to, to look at bain capital. what i'm reporting to you is, having lived through it it doesn't work very effectively. >> carol lee, you're new to the rodeo, i'm going to you first on this. newt gingrich actually offering word of advice perhaps for president obama, bain didn't work for him, it's not going to work for the white house, what do you make of that? >> i don't think the president will take advice from newt gingrich in terms of how he's going to run his re-election campaign. if you look at what the president said yesterday, it's obvious he's not going to back down on this, double down on it, clearly wants to get into the debate. when asked at the end of the nato press conference yesterday, he went in forcefully, said romney played it fair game, he's running on his business experience and also said that tried to free him in the way it's not bad what he did, but this isn't necessarily the best experience for running for the office of president, say. >> is that too confusing, joan, the idea that it's not bad that -- private equity in and of

itself isn't a bad thing, it's just the clarification the president made, these are his credentials for running for president, and he doesn't get it. >> i think what the president did yesterday really made it clear why it matters. i think what he did was a good thing, alex. i think that saying it's one company demonizing private equity, all of these things that they've thrown back at him i thought he handled it well to say mitt romney has made this the centerpiece of why you should elect him president and i'm going to tell you why it doesn't matter and why it's not a job qualification. so i thought it worked. >> i want to play the bill burton has given us an early peek at a new priorities usa ad out today which they position as a response to the crossroads gps ad basketball, which we'll show you later. the new priorities usa ad, bain cal ta capital is front and center. >> i had 2 1/2 years to go.

i was 60 years old. i had no health care and that's scary. when mitt romney did that, he -- he made -- he made me sick. >> okay. patricia, what i'll say on the heels of that, david brooks saying, in a country that desperately wants chang i have no idea why a party wouldn't compete to be the party of change and trounce formation. for a campaign like obama who promised change i have no idea why he would want to run a campaign that regurgitates the exact same ads and arguments as so many democratic campaigns from the ancient past. >> that was part of obama's success in 2008 he ran a campaign that a lot of people hadn't seen a lot of before, a lot of the rhetoric, was and much you and i and the country and they responded to that absolutely. in this in case, obama's got to get after democratic voters,

shore them up, use messages that they believe will, especially with white men. they have a huge deficit there. they are using messages, they are not just throwing spaghetti against the wall. they have focus groups -- >> a lot of focus groups. >> a lot of digging here. i do think, it's very difficult to watch the obama administration go after bain capital and also still pulling their bunches, we know that's because of the fund-raising base on wall street. and he's really i think trying to do two dances at the same time. i don't think that the fund-raising piece is coming up to the surface yet but one of his biggest was in the leadership of bain while this was going on. he's treading in relatively dangerous territory in this attack alone, but they believe an attack is going to work, they're going to keep doing it. >> it's romney's arrow in the quiver, look my record at bain was great. john sununu in a conference call, let's hear what he had to

say. >> the bain record as a whole is fair game. what you have to do is doing an honest evaluation. the bain record is about 80% they were able to save jobs at companies and 20% of the -- when they invested in companies that were in such bad shape they weren't able to save those jobs. that's a good batting average in the private sector business. >> eric, i'm not sure anybody is able to do an incredibly effective job with the bain thing. as patricia said the president has to tread a sensitive line, as far as not alienating wall street and/or seeming like he's an enemy of capitalism, whereas romney, when they get into 80% of the companies -- first the notion that bain was even the premise of bain was to create jobs is a ridiculous one. beyond that the record, x number of jobs created at staples, factory closings, it's tricky. >> that's the core of what obama is going after, what you said.

