a gun in every hand. preferably in way that everyone you know, like in the cowboy no man should be without a semiautomatic handgun or rifle, without an assault weapon in your hands, you're not really an american. a true american is ready at all times to fight this country's elected government if it gets out of line. this is the nra's america. guns for everybody. gun shows for anyone who wants to buy one. and ladies and gentlemen, that means anyone. felons, criminally insane, wife beaters. by god, you stick by the nra,

you'll never have a problem getting your hands on any deadly firearm. any one you'd like. this nra creed, by the way, it's all what i'm saying now, is the de facto platform of the republican party of abraham lincoln. guns killed lincoln. killed james garfield. killed mckinley. almost killed ronald reagan. all that's forgiven now by the nra infested republican party. today the leaders of the republican party marched in lock step behind the banner of wayne lapierre and no democrat need apply. kasie hunt right now is nbc news political reporter. she's with us here. she covered the nra convention down in houston this weekend. and howard fineman is the "huffington post" editorial director and msnbc political analyst. let's take a look at this. here's npr. why do i keep saying that? nra executive vice president wayne lapierre. it couldn't be more different. anyway, he invoked the recent boston lockdown in his argument for gun rights. now, this is twisted but it's how he's thinking and how he's selling. let's watch. >> they can try to blame us and shame us with all their might,

but when it comes to defending the second amendment, we will never sacrifice our freedom up on the altar of elitist acceptance. we will never surrender our guns. never. imagine waking up to a phone call from the police at 3:00 a.m. in the morning warning a terrorist event is occurring outside and ordering you to stay inside your home. i'm talking, of course, about boston. how about bostonians wished they had a gun? >> kasie, you were down there, you can give me the tick tock as we say in this business. he's going for the hard right. i'm telling you, i am now overplaying his hand. he wants us armed. the american people, men, women, whatever, armed. >> the tone at the convention was absolutely no surrender. it was a call to arms from lapierre. the crowd responded accordingly. the quote you just played saying we will never surrender our guns. the crowd stood up, got to their

feet, cheered, whistled and stayed there several long seconds. that's what got those people going. they two feel like president obama is trying to take their guns away. the ar-15 used at newtown and included in a proposed assault weapons ban is something that was all over the stalls at the nra convention and has -- >> for sale. >> well, for sale in some places. but on display to promote the companies promoting the gun. >> assault weapon. >> it is. >> this is interesting, you and i have been watching politics. the normal way is to get to the center right, center left to get a huge bloc of voters. there are an awful lot on the right right now and seem righteously indignant. >> yes, exactly. all american politics seems to operate these days with everybody wanting to feel under siege. >> yeah. >> abortion rights people, and pro-life people, they portray themselves and feel under siege. immigration advocates feel

themselves under siege. and nobody feel -- to take another example -- nobody feels more under siege than the people that -- >> is this just talk? >> no, it's both fund-raising talk and i think it's the way the american politics has unraveled -- >> yeah. >> -- into the emotions of aggrievement. in the old days, the nra prided itself on its bipartisanship. it had democrats like john dingell and other leading democrats, powerful democrats, who were very much a mart of their coalition. now this nra has forgotten that. it's tied itself to the republican party. it's tied itself to the deep south. it's using the short-term advantages that they have in the senate with the filibuster and in the house with the republicans to block legislation in a partisan way. they'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. it's the jimmy cagney version of politics. come and get the copper. >> yeah, come and get me. here's the big thing.

