we ll start with david brooks in the new york times. the president believes the press corps imposes a false equivalency on american politics. we assign equal blame to both parties for the dysfunctional politics when in reality the republicans are more rigid and extreme. there is a lot of truth to that but at least republicans respect americans enough to tell us what they really think. the white house gives moderates little morse els of hope then rips them from our mouths. to be an obama admirer is to toggle from being uplifted to feeling used. the white house has decided to wage the campaign as fighting liberals. i guess i understand the choice but i still believe in the governing style obama talked about in 2008. i may be the last one. i think i m in the bull pen. not going to say a word. go ahead, howard. i disagree completely. tell me why. i don t think obama is a liberal. i don t think there is any such thing as a liberal anymore in america. aren t you a liberal? i am
bachmann cannot win a general election. right. i know rick perry cannot win a general election. i know that so many of these flavors of the month the republicans put up cannot win a general election. and somehow, it s something that a lot of people in the republican party and a lot of talkers just don t focus on, mike murphy. this is at the end of the day about winning elections. and rick perry ain t going to win a general election next year. i think he has a small chance but i d rather nominate a candidate with a more than small chance and i agree michele bachmann has no chance. i don t think she can win the primary either. yeah the problem is primary voters vote on passion. they don t vote on electability. governor dean could address that point. when you give him a hot pepper message you get a running rate but you re not necessarily the guy who is going to sweep the country at least hypothetically in the general election. maybe we got a new era of politics but, yeah. most polit
today? sure. i m not hearing it. is it selective hearing? it s having a flatter, fairer system. you can t do what you just said to do if he s not going to raise one dime of revenue. if we had a president leading on this. then eric canter would suddenly become a moderate? no. you were both governors. did you lead your legislatures or did you follow them? of course you had to lead. these guys are crack pots for god s sake. you know it as well as i do. i had crack pots in my house from the left. okay? i managed to deal with them. we don t have any crack pots in either party in vermont. fine. turn socialists. speaking of the president and the republicans. the republican field is out there. i want to ask for an unbiased opinion whether you agree with
okay. except about money i m conservative, very conservative. you are very conservative. that s true. about money. balance the budget repeatedly. anyway. fiscal hawk. i think that david is he s right about a couple of things. people have been disappointed in the past and so the president s got to really show what he s got for the next 14 months. but the republicans have been really obstructionist. i don t say look, i get along well with republicans when i was governor. i used to get 35% or 40% of the republican vote on a regular basis but these republicans are different than my father s republicans. these are really right wingers. all right. you re saying they re not my republicans. they re not new england republicans. how about the republican presidential field? doesn t this bother you, joe, at the presidential debate the moderator says something about what would you do about a 30-year-old who doesn t have health insurance and he is about to die and the c
political move. what do you think? well, the people in the white house will tell you that in their polling this idea of the buffet tax, the tax on the highest earners, a 70/30 issue. very popular. the problem is that even if nothing passes, even if nothing actually happens, this talk will not help bring business money off the sidelines, which is what the president desperately needs for a better economy. so yes. it s good politics. yes it s good rhetoric. there is a real question about whether it will change the economic conditions which is what he really needs. but they re going after this. the president s campaign manager blasted out a campaign e-mail yesterday talking about class warfare right in the subject line and making clear that they think that this is a fight that can rally their base and as you say maybe bring in some of the struggling folks in the center. like republicans have already said time and time again they re not going to do anything that raises taxes. is there s