the vice president had had taken over the presidency, a deeply unsettled time in the country richard nixon who'd been beaten by john f. kennedy in 1960, mitt romney's dad, george romney, the governor of michigan, neither of them ended up running in '64. nelson rockefeller, powerful governor of new york, he did run but he got shellacked in the primaries. the republicans ended up at the last minute drafting the governor of pennsylvania, bill scranton. they drafted him as a last-minute addition to the race a month before the convention. they tried to bring him in as the establishment alternative to the radical person the party looked like it was on track to nominate that year. but none of the establishment competition worked. none of the establishment efforts to block the nominee worked and the republican party in 1964 really did nominate barry goldwater as their nominee.

>> extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. >> yeah. screw moderation. the republican party picked him even though the republican establishment really didn't want him. but they couldn't stop him, either just by competition in the primaries, or by trying to take it from him at that contested convention in san francisco, so in 1964, barry goldwater really did become the party's nominee against lbj, and it's interesting for the general election that year, there were no general election presidential debates. i mean, just four years earlier, kennedy and nixon had had famous totally compelling crucial debates in the 1960 election, those debates that everybody remembers. but four years later in the next general election, they did no debates. and a big part of how lyndon johnson campaigned against barry goldwater that year was with

some of the freaking weirdest and most ambitious tv ads ever recorded in any political campaign for any office in the history of our politics and in the history of any politics. i'd put this up against the politics in any country. this, of course, was the daisy ad which didn't really make an argument, it just created a sense of fear and terror and activated your protective instinct about children when it showed that little girl counting the petals of a daisy then a countdown to an atomic explosion. that was the 1964 ad campaign. right? there was also the slightly wackier ad johnson ran that year showing the eastern seaboard of the united states. see what's going on there? see the splashing and see the thing through the u.s.? the eastern seaboard of the united states being slowly painstakingly weirdly sawed off and dropped into sawdust-flecked water as a means of publicizing barry goldwater's joke at one point the country would be better off if the whole eastern seaboard was sawed off and

shoved into the sea. this is what the ads were like in the general election of 1964 because the republican party did something most of its leadership considered to be whack-a-doo when they picked barry goldwater. that's how lbj won against him. here's the thing. grab a soda. put your feet up. i want you to watch this. this started circulating again recently because frankly of the rise of donald trump in this year's republican politics and it's mind bending. this is why it is worth remembering the modern political history, becausen when you know that the ads from 196f 4 lbj ran against goldwater were weird and super original, evenb with the knowledge, it's hard to believe lyndon johnson ran this against donald trump, i mean barry

goldwater in 1964, and he did. it's very strange. it's basically the republican internet's fixsation right now in terms of trying to understand and contextualize what they're doing to themselves with trump. just sit back. you have not seen this before. sit back. just watch this. >> i don't know just why they wanted to call this a confession. i certainly don't feel guilty about being a republican. i have always been a republican. my father is. his father was. the whole family is a republican family. i voted for dwight eisenhower the first time i ever voted. i voted for nixon the last time. but when we come to senator goldwater, now it seems to me we're up against a very different kind of a man. this man scares me. now maybe i'm wrong. a friend of mine has said to me,

listen, just because a man sounds a little irresponsible during a campaign doesn't mean he's going to act irresponsibly. you know that theory that the white house makes the man. i don't buy that. you know what i think makes a president, i mean, aside from his judgment, his experience, are the men behind him. his advisers. the cabinet. so many men with strange ideas are working for goldwater. you hear a lot about what these guys are against. seem to be against just about everything, but what are they for? the hardest thing for me about this whole campaign is so sort out one goldwater statement from another. a reporter will go to senator goldwater, say senator, on such and such a day, you said, i quote, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, end quote and goldwater says, i wouldn't put it that way. i can't follow that. was he serious when he put it that way?

