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Parker Spitzer
Republicans Expected to Sweep Midterm Elections; Interview With Nate Silver
Aired October 25, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Kathleen Parker.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program. Tonight our "Opening Arguments," an earthquake is about to hit Washington, Kathleen. The elections next week, everyone takes it as a given, Republicans sweep to a huge win in the House of Representatives. John Boehner will be the new speaker. Democrats probably hold the Senate; of course, the president stays where he is. Split government, what does it mean? First time in years, will people actually learn to compromise and get something done?
PARKER: I think the word is tidal wave here, Eliot and it's good...
SPITZER: Earthquake, tidal wave. Either one, choose your metaphor.
PARKER: I know that the president is gratified to hear that he's staying, but maybe not for long. And of course the real big questions is, you know, it actually comes back to President Obama because there's no question that this midterm election has been a referendum on him. And so the question is now does he recognize the voice of the American people, what they have tried to deliver to him, in a not so subtle way, or does he double down. And that's what we don't know.
SPITZER: Well look, we will debate for a long time what this means? One thing I would say, it's up to the Tea Party, in my view, what the Republican Party does, because the Tea Party controls John Boehner, because John Boehner knows he's there because of the Tea Party and if the Tea Party says to him, no compromise, nothing at all, then it's going to be gridlock, and gridlock of course would be a disaster for the American public.
PARKER: Well, there's no question the Tea Party has had a huge affect on this election. I don't think John Boehner feels like he's there because of them. I don't think - I think basically, as you and I have discussed before, the Republican Party is very disciplined now. They understand what their mission has to be, they will certainly listen to the Tea Party, but they're going to bring them into the Republican fold and they will be a very disciplined message.
SPITZER: And that's what we're going to be talking about, tonight, Kathleen we'll discuss these issues and so much more. And tonight leading this off, we got Nate Silver, a whiz kid who not only predicts everything when it comes to baseball, but politics too, just an incredibly smart creative mind. It's going to be fun.
PARKER: Well, maybe he can predict what's going to happen with those cuts and the deficit. But we're also -- what does the community -- what do the Tea Party movement and the hip-hop community have in common? I'll bet you thought nothing, but think again, Eliot. You're wrong yet again.
SPITZER: You'll teach me. All right, we'll find out. And then, of course, as with every night, we're going to keep our guests feet to the fire, we're going to make them name their cuts. You can't close the deficit without making tough decisions. We're going to force them to do it. Now it's time for tonight's "Headliner."
You know, Kathleen, she calls herself a conservatarian and the last time we had her on the show, she called me "crazy."
PARKER: Gosh, I wonder where she got that idea. So naturally we thought, let's invite her back. Dana Loesch is a radio host and is the new editor of the conservative blog, BigJournalism.com and she joins us right now from St. Louis.
Welcome back, Dana. Let's say the predictions are true. Fast forward to January, and John Boehner's the speaker. He said this amazing thing not long ago that he would continue the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, but not necessarily for those earning over $250,000 a year. Would the Tea Party go for that?
DANA LOESCH, BIGJOURNALISM.COM: Well, first of all, thanks for having me back. And I'm not too crazy about Boehner's little class division, there. I think it's not necessary. Tax cuts are tax cuts and you have to look to people who are above that line in the sand that he drew. These are people who are providing jobs, these are people who are helping the engine of the economy turn. And sort of by singling these people out in a recession airy period, especially in a recessionary period, I don't think -- I think it does more harm than good. But I'm glad to see at least that he's bringing them up, that someone is bringing them up in D.C.
PARKER: I have to say, that you're not being very Boehner- friendly. I mean, he's going to be the new speaker of the House, it seems like you would be celebrating.
LOESCH: Well, I mean, I'm glad to see if it were to go red as opposed to being blue, I'm excited about that, but just because it's a Republican in there doesn't mean I'm going to be any less tenacious than I already am nipping at these folks' heels to make sure that they fulfill the promises that they've been telling everyone. In fact I'm probably going to be even more harsh on Republicans than I would be Democrats if they assume control in the House.
SPITZER: Dana, that's, I think, what we're waiting to see. Will you be as rigid, ideologically, and I say that with all due respect to doubt what you've done, will you be as rigid in holding John Boehner's feet to the fire or Mitch McConnell, whether or not he is the majority leader in the Senate, as have you been aggressive in attacking Democrats. The moment the Republican Party deviates from the rather clear position you've taken, which is cut those taxes and do not compromise a bit -- we want to know, are you going to be just as aggressive?
LOESCH: Oh, yes, absolutely. In fact, I think that it would be worse for Republicans to break their promises than for Democrats to do what they're doing, right now. I absolutely would. I see no difference and this is why I am not a member of any party nor will I ever be, because I don't believe in party worship, but at the same time, I'm going to be incredibly strict. And I know a lot of other people are going to be on these guys to make sure that, hey look, if we're going to help support your party and help you get in here, because you're the best chance we have of accomplishing our beliefs that are our platform right now, then, yeah, we don't want a bait and switch. Don't say one thing, and court everybody and romance everybody and then get into office, assume power and then after the fact change it up and, no, no, no, we can't have any of that. We won't have any of that.
SPITZER: Dana, you know we are asking every night of our guests, to name their cuts so we can actually kind of put some flesh on the skeleton of how we're going to balance the budget. If your tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts were extended across the board for not only the middle class, but also the wealthy, the calculation, and it may be off by a tiny little bit, but basically over the next decade, we have a deficit of over $11 trillion. So, I want to come back, how are you going to cut that budget to balance out the deficit of $11 trillion?
