reagan ronald reagan ronald reagan president reagan president reagan president reagan and ronald reagan and with president reagan president reagan were here president reagan were in the. reagan library ronald reagan ronald reagan ronald reagan president reagan stand in the reagan tradition under ronald reagan. ronald reagan so what does it say when ronald reagan has to be the voice of reason when it comes to taxing the rich and sort of calling his plan to tax the rich the buffett rule maybe obama should just call that the reagan rule it really shows you how far to the right the g.o.p. has moved in the last twenty years if their cult leader reagan one of the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes who wasn't considered some sort of radical socialist pollution position these days maybe it's because it comes from a democrat either way the republicans intransigence on taxes is truly dangerous or becoming a society that is completely unequal and that's something that even ronald reagan knew and that's why we're giving g.o.p. lawmakers tonight still time award. ok guys it's time for happy ho

this is class warfare campaigning and using ronald reagan's-- comparing himself to reagan in any way is one of the most absurd things i've seen in a long time coming out of a very economically stirred presidency. >> go ahead, adam. >> i don't disagree with you it's a campaign speech. every time he uses the expression class warfare. >> millionaires are doing-- >> expression class warfare, they're campaigning. i agree with you, but to advocate for simplifying the tax code and this is a president we all admire. >> no, no, no. >> wait a sec. if he's-- >> this is not tax reform. this is him wanting to close a couple of loopholes for people he doesn't like. tax reform is a greater vision. >> 86 and even jfk did it, got rid of loopholes and cut the top rates from 91 to 70%. president obama is not talking about tax reform otherwise he would have gotten on board with the-- >> charlie, charlie, one second because we've got to bring ben in, the elder statesman. ben, you've said that tough decisions will have to be made right now and i think you agree that part of those tough decisions will bein

what's wrong with ronald reagan i love that ronald reagan simplify the tax code and cut taxes for many americans brought those top tax rates down i know that ronald reagan jacked up the tax season and people like mitt romney increased taxes and he cut taxes much like bill clinton bill clinton did the same thing he also bill clinton what's wrong with doing. what i don't want to raise that fifteen percent top tax rate for the mitt romneys of the world they were all he's worth four hundred million dollars in a forty million bucks this year from his investments he pays fourteen percent income tax why not have him pay the same income tax rate as his secretary like warren buffett thinks that is if you want to rewrite the tax code and do that i think conservatives would agree you'd have to do in a revenue neutral manner so the federal government isn't just gaming the system so they can steal more money from the private economy and waste it revenue on revenue neutral what does that mean i mean if the federal government hasn't taken the same percentage of revenues that they did in the last year

and two of them each with richard nixon and ronald reagan as well. >> roudebush's different from ronald reagan, etc.? >> the emphasis was on stability, prudence and caution he was trying to preside over the dramatic changes in the u.s. national interest which it is successful. bush 43 after mine alone and was convinced of an approach would that was much more idealistic the u.s. would try to undercut support for terrorism by winning iraq democratizing the middle east country different. >> in your book you have checkers as well on barry goldwater and robert. >> i choose the because their senators who are good indicators of the public opinion at crucial moments of course was the nominee for president, 64 he ran and he represents an era in the 30's and 40's where midwestern republicans were antiinterventionist and one of the stories in the book is how the eventually did in the end of that tradition and you had the success of eisenhower and the republicans but it took a long times and in some ways if you think about somebody like ron hall he's in a tradition i choose goldwater because he was

ronald reagan was ultimately scornful of that. i want to cover my children's ears when they hear that. america is a great country. we do not have to dial down our thermostats. we do not have to wear sweaters. we can be the shining city on a hill. selling american greatness, he appealed to the american voter. brac obama does not face that sort of problem -- barack obama does not face that sort of problem set. he had a successful military venture in the killing osama bin laden. he did not fail at it. he passed health care reform early because ihe knew his popularity would be greater earlier in his presidency than later, which certainly has been proven true. unfortunately for him, the benefits of that health care reform will take a period of years to come into place. he also built up the auto industry. clearly saved it, and he probably prevented the world from financial collapse. host: he is not facing a primary challenge. guest: very good point. jimmy carter faced a strong primary challenge by ted kennedy. ted kennedy did not win, b

