whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement. >> that speech was a clear rebuke of republicans especially the tea party, and music to the ears of democrats who too often find their president too timid. >> their philosophy is simple, we are better off when everybody's left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules. i am here to say, they are wrong. >> our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin is here to up his game today. clearly framing the campaign. why today? >> reporter: that's right, he is framing the campaign. and it's because essentially it's heating up now, and he has to get in -- he has to get in campaign gear before the frame is set for him, john. the republicans that you know are on the campaign trail every day trying to make this a referendum on the president's leadership on the economy. they think they'll win if it's a referendum on how the economy is now and the president's current job performance. if the president can turn this, the thinking goes here and on the campaign, into a debate about where the country's headed on contrasting visions of the nation's economic future, the obama team thinks that that's their sweet spot and that's where they can win. so the president today was trying to lay out his vision in this argument that the president can take the country in a better place if given another four years. you'll see this extend out once there's a republican opponent with the vision he was suggesting here that the republicans, he's saying, stand for a future where the middle class does not have as much opportunity as much window for equality, et cetera. >> jessica yellin, live at the white house. the question democrats have, will the president extend it out? sometimes they plants a plflag d doesn't come out to it. four new polls, four, confirm a chakinging of the gar. newt gingrich is your front-runner, double dibgits, ad in iowa, south carolina, first and third stops in the republican nominating calendar. count mitt romney among those taking notice and hoping if the race drags on supports from conservatives like the former vice president, dan quayle in later states like arizona, might make the difference. >> 80% of the american people say the country is headed in the wrong direction. america around the world over the last several years has lost respect and credibility. my friends, washington is a mess and we need to send mitt romney to washington to fix the mess out there. >> our chief political analyst gloria borger is here. you have gingrich back to the future candidate, quayle is back-to-the future endorsement as well. no reason to call mitt romney the front-runner anymore when you look through all of the polling. four weeks from tonight, iowa reshuffles the race. where do we stand today? >> i think today newt gingrich looks like the front-runner. i keep wondering if mitt romney is criticizing newt gingrich as being the career politician in this race, which is what he's doing, why is he standing next to dan quayle getting an endorsement from a career establishment politician? and that's what a lot of conservatives feel is wrong with mitt romney, he's lining up folks in the establishment, that he is not truly fighting for this nomination that what he's been doing is waiting for the other folks to destroy each other and then presume that he will emerge victorious, and one thing voters don't like is when you tell them you know what? i'm standing in the wings and in the end you're going to decide you really like me. they tend to make up their own minds. >> playing it safe, you might call that, in short. we'll see if it works for mitt romney. important overseas news, a white-knuckle drama for the pentagon. sensitive stealth and u.s. military technology from a specialized drone is in iranian hands and perhaps, perhaps, soon to be shared with russia and/or china. chris lawrence is at the pentagon. the drone, whether shot down or whether it failed and crashed, the pentagon now believes it is in the hands of iran. what next? what might they have done to try to either get it back or destroy it? >> reporter: john, u.s. officials telling us this was a cia mission, looking for bad guys along the border. and he says they did have satellite surveillance of the drone when it went down and immediately they considered all options, everything from sending a ground team in to try to get it back over the border or bombing the wreckage from the air, as they have done many times when drones have done down in the mountains of pakistan or afghanistan. all of the options are rule out as impractical to do actually in iranian land. >> so if they have this drone relatively intact, it has among the latest u.s. technology what can iran do with it, perhaps more importantly, how likely is it iran would share it with china or someone else? >> reporter: officials tell me highly likely. iran can't do all much with it by itself. countries like china are much further along in that technology. and they say why would iran bother? they can give it to china, let china unlock its secrets, everything from its code, paint, so to speak, its radar that makes it seem something other than what it is. let china unlock all 0 the secrets, reverse engineer it, sell it back to iran fully completed. >> major intelligence lost to the united states. chris, thank you. in afghanistan, today dramatic images from two bomb attacks targeting worshippers observing a shiite holiday. live in kabul with the latest on the death toll. nick, the scale here is what is so