LOESCH: Tax cuts pay for themselves. This is the money that's -- it's our cash dollars. This is our money. Tax cuts pay for themselves, because when people have their discretionary income, when they have that money, they put it back into the economy. It takes care of itself. But there are cuts that need to be made, but it's not that.
SPITZER: What are the cuts? I mean, you're -- look, everybody on either side of the aisle looks at these numbers, it's $11 trillion or so, give us the cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, which as you know, subsumes the vast majority...
LOESCH: Social Security is already broke.
SPITZER: I'm sorry?
LOESCH: Social Security is already broke. In fact, I just read an article the other day, it was in "Business Insider" that said people who are my age are going to be lucky if they can even get something like 13 percent of their Social Security benefit. The money is not going to be there, it's already broke. It's already been cut by Washington.
SPITZER: Well, that's actually not the case. But what are you going to cut. I mean, give us the cuts.
LOESCH: But it is. SPITZER: I'm just trying to understand.
LOESCH: What would I cut? This is what I would cut, I would cut the stimulus. Let's -- just put the money -- let's stop with the excess spending. Everyone wants to cut every single thing that is enumerated by our Constitution as things our government is allowed to do. But nobody wants to cut anything extra that our government is doing that it doesn't have the constitutional authority to do.
SPITZER: Dana, the stimulus is irrelevant to the $11 trillion we're talking about. Give us in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid..
LOESCH: Oh, no it's not.
SPITZER: It is.
LOESCH: No, it's not. The stimulus is not irrelevant. Medicare is already broke. Medicare, in fact, the president, Obama, he was even discussing about how he was going to cut more money out of Medicare.
SPITZER: How would you fix it?
LOESCH: So, that's already been...
SPITZER: No, I want to know how you're going to fix it, then. We have an $11 trillion chasm here and I haven't heard...
LOESCH: Well, if I answer you, does that mean I have your vote?
SPITZER: I'm sorry?
LOESCH: I said, if I answer you, does that mean I have your vote?
SPITZER: If you give me the right answer, absolutely.
(LAUGHTER)
LOESCH: No, I would cut out all of this egregious, nonessential spending. Stop with the stimulus. And this is something else that's so goofy to me...
SPITZER: Dana...
LOESCH: No, no, let me answer you. You want me to answer you, I'll answer you. We just passed a bill, $26 billion called the Edu- Jobs bill. This $26 billion went to go pay for stuff that we had already allocated $38 billion out of the stimulus to pay for. Why did we have to pay for the same stuff twice? That's just one example. If you don't think that adds to our deficit. I have a bridge to sell you, it's a fantastic bridge. It's beautiful...
SPITZER: We love bridges here in New York. Explain to me, though, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, which is, as you know, we put these numbers on the screen every night. That's where the money is. That's what we saw went to the banks, you rob the banks because the money's there. What are you going to do to defense? Will you cut defense spending?
LOESCH: Well, defense spending is one of the things that our government is empowered to do. Do I think that money should be spent wisely? Absolutely. Do I think that in a time when we have people coming into our borders, threatening to set their bridges on fire during a flight and all of this, do I think that we should cut out programs that are essential to our national security? No, I don't think so. Medicare and Medicaid, these are already broke programs that have been so completely convoluted and are so corrupt, that's almost a moot point.
SPITZER: So you're...
LOESCH: There are some -- go ahead.
SPITZER: I just want to make sure I'm clear.
LOESCH: Social Security is already broke, it needs to be privatized. Why can't people -- I have a better idea as to how to spend my money more so than the government. That's why there isn't any money there for the baby boomers, because it got out of Al Gore's lockbox.
SPITZER: Can I tell you something? Privatizing Social Security would add trillions of dollars to the deficit because of the way Social Security works. It would add to the deficit.
LOESCH: No, it's not going to add trillions of dollars to the deficit. You give people a choice, you give people a choice. Do you want the government to manage your money or do you -- people will get higher returns if they invest the money themselves as opposed to the government.
SPITZER: Dana, let me make this clear. We can debate whether it's a good or a bad idea in terms of the return to the investor. But that's a separate question from whether or not if you do it, it will increase the federal deficit. Without any question it will increase the federal deficit...
LOESCH: Giving people back their own money isn't going to add to the deficit, when you have again -- this is economics 101 -- when you have your discretionary income, you put that -- what's the first thing that you do when you have extra money? I know what I do, I go out and I'll send it in the economy. I'll save a little bit, and I'll go out and spend it.
SPITZER: Can I give you some advice?
LOESCH: If I need to get a new vehicle, I'll do that.
SPITZER: We should all save more than we're spending. But listen, Dana, I hate to say it...
LOESCH: Well, of course. Why can't Washington do that? SPITZER: You haven't given me a single cut.
LOESCH: Yes, I did. You just didn't like the answer that I gave you. So that doesn't mean that I didn't give you a valid answer. And your disagreement with me does not make my premise any less valid.
PARKER: She said, kill Social Security and Medicare. What do you want?
SPITZER: No, she said, they're already broke, so therefore we're not going to do anything more with them. Dana, that's not an answer. I want to know...
LOESCH: Stimulus, Edu-Jobs. All of the entitlement stuff. All of that. No, we still have $38 billion that were allocated to the states for education. That's why the $26 billion in Edu-Jobs...
