back with our panel, david gergen, paul begala, erick erickson, john ridley and kate zernike. a victory for rangel is not necessarily the best thing for the democratic party. it allows republicans to say democrats talked about draining the swamp in washington and ending a culture of corruption, charlie rangel is facing allegations and at this point they are just allegations, but 13 ethics violation charges. >> i think that's right. it looks like he's going to win. but there's no question that the republicans would like to have him around. they'd like to keep him out there. look, after tonight there's a very real chance the conversation is going to turn to, is there some sort of civil war going on in the right, within republicans, conservatives, that sort of thing. are we seeing something like the 1960s where the rise of barry goldwater seized power back from the establishment but went on to get a real drubbing in the '64 national election and from that built a conservative movement that became quite powerful, but it took a while. republicans will not like that conversation muc

david gergen? >> big anti-establishment night. talk about d.c., a race of national significance.s going down there and looks like he's going down big tonight. appointed michelle rhee, trying to overhaul the d.c. schools. she's been fighting against a lot of different forces there. the mayor goes down tonight, it imperils some of the most important school reforms in the country. that is big news in the education reform community. >> paul? >> picking up on that, if you're interested in that issue, watch "waiting for superman." the guy who made an inconvenient truth, powerful case for school reform. but for me the story of the night is good news for conservatives, bad news for republicans. so on the net, this is actually a pretty good night for the democrats. >> paul begala smiling after this night. erick? >> in november, the national republican senatorial committee will try to take credit for senate gains, but if they get them, it will be in spite of them. yet again the national republican senatorial committee has been smacked down by the tea party. these people are totally detache

. >> but david gergen, she loses about three weeks ago. she's going to write a strong write-in campaign. you have to assume she knows the odds are incredibly long, and yet she wants to do this. >> it's a bizarre year, isn't it, john? and there's no question that if she gets in, it could easily split the republican vote and allow that seat to become a democratic seat. that would be a second potential major loss for republicans this week. so there is -- there's a -- from a republican standpoint just trying to gain seats, gain power in the senate, think this is a setback for the party overall. but it obviously reflected that this is a volatile year. she thinks she's got a clear and clearly there's something very personal about this, and there's a sense of hatfields versus mccoy. >> there is a hatfield versus mccoy. if you're sitting at home saying why do i care about an alaskan senate race, let me show you this in context. the republicans need ten seats. these are all democratically held right now. they hope they can win ten of the 13. if the

back with our panel, david gergen, roland martin and ari fleischer.roland you were about to say something? >> i get the whole deal in terms of wanting to criticize the mainstream media, but don't sit here and talk about piling it on. we need to bring up charlie rangel? wait a minute. the republicans brought up the same charges against her. the voters in the primary elected her. the allegations placed against charlie rangel, the voters there elect the him. what's the difference there? you should, as a person who stood and represented the president, you should be saying to her, answer the questions. this isn't piling on. and to suggest we are overspending in washington and people are tired of that, if you are spending campaign money for personal reasons, how are you then going to handle the people's money if you're put in the u.s. senate? it's about trust. >> roland, rewind the tape. the very first thing i said is these are issues she is going to have to answer to. that is -- >> yeah, but start justifying it by blaming the media. >> here's the point. he

let's bring back the panel and senior analyst david gergen, john ridley, kate zernike. d, we haven't heard from you tonight, obviously a big night for tea party candidates. >> it was, and the results were reverberating all the way here to texas. people are buzzing about this because it's the clearest rebellion we've had all season, the biggest anti-establishment vote that's occurring against republican candidates. i think there's one clear result out of delaware is the chances of republicans now gaining the senate have gone down significantly. delaware was an automatic pickup for republicans before mike castle went down. i'll tell you, anderson, for moderate republicans who are thinking about a future in the gop, this doesn't -- when mike castle goes down, who's been a popular governor, been a member of congress for many years, when he goes down to a tea party candidate, you've got a real insurgency going on in the party and it's leaving a lot of moderate republicans shaking their heads tonight. >> how does this play out in general elections? the amount of voter turnout

