as the last couple of weeks show that republicans and democrats seem to be fueling each other's fight with major missteps. meantime, after a texas tour, ted cruz takes his keep fighting message to -- wait for it -- iowa. we'll go live to des moines and have the latest on hillary clinton and some other 2016 wannabes in our "road to 1600." and plenty of what-ifs to come for 2016 and then some. but this morning, we're going to go back into the way back machine, 50 years, to consider the course of history that could have happened if president kennedy had lived. a deep dive with author and political buddy jeff greenfield. good morning and happy friday from washington. it's october 25th, 2013. this is "the daily rundown." and by the way, a little hat tip to george will on digging up the will rogers quote this morning. let's get right to my first reads of the morning. right now it's as if each political party is helping the other one survive at least for the moment. if it weren't for the shutdown,

democrats would be reeling on health care. if it weren't for the problems with the health care website, republicans would be brooding about their historically low approval ratings. the obama white house and democrats have a political problem when it comes to governing. the debacle that is healthcare.gov right now, and republicans have a political problem because, well, they don't want to govern. that was dramatized by the shutdown. both sides are using the other party's problems to mask their own. every time republicans are asked about the shutdown and the split in their party, the response boils down to, what about the website? >> the rollout of obama care is nothing short of a debacle. >> obama care is indeed a train wreck. >> the disaster the train wreck, the nightmare that is obama care. >> unhads of thousands of americans who are finding out that they're going to lose their coverage. >> the american people are now fearful -- >> employers scared to death. >> the millions of americans who are growing in their fear. >> the fiasco called this rollout. >> kind of like a trip to the department of motor vehicles in

your state. >> this is like flowers.com not being ready for valentine's day. >> send air force one out to silicon valley, load it up with some smart people, bring them back to washington and fix this problem. it's ridiculous. >> this, of course, is a preview of arguments we're going to hear going into 2014. it doesn't take long to look at the website for the national republican campaign committee responsible for holding the house for the gop to get its sense of what the message will be. obama care, obama care, obama care. now look at the democrats when they're asked about the website issues. the response boils down to, hey, don't forget about the shutdown and those extreme republicans inside the republican party. >> i recognize that the republican party has made blocking the affordable care act its signature policy idea. sometimes it seems to be the one thing that unifies the party these days. in fact, they were willing to shut down the government. >> there was a faction, particularly in the, that took

control. >> among those on the republican side are those who are anti-government ideologues, and they cannot wag this dog. >> when politicians choose scorched earth over common ground, families have felt the consequences. >> here's what we're going to put on the ballot in 2014. do you want solutions? or do you want a continuation of the cliffs and the chaos? >> of course, house democrats are hoping the shutdown message will taint the gop's health care campaign which, of course, was successful for republicans in 2010. their messaging, republicans are so intent on taking away your health care that they shut the government down over it. senate democrats are using the shutdown in nearly every attack ad. they're helped by the fact that some of the best candidates recruited to run against them are republicans who currently serve in the house. look at incumbent louisiana senator mary landrieu, is even calling her opponent bill cassidy shutdown cassidy. then there's arkansas's mark prior. he's begun running this ad

against republican congressman tom cotton. >> the government shutdown cost america $24 billion. cotton and a small group of reckless congressmen took our country to the brink of default. >> these dueling arguments are the ones we're probably going to hear for the next year. we got a preview at last night's virginia gubernatorial debate. the last debate before that election in november. >> just this week, he refused to say whether he supported reopening the government. >> i was the first to fight obama care, but my opponent didn't think it went far enough. look how badly they're doing with the health care exchanges. now he insists that obama care has to be expanded in virginia. why would we expand failure? >> here's the thing. this week has been a painful one for democrats. now forced into the role of locking the line between criticizing and defending the rollout of the president's

