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few states away, hurricane isaac slams the gulf, reminding the country that mother nature stops at nothing. it's wednesday, august 29th and this is "now." joining me today, eric bates, executive editor of "rolling stone" which has a cover story entitled greed and debt. also, hugo lindgren. rescue efforts are under way in southeastern louisiana as isaac continues to pour into plaquemines parish. levees have been overflowing with water all morning. gabe gutierrez is in plaquemines parish for the latest on this very slow-moving storm. gabe? >> reporter: that is the problem, this is a very slow-moving storm. the concern is that this wind and rain won't let up for hours. the parish president says this situation is worse than katrina

because here in plaquemines parish, the storm surge has flooded neighborhoods that did not flood as much during katrina. as you can see behind me, there is a national guard presence -- several dozen residents who did not evacuate behind that flood wall. now, the neighborhood behind there is totally submerged. you cannot see any homes -- we just couldn't see any homes back there. there was just too much water. so dozens of residents have had to be rescued. we have been speaking with them throughout the morning and right now, the big question is when is this storm going to let up, and you know, let us take in the damage here. conditions here are very difficult. >> thank you to nbc's gabe gutierrez. we will of course continue to monitor isaac throughout the hour. let's turn now to the republican national convention. on the first night of romney-palooza, republicans looked to present a unified coherent vision.

instead, echoing the fractures that exist within the party, the central messages outlined by their two headliners were in direct conflict with one another. >> i want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us, that one great thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good and the deepest solace in our dark hours. tonight, i want to talk to you about love. >> see, i believe we have become paralyzed, paralyzed by our desire to be loved. tonight, we are going to do what my mother taught me. tonight, we're going to choose respect over love. >> while it seemed ann romney's assignment was to humanize her husband, she seemed better at defining him as anything but human. a mechanical, unflinching workhorse. >> -- work harder. no one will care more and no one will move heaven and earth like mitt romney to make this country a better place to live.

this man will not fail. >> it was a sentiment echoed in the pages of the "washington post" today. quote, mitt romney's most impressive and consistently manifest attribute is his inhuman work ethic. governor chris christie, meanwhile, spent more of his time on the stump, stumping for himself in 2016. romney's name first came up 1700 words into christie's 2600 word speech. instead of a rabble-rousing speech to lift up the nominee, christie's speech was a barn burner about his own achievements in new jersey, and christie's criticism of partisan politics may have been better directed to his own party in congress. >> we believe that if we tell the people the truth, that they will act bigger than the pettiness we see in washington, d.c. we believe it's possible to forge bipartisan compromise. >> his attacks on the president's health care system sounded more like criticism of his own party's stance on abortion. >> mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the

world's greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an american citizen and her doctor. >> while chris christie challenged americans to hard work and sacrifice, perhaps the biggest failure of the night was one of inspiration. peggy noonan wrote in the "wall street journal" this morning i want to tell you they marched out of the hall tuesday night on fire for their side, but i was there and they did not. they walked out like people who weren't quite sure what to think or how to feel but were hoping for the best, because they love their country a lot. joining us now from tampa is casey hunt of the associated press, also in tampa, msnbc contributor, sam stein of the hu huffington post. i want to start, sam, with you. to sort of bring us up to the present moment, we are seeing the dreaded dual screen here which is hurricane isaac slamming into the gulf coast and republicans in tampa trying to celebrate the nomination of mitt romney. do you think that this is an issue for the rnc, should they

be more aggressive in dealing with the fact that there is a natural disaster on their hands? >> i mean, obviously it's a delicate situation and clearly, you know, news media, the convention goers, the republican party itself has been monitoring what's going on. they're trying to balance it by having speakers get up there, acknowledge what's going on, say a moment of silence for people in harm's way, but the show does in some respects have to go on. this is part of the platform to launch mitt romney as a candidate for the presidency and they have to introduce him to the public at large. so yes, it's very difficult, very delicate. i think a lot of it, they're just trying to wing because they don't know what's going on, much like we in the media don't know what's going on. it's creating awkward optics, especially if you are watching it on tv. >> as we hope people are. casey, i want to talk to you about the score card from last night because it's been a very mixed bag in terms of reactions and grades. i think generally speaking, most people thought that ann romney

and chris christie did a good job of selling themselves to the american public, but the jury is still out on whether mitt romney is going to get any bounce from this, whether mitt romney comes out looking any better than he did the day before yesterday. your assessment? >> well, you know, they were really counting on ann's speech to help humanize him and to make that argument for a group of particularly swing voters who are just turning into the selection. ann romney has been working as somebody to humanize her husband for a long time. she's been on the campaign trail quite a bit. folks who were in the hall came away really impressed with how she did with her speech. the crowd was clearly engaged. the line you played about how she said he will not fail drew a standing ovation, the crowd was very excited about that. the transition from ann into chris christie's speech was more than a little jarring. it was pretty immediate. of course, you have to remember that the two weren't initially scheduled to speak on the same night so if they did have die vergent messages, some of it was by virtue of the fact isaac forced them to push this convention off by a day.

