change, absorbing everything that we have learned. we want to thank you, the viewer, for inspiring us and thank everyone along the way for sharing their stories and their commitment to rebuilding and renewing this country as we strive ourselves to find our own greatness and in the process share it with each other. that does it for us. i'm dylan ratigan. we'll see you back in new york on monday. we've got jobs. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chuck todd in washington sitting in for chris matthews on assignment this final day in israel. leading off tonight, there are some jobs. republicans have been asking where are the jobs? well, for the fourth month in a row they got their answer. the economy added 216,000 jobs,

unemployment rate developed by a tenth of a point going down a full point in the past four months. and republicans were a bit flum oxed on how to respond. how far does it have to fall before voters give the president credit for an economic recovery? it's probably the 2012 $1 million question. also, the backlash against the backlash. the assault on union rights is turning some traditional friends of the republicans into antagonists like cops and firefighters and increasingly likely that the restrictive law in ohio will be put to a vote in november 2011. have the republican governors gone too far? plus, remember that pastor, that extremist pastor in florida threatening to burn a koran? apparently he did it and a mob in afghanistan killed at least 12 people, most of them united nations workers. what may be the deadliest attack

ever on united nations workers in afghanistan. and it's demography destiny. put another way, is the minority population growing so fast that president obama simply won't need the same level of white support that he had in '08 to win in '12? finally, see if you can guess which possible presidential candidate now says president obama wants people to lose their jobs and be poor. the answer, in the "sideshow." we start with the president and the economic recovery. "the washington post" chris salis is a political analyst and chris lewis for new york 1. thank you both. >> chuck. >> we have seen the numbers and what was interesting today was watching the response with the republican side. we know that president obama was cheerleading this one. he had something to cheer. here's what the president said about the numbers. >> we added 230,000 private

sector jobs last month. that makes 1.8 million private sector jobs created in the last 13 months. and the unemployment rate has now fallen a full point in the last four months. last time that happened was during the recovery in 1984. >> yeah. he likes that 1984 analogy. chris, let me read to you what john cornyn said and compare it to john price. john cornyn said this about the numbers. since republicans convinced the republican colleagues not to raise taxes, america has added nearly 650,000 and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.8%. new york city here's how republican tom price in the house talked about this new number. there's been a stubborn unwillingness on the part of senate democrat and the white house to confront our debt cry and propose responsible solut n

solutions. some republicans say take credit and others say not yet. >> here's what's hard about it, chuck. everyone knows but won't say that the economy is bad. if the unemployment rate is high, you know, 9%, 10%, it's very difficult for president obama to get re-elected, consequential aly lower, it's easier to be re-elected but for republicans you can't root for the economy to be bad publicly. they know politically that strengthens president obama's hand. i think that's why you tend to see some taking credit, some taking -- some putting blame. it's not easy for them, this issue, because they don't want to look hyper partisan but the stronger the economy or better people feel about the economy the harder it will be to beat president obama come next november. >> you know, i remember in the 2004 campaign and there was some

bad months on the economy. it was a slower growth of jobs. and the bush campaign accused the democrats of rooting against the economy. and that was an effective pushback. >> oh, sure, yeah. they're very much at risk of having that turned back on them this year. chris is absolutely right. you can't cheer for high unemployment. it is hard enough to explain it if it happens and the reality is it leads the republicans i think to some secondary targets like getting control of the senate back and not a small thing and is in fact within their reach on some level. democrats have to defend a lot of seats and also got sort of a prairie brush fire going on in the mid western states at the state levels and turf taf to defend there, too. going at the president with better job numbers, no way. >> well,er rol.