signature domestic achievement. >> amazon and ebay don't crash the week before christmas, and pro flowers doesn't crash on valentine's day. >> neither you nor anyone else at the table thought or made a recommendation not to go forward on october 1. >> hhs secretary kathleen sebelius, after fumbling questions about calls for her to resign earlier in the week on cnn, seemed to be a bit more prepared to answer them yesterday. >> the majority of people calling for me to resign, i would say, are people who i don't work for and who do not want this program to work in the first place. i have had frequent conversations with the president, and i have committed to him that my role is to get the program up and running, and we will do just that. >> but the gop's political problem might be the more significant and lasting one because republicans, unlike the democrats, aren't interested in

trying to fix the problem. in an interview with his home state public radio station, majority leader harry reid said that there's, quote, no excuse for the problems with the healthcare.gov website. >> as far as i'm concerned, there's no excuse for that. i think the administration should have known how difficult it was going to be to ask 35 million or 40 million people to suddenly hook up to a place to go on the internet. >> but can republicans afford to allow the website to be the measurement of whether the health care law is a success or a failure? what happens if and when the website gets fixed? the white house could actually use the site as a potential asset, assuming they do get it fixed. in fact, there are some republicans afraid they are falling into a trap where the website becomes a proxy for the health care fight. so let's talk about all of this. the health care fight is a microcosm of a bigger problem with today's politics. democrats say republicans are unwilling to govern. and republicans say democrats

are unable to do the job. national journal columnist norm ornstein says the president's weaknesses have made matters worse. "it was the remarkable lack of concern with managing the government, seeing the effective implementation of the laws as important as their passage, that is the key here. and the buck starts and stops with the president." norm ornstein is also the author of the book "it's even worse than it looks," which is now in paperback for those people that still want to hold books that way. it's also the resident scholar at the american enterprise institute, contributing editor for "the national journal," "the atlantic." did i get all the titles? >> you got it. and the book makes a great holiday gift. >> and this year, thanksgiving and hanukkah all on the same day. so really it's a twofer. it's as if you look at this week, democrats look like they can't govern, and republicans -- clearly don't want to govern. >> you know, it's been interesting that there's word that republicans are going to

come up with an alternative health care plan now. >> now. in january. after it's implemented. where was this three years ago? >> and when speaker boehner was asked about it, he said ask paul ryan because he obviously doesn't know anything about it. we have to get a grip here. with all that's going on now about the website, we are a little bit more than those 2014 elections. and what will matter i think more than anything else, there's going to be two things. one is the state of the economy a year from now. and the second and perhaps even more important is if this law starts to work and works in a fashion that leaves more people satisfied than dissatisfied. this is a nice little tempest, and it's a meaningful one in a lot of ways. as i wrote, there is a deeper problem that we've seen with the president from the beginning of his administration in terms of focusing on making the executive branch work. and we see that with some of the problems in this rollout. >> it does feel like there is this, you know, huge opportunity here. you know, we did this

typology-type survey with "esquire." we used some clever names. what was clear with this middle, this bigger middle that's out there than people, i think, sometimes give credit for, is they're simply looking for solutions. >> yeah. >> democrats know this in their messaging, but they're not implementing the solutions. republicans are not -- and this is what's hurting them. they're not in the solutions game at all. and you just sit there. i have been surprised that we haven't seen more independent candidates pop up and say you know what? i'm sort of fed up here. and i'm going to try to split the difference. >> we may see some of that. it was interesting that at the end of the debate in virginia last night, there was an ad for the independent candidate and attacking both sides. he's getting 10% or 11%. but, you know, we live in a country, as you know, where the vast majority of americans still identify with a party. we're not quite at that breaking point. >> yeah, we're not there. there's no doubt that that's there. messaging wise, you can see it. >> i expect to see a little bit more of it. what i was struck by with the hearing in the commerce committee yesterday was that with the exception of fred upton

