james peterson, a professor of i think english at lehigh university. crystal, you were listening.hat's your immediate reaction? >> leave it to newt gingrich to find a way to go through his entire career from the very early days. >> he did. he spoke about 54 years of public service and he went through every decade. >> in case any of us had forgotten he was there to remind us. >> absolutely. >> he ended the campaign in a similar way to the way that he started it, very grandiose and a little delusional and he clearly does not want to relinquish his public role and i think that's the real reason why he hesitated to end the campaign is because he enjoys being in the public spotlight and enjoys the visibility so he is trying to set the table for all of the things that he is going to do now that he is done. >> dr. peterson, he did make one reference to the presumptive nominee mitt romney. he said i am sometimes asked is romney conservative enough? compared with president obama, he said, he is the most radical, leftist president we have ever had. >> wow. >> your reaction to that? >> yeah,

in philadelphia, professor james peterson, director of africana studies at lehigh university and a blogger for "washington post" and in washington, julian epstein. good afternoon with all of you. dr. peterson, if i might start with you, the president. he's left an invariable trails of tears from the likes of herman cain and sean hannity, right? >> right. to think they haven't covered it enough is absolutely absurd. as you mentioned hannity has had it on his show consistently for years now. i'm not sure what mr. romney is talking about. this is a huge issue in the previous presidential election. >> dr. peterson, you can't expect mr. herman cain to pay attention to anything. >> you're right. here's what's interesting. when you look at mr. ricketts and that super pac and all the politics around chicago and the cubs and mayor rahm emanuel, he had to move away from that. romney still needs donations and support from the ricketts super pac so it's a very complex political situation. and what i hope here is folks move away from the jeremiah wright piece and get back to the brass tacks politics an

karen finnie joins us from washington and james peterson from lehigh university joins from us philadelphiaod afternoon to both of you. karen, i want to ask you about reproductive freedom and we also want to point out that you are a board member of the naril epro choice america that strongly supports abortion rights. however, a new gallup poll suggest there is may be trouble for the movement, just 41% of americans self identify as pro choice. that's a record low. >> yes. >> what do you make of this, karen? >> if you look at another part of the poll, i think what we're seeing is it is the label that people are not comfortable with and seeing that in a lot of places. in the same poll it continues to show that support for women's rights to choose is still at record highs, so that's been consistent, remember, we've had all of these person hood measures and a number of other measures about six times in a number of different states in the last couple of years and every time voters have come out and reaffirmed their support for pro choice issues, so where as they might not like the label, they sti

james peterson, director of africaa studies at lehigh university. good to have you with me.nnouncement of support for marriage equality was a large announcement in terms of casting inspiration and a leadership for people to see for others to rise up. is this the tipping point? and the leadership that the naacp was looking for in making its decision? >> i think so. there are a number of things to consider. this is a tipping point, first it's an opportunity to applaud the president's leadership on this issue. the repeal of don't ask don't tell. members of his administration, the vice president, then secretary of education, arne dunc duncan. and you see people like jay-z and p. diddy and all of these different black pastors, a good model for the way that leadership needs to work. so yes, the naacp needs to acknowledge that. and ben gellis is one of the youngest leaders of the naacp historically. he's of the right mind here as well. he seized the opportunity, he created a consensus in the organization and tomorrow we'll get their historic decision. all of this i think underscore