the arm when we truly needed it. at the same time, they expanded their job numbers in washington state by 2,000. not a single person was hurt by their decision. not one. and what did president obama and his national labor relations board do? they sued this iconic american company. it was shameful and not worthy of the promise of america.

but we did one of the things we do best in south carolina. we got loud. we're fighters in south carolina, and as we fought, we watched an amazing thing happen. you fought with us. and guess what? we won. a few months ago, i sat on the tarmac at the boeing facility in north charleston and watched as a new mac daddy plane rolled on to the runway, sporting a made with pride in south carolina decal and surrounded by, get ready for it, 6,000 non-union employees, cheering, smiling, and so proud of what they had be

built. we deserve a president who won't sacrifice american jobs and american workers to pacifying the boeing union bosses he counts as his political allies. american businesses deserve a federal government that doesn't stand in their way. not one that tries to chase them overseas. slighting american ingenuity and innovation, that's what this president has meant to south carolina. that's what this president has meant to this governor. and that's why this governor will not stop fighting until we send him home, back to chicago, and send mitt and ann romney to 1,600 pennsylvania avenue. [ cheers and applause ] i have had the pleasure of knowing mitt romney for several years now, and there is so much to appreciate about him. he fixes things. he's results driven.

he's taken broken companies and made them successful. he took a failing olympics and made it a source of pride for our country. he went into a democratic state, cut taxes, brought in jobs, and improved education. oh, and by the way, he actually balanced his budget. this is a man at peace with who he is, with the challenges he faces, and with what he intends to accomplish. this is a man not just a candidate looking to win an election, but a leader yearning to return our nation to its greatest potential. and this is a man who has a silver bullet, his greatest asset, by far, the next first lady of the united states, ann romney.

ann is the perfect combination of strength and grace. she does what so many women in america do. she balances in an exceptional way. she raised five amazing boys, battled ms, is a breast cancer survivor, and through it all, was a true partner to mitt. ann romney makes all women proud. by the way she has conducted her life as a strong woman of faith, as a mother, as a wife, and as a true patriot. she's an amazing inspiration for me and for so many women across the country. not too long ago, i traveled to michigan to campaign for the romneys. towards the end of the day, two self-described independents came up to me and said, we like what we hear about governor romney. and although we don't know everything about him, what we do

know, without a doubt, is that we deserve better than what we have today. they are so right. we deserve a president who will turn our economy around. we deserve a president who will balance our budget. we deserve a president who will reform and protect our retirement programs for future generations. we deserve a president who will fight for american companies, not against them. we deserve a president who will strengthen our military, not destabilize them. america deserves better than what we have today. we deserve a president mitt romney.

thank you. god bless you. and may he continue to bless the united states of america. >> nikki haley of south carolina, giving essentially the hardest line speech that we have heard of the night, hitting on the anti-immigration, anti-immigrant bill in her state, hitting on union rights, in very, very strong language. talking about president obama destabilizing the military. i'm not sure what that is, but that may be code for we don't like don't ask, don't tell being repealed. maybe, also, for the first time tonight, at least in any of these headline speeches, we're hearing from nikki haley on voter i.d. nikki haley signed a law last year making it harder to vote in south carolina. you have to show documentation you never had to show before, and that 200,000 people in her state, who are legal voters, it's documentation they do not have. there was one point on this issue about voter suppression, making it harder to vote that i want to particularly highlight, because we are in florida tonight. we're heading into ann romney's

speech. but keep in mind the importance of the location in which this speech is happening. this is probably going to be the highest profile moment of the entire convention, we're going to get from ann romney, except maybe her husband's speech. but in the state of florida, where tonight's republican convention is being held, last july, republicans in the state passed a whole slew of new restrictions that make it harder to register to vote in the state. voting rights activists at the time said it would can disproportionately affect minority voter who is tend to lean democratic. those activists appear to be proven right. today the florida times union released some remarkable new analysis on voter registration in florida that i almost cannot believe. in the lead up to the '04 presidential election, look at this. this is what the increase in voter registration looked like on the democratic side. that was '04, 159,000 new democrats registered to vote over that time period. in '08, same time period, 13 months, it was pretty much the same story, right. democratic voter registration surging in the same time period before the election. but then last year, florida republicans made it harder to register to vote in the state. look at what has happened in the lead up to this year's election

over an equivalent time period. look. new democratic voter registration has disappeared in florida. it has fallen off a cliff, over the same amount of time -- look, the republican numbers have been basically static. and that's because voter i.d., voter i.d. drives, the way they have changed these laws in these states have partisan outcomes. voter registration drives like the ones that were crimped in florida tend to get democrats signed up. you get rid of those, you get rid of democratic voters. thanks in part to these new republican laws, democratic voter registration has been absolutely devastated in florida heading into the 2012 election. since the beginning of last year, it's 19 states that have put in place strict new barriers to voting or barriers to registering to vote, barriers that have never been there before in modern times, but which you just heard nikki haley defend to the republican national convention audience, and which got her a rather lusty round of cheering in that audience. chris?

>> that's the important thing. wherever this issue of voter i.d., and more difficult voter registration or participation gets in these proposed changes that are now law, the more the republicans cheer. of course, we had the legislative leader up in harrisburg openly saying this will help romney carry the state. it's blatantly partisan. and i have to tell you, i was talking to the reverend jesse jackson today, and he points out there's a real strategy here. one is suppression. the other is frustration of minority voters. not just stopping them from voting, discourage them because it's so hard to do. in states like pennsylvania, you have to go back to the cities of your birth in south carolina, and you have to come up with the documentation. and also encouraging white anger. it's an interesting pincer that is their plan here. >> chris, i'm going to jump in here, pause we'because we've go romney on stage, a few minutes earlier than she expected to be here. this, of course, mitt romney's wife, a very highly anticipated speech from ann romney tonight. she's an excellent public

speaker. very strong part of support for her husband in his many campaigns over the years. let's listen in. [ cheers and applause ] >> what a welcome! [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. and thank you. i can't wait to see what we're going to all do together. this is going to be exciting! just so you all know, the

hurricane has hit landfall, and i think we should all take this moment and recognize that fellow americans are in its path and just hope and pray that all remain safe and no life is lost and no property is lost. so we should all be thankful for this great country and grateful for our first responders and all that keep us safe in this wonderful country. [ applause ] well, i want to talk to you tonight, not about politics and not about party. and while there are many important issues we'll hear discussed in this convention and throughout this campaign, tonight i want to talk to you from my heart about our hearts. >> we love you, ann!

>> i want to talk not about what divides us, but what holds us together as an american family. i want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us. that one great thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good and the deepest solace in our dark hours. tonight, i want to talk to you about love. i want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love i have for a man i met at a dance many years ago. and the profound love i have, and i know we share, for this country. i want to talk to you about that love so deep, only a mother can fathom it, the love we have for our children and our children's children. and i want us to think tonight about the love we share for those americans, our brothers and our sisters, who are going

through difficult times. whose days are never easy, nights are always long, and whose work never seems done. they're here among us tonight in this hall. they are here in neighborhoods across tampa and all across america. the parents who lie awake at night, side by side, wondering how they'll be able to pay the mortgage or make the rent. the single dad who's working extra hours tonight so that his kids can buy some new clothes to go back to school, can take a school trip or play a sport. so his kids can feel, you know, just like other kids. and the working moms, who love their jobs, but would like to work just a little less to spend more time with the kids. but that's just out of the question with this economy. or how about that couple who would like to have another child, but wonder how they'll afford it. i have been all across this country and i know a lot of you guys.

and i have seen and heard stories of how hard it is to get ahead now. you know what? i've heard your voices. they've said to me, i'm running in place and we just can't get ahead. sometimes i think that late at night, if we were all silent, for just a few moments and listen carefully, we could hear a collective sigh from the moms and dads across america who made it through another day, and know that they'll make it through another one tomorrow. but in the end of that day moment, they just aren't sure how. and if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. it's how it is, isn't it? it's the moms who have always had to work a little harder to make everything right. it's the moms of this nation, single, married, widowed, who really hold this country together.

we're the mothers. we're the wives. we're the grandmothers. we're the big sisters. we're the little sisters and we are the daughters. you know it's true, don't you? i love you women! and i hear your voices. >> we love ann! >> those are my favorite fans down there. you are the ones that have to do a little bit more, and you know what it's like to work a little harder during the day to earn the respect you deserve at work. and then you come home at night and help with the book report, just because it has to be done. you know what those late-night phone calls with an elderly parent are like, and the long weekend drives, just to see how they're doing. you know the fastest route to the local emergency room and which doctors actually answer the phone call when you call at

night. by the way, i know all about that. you know what it's like to sit in that graduation ceremony and wonder how it was that so many long days turned into years that went by so quickly. you are the best of america. you -- you are the hope of america. there would not be an america without you. tonight, we salute you and sing your praises. i'm not sure if men really understand this, but i don't think there's a woman in america who really expects her life to be easy. in our own ways, we all know better. you know what, and that's fine. we don't want easy. but the last few years have been harder than they needed to be.

it's all the little things, the price at the pump you just can't believe. the grocery bills that just get bigger. all those things that used to be free, like school sports are one more bill to pay. it's all the little things that pile up to become big things. and the big things, the good jobs, the chance at college, that home you want to buy, just get harder. everything has become harder. we're too smart to know there aren't easy answers, but we're not dumb enough to accept that there aren't better answers. and that is where this boy i met at a high school dance comes in. his name is mitt romney and you should really get to know him. i could tell you why i fell in

love with him. he was tall, laughed a lot. he was nervous. girls like that. it shows a guy's a little intimidated. he was nice to my parents, but he was also really glad when they weren't around. i don't mind that. but more than anything, he made me laugh. some of you might not know this, but i am the granddaughter of a welsh coal miner. he was determined, he was determined that his kids get out of the mines. my dad got his first job when he was 6 years old in a little village in wales, cleaning bottles at the collier's arms. when he was 15, dad came to america. in our country, he saw hope and an opportunity to escape from poverty. he moved to a small town in the great state of michigan. michigan! there he started the business,

one he built by himself, by the way. he raised a family and he became mayor of our town. my dad would often remind my brothers and me how fortunate we were to grow up in a place like america. he wanted us to have every opportunity that came with life in this country, and so he pushed us to be our best and give our all. inside the houses that lined the streets of our town, there were a lot of good fathers teaching their sons and daughters those same values. i didn't know it at the time, but one of those dads was my future father-in-law, george romney. mitt's dad never graduated from college. instead, he became a carpenter. he worked hard, he became the head of a car company, and then the governor of michigan. when mitt and i met and fell in love, we were determined not to let anything stand in the way of our life together. i was an episcopalian, he was a

mormon. we were very young, both still in college. there were many reasons to delay marriage. and you know what, we just didn't care. we got married and moved into a basement apartment. we walked to class together, shared the housekeeping, ate a lot of pasta and tuna fish. our desk was a door propped up on sawhorses. our dining room table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen. but those were the best days. then our first son came along. all at once, i'm 22 years old with a baby and a husband who's going to business school and law school at the same time, and i can tell you, probably like every other girl who finds herself in a new life, far from family and friends, with a new baby and a new husband, that it donned on me that i had absolutely no idea what i was getting into.

well, that was 42 years ago. i've survived. we now have five sons and 18 beautiful grandchildren. i'm still in love with that boy i met at a high school dance. and he still makes me laugh. i read somewhere that mitt and i have a storybook marriage. well, let me tell you something. in the storybooks i read, there never were long, long rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. and those storybooks never seem to have chapters called ms or breast cancer. a storybook marriage? nope. not at all. what mitt romney and i have is a real marriage.

