russia said he had no great desire to do anything else in ukraine. >> and mark halperin? >> senior adviser to the president tweeting to check my twitter feed for this about mitt romney's op-ed in the washington journal. he didn't seem to like it much. >> okay. if it's "way too early," what time is it? it's time for "morning joe." now it's time for "the daily rundown with chuck todd." have a great day. >> take it away, chuck. definance. russian president vladimir putin says crimea always was and still is part of russia. that declaration comes after president obama and european leaders level some sanctions. so, whose move is it now? >> 11 days of searching for the missing malaysia airlines plane and now frustrated families of passengers are pushing for more answers and action. hunger strike is even planned.

>> plus, it's primary day in illinois. tdr 50 look at how the state's governor dodged a democratic divide and now republicans are squaring off for survival on president obama's home turf. good morning from washington. it's tuesday, march 18th, 2014. this is "the daily rundown." breaking news this morning. moving parts around the world. let's get right to our first read and start right out of russia this morning. that president, vladimir putin, boldly defies u.s. warnings and international sanctions and formally restores crimea to the russian federation. it's a stunning development that took less than three weeks from invasion to annexation. in an address to the parliament this morning, putin defended the move, saying crimea must be part of russia. he also said that ethnic russians in ukraine are fed up with leaders in kiev, but insisted that the kremlin is not interested in seizing more territory. after the address, putin and

crimean leaders signed a treaty formally adding crimea to the russian federation. it has to be approved by the constitutional court and ratified by the russian parliament but those are considered formalities in putin's version of governing. u.s. officials are now left to try to head off any further aggression. this morning, vice president biden arrived in poland to show solidarity with russia's other eastern european neighbors. three former soviet satellite states. now the trip comes one day after the obama administration announced sanctions against 11 people, a group that includes russian officials, crime e crim separatists and a pair of president putin's personal deputies but did not put putin himself on the list. if russia does go deeper into ukraine, president obama did approve tougher measures against russia's arms industry and the

oligarchs in putin's inner circle. >> and if russia continues to interfere in ukraine, we stand ready to impose further sanctions. going forward, we can calibrate our response based on whether russia chooses to escalate or deescalate the situation. >> the russian parliament fired back this morning, sarcastically challenging president obama on the list of russian citizens impacted by u.s. and european sanctions. john mccain slammed the white house, though, for what he believes -- >> this president's response, i don't know how it could have been weaker, besides doing nothing. seven people being sanctioned after naked aggression has taken place. >> mccain is one of a handful of republican hawks left in congress these days, frustrated with the president's policy. and the lack of what they believe is an intensity in krons

confronting vladimir putin. of course, that's not who president obama is. he has never been a fire breather when it comes to diplomatic rhetoric. but mccain's criticism also underscores a broader problem for the president. this standoff with the russian president has handcuffed him politically. obamacare enrollment and its approaching deadline. sometimes a foreign policy crisis can rally the country around the president and other times it can be negative because it takes time and attention over issues that americans care a will the more about, like the economy. americans don't like putin, but how much do they not like him? in this case, the standoff over crimea is not only a distraction but fundamentally unresolvable. the chance that this ends with some kind of victory for the united states is practically nil. the best the obama administration can hope for is an uneasy stalemate.

the administration seems focused on trying to keep the crisis from getting worse. despite his claims that russia doesn't want to split up ukraine, the concern is that putin will use violence along the russian/ukrainian border as a reason to send troops under that pretense of, quote, maintaining order. now, keep in mind, while crimea is relatively a very small part of ukraine, about half the country is predominantly russia. former president bill clinton, over the weekend, actually talked about vladimir putin's mind-set what he learned about this leader gl the one thing i will say about him is he was always pretty transparent. he never pretended to be what he wasn't. and i found in dealing with him -- and, by the way, with most other leaders with whom i had differences -- it was best to be brutal with them in private and be honest, because they respected you if you were. and then as long as you could to

