no matter who wins and who loses in the election in november, the people cannot lose the sacred right to vote in this country. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. msnbc special coverage of the democratic national convention starts now. the republicans kept their party's last president far away from their convention. but the democrats tonight put their last president in the primest of primetime. tonight night two of the democratic convention puts the famous clinton/obama drama to work for the democratic campaign. and the auto bailout. elizabeth warren, the nuns on the bus, planned parenthood, mitt romney's bain capital legacy, and not in a good way. an undocumented immigrant speaking for the first time in

convention history. if last night was for the first lady and tomorrow is for the president, tonight is all about hardball politics. msnbc's primetime coverage of the democratic national convention night two begins right now. thank you for joining us. i'm rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters in new york. i'm with ed shultz and reverend al sharpton and chris hayes as well as steve schmidt. our fence lawrence o'donnell will be joining us shortly as well. and leading our coverage from charlotte, north carolina, from the site of the democratic convention this year is our friend and colleague chris matthews and a lot of his friends who he is there with.

chris, you're a very popular man in charlotte tonight. i've got to you if tonight is essentially afterglow from michelle obama's speech or is there a separate second night agenda for the democrats here leading up to the bill clinton speech? >> rachel, it looked for awhile there there were two versions of the democratic party. there was the clinton version and the barack obama version. that was a wrong perception a lot of us had. there are, in fact, two complimentary parts to the democratic party. the clinton part and the obama part. when they are together, it is a robust political party. when they are separated by division or bad feeling, they are not a strong political party. the clinton case has to come back for obama to win. it looks like it's coming back starting tonight. >> chris, are there any substantive differences between those two parts of the party you're talking about? any differences between clinton and obama that either need to be resolved or glossed over in

order to make this sort of remarriage tonight work for the president? >> i don't know if it comes down to policy, but it certainly comes down to politics. bill clinton the day he was elected president in 1992 called a business conference down in little rock and brought in all the business people and said we're going to work together. barack obama has not been that friendly to business. he has basically said we have an unfair tax structure, unfair national policy and i'm going to fix it. that is burdensome to people in new york and people with wealth in this country. so in terms of the politics, clinton had him on the team obama has to win them back. >> what obama is proposing is going back to the clinton era deal. >> yes. ironically, he's giving them no worser deal than bill clinton gave them back to the mid-30s, high-30s for the top bracket. reasonable taxation. just taxation many of us believe. and nothing worse than bill

clinton. it's interesting how bill sold it better than obama has. >> that's exactly right. chris, i want to bring in chuck todd from inside the convention hall. he's been reporting earlier this evening when there was a changed sort of unexpected and sudden change to the party platform after some criticism of changes the democrats made this year. what do you know? >> look, it was a little bit of a back track. and the way the story is unfolding now is apparently president obama wanted to personally intercede in this. here's what happened. the new party platform had no mention of the word god and had taken out a phrase that had been in the democratic party platform for the last couple of cycles. stating that jerusalem was to be -- that the support of jerusalem as the capital of israel. overnight republicans had been making hay about this. and apparently the president was very upset about the fact that there was no mention of the word god in the platform.

he doesn't understand why that was done in the first place. then of course there was a lot of people upset a lot of people in the jewish democratic community upset about the removal of jerusalem. already this has been a touchy subject. we know republicans are trying to exploit this idea that somehow president obama is less than supportive of israel, less than an ally of israel. so any little thing can get blown up. the campaign basically forced this change. and rachel, there was a bit of drama. and he can say whatever he wants. when he said i need -- you know, put these amendments up about god and about jerusalem and do i hear a yea? then on god do i hear any noes? the noes were so loud he had to ask it again. then he banged the gavel and said i hear a 2/3 vote. it's by rule of the chair.

if you actually heard the yeas and the noes on this change when it came to god, it's hard to say that it was a 2/3 vote but that's the power of the gavel and the chair. and rachel, this all came from the obama campaign and in some cases president obama personally. they wanted to sweep this under the rug. >> now it's a sort of bookend to what happened with the republican convention when they had their -- not their platform change but rules change. that would effect the way the delegates are allocated and how much power a front runner will have in the primary. and john boehner was the antonio in a the case hearing this no and saying i hear it pass. >> 2/3, it passes, time to move on. nothing to see here. wave the magic hand. it just shows you how nervous -- when you think about the swing states let's just randomly pull out florida -- how nervous they are. any little vote. you know, they want to get 75% of the jewish vote. anything under 75% that could

move a state like florida. >> thanks for the insight on that. i want to bring andrea mitchell on this as well. i believe we have her on the floor as well. what can you tell us? >> right now interestly the head of the aflcio is the head speaker. and the fact the labor groups are here is awkward. they were not happy when charlotte was picked. this is a non-union town and non-union state. they made their peace with it. but labor is no longer as big a part of the coalition. one of the big organizing and get out the vote or registration efforts they were attempting to do here was going to take place tomorrow. they were planning to go person to person among the 65,000 people who had lined up to get into that stadium. and now the bank of america stadium can no longer be the venue. they waited to the last minute. they had to pull the plug.

they saw the weather forecast for thunderstorms. and they knew they could not risk endangering thousands and thousands of people who could get trapped in that bad weather. they had to move it back here in the arena. they haven't figured out how to stage the president's speech here tomorrow night because they no longer have the excitement of an open air statement to recreate the magic of denver four years ago. they also worry there isn't enough enthusiasm. and they thought with that stadium they could register and get people ready to register to vote and also create the imagery for the general public. and one quick thing, they won't be able to have a balloon drop tomorrow night. they can't get the balloon drop organized in time. so we don't know quite yet how they're going to make this look like a grand finale. >> andrea, let me ask you about the rejoinder that the republicans had to this announcement today. they responded essentially

instantaneously implicitly questioning whether weather was actually the reason they were doing this. essentially saying maybe the democrats couldn't actually fill up that big stadium and that's why they were moving it. from talking to the democrats about this today from reporting this out, did you get any sense, any indication it was anything other than weather that caused the democrats to move this inside? is it possible the republicans' claims are right? >> in fact, we've talked to a lot of people including people who were lined up and disappointed. and the fact is they say they had 65,000 people plus 19,000 people wait listed. and if the measure of enthusiasm is the measure of excitement on the floor last night, you saw the difference. just the real involvement of the delegates. they were here early, listened to all the early speeches. they weren't out partying in the early hours. this is a different vibe here. there's no lack of enthusiasm in charlotte for this convention. >> thank you.

we know it's going to be a very late night tonight too. take advantage of the enthusiasm. hopefully some of that will translate into stamina. now let's go to lawrence o'donnell who is in charlotte as well. he's been on the floor talking to people involved in the elements of this. we're hearing about the platform change today for the democrats, the schedule change tomorrow for the democrats in terms of the president's big speech. is any of that effecting the overall enthusiasm level or what seems important inside the hall tonight? >> it's not effecting any enthusiasm here. i'm with the virginia delegation now. i found the two best bumper stickers in the state of thirz. these are real virginia license plates. that belong on their cars. they use them and will be driving around virginia with those. that's an indicator of the level of enthusiasm and the commitment in this room. rachel, on the platform, this

kind of thing happens all the time. i remember there was an incident many years ago, senator moynahan was reading through an enhanced draft of the platform and saw the word poverty did not appear. that was caught in time so there wasn't any public controversy about it. these kind of omissions and misplaced notions that slip in and out of platforms happen all the time. this one was absolutely standard. and the fix by the chair was absolutely standard too. that whole voice vote game has always been just a game when it comes to the convention. and as for tomorrow night, there is real disappointment among all the people who were going to have access to the appearance in the stadium tomorrow night. that was the big challenge for the obama campaign. will they hurt themselves in their ground game in north carolina by disappointing all of those people who won't be in that stadium tomorrow night?

if you were here, rachel, to witness the violence of last night's rains, i don't know how they could have made any other call. if rain like that fell before or during the event tomorrow night, it would have been disastrous. >> thank you for that perspective. thinking about 65,000 people in that stadium, you think well how do we extrapolate the importance of that number of the people who would really be there to the election. would filling the stadium make a difference? what was the margin of victory for barack obama in north carolina in 2008? it was 14,000. >> i remember talking to an organizer outside the stadium in denver before the event. and realizing talking to her and when i told her i was press 15 minutes in, she freaked out because they're not allowed to talk to reporters. they got the capture of the data of the names ae e-mail addresses of everyone that walked in that door. that's 80,000 fresh names to go to for donations, for volunteer

shifts, to get people to drive to the polls. right? it was a huge, brilliant organizing undertaking. the interesting thing is here they probably captured all that data already even if it's canceled. so the mission is accomplished from an organizing perspective. >> they got the data because they'd already begun issuing the tickets. i think they have to now take back some of the tickets because of the smaller venue. i think on the platform a couple things came up. one, unlike -- if you remember, romney distanced himself from his platform. rather than change the platform and stand up to whatever he agrees with they said that's the party, not the candidate. so i think what you saw in contrast is president obama saying no if this is going to be the platform of my party, i want

god in it and correct jerusalem. whether one agrees or not, he's not running away from his platform. i think because since they were making it known that it is the president and campaign that wants the changed. here's a president that openly goes to church, that is very much devout. i've been in meetings with him. so he's not just doing this during election time. he has a spiritual life. and i think the jerusalem question there was an op-ed piece in the "new york times" saying he's a friend to israel. they've tried to create this facade. rather than doing the romney saying that's the platform, not mine. if he made the changes it's a real contrast. >> just one second. on the -- is there a bipartisan sort of strategic answer to whether it's better to challenge the platform and get it in line with the candidate or whether it's better to not hold the

candidate accountable for what's in the platform? >> i think it's better not to hold the candidate accountable for what's in the platform. many times candidates for president say i'm running on my platform not the party's platform. it's a statement of the candidate's beliefs entirely. this was an unforced error. i wouldn't want to be the campaign aide on the receiving end of the phone call from the president. it's a potent issue. among the voters that the president has to make gains with, that he has to improve in, you look at states like ohio, pennsylvania, you look at florida. i'm sure the president was very angry about that tonight. and the images of the booing and shouting down over the questions it got are something they'll make hay with. i don't think it's going to determine the outcome of the election, but i think it is a bump in the road after a flawless first night. >> platform it is are important, but they're not etched in stone and they're not in concrete dried. the universal health care was in the platform of the democratic

party in denver of 2008. it never made it to the table. that was a big thing they campaigned on around the country. it was in the platform. it never made it to the table. i think that this whole issue with israel and the support of the president goes back -- and i'll be the one to say it -- goes back to the battle that hillary clinton and barack obama had way early on. there was a whisper campaign here in new york where she was the senator that barack obama was not going to be a good ally of israel. that was a whisper campaign that dogged the obama campaign early on for some time. he knew he was going to have to deal with it down the road. and he has done that. now not to have proper language puts him in a position. i think the president showed leadership today, stepped forward, got it right. we're going to put that behind us. he just didn't -- that's not the case.

benjamin netanyahu has said he's a good ally. >> he had the choice of doing what romney did saying that's not my platform i'm on my own or changing the platform. that was the choice he had. >> it's a substantively terrible decision. it's a capitulation that empowers the worst elements in the people that are working on this issue. i mean, if you read this platform, there is not a single condition put on israel and palestine section. there is a restriction that they must accept the rights et cetera, nothing about the settlements. if the thern government wants to move the embassy to jerusalem, there have been plenty of opportunities for democrats and republicans to do that. they have not done that because it's a terrible idea of getting a lasting peace between these two. >> but you're talking about something else, chris. we're not talking about our views. >> i know. i just want to get on the record it's a bad issue.

>> the president doing what romney wouldn't do. these are his views. whether we agree or not. in some areas we may disagree with the president, but he made sure they reflected his views. i accept steve saying maybe the candidate shouldn't be responsible, but steve's candidate did start attacking him on this platform after they did not stand up and do the same. so last week it wasn't my platform. this week obama's responsible for it. switch and bait has got to be the theme of the republican party. >> it's a stark difference in the way both candidates handle differences with their platform. i will make one note on it. on the god side of it. the platform before being changed today may not have had the word g-o-d in it but it had things like a full commitment is for the essential continuing flourishing of faith and country. faith has been an essential part of the american story and driving through history. our lives are made vastly

stronger and richer by faith. so they use faith instead of god. which of course was a scandal. for a reason -- because this is an even number year. >> don't feed the trolls. >> fair enough. there are some changes ahead tonight in terms of the business of the actual convention. the actual nomination process for the president. in tampa you might remember the republicans got the nomination of mitt romney out of the way on the first day of the convention in the afternoon before anybody was really paying attention. in conventions past, they have it be a dramatic thing with the roll calls from all the states leading up to the speech by the nominee himself. but tonight the democrats are going to do their actual nominating process after bill clinton. so in the 10:00 hour tonight with the network coverage and everything, 10:00 p.m. eastern that's elizabeth warren, she'll give her speech. then bill clinton will give his speech and formally put in president obama's name for nomination. then after president clinton's

speech, the democrat wills do the state by state roll call rolling out of 11:00 p.m. hour up through the midnight. they will be up all night shouting out the votes. it's kind of weird scheduling, but if you are a night owl it will be fun to watch. i hope you'll stay with us here all night on the live coverage of the democratic national convention. it's always unexpected. we'll be right back. >> for 25 years it has been my privilege to represent the city of san francisco and the great state of california. welcome aboard! [ chuckles ] ♪ a

this election offers the clearest choice of our time. many names are on the ballot. so too on the ballot is the character of our country. why is that? medicare is on the ballot. democrats will preserve and strengthen medicare. republicans will end the medicare guarantee. it's just plain wrong. when you go to the polls, vote for medicare. vote for president obama. >>m nancy pelosi addressing the delegates. it's one thing about these conventions this year that saw the early speakers, the first part of the schedule at the republican convention talking to empty rooms or rooms in which

people had their backs to this podium. in this case when the democrats are speaking even the very early speakers, people are in their seats already paying attention and reacting as if this is deep into primetime. it's hard to adjust to know what they're trying to build up to. one other thing that's different about these conventions this year is the republican party not much wanting to talk about social issues. even as they have been super aggressive in governing those issues while obama has been in office. republicans fought tooth and nail against repealing don't ask, don't tell. using taxpayer funds to get rid of deference of marriage act. and they picked two heart liners on those issues for their presidential and vice presidential nominees. that does not mean they have wanted to talk about this stuff

at thinker convention. democrats not wanting to split their own voters on issues like this. but this year it has been different. because this year through the influence of the tea party and the presidential primary process on the republican side, republican politics particularly on women's issues entered all new territory. >> one of the things i will talk about that no president has talked about before is i think the dangers of contraception in this country and the whole libb libb libbertine idea. many say well that's okay. contraception is okay. it's not okay. rick santorum the candidate who won the iowa caucuses this time around talked about how he would use the power of the presidency to crack down on birth control. there's always been a crack down on the aint-abortion movement. they had a person hood amendment to criminalize all abortion and the most popular forms of birth

control and in vitro fertilizati fertilization. person hood lost in mississippi by double digits. but for their vice presidential nominee, the republican party picked a congressman who proposed the law for the country. and into that climate, the obama administration launched their new health insurance rule this year requiring health insurance plans to cover contraception. that was already the law in the majority of states and would not have been controversial in most years. but when rick santorum's winning iowa and the anti-contraception forces are out of the fringe and into mainstream politics, it ended up being a fire storm. so tonight sandra fluke, a law student who was denounced on talk radio as a slut for speaking in favor of the new insurance rule. she's been introducing president obama at events this year. she's going to be speaking tonight in primetime. also planned parenthood who has had their funding stripped or

threatened by republicans in congress and mitt romney himself, the planned parenthood president is speaking tonight at the convention in primetime. another supporter speaking tonight in planned parenthood. another spoke last night in primetime. this is not the democrats' typical quiet way of dealing with this issue. this is unusual. that is because this has been an unusual year for the republicans on this issue as well. melissa harris-perry joins us now. when you've been talking to people about what democrats are trying to do, how central is this issue of the womens votes? >> i am wearing a button that says uterus. which just cracked me up. in fact, one of the joys of political conventions is the political theater, buttons are part of that. you can learn a lot from what delegates think is important by looking at the kinds of buttons. in fact, there's been a lot here around issues of women's

reproductive rights. you can definitely tell that folks are fired up on that question. but i think part of what's interesting to me particularly based on what you just said is we're going to hear from former president bill clinton tonight. and of course clinton is very much part of that moment in the democratic party where the way to gain votes was by creating distance with communities of color, creating distance on issues of lbgt rights. that's where don't ask, don't tell comes from. it's interesting to watch this very successful two term president be here to speak. but also we're in a different democratic party. one that is not holding at arm's length exactly those groups. instead we're wearing uterus buttons. >> since the democrats -- since bill clinton and since before bill clinton have avoided talking about social issues, they've taken a different stance on this from the republican party, but they have not campaigned on it nationally. because they haven't done that, are they rusty? are they not good at talking

about it? or is the kind of appeals they're making on this issue likely to be more beneficial to them than alienating to the voting base? >> actually, i don't think they're rusty. quite the opposite. in fact, i think many sort of local and state level democrats were talking about these issues. but the issue was that at the national level, the presidential level, the idea that the social issues were too hot, that the trend was more to the right. and therefore folks felt muzzled. i think actually my sense is more what we heard from deval patrick last night saying this ask a time for democrats to distinguish themselves. when he talked about growing a backbone idea, i think part of what he was saying was unleash us. we've already had these positions. we've already had a policy and platform and successes and protecting women's reproductive rights. let's campaign on the very things we've been governing doing.

>> melissa harris-perry, thank you. we'll check back in with you shortly. ed, let me ask you about this common wisdom that seems to have eroded this year. that democrats shouldn't talk about social issues. there's more downside risk to them than upside benefit. people who like, for example, abortion rights and want them to be protected they're going to vote democratic anyway. if you talk about it too much, you're going to alienate people. >> rachel, there's a lot of things in rural america that are hard to change. red states are red states. we're talking about a long time of turning the thinking about o. we're talking about the people who believe that barack obama's a muslim or not a christian. we're talking about people who are not quite sure about whether he's american enough. and this is exactly why the republicans in their little circles continue to raise these flags and whatnot. and a lot of those people are just as staunch on the social issues. and they'll vote against their own best interests. it is very frustrating to a lot of democrats out there trying to

break the communication barrier to almost shake them and say, look. you're voting against your own issues. you're hung up on social issue. but now i think there's been a real opening this year for the democrats. and to go down the road of fairness with the women's issue and it goes right to pay. let's start with pay before we get to -- let's start we quality. let's start with a voice. let's talk about fairness. and i think it gives the democrats a different path to approach this subject. i think they may be more suchl with it. sandra fluke really is exactly what the democrats are looking for because she's going to talk about fairness. she's going to talk about her individuality. the democrats are the ones who have been the best party over the years for women's rights. and here they are being walked right into an opportunity tonight to gather a lot of independent and suburban women. that's where president obama is really going to have to score. that could be the real decider

in november. >> i think when contraception became the issue, that's when the democrats decided oh, you know what? forget it. everyone says don't talk about it, it's going to alienate people. it's going to bring over more people who want to defend the right to contraception. >> interestingly, i think the reporting that both i've done and i've seen on the hhs decision was that they weren't looking to pick a big fight on that issue. >> the administration wasn't. >> yeah. the administration was not looking to pick a fight. the bishops were looking to pick a big fight. what's remarkable about that moment is the fight started with the right really thinking -- i think they thought this is a layup. this is what we do. we built an entire structure to win these fights over 30 years. then all of a sudden they found themselves losing it. i think they did lose it in erm thes of polling and what it's meant for the brand of both parties going forward. >> i think the democrats had to deal with some of these social issues or they would have appeared to be cowards. i mean, it's easy to say in

normal times to stay out of the social issues. we're in a climate where you call a woman a slut for standing up on a central issue on health care? where you have governors proposing invading women with ultrasounds? i mean, this is extreme stuff that either you're going to stand up and take a position or you appear cowards to your own base. so i think their hand was forced by the extremism of the other side. if you have any principles at all you've got to say wait a minute. this is ridiculous. >> i have long been a person whining from the left on this issue that democrats didn't take -- press their advantage that they ought to have not just for women voters but other people offend by these issues that they had an advantage and wouldn't work it because they were afraid. this is the year i got to stop whining about that as a liberal. not just the litany of speakers

but the democrats now are walking out on stage. you can see every democratic woman in the senate. they're going to be highlighting the number of candidates they have got women candidates. >> there's another issue here. we should point out. there are a lot of pro-life democrats. a lot. so to go overboard on this issue is a fine line for the democrats. but when you get into the arena of contraception, then you get into the real everyday life of a woman and the health issues that go along with it. that's a new area of the conversation. that's where the republicans made a miscalculation. >> i don't think there's a majority constituency in this country that supports abortion, elective abortions, and a second trimester, third trimester with no restrictions. the issue and the overreach is on the issue of contraception. for a party that believes in limited government, limited government conservatives who are crying that the individual

mandate has put tyranny on our doorsteps mandating from the government invasive medical procedures to limit isn't something that just resonates with democratic women, independent women. it resonates also with republican women. this is an issue where you can gain territory on the republican side and the litany of errors from the name calling of sandra fluke to rick santorum talking about contraception, there were many republicans worried that the bill would come due for this in november. >> would you see it as getting rid of rape and incest exceptions, getting rid of exemptions for things like life and health of the mother, these are all things that there used to be a republican consensus on this. that has been blown through. >> it's also the tone and tenor. and some of the misogynistic

comments. saying enough is enough that everybody b who participates in entitled to be treated with respect. so i do think the notion of government overreach as a conservative, i don't want a big government liberal, you know, involved in my business or my life any more than i want a big conservative peering in the window. i think there are millions of americans who feel like that. there are going to be consequences, i think, with the most important swing voter in this election which is suburban women as a result of these issues. you can't start fixing it at the convention. it's too late by the time you get there. >> democrats are pressing hard on this issue. i want to say san antonio's mayor julian castro is going to be our guest live in just a minute. we're taking a quick break but we'll be back live with julian

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welcome back to msnbc's live coverage of the democratic national convention.

joining me now is the governor of san antonio, texas. julian castro who gave the keynote speech last night for the democrats. mayor, you did something magnificent last night. you shattered all this talk about the democrats being the socialist party, the party that got its ideas from europe. all that nonsense. you shattered it by showing the immigrant experience today is today what it has always been. a climb up. a climb up, a relay race. it's not about government dependency for your community or any other community. it's about getting a hand up on the way to self-reliance. tell me why you decided to give that story rather than just defending the old democratic programs as others have done? >> well, what i wanted to point out chris as you said is that -- and as i said last night that the american dream -- reaching the american dream is not a sprint or a marathon, but a relay. and that over the generations america has become the land of

opportunity both through definitely individual initiative and hard work, but also through the sacrifices that generations have made to make public investments. our good schools, our universities. medicare, security. and that in the united states when those two have met, when individual initiative has met with a common sacrifice and investment by the nation, that's what's created upward mobility. and the ability to reach the american dream in our society that makes america unique. and i put before the nation the clear choice that we have in this election between a leader in barack obama who will -- who has been doing that, making those investments and will in the future and another leader who would scale back from those investments and therefore i think hinder america's ability to be the land of opportunity going forward for everyone. >> where did you come up with that line of the night? i think it was the best line so far in this convention where you said mitt romney said just ask

your old man for money when you want to start a business. you said why didn't i think of that? where did you come up with that great sarcasm? >> what i wanted to do was be optimistic but point out the differences. as the first lady pointed out very well, what we have in our president is a man who understands, who has walked in the shoes of americans out there who are trying to make their monthly bills whether it's the student loans or their rent or the health care bills. he understands that. and the big challenge with mitt romney is not that he's in any way not a good guy. it's that he's out of touch. and that was meant to point that out. in a humorous way. not to be mean, but to point that out to folks. >> what do you tell people when they say i like barack obama he has great values but he hasn't figured out the economy not y yet, at least not yet. what do you say to them?