[ cheers and applause ] i know this good and decent man for what he is. he's warm and loving and patient. he has tried to live his life with a set of values centered on family, faith, and love of one's fellow man. from the time we were first married, i've seen him spend countless hours help, others. i've seen him drop everything to help a friend in trouble, and been there when late-night calls of panic come from a member of our church, whose child has been taken to the hospital. you may not agree with mitt's positions on issues or his politics, by the way, massachusetts is only 13% republican, so it's not like it's a shock to me, but, but let me say this to every american who is thinking about who should

be our next president. no one will work harder. no one will care more. and no one will move heaven and earth like mitt romney to make this country a better place to live. [ cheers and applause ] [ cheers and applause ] it's true -- it's true that mitt's been successful at each

new challenge he's taken on. you know what, it actually amazes me to see his history of success being attacked. are those really the values that made our country great? >> no! >> as a mom of five boys, do we want to raise our children to be afraid of success? >> no! >> do we send our children out in the world with the advice, try to do okay? >> no! >> and let's be honest. if the last four years had been more successful, do we really think there would be this attack on mitt romney's success? >> no! >> of course not. mitt would be the first to tell you that he's the most fortunate man in the world. he had two loving parent who is gave him strong values and taught him the value of work. he had the chance to get the education his father never had. but as his partner on this amazing journey, i can tell you that mitt romney was not handed success. he built it!

[ cheers and applause ] >> he stayed in massachusetts after graduate school and got a job. i saw the long hours that started with that first job. i was there when he had a small group of friends talking about starting a new company. i was there when they struggled and wondered if the whole idea just wasn't going to work. mitt's reaction was to work harder and press on. today, that company has become another great american success story. has it made those who started the company successful -- made them successful beyond their dreams? yes, it has. it allowed us to give our sons the chance at good educations

and made all those long hours of book reports and homework worth every minute. it's given us the deep satisfaction of being able to help others in ways that we could never have imagined. this is important. i want you to hear what i'm going to say. mitt doesn't like to talk about how he has helped others, because he sees it as a privilege, not a political talking point. [ cheers and applause ] we are no different than the millions of americans who quietly help their neighbors, their churches, and their communities. they don't do it so that others will think more of them. they do it because there is no

greater joy. give, and it shall be given unto you. but because this is america, that small company which grew has helped so many others lead better lives. the jobs that grew from the risk they took to become college educations and first homes. that success has helped fund scholarships, pensions, and retirement funds. this is the genius of america. dreams fulfilled, help others launch new dreams. [ cheers and applause ] at every turn in his life, this man i met at a high school dance has helped lift up others. he did it with the olympics when many wanted to give up. he did it in massachusetts where he guided the state from economic crisis to unemployment of just 4.7%.

under mitt, massachusetts' schools were the best in the nation. the best. he started something that i really love. he started the john and abigail adams scholarship, which give the top 25% of high school graduates a four-year tuition-free scholarship. this is the man america needs. this is the man who will wake up every day with the determination to solve the problems that others say can't be solved. to fix what others say is beyond repair. this is the man who will work harder than anyone so we can work a little less hard. i can't tell you what will happen over the next four years, but i can only stand here tonight as a wife and a mother and a grandmother, an american, and make you this solemn

commitment. this man will not fail. [ cheers and applause ] this man will not let us down. this man will lift up america. it has been 47 years since that tall, kind of charming young man brought me home from our first dance. not every day since has been easy, but he still makes me laugh and never once did i have a single reason to doubt that i was the luckiest woman in the world tonight. i said tonight i wanted to talk to you about love. look into your hearts.

this is our country. this is our future. these are our children and grandchildren. you can trust mitt. he loves america. he will take us to a better place, just as he took me home safely from that dance. give him that chance. give america that chance. god bless each and every one of you and god bless the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> mitt romney's wife, ann, being greeted with incredible warmth inside the republican national convention arena in

tampa bay. looking at condoleezza rice there. she's there watching the speech along with -- there's mitt romney himself, joining her on stage. we had been told to expect that this might happen, but this is not a moment when mr. romney will speak. he is just there to be seen. we also saw the couple's five sons in attendance, applauding their mother with very evident pride. there they are, the romney's sons and their wives. mrs. romney being greeted with legitimate warmth, legitimate applause and laugh lines. she's an accomplished public speaker. she's been a presence in her husband's life for a very long time. spontaneously seeming to shout tonight, we love you women. i love you women. women, we salute you and sing your praises. and then in a long stretch, talking about feeling women's economic pain. of course, she has not had the most women's economic experiences, so that's a little bit of a stretch on the economic's side, but on the women's side, that was clearly the point tonight. chris? >> you know, i thought it was a good speech. and it was personal and it made

her look very good. and i thought she was an excellent speaker, obviously made her points well. it was almost like -- but then he came out at the end, and he almost looked like he came out on wheels. like he's not really mitt romney. that person who came out there like that, almost a statue of a person. his odd animation, his odd lack of animation. the way he moved in that room at the end was strange. she's a real person, trying to advertise him as a real person, but she really advertised a mr. fix-it. a person who succeeds, as she put it. someone who makes money. who made a $250 million for her family. he's very effective at that. i'm not sure it's a portrait of a person. and i thought the romney that came out there like that was so much like a fellow who i would call like a conehead, who doesn't seem like an earthling, the way he came out there at the

end. and i think it's a contrast between the real human being who's married to the guy, and the rather wooden-like figure who came out to acknowledge all this love that she was pouring on him so beautifully. it was an odd juxtaposition. >> let me jump in one second, lawrence o'donnell is in the hall and saw the speech from the hall. i want to get his impression from those emotional elements you're talking about there. lawrence, in terms of receiving the speech? >> rachel, i've been in these halls for over 20 years now and i've seen emotional reactions to speeches. this isn't one of them. this was the mandatory reaction. it was nothing like this very same crowd's reaction to sarah palin's speech, for example, four years ago, and nothing like reactions we've seen, emotional reactions we've seen in many other convention halls. i was struck, as you were, rachel, as she began her speech, trying to relate to women, by talking about women's struggles in this economy and in life, that she actually, in her life, doesn't know anything about. the one population that was

specifically excluded from her discussion of women's struggles in this society was any woman who needed at any point in her life to rely on any form of government assistance, be it food stamps, be it temporary welfare assistance, be it any form of support, whatsoever. that any government has ever provided for a struggling woman at any time in her life. that population was completely ignored in this speech. >> lawrence o'donnell, we're going to go now to chris christie, the keynote speaker. of course, the governor of new jersey. a highly, highly, highly awaited speech tonight from governor christie. whether you agree with him or disagree with him, he always, pretty much, gives a good speech. let's tune in for chris christie right now. the keynote address. >> thank you! [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. thank you all very much. thank you.

well, this stage and this moment are very improbable for me. a new jersey republican, delivering the keynote address to our national convention. from a state, from a state with 700,000 more democrats than republicans. a new jersey republican stands before you tonight, proud of my party. proud of my state. and proud of my country. now, now, i am the son of an irish father and a cecelian mother. my dad, who i'm proud to have here with me tonight, is gregarious, outgoing, and lovable. my mom, who i lost eight years ago, was the enforcer.

now, she made sure we all knew who set the rules. tell it to you this way. in the automobile of life, dad was just a passenger. mom was the driver. now, they both lived hard lives. dad grew up in poverty and after returning from army service, he worked at the breyer's ice cream plant in the 1950s. now, with that job and the gi bill, he put himself through rutgers university at night to become the first in his family to earn a college degree. and our first family picture was on his graduation day, with my mom beaming next to him, six months pregnant with me. now, mom also came from nothing. she was raised by a single mother who took three different buses every day to get to work.

and mom spent the time that she was supposed to be a kid actually raising children, her young brother and young sister. she was tough as nails and didn't suffer fools at all. and the truth was, she couldn't afford to. she spoke the truth, bluntly, directly, and without much varnish. i am her son. i was her son -- i was her son as i listened to darkness on the edge of town with my high school friends on the jersey shore. i was her son when i moved into that studio apartment with mary pat to start a marriage that's now 26 years old. i was her son as i coached our sons, andrew and patrick, on the fields, and as i watched with

pride as our daughters, sarah and bridgette, marched with their soccer teams in the labor day parade. and i'm still her son today, as governor. following the rules she taught me, to speak from the heart and to fight for your principles. you see, mom never thought you'd get extra credit just for speaking the truth. and the greatest lesson mom ever taught me was this one. she told me there would be times in your life where you have to choose between being loved and being respected. now, she said to always pick being respected. she told me that love without respect was always fleeting, but respect could grow into real and lasting love. now, of course, she was talking about women. but i've learned over time, that it applies just as much to leadership. in fact, i think that advice applies to america more than ever today.

you see, i believe we have become paralyzed, paralyzed by our desire to be loved. now, our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeting and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and the emotions of the times. but our leaders today have decided it's more important to be popular. to be popular. to say and do what's easy, and say yes rather than to say no, when no is what is required. in recent years, we as a country have too often chosen the same path. it's been easiest for our leaders to say, not us, and not now, in taking on the real tough issues. and unfortunately, we've stood silently by and let them get

away with it. but tonight, i say, enough. tonight, i say together, let's make a much different choice. tonight we are speaking up for ourselves and stepping up. tonight we're beginning to do what is right and what is necessary to make america great again. we are demanding that our leaders stop tearing each other down and work together to take action on the big things facing america. tonight, we are going to do what my mother taught me. tonight, we're going to choose respect over love. see, we're not afraid. we are not afraid. we're taking our country back, because we are the great grandchildren of the men and

women who broke their backs in the name of american ingenuity. the grandchildren of the greatest generation. the sons and daughters of immigrants. the brothers and sisters of everyday heroes. the neighbors of entrepreneurs and firefighters, teachers and farmers, veterans and factory workers, and everyone in between who shows up, not just on the big days or the good days, but on the bad days and the hard days, each and every day, all 365 of them. you see, we are the united states of america. now, now it's up to us. we must lead the way our citizens live, to lead as my mother insisted i live. not by avoiding truths,

especially the hard ones, but by facing up to them and being better for it. we can't afford to do anything less. now, i know this because this was the challenge in new jersey. when i came into office, i could continue on the same path that led to wealth and jobs and people leaving our state, or i could do the job people elected me to do, to do the big things. now, there were those who said it couldn't be done. that the problems were too big, too politically charged, and too broken to fix. but we were on a path we could no longer afford to follow. now, they said it was impossible. this is what they told me, to cut taxes in the state where taxes were raised 115 times in the eight years before i became governor. that it was impossible to balance a budget at the same time with an $11 billion deficit. but three years later, we have three balanced budgets in a row with lower taxes. we did it!

