ratigan today. "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. supreme importance, let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews back in washington. leading off tonight another 5-4 decision. what if the supreme court votes 5-4 on the individual mandate. either way, the vote goes, people will look at the vote and conclude that this is partisan as partisan is congress decision. where is the public decision making these days? liberals are worried about the tough day yesterday. and the justice signals that they, that if the mandate goes down, as it looks like it might, the rest of the law would go with it. voting rights and wrongs, we have reported on how republican led state lenls lay tours have made it tougher who tro digsly vote democratic to register and vote.

now we see the new laws. the league of women voters an rock the vote have a abandoned effort to register voters in florida. that's bad news. plus, more evidence of the huge tole the republican primary race is taking. president obama opened up a double-digit lead over romney and santorum in one national poll. another survey has obama leading both republicans in three big swing states. catch these. florida, ohio, and not so much, in pennsylvania. the gender gap, great frank rich joins us tonight. he says the gop turned into a stag party. finally, let me finish with a staggering prospect that 5-4 supreme court could demolish healthcare after all that country put into making it law. we begin at supreme court itself at the building and nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. now the third day, is this another bad day for obamacare, if you will? >> i think it is, chris. it does seem that all of the justices agree that if the

insurance requirement is found unconstitutional, some parts of the law have to go. and they probably all agree that things would go. one is the ban on insurance companies refusing to give coverage for preexisting conditions and the other is a set of rules on when companies how they can set their rates. now, beyond that, i think the safest part of the law are those furtherest away from the core of the law. sort of peripheral stuff that congress put on at the end. rules for cover willing indian tribes. that kind of -- those peripheral things that got stuck on to the bill that were never part of the main mission. they can probably survive. but as you move in closer to the core of the bill, that's where the trouble is. now, there was a party break down or by party of appointment i should say among justices of how they view it. more liberal justices said it is not for the court to decide. what else should survive? send this wounded critter back to congress and let them decide

what to do with it. but conservative justices said that's a hard thing to do to draw the line. we should strike most of it down even though they con concede some part could be maintain pepd chris, how do you decide which of the thousands of regulations survive. but the second thing is, at least two justices be a alito and kennedy, said if we keep the other requirements on insurance companies to broaden coverage within but we take away the mandate that would give the insurance companies more money, that would put the insurance companies in a very difficult position justice kennedy even said that would be some kind of judicial activism if the court were to put insurance companies in that kind of position. the expanded medicaid requirements in the healthcare law, that the state prod broaden coverage to give coverage to single individuals under 65 or just above poverty level, that may be in trouble as well. >> one small point important to

people who have young adult children, would the provision requiring companies to keep young adult children on their plans survive if the individual mandate goes down? >> probably not would be my guess. >> and the other point -- >> that would be considered so close to the mandate that i think, if the conservatives get their way, it would go down too. chris there is a big asterisk here and i think hopefully the biggest hope is this. that justice kennedy, and perhaps justice roberts will look at this chore of trying to decide well, which part of the law do we strike down? which parts do we save, if we strike down the mandate? we will look at it and find it so daunting that that will pull them back from their thoughts about whether the court should strike down the mandate and perhaps salvage the law. but i think that's a hope. but a dim hope tonight. >> do you think along those lines that the daunting nature of a 5-4 court striking down

something that involved this country in debate for all these presidencies which is cons mated in this long fight between -- among the first two years of the president's presidency and has had so much heat in it, so much effort to get something through with 60 senators on one side and the majority of the house and president all finally reaching agreement. to take that apart and just demolish it in a narrow 5-4 decision, does that itself intimidate people like justice kennedy from acting? snrs well, you know, i think that's a very good question. and i don't know the answer. but here is a possible scenario. if justice kennedy, who he think is the pivotal vote here, decides the mandate is unconstitutional, if he could be persuade bid liberals to maybe uphold the law, then the question is that a 5-4 decision. might justice robert join him and make it 6-3 to keep it as

