joining me now are msnbc's steve kornacki and karen finney. karen finney, paul ryan is desperately trying to flip-flop today on his position and his history on abortion. is it even possible, instantaneously, in one day, to suddenly flip over to what is the new romney campaign position of, oh, okay, abortion in the case of rape cases, that's okay with us. >> you know, actually, lawrence, i think it's a little bit more cynical and sinister than that. because i think they're actually not completely flipping their position. they've gone back to the position of creating different types of rape, right? because if you say, forcible rape -- if you say rape, but say you believe in forcible rape, then that suggests that you believe that there are other kinds of rape. and again, i think that's why so many women today were so happy to hear the president of the united states say, rape is rape. i would want to be able to ask both paul ryan and mitt romney the question, is rape rape? they don't want to have that conversation. they don't want to have any of t

and co-host of the msnbc "the cycle" steve kornacki of salon.com. after one delayed start, one hurricane scare and multiple theories about whether party conventions are even necessary anymore, this afternoon, the republican national convention is expected to finally get under way. last hour, governor romney arrived in tampa and in about two hours, delegates will convene to vote on the nominations of romney and congressman paul ryan. while today officially kicks off get to know mitt romney week, questions remain as to whether such a thing is even possible. the "new york times" david brooks has his own take on the real romney, writing quote, mitt romney was born on march 12th, 1947 in ohio, florida, michigan, virginia and several other swing states. he emerged hair first, believing in america and especially its national parks. he was given the name mitt after the roman god of mutual funds and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would some day become the arrow shirt man. it's unlikely romney and the gop can answer the identity qu

political encyclopedia, warm famous caring tographer, our beloved tv brother, happy birthday to steve kornackiirthday, steve. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. [ kate ] many women may not be properly absorbing the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption. it's the only way to get fresh coffee. not in my house! this new flavor lock pack from maxwell house helps seal in freshness. wow! that is fresh! am i still yelling? [ male announcer ] maxwell house flavor lock. always good to the last drop. atd g,c ] elib f [ male announcer ] maxwell house flavor lock. buoehi aurrtalen tu. le pind dhhc llme f le p ca't [ male announcer ] maxwell house flavor lock. d oudsf-. wowi ts, u'levi wowi ts, diat.. plthrk nre tlis e toto thra en, anizlpre-fve itsuco haxpnd erem geti d yohodome p fheco like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working fa

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joining us now is steve kornacki, cohost of the cycle. he's also senior writer for salon.com. eve, thank you for being here. >> happy to be here. >> does the fact that voters have mostly decided earlier on their preference in the presidential campaign this year, does it mean that it's more of a mobilization battle than a persuasion battle? >> i wouldn't underestimate the persuasion battle. they're counting on at the end of the election, whatever swing voters are going to turn against obama because of where the economy is, but the parallel has been drawn to 2004 because it was a turnout election. a lot of people say this was a 2004 election in reverse. reverse the dynamics, what was working in bush's favor is working in obama's favor, what was working in kerry's favor is working in romney's favor. and the liabilities are flipped around, too. there's an extra twist with romney which is he needs the republican base to turn out in big numbers and the republican base is not going to turn out for mitt romney. they're going to turn out against barack obama. so mitt romney himself is n

all right, up next, steve kornacki is bursting with excitement.ll talk to a man who has known mitt romney for years, bill well is in the guest spot. straight ahead, wonder what he thinks of mitt's musical choices. my name is adam frucci and i'm the editor of splitsider.com. i love new technology, so when i heard that american express and twitter were teaming up, i was pretty interested. turns out you just sync your american express card securely to your twitter account, tweet specific hashtags, and you'll get offers on things you love. this totally changes the way i think about membership. saving money on the things you want. to me, that's the membership effect. nice boots! so i test... a lot. do you test with this? freestyle lite test strips? i don't see... beep! wow! that didn't take much blood. yeah, and the unique zipwik tab targets the blood and pulls it in. so easy. yep. freestyle lite needs just a third the blood of onetouch ultra. really? so testing is one less thing i have to worry about today. great. call or click today and get strips an

