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tv   Hardball With Chris Matthews  MSNBC  September 23, 2010 5:00pm-6:00pm EDT

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i believe we've begun the process of doing better than this. thank you for joining us in this effort and "hardball" begins now. uncle bill's well tried advice. let's play "hardball." good evening. bill clinton pitching coach, former president clinton who outsmarted republicans who tried to make him a one-termer has political advice for obama. he said there's still time to for obama to hold off for republican title wave, but that the only way to stop it is to tell voters not to let disappointment cloud their judgment, that obama's got to explain that the economy is improving faster than most of the world, that he's got to be optimistic about the future of this country and make an argument about republican ideas
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being no good. he's got to nationalize the midterms the way newt did. and the president has to ask for two more years to get the job done. can this president pull off a popularity comeback in the way bill clinton did? that's our top story. plus, house republicans unveil their pledge to america today and it could be the biggest cover up since water gate. it showcases all the predictable soft cell proposals, but goes radio silent on the more radical ideas. the wild stuff about changing the constitution. and make no mistake, the fringe on the right will have a strong voice if republicans win control of the congress. but there are a lot of races getting tight and they are in the places you'd think wouldn't be close. have some simply reached their sell by date? also, what does it say when someone sitting in the office of a republican u.s. senator from georgia sends out a menacing,
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antigay comment on a blog? an unsigned statement admits that someone sitting in his office, the senator's office, was behind the gay bashing slur and now, the senate sergeant in arms is investigating the matter. and sarah palin talks about the reason she would run for president. well, that's in side show tonight. all that's ahead, but first, let's check in on the hot races around the country to see where they stand. here's the "hardball" scoreboard. i love this. i'm starting in new york in the senate race. kirsten gillibrand and joe dioguardi. that's a tight race for a state as blue as new york. when it comes in a day after cuomo's lead in the new york governor's race was cut down to six points. now, the poll. sienna poll registered voters
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while quinnipiac polled likely vottoers. blanche lincoln is down. the republican, joe boozman. finally, to california. it's a damn good poll. literally dead heat between brown and whitman, both at 41%. we're going to continue to check the scoreboard on all the big races each night leading up to election day, november 2nd. now to bill clinton's advice for president obama. john harris is editor in chief of politico -- let's look at something that happens in our network in morning. let's look at some of the advice the former president gave. here's bill clinton when he said obama should do to nationalize the midterms, the way newt gingrich did in '94. ask the country for patience to
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get the country moving again. acknowledge voter disappointment and anger, explain how our economy's doing better in the world and show optimism. let's look at the quote from the president. >> i think that the democrats ought to put on one card, no more than five and no fewer than three things that will be their priorities. i know how easy it is to lose control of the debate. happened to me in '93 and '94, but remember the gift newt gingrich gave america. political science gift. he proved with that contracting for america, that you could nationalize the midterm elections. so, i think that the president and democrats even if at this late date, should do this as an opportunity and obligation to say, all right, they've organized their national plan. here's what ours is. if you hire us for two more years, here's what we're going
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to do. >> that could be well stated. let's go to john harris and then to chris cillizza with the same request. can president obama unite his party behind the single message or at least a common front in these elections or is it too scattered? john harris. >> chris, president clinton's message to me was they should at least urgently try this. i think the people around him privately do acknowledge what i think most in washington acknowledge, that it's harder to change the fundamentals of this election with so little time left and with so much of it resting on the economy, which isn't likely to appreciably change before the midterms. president clinton has no illusions about how dire the situation is. you've got to try. >> on the very point on nationalizing the election, president clinton knows as much about politics than any of the three of us. does he know something we don't
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about the potential of barack obama to unite the party? >> i think he knows every man or person for himself will not work out because you'll see people going in lots of different elections. this is a nationalized election. it is going to be at least in part maybe large part, a referendum on barack obama and the democratic-led congress. what i think bill clinton is smart about, the advice he's trying to give is to say you need to focus like you did in 2006. it's a bear election. you just have to be faster than the bear. people don't like democrats. they also don't like republicans. bill clinton is saying focus on republicans. what they would be doing. barack obama is trying to do that. he's gotten more in campaign mode lately than he has. democrats would have liked him to be in there sooner. i think though to john's point rk you're going to see
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splinters. there's going to be panic. the democrats will say, i need to do what's good for me and that's going to be harder to makt about republicans. >> former quarterback for the redski redskins, john, some have skipped town. they don't want to identify themselves with pelosi or barack obama and there's no way to get them back on the reservation. is that your view? >> in many cases, it is. what president clinton was saying to me was that look, you've got to give republicans some credit. we're giving a lot of attention to hard core republican base. the most strident tea partiers. a lot of this election is being determined by fiscally conservative independents and republicans are appealing to those people by portraying barack obama as a european style, big government socialist. you've got to respond to that. what he was saying is that democrats have been off the field.