he is serious when he did put it that way? i just don't get it. a president ought to mean what he says. president johnson, now, johnson at least is talks about facts. he says, look, we got the tax cut bill and because of that, you get to carry home "x" number of dollars more every payday. we got the nuclear test ban and because of that there's "x" percent less radioactivity in the food. but goldwater, often you can't -- i can't figure out just what goldwater means by the things he says. i read now where he says a craven fear of death is sweeping across america. what is that supposed to mean if he means people don't want to fight a nuclear war, he's right. i don't. when i read some of these things goldwater says about total victory, i get a little worried, you know? i wish -- i wish i was as sure that goldwater is against war as he is against these other things. i wish i could believe that he

has the imagination to just shut his eyes and picture what this country would look like after a nuclear war. sometimes i wish i'd been at that convention in san francisco. i mean, i wish i'd been a delegate. i really do because i would have fought, you know, and i wouldn't have worried so much about party unity because if you unite behind a man you don't believe in, it's a lie. i tell you, those people who got control of that convention, who are they? i mean, when the head of the ku klux klan, when all these weird groups come out in favor of the candidate of my party, either they're not republicans or i'm not. i thought about just not voting in this election.

just staying home. but you can't do that because that's saying you don't care who wins and i do care. i think my party made a bad mistake in san francisco. i'm going to have to vote against that mistake on the 3rd of november. >> vote for president johnson on november 3rd. the stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> isn't that amazing? president lyndon johnson's campaign ran that in 1964 against barry goldwater. it's four minutes long. but they ran it. and lyndon johnson, of course, went on to win that race against barry goldwater with the single largest percentage of the popular vote in the history of american presidential elections. lbj just crushed goldwater. and so republicans are crying into their beer right now over the similarities between the goldwater election 50 years ago and what the republican party is going through now as they once

again fail to stop a candidate who has excited enough of the republican party's voters to rightfully get the nomination or at least to appear to be on that track. but he's a candidate who party regulars regard, frankly, as a creep and a kook and someone who they think will be the death of their party. literally the death of their party. the end of their party. michigan governor george romney back in '64 famously said, just a few weeks before that republican party convention in san francisco in '64, he said that if the republicans chose barry goldwater to be their nominee at that san francisco convention, it would be, quote, the suicidal destruction of the republican party. despite that warning, the republicans did choose goldwater as their nominee and, yeah, they did just get door nailed in that presidential election because of it, but you know what, it wasn't the end of the republican party. it wasn't the suicidal destruction of the republican party. it really wasn't. i mean, even after picking goldwater and losing badly in the 1964 election, the

republican party was still the republican party. in fact, the party stayed so much the same party that governor romney's son was the one who got the party's nomination for president, not that far down the road. not that far down the road from when governor romney sr. had predicted would be the party's death, the party did what he said would kill it. they did it anyway. the party lived. they picked his son. generation down the road. and now it's governor romney the junior who is trying to sound the alarm about how dangerous it would be for the party to choose donald trump as their nominee this year. but the party is on track to choose donald trump as their nominee this year. there have been 23 states that have voted thus far on the republican side. donald trump has won 15 of them. and all of the other candidates can make all sorts of noise about what state they think they might be able to win down the road. we just saw marco rubio make his case that he can win florida to chuck todd. yeah, you know, and these

arguments, maybe, maybe each of you can win a state somewhere. but the one fact that's true for all those candidates is no matter what else they're going to do, they're all running against a guy who's already won 15 states and who is likely to keep on winning them. and so, honestly, the way things are going, he's going to be the one who gets the nomination. and so now there is this question that's worth getting specific about. is donald trump getting the republican presidential nomination actually an existential challenge for the republican party? does him getting the nomination risk the death of the republican party as you keep hearing? or is that overkill? is that hyperbole? right? would the nomination of donald trump more likely just mean that the republican party would change now? it would become trumpier now? right? the way the republican party didn't die after barry goldwater, it just did get a little more right wing. this isn't an idle question. we do actually have some data already that can help us answer the question of what is going to

