like this don't have political significance or engaging on issues like this risks offending someone somewhere. he went on the offense on reproductive rights and women's health. he nailed the republican ken buck on these issues. >> since candidate supported criminalizing abortion in cases of rape and incest, my question is who is going to go to jail, ken? who is going to go to jail? >> when you criminalize abortion in the case of rape and incest, and an abortion occurs, who goes to jail? >> as a doctor, i try to protect the health of women. that's what i do. that's why i'm very disturbed by ken buck. >> who is ken buck, and does he speak for colorado? ken buck even wants to ban common forms of birth control. and buck's view on abortion -- >> i'm pro life and i'll answer the next question. i don't believe in the exceptions of rape or incest. >> as far as i'm concerned, ken buck is just too extreme for colorado. >> that was how michael bennet

won a senate race he was never supposed to win in an election year that went republican almost everywhere else in 2010. and what did his win look like in colorado? tah-dah. women's votes. that's the vote among women. he only won the election by a slim margin, but look at his margin among women voters. 17 points, and thereby, michael bennet won the race. and that michael bennet playbook from colorado from 2010 provides the political logic which explains why you are this year seeing ads like these from president obama's presidential campaign. there are now three of these ads, the first one came out july 7th. >> every woman who believes decisions about our bodies and our health care should be our own is troubled mitt romney supports overturning roe v. wade. for women, planned parenthood means life saving cancer screens and family planning services but for mitt romney -- >> planned parenthood, going to get rid of that. >> i never felt this way before, but it's a scary time to be a woman.

mitt romney is just so out of touch. >> mitt romney opposes requiring insurance coverage for contraception and he supports overturned roe v. wade. he backed a bill that outlaws all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. >> this is not the 1950s. contraception is so important to women. it's about a woman being able to make decisions. >> i don't remember anyone as extreme as romney. >> cut off funding to planned parenthood. >> i don't think mitt romney can even understand the mindset of someone who has to go to planned parenthood. >> three separate ads on women's reproductive rights over the last month from the obama campaign. and these are not just running on the web or in a liberal market here and there. these are big official campaign ad buys. these are on tv in places the president is trying really hard to win. and in the swing state of colorado tomorrow, introducing the president at his big campaign event in denver is going to be the woman who accidentally made conservatives say what they meant when they

launched their republican offensive earlier this year against american women's access to contraception. >> what does it say about the college coed susan fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. what does that make her? it makes her a slut, right? a prostitute. have you ever heard of not having sex? have you ever heard of not having sex so often? the women in her law school program are having so much sex, they are going broke buying birth control pills. >> that was a conservative radio talk show host named rush limbaugh. mr. limbaugh not only just being kind of disgusting there, but also putting on display the fact that apparently nobody ever explained to him how birth control works.

have you ever thought about not having sex so often? it's like he thinks each time you want to have sex, you have to go to a birth control vending machine and buy a new pill for that sexual experience. of all people, i'm no expert, but you can look it up, anybody can look it up. more sex does not mean more birth control pills. you take one a day and do what you want. you don't understand how they work. sandra fluke became a household name because of the ridiculousness of those types of attacks against her by conservatives. led by rush limbaugh. and also, i think, because the presumptive republican nominee for president at that point, mitt romney, refused to distance himself from the attacks. he said mr. limbaugh's language was not the same language he would have used. so he wouldn't have said slut. he might have said another synonym for that or something?

the reason sandra fluke at that point was a public figure to be attacked by the guys in the first place was because of her advocacy. she was doing advocacy on capitol hill advocating for health insurance plans covering the full range of health care including reproductive contraception. we now know in a continuing way for the whole election year, we now know that that policy issue of access to birth control is going to be a continuing source of fake outrage for the political right. apparently right up until the election. ever since the obama administration issued the new rule as part of the health reform law that they must cover women's preventive care, they have been saying how upset this makes them. >> imposing this requirement, the federal government has drifted dangerously beyond its constitutional boundaries. >> the obama administration has crossed a dangerous line. >> the oba coercion starts today.