[ cheers and applause ] they said -- they said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics, to take on the public sector unions, and to reform a pension and health benefit system that was headed to bankruptcy. but with bipartisan leadership, we saved taxpayers $132 billion over 30 years and saved retirees their pensions. we did it. they said -- they said it was impossible to speak the truth to the teachers' union. they were just too powerful. a real teacher tenure reform that demands accountability and ends the guarantee of a job for life, regardless of performance.

they said it would never happen. but for the first time in 100 years, with bipartisan support, you know the answer. we did it. [ cheers and applause ] now, now the disciples of yesterday's politics, they always underestimate the will of the people. they assumed our people were selfish. that when told of the difficult problems, the tough choices, and the complicated solutions, that they would simply turn their backs. that they would decide it was every man for themself. they were wrong. the people of new jersey stepped up. they shared in the sacrifice. and you know what else they did? they rewarded politicians who led instead of politicians who pandered.

but, you know, we shouldn't be surprised. we shouldn't be surprised. we've never been a country to shy away from the truth. our history shows that we stand up when it counts. and it's this quality that has defined america's character and our significance in the world. now, i know the simple truth, and i am not afraid to say it. our ideas are right for america and their ideas have failed america. let me be clear with the american people tonight. here's what we believe, as republicans, and what they believe as democrats. we believe in telling hard-working families the truth about our country's fiscal realities. telling them what they already know. the math of federal spending does not add up.

with $5 trillion in debt, added over the last four years, we have no other options but to make the hard choices. cut federal spending and fundamentally reduce the size of this government. [ cheers and applause ] want to know what they believe? they believe that the american people don't want to hear the truth about the extent of our fiscal difficulties. they believe the american people need to be coddled by big government. they believe that the american people are content to live the lie with them. they're wrong. we believe in telling our seniors the truth about our overburdened entitlements. we know seniors not only want these programs to survive, but they just as badly want them secured for their grandchildren. our seniors are not selfish.

here's what they believe. they believe seniors will always put themselves ahead of their grandchildren. and here's what they do. they prey on their vulnerabilities and scare them with misinformation for the single, cynical purpose of winning the next election. here's their plan. whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff, as long as they are behind the wheel of power when we fall. now, we believe that the majority of teachers in america know our system must be reformed to put students first so that america can compete. now, teachers don't teach to become rich or famous. they teach because they love children. we believe -- we believe that we should honor and reward the good ones, while doing what's best for our nation's future. demanding accountability, demanding higher standards, and

demanding the best teacher in every classroom in america. [ cheers and applause ] get ready. get ready. here's what they believe. they believe the educational establishment will always put themselves ahead of children. that self-interest will always trump common sense. they believe in pitting unions against teachers, educators against parents, lobbyists against children. they believe in teachers' unions. we believe in teachers. [ cheers and applause ] we believe -- we believe that if we tell the

people the truth, then they will act bigger than the pettiness we see in washington, d.c. we believe it's possible to forge bipartisan compromise and stand up for our conservative principles. you see, because it's always been the power of our ideas, not our rhetoric, that attracts people to our party. we win when we make it about what needs to be done. we lose when we play along with their game of scaring and dividing. for, make no mistake about it, everybody, the problems are too big to let the american people lose. the slowest economic recovery in decades, a spiraling out of control deficit, and an education system that's failing to compete in the world. it doesn't matter how we got here. there's enough blame to go around. what matters is what we do now.

see, i know, i know we can fix our problems. when there are people in the room who care more about doing the job they were elected to do than they worry about winning re-election, it's possible to work together, achieve principled compromise, and get results for the people who gave us these jobs in the first place. [ cheers and applause ] the people have no patience for any other way anymore. it's simple. we need politicians to care more about doing something and less about being something. >> yeah! >> and believe me, believe me, if we can do this in a blue state like new jersey, with a conservative republican governor, washington, d.c., is out of excuses! [ cheers and applause ]

leadership delivers. leadership counts, leadership matters. and here's the great news i came here tonight to bring you. we have this leadership for america. we have a nominee who will tell us the truth and who will lead with conviction. and now he has a running mate who will do the same. we have governor mitt romney and congressman paul ryan. and we need to make him the next president and vice president of the united states! [ cheers and applause ] see, you see, because i know mitt romney. i know mitt romney. and mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear, to

put us back on a path to growth and create good-paying, private sector jobs in america. mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy. mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world's greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an american citizen and her doctor. now, we ended an era of absentee leadership without purpose or principle in new jersey. i'm here to tell you tonight, it is time to end this era of absentee leadership in the oval office and send real leaders back to the white house. america needs mitt romney and paul ryan! and we need them right now. [ cheers and applause ]

now, we've got to tell each other the truth, right? listen, there is doubt and fear for our future in every corner of our country. i have traveled all over the country, and i have seen this myself. these feelings are real. this moment is real. and it's a moment like this where some skeptics wonder if american greatness is over. they wonder who those who have become before us have the spirit and tenacity to leave america to a new era of greatness in the face of challenge. not to look around and say, not me, but to look around and say, yes, me. now, i have an answer tonight for the skeptics and the naysayers, the dividers and the defenders of the status quo. i have faith in us.

i know -- i know we can be the men and women our country calls on us to be tonight. i believe in america and our history. and there's only one thing missing now. leadership. it takes leadership that you don't get from reading a poll. you see, mr. president. real leaders don't follow polls. real leaders change polls. [ cheers and applause ] and that's what we need! that's what we need to do now. we need to change polls, through the power of our principles. we need to change polls through the strength of our convictions. tonight, our duty is to tell the american people the truth. our problems are big and the solutions will not be painless. we all must share in the sacrifice. and any leader that tells us differently is simply not telling the truth.

now, i think tonight, i think tonight of the greatest generation. we look back and marvel at their courage, overcoming the great depression, fighting nazi tyranny, standing up for freedom around the world. well, now it's our time to answer history's call. for make no mistake, every generation will be judged and so will we. and what will our children and grandchildren say of us? will they say we buried our heads in the sand? we assuaged ourselfed with the creature comforts we've acqui acquired. that our problems were too big. or will they say of us that we stood up and made the tough choices that needed to be made to preserve our way of life. you see, i don't know about you, but i don't want my children and grandchildren to have to read in the history book when it was like to live in an american century. i don't want their only

inheritance to be an enormous government that is overtaxed, overspent, and overborrowed, a great people of second class citizenship. i want them to live in a second american century. a second american century. [ cheers and applause ] a second american century of strong economic growth, where those who are willing to work hard will have good-paying jobs to support their families and reach their dreams. a second american century, where real american exceptionalism is not a political punch line, but is evident to everyone in the world just by watching the way our government conducts its business every day and the way americans live their lives. a second american century, where our military is strong, our values are sure, our work ethic is unmatched, and our constitution remains a model for anyone in the world struggling for liberty.

let us choose a path that will be remembered for generations to come, standing strong for freedom will make the next century as great an american century as the last one. you see, this is the american way. we have never been victims of destiny. we have always been the masters of our own. [ cheers and applause ] and i know, i know you agree with me on this. ly not be part of the generation that fails that test and neither will you. all right. all right. it's now time to stand up. let's stand up! everybody, stand up! stand up! because there's no time left to waste. if you're willing to stand up with me for america's future, i

will stand up with you. if you're willing to fight with me for mitt romney,ly fight with you. if you're willing to hear the truth, to hear the truth about the hard road ahead and the rewards for america that truth will bear, i'm here to begin with you, this new era of truth telling. tonight, we choose the path that is always defied our nation's history. tonight, we finally and firmly answer the call that so many generations have had the courage to answer before us. tonight, we stand up for mitt romney as the next president of the united states! and together -- and together, everybody,

together, we will stand up once again for american greatness for our children and grandchildren. god bless you and god bless america! [ cheers and applause ] msnbc's coverage of the republican national convention in tampa, florida. that, of course, is the keynote address for the convention, new jersey's governor chris christie. i'm desperate to hear chris matthews' response. i have to say personally, chris, i'll throw it out to you, i am a fan of chris christie as an orator. i enjoy hearing them speak. i think he is a guy that who brings a looseness to his political conversation that even when you disagree with him, it makes you want to pay attention. so i like that about him but this speech not only i think was a bad speech, i think that this was one of the most remarkable acts of political selfishness i

have ever seen on a stage this big. this was a 2600-word speech in which he used nearly 1800 of those words before he first said the name "mitt romney" and as soon as he said mitt romney, he went back to talking about himself for hundreds more words. this was chris christie accepting the nomination of the republican party for 2016 because mitt romney wasn't even interesting enough to talk about in the keynote address that is supposed to be more mitt romney's nomination. i find this speech to have been totally shocking, completely opposite to what i expected. >> well, it seemed to fit, however, perhaps more grandly into the whole pattern of tonight. that the best speeches tonight, the best speech parts were not about the presidential nominee of the party as of tonight. casey's speech out of ohio, the best parts of that were about ohio and what he accomplished there. the best parts of santorum's speech were about his family with a difficult birth and difficult child, his youngest

daughter and i have to disagree about the quality of the speech. i think most pros will say that was a barn burner we just heard from chris christie. that was a great speech with a touch of churchill but not a touch of romney in it. something that may sound painful to republicans, but i saw a candidate for president tonight wheeled out as if he were a statue in the hall of presidents in nearby orlando. he did not seem like a human being sitting there. i was thinking there was john going nuts and romney not even moved by it. he is a hard candidate to sell, mitt romney, nobody tried very hard to do it tonight. i agree with you about that, rachel. 9 best parts of the rhetoric and there was some towering rhetoric on this fellow from new jersey had nothing to do with the nomination of mitt romney for president and means they haven't achieved their goal tonight. i don't even think his wife

wanted him up tonight because i think it's too hard to do. by the way, howard fineman is sitting with me. >> i would love to hear howard's take and steve's take as a republican strategist and orator among us we should hear from reverend al sharpton. i'm appeared to be talked out of my opinion, what the republican party did nose was make the case for their bench, if not for the team on the field alt least the team that might be on the field in four years. let's go to howard and hear his take and what he's been able to report from the campaigns tonight. >> a couple things i found on the floor earlier tonight, i have to agree with chris. i was in the texas delegation. that's why i'm wearing my texas pun. even though romney isn't much of a presence they try to clamp down on the rules, change the rules and centralize power in a party supposed to be about

decentralizing power. they were furious with him for that power grab. that's emblematic of what's going on. a grassroots party sitting there in the hall that somehow disconnected from the guy they're about to nominate. and i think that was evident on the floor tonight and evident in the speech tonight and i'll say one other thing about christian christie's speech. i thought it was very tough and aggressive toward the democratic party. it was a tough combative speech but it was nasty and mean in tone, which might be fine for chris christie and make him feel good and might score some points for the base, but does nothing for what this -- chris was saying the main objective of what this convention has to be, to tell us who mitt romney is and why he would be a better steward of the economy, open him up, talk about him, explain him. this speech did none of that front, and i even think that ann romney's speech never used the kind of anecdote or line or

moment that we didn't know about that somehow was revelatory that made everybody sit up and say, that's interesting, i didn't know that about mitt romney. that makes me think he might have the value and character to be something more than a spreadstreet mr. fix-it. that's what they need to do here. i don't think they did it tonight at all. >> steve schmitt, you had said earlier the key issue was talking to people who are otherwise not persuaded. had should not be entertainment for the base or people already committed romney voters but talking to the few americans who don't know who they'll vote for in november or will bother to vote. did you hear any more -- >> i disagree with howard and chris on the ann romney speech. i thought she did a great speech and thought the presentation was tremendous and i think she's done more in that 20 minutes she spoke to humanize and give you human dimensions to mitt romney than any other person, you know, has done over the course of the campaign but when you look at these conventions, you look for

