to be persuaded purely on the economy and jobs and unemployment and other issues, then there are going to be voters who really do need that emotional connection. pat is right, it doesn t necessarily mean likability, but an emotional connection means is this person authentic? does this person get me? and that is the challenge that romney is facing right now. again, part of the reason is he had a very devisive primary, he s been on the receiving end of a lot of attacks, so the convention is so important because, as we ve talked about endlessly, and heard about endlessly, here is a chance now for the romney campaign to really introduce him on these kind of image terms. likability, empathy, all of the emotional connections that pat mentioned. jon: adam we ve mentioned that you ve done work for governor chris christie for new jersey. he s speaking tonight. what is his role? what do you think he needs to accomplish? governor christie s role is to be governor christie. a lot of people look
he thinks he can make it better and at the same time show some empathy for the middle class. right now people overwhelmingly believe he favors the rich and has no interest in the middle class. it s that more than likability that has crippled his campaign to date. he would be well ahead if that weren t the case. jon: that likability, divergence is pretty huge. pat is right the people don t like the direction of the country, the way the president is handling the economy, but they like him personally, right? well, you know, they like him personally, but if you really look at his real clear average and you look at some of the recent polling numbers, i won t say he s got rock-star numbers. i think he certainly runs the ritz being and the danger of appearing to be petty and mean, and really based on the blistering attacks over the summer against governor romney it s taken a little bit of the shine off of obama s favorables for that very reason. here is the bottom line. there are voters who
not sort of to where americans are at the middle. well, and it skews the entire republican party because anybody who s left and there are very few from the nelson rockefeller wing of the party people like o olympic area snowe, susan collins, more or less moderate republicans, they re so scared now they re going to be primaried by a tea party person you can t tell the difference between them and the tea party. it s really a terrible situation. if you ll let a republican talk here briefly. the situation, this is pat kadell, a poster for carter and doug sharon, a poster for clinton. they wrote an article and the conclusion was the president was so divisive in the way he was conducting his campaign by going far left and campaigning on class warfare and then but president obama is not if he were to win, he would not be able to govern. but president obama is empirically not going far left.
american people. frustrated and unhappy and it s going to lead to some other the air is coming out of the balloon somewhere jenna, eventually it will come out. jenna: you think third party. third party, coalition party, something, eventually the american people are tired of this war between the political class in washington and mainstream america which feels like they are not listening to any of our problems. jenna: very interesting stuff. this is just the beginning. i m going to promise you this the argument, oh, no the senate will kill it that is ridiculous. the will of the american people eventually will not be thwarted. jenna: fascinating process. thank you for illuminating it for us. pat caddell. jon: happening now we had a report from carl cameron on the republican national committee s winter meeting in maryland. could be a chilly reception for the man who leads that organization, chairman michael steele. he is fighting to win a second term, trying to hold off four
apartment k capitol hill, the gp is signaling it will get back on track. let s talk to pat kadell. what is the appropriate way to reintroduce this legislation on the national stage. i think the republicans should call it the repeal healthcare bill. the fact is the american people have never accepted this bill. we have been nine months now since passage. i argued, doug schoen argued in our piece last march this was the march of folly, it was going to be a disaster, it was. the american public has never accommodated themselves to its passage, unlike the only bill i can think of in history is the kansas nebraska ask preceding the civil war which gave birth to the republican party. this healthcare bill gave birth to the tea parties. this is not going away. the american people s will, that is not to say both parties don t have a problem witness. the democrats have a problem and