that opens october 18th. >> americans, spend your money. what have you learned today? >> i learned that, if we could just pull up the picture from five days ago, you seriously sleep in your days, eat in your clothes -- >> i wash them. >> i'm thinking you might want to add a suit. >> my 2-year-old naps in what we call leisure wear and it's nice to know you can wear leisure wear on television. i lovley sure wear. >> a piece of history. fresh, new compelling stories out of it. pretty amazing. >> can't wait the see that. we also learned about carl bernstein's bell. there you go. if you hear that bell or that magic word we're looking for is mccarthyism. that's all the time we have for "morning joe." stuck around. chuck todd straight ahead.

is governing getting harder because campaigning is getting easier? this morning the the supreme court hears argument on another campaign finance case. and a decision this time around could be bigger than anything we've seen yet. meantime, the shutdown standoff enters an eighth day, and just under ten days to go until the deadline to raise the debt limit. while some talk is quietly emerging about a short-term deal to avoid default and reopen the government, nobody seems to want to take that deal. education nation. today a look at the challenges for higher ed from teacher tenure to degree disparities. we have a former party powerbroker turned boilermaker. former indiana governor and current university president mitch daniels joins me. good morning from washington. it's tuesday october 8th, 2013. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. let's get to my first raelds of the morning. today we're trying to get a little closer to the root of the shutdown and the deadlocked congress.

plenty of reasons for it from lawmakers perfecting the art of gerrymandering to the rise of ideological media and social media echo chambers that reinforced the divisions. but one of the biggest reasons, political parties themselves have become decentralized and weak. the days of parties and their bosses holding the pursestrings while candidates are forced to play party politics are long gone. if you're a prospective candidate and get rejected by a party, you can get support from interest groups. if you can't do that and you're rich, you can fund your own campaign. or you can find a rich friend to do it for you. the point is you don't need parties anymore. what does that mean? if parties aren't the source of money, they aren't the source of power, and that's why john boehner can't lead his conference and why leaders in both parties are weaker than they've ever been. when mccain/feingold passed in 2002, it seemed we were on the pass to limiting money in politics but it had an unintended consequence. it made it harder for political parties to raise big money. sounded like a great reform at

the time. until, well, then came citizens united. that provided a blueprint of how to raise money outside the political party structure. so big money was back, just not inside the two-party system, only on the outside. and today we have yet another supreme court case with the potential of removing another barrier to campaign donations. the case is called mccutchen versus the ftc and it's a direct challenge to donation limits put in place nearly 40 years ago. let me explain the limits they're talking about. federal law limits the total amount you can contribute in a two-year election cycle. so no one individual can contribute more than $123,200 total to all candidates running for federal office 2013 and 2014. there's also a base limit of course in place which says an individual can't donate more than $2,600 directly to any one federal candidate during their

campaign cycle primary in general. an important distinction. mccutchen isn't challenging the base limit. he's challenging the aggregate limit. he told pete williams he simply wants to be able to get more money to more people. >> i would like to see more competition, more candidates, more challengers, more ideas, and not every candidate out there can sell funds, so a lot of candidates are faced with raising money from private individuals because the institutional money is going to go to the incumbents. so, again, i think this is about, you know, changing the world for the better and putting competition into the elections which should be a good thing. it's about freedom of speech for all americans. so i should be able to support as many candidates and committees as i choose with my money. you know, it's simple, not complicated. >> so if what happens if the aggregate spending cap is struck down in nearly, you could have a single donor abiding by base limits who is still allowed to

contribute millions by spreading it around the party via affiliates or various candidates. in a brief file, it was argued the result would be "marginalizing the role of the people as a whole and ensuring the dominance of powerful factions after e elections conclude." however, one other interesting note here. while mccutchen isn't challenging the base limits, some republicans are hoping the case could be a step towards rolling back all contribution limits. in a relatively rare move, the court has fwranlted the lawyer for senate republican leader mitch mcconnell time to make that case during oral arguments today. so for more on this case, i'm joined by nbc's justice correspondent pete williams and michael toner, election law expert. pete, you want to get in to listen to oral arguments today. i know we've been through this case a number of times. you and i have talked about it before. while i know that base limits aren't supposedly at the root of

this, the fact that they're going to hear that part of it, the likelihood we could have an expansive decision a la citizens united out of this court. >> reporter: well, there's always the chance. anytime the supreme court comes near this issue and opens up the box that has that distinction in it, there's always the chance that they'll strike it down. if you look at the past five cases involving campaign finance, the supreme court has struck down the limits in the law. now, it hasn't come close to doing this. this distinction between putting limits on contributions but allowing unlimited spending goes back to 1976 when the supreme court had its first post-watergate decision on campaign finance law. and ever since then, some justices had thought that's a silly distinction. there are at least three votes, justices kennedy, scalia and thomas, who would strike down that distinction and let all contributions be unregulated. so the question is what about the two that haven't yet weighed in on this issue?

