joining me today, executive editor of "rolling stone," not executive rolling stone, that would be incredible, eric bates. nbc news political analyst former pennsylvania governor and the current governor of "now," ed rendell. and msnbc contributor and queen bee of thegrio.com, joy reid. and msnbc politic cal analyst and mother jones washington bureau chief, david corn. the bitter partisan marathon election is over, but what of the bitter partisan marathon gridlock in washington? there are glimmers of hope that lawmakers are prepared to follow advice offered by both presidential candidates. >> our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work. >> and in the coming weeks and months i am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve

together. >> maybe not initially, as "the new york times" reports, after his speech, mr. obama tried to call both mr. boehner and the senator republican leader, mitch mcconnell but was told they were asleep. >> wake them up, for goodness sake. >> he is the president. >> wake him up. >> yesterday, yesterday, senate majority leader harry reid struck a tone of cautious optimism. >> it's better to dance than to fight. it's bettor work together. i want to work together but i want everyone to also understand, you can't push us around. >> hours later there was some reason for hope. the word revenue which speaker boehner used 15 times in a 12-minute press conference and not always in a completely negative context. >> the news via tax reform. we're willing to accept new revenue under the right conditions. republicans have signaled a willingness to accept new revenue. if it comes from growth and reform. >> has boehner opened the door to compromise and extended an

actual olive branch. he alluded to the grand bargain that slipped away a year ago. >> closer to the critical mass needed legislatively to get tax reform done. the president and i talked about it extensively during the summer of 2011. it will require weeks of work rather than a weekend of photo ops. it won't happen around a campfire at camp david or over 18 holes of golf. >> here from the nation's capitol, the sage of capitol hill, luke russert. luke, tell us something good. >> good day. good day. wouldn't it be great if we could get everything figured out over 18 holes of golf. >> it would be if you and i played golf. >> true. putt-putt. >> let's talk about the -- how realistic is the notion that there's going to be some bipartisan work done on capitol

hill before the end of the year? >> you think it has to be done out of necessity. but from folks i've talked toen 0 the republican side is they say, look, we're willing to entertain new revenue, we did that in 2011. we were able to have up to $800 billion of new revenue and the president agreed top tax rate could be 35%. that's where the gop starting position is. you'll have democrats say, no, no, no, this victory we just had was a huge mandate. the stuff we had in the summer of 2011 goes out the window. we need to try to have something going forward that gets rid of the 250 or above bush tax cuts. that number, and i've said this a lot on your program, that 250 or above is the biggest i in the fiscal cliff. the gop from who i have spoken to does not want to cave on that on any capacity. is there a way to try to formulate a strategy of going forward with tax reform that gets to $1.5 trillion in new

revenue that the president wants which does not come from raising tax cuts. it's difficult to see that path and that's why i think you're going to see a lot of sabre rattling, at least in november, perhaps compromise in december, for this idea that both sides are going to sing kumbaya. >> i don't know about kumbaya. governor rendell you have been talking on this program for months about the fact that we need to come together to get something done. you've mentioned bowles-simpson, that has renewed efforts today. if you can prognosticate listening to luke sage -- luke russert, sage of capitol hill on this, if not kumbaya, is there a chance, though that things may be done to avert taking the country over the fiscal cliff and bigger deals after the new year? there there is if both sides understand what the other side needs to make a deal, that's always crucial in negotiations. all of the negotiations i've done with legislatures or labor unions, understand what the

other side needs. for example, luke said republicans can't accept 250 to raising taxes on 250 and over. could they accept millionaire's tax which would give our ideological base a little bit of victory, not the entire victory they want, and it would give the republicans a little bit of face saving that they didn't, you know, drew the line much higher. that would be number one. number two, i think we need to, and you know i'm co-chair of the campaign to fix the debt with judd gregg, the ex-republican senator from new hampshire, our position is, if we can get revenue by tax reform the base of my party and people i agree with most of the time should say, most of that tax reform's coming out of the pockets of rich people or corporations anyway. why are we fighting about rates. it's going to produce x, x is what we care about, the number of revenue that we need to make this work and if it's tax reform, it will come out by removing loopholes on people who are very rich and wealthy.

