imagine if romney was president now. if romney and ryan had won. and there were a lot of ways it could have gone that way. for instance, if scott prudey had not turn on his camera, it's unlikely that obama would have had a seven point lead going into the dollarsous first debate, and if he lost and it got stomped the way he did, which i have a chapter about, might have been very hard for him to catch up and, and a number of other factors that contributed to his victory. but imagine he lost and romney and ryan were president. the economy is improving. not as sharply as we all would hope, but it is significantly improving, and actually the deficit has gone down by $200 billion just in the last three or four months. it's now well below a trillion dollars. it's quite likely that the bulk of the ryan plan would have been enacted into law in the early days of the romney administration, because the same way that obamacare was passed with 51 votes under an obscure senate rule that allows it for budget and tax related legislation. this plan would have very l

having said that, the romney camp game if there was a significant error on the part of the romney camp pain and all losing campaign for back with what is we've done this or that, the single biggest mistake they made was their best estimation of what the electorate would look like on election day. they overestimated the percentage of the white vote that they underestimated the gap between democrats and republicans in the composition of the electorate and that's why they're pulling had to race closer than the obama campaigns and a lot of public polling. these are the forces that will continue to shape our politics as we head towards 2016. so with that, i will take your questions. thank you. [applause] >> as brad said, pleased member to come to the microphone so everyone can you the questions. >> two things. my name is ed grief. is there not? okay. my name is ed grief than i am involved in politics for 47 years. >> you have to speak out. >> like this? first of all, i want to say before i talk about the political question, you and i share something. i was at the "washington times" herald i

, because of romney care.ll, he talks about little differences between the bills but there's no major philosophical difference. >> there isn't, and it's not just on romney care. there were other issues that we watched that governor romney walked back on as he left the governorship and began to get into the race even early on. so the fact is that romney is a republican more along the mccain lines. he even used a mccain line in here, at least i think it was john mccain who said elections have consequences and what did romney say? my idea of fighting obama care was -- would be to elect more republicans. so i think he is not -- he still is not the republican that tea party conservatives would like to see head the ticket because they say no, we're going to use what we can now to stop this thing. that's still who he is. >> he said go the more traditional route, i.e., legislation. >> there's an idea. it can't pass. >> i have to say, i'm reminded of what so many reporters say when they meet mitt romney, which is if th

mitt romney was buyed by the naacp.there an interest and willingness to have a dialogue with white republicans on any issue? >> sure. sure. my god, we black folk, we have been some of the most open-minded, forgiving and embracing people in the nation. in fact we have clarence thomass within our own community. but the issue is this that's morally obscene and spiritually profane, poor people, 4 million poor people -- >> how much did food stamps go up? doubled. >> and how much poverty -- >> because the crisis of capitalism. wages have been going down. >> who has been the president the last four years. i thought the economy was roars back. >> but brother bill -- >> did they try to trim and that's morally obscene? >> but when you have neoliberalism that goes hand in and. privatized militarized support big bank ended and corporations. the escalation of poverty, so yes, you're right, we've got a lot of food stamps increases because of what? people are suffering. >> but dr. west -- >> i feel i have to -- >> if it's not the pres

the left-hand side is george romney the greatest guy in the world, he brought the family together we had to be there on the fourth of july and homemade vanilla ice cream was part of the celebration he is turning it and those are my sons waiting for their taste, that spoonful before it goes to the freezer and on the of their side is a picture of my husband journey the homemade vanilla ice cream with the same recipe with our grandchildren. now these boys children waiting to taste the ice cream so the things that we love to pass on its traditions to bring families together to share experiences. >> host: is mitt romney a good cook? we mckee is fantastic in the kitchen and helps me out. thanksgiving morning he stuffs the bird, and saute the celery and onions and is very helpful in the kitchen. he is also one of the most responsible people because anyone that worked hard in the kitchen he takes them out and cleans up themselves that is a thrill for anyone so he is fantastic in the kitchen. >> host: are people getting family photos that have never been published before? bid you will see a l