i'm on top of the world, that's another one. this whole idea of righteous indignation. first of all, it's demagoguery. it's always about righteous indignation. all great demagoguing speakers talk about how they're coming to get us. that's how you get people excited. anyway, let's take a look. here's former alaska governor, she's always going to be former governor. that's one title she will never lose. she was at the nra convention. i want you to respond to this. she criticized the president for the newtown families on gun safety measures. let's watch her twist this one. >> this president flying in grieving parents on air force one, making them backdrops in his perpetual campaign-style press events. now, instead of leaders who offer real solutions, we have leaders who practice the politics of emotion. what keeps me optimistic, keeps us reloading in this fight, what keeps us going in this fight and about this country that i love,

i know we love, is the faces that i see here today. you don't give up. the washington establishment sneers at you and you don't give up. the lamestream media just plain doesn't get you, and you don't give up. you don't retreat. >> well, language of war here is pretty clear, isn't it? reloading. retreating. i mean, this is a battle out there. my feeling is that they're stronger than their enemies right now. still. i mean, look at the fact of this vote. it didn't get 60 votes for gun safety. the minimal kind of gun safety. no gun show sideshow. no way to buy guns if you're crazy or criminal. you can't go that -- they shut that door, rather they kept it open. and now this -- they look like they're having fun. >> this was a celebration, without a doubt, of their victory. >> they liked her? >> they loved sarah palin. one thing i thought was really interesting is the nra outgoing president actually acknowledged in his speech that what they did

with the background check bill was an accomplishment that no one could have imagined back in january. so back when we were talking about an assault weapons ban, a ban on clips, the background checks, just sort of one thing on a list of much more aggressive measures. he was acknowledging we beat back background checks. >> it was an uphill battle. nra wanted to appeal to mainstream americans. if they didn't, they wouldn't have invited glenn beck as their keynoter. here's beck. >> the freedom of all mankind, make no mistake, is at stake. and because of this, i truly believe that our souls are at stake as well. i am amazed at how many of my new york friends have become absolute dopes and just will accept the soda ban, the popcorn ban, the salt ban. they'll just accept it. i, by the way, just a quick note, i want to throw in an

advertisement here. i've come up with a new advertisement for new york. we all know "i heart new york." i'd like to show you my new advertisement for it, new slogan. there it is. "you will love new york." >> you know, i can't overplay how far right this country's gotten. and anybody who's watching, progressives or middle of the roaders, if you don't see what's happening with these people, you don't have to cartoonize them. you have a nazi salute there, the mayor of new york wants to have a limit on 16 ounce sodas. this idea of making moderate politicians like mike bloomberg, who's really a centrist, into some sort of left, what -- >> republican. >> nazi. >> the key to it is what kasie saw down there. they were celebrating the victory of their brand of politics.

in other words, don't tell them that they need some centrist emblem as the new president in the nra. they'll pick the guy from the deep south. they'll pick the guy. because this is what has worked. their focus, their sense of aggrievement, their anti-elitist talk, all that, has worked in the way -- >> you're always right. this is where he's right again. to everybody watching. this isn't just about guns. is about guns. it is about this war in this country. that's gotten more divided, more polarized. it's about symbols like telling you you can't have certain kind of gun. you need certain kinds of freedoms with your gun. like no background checks. or that you have an african-american president. here's an example, the birther thing. it all ties together. explain to me. here's the new nra president, jim porter. last year he made a speech not only referring to civil war as the war of northern aggression, here we go again, but also invoked birther language. now, i missed this last week.

birther language. watch him here talk about our fake president. >> nra was started 1871 right here in new york state. it was started by some yankee generals who didn't like the way my southern boys had the ability to shoot. what we called the war of northern aggression. you all might call it the civil war, but we call it the war of northern aggression down south. i get so sick and tired of all these people with this fake president that we got who wants to say, well, you know, he hasn't done anything bad for gun owners. i say, let me tell you something bad he's done. his entire administration is anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-second amendment. >> i don't know if he's burning books there or not. let me tell you, kasie, it's a lot that lays on your shoulders. i have to tell you this. i see a far bigger fight than over background checks and gun shows. it's culture war. they don't accept an african-american president or president of color who has some antecedence in africa.