the chief justice john roberts and sam alito. that's where the key to it is. people who support these limbs hope that chief justice roberts will not want to take that giant step, but that's not the way he likes to do thing, although look at last year's decision on the voting rights act and you might question that. the lower court said you can make this distinction for a couple of reasons. first of all, they say a contribution really isn't like speech because spending is and the contributors don't do the spending. the candidates do the spending. so it's one step removed from it. but the difficulty for the government here is the logic of saying it's okay to give the maximum amount to nine candidates. you just can't give it to ten or more. that's a difficult logical position for the government to defend, although they do have a defense, they say, if you take down these limits it allows people to get around and circumvent the individual limits and start funneling the money to all the candidates they want. the other thing is as a

practical matter there's probably only about 600 people that have ever bumped up against this $123,000 limit or the $48,000 limit in direct contributions to candidates. >> well, and i want to bring in michael here. the other issue here is that this seems like a silly -- it seems like a silly restriction now after citizens united gave the blueprint. citizens united didn't start the idea of super pacs. we always want to make that distinction. but essentially election lawyers used citizens united to come up with this superpab pac blueprint that it does allow mr mr. mccutchen, he can only give a certain amount of money to federal candidates directly, but superpacs allow him to write unlimited amount of money to candidates in a separate committee. >> it's an important point. right now candidates in political parties compete against one another for contributions because donors might want to give the maximum but they bump up against this aggregate limit.

if thing a regae ing a raggrega struck down, the republican and democratic national committee no longer would have to compete with one another or the candidates for the maximum amount of money. the other thing that's important is we're talking about hard dollars here, personal contributions only, noncorporate funds, nonunion funds that are fully disclosed to the public. this case this morning does not concern soft money funds, funds that are never disclosed to the public. an important distinction. >> it is, but at the same time, the difference between, quote, unquote, hard and soft money, not to get into lingo here, has really disappeared. there used to be real restrictions on the quote, unquote, soft money that political parties at the time what they could spend it on. for instance terry mcauliffe had excess funds so he bought the building for dnc because he didn't know what else to do with the money so he thought that might be a way to use it. now they have come up with so many loopholes that the quote, unquote, soft money, which there's always ways for them to go around it. >> i think you made a good point

about the superpacs. right now people can give multimillion-dollar contributions to superpacs. they have to operate independently of the candidates and parties. if mccutchen prevails it could strengthen the political parties where there's more of a ma jor tearian instinct and that money is fully disclosed to the fec. >> pete, who's making these arguments today? >> reporter: senator mcconnell will not with arguing on his own. he'll be represented by counsel. the lawyer for shaun mccutchen will present his case, then the solicitor general will argue on the government's side to support the campaign finance restrictions. it's the first big case of the term. one other thing, chuck. there's a pretty big line here. there's a lot of interest in this case. this is the second day the supreme court's been in business. the third branch of government is working despite the government shutdown. and the even the people who put the scaffolding up on the supreme court are working. they're supposed to be taking it down after a long season of

remodeling. >> well, i hear you on the government shutdown. obviously the judiciary not affected at snaul no impact on the shutdown on that? >> reporter: nationwide the federal courts have said they have enough money to operate for ten days. now, the supreme court has said they would hear argument at the end of the week, they would decide. there's another argument week coming up next week. we'll find out on friday whether they're going to hear argument next week or whether they'll have to shut down too. >> michael, assuming, i think a fair assumption, this court will at least aside with mccutchen on the aggregate limits, whether they go as far as to get rid of individual limits, that is in doubt. that happens, do political parties suddenly able to raise more money or do you think it's not going to have that much of an impact? >> i do think it's more likely than not, chuck, that the aggregate limits will be struck down by this court. roberts court is has been skeptical of campaign finance restrictions in the last five years. then the key issue is does the court apply what is known as

