birthday ♪ >> the princess has left the arena. chuck todd is next with "the daily rundown." thank you, as always, my friends for your patience. spring has sprung for jobs, something we haven't seen in years. this morning's new report shoots way past expectations for once, but the country adding almost 300,000 new jobs in april and the unemployment rate dropping to 6.3%. plus, as the middle east peace push falls to pieces again, is anything possible any time soon? we're going to ask one of netanyahu's chief confidantes.

and as pro-russian troops detain and release american news crews on the border this morning, germany's chancellor angela merck la -- delivers as new message this morning. >> and the jobs number shows the economy may finally be bouncing back after a brutal winter. it's the most jobs added in two years. thein employment rate plunged to 6.3%, the lowest it's been since 2008. february and march job totals were revised up by a combined 36,000. the average now for the last three months, 238,000 jobs, about 60,000 more than the

average for the three months before. big winners by sectors include business services, retail, food services, construction and health care. bottom line, this number was much bigger than anticipated but it's not all good news. part of the reason that the unemployment rate is down is of course that the total labor force dropped again, this time by more than 800,000 in april after increasing by half a million. that total jobs number added a big deal. if you think about it over the last five years, april, may, june, every time it looked like the economy was bouncing back, they would just sort of suck the life out of the economic recovery with mediocre jobs reports. this one indicates the start of the second quarter may be a different story in 2014. we'll see if it keeps up. could be the sleeper issue of 2014 in the campaign. turning now to the campaign, the issue that will decide whether the democrats keep of the

senate. yes, it's a cliche but cliches become cliches because they're true. it's the democrats' biggest challenge this year. at first it was part of his stump speech to members of his own party behind doors, the fear that democrats may not show up to the polls but republicans will. >> their models are constructed based on the idea that americans will sit out this election. because they look at the past and in the past, it's true. a lot of democrats don't vote during mid terms. we just don't. young people. african-americans, latinos. we just often times don't vote. >> as the president put it to a group of democratic governors earlier this year, quote, we know how to win national elections but all too often it's during these mid terms where we end up getting ourselves into trouble because i guess we don't

think it's sexy enough. well, the president isn't wrong. in our poll this month, we looked more closely at the group of voters who told us they vote in 2012 but did not cast a vote in 2010 when democrats lost the most congressional seats since 1938. so who are these drop-off voters? 51% of these folks who we polled who voted in 2012 but not in 2010 are self-described democrats, more than twice the number of republicans, 17% of them are political independents. the drop-off voters are overwhelmingly female, 61% are women, 39% are men. younger voters were much more likely to sit out the mid-term than older voters, 35% were in the age group 18 to 34, 28% were 35-49. they are mostly not college educated. 67% had less than a college education and they were

disproportionately hispanic and african-american. in case it's not already clear that we're describing a democratic consistency group here, i think can you see it. 53% of the dropoff voters say they approve of the president, 9 points higher than his overall job rating in our poll. and 55% prefer democrats to be in charge in congress. by nearly 20 points, 43 to 25, dropoff voters tell us they have a positive view of the democratic party and view the republican party negatively. as sasha puts it, "today the republican coalition is stacked with the electorate's most habitual poll-goers or "reflection" voters. the director of the american communities project points out this week in the wall street journal how dropoff voters,

younger vo eer voters, could plg role in states with competitive senate races. colorado, iowa, north carolina, in boulder conte, home of the university of colorado, turnout dropped by 27%, and in durham county, duke's town, turnout dropped by a whopping 40%. the numbers doesn't lie. joining suus is author of the great geeky book and amy walter, editor for the cook national report. sasha, your book came out. i assume that profile of voter that we came up with did not surprise you considering the deep dive you've done on this as

well. >> that's right. we did our poll slightly differently in that we went out and actually looked at voter files. we weren't asking people whether or not they voted in '10 or '12 but looking at the actual record if people had turned out. we found something very similar, which is you basically have two lek democrats in the united states, people who vote every two years and people who vote every four years. the reflection voter is overwhelmingly republican. what we usually think of as the mid-term dynamics now have a very different sort of partisan edge. >> i guess then the question is what is the campaign about, amy? is it about persuasion? or is it only about turnout? sasha actually had a counter argument in his piece. i want to go to you and chris