>> hugo, watching those speeches last night, i guess a lot of folks were looking to ann romney to reveal something we didn't know about mitt romney and i want to play this little piece of sound, then read some of peggy noonan's reaction to it. this is ann romney last night talking about her husband, mitt. >> he was nice to my parents but he was also really glad when they aren't around. i don't mind that, but more than anything, he made me laugh. some of you might not know this, but i am the granddaughter of a welsh coal miner. he was determined, he was determined that his kids get out of the mines. >> there you have this kind of windup, mitt romney made me laugh, full stop, pump the brakes, also did you know that i'm the granddaughter of the coal miners. noonan writes the opportunity ann romney missed was to provide first person testimony that it's new that hasn't been spoken, that hasn't been in the books and the magazine articles. she failed to make it new so she failed to make it real.

what do you make of that? >> i agree. i give her a lot of props for -- it wasn't a boring speech and i think the part that was most interesting to me was when she was sort of talking about his sort of noblesse oblige, his good deeds and the fact he didn't seek kind of publicity or status from them. i thought that was interesting. it sort of started to veer towards something that was a little less well-known, a little less in all the accounts. at the same time, i think it's true that like the humanizing mitt effort is failing. if his own wife can't do it, i guess they just should give up, start dehumanizing mitt and see if that works. >> i think if folks are cherry picking their favorite lines of the night, the part about him, no one will work harder and the workhorse thing, maybe that is the key. maybe it's not about the warm and fuzzy, funny mitt romney -- >> i will say this, i don't think that that provides a good contrast with the president. i don't think anybody thinks -- >> barack obama. >> that barack obama is not a hard worker. that is definitely not one of his issues. >> the other problem is you can't talk about what his work

is. she never said bain capital. no one ever said bain capital all night. this is a guy who made his fortune and his political reputation on this one company and they can't say the name of the company because it's so reviled. when you read our cover story today and you really get into what that company did and how they did it, and the debt that they piled on other companies, that was the fascinating thing matt gets into. here's a guy who's running against debt but he's one of the greatest debt creators of all time. he would take on debt, saddle other people with the debt and walk away with a lot of money. so you can talk about his work, but then you need to say well, what did he do. >> no one will work harder at creating debt than mitt romney. casey, i was struck by this, and i think i called -- i deem it flintstonian, this kind of attitude we saw on display throughout the speeches, the gender politics on stage last night. there was some choice -- the way ann romney categorized or characterized her relationship to mitt romney and then tried to sort of expand that and say hey,

girls, we're all in this club. i want to play this sound and i want to get your reaction to this. >> if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. it's how it is, isn't it. it's the moms who have always had twoso work a little harder make everything right. it's the moms of this nation, single, married, widowed, who really hold this country together. we're the mothers. we're the wives. we're the grandmothers. we're the big sisters. we're the little sisters and we are the daughters. i love you women! and i hear your voices. >> that's actually not really the clip that i wanted to play, but throughout the evening, she kept sort of going -- there is this recurring theme that women sigh louder, women understand they have the heavier load to

bear and that we're all in this together, women, aren't we? and i guess part of me thought that was an antiquated way of characterizing women's roles in the 21st century, that somehow we need to be sidelined because we're the ones that make the sandwiches and change the diapers. this is part of ann romney's appeal to women in america but it seems really strategically aimed at married, nonworking women. >> exactly. her pitch was very specifically looking at not necessarily married, she does not single, widowed, but people who are raising families. if you think about the people that they need to appeal to, what they're looking to do in the fall, they're looking for suburban women outside places like philadelphia, if they're to have the hope of winning in some of these swing states. so she clearly brings that message. you didn't see her touch very much on working women, although she did mention that very often, women who go into the workplace have to fight a little bit harder to earn the same respect as men. so there was a little bit of nod to those folks but on the whole,

