>> let's look at some of the exit polling among the true conservatives in nevada. this is how it broke down decidedly for governor romney beating you in all of the categories, and this is supposed to be your base, mr. speaker, so what is the path for you to win this nomination? what is the rational? >> well, this is the state he won last time and he won it this time. our goal is to get to super tuesday where we are in much more favorable territory. in florida i was out spend 5 to 1. we carried more counties than he did. we wanted to get to georgia, alabama, tennessee, and the states, texas, we believe by the time texas is over we will be competitive in delegate count. and the key from my standpoint is to make it a big choice campaign. you just had a quote from governor romney that is a good example, he said he doesn't worry much about the poor because they have a safety net. the safety net in many ways is a spider web. it traps them at the bottom. real conservatives have been trying to develop a trampoline affect where we help them leave poverty and find jobs and improve neighborhoods. there's a series of very big differences about the level of change that we would bring to washington. my goal over the next few weeks is to draw a very sharp distinction, between romney's differences, and in terms of tax policies, being like obama. so i don't want to have a processed campaign, i want to have an issue-oriented campaign, and when we can get those issues out in the open, we have done well. >> you say you don't want to have a process campaign. what you have been doing primarily is the fact that you have been out spent and governor romney has been incredibly negative. you have -- >> what i am doing, david -- >> you are making the contrast about issues. >> right, and other people think i did a good job at that. i want to focus on how big the change has to be in washington. i want to focus on the degree to which we need a tax policy that is aggressively projobs. you cited going into the show today unemployment dropped. it has dropped. you know why it has dropped? over 4% who would be unemployed quit looked for work. if we had the same participation rate several years ago, it would be at 12%. we need a much more aggressive tax policy. we need an american energy policy. look at what is happening in the middle east. we are hostage to a region that is very vaul tolatilevolatile, s of iran are gaining strength and so i think that there are very large issues at stake, and my goal is to communicate those issues and get them out there. >> i want to come back to each of these issues in turn, but one more process question about just the campaign. you said in your press conference last night that you want to make this a definitional campaign to disqualify romney in the minds of conservatives. what specifically do you mean and how do you do that? >> well, i think if you look at his record as governor, it's very clear. he was proabortion and progun control and protax increase, and ended up third from the bottom in job creation, and 48,000 manufacturing jobs left because the combination of romneycare and tax increases made him a very weak governor in terms of job creation. the challenge is to say do you really want to go into a fall election with a moderate candidate. the last two teams we had a moderate, we lost badly. a conservative candidate can offer a greater contrast with president obama, and offer a much bigger difference, and i am prepared, for example, to talk about young people having the right to have a personal social security savings account that saves social security, and increases their income, and eliminates about 50% of the disparity of wealth in the country within a generation. so i think that the difference between timidly trying to manage at the margins, a system that has to be profoundly changed and boldly taking it on is a big difference, and i don't think a timid approach will beat obama this fall. >> let me go back to the conditions you mentioned. 46 million americans in poverty, and 15%, you said there is a big distinction between how you would help the poor and what governor romney would do. i have been researching your own positions. i don't see much difference. >> well, one of the big differences, i think there should be a dramatic increase in school choice for the very poor. i will give you an example. he favors indexing minimum wage wherever economists in the country believes that further makes it difficult for young people to get a job. this is a country right now where 43% of young african-americans are unemployed. in nevada, it's 31% of all teenagers are unemployed. we should be making it easier for young people to get a chance, not raising the cost of hiring young people and making it harder. i am for much boulder tax changes than he is. he limits the capital gains tax break, and that means 1 million small businesses would not be eligible. i have a flat tax option modeled after what they did in hong kong, and the americans will be able to fill out one page, list the number of dependents they have and pay about 15% on their taxes. my goal is to actually bring government down to the revenue level, and not raise revenue to try and catch up with obama's spending. i think that's a very bold difference from romney. >> let me ask you about the economy and the jobs report. i want to put up as i often do the unemployment chart for the obama presidency, february of that year, 2009, and october, 10.1%, and here we are january of this year, back to 8.3%, and how can you say the administration has not led economic recovery? >> very simple, david. you did not include the number of people that dropped out of the workforce. when you include the number of people that quit looking for work because they are convinced they cannot find a job, it jumps up to 12%. when you include the number of people that have part time jobs that wish they had a full time job, it's at 16 or 17%. this is an administration that shrunk the workforce dramatically, and it's the lowest male participation rate in the labor force since the 1940s, right after world war ii. when you take -- there's a number called u6, and it's a dangerous and dismal situation, and