for the next hour. it's been kind of an exciting day. actually, i have to say, been sort of a weird day for us at our offices here at the "rachel maddow show." if you go to our blog right now at maddowblog.com, you will see we have posted video that the bass player from nirvana sent us. video of him throwing our swedish horrible tasting licorice candy to his pet goats. it's fine for them. krist novoselic sent this video to us today because that's how awesome it is to work here. frankly, the whole staff has kind of big diverted for months now into an investigation of ammonia chloride, which is what is in that horrible tasting candy. we have been investigating, looklook worked with a chemist to look at ammonia chloride to clear calcium deposits from the yo

urethras of goats, and we may have dismissed this earlier if it wasn't for the bassest of nirvana. we're such fans of krist novoselic and nirvana that this is going to go on forever for us. >> he's sniffing. he's chewing. he's eating it. this is good for you. good medicine. this is apollo. eat it. >> and there's more. all of the details are at maddowblog.com right nuif you wt them. more detail than you ever wanted on the subject of aluminum chloride and krist novoselic's goats. >> in life, you get guitar heroes. music is important to us as humans. depending on what music you like and who was popular at formative times in your life, it can be an

emotional touchstone for you. you follow these folks to the end of the earth or the rolling hills outside of seattle where thehumans, we're wired to have a powerful emotional connection to music. not everybody has it but most of us have it. i certainly have it. when you try to use that connection, people's emotional connection to certain bands, for some other purpose like for a political purpose, say, like maybe you want a specific band to be playing your private gala for your highest dollar donors at your political convention, let's say you want to do that. the question of which band do you pick for that kind of role is a hard thing to calibrate. this is an emotional thing. you have to count on your donors being into that band, knowing who they are, knowing what they sound like, having a positive emotional reaction to it, liking them, not finding it cheesy. the romney folk have picked a band for their convention party that they're setting up for their biggest donors. it's a band, honestly, that i like very much and have my whole

life. their biggest hit was in 1981. so from the romney campaign's perspective, they picked 1981, honestly, as the emotional target for when people might have bonded with this particular band's music. if that's the target year they're picking for some reason, 1981 must have been a hard choice because it was a spectacular year for american music. cool and thekool & the gang, ce also known as the bar mitzvah song. that was 1981. also -- ♪ all aboard >> crazy train. ozzy osbourne. best intro to a song ever. that was in 1981. also -- super freak by rick james. how did this all happen in one year in one country. the greatest country on earth. how about this? stray cat strut. i'm a lady's cat. that was 1981. god, i love that.

or this one? just can't get enough by depeche mode. were you a new waver? more people in 1981 learned that intro on the piano than learned chopsticks, i swear. 1981 also, devo, whip it. it was a great year in american music. 1981 was kind of a breakthrough year. in particularly in the united states for alternative and new wave and punk music. a lot of the stuff we were listening to was britting, and a lot of stuff was american. that was the year the dead kennedys did nazi punks blank off. which must to my parents' chagrin, i learned every word to. 1981 was a spectacular year for music, and the mitt romney for president campaign has decided for their high dollar donors, for the people who are committed to raising more than a quarter of a million dollars to elect

mitt romney president this year, they have decided to reward these donors with a special vip, closed to the press event. for the talent for that event, they have reached deep into the deep well of amazing music that came out in 1981 and they found this. ♪ getty up >> who does not like the oakerage boys? who among us does not love the oakridge boys? this song, elvira, was their biggest hit in 1981. that's going to be who is playing the mitt romney bundlers only, closed to the press, private reception at the vip lounge they have set up just for their bundlers on the fifth floor of the tampa bay times forum arena in downtown tampa for the duration of the

convention. the romney campaign has also reserved two bundler specific hotels for their high dollar donors. the weston tampa harbor hotel, and another one in st. petersburg. what's awkward here is that the romney campaign is the first presidential campaign in modern american history to not disclose who their bundlers are. but they are nevertheless setting up a special vip room for the bundlers at their site and a special hotel for the bundlers. ooven though it's skrekt who they are, presumably, if you stake out those spots, you will be able to start to put together a list of who the secret romney bundlers are. they're going in the vip room, right? as we get closer to the launch of the convention, a lot of republicans are already in tampa, but we're starting to learn more, sort of hour by hour, including from good reporters like michael isikoff. starting to learn more and more awh about what is going to happen at the convention and what places in downtown tampa are key to the