avoid embarrassing them in public. >> and that would be exactly what folks in the west wing would tell you. let's go right now to moscow. jim maceda joins me live. you saw pietin, the speech, the ceremony. i guess the question is, do you take putin at his word about what he says is russia's interests in the rest of ukraine? >> yeah. i think you have to take putin at his word. but with the stipulation, chuck, that it is his word. and what i mean by that is that this was vintage vladimir putin. it was full of fanfare, chandeli chandeliers, deep drilling down into ukraine, soviet history to explain what ukraine and crimea specifically is to russians. he spoke for about an hour. i suppose you could say he was setting the record straight but again this was from his point of view. in great detail he explained why

crimea has always been russian, 60 years of ukrainian territory was an illegal abberation and echoing what clinton just said about never embarrassing putin in public, putin tore into the west, calling them cheaters, the west betrayed russia over the years, allowing nato to expand to its very borders, acting irresponsibly recently in ukraine by allowing those ultra nationalists to take power in a coup with absolutely no regard at all for the interests of millions of russians who live there. he also addressed americans directly. he asked americans if freedom is your deepest wish, then what about the free will of crimeans, doesn't that have the same value, he asked? and explaining the military intervention. did he admit, chuck, that russian troops from the black sea already in crimea were used but that the numbers never exceeded the 25,000 limit, an

international treaty. he then said he followed international law. calling them brothers, telling them, this is important, not to believe those who say russia wants to take other parts of ukraine. but he also said russia wants a strong ukraine but the ukrainian government must also show it respects the rights of the russians who live there. so, this was truly a tour de force by vladimir putin all leading up to the signing of a draft treaty. that draft treaty could take another two, three weeks or more, we're told, before it actually becomes law. >> but it's still moving with such incredible speed when you think about it. jim maceda in moscow. lawmakers are trying to

assimilate russia's way of life. they even announced the adoption of the ruruble. we're in dotting the i, crossing the t stages at this point. right, ian? >> reporter: that's right, chuck. here, they're already regarding this as a done deal. with parliament behind me they've been prying the old signs off the wall, old ukrainian crimean signs off the wall. and big groups of school children are visiting for what they're describing as an historic day. as you say they're moving quickly to the adoption of the ruble, old state-owned ukrainian property and do intend to turn those clocks forward. in moscow today, of course, lawmakers from here witnessed putin's speech and were signing that draft agreement afterwards. less happy, of course, are the

minorities here. the original population of the crimea. the deputy prime minister here, warning that the tartars may have to evacuate land they are occupying. people feel very uneasy about what that new future will hold, chuck. >> all right. ian williams, a reminder that this is as unanimous as that vote might have looked it's not actually as unanimous on the ground. ian, thank you very much. former ambassador to russia and, of course, now an msnbc news analyst, good morning to you, sir. >> good morning. >> you listened to putin's speech, heard jim maceda's report, but he did claim he did not have any more interest in pushing further into ukraine. do you believe him?

>> i'm not sure, no. i'm not sure that we should take him at his word. it will depend on what happens in eastern ukraine. if there is violence between ethnic russians and ethnic ukrainians, there will be a call in moscow for the defense of those russians. i don't think this crisis is over in terms of just settling with crimea. i don't think he has an intention right now to go into eastern ukraine, but i don't think putin had an intention a month ago to go into crimea. >> well, we just had -- vice president biden just did, it looks like acres joint statement with polish leaders and he said if this process of annexation continues, more sanctions will come from the united states and e you feel. obviously, the president announced a second round of sanctions yesterday. explain what the turning of the screws should look like as far as you're concerned. >> as far as i'm personally