the congressional budget office warned they believe unemployment will go back up this summer and fall and think it will stay high through 2014, and the federal reserve has a similar forecast. >> if there's job creation throughout the rest of the year, and even if it's not profound and if it doesn't keep up with population growth, do you think as a republican it will be difficult to make the case against this president as he is vying for re-election? >> depends on what the job creation looks like. if you are talking we go down to 7.9% in the fourth year of the longest recession since the great depression, you still have a challenge. if it's sbcombined with the highest priced gasoline in the history, he will still have a challenge, and if we got to that recovery because he is borrowing trillions from our children and grandchildren, it's still down. you think washington is on the right track or wrong track, and by an overwhelming margin the american people think washington is on the wrong track. obama's policies have consistently weakened the country. there are very few americans who want to seat price of gasoline raised by governor to 25 cents a gallon. and he declared -- it's not just an economic election. he declared war on the catholic church. that's the language of the archbishop in new york. >> this is for insurance to be provided, including contraception for employees around the country, but religious institutions would be exempted. how is this a war against religion? there are states that have very similar rules to insure the health and safety of women that they get covered in their workplace, whether it's a catholic hospital or other kind of institution. >> you just managed to precisely repeat the obama administration's line, and it's also the civil liberty union line. there cannot be a genuinely catholic university or hospital that in fact it will have to be subordinated to the rules of a secular government. i happen to oppose rules that have, for example, forced catholic adoption services to be closed because they are only will be to have adoptions between marriages between a man and woman, and there are states that closed that. i think it's a tremendous infringement of religious liberty, and you are saying the same thing, you can have the name but you can't be a catholic institution, or be an evangelical institution, because we the secular government are going to impose on you. i think that's a very profound moment for americans to decide if you really want to have a government imposing that. >> you predicted the political cost of the president because of that? >> it's very substantial, yes. every american that cares about religious liberty, and i have been talking, for example, with evangelicals here in nevada. every american who cares about religious liberty, recognize that judges that say you can't say a prayer at high school, and the new york city decision recently, you can't rent an pty school building on sunday morning, and every time you turn around secular government is closing in and on shrinking the right of religious rights in america. >> "saturday night live" had fun at your expense last night. let me show you a clip and ask you a more serious question on the other side. >> 2014, the time of turmoil for america. president barack obama no longer hides his socialistic agenda. from the darkness, a visionary emerges and pursues a better future in faith. he is -- newt gingrich, moon president. >> you know, you have talked, mr. speaker, about keeping focused on big ideas in this campaign, and the lunar colony would foot that bill. you also said on this program back in may is one of my biggest weaknesses is part of me is a teacher analysts, because sometimes you talk more like that thab somebody disciplined to be the president of the united states. you talk about fiscal sanity and age of sausterity, and then you talk about a lunar colony. do you think it hurts your seriousness as you move forward in the campaign? >> i don't think you will talk about an age of austerity. i am a progrowth american and conservative and i think the answer is to grow the economy and not to punish the economy with the austerity. i made a speech on the space coast in florida to serious people who spent their lifetime trying to help america get into space. every serious analysts understands the chinese are going all out to dominate space, and the russians today have the only man-rated vehicle for space, and i did not impose any additional spending, i proposed a fundamental reform of nasa to engage the private sector in bold and dramatic ventured, and one said she could not imagine president john f. kennedy being met with the kind of attacks and the ridicule and the lack of faith in america that has come up in the last few days. i believe it's possible to unleash the american people to inspire the private sector and encourage intrapreneurs and to have a better space program than we have today, and i think every american should wonder why we have spend billions and billions on nasa and currently have no vehicle to put human beings into space. i was calling -- this was not some slip. this was a deliberate effort to start a conversation at a time when the chinese, the indians and the russians are aggressively moving into space and we are mired down in red tape spending billions in dollars without making progress. i am not for a gigantic taxpayer program, but for a turn in the program. >> you have lost personal like and even respect for governor romney? >> i think that's basically an irrelevant question. governor romney is running a campaign that he thinks is right for him, and i don't think it's a good thing to do. i am proud that in florida the vote was up, and in the counties he carried the vote was down. in south carolina we set an all-time record for turn out. i am trying to draw people into politics and not carpet bomb them out of it. we have a disagreement about the responsibility somebody running for the american people should vote for. >> and i see you endorse a team that comes from the capital of media elitism. >> well, you know, my son in law have shares of green bay stock and have an obligation, david, to honor the team that beat us. painful as it was. with this one, i'm with you. >> newt gingrich, mr. speaker, thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up, more on this super bowl sunday, the giants and patriots face-off on football's largest stage on nbc. we will have a special conversation with the giant's hometown mayor, michael bloomberg, and the governor of the host state, mitch daniels. we will talk politics and a little football, including how the patriots' record may be a political predictor for what is in store in the race for the white house. and then the xs and os, we have our roundtable panel after this break. 