democratic pollster and former clinton adviser mark penn joins us now.ays it's a misguided strategy. here's what he had to say. he should be bringing the country together rather than dividing it through class warfare. mark penn joins us now, along with david corn who is an msnbc political analyst and washington bureau chief. you know, you're not going to get excited about bob shrum attacking you here last night but shrum said awful things about you, really awful. worse off camera, just kidding >> you missed that. >> just the fact -- a lot of progressives watching this show, some moderate democrats watch this show and a lot of independents and republicans watch this show, but they are trying to figure out what obama is going to try to do to get re-elected. he knows tough shape. showing the polls. neck in neck with sarah palin now, losing to independents among her. what's the right prescription, go down the middle left, somewhere where i'm at usually, or go a little bit over to the progressive side, maybe ed schultz country and really stick it to the other

that's mark penn. he's critiquing the president's new move to divide the country between those who want fair taxes and those who are rich, who don't. your thoughts, bob shrum? >> well, you know, that's marcus saying this kind of stuff all the time. two reactions to it. first, it was a remarkably fact-free and numbers-free piece from a guy who's supposed to be a pollster. he says, for example, that gore lost -- i actually he won, but that gore lost because he was too populist. he talked about the people, not the powerful. in fact, during the period when he was really doing that, culminating in that acceptance speech, you'll remember, chris, he gained about 12 to 18 points. so, you know, you've got to look at the facts here. secondly, i think the president is on the right side here. he recognizes that there has been ten years of class warfare in this country. it's been class warfare against the middle class, class warfare against working families, class warfare against ordinary, hard-working people. he's

let me show you what mark penn said about the president's strategy, mark penn for those that don't remember was a strategist for the clintons. he writes in "the huffington post," barack obama is careening down the wrong path towards re-election. he should be claiming the vital center, not abandoning it. he should be holding down taxes, rather than raising them. he should be bringing the country together, rather than dividing it through class warfare. but then another clinton apostle, if i can use that term, jim carville says that obama had a good start yesterday. he says i think he fired his own negotiating philosophy which was a pretty good start. the white house is responding. this was a good start yesterday, and i want him to go through and make some other good starts. well, what do you think, david? who is right? >> well, if mark penn knew what the american voters wanted, we'd be talking about president hillary clinton today. so -- and, you know, can you say the same thing about james as well. it shows the divide within the democratic establishment, not the democratic party. i think the

mark penn, hillary clinton's pollster in the last election, he said on the record today, that barack obama is careening down the wrong path to re-election. he should be working as president, not a candidate. he should be claiming the vital center, not abandoning it. >> mark penn, we saw how well he did in giving that advice to hillary clinton in her race. you have republicans in a position who constantly say no to everything. if you're going to achieve any kind of compromise in washington, d.c., you cannot have a gop on one side saying no, we don't care, absolutely not. they're going to shut off all options. the president has made an effort, and he's been criticized by his own party for, yes, giving up too much as you alluded to in your opening question and they still said no. he needs to be aggressive with it. we can't keep sitting here thinking the republicans will say we want everything that we want and refuse to give up anything. they have to show some willingness to compromise. thus far they've shown none. >> i talked to the head of the rnc a short time ago. i want to play somet

mark penn, hillary clinton's pollster in the last election, he said on the record today, that barack obama is careening down the wrong path to re-election. he should be working as president, not a candidate. he should be claiming the vital center, not abandoning it. >> mark penn, we saw how well he did in giving that advice to hillary clinton in her race. you have republicans in a position who constantly say no to everything. if you're going to achieve any kind of compromise in washington, d.c., you cannot have a gop on one side saying no, we don't care, absolutely not. they're going to shut off all options. the president has made an effort, and he's been criticized by his own party for, yes, giving up too much as you alluded to in your opening question and they still said no. he needs to be aggressive with it. we can't keep sitting here thinking the republicans will say we want everything that we want and refuse to give up anything. they have to show some willingness to compromise. thus far they've shown none. >> i talked to the head of the rnc a short time ago. i want to play somet

mark penn, democratic strategist. mr. brinkley, your reaction to the jobs speech tonight, please. >> well, i think the president was trying to give a jolt to the economy. he had to give the speech. democrats are going to love it. it's more surplus than they thought. $440 billion over that amount. republicans aren't going to like it. but if the president didn't give this speech and he was out there an entire fall fund-raising for re-election campaign, he would never be able to say i put my plan up to the joint session of congress and they rejected it, so it's a good, strong obama speech for democrats and i think republicans will shrug it off as more of the same so it's not really historic, except that it's another -- maybe the opening sal va of president obama's re-election campaign. >> and mark penn, you know, it was a big jolt, you can't dispute the numbers, but rather like the stimulus plan that we saw before, it may seem huge at the time, but history may judge it's nowhere near big enough. should it have been a much gr

