Transcripts For MSNBCW Up W Chris Hayes 20121110

tana, ozzie coats and lorella. she came to the united states as an undocumented immigrant when she was ten years old. late tuesday night barack obama was re-elected to a second term as president of the united states. his victory was at the same time narrow and decisive. it was not just a victory for the president but a truly historic night for liberalism across the country. colorado legalized marijuana. maine, washington and maryland legalized gay marriage. the 113th congress will include the most female members ever and for the first time in history, women and minorities will hold a majority of the democratic party's house seats. in his victory speech president obama vowed to continue the work he began in his first term. >> america, i believe we can build on the progress we've made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. i believe we can keep the promise of our founders. the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love, it doesn't matter whether you're black or white or hispanic or asian ornatetive american or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in america if you're willing to try. >> the president's second term will no doubt be fraught with much of the same obstruction and frustration of the past four years, but after tuesday obama will have the opportunity to become one of the most celebrated president's in history. one who may years from now be seen as ushering a new era of liberal governance. he will have that in no small part thanks to his campaign. on wednesday a newly re-elected president obama stopped by to express his gratitude. >> these results, i felt that the work that i had done in running for office had come full circle. because what you guys have done, blue, red, the work that i'm doing is important. i'm really proud of that. i'm really proud of all of you. >> the obama who inspired the world during the 2008 election, the man who was notably absent for much of the last campaign reappeared over the last week. the real question now is whether he will stay. so tuesday night my big take aways from tuesday night in terms of what it meant and what the legacy is. a bunch of people noted that the economic recovery seems to be picking up and it seems like we may finally have the tires of the economy grip pavement and get going. and if that's the case, then that means that whoever was going to be the next president was likely going to inherit essentially recovery. that recovery was going to render a verdict on the previous four years, and i thought that people seemed very likely to me from a historical legacy perspective that if barack obama did not get re-elected and there was a recovery, then there would be this kind of carter comparison, which is that america tried liberal governments, it was a failure, it was in the doll drums, we had a recession, we never really got going, we elected mitt romney and, boom, 4 or 5% gdp growth and this is what free markets and american conservatism can do. i think now if there is a recovery, that recovery belongs to both barack obama and also in sort of an historical sense the liberal project, the democratic party, the policies he put in place. and i also think from a historical sense, it's funny to think that a few hundred thousand votes or a million votes if you kind of spread it out over the swing states is the difference between a legacy that would have always to youered in american history because of the historical nature of his presidency, with you nbut now il be one of the truly great presidencies, and i mean great in the loaded way that all great presidencies are which is complicated and shot through with terrible stuff and amazing stuff. and then finally, ovec, i'd like to hear your thoughts on this because you worked on this and obviously you were on the other side of this that evening, the affordable care act is going to be implemented. and, you know, my feeling about this is that was huge -- when i went to the polls just as a voter, that was a big part of what my vote was on because, you know, i think it's a flawed but good piece of legislation. i think it's an important step in american history. and what i like is that not just the human fact that 30 million people are going to get access to health insurance, 50 million added to the medicaid roles, but the fact that we're going to implement it and see if it works just from a basic democratic perspective. if it's a disaster, well the democrats are going to pay for it, they should pay for it. it's their bill. they're going to pay for it politically. if it's good, they're going to reap the gains. that to me seems like the way it should work. >> we were talking before the show about sometimes when policies fail why they failed is not obvious to everyone or the political case for why they failed isn't made. we talked about the financial crisis. some people say it was because of greedy bankers and some people say there were policy problems. problems with fan any and freddie, banking leverage, things like that. if the affordable care act fails will republicans be able to point out why it failed? for example, will it be because premiums are too high. things about access. there are problems with access to care if you're on medicaid. that didn't dissuade people from wanting to expand medicaid. if those problems continue will people be successful, will republicans be successful at paint being the bright picture as to why they feel. that remains to see. if something fails that doesn't mean it's a partisan victory for republicans. >> i think it's also hard to roll something back once it's in. dismantling it will prove a lot harder once it's in. >> what were your thoughts? what were your big take aways watching tuesday night's election? >> i think it's even larger than whether or not we're going to have an economic recovery. i think that's coming. we are going to grow, whether it was a liberal or conservative in the white house, who knows which one mitt romney was to this day, but we have some sort of recovery. what the real issue was for me on the ballot was who was going to have access to this economy and how. so women's reproductive rights was an issue because that is about my economic destiny. marriage equality was about marital parity. so i think a lot more things were on the ballot than simply more jobs, but who has access to welfare countrywide and why not. >> that echos the themes in that speech, which is the broadly inclusive america. what was on the ballot, inclusive or narrow. obviously i think people who are on the other side of this don't think that was the framing but i think that was the way the victory was framed certainly. >> to me, that was the historical area where we elected a black president. it's even more historic to re-elect a black president. beyond that, marriage equality. this was like, you know, if i say i will only fight you on my home field, i'll only fight you by my rules and then you come and you kick my you know what on that home field because, fran y frankly, i don't think that should be on the ballot. we were in a situation where that was the case, we won. we won, yeah. >> we won. i think that's just huge. it's absolutely guy began zblik lorella. >> i think there's been a tremendous amount of talk about the latino vote and the impact it has. i don't think there has been a lot of discussion about what made latinos vote in the way they did. that was a lot of voter mobilization. that was watching civic action happen and the delivery. it forced president obama to deliver on something months before the election to the constituency made a tremendous difference. >> you couldn't vote. >> i can't. >> i'm curious what that felt like on election day. >> so even though we could not vote. we were very committed to making sure that our community was informed, educated, and that they made their volt and that they pledged to vote with dreamers in mind. so we had a campaign going in key battleground states where we were knocking on doors and we were asking people to remember us on the day that they were going out to vote. and so while it was very frustrating to not -- you know, to be politically engaged in this, in my country, and not be able to go out and express who i want to run this country and to lead us, i think we had a tremendous amount of impact. >> that brings up our next big topic. this is one of the things that i think dominated the discussion after the election, which is the changing demographics of america, the changing faces of america and the respective coalitions that have come together around barack obama and the republican party particularly. i want to talk about why it's not the latino vote that tells us the most about the republican party's future. my story of the week right after this. nning four. fortunately we've got ink. nning four. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase. begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. [ male announcer ] the way it moves. the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate and even pulsate to gently loosen and break up that sticky plaque with more brush movements than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than leading sonic technology brushes for a superior clean. oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers. my story of the week. identity politics and political identity. of all the surprising and revealing results from tuesday night, there is one relatively small bit of exit polling data that i think is the key to understanding the entire evening. you've probably heard by now that mitt romney won white voters by a sizeable margin while barack obama won up huge margins by african-americans and latinos. 