Why is GOP top donor Adelson doubling down on his 2012 mistakes?

>>> 7th. have time for the president right now. and maybe that's because the president did not put $150 million into gop coffers during the last campaign. yes, the man who single handedly gave them the most money to prevent the election, sheldon adelson , was seen exiting the capitol hill with a staffer from the speaker's office. what did they talk about? i'll give you 150 million guesses but it probably had something to do with this.

>> our members believe strongly raising tax rates will hurt the economy. closing loopholes, especially on those who are wealthy, is a better way to raise this revenue.

>> joining us now is ken vogel, politico's chief investigative reporter and mike dyson , professor at georgetown university and msnbc political analyst . professor dyson , if you invested $150 million of your own money, only to see it wash down the drain, would you then be preparing to spend double that amount on republicans in 2016 which i understand is what mr. adelson is reportedly planning to do?

>> i'll tell you, this approach to trying to win your way into the political main stream is quite interesting. i guess if you have that kind of money, can you double down, so to spqb)k hedge your bets and go for what you don't know. the reality is if mr. adelson has that kind of cash, why not better create outlets to articulate his ideology beyond the political -- beyond the house and the senate and the republican nomination for presidency? in other words, why bet on mitt romney and eight governors who didn't win for you. he says he's in a business that pays dividends at some time but he doesn't want to change the political ideology of this nation. he wants to directly influence the decision makers over policy that will benefit his cronies. so it's not about the democratic process and about making this nation better. it's about getting your way and winning it and bullying it through your buck. if you got them, spend them.

>> of course. he does have, i believe, $21 billion, according to forbes.

>> that's a lot of dough.

>> can you calibrate how important mr. adelson is to republicans now that we're watching the implosion of gop stalwarts like karl rove and freedom works , both of which you have reported on.

>> extremely important to the republican party , as are ee emerging class of mega donors. who were spurred into giving large amounts of money, which led to the super pacs. you look no further than the week after the presidentiam? election, the governor's association was in town, in las vegas , and as we reported, three governors who are contemplating their own runs in 2016 made a trip from the wynn casino and hotel, a strong rival of sheldon adelson 's sands corporation, over to the venetian, adelson 's flagship, to meet with sheldon adelson . we don't know what they talked about, but bobby engine dal, john casic, and really high up on the short list of procespective 2016ers. after the meeting we heard sheldon adelson expressed to confidantes he was favoring for 2016 , a candidate with executive experience. all those guys fit the bill. incidentally, they were also visiting with him.

>> great. professor, in this wall street journal article, adelson dismisses the president's winning margin as i'm quoting him a rounding error. he says sitting at the end of a giant conference table in the venetian casino adelson grabbed his calculator and began way. what's that come up to, he said? look. 0.002%, absolutely nothing. are we beginning to see how mr. adelson may have lost those $150 million on a single bet there?

>> no question. he's engaging it with what bush called fuzzy ?math. the suspicious of his calculations there, my daddy used to say this, if you missed it by a dime, might as well be a dollar. the reality is if it's 0.002s or 200%, you lost, you're not in the white house . what you sought is not realized. your ambition was stunted. your goal was this warted and your ability to manipulate change your particular way has to go back to the drawing boards. that's what he's doing. he's going back now. trying to disparage the president's win and elevate his particular men into the stalking horse for 2016 nomination for presidency on the republican side . he's dogging the dude who won and trying to put forward the carrot for his own particular horse to win. right now he's looking at the backside of that horse and the tail is switching mightily in his face from the obama administration.

>> i guess he's proof that you can be a billionaire and not particularly clef. ken vogel and professor dyson , i'm sorry, ken's feed to us has broken down but we're grateful to his contribution as always.