who's the chair who asked constructive questions, what you expect in an oversight hearing, how can we make this work, a lot of it -- it reminded me of somebody who shot his neighbor and then said, i'm going to run the inquest into the murder. the republicans who had done whatever they could to keep this law from being implemented, screaming about the implementation, but nothing on how we could actually offer a solution to the problems of health care in the country. and if that is not a message that's forthcoming in any way in the next year, then i think it's going to work to the detriment of the party. >> i was just going to say, that entire house hearing -- and it goes a little bit -- and it's not just to plug your book, it's even worse than it looks, that entire house hearing devolved into totally being somewhat useless. when it was actually to me, a hearing that needed to happen. and as you said, upton seemed to take it seriously. and then all of a sudden you saw that joe barton/frank pallone moment where they put on their jerseys and started yelling at each other. let's get to the solution, the

problem. >> the other part that was so striking, it was clear how ignorant most of these members were about even the basics of how computers work, websites work and all of the rest of it. but it was in such stark contrast to the hearings that we saw when the medicare part "d" rollout occurred and fumbled right at the beginning. where you really had both parties joined together, figuring out how we can fix this. and that's a real difference, even from the congress of 2006 which tom and i -- my co-author -- called the broken branch to where we are now where it's far worse. >> you know, again, you guys have been writing, it's worse than it looks, and it clearly is. how does it change? does it change when -- i've talked to republicans who won't go on the record who essentially say they've got to figure out how to either educate this tea party wing of the republican party to say, hey, we've got to learn how to govern, or push them out of the party? >> and i think you're going to have to see a major confrontation. what is happening, after the debacle of the shutdown and the near default, you're starting to

see more establishment leaders stepping up and publicly saying things that they weren't willing to say publicly before about how annihilsm is taking over. those that are silent -- >> they're sitting on their wallets and hands. >> a little bit. until you see a major effort to fight fire with fire. funding primary opponents of the more extreme radicals and putting in a lot of money to counter the club for growth, we're not going to get very far. what we may see in the end, it's going to take several more election defeats to bring the party back to somewhere close to the center-right. it's going to be a conservative party but without that, it's not good. >> i have to say, i was looking -- and i've got to wrap it up. he's in my ear. but to watch ken cuccinelli attack president obama on his signature law in a state that was carried twice, in an odd way, it politically was

illogical. some people respond sort of logically to elections. >> what they're hearing from their friends and supporters reinforces things that belie the reality. >> they're not actually looking at the election results. anyway, norm ornstein, always good to see you. very dapper. more daring than i am. i have a hard enough time matching ties with shirts, let alone pocket squares. off the record on the train. a new twist on nsa monitoring. that's up next in our "daily rundown databank." plus, dinner with cruz. the texas republican heads to iowa for the third time in three months. and he just celebrated his ten-month anniversary in the u.s. senate. we've also got new hillary clinton comments, scrutinize for hints on her future because hey, it's 2013. that's coming up in our "first read roundup." a look ahead at today's politics planner. the president's traveling today,

doing a little state of the union selling. yes, something he was selling in his state of the union back in january. he's talking in new york today. you can watch those remarks live right here on msnbc. you're watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. when our little girl was born,

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time now for "the daily rundown databank." it's a system of numbers we've been rolling out for the weekend despite a lack of complete testing. first number for us today, 5,000. the number of dollars. and that's how much was donated to lindsey graham's re-election campaign by former president george w. bush. he's such a rino, isn't he?

senator graham who's facing three challengers in next year's republican primary, also hoping to avoid a runoff, tweeted that he was extremely honored and grateful to have the former president's support. everybody on twitter is screaming rino. next number up, 15. according to our friends at smart politics, mississippi republican senator thad cochran would be the 15th senator in the modern era to be elected to a 7th term. that's if he runs. the 76-year-old republican has not said definitively if he'll seek re-election. if he does, he'll have to beat the tea party candidate just announced, chris mcdaniel. mcdaniel was just 6 years old when cochran began serving in the senate in 1978. our next number, 2170. that's the 3:00 p.m. acela train bound from washington to new york thursday afternoon. old 2170 on board was former nsa and cia director michael hayden, openly discussing things like cia policy and his opinion of the current administration on