first. what do campaigns think? it seems it's only about getting voters out. >> we know where the senate battlegrounds are. they're in places where the obama coalition is not going to be what they need to win. the obama coalition is not going to get you alaska, louisiana. >> it's going to get you 45% maybe in arkansas. if they do a registration campaign with african-americans and things like that. >> they have the colorado/north carolina, which is the turn out our base issue and then they have the get out -- actually have our candidates be able to persuade those especially white voters who voted for mitt rom y romney. what is motivating democrats to turn out in a year looking at the fact that people who are the most pessimistic about the economy are part of that same base, minorities, women, younger people. how are you going to get them to turn out when they feel like

things are so bad? >> what's the deliverable? republicans are telling their base why they want to turn out. got to stop obama, you got to stop the health care law, you got to stop these things. they have a way to rally their base. what is the great rally cry for the democratic party? >> i would add, by the way, what you've seen this week with benghazi is another rallying cry. >> this is the save lindsay graham senate seat. it gives him something to sell conservatives you may hate me on all this stuff but i'm with you on benghazi. >> before this morning i would have said nothing. it is possible that given we are now in may before an election year, if an improving -- the economy really looks -- that's potentially the one. i city think it's very difficult. sasha's gone through, amy's gone

through it, i've gone through it. if you look at history, particularly in the second term of the president's mid-term, it usually does not work for that president. >> sasha, we're going to go back to crunching numbers here. you had an interesting way that you ranked how democrats should concentrate their resources. that means you're dominated by small states a bit because you get the best bang for your buck. you make the case you think as far as survival is concerned, you think west virginia is the best hope at saving the senate seat. explain this. >> we looked at it as how are you going to get to the number you need to win. that's how many democratic votes can you count on, what's your floor and can you mobilize your way to 50%? and when we did that and then looked at the amount of resources you need to actually mobilize that number of votes,

we found that west virginia was the friendliest state to democrats, georgia was the most expensive. i mean, all of this is sort of easier said than done. in west virginia we determined it took 123,000 hours of volunteers knocking on doors. if you're a democrat being good luck finding 123,000 volunteer hours in west virginia in 2014. on the other hand, we looked at georgia and it would cost over $30 million if you did it just through paid workers and direct mail and phone. so the idea is that polls tend to measure the electorate as it is, people who tell you they're already likely to vote. if your goal strategically is changing the electorate, you have to figure out what it's going to take to bring new people into the process. >> i get why west virginia is financially number one, but you look at the top three straits,

west virginia, alaska, montana, they're federally not very friendly to this new democratic party at all. but then you look at the bottom and to georgia, while it sounds like it's not cost effective, that would be what sasha's argument would be. but the future in georgia, the investment beyond 2014, you see where the investment in west virginia, alaska, montana, there's probably not a future there. >> that's right. if you're going into georgia and you're saying we know where the demographic trend lines are going, especially with latino voters, african-american voters and younger voters, we put that in play at 2016 at the presidential level, that changes the electoral college map. >> i keep going back to because the other point sasha is making is this isn't all about just a turnout and that you need to get competitive. he had a two-prong theory on this, right. i agree that the more competitive a race seems, the more persuadable the last 10% of the voters are because they feel empowered almost. it's a psychological thing

and -- >> voting is somewhat impacted by psychology. comparing election cycles it a little bit dangerous. i would say your theory is true in a state like north dakota with heidi heitkamp in 2012. what they did smartly was they kept her sort of competitive. she looked credible. she ran very good ads. it was close enough that it became that you weren't throwing your vote -- she was a credible, serious person in a state where probably you said would you rather have a republican or democrat, the republican wins 99. 9% of the time. but cease in tshe's in the argu they've defined her in a way that's palatable. we've sat in focus groups before. the way people make their minds up about elections, it's not that they go down a rank order on issues and check this one off