>> we're no longer free in this country. >> one major problem with all of the republicans performative outrage about how birth control access is going to be the end of the republic and the ruination of freedom and democracy. one of the major problems has been the fact that 28 states already had exactly the same rule in effect. in many cases for years before this new national health reform rule was even dreamed up. some of the politicians and organizations that were screaming and yelling about the new birth control requirement were screaming and yelling from states that already had contraceptive requirements in place which never bothered them. fake outrage. the same kind of fake outrage we're seeing now from the folks at wheaton college in illinois. we talked about wheaton college's awkward predicament on last night's show. they said they're deeply morally and religiously offended by emergency contraception. they say they wanted to apply for an exemption to the new rule so their health plans wouldn't

have to cover emergency contraception because of the school's religious objections. the problem was wheaton college could not apply for an exemption from the rule because wheaton college already covered emergency contraception in their health insurance plans. voluntarily. without being outraged by it. nobody even noticing it, let alone them being outraged by it. wheaton has tried to scramble to get rid of the coverage. they tried to get rid of it in time to proclaim their moral outrage so they could qualify to an exemption to the rule they're already following. but they didn't get rid of their emergency contraception coverage fast enough to do that. now they're suing the obama administration over the new health insurance rule on the grounds that the school faces the prospect of irreparable harm to its religious freedom, its integrity, that's rich, and its employees' wellbeing. the school says it faces irreparable harm if they have to provide that coverage that they provided up in till a couple

month ago whereupon it occurred to them that they ought to be outraged about it or at least say they're outraged. fake outrage. we're seeing that exact same dynamic play out today on the presidential campaign trail on another subject. in the romney campaign's most overt and comprehensive effort yet to change the subject from mr. romney refusing to release his tax returns, the romney campaign today launched a whole brand new attack that is not about contraception, not about reproductive rights. this one is about welfare. >> in 1996, president clinton and a bipartisan congress helped end welfare as we know it by requiring work for welfare, but on july 12th, president obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. under obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. they just send you your check. and welfare to work goes back to

being plain old welfare. mitt romney will restore the work requirement because it works. >> i'm mitt romney and i approve this message. >> the policy change that is the basis for this big new ad buy is a change that was requested from the obama administration by republican governors. the change does not get rid of the work requirement at all. the ad is totally wrong about that. in fact, the obama administration says explicitly, if states want to weaken the work requirements, they will not get a waiver to do so. but the obama administration is offering waivers to say if you want to experiment with your welfare program to try some new state approach to get more people in the work force, you can go for it. you can apply for a waver to do that. and this again was requested of the administration by republican governors. and back when mitt romney was a republican governor in 2005, he made the same request of the federal government. that states be given waivers to experiment with their welfare programs to try to get more people working. he asked for this himself.

look, there's his name. it's memorable whenever you see his signature because i feel his signature looks like it has a sideways emoticon of someone going like this. it's distinctive. here's mitt romney requesting the welfare change along with jeb bush and mike huckabee and haley barbour, also tim pawlenty, jon huntsman, rick perry, mitch daniels. even sanford was on the list before he had his hike up the appalachian trail, by which i mean he went to argentina with his mistress. the romney campaign's big new ad, their big new campaign effort they let reporters know about in advance because they wanted people to think this was a big deal, to let people know it was coming. they wanted to make a huge deal out of it. it's outrage over the obama administration doing what mitt romney and other republican governors asked them to do. which presumably they didn't find outrageous when they

considering with about it, but now they find it outrageous. they're feigning outrage in order to have something to talk about that is not mitt romney's tax returns. in this case, mitt romney is wheaton college, pretending for political purposes to be outraged about something they have done themselves which they palpably do not find outrageous. if they did, they wouldn't have done it voluntarily. but you know, there is something else going on here. which is important, and it's actually a genuine side to the outrage factor here, and it's this. it is the really obvious racial resentment card that is being played here. and this is not something that i go looking for. i'm talking about it because it's obvious. here's the 1990 jesse helms ad. the famous ad that everybody calls the hands ad. part of the political science dictionary. as a means of stoking white people's economic resentment of black people. it shows a white working man's hands angrily crumpling up a rejection notice while the narrator explains that the white man did not get the job because

of essentially handouts to black people. jesse helms used that in his senate race in north carolina against harvey gant, who was african-american. and jesse helms was never embarrassed by stuff like this. he was, shall we say, an unreconstructed conservative. most people have learned to be embarrassed about stoking racial resentment on economic issues. most people have learned to at least make it a little more subtle if you want to use it on a political context, but it is lurking beneath the surface. right before the midterm elections, right before the 2010 elections, you may remember the chairman of the virginia beach republican party sent around this e-mail, it was a joke. my dog. i went down this morning to sign up my dog for welfare. at first, the lady said, dogs are not eligible to draw welfare so i explained my dog is black, unemployed, lazy, can't speak english and has no clue who its daddy is.