become of the republican party with donald trump as its standard bearer because right now he is the party's de facto standard bearer. while we have all spent the last few weeks agog at this change at the top, morphing of the republican party into a what feels like a post-policy strong-man personality cult where political events are like pageants of product placement and on-brand hucksterism. while we've been agog at that and that has been mesmerizing, a few other things have been happening on these primary nights while donald trump has started to win everything in the republican party. i think it's worth noticing what those things have been right now because it tells us a little bit what the republican party is going to be like with donald trump at the top. so, alabama, in alabama, one of the things that happened in the republican primary this year is that the 81-year-old chairman of the senate banking committee was running for his basically 9,000th term in congress. he spent primary night, richard

shelby of alabama, 81 years old, spent primary night looking down the barrel of a donald trump presidential landslide in his state. richard shelby worrying with the record republican turnout for donald trump, all these people motivated to topple the old republican order, give a one-fingered salute to the republican establishment, obviously richard shelby worried that would sweep a guy like him out of office. turns out senator richard shelby did fine that primary night in alabama when donald trump won his state in a landslide. richard shelby did so well that night he even avoided having to go to a runoff with ten points to spare. members faced big anti-establishment republican voter turnout and fiesty anti-establishment challenges on republican primary nights in their states this year.

at least five republican members of congress just in those two states alone as donald trump and ted cruz came in first and second and second and first in those two states. but all of those old republican incumbents with seats in congress, they all did just fine, they all beat their primary challengers. nobody's getting run out on a rail at least so far in the republican party. that said, there was a little tremor in republican land last night in kentucky. kentucky held their republican caucus on saturday. turnout was big. kentucky republicans went big for donald trump in that kentucky presidential caucus. kentucky has the last democratic-held state legislative house in the south. republicans looked at that big turnout in their caucus this weekend, enthusiasm they saw kentucky republicans show for donald trump, and they expressed great hope that would translate into republicans taking over to the kentucky house, because last night there were four special elections in the kentucky led

legislature. republicans were trying to fill those four seats with four republicans and had they done it, they would have taken over control of the house. they would have taken the last democratically held legislative house in the entire american south. but instead, last night in kentucky, republicans lost in three of those four seats. the democrats last night actually increased their hold on that legislature. so, forecast, cloudy. right? by which i do not mean that we're forecasting clouds. i mean the forecast is cloudy. it's hard to read at this point. i mean, in 1964 when republicans picked barry goldwater, yeah, he lost really badly for president but also republicans got just destroyed across the country. republicans that year lost the senate, they lost really badly in the house as well. democrats got a 2/3 majority in both the senate and the house that year. it was just mega. that's, of course, how lyndon johnson was able to pass landmark legislation with the bright blue democratic congress that he got elected in '64 when

he was running against barry goldwater. right? so that's one lesson. that said, in the mirror image election in 1972, democrats nominated george mcgovern and he got beaten even worse than gold water did, that year even though it was the democratic presidential nominee who lost so overwhelmingly badly, just a disaster with mcgovern at the top of the ticket, that year actually the democrats picked up seats in the senate and they held on to their majority in the house. so, you know, like i say, you put somebody like a goldwater or a mcgovern, somebody who the party thinks risks existential disaster for the party at the top of their ticket, that results in trouble for them at the top of the ticket but in terms of what else it does do their party, the forecast is cloudy. people who see parallels to hugely risky election bets when they look at donald trump, right, i think they're right to see those historical parallels. but the idea of donald trump's nomination blowing apart the republican party, or ending the

republican party, there really isn't any precedent for that. and so far, the testable effect of a likely donald trump presidential nomination, there's mixed results in terms of how much this is really even going to change the republican party at all. i think the only thing we can really say for sure is that whoever this guy is, the democratic party is looking for his son right now. or at least the inheriter of his legacy to draft a new round of these ads for 2016. that is something that i would bet good money on.

here's one theory of how to compete to win. i think of this one as i'm so great, you should just hand me all the prizes before we even start the game. >> fast. fast. last night i cut the light off in my bedroom, hit the switch was in the bed before the room was dark. fast. >> incredible.