71 to 27%. even wider than 2008 when he won them 67 to 31. what almost no one has noticed is what is to me the most shocking result. and that's how the two candidates did with asian-american voters. now, asian-americans made up a small sliver of the electorate, 3%. so the performance within that group doesn't necessarily carry with it massive ee lek torm consequences. asian-americans, are also according to the latest census, the fastest growing racial category. by mid century they will make up 9% of the country. asian-americans are the highest earning ethnicity with median incomes even higher than those of whites. you might have predicted that mitt romney would do well with them since he won with voters making more than $100,000 a year. he did not. he got creamed losing asian-american voters 73 to 26. this is a shocking result, not only because just 20 years ago george h.w. bush carried asian-americans comfortably or because the margin is so wide, but because the entire category of asian-american is so obviously construction there's little reason to suspect members of the group would vote with each other in any discern anybody pattern. think about it for a moment. what exactly do a filipino nurse in hartford, connecticut, and a pakistani oil man have. same can be said for latinos, even african-americans, heck, even gaffe white people. that's because race is a social construction, not something out there in the world but something we as a society create the rules, rhetoric, and identities for. and in the political process, nothing more assuredly creates firm political group identities than the experience of prejudice, contempt, marginal lieization and condescension. that is, in american history, the racial identity of those not classified as white tends to be forged in the furnace of contempt by the majority. that is the grand irony of this election and more broadly the predicament of the republican party. conservatives are creating their own electoral enemies. the beating heart of modern conservatism is its visceral appeal to anxiety and fears of white christians. this is a different statement than saying the beating heart of modern conservatism is white racism or white supremacy. it is not. it is simply white identity of politics. if you don't believe that, go read some conservative comment or click over to the fox news. they have the deepest anxieties of the moderate base. look at the ceaseless coverage of new black panthers, voter fraud and immigrants living high off the hog and the absolute frenzy whipped up over the ground zero mosque. once you understand this, you can see the republican party's problems are deeper than, say, opposition to comprehensive immigration reform or even the far left controversial dream act. that is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. the deeper issue is that for conservative politicians and conservative networks and web sites, there is simply too much to be gained by feeding the sense of persecution and siege that many white christians feel down to their toes. i'm not sure what is going to shift those incentives because that insecuritiy is real and it isn't going away. this does not mean demography is deaf. it's the construction of political identities that correlate to our racial categories is a dynomic category. it does not mean that democrats aren't assured some permanent ability in person pe tut. their ability to turn out their voters may wax and wane depending on the candidates in the election, but it does mean this, that the only way our politics avoids the increasingly ugly spectacle of a party attempting desperately to strengthen its appeal to a shrinking pool of white voters, is if the movement's leaders show genuine leadership and stop cultivating their bases worst instincts. johan comes in a porcelain vessel, crafted with care by a talented blonde from sweden. ♪ smooth, rich, never bitter, gevalia. 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the base of the republican party, the people who elect republicans to congress are often in these very, you know, maybe rural areas or areas where there's less minority concentration. i talk to conservative int lek actuals who don't interact with people who might have minority experience. you see it on natural view. you'll read stuff like if we have this policy, if we adopt this immigration policy we'll do better. because there's no school choice, if we advocate the school choice we'll win the black vote. i think what's missing is on multi-conservative. build relationships with people. when you build relationships, you have credibility. the policy comes second and the credibility comes from relationships. >> where were you three months ago? >> he was here the whole time. >> i think you're right about a lot of that, but there was a may 1970 "new york times" profile and a fellow named kevin phillips. he was a big aid to richard nixon. this was the stated policy. >> southern strategy. >> the southern strategy. we don't know what they called the negro vote. they did not account for you, for you, or for you. what they said was, if we keep this coalition together of the southern states, if we play to white populism, if we chain it together with some of these western territories, we can run this country with a white majority into the 21st century. they didn't count for it. they were shortsighted. they were wrong. it died tuesday night because a brand-new coalition of women, of gays, of african-americans, of la teenl knows, coming in and playing out their frn chies at the voting booth. there is a brand new coalition. i think that coalition will only grow really over time. the challenge now is for republicans, as you said, to go back and invest in the small seats. i know that i am an evangelical. >> you've told me on this program that you are not registered -- you're a registered independent. >> you can fw in and i can be a republican one day, the next primary i can be a democrat the next day. we don't have registration by party. there was a time in my life, the first 100 years after the passing of the 15th amendment, african-americans all voted republican from what is it 1870 clear up to 1970. >> right. >> we voted straight republican ticket. that began to erode after the southern strategy took hold and we never went back and so my grandmother, her grandmother, when they could vote voted for republicans. >> i say this, the mid 19th century republican party is the best political party america ever had. >> i'm going to open this up. i agree with everything you said about republicans and how they conducted the election, but you understand that citizenship in this country has always been racialized since 1790. you can go through the very, very long history, both parties from whatever movement racializing citizenship. why would this not happen? this is an american thing. you know, the one disagreement i have about what you said is you can't understand this without white supremacy. there's no white resentment without white supremacy. if you take away the idea that america is first and foremost and should always be run by white people, if you take that away, the white resentment doesn't make any sense. it immediately dissipates. i just don't -- this sounds like a strange defense of the republican party, but it's like there's a market fest and a market was created by history and so -- >> that's a profound statement. >> but this notion that some party wouldn't take advantage of that -- it's almost like the war on drug argument. >> i think you're right about the market for it. i actually think this is the problem republicans have, which is that the republican party as a political institution is being ill served by the markets that have been created to feed the beast of white resentment. you know what i mean, it's not doing you any favors, talk radio, drudge, a lot of the stuff on fox. that's the -- your people see that. >> republicans don't serve that. where do these people go? if republicans change, i mean, there's a large portion of this country, i hate to say that, that has been said -- >> let me step up for those people just to litigate this sort of supremacy identity policy distinction. it's a profound one. you start saying white racists, people are like, you're calling me a rays its. >> that's their problem. >> i agree. let me say this. i do think it is possible to name an emotion and a disposition and an affect towards the political system that carries with it a sense of grievance, persecution and ethnic resentment that is close to, connected to, but not quite the same thing as -- >> let me respond. the problem with that though is that that sense of grievance is as old as white racism. >> white. white. they've been tangled together. >> what's the fear? they are going to make slaves of us. the argument hasn't changed. this is the oldest white racism. what's the difference? >> part of it is the equivalence that goes on between conservatism and racism that isn't true. there's nothing about believing in the constitutional tradition, believing in the tradition, and there are people that are contemptuous of that tradition. when conservatives say, no, we support this tradition, we don't like people. that's not racist. that's not white resentment. >> you can do that. you can support all documents, the documents that we respected and uphold today without having to call for self-deportation, without having to refer to people as illegal aliens. these are -- latinos are just one example, right, but they live in households of mixed status. you have an undocumented parent with a child who is a u.s. citizen who goes and votes. he sees his father being talked about. he doesn't belong here, he should self-deport like arizona is the model of this country. why would you go and support and give your allegiance to a party that speaks to you in the worst possible ways. >> we're going to play this and we'll take a break. this is mitt romney's language on the campaign trail largely in the primary about just this topic. i think it cost him lasting damage. take a look. almost half the jobs created in texas were created for illegal aliens. in state tuition for illegal aliens. people here illegally today. giving tuition breaks to the kids of illegal aliens. almost $100,000 discount. i'm running for office for pete's sake, i can't have i will leels. >> we'll have a lot more to say on this. we'll talk it all the way through. we'll be right back. customer erin swenson bought from us online today. so, i'm happy. sales go up... i'm happy. it went out today... i'm happy. what if she's not home? 