strict scrutiny for contribution limbs. that has not been the law since buckley versus vallejo. if the that becomes the law, the limits you talk about become vulnerable. >> if they are vulnerable, that's when these floodgates open and nobody's quite sure what the landscape looks like. >> that would be a sea change in campaign finance. >> a very, very important supreme court case for how the political party, the future of them, the future of campaign finance, pete williams, enjoy these. be very curious of what you think coming out. good to have you back. thank you both. more on this morning's "first read" coming up. searching for a solution. staring everybody in the face. the question is do you take it? as the country moves closer to default. could the answer be kicking the can down the road? even for just a few weeks. we'll look at options. and the blame game. republicans bearing the brunt of the shutdown. but nobody's getting out of it unscathed.

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well, is eight enough? eight days a week. week two of the shutdown. my first read on the shutdown stalemate is next plus the rocky rollout we never expected the savvy obama administration would be having internet issues. how the white house tells us they're fixing those glitches with the affordable care act website. those details coming up. first today's trivia question.

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of providing a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere. if you look at a khan academy video, they cover everything from basic arithmetic to calculus, trigonometry, finance. you can really just get what you need at your own pace. and so, bank of america came and reached out to us and said, "we are really interested in making sure that everyone really understands personal finance." we're like, "well, we're already doing that."

and so it was kind of a perfect match. back now with a little more of "fist read." day eight, hour 177 and counting of the government shutdown. the nation hits its debt limit a week from thursday according to treasury and it's clear the white house is about to take any clean deal house speaker john boehner could pass. at this hour, the entire republican conference is meeting to talk budget strategy. so far no signs of any sort of short-term compromise. as the stalemate drags on, the public is becoming more fed up with washington. the poll numbers boil down to bad, worse, and worst. president's numbers are bad. congressional democrats fair worse. congressional rapps look the worst and the numbers are declining rapidly.

61% disapprove of congressional democrats. that's up five points. and 51% disapprove of the president's handling of it, which is essentially even from his last number. the president's approval rating is is up slightly as the poll shows more people making up their minds. the white house believes given the president is not running for re-election, they can afford to have his numbers take a little bit of a hit. his hastily planned trip to fema headquarters shows the president doesn't want republican talking points to stick. >> there's not a subject that i am not willing to engage in, work on, negotiate, and come up with commonsense compromises on. we're not going to negotiate under the threat of a prolonged shutdown until republicans get 100% of what they want. >> really, mr. president, it's time to have that conversation before our economy is put further at risk. >> on monday, white house officials did everything they

could to signal that they will take just about any clean deal boehner can cut, even if it's just a few weeks. the white house made it very clear unlike in 2011 that includes short-term extension of the debt limit or opening the government. >> so a two- or three-week temporary stopgap extension is not out of the question. >> again, i think that longer is better for economic certainty and jobs, but it is ultimately up to them. >> we have never stated and we're not saying today that the debt ceiling ought to be or can be any particular length of time. >> they can't signal it any clearer than that. they will take anything as long as it's clean at this point. the white house doesn't want to look like they're embracing the short-term extension idea too fully, knowing the more they embrace it the harder it becomes for baner to pass it. but the signals are pretty clear. temporary solution would leave both sides able to claim they stuck to their lines in the sand. president didn't negotiate until he got a clean bill and boehner would keep his debt limit in the

funding fight ahead. cynics say you're just postponing the battle for six or eight weeks. yes, you are. that means more time for a deal to get done while the markets stabilize, federal workers go back to work. the question is can boehner make a review like in this? "it's the house of indecision. we don't have the votes for a big deal, a small deal, or a short-term deal." more and more house republicans are expressing scent schism that refusing to raise the debt limit is actually playing with fire. >> we have in my household budget some bills that have to be paid or some that we can defer or pay partially. we are not going to default on the public debt, but that doesn't mean we have to pay every bill the day it comes in. >> you think jack lew is lying when he says he can't prioritize. >> i'm not going to say anybody is lying. i'm saying he's playing politics when he says that. >> alternatives to a clean deal are beginning to pop up. this morning "national journal" reports house republican leaders