and check that one off. it's feel many times. you have to be in the conversation so feel matters. >> sasha, make your case. >> there's a very small slice in the federal electorate that's actually persuadable. what we've seen from a whole bunch of research is the effects of television ads of persuading people doesn't hold for that long. the bets the democrats are making in the senate race is to spend money building the infrastructure to mobilize them and save their resources for late to persuade people who are still persuadable. the executive director of dscc said to me the problem in that is if we are too far gone by september or october to be able to make up the gap through persuasion. all of our figures are based on basically polling assumptions now and if obama's numbers or economic numbers go down over the next seven months, it's going to be very difficult for

them to persuade their way into contention. >> i've talked to some conservatives who are behind the strategy with the koch brothers and what they're doing. i said i'm not really convinced these early ads win and they said neither are we but we have the money. they're not sure either but they have it. >> you know what this feels like? in 2006 i was making the argument that for the first time since 1994, that way of the election, that there was more money in the system and maybe that was going to help protect republican incumbents from a wave in a way you couldn't do in '94. did it matter. now we're saying all the underlying dynamics are terrible for democrats because maybe now they have the technology and they have the ability to find the voters in a way they've never been able do before. can they prevent a wipe-out certainly by money and infrastructure or do we go back to, look, at the end of the day if they don't want the dog food, they're not going to eat the dog

food. you can spend all the money you want. >> democrats want -- i remember karl rove came out after 2006. hey, a switch of just 25,000 votes would have switched three senate seats. >> but if i could -- >> and if your aunt had this, she'd be your uncle. democrats might then just lose a bunch of races by a smaller margin but it would still be a loss. >> that's right. >> can they maximize the electorate enough and got close enough that the persuadables matter. sar sasha is right, they can do the best campaign in arkansas and they can still lose. >> sasha issenberg, always fun to geek with you. and i have to be really fast here like a lawyer.

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this may be one of my all-time favorite data bank numbers. 40%, according to our new nbc/wall street journal poll, 40% have someone in their house with a tattoo. america has changed big time on that. in 1999, it was 21%.

take a look at these numbers. 15 years ago, 79% said they read the newspaper in print at least three times a week. now that's 47%. and serving your military and having family dinner at least five times a work. i love how high that poll was. and 69% shop online. a majority of people say they now pay their bills online and our poll found that 32% of americans play video games on a console, not just on your ipad or, you know, x-box, play station, all that business. all right, coming up, who's really to blame as the prospect of middle east peace talks fail again? we have one of the first u.s. tv interviews with israel's new ambassador to the united states next. but first, today's tdr trivia question brought to you by our own steve kornacki, who will be

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the nine-month window that the obama administration set for a middle east peace deal officially closed this week, although chances for an agreement had always been pretty slim. when hamas announced to seek a unity government last week, the chances went from slim to none. all of this comes despite secretary of state's john kerry, a herculean effort to folks on peace talks. he's made at least half a dozen trips to the region and held a hundred closed door meetings since he announced the openings

of these new negotiations last july. >> going forward, it's no secret this is a difficult process. if it were easy, it would have happened a long time ago. >> in december kerry said a peace agreement was closer than it had been in years and he pushed his own framework for a two-state solution. the deal between the plo and hamas was the last straw. within hours, benjamin netanyahu suspended talks indefinitely. while in asia, even president obama seemed pessimistic about restarting talks any time soon. >> this is a problem that's been going on for 60, 70, 80 years. we didn't anticipate we would solve it during the course of a six to nine-month negotiation. there's an open door.

do i expect they will walk through that door next week, next month or even in the course of the next six months? no. >> joining me now, the israeli ambassador to the united states, ron dermer, he's an american, began serving as an economic enjoy in 2005. while many ambassadors claim to speak for their boss, in his case, i think it's really true. ambassador, thank you for joining me. >> and i'm also from miami. >> we always have to ding, ding, ding the miami ties. i think you still have family that lives there? >> that's right. my father and brother were the mayors of miami beach. >> the dade county politics, i don't know what's worse. >> the issues are a little more serious in israel than they are in dade county. >> but there's always a border issue, too, with miami.