movement of power and influence around the republican nomination for president. physically here, the one farthest from the right, the miriam adadleson pavilion. remember when the young guns decided they were going to paint themselves pink and call themselves women friendly during the war on women kerfuffle? they decided the way they're womaning up for the republican convention is they're naming a pavilion at the convention, at the rnc, for sheldon adelson's wife. yeah. and over here, here's an important spot. this is jackson's bistro restaurant. quoting from the tampa tribune, this is kind of remarkable. perhaps no restaurant in tampa is as big or will enjoy as big a view of the rnc as jackson's bistro. the terraces overlook the

convention center and the forum where the convention will take place. anyone hoping to enjoy that view during the convention will need an invitation. the massive restaurant will close to the public for the whole week of the republican national convention, the owners say they'll be serving a single customer. one unnamed lobbiest from washington who will host breakfasts, lunches, and dinners throughout the week for hundreds of vips. the whole restaurant the whole week? yeah. also, just around the corner from where mr. romney will be accepting the republican nomination for president, on the same day, in fact, a gala reception for zillionaire donor david koch of the koch brothers. of the right-wing corporate funded americans for prosperity hosting a celebration in honor of their benefactor, david koch, along with fellow republican zillionaire donor art pope. the event is being called "a salute to entrepreneurs building

america." a salute to entrepreneurs. it should be noted that both david koch and art pope who are the two men being saluted at this entrepreneur event, both of them became fabulously wealthy by inheriting companies by their fathers. they both were born very, very, very wealthy and then inherited dad's business. those are the entrepreneurs we're saluted for building america. republicans whose inherited wealth, who inherited wealth and then used it to build political influence for themselves. we're saluting them at the convention, incidentally, that will nominate the son of michigan's governor who was also the head of american motors who is a second generation presidential candidate, mitt romney, who is still refusing to disclose his tax returns. after declaring not just his tax returns but also his business record off limits for the campaign, during an interview with nbc's chuck todd you'll be able to see tonight here on

msnbc right after this program, showing that documentary, mitt romney is now saying his business record is back. he wrote an op-ed titled "what i learned at bain capital." we have not had a business man as president since herbert hoover. he's making the statement, i have the skills to run the compa country because i ran bain. and that's the reason the tax returns are a germaine fact in the campaign. what we have seen about what mr. romney learned at bain, it's about how to accumulate tons of money and also how to shield it from american taxation. that definitely worked well toward the project of making him a very, very, very rich person. avoiding taxes and regulation can be a strategy for one guy or one company to get rich in america. but of course, how do you

extrapolate that to being president? avoiding taxes can't be america's strategy for getting rich as a country. what are we going to do? evade ourselves? what is striking about this republican national convention as we get more information about what exactly is going to be happening day by day next week is how high profile all of the adelson, koch brothers, karl rove, high dollar donor stuff is and how comparatively low profile the republican party is. at the last republican convention, when we had a republican president and a republican vice president who i should note were very deeply disliked in the country, the republicans at least were able to say that the reason that president bush and vice president cheney couldn't be there was because of tropical storm gustav. this year, they're not counting on tropical storm isaac or anything else to keep their political history away from the rnc. we knew even before we knew the storm track of isaac, the storm track of anything, that george bush wouldn't be there, dick

cheney wouldn't be there, even sarah palin would not be there. john mccain will be there, but he's getting an undercard speaking slot right between mitch mcconnell and a former msnbc legal analyst who is now the state attorney general in florida, a woman named pam bondi. mccain is between mcconnell and bo bondi. republicans with major accomp l accompli accomplishmentes do not seem to be the stars of this event. the big stuff, the big show offy stuff, the whole point of the event, the people for whom the really good talent is being saved -- it's the zillionaires. it's really the money that is the star of the show, elvira. joining us now is nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoff. i know you're not pursuing this line of inquiry because you want to sneak in to see the oakridge

b boys, but i have to ask if most of the evejs you're reporting on, whether moist of them amost are open to the press or are going to be closed doors. >> funny you should ask because most of them are closed doors. i learned about many of these by getting the schedules from gop fund-raisers and consultants getting the invitations, but one of the most prominent ones which you mentioned, the salute to david koch, oddly enough, is a public one. and i actually went on the americans for prosperity website today, registered for the event. it appears i can bring a guest, so i know you have some anchoring responsibilities, but if you would like to salute david koch, you're more than welcome to join me. >> well, if i held a lottery for that privilege on the staff, i would be trampled by the people trying to participate in it, so i might have to defer. mike, the conventions are always sort of slurries of cash. they're always sort of slurries of lobbying events. it happens on both sides.