are floating a proposal that would extend the debt limit for roughly a month and include dollar for dollar cuts. meanwhile the senate plans to move forward on their own clean bill with no strings attached. but to do so harry reid would need support of all senate democrats and six republicans. not clear where reid has those votes. lipd say graham and mark kirk said they would be open to voting for closure, advancing the clean bill, raising the debt ceiling. if any senator rejects the proposal, it would prevent the bill from clearing the senate and reaching the house before october 15th. let's bring in our tuesday gaggle, reed wilson from "the washington post," the president of the center for american progress, neera tan den and bill crystal, editor of the "weekly standard." welcome to all of you. bill, let me start with you. it seems to me the white house has signaled a -- given boehner, you always want to give your

adversary here a way out if you think of that position. they've given bane err way out. take anything short term. >> debt limit increase. boehner might be more open to that since everyone agrees you can't default on the debt and it's tricky to start playing games with prioritizing. house republicans are have passed a bill that would allow the prioritizing of government expenditures. i think the speaker and the house republican might be able to get 218 republican votes. >> is that how you do it, though? always with the 218 at this point? >> i don't know. that's a question. if minority leader -- if nancy pelosi wants to provide some democratic votes i'm sure he'll be happy to take them. you could get republicans on a debt limit increase, clean, short term, maybe. the main point i make is the point you made just a minute ago. lots is not happening this week. the notion this is a static situation -- the senate house republicans, senate democrats may have cards to play. does harry reid have the

democrats for a yearlong debt increase? not sure. house republicans feel good about passing small spending bill s which so far the administration and harry reid have scoffed at. but the death benefits reported on this morning the pentagon is not sending out, the house republicans passed a bill authorizing and providing funds for paying death benefits to the families of servicemen killed in action. that will pass 430-0 in the house. does reid not take that up? a dynamic situation. >> neera, white house signaling they would take anything short term. have they given too much? >> look, i think it's reasonable to say we're going to take a clean cr. a lot of democrats and progressives are worried about what the next zboeshgs is like -- >> they don't like the idea of being locked into long negotiations. if they agree to that, baner is saying we're locked in a room for eight weeks. >> the issue is it needs to be clean for a period of time. and at the end of the day we

have to have a big resolution. i think it's true that there's been some movement but the core debate here is that republicans have tried to jam the senate, house republicans have tried to jam the senate. that has been a failed strategy. the american people are rejecting that strategy and coming -- you know, basically blaming republicans much more and blaming democrats much lelsz. independents, the people moving are blaming republicans, and that's a big difference. >> go inside the house republican conference. bob costas reporting there in national review, it is similar things -- they don't have the votes for any of these strategies. they have to just decide on a strategy. >> they don't have the votes and it's not clear they're whipping towards any of the votes. >> they don't know what they want to do. >> exactly. if they haven't come up with an end game, they can't whip the votes towards that end game. in this day and age of instant politics, the moment they come up with that end game, somebody is going to start whipping

against it, which puts pressure on the 40 or 50 republicans who are kind of with the guys who will always be against the debt ceiling, sort of that second tier who can be per swalded to vote with leadership but aren't -- >> it's sending the house republicans, so dysfunctional, speaker boehner 218 votes to three different continuing resolutions with decreasing levels of defunding or delaying of parents of obama care. they are comfortable with where they are now. they are happy to have the debate on the individual mandate, which is unpopular, and the congressional exemption is unpopular. those poll numbers, i talked to a house republican -- >> doesn't scare them. >> doesn't. would they prefer they were a few points ahead of the democrats instead of behind them, no, but one of speaker boehner's staffers told me last night, we remember 1995. those numbers 2-1 preference for the republicans over the democrats. now the republican lgs lose seven and the democrats lose knife the last three weeks, and where -- president clinton in the shutdown of '96 was at 60%

popularity. if we go into the election a year from now, and raeps may be wrong, if they think we go in with president obama at 45% approval rating they're okay with that. >> and neera, that's the thing. they look at their own polling in their own district. >> absolutely. >> my numbers are better than all three of that. >> the whole debate here, you're right, john boehner is looking at his caucus and what can be a majority caucus, get to 218 in his caucus and he can't do anything. that's not the issue. the issue should be the mattmaj the house. that's why people are saying just vote right now to end this. a clean cr. >> the speaker has passed republicans voting a law to pass three crs already. >> american people are united on one issue, which is on every single poll, should we shut down the government to end obama care, defund obama care, delay obama care, 70%, 80% of the

american people. that question has been asked and answered by the american people. i just they listen to the american people on that issue. >> the question has always been forcing mechanisms so the shutdown is partial, not complete, which means there have been limited impacts. but this is the week that states are going to find out -- state governments are going to find out they're losing some money. and governors may start blaming washington more aggressively. >> and this is the week when the very popular programs sort of heart string-tugging programs will start running out of money, the women, infant, and children program. >> which the house passed. >> which way does it cut politically? if you're a governor thursday, what do you say? i think it's -- >> governor's -- >> no, no. what has chris christie already said? open the government. not open part of government. open the government. republican governors have answered. >> blue state.