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no effective, sustained response. >> to john's point, quickly, pugh poll today, 13. a huge shift, 18 points remember, they went to democrats by 18 points in the 2006 midterm, so bill clinton and john harris are right. they have got to find a way. they are not going to win independents, but can't lose them. >> amazing. bill clinton said he should ask democrats for patience. let's listen. lost the sound on that, but the point was, two more years. is that something a president can ask for at this point? >> i think that a president can. probably the presidency only a politician in the country with the kind of platform to make that case.
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give us time to see -- >> reagan used to say stay the course. he only lost 26 seats by saying stay the course, hang with me. >> people thought it would be much, much worse. clinton says obama needs to acknowledge people's anger, including many people's disappointment in him. not run away from it. run into it. he said he was happy the other day on cnbc when president obama got confronted by that woman who said she's getting tired of defending him. she said o bobama needs to hear that. >> all that is about empathy. bill clinton was the empathizer in chief, barack obama, even with the question, he gave kind of a long answer. he's not the glad hander, hugging the women, kissing the babies. that's just not who he is. i don't know if bill clinton's be more emp thetic, it's not barack obama and i wonder if it
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wouldn't look a little inauthentic if he tried it. >> here's what we said to you, john. he all of this is hard stuff given the realities. we have a 9.6 employment rate. it seems as long as that's hanging up there, the rest of this is trying to cut your damages. isn't that the case? >> look, chris, if you look at since world war ii, the first midterm election of a president, every single president has lost 16 to 20 house seats with the exception of george bush.
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that was in 2002. y yes, democrats are going to lose seats. empathy, republicans talk about what you've done on the economy. all these things are aimed at mitigating losses, not eliminating. >> you guys at politico really do a good job. let me ask you about this thing, the problem this president faces. i think we did see in that cnbc town meeting the other day with velma hart that stood up there and asked that tough question about having to go back to hot dogs and beans because she was going to go back to the working class, so she feared that. she and her husband, facing college tuition bills. a real life experience of america. the president spent about an hour in that interview with john harwood sort of poking him back every time he asked a serious question. when that woman asked the question, very intelligently and clearly, he sort of pushed her back like, oh, you don't know
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what i've done about credit cards. he seemed more like george herbert walker bush. >> it's very, very hard to communicate in a country as divided in this one with so many different information channels. it's harder frankly than when reagan was doing it in the midterm of 1982 as chris mentioned. it's harder than the environment that bill clinton faced during the 1990s. i don't think there's any doubt president obama is frustrated. his policies are being character ooized by republicans and not appreciated by the electorate. >> it's not an easy job or anybody would have it. >> his best advice is to do what he did. feel their pain. >> i agree, but bill clinton was good at that because it came from who he naturally was. that is not -- i don't believe,
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i spent too much time studying barack obama, that is not who barack obama is. i'm not saying that he shouldn't take a little of bill clinton's advice, do the i feel your pain bit. but you have to in politics, the reason barack obama won this presidency in the first place, because he was true to himself. he didn't pander, do the sorts of things expected of polices. >> you're basically saying, you can do it, i can't. it's more like bragging. coming up, the republican party unveils its so-called pledge to america and it may be just the biggest political cover up since water gate. the good stuff. cut taxes, spending, but the big question, does it really hide or disguise the more serious, radical p radical pro pose sal the republicans have. let's talk about what's being covered over. stuff for coffee. oh there's tons. french presses, expresso tampers, filters.
