"the huffington post" reports that a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by herman cain and levin are proposing a counter proposal that does even less. it would eliminate some redundant opportunities to filibuster. give quicker consideration to some nominations, as long as no other senators objected. and give the minority a little bit more freedom to offer amendments. that is it. if you turned on to c-span during the filibuster, still be that blue screen with the classical music. it's filibuster form for people who don't think the filibuster is broken. the idea that there is any one in the u.s. senate who would look around and say, you know, this is basically working out. this place is basically working the way it's supposed to be working, it is shocking. when you poll lower than richard nixon during watergate or the irs, it is time to start rethinking how you are doing things. and not just rethinking on the margin, not just in the small ways, in ways -- not just in the ways where you're throwing your critics a little bone, in big ways. in ways that show that you, a politician supposedly answer

in one of the debates herman cain suggested something similar, but he opposes that. ryan's tax is going to cost about 4 to 5 trillion over ten years, that's after you pay for extending the bush tax cuts which nobody explained how you pay for in the first place. now you're dealing with 5 to 10 trillion or 5 to 9 trillion in tax breaks. ryan doe't do as much on medicare at this point as people think he does. he softened that in the second it ration of his budget and decreases defense spending. so this money is coming out of the hide of the poor. he does domestic cuts in the first ten years. his budget cuts about $750 billion off medicaid. >> would you tell your grandma to vote for this guy? >> i don't tell my grandma how to vote, she's a strong woman. >> if she asks for advice? >> i'm a journalist, i don't tell people how to vote. >> if you tell a senior in their early 70s, they ask your advice what would the candidates hurt them with, what would you say? >> in their early 70s, this is important because that's why he ends up taking a hit out of the poor, they do not to

they didn't vote for herman cain. they didn't vote for michele bachmann. so what is the purpose of bringing newt back and certainly what is the purpose of bringing donald trump on to the stage except as some sort of court jester. this isn't supposed to be a shakespearean play, but romney is getting a little odd here. >> i mean, when i went back and looked at the debate tape today, i was struck by those debate audiences, obviously republican voters turning out for the 20 republican debates. and every audience, one after the other, just absolutely into it. there's nobody out there holding an applause sign. they were just rabidly into what was going on in terms of the combat between the candidates, and it's true that the largest applause was devoted to these candidates attacking the media and attacking president obama. it wasn't so much about them attacking each other. doesn't it make sense that mr. romney would be trying to tap into that enthusiasm again? we haven't seen it since. >> it's one thing to tap into the enthusiasm in the primary campaign. after al

herman cain was also at the event speaking. even rick santorum's billionaire, foster friess was there, wearing a very nice shirt. remember him? >> this contraception thing. it's so inexpensive. back in my days, they used bayer aspirin. the gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly. >> excuse me. i'm just trying to catch my breath from that, frankly. >> remember him? so mitt romney spoke this weekend alongside not just rick santorum but alongside that guy, right? alongside rick santorum's billionaire, put an aspirin between your knees guy. the specific part of the faith and freedom conference at which santorum spoke, was hosted by ralph reed. he's the guy who put on the weekend event. it's his organization. remember ralph reed, the disgraced jack abramoff scandal guy who tried to get made in the usa labels on clothes that would be manufactured in near slave labor sweat shop conditions. ralph reed lobbied christians to lobby for a made in the usa label on clothes made in those conditions doorth with tim phillips w

herman cain was also there at the same event speaking. even rick santorum's billionaire foster freehs was there wearing a very nice shirt. remember him? >> this contraceptive thing. it is so inexpensive. back many my day that's used bayer aspirin for contraceptive. the gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly. >> excuse me, i'm trying to catch my breath from that. >> mitt romney spoke alongside not just rick santorum but alongside that guy, along rick santorum's ml billionaire, the putting aspirin between your knees guy. the specific part of faith and freedom part of it was hosted by raffle reid. he put on the weekend event. it is his organization. remember ralph reid, he is the disgraced guy who got christians to write letters in support of keeping the made in the usa label made in the maryann that islands and manufactured in near slave labor sweat shop conditions like forced prostitution and forced abortions among the destitute work withers there. he lobbied for a made in the usa label on clothes made in those togethers