everything is fighting words. what was it feeling like down there? didn't they react when they hear this kind of talk? >> some of this kind of talk was used, the culture war paradigm. >> what about this? >> well, mayor bloomberg is a particularly negative figure for them, because if you think about his brand of republicanism, it's exactly wrong for this crowd. this is as much a cultural divide as a party divide. >> he's laying the fight for gun safety, too. >> right. he's a republican in some ways but he's also the mayor of new york city which is a very foreign thing for people who, you know, are living out in rural areas who have driven, you know, 10 or 12 hours just to come to the nra convention. >> yeah. so you put it all together in america, you have a real stew of fighting here. it's not just about guns. it's not just about obama. it's somewhat about region. this lost cause of the confederacy. there's some of that there. there's some country mass versus city mass piece to it. it's really traditional america 50 years ago, 100 years ago and

anything that looks like the future, they don't like the looks of the future. >> chris, you're just listing all the things that divide us into pieces in the united states. what's left of regionalism, and there is still some left. >> yeah. >> cultural differences between city and country life. and this idea, as you were saying before, that everybody has to feel that they're aggrieved. everybody is a populist. everybody hates the elites. everybody's against harvard. every, you know -- ted cruz went to harvard. ted cruz went to harvard and lectured against harvard. >> william bennett does that once in a while. blue plate special. you have to be against gun safety, against mike bloomberg, against new york, against obama and you buy the whole plate. >> i just don't think that the republicans -- they can stop legislation, they can celebrate what they did. they can't -- i don't know that they can win a general election this way. >> no, but they can control

congress. >> yes, they can. >> thank you, kasie hunt. good reporting. coming up, opposing immigration reform. jim demint's heritage foundation claims immigration reform will cost $6.3 trillion. well, that's a lot. heritage's fuzzy math, you might call it, is being challenged. it's being used by the hard right to kill reform which a lot of republicans think is needed to save their party. so they'd like to get it off their back, but yet they're trying to kill it. you figure. also, tomorrow's election day in south carolina. looks like we could see a big turnaround in that race. a ppp poll has mark sanford up now by one point over elizabeth colbert. by the way, that's a ten-point net pickup in sanford's favorite in just two weeks. so he might just win tomorrow. who knows. and our series "the unkindest cut" on the real damage those sequestration cuts are actually doing. tonight, kids being turned away from head start. a great american program. is this a smart way to save money? hurting kids? finally, let me finish tonight with the definition of true immigration reform. this is "hardball."

the place for politics.

wow, gabrielle giffords received the john f. kennedy profile in courage award yesterday up in boston for her work trying to stop gun violence. giffords spoke briefly about her own challenges and veered off her prepared remarks to criticize inaction in congress. >> i wish there was more courage in congress. >> the award was presented by caroline kennedy, there she is, who made a rare reference to her own family's tragic history. >> our family is still suffering from the heartbreak of gun violence. no one should have to lose a husband, a wife, a father, a child, to senseless murder. >> well this year marks the 50th year since john f. kennedy was assassinated in dallas. and we'll be right back. ah beautiful. work the camera... work it...work it! those hands.

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welcome back to "hardball." there are 11 million people in this country illegally right now, we know, so what would be the cost of the government allowing them to become full participating citizens? well, the conservative heritage foundation says the cost of legalizing those people, as outlined in gang of eight immigration bill, being led by senators rubio, schumer, mccain, and others, could be in the trillions. in fact, up around 6 trillion. here's what heritage foundation president, jim demint, former senator, said today. >> we need an immigration process that attracts workers our economy needs, and encourages patriotic assimilation to unite new immigrants with america's vibrant civil society. let's be clear, amnesty for those who are here unlawfully is not necessary to capture those benefits. our analysis shows that taxpayers, including immigrants who've come here lawfully, will be saddled with $6.3 trillion in cost over the next 50 years.