the idea of bain is about job creation is nonsense. it was about profit creation for the shareholders. this isn't an attack on private equity. it's an attack on a radical, greedy destructive model of capitalism about going in and dismantling corporations for profit, driving up debt, imposing a harsh austerity program on them and squeezing every penny out of them possible. >> in terms of how fair and kind and good to the american worker private this kind of corporate buy-out work is, that's one thing. how does a president deliver that message while not indicting everybody involved in private equity? >> i don't think he is indicting everybody involved in private equity. i think there's a clever counterattack on the part of romney and the republicans to say, if you attack bain, you're attacking private equity, cal tappism itself. that's like saying if you attack

wright, you're attacking christianity. it's not about christianity or capital itch, it's about this flavor of private equity that romney helped pioneer. >> in those ads you have a woman saying mitt romney made me sick. you have -- i'm -- look i think mitt romney's claim this is character assassination is highly dubious, but you are treading into questions of morality there, are you not? >> i think that when you -- to go to your point, when you look at what the democrats have saying that have problems with ads the division isn't exactly do you go after bain capital for what it did, mitt romney what he did while there, but it's also that these ads have such a negative tone to them that that's where the president's getting in trouble. so it's a very hard needle to thread in what he's trying to do here. he had a message for democrats yesterday, also in his remarks, where he said this is not a distraction, this is central to the debate and put them on notice in that front. >> i think it's a different era, too, when you know you -- usually the president is the one

with the economic record to attack. in this case his opponent has an economic record to attack as well and the president would like to turn the discussion to his opponent's economic record, because he thinks his own economic record matches up well compared to his opponent. >> i hear he's not talking about his own economic records. he's talking a lot -- he doesn't want to talk about it because it's not so great. it's not where he wants it to be. the notion he's attacking only bain and not private equity, most americans that's in one ear, out the other, they hear him attacking business and that's where certainly a lot of republicans and independents start to get a little queasy. >> i think he's doing something important. i think he's telling a story about the way we have privileged finance capital in a particular way with personal tax rates and corporate tax rates, and really said democrats and republicans, by the way, for the last 15 years that you're the good guys and what's good for wall street is good for america, and that

took the economy off the cliff in 2008. and the president is trying to come back from there, tell the story, understand how that happened, tell the american people how that happened, and stand for a more balanced vision of capitalism that's about workers get rich. we had a country once where the rich got rich, but everybody got richer. >> there was mobility. >> there was mobility until the mid '70s. and since then you've had this phenomenon of the top 1%. >> and stagnating middle class wages. >> and hostility to anything that helps the middle class. >> as carol mentions in the president's remarks, he was the one at nato who said this business a fair shot and went back to tie it to fiscal policy. >> right. >> instead of character. >> he wants -- >> that is again a very difficult line to jockey. coming up post-booker gate. a look at campaign surrogates and how they help and harm campaigns. that's next when former white house deputy communications

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i stand firmly with the president. i've been standing for barack obama before most people were standing with barack obama. barack obama team in the white house and their political team have been good to me for many years. i've going to continue every single day to pour my heart and soul making sure he gets re-elected. in anything they turn me on to work harder ♪ i'm sore

so sorry♪ >> how many ways can you say i'm sorry? that was mayor corey booker trying to get out of the dog house and back into the good graces of the white house. joining the panel now, jen psaki, former white house deputy communications director for president obama. >> thank you. >> it's been a week of surrogate gaffes or a month, i don't know, but in fairness, we've talked about president -- vice president joe biden and of course mayor corey booker. but there have been gaffes on the right. as someone who is an expert in these things, which -- which speaking out of turn was worse, which gaffe was worse, eric fehrnstrom's etch a sketch or corey booker saying one of the president's main planks of criticism nauseated him. >> the etch a sketch was hitting the nail on the head of something we already knew or thought and that was why it was problematic for them and still continues to be. mayor booker as we just saw has