this is what mitt romney said. i'm afraid some people are conditioned to unemployment rates above 8%. it should be 4% or less. the idea to celebrate 8.8%, i'm glad for the progress but, my goodness, we have a lot of people out of work. this seems like he's trying to frame it, he wanting to be the economy republican candidate, errol and trying to frame it. >> you can't blame him for trying to move the gold post. i would love it, 4% in effect is zero unemployment with 4% from naturally moving to new jobs or coming in and out of the work force but, you know, that's not going to sell it for him. you know? i mean, if he's going to be the candidate of pain, he risks being where democrats have been in so many campaigns. sort of saying there are two americas and one america's not being attended to. it never works for republicans. >> chris, i was going to say, mitt romney, he can't afford for the economy, he wants to be the economy candidate. >> yes, and if the economy --

look. here's the deal. you mentioned 1984, chuck. i think it eel's a telling comparison. under railroad, the unemployment rate was 10.3%. by october of 1984, it had dropped to 8.1% or 8.2%. look, 8.2% is not particularly good, right? >> right. >> but it's all trend line. >> is that the line? is that the line? >> yes i think -- >> moving toward 8% and maybe it's right around 8.1%, come october 2012, president gets re-elected. >> chuck, one other thing. a guy smarter than me, matt mcdon jum mcdonald and into economics now, they put out a paper today, 185,000 jobs need to be created every month now and november 212 for the unemployment rate under 8%. we had 220,000 this month. >> doesn't seem farfetched. >> not out of the question to happen. >> yeah, that's right. and the direction is really critical because the economy as

we all know is about people's perception. if the perception is things are turning around, that's all you need. >> hey, one of the more fascinating things inside the numbers over four months, private sector growth is up. there is one sector where growth is down and it's part of a bigger fight and that is public employees, the government worker, again, was in a negative. lost jobs on the state and local level and it's a trend that's likely to continue. does that have a possibility of backfiring on republicans because it's republican governor that is are on the front lines of this fight? >> oh, absolutely. in fact, one of the first state senators that pushed for the very tough law that got passed in wisconsin, the first recall petition i think got legal ballot status today and a district obama had won so they risk seeing local gains eroded and i think that's where your real panic comes in. the presidential contest,

important, but if they start losing control of the state legislatures, they start being in danger of losing the state houses, that's a real critical problem for the gop. >> chuck? >> chris -- >> look at ohio. we have talked about this. ohio, getting the referendum to repeal the law that the ohio governor signed this november, that is going to be a marquee, the super bowl of 2011. >> you know, what's interesting about this chris, i know you have talked to the same poll steriles that i have that talk about this underlying resentment that has grown from sort of underemployed or disappointingly employed americans with government workers feeling like they have it better, does that end up as the economy gets better then suddenly republicans own laying off workers. is that going to be tough for them to deal with? >> i think it potentially is. you know, it's an amazing thing to me. we can debate whether scott walker will ultimately lose or

win from this but one thing he clearly did is make unions relevant again in politics. you have seen a decline in the union share in the elect rat. unions struggled. there's a split but they got behind this. you know, they got behind wisconsin, they got behind ohio and people said, wait a minute. unions are standing up. unions have political power again. scott walker, he may ultimately in labor's role look at scott walker to deserve credit for reawakening unions and political power. fascinating law of unintended consequences in politics. >> and errol, a little bit more of what the president said in response of this and trying to talk about everything else on his plate. take a listen. >> i know there's a lot going on in the world right now, and so, the news is captured by the images of the middle east and what's happening, the tragedy to our friends in japan. and i'm focused on those issues but you should know that keeping the economy going and making

sure jobs are available is the first thing i think about when i wake up in the morning and last thing i think about when i go to bed each night. >> errol, something that the white house folks have been trying to pound in our heads saying, hey, we know you guys are talking about japan and libya. and these are important stories. but we also know the swing voter is talking about gas prices and jobs. >> absolutely. he knows exactly what they're thinking about or wants to get on the right side of what they're thinking about in florida, in pennsylvania, in wisconsin, in nevada. it's not that hard to figure out. and look. the reality is, he's been told this all along. he blew a lot of capital. i don't want to say blown in the sense of wasted but spent a lot of political capital on the health care. he knows that and would do it again, i suppose. but now, for re-election, it is the economy and no other issue. >> all right. >> and chuck -- >> chris, very fast. >> really quickly, remember, he mentioned the economy in the

libya speech which you -- >> yes, he did. >> shows you how focused they are. >> all right. chris, errol, favorite new york channel i think i can say. >> thank you. >> thank you both. coming up, will police and firefighters turn on republicans in the latest republican union dispute? we'll see. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. we're with you when you're saving for your dreams. [ woman ] when you want a bank that travels with you. with you when you're ready for the next move. [ male announcer ] now that wells fargo and wachovia have come together, what's in it for you? unprecedented strength, the stability of the leading community bank in the nation and with 12,000 atms and thousands of branches, we're with you in more ways and places than ever before. with you when you want the most from your bank. [ male announcer ] wells fargo. together we'll go far.