>> i just say, look. when you look at where this nation was when barack obama took office, losing between 750,000, 800,000 jobs in january of 2009 and he went to work right away so that now you've had 29 straight months of private sector job growth. you can tell that he understands what he has to do as a leader to create jobs. and even though the progress hasn't been as quick as anybody would like, there's still hard work to do. he understands it. he gets it. he's been working hard to get america back on track. and we are making progress. so the other stuff is just a political line. >> tough question for you. why are there so many birthers from texas? >> well, you know, i don't know that texas has any more or greater proportion than other places in the united states. one of the things i said yesterday in my speech is that in texas we're very proud of our

heritage, our roots. it's sort of this boot strap state that takes a lot of pride in folks doing what they have to do working hard just like people all over the united states so i think sometimes texas gets knocked a little bit more than it should. it's a great state. hard working folks. always contributed a lot. so i guess i would disagree with the premise there. >> well, i'll run over the numbers with you some night, mr. mayor. you've got a lot of birthers down there and they can wacky. thank you julian castro from san antonio. much more on the agenda tonight about women's health rights about immigration about the auto bailout, about bain capital. all leading up to the big speech tonight from bill clinton. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the democratic convention. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if we took the nissan altima and reimagined nearly everything in it?

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president. he said some things that caused trouble. >> you said in 2004 there, was no difference between you and george bush on the war. give me a break. this whole thing is the biggest fairy tale i have ever seen. >> it takes two of you to beat him? >> jesse jackson won south carolina twice in '84 and '88. >> obama was also less than chivalrous. >> he's very likable. i agree with that. i don't think i'm that bad. >> you're likable enough. >> but the race had taken its turn by focussing on caucus states and out of the way primaries, obama gradually pulled away. then came billa arnd hillary offering strong endorsements. obama offers hillary the job of secretary of state. hillary insisted on the power to name all top heads of states.

the treaty had clear lines. there remained a dmz separating the two camps. several people remained hillary people. tonight, a brand new climax. president obama needs help. president clinton wants to be and appears to be a good democrat. they have a common interest in winning this november, or do they? some think a loss by obama would leave the party in shambles with the clintons the last standing heroes. that's not my view nor is it bill clinton's. the american economy is due for an upturn. no prdz with a strong economy can be beaten, so bill clinton is making the smart move, win this one for the party. win it and then clear the field for hillary. get her the nomination clean, then head all out for the general. better to try for an empty seat, better to run after a period of

good economic health under a democrat than try to beat a strong republican incumbent. that's why bill clinton will be great tonight, truly great, because it happens to be good for all three of them. >> love that the calculus about what's going on here now assumes that hillary clinton is going to run, that she is 96 in line for the nmentic nomination. i didn't believe all year that that was ever possible, but now it seems like nobody is even fighting that assertion anymore when it explains all of the other matchinations in politics. >> i think she has to make up your mind, but her performance as secretary of state guarantees this, and her husband's performance as president and his increased popularity guarantee this as well, she will be demanded as a democratic nominee for president. she will be pushed and pushed and pushed, not just by her old

allies, not by what is called hillaryland. she'll be pushed by the party to fill the empty seat of president. it will be so strong, i believe she will clearly accept it, relish it, and win the nomination. the other candidates are not going to really try to take her apart. i don't think they want to be the people that stand against the first woman president. >> let me bring in andrea mitchell who has long covered the clintons as well as this obama administration, and has been close to hillary clinton. that scenario that chris was sketching out there, andrea, do you think that is in the minds of the clinton camp, and do you think some of what's driving this wholesale embrace by bill clinton of the current president? >> yes, i do think in parts that's what driving it. we were watching a democratic parade of women senators on stage here. it's really a fact that the whole drive toward electing more women into office and the excitement on the women's issue

which if it's successful will help re-elect president obama can contribute to the excitement of a future candidacy by hillary clinton. it's all sinner justic, and hillcry clinton can say as long as see will and does, that she has no interest, and as i was sitting here talking to you, i got a report from our producer w is traveling with hillary clinton through asia and back through the middle east and with many more stops. she's right there just landed in temore, i can't tell you where it is, but that's exactly what she wants to do, be the secretary of state and keep all our options open. >> and staying in perpetual orbit is one way to do that. let me bring in lawrence o'donnell, as well. your reaction to what is said by andrea and chris to be a foregone conclusion that's what's going on here is that the clinton camp wants an obama

second term so that hillary clinton is the obvious second plane on the runway. >> hillary clintb is planning to run for president in 2016. that's according to clinton money people, clearly clinton fund-raisers who have been alerted to be ready for this. they have been alerted about that for many, many months now. the trouble is there's a huge cross over in that group with andrew cuomo campaign financers. he also intends to run in 2016. martin o'malley, another governor of maryland also intends to run. and we saw a performance last night by deval patrick that moved him up in the standing as a potential presidential candidate. i was as impressed as you were by deval patrick's performance. i hadn't seen him deliver a speech like that. if he could do that on the campaign trail, that would be more dynamic than any of the

rest of the candidates could do. but with bill clinton, he's never met an audience he didn't want to get a standing ovation from. if you invite him into a giant hall to give a speech, he's going to be there, and he's going to be there for this party doing what this party expects him to do. there's more than one incentive that brings him to the microphone, but hillary's future is also foremost in his mind. >> we're all thinking about the impact of tonight on november, but the more far sided among us are thinking about the impact of bill clinton's speech on november four years from now. >> republican convention basically avoided the issue of women's health. democrats are going hard on that issue. we have big speeches ahead, including the bill clinton speech. msnbc's live coverage of the democratic national convention continues. stay with us. >> we work on macro issues and

we work on the macaroni and cheese issues. when women are in the halls of power, our national debate reflects the needs and dreams of american families. because we understand the america we love grows the economy and opportunity from the middle out, not the top down.

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welcome back to msnbc's live coverage of the democratic national convention. chuck todd joins us from inside the convention hall right now. if we can get him to stop dancing and pay attention for a second. you all right, chuck in. >> there's a lot going on here. it's pretty loud. but let me plow through this because this is something that i wanted to bring up over what we're watching over the next couple nights, which is we talked about the women's vote last night and what this convention is trying to accomplish with the gender gap, but there's another part of this convention where the democrats and the obama campaign has focused on firing up hispanic voters, and here's why. as you know the split of white voters right now has romney with a double-digit win. if you look on the app, 53% for romney. 40% for the president. why is the president been ahead in the polling? if you look, it's because of how well he's doing with non-white voters. the growth of the non-white vote over the last 12 years, which i

can demonstrate here, will show you it's only going to keep growing. in 2000, the split was 81/19. in 2004, 77/23. for the first time, the white vote fell under 75% in 2008. it's likely to be at least 73/27. what does that mean? in the battleground where you see where the split between white and non-white is actually below what the national average is of the white vote, look at the battleground states. the white vote only accounted for 69% of all voters in nevada. in florida, it was 70%. north carolina, 72%. right where we are, and 75% in virginia. the oither five battleground states we deal with have a split where the white vote is november 75%. but if i show you what this means if the president just

overperforms among non-white voters in states with a low population of white voters, look how quickly he gets to 270. that's nevada, that's virginia, that's north carolina, and that's florida. all of the other states with smaller my norty populations he could lose and be sitting with 300 electoral votes. just a reminder of why they're spending so much time talking to hispanics, trying to fire occupy hispanic voters. >> you don't have to pay attention to states where everything is absolutely preordained. it's the thistates where thingse on the bubble. there's a short video playing on the issue of women's health, which is part affwhat we have been talking about, the way the democrats are focusing on women voters. let's dip into the tail end of that. it's going to be fallollowed by planned parenthood supporter. >> i don't think your boss should control the health care

you get. i don't think insurance companies should control the care you get. i don't think politicians should control the care that you get. i think there's one person to make these decisions on health care, and that is you. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome elizabeth ann libby bruce from columbus, ohio. >> nine weeks ago today, on the fourth of july, my daughter ruby was born. ruby is a perfect, healthy little girl, and because i have end omeet reosis, i feel particularly lucky to have her. when i was 18, i began experiencing severe pelvic and abdominal pain. i went to so many doctors, but

nobody had any answers. several doctors outright dismissed me, treating my pain as the product of a dumb kid's dramatic imagination. finally, i went to planned parenthood. they listened to me. as no one else had. they answered my questions. a caring nurse practitioner told me she thought i had end omeet reosis. she connected me with an excellent, respectful surgeon who removed the excess growth in my pelvis and finally i got better. 12 years later, i am still so grateful for the excellent, affordable, respectful care i received from planned parenthood.

i am especially grateful because end ome meet rmeet reosis is a infertility. without the cure, my pain would have continued and might not have my daughter today. when mitt romney and paul ryan make threats about getting rid of planned parenthood funding, it is clear that they have not given a thought to women like me, women with limited resources who are sick and scared. they haven't thought about planned and wanted babies like ruby who are able to be here only because their mothers received the health care they needed. president obama understands. and he cares. and that's why i'm here. i'm here tonight for my daughter, to stand up for her so that when she grows up, planned parenthood will be there for her, too.

>> libby bruce from columbus, ohio. bringing up to the podium, i believe, cecile richard who is the president of the planned parenthood of america. she's part of the american political legacy of her own. she's the daughter of legendary former texas governor ann richards. here's cecile richards. >> good evening. on behalf of the millions of mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, and friends. republicans and democrats who have counted on planned parenthood for health care and in honor of the thousands of doctors and staff at planned parenthood health centers all across america, i am proud tonight to support the re-election of president barack obama. two years ago, when paul ryan

and john boehner and todd akin and the tea party took over the house of representatives, they promised us they were going to create jobs and jump start the economy, but instead, on day one, they came after women's health and they haven't let up since. right? so first, they voted to end cancer screenings and well women visits for 5 million women. they voted to end funding for birth control at planned parenthood. and for good measure, they even tried to redefine rape. and now, mitt romney is campaigning to get rid of planned parenthood and overturn roe v. wade. and we won't let him. this past year, women learned that when we aren't at the

table, we're on the menu. so this november, women are organizing, we're mobilizing, and we're voting for the leaders who fight for us. nearly 100 years ago when planned parenthood was founded, birth control was illegal. and as a result, few women had the opportunity to finish school, and we really weren't even expected to live much past the age of 50. but times have changed. today, we're mothers and we're teachers and scientists and accountants and members of the armed forces. and because of president barack obama, more women than ever are serving in the u.s. cabinet and on the united states supreme court.

we've come so far. we've come so far. so why are we having to fight in 2012 against politicians who want to end access to birth control? it's like we woke up on a bad episode of "mad men." because when mitt romney says he'll get rid of planned parenthood and turn the clock back on a century of progress, it has real consequences for the 3 million patients who depend on planned parenthood each year. women like libby bruce, who you just heard from. or women like brandy mccay, a 27-year-old woman whose stage two breast cancer was caught at a planned parenthood health center and thank god she's now cancer free. or the woman who went on facebook after paul ryan voted

to defund planned parenthood and posted, well, i guess they don't understand that us military wives go to planned parenthood when the doctor on base can't see us. so mr. romney and mr. ryan are campaigning for women's votes by saying that women need their help. okay, this is coming from two men who are committed to ending insurance coverage for birth control, who would turn women's health care decisions over to our bosses and who won't even stand up for equal pay for women. okay, as my grandmother back in texas would have said, any more help from mitt romney and i'm going to have to take in ironing. >> cecile richards, the president of planned parenthood federation of america, speaking at the democratic national convention that is willing to talk a lot more about women's

rights and social issues in general, than i think they would have known they were going to be comfortable with before seeing how republicans were going to behave in the obama administration. i don't think democrats would be here if they didn't feel like they were on such solid territory, if you couldn't say things like she's just saying about mitt romney and paul ryan. >> she's being a real ally to the democrats by pointing out the basics, this is what the republicans want to take away from women. such a simple presentation, when you talk about 3 million people, how it would affect low income women. it's a fairness issue as well, but again, tonight, as we saw last night, the testimonial, the testimonial connected to the policy. here we see it again tonight. they bring on this lady, libby bruce. she tells a story and then of course cecile richards says, let be tell you more. there's such good coordination. the personal touch and policy

has been brilliant so far. >> it's really important to remind everyone what the house republican caucus is, to its core. what it has been, what it represents about the actual governing of the republican party. this is something, rachel, you covered roly well. as soon as they got control of congress, this is what they started waging their battles on. this is what the house republican caucus started waging its battles on, trying to get rid of planned parenthood. >> hr-3. >> redefining rape. >> yeah, so one of the things that is interesting is the house republican caucus has been very absent from these two days. and i think we can talk about that later. that's a strategic choice because the obama campaign, the last thing they want to remind people about is the fact the next generation might be barack obama and john boehner again at the table, which sounds awful to everyone, but the way to the caucus, the way they manifest in the convention so far is through

talking about these issues because that's what they made a priority from day one. >> doesn't that leave the democrats to try to make this a barack obama versus paul ryan election? isn't that how you do it sph. >> you have to do that and it's set up for that, but i think, again, you have to operate, one, they're effectively putting a face on the policy. so it's not just some academic dry policy, face on it. you're looking a it, you're feeling it, and it's being explained. secondly, though, i think the republicans have become so extreme that the middle has had to move over because the extreme has moved over. you know, when we were talking earlier about bill clinton, we used to fight with clinton inside the party because don't forget, he's the father of triangulation. it's hard to triangulate when you have extremists over there now. so in many ways, if chris is right, chris matthews, that hillary wants to run again, you don't want to look like you're

in the middle of these guys because these guys are so extreme that you've got to now try to get more credibility back toward those who are progressive who look more sane now than in the '90s when clinton was trying to say, we need to pull sides together. how do you pull sides together when they're trying to defund planned parenthood and take people's rights to vote? this is an extreme crowd, so in many ways, the centers had to move because the right is off. >> there's no -- the vice presidential nominee from the republicans proposed mandatory ultrasounds against your will and against your doctor's orders federally. so -- >> backed up by radical governors. >> redefining rape. can you imagine, we're redefining rape. you have a vice presidential candidate who actually co-altogethcoh co-authored legislation redefining rape with a man who talked about legitimate rape or not. you want to triangulate with

that. bill clinton is going to knock it out of the park tonight. >> safe, legal, and rare is what clinton used to say. and abortions have gone down in this country over the last 30 years. >> when bill clinton does get up to talk tonight, we're told what he's going to talk about is economy, economy, economy. that's the story he most wants to tell and the democrats most want told about themselves as a party. hearing the talk about the implications of bill clinton's speech for the hillary clinton candidacy, does thatac actually december is that singing a competing tune to what he's trying to accomplish tonight? >> he's going to do what he did four years ago for the president. he's going to go out and give a great speech. he gave a great speech for senator obama four years ago. he's going to give a great speech for president obama this time. he's the greatest politician of our age, and it's a time that he was president that a lot of americans including a lot of republicans, look back on with a

lot of nostalgia. it was a time of peace, a time of prosperity, and despite all of the partisanship, the impeachment, the fighting that went on, it almost looks like a golden age of american governance looking back 20 years, looking back on it, which is quite remarkable. we were talking about hillary clinton before. for so long, she was a polarizing figure, a partisan figure. one of the most admired people in the country now. someone with an approval rating in the 60s and a sea of incompetence you see in both parties, someone whose brand is competence, she gets the job done. >> toughness. >> doing a good job, toughness. it will be interesting to see and i think she'll run for president, the level of support this formerly partisan, polarizing person is able to draw from republican women, which i think will be substantial. >> whether the vast right wing conspiracy is back. >> she'll be a much different

figure in the next election. >> we shouldn't succumb too much to the late '90s nostalgia because let's remember, they impeached the president of the united states. it was a watershed moment of near executional power grab that was the defining the future of the kind of no holds barred win at any cost, full out maximalism. >> they also have to repair some of the damages in the party. before you appeal to the republican winl omen, you have get the nomination. there are people who react badly to statements in '08 that bill clinton has done a good job repairing. i was disappointed in what he said, and he has gone overboard trying to repair that. let's not act like there was not a real split in '08, racially tinged things they have repaired.

>> chris matthews, you want to jump in here? >> my scenario if it works out for the clintons and the democratic party would be as follows, if bill clinton is doing two years from now what he's doing right now, hillary clinton will have a much better chance of winning the nomination in a clear field. for this reason f you watch the campaign in 2010 and going into the primaries this year, bill clinton has gone around and practices a tough disciplinary approach. rewarding those who backed hillary clinton in 2008, defeating those who opposed her. he's making it very clear there's going to be a high price for pay for any democrat who thinks they can get a free ride opposing hillary clinton. i think it's so much better for secretary clinton to run as president as the democrat rather than getting into a primary campaign situation where it's a female against a male again. you don't need that gender politics again in the democratic party. you need a united party behind a

woman going into the general. that would avoid all of the tur mi moil and the stuff that the reverend was talking about. history shows it's very tough to come out of that alive and victorious. i think bill clinton will try to clear the field dramatically. i don't think andrew cuomo or martin o'malley is anywhere near the match for secretary clinton. i don't think anyone watching right now thinks they are. i think hillary clinton will win the primaries and the most important thing is he clears the field. bill clinton has the be the enforcer, the campaign manager, the tough guy, to make sure no one thinks they have a clear shot at his wife, nobody. this is going to be one great political campaign and maybe they'll fight with jeb bush and we'll have the best political coverage. >> just to reel this in just a little bit, okay. >> i don't want to reel it in, ed. >> i like this stuff. >> we're definitely losing one engine and one to go, and we're flying ahead of the aircraft here just a little bit. >> it's the dream shall never

die. >> i totally agree with that. i think bill clinton has a message tonight. he's also got a mission. he is just abound when it comes to political wisdom on what to do and how to do it. he's going out there tonight to get barack obama re-elected. that's point number one. that's his mission tonight. all of this other stuff will fall in place. hillary's resume is as long as your arm. no one could match it. no one could match it in the democratic field right now. >> in the democratic party in 20 2016, it will still be barack obama. don't act like bill clinton will be in charge of the party. >> barack obama, seeing the job hillary clinton has done as secretary of state, would have a great deal of loyalty to hillary clinton. >> i think our plane is ahead of our engines once again. >> when we come back, 2032 -- >> exactly right. chris hayes against ed schultz.