narrow as possible, then you might have 6-3 vote instead of 5-4 vote. if it goes the other way i can't see liberals joining on with con se conservatives joining to make it anything other than 5-4. so i think it is up to justice kennedy, i think. >> one thing, pete, this will focus the people to focus a lot more on the presidential mauer to appoint members of the supreme court, the power of this we saw in 2000, now we are seeing it again. it is so powerful, what you are covering there. thank you so much. pete williams, justice correspondent by mnbc news. now,es let me ask you both -- let's go to ezra for analysis here. you're one of the most brilliant guys floating around here thee days. let's go back to yesterday which i think is probably, if not a bad day in cinematic terms,

certain lay dusty day as to what happened. the new york times cast it in dire terms for the president. predicting the result in any supreme court case much less one that will define the legacies o of a president and a chief justice is nothing like aciens and the could still turn in alvaro uribus diregses but the available evidence indicated that heart of the affordable care act is in peril. is that your view? >> the solicitor general made arguments not received very well. he himself add lot of time mustering passion in his presentation. but i thought what mattered with where you saw trouble, was in what the justices asked. when kennedy came out in his second question, and said, take a premise of this question that what you are doing is completely unprecedent, radically revising

the relationship between the citizen and government, that is one of the affordable character and stopped beating its wife. not a great way to respond. you have given it all away. not one place i believe, from a moment ago, a lot of folks think if they overkurn the mandate they night not overturn the rest of the bill or only overturn a small set of insurance regulations. if they did that congress is faced with health care bill in which all of the money going to give people health care insure suns still there all of the 900 billion is still there but there aren't regulations meant it keep preemus down in the insurance market. that's quite a met and the insure unindustry and other healthcare providers are trying to get congress to fix it somehow which would be possible to do if republicans were willing to do so. >> in you insist on the, denying the right to reject because of preexisting condition, couldn't someone with a stage four

horrific healthcare threat walk into a hospital and say, here, i have it buy the insurance, you have to sell it to me. >> that's exactly right. that is exactly what could and would happen to some degree. >> let me go to reid. you're pretty pro obama so i will assume that's your position here, sir. so tell me what you think would happen if the president picked up the newspaper and got the word from pete williams or someone else during midday report from supreme court that on thing he put everything on, pushed aside other matters to focus on this, his min may achievement, told by supreme court in 5-rule 5-4 ruling based on partisan youngs, what would he do. >> the strange, thing, chris, i don't think they will wage it on health care -- >> answer my question, please. if the thing he ran on. the thing he worked on so hard got 60 votes if senate got to

his desk and he signed to proudly from everyone from caroline kennedy, everyone was there. and to have that erased from history, you say he wouldn't be focused on that? >> i don't think he would be pleased. any way you slice it, two weeks ago, one week, four days, you ask anyone on the show today, what is the election about. everyone says this is about economy. jobs, jobs, jobs. i think by the time we get to election day, no matter what, that's what we will be talking about. for obama, depor a lot of blood, sweat and tears in absolutely. but it is hard it explain, a tough job for don or everyone else to get up there and distinguish between buying healthcare or burial insurance, however you want it put it. i just met someone downstairs here at 30 rock who asked who i would be talking to she said, i hate them all. i hate the doctors, the healthcare system, i don't

believe they are in it for me. >> well be you are give maeg desultry answer. i want to give you the cla tons answer one more time. >> sure. >> will the president say we have to go back into the trenches and try one more time. >> okay, i see. >> we tried the middle road. will he say the supreme court is totally partisan? will he go after the court, after a more dramatic solution like profess ifs wanted him to? can you tell me? if you don't know, it's fair enough. >> i doubt you run against the court because what do you get from there. i think either way, it f it goes down, your question is how does he orient himself and does not rally people? i think the question is yes. they will feel wounded but i think he will go out there and say, and by the way, we just don't know this will happen, but if it does, he will say look wib heard from you guy, x, y, z. we remember the big applause line in 2008, every single

euntil election day. >> let me take that attack and go to ezra. i got to go to ezra. seems to me this is where your mind takes place. where i love your brilliant mind. let's think grandly. let's think universal or cosmically. maybe this a graek in a strange way. i'm trying this now. ted kennedy tried single pay. it works in germany, in europe, in canada. there is this her tanl foundation here. let's got other way. t supreme court ruled in my issue. it is constitutional to have a single parent system. let's go. >> i think there a real irny here. i spoke to the guy who came up with the individual mandate. stewart buckley and mark polly. both are conservatives, both brought it up as alternative. so you're right, if the supreme court takes it off the table, pretty much all that is left is to deal with the problem in

