Not quite 7,000 words. It was a little longer than average in terms of word count. The speech was interrupted 83 times for applause, according to a tally by the national journal. There was no notable disruption in the audience this year, no moment like a republican congressman yelling you lie the way congressman joe wilson did during the joint address to congress back in 2009 there was no moment like a Supreme Court justice muttering a rebuttal to the president from the rows up front the way Justice Samuel alito did in 2010. There was one moment of the speech, though, last night where you heard something from the room. You heard a gasp from the room in response to something that the president said. We should follow the example of the north miami woman named desilene victor. When desilene arrived at her polling place, she was told the wait to vote might be six hours. As time ticked by, her concern was not with her tired body or abing feet, but whether folks like her would get to have their say. Hour after hour, a throng of people stayed in line to support her. Because desilene is 102 years old. And they erupted in cheers when she finally put on a sticker that read i voted. The room gasped at that reveal in the anecdote, right, where the president reveals how old desilene victor is. And then the crowd stood, democrats and republicans, everybody in the room, and they gave desilene victor, 102 years old, a standing ovation. They stood and they cheered her patriotism, the heroism that she showed by waiting all that time in line, by willing to be able to go back. Today back home in miami, look at this, desilene victor got another heros welcome. Her friends and her family turned out to meet her at Miami International airport with handmade signs and balloons and flowers, a little bit of dancing even when she flew home from washington, d. C. From having gone to go see the speech. Welcome home, desilene, thank you what you have done, miss victor. Very nice. The day that she waited so long in line to vote, desilene victor was trying to cast her ballot at the second most busy in all of miamidade. Throughout florida, she was not alone in wanting to vote, in trying to vote, but finding that that simple act of citizenship had in florida become an endurance test. Now in campaign 2012, and one day left to cast your early vote. And so far the process has been plagued by very long lines. It was long, long wait. Very slowmoving day. Let us vote, let us vote let us vote ive been waiting here since 12 30 to pick up an absentee ballot, and now theyre telling us weve got to go home. Thats just ridiculous. Im not leaving. This is democracy. Whoever you vote for, you should vote. This is not cuba. This is not china. We cannot allow this to happen. I have not seen a line this long in a very long time. These voters arrived around 7 30 this morning. Theyre nearly to the front of the line. Theyve waited two and a half hours. And down the line a bit, these folks arrived around 8 00. Their estimated wait time more than three hours. And around the corner down this very long line, these folks arriving between 9 00 and 10 00 a. M. Their estimated wait up to four hours. Estimated wait four hours. Some voters waiting twice that long. This is not how we expect elections to work in a country that is supposedly the beacon of light for the world, right . Not historically, not for regular folks. Certainly not for 102 retired ladies. And after he hosted desilene victor at the state of the union last night and told her story about trying to vote and this problem in our country, president obama then moved on later on in the speech to propose a solution to this problem. We must all do our part to make sure our godgiven rights are protected here at home. That includes one of the most fundamental rights of a democracy, the right to vote. When any american no matter where they live or what their party are denied that right, because they cant afford to wait for five or six or seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals. So tonight im announcing a nonpartisan commission to improve the voting experience in america. And it definitely needs improvement. Im asking two longtime experts in the field, who recently served as top attorneys for my campaign and for governor romneys campaign to lead it. We can fix this. And we will. The American People demand it, and so does our democracy. The president calling on the state of the union for a commission to improve the voting experience in america, to be led by what he called two longtime experts in the field. They are the top attorney for the president s campaign, this man, bob bauer, general counsel for the obama reelection effort. The other top attorney is this man, ben ginsburg, who served as National Counsel for the Mitt Romney Campaign in 2012. So one chairman from the democratic side, one chairman from the republican side. Now in setting the commission up this way and announcing it this way, the president is clearly trying to turn fixing our National Problem with voting into a bipartisan effort. He is trying to proceed here as if a story like desilene victors pulls on everybodys heartstrings equally, democrat and republican. But what happened to desilene victor when she tried to vote this year was not an accident, it was on purpose. It was policy. Florida republicans took