backtracked from his comments. he is a big support of the president. i think there's no question if he could take back the comparison he made between reverend wright and you know the comment his made comparing, ooh think he would. >> i think he did try. >> he did. >> he's trying to do that several times. >> i think that's true. the tree judge is not what the surrogate says or what the gaffes are, we'll see many more between now and november, it's now campaigns respond. >> and i've got to ask you, i mean, could there have been room for him to just disagree with the white house? >> absolutely. there's a big umbrella in the democratic party, as we all know, and i think that's one of the reaps why the president, why many senators members of congress, senators are in the party. at the same time, the president is at the top of the ticket, running for re-election and made clear yesterday he disagreed with comments made and he's going to move forward on this strategy. and at the the same time,

requestic andly, mayor booker made clear he's a support of the president. he said on his twitter account -- he's an avid tweeter -- that he believes that the bain experience was not about job creation, which is exactly the point the president is making. >> okay. all right. carol, you're a white house insider. i'm going to call you a white house insider. you're a great reporter. you've seen how -- is risk adverse being too unfair? after the hilary rosen comments, after the corey booker stuff, i'll give them a pass on joe biden, but there's been an immediate sort of disavowel, let's put daylight between us and you. or let's get you to retract your comments in a home made youtube video. >> now when these things happen the fallout is republicans tuesday very did come around quickly and use it against the president, saying there are divisions within the party and that drives the campaign and the white house crazy. there's a very concerted effort to keep everybody on the same

page and push back very quickly or distance themselves as you mentioned to keep that from happening. >> also in the season of the super pacs where eric, as we discuss, anybody with a million bucks becomes a surrogate. talking about foster friess and he had his comments about you know bayer aspirin, keeping it between your knees, incentive remarks about contraception and bill mahr on twitter yesterday who said, why litten to mitt romney on foreign poll circumstance his entire foreign policy experience is trying to brow beat frenchmen into his cult. money creates surrogates and surrogates in some cases create problems. >> it's interesting that obama finds himself into this new position. when he ran for office, no drama obama, a master at making sure everybody was on message and nobody went off script. he can't 'do ta anymore, you've got governors and mayors and congress people and comedians and who you don't control directly even if they're kind of

in -- on your team or in your camp. so he's got a position where he can't kind of rub the campaign, that he did in 2008 with the same sort of top-down kind of ruthlessness. >> do you think that's true, jen? >> i disagree on the point, 2008, the nominee, he was the leader of the party, and there were people who were coming out and disagreeing with points he made, people from his campaign made at time as well. the key is moving in the same general direction. mayor booker is moving in the same direction the president is. he was making the same point -- >> in terms of broader policy, i don't think anybody's confusing him. >> also questioning whether mitt romney's experience at bain was about job creation or was it about making money for his investors and mayor booker made the same point the president's been making. they are moving in the same direction. there may be a little off-roading from time to time, but that's okay. and i think this is also an interesting example of last few

days because this has allowed the campaign to come back and talk about bain again and talk about why mitt romney's experience at bain is not a qualification for him to lead. >> if we are talking about on message, offmessage, the debate from bain to whether bain is fair, which is a different discussion and opens up the door to more criticism for team obama and the strategy they're using. >> i don't think it's right to say book somewhere the president are moving in exactly the same direction. he did have a fundamental questioning of the approach that the campaign is taking, not necessarily that the president's taking, but just saying these texts are nauseating to him. that is a word that didn't pop into his head when sitting in the chair at "meet the press" he was taking the campaign to task and making the argument that republicans have been making and making it for them and making it in a package. he's frequently compared to president obama. he could be the next president obama. he's a rising star in the party. to come from somebody like him who is very much within the obama circle and making the

republican arguments for them, that yes this is so damaging. i'm sure they moving in the same direction now, no question about. his moment on sunday seemed very real and i don't want to say sincere but seemed very emotionally real. those were not fake emotions that he was putting up there. i think that's why it was so damaging, this is somebody who somebody like to see as somebody who go could go the same place as obama. but you know it's like john boehner's wheel barrel of frogs. everybody hopping on and off. campaigns are messy. the campaign did a good job shutting it down and moving on. >> the example he used -- it was like he was making the point we should elevate our politics, which i don't think most people don't disagree with, and he was using two examples and he used the example of reverend wright which i think many people, and mitt romney said he disagrees with using that out there and used the example of paibain. it wasn't like he was saying

