GOP suffers from Priebus misdirection, conservative money rackets

>> jonathan capehart is an msnbc contributor and karen finney is an msnbc political analyst and the former director of communications at the dnc. karen , the rnc has just announced something called the growth and opportunity project to assess their injuries, yet the five people chose ton chair this august body includes former bush secretary ari fleischer , who on election day tweeted about being amazed about african-american turnout in ohio. so i guess is it acknowledging black people like to start?

>> i think you might have recognized that at some point. he's been in politics a little bit. the biggest problem in reading about this, we went through something similar in 2005 when howard dean became chairman. the difference was he made the point of talking to the state party chairs to find out what would it take to win in their state, and he talked to rank and file democrats. we also did a poll to try to understand was it our message, was it how we were communicating. we found it was our message people agreed with, it was how we were communicating. that's kind of the big piece they don't want to admit. nobody agrees with them. all of this is window dressing to cover up the fact that reince priebus doesn't have a vision for the party . this is a cya move so he could say we have this commission and we did these things.

>> ari fleischer was brilliant about lying about the iraq war for about six years. jonathan according to rny filings with the election commission , $59 million was spent with vendors in the five weeks leading up to election day . of that amount one-third went to a single telemarketing firm which just happens to have been founded by current rnc chief of staff jeff larson.

>> it's sort of a closed loop world here where --

>> unbelievable.

>> you have people working for the party but they have side contracts with the party and then no matter what happens, no matter the fortunes of the candidates, for the senate or congress or even presidentially, the folks who have the deals, they always end up coming out on top, win or lose.

>> right. and karen , no less a conservative than bill krystal is writing about this now. he says of his own party , quote, the conservative movement is in deep disarray. it may be that major parts of american conservatism have become such a racket that a kind of refounding of the movement as a cause is necessary. it is a racket when you have a serial adulterer like newt gingrich and you have got a criminally wrong dick morris still in the racket still making millions.

>> but they're the party of family values, what do you mean?

>> sorry. they're making millions.

>> absolutely, they are making millions, and the thing is they're not winning. you would think somebody would say, wait a second, we're going to spend all this money, what are we getting for that. ? one of the beginnings governor dean did, everybody was off thed nc coal.

>> really?

>> it broke a lot of china. people didn't like it. his point was why are we listening to the same set of consultants when we're losing? this racketeering, the problem is the five people who are on this, you know, commission, if you will, or this autopsy if you will --

>> growth and opportunities.

>> are all part of the same racket and they will cover for the newt gingrichs of the world and the dick morrises of the world and the car roves of the wor world.

>> and learn nothing?

>> i think they will come back they have to do a better job communicating their message.

>> but i wonder if it also depends on -- okay, so they put out their report and it's a big cya. i wonder how bobby jindal responds to that, who has been very forceful since election day about the problems of the party . what does chris christie say about what's in that report? it's one thing to have this autopsy body doing this report. it's another thing, again, to rank and file , the governors who are out there who have to pick up the broken pieces of their party if they're going to move forward.

>> but will they even have an opportunity to have a voice? here you had when they announced their committee chairs no women. not even anybody at the table to say, excuse me --

>> there were never going to be any women.

>> their immigration reform proposal, right, it was so much less than even the bare minimum of what we've been talking about. nothing that the latino community would agree with. there was nobody at the table to say this isn't going to fly. that's part of the problem. will they listen to voices of people who might actually say, excuse me, we can't accept that.

>> i know you were delighted karl rove was back on fox news last night. according to his own filings, mr. dick morris used his super pac to solicit cash from conservatives eager to part with their money by sending it to morris in return for, get this, his e- mail list . he was using his e- mail list to raise -- does that sound like a scam to you?

>> well, i mean, well, yes, and clearly it's a legal scam, and i want to find out how you do that because i have a sizable e- mail list . i would love to rent it out to people. it goes back to the original question you asked and my response. there's a closed loop within the republican party , republican circles, that just feeds on itself and rewards failure.

>> and they're talking to each other. they're not actually talking to any of the people that, you know, that 90% or so, the rest of us who voted. so, of course, they're shocked that all those black people came out to vote. if you're not talking to them and not talking to anybody who is actually engaging in the real world and you're trying to convince women there's no war on women while you're trying to take our rights away with transvaginal probes, you're totally out of touch.

>> this idea that black people weren't going to come out to vote, anybody who had their eyes open knew that everybody, every black person in america who could get to the polls was going to go to the polls, and then you throw on top of it the voter suppression stuff, and so then all of a sudden it's like, oh, no, you're not going to take away my right to vote. ari was so shocked.

>> yes, he was. thank you