overt steps to make voting lines longer in florida and to make voting harder. To make registering to vote harder even. Governor rick scott signed into law new requirements that made Voter Registration drives so legally perilous, that even the hearty league of women voters gave up trying. Rick scott cut early voting in florida almost in half. And when it became clear that florida voters were facing eighthour lines for early voting, governor rick scott refused to put any of those lost days back. Get in line, florida. Lets see how long you can wait. Republican governor rick scott refused to do anything to shorten the lines, even though not everybody could stand in the marathon lines that he and Florida Republicans created by policy. In the afterelection studies of what happened this year, it is reported that at least 200,000 florida voters ultimately gave up and walked away from the polls. They had to because of the lines. At least 200,000 voters who wanted to vote who did not make it through the epic journey from the end of the line to the voting booth. At least 200,000, maybe more. That did not happen by accident. Making voting harder was policy in florida and in several other states as well. Republicancontrolled states, because it was republican policy. And since the election, republicans in the states have seen that kind of effect that we saw in florida this year. They have seen that. 200,000 people didnt vote who might have voted if voting was easier. They see that effect, and they see that as a feature, not a bug. Since the election, they have continued pushing laws to make voting harder. Its underappreciated in the beltway, but this kind of thing did not stop after the election. Republicans are proceeding apace in missouri. Republicans there trying anew to require voters to show new documentation they have never had to show before, and they know some quarter of a million voters in that state do not have. Republicans in montana in the legislature there, theyre now trying to take away the longstanding montana right to register and vote on election day. Last week, republicans in the Virginia Legislature voted to eliminate several common forms of id that you can show in order to be allowed to vote there now, things like a paycheck or a utility bill. Today Virginia Republicans advanced a bill with even tighter restrictions under the new bill they advanced today, get this, the id card that you got to allow you to vote, the id card that you got already from the state board of elections, that would not be good enough to allow you to vote anymore. In the great state of indiana, two republican lawmakers there introduced a bill to ban any College Student from voting if you paid outofstate tuition in the state. Indiana republicans proposed that, even though it is blatantly, patently almost laughably unconstitutional. There is a Supreme Court ruling specifically on this exact issue that says you cannot pass that kind of law. But Indiana Republicans want it anyway. They proposed it. They held a hearing on it. The lead sponsor of the bill only gave up on the specific provision involving College Students today after fending off lots of questions on its obvious unconstitutionality. But the lead sponsor now says she wants a committee to study this question over the summer, and then maybe shell try again with it . I dont know. Republicans in the state spent the years ahead of this last president ial election trying to make voting harder in order to try to help mitt romney win. In moments of candor, they said so. Like when that Top Republican in the Pennsylvania Legislature said voter id laws would deliver the state of pennsylvania for mitt romney. It did not work well enough to accomplish that this time. But after mitt romney lost, republicans in the states started in again with renewed vigor. They are not giving this thing up. The republican lawyer who will now cochair the president s Bipartisan Commission to, quote, improve the voting experience, ben ginsburg, he spent last year advising the Romney Campaign, including the Romney Campaign in its role in the statebystate fights over how hard republicans in those states could make to it vote in this country. When the Obama Campaign sued over Ohio Republicans cutting early voting, it was mr. Ginsburg and the Romney Campaign who condemned that challenge as despicable. In wisconsin, when the Romney Campaign recruited pollwatchers to challenge individual citizens right to vote, the manual they gave those poll watchers contained wrong information, the kind of instructions that might lead people to challenge voters without real legal cause from blocking them. From the washington post, quote, the story prompted a letter from the Obama Campaign attorney bob bauer to wisconsins attorney general. These acts of willful misrepresentation to individuals sent to polling locations to enforce the law raise serious concerns under wisconsin law, mr. Bauer wrote. He added that this was not an isolated matter, citing the wisconsin activities of true the vote, an organization close to the Republican Party and the Romney Campaign. That would be mr. Bob bauer making that complaint, the attorney on the left there, who is now cochairing the president s improved Voting Commission with the romney lawyer on the right, Whose Campaign was trying to stop early voting in ohio, and