at the rnc. >> i'm krystal ball. can your principles survive politics? we pull back the campaign curtain. >> all that and my thoughts on why clint eastwood embodies the gop. you're in "the cycle." battle lines are drawn. the presidential election is heading toward the final rounds and both sides are bloodied yet unbowed. last night, mitt romney showed us he's not going to get all warm and fuzzy. he's a turnaround guy who can fix a nation he thinks is going the wrong way. there was this moving rnc testimonial on mitt the man. but a lot of viewers didn't see it because it ran before 10:00 eastern time to make room for one of the strangest moments in convention history. clint eastwood talking to an empty chair.

pretending to talk to president obama. the imaginary obama cursed at him. you're going to have to wait 30 minutes because that is what we in the tv business call a tease. let's take a slice of that testimonial first. >> it's been over 30 years since we have lost our son, david. david's story is a part of mitt's story. and america deserves to hear it. you cannot measure a man's character based on the words he utters before adoring crowds, during times that are happy. the true measure of a man is revealed in his actions during times of trouble.

the quiet hospital room of a dying boy, with no cameras and no reporters. >> as for romney, he told a beautiful anecdote about his parents' love. >> my mom and dad were married for 64 years. and if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist. because every day, dad gave mom a rose which he put on her bedside table. >> that's lovely. but it was his effort to contrast the excitement of obama in '08 versus now that provided his canvas for the final weeks of the campaign. >> hope and change had a powerful appeal. but tonight, i'd ask a simple question -- if you felt that excitement when you voted for barack obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's president obama? [ applause ]

you know there's something wrong with the kind of job he's done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him. >> and then how romney views himself against his view of obama. >> president obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. [ laughter ] and to heal the planet. my promise is to help you and your family. >> what did the president's team say? >> what people were tuning in hoping to hear were practical solutions to the challenges that we face. and what they got were some snarky lines about the president, some reminiscences about the past and some buzz words for the base. >> as for the president himself, he's in texas getting ready to

speak at fort bliss, talking to the troops. >> today, you continue to contribute to the ongoing efforts in support of operation enduring freedom. in fact, the bulldog brigade or the third brigade just returned from afghanistan a few weeks ago. so welcome back. we're glad to have you home. [ applause ] you know, i've had the great privilege of serving alongside many of you in combat in iraq and afghanistan. i watched you do remarkable things, selfless things on behalf of the people of those countries and in support of one another. i want to take this opportunity to tell you how incredibly proud i am of each and every one of you and your families. you are all truly great americans.

and i thank you for your service and for your many sacrifices on behalf of our nation. during more than a decade of combat, our soldiers and families have performed exceptionally well. and they've proven to be extremely resilient. we've done well to care for our troops and families. but that said, there is still significant work to do in this area as we built our forts for the future. and i want to assure you that our leaders at every level to include the great leader that i will introduce in just a moment are committed to -- >> president obama will head to the gulf coast on monday ahead of the dnc. right now, mitt romney's in louisiana getting a firsthand look at the damage done by hurricane isaac. he was invited down by governor bobby jindal who skipped speaking at the rnc to help with the state's recovery.

the remnants of isaac are moving inland. but it could be days before floodwaters fully recede. back to politics, most of the meaningless august polls have these two men in a virtual tie. last night did a lot for romney. he looked presidential. and he rose in my eyes even though he's not a great orator. i loved the anecdote about his parents and his dad giving a rose every day. and i said, why aren't i doing that for my wife? i'm slacking. >> she said the same thing, i'm sure. >> when he gets to the end and he starts talking about all this war-mongering and the saber-rattling about russia and talking about what he's going to do in iran, i'm frightened again. >> to that anecdote, the part that really got to people was just after that when he said, and my mother found out that my dad had passed because a rose didn't come the next day. he said that as he was choking up.

