t it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. only two weeks before the 2014 midterm, so, why is everyone talking this morning about 2016? and good morning, thanks for getting up with us this sunday morning with only 16 days now to go until the mid-term elections. we're very excited to be talking politics this morning with doonesberry creator, his amazon streaming show for a group of republicans who live together. "new york times" reporter james rison is joining us on the show

to talk national security and freedom of the press. he's still facing possible prison time for refusing to name a source. we'll talk to him about that. we're also learning more this morning about a break in the search for hannah graham. a health care worker who suffered has now disembarked from a carnival cruise ship. the worker is heading home. you're looking live at other passengers disembarking from that ship as we speak. the coast guard coastered out to receive her blood sample. we're going live to texas for all the latest on that in just a little bit. but until then, we're going to turn to political chatter that just won't die. and maybe, maybe now we know that there is a reason for it. that's because there is a brand-new "washington post"/abc news post out just this morning and shows mitt romney, at least for now, is the man to beat.

his 21% is almost double that of second place finisher jeb bush. 21 for romney and 11 for bush. you can see chris christie all the way back at 6% and rand paul at 9%. if you take mitt romney out of that mix and poll everybody else, jeb bush is the leader, but barely. only 15%. rand paul right behind him at 8 and, again, christie back at 7%. so, it is still very early, obviously, but this tells us something about where the republican party is right now or what it is going through right now. i'll talk about it and joined by former spokeswoman mercedes and eleanor cliff and jackie kucinich of "washington post." a lot of people make fun of me and make fun of people who talk about this romney scenario. if you put the gun to my head, i would say he doesn't end up running. i don't think it is that nuts, that said. >> i don't think he is going to be running.

romney made it very clear the family is done, done, done. >> she called the "washington post" the next day and left some wiggle room. >> when you look back at the 2014 poll, rematch in the presidential, mitt romney would have won with the 53%. i think he's enjoying that status of statesman. i don't think, it's three times. you don't want to get in there, again, to know that there is a good chance he can win. leaves a party very open. >> i don't think he ends up running because i'm thinking jeb bush ends up running. you look at the poll right there. what if jeb bush doesn't run? a huge vacuum for that sort of establishment friendly candidate. >> the romney numbers say more about the rest of the field than they do about romney. i don't think this is wishing for romney, per se. because the rest of the field is so fractured and no confidence opmain stream republicans and maybe even tea party republicans that any of those candidates can actually win.

so, as far as romney isern canned, i'm sure he is enjoying the status where he's more welcomed in the campaign trail this year than president obama, but how many politicians have learned the lesson that everybody loves you when you're undeclared. once you get out there, he'll get beat up, again. i don't think his ego or his wife's, the whole family, i don't think they could take it. >> i'll keep pressing the point one more time and see if jackie will bight on this. i guess what i say is maybe possible is you get to a scenario where jeb bush says no. republicans look at chris christie and they say damaged goods and rand paul, maybe six months from now is starting to take off and they say we need somebod somebody. that's what i'm wondering about. >> i don't know about that. i think rand paul -- >> 0 for 3. >> sorry. says a lot about name recognition because you have this virtual boy band of

republican contenders. none of which that have emerged but it is early and rand paul, i think, is really interesting because he is courting the establishment right now. he is doing events for establishment candidates and while the tea party likes him and the establishment doesn't really know whether they can trust him or not, you see him making moves to gain their trust. i wonder if that works out for me. >> i have completely struck out on this one. i'm going to keep trying. it's the world series season. three strikes mean we shift to new topics. >> third time is the charm. >> i can make the case for romney, i just don't think it's very credible. >> i put it out, like i say 20% or something. when we say name recognition, i look at it and i say, well, bush is a big name, too. romney is running at double bush right now. i say maybe it needs a little bit more. >> obama has had such a tough time since 2012 and romney is enjoying the russia comment and

he's enjoying being right about some things. that glow is making him shinier. >> early poll among republicans. an i told you so quality. shifting back to 2014, an election two years from now. "new york times" is reporting that democrats are going to need to have huge turn out to maintain control of the senate. you see the headline right there. states where this is particularly critical. north carolina, louisiana, mary landrieu especially from new orleans and arkansas and didn't turn out in 2012. wasn't a contested state. democrats will need that to save mark prior. seems like it's a question, that old question we have been asking all year about democrats, can they get the base that was there in 2012 out in 2014? >> i think there are real concerns and i look at 2012 when republican pollter neal newhouse

was convinced that romney was going to win based on the turnout models he expected. that african-americans would be disappointed in the turnout and young people don't come out and those models all turned on their head and you have neil newhouse out there now saying he's got religion. he is now looking at democrats and he thinks they can get their vote out. i'm looking for the president to do some get out of the vote effort. i think it's a concern, but i wouldn't sell the lecterate short. if they get the message that this election is happening and it matters and past the ebola coverage in the next two weeks, there could be some surprises. >> how do you think of that, mercedes. we all republican in the republican universe in 2012 they all thought romney had it until the end and very different than than they thought. >> you have the democratic candidates that are running far away from president obama because of the disapproval ratings. here's the problem, they're not

bringing president obama to the states because they need to be separated from them in order to gain any traction in their sotes. i think it really hurts the democrats at this end. also, when you're looking at it, when you look at his base, the women, hispanic, young voters they're also disillusioned with president obama and not going out there and being supportive of the democratic candidates. so, it also gets to the point that for black voters, in particular, the black unemployment rate remains really high especially among the youth. poverty rates remain high. they are inspired by president obama, in the end, are they going to go out and vote for the democratic candidate that is separating himself from the president. >> here's what i'm wondering about. we're talking about if the obama base does not show up in 2014 like it did in 2012, republicans have a good year, they're celebrating. is there not a longerterm trap there, though, for the republican party because they have succeeded by not broadening their base.

>> let's look at the gardner race and udah race in colorado. where the rhetoric is falling flat and benefitting gardner. what we're looking at is they're doing outreach efforts saying, look, look at the situation right now. unemployment rate remains high and poverty levels remain high and in the end that they're also reaching out to and saying, when you look at obama care, women are paying higher premiums than other segments of the population. >> that's the same argument that republicans made in 2012 and it didn't work. i don't see republicans as an alternative. >> doesn't mean that democrats haven't been reaching out. >> how do they thread that needle. take a state like louisiana, arkansas, republican overall but a big black vote there that president obama could inspire. >> they are having bill clinton go and michelle obama who has extremely high approval ratings

go, jim clyborn, they had them all out this summer trying to get the vote out to black churches, in particular. that's been a big piece of this turnout model. so, i think they have known this is coming and i think that effort is there, it's just getting them there, getting them to the polls. >> it's that ground operation. you also have the voter suppression effort and the republican party identified on that side. >> i was going to say, that was one of the stories of 2012, there ended up being, that may have increased the turnout. we had that ruling and texas not a battleground state and we'll see if that creates any sort of national movement. we'll continue our discussion of the politics of 2014 midterms after the break of some of the debate moments. a ton of debates and highlight reel and we'll talk it over and everything that florida's fangate overshadowed. dayquill cold and flu doesn't treat your runny nose.

