>> what i say to washington is watch out, here we come. >> this week on "inside washington," primary voters sent a message. >> i did not vote for any incumbent. >> the senate votes to take a broom to wall street. the president's national intelligence director gets the boot >> barack obama is taking everybody away who does not have papers. >> a second grader puts the immigration debate on the front burner. >> i have misspoken about my service, and i regret that. >> does toys for tots count as service in vietnam? and another congressional sinner bites the dust. >> i have let down my wife and my family. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

>> what can we conclude from this week's handful of primary elections? how about this -- it will be a wild ride in november. joe sestak be arlen specter in pennsylvania. tea party favorite rand paul upset the establishment in kentucky. at the democrats managed to hold on to jack murtha's seat in pennsylvania's pulled congressional district. what does this tell us about the conventional wisdom on the 2010 elections? >> don't seek and accept the endorsement of the political establishment, don't run as an insider, and it is better to be younger and you are rather than older and more familiar. >> if you are a republican, be where the zebras that we experienced on january 19, one republican -- the hubris of the experience on january 19 when republicans won massachusetts.

john murtha apostasy, democrats won with a large -- john murtha's c, democrats won with a large margin for any republican who thinks it is a slam-dunk table when the house is wrong. >> try to remember that all of these races, except the one in the john, the district, were primaries. richard nixon still had the support of 25% or 30% when he was nearly beach before he quit office -- when he was nearly in peach before he quit office. there are hard-core people. >> democrat mark critz be 10 beat -- republican timberlands in pennsylvania, where voters cannot stand nancy pelosi. republican temperance and democrat mark critz.

>> pennsylvania needs jobs and lead ship, but the obama-policy agenda -- >> i oppose the health care bill. i'm pro-life and pro-done. -- pro-gun. >> he ran as a democrat but he is sounding like a republican. >> but he was jack murtha's top aide. he is trying to say on social issues, i am with you. he is a democrat and one significantly. >> this is a total canard that has been used against mark critz. sean hannity said on election night, and other commentators as well, that he ran pro-life and pro-gun. look at jack murtha's record. he was pro-life and pro-gun, against campaign finance. he was a blue-collar democrats, and that is what this guy ran on. with health care, he said he

would have voted against the health care plan. but how about appealing it? jim burns said he wanted to repeal it. he said he -- mark critz said he would not. >> when you run a national campaign in this atmosphere as a republican, you win. it is if you nationalize it. that is what happened in virginia and massachusetts. those were statewide elections. but in that election, there was an new york house race, new york 23, where it was also run as a local election, and the democrats waon. if you want to win as a democrat, you run on local issues. you stay away from barack obama and nancy pelosi, and you will win. >> 23 new york, the difference was the tea party candidate came in there and messed it up for the republicans. as far as what happened in pennsylvania, this is a true

blue certified democrat. he was running against an nancy pelosi in that district. nancy pelosi is not an issue. >> the curious thing to me is the democrats had -- they got out their vote, and in arkansas, blanche lincoln carried to the urban areas significantly, and her opponent, who was supposed to do that, carry the rural areas. she is the head of the agricultural committee . >> arlen specter, is to be democrat, became republican, democrat again. joe sestak became. -- joe sestak beat him. >> notwithstanding the fact he

was -- the problem with democrats, the president, the governor, the mayor of philadelphia -- the rank-and- file democrats never accepted him -- >> specter. >> is there any truth to the "new york times" story that the white house offered joe sestak a big job to keep him out of the race? >> true. joe sestak said it happened is he a liar? he said that he was offered a job to drop out of the race -- >> the white house denies it -- they have not confirmed -- >> difference between not confirming and denying. it made to sestak -- made sestak very much the man against machine. the entire establishment.

arlen specter, to three counties out of 67. -- arlen specter carried three counties out of 67. philadelphia, where the mayor of endorsed him, harrisburg, and since i-- >> he switched parties as a young man to one as a republican. >> he finally after 30 years exceeded the limit of political opportunism, even by the standards he has set. that is really saying a lot. >> now rand paul in kentucky. mitch mcconnell and the rest of the establishment tried to portray the libertarian as a nut case. it did not work. >> no, though he has his own troubles. he is the bernie sanders of the republican party. bernie sanders is a socialist in vermont and he votes with democrats be with her but -- he

votes with democrats. if granholm makes it to the senate, he will be the outlier and be -- rand paul makes it to the senate, he will be on the extreme of the party. >> when the views are exposed this way, the first day after the election saying that you would not repeal the civil rights act, you are in big trouble. the libertarian view is that the government should not do anything, that they should just protect the country with the military and police, basically. and maybe some food safety things, maybe. but they don't want the boot hill of government on a lot of things. >> the problem rand paul is going to face in this campaign is that as a faithful libertarian, he thinks the food

