yorker, host of msnbc's hardball, the man had himself, chris mathews, msnbc political analyst and former dnc communications director karen finney and political analyst and executive director of msnbc.com richard wolf. the clock has nearly run out for the next several hours the last ballots are being cast as america chooses its next president. governor mitt romney has been running for this job for five years, ten months and three days but today, he's trying to buy more time. romney was supposed to end his campaign last night with a rally in new hampshire, but perhaps in a bid to turn back the clock the campaign scheduled an event in ohio that is about to get under way and another to come this afternoon in pennsylvania. romney is trying to make sure that this is not his last campaign, that politically he has a tomorrow. >> tomorrow. >> tomorrow. >> tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow. >> for the president, win or

lose, this is his last campaign. >> this is a pretty emotional time for us because this is the final event of my husband's final campaign. >> in iowa last night, the place where it all began, the first couple held an extended embrace at the end of a day that saw president obama on the stump with jay-z and bruce springsteen, he seemed at peace, closing one chapter of his political life. >> it all comes down to you. it's out of my hands now. it's in yours. >> now, of course, it is just down to the ballots. chris, let's talk about the mood. i mean we are going to prognosticate, we have been prognosticating about how tight this thing is. >> never made a prediction the whole year and i have no idea. >> some people have. we don't know what's going to happen. judging by the behavior of both candidates on the stump yesterday, you know, how do you think each campaign really truly is feeling. i will read an excerpt from john

heilemann following romney and has been on the trail with him, writes when romney took to the podium he didn't seem jazzed off pumped or juiced instead he came across as subdued low of voice and out of puff. here was a candidate losing and who knows it, who is watching as his long held dream is slipping through his fingers. pretty strong assessment of where romney stands at this moment, given how tight the race is. >> yeah. he may be pessimistic and wrong in his pessimism, we don't know. go three or four levels to find the truth here. one is probably to wait until around 10:00 tonight. anybody watching this show by the way who hasn't voted or don't have direct plans to vote is an idiot. >> this is also true. >> i don't know why anyone would watch this show or any others. go vote and then watch this all night tonight on ms. if you don't vote you're an ed yot. >> people watching the show -- >> yeah. >> drives me crazy. that there are people out there we're going to hear about it tomorrow. the haters always vote. the haters will show up.

it's the lovers, i had to check my e-mail or text something. i thought workout or meet somebody for a drink. drop it. vote. >> drop it. >> don't watch this stuff until you've voted. i'm dead serious. look at the ratings tonight, watch us all night long, but if you don't vote i don't want to talk to you. if you vote for one of the third or fourth party candidates like gary johnson, and say i was surprised at what happened, you shouldn't be, ed yots like you voted for third and fourth party candidates and don't know how the system works. you have two choices. >> chris mathews. >> there it is! >> i know you know this as well as i do. we're going to be talking about this tomorrow. >> we are. >> about turnout. turnout is what everybody watching can control. they can't control who's going to win. >> you're right. >> want to participate go vote. want to watch, go to another country. this is the country you're allowed to vote in. i am bothered by people. i thought i would vote for john henderson. or i really like ralph nader and

what he stands for. nothing to do with the presidency. nothing to do with it. screwed up so many of our elections, being so npr, pbs, hoity-toity. don't do that. >> don't play referee. you know it's true. >> i'm not -- >> you try to play referee. >> time out, coach. i'm trying to say maybe npi -- >> the people that think about democracy are really -- really a joke on themselves. >> rick hertzberg -- >> by the way, don't watch rick unless you vote. he's a good friend of mine. >> go in about 55 minutes. >> dvr this. >> i can't stand nonvoters. >> must see television. >> richard became an american to vote. >> that's totally true. i think it's important if you are a member of a community you need to vote. you know, there's -- it's incredibly hard to be a full member of the community, the place you live, to have that sense of belonging unless you

vote and so i'm with you. i think people -- they're reckless, not just idiots they're reckless. they are not taking care of their families or their community. actually i don't mind. i disagree. don't mind what they vote for whether they spoil a ballot or -- you've got to show up, though. you have to show up. if you want to take part in the services that we all care for, street lighting, schools, hospitals, go vote. absolutely. but they can also watch this show. >> you can do both. >> buy a pizza and stick with us all night. maybe miss your show but watch the other shows. >> i like how others are turning off the television. everyone should go vote. >> i know we'll talk about it all day tomorrow. you'll talk about it all day tomorrow. the turnout was -- >> it's going to be a high turnout. >> rick, rick -- dana milbank in today's "washington post" writing in the waning days of campaign mitt romney was uplifting, optimistic and inspirational. in other words, almost entirely different from the man we saw