mark penn. senate democrats saying no to the so-called jobs bills.king now they are going to play the race card that's a racist comment if that was a white house conservative in the white house -- >> sean: or democrat for saying bill clinton. >> absolutely. they would be screaming racism because they are doing policies tar harming black americans. >> sean: why didn't the president when the congressman andre carson, when he said tea party members want black people hanging from trees in america. why didn't the president say stop it. instead his answer was we are not going to be the speech police. >> why didn't he. you didn't hear anything from jesse jackson, al sharpton, not that you would. you didn't hear from the black caucus members ear, only representative west. for obama not to make a comment, he should have said something. >> it is a missed opportunity. that speech he gave today that campaign speech from the rose garden that's going to soothe a lot of ruffled feathers in the liberal wing of the democratic party. >> sean: i think you are right. th

antonio villaraigosa and mark penn is the democratic strategist who sees huge risks in the president'sif we look back at the gallup poll, february 2009, the president had a 75% approval rating among latinos. a sky high number there. it is at the moment 48%. we talked to a member of the democratic national assembly. he said the president's challenge is credibility. he made promises about immigration and other issues that he didn't act on. he'll have to convince them to give him another chance. he's got to get out of washington and into town hall meetings. in california maybe the president has a margin, but if we looked at nevada, colorado, florida, there are some states where latino voters could decide yea or anyway in 2012. how steep is the president's challenge? >> first of all, i think the president's challenge is the nation's challenge. it's the challenge of putting people back to work. the president has put a plan to put people back to work. look, the president has better numbers than the congress. the fact of the matter is the president has a plan. the congress is essentially said

. >> yeah, in fact, former clinton advisor mark penn who came in in 1994 to right the ship after theout the class warfare language that bill clinton habeen using and when you start to see the clinton administration take a turn for the better and his popularity improves. >> that's so interesting and speaking of bill clinton, he was back on the airways yesterday talking about his global nish initiatives but also weighing in on the president's plan. take a listen to this. >> i think it's a very good program that he outlined and i think if the congress seriously takes him up on it and they start trying to work through it and get anything approaching the amount of activity that was recommended, they can put about 2% more on the gdp growth of the coming year and they can drop unemployment between one and two million. >> mr. president, taking that -- >> they can create one to two million jobs. >> so what do you think of that? >> a little bit hard to hear him but i got the gist of it. here's the thing, the clinton global initiative is a big deal. every year during the u.n. general assembly,

i agree with mark penn and the paper today. i think it's a bad move for independents.rfare. that's how they've run a lot of campaigns in the past. this is a very comfortable point of view for them. it's close to the gore playbook. so it's like a security blanket but i think it's a strategic matter, he is risking losing the middle where the republicans are very challenged where he has an opportunity. so i think this actually when we look back is a, going to be a point of failure in his campaign not a point of success but we have to wait and see. >> do you agree, mike sf. >> i am inclined to agree with almost anything that mike murphy says at any point in time, always. >> by the way, mike murphy, did you know we shared one of your tweets last week about 20 times? >> that was a good one. >> i was drinking that night. i feel a little bad. i watched the debates and at murphy i tweeted a lot of jokes. >> i loved it. you remember the tweet? >> get the tweet ready, guys. we need to show it again. >> off of what mike murphy said. >> yeah? >> i want to know and i've been mystifi

penn was in the lead so far with the most correct statements. >> can you show us and pull us back up? >> yes. >> it says it is copyrighted. >> yes. >> don't forget the hash marks. it is a prison system. >> psychologically he feels in prison in that bubble. >> let's go straight into our story. >> sure. >> bloomburg, you know this is the interesting thing -- actually in 2009, brzenzinski and i will ask penn, who did he serve under? >> there by proving my point it was incorrect. but he made the same case during a morning show where he said the massive unemployment could lead to riots. and he suggest -- he suggested we form a solidarity fund where all rich people put their money in to help out the government. >> that's exactly what i thought. >> penn, you compared cairo, and you called it a terrible place which having been there i don't necessarily agree with you. >> what did you like about cairo? >> it is a dynamic vibrant alive -- >> when were you there? >> yesterday. >> really? i was there about 2000. >> you said the women are forced to dress like batman. do you recall in 2007 that the group of 99, a group of muslim super heroes were teamed up with batman in a