Political mayhem. Hell go down in history as the mrs. Olearys cow of the 2012 disaster. The one guilty of kicking over the ladder that caused all the damage that single footedly turned the grand old party into the burn down the house party, leveling it down to the lowest level of public approval in its history. Just got that figure today. Ed rendell is the former governor of pennsylvania and nbc political analyst. Jonathan capehart writes for the Washington Post and is a msnbc analyst as well. There is a new poll shows how lousily they are viewed. The new poll, there is little in the findings in this poll for the gop to feel good about. You think . Just 32 of the public, less than a third, has a favorable view of the Republican Party. Thats an alltime low in that poll. 53 say republicans in congress were chiefly responsible for the shutdown. Governor, thank you for joining us tonight from here in philadelphia youre in a different location, thank you for letting me be here. My question, yourn, weve had a lot of hell in the country over the years. Weve had watergate, vietnam, iraq war. What do you think it was that registered with the middle of most voters except for the hard 30 on the hard right, what said to people the republicans are wrong . Well, because they were very destructive. And i think people down deep want government to work. And they saw an attempt to destroy the fabric of the government to do things that had no connection. Had the republicans made the stand based on debt about raising the debt limit, that would have been more understandable to the public. But they didnt like this political blackmail, political extortion. They thought it was just systemic of the breakdown in washington. And they focus blame on the republicans. I think it was the destructive nature of what they tried to do. Jonathan, it seems to me thats a great question. And the person of this political thuggery i call it because it really is extortion and were going to bring down the government if you dont do things our way and were going to kill your baby obama care unless you give us the government, basically. My question is to ted cruz. His personality, the way he speaks on television. I think its pretty frightening to people because it has that evangelical edge of fire and brimstone, ill bring down this temple if i have to, but im getting my way. Your thoughts. Yeah, well, i mean, hes able to do this for two reasons. One, hes got though moxie to go out there and throw bombs, throw grenades that get People Like Us talking about him. And in talking about things that his supporters and the Republican Party base care about and want to hear more about. But also stomping all over Leaders Within the party and within the conference remember when Senate Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell was announcing the deal that would reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, at the same time ted cruz was talking to reporters about what went wrong. And the other thing about ted cruz and why i think and youve been saying this for awhile now that ted cruz is the leader of the Republican Party. Its because the real leaders of the party havent seen fit to smack him down, make him understand hes a first term senator and there are ways of doing things within senate and congress, ways of governing, of legislating that he needs to learn. No ones willing to do it. People are afraid of him. Until someone stands up to him of any stature, hell keep going. I have a theory about this, governor. Going back the last time a Political Party showed its face so dramatically that the public said wed rather have what we have now rather than that, usually when you pick somebody out of power, youll say well try somebody else. But in this case somebody else, the republican right wing, has said heres what we look like. It does remind me of the old sort of lou schwartz commercial about barry goldwater. My hunch is for the First Time Since 64, a Political Party out of power has showed its face and the people have pulled back. And said not that. Theres no question youre right. The only question is will this feeling that the nation has because theyve showed their true colors, will this feeling persist until a year from now when were about 2014 elections nap is a lot of time, a year in politic politics eons of time. Last night creuz continued t mock the party. Lets watch him in action. Heres cruz. Some of our friends in the media say there are a few people in washington saying some mean things. Who cares . Because at the end of the day i dont work for the party bosses in washington. First of all, there are elected leaders of the house and senate are elected. We have a democracy. And how do you play victim when youre the one trying to bring down the u. S. Government . Most demagogues use righteous indignation. Ill give the list but itll get me in trouble. Theyre always the same. Theyre all coming to beat us up, the whole world is coming to beat us up. They all play that game whether its huey long. Have you noticed the call for sympathy from his troops . Your thoughts. His troops are folks who feel very, very aggrieved about whats happening to the country, where they think the country is going, and how the country is escaping them. What is their grievance . Honestly i cant tell you what problems they have in terms of people trying to the president pushing to get access to health care for millions of americans who dont have it. Oh, thats not it. Come on, youre being very clinical here. You think his beef with obama is health care . You think thats really it . No, no, no. Senator cruzs beef is not with the president solely on health care. Its a whole lot of things that when you ask folks in the far right specifics, they cant really get into specifics. They just dont like this president. And they dont like what they represent and they dont like the direction they think hes pushing the country in. And they think its the wrong direction. And ted cruz taps into that anger. You know, that