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first it was lisa murkowski running a write-in, but next is it mike castle? he says he hasn't ruled outrunning for senate as a write-in candidate. he says a lot of people have approached him about it. he was beaten by christine o'donnell who now trails badly in the polls to chris coons. castle has led coons in most poles before losing to o'donnell. he's a double digit leader now. "hardball" back after this. [ female announcer ] you use the healing power of touch every day.
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we get it. we get it. and this is why when we outlined in here, our pledge to america, i can tell you, we are very serious about implementing our pledge. >> i love it they take off the suits when they get serious.
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that was john boehner introducing the republican's pledge to america and here's what james clyburn of south carolina had to say about it. >> i have after reading over it last night, it occurred to me that if this is implemented, what we are going to see is the infliction of a plague on america. >> what effect will this new pledge have on the midterms? joining me now, steve mcmahan and todd harris. here are some of the points in the pledge on paper. it calls for making bush tax cuts permanent. business tax cuts, giving small businesses a deduction equal to 20% of their business income. it calls for a new cap on government spending. for the repeal of the health care bill. repeal. and fully funding, i don't know where this came from, missile defense. full funding of missile defense.
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that's an odd one. you're not laughing, steve. here's what is hidden under the table. changing the 14th amendment to guarantee citizenship. it's not on the paper here. >> people come here to have babies. they come here to drop a child. it's called drop and leave. >> republicans are talking about actions that would shut down government if they take control of government. >> stage one. of the end of obamaism will be a new republican congress in january that simply refuses to fund any of the radical efforts. >> shut down. some talk about repealing the 17th amendment. they're also talking about privatizing social security, which is addressed in a number of places, but particularly in paul ryan's so-called road map to america's future. it seems to me that a lot of the nice stuff is on paper here, but
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the stuff we're hearing at meetings, the more radical voices have been muffled here. >> one of the nice things about being in control of your party campaign apparatus is that you get to decide what you're going to run on and what you're not going to run on. you know, no democrat gets to decide that. no one in the media gets to decide what the republican message is going to be and clearly, what the leaders of our party have said is that this campaign is going to be about cutting spending, reducing the size of government, repealing and replacing obama care. so, you may not like it and you may want to ascribe things that others have said to what our party's going to run on, but that doesn't make it so. >> now you've got the argument, steve, that supervision will be at hand. all the crazy stuff we've heard isn't going to happen because according to todd -- what's your argument?
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his is that they're going to keep all these people in the playpen. there's not going to be any trouble for them. >> democrats have been saying for a while that the choice in this election is a choice for the future and past. i think what the republicans have done is they've actually proven that case. they were objecting to it before saying no, we're not going to go back to that, but now, they're proving it. they want to cut tax for rich, build the dang fence, build the ballistic system. the tea party candidates are more extreme. many want to do things like get rid of social security, medicare, because they think it's unconstitutional. rand paul in kentucky thinks the civil rights act is unconstitutional. they're keeping the crazies in the closet, but they are there and they've got an r next to their name. >> why are we talking about in a time of fiscal austerity, why are we talking about high
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frontier? that's missile defense against icbns, the kinds the soviets have. not cruise missiles, other kinds of tact kl or medium range. >> because the missile defense system isn't aimed at russia. >> who else has icbms that would kill the united states. >> i am not just going to sit and cross my fingers and hope that iran does not get the technology to create a nuclear warhead and a missile system where they can deliver it. i think it's totally reasonable and rational that we would prepare for something like that, but there's no question that missile defense is not going to be at the core of what republican candidates are talking about. >> steve, you take over. they're talking about missile defense for the whole united states. all the home land. they're talking about the whole country, they're going to have missile defense for.