and heard these past many months. i couldn't had help but wonder whether he would be in a better position if h had taken the high road months ago. your magazine had a very powerful i thought endorsement of barack obama and did a masterful assessment of romney and his weaknesses. do you think that is true? >>. >> we've got two different reports now on how romney -- on the one hand he's depressed and other hand he's up. we don't know. let me second the point about voting. voting is the sacrament of our democracy and that's why i vote. because i'm a new yorker, so everybody knows which way new york is going, but i just persistently and stubbornly vote every time because it's like the altar of democracy. >> do you think the fact that this is tight is going to be -- to chris's point we don't know what's going to happen until it happens. do you think the tightness of this race will encourage people to go out there and vote. >> i think it already has

frankly. a lot of the reports if you talk to the obama campaign that we've been hearing is all of the suppressive efforts have actually made people angry and actually made people more motivated to go and stand in line. i mean this weekend, eight hours, nine hours, people standing in line, this morning in virginia lines were already two hours, several hours. >> standing in line. >> you know why. >> but they're committed to -- hey. >> voter suppression efforts. >> but the thing is i give people credit, god bless them if they're going to stand in the line going to be a five hour day to exercise your right to vote go for it. >> if you get out of the line, the guys like donald trump will be high fiving it and sununus and reince priebus did the 30 some republican states that plan to do voter suppression so minorities wouldn't vote. did it on purpose, got caught many times but a lot of times got away with it. an undemocratic effort on the other side. it's systemic. you're in the going to tell me pennsylvania just thought of this or florida. you know better than i, from the dnc, this was put together,

reince priebus, i gave him a hard time, deserves a much harder time. engages in undemocratic practices in a democracy is bad. all romney had to do was blow the whistle. something nice about this campaign, nobody has used his religion against him, it's never come up. it should never come up. harry reid is a mormon, my wife works for mormons, they're good people. why the other side bring up the ethnic stuff all the time. he's from kenya, blah-blah-blah. he's not really an american. they never stop. >> isn't that part of a strategy -- >> the american candidate, notice that. we're the american candidate. >> isn't that part of a strategy that -- >> oh, yeah. called evil. >> waitp. which is -- >> it is evil. >> but the strategy has an expiration date. this is a party that is doubling down on a part of the electorate shrinking. undereducated white working-class voters, divide and conquer tactics, the republican party if it's going to exist beyond 2016 is going to have to understand -- >> there was a great movie

called "custard the west" the great british actor that played custard saying before the battle of big horn the whites will dominant this country and you'll be out of luck but he says yeah, but not today. >> that's what we're going to find out tonight. a big question in this election is, you know, if minorities come out and vote to the numbers that i believe they will and if those votes are counted and i think that's a very important point because i think people will show up, whether or not those votes will be counted, i think the republican party is in for a big freakout tomorrow when they realize there are not enough white men left in this country to win the presidency. >> if you hear -- >> i love white men. don't get me wrong, by the way. >> you heard the romney team say the obama team is too rely yonts on the polls. pretty rapid or a 180 degree turn from the guy all about number crunching and data driven politics. >> right. >> they think they have their own data but there are two

theories here. one is you can turn out people who are less enthusiastic having a great machine, by having -- by being able to contact the right people and the other side is saying we don't need it. that great a machine, because we have enthusiasm and the motive is there. i don't don't that the motive is there. people who hate this president, there are many of them, they are very fired up and they will vote in states where it's not even close, right. actually we're seeing these long lines from democrats in states where they're not close. the real answer for republicans is not to try to restrict voting. it's to try to turn out more voters in early voting and on the day. it's not to say, there are minorities and then there are real americans. they're all americans, right? the way to do it, to build the lasting majority for republicans you is with latino voters. they've done such a terrible job. they have to revisit probably in the next few months their position on immigration policy. otherwise, in five, ten years time we will be talking about texas as a battleground state. they have to look at their whole

strategy and say we need to expand this map. that's what democrats did after 2004. they expanded it, didn't try to contract. >> we're going to have to leave it there. everybody should turn off their television sets now and go vote. thank you as always to chris mathews. chris will have a special edition of "hardball" at 5:00 p.m. eastern leading into election coverage where i will join him after i vote along with rachel, the rev, lawrence and ed. >> hope everybody votes before 5:00. >> that is right here on msnbc. at 6:00 p.m. >> the party can't fix itself because it's made up of so many tea party people, they will not vote in those open immigration policies. >> both sides say things look good whether based on feeling or fact we could be in for a long night. which indicators do you buy. we'll go shopping live to democracy plaza next on "now."