health care where sick people come and get insurance and healthy people stay out. now it won't be easy. it won't come in wug one big bite or any time soon, i don't believe. people would live from to the other side and you have medicare for all. i think 10, 20, 30, 40, we've been able to have a bad healthcare system for a long time but democrats that just went through this say on o okay, what we do now is expand medicare, medicaid and children's healthcare and do you it year by year. 5 million people here, 10 million here. over time you have 50, 60, 70, 80, 85% of people in the system, have you have defactor, it is not a good way to move forward. is not quick and a lot of people will hurt in the meantime. in the end this could be the worst possible thing to happen it conservatives. >> so all you need is a bold

senate leader, 50 plus vice president and house majority and the president and can you get it done. >> thank you. as always, one step ahead of me thinking of reconciliation. up next, real world results of the republican effort to restrict voting which they are doing everywhere. especially now in the swing state of florida. the laws are so burdensome and that the league of women voters and rock the vote are giving up votes down there. looks like even centrist side is giving up in the wake of this really big push by the right to limit voting in one of our most swing states, florida. this is hard ball. monarch of marketing analysis. with the ability to improve roi through seo all by cob. 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. i'm going b-i-g. [ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. go national. go like a pro. rick santorum lost his lead in his home state of pennsylvania. let's check the "hardball" score board. according to the poll, santorum's lead is done to two. not a good sign.

last month santorum led by 15 eefr romney. pennsylvania votes on april 24 along with delaware work new york and road eye lohode island. all favor rabl for romney. looks like rick can't even hold pennsylvania. we'll be right back. listerine cleans virtually your entire mouth. looks like rick can't even hold pennsylvania. we'll be right back. b rabl for . looks like rick can't even hold pennsylvania. we'll be right back. le rabl for. looks like rick can't even hold pennsylvania. we'll be right back. rabl for ro. looks like rick can't even hold pennsylvania. we'll be right back. for romney. looks like rick can't even hold pennsylvania. we'll be right back.

welcome back it florida. ways going to say welcome back to florida but welcome back it florida. there are restriks that they say will lead to significant drop offs. among other things the new law dramatically narrows the window that third parties give to submit third party register forms. without facing a fine, that is. before the law, we had ten dayes. now there are 48 hours to bring the votes in. rock the vote suspended voting in florida. what is the confidence? new york times looked the at number register end compared to the same period before the 2008

election. they found nearly 81,500 floridians were registered to vote this time. does the law go too far? the the leader of the republican party, thank you for coming. and the advancement project be a voter rights organization. way on to the ask write off the bat, is it good for mamerica to have fewer voters voting? isn't that itself a prima facia case, you are getting tough there on the process of registering, doing what have you a right to do, vote? >> we want people to vote. i come from a business background. way is in jobs business staffing and executive recruiting. we had a governance program in place that made sure there were no errors, no omissions, no mistakes and no fraud. and that would be unacceptable in voting. that would be simply what this law does. it is good governance.

>> let me ask you to get back and forth on this. 48 hours, i have grown up, people out in front of safeways, you sign up the vote. >> that's right. >> under this new law, you have to have to form in within two days. you pay $10,000 fine and if you register, what is it? >> it's $50 per -- for the first few applicationis then goes up to 10,000 pb let me get to the point here. if you don't turn it in on time you get fined. if you can't get it in two days, by the way, saturday, when you get it in. >> right. >> sunday night? >> right. you can imagine volunteers for the league of women voters, whose been doing voter registration for years if florida. saying we don't want to be subject to those fines because we didn't count it in. and they are counting down to the minute. this affect voter suppression carried out by the gop this

year. >> respond to that. is it responsible to expect a person to show up within 48 hours with registration forms they just had filled out say over a weekend? fz absolutely. again, it's good governance. before the law, any group could go out anywhere, register voters, sit on the voter registration forms for unlimited amount of time. the individual that registered to vote would have no idea whether or not a, their voter registration was submitted, and if the right party was submitted this comes back to it is just good governance to make sure that people that register to vote, know their vote is there and that their vote will count. >> well, it still seems to be a problem if you have 48 hours to get something in mechanically. say it is 10:00 saturday morning in front of safeway. you get the person's signature down. if you don't show up by monday morning at 10, right? >> right. >> have you a fine facing. >> and the story highlighted the naacp hit by this and getting a letter from secretary of state.

