it's wednesday, october the 26th. here's what's happening. and they're off. he took a gamble on the 9-9-9 trifecta. now cain train hits the dog track. to lay down foreign policy odds. >> we will not get in it unless we plan to win it. that my foreign policy strategy. >> but the godfather's warm-up act may have stolen the show. >> it's the democratic party that's the racist. >> it's post time. in a moment we'll have the latest as president obama wraps up his swichk western states. but we begin with one of the men who would like the replace him. and tuesday night was herman cain's night at the dog track. and despite pleasant weather, the track quickly turned ugly from all the mudslinging that

was going on. here we see mr. cain delivering some of his first remarks on foreign policy. not at west point, nor the heritage foundation. not even the council on foreign relations, but at a texas dog track. look closely. there he is standing in front of the odds board which could easily have flashed his soaring poll number. back to the speech. cain attempted to repeat the tired criticism of president obama for ending the war in iraq. but it may have come across as a slap at president george w. bush instead. >> in a cain administration, you can be assured of a few things. before i commit, our men and women in uniform, the mission will be clear. the definition of victory will be clear. and we will not get in it unless we plan to win it. >> absolutely, mr. cain. then it was time for the cain doctrine on iran. a manifesto full of obvious

talking points that fail to offer a single solution to a complex problem. >> i wouldn't sing kumbaya. that's not working. and the secretary of state hillary clinton, bless her heart, waved her finger at iran and say don't you all dare go into iraq once we leave. as if they are going to listen to us waving our finger at them. >> well, here to help us navigate the mind of herman skain professor michael eric dyson, msnbc contributor, scholar and professor of sociology at georgetown university, as well as the author of debating race. sir, after hearing cain speak on foreign policy, do you have any idea what his policy constitutes? >> no, i guess it gives new meaning to having a dog in that fight or show of diplomacy.

or maybe on the greyhound that was running behind him or the horse that was in front of him, a dark horse, to be sure. >> cut it, enough, enough. >> the reality is that this is all blatherring nonsense. it is rooted in temperamental disgust with obama, and get him at all costs. it is not rooted in plain thought rational reflection upon the forces that lie before us. and as you so poignantly pointed out. this seems to be more a recommendon station against george w. bush than against obama. now that they're withdrawing, you cannot win for losing. if you stay there too long, what are you doing? we've gotten osama bin laden. that was the os sentencible reason for us getting involved in the first place along with weapons of mass destruction. that stuff has been proved not to be there. then get out. when he gets out, now it's a problem there. that i think part of the problem is that mr. cain doesn't askin

vision because he hasn't thought through it in a very serious fashion. and as a result, what we get our off the cuff statements in front of an odds board at the local race track. >> it was quite the performance. on the issue of iran, does cain remind you at all of dick cheney and that long roster of chicken hawks who rabidly pushed for u.s. military action there? and do you know if cain has suggested a clear way of going into iran and then of course, getting out? >> i mean, this is pretty ludicrous. i think to suggest that, yes, to really pillory hillary for saying that look, should we leave, we don't want iran rushing over to its neighbor to create some catastrophe there. aren't we being good citizens? aren't we not only withdrawing but withdrawing with a conscience? and unfortunately cain' foreign policy doesn't dictate a kind of negotiation that would have us acknowledge the sovereignty of someone else and to acknowledge that their government is not simply at the behest of the

american government. so again, unfortunately here, this is muddled thinking and even more muddled foreign policy nts wake. >> you mentioned his mock rift secretary of state. it seems almost incredible, given that hillary clinton was in libya when the air was full of lead and shells. as a woman, she's ventured into deeply conservative islamic nations repeatedly to try to improve relationships. this struck me as not just discourt just to the secretary of state. doesn't it also indicate mr. cain's utter ignorance of the sen sensitivities involved in trying to negotiate with foreign countries. >> that's a great point. we can add a gender insensitivity on top of that. trying to attack her, ignores the incredible amount of diplomacy she is actually engaged in. she didn't do this before a dog fight, or a race in texas. she did this in the midst of the teeth of the battle. she is on the front lines and the cutting edges where real