>> i'm steve kornacki, one of least understood was most important pieces of legislation in history. the story behind the stimulus. >> plus a break from politics to take you inside the multibillion dollar worldwi wide web of dati on august 21st. >>> todd akin has just three hours to drop out of the missouri senate race, or else the republicans will face a much more difficult road in they try to replace him later. but akin shows no signs of throwing in the towel. here he was an hour or so ago. >> i want to make things absolutely clear, and that is, we're going to continue with this race for the u.s. senate. we've go given it a lot of thought and the first thing we felt we had to do was we had offended some people and we tried to respond to that and let people know that we didn't mean anybody or to take in any way, rape, anything less than very, very seriously. >> did you get all of that? around the same time, presumptive republican nominee mitt romney condemned akin's comments about legitimate relationship but stopped short of telling him to drop out. >> his comments about rape were d

joining us now is steve kornacki. he's a good student of history. steve, thanks for being here. >> i spend way too much time in the c-span video archives so i love the intro, the american express ads. >> the premise of the bill miller ad is you have no idea who i am looking at my face. it's as if i won, i'm so happy with this credit card. i mean, that was not only a loss, but a huge loss. but i was so struck today going back and looking at contemporaneous press coverage to see the rationale for picking him by the goldwater folks and all of the strategs dunderheadedness is they needed someone who was a hard core partisan to keep their side happy. it's a reason to believe it's a dumb strategic move as much now as it was in '64? >> you could look at '64, the sort of caveat there is there were so many factors lined up against barry goldwater in the election, it didn't matter who he picked. he was against the civil rights that year. he was going to lose the north by 40 or 50 points. but another thing that is interesting, 1996, bob dole selecting kemp. it

. >> i'm steve kornacki, i'm just weird. >> we all have the nerdy moment, there it is right there. >> michael, i want you to level with me for a minute on this. i think something we all can agree on is that the romney campaign wants to win. and to do so the national journalist is saying he needs to get 61% of the white vote. right now in the latest nbc/wall street journal poll he's at zero percent with african-americans. the president has 94% and romney is getting zero. >> right. >> i'm not asking about morality here just asking about pure politics. doesn't it make sense, isn't it effective for the romney campaign to inject race into this campaign and use that as a divider to get that 61% of the white vote that they need? >> i'm going to be honest with you, no, it is not from a practical or political standpoint because something like that is always dangerous. it always blows back up on you ten-fold. being exposed, doing something like that just does not make good political sense in this day and age where you can get news and information and dissection of your actions from all angles.

chairman of the democratic national committee and vermont governor, howard dean, and msnbc's steve kornacki and krystal ball. governor dean, a lot of democrats are saying, you know, this is the dream ticket. this is who they wanted on there. i actually don't think it's spin. as much as this is a time for spin, and you were going to get a spin reaction, no matter what in these situations, i don't think they're kidding. i think this is the ticket that the democrats want. >> well, you know, i think you have to be careful of talk like that, because it sounds like you're taking things for granted and you shouldn't. but ryan clearly is not going to help in florida. and it's true that if the democrats win in florida, then it's game over for the republicans. so i do think that governor romney has weakened his position significantly by picking paul ryan. he's an amiable guy, but his views really are extreme. they're extreme on women's issues, they're incredibly extreme on medicare issues. we did -- democracy for america did some polling in six swing districts, in colorado and pennsylvania and a coup

today let's map out the story that is steve kornacki. former photographer and before he was discovered and became a national heart throb he hosted a regional political show in new jersey. take my word for it, let's go to the video type. tape. >> we're back on power and politics. >> i love that. >> i love the hair. long before he was a tv star he did a brief stint as a politician, president of the tenth grade class until he botched prom planning and was swiftly voted out. politics ain't for the feint of heart. it is not all politics with steve. it is 99.9% politics. he is not amused by one specific part of amusement park, one in particular, the coney island ferris wheel. roller coasters, good. slow moving, non-descript rides, no, no, no. not to say he isn't an internal man of mystery and danger. he once broke a girl's wrist. not as bad as is sounds. it was an unfortunate skiing incident during a magical date or something. hopefully he is easier on patrick. >> there is a good explanation for the ferris wheel. the massachusetts governor tha

patricia murphy, steve kornacki, thank you for your time tonight. >> and catch steve on the cycle week days at 3:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. >>> coming up, republicans have been longing for the good old days under bill clinton. well, be careful what you wish for. the new ads starring clinton should have the romney team worried. >>> and we all know paul ryan loves stimulus money. but who knew he also had a thing for military stimulus. all that plus my exclusive interview with oscar winner jamie foxx and ron howard. wait until you hear their take on the election. you're watching "politicsnation" only on msnbc. all energy development comes with some risk, but proven technologies allow natural gas producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protecting our environment. across america, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation and self-contained recycling systems... ... and protect land - by reducing our footprint and respecting wildlife. america's natural gas... domestic, abundant, clean en

