gallup polls last year. that s almost a reversal. who are the americans changing their minds on this issue and what role could this play in 2012? david smith is vice president of human rights campaign and r. clark cooper is executive director of the log cabin republicans. men, thanks for being here. it seems to be a generational kind of divide, clark, does it not? it is, and we have seen that in the republican party with polls. in fact, anecdotally, last congress, when we lobbied with staffers and members on the don t ask/don t tell, the majority of staff were for repeal of don t ask don t tell which didn t match up with congress. 90% of hill staffers we lobbied says, i m with you, you just have to convince my boss. we have seen this with young republicans, college republicans. essentially the younger voters, this is 18-34 demographic by are talking about. the difference among age groups staggering here. 18 to 34 support legalizing gay
hole we dug is too deep to be solved by spending cuts alone. the american people are now aware of the problem and many will accept the pain necessary to solve it as long as the pain is shared by all. bruce says cut spending. washington will spend any money you give them as they have proven for decades. cut, cut, cut. please. do it for our grandchildren. if you want to read more on the subject, go to my blog, cnn.com/caffertyfile. wolf? jack, thanks very, very much. we ll go right back to cnn s lisa sylvester monitoring a developing story coming into the situation room involving the u.s. navy and same-sex marriages. what s going on? this is related to the u.s. policy of the military right now considering the don t ask, don t tell rules. what we are hearing right now is
through those six southern states wednesday and overnight last night. chris, thank you very much for the live report there. and by the way, the red cross is already on the ground helping those victims. i m talk to someone from the relief organization to find out how you can help. for more coverage logon to weather.msnbc.com. and this time tomorrow space shuttle endeavour will be getting ready to soar into suppose on its final mission. president obama and the first family as well as congresswoman gabrielle giffords will all be there. a live report from cape canaveral next. u first, there s a lot going on today. here are some things we thought you should know. u.s. marines are being trained how to accept gay recruits as the military prepares for gays to openly serve ending the don t ask, don t tell policy. and the latest round of training materials asks marines to consider their reactions to a range of scenarios including seeing a fellow member participate in a gay rights parade. t
right decision in order to resume negotiations with the israeli side. colonel david haham, i appreciate your time today. thank you for joining us. thank you very much. i m contessa brewer. i appreciate the time you ve spent with us today. i ll see you back here tomorrow. congress will hold a hearing on the don t ask, don t tell policy. up next, andrea mitchell reports. hi, andrea. thanks so much. up next, we ll be talking about the budget, the stalemated negotiations with congressman elithe gentlemjah cummings. plus, new revelations about malcolm x s life and his death. here is your business travel forecast on this wednesday. compared to all the bad weather we had recently, it is a nice, quiet day to be traveling. manufacture the big cities and
of the don t ask, don t tell policy in the military and so this is another move that they believe is very important to try to bring about marriage equality. it s politically decisive because you have house republicans who are absolutely committed to trying to save and protect their view of marriage as just one man and one woman. it s a core fight. it really gets to the heart of what makes these twos parties stand on different sides of the issue and you have a bit of the star power today and you ve got the legislative power from both houses coming to the microphones and trying to get attention. it s an issue that really gets emotions going. it does. you have these hollywood supporters of the administrationing that have signed a letter urging the president to go further and legalize same-sex marriage. these are some of the people, anne hathaway, ellen degeneres, martin sheen, jane lynch who signed the open let. we know on both sides, groups are pushing the lawmakers to do what they wan