consequences are there. and i think that her ability to go into these deeply and profoundly foreign territories to articulate a vision that is at least ostensibly committed to trying to negotiate peace and to broker acceptance of a more democratized form of government says a lot for who she is. and yes, it is about cain's ignorance and about his disavowel of the necessity of talking to people, as opposed to being the bully pulpit of the american thump our chests approach to foreign diplomacy as opposed to trying to work it out before we drop a bomb or stick a bayonet in someone's face. >> what did you think of him ending that section by saying, secretary of state hillary clinton, bless her heart. >> i mean, look, if you're in church, i guess that plays well. but you're not in church. it is condescending, dismissive and it assumes he is superior to her because he knows the best way. hillary clinton is on the front line doing what we know she is

already done, which is incredibly difficult negotiations in the midst of battle. and here mr. cain is, all he is doing is throwing bombs from a monday morning quarterback position where he has not yet been involve in the struggle. i think we know who has the bone here. >> cain's reason for being at the dog track was a speech on foreign poxs before he actually spoke to the tea party crowd, he was a man name apostle claver, the head of a group called raging elephants who has chosen to gin up the faithful with a rendition i think of fire and brim stone that left the greyhounds running for cover. just watch this. >> it's the democratic party that is the racist. the party of the ku klux klan. the party of jim crow. the party of segregation. the party of the kkk. they're the racists, not us. we're their friends. we're the emancipators. we're the liberators!

>> i guess it's important that we make the point that cain's campaign speaks cain was not on stage when these remark were being delivered and didn't hear them. what's your reaction to hearing somebody speak like that? >> well, it's pretty disturbing. first of all, i guess towed mention the ku klux klan and the kkk in case we forgot one was the same as the other. a double dose there so i guess it's time six. but this is more followy. it shows you how desperate the far right wing is. they have to go way back in history to talk about what happened with the democrats. and to go way back in history to talk about the republican party being the defender of african-american and other minority people. we know historically that was the case because the republican party was the party of lincoln and we know that black people en masse began to join the democratic party in the middle part of the last century because of a shift in politics and fdr's new deal. so the reality is, let's not object fist indicate and pretend

the republican party hasn't been the party of engaging in richard nixon's southern strategy has not been the party overincarcerating african-american people with practices along with yes, some democrats. we're not trying exempt democrats from the scrutiny about what they've done. but to really try to pit the democrats versus republicans in terms of what they've done about race is to really beg the question, and to go way back in history and to desperately grasp at straws for which there is no empirical proof that such a position of the contemporary republican party even exists. >> but herman cain. he says he had nothing to do with what apostle claver said. yet he himself has invoked race repeatedly in the past. i've got a note here that in 2005, he says, congressional democrats do not want all to speak from the same fountains. he speaks african-americans have been brainwashed. he said of social security, get this.

deceased black men fund a large part of the retirement income of women. then he says the tax code is involuntary servitude. this man is getting, it seep to me, more extreme in some of the things that he says, and yet what's more disturbing about this, professor, is this guy's poll numbers are not going down. they're going up. >> they're not plummeting. they're spiraling upward. and it is really sad. and you're right. herman cain has not been called on. the racial shenanigans, deploying racial rhett richblg always accusing the left wing or liberals of engaging in just the kind of thing that he has become so expert at. infusing his rhetoric with profound references to praise have nothing to do with the issue at hand and then giving as you broad historical context. so the more extreme he gets and the more he begins to perform this type of lunatic fringe of

the far right, he begins to curry more favor with those particular factions of the republican party that want to see him rise. now he is at the top of the heap. i think it is very distressing for the republican party but it should be interesting to see how that plays out as they make a choice between romney and perry and now cain. >> as ever, thank you for your time and thank you for joining us. >> thank you. next, class warfare. this is not. >> we don't quit. and that's the spirit we need right now. look, every day we're using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪ that's why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what's it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we've got to be smart about this.