>> democratics on offense about the military, about taxes. lots more about that, plus, we're gearing up for the next elections of the next millennium. all ahead. our coverage continues. stay with us.

hey. hey eddie. i brought your stuff. you don't have to do this. yes i do. i want you to keep this. it'd be weird. take care. you too. [ sighs ] so how did it go? he's upset. [ male announcer ] spend less time at gas stations. with best in class fuel economy. it's our most innovative altima ever. ♪ welcome back to msnbc's live coverage of the democratic national convention in charlotte. they're about to start a quick video tribute on the issue of

veterans and the wars. let's just dip into this for a moment. >> vietnam guys, we decided to welcome each other home. whenever a vietnam guy sees another vietnam guy, we say welcome home because no one said that to us. my name is ed marr. i joined the united states air force in 1956. i volunteered to go to vietnam. i didn't truly understand what it meant to go to a war zone. it changes you fairly dramatically. what you have to do is make sure it changes you for the bet sxr not for the worse. i was really worried that the troops coming back from iraq and afghanistan were going to get ignored and myself and several of my friends, being vietnam guys, we decided we were going to step up. so for the last eight and a half years, i have been making sure that when these folks come home, not only are they welcomed, but that they're taken care of.

we focused with the critically injured soldiers coming back to walter reed in bethesda. when a soldier starts getting better and starts thinking about leaving the hospital for the first time, we like to be the guys to take them out for a steak dinner. it's good to see they can go out in society with their wounds and injuries and be successful. we start to talk to them about what's next. we take care of little things, big things, we take care of it. we help them with their resumes, interviewing skills, and meeting up with mentors and support teams. we're vets. we know what they're going through. i feel so privileged to have the opportunity to meet these folks. >> thank you, sir. >> my pleasure. >> whenever one of these guys tries to thank me, i say, you got it all wrong. you're giving me a gift. i can help you. >> that ed over there? >> that's me, sir.

>> president obama has fought for veterans. those of us who stood up to protect our country now need to stand up for him. >> i work with a really neat group of guys at walter reed, and they need to know that someone is looking out for them. >> our commander in chief does it because he believes in his heart that it's the right thing do do. >> i appreciate everything you have done in terms of your advocacy. >> you can hear it in his voice when he says to our troops, welcome home. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome air force vietnam veteran edward meagher from great falls, virginia. >> good evening. my name is ed meagher. can you imagine how it feels to return from war emotionally, psychologically, and physically mangled, and the country you have been fighting for does not

welcome you home? as a veteran of the vietnam war, i know exactly how that feels. nine years ago, i decided i would do what i can to give the soldier s returning from iraq ad afghanistan a better welcome hope than i did. along with two of my fellow vietnam vets, i worked with some of our most seriously injured warriors and their families to prepare them for jobs, to help them find their way through the medical system, and to lift their spirits. o we help the amp tees realize event though they lost limbs, they have their lives. we help them think about their next phase of their lives. we help them punch up resumes to show skills they possess that they don't know are marketable. we have provided them with outfits and computers. supporting our efforts is

president obama's actions, increasing the va budget to $140 billion in 2013. fully funding the new gi bill allowing over 800,000 veterans and their families to pursue an education and begin their post-military service to our country. the obama administration has hired more than 3,500 mental health professionals and they'll hire 1600 more over the next year to help veterans with post traumatic stress, brain injuries and strengthen suicide prevention efforts. last memorial day, president obama declared the treatment of vietnam veterans a national shame. and he spoke two sweet words, my generation of returning veterans have yearned to hear. welcome home.

>> ed meagher, u.s. air force veteran from the vietnam war. vietnam war veterans have played a high profile war in discussions around the politics of how to end the iraq and afghanistan wars. one of the controversies this year with the ending of the iraq war with the winding down of the afghanistan war, is whether there would be parades in the united states to welcome home veterans. a lot of cities around the country decided to do that. but interestingly, the pentagon weighed in and said they didn't want a welcome home parade for iraq veterans to mark the end of the iraq war specifically in new york city. that's got a lot of political resonance for americans because we expect ticker tape parades down lower broadway when war ends, but they talked about the need to have it happen even if the pentagon was objecting to it happening. the vietnam veterans played a

big role on the ground in minneapolis and st. louis and other cities where the parades have happened. eric shinseki is speaking right now. he's the secretary of veterans uz affairs. he gave testimony to congress about the invasion of iraq, saying the invasion of iraq would take several hundred thousand troops. the bush administration vehemently disagreed with that. he was insulted, frankly, by donald rumsfeld and paul wonderf wolfowitz, and then they brought him back as president of the v.a. one with a job that is no more important than any other in the country. >> i learned those values from them, and president obama learned the same values from the veterans in his family. during our first meeting nearly four years ago, the president's commitment to veterans war

clear. he understands that we have the finest military in the world. and we have a commitment to keep our faith with our men and women in uniform. today, our iraq and afghanistan warriors have displayed enormous discipline and love of country. we have a moral obligation to care for them when they come home. health care, education, jobs. but above all, we owe veterans dignity and respect. president obama gets it. he listens. he wants the facts. and the results of his leadership are clear. since president obama took office, nearly 800,000 veterans,

including a growing population of women veterans, have gained access to v.a. health care. there's been an historic expansion of treatment for ptsd and traumatic brain injury. president obama has expanded job training to prepare veterans for the jobs of the future. and we're on track to end veterans' homelessness by 2015. >> we've got madeleine albright the former secretary of state on the floor, i would love to get to her right now. madam secretary, thanks for joining us. what did you make of that decision tonight to revise the language in the platform regarding the status of jerusalem? >> well, the platform was amended to reflect the president's views and the policies of the obama

administration. and to make very clear that jerusalem is the undivided capital of israel. i think it's a statement of fact, and something that president obama wanted done. >> how do you find a two-state solution if the condition of the palestinian side is they have a piece of jewelry rusalem as the capital if you state such principle in. >> it's part of the american policy and it's a final status issue. that is one of the issues that is left for discussion until the end, and it was certainly one of the ones that we talked about during the clinton administration. >> okay, make the case if you can, is the united states more secure or less secure than it was when president obama took office? >> i think the united states is more secure under president obama. i think that it's very clear he

has in fact made sure that osama bin laden was killed and that a lot of the aspects of al qaeda have been dismantled. and what president obama has done with his administration is work specifically and deliberately to secure america and also to bring our troops home. >> what is the difference between candidate romney and candidate obama on the issue of the iranian nuclear threat? is there a difference? >> i think there is a difference. president obama has made clear that containment is not a policy. and in fact that he has put all of the options on the table. i actually don't know what governor romney's position is. he has just said he would do the opposite, whatever that means. and i think we do not know what governor romney's position on national security is, frankly, chris. he has advisers that are some

neocons, some of the people who brought you the previous policies under the bush administration and he barely talked about foreign policy in his speech. >> i listened to senator mccain the other night, and i was really distressed. he talked about starting wars on six fronts, basically. he wished we had gotten out front in libya, had taken stronger action in iran, he said we should be out front in syria, tougher on afghanistan in staying longer and also in iraq. we should be more confrontational with the russians and with the chinese. what does that mean to talk like that? >> well, i think it's actually dangerous discussion. what we need to do is to work across the board with countries in order to lower the threats of force. we always keep every option on the table. but the idea that we would get ourselves involved in more of these issues, and if you remember, chris, former secretary of defense, bob gates

said that any secretary of defense or president that was prepared to start another war should have his head examined. >> i'm with him. thank you. the great madeleine albright, thank you for coming to us. let's get back to rachel. >> appreciate that. thank you. coming uch, if there's one thing that i know well from personal family experience, it's that you do not mess with nuns under any circumstances. sister simone campbell who is a nun and a speaker everyone is really looking forward to is coming up shortly in the program at the democratic national convention. we'll have that for you. you're watching msnbc positi br coverage of the democratic national convention. you'll want to be with us when we come back. >> last week, mr. romney said he wished president obama had succeeded when he took office. if so, he was alone in his party. let's review the history.

senator mitch mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate, said the republicans' number one priority was the defeat of president obama. [ "human" by the human league playing ] humans. we mean well, but we're imperfect creatures living in a beautifully imperfect world. it's amazing we've made it this far. maybe it's because when one of us messes up, someone else comes along to help out. that's the thing about humans. when things are at their worst, we're at our best. see how at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? you expect something $40in return. billionaire oil tycoons charles and david koch and their special- interest friends

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here's a quick detail that ended up being really politically important this year. when the obama administration finalized that health reform rule on insurance coverage for preventive care, the one that required insurance plans to cover contraceptives. 28 states already had contraception requirements on the books. those included new york. so when timothy dolan waded into the fight and said she was outraged about the new federal birth control rule, he was outraged by a rule that his archdiocese was already complying with in his own state without complaint. they're not a monlith, and right now, sister simone campbell is at the democratic national convention. let's dip in. >> in june, i joined other catholic sisters on a 2700 mile bus journey through nine states to tell americans about the budget that congressman paul

ryan wrote and governor romney endorsed. paul ryan claims this budget reflects the principles of our shared faith. but the united states conference of catholic bishops stated that the ryan budget failed a basic moral test. because it would harm families living in povert with our bisho. and that's why we went on the road to stand with struggling families and to lift up our catholic sisters who serve them. their work to alleviate suffering would be seriously harmed by the romney/ryan budget, and that is wrong. during our -- during our journey, i rediscovered a few truths. first, mitt romney and paul ryan are correct when they say that each individual should be

responsible. but their budget goes astray in not acknowledging that we are responsible, not only for ourselves and our immediate family, rather our faith strongly affirms that we are all responsible for one another. i am my sister's keeper. i am my brother's keeper. while we were in toledo, in toledo, i met 10-year-old twins, matt and mark, who had gotten into trouble at school for fighting. sister virginia and the staff at the potawa center took them in when they were suspended and discovered on a home visit that these 10-year-olds were trying to care for their bedridden mother who has ms and diabetes. they were her only care givers.

the sisters got her medical help and are giving the boys some stability. now the boys are free to claim much of their childhood they were losing. clearly we all share responsibility for the matts and marks in our nation. in milwaukee, i met a man who lived in his living room. his hours were cut back in the recession and he's taking responsibility for himself and his family, but right now, without food stamps, he and his wife couldn't put food on the table, we share responsibility for creating an economy where parents with jobs earn enough to care for their families. in order to cut taxes for the wealthy, the romney/ryan budget would make it even tougher on

hard working americans like billy to feed their families. paul ryan says this budget is in keeping with the moral values of our shared faith. i disagree. in cincinnati, i met ginny who had just come from her sister's memorial service when ginny's sister margaret lost her job, she lost her health insurance. she developed cancer and had no access to diagnosis or treatment. she died unnecessarily and that is tragic. and it is wrong. the affordable care act will cover people like margaret. all share responsibility to insure that this vital health care reform law is properly implemented and that all governors, all gf governors exp medicaid coverage so no more

margaret's die from lack of care. this is part of my pro life stance, and the right thing to do. i have so many other stories to tell. but i'll only tell you one more. in hershey, pennsylvania, a woman in her late 30s came to me, approached us. she asked for the names of some people she could talk to because she felt alone and isolated. her neighbors have been polarized by politics mas s masquerading as values. she cares about the well being of the people in her community. she wishes the rest of the nation would listen to one another with kindness and compassion. listen to one another rather than yell at each other. i told her then and i tell her

now that she is not alone, looking out at you tonight, i feel your presence combined with that of the thousands of caring people we met on our journey. together, we understand an immoral budget that hurts already struggling families does not reflect our nation's values. we are better than that, so i urge you. i urge you, join us on the bus. join us together as we stand with matt and mark, billy and his family, and the woman in hershey and the margarets of our nation. this is what nuns on the bus are all about. we care for the 100%. and that will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our nation. so join us, join us as we nuns on the bus, all of us, drive for faith, family, and fairness.

thank you so much. >> the nuns on the bus bring charlotte, north carolina, to its feet. sister simone campbell, a catholic nun, leader in a religious order called the sisters of social service. she organized the bus tour through nine states to oppose the paul ryan budget as a moral failure and wrote a letter in 2010. >> i guess there's no war on religion for democrats. they're cheering faith tonight. in its substance, this may be one of the most effective speeches at the convention. i really believe it. how many nuns go in and get that kind of reaction? there's a real connection tonight. >> also a great tradition. one of the things is the church has intervened very hard on the birth control issue. it's now raised in the son of a

jesuit seminary and a community organizer as a communitarian ethic that we're our brother's keeper our sister's keeper, and hot you get is an imbalance in the coverage and also the strength in which the church intervenes on the social issues, and on issues like these core issues of economic justice. we have seen it this year in which the church was very, very loud on the birth control decision and morenut newmuted a from the sisters on the bus. >> i want to go to lawrence o'donnell who is with cecile richards. >> cecile, the first convention speech that i ever heard live in a hall was your mother's speech 24 years ago. and when you were talking about that tonight, i'm sure i wasn't the only person in this hall that felt the emotional connection to both of you

speeches. what was it like to you to be stepping into in some ways your mother's shoes up on the convention stage tonight? >> i think what felt great up there was to see the enormous love for ann richards that still exists in this party, in this convention hall, and i think mother would be so -- i wish she were here. if not only to see the extraordinary enthusiasm, i think, in this room tonight. it's amazing. i wish she had gotten to hear julian castro last night who made us all proud to be texans. >> i know it was in your text and you knee you were going there, but when you got to your mother, it looked like an especially emotional moment for you and the audience. >> that's it, when you realize someone you love is loved by a lot of other folks, it's very special. >> rachel would like to ask a question. i'm going to have to translate because you don't have an ear piece. tell me and i'll tell cecile. >> i wanted to ask cecile what she feels about how well the democrats are handling the

politics of the issue of choice. this is a very different year on the choice issue in terms of national politics. how are the democrats doing? >> rachel would like to get your reaction to how the democrats are handling the issue of choice this year? >> we have a stronger platform than ever before. we have never seen so much honest, direct conversation about women's rights, about women pfsz right to choose, about birth control, and i think a real appreciation of the role that women play in this party, in government, and in society in general. i really think you see that. i have seen it speech after speech that everyone who mentioned the importance of women and the importance of women's rights gets a huge reaction in this hall. it's a really good feeling for women. >> before you were on the stage, the democratic women's senators came out. each one was getting a stand ogivation just for walking onto the stage. >> it felt so powerful. i was back in the green room and everybody was tearing up. that's what this world should

look like, real equality representation. these women make us all incredibly proud. >> thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you, lawrence. having cecile richards there, having sister simone campbell there, i wanted to ask you as someone who came up in the clergy, seeing a catholic nun make that kind of appeal, chris was talking about a little bit of a division in the catholic church between the bishops and nuns, on how aggressive to be on specific issues. are you comfortable seeing that level of overtpolitical advocacy by people who are the clergy? >> yes, i'm very comfortable. i'm uncomfortable when we don't stand up and take a strong position and be very firm about it. i think that when the country sees the democratic convention, you see sister simone like this. this is supposed to be as cared by the conservatives, the

secular ungodly party. she's got the best reception orththan michelle obama in the convention, and she used a line that's going to be recorded for a while, when she talked about the lady in hershey who talked about her friends being polarized with politics masquerading as value. that's what we're seeing about the right wing. they're talking politics, acting as if they're talking values. she hit it on the head, and her persona and the way she does it, the sweetness of how she comes off but the firmness of her positions was beautiful. >> steve, in terms of targeting the catholic vote, obviously, the catholic community is a diverse one, divided by things that divide all big religious orders in this country. how did democrats and republicans approach that -- try to win that constituency differently? >> i think the sister got a nice round of applause there today,

but what is going to be played in a lot of media across the country are the images of the convention crowd booing when they wanted to put god back into the platform that we discussed earlier, which is politically problematic. when it goes to the gacatholic vote, obviously, american catholics have pretty significant differences according to all of the polling that exists on the subject, with the leadership of the church. and so it's an important constituency in the country, and you know, both sides will do their best to outreach to it, particularly southern ohio, pennsylvania, where it could be a really important swing vote. >> we have two bold choices ahead by the democrats in the next hour. sandra fluke is going to be speaking, and an undocumented immigrant will be speaking for the first time ever, plus bill clinton. we'll be back soon. welcome aboard!

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office, a conservative radio talk show host named rush limbaugh told his listeners his hope for the country was that the obama presidency would be a failure. that was before inauguration day. on inauguration night, 15 senior republican members of congress, including paul ryan, held a four-hour meeting to plan how republicans would win back the house and senate and ultimately the white house. their plan was that republicans would uniformly oppose everything in the president's legislative agenda, particularly on the economy. that was on inauguration night. by that first summer of the obama presidency, republican senator jim demint was telling supporters on a conference call if the republicans could stop health care reform from passing, it would be obama's waterloo. he said, it would break him. by 2010, mitch mcconnell was arguing the primary goal of most republicans, the thing they

wanted to use their time in congress to do, was to make president obama a one-term president. that's what happened to the hope change thing. the democrats are celebrating legislative accomplishments, but the thing that doesn't get discussed much at all is almost all of those accomplishments were things that wer achieved with no republican support at all or almost none. the lilly ledbetter fair pay for women act celebrated last night by ms. led better last night, that passed, but without republican help. the stimulus act, it passed, but not with republican help. all but one house republican voted no. health care reform, it passed, but not with republican help. every house republican voted no. wall street after the crash, it pass eed but all but three republicans voted no. don't ask don't tell, all but 15 republicans voted no. all these and more signed into law despite a new de facto

policy that kept legislation from coming to vote in the other branch, in the senate. the number of senate filibusters exploded, nearly doubled in the last two sessions of congress which is the period that coincides with president obama's time in office. they'll be celebrating what they did get done in congress, but if what they were hoping for, what they said they might have promised the country was lots of reaching across the aisle to get stuff done, the republicans decided even as president obama was being inaugurated that these last four years would be the time that aisle between the parties became more like a shark-fill eed moat. chris matthews in charlotte on the issues of the president's accomplishments, jon stewart was joking, yes we can, but -- the practicality of getting things done with the republican partners he had in washington has defined what has been practically possible. is that part of the narrative? >> once you go through that

thoroughly, it's totally depressed me about american politics because it's worse, even worse than you say. you point out that they obstructed in terms of parliamentary maneuvering are through, but they never offered to negotiate. they never said, if you do this, we'll give you 50 more votes. they never said this is a chance for bipartisan action. they never said this will work if you do this. they didn't want him to succeed. they acted like a european parliame parliamentary system. they're 100% disciplined. they vote as one. you can't operate like that in our congressional presidential system. if you have a democratic president, the other side must be willing in the spirit of patriotism, to negotiate with the president. if you refuse to negotiate with him or her, there could not be

any form of bipartisan government. just stop, that's all it will do, and i believe that's what they have done and it's a terrible thing historically. >> the democrats are bringing onto the stage bill butcher, the owner of a small brewery. >> do not give out free beer. you know, i don't have time to pay much attention to politics because i'm too busy running my business. i think a lot of small business owners feel the same way. we don't care about the daily back and forth of campaigns. we just want leaders in washington who believe in us. and make it a little easier for us to succeed. our president is that kind of leader. there were moments when my wife karen and i wondered if we would ever get our business off the ground. i remember what it was like to go to bank after bank after bank hearing no. we may not have ever gotten to

yes if it wasn't for president obama and the sba loan program that he started. for these last four years, i've had a president who is on my side. he cut small business taxes 18 times. he kept middle class taxes low, which meant more customers for my product. he knows that growing the middle class helps businesses create jobs. and i know that if he gets a second term, entrepreneurs like me will have the best possible chance to succeed. i hear president obama has been brewing some beer in the white house recently. and i know you're not supposed to endorse a competitor, but in this case, i'm going to make an exception. our president has fought for small business owners, and now it's time to fight for him. thank you, everybody.