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still here talking with our panel about news and politics, just 16 days now before the mid-term aelection and the debate season is kicking into high gear. yesterday we talked about the florida governor fangate debate that should not overshadow everything that is happening podium to podium including the prevalence of one man in all these discussions that isn't on the ballot in any race. >> i want you to rate on a scale of one to ten, two people. president obama and governor gendal. all right. cassidy. >> obama's a zero. he is going to go down as one of the worst presidents. governor jindall has taken some tough licks. >> zero and five.

>> i would governor barely a three. i work now with six governors, he's three. i would give president obama a six or seven. i think he's had some really tough issues to deal with. >> all right, that, of course, was tuesday louisiana senate debate. so, eleanor clifton, in the spirit of that question, given what we just talked about last block of mary landrieu being a red state and has to get president obama supporters to the polls. how do you rate her answer to that question. >> jindal's approval rating is lower than obama's. giving him a low number and she was generous. she gave him a three. the other one of the candidates gave obama zero. i thought it was a generous diplomatic answer and she put enough distance between herself and obama and gave him his due credit. i thought that was good. >> i think that's one of the other factors here. we talk about how national these

mid-term elections are. louisiana, north carolina, they're counting on, mercedes, unpopular republican governors. democrats are saying, you're tied to jindal. >> it goes into sort of what is going on in the particular state. the local issues. so, when you look at, for example, in the case of, again, we can look at colorado where, you know, you look at gardner. he goes ahead and starts talking about the issues like energy, obama care and contrary to udall where he's talking about his women, the abortion issue. so, i think that it plays, when you look at these states and you look at kentucky, for example, as another example. where grimes was coming across strong and an anti-incumbent wave and all of a sudden she had all these missteps and what happened is mcconnell was able to gain strong ground and up eight points. >> speaking of kentucky, that's where mitch mcconnell made a startling admission this week

when it came to obama care. >> you would support the continuation of connect? >> it's a state decision. >> would you support it? >> it's fine. i think it's fine to have a website. yeah. >> so, jackie, the full context here, people have seen a little bit connect is the state program that came up because of obama care. so, the mcconnell position here is get rid of obama care, root and branch. one of the branches of obama care is this thing called connect. the kentucky program which has insured all these kentuckians and he's trying to say, sure, i'm for this popular program you like but i like obama care. can he pull that off? >> he was trying to have it both ways there and i don't think it worked out in that regard. the fact of the matter is trying to remove obama care, particularly from where it's popular, republicans anywhere are going to have a tough time with that and, you know, probably going to spend a lot of time next year if they take over

the senate talking about that and making votes that will get vetoed. >> women's issues are a key in all of these races. if you can get enough women to turn out where democrats can win. what mcconnell is doing in kentucky. he's claiming that his vote to expel bob packwood for sexual harassment charges almost 20 years ago made him a man ahead of his times. he did vote to expel. he was chairman of the ethics committee, but he bottled it up. he bottled it up for two years before that, that party. >> that's right, the sexual harassment stuff came out in '92 and he was expelled in '95. speaking of women's issues and mercedes mentioned colorado a moment ago. women's issues so prominent there and took a firm stand when questioning cory gardner on that subject. >> you continue to deny that the federal life of conception act which you sponsor is a person who had billed to end abortion and we're fought going to debate

that here tonight because it's a fact. your co-sponsors say so and your opponents say so and independent fact checkers say so. let's talk about what this entire episode says more broadly. a charitable interpretation seems you have a difficult time admitting when you're wrong and a less charitable interpretation is that you're not telling us the truth. which is it? >> i do not support the bill or the amendment. simply a statement that i support life. >> so, jackie, we were talking about this on the show yesterday and this race fascinates because democrats have been trying to do what they so successfully did in 2012 and 2010. when it comes to women's issues and potentially creating a pretty big gender gap out there. you saw the exchange and in the democratic playbook, that's a dream exchange and it's not showing up in the polls right there. what is happening there? >> dissatisfaction with obama. i think udall that is happening to udall pes getting tie would

the president and so unhappy with the president and i don't think he's done enough to push back to the president. what might end up saving udall is senator bennettwho is from colorado that people like. the other democratic senator from colorado because it seems colorado liked what he's done and he is trying to have that rub off and we haven't seen that work. >> mercedes was talking about this earlier, eleanor. if udall loses and running so heavily on women's issues, as he did, cautionary note going forward? >> the cautionary note is you don't want to be a one-issue candidate which is what they're calling him. they've retooled it and i think they've done kind of a successful job of getting the public to think, oh, it really doesn't matter. i'm not sure it's the weapon it was the last time out, the second time around.

>> gardner has actually been able to be more of atrack the conservative base and attract the center and it's been to his benefit. talking about a variety of issues in colorado and obama care and going back to jackie's point, obama's disapproval rating is at 58% in colorado. hurting udall and there is a trend for anti-incumbent trend. >> iowa, as well, the democrats are particularly worried about just in terms of the bigger message of election day. if you lose kentucky and louisiana, hey, those are red states and you don't want to lose the states that obama carried twice. >> we're in a blood feud to which party will take over the senate. in the countryside, they don't think about that. they don't like congress and they want to get rid of whoever is in office. >> but in the house, most of the house is going to be re-elected. >> when they hate congress, it means the republican voters

think the democrats in congress and the democratic voters and they all, i mean, my thanks to mercedes, eleanor and jackie. next, live to texas for the efforts to prevent the spread of ebola. breaking news there. we'll have that for you next t ppt. eed? across the country to enhance the nation's most reliable 4g lte network. how's it working for ya? better than ever. how'd you do it? added cell sites. increased capacity. and your point is... so you can download music, games, and directions for the road when you need them. who's this guy? oh that's charlie. you ever put pepper spray on your burrito? i like it spicy but not like uggggh spicy. he always like this? you have no idea. at&t. the nation's most reliable 4g lte network.

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momentarily. now that lab worker had handled a sample that belonged to thomas eric duncan, the man here in dallas who passed away due to the ebola virus. now, officials say no one else on the ship was ever at risk since this lab worker wasn't showing any signs of ebola. only an infectious person can infect other people. yesterday a coast guard helicopter rendezvoused with the ship to pick up a blood sample from the worker and it is rushed to austin where it is being tested for ebola. now, during the cruise there was a little bit of drama on the seas when they docked in belize everyone but the lab worker and her partner were able to disembark. it was a scheduled stop, they were forced to skip and turn around and head back to the u.s. during this ordeal passengers were tweeting from the ship, i hope we can just go home, not

into quarantine. carnival says that will be the case this morning. no passenger screenings or quarantines and will be allowed off the ship and that lab worker and her partner off the ship and they are free to go home, as well. >> sarah in dallas this morning, appreciate that. thank you, sarah. now, first there was i am not a crook and then there is i am not a witch. what the new political i am not refrain seems to be. you probably heard it by now. we'll tell you about it, that's next. open an optimizer plus account from synchrony bank. service. security. savings. synchrony bank engage with us. i have the worst cold with this runni better take something. dayquill cold and flu doesn't treat your runny nose. seriously? alka-seltzer plus cold and cough fights your worst cold symptoms plus your runny nose. oh, what a relief it is.