she looked in the policy book, my dog gets its first check friday. is this a great country or what? the chairman of the virginia beach republican party later apologized and agreed to resign. just a few weeks ago back in june, the same sort of thing, incredibly racist joke about economic issues, about welfare and black entitlement. that was the entertainment at an arkansas tea party rally. >> okay, the new definition of democracy, a black kid asks his mom, mama, what's a democracy? well, son, she says, that be when white folks work every day so us poor folks can get all our benefits. but mama, don't the white folk get mad about that? she said, they sure do, son. they sure do. and that's called racism.

>> that was the tea party speaker's ice breaker joke. got a big warm round of applause in mountain home, arkansas, at a tea party event back in june. it's exactly the same thing that newt gingrich was tapping when he was running around the republican president campaign calling president obama the food stamps president. the same thing that made up probably the lowest low point of rick santorum's campaign for the presidency as well. >> i have looked at all of the economic plans, but president obama wants to do, his economic plan is to make more people dependent on the government. i don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. i want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families. >> rick santorum's campaign did have a number of low points, but that was maybe the lowest. it was leavened only by the hilarity of how he tried to

explain his way out of having said that on tape. >> i have looked at that quote. and in fact, i looked at the video. i don't -- in fact, i'm pretty confident i didn't say black. i started to say a word and sort of -- sort of mumbled it and changed my thought, but i don't recall saying black. i was starting to say one word and sort of came up with a different word and moved on. and it sounded like black. >> i didn't say black people. dependent on the government, i said -- people. did you know that rick santorum got a speaking gig at the republican national convention? i look forward to hearing his speech. really? the big new romney campaign push to say welfare six times in the same ad about president obama purporting to be outraged about a policy that republican governors requested, that mitt romney himself requests, is at one level just another example of faking being outraged about something that does not outrage you. it's wheaton college pretending

it's outraged over covering emergency contraception when it already does that. buit's also a blunt illusion to the populist racial politics of white economic racial resentment, and the romney campaign has to know it. they're not dumb. which means frankly they're so worried about the continued discussion of his tax returns that they would rather change the discussion to how overtly racist their campaign ad is. that means they're worried. my cut hurt! mine hurt more! mine stopped hurting faster... [ female announcer ] neosporin® plus pain relief starts relieving pain faster and kills more types of infectious bacteria. neosporin® plus pain relief. for a two dollar coupon, visit neosporin.com. neosporin® plus pain relief. we believe small things can make a big difference.e, like how a little oil from here can be such a big thing in an old friend's life. we discovered that by blending enhanced botanical oils into our food,

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president obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. under obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. they just send you your welfare check, and welfare to work goes back to being plain old welfare. >> that is not true. factual policy matter, that is not true, but it's out there, and strategically, it seems to be part of the romney campaign's new bid to change the subject away from what everybody else has been talking about for weeks which is their own candidate's refusal to release his tax returns. this is a new gambit from the campaign. part of an effort to start talking about anything, anything else, even if it is what i believe to be obvious dog whistle racism in this newest campaign gambit. joining us now is melissa harris-perry, host of the great show with the same name, melissa, good to see you. thank you for being here. >> happy to do it.

>> is this newt gingrich's food stamps president redux. is this president reagan's welfare queen redux. is this anything new, or is this part of a pattern? >> don't miss it, there's another part of the pattern. that is president bill clinton's welfare reform redux. in other words, i want to be clear about how african-american single mothers who are in circumstances of poverty and trying to raise their children in difficult circumstances, that's what we're talking about when we use this welfare queen boogieman, and certainly, ronald reagan and his republican predecessors -- excuse me, the people who came after him are the people who gave us the language, stoked the fire in local elections like jesse helms that you pointed out earlier around affirmative action, but also george bush's campaign and willy horton and all of that. but it is also the tactic that

was used by bill clinton to move the democratic party nationally far enough to the right to win the votes that turned the party in part into, i think, a much less courageous party around questions of race. and so, you know, earlier, you were pointing out the importance of talking about women's reproductive rights and going right at that and saying, democrats are going to be brave about this. and make this an issue on which they will run. the fact is democrats are going to have to eschew the legacy of bill clinton and go at the question of racial equality. >> on the issue of policy, one of the things that hamstrings the obama campaign is they have made essentially no policy on welfare issues. at least nothing that sparked this. the waiver of the request they have granted from the republican governors is a very mild change to this policy that will play out differently in different states depending on whether or not they get the waivers,

