Hurricane Sandy puts Romney's flip-flopping, climate change science in focus

>>> now. we're joined by my colleague steve kornacki co-host of the "the cycle" and jonathan capehart of the " washington post " and also msnbc contributor goldie taylor , managing editor of the goldie taylor project. steve , a lot of people are wondering if the current hurricane has anything to do with global change , climate change , global warming . we just had bill mahr talking about right wing nut jobs. isn't this the central deceit of this election in a way? romney gives no details about himself, his extreme supporters stay silent but after november 6th if he gets in, what happens then?

>> i think this gets to what is the best way to understand who mitt romney is and what kind of president he would be. everybody says he was on this side and then on this side so we don't really know. i think we do know. the easiest clue you can ever look to to a politician is what is their party label. mitt romney 's role, if he's president, his role in the republican party will be to implement the agenda of the republican party and the agenda is very clear when it comes to climate change , it's skepticism, hostility to the idea of cap and trade, pro coal, pro drilling, pro-pipeli pro-pipeline.

>> reduce regulations.

>> we know what you're getting. i don't know what mitt romney believes in his heart of hearts but he cannot survive as president politically if he's not actively trying to implement his party's agenda.

>> nbc news poll found that 43% of voters have a somewhat positive view of mr. romney . only 36% say the same thing about the republican party . so if mr. romney is more popular than his own party, does that suggest that the moderate mitt routine has actually been working? the subterfuge has worked?

>> the subter fuge has worked. he looks presidential. he seems like a nice guy. but mitt romney is sort of like forest gump . the great line, life is like a box of chocolates. you never know what you're going to get. mitt romney is like a bokts of chocolates. you never know what you're going to get from one day to the other, one year to another, one nsh to another. you never know what he's for or against at any given day.

>> isn't that a bit of a problem for mr. romney ? because words do matter. people who live in places like virginia and new jersey today are relying on agencies like fema to support them, and yet there was mr. romney in the primaries saying things like, you know, fema wouldn't exist if he had a choice.

>> you know, you have to believe that mitt romney doesn't know that the videotape was actually invented, that we can roll these things back and that over the course of his career he has said and done some things that don't quite square with some of the positions he's taking today. that we do know about mitt romney . you know, but to say that he's going to move fema funds back to the states in terms of bloc grants or move these things privately, you know, the strength of natural disaster rescue or recover is all about multijurisdiction cooperation. when the federal, state, public, private partners do work together, when communities get together and work with states . that's when, you know, the real magic happens, when communities really begin to recover. i led some recovery efforts here in georgia. but at the end of the day to send this back to the states would be making 50 little lock boxes waiting for each governor to pick it open when his bth runs short. that's what would happen. mitt romney has a problem of thinking before he speaks and sending this back to the sats is just a bad idea.

>> ron paul in the primary said exactly the same thing. i remember him in one interview saying, let's go back to 1900 . let's go back to 1930 , 1940 where fema didn't exist.

>> well, i rest my case, ron paul said it.

>> and that's part of a broader sort of trend here. something to really think about when i say consider mitt romney 's party label and not so much mitt romney 's personal politics, wharf they are. the republican party right now has committed itself to the idea it's not just fema, it's medicaid , medicaid should be taken away from the federal government and sent back to the states . and can you imagine, think of a conservative state with a republican governor, republican legislature, how they would handle if they can say here is the criteria, the federal government no longer sets the standards for who is eligible. he wieligibility is going to go down and less money is going to be spent. the irony of that is the appeal of that in terms of selling it to the public is well, the federal government bungles everything. but if you look at the ability of the medicaid program as it currently exists to control cost, it does a better job than private insurance.

>> goldie , did i hear you mumbling agreement?

>> i do, i absolutely agree with that. we see it happening with so many programs that are bloc granted back to the states . you know, the problem with this republican party , with mitt romney , is they have become to rigid about ideology, about their platform that they really can't see when they're saying exactly the wrong thing. and so i think that's the problem with the fema funding. we're going to see over the next couple days as this natural disaster unfolds. we're going to see communities coming together with their states . see states coming together with the federal government . we're going to see a multijurisdiction public/private partnership in play and that's what should happen here. what i don't want to do is wait for private business to make a profit off people in distress if they take over recovery efforts. so i think mitt romney is absolutely wrong-headed about this.

>> final question to you, john, this is obviously happening as we approach the last week of the presidential election campaign. how do you think the events of this storm are likely to affect the outcome of this election or are they?

>> well, i don't know how it will affect the outcome of the election, but i will have to agree with i believe it was chuck todd who said it earlier and you mentioned it earlier as well that this -- the race is frozen at the moment or basically has effectively ended when you have the president off the campaign trail, his republican challenger off the campaign trail, and the president ont othe only one on television looking presidential talking about efforts to make sure people are safe, making sure that states have everything they need from the federal government to help people in distress. whatever momentum mitt romney had, whatever slide the president may have been experiencing in support is frozen in place where it was this morning or late last night. but, again, in terms of the outcome of the election, i have no idea what the outcome of the election is just as no one else does, no matter what the polls say. i think we're all sort of waiting for november 6th to come so that we can finally definitively know what the hell is going to happen?

>> eight days to go. stand by your buzzers. thank you very much, steve kornacki, jonathan capehart, and goldie taylor .