a theme to build over the four nights or in this case like the convention four years ago over three nights. and then as it's wrapped up in the most important speech, the nominating address that mitt romney will give. so far in the first night of the convention no unifying theme that's identifiable. you heard nikki haley talk about south carolina. you heard references to ohio. you heard as chris pointed out the best parts of rick santorum's speech being about rick santorum and his family life. there's been a total lack of focus on flushing out who mitt romney is and what his plan to turn the country around is which i think is the critical bar that republicans have to get over. i think the chris christie speech -- i would disagree with howard. i don't think it came across as a mean speech. i think it was a barn burner speech. i think he's a tremendous

political performer, but, again, it lacked the unifying theme, the argument you're trying to make about mitt romney, you know, out to the persuadable universe of voters. >> there's an argument about chris christie. on my disliking the christie speech, i was prepared to like it. i enjoy the speaking style. i follow him along when he's being mean in a way -- especially if it elicits humor. tiny touch at the top and i thought maybe he'll be funny, the first funny thing that's happened on the stage all night and didn't follow the plot. i didn't see any further humor in it and i think it fell flat. i wanted that barn to be burned and it was not. i want to go to lawrence o'donnell who is in the hall for the speech and can tell us again a little both for ann and chris christie. >> i've seen chris christie give better speeches. i expected a better performance out of him. one key thing is after he stopped talking about his mother

early in the speech, he never smiled again. they should have put a big smile up on his camera out there on the end of the teleprompter, a big smile sign because a lot of the rhetoric he was closing with was reagan-style soaring rhetoric about america and it was delivered with a very grim and angry face. that was not the way to deliver that message especially to an audience tonight, many of whom who out in america have never seen this man before and don't know him. in the two we saw there were only two government programs mentioned, one was an ann romney speech, the abigail adams scholarships in massachusetts that she's very proud that her husband helped create while he was governor, those are scholarships of government money to exclusively government-run institutions of higher learning. a pure government cycling of government money for the benefit of students. these are the kinds of people,

students benefiting from that, that rick santorum was apparently condemning earlier tonight as being part of the client class of the american population, the so-called half of the population that just takes from this government and chris christie mentioned only one government program, it was the g.i. bill, at the beginning of his speech he said his dad grew up in poverty and two sentences later, rachel, his dad was on the g.i. bill, he put himself through rutgers university at night to become the first in his family to earn a college degree. many of us have told that story about our fathers. many of us have gratitude to our government and to our politicians' foresight to enable us to tell those stories about our fathers. >> lawrence, thank you for that. i want to on the issue of the oratory, it's right to turn to the reverend al sharpton who has done this for his living as a minister and politician in terms of speaking to people and moving

people. you remarked you felt like the applause lines and laugh lines weren't hitting at the right time, that it didn't seem like he was connecting. >> i was, frankly, i thought that chris christie flunked tonight. i've heard him before. i don't agree with his politics, but i've seen him be very effective. i think that what he did probably as an orator is what i would do in 2004 when i did the democratic convention, he shouldn't have stayed on reading the teleprompter. if he had just been extemporaneous i think he would have done better. usually that's how he speaks. that might have been his problem because he was way off. he also was very contradictory. when you see the fact that mitt romney is sitting there, ann romney talked about love and here comes christie say forget love, it's about respect. do anybody read these speeches before they go? it was the exact opposite.

he beat up on the teachers' union, he was like the ralph kramden if you're old enough to remember "the honeymooners," the ralph kramden of the republic republican -- ping, zoom, to the moon, alice. he had an opportunity to lay out a case for romney which he did not do, but to come being built up as the guy that could be the other side of what barack obama was who came with hope and be the guy saying, it's us against them, let me tell you about them, let me tell you about us and then let me tell you about romney will tell you the hard truth. he won't tell you about his tax returns. let me tell you the hard truth but he won't tell you what he did at bain capital -- >> he gave a typical republican speech every man for yourself.

we all know chris christie loves the limelight. he has a huge ego. we can say he was angry. he'll say i was very passionate. i love the country and care about the issues, but we can't push aside the facts that the state of new jersey is 48th in unemployment, they're 47th in economic growth and they've got an unemployment rate of 9.8% that's the highest since 1977. he sells pretty good because those are pretty bad numbers. those are numbers that parallel what mitt romney did when he was governor of massachusetts. it was very typical, go after workers, go after the teachers' uni union, they're the problem. i don't think this came anywhere near barack obama, 2004 red state/blue state speech. i don't think this speech launched chris christie onto the national scene as a major player and i think he fell short of expectation and i think that romney's reaction tonight watching that, he was kind of studying it like we picked christie to do this and he's up

there and i don't know if he's passionate -- i'm kind of rethinking this thing. i thought that romney was looking at him in a very calculated manner like i don't know if we did the right thing or not here. and he didn't sell romney at all. >> he waited 1800 words into a 2600-word speech to even bring him up. chris, were you trying to get in on this? >> yeah, i think on a couple of points i'm with the jury -- at least one point i'm against it. i think tonight isn't about defending the republican party. no mention of the last republican presidential administration, not a word about "w," not a word about him. no reference to the rather discredited republican house of representatives, not a word defending the republican congress and more recently not a word defending the republican platform which was declared tonight so the republicans will not defend any aspect of their record right up through tonight. what i thought christie was great at was the barn burning red meat speech about why people

are republicans. i think he spoke to the heart and gut of republicans watching tonight. i think they felt what he feels about teachers' unions. i think they feel what they felt. he was like ralph kramden, there was a lot of jackie gleason in him and people like jackie. this guy was one of them. i thought this guy had a touch of churchill that had nothing to do with romney or the republican record but i thought it was a barn burner, a big success. i was looking at john sununu and the faces of their delegate, they loved it and once again the wooden candidate himself was so out of place, romney looked like prince charles visiting new guinea -- like he was coming into some other culture where people were all excited about something and he was vaguely bemused by what they were all excited about. he's not a republican in his gut. republicans in their gut love that big guy tonight. romney was an observer, an

observer like prince charles. all he didn't have was the kilt, coming in and watching these dancers as if they were in some other culture like the cargo cult. it was bizarre. once again his presence doesn't match his pr. >> howard, one quick word, the objective was not to make john sununu happy. john sununu was made happy by paul ryan. the objective subpoena begin the conversation with undecided voters and try to woo them and try to explain why mitt romney is the answer. chris christie didn't do it. we can argue about ann romney, a lovely person, gave a nice speech but none of them i don't think made what should be the central theme steve was talking about of this convention. which is who mitt romney is and what he will do. it hasn't been said so far and i agree with lawrence o'donnell. the fact that chris christie didn't smile at all and looked so aggrieved is not what's

necessary for undecided voters, it's just not. >> we were talking about themes. there's been one tonight, this nostalgia for upward social mobility of a previous generation of america. nikki haley talked about her parents coming from nothing and being able to build a business and santorum talked about the father who worked his way up and christie talked about his father coming from nothing and ann d what it is is this nostalgia there was this experience of american social mobility that is now gone and when chris christie says this line which was the most interesting of the whole speech "we are the great grandchildren of men and women who broke their backs in the name of american ingenuity." who is in the we of we are the great grandchildren? it's not people who came in this generation or the generation before. that's a very circumscribe set of people to whom he is talking, who feel america is not theirs

anymore and has nostalgia that is i would say objectively the case no longer a part of american life right now. social mobility has actually declined and they're speaking to it in this conservative way about thinking and looking back but addressing something very real about the way people feel about where the country is. >> they're addressing a real thing that is true, a personality thing about the candidate. they are trying to solve mitt romney's thursdton howell problem. >> or his parents or grandparents. >> one other thing christie said that caught my attention, we almost share in the sacrifice. i haven't heard a republican say. >> he wants to repeal the tax cuts for people making over -- >> that's a new one. what sacrifice have the republicans been talking about as of late? >> during chris christie's keynote address obama's senior strategist tweeted this "i know

he's going to mention mitt somewhere, isn't he"? i'm just saying. ahead we will hear from rick santorum on the floor with andrea mitchell and robert gibs of the obama campaign and after this tom brokaw and david gregory will join us. this is msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. stay with us. humans -- even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why, at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? is now in our new starbucks refreshers™ -- a breakthrough in natural energy.

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america is a place where all things are possible. >> four years ago the country moved further toward the ideal that all men are created equal. >> it was electric. >> as the president reflects on his key decisions -- >> there are moments you really do put politics aside. >> -- msnbc looks at what inspires his vision. >> we'll get his country moveing. >> i'm chris matthews. join me for this exclusive documentary, barack obama making history. >> monday at 10:00 on msnbc. >> we have this leader for america. we have a nominee who will tell us the truth and lead with conviction and now he has a running mate that will do the same. we have governor mitt romney and congressman paul ryan, and we need to make them the next president and vice president of the united states. [ cheers and applause ] >> we're back covering miss nbc's coverage of the republican national convention. i'm down in tampa. tom brokaw and david gregory

join us. why don't you start. i'm the lone person. i thought governor christie gave a barn burner. your thoughts? >> what i think, chris, these are always impressionistic speeches not legal debates and i think that chris christie at a time when america is not looking for one more slick politician was very much who he is. he's the former prosecutor, was out there making his case to the jury and david and i have have been talking about it. "when there are people in the room that care more about doing the job they were elected to do than winning a re-election it is possible to work together to achieve possible compromise and get results." that's an indictment of his own party. then he went on to say when talking about the generational thing "make no mistake, every generation will be judged, so willing we. will they say we stood up to

make choices to preserve our way of life" going to what chris haste said talking about social mobility and the legacy that one generation will lead to another, my own guess is that will resonate in some fashion out there. and as i said earlier about mrs. romney, a lot of people don't know her in this kind of a context but tonight i thought she made a very strong performance, and david and i were talking about that earlier as well. four years ago democrats got off to a fast start because women are playing an ever-important role by putting out michelle obama and hillary clinton. tonight the republicans put out the wife of the candidate and she made a xreling argument in my judgment at least about why he can be trusted personally with the lives of the people that he now wants to represent as their president. david? >> yeah, i and i think -- i don't know how much we'll hear compromise from the podium here in the course of this. i think the other thing that was strong and that gives christie the appeal less what he can say

on behalf or in favor of advocates mitt romney and more about what he's saying to the swing voters out there, the independent voters, people fed up with washington, who really hate politics right now. >> yeah. >> and i think he's got a strong appeal there, and the truth is, and you made this observation, this crowd in the hall may not have been as fired up in part because he had some tough language for them. didn't say it explicitly but he's talking about a republican-led house with 12% approval so i think that kind of thing resonates out there. if they can be connected in the course of the campaign that mitt romney is an answer then he's laid the groundwork. >> let me ask you both, tom, first, the whole question of a keynote speech. historically take a look and tell us what a keynote is generally expected to do. is it raw meat? is it to get the delegates excited about the problems they have with the opponent? is it to turn them on generally in favor of the candidate jiff's always thought of it as