it was ronald reagan. it was ronald reagan. publicans all thought reagan made some sense. bill: is the president aligned with reagan? we'll ask art laffer who is the architect of rerbgs aganomics. martha: three hours away from landing this guy jumps up and screams about hijacking, we'll tell you about the flight from hell for these folks, how it all ended. >> just foul-mouth, three houfrs it. like a possessed person you know when they keep going on and on. they wanted them to shoot him, he wanted to punch them, he was calling them all sorts of names. it's what they do. accept it. you can't change the way banking works. just accept it, man. free ? doesn't close at five ? try nature. you give them all your money, and they put you on hold. just accept it. what are you going to do, bury your money in the backyard ? accept it. it's only money. it's a bank. what do you want, a hug ? hidden fees, fine print, or they'll stick it to you some other way. smile and accept it. it's been this way since pants. accept it... just accept it. acpt

you are a strategist and were the political director of ronald reagan. if you were advising perry, what would you tell him to do, and if you were advising romney, what would you tell him to do the way it is now? >> immigration is the big issue that governor perry has got to talk in terms of how he put troops on the border or rangers on the border and he basically is -- he got all tangled up on immigration, and i think that drove a lot of the tea party vote away from him and back to mr. cain. in the case of mr. romney, run your own race. whatever it is, go out there and connect to voters, talk about who you are and talk about the differences between you and the president and obviously do it in a respectful way and not a disrespectful way and voters will listen to him at this point in time because they want change. >> well, michael steele, i got ed rollins give some free advise to both of the candidates that are -- one of them, anyway, is leading the pack, the other tied for second. >> right. >> but when we look at the money trail, we're told that rick per

ronald reagan discovered that. >>guest: that is a fair point and i agree with herman cain, you want a tax plan that the hookers and the drug dealers have to pay, the national sales tax when they buy a pink cadillac they have to pay the sales tax. i like economically very much the idea of a consumption tax and i don't think most economists would agree with that if we want a pro growth economy tax consumption but it is a problem for voters thinking, wait, now i have to go to the cash register and then on the other taxes i pay a 9 percent sales tax, that is kind of a leap of faith with voters and voters wonder, do i want congress to have two ways to raise money, the income tax and the sales tax. that is my misgiving. >>neil: you just lost out on a treasury spot in the herman cain administration. >>guest: can you imagine we did this, 9 percent income tax, 9 percent corporate tax, and can you imagine how fat the economy would grow? >>neil: think outside the box or pizza box, look, at least he is doing that and we are de

and ronald reagan was a model again. ronald reagan and tip o'neal, you hear the stories. i don't know how close they were but they cooperated and worked together. i think the country is in such a difficult time. high unemployment, housing foreclosures and so i think it's time. i am a conservative republican. i believe in the values of my party. i think -- and tony and i found a number of issues that we can work on. host: tell me about the title of your book "prisoner of conscience." guest: well, it says my conscience tells me to do these things. host: and you can't escape it? guest: no. host: who was the biggest influence on you do you think in your life? you say ronald reagan. guest: my faith. my mom and dad. my faith. their being in a group with tony hall and dan coats and so many other. it's not the one. it's been kind of an evolving process. host: let's get our viewers involved. beginning with a call from tammy, a democrat in rockford, illinois. please, go ahead, tammy. caller: yes. i'm just trying to say that i think that everybody should quit trying to down obama be

this. >> how were the different from ronald reagan? >> the first for example, his main emphasis was on stability, prudence, caution. he was trying to preside over a very dramatic changes. at think it was pretty successful. much more idealistic. the u.s. would try to undercut support for terrorism. very different. >> in your book you have chapters as well on barry goldwater and robert taft. does the senators to look particularly good indicators of republican opinion, conservative republican opinion. goldwater, of course, was the republican nominee for president. floridian taft. half represents the 30's and 40's where most republicans, especially midwest republicans, anti interventionist. one of the main stories in the book is so republicans eventually abandoned that tradition. you have the success of eisenhower and republicans by the 50's, but it took a long time. in some ways it is never completely safe. ron paul today, kind of and that after patrician. nigel's -- says cool water because it was such an important figure as the republica