we're digressing. let's start with what's going on in the middle east deal. could talks ever restart in the next six months where hamas and abbas have a unity government? >> no. hamas perpetrates terror attacks against israel, they fire thousands of rockets from israeli cities, dispatched scores of suicide bombers. this is an organization that condemned the united states for kill being osama blin laden. >> you said unreformed hamas. here you have abbas on the plo side, said something about on national holocaust day that i don't remember a palestinian leader ever saying before. he's been cognizant of recognizing the jewish state, hamas has not.

if he can reform hamas, is that an opening? >> if hamas itself renounces terrorism, accepts israel's right to exist, then it's a different story. but what we won't agree to is a government of technocrats who put up a front. if hamas is in the back office unreformed, then israel is not going to be at the negotiating table. >> among the criticisms of the netanyahu government on the peace deal has about this -- i'm going to read you an op-ed from the jerusalem post and he says "netanyahu has not made one single offer to the palestinian, he has told them over and over again what he is against but where is his map? not of the state of palestine, where is his map of the state of israel, what is his vision, what is his plan?"

? >> what was said by that righter is simply not true. netanyahu, two months after he came to power, he gave a speech at a university that wasn't the most left-wing audience in our system and he called pore tfor states and two peoples. he did something which none of his predecessors had done before, he did a ten-month settlement freeze. now what he did ten months ago is he actually did prisoner releases. he released people who were murderers, terrorists, killed hundreds of israelis. he made that decision because he wants to advance peace with the palestinians. so to suggest in any way that netanyahu is not serious about peace is simply false. i think if you ask administration officials if they were sit hearing, they would tell you that netanyahu showed a great deal of seriousness in the

peace negotiations we had. >> releasing prisoners of a politically tough thing to do. >> politically tough? >> particularly in his -- >> show me a governor or president or prime minister who has released a single murderer and net you've released scores of them. >> let me go back to the map question. should the prime minister put out a public map? the united states, everybody else seems to have an idea of what the map should look like. what is it that netanyahu -- i understand in a negotiation you never want to say what you would finally agree to, i get it. but what about a beginning map? >> obviously i just said exactly what the problem is. the second you put down a map, that's the starting point for further concessions. we have to make sure we have a palestinian partner on the other side and that they're prepared to make concessions as well. the way we're going to advance peace is not by making unilateral concession ps conces. we have to have a palestinian partner that will also make

concessions. what israel is going to give is territory. to go out and give a couple of good headlines around the world that israel is serious, put all your chips on the table, say where you're prepared to go and then ask the palestinians to make the concessions they have to make to give up this idea of a so-called right of return, where you're flooding israel with millions of deseasoncendan palestinian refugees? we had i think very serious discussions with the american administration over the last nine months. we appreciate very much the efforts of both secretary kerry and the president. they got a lot on their plate to sort of advance this process, but we need to make sure we have a palestinian partner. if they go to hamas, which is what president abbas did, they can also not be -- >> how can you negotiate with

abbas when he doesn't speak for all the palestinians? he doesn't speak. now he makes a deal and potentially now does speak for all palestinians and is the leader. at the same time, he's cutting a deal with hamas, which you guys say is a nonstarter. i guess my feeling is is it a good development that at least now you know there is one person that does speak for all the palestinians? if he can get hamas to renounce terrorism and recognize israel's right to -- >> unity among the palestinian population for peace is a good thing. that would be great. but unity with an unreformed hamas is very bad for peace. what he just did is take a huge step back. >> you think he took a step back? >> of course. >> being able to speak is one. >> one what? a one united palestinian population united for peace is a great thing for peace. but hamas is telling you they're not committed to peace, they're still committed to the

destruction of israel and committed to terrorism. those people who would argue, hey, you in israel, you criticized abbas for not controlling all of the palestinian society, that's wrong. he went ahead with peace negotiations knowing he didn't control gaza, knowing this was going to have to be addressed later on. but he wanted to negotiate with a palestinian partner who was committed to peace. >> all right, ron dermer, ambassador and from miami beach. >> and a dolphins fan. >> thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> i have more of that interview. can you see it this morning on rundown@msnbc.com. we'll be right back with our pal steve kornacki and much more as tdr 50 rolls along.