it was focused towards people who have similar -- she touched a lot on her own background as somebody who raised five boys and that's what she spent her life focused on. >> can i make a point here? >> yes, sam, get in there. >> i just think it's a little unfair to ann romney to put all these burdens on her. what she was asked to do last night is humanize someone who has been in the public spotlight for almost a decade, maybe more, and who has failed to humanize himself. what she was asked to do is connect romney to women voters even though his policies are what's causing the disconnect. so the romney campaign placed a lot of the burden on ann romney to go out there and hit a home run and fix these problems that they've created for the candidate himself, and she did a very good job. she tried her best. but there are some deficiencies she just can't get past and it will take more than a clever line or a moment where she says i love women to fix these things. there are fundamental issues that are unfixable. >> but sam, i think the issue isn't just making an argument, it's telling the story, something that isn't known already.

i think that's where she really failed. it's not about trying to explain a certain policy. >> no, but i'm not -- that's my point. a story can only mask certain things. at the end of the day, people look at the policy prescriptions and make judgments primarily on that. we get obsessed with story lines and presentations but at the end of the day you have to imagine this a lot of voters will look and say i don't like what he's doing with respect to women's health, with respect to contraception, and that's why they will vote against romney, not because ann romney said he's great for women, he understands my plight, my issues. that's not why they'll vote for him. >> i mean, i think we can't underestimate the power of narrative. certainly if there was a compelling narrative about mitt romney's humanity and big heart, that might counter some of the more draconan policies he wrapped his arms around. we have to go to break. after we get back, rick santorum gave a forceful, enthusiastic endorsement of hands last night. >> i held its hand. i shook the hands of farmers and

ranchers. hands weathered and worn. the dirty hands. hands. i've gripped hands. hands that served. hands that sacrificed. hands that prayed. hands, hands, hands that struggled. hands that bring great joy. >> is it possible that somewhere in there was a nod to governor mitt romney? we will discuss the proceedings of last night, next. you do this every morning? it's the only way to get fresh coffee. not in my house! this new flavor lock pack from maxwell house helps seal in freshness. wow! that is fresh! am i still yelling? [ male announcer ] maxwell house flavor lock. always good to the last drop. to experience the ultimate expression of power... control. [ engine revs ] during the golden opportunity sales event,

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mitt romney made a surprise appearance at the rnc following his wife's speech last night but perhaps more surprising was mitt

romney's absence from the other headline speeches. it took new hampshire senator kelly ayotte nearly five minutes into an eight-minute speech to get to mitt romney. south carolina governor nicki haley spoke about voter i.d. laws and fighting unions but didn't mention the nominee until six minutes into her ten-minute speech. while governor kasich touted his record in ohio, he only got around to romney halfway through his remarks. rick santorum attacked the president's welfare plans with a selection of questionable facts, then celebrated married men and women but spent the rest of his speech talking about all the hands he shook during his own campaign. even chris christie took 16 minutes before mentioning romney. david axelrod tweeted during the speech i know he's going to mention mitt somewhere here, isn't he? eric bates, i kind of -- during christie's speech, it went from disbelief to actually feeling bad for the nominee insofar as

chris christie really took a long time winding up to get to the pitch. >> he didn't just take a long time winding up. that wasn't what his speech was about. fundamentally. his speech was about him and positioning himself for 2016 or at least positioning himself on the national stage. it was his biggest chance to do that yet and he grabbed it with both hands and wouldn't let go of it. that's what it was all about, his own record -- >> you know, it surprises me still. i think that's what people are saying. each of the speakers last night were sort of mostly concerned with their own sort of personal political fortunes rather than their nominee's but the thing that surprises me is does anybody like not get credit for like actually getting behind the nominee? isn't that what you're supposed to do? it's not like christie's 2016 chances depend on him not getting behind mitt romney this time. he needs to go out there so i'm really surprised and you know, i think the one thing chris christie really brings to pretty much any conversation is this

kind of like self-styled kind of authenticity realness. how effective would it have been if he had really dug deep and said something truly positive and personal about what a great man mitt romney is, and it would have been so powerful, and the fact that he couldn't do it is just, i don't know. >> it's testimony to perhaps how lukewarm some people feel about mitt romney, even within his own party. casey, a lot of talk and analysis about how chris christie would be as a keynote speaker, how his performance would be. i guess i wondered was the romney campaign happy with christie's remarks last night? we saw -- we can play a little of the visual of mitt romney looking i will say uncomfortable, if not pained, during certain parts of christie's speech last night. what is the readout from where you are? >> well, of course the romney campaign did go through most of these speeches. they were perfectly aware of what all these folks were going to get up and say. you have to remember while this is mitt romney's convention, it is also the republican party's convention and the party as a

