well, first, i m very sad. i believe that she was truly one of the last centrists middle of the road senators a person willing to work with both sides with anybody to get things done. blanche and i have talked about this and she confirms all of that. and i just think she was a very competent senator. i think she was going to be reelected rather easily, and i believe her reasons are she s just frustrated by the inability to get things done, and that s a problem for this country. i believe the senators need to work together to achieve a greater good for people once they are elected. to me it was almost more impactful, senator lincoln, because arguably the republicans have a better shot at getting the majority in the u.s. senate. so she was going to be committee chairwoman. 50/50 chance. everything was going to go her way and she walked away. that to me was almost more
virginia where they backed off of actually mandating an invasive procedure, they finally had to back off of that. some politician there said his wife threatened him she would never talk to him again or something if he did this. the fact of the matter is, these republicans can t help themselves. they ve turned into a right wing party. it s fanatical. it s turning on the women of this country. when you have senator snowe saying what she did and she is a moderate republican, the last of the wonderful breed of people that i ve worked with for many years on many issues saying that these polarizing issues have no place in these debates, she s absolutely right. by the way, today she came out against the blunt amendment. i m so happy about that. senator, while you can respect the colleague that he senator snowe has been to you, do you look at this as an opportunity for the democratic party? well electorally absolutely, outside of senator snowe, the
other republicans as i understand it who are running represent that right wing, that s declared war on women s health, war on workers rights, war on the environment. i think we democrats there have a very good chance because it is quite a good democratic state. but you know, the most important thing to the people there, they re not partisan. they want to know, are you going to fight for our families and going to fight for our children. are you going to stand upç for the 99%, are you going to protect our rights. and i think in the case of that election without senator snowe in there, we should pick up that will seat. it s always a fight, but i think we should. senator barbara boxer, thanks for making time for us. i appreciate it. always a pleasure. next up, the president tries to bring both sides together in washington. that is a pretty tall order but can it be done? stay with us. we didn t win about i a lot but we won by enough and that s all that counts. i happen to have a
so is it still possible for the two political parties to work together for the good of the country? like felix unger and oscar madison, president obama and house majority leader eric cantor are joining together on a bill to make it easier for small businesses to get loans. and today, the president welcomed leaders of both parties to the white house for a lunch meeting to discuss areas where the two sides might find that will common ground. congressman james clyburn is a democrat from the south carolina and the assistant democratic leader and joins me now. sir, it s great to have you here. we had senator boxer on at the top of the hour talking about the fact that this is a day when we re seeing senator olympia snowe, republican of maine saying she s going to be retiring and not rerunning. because of congress and the rancor, the partisan gridlock that takes place in modern day. do you hold any hope that the two parties can ever get back to governing and could it be with the president s j
what does that say? some sort of modification or compromise can happen? there are conversations with my fellow republicans and many democrats. they want to vote for a combined plan. they see many elements of the reid package, if you take what senator mcconnell proposed as something they could support. i see that as a good sign. the problem is the clock is running or the filibuster in the senate. the filibuster is whether we will debate the bill itself. i hope we can end the filibuster and go to debate on the bill and move it forward. the sand is starting to run out of the hour glass. markets are getting edgier and edgier. most likely that is not likely. you have to get the 60 votes. have you spoken with those four senators that did not sign that letter, senator snowe, murkowski and brown?