the only exceptions to that rule really were bill clinton and hillary clinton as they were campaigning over the course of the last 72 hours they felt like they could feel something shifting in the electorate. bill clinton new politics in the electorate better than in place on the planet. everywhere they went he felt the tide turning. they were the only ones who d when she won that victory. she bounced out of new hampshire with one of the most remarkable comebacks anybody has seen in le at that point -- it would change shortly but people thought hillary clinton is on the way to restoring, put together her place as front-runner. as you know things got a lot more complicated after that. >> mark halperin maybe with mitt romney's february win in michigan a parallel to what barack obama faced two months after hillary clinton winning the primary essentially clenching the nomination. having dodged bullet after bullet, mccain clinched his party's nomination march 4th, including one of the greatest political comebacks in modern american history. here is my question with a direct relation to theo

what role did bill clinton play in hillary clinton's campaign? how did barack obama really decide he could run for president and make a credible effort to beat hillary clinton? lots of questions like that we didn't know the answers to. we said what if we went back and almost as archaeologists tried to figure out what had actually happened? before too long we'd taken that original conversation, shaped it a little bit. but what we ended up writing was very close to the idea we had on that day originally and we're basically doing the same thing for the next cycle, for this cycle. there's no republican to tamper with a formula readers seem to like and tell the story of a campaign people are focused on minutely this time as they were last time. again, to try to go back and tell the story through the eyes of the people involved in a way that maybe is impossible to do in daily, weekly or monthly journalism. >> what we have done is gone back through your book and selected a couple of quotes and some accompanying moments that maybe best reflect what happe

what role did bill clinton play in hillary clinton's campaign. how did barack obama decide he could run for president and make a credible effort to beat hillary clinton? lots of questions like that that we didn't know the answers to. we thought, what if we went back and as archeologists tried to figure out what happened. before too long we had taken that original conversation, shaped it a little bit, but what we ended up writing was close to the idea we had on that day originally. we were basically doing the same thing for the next cycle. but for this cycle, there is no reason to tamper with a formula that readers seem to like and that we think is a great way to tell the story of a campaign that people are focused on as much this time as they were last time, but to tell the story through the eyes of the people involved in a way that maybe is impossible to do in daily, weekly, or monthly journalism. >> what we have done is gone back through your book and selected a couple quotes from a company, loehman's that maybe reflects what happened during th

this is separate and apart from what president clinton has to do. people come through on the pledges that they make. we know that the world economy is in a different place. there was a donors conference in new york couple of years ago. those pledges are the hope of haiti. as i said, there is a thing about haiti that has to be understood when talking about ownership. -- about donorship. martin luther king said that it was fine to tell a man to pick himself up by his bootstraps. but it is cruel to tell a man he does not have any boots. when you're dealing with donors, there is a word that constantly comes up which is "sustainability." it is the investment and understanding with in the haitian people themselves. when you do it in theoretical programs, one time after another, it does not work. it has not worked. my belief is that haiti would have been better off today had there never been a single ngo there in these last 30 years. i am quite a stir of it. -- i am quite sure of it. it has been primarily destructive force. largely to the leadership of pre

was bill clinton ever bound by laws or regulations? reaction, former special counsel to president clinton and one of his chief defenders in the monica lewinsky days. look, i will say it. bill clinton's right. >> i think he's right. but he is talking about facts. he can disagree with president obama on -- >> sean: you can't even say it with a straight face. >> i don't understand the president's position on this pipeline, no matter -- >> sean: you know what -- [overlapping dialogue] >> the race card on me from the very beginning. >> president clinton is supporting president obomba's re-election, as i am. -- >> sean: they played the race card on me. everybody's talk about this g.o.p. hopefuls fighting. >> to finish my sentence, i am still supporting president obama for re-election. >> sean: of course. let's put us in another $5 trillion in debt. >> you had me until you had the support of obama. i don't think he deserved the support the first time and he has proven to us conclusively that he doesn't deserve to be re-elected. we would be be

what role did bill clinton play in hillary clinton's campaign?ow did barack obama decide he could run? lots of questions like that that we did not know the answer to. we went back and said what if we went back and try to figure out what actually happened? before to the long, we took in the original conversation. -- before too long, we took in the original conversation. there is no reason to tamper with a formula that readers came to light and we think it is a great way to tell the story of a campaign that people are focused on. again, tried to go back and tell the story to the eyes of the people involved in a way that is impossible to do in daily, weekly, or even monthly journals. >> we have gone back through your book and slept a couple of quotes and moments that may be best reflect what happened. let's begin with the announcement that then-senator barack obama -- you write that colin powell had questions for senator barack obama, but the main one was, why now? >> for the past six years, we have been told that we do not matter. we have been told