certainly, the democrats vet their donors in the same way that the republicans do historically, but is there something different about the scale or the relative emphasis happening at the rnc this year. as i said in the intro, it feels to me the highest profile events and positions at the rnc are about the donors. >> first of all, this is the year of the mega donor. post-citizens united and we're seeing these astounding sums poured into the race. $30 million so far by sheldon adelson and predictions he may go up to $100 million. the americans for prosperity has put out it's going to spend as much as $150 million. much of that is believed to be koch brothers money. so we're seeing the sorts of sums that we have not seen for quite some time. and so in some respects, this is a coming out party for the mega donors like david koch and sheldon adelson, and they're being much more public than they have before. but it's also noteworthy because congress back in 2007 after the

jack abramoff scandal imposed new ethics rules that were supposed to put tight curbs on these types of events. in fact, lobbying entities were barred from throwing parties for a member of congress. but sure enough, clever lawyering and some interesting ethics rulings, interpretations of that, have thrown open the bar so we're basically back where we started. instead of honoring individual members of congress, the lobbyists are honoring groups of members of congress. the congressional yacht caucus, the oklahoma delegation, i brought a whole bunch of these with me. and you know, so that's one sort of way they're skirting the rules. i talked to jack abramoff today about all this who said nothing

has changed. he'll be there as a common tear for "inside edition." and he's say lg of the old games that were in play that led to these congressional lobbying restrictions are back in play in a very big way at this convention. >> i'm just imagining all of these lobbyists wearing those tool belts they wear to make change at the ballpark for beer. cashing out at the restaurant, cashing out at the vip rooms. michaelish acousikoff. thanks very much. chris hays is joining us just ahead. the last time we talked to chris hayes on a friday night, remember what happened? moments after we talked to chris, the whole news cycle blew open with a friday night leak about who the vice presidential nominee was going to be. that's what happens the last time we talked to chris on a friday night. let's see what happens this time. why not use all your vacation days this year?

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[ male announcer ] more power. more style. more technology. less doors. the 2012 c-coupe. join mercedes-benz usa on facebook for the best summer sweepstakes. when it comes to rape and when it comes to the issue of should it be legal for a woman to get an abortion -- >> so, i'm very proud of my pro life record and i have always adopted the idea, the position that the method of conception doesn't change the definition of life. >> when paul ryan said the method of conception, what he's talking about is rape. that's what he's talking about in terms of policy. that rape victims should be forced by the government to bear the child of the rapist. in terms of politics, the reason the presumptive vice presidential nominee of the republican party is giving news

interviews about rape in the final days before the republican national convention is of course because of this guy. >> i may not be the favorite candidate of some people within the republican establishment. but the vots made a decision. >> is there anyone or anything that could make you change your mind? >> claire mccaskill would withdraw and give the election to me, that might be a consideration. >> you know what? claire mccaskill is not going to withdraw and give the election to you. in fact, claire mccaskill is going to beat you. before last week, todd akin was ahead in the missouri senate race because missouri as a state is trending pretty red, but todd akin is not ahead in that race anymore. >> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. >> yeah, that guy is no longer ahead. i know it's shocking. since then, it seems like it took about a day or so for missouri to digest what had just

happened with todd akin. there was a pop-up poll done immediately after his remarks, and it did not show a big change in the race. mr. akin was still ahead of claire mccaskill by a point, but as soon as people absorbed he really had said that thing about legitimate rape in describing his view that rape victims should be forced by the government to bear the child of their rapist, the polls started to look like this. this one on wednesday, three days after his now famous remarks, mr. akin is losing by ten points to claire mccaskill. so the republican party does not want todd akin to stay in the race against mccaskill. they would like him to disappear. short of that, they would like him to stay as far away from the news cycle as possible. because when mr. akin is in the news, the fact that paul ryan agrees with todd akin on forcing rape victims to bear the child of their rapists, that fact is also in the news. needless to say, republican u.s. senate nominee todd akin is totally not invited to the rnc.