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low-cost electricity. >> i would leave it to the scientists to decide how much, what that means and what are the consequence. >> i'm not qualified to debate the science over climate change. >> i don't know the answer to that question and i don't think science does either. >> that talking point on climate change was mocked this summer by president obama. >> i'm not a scientist either, but i've got this guy john holder. he's a scientist. i've got a bunch of scientists at nasa and i've got a bunch of scientists at epa. >> new jersey congressman rush holt, who by the way is a scientist, rocket scientist had this to say on the floor of the house in may. >> yesterday speaker boehner said he was not qualified to debate climate change, but all plans to deal with climate change would hurt jobs and our economy. mr. speaker, i'm a scientist, but that doesn't uniquely qual me to debate climate change.

as members of congress we rely on the expertise of others to inform our decision making and i agree with the overwhelming consensus among signalists. the climate is changing and we can and must act now. >> and joining me now is democratic congressman rush holt, one of the very few, maybe only scientists in congress. you have or had one of the all-time great political bumper stickers. my congressman is a rocket scientist and i always thought that was one of my favorites. >> good to be with you, steve. >> this talking point. i notice mcconnell i was watching the kentucky debate the other day. brings this up whenever climate change comes up. it seems to be increasing in its usage, this is i am not a scientist refrain. what do you make of that? a way of avoiding the question. >> it's a dodge. >> do people buy it, though? >> i don't think so. you mention this bumper sticker when i was elected to congress some of my constituents knowing i was a physicist, they made it

up. my campaign did not make this up and i started seeing bumper stickers around saying my congressman is a rocket scientist and at first i thought somebody was messing around with my message. any politician doesn't want that. but it was kind of cute. but really what it was, it was a call by the constituents for reasonable thinking. you know, that's what they were saying. they want people to think like scientists. not that they thought different equi equations would help me do, scientists have a reverence for evidence and that's what is so infuriating and that's why i think citizens are disappointed when they hear ryan and mcconnell and jindal and i think shellie capato in west virginia and just a long list. senator rubio use this, i am not a scientist ruse.

>> and people have pointed out when you start talking about jobs or taxes or whatever, you don't hear, i'm not an economist. you hear plenty of opinions about that. i want to put up on the screen the latest public opinion polling on this. this is from gallup a few months ago. basically, are humans mainically contributing to climate change and global warming. democrats it's pretty well accepted. independents right in the middle and republicans still running under 50%. when you talk, congressman, to your colleagues in the house, republican colleagues in the house, do you hear something different from them than what they say in public on this subjec? >> a little bit, yes. clearly what is happening here is these are people who know they can't come out and say there is no climate change because there's just too much evidence. they can't come out and say humans are not affecting our globe because just too much evidence. so, they use this dodge and say, i'm not a scientist. paul ryan isn't a lawyer, maybe

he shouldn't on ways and means committee do anything about tax law. come on. you know, we do depend on expertise of others. and we should have a reverence for evidence. you know, if you don't think on the basis of evidence, then you have nothing but ideology or wishful thinking in its place. >> i'm trying to imagine the congress where you're only allowed to vote on something in your professional specialty. different place. big picture here, we have just been stalled in this, trying to get the cap and trade bill through a few years ago and everything has been stalled in washington and stalled in politics when it comes to climate change. can you see anything that will change that in the next few years? >> sure. most americans feel the effects now. whether it's drought, wildfires, floods super storms. and the evidence is there. it's not, i mean, you know, nothing in life is ever

absolutely positively certain. you use probability. scientists are really comfortable using probabilities and it's highly likely that humans are changing the climate and we should do something about it because it will be costly in lives and dollars and people are feeling that at home now. so, they won't allow people to use the dodge. but more important beyond climate change, you know, if you don't have a reverence for evidence, you only have ideology. and that's not a way for us to make decisions about, you know, international epidemics. to make decisions about kind of anything that's going on. >> rush holt, the rocket scientist congress. he is retiring from the house after 16 years. thank you for joining us. one of the good ones. one of the biggest news stories. new developments in the search

for a missing virginia college student. still ahead doonesberry creator on the set. big morning, we're juggling a lot. stay with us. ♪but this... ♪takes my breath away ♪ i thought it'd be bigger. ♪ ♪ (dad) there's nothing i can't reach in my subaru. (vo) introducing the all-new subaru outback. love. it's what makes a subaru,a subaru. philosophy is, reynolds? >>no. not exactly. to attain success,

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as we continue to jugthal latest news and politics development this morning, a sad story to report out of virginia. police in charlottesville discovered human remains that they believe to be a uva student that has been missing since last month. they are testing the results to see if they are hannah graham's. they arrested a suspect a week later and charged him with abduction with an intent to defile. morgan harrington was found after she vanished five years ago. police have said there is a forensic link between the two cases. stay with msnbc for updates on this story. we'll be right back with more from the world of politics as

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for more than 40 years now, if you wanted some sharp political satire in the morning, all you have to do is turn to your newspaper's comic page to the cartoon doonesbury which comes from the mind of gary trudeau. there's a new one in today's paper and in every sunday paper, but for the rest of the week, for mondays through saturdays, now they are only running classic doonesbury because these days gary trudeau has his hands full with something else. attacking political satire in new form. writing and producing "alpha house." a real-life d.c. house shared by revolving casts of other room mates. he took that premise and turned it into a series of a group of republican senators living together and struggling together to try to figure out how to

survive in the tea party era gop. big names in the show like john goodm goodman. season two set to be available on amazon this coming friday. >> morning renters. first of the month. >> i'm good for it. >> me, too. >> no, you're not. you bounced two checks. >> that was during the government shutdown. i refused my pay and donated to charity. >> lien's an option. >> i got to sit down with gary trudeau this week for an exclusive interview and he also told me something interesting about elizabeth warren. take a look. >> a rare television appearance for gary trudeau. thank you for doing this. >> i'm thrilled to be here. >> so, it's an interesting time the way i look at this because you are starting the sikd season of this very political television show, "alpha house" and "scandal" and all the other political shows out there. new polling data shows as the 2014 election gets closer and

closer, more and more people are just tuning out, throwing up their hands saying we don't want anything to do with american politics. this is like the lowest interest election we had in a generation in this country. interest in politics couldn't be lower and on the other hand, all these political tv shows. what is going on? >> the ones that are succeeding are succeeding because they're so strongly character driven. we're the only show that actually mirrors the real world. we parallel the real world. >> president obama is the president. >> mitch mcconnell the minority leader. so, it's kind of a 3d version of doonesbury of i'm bouncing off of what happens in politics. at the same time, people come back to our show in the second season and we hope the audience will grow, of course. it's because they care about these guys. we're trying to make the four mo likable republicans. >> what you have chosen to focus on here is washington in the republican party in the era of