what role did bill clinton played in every clinton's campaign? how the barack obama decided he could run for president and make an incredible effort to be hillary clinton? lots of questions we did not know the answers to. what if we went back and try to figure out what had actually happened? before too long, we had taken the original conversation, shake it a little bit, but what we wrote was very good to the idea we had originally. we are basically doing the same thing for this cycle. there is no reason to tamper with a formula that readers seem to like. it is a great way to tell the story of a campaign people are focused on. to try to go back and tell the story through the eyes of the people involved in a way that maybe is not possible to do in daily, weekly, at our monthly journalism. >> we have gone back to your book and selected a couple of quotes that may be best reflect what happened during the process of the campaign. let's begin with the announcement that then senator barack obama day. colin powell had questions for senator obama, but the

mark penn, a veteran of hillary clinton's 2008 campaign. and gop strategist whit ayres who has worked on a number of high profile campaigns over the years. welcome to both of you. here we are on the doorstep of super tuesday with this volatile republican primary. whit, where do things stand after michigan, after arizona going into super tuesday? is mitt romney a front runner? >> mitt romney is still the odds on favorite to win the nomination. but he's not the first choice of the most conservative wing of the party. that's pretty obvious right now. to say that, david, is not to say he's an unacceptable choice to those voters. they're going to go through every other alternative first before settling on him if they end up settling. >> one thing that struck me is in each contest so far as highly as the economy ranks as an issue, the biggest factor is still who can beat president obama. and the advantage is still clearly with romney there. >> it is. he's got the largest organization. he's got the most money. and while social media is really impo

. >>> up next, how bill clinton became bill clinton. have a guy that went to school with bill clinton. let's talk about this guy. he went to georgetown. he's also a writer of great fiction. he's not going to give us fiction now. this is "hardball," only on msnbc. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. i knew it'd be tough on our retirement savings, especially in this economy. but with three kids, being home more really helped. man: so we went to fidelity. we talked about where we were and what we could do. we changed our plan and did something about our economy. now we know where to go for help if things change again. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get free one-on-one help

fact it was not inevitable that would be the case for hillary clinton. if she had lapsed to bitterness, decided to fit on to denver, stinting in her support of obama, it could have diminished her. instead she made a wise, and as i said before, gracious choice. wise tactically, strategically, wise in terms of her own future decision to really get behind barack obama and do whatever it was he asked and be as supportive as possible. that was the beginning of her seedsing the mantle of self-enlargement in some ways. she ended up being a bigger figure than when she started and she was pretty big when it started. it was the result of very important fundamental decisions she had to make. she made them in retrospect, you can't do anything but applaud them not just in the abstract but they served her interests in the bess possible way. >> let's turn back to the republican race and john mccain. the answer to this might be pretty obvious. as john mccain was searching for a running mate, finally selecting sarah palin late in the process, my question to you is how mu

bill clinton thought pipeline was a strip club.e pipeline. >> kimberly: you're kidding right now. >> greg: it happens. >> bob: listen, obama and clinton had disagreements obviously. but clinton understands something here. he needs obama to win again. and because i think there is still some hope that she will run in 2016. and he is doing everything he can to make sure it happens. he has also done trial balloons for obama. since they had the disagreements. bill clinton has been as strong obama supporter and interpreter as anybody i've seen. >> dana: now both sides are trying to neutralize each other's best arguments. so john boehner and the house republicans agree to the payroll tax cut. they get it behind them. that happened three weeks ago. nobody even remembers it. that was obama's number one legislative priority for this year. now i do think that because the bad policy on keystone ended up being terrible politics they will figure out a way to cut the losses quickly. >> kimberly: doesn't he get to say that on the way to obama, he

four years ago hillary clinton and sarah palin made history. different kinds, but history. four years later american women wonder, how could some men go back to the bad old days, and so quickly? hi, i'm chris matthews. welcome to the show. with us today, "new york" magazine's john heilemann, "the washington post," nia-malika henderson, "the associated press"' kasie hunt and "the washington post" howard fineman. >> what would you like to say to mr. romney? >> good luck tonight. no, really. >> really. >> no, really, bring it on. for a long time there was a question whether the president would run on his record or just run against the republicans. this week that question was answered. here's a part of the new obama campaign film. >> how do we understand this president and his time in office? do we look at the day's headlines, or do we remember what we as a country have been through? >> our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions, that time has surely passed. chris: i talked to david on hardball this week and he believes an ulti

