https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43381273
Guests: Hampton Pearson, Michael Isikoff, David Corn, Eugene Robinson, Howard Fineman, Wayne Slater, Susan Page, Erica Jong
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Newt Gingrich‘s Grecian formula.
Let‘s play HARDBALL.
Wow. Good evening. I‘m Chris Matthews in Washington.
Leading off tonight: Newt gets the boot. Somebody said the other day they have never met a Newt Gingrich voter. Well, you think that‘s a hoot? Now you can‘t find a Newt staffer.
What caused Newt‘s campaign to collapse in mutiny almost happened before it even started? Was it Newt criticizing Paul Ryan? Better yet, was it his oddly-timed Mediterranean cruise they‘re calling the Greek tragedy? Was it his wife taking too big a role in the campaign? Well, today, Newt blamed what he called a “strategic difference,” which sounds an awful lot like divorce language—you know, “irreconcilable differences.” But whatever the cause of the mutiny, a lot of people are now saying, I told you so. Let me be the first. I told you so.
Plus, President Obama‘s real opponent in 2012 may not be any Republican candidate per se, but the economy. The recent bad economic news may help a business exec otherwise not exactly exciting, like Mitt Romney. So why is Romney skipping the Iowa straw poll? Remember, four years ago, he said if you can‘t compete in Iowa in August, how are you going to compete in January, when the caucuses are held? Well, that‘s a question that now confront Romney himself now that he‘s done another 180.
Also, the Palin e-mails. They were released today, and right now, reporters are poring over—catch this — 24,199 pages of documents contained in six boxes weighing 50 pounds each. We‘re going to get the latest from Mike Isikoff, who‘s up poring through them in Juneau.
And guys gone wild—Anthony Weiner, David Vitter, Eliot Spitzer, to name just a few. Why do successful male politicians take such incredible risks, if that‘s what you‘re going to call them? We‘ve got Erica Jong herself joining us today.
Finally, “Let Me Finish” with a vanity candidate who‘s really not a candidate at all, Newt.
Let‘s start with the collapse of Newt‘s campaign. Right now, we have two experts. MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson—he‘s a columnist for “The Washington Post.” And Wayne Slater writes a column for “The Dallas Morning News.” Gentlemen, thank you for this.
I want to play you Newt‘s latest spin. And this is almost like—well, it‘s an afterglow, really, of a campaign. Here was Newt Gingrich the morning—this morning, today, reacting to the news that his entire staff had walked out. He‘s sort of the Captain Bligh of this Bounty right now, and Fletcher Christian and the whole rest of the crew have left him in the little boat.
Let‘s listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH (R-GA), FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But I believe we live at a time when Americans are genuinely frightened for the country‘s future and when the country really wants to have leadership that talks with then honestly and isn‘t automatically doing the old politics.
We make decisions as a couple. I think most couples would find that refreshing, not a problem. And I think that what we‘ve been trying to do is carry messages to the American people and listen to the American people. And you‘ll see us over the next few weeks doing it in new and dynamic and much more open ways than the traditional consultants who (INAUDIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s incredible spin, Gene. I mean, it‘s almost an absurdity. And here‘s Captain Bligh. He‘s been kicked off the ship. He‘s in the little boat now. He has no campaign. He‘s talking about leadership. That‘s an odd thing to say. He‘s just been dumped.
EUGENE ROBINSON, “WASHINGTON POST,” MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, the candidate just got fired by staff.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
ROBINSON: And look, they—they got—our titanic (ph) trio of political reporters of “The Washington Post”—Karen Tumulty, Chris Cillizza, and Dan Balz—have a story just posted on our Web site, where they kind of go inside this deal. They all agreed, Newt and the staff, at the beginning, We‘re going to run a different, a new and different kind of campaign this time. But they wildly disagreed on what that meant. Newt seemed to think it meant not making phone calls to raise money or—
MATTHEWS: He didn‘t want to do what you have to do.