>> one of the things that happened in port city brewing company, when there were the big storms in d.c., the company lost power, lost temperature control, and the community stepped up to find generators for him to save his beer. have you ever loved america more than you do in this moment. >> camilla harris is california's attorney general. >> i thank you for the honor and privilege to be here. so let's get right down to business. we are here because we love our country. and we firmly believe in the american ideal that our country should work for everyone. that ideal is written into our laws. the rules of the road that

create a level playing field in this country. those are the rules i became attorney general to uphold, and those are the rules mitt romney would have us roll back. he would roll back the rules that protect the air we breathe and the water we drink. roll back the rules that protect the health and safety of women and families. roll back the rules that prevent the kind of recklessness that got our any economy into this m in the first place. well, i have seen all that happens when you roll back those rules. what happens is rows of foreclosure signs. what happens are mountains of family debt. what happens is a middle class that's hurting. that's what we've seen in towns

across california and across this country. when it comes to the housing crisis, the choice between barack obama and mitt romney is clear. the fact is we don't have to guess what mitt romney would have done if he were president. because he told us. he said we should let foreclosures, and i quote, hit the bottom. so the market could, i quote, run its course. run its course. that's not leadership. doing nothing while the middle class is hurting, that's not leadership. loose regulations and lax enforcement, that's not leadership. that's abandoned our middle

class. here's what president obama did. president obama won wall street reform to prevent any more tax funded bailouts. president obama won credit card reform so you don't get stuck with hidden fees and sudden rate hikes. president obama stood with me and 48 other attorneys general in taking on the banks and winning $25 billion for struggling homeowners. that's leadership. that's what president obama did. and that's why we need to give him another four years. we need to move forward. president obama will fight for working families. he will fight to level the economic playing field.

and fight to give every american the same fair shot my family had. i remember when my mother bought our first home. i was 13. she was so proud. and my sister and i were so excited. millions of families and millions of americans know that feeling. of walking through the front door of their own home for the first time, the feeling of reaching for opportunity and finding it. that's the choice in this election. it's a choice between an america where opportunity is open to everyone, where everyone plays by the same set of rules, or a philosophy that tilts the playing field to help the wealthiest few. a choice between holding wall

street accountablor letting it write its own rules. mitt romney subscribes to the cynical logic that says the american dream belongs to some of us and not all of us. well, i'll tell you who the american dream belongs to. it belongs to the student in sacramento who doesn't have much money but who goes to bed each night dreaming big dreams. it belongs to the men and women across this country who know it shouldn't be against the law to marry the person you love. it belongs to the immigrants young and old who come to this country in search of a better life. and it belongs to little girls who have the joy of watching their mother, like i did, buy her first home.

the american dream belongs to all of us. and if we can work together and stand together, and vote together on november 6th, for president barack obama, that's a dream we will put within reach of all our people. thank you. >> california's attorney general kamala harris, best known nationally for being an incredibly hard -nosed negotiation when it came to potential settlement negotiations with the country's five largest mortgage services and home foreclosure abusers. that's why she was talking so much about home ownership. this is a brief video to announce a speaker who is a controversial addition to the convention tonight. >> kids all across the country. came here when they were 5. came here when they were 8.

their parents were undocumented. the kids didn't know. and suddenly, they come to 18, 19 years old, and they realize even though i feel american, i am an american, the law doesn't recognize me as american. i'm willing to serve my country, willing to fight for this country. i want to go to college and better myself. and i'm at risk of deportation. and it is heartbreaking. it makes no sense to expel talented young people. they've been raised as americans. understand themselves to be part of this country. effective immediately, the department of homeland security is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people. this is a temporary stop gap

measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people. as long as i'm president, i will not give up on this issue, not only because it's the right thing to do for our economy, not just because it's the right thing to do for our security, but because it's the right thing to do, period. >> please welcome bonita velez. >> my name is bonita velez and i'm from san antonio, texas. like so many americans of all races and backgrounds, i was brought here as a child. i have been here ever since.

i graduated as valedictorian of my high school class at the age of 16. i went on to earn a double major at the age of 20. i know i have something to contribute to my economy and my country. i feel just as american as any of my friends or neighbors. but i've had to live almost my entire life knowing i could be deported just because of the way i came here. president obama fought for the dream act to help people like e me.

and when congress refused to pass it, he didn't give up. instead, he took action so that people like me can apply to stay in our country and contribute. we will keep fighting for reform, but while we do, we're able to work steady and pursue the american dream. president obama has fought for my community. now, it's my honor to introduce one of the leaders in my community fighting for him. from her televised show to her magazine, to her network, she's an icon. >> i need to break in here becausand rhee ozmitce and rere important reporting from the convention floor. >> president obama is coming here to the hall tonight.

nbc news has confirmed the pridz will be coming here. i don't know if that means he's going to come to the box and be there, observe, watching and listening to bill clinton's speech or if there's even going to be a grand moment on the stage with bill clinton, with former president clinton after his speech, but we can confirm he's coming to the hall. this was not scheduled or previously announced. we don't know about the first lady, the two girls are reportedly still in washington, coming after school tomorrow. >> just to be clear, we know that the president is coming, but we do not know if he will be publicly visible once he has arrived? >> he'll be visible in the box, you'll see him. whether he'll be on stage, i don't know. we don't know exactly what role speaking, nonspeaking, but that will certainly fire up the crowd more than they are already. you know what the themes have been today. we're expecting any moment sandra fluke. they have been talking about planned parenthood, talking

about women. you saw sister simone in the emotional appeal campaigning in her bus tour over nine states over the ryan budget which she called immoral. this is all teed up for the president of the united states. if there's a moment with bill clinton, that would be politically advantageous. >> thank you very much for that. chris matthews, i want to get your reaction to the fact that the president will be in the house tonight to hear president clinton's speech tonight. how important is that? >> one advantage is the photo op. if you could get both of them on the stage with perhaps the former president holding barack obama's hand in the air in that traditional victory pose, that would be something most democrats would like to hold for the next two months and show around a bit wrfrb i don't know whether bill clinton is scheduled -- the former president is scheduled to be in that close proximity tomorrow night at the end of the president's speech where he

could be in the position to have the very important two-handed hold. that's one thing to think about, just the picture. these iconic moments do matter in politics. >> chris hayes, i wanted to ask you about something we saw before we got the note about president obama due at charlotte tonight. that was the speech from benita veliz. she was brought there as a child, high school valedictorian, double major from st. mary's university in san antonio. now she's a dreamer, a dream act kid. a bold move to put her on the stage. >> incredibly bold move. i don't know how much folks understand about the kids, the dreamers. they have built up in an amazing way this incredibly robust and vibrant movement. we have roadie, one of the dreamers. they have an entire leadee are coming out, because it's a very interesting and parallel

process. the courage of declaring who you are as an individual and what that means, the prejudice and sanction you might face. it requires a certain amount of courage. what has made the movement work is the people like the speaker tonight and all of the comrades who have gotten out there and said i am undocumented and i still deserve a place in this country and i want to be here, and there's a tremendous and powerful force and we have seen that being effective in turns this around. >> she was not deported because of the rule from i.c.e. last year that said if we're going to prioritize deportation, we're going to prioritize people with criminal records. she is planning on applying for a two-year work pument under the dream act executive action the president took when he couldn't get the dream act he preferred through the congress. >> there's now a proactive process. the big important policy step that the president took is you

can proactively apply for what is essentially a kind of temporary waiver on your sats so you have a piece of paper in your hand and you don't live life with the spector of some time in between taking your finals and college, you're going to end up on a plane to juarez. >> i think it's a high risk move politically. i agree with chris matthews last week when he was interviewing jan brewer. her response was we need to deportment the 11 million people in the country illegally. that's preposterous. at the same tiement, we're a sovereign country, we need to be able to secure the border to know who is in the country. it's going to require compromise and use both parties who use

those as political issues with their bases to sit down and solve the problem. john mccain and ted kennedy tried to to it, couldn't get the compromise done, but one of the issues you look ahead, a serious issue for the country, is to require people to come to a commonsense -- >> under president obama, they escalated deportations. more in four years than eight years of george w. bush. the n crease funding on securing the borders. they checked every box and the president got up at the save the union and said we did everything you asked of us and there was nothing to get to another deal because of what happens with john mccain, because of the recriminations for republicans who signed on to mccain/kennedy. it doesn't matter how much the democratic president has done to make himself look tough on immigration. there's still not a deal on the table. >> i think that -- i think there has been progress clearly made in skeecuring the border. the border of the country is not

secure. >> will it ever be? this is a negotiating tactic. >> i don't know the answer if it can be. it probably can be more secure than it is, but it's going to require both sides to sit down and come to a common sense solution. when you see a talented young lady like that, you want her to succeed. she is by every reasonable standard, she was raised in this country. she's an american. we have so many members of that community serving in the united states military honorably, proudly, and all of the sound bite issues around this, all of the platitudes that are talked about, the ludicrousness. if you're a conservative, you have fundamental questions about the competence of the government to do certain things. >> find 12 million people. >> find 12 million people and deport them would be high on the list. >> i think it was the right thick to do, again, putting a face on the issue. i think the country has moved. i remember years ago when we

marched in arizona on sheriff arpaio on immigration and other things. we, many people thought we were crazy. now, a lot of americans are there because they see young ladies like this and i think there's a compromise that's going to be forced because again, i think that the right wing has been too extreme. >> the republican party, though, has become more and more and more hardline on this issue over the past few years. it seemed very possible we were going to get not comprehensive immigration reform, but a big step twarm immigration reform. the dream act was a republican plan and the republican party internally shut it down. >> mitt romney dispatched rick perry over the fact that rick perry supported the texas version of the dream act. that's what he used to take a crowbar to the head of rick perry and get him out of the race. what is the incentive structure going forward for anyone with national inspirations in the

party when they see what happened to rick perry. >> let me make -- >> he took a crowbar to his own head, but -- >> i want to see the party grow and succeed. i believe in the big tent version of the republican party. there's no issue that is a greater threat to the future of the viability of the republican party as a national party than the terrible face put forward by the washington brand of the party that sends a message to latinos that you're not welcome here. that the country would be better off without you. and the tone of the party has been terrible on this issue. >> we're going to go back to the floor of the convention right now. we're finishing there, very popular talk show host, finishing up her remarks. she's endorsed president obama. but coming to the stage right now, not right now but in a moment is sandra fluke, which is one of the more highly anticipated speeches of the night. the person we're hearing from

right now is the founder and former president of carmax, speaking on the issue of small business interest and the obama administration. let's take this for a moment. >> employing 17,000 people in 30 states, and it's also one of fortune's top 100 companies to work for. we worked hard to build and conceive an idea for carmax, but we didn't do it alone. we succeeded because we had intensely committed associates, healthy and flexible capital markets. good roads and bridges that let us move product rapidly, and cooperative federal, state, and local governments that helped us have clear rules of the road and plan and grow our business. as a businessman, i know president obama understands what it takes to spark economic growth because i have seen him in action. when he took office, he inherited a massive structural

deficit from his republican predecessor, an economy in freefall, and most importantly for me personally, an auto industry on the verge of collapse. the president's decisive action led to rapid and successful restructuring of two of america's largest corporations, gm and chrysler. that didn't just save the car companies. it helped prevent a domino effect that would have taken down everything in the auto industry, from factories that manufactured auto parts to the dealer whose sold the cars. he also launched targetedeft that helped ordinary people buy cars again. all together these actions prevented over 1 million job losses and laid the groundwork for now is a robust recovery of the american auto industry. >> this is the former ceo of carmax. this is msnbc's live coverage of the democratic national convention in charlotte. we know the president has

arrived at the venuvenue. we have video of his motorcade getting here. bill clinton's speech is still ahead. stay with us.

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charlotte, the democrats making their pitch on the auto bailout now. let's watch. >> mommy's going back to work! >> when president obama gave us the tools, we ran with it. when we came back to work, we had a fire to do well, a fire to get it done, a fire to be a big company again. >> good evening. it worked. that's what the president said as he saluted the official return of america's auto industry. >> we came back with a vengeance. >> auto sales topped estimates in june. >> as of tonight, general motors is back on top. >> what a proud moment for us. we came from the scariest moment of our life to the most triumphant. >> the day chrysler paid back the loans, it was one of the proudest moments i had working at chrysler. because everybody worked together from the ceos down to the janitors to make our company survive. >> we made a promise. made a promise to the country, made a promise to the president, and we were going to make good

on it. >> don't bet against the american worker. don't bet against the american people. >> to me, a leader is someone who actually hears the people. and is not afraid to work for the people. and i think president obama proved that from what he's done for us. >> he showed the kind of leadership and character required in a president that will do what is best for the group and not necessarily himself. >> since i have been back to work, i have seen businesses sprout up all around the plant. when we do good, everybody does good. >> are you better than you were four years ago? yes, we're better and we'll be better still if we keep going with what we have now, which is president obama. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome karen santonio from hubbard, ohio. >> for almost 20 years, i have been a proud member of the uaw

local 1112. and a second generation autoworker. and i'm proud that thanks to president obama i still am. my mom retired from gm after 30 years. and my brother worked there, too. but really, everyone there is like family. we look out for each other, not just because we're gm or because we're ohioans, but we're americans. when the auto industry was on its last legs, i was laid off and i was terrified. how was i going to provide for my daughter and my two boys or pay my mortgage? how was the valley going to survive when so many of us were out of work, when so many could lose what they worked so hard for? the answer wasn't obvious. and the solution wasn't popular.

president obama didn't think about the polls or the politics. he thought about the people. and because he put himself in our shoes, we're back on our feet. some said we shouldn't rescue the auto industry. president obama knew he had to save it to move our country forward. today, i'm back at work. we have three shifts building cars of the future like the chevy cruise. gm just didn't pay back all our outstanding loans. they paid them back ahead of schedule, and the valley is thriving again. president obama has the same work ethic and values as my coworkers at gm, my neighbors in

ohio, and he knows we're all in this together. he believed in us, he stood up for us, and i am proud and honored to stand here tonight for him. thank you very much. >> karen eusanio is an ohio autoworker. lawrence o'donnell is on the floor with massachusetts governor deval patrick. >> last nights, rachel and i were both struck by the power of your speech, and frankly, neither one of us had seen you p hit the ball all that well on the stage like that. did that feel for you like an audition for four years from now when you would like to be up there accepting one of the two nominations? >> that's an easy question to answer, that is no. i feel the passion i feel because i think democrats have got to stand up for the american dream. i believe we're the party of the american dream. i think this president has a

plan to restore the american dream. it's working, and we need another four years to finish that work. >> do you think democrats have been too defensive? your speech was all about standing up for what the democrats believe in. >> i think that first of all what voters want is not to have to agree on everything before we work on anything. what they want is clarity about where you want to lead this country. i think actually this president has been quite clear about it. he wants to invest and has invested in education, in innovation, in energy, and infrastructure. that's a winning strategy. we know because we have done it at home in the commonwealth to fix what mitt romney left broken, and all of us democrats need to focus on that future, that vision, and not the other guy and what is wrong with him, but what is right with us. >> we have another speaker from massachusetts tonight, elizabeth warren. i spoke labor day in massachusetts watching that tv ad war between elizabeth warren

and scott brown. how is she doing in this campaign? >> very well. it's a very competitive campaign. she's an outstanding candidate. she's a good campaigner. not such a good campaigner, but a good senator. i think it's not going to be won on the airwaves. i think it will be won door to door, neighbor to neighbor, community to community, and she's building an extraordinary grassroots organization. >> is she taking your advice? >> i'm not sure i'm the one to advice. i'm paying attention and being as helpful as i can and doing as much as she asked. at the end of the day, it's about her convincing everyone it's not about her but it's about everyone. >> rachel, back to you. >> thank you. let's hear from bob king, the head of the autoworkers wrapping up. we heard from one autoworker from ohio. dip into this for a second. >> what did mitt romney say? you all know this.

he said let detroit go bankrupt. in strong -- in strong contrast, president obama took action, putting together a rescue team, demanding real change and real sacrifice from everyone involved, from management, from labor -- >> bob king, the head of the uaw speaking there. a hard pitch from the democrats here on the auto bailout, this is the president of the union, heard from an autoworker. this is an issue you have covered so intensively. are they doing the politics right? >> they are. this is an issue where the republicans were clearly on the wrong side of history. it wasn't just the president write agcheck and saying we're going to do this. mr. king just referred to a rescue team. what president obama did after much thought and consideration and consternation put together a team headed up by ron bloom who

had a lot of work in dealing with troubled steel factories and he wanted to get it right. as soon as these guys from detroit showed up in their jets in washington, it was a big story. he said don't do that again. come back in your own cars and come back with a plan, and we'll put a deadline to this and you have got to figure out how you're going to do it. management went back to the workers, workers took a haircut when it came to pension, to wages. the next uaw meeting i went to, a convention, they were not happy. they weren't sure it was going to work. they were willing to do it because it was saving jobs but they thought they were taking a financial haircut they weren't sure was going to work. a lot of thing husband to happen in a four-month period for this to happen. and the president had no credit markets to go to. president bush said they dried up. there were no takers on wall street. this was in a sense from a business standpoint, the president early on rolling the dice on his first term. if this had gone south, wow. it would be a different story

tonight. and i done think president obama would be polling as well as he is right now. this is a narrative they're not going to get away with because it's truly a successful story that dollar turns one in eight employees in ohio. that's the economy, and when kasich got up and started talking about how good ohio was, he forgot to mention just how good the automobile industry is. i want to emphasis, the management of president obama in not just writing the check, not a bailout, a loan. it's being paid back and the treasury is making money on it. >> and the company is in profit. when you say roll the dice, let us not forget what rachel referred to earlier. they met the night he was inaugurated. they tried to fix the dice he was rolling so he would crap out. >> republicans wanted nothing to do with him. >> romney was writing op-eds in the "new york times" saying let it go bust. they had loaded the dice and he still won and won for the american people.

it wasn't even a fair crap game. >> the president said one of his fifrs press conferences, i don't want to be in the car business. he was doing this to save jobs. >> it was voted down by the house. president george w. bush did initiate the process that brought the bailout to be. the rescue package was supervised by bloom and ratner -- >> loan, chris, loan. >> the rescue package, the loan, the thing we're talking about which shall not speak its name, one important part of this is how tentatively the romney/ryan ticket had to handle for it. paul ryan voted for the auto bailout loan, mitt romney famously let detroit go bankrupt, right? but we are seen since their convention now, their line on what happened with the auto industry is well, it didn't work in wisconsin. it didn't work in janesville in this one particular plant that closed before president obama was president. >> politically, a good move by the republicans.

they had to find something ing this whole conversation that didn't find right and they pinned it on janesville, and of course, it changed the discussion a little bit and took away the tremendous luster that the democrats have had by saving the automobile industry. the president never went directly to janesville and said, hey, i'm going to save you. he had a plan that included the people, the experts in the industry, to save their own business. he wasn't doing that. he was the vehicle to set the table to give them a chance to retool. it was a cheap shot, i thought, by paul ryan. >> trying to sell the idea that the auto rescue didn't work is a bad idea. >> but they're arguing in the alternative. they're both saying it didn't work and saying it was my idea. this is the other argument, which is like the democrats are the ones who want to cut your medicare idea. it's through the looking glass bivar. the other argument they're making is thank goodness president obama followed mitt romney's advice in detroit. >> that's why it worked so well

except in janesville where it worked so badly, and paul ryan voted on it, but it was an idea that mitt romney had first. the success of the auto industry right now with gm being the number one car company in the world is a pretty big headline to distract people from. >> and they're making a better product, world recognized. >> we're about to hear from workers who were not -- who did not experience a positive outcome from bain capital taking over their companies. this is something that has been front paged by the democrats in a big way and by mitt romney's primary opponents in the republican primary process. >> we just heard from bob king about president obama's record of creating jobs. i wanted to tell you about mitt romney's record of cutting jobs. mitt romney once said, i like being able to fire people. well, i can tell you from personal experience, he does. on july 5th, 1994, mitt romney

and his partners at bain capital fired me and more than 350 of my coworkers. it came without any warning. they rushed in the security guards to walk us out of our plant. we weren't even allowed to take our personal items. they handed us job applications and told us if we want you, we'll let you know. now, the truth is some folks were hurt back. lower wages, no benefits, and lower retirement. many weren't and seven months later, they closed our plant for good. what affected me was having guys my age now, come to me and cry. guys who had nothing to fall back on. i don't think mitt romney is a bad man. i don't fault him for the fact

that some companies win and some companies lose. that's a fact of life. what i fault him for is making money without a moral compass. i fault him for putting profits before people like me. but that's just romney economics. america cannot afford romney economics. mitt romney will stick it to working people. barack obama sticking up for working people. it's simple as that. that's why i'm supporting him for a second term as president. >> when mitt romney first announced he was running for president, i had no idea who he was. but then i learned he was the ceo of bain capital, and that

sure got my attention real fast. i used to work at a plant in miami that governor romney bought with his partners from bain. i say used to because not long after they bought it, romney and his partners shut our plant down and ultimately drove our company into bankruptcy. our company -- our company dade bearing was a big part of our community. there were folks who had been at the plant for 15 to 20 years. but by the time romney and his partners were done with us, we had lost 850 jobs in florida. it was a really difficult time for me and for my coworkers. but not for governor romney and his partners. while we watched our jobs disappear, they ultimately walked away with more than $240 million.

of course, i understand some companies are successful, others are not. that's the way our economy works. but it is wrong when dedicated, productive employees feel the pain while folks like mitt romney make profits. so, when mitt romney talks about his business experience, remember, it is not experience creating good paying jobs. it is experience cutting jobs. it is experience shutting plants. it is experience making millions of dollars by making life tougher for hard working americans. that is not the kind of experience we need in the white house. we need a president who will create good paying jobs and make

sure everyone has a fair chance. we need president barack obama. >> good evening. good evening. and a special greeting to my fellow minnesotans and to the hard working missouriens i was privileged to represent for so many years. i'm david foster, and i was a steel worker for 31 years. for 15 years, i laid brick and tapped the furnaces and did all that hard, dirty work that turned molten metal into the cars and bridges and buildings that make america what it is today.

and i -- and i also led the steel workers in a 13-state tour including gst steel in kansas city. a 100-year-old company bought by mitt romney and his partners at bain capital in 1993. now, it is a story that i wish i didn't have to tell. america need to know the truth. when romney and bain took over the bill, they loaded it up with millions in debt, and within months they used some of that borrowed money to pay themselves millions. within a decade the debt kept growing and was so large the company was forced into bankruptcy. they fired 750 steel workers while they pocketed $12 million in profits.

a steel worker at gst would have had to work 240 years to make $12 million. so in 2001 with gst bankrupt and romney still ceo of bain, i had to stand in a rented auditorium in front of hundreds of steel workers in their 50s and 60s, retirees and widows in their 70s and 80s and tell them romney and bain had broken their promises. jobs, vacation pay, severance, health insurance, pension benefits that were promised, they were all gone. now, some companies succeed. some companies succeed. others fail. i know that. i also know this.