look at here. heerl's a race michelle bachmann is winning. she raised $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2011. outgaining mitt romney who raised $1.9 million over the same period. not quite apples to apples type of stuff but the latest fund raising success shows that

bachmann could have some financial backing to sustain a serious presidential campaign should she decide to take the plunge. don't take her -- don't take her unseriously. we'll be right back. it's easy to get the calcium you need with

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welcome back to "hardball." they're battles between republican governors and public employee unions causing some times republican voters to turn on those governors. well, today's politico reports that rank and file police officers and firefighters who long viewed themselves as separate from the rest of the movement are caring picket signs, signs petitions and standing side by side with their labor brethren. are they doing some long-term damage to their party? harold schafer, general president of the international association of firefighter and michael taylor is with ohio's fraternal order of police.

harold, let me start with you on this. look, you have been and the firefighters' union is fairly traditionally democrat on the national level. but talk about the state level and the local level firefighters and the partisan diversity that they have shown over the years. >> well, chuck, you've been watching us in the political arena for a long time. our principle is really always straightforward and that is that we will support those and the elected field to -- that support us and that makes us probably one of the more bipartisan unions in the country but our principle is very careful and that is you have to support us and the attacks now going on in wisconsin against workers, ohio, nebraska, tennessee, oklahoma, new hampshire and the list goes on are absolutely galvanizing our members. they have given us a lot of energy. and our members are going to

push back and push back hard. you are not going to get members who traditionally support those in the gop to consider supporting them when, in fact, we're facing gop governors and legislatures that are literally trying to rip their rights away from them. they have earned over all these years. >> michael taylor, why is it in ohio, you know, the governor in wisconsin had a carve-out for firefighters and police officers, how was it there was no carve-out in ohio? what happened there? did you guys try and get one? >> well, i can only speculate on the why. and that is that i think that at least in ohio that maybe some of those in republican leadership and the governor's office view us differently than maybe they did in wisconsin. you know, the governor shortly after being elected was captured on a video called a police officer that issued him a ticket over three years ago an idiot.

the videotape of the stop was clear that the police officer was professional and did absolutely nothing wrong and so before this started our members were apprehensive of the leadership in ohio and the thoughts on police officers and the respect level for police officers. >> harold, i want to talk, though -- there was one of the stories i looked at and looking at the local level and the issue of collective bargaining and where's flexibility and isn't and the story of mansfield, ohio, because this was a town struggling, basically bankrupt, needed -- wanted to renegotiate some of the contract with the firefighters, couldn't. laid off some workers. as you a sued on behalf and supporting your firefighters and understandable. you sued on behalf and then other folks had to get laid off. is that a story like that you say to yourself, we have to become more flexible? obviously, you're upset about the fight with governor kasich

but can you get more flexible? >> chuck, let me say this. first of all, you point out one example there. let me point out that in tulsa and california and san francisco, in place after place our members, in fact, have been doing the responsible thing. we have been going back to the table. our me believes have agreed to furloughs. they have deferred wage increases in many cases. they have been doing their part in cities and states all over this country in trying -- >> are you advising your locals to do that, don't get drawn into these fights, don't -- this is not the time to draw a line in the sand? >> well, right now, what we're advising our locals to do and that is to make sure that we are coming together to fight back on those that have attacked our workers, our members and are trying to simply kill our unions and keep our political voice out of the political arena. and this has brought all of you are members together.

