meanwhile, a new rutgers eagleton poll finds governor christie leading mayor booker in a hypotheticale, 53 to 34%. joining me now, david corn and msnbc political analyst, jonathan allen, senior washington correspondent for politico. david corn, let's talk about cory booker for a moment, who i think was poised to run for governor probably prior to chris christie's poll numbers going where they are now, but shouldn't he be looking more seriously at frank lautenberg's senate seat? he's 88 years old. his seat's up in 2014. he will be 90 years old. i, for one, cannot imagine lautenberg running for re-election at age 90. that's going to be an open seat, isn't it? >> it looks like it. if he ran against christie, i guess they could have a contest on who helped obama the most in 2012 and christie might win this. lawrence, you know politicians better than anybody. until they're actually willing to el us their decision, everything's an open door. christie has higher approval numbers than probably bruce springsteen would have in the state. it remains to be seen if the numbers will stay that high.

[laughter] if you lived through the mcgovern, eagleton year, the church committee years in the 1970s,it's amazing how much we rebounded our appreciation for the need of intelligence collection on the ground and in the air. >> [inaudible] >> sir, you mentioned the national security apparatus have become very adept at targeting and destroying terrorist networks. do you think that with the war in afghanistan winding down and the country trying to smooth out its budget, do you think we'll be able to retain that same level of competency in finding and destroying the networks? >> yeah, i do. i don't think they are the most costly items in the budget. in fact, they are coast effective, and i think we've -- cost effective, and i think we've developed such a high level of expertise, in many cases, with young people who just enlisted ten years ago or signed on to the cia ten years ago who now accumulated a tremendous amount of experience. i thought we're going to lose that capability any time soon, and i think that we are going to continue to need it so i would be very surprised to see that ero

believe me, if you lived through the sort of mcgovern, eagleton years and the church committee years in the 1970s, it is surprising how much we've rebounded our appreciation for the need for intelligence collection both on the ground and in the air. okay? >> [inaudible] >> sir, you mentioned that the national security apparatus and the counterterrorism p apparatus have become adealt at targeting and destroying these terrorist networkings. do you think with the war in afghanistan winding down and the country trying to smooth out its budget, do you think we'll be able to retain that same level of competency in finding and destroying these networks? >> yeah, i do. i think that we, as i said, i don't think these are the most costly items in the budget. in fact, they're very cost effective, and i think we've adopted such a lie level -- such a high level of expertise in many cases with young people who maybe just enlisted ten years ago who have now accumulated a tremendous amount of experience. i doubt that we are going to lose that capability anytime soon, and i think we are going to cont

. >> chris, before you go, i wanted to ask you about this rutgers eagleton poll that has governor chrisal rating at 67% among registered voters in new jersey up from 48% in october. also other numbers coming out this morning saying that people in new york city seem to prefer his handling of sandy to any other politician. >> yeah. well, the man has style. and i think most people in new jersey would say, as peggy noonan said in her column right before the election, he will be popular in new jersey. he won't be so popular in republican party circles because he did seem to help the president there a bit. although nate silver and others don't think it was the reason he won or anything. but i do think he has style. and i know in philadelphia where i keep in touch, and south jersey, they love him. regular people in my family. they're very regular people. they like him because that attitude, as we say in philly, attitude, and the fact he is able to tell somebody on a college show it's none of your business where my kids go to school. people really like that attitude. they're sick of politicians