Can Obama, Boehner reach an agreement?

>>> as the saying goes, second verse same as the first. neither is changing their tune on the cliff just yet. let's bring in the gaggle for wednesday. democratic pollster on the msnbc contributor. the national reviews, robert costa who is a contributor for msnbc and the kudlow report. welcome all. you are in the jump seat and i will give you the first chance at this. you did this interview with tom price . it's about this idea that some conservatives may try to make baper's life so uncomfortable they could challenge him for the speakership. it's clear he doesn't have the votes for any of this, but how series is boehner taking it and how much of it is impacting the negotiations?

>> it's a great question. the tension within the house republican conference is very real. tom price 's comments about his concerns and about a potential deal that includes tax increases reflects where a lot of conservatives are. they are wary about what speaker boehner is doing. no one is really sure about the contours of the potential deal.

>> you see here there seems to be all this evidence that republicans are publicly splintering. they are not behind one position. even mitch mcconnell said he can get his tax increases by doing nothing.

>> there is a long way between overthrowing the speaker and not liking what's going on at the current minute. we have changed the challenges before. dan lundgren, they go on and on. kantor was going to challenge boehner every day one year. this happens, but it's a long way between that and challenging him.

>> the extra democratic pressure that you see putting publicly, the white house is backing off of that. is this good politics for the democrats? do they want to be involved in scudling a deal?

>> the polls show people are with democrats and view things consistently and want people to collaborate. the second is they want to see their wealthiest pay a higher tax rate . they will typically blame republican fist there is no deal.

>> that's all they want. when you look at it, can you come together and you ask about things other than tax rates . there is agreement on the top 2%. how about medicare? don't touch that. nobody wants anything else touched.

>> they are saying go over the cliff, but the public is not okay with that. the public is wary and concerned about this as it should be.

>>> we going to get -- where do we think. do we think they do another counteroffer? where do we feel like we stand right now at 9:50 in the morning?

>> i have a piece about paul ryan and there is dissension. if you look at who is signing the boehner counteroffers, you have kantor, mckarthy and paul ryan on board with speaker boehner . that reflects his strength. boehner will condition to stand strong as long as he has their support.

>> whatever deal he cuts, he will have 80 or 90.

>> at the end of the day , yeah. if he agrees to it. that's the thing. you can imagine there will be a lot of pull from a lot of different sides on this within the condition conference. some of these guys are behind him on a lot of things and the conserfative pieces of the coalition there were not going along. there is a long way to go.

>> i want to get your takes on this. michigan is losing the fight and the democrats think they will win the political war. is that all they got? you look at the history of the right to work, you never seem to be able to stop.

>> it does have challenges. we are calling it right to work is a victory on the right. the michigan polls show this is a winner for people who with unions. the governors ratings are very mediocre. majority say that after they hear both sides, they are against right to work and 80% say this is not -- this shouldn't be a priority at all. actually, more say they're going to hold it against legislators for voting for it than reward them for it.

>> we know what we will be talking about in 2014 in the midwest. we have that clear. we know what this will be about.

>> we already had a debate about this early in the year. scott walker --

>> he sort of --

>> it's hard to say the union people will have to be worried right now.

>> it does feel as if when this moves, it moves. the question is, can they calibrate on another policy. we asked in the last 100 years how many presidents were elected after serving in the house, but not in the senate. there's just one. president george h.w. bush was a congressman for texas, unsuccessful candidate for the united states senate . then of course he was u.n. ambassador, cia director and vice president before he was elected to president on his own. one time he ran for the u.s. senate he lost. if you have a question for us, e-mail us.