ROBINSON: Flying private jets when you don‘t have the money for it, that sort of thing, and going on two-week cruise or—
MATTHEWS: I don‘t—I think it‘s a vanity edition—I think this is a vanity edition of a campaign.
Let me go right now to Wayne Slater. This—I want to get to you about the guy down there we‘re thinking about, this Rick Perry. But first of all, Newt—it has been said—it has been said in my hearing that Newt doesn‘t have any voters. I don‘t know where this constituency is. I don‘t know what led him to believe he was a candidate, except he‘s good on television. He does make provocative comments now and then. But people don‘t like him, and he looks like the devil.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I mean, that may not be fair, but I‘ve always said on this program he can‘t be the devil because he looks like him, and everybody knows the devil‘s going to look like Marilyn Monroe. But your thoughts.
WAYNE SLATER, “DALLAS MORNING NEWS”: Yes, well, the thing—I mean, the thing about Newt Gingrich—and you know this, both you and Gene—
MATTHEWS: I know a lot about this guy!
SLATER: Well, but—I mean, he‘s an amazing mind. I mean, you‘re around him a while. He‘s dazzling. He talks about all these complex things. He‘s a fascinating person to be around.
But I really think that‘s true, he has no voters. He didn‘t have any voters among religious conservatives, you know, a guy with three marriages and real problems in his personal life.
MATTHEWS: Right.
SLATER: And with the comments about Ryan, you‘ve lost any potential
voters you have with the Tea Party, which are driving, really, the
campaign, certainly in early primary and caucus states. So I think that‘s
a real problem. Here‘s a guy who doesn‘t have anything. And there was
something telling in his statement, the stuff about the wife. You know, we
—
MATTHEWS: Why was he laying it off on his wife? Why is he doing that? It seems a little indecent. By the way, he is Steven (SIC) Castevet in “Rosemary‘s Baby.” He is the warlock that lives upstairs—
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: — at the Dakota. I mean, I‘m sorry, that‘s who he is.
And you‘re right, he does have a lot it say, just like Steven Castevet. Name a place, I‘ve been there. He‘s got all that worldly information. But he is evil. Your thoughts, though.
SLATER: I‘m not going to say that he‘s evil.
(LAUGHTER)
SLATER: The other thing that I think that was mentioned—has been mentioned in the last 24 hours is this stuff about the money. If a guy‘s not raising the money—you have Carney, you have Rob Johnson, you have the kind of staff that he had on, which was a real campaign staff, and sooner or later, people are asking, Are we going to get paid? And I think the indication was they weren‘t.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: You know what they tell you when you‘re thinking of running for office, which somebody once told me? Your first job is to say, Do you like the idea of spending eight hours a day in a room with somebody, I forget the name, handler, controller, that comes in every 15 minutes and says, Faster, more phone calls, cold calling total strangers and asking for money. And that‘s a what a candidate has to do, whether you‘re Romney or anybody.
ROBINSON: You got to ask for the money, and apparently, Gingrich didn‘t want to make the calls. He didn‘t want to—
MATTHEWS: Well, these guys need to be paid!
ROBINSON: — dial for dollars. What?
MATTHEWS: Maybe that‘s why the crew left the ship—
ROBINSON: Well, I—
MATTHEWS: — no pay coming in. Let‘s take a look at on “MEET THE PRESS”—I really think our colleague, David Gregory, did a first class piece of journalism. And as always, it‘s the direct question that gets the guy or the woman or whoever in trouble because the direction question is the fair question. And that‘s what always gets them in trouble.
Here‘s on “MEET THE PRESS,” Newt Gingrich hinted that he might have a discipline problem. Let‘s listen to this part of the interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GINGRICH: I think it‘s fair to say that I‘m going to—one of the tests on this campaign trail is going to be whether I have the discipline and the judgment to be president. I think that‘s a perfectly fair question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, first of all, he attacked the Republican health care plan, Medicare.