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with most polls showing a tight contest within the margin of error some are turning to other indicators to decipher which way the election will swing. for dan rather it's his gut. >> you can lay out a play that romney wins this election, and i will' be honest with you, always

try to be, something in my gut tells me that it's going to be a good day for romney. but as a reporter you don't report your gut. >> for others like "the wall street journal"'s peggy noonan, it's poster board. there is no denying the republicans have the passion, enthuse, independent are breaking for romney and the thing about the yard signs. in florida a few weeks ago i saw romney signs not obama ones. conservatives have been whispering something big is happening and under the radar groundswell of support for their candidate that escaped the attention of pollsters. they cite romney's crowds 30,000 in ohio, 28,000 in pennsylvania. >> i'm looking around to see if we have the beatles here or something to have brought you. looks like you came just for the campaign and i appreciate it. >> the obama campaign and democrats prefer to stick to the raw numbers. gallup's tracking poll which showed romney with a five-point lead a week ago has shrivelled to 1%. the last "washington post"/abc news tracking poll of the cycle shows the president climbing to

50%, his best showing since july and six-point swing from a month ago following the debate. the obama campaign is playing up its slender advantage in the swing states though remains mostly within the margin of error to say if it looks tight it probably is tight but hopefully not as tight as in x dixvildi dixville notch. the voting resulted in a tie, each received five votes. joining the panel is our own tie breaker, buzz feed editor in chief busy ben smith. nate silver is going out there with a 90.9% chance of the president winning. i prognosticate a 107% chance of huge embarrassment for nate silver if the president doesn't win. certainly look, a lot of people at nate silver az one of the most popular election predictors, a high number, 90.9. >> it's averaging polls which show obama winning the swing

states, obama ahead nationally. that seems like a high number to me but i think he's doing the math and he may in his rhetoric pushing all his chips in on this. 10% is a reasonable chance. >> yes. it is. we talk a lot about the optics of this and the messaging and so forth and i will say on purely the swagger metrics which is an official -- >> oh, yeah. >> barometer for these things, that the obama campaign, we know that the president is a sportsman, he likes playing games, very competitive and this is like a moment for someone who likes sports. there's the trash talking, there is the swagger, and that filters down to his chief surrogates. david axelrod and the mustache bet, i'll play a little sound, david axelrod talking about his mustache this morning on "morning joe." >> we have work to do today to get our vote out, but i believe we're going to get our vote out as we did in the early vote and have a very good day. joe, let me just say, i bought

myself a new mustache comb because i'm going to be neegd it. >> david axelrod bought a mustache comb. >> i used to do sports in college and when i got into politics it's got the same feeling, the end point, the finish line, with the exception at some point you have to turn over the controls to voters and trust they're going to do versus at least i'm going to pull my guts out to the end and do what i'm going do. i don't know what those crazy people will do as chris mathews was talking about before. >> it's a head fake. maybe it is. if you build it they will come. the president playing his game of basketball today. the david axelrod shopping for mustache combs because he thinks the president will lock it up in pennsylvania and michigan. but that, you know, instilling confidence is not maybe a bad thing going into this. >> nate is giving the 99% a new meaning. >> or the 90.1% as the case may

be. >> 99.9, is that really? >> 90.1. romney has a 9.1% chance, which is some amount of chance and should not be dismissed. >> i think it's a funny thing the democrats are going to this one. not talking today about why they ought to win, why, you know, hope is on the horizon. talking about why they're going to win, the math is there. how democrats are feeling, i think they certainly want another obama turn, but people don't have stars in their eyes at the moment. >> another reason that's important and a lot is what we're talking about in terms of the voter suppression. it is important we're talking about the metrics and numbers and not just, you know, the likely voters but early voting because if there is a problem later tonight or tomorrow, we will need to go back to those metrics to try to sort out what is really going on. both sides are doing it. this is part of the republican spin about we've got momentum and the pollsters can't pick up, but i think -- for the obama team that's part of why, again, this is a very scientific