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they've never had it so good. that is the only conclusion one

can draw about the wealthiest americans following the release of a new report by the nonpartisan congressional budget office. the report shows that middle class incomes grew by nearly 40% over the last 30 years. okay. about 1% per year, adjusting for inflation. not too bad. for the lower class, not so great. for the poorest fifth of the population, incomes rose by just 18% since 1979. i guess the poor, well, they can only blame themselves. >> don't blame wall street. don't blame the big banks. if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. >> absolutely. but for herman cain, and his big money backers, here's the really good news. the wealth of the nation's top 1% nearly tripled over that same time period. incomes of the richest ballooned by 275%. wow! 275%. no wonder the godfather is

smiling. if this is class warfare, the middle class lost badly. yet, in the face of this, the republican candidates continue to roll out plans that are designed to only increase the disparity. for more on this, i'm joined now by the senior fellow of the center on budget and policy priorities. with us from washington, good afternoon. >> good afternoon. thank you for having me. >> these figures are just staggering. the top 1%, more than doubling their share of the nation's income. yet herman cain, rick perry, they would like to hand the richest a big fat tax cut in the form of a flat tax. please explain this to me. >> i don't think i can. i can describe it. i can talk about what's wrong with it. explaining it? there's a rule in football. it's called unnecessary roughness. if somebody has been tackled already and maybe there are a bunch of people on top of him,

you're not supposed to jump on them again. that's kind of what we're talking about here. you've got, what the cbo report shows is that the market by itself, these market outcomes. is generating historically very high levels of inequality. economic growth has basically become a spectator sport for many in the middle class. it does an end run and goes to the top. so what you've really don't want to see is a tax system that comes in on top of that and makes it worse. and that's precisely what we see in some of these republican plans. particularly the cain plan. less so in the perry plan but there as well. >> you know, jared, that a flat tax will be to the direct benefit of the wealthiest. the wealthiest tend to draw their income from dividends and bonuses on money. they don't earn by simply going and working at mcdonald's, do they? >> no.

that's why i said less so. in fact you're absolutely right. where you really see the benefits of the perry plan, it's to those precisely the folks that have been doing the best. those at the very top of the scale. middle class folks underly plan can choose to pay what they're paying now. and many will. but of course, if you're exacerbating the income growth at the top of the scale. now one other point from this really fascinating cbo study that really bears on this. one of the things they do in that study is they figure out how has the tax system affected this inequality problem over time? we still have a progressive system of taxes and some of the government benefits. it has become less progressive over time. that is, the growth of income inequality has been greater after tax, after we have attaches and government programs in the picture than it has become tax. so in a sense, the tides of inequality have been rising but the levies that we have to push back against them have been less effective. the last thing we need is to

take those down further. >> so in simple term,s, when eric cantor, john boehner, when mitt romney say get rid of regulations. cut taxes. reduce the tax burden. and then the economy will flourish, and jobs will be created, you say -- >> i say mr. boehner, mr. cantor, when i hear your agenda, it sounds to me like you think america's big problem is that rich people aren't wealthy enough. that isn't america's big problem. america's big problem is jobs and economic opportunities for the middle class. and if you're not addressing that problem, you're simply not in the game. >> jared bernstein, as ever, thank you very much. stay with us. >> no matter how tough times are, no matter how many obstacles stand in our way, we are going to make the dream that all americans share real once again. and that starts right now. it starts with you.

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or go to walmart.com for details. i don't want dirty air, i don't want dirty water. come on. it's about what makes sense. and if we can compete and compete successfully, more americans will be back to work. >> house speaker john boehner today reiterated that regulation is what is killing jobs. as the president again tried to sell his jobs plan. so with new reports of the rich getting richer, which philosophy do americans want to live by? congressman jim moran is a democrat from virginia. he joins us here from capitol hill. good afternoon. >> good afternoon. it's good to be with you. >> the president has taken his we won't wait campaign to the people. but republicans in congress are still standing in opposition to his larger jobs plan.