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the cost of that, i would imagine, is unimagine l. there's the question. is that something to spend money on because somewhere down the line, someone's going to get an icbm, the kind of missile that got us into the iraq war, that they had a deliverable weapon that could reach here. >> you have a party on the one hand that wants fiscal c-- this ronald reagan who first proposed this in 1984. it was something we didn't need then and don't need now and certainly can't afford right now. i think that the republicans paul ryan, who thinks of himself as a fiscal hawk, would be hard pressed to explain why we should spend all this money at a time when we can't afford it. >> it's a time we're trying to get the soviets to reduce their missile supply. you know putting up a big wall around the united states is
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going to create another acceleration which we don't need in the 21st century in the u.s. versus russia missile race. the minute we put up that big wall, they would say, we need more missiles to make sure some get through. why is the united states reengaging in the cold war. your thoughts. what would you do if you were a russian and saw us doing this. you wouldn't think about iran. >> i'm sorry, todd. one of the things that's happening with the russians is we're beginning to engage in ways that are productive in the middle east and elsewhere. if we want to drive a wedge in between the relationships we need with the soviets, this is a great way to do it. >> who wrote this stuff? who are the neocons who have their hands in every republican document?
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you know it says whacky. >> i have no idea who wrote the document. i know they talked to a lot of average americans and these are the things -- >> i'm waiting to hear about precious bodily fluids. it's dr. strange love. >> hold on a minute. chris, for months, you've been talking about how the republican party is just the party of no. they don't stand for anything. they're just against everything that president obama says and so now, the party has come out and said we don't want to be the party of opposition ft we want to offer an alternative and now -- this is what we're going to do and i think it's a great thing they've done it it. >> let's restart the cold war. >> how about the party of no new ideas and no fresh ideas. >> todd, i know you didn't write this stuff. thank you, steve and todd. up next, sarah palin gives
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now to the "side show." watch marco rubio get his take on whether candidates with little experience such as christine o'donnell are fit for office. >> first of all, the original design of our republic was for every day people to serve in government for a period of time. the republic works and it's not designed to elect a bunch of experts. really to be an expert in the republic is someone who knows what life is like in the real
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world. >> people who pass vital legislation ought to know what they're talking about. by the way, it's that republican int lukt that led to sarah palin. >> what is it that in your mind, would be a reason to run? >> a reason to run is if nobody else were to step up with the solutions needed to get the economy back on the right track and to be so committed to our national security that they are going to do all they can including fighting those on the extreme left who seem to want to dismantle some of our national security tools in place. greta, i would offer myself up in the name of service to the public. >> that does mean to me she hasn't decided whether she's running or not. the new -- mentioned
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spending, i want this spent on my project, by the hill newspaper's account, earmarks are mentioned in this out today. zero times. when push comes to shove, republicans failed to take a stand. you know why? they think they're going to run the place next year. hot races around the country. some you expected and others weren't supposed to be this close. ghts on the planet. and asked frequent heartburn sufferers, like carl, to put prilosec otc's 24 hour heartburn protection to the test for two weeks. the results? i can concentrate on everything i'm doing, not even think about it anymore. since i've been taking it, i've been heartburn free, which is a big relief for me. [ male announcer ] take your 14-day challenge. ♪ prilosec otc. heartburn gone. power on.
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stocks tumbling into negative territory with the dow jones lower by 76 points, the s&p sliding nine and nasdaq
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finishing seventh points in the red. home sales not enough to reassure businesses. at this pace, there's still an 11.5 month simply on the market. mcdonald's pulling slightly despite a dividend hike. rite aid shares -- and lenox provider red hat spiking on software sales and nike shares are on better expected earnings news just after the closing bell. welcome back to "hardball."