formula. they know exactly on this map, i'll show the schematic, where their voters are, how to get them out and trust me those people have been called over and over. did you vote yet. did you vote yet. they're going to turn their people out. >> but let me -- if there is that amount of confidence or understanding of game and game optics, what about the behind-the-scenes sniping happening and i focus specifically on the chris christie piece. last week a lot of analysis abts about the bear hug between the president and chris christie one of mitt romney's chief surrogates and we get news from the huffington post in a piece, you can't -- christie invited to a romney rally last night 20 minutes from the state capital, christie did not attend and a romney campaign source tells huff post you can't tell me he couldn't have gone over there for a night rally. why are you telling that to the had "the huffington post," romney campaign, but b, you know, you're not seeing that kind of breakage on the left. >> yeah. i think something ragged here going on with the romney campaign and we're seeing it in

the candidate trying to add stops on the last day. you know, at this point, they should be concentrating on turnout, deploying the candidate in the most efficient way. to have a candidate on a plane is a waste of time because while he's on the plane he cannot be doing radio or tv interviews. you want to lock him in a hotel room and hit as many media markets as you can in the critical districts. i think this is a campaign that has been opportunistic, that have done it with a message, with travel, they're trying to turn it around or did try to turn it around with governor christie. on the other side, it's not just about the confidence. obama people have planned for this day for three years or more. and if the plan doesn't work it's not because they changed it at the last minute. it's because it was never going to work. they have that plan. it has shown it will turn out people in the early vote. every reason to believe they're going to hit their mark when it

comes to today. is it enough? are the romney folks going to do better? we don't know. they're not trying to change their plan at the last minute and says something about the effort they've put in over the last three or four years. >> go ahead. >> if you're on the candidate's staff, on the candidate's plane, you're in a different state of consciousness before the election. i was on carter's plane. we thought we were going to win right up until practically the polls open, at least we thought we had the chance. i'll tell you who else had big crowds and enthusiasm and spirit right before the election, michael dukakis. walter mondale. john kerry. >> yeah. >> it's always that way. >> but can i just say one thing in terms of the long-term prospects for both parties. i think the thing that disturbs me with the christie piece and some of the reliance on the storm narrative is at the end of the day, i think if i were a republican i would want a wholesale circling of the wagons and a sort of assessment of where the party is and where the party stands and what the

storm -- what the excuse making at this point seems to portend is a party that's going to say, oh, well, not because we have fundamental problems within our party and don't know what our message is. it's because of the storm. >> right. >> or because of chris christie, the blame game does not serve the gop in the long term. >> i agree. for the gop, if president obama is victorious tonight or tomorrow or whenever in the next few days. >> december 9th. >> they will have to go through a version of what democrats went through in 2005 after the 2004 election and i have to say, we took it like big boys and girls. i hope they will be able to as well. there was some finger pointing but at the end of the day we came back and said we have to campaign like democrats, better job talking about who we are, values are, what our ideas are. what you're going to see with the republican party, it's going to be more we needed a true conservative that was the problem. it wasn't our ideas. it was that we had this guy and we tried to make him into a real conservative. i think that's a mistake because

that's not where the country is. that's not going to where rich was talking about before, how you expand the map going more crazy to the right, that's not going to get you there. part of what you're seeing is the beginning of and we've talked about this over the weekend, it's the cya, it's the i asked you for that $10 million check and i told you i was going to be successful, but i need you to write that $10 million check next time and believe me. that's part of what's going on here. >> if you're going to try to heap blame on chris christie, be you better bring your brass knuckles. >> you in danger. >> we may have underestimated how much chris christie loves bruce springsteen. >> i think. and marine one apparently. >> just -- you'll get a call from bruce springsteen and a ride on marine one. i'll go republican -- no. regardless of who wins the white house, the nation's future may depend on what happens in some of the down ballot races. will congress continue to go to extremes? we will ask former pennsylvania governor and governor of "now," ed rendell, just ahead. [ male announcer ] humana and walmart have teamed up

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where it is using bing elections. it's a good day for politics. which way do you lean politically? conservative. republican. well, using the bing news selector you can find news from whichever way you lean. (together) social on this side, financial. which party is currently predicted to win a majority in the senate? the republicans? would you make a bet on that? no. are you chicken? once upon a time, newt gingrich gave the gop his contract with america. but during this year's republican primaries, the former speaker brought to us a 30-minute ad featuring a lecture on energy, the idea for a moon colony and his undying love of animals. >> this is the part of my valentine's day i get to come hang out with elephants for a little while. >> some of the angry teddy bear's greatest hits and the best of the rest ahead on "now." [ female announcer ] the power to become a better investor has gone mobile.