>> well, some have challenged that figure. first of all, that figure -- first of all, pointing out it's over a 50 year time period. $6 trillion may seem like a lot, but over 50 years it's not as much. the bulk of the cost, by way, from entitlements such as social security, and likely years away when we'd have to pay that bill. also they say the study doesn't account for the potential economic benefits immigration reform could have in the form of increased productivity for people who could work in the daylight and be legal and everything else and the higher gdp that would come as a result. what would the cost of immigration reform really be? even if it's lower than the heritage foundation number of $6 trillion, will it mean an unfunded mandate? joining me, the president of the american action forum. first of all, i want to start with you about the debate. is there a fight going on in the republican party, the right, a small group of people who are reform, mccain, flake, also of

arizona, marco rubio of florida, and lindsey graham of south carolina. except for them, is the republican party pretty much anti-reform? >> well, not necessarily. i mean, you have -- you have folks who in the republican party, in the senate, who are sort of on the fence right now, or clearly can go one direction or another. and they're really watching this whole debate pretty closely and things like a heritage study where they estimate the cost at $6 trillion, you know, is going to get their attention, but the benefit that proponents such as rubio and democrats have, their best friend right now is the fact there is clear divide within the republican party on the merits of this one study. on the day the study comes out, you have republicans like paul ryan, obviously a fiscal hawk, out there saying don't pay attention to this study. so it's kind of the best thing proponents have going for them is the fact there is division on this heritage study and people discrediting it and have been discrediting it for weeks leading up to the release today.

>> here's what i like to get, the facts. the trillion dollar numbers boggle the mind. we all pay fico from the time we were serving newspapers. like i was. we've always paid it. even though you start at $15 or $17 when you first work, you don't get much more because you worked all those years. it's fair in a general sense. by the time you're 65 or whatever, you get back your benefits, right? now, what about people who are working under ground? cutting lawns, fixing roofs, whatever. are they paying right now, most of those people, paying into social security or not? under assumed names or not? >> many of them are. >> many are? >> they're paying taxes. often they have an illegal social security number and that's their gateway to employment. so they're paying the taxes. >> there's no real change in the status. if their status is enhanced to citizenship or permanent residence, in this case they would actually get the benefits they deserve? >> right. >> what really stands out about the study, one of the things that's misleading, it's not

immigration reform. what's true before will be true after. we'll have people here, paying taxes. that was true before. it will be true after. it's a very incomplete characterization of reform. reform is very broad. h1bs, ags, employer verification. this is one narrow slice. >> the thread here, all kinds of people, 11 million people all of a sudden plop on to the benefit train having never kicked in. that's what they're really selling. >> let's talk about that. the notion is somehow there are 12 million americans who will be transported 50 years into the future and in the process be legalized and collect nothing in benefits. the law says let's divide them to those who are felons and not. the felons are out. let's keep track of those who work for ten straight years and above 125% of the poverty line. a lot of those other people are out. the rest are going to work and pay taxes, collect some benefits. the study assumes everyone's in, everyone's there forever and they're condemned to their current status. this is an america without a dream. there's no upward mobility.

>> you're saying for a person who gets legalized at the age of 35, becomes -- they're going to be making more money, paying more taxes and the economy will be doing better? >> yeah, they start businesses. that's a traditional route for immigrants to get ahead. and that's all missing from this study. it's a very -- >> let me get back to the politics. carrie, if you're a republican in the house, it seems to me you're already ill-disposed to vote for this because your district is probably 80% or 90% anglo, that's the way the whole thing works out there. is this going to be one more burden to carry through the house if we do get a senate bill? >> it absolutely is. and i think that's why from the moment that heritage released a report from 2007 that really was viewed as instrumental in sort of helping finally tank the bill in 2007, you've seen the left proponents of reform literally spending the last six years preparing for this moment. they've developed tons of studies meant to counter something like this. a study with an astronomical tag on it.