>> word from muhammad ali, right? think awesome, be awesome. well today in american politics, somebody tried the exact opposite approach. predicting not victory, but instead scorched earth devastating defeat. the power of negative thinking. hold that thought. that next. >> fast. fast. fast.

behold, today in sad e-mails, subject line, "we will lose." and that is a sad subject line from any at any time, but that is a particularly sad sack e-mail coming from florida

senator marco rubio at this particular point in time. "subject: we will lose." well, okay then. nobody's going to protest that idea from marco rubio's campaign today after 23 states have voted on the republican nomination for president and senator rubio has lost that vote in 22 of the 23 states that have voted. he did win puerto rico but since that's not a state, it's hard to count on that as your big win. marco rubio has lost 22 of 23 states. most of those losses are third-place finishes or worse. last night, his campaign did predict here on our air that they could win hawaii at the end of the night. they did not win hawaii. they came in third there. they had two third-place finishes and two fourth-place finishes last night and both of the fourth-place finishes, senator rubio was only in single l digits and none of the four

states that voted last night did senator rubio even make the delegate threshold to get any delegates at all so his net gain of delegates from all four states voting last night was zero. now senator rubio is telling his supporters, we will lose. what he means by that is republicans will lose if donald trump is the presidential nominee of the party and so, therefore, senator rubio must win florida next week. but it is starting to feel like that message is sort of poorly aimed. particularly given the outlook in that florida race right now. there have been, i think, six polls of the florida republican race in the past week. the first one was from monmouth university. that one got the rubio campaign all excited because while it did show them losing, it only showed them losing by a little bit. senator rubio losing in that monmouth poll to donald trump by eight points. but in the five polls that have dropped since then, the news is much worse. they all show rubio losing in

his home state by double digits. 20 points, 12 points, 16 points, 23 points, and the new fox news poll out tonight, 23 points again. i mean, that is not what things are supposed to look like for the candidate who says he's the one guy who can beat donald trump in florida. that does not look like you're going to be the one guy to beat donald trump in florida. doesn't look like anybody is going to beat donald trump in florida. if mr. trump is not beaten in florida, it's starting to look likely he'll lock up the republican nomination the old-fashioned way by winning a majority of delegates well before the party's convention this summer in cleveland. the only other scenario, the best-case scenario for these stop trump forces in the republican party, is that mr. trump ends up short of the majority and they try to wrestle it from him at the convention. that's what marco rubio's campaign has been talking about openly for a while now, what the

john kasich campaign has been preaching all along. even though john kasich is in a different situation than marco rubio right now, john kasich right now has won zero primaries thus far but at least in his home state of ohio, the new fox news poll out tonight shows governor kasich with a lead in ohio. fancy that. still, though, whether or not marco rubio can take florida or john kasich can take ohio, neither one of them even in that circumstance can win the nomination on delegates. they can both only hope to take it at the convention. the only non-trump candidate denying that possibility, insisting this thing must not be decided at the convention and will not be decided at the convention, the only one who's been saying that is ted cruz and he has been very emphatic about it. >> senator, are you prepared for contested convention? >> no. and i will say, you know, a contested convention is the great hope for the republican establishment. it is how they are drowning away their sorrows. as they say, we'll have a brokered convention and all these crazy voters will go one way then we'll step in with all of our money and anoint our white knight to ride in and save the day. that's not going to happen. any time you hear somebody talking about a brokered convention, it is the washington establishment in a fevered frenzy.