whether or not they use them. and it doesn't have any national political implications because there is no national policy change except to give states a little more flexibility. president obama isn't doing something here that he can campaign on. the attack seems to be the act and not the policy. >> absolutely. i think those are the two pieces. on one side, there's a policy point here where the president is actually contributing to a kind of state's rights philosophy, right? which the republicans claim to be at the center of their own political ideology, this idea of states making their own choices, but we know that the conservatives tend to only want that if they believe that states are going to make choices that track towards conservative policies and idealogical position. for example, they're not very interested in state by state marriage equality. they are very interested in state by state reductions of planned parenthood capacity, for example. on one hand, there's this policy

issue where the president can say, look, i haven't made any serious change, and to the extent i have, it moves towards states rights and that what you claim you like. on the question of tactics and the position you can use african-american bodies and particularly the bodies of poor black women as a boogieman, as a wedge that basically, the goal here is to distract white women who if they pay attention to what's going on with reproductive rights, will overwhelmingly choose president obama and congressional democrats to encourage them not to think about that issue but instead to stoke racial resentment primarily among white women voters in order to get them to vote their race rather than their gender. >> your academic work and your writing about the stoking of white economic resentment against liberalism in general is more than anything shaped my thinking about this, is why i wanted to talk to you about it tonight. thank you for doing the academic work and thank you for being here tonight. >> thanks. >> melissa harris-perry.

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things are getting a little shaky in the great state of texas. shaky in an unexpected way. but not in an inexplicable way.

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in this country right now, i think we may be in a moment where something is changing along the number line. when a thing turns from science into business into policy, and then ultimately into politics. it's about energy. energy production in this country, the question or whether or not we pursue certain sources of energy. it's always been defined in part by how dangerous we feel that is. nuclear energy was a huge hit in america. at one point, it was the wave of the future until three-mile island happened and then the nuclear wave receded back to the sea. haven't seen new reactor built since. people began to feel like whatever its potential upside was, it was maybe too dangerous to be worth it to pursue more nuclear power. part of the way that that widespread feeling like that gets established, the feeling that something isn't worth it or something is at least dangerous enough to look into whether or not it's worth it, part of that is when you get powerful images like three-mile island or images

like this, a guy in colorado who is able to set his tap water on fire because of the natural drilling that's happening in the area where he lives. enough methane gas has crept in his water supply his water has become flammable. that's from the movie called "gasland." what if it's not just the water coming out of the tap nat you can set on fire? what if it's also puddles on your property. this is a man in northeast pennsylvania collecting water from a puddle bubbling up near his house. he's able to light the fumes off the water on fire. state officials think a natural gas energy company drilling in the area may be responsible for stray gas getting into the ground water bubbling up there. here's what it looks like one county over. this is a geyser shooting methane infused water up into the air. that's located by three natural gas drilling wells operated apparently by shell oil.

they can make the drilling issue less like science, less like geology, less like geology becoming business, and more like policy and politics. and sometimes it is more than just images. okay, timpson, texas. 10:15 local time, may 5th. the ground begins to shake. timpson is in east texas. that morning in may, something residents there are not really used to happened. a 3.7 magnitude earthquake. >> east texas has experienced a space shuttle crash, a devastating hurricane, and now add earthquake to the disasters. seismologists first recorded the trimmer around 10:15 this morning. a 3.7 earthquake was felt in portions of shelby and pinolas counties. >> a 3.7 earthquake in east texas. sort of unheard of. the city secretary told a news

station she initially thought a nearby train had derailed. she said it shook the whole city hall for about 15 to 20 seconds. even the experts couldn't seem to figure it out. gary patterson said survey geologists are baffled by the event. quote, it's not where we would normally see earthquakes in texas. kind of a mystery in timpson, texas. no injuries reported. minor damage to local buildings, but a 3.7 magnitude earthquake came and went and nobody seemed to know why. then a week later, it happened again. >> for the second time in just a week, in just the fourth time since 1981, an earthquake has struck in east texas. a little after 3:00 this morning, a 4.3 magnitude earthquake hit about four miles east of timpson. the quake hit only about six miles from where last week's earthquake was reported. >> so in the space of just seven days, two separate earthquakes struck an area of texas that is not known for having earthquakes.