concerned today's annexation demands new sanctions, new individual expansions of the list, the very short list that was announced yesterday. >> was that too short of a list? >> of course it was too short of a list. this is a major moment in european history. we've not had annexation since the beginning of world war ii. let's be clear about that. and the righting of the wrongs of the past, these -- you know, you cannot annex other countries and just, you know, everybody needs to turn the page and move on. so, i think the actions today, president putin's action as today demand a response from europe, from the united states, increase sanctions for individuals in the government and in the economy that support that government. >> what else? what about -- would you be using -- you know what john mccain's critiques are, bob

corker, senior republican foreign relations. both would like to see nato, to short handle it, saber rattling via nato. would you recommend that? >> i think the next most important step is to try to stabilize ukraine. try to stabilize the economy. try to stabilize the political system there. because if that falls apart, right, if there's an economic crisis in ukraine, that will be the trigger for violence in eastern ukraine and that will be the precipitant for increased likelihood of conflict between russia and ukraine. to me, that needs to be the number one focus. members of congress can get involved in that. they can increase the aid package to russia. they can up the freedom support act. something that was passed at the collapse of the soviet union, to try to provide institutional support for democratic institutions, independent media.

all the pieces that go to a democratic state. they can do that testimony if they want to do something to help ukraine. >> i know you're not -- you and many current officials in the obama administration appreciate backseat driving from politicians, but mitt romney, the president's challenger, has an op-ed in "the wall street journal" that criticizes the president, in particular, on timing. believing he has been too slow to respond to these various issues, whether it's syria, in particular russia. and let me read you just one part of it. he says president obama and secretary of state clinton traveled the world in pursuit of the promise to reset relations and to build friendships across the globe. their failure has been painfully evident. when president obama took office and now russia is in ukraine, part of their failure, be i submit, is due to their failure to act when action was possible and needed. it's that last part that seems to be the criticism that some republican hawks have been making, that the president was

too slow to react. what do you say to that? >> i think it forgets the historical processes that we've seen in this part of the world for several decades. president george w. bush failed to stop russia from invading georgia. president ronald reagan failed to stop breshnev from instituting martial law in poland in 1981. we can go all the way back to eisenhower, who had a strategy of roll back. and even saber -- rattled the swords of nuclear war. should russia, then the soviet union, go in to hungary. and they went in. so russians, the kremlin, have proven when they want to, when they decide it's in their national interest, they've been able to do so and no president,

republican, democrat, weak or strong, has been able to stop those aggressions. >> it's a good point to end on there. ambassador mike mcfaul, thank you for being with us this morning during what is an ongoing continuing crisis with crimea, ukraine, united states and russia. thank you, sir. >> thank you. new development this is morning. actual facts about what's going on with the mystery of flight 370. whoever was flying the plane programmed a course change into the cockpit computer. more evidence pointing to this being a deliberate act. the question is by whom? this afternoon the president will be awarding the medal of honor to 24 veterans who served during world war ii, korea and vietnam. we'll have much more on the heroes being honored, coming up in a few minutes here on "tdr." [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health

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well, there are new details and a wider search area, but still not a single sign of that missing malaysia air jet. 239 passengers and crew on board. investigators now say someone intentionally cut radio contact and they're continuing the investigation into the pilot and co-pilot. now, malaysian investigators announced today that the search area now covers more than 2.25 million square miles. it kept flying after it cut off contact with ground control. there are new details about the timeline. at 12:41 am last saturday it left kuala lumpur. acars. a standard phrase, at 1:19 am,

all right. good night. 20 minutes later, someone who had to be knowledgeable about this plane turned off the transponders which send speed, location, altitude and heading information. then next the plane turned around and at 2:15 am the last radar contact in the strait of malacca headed north. the last ping was picked up by an orbitting satellite. if the plane did land, it could have touched down on any of these yellow dots. look at that. that's the needle in the haystack business. if it crashed, the debris could wind up as far north as kazakhstan, as far south as the deep indian ocean. there are all those yellow dots. some angry family members confronted executives at malaysian airlines at this meeting in beijing. the families obviously are frustrated about not getting enough information and some have even started a hunger strike. long-time girlfriend of one of