a day when governor romney was in new hampshire. did town hall and talked about his father, and he would bring up his father very frequently on the campaign trail. in the middle of talking about his father, a man shouted out, don't cry. mitt said, i'm not going to cry. nothing wrong with that. he went on and did the rest of the event. a reporter who parachuted in for one event, not on the campaign trail with us, a very young reporter, tweeted, romney zings beg gingrich, not going to cry. it went viral. we had conservative commentators like eric erickson started to attack romney for being a jerk basically and that was in no way what that hpd. we had -- we noticed it in the middle of the event taking off. when the event ended, we tried to get it corrected. >> did you talk to the reporter? >> yes. her phone was shut off for a while. by the time we got to her, with the speed of twitter, it had taken off. we were trying to get it knocked down. we couldn't get a correction. we thought the gingrich campaign would take off. a more senior re

there was an election on this, mitt romney was against obama care, mitt romney did not win.nt, now with the heritage foundation, was asked this and said that romney, that that wasn't really true, because romney was a flawed carrier of the anti-obama care mantle. >> i think he was a great carrier. >> because obviously, he passed romney care which was the model for obama care. i don't want to relitigate those, obviously there are differences, but do you buy that? were people not thinking this guy's going to repeal obama care when they voted for romney? >> i don't think one election is run on a single issue. they had their view they presented to the american public and we had ours. there was an election and it worked out obama was reelected but that doesn't change the fact that the house of representatives, that majority was also reeje-elere-elected. they were sent here because people had problems with spending, taxes and regulations and job losses that are occurring because of obama care. it's their duty they believe to take the frustrations and anxieties to washington and lit

they sort of -- remember, romney kind of won the republican nomination very tactically. he basically raised more money than his opponents. he out-organized them, out maneuvered them, and let's face it, in some cases, we're talking about a group of migits. i mean, this was not an impressive group of people. they came out with this over confidence. the thing about it is, they have never told his story. >> migits? >> well, there was a certain gong show element to the -- i think that's one of the reasons republican leaders now are not so public about having so many debates. >> i bet in 1984 you couldn't get $5,000 to $20,000 to make shows speeches. >> sure. >> when did that start? >> in four or five years i got $500 or maybe $1,000. as you get better known and more widely recognized. and to be honest, one of the biggest boosts for i'll say rothenberg and me was the ban on honoraria for congress members. when congress banned honoraria it was a big boost for other people to go and speak to trade association or corporate offices or meetings or labor unions or other groups. >> p

if you look how the left campaign against mitt romney including people in the obama campaign met romney was a guy who put -- undersold women because he hated women, but you all back in jeans, the sort of guy who specifically fired employees that five years later their wives would die of cancer because he didn't have health insurance, mitt romney stashed his money in offshore bank accounts, a ghostly version of america the beautiful because he didn't like america. the polls showed this. the exit polling most americans agree with mitt romney on a lot of issues, there's one issue they disagree, when it can to the exit polling that said which candidate do you think cares more about people like you, romney got blown away a 80-20, including probably a certainly plurality of republicans, barack obama cared more about people like them van mitt romney. said is because he spent years castigating somebody as the world's meanest figure of you have a choice between competent president and second to mussolini you will generally choosing competent president. >> host: your fifth book, holes were you wh

of the republican party -- mitt romney -- i spent three weeks as the traveling press with mitt romney campaigning flying in on the romney campaign airplane. the last day of the campaign that rodney king to the end of the session and said he hadn't even written a concession speech to the and he was that confident he was going to win. the chief strategist of the romney campaign if he were equally confident, and he was, the whole idea is he said that a good message, a good campaign message would be the ground game any time. he said i'm not so sure of that. that is, morose thinking or before about the message. with the democrats managed to do is -- it shouldn't be underestimated i'm a professional political scientist. i have a ph.d. from harvard in 1972. i studied voting behavior in presidential collections for decades. the democrats were a game changer and have highly effected computer scientists, political scientists and psychologists working for them. the physicists are specialists in the movements because of the statistics and the mathematics has some mapping on the politics. these ar

inside candidates, post romney establishment guys.ou've got marco rubio, favorite of former romney donors, $1.8 million for reclaim america pac, $943,000 for his senate re-election pac and chris christie who raised the most by far, $12.3 million for election. that's both in the primary and general. if you just look at the money, is it the case madcap as the base is now, as much as they have their grip on the house, when it comes to 2016 the establishment will roar back. the most establishment guy out of this group is christie. he's got the money right now. >> the establishment has always won when it comes to republican primaries and presidential elections. you look back to last several elections, even 2012, a very tea party year for elections, nominated nontea party guy, even though he had to say all sorts of things to get there. 2008 relative moderate. election cycles, republicans tend to pick the guy most likely to win in a general election. it is true we're leading to a place outside conservative groups are growing in power. we're

