show plays on xm 167 noon monday through friday. "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now on the place for politics. msnbc. we'll see you back here tomorrow night. shake it up. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, change we can believe in. so here's a question for democrats, progressives and moderates and both, what do you do to show the voters that you pay attention that you're listening that you believe in what you've done but

know you can do better? how do you get better politically as well as get the policy right, you know, the policy that will put americans back to work and in time to save your party? nancy pelosi laid out her defense today and said the avalanche of democratic defeats was simply a reflection of the unemployment rate. it wasn't her fault. it was the economy's fault. not all democrats see it that way. 15 members of the house of representatives have questioned the current leadership team and it's our top story tonight. how do the democrats beef up after a bad fall? how do they build up to win it all back in 2012, including the public's confidence in them? we'll get to the hard geography of it, too, how president obama can win with back the faith of those rust belt voters getting smashed today by the economy. also, remember the heroes, remember that great senator from new york, daniel patrick moynihan, remember when our leaders can see the future

coming and could tell us how to prepare for it? oh, yeah, he also could talk to the other side. and the republicans certainly staged a comeback in this election but not too long ago, widespread scandals cost the party control of congress and corrupt lobbyist jack abramoff was in the middle of it. now abramoff is being played by two-time academy award-winner kevin spacey in the new film "casino jack," he will be here, kevin to talk about it, and what it is like to play a sleezeball that brought down the republican party the last time they had power. let me finish tonight on the very same subject, political corruption and how it gets going here, how absolute power corrupts absolutely. let's start with the big question, all right democrats in congress change or stay with what they have got to what got them here after the worst defeat in 70 years? congressman john garamendi is a democrat from california and congresswoman donna edwards, the democrat from maryland. mr. garamendi, first of all, are you happy with the leadership of the democratic party in the house that led you to 60-some defeats in this election? >> you bet i'm happy with nancy pelosi and steny hoyer in the leadership. it's not just the election. take a look at what was actually

accomplished, the extraordinarily legislative accomplishments that took place, all the way from this -- american recovery act, bailing out and saving the financial base of america, jobs bills, high-speed rail, all kinds of legislation passed the house. very important, largest legislative agenda perhaps in the last 50 years. not all of it, in fact, very little of it passed the senate and got to the president and because of that, i think we were unable to turn the economy around as fast as we could have had those bills actually been passed into law. nancy pelosi's a great leader, steny hoyer's a great leader and we are going to need that kind of strong leadership. >> okay, let go to donna edwards? do you agree with that? everything that congressman garamendi questioned was passed by the house and the senate. the regulation was passed by the president, by the senate, the stimulus bill, passed by the senate, signed the president. the health care bill. those are the issues and knocked

almost all of your moderates out of the congress and reduced you to a minority, you have lost all the seats you won in '06, all the seats you won in '08, plus more seats and you are sticking with the same team. no sports general manager would do that, no sports general manager would stick to the same team after such a wipeout, your thoughts? >> i will tell you that i think we start out that we've had three volatile elections in this country starting with 2006. and what we are doing is we are sticking with a leadership team and i would count among them jim clyburn as part of that leadership team that is going to get us back to the majority. >> who are you going to vote for, steny or clyburn? >> i'm from maryland, share a county with steny hoyer, part of the congressional black caucus. > how are you going to vote? who gets to be whip? >> i think the leader that nancy pelosi is going to work out a dole with the three of them in the room that makes sure we have a leadership table that really represents our caucus. >> if you were going to vote right now, steny and jim clyburn for majority whip, number two, who would you vote for? >> chris, i'm not voting, i'm not voting on that.

the leadership team. >> what is the name of the show, congresswoman? >> it is really "hardball." >> all right. thank you. go back to nancy pelosi, here speaking in her defense today, felt she had to do. this she is, i think smart to reach out to the public, not just members of congress, she hasn't been doing that for two years, actually having an outside public relations communications strategy, i don't think. here she is attempting that in "usa today," one of the big national newspapers. "results of last week's elections reflected the general frustration of the american people who are justifiably angered by the continued high unemployment rate. while democrats are also disappointed at the rate of job growth it does not diminish what we've accomplished. " it sounds to me, mr. garamendi, her attitude is, yeah, it sucks out there, the economy's bad, but don't blame me. and that seems to be your view as well, don't blame pelosi, is that your view, don't blame pelosi? >> no, my view is that the economy was in a terrible, terrible state when obama came into office and major legislation was passed to turn it around.