but i'll say this, they want ronald reagan. there are no ronald reagans out there. bachman isn't.rry isn't. santorum isn't. whoever the others are. but i'll tell you the one who comes close, herman cain. >> bill: to ronald reagan? >> yes. >> bill: we don't know yet. >> in the same way that he's optimistic. he came up from -- he didn't grow up wealthy. >> bill: no. he's a boot strap guy. >> he has a great story. >> bill: i don't see him as being reagan because reagan had the california experience behind him as the governor of a very complex state. >> i'm talking about how you come across to ordinary -- and i use that word in the best sense -- ordinary americans. cain comes across -- the reason he's doing so well in the polls is he comes across, yeah, i sort of like that guy. >> bill: he's not a politician. but what about when what you call them purist, they say, look what happened with mccain? we compromised with mccain and we got our butt kicked, so we don't want to do that again. >> that's exactly what they say. let me say this to all my purist friends out there. john mccain lost

what they're doing is a mockery to what ronald reagan stood for. the american people, look at this poll of how american people feel about taxing the rich. the nbc/"wall street journal" journal poll, 56% said raise taxes on the wealthy. 66% on the gallop poll. pew poll 67%. ronald reagan, who they use his name in memory said, do you think a rich guy should be paying less taxes than a working class mail man? what are we talking about? these people are extremists for the rich. >> and what's happening, reverend al, is when you continue to put -- what they say, if you don't want to raise taxes on job providers, everybody understands that. but they're not providing jobs in america. a lot of the jobs that are being created, especially by the multinational corporations are frankly those who are investing to be able to get the benefit of capital gains. they're investing in a global market. where are the multinational corporations maximizing their shareholder return? in the global market place. they're not investing in the u.s. we have to tie tax policy to j

, people generally identified up with ronald reagan or margaret thatcher. as of these ideas are market state and have other qualities i talked about in the book for different than people expect. >> such as? >> i say that often even though they are antistate often they have a strong seat it's just a smaller state projects things like private property, protect the market to be competitive and also neoliberalism is often related to capitalism as opposed to any other economic system. >> where did the term neoliberalism come from? >> the term neoliberalism is often from the right around the end of world war ii there were a lot of people in europe talking about an idea of rethinking liberalism after all of the trouble of world war i, world war ii, things like that they needed to rethink liberalism and make a new kind of liberalism and so when it came out of their ideas of the time people were involved with this rethinking of liberalism, and -- >> was it to make government less powerful? was that part of the goal of neoliberalism? >> coming in from the time of fas

we saw it we basically had no major deficit the united states other than a couple ronald reagan only won the cold war won the cold war without without killing a lot of people so that's the end of that justifies putting it tripling our national debt putting three trillion dollars on the way going to voters going to you know and then for it and there's already weapons than and cost money to live so i don't recall him fighting the soviet union what that he. actually we ran the soviet union into debt fighting fighting by by you even spend huge amounts of yours are not supporting the mujahideen by giving no it's not a lot of money and help in the building of the fence adding that the russians tried to debate so to compete with and they tracked their value wasn't that was a done deal long before ronald reagan you know back in the sixty's the cia was predicting the collapse of the soviet and this was you know we're ready to go a lot of things that are wrong well they were they were right i always loved help how the big ones on the groups and organizations that the they suddenly like th