and drug in ministration ought to get out of business, and whether or not toys come in from china with lead paint on them is a matter that the market can best address rather than some intrusive federal government. that is going to be a problem for him and republicans. >> "i unequivocally state that i will not support any efforts to repeal the civil rights act of 1964." that is a relief, colby. >> i would have to stand at the counter if he had his way. we know what he said in the interview, we know what he said to npr, we know what he said to rachel maddow. if he had his way, colby king, 11 years old at the time on 25 pennsylvania ave, would still be doing what he had to do it then. he would not take the seat. it is a private establishment,

and under paul's view, the private establishment has the right to discriminate, notwithstanding what the law says. ron paul -- >> rand paul. >> rand paul taking the libertarian view would have meet tonight at a restaurant or any kind of place that serves the public. -- what have meet tonight at a restaurant or any kind of place that serves the public. >> let me be clear about the best the civil rights act did, much bigger, that most of the litigation -- something else the civil rights act did, much bigger, that most of the addition involve employment, and people's right to have equal access to jobs and promotions. that would be gone without a civil rights bill. companies with huge shareholder bases and tax benefits would be able to discriminate based on race and gender and ethnic background.

>> i have it on the best of authority that rand paul today will endorse the emancipation proclamation d. [laughter] >> if he takes over the government, finally -- >> i don't want my silence to be interpreted as support. i also support the civil rights act. there is a reason why the terrance end up with half of 1% in national like -- why libertarians end up with half of 1% in national elections. they have wonderful ideas in the abstract. it is not a useful governing philosophy. >> this is an interesting shotgun marriage between libertarians and the religious right in the republican party. i don't think it will last libertarians to view the stop sign as an unwarranted government intervention into our

life, they are totally tolerant of same-sex marriage and so forth but once the religious right becomes aware of this and rand paul embraces this, it will be politically very tricky >. >> libertarian versus tea party, i did the same thing? -- are they the same thing? >> not at all. >> they are the tea party candidates -- >> they are libertarian, which make them -- >> are they still with him on public accommodations? would that be a tea party position also? >> that is not the issue that is why he is a terrible candidate. he made it the issue gratuitously because he has no political instincts. >> will they back away from him?

>> it is not an issue. >> he is an issue. of course it is an issue. >> the civil rights act today is not an active -- >> the question is due date back his position? does michael still back his position? do they support him in november? >> when you back a candidate, you did not endorse all of -- >> the problem with the tea party is this -- it is a movement without a national face or identity. grandpa's become the face and identity -- and paul has become the face and identity of the movement. he is the most visible movement in the tea party to win statewide office. >> scott brown in massachusetts -- >> he had mitt romney's backing -- >> we have to move on.

>> our goal is not to punish the banks, but to protect the larger economy and american people from the kind of a people's we have seen in the past few years it -- the kind of upheavals we've seen in the past few years. >> this will get into people's pockets. i'm talking about individuals. >> the senate on thursday night passed the most sweeping form of regulation of wall street since the great depression. it would regulate hedge funds, derivatives, byzantine financial products, overseeing mortgages, credit cards, federal regulators to liquidate public financial institutions. what you think of it, colby? >> it is better than what we had at the time of the near-crash. frankly, i would love to have glass-steagall reinstated, separating commercial banks and investment banks completely. but this is still a lot better than what we had before. >> "the wall street journal"

quotes some analysts saying that the legislation would cut profits to financial institutions by as much as 20%. >> well, i am revamping my position on it then. [laughter] i will talk to my financial advisers. where i put my money now is under the mattress with these people. it is significant legislation, maybe the most significant financial regulation since the great depression. probably so. the test of it politically is that the republicans did not filibuster. there was no will to filibuster. the republicans were put squarely on the defensive. we will see a new barack obama very shortly. it is barack obama playing harry truman and andrew jackson. he has never been a populist before, but he will make this a populist issue.

>> the rhetoric of the tea party fits in with the rhetoric of this bill. i know the rhetoric of the tea parties anti-government, but it is also anti-business institutions. i don't think they are crying over having a little less money with having a little less millions to give institutions. >> i think it is our role of the dice. the president made a statement that is quite 8 tea party statement, saying that this will guarantee we will never have a bailout again or meltdown. that is extremely unclear. this is 1500 pages of regulation of an unbelievably complicated system. the experts i have spoken with think that is going to increase the chances of a bailout. all of this is -- it is hard to determine in advance. the confidence with which he speaks about how it is going to

solve our problems and obviate and you meltdown is troubling. nobody knows, and it could do a lot of damage, and intended. >> dennis blair, chair of national intelligence -- why did the president lose faith in him, nina? >> by the time to appoint another one, there will have been four directors of national intelligence in five years. when the 9/11 commission recommended it, it envisioned a small, lean and mean operation to oversee things. a few hundred people, not 1000 or 1500. the position does not have budget purse strings. you cannot run and oversee an order priorities in the intelligence community if you do not have the power of the purse. this is a position, i think, that does not work very well. >> it is a perfect example of why in financial regulation you