and our focus right now is on the recall effort. we'll be involved in all six of those recalls -- >> in wisconsin? >> senators and we are going to be heavily involved in the referendum recall on s.b. 5. >> well, i want to show some poll numbers here, michael. a gallup poll, who do you agree with in the battles? state labor unions or governors. 48% say they the end to side more with the labor unions, 39% with the governors here. you know, what is it that the governors have gotten wrong in this fight? obviously you don't like the policy but messaging-wise seems like you are getting your mess on and out there than they're not. >> the numbers are higher than that and people that support us but they have gone to almost trying to create a darth vader image out of public workers, and

you know, they're your neighbors, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters. they're not evil people, not darth vaders. they try and talk about the union bosses -- look. our union bosses are police officers. the president of the fop is a full-time police officer in marion, ohio, so i think the public is seeing through this image they're trying to create for public workers and teachers and police officers and firefighters and a bunch of nonsense, all about politics and all about ruining the unions, getting rid of the unions and they think it's maybe a little bit of class warfare and i think the public sees through that. >> harold, how much money do you think you'll have to spend and how much money is the labor movement going to end up spending in ohio and in wisconsin? >> we are going to be investing very heavily, chuck. as you know, just at the federal level we spent over $2.7 million and the political arena. we will be investing very

heavily in wisconsin as well as in ohio to move that referendum forward and to repeal those senators. our members are really coming to the table and we know how to commit significant resources to this kind of effort. if i may, chuck, just very quickly, this is, though, nothing about -- this is not about budgets and deficits. this is a fraud. this is all about power. and this is about the right wing of the gop that thinks they see an opportunity to make a power move and to try to cripple our unions, to try to take workers' rights away and what they're really doing is they are galvanizing our members and they are moving them forward in the fight. >> and michael taylor, very quickly, in ohio, how confident are you that you're going to be able to get the signatures now need in 90 days to get this on the ballot? >> absolutely confident to get the signatures and i think we'll get a lot more signatures than

we need. there's just no doubt in my mine. our people as harold said, our people are fired up and ready to go like i have never seen them in my 26 years. i'm very confident. >> this is going to be like a mini presidential election in an off year. harold, good to see you. michael, thank you for coming on. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you, chuck. up next, wait until you hear donald trump's exit strategy for iraq. actually, there's no exit. it belongs in the "sideshow." you'll see it. [ male announcer ] this...is the network.

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back to "hard ball" and the "sideshow." first up, donald trump's exit strategy for iraq. actually, turns out he doesn't

have one because he doesn't want to leave. trump outlined his plan about iraq on fox last night. watch. >> you stay and protect the oil and you take the oil and you take whatever's necessary for them and you take what's necessary for us and we pay ourself back a trillion and a half dollars or more. if you look at wars over the years and i study wars, okay, my whole life is a war, you look at wars over the years, a country goes in, they conquer and they stay. in a nutshell, we go in, we take over the second largest oil fields and we stay. >> wow. make iraq the 51 rs state? another alaska? whoo. okay. we'll see. that one is clearly one he truly believes. still not sure on the birther stuff. next, michelle bachmann in overdrive. most argue president obama's policies hurt the business growth. she said the president actually wants americans to be poor.

>> i think that the agenda that we have seen, we know that 63% of all households have seen a major decline in their personal wealth, a decline in their personal income, and an increase in their debt level. that's all attributable directly to barack obama's principles. i think barack obama's getting exactly the outcome that he hoped for. all of us, i think, are perhaps giving the president too much credit thinking, well, he probably just doesn't understand that liberalism actually makes people poorer. i actually think that this is what the president wants. >> i have to say, one thing i think she would agree is the president wants to be re-elected and what's the number one to be re-elected? a good economy. it's the single best indicator of whether an incumbent president gets re-elected and guess what. this guy really wants to get re-elected. i don't think he's doing whatever it takes to get

everybody poor. finally, civics on the house floor. not civility. civics. this week, republican majority leader cantor he said that if the house passed the quote government shutdown prevention act it would become the law. that's just not true. as well anybody who's seen how a bill becomes a law will tell you. guess what, anthony weiner decided from brooklyn not going to let cantor's slip completely go unnoticed. watch this. >> i brought you this. house mouse, senate mouse. which is sold in the gift shop to teach children how to understand the constitution and permit to read. it's the floor of each chamber of the senate and house where each senator and congress mouse gets to vote on the bill and if enough do, if enough do, this president signs it if he likes to. >> ah, anthony weiner, been on a roll this week. stole the show at the big