we saw it we basically had no major deficit the united states other than a couple ronald reagan only rode the cold war won the cold war without without killing a lot of people so that's that and so bad justifies putting it triply our national debt putting three trillion dollars on the weekend of the earth is going to end and then fought and there's already weapons than and cost millions of lives so i don't recall him fighting the soviet union but that he. actually we were in the soviet union into debt fighting fighting by by you even smell you die months ago already your sorry my supporting the mujahideen by giving notice of a lot of money and hawing about building up the fence that i think that the russians tried to debate and try to compete with and they tried their best it was and that was a done deal long before ronald reagan you know back in the sixty's the cia was predicting the collapse of the soviet this was you know we're ready to go a lot of things that are wrong well they were they were you know i always thought help the left the good ones on the groups and organizati

came in office ronald reagan the guy who when he was governor of california ended free collegetuition that state the president is saying that he wants to give not a modest debt relief student loan debt relief to five point eight million students so do the republicans think as paul ryan and the paul ryans as i work three jobs i don't see any of it as he actually worked three jobs when i was in college or any other rondo's come from working class background he said i worked three jobs he wasn't just another little really good something to do with the military because we had absolutely no clue that it was a hard job if you did you would think that his people would put it on there every day you know the problem with bush saying to that woman who worked three jobs you know isn't that the all-american way you know the problem of giving colleges handouts like this the problem is not it's not that you know education is good that's a good thing the problem is that encourages universities to continue to raise their prices that's why a university can raise their prices easter said why the

. >> ronald reagan. >> ronald reagan. >> brenda: the white house using ronald reagan's name to sell its tax hike plan. but did the gipper really say what they said? the cavuto gang reports, you decide at the bottom of the hour. first, steve jobs, all of those jobs created. all those products invented. all without one dime from the government, his economic lesson for washington. or creates another laptop bag or hires another employee, it's not just good for business. it's good for the entire community. at bank of america, we know the impact that local businesses have on communities. that's why we extended $7.8 billion to small businesses across the country so far this year. because the more we help them, the more we help make opportunity possible. she won't eat eggs without hot sauce. she has kind of funny looking toes. she's always touching my hair. and she does ts ncing finger thing. [ male announcer ] with advanced technology from ge, now doctors can diagnose diseases like breast cancer on a cellular level. so that women, like kristy's mom, can get personalized treatment that's as uni

conyers who three days after the assassination put forth to the bill and it was popularized in song, ronald reagan signed the bill to help erect a monument. to all of them, we owe a very special round of applause. put your hands together, will you? [applause] i was glad to be a part of his core of disciples to work, organized a march and parade with him. here are today, one of the 32 miles from jamestown where the slave ships when the 432 miles.

wasn't a democrat, wasn't some crazy social list, it was ronald reagan. it was ronald reagan. last time i checked, republicans all thought reagan made some sense. >> president obama was referring to a speech in 1985 in which president reagan said tax loopholes allowed the wealthy to, quote, avoid paying their fair share. on the jobs message, president obama took congress to task during the speech singling out one member in particular. >> the republican majority leader in congress, eric cantor, said that right now he won't even let this jobs bill have a vote in the house of representatives. won't even give it a chance to be debated on the floor of the house of representatives. i'd like mr. cantor to come down here to dallas and explain what exactly in this jobs bill does he not believe in. what exactly is he on opposed to? >> mr. cantor who earlier in the week declared the jobs bill as a package dead in the house pushed back 00 twitter accusing president obama of he said being in big full campaign mode when it costs to the current congress, a new poll shows the president's frus

my phone rang and it was ronald reagan on the phone.d he said sandra, i would like to announce your nomination for the court tomorrow. and frankly, my heart sank. >> really? >> yes, it really d because i was not at all sure that i could do the job well enough. i didn't know if i could. i told my husband and he said oh, that is ridiculous. of course you can. and he was more certain and enthused than i was. >> so you came to washington. >> i d. >> do you think they treated you differently because you were a woman? >> well, they were curious to meet me those who didn't know me. so number one they were curious. number two they weren't sure and number three, women are half of our voting population, aren't they? and i think there was a certain hesitation on the part of elected officials to say we can't have a woman. they didn't want to do that because they didn't know what effect that would have on voters. >> so you think that in some ways they treated you a little bit with kid gloves you are saying? >> i think a little bit. i don't know if i

