we have serious questions about the deal. >> series questions like what is a fiscal cliff and can you falloff it twice? i have to say, i think the dems did okay and the biggest winner, joe biden knows how to get it done. >> i have something to tell you. >> i'm skeptical, but not yet. a congressman is about to tell me what's wrong with congress. >> chris christie blasting on the sandy relief bill. i will tell you how that could happen. . >> from the cliff to the debt ceiling. at least we have o will have stuff to get us through months ahead. a few house keeping notes to

start with. the fiscal whatever you want to call it is done, we can retire the wheel of misfortune for good and keep this. >> stop the insanity! >> we didn't use that enough last year, but we will in 13. here's where we stand. the house approved the plan to get us through this month, but it is something we will remember maybe forever. the mismoves and the finger-pointing are everywhere and we begin with luke russert who was there for it all. i feel like i have been watching the same thing happen for two years since john boehner became the speaker. one deadline after another and has very little wiggle room. it makes his own members so unhappy. the vote for speaker for the next two years is tomorrow. does he even want this job anymore? >> it's a fair question after

the hammering he has taken from folks in his own party and chris christie regarding the sandy relief bill. john boehner routinely said he never gets too high or low. he grew up the second of 12 children in a room where there was four kids to a room and he had to mop the floor of his father's bar at 5:00 in the morning every day. this is not an easy job. i think what you saw yesterday was what we on the hill know as a microcosm of leadership style and how it relates to the house of republican conference. it's fascinating that the world was able to see that boehner goes by this idea of letting the house work its will. he gave his members a chance to vent and venting almost nuked the deal that led to a plethora of angry e-mails in the finance community that said what the heck are you guys doing?

a lot are republicans. we came back and they said all right, we are going to whip a fake bill. i whang is fascinating as we go fshd is this is the beginning of the beginning when it comes to more budget wars. president obama has limited capital in his second term and a lot of it will be spent fighting with the house republican conference. they are not backing down. a lot of them call they got rolled on the fight and they wanted to save the gunpowder for the debt limit deal. john boehner is definitely going to have to assert strong leadership if he wants to keep the conference happy. one more thing i will low in, eric kantor and john boehner went different ways on the bill. john boehner cast a vote for. they are going different ways on the sandy relief bill. he will try to negotiate asking

for a spending cut for every dollar they go up to prove to his conference he is not a push over and he is fighting for them and trying to work their will. >> you set it up perfectly. if we hit this debt ceiling and there is no deal, we can agree catastrophic consequences for the economy and you will have republicans insisting on the entitlement demands and boehner under pressure to deliver. i look at it this way. the white house at the beginning of all these talks said the final fiscal cliff deal will address the debt ceiling so we never go through that again. obama changed the position and said we will do a year or two extension and now this final deal does note have the debt ceiling at all and his position is we are not going to negotiate next month and my position is didn't they just negotiate? >> they did and here's a story i

will tell you. i spoke to a high ranking democratic aide and if you can have anything back from that term in 2009 and 200010, i wish we extended through 2020. this fight is going to be routinely happening with house republicans. i'm with you. i think that president obama cannot say they will not negotiate. house republicans want spending cuts, but what's to stop them from asking? what's to stop them from asking for raising the medicare rate? all these things obama put on the table. as we saw, they will go up to the edge and they have no qualms about it. we downgraded for the first time in the nation's history. i'm with you. i think it will be the hot topic and i will be followed by government funding fight within the next month. we are at the beginning of the

beginning of tumultuous times. the thing about this one, it could tarng the global economy. >> i want to bring in the assistant managing editor at "time" magazine. i guess picking up on that, that seems to be the real question. what happens when you get to the negotiations over the cent ceiling and beyond that. look at the debt ceiling. republicans will be looking for serious changes whether it's raising the medicare age or something else. they will have the leverage of saying we are ready to force a catastrophic default here. seems we can't judge. the stakes in this coming fight are a lot bigger substantively than anything else. this is small potatoes. >> i couldn't agree more and the debt ceiling issue really blends

the impact. businesses have a lot of cash on the balance sheet and if they can get a deal and something set in stone, that cash would be release and they would start investing. the truth is if it weren't for the polarized politics, this country is doing better than a lot of others. it's doing better than europe and emerging markets will slow down. there was an opportunity to slow down and people want to do that. businesses want to release that cash. all of this fighting adds to a sense of worry and marks about what the result is going to be. i think for two more months that's what we are in for. >> for everybody to hate in the deal, scarborough is mad that republicans voted to raise taxes without curb expending. they are mad that the president made a bad deal in the future and exempting his dates from taxation s. this a low point in modern history that we have this legislation that everybody is upset about? >> it really is. you can say there is something

