jeff greenfield examines the race and the power of families ties. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios in hari sreenivasan. this is pbs newshour weekend. >> sreenivasan: good evening. thanks for joining us. isis fighters have reportedly slaughtered dozens of people in. iraq. a local official said the extremists lined up at least 50 men and women and shot them. the incident, which occurred yesterday in a small village west of baghdad, was reportedly retaliation for resistance after the militants seized territory last month. all told, officials estimate that islamic state fighters have executed more than 300 sunni tribesmen in the area in the past several days. a local leader

. >> ifill: jeff greenfield joins us now, long-time political reporter and author and a contributor to pbs "newshour" weekend. hi, jeff. jeff was recently in louisiana reporting on that neck-and-neck race between mary landrieu and bill cassidy. you discovered an interesting thing that you reported onge the weekend "newshour," which is it's not the same thing as a federal race, is it? >> in the sense that it's not an election, it's a general primary, but the other thing i just... that's what they call it. and if this were an election, mary landrieu, who is supposed to finish first, would be elected, but because of the run-off, as you heard, she's in serious political jeopardy. we've also learned this is one of a series, and this is what i talked about, of a prominent political family. you already saw one fall tonight in arkansas, mark pryor went down in defeat. we have begich, udall in colorado, and this to me helps define the national scene. these folks who have strong family ties to a state, they're all democrats, are bucking this national, i don't know if it's a wave, a high tide, a

i want to bring in now ace political observer jeff greenfield. his latest book is "if kennedy lived." the first and second terms of president john f. kennedy. an alternate history. so we're going to talk about that. jeff, i definitely want to talk to you about your fascinating kennedy book but first i want to pick your brain on tomorrow's races. i was talking to the ladies about that. so give us a little historical perspective on that if you will about tomorrow's elections. why are the races so close right now? >> well, look, you could have gone back in january and had much of the analysis we just heard five minutes ago. for structural reasons. six-year presidents, their party always does badly with one instructive exception in the mid-terms. the races are largely particularly in states hostile to democrats and obama in particular. and he is nationally unpopular. what has changed a little, as we just heard, is there are purple and blue states where democrats are in trouble in iowa, in colorado, in new hampshire. and what makes this so interesting

kissinger will be interviewed this evening by jeff greenfield, an acclaimed television commentator andauthor in his own right who lectured here at last year about his book, if kennedy lived. it is an honor and privilege to have both of them here with us and i am only sorry they do wasn't able to arrange a plane of sweet georgia brown. but please join me in welcoming henry kissinger and jeff greenfield to the free library of philadelphia. [applause] >> when henry kissinger was named secretary of state, the press asked him, what shall we call you? professor and your kissinger, dr. kissinger, secretary kissinger. he said no, your excellency will do. [laughter] this is not my plan for tonight. this book, "world order" covers roughly 400 years of diplomatic geopolitical and military history and 45 continents. we have a little less than an hour. when we finish shooting with the whole book, we'll talk about tax policy. but what i want to do is take dr. kissinger, what you have written in c. its application today. anybody looking at the headlines would look at your book and say what world orde

jeff greenfield reports on how brand name political families may influence tuesday's vote and how theld determine control of the u.s. senate. join us on air and online tomorrow on pbs "newshour" weekend from baton rouge. >> woodruff: and we'll be back, right here, on monday. after a trip to kentucky to profile one of the most closely watched senate races in the country. and tune in tuesday for the latest election results including a special report at 11:00 p.m. eastern. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff, have a great weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captione

with me to discuss this is veteran journalist and author jeff greenfield and noah rothman.r take away from the report on friday night, it seemed like it was a friday night news dump where the house intel committee wanted to have it come out before the weekend so no one would notice. what's your takeaway from the report and the coverage from the report. >> i think it essentially really said that this is hamlin's razor. if you believe it's a conspiracy theory, if you believe the administration, quote, left people to die you were guilty of buying in into a fallacy that suggested it was malice and not incompetence. what we were dealing with was incompetence. there were others a pecks that shouldn't necessarily give the left a lot of celebration for fox being this organization that was out there on a limb. there were reports that were indicated that cia personnel were given successive polygraphing for example. that was a cnn investigation. that was knocked down by the house intelligence report. the belief that cia intelligence individuals knew this was going to be an attack 24 h

and political analyst jeff greenfield. his book is now out in paperback.re. >> what is the president doing with the action last night? >> i cannot assess motives, i don't know if he is sticking an eye in the republican party or not, sure, if he is not intending to it, it sure happened. and one of the things that happened, if you step back a minute, to me, it's having the same impact as the less fortunate comments that the president on the health care plan. where the debate immediately is moving away from the substance of what he is doing to how he do it. the same statement, if you like your doctor, you can keep it, dominated the discussion of health care, what we are hearing now is the debate whether he exceeded his constitutional authority. and i think the idea, this is somehow, when i hear people say, cooler heads will prevail, i don't believe that for a minute. i don't think we have seen it for the last six years by and large. in the wake of the election and the act, whether it's legal or not is provocative, it's going to make the less calm members of y