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lots of hot developments this week. california, the new field poll, a much respected poll shows a dead heat. in the governor's race, jerry brown and meg whitman are tied at 41% each. new york senate, gillibrand and d dioguardi are close. the difference as i said before, registered voters. for more, let's bring in pat buchanan and david corn, who writes for politics daily. pat, i was stunned that jerry brown after all the mileage on this guy, everybody's seen him for years out there in california as mayor of oakland, governor of california for two terms, chairman of the democratic party, lots of
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experience in looking at the guy, they can't decide. 41-41 means 18% of likely voters haven't made up their minds. >> well, i think it's very bad news i think for jerry brown. of course, this lady spent $120 million i believe, chris, just to get to a tie, so i don't think she's an extraordinary strong candidate. what it does tell you though is how deeply democratic the state of california has become since the days of richard nixon and ronald reagan when we put it right in the bank before it started. >> maybe nixon had something to do with that. let me ask david this question. why are so many undecided with a blanket of tv commercials? i can't knock, but this kind of advertising like the dog doesn't like the food. there's something people are resisting. is california not on ebay?
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you can't buy it on ebay? >> if you could, she'd be ahead. the interesting thing about the undecided number, chris, is that it was 11% in march, 13% in july. now, 18%. so people are becoming more undecided as we move closer to the election. she spent $120 million. she's committed to spending 150 million more and she's had 30 million coming in from campaign here. she may spend a third of a billion dollars. >> okay. i need pat on this. i know you're not george will chaktly in terms of the first amendment, but spend all the money you can come up with, my question, do you think the danger is she might see in the tracking poll she's down two points the last thursday or friday night before the election and just drops another $15 million on the table and wins
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with pure money. is that good for our country? >> she's put 300 million, i'd throw the last 50 into the pot. >> but is it good for us. we're the pot. >> look, ross perot would have never run third party if he didn't have all that money. bloomberg, he would never be considered. that's where we are, chris. mitt romney i think is a fine candidate, but if he didn't have that money, would he be in this race? jack kennedy, if he didn't have a leisurely life and that money, would he be in the race? life is unfair as somebody said. >> it's not exactly a republic when people are buying it. here's carly fiorina's new ad. she's getting tough. >> you know, do me a favor, could you say senator instead of ma'am? i worked so hard to get that title, so i'd appreciate it,
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yes, thank you. >> 20 years in washington and barbara boxer works hard for a title. i'll really go to work to end the arrogance in washington. i'm carly fiorina and i approve this message. >> oh, god, this is brutal. david corn, you take a shot at this. turns out, having checked around today morning our producers, she did go over the top with that critique of that general by some people's standards. >> this is kind of a spot spot here. i would like to have seen carly fiorina go to bat for the 30,000 employees she laid off at hewlett-packard when she was outsourcing jobs and defending it. when we have jobs, climate issues, afghanistan, to make the race about this, and by the way, today, she is in washington, d.c. she is having fund-raisers with lobbiests. so here she is talking about the
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arrogance of washington when she's taking money, collecting money from the lobbiests in washington to work behind the scene to influence what goes on. that's arrogance in itself. >> some meeting in washington tells you this is a powerful and effective ad because it feeds into an impression of boxer, which is a negative one, but very widely held, it's said kind of softly and effectively, the folks in your office reacted like normal folks out there, maybe sympathetic to democrats. i think it hurts very badly because it has the ancillary benefit of being true. >> okay, here's video. a harry reid ad really going after sharon engel about a 2009, something she said about health care. this is another grabbing the tape and going after the opponent stuff. let's listen. >> take off the mandates for coverage in the state of nevada
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and all over the united states, but here, you know what i'm talking about. you're paying for things that you don't even need. they just passed the latest one as everything they want to throw at us now is covered under autism. so that's a mandate that you have to pay for. how about maternity leave? i'm not going to have any more babies, but i sure get to pay for it on my insurance. those are the kinds of things we want to get rid of. >> is that going to offend people with autism and their families, quotes in the air making fun of people who have been diagnosed with that? >> she said they're throwing everything at us under the mandate of autism? i don't know what she's even talk about there. it's not a serious criticism of the health care reform bill. it's amazing to me, still, that with everything harry reid is throwing at her, she still can