we don't need a president who fires steel workers or says let detroit go bankrupt. we need the leadership. we need the leadership of a man who during the darkest hours for america's auto industry rolled up his sleeves, risked his presidency, and saved over 1 million good auto jobs. we need, we need barack obama. thank you. >> the democrats tonight essentially bringing to life the ads that ted kennedy in 1994 and his republican opponents in 2012 and the president's this year since the primary have used against mitt romney to turn his experience at bain capital into

a detriment rather than an asset. i want to go to lawrence o'donnell on the floor in charlotte, north carolina. he has been able to wrangle senator al franken who never does interviews since he got to the state house. let's go to lawrence. >> al franken, this has been quite a convention so far. >> i saw it last night in minnesota, flew here this morning, here with the minnesota delegation, the minnesota delegation. >> there they are. there they are. >> they're a little slow on the up take, i thought. >> you have been going to conventions long before you were an elected official. >> yes. >> what is your sense of what the democrats are accomplishing here this week? >> i thought the first lady did an amazing -- i mean clearly an amazing job. am i alone in that assessment? >> you are not alone. >> i think tonight you're going to see president clinton make

the case, make the case, and then of course president obama make the case again tomorrow, and i think that there is a real theme here which is, man, we got to go forward. the president was given a tough, tough situation, cratering economy, 800,000 jobs in the month of january the month he took office and if you look at the job articles like that and they have fought us every step of the way, and i believe that we reelect this president and keep the majority in the senate and maybe get the majority in the house but either way i think we're going to have to work together, and i think what's so important about this is making this case about how to go forward and it is doing it in a balanced way and it is investing

in infrastructure and education and in innovation and a balance in revenue, and you have to increase revenue somehow and it has got to come at the people on the top. part of it has to come from the people at the top. that's where it has to come from who benefitted from -- the only ones that benefitted from any growth in the economy that we have had over the last 20 years, ten, 15 years. everyone benefitted during clinton. that's all we're talking about. we're talking about the clinton tax rates. >> i had something to do with that, yeah. >> i know, but you talk about this in one of those spots that you do on msnbc. >> yes. >> a long time viewer, first time caller here, but you talk about how calling a 4 point raise in income tax on the people doing fabulously well is

not class warfare. it isn't. it isn't. we celebrate the companies in minnesota, 3m, and general mills, and medtronic and all of these great companies, and we really cherish people that have done well. you have done well by your hard work and talent and your intellect. >> keep going. keep going. >> i can't think of anything else. a sense of humor, yeah. we cherish people who succeed who we also know that we have people that succeed have the ability and especially when you are running these huge deficits and all the evidence is, all of the evidence is that this tax rate which we're living under now, we're living under the bush tax rates now, this hasn't produced any of it, so i think that you're going to be hear clinton making that case and really making that case tonight. i will really looking forward to clinton's speech and i am

looking forward of course to the president. >> al franken, sorry for ambushing you. i know you're not looking for national media attention here but thank you for doing your first national interview with us. >> as long as it is with the minnesota delegation, i am very proud to be here. >> as long as you're with the minnesota delegation we know where to find you. >> that's right. >> al franken, thank you lawrence, right? >> al franken being very funny. he never does national interviews which is too bad. al, we used to work together. remember? come on. this year is one of those years in addition to the presidential debates one of the most hotly anticipated next thing that will happen before the election is the vice presidential debate in kentucky, the man that will play paul ryan while joe biden is prepping how he is going to debate the other side is at the podium right now, chris van holl hollen. >> you hit everybody else much

harder, and that's exactly what the romney-ryan plan does. you know, they call their plan brave, bold, courageous. i ask all of you is it bold to give millionaires another tax cut while forcing seniors to pay more for medicare? is it brave to reward companies that ship jobs overseas while cutting education here at home? >> no. >> is it courageous to raise taxes on middle class families while giving tax cuts to people with swiss bank accounts? >> no. >> look, look, mitt romney's and paul ryan's obsession with tax breaks for the wealthy is part of original arity.

give people like mitt romney a break and hope something will trickle down and lift others up and this theory crashed in the real world. we all live through the recession when jobs went down and the deficit went up. so when they say they will turn around the economy, beware. they mean a u-turn back to the failed theory that lifted the yachts while the other boats ran aground. don't, don't buy the lie that asking the wealthy to contribute more is about punishing success. it is about asking them to share responsibility for reducing the deficit. it is about growing the economy, not from the top down but from the middle out and the bottom up, making success possible for all americans.

this election is a choice. that choice will determine whether america is a place where people climb the ladder of opportunity and pull it up behind them or whether america is a place where people who reach the top help the next person up. which america do you believe in? you know the facts. you know the choice. you know what we have to do, reelect barack obama. >> congressman from maryland, chris van hollen. he is playing paul ryan in the mock debates the democrats are doing to prepare joe biden for the vice presidential debate that will happen on october 11th. we're awaiting speeches now from sandra fluke, the georgetown law student that advocated on the

contraception rule in health insurance regulations and was pretty viciously attacked by the right for that. we'll hear from sandra fluke and bill clinton is straight ahead. stay with us. here we are. >> some of you may remember that earlier this year republicans shut me out of a hearing on contraception. in fact, on that panel they didn't hear from a single woman. even though they were debating an issue that affected nearly every woman. because it happened in congress, people noticed. but it happens all the time. too many women are shut out and

silenced. so while i am honored to be standing at this podium, it easily could have been any one of you. i am here because i spoke out. and this november each of us must speak out. during this campaign we have heard about two profoundly different futures that could await women in this country. and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete, relic of our past. warnings of that future are not distractions. they are not imagined. that future could become real. in that america your new president could be a man who

stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs. a man who won't stand up to those slurs or to any of the extreme bigoted voices in his own party. it would be an america in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventible deaths in our emergency rooms. an america in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure invasive ultrasounds that we don't want, and our doctors say that we don't need, and an america in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it.

an america in which politicians redefine rape and victims are victimized all over again. in which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve access to services and which don't. we know what this america would look like. in a few short months that's the america that we could be but that's not the america that we should be and it is not who we are. we have also seen another america we can choose. in that america we would have

the right to choose. it is an america in which no one can charge us more than men for the exact same health insurance in which no one can deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our lives, in which we decide when to start our families, an america in which our president when he hears a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters, not his delegates or his donors. and in which our president stands with all women and strangers come together and reach out and lift her up, and

then instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here. you give me this microphone to amplify our voice. that's the difference. over the last six months i have seen what these two futures look like and six months from now we're all going to be living in one future or the other, but only one, a country where our president either has our back or turns his back. a country that honors our

foremothers by moving us forward or one that forces our generation to refight battles that they already won. a country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom or one where that freedom doesn't apply to our bodies or to our voices. we talk often about choice. well, ladies and gentlemen, it is now time to choose. >> that's sandra fluke, the georgetown under graduate that became famous because she stood up against a fight about denying women the right to get

contraceptive coverage as part of their health insurance as under graduates. of course she was also impuneed by rush limbaugh. here we go, something is happening here. they're the people behind me. anyway, i think we'll have a very important speech coming up now, elizabeth warren, taking over the toughest fights in the united states senate race across the country and taking on scott brown in a very tough race in the commonwealth of massachusetts. she is about a handful of votes behind right now, about 5%. she has two months to catch up. well-funded candidate, about $30 million right now contributed to her. elizabeth warren is of course famous for taking on wall street and bringing real regulatory regime to keep wall street under wraps, to keep wall street from doing the kinds of things that got us into trouble in '08 and '09. this is going to be one of the most celebrated, important senate races in the country, perhaps the most celebrated because you have a real crusader running and you have a

republican candidate who is a very shrewd politician, who knew the importance of icon gonzales ography and acting like a regular person while in washington voting the republican line. rachel, this will be one of the most celebrated races for the simple reason a lot of people would like to see that seat back in democratic hands held for so many decades held by ted kennedy. >> i was struck thinking about ted kennedy has been very present in this convention, last night with a tribute video and obviously with a history where ted kennedy beat mitt romney in 1994 for the senate race with the democrats making incredible use of that in a way that angered republicans in the first night of the convention and with this sandra fluke speech which i think was the most edgy and most effective of the night thus far, she is channelling kennedy again with robert bourque's america and that idea when she is talking about the choices between romney and obama on this

issue of women's rights. she is talking about one america or the other, one america or the other, and painting this distoepian vision of what mitt romney's america would be like for a person like her and the contrasts she draws in terms of president obama saying an america in which our president when he hears a young woman is verbally attacked thinks of his daughters not his delegates or donors and stands with all women, strangers come together, reach out and lift her up and instead of trying to silence her you invite me here and give me a microphone and amplify our voice. that's the difference. we have elizabeth warren running against scott brown to reclaim ted kennedy's senate seat coming up right after this in this network hour that is so important in terms of the coverage ahead of the bill clinton speech, it is really omni present in the ambience here, isn't it, chris? >> can i say something about the comment you made about this comment by the republican national chairman that it was classless of the democrats to show ted kennedy's debating

against mitt romney last night. there is some kind of strange notion this chairman has of you might call it the gentlemen's agreement where we don't talk about things like that and we don't talk about race fading in our advertising where we go after the other party by saying that they're trying to get welfare benefits to people without work. all of that clearly race coding going on. it is all part of it seems previous gentlemen's agreement like we don't talk about ted kennedy at a democratic convention but you allow your own party to engage in race baiting? who signed on onto that gentlemen's agreement? who said that was classy behavior? that's what i would like to know. >> when we heard that from him, the objections to kennedy being used and cited in the democrat convention this year, do you remember the 9/12 rally when the tea parties held that, held september 12th in the month after ted kennedy died, and you remember the mass produced signs that were distributed at that

rally that said bury obama care with kennedy. ted kennedy had been dead one month at that point and that was how the tea party faction in the republican party politics was treating his memory at that point. it is incredible the way we keep getting back to ted kennedy. in terms of the sandra fluke speech, that was anticipated in part because of the context of what she was talking about. what do you make of the effectiveness of the speech? >> i think it was very effective. i think she came off exactly the way you want, very sincere, committed to her principles and she didn't come off cocky or arrogant that made the attacks she had sustained even more extreme because had she come off more boisterous you would say, well, it was her against rush limbaugh. >> equal competitors, right. >> when you see her come off as she did, someone who really agreed with what she was doing and wanted to go before the

congress and testify, and she is called a slut, and you look at this young lady and these are the kinds of people we're talking about that want to take the white house and i think they're being exposed. >> wasn't just one word now. let's clarify here. limbaugh went after sandra fluke for a week, 15 hours of radio, relentless, unapologetic, not backing down, making her the focal point of a problem in america and it was picked up by another 400 right wing talkers in the country, and she rose to stardom because she didn't back down. >> this young lady who then said as rachel quoted, and you gave me a microphone. they tried to shut me down and you gave me a microphone, that speaks to a lot of women and men in this country today >> you can tell behind the scenes there is a little bit of schedule juggling going on right now and part of that is us trying to keep up with who is coming to the podium and part is the democrats dropping people and moving people around and

they moved people around so sandra fluke would be in the 10:00 hour when networks are covering this convention and the ceo of costco speaking and elizabeth warren and then bill clinton. what do you make of that decision? >> if i was the democrats, i would absolutely want to have sandra fluke in primetime. this was a debacle for republicans. she is enormously sympathetic. i disagree with her on the issue, but i have a daughter, and if my daughter chooses to get involved in politics, whether she becomes a democrat some day or a republican, if she wants to go out there and assert her opinion, she deserves not to be made fun of, not to be called a slut, not to be bullied and i think people were re vulsed by it and i think a lot of people in the republican party of re vulsed as well. >> it was a problem for me. i am so civility police, i have been in talk radio and we're bombastic getting our point

across but when mitt romney was asked and he said it is not the language i would have used, i mean, forget how i disagree, it was a -- >> huge missed opportunity. huge missed opportunity. >> exactly. just go after him. >> i thought it was upsetting personally. >> it was also darrell issa that propped her up. the democrats wanted to bring her in to testify and vetted her through georgetown university, and she was an activist and they wanted to bring her in and issa said no and why? the democrats want to do this. the infamous picture of all of these men brought in to testify on women's issues >> we're seeing elizabeth warren, the u.s. senate candidate up against scott brown in massachusetts. she is waiting in the wings and we see her being ushered onto the stage right now, a primetime speaking slot for elizabeth warren, about five points back in the polls in massachusetts and she is should be said a democratic hero.

let's listen. >> thank you. thank you. thank you. i am elizabeth warren. thank you. thank you. i am elizabeth warren. this is my first democratic convention. >> warren, warren, warren. >> enough. i never thought i would run for the senate, and i sure never dreamed that i would not warmup act for president bill clinton.

he is an amazing man who had the good sense to marry one of the coolest women on this planet. i want to give a special shoutout to the massachusetts delegation. i am counting on you to help me win and help president obama win. i am here tonight to talk about hard working people, people who get up early, stay up late, cook dinner and help out with homework, people who can be counted onto help their kids, their parents, their neighbors, and a lady down the street whose car broke down, people who work their hearts out but are up against a hard truth, the game is rigged against them. it wasn't always this way. like a lot of you, i grew up in

a family on the ragged edges of the middle class. my daddy sold carpeting and ended up as a maintenance man. after he had a heart attack, my mom worked the phones at sears so we could hang onto our house. all three of my brothers served in the military. one was career. the second a good union job in construction, and the third started a small business. me, i was waiting tables at 13 and married at 19. i graduated from public schools and taught elementary school. i have a wonderful husband, two great children, and three beautiful grandchildren, and i am grateful down to my toes for every opportunity that america gave me. this is a great country. i grew up in an america that

invested in its kids and built a strong middle class, that allowed millions of children to rise from poverty and establish secure lives, an america that created social security and medicare so that seniors could live with dignity, an america in which each generation built something solid so that the next generation could build something better. now for many years our middle class has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered. talk to the construction worker i met from mald inmassachusetts who went nine months without work and talk to the head of a company in franklin about protecting jobs and worried about rising costs. talk to the student in wooster who worked hard to finish his degree and now he is drowning in

debt. their fight is my fight, and it is barack obama's fight, too. people feel like the system is rigged against them and here is the painful part. they're right. the system is rigged. look around. oil companies guzzle down billions in profits. billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. wall street ceos, the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around congress no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. does anyone here have a problem with that? i do, too.

i do, too. i talk to small business owners all across massachusetts and not one of them, not one, made big bucks from the risky bets that brought down our economy. i talked to nurses and programmers, sales people and fire fighters, people who bust their tails every day and not one of them, not one stashes their money in the caymen islands to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. these folks don't resent that someone else made more money. we're americans. we celebrate success. we just don't want the game to be rigged. we fought to a level playing field before.

about a century ago when corrosive greed threatened our economy and our way of life, the american people came together under the leadership of teddy roosevelt and other progressives to bring our nation back from the brink. we started to take children out of factories and put them in schools. we began to give meaning to the words consumer protection by making food and medicine safe we gave the little guys a better chance to compete by preventing the big guys from rigging the markets. we turned adversity into progress because that's what we do. americans are the fighters. we're tough, resourceful and creative, and if we have the chance to fight on a level playing field, where everyone

pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot, then no one, no one can stop us. president obama gets it because he spent his life fighting for the middle class. now he is fighting to level that playing field because we know the economy doesn't grow from the top down but from the middle class out and the bottom up. that's how we create jobs and reduce the debt. mitt romney, he wants to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires but for middle class families who are hanging on by their fingernails, his plan will hammer them with a new tax hike of up to $2,000.

mitt romney wants to give billions in breaks to big corporations, but he and paul ryan would pulverize financial reform, voucherize medicare and vaporize obama care. the republican vision is clear. i got mine. the rest of you are on your own. republicans say they don't believe in government. sure they do. they believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends. after all, mitt romney's the guy who said corporations are people. no, governor romney, corporations are not people.

people have hearts. they have kids. they get jobs. they get sick. they cry. they dance. they live, they love, and they die. and that matters. that matters. that matters because we don't run this country for corporations. we run it for people, and that is why we need barack obama. after the financial crisis president obama knew that we had to clean up wall street. for years families had been tricked by credit cards, fooled by student loans and cheated on mortgages. i had an idea for a consumer financial protection agency to

stop the rip offs. now, the big banks sure didn't like it, and they marshalled one of the biggest lobbying forces on earth to destroy the agency before it ever saw the light of day. american families didn't have an army of lobbyists on our side. what we had had was a president, president obama leading the way. when the lobbyists were closing in for the kill, barack obama squared his shoulders, planted his feet and stood firm, and that's how we won. by the way, just a few weeks ago that little agency caught one of the biggest credit card

companies cheating its customers and made it give people back every penny it took plus millions of dollars in fines. that's what happens when you have a president on the side of the middle class. president obama believes in a level playing field. he believes in a country where nobody gets a free ride or a golden parachute, a country where anyone who has a great idea and rolls up their sleeves has a chance to build a business and anyone who works hard can build some security and raise a family. president obama believes in a country where billionaires pay their taxes just like their secretaries do. i can't believe i have to say this in 2012, a country where women get equal pay for equal work.

he believes in a country where everyone is held accountable, where no one can steal your purse on main street or your pension on wall street. president obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science and in the future, so we can create new opportunities so the next kid can make it big and the kid after that and the kid after that. that's what president obama believes. that's how we build the economy of the future, an economy with more jobs and less debt. we root it in fairness.

we grow it with opportunity, and we build it together. i grew up in the methodist church and taught sunday school, and one of my favorite passages of scripture is in as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me, matthew 25:40. the passage teaches about god in each of us, that we are bound to each other, and we are called to act. not to sit. not to wait but to act. all of us together. senator ted kennedy understood that call.

four years ago he addressed our convention for the last time. he said we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world. generation after generation americans have answered that call, and now we are called again. we are called to restore opportunity for every american. we are called to give america's working families a fighting chance. we are called to build something solid so the next generation can build something better, so let me ask you, let me ask you, america, are you ready to answer this call? are you ready to fight for good jobs and a strong middle class? are you ready to work for a level playing field?

are you ready to prove to another generation of americans that we can build a better country and a newer world? joe biden is ready. barack obama is ready. i am ready. you're ready. thank you. god bless america. >> elizabeth warren, the democratic u.s. senate candidate from massachusetts, up against the incumbent republican senator scott brown who won the seat that had previously been held by ted kennedy. we heard so much about it at this convention, scott brown won that in a special election. elizabeth warren is trying to unseat him bringing the crowd to their feet. the standing ovation for elizabeth warren led in part by first lady michelle obama.

what's happening here, this is los angeles mayor antonio rigosa and business that will start before president bill clinton gives his speech. president obama is about to be nominated. listen. . our next speaker will place before you that nomination. >> unemployment in june with the highest since march of 1984. >> the u.s. economy has been in a recession. >> 10 million americans still officially unemployed. >> there is nothing wrong with america that cannot be cured by what is right with america.

>> we believe that investing grow economics is better than trickle down economics. we have got to go beyond the brain dead politics in washington and give our people the kind of government they deserve, a government that works for them. after years of hard effort, the longest economic expansion in history, we proved that we could find a way to balance the budget and protect our values. >> we have lots of evidence that presidents who focus on the middle class get better results. i personally believe that if the american people give you the honor of serving, you should keep on doing it when you leave office. i set up this foundat pursue ca could still have an impact on as a private citizen. it is a results oriented foundation committed to taking on the world's biggest challenges. my life has been a balance

between fulfilling initiatives that i always wanted and then responding to things that come up. >> what should our shared values be? everybody counts. everybody deserves a chance. everybody has got a responsibility to fulfill. we all do better when we work together. >> he has helped to create a model for individual responsibility and collective action that all of us are going to be studying for a very long time. ♪ don't stop thinking about tomorrow ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome president bill clinton.

>> thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. now, mr. mayor, fellow democrats, we are here to nominate a president. and i have got one in mind.

i want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. i want to nominate a man who ran for president to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before his election saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the great depression, a man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how, no matter how many jobs that he saved or created, there would still be millions more waiting, worried about feeding their own kids, trying to keep their hopes alive. i want to nominate a man whose cool on the outside but who burns for america on the inside.

i want a man who believes with no doubt that we can build a new american dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, by education and, yes, by cooperation, and by the way, after last night, i want a man who had the good sense to marry michelle obama. now, i want barack obama to not next president of the united states, and i proudly nominate him to not standard bearer of the democratic party.

now, folks, in tampa a few days ago we heard a lot of talk. oh, about how the president and the democrats don't really believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everybody to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy. this republican narrative, this alternative universe says that every one of us in this room who amounts to anything, we're all completely self-made. one of the greatest chairman the democratic party ever had, bob strauss, used to say that every politician wants every voter to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself.

but strauss then admitted, it ain't so. we democrats, we think the country works better with the strong middle class, with real opportunities for poor folks to work their way into it, when the relentless focus on the future, with business and government actually working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. you see, we believe that we're all in this together is a far better philosophy than you're on your phone. your own. so who is right? well, since 1961 for 52 years

now the republicans have held the white house 28 years, the democrats 24. in those 52 years our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs, so what's the job score? republicans 24 million, democrats 42. now, there is a reason for this. it turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. why? because poverty discrimination

and ignoreance restrict growth. when you stifle human potential, when you don't invest in new ideas, it doesn't just cut off the people affected, it hurts us all. we know that investments in education and infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase growth. they increase good jobs, and they create new wealth for all the rest of us. now, something i have noticed lately, you probably have, too, and it is this. maybe just because i grew up in a different time, but though i often disagree with republicans, i actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president and a lot of other democrats.

that would be impossible for me because president eisenhower sent federal troops to my home state to integrate little rock high school. president eisenhower built the interstate highway system. when i was a governor i worked with president reagan in the white house on the first round of welfare reform and with president george h.w. bush on national education goals. i am actually very grateful if you saw from the film what i do today, i have to be grateful, and you should be, too, that president george w. bush supported petfar. it saved the lives of millions in poor countries, and i have been honored to work with both presidents bush on national disasters in the aftermath of the south asian tsunami, hurricane katrina, the horrible earthquake in haiti. through my foundation both in america and around the world i

am working all the time with democrats, republicans and independents and sometimes i couldn't tell you for the life who i am working with because we focus on solving problems and seizing opportunities and not fighting all the time. here is what i want to say to you. here is what i want people at home to think about. when times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good, but what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. what works in the real world is cooperation. what works in the real world is cooperation. this and government and foundations and university, ask the mayors who are here.

los angeles is getting green and chicago is getting an infrastructure bank because republicans and democrats are working together to get it. they didn't check their brains at the door. they didn't stop disagreeing, but their purpose was to get something done. now, why is this true? why does cooperation work better than constant conflict? because nobody is right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. every one of us, every one of us and every one of them, we're compelled to spend our fleeting lives between those two extremes knowing we're never going to be right all the time and hoping we're right more than twice a day. unfortunately the faction that now dominates the republican party doesn't see it that way. they think government is always the enemy. they're always right, and

compromise is weakness. just in the last couple of elections they defended two distinguished republican senators because they dared to cooperate with democrats on issues important to the future of the country even national security. they beat a republican congressman with almost 100% voting record on every conservative score because he said he realized he did not have to hate the president to disagree with him. boy, that was a non-starter and they threw him out. one of the main reasons we ought to reelect president obama is that he is still committed to constructive cooperation. look at his record. look at his record. look at his record. he appointed republican secretaries of defense, the army and transportation. he appointed a vice president

who ran against him in 2008, and he trusted that vice president to oversee the successful end to the war in iraq and the implementation of the recovery act. joe biden did a great job with both. now, he, president obama appointed several members of his cabinet even though they supported hillary in the primary. heck, he even appointed hillary.

wait a minute. i am very proud of her. i am proud of the job she and the national security team have done for america. i am grateful that they have worked together to make a safer and stronger and build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. i am grateful for the relationship of respect and partnership she and the president have enjoyed and the signal that sends to the rest of the world that democracy does not have to be a blood sport, it can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interests.

now, besides the national security team i am very grateful to the men and women who served our country in uniform through these perilous times, and i am especially grateful to michelle obama and to joe biden for supporting those military families while their loved ones were overseas. and for supporting our veterans when they came home, when they come home bearing the wounds of war or needing help to find education or jobs or housing. president obama's whole record on national security is a tribute to his strength, to his judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship. we need more of it in washington, d.c.

now, we all know that he also tried to work with congressional republicans on health care, debt reduction, and new jobs, and that didn't work out so well. it could have been because as the senate republican leader said in a remarkable moment of candor, two full years before the election, their number one priority was not to put america backs to work, it was to put the president out of work. wait a minute. senator, i hate to break it to you, but we're going to keep president obama on the job. are you ready for that? are you ready to work for it?

in tampa, did you all watch the convention? i did. in tampa the republican argument against the president re-election was actually pretty simple, pretty snappy. it went something like this, we left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough so fire him and put us back in. now, they did it well. they looked good. she sounded good. they convinced me that they all

love their families and their children and were grateful they had been born in america. really. they did. this is important. they convinced me they were honorable people who believed what they said and they're going to keep every commitment they made. we just have to make sure the american people know what those commitments are because in order to look like an acceptable, reasonable, moderate alternative to president obama, they just didn't say very much about the ideas they bought over the last two years. they couldn't because they want to go back to the same old policy that is got us in trouble in the first place. they want to cut taxes for high income americans even more than president bush did. they want to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts. they want to actually increase defense spending over a decade

$2 trillion more than the pentagon has requested. without saying what they will spend it on, and they want to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor children. as another president once said, there they go again. i like the argument for president obama's re-election a lot better. here it is. he inherited a deeply damaged economy. he put a floor under the crash. he began the long, hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce

millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for innovators. now, are we where we want to be today? no. is the president satisfied? of course not. but are we better off than we were when he took office? listen to this. listen to this. everybody has forgotten, everybody has forgotten, when president obama took office, the economy was in free fall, it had just shrunk nine full percent of gdp. we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. are we doing better than that today? the answer is yes. now, look, here is the challenge he faces and the challenge all of you who support him face.

i did it. i know it. i have been there. a lot of americans are still angry and frustrated about this economy. if you look at the numbers, you know employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend again, and in a lot of places housing prices are even beginning to pick up. too many people do not feel it yet. i had the same thing happen in 1994 and early '95. we could see that the policies were working, that the economy was growing, but most people didn't feel it yet. thankfully by 1996 the economy was roaring and everybody felt it and we were halfway through the longest peace time expansion in the history of the united states, but the difference this time is purely in the

circumstances. president obama started with a much weaker economy than i did. listen to me now. no president, no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years. he has laid the foundations for a new modern, successful economy, a shared prosperity, and if you will renew the president's contract, you will feel it. you will feel it. folks, whether the american people believe what i just said

or not, maybe the whole election, i just want you to know that i believe it with all my heart. i believe it. now, why do i believe it? i am fixing to tell you why. i believe it because president obama's approach embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction america has to take to build a 21st century version of the american dream and a nation of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, shared prosperity, a shared sense of community, so let's get back to the story. in 2010 as the president's recovery program kicked in, the job losses stopped and things began to turn around. the recovery act saved or created millions of jobs and cut taxes and let me say this again,

cut taxes for 95% of the american people. in the last 29 months our economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. we could have done better, but last year the republicans blocked the president's job plan, costing the economy more than a million new jobs, so here is another job score. president obama plus four and a half million, congressional republicans zero. during this period more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under president obama. that's the first time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s.

i will tell you something else. the auto industry restructuring worked. it saved more than a million jobs and not just at gm, chrysler and their dealerships but in auto parts manufacturing all over the country. that's why even the auto makers who weren't part of the deal supported it. they needed to save those parts suppliers, too. like i said, we're all in this together. so what's happened? there are now 250,000 more people working the auto industry than on the day the companies were restructured. now we all know that governor romney opposed the plan to save gm and chrysler.

so here is another job score. are you listening in michigan and ohio and across the country? here is another job score. obama 250,000, romney zero. now, the agreement the administration made with the management, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage, that was a good deal, too. it will cut your gas prices in half, your gas bill, no matter what the price is, if you double the mileage of your car, your bill will be half what it would have been. it will make us more energy independent. it will cut greenhouse gas emission, and according to several analyses over the next 20 years it will bring us another half a million good new jobs into the american economy.

the president's energy strategy which he calls all of the above is helping, too. the boom in oil and gas production combined with greater energy efficiency has driven oil imports to a near 20-year law and natural gas production to an all-time high, and renewable energy production has doubled. of course, we need a lot more new jobs. but there are already more than 3 million jobs open and unfilled in america. mostly because the people who apply for them don't yet have the required skills to do them. so even as we get americans more jobs, we have to prepare more americans for the new jobs that are actually going to be created. the old economy is not coming back. we've got to build a new one and

educate people to do those jobs. the president, the president and his education secretary have supported community colleges and employers in working together to train people for jobs that are actually open in their communities. even more important, after a decade in which exploding college costs have increased the drop-out rate so much that the percentage of our young people with four-year college degrees has gone down so much that we have dropped to 16th in the world. in the percentage of young people with college degrees. so the president's student loan reform is more important than ever. here's what it does. here's what it does. you need to tell every voter where you live about this. it lowers the cost of federal

student loans and even more important, it gives students the right to repay those loans as a clear, fixed low percentage of their income for up to 20 years. now -- what does this mean? what does this mean? think of it. it means no one will ever have to drop out of college again for fear they can't repay their debt. and it means -- it means that if someone wants to take a job with a modest income, a teacher, a police officer, if they want to be a small town doctor in a little rural area, they won't have to turn those jobs down because they don't pay enough to repay the debt. their debt obligation will be determined by their salary. this will change the future for young americans.

i don't know about you -- [ cheers and applause ] on all these issues, i know we're better off because president obama made the decisions he did. now, that brings me to health care. the republicans call it dericively obama care. they say it is a government takeover, a disaster, and that if we'll just elect them, they'll repeal it. well, are they right? let's take a look at what has actually happened so far. first, individuals and businesses have already gotten more than a billion dollars in refunds from insurance companies because the law requires 80 to 85% of your premium to go to your health care, not profits or promotion.

and the gains are even greater than that because a bunch of insurance companies have applied to lower their rates to comply with the requirement. more than 3 million young people between 19 and 25 are insured for the first time because their parents' policies can cover them. third -- millions of seniors are receiving preventive care all the way from breast cancer screenings to tests for heart problems and scores of other things. and younger people are getting them, too. fourth, soon the insurance companies, not the government, the insurance companies, will have millions of new customers. many of them middle class people with preexisting conditions who never could get insurance before. now, finally, listen to this.

for the last two years, after going up at three times the rate of inflation for a decade, for the last two years, health care costs have been under 4% in both years for the first time in 50 years! so let me ask you something. are we better off because president obama fought for health care reform? you bet we are. there were two other attacks on the president in tampa. i think that deserve an answer. first, both governor romney and congressman ryan attacked the president for allegedly robbing medicare of $716 billion. that's the same attack they leveled against the congress in 2010. and they got a lot of votes on

it. but it's not true. look. here's what really happened. you be the judge. here's what really happened. there were no cuts to benefits at all. none. what the president did was to save money by taking the recommendations of a commission of professionals, to cut unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that were not making people healthier and were not necessary to get the providers to provide the service. and instead of raiding medicare, he used savings to close the doughnut hole in the medicare drug program. and you all have to listen carefully to this. this is really important. and add eight years to the life

of the medicare trust fund so it is solvent until 2024. so -- so president obama and the democrats didn't weaken medicare. they strengthened medicare. now, when congressman ryan looked into that tv camera and attacked president obama's medicare savings as, quote, the biggest, coldest, power play, i didn't know whether to laugh or cry. because that $716 billion is exactly to the dollar the same amount of medicare savings that he has in his own budget.

you have to give one thing, it takes a brass for attacking a guy for doing what you did. [ cheers and applause ] now, you're having a good time with this but we're getting serious. listen. it's important. a lot of people believe this stuff. now, at least on this issue, this one issue, governor romney has been consistent. he -- he attacked president obama, too. but he actually wants to repeal those savings and give the money back to the insurance company.

he wants to go back to the old system which means we will reopen the doughnut hole and force seniors to pay more for drugs, and we'll reduce the life of the medicare trust fund by eight full years. so if he's elected, and if he does what he promised to do, medicare will now go broke in 2016. think about that. that means after all we won't to have wait until the voucher program kicks in in 2023 to see the end of medicare as we know it. they're going to do it to us sooner than we thought. now, folks, this is serious. because it gets worse. and you won't be laughing when i finish telling you this. they also want to block medicaid and cut it by a third over the

coming ten years. of course that's going to really hurt a lot of poor kids. but that's not all. a lot of folks don't know it but nearly two-thirds of medicaid is sp home care for medicare seniors who are eligible for medicaid. it's going to end medicare as we know it. and a lot of that money is also spent to help people with disabilities. including a lot of middle class families whose kids have down syndrome or autism or other severe conditions. and honestly, just think about it. if that happens, i don't know what those families are going to do. i know what i'm going to do.

i'm going to do everything to see that it doesn't happen. we can't let it happen. we can't. let's look at the other big charge the republicans made. it is a real doozy. they have charged and run ads saying that president obama wants to weaken the work requirements in the welfare reform bill i signed that moved millions of people from welfare to work. wait. you need to know here's what happened. nobody ever tells you what really happened. here's what happened.

when some republican governors ask if they can have waivers to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the obama administration listened. because we all know it is hard for even people with good work histories to get jobs today, so moving folks from welfare to work is a real challenge. and the administration agreed to give waivers to those governors and others only if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20% and they can keep the waivers only if they did increase employment. now, did i make myself clear? the requirement was for more work, not less. so this is personal to me. millions of people moved off welfare. it was one of the reasons in the eight years i was president, we

had 100 time as many people move out of poverty into the middle class than happened under the previous 12 years. 100 times as many. it is a big deal. but i am telling you the claim that president obama weakened welfare reforms' work requirement is just not true. but they keep on running ads claiming it. do you want to know why? their campaign poster said, we are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers. now -- finally i can say, that is true. i couldn't have said it better myself. and i hope you and every

american within the sound of my voice remembers it every time they see one of those ads and it turns into an ad to reelect barack obama and keep the fundamental principles of personal empowerment and moving everybody who can get a job into work as soon as we can. now let's talk about the debt. today interest rates are low. lower than the rate of inflation. people are practically paying us to hold their money. it will become a big problem when the economy grows and interest rates start to rise. we've got to deal with this big long term debt problem or it will deal with us. it will gobble up a bigger and bigger percentage of the federal budget we on rather spend on education and health care and science and technology. we've got to deal with it. now what has the president done? he has offered a reasonable plan

of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade with $2.5 trillion coming from, for every $2.5 trillion in spending cuts, he raise as dollar in new revenues. 2 1/2-1. and he has tight controls on future spending. that's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the simpson boles commission. a bipartisan commission. i think this plan is way better than governor romney's plan. first, the romney plan fails the first test of fiscal responsibility. the numbers just don't add up. i mean, consider this. what would you do if you had this problem? someone says, we've got a big debt problem. we've got to reduce the debt. what is the first thing you say we'll do? to reduce the debt we'll add another $5 trillion in tax cuts. heavily weighted to upper income

people. so we'll make the debt hole bigger before we start to get out of it. now, when you say, what are you going to do about this $5 trillion you just added on in they say we'll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code. so then you ask, well, which loopholes and how much? you know what they say? see me about that after the election. i'm not making it up. that's their position. see me about that after the election. now, people ask me all the time, how we got four surplus budgets in a row. what new ideas did we bring to washington? i always give a one-word answer. arithmetic.

if they stay with this $5 trillion tax cut plan, in a debt reduction plan, the math says no matter what they say, one of three things is about to happen. one, assuming they try to do what they say they'll do, get rid of paid covered by deductions, cutting those deductions. one, they'll have to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their tax bills go up an average of $2,000 while anybody who makes $3 million or more will see their tax bill go down $250,000. or, two, they'll have to cut so much spending that they'll obliterate the budget for national parks for ensuring

clean water, safe air, safe air travel. they'll cut back on pel grants, child nutrition program, all the programs that help to empower middle class families and help poor kids. oh, they'll cut back on investment and roads and bridges and science and technology and biomedical research. that's what they'll do. they'll hurt the middle class in the poor and put the future on hold to give tax cuts to upper income people who have been getting it all along. or, three, in spite of all the rhetoric, they'll do what they've been doing for more than 30 years. they'll go cut the taxes way more than they cut spending. especially with that big defense increase and they'll just explode the debt and weaken the economy and they'll destroy the federal government's ability to help you by letting interest gobble up all your tax payments.

don't you ever forget when you hear them talking about this. that republican economic policies quadruple the national debt before i took office in the 12 years before i took office. and double the debt in the eight years after i left. because it defied aarithmetic. it was a highly inconvenient thing for them in our debates that i was just a country boy from arkansas and i came from a place where people still thought 2 plus 2 was 4. it's arithmetic. we cannot afford to give the reins of government to someone who will double down on trickle down.

think about this. president obama's plan cuts the debt, honors our values, brightens the future of our children, our families and our nations. it's a heck of a lot better. it passes the math test and far more important, it passes the values test. my fellow americans, all of us in this grand hall and everybody watching at home. when we vote in this election, we'll be deciding what kind of country we want to live in. if you want a winner take all, you're all your own society, you should support the republican ticket. but if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility, we're all in

this together society, you should vote for barack obama and joe biden. if you want america, if you want every american to vote and you think it is wrong to change voting procedures -- just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters, you should support barack obama. [ cheers and applause ] if you think the president was right to open the doors of

american opportunity to all those young immigrants brought here when they were young, or go to college, you must vote for barack obama. if you want a future of shared prosperity where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining. where the american dream is alive and well again and where the united states maintains its leadership as a force for peace and justice and prosperity in this highly competitive world, you have to vote for barack obama. i love our country so much. and i know we're coming back. for more than 200 years, through every crisis, we've always come

back. people have predicted our demise ever since george washington was criticized for being a mediocre with a bad set of false teeth. and so far, every single person that has bet against america has lost money. because we always come back. we come through every fire a little stronger and a little better and we do it because in the en, we decide to champion the cause for which our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. the cause of forming a more perfect union. my fellow americans, if that is what you want, if that is what you believe, you must vote and you must reelect president barack obama! god bless you and god bless america.

[ cheers and applause ] ♪ [ cheers and applause ]

that was the shot they were waiting for. the shot of president obama and former president bill clinton together on the stage. that was a bit of a surprise tonight. president obama, we knew he was coming back to the arena. we did not know when. we've seen the first lady watching the speech. we did not see president obama during the speech. but at the end of the speech, he appeared on stage and embraced former president bill clinton. bill clinton for more than three quarters of an hour on policy and on the economy, essentially piece by piece with numbers,

with repetition, with his remarks, dismantling the republicans critique of president obama in this election and going broader to critique republicans, broader economic philosophy, specifically. over the last generation. i want to go to chris matthews in charlotte. chris, for your response. [ cheers ] >> i think there's only one way to describe it. that is that bill clinton came in and beat up the other side. there is no other phrase for it. he took down all the republican arguments on welfare, on medicare. he banged the former president, blamed him for the ditch they left the democratic president in. banged him on the issue of obstruction i. hit them hard where they were weak, on obstructionism, on the failed economy. beat him on the arguments of medicare, on the arguments of

welfare, on every charge they made against obama. he took it back and threw it back at them. this was a strong offensive. it put them on the retreat. i wouldn't want to be the guy fighting bill clinton if the issue is barack obama. >> chris, i want to go to andrea mitchell on the floor righted now. long experience covering bill clinton. tell us the feeling on the hall. i know the nomination process is going ahead. what was the response like? >> well, first of all, as you see, mayor villaraigosa is doing the nominating process. the extraordinary speech. the defense that chris matthews was just describing that we all watched on every tough issue that had been raised by the republicans. when he said, we can't afford to double down on trickle down. he said it is just arithmetic. he made the case for the welfare reform and the waivers that president obama has granted.

he made the case on medicare. he made the case on health care. it is a long speech. classic bill clinton. but they were screaming and shouting here when the video to introduce him first came up. when he came out, he had this audience. and even though he gave a classic clintonian long explanation of all of the policy points, he made it and applicable. he said no president, not me or my predecessors, could have recovered from this depression and done it any better. he made the point that we're on the road to recovery. all of the issues that the republicans have hammered away at president obama. obviously, he has his own perspective but as a political document, this speech was extraordinary. and i think it was classic clinton. just one other note. i've been messaging with the clinton traveling party, hillary clinton in timor. it is 13 hours ahead of us. it is already wednesday.

she is going to have a news conference. she could not watch the speech. they barely have internet. they don't have television right now. as she travels around timor, talking through her aides and getting reports from the traveling pool. the pool producer traveling with her and they're very aware of this night. she wanted to be able to watch it. she couldn't but she is planning to watch it. this is really all about barack obama and that embrace as awkward as their relationship has been. and as you know, bill clinton told brian williams earlier today that they have a cordial relationship. they didn't deny that they're not close but he made the strongest political case for barack obama to be reelected tonight. rachel? >> thank you. the point by point rebuttal i think is the big point here. there was a lot of points in the speech and one of the things we'll be talking about in detail is the way that president clinton shot this speech right at the center of the electorate.

talking about not democrats, not republicans, the need to work together. the shots that he took at republicans specifically, at paul ryan when he went off script and said got to give him this one thing. it takes some brass to attack a guy on what you did. on him president obama on the medicare cuts that are in his own budget. that was off skrip and that was powerful. need to notoriety now for the record that this is msnbc's continuing coverage of the democratic national convention. i want to bring in my colleague on the set in terms of the response to this speech. steve schmidt as a political consultant in 2008. how was this speech? >> it was extraordinary. a virtueoso. no other person who could hold the attention of the crowd, have them yelling and screaming. speaking for three quarters of an hour. i wish to god as a republican we had someone on our side who had the ability to do that.