the tea party. four republican politicians and professional politicians who are trying to figure out how to survive in a party where the tea party is now this rising force. >> right. the three of the four characters establishment republicans who were sent to washington in the pre-ted cruz era and so they find themselves under attack from the right which is an experience unknown to them. and it causes them to examine their principles and decide just how much they're willing to change in order to accommodate this new political reality. that, to me, is inherently more dramatic than anything that could happen to the democrats at this point in time. that's why i chose four republicans to put in this house, when, in fact, the real house it is modeled over has four democrats. >> what kind of feedback to you get from republicans? have you talked to republican, you know, senators, you know, members of congress who said,

wow, you got it or, no, it's nothing like that? >> well, you know, i don't have that much direct contact with washington. i live in new york and rarely go to washington. but the feedback we've gotten has been very positive. we had no trouble getting cameos from both republicans and democrats. they seem to enjoy the show no matter what party they're from. >> were there certain republicans you had in mind when you talk about sort of the republican establishment figures who are undersiege in the tea party era. i watch it and i think i know who some of these characters roughly are. one being rubio. >> there are, obviously, some inspirational starting points. the andy guzman character has some, was motivated in part by marco rubio and part by john edwards. i mean, in the beginning, when you're putting together characters, there are those

preceden precedents. but you very quickly forget them and you just kind of try to build a character that's going to resonate. they're fictional characters. they're not parodies. >> jonathan alter, part of this show with you and he's been on our show a number of times. one thing he said about you that he sort of likes and respects the most about you, he said you can sort of see where things are going in politics. and i kind of wonder, given this story line, given the nature of this show, where do you see, not just on your show, but in american politics, where do you see the republican party and the tea party going because we talk about we're just in this era of just sort of gridlock right now in washington where there is this purity minded movement that has control of the republican party and all the republican politicians don't want to get swallowed up by it. nothing is happening right now . do you see one side winning out in the longer term battle here? >> but i guess if you, if you

want to know what i hope as opposed to what i think will happen, i think the chess board will get turned over in two years. at least that's, you know, everything that i know about. white house what's happening with the national, the upcoming national election. i would say that the republicans kind of need theo lose a lot of states in a big way in order to find themselves moving back towards the center. they don't have their third way yet. they don't have their clinton yet who is going to lead the party back towards the center. it has to happen and i think it will only happen if there is a major upset. >> they need the big loss because a lot of people look to 2012 and there it was. they all thought they were going to win. karl rove said they all thought they were going to win. at the very least coming out of 2012, the republicans will look at these results and they'll do immigration, if nothing else. if nothing else.

nothing for two years. 2012 didn't do it and we're sitting here on the eve of the 2014 election and whatever it is, it will look like a good night for republicans. it is a question of degree at this point. maybe they lose in 2016. but if enough republicans can lose given how polarized the country is right now, enough of a permanent hold that they could never lose enough for the tea party to change? >> it's a good question. i think one of the things that happened in the primaries last spring was you saw the incumbents prevailing because they trimmed their sales so much. not because the moderate or, you know, the more centrist conservatives were making such a compelling case. they got to where they moved to the tea party. and if everybody does that, at some point, there is a tipping point where the party has become too extreme. >> we talked so much about, as you said, the republican story, the drama of the republican party right now is a lot richer,

i think. but there is on the democratic side, there's sort of a lot of talk about the elizabeth warren wing and the economic populous wing and hillary clinton gets lump under to the wall street wing. when you see it, when you look at the democratic party right now, what do you see? >> we have elizabeth warren on our show in the new season. it's more than a cameo. i had, usually that's what you want to restrict a politician to is you want to give them a line just to kind of add to the show. i just had a sense that she was, she had a skillset that, you know, might actually enable us to do more with it. and turns out is a pretty good actor. we gave her a scene with john goodman. when she came on to the set, that was our rock star moment of this year. our crew, most of them live in queens, working class. they just mobbed her. >> celebrity treatment.

>> she got the celebrity treatment and was just so impressive and. that was kind of a wake up for me. i didn't realize that she had that kind of grassroots support. >> that is what was happening. think back to 2005, 2006. barack obama comes into the senate and starts going to these events and it didn't occur to him until he went out there and that kind of thing you're describing kind of happened 10 or 20 times. there is a biggerdying. >> he had the pilot program. he was selling a book. enabled him to get out. she has the book, too. that was our hook, we let her come on with the book and they crossed paths at jake tapper's show pitching various things. >> she says and everybody around her says she's not running in 2016. does it look to you like on the democratic side it really is a hillary clinton for the nomination? >> it does. you know -- >> you say that -- >> well, no, it's not

resignation. i'm actually great admirer of hers. for a number of reason that don't get discussed but one of them is what, the impact that she made as our secretary of state going to the hundred some odd countries she went to and every place she went, she made a point of talking about empowering women. and i don't think that you can overestimate the impact it made on all those, some of those countries where women are so in power. she always made a group of linking up with some group that was working for women. and, you know, we feel like the feminist conversation is over. it's not over. it's still, we're still changing in response to it. it's the greatest social revolution of our lifetimes. i felt that years ago when i was first coming out of college and i started talking to my feminist friends and i thought, this is going to change the world. and, so, i tracked it very early in the strip.

i have this character named joany caucus and i was there, i was their first real member and this is the story of our century. this is the story and i think she embodies it. >> you are also, while you're doing "alpha house" extended leave from doonesbury. >> i'm doing sundays. >> right. >> what we announced last february was that i was stepping aside from the daily strip and that i would be returning to it after the life of the show. so, we have to see how the show plays out. we'll probably know whether the show is picked up in fairly quick fashion. >> do you miss it? do you miss having a daily outlet? >> i don't. you know, i did trade one kind of pressure for another. before it was all self-imposed. i just had to meet a weekly deadline and i was the only one who suffered, if i came too close.

i've now gone from a life of being by myself in my studio to having 120 teammates. it's a very different kind of responsibility. and i was doing a lot more writing of the show than i had anticipated. so, i was really playing, you know, i had both roles. both the producer and the writer of it. that is a different kind of pressure. but the day-to-day pressure of the strip i can't say i miss a lot. >> will you go back to it? are you confident you will go back to it day-to-day? >> i don't know. >> do you hear from a lot of fans right now that miss it? >> we sent out what we call doonesbury classics. and long-time readers seem to enjoy revisitsing the characters. we tried to strip away the minutia of everyday politics from the classic strips. we just mostly do the ones that

had to do with character development. when i did retropective of the strip it was doonesbury 40. i took out almost all of that stuff and it is a huge book, but i took out most of the politi l political, you know, events and no one seemed to notice because they really want to revisit that for the characters. not because they want to relive watergate. >> right. gary trudeau, thanks for coming by today, appreciate it. >> thank you. and that second season of "alpha house" start streaming this friday on amazon. another full hour of news and politics straight ahead. stay with us. ♪ introducing synchrony financial