>> by i mean this gets to the magic uppony question. >> i have one of my own. >> mitt romney said he could give us a magic pony, lower rates and have tax reform and deducts that wouldn't hit anybody. so how do you get the extra money that makes up for lower rates? magic pony again and again every time he said the word revenues in that statement it would make sense. i think we're -- the big question, i think, is still on the republican side. remember i wrote this book called showdown that went into all of the negotiations from last year, and again and again the issues seemed to be that john boehner couldn't bring to the table his side. the president, i thought, was willing to do exactly what you just suggested, to take some heat from the left and of the spectrum, make the deal and make concessions, see what the other side needed and i think boehner on his own could agree to that,

he did but couldn't match the gang of six and couldn't get the tea party to go along without a mutiny. >> what of the tea party? we've had an election, the president has been re-elected the senate is now back in -- remains in democratic can hands. republicans are not feeling good about the path forward for the party demographically speaking. how much does this sway does the tea party have in the negotiations? >> we want to get him involved. >> certainly they're neutered from where they were two years ago. all of that -- you saw tight races, michele bachmann squeaked it out, alan west is most likely going down. all that being said we won't know the answer to the power they have until the civil war within the gop plays out. if you have folks like eric cantor, who has been sort of a branded as the tea party guy within leadership, yes, but to some degree he's also someone who wants to see an immigration

reform deal go forward because he's a younger guy and if he wants to see the republican party grow he knows it has to happen. until the civil war in the gop plays out, in terms of do they want a new party more than white males i don't think we'll know the strength of the tea party because we won't necessarily know how much they've infiltrated leadership. that has to play out before we see. will it be significant in the next few weeks? i suspect that john boehner, if he wanted to, within a lame duck session could get what he wanted. >> i have to say, i think that i'm not that hopeful there's going to be a lot of change here. i'll channel ari since he's not here, he's got 99 problems, at least 80. while the gop has sort of removed some of the toxic assets like joe walsh and probably alan west, they are in states like illinois and florida. in the deep south where the tea party is the strongest. those people aren't going anywhere. i've just been reading almost nothing but conservative media just for the last 24 hours to see what people are saying.

>> wow. >> to see what they're saying. i don't sense one iota of belief that their core values, their core belief system, needs to change. they think they need to put more window dressing on it find more black and brown people to say the exact same things they believe. they don't believe they need to change their positions on issues. they believe they need to change the decoration. >> i think that's right but i think what has changed is the landscape of the negotiations. and that obama holds some very ear yus and powerful cards he didn't hold before. all he has to do as people have observed, is do nothing and the tax cut expires, and the revenues increase. the fiscal cliff happens but the cliff is a misnomer. you don't drive off the cliff and plunge to your death within ten seconds. you drive off the cliff, and six months later revenues dry up, cuts go into effect. so there's some time there for negotiation. the question really isn't have the republicans change. question is has obama changed?

all i have to do is sit here and the revenue comes in the door. >> don't you think -- look at payroll tax cut fight he won on that and took it to the american public. i'm of the think he learned some lessons in the first four years. >> back to what joy says you don't need 99 tea partiers. this doesn't have to pass with 90%. this has to pass with 51% in the house, and we can get those votes if we create the atmosphere, if boehner works hard, the business community's key. the business community's contributed over $35 billion to the campaign to fix the debt for a public relations campaign. the business community can come down on the other nontea party republicans and say you've got to do this, understand you've got to do this. if the president does what you suggest, the problem is it could work, absolutely, but it's going to poison the atmosphere for four years and we've got other fish to fry. immigration, infrastructure,

jobs and other fish to fry, energy independence. energy independence, for example will take both sides. >> i'm not suggesting he not make a deal. i'm suggesting he use the strength of his bargaining position to make a deal. >> the key thing, whether boehner at the end of the day can make the deal and remain speaker. >> exactly. >> that's the whole issue back in the summer of 2011. it's the same issue now. and the interesting divide is going to be between the house republicans and those senate republicans. we tend to lump them together. remember there was the gang of six that ended up causing problems when they came up with a reasonable plan which included republicans in the senate but the tea partiers in the house could not stand. and so whether there are a couple people in the senate who put pressure on boehner and try to figure out a way to let -- allow -- remain as speaker and cut a deal with obama, that's a good deal. >> you have people that still have an election in two years, a midterm. incentive structure hasn't changed. >> luke, we know from the past that boehner and cantor have