the house energy and commerce committee on president clinton's health care proposal. this is about 45 minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to thank you and the members of this committee for giving me this opportunity, but more than that, i want to thank you for the time that you have spent with me over the last months, as we have worked through a lot of the issues that will effect the future health care well-being of our country. i would also particularly like to thank the chairman for the good counsel that he has given to me, as i have pursued the issues related to health care reform. i think that is very appropriate for the chairman to have done, because as we all know, 50 years ago, the chairman's father introduced the dingell/murray/wagner bill, the first national health insurance legislation ever put before congress. the chairman's father understood the importance of providing health security for all americans. he fought vigorously to keep the idea alive in congress for 15 years, and you, mr. chairman, have continued that fight by introducing sim

one of these candidates is bill clinton. unfortunately, so is the other. >> there is a simple explanation for why this happened. >> so, lynnwood, let me go to you first. the compare and contrast ad, which we have seen in the last 30 to 40 years. >> well, i mean, i think it's very strong ad, it's a very good idea to call people out on them flip-flopping issues because people general little do not like people that flip back and forth. you see this when a person switches party, there are a lot of times, that's really not taken too well. and you have to question somebody's, you know, morals and, you know, question why they flip-flop and wonder if they truly believe what they're saying or if they are just saying what needs to be said to get elected. >> i mean, this is one of the most effective ads, when you can take what a candidate said at one point in time and show that the position has shifted. it's a way to make that individual look unprincipled, not having firm values, not really being a strong leader and so we've certainly

. >>> up next, how bill clinton became bill clinton.e a guy that went to school with bill clinton. we love bill clinton. we love talking about him. hillary clinton may be the next president. who knows. let's talk about this guy. he went to georgetown. he's also a writer of great fiction. he's not going to give us fiction now. this is "hardball," only on msnbc. investing technology is now within your grasp with the all-new e-trade 360 investing dashboard. e-trade 360 is the world's first investing homepage that shows you where all your investments are and what they're doing with free streaming quotes, news, analysis and even your trade ticket. everything exactly the way you want it, all on one page. transform your investing with the all-new e-trade 360 investing dashboard. transform your investing i'm always looking for new ways to help me manage my diabetes. take a look at this. freestyle lite test strips? they need just a third the blood of onetouch ultra. really? and the unique zipwik tab targets the blood and pulls it in. wow! look a

hillary clinton. here we are in the middle of march. i just reject this idea of... >> schieffer: one question. do you think it would be better if newt gingrich dropped out? >> i'm not going to be the referee for these guys. they'll have to decide for themselves. what's most important is that we elect a president that can not just give a speech, but can make a promise and keep a promise. and right now the american people know we're on the wrong track and we need a different president. >> schieffer: thank you so much, mr. chairman. >> you bet. >> schieffer: we'll be right back with our political round table in a minute. >> schieffer: welcome back now. ed gillespie is now a top strategist. rich lowrie is a busy man. he gets paychecks from fox news as a contributor, from "time" magazine as a columnist and he finds time to be editor of the "national review." >> when are you going to start paying me, bob? >> schieffer: (laughing) we're also joined by our own norah o'donnell, who does this on a voluntary basis. she's such a good citizen. ed, l

bush and bill clinton years ago. because it takes time. well, this president has shut down on-shore drilling. he's shut down off-shore drilling. he's shut down keystone. so now we're sitting in a place where we're no better off today than where we were three years ago. we've got a president that's now coming back on the campaign trail again talking about an "all of the above" energy policy. that's ridiculous. >> schieffer: what about mr. axelrod's assertion that it's your fault that the keystone thing got killed because you tried to force an early decision. >> i think myself and everyone in the studio chuckled all about at the same time when he said that. look, the republicans have been in favor of this keystone pipeline, 20,000 jobs. if there was ever such a thing as shovel ready projects here was one of them plus it would get us a step closer to energy independence. it wouldn't be the whole deal. but it's a step closer. this president has shut down everything when it comes to energy independence in this country. we're sitting on a wealth

clinton has been the target of this kind of venom.nd rush limbaugh of course, called her the sex-tary of state. and there's a long list of attacks on women, that are looked the other way, that are ignored by liberals, by conservatives, and she was reacting to it. good for her! >> but, the sandra fluke story, her testimony in front of congress was described as this attack on women and it was not, was it? >> when the media talk about women. they speak of a monolithic group and never conservative women the same. and new york times writing about women and discriminated against, had to acknowledge a plurality of women, believed that employers should be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage in their insurance poles. how many conservatives women are treated with the same respect at liberal women. it's not a monolith. anyone who thinks that women can be controlled is clearly not a married man. >> there you are. >> look at you. >> yeah! >> you have cnn said-- i'm sorry, the media research center. >> not exactly cnn. >> rolled out the red c