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we're in the middle of a busy sunday morning here. dr. howard dean md will be here to talk about the efforts to try to contain the spread of ebola here in the united states. james rison is also standing by to discuss national security, government accountability and freedom of the press. plus, we have a snazzy new toy that will help us try to figure out what is going to happen in the late-night hours of election night and maybe in the days, weeks and maybe months after. like the world's biggest ipad. but we'll begin this hour with the latest developments in america's newest defacto war with u.s. military forces conducting at least 15 air strikes this weekend against isis targets in iraq and syria. this is the latest in what have been weeks of strikes in syria. two months now since they began in iraq. with this new open-ended campaign against isis, the next president, whoever he or she is is likely to become the fifth. one writer exploring the united

states' justifications for and conduct during its military campaigns is a "new york times" james rison, who won a pulitzer prize for revealing the warrantless wire tapping program under the bush administration. his new book, "pay any price greed, power and endless war" deals with what he says are the profound consequences of how we are government, presidents from both parties have respawned to the threat of terrorism since 9/11. another element to james rison's story, too. he's part of that story. part of that response. in 2006 he revealed a botched cia scheme to disrupt iran's nuclear program and now prosecuting the former cia agent, jeffrey sterling, the person they believe provided that information to risen and whether risen could be forced to testify. the case went to the supreme court this june and risen lost and now the justice department

has to decide whether it will subpoena risen as a witness and what to do if he refuses to cooperate, which is what he is saying he will do. no one knows what will happen here. attorney general eric holder told a group of journalists, "as long as i'm attorney general no reporter doing his job is going to go to jail. someone who is doing their job is not going to get prosecuted." but justice department officials also stress those comments were not about any particular case and were general in nature. risen's status is still very much in limbo. will he be called? will he be prosecuted and will he face jailtime? the case has become a major test of press freedom on the war on terror era. james risen joins us from washington. thank you for taking the time. i want to talk about your case at the end and i want to talk about the book. the country you're talking about, america in the post-9/11

era. talking about the consequences and a lot of unintended consequences of the open-ended war that was launched on 9/11. what do you think is the most significant consequence that we living here in america day-to-day, what is the most significant consequence of what our country has been doing overseas in our name? >> one of the things that is so hard for people here to realize is that we are, have been at continuous war for 13 years and really in an era when the first era when we had a classified war. basically, the entire war on terror has been conducted in secret and no one in the united states is allowed to know the full extent of what we've been doing for 13 years. and that's really why i wrote this book is because in order to try to show that secrecy, that the government has used secrecy in order to allow for, you know, really whole string of abuses and bizarre and unintended

consequences to develop. and it shows that really in my opinion that the secrecy only leads to abuse by the gernment and that we have to have a more open discussion of the war on terror. really, have a more skeptical eye towards it if we're going to continue to do this. >> do you think, do you think our country, do you think americans want that discussion? or do you think they're happy with the secrecy because they don't want to think about it? >> that would be pretty sad if americans want to continue, the longest continuous period of war in their history and not to even think about it. what i like to say is that what dick cheney, when dick cheney said the gloves come off. what he really meant was we were deregulating national security and taking off all the rules and regulations we have had on the way we conduct foreign policy and national security. and at the same time we poured hundreds of billions of dollars into this and we had essentially like a national security crisis. kind of like the banking crisis

where we've deregulated a large enterprise and poured hundreds of billions of dollars into it at the same time. and we've done it in secret. if that's not a lot like the banking crisis, i don't know what is. yet, no one is really thinking about it in those terms or talking about it because the government has clamped stamped top secret on virtually everything. >> the broad defense of the system that you're talking about in this book, you're talking about in this show today. the broad defense would be this, everybody can remember or most people can remember 9/11 and remember watching the towers fall and remember watching the pentagon and remember the death toll and commemorated every year in this country. what a horrible, traumatic event that was for the whole country and since 9/11, there hasn't been anything like that in this country and, therefore, this has been successful. >> yeah, that's the argument that the government likes to

use. i think what happened is after 9/11 we started out on a search for justice or a search for retribution or whatever you want to say that we were trying to do for 9/11. today a search for cash and power and status for a whole class of people who have followed the gold rush that has happened in washington. i mean, washington, this has been really one of the largest transfers of wealth and american history. we've had about $4 trillion poured into the wars in iraq, afghanistan and the larger war on terror and the whole class of people began to realize that if you wanted to make money in the post-9/11 world, you came to washington. you call yourself a counterterrorism expert and you began to claim that you know how to find osama bin laden or you know how to stop al qaeda. so we've had this dramatic increase in a whole mercenary

class that is now becoming a permanent part of a national security state. i think that is something that the american people have to begin to think about. is that something we really want to have kind of a mercenary class that feeds off unending war and make sure that the united states never stops finding new threat to go after? >> i want to ask you in the time we have left here about your case, about this cia leaks case. as we said, the department of justice and the president's department of justice has to make a decision whether they call you and what they're going to do, this has been playing out for a while. the president played in when the events in ferguson were unfolding a while back. they weighed in and journalists who were taken into custody during that and he spoke out about that and a lot of people said it was a little ironic given your case and i want to play what you said and have you respond to it. >> here in the united states of america, police should not be bullying or arresting

journalists who are just trying to do their jobs. and report to the american people on what they see on the ground. put simply, we all need to hold our selves to a high standard, particularly those of us in positions of authority. >> james, what is your reaction when you hear that? >> obama's record on pressed freedom speaks for itself. he's prosecuted and jailed and targeted more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined and he is the greatest enemy of press freedom that we've had in a generation and i think it's, i don't quite understand how the united states, which has been a model of press freedom throughout our history wants to go down the road of having, losing that status and allowing dictators around the world to crack down on reporters and journalists and be able to say, well, if the united states does it, why can't

we? >> all right, my thanks to james risen for joining me this morning. his case, a very important case when it comes to the subject of press freedom, especially at this point in our history. appreciate you taking the time this morning. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. with ink plus from chase. like 70,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards even cash back. and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can.

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turning now to efforts to contain the ebola crisis. earlier this morning, a cruise ship carrying a lab technician who handled samples from ebola patient thomas eric duncan arrived in galveston, texas. kerry sanders is standing by with more. what is the latest there? >> good morning, that is the cruise ship over my shoulder. the carnival cruise ship "magic" came in just before sunrise this morning. 4,000 passengers onboard but all the attention on one passenger who had been in isolation. this is a woman who worked in the lab and actually handled some of the samples, some of the

bodily fluids from thomas eric duncan. he is the ebola patient who came to the united states and died. the good news this morning is that the passengers have been told that that passenger who was in isolation here who worked in the lab had her blood tested and it came back negative. it's been some anxious moments, though, for those onboard. 4,000 passengers, 1,400 cruise members who were at sea for seven days which they thought was an escape from the real world on vacation and then they heard one of the passengers worked closely with ebola bodily fluids, things kind of changed. some people say it was always in the back of their mind, even though they had a pretty good feeling things would turn out okay. perhaps the most troubling was when the cruise ship was headed to cozumel and the ship could not come ashore. that told them maybe it was a little more serious.

those passengers who went on that cruise are being told they got off to continue with their lives and not be in isolation and there is no quarantines and that the end of this cruise is a happy one. turns out, that the hashtag that some of the people onboard were calling this was ebola cruise. >> thanks to kerry sanders from galveston. a giant cruise ship. never been on one, but that is gigantic. anyway, thank you, kerry. we will discuss the medical and political implications of ebola. when we come back, we're joined by former vermont governor, presidential candidate, you know and also a physician, howard dean. he's next. struggle to keep your a1c down. so imagine, what if there was a new class of medicine that works differently to lower blood sugar? imagine, loving your numbers. introducing once-daily invokana®. it's the first of a new kind of prescription medicine that's used along with diet and exercise to lower blood

