and picks james baker who ran bush s tough nasty campaign to run his own. yeah. chris christie, though, guess what? chris christie doesn t sit in the back. he doesn t keep quiet. and the romneys may not be comfortable with that. they need a street fighter right now because chris christie they really do. would pummel and eviscerate anybody shows he s a bad manager. let me finish. a bad manager highers weaker versions of himself. a lot of people do that. a great manager hires something that fills their weaknesses and stronger than them. political sense, that all may be true, but for political sense and i m a chris christie admirer, but from a political sense he doesn t elevate the debate. and right now, what romney needs is to elevate it. paul ryan who does elevate the debate? chris christie. i totally disagree. couldn t disagree more. he continues he continues to trash and burn. trash and burn. elects barack obama.
it, but let s say he does. do you think that could cost the republicans the house and the senate? i think it would be very problematic, absolutely, in the house and senate, and that perhaps could be another reason why they don t choose him. who would you your pick? portman. bush baggage? the reason, romney needs now mostly is someone he s going to be perceived as being comfortable with. there s a lot of, you know, stuff being said about him that he doesn t seem comfortable in his own skin, and to some degree that is true. the most important credential is making sure the person he picks is qualified and who he is comfortable with. i m going to sell ryan to you one more time. didn t mitt romney sign off on the ryan plan, saying he would endorse it? if you re saying paul ryan is probably the best thing for the republicans, i m saying that s probably not a good thing for republicans. 26 congressional district in new york because of paul ryan. cathy hochal won that race
surprise. so there s about a quarter century of our getting this wrong basically. and biden wasn t really my memory is not that he was not top of mind. so history would suggest, yeah, there will be a surprise. the interesting thing to my mind about governor christie, as he said to you all, is does the down side outweigh the up side here? he is someone who has an authenticity, will go off script and governor romney, does he have the stomach for that going forward? al, is that what he needs? again, nobody s talked about chris christie but you look at the approval ratings, he s plus 20 in new jersey. i think he s the single most interesting figure in the republican party. remarkable. i must say, joe, is that what romney needs? romney needs romney. i don t think running mates are
my opinion is that president obama is staying on offense on the tax returns. his people, not himself, at the microphone, but his people in the top democrats and they do that because if they can just open up some kind of question about whether or not you can trust mitt romney and continues to be so secretive, that that will be successful an damaging to romney. conservatives are worried about that. that is why they are coming out on record to say release the dumb tax returns. when you don t release it, it looks like you have something to hide. let s recall every day we talk about romney is a choice election. that s what obama wants. every day we talk about the president that is referendum and that s what romney needs. bret: charles? truth and falsehood. truth doesn t have a place in this election. obama starts with the attack on the outsourcing. shown to be false. if there was any it happened after romney left bain. so obama people return with a second falsehood that romney
reliable democratic state. obviously they re concerned about it. they don t want to lose it. if they were to lose it it would be a huge blow. the polling numbers look good there currently but these are snapshots in time and, you know, everyone s waiting to see how the economy plays out over the summer because that s really going to be the determining factor. so, you know, this bus tour is good. i agree with the governor, romney needs to put out an economic agenda but a lot is going to be determined by the jobs numbers. all right. we re going to be back with more on the tax or penalty debate. and we re going to talk about the medicaid provision in the supreme court decision coming up. let s see, ezra klein will join us next. and mr. chuck todd who got this whole penalty versus tax thing going. you re watching morning joe, brewed by starbucks. with the spark cash card from capital one,