and now you've got bill clinton out there, you know, he's a -- i don't think bill clinton is particularly president obama don't have a very close relationship. >> he's not. >> so, you know, you can't -- this is not exactly a terribly controversial statement. i mean, he has held his tongue for the last three years. he hasn't given obama too much trouble. even when he wrote a book recently on what to do about the economy, which had some subtle jabs at the white house, it wasn't so bad. so i don't know. this is a little overblown. you've got to give clinton some credit for keeping his mouth shut, which must be very difficult under the circumstances. >> but that seems like a statement from somebody who doesn't have a political dog in the fight. this does seem like sort of a common sense solution, like, oh, yeah, why didn't everybody think about that before? and the reason is because each side had their bases to play to, and this became about nothing but politics. and a democratic congressman mentioned to me, do you know this oil will eventually be sold to china anyway? this is not for domesti

clinton, '96, 18. clinton, 2000, a 45. a president positive number.emocrats won the popular vote, lost the electoral college. bush in '04, a minus 11. bush in 2008, and the republicans a minus 116. so as you can see, it's sort of telling you the undercurrent of where things are. to show you how one poll with change the voter confidence index, let's look at the latest "washington post" news poll which shows president's approval rating dipping to 46%. this new poll changes the president's vci by a negative five points, changing it from a negative 15 to a negative 20 in our poll. now the take-away by the new vci, although the voter confidence index is not predictive who will win, does provide a frame of reference with how the mood of the country can respond to election results and shows some trend data over the last year. and if you look at it, president's trend data has been moving in the right direction as far as democrats are concerned on the vci. joining me now to talk about president obama's vci is vaughan verber for msnbc.com. all right. so we have

>> you had already had 15 months of hillary clinton and barack obama. you had the john edwards implosion. you had mccain's incredible collapse in 2007 and rebirth to we claim in 2008. these were people who were not normal politicians. they weren't interesting for politics. like john kerry is interesting for politics. these are really interesting people who are interesting to a wide swath of americans. they were celebrities. all of them you thought these people were household names. there was a lot of drama. these were bigger than life figures. that spells hollywood to me. >> isn't it interesting that a dramatic tale, a tale in 2008 is not about the clinton/obama showdown but about sarah palin. why is she the dramatic centerpiece do you think? >> really because of production and the necessity of telling a story well and having the character development that the story demanded in two hours. hbo wanted to make a two-hour movie. they tried for a long time, many months to write a script about clinton and obama in that narrative and two years opposed to 60 da

president bill clinton and his burgers. today, a different clinton. vegan. that's right, after years of heart trouble, the former president now with no meat at all. >> i mostly eat vegetables, fruits, and whole grain bread and i just feel better doing it. >> reporter: clinton may end up living longer. according to a sweeping new study whose headline is, the more red meat you eat, the more likely you are to die. >> higher red meat consumption was associated with a higher risk of premature death. >> reporter: when more than 120,000 americans recorded their diets for 20 years, researchers found eating just one serving more of red meat a day can increase your risk of death by 12%. your chances of dying of heart disease goes up by 16%. and cancer, by 10%. but keep in mind that one ser serving is only the size of a deck of cards. not close to the portions in a restaurant or probably even at home. processed meats, bacon, hot dogs, possibly even worst. >> both processed and unprocessed red meat has higher risk of premature deaths but the processed meat was definitel

and that's why the example of bill clinton you cited there is worth remembering. master politician, you know, one of the best ever. but at this point, this exact point 20 years ago, we were talking about -- people were talking about what a terrible candidate bill clinton was. how terribly bruised he had been by the process. all the scandals around them. gennifer flowers and all of that. clinton was a talented politician, is a much more talented politician than romney. but what changed for clinton that year, may, june, july, august, the unemployment rate really spiked. it went from around 7.2%, 7.3% to up near 8%. and that really changed the way people looked at the election. they were suddenly a lot more open to the idea of voting for the opposition party. a lot more hostile to the incumbent president. we haven't reached that point yet. if something like that happened with the unemployment rate now we'd see a similar effect. >> i think that's a good point. the fact that the republicans were building a lot of their presidential campaign hopes around the economy goi