that gave its poll watchers wrong information about how to keep people from voting who should have been allowed to vote. Awkward match, right . Putting the guy whose party has tried and is still trying to make it hard to vote on the commission to fix voting, insisting that republicans must be as bothered by this as democrats. Thats what the president left on the table last night after that incredibly moving story about this 102yearold woman pulling out all the stops to vote, even though all the odds were against her. Thats what the president put on the table. And the president is a smart political strategist. What kind of strategy is this . Is it hope . Is it the same kind and i dont say that dismissively. It is the same kind of hope and optimism and persistent never give uppism that is embodied by deseline v victor, is it that k of hope and persistence and optimism . Awesome. But also, is there a plan b if it turns out republicans arent really going to come around on this and they still feel about this the way they have for years now. Joining us is rick hassen at the university of california irvine law school. He writes the election law blog. He is the author of the voting wars. Professor, its great to see you. Great to see you. Great to be here. Im a political observer on these things. What do you make of the strategy of president obama choosing the top two lawyers from his campaign and mr. Ginsburg from the Romney Campaign to try to head up a Commission Like this . First of all, if youre going to have a Commission Like this, you have to have credible democrats and republicans. There was a question whether there would be a credible republican who would be interested in doing Something Like this. The fact that ben ginsburg, who is a well respected republican lawyer is willing to sit down with bob bauer and sit down with this commission and try and hash things out is an achievement. But theyve set the bar really low. If you look at the press release that the white house put out about this, all theyre going to do is issue some guidelines for states and localities about best practices. It doesnt look like federal election reform, which i think is something we really need, is on the agenda. So it may just be that its going to put out some ideas. Then theyre going to sit on the shelf, like the ideas of the carter baker commission, the carter ford commission, what the u. S. Elections assistance has done and it may get us nowhere. In terms of the history right now, though, in terms of what has worked in the past, and in light of how partisan these fights have been over Voting Rights, particularly leading up to this last election and what has been going on in republicancontrolled states, it is possible that they should be aiming super, super low, aiming at doing very small reforms simply to show that something can be done, that there can be some nonpartisan technocratic approach to these measures, and that aiming any higher would simply assume that Nothing Happened . Well, i think that, you know, even if this commission wanted to propose federal legislation, the House Republicans have already said candice miller, the former republican michigan attorney, she is not interested. Maybe aiming low is the best they can do in coming up with best practices. I think the biggest way change is going to happen here in the shortterm, at least, is through public pressure. So rick scott has now backed away from the bill that he signed and says we need to expand early voting. Scott walker in wisconsin, who was supporting at one point a bill to get rid of early election day registration wants to has changed his mind on that. So i think the attempt to make it harder to vote backfired on republicans. And although were still having some of these hearing, and people are still trying to make it harder in some places, i think there was a public and judicial backlash, which has caused republicans to maybe step back a little bit. And that may be what saves us a little bit in 2014 and 2016. I think thats an incredibly smart point, especially on the specific issue of florida. I mean, we saw after the election not just florida becoming a laughingstock and becoming the butt of national jokes and sort of being singled out for shame on this issue, but we also saw an electoral challenge emerge to rick scott with former governor, new democrat Charlie Crist making this a tip of the spear issue for how he went after rick scott and how he might challenge him for governor. Is that then maybe a better way forward, that democrats make this an issue, that they beat republicans over the head with in an electoral judgele sort of way. Is there any historical precedent for that being the way to reform . Well, i think what happened in this election, and its clear from watching your show, and watching the rest of the media is that the issue of Voting Rights really broke through. Youve been talking about this stuff for years. But it became a topic of regular conversation. You had the Sarah Silverman video. People were talking about voter id laws. So its become part of the public consciousness. And to the extent that people think republicans are trying to make it harder for people to vote, whether thats true or not, thats going to work against republicans who are trying to get those swing voters, who are trying to attract latino