even the piecemeal version doesn't get passed. instead they continue to push for more tax cuts for the wealthy. haven't we tried this philosophy before and look where it got us. look at the disparity in this country at the moment. >> we've tried it for the last generation, martin, since the beginning of the reagan administration. that's what these numbers show. 275% increase over that period of time for the very wealthiest. now, the advantage the republicans have, many americans still think they can make it into that top 1%. but increasingly, they're wrong. it starts at birth, really. the prospects for upward mobility. but if the government doesn't have the resources to invest back and education and nutrition for poor children, and their mothers, and to the decent kind of security safety net programs that we need, then there isn't going to be adequate upward

mobility. let me give you one example if i could to show you the disparity. >> please do. >> we've got a program to provide nutritious meals to low birth weight children and their very low income mothers. the republicans have proposed cutting $833 million from that program. and they would eliminate 200,000 children and women from the program. in doing so. for one week, the cost of extending the bush tax cuts for millionaires alone is $860 million. so here we have a budget choice. >> wow! >> we can extend the bush tax cut for one week, costing us $860 million for the 321,000 millionaires, or we can eliminate nutritious meal for the very low birth rate children and their mothers, knowing if those children don't get adequate nutrition, they'll never be come petty in the work force. >> so given what the cbo has revealed today about this vast

disparity in wealth, isn't it now time to say the truth? that is that eric cantor and indeed virtually everyone of these republican presidential candidates, that their policies will only increase the gulf between the haves and the have-nots and suppress any possibility of social mobility? >> absolutely, martin. that's really what it is all about. we want people to be successful. we want people to be wealthy. we just want that opportunity to be extended to all americans. and unless you invest in the human infrastructure of this krirg it won't happen. we've lost 280,000 teachers just since the last depression -- recession. if president obama doesn't get jobs act, those are 280,000 teachers that will leave the teaching profession forever. that has a long term impact on upward mobility. >> congressman -- >> they're not going to be able to teach children adequately in

detroit, you've got 60 children in middle school per teacher. >> congressman -- >> neglecting it at our risk. and these number will only get worse if we continue the way we're going. >> i wish i had more time but thank you for joining us. when we come back, a first. one of the gop candidates joins us live. with no vegetable nutri? ♪ [ gong ] strawberry banana! [ male announcer ] for a smoothie with real fruit plus veggie nutrition new v8 v-fusion smoothie. could've had a v8. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you to help you get where you want to be. ♪ because your moment is now. let nothing stand in your way.

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attention. >> how much would the feds lose in revenue under your plan, governor? >> i don't really worry about what the feds are going to lose. >> i believe it was lyndon johnson that said, don't these people realize if they push me over to extreme position, that i'll lose the election? >> i think in his own words, he says, listen. i need to say whatever i need to say for whatever office i'm running for. >> so it's not correct to mix apples and oranges. >> those people in the republican primary have got to lay off this stuff. they're forcing their leaders, the front run enters into positions that will mean they lose the general election. >> this doesn't wash out. i hate to burst your bubble. >> i don't think it washes off. >> the idea that you stand here before us and talk about you're strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy. >> you guys look like you're really, don't like you too much. >> they've got to stop this.

>> the federal debt is going to massively go up because of all the obligation that's the federal government has. >> -- >> for more on this bunch of feerts fighting in a sack. our first republican candidate for the white house, former governor of louisiana, good afternoon, sir. >> thank you. good to be here. i'm the first, huh? >> you are, sir. pat robertson has called for your fellow gop candidates to tone it down. that must mean thing are had a pretty high state for him to step in. a man who says aids was inflicted on america as a god-sent punishment. >> yeah, i know. well, i'm a republican. i'm a prouder american though. and i would say we pick our presidents by corruption. i mean, it's who gets the most money. that's -- you talk about the tax

code, fair tax, flat tax, down tax, it doesn't make any difference. they don't write the tax code. the lobbyists do, martin, you know that. the lobbyists in washington, d.c. gave more money four years ago to john mccain and barack obama than 32 states combined. this is all just chitchat. >> so you're attempting as i know, to run a campaign that's clean of corporate donations. you also restrict individuals to donations of about $100 per person. and for that, you don't get invited to a single televised debate. nobody takes any interest in you. what does that tell you? >> well, it says that maybe i am alone. it says that maybe the issue of over collection of money from special interests is one that they don't want to talk about. now i'm a republican.