. >> i endorsed mitt romney to announce my grand reentry i wish bobby won the election he is a very nice man but not a good candidate he did not have the energy that i do the passion he did not have the guts or the stomach to run for president mitt romney would make a much better president by making a much better candidate because that is not about, to go but to be "american idol" obama is great we cannot run the country but mitt romney cannot run for office and you have to like blue-collar people and get out too shaky hands and kissed babies and obama is good adult seek romney likes do get down in the dirt and obama does. i do a and i love to campaign. i hope to join rand paul and the senate. >> host: two of your tips are invest in farm land in agriculture and short the government bond ponzi scheme. >> right. if you have interviewed jim rogers you probably have he is one of my heroes he will tell you there will be massive food shortages living off your land if you want to have a farm because you'll want to grow food so far land will go for a high price as it goes up there could be some

romney and rising perfectly in time for the holiday season.-expanding all-american romney family. you know, the ideal american family that simply couldn't connect with the average american. and all of this reminded us that not with standing his personal wealth of well over half a billion dollars, there really is no accounting for taste. >> i just got these pancakes from a restaurant called pancakes, egg-set extra, kind of a play on words and the pancakes, apparently, are very good. >> no fancy feast for mr. romney, no. but caution, don't you dare stand between that man and his dinner. that's right. tag, isn't it? >> dad always goes to the line first, because he doesn't want to wait for all the grandchildren, because it takes forever. the parents are cutting the meat and serving everything up and he's usually finished by the time the rest of us sit down. >> thank you so much for watching this afternoon. and every afternoon. "the ed show" with ed schultz is coming up right after this. >>> good evening, americans, welcome to "the ed show" from mi

i have never seen the frontrunner, the establishment struggle the way romney did. they were never going to coalesce, 2012, rick santorum was able to get to 12 primaries -- >> he was plausible. >> i think cruz is a lot more plausible as a republican nominee than anybody that romney came up against in 2012. >> do you think we'll see a race towards more cruz-ism? has this been a political victory or a disaster? i think you can declare it both ways. >> what he did last night was in a way defensive, because he screwed up last week, last week he said it was just going to die in the senate. it allowed his opponents in the republican party to finally say you know what, he is not fighting as hard as we are. he had to put on a show to show the base. i think he re-gained his footing with the base. the telling thing to me, most of the voices in the republican world are not off the record. that tells you, i think the thing you really need to know. >> steve kornacki, you can watch him saturdays and sundays at 8:00, on "up with steve kornacki," a good slot. i watch it. >>> and co

thank you, mitt romney. i'm sure that was a favorite day of yours, kevin. here's another one.esterday obama went off script and showed real self government omnipotent individuals secondary. and here's another one. good news. new plane expected in an hour and a half. bad news, new plane expected in an hour and a half. is it more superficial because of this now? >> i think one thing in talking to a lot of reporters for this paper is that twitter has just become the central news wire of political campaigns. >> wait. a central news wire? really? >> yeah, absolutely. absolutely. every reporter, every editor, every assignment editor, producer back in d.c., political operator is looking at twitter from the time -- >> so do they have less time to report? >> yes, that's what i think. look, washington has a tendency towards droop think. i think twitter makes it worse. a lot of reporters have said this, too. if someone in the campaign had a bubble, some legislator endorses mitt romney and say the reporter for "the wall street journal" reports that, then all of the other reporters on the