ronald reagan was clearly the obvious winner here but ninety eight times for the ronald reagan and the war and. i mean this is really more of like a war is the right i mean we got the up the drug war you know the war in afghanistan you have the war in iraq we have the war on morals in america war on poverty long gone but that was said at one hundred one hundred and five times for war. i think we'll know if that means right earlier so i think you know which one i was drinking for all right so basically what happened is a little drop but that's that's all the coverage we got time for tonight we're going to take a break. if you don't work to bring justice or. i have the right to know what my government would want to know why i think. i would characterize obama as the charismatic. of american exceptionalism. you know sometimes just a story so you think you understand it and then you know here's the part of it and realize that everything. is a big. the capital of palestine more or less for. the police corruption is. nobody seems to know. that never break the face quite hard the argu

it was ronald reagan.made, president reagan believed that government and regulation were a hindrance to economic success. sounds familiar, doesn't it? and so he set about reducing taxes, deregulating the economy and privatizing government services. and it's now possible to look back and assess the effect of president reagan's policies. so here are the cold facts. between 1955 and 1970 the top marginal tax rate was a whopping 82.3%. between 1981 to 2010, this had come down to 39.3%. so if the orthodoxy is to be believed, growth must have gone up, right? not quite. between 1955 and 1970 it was 3.6%. but between 1981 and 2010 gdp had actually fallen to 2.8%. okay. well, if growth didn't quite measure up, unemployment must have gone down, right? no. between 1955 and 1970, the average unemployment rate was 4.9%. between 1981 and 2010, it had lept to 6.3%. so there's the evidence. the period between 1981 and 2010 with its much reduced tax rates and systematic reduction in the size of government had very little b

if they were looking for a president that could be a spokesperson, let me show you what ronald reaganwith some of the fields that's being express expressed ronald reagan, in fact, why don't we have raili railinging and olet me show you. >> we're going to close the unproductive tax loop holes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. in theory some of those were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary, and that's crazy. do you think the millionaire ought to pay more than the bus driver or less? >> do you think a millionaire ought to pay more in taxes or less in dana, i love every time i hear ronald reagan say that. in the words of my college, chris, it makes something go tickling up my leg. >> ronald reagan is the patron saint of this -- but in my ideas, it will make him no longer at home in this party. i don't think it matters particularly much what others are saying about this new movement, just as, you know, nancy pelosi dismissed the tea party

ronald reagan was protax and antitax in his 50s.an was proceed choice then proceed life in his 50s. ronald reagan signed the no fault divorce and then was against it in his 50s. so people evolve and they evolve all the time in politics. everybody knows about mitt romney. mitt romney is not new to the campaign. everybody knows who he is. what rick perry needs to do is tell us who he is. megyn: why shouldn't rick perry take shots at romney along the same lines that we are going to hear if romney winds up being the republican nominee. it's basically what he was saying on o'reilly is that he's a flip-flopper an doesn't have a core. this is not particular news to those who are looking for ways to criticize romney, that's been out in the bloodstream. why shouldn't the guy who is trying to beat romney raise that now? >> everybody who is going to vote in the primaries knows who mitt romney is. that's why he hasn't got even over 25%. they want to know who rick per rise. and rick perry has spent so much time attacking mitt romney that he hasn

it's interesting ronald reagan appears in the different places his acting career when he started -- > host: i never knew that. he's with like ge, ret? >> guest: before that -- >> host: i just gave my age by the way. >> guest: his acting career got in a bad place and he was doing stand-up comedy he and a singing group in los angeles and g and i wanted to use that as a story of the electrification of the country because that is what happened after world war ii. we had rates in the electricity demand like we would see and china today. these wonderful commercial side talk about ronald reagan and nancy said welcome to my house let me show you my electric servants it's like a vacuum cleaner people take for granted. but i think that there's a consensus on things that were not there before. one of them i remember vividly there wasn't a consensus on this is the question of energy efficiency and becoming more energy efficient. it makes good economic sense it just makes sense to do it and i don't find that there is a kind of political animosity that there needs to be. >> host: you are right. it'