a second one, the 4.3 magnitude quake, was the strongest to hit east texas in nearly half a century. three days later, it happened again. a 2.7 magnitude earthquake struck in the exact same area. a week and a half later, another one. this one clocked in as a 2.5 magnitude quake. a week after that, the ground began to shake beneath north texas. a 2.3 magnitude earthquake struck just south of ft. worth in the town of cleburne. that was june 5th. this happened ten days later. >> 3.1 magnitude earthquake has struck an area just north of cleburne. that's near ft. worth. the u.s. geological survey says it happened just after 2:00 a.m. thankfully no damage or injuries have been reported. >> at this point, areas in north and east texas that do not experience earthquakes at all have been hit with six earthquakes in about the span of a month. the last one happened on june 15th.

on june 23rd, another one. on june 24th, there was another one. on june 26th, there was another one. on june 29th, there was one more. four more earthquakes in north texas in the span of one week. >> people simply telling us they have never seen anything like this before. their houses, their businesses, going through these earthquakes and for many of them, they don't believe this is just a natural coincidence. >> you think? they don't believe this is a natural coincidence. over a span of 40 days between june and july, they were rocked by an astonishing 11 separate earthquakes. there's something interesting about where the earthquakes were hitting. the houston chronicle put together this map. all the blue markers you see are earthquakes that struck north texas since the beginning of the year. all of the red markers are known natural gas drilling sites. notice a pattern? ever since fracking has been allowed in that part of the country, they have seen an

uptick in the frequency and intensity of earthquakes. in 2009 in what is called the mid continent region, there were 50 earthquakes. in 2010, that jumped from 50 to 87. in 2011, that shot from 87 earthquakes all the way up to 134 earthquakes in one year. what's the cause for this? a brand new study out this week from the university of texas now echoes what at least three other recent studies have shown. the earthquakes in texas may be caused by natural gas drilling in the area. actually, not the drilling specifically, but the process of injecting the waste water from that drilling back into the earth. the ut study found that most of the epicenters for the quakes were located within two miles of one or more waste water injection wells. despite all of the evidence piling up that the process of natural gas drilling may in fact not just be causing methane to creep into the water supply in places like colorado and texas, but may also be causing

earthquakes in texas. despite the evidence, the politics around it haven't seemed to change just yet. the texas railroad commission, which for some reason regulates all drilling in texas, i don't know why, either. they're currently denying any link between waste water disposal wells and earthquakes in texas saying, quote, commission staff have no science or data at this time linking the minor seismic events to oil field activities. at this time. no science or data. at this time. times may be changing. joining us now is terrance henry. writer for the washington post and the atlantic daily. he's been writing a lot about texas fracking for state impact texas, which has published great work about that. nice to see you. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> in terms of me explaining what has been happening in texas and what we know about the science here, did i get anything wrong there? did i leave anything important out? >> i think you covered it pretty

well. like you said, there's been a huge spate of earthquakes, particularly in north texas. the important distinction is fracking isn't causing the earthquakes but the disposal of waste water from fracking. they have to essentially take the water sand and chemical mixture and put it in a giant underground dumpster. so the disposal wells are more than 13,000 feet deep. and when they're doing this, it's causing some faults to slip and it's causing some of the small earthquakes in places like you said that have had no seismic activity before this time. >> do they have to be dumping the waste water 13,000 feet deep into the earth? do they have other options for other ways to handle this part of the drilling process? >> that could be something they'll start looking at at some of the wells that have been blamed for the earthquakes. not all of these disposal wells in this area of seismic activity have caused the quakes, but about 70 of them have. one thing they could stop doing is stop injecting the waste water down there.