whole has an interest in looking ahead and making sure they're setting up who they see as their rising stars to do well in future years. as one of our panelists was saying earlier, this was the time for christie to sort of set himself up for 2016, which was really unfortunate for him was having to follow ann romney. the whole hall was wrapped up in this personal story, thinking about mitt, their candidate and to have christie take the stage and start making references to the jersey shore was a little bit jarring. >> sam, i do want to talk a little bit about the substance of the remarks that didn't include the words mitt romney and particularly focus on rick santorum and what he was saying last night about welfare which is of course, a line of attack that has been bandied around in conservative circles in recent weeks. let's take a listen to what rick santorum said last night. >> under president obama, the dream of freedom and opportunity has become a nightmare of dependency, with almost half of america receiving some sort of

government assistance. this summer, he showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work requirement for welfare. >> we have discussed the validity of this contention and the fact that it's really not valid. it seems that at least one republican has acknowledged the falsity of these claims. i want to play sound from sam brownback earlier today on msnbc admitting that this stuff is false. let's take a listen. >> but you agree that these claims that the work requirement has been abolished are false? >> as far as i have seen, but i don't know all of the bases to it. >> is that the most we're going to get out of the republican party, as far as the truth? >> well, yes. keep in mind the republican staffer who crafted welfare reform in the '90s has actually said these attacks are false. there are people out there who are actually acknowledging truth. i think you're pointing at a

larger issue here which is that last night, the predominant themes were based off of a widely debunked ad that the romney campaign has run on welfare as well as a distorted quote, the president saying you didn't build that. those are the two predominant themes of the night last night and both of them have serious issues with respect to their validity. and i think that's, you know, it's telling that that's where we are right now with this convention, that those are the issues we're discussing. i just want to make one more point about chris christie and ann romney. i know they were bunched together. i think the problem wasn't that chris christie was out there doing his freelancing stuff because the romney campaign clearly saw the comments beforehand and were happy with them. thematically it didn't make sense because ann romney was trying to trumpet this human side of her husband and christie turned the script and didn't talk about him at all. that's what was so jarring. it wasn't that he had done something to promote himself. it was that there was no fluidity to it. >> also, i think repudiation of

love being this sort of narrative device single-handedly saying, literally everybody mentioned, ted cruz mentioned love, ann romney mentioned love, then chris christie giving the keynote says this isn't about love and it's not about acceptance which of course is a repuation of a lot of things mitt romney's done to win over whether it's members of his own base, win the nomination, is to capitulate to the loudest voice in the room in an effort to be loved and christie saying it's about backbone and standing up for your principles. i think that equals hash tag awkward. unfortunately, we have to leave it there. thank you to casey hunt. we look forward to more dispatches from the campaign trail from you. good luck out there. >> thanks, alex. >> coming up, louisiana governor bobby jindal is expected to hold a news conference on hurricane isaac later this hour. we are also monitoring efforts along the mississippi coastline and will get a report from the region after the break.

let's get another update on hurricane isaac. nbc's janet shandlian is in pass christian, mississippi. janet? >> reporter: this is the worst it's been here all day. tropical force winds that just won't quit. this is usually a calm body of water. it now looks like an angry ocean. we have debris flying all over the place. two boats have come unmoored and are working their way up this driveway which means highway 90, the main artery here in town. this is a children's play ground completely flooded over and we're not even yet at high tide. that means the water is going to come up further. pieces of debris over here, this is from the yacht club which is about a half a mile away down there. it looks completely wiped out at this point as we see pieces of pool all around. still in the thick of it here on the mississippi coast as they battle this tropical storm.

back to you. >> thank you, janet. coming up, the gop's minority push, question mark. we will take a look at some of the rising stars of the gop next. at optionsxpress we create easy-to-use, powerful trading tools for all. like our all-in-one trade ticket. we put strategies, chains and positions all on one screen. start trading today with optionsxpress by charles schwab. begins with back pain and a choice.