basically going back to tomorrow dewey in '60 to rip the bark off the other guy and get the candidate -- the people in the hall convinced that they have the winning case. >> well, you know, chris, you and i have been watching for a very long time and these are moving targets these days, what is the expectation for the various assignments people have, keynote speakers. rudy giuliani did the kind of classic keynote speech when he appeared in st. paul, minneapolis, four years ago for john mccain. it was filled with red meat talking about john mccain and, of course, giuliani came to that podium having been so prominent in the events of 9/11 so that was almost a classic keynote speech, the kind of a speech that barack obama gave was really a statement about the country and about what we can do and less about john kerry and much more in many ways about barack obama, frankly, and we

all know that it launched him into this national figure very quickly. so each of them has their own dna it seems to me, chris. >> chris, can i just add to that, i think what you heard tonight was a big philosophical contrast, you know, they believe this. we believe that. and i think that's something that you'll hear more of. perhaps paul ryan will be more specific about the president's policies and where he'll argue that they have failed. but this is about a huge contrast in philosophical approa approaches, the relationship between the people and government and i think that's what chris christie was getting at. that's partly what fires up the base of this party right now and will be the same on the democratic side, as well. >> well, the philosophy difference, i agree with you, i thought that chris christie really addressed the differences historically between the parties without having to defend as you guys mentioned the republican congress record recently and even the platform agreed to tonight and certainly no

reference to george w. bush's administration. do you think, david and then tom, do you think they're better off ignoring the past, running forward and talking philosophy and the advantage of a republican philosophy over what we have in this administration? >> well, i think it's interesting you raise that, chris, because christie makes a point of saying there's a lot of blame to go around for how we got to here. it was another example of him, we talked about principled compromise, another shot across the bow saying we have to solve these problems, as much about the republican party as it is about the democratic party. you're right. he doesn't want to talk about where a lot of the debt started under president bush. it's now -- because i think we're building towards something with mitt romney which is we've got problems, our politics is dysfunctional, washington is dysfunctional. you can have a guy who may not set the room on fire who may not create as much love and excitement but the capacity to fix it.

everything is building toward on how to sell mitt romney. >> i know he said privately to a lot of people encouraging him to run for president that in many ways the best thing that happened to him as governor is that he was dealing with the democratic legislature because he couldn't assume as john kasich did that he could run roughshod over the state and kasich learned as he always does in that experience. what christie said to a number of people encouraging him to run i have do deal with the democratic legislature. they have high unemployment in new jersey and does town hall meetings where he listens to people and put him online. they have like a 58%, he told me, return on their investment in the online stuff. 58% of the people say they like what they're hearing and like that he's talking to them and listening to them. i think he's trying to take that message to the country. what is striking to me, they

didn't talk about george w. bush, eight years in office, no mention of the two longest wars in american history, afghanistan and iraq and just again in the last two days we've had more americans killed in afghanistan by afghan policemen and there has been almost no talk about that. these were wars that were started by the republican party and promoted by them in the early stages with the ascent of the democratic congress and democratic senate but heavily promoted as the idea of delivering democracy to iraq and afghanistan. that is an unrealized goal at this point and no reference to it here tonight so far. >> well, tom, it's so like you to remind us of the soldiers in the field right now. i think it's something as part of the patriotic spirit that shouldn't have been overlooked. thank you. let's get back to rachel up in new york. >> thanks, chris, i appreciate that. you know, i should mention that senator -- the senator from new

hampshire and nikki haley who is the governor of south carolina both of them have husbands who have served in post-9/11 wars and both of them, at least mentioned that tonight in their remarks, senator iott going into detail. the people who fought the wars were mentioned in that context but discussing the wars and sacrifice it entailed from the american people and people who fought them and discussing national security policy has been nowhere at all and i think tom is absolutely right to remark upon that. joining us now is robert gibbs, senior adviser to the obama campaign. mr. gibbs, i understand you maybe have brought yourself into the republican convention bodily at some point tonight and survived to tell the tale. >> you know, i was in the convention and i think folks were a little surprised and did a few double takes but were quite cordial. >> very good.

congratulations on that very, very, very small form of bravery but let me ask you about the keynote address. chris christie, we've been remarking it was very much about chris christie but around the time he finally turned to mitt romney, he said this "mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world's greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those between an american citizen and her doctor." it is a criticism of health reform and references the idea of the government getting between women and their doctors. your response though that charge? >> well, i mean i was really -- i'm kind of flabb ebergasted th whole night, first and foremost it was like this was a very angry convention, full of insults, not a plan for mitt romney or mitt romney's plan to build the middle class.

i don't have any idea who chris christie was describing in his speech because i don't think mitt romney throughout this campaign or for one moment on the campaign trail has told any person a hard truth. i cannot recall one moment in two years that he's taken on the belief structure of his own party. and obviously the notion that somehow, you know, how chris christie and others have described health care and the decisions women have to make, again, this bore just no real resemblance to what's going on in their party or to what's going on in the country. it was -- i think it was a very, very strange night. >> the opening speech of the convention tonight was from house speaker john boehner and it was a little -- i think it was a little unfair to put it on television because nobody in the room was paying attention and seemed like people were ignoring him and that's -- that's the

awkwardness of television in an early part of the program but the recurring theme, president obama should be thrown out as if he were an unwelcome person in a bar, he should be thrown out as if the country is a bar bouncer and the president is there inside that bar as an unwelcome patron. there was nom remarking on this network that that may have been inappropriate rhetoric toward the president just in terms of its sort of violent term. i wonder if you have any thoughts on that. >> i mean, i go again back to the night was sort of highlighted by lots of anger and lots of insults. it was not -- i mean, mitt romney you have this -- you have a peace of history in that he enters this general election as the single least popular nominee to run for president in probably ten elections. so the work they have cut out for them in the race is to build up mitt romney and all they really tried to do tonight was

be angry and tear down barack obama. i think in that respect it was a luge missed opportunity and a huge nail our for the republicans in the republican convention. i mean, look, my guess is the reason john boehner spoke so early is, you know, republicans in congress approval rating is, you know, it's like 10%. i think the language that they use is off-putting to people and i think -- i heard someone talking earlier about, well, john sununu loved this speech and john sununu loved -- if john sununu is the focus group that this party and tonight was trying to reach, then it is going to miss a huge swath of n undecided voters that are going to decide this election. john zhu new knew is already probably far more wound up than he needs to be. this isn't about reaching john sununu. it's about reaching somebody else and i think when speaker boehner uses the type of language he does and some of the

other language you heard tonight, i think it's off-putting to americans who want to hear finally once and for all two years later what mitt romney wants to do. >> robert gibbs, obama campaign senior adviser, former white house press secretary giving the republicans advice that they definitely will not take even if it's good advice because it's coming from you. >> i tried. >> thanks for joining us tonight, robert. nice to see you. >> thanks. >> all right, coming up, the latest on the other big story of the night, the just as big story of the night, hurricane isaac and we'll talk live with rick santorum, yes, that rick santorum. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. welcome aboard! [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪

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i'm bill karins with an update on hurricane isaac.

the latest in from the national hurricane center. still a hurricane and barely moving. it's still 70 mys away from new orleans. this is going to be a long night. already 250,000 without power in the region and we'll add to that number significantly throughout the night. 80-mile-per-hour winds. look at the wind gusts currently already at 60 miles per hour in new orleans around the center near 70 miles per hour. the winds haven't been quite as bad and power outages are in southeastern louisiana. you can see the center has been barely been moving over the last couple of hours. a long duration event. significant flooding is going to be the big problem. the forecast has as close as it'll get to new orleans 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning and pulls away. heavy rains will be the problem but those rains will turn into beneficial rains as it heads into the drought states. stay tuned with us on msnbc for more on the republican national convention.

the republican convention, andrea mitchell is on the floor with us with my dear friend rick santorum. andrea. >> i'm with rick santorum. you gave a speech today and focused on welfare and really went at the president, a lot of fact checkers, all the fact checkers have said that campaign ad by the romney campaign is not accurate, that the waivers were requested by governors, republican governors, what up with that? >> well, i'm not suggesting that some republican governors don't want to waive the work requirement. some do, unfortunately. but congress is very clear that we understand that the way to move people from welfare to work is to do two things, require work and to put a time limit on

welfare and someone who helped write the bill, was a principal author in the house particular, we said those were the things we wouldn't allow to be waived and created enormous flexibility to try to help people do those two things, and guess what happened? welfare rolls went dramatically down. people went back to work. poverty went down. i mean all of these things proved to work and work well. president obama opposed welfare reform. opposed work requirements. he waived work requirements earlier in his term on food stamps and food stamps have exploded. >> exploded because the economy is in such terrible shape. >> because we have broadened eligibility. look, this is a president who continues to broaden he would jiblt for a variety of different programs and pulling back on work requirements. only reason you issue something like that is weaken those requirements or in some cases i

suspect they could be eliminated. >> how did it feel tonight? you fought so hard for this nomination. you won the early primaries. mitt romney clobbered you with money and then you're here tonight, loyal republican soldier watching the acclaim for mitt romney? what's the emotional tug there. >> oh, none to be very honest with you. you know, look, i got into this race because i believe this is the most important election in my lifetime, and that president obama is doing severe damage to our country on every front and that we have an obligation to come together and try to right the ship here so i have no emotion other than trying to get people, many people did come up to me and said thank you, you helped me rally behind governor romney. >> the keynote speech from chris christie? >> vintage chris christie. i mean, i just -- i'm someone who, you know, grew up in an italian home and sort of love

that smashmouth, just right at them kind of talk. >> does it make it harder for mitt romney in his acceptance speech when you have such a bare knuckle speech from chris christie? do you think there's going to be some republicans thinking would have, could have, should have. >> i don't know about that. there's a place for bare knuc e knuckles and a place for a velvet touch. the president has to have sort of that range that a singer has or an actor has to be able to communicate on a whole variety of different levels. chris seemingly has one speed. i think, you know, governor romney has more than one speed and hopefully we'll see that on display thursday night. >> thank you very much. just one word about ann romney's speech because the women on this floor, the republican women here really seemed to be responding to that call from the candidate's wife. >> well, there's nothing better for a candidate than to get -- you know, to hear from the person they've spent, what, how many years with, and i think

that insight hopefully -- i always felt that this convention, the most important thing this convention could do is give people a better picture of who romney is and who better than his wife and she did a good job of doing that. >> rick santorum, thank you very much. thank you. rachel, back to you. >> thank you, andrea. senator santorum in my opinion gave the best speech of the night, bar none. he was not -- not billed as the guy that would do that but with andrea trying to nail him down on the issue of whether or not the president did try to remove the work requirement from welfare, the president did no such thing, mr. santorum's only explanation was blame governors who might have requested that kind of flexibility. those governors would include mitt romney when he was governor of massachusetts, so the welfare attack still just factually disastrous for the republicans, but they don't seem to care. i have one correction to make. i referred to senator santorum earlier as my dear friend.

i was lying. he's not actually my friend. he won't even talk to me but it was just wishful thinking. coming up chris christie's view of the public sector and what's been happening the past few years. msnbc's live coverage of the republican national convention. w, wega r th user d a atio 's