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: When Pierce Morgan's on this network, a big "X" will come up saying this answer doesn't fly. I'm sorry, that's not a answer.
LOESCH: It totally does.
PARKER: I just want to ask you about 2012. You noticed, I'm sure, the article that the "Washington Post" did over the weekend in which they described the Tea Party as being very dispirit and there's no leadership. You're, of course, one of a few different people who speak for the Tea Party. And when I asked people, Tea Party people, who they identified as their leader they said no one, which seems to be a point of pride among Tea Party members. And when they named those who were most often mentioned, were Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and (INAUDIBLE) Senator Jim DeMint.
So my question is, given that all of those people have a national approval rating in the vicinity of 22 percent, does that concern you at all, when we're looking forward to the 2012 election?
LOESCH: No, it doesn't really concern me at all. I -- when I read that article, I was -- that article really I found odd in two respects, the first, the polling that they did, they never released the concrete number of how many people they spoke, to how many different groups they spoke to. And secondly, there was this underlying theme in the article that unless you're a national organization your work doesn't count, it doesn't exist. Two things that I thought were weird.
But, I think one of the reasons that Palin's name and that Beck's name are constantly mentioned, regarding the Tea Party is that they're the people who really speak, the really -- they go out and they talk to people, they speak to people, they speak to the issues that the grassroots movement has at the top of their list right now, and I think that's probably why a lot of people would mention their name. I know Michele Bachmann's name is mentioned a lot, and Paul Ryan's name is mentioned a lot, as well as Marco Rubio. So, I think it's just because that they have these principles that a lot of the people in the grassroots movement have, and I think it just kind of plays off in that respect.
PARKER: Does anybody dome to mind for? I mean, is there someone out there that you have your eye on?
LOESCH: There are several people. I don't do fantasy football, I do fantasy presidential tickets. And I have some people that I -- I some people -- I know it's super early, I don't even like to speculate at this point in the game, nut I do like Michele Bachmann, Lieutenant Colonel Allen West, Charles Lollar who's in Maryland, who's another guy that I really, really like. I like Paul Ryan too, but I don't think that maybe it's time, necessarily in 2012. I think he's still sort of blossoming as it were. But, there's some really good up and comers in the GOP.
PARKER: Dana, thank you so much for being here. You're a good sport. It was a lot of fun having you here.
SPITZER: Coming up next, want to bet on the midterms? We've got one of the country's best sport and political handicappers joining us. We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, for reasons we can talk about, the Democratic message of, "they will take something away from you seems to have no resonance whatsoever." The Republican message of, "they will build this authoritarian state" is remarkably powerful, given how remote from reality it is.
SPITZER: James, there's a reason. There's nothing left to take from us. It's already gone...
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
As we've been discussing, there's one week to go until Election Day and it looks likely the Republicans will take the House. Democrats will keep control of the Senate. That could mean good old fashioned Washington gridlock, whipsaw politics, ping-pong politics. Some might even call it business as usual in our nation's capitol.
PARKER: And joining us in "The Arena," tonight are two of the sharpest political minds in the game, John McWhorter calls himself a "cranky moderate." He's also a noted linguist and a contributing editor for the conservative "Manhattan Institute." And James Traub is a writer for the "New York Times" magazine.
Thank you both for being here.
SPITZER: Thank you, guys. We wanted to begin by showing you an ad that is absolutely devastating. I don't know why it struck a nerve in its airing across with the nation, but also here on CNN. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (speaking foreign language)
(BEGIN GRAPHIC)
America tried to spend and tax itself out of a great recession. Enormous so-called "stimulus" spending, massive changes to health care, government takeovers of private industries, and crushing debt.
Of course, we owned most of their debt, so now they work for us.
(END GRAPHIC)
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PARKER: I'm sorry, did he say angowa (ph)?
JAMES TRAUB, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: What is angowa?
JOHN MCWHORTER, LINGUIST AND COLUMNIST: I am not aware of that word in Mandarin Chinese.
PARKER: That's from the Tarzan movies, you remember that, right?
SPITZER: Yeah, but somehow we're not laughing.
TRAUB: We're laughing at the stereotypes, here.
SPITZER: Well, what is it about that ad? I mean, that is scary, right?
MCWHORTER: Because they're "yellow," and so the idea is that we're supposed to think of the yellow peril and we're supposed to think that we are possibly going to be overrun or owned by alien beings. I think we can agree that that's what the point of the ad is. The question is, whether or not it's effective and whether or not it should have been cast in the way that it was.
PARKER: Wait a minute, I have to respectfully disagree. I mean, I think it's effective because everyone is afraid that we are going in deeper and deeper debt to the Chinese and that we will all end up being owned by China, working for the Chinese...
TRAUB: But that's what's so insidious about it. It's not -- the presentation of it, I think, is really malicious and clever, but it speaks to a fear that anybody who ever reads a column that Thomas Friedman writes in China would have which is these guys are putting together engineering graduate schools. These guys are making big investments in infrastructure. What are we doing? We're having food fights. So, in that sense, it plays into real fears we have, which are based on something quite substantive. MCWHORTER: It's very effective. I mean, it's a very effective ad because of that.
PARKER: And the Republicans do fare very well. And Obama has been trying to do fear a little bit, trying to say the Democrats are trying to say, look, we may be scary, but they're scarier than we are. but they're not being -- they're not pulling that off, why is that?