right now it's just republican debates. but i have noticed that the president doesn't want to talk about it either. martin, it is our political system. we are a nation in trouble. we don't have jobs for working people. we don't stand up to china. and all we would ask would be a level playing field. we don't dare do that. we are in trouble because we're after the money and nobody wants to stand up for working families. nobody. not democrats or republicans. >> but governor, you yourself have held office. you're a public servant over the period of your lifetime. you have been both a democrat and are a republican. herman cain has never held any office whatsoever and yet it seems to us, looking at his stats that he is now rolling in money. the donations are flowing. what's going on here? does experience count for absolutely nothing? or is it that these candidates

are actually being run by the coke brothers and the people who are supplying the money so that they can go out there and have ad verts on television, have host events and therefore raise their profile? >> they're all just alike. there are two issues in this campaign. jobs and corruption. that keeps us from dealing with the jobs problem. and all the candidates now, they seem like decent people. i've met them all. i've debated them in local towns in new hampshire which is where i live and where i kiss babies and shake hands. that's where my future is as a candidate. but they're all just alike. they'll talk one thing and then they have fund-raiser after fund-raiser as they collect the big bucks from the top 1% of american families. top 1%. 99% of us are here. and the candidates are up here. with the 1%. there will be no --

>> we know that mitt romney has been extremely effective in drawing huge sums of money from corporations and from wall street. you yourself have been a democrat. you're now a republican. what is mitt romney? >> he's a decent guy. he actually has some credentials. he's a republican and he has credentials that you would look at. i look at him with honor and respect. but when it comes to raising the the money, martin, he is just like president obama. he'll take as much as he can from wall street. they did bank reform. president obama goes the next month to wall street, has a fund-raiser at $35,000 a ticket. it's a disgrace, martin. >> if you fail to secure the nomination, and i think that's probably a reasonable bet at this moment, and i say that with all due respect to you, governor. but if you don't, where does your vote go?

which one of this lot would you support? >> i'm not ready to say that yet. i noticed in the last poll in florida, i was ahead of three of the candidates who were on the debate last week. i am beginning. i am not known, martin. you don't know me. the public doesn't know me. i am working my butt off to get a chance to get on the stage and talk about what will really change america. and it's not about the party. it is about people coming together at the center and rebuilding a nation. i believe that, martin. that's my life. >> well, sir, we are delighted to assist you and we are more than happy to have you on this broadcast. so thank you very much. buddy roemer. >> thanks, martin. next, when this is done, will any of his opponents be in any shape to take on president obama? >> did it remind you of some cafeteria with kids in the seventh grade going -- it's stupid and it hurts the

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between pat robertson's call to tone down the attack and karl rove's warning to stay clear of issues like the birther controversy, clearly some in republican circles are concerned that a circular firing squad. one person happy to sit back and watch, hever, is president obama. who put it like this to jay leno. >> have you been watching the gop debates? >> i'm going to wait until everybody is voted off the island. >> really. [ cheers and applause ] >> for more on this, i'm joined by crystal, an msnbc contributor and former candidate for u.s. congress. and michelle who covers politics for "newsweek" and the daily beast. good afternoon to both of you. let me start with you, michelle. in their respective efforts to win this nomination, are these candidates as a field in their relentless attacks on one another risking a prime

opportunity for the republican party to take back the white house from, let's be honest, a vulnerable president. >> that's clearly what some in the party are worried about. this is always a concern in the 2008 cycle, people were freaking out that hillary wouldn't pull out of the race. and that she and obama would damage people. but i think at this point, you know, it's healthy for them if one of them says something stupid or damaging or crazy, for the others to point that out. so that they can get the blood letting over with ahead of time. you can get democrats will go after them in the general. >> but michelle, don't you think ultimately, as the rhetoric gets more extreme, it is just going to spread an infection across all of these candidate. they look stupid on occasions. >> it generating into a food fight at time. what you have is a republican party that can't decide what it wants to be. it can't decide how conservative it wants to be. it can't decide how much tea party influence there should be or how much establishment