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particular way, one. none of these are all that possible. i think he needs to hang out with more optimistic people. one of the arguments you've seen from christie is that government and in particular government jobs is not how you recover from a recession. state public sectors got bloated, part of our problem, and christie is a good messenger since as he said tonight kind of over and over again he's really well known for pick and winning a number of fights with state employees in new jersey but here's kind of the weird thing about this recession. one of the things that we've actually done and has actually happened and was really unusual, we have cut public sector jobs and in particular state and local jobs deep. i ran the numbers on this a while ago. what you're seeing are government jobs in recent recession, so here's '81, reagan's big recession, a big dip at the beginning but they begin to recover quickly. 1990 george h.w. bush, perhaps a

bit out of it, like father, like son, you go to 2001 george w. bush's recession, there is no dip there. we added government jobs at a rapid clip, a lot of them from day one and the recession, and here is the most recent recession, the one that begins at the end of president george w. bush's term and continues through president obama's. and you'll see a little rise right at the beginning. that's usually stimulus, and a huge spike around the temporary census jobs. but then the government jobs begin falling really hard and really fast, and there is nothing like that in the reagan or the bush years, nothing that even looks anything like it. so if you want to make it more concrete than lines, as of june, the public secretaryingor lost 600,000 jobs in this recession, 600,000. if we hadn't lost those jobs, if we had just stayed at zero, no change, the unemployment rate would have been 7.8%. but you can take that even further. public sector jobs have grown as fast as they did under george w.

bush, we would have added 800,000 new public sector jobs. that would have driven unemployment to 7.3%, and obama would be in much better shape today and republicans would have a much harder road ahead of them this fall and in fact at the convention. yeah, it's true that government isn't how we've recovered from this recession, but government jobs have been a drag, have kept us from recovering from the recession. but it's one of the ways we've recovered from past recessions and in particular when presidents reagan and bush in charge. >> as we're hearing from the republicans that one of the knocks on president obama is that he's grown government out of control, you're saying they must be talking about some way he has done that that doesn't involve people actually working for the government. >> right. they're not talking about vastly expanding the number of people hired by government. to be fair, they've been blocking a lot of that money. president obama would like to have done more state and local aaid, hire teachers back. republicans say no. those are real jobs and you see them in the bureau of labor statistics employment reports,

this looks terrible in part because of all the government jobs we lost. >> appreciate that, ezra. putting the numbers to that rhetoric is very sobering. tomorrow night, of course, it is going to be paul ryan's turn. paul ryan's vision of america and what we can expect to hear from him. we'll be talking about that when we return. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the republican convention. stay with us.

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welcome back to msnbc's coverage of the republican national convention. tomorrow night is paul ryan night. the vice president keshl nominee who republicans are excited about but have failed to move the needle of voters more broadly on this ticket. the speaker i'm excited about for tomorrow is mike huckabee because i'm expecting a goldwater 1960 moment from him. but i might be crazy. chris, looking ahead to tomorrow? >> let me say about tonight, i agree with you completely. it was a great night for the bench, for the junior varsity, not great for the captain of the football team, romney. he looked like he was visiting a convention, not part of it. >> your line about him looking like prince charles in new guinea was the line of the night. steve schmidt, paul ryan. >> huge national introduction for paul ryan to the country. there will be a big audience, condoleezza rice tomorrow night, someone who has broad appeal and to the middle of the electorate,

someone widely admired in the country. tomorrow is a night where i think they have to get done what they didn't tonight, which is to begin building the case for mitt romney and what is the plan to turn the country around. >> ed schultz? >> tomorrow night will not be a night of detail for paul ryan. he is going to speak in generic terms, very lofty, theological type of stuff, political type stuff, a visionary. he won't tell us about the $716 billion lie they've been running out on the campaign trail. this is a guy that ran his mother out in front of a crowd down in florida to help him lie. i mean, he has been the purporter of this lie throughout. we won't get any numbers that says he hasn't scored his budget yet or haven't run his numbers yet. he won't be details. it will be lofty. >> it will be i love medicare. >> i want him to defend his medicare part d vote and it's better to look like prince charles in new guinea than prince harry in vegas.

>> i think ryan has to show he's more than an ideologue and he can really rise to the national stage and he can be trusted to stand there, if he in fact becomes vice president and for whatever reason, god forbid, have to take over. i don't know if he can rise to that occasion. and i also want to say to chris, though people loved ralph cram deny, they didn't want him to choose the next president. >> well, tomorrow night, honestlily, i think it's todd akin's night. we have his biggest of defender in politics mike huckabee with a speaking spot. condoleezza rice, beloved but speaks for the george w. bush areas. thank you all. chris hayes will be back tomorrow evening starting 7:00 eastern. our coverage of the republican national convention continues next from tampa with the one and only chrisf matthews. this has been a great night. stay with us. maybe not. v8 v-fusion juice gives them a full serving of vegetables plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit.

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. good evening. i'm chris matthews in tampa still at the end of the night. night one of the republicaning national convention. three big speechbs tonight, all with very different tones of course. we had the attitude, the hug and the soul. the attitude, of course, came from keynoter chris christie.

his job was to give a little new jersey attitude and take the fight to obama. he delivered a barnburner. >> i believe in america and her history. there's only one thing missing now -- leadership. it takes leadership that you don't get from reading a poll. you see, mr. president, real leaders don't follow polls. real leaders change polls. >> well, earlier in the night ann romney, the wife of the candidate, was tasked with the most difficult challenge of the night, trying to do what her husband has so far failed to do, make himself huggable. >> i can't tell you what will happen over the next four years, but i can only stand here tonight, as a wife and a mother and a grandmother, an american, and make you this solemn commitment -- this man will not fail. [ applause ] >> and, for the soul, you had rick santorum getting a huge

ovation when he talked about the rights of unborn children, and he gave a one-sentence line of reference to mitt romney's claim that president obama is eliminating the work requirement for social security, totally dishonest claim. santorum got one line, didn't plug it too hard. let's watch santorum. >> under president obama, the dream of freedom and opportunity has become a nightmare of dependency with almost half of america receiving some sort of government assistance. >> well, it got old tonight. always to make the case for mitt romney especially with independent voters. did any of the speeches help boost the candidate himself? well, on night one of the republican convention, aa lot to talk about. i'm joined by howard fineman and former chair of the rnc, michael steele, both msnbc political analysts. you guys have been sitting there watching all night. michael, i've got to start with you. this republican convention, we know what aa keynote is, opening

night. it's beginning to rip the bark off the opponent and get the juices flowing for the candidate. >> right. >> let's try that second goal. did you see any juices flowing from mitt romney tonight besides his wife's well-rehearsed speech? >> i thought the one aspect of christie's speech which was strong and good, was how long it took into the speech to actually talk about mitt romney. >> did you hear axelrod was tweeting, when is he going to say the word "romney"? >> that was a tweet i was seeing from a lot of republicans as well. it was sort of a disin answer in th -- disnance but a strong one. big points, my big takeaway is tell the people the truth and they will act bigger. that's really what the campaign is about. i thought he captured that. but it was very interesting how he kind of took a little while to kind of connect romney to that, in my estimation. >> i thought that was the theme tonight, these governors who were very impressive i thought,

talking about their own records and only at the tail end mentioning, almost like they're paying for their supper, you know? >> exactly. >> mentioning the candidate. >> out on the floor earlier tonight where i was, i really got the sense that mitt romney, while not incidental to the republican party or to the convention, was not the organizing principal of it either. these other people are. their energy is. the agenda is. the new sort of tea party-infused grass roots party is. mitt romney is the guy who's somehow going to enable it by the fact of becoming president. he's going to enable the forces, not really be the force himself. i know that's what ann romney said. she said, he will not fail. but if he succeeds, it's going to be with the energy and enthusiasm of all these other people. >> right. >> now, chris christie spoke for himself mostly. he said, i did it in new jersey. if i can do it in new jersey, we can do it in washington.

>> i know. >> chris christie gave the most anti-politics political speech i've heard at a convention in a long time. he captured the resentment of people about politics. he sort of captured the resentment of leadership, which is interesting, so he in a way made the mountain higher for mitt romney to climb because now we've got to believe in this era that he's the one guy who can really do it. >> sell me on this, michael. put on your real republican hat. sell me on fact there's a connection between that hall and mitt romney. he looked like a takeover guy who came into its company and just bought it. he didn't look like one of those delegates. he didn't act like them. those delegates were turned on by chris christie and turned on by kasich, turned on by romney's wife. but romney looked like the guy from the hul all of the preside. >> let's revisit this discussion. you make a good point. let's revisit the discussion thursday night. let me tell you why, chris. because this wasn't a night for romney to center himself.

it was about others centering him. >> yeah. >> so thursday night will be his night so we can do this conversation on thursday night and see whether or not he lived up to the expectation. >> let's look at more christie if we can right now. let's take a look at the christie, the next bite from that. >> i know the simple truth, and i am not afraid to say it. our ideas are right for america, and their ideas have failed america. we believe in telling hardworking families the truth about our country's fiscal realities. telling them what they already know. the math of federal spending does not add up. with $5 trillion in debt, added over the last four years, we have no other option but to make the hard choices -- cut federal spending and fundamentally reduce the size of this government.

want to know what they believe? they believe that the american people don't want to hear the truth about the extent of our fiscal difficulties. they believe the american people need to be coddled by big government. their plan -- whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff as long as they are behind the wheel of power when we fall. >> you know, i thought -- you're the republican here. i thought he got into the nervous system of the typical republican. i think the typical republican feels about the teachers' union the way he felt. >> yeah. >> feels about big government and spending the way he feels. he seems to connect with their nervous system. >> he did. again, i think it's a good setup for what's to come on thursday night. but he did make that initial connection to sort of draw our attention to what the broader scope of what this election will be about. you make the assumption that part of the teachers union, therefore you follow the mantra. he's making that dis -- he's saying there's a disconnection between the union and the rank and file, the union leadership

and the rank and file. romney -- that's an opening for romney to come through with a different message, a better message, that says, yeah, you can be part of the union but let's build this country differently, build it better. let's not be beholden to the status quo. >> was it fair, howard, to say the teachers are opposed to the teachers union? they keep reelecting their leaders. is that honest? >> well, there are problems in the educational system no one can deny. there are abuses of power by administrators and teachers unions for sure. but the tone of this thing, the combination -- of his speech, the combination of sort of resentment and anger i thought was interesting, but i'm not sure -- i know that independent voters are upset. i know they're angry. i know they feel disassociated from the system. but is the job of somebody like that reaching those voters to reflect their resentment or to give them hope to get out of it? and i didn't -- i heard more

resentment and anger there than i did real hope, nostalgia, resentment, anger. >> well, you guys know that this campaign will basically be about ejecting obama from the white house. >> right. >> the unifying principle of this patty is get rid of him, not get romney in there. >> it's about firing obama. >> that was the message, throw him out of the bar, get rid of him. these lines tonight, i've never heard throw him out of the bar about a president who probably doesn't drink much anyway. here's the governor of new jersey warning that the country is in danger of going down a very dark path. sounds scary, huh? let's watch. >> i don't know about you, but i don't want my children and grandchildren have to read in the history book what it was like to live in an american century. i don't want their only inheritance be an enormous government who has overtaxed, overborrowed a great people into second class citizenship. i want them to live in a second american century. >> well, i don't know about that. let's quickly dispense this.

he's getting too angry for me. >> i don't know if i want to be in that century if he's on the podium all the time. >> let's go to ann romney, obviously very attractive representing her husband's case. did she accomplish the task of humanizing him? she's very human. how about him? let's give had her a shot again in this clip, ann romney speaking with her husband. >> you may not degree with mitt's position on issues or his politics -- by the way, massachusetts is only 13% republican so it's not like it's a shock to me. but let me say this to every american who is thinking about who should be our next president. no one will work harder. no one will care more. and no one will move heaven and earth like mitt romney to make this country a better place to live. >> i don't know whether she

answered the key problem. as somebody said the other night at one of these seminars the other night, obama cares and understands the person's problems but can't solve them yet. yet, my word. whereas romney could fix them but he just doesn't understand them. did she on behalf of her husband -- you start, michael -- portray a husband who understood the problems of the average person, not the person with $250 million in the bank like their family, but the average person who makes $40,000 or $50,000 a year. does she get it? >> i think she does and i thought she connected it nicely. i think she gave a nice, strong yet soft speech. by soft, it sort of human humanized him in a way. i thought when she talked about, this man won't fail you, he's not going to let you down, he's going to help lift us all up. i thought that was a connecting moment in a real way. >> kind of like a car commercial? >> oh, please. >> i didn't sense the humanity of it. >> you've got to -- it was not a car commercial. i thought it was a very strong moment.