we'll check the facts and we'll talk to author bruce feiler and talk with david gergen and roland martinw the anger is spilling over to national politics. we'll also talk to those who are opposed to building the mosque and see if anything they've heard tonight has changed their minds. and cnn's newest hosts kathleen parker and eliot spitzer join us. we'll see you, soledad, at the top of the hour. >> anderson, thanks. that's in a couple of minutes. let's talk about your past. you've been working for the state department or with the state department for many years, under the bush administration and now as well. what exactly do you do? >> they have a visitors' program, an exchange program where they send people from this country, americans all over the world, to talk about things in latin america and various other subjects and they also invite people from other parts of the world to visit the united states, get to know the united states. >> that's a national security mission in a way? >> kind of an exchange visitors' program to get -- to build relationships between people in various profess

let's bring in senior political analyst david gergen, political analyst roland martin and ari fleischer. roland, what do you make about this? is this much ado about nothing? gary uncovering those checks written with campaign funds, small amounts. >> three words, integritity credibility and honesty. when people in the tea party are protesting saying the president of the united states and this congress is lying, when they say they cannot trust the word coming out of elected officials, these are critical matters. and i think sarah palin is disingenuous and ridiculous to assert you should only talk to fox news and only talk to friendly people. if mcdonnell wants to have the integrity and be a member of the united states senate she should have the guts to stand in front of the media and answer these questions if she has a plausible answer, fine, give it. but stop trying to run from it. deal with it head on and not ignore it. >> ari, what about it? is this nit-picking by democrats? >> i think these are issues she's going to have to deal with. that's what campaigns are about. but i think what'

cnn senior political analyst david gergen and ed rollins.chance that this seat's going to go democrat simply because it's a blue state and she's quite conservative. what's going on within the republican party? is this civil war being overplayed? >> the civil war's being overplayed. the civil war has occurred on many, many occasions in the past when the christian right became a part of it. when reagan took on ford, people said the republicans are never going to get back together again. they obviously have. this is one race, this is one race we may not win when we thought we were going to win. but there's other places we're going to win where we thought we were never going to win before. angle has come back in nevada. dead even with harry reid. this is an election that's obviously got lots of movement, lots of change. >> david, as democrats sit back and watch this take place, i know there were interesting statements made after christine o'donnell won from democrats. what's the thinking right now of where the party needs to go to set itself up

senior analyst david gergen. nice to have you here in the situation room.he bottom line here is china has been devalue waiting the currency. can china get away with this? >> they have so far. we're going to see growing trade tensions between the u.s. and china and europe and china. this is important to understand, china is the most important partner -- most important bilateral relationship in the world. they have the two power houses now that have to learn how to get along. but there is growing frustration in washington and a growing danger of some sort of trade war with china because there's a sense -- and tim geithner testified to this, china promised to stop keeping the currency artificially low, allow it to rise. it's risen like precious 1% since they made that promise. we have the issue now on the cars that they're saying, yeah, you can come and have a report -- there's a report that, yeah, you can come and sell cars in china but you have to give us the secrets on how you built the technology before you can get in. there's another report out there, suz

joining us to talk about that and more, senior political analyst, david gergen and gloria borger.re all republicans happy that karl rove is back? >> lots of those running for election are happy that karl rove is back. some of the tea party activists are not thrilled with him because he said that christine o'donnell and the state of delaware was unelectable. he was unhappy because he felt she could cost them control of the senate. but there are lots of republicans here who feel that the republican national committee is not doing some of the things that it needs be doing. and that they're thrilled with karl rove along with ed gillespie and former bush advisor are raising something like $32 million to help do things like get out the vote and run some attack ads in districts in which they feel they can really make a difference. >> david, can karl rove mastermind another republican political victory on november 2? >> i don't think he'll mastermind it, wolf. you know, there's a wave in this country that neither karl rove nor anyone else will control. but he can make a difference in some

but let's discuss with our senior political analyst gave gerggave -- david gergen who's trying to understands stunning upset yesterday. how does this change the national environment? >> well, wolf, we certainly know that the rebellion is real when a liberal state like delaware when a woman comes from nowhere in the polls and is able to pull off this kind of upset, the level of anger, frustration, disgust with the status quo i think is evident now all over the country. the tea party is clearly for real. now what this means in the near term, and i think by the way, we aunt to be very respectful of voters who are speaking because one thing has been very clear, is the elites don't understand the grass roots in this country right now. so those of us who are knocked down in the trenches the way some of these voters are, people have to say wait a minute, we need to respect them and listen to what they have to say. that on the table -- i just want to say in terms of the republicans, there's no question the chances of taking the senate have been diminished by the upset in delaware. >> i was going to