maybe what they need is an inside outsider like herman cain. the guy that delivered tea party response to thoo year's state of the union speech and held a big rally today on capitol hill. ladies and gentlemen, your revolution. this was posted of the revolution on the hill. dave reports that organizers had six buses to get people there and you got a box lunch to boot. it looked like a couple of hundred people shoep showed up. they had hundreds of flyers. one volunteer said i was told to expect thousands of people. we were told to expect a revolution. have we gotten it? joining us now is the reporter for slate who had the pleasure of filing that report. dave, thank you for stopping by. >> thank you for giving me the dignity of work. i appreciate it. >> that's right. exactly. get you out of the house. all right. i think this is a really interesting question. it's one i've been mulling over is whether the -- does the tea party still exist? that's my first question for you. when we look at these rallies and compare them to previous years, it looks l

they always liked herman cain. i spent the day with a herman cain activist. many people won't believe until the end of their days that the media was unfair to herman cain and created a scandal out of nothing. they put their eggs in the wrong basket to use a cliche i already regret using. it was not -- this is not the worst case scenario. go back two years ago, find a lot of discussion, not so much of tea party members themselves but of people analyzing them of whether they would be so disenchantsed with the republican party that they'd break off and run their own candidate. we're pretty late in the game. i think the only people discussing this is the ron paul members of the movement libertarians who were outside joined it again, very much a part of what was happening 2010 and are a little bit distant now. they're focusing a bit on winning delegates with ron paul. they're looking, again, at fwga johnson's campaign. that's minor when you think of the sort of people who turned up to the 9/12 rally, who turned up to glenn beck's event and what michele bachmann pu

he campaigned like herman cain didn't have a singing voice or that long weird strain of sexual allegations. we reached out to the santorum campaign to find out where mr. santorum read last night, as he said, that you can't take american history classes at the university of california. we have yet to receive a clarification from the santorum campaign. it does not appear he has issued a construction to this misstatement either. he does stuff like this all the time. you remember him saying the government in amsterdam likes to kill all the old people there for sport. remember that? he has not corrected that either. >> in the netherlands people we a different bracelet and the bracelet is do not euthanize. they have voluntary euthanized. half the people that are euthanized and it's 10% of all death, half of those are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. elderly people in the netherlands don't go to the hospital. they go to another country because they are afraid because of budget purposes that they will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with a si

he campaigns like herman cain did if herman cain had not had a sense of humor or a singing voice or that long, weird string of sexual harassment allegations or an economic plan that rhymed. we reached out to the santorum campaign today to find out where mr. santorum read laths night, as he sa, that you can't take american history classes at the university of california. we have yet to receive a clarification from the santorum campaign. it does not appear he has issued a correction to this misstatement either. rick santorum does stuff like this all the time. you may remember him saying on the campaign trail, remember when he said the government in amsterdam nrk the netherlands likes to kill all the old people there essentially for sport. remember that? he has not corrected that either. >> in the netherlands, people wear a bracelet and the bracelet is do not euthanize people because they have voluntary euthanize ya in the netherlands but half of the people are euthanized every year and it is 10% of all deaths. half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are

how about herman cain, vows to stay in the race. they all vow to stay in the race, right? until they're not in the race anymore, right up until the moment they drop out, what you're supposed to do is vow to stay in the race. tomorrow we have primaries and caucuses in hawaii and samoa. all the candidates have vowed to stay in the race which usually means somebody's about to quit. it's going to be a fascinating night to watch. we'll be right back. >>> in american political history when you want to talk about a politician's odiousness, you rate him according to richard nixon. the i'm not a crook guy, that means it is not illegal guy. knowing that, prepare to fall in love with richard nixon. listen to this. somehow on tuesday there was something electric in the usually almost stifling air of whittier, and now i know an irish gypsy who radiates all that is happy and beautiful was there. she left behind a note addressed with a struggling barister who looks from a window and dreams. he found sunshine and flowers and a great spirit. he knew why he felt so many fine things for this

cain and after two days of campaigning with herman she said maybe we should change that. maybe it should be 2.4999. [ laughter ] >> to his credit, herman said no. that will not work as a marketing device, stick with 2.50, which she is very good at. i picked $2.50. i picked it by asking the oil experts what is a price at which you would have continuous exploration because my goal is to have energy independence so we are free of the middle east. [ applause ] >> when the iranians practiced closing the straits of hormuz which one out of every five barrels of oil flow, the short term answer is the u.s. navy and air force and ultimatum, the closing the straits would be an act of war and their government would cease to exist. [ applause ] >> but the long term solution is to create american energy independence so we could say to china, india and europe, you have a problem in the straits of hormuz we hope you can solve it, we're not in charge of it. [ applause ] now, the fact is that 2.50 is attainable. governor romney came to town and said i was pandering. by picking that. and i