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[ male announcer ] stay a step ahead with 4g lte. with speeds up to 10x faster than 3g. at&t. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. joining me this super bowl sunday, governor of massachusetts, deval patrick, and new york city mayor, michael bloomberg, and governor of indiana, mitch daniels. welcome to all of you and nice to have you here. >> good morning. >> i want to talk the economy first with everyone. i want to start with you governor daniels. you gave the response to the president's state of the union address and you were pointed about his economic record. let me play a portion of it. >> the president did not cause the crisis that continues in america tonight but he was elected on the promise to fix them and he cannot claim the last three years have made anything but worst, and as i pointed out, 8.3% unemployment, close to where it was in february of 2009, that's a dramatic improvement, just last month more than 240,000 jobs created. do you stand by what you said? >> every word of it, david. the economy is down 30 points, and we just kicked a field goal. i think i would keep the champagne on ice. i heard a little of the previous interview. look at the percentage of the americans working, two-thirds of the jobs lost have not been regained yet. the participation rate is extraordinary low and the unemployment rate is high, and i am glad as anybody to see one good month, but it's way too early for a celebration and as you know most of the predictions for this year about further growth are gloomy. >> it's not just one month, major bloomberg, it's job creation throughout the year under president obama. here was a striking statistic that we saw in the new york times poll, in terms of the op misam. you are close to the economy to new york and beyond and how do you see the numbers in the trajectory in the economy? >> it's better in new york and across the country, and as mitt said it's not running away on the up side, and there's lots of storm clouds we have to worry about. what disturbs me when you listen to all of the rhetoric in the campaign, nobody is talking about how they will close an $8 trillion deficit in the next few years, and how do you make it fair when you have to increase revenue. you cannot cut your way out of this, and when you cut what things will you cut? every time i listen to the cut program, it's i will protect your program if you protect mine. what the president should do is veto any extension in the bush tax cuts, and we are in this together and adopt the simpson-bowles plan, and it was not horse trading but trying to strike a balance between the things we want and like. >> you don't think we need the deficit reduction by cutting taxes? >> well, the only way you get $4 trillion, which is half of the deficit we need to close, is that if you make sure the bush tax cuts go away for everybody. the rich do pay a difference in what they owe already. everybody in the country gets some benefit from the federal government, whether it's interest deductions, and capital gains and all of those kinds of things, and since everybody benefits, i have always thought you don't want to create class warfare, everybody should feel the pain a little bit, up to their ability to pay, but everybody is in this together. that's what america is all about. >> governor patrick, how do you respond to governor daniels and speaker gingrich that says the president does not deserve credit, and the economy continues to be weak and the jobless numbers don't capture the fact that so many americans stopped looking for work and are no longer represented in those numbers. >> the facts are unwelcomed things to the speaker and many republicans today. i want to align myself with the comments that mayor bloomberg made. there's a way to reduce the deficit and grow the economy and continue the 23 consecutive months of job growth that we have had under the president. and the president aligns himself with those same ideas. there has to be a combination, a balanced approach of increased revenue, and also cuts from government spending. but we have to invest in those things that we know grow the economy and make for a better future in education, and in the innovation sectors, and biotech and financial services and so forth, and in the infrastructure, and that's the strategy we pursued at home and that's why our rate is below the national average and in new york and indiana as well. >> one of the things you hear from the campaign trail, governor daniels, the recovery should have been so much stronger. it's difficult to prove something like that, like the economy would have been weaker if not for his policy. how could it have been stronger had a republican been president and in the white house? >> for one thing, national policy would not have been so anti-enterprise it has been. if you assembled a team of nobel economists, saying to put together innovation, you could not have done better than what has happened in the last three years. the mindless piling on of new regulations, every one of them very expensive, and that's all drained away dollars that could have been used to hire somebody. the new taxes and the threat of more, all the uncertainty that has come with that, and what we know is this, david, nobody can prove what might have happened, but this is the weakest recovery by far from a deep recession that we have had since the records have been kept. i don't think that's an accident. >> mayor bloomberg, as an independent voice in all of this, is that your judgment