his cell phone. and it was loud enough for other passengers to hear. and one of the passengers, tom matzzie, former director are moveon.org, was just a few seats away and he began twitter. "on acela listening to michael hayden give off-record interviews. i feel like i'm in the nsa, except i'm in public." and then another tweet. hayden was bragging about rendition and black sites a minute ago. and then finally on acela, former nsa spy boss michael hayden just ended last of handful of interviews, bashing administration. apparently someone tipped off hayden about matzzie's tweets, and then he went over and took a picture with matzzie on twitter, although he said that matzzie got the story wrong, hayden was willing to take a picture with him. they both bonded on both being from pittsburgh. 175, that's the flight number where california congressman raul ruiz was aboard

an american airlines flight from washington to dallas when a fellow passenger collapsed. ruiz who was an er doctor before going to congress stabilized the man until the flight was able to make an emergency landing in north carolina. and that now brings us today's trivia question. how many current members of the house are medical doctors? the first person to tweet the correct answer to @chucktodd and @dailyrundown will win. the answer is coming up on "the daily rundown." time for the "your business entrepreneurs of the week." lois and courtney own stores on main street in east greenwich, rhode island. they and other small business owners in town are attracting customers for small business saturday. with special offers, extended hours and live product demos. for more on getting customers to shop small, watch "your business" sunday morning at 7:30 on msnbc. building animatronics

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our friday "daily rundown" of all things 2016. a big week. last night former secretary of state hillary clinton who spoke at a tenth anniversary event for the center of american progress was received with thunderous applause, not shocking.

she joked off mike about the hoopla. >> when does the cake come out? i was going to jump out of the cake. >> familiar faces here to viewers, clinton blasted washington lawmakers for, quote, careening from crisis to crisis instead of having a plan and make an oblique reference to health care, congratulating the organization for putting the cause of affordable quality health care for every american back on the national agenda. but perhaps most striking was this language from a clinton. clearly an acknowledgment of where the democratic party is today compared to where it was the first time anybody named clinton ran for president. >> john and nera and i have been discussing what it means to be a progressive in america and in the world for years now. to build the case for a progressive agenda. to have cath at the table making the case for progressive

policies. for bold, new progressive policies. progressive values. progressive ideas have helped make this country the greatest force for human liberty, dignity and opportunity the world has ever known. >> if you noticed a theme there, she used that word quite a bit. by the way, yesterday the clinton super pac which has no official association with hillary clinton, ready for hillary got a buy-in from a big name, billionaire financier george soros will serve as a co-chair. earlier this week during a speech in buffalo, clinton was prodded yet again on the 2016 question. here's how she answered. >> perhaps you could describe for us what the ideal candidate for the presidency would look like in three years. >> well, that is a new way of phrasing it. i have to give you a lot of credit.

i have to say, i'm not as interested in what the candidate looks like as what the candidate stands for and what the candidate really believes needs to be the agenda for america's future, particularly as it relates to young people like students at this great university. >> interesting nonanswer from her, of course. but it's texas senator ted cruz who's actually going to a primary state. he'll be in iowa tonight. and though cruz got quite a homecoming welcome in texas, here's what iowa's governor had to say when asked how he'll receive the senator from texas when they meet tonight. >> he's a bright young guy. he's just one of 100 members of the senate i think we should hear from all viewpoints. but as you've heard from me, i believe the leadership in this country is coming from the

governors and from the states, not from washington, d.c. and i don't think one freshman senator can turn this all around. >> i'm guessing ted cruz better not be expecting a terry branstad endorsement anytime soon. cruz headlines the reagan dinner being thrown by the republican party of iowa. if you don't have a ticket, you're out of luck. officials say they're sold out. we sent somebody there to track mr. cruz down. our casey is live for us in des moines. casey, he's got quite a packed schedule. and it is a very conservative schedule politically. tell us about it. >> reporter: absolutely. he is, as you said, doing the dinner tonight, the reagan dinner, in des moines. and then he's going to go straight from there, possibly leaving with steve king to go to king's annual colonel bud day pheasant hunt out in western iowa. it's a tiny town called akron. the two will hunt pheasant in the morning, and then there's a lunch scheduled in the afternoon in le mars.