been frosty relations. i imagine it will be an interesting time on capitol hill between those two offices. do you have any intel or palace intrigue to share with us? >> that's an interesting look within the house gop conference going forward is, could john boehner achieve a deal and still retain his speakership? as of right now, you know, cantor's been in the -- taken a backseat over the last year. the debt limit fight a lot of folks close to him thought it hurt his image that he was the one who took the blame, to some degree, of a deal not going forward. right now i would say, i can tell you it's pretty much john boehner driving the republican house gop bus. but lastly, i would leave you with this, alex, we talk about the fiscal cliff and how the president has this leverage. don't forget what's coming up in march 2013. that's another debt limit fight. >> yep. >> and we've seen the house gop can do with that. that needs to be in the back of everybody's mind.

>> that means you will be back on the program a lot between now and march which is a boon for this program. thank you to my friend, luke russert. >> take care. >> after the break, outside spending groups did not get much bang for their buck this election cycle. does it matter to the money bags? we'll count money not well spent next on "now."

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what's your policy?

how do you think your money was spent? was it well spent. >> by paying bills. that's how you spend money. either that or become a jewish husband, you spend a lot of

money. >> husband. >> that was gop super donor and the 14th richest man in the world, sheldon adelson addressing the fact that the $54 million he spent on eight races tuesday night result in a big fat zero. on tuesday night, voters sent a resounding message, money can't buy you love, especially at the ballot box. over $1 billion spent by outside groups in the 2012 races and the result, status quo. obama re-electioned, democratic senate and republican house. overwhelming majority of the spending benefited conservatives. 69% compared to just 28% in support of liberals. but the results were not pretty. karl rove's american crossroads spent $104 million, success rate, 1. 3%. u.s. chamber of commerce spent $33 million. success rate 6.9%. and as for sheldon adelson, a friend tells the "wall street journal" he will keep on keeping

on. quote, he wouldn't lose sleep over the amount of money he spent, the person said, adding he is disappointed but not discouraged. >> of course not. it's four hours of the casinos in macao. >> not go. are for giving. the billionaire donors are here are lived one operative told "the huffington post." there is holy hell to pay. karl rove has a lot of explaining to do. i don't know how you tell donors we spent $390 million and got nothing. if you were to spend $354 million on a race and got nothing, what would your next move be? >> i wouldn't spend it again. what happened here i don't think the money was spent well. it was spent on tv, and after a while if you eat too much lobster, eventually the lobster doesn't taste good. >> i never reached that. >> the tv ads were so pervasive

that people stopped listening. they stopped listening. interestingly in pennsylvania governor romney went from 12 points down to 3 or 4 in the polls, though the polls weren't accurate, 3 or 4 in the polls without spending a dime. they spent $11 million in the last week. they go from three points down to five points down. you tell me, alex. >> the problem is it's almost as if we've been growing conservatives in a terrarium and they haven't -- >> or growing themselves. >> growing themselves, right. they haven't been exposed to the outside world. only talking to each other. and so they thought the same things that entertain and delight them on talk radio would delight the rest of the country. they thought they had a majority view, that everybody dislikes and hates barack obama, everyone thinks he's a socialist, right. >> if we get that message out there on tv, let the world see that he's a kenyan socialist, they'll agree with us, right? when you broke the glass, they're getting their first sort of breath of real air and seeing the rest of the world for the first time you see a sense of disbelief. i think it was easy to get

people like sheldon adelson to give up money because they were in that terrarium. >> let's be clear, too this is an exercise in ego for a lot of the guys, right. i have all of this money, i'm going to change the dynamics of the race. look at success rate of the top super pacs. it's bad. the folks with the highest success rate are freedom works, 24.5% success rate. the seiu, actually, doesn't make it to the top spenders but had an 85% success rate because what do they do? they focused on getting out the vote and organizational ground game. >> ground, ground. >> look at the up ins and it's astonishing and i'm reminded of the moment on fox news and election night when karl rove was contesting ohio being called, by fox news, for the president maegyn kellys goes bak to to the guy whose called and said they're not listening to karl. that could have been the motto