they're really frustrated because all of their chosen candidates, all of the golden children, the voters keep rejecting. and so they seized on this master plan, we go to a brokered convention and the d.c. power brokers will drop someone in who is exactly to the liking of the washington establishment. if that would happen, we will have a manifest revolt on our hands all across this country. >> do you think there's something illegitimate, though, about trying to have a brokered convention? work it out -- >> i think if it's a bunch of washington deal makers an lobbyists who want to parachute in their preferred candidate because they don't like what the voters are doing, it is illegitimate, i think it's wrong. >> illegitimate, wrong, it will cause a manifest revolt all across this country. it is not going to happen, he says. that was senator ted cruz up

until sunday, that was three days ago. now, well, you know, i guess it could happen. >> let's say it's a two-man race at that point. you're okay with the, quote, contested convention, where then it goes to a balloting system and it's still decided by the people. >> a contested convention is a different thing, if no one gets 1,237 and you got two front-runners, reagan and ford battled it out in a contested convention. that's what conventions are for. if you're fighting between the candidates who earned the votes of the people and the delegates at the convention who have been elected to do that, that's the way the system works. >> that's why conventions work. that's the way the system works. who would say otherwise? >> i think that is illegitimate, i think it's wrong. >> principles. ted cruz is amazing, but he is only just now catching up with what the rest of the party has been copping to for a while now which is the question of how to

keep donald trump from winning the republican nomination by hook or by crook. the answer or at least the strategy right now is with money. with lots and lots of money. specifically to run ads like this one, the creators of this ad say they plan to spend well over $5 million in florida, alone, on tv ads and direct mail and digital ads and phone banks and e-mails all against donald trump. all in the next week. but is that going to be enough? is there enough money in the world to stop him at this point in the race? the person leading part of that effort, the person in charge of funneling anti-donald trump republican money toward every possible venue who might help defeat him, she's here for "the interview" next. stay with us.

always exciting when we can get republicans to come on this show. it is particularly exciting to get a republican to come on this show when she is right at the heart of not just what's going on in national news, she's actually right at the heart of what is now an international news story about whether or not americans are going to sort out this little worrying thing we have going on. it's a matter of international concern. here's "der spiegel" in germany, "trump tears republicans apart." here's "le monde," blame google translate, roughs out to "small stones against republican donald trump." as is this feature today from

the "daily telegraph" in britain. the whole world is watching. our closest allies around the world are watching intently to see if katie packer and republicans like katie packer are going to succeed in their effort from within the republican party to basically throw a wrench into the primary machines that's about to nominate donald trump as the standard bearer of that party. katie packer, it's really nice to you here tonight. nice to meet you. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me, rachel. >> i believe you were a deputy campaign manager to mitt romney in 2012. >> i was. >> why did you decide to do this political work in this cycle? >> a lot of people may agree or disagree with mitt romney but i can say for sure mitt romney never did anything to embarrass the republican party, never did anything to embarrass the united states of america. he always handled himself with great dignity. he was a conservative standard bearer republicans could be proud of. he didn't prevail on general

election day to all of our disappointment, but general elections are very, very tough, and i'm very concerned that if donald trump is our standard bearer for the republican party that we will be destroyed in the general election not just because, you know, people might disagree with him on policy positions, but when i think back to what the democrats did to mitt romney relates to bain capital, it's going to make bain capital look like catholic charities when they start to take a look at the victims of trump's business fraud. and when i look at the things that donald trump has said that are going to be thrown back on every republican in the country with regard to race, the way that he, you know, handled, you know, black waiters and waitresses at his casinos when he had guests there that didn't want to be served by black servers. his refusal to distance himself from the ku klux klan and david duke. it's very disturbing to me.

