jamie: what was your sense when you heard mitt romney speak? i think he is a man who has taken, to come to terms with the loss. i think he had a real shot of winning in november and he accepted he will not be president and he doesn t have any intention to run for office again. he said that and i believe him. he a man that wants to contribute to the national debate in some way. this was his coming out party after going on fox news on sunday. this is coming out party saying i want to have a voice in the way the country moves and he is not going silently into the night. jamie: we have some women on the straw poll ballot. do you think this country is ready for a female president? i think so. obviously hillary clinton had a lot of buzz. she didn t win the nomination but she had a lot of supporters.
you re not seeing that tone now. obviously they ve got to strike a deal on the fiscal cliff. and i think that is of note. and republicans have noticed that. and that s why we re actually seeing some unity for now. i don t think there s going to be any kind of deal this week as congress comes back, but as we get into december and the markets get jittery, possibly, you ll see some type of deal on the fiscal cliff. do you imagine a deal that doesn t include both sides getting in the way, both have been publicly flogged for not giving over the past few years. it s true, i think obama now holds a better poker hand. a much better poker hand. and he s you know the voters have spoken and he s not saying he s not giving. here we have people like bob corker of tennessee going on fox news on sunday no less saying he cannot imagine giveback on taxes at this minute is really extraordinary. you re seeing a cracking in a sense of that party line. and why are we going to go to
we screw that up. of course, he s in iowa. not ohio. in an interview, romney was pressed for specifics on his tax plan. after ryan said on fox news on sunday the math would take too long to explain. you could say everybody is going to get up to a $70,000 deduction and can use your charitable deduction or home mortgage deduction or others. and you can fill that bucket if you will, the $17,000 bucket that way and higher income people might have a lower number. or you could do it by the same method that boll simpson did it. but that s the sort of thing you do with congress. so that s the most detail we have heard romney talk about this idea of different buckets and a cap on deductions. but still it s been at nearly every stop in the the last two weeks. romney has had to explain the 47% remark.
it was eight days, nine days ago we were discussing paul ryan, the article in the new yorker called fuss budget. did you know then he was actually on the fast track to be a pick for the vp? no, we barely talked about it in my interview. the reason i wrote the piece, i wanted to think about what is romney going so do if he wins. if you want to understand what republicans will do if they gain the white house, paul ryan is the guy to understand. it was his policy agenda that you knew romney was going in the direction. i didn t think he would take paul ryan himself. you could have said yes and told us you did i want to be honest. i did say he was a long shot for veep. we re talking all about paul ryan today. in fact, we want to get up close and personal with the congressman. mitt romney says he is very happy with his new running mate, ryan seems genuinely moved by the appointment and at point practically crying with emotion. last night on 60 minutes. paul ryan said
howard, great to have you with us tonight. what are we going to see in the next 120 days here, the next four months, what s it going to deliver to the people when it comes to the debate on health care? i m tempted to say in the court where you don t have the facts on your side, you pound on the table. the republicans are going to pound on the table. what chris wallace exposed there in his very good interview on fox on sunday is the fact that mitch mcconnell did not want to say directly that he doesn t believe in the idea of universal health care because chris s question kind of implied it was a given that you should be for universal health care. if you recall the sound bites you just showed, but mitch mcconnell wouldn t cop to that. and i think that s very revealing and i think the basic republican philosophy here is in not so many words, but the ideological thrust is going to be we don t agree with the fundamental idea of president