MCWHORTER: Well, nothing is more effective than appealing to people's fears of some external minutes. The fact of the matter is, you have to chose what you're going to couch that as being, and maybe saying it's going to be a matter of national failure on an abstract level is less effective, if we're just going to talk about effective, than talking about outside people who we see as different from us. But let's imagine that ad actually did light a fire under some people's posterior regions, who knows. I'm not sure what could be more effective than that ad.
SPITZER: No, but see, I don't think anything could be more effective, because I think, James, you're exactly right, there's a kernel of truth in that ad, and then of course it preys on the emotional side. The merger of the two is what makes it scary. It's hard to push back against it because the underlying economic storyline is accurate.
TRAUB: But also, what's the difference between the fear Democrats exploit and the fear Republicans exploit? The fear Democrats exploit is the Republicans are going to take something away from you, your Social Security, health care, whatever it is. Right? The fear the Republicans exploit is the Democrats are going to build this giant authoritarian state. Right now, for reasons we can talk about, the Democratic message they it will take something away from you seems to have no resonance whatsoever. The Republican message of they will build this authoritarian state is remarkably powerful, given how remote from reality it is.
SPITZER: James, there's a reason. There's nothing left to take from us. It's already gone. It's disappeared. But I think you're right. In terms of narratives, the Republican one is much is much more powerful.
But, you're the linguist. When you hear the language that the Republicans have used, and there is the great book, "What's the Matter with Kansas," that tried to get into this stuff. If you were trying to speak to President Obama, whom you supported.
MCWHORTER: Very much.
SPITZER: And still do. What would the language be that you would suggest he should use?
MCWHORTER: Well, it's very simple, there has to be the kind of language that sits in people's guts immediately. And so for example, if the Obama administration wants to make it clear what it has accomplished, and it's accomplished things, we're not there yet, but I think we're halfway there. Then for one thing, three things, there would have to be bullet points. And there has to be some sort of immediately memorable, probably catchphrase that get as cross that we're not there yet, but that we are going to get there. It should be something chantable, it should be something monosyllabic, it should be something that...
SPITZER: "Yes, we can."
MCWHORTER: "Yes, we can" was good, and it should also have a certain resonance that possibly said with a certain, shall we say, flavor in the cadence and then three button points and that should be just pushed cross again and again and again. If we're going to have people using brilliant images like pit bull with lipstick, and you have to admit that was really good, then you have to fight back on that level. And until that happens, there's going to...
SPITZER: Just to be clear, you're referring to Sarah Palin's convention speech back in the '08 election...
PARKER: Oh, right, because nobody would remember that. Oh, come on.
TRAUB: Treat political expressions have a very short half-life.
SPITZER: That was the moment when people looked at her and said, she is for real.
MCWHORTER: It was the moment I thought, we are going to keep hearing from her because of that image.
TRAUB: Does that mean, John, that Obama has to learn to communicate with as clever a cynicism as the Republicans? It seems to me...
MCWHORTER: Yes.
TRAUB: ...that part of the reason people responded to him was not that -- OK, then I should stop -- was not that he, in effect, fought fire with fire, but that people felt he rose above this in some way. And so, it strikes me that when you ask, what should he do post November 2, after he's gotten a shellacking, he has to be able to say, look at this ad, that speaks to a profound problem that face. Whether we like it or not, we face these big problems. Now we're in a situation we're in, what are we going to do? That party, my party, the American people, to deal with these huge long range problems that, whether we like them or not, are there.
PARKER: I agree with that.
MCWHORTER: I wish that this country worked that way, but it just won't work in our Twitter culture. I know what you mean and I agree with you, but he did fight fire with fire in a way. I genuinely don't know how conscious it was, but the "Yes, We Can Speech" -- imagine John Edwards saying those very words. He had an oratorical knack, yes it was a black thing that he was doing and that worked as well as what was going on on the Republican side. Now that's gotten old and he needs to do something else, but it does need to be punchy, it does need to simplify, somewhat, or I'm afraid that this decline that we're seeing will continue. I don't love this, but I'm not sure we can get past it in this oral culture.
PARKER: By the way, I love that you went from bullet points to button points.
MCWHORTER: Did I do those two things?
PARKER: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
MCWHORTER: I wasn't aware of that.
TRAIB: Like 1, 2, 3 on my jacket or something...
MCWHORTER: Or like a flag lapel pin or something.
PARKER: Taking the violence out of the message, right?
MCWHORTER: Yeah, I'll be...
SPITZER: A button guy used to be somebody...
TRAUB: Same thing.
PARKER: Oh, well I didn't grow up in that neighborhood, so I can't...
(LAUGHTER)
Well, I want to read something you wrote about the Tea Party.
MCWHORTER: Oh, no. What about them?
PARKER: OK, You said, "The Tea Party is a mood, a cathartic kvetch-in, a cyber-conniption." Which is beautifully written. I love that.
MCWHORTER: Thank you, I like that phrase.
PARKER: So, if the Republicans sweep into power next week, are we going to see a conniption on the left?
MCWHORTER: You know what? In a way, I hope that we do because, the fact of the matter is, that this cyber conniption is not going to stop. This is not indexed to what's going on with the economy, this is not indexed to anything that's actually going on in the government. This is a mood. And the reason that that mood is going to continue, I think for the next 20 years, and I'm willing to be proven wrong. This Tea Party anger is going to continue, because the Internet can keep whipping up, I think. And it's very charismatic, you've the slogans. You got ones who look good, like Christine O'Donnell. This is a problem if that's going to be the level of the discourse. And we're just going to have to fight it with equally punchy, buttony... SPITZER: John, I it goes beyond the mere linguistics and the messengers. I think that the reason for the anger is the deep-seeded anger of the middle class and I think that is what lays the foundation for the anger, so it goes beyond merely the technology and the words.