as well, that that's a fair criticism? >> i think that i agree with most of what he said. if you want to have growth, number one you have to have the financial industry be strong and will be to take risks, and the relentless criticism and investigation of them, regardless of the facts in the past, if we want to have a f future, we have to have people that have confidence, and anybody out there dissing any progress we made, and they keep criticizing the president. let's put it in football terms. can you imagine a coach that would put a backup quarterback in if all he did on the sidelines was criticize the starting quarterback? i don't think so. we need the president to succeed, and we have to work together in the partisan bickering -- there are no heroes here, both sides of pennsylvania avenue, they are not coming together to focus on a real solution. all they are doing is trying to get ready for the next campaign, or prepare for four years from the next election. >> governor daniel, here you have a republican nominee in mitt romney that talks about not being concerned about the real poor, there's a safety net there, having difficult connecting with voters, and then the negative tea in the campaign against gingrich and romney. >> i believe -- i agree with those and side with those that yearn for more positive campaigns. i think the debate something a process that we developed here, and every chance that i get i call for what the mayor just did, in order to earn our way back to leadership, it's not enough to point out failures that are visible to any one. we have to offer a constructive program that promises to restore upward mobility in the country, and i believe and certainly hope that our eventual nominee, once freed from this rather dismal primary process, will present that kind of an affirmative message to the country. >> as you look at nevada last night, do you believe governor romney is the inevitable nominee of your party? >> you are asking the wrong person. my guesses are worst than they are in football. i finally learned to keep my mouth shut. >> governor patrick, as you look at the negative tea in the campaign, and the president making not so settle jabs at romney, do you think that will weaken the eventual nominee for president obama? >> i agree it has been a dismal primary season, at a time when americans need to turn to each other than on each other, we do need to see ourselves as in this together, and it worries me that so much of the national republican rhetoric has been about elevating division itself to the top of their political agenda. we have a lot of work here to do, and 3.7 million private sector jobs in the last few jobs is a fact and a positive fact, but when we see the people for whom the recovery has not yet reached them, we have to not see that as a political opening but unfinished business. >> there's a lot of football vying. look at this ad. >> giants, patriots, eli. >> for example, the red sox. >> yankees. >> we both support the second amendment and believe america must do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. we agree on common sensory forms that would save lives. >> add your voice. >> it's a patriotic thing to do. >> we can make a giant difference in our country. >> mayor, it seems like the national discussion about guns in this country has been overtaken by the politics of indifference, frankly on this, and neither party wants to weigh in on one side with the country split on this. >> if a congresswoman got shot in the head, that would have changed congress's view. get congress to come to the hospital when i have to tell somebody that their son or daughter or their spouse or parent is not going to come home ever again, and the murder rate in new york is lower than almost every big city, but we still had a cop shot last week with a gun that somebody had, even though the federal laws prohibited that person from having a gun. they say you can't get a begun if you have a criminal record and yet congress doesn't give monies to make sure we can have a background check. they have too many loopholes. and private sector sales of guns is up to 40%, and they don't do a background check. i don't know how many people have to get killed before people say this is enough, and we had 40,000 americans killed since martin luther king jr. and jfk were assassinated in '68. more americans have died on the streets from illegal drugs than americans killed in world war ii. enough is enough. >> and the ads have tied into the super bowl, by veterans groups representing iraqi and afghanistan war veterans, u.s. veterans, of course, who would like to see a parade in new york city to welcome home veterans from the iraq war, particularly when there would be if the giants win, a parade for them. do you oppose that? >> no, i think it would be great. but the pentagon has asked us to postpone any parade as long as we still have our soldiers in iraq getting shot at and sadly, killed, and i think i will leave it up to the military experts and pentagon to decide when they think it's appropriate and new york will give them a parade like we never have before and say thank you for everything. >> does it make sense, we can fund two different wars but can't have a parade for two different sets of veterans? >> i think the military is very sensitive. they are the ones out there and been in combat themselves. i will defer to the leadership. >> and finally, governor daniels, let's talk football. here are the stats. when you talk about politics and football, and they are quite revealing. 