david corn, cynthia, tucker and john heilemann. let's look at this. president obama's most recent weekly approval rating average, this is gallup poll, averaged for the week of november 7th through 123th is 43%. remember that number. and that number has been on the rise. let's look now to how obama compares to past presidents in the november of their third years in office. george w. bush's approval rating was 52% at this time and just starting to rise. that's george w.'s, he, of course won re-election. bill clinton's was 53% and rising too. he won re-election. george bush 41's was 55% but dropping. he lost his re-election bid. ronald reagan's was 53% and raising. he won re-election. jimmy carter's approval rating in november of 1979 was 40% and rising although he got a spike in popularity when americans were taken hostage in iran. by november of 1980, his approval rating was back in the 30s and he, of course, lost re-election. richard nixon's approval rating was 49% and rising, he won re-election. so, cynthia, read the tea leaves. what do you see there

john heilemann, looking at you, you write historical books now like teddy white did. look at the pattern, mid-40s. kind of gaining. it's not fair to say obama is getting better off. he's inching up a little. how do you read that in terms of history? one of the most obvious, but most important historical points, incumbent presidents get what the approval rating is in the vote. we have a good idea of what we think of presidents and we track it closely. president obama is on track to win 43% of the popular vote. it's far from what it takes to win. the second thing that is true is the trajectory question is what matters most of all. this period of time, in the fall and winter leading into an incumbent re-election tells you what is going to happen. if you can get the polls moving in the right direction, if you are headed in the right direction now, you can be sure you are going to get reelected. if you are stagnant or dropping from a low point, you have a lot of problems. that's where the president is in trouble. >> john, you have to stick with you. you said the president'

john heilemann, has this sort of frozen the story at the level of advances? and we can assume that meant sexual advances. we can assume that meant some sort of a -- well, something like what we think of advances, what they mean, not just bad talk in the office, but a particular sexual aspect to this thing. so where's that leave us? >> well, it leaves us, chris, at the end of a week in which herman cain has seen the facts in this case get worse for him every day. from moving from the initial politico story, through what we've seen, day by day, with eyewitnesses coming forward, with additional people who have seen him do inappropriate things. an iowa conservative radio show host, who says that cain behaved in ways that made some of his female staff feel uncomfortable. there's been a lot of back and forth over the course of the week with the cain campaign trying to blame the perry campaign and the perry campaign blaming the romney campaign. in the end, none of that matters. what matters is the facts. and with each day that's gone by, his case has gotten worse. a

john heilemann, i get back to the question. let's take a look at the polling here. new polling conducted since this story broke on the sunday shows. it remains -- it shows a strong contender, and still, mr. cain. he is neck and neck with romney at the top of the field in a new "washington post" poll, also by abc poll, in the margin of error. there they are, just points apart. it doesn't look like it's cracking him yet. >> not yet. and look, he has had through most of this week, he's had pretty consistent defense from conservative media figures, and others on the conservative side of the partisan aisle. that has obviously helped him. there are many people for -- who his supporters were, who find his playing the victim, in some queues, of the established media culture. they find that an appealing -- it's part of his whole persona as an outsider. i will say, chris, that we don't know yet. it seems like some conservatives are now walking away from him. there are still more facts to come out. and if all of the allegations against him are true and credible, there's now be

he's john heilemann. this is overheard. >> we have 15 million kids in our country who grow up below the poverty line. >> most americans want the same thing a good job. >> i realized there weren't a lot of people writing things in my voice, i realized that i had to do it myself. >> we are a better country than we used to be, we have more to do, we need to get at it. >> i would do that when i wanteddto get that buzz that you get for working at the [laughter] [ ♪ music playing ] >> smith: hi john, how are you? >> heilemann: i'm great, evan. you know, i'm thrilled to be here for all the obvious reasons, but most particularly i realize you actually, there's so many ways in which you have nothing in common with rick perry but, but there is one i now determined. >> smith: alright, i'm freaked out by this inn3 advance. [audience laughter] >> heilemann: as -- you know, it came to me at that moment that bill clinton referred to the governor as a good lookin' rascal. ú& smith: yeah. >> heilemann: and, you know, s

