have political ramifications? hello, everyone. i'm cenk uygur. three weeks from today, voters are expected to kick the bums out and vote on a whole new set of candidates who vote that they're anti-establishment and anti-washington. the same people who claim to hate washington are asking voters to send them there. the real question is what will they do once they get there? right now sharron angle, joe miller, rand paul and christine o'donnell are talking a big populous gain. o'donnell claims she's you. but reality she's far more likely to look out for herself in d.c. scott brown, for example. when he ran in massachusetts, he claimed to be a populous to represent the people. he started wheeling and dealing. in all fairness, compromise is needed to pass legislation. so the question is, what did he want? well, he wanted $11 billion tax break for the bankers.

he negotiated to make sure that 11 billion of the $19 billion was taken from the united states taxpayers instead of the banks. guess who the top campaign donors are? yes, it turns out it's the banks. i didn't see that coming. there are a few in congress, bernie sanders, ron paul, al franken. the voting track records indicate they look out for their voters base on real principles, instead of campaign do nations. these people are few and far between because money has swallowed congress whole. everyone else convinced you need huge sums of money to run for re-election and the best way to get the money is to run for wall street. as senator durbin said about banking institutions and congress, he said frankly, they own this place. now we have richard wolffe, nbc

news political analyst. richa richard, do i have this wrong, or are the populists going to realize, oh my gosh, i need to get reelected. >> well, it is interesting watching someone like scott brown come dm and run the senate office in a very different way than his campaign. it leads to tensions and frustrations. when you get to the money piece of it, it's pervasive. the hard thing obviously is to stop it in a meaningful way that is still constitutional. and what you have here is a desire for disclosure. that's why the white house is talking about who is behind the chamber of commerce. . i'm not sure how far it resonates past a small group. look at indiana.

you have dan coats, big pro business. does not seem to have hurt his prospect in any way. as the media, though, richard, are we too credulous about the politicians? we sit there and listen to what they claim is their motivation, and shockingly it turns out scott brown helps his top donors and bankers. and a democrat winds up helping the health care industry, who is his top do nors? shouldn't we be asking? >> reporter: you can ask. people do. there's a lot of good reporting about donors. the campaign laws keep changing. they don't always change in ways that help disclosure. so the job is to dig as much as possible. there's been lots of good reporting on that. the difficult thing is drawing the line. the straight line from finance, from donations to legislation or administrative favors.

that's the hard thing. but proving in it in a meaningful way for reporting is pretty hard. >> well, i will continue to suggest it. that's the evidence leads us. richard wolffe, thank you for joining us. nbc news political analyst, of course. now, can true outsiders get anything done, or will they compromise the principles when they get in? what will capitol hill look like if the tea party backed candidates sweep into power? ken strickland has been talking to us. ken, you know, you did a lot of interviews with these guys, with politicians who are leaving. what did they tell you about the influence of money? >> well, the influence of money is hard to track. the hardest part of covering capitol hill is you're rying to figure out what people's real motivations are. do candidates and senators from congress take money from outside

donors? absolutely. you have to look at past records. how have they voted in the past? and what are they saying about these actions. it's hard to nail down. >> right. how about raising money? how much of the days are spent doing that in office? >> i talked to evan bayh during his exit interview. the senate terms are six years. he said his father would say during the first four years you didn't have to worry about raising money. it was the last two years. now all the way for the whole six years you spend time raising money. it has become a place where you work tuesday through thursday. you're raising money in washington. you're raising money across the country. chris dodd has been in the senate for 30 years. he says over the course of the five re-election campaigns, he

never spent as much money as linda mcmahon did in one primary. >> wow. that's amazing. and how much they care about it to get reelected? how about influences outside of money? conservative or liberal organizations or talk show hosts? >> for as old as congress is. as the bleeper section, talk radio, 24-hour cable. these groups know how congress is supposed to work, which is compromise. the moment they detect one of their own is negotiating or caving, they go after him. so it's really changed the dynamics on how congress works. at the end of the day, all these members of congress want to get reelected. this is really a small percentage of the people that