another thing to do is put it in a different disposal well that is known not to cause quakes. the possibility of treating it, setting it back certain distances from seismic areas. so there are options to deal with it. >> it does seem like if it weren't serious, it would seem like a comic game of what could possibly go wrong. one of the rejoinders to the concern about this has been essentially that the earthquakes are small, that aside from very minor damage, these have not been the kinds of earthquakes that should be thought of as disasters or causing real harm to humans. is there any assurance that the quakes will never be larger than they have been so far now that there's a strong correlation between the quakes and the drilling process. >> we talked to the u.s. geologist survey and they said there isn't any assurance they won't become more intense. as you pointed out, the intensity -- the frequency has increased. and you are seeing quakes up to 3.5, 3.7 in areas that never had

earthquakes before. so the open question is, well, right now, it's resulting in broken windows and cracked walls and foundations. but what about quakes that nap areas where there is natural gas or oil pipelines? pipelines that weren't built to specifications to withstand earthquakes. >> that was going to be my last question. because the area is not seen as being earthquake prone, infrastructure in the area for all sorts of things, but around the oil and energy industry, it's not built to withstand quakes, is it? >> i think that's a question that hopefully you know the railroad commission and drillers themselves will look into. the thing to remember is that the quakes have been pretty small in size. and also the distance that the quake has gone as been small. so far, it's been very localized effects and minor damage. but certainly, as drilling happens and closer and closer to people and their homes, and people start feeling earthquakes becausof it, it's going to bring up the questions and

hopefully this is something we can all look into. >> terrance henry, energy and environment reporter for state impact texas. your work on this has been both more comprehensive than anybody else and also really clear. thank you for helping us cover the story. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thanks. republican "a" is running against republican "b" in a primary election for the u.s. congress tonight. and just who is republican "a" politically? well, republican "b" has already vowed not to support republican "a" should republican a make it to november against a democrat. and it's not because republican "a" is too moderate. election night coverage is weird tonight. and it's next. with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one.

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that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. i just got something wrong. i said that three mile island was 1974, when it wasn't at all. it was 1979, which was totally dumb of me and my own fault. i'm very sorry. ngs can make a big difference. like how a little oil from here can be such a big thing in an old friend's life.

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whether it's showing competitors' rates or striving to be number one, we're always up for a little competition. zap! [ sparking ] now, that's progressive. it's election day today in michigan, and in missouri, and in kansas and in washington state. the democratic parties and republican parties in those states are having primaries today. so, for example, kansas democrats are picking candidates to run against these incumbent republican members of congress. michigan republicans are picking somebody to run against senator debbie stabenow in the senate. missouri republicans are picking someone to run against claire mccaskill. washington state is picking general election candidates to replace congressman jay inslee, who is running for governor in washington. he is, himself, expected to advance to the gubernatorial ballot in tonight's voting. so primaries tonight, but the

most interesting race in all of these states tonight, i've got to say, is this guy's race. at least it was supposed to be this guy's race. he is thaddeus mccutter. who has been the kind of congressman who really would play the rolling stones song "satisfacti "satisfaction" while hementing that the prime minister of italy has been caught with prostitutes. but he intended to run for re-election this year, but he screwed it up. the signatures on his petition to get himself on the ballot turned out to be really obviously fraudulent and faked. he therefore did not qualify for the ballot, and after a little hemming and hawing about it, he dropped out and he resigned from congress. the door on thaddeus mccotter's congressional career just closed shut. sometimes when doors close shut, a window mysteriously opens or a chimney flue flies open.

in this case, the man with the only name left on that seat, the man who became suddenly relevant after thaddeus mccotter self-destructed was this guy who came down the chimney, santa claus impersonator. he's a reindeer herder, a failed senate candidate, he's on the ballot and no other republican is. he's also on the interweb machine at his very own website, oldfashionedsanta.org. the caption on this shirtless picture here is, "owner kerry ventivolio scratches reindeer ear on a warm spring day." once everybody figured out he was going to be the only republican on the ballot, it was interesting. the political right decided that santa would be their guy. he got endorsed by freedomworks, the koch brother-funded group. he got not only endorsed, but over $300,000 from a pac with ties to ron paul. i mean, establishment republicans are still trying to get around the santa reindeer guy. they are waging, in fact, a

write-in campaign for nancy kasise. if it works, she would be only the fourth person in u.s. history to win a congressional primary as a write-in candidate. she has already said even though she is a republican and the santa reindeer guy is also a republican, she says she will not endorse kerry bentivolio in the election if he win these primary today. polls have been closed and with 18% of the precincting reporting, mr. bentivolio does have 65% of the vote. the write-in candidates including miss cassis, has more than 35%. but less than 20% of the vote in. in 2010, michigan republicans redrew the district, so this district swings so far to the right it might as well be in alabama. and in any normal year, that means whoever wins tonight's republican primary would be a shoo-in to go to congress in the general election.