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microscope this week. threatening to have an impact on the upcoming midterms. when it comes to discussing what is going on no one to talk about it than our next guest before he was the chairman of the democratic party and before he ran for president, dr. howard dean was also a doctor in vermont. howard dean joins us from vermont, i appreciate you taking the time this morning. i guess i'll start with this. there is a story in "new york times" that got a lot of attention and one of the insider recounts of how the president has been dealing with the ebola crisis. basically, this "new york times" account says people around obama said he was seething mad with the response of the government, of the government, of the cdc and basically what he found after that passenger traveled from plane from ohio it changed his approach on that. should we be mad about how the government responded to this? >> i don't think so. especially the federal government. i think the texas hospital response was not so great. to refuse to admit middle-aged

man with 103 temperature with an eight out of ten abdominal pain. leaving aside the fact that he told someone he was in west africa and that somehow didn't get communicated. that was a major screw up, no question about that. on the other hand, a fair amount of hysteria fanned for election purposes. i'd like to know more details about this guy that terry reported on from galveston. if he was properly gowned up, handling a blood sample, there is no excuse for not letting them, the ship dock or any of this hysteria. if that's not the case, then there is, obviously, another break down. the bottom line is this, steve, the cdc, i think, is on top of this. they understand that all these patients should be taken care of in one of the four centers in america that know how to do this well and that is now the case, as to my understanding. omaha has one. the cdc in atlanta has one.

and bethesda, the nih has one. there is another another one in montana. >> i think there's a total of like nine. do you think we have enough? i mean, only a couple cases right now. if we were to get 15, 20, are we prepared enough on that front? >> i think we are. i think, first of all, it's unlikely. this is not as contagious a disease as the press is making out and some of the whack jobs are talking about isis coming across with ebola the mexican border. you have to question the sanity of some of these people elected to office. so, it's not how it goes. the biggest glaring mistake, i think the federal government has made, we're not clear who did this. the nurse that flew on the frontier airlines flight should not have done that. and she apparently got permission from a federal official. i'd like to know more about that. but i think one mid-level

federal official making a mistake is not a total collapse on the part of the federal government. i think the cdc has done a good job. >> let me ask you this. this intersection of politics with the midterm elections barely over two weeks away and whether or not we like it, the politics will get tangled up in this. we listen to the health experts and they say this idea of a travel ban of trying to restrict people from west africa coming from the united states and travel between the two. this idea, they say, is counterproductive. at the same time, this is the refrain. why isn't there a travel ban? late this week and it sort of verged into democrats. democrats are saying the same thing. especially the red state democrats that are up this year. if this reaches a point, if this reaches a point where the politics of this almost necessitate the administration to impose some kind of travel ban. how much, how much trouble is that going to cause just given what the health professionals are saying about this? >> it is going to cause a lot of

trouble if we do it. it's not a terrible thing, just not smart. here's why, first of all, the travel ban will almost be ineffective. there are no direct flights from west africa from these three countries to the united states. none. nigeria and sinegal are off the list. they have to go through some place else, which means that now you have two travel bans. you are going to have a travel ban for anybody from europe. this is going to be hard. hard to enforce. secondly, this is the most important thing i'm going to say in this appearance. if we don't snuff out ebola in liberia, sierra lionne and new guinea, the real problem is not in the united states. it is in west africa. this is not going to go away unless we can get our resources over there and stop it. and that will cause a problem.

suppose this gets into another country without the kind of sanitation and public health that we have here. suppose this gets into asia, suppose this gets into some of the other african countries. suppose this gets into crukrain. so it behooves us to make sure that we can travel back and forth to west africa with people who know what they're doing to stop this epidemic. >> former vermont governor, we appreciate you taking some time this morning. thank you very much. up next, it is like geek christmas morning here at "up." i get to break out a new toy for election night now. little more than two weeks away. i'll show you what that is, next. elp make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 million people. [ mom ] with life insurance, we're not just insuring our lives... we're helping protect his. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow.

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2014. will the democrats hang on to the u.s. senate or will the republicans take it over? but, actually, we admit it because we won't know the answer to that 16 days from now because there is a chance, there is a chance that the drama will only be starting on the night of november 4th and won't be resolved for days, for weeks and maybe not even until next year. we are going to show you why, we're going to use this map to show you why. this is what the senate battle ground looks like right now. these are the 11 states. you see them in yellow here where there is real suspense about what is going to happen on election night. you probably know the basics here. republicans get to 51, they'll control the senate. the democrats only need to get to 50 because joe biden is the vice president who would break any tie. now, there is a million different scenarios for what could possibly happen on election night. for our purposes, we'll try to narrow down the battleground a little bit here just to show you how much longer this could go past election night. we're taking the real clear politics, polling averages in

these 11 battleground states and let's see, let's go through a few of them right now where somebody seems to be ahead by, i don't want to say a big amount, but a fairly significant amount. new hampshire, the average of all the polls in new hampshire. this isn't just one poll where you have the margin of error and uncertainty. this is the average of every poll and it shows jeanne shaheen running ahead of scout brown. for our purposes right now, we're just trying to narrow this battleground a little bit and new hampshire is going blue right now, just in this moment. consider this a sunday morning exercise. same thing in north carolina. little closer in the average, but hagan has consistently led. consistently led thom tillis the republican. arkansas a more significant lead here. again, in the polling average nearly four points for the challenger. republican pickup tom cotton over mark pryor.

mitch mcconnell nearly four points over alison grimes and that brings you to colorado, another republican challenger here who is ahead by three points in the polling average. now, right now democrats this weekend have begun promoting some of their own voting saying udall is tied but slightly ahead but in the average of all the public polls and the nonpartisan polls and cory gardner ahead by an average of three points. a very volatile race and for our purposes right now we'll put this one as a red state on election night. let's see what happens when we apply these assumptions and try to narrow the battlefield a little bit. that would make new hampshire blue. that was maine and maine is going to stay in susan collins' camp. we're going to make new hampshire blue. we're going to make north carolina blue and then we'll make a couple red here and seeing kentucky, mcconnell seems to be surviving right now. could change. for right now make it red and

same thing in arkansas and same thing in colorado. now, that would bring us to this situation 45 for the democrats and it would leave this is what the battlefield would then look like. six unassigned seats. this is where things start to get interesting. t let's think ahead to election night. try to get 51 for the republicans and 50 for the democrats. now, right now south dakota is a big wildcard here. this is a crazy three-way race and larry pressler the independent and rick widen the democrat and very fluid race and, still, if you look at the polling average, this is a big wild card but we're going to tentatively move it over to the republican side right here. still look at this and you see another one, iowa. this is joany urnst and this is a democratic seat. tom harkens retiring. very narrow, very narrow race right now but has had a small lead for the last month. so, again, if we move that

tentatively into the republican side, we could be looking at something like this on election night. 49 for the republicans. now, they're getting close. now, think about what would happen late on election night. look at all of these states and consider that in georgia, georgia is a runoff state. the winner in november has to get 50% or there is a runoff and this seems to happen in georgia very frequently. both candidates will get close to 50 and a third party candidate, usually a libertarian will grab 3% or 4% which would be month later. right now that is what the polls are telling us in georgia. louisiana, this is another runoff state. they have a jungle primary in louisiana. everybody either party runs in the same battle together. if nobody gets 50%, they have a runoff. it does not look like mary landrieu the incumbent will get to 50. that will force the runoff, the runoff in louisiana will be december 6th and that will leave alaska.