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welcome back. we are talking romney-palooza, day one. our assessments of. joining the table now is msnbc policy analyst, the "the washington post" ezra klein. there were a lot of people speaking last night. obviously there has been a lot of focus on ann romney and chris christie. ted cruz, texas senate candidate and tea party darling, spoke and said very interesting things regarding hispanics and how the president is trying to divide the country. i want to play that sound and get your reaction to it. >> president obama's campaign is trying to divide america. telling seniors medicare will be taken away. telling hispanics that we're not

welcome here. and sending the vice president to preach a message of division. >> there are a couple things to unpack there. i thought one of the most incredible pieces of that statement was tell hispanics that we're not welcome here, especially given where the president is at on immigration and where ted cruz is on immigration. ted cruz, if you don't know, has been an advocate of resuming deportations of young undocumented residents here in the united states. the question of how the gop can appeal to minority voters is a big one, an important one, and one that the gop has shown no signs of being able to answer thus far. i guess i wonder what you made of the optics of last night with the gop backloading basically anyone from latin background and putting them in prime time, that would be senator marco rubio, brian sandoval, susanna martinez, ted cruz from last night. >> it's how you run a

convention. you try to deal with your weaknesses by putting people on the stage who might be able to help you with them. unfortunately, people don't really care about that. they don't vote based on your convention lineup, much to the dismay of many years of convention organizers, and i think right now, the gop strategy for how to deal with the incredibly large deficit among minority voters in 2012 is to not deal with it. this is one of the last elections and there was a quote to this effect a few days ago in one of the major papers, that it is plausible for the gop to win with a very large majority of the white vote and very small minority vote. that's what they're doing. a romney advisor said explicitly in the "new york times" to win the election at this point, they will need to get white working class voters to turn out pretty much by using cultural themes like welfare and that's the plan. in four years, they'll figure out what to do about the fact that they have a margin of error in the african-american vote in 20% to 30% if that in the latino vote. >> worth noting that ann romney is speaking at the latino

coalition and moments ago, said it dawned on her backstage that latinos care about these issues, too, and that latinos are worthy of outreach. i'm paraphrasing. but it almost seems -- actually, we have the tape. let's play it. >> you know, i spoke to women last night and i wanted women to understand how important this election is for their children, but as i was sitting backstage listening, i thought it's also very important that the latino community recognize how important this election is for them. >> sam stein, you're still with us. i think latinos probably do understand how important this election is to them. i think if anything, they might just be surprised at how little importance the republican party has put on outreach to the latin and hispanic community. >> yes. i mean, the primary pitch of the republican party to any of the minority communities or any group whatsoever, whether it's women voters, for instance, is that the economy trumps all and

we can fix the economy better and therefore, you should vote for us. all the other stuff, for instance, immigration reform, deportations, you know, contraception with respect to women, women's health care issues, that is pushed to the side. we -- they don't want to talk about it. they want to talk about how jobs and the economy matter. to the extent that they do matter, that they're the top issue, yes, it will help them with those communities but there's so much more complexity to voter outreach than that. i think ezra's right. you put your best face forward with respect to the conventions but it doesn't really move the dial when your policy platform is offensive to that community. >> it's not just about sort of ensuring that white voters come out. it's also to a certain degree depressing or repressing the vote of minority voters. this is what was said regarding voter i.d. laws last night. let's take a listen. >> we said in south carolina that if you have to show a picture i.d. to buy sudafed, if you have to show a picture i.d. to set foot on an airplane, then you should have to show picture i.d. to protect the one of the most valuable, most central,

sacred rights and blessings in america, the right to vote. and what happened? president obama stopped us. >> sudafed, catching a flight and voting. eric bates? >> that argument would hold water if in the voting booth there were addictive drugs or terrorists. as far as i'm aware, there aren't either and neither are there real problems so it doesn't make any sense. voter fraud is not an issue. all the studies have shown far more likely to be hit by lightning than to experience any kind of voter fraud so it's not a real problem. it's a strategic gambit that goes to what ezra was saying about suppressing the part of the vote that's most apt to do you in. i think what's interesting at the convention isn't that the republican party is putting its best face forward. it's putting a false face forward. it's not putting people out who represent its policies.