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win this thing. >> what this tells you though is -- i agree with david here, the desperation of harry reid -- >> wouldn't you go there, pat? >> talking about is the individual mandate and i agree it was badly stated when you got into that autism thing, what this shows you is the leader of the united states senate who got you national health care is in a campaign of desperation to save his seat against a candidate who is not a very polished candidate. >> can you imagine the u.s. senate made up of 100 sharon engels? you are a partisan to make that argument. pat, thank you. >> it is a disaster we got in this country and they -- for heaven's sakes -- >> this disaster was not delivered to us by the
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democratic senate or house. call the people responsible who set the policies that led to the crash that nearly destroyed our economy. the thing is, you can be there and cheerlead christine o'donnell, sharon engel, but i still think that having people who understand policy, who know what they're talking about, whether right, left or in the middle is important. >> that is where you're wrong and i'll tell you why. let me talk. people who are intelligence, may be smarter, but have got the wrong ideas and leading us in the wrong direction are worse to have. >> republicans put us here in the first place. >> it's like reagan. carter may have had a higher iq, but reagan happened to be right on the issues when he came to town and they worked and obama's have not. that's the problem. >> a recession -- the same thing happened to reagan that happened
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to obama. employment went up. he had a recession and he said, stay the course and at the time, you weren't saying, you made things worse cht. >> things got better under reagan. >> listen, things have gotten better in terms of job losses under barack obama. it's quite true. the rate of loss went down after obama came in and he had a stimulus that worked and kept unemployment from getting even higher. >> your argument is the argument of herbert hoover. it was not his fault. it worsened under him and got worse and worse and didn't get better for years. >> gentleman, i hope they're watching in california. you're reducing the number of undecided. thank you. up next, the hideous antigay insult posted on her website during a discussion about gays in the militaries has been traced back to the office of
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saxby chambliss of georgia. the senate says he's going to fire whoever did it. this is "hardball" only on msnbc. maybe you want school kids to have more exposure to the arts. maybe you want to provide meals for the needy. or maybe you want to help when the unexpected happens. whatever you want to do, members project from american express can help you take the first step. vote, volunteer, or donate for the causes you believe in at membersproject.com. take charge of making a difference. [ technician ] are you busy? management just sent over these new technical manuals. they need you to translate them into portuguese. by tomorrow.
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[ male announcer ] ducati knows it's better for xerox to manage their global publications. so they can focus on building amazing bikes. with xerox, you're ready for real business. nate silvers out with his latest forecasting model for the u.s. senate races and republicans have increased their chances of taking control. slightly. nate gives republicans now an 18-point chance of winning at least 51 seats. that's up from 15 points. notice the difference? on average, he's forecasting, it shows republican ending up with 47 and 48 seats. the democrats seem to be building a fire wall along the west coast where patty murray and barbara boxer are opening up leads in recent poling. looks like the left coast the holding. i thought i'd take a drive before work. want to come? [ female announcer ] or make his day. yeah. [ female announcer ] maxwell house gives you a rich, full-flavored cup of coffee,
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we're back. on tuesday night as the u.s. senate failed to move forward on repeal, don't ask, don't tell, someone calling himself or herself jimmy. posted a comment on a gay rights blog. that said, "all gays must die." though this jim nethis case used an antigay slur. it was a nasty, nasty comment. the blog's author was able to trace the comment, appeared to come from the computer of saxby chambliss on georgia. on wednesday someone in chambliss' office put out a statement that said in part --
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there's not been a determination as to who posted the comment. we invited senator chamb lis by the way or someone from's office to come appear on "hardball" tonight neither the senator or someone from his office agreed to come. let's turn on now to democratic congressman jared polis of colorado and art cooper. the log cabinet republicans. late today somebody grabbed ahold of the senator, senator chambliss. got him to say, "i won't tolerate any kind of sentiment like that. we'll have to see what's found out." keeping his options opened, saying he won't to right it. your comment ones s on that, se. what's your reaction to this in the way he's handled it? >> yeah, he ought to be able to find out who did it. you know we're talking about an office with six people, eight people, ten people, tops. find out what the computer terminal was. who was in the office at the time. you get it down to two, three people. you find out, you take quick action. the real problem is i mean how