the way he has treated women. all of these things are going to make it very, very difficult not only for trump but for our party as a whole to prevail in november and we have three other candidates all of whom, you know, have served with honor and decency and who could be competitive with hillary clinton come november, and yet our party seems hellbent on the one guy that's going to doom us to failure. i got involved in this effort because i figured we need to do something to try to stop this train wreck. >> that hellbent nature of your party, i mean, it is an object, obviously, it's not just of concern to the republican party, it's an issue of national concern. it's an issue of international concern as people look at what's happening within the major parties in our country. we are the leader of the free world and it's a very big deal. so i feel like i've been investing as much as i can in trying to understand who's doing the kind of work that you're doing, how it's going. the likelihood of success. whether this is a strong movement. so i just -- forgive me for asking this just about you

personally, but i just wondered how it's sort of changed your life to be doing this kind of work. i mean, i understand what it's like to be a political operative promoting a candidate, working on a campaign like you did with mr. romney. in this case, you're trying to block a specific candidate. are you getting feedback from trump supporters? how is this different for you? >> i don't know if i'd call it feedback. i've received, you know, all manner of threats to myself and to my family, even to my dog. you know, people are very, very hostile. they don't seem to, you know, be open to my free speech and my ability to communicate a message. there seems to be a lot of hostility to that. i think, you know, some of his supporters just seem to think he should be able to do and say whatever he wants and nobody should examine his record. there's been little scrutiny on

donald trump and there's been a lot of question about can these campaigns against him work? we don't know because it's never been tried. he's gone through an entire campaign, nine months of a campaign, with very little scrutiny of his record or rhetoric even from the media so this is something we've been doing for the last couple weeks. we're very, very focused on these states coming up on the 15th. all of a sudden the media is tapping into some of the things we have highlighted in television ads. they're trying to scrutinize things like trump university and many, many other business failures of his and i think it's important for the american people to have this information before they cast a vote. >> katie packer, founder of our principles pac, anti-donald trump superpac. you are doing work that is going to go down in history as an important moment in the republican party. i hope you'll come back over the next week or so and talk to us again about how things are going. >> thanks for having me, rachel. >> thanks very much. really appreciate it. i will say that the, the outspoken criticism from donald trump, i think miss packer is right there, has sort of only been on full blast from within the republican party and most of the media for a week or so now. it certainly didn't work to hold him back last night. the question of whether these efforts are going to be effective is, you know, nation-changing stuff. it's really important. we'll be back. stay with us. we needed 30 new hires for our call center.

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at the msnbc town hall with embattled presidential candidate marco rubio tonight, there was kind of an amazing admission from the senator when a voter in the audience asked him how he squares his own recent attacks

against donald trump with his own faith and his values. this was the senator's response. >> the presidency of the united states, so you're going to elect the next commander in chief, someone that will have a real impact on the future of our country and representing themselves as someone who they're not. i think it's appropriate in a campaign to point those out. in terms of things that have to do with personal stuff, yeah, at the end of the day, you know what, it's not something i'm entirely proud of. my kids were embarrassed by it and i -- if i had to do it again, i wouldn't. not on the other charges. not on the other things. >> senator marco rubio on his regret and his lack of regret as he tries to nudge his campaign out of the deep ditch it has fallen into. if you missed this pretty remarkable town hall with chuck todd and senator rubio tonight, i have good news, we're airing it for you at 10:00 right after our show. stay with us. if you're age 50 to 85, i have an important message

about security. write down the number on your screen, so you can call when i finish. the lock i want to talk to you about isn't the one on your door. this is a lock for your life insurance, a rate lock, that guarantees your rate can never go up at any time, for any reason. but be careful. many policies you see do not have one, but you can get a lifetime rate lock through the colonial penn program. call this number to learn more. this plan was designed with a rate lock for people on a fixed income who want affordable life insurance that's simple to get. coverage options for just $9.95 a month, less than 35 cents a day. act now and your rate will be locked in for life. it will never increase, guaranteed. this is lifelong coverage that can never be cancelled as long as you pay your premiums, guaranteed. and your acceptance is guaranteed, with no health questions. you cannot be turned down