rare. there are bombings all too frequently but the scale of this one, the depth of the death toll what do we know about it? >> reporter: what it is remarkable. we haven't seen mass casualty like this in kabul or afghanistan for a number of years now, the insurgency focusing certainly in kabul here on sustained attacks against precise targets so show their sophistication and reach. this obviously terrifying many because of it it's targeting the shia faith here as well. something stemming from iraq or a neighboring pack stage. afghan officials to blame the taliban and they're affiliates for this but accepting the body of the bomber which is damaged has slowed investigations, john. >> in terms of the claim of responsibility, what do you know about the specific group in pakistan that says it's responsible? >> reporter: this is a phone call made to a radio station in pakistan by a fringe group over an offshoot of a group who we have heard of before, a claim not validated. we've been talking about a minor operation here, managing to penetrate the secure heart of the capital of a neighboring country. if they did this they would have needed some assistance, many would argue. if it was them or the haqqani network or another part of the taliban, there will be people pointing to pakistan, its military and intelligence services as being people who fundamentally facilitated that. something of course pakistan would deny. >> nick, thanks very much. a speech by president obama democrats are cheering as finally 345many say an economic battle cry for the 2012 campaign. >> we simply cannot return to this brand of you're on your own economics if we're serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. we they that it done result in a strong economy. it results in an economy that invests too little in its people and in its future. >> let's tack a closer look at that have, have not gap. the president is talking about, if you go back in time and look the income graph, going back to 1980, bottom 20% of americans, that's the dark red. middle is this deeper red. the green, the top 1% is the bright green. watch how this plays back out through the '80 and 90s. there's the top 1%. look at this, you see the bottom 20 percent here, a spike here, then you have the recession. watch recent years. this is what the president's talking. the upper 1% here, way up here in terms of their income gains and losses, the bottom 1% down here. how does that play out over time? this is what it has done to the united states of america in terms of the distribution of wealth from 1980 to 2007 bottom 90% has half of the wealth in the bottom 90. look at this from the last few year. you see the top 1%, green, look what has happened in the last four or five years, bottom 90%, its portion of its hold on america's wealth shrinking dramatically. ron brownstein is with me and on capitol hill, one of the democrats happy to see the president more aggressive in the debate and the economy over the role of government, donna edwards of maryland. the president planted an morn flag, a flag many democrats have been waiting for him to plant aggressively. it is important because since the tea party rise, since the republicans took back the chamber you serve in, the president, at "times," has shied away from saying the government must be important, the government must have a role here. you welcome him to this debate. why do you think it took so long to get him there? >> i don't know about that. what i do know is the president has what drew me to his candidacy in 2008 was striking this cord that says we have to work hard a higher order to look out for what's good for all americans and i think today we heard that articulated in a way that has taken time to come together but i know that i received it really well. >> she received it really well. am i wrong in that the -- right after the election a lot of democrats, the president had a priority on spending reduction, here he's not saying those things are important but he planted a flag and said you're wrong. when it comes to taxes, you're wrong. when the government cannot be a an instrument to change this gap, between rich and poor, you're wrong. >> a case about the economy, the activist base in the democratic party wanted president obama and president lin clinton. the closest thing we've heard to arguments emerge in the democratic base about what the meaning of the past four decades have been since we started to experience a slowdown in the living experience for americans. back to roosevelt's speech, he was talking in he affirmed an important role for government creating a fair economy. it was different, though. roosevelt's speech had a big component in which he talked about national unity critical to solving our problems. much more secondary today. >> you make that. i want to read something else you wrote in your column. as president, roosevelt chafed against but largely deferred to the intensely partisan politics of his era. out of office he started to think and then write and speak more exiplicitly about the uniqe role the president could play in bringing the flation together. the first sentence true about president obama he hoped washington would be different. but as president, couldn't you insert obama, chafed against but largely deferred to the intensely part pan politics of his era? >> i would say the president came into an environment in which we face really tremendous economic challenges and so he had to balance against what he wanted to achieve as a vision for us as a united america