and for giving people the freedom to choose. so i think that it will continue to be something that a lot of republicans will evolve on. but, again, i think it still is very, very sometimes devicive issue inside our party. it will be interesting to see whether or not that spills into any electoral battles. l.z.? i agree a lot with what kevin had to say. look, 2014, my man liked it. he put a ring on it. i m looking to get married myself in 2014. i think it s going to be a very, very good year. at least for me, anyway. in terms of that conversation. politically speaking, we shouldn t assume it s an easy kmpgs for democrats either. i live in chicago. same-sex marriage wasn t easy to pass here with a full democratic governor as well as both houses here in the state. so a set of devicive issues that s tied to duck dynasty, aparentally.
messy washington pool ticks. this is one of those issues that the right to flank wants to fight on. some republicans say it s time to end the program all together. they argue it s too expensive. a year s extension cost $25 billion. people have gotten dependent and they say the economy is strong enough now without them. when you extend benefits to, you know, 73 weeks or 99 weeks, it encourages some people to stay unemployed too long and that makings it increasingly hard nor them to get back into the work force. democrats say benefit checks get spent right away, spending that s necessary to boost the economic recovery. removing this bare minimum safety net, beyond just being cruel, is no going to be productive in termsover getting them back in the labor force or
here s how it works. the basic question is what happens in 2014. and we named the person or the issue in our political panel answers those questions. so, kevin, i m going to start with you this time. in 2014, what happens to senator corey booker. well, he ll probably gain about another million twitter followers because he seems to really enjoy making sure that everybody using digital media to really communicate with his constituents and with the media. but i think he ll be seen as somebody that democrats look more and more to as somebody to sort of articulate the national arguments that they re making against republicans. that s always a difficult thing to do because, you know, you don t want to lose you don t want to have too much distance between you and the people in new jersey. it will be interesting to see how he handles. he s probably tweeting us right now. that would be fantastic. now, let s talk immigration reform.
jersey governor, what do you think? he s going to have a great year. he s coming in with a lot of sting. he s got work to do in terms of the working class republicans. and tea partiers trusting him. he s going to have as much steam, if not more so, as hillary clinton. and i expect 2014, at least in terms of coverage, to be really, really big for him. and he s making a lo of calls to washington. that s another for sure. now, in 2014, what happens to same-sex marriage. kevin, you first? well, you know, i think it s interesting. inside a republican party, there s a pretty vivid debate about this issue. and i think more and more conservatives are actually finding that there s a conservative argument for same-sex marriage.
how does romney fair with that answer? that is one place where i m not assessing a little damage to him. he thinks he will be strong in michigan. he is a favorite son. not only factually wrong, but politically tone deaf. between those two things, he may have hurt himself there and, look, you know, of course, the uaw is going to be their scapegoat, but they did take a hair cut. they are reducing jobs and reducing benefits and they played along and they compromised and so i think it was a really stupid answer. i also heard the trade, the nod to trade agreements and that was interesting. but, again, they don t have the fundamental idea about how this works. michael eric dyson, how about as we move forward in the conversation as far as jobs in this country, michele bachmann was saying that the republicans have a great story to tell. let s look at this.