Republicans attempt to rig the electoral college

>>> considered one of the battleground states although that is going to be changing soon.

>> that was president obama in texas . knowing that he couldn't win it. all oftexas' 34 electoral votes went to mitt romney and he was playing the long game. and the democrats believe those votes will be worth fighting for in the future. team obama's field director jeremy burd has decided his next job will be turning texas blue.

he told politico: as democrats are looking to expand the map, republicans are designciding if you can't beat them cheat them. they are moving forward with a plan to change the system from winner take all to congressional district districts one. in november in virginia , president obama won 51% of the popular vote and received all 13 in the system. now here is what would have happened under the proposed 47 plan. president obama would have won 51% of the popular vote but just 4 of those votes. mitt romney would have received the other 9 votes. under the proposal mitt romney would have won 47% of the actual vote but would have been avoided 69% of the state's electoral votes . if you can't win honestly go this way. it is fascinating to me what he was doing in texas this summer knowing that he wasn't going to win it. and knowing what they can do with the changing demographics of the state. i think texas is a longer term process. democrats are plblowing it out. if you look at the population in the state it is not matched by the registered voter pool. that is going to help you a lot. the problem is if you look at east texas and west texas we have heavily white populations, where race is the sole predictor. if you look at mississippi and alabama, these are states where he gotten percent of the white vote. so the problem is, if the white vote in texas continues to trend toward the deep south it is not going to be in the next decade. but it might not be for another decade. this is the long-term strategizing. in virginia , they are inviting a constitutional challenge. that will be taken up by the supreme court .

>>> the weird twist there is, you have the maine and nebraska models in effect now. and the winner of the popular vote gets the two at-large votes. and there has been that plit in 2008 . the twist in virginia is it is the winner of the most congressional districts . it is a strange move. there is sort of an admission here by republicans that there is a threat here that if this gathers steam, if the big blue states, if you had that basic maine nebraska model, the vote would have been 276 romney and 262 obama. it is that condensed. in a few numbers of districts and in the state. the democrats have the numbers but republican ares have land mass and that is where it kind of shows.

>> the next big election massachusetts senate . john kerry is day as way from confirmation. and they have to have an interim senator appointed the official position of this show is go with experience and go with barney frank

>> it was big of you to take yourself out of the mix.

>> i decided to go with more experience.

>> you know, it has been fascinated. my sense of the situation is that he was looking to appoint somebody out of the box. and bar knee frank i think picked up on that. he has created a situation here if patrick does not give it to bar knee frank the question is going to be that he has tremendous liberal based support. i'm not sure how much experience the government has with dealing with that demand for somebody.

>> i'm not sure how this is playing with pa track. it is the psychology of one guy and who can get in his head.

>> steve, thank you for joining me tonight. coming up. the military will open up comback positions. and in the rewrite tonight why the testimony john kerry gave today and every time he appears before the committee as secretary of state will never be as important as the first time he testified to that committee 42 years ago as a war protester. with depression, simple pleasures

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