john heilemann, thank you for joining us. thank you, nia-malika henderson of "the washington post." >>> up next, president obama lays out his strategy to beat the republicans. just play back their debates in full. that's pretty tough. he may have been joking, but he's got a point. that's next in the sideshow. you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. >>> back to "hardball." now for the sideshow. first up, this week's award for shadowing goes to president obama. by now, we've all seen rick perry's brain freeze probably more than once, but just hours before last night's debate kicked off, the president sat down for a roundtable discussion with a group of hispanic journalists. what strategy did he outline for going after the 2012 gop candidates "i don't think it requires us to go negative in the sense of running a bunch of ads that are false or character assassinations. it will be based on facts. we may just run clips of the republican debates verbatim. we won't even comment on them. we'll just run those in a loop on univision

he's john heilemann. this is overheard. >> we have 15 million kids in our country who grow up below the pover most americans e same thing a good job. >> i realized there weren't a lot of people writing things in my voice, i realized that i had to do it myself. >> we are a better country than we used to be, we have more to do, we need to get at it. >> i would do that when i wanteddto get that buzz that you get for working at the [laughter] [ ♪ music playing ] >> smith: hi john, how are you? >> heilemann: i'm great, evan. you know, i'm thrilled to be here for all the obvious reasons, but most particularly i realize you actually, there's so many ways in which you have nothing in common with rick perry but, but there is one i now determined. >> smith: alright, i'm freaked out by this inn3 advance. [audience laughter] >> heilemann: as -- you know, it came to me at that moment that bill clinton referred to the governor as a good lookin' rascal. ú& smith: yeah. >> heilemann: and, you know, so are you. [audien

john heilemann, has this sort of frozen the story at the level of advances? and we can assume that meant sexual advances. we can assume that meant some sort of a -- well, something like what we think of advances, what they mean, not just bad talk in the office, but a particular sexual aspect to this thing. so where's that leave us? >> well, it leaves us, chris, at the end of a week in which herman cain has seen the facts in this case get worse for him every day. from moving from the initial politico story, through what we've seen, day by day, wit eyewitnesss coming forward, from additional people who have seen him do inappropriate things. an iowa conservative radio show host, who says that cain behaved in ways that made some of his female staff feel uncomfortable. there's been a lot of back and forth over the course of the week with the cain campaign trying to blame the perry campaign and the perry campaign blaming the romney campaign. in the end, none of that matters. what matters is the facts. and with each day that's gone by, his case has gotten worse. and

john heilemann, thank you for joining us. thank you, nia-malika henderson of "the washington post." >>> up next, president obama lays out his strategy to beat the republicans. just play back their debates in full. that's pretty stuff. he may have been joking, but he's got a point. that's next in the sideshow. you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. ♪ our machines help identify early stages of cancer, and it's something that we're extremely proud of. you see someone who is saved because of this technology, you know that the things that you do in your life matter. if i did have an opportunity to meet a cancer survivor, i'm sure i could take something positive away from that. [ jocelyn ] my name is jocelyn. and i'm a cancer survivor. [ woman ] i had cancer. i have no evidence of disease now. [ woman #2 ] i would love to meet the people that made the machines. i had such an amazing group of doctors and nurses, it would just make such a complete picture of why i'm sitting here today. ♪ [ man ] from the moment we walk in the

john heilemann, has this sort of frozen the story at the level of advances? and we can assume that meant sexual advances. we can assume that meant some sort of a -- well, something like what we think of advances, what they mean, not just bad talk in the office, but a particular sexual aspect to this thing. so where's that leave us? >> well, it leaves us, chris, at the end of a week in which herman cain has seen the facts in this case get worse for him every day. from moving from the initial politico story, through what we've seen, day by day, with iwitne eyewitnesss coming forward, from additional people who have seen him do inappropriate things. an iowa conservative radio show host, who says that cain behaved in ways that made some of his female staff feel uncomfortable. there's been a lot of back and forth over the course of the week with the cain campaign trying to blame the perry campaign and the perry campaign blaming the romney campaign. in the end, none of that matters. what matters is the facts. and with each day that's gone by, his case has gotten wo

john heilemann, thank you for joining us. thank you, nia-malika henderson of "the washington post." >>> up next, president obama lays out his strategy to beat the republicans. just play back their debates in full. that's pretty tough. he may have been joking, but he's got a point. that's next in the sideshow. you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] imagine facing the day with less chronic low back pain. imagine living your life with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a non-narcotic treatment that's fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with ns