for the election, they're not listening to karl. >> i have a quasi countervaluing view, he said we levelled the playing field. no, they didn't. they tilted the playing field. if i was karl rove, and i'm glad i'm not the argument the $350 million they spent may -- was a point or two, so barack obama going into the fiscal cliff, everything else, instead of winning with 52% of the vote he won with 51, 50%, whatever. they forced the seiu and other groups to spend tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, too and it what's disproportionate about it, it was a couple of what i call venting billionaires, billionaires, you can call them, able to get everybody else to go crazy, spend money, and i do think, you know, in ohio, sherrod brown had to find an extra $20 million. what could have been done with time and opportunity? >> and money.

how it could have better been spent. >> there's an impact here in opportunity comer costs. they had an impact and they tilted the playing feel. and on that tilted playing field obama and the democrats still won. >> what happens next. your argument reminds me of the republican argument in favor of cutting taxes to spur economic growth. david had a great chart, as you cut taxes, the gdp shrinks. there's no evidence thus far. but the -- >> they've been doing that for a year. >> my two sources. my two sources on this. the chart. but the argument on the republican side is, it would have been even worse if you hadn't had those tax rates it would have been even worse. so i guess we are not going to see the end of the super pacs. what we may see is a rejiggered super pac but yet, joy, still an insane infusion of cash of money into american politics. >> it was a good thing. i think what the conservative

super pacs have proved economic stimulus does work. when you pump money into the economy -- i think the television station groups did tremendously well with the vending, printers and people who design direct mail, so i actually -- >> consultants. >> their spending boosted the economy slightly which again helped barack obama. everything they did had the opposite of what they wanted. it was a stimulus. >> alec has better bargain position with nbc. >> with you on my side. when you hear the super pac-men talk about lost millions, the "wall street journal" says, as for mr. adelson, the person close to him say his wants to maintain active role in the gop using donations to make conservatism afeppeal to a wide group of people including latino voters. i say, go ahead. i'd love to see it. what is that going to look like? >> the interesting thing of

money, connects to what we're talking about in a moment, data. the spending wasn't tied to data. this was faith-based spending based on a'of beliefs as joy is say what the country looks like, who the electorate is where the hot spots are. karl rove was supposed to be the master and genius figuring out where the buttons are. this time they didn't look for the buttons. they didn't have the kind of machine that obama had to tie the data at a granular level to the spending to make it effective. >> which is ironic because karl rove in 2004 saved george bush's presidency by doing just that. >> what was george bush's nickname for karl rove? >> turd blossom. we're not supposed to say that. >> i think i did it. >> i stoked the ire of the lunatic birther disguised as real estate mogul, donald trump who slammed karl rove on twitter machine saying congrats to karl

rove on blowing $400 million this cycle refer race crossroads gps ran and the republicans lost. what a waste of money. who knows from wasting money better than donald trump. coming up, call it moneyball or small ball team obama's sophisticated data-driven campaign delivered nearly every battleground state for the president on tuesday night. we will explore the formula just ahead. i'm a conservative investor. i invest in what i know. i turned 65 last week. i'm getting married. planning a life. there are risks, sure. but, there's no reward without it. i want to be prepared for the long haul. i see a world bursting with opportunities. india, china, brazil, ishares, small-caps, large-caps, ishares. industrials. low cost.

