that lasted for 60 or 90 days then i think the campaign, david plouffe and everybody else decided the only way they n win thisace is a very partisan very bitter polarized battle. i don't think they think they can appeal to independent voters in an open bipartisan way that's going to work so what i think they want to do is create enough enthusiasm among their partisan ranks and hopefully do enough de-enthuse the republican ranks so they can win a race that's a much more polarized rac bill daley, him leaving, is the final signal that what you're going to see over the next ten months is not appeals to swing voters but a total partisan attack. >> rose: do you hear the same thing, norah? >> i don't think you have to remove the chief of staff of the white house in order to run a partisan campaign. david plouffe and certainly his team in chicago could have done that with bill daley keeping the trains running on time at the white house. bill daley had come on board. about a year ago, he promised to stay two years. he is leaving one year later. it's because this white house was beset by a lot

he was undercut by david plouffe ink it's bill daley's fault they had problems on capitol hill. harry reid gets mad at everybody. i think it was the fact that he never had the... the president of the united states chose not to intervene and say "he's my chief." i think he was undercut from almost day one. >> rose: does that make sense? you had deal with them when they wanted to nominate y to be a mber of the cabinet. >> well, i was a big fan of bill daley's. i think laefs very positive force to bring into the white house. i regret it didn't work out. jack lew is an equally positive force. i worked very closely with him when he was running with basically the financial activities at the state department rand then as o.m.b. director because of my position on budget and appropriations and he's a straight shooter, he's got a lot of credibility up on the hill on both sides of the aisle. he's partisan, no question about that. bu he's fair and he' tell you what he thinks and listen to what you think and give you a fair hearing. so i think it's a good choice but it does show, as al has p

after that, white house senior adviser david plouffe previews president obama's state of the union speech at the u.s. conference of mayors, and later more from the mayors' conference with a discussion on funding job training and education improvements. >> mr. speaker, the president of the united states! [cheers and applause] >> tuesday night, president obama delivers his state of the union address. live coverage begins at 8 p.m. eastern including the president's speech, republican response by indiana governor membership daniels, and your phone calls live on c-span and c-span radio. on c-span2, watch the president's speech along with tweets from members of congress, and after the address more reaction from house members and senators. throughout the night go online for live video and to add your comments using facebook and twitter at c-span.org. >> and welcome to las vegas and the consumer electronics show 2012. every year about 140,000 people and 3,000 companies large and small attend this show to look at the latest and newest in electronics. for the next several weeks on "the communicator

we expect him to lay out some help for homeowners and also, as you just heard david plouffe say increase taxes on wealthy, those are sort of the things we're expecting to hear tonight, but chuck, a lot of people are paying very close attention to the president's tone this evening in recent weeks and months. he's essentially been staking his reelection in running against a do-nothing congress. it will be interesting to see how suddenly other overtly that theme is really introduced tonight during the state of the union address. i spoke with white house officials this morning who tell me the president will spend his day putting the finishes touches on the state of union address, practicing his delivery and will deliver it this evening. tomorrow, which is customary, the president will hit the road and try to sell some key features. this is something we expect from presidents after he deliver their state of the union address, but it takes on new meaning during an election year, so key battleground states including iowa, arizona, nevada, colorado and michigan. he's really been hammered by repu

david plouffe is senior adviser to president obama. and david, thank you for being with us.nic here in the studio put it, and we won't name any names, the message, the takeaway from the president in one view tonight, nothing of real consequence is going to come out of this chamber in the next legislative term. we'll settle this in the campaign, but in the meantime, here are a few things i believe about our country. true or false? >> false, brian. thanks for having me. you know, the president laid out tonight a very optimistic blueprint for how we really build in this country an economy that's built to last, that rewafrds hard work and responsibility, make sure everybody does their fair share. now the president made clear he's not going to stand by and let gridlock and inaction block progress. we'll continue to do thins in the area of energy and housing, holding financial firms accountable, protecting consumer. but we do thing that congress will and must act on some things to help the economy and the middle class. we thing there are areas like energy, education reform, buildi

didn't want a chief of staff, they wanted somebody who would actually let the political people, david plouffego, continue to run things. and they didn't want outreach to business because that would mean a change in policy, and they didn't really want to work with republicans in congress, and daley didn't get along particularly well with some of the leading democrats because he did want to work with republicans in congress. so this is a bad move. we're now on the fourth chief of staff in, essentially, three years, and you're entering an election year. now, they have brought in a technician. they took the director of the office and management of budget, jack lew, and moved him over. but to me this says that the head of the white house staff are the political people, namely david plouffe and to a lesser extent valerie jarrett. but this was a bad fit right from the start. to me, there was a mystifying moment. president obama named him, and shortly thereafter the white house put out a very odd news release, and it caught my eye at the time that it came out. it made a list of all of the other west

