rick lazio, former republican congressman, and steve kornacki, news editor of salon.com. steve, you wrote an interesting, intriguing article in which you said the republican leadership, the elite of the party, as it were, was afraid of the palin candidacy. why? explain. >> i think to understand what's going on you have to think back to the 2010 midterm election, which was fantastic for the republicans, but there were some rough spots there. i think the republican sort of establishment looked and said, you know, the economy was terrible, the democrats controlled everything in washington, voters wanted, you know, to throw the opposition party -- you know, give them some power. so republicans were necessarily going to win. yet there were big races, like the senate race in delaware with christine o'donnell, in nevada with sharron angle, where a republican base insisted on nominating candidates that were unelectable, even in 2010. i think the republican establishment took the lesson from that that, hey, the key to 2012 is if the economy is still bad and voters want to get rid

rick lazio, former republican congressman, and steve kornacki, news editor of salon.com. steve, you wrote an interesting, intriguing article in which you said the republican leadership, the elite of the party, as it were, was afraid of the palin candidacy. why? explain. >> i think to understand what's going on you have to think back to the 2010 midterm election, which was fantastic for the republicans, but there were some rough spots there. i think the republican sort of establishment looked and said, you know, the economy was terrible, the democrats controlled everything in washington, voters wanted, you know, to throw the opposition party -- you know, give them some power. so republicans were necessarily going to win. yet there were big races, like the senate race in delaware with christine o'donnell, in nevada with sharron angle, where a republican base insisted on nominating candidates that were unelectable, even in 2010. i think the republican establishment took the lesson from that that, hey, the key to 2012 is if the economy is still bad and voters want to get rid

rick lazio, former republican congressman, and steve kor natty, news editor of salon.com.nteresting, intriguing article in which you said the republican leadership, the elite of the party, as it were, was afraid of the palin candidacy. why? explain. >> i think to understand what's going on you have to think back to the 2010 midterm election, which was fantastic for the republicans, but there were some rough spots there. i think the republican sort of establishment looked and said, you know, the economy was terrible, the democrats controlled everything in washington, voters wanted, you know, to throw the opposition party -- you know, give them some power. so republicans were necessarily going to win. yet there were big races, like the senate race in delaware with christine o'donnell, in nevada with sharron angle, where a republican base insisted on nominating candidates that were unelectable, even in 2010. i think the republican establishment took the lesson from that that, hey, the key to 2012 is if the economy is still bad and voters want to get rid of obama, let's not do

untangle the whole mess with cnn political contributor james carville and former gop congressman rick laziolemen, welcome. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks, eliot. great to be on. >> rick, i got to start with you. i listened to governor mitt romney's speech in which he tried to run as far away as he could from obama care and what you guys call obama care and all i heard was him make the best defense of the individual mandate i ever heard. the piece of the health care plan you republicans pretend to hate. he made a perfect defense of everyone in the plan. did you hear what i did? >> i know what he believes in. he's getting ahead of this issue. he's explaining that he was involved hands on in massachusetts overwhelmingly a democratic legislature and brings people together and solves a problem and things he learned from this. things he would do again and some corrections he would make. a fundamental difference between what president obama signed into law, which is a washington based health care program, and one which prizes individual responsibility, individual choice, and sta

untangle the whole mess with cnn political contributor james carville and former gop congressman rick laziontlemen, welcome. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks, eliot. great to be on. >> rick, i got to start with you. i listened to governor mitt romney's speech in which he tried to run as far away as he could from obama care and what you guys call obama care and all i heard was him make the best defense of the individual mandate i ever heard. the piece of the health care plan you republicans pretend to hate. he made a perfect defense of everyone in the plan. did you hear what i did? >> i know what he believes in. he's getting ahead of this issue. he's explaining that he was involved hands on in massachusetts overwhelmingly a democratic legislature and brings people together and solves a problem and things he learned from this. things he would do again and some corrections he would make. a fundamental difference between what president obama signed into law, which is a washington based health care program, and one which prizes individual responsibility, individual choice, and s