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[ male announcer ] or free data transfer when you buy a windows 8 computer at staples. another way staples makes it easier to upgrade. when you buy a windows 8 computer at staples. music is a universal language. but when i was in an accident... i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. information on my phone. connection to doctors who get where i'm from. and tools to estimate what my care may cost. so i never missed a beat. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. >> almost half the jobs created in texas were created for illegal aliens. in state tuition for illegal aliens. >> people here illegally today. sanctuary citizens. four years of college, almost $100,000 discount if you're an illegal alien. you can't have any i will leels working on our property. i'm working for public office. i can't have any illegals. >> lorella, you had a strong reaction, not surprising. that language permeated the entire republican primary. >> yeah. it was language that didn't just come on undocumented immigrants, it wasn't about dreamers, the quote unquote illegal people that he was talking about, it was a slap in the face to the whole latino community, and i would say the whole people of color community. that is saying you don't belong here. your family essentially does not belong in this country and, you know, 50,000 latinos turn 18 every year. 50 thousand latinos turn 18 every year. they will not be voting for a president or a presidential candidate that refers to their people as illegals. there's passion behind that. >> right. >> i mean, what is scary, there is passion behind that. the way that he talks about me, the way that he talks about the community i am invested in. >> please. >> yeah. so, i mean, i will say there is another side to the story. they're the people who are waiting in line to come to this country. the val will he dick torn of this class who can't get in because he can't get a high skill visa because that program was killed. >> wait. >> say that again. >> i am not putting it like that. >> i agree with you. >> there's issues of tone that can be -- that modulate or improve, but from a policy standpoint, being opposed to illegal immigration isn't the same thing as being opposed to immigration. >> i want to respond to this point because i think this is really important. i think this is key to sort of us keeping this conversation going as it's going to keep going as america keeps changing. i think you're making a really crucial point and it's one that i really in good faith try to hold on to. there's a set of conservative principles and ideas, right, about limited government or about a sovereign state being able to have -- exercise control over who enters that sovereign state. that principle is a pretty widely recognized one, right. those can be made as inlt lekt actual arguments. the problem is those have been historically attached, not just by happenstance, but genuinely as a matter of american principles, limited government, the state as opposed to the federal government calling the shots, the tenth amendments, have been attached to the racist and racially motivated policies so those two things get 2009ed together, even if they can be separated intellectually which i agree they can. you can think the immigration system should be more restrictionist and not racist. absolutely possible and i totally agree with that. the fact of the matter is the people that that stuff is playing to, it is playing to some racial animus. i want to say this. it's not just liberals who are recognizing this affect. check out what conservatives were saying on the night of the election about the demographic facts on the table. check it out. >> the white establishment is now the minority and the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. >> the people who want stuff are now a statistical majority of voters in the country. >> i went to bed last night thinking we're outnumbered. >> this is the new america. this isn't your father's america. >> it's not the america i've grown comfortable with. >> i went to bed last night thinking we've lost the country. >> yeah. that intellectual stuff is good. >> when you say state's rights, i hear slavery. there was something on the internet i posted on twitter, there was a shop owner who closed down his store on wednesday morning and put a large sign across the door that said, you know, we are mourning the death of the country that our forefathers deeded to us. and i said, why is that racist? because i didn't get the deed. because the deed wasn't in my name. it wasn't in your name. >> that's right. that's right. >> it was in -- >> what did the country look like when your forefathers had power. >> what did it look like? >> that's kind of the trouble with this conversation is that using buzz words and other things that fan the flames of white populism but not understanding how it reaches other people and then you're surprised when 95% of african-americans don't vote for you. >> that's precisely the problem. there are a lot of people who don't believe they're using that rhetoric in a racial way. they're being accused of racism that they don't believe that -- they don't see themselves as being racists. >> i don't know that -- >> one at a time. >> i don't know that a bigot is going to self-identify. >> i'm not talking about actual bigo bigots, i'm talking about people that aren't bigots and are being told they are. >> the heritage and tradition is racist. i just hate -- it is. >> this is the problem is that if the heritage and tradition of america is racist then conservatives are all racist. >> no. no. no. because the heritage is also a lot of other things too. it's not just racist. there are a lot of other things you can believe in too, but it is racist. that's part of it and you can't really deny in a. >> can't we reject that -- >> i wake up in the morning and i have bad breath. that's part of me. that's not all of me when i wake up in the morning, but that's definitely part of me. for me to walk around like that's not true, how can you do that? >> we can say that there was -- there's a legacy of slavery that we have to contend with and live with and -- >> it's not just a legacy of slavery. >> the entire -- >> he's not saying entire. >> that's what i read. >> no, i wouldn't -- no, no, no. what i'm saying is the heritage is racist and a lot of other things too. >> right. >> that's definitely part of it. >> it's a beautiful, wouldn't at this full racist mess. more on this after this break. try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase. begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. i'i invest in what i know.r. i turned 65 last week. i'm getting married. planning a life. there are risks, sure. but, there's no reward without it. i want to be prepared for the long haul. i see a world bursting with opportunities. india, china, brazil, ishares, small-caps, large-caps, ishares. industrials. low cost. every dollar counts. ishares. income. dividends. bonds. i like bonds. ishares. commodities. diversification. choices. my own ideas. ishares. i want to use the same stuff the big guys use. ishares. 9 out of 10 large, professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. introducing the ishares core, etfs for the heart of your portfolio. tax efficient and low cost building blocks to help you keep more of what you earn. call your advisor. visit ishares.com. ishares. yeah, ishares. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. i would not say i'm into it, but let's see where this goes. 