alaska is a state that takes a long time. very kind of remote state, rural state. takes a long time to get the results in from alaska usually. in 2008, when the democrat who now represents alaska was elected wasn't until two weeks after election day that the republican ted stevens conceded in that race. a long time to get results in alaska and then kansas, of course, kansas is the most suspenseful state on the map this year. pat roberts, greg orman the independent challenger, no democrat in that race, remember. polls there are basically dead even right now. so, there's a lot of possibilities here. republicans need to win two of these if they want to get to 51. so, let's say that he will lose in alaska. alaska is a tough state to poll. a very republican state. he won by the smallest possible margin in 2008 in the best possible circumstances. worst climate for a democrat now. so, if they were to get, if the republicans were to take that late at night on election night, that would put them at 50 and

they would be one away. but then look at all the suspense. a runoff in georgia. the runoff in georgia is not until january 15, january 6th of next year. louisiana runoff not until december of this year. 2014. and then kansas, let's say pat roberts does not win in kansas. if greg orman the independent wins there, then at any moment he could say, i'm going to caucus with the republicans, that would give them 51. but what greg orman is probably going to do, the scenario that plays out on election night. he'll wait to see what happens in louisiana and wait to see what happens in georgia. let's say mary landrieu survives. she has been taken the runoffs before and she survived in 2002. let's say that were to happen. that would give the democrats 46 and now, remember, two independents. angus kaine from maine and that would put the democrats at 48. then you go to georgia. early january. let's say the democrats were to win that. michelle nunn would beat david

purdue. his comments on outsourcing and his record on outsourcing. let's say the democrat wins georgia, democratic pickup. that's 47. you add in those two independents that i just mentioned and 49. and now look where we are. it's next january and the senate's reconvening and just held the runoff in georgia and democrats are one seat away and the republicans are one seat away and then that's when greg orman has his dream scenario. both parties are depending on him and pleading with him and offering him anything. does he go with the republicans, give them 51. does he go with the democrats. gives them 50. gives them the majority. that is the scenario. one of the scenarios. 20 million of them right now. november 4th, the big suspenseful clumatic election night is just the beginning. or maybe it will be a short election night. maybe we'll share that with you. a lot more to come in the next few weeks. gy partner, our visionary cloud infrastructure,

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all right, we just ran through one of the 28 gazillion hypothetical scenarios because we're not sure. this is the most suspenseful election we've had in a long time. we don't know what is going to happen. once upon a time you would look at a poll and it would be pretty obvious who was ahead or behind or dead even. a couple polls taken during a campaign, and they'd all be pretty good benchmarks for how things were going. a few years aago we started getting a lot of polls. suddenly, everybody was out here taking polls on every race all the time and sometimes coming up with wildly conflicting results. just think back two years ago to this exact time. there was a poll two years ago this october that showed mitt romney moving into the lead pulling ahead of president obama by two points. momentum for romney and then the next day, one that put obama ahead by two points. because so many polls people started to combine them all to average them together. the polling average, a smarter way to understand exactly where

a race stand at any given moment. and then some really smart people decided they would take a step further and they decided using all this polling data and historical trends and other variables in order to create their own unique formulas. these are formulas that are designed to forecast how elections are going to turn out. nate silver is probably the most fames for doing this. "huffington post" does it, too. and "washington times" and they are the meteorologists of politics. a forecast how elections are going to turn out. someone else who is doing this is sam wong a neuro scientist and professor at princeton and about a decade ago started creating his own model. in 2012 he made a name for himself. correctly predicted all 33 senate races that year. better than even nate silver did. they have sparred in a heated rivalry in recent weeks. silvers called wong's methodology wrong.

wong said when you're the king of the 93rds, you have to engage in a little trash talk. his war of words has objected to wong's forecasting model. some are calling this the great nerd fight of 2014. right now for the record neither forecast are that bullish on the democrats' chances of hanging on to the senate. wong currently puts the odds of the democrats ending up with 50 or more seats at 30%. so, where does that number come from? is it likely to change? what is the great nerd fight of 2014 all about anyway? here to tell us is sam wong. he is, excuse me, neuro scientist at princeton and runs the princeton election consortium. >> thank you, steve, for having me on. >> the bottom line segment. i was running through all sorts of scenarios. 50 with joe biden breaking a tie, magic number and currently putting that at 30% probability, if i'm reading this right. >> the important thing to think about there in that segment yis

you identified the states extremely close. but there are tremendous uncertainties involved and let's talk about the probability. 70% probability of republicans taking over is like a 70% forecast of rain. in other words, you might want to take out an umbrella, but, in fact, you might be ready to not use the umbrella. so, those six states that you identified it turns out the history of polling, polling medians which we use at election.princeton.edu and the odds of all six of those frontrunners winning who are currently in the lead by three points or less, the odds are 200-1 against all six of the frontrunners. >> you say there is likely to be a surprise? >> what i'm saying those six states, 64 possibilities and you add in one or two more states that could go either way. we're talking about 256 possibilities and lots of combinations. when i calculate that probability that you just talked about, that takes into account all the possibilities, but midterm polling is actually

remarkably bad compared with presidential years. and it's possible for all the polls to be off by up to three points in either direction. so, i would say that there is a huge amount of suspense. >> that's something i want to ask you about. i was reading this from a pollster the other day, this is now possible in this era. i wonder what you think of this. everybody is doing these polling averages now. they're not paying as much attention to one individual poll. you guys are factoring in averages. is there now an incentive and are you seeing junk polls that are being put out to skew the averages? >> that is a great question. first thing i'll say the apparent agreement between washington post and now the princeton election consortment driven in large part by the fact that we're using the same polling data. if the polls are off by a few points, we'll be off in the wrong direction. junk polling, i think it's good to have statistical methods to

try to address that. we use the median which doesn't involve arithmetics and just take the value that is in the center. if you have a range of polls say for north carolina senate and you arrange them in order and you take the middle one, that's more resistant to the junky polls than taking the average. i think it's really important to keep in mind that, for instance, anyone who is leading by three points or less right now, there is a one in three chance that that person will end up losing on election night. >> have you seen, now, over, maybe a month or two ago the story with you and this whole nate silver thing was erupting. your bottom line number was a lot higher for democrats back then and it was the most optimistic for them out there and that's why it was getting a lot of attention, i think. have you seen national conditions change or conditions in these individual states change in a way that hurts them in the last month or so? >> the way i would put it is when you're one or two months out from the elections and they're highly independent. we were only different by about two seats and remember in 2012,