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many republican staffers are out there have these kinds of crazy ideas that are so far removed from the american mainstream and contrary to our american values. >> let me go to claude cooper in that. you represent gay organization and you do a great job of that. >> not at all. >> not at all? >> no. no. >> what if this didn't happen. >> hey, this is one bad apple and senator chambliss himself said i will not tolerate any sentiment like that. and i just want to -- >> so why does he -- why doesn't he find out who did it? >> well, he's going through the due process. in fact i think it's actually appropriate that the sergeant arms investigate the i.p. address, and by the way, he doesn't have the six-rate staffer. senator chamb lis has 42, 44 staffers. >> no, no, you are playing defense here, clark, and i don't know why. this apparently came from his -- atlanta office. it didn't come from his -- office, committee of staffers. one office in atlanta and
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somebody in the office did it. why doesn't he call up his office, talk to his chief of staff and find out who did it? why does he bring in the democratic appointed sergeant of arms and doesn't know the people in the office. if you were the boss wouldn't you want to find out who did it immediately, take responsibility and not try to outsource it. >> of course, of course. so i'm not senator chambliss but i would presume that this staffer probably won't have a job in the near future. it's a no-go. i don't think any member, house, senate, republican or democrat, would tolerate it. >> how many days do you think -- how many weeks do you think that he should are to find out who did it. >> oh, i don't know. i would say that this is going to be probably taken care of very quickly. i'm not going to guess as to the process or time line for the sergeant of arms. what they're probably doing is looking to make sure that they have this airtight so that they can actually move forward and correct the personnel actions. >> hell has changed from when i worked there. in my day a politician -- congressman you get in here. you are responsible for everyone who works in the office naep
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serve at your pleasure. it's not a civil service. you don't have to go through the procedures. you find out who did it and you nail them. your thought, congressman? my was going to say, first of all, clark has a tough job being a member of a club that doesn't want him as a member. but moving beyond that, again, this is something that if it takes more than a couple of days it begins to get suspicious. look a benefit of a doubt, a day, two days. if it takes beyond that? what's the problem. a number limited of suspects, you talk to them. was it an intern, a paid staff snir don't know. what are the values of the people in your office? the procedure to put in the future to than your office knows not to do this thing. >> i would probably start with the person named james. thank you congressman polis and claude cooper. you are defending all republicans tonight. when we return -- >> not at all. >> bill clinton's advice to president obama. ♪ going faster than a roller coaster ♪ ♪ love like yours will surely come my way ♪ ♪ a-hey, a-hey-hey ♪ every day, it's getting faster ♪
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let me finish tonight with what president clinton started with this morning. actually, let me be tougher than him. let me put it on the line, straight from the shoulder. first of all, get on the same page as the voter. that was the big chunk of advice president clinton gave his democratic successor barack obama today. start feeling some of that pain, the people are feeling. clinton used to say he was looking out for people who work hard and play by the rules. well, millions of those people clinton talked about are out of work and not because of any fault of their own. obama's going to tell those people that it's not their fault. it's the economy, damn it, or stupid. i'm doing everything i can, in fact take a lot of hell for doing it to try to fix it. i'm trying big things and
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they're controversial but i'm doing what every smart economist tells us is the right thing do. so you can agree that i'm trying, the president should say, or not. but point is, i feel what you're feeling and i hate it. second president clinton said, obama should say it's a tough economic world out there. there's huge unemployment and not just in this country and this is clinton's third good advice for fwooums say i know that america's done it before, we've beaten out other countries before and we're going to do it this time. his fourth counsel to the president is to hit the attack and go after the opposition. i don't know about you but this is a bull's eye. done nothing in the last two years to obstruct, undermine and hide under the sidelines deserves a big fat of confidence this nov? three cheers for doing nothing when could have done something more constructive? bipartisan way to get jobs? fix wall street? yeah, that's the fat part of the target that the obama and democrats need to start hitting from now till election day