we don't. it would be great if we did. just an amazing performance. struck by the political almost genius of how he embraced the bush family and george w. bush for the purposes of marginalizing house republicans and pushing them to the extreme. it was a devastating critique but it was delivered with an absence of malice or anger. a smile on his face, logic aimed squarely at the electorate where he is so powerful. another good night for obama. >> as a democrat, it doesn't get any better. i'm sitting here, i'm giddy. this is exactly what barack obama needed. mending fences, bringing people together and understanding the facts. and i like the way that president clinton talked about the alternative universe that

the republicans have painted president obama in. that they're not in reality. they're not in the real world. he even used the word hate. and i'm glad he addressed this tonight. you have to understand the climate before you can have the healing. and he also talked about a dysfunctional washington, saying it doesn't have to be a blood sport. and documented the kinds of things that he worked on with republicans, and really, in a roundabout way, gave the country hope. that we can get together and we should be, and it is a responsibility for elected officials to get to the point where they can work together. and of course, he talked about philosophy which i think is important. about owning your own philosophy of owning your own health care, your own retirement and taking those risks. gosh, i think president clinton just did barack obama the biggest favor he could have ever done and i think this is going to give him the bounce. >> i want to go to chuck todd on the floor of the convention hall in charlotte. in part i want to hear from

chuck but i appreciate that there is still something going on in the floor of the convention. the roll call which is actually the nomination of the president. >> yes, it is the roll call. they're in the middle of it now. they're doing american samoa. smile go through, i'm told that let's see. the president's last name begins with the letter o. the state that is likely to put him over the top begins with the letter o. last time i heard there is a state in the battleground that is high in the middle and round on the ends. that would be the state you would look for to see as you're watching. as we're tuning in and out we'll look very much there. i want to make one clinton comment. just so you know, we have terry mcauliffe. he'll be making the rounds. if you think about the partisan wars of the '90s. the fact that bill clinton is now the democratic party's best person to talk to independent voters. it just shows you that

everything, you know, everything can come around and become new again. it is amazing when you think back of what 97 to 99 was like in american politics. as polarized frankly as we are today. and it is that president that is now the guy that probably can speak better to independent voters than any national leader in either party. >> that's right. and on that point that ed was just making about, talking about democracy not being a blood sport. that was another rif. a depart you from the prepared remarks when president obama talked about the partnership between hillary clinton and barack obama, showing that democracy does not have to be a blood sport. it can be an honorable enterprise. talking about taking hillary's support enters into the cabinet. picking hillary herself and the way, talking about even within the democratic party there being a sort of bridge of respectful, respectful willingness to work together. that was the way he broadened it out. >> think about who could be bitter. he could be a very bitter

person. there are a lot of people who think he never got his full second term. he could be very bitter and he's chosen to go, chose to go a different route. >> i think also, what was striking. it was the first real sustained mention, articulation and excavation of the record of the republican caucus and this has been the defining feature of the republican party, and in some ways, i think it was masterful politically. the one big implicit opening in that is why will things be different? what will change now? what are we looking at if we reelect president barack obama and we get john boehner again? it is an incredibly useful tool to remind the electorate of how extreme the caucus is. how singular they've been in their focus on defeating the president. when you think about what the next term looks like, that's where the argument begins to lose its steam. >> take a democrat. you can see it in the congressional republicans. vote for democrats.

they're in the all ticket argument. >> i think rather than romanticized the moment for those in the democratic fight to disagree with clinton, the reason i think it was masterful and i have been one that has agreed and disagreed with president clinton. he had a unique credibility. one, because he had gone through this polarized kind of climate himself. so he can identify with president obama unfairly doing. and because he went through a contentious primary with his own wife and president obama. so let's not act like he descended from heaven and made this speech. he came up from hell. as a survivor of an internal party hell that he was part of and caused some of. what he did, then he talked about cooperation and how president obama believes in cooperation. he even appointed his enemies,

lincolnesque. and then he methodically took down everything from pell grants to medicaid to medicare to voter i.d., something on my heart. after he called for cooperation. let me tell what you they stand for. not bad guys want to work with them. the bushes helped me all over the world but what they're doing is wrong. it was methodical. the only thing the president has to do tomorrow night is come on and inspire. the case has been laid out, signed, sealed and delivered. elvis and bubba showed up tonight. >> what he said about medicaid. when he stopped and said, they want to cut medicaid by a third. and remember two-thirds of medicaid spending is going to seniors in nursing home and middle class kids on disability. we don't talk about the medicaid stuff. it is all about medicare. that is a devastating critique because first, it is true. and it has been an send from the entire political discussion. >> i think the fact that his wife hillary clinton tried so

hard to do something in his first term with health care, and was not successful. i think president obama -- president clinton certainly appreciate what has been accomplished. that was about the best presentation i have ever seen on exactly what this health care bill is doing and will do for america. capsulized in a speech. i thought it was very compelling and president clinton just had that arkansas way about him. can think what you want about me. i'll just tell you how it is. >> it did make the room feel very small. >> did you see the emotion? the women were just connected. i noticed that. we kept taking shots of the emotions of the people in the crowd. the democrats have definitely got the republicans beat on the quality of speakers. it is not even close.

>> let's bring on lawrence o'donnell in the convention hall. tell us your experience of the speech. what you saw there. >> i think one of the concerns that the obama team has to have is what was the effect of the speech outside of this hall where it went? more than a half-hour longer than it was scheduled to go. it was one of those clinton tests of the attention span. he used to do this with state of the union addresses that many of us thought went too long. then on bill clinton's longest state of the union address, when the pundit opinion was unanimous that it had gone far too long and he had lost the audience, he got his biggest poll jump ever from a state of the union address which was the longest one he ever gave. >> we've got, and tonight we have the competing elements of when the networks are going to be taking the feed. right? supposedly, it is 10:00 to 11:00. and it is supposedly there therefore very important that

sandra fluke were both speaking in the 10:00 hour. he went so i don't know 10:00 and several of the networks didn't take them. waited for him and then had to make the call about whether to wait into the 11:00 hour. it threw all the rules out the window. >> as anyone who had the prepared text could see, he was running away from the prepared text. it was a constant challenge for the operator. clearly these were not anything anticipated by the speech writing teams here that can try to control the time on the podium. athletic completely lost control of his time probably within the first five minutes of what he was to go. it was remarkable to watch but it was also what made the speech work. when you were reading along the prompter and you saw what he did to it, that was where the magic of the speech was.

that's how he improved that speech beyond what was written for him. >> let me bring chris matthews back in. when you were hearing the arguments, were you hearing him augment is existing message of the campaign or was he wearing his own clinton for obama campaign? >> well, i thought that it is as if bill clinton was the best staffer president obama has. because he went out and got the numbers. he really did the arithmetic. it is a good word birk the wargs it reminds us of grade school, elementary school. it doesn't intimidate us. we can figure things out ourselves. when you talk about how bill clinton balanced the budget and held the debt down and reduced the national debt during his second term. you have to wonder, all he did was look at spending and revenue and did theological choices. whereas w came in and did the opposite. starting a couple of wars,

cutting taxes, going wrong way car again in both directions of revenue and spending. so it seems so logical when bill talks. then to bring up the history of the democratic party and job production, 42 million versus something like 20 something million on the republicans side. saying the democratic brand was pretty good. there was an old line if you want to live like a republican, vote like a democrat. and i think bill clinton handled that pretty well tonight. he also summed it up. he said it all comes down to what kind of a country do you want to live in. and i think he did reach to the center tonight. bill clinton as someone said, i think it was you, rachel, he is a man of the center. and i think he brought the center home. look at this crowd. this is the alternate universe for us. these people don't have tickets and credentials but they're with us all the way. >> two things about the crowd behind you. first if you disappear, we're

going to assume you've been crowd surfed somewhere and we'll come to pick you up later. i'm sure it will be fun. i wonder if that makes you feel differently about how big a price the democrats are paying for not having their giant, giant stadium to fit all these people into it tomorrow night. do you feel like they're actually having a big sacrifice there? because they'll take the smaller venue. >> i have to tell but the people who want to get in and won't be able to. there is an old rule of advance. get a small room and pack it to the ceiling. and i'll tell you, there is nothing wrong with people waiting outside. it has made hard rock cafe a success all these years. nothing like a line outside to advertise how hot it is and great it is inside. these people want to get in. but you know, they have to be careful about safety. >> one of the lines from the clinton speech that i feel like, we keep coming back. to part where he talk about, he used the word hateful he said though i often disagree with republicans, and i'm reading from his prepared remarks.

the nut of it was, though i often disagree with republicans, i never learned to hate them the way the far right that now control their party seems to hate president obama and the democrats. the reason that is so striking is because of what it was like in the '90s under the clinton administration with the impeachment crusade, with the other, the type of partisan warfare directed. not only against president obama but against hillary clinton. and a lot of democrats who more than anything wanted to win in 2008, august you'd that hillary clinton would not be a good choice because the partisan machine that was tuned against both her and her husband would never let up and we would have another four years or another eight years of a country that was completely wrenched in partisan warfare against the clintons. here he is saying, i never hated anybody. i never hated anybody the way these people hate. >> even after all he went through work the clinton global initiative, he has never carried a chip on his shoulder. he has gone to resourceful

people who never asked whether he is republican or democrat. and he has raised billions of dollars. it is amazing what he has done. there isn't anybody that walk the face of the earth, very few that have had the life experiences of bill clinton. if you think about where he's been around the world and the ambassador around the united states and the things he's done for humanity. what a credible voice tonight. as much as he has been through. as much as he was targeted he could speak from experience and set forth and say i never hated those guys. i wanted to get something done and he did. and i thought he spoke very well to the economy tonight, too. he made the case about the philosophy of success. wealthy people doing a little more because they can. >> he talked -- >> i think before you leave the hate part, because he talk about people proud of being, their kids being born in america which referred to, this is a deeper

and different kind of hate. they hated hillary clinton for what she wanted to do. they hated him for what they wanted to do. they hate president obama for what he wants to do. and because of what he is. that's what he was alluding to. which was a different hate than bill clinton. they never asked bill clinton for his birth certificate. so he understands the levels of hate here. as much as they fought hillary and him, they never asked them for their birth certificate. let's not act like this is normal partisan hate we're dealing with. >> he singled it out in the way he phrased it. a part of republican party hates this president. he is not saying i never hatede. >> one of the remarkable things about it was his use of the word cooperation. if you go to focus groups, you look at surveys of what moves independent voters, ticket splitter, ticket splitting voters. they want cooperation in washington. when they go to soccer game on the weekends, they don't look at the other parents there and make

evaluations. is that a democrat or a republican or annd? it is not how people in the real world relate to each other. 25 years after his first key note address at a democratic convention, he was able to position himself as the outsider and explained the dysfunction of what's going on in washington to the country, i think, in a very, very effective way. and i just think it was a remarkable performance. >> the problem with cooperation as a message that you give to the electorate is that it cannot be imposed unilaterally which is part of what we've seen in the obama era. you cannot promise that i will come and create cooperation. because cooperation is by its nature something that two different sides do. so the problem is president has faced, much of the appeal in 2008 and going back to the 2004 key note was about reaching across the aisle. it was this dream of a vision of what politics would look like if they weren't mired in the partisanship that defind that political moment. of course, he single handedly

was incapable of prougs that cooperation. cooperation by definition is the product of two different sides. >> that's the leap that clinton made in this speech. this speech is bifurcated. one half, second half. first half is we need to cooperate and barack obama is a guy who cooperates. the second half is the other side is not cooperating. therefore they are the problem. it is a speech not about partisanship that has an incredibly partisan message. which is saying vote democratic down the line. because what's wrong with the republican party is that they don't have the country's best interests at heart. they've got something wrong with them as a party. i don't hate people because they're republicans but there's something wrong with republicanism now. that is a case that liberals like me, frankly, have been telling the obama administration to make to the country. that they have not been interested in. and president clinton from a very centrist perspective made it tonight more brutally than i think we can expect from the current okay pabt of the white house. >> partly because he has this

third party status. he is not one of the people in the negotiations. have the roll call is continuing on the convention call which is a weird but maybe genius bit of staging and scheduling. this was a slow burn night at the convention where there was not a huge amount of enthusiasm at the end of the night. but boy, howdy was there at the en. they camdenized by bringing out president obama for the applause for president clinton and turning that into the actual nomination. the state by state roll call nominating president obama for a second term. the state of hawaii. hawaii here. to president barack obama we say aloha! madam secretary, the state of hawaii, the aloha state, in memory of the president's mother and father, cast 31 votes for our child of the islands, president barack obama.

>> thank you, governor. hawaii casts 35 votes for barack obama. 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? hey. hey eddie. i brought your stuff. you don't have to do this. yes i do. i want you to keep this. it'd be weird. take care. you too. [ sighs ]

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are we better off because president obama fought for health care reform? you bet we are.

>> msnbc's live coverage of the democratic national convention in charlotte continues. chuck todd joins us from inside the convention hall and he is with terry mcauliffe. the co-chair of her husband's '96 campaign and long time friend of both clintons. chuck? >> thank you, rachel. terry mcauliffe, you were just telling me off camera how long the president was working on this speech. give me a little insight on that. >> for the last month, i went and spent a couple days on vacation with him. i would like to say you go on vacation with the clintons, people sit on the beach, it is a policy with them. he felt like he was lifting the world. this was his responsibility. and i think he knocked it out of the park. took all these very big tough issues. got it down and made people

understand, this is a real choice election. >> is it a little surreal, i'll add mit it is a little surreal for me covering the partisan wars of the '90s that the democratic party, perhaps the best spokesperson independents to the middle is bill clinton. >> if you remember, you and i lived through the '90s. those were tough time. they were after the president from the day he went into office. as you remember, i think it was always the president clinton's positive outlook, focusing on the economy. that's yefs such a great spokesperson here today. there was a clear choice. he said listen, the republicans in tampa, the best argument is, oh, okay. president obama hasn't fixed all of it fast enough so get rid of him but we're the guys who created it. not a great argument and i think president clinton took all those issues to say what president obama has done and what he will do in the next four years. health care. he took on the next 12 issues. you took on defense, job creation, he created a real

choice. you want to go that way or the way of president obama? when you walked out of here or on television, this was a simple decision. >> describe the relationship between president obama and president clinton has evolved. >> in the press, listen of we went through a tough campaign in '08. ran, his wife was running for president of the united states. we got done with that. once the election was over, we had to move on. it was about the united states of america. and as you know, i i had president obama and president clinton -- >> you just skipped over a couple of years. did it take the first couple years of the term to become, develop a relationship? >> i always think when a new president comes in, all former presidents just generally, stay back. let the new president get in. pick his team. you know that. that's just natural. and then over time, it evolved. they spent time together. they were golfing. i spend an hour with the two of them in my home. great warm feeling. talked sports.

talked politics. they're different generations, different folks. they get along. and bill clinton will do anything he can to make sure that president obama is reelected. you could tell that tonight. he was into this speech. he talked about what president obama has accomplished, and that we need president obama for four more years. you could feel that. that was in his heart talking tonight and i can tell you, having talked to the president for a lot, president clinton through this, he believed it. he worked hard tonight. >> have you ever listened to a bill clinton speech and said oh-oh, he might be going too long. >> i don't because i enjoy it. i think one thing you saw president clinton had a great time doing it. he really enjoyed it. but you don't think it is going long because he kept hitting issue after issue. had people laughing, people almost crying. so he just makes it a great speech. nobody can distill these big issues down and get them into that living room like bill clinton can do. >> there was one issue, we haven't heard on the campaign trail a lot. that he brought up tonight.

that was medicaid cuts. has this been an issue he's been trying to get the obama administration to talk about more? >> first when you ask president clinton to give a speech, he is going to talk about what he thinks is important. he's been in contact. he talks about medicaid cuts and this is a big deal for president clinton. these cuts to the people most in need in america today. and i think laying it out there the way he did i think was important for the campaign and for the next 60 plus days, i think you'll hear a lot more about it. but medicaid, medicare. he talk about all those issues. very complex and disstilled it down and i think you walked away tonight saying bill clinton has a real fondness for president obama. but more importantly, president clinton believes that these nation needs barack obama for four more years. >> is he going to be on the campaign trail? >> he is. >> where does he go next? >> he will do anything the obama campaign asks him to do. if they gave him a schedule tomorrow for the next 65 days, chuck, you know it.

>> what three states would you send him to? >> i think clearly, virginia, obviously key. we win ohio, virginia, i feel very good about the 270 electoral votes. but he is very popular in florida. obviously, here the governor, north carolina. i would be a mix of florida and ohio and a virginia i think are very important. >> all right. thank you very much. rachel, right back at you. >> thank you. i appreciate it. c-span just put out a graphic about the various lengths of different bill clinton speeches at democratic conventions. the longest one was '96. the second one was 1992. third longest one was tonight. but he was close in 2000. he went 40 minutes in 2000. 48 minutes tonight. the substance of what president clinton was talking about tonight was, he was going after the republican critique of president obama. but then he really did a broad-based citizen eefk republican economic policies,

contrasting it with his own. his own record. president clinton remining the world that his administration raised taxes, grew the economy, balanced the budget and made a national surplus over what had been the national debt. actively trying to downer with his own record charging that president obama would damage the economy by getting rid of the bush tax cuts. >> people ask me all the time how we got four surplus budgets in a row. what new ideas did we bring to washington. i always give a one-word answer. arithmetic. >> doesn't that word make you want to hear from ezra klein about whatever it is being applied to? what do you think about the case he made about his own record on the economy and debt and taxes? >> a 48-minute policy speech is sort of speaking my language. when he says arithmetic, he is

there for a particular missile for the obama campaign on, is the plus sign in arithmetic. his argument is the republicans have before him and after him, they only focus on the minus. what you can cut from the budget if they indeed do cut that. that unhis tenure as president, they added taxes. two things happened when that occurred. that are really tough for republicans to explain away. one, of course, is that the tax increases helped ba balance the budget. helped get to us a surplus. the other one, this is a bigger deal. weighed fast growing economy. the years of bill clinton were one of the best economies we've had on record in the 20th century. in fact, if you just generally look at when we have had fast growing economies in american politics, it has been when we've had fairly high marginal tax rates. the lynnon johnson economy, we've had tax rates as high as 70, 80, 90% and had much faster

growth when it went down to 35%. that doesn't mean the tax rates lead to that fast growth. what it does mean is they don't derail it and they tend to help with the broad effort of balancing the budget. one more point on what he said. steve schmidt made the point that republicans have not been able to find somebody on their side that is able to construct a speech like this. a 45-minute policy speech that makes a detailed, substantive case for their actual record of the policies going forward. what was striking to me about tonight, paul ryan was supposed to be that guy for them. that was how he came up in republican politics. that's what they saw in him. and he wasn't dispatched to do that at the republican national convention. they've dispatched clinton to do that. and my understanding of obama's speech tomorrow is that it will be very, very policy centric. you've seen a real reliance from democrats. it was simply not matched by the republicans. the democrats saw it as an

opening they could define what the way forward was. with clinton in particular, they took it. >> i think we saw that tonight in both the big speech. both from clinton and from elizabeth warren who also did a lot of specific policy talking in her speech while getting a huge response from the crowd. one of the earliest numbered points president clinton made. he did this series of jobs scores. he said since 1961, democrats have held the white house for 24 years and that you wills have held the white house for 28 years. but since 1961, those 52 years all together, our economy produced 66 million private sellingor jobs. and he said the jobs score on that is that republicans produced 24 million and the democrats produced 42 million. when you hear him make big raw partisan attributions for the jobs numbers, do you think that it is conceivable that those numbers are at all attributable to ideological policy choices or are those things defined so much

more in the big term by other factors that you can't really attribute to either party? >> at all attributable, definitely. but i tend to be careful with things like. that i've seen analysis where you say, start the clock a year the president come to office. the policies don't take effect immediately. you can see it change. it is no doubt the case that the raw number there is correct. but whether or not it is because the democratic presidents have had better luck when they came in in the business cycle because democratic presidents just happened to start the clock at the right moment. that's what makes me a little bit nervous about those numbers. what i think is undeniable here is that there are basic fundamental economic policy measures they have taken that have contributed in important ways to both good economies and balanced budgets. and in particular, the tax side of it that clinton was bringing forward there. we have seen and this is undeniable. larger deficits in recent years from republican policies particularly due to the bush tax cuts but also the reagan tax cuts led to large structural

deficits. you've seen efforts to get away from that under democratic presidents. and they made a point of paying for his health care bill and then going forward. proposing higher tax on the rich in order to close the deficit. so that part of it can be attributed to democratic policies. in when president clinton said that republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before i took office and doubled after i left after he was bragging about turning the deficit into a surplus. that's fiscal policy that he is telling the truth on. >> that's true. we got a graph and i showed at this time other day through this layer cake graph where you can see the bush administration. about a quarter of it is attributable to the bush tax cuts. that will get even larger. they keep getting bigger while the wars in iraq and afghanistan do not keep getting larger. we've had about five or 65% of

the democrats we've seen since 2001 have been attributable to policy changes. almost all of them policy changes made under george w. bush. there is simply no doubt that when you vastly increase spending, hugely cut taxes and do all of that during the expanding economy, when you really should not be running large deficits, that you are not running a particularly fiscally responsible administration. >> damnu arithmetic! mitt romney's campaign responded to presidents clinton's speech in a statement. ready? president clinton drew a stark contrast between himself and president obama tonight. bill clinton worked with republicans, balanced the budget and after four years he could say you were better off. barack obama hasn't worked across the aisle. he has barely work with other democrats. and has the worst economic record of any president in modern history. president clinton's speech brought the disappointment and failure of president obama's time in office clearly in focus.

that's from ryan williams. >> that's obviously a ridiculous and disingenuous statement because it has to be. what are they going to say? here's one thing that i think is fascinating. in certain ways they have faced similar trajectories. each came into office, each suffered huge mid-term losses and had to deal with a republican congress. and one of the thing you can say for president barack obama that you cannot say for bill clinton, is that all of the bad stuff that bill clinton did in materials of triangulation far outlasted his administration. i'm talking about the defense of marriage act. the effective death penalty act. the deal they cut on immigration. >> can i add the prison litigation reform act. >> also a terrible piece of legislation. don't ask don't tell. all of these things went out boo the future after he was there. the best thing he did which was the peace and prosperity which

was the balanced budget and the full employment was destroyed and serd almost immediately upon him leaving office. president obama in contrast has cut a lot of deals on budget projections in the future but hasn't signed a piece of legislation that will haunt us 20 years from now in an effort to triangulate with republican congress in the way that bill clinton did. >> i want to get into the roll call. we are getting close to the moment where president obama will officially be nominated again. let's listen. >>' eight at this point for ohio. >> mississippi passes to ohio. ohio, you have 191 votes. >> thank you. madam secretary, i'm with the ohio democratic party. ohio, ohio, the battleground

state. ohio, the state that elects presidents as we did in 2008. ohio, the home of american heroes and american icons. the home neil armstrong and john glenn. the home senators sherrod brown and governor ted strickland. and ohio, in spite of romney romney's efforts, the home of the chevy cruise and the chrysler jeep and 850,000 american jobs. ohio, madam secretary, casts all 188 votes for the president and the next president of the united states, barack obama. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ohio casts 188 votes for barack obama.

