certainly if you were running for the republican inauguration this year, wouldn t you think you had a chance? no, i mean everybody acknowledges this is one of the weakest fields republicans and it is strange. we have the single greatest opportunity we ve ever had to contrast ourselves with that which we oppose, and we have one of the weakest fields, everybody knows this! every once in a while rush notices and states the obvious. some republicans have for some time now trying to steer the party away from the famous named presumed front runners, like romney, huckabee, çpalin. ann coulter fears they will tut fully hand it to willard and romney simply because it is his turn. that s how bob dole got it, john mccain last time. that is how republicans do business, that is how loosers
the senate have been in closed door meetings all day. and joining me on the phone, wisconsin senate majority leader, republican scott fitzgerald. representative mason, i want to get your reaction to the news conference today where the governor is basically saying that senator miller s letter is bogus because what he s asking for is something that they already did over the course of the weekend. i think what the senate is asking for is for the governor to come to the table and actually negotiate, and negotiate in good faith, might find a resolution on the bill that gets to the governor s fiscal concerns in the budget repair bill without taking away 50 years of bargaining rights. it is nice they had a meeting, but you have to be willing to negotiate if we find resolution to this. i would hope that they would bear that in mind. republicans talk about taking away negotiation rights. but i think they could learn something from the rights they
time. if you don t run chris christie, romney will be the nominee, and we ll lose. the problem for coulter is that chris christie said definitively he will not run. george will began his sunday column this way. if pessimism is not creeping on little cat s feet into republicans thinking about their 2012 presidential prospects, that is another reason for pessimism. this is because it indicates they do not understand that sensible americans who pay scant attention to presidential politics at this point in the electoral cycle must nevertheless be detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party. will added the most recent vibrator is mike huckabee. george will was so troubled by mike huckabee s lying about barack obama growing up in
there are a lot of aspects they don t like. but if you keep the bargaining rights in place, we could bring the senate democrats home tomorrow. when the senate democrats come out of the secret meetings with the republicans, do they in any way report or get word to you democrats in the other body? they do. we have informal conversations with our members and their members, we have friendships that go across both houses. we talk to our friends, get a sense of where they are. the sense i get is a real frustration that real negotiation so far has not happened. i know there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle, the poll at a rate of 2 to 1, wisconsin citizens want both parties to come together to negotiate and preserve bargaining rights. i would like the governor to show some leadership here, bring labor peace back to wisconsin.
christie and pawlenty and others in the adult category. howard fineman from the huffington post and msnbc, thanks for joining us. thanks, lawrence. george will made a list of the five republicans that are plausible republican candidates. coming up, i will rewrite that list and explain why there is only one republican that has a shot at winning. and it is official, earlier this afternoon, warner brothers fired charlie sheen from two and a half men. jeff rossen joins us with how the troubled actor plans to respond to his termination. that s coming up.