that legislation would have been even more successful had the action of the house actually been made into law. but the reality was that when obama came into office, we had -- he was handed a $1.3 trillion deficit. >> right. >> and we had no help, no help whatsoever from the republicans in the house or in the senate. they simply refused to help, basically following the mitch mcconnell strategy of let it all go straight -- >> he asked for the job. he asked for the job knowing what the dems were going to be. let's not get crying over this. not crying, but chris, we need to understand the progress that was made. >> okay. >> and in fact, very significant legislation was passed. >> okay. >> which is very, very important for now and onto the future. you talked at the outset of this about moynihan looking to the future. you look at those pieces of legislation that you talked about, those are all things that will change america for the better in the future as well as right now. >> okay. you got 15 members of congress

out, let's take a look -- run the picture of -- 15 members of congress, going to run their names thought now if we have it the 15 names of congressmen out there and women who are saying, here are the nice. ones who have raised i shall because this election of speaker pelosi and heath shore of north carolina, dan borne of oklahoma, jason altmire of pennsylvania on this show, peter defazio of oregon, daniel lipinski, larry kissell, north carolina, tim ryan of ohio, michael quigley of illinois and also albio sires of new jersey. sos on the all across the country. not just conservatives, most of the conservatives and moderates wiped out of the party. now let's look at this issue, "usa today," i mentioned, a gallup poll on the cover today, fascinating number, they have asked people, should the democrats basically stick to their principle, the question, the way they put it, 59% of democrats think it more important for political leaders, democrats to compromise only 18% stay is more important to stick to their believes. congressman garamendi, 18% say stick to the democratic line,

this is democrats talking, democratic voters, 59% compromise. what do you think? >> of course we must compromise. we're going to have to compromise. >> have you been doing it for two years? have you been doing it for two years or just -- go ahead. >> chris, you know there's been major efforts to do just that. it was the republicans who absolutely refused to work with anything, even such things as ending tax breaks for american corporations that shift jobs offshore. the republicans refused to short end on those tax breaks. they can want more jobs shipped offshore, little thing things and big things, no support, no compromise from them. yes, we will compromise, we always had. you take a look at those major pieces of legislation. each one of those is a compromise, and, significantly, in my view, weakened as a result of the compromise as it took place most low in the senate. >> congressman edwards, what's your view? is the public right when 59% that say compromise or the 18% that says hold your position.

stay liberal. stay progressive? >> the public is right they want us to get something done, not for us or them. >> are they right about compromise? >> i think if you look at the health care bill, it was a compromise, may not have been what everyone wanted, but some of us who would have written a different bill had we had a chance to do it. >> better off with the country on a more liberal position? >> i'm saying -- >> would you in better shape now if that was a more progressive bill? >> i think people would have understood it a little bit more and i think that we can do a lot -- but it's transformational. what udlike to see us do, and i think there are points on which republicans and democrats can agree, we have got to get down to that because that's what the american people -- >> i'm going to ask you first this time then congressman garamendi next, how do you send a message to voters that you have ears and brains? everybody knows democrats have hearts that is the strength of party, you do care about regular people it is the republicans tough on law and order and tough on defense, the tough guys, you are the party that cares about

people. we know that party. do you have a brain? do you have ears? can you hear the public? they voted against your party. they knocked out 60-some members of your party, they are friends of yours, you know them personally, work with them every day, get in the elevate we are them every day, you take the escalator, you know these people. they are gone. do you hear the message and what are you going to do to prove you heard the message? >> i heard the message that american people want jobs and want us to focus on bringing them jobs much the american people are disappointed rightfully so and frustrated that all across this country, unemployment is still where it's been, 9.6%. >> and when is it going to change? hasn't changed in a long time. >> we have been to on a steady -- we haven't increased unemployment. i think we have actually begun to create some jobs in the private sector. >> come up since january. >> but able to increase some jobs in the private sector, which is really important, but republicans and democrats, because people lose their jobs, they are not republicans or democrats, they are just people without jobs. >> you two folks are from the coast, you know, like my wife, she has lived in california, lived in chevy chase, not sure a lot of people are familiar what