this is wrong on beige. there's an importance in the details. >> this goes back to the careful line one must tread. the fairness question in bain it does complicate the message. we won't be looking at "meet the press" to see how the national dialogue changes yet again. jen psaki great to see you. sheriff joe arpaio and his cold case posse -- cold case posse -- get support from arizona secretary of state in their investigation into president obama's birth certificate. why won't this issue go away? details next. c'mon dad!

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that shaped obama's world view needed to be off the table and not discussed. i disagreed then and now. >> saying reverend wright and past associates of president obama are fair game when it comes to campaign attacks. her remarks come as when joe arpaio reignite the birther debate, keeping the president off at ballot unless they get proof he was born in the u.s. ken bennett is running for government in 2014 in arizona and claiming he's not eight birther but received 1200 e-mails from voter whose have doubts. i bring in a "the washington post" editorial that makes the point in 1/50 of 1% of arizonans demanded that ken bennett, the republican secretary of state, go to work in the nude, would he comply? not likely, mr. bennett is planning to run for governor in two years, it wouldn't pay to pander to crack pots and humiliate himself in the bargain

or would it? why are these guys talking about it? from they think it works to rile up the base, talking to crazy people. they would not reopen the -- whether there was a real moon landing or not, but they're going to relitigate this over and over and over. and swewe're paying attention. i tried to not write mr. sheriff joe. i don't write about him, maybe he'll go away, but it's not working. >> sending a deputy from his threats management unit, also his cold case posse to hawaii. this is the kind of gumshoe reporting that only -- i don't know -- crazy people practice. >> tax dollars at work. >> and this is somebody you have to remember who is -- who looks like he's facing an investigation by the department of justice. >> yes. >> and who is doing this in part as a form of pushback, political pushback, to say basically you mess with me, i'm going to keep

messing with you in a way that's going to get media attention, and it works. >> the money, the safe money on the bet between the cold case posse and the justice department, i think is probably on the justice department. but we'll let the story play out. coming up, mitt's millions. will the gop overtake obama in the fund-raising wars? ok! who gets occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating? get ahead of it! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defend against digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. hit me! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. ♪ why do you whisper, green grass? ♪ [ all ] shh! ♪ why tell the trees what ain't so? ♪ [ male announcer ] dow solutions use vibration reduction technology to help reduce track noise so trains move quieter

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"new york" magazine contributing editor and a contributing writer to "rolling stone," ben wallace-wells. eric bates of rolling stone is sitting next to me. >> my boss, yeah. >> so, ben, you have a story in the magazine talking about the relationship between george and mitt romney and one of the things i thought was interesting is the stoenotion of institutiod organization, how george romney was a believer in the notion of institutions and that mitt romney is to a certain degree, those institutions don't really exist anymore. and i wonder how you think that sort of translates to his relationship to wall street, and i think almost a belief romney has, an institutional belief, the markets will resolve everything, and that's won him plenty of accolades in dollar as among the wall street community. >> one of the things that's remarkable in thinking about the difference between george romney and his son mitt is seeing the shift in what the moderate republican believes in and looks

like over time and the place in which you see this most is the relationship of individuals to society versus institutions. george romney says, you know, rugged individualism, the idea, which is a sort of watch word among conservative circles in the '60s is a by-word for greed, something you never hear mitt romney say. what you see in mitt's work at bain capital is as eric pointed out earlier in the show, a kind of acceleration of the business world away from one in which stable units, corporations that last for 30 years, matter. and to one in which shareholders, their perspective, individual managers are decisive. so the news about mitt romney's new capacity to raise money on wall street right now isn't surprising at all in that light. >> eric, you guys, in "rolling stone "s have a piece, talking