congressional correspondents' dinner. now to tonight's big number, who's more valuable as a public speaker? a nobel prize winning author like tony morrison or snooki of "jersey shore"? catch this, rutgers university, they're paying morrison $30,000 to deliver the commencement speech. a lot of money. how much did they pay snooki for simply a q&a? $32,000. $2,000 more! what was some of snooki's advice? study hard, party harder. $32,000 for those pearls of wisdom from snooki. tonight's awfully depressing big number. you know what? buy a tony morrison book this weekend. get him the extra $2,000. upnext, remember the pastor, that extremist from florida, terry jones who threatened and then burn add koran? the response came today when an

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i'm amanda drury. stocks soared to a higher close with the dow jones industrials climbing 57 points, s&p 500 up by 6 and the nasdaq adding 8. 216,000 jobs added in march, the unemployment rate falling to 8.8%. well, that's good news, right? well, traders are worried the fed may be considering an early withdrawal of stimulus and interest rate hike. most automakers finished higher, gm sales rose 11%, ford with a 19% jump and toyota sales fell

almost 6%. nasdaq and intercontinual exchange for a bid at 19% premium over the deutsche bid and coca-cola and pepsico boiled higher. pepsi with a mid-calorie version of pepsi next. now it is back over to you at "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." all right. the florida pastor we probably gave all too much attention with the firestorm last year worldwide vowing to burn a copy of the koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 followed through with the threat. terry jones and his so-called church set fire to the koran in a crazy stunt about two weeks ago. we're not going to show it.

just as president obama and general petraeus warned then that lives could be lost, guess, what they were lost in afghanistan as a result. a 20,000-strong mob stirred up about this incident and incensed over it, the koran burning overwhelmed a united nations compound in afghanistan today, killed at least 12 people, most of them u.n. workers. video was posted on the website of jones' church and we're not as i said not going to air it and but talk about the story and for more on what it means for our troops, the mission and the safety of americans in afghanistan and our standing with muslims around the world, bobby goesch, editor of "time" and jim zogby president of the arab american institute and author of "arab voices." basically, we have two sets of extremists. extremist in florida and a couple that took advantage of the moment to stir people up in afghanistan. how much is this spread around

the muslim world? >> the real concern now is, chuck, it spreads from here. that you have in other small groups of extremists and other parts of the muslim world to feel like they have to do a copycat thing. we saw that many years ago and much more recently with the danish cartoons. the thing to keep in mind that's very important here is that the koran to muslims, it is not the same as the bible to christians. the bible is a book written by men. it is acknowledged by christians that it is written by men, the story of jesus. but the koran if you are a believer, if you're a muslim, directly the word of god. not written by man, it is trance scribed directly the word of god. that makes it sacred in a way it's hard to understand if you're not muslim so the act of burning a koran is much more potentially much, much inflammatory -- >> directly attacking god. >> than burning a bible.

>> jim, terry jones today said -- had no regrets of this. "the new york times" quoted it's time to hold islam accountable. this is what he said last august first starting with this absurd threat. let's take a listen. >> what we hope to accomplish by the burning confident ran is to send a very clear, it is indeed a radical message, but a clear, radical message to muslims, to sharia law that is not welcomed in america. >> if somebody's going to react to what you do, do you think the reaction's going to be positive or negative? >> i think it's going to be positive. >> boy, he was terribly wrong. >> well, not only was he terribly wrong but in a way he wanted he got what he wanted. >> this time we didn't give him attention. nobody covered this event. in the mainstream media this time we catapulted him into the position last september. what really struck me was on

