and what we see is in many of these districts, they re not worried about a challenge from the left. they re not worried about their general election. they re worried about primary battles and increasingly, too. they re concerned with having a national tea party activist base where they can fund raise from. we see people like the representative fund raising off the fact that boehner and the establishment republicans are against him and he s a thorn in their side. dana, when you look at the tea party s record unpopularity, it s broke records now. 49% have unfavorable view. 56% have become less influential over the last year. as they sink in popularity, what happens to the gop? do you start seeing defections
any one of the things at stake, the entire world economy. and i don t think republicans, if they re looking back at what happened in 95, 96, it was good for clinton that they shut the government down. it wasn t good for republicans at all. it very much set up a situation where bob dole was hurt in his campaign. if they want to help president obama in terms of approval ratings, don t shut the government down. michelle, the republicans are now saying their taxes are off the table. we ve resolved the tax issue now. it s over. it s behind us. we were able to get permanent tax relief for 99% of american taxpayers. your reaction to that?
the fiscal cliff that voted no came from republicans in the south. a majority of republicans from outside the south supported the deal. and on sandy disaster aid, 56% of the no votes came from southern republicans. that s despite passionate support for the bill. from republicans in the north ooet. the etiological base of the gop is now in the old south. just listen to one of their newest stars, the tea party senator from texas, ted cruz. the reason i am a conservative is because conservative policies work. i think common sense needs more common sense and principle. washington doesn t need more compromise? this is from the guy who s supposed to be their bright new star? no wonder john boehner can t handle the right wing from his
party. they re disconnected from what the rest of the country wants. no wonder boehner says i need this job like i need a hole in the head. joan boehner has the job nobody wants. head of the incredible shrink g gop. joining me now is krystal ball and dana millbank and an msnbc analyst. thank you both for being here tonight. thanks for having us, rev. krystal, isn t the gop s big base in the south hurting them and and hurting the rest of the country. it absolutely is. the more the party shrinks down, it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy because the republicans get associated with the very far right, con serveltive politics that are very popular in the south. so it makes it harder for northeastern republicans across the country outside of the south to get elected.
direction, this sort of mind set has been cemented in the congress and particularly in the republican house majority. they have a disproportionate number of seats, far more than they actually earned from the popular vote from the electorate. and krystal, he talks about the cementing in the minds of the congress, but when you see this litany of far right, outrageous comments coming from some of the republicans on the far right, it s cementing that in the minds of the american public. just watch some of these statements that have been made by this. the last vote we took today was to eliminate the word lunatic from our federal law. and i don t have a problem with lunatic. i ve gom to understand all of this stuff i was talking about evolution, embryogy, big bang