it is like from the middle of this country, what i like to call from scranton to oshkosh, will have members of congress on, too. the midwest voted for jerry brown, voted for barbara boxer, they voted for patty murray. it's fine out there. the east coast. kirsten gillibrand walks in andrew cuomo walks in, you own the two coasts, you are losing in the middle of the country because it sucks out there from pennsylvania all wait to wisconsin including a clean guy like russ feingold got blown away for reason, jobs are not created. most people don't think jobs are coming back for americans. what are you going to do to bring jobs back to people voting democrat for hundreds of years and not voting that way anymore because they are reagan democrat again? how do you bring them back? >> chris, you're a sports fan, we have talked about this. >> i'm talking about the big ten states. >> let's talk about the big ten. if you consider the first quarter being the eight years of the bush administration in which things went into a tank in a bad, bad way, 800,000 jobs per month being lost, per quarter being lost in those years, then

the second quarter was the last two years with obama coming in, stabilized things, brought the country back to stability, not where we need to be. we are now in the second half. here is what we must do, chris. >> can you get it down to the 8% the president promised, that christine romer promised, his economic adviser? down to the 8% he promised? >> chris, there is a way of doing it and what we have set out to do and this is part of the agenda that was started, we need to carry this on for the next two years. and that's an agenda of rebuilding the american manufacturing sector. make it in america. if america is going to make it we must make it in america. for example, two things. we have green technology tax credits for solar and wind. but those pieces of equipment are not made in america that's our tax money it should be spent on american-made equipment and similarly, buses and trains, all of that transportation money. >> yes! yes! yes! that's all i say. yes!

>> make it america-made. that's the second agenda. >> have trains again, build things again like they did when growing up. why do we have to outsource building stuff? aren't americans up to building anything? >> no, chris, you have got right. >> let's have the other country, third world countries, we will be thoughtful, they will build things that is the kind of stuff -- we got to compete -- yeah, i know. thank you, congressman garamendi. if you don't get this goal done by the spring of 2012, do you think congress -- do you think ask you -- will the president get re-elected if you don't get the jobs number down? >> we have to get the jobs number down. we have to do it by creating jobs. >> thank you. thank you so much. congressman have a nice -- i think thanksgiving is coming too, thank you congressman garamendi, such an arresting last name, i call you by your last name, thank you, john garamendi and donna edwards. coming up, one thing we learned from last week's midterm, president obama has a problem as i said in the big ten states. right from pennsylvania, westward, to all of those big industrial states where people wear jobbers to football games, from scranton to oshkosh, can you win them back? he ain't going to do it without jobs. we'll talk about that in the

presidential race coming up next here. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. the sushi place around the corner. well, in that case, i better get back to these invoices... which i'll do right after making your favorite pancakes. you know what? i'm going to tidy up your side of the office. i can't hear you because i'm also making you a smoothie. [ male announcer ] marriott hotels & resorts knows it's better for xerox to automate their global invoice process so they can focus on serving their customers. with xerox, you're ready for real business.

love this story. they've started counting write-in ballots up in alaska, senate race there. joe miller filed suit in federal court to block state officials from counting any misspellings. how is that for populism? any misspellings of the name murkowski. he's not going to allow. in other words, what an elitist. the state plans to use voter intent as it tallies votes for murkowski, presumably lisa m. or murkowski misspelled would be a vote for the incumbent senator. miller is more than 11,000 votes behind the total number of write-in ballots so he's trying to turn this election into a spelling contest. what a regular guy. don't elitists do this thing? if you can't spell murkowski, you can't vote for the person? "hardball" back, right after this. if you live for performance, upgrade to castrol edge advanced synthetic oil.

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back to "hardball." president obama, of course, won his election, we have to remember this, with only 53% of the vote. not a big margin.

it was decisive, of course, but it wasn't much of a cushion. the midterms showed that democrats are struggling, especially if some important 2012 states, states the president needs to win. joining me right now, senator robert casey of pennsylvania. senator casey, it is great to have you on because, well, you won last time, this is a very tough year. i keep saying from scranton to oshkosh, with a little bit of an exception, like the governor's race in illinois, a bad year for the dems, i sort of say the big ten states have lost out. regular people, i look at these numbers, people who make less than $50,000 a year, white to be blunt about it african-americans stuck with the president, stuck with the party what will you do about that president? toomey is down ten points now, toomey won big and the president in our latest poll is down ten points. so what do you make of this? >> well, chris, it was a very tough day for democrats. there is no other way to slice it. no question when that you have kind of a tough year tough