september 7th i was at a press conference at the national press club with the leaders of every protestant denomination, the jewish community denominations and organizations, the catholic -- conference of bishops, all the major muslim leadership and it was a press conference to say, bigotry should not happen in america, it was the park 51 and the burning, the next day scant attention in the press because this guy chewed up the oxygen. >> it was -- >> there are crazies and evil people in that region in afghanistan who are preying on the tormented afghani people. they got what they wanted, too. we may see it now in other countries. it is dangerous but this is the situation that rae lel must be brought under control. part of the control starts with different mess abages and clear folks in afghanistan and elsewhere have to gak control of

the situations. >> bobby gosch, they were all over this terry jones last year when this threat was so public and at the time, here's what the president had to say. >> as commander in chief of the armed forces of the united states, i just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in iraq, who are in afghanistan. you could have serious violence in places like pakistan or afghanistan. this could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in american cities or european cities. >> bobby, explain how these -- because -- explain how these

extremists in afghanistan use it, how do they use it? obviously, preying on people who are just upset in general and how are they using it? cherry picking the events themselves, as well? >> absolutely. they're cherry picking it. keep in mind, other resentments bubbling up. >> right. >> afghans upset of a continued foreign presence, people upset about the economy. >> doesn't take much. >> doesn't take much. the tinder is dry and ready to be lit up but you have the groups that take -- exploit the situation. they're not telling the afghan people that one radical american preacher acting mostly on his own has done this. they're telling them the americans, the american government or the american people as a whole are behind the burni ining of the koran and the very poor and don't have access to the internet, not getting "new york times," they don't know that much about terry jones and who he is and what he stands for. they will be -- they will be

taken in by the message that it's the american government or the american people that are directly responsible for burning the word of god. >> right. >> bobdy oosh jim -- >> he has it completely right. >> let me ask you this. these 12 people that are dead, united nations workers, if you're related to them and their family, you're going to want this terry jones held accountable. >> and you're also going to be angry at the people in afghanistan and the problem is -- >> right. at both. >> it deepens the divide and you get the crazies on both sides win in the sense they're able to portray this and to deepen the clash of civilizations mind-set and it -- i can hear presidential candidates here in america now playing off this, too. this is a difficult and dangerous situation. >> you're close to the political world here, smart, political adviser. what do you do with the terry jones? publicly make him a -- don't? what do you do here? >> it's a tough call. i tell you one thing i'm facing

right now is april 22nd he is going to dearborn and going to the heart of the arab community. >> the president? >> no. terry jones. to provoke a situation. my advice is ignore him. do not acknowledge -- >> evangelical christian community need to say you're a radical extremist, get snout. >> they did because -- >> get them -- >> they were with us on september 7th. >> embarrassing to them. >> the fact is it might be a great thing of a counter demonstration of real leadership in dearborn. this guy as robert gibbs said, has less followers than the press that followed him around last year and this is a dangerous situation but i think bob's got it completely right. the afghanistan situation is tinder and been exploited by the -- some evil guys who said these are the american who is are killing civilians. these are the americans occu occupying us, et cetera. makes the job in afghanistan and at home more difficult.

>> jim, bobby, i hope -- i hope that the christian community, the real christian community deals with this guy. >> i hope that the muslim community as well speaks to folks in afghanistan. >> absolutely. >> this should not happen. >> thank you both. up next, how growing minorities are reshaping u.s. politics and what does it mean for president obama in 2012? wait until you see this battle we'll have now. premier of the packed bag. you know when to hold 'em... and how to fold 'em. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above and still pay the mid-size price. here we are... [ male announcer ] and there you go, business pro. there you go. go national. go like a pro.

s it hit helps the lhe of companipanies like the she smallestt ofof startups.ups. th ththat lets yos your employeloy, pa and custcustomersvate and sharee so you can can unleash tsh the of your mor your peopleople. well, ready for this? haley barbour's wife said the personal sacrifices for running for president horrifies her. she said it would consume the last part of their productive lives. asked whether she would support her husband if he does run, marsha said it was a commitment i'm praying about. rut-roh. we'll be right back. we're america's natural gas.