>> couple quick things. because i'm a writer, i like to hear a narrative, a story. tell me a story about how mitt romney did something in your private life, in your family life, something we wouldn't know about. >> why didn't she talk about relief society and all the good things that mormon people do every day and every week of the year? >> they don't want to -- for the most part, they don't talk about the mormon church. >> but they have a real commitment to doing things, not just giving money. >> that i think was a failure. but i think she -- the smile, her evident love for her husband comes through there. and i think that's a help to him. >> and sometimes that's enough. >> sometimes that's enough. i think she could have done a better job of making the sale, but her very presence up there and her sort of beaming sense of how much she loved her husband did come through. and i think that's important. very important. >> she's gleaming as a president -- certainly that's true. that smile and everything is it very giving, very winning i'd have to say. let me look at someone who

wasn't too winning tonight, speaker john boehner. he kept talking about his family history running a bar. fine a lot of people grew up that way. he spoke tonight, he had strong words about the president of the united states. remember the office we're talking about. he talked about what would happen if president obama walked into a bar owned by his family in cincinnati. now, watch this. >> let's say right now some guy walked into our bar full of guys looking for work, having a tough go of it, and the guy said, well, the private sector is doing fine. you know what we'd do? that's right, we'd throw him out. think about this. a guy walked into our bar full of people paying more for health care, paying more for gas, paying more for everything, and this guy would say, well, we're better off than what we would have been. well, you know what we'd do. we'd throw him out. now, if a guy walked into a bar and heard that story and he said, well, if you've got a

business, you didn't build that, well, you know what we'd do with him, don't you? we'd throw him out! >> well, there you have it. i mean, the image of the president of the united states being grabbed by the collar and the back of the belt and being chucked outs of the bar like a bum, a drunk. i'm sorry, i'm not overdoing this. that's his image. can't you show a little anger occasionally with these guys and say, that's no way to talk about a president? >> i'm sorry, chris. i just -- i appreciate what you're saying and what you're trying to do here, but the reality is, he's doing sort of -- you're the writer. what do you call that? >> you wanted a picture? >> he's drawing a picture. >> having written about john boehner, i know all about the bar. i know about the youngest child. i know about how he swept the floor and everything. i know about how he -- >> was he a bouncer, too? >> yeah. he threw people out. he's using his own frame of reference, xh the bar on the

outskirt of cincinnati as athe youngest -- >> can you imagine bill clinton saying that about george herbert walker bush, i'm going to throw him out of the bar? jack kennedy saying, we're going to throw eisenhower out of the bar. >> if that were their experience, yeah. if it was part of their experience in their childhood or -- >> it's pretty coarse. look, it is pretty coarse, but that's john boehner's life. >> it's john boehner, and it's a convention, and it's red meat for the base. >> sure. well, i think you got that, it's red meat for the base. the basest of the base. anyway, thank you. long night, howard. great having you here, of course michael will steele, the inside man. he was anyway. up next, one-time romney rival rick santorum makes his case for his former rival. it's falling in line more than falling in love. we'll talk about santorum in just a second. >> under president obama, the dream of freedom and opportunity has become a nightmare of dependency with almost half of

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rock emsock emand welcome back to our coverage of the republican convention. tonight rick santorum who challenged romney made a one sentence reference. >> this summer, he showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency. by wav waiving the work require for welfare.

now, i helped write the rely fa welfare reform bill. we made the law crystal clear. no president can waive the work requirement. but, as with his refusal to enforce our immigration laws, president obama rules like he is above the law. >> john bray bender who was a strategist for the san form for president and also john kingston from sort of nearby georgia. john, on this speech construction, did you work on the speech with the senator? >> a little bit. i will tell you that it was pretty much all of rick's writing. i thought he did a great job. those were his words from his heart and he deserves the credit from what was with seen by most people as an emotional and great speech. >> well, who put out the word all day today, actually a couple of days now, this was going to be a speech backing up the romney claim that the work requirement has been dropped from welfare? i heard like a sentence and a half there out of a long speech. why -- was this a shell game?

did you guys say you were going to talk about it to get the speaking part and then decide to talk about life and antiabortion politics? >> first of all, i think rick talked about a lot of things. what he did is put a face on what this country is about, talking about his grandfather coming here, working in the coal mines and not coming here to be dependent on programs all the way to his special needs daughter bella and how every life should be valued in this country. certainly welfare was part of it because it illustrated some important points about this president, but it was never going to be just a well will fair speech. >> how come everybody was told it would be? did he pull a double-cross on the romney people by saying, i'll do your dirty work for you, on a dishonest welfare claim? or did he just come in and say, i'm going to talk about what i feel like talking about? >> actually, to the romney campaign's credit, they gave us no real requirements of what we had to speak about. he let rick write about what he

wanted to and speak from the heart. that's what he did. >> i guess they were advertising it differently. what do you make of this, congressman. you know about the welfare, you were around when they passed the welfare reform bill. we can't find a single governor, newspaper, fact checker, anybody right left or center who says that's an honest ad. do you know anybody who says it is? >> i think there is an honest discomfort with what katherine sebelius, the secretary of -- >> did she drop the work requirement? >> well, what she said in july is she would aallow waivers for other alternatives and hasn't defined what those alternatives are. so i think what has happened, we have maybe jumped forward in saying, okay, what else is there? and remember this portion of the law, section 402, is very specific that you have to work. but she's saying, we're going to let other requirements go in there. well, maybe it's education, maybe it's training, maybe it's looking for education. >> what makes anybody think it means eliminating here? that's the dishonesty. you could go to job training

before work, you could have longer job training. if it gets you a job in the end, that's the goal. >> and i think we would all agree on that. and, as you know and as the left has pointed out, governor romney and a lot of other governors asked as governors for waivers from that, but they did not ask for a waiver for the work requirement, section 402. >> that hasn't been eliminated, though. >> our only concern is, knowing this administration, chris, there may be a tendency to say, okay, looking for education is the same as looking for work. >> preemptive attack. i get your message. let's take a look at more of rick santorum tonight from his big speech. >> i thank god that america still has one party that reaches out their hands in love to lift up all of god's children born and unborn.

and we say that each of us has dignity and all of us have the right to live the american dream. >> john, aabortion rights or opposition to aabortion, you wrote speeches for many times i haven't seen anything so specific as to give the 14th amendment rights of life, liberty and property to the unborn going up to the point of conception. what does it mean to give property rights under the 14th amendment, to give liberty rights and life except to absolutely outlaw and perhaps criminalize abortion? because if it's a person, which is the language used in this resolution, in this platform language, then it would be murder. so what's the point of going beyond just banning abortion to calling basically the fertilized egg a person? what's the point of that? >> what the party has done and

also through tplatform and as yu saw in rick's speech tonight is we want to make it very loud and clear that this is a party that believes in life when it really begins and that we are going to fight fwor those who can't figh for itself. it's a huge difference with the democratic party and we want to show people around this country, people like reagan democrats throughout the midwest who agree with that position and understand that we're going to fight for the unborn just like we would anybody else in this country. >> but if you declare the fertilized egg a person and somebody has an abortion, that's murder! >> well, i think it depends on what the reason -- we're talking about if it's for rape, incest, life of the mother, whatever the reason is. yes, many believe and the platform says that in many cases that is something that should be considered at some point to be taking a life. and we're willing to stand behind that. >> so it is a person that would be killed if there was an abortion. >> well, what we're saying is

that we believe life begins at conception and that they are protected by every right that anybody in this country should have. >> what is the right to property for a fertilized egg, a right to liberty? what is that? what does it mean? >> the life -- >> it's in the language of your platform. >> wait a minute. the right to liberty is the right to actually be born, the right to have an opportunity to live your life. >> okay. i thought that was the right to life. what about the right to property for the fertilized egg. what does that mean? >> i don't know how exactly that was phrased in the platform, but, more importantly, is the distinctions between us and a president like obama who even supported the most extreme of all abortion cases, partial-birth abortions. >> i see the difference. what do you make of this, congressman? can you defend that with a constituency? >> somewhat. you know as someone who's been involved in this, platforms are somewhat pureistic. we've had this language since '04.

>> 14 amendment language? >> i would say we've had a pro-life, a very strong pro-life, platform. >> but this goes further. >> i want to point out, president bush and senator mccain and now governor romney are exemptions for rape, life of the mother and incest. and that's not in the platform, but that's what our candidates believe. so i think a lot of times -- >> what are you writing platforms for you don't believe in? >> remember the democrat platform says we're going to cut poverty in half and it was at 13% when they wrote it, now it's 15%. >> that's a goal, not a promise. >> our goal is eliminating abortion. >> i know the value of the platform, zero. thank you to both of you. john, i know you believe completely in rick santorum and what he believe in. latest on the big story tonight, hurricane isaac coming up right now. we'll have al roker giving us reporting right from the scene. we're back here right after that, from the republican national convention in tampa.

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of course the other big story on the gulf coast is hurricane isaac which made landfall just south of new orleans. let's check in with al roker down in new orleans. al, there you are, al roker. take it away, sir. >> reporter: well, chris, right now isaac is back over water so -- and it's just kind of sitting there, just spinning. so this is going to be a very, very long event for the gulf coast. not just new orleans and the coast of louisiana but also the

coast of mississippi, alabama and florida as well. we've got sustained wind gusts of over 60 miles per hour. we've had them off and on. right now it's winds, sustained winds, of isaac at 80 miles per hour. this thing is just going to keep spinning and dumping -- and people think -- >> we're having communication problems there. we'll have much more. there's the picture we're getting but not from al roker. we'll have much more from mitt romney's -- actually his wife's attempt to warm up to the image of her husband. she did a pretty good job tonight. i'm not sure it worked. but here's a moment from it. >> mitt romney was not handed success. he built it!

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we're too smart to know there aren't easy answers, but we're not dumb enough to accept there aren't better answers. that is where this boy i met at a high school dance comes in. his name is mitt romney, and you should really get to know him. >> wow, welcome back. mitt romney's wife, there she is, ann took the stage tonight with the daunting task of trying to humanize her husband. and she played up the role quite well. here is a successful offering herself as the wife of a mr. fix-it. take a look here. >> it's true that mitt's been successful at each new challenge's taking on. you know what? it actually aamazes me to see his history of success being attacked. are those really the values that made our country great? >> no! >> as a mom of five boys, do we want to raise our children to be afraid of success? >> no! >> do we send our children out in the world with the advice, try to do okay? >> no!