Guys, hate to end it, but very smart, intelligent conversation. Thank you so much. Hope you'll come back soon.
MCWHORTER: Thank you.
TRAUB: Thank you, pleasure.
SPITZER: Thank you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SONG: We're not gonna take. No, we ain't gonna take it. We're not gonna take it anymore.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: Time for "Fun with Politics." This has to be the strangest cultural convergence of the campaign season. Republicans and rappers are more alike than you think.
Come on, Kathleen, rappers and conservatives? No way, no how, I just don't see it.
Well, you don't have to take my word for it. According to Thomas Chatterton Williams, he wrote on the Web site, TheRoot, the biggest, baddest hip-hop rebels are remarkably bourgeois at heart...
Bourgeois, OK. Yeah.
And there's this, if anything, he says, hip-hop is the enemy of radical challenge to the capitalist status quo.
Interesting theory, but one guy writing it just doesn't persuade me. So what's the evidence? Come on.
Come on Eliot, Republicans are always saying they want to expand their base and diversify.
That's going to be one big tent to get all of them in it, I got to tell you.
Maybe not. Remember Karl Rove's rap routine?
You know, (INAUDIBLE) I do remember it. I can't get that image out of my head. Good thing they'll be back on the campaign trail running another election, soon. Get off the stage, Karl. Not a good picture.
We'll be right back. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Why are sports fans more loyal than voters these days?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Usually in sports, right, if you win one title, you get the best free agents, you kind of get more fans. If you win again, right? In politics, it's like you win the one time, you're going to lose next year, almost for sure. That's much more frustrating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Welcome back. Time now for "Constitution Avenue." Our next guest cut his chops as one of the best predictors in baseball. Now he's making his living in the big leagues. We call it politics.
PARKER: His Web site, FiveThirtyEight, is the go-to site for political watchers. In the 2008 presidential election, he accurately predicted the outcome of 49 states. Not too bad.
Nate Silver joins us. Welcome.
NATE SILVER, NY TIMES BLOGGER: Yes, thank you guys.
SPITZER: Well, great to have you here. But I just have to start with what was your passion when you were a kid which is baseball. So the World Series, could anybody have predicted this? I mean, everyone thought it was going to be Phillies/Yankees. We get San Francisco/Texas. You're the baseball guy. What happened?
SILVER: No, if you had that parlay, you know, in Vegas, I don't know what you would have gotten, like probably 1,000 to one. Your money or something, right? You know, but look, I mean, you know, in a short series and in some game series pretty much anything can happen. I think you would have expected Philadelphia and New York to win. Maybe it's my kind of East Coast bias.
SPITZER: Right. So --
PARKER: So, what's harder to call, baseball or politics?
SILVER: I think people get more angry in politics when you get something wrong. Right? Like people accept in baseball there's uncertainty, right? The best baseball teams lose a third of the time, right? You know, in politics, so many races of these races in the Senate and House are really close. And people could get it wrong, you're shaping the narrative, where you have you some vendetta against some candidate. You know, we're trying to set betting lines basically. In this case, this is a three-point favorite, right, just like you might in an NBA game or football game. I'm not saying for sure he's going to win because we don't know. Voters have to decide.
PARKER: Is there a Nate Silver factor? I mean, do you influence how things turn? SILVER: Well, I tell you what worries me a bit actually is that we hear back from a lot of campaigns when we kind of upgrade or downgrade their forecast. And we're not putting our finger on the scale. It's all based on kind of objective measurements. We have, you know, a system we create the start of each year and it's empirical and objective. You know, people are, you know, maybe does have some effect in some marginal cases where you have to decide where you're allocating your funds to. But I hope not. That's not really the intent.
SPITZER: Why are sports fans more loyal than voters these days?
SILVER: I don't know how loyal. It depends on how good the team is.
SPITZER: Well, Yankees fans. Yankees fans are still pretty loyal, right?
SILVER: You know, here's the problem I think you have in politics, right? Is that the election is kind of the exciting part, right? It's the fun part, you know. But then you win, you're like, what's kind of the point. You know, it's not really hard to pass any real policy or really do anything of substance. Then you kind of always, you know -- usually in sports, right, if you win one title, you get the best free agency. You kind of get more fans, so you win again. Right? In politics you win one time, you're going to lose next year almost for sure.
PARKER: Yes.
SILVER: It's much more frustrating.
SPITZER: Then you're saying 80 percent likelihood, the Republican Party takes over the House?
SILVER: Yes.
SPITZER: Which is pretty overwhelming odds. On the other hand, only 19 percent I think you said that the Republican Party takes the Senate.
And let's go to the House. There it is, 256 Democrats, 179 Republicans. That's now. Your prediction is that that's going to swing pretty dramatically. Take a look at where it's going to end up to 230 Republicans, obviously, making John Boehner the speaker of the House. What is your confidence that that is sort of the range that we're talking about?
SILVER: Well, we are proud to say that we have a big margin of error. You know, and I said probably because we think it's a difficult election to analyze and we don't want to be too kind of arrogant about saying we know the exact number of seats. So we think if you kind of put some those seats in purple, you know, there'd be about 100 in purple that could go either way.