david plouffe, the top political strategist joins us.want to begin with the tax returns of mitt romney. at 6:03 a.m., an e-mail, a blast, from the democratic national committee. saying the tax release raises more questions than answers. what more do voters need to know? >> there will be 47 more republican primaries and kau cau caucuses. the voters will have their say. the president will talk in the state of the union something that warren buffett talked about. he should not pay less in taxes than his secretary does. the president will talk about the buffett rule. we make sure everybody is doing their fair share. >> do you think it's wrong that mitt romney only pays about 15%? >> we need to change our texas system. middle class workers shouldn't be paying more than people making $40 million, $100 million a year. we have rules of the road in place. rime sure mitt romney tried to follow them. we need change in our tax code. everybody has to do their fair share. that will be an important part of growing the economy. >> we saw the favorabilit

. >>> we begin with senior adviser david plouffe. good morning. >> good morning, charlie. >> what can the president say this evening that might bring paul ryan to work with him on issues that concern the country? >> well, what the president's going to lay out tonight, charlie, at this make-or-break moment for the middle class is a blueprint how to build an economy that was built to last. we saw an economy built on bad debt and financial instruments. that didn't work. it caused a crash and we're still recovering from it. we know what to do here. 2011 was the best job-producing year since 2005. but given the hole that the recession caused, we even got so much more work to do. investing in american manufacturing, making sure we're seizing a new era of american energy, working on the skills and educations for our workers and renewals of american values. >> as you cite those, thing you must know speaker boehner says this is simply a rehash and it will not fly in the white house. >> listen. speaker boehner and ryan will hopefully listen to

there's nothing that david plouffe and david axelrod and the white house worry about more than the democratic base deciding to stay home in november. this just inflames them in a way that is just going to motivate them to turn out, out of anger and ire directed at a republican party that they see as being disrespectful and inflammatory toward the president. >> and there's an insult to voter intelligence in here. his complaint is that the president is out campaigning for reelection, which every incumbent president has done. they go out campaigning for reelection. >> sure, of course. but i think there's two parts to this. on the one part, it is true that it was just stupid because it does galvanize the president's base. it makes us remember why we're in this thing. it also as a chairman of the party who is supposed to grow the base of the party and as you say, you cannot win a national election in the united states of america without some portion of the african-american vote, the latino vote, independents, conservative democrats. and that kind of ignorance doesn't get you there. but there is an

raid of osama bin laden to the payroll tax cut fight, he never clicked with the inner circle, david plouffe and valerie jarrett. those tensions are on display in a book, the obama's by jody cantor of the "new york times" ramsey clashing with jarrett and michelle obama over healthcare reform. >> they haven't disputed the facts and the book is clear about the fact it's based on interviews -- >> the book features robert gibbs cursing the first lady after jarrett told them mrs. obama was not happy with the way he handled a report suggesting she hated being in the white house. quote, you don't know what the expletive you're talking about gibbs said. jarrett responded the first lady would not believe you're speaking this way. gibbs fired back, expletive her too. the white house doesn't deny that incident but says various antidotes are exaggerated. >> it's a remarkably harmonious place given what's debated here every day. >> rare for a president to change chief of staff at the beginning of a election year but he's been named cochair of the campaign in chicago and there will be a spot for robert gi

. >> governor dean, put -- imagine you're david plouffe or david axelrod or you're the president himselfrack obama, and you've watching all this like we're all watching. they all pretend they are not watching, especially the president but they are watching, what do you want to happen? do you want santorum to do really well tonight, even win tonight to just scramble this thing up? >> absolutely. >> go ahead then. >> absolutely. that's exactly what you want, chris. you want santorum to win. hopefully he'll win by five or six points which i think he could do, and then go on to south carolina and win that one. you want this thing to go to the convention, if you can help it. >> well, governor dean, why don't you and i endorse mitt romney and help santorum out tonight. >> that would be a big help. let's do that tomorrow, al. >> what kind of turnout do you think is going to be out there, howard? everybody is saying not real enthusiastic and -- and who benefits from a good turnout? >> my own -- you know, you guys know this better than me. my own view is it will be a good turnout for the republic

