financial rules can play more one-on-one. they don t have to give to the larger structures they have in the past. they can pick and choose their candidates. they re waiting to see. the interesting part of that is that those candidates really don t need that cash right now. because of the way the system is designed with the kind of media attention they re getting, they re staying in the front of the field in terms of the voters image of them and people seeing them in a way that allows them to compete. pawlenty getting out was the craziest thing in the world. he should ve stayed in the race. if he stayed in, he probably would have been the settled on candidate. because he felt he had no money, which he didn t really need. didn t need. john heilemann, why is it? money still is the mother s milk of american politics, why is everybody dried out? well, i think there s been the donor class wants to be with the winner. they want to be with the strong candidate. and they ve had the same at
and he joins me tonight. and what the obama white house didn t need, a new book portraying its team as rudderless and hostile to women. the white house is pushing back, pushing back very hard. let me finish tonight with this that question of obama s luck. are he and his rivals both counting on it to hold in 2012? we start with president obama fighting back. senator chuck schumer is a democrat from new york. he sits on the senate finance committee. senator schumer, it seems like president obama today hasn t totally bought your idea of going after people who make more than $1 million a year and don t pay their fair share of taxes. well, i think it s a good thing. most americans believe that at least on the highest income people, people who make over $1 million, that those taxes should not go down with the bush tax cuts, and maybe should even be a little bit higher. this is the one part of our economic spectrum that s done extremely well over the last ten years.
man, jack lue, the director of the white house office of budget and management. welcome. good morning. so can you fill in some of the blanks, because we heard from barbara starr that the pog is really concerned about the president s proposed cuts and say it could actually hurt their department. i think if you look at what the president said in his speech yesterday, he was very careful to say you know, we have made very significant savings in the defense department under secretary gates leadership, saving $400 billion in policies the next few years, eneekts the future and we can do it again, but the size things have been done. we have eliminated weapons systems that the military didn t want, didn t need. we have consolidated many facilities. in the speech yesterday, the president said he was going to call on his team, including the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, to do a review of what our roles and capabilities need to be and that has to do with
for now. even if it s stopped for good though, the implications of what has happened here are huge, and probably won t be known for some time. the damage to the environment immeasurable. some say it will wind up being a lot worse than the exxon valdez. the government wants a moratorium on offshore drilling. one judge said no and the obama administration came back with a second request. the oil spill has come to symbolize everything his critics say is wrong with this president s leadership. as those horrible pictures of the ruptured well and the gushing oil filled our television screens day after agonizing day, president obama increasingly was seen as indecisive and unwilling or incapable of taking charge and managing the crisis. at the end of the day, it was simply another problem this president didn t need. he s got more than enough already, and now, as we collectively hold our breath and wait to see if the well will hold, one wonders how all of this might translate to the politics of
entire region is now begging for mercy. reporter: it s the fourth major snowstorm in a month and one more storm the region didn t need. across the new york area, starting early in the morning, people struggled to keep up with the falling snow. in the northern regions, heavy snowfall took out power lines across the northeast leaving more than a million without electricity. we lost power 9:00 last night. no heat, no electricity. we managed to sleep through the night and this morning woke up. there was still no power. reporter: travel was treacherous. a 20 mile stretch of highway 4 was at a standstill for hours stranding hundreds of motorists in their cars, some since last night. we haven t moved an inch and it s a little over 15 hours now. on a weather day like this, you never know what to expect. you always have to be open for anything. reporter: the major airlines were in business, but more than a thousand flights were canceled at new york and new jersey s three airports. i