that was over the weekend of the martin luther king, jr. birthday. but again it is important to put this in context. not only did the republican party in florida roll back in terms of voter registration they also come back on early voting. so this is part of the bigger scheme of what is happening. >> let's go to that. why is it important to reduce from 14 to 8. how does that reduce corruption or take away from the integrity of the progress? >> a couple of things. republicans are in fact the ones in florida that gave us early voting. democrats when they had control did nothing to make voting easier. the other thing is -- >> respond to my question, why is it important to close the window of opportunity to vote. >> republicans and democrats have said that that sunday before the tuesday election, that they needed a kwat time to get ready for tuesday. that the feedback that legislature got in crafting this law.

>> isn't it true that a lot of neva americans go to register on sunday after church and that's a pattern the republican party would like to squash? >> it's called take your souls to the polls. on the last sunday before election day, black churches through out florida add campaign where they would go and kara van to the polling place after church. it is that one sunday cut out by the florida legislature which again targets these laws we have to understand impact black and latino voters and young voters p. those who turned out in record numbers in 2008. now they rolled it back so it is cutting off the participation of that grunt # group. >> you think your party had any of that role in the decision to get rid of that sunday voting opportunity? mr. occur ray. >> the supervisor of electiones from both parties indicated they needed to the time, two days before that tuesday.

i want to see everyone registered to vote given the opportunity to vote. >> but you didn't answer my question, sir. i don't want to grill you here except to ask an obvious question that everybody watching can hear me ask. you had an opportunity under the law before, 14 days for early voting down there. we know the pattern of early voting changed over the years. it used to be used for people with money and traveled a lot. then republicaned benefitted from that. later minorities began voting early because of transportation challenges. we all know they can't just get under the car in many cases. the minute your party saw this benefiting democrats you got rid the traveling americans and wealthy people. why did you get rid of it when they were utilizing it. >> i don't buy that premise, chris. >> you said a minute ago that you liked to have more people

voting then why did you close the window? >> i just explained why on that sunday -- >> why two weeks? why reduce from 1144 to 8. >> election officials do not like reducing the number of hours because they have to pay overtime to people. so this is really about this partisan effort. nothing but that. >> i only want one answer. you said you want it increase the amount of voting in your state. i'm sure you believe that in principal. why are you reducing from 14 to 8 in early voting. >> the law requires total hours that the offices have to be open for early voting are the same. it gives different counties flexibility this terms of what the hours are. so to actual hour access to voting is the same. there's no change. chris i know you don't believe that we want to suppress minority from voting. >> well, i'm trying to find out.

the trouble is, mr. curry, i look at the pattern in every state legislation and inevitableably the republicans want to reduce the opportunity to vote in every state. it's always the same pattern. i will throw it back to you for a quick response. why is it your party that want it raise the barrier to voting consist lint across the country? in this particular period of time. maybe not 20 years ago but right now you want it to be harder for poor people, harder for minorities to vote. why is that? >> i just don't buy that. every vote counts. and that people are properly registered. >> i think abraham lincoln agreed with that principle. we will continue arguing this because it is always an issue. thank you sir for coming in, chairman of the republican party in florida. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc.

