i knew jack kennedy. jack kennedy was a friend of mine. senator, you are no jack kennedy. >> why would senator who everybody tells me went to princeton and harvard and is very smart be such a dingbat about history inthat is the right word for it? >> i am a reporter and my sense is with cruz there is a confidence that has propelled his candidacy but rubs a lot of people in congress and the republican party the wrong way. they see swagger and flare for the dramatic that has made his own party his foil and his target and they don't like it. >> doesn't anybody who works with him know what jack kennedy said and what bobby kennedy said and when he does his imitation of one he gets the guy wrong? he is swinging for the fences with i don't know a roll of toilet paper. thank you katy tur and hallie jackson and robert costa. warning signs. hillary clinton and the democratic establishment getting nervous about bernie sanders. wait until they see the numbers tonight. sanders rise in the polls has coincided with a more forceful warning call. i'm going

jack kennedy was articulate, quick honesty, incredibly literate.he mixed that kind of hard-nosed, backroom austin politics with a sense of higher calling, and she really saw that as an enormous accomplishment. accomplishment. >> was at the 1960 campaign that won her over or was it after that? >> it was a 60 campaign and i think was in the run up to the 60 campaign when they had a lot of back and forth. i think very appreciated that not only was he a person who had soaring language and could inspire people, but is also willing to engage in real politicking. i think as much as mary like adlai stevenson, the fact he was always late come he was never very good at shaking hands, he did like to do and the sun. he was kind of a disaster as retail politician. i think she was quite pleased by that point. it was a very exciting time for. >> be right in the book that at the time of the assassination, her writings during that period were some of the most, the best of her career. walk us through, i mean, she was emotionally rocked as the whole country was. the

sharyl: that was when a young and suntanned jack kennedy was given the win in the first televised debate over richard nixon. >> nixon was awarded the win by radio listeners. sharyl: primary debates can produce memorable moments. >> i am paying for this microphone mr. -- [cheers and applause] [laughter] >> you're likable enough, hillary. sharyl: so, how much interest have this election's debates generated? americans are watching in record numbers. democrats have held three of six planned primary debates with each averaging about 10.8 million people watching. in terms of viewers, republicans are winning by huge margins. like democrats, the gop is also close to halfway through its 12 planned primary debates drawing in an average of 18.5 million viewers -- eight million more than democrats. howie: debates have never been mo more important in shaping the perception of the candidates,personas, their perceptions, and how they think and act on their feet sharyl: when it comes to money, modern-day debates are highly produced profit makers. company please -- companies reportedly paid cnn $200,000

sharyl: that was when n young and suntanned jack kennedy was given the win in the first televised debate over richard nixon. >> nixon was awarded the win by radio listeners. sharyl: primary debates can produce memorable moments. >> i am paying for this microphone mr. -- [cheers and applause] [laughter] >> you're likable enough, hillary. >> let's see -- i, i can't name the third -- oops. sharyl: so, how much interest have this election's debates generated? when it comes to ratings, americans are watching in record numbers. democrats have held three of six planned primary debates with each averaging about 10.8 million people watching. in termsmsf viewers, republicans are winning by huge margins. close to halfway through its 12

i do, i think -- lel me give you another democrat jack kennedy rising tide lifts all boats. that's true, with poverty we're finding deep and persistent chronic poverty. we have -- over 50 years in the war on poverty. had 80 new programs. 80 programs created since then at the federal level spending trillions of dollars but have stalemate on our hands. we have a safety net that tries to catch people from falling into poverty but we don'tave one that helps get people out of poporty. we're actually treating the symptoms of poverty and perpetuating poverty we need to break that cycle. of poverty measure success not based on input and efforts but on outcomes and results. get people out of poverty. >> dickerson: that what you mean by reintegrated? >> yes. not to get into statistics, the rates are awful. we haven't seeee these since like the carter years. what that means is, able-bodied adults aren't working or aren't looking for work, they're on the sidelines. we've got to get them back into the economy. for two reasons. they share their talents with us, the rest of the society we

