joining me now is neera tanden and ryan grim. anks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> great to be with you. >> let me start with you neera. republicans have cooked up a new talking point on health care. but the nominee is unqualified to run with it. doesn't this cut their whole agenda? >> you know, i think that for several years now we've seen that the republicans have a big problem when it comes to mitt romney. mitt romney was the architect of the massachusetts health care plan which was the framework after which president obama used to deliver health care to the nation. it's something mitt romney should be proud of. he's had to spend the last two years running from his record trying to act like he's in line with all these conservatives. it's been a failed strategy. the first thing to happen on thursday was they wanted to use the supreme court to attack the president, call it a tax. the democrats were able to argue soon afterwards if there was a tax, the only person who's implemented a tax so far is mitt romney. >> now,

joining us now is neera tanden, the president of the president influential center for american progressn as an adviser to the secretary of health and human services. neera, thank you so much for being here. >> great to be with you, ezra. >> first, you're a better political mind than me. do you see this trend, do you see sort of a change here in the way they are treating what many call cultural issues? >> throughout his history, the president has always believed in the politics of conviction, and he's believed that when you talk to his people honestly about issues, you gain political points. even when they are not totally popular, and now we're in a time where we're not trying to pass legislation particularly in the house, everything is literally ground to a halt, so he has the ability to actually talk honestly about these issues. and truthfully, after a situation after aurora, for him to not mention it at all, raised questions with people, and, you know, he took this from the perspective that it was very much common sense and cited gun owners themselves, which i think was a smart move.

my panel today, neera tanden, kelly o'donnell in kelly green and the executive director of gopac startedy pete dupont. >> pete. >> great name. >> kelly, this part of the washington post abc poll getting a little more play. what's more important? obama's first term achievements. second term goals, # 51%. both equally 10%. i throw that up there because the romney campaign wants a referendum on the first term. the majority here saying, no, we want to hear more about what will happen in the second term which the president hasn't shared. >> exactly. democrats want to talk about what he accomplished with don't ask, don't tell and the lily ledbetter act and how they got going early. and what elections are about and what voters want. that's a place where the president needs to find more specifics going forward and that's also a troubling part because he's got to defend the record as well because republicans will not back off on making this about his record on things like the stimulus or certainly the president's health care law. that will never go away in this election cycle. >> what's he going

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. >> neera tanden, president for the center for american progress, thank you so much for being here tonight>> great to be with you, as always. >>> they say in the middle of disaster is opportunity, right? well, guess what? we are in the middle of a disaster, the worst in 50 years. we have got a once in a generation chance to do something heroic. that is next. >>> heroes, parades and much-deserved displays of gratitude, just ahead. [ feedback ] attention, well, everyone. you can now try snapshot from progressive free for 30 days. just plug this into your car, and your good driving can save you up to 30%. you could even try it without switching your insurance. why not give it a shot? carry on. now you can test-drive snapshot before you switch. visit progressive.com today. >>> first, a brief correction. last night on the show, we showed you a pair of satellite images taken by nasa of greenland four days apart. we mistakenly said that the images showed the ice sheet melting and was almost all gone. that was incorrect. the surface of the ice sheet melted. the rest, of course, is still frozen. wh

the republican tom davis is now president of the republican main street partnership, also neera tanden care. i love these two new commercials because they got both presidential candidates, i don't know if this has happened before, both candidates singing. there's an attack ad from the romney campaign. an attack ad from the obama campaign. let's play both of them and then we will all discuss. ♪ oh beautiful for spacious skies ♪ ♪ for amber waves of grain ♪ for purple mountains majettety ♪ ♪ above the fruited plains ♪ i'm so in love with you >> you get the point. he's got a good -- i think on the "american idol" scale, the president's got a better voice than romney, but what do you think about these two dueling singing ads? >> you know, i think what's actually odd about it is that i don't actually understand the connection between the president's singing and the actual substance of the ad. >> i'm so in love with you and showing all of his big fat cat contributor who have been receiving benefits from him since he took office. >> i know the song, but it doesn't like make that big a connect