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johan comes in a porcelain vessel, crafted with care by a talented blonde from sweden. ♪ smooth, rich, never bitter, gevalia. begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. obama manager jim messina and his merry band of electoral quantities helped pave the way for obama's re-election. that was not lost on the fact that obama embraced him at

headquarters yesterday. how did team o. manage to be more effective targeting voters? we'll find out when we go deep inside the victory lab with sasha isenberg next on "now."

to the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics, the best, the best ever. >> that was president obama thanking his campaign early wednesday morning. his words were hardly hyperbole. since the first presidential campaign four years ago, team obama revolutionized the way politicians reach out to voters developing statistical modelled that can change voters' mines

and get them to the poll. following pubush's re-election, democrats worked to catch up with the republicans' structural data advantage as governor ed rendell was saying developing their own relationships with commercial data vendors and refining algorithms. the most advanced political campaigns have surpassed consumer marketers and ability to predict individual preferences and likely to see a fortune 500 company trying to uncover secrets of the obama data operation as the other way around. joining the panel now, my buddy, sasha isenberg, a columnist with "slate" and author of "the victory lab," secret science of winning campaigns, a book to be read. >> by the romney campaign. >> if they're not picking it up, they should be. there's a lot to talk about here. one of my favorite anecdotes in one of your recent columns is the one of the romney campaign, microtargeting a 22-year-old female with mailing about coal. it was just a campaign that did

not understand who they were talking to or wasn't talking to the correct people in the right way. >> what happened in 2004 was republicans figured out you can bring in all of the consumer date it and get a richer profile of voters and figure out the first generation of segmenting the electorate. what's happened in the last six years the big innovations have come out of academia from social sciences running large-scale randomized trials that treat voters as guinea pigs. instead of saying i'm going to split voters, i'm going to try different treatments and see what changes their mind and gets them to vote. the obama campaign brought in academic social scientists to runt experiments over the course last two years. they knew what types of treatments they could have that would deliver a vote at the end. >> this is interesting, the talent in terms of analysts. it on the left. you write, the biggest technical developments these days have coming from social sciences whose practically minded scholars regularly collaborate with candidates and interest

groups on the left. as a result the electioneering right suffers to a lost generation. they've failed to keep up with advances in voter communication since bush's re-election. >> lots of graduate students who come out of political science sore politics and want to run experiments and going to the afl-cio, emily's list. they're not going to the nra, not going to republican presidential campaigns. the democratic political brain campaigning brain is growing. there's intellectual couple tur, the number of people i talked to mid level data jobs and democratic campaigns, liberal organizations who have graduate degrees in fairly arcane hard sciences as opposed to analogous people on the republican side, either jobs don't exist or they came out of regular political jobs and their brain's not expanding. >> there's a cultural shift. >> we had a great piece -- sasha's book is wonderful -- a

great piece by tim murphy in mother jones about harper reid one of the guys doing this. he's like i a yo-yo aficionado, a hacker, and put together a lot of the operation for the obama team. i'll put up the link on twitter feed later. but the -- >> promotions galore. >> i was talking to david plouffe about a year ago, i said if you read your book about the campaign, the 2000 campaign you give away a lot of secrets. he goes, oh, i want them to take my 2008 secrets because we have such better secrets now, and they are a generation ahead. it was easily 50% of the victory is attributable to this. >> in '04 working out of med immedia immediate, working in politics, we worked with outside democrats, failed. >> like karl rove. >> a roveian of you. >> what democrats try dodd

segment blocks and had palm pilots and canvassers were saying on this block we'll target every other house, there's a woman in her 40s. they tried the nation campaign. what the bush people were doing was invisible. they weren't on the ground knocking on doors but had hand incredible direct mail operation where they knew who to send mail to et cetera. there's been an erosion on the republican side trying to use that method and an incredible increase of the sophistication on the democratic side of trying to use data in that way. >> when you talk about culturally where analysts are coming from, talk about the writing on the wall for the republican party they have in last few years been enemies of science and rational thought. talk about a young kid graduating from carnegie melon does he feel like he has a seat at republican party? i mean they need to develop a brain trust but in order to do so there does need to be i shift culturally inside the party. the other thing -- a lot of people are writing articles about how team o. had an

advantage in terms of ground game and organization. we talked a lot about how close this election was going to be. and you could feel that sort of fluttery butterfly in the stomach vibes coming from the romney campaign. but there always existed a sense, i think of calm among the obama campaign. in "time" michael sharer writes about the how the database led to a sense of peace, if you will. it was this database that helped steady campaign aides in only's choppy waters. romney supporters who romney lost because of september blunders, we were calmer than others said one of the officials. governor? >> you want to answer that? >> what you see, when you think about the electorate not just in the large subgroups in polls, but you have individual lifrl predictions of what you think every voter's doing. the obama campaign was defining them continuously. the obama campaign will come up waite prediction and they wouldn't be able to on an