jack kennedy is running for the nomination for president and got to be in the late spring and kennedy wrapped up the democratic nomination and certain state senator in georgia was going around saying we can't nominate this guy he is a catholic. we went with a catholic, we will all get beaten. so it got so irritating the convention -- got him in the green room and they say there are a lot of italian catholics. a lot of irish catholics or portuguese catholics lee cheese said i know you are worried about my anti catholic feelings, don't worry about it. i love irish catholics. i love italian catholics. i love portuguese catholics. is a roman catholics i can't stand. when you read this you expect certain things and you might find it a little different. thank you for coming, if nothing else handed off to people who have ongoing addictions, there are millions of them who have no way to do it. the bottom line is if i can do it you can do it and i hope it will help a lot of alcoholics, principal interest, thank you for coming. of all the books i have read about washington, this is one of the m

kennedys and with nixon. what about lbj? >> you know, it was a very complicated relationship in that lbj could never be jack ken bty. kennedy. and i think that lbj in oral histories and interviews really recognized that very immediately. and referred to it as this thing that he'd fought for and craved and really had led his adult life to become president was suddenly this poison chalice because the president had been assassinated in dallas. and he recognized that. he desperately wanted to woo mary as a columnist and as a person. he made an incredibly clunky pass at her one night at her apartment, showed up with the secret service kind of after hours, up a announced. the secret service had said he was appearing, and mary thought it was one of her colleagues pulling her leg. lbj came, they sat down, they had a couple drinks. from what i pieced together, lbj basically said, you know, i know you loved the kennedys, and now you should love me, and i'm crazy about you, you know. >> and i can't think of a more awful pick-up line. [laughter] to be used on anybody, and particularly to be used on mary. and so, certainly, lbj t

ted cruz is no jack kennedy. pouncing on cruz's claim that kennedy would d a republican today. he wriets,tes, i find this suggestion that cruz is taking up my grandfather's mantle absurd absurd. >> peter, thank you. >>> let's look at the democrats now with bernie sanders surging. hillary clinton's campaign is pulling out all the stops to try to slow his growing momentum. nbc's andrea mitchell is in iowa with more on that. hi, andrea. good morning. >> good morning, matt. hillary clinton is crisscrossing iowa today, trying to prevent bernie sanders from sweeping >> thank you. >> reporter: hillary clinton in iowa, fighting off a bernie sanders surge. >> it's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up. i've gotten back up time and time and time again. >> reporter: touting her experience in a new ad, invoking 9/11. >> the senator who helped a city rise again. the secretary of state who stood up for america. >> reporter: sanders unleashed his own ad, showcasing his vote against the iraq war, which she supported. >> i voted against the war in iraq, and that was the

. >> senator, you're no jack kennedy. >> here's later in debate, al gore walked up to bush. >> al goreies to come over and be the bully and get in his face. bush doesn't say anything. just looks at him, smiles, gives him the head wink, and goes on. >> i believe i can. >> that was it. it just -- you know, it just absolutely devastated gore. >> you watch him go. >> yeah. we all revert to our junior high mentality, you know, when our team scored. yeah, you know! >> most people don't know is that bush had been prepared. >> jud gregg, who had played the role of al gore in the debate prep, had seen him pull this trick. he said to bush, be prepared, he's going to come and get in your face. we all dismissed at the time, but sure enough it happened. >> which raises the question how do candidates prepared? these two debate coaches showed me. they prepped president bush for debate. o'donnell later coached mitt romney and michele bachmann. they spent hours trying to replicate debate moments. >> you have the candidate stand in front of a podium like this as realistic as possible? >> yeah. you want

we haven't elected a northeasterner for 56 years, jack kennedy in 1960. since then we've rejected three massachusetts nominees, dukakis, kerry, m.i.t. romney. this time we could have four from the northeast, clinton from new york, sanders from vermont, trump and bloomberg from the east side of manhattan. there's a record of new york mayors thinking the country wants to hear from them and they don't. >> in 1972 john lindsay started as a republican, became a democrat. got 1.2% of the primary vote that year. in september 2007 giuliani was 20 points ahead and had a third more money than mitt romney and john mccain combined. he spent $65 million and got one delicate. didn't work. >> florida was the fireball back then. >> if he gets in, would he take from democrats or republicans? >> i think he'd take a little bit from both, if you just have ex democrat column and y. he's counting on extremes, he's counting on people perceiving trump, cruz or sanders. >> or wounding clinton. >> allowing him to come up the middle. >> the one thing that's really interesting, if h