to like for almost everyone. you if go back a few deals, republicans would love it. the bush tax cuts for the people who have been enshrined now. president obama was able to get a tax hike on the rich and got capital gains up. there is a lot that is good here, but the debt ceiling issue is the big looming issue and will be resolved soon. >> the deft sit reduction dill doesn't reduce the deficit or cut spending. taxes will go up because we failed to extend the payroll tax cut. in good news, there is money for nascar race tracks and puerto rican rum dealers. who on the hill is feeling good about themselves today despite

this on what basis are they feeling good? >> you pointed to a lot of taxes are going up. 77% of americans are going to see the taxes go up. that payroll tax increase is important. we crunched numbers on this and for a family with two earners making $80,000 a year, that is $1700 additional you will have to pay. that's not nothing. i am pleased i have to say that we were able to go through without the spending cuts at least for now. that's crucial. we are still in a 2% growth economy. i hope that's not a political chicken in february or march. kargd the payroll tax cuts, neither side was fighting for those. even nancy pelosi said a while back she didn't want to vote to extend because of the long-term

impact. taking a back to the debt ceiling fight, when i think back to the summer of 2011, the new republican congress had been sworn in and tea party fever was in full bloom. a bunch of people were new to governing and wanted to prove how tough they were and how out there and pure they were. i think we are in a different place now. we have just seen really republicans sort of gazed over the brink of the cliff and pulled back and allowed the bill to come to a vote. allow it to pass without a majority so to speak. i was wondering, you specialize in economics, if you can lay out what the catastrophic consequences of not raising the debt ceiling are, we sort of lost in this debate how objectionable it really is to hole the nation hostage in that regard over raising the debt ceiling. can you spell it out what it mean fist we default.

>> that's a great question and it's important to understand that. if we were not to raise the debt ceiling and we were to default on our debt, that would be a catastrophic event of event. if you think about it, most of the world's economy is run dollars. it's what countries depend on. markets would crash and there would be a recession if not a depression. it would be a big deal. >> thanks for joining us. up n the fallout and the winners and losers and who is in charge of the gop. >> i am. >> we just made news for wednesday, january 2nd. look what mommy is having. mommy's having a french fry. yes she is, yes she is. [ bop ] [ male announcer ] could've had a v8.

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we have leverage at the debt ceiling to make this president face up to the fact that we are spending our way into oblivion. >> i have to say i got back from south carolina and it is quite lovely. he was letting us know that the real fight on our fiscal issue is yet to come. that's awesome. between the bitter feelings in the house and the senate, the strained relationship amongst leaders and the issues on deck for the 113th congress, who is really in position to get what they want? who is totally not in position to get what they want and who will emerge as the new deal

makers other than the speaker of the house as we decided in the last segment? take that for us. >> excellent. >> getting down to the substance of this deal, there is a lot of debate on the democratic and the republican side who is a good deal and et cetera, etc. if you are just looking at the merits, it's a good deal for democrats. it extends unemployment and the earned income tax credit and child tax credit. the working class and the working poor in the middle class. we can't judge the long-term impact until we do see what happens in the debt ceiling fight. i think some people's analysis is wrong. i don't think republicans have a strong position in the battle as they think they do or as others think they do. there was a quote from a top democrat that said you either cut medicare or default the country. we don't have the guts to put it

on and you need to round up the democratic votes to help us black mail you. that's the plan. pointing out that they are going to have to specifically lay out cut it is that will be unpopular and force the nation into default to cut social security and medicare benefits. republicans just stared over the cliff and backed away. the cliff was a much less scary prospect than causing the country to default. they are in a strong position here and if i was him, i don't know that he will do this, but he ruled out the so-called constitutional option of going around and going around congress. i would say fine, make the country default and if they did it, i would say i didn't want to do this and i had no choice. you can mint a $1 trillion coin and save the country that way. at that point i think the

american public would justify doing that. >> bipartisan harmony. >> you are proposing steps there for obama to take that would be completely and totally out of character with anything he has done as president to date. i have a real hard time believing we get a month from now up against the deadline and barack obama said the heck with it, i'm minting a coin or something like that. everything about this guy for most of his first term and again at the end of this fiscal cliff fight, he is is a frayed of these deadlines. they say it's republican who is looked over the cliff and got scared. obama got scared. he sent joe biden and said we need a deal. he did not want to go over the deadline. this was a soft deadline. the premises of the reelection and obama said this himself, it was born in a debt ceiling dram a. republicans were looking at the deadline and demanding.