with the real live situation of having to rescue us financially and fiscally over this last couple of years. in addition to trying to play out that vision. i think part of what excited me today about hearing the president was also a message about what kind of economy we could grow that could work for all americans, one based on research and development and innovation and technology and all of the things we know will be a hallmark of the 21st century economy we have to build on as americans to retain our status in the world and that we close those income gaps so that each of us as members of congress know that across our communities you don't have to go very far to know that that income gap isn't just a pie chart or a bar graph. it's reality for so many americans. >> it is reality for so many americans. can the president convince the american people his way is the right way to deal with it. let's listen to more from the president. >> i believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot. when everyone does their fair share. when everyone plays by the same rules. these aren't democratic values or republican values. these aren't 1% values or 99% values. they're american values. we have to reclaim them. >> to reclaim them, he says the government has to be an instrument of doing that. he is going to make the case if he stays consistent to this in an election that will be two years after the american people said something very different. >> absolutely. >> what do they believe has shifted that put him on solid ground to make that case, or is it a gamble. it is a gamble. it's the essential argument the democrats have faced for decades when you get to the specifics of individual government programs, by and large, they are popular. the public accepts many things that the government does. the question of the size and role of government, most americans usually but especially now say it's too big, too intrusive. the broader the argument, the betters it for republicans, narrow and specific the better for democrats. the white house belief is prospective the argument, the better off they are. hard to win a retrospective judgment where we are after three years unless one month improvement in unemployment is the beginning of a sustained trend. >> thank you for joining us. if you didn't see the president's speech, find the transcript of it or the video online, whether a democrat, republican, in the middle. it's an important speech by the president. you'll hear a lot of the themes in the months ahead. he is a voracious reader. the truth is found in books we bet newt gingrich doesn't quite like. why it's time to call the former speaker front run somewhere why for him that isn't necessarily a good thing. ♪ what are you looking at? 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will he fumble it or will somebody strip it way. >> we've seen he's hlazarus now we have to see -- the old newt would fly too close to the sun. this newt is demonstrating a great maturity, that he's learned from his mistakes and he's grown a lot. he earned this ascendancy, it's not a hollow ascendancy, it's not flavor of the month. look deeper into the polls it's not just the top line. voters believe that he can lead on the number one issue better than any other candidate in the race, which is economics. and gloria said something very insightful at the top of the show which is primary voters, in particular, wanted somebody who can fight. so every time all of these negative attacks ostensibly negative attacks show newt gingrich fighting it's reinforcing to themes a positive. they want a fight who are can take the message to the president and he's embodying that and his baggage is -- seems not to be holding him back. >> and that's an interesting question because us his rivals are takiing sharp aim. listen to congresswoman michele bachmann who needs to do well in iowa and is trying to find a way to convince voters there to peel off gingrich. >> his offices are located on the rodeo drive of washington, d.c., which is k street, and that's what he's been doing for years is being ainfluence peddler and he's the consummate inside. >> you might think congressman, davis in this tea party grassroots driven, that those attacks would stick and yet as mary notes, so far, so far, people aren't peeling off gingrich. >> i don't think so. i don't think they're going to in this case. this is baked into the cake. people know about newt gingrich, the ethics violations, the marriages, and as the left and the president continue to attack him, this solidifies him with conservative base. >> issues with independent voters in the past. that could be the challenge down the road. listen to governor huntsman, he's not playing in iowa and he's trying to lump gingrich and romney together in a bad way. listen here. >> i'm running against a conservative flip-flopper, i'm running against a grandiose conservative and people are coming around to the reality that, i'm a consistent conservative. >> if you are advising a republican on how to get at gingrich, is that it? >> every time i hear governor huntsman whos a fine man, but remember he started his campaign saying i'm not going to run a traditional campaign, i'm not going to attack my opponents these are mosquitoes on an elephant's butt, i'm telling you, john, you've seen this before. this is a message campaign. it is not a messenger campaign. you can rip up the messenger any which way and the obama people telegraphed they're going to do that no matter who's the nominee, the message, among indep