a caucus that s, if not in disarray, there s a lot of people are unsure, i think, as to what they want to do with the jobs act and sort of where the president is and how need to play themselves against him. what s interesting, right, is if you go there s a really good piece in the new york magazine about eric cantor and one of the points he makes in that is talks about cantor being the mastermind being republican unity in opposition to the recovery act. this was eight days after the president was elected with the huge electoral majority. it was sort of shocking. in some ways the lesson you learn from that is unity confers its own advantages, right? that if the democrats would unify around this bill that produces sort of increasing gains, politically, which they seem incapable of actually understanding. yeah, but i think that s a testament to the weakened power of the president right now. there s some sense there s blood in the water and that going against the president or at
and has she has some of the characteristics herman cain may be suffering from that they want to be the smartest person in the room and sometimes don t want to listen to people who maybe have a broader and more experienced background that she could benefit from. i hope herman cain is going to listen to smart people. i mean, there are certainly advisers out there that just want a paycheck. there are people out there you can bring to your campaign that can make you a smarter and better candidate. some of these political candidates haven t learned to let go of some of the controls and look to people who can add value that s needed in a presidential politics. that was a very polite way of answering my question. anybody who can t listen to smarter people in the room who always has to prove they re the smartest person in the room by definition should not be president. that s msnbc contributor jonathan alter and ron carey, former chief of staff to michele bachmann. thank you both for joi
and i think given that, there are some question marks around the president s strategy to single out eric cantor by name. this is after all the commander in chief, this is the president of the united states. talking about someone who half the country has never heard of as being the sort of the log in the middle of the road preventing a huge sort of signature piece of legislation from passing. and i think, you know, obviously this is the white house on the offense. we ve seen a very sharp pivot in the last few weeks. they obviously feel like they are ready to name names and kick butt. here s what i think is interesting. you know, the republicans did the same thing with nancy pelosi who i think in the beginning a lot of americans had never heard of either. americans are not like super, super up on who is necessarily running things in congress. right. and they manage to a increase pelosi s name recognition by a tremendous amount and destroy her approval rating. by the time the midt
along with the pass this bill refrain, the president did something different today in texas. he didn t just talk about republican opposition to his jobs plan in vague terms, his opponent wasn t just a sea of faceless republican lawmakers on the other side of the aisle. he gave the gop opposition a face and a name. yesterday the republican majority leader in congress, eric cantor, said that right now he won t even let this jobs bill have a vote in the house of representatives. this is what he said. i d like mr. cantor to come down here to dallas and explain what exactly in this jobs bill does he not believe in? what exactly what exactly is he opposed to? at least put this jobs bill up for a vote so that the entire country knows exactly where members of congress stand. president obama no doubt focused his remarks on cantor
on jobs. the american people have gone with it far too long. people trying to work together despite our agreements. there s a report tonight from the associated press that democrats want to swap out some of the way president obama proposed to pay for his jobs bill for 5% tax surcharge on millionaires. senate majority leader harry reid predicted don t when the bill comes to the floor almost all democrats will get behind it. joining me, political analyst, alex wagner. am i wrong eric cantor is a very unappealing politician? is that a loaded question? to each his own i would say. eric cantor, a lot of americans don t know who eric cantor is. let me ground this in some data. a cnn poll in july shows 46% of americans have never even heard of him. right.