deeply unpopular cuts to medicare and social security and we are ready to allow a default. that's where this whole crisis started. the fiscal cliff came because they were ready to do that and the super committee and all of this. obama's campaign, the premises was we are going to break the republican fever by winning. he got the authority that comes with that and came into this fiscal cliff fight. a deadline. we can go past january 1st and it would not be catastrophic. gets everything he wants on taxes. the polls said they are going to be blamed. this was a break the fever moment to say you know what -- >> they raised taxes on the wealthy. >> in the name of getting one month -- they moved him and they doubled it. they budged him on the debt ceiling. he came in and said the negotiations will produce a permanent end to debt ceiling

brinkmanship. two weeks ago it was one year or two year. they negotiated the debt ceiling and they successfully pushed to get it out of this thing and the obama position is a month from now, i'm not going to negotiate. he just negotiated on this and just negotiated on the 250 position. the consequences of a soft deadline scared him into doing it. the consequences, i will believe it when i see it. maybe we will have to see the new obama, but that was the point of running for reelection to just get a deal and have more backbone. i didn't see it. maybe i will see it a month from nowme now. i will believe it when i see it. >> for we are not willing to move off of that arbitrary number, we are just as bad. >> what bothers me here is the debt ceiling. the whole reelection campaign was a failure in the summer of 2011. the complete melt down of the government. >> we are not in the same place

as we were in 2011. >> then why not go over the soft deadline. >> people are going to be negatively impacted by this. >> i'm waiting to hear what they have to say. >> i was enjoying this. it sounds to me like you are saying republicans came out winners in this. yes? >> a month from now. >> i think clearly, if you like spending, if you are a democrat and joe biden and president obama, you won. politically getting 41 to 1, a 8 raitio in revenue to spending cuts, that is a win any way you look at it. from the position of the american people, this does not reduce the deficit and do anything to lower unemployment. extending the benefits doesn't address unemployment whatever side you come down on.

like i said before t gives handouts to nascar tracks. i'm a nascar fan. that seems silly right now. it gives money to hollywood and puerto rican rum. >> not a bad deal. >> for seems like this is a missed opportunity for everyone for month month. >> i think people are acting with party first and not country first as important as it is. it makes me think they are thinking about primaries and some of them are thinking about 2016. i want to put it through my 2016 lens. what is it going to do for that. three people leap out and say they are thinking towards 2016. not ser cup, but joe biden came down from the perch and went back into the senate where he was so great for many, many

years. >> still great. >> deal maker, presidential type able to get things done and make people act like grown ups. this inches him up a little bit in terms of the 2016 democratic primary. there is a clear winner there. we will talk about that later. on the republican side, it's a more interesting fight. marco rubio, one of the few who voted against the bill in the senate said hey, no spending cuts and no dies. i'm an idea log. i am not going to be led down the wrong path and everybody else is going that way. in terms of republican primary, he actually bolstered his narrative. none of this is going to be dispositive, but the beginning of their narratives. you can put out an ad saying look at marco rubio. he voted against making the bush tax cuts. who can do that? paul ryan. it's truthful. it's not honest, but it is

truthful. paul ryan is like i averted disaster and a pragmatist and i work together. they don't compromise, but in a general election, he improved his position a little bit. a lot of interesting potential ways to use this for people. >> i would like to see joe biden appointed vice president for life. that's my vote. next up, dangerous convicts. the whole fiscal fiasco is a prime example of how messed up things have gotten in congress. we have a former lawmaker turned author who is going to tell us what he said is to blame and just how we can get back on track. i gave birth to my daughter on may 18th, five days later, i had a massive heart attack. bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen.