the question is -- >> he's a republican governor. >> cut well politically is for governor who is say i'm going to keep these particular programs open. tom korbut, deeply unpopular from pennsylvania, came out late last week, said he was going to rearrange state funding to continue funding the wic program. head start just got a big $10 million donation. there are tunnels for politicians outside the beltway to use it as a positive. >> there is a way out of this where everybody can claim they stuck to their positions. why won't boehner go this way? >> he will. just might take a couple months to get there. with the six-week extension on debt limit. a little more government shutdown. >> a debt limit extension before the government reopens. >> could be. >> that's what i'm thinking. >> i think they'll be resolved together. >> both together. your sense? >> my sense too. >> i think it's going to be debt limit, then the government staying partially closed. stick around. we'll talk about another favorite subject here. health care. for an in-depth look on how the shutdown is reverberating in the fight for control of the senate,

check out our website. follow us on instagram because apparently you want more pictures of the show. our page name is dalyrun down, all one word. up next, the high cost of higher ed, one of the many challenges facing america's students and one of the issues we're confronting as part of our education nation week. mitch daniels will be joining me next. could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. mmmhmmm...everybody knows that.

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damage. as part of the nbc news and msnbc's education nation summit, we're focusing today on higher education and how to measure the performance of even the priciest schools. the cost of tuition fees, room and board for an out-of-state public school went up 4% to nearly $31,000 this year. private college costs dropped to more than $39,500 per year. the cost of higher education jumped more than 4% over the last year. that's almost three times the u.s. inflation rate and higher education costs have jumped three times more than the cost of food prices and the price of a new car or truck. president obama says his administration is working on a new rating system to help families feel like they're getting more out of their investment in higher education. >> i'm directing my administration to come up with a new more useful rating system for colleges. we should not be subsidizing schools that are not getting good results for the young people who attend them.

>> dozens of publications calculate rankings for colleges and universities. one university president says those ratings encourage, quote, bad behavior and award higher ranks to colleges that spend the most money. that university president wants to revamp those rating systems and test students before they graduate, too. he's betting part of his paycheck on student performance. he joins me now, the president of purdue university and a former politician, although when you're a university president it's probably even more politics than he ever had as governor of indiana. anyway, mr. purdue president, good morning to you, sir. >> hi, chuck. >> by the way, before we get started, what is tougher politics? statehouse politics or university politics? >> i think the former. we've got plenty of problems to deal with in our school but there's a pretty good spirit of collective action and common

purse. haven't seen too much of the famous campus variety. i want to go to this issue of the more expensive a school is the higher its ranking or the belief by many applicants that this is a school -- this is an issue that the authors of freakonomics point out, sometimes the more something costs the public think it must be better. don't you have to change the culture of that? >> i think it's changing from under higher ed and it's about time. economists have technical terms for it. my wife would call it the tiffany's effect. but people are waking up to the fact that higher ed, at least, higher sticker prices don't tell you anything about the quality. in fact, almost nothing does. you mention these ratings which are long since i think obsolete. if they ever had a value, they tend to measure inputs much more

than performance. at purdue, first of all, we've announced we're off the sticker price escalator. we think the reputation, the proven success of our students, our graduates in the mark place, speaks to the quality. we froze tuition for two years. we've cut the price of meals and work study experiences for thousands of our students. it will be less expensive this year than last. and the next frontier is to start measuring the growth of students while at purdue in a scientifically credible way so we can say to the world and say to future students come here, you'll learn a lot. >> testing students, college students is something that hasn't gained traction as far as sort of to try to figure out which schools do the best on all of those things and student performance. explain how this could work if you could get this system accepted by a wide range of universities. >> we ask a fact um ti committee, i did, to go to work