voters. Its going to make it tough in florida. So it might be that there will be a little bit of a political solution to. This whether a commission is going to do things let me point out in the aftermath of florida 2000, we set up the United States election assistance commission, a federal agency that is supposed to be doing this very thing. But that agency has essentially been without commissioners, no commissioners over the last year. We went through the election without it. We have a structure to try and deal with this. We just dont have the political will. Republicans have blocked appointing people to the eac. So on the federal level, that doesnt seem like right now its going to be a pathway to trying to get some major changes in our election system. Its going to have to be fought state by state and locality by locality. Political science professor rick hassen from uc irvine. Thank you very much for your time tonight. Your perspective on this is very, very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. I think one way to watch this is to look at this in parallel with Climate Change. Climate change is another issue on which the democrats believe the republicans will never do the right thing. That republicans on Climate Change are too close to petro interests, essentially. And on voting that theyre too close to their own electoral interests, and that they want to stop voting for their own electoral purposes. And the republicans are never going to go along with doing the right thing. So you are seeing the president do something different, which is make these emotional public cases for what should be done on this issue, not expecting republicans to come along and laying the groundwork, essentially, with this Public Education effort, with these emotional appeals directly to the people in speeches that democrats and the white house in some cases are going to act on their own, without republicans if they need to, and they will use it against republicans in elections. They will not try to persuade them. They will beat them with it. This is a second term kind of thing. Well be right back. How do you keep an older car running like new . You ask a ford customer. When they tell you that you need your oil changed you got to bring it in. If your tires need to be rotated, you have to get that done as well. Jackie, tell me why somebody should bring theyre car here to the ford dealership for service instead of any one of those other places out there. 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If a camera is on you, unless you are dying from a coughing fit or something, if you want to take a swig out of a bottle of water on tv, i just dont i dont know if its just the way im raised or the way i was taught to be on tv or something, but im not i just dont i dont think you should do it. I would never do it. What . I am not Drinking Water on tv. Like i just said, i would never do that. What i am doing is hydrating. Its totally different. I would never drink water on tv. But im happy to hydrate. And that is the kind of distinction that republicans in the senate are using right now to try to stop chuck hagel from being confirmed as our nations next defense secretary. No cabinet nominee has ever been filibustered in the history of our country. It take ss a majority vote to confirm someone the president wants in his cabinet no one has ever tried to filibuster that before. It has never happened. Even though a bunch of republican senators do not want chuck hagel to be defense secretary, they have insisted they would never filibuster him, because of course that would be unprecedented. You dont filibuster cabinet nominees. John mccain said that. Lindsey graham said that. They doan like him, but they would not filibuster him. Now they are filibustering him any way. Those two senators and james inhofe from oklahoma say they will force a 60vote super majority threshold for confirming chuck hagel for the first time in america for any cabinet nominee. And that is a filibuster. But they are insisting that nobody call it a filibuster, because, of course, they said they wouldnt do that. They are filibustering a cabinet nominee for the first time in American History after saying they wouldnt, but they do not want anybody to report it that way. Because, see, they are not Drinking Water, they are hydrating. Write it down the way i said you should write it down, reporter. 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Tdd 18003452550 you can request a prospectus by calling schwab tdd 18003452550 at 8004354000. Tdd 18003452550 please read the prospectus carefully before investing. Did you know not all fiber is the same . Citrucel is different its the only fiber for regularity that wont cause excess gas. Its gentle and clinically proven to help restore and maintain regulary. Look for citrucel today. We have the tape, we have the tape here is where it all went wrong, apparently. Hey. Okay. Are you looking at me . Can you jillian, can you see me . Yes, uhhuh. Okay. Im looking at the teleprompter. Uhhuh. Good evening. I speak to you tonight from washington, d. C. Does it look like im even remotely looking in the camera . Kind of. That was the setup for the republican response to the republican response to the state of the union last night. I think that is a rand paul staffer trying to make sure that rand