PARKER: Can you give us your best guess on Delaware? We assume that Christine O'Donnell will lose --
SILVER: Yes.
PARKER: -- but by how much? And what does that say?
SILVER: I think she'll lose by 12. I don't know. I think it might be a little less than people expect, because the fact that it doesn't look like it will be close, will kind of keep some of that Democratic turnout down potentially. You know, but it would be a shock if she won, certainly.
SPITZER: Let's switch over to the Senate for a minute, take a look at what the Senate is right now. You can see the composition of the Senate, which is now 59-41. Not that magic 60 the Democrats really needed.
SILVER: Sure.
SPITZER: But you're predicting it's going to go to 52-48. What are the two or three volatile seats on the Senate side that we should keep an eye on to sort of see what might happen?
SILVER: So you basically have four kind of key tossups, right, which are West Virginia, Nevada, Illinois and Colorado where it's tight. And I guess you could put Pennsylvania in that group. And then you have two races that lean Democrat, but Republicans have to win one of the two to take control of the Senate, which are Washington and California. So it really comes down to about seven races unless something unexpected happens.
SPITZER: Right. The Republicans have to kind of sweep the table to make things go their way?
SILVER: They need to win six out of those seven kind of tossups to lean Democrat seats basically. You know, and the winning in some looks like the poll has move toward them in Illinois a bit, for example. But you know, Washington, California are tough. It looks like maybe Colorado is getting closer, where as they've had a lead before. And so, you know, they really have to have, you know, just to kind of have the coin come up heads a bunch.
SPITZER: Right.
SILVER: Or they have to have some additional win at their back the polls are picking up and they do even more of an enthusiasm kind of gap that you might see in the polls. And then they could, you know, do better in a number of races across the country.
PARKER: Is there anything candidates can do at this point? Or is it sewn up, do you think?
SILVER: No. I think, you know, people know kind of what the rules in the game are going to be. And it's a tough game for Democrats to play. I mean, you know, sometimes you have a better turnout operation or sometimes you kind of, you know, have that perfect advertisement that resonates with voters. You remember when they go into the polling place but it's, you know, people think oh, it's still 10 days to go. You know, really, first a lot of people have already voted. Right? Because you can early vote now in the majority of the states. And second of all, you know, most people made up their minds. And so really you're dealing with the universe of, you know, five percent of the electorate is really undecided. If you sweep those voters, it's still not enough if you're down by more than five points which plenty of candidates are.
SPITZER: That's the interesting point. I was in this game for period of time. It used to be that going into the last week or two weeks, there was still a significant block of undecided voters.
SILVER: Right.
SPITZER: And you can make a play and make your last closing argument to them. It seems as though there's greater polarization and there are very few undecided voters still left to capture.
SILVER: Yes, in the general election. In a primary, it's a different story.
SPITZER: Right.
SILVER: In a primary, people kind of wait until the last minute. Right? But in a general election, you know, 89 percent of the people are voting the party label most of the time anyway. You know, unless you have two candidates people really dislike, like in Illinois people don't like either of those candidates so there are still are a lot of undecided voters. Or in Nevada, you have a lot of third party and undecided vote and that could go out kind of other way. You know, but in general, people, you know, by this point people know who the candidates are. They've been saturated with information. People have interest in this election for a long time and so, you know, you don't have too many people deciding the last minute.
PARKER: Nate, I'm exhausted from all these numbers and statistics. How do you relax?
SILVER: I don't. After November, I'm going to go take a trip to Japan I think.
PARKER: Thanks so much, Nate. We appreciate it. And be sure to get some rest after that election.
SILVER: OK. Thank you, guys.
PARKER: All right. Take care.
SPITZER: Don't go away. We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: What is getting you really disturbed and ticked off about this political season?
DEE SNIDER, "ROCK OF AGES": Carl Paladino is focusing on Speedos. For someone so homophobic, it seems oddly homoerotic. You're wearing Speedos. Speedos, that just bothers me.
PARKER: Yes, guys walking around in Speedos, how terrifying is that?
SNIDER: How terrifying --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PARKER: Welcome to "Our Political Party." It's a chance for our guests to speak their minds on a whole range of topics. Let's meet our guests. We have Rebecca Traister who is a writer for Salon.com and she's the author of big sisters -- no, no, sorry -- that was Freudian, "Big Girls Don't Cry" about American women and the 2008 election. And then Nate Silver is back, and he's the genius behind FiveThirtyEight.com, the "New York Times" electoral blog.
SPITZER: And don't touch that dial. Yes, this is CNN not VH1. And yes, Dee Snider is joining us today. You may remember him from his twisted sister days. Take a look at that picture. Oh, yes. Now he's appearing on Broadway in the genius heavy metal musical "Rock of Ages."
Welcome, everyone. Thank you all for being here, especially on a day you have to perform.
All right. I want to show you a clip of Bill Clinton out on the campaign trail in Michigan just yesterday. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, 42ND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are a few things about this election that have gotten me somewhere between disturbed and ticked off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: All right, here's the question. What is getting you really disturbed and ticked off about this political season? And don't say everything.
REBECCA TRAISTER, SALON.COM: Yes. I'm ticked off about everything on both parties. Disturbed is a slightly different adjective. And the thing that I think disturbs me most is this persistent note of violence in so much of the rhetoric that is especially coming from the right, and whether that's the Sharron Angle taking Second Amendment remedies blind that we've heard repeated again and again, whether it's the machine guns of the Joe Miller rally.
