tommy thompson and other establishment republicans struggled. rove wants to move in that direction. >> i count six down for rove. he's minus six. you want to go back two years, okay. christine o'donnell was a dope. i told her that on this show. sharon angle not ready for prime time. maybe a house member some day, i don't know. bad tea party candidates. akin wasn't really a tea party candidate. just said dumb things. coaching is what we need here. not warfare. that's my take. >> karl rove's point is he thinks republicans are so close to potentially getting the senate majority in 2014 h. he wanted in some of the swing states for republicans to move to the center and win seats they have been throwing away with. your point is fair. maybe republicans have to get more conservative with better candidates rather than more centrist ones. >> move to the center. geez. >> that's rove's point. >> much better. bob, hang b with me. the question is, is a gop civil war looming? sounds like it. jonathan collegio is spokesman for the karl rove victory project. mik

tommie thompson in wisconsin. tommie thompson was the perfect moderate candidate in a winnable race in wisconsin. and the others were supposed to be easy wins but they all three lost. if you look at the data and compare vote performance of a basket of candidates who were tea party guys like josh in ohio, jeff in arizona and tom in pennsylvania and you compare those to tommie thompson, those establishment guys did worse. they did twice as bad for vote performance. the reason this lesson is important it's like tp gang warfare in politics over the 2014 elections. nobody wants to have to go through that. that's why you saw people like lamar alexander and lindsay gram worried. i would argue this is good for the process. one of those p.'s in your introduction. as long as politicians think they can say and do whatever they want in washington and no one is going to hold them accountable at home they will keep kicking the can down the road. so the final point i want to make is about tactics because i think one lesson to le

tommy thompson, for example in wisconsin. danny in montana. they were not tea party candidates and they got beat? >> there was a wave. there was a ground swell. could you be swept up. nobody should be forgetting sharron angle, o'donnell were sure fire old time republican candidates. mike castle who could have again elected in delaware. >> paul: and christine o'donnell came out of nowhere. james, what do you think of this effort by rove? >> i think you understand why conservatives are skeptical. when buckley said years ago i think we should support the right most candidate that could win the election, he defined american conservatism. karl rove has been the guy in political and policy debates arguing against conservatives in the republican party. the idea that conservatives would trust him to find conservatives who can win is a little strange. i think there is also a tactical question of campaign operation, too. i think a lot of republicans are looking at karl rove, he raised a lot of money this time. are you fighting the last war instead of ge

the question is why did tommy thompson, rick burg, denny rehberg why did they lose?hey were establishment backed kind of clear the field type of candidates so they can just win these races. it's not the obvious loss. it's nobody has to question why should all these establishment candidates lose. >> respond. >> sure, i think chris raises a good point. the issue of candidate quality is not an ideological one. it's not because we're necessarily nominating candidates who are too conservati conservative. we're nominating those who don't have the discipline or fund-raising drive or a lot of other things they need to effectively compete against a very good democrat candidate. >> what's going tor your criteria to get into a primary? >> our first goal will be to focus on candidate vetting. to take a good, deep look at how they performed as candidates in the past. the things they've said and accomplished and their ability to build a broad based network of support inside the state. our hope is we can build a consensus among groups like ours that there's a particular candidate w

nobody was saying tommy thompson was extreme.e won because we recruited candidates that best fit their state. >> you know what i have to say, what i care about, you know what i respect in politics? people like the people on this list. >> me, too. >> anybody can come from a big city and vote 100% ada and be guaranteed a seat for life. when you're out there on the frontier as a moderate democrat and trying to get elected among moderate democrats in your state, maybe you have 50% of the state's moderate democrats, you have to prove yourself every six years, prove yourself to the people out there. and that's really gutsy. great stuff. good luck. you got great ink today. don't think it's going to stay that way. it never stays that way. guy cecil. it's like baseball managers, they have one good world series season. >> i'll take it. i'll take one. >> thank you very much, guy cecil. good to have you back, maggie. >>> up next, things you don't want to hear from a guy dressed up like abraham lincoln. this is the best david letterman top te

tommie thompson in wisconsin. tommie thompson was the perfect moderate candidate in a winnable race in wisconsin. and the others were supposed to be easy wins but they all three lost. if you look at the data and compare vote performance of a basket of candidates who were tea party guys like josh in ohio, jeff in arizona and tom in pennsylvania and you compare those to tommie thompson, those establishment guys did worse. they did twice as bad for vote performance. the reason this lesson is important it's like tp gang warfare in politics over the 2014 elections. nobody wants to have to go through that. that's why you saw people like lamar alexander and lindsay gram worried. i would argue this is good for the process. one of those p.'s in your introduction. as long as politicians think they can say and do whatever they want in washington and no one is going to hold them accountable at home they will keep kicking the can down the road. so the final point i want to make is about tactics because i think one lesson to le

tommie thompson in wisconsin. tommie thompson was the perfect moderate candidate in a winnable race in wisconsin. and the others were supposed to be easy wins but they all three lost. if you look at the data and compare vote performance of a basket of candidates who were tea party guys like josh in ohio, jeff in arizona and tom in pennsylvania and you compare those to tommie thompson, those establishment guys did worse. they did twice as bad for vote performance. the reason this lesson is important it's like tp gang warfare in politics over the 2014 elections. nobody wants to have to go through that. that's why you saw people like lamar alexander and lindsay gram worried. i would argue this is good for the process. one of those p.'s in your introduction. as long as politicians think they can say and do whatever they want in washington and no one is going to hold them accountable at home they will keep kicking the can down the road. so the final point i want to make is about tactics because i think one lesson to le

very well-funded, very serious mainstream republican candidates, tommy thompson in wisconsin and rabergew mexico. these were all considered very solid, very middle-of-the-road, the best republican establishment could do, and they lost also. >> and, by the way, mitt romney outperformed all of them, but i think that may lead to john's point about the damage from the mourdocks and the damage from the sarah palins, the damage from the fringe candidates that were leading the charge and define the republican brand. >> that certainly seems true. you made this point that the outlier fenn ophenomenon, the f candidate restricted to the party. a bunch of serious candidates, obama, clinton, dodd. that's not a fringy group that ran in 2008. 2012, another opportune moment, a vulnerable incumbent. what does that say about the difference between the two parties, that at moments of opportunity, a very sane group of people -- >> wait a second. >> to go back to 2004, though, as a comparable case in which the field was dominated for the first sick months of the race by an arguable outlier, howard dean, who