paul giving the Tea Party Republican response to the republican response to the state of the union this year did not end up looking like Michele Bachmann when she gave the same address a couple of years ago while look at something that really wasnt the camera. It turns out the staffer did have reason to be worried. Rand paul, as you can see, was not looking as far away from the camera as Michele Bachmann was, but he was not looking into the camera either. They did the same thing wrong again. Not only where we once again treated to not just a republican response to the state of the union, but also a Tea Party Republican response to the response that once again the response to the response ended up being unintentionally funny because of bad staging, which is especially amazing considering that senator pauls staff was acutely aware of this as a potential problem, and we can see them on camera trying to fix it ahead of time. And then there was the official republican response to the state of the union. The Republican Partys first major chance to try to rectify with voters whatever it was that the country disliked about them enough to give president obama a resounding reelection victory over them in november. This is the first chance post election to change the countrys mind about the Republican Party after mitt romney, right . This is the first chance at deromneyification. It is the highest profile chance they will have for that for the entire year, if you think about it there is no Republican Convention there is no national elections. This is it for more than a year. This is their chance to reimpress the American People about what it means to be a republican that isnt about mitt romney. How do they rectify their image with a country where the women voted for democrats in the last election by an 11point margin . Well, the one thing that their state of the Union Response giver did to make news yesterday other than his state of the Union Response was that he voted no on the violence against women act. He and 21 other republican men in the United States senate voted no. Then marco rubio got caught out once he started giving his speech in the easiest trap to get caught in when you have to give a response address. Just minutes after the thing that you are responding to has ended, he anticipated things that he thought president obama would say in the state of the union. He wrote complaints in his own speech about things he thought president obama would say. But then when president obama did not actually say those things, mr. Rubio did not adjust his speech the take out the complaints. So senator rubio in his response last night ended up complaining about things said by president obama that president obama actually did not say in the speech that everybody had just finished watching right before marco rubio got to take his turn. Mr. Rubios whole windup was about how president obama had just spent his state of the Union Address defending Big Government and demanding even bigger government. This president thinks the only solution to everything is bigger government. And that might be an Effective Response to a yay Big Government speech, but instead it seemed like a non sequitur, because this is the speech that senator rubios comments actually came after. It is not a bigger government we need. Senator rubio also complained with a sarcastic twist that the president needs to put out a medicare plan already. Tonight would have been a good night to do that, huh, mr. President. The problem is the president had just put out a medicare plan, a plan he described in the actual state of the Union Address that he delivered, even if it wasnt the one that played out in marco rubios head when he wrote his own speech, and then didnt adjust it to reflect reality. Mr. Rubio also made a big point about placing himself in the american middle class. Mr. President , i still live in the same working class neighborhood i grew up in. My neighbors arent millionaires. Theyre retirees who depend on Social Security and medicare. Theyre workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. Theyre immigrants who came here because they were stuck in poverty in the countries where the government dominated the economy. I want to protect my neighbors. Hardworking middle class americans who dont need us to come up with a plan to grow the government. Im just a middle class knie guy looking out for my middle class neighborhood and my working class neighborhood where i grew up in the middle class where i live now. That bit is transformed from political scenesetting into political punch line once everybody links to the pick dplers the real estate listings showing marco rubio is in fact selling that middle class home in that middle class miami neighborhood. Its on the market for 657,000. So, you know you may love your neighbors, but why would you brag about that love for your neighbors in your middle class neighborhood in the highest profile speech you will ever give in your life when youre also on record trying to move away from those neighbors in that neighborhood so you can go live in washington, d. C. . The other screwup with the rubio speech, the Republican Partys big effort to reset and deromneyify themselves in the eyes of the nation is that somebody forgot to deromneyify the speech itself. Our Free Enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity. But president obama, he believes its the cause of our problems. I know Free Enterprise is on trial, and we have a president who really doesnt believe in the rights of people to do that. Of course solar and wind energy should be a part of our energy portfolio. But god also blessed america with abundant coal, oil, and natural gas. I mean, he likes the wind and the solar, but he doesnt like the stuff that is under the ground, like coal and oil and natural gas. Instead of wasting more taxpayer money on socalled Clean Energy Companies like solyndra, lets open up more federal lands for safe and responsible exploration. They should have done more studying on solyndra and less studying on that drilling. Im going to open lands for exploration. Deromneyification failed. The republicans official response to Barack Obamas state of the union was essentially a new version of the stump speech of the guy who just lost the president ial election to barack obama. And the house that is the emotional centerpiece of the speech turns out is a house for sale. And the criticism of the criticism of the speech is not based on the president s speech at all. And they had him vote no on the violence against women act with 21 other republican guys right before he gave this speech. And they ran a second republican response again as well after they ran this one. It had the same eyeball problem as the other republican speech had the previous time when they did it. And then of course there was this. False choices like the one the president laid out tonight. If anybody everybody asks you to give the Republican Partys response to the state of the union just say no. Seriously. I care about you. Just say no. Its not a good gig. Joining us now steve kornacki, host of msnbcs the cycle and a Senior Writer for salon. Com. Thanks for being here tonight. Thanks for having me. Is marco rubio the victim of High Expectations here . Was anybody doomed to fail in setting or did he just screw it up worse than others might have . Have come to the idea it might be a good idea for the chair to come together and say the state of the Union Response, its just not going to work for anybody. Its an impossible format. I think there were some specific things, especially from the substantive standpoint that were really troublesome about rubios response last night. But in general, its an impossible setting. Youve got the president coming into the chamber, joint session, all the lights, all the cameras, all the lights, all the circumstance. And they have tried putting the responses in schools, tried putting them in state legislatures. Every different possible backdrop. They never work. They never help anyone. They never help any party that delivers them. And we end up we have the bug up there of marco rubio with the lurch for the water bottle. Mostly because its amazing. But also because there is inevitably a focus on just the physical staging of the response because of the contrast with the president s speech. Has there ever been one where the opposite partys response has either risen to the same level as the president s speech or advanced the opposite partys interest . No, no. I cant think of one. The evolution of these things is funny. It wasnt always just one person giving the response. I think the low moment was 1985 when the democrats just lost to reagan and they had bill clinton host this 30minute infomercial. And they literally packed in every democratic politician in the country for like a 20second speech. And they had a focus group. They didnt realize at the time that talking about the focus group was political suicide. They kept saying our focus group told us this. Theyve tried all different formats. Ive never seen one that actually pulls it off. I almost feel like while there are still i guess two or three more for barack obama, depending. The president doesnt always give the state of the union when he is on his way out the door. Right. But if weve got more ahead for barack obama, this might be a time for them to opt out gracefully if they are going to. But then while weve still got it, there is also the political question of the Republican Party having chosen marco rubio as their guy. Of course he is on the cover of Time Magazine as the savior. And he has been talked up that way in the Republican Party. Since even before he was sworn in. Once he got elected. Does he deserve it substantively . Is there anything that is different about him that lays out a more sustainable, more electorally likely to be effective path for republicans than other politicians theyve got now . There are two differences with rubio. I dont think they add up to much, though. One is his life story is relatable in a way that their last standard bearer wasnt. Mitt romneys life story was the story of 1 from birth through to age 65. Nobody could really relate to that. Marco rubios is sort of an immigrant story. It is the American Dream in a lot of ways. So it is more relatable. And also the fact that he is hispanic and republicans have this problem with hispanics. And that goes hand in hand with rubio is slowly nudging the party away from the hard line on immigration. Im not sure exactly where that is going to lead. But thats the one sort of substantive different that rubio represents from where the Republican Party has been. In