GOP’s Valentine’s Day gift to Obama
O'DONNELL: With 266 days left before the presidential election , everything but everything seems to be breaking President Obama 's way. The job market is looking better. The stock market is up. Congressional Republicans have surrendered to the president today on extending the payroll tax cut. And at the very same time, congressional Republicans have decided to offer American women yet another reason to vote for President Obama . All of that is happening -- all of that -- while the Republican candidates continue to savage each other, leaving the president to concentrate on the job of governing the United States of America. First tonight, there is suddenly a new front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in the national polls and so like clockwork, the Romney super PAC did this tonight.
NARRATOR: How did Rick Santorum actually vote? Santorum voted to raise the debt limit five times and for billions in wasteful projects, including the "Bridge to Nowhere". In a single session, Santorum co-sponsored 51 bills to increase spending and zero to cut spending. Santorum even voted to raise his own pay and joined Hillary Clinton to let convicted felons vote. Rick Santorum , big spender , Washington insider. Restore Our Future is responsible for the content of this message.
O'DONNELL: The Romney campaign is now desperate to stop Santorum , because Rick Santorum is making an argument to Republican voters that Romney cannot possibly answer.
SANTORUM: Obamacare to me is the best possible grounds on which to focus this election. It is the signature accomplishment of Barack Obama. It is the biggest example of government overreach and involvement into your life. It is the best example of an explosion of government and the best example of crushing the business community in this country. And so, who is the best candidate to go up against Barack Obama on this signature issue of the day?
CROWD: You are!
SANTORUM: Thank you. You folks catch on a little quicker than most the audiences I've been in front of.
O'DONNELL: Yes, Mitt Romney is the most hollow and cynical front- runner either party has ever seen. His willingness to simply lie about his political past, his past positions, and say absolutely anything that conservatives want to hear today is an amnesiac style of campaigning that has no parallel. Yes, there have been candidates that have changed maybe one or two of their past positions while running for president, but we have never seen a candidate who has changed on nearly all -- all of the issues that are important to his party's base. But Rick Santorum is a weak candidate, too. Very weak. And we'll talk more about those weaknesses later. And he's a very easy target for the Obama campaign . So, what explains Santorum 's recent surge after Republican voters in most states ignored him for so long? A majority of Republican voters and the Obama campaign feel the same way about Mitt Romney . They want anyone but Romney to be the Republican nominee. So, is it possible that President Obama brilliantly played his hand in governing and campaigning at the same time, when he allowed last week to be temporarily consumed in a political controversy over contraception coverage in health care plans? A controversy that the president ended on a date and time of his choosing after it helped push Santorum ahead of Romney in the polls. Andrew Sullivan brilliantly dissected the contraception controversy in "Newsweek" and said this tonight on HARDBALL .
ANDREW SULLIVAN, NEWSWEEK: It is going to empower Rick Santorum to win and do well in the South , which is going to, long-term, be a fantastic advantage for Obama . So what this did, I think, accidentally, and I called it an improvised bait-and-switch, is that he gave Rick Santorum the gift that could win him the nomination of the Republican Party , which will be a catastrophe for the Republican Party .
O'DONNELL: Joining me now is " Washington Post " political columnist Dana Milbank and Salon.com political writer, Steve Kornacki . Thank you both for joining me tonight. We shall now entertain what shall be called the Sullivan proposition here on THE LAST WORD . Steve , you go ahead. There's -- first of all, there's the question of could it possibly have been intentional, that the president took us into this contraception debate for a week and only a week, and then ended it precisely on timing convenient to him on terms convenient to him? STEVE KORNACKI, SALON.COM: I think the key word that Andrew Sullivan said in that clip is accidentally. But I think this is extremely fortuitous. And you talk about the power of timing. And yet the timing right now for a lot of things is really fortuitous for the White House . This is sort of the lowest moment Mitt Romney has had as a candidate, if you still think Mitt Romney 's likely to be the nominee. And it's coinciding with really the best period of Barack Obama 's presidency in terms of the economic news. I mean, some of the most recent polling data is kind of staggering when you think about it . Romney 's standing with independent voters just in the last month or two has crashed about 10 or 15 points. He's now trailing, you know, by the same margin that Santorum is in head-to-head trial heats with Obama . And Obama 's approval rating now is pretty close to or over 50 percent in most polls. And what I keep thinking of is I kind of think we've seen this before. It was 16 years ago when Bob Dole started out and everyone said, well, Bill Clinton can't possibly get re-elected because of what happened in 1994 . And when that Republican process ended in '96, Dole was a very wounded nominee and he never recovered.
O'DONNELL: Dana Milbank , to the Sullivan proposition -- the possibility of it being deliberate seems extremely unlikely. And I try to get through a year of programming without using sports analogies, and I come very close to it. But I'm going to use this football one, Super Bowl being our most recent big event. And that is, it seems like wanted was the quarterback got thrown for a loss on a play and then it was, you know, third down and 40 yards or something, and he had to throw the bomb, and he did, for a touchdown. I mean, it's like -- it's one of those things where, OK, you've got a problem now that has developed. What matters when you have a problem in politics or governing is, what are you going to do now? And it seemed to many observers, and I'm one of them, that by Friday, the play that the Obama administration ran on Friday, which I think was guided by policy, conscience, and all sorts of noble intent, was also brilliant politically and put them in a better place on the field than where they were had they chosen that position at the outset.
DANA MILBANK, WASHINGTON POST: Lawrence , I think it was more accurately a fumble and the president's side picked it up and ran it into the end zone.
O'DONNELL: All right. I'll go with that. I'll go with that.