by december in the debate show we had lost herman cain. after iowa, we lost michele bachmann. after south carolina we lost rick perry and by the season finale, by the season finale last night of the republican debate show, by number 20, we were used to just seeing these four remaining characters. the whole cast narrowed down to these four. throughout this show, throughout the whole season, the most interesting and most unpredictable and most outrageous character of all of them for the entire series of this show has been this character. this character. the audience. >> in 2010 when i was deployed to iraq, i had to lie about who i was because i'm a gay soldier and i didn't want to lose my job. my question is under one of your presidencies do you intend to circumvent the progress made for gays and lesbian in the military. >> boo. that was debate number six when they booed at an american soldier deployed to iraq. they booed at him because he was gay. for most of these debates the sound coming out of the audience told you more about republican politics in 2012 right now than the so

romney weathered the exact same storm from herman cain, and then herman cain went away. then from mr. gingrich, and he went away and came back and went away. so though it is exciting in the moment, a rival candidate to surge and pose a challenge to mr. romney, it's not the most novel story in the world. if in all the breathless rick santorum coverage today you feel like you have seen this movie before, it is because you have seen this movie before. and it might end up being a big deal, but it might not. if chart really does imitate life, here's what i think is a more important thing to keep an eye on. and it's not getting nearly as much attention. we don't vote nationally. we vote state by state, right? it's too bad, but the presidential preferences of republican voters in a state like utah really don't matter all that much. their primary's at the end of june. it comes pretty much too late in the process to likely have any impact on who the republicans pick for their nominees. but utah republicans' preferences are reflected as much in these national polls that we obsess

romney weathered the exact same storm from herman cain, and herman cain went away. then after herman cain, mr. romney weathered the exact same storm from newt gingrich and mr. gingrich went away and mr. gingrich came back and went away again. though it's exciting in the moment, a rival republican candidate coming from no where to surge it's not the most novel story in the world. yes, mr. santorum has come from nowhere to meet or exceed mr. if in all the breathless rick santorum coverage today you feel like you have seen this movie before, it is because you have seen this movie before. and it might end up being a big deal, but it might not. this is what's going on in the republican rate for president. the more happens in the race, the more voting, the more campaigning this year, the more voters have decided nationally that they cannot stand mitt romney. if there's polling in politics that might be worth blanket coverage from the beltway media, i would think that this would be it. chart imitates life. happy valentine's day. your finances can't manage themselves. but t

starting in 2012, here the cpac peach last week, one from chuck norris, and one from herman cain. might having back to 2011 there's newt's daughters talking about their dad. lots of debate clips. there's an announcement made he's running for president. back to 2000, he got married to calista in 1999, left the house of representatives and left his job as speaker of the house. there's a contract of america '94. i've seen enough of this. he seems to have left some stuff out. he's such a busy guy. maybe i can help. let's see here. let's go back to 2009 and stick this in. newt gingrich on a health reform conference call talking up the individual mandate. we believe there should be -- we have a clip, i think. >> we believe that there should be must carry, everybody should have health insurance or if if you're an absolute libertarian, we would allow you to post a bond but we would not allow people to be free riders failing to insure themselves and showing up at the emergency room with no means of payment. >> let's get that in. another thing to stick in 2009. gingrich's political action c

cain and jon hundredsman -- huntsman. newt gingrich was polling in first place in missouri but he won't be on the ballot there. but that is the least of missouri's failure here. missouri had on the books missouri had on the books a law requiring the state to have its primary today. on february 7th. the republican party said if do you that it will cost you half delegates. they said we'll change it but missouri could not get the act together to actually change their law. by state law they have to hold a primary on this date. what about the threat twhoe lose half the delegates? to avoid losing half the delegates they decided to make the contest pointless. it's non-binding. so it's just a poll, essentially, a test. they picked another date next month to be the contest that will actual ly alot their delegates on march 17th. missouri republicans are doing an exercise in nonsense counsels for nothing except $7 million spent by the people of the state of missouri to hold this pointless nonsense thing. today's folly comes on the s

from herman cain, cameo appearance by donald trump, the only thing we were missing was snooky swinging through on a trapeze. i think that hasn't been great for the party. i don't think that republican voters are particularly enthussed with the choices that they have in the race, otherwise you wouldn't see a number as high as 40% after the fourth contest of people still looking for another candidate. but i think it's a different proposition when you get into a general election and the choice is going to be for republicans obama second term, second term for the president or new start. remember, the president as far as polarizing figure and this isn't all attributable to the president, in my view, but he is as polarizing bipartisanship as any president the country has ever had. i think that is evidence of the strong support that republicans will ultimately put behind the nominee. >> steve, you talked last night about how newt gingrich's win in so many of the panhandle counties in florida indicated a potential southern strategy for him going forward and i pivoted to raise the issue whether