so he's really focusing on the activist crowd here in iowa. and that's the group that's really excited about him at this point. and it's interesting, actually, not everyone who we're used to seeing in the iowa gop is going to be attending the dinner tonight. it's because the party here is dealing with a really intense split. many supporters of ron paul have sort of taken over the state party. and there are a lot of more moderate republicans who are really concerned about the direction that that's going. and that could impact 2016 in so much as a lot of these moderates are starting to say hey, we have to change this. we have to do something about this infrastructure. and that could potentially hurt rand paul and benefit somebody like cruz or the moderates hope somebody like chris christie that they view as somebody who could potentially have broader appeal in a general election. and if they were to win in iowa, make the state more relevant than maybe it's been in past years. >> well, it's very interesting what's going on in iowa. we see it in virginia where the organizational parts of the

republican party seem to be at odds with where the establishment wishes the party were at. frankly, they're at odds for where the national party claims it wants to be. anyway, casey hunt, enjoy the pheasant hunting. i know that that's what ted cruz is doing tomorrow with steve king. so again, you know the wing of the party that he's trying to appeal to. anyway, casey, stay warm. it's october in iowa. >> reporter: it's chilly here. gaggle, robert costa, national editor for "the washington review," and cnbc who just returned from iowa. and democratic pollster margie o'meara. hello, all. mr. costa, i'm going to start with you since you just came from iowa. moderating this republican senate bee date whendebate whic get to in a few minutes. the ted cruz freight train just moves through iowa. and i have to say, i can't tell you the number -- and i know you hear the same thing -- the number of republicans off the

record throwing up their hands going, did this guy learn nothing from the shutdown? >> you see a lot of republicans frustrated. when i was at drake university in des moines, almost every single candidate on that stage running for u.s. senate in the republican primary citing ted cruz. >> in a positive way. >> in a positive way, as the model. and that is what i think is really you're going to see across the country, especially in more red state primaries in 2014. the cruz model. using cruz as a way to win a primary. >> and this is, then, viviana, the republican party nationally you have all these people going wait, wait, wait, we wanted to fix the party. we wanted to go here. we wanted to appeal to latinos. and all of a sudden here's ted cruz, hispanic politician hanging out with steve king. that's not a way to win. >> that's exactly what i thought. i think everybody that was talking about cantaloupes this summer must be thinking like oh, my gosh. here's the thing. what's next? let's just say that he can win a primary. are we going to be destined to just history of a democratic white house stronghold and then a gop stronghold in the house?

and that means that absolutely. and i think we're going to live in perennial shutdowns, brinksmanship when it comes to debt ceiling and deficits. nothing is going to move towa forward, and that's detrimental to our competitiveness. this is something the party needs to think about and that voters need to think about, too. >> margie, how are democrats doing this? are they contributing to ted cruz every day? i mean, that's sort of the running joke. everybody's cheering ted cruz on. >> right. maybe those are all those activists he said he got on his list as a result of the shutdown. look, his numbers are -- the more people have gotten to know him, the worse his numbers get. >> unless you affiliate yourself with the tea party. no, no, no. i mean, his numbers are through the roof among half of the republican party, and they're going down among everywhere else. >> look, mitt romney was unfavorable almost the entire campaign. not just at the end when things are negative. almost the entire time. ted cruz right now, he's become better known, and all that new notoriety has come from

unfavorability. he can't win a general election -- whatever happens in the primary, you can't win a general election being 15, 20, 30 points and then unfavorable for two years. it's not going to happen. >> there's one republican in washington that has a net positive favorable number and he is a pariah. once again, there's a reminder here. the middle doesn't like what's going on -- >> that's not the story right now. when you're talking to conservatives inside the republican party, they always hear about how 2016, if republicans nominate cruz, it's going to be like 1964 like goldwater. that's not how republicans especially conservatives see it. they see this as more a 1976 moment. >> watershed moment. >> instead of going for a ford candidate, go toward the reagan candidate. they think this is finally the moment to break. >> i want to shift a little bit to hillary clinton. just to hear -- this is not how clinton's ran for president and ran to run the democratic party 24 years ago.