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. from the presidential election to the fiscal spectacle, it has been a master

class on polarization and dysfunction, but how did we get here and what do we do next to fix it? our next guest served six terms and details how congress came to regard compromise with the disdain most of us have for the kevin costner movies. >> that doesn't make sense. >> i agree with you. in the guest spot, tom allen is a former representative and the author of dangerous convicts. what's wrong with the u.s. congress and he joins us now. thanks for joining us first of all and you have identified four key sources of the dysfunction that we watched on display for the last few weeks. can you take us through those? >> sure. i begin by saying what really drives members of congress crazy about the other party is they listen to the arguments on the other side and just don't believe that the other side is telling the truth. i think that fundamental disbelief drives the dysfunction

that we have today. during the 12 years i was in congress, it was the phrases that we heard over and over again. tax cuts pay for themselves. we don't have to worry about them. we will be welcome as liberators in iraq. we weren't. government regulated or run health care doesn't work. half of the people in this country get medicare and medicaid and va health care and one form or another. the best of them all, science is not proven. you hear those things and you just can't believe that in this case the republicans are believing what they say. this creates a wall of distrust and frustration that spills over. on the republican side, they listened to what democrats are saying and think the democrats are not necessarily trying to strengthen the economy by inv t investing in education and pandering to the voter. you get the clash of world views

that is a major factor and probably the primary factor in congressional gridlock. >> sort of picking up on the point, there was an interesting piece a few weeks ago. he analyzed the election results and said there were two parallel americas that have taken place. the democrats of young voters and they are clustered tightly in cities and metropolitan areas that obama won this year by winning 150 fewer counties nationally than michael dukakis. that's 130. 130 fewer than michael dukakis won. that vote was able to deliver it for president obama. because it is so packed, you have a majority of strongly house districts. this is the new norm where the changing demographics will put a president in place to reflect those values of that coalition.

at the house level, you will have a different america represented. there is no room for a meeting place there. >> it's really a challenge because along with the demographic change and the rural splat, you find the difference in world view. on the one hand, the individualism which is at the core of the republican world view turned into a hostility to government in general which is very widespread in south and rural areas and places where you don't need that much government. if you live in a big or medium sized city, government matters and you care and have other examples of how people get a lot done by working together. to me, the 2o 12 election was really about on the one hand, what i would call radical individualism and pull yourself up by your boot straps against the obama's campaign about

better together. that is something we believe in when it comes to sports teams and businesses and our churches and synagogues and even our political parties and not so much when it involves government. >> i want to talk about the theory that the gop goal continues to be to damage government and obstruct so much that government and americans are disgusted by government and the party that is anti-government is helped and the party that is in power is damaged and blamed. >> that's part of what i live through. that what they said is when newt gingrich came to congress, he outlined that kind of plan that the republicans would take over the house by running it down to the extent where they would be willing to throw out the party that was in control for so long. that's what i saw when i came to congress in 1996. the problem is democrats would

like to work with republicans and people on both sides want to work and get frustrated that for republicans it's no longer about the details. it's about having smaller government and lower taxes. ever smaller government and ever lower taxes. when you put someone with that goal across the table from someone who wants to figure out how to improve education and targeted investments, federal spending, there is no compromise. there is no even common language to work through those problems. >> correct me if i'm wrong and i don't want to put words in your mouth, but by going through the book and what you said today, it seems like you would like to be able to say both sides are to blame, but really you just want to defend democrats and criticize republicans that. is what i have been hearing on the segment. why not just write a book criticizing republicans?

in the book you don't blame them, but you criticize their ideology. why masquerade as both houses are to blame when i think you really just think republicans deserve the brunt of it. >> here's what i think. this is a book about inside. the democrats are a diverse party. it's a more diverse obviously demographically as well. democrats are on the whole much less locked into a particular theory about what government should do or not do. republicans on the other hand are really committed to this view that government impinges on personal freedom and it fosters dependency in the population and screws up everything that it tries to do. therefore they don't want government to do even what it's doing today. so my argument with democrats and republicans is the

republicans are the major contributors to gridlock because of the world view. this anti-government world view they adopted. democrats are doing that too on our side of the aisle, we have to come to terms with the idea that there have to be modifications to social security, medicare, to ease these entitlement programs that need adjustment. it's possible to do that without hurting people at the bottom. my point is this. both sides are to blame. i can't blame republicans. they are to blame for different things. both actually are committed to their constituencies in ways that make it difficult for them to leave them or do things they don't want. what's happened on the republican side, this enormous hostility to government at all. that's new in the last 20 to 30 years. that makes them today very different from the reagan administration which was much more pragmatic.