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back to "hardball." now for the side show. first up, gvp joe biden has been launched in campaign the last few weeks. here he is in iowa with a few zingers for the republican field. >> mitt romney has been remarkably consistent. as an investor businessman, as the governor of massachusetts, and now as candidate for president. remarkably consistent. and i respectfully suggest consistently wrong. governor romney called the president of the out out of touch. that's a quote, out of touch. for encouraging young people to try to get manufacturing jobs. out of touch? romney? conventional wisdom, that manufacturing is dead in this country is dead wrong. one thing that can bring this to a screeching halt is turning over the keys to the white house

to santorum or romney. >> wow, noticeably missing from that speech, any mention of newt, the newt gingrich candidate forgotten an he is looking like a former candidate. finally, chris christie is looking for a boost for a new casino. he is looking at bruce springsteen. he knows about the blue collar progressive politics but still made a pitch to the rock and role legend anyway. >> i would make a direct pay to bruce right now, i think you know, he missed out on the opportunity to open this place because beyonce picked up the mat on that. but i really think, i know, when he gets off of the summer part of his tour, he doesn't have anything announced yet for labor day weekend, i think labor day weekend for bruce springsteen would be an incredible show of

support by bruce for his home state. >> springsteen is yet to rsvp. big leads in the key swing states of florida, ohio and pennsylvania. of course, whenever wins those three wib wins it all. three wib wins it all. you're watching "hardball."eds a little help saving.

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annie's which soared nearly 90% of its first day of trading. can you say mac n cheese? that's it from cnbc, now back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." we've been saying for some time that primary race is taking its toll on the candidates. the republican candidates. now we have more evidence of that. president obama is looking much stronger in the 2012 match-ups with romney and santorum, if that matters. let's go to the score board. according to the org poll among registered voters nationwide, the president leads mitt romney by 11. look at that number. that's about as good as it's ever been. and against rick santorum to 13 as if that matters. 55-42. that race will never can occur.

now look at key states where obama a building his lead. president beating romney 44-42. he also wins against santorum of course 50-37. a obama beats romney 47, 41. if he wins there, he probably wins all of that. 47-40 offer romney. santorum. santorum is from pennsylvania there, 48-41 by 7. what we've got two pros to assess the state of the race right now here as we go into april. joe, i want to start with you. look at these numbers. i guess all of the numbers look good for obama though. i have somewhat chasened by the

pennsylvania number. that looks like within the margin of error. i think romney has appeal with those philly and pittsburgh suburbs. >> yeah. and he probably has appeal in the center of the state too in those smaller communities and i think james carville once said that pennsylvania was philadelphia and pittsburgh separated by alabama. >> yeah. >> so, you know, it's interesting that that's closer than the other two. but i got to remind you that at this point, in 1992, i think clinton was running behind ross perot. these are certainly great numbers across the board for obama and certainly reflect how dismayed the people were the republican party and theory deck louse race they've been running. but this could change in a heart beat. >> our expert view and nbc view, it is too early it call this national election.

>> i think we got at least, you know, romney has two or three more opportunities to introduce himself to the public. you know. >> is that your view, general? that injury view john howl that it is too early to call? >> of course. >> i just think this election could go all kind of directions baitsed on the economy, gas prices, based on iran, thanks like that. >> sure. and the etch-a-sketch comments made last week, he will get to reboot his campaign in the it near future. certainly as he gets out of this nomination and secures it. as he makes his choice of a running mate. p but there are things in the polls if you look more deeply that there are things that romney campaign is concerned about and should be concerned about. what is driving the situation in florida and ohio in particular, all of barack obama's margin is among female voters. ahead by 14 point in both states. that's a concern that romney campaign has. one of the things that happened in the nomination fight is he is hurt with that constituency.

we have seen polling previous to this that shows just how wide the margin is behind barack obama and mitt romney now with hispanics. it was yawning, right? fox news had obama at 70 and romney at 14. those numbers will not stay the same but the damage he suffered with key constituencies, things he can fix because you can't win if you lead with women by 14 and hispanics by 66. >> look at this poent here, joe. more along the lines john mentioned. washington post abc poll. national pol among registered voters. look at this. 52 have unfavorable ill performance-enhancing drugs of romney. just 36 people are favorable. just about a third of voters feel good about him. the president is in much better shape at 53% favorable, 45 unflavorable. let's talk about that 36 favorable for romney. how does he get it to 50?

is it doable? >> well, he has to redefine himself. the one obvious way for him to go. i mentioned ross perot before. that's the way for him to go. to emphasize the things he's good at, like management. say that federal government is a mess. which it is. talk about things like the dodd-frank financial reform bill. which is a mess. and promise to run a tighter ship and a more humane one than the president's doing. i think that that's the only direction he can go in at this point. >> is it possible, i want it start with john and back to you on that, joe. joe raised a powerful point. can you challenge like kennedy did in host '60 and when there is so much cable and so much super pack money, where he said we have to get this country moving again. we're drifting. we're losing our step from world war ii. can romney say the issue is competence on the economy? i think that's all that is.