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than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than leading sonic technology brushes for a superior clean. oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers. wifl' work with anybody of any party to move this country forward. if you want to break the grid lock in congress you'll vote for leaders who feel the same way. >> that was president obama yesterday urging voters to send lawmakers to congress willing to work across the aisle. today voters decide who will serve in all 435 house seats and 33 of the 100 senate seats and had those 33 senate races have been nasty, drag out, knock down fights. particularly for the ten states that the political report considers tossups. prognosticators predict neither chamber will shift control despite the fact that republicans need just four seats

to gain control of the upper chamber and 23 seats are held by democrats. according to the new york times editorial board quote -- joining us all the way from philadelphia today, nbc political analysts, former governor of pennsylvania, and the current governor of "now" mr. ed rendell. governor, we need your sage advice on this. in terms of these candidates, i want to focus on down ballot before we get to the top of the ticket, but we've seen movement in senate races where republicans were supposed to have a lockup and in large part that seems to be due to some of their incendiary and divisive language. i point in specific to indiana where you you have joe donnelly with richard mourdock and in

missouri where claire mccaskill looks to be ahead of todd akin. what do you make of that in terms of shaping the republican party of the future? >> well, it's going to be a difficult task fors the republicans because in primaries, the tea party candidates have a tremendous advantage. they're the ones that inspire the emotions of people on the far right and they turn out and vote and sometimes the more moderate republicans don't. i mean dick lugar would have steam rolled our candidate in indiana. no question about that. any other candidate but akin would have probably edged claire mccaskill and those are two seats that are going to hold. it's difficult. even up in massachusetts, if scott brown loses, to elizabeth warren, it will be one, because she's a great candidate, but because scott brown was forced by his leadership to say -- to vote for the blunt amendment, something that 90% of massachusettsens thought was probably a joke. so the tea party element that's out there in the primaries and also seems to control the

caucuses, is something that republicans are going to have to come to grips with. >> karen, you and i were talking about this earlier, in a place like nevada where shelly berkeley against dean heller, dean heller questioned the legitimacy of the 14th amendment, against the dream act, this is in a state with a sizable latino population. >> that's right. >> the question is, when -- when does the alarm bell get rung? when do people understand this is not a tenable strategy going forward? >> potentially after this election. since 2010, i've long said you can win in these gerrymander districts if you're a tea partier but statewide or nationwide you really can't without, again, be appealing to a broader base of people. and who knows whether or not the republican party will heed the message. i actually hope part of what the results yield tonight is a message to whoever gets elected that this idea of not collaborating, not working together is unacceptable because i think most americans are pretty sick of that. >> governor, you are a denison

of the keystone state and i ask you, in terms of the senate race with bob casey and tom smith, you said casey, he hasn't run a campaign, he's run one ad a stupid tea party ad. what do you make of that race and the fact that mitt romney will be in that state, your state, in just a few hours? >> well, first of all, the casey campaign started spending money and the race has changed. bob casey now is running ahead of the president and i think will win, not by double digit margin but will win by a comfortable margin. and in terms of the race itself, look, the numbers moved, no question about it, had the romney campaign come in right after the first debate and spent at the level they spent the first week, this could have been a romney state. i think it was a little too late. the good news is, the republi n republicans are sort of counting

on less than an enthusiastic turnout of the democratic base. i've been getting reports all around the city and state, african-american turnout is off the charts. right now it's exceeding 2008 and i spoke before four african-american churches on sunday and it wasn't the same love and pride that existed in '08, but anger at two things, one, they don't think the president obama got the credit he deserves and two, they're angry at the attempt to suppress votes. so i think that attempt has backfired and we've seen that in early voting in ohio. i think we've got in my division which is a professional division, voted for obama 75/25 by 8:15 this morning we were 20% ahead of where we were in '08. nobody ever imagined we would meet '08 numbers. we may still not meet '08 numbers but turnout is not collapsing. philadelphia gave barack obama a 478,000 margin last time. >> wow. >> that's a firewall. if we approach that in any way,