ROBINSON: Yes. Right!
MATTHEWS: Then the next day, he said, I apologize. And then on Tuesday, he said, I wasn‘t talking about the Republican health care plan. And then he takes a two-week vacation on an opulent—I don‘t know what an opulent cruiser (SIC) is, but—
ROBINSON: Well—
MATTHEWS: — a nice cruise ship in the—I hear the Greek islands are fabulous—but right in the—what do you—was he taking a vacation from? He‘d only been on the campaign for a week.
ROBINSON: Exhausting!
(LAUGHTER)
ROBINSON: It was just exhausting and grueling, you know?
MATTHEWS: Anyway, let‘s figure out where this goes. Now, we‘re hearing through the grapevine—this does get to Texas—that a lot of the people around him—Dave Carney, Rob Johnson, first-rate, apparently, staffers—these guys have all split. And now down in—well, let‘s go to—I‘m sorry, let‘s go to Austin. Let‘s go to Wayne.
Have you heard any rumblings about the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, making a run, a late entry into this race, and these young—or these guys might be his people?
SLATER: Well, by the hour, I hear things that—that that could
happen. Look, I‘ve talked to people inside—the reporting that I‘m doing
inside the Perry camp is that the departure of Rob Johnson and Dave Carney
and again, Dave Carney is Rick Perry‘s Karl Rove. He‘s the guy who was with Perry in 1990, when Perry ran for the first statewide office, the agriculture commissioner—that these guys‘ departure from the Gingrich campaign is not an automatic signal that Rick Perry is ready to get into this race.
But what it does is makes it easier if Perry decides to do it. I think that he is—I hear that he is leaning toward running, but that he, Rick Perry—even though his wife wants him to do it, his two kids want him to do it, and Perry is surrounded by sort of some allies and supporters who are encouraging him to do it—they met last week in Austin to try to put together a blueprint for a campaign—Perry himself isn‘t sure.
MATTHEWS: Does he have any personal—let‘s not be too creepy here, but is there anything that‘s well known about him, like the Mitch Daniels problem, whether he had marital difficulties over those years—is there anything that everybody in Texas knows that we don‘t know, that‘s legitimate to know, that would stop him from running?
SLATER: No. I don‘t—I mean, there may be, but not that everybody in Texas knows. There are always rumors about a governor, especially a handsome governor like Rick Perry. We know absolutely nothing that would have been written had there been something newsworthy.
I think one of his—he has no two problems going into the potential race for president. One, is America ready for another governor from Texas to be the in the White House? And I think the jury‘s out on that. The other is—and this is more fundamental. This is—
MATTHEWS: It may not be out (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: It may have come in (INAUDIBLE) around 2008, but just a thought. Go ahead.
SLATER: Anyway—but the other—the other problem I think here in Texas, if he becomes a candidate and people begin to look at him, he has a crony problem. That is to say that after a decade as governor, 25 years in public life in Texas, he has enormous influence over politics in Texas. And we in “The Dallas Morning News” have written a series of stories about how he has steered state money to people who just happen to his contributors.
I think that‘s kind of thing that could cause problems for him if there‘s—if you have a big microscope, I mean—well, a big spotlight, I guess, in a presidential race.
MATTHEWS: We‘ve three tough (ph) cases of Texas presidents lately. I mean, LBJ left because of the war. We‘ve had H.W. Bush losing—his father losing because of the economy being in shambles when he left, and the son because of a very unpopular, I think at least controversial war in Iraq.
ROBINSON: Well, his son did get reelected, though, so—I mean, George W. did—did survive reelection. You know, what—what one hears around here, and I‘m not going to put Wayne on—on the spot with this because he‘s got to cover the guy, but—when hears questions about whether Rick Perry has the intellectual heft to be president—
MATTHEWS: He‘s a lightweight.
ROBINSON: — or to run for—
MATTHEWS: Have you heard the lightweight charge down there?
