>> but don't say what they'll do. nobody wants to take the hit. exploding governments. that super committee was a detonator. republicans and democrats refuse to step up and lead. playing it safe personally, they ran up the risk for us all. and finally, will it get ugly? michelle obama was booed by nascar fans but it got worse when rush limbaugh called the obama's uppity. will the racial divide grow ugly? hi, i'm chris matthews. welcome to the show. with us today from "the chicago tribune," clarence paige, katty kay, kelly o'donnell and "the daily beast"'s andrew sullivan. the supercommittee was the last hope for a bipartisanship this year but the men and women on both sides seem to be playing escape from washington. they gave up and surrendered to

our poison politics. you see it at every level all the way to the white house. doing a cover for a magazine, would you maybe come up up with this cover? is politics in america dead? kelly, tough question to you, but is it our leadership class, our political class, they can't seem to do what they're supposed to do, which is strike a deal. >> part of that is because they always give themselves a parachute. unlike the debt ceiling crisis or the possibility of a sutdown, here they've given themselves an out. they knew all along that there would be another way to handle this later. they could suffer the embarrassment, that's ok. your clip is great because i talked to staffers who said that their bosses had two or three flights booked getting out of town, a big tell there was not going to be a deal. >> they really did escape this weekend. the question is, why did they create a committee and call it the super committee, like put on the batman costume and then fall down on the street? >> it was created to save face

back in the summer, to try and do something. david said it best, where debt and politics meet is a very bad place. no european country, except the brits, have managed to enforce austerity through elected officials. but here i don't think it's about both parties. i really do believe that it's the republican party's refusal to accept any net revenue increase that inevitably kills any possible deal. chris: that's john boehner's position last summer. he went to the president and said i can't deliver my 200-some rrps on any deal that includes revenue and they both threw up their hands. >> you members of the super committee who were willing to make concessions on the republican said. they knew they couldn't go too far because they couldn't get it through the senate. but they were worried about the members of the house, who signed a pledge on revenues, who then say that we can't possibly break our pledges, and this is where the whole idea -- >> but they never actually had

the net revenue increases. even if they put deductions on the table, they put it back again by lowering tax rates and that's point. how do you balance a budget if you only rely on one side of the equation? chris: explain for the audience that really doesn't want to know, here's this guy that has a strange boring name, grover norquist -- >> a veteran of the reagan years. one of the young conservatives who was advising reagan to hold fast on any tax increases. and he is becoming a celebrity now. to the left he is what george soros is to the right. he's the center figurehead for this conspiracy that is trying to get the government between itself and the people. but norquist himself says i have no power. it's the voters out there. chris: but he wants them to say no taxes. after he came out of the failure

of the super committee earlier this week and said, you know, ok, now, no way out. you blew it. you said that if you blew it there's going to be big cuts in defense. now don't go sneaking off. you're not getting off this thing. and basically said i'm going to try to veto anything. >> you had republicans that were fighting back on that in one area, and that's defense. leon panetta, the defense secretary, said if you let half of these cuts hit the fence, it would hollow out the military president >> he said go ahead and raise taxes. >> that's what can happen. they can go through and try and sort it out and find the cuts somewhere else. but if they try to block -- as it stands now, the president says he'll veto and have a fight. >> i love the fact that the president is doing something. >> to be honest and fair, i don't think he's been a shining pillar of leadership in all this. but he has a plan ahead. if you look at failure now, wait means is we've come into a

period of quite drastic austerity. and on top of, if you do nothing , it's the end of the bush tax cuts. you put those two together, you have a pretty big bite out of the economy. >> i'm not sure i've seen massive leadership on the president's part. the white house made a very clear political calculations that they decided that the super committee was not going to work, so why would they want the president associated with a failure? members of the committee said when they tried to reach out to the president on issues like tax reform, the white house washed their hands of this. chris: 12 of our regulars, including all four of you today, we asked, will there be a big sweeping pack kang of tax increases, and entitlement reforms? eight said no, he will not do it, four said yes. clarence, kelly and katty, you're part of the eight who swroted no. he's not coming through with a

promise to do the entitlements and tax increases. >> this is difficult to do in 2011 and it will be even harder in 2012. jay: who gets hurt by what looks to be a transparent failure? >> i think my own view is that if you look at the polling, you see the vast majority -- a very large majority think tax increases should be a part of the mix. obama is going to run on the wealthy, because that's where the money is at this point. but he wins by not -- he does have a plan, but by saying i'm the one that's going to balance this fairly. chris: do you agree with that? >> that's all true. but republicans will also say democrats will not get real about cutting spending and they'll be able to find lots of reasons why there is a bloated government that they have not resolved yet. chris: who wins, katty? >> politically the president looks better out of this than the republicans do at the moment. >> i'm going to say obama wins,