alex, no way he loses the state. looks good. >> that both explains why romney maybe wasn't trying to put it into play earlier and also given where it is ons the electoral map and the narrow road to 270, may be trying to make a last-ditch effort today. we will be asking you more questions about the state i'm sure tomorrow and in the days to follow. thank you as always to our own governor who never needs to run for re-election. he has a permanent seat here on "now." governor ed rendell. >> the pay isn't so hot. >> we're working on it. you're a public employee. >> to give you an indication of how intense today is, here is the scene in cleveland just moments ago. the romney plane shared the tarmac with air force 2 while governor ryan and paul ryan hold their first campaign event of the day, vice president joe biden is making a previously scheduled stop. more from democracy plaza after this. ♪

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it was a little over a year ago when a previously unknown pizza magnet rocketed to the top of the republican presidential field. but while herman kaine's ascendents would come to a screeching halt the man who brought us 9-9-9 set had his sights on another office. >> what kind of cabinet position might you like if it were possible? >> we are speaking totally, totally hypothetical. >> yep. >> right. >> totally hypothetical. >> department of defense. >> what? >> we will get all shucky when we come back to democracy plaza after the break. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if you could combine

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the good, the bad and the 9-9-9-. a look back at this year's republican clown car and a video exploration of just how we got here. >> we the people on this farm are the ones who are just getting started. >> there were auspicious beginnings. >> i'm tim pawlenty. >> my name is michelle bachmann. >> i'm jon huntsman. >> i'm newt gingrich. >> i'm running for president of the united states. >> oh shucky duckie. >> the wheels on the clown car were never really attached. >> you're an embarrass to our party. >> i'm sorry you feel that way. >> why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself. >> corporations are people my friend. everything corporations earn goes to people.

>> i'm running for office for pete sake. i can't have illegals. >> made it obama care. >> her daughter suffered retardation. >> follow me on tweeter. >> cut, balance and grow. >> football, hunting, barbecue. >> 9-9-9. >> we need a leader not a reader. ♪ i am america ♪ one voice united we stand >> some, perhaps, were never meant to be. >> now we need some people, we need a little groundswell. >> why haven't we heard of this guy? >> you see yourself in the oval office? >> not really. >> ron paul has zero chance of getting the nomination. >> almost feel embarrassed. i wonder why they come. >> we didn't know this whole woman number four was going to even come out. >> got to go back. let's see. got all this stuff twirling around in my head. >> i had surgery on the 1st of july. >> if they print anything more

over there in washington the gold is going to be good. >> he was before -- >> commerce, education and the -- what's the third one there. i can't. the third one i can't. oops. >> clearly i stepped in it last night. >> not the mayor. >> sonia sotomayor. >> today has been awesome, girl. >> while one had just a truck and fistful of cash. >> 99 counties. >> living basically spending down our savings. >> donate to romney. he needs our money. >> romney? >> the santorum campaign is making calls to democrats. >> that's what bullies do when when you hit them back, they whine. >> another had an atmospheric sized ego. >> we will have the first permanent base on the moon. originally it was going to be mitt and not mitt. it may turn out to be newt and not newt. >> i'm going to be the nominee. >> and the favorite tried to prove he had a heart and a sense of humor. >> the candidate sometimes makes

mistakes. >> i like being able to fire people and provide services to me. >> ann drives a couple cadillacs actually. >> i introduced the heavyweight champion in my life, i don't mean weight. that didn't come out right. >> i love the state. trees are the right height. >> i love the lakes, i love cars. i love american cars. >> congratulations on having a 17-year-old daughter. i hope she looks like your wife. she's a lovely person. >> any old girlfriends here? be careful. ann's not here today. don't tell. >> the president seemed to be enjoying the show. >>. ♪ for purple mountains majesty ♪ i ♪ above the fruited plain ♪ so in love with you >> i'm not going to compete with obama in singing. >> eventually the party collapsed in on itself. >> the wind industry kills about 33,000 birds a year. >> quit distorting our words.