>> let me ask you this. let's get to the basic here. >> yeah. >> what's the difference -- i've heard things from demint. he did say some things i agree with. we want people to assimilate, become part of our culture. we want a system that makes sense. that's fine. then he says no amnesty. now, the word "amnesty" is so laden. it says we're giving them something, they're basically criminals and we're going to treat them like that. >> look, this is a political document meant to blow up the political debate. i think the mistake heritage has made is somehow thinking they have the conservatives behind them. they don't. i'm a conservative. grover norquist is a conservative. we believe, and always have believed in pro-growth policies. this is a pro-growth policy. we believe free people pursuing their dreams is good for society. that's what immigration is all about. >> why is a libertarian like rand paul against immigration preform? >> it's not obvious he is. he's come out in support for good immigration reform. i think it's a mistake to say republicans are deeply divided

and there's not support for this. heritage is very much isolated. >> i like to think you're right. i think the house -- i'll predict it now. the house is a problem. apparently they're going to come out with a bill out of the house, the house judiciary committee that doesn't have anything about legalization. they might not even address it. anyway, thank you. douglas, formerly known as a great man with the mccain campaign. and carrie brown, politico is booming. next, the eight-legged opponent. i think i'm on his side on this baby. that's coming up on the sideshow on "hardball," the place for politics. did you know peta cares for spiders? ha! why let constipation weigh you down?

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ha! back to "hardball." now to the sideshow. first, ever since the boston marathon bombings, some on the far right have been sounding off about some kind of connection

between the suspects and saudi arabia. just last week, glenn beck latched on to an anonymous report in the uk's "daily mail" suggesting the saudi government warn the obama administration about one of the suspects. >> we had several specific warnings on a specific individual. fbi, dhs, notified on the individual by russia, they called him up. saudi arabia calls him up. >> well, the saudi embassy and the white house denied any such warning occurred. well, pennsylvania republican congressman scott perry dived in. >> we keep on hearing about a saudi connection. listen, this administration hasn't been forthcoming with information on other cases that are important to the american people, namely benghazi, fast and furious, et cetera. when they haven't been really forthcoming on information regarding these other saudi connections and what have you, then we are skeptical and mistrusting and we want, you know, we just don't believe them. >> i love that, we. anyway, any chance republicans

happen to throw benghazi into the mix, they throw it. next, check out this tweet from chris christie. "earlier today i saved a few schoolchildren from a spider." #nobigdeal. and #toughdayattheoffice. christie was hosting a class of schoolchildren in his office on friday when a spider made a brief appearance. >> where is he? there he is. >> let's staple him. >> thank you, thank you very much. that's also another fun part of being governor. any bugs on your desk, i kill them, and i get in trouble. >> believe it or not, peta, the animal rights organization, released a statement on the move saying christie probably did it without thinking. some people put a spider outside, but spiders are often scary to people and that can prevent them from pondering their worth.

next, remember when jack lew was first nominated for treasury secretary, people weren't sure if they wanted to see his loopy signature on their paper currency? even president obama jokingly weighed in. >> i've never noticed jack's signature, and when this was highlighted yesterday in the press, i considered rescinding my offer to appoint him. jack assures me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency. >> update, lew's signature isn't on paper money yet, but the "washington post" came across a preview. here's the old version. and here's the one from a new report from the office of the treasury. hmm, looks like a big improvement for jack. finally, is there a hollywood version of paul analysis mastermind nate silver? according to "the new york times" today, the answer is yet. enter former statistics professor vinny bruzzese

crunching the numbers to predict which screenplays will be successful and which ones will not. which ones will tank. through focus groups and statistics on what's worked in past movies, he has reached several conclusions. including for horror movie, demons that target people are more well received by audiences than demons that are summoned by people. and statistically speaking, bowling scenes often show up in movies that don't do well in the box office. bruzzese provides 20 to 30 pages of recommendations for any script making many writers as he puts it skittish about his involvement. up next a new poll shows mark sanford pulling even in south carolina. that's big for him. tomorrow is the special election for the house seat. it's a real race right now. you're watching "hardball." the place for politics. my mantra? trust your instincts to make the call. to treat my low testosterone, my doctor and i went with axiron, the only underarm low t treatment.