he is specifically and publicly not invited to the party's convention. today, democratic groups are pointing out that the rnc has invited to the convention the guy who has become perhaps todd akin's biggest defender and advblth, not to mention a fellow force rape victims to bear the child of their rapist policy enthusiast. i'm talking about mike huckabee. he has a primetime headline speaking assignment, and he's not only rushing to todd akin's defense this week, he's helping him raise money. he sent a blast e-mail to his friends and supporters saying, quote, is this what the party thinks of principled pro life advocates. i'm waiting from the apology from the genius who thought it wise to shoot our wounded and run over him with tanks and trucks and feed his body to the liberal wolves. i will join todd as often as i can in our fight for party's pro life policies.

if they can't help us get to the majority, we'll do it without them. todd akin who has basically been expunged from the party while trying to support his statement, he cannot come to the republican national convention, but mike huckabee who believes the same thing and who is inveighing against the republican party for being so mean to akin, is a primetime republican national convention headliner. the republican party's iproblem on this issue is that todd akin's view on women's rights and a crackdown on rape and invest victims is a common position among candidates. >> when it comes to rape and the issue of should it be legal for a woman to be able to get an abortion if she's -- >> i'm very proud of my pro life record. and i have always adopted the idea, the position that the

method of conception doesn't change the definition of life. >> rape doesn't change what we're going to force this woman to do. paul ryan just like todd akin wants the government to have the power to regulate the pregnancies of rape victims and incest victims to insure the government's chosen outcome even if it's against your will. even if it's against your doctor's will. don't worry, the argument goes he's only going to be vice president. >> but let's remember, i'm joining the romney/ryan ticket. and the president makes policy. the president in this case, the future president, mitt romney, has exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, which is a vast improvement of where we are right now. >> mitt romney is going to be president and the president sets policy. his policy for exceptions for rape, incest, and life of mother, i'm comfortable with it because it's a good step in the right direction. >> good step in the right direction. vast improvement. he's saying overturning roe v. wade and criminalizing abortion except in rape, abortion, and

woman's death, would be a step in there right direction. a step in the right direction toward what he actually wants, what he would do with a hypothetical paul ryan presidency, which is criminalize abortion for everybody, including rape victims and incest victims. and so on the friday before the republican convention, rape policy and the split down the republican ticket over who is more of a hardliner against rape victims. not rapists, but against rape victims, is what the country is talking about with regard to the republicans' presidential ticket. this is the conversation heading into their nominating convention which todd akin or no todd akin is not a situation they want to be in. this is not what they wanted all their local tv interviews to be about at that point. that's probably something they should have thought about when they picked paul ryan as the vice presidential nominee. republicans are counting on the fact that republicans not being okay with this stuff. >> i was a republican most of my life.

>> i am still registered republican. >> i was raised in a very republican, conservative family. >> one of the things that makes me really upset about it is the attitude toward birth control, contraceptives and abortion. >> if you truly believe in a small government, that governmenttie shouldn't be decig what i can and can't do with my own body. >> i'm very concerned about mitt romney's policies concerning women's rights. >> he wants to reverse roe v. wade. >> i don't even want to think about them having control. as a woman, i don't. >> if you're a conservative woman and you believe in small government, then barack obama is your candidate because he's keeping the government out of the decisions that should remain between you and god and you and your own conscience. >> the obama/biden campaign has posted that today. todd akin did not create this problem for the republicans, but he did bring this problem they have right out into the open, and the democrats are pressing their advantage on that. because of that, we're about to

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hey, tonight, the schedule for the republican national convention changed. you might have heard, you might have been planning on the fact that ann romney was going to be speaking on monday night. that's the night of the convention that is most in the cross hairs of tropical storm isaac, but regardless of isaac, the republicans seems to have

realized that monday night will be covered by cable news, like us, but it will not be covered by the networks. they have decided to move ann romney out of monday night. they're not going to put ann romney on monday night. they'll get a chance to cover her on network tv by moving her to another day and they'll get a chance to move something else into monday. something else into monday that maybe they wanted to bury, maybe they didn't want at all to be on network tv. what's that? that's coming up. [ 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.