it's bull [ bleep ]. >> leaving one man standing to challenge the president. >> mitt romney. >> when your name is barack obama it's always tight. >> and while the democrats suffers from no lack of confidence. >> who's going to win? >> i'm going to win. >> on election day, the who, what, when, where, how and why of a republican victory still remain questions unanswered. >> something so grotesquely hypocritical about the romney campaign. >> he is the worst republican in the country. >> romney looked weak today i feel. he looked like richard nixon. >> you can't be a perfectly lubricated wetter vain. >> his job production is not great at all. >> you can't beat obama it's not going to happen. >> if you don't run chris christie, romney will be the nominee and we'll lose. >> how far the country has come. ben, we've forgotten it's the last day of the season. i think all of us are dotting

away tears, given the entertainment factor that we've been treated to for the last several months. >> primaries are wonderful. >> they are wonderful. this year had some characters unlike any other i would say, not to denigrate the comedy levels of previous campaigns, but my question to you my friend is, has romney improved as a candidate and when do you think, if he did, when did the pivot happen? >> i mean that first debate, right? because there was always a -- you could convince yourself on paper he was great candidate, a moderate tech know crat with a broad knowledge of business, you know, somebody who did his homework, studied and then just go out there and one time out of three would say something idiotic and cost his campaign a week and then this fall like the kind of candidate he did also this pivot to the middle which arguably is who -- is him being more of who he really is. >> theoretically. >> maybe. >> but whatever it was he sort of inhabited this candidacy for the last month. it felt some moments off that

very authentic. the last couple days saying to the crowds it feels like a movement. whoever thought of mitt romney saying that. >> being ahead of any movement. if you build it they will come. >> sure. >> you were saying it was a matter of mitt feeling confident for mitt to feel confident. >> i agree with ben. you could see and feel the difference in him as the candidate. so much of the emotion has to come from the candidate. when the candidate is, you know, he actually seemed to be walking a little taller and actually maybe believing it himself he might win then the momentum came with that. it's that kind of electricity that you get when you're out there and you see the crowds and people responding to a candidate, it's, you know, immeasurable you can't measure it. >> i have to ask, when you look back at that, when you look at the writers and clown car, would the party have been better off. we now have a very moderate mitt could they have done better with a tim pawlenty. shaking his head. >> or jon huntsman. buyers remorse?

>> they could have done better with a jon huntsman. that highlight reel you showed is easier to enjoy in retrospect than at the time when you thought good lord our country may be in trouble here. but sure, i don't think they could have actually done any better than romney. because romney, what romney had that none of them except maybe huntsman had, is that you could project -- could just project on him any belief you wanted to and the fact that he was a flip flopper was his greatest strength and that's what he showedp he showed since the first debate. >> tim pawlenty and jon huntsman having too much i guess core belief in anything at all to act as a blank screen. >> pawlenty is so terminally dull. he makes romney look like springsteen. >> well, that is quite a statement. >> wow. >> i didn't think it's -- i don't think the choice of character was really that problem this time around. it's not that their profile didn't fit. they need a nominee next time around who can lead this party

in a different direction. talking about the house and the senate and where they are going to end up, nancy pelosi who gets a lot of criticism for being supposedly arch liberal she did one thing thing to help democrats take the majority in the house, to say we're not going to stick with gun control. if you want to be a southern democrat and you want to not talk about guns at all your do what you like. republicans need to have a candidate who will say on abortion, you can be pro life, pro choice, it doesn't matter. what they have right now is a whole slate of candidates that said we're going to outcompete each other on the abortion question. that's never going to work for them. >> i believe that's why john boehner's official duty is herding cats, right? all right. we got to leave it there on election day. listen to the great chris mathews, please as soon as i am done talking -- actually, wait until some other period of time, don't turn off your television set but do vote. make it all happen. thank you to rick, richard, karen and ben.

that is all for now. catch me tonight on msnbc's prime time election coverage which kicks off at 6:00 p.m. eastern and see you tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific when joined by michael steele, michael steele, mark leibovich and al sharpton. find us at facebook.com/now with alex. andrea mitchell picks up coverage live next from democracy plaza and her guests are robert gibbs and haley barbour. stay tuned. bob...

oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. right now on "andrea mitchell reports after two years, $2 billion and trips across the battlegrounds, the race for the white house comes to a close. >> when the cynics said we couldn't, you said, yes, we can.