Romney backers turn backstabbers

>>> the number of the day . here's a hint. it's mitt romney 's favorite. the number of the day is 47. that's how much of the popular vote mitt romney is now projected to have won. pretty funny, right? what are the chances that mr. 47% is literally number 47 ? it's a fitting end point to the mitt romney experience. governor romney knows that it's all over. he's enjoying some time on the rides at disneyland but as he's taking in the fun, his former friends are politically backstabbing him. it's a full war. today, one of romney 's top policy advisers revealed what was really going on with all of the romney haters.

>> watching some of these republican officials now trashing mitt romney , the friday night before the election, we were in cincinnati, hundreds of romney top surrogates event. i'm backstage with them and they are you canning about him like he's a reagan and is going to win in four or five days and in fact some are positioning themselves for a romney cabinet. and i won't say who they are. they know who they are. they were on television. it's unbelievable. five, six days later absolutely eviserating him.

>> wow. pull back the curtain and what do you see? a whole bunch of phonies. don't be fooled, they haven't learned any lessons. joining me now is ana marie cox and ryan grim. thanks to you both for being here tonight.

>> good to be here.

>> ana , don senior says that they are phonies. what do you make of this?

>> what do i make of them being phony? that's a shock, of course. you have to pull back the curtain to see if they are phony. one thing we saw in this election was plenty of people saying two thing at a different sides of their mouths, sort of back to back. we didn't have to uncover very much to see the phoniness. i think what is ironic here is that they have at least campaigned for them in some way running away from them. they are not running to anything he will. i don't feel like the republican party has figured out what it is that they do want. it's early yet. but they definitely -- all they figured out is he was toxic. he was toxic before but now they are allowed to say that, i guess.

>> that's a good point because when romney made his gift comments, a slew of his former surrogates and top surrogates came out and tore them apart. but take a listen to this.

>> we are in a big hole . we are not getting out of it by comments like that. he keeps digging.

>> if we want people to like us, we have to like them first. you don't insult them by saying that their votes were bought.

>> now, these are his surrogates tearing him apart after the gift statement but he didn't say anything about that when he was talking about the 47%. why not?

>> only when the two sides are --

>> let me go to you top respond to that, ana marie, while we get ryan straight.

>> they figured out that romney didn't work. i think a lot of people figured out that romney was a toxic candidate before he actually lost. i think a lot of times you get caught p in the capped da see and people saw the writing on the wa the. people were paying attention to the poll numbers. what i'm surprised about is that people haven't thought about a path forward for the republican party . you can no longer win campaigning for the votes of white men. you have to campaign in a different america with different value. you can maybe argue about the delivery of government services, whether it's a capital system or less of a free market bias to it but you have to talk about taking care of everybody. you can't say that some people don't get health care . delivering health care to everyone, not just some people go to the emergency room .

>> ryan , you're back with us now. is it maybe that they didn't attack the 47% statement because dan senior is right, they were still holding out that they might win and wanted to be in the cabinet or wanted some assignment and when he made the gift statement he had already lost so there was nothing for opportunists to lose at that point?

>> right. that's exactly what they are doing. you know, they kind of ran this campaign the same way they've been running every presidential campaign since nixon's southern strategy , right through willy horton up until today. they probably knew this was the last time that they could run this play because of the changing demographics but they figured if we can eat one more out, let's take it. ana marie makes a good point. where are they going to go next? it's not like they got into this position by accident. you know, through this southern strategy , they've created a self-reinforcing ecosystem where you have conservative media and a conservative base all feeding off each other. and that means that if anybody, if the base tries to move or somebody within the conservative media says, well, let's try to moderate a little bit, then that ecosystem expels that person because it's a threat to this giant industry that's been built up. fox news and all of the things that are around it. so it's going to be really difficult for them to take that final -- that final move and i think it's going to have to come from the top because the grassroot conservatives are so entrenched in the mainstream media .

>> ryan , ana was saying that they have to reach out and republicans say that they want to reach out to everyone and being open-minded. but look at their record. they oppose the affordable care act . support privatizing social security , want to reverse student loan reform, refuse to raise tacks on the rich. against government welfare spending. and, i mean, with these policy positions, how can we believe them? paul krugman says he doesn't trust the republicans so-called evolution. he said these new republicans we're told are willing to be more open-minded on cultural issues more understanding and skeptical on trickle-down economics is enough. so what should we call these republicans? i have a suggestion. why not call them democrats?

>> that's right. they stand for a certain set of values and they have for a significant amount of time. and so, you know, if they deviate from that, then they are going to be called traitors by the people who remain. it's going to be a tremendous problem. and when you have policies that are unpopular, say, cutting medicare, social security , it doesn't help to, quote/unquote reach out. let's have a town hall and explain why i'm going to cut your social security . it's not that people personally dislike the messenger. they don't like the message that you want to cut medicare or social security or otherwise break the social contract as they've been pushing. so, yeah, it's going to be really tough. and i don't quite see how they get out of this.

>> well, ana marie cox and ryan grim, thank you both for joining us and have a great holiday.

>> thank you.

>> happy thanksgiving.

>> coming up, a progressive president with a mandate for change. what do you think he should focus on in his second term?

>>> plus, it's the knock down drag out fight in the gop. rush limbaugh versus chris christie .

>>> and at the end of the show , something we have never done on "politicsnation," a thanksgiving surprise. stay with us.

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