on this. i ask them on the very first day on the job. that is to say measurement of student success. it's not an easy subject. but the fact that it's difficult and new cannot be an excuse for not stepping up to the duty to be accountable. we're pretty close to an answer now. there are some instruments that we think are proven and reliable that show how much a student grew, for instance, in critical learning. we'll probably have to supplement that with some discipline-specific measurements, how much a chemistry major knows and so forth. finally there's a dimension we think to be studied in the success of graduates a few years out and maybe more years out, and this can be done through both public opinion, data collection, as well as more quantity final things like salary. >> so if you went about this -- obviously, that's the hard part of student testing, right, which

is you want to -- english majors, okay, i think we know how to put together an english test. but then you'd have mechanical engineers. you're a large engineering school, purdue. so i would assume you would want a specialized test so that all mechanical engineer garage walt who is graduate with an m.e. then end up being tested with the same test nationwide. that would be your vision here? >> yes, ideally. there are a lot of those around now, and where they aren't i think the market is demanding this. so yes, it's difficult. yes higher ed has avoided it in the past, but the marketplace is demanding it. i've just come from a panel here at education nation where those who -- some of the leader disrupting higher ed through new technologies and so forth are talking about the fact thf thai intend to be able to demonstrate the competency of their graduates. we're going to have to be able to do the same.

>> is there a way the federal government should do -- we have this race to the top program that had some bipartisan appeal sort of using almost a carrot and stick approach for improvements and primary and secondary education. is there a way that the federal government should use its pell grant money, for instance, or, you know, where a student is eligible to use a pell grant or things like that, federal benefits that are give on the them for higher education, where maybe if the university doesn't meet certain financial requirements, if they're spending too much money, if they're not devoting it to education resources, then maybe the federal government funding wouldn't be there for that student. should the government be doing something like that? >> i think they should be headed in this direction. i would certainly applaud the general themes of the president's recent discussions, and i've talked to secretary duncan about them. i'm not sure about the government establishing an arbitrary ratings system of its own. it might be subject to the same

unintended consequences and perverse outcomes that the current ratings are. but more information, more transparency to future students and parents about what things really cost, how dollars are really being spent, how much on instruction versus administration and so forth, i think very, very helpful. and frankly they ought to restructure the loan and grant progr programs which have been a big driver, honestly, in running up the cost of education. the more the government with the best of intentions has flooded the marketplace with these dollars, universities have simply raised tuition, pocketed the money, students were left sometimes worse off. >> right. the advent of so-called free credit, particularly over the last 15 year, i think universities took advantage of that more sometimes than wall street did. anyway, mitch daniels, the president of purdue university, former governor of indiana, always good to have you on. thanks for participating in

education nation. >> thanks, chuck. a reminder. you can watch the summit live at educationnation.com and on the nbc news youtube channel. you can also join the discussion by hughesing #educationnation and #whatittakes, this issue of how universities deal with the costs of education. i know it's a hot topic. coming up, health care on the hot seat. >> the obama administration had three years to set up the web enrollment for the president's centerpiece legislative achievement. you know obama must have had the tech end buttoned up. that would be like if lincoln didn't bother proofreading the emancipation proclamation and ended up freeing the daves. >> well, it's no laughing matter for the obama administration or for the people struggling to sign up for health insurance. we'll discuss that after the break. first the white house soup of the day. it is still turkey chili. for the eighth day in a row. as long as there's a partial shutdown, folks in the white

house mess are stuck with turkey chili. hello? hey, i notice your car is not in the driveway. yeah. it's in the shop. it's going to cost me an arm and a leg. that's hilarious. sorry. you shoulda taken it to midas. get some of that midas touch. they tell you what stuff needs fixing, and what stuff can wait. next time i'm going to midas. high-five! arg! i did not see that coming. trust the midas touch. for brakes, tires, oil, everything. (whistling)

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trivia time. how many of the current supreme court justices served as a supreme court law clerk? the answer is three. chief justice roberts and associate justices breier and kagen. they their entire careers were designed about getting to this court and they succeeded. today's winner, roger moore. well i drove grandpa to his speed dating this week, so i should probably get the last roll... yeah but i practiced my bassoon. [ mom ] and i listened. [ brother ] i can do this. [ imitates robot ] everyone deserves ooey, gooey, pillsbury cinnamon rolls. make the weekend pop.