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, i have been inform that barack obama is now our party's official nominee for president of the united states of america. congratulations, mr. president. congratulations, america. and on november 6th, we will reelect you to lead our nation forward. >> dictated in the constitution, our founding documents, the sound of cool and the gang. now we are over the top. that's exactly right. our sacred honor. cool and the gang celebration and the video screen, the video

animation in the jumbo tron there is because we put the president over the top of nominees, excuse me, votes he needs to properly secure the nomination. that's why mississippi is going after ohio even though they had previously been in alphabetical order. mississippi passed so that ohio could have that moment in the spotlight. obviously a critical swing state in the election. it is msnbc's live coverage of the democratic national convention which now officially has a nominee. 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.

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when congressman ryan looked into that tv camera and attacked president obama's medicare

savings as, quote, the biggest, coldest power play, i didn't know whether to laugh or cry. because that $716 billion is exactly to the dollar the same amount of medicare savings that he has in his own budget. you've got to get one thing, it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did. >> it takes some brass. i will say that was the, how do you say, lol moment of the speech for everybody here in the studio. we're all sort of marveling at president clinton riffing the way he is and taking on this long speech and the obvious joy and confidence with which he was doing it. sort of owning the room that way. when he got to it takes some brass, everybody sort of fell

out. chris matthews is in charlotte with his, in his sea of adoring fans. chris, what do you think is the important thing that happened? >> do you know what i liked about clinton, he reminded me of the war room in 1992. it was headed by george stephanopoulos. he taught us in that election, you have to punch back immediately. you must engage in combat. that politics is a combat sport if you want to win. if you don't want to win, you let the charges fly. the most important thing he taught obama today, he needs surrogates like clinton. he's got some now. he's got michelle, castro, rahm, he's got chuck schumer out there, a lot of people. he has duval patrick out there. he has a lot of people, perhaps dozen that's can give tough speeches, that punch back at the republicans. it doesn't have to be barack obama out there taking all the hits. he could have a whole team of people. he has to stop using staff. he has to stop using staffers

like plouffe and axelrod and those people. he has to start using principals. i think that is really important. i have somebody yelling back here. i'm be sure if it is positive or negative here. back to you, rachel. >> i'm pretty sure that is david axelrod to you saying he shouldn't be going on national television anymore. >> at a certain point volume trumps point of view. to chris's point about surrogates and what will happen next, it is not just president obama speaking. they've put the president and the vice president on the same night. vice president biden actually got a huge cheer tonight in the hall when president clinton shouted him out on the stimulus in terms of sort of watch dogging the stimulus and sure that it was something that work the way it was supposed to work. a big, big crowd response on that. we've seen a lot of joe biden in materials of watching speeches. how effective is he as a surrogate? i will preface the question by saying, i think he is a lot more effective than republicans think he is. republicans make fun of him as if he is an embarrassment.

every time he talks i feel like it is more of an asset than a detriment. >> when i went to new hampshire a few months back, the crowd loves him. wherever he goes, he speaks their language. he has good connectivity that people like. all this trumped up activity about him being on the ticket, hillary and all this right wing stuff. they know how effective joe biden is. he has been a real good strong, confident voice in the president's ear when it comes to foreign policy. that was one of the reasons why he was put on the ticket. no one right now can argue with the foreign policy success that's president obama has had. so joe biden is solid. i don't think they're going to be holding him back at all. >> the right has caricatured in a way that they have set expectations very, very. low not just the speech tomorrow night which is less important. all eyes will be on the president but particularly for that debate on the right. you saw the glee. i can't wait until paul ryan

destroys joe biden. i can't wait for it. not because i think it will be one-sided. and it is one-sided, it won't be against joe biden. >> i think you will have to really, really pope for, that mr. ryan is ready. because mr. ryan has had all of this build-up. and one, we've seen he is fast and furious with the facts, which joe biden will not let him get away with. and we really have never seen him debate at that level. he is going to no man's land. joe biden has been on that national platform in those national debates before. and if he is not careful, he's going to treat him like, let me teach you, son, how we do this. that could be the worst thing that could happen. or the best thing that could happen, depending on your politics. >> the other big speech tonight interesting person who got a big national boost out of an appearance was elizabeth warren. we've got more on that ahead. plus looking ahead to tomorrow. you're watching msnbc's live coverage of the democratic

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republicans say they don't believe in government. sure they do. they believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends.

after all, mitt romney is the guy who said, corporations are people. no, governor romney, corporations are not people of. >> elizabeth warren, the democratic candidate for senate in massachusetts gave the other big speech of the night. steve, do you think that was an effective speech? do you think it will help her in massachusetts? >> i don't know. i think she has her work cut out for her in massachusetts. i think scott brown is a brilliant politician. he is running roughly five points ahead. republicans are counting on a brown vectry as part of the equation to take majority control of the senate. it will be a race where there is a lot of outside money in. a lot of outside groups, a lot of focus. a lot of democrats in massachusetts watching that, i suspect. it was marginally helpful for her but i do think she is the underdog. >> i think she was smart on issues to go after scott brown implicitly on voting against

fair pay for women. she hit some of the other issues she has hit him on repeatedly. specifically going after him on the fair pay issue which is something he has not really been able to defend. he has come up with great defenses for a lot of other thing. on that one it hits that economic fairness issue. >> remembering last week, the republican convention. he was doing the interview with andrea mitchell. we haven't seen someone move that fast than mohammed aleave in his prime. >> i thought it was a good if not great speech. it wasn't a great speech. a good speech. just the tone of it. here we are, we're three and a half years after this massive financial crisis caused by systematic structural deceit, fraud, manipulation and game rigging on wall street. $8 trillion of wealth destroyed. a great decision that is, a great recession ground to dust. the people of this country.

and there is, from that stage, very little in the way of heat or anger about the massive injustice of it all. the injustice that continues to this day. the people still out of work because of the malfeesance, incompetence and fraud of the people on wall street and there was a little bit ofa hindrance. how short our memory is. in this political moment, you would anticipate more of that. >> maybe because he has been moved out of his bank of america stadium would give the democrats reason to talk about that tomorrow. that manmade disaster. i have to thank steve schmidt, and chris hayes and lawrence o'donnell and everybody who helped us out. we'll be back tomorrow night for the finale night of the democratic convention. as president obama and vice president biden will each take the stage. chris matthews now picking up our coverage live from charlotte. ♪

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we believe that we're all in this together is a far better philosophy than you're on your own. >> i'm chris matthews still in charlotte at the democratic national convention. there is a reason why so many of

us call him the greatest politician of his time. bill clinton delivered a master piece of a speech. a wonder, a rousing call to reelect president obama. >> in tampa, the republican argument against a president's re-election was actually pretty simple. pretty snappy. it went something like this. we left him a total mess. he hadn't cleaned it up fast enough so fire him and put us back in. >> well, it is pretty snappy of him to say so. he web through the republican attacks against the president one by one and pummeled them. the president joined him up on stage for that perfect photo that he will need. tomorrow it will be obama alone with michelle. that picture is very important. that president clinton delivered. here's another bit of the president going big time tonight. >> since 1961, for 52 years now, the republicans have held the white house 28 years.

the democrats, 24. in those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs. so what is the job score? republicans, 24 million. democrats, 42. >> wow! tonight you learn what the word surrogate means. that's a surrogate out there. bill clinton making the fight for barack obama. if you need someone in your corner, nobody is better than bill. for more i'm joined by the "huffington post." both are political analysts. look, is this the start of something big, joy? have they finally decided to put the surrogates on the road. michelle, bill clinton, all the best. instead of putting the juniors on. put the real big shots to defend they guy. >> if they're smart they'll take bill clinton's speech. cut i up into parts. each individual defense of

policy and they will e-mail that to every other surrogate going out on the road. bill clinton just put on a clinic. he explained complicated policy in ways the ordinary guy, the ordinary woman could understand and he splanld, i think, some of the issues people have been concern about. jobs, where are we on jobs? he explained how we got here and he explained what president obama has done and he explained why it would have been impossible. he said even he couldn't do it. to fix eight years of rot in four years. i thought that was critical. >> by the way, sebelius was even out last night. he has said they're not under the hat check. they can come out and campaign. do you have any sense they're going to follow one heavyweights, principals like the first lady? >> i think so, chris. the key to this is bill clinton as governor and as a rising politician learned how to explain, defend, and extol the role of government in american life in a conservative era. he did it. he was the guy rising up.

>> out of arkansas. rising up against the reagan tie. how to explain it to the guys in the gas station. and more important, he argues that cooperation is actually better for the economy than mitt romney's way. and in the internet era, the era where you share traffic. where sharing is the way both profit, he is an economic argument there. and nobody can better unpack and explain government programs simply. he did a better job in 48 minutes of explaining the successes of the obama administration than i've got to say the obama administration itself has done. >> okay. tough question. is he a better general election candidate than the president? the president is a great primary fighter. he beat hillary clinton. >> i think the president when he speaks is really a poet. and he goes out and he sort of explains in very large grand terms the american experience. you've talked about. this he explains what american this means.

michelle did that the other night. bill clinton is a coach. he is on the field and able to explain the plays. he is able to do it in rote. i think the president needs a little bit of both. >> let's take a look now. take a look at the president. here he is. bill clinton making a strong case against republican policy that's he says would take us back to the policy that's got us into where we got into in the first place. let's watch. >> in order to look like an acceptable moderate alternative to president obama, they just didn't say very much about the ideas they've offered over the last two years. they couldn't. because they want to go back to the same old policy that's got us in trouble in the first place. they want to cut taxes for high income americans. even more than president bush did. they want to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailout. they want to actually increase defense spending over a decade, $2 trillion more than the

pentagon has requested. without saying what they'll spend it on. and they want to make enormous cuts in the rest budget. especially program that help the middle class and poor children. as another president once said, there they go again. >> you know, i keep thinking, it's not reagan. it's harry truman. he says if you want to win, give them hell. he just went back and whacked them. >> to evoke reagan was brilli t brilliant. they are in the pantheon looking down. number two, i think the democrats decided and bill clinton decided that the republicans had left a big opening with their lack of specificity in tampa. the republicans were focusing on the log cabin story. no arithmetic. and bill clinton has always specialized in that kind of

thing, it down. he drove the specifics in a way that undecided vote here's we tend to think of not caring about the number do care about the numbers. he was aiming at those undecided voters. michelle last night was rallying the troops, this was bill clinton making the case to undecided. not necessarily democratic voters. i thought it was brill yanltly done. >> do you like the way he belittled the other side? i like that part. you remember churchill once said during the cold frozen winter when the nazis were losing in russia. he said they did not do their homework. they did not read that it gets cold in russia in the wintertime. that kind of brilliant disdainful commentary. >> now you have the parties in reverse. you have the republicans, they're practicing identity politics. they're saying those guys are taking your stuff. we're going to give you the country back. we won't tell you any specific way we'll do it but that's what we'll do. the democrats are now the policy party.

>> bill clinton said he never learned to hate the other party. that's probably true. listen to him. >> though i often disagree with republicans, i actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls the party seems to hate our president and a lot of other democrats. that would be impossible for me. because president eisenhower sent federal troops to my home tate to integrate little rock central high school. president eisenhower built the interstate highway system. when i was the governor, i worked with president reagan and his white house on the first round of welfare reform. unfortunately the faction that now dominates the republican party doesn't see it that way. they think government is always the enemy. they're always right and compromise is weakness. >> i don't know where to begin or end on this hate stuff. but i see it from republicans. they want i.d.s.

they want the president to show his papers. they go after food stache. they never stop the line of attack. >> this is where the president was trying to slice off a sliver of what used to be the republican party. >> the positive party. positive party. and bring it into the democratic fold again. as he is the master at doing. he divides the other side. he pushes in this case, the haters off into one corner. and in essence says they're the ones who are not the main stream. >> he says they're now in charge. >> he is isolating, he is right. he is isolating them. here we are in the south with the southern guy who said he is fixing to tell you something. that's the way he explains it. he is saying everybody but the extremists come with me. and they want to use bill clinton. the other side, republicans. >> you said they did it again tonight. the pushback tonight. they said bill clinton showed the difference between him and obama. >> no, no. here's my take on this. that i know a lot of clinton people helped obama on this

speech. part of it, a lot of -- people who are both from both administrations are together. gene sperling, the current president's economic adviser, hem out on the bill clinton speech tonight. lots of other staffers are shared. bill clinton himself has a stake in the success of barack obama. >> explain. >> because they have a shared vision of how to use cooperation to advance the role of the country. government is not a part. not the indispensable or only part. so far from wanting barack obama to lose as some cynics think he might. i don't believe that for a second. they agree on a vision of government. now that bill clinton has made a commitment to this campaign, and he has in a very public way. he is going on campaign very hard and very vigorously. but if he does nothing else, then hand over the road map that he did tonight. he will have done president obama's re-election a huge

favor. >> that's the rosie glass. could he be saying there is potential for cooperation if we break the fever. this is what obama says. if he can beat the real far right, then the jeb bushes will come down the road. the people he can deal with will take over. >> that's what bill clinton did. he even worked with newt gingrich. this is what i found ironic. barack obama represents the wing of the party that repudiated the triangulation. repudiated the idea of being deficit hawks. bill clinton went into that room and got them to cheer for the ideas that they formally during clinton era rejected. even welfare reform. >> and obama sort of, a lot of the compromise elements. >> that clinton tried health care. so there is a continueum there.

>> it didn't start with mitch mcconnell. it was bill kristol who leads on the right who that, don't compromise on health care. >> other thing, keep in mind, bill clinton is the ambassador to the undecided white vote. to simplify slightly. and everybody in the country, especially the undecided voters, hate the gridlock in washington them want cooperation. bill clinton kind of gave the blessing of the hope of cooperation and breaking the gridlock. >> here's another great line of the speech to get that point. let's watch. >> when congressman ryan looked into that tv camera and attacked president obama's medicare savings as, quote, the biggest, coldest power play, i didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

because that $716 billion is exactly to the dollar the same amount of medicare savings that he has in his own budget. you've got to give one thing. it takes some brass for attacking a guy for doing what you did. >> it takes some brass to attack a guy for what you did. >> i was in the hall and i could see the teleprompter and the former president. that was one of many adlib lines. the last thing you want to be is a teleprompter operator during a bill clinton speech. so he adlibed that line about you have to have the brass to do that and it was a very, very effective line. >> if you don't think that attack is coming back in the vice presidential attacks, joe biden is just waiting for the opportunity to use a similarly

pithy line. >> if paul ryan wants to engage in a debate for the next month with bill clinton, good luck. >> good luck. >> we saw the master tonight. the big guy. the big dog. bubba, elvis was back tonight. thank you. and by the way, we saw the real bill clinton. when we come back, the guy who does bill clinton better than anyone, the great darrell hammond will join us. some of the clintonisms. this will be fun. >> people ask me all the time how we got four surplus budgets in a row. what new ideas did we bring to washington? i always give a one word answer. arithmetic. how did i get here? dumb luck? or good decisions? ones i've made.

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president obama pointed several members of his cabinet even though they supported hillary in the primary. heck, he even appointed hillary. after last night, i want a man who had the good sense to marry michelle obama.

>> years from now we may look back at tonight and remember bill clinton's speech as one of the greatest in convention history. no one including president obama himself has made a better case for obama than bill clinton did tonight. and how does he do it? for that we turn to the man who crawled inside the man's head all those years on saturday night live. he portrayed bill clinton in thousands of comedy sketch. he has a different talent. from mother jones magazine, darrell, you said a minute ago that the line tonight was the man with the good sense to marry michelle. >> i think so. because you know, andrea mitchell used a phrase earlier, a clintonian speech. to me a clintonian speech is before he educates and inspires us, he will charm the day lights out of us. i want to elect a man who had the good sense to marry michelle obama is political genius. if you're the undecided guy, wow, i feel good.

i feel real good and now i would like to listen. >> what do you make of these incredible gestures? they're going to teach these in school someday. >> they can't teach them. a guy like that, he would be in an oral interpretation in class in college and someone would say you can't do that. you cannot keep doing that. he did it three times. mother nature tells him to do it. and then the effect is seismic. i don't know if you've ever been in an earthquake. i would think if you were an opponent of his, a guy like cheney would say i told you not to let the guy talk. do you know what i mean? >> i always figured that bill clinton landed on mars. he would know how to do it with them. he would know how to reproduce. he would not everything. he would just instinctively know. they would be laughing in about five minutes. the martians. you waxed this guy as political theater tonight. the way they came out bringing obama out to greet him for that big thing. that will be in all the papers

tomorrow. that double shot. >> the big hug. two alpha males out there. >> two heavyweights. minute is the natural. we said it in the '90s and this is true now. you've been doing this a long time. can you think of an expresidential speech that was this good or had this much potential for impact? i can't. this guy is even better than he was and he gave all the obama people a tutorial in how to talk about themselves. how to talk about what they've done. and he has this unique talent. not just to be a great speaker but to combine policy and passion. he could have gone on for another hour talking about global warming and pacific rim, co-generation and people would be going, yeah, yeah, give me more. he just has it. he has his quality. and it was always there. and i think you're right. it would work on mars, venus or wherever. >> i like the fact that he punches. he just keeps punching. you know? the other guy just hit me.

i'm punching him back. >> i never saw him punch like that before. did you? >> no. he was hitting everything the republicans threw at obama. medicare. give me your best shot at medicare. on welfare, bang back at the guy. he just pounded back at him. it was all, give me another one. hilt me again. give me your best shot. >> but he also makes it look like he's thinking about what he is saying as he says it. >> he is. ? have the brass line wasn't in the text. and yeah, another thing. let me tell you this about that. and he just goes. on it is not a speech. it is a performance. everything that he's ever done distilled into the moment. >> i always have the sense that he has about ten great lines prepared. locked and loaded. and as the situation presents itself were to be appropriate, he pops one out and blows the roof off like he did tonight. >> when i thought he said how much he deeply believed it in obama. he didn't just make the intellectual case like lawyers do. the client is guilty but the

lawyer gives a good case. he said i believe in this client. i believe in this president. inl -- in other words, i haven't always told the truth in the past but i mean it now. i mean it now. i mean it. >> has anyone brought up no president could have come back in three and a half years? that line he gave? >> no. that was true. because he said they left us in such a deep hole. it was so deep. >> he is one of the only guys out there who can speak to this knowing what it takes. he had the job. so when he says, he talks about cooperation and how much he needs it. he talks about the challenge. he talks about it from firsthand experience. who else could come and make that sort of case? >> well, it is great to have you on. my theory is that the man is probably the youngest expresident we've ever had, who is the healthiest and coming back. i think that's one thing about policy. if you can outlive your enemies. it is really important. outlive your enemies. keep fighting what they've given up.

don't quit. never retire. stay in the ring and eventually, there will be nobody else in the ring but you and you'll be punching like mad and they've lost. there's that guy that went after them. what was the prosecutor's name? >> ken starr. >> no one talks about him. >> he is still out there. >> henry hyde. he's gone. he is there and he's getting better and he's making a mark on history. >> can you imagine how good a case he will make for hillary in two or three years? >> or anybody else. >> it will just be him and hillary out there. i think he is getting ready for the road trip of his lifetime. the last hoorah and it will be four years from now. if he is still healthy, he and hillary hitting the road together. and guess who will be endorsing them. barack obama. any way, can you do me? let's watch him do me one last

time. have some fun. i think we've got a piece of me. let's watch that. >> i ask you, is the administration losing control faster than billy joel behind the wheel after a ten martini lunch? >> chris, i think everyone would agree that up until the media got involved, thing were going pretty great in iraq and afghanistan. >> madam secretary, that's the dumbest thing i ever heard. >> if i really ever did what you did to me, i guess i do, don't i? >> you guys both look pretty young there. >> that was a long time ago. >> way to go, pal. >> someday bh when anyone gets around to ill taigt you which they never will. >> it is weird to get a phone call from chris matthews. like i was in the pharmacy one day. what are you doing? like, i have a stomach ache. pepcid ac. >> i was having dinner with the kids one day and i was talking to them. when you do bill clinton, do you

imitate him or do you get into his soul? >> i don't try to imitate him. imitation, you cannot get laughs like. that i try to be the guy. i try, i mean, i think of him comforting a family that has just been through something terrible and telling, explaining to them, yes, life can be bad but you know what? it can be good and here's how. you know? >> i think you're right. i think you've got the best part of him. thank you, darrell hammond. what a night in politics. and i loved tonight, obviously. that's it for msnbc's coverage tonight. i'll be back tomorrow at 5:00 eastern right here in charlotte, north carolina. the queen city. and again, seven chog eastern for full coverage of the final night for barack obama. the president of the united states speaks tomorrow, and the vice president endorses him. both on the stage tomorrow night. until then, good night from charlotte. welcome aboard!

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