>> speaking of ideas and solutions to solve the gridlock we see in congress, one of the things he is say proponent of and i am as well. a system like australia where people are mandated to vote. if they don't show up at the polls, they have to justify why. then they are forced to pay a small fine and you have as a result turn out rates at about 99%. you don't just have partisans going into the polls. you actually have the center of the electorate represent and it decreases the negative ads because they are designed to drive downturn out. they wanted to get your take on that ideas as unlikely as it is. if you have other concrete legislative proposals that could help us breakthrough. >> sure. >> that's an idea that may make a lot of sense in australia, but you get a single republican vote. i don't think it would fly in

the united states. >> i'm not asking about the political realities, but do you think it would be helpful to move in the direction of increasing turn out through that or another means. >> yes, absolutely. right now, because so many people have checked out of the system that it really -- that mood that i don't want to be involved in politics because it's corrupt and inefficient and taking away things that i want to have, i just think a broader. >> tas pagz would help. how you get there is really a challenge. when the justice left the supreme court, he committed himself to doing work on civics. restoring civics in our educational curricula and the k-12 space. one way of trying to get kids more engaged and possibly vote more down the road. it would be a great help. i don't think you can impose it. >> okay. earlier today we talked about

how vice president biden is being dubbed. he dispatched his right hand man to the hill to harsh out a deal with mish connell. what do you think the vp was thinking as he walked the halls with the weight of the cliff on his shoulders. alicia knight suggested this thought bubble. getting these knuckle heads to have common sense is harder than i thought. we want to hear your commends. post them on our facebook.com. you can paste them, but you ruin your computer. you got the address. our thanks to former congressman tom allen from portland, maine. from politics to online dating, best selling author daniel pink is here to tell us how to get others to buy what you are selling. can he get them to come around to each other's way of thinking? i didn't think so.

>> always be closing. always be closing. >> that's what i'm constantly telling steve. the sales style was rough and we can't all be like that. salesmanship is required in every aspect of life. they involve people selling their ideas to each other and the american people. in nine americans working a traditional sales job. the majority is selling something and a product and an idea. perhaps the idea that others should believe in you and your ideas. most people will choose to work with people they know and like even when more traditionally comp at the present time people are available. networking is a form of selling. they are working on trusting us and liking us and nudging us towards wanting to work with us. because selling is important, we can stand to get better at it. with us now is daniel pink who

served as al gore's chief speech writer. to sell is human and the surprising truth about moving others. how are you? >> i'm very good. thanks for having me. >> you break down a little bit and always be closing and instead you say it's all about attunement, buoyancy and clarity. what does that mean? >> it's the new abcs. what it means is in the world of selling, whether you are pitching ideas or selling a buick, it's about attunement and understanding someone else's perspective and buoyancy and dealing with rejection which is inevitable when you are trying to move other people and clarity. trying to go from solving problems to finding new problems and framing your messages in ways we know the social science tells us is effective. >> one of the other things you said ism biverts are best at selling. that was a term i never heard. i take it to mean you are introverted or extro verted.

why are a.m. biverts better at selling? >> we have a belief that kpro verts make the best sales people. they are more likely to get hire and promoted, but the research shows that the correlation between kpro verts and sales performance is basically zero. it turns out very exciting research from adam grant at the university of pennsylvania said strong sproe verts are not good at selling? they talk touch. they don't listen well. they want to be like too much and sometimes overoverwhelm too much. introverts are not good either. they don't assert well and have a difficulty striking up conversations. from adam grant's research, the best sales people are a.m. biverts. people a little bit more in the middle. people who know when to push and

shut up. know when to listen and know when to talk. the great news for all of us is most of us arm biverts. most of us are kind of in the middle. >> i'm a strong introvert. you can't get a word out of me. look, it seems the lee iococas of the world are replaced by kim kardashian and jessica simpson and snookis of the world. they are making millions more than i am, but are these the people we are supposed to be taking lessons from now instead of jack welsh? >> absolutely not. >> thank god. >> i would not look to kardashian or jack welch as a role model for anything in life. instead i think what we have to be is authentically human. in this research on what makes

people effective in persuading and moving others, it turns out that fund amamential human qualities are most effective. understanding where everyone else is coming from. listening more than talking. being able to cut through the clutter of information to make things clear. i think based on your previous reporting you have done on the show, joe biden did a good sales job. >> agreed. >> what made him good at that. he understood the other side's perspective from the years in the senate. he understood what it means to to get rejected. he was able to come back and actually able to present things clearly to both sides of the political spectrum. these are the things we are talking about. i don't think we should get celebrities and 90 something ceos are the model either. >> i'm trying to make a million bucks. that's all i'm trying to get to. >> do something you believe in

and do something you love to do and make someone's life better. that's a good way to make a million bucks. >> that's why we are all here. >> that's what we do every day. thank you very much. up next, movement on that aide package for sandy victims. why is this even a question? aig? we said we were going to turn it around, and we did. woman: we're helping joplin, missouri, come back from a devastating tornado. man: and now we're helping the east coast recover from hurricane sandy. we're a leading global insurance company, based right here in america. we've repaid every dollar america lent us. everything, plus a profit of more than $22 billion. for the american people. thank you, america. helping people recover and rebuild -- that's what we do. now let's bring on tomorrow.

