the big tax deal is just hit the 60-vote threshold. the magic number to hit a fill bester and head toward victory. can the democrats and republicans in that body deliver the 218 votes needed for that big package of cuts and income taxes, payroll taxes added to a 13-month extension of jobless benefits? part of that story is that show stopping appearance of president obama with bill clinton. in the presidential briefing room. how much bang will the scene of the big two have on fellow democrats? this is the most vital political alliance in the country and certainly rules the democratic party. will it keep the democrats together in this debate? plus, a shot across the bough of the health care bill. a federal district judge in virginia ruled that a key part of the bill, the part where we all buy insurance, is unconstitutional. if republicans get their way, it's certainly the beginning of the end and with the republican right and democratic left making all the noise these days, what is the political middle have to say? could there be a movement there as well? midpoint between the tea party and the most activists progressives? we'll ask two center leaning republicans who were elbowed aside. and finally, some guy at yale has come up with the top five political quotes of the year. they're all pretty bad. we start with the tax bill. senator michael bennet is a democratic from colorado. you've just been voted in. tell me about this vote today. it looks like you've got to 60 votes to be filibustered to get cloture. looks like your going to get the vote. what put it together? >> thanks for having me back. i was home this weekend, shopping with one of my girls. we went to macy's. there was a democratic senior who runs a club there and said, how you going to vote. i said for it. she said, i don't like these tax breaks. i said, if we don't pass this, 2 million coloradoians taxes are going up. i think people went home and heard that people reacted to that and said, you know what, that doesn't sound like a bad deal. >> i am actually amazed by this number. the new "washington post" abc poll finds that 69% of americans support the deal. here's the interesting thing among the parties. 68% of democrats, basically the national average, 68% of independe independents with a little support from republicans. everybody knows republicans got a little bit better in this deal, but not that big a difference here. >> obviously, hadn't seen the cross tabs on the poll, but i bet there are two things animating on that. one is, doesn't make any sense to us. >> you mean go up. go down. >> we don't think it makes sense for taxes to go up for everybody. also, i think people are happy to see there's an instant in time in this county when people are willing to work together, which is what i heard for 22 months on the campaign trail. republican crowds, democratic crowds and inbetween, they're sick and tired of everybody screaming at each other. >> what do you make of the noise level? it does seem that the people at the points, at the poll, left and right starting with the party, but you have senator moynihan's theory. we know that happens, but it seems like the middle does get blanked out of the discussion. >> i think that's true. and i think what has to happen is that we've got to elevate the policy discussion here. look, this is one vote. an important vote, but it's one vote. what we really need to be doing is casti ining our eyes forward the way of comprehensive tax reform, a compelling story for the american people and our trading partners around the world. i think if we do that hard work, what we're going to find is that the people polarizing on either side are going to have to come to grips with the stubborn facts that we're going to have to deal with and that's what the people in my town halls told me over and over again. >> i've got to get to this last point. it just broke that the federal judge in virginia, the lowest federal bench. has decreed that the individual mandate, the requirement that everyone buy health insurance, is unconstitutional, according to to him. what do you think of -- that made the bill famous? >> we think it's constitutional. everything that my guys have looked at suggested it is. this basically turns on whether or not the federal government has within its power the ability to mandate people to buy private health insurance. we'll see as it gets litigated in the courts. i'm confident they'll say it's constitutional and to answer your question directly, i think what you'll hear is people who are opponents to the bill use this to try to repeal it. i don't think that had legs before and i don't think it does now. >> congratulations on your big victory this year. you were definitely going against the wind. >> i appreciate it. >> let's go to bob greenstein. by the way, if you want to know who this guy is, he's the guy everybody goes to the for the duncan heinz sale of approval. you're a liberal, a progressive. where do you stand on this package of tax cuts, extending the tax cuts for two years, cutting the payroll tax by two points, a lot of other things as well as the exteng of jobless benefits? >> there's some very positive aspects in this package, but some really unsound aspects. clearly, extending unemployment benefits, critical in the absence of the package probably wouldn't have gotten an extension. also, this hasn't gotten enough attention. for the next two years of really important tax credits, tax reductions, for millions of low and moderate income working families with children. millions of kids out of poverty. >> refundable. that means you get a check from the government. >> if it did like a minimum wage mother with two kids would have lost $1500 a year. on the unsound part, you know, here we are, we have a presidential deficit commission called for things like reducing social security benefits, medicare benefits, for elderly widows because of fiscal problems. we're talking about extending tax cuts that average $100,000 a year for millionaires and a change in the estate tax that would only benefit the estates of the one quarter of 1% richest people who die and this tax, additional tax cuts the republicans insisted on was worth an extra million dollars per estate for those