engage in this type of warfare for lack of better words. they're the same people who go out in vote vote in the snow and rain. >> ken strickland. thank you for joining us. really appreciate it. nbc's senate producer. great information there. so, look, it's time for my predictions. these so-called tea party pop li populists will all vote for regulation. they continue to take a wild risk with taxpayer money and give the banks the tax break on top of all of that. the system is set up wrong. as long as we allow the politicians to take money from the elections, for the elections, from special interests, those interests will be the bos. they're the ones paying them. until we change the system so we the people are the boss, all the so-called anti-washington politicians will always sell us out. that's what they're paid to do at this point with this broken

system. pete peter -- a democratic strategist and john fiore. former communications director for denny hastert. let me start by asking you this question. what part of that do i have wrong? am i overstating the influence of money in elections? >> i think the number one criteria for how they vote, i worked in the house leadership for 15 years. members vote based primarily on how the constituents want them to vote. i think what you'll find out in this election, you'll see a lot of populists who want to cut government spending. they want taxes not to go up from the republican side.

you'll see when the first conflict comes in with the president and the budget, the president will offer a budget to spend more money. conservatives are going to say no. they'll have a showdown over spending. i think out of that tough compromise, out of the tough conflict, you'll have good compromise. but it's going to be tough. it's going to be painful. there will be a lot of soul searching on both sides of the aisle. >> are both parties concerned about being guilty about money? perhaps not even their fault. it's the way the system is set up, or do you think one party is worse than another? >> is it up to me or to john? >> i'm sorry. it's to peter first. >> i'm sorry. i think that the republicans and the independent expenditures in the election have really just blown the system way out of whack. i think you're analysis of the money in the system and the corruptive nature of that money is exactly right.

look, it's one thing to be an outsider and running against washington and to be angry to try to shake things up. scott brown took ted kennedy, my old boss' seat, he found out and went to bat for the people he cared about in massachusetts. there's some of that. i really believe the pressure on these candidates to raise the money as opposed to thinking about the issues and finding out what is the best publy policy vote to make is really the big problem. i don't see an end in that, quiet frankly. mccain-feingold tried to do that. now we don't know where we're going to go. >> why can't we do public financing of election so we pay the candidates, not the lobbyists.

the democrat interest groups really through all kinds of money that helped get the democrat congress elected in 2006 and president obama elected in 2008, it's complaining over these outside groups spending money. the democrats started this, and they did it first. you can try to get that run up a flag pole. i'm sure most taxpayers are tired of paying for politicians as it is. they don't want to pay for their campaigns. >> john has it half right. president obama's campaign was built on millions and millions of small donors across the country. >> and soros. >> he contributed. >> millions and millions of dollars. >> john, i have to come back to you. i totally disagree with you. if you're so scare ad about him,

why not take his influence out of the election? you're worried about public financing of campaigns. that may cost hundreds of millions of dollars. i costs trillions of pork barrel projects and the defense contractors and the tax cuts. it all costs us so much more money when our politicians sell out to the donors? >> we have a little thing called the first amendment. the first amendment allows people to contribute to political campaigns and actively participate in the political system. if you want to get rid of the first amendment and have taxpayers pay for the exam pains, you go ahead and do that. >> so you are in favor of him using the first-amendment rights? >> i'm in favor of everybody using their independent rights. >> i'm all in favor of disclosure. i've always been in favor of disclosure. people have a right to the first amendment rights to participate

in a political election. they're doing that. they did it on the right. this campaign is not about that money. this campaign is about barack obama and his mishandling of the economy. >> john said he's in favor of disclosure. ten years ago when they took a volt. 48 out of 54 republican senators agreed with him. when they took the vote a month ago, none of them voted for disclosure. do you see an issue there? >> well, i do. it's a different climate in washington now. this is where the anger comes from. there were a lot of principle republicans, john mccain being one of them. but the pressure mainly from a tea party movement and the republican wing of the party has a lot of folks running scared. and they're always looking over the shoulder on a vote. and they're afraid whatever they do will be for trade as promoting big government. even though in this case it's promoting big public policy. >> peter, you know that every

member of congress and senator has to disclose who is giving them money. there's already disclosure in the election laws. when you contribute to a politician. you have to disclose that. that's already disclosure. >> all right. we have to go. the reality is a lot of corporations, a lot of corporations do not have to disclose. they're doing it through nonprofits. karl rove has set up and democrats have set up as well. thank you, peter and on. appreciate you guys joining us. >> thanks a lot. >> good to be here. >> coming up next, beauty and the political best. are gop women hotter than democratic women? and why? fascinating? 3q are you suffering from frequent heartburn ?