MILBANK: But you score it the same way. It doesn't really matter how pretty it looked in the end. You know, look, whatever the purpose behind it, to be having, you know, set aside the initial conflict with the Catholic bishops, to be having a debate in this election year about contraception , which is, you know, pretty much a settled issue in this country, and to have now Santorum at least for the moment in the lead, a man who would turn back 50 years of jurisprudence and allow a state to ban contraception , it puts the president in a fundamentally different position right now. And, of course, they'd like nothing more than to see Santorum continue on, which seems terribly unlikely. The main thing you're seeing from this field now is the longer this goes on, satisfaction is actually decreasing. In the CNN poll today, only 9 percent said they were satisfied with the candidates in the Republican side , down from 18 percent, twice that much in the fall.
O'DONNELL: What Rick Santorum has done is turned the issue, the contraception issue into highlighting the health care issue, and what he will call a similarity between Obamacare and Romneycare . That seems to be what he's been successful at. And now going into Michigan , we have a robocall poll yesterday showing Santorum leading Romney among primary voters in Michigan , where Republicans will vote on February 28th . Santorum , 39 percent. This is supposed to be one of Romney's many home states. Romney , 24 percent. Ron Paul , 12 percent. Gingrich down to irrelevance now at 11 percent. Steve Kornacki , it seems to me that Santorum has been deft at saying, using contraception as a way to, OK, everybody, remember health care , remember what Mitt Romney did, and then making the case that health care should be the Republican's number one issue going into the general election , which I think is a faulty case.
KORNACKI: Right.
O'DONNELL: But for what he's trying to achieve now, it just seems perfect.
KORNACKI: Well, there are five or six, or maybe five or six dozen reasons to doubt that Rick Santorum can actually go and run away with the Republican nomination right now.
O'DONNELL: Those are quickly money, organization, personnel.
KORNACKI: Yes, how many endorsements? He won three states last week, how many endorsements did he come out with? But there's one big reason to expect this might be different. And it showed in that clip you played earlier. He has basic competence as a candidate that none of Romney's challengers to date have shown. He knows exactly where Romney's weak spots are with the conservative base. And he has -- now, you played that negative ad that Romney ran, but basically Santorum has a sound record on the issues that matter most to conservatives today. He's been consistent on those issues. Doesn't have the kind of baggage Newt Gingrich has. And he knows, you think of that debate where Gingrich just completely melted down, that Florida debate against Romney , Santorum knows how to go toe to toe with Romney in these debates. He can take that message. He can take it against him. Confidence may be all it takes to beat Mitt Romney .
O'DONNELL: Dana Milbank , my starting off prediction last year was that Mitt Romney could not get the nomination because of the health care bill in Massachusetts that he signed into law, which is just something his party cannot stomach. I've been surprised that they've been able to stomach it as much as they have, going this far. But is that the key? Has Santorum found the thing that he needs to stay concentrated on with Republican voters, primary voters, anyway, to get himself to the nomination?
MILBANK: Right, Lawrence . And that's the important qualification that this general election is going to be fought on the economy. That's baked in the cake now regardless of what either side would like to turn it to. And for the moment, at least, it looks to be going in President Obama 's direction. But it's different case in the Republican primary , where there is that sort of outsized antipathy towards the president and Obamacare in particular. So he is right to be directing it in that direction. I think that's why you see -- you know, Mitt Romney hasn't really fallen in overall support. He's about 28 percent now, maybe he gets into the low 30s. He hasn't budged at all. It's just these other guys coming up and falling down and another guy pops up again, and he just can't seem to get above that ceiling.
O'DONNELL: And Rick Santorum seems to have really gone after the Romney electability argument. There's a " New York Times " poll out that shows that Santorum basically has exactly the same electability against President Obama . You have President Obama beating Santorum 49 to 41. And you have President Obama beating Mitt Romney 48 to 42. Steve Kornacki , that's statistically identical. So, if Romney loses the electability argument, as we saw him lose it in South Carolina , with South Carolina primary voters, they said they thought Newt Gingrich had a better electability posture than Romney did. If he's losing it nationally, which is what that " New York Times " poll is, what is left of the Romney campaign?
KORNACKI: Well, and that's what's so interesting to me about Santorum 's rise, because I suspect for the last year, Santorum has made a lot of sense on paper to conservatives, but what's holding him back is the perception that he's a loser, lost by 18 points in Pennsylvania in 2006 , never mind that Romney was going to lose in Massachusetts . But now that he's got this one-on-one race, basically, and people are giving him a fair look, I think that whole 2006 issue goes away, and for the first time , you're really seeing people, conservatives look at this and say, yes, why not?
O'DONNELL: Dana Milbank , what is the case that Mitt Romney makes now when he's going to money people. He's had a very easy case to make to the money people all along here. Look, I'm inevitable. I'm electable, nobody else is. I'm conservative enough. With this " New York Times " poll, what's Mitt Romney 's next phone call for money -- what's the argument in it?
MILBANK: Well, a very clear argument. And that is they have to mow this Santorum guy down in Michigan and in Arizona . That same " New York Times " poll shows this to be highly fluid -- 60 percent of the people say they may change their minds. So this could change on a dime if Romney can win those two states in two weeks. So, that's the case he has to make, and it's going to be all about money and the super PAC mowing down Santorum . And then, we're, you know, right back where we were a week ago.
O'DONNELL: And President Obama will happily sit by and watch them both mow down each other. Dana Milbank and Steve Kornacki , thank you very much for joining me tonight.
MILBANK: Thanks, Lawrence .