it was a silent hall at that moment. and it really did show some emotion which everyone's been asking for. i think he delivered at least on that aspect in the speech. it was, i thought, a great speech, well delivered. >> but that anecdote was about his parents, right? it wasn't about him. and i was hoping he'd say something like that about he and ann. >> what it showed was his relationship with his parents and that's clearly part of his story. and so choking up like that showed his close relationship to his dad and just how much that's meant in his life. >> we have the president hitting the stage at fort bliss. let's go to that. >> thanks for the introduction and your leadership, leading our troops in iraq and taking care of our soldiers now that they are at home. and right at the top, let me say that our hearts are obviously with all the folks who are down in louisiana and the gulf coast who are dealing with the

aftermath of hurricane isaac. our prayers are with those who have lost loved ones. and i've directed the federal government to keep doing everything that it can to help our partners at the state and local level. as a country, we stand united with our fellow americans in their hour of need. i want to thank general petard and all your great commanders for welcoming me here today. i want to give a shout-out to the sergeant major of the army, ray chandler. and command sergeant major ronnie kelley. these guys remind us that our non-commissioned officers are the backbone of our military. leading the finest enlisted force in the world.

it is great to be back at fort bliss, home to the army, air and missile defense command, swift and short. we've got guard and reserve here. of course, it's home to the legendary first armored division, old ironsides. got a lot of brigades here, including the iron eagles. iron brigades, bulldogs and ready firsts. and i also want to salute lucille petard and alice kelley and all the extraordinary spouses and military families who are here. give them a big round of applause. [ applause ] i know that all of you are

grateful for the incredible support you receive from your civilian neighbors. so i want to acknowledge two champions of fort bliss. we've got congressman sylvester reyes and we've got mayor john cook. we've also got all the great folks in el paso and new mexico. give them a big round of applause. [ applause ] i've come back to bliss for a simple reason. two years ago, i was here to mark a historic moment in the life of our nation and our military, the end of major combat operations in iraq. it was a chance for me to say on behalf of the american people, to you and all who served there, welcome home. and congratulations on a job well done. in every major phase of that

war, you were there, the iron soldiers. because of your speed and strength, american troops toppled a dictator in less than a month. because of your commitment, you stayed on extended tours and went back tour after tour, year after year. because of your determination to succeed, you turned back an insurgency. you stood firm against sectarian strife. you helped pull iraq back from the abyss and you trained iraqis to take the lead. that was the progress you made possible, with your service and your courage. and so two years ago, i was able to come here to bliss and mark the end of our combat mission. that night, i told the american people that all our troops would be out of iraq by the end of the following year. at the time, i know some folks didn't believe me, they were

skeptical. some thought the end of combat was just word games and semantics. but i meant what i said. so you kept training up those iraqi forces. we removed nearly 150,000 troops, and this past december under general austin's leadership, the last american troops came home, including the fourth brigade combat team from bliss. you left iraq with honor. your mission complete. your heads held high. after nearly nine years, our war in iraq was over. and today iraq has a chance to forge its own destiny. there are no american troops fighting and dying in iraq. on this anniversary, we honor the memory of all who gave their lives there.

nearly 4,500 american patriots, including 198 fallen heroes from fort bliss and the first armored division. and we salute all who served there. when i was here two years ago, i told you something else, though, that we had more work to do, including taking the fight to al qaeda. and there, too, i meant what i said. with allies and partners, we've taken out more top al qaeda terrorists than at any time since 9/11. and thanks to the courage of our forces, al qaeda is on the road to defeat and bin laden will never again threaten the united states of america. [ applause ] two years ago i also told you that we'd keep up the fight in afghanistan. i know that some of you recently got back.

on behalf of a grateful nation, welcome home. some of your buddies are in afghanistan right now. and our thoughts and prayers are with all the troops from bliss deployed around the world, including afghanistan. the war eagles and the highlanders. i know that some of you will be deploying later this year. i've got to tell you the truth, this is still a very tough fight. you know this. you carry it in your hearts, the memory of comrades who made that ultimate sacrifice, including six heros from bliss who gave their lives on that awful day last month. i just had the opportunity to meet with some of our gold star families. and our message to them is this -- your loved ones live on in the soul of our nation. we will honor them always.

because of their sacrifice, because of your service, we pushed the taliban back. we're training afghan forces. the transition to afghan lead is under way, and as promised, more than 30,000 of our troops will have come home by next month. just as in iraq we are going to end this war responsibly, next year, afghans will take the lead for their own security. in 2014, the transition will be complete. and even as this war ends, we will stay vigilant so afghanistan is never again a source for attacks against america. never again. so we're not just ending these wars. we're doing in it a way that keeps america safe and makes america stronger. and that includes our military.