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washington is hollywood for ugly people. that's how it used to be. that's how the old saying goes. if you listen to esquire magazine, you get a very different take. a big part of the reason for the coming republican resurgence is

because they have attractive candidates. from sarah palin to christine o'donnell to michele bachmann, republicans figured out that americans care more about entertainment values than family values. what the republicans understand is precisely what the democrats don't. that the same revolution that transformed country music and broadcast news is under way in politics. the democrats haven't lost to soccer moms because they're so concerned about them eating up the federal inheritance. they've lost because they can't find a single candidate who looks like one. tom juno, the man who wrote that piece joins me in the studio along with the executive editor who recently wrote an article called "sex and the gop." both sound very fun. lay out your case for us. why do you think these women help the republican? >> well, my point was that the republicans have gotten off the

mat by embracing entertainment values. part of that is producing stars as much as producing candidates. christine o'donnell is the perfect example of one. she really has no basis for being a candidate. but she has a basis for being a star. >> i'm not buying that. ou outside of sarah palin, i'm not seeing what other people see. who do you think these women are meant to appeal to? >> i think all the polling shows they appeal to win. the mama grizzly phenomenon is largely, i think, an artifact of very effective marketing strategy. christine o'donnell, you see her all over tv, but she's down 20 points. >> how does it help if christine o'donnell loses?

>> i think in general they put star after star after star. men by saying outrageous things. women saying outrageous things who tend to be semi-attractive. >> so christine o'donnell can go do a book tour like sarah palin. i get the win for her. i'm not seeing the win for republicans. do you think they're appealing to the women in the party, or are they trying to appeal to the women who are like, i'm so turned on by sarah palin, i have to go to the polls. >> i live in marietta, georgia. i live amongst soccer mom ls. my feeling is that the democrats have lost that particular demographic. i think soccer moms in general identify with people like sarah palin. >> let's go to that. how should the democrats respond if you say it appeals to men, because i read your piece.

you make a compelling point they do better among men than women. that's an appealing strategy. should the democrats follow suit? the democrats challenge is getting the women to vote. there's a big gender gap across the country. women prefer obama to mccain palin by a cig scant margin. and all of the major races, even the ones featuring republican women, there's a big favor gap. the issue is the enthusiasm gap. the wick are anxious. they're frustrated. they don't have enough information about the candidates. they may not be motivated to vote. that is what is keeping democratic strategists up at night. >> tom, are we, you know, being a little unfair to men here? women are voting based on interests. they're not swayed by this, according to the numbers, not just opinions. men are schmucks. so we're like, she's hot, i'll vote for her. >> sure. >> great. are you buying that?

>> i don't know what the reasons are. i think the babe factor has something to do with it. i also think in general women are more favorable about the government's role in the economy. they're much more supportive of health care reform. they're more supportive of a government that takes a role in pulling the country out of a recession. on the issues ideologically, women tend to be more liberal. >> all right. interesting conversation, as i suspected. tom and betsy. thank you for doing it. really appreciate it. it's a banner year for wall street bankers. how big were the bonuses. how can we get it back from them? plus conservative government anti philosophy makes no sense. why it's indefensible. ♪

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because it contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator, working together to help you breathe better. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. i had fun today, grandpa. you and me both. if copd is still making it hard to breathe, ask your doctor if including advair will help improve your lung function for better breathing. get your first full prescription free and save on refills. it's all about the benjamins for wall street. they're back to record bonuses. next why they gain all the money why the rest of the economy suffers. and we're going to tell you what we can do about it.

