universal benefit. it didn t need to be a universal benefit. you know, newt made the defense of it last night, which was actually accurate. that we had a situation where p you were an outpatient medicare and you had insulin or other types of outpatient care, pharmaceuticals, you simply didn t get the care. but if you stayed in the hospital, you did. so it actually was a bizarre system where people were kept in the hospital longer, running up more costs for medicare, because it didn t do what every other insurance policy did, which was to cover outpatient prescriptions. the reason it didn t, was because the benefit was put in place in 1965 and there wasn t a substantial amount. we should have paid for it it was a mistake not to pay for it. i ve said it publicly. i said i would have voted differently. the reason i voted for it, not only because of what newt said there were health savings accounts in there. that s something i advocated for 15 years and believe and still believe today. tha
thursday, debate, newt feasted on the flesh of john king. your ex-wife gave an interview to abc news, she said you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take some time to respond to that. no, but i will. it is a subject of conversation on the campaign. i take your point. john, it was repeated by your network, you chose to start the debate with it, don t try to blame somebody else. you and your staff chose to start this debate with it. after a kill that big, newt
it was sterile almost in its presentation. newt played to that as well. he just, as chuck said, he kept it down-key and he didn t get excited. because he didn t want to be drawn into that debate. but it got to a point after 30 minutes where enough was enough. and they had to move on. because it just was not opening any new ground. it was a rehash of old stories about bain and freddie mac and fannie mae. and you could feel it almost palpable in the audience, the frustration with the way things were going. john heilemann? i ll ask both of you guys in sequence, chuck first and michael. on the question of romney s taxes. the third straight debate where he s had the question. he s had a lot of time to prep, he didn t do well last night. do you think he did better last night? and how do you think the story is going to play out today? no, not when you see what was coming. here he had an opportunity to sort of set the stage for what was coming. and i think you know, this is going to be,
continue to do it himself. which is risky. he s not going to outnewt newt. he s not a natural attack dog. i agree with joe s ponte. he needs to be making the case for himself. something that hurt gingrich last night. brian williams imposed displn on the audience, told them not to applaud that brought down the energy in the room and made it harder for newt to have one of his moments. yes, it certainly was not charleston. mike allen with a look at the political playbook. coming up, the boston bruins honored at the white house for their stanley cup victory. that s nice. but the team s star goalie, playoff mvp declines the invite and releases a mini manifesto explaining it. good lord, just shut up and go to the white house. meanwhile, senator john kerry showed up at the same event, looking like the team s enforcer. two black eyes and a broken nose. what s going on there? we ll find out, when we come
john heilemann, you look at south carolina where they actually, the organizers were actually throwing raw meat into the crowd, before it started and then last night they had people with fire, fire hoses ready to hose them down if anybody coughed. but it really, newt gingrich needs the laugh track. it neutralized one of newt s biggest advantages, one of the things that newt did so well at both debates in south carolina, he played to the crowd, he played the crowd. and romney was incapable of doing that. it gave newt gingrich is a huge boost last night and it hurt gingrich relative to romney. you get the idea that gingrich has some lines and in his mental script it says pause for standing ovation. and he got off some lines last night and he sat and he sat and it was silent. when he talked about fidel castro going to hell rather than waiting for his maker. it was silent and it threw him off. these things aren t pep