>> right. and so i think what will be really interesting in the next few years is think about 2014. who actually turns out to vote? how does the economy performing? because we have really what people have called a jobless economy or a part-time economy. think about the issues that will rally people. what's going to happen with immigration and how will that impact, for example, voter turnout? not only in 2014, among a group that's not really big into voting in off-year elections, but how would that impact the psyche for latino voters in 2016? >> how's she going to win pennsylvania. >> i think turnouts will be way down in 2014. this progressive push by hillary clinton -- and it's not what you hear from a clinton. >> has she become more progressive, or has the republican party gone so far to the right that now she's progressive? >> the party brought her to there? she's certainly using the language. that bill clinton never used. >> that's fair. but some of these issues, whether it's stronger gun laws, equal pay, those are issues that enjoy a wide majority of

support, immigration reform, even with republicans. >> you guys are on coming back. we're hoping to get this political mood thing we've been trying to do all week. up next, we're going to make you put on your political imagination and test it out a little bit. what would have happened if president kennedy had lived to serve two full terms as president? author and columnist jeff greenfield wrote a book about that. he says that kennedy would have pulled out of vietnam. he said he would have dropped johnson for his second term, and he claimed the counterculture movement of the '60s might not have happened, and also no great society. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. like a milk-bone biscuit. ♪ say it with milk-bone. [ unr ass [ female announcer ] e people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ]

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♪ [ male announcer ] laura's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today her doctor has her on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor wout of landfills each year? plastic waste to cover mt. rainier by using one less trash bag each month, we can. and glad forceflex bags stretch until they're full.* so you can take them out less often. in today's "deep dive," we're asking a question. what if president kennedy had lived? it's an interesting political thought experiment, especially with when you consider how many life-threatening situations kennedy actually ended up surviving. as a young child, the young boy known as jack became critically ill with scarlet fever.

as a lieutenant in world war ii, his boat was split in half by a japanese warship. in 1943 two men died but a wounded kennedy helped the survivors swim to a nearby island where they were rescued. soon after getting married, kennedy suffers crippling back pain and undergoes two serious operations. he survives and writes profiles and courage during his recovery. in 1960 after this footage was taken at georgetown, he survived a suicide bomb plot. he packed his car with dynamite and was ready to drive into a home in florida where kennedy was visiting. pavlik said he hesitated when he saw jacqueline and the children. what about the turn of events leading up to kennedy's assassination? the day had been raining but the skies cleared up right before the procession through dallas. the plexiglas bubble is removed from the president's limo. lyndon johnson becomes president. and the speculation begins. questions about vietnam are obvious.

but what would have happened to the great society if johnson hadn'tpresident in 1963? my next guest tries to answer some of those questions in his book "if kennedy lived." i'm joined by the author of this book, jeff greenfield. you've done this before. you enjoy doing this. >> i do, although i think this is the last one. >> this is the penultimate one? >> i've already started work on a novel where i get to make it all up. >> what if spiro agnew had become president? let's start with the vietnam question. because i want to get to the vietnam question, but i want to make you respond to it after you hear this bite from president kennedy on vietnam at the end of 1962. >> i would hope this would be settled because we want to see a stable government there, carrying on a struggle to maintain its national independen independence. we believe strongly in that. we're not going to withdraw from that effort. my opinion for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a

collapse not only of south vietnam but southeast asia. so we're going to stay there. >> all right. that's kennedy late 1962. press conference and doesn't sound like a guy who's ready to be withdrawing from vietnam, but you make the argument, vietnam, there would have been no escalation but actually a withdrawal. why? >> right. when people analyze what john kennedy might have done, it's critically important to figure out when they're talking. because if you look at the campaign of 1960 and his placating of his military the first couple years with advisers, they wanted a lot more than just advisers, you can make that argument. but if you look at where he was by the end of his life where he is pushing his pretty hawkish national security team to let's see if we can start this small drawdown of troops, 1500, his constant and growing skepticism about the military's assertions of what it could do and his determination which really hit a high point starting in june of

