democrats tried to change the game plan. >> the reports of the death at the democratic party have been greatly exaggerated. [applause] >> record $3 billion in campaign spending by election day. where is the money coming from? >> they are posing as nonprofit groups with names like americans for prosperity. >> this is a filthy nation and i say thank god for dead soldiers . >> it is like being kicked in the face when you were on the ground. >> would the president consider swapping joe for hillary? >> both of us are happy doing what we're doing. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> november 2, election day, is rapidly approaching. there are plenty of tossups out there and democratic leaders fear a major increase the as gap by election day. races in call out, nev., washington state, even west virginia, where a popular governor is and the fight of his political life. vice-president joe biden says not to worry. >> on november 3, the democrats will retain a majority in the house, a majority in the senate, and these two folks will be heading to the state capital. >> mark, do you think the vice president is being overly optimistic? >> 1948, harry truman was the 10-1 underdog to thomas dewey, and the secretary of the senate put on old clothes and a battered hat and walk from -- and walked all through the midwest and came back and said, "how every tournament is going to win -- have truman is going to wind." only person in washington. joe biden will win that award is the democrats retain both houses. he is alone, virtually, in that prediction. >> charles? >> the sage of wilmington strikes again. i think the republican chatter about how big it will be, measuring the drapes for the speakership, it is bad, because it means that if the republicans do well but not overwhelming, it will be considered a defeat, the same way that in the new hampshire primary of 1992, when the flowers scandal broke, clinton, the front-runner, collapsed, but he came in second and was the winner, essentially, as the comeback kid. the more the democrats want to talk up their chances, bring it on. >> colby? >> well, i think the vice president is wrong on this -- [laughter] although i said i thought the democrats would retain the houses, too. in the house, you have 38 tossup contests, and 37 of them are democratic seats. in the senate, at 6 tossups, most of them are democratic seats. i don't see where they are going to pull this out? >> nina? >> the really dangerous thing, long term, for the democrats is that they are going to lose governorships and state houses. this is going to be the year where you redraw districts. in 2000, when that happens, they lost a lot of seats in the house by redistricting. many of them they have are extremely hard to defend because of that redrawing. >> the vice president was campaigning in st. paul earlier this week. >> i don't have any doubt in my mind -- if we turn out average people, if we turn out those independents, republicans, and democrats, who are in a struggle like all of us are, if we turn them out, we will win. [applause] and i have no doubt, i have no doubt if we do not, we will loose and we will see are rerun of the last movie that ended in devastation of for so many american people. >> he starts positive and qualifies his remarks. >> a shout-out for joe biden. he is the happy warrior this campaign, and it is a campaign where the democrats look a little bit like the melancholy gang that couldn't shoot straight. to nina's point about redistricting, it is going to be terribly difficult to reach all those new congressional lines for republicans, because they will have to protect all these new republicans, and the old ones will be furious that their districts are going to be tampered with, and they will lose their majority. >> the latest on a plan it figures, 9.6% -- latest unemployment figures come 9.6%. housing industry still in deep trouble. you know about the foreclosures and at paperwork. they don't have titles to some of these mortgages. >> the thing that is strange is that the president goes to illinois and attack karl rove. who cares? who is going to go to the polls because of karl rove? it is jobs, jobs, jobs. he has got to deliver a positive message on that. if he cannot do something positive on the economy, he is in trouble. >> that is the point. you try to change the subject. if you don't have anything that you can say positive at the moment, you change the subject. there is material to use and that is what he despera -- that is what he does. >> if you don't have the law on your side, argue the facts, and if you don't have either, pound the table. you say the vice president is a happy warrior. you can be a happy warrior if you are delusional. [laughter] on the governorships, i will make a bold prediction, one governorship that the democrats will retain, new york state. if anyone has seen the latest advertisement put out by the challenger, it is the most lunatic ad i have ever seen, in which there is a reference, where he tries to defend itself against accusations of sexual scandal, to the prowess of his opponent. that is a word i've never heard in a political ad. >> if somebody mentions your sexual prowess, and you do not turn it down. [laughter] >> i would take a fifth. >> on the mortgages, anybody who has bought a mortgage in the past 25 years has no idea who is holding it. each month it would change. it goes through thousands of dollars to check the title. why do these lenders just put a stamp on it -- >> that is absolutely inexcusable. no excuse. if you cannot document a loan as a banker, you do not belong in the business. if the banking industry gets in trouble because of this, i wouldn't give them a dime to bail them out. >> amen. >> remember, these are the people who got billions and billions in the bailouts. it is a double miami. -- double whammy. >> $3 billion election. where is the cash coming from? >> washington liberals are trying to trick you. >> as committee chairman, he approve the billions in debt as a spending. >> creating a crushing debt. >> ouch! >> that is how john spratt's votes feel. they hurt. >> the target is john spratt, a democrat, who has no idea it was attacking him or the money comes from. >> nonprofit groups with names like americans for prosperity, or americans for apple pie. i made that last one up. >> thanks to the supreme court citizens united ruling, millions of dollars pumped into our elections