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[ female announcer ] fortunately, there's an easier way with creditcards.com. compare hundreds of cards from every major bank, and find the one that's right for you. creditcards.com. it's simple. search, compare, and apply. campbell's has 24 new soups that will make it drop over, and over again. ♪ from jammin' jerk chicken, to creamy gouda bisque. see what's new from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. the choice you face won't just be between two candidates or two parties, it will be a choice between two different paths for america. >> president obama's re-election is a devastating blow, but it's not a decisive defeat. over the next four years he will seek to fully implement obama care, continue exploding federal spending, to hollow out our nation's military and seek to impose a cap and tax scheme on our nation's economy. we are in a war. we're in a war to save this nation. that's the heritage foundation, a video they put out after barack obama's election. political rhetoric has a tendency to get away from people. i want to talk for a second because i think that one of the things i find, there's a certain kind of try ump fantism that our coalition is bigger now. i'm a cosmopolitan, lefty, i'm a liberal, i'm a white liberal. i am, you know. yeah, i love -- yeah, do i feel slightly self-satisfied that i'm part of the coalition that has people of color, sure. of course. i will be honest and cop to that. but there's also part of me that has this kind of dread about what our politics look like if this continues to be the case in which we have these kind of like demo -- in which these -- the main axes of political conflict are also the main axes of racial conflict across the board as the country gets more and more diverse. you know, i think one place to look at what that looks like is arizona. arizona's got some of the ugliest politics in the country in many ways. look at the exit polling out of arizona. obama won 18 to 24 yeerlds, 66 to 32 and lost 65 and soldier 27 -- he won latinos 74 to 25. to me, arizona's politics, it's a great state, there's great things about arizona. i don't want to speak poorly about arizona, but arizona's politics are toxic politics and they're toxic politics because it's the place where these dividing linings are basically the kind of racial demographic generational categories and the partisan ideological categories have become co terminus. they exist in the same groups and there's this ethnic conflict. when iraq was recovering from its civil war in the beginning stages of setting up this putative democracy, we all just looked and said, well, there's going to be a shiite building block, a kurdish building block and they'll transmute their ethnic process into the democratic process. it's worried to imagine america that looks like that. whether you were feeling triumphant or whether you had the same anxiety as they continued to be. >> both. i think it was a combination of both. i think i felt like we won. i don't think that president obama got elect the -- i don't think it was an easy election. >> no. >> i don't think it was an easy win. especially because he delivered on the deferred action policy that mobilized latino voters to go out and vote in the ways that they did. >> will you stop for one second and explain the reaction. we talked about it on the show. >> deferred action has basically president obama came out on june 16th and said i'm going to stop supporting dreamers. they can affirmatively provide for some protection. they can get a work permit. i'm going to do it because these fit in with my enforcement policies. >> these are people who are 16, have been in the country for five years. they are pursuing education or the military. those are the people that the dream act would apply to. it's somewhere between 1.7 and 2.1 million people. >> yes. yes. so i think that for dreamers and for latinos on tuesday, we saw that we made a difference, that even though i could not vote, my voice was heard on tuesday because i was scared. i think latinos as a whole were scared that a romney president would come in and take away deferred action. >> very clear thing at stake. >> but i don't think -- >> what does that mean for followers. >> but i don't think that the latino electorate is a given for the democrats or the republicans. i don't think president obama has done a good job on immigration. he has deported 400,000 people every year. 34,000 people are placed in detention every single day. so we will be holding the president accountable. i think it's time -- i mean, i think the republicans and the democrats have to make a choice on whether or not they want to move on immigration. i don't think immigration is finished. i think it's a threshold issue for the latino community. if you want to change how people see you as your party, how you refer to people, they want to understand how you're going to interact with them, how you treat them. i think immigration policy and immigration reform is a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million is one step in the right direction. >> there's now increasing talk, the conversation has gone this week like this, man, did we get creamed among la teeb knows. i'm talking on the right. there's been different arguments. this is a cautionary chair for liberals. if we turned out slightly more voters, we would have won the election. we can still win with the coalition. if we turned out slightly more and they turned out less. take a look at texas, right? no state is going through the demographic changes we're talking about than texas. mitt romney won it by a wider margin than john mccain did. so there's some conservatives that are saying that. others are saying we have to get religion. here's shawn han knit at this. >> he has evolved. >> announcing how he feels about immigration reform. take a look. >> we've got to get rid of the immigration issue altogether. it's simple to me to fix it. i think you control the border first. you create a pathway for these people that are here. you don't say you've got to go home and that is a position that i've evolved on because, you know what, it just -- it's got to be resolved. the majority of people here, if there's some people that have criminal records, you can send them home. if people are here, law abiding, participating beings four years, their kids are born here, it's first secure the boarder, pathway to citizenship, done, whatever little penalties you want to put in there if you want, but then it's done. >> avik, i want to hear your thoughts on this evolution after we take the break. the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate and even pulsate to gently loosen and break up that sticky plaque with more brush movements than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than leading sonic technology brushes for a superior clean. oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers. the band, our dearly departed levon helm. giving a sense to that ee grieved sense of white persecution. rendering it in an artistic fashion. we're talking about the wake of the election on tuesday and the degree to which there's been this interesting debate among conservatives. i'm curious, seeing the hannity clip saying he's evolved. boehner making some noises. do you think, a, it's the right way to go and, b, it's the way the party can go. >> i think immigration is very important. i think if republicans think if we pass an immigration bill, hispanics will vote for us, i don't think that's true. you need to make sure hispanics are part of the party. one of the things romney did, we talked a lot about the illegal immigration stuff. romney ran a lot of ads about talking about how the economy is hurting latinos. it's not like he was -- he was trying to run the sort of broader message about, here, we're all suffering from this economy together. the thing i want to say is to conservatives who are reading this. >> they're authors of a book called emerging democratic majority which predicts the democratic changes we're seeing. >> it's a great book. political activists say there are no permanent majorities in politics. it's too competitive. republicans will figure it out. i hope they'll figure it out sooner rather than later. >> lorella, on this immigration issue, i'm actually weirdly in the camp of -- well, first, what do you think about the role immigration would play in changing these political dynamics if, let's say, there was a comprehensive reform bill hammered out in this congress, republican congress, democratic president. what would do do to latinos. >> i think latinos overall are very conservative. they're church goers. they not always support abortion. they fall right into your politics, but they do not agree on the way the republican party is talking about immigration. it could move voters. over 30% of voters said latino decisions was doing a poll saying if they moved on immigration i am more willing to vote for a republican presidential candidate. and that is because they're not showing they're coming to the table to really address the issue that is very personal and important to them. >> let me just interject one thing quickly here which is there's this talk about latinos, but the polling says, the polling may not be capturing something essential, latinos are relatively liberal as a group in terms of how they answer questions. things like if they want obama care repealed, only 25% want it repealed. do they say government should ensure access to health care? yes. there's a plurality on taxes and spending cuts. people say this and i want to make sure that's on the ground. one more thing, sorry. i want to show one more bit of data. this is latino performance voting in the presidential elections through the years. you'll see that they are a democratic constituency. it's not fixed what those margins are. you can see george w. bush did a lot to narrow the gap. they have been both a liberal and democratic constituency. goldie, react right after we take a quick break. sorry about that. if you are one of the millions of men who have used androgel 1%, there's big news. presenting androgel 1.62%. both are used to treat men with low testosterone. androgel 1.62% is from the makers of the number one prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. it raises your testosterone levels, and... is concentrated, so you could use less gel. and with androgel 1.62%, you can save on your monthly prescription. 