Page 158 - Policy Issues News Today

>> thanks, you guys. appreciate it. in todays office politics, former new york city mayor david dinkins discusses his long-term relationship with the clip tons. first i ask what he thinks motivates people to come out against president obama. >> i think some degree of it has to be race. sad to say. but its a fact. see, in my day we never envisioned there would be a black mayor of new york city, much less president of the country. and there are some who still cant stomach it, it seems, because b...

Education, on womens rights, on values on social issues broadly. they like democrats better on the deficit. they like democrats better on the economy, on small business, on immigration, on helping the middle class, on all of it, on every single thing they were asked about. the only two categories where latinos in swing states pick republicans over democrats is when theyre asked who is more anti-immigrant and who cares more about helping rich people. republicans win on those two questions, being ...

Issues they were asked about. they like democrats better on education, on womens rights, on values on social issues broadly. they like democrats better on the deficit. they like democrats better on the economy, on small business, on immigration, on helping the middle class, on all of it, on every single thing they were asked about. the only two categories where latinos in swing states pick republicans over democrats is when theyre asked who is more anti-immigrant and who cares more about helping...

And if you were asking questions, where would you focus? >> the way i would do it would be to ask very specific questions. i would not give secretary clinton a chance to filibuster about broad policy issues and skate past her personal responsibility. so there are three phases to this: what happened before september 11, what happened on the day of the attack, and what happened later with the mohammed video story. so, for example, before the attack, i would ask were you aware of the request for en...

You said that he has to play defense against some of the paralysis that were seeing in government. i think hes going to have a very optimistic speech. hes going to talk about, to use the word that everybody overuses, moving forward. >> what do you want to hear tomorrow? >> what i would like to hear. >> yeah, what do you want to hear, and what do you think we will hear? >> i think -- ill start with what i think we will hear which is a sort of vague and airy discussion of division in the country, ...

Supporting a comprehensive background checks. you even look at national registration to track gun sales, thats at 65%, 68%, thats never been above 50%. high-capacity magazines also, thats now a 70/30 issue. it seems the more that the nra speaks out after the slaughter of these 20 first graders, the worst they make it for their side. and, of course, their approval ratings upsidedown if you look at the latest abc news/washington post poll. things are moving very quickly on the ground, and, in fact...

Would say that these are policy issues that they cant bridge the gap on in terms of how much they raise tax rates on those income above 250 or 400 of a million and thats those are really big, substantial gaps. and republicans want more on entitlement reform, particularly on medicare. this is sort of the red line that each side has drawn the. and the overall number is really close. those policies difference res still key and they cant get past them right now. >> and, chris, ill turn to you. obvio...

Research in this area shows that you have right up in the shooting you have a spike of discussions of gun control. this was true after the assassination attempt of congresswoman giffords and after aurora, then in the following weeks, the discussion of the policy fades. and one of the political scientists involved in this calls it, of course, the issue attention cycle, and i want to read one of these remarks for you to think about. he talks about the medias intense interest in and subsequent bore...

>> completely true. >> i would expect to see a two-pronged approach. more on school safety and more tightening on mental health kinds of policy issues. >> we talk about the power of the nra and i think its worth kind of revisiting the history of this. theres three legislative victories. 1968, a ban on mail-order guns. the brady bill. they got the assault weapons ban. there are two things to note about the legislative victim achieved when democrats had unified control of the government. white hou...

Hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. that they belong on the battlefield of war. i believe the majority of gun owners would believe that we should do everything possible. that a mentally unbalanced individual should not be able to get his hands on a gun so easily. so those are some of the policy issues, i think, that are behind those words that he made today. and, again, we expect those words to be flushed out in the coming days and weeks. i can tell you that this debate has already...