the americans on board that flight does not believe the plane has crashed. she talked to msnbc's rachel maddow last night. >> we were already talking about the fact that a crash didn't make any sense, that this clearly looked like an abduction. and, you know, without evidence of them doing something immediate and visible with that very powerful tool of a big plane filld with people, that they have to have a future purpose for it. >> malaysian investigators have searched the homes of the co-pilot and pilot twice now. and they're analyzing the pilot's flight simulator. question is, did one of these men switch off the acars system or did someone else do it? nbc's keir simmons has that part of the story from kuala lumpur. >> reporter: chuck, good morning. the mystery surrounding the disappearance of flight 370 deepens every day. today we are learning authorities here do not believe there was anybody else on that

aircraft who could have flown a 777. the focus continues to be on the pilots. this is where the captain lives. it is an upscale neighborhood, a gated community. you can see there is security here. friends of the captain simply are asking today why someone who lives as well as this would ever be involved in something like that. they say he is a family man, he has three children, one grandchild. so, he has no motivation for that kind of thing, they say. meanwhile, the co-pilot, too, has a girlfriend. his friends say that he was very happy. he, too, could not have been involved, they say. meanwhile, the authorities continue to say they are looking at all of the passengers and crew on board. they have to, they say, because this is so unprecedented. meaning right now we still don't know what happen ed to the plan, who was flying it and why. chuck? >> thank you, keir. of course, the chinese government said all the chinese citizens, they believe, had

nothing to do with that. nbc's kerry sanders has been looking at where things stand with the search today. kerry, you know, how involved is the u.s.? it seems that there's still some uneasy balancing act between malaysian officials and u.s. officials. >> really, i think the question at this point is for all the countries that are involve sd how long will they continue to search this huge area where they're finding very little? in fact, what they're doing is ruling out areas but they're not finding anything in the areas that are still left. as you pointed out, more than 2 million square nautical miles to continue searching. the u.s.s. kid, which has been in the area operating, hases pulling back. the aircraft that the u.s. has in the area, the p-8 and p-3 are still participating in the search. thailand has pulled back. india has pulled back. if we take a look at the map here we can show you what we're looking at. this is satellite. you talked about the pings. >> right. >> the distance here, the

distance here, the distance here, it's all the same distance. that's why they came up with this sort of half arc or half semi circle of where the plane may have gone to. as you noted, there are, by a report put together by wnyc, 630 potential runways in 26 countries where the plane could have touched down. that takes out of the equation that somebody would have said something i saw a plane here or there is a plane here. it takes us to the last location here, which is as we look at this huge area that is left to be searched, all the way here. >> that's where we're not seeing a lot of searching, right, is in the indian ocean itself? >> for obvious reasons, because of the amount of time it takes. for a p-3 or p-8 out of kuala lumpur, it takes three to four hours to get out and three to four hours to get back. you have about nine hours of fuel on board. that gives them an hour to do a

little bit of search that they could get in with electronics about 10,000 square miles. >> took decades to find the titanic. why do i have a feeling it may take decades to find this plane? kerry sanders in our newsroom. to say it on air, so glad to have you back, my friend. >> thank you so much. >> and recovered. turning back now to politics at home and our first number in today's data bank. the number is four. that's right. texas senator ted cruz in the united states senate for less than two years and he's already making his fourth trip to the state of iowa in eight months. cruz went fevepheasant huntin'. notice, you don't go hunting. you always drop the g. and today they'll do some fund-raising -- again, drop the g. trivia question today, since

1900, how many times has illinois not voted for the winner in a presidential election? if you know -- you know what they say in chicago. vote early and vote often. no how many times you vote you still have to be the first one to tweet me correctly @chucktodd or @dailyrundown. the answer and the deep dive on election day in illinois, all coming up on "tdr." it's a growing trend in business: do more with less with less energy. hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. multiply that across over a thousand locations, and they'll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. that's a trend we can all get behind.