think about it. just four years ago, there were some 180,000 american troops in iraq and afghanistan. by next month, we will have cut that number by nearly two-thirds. so most of our troops have come home. and as more afghans step up, more of our troops will come home. and what does that mean for you? well, after ten years of continuous operations, it means fewer deployments. it means more time for training. it means more time to improve readiness. more time to prepare for the future. and it means more time on the homefront with your families, your spouses and your kids. so make no mistake, ending the wars ribly makes us safer and it makes our military even stronger.

and ending these wars is letting us do something else -- restore american leadership. if you hear anyone trying to say that america's in decline or that our influence has waned, don't you believe it because here's the truth. our alliances have never been stronger. we're leading on behalf of freedom, including standing with the people of libya that are finally free from moammar gadhafi. around the world, there's a new attitude toward america, new confidence in our leadership. when people are asked, which country do you admire most? one nation always comes out on top, the united states of america. [ applause ] >> that's president obama speaking to troops in fort bliss, texas. up next, former dnc chairman ed rendell joins us for a spin cycle as we roll on for friday, august 31. [ kate ] many women may not be properly absorbing

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mr. chairman and delegates, i accept your nomination for president at united states. >> that's mitt romney formally accepting his party's nomination for president in a night of compelling moments for those of us in the room. from inspiring olympians to grateful business owners and moving testimonials from romney's former parishioners and friends, it was a well-choreographed energizing show that was building great momentum. that is until clint eastwood took the stage. more on that later.

first, i want to bring in former dnc chairman, ed rendell. welcome, governor. i was there in tampa. and my impression of the night was that it was building in a very well-choreographed way. you had these testimonial, people speaking on behalf of mitt romney, to his character, to his faith, to his business acum acumen, to his patriotism. and it was all working, putting clint eastwood aside. what i thought was interesting is if you compare it back to the dnc obama speech of 2008 where he didn't really have a lot of those personal testimonials because clearly obama is very comfortable talking about himself and his life and he connects very well with an audience when he's doing that. mitt, as we know, has a trickier time. what did you make of the night and then finally capped off by romney's speech itself? >> well, i thought they blew a huge opportunity by actually lousy choreographing.

you want, especially in a candidate who you really need to get the american people to learn about, to learn what's in his gut, you want those testimonials from people who knew him and people he helped, you want that very good ten-minute video. you want those to be saen scene -- seen by the maximum amount of americans. that's the people watching on tv between the hours of 10:00 and 11:00. the fox viewers are a tenth of the office and the political junkies who already have their minds made up. but for those americans tuning in other networks, you wanted the video to be shown. you wanted a couple of those testimonials. you wanted mitt romney. marco rubio, great speech. it was about marco rubio. it was about marco rubio and why he's a great guy and what a great country this is because of marco rubio. didn't add a thing to the mix. eastwood, talking about a

disaster of huge proportions. if the democrats put a hollywood star on who insulted the republican incumbent president, there would have been a revolution in the country today. so they blew it on the choreography. and governor romney blew what i thought was starting out to be a great a-plus speech. 65% through the speech, he'd connected, he'd done a good job and even in a simplistic way laid out his economic plan. but then he goes into foreign policy. you don't have to tick off every box in a speech. the foreign policy stuff was scary. >> i have to tell you, in the room, it really worked. krystal, what were your -- >> doesn't matter in the room. we're not talking for the people in the room. we're talking for the people watching. >> the folks in the room are delegates and essentially supposed to be representative of the party. so that they bought it was good news. we can talk about who saw it and the television theatrics of it. but it went over really well.