And then last week I saw this ad, the personhood ad in Colorado. I don't know if you guys had seen it. It's about the fetal personhood amendment that's on the ballot out there. And it's an ad that has this very vivid, very disturbing image of a death mask, a skeleton, the angel of death that morphs into Barack Obama's face. And this is sort of part and parcel I think -- I mean, that's coming from one specific group and it's one specific area, but it's this sort of note of violence that I find deeply horrifyingly disturbing.
PARKER: Yes. I agree. There is this sort of undercurrent that gives a nod and a wink to violent ideas. I completely agree with that.
DEE SNIDER, "ROCK OF AGES": Mine is a little less broad. Carl Paladino is focusing on Speedos. For someone so homophobic, it seems oddly homoerotic. You're wearing Speedos. Speedos, that just bothers me.
PARKER: Yes, guys walking around in Speedos, how terrifying is that?
SNIDER: How terrifying.
(LAUGHTER)
TRAISTER: The two often got hand in hand, homophobia and the homoerotic.
SNIDER: Yes, I noticed that.
SILVER: Well, you know, I was going to say --
SPITZER: You were just having a good time.
SILVER: I was going to lie. Oh, you know, people shouldn't focus so much on the horse race, and we should worry about issues.
PARKER: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Come on, Nate, we're not letting you get away with that.
SILVER: You know --
PARKER: Makes you an OCD.
SILVER: You know, what worries me a little bit is that, you know, and this is nothing new, by the way. This is kind of politics for a long time now. But you don't really have any party that's kind of honestly focusing on long term solutions. So we talked before about how you'll probably see some oscillation back and forth in the next kind of four, eight, you know, maybe 20 years, who knows. You know, and what does that do to the debt in the long term and the environment and issues where you need some longer term thinking.
SPITZER: I want to take that thought and switch it to a completely different -- has the length of rock songs gotten shorter over the years? Our political attention span clearly is shorter. In music, anything like this?
SNIDER: You know, you're familiar with some songs like "Free Bird" Lynyrd Skynyrd and MacArthur Park. There's actually sort of a formula. I don't want to break the news, 3 1/2 minutes, you know, verse course, first course, guitar solo get out. That kind of thing.
SPITZER: Right.
SNIDER: So it's just really sort of your imagination more than anything. It's always been the law, 3 1/2 minutes.
PARKER: Wow.
SPITZER: Good political speech.
PARKER: It destroyed the whole mystery of rock for me.
(LAUGHTER)
SNIDER: Oh, no, no, it's all from the heart.
PARKER: All right. Here's another video clip. Now this one is national, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on "Meet the Press" just yesterday. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL STEELE, RNC CHAIRMAN: I always make mistakes. The Lord knows I'm familiar with, you know, foot in mouth disease.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PARKER: Well, there's no question that Michael Steele kind of holds the -- he's the top ranking foot in mouth person. But do you have any other foot in mouth-isms from this campaign that stand out?
SILVER: I am not a witch is the one that I think will be most remembered from this campaign for the longest, you know --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: How do you know? How do we know? She's the only one who has said that, right? Are we supposed to believe her when she said that?
PARKER: That isn't foot in mouth when you say something you didn't mean to say, right? And she's obviously --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, fair enough.
PARKER: So that's pretty contrived and that's a strategy. She now regrets it, of course.
SNIDER: I think anything Sarah Palin says wreaks of hoof and mouth, actually. And I just sit there in shock and awe just watching her speak.
TRAISTER: But she's nothing compared to Sharron Angle who's got to get some kind of lifetime achievement award that she's packed into this one election season between --I mean, this summer she said that, you know, the hypothetical situation of a 13-year-old girl raped by her father, she would legally force to have an abortion was a situation where she turned a lemon situation into lemonade. And then last week she told this group of largely Latino teens that they kind of looked Asian to her. I mean, she's a psychotic theory.
PARKER: That's a perfect example there. Well, you know, we've got to be bipartisan here in our criticism.
SPITZER: Who says?
Why do you say that also time.
(LAUGHTER)
PARKER: Our viewers.
SPITZER: More Republicans are doing this just let it -- you know, we can live with that.
PARKER: Let sleeping dogs lie, is that what you're trying not to say?
SPITZER: Right.
PARKER: Well, surely -- I mean, Joe Biden is reliable. He says things that are often comical if not endearing.
SILVER: I think those would be happy to be made fun of, by the way, if they win 50 House seats on November 2nd. I think they wouldn't care so much about being teased a little bit.
SPITZER: The bizarre thing about all these misstatements is that they have continued to be the focal point of all the media attention. It's hard to think of any day over the last three months when the Democratic Party and its message has been on the front page with the persistence of the Republican Party. And if you're not controlling the narrative, and I've told this to so many people, if you're playing defense, you're losing. I don't care how well you play it. This is not like baseball where with a lead of 1-0, you can just play good "d" and win. If the Democratic Party has, you know, bad metaphor, fumbled the ball on this one, and just hasn't gotten the story out.
SNIDER: You're talking about button points earlier.
SPITZER: Yes.
SNIDER: And the Democrats clearly don't have that down. But the Republicans do. It's just so -- it's like a laser point with them.
SPITZER: Yes.
PARKER: Well, they're always going to be disciplined and focused and get their acts together. I mean, you know, in two years, it may be a completely different story.
