atwater looked at clinton and saw a threat.ic southerner, northern liberals led the democratic party to two state national drubbings, the guy can win back the voters at the core of the reagan-bush coalition, a guy under the right conditions could knock off j.w.h. bush in 1982. atwater became up with a plan, a governor's race, clinton would be running for re-election, he would use it as a springboard to a national company. to atwater, this was the perfect opportunity to nip a huge problem in the bud. very quietly, he found a candidate of his own, tommy robinson was his name, he was a loose cannon, a sheriff known for off color and inflammatory remarks and controversial tactics. he won a seat in 1980 abruptly switched parties. he was going to run for governor of arkansas in 1990. lee atwater's plan, they later reported he met in the fall of 19 european with tommy robinson's team. he told them, we're going to take to himpy robinson and use him to throw everything we can think of at clinton. drugs, whatever works. we may or may not

bush ran under the idea that the welfare queen is destroying our economy lee atwater engineered that very capably and it's taken its legs look things have changed dramatically from the time that l.b.j. said we need a new society in order to advance is a culture we have to take care of the least of our society was very powerful meaningful statement that l.b.j. made since then we have. dumbed down we've become we've become a culture where greed is good we've become a culture of gordon gekko for god's sakes where this is a character that was supposed to be a satirical let's make fun of this greed is good type of character and instead we have this what we have become and so that's the other part of it you have you have people coming up through the ranks right now moving into politics from every part of the business community that probably have always lacked a sense of moral compass and compassion that we're never going to see corrected until something radical happens and that is it starts costing them elections and that only happened when we have the money shift in politics in general th

the late lee atwater was a very shrewd guy, because a lot of republicans underestimated bill clinton, including for a long time, president bush. but i think the best metaphor right now for what christie is doing is george w. bush, who ran up enormous margins in the texas governor's race in 1998. he did particularly well with latinos and got a lot of republican votes and then turned around and sold that to the party. he was the favorite going in, in a way that chris christie is not. but it was of enormous benefit to him in the year 2000. and it helped him look more moderate than he actually was. and i think chris christie can do exactly the same thing here. chris, he's actually a very conservative guy. and i think you're going to see that much more after this election is over. when he is seeking the republican presidential nomination, assuming that he does, he's going to play out how conservative he is. he's going to emphasize that side to him. i think the problem the democrats had is, he was really helpful to barack obama in the last election. when he said those nice things about pres

i think back to the late -- devious republican strategist, but lee atwater, passed away in 1991, one things he said to george bush senior, there's this guy down in arkansas running for re-election this year. and we've got to look out, we've got to look out and take care of him this year. because he's going to be a threat to us in 1992. and national democrats and certainly democrats in inning but national democrats looked at this governor's race in new jersey this year and said we don't want to be associated with a loss. and chris christie is going to come through tonight and win by a very, very big margin and he is then going to get three years to run around the country saying the state that went for obama by 17 points, i turned around and won by 20, 25, 30, whatever the number ends up being, his most powerful talking point and democrats gave it to him. >> a permutation of what happened in massachusetts where the national party, probably because they thought they were going to have it. thank you very much, steve kornacki and karen finney. you want to catch both on the weekend and eve

they're working to send a message to mayor ed lee atwater executives that this is >>: processors aren. >>mark: its just released shows that a child care worker in morgan hill had blood all global of 0.30 while working with children. 58 year-old anna marie lopez of gilroy was arrested monday morning and charged with one count of felony child endangerment. parents dropping off their children at the epa walsh--p.a. walsh child development center told police that lopez was not responsive and is oriented. officer state officials say lopez had trouble speaking and that her blood alcohol level was four times the legal limit to drive. police and menlo park want to question a witness from the drunk driving accident that killed a man and his wife. kamal and balbir singh were out walking their dog last month when they were hit from behind. here's video from the scene. investigators are looking for a white male who was driving a white ford explorer that night. police believe he may have seen the entire thing happened. the woman believed to cause the crash is marjorie reitzell of redwood city. po