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[ male announcer ] you work hard. stretch every penny. but chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him... mitt romney made twenty million dollars in two thousand ten but paid only fourteen percent in taxes... probably less than you now he has a plan that would give millionaires another tax break... and raises taxes on middle class families by up to two thousand dollars a year. mitt romney's middle class tax increase. he pays less. you pay more. so, what's the problem? these are hot. we're shipping 'em everywhere. but we can't predict our shipping costs. dallas. detroit. different rates. well with us, it's the same flat rate. same flat rate. boston. boise? same flat rate. alabama. alaska?

with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. dude's good. dude's real good. dudes. priority mail flat rate boxes. starting at just $5.15. only from the postal service. the man we're about to show on the screen is not president obama. but he would like to play president obama on tv or at your next party, perhaps. he works for a living as a barack oba barack obama impersonator. he said he will perform at a 30-person party for $300 plus travel. last week, he posted a picture of him with, i think, the real donald trump. it reads, be sure to watch the republican national convention. the picture was picked up, and i think this screen grab on the

screen might be the only cop y f it still around. right around the time of the photo, donald trump was teasing the public with what kind of role he might play at the republican convention next week. >> i'm doing something. i have been asking to speak, but i am doing something that is going to be, i think, really amazing. it's going to be great, and we'll see what happens, how it is received, but it will be pretty wild. i tink hink it will be potent. >> they have asked you to speak at the convention? >> yes, they have asked me to speak. i may do, but i don't think you can do both. you'll understand when you see what i'm doing. >> oh, okay. >> oh, okay. the smart kids on the internet machine are betting he will be showing up at the convention with the barack obama impersonator guy he took a picture with, and then he's going to fire the impersonator, you're fired. tah-dah. there was a time with donald

trump where he was going to run for president himself, remember? he polled great. just behind romney even with huckabee. his platform when he was running for president or seemed to be, consisted of a single gigantic plank. >> i would like to have him show his birth certificate. >> why doesn't he show his birth certificate? >> either he wasn't born in the country or he doesn't have a birth certificate. >> people have birth certificates. he doesn't have a birth certificate. >> he doesn't have a birth certificate or he hasn't provided it. he gave a certificate of life birth. >> he won't give us the longer than long form birth certificate. he's not a person. vote for me, fire him. after president obama did in fact release a long form birth certificate in april 2011, making much fun of donald trump in the process, after that, donald trump did kind of go away for a while. it seemed like maybe the election had seen the last of him, but then he came back like a hand out of fresh dirt over a

grave. he governor romney in las vegas and started raising money for him at lots and lots of fund-raisers after he started publicly beating the birther drum again. >> i think if you look at the birth certificate, take a look and tell me really, you analyze the birth certificate. there are many people that don't agree with that birth certificate. they don't think it's authentic. >> right after donald trump said that, mitt romney appeared with donald trump at a fund-raiser in las vegas, right alongside him, both there in person. yeah. asked how he could be doing a fund-raiser with this guy pushing the birth certificate thing, which mr. romney said is totally nothing he believed in, he offered a explanation of why he was doing the fund-raiser, a mathematical explanation. >> i don't agree with all of the people who support me and my guess is they don't believe everything i believe in, but i need to get 50.1% or more and i'm appreciative to get the help

of a lot of good people. >> that's why he was doing the trump thing with the birther thing. he had done the math, not hard math, but he needs 50.1% of the vote. the new poll shows mitt romney with zero percent of the african-american electorate. the romney/ryan electorate trailed by a margin of 94% to zero%. he is losing badly among latino voters. by a 35-point margin which is almost exactly the margin that mccain and palin lost the latino vote when they lost to barack obama in part because of the low portion of latino vote. mitt romney is running out of ways to meet his own low mathematical expectations. >> i need 50.1%. >> from this distance, he can't get anywhere by rinning over african-american voters. he's also not getting anywhere