>> and let's be honest. if the last four years had been more successful, do we really think there would be this attack on mitt romney's success? >> no! >> of course not. mitt will be the first to tell you that he's the most fortunate man in the world. he had two loving parents who gave him strong values and taught him the value of work. he had the chance to get the education his father never had. but, as his partner on this amazing journey, i can tell you mitt romney was not handed success. he built it! >> joining me right now is joy reid, managing editor of the grio, of course, and david corn, my pal, washington bureau chief of mother jones, both msnbc political analyst. joy, your thoughts on this and be fully straight. i know there's all kinds of aspect we all look at this from. you saw this woman. what did she say to you as you're looking at her on that stage and the way she spoke. >> it's interesting you say looking at her becaused first

thing that struck me was the staging around her. it was literally ann romney and mitt romney when they were much younger. it wasn't them holding their grandkids. it was them literally in the '50s. and then the way she speaks. ann romney is sort of a very arift craft ick personage and she came across as the lady of the house, a sort of graun dame, but the narrative she was selling was about this aw shucks common suburban housewife. because those two things don't match, the speech struck me as sort of odd. this was the well-born lady who married well who has a very wealthy husband and who is quite proud of him, obviously loves him. but it didn't feel -- i don't know. it didn't feel warm. it really felt like the lady of the house sort of explaining to those of us who may not be in her league classwise sort of how it is. >> you're not worth $250 million. >> indeed. >> i figured that out by your comments. >> david corn. >> you may not know this, chris,

but i am not a white suburban woman from a well-to-do background so -- >> project, my friend. >> so i'm not the target audience here, neve the less i thought parts of the speech were rather condescending. i'm not going to tell you what mitt's going to do for you as you women of america, as you face your difficult days. i'm just going to tell you he's kind of kind and he's okay and you don't have to worry your pretty head over the details. just take it from me, trust me. i love him, he loves me. it will be good for you. i thought that was kind of like not the way you address women. and the line that you played at the top of the show, when she says, you know what? we're not dumb enough to believe there are simple, easy answers, wait a second, who says women are dumb? why are you challenging the premise that women are dumb unless you think some people actually believe that? so i thought overall it was just talking to her tribe, abd i don't know if it's going to hit home with people who really have to worry about things.

>> let's look at her direct appeal to women. this was about women being women per se, it wasn't about politics. at least not overtly. let's hear her tonight talking to her gender. let's listen. >> you are the ones that have to do a little bit more, and you know what it's like to work a little harder during the day to earn the respect you deserve at work. and then you come home at night and help with a book report just because it has to be done. you know what those late-night phone calls with an elderly parent is like and the long drives to see how they're doing. you know the fastest route to the emergency room and which doctors answer the phone call when you call at night. by the way, i know all about that. you know what it's like to sit in that graduation ceremony and wonder how it was that so many long days turned to years that went by so quickly. you are the best of america. you -- [ applause ]

you are the hope of america. there would not be an america without you. tonight we salute you and sing your praises. >> you know, one of the conceits, of course, joy, in american is the better half, i married up, it's all charming, it's chivalrous. >> right. >> but i never had a woman actually make the case. it's usually the guys that do this. >> it's amazing. it's sort of like what in the olden days you were told, dear, go to the right schools, marry well. she's daughters of the american revolution, right? she gives you that sort of old-world acrist oristocratic v. think about sarah palin, you know what i thought of, i know it's a different role. but when sarah palin got up and she was the hockey mom with lipstick and did her mean girl routine. i believe she is toting guns and shooting bears doing what she

said she did. with ann romney, i don't picture her being the one to call the doctor. i picture her calling will the help and having the maid sort of do it. maybe that's -- >> she does have health challenges, ms. >> she does. i this i that's the best part of her story. it's authentic and real. and the love for her husband. >> she didn't -- >> she talked about it briefly. i don't think she has to. but there was this element of gender warfare. i mean, listen, in my house i do the book reports, i take kids to the doctor. >> oh, you're advertising yourself. >> are they now anti-dad? it was so condescending. you women, you're hard-pressed upon, and it was sort of like a feminist critique coming from a very odd place. because i can speak to you, you can trust mitt. again, i am doing this for him. >> it is funny. we're being funny here, but it would be funny if a guy like chris christie, this bear of a guy, said, you men out there,

you are the best in america, not those other people. >> you're the darlings. >> you carry the gun. you lock the doors at night. >> you change the oil. you make america run. >> you change the oil. that's exactly what husbands do, right? and lock the door at night. >> it was very traditional. this it was very 1950s. >> let' get back to my cartoon. i was watching her at the end, obviously very attractive, obviously loves her husband. but when he came out, he did come out like he was on wheels, like he was something from the hall of the presidents, you know? he doesn't actually seem like a person coming out -- i've seen guys come out, jack kennedy did early in the convention. look at how he comes out. it's very -- let's watch him for a minute, how he stands there. now he looks, oh, you know, you never know. then he waves like that, very mechanically. it's like, i don't think that's a regular, real guy, despite all -- look how physically wooden he is.

>> but isn't that sort of the story of mitt romney in this campaign? he's a bystander. >> look at how he walks. nothing moves but the legs. >> he ace been a bystander throughout the primary. he's basically saying, hey, tea party, right, whatever it is, i'll do it. plug it in for me, i'll do it. i'll be whatever you want me to be. he's a bystander at his own convention. he was the by the way, here's mitt romney. >> and now a special cameo appearance by mitt romney after the stars of the evening. >> i thought he was like prince charles coming into new guinea, unconnected to these people. by the way, who is the first politician to point to the audience and do this? why do they all do that when they walk out? >> why do they all say they were born into poverty. >> he didn't say -- >> ann romney said they struggled. >> i don't think they know the taste of spam, just guessing. thank you, joy reid from the grio and of course david corn.

up next, paul ryan's vision of america. what can we expect to hear from the running mate tomorrow. it's his night to accept the nomination for vp. we'll be back right after this. >> mitt romney spent his life turning around faili ining enterprises and america needs a turnaround, specifically we need barack obama to turn around and go back to chicago! what was i supposed to wish for? why am i wearing a bow-tie? where did i leave my bicycle? after all, when you're enjoying the beefiest, juciest bite of pure kosher beef, nothing else matters. goodness gracious, that's kosher. with no fillers, by-products, artificial flavors or colors.

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we have this leader for america. we have a nominee who will tell us the truth and who will lead with conviction. and now he has a running mate who will do the same. we have governor mitt romney and congressman paul ryan, and we need to make them the next president and vice president of the united states! >> wow, we're back. one of the highlights from the conventions tonight was new jersey governor chris christie's keynote address. but what can we expect from tomorrow night's keynote? actually, by the vice presidential candidate as he accepts the nomination, paul ryan of wisconsin. with me now to preview congressman ryan's speech is robert costa, political reporter for the national view and jonathan alder. i want to start with robert for the conservative. it seems to me that ryan is the heart and soul of this

convention. if there is a heart and a soul, it's him. do you think he will give a speech which will wake up this place even more than the big guy we just heard from? >> i think he's going to wake unthe place, but remember most of the country doesn't know ryan yet. so you'll hear a lot what we heard in chris christie, biography about his wisconsin roots. i'm paul ryan, come from this big irish catholic family, father died when i was 16, trace his steps to who he became in congress and paint that picture. then you'll see him really getting into entitlements and saying like christie tonight, it's about a bigger argument, we'll try to elevate the debate. that's the romney campaign goal, try to get beyond the bain capital, the tax returns and say something about taxes, medicare and growth. >> that's the whole problem with the republican party at this convention. they don't want to talk about the republican congress which they control in the house. they don't want to talk about the platform they agreed to tonight.

they don't even want to mention george w. bush. they don't want to talk about anything they've actually done. it's all about promise, it seems to me. your thoughts, will that be the same with ryan? >> first of all, i think ryan has real chops. he's not just a congressman from wisconsin. this guy is probably a future nominee for president of the united states. >> why didn't he support simpson/bowles? >> that's just one of many hypocrisies. he blew up simpson/bowles because he couldn't accept any tax increases which means he's not serious about deficit reduction. his plan doesn't even balance the budget until 2038. so anybody who says they're voting for him because he's fiscally responsible is wrong. but this is a guy with talent. he's got real political talent. i think tomorrow night he'll e's going to be the boy scout with the knife. >> let's talk about the boy scout, the knife. this refrain of your party about trying to -- well, to foreignize the president of the united states, i'm not saying it's racist.

i'm saying it's certainly weird. they keep saying he's a european, that he gets his idea from europe. the one case they're talking about is health care, which came from the heritage foundation and the republican leadership. why do -- i hear ryan say it again, we will turn out just like europe if we stick with european policies. what are these european policies? >> chris, you keep saying you hear, you hear, 2600 words tonight in christie's speech not one was the word "obama" mentioned. mr. president, not obama. they're moving away from the president, trying to do something bigger. ryan has never been on the big stage. he's been in congress, in the lower chamber. he's never done a big national address. guess who's writing his speech? matt skully. what did he write four years ago? sarah palin's speech at the republican convention. >> why does your party keep talking about europeanizing barack obama? why are you doing it? >> they're not europeanizing obama. they're looking at greece.

talking about the greek policy. that's the european example they're talking about. >> never mention it when we had all the debt under w., he didn't veto a single -- >> by the way, ryan voted for all that. >> doesn't ryan criticize the bush years? >> he voted for all of it. >> true, that's -- a lot of conservatives raise their eyebrows at ryan. >> didn't ryan vote for the bush tax cuts, both wars without paying for them? >> here's the thing. on the medicare 716 billion thshthis is so hypocritical of paul ryan to say they're raiding medicare to pay for obama care because he has precisely the same 716 billion in medicare savings that -- >> what ado you say if he says it tomorrow night, he'll put the knife in on the $716 billion. >> ryan has to do it. >> it's in his budget! in his own budget. >> all democrats are running on is, your medicare is going to get touched. you'll see ryan draw a big bright line in his speech, if you're over 55 we're not

touching it. it's only 55 and under. we're trying to fix it. that's his argument. i've seen ryanen the trail four or five times in the last few weeks. he leads with medicare. this guy is not afraid to talk about it. chris, you and i have discussed it before. he's leading with it in his speeches. >> here's some paul ryan from a monday rally. here's paul ryan who will accept the nomination for vice president. this is what many people believe is a tease of what we'll hear tomorrow night from ryan. >> we live together in freedom and what we do in our communities is we look out for one another. that's what's so special. that's what government can't replace or displace. >> what do you make? is that it? >> that's it. that's the preview. >> look at his tone, temperate, a little bit of fire on entitlements, about change. this is why -- look, romney could have picked a million other guys for this second spot that were safer picks. romney is trying to say -- >> your last thought, 30 seconds. >> look, he comes across very well in terms of his

presentation. the policies are cruel, chris. if you have 30%, 40%, even 50% cuts in discretionary nondefense spending, that hurts a lot of people. if you are cutting 800 billion from medicaid, where are those people going to get health care? >> let's see if he can sell it tomorrow night. thank you, bob, john. that's all for us. catch me tomorrow night 5:00 p.m. eastern for "hardball" and our prime-time coverage of the republican national convention beginning again at 7:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow. our coverage continues after this. [ male announcer ] it seems like every company

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