top estates. now, what happened here, as i understand it, is the white house said we don't want to do this additional es kate tax cut. the republicans said, fine, but then we will not agree to extending in of the refundable tax credits for working poor and working low income families. how do you add it up? >> this kind of horse trading that goes on behind the scenes, that was done by joe biden. mcconnell held him up. >> i think senator kyl was heavily involved in this as well, but how do you do a bottom line on this? to me, there are two tests. test number one. compared to what if the deal goes down now, what happens i think if the deal goes down, it gets relitigated in the next congress because no one in the middle of 9.8% unemployment wants the middle income tax cuts to die. if it gets relitigated in the next congress, i think all the adverse elements remain, maybe get worse and the positive aspects of the package get the -- >> i've heard that argument. once they get control of the house and it looks like -- control the senate if you add the 47 seats they're going to win plus the four conservative seats they picked up on this issue, they had a majority in both houses. they were jammed through the tax cuts for the rich and gif the democrats nothing. which opens the big question, why did the republicans agree to this deal? >> well, the republicans obviously wanted to continue the high income tax cuts. they loved getting the further e vis ration of the estate tax. what both sides are looking at the 2012. if you ask me on balance how this plays out, part of my answer is in five years, we'll kind of know for sure. let's suppose at the end of two years, in 2012, president obama says the economy is somewhat better now. wee doing budget cuts and all these other things. i will veto any extension of the high income tax cuts. taking it to the country and maybe wins on that. then we've got all the positive stuff for the next two years and this package will create over a million jobs. >> you're the best news this president's had. >> if the debt's made permanent, it's a problem. >> you're ruling is yes. >> yes. >> i have to tell you, this is the moral authority for people in the progress movement. thank you. coming up, bill clinton gave president obama's his tax deal his seal of approval in a remarkable appearance at the white house. let's talk about the coalition. we're looking at right there. the pure politics of this thing. you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. ah, this is hey guys. what the eightsorry we're late. milk looks warm. finally got the whole gang together. maple brown sugar, strawberry delight, blueberry muffin. yeah, a little family reunion. [ wind rushes ] whoa! whoa! whoa! whoa! we're cereal here! what? just cooling it down. enough said. gotcha. safety first. whoo-hoo! watch the whole grain! [ female announcer ] try kellogg's® frosted mini-wheats® hot. just add warm milk and you've got a hot way to keep your kids full and focused all morning. oops. dude your eight layers are showing. [ female announcer ] mini-wheats® hot. keeps 'em full, keeps 'em focused. well, new 2012 poll numbers are in and president obama is losing support in a new poll. and now, mitt romney would tweak him or beat him out by 46-44. president obama does better against the rest of the republican field. beat mike huckabee 47-43. that's a close one. still under 50%. he does the best against sarah palin, 52-40. the poll points out the trouble for the president. he's losing support among liberals, but he's not picking up the independents. my belief, it will take a few week, he'll come out much better. 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[ male announcer ] indeed, business pro. indeed. go national. go like a pro. indeed. if you live for performance, upgrade to castrol edge advanced synthetic oil. with eight times better wear protection than mobil 1. castrol edge. it's more than just oil. it's liquid engineering. i just had a terrific meeting with the former president. president bill clinton and i thought that given the fact that he presided over as good an economy as we've seen in our lifetimes, that it might be useful for him to share some of his thoughts. >> what an understatement. that was president obama on friday after meeting the president clinton. here's president clinton at that press conference. >> so, in my opinion, this is a good bill and i hope that my fellow democrats will support it. i thank the republican leaders for agreeing to include things important to the president. there's never a perfect bipartisan bill, and we see this differently, but i really believe this will be a significant net plus for the country. i always think that in general, a lot of people are breathing a sigh of relief there's been an agreement on something. >> what a brilliant political assessment. but wh does this tell us about the state of the obama and clinton coalition? chuck todd's the msnbc news chief white house correspondent. mark halperin, the senior political analyst for "time" magazine, msnbc. we think we're going to hear from the president any moment now, but your assessment of the senate vote. >> this was the easy hurdle to clear. they've got this and you heard dick durbin say because the president negotiated this with the senate. everything, his entire presidency has been about trying to get stuff through the senate. don't think dick durbin and reid were more looped in than house democrats. >> let me go to mark, the question of this clinton coalition. the most powerful reality in the country now is the democratic parties united as never before despite this this week, they are united. 