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this afternoon, 24 americans will receive the nation's highest order of bravery from president obama today. of those 24 service member, only three are still living. those three all served in vietnam. they're mostly hispanic and jewish veterans. sergeant santiago erevia.

sergeant first class melvin morris is being recognized for directing and leading indigenous soldiers and helping his fellow soldiers to safety even after he had been wounded. and master sergeant jose rodela disabled an enemy rocket position even while he dodged enemy fire. seven of the posthumous medals of honor will go to private pedro cano, private joe gandara served in the parachute regimen and was injured in france fighting german forces. staff sergeant salvador lora, master sergeant manuel mendoza, sergeant alfred nietzel and first lieutenant donald schwab. corporal joe baldonado's heroism was detailed in the book "disaster in korea," fought valently on hill 171, but his

remains have never been found. six other korean war recipients, sergeant victor espinoza, private first class leonard kravitz. master sergeant mike pena, private first class demensio rivera and private vera as well as sergeant jack weinstein. five of the eight vietnam recipients will receive the medal of honor posthumously today. specialist four leonard, staff sergeant felix conde-falcon. sergeant jesus duran and sergeant garcia. you can watch the entire ceremony live here on msnbc beginning at 3:40 this afternoon. medal of honor ceremonies, there is nothing like them. if you've got the time today, sit down and watch it. any of them are tremendous. makes you feel really good about being an american.

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the deep dive today, "tdr" continues, it's tuesday. people are voting somewhere. it's president obama's home state. primary day in the land of lincoln, where four republicans are vying to take on perhaps the most vulnerable democratic governor in the country, patrick quinn. and a handful of right on right house primary challenges will test the strength of the democratics a bit. back when he left office in 2003, governor pat quinn who served as rod blagojevich's, eventually sent to federal prison to join a long line of

illinois governors who have turned inmates. with the state facing the highest unemployment rate in the midwest, worst credit rating of any state and in a pension crisis, republicans have perhaps their best chance to reclaim the governor's mansion in the state in a decade and embarrass the president in his home state in this election. after today's primary, something he was supposed to do a lot sooner. i challenged him on that point of delay when he was on the show last month. a cynic would say you're waiting to see who you face before you unveil your budget. >> well, we're going to do a five-year budget plan. that's important, given the crises that illinois has had since the last time before he became governor. >> four republicans are vying for the chance to unseat quinn today. never had a firm hold on the state's democratic party. and 18 months ago the assumption would be that today would be the democratic primary would be the competitive race to watch.

but several powerful state democrats, including the former white house chief of staff bill daly and lisa maddigan decided not to challenge quinn, leaving hillary clinton to joke he has just been entered into the guinness world records book as luckiest politician. and if he survives she may be very much right about that. in name only. former leader of chicago anti-violence group who was arrested on the domestic battery charge himself last year. the case was later dropped. quinn is, of course, expected to easily win his primary. quinn has a history of being a remarkable survivor. expect the swren election campaign to be brutal and, oh, by the way, expensive. leading the republican field is bruce rauner, a socially moderate venture capitalist and first-time politician from suburban chicago, vowing to shake up springfield and using his political resume of his opponents against them. >> we've got to rip the

corruption out of springfield by bringing term limits to our state government. eight years and out. critical thing to get term limits on every politician. >> rauner is running on school reform, wants to move public workers away from defined benefit pensions and has poured $6 million of his own money into the campaign and raised another $4 million, more than any candidate seeking a gubernatori a. l position in state history. we're still in the primaries, folks. he leads polls which, of course, means he has a target on his back. >> you can't just come out and say i'm going to buy the governor's race. the more i hear him speak the more he sounds like rod blagojevich. >> he may own nine multimillion dollar mansions throughout america but he shouldn't be able to bite tenth one, which is the people's mansion in springfield, illinois. >> they're doing it because they're desperate. they see we're going to shake up their world.

