clear democrat and republican and clear independent. there s a lot, i think, movement across the lines, in part because i think people have moved away from the more divisive social issues. the country is becoming more progressive, more progressive on gay marriage and issues like immigration, even on issues like choice where i think it s more localized now in terms of the intensity. all that being said, i think here s the problem. the center i think is out there but they are constrained by the reality that because of gerrymandering and because of the primary system, the choices do not reflect their preferences. even if there is a center out there but the reality is you have the gerrymandering districts that produce more conservative or liberal members, you are a prison to that system. folks in the center don t win primaries. exactly. until that changes and you re see something of that change in states like, you know, california, where they re having top two races, meaning the top
comes to campaign contributions for you. but maybe it really is just about suing president obama. you have vowed to never stop fighting the affordable care act, which means you proudly rejected medicaid expansion in texas, even though your state has the highest percentage of uninsured residents in the country. clearly you are against anything bearing president obama s name. is that where your protege ted cruz got this whole shut down the federal government over nonsense idea? mr. abbott, this strategy has an expiration date. president obama is only going to be president a few more years. then you may have to actually be for something. and right now you seem to be for the new restrictive voter i.d. law in texas that is being challenged by the department of justice. you re also a big fan of gerrymandering districts to decrease democratic influence, even if those redrawn districts are illegal and dris dis krim nate against black and latino voters. you are against president obama and all h
lines as primarily partisan, and to think about democrats and republicans as against one another. part of what happened in 2010, we talk about this a lot. when we talk about the fact there is a greater number of votes, a pretty substantial higher number of votes for house democrats and republicans. but the house republicans win again in 2012, in part because of the gerrymandering districts in 2010. but what that did is create problems for them in the party. creating a micro incentive for them, to keep going farther and farther to the right. more and more draconian, and the reason you had to pass the farm bill was because i mean, that is how the housework worked, r? i give you a little something, you give me a little something. but now that whole system has fallen apart. but if you re right, chris, and john boehner errs on the side of the draconian, which is
and we re not going to have immigration reform. that is it, period. i want to talk about john boehner who we spent some time talking about in the last segment, who is obviously the key player here. and given his weakness on the farm bill how can anyone, conservative, liberal, progressive, whatever, have any confidence that he can rally his own caucus to get this done? look, one of the first lessons they teach you at the speaker of the house school is you don t bring up votes if you don t have enough to pass it. so if you look at the drama that played out today on the farm bill, you look at such a more contentious issue on the immigration reform. it is very, very difficult for me to sit here and lay out a scenario how that gets passed. because this will take some serious is arm-twisting, some real serious work by the leadership to convince people that are in gerrymandering districts, that decides
contentious issue on the immigration reform. it is very, very difficult for me to sit here and lay out a scenario how that gets passed. because this will take some serious is arm-twisting, some real serious work by the leadership to convince people that are in gerrymandering districts, that decides presidential elections, for instance, that this is the right thing to do. both from a policy perspective to end the amnesty, but also for the long-term political health of the party that used to get 40-plus percent of the latino vote i vote, and now it is trending down to 20%, you certainly can t go forward with less than 20%. where does that leave the republican party? i mean, if you have moderates that are completely powerless and the stage being run amuk by people who don t want to get the