80% support for the president. how's it going? what we saw on friday, what's it tell us about bill clinton and president obama? >> the interpersonal drama, bill clinton was on friday, very supportive in public and private with the president. giving advice to people in the administration, having a lot of his people populating key jobs and in the press conference, people may talk about the strategy for 1994. he showed obama a lot of tactics that are going to be required to keep the support from the base, but get things done like he did in this case with the republicans. >> here's more of bill clinton giving advice to president obama. let's listen. >> mr. president, i get the feeling that you're happier to be here commenting and giving advice than governing. >> i had quite a good time governing. i am happy to be here, i suppose when the bullets fired are less likely to hit me, i'm glad to be here because i -- i think the president made a good decision. and because i want my country to do well and after the '94 election, i said that the american people in their wisdom put us both in the same boat, so we're going to row or sink and i want us to row. >> so smart. he's basically in there it seems to me because a lot of the people who have been criticizing president obama were clinton supporters in the beginning. >> it is a pattern with that. particularly with some of the louder critiques of this. paul krugman is a loudest example, but there were some others. let's not forget, it's sort of weird, everybody made a huge deal out of bill clinton supporting the president's deal. i think it would have been biller new ifs he had not. we didn't have anybody from the left, this way, wasn't as if -- i don't know. this does feel like one of those moments. i think we're enamored with it in the media. there's a lot of clinton kool-aid drinkers. >> you are getting so hard and sophisticated. >> this obsession. >> the fact that president obama walked out of the room, left bill clinton there, was that a sign of confidence that bill clinton was going to carry on his agenda for the next 20 minutes and that he didn't have to worry about showing up? >> he knew what was going to happen an he was a little bored and didn't want to be a bystander. why i think it mattered, it sent everybody into the weernd, the supd shows, not about nancy pelosi, but the fact bill clinton has blessed this in a way. that was vital. the weekend would have been a lot different had it not occurred. >> you bring up a good point because let's remember what the picture, i joked with a white house staffer earlier that day, like, hey, you going to give us anything on this clinton-obama meeting because other than that, i got about eight hours of this tape. then bernie sanders, his show ended up -- >> here's president clinton on his party. let's listen. >> we're hurting now and i get it. and you know, i did 133 events for them. i believe the congress in the last two years did a far better job than the american people thought. i went to extraordinary efforts to try to explain what i thought had been done in ways that i thought were most favorable to them, but we had an election. the results are what they are. the numbers will only get worse in january in terms of negotiating. >> it used to be anybody working in politics that was out for a few years couldn't write a speech, couldn't keep up. the old clinton, the former president, is tolely in tune. it's like he never left the music. >> he's been in the middle of it and part of it, i think at first he stayed because it was motivating to try to help hillary clinton's career, but i thought it was amazing how he came in and says, you know, i spend an hour a day studying this economy. >> i believe it. >> probably also an hour a day on finding on on arkansas politics and florida politics. >> mark, your thoughts because i think his touch the perfect. i think he was off touch 2008. a very difficult time to have your spouse running. you can't be the candidate. you had to be the enforcer. >> a lot of times when i would run into him in 2008, he would say, i'm rusty. so much of the politics was not around when he was a candidate. as a rusty guy, he's still bet eer than everybody else and has clearly gotten really engaged in the politics of this. when he was helping for other democrats in the midterms. >> how does he connect with the net roots? does he help them support obama who are disappointed with the president? is he going to bring them aboard? >> some, but not all. i think what he does really well is talks about all this with a sense of poise and sense of humor an a sense of pa-- the president's bigger than the net roots. sometimes he gets trapped into going head to head and down to this level. >> well said. thank you. up next, from second amendment remedies to witchcraft, we've got the best political, actually, the worst political quotes of the year and they belong in a "sideshow." i'm off to the post office... ok. uh, a little help... oh! you know shipping is a lot easier with priority mail flat rate boxes. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. plus, you can print and pay for postage online. and i can pick them up for free with package pickup. perfect! cause i'm gonna need a lot of those. wow! i knew i should have brought my sleigh. priority mail flat rate shipping starts at $4.90 only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship. naturally colorful vegetables are often a good source of vitamins, fiber, or minerals. and who brings you more natural colors than campbell's condensed soups? 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[ male announcer ] marriott hotels & resorts knows it's better for xerox to automate their global invoice process so they can focus on serving their customers. with xerox, you're ready for real business. so they can focus on serving their customers. ♪ holy night ♪ sleep in heavenly peace ♪ sleep in heavenly peace ♪ sleep in heavenly peace ♪ sleep in heavenly peace back to "hardball" to the "sideshow." first, open mike night in st. petersburg. former kgb boss wladimir putin showed his softer side. ♪ on blueberry hill a host of hollywood folks like sharon stone, kevin costner, fwaif the performance a standing o. he's out with his list of most notable quotations. here's a look at the top five. at number five, gourdon brown's teachable moment. got into a heated change with a british subject. brown's more candid thoughts in his car were picked up by a live microphone. brown's party ended up losing in a landslide. only get in trouble for saying what you believe, bad as it is. four, a pitch on the left field. here's speaker pelosi speaking on the passage of health care. >> but we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it. >> wow, we have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it a