get into the race. she ll be doing more of that this coming week. and this is how the field now looks. if you look at our latest nbc news/ wall street journal polling, mitt romney s still on top, sarah palin, herman cain at 12%. and excuse me, let s just go back to that previous board, if we can do it. i glossed over it and i shouldn t have, because you ve got those who are undeclared or undecided. palin is the perpetual one that we speculate about, giuliani, and rick perry creating a lot of buzz. we ll talk about that in a minute. and even john bolton, who doesn t think they re talking enough about foreign policy. you heard that debate a moment ago with lindsey graham. so, chuck todd, there s a lot on the table. where are we at the end of this week on the republican side? well, first, i m going to stick with the baseball theme, and that is, i think the focus is on the player to be named later at this point, because of the people running right now, mitt romney is not just a front-ru
presidential historian doris kearns goodwin, and last but not least, my hometown mayor, and i just pronounced your name wrong, which is really embarrassing. the mayor of los angeles, antonio villaraigosa, for his first appearance here on meet the press. villaraigosa was elected in may of 2005 after serving in the california state assembly and l.a. city council. now in his second term. he ll be sworn in tomorrow as president of the u.s. conference of mayors in baltimore. and that role, you will represent an organization of more than 1,200 mayors and speak out on policy issues impacting cities across the country, and indeed, some of the big national issues as well. mr. mayor, welcome to meet the press. and of course, i may pin you down on what is going to happen to our los angeles dodgers in terms of future ownership, because there s more than a few very interted parties here at the table. but we are going to get to that in a few minutes. welcome to everybody. let s talk politics. le
that s going to drive gadhafi from power. and a lot of european nations who are now trying to lead this fight and are struggling to do it are looking at this debate in the united states to end the u.s. support for nato. if the u.s. ended its support for nato in libya, nato really is dead, and all of these european allies, particularly italy, who supported the united states in iraq, which they had no interest in, would say, well, why isn t the united states supporting us now in libya, which is an important mission for europe? paul, how do you see this debate within the republican party? i mean, lindsey graham couldn t have been stronger saying, look, you re going to start taking the president on the left on foreign policy? that s not going to go well in the republican party. there s war-weariness, which is understandable, but i also think and regret to say there is political opportunism here. you have a democrat in the white house. this is not what republicans would have been saying
end, the mitt romney folks love the idea of it being michele bachma bachmann. but the idea of the player to be named later, specifically rick perry. i think when you look at how this week played out, as good of a week as mitt romney had as being a front-runner, you re seeing it in our own poll, you re seeing it in other polls. rick perry had a pretty good week, too, because of two things one, the tim pawlenty flubs, and two, the fact that there does seem to be this vacuum here of the antiestablishment wing of the party who s not enthused about who they want. and tim pawlenty baggage in a bit, but paul gigot, let me ask you this. the buzz about rick perry. he spoke this weekend at a gathering of republicans down in new orleans. here s a portion of what he said. let s speak with pride about our morals and our values and redouble our effort to elect more conservative republicans. let s stop this american downward spiral! here s a republican saying let s talk about social issues, l
and a lot of european nations who are now trying to lead this fight and are struggling to do it are looking at this debate in the united states to end the u.s. support for nato. if the u.s. ended its support for nato in libya, nato really is dead, and all of these european allies, particularly italy, who supported the united states in iraq, which they had no interest in, would say, well, why isn t the united states supporting us now in libya, which is an important mission for europe? paul, how do you see this debate within the republican party? i mean, lindsey graham couldn t have been stronger saying, look, you re going to start taking the president on the left on foreign policy? that s not going to go well in the republican party. there s war-weariness, which is understandable, but i also think and regret to say there is political opportunism here. you have a democrat in the white house. this is not what republicans would have been saying, most of them, nearly all of them, if geo