examine the results and examine especially the exit polls in our statewide races. for example, we lost tremendous ground with regard to older -- older voters, and we lost among independentsp there are two key groups i think for 2012. i think that we can get a lot of them back, but mostly, chris, and you know this from the discussions you've been having, mostly it's economic, and people want those of us who represent them in washington to continue to fight for jobs. i think we've got a pretty good good record on it when it comes to creating jobs and inventivizing the creation of jobs, recovery act, 3 million jobs, the small business bill we just signed into law, the president did a couple of weeks ago, the community bankers tell us will create a half million jobs but we have to keep putting in place strategies to create jobs and work together to do that and try and try again to work with our republican colleagues. >> you know, i listen to my colleague, ed schultz, and for a while there i thought he was too far out and i begin to get

closer to him in politics, listening to him, because he talks sort of the labor argument, big labor unions, steelworkers, people like that. and i do wonder, if either party, can bring us back to the country where i grew up with. my grand pop, charlie shield, a local democratic congressman could take the subway, take go a couple of stops and get off and build real stuff. i worked with guys who built subways and trains bud, northeast philly, those places vertal where they put airplanes together. are there going to be jobs jobs like that in pennsylvania, down the road or all going to be working at typewriters, desk tops or in hotels? is it all going to be service jobs and high-tech jobs because i wonder about the c-student who gets out of high school who is a good kid, where is he going to go, the c-student coming out of high school? he is not going to work in high-tech, maybe. and probably not going to work in a service job, shouldn't he have a job where you sweat, get a little dirty, come home and feel proud of yourself? is that asking too much or is that yesterday? >> no. no. i still believe we can move forward on manufacturing jobs, chris, but part of the problem

is we haven't had a strategy in place for a long enough time period to do that you know that community colleges, we have got in pennsylvania 14 of them and a lot of states have even more but they have become the engines for those kinds of jobs and it doesn't have to be simply jobs that may not be created again. there is a lot of advanced manufacturing jobs which involve the braun and the usual manufacturing sense. >> i understand. >> also the ability to use your -- use your brain as well, but here's the key though, chris. you cannot have a strategy in place where we are having companies move overseas and are incentivized by the tax code to do that, make a product overseas and then because you're allowed to defer your taxes it provides both incentives to move jobs overseas. we had a vote on this a couple weeks ago, democrats like me voted for -- to change the tax code to create incentives and disincentives so that you don't have whole plants moving overseas.

the other side voted against it maybe now after the election, the one thing that didn't change, jobs the number one issue, maybe republicans will work with us, changing the tax code, putting in place other strategies to keep jobs here to have those manufacturing jobs you've talked about. >> you know how we had a civil war, of course, pennsylvania so proud of its role in that war, monuments all over the state to that war. i worry, senator casey, about this problem. sort of the civil war economically going on between the two coasts. out in california they're doing okay. up in new york and new england, they are doing great, democrats doing great on the left and right coast bus once you get to pennsylvania, start moving past philly, start moving westward, there seems to be another economy, the heartland economy that is getting hollowed out. we got the high-tech in the silicon valley, the high-tech in the 128 up in boston, you got new york financial, new york trade and they all benefit from this globalization but then you get pennsylvania, your state and it starts to move over to ohio, indiana, wisconsin. they're getting passed by. they are flyover in more ways than one.

people fly over from them new york to l.a. to make their careers they don't stop in pennsylvania, they keep flying over and look down, 39,000 feet and look down on these states and they really do look down on them. don't you worry about that with your colleagues shall people in new york and california look at the problems the way you and sherrod brown do from ohio? do they look at it the same way? >> well, part -- i think there's certainly a different perspective but chris, be i think a state like pennsylvania has great potential to be able to make that shift, for a couple of reasons. number one, we have great universities, we have great work ethwick our people. >> that's true. >> we will be able to create those job if we put a tax strategy in place but also, we make the right decisions on creating the workforce of the future. one of the best things we will do in the next year or so work with on the reauthorization of the workforce investment act where we are focused on the skills and training and jobs of

the future and one of the twice do that make sure you can diverse fi your economy. i had lunch today with pat toomey, just got elected in the senate. one of the things we talked about in pennsylvania, you go county by county in a state like ours, the two biggest employers almost every county, whether it's philly or small rural county, health care and government jobs. >> if you two guys get together that is good for america, i'm glad to know you went to lunch, i want to know how you can get the tax cut penalty, the republican party, the job creation mentality of the democratic party to work together for the old states. thank you, senator bob casey of pennsylvania. >> chris, thanks again. >> thanks for joining us tonight. thanks for that. glad to hear about the lunch. go to u.s. congressman gary peters from michigan. he's a democrat. same question to you, sir, talk about this beginning to sound like a rant here. i do look at this economics and i look at the politics and they are right on top of each other. the politics is matching the economics. the democratic party of jobs, which has always been the party of jobs, is losing in states were the jobs are disappearing. what are your thoughts? how do you put it together? jobs or politics? >> well, absolutely. we have to put it together and certainly it was very important