2008, giants beat the patriots, and president obama wins. but if you go back to 2004, it's the patriots that beat the panthers, and that meant that governor bush, president bush at that point wins re-election. is the outcome today the indicator for the fall? >> undoubtedly. i think the evidence is overwhelming here. and so i plan to get a button down on the election as soon as the gun goes off. >> if the giants win, the president wins re-election. >> the president wins and the patriots win. >> one more, governor daniel, manning, is he gone from indy? >> we sure hope not. i just can't imagine this town or team without him, and i just believe he will heal. we will have a team not only to cheer for, but what america should know is, this guy is as great a citizen as he is a quarterback. i cannot tell you, and in fact most people will never know all the things he has done for this state. i for one hope we will have him around for a good while. > >> we'll leave it there. enjoy the game, gentlemen. coming up, mitt romney rolls to victory in nevada promising to bring his business experience to a failing economy, and will positive job numbers boost obama's standing and we will ask our political roundtable, rachel maddow, and david brooks of the 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 energy to power our lives... that's smarter power today. no, i wouldn't use that single miles credit card. hey, aren't you... shhh. i'm researching a role. today's special... the capital one venture card. you earn double miles on every purchase. impressive. chalk is a lost medium. if you're not earning double miles... you're settling for half. was that really necessary? [ male announcer ] get the venture card at capitalone.com and earn double miles on every purchase every day. what's in your wallet? cover for me. i have an audition. the day starts with arthritis pain... a load of new listings... and two pills. after a morning of walk-ups, it's back to more pain, back to more pills. the evening showings bring more pain and more pills. sealing the deal... when, hang on... her doctor recommended aleve. it can relieve pain all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lois... who chose two aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. today my journey continuesn. across the golden state, where everyone has been unbelievably nice. mornin'. i guess i'm helping them save hundreds on car insurance. it probably also doesn't hurt that i'm a world-famous advertising icon. cheers! i mean, who wouldn't want a piece of that? geico. ah... fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent oh dear... or more on car insurance. we're back with the political roundtable. joining me, host of msnbc's "rachel maddow show," rachel maddow, and california congressman, xavier becerra. rachel, you are satisfied we have said enough about the super bowl so far? >> it's apparently this afternoon. >> yeah, i will mention it 30 more times. >> here we are. here is nevada last night. we look at the results. romney, going away at 48%. i don't think this is completely final yet. we have 71% reporting, but obviously a big night for governor romney. gingrich at 23%, and then ron paul. and the delegate counts, romney at 83, and gingrich at 28, and the magic number is 1144. where are we? >> well, the big news is conservatives did so well for raomne romney. i think it's out with a huge issue, the idea that the perception of the religious freedom. it's a sense that we have to beat this guy, obama, okay, romney is good enough. it's significantly healed any wounds that existed between romney and the evangelicals. >> 80% of people say that insurance -- anybody providing health insurance should be provided contraception. all of the republican field has gone very far right specifically on the issue of contraception. campaigning against the availability of birth control in america is going to run into a 21st century feeling. >> you can try to make it a religious issue. the president of the united states, they said you cannot live your beliefs. one thing that is government expands every sector of society, it crowds out private life. all of a sudden you lose your freedom of religion. i think it's a real issue. >> does that fairly represent the white house view on this? >> it doesn't represent the catholic view, either. i am a catholic. i think the constitution got it right. protect religious liberty, but if my church wants to start to be an insurance company or internet company, it doesn't have the same freedoms to discriminate against woman to not let them become priests, and it shouldn't have the same right as a church to do business. if it wants to be in the business of providing health insurance, it should do what every other insurance company must do under the laws. >> isn't it voluntary that you go to a catholic university or choose a catholic hospital? >> excuse me. excuse me, congressman. >> what i was going to try and tell you, i agree, women should have the right to contraception, but there's choice in the country about how you live and what you believe, and we shouldn't limit religious -- >> isn't there a distinction between paying for something and making it available? >> well, the workers are doing incredible work and they are doing it out of a sense of religious devotion. what the governor is telling them, the obama administration had a perfect available option to say you are not going to provide contraception, but then just tell people where to go, that way we square it with what you want to do with your conviction, and we're realistic. but the government is it's our way or the highway. >> the idea that the catholic church is being forced to do something that as a church it doesn't want to do is a misnomer. the catholic church, somebody that is providing the service of being a church, operating as a church, they are exempt from this. when you want to become a health insurance provider, you must follow the rules of providing health providing. that means you have to cover contraception. you want to make it only about religious, but listen, mitt romney is campaigning saying that he would like to end-all family family support at the federal level, and eliminate that, and rick santorum says he would like to make contraception illegal. you can make it a thing that democrats hate religion. >> alex, i want to move this back. it's a fascinating debate and will not go away, but i want to talk about the state of the campaign. and david initially brought it up as a way of where romney might be attracting more conservative support. how has he done this week, you know, having to deal with the fact that he talked about not worrying about the poor too much because there's a social safety net, and then he offered this in the wake of the job numbers that we talked about here, 8.3% unemployment. this is what he said. >> this recovery has been slower than it should have been. will it get better? i think it will get better. but this president has not helped the process. he's hurt it. >> will he be able to stick with that rational, vote for me because i could have made the recovery stronger than the current president did? >> i think the question still is what recovery? there seems to be one in washington and the beginnings of one in the white house, but when we all look at the unemployment numbers, we can understand why america doesn't feel like it's on the right track. if i told you, rachel, today that i have great news, the rate of sick people, really old sick people in the country is going down, we would say that's wonderful, and i explained it's because a million of them died last month, we would think that's not great. that's what is happening in unemployment. 