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and we are back. some good way it is look at the battleground map for 2012, national journal examines the 2010 census numbers and how the growing minority population in america could impact the election. here to talk about what may mean for the president and the republican hopefuls, ron forniea and jim garrity. ron, let me start with you. the numbers, look, we have all known about what's going on in the overall census, the growing hispanic population but break it down state by state. here you can see the seven state

that is have 20% or more hispanics in their population. arizona, california, colorado, florida, nevada, new mexico and texas. arizona and texas, see the states that have 30% or more minority pop layinulation. look at that. it's basically half the country. ron brownstein did all sorts of calculations about what this means for president obama. >> there's three states that really jump out at you -- arizona, georgia and on an outside chance, even texas, that could be in play, because even with the diminishing number of white voters who are coming barack obama's way, because of the explosion of the minority population, he's got a chance to put some states in play, at least enough to force the republicans to spend money in

places that you wouldn't expect. >> you know, jim garrity, karl rove during the immigration fight behind closed doors saying guys, the demographic is shifting. if you don't woo hispanic voters, it's over, you won't see the white house for a generation. >> you've seen republicans make various route reach efforts. some places they have success, but in other places it's far short of what they want to do. in terms of african-americans, you would they would have a base identity with the first afric african-american president. you would really argue they're not in play. hispanics are the ball game, so to speak. they don't have to win the hispanic vote. you have to do a reasonable amount. >> what is that? anywhere north of 35? >> in that ballpark, yeah. obama took 67% of the hispanic vote in '08, if that gets lower, republicans are going to get in better shape. if that gets higher, they're

going to have a tough time in 2012. >> what republican nominee in your mind could do better than john mccain with hispanics? >> it is really hard to see. i mean, look, just since bill clinton took office, the non-white population in this country has more than doubled. right now, almost more than half of all americans under 18 will be minorities. those are numbers that are going to be higher for the republicans to overcome if they don't start reaching out into the population, if they don't stop doing things that drive non-whites away. right now it's kind of hard to see how they're going to get around this unless they do something like, you know, maybe putting a rubio on the ticket. >> i was just going to say that. that's the five-letter answer i always here from republicans. we'll put rubio on the ticket. >> if republicans were already getting 100% of the hispanic vote, putting rubio on the

ticket would still be a good idea. the other thing i would note about this, the most recent poll of latino voters, 70% said they approved of obama, but only 40% said they were definitely going to vote for obama. so there's some sort of -- >> lack of energy, yeah. >> it's not in his pocket yet. i think one of his key things, unemployment in the hispanic community, 11.3%. that's probably going to hold back a lot of voters. >> stay with me. we're going to do a quick break and come back and finish this. discover customersl are getting five percent cashback bonus at home improvement stores.

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>> we're back. ron, i want to go back to this map again and you talked about the twlee states, but i want to pick out one in particular because it may be an obama coalition may be better represented than most, and that is georgia, because as both double digit african-american population and a growing hispanic population, not quite. we're getting closer. and that is something maybe only obama on the ticket could pull off. he seemed to overperform in georgia in '08. >> yeah, that's a perfect state to look at. even when ron brownstein makes

an excuse for obama losing the white votes, even with the gains in the non-white vote, he has a chance to put georgia in play, which is remarkable. >> jim garrity, what do you do if you're a republican? mccain didn't contest north carolina. if they go and mess around in texas and arizona, do you let them do it? >> i think that's where you hopefully have good surrogates and allocate your time well in this category. one thing that jumps out at me, though, they sent obama into a lot of places trying to drive up the minority vote and the obama effect was not transferable. new mexico, virginia, massachusetts, new jersey. they all have high minority populations but they didn't necessarily come out. when you have a presidential

yeeshl, you're going to have a higher turnout. you can only vote to elect the first african-american president once. and a key factor is he's not the guy he was in 2008. he has a record now. do people feel as fondly about him as they did in -- >> i want to go back to this issue. it's been a good voting bloc for the democrats the last couple of cycles, but it does seem as if the obama administration has struggled to connect with the hispanic community. >> a couple of things could cut in the republicans' favor. hispanics do tend to underperform in the system. the other thing, just as you said it, hispanics are a little more social conservative than the african-american vote. issues such as abortion could cut against obama. look for him to go big on issues like health care and the economy and education which is big in

the hispanic