we making our money now there's been a there's been a bunch of variables here not only was it ronald reagan's tax cuts in the one nine hundred eighty s. but also reagan stop enforcing the sherman antitrust act he stopped and foreseen the laws that prevented corporations from getting so big that you know they basically force all the small businesses out of out of business forced their competitors out of the marketplace and turn into trans national giants and then we have this whole free trade mania will just throw the country open to everybody but you know every country in the world and so you have transnational general electric making most of their money outside the united states exxon mobil all of these of these very many of these very large corporations so manufactured in one thousand nine hundred seven was twenty five percent of our economy was a quarter of our economy. right now in two thousand and nine eleven percent manufacturing has just collapsed so how do we keep an economy. this is called the fire economists finance insurance real estate rental and lisi and from forty nine hundred f

we are watching that, we will have the news from it for you in ten minutes. >>> and, president ronald reaganously asked are you better off today than you were four years ago. president obama was asked yesterday how america would answer. michael reagan is next on this surprise response. next tuesday is election day. next tuesday, a lot of you will go to the polls and stand there in the polling place and make a decision. i think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago? >> next tuesday is election day. next tuesday, a lot of lu go to the polls and stand there in the polls place and make a decision. i think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago? is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store than it was four years ago? is theremo or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? is america as respected throughout the world as it was? >> megyn: well, that question, are you better off than you were four years ag

create a ronald reagan robot.iculous conversatio. you don't have a discussion until somebody is in the race. perry on paper looked great, wonderful. when you go into a debate it's a whole different deal. i remind people also, you can be all concerned right now. the reality is this, at this juncture in 2007, obama was down 31 points to hillary clinton. things change over a period of years. bill clinton in iowa, he was dead on arrival in new hampshire. what happened? he rebounds. republicans need to stop trying to find a perfect candidate and say let me deal with who we have. if christie gets in, great. but he's not in. so suck it up and deal with who is in front of you. >> what i like from what i hear from chris christie, unlike so many people who are in the race, who are just about being mad and blaming in extreme situations, christie says he wants to come in, he's been in a place where there's divided government and can somehow get through this. >> he can say that right now. >> you don't want to say anything nice

nine hundred sixty nine hundred seventy one nine hundred eighty ronald reagan gets elected and guess what happens right here the reagan tax cuts on millionaires and billionaires basically the top tax rate goes from seventy four percent out of twenty eight percent and what happens the pay of the very top this is just the top one percent pay the very top with the exception of two little recessions here pretty much nonstop. and will probably continue going on forever unless we repeal the reagan tax cuts because what this has been what these tax cuz did is they gave that top one percent incentive to basically take everything they could out of the companies well the average pay of working people by the way has flattened out in fact it's fallen off next year. here is take it let's take a look at how that wealth is distributed the united states first of all the top one percent of americans own forty two percent of all the wealth in this country that's the top one percent if you have the next four percent so we're looking at the tough five percent of americans it's three quarters of the pie i

the uss ronald reagan, the first effort was to save lives. eventually it would come underneath the plume and protect the radiation in the atmosphere. next slide. this eventually became a hubs and spoke approach to providing support in northeast honshu. as we provide that support, what you are looking is our own way of working with u.s. aid. these other rapid response teams, developing a picture of who is in need so that we can have a better understanding of situational awareness on the ground and act on that information. it allowed us to address the directed needs of the people of japan. what the people wanted was to return to normal as soon as possible. meaning they wanted to clear the schools. they wanted to address the human needs of the population. which meant showers. it also meant providing use it to help to relieve the tension and the pressure that had built up on people. now, to the consequent management. while the humanitarian assistance operation is in place, we need to get through an understanding of what goes on. in other words, w