are dealing with announced. everybody imagined at the time that we are going to have this great theoretical structure -- dni will be in charge of 16 agencies and the dots will connect to it in the real world, that is not how it works out, because the extra layer of bureaucracy that did not have authority. the cia was in a struggle with dni at in the end they wind. created complications, in the same way that homeland security was going to solve all our problems. as a warning about the theoretical reorganizing the future structures in society and that would always ends up screwed up as a result. >> i don't think that homeland security is shipping up to be a disaster. i think in this case they need to find the person they need to have. >> it has not worked, let's be very blunt about it, the dni

office. four in five years is a pretty good indication. when you were interviewing for somebody's replacement before he has been told he is leaving, it is probably not the grid is personnel operation. -- not the greatest personnel operation. >> barack obama is taking everybody away that does not have papers. >> well, that is something that we have to work on, right, to make sure that people can be here, right? >> my mom does not have papers. >> that is the human side of the immigration debate. she is scared to death that the government is going to take her mother away. >> this is unrehearsed, obviously, and the immigration people would not dare touch the mother at this point.

but it does highlight our real problem -- a real problem. kids like that are wondering what is going to happen to mom, what is going to happen to die. we have not fixed it at all. -- what is going to happen to dad. we have not fix it at all. >> this is what the president of mexico said, "it will subject our people to discrimination." if they are his people, why are they in the united states? why would they voluntarily leave his country into our country? it is audacious for him to attack our laws on issuer but they have not lifted a finger to help us stem illegal immigration. >> i cannot get worked up about a 4 l like touring as a little when he has done things to be back -- a foreign leader

lecturing us a little when he has done things to beat the drug cartels. illegal immigration on our side, terrible violence in his country but we lecture countries all the time. i cannot get upset about it. >> calderon's condemnation about ak-47s going everywhere -- he has forfeited any chance of the national rifle association endorsement. >> the dog was there have killed more than 20,000 mexicans. -- the drug wars there have killed more than 20,000 mexicans. >> of course it is always our fault, isn't it? >> 50% of the world's -- >> they are attacking each other and that is our fault? >> they are also killing

americans. >> that is their fault, not ours. >> what about our demand for that product -- >> the reality eis that there is an appetite for drugs in this country, i demand an market. -- a demand and a market. >> the former marine reservist's misplaced words. >> we have learned something from important since the days i have served in vietnam but i will not let anyone take a few misplaced words and you might record of service. -- and impugn my record of service to the country. >> for the record, connecticut attorney general richard blumenthal never served in vietnam. could this cost him his senate seat? >> yes, it could.

it is a real problem. there is a difference in anybody's mind between serving during vietnam and in vietnam. nobody has ever forgotten not being in the field of combat where fellow americans are having their limbs and lives a block off -- blown off on an hourly basis. any political candidate or individual saying, "i misspoke," all it does is it eco "i did not have sexual relations with that woman." >> i think the word of "misspoke" was invented by ron ziegler, a way of some house saying a lie is just a contortion of the tongue. on the politics of it, it is interesting that we assume the connecticut -- that this man would be safe with a democratic

seat, and kentucky would be saved with the republican seat. as a result of this week, with at rand paul, who is slightly out there, as the republican candidate, kentucky could be a switch, and connecticut could be a switch. >>, to make an observation and a question. in his debate, he made the point -- "i did not serve in vietnam." i am asking you, a former practicing psychiatrist, why did somebody do this? >> i am a psychiatrist in remission. i have no idea. >> he did not speak. he lied, he lied, he lied. -- he did not misspeak. he lied, he lied, he lied. >> congressman mark souder, republican of indiana, was man enough to say that he seemed in having a relationship with a part-time staff reported --

sinned in having a relationship with a part-time staffer. >> sexual abstinence -- i don't know why anybody not want to abstain with him -- >> he had to do something. >> is there something in the water up there? [laughter] >> henry kissinger said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. mark souder is the ultimate test of that, because of george clooney look-alike he is not. [laughter] >> i will not take a guy when he is down but he did resign immediately. when you think of all politicians to drag out the life of the confession, which ought to be a criminal offense, i give him credit at least on that. >> in the partisan thi -- the

poisonous environment of washington, d.c. -- >> i would think that after the clinton years, it would not be a major issue, but apparently it is not over with clinton. >> it is a problem for him because of what -- >> the hypocrisy -- >> he is a family values -- >> 8 killed eliot spitzer as well. >> see you next week. for a transcript of this broadcast, log on to insidewashington.tv.

gwen: this was the week the voters turned conventional wisdom dom upside down. in pennsylvania, arkansas, and