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to androgeloffer.com and you could pay as little as ten dollars a month for androgel 1.62%. what are you waiting for? this is big news. starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. here with msnbc contributor, goldie hayes. avik roy. and someone from the atlantic magazine and lorella. we are talking about the demographic structure of tuesday night's victory for the president and the two coalitions in american life and the ways in which senses of multi-tult turllism and cosmopolitanism and endangeredness seem to be some of the subtexts that happened on tuesday night and the reaction to it. i gave a little bit of data about latinos who are generally democratic voting and liberal in the polling. goldie, you wanted to say something. >> i think that african-americans and latinos alike report more frequent church attendance than any other demographics in this country. i think where social conservatives, white evangelicals get it wrong is trying to attach their politics in that way. after ams and latinos don't take their front beyond their front yard. if you find a white evangelical running in georgia who is trying to get more of the black vote based on being pro life or anti-gay marriage, those are not functional bonds to make because i am far less likely to take my faith to my neighbor's house or into the voting booth. >> let me also say though ideology that people have isn't something just out there or just internal to them. >> that's right. >> it is formed through the experience of coalition. i mean, this is actually one of the remarkable things is that you get into coalitions with people, you start spending time around them and it changes how people think about stuff. that's one of the things we've seen. there's been i think probably too much made of african-americans and gay marriage and african-americans don't like gays, they're the reason prop a passed in california. what we've seen is the coalition that is the progressive coalition and democratic coalition which has both gay people, african-americans. >> african-american gay people. >> you can be both it turns out. >> that that's -- i think that that coalition, the politics of working together has changed opinion. >> yeah. i think like, you know, this is why i was beginning to say i was most happiest about marriage equality. that's me speaking as a liberal. getting back to this question about is this good for the country overall? i know plenty of african-america african-americans, some have family members. you want to get into a debate about welfare, you can do it. if you want to get into a debate about taxes, you can do it. >> debate about drug legalization, you can do it. >> you can really, really do it. i oppose those people as a liberal. i hope that they never get any degree of power in the political system but they need to be recommend. when you talk about what's happening in terms of the racialization of the republican party, they deserve to be represented. this deserves to be a fight. >> right. >> what you end up with in effect is folks voting a certain way because somebody else is telling them they don't want them. >> and i think that's why the politics break down. i'm glad to see that this has transferred to the immigration discussion. lorella, i want to get your response to this. if i were strictly an amoral political consultant person right now to the political party, i think this is good policy, good for the country and morally the right thing to do, but if i were just a total mackey owe developian, i don't think it's going to win them any republican votes. a, i think if a democratic president and a republican congress put it together, people are going to remember one side of that equation. i'm sorry, nobody is going to be like thank god for the republican congress making this happen, a. b, if you give a pass to citizenship for 12 million people, they're going to be democratic voters. i am not rat at this fieg these arg gumtsz as substantively right, but the political arguments against it, they seem pretty strong. >> but it's the way it begins to change the conversation so it is -- it's like president obama had not delivered on anything and we forced him to do that. there was a tremendous amount of -- >> daca is the deferred action. >> that's right. he had to show that his words were followed by action. and i think that's where the republican party could make a difference in terms of immigration. it isn't doing more than just saying i want latinos to come and join me, i want them to be part of my base. i want to develop relationships with them. you have to do something to show that. >> you're saying it's a threshold step that then can inaugurate another trajectory of the politics even if it itself isn't the thing that, look, now we're going to be -- >> absolutely. democrats worked on this 40 years, 50 years? how long has the democratic party been trying to get this right? >> right. with immigration or -- >> i'm saying this idea of a broad coalition. they've been working on this since, when, 48? >> that's true. a long time. >> you can't do it with one policy. >> that's how roosevelt sold out african-americans in the new deal up and down to how jfk had to fight it. >> i just want to bring up one thing about this obama executive order. you covered this on your show. marco rubio -- >> not executive order just so we're clear. prosecutorial discretion. >> pardon me. marco rubio was working on a republican version of the dream act which mitt romney was making noises about endorsing. obama saw this and preempted them with this prosecutorial discretion. it's important to know that it was brilliant politically and tactically but it's not like republicans were ignoring the issue. marco rubio was trying to lead the front on this. he was blunted. >> you were there. >> i met with senator rubio. we commended him for taking the step to have the conversation. we never saw a bill. we don't know what that bill would have looked like. they were compromising on something i think we are not willing to compromise on, and that is a pathway to citizenship. we have grown up in this country. we are part of the social fabric in america. they're telling us, here, we're going to give you something, you can have legal status but you'll be part of the second class. going forward, whatever conversation democrats and republicans engage in with regards to an immigration policy for this country will have to have a pathway to citizenship. >> here's one point that i think is important, that moment with rubio, i think from a political perspective, everything was fascinating about the whole moment. it was fascinating that you guys, the dreamers who i have tremendous admiration for, i nominated you for an award yesterday, that the dreamers were not partisan. they were like, i don't care if it's an election year. we're going to go protest outside of lmfao offices. you put pressure on them. this speaks to the idea of what is lost when the two parties are competing. it was the moment of competition when rubio entered the fray, when people were competing for those votes that produced the trigger that made the deferred action happen. >> and it won't be -- i mean, it won't be enough that president obama has said he is committed to passing an immigration reform bill in his second term. that's not enough. like we will fight to make that happen. we will engage with the republican party, with the democratic party. that is because we have not -- we do not have a -- we're not loyal to the democrats or to the republicans. i can't emphasize that enough because i think it's important. like the beautiful part about america from where i stand right now is that i do not have the right to vote in this country but i can have my voice heard. i can influence people. i can move people and i can organize people. the dream act was first introduced in 2000, 2001. 2001 it's been that long and it hasn't moved. it came very close in 2010. i think that was a great victory for our movement, but i think we have a long way to go. >> and i think the other part of this in terms of like is it just some policy spigot that you can turn on and the bucket fills up with electoral votes. the other part of this and we shouldn't ignore is just that white voters are not monolithic either. it wasn't mitt romney won the white vote. barack obama won single white women postgraduate, union households, lgbt, whites who never attend religious service voted for barack obama. 