anger is wasted energy if the folks they send to congress dont do anything with it. If they continue on these misguided strategies that lead to nowhere except for filling the campaign of the demagogues. Anyway, youre a gentleman too often sometimes, jonathan. Heres what former Vice President dick cheney has hitched to the right wing clown car. We know why hes doing it. Hes got a daughter running as a tea partier. But he said it wasnt the tea partiers who are extremists. Its the president. Heres dick cheney. The frustration out there is very, very high. So when i see people talking about the tea party, i dont think the tea party as extremists the way some of the folks in washington say. The extremist in washington is barack obama. Hes the guy that wants to fundamentally transform our health care system. Hes the guy whos done enormous damage to america in the world. I believe its the president of the United States. Okay. Governor, he had the advantage there of sticking it into a political opponent and looking out for his daughter. Thats a nice position to be in, but i dont believe a word he says. Hes the most hawkish type. Hes a Big Government guy. Hes establishment. Hes been in leadership his whole life. Now hes portraying himself as some saudi buster from wyoming with a pitch fork. I think its to get his daughter elected to the senate. I dont want to listen to this nonsense. Your thoughts. The problem is even when they make their arguments they lie. They say hes an extremist on health care. They want to take over governmentrun health care. This is anything but governmentrun health care. We keep the insurance companies, the basic system of health care, you keep your own doctor. If there was a government takeover, we would have done single payer. And the president rejected single payer. He rejected the public option as an alternative. So the president was conservative in his approach to Health Care Reform. Theyre lying to people when they try to say this is a government takeover. Its anything but a government takeover. Do you think that the heritage town days who came up with the idea of the individual mandate, do you think they have an operators manual to lend the president to show how they do this. They helped with the concept. If they believed in the concept, of course we know theyre political. Right. Governor . Oh. Oh, im sorry jonathan. I was going to say you hit the head on the nail, chris. This is a conservative idea. It leads to a whole bunch of other things that republicans and conservatives used to believe in, but dont believe in anymore simply because president obama either adopted them, put his arms around them, or asked him i like that idea come work with me and they refused to do it. Whats the latest Heritage FoundationHealth Care Plan . Im being sarcastic. There aint one, is there . They dont have anything. The new usa today Princeton Research poll asked what the reaction would be if most of the members of congress were replaced. Half said it would change congress for the better. Governor, do you believe people when it comes to next year will do what they want to do. Throw the people out. I dont know how you do it in our gerrymandered districts. When you vote just to get even with the current guy. Probably not. Maybe the burbs will switch. Where will they switch . Thats the question. The argument we now make, the democrats, is you may like your congress, he may be moderate but as long as hes there the tea party is going to be able to extort the government because the republicans will control and they wont bring progressive bills to the floor. Even if you like your congressman, youve got to vote them out of office. Thats a very good argument. Jon than, your thoughts. Can moderate democrats replace moderate republicans so they can get more votes for pelosi and fewer for boehner . I think the governor raises a good point and a good strategy. Its just a matter of whether you can get enough democrats out there to vote out the moderates and bring in the democrats. This is going to be actually a very big test for the democratic party. Its the first itll be the first election that the president is not on the ballot. And midterm elections as we know, fewer voters come out to vote. Fewer democrats come out to vote. The electorate is older and whiter. But if democrats want anything to get done in congress, want the president s agenda to move forward, theyre going to have to come out in the numbers they did in 2012 to send a clear message that they like the direction the country is going in. They want the president to succeed and to push forward on their agenda. And they Want Congress to work again. That is one person who can drive that out and that is barack obama. You got it. Also the other campaigner in chief, your friend, bill clinton. He can do it too. Hes the best there is. Thank you ed rendell and jonathan capehart. Coming up, the republican alternative universe. You dont know what color the sky is here. The shutdown was good politics and default would have been better and the whole train wreck was a huge success. Wait until how you hear these people are talking. Also, the haters of president obama are making up stories about Affordable Care act. What happened when someone checked with people who said their lives were ruined by obama care and we find out they werent telling the whole story. The rocky rollout didnt escape jon stewart in the daily show. And let me finish with my hopes of the party this december. This is hardball, the place for politics. For your personal economy, helping you readjust your Retirement Plan along the way, rethink how youre invested, and refocus as your career moves forward. Wherever you are today, a fidelity i. R. A. Has a wide range of Investment Choices to help you finetune your personal economy. Call today, and well make it easy to move that old 401 k to a fidelity i. R. A. Help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. I can tell you safety is at the heart of everything we do. Weve added cuttingedge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a stateoftheart monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twentyfourseven. And were sharing what weve learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. Our commitment has never been stronger. Thanks to the shutdown were getting septembers unemployment report a couple weeks late. The economy created 148,000 jobs last month and the Unemployment Rate ticked down again to 7. 