individual level track their movement. but what that whole field operation which the rnc and the romney campaign made fun of, they have field offices we don't need field offices volunteers are data collectors. what they do is go door-to-door, take polls, ask you three questions, call you during dinner, that's coming in and refining statistical model so that you know the next door to knock on and smarter targeting that. if you're funneling it through and linking it to the large-scale polling krur doing continuously for microtargeting it is give you a granular understanding of the electorate than tracking polls are. >> this what is they did this time that they didn't last time. they had data from the field and polling data and over time merging the two but in the four years they figured out how to do that, correct, right? >> it's more complex. they were still in 2008 updating their projections about every voter's likelihood of voting for barack obama weekly. in '08 able to pick up movement on sarah palin on an individual

level that wasn't showing up in polls. there's a reason there's a hu disconnect the way of what we think is go on inside campaigns and what's going on there. >> they weren't all that confident all the time. about 4:00 on election day, jim messina, i think the best campaign manager ever, call me and wants me to do something about election official who wouldn't send provisional ballots to 45 polling places in philadelphia that run out of them. though their polls showed up seven in pennsylvania they still worried about 45 precincts in a city that has 1776. the most important point be they did a great job, but in addition to the job they did, what most of us missed, and i didn't realize myself until i went out and did some african-american churches on sunday, was there was a sense of anger out there in the community against voter suppression. you tell someone -- a lot of

african-americans were lukewarm about the president because they didn't see changes in their neighborhood. but then all of a sudden the republicans came along and told them they couldn't vote or they were putting up barriers that they knew were aim at them, bingo, they were angry, they were mad. >> can i push back on that. we polled this. the grio went into the field with a poll with nbc news and tried to look at this idea of african-americans were they lukewarm on the president. we never saw that. i never going out to ohio, florida, saw this enthusiasm gap. i think it was in a lot of ways a myth. look unemployment's been high in the black community for 20, 30 years in some districts it's been at 14% even when the country -- >> it wasn't the same. it wasn't the same as '08. >> i'm talking to african-americans on a continual basis. we saw a lot of people, whoever opinions were about barack obama's perform ant for african-americans felt protective toward him and his legacy and in addition to that, incredible anger at these voter suppression tactics, incredible anger and pushback against

thicks like voter i.d., i think the florida legislature, taking away of 14 days of early vote was the biggest political mistake. >> miami shortening the hours in the last weekend. >> and the fellow in pennsylvania declaring when the voter i.d. bill is up this is going to went for mitt romney. >> and i think there was a diminution but it wasn't what people thought. >> also complete, you know, the disavowel of minority voters assumption on the part of the romney campaign they weren't going to show up to the polls in the same way angry white voters were. i don't think anyone on our side, the republican side understood or competent mended how good their turnout would be. democrats do voter registration like a business and republicans leave it to the blue hairs. sasha? >> republicans don't fundamentally understand what mobilization is. what democrats understd because they've worked with behavioral

psychologists to run experiments to get to underlying ideas of getting somebody to do something they're not used to do, you need to sort of change the psychological and social dynamic around voting. republicans send people direct mail about issues, about the candidates, about the stakes of the election, they send voter guides. they don't understand the persuasion and mobilization are two different modes of interacting with people. this is a major conceptual gap between the two parties that stands between them, even being sensible about investing resources. >> sasha, i would love to see how that motivational work does in offyear elections. remember it's the presidential election that gets our voters out. we try desperately in 2010, we failed to motivate. we'll have another shot at 2014. i think we can take back the house if there are on instructionists but motivational tactics don't work. >> we need you knocking on more doors. >> me? >> yeah. i mean, listen, talk about persuasi persuasion. we've got to leave it there. thank you to sasha isenberg

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watching trends, ballot initiatives, plain english a lot of weed on the ballot and in a whole lot of places. >> brian williams on tuesday. the nation's drug laws went front and center when colorado and washington became the first stated in the country to legalize marijuana for recreational use. in addition to becoming wisconsin's first female senator, baldwin is the first openly gay marriage. voter as proved referenda in maine and maryland. talk about cultural shifts, eric, one that is i think especially on the gay marriage front not a surprise here, the nation's moving towards that. now pot is going to be legalized or is approved for recreational use in two states. it's worth noting i believe the governor of colorado said don't pull out the goldfish and chee-tos yet because federally it's against the law.