in michigan. as you know the troubles we have been having in this state is to have certainly president obama and the democrats stood up for the domestic auto industry which was absolutely critical, good news today, general motors earning $2 billion on the verge of having an initial public offering to pay back the taxpayers, it was a tough, tough road that we had to home you talk about the differences on the two coasts. there are big differences of people on the coast who thought that the domestic auto industry should disappear. well, it shouldn't. in fact, you cannot have a manufacturing sector in this country. you can't have good paying jobs unless it's anchored by a strong and vibrant domestic auto industry and it's proven to be success so far. >> why don't you stick it to the republicans? the republicans are making a big race and i give them credit for trying to, trying to steal all the industrial states away from the democrats because the times are bad. why don't you challenge them and say what are you guys going to do, you women and men, to bring back these states economically?

it's not a question benefiting from the failure of the economy. it's bringing the economy back politically and economically. are they going into it, or are they just going to vantage themselves over your failures? >> well, they can't. now that they have the majority in the house, they've got to come up with some positive ideas as to how they're going to help middle-class families. middle-class families in this country have been stagnant. the wages have been stagnant this last decade to me that is the underlying anxiety being felt by middle-class families and is about jobs it is about fighting the outsourcing, we have been -- in michigan, we have lost to over 300,000 jobs to outsourcing, we have got to step up and make sure other countries around the world play by the same rules that we do here in the united states. we've got to get tough and if we don't get tough, we're going to be continuing exporting good paying jobs and not just manufacturing jobs. what we have learned, when manufacturing goes overseas, engineering and design follow after that, there will not be good play paying jobs in this country unless we stand up. >> i love those ads by jeff daniels for your state. thank you, congressman gary

peters of michigan. up next, republicans are great about saying they want to cut spend bug not so good when you ask them what to cut. just tell me what i keep asking republicans where are you going to cut in the latest republican plan calls for cuts in programs that don't even exist. well, that's nervy. check out the side show you are watching "hardball," only on msnbc. okay, now here's our holiday gift list. aww, not the mall. well, i'll do the shopping... if you do the shipping. shipping's a hassle. i'll go to the mall. hey. hi. you know, holiday shipping's easy with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. yea, i know. oh, you're good. good luck! priority mail flat rate shipping starts at just $4.90 only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship.

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back to "hardball." now to "the sideshow." first tonight, trick or treat? sarah palin got word that pennsylvania is considering limiting the amount of sweets that public schools give the students so palin brought with her a special gift to a pennsylvania school fund-raiser last night, sugar cookies. >> i had to kind of shake it up a little bit 'cause i heard there was a debate going on in pennsylvania, over whether

public schools are going to ban sweets. so, i had to bring to these private school students to show them how privileged they are, i brought dozens and dozens of cookies to these students. i had to shake it up for you guys, especially the press, okay? who should be making the decisions what you eat and school choice and everything else? should it be government or should it to be the parents? it should be the parents. so using that is kind of a tool. >> well, of course, this is nonsense. palin read a right-wing newspaper's account that got the whole thing roaring. the fact is as everyone watches this show knows, school districts, public schools have always decided what schools to distribute to students. giving kids too much sugar is obviously a bad idea, right? anyway, the pennsylvania schools are simply talking about guidelines how much sugar is given to the kids, not mandates. this whole thing is another tempest in a tea party teapot, like the scare stories. oh, my god, the government getting involved in medicare. the government runs medicare.