>> those are the republicans that are attacking him on his wealth. if there was any doubt that democrats expect rauner to be tough competition in november, unions have spent $6 million on the republican primary on ads attacking rauner in hopes to boost weaker democratic competition. owns nine homes, made $53 million last year, has tried to downplay his personal wealth. campaign bio says he still drives a 20-year-old camper van, wears an $18 watch and stays in the cheapest hotel room he can find when he's on the road. >> pretty cheap but it gets the job done. at quinn's watch in springfield? just the opposite. record spending, job loss and one of the worst-run governments in america. >> rejected comparisons. >> i am very different person from mitt romney. i drink beer. i smoke a cigar. i use a gun.

i ride a harley. i get a crowd going withstanding ovation. never saw him do that. >> okay. but the democratic governors association is playing up the comments he made to the chicago sun times when asked if he was part of the 1% of wealthiest americas, he responded i'm probably .01%. you saw him in that one clip, less than 1% of the vote. >> just like four years ago when we won the primary, we're right on the issues. our candidacy, our team is right for illinois. >> brady is hoping his more conservative positions on social issues, abortion, gun rights and same-sex marriage will boost his candidacy and is trying to use his support for pension reform against another republican in the race. dillard lost the republican nomination to brady in 2010 by 200 votes, voted against pension

reform last year. he is running second to rauner in recent polls, facing criticism all along for an ad he did in 2008, for a democratic presidential candidate by the name of barack obama. now polls close at 8:00 pm tonight. early voting, though, in illinois ended saturday. early reports indicate turnout has been average to lackluster if you want to make that a ratings scale, suggesting that overall republican turnout could be similar to four years ago. boe only about 1.7 million cast votes then. reporter for the chicago tribune and carol marine, political columnist also for the chicago sun times. hello to both of you. >> hi, chuck. >> good morning. >> carol, let me start with the position that pat quinn is in today. we're calling him the most

vulnerable democratic incumbent governor in the country. but compare him to recent -- to maybe republican governors that lost re-election in illinois history. does he look as weak today as those that did eventually lose in a general? >> he looks -- i think he is the weakest of them all. but, you know, it's easy to underestimate pat quinn. >> a lot of democrats have done that for years. >> a lot of them have. and, to their peril. he is as much an outsider as bruce rauner, the republican, is casting himself as. he is a street fighter. he may operate more out of a pocket protector than out of a massive computer bank but he is going to give this race a real fight, whoever is the nominee on the republican side. >> rick, let's talk about that. is there any chance that rauner loses this? it was a bit of a surprise when brady eeked out that primary a few years ago. low turnout. rauner seems to have command to

this race. does he not? >> four years ago when you have that primary that brady run, that was a seven-man field, too. it's a much more condensed field. frankly it's really only among brady, dillard and rauner because dan rutherford has had issues involving controversy with a former employee in the state treasury's office that has really diminished him here. he can provide a spoiler role because he does retain popularity in central illinois. truly when you look at the number of voters who cast votes in the republican primary here, you're talking about a small number. truly, shifts can make a big difference. >> carol, when i think about rauner, i tell you, it seems as if, in particular, republicans, right? we've got another -- daly diction, self funders have not had a good track record in

illinois on both sides of the aisle. what does rauner have to do to avoid that fate? >> what he has already done to avoid some of it, i think, chuck, is he has had a kind of discipline that we haven't seen in some of the other multi-million dollar billionaire candidate that is have come through illinois and thought they could simply walk in to high office. rauner has observed an absolutely strict kind of coda of how to operate this campaign, the same buzz words all the time, term limits. get corruption out of springfield. term limits, by the way, have got to be on a ballot as a referendum. pat quinn tried that in 1994 in the illinois supreme court threw it out. to say you can pull off term limits is a little harder than it sounds. >> rick, there's been -- i saw that -- on my show about a month ago when i had the governor on, he kept talking about minimum wage was going to be on the ballot. is the minimum wage issue going to be on the ballot in november?