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time now to meet some of the rising stars. as you know every week, tdr 50, we do rising stars. this week, new jersey names you should know because you're going to hear more from them. we'll begin with two rising star democrats. first up is jersey city mayor steve fulham. he became jersey city's youngest council member at age 27. he beat the incumbent mayor by double digits. they say he's a potential candidate in the next governor's race in 2017. the next democrat, troy singleton. he represents a district across the delaware river from philadelphia. while our experts don't expect him on the ticket in 2017, they say he's still one to watch moving forward. >> moving on to the republican

side, we'll start with state senator jennifer beck. she represents monmouth county on the jersey shore. she's been a vocal christie surrogate, especially after superstorm sandy devastated her district. she was mentioned as a possible running mate for christie. >> and meet jay weber. in 2010, "time" magazine named him one of the 40 under 40 rising stars in politics. christie has said weber is the future of the republican party. he's one of the statehouse's most conservative members and experts say he's likely to run statewide in 2014. coming up, steve kornacki.

and we'll have dan coates here had who dinner with angela merkel. and the soup of the day is lobster and crab bisque at the stockton inn in new jersey. we'll be right back. ♪ thoughtful combinations, artfully prepared. fancy feast elegant medleys. inspired dishes like primavera, florentine and tuscany. fancy feast. a medley of love, served daily.

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add vanishing deductible from nationwide insurance and get $100 off for every year of safe driving. we put members first. join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side back to our "tdr 50." this week we've been focusing on new jersey, not as much as we would have wanted to. it's been a busy week otherwise and i've been out of town. it's a state that is sliced and diced into so many municipalities, it's hard to figure out and some of only one square mile, creating hundreds of regional governments sharing power. today new jersey is a mish mash with 550 municipalities, more than california. think about that. talk about big governor, huh?

that includes everyone from mayors to city councilman to county free holders, all of them with their own sphere of influence and a few of them willing to give any of it up. governor christie says that's part of what keeps all these towns from joining forces with each other. >> when you try to do this, you run across, as the mayors here will tell you, the civil service rules and the collective bargaining rules with the unions that tell you you can't do that. what those rules are set up to do, they say they're set up to prevent political favoritism. when they started, they were. what they're set up to do now is to absolutely prevent efficiency of any kind. >> of course it's also created multiple powers of influence. there are city machines and places like union city and newark. sometimes's there county machines, for instance, democrats who control in places

like essex and hudson, while ocean and burlington counties on the republican side. and george norcross has become one of the state's most powerful political figures, despite never having held office. joining us here, steve kornacki. what the heck is a free holder? >> it's an old colonial term, it's the county office holder. >> there's so many layers of local government and it creates -- and the more elected officials you have, the more it invites small political machines. is that fair to say? >> yeah. there's two things that fuel this, whether it's the county level or municipality level. there's an awful lot of money, an awful lot of power and

patronage. when you think of political machines as a throwback to a different era, they're very real in new jersey. >> it's not like one or two machines. this is like hundreds of machines. >> the state is organized into 21 counties. each county organization has something called the ballot line, the official ballot column. when you get your ballot in new jersey, this was a revelation to me coming from a different state where it's like the office of governor and three names of the democratic primary. there will be an official column for all counties running, it has a special border. your temptation is to go right down the line. the other candidate who is don't run with that blessing are way off in the central time zone. the power to bury people on that ballot or give away that official line, especially for lesser profile races is worth a ton, which makes those party leaders so powerful. >> let's be honest, this makes it much easier to corrupt the system. >> absolutely. >> the reason new jersey has a

reputation of corrupt, petty politics is because of these small machines? >> and bring into that real estate and development, new jersey has some of the most valuable land, if you want to get a piece of that land to make money on it, you have to go through all of the local, stratified political layers. >> is there any movement to reform this system? i look at it from an outside perspective and think you're never going to have good, well-run government in the state of new jersey long term if you don't get rid of this. >> as long as i've been covering new jersey, there's been talk you have to consolidate municipalities, you have towns of 72 people. in the last ten years i've been following it, there's been one merger, the two princetons merged. it comes down to people at the very local level take pride in their little small town and don't want to give it up.