next up, fuzzy math. this week, the republican study committee promoted a new plan to cut $25 billion from the budget. how? they propose eliminating an emergency welfare fund. there is only one hitch, there is no fund. "the new york times" reports today that the welfare program in question being targeted expired two months ago. how about finding real programs to cut? i keep asking these politicians who talk about eliminating government programs to just name one here, send this to us and tell us one program it get rid of? is that too much to ask people about people bragging around the country about all of the programs that they're going to cut but can't name the nerve to name one of them? now tonight's big number, which 2010 candidate had the most expensive per vote campaign nationwide? well according to the "washington post," it was sharron angle. she spent $97 a vote. nevada tea partier sharron angle spent $97 per vote to lose by 6 points. the song goes, it's my tea party and i'll cry if i want to, tonight's telltale big number. up next, at a time when we need big ideas to get the country moving again, where do the leaders like the great senator daniel patrick moynihan

are today? are there any real visionaries out there who can see ahead to the problems and help us prepare for them? you are watching "hardball," only on msnbc. it's just outside of lancaster. sure, i can download directions for you now. we got it. thank you very much! check it out. i can like, see everything that's going on with the car. here's the gas level. i can check on the oil. i can unlock it from anywhere. i've received a signal there was a crash. some guy just cut me off. i'll get an ambulance to you right away. safely connecting you in ways you never thought possible. onstar. live on. but i wasn't winning any ribbons managing my diabetes. it was so complicated. there was a lot of information out there. but it was frustrating trying to get the answers i needed. then my company partnered with unitedhealthcare. they provided onsite screenings, healthy cooking tips. that's a recipe i'm keeping. ( announcer ) turning complex data into easy tools. we're 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans.

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hello, everyone. i'm lynn berry and here's what's happening. the white house says it's reserving judgment on proposals from a bipartisan deficit cutting commission. the panel is recommending gradual cuts in social security and medicare. write-in ballots are being counted. with 32 out of 48 precincts counted, incumbent republican senator lisa murkowski is leading tea party-backed challenge joe miller with 89% of the vote. british police say an explosive package used in last month's failed terror attacks was timed to go off over u.s. territory. passengers cheered as two tug boats began towing that

disabled cruise ship into port on san diego. the iraqi government appears to have brokeeb an eight-month impasse, allowing prime minister nori al maliki to keep his job. and a protest over tuition increases spiraled out of control in london. tens of thousands of students. leading to dozens of arrests. now back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." the late new york senator, daniel patrick moynihan, favored foresight, and sblgtsual fervor. things missing from today's debates. steven weisman is with us now. he's the editor of a fabulous book. it's called "daniel patrick moynihan: a port rate in letters

of an american visionary, one of the beautiful books i have come across and joined by an inside expert, lawrence o'donnell, great colleague, a superstar of prime time, host of msnbc's "the last word," served as senator moynihan's director of the senate finance committee and other high responsibility. i will start with steve and go to you for the color, lawrence, because you've worked this guy every day. steve weisman, this book is a reminder in this time, this thicket of mediocrit that we're in right now that there is in fact a memory, a fairly recent memories of a senator who had a vision, he saw the end of the soviet union coming. he saw the need for rapid rail, he saw the need to make washington a beautiful city. he had everything -- he understood the problems of the african-american family, the dysfunction that led to so many problems. he was ahead of so many things. >> he was one-of-a-kind. i'm not sure we will see his kind again, chris. he understood the yin and yang in politics and he had a foot in both camps. he understood the thinking of republicans and democrats and

the interaction is what made the country healthy. >> how did he work with jack kennedy, a true emotional tribal believer in jack kennedy? >> he was very tribal. >> very irish tribal. yet work hand in glove with richard m. nixon. >> well, he saw in nixon, and i think that he later realized how naive he was, a chance to find a new center in american politics at this explosive time of 1968, when the country -- you know there were riots, assassinations, and he believed that nixon could bring the best of both worlds to the white house. >> you know what, lawrence, you were with him every day, i do envy you this, sir, the chance to get up in the morning go to work with and realize that across the hall, rather in your own office suite was the presence of this great man. you could actually greet him in the morning, say, hi, senator, how's it going and begin your day. how did he avoid personalities in politics? he think he made a point, like ike did never attacking an

opponent about personality. it was always about the policy issue. >> he never did and he never did privately. i can tell you i heard him once in all my years say one sharply .critical thing, it was about a local new york city politician, and it was a very brief moment and i never heard had him say anything personally critical anything personally critical about any other politicians. he didn't participate often in profiles. people would want to call -- they are doing a profile on so-and-so and he just didn't participate because he didn't think about them that way with. he thought about them as people who have a job to do and doing their job to varying degrees of confidence, it was never really personal to him. chris, i think one of the great keys that has delivered us steve's book, which is a book about a thinking politician and this is steve's book. it is beautifully, as you say, brilliantly written. pat moynihan is a co-author. there would be no book without steve.