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win for clinton. polls were disastrously wrong, more wrong than they've been anywhere in a long time. bernie sanders pulled out a narrow and surprising and, therefore, very energizing win. the other big result we can report from last night in michigan is this number. 1,600. yesterday activists trying to recall michigan governor rick snyder over the flint lead scandal started to recruit volunteers who will collect signatures to recall governor snyder. they had 60 people out recruiting volunteers yesterday. they say they recreated 1,600 people on primary day yesterday who have all committed to gathering signatures for that recall and said they had another thousand people contact them on their website and sign up to be volunteers. all, more than 2,500 people signed up to gather signatures to recall governor rick snyder. still going to be a heavy lift.

they're going to start their plans easter sunday. they've got 60 days to get nearly 800,000 valid signatures in michigan. they say they need 400 more volunteers to sign up in order to be on track to hit that target. it will be a hard lift even if they get all those volunteers. the organizers say it might take a miracle to recall rick snyder. yesterday, it turned out to be a slingshot start to the recall snyder campaign. and we'll have more on that record turnout in just a sec. stay with us. get one of our right best deals ever.... ....for just $9.99 you can get any large pizza with up to five toppings pile on your favorites with up to five toppings for just $9.99 better ingredients. better pizza. papajohns.com

we will resume monday night at the movies following this special nbc news report. here is nbc news correspondent edward newman. >> good evening. not quite six hours have gone by since governor george wallace was shot this afternoon just after making a campaign speech in laurel, maryland. >> wallace made a campaign speech this afternoon in laurel, maryland, outside washington. for the primary which wallace is

expected to win. wallace had been heckled and pelted with small objects at a speech earlier today but this crowd was mostly friendly. after the speech at laurel, wallace took off his coat in the hot sun and went down to shake hands in the crowd. his guards were close to him. suddenly, shots were fired. four or five. not very loud. wallace fell backwards, wounded three times and bleeding. mrs. wallace, sobbing, bent over him. police immediately pounced on a suspect. a young white man with short blond hair. the justice department later identified him as arthur herman bremer, 21 years old, from milwaukee. he will be charged with the shooting. a snub nose .38 caliber revolver was found nearby. >> may 15th, 1972. that young man who shot george

wallace that day said when he went to trial for it said he didn't do it because of any intense political motive or anything specific to george wallace. he wanted to be famous. he originally planned on trying to shoot nixon but thought that might harder to pull off so he settled on george wallace instead. that shooting happened may 15th. may 15th, 1972. the very next day after being shot five times in that assassination attempt, george wallace was quoted from his hospital bed as saying he would continue to campaign. he would stay in the presidential race. and indeed, that same day, may 16th, 1972, the day after he was shot, the states of maryland and michigan held presidential primaries and you know what, george wallace won beth of them overwhelmingly. he not only won but voter turnout went way up due to what was called at the time, "substantial sympathy vote." voters in maryland and michigan essentially voted in solidarity with segregationist alabama governor george wallace because somebody just tried to kill him and he was fighting for his life.

in michigan that bizarre 1972 primary held under those bizarre circumstances notch ed the highest voter turnout ever in that primary of that state. and that record stood from 1972 until last night. last night michigan turn outbroke that record by 30%. and now, it might be stunning to break a four decade voter turn out with a 30% increase, right? but with this e erection cycle with this primary, well, yeah, 30% broke the record, but in idaho, turnout broke the record there by 397%. yeah, and yet the repub will y cans are running from the caucus to the state-run primary, but the bottom line remains that more than 200,000 republicans voted in that state last night

compared to the 44,000 in 2012. and so as we said, the turnout is going nuts burk on the democratic election, turnout is almost down in every state. donald trump called it the biggest single story in politics today, and he certainly wants it to be, because he wants the republican party to know that he is a turnout machine and who will help and not hurt his party in november. the question is, is he right? how can we tell? how can we tell empirically? joining us is michael p. mcdonald an associate professor of political science at the university of florida, and thank you so much for your time, and thank you for being here. >> great to be here. >> what does it mean for the general e e heck shun as best we can tell to have one party coming in underneath the election record, and breaking them in every other state.