and they don't have to tell us where it is coming from. >> this the next scandal, a scandal in the making. they don't have to disclose anything. this is the kind of thing that led to watergate. >> are you aware of democrats turning down soft money like this? >> no, but the democrats are not getting -- >> in other words, it is whining . >> let me finish what i was going to say. eventually, we are going to have problems with this. there is a disclosure law pending in congress, which republicans blocked, and what we see here is -- what i am curious about, and i don't know the answer to, is what is happening in the states. we had fewer newspapers, we have television stations that more and more go for "if it bleeds, it leads." is there any serious coverage about the amount of money being spent and the fact that we don't know where they are coming from? that is a problem in a democracy. >> "the new york times" had a piece the other day where the reporter tries to chase the money, and he ends up talking to a guy in florida. he finally gives up. >> he gets a voice mail after a voice mail. this is all to get a property by the republicans -- this is hypocrisy by the republicans. i say this because the republican position ever since watergate is that we should not limit contributions, we should not limit expenditures, but what we should have is timely and complete disclosure. sunshine is the ultimate disinfectant. put them on line as soon as -- larry kudlow, the conservative economist, to his everlasting credit says that ought to be the issue now. all the others, including my old champion john mccain, have deserted this cause, and they are just sitting there getting money from companies in egypt and india to cut into american politics. that is in violation of law for the past 34 years. >> mark is talking about the chamber of commerce. >> the chamber of commerce overseas it and is the national chamber that puts the money out there. they will get by with this kind of thing this cycle. i don't think they will two years from now. there will be pushed back. for example, some of the corporations putting money into the campaigns are going to be held accountable for this. they are going to hear from their customers -- >> how do we identify them, though? >> they will be identified. this is not top-secret information. they will be found out and held accountable. i believe that. thi>> this is whining squared. democrats are also in the game, but they are losing the game, so they are unhappy. i am not a fan of the ruling, but it is the law, within the law. democrats are complaining about how much republicans are raising. in the last election cycle, obama alone raised $600 million, breaking all records in the galaxy, and he raised another $300 million for the dnc. the supreme court has decided -- >> but the question is from where. >> you show that co -- that clip of the president, and the implication is that republicans are purchasing the election. that is nonsense. rove has raised $50 million, the unions had set aside $100 million, and the difference is that a union member does not have to say about whether it goes to a democrat or republican even if he is a republican. not here this -- let's not hear this whining. this is not by republicans lost in 2008 and not white to -- not why democrats will lose in 2010. >> unions have always required that it be approved by union members -- >> only individuals, individual members of the union -- >> it is a democracy. the dues are not -- >> the dues are not voluntary. >> and they should not be. do it on your own time -- >> how to corporate pacs operate? >> barbara boxer is accused of destroying jobs. dick blumenthal is called the worst attorney-general in the united states. there is no attribution, no acknowledgement, and no credit, no accountability. big republican word, accountability. where is it? >> does the constitutional guarantee of free speech protected protesting funerals of those died in combat? >> the conduct of the westboro baptist church was so extreme that it would pass all possible bounds of human decency that it could be regarded as utterly intolerable in a civilized nation. >> that is albert snyder, the father of marine lance corporal matthew snyder, killed in iraq in 2006. the funeral was the target of members of a small kansas church who claimed that the death of soldiers and marines and others is god's punishment for homosexuality. he sued and a baltimore jury awarded him $10 million, and a judge cut in half, and it went to the supreme court. what were the arguments like? >> it was really interesting. you could see the justices really struggling with this. some of them were clearly looking for a way out, to carve out an exception for the funeral or to deal with the kind of society we live in now where you can kind of harass people on the internet with your posting and say unbelievable things that get published a far wider than they ever did before. but this is a very difficult thing to draw this kind of line. you could really see this and the arguments. >> i don't think that you can apply a standard of decency to any kind of political speech, because once you do, you have really changed something fundamental in the country. this is really -- i mean, this is a hard case, but it is a case where you want to reaffirm the fact that we do not draw those kinds of lines. it is the most painful kind of case, but it is obvious that speech that is decent acceptable is not stuff that you want to or have to protect, because there is no reason to. it is like the burning of rththe koran or the nazi march in skokie, all kinds of stuff that we don't want to see, but you have to allow, because once you draw the line, you have real trouble. you have political control of political speech. >> i stand in awe of albert snyder, the father of that dead marine, that he could express the forcefully get with restraint something that must absolutely be tearing him apart. but i do agree with charles' conclusion. >> colby, at a certain level you know how you really want to handle this. >> it is despicable and i would like to punch them out. i come down on the side of the first amendment, have had many experiences with this over the years, family funerals. given some of the behavior i have seen at family funerals, i would take those people -- at wakes, funerals, the post-fee nor gatherings -- post-funeral gatherings, people tend to act out. you have got