with latinos. his only hope is to win over white voters by a very large margin. today in his home state of michigan, in the city of commerce, michigan, on the eve of the republican convention, he said this. >> i love being home in this place where ann and i were raised. where both of us were born. ann was born at henry ford hospital. i was born at harper hospital. no one's ever asked to see by birth certificate. they know this was the place we were born and raised. >> nobody's ever asked to see my birth certificate. want to know why? nobody is suspicious -- over the next few days, you're going to hear and see and read those words a lot. almost as soon as he said them, mr. romney was asked to defend making these birther comments, this birther joke in michigan. he did say, hey, it was just a joke. under the hash tag future mitt jokes, the great oliver willis tweeted today, quote, nobody

wonders if i'm an absientee father. then he kweeted, every assumes if i have a gun, it's really just for hunting. 50.1%. every vote counts. the ones you have written off and the ones you might get if you're willing to write off certain others. why would he make a birther joke on the way to the republican national convention. do they think it helps them if they somehow reward and comfort and proverbially clap on the shoulder anyone who is the kind of person who still holds a deep seeded feeling that this man should not be an american president? that there's something illegitimate and un-american about this man being in charge of the government. what will they do to reach the 50.1% and what really does help them to get it? joining us now is chris hayes, host of up with chris hayes, the author of "twilight of the

elites." thank you for being here. >> wonderful to be here. >> let me ask you about my overall thesis about the math, which is if you're performing at the same level as the losing ticket did with latinos and performing even worse with african-americans, mathematically, the way you make it up is by winning a larger portion of white vote and suppressing african-americans and latinos who might vote against you. is this a way to stoke some of the white vote? >> i think there are two things happening here. one, i don't think the math w k works out in terms of who are the marginal voters on the fence about voting for mitt romney who are going to be persuaded to move into the column to move him over the 50.1% who are going to be persuaded by these racial appeals. >> even people who don't like president obama because of racial prejudice but don't have an interest in the campaign, they say, if you don't like obama because of his race, we're with you. let me make this joke, make you

feel better about it? >> there's some number of those voters who might be off line who might be brought online. there's no one who could be persuaded from one to the other. to place the math, 50.1% is a crucial number because it's going to be a really close race. everyone understands that. this looks a lot more like 2004 than 2008. 2004 was a real base election. a base mobilization election, the legendary election of the gay marriage amendments and getting out to vote. the battle to mobilize the base, and it's dawning on both sides, but romney particularly, the other thing i think romney is doing here, and dave weigel had a smart piece way back when romney first was locking up the nomination. they started this war over barack obama eating dog in his biography. there was this stupid back and forth about you're going to make seamus jokes and we're going to

make jokes about you eating dogs. and dave said something makes conservatives like you more than liberals hating you. what this is, it's a ricochet strat stratgy. you're never going to love mitt romney, but if liberals hate him enough, maybe he's good. >> this is like, hey liberals, complain about racisracism. if you're complaining about racism, your flaming liberal outrage by the light of your flaming liberal outrage, i look better. >> that's right, and i think there is resentment in -- there's a very complicated psychological experience of how people think about race in the obama era. something we'll talk about in the show tomorrow. particularly, i think there's a hair trigger resentment among a certain cohort of white voters to be accused of racism or feel anyone who doesn't like barack obama and is white is therefore racist and if those charges come

out, that creates a solidarity with mitt romney who is a victim of the great political correctness machine. >> do you think that is also motivated the welfare attacks? we have five ads on welfare in two and a half weeks when essentially accused president obama on a totally nonfactual basis of being the president of lazy welfare recipients who don't want to work but want your money? >> the hilarious moment is i'm going to take the bait. because i'm now sitting on the "rachel maddow show" show being like, those ads are super racist, but no, it's very difficult when you look at the history of attacks on redistribution, particularly around welfare, have had a loaded racial subtext forever. you'll note in the romney ads, there's not a single african-american who appears in one. >> the back of one guy's head. >> it's a multiracial look of the american worker or the people on welfare. none of them are black. they understand what the history of the racial subtext is, but they also understand how that

appeal and that charge that that person is taking your tax dollars and giving it to someone else, how it resonates in the obama era in which you do not have to state the race of who that recipient is. >> racial underlying of econo c economic -- economic insecurity turns into racial resentment, but it's also baiting liberals to complain about them being racist which makes them look good by the fact they're defending themselves against racism charges. >> that's complicated. you're giving them a lot of credit. i also think mitt romney wanted the crowd to like him today. and he said something -- >> i thought that until i saw the tape. i think it was totally planned. anyway, i don't live inside his head. thank christ. chris hayes, the host of up with chris hayes on msnbc. we're going to be right back. stay with us. [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role