it has hillary clinton on the case. from abc news, this is abc "world news" with diane sawyer. >>> good evening. we begin with breaking news on the massive earthquake hours ago in mexico. here is the moment it struck in mexico city, frightened workers frieding out the quake. one person said we didn't know whether to run or fall on the floor. out on the streets, mothers comforted their children until the quake passed. it seemed forever as a highway bridge was no match for the quake. a car was pulverized. the epicenter of the quake was 115 miles outside the beach resort of acapulco and thousands of american travelers are in the quake zone there. one of them, the president's oldest daughter and the white house weighed in on that today. as abc's david wright tells us about the moment of impact. >> reporter: the powerful quake hit around noon local time. a violent shaking motion. >> horrible, horrible. >> reporter: people felt it all the way to mexico city. abc's jose cohen is there. >> as you can see, people are afraid to g

democratic nominee but hillary clinton was staging big comebacks. she was winning the ohio primary. she was winning the texas primary. there were a lot of states in the future that hillary clinton was going to be very strong in. and there were still a lot of superdelegates that hadn't decided what to do. there was a chance if there was some controversy that erupted that disqualified obama as a democratic nominee, that was the only thing that could knock him off from ultimately getting the big prize. reverend wright was that kind of thing. when he and on the scene saying the incendiary things he said, obama immediately moved and said, look, i've wanted to give this speech for a while. this is a time to do it. he gave that speech you played the clip from, was roundly applauded for it across the political spectrum. then, of course, reverend wright came back on the scene shortly thereafter and said other disquieting things and that's when obama did something he didn't want to do in the initial race speech, really sever ties with reverend wright, throw him under the bus.

>> i'm hillary clinton, and i approved this message. >> so, timothy hatten, we start with you first, university of mount union. your reaction. >> yes. thank you for being with us again, mr. crawford. i do remember when this ad came out. it created quite a stir and quite a buzz. but i think primarily it was hillary's way of kind of asserting herself as a powerful force, as somebody who is capable of leading the free world. somebody who can make decisions, especially in terms of foreign policy. as a woman she was doubted on those issues. so i definitely think this is kind of her way of stepping up her game and probably getting on the same playing field as president obama. >> of course, one of the great ironies is she's getting that 3:00 a.m. call as secretary of state. >> doing a pretty good job of it. >> we'll go to one of the students from gettysburg college. if you could, introduce yourself. >> i'm elizabeth mueller, and i apologize if i repeat any of the questions. we can't really hear our friends in the other schools. i was just wondering when watched this clip on clinton and she

bill clinton.d won so many awards and honors at his arkansas high school the principal thought he needed to give someone else a chance and wouldn't let him run. we'll be right back. talk about repealing the 20-second amendment. now we know why the president wanted to repeal that one. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪ it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk. chocolate lemonade ? susie's lemonade... the movie. or... we make it pink ! with these 4g lte tablets, you can do business at

again, his process was particularly damaging, you look at more recent ones, wasn't as bad as clinton as it was for romney but the clinton example looms large as we look ahead to the fall, there are were a lot of reasons he turned it around but the biggest was the economy. it was bad early in '92 and got worse as the year progressed, that gave him an opportunity to hit the reset button and people gave him a fresh look, his numbers jumped that summer and fall. >> i went through all the nbc wall street journal favorability numbers, over the past year we've seen mitt romney's favorability -- with mitt romney's favorability numb berks the people who don't have an opinion has dropped by 15%. the number of people with an unfavorable opinion of him has gone up by about 15%. is that inevitable? that is case that bill clinton was making inevitable as people get to know you a good proportion of them will get to know you because they don't like you? >> that is part of it but part of problem for romney the basic unspoken proposition of the romney candidacy for republicans at the outset of the pro

bill clinton was pandering, frankly, to the right, when he did welfare reform. we all love bill clinton, but he was pandering for the right, and was excoriated on the floor of congress. i do not think anyone has the appetite -- this particular congress is one of the worst we have seen in a very long time, especially around issues for women and children. they do not mind cutting anything. they are running around the country, talking about austerity at the same time we are seeing people falling into poverty. [applause] tavis: so, you say this is the worst congress in recent memory, with regard to the rights of women. and what he specifically to collect -- connect this war on women in washington with poor women and their babies specifically. >> there has always been a war against the poor. this is not a country that has had a tremendous sympathy for poor people. the notion that somehow we have slipped into an era in which poor people do not matter is not quite the way our history would define it. we really do not care much about poor people. when we think about wha