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it's particularly good to be back in south carolina knowing you're about to get another democratic congressional seat in the first district. you know, all you had to do was watch that debate to understand why elizabeth is going to make such a great congresswoman. they ain't seen nothing yet. >> i wonder if that's a jinx. welcome back to "hardball." the polls have tightened, by the way, ahead of tomorrow's election in south carolina. it's the first congressional seat, as the vice president said. despite his predicting victory for the democratic contender elizabeth colbert busch, that outcome is far from certain. mark sanford there with a one-point lead. you know that means they're basically even. momentum, according to the last couple weeks, shifting clearly toward him. two weeks ago sanford was trailing colbert-busch by nine. tells you which the wind is blowing. despite how he made hiking the appalachian trail a national punch line. despite recent headlines about his family problems, and despite the national republican committee basically washing their hands of him, mark sanford could very well win tomorrow's race. what's up in south carolina? chris cillizza got my interest in this with his column today. he's an msnbc political analyst. i loved your column, because i think, first of all, i once heard this in a philosophy class

in georgetown. the difference between free will and free choice, free will means you get to do what you want to do. free choice gets to mean you get to decide among a limited number of options. now, the voters get two choices. the democrat or sanford. and i think that's probably explaining all you need to know about why this is tight. >> well, chris, i think your free choice versus free will works in every political setting, campaign setting which is you aren't running perfect candidate "a" against this other guy. you're running two candidates who have their flaws. now, mark sanford clearly in his personal life has a lot more flaws. elizabeth colbert-busch has not done a great job of distancing herself. >> she's a democrat. >> right. >> by their standards. >> i always say to people, this isn't a jump ball district. this is a district mitt romney won by 18 points. chris, this is a district that no democrat has represented in congress since the early 1970s. so, yes, sanford is clearly going to underperform mitt romney and underperform mitt romney badly.

mitt romney won it by 18 points. you have a lot of ground that you can give and still wind up over 50 -- i don't know if he gets there, but he's certainly close, which as you read the litany of things that have come to light about this guy over the last four years, pretty amazing. >> so there's going to be a moment maybe. 50/50 now. let's assume it's 50/50. don't get in the way of the voters. they have to decide tomorrow down there. it's 50/50. if he wins, the guy we're looking at, mark sanford, two days from now, three days from now, he'll be standing in the u.s. capitol in washington at one of the mock swearing ins. ready? here's the opinion question, the kind you hate. is that good for the republican party? to be swearing in mark sanford as a member of their caucus? this guy? >> i wrote a piece today on the "the fix" on the blog" arguing this might be a short-term loss for democrats but a long-term gain which is you have a guy in mark sanford who is not someone

who is going to play well with a national audience to the extent democrats can make a focus on him. democrats tried to build and successfully build if you look at the exit polling numbers this idea of a republican war on women during the 2012 campaign. sanford, given his personal problems leaving his wife to settle with maria belen chapur we're showing in the background over his left shoulder, none of those things play well with female voters. you've seen a democratic aligned super pac with ads featuring a republican female voter in the district saying mark sanford's not my kind of guy. look, this is a problem the republican party didn't want to have. you said the house campaign committee washed their hands. they absolutely did. they essentially said, once the trespassing stuff came out, they said, okay, we're not giving him any money, but he's still going to be a republican, a member of that conference. john boehner, eric cantor, everybody else, at least for a few days is going to have to answer the do you support mark sanford's candidacy, do you support him in the house question? >> i love the way you think.