every other substantive way, though, not only was that speech sort of a rehash of what romney offered last year, that was a rehash of where the republicans have been since the 1980 campaign. Because the theme of the Reagan Campaign in 1980 was government is not the solution to your problems. Government is the problem. And that was a measure that was geared towards what at that time was the emerging working class, middle class sort of majority in the country. That was southern whites. That was northern white ethnics. In the north it was the outer borough ed koch types. We talked in the last few weeks when he died. They had grievances against the government relating to bussing, to desegregation, relating to welfare programs proliferated in the great society. Reagan was really tapping into that and conservatism for the last three decades has really tapped into that. The story right now in the story of the 2012 election is todays emerging majority, emerging working class, middle class majority is a lot more diverse. Its nonwhite. Its women. Its professional women. Its millennials. And their attitudes towards government are totally and completely different than the attitudes of the archie bunker voters of the 70s. I dont want to be too dismissive. The attitudes are totally different. And rubio looks different than mitt romney and his story is different than mitt romney, but he is delivering the same Romney Reagan message into an audience that i dont think is buying it anymore. I feel like we hear so often that demography is destiny. I feel like policy is destiny here. And i felt like actually the single most embarrassing thing about the republican response was to say that this is the post romney Republican Party and were going to have him vote against the violence against women act as the one other thing he does on the day that he gives that response. In terms of appealing to women voters specifically and the gender gap was as definitive in this election as it was in any other. Do you see the Republican Party picking up any signs of all that its about policy and its not just about putting more female faces out there to represent . No. And the timing yesterday, the violence against women vote i think tells the story. The person that they have decided for the moment at least is the future of their party, marco rubio, voted against it. But also think about the politics. He is a guy who is very interested in running for 2016 republican president ial nomination. There was a calculation there on marco rubios part that voting against that yesterday was the quote unquote correct vote in terls of political positioning for the 2016 nomination. That tells you not just where marco rubio is in this position, but where the Republican Party is or where he perceives it to be. Until somebody like that feels safe voting for the violence against women act, youve got a bigger problem there than you dont have enough women on stage, i agree. And i think we should just offer this to the Republican Party now and the Democratic Party of the future, just dont do state of the Union Responses anymore. Yes. Both chairs get together. Common ground. Bipartisanship. Steve kornacki, the host of the cycle, Senior Writer for salon. Thanks a lot. Thanks for being here. Best thing in the world, an improbablebly sweet lbj valentines day edition, coming up. Cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues. With three strains of good bacteria. 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Kids make stains i use tide boost to super charge our detergent. Boom. Clothes look amazing, and daddys a hero. Daddy, can we play ponies . Right after we do foldies. Tide boost is my tide. Whats yours . To find you a great deal, even if its not with us. [ ding ] oh, thats helpful well, our company does that, too. Actually, we invented that. Its like a sauna in here. Helping you save, even if its not with us now, thats progressive call or click today. No mas pantalones in the 1964 state of the Union Address, just weeks after president john f. Kennedy was assassinated, the new president , Lyndon Johnson prepared an unconditional war on poverty in america. In 1941, as world war ii raged overseas, but for us pearl harbor was still months away, Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed in the state of the union that year the four essential human freedoms freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. In 1996, after his partys shellacking in the midterm elections, but before his landslide reelection victory, bill clinton proclaimed in the state of the union that the era of Big Government was over. Cli proclaimed in the state of the union that the era of Big Government was over. Were too close in time now to know if any of the stateoftheUnion Addresses by our current president s will be remembered as highlights in the history of that president ial obligation. But if we were to pick from all the modern stateoftheUnion Addresses, only one president , and only one speech, and only one line, if we were to pick the most important, the most remembered line in any modern state of the union, history has already spoken as to what the most single important line is, we just hit that important moment in the stateoftheUnion Address by an american president. Hussein sought significant quantities of uranium from africa. It