in massachusetts they have a very similar plan that mitt romney as governor pushed through. people over there seem to like it. it seems to be working. >> unfortunately their per capita health care costs are the highest in the united states by far. their waiting lists to get in to see a doctor have grown since that was implemented. half the people of massachusetts cannot find a primary care doctor. >> but if you ask people in massachusetts, they're satisfied with what's going on. it's pretty popular right now. >> well, again massachusetts loves big government. i can tell you in my state of louisiana, louisiana does not love big government. we love a growing private sector that allows people freedom of choice, to choose their health plain, their doctor, their hospital. >> you know where the whole concept of the mandates that people who can afford to buy health insurance, they should buy health insurance instead of just being freeloaders, getting free medical treatment. you know where the idea originated? >> i think you're referring to the heritage? >> right, a conservative thi

during the presidential debate nearly a year ago, the president mocked mitt romney for romney's views> in the 1980's or now calling [inaudible] the foreign policy bank. the cold war has been over for 20 years. >>steve: turns out romney was right. the russian's involvement with that guy right there, edward snowden, iran and syria causing big trouble for america. what else was mitt romney right about during the campaign? and what would the country look like now if mitt romney were the president? joining us is one of mitt romney's former senior advisors, robert o'neal -- or brian that is to say, joins us from l.a. good morning to you, robert. >> good morning. >> let's start with syria. it looks like mitt romney was right about syria, wasn't he? >> well, it's a little iron i can now that joe biden was running around the campaign trail saying that mitt romney was going to get us into a war with syria. so it's, you know, it's a little funny, looking back on that now. a little sad as well. early on in the crisis when the obama administration was casting assad as a reformer and saying we coul

and if under romney their wives to die of cancer because they did not have insurance. the one issue that they would disagree that it was more people like you that romney was blown away. certainly he had a plurality of americans but for of obamacare more about people like them as because if you spend years castigating somebody and have a choice of thing competent president or second to mislead the would choose incompetent. >> host: howl old when you wrote your first book? >> guest:, jr. year of college for i was 19. i started off but was 61 started ucla had i picked up the daily bruin the paper they're a and it had editorial comparing the prime minister and asked if i could write a response that turned into a point counterpoint column that turned into a regular column after 17 i went to my dad and i said the think it is good enough to be in a regular paper? he said the b-2 research he found the syndicator for others and i just sent in my columns with the buyout they do wish young but not quite that young within three weeks later i got a call they wanted to syndicate my

romney, they all crashed. from people on the inside, it was far from awesome experience. >> lets be fair. fair to say the clinton white house as you mentioned a few minutes ago, not the most functional places in america. a lot of democrats say if that's what physical dunks looks like, we will take it again. >> i feel like there was something really interesting, i read an excerpt. >> it's on stands today. to be fair. but you have a line in there that really actually resonated with me. the white house only cared about 100 voters and all of them were u.s. senators. that really sort of cut me to the quick. i remember during the campaign the president had a line in '08 he used all the time, which is i'm not going to washington -- i don't want to represent washington to you, the american people, i want to represent you, the american people, to washington. that contrasted the campaign and white house something we have to keep exploring. >> we started off the show talking about gun control of the first blow to the pre

way, morris correctly predicted the romney presidency -- dick morris said romney has to run on government spending, but he needs to not talk about medicare, medicaid, social security, or the defense budget. well, all right. now you ruled out basically 80% of the federal budget, actually, a little bit more than that. i think, you know, before we talk in sort of revolutionary terms, there needs to be a revolution in terms of the public's view of these things. you know, i think we're a long way away from where we can say that this is entirely something that's been imposed on us by, you know, these far away distant bureaucrats, although, i think there's a substantial element of truth to that, but we have to look within ourselves and look at the voters who demand a lot of this, and the democratic party is big as a government party as it is because its clients are dependent on government and demand more and more government all the time. >> steve from university, and the last question, you mentioned several conservative senators, senators from kentucky, utah, texas, generally, the conservative s