71% of jewish voters, 61 nonjew day owe christian whites voted for barack obama. part of me thinks, i was thinking about this, we only have the exit polling we have and the categories in exit polling are racial categories. there's other things, married, who watches "the voice," who watches "american idol." it would be fascinating if you had other categories. >> i'm down on the obama database. >> exactly. if you had other categories, are there other subterrainian coalitions that are happening that we're not looking at because the categories we're looking at are census categories. goldie tailor and avik roy, and lorella perfect really, that was af fantastic conversation. i really learned a lot from all of you. thank you, thank you, thank you. when it came to the process of actually voting, this election was a national disgrace. that's next. ♪ [ male announcer ] the way it moves. the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate and even pulsate to gently loosen and break up that sticky plaque with more brush movements than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than leading sonic technology brushes for a superior clean. oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers. all right. the supreme court of the united states yesterday agreed to hear a challenge to a key part of the land mark voting rights act passed in 1965 at the height of the civil rights movement setting up what likely will be a contentious battle over the future of voting in this country in the near future. we're supposed to feel very good about voting, but even if you celebrated president obama's victory on tuesday night, you cannot possibly feel good about people waiting three, four, even five hours to exercise their right to vote. it's a spectacle so embarrassing that the president himself couldn't help but note it just two minutes into his big victory speech. >> i want to thank every american who participated in this election. whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. by the way, we have to fix that. >> i love that flair in his ice of genuine anger at that statement. the incredible irony here is that when the president was making that reference to long voting lines, many people across the country were still waiting in them. take, for instance, the story from wednesday's miami herald. else si 49er than did i waited three hours before she had to take her daughter to an activity. she waited another two hours on tuesday morning. shortly before 7:00 p.m. tuesday she returned to the polling place for a third time. she cast her vote after midnight. although fernandez knew the projected results before she voted she wanted to vote for president obama. in the wake of the last florida voting debacle we had resolved to make things better. in 2002 congress passed the help america vote act which allocated almost $4 billion to states to help them make sweeping reforms to the voting process, yet reports from tuesday night don't inspire much confidence that things have been fixed. in fact, there's a good case to make that republicans have gone about breaking it on purpose. according to the aflcia voters say 16% of obama voters waited versus 9% of romney voters. this is a system in which election officials are simply overwhelmed. there's too many stories of lack of informed workers and polling machines. if we're supposed to measure the fitness of our democracy system by the way the voting went, then we are grossly out of shape. current senior pastor of the first baptist church of lincoln garden in somerset, new jersey. nina perez. she's at nyu school of law. ben gellis is president of the naacp. bertha lewis. great to have you all here. >> great to be here. >> i interviewed you, i was doing a story about election administration and the title of the article was can there be another florida and what it was looking at is the history of the help america vote act. take us through the help america vote act and what your role was. you were the head of the election assistance commission which was as the body created by haba that was supposed to fix the way elections are created. what happened? >> do you have three hours? in 2000 we had the florida debacle. what most people don't know about 2000 was that in georgia more votes were lost than in florida. >> wow. >> florida was the focus because the election was close and florida determined the outcome. after florida the consensus in congress was we had to do something about voting. now we have to be careful not to talk about fixing elections. there's a difference between fixing elections and fixing voting. the consensus was we would repair the voting process, the hanging chad and those types of devices were antiquated and they were inaccessible. and so congress passed a law in 2002 called the help america vote act that funded states to buy new equipment, that set up national standards for voting equipment, that made overseas voting easier for military personnel especially, that looked at mobilizing college students to become poll workers, a number of things. and it set up a commission, a bipartisan presidentially appointed senate confirmed commission that needed three votes to make a decision on anything, and i became the first chairman of that commission. the commission was to have been formed 120 days after the law was passed. the commission was formed two years after the law was passed and two years after was the next presidential election. so the commission did not take office until january 2004. now what can a commission do -- >> ten months before an election? >> right. the commission was supposed to have been funded. it was authorized foi ar $10 million budget. it was appropriated to have $1.2 million. $1.2 million to run a presidential commission to overz the presidential election. 800,000 of that $1.2 million, by the way, by law, had to be spent to publish the state's plans for using their appropriations in the public record. >> so you got $400,000 in the federal budget to run that. >> that's salaries of four commissioners, executive director, rent. there was no office. we literally camped out at the federal elections commission for four months. we becked the white house and the congress to staff. it was horrendous. at the same time, however, there was pressure put on us to comply with the timetables of the law for this $2.3 million. i'm probably the only black man who spent $2.3 million of federal money in six months. we were approving checks. >> $2.3 billion. >> billion, yes. i went to the congress and said, listen, it doesn't make sense to fund states to buy new voting equipment prior to having standards for the voting equipment. we bought $2 billion worth of voting equipment without any standards to say how the equipment should run. >> exactly. money pushed out the doors and lots of contracts with voting machine companies. it looks like it was a boondoggle for them. bob knee went to prison. he was a lobbyist on behalf of the voting machine companies. >> it was a debacle. it looked like we were repairing the system when in fact we made it worse. >> you walked away. >> i walked away after the november 2004 election. i resigned because i could not participate in a process where neither the white house nor the congress were serious about the mission. what i concluded, chris, was that after the 2000 debacle the elected officials all concluded that the process can't be that bad notwithstanding hanging chats because it produces them. any process that produces them doesn't need to be repaired. >> there was an important function of the eac that i think is relevant to the discussion that we're having today and that is as a national clearinghouse. one of the things we've been talking about are the long lines in new york because of the voting machines breaking down. those voting machines broke down in california, the same optical scanners, and had there been some way of a federal agency allowing for people to disseminate information to show what other vendors and what other election officials are experiencing, we could have election workers that are better trained to be able to fix the problems. >> the election commission is for commissioners. it has zero commissioners working. >> exactly. it can't defined anything. >> how are we going to fix this? that's going to happen right after this break? a winter wonderland doesn't just happen. it takes some doing. some coordinating. and a trip to the one place with the new ideas that help us pull it all together. from the things that hang and shine... ...to the things that sparkle and jingle. all while saving the things that go in our wallet. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. right now, get an assortment of martha stewart living ornamen,s free when you purchase select artificial trees. before we talk about how we're going to fix the system, fix this problem. we should talk about the problem. i myself went into the public school where i live and it took 1 1/2 hours to vote. i don't think that was because they were trying to suppress the vote, it seemed like the system was overwhelmed and inefficient. when we look at the lines of voters, what are the different reasons that there are lines of voters? >> first of all, you have bad equipment. you know, we talked about the commission actually being able to fund equipment. in my neighborhood, in the neighborhoods of people that i organize, our equipment always was bad but it just got marginally better with a scanner. but, you know, there's no coincidence that these things break down. the other thing is not to be able to anticipate turnout. you knew what the turnout was in 2008 and in this country you can't figure out what the turnout is going to be and how you're going to handle it. >> plan for low turnout. >> that's right. it's either you reveer and respect voting and the electoral process based on what you do and how you proceed, but as you said, chris, what this shows is there is no respect and no reverence for this constitution al right to vote. >> exactly. >> you know, what happens here in new york city