>> but the speech is never for the base, never for the people in the room. you have to understand who you're talking to. you're talking to undecided voters. you're talking to suburban women. those are the women you're talking to. >> i understand. >> doing a great job until you started talking about iran and russia. and it conjured up -- are we going to war with iran? >> hopefully we're not. >> are we going to have a cold war with russia again. i think that was a huge, huge mistake in the speech. i gave the speech high marks except for that part of it. >> to your point, i think that's emblematic of the convention as a whole. there were individually very strong speeches. >> absolutely. >> strong moments. i think within governor romney's speech, the part where he was talking personally was very powerful. >> terrific. >> but overall, the convention lacked a building of a narrative, a theme. it lacked theater, drama, romance. as i was thinking about it, i was wondering, how exactly does a convention get put together?

is it more the campaign? is it more the party? what's the interaction there, if you could take us a bit behind the scenes? >> it's 100% the campaign. the campaign takes over the party. once the nominee is assured in april for romney, the romney forces come in and they take over the rnc and they run the convention. i was the dnc chair. and when gore and bradley were fighting it out, i made all the decisions. as soon as gore because the nominee, i was like a hired hand. and you understand that. so the campaign did it and the campaign made the mistake of putting clint eastwood in. the campaign made the mistake of allowing chris christie to make a speech which was angry, hostile and didn't mention mitt romney until minute 14 because they approved all of those speeches. they should have said, huh-uh, you start out your speech talking about governor romney. you don't talk about governor christie. talk about governor romney.

we're not here to audition for 2016. we're here to win 2012. >> governor, i hear you there and i think we can find from sort of -- you want to be the theater critic, we can find a lot of faults in how the week went off. the point i made at the start of this week was that conventions in general and more specifically acceptance speeches from presidential nominees are very hard to screw up. i can't look back at the modern era except for george mcgovern getting forced out of primetime -- i can't think of one of these things getting seriously screwed up. i don't think the story coming out of romney's speech is that swing voters are going to get scared off by the foreign policy -- >> the story is that it was a great speech. >> it was a speech that proves these things can't be mucked up. but what stood out to me was he did not aspire in this speech to be anything more than generic. the calculation here was, we're going to put a little foreign policy in, a little bit of the personal in, we're going to tick off all the basic criticisms of

obama we've been making for four years. there was talk about a week ago that the romney campaign was re-evaluating its strategy and saying, we can't just rely on the bad economy, we have to show more. that speech he delivered last night was the speech of a guy who thinks he can rely on the economy and voters are looking for confident enough in the alternative. >> i think you're exactly right. and there's something to that strategy. and the speech was good enough from an emotional standpoint that my guess is the polls are taken this weekend and on monday as we start our convention, the democrats, we'll have the republicans up three, four points. i think there will be a bounce because mitt romney met the most important hurdle. it was mitt romney convincing the american people, the people tuning in that he's a real person and has real emotions and thinks the way they do. the part that he did that was so good, i thought, you hit on the -- his mom and dad. but talk about the part, five kids in bed in the morning. every american -- >> totally agree.

>> you're right, governor. and it was humanizing to a certain point. but with a national candidate, i like to be inspired. a guy who's comfortable his own skin. but more than that, a guy who's going to tickle my heart a little bit. and last night, there was a romney moment that did move me that did tickle my heart, that made me say, i would vote for that, run that clip. >> i'm in public life today because i'm concerned about america. i'm concerned about what's happening to america. >> that guy looks exciting, he's got grit. he's got fire in the belly. i'd vote for that guy. why can't mitt give us a little bit more of that? >> because that's not who he is. guys, you have to stay within who you are because otherwise you look phony. >> so true. >> the business with mitt and ann saying they'd love shopping at costco and that mitt ironed his shirts -- did you see the david letterman bit where they

ran it -- when i was running for pennsylvania, the big city mayor of philadelphia, my folks wanted me to don overalls and milk a cow. i said, absolutely not. >> good for you. that's the right answer. >> i said absolutely not. i am who i am, i'm a big city mayor. but i learned more about agriculture. by the end of that campaign, i could talk about manure dige digesters as good as anyone in the state. >> thanks, governor rendell. >> thanks, guys. >> last night was just a preview of the fight nights to come. james fallow is the author of "slugfest" and joins us next. which candidate is best trained for the debates to come? on every one of our cards there's a date.