even ronald reagan, the most in the logical president we ever had was capable. attacking reagan for going dugout. even reagan could talk and say cool it. but going to stop. but madison. >> host: what is your job here? >> guest: i teach seven courses. one is presidential rhetoric. a very important part of the presidency. persuade people and change minds. speak for 300 million people with one voice and be respected. some of them rose to great heights and others did not. we think of lincoln and the majesty of lincoln. it should be given in english courses as well. and then i teach a course on presidents and foreign policy. up to you a story about that. i start by saying okay, 1945. well, the beginning of the atomic era. what happened in 1865, 1989, the fall of the wall. so what happened in 1763, nothing. nothing. no reaction. 1763, the end of world war, the british get the french out of north america, master of our own destiny. what happens? two years later it all blows up. great care. and as the mall. still waiting for problems to be behind us. yeah. and each of th

indeed, it goes back to ronald reagan's administration. and it meant the cost reductions for reducing so2 from coal-electric generation was much slow or than had been anticipated. and what i find when i was listening to people talk about cap and trade, and that narrative always went back to what had happened in the early 1990s. i was just fascinated. i kind of wanted to get the story of, indeed, how did that happen. and then we just found out that cap and trade for a society is much harder to do than something that's fairly focused on a number of -- [inaudible conversations] >> guest: yeah. so i think it's -- so i would say, you know, what are we doing about climate policy today, getting cars to 54 miles a gallon, renewable standards, you know, one-third of california's electricity is talking about from renew ables. you know, that's climate policy. >> host: we can do this transition from a fossil fuel-based electricity to a -- [inaudible] >> guest: well, i think others would say you have to have some form of a rice on carbon, and that woul

not going to do them any favors over the next 13 months so they're not going to be able to run a ronald reagan style things are getting better, look how much progress we've made type campaign. what that leaves them probably with is more of a contrast campaign, which really means they'll be running against whoever the republican nominee is. >> did you design that sitting on a hill? remember that? >> no, long before i -- he had that in 1964, back then. but liz is right here. john, the numbers are so bad for the president, what he has to do and what they're going to do is run and say looking we inherited a bad situation. it's not as good, but for heaven's sakes don't go back to where we were. the tea party republicans represent a threat, menace to this country. they're crazy. and they're going to try to frighten the daylights out of the american people by -- hopefully having some republican candidate they can demonize. >> right now, obama's worst rival is himself in the obama's 2008 and he's compared to the promise and the energy and the hopes that ushered him into offers. one a real candidate em

ronald reagan negotiated with terrorists? anyone? all right, [bleeped] it, how about we fill the rio grande with lava. how about that? but enough of the niceties. let's get ready to romney. >> why don't you let me speak. >> you're allowed to change -- >> rick, you had your chance. why don't you let me speak. you got it from the heritage foundation. >> you just said it's not true. if it's in your book... >> you took it out of your book. let's be honest. [laughter and applause] >> jon: you see that woman's look of shock. do you see the look of shock? do you know how hard it is to get a look of shock from someone in las vegas. [laughter] it's las vegas. you know what they call a show girl [bleeped] a penguin in las vegas? tuesday. but the evening was mostly about candidates answering for their past statements. for herman cain it was his 999 tax reform plan which came under heavy attackment >> reports are out that 84% of americans would pay more taxes under his plan. >> herman, i love you, brother, but let me tell you something: you don'

and ultimately, ronald reagan was able to keep a campaign promise and cut income tacks by 30% -- taxes by 30%, especially for upper income people. that was the source of change, that was the attitudinal change. and it's very personal for me because those are years in which i got out of school, i became an economic journalist covering, covering these issues. i got to know some of these people like alan greenspan and bob rubin as a young journalist. they were active on wall street and not yet the quote-unquote great men they were about to become. .. so you can imagine how excited i was not so much because he was a civil rights leader and some people in retrospect were a little skeptical about him in that regard but because he was a baseball player at 11. who wouldn't be excited? look at his hand and his chest and his back. that is the real thing, i guess. anyway, i was pretty well sensitized to these issues and believe the america achieved something, a permanent lasting change and was reversing on the. it was hard for me as an observer to take in the idea that this would be a permanent a