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i'm hampton pearson with your cnbc market wrap. let's take a look at how stocks are doing thus far. right now we've got the dow up about 32 points. the s&p 500 up just under six points. and the nasdaq up just over 18 points. meanwhile, continental airlines has grounded its free food. executives are rolling out a new venue today, and passengers should be prepared to pay on domestic flights. prices range from $1.50 to more than $8 for chicken salad. passengers flying on first class and international flights will still eat for free. continental is the last major carrier to offer free meals. meanwhile, the gap is going back to the original look. the retailer changed the iconic blue and white logo last week. after customer complaints they

released a statement saying they med a mistake. tropicana changed its name last year. after that, the brand's name went back to the orange straw photo on the box. that's it from cnbc first in business worldwide. back to you. >> all right. well, it's that time of year again when bankers tell us how much money they just have to take in bonuses for their talent. according to "wall street journal." the big banks and financial firms are about to shell out $144 billion in bonuses to their employees. congratulations wall street, you've done it again. that comes despite the financial reform bill and we just suffered the so-called great recession and the economy is still in

massive trouble. honestly it's because they're sucking all the money out of the system. the genius idea was we should give trillions of dollars to the banks and hope they do the right thing. does it look like they're lending to small businesses? no. is it trickling down to you? no. are they doing the right thing? hell no. now let's talk to you william cohan. bill, you have some interesting ideas about how to change all this. first, let's figure out what's wrong. is the idea that hey, you know, if we just tell them they're being greedy and yell at them they'll be less greedy. does that make any sense? >> that's not working. to come back with $144 billion in bonuses after what we just all been through is really tone

deaf to the extreme. >> right. the reality is i think tone deaf, who cares. they're taking the money and they're taking it home. from their perspective it makes all the sense in the world. like obama yelled at me. ooh! so isn't the real problem the incentive structure? >> absolutely. all their objective is to generate more revenue. if they find a new product like mortgage-backed securities, they just sell, sell, sell until a bubble is formed, the bubble explodes. meanwhile, they get paid for the revenue they generate. i'm suggesting if you really want to change with serious reform, get these guys to have more skin in the games like they used to when they were a private partnership and the entire net worths were on the line every day. we are so far away from the system where they are paid on revenue generations. they get to put it in their pocket. well, no. no. they should be paid from the

pretax profits of the firm. the top 100 people at these firms. so if something goes wrong, these guys are the first to lose. everything. not just the stock options they have. but everything. their house, the banking cards, cars, everything. >> we'll come back to that in a second. in the old days when we had private partnerships for the banks, including the partnerships that exist today. none of them crashed, right? and the reason was what? why are private partnerships so much better than public financial firms? >> when you are in a private partnership, all the capitol that partnership has come from the partners. what a surprise. and the entire liability of a partner was the net worth. if the firm got into trouble and there were losses, then

creditors could come back to the individual partners and ask them for money to sell their house, sell their cars, whatever, to make the creditor sold. when they went public all the risk was put on shareholders and credito creditors. that began happening in 1970 and was a march to public owner ship from then to 2010 to where we are now. >> even if they didn't screw the taxpayers, which they eventually did, right? they still would be putting their shareholders at risk. they don't own the bank. they run the bank. >> that's right. and there's no way to claw back and get back from them the money that they took out for bonuses and had them somehow be held accountable for the mistakes they made. i'm proposing they be accountable again up to the entire net worth. if you do that with the top 100

people in the firms, it won't happen again. >> that's interesting. you know, i don't want the taxpayers on the hook. i don't want the shareholders. that's not the way it's supposed to -- or the creditors. that's not the way capitalism is supposed to work. you also have the downside of risk, right? >> right. >> so we believe in capitalism, right? >> absolutely. >> but how do we bring that back? what are you going to do? get rid of public operations? >> that's not going to happen. >> so you take the top 100 guys at the firms, the ones making decisions, who to hire and fire, and make them sign an agreement amongst themselves that they will put their entire net worth on the line and that will be evidence by some sort of security. first signs of trouble, that's what is launched first. not the shareholders or creditors, but their net worth. when they have that focus, they will be more concerned about the

risk they're taking than the revenue they're generating by a fancy new product they're selling. >> let me get that right. if they sign this agreement, the banking executives, the ones making the decisions, they will be the first ones to lose their money. so whether you go bankrupt, thar going to say, hey, you screwed this up. give me your yacht and everything. you're back on the street. that's a good incentive structure. that didn't happen. at all. so we didn't fix it. this would really fix it. if you fix the incentive structures on wall street, you'll fix wall street behavior. because wall street is motivated by one thing, they do what they are rewarded to do. they're rewarded to be prudent