was not remembered because it was inspiring or elegant or positive, it was remembered because it was important, because it was a lie. A very important lie that made it into the state of the union in 2003, ten years ago. We are now at the tenyear anniversary of what the last president ial administration did to get our country to go to war on false pretenses. And it is starting to feel like that tenyear period of time is just enough time to finally start to appreciate how remarkable that is, that we went through that as a country. I mean, if it happened to another country we would find it impossible to believe. But it happened to us. We were tricked by our own government. Not into passing some piece of legislation or letting some corrupt politician off the hook who should not have gotten off the hook. We were tricked into starting a fullblown war. How did they pull that off . And do we understand how that happened to us well enough that we are in a position to stop it from happening again if anybody else ever tries to do that to us again . We have just completed a brandnew blockbuster of a documentary here at msnbc on exactly this question. It will premier monday night here on msnbc. And i think it is possible that it is going to cause quite an upset. Were going to have the first preview clip of it here, exclusively tomorrow night. I hope they will give us another preview clip on friday, although im not sure. But the whole thing premiers with me hosting it on monday at 9 00 eastern on msnbc. And then everybody will start to lose their minds soon there after. So mark your date, monday night, at 9 00, well be right back. People have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. But they havent experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. In fact, in a recent survey, 95 of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. 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Stay in the groove with align. Need help keeping your digestive balance in sync . Try align. Its a probiotic that fortifies your digestive system with healthy bacteria 24 7. Because your insides set the tone. Stay in the groove with align. Best new thing in the world. Okay . Tomorrow is valentines day. If you are in a relationship, do not forget, do something nice. If you are not in a relationship i hope that valentines day does not bum you out and you have a really good day, however you want it to go. But on the occasion of valentines day this year, one of the president ial libraries is going to make that day love letters, to the woman who becomes his lady. For public viewing. Some of the letters were made public before. A few of them were even performed out loud by these actors in the 70s. My dear bird, this morning, im ambitious, proud, energetic, and very madly in love with you. I want to see people. I want to walk through the t throngs, i want to do things with the drive. If i had a box i would almost make a speech this minute. Plans, ideas, hopes, im bubbling over with them. Lyndon, please tell me as soon as you can what the deal is. Im afraid it is politics. Oh, i know i havent any business, not any proprietary interest, but i would hate for you to go into politics. Isnt that awesome . After they first met it took the passage of nearly two months and nearly 100 letters between them, before ms. Claudia taylor agreed to marry him. We dont think of our president s as young men in love, sometimes as celebrities, but particularly not young men in love. We dont think of this parent that way, we think of lbj as a president who was deliberately crass as a tactic. He made people talk to him while he sat on a toilet. We think of lbj as the president whose most famous recording of him was making an incredible phone call from the white house to order himself from pants from a man in texas. You have heard the recording of lbj ordering the pants from texas, havent you . Oh please tell me you have heard this recording. I want a couple of maybe three of the light brown, kind of an almost powder color, like the powder on a ladys face. And then there was some green, and then maybe some other light pair, if you had a blue on that, or black, one blue and one black. I need about six pairs to wear around in the evening when i come in from work. And i need about a half an inch, too tight in the waist. Do you recall the exact size . I just want to be able to get them right for you . No, i dont know, yall just guessed, wouldnt you have the measurements there . Well find them. Now, the pockets when you sit down in the chair, the knife and money comes out so i need at least another inch in the pockets. Now, another thing, the crotch, down where your nuts hang is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, give me an inch so i can let it out there because they cut me. Just like riding a wire fence. These are almost o these are the best that ive had anywhere in the United States. But when i gain a little weight, they cut me under there. So leave me you never do have much margin there. Lets see if you cant leave me about an inch from where the zipper ends, around, back to my bunghole, so i can let it out there if i need to. I have heard it before, i have never, ever seen it laid out with the pictures of him. And to the subtigtler who had t actually add in there the burps, im sorry. We may be getting