health care.gov has now been online for a full week but we still don't know how many consumers have within able to sign up for health care using the onsign exchanges. site users of experienced technical problems.

jon stewart spoke with hhs secretary kathleen sebelius last night. >> we're going to do a challenge. i'm going to try and download every movie ever made and you're going to try to sign up for obama care and we'll see which happens first. >> the obama administration is now acknowledging these problems, insisting they are aware of the issues that caused the site to crash and are working to fix them. todd park, obama's chief technology officer, said this is no different than any other websites that experience unusually high traffic. he told this to "the new york times." at lower volumes it would work fine. at higher volumes it has problems. he added, we've got what we think we need. the contractors have sent reinforcements and are working 24/7. we just wish there was more time in a day. park and the white house also released a few other fact sheet talking points last night outlining the ways they are working to fix the site. they include adding more server capacity, switching to more powerful hardware, making

software changes to enable the system to handle higher volumes. the white house is focused on fixing the problem and are ducking questions about how many have signed up. when pressed, spokesman jay carney told reporters yesterday, a large volume but gave no specifics. he said enrollment data would be released on a monthly basis, which of course means that this will probably be our new monthly number to watch. let's bring in the gaggle, reid wilson, neera, that interview last night was about as rough as anything the administration has experienced when it comes to defending the rollout of health care. i go back to the same question i asked yesterday, which is the obama brand is about technology. if there is any administration you would expect to get this right, it would be this one. what went wrong? >> so, i think, look, it is extremely -- an extremely complicated system at the federal level. it is -- you know, it's really unfortunate that we've had these glitches. it is important that people are

signing up at the states. we're getting data at the state level there are lots of people that are getting insurance. there is a huge demand. it's a six-month period but i think it is unfortunate that we've had these glitches. i went through medicare part d, the problems were graver on the medicare part d situation because people were actually getting the wrong prescription drugs, actually wrong things were happening. so i think -- but it's unfortunate when anything like this happens and, you know, fortunately we have six months sign-up and people will have to keep at it and hopefully this week, at the end of this week issues will be resolved. >> i think the bit of irony here, the state-run exchanges have apparently experienced far fewer problems. it's the federal government is running about 36 of these state, quote unquote, changes, and that's been -- sort of proves that the federal government maybe doesn't have the capacity to do it. the whole design of the program is they were hoping it would be state based and it's not. >> a lot of the states are

having some of the minor glitches that are showing up in larger quantity on the federal level but in a lot of states, oregon's health care system is going pretty well. that was all designed in the state. the washington state system has signed up 10,000 people the "seattle times" reported this morning. a number of these actual in the states, when they get to design the system for a smaller volume, well, they're able to do it. >> federalism at work, state exchanges working better than the federal government. that's exactly what -- >> it's the law of the land, let them buy these things. maybe they shouldn't be mandated to buy insurance from these websites that are full of privacy and security concerns. medicare part d is not required. any other website you want to, you can choose not to buy what's offered there. >> what's so great is people are really -- there's a huge demand for this. >> so why not suspend the individual mandate? >> why didn't they expect 250,000 visitors a day? >> the white house has been not been able to answer that question. >> i think it should have been designed to be able to get more

traffic, but hopefully the fact that a year from now we'll be happy that there's so many people in it. >> jon stewart kept asking this individual mandate question too. it seems as if you lost jon stewart, you've got problems. >> shameless plugs. bill, you first. >> a lot of good stuff on the weekly standard this week. >> that's good. >> it's really a fine magazine. >> that's why we call it shameless. i hope it's every week. >> quarterback aaron rodgers teamed up to focus on the congo and a big event yesterday so we're really invited. >> i'm still plugging the new blog on state politics and policy. we're focusing on governments that actually work outside the beltway. >> beating up washington is going to be the easy trend that we're seeing in the states. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." we'll be back here tomorrow

probably covering day nine of the government shutdown. coming up next, chris jansing. bye-bye. i'm meteorologist bill karins with your business travel forecast. in the northeast yesterday, horrible airport delays as that cold front went through. today a lot better. unfortunately the southeast, we're still lingering with some of that rain and wind and clouds. there could be some minor travel inconveniences there. middle of the country looks great and the pacific northwest, just some showers but overall a much better travel day on this tuesday. (announcer) at scottrade, our clients trade and invest

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