i can remember back when it was called romney care originally back in massachusetts and that program also had difficulty being sold to a much more liberal population in massachusetts. why has the obama administration not put out a comic book or something that's on every coffee table across the country to boil this down to a very simple thing. i've actually had this conversation with jonathan gruber who was an adviser on romney care at mit and then was to advise obama on the affordable care act before it was passed. >> what was the upshot on massachusetts on romney care? >> it's working well. >> i think that they've had troubles with -- >> getting it lofted. >> with hospitals suing insurance companies and whatnot, but over time the program has paid for itself. >> is that the way we have to go on the national level? >> president clinton's message -- president clinton spoke from little rock arkansas live streamed. he spoke the better part of an hour, but he really wasn't talking to ordinary people and -- >> meaning what? >> he was talking to the republican politicians who are trying to

romney? >> well, unfortunately, romney is absolutely wrong. and he's dangerously wrong.so many people on food stamps is because their wages are so low. most people on food stamps would be in dire poverty if they didn't have additional help. we're seeing the gap widen, and 95% of all of the gains -- 95% of all of the gains that this economy has scored since the recession, since 2009, have gone to the top 1%. median households are actually on a downward escalator. we have not seen this degree of inequality in this country by some measures in a century or more. and, you know, the republican view, and the conservative view is, well, people are going to work hard if they're poor, if you take away the little bits that they have, but if they're rich, you've got to get them tax breaks. >> of course. >> so that they will work hard. >> of course, yeah. >> it's the most bizarre doctrine that has no basis a empirical reality. >> why not make a romantic comedy or a film about shark fishing? why partner with professor risch on this subject? >> well, it's the issue of our times. and it

. >> on your screen is a new book coming out this fall called "the romney family table" ann romney is the author when did you find time? >> godly even if i have written a cookbook before because nobody would know that and is the mother and grandmother that was a fantastic booktv enormously blessed with all the boys they got married and i thought all these family traditions a and recipes will be lost because my boys are boys. so i made a cookbook of family favorites and gave it to the dodgers a lot because at midday had five copies this is obviously greatly expanded but the other amazing thing is my love of cooking and sharing and the family table was passed on to my sons and a duke cut so in the cookbook for my said josh and craig that love of the food fortunately did the get passed down a little bit to my son's so this is how was started. after the campaign was over my son josh that loves to cook said you should put together a cookbook. but this is not like a normal cookbook because it has a lot of family traditions stories, written material about our life so i think it will be inter

they didn't have as much money as the romney campaign.aign, we ended up learning at the end, ended up wasting it. by throwing it out to audiences that were ineffect, way too, the audience was too large for the ad. it wasn't targeted. explain thou that works. >> so, when people write about campaigns. they focus on things that were impressive. like the ground game. some of the technology. but some of the core technology that really made a difference was -- looking at the best value for money. in obscure corners of the cable universe. tv land. local sports at 3:00 ament. whe -- 3:00 a.m. they would try to find a tiny sliver of the audience. ranked every voter in the country. scale of 1 to 100. the likelihood of who would vote. the 45-65, not the 1s, not the 100s. msnbc represented the 100s. people would vote for them. no trot. 45 to 65. tv land. reruns, obscure places that if calculated this algorithm, how cheap to reach the biggest number of people they would rank from 45-65. no one has ever done that before. they made the distinction betwe

if you had to sum up why mitt romney lost a 2012 election, look at how that romney pretreat bracco. and that romney pretreat barak obama is it not competent president. he was somebody you to know what to do in the economy. he really didn't know what he was doing as a general matter, but he was a good family man, a good guy, someone who you want to go out to a with. he would say president obama is a good man. if you look at the campaign against that romney however, including people in the obama campaign, mitt romney put dogs on top of his car, had binders full of women and wanted to pitch while back in that romney specifically fired employees and diverse leaders there widespread die of cancer because they didn't have health insurance. he stashed off money while singing because their version america beautiful. the poll showed those. most americans agree with that romney on a lot of issues. there's one issue on which they disagree. when it came to the exit point was that which can be deeply cares more about people like you, 8020. that would include probably a plurality of republicans.