>> there's no nut fut in this. is there any way of getting rid of these bosses? >>. >> the show is d.c. based. >> and guests who will never come into new york, we got them this weekend. >> new york is so far away. >> we're hours and hours on that train. >> good to see you, steve. >> the last time a woman was elected to congress in new jersey? it was republican margaret rocama in 2000. >> democrats to today's winner, by the way, theo shaw. i know you got in early but i think you only sent it to me,

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major developments in ukraine this morning as kiev la launched the first major assault hoping to fight off russian forces. and buzzfeed said that they were abduct abducted from the pro russian troops when they got too close to the fighting. they were feared they would be held indefinitely, but they were released quickly, and it seems that the troops got orders from higher up. and russian forces shot down two ukrainian helicopters with surface-to-air missiles, and it kill killed the chances for a peace deal. >> and that puts chancellor merk merkelle in a tough spot as she goes to the russia to visit with pew tipp. she speaks russian, and he

speaks german, so they will have no confusion. her visit may have a key role in what happens next in ukraine. and dan coats, senator from indiana is joining me now, and i know that you had dinner with the chancellor last night, and look, the president made it clear to me in a question that i gave him over the weekend in asia that the u.s. was not going to go it alone on the sectorial sanctions and that means that the person ratcheting it up is angela merkel and where is she? >> well, she is clearly the spokesperson and the leader of the european nations, and in the best positions to deal with vladimir putin. i highly respect her and her leadership, but we need to speak with one voice, the u.s., and

the european naxs in getting russia's attention, and we talked about the lack of ability to have the current sanctions to move the ball. >> and does she acknowledge that the sanctions are not working? >> yes, it is clear that we have not changed putin's calculations in terms of what he might do. in fact, i think that we have been weak to the point that it might encourage him to do more without retribution. >> does she belief that? is she ready to do more? and she not ready for the sectorial sanctions and you have her hanging out with him at birthday party and not really looking at a german economy ready to punish russia. >> well, i know that there is a cozy relationship with russia, but angela merkel has no love

loss for the way they handled east germany at the time, and so she can be tough. she is looking at europe with more than 20 nations all subject to the economic and the energy that comes from russia, and that has to be balanced, but yes, she is well aware of the situation and believes it is critical to support the independence of ukraine, and that we take tougher sanctions, and we will see what comes out of the white house after their meeting, but speaking with one voice is very, very important, and taking measures both in the immediate sense, and longer term sense, and such as weaning europe off of the dependence of russian oil and gas is very, very important. >> and senator, i know that you have gotten some of the republican colleagues to be more aggressive on his own with the president, and force europe along, and after sitting down with chancellor merkel saying it has to be one voice, one voice,

one voice, and what do you say to some of the colleagues who want the president to do more while the europeans are saying, no, no, no, please don't do that? is. >> well with, i am up with of those calling for doing more. we can do more, and europe needs to understand that we can do more, and hopefully more is going to come out of this meeting with the president. but strong diplomacy, and she is the one to interlockitur with it. and we have to hit russia where it hurts, and that is the economy. and that is why, the steps to replace russia with our support of the energy resources, and among other things, to enriching, and empowering nato now to step up, and we tried to romance russia with nato, and it did not work. we now have to see them as an

adversa adversary, and bring nato back to the original mission. >> thank you, senator dan coats, and thanks for the debrief of what angela merkel may be saying to the president. and up next, congressman jason furman is going to join chris jansing on that big jobs report. i'm meteorologist bill karins and as we are looking at the weekend ahead, a nice spring weekend ahead. and some areas of rain, but you will be ducking the showers and the storms from florida, miami to tampa to orlando. and as we go up to new england, we will see the cooler air moving in with rain showers. have a good weekend. but it's a battlefield out there! you know the chickweed is surrounding yer sidewalk and the dandelions are stealing precious nutrients!

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good morning, i'm chris jansing and let's get right to it. a blowout jobs report and a sign of a spring thaw for the job market. take a look at the new numbers out this morning. 288,000 jobs were added in april and the best month since january 2012 shattering expectations of 210,000 more jobs. the unemployment rate fell four notches to 6.3% which is the lowest in 5 1/2 years. this is sure to put an extra spring in president obama's step when he holds a joint news conference next hour with chancellor