because he sees himself as a voice of reason, while republicans are the voice of anger. in the long run the swing voters in the middle -- chris: they're -- the intrance gents are his best friend. >> knute is the best example of that. chris: the republicans have given us one long series of floods. mitt romney hasn't had the fatal flubs, but the elitism challenge has been on full display. there was this -- >> well, i should also tell my story. i'm also unemployed. [laughter] chris: romney got caught at a text mention stop in colorado. a fan asked him -- tex-mex stop in colorado. a fan asked him for a dollar. he had nothing but 100 dollar bills. it got andrea mitchell's attention. >> there was an akonic moment that occurs on these campaigns. mitt romney in colorado at a

mexican restaurant trying to trade a dollar bill with a young boy. all he could find in his wallet were $100 dollar bills. chris: what kind of a.t.m. machine does he use? last month romney had this exchange about rising gasoline prices. >> i paid $3.45 a gallon on my way over here to fill up my car to come see you. >> where did you go? [laughter] >> actually, a tie, well, here's jimmy fallon with a skit about the flubs that have brought down his competition. >> remember when we all thought it was going to be rick perry? bad debater. little flurry when he speaks. crashed, then burned. hey, remember this? now i want to see his birth certificate. but the best, the absolute best, this guy, the c.e.o. of

godfather's pizza. he made some ladies an offer they couldn't refuse. now, that's two medium crashes for the price of one burn. look, i'm gonna be the republican nominee, because i know the one thing that they don't -- if you let somebody talk long enough, they'll say or do something stupid. eventually they'll go on and on and let down their guard just as it was written by joseph smith in the book of mormon. chris: when we come back, michelle obama gets booed at nascar. and rush limbaugh calls the obamas uppity. will this get ugly? scoops and predictions. be right back.

chris: welcome back. michelle obama and joe biden

were booed by a few nascar fans last friday. >> the first lady of the united states, michelle obama and dr. jill biden. >> rush limbaugh leaped on it. listen to the word "uppity." >> nascar people, as are most people in this country, are mature, tolerant people, who fully understand when they're being insulted and condescended to. and they remember being called bitter clingers. they understand it's a little bit of uppityism. she was never proud of her country, till her husband was running for office. well, the nascar people love their country and they've been proud of it since they were born. what is so hard to understand about mrs. obama being booed? chris: just how clarence thomas shoud owe powerful that word uppity is, describing the criticism he faced in his confirmation hearing. >> it a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way dare to think for themselves. chris: for rush limbaugh to haul out that word, it may be a sign that his audience thinks it's

acceptable. when barack obama won in 2008, when that kind of talk was less public, he got 43% of white votes and that was the same level as bill clinton got in 1996. higher than al gore got with 42% of whites, and john kerry's 41% of whites. but it was clear in the 2010 midterms, when democrats got just 37% of whites and the president's current support with whites is at 38%. clarence, this is about politics and ethnicity. i have never heard the word uppity used except in combination with another word, the n word. >> it is the perfect dog whistle word and we also know rush limbaugh loves to walk that political correctness line and appeal to the demographics you're talking about. i think it's important to remember that what democrats haven't carried the white male-vote since l.b.j. in 1964. this is all part of the culture war that's been going on in the country since the 1960's. rush limbaugh knows how to plug into that group.

that's his base. as soon as i heard that he had said this, i said, is this sweeps month? chris: i think it is this audience. he's very commercial, rush is. but let me ask you about this. i think it was a bugle call, not a dog whistle. working-class whites and the way they call it in the polling is non-college whites. he's going to have a problem with them, because in hard times -- you know how prejudice rises during hard times -- it's clear that he sees those people as angry and workable, rush limbaugh. >> and that's a real target-rich environment. certainly the president knows he's going to have trouble in that area. the campaign is very sensitive to it. and that's where you can see that a lot of the talk about trying to get the jobs plan and a lot of the anti-congress does seem to work there, because there is that anger in washington. there's no getting around that. it's a much more challenging elective. >> it's a problem for the republicans, too. you've been watching these debates. if you're a latino, you're black, if you're a woman and

watch the way they've sort of pooh-poohed sexual harassment allegations, if you're gay and they've pooh-poohed a gay soldier, how many minorities are they going to say don't vote republican until they realize this is going to be a problem for them? the more the limbaugh brand adheres to the republican party, the more doomed they are. and i think that's -- chris: that drives up the percentage of whites, because if they're going to give away other votes -- >> why do you have to insult latinos or gays or blacks in order to win over the white vote? you just don't have to do it. that's what somebody like jeb bush understands. he is the one that has come out and said we cannot exclude large portions of the population if we want to be a majority party in the long run. >> for example, islam would be regarded as lefty now. >> it's insane. >> mitt romney understands,

this, too. but he's handcuffed right now. this is a base-oriented campaign. unfortunately, the republican base right now is remarkably a nativist. romney will be scampering back this way if he gets the nomination much that's why jeb did not get in the race, this is not a good year for reasonable people. chris: do you think that somebody in the party, especially if it's mitt romney, was going to call out this attitude, this sort of racist kind of stuff that's being talked about? >> well, this is what he did before nominations or afterwards. right now he's kind of moot on the point. >> he attacked perry so hard. definitely painted himself as latino voters there. it showed we're definitely under the bus. and, look, he just doesn't have any multi-cultural -- i mean, those funny clips of him, like being slightly too upper class, reminds me of george h.w. bush