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the race is super close and has been for months. the final round will be decided by a series of fights. a.k.a., the debates. the great writer james fallows has watched every moment and thinks we are in for a serious battle. both men are strong fighters. two men enter, one president leaves. he writes about it in his excellent cover story "slugfest," which appears in the september issue of "the atlantic." james, an honor to have you on the show. you're a great writer. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. thanks for having me. >> what are the strengths and weaknesses of each of these men, as debaters? >> i think first it's worth mentioning why these debates matter in contrast to the convention performance we've seen and we're going to get for the next week. the speech that mitt romney gave last night was one of his big moments in presenting himself to the public at large. the other one comes when he's face to face with the sitting president on the debate stage.

and to me, the surprising aspect of going back through mitt romney's debate tapes is he's actually better at this kind of performance than any of the other sort of performance arts of politics. i think he gave a good speech last night but he's not a born platform orator. but he is better as being able to advance attacks on the debate stage and rebut them if he's prepared than in other parts of his rhetorical arsenal. >> one of the interesting points you make is you could judge who wins the debate with the sound jo soundoff, the nonlingual cues. >> we would like to think the debates are something from logic class, where you're parsing carefully the arguments one way or the other. but in fact the moments that seem to matter, the times when we judge the people as people, we see how jfk looked versus richard nixon. we saw bill clinton and a

tired-looking first president bush. al gore overhandling himself against the second george bush. >> james, during the republican primary debates, romney had a particularly awkward moment that you talked about in the piece. i want to play that clip now. >> i'm just saying. you were for individual mandates, my friend. >> you know what, you've raised that before, rick. and -- >> it was true then. it's true now. >> i'll tell you what -- 10,000 bucks? $10,000 bet? >> i'm not in the betting business but i'll show you the book. >> i've got the book. >> i sort of still cringe watching it. but it brings up something you talk about, which is that romney is at his worst when he's caught off guard and the rules wouldar being followed. there are two styles of debate, there's the set stage debate and

then there's the town hall format, which is a bit more free flowing and loose. do you think the town hall format would advantage the president more? >> yes, i think the range from his best to his worst is wider than it is for most of the candidates. when prepared, he's actually good. he knows how to stay on message and advance these attacks. but when he has to improvise, it often brings out the worst in him. we've seen it on stump appearances and in the clip you just showed. the more things are beyond control, the more he runs the risk of being in the same situation the first president george bush was during that famous town hall encount we are bill clinton where a woman was asking him about the deficit. he didn't understand she really was talking about the economy. bill clinton did understand that. went over and talked with her. i think that's the kind of situation the romney team is trying to think their way around. >> james, you also make a point in the piece that debates are

not obama's strongest suit. and i think if we all remember back to 2008, some awkward moments when obama's put on the defensive, he starts to take on the worst color that conservatives like to attribute to him. he gets a little condescending, a little patronizing. do you think mitt romney will bring that out in him? or do you think he's learned over the past few years to temper that a bit? >> well, certainly there's one of president obama, then candidate obama's weaknesses that he has corrected now. then, he wasn't really deeply knowledgeable on as many policy issues as hillary clinton was, just because she'd been on the public stage much longer. she was trying to draw him into detailed discussions. he's had four years to learn the details of every policy. but i think the very fact of being president, regardless of party, whoever's in that office, there is a kind of imperial consciousness that like it or not seeps into all of their presentations. i'm sure the debate prep on the

obama side involves how to avoid that and how to try to evoke the similar regal potential in mitt romney's personality. >> i wondered about that. i remember watching the debates in '07 and '08 and thinking, obama really not a good debater. it seemed a lot of times to me like hillary clinton was almost walking all over him in those debates. i wonder if the sort of style to me was a liability for him then will play differently and will work differently in general election debates now where the lack of assertiveness was an issue before but now there's sort of a dignity of the office, we might look at him differently. if he shows the same personality now, maybe it's interpreted now more as maturity. >> that's a very good point. i was watching on the segment you had before with the president at fort bliss. he looks the part. there's a gravitas that gives him -- which can be to his advantage.

the ways in which we think of barack obama as being eloquent is usually in large set piece orations that go on for 20 or 30 minutes which is different from the sharp comeback that he sometimes has been able to master but sometimes it takes him longer to get the answer out than you want in a debate format. but in this setting, that could work better for him than it did four years ago. >> james, thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. up next, the good, the bad and the ugly. our teasing finally comes to an end. we're finally going to talk clint eastwood. stay tuned. two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help people and businesses who were affected, and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy --

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[ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. our teams have the information you want when you need it. it's another reason more investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. we appreciated clint's support. he's a unique guy and he did a unique thing last night. >> you seemed to be surprised by clint eastwood's performance as the camera took a cutaway of you. >> i didn't know it was coming. again, i can tell you, we're grateful for everyone's support and especially grateful for what a great night it was last night. >> that was very polite. but ann romney's face last night, i think, channeled the reaction of just about everybody in america who was watching that. clint eastwood, the man with no name, sparring and rambling on to a chair with no occupant.

>> mr. president, how do you handle promises that you've made when you were running for election and how do you handle it? what do you say to people? do you just -- i know people -- people are wondering -- you don't answer it. okay. i'm not going to shut up. it's my turn. >> by now you've likely seen that eastwood moment caused people to call it ooeding. we decided we'd get in on the fun here. we'll show you some of our eastwooding antics. telestart with toure who's locked in a heated argument with a chair in his office there. not sure who's winning that one. s.e. was sort of trying to play the parent on the playground,

getting down to the level of the chair there -- >> heart to heart. >> have a heart-to-heart chat. that's a nice, tender moment there. i like krystal's. krystal was channeling michelle obama, got on the couch for -- trying to get into the soul of the chair there, i think. and i think succeeded. >> it was a special moment. >> you're good at that. when it was my turn, it was a little uncomfortable and a little awkward because i got, i think, a really good point across. i was feeling good about myself. and then the chair got really frustrated and it actually jumped up and attacked me. it took a while to fight off. >> did you win the fight with the chair? >> it was a draw. >> lost to an inanimate object. >> i think the chair was on the juice. i don't want to say -- >> nice. >> i don't want to impugn his competitive integrity. so much we could say. s.e., you were down there last night. i assume when you hit the afterparties afterwards, the

chair made an appearance or two? >> yeah, unfortunately this derailed the entire theme. all the momentum was gone. i don't remember what marco rubio said because i was still trying to figure out what the hell just happened when clint eastwood took the stage. as this rumor was being floated throughout the week, i was not on board from the beginning because i don't think -- >> of clint eastwood at all? >> right. i didn't think that having an old white guy on the stage was another thing we needed, frankly. this wasn't going to reach a new audience. and frankly this is what conservatives do. they get sort of distracted by the shiny new toy in any hollywood celebrity that comes our way. and we either have to say, we don't care what any actor has to say about politics, or we care about what they all have to say about politics. but we can't get obsessed and excited when some celebrity comes along and says, i like you. and then give them that kind of platform. a fistful of dollars. i wanted a fistful of sigh nycyy the end of that.

put me to sleep, i never want to wake up ever again. >> my first thought was, i wonder what s.e. was thinking about that. >> did you really think i was going to be into it? >> no. but you mentioned marco rubio. and i think he is actually in a way the biggest loser on this because he gave a great speech. it was about marco rubio, it wasn't particularly about mitt romney. but he gave a great speech. >> really good. >> and like you, my head had just exploded. so i couldn't pay attention to the speech. >> he was the biggest loser of the night because it was a great speech. i rewatched it again and it was amazing, actually. didn't even matter. >> i thought clint eastwood was going to come out and be that tough guy and do that chrysler ad. and it was more like, dad, go back to your room. the hair looks a mess. you seem senile, you're stuttering, can't get your lines out right. it was a total mess. it would be nice to have an actual contest of ideas. but the last two weeks, the republicans have had three split

screens in that they had to get derailed by akin, derailed by isaac. now we're supposed to be talking about romney and we're having fun talking about clint eastwood. and they did this one to themselves. >> it was a really bad decision. and i don't think this was vetted. i think he showed up, said, give me a chair. and they said, okay, mr. eastwood. we're so excited for you to be here. >> i have to say this. we talked in the run-up to the convention about how conventions aren't fun or interesting anymore. they're not relevant anymore. >> is this a silver lining. >> i think the silver lining -- i think the republicans have created a -- we have the presidential acceptance, the vice presidential acceptance. we now have a new component of conventions. the mystery guest. >> we already have the poor man's clint eastwood in jon voight. >> we go to charlotte next week. the democrats now need theirs. i put the question out. i'm building to something here. i put the question out on twitter. i said, who do you want to be

