sexuality. i think word queer at least part of the slur but he was a fascinating, discomforting voice. anyone around him or in concentric circles knows i think lionel chilling said of a character of jane eyre an evening with her would not be undertaken lightly. an evening with gore vidal would not be taken lightly. there was i think probably no more interesting novelist, dramatist of modern american politics than vidal. the best man, long running twice revived at least play was his burr-linco burr-lincoln, great historical novels. right. he wrote a novel called washington about the city. i think a series of four novels
and think think it will move numbers. jim, do you buy that argument? they re raising a lot of money. he s going to be raising tons of money in aspen today and spending a lot of money. but i guess the big question is, is he getting boxed in to a corner? is the obama team defining him in a way he won t be able to erase with an etch-a-sketch over the fall campaign? i think they sure as heck need to be concerned about that because there s no doubt he is defined negatively, especially among independents in the state that is matter. they think they can outdo most of that. they think that the stories are silly distractions. they feel that once they get to the conventions they ll define it on their terms. when s curious is why they don t do both simultaneously. you can have the candidate elevate himself and talk about the vision for the next four years. you were just talking on your segment, neither candidate s
john meachum, you look at the state of washington right now and you look at the fact of the republicans probably pick up the seats in the senate. and they may hold on to the house. regardless of whether democrats have 51 senators or republicans have 51 senators, we re deadlocked. we re in the same position in january of 2013 that we are today. i don t know where the hope is. but as you said, this two-party duopoly that dominated for 150 years. yep. i think that it s, you know, we have an establishment party in this country with two wings and there are important differences but by and large the country and the broad economic future to to go your point, brian, is set between these two sets of arguments. and i don t know.
and they re not working and yet mitt romney is losing by six points in the state of florida. if i was advising the romney camp, i would say that when the stimulus plan was passed, unemployment was 8.3%. unemployment now is 8.2%. so you re talking about 900 or so billion dollars that eventually will need to be repaid reducing unemployment by .1 of 1%. we re nowhere near the level you discussed and in the romney camp that s what i would say. i would say why s the recovery so slow? why are 14 million americans unemployed? why are millions more underemployed? what will we do about it? paying a higher tax rate is a badge of honor in this country. mike, i m just going to ask it. it s the reality and sometimes people get upset when we tell the truth on the air. but, as a politician, mitt
tohe point of brian and john, the discussion they were having, it s easy to throw your hands up and saying washington is dysfunctional. washington is dysfunctional. it wasn t dysfunctional. the president with democratic majorities in the senate and house and passed big things. i disagree with the things but passed obama care, the stimulus, dodd-frank. you cannot argue washington didn t work. washington was effective in 2009, 2010 passing big legislation that i would say tragically has not improved our situation. in fact, made things worse. we have had over 40 months of extremely high unemployment but you can t blame it on washington not working. obama got what he wanted. it was just ineffective legislation. okay. andrea, thank you for putting up with all of this this morning. we appreciate it. fun to be with you. i m going to throw my hands up in the air, washington is dysfunctional. easy to do.