he called two races incorrectly on the election eve and i got them all right. so those two missed calls who knows who will make the missed calls him or me or neither of us. the difference between us is not that great, but with senate control right on the knife edge, these differences start looking rather large. >> the battle grounds, what is the toughest to predict right now? >> oh, gosh, i think iowa is really tough to predict. individual voters in iowa are 100 times as powerful as voters in my home state, new jersey, and that's going to be, you know, it looks like it is going to be won. >> 100 times more power thanffu what? >> how powerful are voters in influencing the control of the senate? if you calculate, as we do at election.princeton.edu, if you calculate how powerful a voter is, each one is 100 times as powerful in influencing the balance of the senate than my vote. >> suspense in iowa and new

jersey -- >> so people in minnesota where al franken is going to win. what they should do is vote, if they like, and then get down to iowa. that would be a smart move for them if they really a cared about the outcome. >> this is the same thing as the presidential race. 42 states pretty much off limits and go to the eight that really matter. >> this year a record number of states that are on the edge. this year the polls are showing something like half a dozen. >> there's more empathy but the suspense is higher than we've seen in recent elections. hope to have you back before the election and probably after, too. appreciate you being on this morning. keeping up with the same-sex marriage map and the latest battleground in the culture wars. that's ahead. and now telcos using hp big data solutions are feeling the love, too. by offering things like on-the-spot data upgrades -- an idea that reduced overcharge complaints by 98%.

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we just talked about how kansas and south dakota are in play this year. that's something we would have never thought was likely last year and it wasn't that long ago you would have thought it was impossible that same-sex couples

would be getting married in arizona and yet this week same-sex couples were applying for marriage licenses in that state. the amazing pace of that change. it looks like wyoming could be next. a federal judge struck down its ban late friday. a ruling is on hold as state officials appeal. ahead of that ruling, wyoming's republican governor, matt meade, was asked what he would do if the court ruled his way. his response was the answer is no, i don't think we should appeal the ruling. that's the republican governor of wyoming up for re-election in a little more than two weeks seeming to give up on the fight against same-sex marriage. here's the map. two weeks ago we were telling you about same-sex marriage rights reaching half the states. now they're active in two-thirds of the states, 32 of them in all and two on deck where federal courts have declared marriage bans unconstitutional. you have some republicans who seem to be backing off. you have other republicans like

mike huckabee who at the same time are saying they want to fight this to the end. this fight within the republican party can be traced back many ways 50 years to the 1964 convention in san francisco. that's where conservative arizona senator barry goldwater was nominated with republican governor of new york nelson rockefeller was literally shouted down on the floor. liberal to moderate republican voices like rockefeller's have been drowned out over the years, drowned out by those like ronald reagan who said in is in inaugural address that government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. of course reagan's policy might be seen as too moderate for some in the republican party. nelson rockefeller believed in the government's ability to solve problems for its citizens. he was an activist republican, his own brand, literally rockefeller republicanism it was called. so how do those republicans fit into today's party? are they even left? joining me now is the renowned presidential historian richard norton smith, the author of the new book "on his own terms, the

life of nelson rockefeller" that lands in bookstores on tuesday. richard, thank you for taking the time this morning. this is one of the refrains people hear in politics without even knowing necessarily much about nelson rockefeller. we hear about the old rockefeller republicans, they're all gone, they're leaving the party right now. tell us about what that term means. what does the term "rockefeller republican" mean to you? >> in a nutshell it had two components, fiscal responsibility, the idea that everything began with a strong, vibrant, private sector and social liberalism. so that, for example, nelson rockefeller in his time was ahead of the curve on civil rights not only in terms of other republicans but of the kennedy administration. he financially supported dr. king at critical moments like

the birmingham crusade and helped organize and pay for dr. king's funeral. but several years later, the issue of abortion. nelson rockefeller's arguments in favor of in effect abortion on demand, which is what the new york legislature came up with in 1970, were cited by the justices in the roe v. wade case. so that element of social liberalism, you know, obviously there's an element of sumise. i have enough trouble trying to understand the past without predicting the future, but you can draw a line from the '60s to the modern era and you can envision where rockefeller republicans would be on issues like gay rights. however, it's also -- to be fair, let's be fair to barry goldwater. there is a libertarian streak in the republican party. remember, before his death, senator goldwater became an outspoken champion of gay rights. he just couldn't bring the

religious right and more traditional conservatives with him. >> yeah, no, and that's very interesting. especially barry goldwater late in his life was very interesting -- he was always an interesting character but really interesting late in his life. a whole slew of cultural issues and he was very outspoken in his objection to where the evangelical right was taking the whole party. we look at nelson rockefeller, governor of new york for 14 years, vice president of the united states, tried a bunch of times to become president. we're basically saying we hear now that that wing of the republican party is extinct, that it's been overtaken by those christian evangelical conservatives from the south. do you share that view? >> i don't think it's extinct, nothing is extinct. i share the cyclical view. before there were rockefeller republicans, there were eisenhower republicans and theodore roosevelt republicans. in other words, there is that school of what one might call

progressive conservatism that believes that particularly when income inequality, social inequalities, does that sound familiar? does that sound contemporary? when they become too great, it is the role of the conservative, it's the role of those who are the greatest advocates of the private sector to rethink, if you will, to be imaginative, to be assertive, to come up with programs that narrow those gaps. otherwise, as rockefeller said, as fdr said, you run the risk of revolution. >> you know, it's so interesting too when you think back to nelson rockefeller's time, the governor of new york. and you remember republicans competed for new york. they competed for big, blue states, big states with urban centers. it doesn't seem like that happens anymore. >> in the early 1960s, nelson rockefeller traveled around the country and very proudly pointed out the fact if you look at the numbers, new york state was the

second most republican state in america. after kansas. republicans controlled both houses of the legislature, they had a majority of house members, they had both senate seats and of course they had a sitting governor. it doesn't get much more republican than that. >> it's amazing. and now it doesn't get much more democratic than new york. >> exactly. >> and the whole northeast. go to my state of massachusetts, similar thing. you don't see the bill well republicans that much anymore. my thanks to richard norton smith. his new book comes out tuesday. thank you for joining us. we're going to be back next weekend, saturday, sunday morning 8:00 a.m. eastern time. coming up next, melissa harris-perry. we'll see you next weekend on "up." thank you for joining us. he trains. he's psyched. ready for the knockout? you don't know "aarp." he's staying in shape by keeping his brain healthy and focused with aarp's staying sharp. with online mind sharpening exercises developed by the top minds in brain science. and exercise and stress reduction tips that can impact brain health.

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plus, march ain't got nothing on the madness of midterms. but first, the ebola fear factor. good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. by now you realize the ebola story is changing virtually every day, every hour, every second. this morning a caribbean cruise ship carrying a texas lab supervisor who handled an ebola lab specimen returned to galveston, texas. the woman had been in isolation aboard the boat after officials in cozumel and belize refused to let her and her spouse come ashore. even before she arrived this morning, a sample of her blood was airlifted back to health officials in texas. the cdc has now asked that all those involved in treating thomas eric duncan, the liberian man who died 11 days ago of ebola,