beating barack obama who's going out in the field and basically providing $5 million of research for david plouffein with. this certainly sets the narrative earlier than the obama team would have wanted to, but it provides a test market, like david said, it lets you see what works, what doesn't work, whether the carcass imagery is going to help. >> vultures. >> turkey buzzards and what have you. it really does help them early on. >> again, we talked about this earlier, though, steve. the gap between a campaign, a populous campaign, and between what the country is, the country is not about resentment. i think nearly everyone agrees. the country is about achievement. how do you thread that needle in terms of the attacks on romney, which you view as some of them being unfair, how do you thread that needle? >> i think it's hard because there are some genuine criticisms you could make about capital. they are very sophisticated and very subtle. the broad attack that rick perry made is just ron. i think the american people are going to figure it out. this is a little bit like romney care. this is a chanc

new york city mayor michael bloomberg and senior advisor david plouffe.romney will hold a campaign rally on jobs and the economy in north charleston, south carolina. you can see live coverage at 3:45 eastern. >>> and coming up in 45 minutes, presidential candidate rick santorum will take your questions. then

senior white house adviser david plouffe joins us. what does the president hope to accomplish tonight? >> reporter: anderson, for weeks, we have been listening to republicans take center stage. tonight, the president will get a huge audience and he will use it to try to define his campaign message. his aides do not want this campaign to be a referendum on his stewardship of the economy. tonight, he will use the opportunity to try to define a contrasting vision, two contrasting visions about the future of the economy. to listen for him to argue that he is trying to fight for a future in which hard work can help regular americans get ahead, but that there are forces out there that are protecting special interests and the wealthy. he won't name them but you'll know who they are. really, what he's doing is he's using this opportunity now to define the terms of the debate for the upcoming election before there's even a republican nominee. >> is this a sta"state of the union" address or is this a campaign speech? >> reporter: it's a cam --

once axlerod left, and succeeded by david plouffe and gentleman jaert is attacking gibbs, the first ladyquestion and turns out she's not tense at all. and that kind of thing drives you nuts. >> sean: and we've got too many for the white board. >> you were mentioning florida. bad news in the president. in that 44% of the voters in florida believe he deserves reelection and 52% don't. he's losing to mitt romney, and ahead 46-43, but there's 52% of the people today don't think he ought to be reelected. that means that once this republican contest is finished, whoever the nominee is, has a chance to grow that lead from being three points to being a, you know, an essentially an eight point lead in florida. if you lose florida by eight points, it signals a significant amount of distress around the country. >> sean: karl rove, thanks for being with us. >> appreciate it. thanks for having me, sean. >> sean: next several rights activist dr. cornell west tonight. we go head to head on what america needs in order to restore prosperity and also he attacked herman cain, saying he was smoking a symbol

. >> i would argue, and from my feeling of it is, basically david plouff and bill daley were sort ofs over the other, i wouldn't make a distinction between the two. but the two of them were supposed to be co-equal partners. >> i want to ask you. i don't have time for this. a couple of minutes on this. big story out of the "new york times." what's her name? >> jodi cantor. >> it's going to be a big book coming out tomorrow, i believe. it talks about this dysfunction in the white house. a big fight between rahm emmanuel, the former chief of staff and the first lady. what do you think? is it there? have you seen the fight? >> i've not seen the fight but i've heard quite a bit it from folks who worked in the east wing. it certainly rings true. one thing about bill daley if there's one thing he did well and that was on the first days he called michelle obama to let her know that he was there and more kind of integration of the east wing and west wing. >> was there an ideological struggle left and right between rahm emmanuel and the first lady? was she more progressive, more liberal, wanti

eric cantor of virginia and senator mitch mcconnell followed by senior adviser to the president, david plouffe and leon panetta at defense and hillary clinton at state. >> the first nongovernment lawyer lobbyist named at number 19 is nbc news chief washington correspondent chuck todd. d.c. restauranteur jose andres is number 41. event planners are 42nd. mets pitcher stephen strasberg, 47, new owners of politics and prose come in at number 50. congrats to them all. >> all of them. >> they wanted to be on the list. >>> hey, wendy's app of the day is next. >>> thrill seekers who wouere looking for something interesting to do will head to the world's highest free fall. >>> plus, travel experts offer advice if your bea to book a advice if your bea to book a cruise never in my lifetime did i think i could walk 60 miles in 3 days. if my mom can fight and beat breast cancer, i can walk 60 miles. (woman) the fund-raising was the easiest part. people were very giving. complete strangers wanting to help. i knew someday i was gonna do this walk. if i can do this, you definitely can do this. we can do this