>> certainly that is what they wanted it run on. for all of 2011 when the economy was shambles, all romney did was talk about obama. he didn't talk about republican rivals. if the economy faulters and it is still not exactly booming right now, but if it faulters over the summer and fall, he will be in a good position to make that argument. with the argument of the kind joe is talking about, he can craft something. but he will have to find themes. that one of the things he haven't done in this nomination, is find the theme and bury it up to his biography in a powerful way. >> i have one for him joe. if the supreme court rules the mandate is unconstitutional, don't attack him that he is devil or violated his oath of office. that's too extreme. say he wasted a year and a half

of time on the wild goose chase. couldn't pass mustard with a dividing court. he wasted time, the guy is not up to the job. can romney make that case if he does it just that way. >> the best case for romney to make that case is to say, okay, obama blew it. now we have to manage this run away system. we're just going it drive ourselves into debt. you know, the thing about romney is when he came out of the chute, emphasizing managerial capabilities and economy, he was a good candidate. amazing thing is that his stump speech and whole persona have gotten worse as he's gone on. >> why doesn't he hire a jim baker? somebody that knows thousand discipline him? thank you. i think we have sized up. this election is too early to call no matter how anxious you are. the republican party made a serious problem with itself with women.

going into depth in this, frank rich joins us next on "hardball." [ artis brown ] america is facing some tough challenges right now. two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. at our kearl project in canada, we'll be able to produce these oil sands with the same emissions as many other oils and that's a huge breakthrough. that's good for our country's energy security and our economy.

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april 3rd wisconsin primary. he placed fourth in ill moy primary next week and lacks any ideological base in the party. this is what the end looks like. wow. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] the next generation of lexus

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there's no going back. ♪ when your chain of supply goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that hurry up no time flat that's logistics. ♪ ♪ all new technology ups brings to me, that's logistics. ♪ we're back. beginning in 1980 with the reagan/carter race we heard a new term in politics, gender gap. simply put women began it vote more for democrats and men for republicans. democrats counted on women's votes ever since. in 2010 for example the gender gap disappeared and so did democrats. they were swept out of office in the house and democrats are

eager for a return at the gap hoping the controversy over contraception for instance will bring women back that the fold. frank rich a great writer and in fact this time writer at large for new york magazine now. he writes, in his late every piece, the gop has a a serious problem with women. that's no surprise, frank. but you're the best at this. i want you to look at this history and explain it. i think your piece does it. we have done the work to back up your piece. women have voted in recent presidential elections. this he is graph shows how the last four decades, democrats share the women's votes, shown in blue, generally increased at the same time as women voting for republicans. those are the bars in red, has decreased. it is opposite for men. voting more and more republican over the same period. frank, explain. >> what happened is there really has been a republican war on women that began under thes. we first saw it toward the tail end of the nixon administration,

before roe v. wade was decided or abortion was an issue, and nixon, who was generally progressive about women's issues, suddenly vetoed a childcare bill in part on the grounds that women shouldn't be working, that they were sort of -- should stay at home with their guy, and it was, i think a deliberate attempt in those days of the gop to exploit the backlash against the feminist movement the same way they used the southern strategy at the same time to exploit the backlash against the african-american civil rights movement. ever since then -- >> let me ask you about reagan because i know, i think we both agree that reagan was really the first one to really display the way people reacted to him. something like eight-point differential between how women voters reacted to reagan's candidacy and how men did. what do you think was there? >> well, you know, it's sort of counterintuitive because reagan was such a genial guy and seemed to, we think would appeal to