SLATER: Absolutely—
MATTHEWS: Would you be willing to confirm it?
SLATER: No, I‘m not going to confirm that.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: OK, let‘s go to something that‘s real here, Romney. Romney is, I think, in good position right now. He‘s not Mr. Excitement, but we have an economy that doesn‘t need excitement, it needs fixing, and he can campaign, it seems to me, as—of all the Republicans, a decent economic fixer, a turnaround guy, if you will, which is his specialty. Up against the president, I think it‘s an even-steven right now. He‘s about 47 even right now. It‘s a pick. Why‘s Romney skipping Iowa, the Iowa straw poll? You first, Wayne.
SLATER: Well, for obvious reasons, he doesn‘t think he‘s going to win there. He thinks his real hope is in New Hampshire. You start off with a big win in New Hampshire. You let someone—you let Iowa be a fight between Michele Bachmann and the Christians and Tim Pawlenty and the rest of the party, and I think it‘s a strategy.
But I think historically, at least in recent history, that hasn‘t worked very well when you skip Iowa.
MATTHEWS: Yes. Your thoughts, Gene? Why‘s he—
(CROSSTALK)
ROBINSON: No, I think—I think—
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: He doesn‘t want to get pulled to the right on issues.
ROBINSON: Exactly, because he‘s already running kind of a general election campaign, or flirting with it. I think Wayne is absolutely right, that‘s what Romney is up to.
You mentioned he turnaround expertise. I don‘t know if he really wants to push that because the way he turned these companies around was firing a whole bunch of people.
MATTHEWS: But you‘re a reasonable liberal.
Let me thank you, Eugene Robinson, for pointing out that obvious fact, that his way is cost cutting. Cost cutting means cutting labor force, which means people are out of work forever.
Anyway, thank you, Gene Robinson. I know it‘s nice to point these things about. Wayne Slater, thank you, sir. Maybe more from you if this questionable heavyweight down there gets in this race, Rick Perry. I do notice he wears these very snappy blazers. That‘s all I notice.
Up next: You can stop thinking about what candidate President Obama will run against. His real opponent is the economy. Let‘s find out what he needs to do to get the economy and his reelection campaign on solid ground. We‘re talking about the president here. Can he get it together on the economy?
You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Well, the Rod Blagojevich corruption case is now to the jury. Jury deliberations began today after (INAUDIBLE) 80 (ph) — 80 — both sides finished their closing arguments. Before that, B-Rod, as we call him, spent seven days on the witness stand, which is new. That‘s something he didn‘t do the last time he was on trial, when a jury deadlocked on all but one charge against him. The ousted Illinois governor is accused of trying to sell or trade the Senate seat once held by Barack Obama. B-Rod faces 20 counts, including extortion and conspiracy charges.
We‘ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I‘m not concerned about a double dip recession. I am concerned about the fact that the recovery that we‘re on is not producing jobs as quickly as I want it to happen. Prior to this month, we had seen three months of very robust job growth in the private sector, and so we were very encouraged by that. This month, you still saw job growth in the private sector, but it had slowed down. We don‘t yet know whether this is a one-month episode or a longer trend.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
That was President Obama on Tuesday on the sluggish economy, the toughest thing standing between him, of course, and reelection to a second term. Headlines like this one in “Time,” magazine on the cover, “What recovery?” have got to make the Obama reelect team very concerned.
Howard Fineman is senior political editor for the Huffington Post and an MSNBC political analyst, and Susan Page is Washington bureau chief for “USA”—thank you so much. You‘re two pros.
And I felt something move a couple weeks ago when we got the unemployment news, something that just seemed different. And I think maybe you both share that sense, that now this election is really a 50/50 situation. The president doesn‘t have an edge because of this economy.
HOWARD FINEMAN, HUFFINGTONPOST.COM, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think that‘s right, Chris. Certainly, that‘s the view here in Washington, and I think that‘s the view in the political community. And that has an impact because it affects the psychology, it affects the giving and the donations and the enthusiasm, and so on.