about the big hitters in terms of donations to the campaign, super pacs. we have talked about this stat a lot, 92% of wall street donations are going to the gop, 72% are going to mitt romney. if you look at the numbers, he's definitely closing the gap with the president. in april if you look at team oek obama, outside super pacs, obama had 144 million cash on hand, romg had 77.5. that's a 2-1 spending and that's 2-1 advantage although the fund-raising numbers from april are much, much closer, basically neck and neck. >> right. we're seeing played out in real time results of the roberts court activist intervention to change the marketplace for campaign finance and to allow the wealthy to give as much they want in an unlimited way. we looked at top 16 don't to romney's super pac, you see they're all very old guys, i think the median age was nearly 70, the median wealth of these guys is over a billion dollars.

so you have old billionaires who all have an agenda, both in their own personal businesses and in a broader sense in terms of low tax rates for the wealthy they're pursuing through romney and free to give as much as they want. >> to that point, these older donors don't have that rockefeller republican view of markets and institutions. it's definitely more in line with the romney bain corporate buyout sort of know, i won't say trickle down but free markets for all ethos. >> i think that's right. keep in mind, kind of broadest policy difference between the obama campaign and the romney campaign may very well be how much money they want to take from the wealthy, you know, the obama campaign wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. the romney campaign wants to cut taxes onwel wealthy. it's a tangible thing. these guys have scrooge mcduck

sized treasure chests. so i think that there is an i'd logical element and also a very basic sort of self-preservation element at work. >> it is -- we talk about the president's delicate dance vis-a-vis talking about bain and private equity and wall street donations, and here you know, the big donors, big money, regoing to right and the president's got to make up that gap. the question is can he close it with small dollar donors. is the news from actle rod team obama will get outspent from team romney. does it gin up their base. >> i think it will. barack obama got more money from wall street than john mccain did. he was the candidate of wall street, the candidate of gold n mman and people of dodd/frank believed they did not do enough to rein in the banks and yet the banks hate them and they're shoveling money they gave to

him, to mitt romney. that's interesting, team obama, david axelrod, will remain the base of that, too. and so i think these things that we're talking about today are all of a piece. there's a policy piece, a taxation piece that ben raises, there's the president needing to say i get it in terms of the control that great wealth wall street has over our economy and your lives, and i'm going to do something about that. and by the way, i need those small donations. and medium sized donations, too, we've got to make this a people's campaign. >> it's not just wall street, right? there are wealthy liberal progressive donors still sitting on sidelines that have not been recruited to give the obama re-election fund. >> they've not been recruited but obama's facing disappointment among his donor base. as joan said, a lot of places he didn't deliver what he seemed to promise and people are frustrated and disappointed, and don't have that fire that they had the last time around for him

and he's got to find a way to reignite that. >> ben, in your story, you put it in such sharp ideological terms, it's amazing that folks don't see this to be the fundamental argument and difference that it actually is. this is an argument about the american social contact and that seems to have gotten lost in the smaller discussions about fiscal policy. >> i think that's absolutely right. you know, i think one of the struggles of the obama campaign's going to have over the next six months is to without sounding too angry, without alienating people, which is what the romney campaign's trying to say they're doing, make that distinction as stark politically as it is for people in real life. >> ben wallace-wells, i heard a rumor you're on deadline for a story for "rolling stone." yes, i am. >> look at that grimace. >> busted. >> we're getting there. we're getting there. >> we'll let you go, sir. thanks for your time. >> take it easy. >> after the break, here we go