influence there should be. and so what you're watching is kind of a serious fighting through of issues that is more than just kind of surface stuff. >> i wanted to refer some new polling number in ohio. despite the president's problems with the economy, he still leads against the republican challengers across the board. the closest to him is mitt romney. what does that tell you? >> well, i would love to say it was they are fighting back. they're looking at these republicans and saying these guys aren't serious. they've been pulled so far to the right. as up, pat robertson is telling them to dial it back. you know you're in bad shape then. and they're looking at the policies and saying you are not focused on anyone but the top 1%. your policies are not going to help me. they're not going to help my family. in a state like ohio where you've had economic devastation, not just from this recession but for many decades now. they are focused first and

foremost on who will bring jobs back to the state. >> and they just don't trust this list of candidates? >> do you trust them? it's one thing when you have one of them saying stupid things and getting called out. what that when all of them are saying stoop and i had unserious thing? >> let's talk about perry and romney. there's no love lost between these two. we all know the moment where romney put his hand in a rather condescending manner on perry. it feels personal between these two. do you see the attacks escalating? do you think that these with are literally going to start ripping each other apart? do you think that rick perry might throw in the mormon sure at some point? >> so what you're saying we need to go back to our still cage death match scenario where we just let they will go at it? >> ufc unlimited fighting. kami cage fighting, isn't it? >> what you have here is romney who is pefg a certain branch of the party just cant stand. and rick perry stands for the --

he's the real conservative. he talks about how he's not going to flip-flop and how he is the authentic conservative. this is the two branches of the party coming together and duking it out. and we've personified it. it is like a beautiful test case when they're next to each other on the debate stage. >> and if rick perry could actually convince the electorate that he was the conservative, no question in my mind that he wins. there is about 80% of this electorate that really does not want to vote for romney. >> while each of these figure have gone down, romney is stuck. >> right about 21%. so you've got about 80% of the electorate saying don't we have another option? and romney's whole campaign is centered around the message, no, you don't have another option. you have to vote for me. get over it. >> michelle, what about the fact these candidates have been fairly aggressive in their attacks on each other. and yet romney, it appears to be

the guy who, i don't know, combines some sense of order and courtesy about his personality. he seem to have experience in business. what is it about him specifically that makes republicans turn away 80% of them as crystal says. they don't want to vote for him. >> he doesn't seem to have a core belief that they can latch on to. that makes a lot of people nervous. a lot of people talk about, that it is not so much his position on this or that or abortion or whatever. they just don't know what his core beliefs are so they don't really trust him. he doesn't connect on that level. and then of course he has that awkward problem. we've seen this with al gore. when you're voting for president, there is a lot of that kind of vague touchy-feely how did the candidates make you feel that goes into it. more so than with congressional elections. and romney just can't quite come

across as a regular person. >> final question to both of you. and if i can start with you. who will win this nomination? >> i still haven't counted rick perry out. i think he has a team that will go for mitt romney's jugular. >> and he has a lot of money. >> and he has money. and quite frankly, there are a lot of effective attacks that could be level against romney. >> i think unless perry does something drama to turn it around, i have to go with romney right now. there we have it. thank you very much. >> and as always, you can follow all the latest 2012 news on twitter. next up, candidate romney and his breakfast of champions. and i'm definitely not a pushover. but i am a voter. so washington... before you even think about cutting my medicare and social security benefits... here's a number you should remember. 50 million. we are 50 million seniors who earned our benefits... and you will be hearing from us... today and on election day.

