insensitive or he s trapped in some time warp, the story he told about beth meyers needed to get home to her kids does not mean that he doesn t understand that women have different women have different workplace needs. it should be a spirited debate about what his positions are. but to talk about the details of what he said in particular in the debate and to have that characterize everything he thinks about women, it s just not right for the country. and again, i say it whether it was a republican or a democrat. i d say the same thing on the other side when they make a big deal about things the president has said that they take out of context or they blow up. this is, as steve said, this is the whole election now is trying to appeal to women voters to some extent. let me just say, mark halperin, we have a reason to feel really good here, and i ll tell you why because alex tells me that e-mails are flooding in right now. mika, you re about to get yours. alex, i understand the e-mail
presidents, strikes will be within a fairly narrow band in terms of what the contents of that deal are. i do think it s a sign that we re getting closer to a deal if republicans are preparing revenue offers because the problem has been for the last couple of years is no revenue offers whatsoever. and now the president s got a little bit of the high cards. i do think it is possible that if you got to post-election and obama has won, you could see some variant of the romney tax plan emerge. that is to say i don t think the president is necessarily stuck on 39.6 as the cardinal principle, it s more revenue from the top that s the cardinal principle. and if they could do that through some sort of reform, i think he d consider that. by the way, i ve got bad news for republicans, mika, if mitt romney wins, there s still going to have to be a new revenue. it s going to be part of the deal. if you re going to turn on mitt romney and say oh, you lied to us then go ahead and start right now be
i don t know, when they played southern cross, the place was rocking. crosby, stills & nash is unbelievable. a new quinnipiac poll shows chris christie leading 46%-42%. there were polls out earlier this week christie s approval rating way up in the 50s. i tell what you, he d be a hard guy to beat. i don t think cory booker s going to take that chance. would you agree with me, mark? i d agree. i d be surprised if he doesn t. i don t think he ll take that chance. he plays it safe, and chris christie, i would not want to run against chris christie in new jersey. the so-called fiscal cliff, of course, is approaching. and president obama is threatening to block any legislation to avoid the deep spending cuts and tax hikes unless republicans accept his demands to raise tax rates on the wealthiest part of the deal. according to the post, an election victory would give democrats significant new clout and another potential fiscal showdown.
control of the house again, we basically have the same scenario we ve had over the past two years. and i think that status quo result is probably the most congenial formula to getting a deal quickly. but the one thing you have that we haven t had for two years and you have the cliff. something has to happen. exactly. it s not a case where congress says we re not going to do anything and go home. look at europe if you don t think that exists. all we re saying and john, what you ve been saying here is democrats and republicans, if we have the status quo, you guys are still going to have to sit down, talk and do things you don t want to do. because as steve said, you ve got a huge action-forcing mechanism hanging over. all right. john harwood, thank you so much. thank you, john. i m going to go to the concert. i can t wait. sweet. you going tonight? probably tomorrow night. author of the best-selling block blackhawk down, this time taking us behind the scenes o
decision? when you write game change, what s the key moment where they said, listen, we re not going to get really specific about the next four years? i think after the bungts deal fell apart, the grand bargain with john boehner and they decided to spend the last year drawing contrast with the other party. my criticism of the president in the debate and the reason i didn t give him a higher grade is because he wasn t specific and dealing with people in the president s campaign who criticized the relatively low grade for a guy who won, i said name what he said that was specific. in the debate, he said, i need another term to keep doing what i did in the first term. and a lot of americans think the first term was not perfect, to say the least. right. he s not specific. and to go back to what steve said, neither of them talking about sacrifice. we re going to need some sacrifice. and while that s not politically popular, i think americans would like a conversation like that. we ta