john heilemann, let's talk about the political aspect. we've heard a lot of murky, we've heard a lot of buzz. you and i have talked about it off-camera, everybody talks about what they've think they've heard as the best reporting on this. but this isn't reporting, this isn't the media. this is a woman with a clear-cut memory, apparently, or an accusation of a memory, which is stark as hell. >> uh, yeah. and i think it's conceivably a watershed moment in this whole episode, chris. because as you said, and i'll just draw it out a little bit further, you know, herman cain last week had a series of allegations and a series of facts that became known. each a little worse, to my eye. but they all were still confined to stories by the reporters of politico, to quotes from settlement documents, to comments by lawyers on behalf of alleged victims. but we had no face, we had no human being. now we have this woman, who i thought came across as credible, on tv. she did not come across as flakey. she didn't come across as someone who was, in some way,

and john heilemann an msnbc political analyst. first of all, the iowa caucuses january 3rd. mitt romney's making a push in the hawkeye state. romney is now playing to win the iowa caucuses, television commercials are on the way, volunteers are arriving, and a stealth operation is ready to burst into view in the weeks leading up to the caucuses. let's go to david on that. is this going to happen out there? is he entering? >> well, yeah, he's entering, taking out ads. he's opening the campaign office. they didn't have a grand opening, he's trying to have it both ways. he wants to compete, he wants to do well. >> why is he doing this? why doesn't he take a breather? he's not a cultural conservative, he's questionable on abortion rights and other issues. why didn't he wait on new hampshire? >> my guess is he sees an opening for an early strike. there's no non-romney candidate that's really come together that has materialized, that has money, organization, can survive scrutiny. it's all as you say a pack of circus clowns. >> i've noticed that. does he have to win out there in ord

and new york magazine's john heilemann. first up, there's plenty of passing chatter about newt gingrich and herman cain. and even rick perry but none of them seems to stand a serious chance of beating mitt romney for the republican nomination. so maybe no surprise that naseem and president obama already are -- romney and president obama are already sparring with each other. romney is trying to make the obama team nervous by calling them nervous. >> mitt romney. >> governor romney. >> governor romney. >> mitt romney. >> governor romney. >> didn't know were you a spokesperson for mitt romney. chris: those romney madmen who he cooked up those ads, obsession. the obama crowd may not be obsessed at least not yet but they're definitely already focused on romney. and they confess they're disappointed that romney's emerging from the primaries so unbloodied. by his opponents. >> i don't know that his positions have been scrutinized that carefully. i know governor perry has made some halting efforts to do that in these debates. but h

let's take a look at the -- >> you were awfully rude to john heilemann. >> i'll give john heilemann a lesson in etiquette. when mike barnicle says something to me, that's not your cue to talk. mike barnicle is talking to me. >> where do you learn to talk over -- >> we don't need more than one joe. >> that's right. >> we begin with our parade of papers. >> now i'm feeling a little better. >> this is on me, baby. >>> the birmingham news, unbelievable news. first we lose to lsu and then this. the birmingham news says the largest municipal bankruptcy in u.s. history just happened in alabama. and alabama's jefferson county specifically more than $4 billion in debt, jefferson county's filed for chapter 9 protection. unable to repay money that it borrowed to fix its broken sewer system. the governor was unable to save the day. and that's what happened. >>> the wisconsin state journal says former president richard nixon's grand jury testimony on watergate, which has been sealed for some 36 years will be released today. a professor at the university of wisconsin madison won a court challenge t

. >>> john heilemann is national affairs editor for new york magazine and the co-author of my favorite book about the campaign, a little thing i like to call "game change." >> good to see you in the seat up there. >> thank you, boss. let's talk about -- mark and i were talking about, the circular firing squad seems to be in full effect at the moment. you have cain blaming perry, perry saying we didn't do it. newt gingrich kind of coming to cain's defense saying i don't know exactly what happened but if it's the media following down this path, it's wrong. what do you make of all of this? you have followed the circus that is the presidential campaigns for a long time. who wins and loses in this? >> it depends on what the facts are and the facts are getting worse not better. murray is right when he said the blame game is an inside baseball game. the perry campaign has been definitive for not having dropped this on politico. the question is what happened and how herman cain is dealing with it. yesterday, you have someone who claims was working as a lobbyist for the national restaurant asso

tonight a look a at occupy wall street with john heilemann of "new york" magazine and mattathias schwartz of the "new york" magazine. >> i think the first thing you would say is we're at the moment where this is not a moveme yet. it's a moment and it's been an incredible moment for two and-a-half months where 900 occupations have started up around the world. and they have injected the notion of quality of the national conversation in a way that it had not been as recently as september. but the transition from moment to movementf that does occur, that is where we are. if people thought they could get the change they wanted to in the system they wouldn't be cping ouall night much this is what people want to do when they want to opt out of the existing power structure which for is the elections because they feel like they're t going toet what they want that way >> charlie: we continue with marc benioff and a look where the technology revolution is heading right now. >> the salesforce is a company that's really pioneered the cloud and the idea of the cloud is like amazon or e-bay or google. y