. >> host: you served as a libertarian party vice-presidential candidates >> i endorse mitt romney on fox news and will she won the election i am sorry he did not. he is a very nice man but not a good candidate he does not have the energy or the passion i do he did not have the guts or the stomach to run for president to be the president. he would make a much better president than me but i make a much better candidate because running for president is not a rah, to know but being american en idle and obama is greatly cannot run his treasury sold mitt romney cannot run for office you have to like blue-collar middle-class people and want to get out and kiss babies battle think he likes to get down in bitter and roll it with the p.i.g.s.. i love to campaign soulfully i will join in rand paul in the senate. >> host: two of your survival tips and "the ultimate obama survival guide" is investing in farmland and agriculture and short of the government bond ponzi scheme. >> data know if you have interviewed jim rogers he is one of my hero's he will tell you that living on your land of the econ

and you just don't know, you just don't know in april what might help get mitt romney in november. and that is true even if you move away from this narrow party political concerns of preserving the court reputation. so i think that as we have woke up and said come i want to be strategic, i just don't know what to do. and so i say, well, you might as well be what you think the law says that you ought to do. make some sort of judgment about what your view of the law is on these issues. >> host: it is reported that he changed his vote. do you think he changed his mind or that his mind was entirely made up? >> guest: i have to preface this by saying that i will never know what the face. fifty years from now, there will be some papers from inside the court which will reveal what actually happened. but right now all we can do is speculate based on a couple of links and the actual outcome. it is clear that the argument was held in march, and it's clear that for other conservatives expected that the statute was going to be struck down. chief justice roberts circulated an opinion in early m

and cnn contributor and former advisor to mitt romney, kevin madden. historically in this town, i have seen democrats with the circular firing squad but there are real tensions bubbling up right now between different factions of the republican party. >> yeah, there are. i think there have always been historical tensions, too. the purist versus the pragmatist and i think in this case, you see someone like peter king, he's much more interested in playing to an audience back home that has some centrist democrats and that's how he gets reelected. he's been here for a long time because he's been very focused on trying to find that common ground. what you have is on the other side, purists like ted cruz who believe look, the reason we didn't win in 2012 against barack obama, the reason that we don't have two majorities in the house and senate is because we haven't been as confrontational right now with this washington status quo that many people outside of washington believe needs to be confronted more. that's really -- we're seeing it just play out now in r

. >> with mitt romney, he lost the early primaries, but the silent majority of republicans that say, we want to win and they tend to gravitate to a reliable standard. >> if we can't win, we should be -- >> they lost with romney, they lost with mccain. >> which of the following gop primaries is likely to throw him or her hat in the ring? >> who will run? >> scott walker and john casey are the two likely that i see that might get in. there's a lot of people i know for scott walker. >> i think he's terrific. i don't know he's a national candidate. >> those are two successful governor's, states that are swing states, and they've been auditioning on cable tv, so i think they're both interested in being a national candidate. >> there's a big card to play. >> not the governor of alaska. >> walker is the one governor whom i think it go in. >> do you think he can win? >> he's very personalable. >> and he's been a very effective governor. >> is he roman catholic? >> i don't know. >> does she have twins? >> do i have the right guy? >> he's not good on unions. >> paul walker and john casey are b

governor romney, you won the coin toss, so the first question goes to you.to us from a shaky extra from the film "a bronx tale." >> hi, hi, hi, hello, hi. i'm a 38-year-old college student. and all i ever hear is i'm never going to get a job. you know, i hear it from everybody, professors and neighbors and friends and bus drivers. you know, i hear it from passersby. you know, my parents tell me,

mitt romney does know a thing or two about fund raising, and cuccinelli will

they know it will be between a rock obama and mitt romney. and ask yourself if you do a strategic calculation about anything would help the republican party or the democratic party or preserve the importance of the supreme court over the long run with the reputation, if you don't know who will win or not in november you just can't figure out what the strategically sensible astute thing to do would be. actually i'' those who tries to run through the calculations with justice roberts with mitt romney you rub -- running with the election you just don't know. you just don't know what may help mitt romney in november. that is true even if you move away from preserving the court's reputation. id give you woke up to say i want to be strategic i just don't know what to do. you read is well do what you think what the law says what's your view of the law is. >> host: it was reported that justice roberts changed his vote from striking down a lot to upholding it did he change his mind or that it was entirely made up? >> guest: i will preface this by sayi