>> a big fight over state versus federal control, no question. >> that. take the election as a whole all of the things you mentioned, evening things at the state level in florida, where they rejected a move to limit the use of public funds on abortion, in a place like florida, i mean it's really incredible. and i think as we get more perspective on the election it may we'll merge as one of the most progressive shifts that we've seen in electoral history. and a real you know kind of water mark of where the change began to happen. we've talked about the demographic shift all along. these are folks who recognize that their issues were as we were saying during the break, in the crosshairs and they came out. women, hispanics, pot smokers, everybody came out and said, no, forget it. >> look what happened in the senate. the senate has two more democrats which no one thought imaginable. >> and 20 women. >> 20 women. but great liberal champions. tammy baldwin will be up there and elizabeth warren.

>> i'll know we have made progress when there's an actual black person in the senate not from illinois. >> true. >> in history, four from illinois. there are no african-americans in the senate. democrats have work to do in terms of finding african-americans that can run statewide because that's shameful and embarrassing. >> there's a long way to go on the drug war front as well. this isn't an effort people are waking up to that has wasted billions of dollars. not only nothing to show for it but horrible results to show in terms of the lives ruined, millions in prison, cost to the states. >> it has bipartisan support here, too because there's the libertarian side, progressive side the fact that it raises a lot of tax revenue. colorado it's going to raise $5 million to $22 million a year. in washington, $2 billion over 5 years. that's a lot of money. >> if it happens, though. a big fight between the feds and the states about, you know, if you light up, the black

helicopters coming in from the federal agencies or will you be able to do this? you were a governor, what would you do? >> the feds have better things to do than spend money on that. >> there have been raids. >> no question. the one thing that affected the balloting more than these issues was the attack on women, things like planned parenthood, contraception. 68 to 30, barack obama won on married women. stunning. the republicans said this war on women is b.s., it's not going to matter they care about the economy. they also care about their own bodies and thing has to they have the right to make choices about, stunning statistic. >> kay bailey hutchison on cnn said we had republican candidate whose got high profile and said stupid things and that tainted the party. there's a shift -- there's a long -- >> don't forget people shouldn't forget after the party moved away from todd akins they came running back when they thought he had a chance to win and lost

over 10, 12 points. that's the taint and she and others can't away from and we shouldn't let them. >> we had a couple of people say stupid things, both murdoch and aiken have constituencies. >> method of conception, rape as a method of conception. >> are we a center-right nation? >> no, we're a center nation. period. >> i think that the results on tuesday would prove that theory. a shout out to david corn for the 47% video that -- >> least a point and a half nationally. >> according to governor rendell, wanted to get that shout out. governor rendell, joy, david. david's book "showdown inside story of how obama battled the gop to set up the 2012 election" a mfust-have. governor rendell's book "a nation of wusses."

joined by josh green, kurt anderson, lynn sweet, jeff mason and melissa harris-perry. >> not as good panelists as we were. >> find us at facebook.com/nowwithalex. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. >> thanks so much. coming up next right here, the president's first big obstacle, fiscal cliff. can congress beat the deadline? joining us today, congressman chris van hollen. senator olympia snowe, virginia governor bob macdonald. and chad griffin on the historic election night for lgbt rights. "andrea mitchell reports" next. that i could smoke e for the first week... i'm like...yeah, ok... little did i know that one week later i wasn't smoking. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions

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is efficiently absorbed in small continuous amounts. citracal slow release continuously releases calcium plus d with efficient absorption in one daily dose. citracal slow release. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports," back to business. fresh from his election victory, president obama jumps into the next big challenge, trying to avoid falling off that fiscal cliff. he's facing the same opponents in congress.