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when the republican presidential nominee rit momny sits down for interviews, there are generally few surprises. he has been campaigning for the president practically nonstop for about six years. and in that time, he has answered every conceivable question. but to weeks ago, ms nbc's chuck todd sat down with mr. romney

and the candidate said something completely unsuspected. you can see this tonight in the documentary airing right after this show. in this particular part of the interview, after telling voters for years to elect him because of his past experience particularly in business, mr. romney said he would now like to see his past taken off the table for the campaign. >> our campaign would be helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon business or family or taxes or things of that nature, that this is -- >> so after years of vote for me, i was successful in business as of now, his background in business is just a diversion or at least as of when he tape this had interview with chuck todd. today, however, mr. romney attempted to pull off a sort of hard to execute rarely seen flip-flop on this subject. he published a piece "the wall street journal" putting the

spotlight back on the business experience that he's describing in this interview as just a diversion. mitt romney, what i learned at bain capital. he had a fluffy interview with the same paper how he intends to sell himself at the republican national convention next week. he said "when appearing before crowds at stops, mr. romney says he does not think what can i do to portray myself in a way to appeal to the public. people he referred to his roles as chief executive of bain capital and the head of the '02 winter olympics. so he says i don't have a plan to take everybody to my childhood home and say here's where i rode my bicycle. people have hired me in the past have been pleased that they did. so on one page of the "wall street journal" today, he's relaunching his time as ceo of bain capital as his relevant for being president of the united states. on another page, he is bringing

back his massachusetts governor record saying people who hired him, meaning elected him for that job, were pleased that they did so. the people of massachusetts were not pleased that they hired mitt romney actually it turns out. the director of suffolk university's political research center looked into how massachusetts residents liked mitt romney once they elected him governor. and the conclusion is that mr. romney's favorability was basically a straight line down from his honeymoon. mr. romney came into office with a 61% approval rating. after two years in office, that dropped from 61% to 47%. by the time bream electing his successor, his approval rating had dropped from 61% to 47% to 36%. and then massachusetts replaced him with a democrat. before mitt romney republican governors -- mitt romney republican governor, the massachusetts governor was a republican. and before that, the republican governor was a republican. and before that republican governor, the governor before that was a republican.

massachusetts wasn't against republican governors. we had four in a row. but then after mitt romney, massachusetts went democratic. and mitt romney left office with an approval rating so bad it's basically george w. bush territory. now he's saying people who hired me in the past have been pleased that they did. that is not true at all of the last time mitt romney held public office. see this is why it's going to be so awesome to watch the republican convention next week. how are you going to explain a, why you didn't run for re-election and b how massachusetts thought of you at the time and how they think of you now? if the "wall street journal" won't call him on it when he says the people were happy to have hired him, will the press covering the rnc call him on that? i can't wait. it's going to be a lot of fun. >> i intend to get this country on the right track. okay, here's the plan.

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this is ben ginsburg, republican lobbyist and lawyer. he was once on a list of washington's most powerful but least famous people because he's a behind the scenes kind of guy, the top lawyer for the george w. bush presidential campaigns including in the florida recount in 2000. here's the actor bob baliban playing him. he worked for norm coleman when he successfully challenged his loss to senator al franken. he worked for the rnc and the republican senate committee and the republican congressional committee and advised the swift boat guys in 2004. now ben ginsburg is the lawyer for the romney campaign. he's one of those guys for whom you still might want to set a google alert. when big important things are going on in the republican party, he's usually there on the ground. where is ben ginsburg today? at a rules committee meeting in

tampa, pry trying to prevent the republican party from ever again having the ron paul problem they had earlier this year. ron paul supporters used the party political process to win delegates from multiple states. there are almost 200 ron paul delegates at the convention because of that even though he didn't win any states. ben ginsburg just pushed through a new rule that will basically says when a candidates wins a republican party primary or caucus, they get the full dels. they moved up the day romney will be crowned the republican nominee at the roll call that was supposed to happen on wednesday when it would have been broadcast on the networks live. they've moved it to monday instead when there will be no live network coverage which takes care of one optics problem they were worried they might have. some supporters is of mr. powell have been pushing to make their voices