let's bring in senior political analyst gloria borger and david gergen. gloria, right now, 42% approve of the way the president's handling the job. 54 disapprove. on december 1 and 2, 42% approved, 49% disapprove. it's going in the wrong direction for the president. >> it is going in the wrong direction. if you go back to history, you look at figures for bill clinton right around the midterm election, the disastrous midterm election in 1994 when he lost control of the congress. and his approval rating was exactly the same. it was 42%. if this midterm election is a referendum on barack obama, it's going to be a lot of trouble for the democrats. >> you worked for bill clinton at the time, david. do you see a similar disaster on november 2 for barack obama that happened to bill clinton and the democrats back in '94? >> wolf, this poll certainly suggests that may be shaping up. it's almost relief -- bad news for the president and his team. what i find most surprising about the poll is 37% of people in the cnn poll say they would support a candidate approved o

joined by david gergen and gloria borger.things we're learning is the president's advice was rejected by the military but he overruled them. >> it was astonishing to me. you know more about this than i would because you've been in the white house. the president had to write his own memo, his own six-page memo, put it on the table. and say, okay, guys, is this clear enough for you? because he wasn't hearing what he wanted to hear from his advisors or the military. this is a president -- i spoke with lots of folks inside the white house who were in these afghanistan reviews. they made it clear to me -- this was a president very concerned about mission creep. wanted to learn the lessons from vietnam. didn't want his generals to dictate either the timing or the size of his policies. and the troops. he had to write it down himself. it's extraordinary. >> never seen a president do that, six-page memo saying here's the policy. you sell it to the level below you. here's the general direction, write it up, i'll approve it. i think thi

joining us now is our senior political analyst, david gergen.at depression. it's now technically over, but for millions of americans it certainly doesn't feel over. >> it sure doesn't. you know, reagan used to say that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job and a depression is when you lose your job. and for an awful lot of americans right now, their neighbors still don't have work. even if you're working, everybody knows at least one person and most people know a lot more than one person who doesn't have a job. and it feels like a recession. and it -- you know, this is so painful coming out of this, so slow coming out of this. you know, wolf, there's been a lot of talk about are we entering a lost decade like japan's? there's a lot of evidence that we've been going through a lost decade. incomes have been flat for ten years. we haven't created new jobs over the last ten years. these are rough times for people. >> you know, mark zandi, the chief economist for moody's, he said this is clearly a jobless recovery. it may be a recovery, but

let's talk about this a little bit more with our senior political analyst, david gergen. are you surprised that rubio, who has been a favorite of the tea party movement, is doing as well as he is against charlie crist who had been a popular governor? >> a little surprised but consistent with the national trend. there are a number of states that barack obama is below 50%. where republicans are doing increasingly well in some of the senate races. marco rubio is one good example. he started to pull away some. and illinois -- another state where the republican candidate for the senate, rob portman starting to pull away some. whereas in california -- and i know you'll have more to say about this as the nigh t goes o, but in florida where barack obama remains popular, 50%, you have a strong race for the democrats. both for the governor and for the senate race. so that has a lot to do with how these things are going. and in florida, you have a three-way race. and, crist, the republican who turned independent is now caught in the squeeze between the republican, marco rubio who wo

let's bring in our cnn political analyst david gergen and cnn national security contributor fran townsend, fran is also an external board adviser to both the cia and the homeland security department. he makes these allegations, david. how's the west with, how is the united states supposed to respond to this? >> walking out's the best way. and keeping these sanctions on and tightening them if possible much the good news is, wolf, that the sanctions seem to be biting a little more than they have in the past. this is the fourth round, of course, but there have been some additional sanctions put on by the united states and european nations. russia seems more on board with them. but there's no resolution. we have still got this mad man running iran. almost impossible to deal w and some point, the world is going to start to ask how much longer is the diplomacy going to go on and when are we really going to get tough? >> the sad thing, fran, as you well know there are a lot of people out there around the world who do believe that the united states had some sort of role in a conspiracy that led t