clearly, obviously, governor desperately wants it on the ballot because of what that would mean in union money and all that stuff. give me what's realistic here. >> i don't think it's going to be on the ballot. i certainly think it will be something that a very strongly democratically controlled assembly will pass. fitting into that national mean from the president on down to democrats trying to use the issue of raising the minimum wage in sort of a class war issue. of course, if bruce rauner is the candidate -- he has had some serious stumbles over the issue of minimum wage, at one point saying it ought to be rolled back. illinois is a dollar higher than the federal minimum wage. at one point, rauner said he felt it should be rolled back to the minimum wage. now he's saying i could support an increase but coupled with that would have to be very serious pro-business reforms, especially included tax benefits to businesses. >> all right. let me quickly -- the rest of the ballot today, couple of

congressional races, adam kisinger has the tea party challenge. no one expects him to lose. we'll see there. and then the other race that some people are paying attention to, congressman rodney davis getting a primary challenge from a former miss america. carol, any surprises we should expect in these two primaries? >> it doesn't feel that way. it still feels like a low turnout race with the party faithful coming out that both of them are likely safe. >> e richlt ka harold, she has name recognition but has been you be unable to raise money. it's a grassroots level. central illinois, southern illinois, it can get the grassroots going out there. >> and super duper low turnout. you never know. carol marin, rick pearson, thank you for getting close there in our chicago studio. i know that's not the easiest place to make that happen. >> thanks, chuck.

dip in today's data bank, three. edwin edwards was released from a federal prison and has decided he has to run for office. he's going to run for congress. 86-year-old democrat announced his candidacy for louisiana sixth district officially yesterday. edwards served nearly nine years for extortion, fraud, racketeering. vote for the crook. it's important. today's tdr 50 illinois soup of the day comes to us from the field bistro at chicago's famous field museum of natural history. where my mother did a little internship. anyway, they're serving up woodland mushroom aged sherry soup. ameriprise asked people a simple question: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry, but you worry.

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again in '76. illinois did not pick george w. bush, of course in 2000 and 2004, of course, since it's become part of the democratic base electoral base strategy. congratulations to today's winner, taylor medford. send your answers to dailyrundown@msnbc.com. we'll be right back. [ thunder crashes ] [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them.

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running for the u.s. senate again back in new hampshire, against brown, for the republican nomination for smith's old seat, by the way, in new hampshire. now, the carpetbagger label shouldn't bother him. overall, most of the new hampshire's residents aren't natives, but history is not on his side on this one. only two senators have ever represented multiple states, but you have to go back to the 19th century when state legislatures elected them. and if he's against jeanne shaheen, he'll have a battle. 33% favorable/42% unfavorable. in this area's midterms, the toughest things if you aren't an incumbent is if you used to be an incumbent. it's one of the lessons i took away from alex sink and i think what we learned in the florida 13th special election. she became the establishment candidate early, the de facto incumbent in that race. that also was probably worth a couple of points in the negative column. that's not going to help brown be an outsider here.

by the way, bill brox, the last nominee to be able to get a nomination in another state. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." coming up next is chris jansing. she's going to have more on the health care signup push by the white house. we have 13 days to go before the deadline. they hit 5 million yesterday. bye-bye. marge: you know, there's a more enjoyable way to get your fiber. try phillips fiber good gummies. they're delicious, and a good source of fiber to help support regularity. wife: mmmm husband: these are good! marge: the tasty side of fiber. from phillips. [ ship horn blows ] no, no, no! stop! humans. one day we're coming up with the theory of relativity, the next... not so much. but that's okay. you're covered with great ideas like optional better car replacement from liberty mutual insurance. total your car, and we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. learn about it at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy?

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