on the stage in the spotlight like this. he loves it, enjoyed it. for a lot of presidents, this is their likability factor. this is the time where they can show america, you may not be happy with me, but i can be funny. i can deliver. for bush, it works, you want to have a beer this guy after you saw him on air. then video, bill clinton, his last dinner, he had a funny video, going back to the white house, nobody was there. that may be part of cecily strong s part. she s not a stand up comedian, per se, but it will be interesting to see how she approaches this situation. i think she will hopefully and i think her name recognition is not as high as some guests to use this humor at the outset. she s very dry and dead pan, too. some msnbc talent of interviewed her about her pending assignment tonight and one of them said hillary clinton. she said, just didn t see it. never knew she was going to run. what can i tell you.
media was going to ask her tough questions. it s going to be tougher tonight. i think they assumed she would get some really softball questions but this is a woman who hasn t been careful. what difference does it make? she dent know who president lincoln is. if sh is hillary clinton being careful, i would hate to see her unfiltered. can we stick up numbered? i want to see her unfavorability. those are the numbers tracking up now. if you look over time, it s up almost 6% in the unfavorable category there, 43%. i wonder how the book sales are going. we re helping it for sure. i think the difference between hillary clinton and chris christie is a likability factor. i listen to an interview she did with npr, questioned about her changing position on gay marriage. she got irritable and got defensive. she s not coming off as likable and i think chris christie, even though he s an in your face kind of guy, i think he s likable.
midterm elections. sandra, do you think this is just typical first lady stuff or is there something else going on here? her likability factor is huge right now for democrats. we re hearing they want her and not her husband. so it s going to be interesting. school lunches, obamacare, health care, she s put herself out there and she s right now winding up to engage in more engage in more than the 2010 midterms so they see her as a major weapon approaching the midterm elections. they re going to use that to their benefit and by the way, she doesn t have to do this as she s campaigning for her president anymore. she can be a little more outspoken than she had been in the past. i think this is the report of her having her own political ambitions. i don t think this is just michelle obama trying to help democrats or change the school lunch program. why do you say that? if you look how active she s been in a policy perspective, not just, you know, working with
in a presidential race, 13% versus 3% a month ago is a number going not in the best direction for governor christie. and i was interested to see, also, there s a likability factor associated with brands. if somebody likes my brand or my product or my politician, they re invested in that person being successful, so likability is an important measure of brand health. and governor christie s likability came down in the past week, according to one poll, quite significantly, in fact. almost 24%. so those are trends that i would keep an eye on in terms of overall brand health for governor christie, and making sure that he continues to push hard against on the positive, to counteract any declines. let me bring in target before we run too far out of time. target, of course, is the company that s now facing a lot of backlash. how much trouble do you see target really being in? i think target s got a big challenge on their hand.
that may be an anomaly but nonetheless that is a dangerous formula. if he can translate that nationally, it s a big problem. part of his weakness and strength is his ability to go out and speak truth to power, be very direct and blunt. now, it rubs people wrong and can blow up in his face but it s also that something people wanting to hear. they want to hear the hard truths. they want a leader that s going to stand up. whether christie actually does that, i don t think he will because what will ending up happening is in the primary he ll be forced to go right, just like governor romney did. once that happens, he kind of crumbles in the face of i m going to be that true-speaking candidate. because everybody got confused about what does romney really stand for. exactly. so we ll see where chris christie goes. but he s got a likability factor everybody can get behind but we ll see if republicans feel the same way. david winston, chris kofinis, thanks so much. for the first time sinc