the latest, louisiana governor bobby jindal who told politico it s time for republicans to, quote, stop being the stupid party. sounds promising until you remember he signed into law a measure that allows for teaching creationism in public schools. with me are two msnbc political hot shots. howard fineman is the huffington post boss, and john heilemann with new york magazine. both great guys and brilliant. let me ask you about this republican party. as someone once said in the communist world as things were changing in bud pistol, the road to damascus is very crowded these days. there are a lot of, what do you call them, a lot of converts out there. i was thinking, howard, in a nonreligious, in a secular sense, boy, are there a lot of them coming out. kristol is out there, some of the really smart guys are saying we blew it, let s think. yes. well, some people like david brooks and bill kristol who are thoughtful conservatives, but
this this demographic shift, the question is is it a democratic coalition or is it an obama coalition? i think one of the answers to that could certainly be hillary clinton, who could most certainly hold that coalition he together. she s widely favored among afterwardses and latinos. certainly she s a favorite of women as well. one of the questions, though, if presidential elections are always a referendum on the future and looking toward the future, i think one of the questions she would have to answer is whether or not she embodies of future or whether or not she faces marco rubio, who is younger and a cuban, that might be a problem. obama ran a very effective race against her, tieing her to the past. these are campaigns that we ve seen typically candidates run and run very successfully. kiki, the only challenge facing here is the tendency of the united states voters in general elections not to like to see one party stay in office too
party philosophy that don t affect their central beliefs. let s take a look at jindal who is a cultural conservative. he s acknowledging the republicans must not be the party of 1%. quote, we ve got to make sure that we re not the party of big business, big banks, big wall street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything. we cannot be. we must not be the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys. now, that s a good southern populist statement by a southern conservative bobby jindal, john heilemann, but you will notice he doesn t give an inch on the cultural stuff like we ve got to teach creationism in our public schools. his idea of compromise, stay out there on the far right on the cultural stuff, i m sure abortion rights and same-sex, but move in on the rich guy stuff. well, yeah. look, i mean, i m not sure we ve got yet a comprehensive statement from bobby jindal about what he thinks modernization and reform of the republican party would look like.
one is that he s finishing off, you know, reorganizing the forces in afghanistan, and then he s supposed to go to nato and hold together the alliance to keep the focus on afghanistan and to keep people from dribbling away. so those are two huge things that the white house has been depending on him, and they ve got to be hoping he comes out of this clean. interesting we ll have you on later, sari, again. we have to get back to politics. that s what i do for a living. we re going to get away from sex in ten seconds. get back to politics. you ve been great reporting this. thank you very much. coming up, louisiana governor bobby jindal says it s time for his party to stop, quote, being the stupid party. ed he urges the republicans to reject intellectualism. except jindal is teaching creationism in his public schools. the fiscal cliff, how much room is the left willing to give president obama on entitlement reform? what is the breaking point? on issues like social security
another campaign to get both democrats and republicans working together to avoid the economic mess that looms ahead, the so-called fiscal cliff. well, today he met with labor leaders and leaders in the progressive opportunity to soften the ground for a deal and found out how much leeway they will give him on cutting entitlement. here is afl-cio president richard trumka immediately after the meeting. we re very, very committed to making sure that the middle class and workers don t end up paying the tab for a party that we didn t get to go to. and the president is committed to that as well. are we going to collectively stand up and make sure that workers get a fair shake in all of this? absolutely we are. do we believe that the president is committed to that same thing? absolutely we do. but in a prior interview with salon, trumka took a harder line saying, quote, if any bipartisan deal includes cuts in social security, medicare, or medicaid or extends the bush cuts for the top 2%, w