both genders equally, but i think by then the religious right was beginning to get a stranglehold, abortion and choice was becoming more and more of an issue and that would escalate throughout the 1980s and as you know, chris, reaching its culmination in the 1992 houston convention which was really kind of a freak show for the anti-feminist, anti-choice right. >> yeah, marilyn quail played a big part in that, basically arguing the old matter of how women are related to men, obviously. >> right, and dan quayle who was, after all, the sitting vice president, ran against murphy brown, a fictional cbs sitcom character. >> that was smart. >> remember that? >> i remember it now that you bring it back, you regurgitated it. >> a nightmare. >> let me try some ynuance. not to get into the difference or anything here, but it seems like certain male candidates

haven't been offensive to women, even if they're from the right side of the tracks. i mean, for example, george herbert walker bush didn't do badly in '92 against bill clinton among women voters. i was thinking -- i was thinking -- there are sot oame r differences. >> maybe so. george h.w. bush was, again, a genial guy, although you remember the gag at the time was he remined american women of their first husband. >> that's not a good memory. he also said something offensive about his debate, didn't he say i kicked her butt or something? >> exactly. actually, you know, he knew better than that. i don't know why he was behaving that way. >> he was trying to act like a reagan republican i think. >> all the rest of it. in '92, it was 20 years ago, the year of the woman and the key thing there is that women took all these democratic seats in the senate, and they were all democrats, and that was something that bush could not overcome. there was a tide following the

nita hill hearings and following the rise of hillary clinton who would then become first lady and who attracted all sorts of vitriolic attacks, a lot of them my mythogenost. >> i'm getting rewards from hr saying things like that these days, so is my wife. let's talk about women and the glass ceiling, where it's going to break. hillary clinton came close with the incredible number of votes she got in 2008, rather, 2008. this time around, who are you looking for? anybody, claire mccaskill, amy klobuchar? is hillary clinton going to be the candidate in 2016? >> all the hillary speculation, i don't know what to make of it. look, the examples like claire mccaskill that you mentioned, there's some incredibly talented and brilliant women politicians, almost all of them in the democratic party, at least at

the high level, and i'm sure one will break through. i think the glass ceiling is far from permanent in the presidential race in this country. >> good for you, frank. you're a great writer. we love it. you're now with "new york" magazine. when we return, let me finish with the prospect the supreme court could actually overturn health care by one vote. imagine what that's going to do if that happens. one person deciding something we've all been fighting about for centuries it seems. [ male announcer ] in blind taste tests, even ragu users chose prego. prego?! but i've been buying ragu for years. [ thinking ] i wonder what other questionable choices i've made? [ club scene music ] [ sigh of relief ] [ male announcer ] choose taste. choose prego. yeah, but the feeling wasn't always mutual. i want you to grow big! if you grow for me, you'll get cookies for free. nothing worked. ♪ but we started using miracle-gro garden soil. you just mix it with your backyard soil... and it feeds your plants for up to 3 months. my plants grew bigger... more beautiful...

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let me finish tonight with this. the supreme court stands on the verge of changing american political history. the fate of what the president proposed, what the congress debated, what was written into law is to be decided by a single justice. this will be hard to take. the american people invested an extraordinary amount of argument in this matter. on the left the fight has been waged between those who wanted a public option and were willing to risk the whole health care measure for it and those who thought it better to get what was gettable and not risk getting nothing. the prospect of getting that looms over the horizon. by june we may get a rule from the court across the lawn that this has been wasted. the reaction on the right could take two courses. one, this would be the nastiest and perhaps the most defective. it would be an out and out charge against the president that he violated the constitution, that he resorted to a terrible historic abuse of his office by shoving through a measure that violates his oath of office. it's not only unconstitutional,

they would say, he is. would be seized upon like fdr's court packing as a historic presidential overreach, unworthy of a historic rejection of the american people, actually worthy of one. mitt romney would be perfect for this role, to accuse obama of wasting a year and a half of his early presidency on a wild goose chase wasting valuable early months of the country's history to work a bipartisan challenge to the country's economic crisis. either way, it will be hard for the president to view a rejection of his number one legislative achievement, as anything less than a body blow to his work since being elected, and that historic balloting of 2008. so here we go. into a brutal period of deliberation. by june we will know whether justice kennedy, justice anthony kennedy has given approval to the affordable health care bill or not. we'll know what the fight is going to be like between june and november. it will be far better for the president if the supreme court approves what he's don