with me tonight, steve mcmann, republican. steve, does he think he lost?> it seems like everybody is reading their tea leaves and so has everybody because they're predicting what the president will do in advance of hearing that vote. it's familiar with the kind of questions that are asked in a supreme court argument. they don't always telegraph what they're going to do, they just sometimes argue for the other side just to find out, you know, to draw out all the arguments that each side might want to make and all the problems that they would like to point out. so, you know, i'm not sure you can read too much into the tea leaves. >> john, hear president obama's comments and react. >> i just remind conservative commentators that for years what we've heard is the biggest problem on the bench is judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and past law. this is a good example, and i'm pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step. >> john theory, he's

. >> and steve mcmann, after a lot of well-paid-for speeches and a stint at fox, it's now 2017.e says, i told you so. we nominated the moderate. he lost. this year we need a conservative. >> you can take that clip and change the date and refer it back to 2012 and that's what he will be saying in 2013, 14 and 15 leading up to the next race. the republican establishment believes, i think, for the most part -- they won't say publicly but jeff scarborough is right -- they're worried mitt romney is going to lose this time. after he loses, santorum is going to say if we had nominated a real conservative, we would have been successful. there are a lot of people in the republican party who believe that. for rick santorum, the question is how do you get out and preserve that viability for the future. getting beat ten more times isn't going to make the case that you're the best nominee next time. >> a different interpretation, and we can save this debate for later, would be that the party went off the rails, lost all the moderates, and consequently should have moved back to the center bef

. >> steve mcmann, after a lot of well paid for speeches, it's now 2016, and he says i told you so.erate, that's why we lost, and now we need a conservative. >> you can take that clip, change the dates, and refer it back to 2012, and that is what he will be saying. the republican establishment believes for the most part i think, they're worried that mitt romney will lose this time. and after he loses, rick santorum will rise and say if we nominated a true conservative and given people a real choice, we would have been successful. there are a lot of people that believe that, and for rick san torl, the question is how do you get out and preserve that opportunity and viability in the future. staying in and getting beat ten more times. >> a different interpretation. we could say that the party went off the rails, and should have moved back to the center before they drove those folks away. i want to move on to senator warn match that predicted that obama will use mitt romney's religion against him. they said, you watch, they're going to through his religion at him, and to say they're not

. >> steve mcmann, let me ask you to switch hats. you seem to think that mitt romney, in order to win, would have to attack toward the middle. is there an issue that comes to mind where he could move to the middle, upset some conservatives but still keep everybody in the tent? >> boy, that's a good question. i think moving to the middle in the era of the tea party where the tea party dominates the republican echo chamber, where you have a candidate like newt gingrich who is staying in the race to keep him honest, or you have tony perkins out there saying he's going to keep the pressure on, it becomes very difficult for mitt romney to become the guy, the centrist, the massachusetts governor who people one day feared. he's become kind of the caricature of a tea party right wing conservative. he wasn't firing government employees, he was creating wealth by firing middle class employees. the kind of manufacturing jobs leading this country were hastened in their departure. he might try to move to the middle but it will just be another fli

our "hardball" strategists are here to review the arguments, steve mcmann and todd harris.ikeability is a nice thing. here's romney right now, north carolina, just yesterday making the case against reelecting the president. let's watch. >> even if you like barack obama, we can't afford barack obama. it's time to get someone that will get this economy going and put the american people back to work. we're entrusting people. we're a hopeful people. but we're not dumb. and we're not going to fall from the same lines from the same person just because it's in a different place. >> i somehow think he's being well scripted right now. >> he is being well scripted because he's trying to separate the fact that people like the president, thad liey would like president to succeed and they're making a decision over the president and a guy they don't like very much. >> can they concede that? >> they can mute it a little bit, but the converse of the argument is you may not like me very much, but if you care about the economy you need to elect a business guy from wall street. i don't quite