about the risks they're taking, that's what they'll do. otherwise it's bells and whistles they can get around. >> the politicians are motivated by money in donors. the bankers are motivated by the money they will make from the bonuses. if they have no downside, they'll take risks with your money if you're a shareholder or if you're a taxpayer. if the taxpayers back them up. if you do this, i'll take my talent to somewhere else like bangladesh or somalia. but is that a real problem? >> i don't think so. we started the discussion with $144 billion in bonuses about to be paid out this year. no business on the face of the earth pays out a greater percentage of their compensation to employees as they do on wall street. they get paid way too much. i know this for a fact. they get paid way too much to generate revenue. cut down the amount they pay.

make sure the top hundred guys have real skin in the game. everything they own. forget it. these guys will do what they're rewarded to do, which is to be sensitive about the risks they're taking. none of that exists now. >> and so if we wanted to o try to fix it. is there another way to do this? to empower the shareholder to back to capitalism and say shareholders, they own the company. so should they have more of a say in executive compensation and passing internal rules like the ones you're suggesting? >> i think wall street should do this on its own. this is good business sense. if you can assure the people you're doing business with that you have more skin in the game than they can imagine, i think that would be good for business. they don't do anything on their own. i suggest we get the sec who is

writing regulations to do this. if the sec won't do it, get congress to do it. or shareholders absolutely should demand this. and congress needs to pass a law empowering them. they're the ones that own the company. >> i couldn't agree with you more. >> william cohan, great guest. thank you for joining us. >> appreciate it. >> why tea party anti-government ideology is senseless. i'll prove my case. you'll see. plus what's topping the news now next on msnbc.

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you're looking at live pictures from camp hope, the site where 33 chilean miners are set to be free within hours. it appears to be a calm and organized atsz fear. family and friends have gathered as the men prepare for what could be the most difficult moments of the entire ordeal. right now final preparations are under way to begin the delicate process of pulling the miners to safety. about 30 minutes ago chilean's president arrived at the mine to show his support for the men and to survey the area. nbc's kerry sanders sh in the heart of the rescue operation in chile. what's the latest, kerry? >> reporter: well, cenk, the president is about 100 yards away from me right now meeting with the family members who have been anxiously waiting for this day to come. i think if this was nasa we would have a count down clock over the shoulder. but because they haven't put on a specific time, everybody isn waiting mode.

it could happen within the next couple of hours. it may happen when the sun goes down. we're just waiting. all the prep appears to be in place. the health minister says every check box has been marked off. they know they have everything set they can prepare for. the engineers say they believe they have everything in place. the president said just went up to the mouth of the hole where the escape capsule will come up. he inspected it. they poured concrete. it's now dry and level for the men to step out. the men know today is the day. they've been given an order that the men will be brought up from the first to last. and the escape capsule will go down with a rescuer on board. he will go down. a paramedic will get out. one of the miners will get in. he'll come up. it will go down again with another medic will who will go down.

they'll do about four or five experts, engineering going down, but each time it comes up, we will see another miner come to the surface. if everything goes as planned, the ride up is about 15 minutes. they believe if they're using a really big window here, that they'll have everybody out in 48 hours. if everything goes as planned, it looks like they could do it ahead of that, maybe in 33 or 35 hours. clearly everything is set. once the men are out, cenk, they know they'll meet with the families in a triage areas. then they're supposed to get on helicopters and fly to the hospital. but each say they want to remain up here and wait for all 33 so they can be rescued on the surface together and then make their way to the hospital. up here, they're not so certain they can happen just because it's too difficult to move the men. they really haven't built an area where the men will be able to sit for hours upon hours waiting for the others to come up, cenk. >> kerry sanders, thank you so much.