you have a great open mind. that's why i love your column. chris cillizza, predicting the unpredicted. joy reid, managing editor of the grio and msnbc political analyst. so, you know, politics is about momentum. every time i'm successful in predicting election, i always go by my rule, find out where the numbers are thursday before the election and track them. and get that vector and you'll know who's going to win. looks like by that standard you cannot predict colbert-busch. not yet. >> definitely what you've seen in the public policy polling, if you just isolate that poll, is the previous poll that they took, you had a sort of demoralized republican electorate. right? the poll was looking something like republican plus five or six. whereas now it's at plus 13. which means republicans are coming home. this is at the end of the day a race where partisan republicans, republicans are saying that it's more important for us to have a conservative in the house than to have somebody we like because obviously colbert-busch is winning on the question of who is more favorable. who do you like better? but republicans are going with their guy. >> what about this strategy, if

it works, if sanford was running against -- i mean, we thought it was ludicrous here. a cardboard figure of nancy pelosi, invoking the name nancy pelosi seven or eight times in the debate they had. in other words, nationalizing colbert-busch, turning her from a locally somewhat attractive candidate into a national surrogate, a surrogate basically sent in from the big shots in new york and washington. i think that's the way he's played this thing, and if it works, it works. that's the game. >> and it works because in part colbert-busch, people i talked to today about this race, she didn't do enough to distance herself from the party. so it's ironic that this thing that the national media took as a joke came running against a cardboard cutout of nancy pelosi in a way was a stand-in for him running against colbert-busch who he's basically saying she's going to be an anrachic of pelosi, a cardboard cutout of the national democratic committee. he took the focus off himself and put it on national democrats who are deeply under water. barack obama, nancy pelosi, deeply under water in south carolina. ironically, the political party,

nrcc washing its hands of sanford in a way played into his hands. he can say, look, i am my own person. if he were go to washington, he wouldn't owe -- >> might turn out to be an independent which wouldn't bother me too much if he got there. by the way, i've never been convinced any party has an advantage of sexual behavior, good behavior. they both seem to get into the mess fairly frequently. we can make our separate lists on a legal pad. there are a lot of entries. i'm slow to jump on somebody for a sexual misbehavior. i know both sides seem to have that in the dna, if they will. not to defend it. joy, thank you for your analysis. up next, kids are being turned away from head-start. this is serious business. head-start is one of the fine programs in this country. it allows something close to an equal start at the starting gate and it's being blown away by these sequesters. it's our latest installment of

our series "the unkindest cuts." how the congress' spending cuts are doing real damage. and this is "hardball." the place for politics.

the hottest race of this year may be the governor's race in virginia. we have new poll data in that contest. according to a new "washington post" poll, republican ken cuccinelli, the state's attorney general, has a five-point lead over democrat terry mcauliffe among registered voters. now, get this. cuccinelli, 46%-41%. but among likely voters, those

who expect a vote actually, cuccinelli has a ten-point lead. 51%-41%. mcauliffe, 10% of virginia voters say they're following the campaign closely now, so there's time for him to make up that ground. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." last week we launched our new series "the unkindest cut" bringing to light real victims of these across the board spending cuts known as sequester. elderly people won't get their meals on wheels. poor and disenfranchised having access to soup kitchens limited. you certainly delivered. mary lou from los angeles posted

this to our facebook page. "my mother is in the hospice program. we got a notice from hospice because of the sequester they will no longer supply the latex gloves, wipes and bed pads. we're able to afford these items but think of the dies that cannot. shame on the government." "unkindest cut has led to 10% layoff in my company, science research report. i knew gop was anti-science. gop is also anti-job." today we bring you another way that these cuts are rippling across the country. this time it affects children. the well-known head-start program. the federal program that helps preschoolers from low-income families be ready to start schools faces a $406 million cut. which would kick 70,000 kids out of the program. and headlines across the country describe how local communities are already being hurt by these cuts to head start funding. democratic congresswoman kathy castor of florida, has met with head-start families hurt by sequester cuts and wants children's programs to get the same attention that travel

delays have gotten. politics, i remember barbara

bush of the bush family was big on the head start program. it is very respected and cherished because it takes kids who normally have a hard time in first grade catching up. and this gives them a real chance and equal chance at the starting gate. >> that's absolutely true. probably one of the saddest parts of the cuts is that most people are aware that it will mean 70,000 children will not be able to participate in head start. that also means there are hundreds of thousands of nutritious meals that won't be served. hundreds of thousands of dental follow-ups that won't be made. hundreds of thousands of medical follow-ups that won't be made. literally hundreds of thousands of home visits to parents to help them prepare their children to do well in school that won't be made. that's probably the saddest part of all. we have snatched a rug out from under 70,000 of the most vulnerable children and families in this country. >> and so these kids will get -- they'll miss a step or two at the age of 6, and then all through their school years they'll never perhaps in some cases catch up.