it's putting people out to try to camouflage its policies. you have two very different strategies here. obama's problem is that people may not understand his policies and all that he's done for them. romney's problem is that they may understand what he's up to and what he's going to do to them, so that creates a very different strategy for both parties. >> you know, one of the things sam was talking about how the strategy of the republicans is to use sort of jobs and economy as this sort of big tent for everybody. i think that's obviously true, but on the other hand, i think they did a pretty lousy job last night of really expressing that in a positive way. the we built that or we built it or whatever their slogan was last night, it's not just that it's factually incorrect, it's just a very small way of expressing their idea and it's not an interesting one. it's not a good story. i think that through all the speeches last night, one thing that struck me was that no one could make a really good, positive story about economic growth and what the republicans knew about that that was going

to really bring in people and hey, you know what, i have all these concerns but i really, what i really most need is i need my son to have a job, i need my father to have a job and that's bigger than everything. they didn't really make that point. >> i think that that's going to be the point of what paul ryan's doing tonight. from all i hear, he's going to try to fill in the details. but you get to a really great point which is that the whole message last night especially from chris christie was we are going to tell the tough truths, then they proceeded to not tell anything. there was no details about what tax breaks were going to -- spending cuts would have to be made. there was nothing. it was all platitudes and broad strokes. so you can't have it both ways. you can't be the party that will tell tough truths, then retreat behind this, you know, facade of whatever eric was talking about, the false face forward. the camouflage. yes. >> the biggest problem the gop has right now in this election and in this convention is they have not yet been able to

explain how their agenda differs from what they did between 2001 and 2008. they had a president and they controlled the house and they controlled the senate, and they passed tax cuts and deregulation and they had a fairly coherent and clear economic agenda and what ended up happening is we had one of the worst decades of economic growth followed by one of the worst recessions that was partially due to financial both deregulation and lack of new regulation, lack of proper regulatory oversight, that we have ever had. since then they have not actually updated the plan very much. what they have said is we won't spend as much as george w. bush spent but nobody thinks that what happened in 2008 or even what happened from 2001 to 2008 was about george w. bush spending too much. that might have been a long term problem. i think it probably was. you don't want to run deficits when your economy is growing. but that is not responsive either to what created this crisis or frankly, what's really going to get us out of this crisis. >> there were two names you couldn't say last night at the convention. one was bain capital, the other

was george w. bush. >> mitt romney. you couldn't say mitt romney either. >> they have updated their prescription for the country with voter i.d. laws and transvaginal ultrasounds. let's not forget those. we will be talking more about the ryan road map after the break. while much of the nation prepares for tonight's paul ryan rollout, many americans got their first introduction to the congressman when he gave the gop response to president obama's 2011 state of the union. >> this is the future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock which lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency. depending on bureaucracy that foster wise consumer choices have never worked and it won't work now. we need to chart a new course. >> what will we hear from congressman ryan tonight? we take a closer look coming up next. i'm a marathon runner, in absolute perfect physical condition

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until now, paul ryan, a wisconsin native, was known as a ho-hum policy wonk, more at ease giving chart-heavy speeches than prime time political addresses. >> look at where we're headed. we are headed with a crushing burden of debt. the debt goes to double the size of the economy, then triple the size of the economy, to eight times the size of the economy. >> the ayn rand devotee hardly shook things up when he played office. he played loyal party soldier and voted in favor of big bush era spending plans. according to a recent profile of the congressman, quote, ryan told me recently that as a fiscal conservative he was miserable during the last majority and is determined to do everything i can to make sure i don't feel that misery again. four years ago, ryan, using his policy skills and disarming demeanor, set out to slash spending. in the process he created a plan that would redefine the nation's

social compact and overhaul the system of wealth distribution in america. initially his party ignored him with only eight republicans signing on to ryan's road map for america's future. but then the tea party emerged and ryan's budget proposals to turn medicare into a voucher system for future retirees, gut programs like medicaid and food stamps and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy became the defining policies of the republican party. just this past march, all but ten house republicans voted in favor of his budget blueprint. look how far paul ryan has come and look how far back he could take us. ezra, nothing wrong with being a policy wonk. is there such thing as a ho-hum policy wonk? i feel that's undermining the importance of policy wonks. let's talk about how ryan got here. he has put forward an incredibly ideologically severe plan to paraphrase some on the right. how did he win the favor of the republican party? is it just the tea party that