>> well, a number of comparisons are being made in the democratic election of 2008. but i believe we om have to go back to 2000 to the last competitive election on both sides the republican turnout in the terms of the raw numbers were actually greater than the differential between the republicans and the democrats were greater than what we are seeing in the primary and caucuses so far in this election cycle, and in 2000, of course, al gore was not elected president, but he did win the national popular vote by half a million votes. >> so the precedent here is clear when you compare it to 2008, but going back to 2000, talking about the historical achievement here in terms of the turnout numbers may tell a stoye that is different. fascinating. another thing that i want to know about the empirical handle on is if these large republican turnouts are being driven by mr.

tr trump? >> well, it is difficult, but if you look into the vote arer files there are people who are not frequent primary participants who are showing up to vote, and some of them have not even voted in recent general elections either. so one might presume that those are the sorts of folks that t m trump is pulling in and having them par the tis pate in the primary. >> and inners the of the florida primary where you are at the university of florida, fig that you can extrapolate in terms of what we have seen from the early vote and the absentee vote, and the florida results from a week from tonight are going to be crucialb to the race. >> yes, florida is a high turnout state when it come ts t the early vote, and we have all three methods, in person, early, absentee and the election day vote, and the vote breaks down one-third, one-third, one-third, so we have had over 1 million people vote already in florida. and again, we can look at the

voter file, and the record of people who have already voted, and it is suggesting some things that the electorate is much older, but it may be more relevant on the democratic side, so at least so far, and we don't see a real big hispanic turnout as much as you would want to see if you were marco rubio. >> michael mcdonald from the university of florida and that is very helpful, and three nuggets of information they did not have before talking to, you and thank you for bringing that, i appreciate it. >> you are welcome. >> and this place in the national news, party on. >> okay, okay, keep looking up. >> ah! we needed 30 new hires for our call center.

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this is so good. all right. real picture, real place. it's in saint martin where the planes come in so low it looks like james bond should be tucking and rolling out of this them. that beach is basically on top of the the international airport. it's one of the top plane spotting locations in the world. here is another in a rather surprising place. this is very close to our nation's capital. it's gravely point park. you can have a picnic, go to a jog, you can have a 737 take a little off the top. reagan national airport is close to the part of washington, d.c. where people live. it makes it convenient as an airport, it makes it a great place to watch planes as you jog, but it's not necessarily a peaceful place to live.

being nearby that airport. over the last year the airport modernized the system that does the take off flight paths. it changed the experience for the towns below. "the washington post" has reported on the dramatic increase in noise complaints. since the arrival of this new technology, the complaints are way up in d.c. they are up by a factor of nine since the new system went in effect, but here is one of the greatest points of all time. there have been 8,670 noise complaints filed about that airport, but officials are quick to note that 6,500 complaints last year came from a single person. 6,500 complaints from one person in one year. that's 18 complaints filed every day by one person. that is not a hobby. that is not a complaint.

that is a job. 18 complaints a day should come with comp time and a bonus. that person probably does need the extra money. they know in d.c. if there's enough noise around an issue, people will pay attention to it, maybe even vote for it. coming d corridor of the beltway people will pay attention. >> "first look" is up next. >> it's thursday, march 10th. right now, on "first look," breaking overnight, five are dead and at least two gunmen are at large. police are scrambling and asking the public for help. historic rain and flooding continues to wreak havoc in parts of the country and a new powerful storm is brewing out west. the democrats squared off in miami making big promises on the immigration ahead of florida's primary. plus, an isis operator captured by u.s. special forces tells of the terror group's chemical weapons plans. thousands pay their last respects to nancy reagan as her daughter speaks out. then to the shots of the day. "first look" starts right now.