come from different ends of the political spectrum but our next guest says rick santorum and george mcgovernity. both men riding a wave of grassroots support and neither one getting support from their party's establishment. of course mcgovern lost in a land slide to nixon, in 1972. so is santorum on the same path heading for a big political wipeout? susan estrich is a professor of law and political science at the university of southern california, also a fox news contributor. susan, further connect the dots between rick santorum and george mcgovern. >> well, let me asked barry goldwater into that, as well, a republican commentator, this week took the same position i think as i did but added goldwater into the mix. i think the question is, who is in charge, the political elite? the establishment, the elected officials? the money people who are going to pick the nominee, based on the electability or the grass roots, who are much more ideological and, you know, the street folks in the party. who are going to decide who the nominee is. and if you go back to mcgovern or back to goldwater, in both

and you saw what happened to george mcgovern. chris: and on these sticky topics like, first of all, even if you go to church and you're a catholic, you don't hear birth control since the 1950's. >> i'm not defending them by any stretch of the imagination but can having to appeal to the hard, most fundamentalist base to get elected in the primaries, i do think it's deep within the republican party, hatred may be too strong a word, they detest obama and that will work poorly in the election because that's a motivator to get people out to the polls. and they parted -- it has people saying, listen, i got to get to the polls. so whether that is seeping over, whether it's leeching over into other parts of the electorate will be very interesting to see. chris: i wonder about that, too. >> the turnout has been down in all these republican primaries. chris: last time around we had more people say they weren't going to vote for obama than did. he beat the polls and the spread. i wonder this time if there isn't this leeching, this undercurr

look, 1972 george mcgovern was the candidate of the count culture and anti-war movement. he had a tremendously powerful movement like the gold waurlt movement in terms of intensity and belief and conviction. my friend rick sterns were organizing it. he won it. we won 49 states. a

operative for two of the greatest liberal icons of the 20th century, bobby kennedy and senator george mcgovern who ran the most liberal campaign for president as a nominee of the democratic party that this country has ever seen. friday night on the news hour on pbs, he had this to say about the obama administration's decision that will require catholic institutions to provide contraceptive coverage in health care plans for their employees. >> the fallout is cataclysmic for the white house and for the president. >> joining me now is mark sheels. mark, thanks very much for joining me tonight. >> good to be with you, lawrence. >> don't go on and on. we can't talk all night like on pbs, because we have commercials here, mark, okay? we have to get to a commercial eventually. tell us -- a lot of our viewers haven't heard the case you're making about why this is cataclysmic for the president. talk about it on policy grounds and talk about it on political grounds. >> okay. first on policy grounds. it's an incredibly narrow constructionist definition of religion. it basically says to the catholic churc

1960's, had seared in their brains the famous line about the democratic operative talking about george mcgovern, amnesty, asset and abortion, the left was going to shoot itself in the foot by pursuing cultural issue, that wedge issues always beat the left. you break the country in half and the right gets a bigger half in the words of richard nixon, it's no longer the case. the polling on all these issues showed the wedge works in the other direction. right? and it's very hard for everybody who came of age during an entire 20 year period in which that wasn't the case, right? in which a lot of these were controversial, were unpopular, were minority positions to understand the tide has actually turned. that these are majority positions, there is this sense that this is risky, this is avant guard and it's not. >> majority of voters are women and more than 90% of women use birth control. >> john mccain lost by 13 points, this is not something republicans can afford. >> chris hayes, thank you very much, this is off hours for you, thank you. chris hayes weekend is "up with chris hayes" must-see viewin

wallace beat george mcgovern, and the state has been doing it ever since. >> and then i thought i could the nomination on my own. >> free the people! thank you very much! >> that's right. you saw it there. ted kennedy beat then president jesse carter in 1980. jesse jack san beat the eventual nominee. although the odds are in romney's favors, there's a big chance to pull an upset. joining me now, a man who covered the michigan upset. tom brokabrokaw. >> if you remember, i thought the most striking one in many ways was what happened in 2008 when john mccain was declared doa after south carolina. he wins in new hampshire. but he goes to south carolina. the bush team gets it back together. they think they've got a straight road all the way to the nomination. next week in michigan, mccain pops back up again. we've been talking this morning, and i've been watching a lot. i think that santorum ad reaching out to democrats could be a factor here. because you can show up and vote as a democrat by saying i'm a republican today. and santorum has an ad out. >> none of them led to the winner becomin

you've got a couple of delegates there who become united states senators, one of which is george mcgovern. and they kind of go off on to their own, but their campaign is downward, downward, downward with the progressives. the dixiecrats meet again, they nominate strom thurmond. all the while things are going on in the world and in the country. as the conventions are meeting, uncle joe stalin decides he's going to blockade berlin. so what do you do, do you start a world war? do you send the convoys in? or do you do an air lift? do you figure out how to do an air lift to supply the people of west berlin before they riot and demand communism? and america figures out how to do that. and one of the things going on, you've got the return of the peacetime draft. now, world war ii it was a segregated army. the blacks are saying, okay, we put up with that during the war. we're not putting up with that again, and a. phillip randolph says to harry ru -- truman, you do this again, i'm going to have a march on washington. before martin luther king, march on washington. and you you know something? we'v

george mcgovern and bob dole worked on hunger for years together on a bipartisan basis. they shown a spotlight on issues, and because of who they were, it moved the country and it moved the legislative process. it's harder to break through now. >> because of so much noise? >> so much noise. so much noise. >> let me get back to an issue which i consider to be enormously important. a lot of folks inside the beltway especially focus on the institution of the senate, which is by definition fascinating. 100 people, different personalities, different states, different political compositions and makes for an interesting dynamic. but i personally believe that what is far more important is the relationship between what goes on in the senate and the needs of the american people. theoretically you could have a wonderful senate, bright people, they all love each other, all get look and the country goes to hell. that's not a great senate. that's a failed senate in my view. and as you describe, during the '60s and '70s, tremendous problem facing this country, today, even more dramatic

sentiment within the tea party folks that ty are being jogged once again, remember how late george mcgovern'scceptance speech was. there was a potential to turn that info must be and that's assuming he's the nominee coming into the convention has to do a lot of negotiation if that other group gets enough strength. >> i think the tea party coalescing around the candidate and their performance hasn't been the problem. they've wantedo and they've been ready to coalesce behind somebody and they've tried. they went to try to rick pier, the -- rick perry the governor of texas. he led the race. every time they go to a leader, they become incompetent or do they. they went to rick perry they were ready to do that he led the polls he failed didn't perform well. they went to newt gingrich, he doesn't perform well. the tea party is still a major force in the republican party, wants to coalesce behind a candidate, does not like mitt romney but every person they settle on has had flaws or hasn't performed well. that's been a problem, a candidate or leader problem not a tea party organizational problem. >>

the democrats kind of lost their way as well with my fellow south d dakotan george mcgovern.came to omaha because he got a good reception. there couldn't have been a more engaging man privately than barry goldwater, completely different than his public persona of the angry guy from the southwest. it was fascinating to watch him, you couldn't help but develop an affection for him. i think if that part of him had shown through he probably would have, i don't think he could have beaten lyndon johnson under the circumstances but emerged as a different candidate and later in his life in fact he did become a very beloved figure of the senate. >> tom, stay with us if you can i like to bring in david gregory, the moderator of meet the press, also with us from dc. thank you for being with us. >> sure, rachel. >> when you look at this too close to call situation that we've got right now in michigan, that is not a final result but mitt romney won by 9 in 2008. and mitt romney is not a guy who has never run for president before, he has been doing this a long time. was too hard for him to