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until i got a job in the big apple. becoming a fulltime indoor cat wasn't easy for atti. but he had purina cat chow indoor.

he absolutely loved it. and i knew he was getting everything he needed to stay healthy indoors. and after a couple of weeks, i knew we were finally home! [ female announcer ] purina cat chow indoor. and for a delicious way to help maintain a healthy weight, try new purina cat chow healthy weight. stop me if you've heard this one before. in the 2010 republican senate primary in the state of delaware, a political consulting firm that had recently worked for the upstart candidate, christine o'donnell, they produced a video with this out of nowhere accusation. >> isn't mike castle cheating on his wife with a man? >> that's the rumor. >> "that's the rumor." actually, no, it was never the rumor. it was never the rumor until this video came out during the campaign. when asked about it, mr. castle's primary opponent, christine o'donnell, she played her part perfectly. >> i think that that's a very tacky approach.

i never said that mike castle was gay. i don't endorse putting out rumors that mike castle is gay. >> i would never call mike castle gay. who says mike castle is gay? who says gay? gay! i never said that, gay! republicans do this all the time. texas, 2009. kay bailey hutchison trying to unseat rick perry. the austin american spokesman noticed that hidden in senator hutchison's campaign website, among a long list of search optimization terms is the text, "rick perry gay" twice. you don't see it at the site itself. it helps your site pop when people are searching for, say, the words "rick perry gay." the hutchison campaign said it was all a mistake, but look at specifically the way they apologized. they said, "we did not know these offensive word associations were being searched for by hundreds of thousands of texans every day, nor do we condone the computer generated existence on our website. they will be removed promptly."

hundreds of thousands of texans are searching for the words "rick perry gay" every day. we didn't know. we would never take advantage of the fact that hundreds of thousands of texans are searching "rick perry gay" every day. did somebody say gay? gay, did you say? the latest one is in arizona. two incumbent republicans running against each other in a primary because of redistricting. one is david schweikert and the other one is this guy. >> i love arizona. i was raised right. somebody has to go to washington and knock the hell out of the place. >> that's congressman ben quayle, son of former vice president, dan quayle, who has yet to knock the hell out of washington, but he does want another shot at it. which one of these two guys is the star of the latest episode of hey, you, i'm calling you gay? in this case, it's ben quayle. this is the mailer the schweikert campaign sent out this weekend. you're looking at the front of it, ben quayle, he goes both

ways, dot, dot, dot. the ellipses do quite a bit. if you friendship -- flip it over, you find oh, ben quayle goes both ways on issues. very subtle, dan schweikert. and when called on the insinuations in the flyer, a schweikert campaign spokesman got to repeat the key phrase, saying, "the mail piece was clearly intended to say "both ways," taking the liberal and conservative side on the issues, and did we mention he goes both ways? bep quayle goes both ways. did we say both ways? that's not what we went. you stay classy, republican party. you stay classy with a "k." now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. mitt romney's newest attack on president obama is over a republican idea that was supported by, wait for it, governor mitt romney.

>> president obama launched a new line of attack on romney's tax plans. >> they have tried to sell us this trickle-down tax cut fairy dust before. >> don't be fooled by the fairy dust. mr. romney launched an offensive against president obama on the issue of welfare. >> attacking president obama over welfare reform. >> the ad is particularly outrageous. >> under obama's plan, he wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. >> this advertisement is categorically false and blatantly dishonest. >> there are all kinds of different gymnastics being performed by the romney campaign. >> governor romney himself -- >> signed a letter asking for the same waiver program. >> to give states powerful performance incentives to place people in jobs. >> in 1996, president clinton and a bipartisan congress helped end welfare as we know it. >> the opportunity it gives us to end welfare as we know it. >> end welfare as we know it.

>> newt gingrich calling president obama the food stamp president. >> i don't think you have to be the sheriff of nottingham to figure out exactly what's going on here. >> it's like robin hood in reverse. it's romney hood. >> damned right. >> robin hood was stealing from the government. >> romney hood. >> robin hood was a tea party activist. >> and guess what, it does not work. >> romney hood! >> it's romney hood. >> if i were to coin a term, it would be obamaloney. >> stiff, awkward, fill in the blank mitt romney. good evening. i'm alex wagner, in for lawrence o'donnell. there are 91 days to go until the presidential election, and there is a telltale sign when a republican knows he's running a losing campaign. ronald reagan's losing campaign for the gop nomination in 1976. "there's a woman in chicago.