'63 with that american university speech to damp down the cold war. >> that's what you spent a lot of time, that speech in 1963. this is no longer a cold war a era. >> it's shocking the difference. in the fall of '63, he goes out west on a conservation tour and he makes an offhand reference to the test ban treaty, and the crowd goes crazy. and the rest of that tour he's talking about the need to have a different framework. now, look. we're talking about probabilities. he had -- there had been a coup that overthrew diem and his brother. there's a pottery barn argument. we broke it, we own it. that's all you can do in history. you know, he had said to many people, including senator m mansfield, there's nothing i can do until '64. >> this is something he wasn't going to worry about until after he was elected. >> i think what he was hoping, keep the temperature as low as possible in vietnam, and then after i'm re-elected, i can take

the hit. i'm convinced he wouldn't have wanted a gulf of tonkin. >> a common denominator was mcnamara. you make the case that mcmare was a sycophant. >> when kennedy was telling him, i really want you to go ahead with drawl. >> mcnamara said okay. >> two days after dallas said i won't be the first president to lose a war. >> mcnamara saluted the flog. why are you so convinced he would have dropped johnson? obviously nobody wanted johnson other than jfk the first time. >> it's not a political judgment in the sense of oh, maybe he can't carry texas. these are the facts. the day john kennedy was murdered, the moment he was murdered, "life" magazine is preparing a huge investigation into how this guy had a net worth of $14 million on the public payroll. and the answer was extorting radio and tv licenses. >> which we now know.

>> the senate is looking at canceled checks that he was taking kickbacks. >> you essentially think scandal would have been a problem in those first three or four months of the way congress might have done it. >> in my scene and i have clark clifford going to johnson and saying, uh, this ain't going to work. >> you'd better resign. >> yeah. you know, as soon as kennedy was killed, those investigations stopped because nobody wanted to roil the waters. the country was traumatized. >> now, the big accomplishment of lbj's second term, great society, civil rights act, all of those things. how much of it happens or doesn't happen in the second kennedy term? >> less. >> why? >> well, first of all, kennedy lacked johnson's mastery of the senate. and we can't forget that kennedy's death was a powerful emotional bit of momentum to get the civil rights bill passed. i think, you know, richard russell, the powerful segregationist senator said in 1964, we could have beaten john kennedy on civil rights, not lyndon johnson. on the great society, that's not how kennedy thought.

kennedy was not an fdr liberal in the sense that johnson was. and i think he was more skeptical about government both in terms of military force and what it could do. i think you would have seen efforts on poverty, but much more measured and much less grand or grandiose. >> so essentially what you're saying going into the civil rights act, you needed a southerner, southern white guy to do it? >> i think it made a huge difference. the movement would have succeeded. it was too morally significant, too powerful. but would it have happened that way? i also suggested that kennedy looking to get out of the vietnam might well have said to the hawks in the senate like richard russell who was petrified about vietnam, cover my rear end when i'm trying to figure out a stealth way out and maybe we'll push a little less. >> this, you pour some bourbon, have some debates with friends. everything about this seems like fun. >> i haven't told you about the kennedy/goldwater debate or how he meets the beatles. >> that is good stuff.