he put this together in a beautiful and artful way. the key to, i think, everything you are talking about and how he was able to take a breath and do this thinking is he did something that now politicians would be condemned for and many even in his own day could be, he took the august recess and he recessed, he went up to his farm in upstate new york. he sat alone in his one-room schoolhouse, this old one-room schoolhouse on the property, he wrote, he thought, he collected had his own thinking, he took that pause that you have to take to think in that incredibly hectic job as senator, what do you really think? >> let me make a pitch for your book, if you have a relative -- >> please. >> -- who cares about democratic politics who is a liberal, a smart liberal, this book is christmastime here, this is the book you want to have to sit under the christmas tree or the hanukkah or whatever. let me ask you, steve, about this my favorite project at this time, look at the industrial part of this country wiped out by this thing, the democratic party wiped out across this country because they don't have something to sell.

i don't know why they don't sell what moynihan said, china, certainly europe, you sweep across those countries 300 miles an hour. we are chugging along on amtrak. moynihan is going to have this beautiful station in new york named after him, moynihan station probably but nothing coming in and out of him. he says, people coming in new york like rats, filthy station, penn station and should be coming in like princes, why don't we have pride in the country we are building? we wouldn't be building the golden gate bridge today, we wouldn't be building washington today or chicago, we don't build anything anymore, all we do is pay debts, what do we do? pass checks around? what happened to the democratic party, who used to be robert moses out in new york, build things, pat brown in california, built the highway system, university system. what is wrong with democrats building anything anymore are they completely chicken? >> it got labeled as pork barrel. i was out in man tana -- >> golden gate bridge is pork barrel? >> well, i -- >> the interstate highway system. lincoln built the continental

railroad, that was pork barrel? of course, bridges to nowhere. of course there's junk. i'm sorry. >> yeah, of course. also the erie canal. pat moynihan had a lot of projects that didn't go anywhere in new york, but he understood -- he helped turn the erie canal across upstate new york, probably more responsible for anything that happened in new york city for it becoming the port it became and the empire state. he made it into a tourist attraction, there was not only construction but ingenuity and creativity. >> now for the final word, lawrence o'donnell, your thoughts on pat moynihan. what do we miss now that we don't have from him? >> we do miss that vision and a consistency. i think what you are talking about on infrastructure is it became uncool, chris, just became uncool in government for decades. he kept his eye on it. he was chairman of the public works commission -- committee in the senate for a while. he would be horrified by what the governor of new jersey, for example, just decided on

building another tunnel. no vision in that decision at all. the notion that we have to pay for these things out of current receipts. we don't do that with anything else we build in the private sector. everything built in the private sector is mortgaged, it is understood, it is going to take dedicates to pay for building. we could go on and on about this, chris. it is -- >> somebody should tell -- >> it is a great read. >> thank you, lawrence, so much. by the way, somebody should tell the governor of new jersey it is going to be a wide tunnel, very useful to certain people. thank you very much, steve weisman the book's called "daniel patrick moynihan." and thank you, lawrence o'donnell for that. kevin stacy joins us. he's playing the melissa lsleazu might call him. you've got see this movie and what it was like playing a corrupted guy. that's an interesting for an actor. playing abramoff. and know inse getting bamboozled.

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look at politicians and celebrities on the tv and in the newspapers. glossy magazines what do they see? i'm just like this them. that's what they say. i'm special. i'm different. i get any woman out there well guess what, you can't. you know why, because in reality, mediocrity is where most people live. mediocrity is in the elephant in the room. it is ubiquitous. it is in your schools, in your dreams in your family. those of us who know this those of us who understand the disease of the dull we do something about it, we do something more because we have to. the deck was always stacked against us. you're either a big leaguer or you're a slave clawing your way onto the c-train. some people say jack abramoff moves too fast, jack abramoff cuts corners, well i say to them, if that's the difference between me and my family having

a good life and walking and using the subway every day, then so be it. >> we are back that academy award-winning actor kevin spacey as jack abramoff in the upcoming movie "casino jack." republicans won widely in last week's midterm election but what drove them out four years ago? a lot of it was the culture of corruption, selling influence in power when they had it. here to talk about that and the new movie is kevin spacey. kevin, talk about the usual suspects. another one of your great movies. i think we had forgot, the voters have a limited attention span like we all do, and after a couple of years, they forgot the sleaze balls that ran this capital city. abramoff. abramoff served 3 1/2 years in prison. bob nay, the congressman he bought, served a year and a half in prison, probably not enough. michael scanlon, believe it or not, because he copped a plea, is still waiting for his sentencing. what did you learn? i did a lot of work today going through the movie, the parts i saw, and looking through the record, it's all exactly the