in some boroughs is more relevant, more representative of what happens in the deep south than most folks realize. >> exactly. >> boroughs are included in section five. this state has a very deep history of suppressing the black vote going right back to the civil war. that's ultimately what we had. you saw it from the afl study. if you split it north/south, you would see that the white vote is much easier and the black vote is much harder. we kind of bake in these sort of inefficiencies as a way of suppressing the vote. that's absolutely clear. what we have to do -- >> before you get to that, convince me that's the case. when you say -- i am convinced about when republicans come in, let's get rid of early voting, let's have voter i.d., i'm convinced that's about suppressing the constituency, black and latino youth, but when you talk about we have a crappy system that's got a lot of choke points in it, convince me that's about -- >> our system isn't one system. the system is first all 50 states and then it's every county. >> right. >> and then the person in charge of it in that couldnnty is frome dominant party in that county. if you're in down south or some boroughs in the city, they say make sure that those folks, those voters have a hard time. make sure our folks have an easy time. >> right. it's radically decentralized system. >> the history of voting in this country has been this, the party that benefits from expanding the franchise is for expanding the franchise. >> right. >> whether it's lowering the voting age, whether it's expanding it to blacks and women, that's the system. as long as voting, which is a democratic right, is left to politics which is an enterprise, then we're in trouble. >> right. >> on election day the only people who are interested in turnout are the people running campaigns. >> right. >> as long as the governmental louse the political process to control the constitutional right then we have an inherent de facto voter desatisfaction. >> this is key for people to understand. i want to linger on it. the haba has some, there are some benchmarks you have to hit. >> voluntary standards. >> by the way, in mississippi a voluntary standard, there's none. >> you could say we're going to have votes, you have to fold a piece of origami. you have a constitutional counter. >> as far as policy, this is why this is so critical. our foreign policy is we promote democracy. we judge you whether we're going to give you aid or military weapons or have relations with you by how well you are al loud to vote. >> chris, i mean, it's clear that part of the long lines have to do with poor election administration, right? we had people that weren't trained, machines that weren't working and bad election preparedness. i believe the long lines were a result of what we saw with a war on voting. >> exactly. >> we had 25 restrictive laws being passed, two executive actions in 19 states and those remnants affected us today. i can explain this so in ohio and florida we had long lines. some of the laws they passed did that in the voting. >> in the balloon. if you have people here you'll have a bullet over there. >> right. it created enormous confusion because there were challenges. in pennsylvania we kept hearing people call in to the election protection hotline saying they're turning me away because i don't have voter i.d. we know that the voter i.d. wasn't implemented. >> it was struck. >> that didn't mean that the message didn't somehow get to some poll workers. that happened everywhere. in new jersey, with i is where i live, they do not have a photo identification law and people were calling in saying, they're asking me to show my i.d. i didn't have it. when you have a war on voting like what we saw, it creates a confusion even when we win. we won the war on voting. >> no, no, no. we won a battle. this war on voting is going to continue for years. we've got to be very clear about that. >> particularly in the wake of supreme court case which will -- >> let me see what bertha is do doing. i went to vienna and voting was the issue. the europeans pulled me aside and said this. how is it that all of us open up our voting process on election day to international observers starting with the u.s. and the u.s. will not allow international observers to come here and observe the voting. >> we went over to the u.n. commission, got them to send over folks to about 40 states. it threw them out of four states because we are embarrassed by the state of our democracy. >> last night at 11:00 p.m. i was reading that u.n. report. it was so funny to read about the u.s. from the sort of anthropological perspective. in this country, they have a fairly free press. oh, yes, these are the deficiencies of our system. we talked about deficiencies. this is fixable. this is a nation of smart people. >> you have to know the history. >> let's talk about solutions right after this. with something? nope! good talk. 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[ male announcer ] the way it moves. the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate and even pulsate to gently loosen and break up that sticky plaque with more brush movements than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than leading sonic technology brushes for a superior clean. oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers. talking about the-mile-per-hour system of election administration and i want to give a pretty amazing statistic. voter turnout. we lose sight on election day there's about 40 or 50 million people who aren't even registered who are eligible when voting happens. the u.s. ranked next to last among g8 nations. we come in 120th out of 169 and next to the last of the g8s. one interesting and important thing i would note is voter turnout does not mean you have a great functioning democracy as demonstrated by italy. we shouldn't say this is the panacea of fixing everything. i do think it's remarkable to see that. you made a point to me about voter registration. when we talked about this we should go upstream. let's talk about the population of people that are eligible to vote, which is people that are citizens over 18 who have not been disenfranchised by local felony disenfranchisement laws and people who have green cards. >> u.s. citizens. >> okay. that group of folks. how do we get them to the polls? >> i'm glad you asked. there is -- one of the big problems with our system is we rely on antiquated paper to get people registered. imagine what that is. you go to the dmv to get registered. you fill out the form, you have to mail it in. the better way to do it is put the burden on the government to try and register voters. the way you do it is by leveraging existing technology. there are computers at the dmv. they can talk directly to the board of election administration. that's the same for our social service agencies, that's the same for our colleges. once you do that, you could have a very good list of who is registered to vote. you give people the opportunity to opt out if they decide they don't want to participate. then you have someone who's already on the rolls. i can't tell you how many people on the election day called in and said, i didn't show up on the rolls. >> what you're saying is rather than it being the burden being on the citizen to go out and affirmatively do something to have them enrolled, the burden of the government to go out and add that and you can obviously decline. >> you can decline. >> i think about this. when i turned 18 in new york city, a senior in high school, my selective service card showed up. the government knew where i was. >> absolutely. >> it wasn't -- >> why not have that. >> because there's nobody in charge. you can have all the solutions you want. in new jersey we have an independent commission for gambling. we have no commission for voting. we're more concerned about slot machines than we are voting machines. >> that's right. the key thing here is that this is what every other major western democracy does. >> right. >> we should worry as a country when we are a punch line for russia. when russia looks at our democracy and says, wow, that's inefficient, wow, that has a lot of flaws. we're supposed to be the best. we were the best in 1776. we've got to update. >> part of that updating means now we all -- all have computerized databases statewide. >> right. that was part of the help america vote mandate act. >> that is right y. is it if you move from one county to another, if you don't reregister you're not in the system. >> it drives me nuts. it's like everybody in my world, like my friends, the post office, bill collectors. >> they can find you. >> magazine subscribers, they all know where i am. how does the voting system not. >> be very clear. we as an association have a 50 state database of every voter. >> you can purchase access to that. >> the same database that the folks who send you those catalogs use. >> exactly. >> so the federal government can use it and fix it like that. >> that's right. but the federal government won't. >> explain to us. >> because our infrastructure is based on that 1776 model that ben talked about where the states, it's the united states of america, not the united states of america. so state's rights in this issue have the final word and today we have more mobility, more diversity. >> that's the other problem. >> in 1776 you couldn't vote in massachusetts in the morning, nunchs in the afternoon and florida in the evening. >> that's very