jeff fregreenfield. >> you might even skip college games for a day to read this. maybe not. >> maybe not. jeff, always good to see you. >> pleasure. coming up, we're hoping the third time is the charm. we have this map of the mood of the country and what it tells you about politics. come on, it's pop psychology. we all love it. and a presidential pivot this afternoon in brooklyn. president obama will try to turn the conversation back to the economy and push something pushed in his state of the union ten months ago. and you're going to watch it live during msnbc's "the cycle" at 3:45. first, "white house soup of the day." it's friday, it's fish, it's rajun cajun gumbo. we'll be right back. has never been our priority. our priority is, was and always will be serving you, the american people. so we improved priority mail flat rate to give you a more reliable way to ship. now with tracking up to eleven scans, specified delivery dates, and free insurance up to $50

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so does your personality and political styles fit into the state in which you live? a new study is getting a lot of attention on the web, because why not. researchers spent 12 years conducting personality tests on nearly two million in the lower 48 and washington, d.c. i guess they didn't have the money to go to alaska or hawaii and this is what they found. there are three distinct regions of personalities. friendly and conventional is the blue, relaxed and creative is the green and temperamental and uninhibited is the orange. let's bring back our friday gaggle.

margie, you're the pollster. you see this in the orange and yet, okay, the west, silicon valley, that sort of fit, the idea that they're the creative ones, i'll buy that. >> people want to move where folks like them are. >> do you think we do move into a tribe? we want to go to a like-minded tribe? >> yes. >> so we look at the blue, the midwestern nice. >> minnesota nice, midwestern nice. i'm from new jersey, the temperamental, uninhibited. that brings true a little bit, that seems familiar if i look at everyone in my family. people want to stay both stay where they're from and move to places where they feel welcome and feel like they're going to fit in so this makes sense. >> interesting here, the politics of it, the friendly was both the south and the midwest that had that. of course the midwest a little more swing or blue leaning, south obviously very red leaning. >> it's a fascinating study. i think politicians feed on this. politicians create their personas often on the personalities of their region.

>> and that is what -- i mean the thing is we look at these and have a little pop psych thing but politicians do end up representing the style of where they're from. >> chris christie in cowboy boots. >> i don't know if -- well, cruz would fit in more in new jersey. >> right, right. i'm still trying to figure out why i left california to come to new england. >> california is creative and now you're wondering what am i doing here? >> right. >> washington, d.c., we were all just in this gray. >> the most disagreeable place in the country, washington, d.c. >> shocking there. who would have seen that coming? >> i'd like to know what's going to happen with millennials and some of the new voters coming up that kind of display a little bit of everything. i think that will be really interesting. >> they're creatively temperamental. >> and uninhibited. >> way too uninhibited.

instagram inhibited. >> very quickly before i make you do shameless plugs, the doug gantsler story, democratic attorney general in maryland, margie, i don't know if he's a client or if you're in that state and i don't want to put you in an awkward position, but top -- on one hand, parents are parents. on the other hand, you're the top cop. this is a bad story for him, isn't it? >> it's a bad story to be around illegal behavior if you're running for office. >> never matter when you're the top cop or not. >> it doesn't matter. he puts these qualifiers. well, i was out of state and so on. he's going to have to reshape that answer a little bit, i think, if he wants to appeal to folks. even if other parents may say, well, i've been in that situation or know people in that situation, nonetheless, you're running for top office. >> everything in politics comes down to judgment, i really believe that after covering it for a few years. >> a voter does just look at it and it's a gut test.

he may not pass that gut test. shameless plugs. >> to my niece, happy birthday third birthday. three and fabulous. and to the runners of the marathons this weekend, you guys rock. >> go ahead. >> last week we did focus groups with walmart moms in nashville and kansas city. there was a great segment on our show, some great results and at walmartmoms research.com. >> a big shoutout to my favorite band phish. >> you're a phish guy, interesting. >> tonight i want to remember lee bandy, he's the man you had to know and see, great reporter down in south carolina. he passed away this week. a lot of us who admired his work for years are thinking about him and thinking about his family. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." have a great weekend. we'll see you right back here on monday. dre" sales event is back. which means it's never been easier to get a new passat,

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