Allen West refuses to concede, but challenger is certain: ‘We won this race’

>>> well-known and well loved on the right at least for his blistering criticism of democrats even referring to liberal house members as communists. but following an expensive and bitterly fought race in southeast florida , democrat patrick murphy 's head of west in the vote count. while congressman west refuses to concede. nbc has not yet called the winner in the race. but patrick murphy joins us. mr. murphy, did you win the election, is it over?

>> no question about it we worn l. won the race. the state did certify us. so i'm ready to get to washington.

>> do you think mr. west is certifiable? i mean, people that call out names like calling members of the house of representatives being very special, 78 to 81 members of the communist party in the house of representatives . and what do you you make of that when you run get against a guy like that? how did you deal with it?

>> i'm glad that we can put this campaign behind us. i spent way too much time talking about allen west and his comments and his rhetoric becausic it was way too divisive for our country. i'm excited to get to work for the district and for the country and i'm tired of talking about allen west and really looking forward to moving on.

>> were you able to get republican votes against him?

>> quite a bit actually. we outperformed president obama in a couple counties here by about 4% to 5%. so we did pretty well with republicans. a lot of people reached out to us throughout the campaign and said i've been a republican my whole life, but i'm not going to support allen west . tell me about you. so i told them about my background as a cpa and small business owner and we did very well with republicans.

>> i do want to ask you about this, what happened to the republican party in florida ? used to have -- well, the first connie mack , a conservative, but not a whacky. and then people today like jeb bush who is not whacked out at all. what has happened to the party that they've subscribed to this hard right thinking? is it a real trend for the future down there?

>> well, i don't think it's specific just to florida . i think it's throughout the country. there's a lot of republicans that are confused right now. i get calls all the time from republicans that don't know which way to go because they fear the party is going way too far right. so the party will have to make a decision pretty quickly. if they continue going this far right, they'll loose a lse a lot of people.

>> are we going to have a deal this christmas on the debt?

>> i sure hope so. i think what this race showed for the country and for the congress is that the american people want to put the country first. that they're tired of the partisanship. 2010 was an interesting cycle. the tea party had its turn. it didn't work. it created a divide in our country. the american people don't want that anymore. we have to come together as a country and i hope our congress figures that out. that's a big part of what i ran on, and a big part of what i plan on do when i get to congress is reaching across the aisle, finding some sort of legislation i can put forward.

>> i can only say the best of luck to you, sir. i hope you win the race. you look like you've won it anyway. patrick murphy of florida . when we