that truly changed the world. . there are high expectations for this meeting between pope francis and the president because of their similar backgrounds and feelings about economic equality, about helping the poor. are the expectations too high? what do you think is going to happen here? i heard everything that this is going to be an alliance on the issue to pope francis is going to be taking the president to task for the hhs mandate and religious freedom. and probably the truth is somewhere in the middle. there won t likely be the kind of political appliance that there was between president reagan and john paul ii against communism, and yet there are so many things they share in common, particularly with expect to poverty and world peace. i want to talk about the issues, but one of the things that help ed to propel ronald reagan and pope john paul ii was a personal chemistry.
times magazine. karen, there are many democrats who would say, dick norris, please, go ahead, give all the advice you want. at the end of the day, it s a really interesting dynamic in the house. democrats actually have some power here to pass legislation. right. that s exactly right. i mean, even in the last session, we know that a majority of the things that actually got done got done because nancy pelosi help ed make sure it happened. the reality is john boehner is very ham strung here. he does not have a lot of power in terms of his own caucus. he does rely on pelosi and the democrats to get some things done. so, part of what that means, though, that gives democrats leverage going into this legislative session. and we re already in a position where somehow the republicans missed the whole huge, glaring, neon sign of a message coming out of the last election and thenk they can boehner, you heard him. it s the same talking points