gave him this currency? >> no. i should say i have like a hipster's relationship to paul ryan. i liked paul ryan back before it was cool. now i don't think, back when eight republicans were signing on to the road map it was actually a much better, more interesting documents. the numbers added up better. there was a real plan to try to give more americans health care insurance and a significant component, cutting, trying to privatize social security. there are a lot of parts of it i didn't agree with but the numbers worked and it was a coherent vision of what to do next, if you were very, very conservative. in that way it was a good debate. what happened next is paul ryan's budget chairman, then house republicans became, they got into the majority. the really key moment for paul ryan came back during the shut-down conversation of 2010, because boehner wasn't getting his tea party freshmen to vote for something that would notch it down, they weren't willing to make the compromise and they fast-tracked the paul ryan budget and made it kind of the big, before that debate was over

which nobody expected to unveil a budget before we figured out how to keep the government open and the idea was move the tea party over to this document, this long term document. don't get them obsessed with the small fight over 2010 spending. get them obsessed with how to do medicare and medicaid in the long term. but ryan made compromises in order to get the gop signed on. social security went out. the health care part went away. so it's not getting more people health care. then as it went on, he had to cut medicare less and now basically the plan is he is going to cut programs for poor people by vastly more than is plausible and more than is decent. >> sam, you're in tampa. what is the expectation as far as ryan's speech tonight? i'm not assuming we will hear a lot. we won't see a lot of flow charts and hear a lot about policy. we will presumably hear more about his growing up and background in wisconsin, his love of hunting. >> i don't think he will do what ezra did and say i will vastly cut programs for the poor.

that is not a smart political strategy. obviously he's going to talk about he's a budgets guy, he will talk about the need to tackle the deficit. i wouldn't be surprised if he talked about how things got away in the bush years. i think that's a way to pivot off of both bush himself and to create distance between the romney and bush ticket, even if it's insincere, knowing paul ryan's voting record. but i was told that he's going to probably give a nod to foreign policy which is one of his weak parts because he just hasn't had much experience there. but you know, as these things go, expect a lot of platitudes, expect a lot of show and there's going to be hokiness as well. >> platitudes and hokiness. must-see tv. thank you to sam stein in tampa, eric bates may get what he wants and hear the name george w. bush. coming up, the army corps of engineers asserts the levees are working as hurricane isaac slams louisiana but that does not mean people in the area aren't feeling the powerful winds and rain. as lester holt discovered

earlier today, we will get a live update from lester in new orleans, next. live in tampa, coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports" we'll talk to marco rubio about his big speech, introducing mitt romney tomorrow night. also, house majority leader eric cantor on his fellow young gun, paul ryan. tonight is ryan's big night. and we review last night's big speeches. ann romney and chris christie, with our all-star cast, chris cillizza, chris matthews and maggie haberman. that plus tamron hall on the latest from the hurricane.

hurricane isaac has knocked out power for much of new orleans rht now but mayor landrieu says the levee system is doing what it's supposed to. nbc's lester holt is on location in new orleans. lester? >> reporter: alex, no surprise

the levee system is working. they spent $14 billion upgrading it after katrina. there has been localized flooding, loss of power in new orleans. there are problems, however, with levees in plaquemines parish. those are earthen levees, nothing like the concrete ones here. some of them have been overtopped, meaning the storm surge was above the level of those levees, leaving some homes in nine feet of water, a number of people needed rescue. the storm right now, about 40 miles from new orleans. it's a minimal category 1 hurricane now with winds at about 75 miles an hour, but it is as advertised. lots of rain and a prolonged beating this region is taking. back to you. >> thanks, lester. it is as advertised and a prolonged beating. we will continue to follow that story. thanks to my panel here in new york, eric bates, ezra klein and hugo lindgren. that's all for now. see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific when i'm joined by michael steele, ezra klein, john

heilemann and michael wolf. good afternoon, andrea. good afternoon. thanks, alex. coming up here, republican rising star, senator marco rubio. plus house majority leader eric cantor joining me in tampa. we will also hear from paul ryan's wife for the first time as paul ryan prepares for one of the biggest nights of his life. and we'll get the democratic response from the dnc, plus hurricane isaac and rescues happening right now in louisiana, next on "andrea mitchell reports." [ female announcer ] how do you define your moment? the blissful pause just before that rich sweetness touches your lips. the delightful discovery, the mid-sweetening realization that you have the house all to yourself. well, almost. the sweet reward, making a delicious choice that's also a smart choice. splenda no-calorie sweetener. with the original sugar-like taste you love and trust.

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tonight, i want to talk to you about love. >> tonight, we are going to do what my mother taught me. tonight, we're going to choose respect over love. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports" true love and tough love. the republican convention opens with mixed messages. did it work? plus, the party's new faces.