wanting a splash of coffee. chris: and obama reaching those working-class whites. whatever games are being played, as racist as they are, it's his job to try to get the votes. >> in terms of the cross-offers, there was reverse bradley effect, where a lot of districts that were going to vote for mccain voted for obama. that were going to vote for mccait's about building cars in america. it's all about jobs. it's all about respect. security. the american dream. [ jamaul ] good jobs in tough times. a chance to move up and do better. [ delaunta ] excellent healthcare. [ caletha ] beautiful benefits. what they used to call the american way. it still works here. [ jennifer ] not a single layoff of a u.s. manufacturing worker. [ glen ] not one. not one. doing things the right way. quality. [ jimmeka ] building cars that americans want. [ jamaul ] right here in america. hyundai is an all-american success story. ♪

get the pantech breakout for $49.99, the free lg enlighten, or a free xperia play by sony ericsson. the smartphones are ready, the tablets are wrapped. now through monday only, get the technology they love, on the network they deserve. verizon. gl >> tell me something i don't know is brought to you by charles schwab. let's talk about the permanent attention you and your money deserve. chris: welcome back. clarence, tell me something i don't know. >> i'm sure you know that the south has been resegregating over time splitly. there was a new study that shows if more resegregated now as far as blacks voting democrats, whites voting republican, and this is hurting what democrats at the state level -- blacks are

losing clout now as far as getting things done and they're safe. >> i've seen that. how do you know it's been done systemically? >> chris, i was in nevada recently. you turn on the radio in the car and every ad is for a foreclosure lawyer or a bankruptcy lawyer. that's the stance the republicans would like to take in the next election. they polled it wrong in the republicans' favor in 2008 and in 2010. chris: romney was the primary. >> but i think the democrats still have a good chance of holding it. sometimes small comments give you a win do into a candidate. mitt romney was asked about faith and he said it was not his job to explain the mormon church and people don't get the name right. and then, of course, they have some prohibitions of hard liquor and so forth, and he said he had tried beer and cigarettes as a teenager, but that was it. so he gave us a little bit of a moment into what the young, maybe not so -- he tasted it.

chris: it isn't just hard liquor, they're against any alcohol. pretty strict religion. more strict than ours, even. >> indeed. >> way stricter than ours, chris, thank god. victim number one in the penn state abuse scandal has had to quit his high school because he's being bullied for being a victim of child rape. chris: what's the argument? what are they saying? >> they can't control it. chris: how can they blame the kids? >> his peers are blaming him. chris: for what? >> for being responsible to bring down penn state. and i think it shows there's something deeply wrong with a culture that values football as a religion over the dignity of children. chris: you're so right. >> winning is everything. when we come back, the big question of the week. it's the christmas shopping season. what do these political smart people want under their christmas tree? a real tough one this week. be right back.

>> "the chris matthews show" is brought to you by charles schwab.

chris: welcome back. it's christmas shopping season, which brings us to this week's big, tough question -- what do you hope to find under your christmas tree and what are you hunting for for someone else? clarence paige? >> my wife is easy. there's the most beautiful earrings i can find. it's a default position if i can't think of anything else. that's for her. for me, i'm much tougher. i'm much tougher to shop for. chris: what would you like? >> i'm at the age where i appreciate time more than monetary value. i love to see my son leave me a nice little envelope and a card saying, dad, i'm going to write your column for a week, so you can take it off. chris: i love that idea. [laughter] katty kay, the gift you want or the gift you want to give. >> i've rolled the dice and i've been lucky to have four children

who are all in good health. and if somebody could give me a little card saying they'll carry on being in good health, i'd be happy. my husband has been very good. he stayed with me in america for 11 years and that's taken him a long way from his family. i'd bring his whole family over. chris: permanently or just for the weekend? >> for a while. >> i'll be going from the christmas tree right to iowa. i would help something that would help get me around, waiting for hopefully a fabulous contest for nominations, and because david watches this show. i can't give away what's on his list. >> can you wait for the excitement of new year's eve in des moines? >> you can get a great steak. we'll celebrate 2012. chris: i've been waiting for this. >> i'm a bit of a purist. i actually don't give or receive gifts for christmas because i feel that once you do it all year-round, it's an ordeal. given you've put me on the spot, my husband would like a v.i.p.

ticket to the next madonna concert. all i want is what i've already got, which is my green card this year, the best christmas present any would-be american could ever have. chris: i have a great idea. my new book. it's on "the new york times" bestseller list an it's a great read for your favorite history fan. give somebody a jack kennedy christmas. thanks for a great roundtable, clarence tate, kelly and all. now through this monday only, get the pantech breakout for $49.99,

the free lg enlighten, or a free xperia play by sony ericsson. the smartphones are ready, the tablets are wrapped. now through monday only, get the technology they love, on the network they deserve. verizon.

this sunday, another capitol failure. in a clash over spending cuts and tax increases, the super committee fails to reach agreement on a plan to reduce the deficit. setting in motion a trigger for across the board spending cuts that go into effect in 2013. now, some lawmakers want to rewrite the law. t