he is in trouble. but you have got to remember, presidential campaigns, incumbents don t run against polls and statistics. they run against candidates. they run against other candidates. just like in sports. politics is about matchups. the matchup with the republicans, there are a lot of negatives. their polling is worse than president obama. approval ratings republicans are trailing president obama by 8 points in terms of the general election. dan, you know enough about polls to know groups trend lower. the 12 battleground state polls. he s up by 5 points. but at end of the day, incumbents run against himself. they run against their records. the reason the president is going follow the pathway you said which is negatively defining his opponent is because
a huge campaign war chest. and he s holding his fire as the republicans go after each other. thank you, gentlemen for talking to us about this. the real clear politics national average. the average all polls for gop nominees have gingrich ahead of romney. romney has 24.4%. in third place you have got ron paul with 12.6% followed guy perry, bachmann and rick santorum. huntsman barely on the map. dan pretty much spells out how volatile the political environment these candidates are in going into this election. absolutely. what we have seen is the problem mitt romney had all along. he is the best general election candidate of this crop.
senate because you guys decided that vacations were more important. the president going to hawaii [laughter] than solving the problem for a year. no. brad, brad, brad he had to catch up with michelle, so give me a two month bill, and we ll visit this again after my vacation. no. the republicans wanted to tag everything on to this bill. 160 million americans were getting ready to have their taxes go up january 1, and all the republicans had to get back to their hedge fund, pat today and champagne christmas parties that wall street s paying for. by the way, the most interesting statistic i saw today in the newspaper was the average tax cut under the bush tax cuts for the 1% no, they re the obama tax cuts knockout. is more than the average american makes $55,000 a year. so we know the republicans bread is buttered by the rich 1% hedge fund managers, wall street crowd while president obama and the democrats are fighting for the average 160 million well, your robin hood
the freshmen republicans in congress have drunk the jim jones kool-aid and have no compromise in them. this country s going to move forward when democrats and republicans get together, and while these guys are smoking the tea instead of drinking it, that ain t going to happen. rick: gentlemen, good to see you both. a spirited discussion, and we ll see you again and see how this plays out. thanks very much. happy new year, brad. happy new year to you. julie: are peace talks on the horizon in the afghanistan? what we re learning and what it could mean for the tens of thousands of soldiers that are still on the ground there. we re going to go live to kabul. rick: and if you re worried, perhaps, that you ate too much this christmas, don t worry. why sucking down some sweets may be just what the doctor ordered. my name is robin. i m a wife, i m a mom. and chantix worked for me.
carolina democratic party chair. brad, let me start with you. if democrats won the first round, how does the gop sort of situation themselves so they could come out on top in round two? well i m not so sure the democrats won anything. basically, the payroll tax extension for two months was triage on a patient that needs open heart surgery. the next round is really what s going to matter. it s the last kind of tax bill before the presidential election in 2012. republicans have to be smart, coordinate between the house and the senate. and if i were advising them, i would say take the keystone pipeline out of the payroll tax next bill and have it as a stand-alone bill before you vote on the remaining payroll tax for 2012. force the democrats to vote down this jobs bill, and then if we re unsuccessful in getting it to the president, add the keystone pipeline back true the payroll tax extension and put the democrats feet to the fire and show the american people how