my panel today, doug hattaway, erin mcpike and robert traynham, doug, what s your must-read? a piece by alan fram of the associated press, what he calls the pragmatic voices in congress. a lot of people left in this election cycle could make congress even more polarized, unless some people will step up, drop the idealogue rigidness and get things done. does he say anything about the likelihood of some kind of a change. when you see the likes of a saxby chambliss and a lindsay graham getting up there. does he name anyone who he thinks might morph a little. i think he focuses more on the problem than the heroes. he lays out the stark situation which is surprising a lot of people. because the president won so big, congress might be a harder nut to crack. say it ain t so, doug. how about you, erin?
the number has tripled in eight years with no end in sight. there are catalogs and circulation that has fallen due to increase in postage. it s time now for the big three and today s topics, second term, part one. second term, part two. let s bring in my big three panel. doug haddaway, erin mcpike, and robert traynum. i ve had my coffee and i m ready to go. erin, what do you think in terms of the president s top three goals in the second term? i don t know about three but i think aside from the very obvious, which is to strike some sort of big deal on the fiscal cliff and get some sort of
get something done by the end of the year. i would not be surprised if they put a band-aid on this and say let s wait until after the new year. let s wait until the new congress gets swong in. a different makeup and get something done then. you re thinking stop-gap, something short term? yes. erin, what about you? i think that s likely. but i think in the new year they are likely to get a big deal. it seems that republicans leading on this, like john boehner, like lindsay graham frankly, they re signaling they want to have a big deal. think in the coming three months or so, we ll probably see something pretty big from them. doug? i agree. i think that they are going to do a bit of a kick the can. but in the interest of getting a deal that people can live with and selling it well, the president is getting outside of washington to go to the american people on this. he needs time to do that well. so i don t think kicking the can down the street is a bad thing, it might help th