steve kornacki, one of the hosts of "the cycle" and matt miller, and dana milbank, political columnisthe washington post." steve, we were supposed to begin this week enthused by a thunderous performance by romney ryan in new hampshire and yet, here we are today talking about a bloke we haven't even heard of 24 hours ago. >> who's this romney guy? this is a crucial time for mitt romney because what his campaign is really looking at is one of the themes this summer is that romney's favorable rating is a lot lower than what it should be. people clearly prefer obama. that's the press, the obama attack ads, the questions about the taxes. what they are thinking of, what the romney campaign is thinking of is what happened to bill clinton in 1992. in the spring of 1992, people thought bill clinton was going to be an electoral disaster. he had really from an image standpoint, the best convention. where they did the man from hope. really told the bill clinton story to america. and people left saying not only do i like this guy, this guy should be president of the united states. that's what repub

cycle host steve kornacki will join me. and ryan's swift obama.hy are service groups coming together and questioning the president's military leadership? that and more at the top of the hour. but one dark stormy eveni. she needed a good meal and a good family. so we gave her purina cat chow complete. it's the best because it has something for all of our cats! and after a couple of weeks she was part of the family. we're so lucky that lucy picked us. [ female announcer ] purina cat chow complete. and for a delicious way to help maintain a healthy weight, try new purina cat chow healthy weight. [ "the odd couple" theme playing ] humans. even when we cross our "t"s and dot our "i"s, we still run into problems -- mainly other humans. at liberty mutual insurance, we understand. that's why our auto policies come with accident forgiveness if you qualify, where your rates won't go up due to your first accident, and new car replacement, where if you total your new car, we give you the money for a new one. call... to talk to an insurance expert about everyt

steve kornacki, host of "the cycle," hogan, and maria teresa kumar.want to start with you. >> of course. >> won't start out easy on you. it seems to me like this is an attempt, we've seen the polls. president obama's likability numbers are pretty high. we've seen governor romney taking a hit in the polls. a bit over the last few weeks in terms of his likability, so you know, it seems what we're really seeing here is an attempt to try to go after president obama's numbers. decrease, go after his character. get these likability numbers down. at a time when we're heading into the rnc convention, so what is it that governor romney is going to do to try to refute this image of him as somebody who's out of touch and try to get people as sally field would say, like him? >> right. well, you know, i think right now, i think one of mitt romney's predominant problems is just personal. where as i think obama's problem of likability at this point is is political. it's what he's been able to do in his office. those are the two differences between the two. as we mov

>>> i'm steve kornacki.ing to say and how is he going to say it?

. >> steve kornacki who says chris christie was a giant wasted opportunity. thank you, steve.od afternoon. wednesday, august 29. here's what's happening. ♪ president obama rules like he's above the law. >> democrats depend on dependence. >> guy walked into bar and heard that story and he said well, if you have a business, you didn't build that. well,

. >> steve kornacki, senior writer for salon.com and the owner of the best tie in rockefeller center.rarely get compliments on my wardrobe, so thank you. >>> it was not surreal enough to be having huge political fights over the issue of contraception in the 21st century, it's just become all the more surreal, surreal enough to maybe even be funny if we're allowed to have a sense of humor about these things and i think we are. reami, any way you want. fully customize it for your trading process -- from thought to trade, on every screen. and all in real time. which makes it just like having your own trading floor, right at your fingertips. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. try our easy-to-use scottrader streaming quotes. it's another reason more investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. here at the hutchison household. but one dark stormy evening... she needed a good meal and a good family. so we gave her purina cat chow complete. it's the best because it has something for all of our cats! and after a couple of weeks she was part of the family. w

. >> i'm steve kornacki. everyone is crushing on the republicans these days, even the

. >> i'm steve kornacki. the good, the bad and the ugly at the rnc.

. >> i'm steve kornacki with the man show.happens to one town when all the ladies say si good-bye. >> it's tuesday, august 14th, and you are in "the cycle." >>> with the ticket set for the

rg >>> i'm steve kornacki.arlottesville, v virginia where the president speaks this hour. it's 2:00 in indianapolis where mitt romney is this hour. it's time for the cycle". this is a big hour for presidential politics. we'll have it all for you live. >> i'm krystal ball. republicans aren't the only ones grabbing headlines. hurricane isaac is parked on the gulf coast seven years to the day since

. >> i'm steve kornacki. we're 3 days out from the presidential election.ng to walk back the latest biden gaffe and the romney team is running with it. i'm crystal ball. are you ready for another clinton on the ballot? the private former first daughter is going public. >> i'm tourre with the other green economy. we'll meet a man who claims making guns illegal could lead america