costume, very festive. the question today, is this any way to treat an angry electorate, announce no new changes then leave town the same day pelosi says she's staying. what's the message here? that the message of the voter lies in the in box at the white house? you had the g-20 meeting, but that was tomorrow. why did he leave a full week ahead of the peting? meeting. and extending tax cuts for the rich. how does the president deal with those cross winds. plus, tea partiers are piping hot to knock off the next crop of republican senators up for re-election in 2012. can olympia snowe or or inhatch avoid the fates of some of their republican colleagues? also, the majority of those surveyed for the military say gay service members can serve openly without significant risk on the battlefield and robert gates said he would like to see the repeal by year's end. there's one big obstacle. the republican party. as our country needs to take control properly of our borders. is that asking too much? let's start with president obama over there. mark pence, howard fineman. we talk a lot about optics. about what seems to be the way people convey. they're tired of listen to the president's words, but how he acts to the voters last tuesday is important to the voters. they don't like the fact he left town. your thoughts, mark. >> i think it's perfectly typical after a midterms, for the president to focus on international travel and agenda because he's had to push that off while he worked on the m midter midterms. i think it's a good thing to take the trip. the real question, how is he really going to answer what the voters said on election day? he hasn't given them a clear answer yet. it took bill clinton months to form late that answer. maybe today with the tax cut discussion, maybe we're going to see a real answer. >> there was a great comment by one of those republicans that were in office after the civil war, isn't there something we should look like we're doing? aren't there things that presidents should appear to be doing? shaking up the cabinet, the white house, doing things that show, i got it. you're upset about the economy. i'm going to try to upgrade my effort. i'm going to enhance the effort. >> well, i spent a good bit of time at the white house yesterday and i got the sense that they're operating on their own schedule. i think they've always operated that way. that's how they ran the presidential campaign. they have a certain ability about them. they're going to stick with their schedule. this was a only chance the president would have to make a trip like this before things heated up in the next congress and he was going to do it. meanwhile around the white house, they're taking the carpets out, redoing stuff. >> oh, that will make us feel better. >> but i don't sense among the people left behind that they're thinking of changes things in any dramatic way. >> that's my point. you're a political expert. you're a political expert. it seems elections accomplish goals. the message of the voters this time was we want change. is he going to gif it to them? >> if he agrees to extend the tax cuts for everybody, that will be a real sign hes going to change, but don't be fooled by what people are thinking or doing in the white house today. when president clinton made changes, the white house didn't know about it until he was well along in those changes. >> he pushed people like the brains that got him in there. carville, stephanopoulos. did he hit the panic button? >> the real event here is going to be what's going to happen between now and the state of the union, the tax cuts. the president's going to spend the holidays thinking, how is he going to respond. they looked at a truck that has been aiming towards the democrats since is scott brown election. it hit and now, they have to swerve. i can't believe they don't know that. >> they have to respond in an active way. it seems to me that every government that gets rocked like this doesn't change. the voters, i don't know how many times i have to say this tonight, the voters are angry. they want to see you get it. >> i think that's right. i can just report to you what the sense i have of them. i agree with what mark's saying. they're going to take their time. see what cards the republicans are going to lay on the table and they're in a defensive posture, where they're going to exceed ground on various points until they figure out what to do. frankly, think they haven't figured out what the response is going to be yet, but i do not sense and mark may be rig, things are going on on the plane in asia that we don't know about, that they're going to make wholesale changes. >> no chief of staff coming. no heavy weight. >> we don't no. >> they're already looking. some of the top people are going to leave in the early spring. i get the sense that they're eager to get back to chicago, some of these people, to begin thinking about how to run a campaign again. >> in other words, they'd rather not be the incumbent. >> yes. >> they don't get that deal, they're running. let's take a look at the report today. quote -- i read in that what you read. that the white house is saying if we've got to get tax cuts for the rich to get them to the regular people, we'll do it. >> i think that david axelrod, with whom we had a 90-minute interview with yesterday afternoon, was thinking down the road. what a lot of people in town think is obvious. that because of the political situation in the lame duck congress and the procedural situation, the white house doesn't want to take the risk of trying to veto a bill that has tax cuts for the rich. >> let's look at david letterman. you'd say he is in a sense of substance, he is looking at a tax cut for everybody. >> no change. that's not a plan -- >> impact of suggesting moving to the middle. >> here he is. >> president obama's in india right now. over there visiting our jobs. thank you. >> mark penn, i think about states like pennsylvania, ohio, indiana, illinois, wisconsin and all bid back at the president last tuesday. i keep asking myself, don't you think the working guy is not really a chuckle? they think their jobs are going overseas. >> that's the single toughest job for the president in the next two years. the devastation of democrats in the midwest and south is where this election's going to be. that's going to be about jobs and how you use trade policy in the right way to create jobs and if you can't make that case, he cannot get re-elected. >> it is try, chris, going abroad at this time isn't helping reverse that image, is that he just doesn't understand the urgency of the situation of people who lost their jobs, who's houses are getting -- he's giving a speech about how we have to understand the rest of the world. it plays into that perception that influenced a lot of independent voters. the polls show a lot of people thought he didn't have the sense of urgency he wanted them to have. we watch pat buchanan and think he's a bit of a zealot when he comes out against trade. where are the voters on that? with pat? >> in both directions. they want to make sure america's is not taken advantage of, but realize america has to be a piece of it. notice the president took trade policy and pushed it until after the midterms. he thought this would be a more hospitable time to talk trade. that means opening market it is right way. >> they sort of paced at the jobs label on this trip once they realized the poor timing of it. suddenly, it became a trip about jobs, which if they had a ton of jobs to bring back, a long, long list of them. >> looks like they're changing policy on taxes. a big tax cut for everybody that will look like a move to the center. you say that's a positive sign of change, still open to question about whether they're going to change the administration itself. you said it took how many months? >> a few. >> state of the union. we've learned a lot today. coming up, reigning in the national debt. preliminary recommendations from the president's deficit commission and the pressure groups on both sides are trying to punture it. we're going to talk to kent conrad. 