developing news this afternoon. heated rhetoric in the final hours of the 112th congress

today. now promised action by the 113th. just last hour chris christie added his voice out for the failure to act on a hurricane sandy relief package. >> it's been 66 days. and the wait continues. there's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims. the house majority and their speaker john boehner. >> moments ago, speaker john boehner met with the new jersey and new york delegations and peter king just emerged saying he will now support the speaker for his re-election tomorrow after boehner vowed to call a vote this friday on $9 billion in flood aid. a second vote on the remaining $51 billion aid package will come the first day of legislative action in the 113th congress. let's back spin. i know, guys, on the face of this it would seem a ridiculous

and terrible idea for republicans to say no to advancing this aid package. i will just break down very quickly some of the reasons why having talked to a few republicans today. they wanted to pass a clean bill, a. and b, they want to match that spending with cuts. and i know that a balanced budget sounds so 1998, but i think it's kind of a quaint notion worth keeping around. and they knew that advancing this was not going to allow them the opportunity to match that aid with the necessary cuts. and in addition, i think some of them took to the fact that this bill had some unrelated pork in it. like $150 million for alaskan fisheries. some stuff in there that made it really hard for republicans to say this is clean, this is all for sandy aid. again, pr-wise, probably a bad

decision. but there were reasons to think twice about this. >> bad, shameful, disgusting, appalling. this is where we say we can have no more spending? it's disgusting. why do you go to washington if not to support and help people? christie tweeted about this. when american citizens are in need we come to their aid. that tradition was abandoned in the house last night. absolutely right. this is post partisan. it's necessary. millions of people in trouble. thousands of people homeless. this is where we say well now we have to have a clean bill? it's disgusting and shameful. >> republicans wanted a clean bill. >> i think what this is a product of and we have the votes taking place now is boehner spent all of yesterday trying to prevent a revolt in the republican conference just on the idea of bringing up an amendment-free new year's eve bill. he got to the end of it and he said now -- >> i have to say boehner

couldn't see this christie press conference coming. and to your point, of course opposing aid for disaster victims is politically disastrous in the fact he thought he could gain from it politically is beyond me. >> well, what happens to boehner? any thoughts, steve? >> gingrich '97. he got re-elected with 267. few republicans might make a thought. >> he's going to be safe. up next, rematch. steve explains how one of the great recent grudge matches in massachusetts politics could happen all over again. psych. [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news

starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news.

there's a risk for democrats in president obama's decision to

name john kerry secretary of state. with kerry giving up his senate seat it clears for an election which could have a comeback for scott brown. every senate seat is precious in holding on their their majority. and it's going to be challenging. so why risk giving one away in a blue state especially to a guy they spent the last two years trying to take out? i have a hunch and it's nothing more than a hunch, the democrats are worrying about the wrong thing here. that brown won't end up running to replace john kerry and has a different comeback in mind. brown was last seen losing to elizabeth warren by eight points. but remaining quite popular. warren believe it or not is less popular. her favorable score in the same poll came in at 54% to 37%. this speaks to the central reason brown lost. massachusetts voters do not like the national republican party. they have not elected a republican to the house since 1994 making massachusetts the

biggest state in the country with an all democratic delegation. and they've only elected one republican to the senate in 40 years. brown back in that 2010 special election to fill ted kennedy's seat. or, you know, the people's seat. brown was able to win in '10 in part because turnout was really low and popular frustration with obama and the ruling democrats was really, really high. so republicans, the few there are in massachusetts, flocked to the polls and so did independents angry at obama. they weren't as excited at the self-destructive candidate. and there's your five point scott brown win. then look what happened this fall. brown was still popular, but turnout was much higher. in a normal or high turnout massachusetts, republicans just don't win. at least when it comes to federal office. if you're scott brown, here's what you're looking at now. you can run in the 2013 special election and maybe win.