>> well, not only that, it -- there is a great deal of evidence that head start has been credited with lowering the childhood mortality rate in the entire country because on the emphasis that we put on health care and dental care. it is almost as if we have discovered the vaccine and said, guess what, 70,000 of you will not get the vaccine. >> let's go into the halls of congress, congresswoman. why don't you, i mean, i'm not advising, not a political consultant, i'm just a talker, but i always wondered, why don't you go to the floor with a proposal like they did with the air traffic controllers and say how with about an exception and force people like boehner who is not a bad person to vote against it? why don't you jam him with this the way the traffic controller issue was raised? >> well, you know, we did that very thing in the house budget committee with our chairman chris van holland. we offered an amendment just on head start 20 to replace the sequester when it came to the 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds. the republicans said no. they said no unanimously, just

like they did when we were talking about cancer researchers and medical innovation. they're not interested in real debt reduction. they just want these cuts. they want the sequester. but they're going to have to live with the fact that they're complicit in the dumbing down of america and 70,000 of our 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds will not have a head start in life. i was with parents and students last week in tampa, i talked to one mother who said my before head start, her 3-year-old could not speak. after six months in head start, now that young boy can communicate. that means he's going to have a better chance at life. >> mr. herndon, how are you going to make this? are we going to get through this thing? you see the cutting edge to this thing. what is going to happen if this goes on? >> well, families who already are very vulnerable in this country are going to suffer even more. our program it means we close head start a week, two weeks earlier. we'll start two weeks later.

and that means that speech therapy that should be available for the young child that the congresswoman described will not occur. and, again, the folks who already are suffering the most will be asked to suffer even more needlessly. so we certainly do hope that members of congress can get together. we are aware. head start received bipartisan support in the past. we hope that common sense will prevail and, yes, most head start parents are not flying on airplanes, but we certainly do think they and their children should be given just as much consideration as the folks who are standing in line. >> mr. herndon, thank you so much for coming on. national head start association chairman and u.s. congresswoman kathy castor who i met down in tampa, thank you for coming on, both. we're going to keep being a squeaky wheel here on these programs that are affecting real people. tweet us at the hash tag unkindest cut and join the conversation on our facebook page at facebook.com/hardball and go it our website at

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this. immigration, in the ideal world, people would apply to be in this world, be admitted and then devote themselves to becoming naturalized citizens. any bill passed by congress in the next months or years should take us as close as reasonably possible to that ideal future. immigration -- future immigration should be legal immigration. so how do we get there? one, we kill the jobs here for people who come to the country illegally. second, we tighten the border and find the people who come here illegally to assume a greater life, paying taxes, participate in social security, learn english, make it possible for them to become u.s. sentence. fourth, we find ways to become citizens on a short-term basis. we shouldn't let businesses decide who become as long-term resident. that's the government's decision. this is my ideal immigration reform. the passage of a system of laws that we, the american people, are committed to enforcing. we shouldn't pass laws that we

don't fully intend to enforce. it's a stern but worthy test, a test that i'm going to insist on in every discussion here. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. thank you for joining us tonight. there is a lot happening on this monday, including the shocking arrest of the lieutenant colonel in charge of the air force's sexual assault prevention program. he himself is charged tonight with sexual assault. two big banks are accused of violating their responsibility to help struggling homeowners. i'll have the exclusive interview with the attorney general who is cracking down. and a major tax bill passes in the senate, pitting republican against republican, democrat against democrat, and grover norquist against big retailers. all that, plus click 3. we begin with new and mounting

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