I think, for Republicans, they‘re thinking, Hey, you know, we got a shot here. We got a real shot here. So that enthuses them. I think Democrats are worried. I think the president has uttered some lines in recent days that I don‘t think it‘s good for presidents to be uttering—
MATTHEWS: Well, this reference that it‘s a recovery but it doesn‘t produce jobs is not going to—
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: Well, he said, I think, in that same press—in that same event, he said something like the important thing is not to panic.
MATTHEWS: Which is what people do, they panic.
FINEMAN: Yes. Which is—also, you don‘t want your president to be saying, Hey, folks, the important thing is not to panic. And sometimes, you know, he gets clinical and analytical. He sounded like Ben Bernanke there.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: People—people—even if this times are bad, people want an optimistic cheerleader guy.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: And he‘s being the economic analyst.
MATTHEWS: If we‘re in a new reset—my wife, who‘s a corporate executive, uses that term, “reset”—downward—in other words, our expectations about an incremental advantage to our children‘s lives over ours, if that‘s gone, if the idea of a reasonable unemployment rate because people are changing jobs of 4 or 5 percent has been replaced by a permanent unemployment rate of 9 or 10 percent, how does he smile through that?
SUSAN PAGE, “USA TODAY”: Well, I‘ll tell you another thing that happens if people see that scenario is they‘ll take a leap of faith with a Republican nominee they‘re not sure about. You know, we saw that happen in 1992 with Bill Clinton. We saw that happen in 1980 with Ronald Reagan. If times are bad—you know, we‘ve talked—how many times have you talked about a weak Republican field? If times are bad, people will look at Mitt Romney and say, Hey, maybe this guy knows something about the economy that Barack Obama does not, and I am willing to take a leap of faith and vote for him.
MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s very American, the idea of—that this is not as good as it gets.
FINEMAN: Well, but what you‘re saying, though, Chris, is something deeper than the latest cycles of the economy.
MATTHEWS: Yes, it is. This isn‘t a cycle, it‘s a trend.
FINEMAN: Yes. You‘re saying that there‘s a whole reset of the national psyche in which we‘re now saying to ourselves that things won‘t be better for our children. And does Barack Obama dare admit such a thing?
MATTHEWS: That‘s the question.
Does he dare admit—
MATTHEWS: Does he get serious like Jimmy Carter, or does he talk about the future?
FINEMAN: Well, you know what happened when Jimmy Carter did that.
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: He got run out of town.
MATTHEWS: Right.
FINEMAN: It is not in the American grain to admit something like that, even if it is true.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, OK. We know what—I‘m sorry. We know what Romney is going to do. And we are all studying this together. It looks like he is hunkering down for the long haul.
He knows if he has the money and he has the background, he can wait out the Sarah Palins. She probably won‘t run. He can wait out the Bachmanns and hope she is his only opponent. He can even wait out maybe Pawlenty. Just win a couple, lose a couple, win a couple, lose a couple, but lose them to different people along the way. He keeps getting his share.
At the end, he has the money, he has the credibility, and he ends up winning on points, and then he goes head to head with Obama 50/50. That‘s a pretty good scenario for him.
PAGE: And he has the—if the issue is the economy, he has got an argument to make. And he is not hurt by the problems he‘s got on the issue abortion and flip-flopping on that or this and that.
What is interesting about Romney now is, he is playing for the general election. His position on global warming is a general election position he is taking, not playing in the Florida and Iowa straw polls. He is saying, I‘m not worried about that.
And that means he can make the argument to Republicans, you may not like me best, but I‘m the one with the best chance of beating Barack Obama. And that‘s going to be a powerful argument.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I think he is saying to the Tea Party people, as Charles Krauthammer said in a column today, this isn‘t about ideology anymore. It is about who is going to save the American economy, who is going to get us through this.