i hear they have some fun gifts waiting for them, too. some a little sexy. that's interesting. right now we have breaking news actually. we'll go to milissa rehberger for that. >> well, we have breaking news, cenk, in regard to that. the dark haze in the mexican texas border where an american couple were out jet skiing just about a week or so ago, and the wife reported that a boat load of mexican pirates chased them while they were on the mexican side of that lake, and that her husband was shot. she was not able to save him. she has been putting forth an effort ever since to try to find her husband's remains to bring back to america. well, this is the breaking news that we have today. the severed head of the mexican investigator, the lead investigator in the case has been delivered to the mexican army. once again, the severed head of a mexican investigator investigating this case of the american couple who had been shot at, the husband was killed, david michael hartley, still has not been found. we've been told over the past weekend the two mexican brothers

were suspects. there's been conflicting information about whether they are suspects or not. we now know once again the lead investigator in the case, his severed head has been sent to the mexican army. tiffany hartley, david hartley's wife has been putting forth an effort ever since. she saw him shot, she believes in the back of the head while she were jet skiing on the lake. falcon lake on the texas/mexican border. she said ever since she wants her husband's remains back and it's all she's been asking for really. but very grim news today in a dangerous part of mexico. >> the situation in mexico is disastrous. i have to be honest. they have to stop the war on drugs. they're just empowering these gangs. that's my opinion. milissa, thank you. >> sure. >> when we come back, what does it really men when someone says they're against the government? why it makes no sense.

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welcome back. there's been amazing developments in the case. we've got severed heads and mexican pirates. unbelievable. >> just when you thought things couldn't get more disgusting and disgraceful in this case, they absolutely have. a going back to september 30th, just to bring you up to speed, a couple of texas were out for a day of jet-skiing on falcon lake which borders texas and mexico. apparently and obviously to us now, the mexican side of the lake is a very, very dangerous area. the couple were jet-skiing when suddenly, mexican pirates came after them and shot them. the husband was shot. according to his wife, in the

back of his head. for her safety, she took off to the texas side of the border. since then, she has been trying to get her husband's remains back and solve this mystery of what happened. but the united states and mexico have been working together. the two governments to solve this. well, today, a very, very grim discovery in this case. the lead mexican investigator, his severed head was sent to the mexican army. that is the breaking news that we have right now. that is obviously a truly disgusting development. it just goes to show you dangerous the area is. >> i mentioned the war on drugs earlier just because over the last several years, the gangs have gotten so much stronger. these are pirates and it might be a different situation. i just wanted to clarify that. thank you. now before the midterm

elections, there's a lot of antigovernment talk from tea party candidates. the idea is that they push is that the government can't get anything done. this is utter nonsense. in fact, they don't even believe that. these conservative candidates are now and have always been in favor of wars abroad with few exceptions like rand paul. so the government is confident except when it invades a foreign country? they love the government when it does what they want. they want the government out of our lives except when they tell you who you can or can't mary, what you can and can't smoke. the whole promise is silly. you can't be pro or antigovernment. is anyone against the police department or the fire department? are they all incompetent government employees? they don't want the government

taking our money and building another submarine we don't need. progressives don't want their money wasted anymore than conservatives do, so the question is, what government programs make sense and what don't. here's one government rule that definitely makes sense. regulating the markets. of course, there can be overregulation, but the argument is that there should be no cops on the beat. you know who doesn't want cops around? the robbers. so, the next time you hear someone pushing an antigovernment message, they have an agenda, but it's not aimed at protecting you. that's how our show for today. i'll be back here tomorrow and 3:00 p.m. eastern. you can catch me tonight. "the dylan ratigan show" is up next. mom, did you borrow my green shirt?

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good afternoon. a cure worse than a disease? growing debate today about a nationwide freeze on foreclosures as the dominos begin to fall and a financial scandal -- anything we've seen so far and lead to the highest levels of our government and banking system. today, we're looking at what the real solution, perhaps the only solution to this problem is. to open up the books once and for all on these bad loans jammed into taxpayer's gut and fannie, freddie and the feds and see how far the sickness has spread in this country. also, the white house squaring up with karl rove over corporate cash in this election.

are secret donors trying to buy your vote? of course they are. come on. we'll talk about it with the man who knows rove well. matthew dowden, the chief strategist for bush in '04. he's part of the e-team. don't get too excited thinking karl rove is the only one spending secret money in this election. plus, hours away from freedom for the trapped miners. turns out their wives met their girlfriends were stuck down beneath. show starts right now. good tuesday afternoon to you. i want you to think of the state of the american banking system now. as a man with heart disease and a man that keeps denying that he's sick, a man who's doctor, in this case, the federal