to kind of just allow for that. i think in reality, if it happened, at one of my funerals, i would go ahead and punch them out -- >> but could you established a perimeter? can you make it wider? there are practical ways to approach it. at a political convention, you can only demonstrate in certain areas, and the argument is about safety. >> justice kagan at the hearing, at the argument, actually said that, if you had a statute that just had a buffer zone of 500 feet that apply to everybody, wouldn't that take care of it? he was 1000 feet away. one of the things that upset albert snyder so much was a posting on the website that he saw 30 days later. >> but you cannot regulate websites that way. >> that is my point. >> there are postings on website about all of us. >> he did not see the signs on the funeral. >> he saw on television. >> how did kagan strike you? >> she seems completely at ease in part of the gang, and i must say, having covered the courts for several decades, seeing three women up there for the first time, it really did look different. >> there you go. how does this sound, vice president hillary clinton and secretary of state joe biden? >> we have a great relationship, and i have no interest or no reason to do anything other than dismiss the stories and move on. >> secretary of state responding to recent comments by bob woodward that a job swap with vice president joe biden prior to the 2012 election is on the table at the white house. this rumor has been floating around for months, colby. >> yes, but robert gibbs and knocked it down pretty hard -- press secretary -- this week. i suspect you will not find the principals talking about this, but friends of hillary, who have a pretty good idea. i don't think they are close to talking about this seriously. >> what you think, mark? >> usually, when speculation like this, always idle speculation, starts, it is because it partisans see the vice-president as a liability, like with dan quayle in the 1992 ticket with george bush. but it is always inside baseball, and it is a reflection more of the problems that the presidential candidate has. that is what this reflects. i don't think it is a real, i think it is washington kind of chatter. but if, in fact, unemployment were 6% and obama was 61% approval, they would be saying, "what a hell of a ticket." >> this is a tribute to the power of thought or word. he repeats the idle chatter the -- has been -- a tribute to the power of the bob woodward. he repeats the idle chatter of the past month and suddenly it is serious. it could happen in two years, but at the moment, it is a reflection of obama's problems come not joe biden. >> but if you assume his problems continue and there is no rapid or strong recovery in the economy, and you go into 2012, and you are a republican, i will look at that and say, if you had that swap, that would be something to be worried about. her constituency is a constituency where obama is cratering, working-class democrats, reagan democrats who came home and are now wandering away again. i think it would be a good idea if you were a democrat. i am not talking about how it worked psychologically, but as a political issue, i think it would be good for them. >> let me go back to the 2010 elections. at the beginning of this broadcast, we showed christine o'donnell saying, i am not a witch, i am nothing you've heard. i am you. >> i am in a distinct minority, i think it is a good spot. given all the swirl about her, she is the target of opportunity for anybody to the left of charles krauthammer in the american media, and the charles himself. she is a piñata of this campaign. she has to come on and just by being there, straightforward, presenting herself, as she does well, puts the lie to some of the myths about her. there are still stories she has to answer, but i thought it was a good opening. >> i thought it was ok, but then gave her opponent to say, "oh, yeah? she is you? you are not." joe biden's old seat is great fodder in a political year. >> it will not change a thing about her. things she has said, the things she has done, misrepresentations, those are on the record and she will suffer the consequences. the latest polls show that. there is a widening gap. >> in west virginia, they dressed up some of new york actors as working people, farmers and so forth, and people in west virginia are outraged by this. >> casting call ask for hicky, hick-like people. >> joe manchin has a 70% approval rating, and democrats conducted a focus group, 12 democrats, all of whom said he was a governor and they are voting against him to "send a message." this is a problem. >> he has a problem -- another problem, that he supported obamacare and now said he does not. i don't think there is a single democrat in the country, perhaps except for ross fine gold, who advertises support of obama -- perhaps except for russ feingold, who advertises support of obama. what is overriding here is the economy and certain major issues. one of the complaint against obamacare was not only what is in obamacare, but the fact that the democrats spent a year and half on this, which is not high on the agenda of a lot of voters, instead of addressing economic issues. that is the complaint, that they have been ideologically driven rather than looking after bread- and-butter. >> if the election were held today, it was fine gold would lose, right? -- russ feingold is, right? -- would lose, right? >> i would not votbet against him, but he is certainly the underdog. his opponents as he will repeal -- appointed says he will appeal it. he will appeal pre-existing conditions, lifetime coverage? nathan deal, republican candidate for governor, had a totally false financial disclosure. it turns out, after he got the nomination, that instead of having a net surplus of $2.5 million, he owes $3 million, and will be due in 2011. you know, i mean, if you look at people being slow on their visa cards, like christine o'donnell, how about nathan deal and republican fiscal responsibility in georgia? >> and he is six point ahead of roy blunt. >> they are not all running away from obamacare. in kentucky, where rand paul is probably ahead, the democratic opponent, the attorney general, says that he supports obamacare. people uninsured are now going to be covered, and he stood up for that. >> you get the last word. see you next week. for a transcript of this broadcast, log on to insidewashington.tv.