FINEMAN: Well, it is fascinating to me in the middle of this, because that change in the weather that you detected—
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: — was happening simultaneously with Romney‘s announcement up in New Hampshire last week.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, we thought there was a big distraction by Sarah.
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: Yes. And we said, oh, this is terrible. He is dull. He is this and that, and Sarah stole all his thunder and everything.
But now everybody is saying, well, wait a minute. Yes, that is all true, and he‘s going to hide and disappear BP. But the guy has a lot of business experience. He has run successful companies. He knows how to manage.
MATTHEWS: And dull is OK.
FINEMAN: And dull is OK if management is good. That is the strongest argument.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: OK. I didn‘t know we would go this way, but we have gone –
let‘s take a look at this thing. Here is a poll, a (INAUDIBLE) approval rating trend line for the president. This is what the incumbent faces, 37.7 percent and downward.
My concern is that what you say is so American. The American people, I think, are like the manager in the dugout. They see the pitcher is not getting the guys out. And he goes there and he doesn‘t say, you‘re a bad guy. And the American people don‘t have to dislike their president. They just put their hand out and say, give me the ball.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: And when you get—you know how they get the ball from the guy?
FINEMAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: There‘s an American—there is a great ritual in baseball.
The pitcher hands over the ball because the manager asks for it.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: He never says, “I‘m keeping it,” right, Howard?
You‘re—you‘re both—you first, Susan.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: This is what the American people do. They don‘t dislike George Herbert Walker Bush, but they put in Bill Clinton, as you point out.
PAGE: Yes. And they still like Barack Obama. And they like his family. And they think he has good values and all that.
But when Romney says, he doesn‘t understand the economy, we gave him a chance, he failed, that is such hard argument to reply to, unless you make the economy better. And making the economy better is going to be a very tough task.
FINEMAN: That was—by the way, that was Romney‘s one genuine applause line in that event.
MATTHEWS: Well, even Eric Cantor—
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: — his dull event. He actually got applaud—real applause for that.
MATTHEWS: Eric Cantor is very funny. Now, he is not a funny guy generally, but he made a very tough critique the other day.
He said 37 months in a row, they have said below expectations. Are these going to keep being the below-expectations guys?
Here is my question. Based on your reporting, can you say the president is really open-minded about whether the economy will pick up or is he deluded?
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I‘m trying to phrase this correctly.
He said just a moment ago on that tape, we don‘t know whether this is a blip or whether this is a trend.
(CROSSTALK)
PAGE: That‘s right.
FINEMAN: My sense of Barack Obama, what I have heard about some private conversations that he had with other Democrats is that he is anything but deluded.
I think Barack Obama is a very, very frank-with-himself kind of guy. How he translates that into the campaign rhetoric, we don‘t know. He knows very much what is going on. He knows that there are a lot of weak economic numbers out there.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: He knows the mortgage foreclosure thing has the potential of dragging the economy back down again. He knows all this stuff.
He is not deluding himself about it at all. They have got a—he‘s going to be realistic.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: I don‘t know how he‘s going to try to sell the—
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, let‘s take a look at Krauthammer. He is a conservative. I don‘t agree with him on much. I respect him a lot, though.
Here—quote—here‘s Krauthammer today—“Suddenly, the election theme has changed. The Republican line in 2010 was, he is a leftist. Now it is, he‘s a failure. The issue is shifting from ideology to stewardship. As in ‘92, it‘s the economy, with everything else a distant second. Romney is the candidate least able to carry the ideological attack, but when it comes to being solid on economics, competent in business and highly experienced in governance, Romney is the prohibitive front-runner.”
Well-written, isn‘t it?
PAGE: And what a difference with—we talked about the advantages of having run before. Boy, you see that with Romney now. He knows what his message is going to be.
If the economy gets a lot better, Romney will have some trouble, right, because the core of his argument.
(CROSSTALK)