. >> senator, you're no jack kennedy. >> here's later in debate, al gore walked up to bush. >> al gorend get in his face. bush doesn't say anything. just looks at him, smiles, gives him the head wink, and goes on. >> i believe i can. >> that was it. it just -- you know, it just absolutely devastated gore. >> you watch him go. >> yeah. we all revert to our junior high mentality, you know, when our team scored. yeah, you know! >> most people don't know is that bush had been prepared. >> jud gregg, who had played the role of al gore in the debate prep, had seen him pull this trick. he said to bush, be prepared, he's going to come and get in your face. we all dismissed at the time, but sure enough it happened. >> which raises the question how do candidates prepared? these two debate coaches showed me. they prepped president bush for debate. o'donnell later coached mitt romney and michele bachmann. they spent hours trying to replicate debate moments. >> you have the candidate stand in front of a podium like this as realistic as possible? >> yeah. you want a strong bearing, erect. look at co

victory so large that no one could say he was simply filling the office of what would've been jack kennedy'sd a landslide because then he knew he'd get his legislation passed. roosevelt was his hero, and i think that johnson said to himself that, "i'm going to be as good as roosevelt -- maybe even better." if he came in as a powerhouse, and with strength like that, it was going to be tough for the congress to turn him down on the difficult things he wanted to get passed. [ cheers and applause ] >> sabato: we are used to conventions today that are completely scripted and utterly boring. >> my fellow americans, i accept your nomination. [ cheers and applause ] >> sabato: what i think was significant about the democratic convention -- it also began the tradition of heavily scripted conventions. they carefully thought about what should happen each evening, what people at home would see. new jersey was picked, in part, because at the time, it voted republican quite often, and it was part of that northeast republican philosophy. >> and let none of us stop to rest until we have written into the law

jack kennedy called that absurd. >>>>mong democrats, hillary clinton is crisscrossing iowa today, hoping to fight off a surge by bernie sanders. she holds a slim lead in iowa polls and is hoping to prevent sanderer from sweeping iowa and where sanders has a big lead in the polls. she criticized sanders, saying he wants totart over again on health care. the iowa caucuses take place in 11 days. >>> two people are recovering after a frightening crash on wednesday when a fire truck smashed int a dairy queen northeast of dallas. the fire truck had been in a repair truck and was being driven back by a repair worker when it slammed into the building. one person inside the dairy queen was hurt, along with the driver. >>> the world of high school basketball. take a look. the pass goes into the player under the basket. the ball hits and we see it, on the temple. yes, it's g gd for two points. probably not a shot you want to try when playing a game. it can hurt the temple. >> didn't drill for the head shot, huh in. >> no. mall?

jack kennedy called that absurd. >>> hillary clinton is chris crisscrossing iowa today. she holds a slim lead in iowa polls and is hoping to prevent sanders from sweeping both iowa and new hampshire where sanders has a big lead in the polls. she criticized sanders saying she wants to start all over again on health care. >>> two people are recovering after a frightening crash on wednesday when a fire truck smashed into a dairy queen northeast of dallas. the fire truck was being driven back to the fire house by a repair shop worker when it slammed into the building. the driver and one person inside the dairy queen were hurt. investigators are trying to find out what caused that crash. >>> now to a real heads up play from the world of high school basketball. take a look. the pass goes into the player under the basket. temple, bounces up, goes in. if you're wondering, yes, it is good for two points. not a shot you want to try when playing horse in the drive. >> they didn't drill for the old head shot. >> no, they did not. >> natalie, thank you. mall? >> all the time. >> park