mate. if it was someone who was liberal on abortion, they would say wait, romney isn t and that it doesn t really matter. it will be the same no matter what. frankly, i think that the whole idea that somehow being, you know, pro-abortion or pro-life or whatever is like the thing, there are plenty of women who are socially conservative, who don t favor abortion rights. it s beyond just the choice issue, too. we re not talking about personhood amendments, we re talking about stuff happening at the state level which is far more i think extreme if we re characterizing this as far as women s rights and women s health care than legislation has been in quite some time, and the fact that so far, from the romney/ryan ticket we re not seeing any sort of sense that they re concerned about that. i actually agree with nick on this in that a lot of conservative women are going to go bananas for paul ryan. they appreciate somebody who is so solidly pro-life and there are a number is this ab
jason, talk to us a little about how fernstrom, who sounds a little wild, fits into the broader picture that we have, this broader narrative that mitt romney s team is staffed by sort of buttoned-up suit wearing data driven private sector bain employees. i think that he fits in the role in that he s not that way. i think that romney appreciates fernstrom sort of attack dog mode. i think that as a journalist in boston pointed out, in many ways, romney is very much in the corporate world when he was in bain, he was sort of an attack dog, you know, bottom line kind of guy. i think that s where he and fernstrom sort of make that connection, that fernstrom is often his own often romney s voice and i think romney approves whatever fernstrom says and does and they kind of have each other s back in that kind of way. christina, we talked earlier in the program about maybe a lack of discipline or strategy in tackling some of the bigger,
that s joe biden laying the smack down on a sort of indirect smack down on mitt romney, challenging i think we talked about the core thing with mitt romney and we knew the obama campaign would use that as a serious messaging point, that mitt romney has no core. once again you see joe biden referring to obama s ramrod position on things. at a time when again, we are questioning just what mitt romney stands for. absolutely. i think that that s the clear sort of strategic reason you can see that ryan was chosen. we know what he stands for. that is going to be an issue, and how it plays i think is unclear yet. i think ryan solves to a certain extent the conservative problem but he doesn t solve the middle class problem and i think that that is still going to be a key issue in this election, the economy and how it affects the middle class. i want to read a quote from mark mckinnon, gop strategist extraordinaire, talking about the choice of paul ryan. he says i think it s a very bo
incendiary topics in mitt romney s history and fernstrom himself seems to be a sort of incendiary, fiery, maybe undisciplined kind of strategist. i want to read one piece from a bit from your story that stuck out. it says one incident still stands out. fernstrom had been on an overseas calling with an advisor when the call abruptly dropped. he pulled out the phone from the wall and knocked down his computer at the same time. fernstrom marched out of his office with phone in his hand like a dead limb. he went to where jillson sat and quote, threw it at my wastepaper basket. this is an expletive piece of expletive. she remembered fernstrom yelling at her get rid of it, do something about this. when they inspected the phone they realized it wasn t broken, fernstrom had inadvertently pressed the do not disturb button. that kind of temper and anger, how do you think, you talk about it s present at every level of this campaign, granular and beyond. how is that reflected, sometimes
ideas. it means romney/ryan can run on principles and provide some real direction and vision for the republican party. and probably lose. now, this goes back to what we were talking about, consternation, although i believe that s more than consternation. that s just pure pessimism. and a really interesting analysis in politico yesterday, saying many observers believe romney must make the ryan selection less about specific policy arguments and more of a general statement about his own values, about his own seriousness, self-confidence and willingness to embrace political risk to solve big problems. not about political sort of machinery of politics but about the chemistry of a candidate. but this is a presidential campaign. the democrats are already playing really dirty. you are giving them so much material. there are so many ryan budgets. there s not just one. there s three or four. they re all in black and white and that was fine when the republicans were in the minority and he s jus