deep. about 15 years ago when i moved to mississippi i was told if i wanted to vote in the federal race i could sign up at the dmv. if i wanted to vote for dog catcher, i had to being across the town. >> that's right. >> now this year our folks go out, we've fixed that problem by the way. our folks go out there and where did they decide to do it? they decided not to process the voter registrations. there's thousand the of them sitting on the desk. first of all, there should be no third party registration. it should be the role of government to register its citizens. we have to have the will to do this. to me election day has to be a national holiday. period. if i could celebrate some president's birthday, i certainly ought to be able to celebrate the constitutional right to vote. >> also be real clear, bertha, when somebody stands in line for eight hours and misses an entire day of work, that is a poll tax. >> in terms of thinking of what we can do, there is a federal legislation that would modernize our elections. it's the voter empowerment act. it does other things like restore voting rights to perngss with criminal convictions. >> hold that thought. i want to talk about that, voting in different ways, voting by mail, moving into saturday, how we can get it all so people are maximally participating in the system after this. i just want to note that the state of florida has still not been called. we were expecting at some point today, i think before noon. >> if they had early voting you would have. >> right. there's not a whole lot in that state to squeeze. >> seriously, this is the most powerful nation on this earth. seriously? >> i know. hopefully by noon today. >> this really shows what we're talking about. the whole purpose was to rebreak stuff other people fixed. >> florida was the laughing stock of the nation and they really did, as far as i could tell, revamp their system. they got rid of the hanging chads, all this stuff. they reenfranchised -- they had the harshest felony franchise laws. >> then they rolled them back. >> then they do the disenfranchised. >> they redisenfranchised. >> m wr rna tell me about the voter registration act and broadly how we can expand the franchise. >> the voter empowerment act has a number of components. it restores voting rights to persons with criminal convictions upon release from prisons but it also modernizes our registration system. it makes it such that the burden is on the government to register people. it uses modern technology to transmit information since that registration is automatic. it makes your voter registration portable within the state so if you move to one county to the other. it has online components so you can look up to see if your name is spelled right and it has an election day correction in the event something goes wrong on election day. >> i love this legislation. >> we should work really hard to get it passed. >> frankly, this is very conservative. this is about doing things right. the problem is enforcement. who is going to make this happen? what are the penalties when it doesn't happen? what are the best practices? what commission, if eac is not the commission, someone -- i don't believe government can do everything. >> right. >> but in this instance government must enforce and government must pay for it. we still don't have a prototype voting machine that creates the standard for what an effective voting machine should look like. >> but at least the voter registration component part is that it pays for itself. it's very expensive to mail paper forms, to type them in. when the computers are talking to each other, you're saving money. >> the key point here, i think this is such an interesting point, we talk about this issue, there's a technical aspect to this and a policy issue. i keep hearing from you deforest, it is a function of politics and will. >> it is. >> we can talk about how if we were -- if we washed away the politics of this, if we washed away the american political components work, it's how one party benefits from things, but the fundamental political fact of american politics in this moment is that fact, the asymmetry. >> to be clear, when you don't have the eac working, what you have is the dnc and the rnc. >> my thanks to dr. deforest so i remember res. it was great to hear your story today. i'm glad to have you hear at the table. myrna perez. ben jealous from the naacp and bertha, former president of the acorn. a final thought on the election when we come back. [ male ann, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth! in just a moment, a final thought on the election. monday, november 12th at 8:00 p.m. i'll be at miami dade college to talk about my book, twilight of the elites. the next day, tuesday, november 13th at 7:00 p.m. i'll be appearing at m.i.t. in boston where i'll be talking about my book and the election. today's show was only a preview. go to our facebook page. i want to finish today's program with a final thought on the election. on tuesday night after the race had been called, the first call i made was to my brother, luke. when i got married in july of 2007 luke had to take a few days off his new job as an obama field day campaign organizer in nevada to take part in the election. that was five years. in the intervening months my brother has spent every single day working for the obama campaign. he's worked in eight states, at times literally living out of clothes in trash bags while putting 87,000 miles on a beat up old white ford pickup truck. 60 to 90 hours a week 52 weeks a year for five years. then from his perch as a nevada state director this time around to get him re-elected. i'm biased, of course, but to me tuesday's victory was luke's victory as much as it was anyone else's. luke and the thousands like him, organizers of every hue and background and creed in states across the nation working pre'strously long hours and making democracy work, calling people, knocking on doors, sending e-mails, sitting through endless meetings and conference calls and sorting columns on spreadsheets and buying office spliets in bulk or slightly used so as to come in under budget. negotiating leases, getting yelled at by people, there were thousands of people across the country like my brother doing this work, and not just for ofa, from local candidates, city council on up. from the ballot initiatives that passed across the country giving us the first popular victories for marriage equality in three states and the beginning to end for our insane policy of marijuana prohibition. when the victory bell rings, we all rush to talk about the great men of history who made it so, the candidates and the master strategists who ran their campaigns. or we point to the exit polling demographics, but nothing in politics is inevitable. progress only comes about because of the tireless labor of organizers who never get to give speeches at podiums, who don't get vacation money and who don't show up on cable news unless they're in the background of a photo op. the reward they do get is the full i willment of the soul that comes from struggle and the defeat and boredom that are inevitably part of that struggle make the rare moments of victory that much sweeter. new want to see what that looks like, check out this video from election night of min soet tans for all families, the group that fought the aiblt marriage equality in that state. 1:45 p.m. he addressed people and to go home and sleep and feel proud about the work they did, win or lose. and then communications director kelly swing hammer announces the ap has called the race. >> i couldn't be more proud to have been in a position to lead you guys for the last over a year and i can't thank you enough for all your hard work and dedication. it's blown my mind. every time i feel like we've -- we're just about to hit a wall, you guys blow right through that wall to make this a reality. so i want you to go to bed tonight. i want you to be very, very proud of the result we have. [ cheers and applause ] unless you've done the work that the people in that room have done, you can't know how that feels. so to all the people in that room and around the country and all the unsung thousands who toiled in the trenches of democracy, a toast. thank you for what you did. thank you for what you do, especially you, luke. i'm proud of you. and thank you for joining us today for "up." join us tomorrow, sunday morning at 8:00, we'll have sherrod brown and hakeem jeffries. coming up is melissa harris-perry. also, education reform moving forward. melissa's special guest which you are going to want to see is randy wine garten, president of the american federation of teachers. we'll see you tomorrow at 8:00. thanks for watching today, i appreciate it. thanks for getting up. a winter wonderland doesn't just happen. it takes some doing. some coordinating. and a trip to the one place with the new ideas that help us pull it all together. from the things that hang and shine... ...to the things that sparkle and jingle. all while saving the things that go in our wallet. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. right now, get an assortment of martha stewart living ornamen,s free when you purchase select artificial trees. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. this morning my question, how do you like us now, john houston? plus the changing complex of the american electorate, and the education agenda of the next

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