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>> now just get rid of these choking definitions that intrude into the very integrity of the church and simply say, if a church has moral objections to this we're not going to force them to do it, that seems to be a compromise, the president gets what he wants we get the religion freedom that we're thirsty for. >> commenting on the decision by 43 catholic groups in 8 states to sue the obama administration requiring employers to offer insurance plans to provide coverage for birth control. carol, the administration had a response today. they said we have conversations

and with catholic leaders all the time including as recently as last week, we have outlined an approach that protects religious liberty. we continue to work with the public and communities of faith including catholic leaders. is keeping this alive a good thing for the administration? >> i think that, if you talk to people inside the white house, they don't want this fight. they don't want to pick a fight with large institutions. at the same time they feel like they're on right side of the politics on the issue. there is a sense that the lawsuits which will take a while to move through it that it does highlight the president's pro-women angle. so in that sense it has a potential, because it's still in the news, to help them with what they're trying to do in terms of winning over the women vote. >> right. >> as far as lawsuits themselves, i don't think it's a primary concern of the administration. the real lawsuit they're concerned about is the supreme court health care absolute. >> of course, which we'll hear

word on any week now. patricia, michael gerson says, i've previously argued that the obama administration motivated by the liberalism stumbled into the conflict with catholic leaders. obama's appealing to younger, nonreligious voters with the alienation of traditional catholics. do you think this alienates white catholics in sort of swing states like pennsylvania and ohio? >> some. yes, it does alienate some white catholics and those are the same white catholics offended the first time the decision came out, saw the compromise, it wasn't enough for them. they're probably republican voters anyway. that's why this is a group that you can only alienate the same group of people so many times and care about it. i think that it not only hurts him among that group, which he'd

love to get back. but this is not where he's going to make up room with voters and they feel like they've given enough on this issue. they feel like they made a compromise and that ought to be enough. >> wasn't this sort of done? didn't they deal with this quote/unquote? >> the point is cynical and it's false. they did not want this battle. it played out a week i was with you, it played out and i came to the compromise, worked very hard to get the catholic health association back on their side, they got the association of jez jesuit hospitals and universities. we have to remember it's fun to talk about sex, it's fun to talk about religion, but this is -- >> calling it like it is, joan walsh. >> i'm just saying. but this about labor law. it is a simple matter of labor law and if you're going to be an employer, you abide by certain rules. and in this situation, the supreme court has already said that employers do not get to opt

out of labor law because of their religious beliefs. they told the amish they had to collect social security taxes though they didn't believe it n. it in 1982. the law i believe is on the president's side, and the politics are on the president's side too. >> the labor issue and to carol's point you say the word contraception over and over again you begin to turn off women who are like, why is the word contraception even on the table in terms of the national dialogue? e. je deion in "the washington post" saying the administration responding to a united catholic community did off air compromise and has shown a willing tons accommodate concerns of catholic institutions. the catholic community is split, they cannot understand why they did not respond to the administration's olive branch. many bishops seem to want the fight. this is i think an intracatholic dispute than anything else here. >> that's right. you have to remember that the catholic leadership on this issue is out of step with their

own parishioners. overwhelming majority of catholics believe in birth control, support birth control, women's access to birth control. overwhelming. what you have is a leadership that's trying to shore up its position and enforce its doctrine on its own community and it's trying to signal publicly that we're not going to give an inch, as they always have for years. so it's really an internal battle, to a large extent. >> i don't think it's a great day for the administration when the fighting irish are suing over you they believe something is a fundamental core belief. it's not great territory to be fighting on. take it several steps down the road and in the end the politics work more than they hurt them. but to get into the squabble right now, it's not something that the administration wants. >> it's also fair to note that georgetown's not part of the lawsuit, kathleen sebelius spoke there. lots of the jesuit universities

are not suing the administration for the their position. >> that speaks to, if you look back how this started, when the administration, they'll admit they handled this terribly at beginning, tried to write it came out with a goes mied position and the initial wave they did risk losing voters that president obama could have gotten in november and when he came out with the compromise they stoort of were able to bri some of those people back potentially. that's what you're seeing in the lawsuit. you're seeing die-hards that are probably if you're the obama campaign thinking these people aren't going to vote for us anyway. so you're seeing a drop-off which is why you have people like, as you mentioned, not everybody's siding on with the lawsuit that may have opposed what the administration handled this. >> worst nothe u.s. conference catholic bishops are not part of this. coming up, rick perry's back. i'll say that again.