that sounds a lot like what david axelrod or david plouffe have said about mitt romney that he lacksp on the bain attack that the obama team has made on mitt romney. so that's one way. if newt gingrich should be the eventual nominee, well mitt romney has said he's an unreliable leader. can't you see that used in a team obama advertisement down the line saying we don't have to tell you this, republicans have said it about their own nominee. so there's that, and it also buys the president plenty more time for him to go out and sort of "be above the fray" selling his own agenda, wolf. >> where is the president tonight, jessica? >> he is here at the white house and as you may know the white house likes to say he doesn't focus on election terms, but i'm sure he gets briefed, wolf. >> i'm sure he does. thanks very much, anderson back to you. >> gloria, you've been talking to establishment republicans in congress. what are you hearing about newt gingrich and concerns? >> well they're worried. i spoke with one today who was worried if newt gingrich is at the top of the ticket they lose the h

but i really think it speaks to the fact that the real power in the west wing is through david plouffe. >> we are entering political season here. not that big of a surprise i don't think. going for it. everyone thought there was a chicago relationship between president obama and bill daley. they hardly knew each other before this. i think we are seeing that. it ended up not being a good choice. >> bret: i want to put this in context of where we are sitting in the environment. the new book has come out, "the obamas" by jodie cantor. a book by all accounts says some interesting things. the book features the peace secretary robert gibbs cursing the first lady after valerie jarret told him mrs. obama was not happy after he handling the reporting saying she suggested she hated being in the white house. you don't know what the expletive you are talking about, gibbs said. the first lady would not believe you are speaking this way and he fired back, expletive her, too. here is what jay carney said about it. >> books like these tend to overhype and sensationmize things and i think that is case

if you're david plouffe, you're smiling. you're thinking, my god. is god this great? charge by his fellow republicans, plural, that this guy is a corporate raider in our midst? >> i have been wondering if people from chicago have been spending time in new hampshire working for the gingrich campaign. the reason they are perhaps more powerful or stinging is they are coming from newt gingrich himself. these ads are going to play, if mitt romney wins the nomination, in newt's own words. but the question is, there's a lot of backlash from republicans. from rush limbaugh. it is predictable. we'll see how the speaker gingrich comes out of here tonight. if he is limping out of here, the attacks are going to lose some steam. but the damage is done. they are on video tape. >> pigs squeal when they are stuck. generally, pigs squeal when they are stuck. all these people to the largest mouth on the right, the fact they are all coming outç togetr as a chorus, we hurt. the wagon train is under attack. it is carrying them back into power if romney wins. >> there's a view about prima

david plouffe, jim messina, the grand strategists of all of this, have a customized approach to thisoming election and i think so far they're showing that they can make some gains, at least, at least establish what they need to establish for that to have a chance of succeeding. >> to that point of establishing what they -- the points they want to make, they came out with a new campaign video with the president laying out promise his made to americans in 2008 that he kept. let me play a little bit of that video. >> i'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available to every single american. i'll be a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and put the middle class tax cut into the pockets of working americans who deserve it. >> so he's got accomplishments that he can talk about, whether bin laden or the tax cuts but he's going today into a state like ohio where not only is the economy in bad shape but when they do head-to-head matchups he does not do well in the key battleground state. so how does he turn it around? >> if you

if you're the president in the white house, you're david plouffe, if you're axelrod, all the big thinkers, valerie jarrett and the rest of them and you're mitt romney, are you worried that you might be seeing the beginning of the end on the right? that they are beginning to realize that one of the two guys will probably be the counter to romney, that's either rick santorum or newt gingrich. one of the two will probably have to carry the banner. are they begin to coalesce that 75% that just doesn't like romney? >> the short answer is no. they are not coalescing just yet, and rick santorum has to prove here in new hampshire that he's a guy to coalesce around. if he hits a trough here and does poorly here, that will reinforce the notion that he was only the seventh and last temporary front-runner in iowa. >> right. >> and so, no, i don't think so. i think the fact that rick perry decided to stay in the race, at least until south carolina is not meant as a pro-rick santorum move. if anything, that might benefit mitt romney. mitt romney's whole plan is to keep the rest as divided as long as po

david plouffe, the top political strategist, joins us. good morning, david. i want to begin with the tax returns from mitt romney overnight. i'll get to the state of the union in a second. at 6:03 a.m., an e-mail, a blast e-mail saying mitt romney's tax return release raises more questions an answers. what more do voters need to know about mitt romney's taxes and his wealth? >> well, george, there will be 47 more republican primaries and caucuses. and those republican voters will have their say on this specifically. i do think it raises a general point about our tax system here. and one of the things the president can talk about in the state of the union tonight is something that warren buffett famously talked about, that he should not pay less in taxes than his secretary does. the president will talk about the buffett rule. gearing to outline that specifically tonight what that would mean. so that we make sure everybody in this economy is doing their fair share which is an important part of how we're going to create jobs. >> so, you think it's wrong that mit