tonight a look at occupy wall street with john heilemann of "new york" magazine and mattathias schwartz of the "new york" magazine. >> i think the first thing you would say is we're at the moment where this is not a moveme yet. it's a moment and it's been an incredible moment for two and-a-half months where 900 occupations have started up around the world. and they have injected the notion of quality of the national conversation in a way that it had not been as recently as september. but the transition from moment to movementf that does occur, that is where we are. if people thought they could get the change they wanted to in the system they wouldn't be cping ouall night much this is what people want to do when they want to opt out of the existing power structure which for is the elections because they feel like they're t going toet what they want that way >> charlie: we continue with marc benioff and a look where the technology revolution is heading right now. >> the salesforce is a company that's really pioneered the cloud and the idea of the cloud is like amazon or e-bay or google. y

tonight a look a at occupy wall street with john heilemann of "new york" magazine and mattathias schwartz of the "new york" magazine. >> i think the first thing you would say is we're at the moment where this is not a moveme yet. it's a moment and it's been an incredible moment for two and-a-half months where 900 occupations have started up around the world. and they have injected the notion of quality of the national conversation in a way that it had not been as recently as september. but the transition from moment to movementf that does occur, that is where we are. if people thought they could get the change they wanted to in the system they wouldn't be cping ouall night much this is what people want to do when they want to opt out of the existing power structure ich for is the electionbecause they feel like they're t going toet what they want that way >> charlie: we continue with marc benioff and a look where the technology revolution is heading right now. >> the salesforce is a company that's really pioneered the cloud and the idea of the cloud is like amazon or e-bay or google. you k

thank you, john heilemann, you were very discreet in your discussion of his performance. i will hear later what you really thing. david corn, thank you. >>> up next, president obama ran on hope and change in 2008. something that's not likely to work in 2012, is it? getting ready to go negative, is he? we'll see. he is definitely getting personal and it looks like negative on people like romney. they've already started to sharpen their knife. this is "hardball," only on msnbc. ♪ [ male announcer ] a simple gesture can spark romance anytime. and when it does, men with erectile dysfunction can be more confident in their ability to be ready with cialis for daily use. cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day so you can be ready anytime the moment's right, even if it's not every day. [ man ] tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. don't take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. [ man ] do not d

national affairs editor, john heilemann. hi, john. >> hi. >> and director of the earth institute, jeffrey sachs. >> disgusting. >> disgusting. >> absolutely disgusting. no sense of any meaning in all of this. absolutely revolting, actually. and especially when what they're protesting against is the incredible abuse of power, the criminality on wall street and so forth that he, yes, taking his millions of dollars, it's shocking. >> someone needs a bath, and i don't think it's the people from occupy wall street. that's all i'm going to say. i got nothing else. i'm so disgusted by that that something horrible's going -- those are my belts, i'm sorry. i was having trouble dressing this morning. >> i sort of like that. bringing out discarded pieces of clothing. >> i'm sorry. i'm sorry. it's monday and -- >> special. >> i -- i -- am i alone here? am i overreacting? i'm sickened by that. >> the republican party needs to be politically smart to try to capture some of the sentiment there that rails against a lot of what they should b

we'll have the latest and john heilemann. ighs ] can't wait 'til morning. wait, it's morning in china... [ male announcer ] it's sweet. it's nutty. it's absolutely delicious. kellogg's® crunchy nut™. it's morning somewhere™. ♪ feel the power my young friend. mmm! [ male announcer ] for unsurpassed fruit and veggie nutrition... v8 v-fusion. could've had a v8. how about making it brighter. more colorful. ♪ and putting all our helpers to work? so we can build on our favorite traditions by adding a few new ones. we've all got garlands and budgets to stretch. and this year, we can keep them both evergreen. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. here's a bright idea. trade in any light string and get up to 5 bucks off the latest christmas led's. when i got my medicare card, i realized i needed an aarp... medicare supplement insurance card, too. medicare is one of the great things about turning 65, but it doesn't cover everything. in fact, it only pays up to 80% of your part b expenses. if you're already on or eligible for medicare,