the democrats' star? and by far, the runaway favorite, betley white. then i looked up her date of birth. she's 91. she's ineligible. i had to pick a nominee to be the mystery guest at next week's democratic convention. and i and i decided, the legend of yiddish theatre. the 1994 emmy winner. the only 80s something actor i could think of. i said this is the answer. >> know better than to put somebody -- >> can you imagine the outrage that would happen the next day if the democrats had anyone from hollywood come on stanl and tell weird sex jokes to an empty chair about mitt romney? it would be unbelievable. >> about the president of the united states? that's not what he's about. >> for lots of mormons in that room, it was completely inappropriate. >> we didn't let our chairs get in. i'm sorry for that.

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fact or fiction. 20 something get involved in politics hoping to make a difference and becomes disillusioned. the story line is certainly one that i can personally relate to. joining us now is bridgette siegel, who has worked on

hillary clinton's run. she's the author of domestic affairs, a campaign novel. it takes us out on the trail and gives us a real world view of what it takes to raise big campaign cash. something that's very relevant this election cycle. what sort of inspired the book? what did you want to accomplish with it? >> i worked on campaigns for ten years and there's so many moments on campaigns when you say this could be a book. this could be fiction. it just as i wrote it, it turned into something that i wanted to give people a little bit of insight hopefully on to campaign life and then more specifically, into the fund raising on these huge campaigns. >> so, speaking of that, people ask me after i ran for congress for a while, they asked me how did i recover and the answer was no. i came to realize that i would never recover. i just wasn't the same person on the other side and i was wondering if you had that same

experience. >> unfortunately, i'm still optimistic and still believe in politics, but yeah, you get so burned out that it is almost unrecoverable. just the hours and going through it all and seeing what you have to and especially now, you're up against so much money. everything you say is a 30 second blurb. as everyone who gets into it, not for the blurb, but for the substance and to make a difference. >> so, how much has the fund raising game changed since you got out? >> i think it's changed a ton because of citizens united. it changed while i was in it. we got mccain feingold, which really lowered the amount people could give and then you have citizens united, which has just blown the the whole thing open and it's not just that people can give, that those donations

can be anonymous. that has really overhauled the system and they announced last week they've sent more on the campaign advertising already than in the entire election last time. >> i think money an politics is sort of krubting even if you are a good person, an idealistic person that gets into this. this is a big question, can you be an effective politician and still be really ethical? >> i believe you can. i really do. i've had a lot of candidates who have stuck to their ethics, but i think if this stands and if these million dollar contin contributions continue, it will be harder to do that. >> thanks for your insight and now, toure, we turn the table over to you for your final

thoughts on what everyone is talking about today. >> dirty harry, 40 long years before he embarrassed himself at the rnc. >> i can't tell they do that. can't do that to himself. you're absolutely crazy. >> that was the weirdest thing i've ever seen at a political convention in my entire life and it will be the weirdest thing i've ever seen if i live to be 100. >> the experiment failed miserably, but i think it was a solid nd in theory. the characters formed the embodiment of the republican party. they are the strong, silent type. men from the old, old school who are immovable. fearless good guys about strength, resolve and restoring justice. eastwood is walking americana.

>> this country can't be knocked out with one punch. we get right back up again and when we do, the world's going to hear the roar of our engines. yeah, it's halftime, america and our second half's about to begin. >> romney wants to be the new eastwood, the new strong, silent type who rolls into a messed up place and sets things right. he doesn't talk about himself and his feelings. he just wants to get the job done. whether or not you like him doesn't matter, but if eastwood is the embodiment of the gop, who symbolizes the democrats? i polled the whole cycle team and the con ssensus was -- >> i came here for you. when i get on with my life, i want you with me. >> george clooney. smart, suave, sexy and more likely to charm you than to pick up a gun. that's the obama clinton vision of being a