2 . A new low. Those dont reflect the numbers of the shutdown and the brinksmanship of republicans over default. Well have to find out what that effect was in next months report. Well be right back. Welcome back to hardball. Many conservatives are trying to rewrite the last few weeks, but there are a couple of inconvenient truths. I. E. , facts, that keep getting in the way. Americans disapproved of their tactics, blamed them for the mess we got in and dont want to see it happen again. Yet ignoring every poll in the past week, some on the wild right argued the shutdown was, in fact, a huge success. He was ann coulter yesterday on fox. This is why i think the shutdown was so magnificent, run beautifully. Im so proud of these republicans. And that is because they have branded the Republican Party as the antiobama care party. They accomplished a lot. They showed and it was brilliant how they played it. Funding 80 of the government starting with defund all the government except obama care then fund all of government but obama care. I think republicans played this beautifully but there was no point to carrying it on any longer. The lesson that needs to be learned is we need to reelect republicans. Some day somebody is going to do a psychological study of why that act works. Shes not alone. Matt kibbe tweeted this week, quote, the Government Shutdown and the debt ceiling crisis were brilliant republican strategy. And last week, the other person Michele Bachmann answered the question whether the shutdown was worth it by saying quote, absolutely. I think its worth it. Its been worth it because what we did was we fought the right fight. The shutdown has caused the republican favorability to drop to an alltime low. Eight of ten americans di disapprove of the shutdown and blame the republicans for it. Joan walsh and ron reagan. Both of you, take your turns. First of all, explain the phenomenon of ann coulter. My theory is shes able to say anything that comes to mind and shes brilliant at the provocation she starts because nobody can fire her. Which is great for her. But this notion that somehow this has been a swell, exciting period of their lives. That this has worked out for them. Its amazing how they can ape reality. Go ahead, your thoughts, joan. Because, you know, shes playing to the most paranoid extremist fringe of the party. And shes telling them what they want to hear. Thats been her act all along. I know people who like her and say she doesnt mean it. That makes it worse to me, if thats the case. I think she means it. But this is how she gets rich. Thats an interesting question. I have a theory that the dorky guys on wall street walk down the street carrying one of her books like they have a machine gun. It makes them kind of dangerous. And ann coulter is on their side in attacking those awful godless liberals. Were the problem. Its really quite cynical and corrupt. And beyond ann coulter, i think its also just this strategy of never itll the truth, always lie, and always say that youre winning. And always convince the media and to some extent it doesnt quite work, but to some extent sometimes it carries the day that they never have to admit that theyve completely bollocks everything. Do you think shell put othe code that this is all nonsense. Maybe on her death bed with lee atwater. I think a lot of people will tell the truth like he did at the very end. Maybe. Lets not say bad of the dead. Anyway hey, were all going there. Im not wishing it on her, dear. Slow down on the commentary on the dead and being dead. I dont want to be there. Ron, what do you think of this alternative universe. What color is the sky in your world when i hear people talking like Michele Bachmann saying what a beautiful week we had. Look at the polls. Your partys back to prelincoln numbers. Its true. I suppose this was a good strategy if your aim was to have your party be about as popular as hepatitis b. I mean, thats where they are at this point. But it has been part of the mythology of the far right forever, really. They really arent a minority. That they really are the majority of the country. And somehow if they lose elections and even though they take the house of representatives, they did some with a million fewer votes than democratic candidates. But despite all that, despite all those inconvenient facts that you allude to, somehow they are the majority of the country. Somehow they really are winning. And if everything was really fair to their mind, they would win all the elections. Its nonsense, of course, that these people are magical thinkers. They believe all sorts of things that arent true. What about where you give black americans 3 5 of a vote, then you do the mathematics. I havent done it lately to see what that would mean. It might mean a right wing tend to be democrats. Maybe only give them 3 5 of a vote. Maybe that explains it. One of the best things that could happen is that the Republican Party indeed split into at least two groups. One, the tea party, then the old republican white shoe country club bankers and Insurance Company kind of corporate type republicans. Let them do their thing. Let the tea party do their thing, but in an isolated fashion. Then well see how Many Americans really believe in death panels and birtherisms and all the rest of that nonsense. It may be as much as 25 . At least theyd have their own party and theyd be isolated. That would be a better thing for everybody. Yeah. Well, let me go back to this. The polls do show the Republican Partys in trouble because of tactics championed by