and there may have been a little bit of that with connecticut, with linda mcmahon. and obviously didn't happen everywhere, can rick scott winning very very narrowly, the governorship of florida. but you know, money is hugely important but there does seem to be some limits to what it does. >> so, timothy, let's begin with you and julia, your reaction. agree or disagree with the premise behind charlie cook's comments? >> well, i do think the amount of money that is spent is important and i don't think that it's entirely inconsequent shl. it's not really the amount that is spent, i believe it is who spends it and thus who has influence in the government. >> and julia, what about you? >> i agree with his point, because if you look at rick santorum in the primary, he doesn't have as much money as romney did or gingrich but he did quite well in the primary. i don't think it's as important as people make it out to be. >> cynthia bauerly? >> well, i think -- i understood his context. he was talking about candidates that self-fund. and i think that is something that has yet

i mean, you look at a race, senate race in connecticut between linda mcmahon and chris shays for example on republican side. if linda wins, then you've got, you know hard-line democrat, hard-line republican. only one of them wins. it is happening in blue dog districts around the country as well. both tea party and in the democratic party as well and i don't, doug schoen, who appears on fox news contributor, has a great book about the hopelessly divided. how this is really creating havoc and a dysfunctional government. rick: so, do you think that as a democrat that both parties would be stronger, that their long-term health would be, better if they were to have a sort of a divergence of opinion within the parties? >> well, yeah, i think a debate, discussion within parties is good. the problem here is that these house districts, you know, they're supposed to be elected locally and you now have partisan special interests and idealogical groups with citizens united and super pacs, spending amazing amounts of money trying to get their view elected locally even though their money may be coming