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and you're from america. and no matter how tough times get, you'll always be tougher. >> welcome back. time for "what now?" president obama addressing high school seniors of joplin missouri one near to the day after a giant tornado kill more than 160 people. joan, we frequently talk about the president and two capacities, one is as commander in chief on the world stage in the shadows of nato and the g-8, or as a campaigner. but i thought that was a remarkable speech, not only because of the emotional pitch of it but it's a reminder that of course he's the president of the united states and his domestic concerns are serious. >> right. and he's also the consoler in chief and he's very good at that, very good showing up and making people feel comforted and heard and taken care of and it was an important milestone for them. >> eric, we talk about -- i mean beer summit as side, having

someone aside in the oval office who is empathetic and in those moments you're reminded of the strength of obama and the brat fa pratt falls of romney. >> he's cool in his poise in his presence. even the people who hate him recognize that he's formidable in his ability to connect with people and to keep calm in the face of disaster. and you can't fake that. and it comes across over and over again and we'll see more of it as the campaign progresses. >> we didn't get to play the ad, this is karl rove's brainchild, it's not any kind of personal attacks it's all about the president's economic record because they understand, through poll testing and focus groups, people still like the president. he has a warm spot in their hearts for him. >> the guy who did the ad did the willie horton ad.

look at din treatments they are bringing to this. when people see the ad, they'll see. it's a soft sell of the anxiety people are feeling in the country and through all of their focus grouping people kept saying, i like this president. i believed him, i wanted to believe him the messages that he used i thought were going to work. i don't think heat a bad person. you don't -- politics is so polarizing you don't hear that a lot about somebody still might vote against anyway. romney campaign, they have to be very delicate in the way they go after the president. you hear romney say i think he's a good person i don't think he's done a good job. a $25 million ad buy isn't main or negative it's reflective of the strengths the president has with the american people who still might not reeelect him. >> the primary in texas a tale

of two governors, rick perry and sarah palin. perry's in a new ad for lieutenant governor david due duhe duherst. a face-off between sarah palin and rick perry. does america want this? i don't know. i want to talk about it. >> we like it, right? i mean, you obviously like it. >> i just want -- rick perry the picture of him in the running gear with the neon green laces. do we have it? >> we haven't seen him since he dropped out of the race in south carolina. so this is a bit of reemergence on the stage and it will be very interesting to see how that fight goes down. >> and also, sarah palin has been sort of giving endorsements to a few select races and it's interesting to see that she's having an effect and what degree should be a kingmaker come november. thanks it eric, patricia, joan,

carol. see you back here tomorrow, noon. joined by john heilemann, patricia murphy, jakes lipton. until follow us on twitter. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. good afternoon to you. >> thanks so much, alex. good afternoon to you. the impact of president obama's support of same-sex marriage on voters. exclusive results from our new nbc/"wall street journal" poll. what u.s. ambassador ryan crocker's stepping down will mean to the u.s. handover in afghanistan. william cohen joins me. senator kay bailey hutchison says mitt romney is right for women. we'll ask her about that next. join me on "andrea mitchell reports." [ thunk ] sweet! [ male announcer ] the solid thunk of the door on the jetta. thanks, mister!

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opposed to the head of a private equity firm, your job is not simply to maximize profits. your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. >> while newark mayor corey book somewhere sometime obama surrogate is trying to explain himself in an exclusive interview with rachel maddow. >> frustratingly i think i conflated the attacks the republicans were making with wright with the attacks on the left. and those can't be equated. >> stepping down, the u.s. loses its point man in afghanistan at the worst possible time. plus, the day of remembrance in joplin, missouri. and move over, harvard. jay leno's got competition for you. ♪ don't ask me i'll never tell don't look to me you came my