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let's go to brian sullivan who joins us now with a cnbc market wrap. brian? >> i'll give you a quick update, martin, because time is tight. the dow is up triple digits after being negatively briefly in the morning. the turn called by optimism around europe. big eurozone meeting today and they plan to make a plan about a

plan. that's what we know. still the optimism is there. also, on cnbc.com, i wrote a piece talking about economic hopium, actually really good economic data today. a lot in the last couple of weeks. there are signs that things are getting a little bit better. maybe that's a factor as well. >> sully, it sounds as though you're up in europe and up here in america. >> you know, a lot of the economic data we got today, hat trick, three pieces all pretty good. a number of big pieces of data coming in, 9.1% unemployment, millions underemployed, that said. some of the data, martin, has been pretty good. we talked about this multi-trillion dollar bazooka they are referring to in europe. listen, still got a lot of problems, but there's been a lot more optimism the last few weeks and that's being reflected in the stock market. >> we appreciate the encouraging signs. thanks, brian. >> mitt romney's star may be eclipsed by his more charismatic

rivals herman cain and rick perry. this morning romney and some of his top supporters on the hill met for a power breakfast fund-raiser. the host, the american trucking association and a lineup of one of the most influential lobbyists. it's a not so subtle indication that the real deal-makers and fund-raisers are seeing romney as the guy they want to back. michael isikoff, nbc news national investigative correspondent joins us now. michael, who attended this breakfast, and why is this guest list so important? >> well, it kind of vividly illustrates the how romney has become the establishment candidate for the republican party. what we had was a lot of members of congress, including quite a few committee chairman, darryl i, is a chairman of the house oversight government reform committee, the chairman of the house armed services committee,

mike rogers, chairman of the house intelligence committee, were all co-hosts of this fund-raiser, but what was actually more interesting than the multiple congressional sponsors was this lineup of about a dozen super lobbyists who represent an array of corporate interests ranging from the american petroleum institute, at&t, verizon. it's hard to find a major corporate interests whose lobbyists were not sponsors of this event and as one of those lobbyists said to me, you know, today. what this signifies is the establishment coalescing behind romney. all of these lobbies are going to go out, hit up their clients and corporations telling them mitt is the guy, so even while romney still has a less than commanding position in the polls, the establishment is rallying behind him. >> and there's also surprising news that a solyndra lobbyist is

now also working for romney, is that right? >> i think it's a former solyndra lobbyist, but it would be hard to find any corporate interest that was not represented at that fund-raiser. romney has criticized the obama administration for the solyndra loan. that's gotten a lot of attraction. he's also criticized some of the auto bailouts, a general motors lobbyist there, so those kinds of contradictions are not hard to find on a list like this. >> michael isikoff, as ever, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> and we'll be right back to clear the air. [ male announcer ] want to achieve more with your money? pnc virtual wallet gathers your spending and saving in one place. credit and debit purchases, checks, bills, and other financial information.

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it's time now to clear the air, and the great thing about this republican presidential

campaign is that we're getting a chance on a daily basis to scrutinize these candidates expertise on almost everything, from foreign policy to the price of eggs, but while this is valuable for the public, it can be absolutely catastrophic for the candidates. take rick perry as an exam. just a month ago the gun-loving texan was on fire. 23% in the polls, taking in huge donations, leaving his competitors in the dust. but as the spotlight turned on him, he quickly started to wither. who can forget his stumbling plainly ill-informed response to the threat of terrorism during one of the debates. >> we found out through admiral mullen that hakani has been involved, and that's the terrorist group directly associated with the pakistani country. >> and then tuesday on this broadcast we showed mr. perry brandishing his postcard as simple answer to the nation's complex system of taxation.

we were also very fortunate to have on one of the world's most highly respected economists in our studio, and he offered an immediate assessment of rick perry's plan. >> it's so pathetic, it's such hackery, it's unbelievable. >> this is to say nothing of his badly backfiring attempt to resurrect the birther issue. it's, therefore, no surprise to find that rick perry has crashed from 23% in the polls to just 6%. now stumbling behind the lumbering newt gingrich. so if herman cain is known for a simplistic abbreviation, 9-9-9, maybe it's time to do the same for rick perry, only in his case it has to be hhh, hakani and hackery and hocus pocus. thanks so much for watching. dylan ratigan is here to take us forward. what have you got? >> the only thing that would make the conclusion of your final word or