1.2 million people left the workforce. >> i think that's a wrong strategy for republicans. it could get better, god-willing it would get better. we have huge structural problems. we have families falling apart, and highlight the deep structural problems. the message for romney is i can't cruise quoting "god bless america," or whatever he quoted, and he is cruising on a bad economy. >> if you told me it was 8.3% on unemployment, and i would say what was it before, and if you told me 10%, i would say good we're going in the better direction. and a lot of numbers are better, and it's not just people dying. >> we went from 10% to 8.3% is bad, but i prefer than the way it was before. we're going in the right direction. >> a lot of people i talk to say you can't look at the number of jobs you have to look at the overall economic growth, and that's the engine of our economy. that's still anemic. this is the swing state match-up for 2012, and this is where romney has an advantage over president obama. there's americans that look at the numbers and are hurting. romney over obama in the swing states. >> david, i think the issue is where the republicans try to run on pessimism. that's going to be difficult to do for them to run on. the president can say, you are right, we lost jobs. we lost a ton of jobs. but even superman needed track to stop the train. you have to understand for the first 12 months of his presidency like the last 12 months of bush's presidency, we lost jobs. for the last 23 month in a row, we gained jobses. you have to talk about the optimism. if the republicans want to run on pessimism, let them do so. >> i have been pessimism for the republican chances to win the election, and people think romney is a decent man and we have gone to a better place in racial relations, and even the economy has flattened out, and this campaign for the first time is making me think the republicans have a better chance, a better shot. the democrats are making the case that it's maldistribution of wealth. obama and the democrats are talking about mitt romney's paycheck, and mitt romney and the republicans are talking about peoples' paychecks. i have been in the campaigns when we start to talk about this guy's money and that guy's money -- >> and congress needs to talk about american's paychecks, and that's help to have a payroll tax. >> what is the republican growth strategy, david? what is it they say would have led to a stronger recovery had a republican been there? >> there's a big fundamental tax reform. the president doesn't want to do and i do not understand. there's a big entitlement approach. give people different options. those are big policies. the advantage the republicans have, and i can go plus or minus as to whether or not they will win this thing. they have different policies. the president decided to coast on the small policies. the big debt, big jobs problem, growth problems, and they are going with digitalized things. >> and the americans have come to expect their medicare will be there for them, and it's not a way to deal with economic growth. there's a problem. the important thing from the democratic side is they are making the case. i hoped as a liberal that they would, that policy matters. it does matter if you pass the payroll tax extension, and if people run out of unemployment benefits, it's not a charity issue, but they become a bigger drag on the economy. infrastructure spending matters. >> the president won't follow-through on the plan, and he talked about simplifying the tax code, and he dropped the ball on that. >> but david, he did make those proposals. he had more than just a payroll tax for 160 million workers. he did propose a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan, which is wh the committee that i sat on. >> sorry to end this on process, but in having speaker gingrich on, is there a path for gingrich, something realistic he can speak to at this point? >> on the moon, yes, but here, no, he has disqualified himself. he has not demonstrated stability or leadership. he's all over the map. romney is winning every demographic group except divorce lawyers. you can watch this week's press conversation with j.c. watts on our blog, and he talks a little football, too, rachel. and then we have a live exclusive interview during the pregame show, and then nbc sports coverage of super bowl xlvi starts today with kickoff at 6:30 eastern here on nbc. i am going to the hockey game before t tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about that 401(k) you picked up back in the '80s. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 like a lot of things, the market has changed, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and your plans probably have too. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, we'll give you personalized recommendations tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 on how to reinvest that old 401(k). tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and bring your old 401(k) into the 21st century. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 rollover your 401(k) or ira and receive up to $2500. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 see schwab.com for terms and conditions. let's get a recap, merv. 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