truth. there seems to be very little poetic license here. >> we didn't make anything up. and i think one of the reasons why people are responding to the film, comedically, is because it's so outrageous, some of the stuff, that it's just inherently fun funny. you can't believe -- it's a little bit like when we did "recount" about the 2000 election, i don't think people were ready for the fun beiilm bs funny as it was. >> the corrupt cultural. >> i think there was a culture that abramoff was a part of. and he got unceremonily thrown under a lot of buses, because they wanted to make a claim they were cleaning up the lobbying industry, and i don't think they have. i think we saw an election in the last week in which the amounts of money that has been raised through lobbying -- >> let's get to the word "corruption." a lot of people in the tea party movement, and they're right about this, thinks there's too much power.

but how do you use power? to distribute justice or to grab what you can? a lot of questions i ask, what does a lobbyist do for a building? lobbyists can simply educate people. they can go up to the hill, get a half-hour meeting with a member of congress and say, let me tell you about the complication of our industry. that's a job. then you get members who are in trouble, need money, and they get them to do stuff they're doing just as a favor. >> come over to the white house, i'll get you a picture with george bush and we'll give you money for your campaign. i think it's still going on. i think they're very clever about how they get around the new rules. you know what my favorite thing is? you're supposed to not have a dinner, right? you can't have a dinner. so what constitutes a dinner? if you're not sitting down, it's not a dinner. >> all those things. you know the movie "wedding crashers," you know what that's based on? staffers that work for congressmen up on the hill who used to go to these afternoon feeds on the hill. i used to go to all the shrimp cocktail you could eat, i was

single at the time, in my 20s, and you would go and down the hall from your office would be a bunch of food sitting out on the table. rather than go home or a restaurant, you stop by there and eat the shrimp. so they say, if you can do it at the hit, you can do it at a wedding. >> but don't you think also if the networks stopped charging for political advertising -- if they actually started serving the public and the country free ads -- >> who would you give the ads to? >> i think in every state, you would have local television showing that senator or that governor, who's going to run. in every national network, you'd have to do presidential, vice presidential, and i think if you took the money away, that they didn't have to raise it, then maybe corruption would actually start to go away. >> do you think the government of the united states and the taxpayers, our industry should pay for these sleazy ads they put on, these indictive ads that simply call the other guy a crook? >> no, i think there should be guidelines and there should be an effort to make sure if somebody does an ad, what they're saying is absolutely accurate. but john hickenlooper, i've got

to say -- >> from colorado. >> ran a great campaign in colorado. refused to go negative and he won by a wide margin. so maybe there's hope. >> i just talked to pat leahy up in vermont. he never ran a negative ad in his life and just got elected to a seventh term. >> and moynihan. >> the movie opens tonight. the movie, "casino jack," opens in select cities this month. let me finish with some thoughts about the culture of corruption. i know a little about it. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. knows how to make things

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let me finish tonight with this matter of corruption. power tends to corrupt, lord acton wrote, absolute power corrupts absolutely. it's my experience that anyone that comes to washington, this capitol city, must come with a strong moral code to start with. there are other things you can learn here. this is a city about power and its division. it's a good place to learn how to gain it, exert, and share it. learning power, forcing people to share it, is what our constitution is all about. one thing you're taught in washington is all the instruments of power you can abuse, the little perks of power like the free meals you can score on capitol hill like stopping by some spread a lobbyist is laying out in some room down the hall. that's where the idea from the movie "wedding crashers" came from. some young hill staffers saw how easy it was to crash a feed put on by lobbyists, even if you

weren't invited. they simply applied that principle to weddings out in the country. that's the funny part. the dirty part, the evil part is how people who used to work for senators and congressman, or still do, learn how to work the system. they exploit the perks, the familiarity with elected members of congress. hey, i can get a meeting with youa senator. it's an easy step, first just a meeting, then a little statement in the congressional record. the congressmen doesn't even have to deliver the speech. it's when this incremental corruption works up the food chain, as to when you're getting taxes and regulations changed, that's when the real corruption takes over. or do you think it's okay? think it's okay to use a connection to get a friend a meeting? where do you stop? someone with a moral register to starts with knows, in your mind and your gut, get it right. those who don't, see the main chance. jack abramoff, mike scanlon, congressman bob nay bought their