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>> these groups once again have revealed what they care about, themselves. they don't apparently care about the country because we are spending much more than we can afford. we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that we spend. clearly, that can't continue much longer and yet their answer is do nothing. that cannot be the answer. what the two chairmen have said, we've got the get the debt and deficits under control. we have the reduce the projected shortfall and they have proposed a comprehensive program to do it. well, they deserve our support. we can argue about the specificics. hopefully, we'll have a chance to improve the package, but we need this to get the country back on track. >> i hear there are 90-year-old people out there complaining about this requirement that you don't get social security at 69 in 2050. this is not an extreme proposal. ill point to the fact that this extends the coverage of the payroll tax. you're going pay more taxes if you make more money. it seems getting rid of the capital gains pref rans, that's going to drive people crazy. does it help if it's balanced? >> i think it helps if it's balanced. spending is the highest it is been in 60 years a as share of our economy. revenue is a lowest it's been in 60 years a as share of our economy, so you've got to work both sides of the equation. what the two chairmen came out with was a proposal to do away with one option. one was do away with all the tax expenditures. that will raise over a trillion dollars. over the next ten years. >> those are what we call -- >> yeah. they dedicate 90% of that the lowering income tax rates. in change for doing away with all the tax preferences, loopholes that's in the system. i would prefer not to go that far. i would prefer to retain some of the mortgage deductions, some of the child care credit, but do need thorough tax reform and to reduce or deficit. they have combined it with major spending cuts. 75% of this plan is spending cuts. 25% is revenue. and yet, we see some of these groups howling, well, you can't raise any new revenue. apparently, he doesn't care about the country, just a narrow group that finances his efforts. the left has the same problem. they are so focused just on themselves that they forget about our country and our country requires us to be bold and brave and to get something done. >> they're paid by their people. the people watching now, is this going to be like the base closing commission report when it comes out if they get the 14 votes, if that goes to the president's desk, has he committed to backing this effort? >> no, he's not. that's understandable. he's got to see the product first. this is just the beginning. this is the proposal of the two chairmen. bipartisan. but the commission itself has now got to render a judgment. if we can get 14 of 18 members to agree, it advances. >> do you think happen in the next congress or this congress? >> it's hard for me to see how it would happen in this congress, although that was the plan that senator gregg and i proposed when we proposed this commission some three years ago but we had one that was enforced by law. we didn't get a super majority vote in the senate for that, so the president did the next best thing. he put in place by executive order which means we don't have an assurance of the vote. we have the prospect of getting one, but not the assurance. >> their last good act for the country and leave. thank you. we're joined now by politico's assistant managing editor, jean cummings. you've been covering this for a while. do you think there's any chance this country can get serious about reducing its debt? it's up to 14 trillion. it's really going to be all we do is raise money from the taxpayer to pay interest payments. just to transfer a payment from hard working people to t bondholders in china. your thoughts. >> well, i tell you, chris, this might be, it's possible that there is an opportunity here. frankly, the odds are that this will collapse. one of the key messages out of this election is a great deal of concern about the size of government spending and deficit, so you have these tea party candidates or these very conservative candidates coming to washington who embrace those concerns and who are under a whole lot of pressure to demonstrate that they're going to do something about it. on the other hand, you have a group of, a large group of democrats in the senate who are going to be up for election in two years who have just seen what happened to their colleagues. especially on this issue. so, i think there's an incentive for democrat and the president to put deficit reduction credentials on their resumes as well. it's possible we could see some deals smaller than that package that are worked out so that both sides can say they did do something. >> let's take a look at the tax issue. here's the president. last week, the day after the midterms. last wednesday, eight days ago talking about what he might do on the tax cut. >> my goal is to make sure that we don't have a huge spike in taxes for middle class families. my goal is to sit down with speaker elect boehner and mitch mcconnell and harry and nancy sometime in the next few weeks and see where we can move forward in a way that first of all does no harm. that extends those tax cuts that are very important for middle class families and how that negotiation works itself out, i think it's too early to say. >> seemed to be a key point he was making there, do no harm. the goal to make sure is middle class don't get a higher tax rate january. that's the way i read it. then howard fineman has been reporting today that they're going forward with axelrod's comments that suggests they're willing to talk about a continuation for everybody's tax cuts. >> that's the signal that the president and axelrod delivered over the last few days. i think axelrod was more explicit than the president. you and i both know this is reality politics. what can they really get through in the senate when you have moderate to conservative democrats who are saying that they are not prepared to increase taxes on the wealthy during this economy. the votes aren't there. >> the worst thing that could happen, want to try this last question. the worst thing is that the democratic-led congress this fall doesn't pass the tax cut. the people face higher taxes next january. in come the republican dominated house and more republicans in the senate like the cavalry c e coming to save the taxpayer. they cut taxes for everybody and the president is forced to sign it. the republicans are the big heroes. the democrats look like the bad guys. your thoughts. >> i agree with you completely. in that scenario, president obama breaks one of his biggest campaign pledges and that's not to increase taxes on any families making 250,000 or under. >> up next, what does christine o'donnell think of bill maher after he released those clips of her? 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