SPITZER: All right.
PARKER: We'll have button point from the left.
SPITZER: All right. But before we take a quick break, one last quick question. Keith Richards autobiography is out soon and we just got kind of ask this inevitable party question, you know, Stones or Beatles?
SNIDER: Oh, well, I'm going to go Beatles. Actually, you wouldn't think that I would.
SILVER: Surprising.
SNIDER: Yes. But a very dear friend of mine, Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead, saw the Stones and the Beatles in the day, and he said the Beatles flat out were the better rock band pound for pound.
PARKER: Really?
SNIDER: So and he was there at the Cavern Club, so I take his word at it. I was originally a Beatles fan.
PARKER: Well, nobody asked me, but I'll just say the Beatles for me are when you're home alone. When you want to dance, it's the Stones. Of course, I dance alone, too.
SPITZER: You dance all the time.
SILVER: I think people will listen to the Beatles still in 100 years, which I'm not sure is true about the Stones.
PARKER: Well, it depends on how long we have elevators.
SILVER: Yes.
SNIDER: There are some people actually throwing things in the studio right now. I just want to say the Stones are awesome, OK? Just given a choice.
SPITZER: Come on, you have to --
TRAISTER: Beatles, I was going to say Beatles. But then in the bonus round, Ringo is my favorite.
SPITZER: All right. You know --
(CROSSTALK)
SNIDER: I was a Ringo guy too, underdog.
SPITZER: Come on.
PARKER: God, it was so easy and we missed it.
SPITZER: We have to take a quick break. We want to hear from you. Check out our blog at CNN.com/parkerspitzer. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We'll be right back with another question.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Welcome back to "Our Political Party." We're going to do one more quick whip around the table.
Sony announced this weekend that it has stopped production of the walkman. A perfect example of a product that was once hugely popular, but his time has passed. Is there a political walkman that needs to be retired.
SILVER: I think the notion that Republicans always kind of fall in line and the establishment will always prevail with some of the primaries you had this year and what they could possibly mean for 2012, you won't be able to anoint like a Mitt Romney necessarily or a safe candidate, you know --
PARKER: So you're saying older white men?
SILVER: Well, you know, yes, older --
I mean, older white men, you know, although a major component of the GOP don't necessarily dominate it any more. You have some younger white men and some older white women.
PARKER: Yes. And we've got some grizzly factors.
SILVER: But you do have -- you know, you do have the sense that people are -- you know, the Tea Party is sincere I think in disliking the establishment of both major parties and how is that going to play out in 2012 where you have a Sarah Palin maybe running? You know, I think it's some dynamic that you have to increase your chances of both running and winning the nomination I think based on this primary cycle.
PARKER: All right. Dee?
SNIDER: I thought you meant like literally. Hey, I didn't know walkmans were still around. But I'm a fan. But kissing babies, if they're still doing that, literally doing that, who knows where those politicians' mouths have been. You know, no offense. So, you know, I say let's get rid of that.
PARKER: I'm with you on that.
(CROSSTALK)
I thought Barack Obama would like that, but I never thought he was comfortable kissing babies.
TRAISTER: No.
SPITZER: And yours?
TRAISTER: Oh, I want people to stop talking about the women's vote as if it's some giant estrogen driven ovarian block of women who go out and vote the same way. And I think, I mean --
SILVER: The Hispanic vote and everything.
TRAISTER: Yes.
SILVER: You know, I think people, you know, let's permit some nuance, and if people don't -- you know, Hispanics care about more than just immigration. Women care about more than just kind of pro- life, pro-choice, you know.
SPITZER: Nuance in politics, now there's a new creative thought. All right. Twenty years from now, maybe it will happen. All right.
PARKER: Never tire in politics right here. Awesome.
SPITZER: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
SPITZER: All right, folks, I hate to break up the party. That's all we have time for. Thanks to Rebecca Traister, Nate Silver, Dee Snider for being with us.
PARKER: Thank you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: I'm Joe Johns. More of "PARKER SPITZER" in a moment. First, the latest.
In Haiti, the death toll from a fast moving cholera outbreak is at least 259. And there are concerns the disease could spread to the nearby Dominican Republic. Actor and activist Sean Penn has been sounding the alarm for months about a public health disaster like this. Tonight on "360," he talks to Anderson about the cholera outbreak and how little aid has reached Haiti despite huge promises.
On day one of the Chandra Levy murder trial, a witness broke down as she described being attacked in 2001 just weeks after the Washington intern disappeared in the same park where Levy's remains were found. Authorities believe her attacker was Levy's alleged killer.
The Florida teenager who made news when she couldn't get rid of her hiccups three years ago has a much bigger problem tonight. Jennifer Mee who earned the nickname "hiccup girl" is facing first- degree murder charges. The 19-year-old is accused of luring a man she met online to a vacant house where he was robbed and then killed by two accomplishes. Mee has pleaded not guilty.
That is the latest. "PARKER SPITZER" is back in a moment.
SPITZER: There's one week to go before the midterm elections with a whole lot of races still undecided. If you stay right here and watch this program, we promise you'll know everything you need to know to make an informed decision.
PARKER: We have some great guests joining us this week, including Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, former governor and senator George Allen, Nicole Wallace, a former adviser to the McCain- Palin campaign, and comedian D.L. Hughley.
SPITZER: And we're going to keep asking our guests this week to, quote, "name their cuts." And we want to hear your idea, too. Go to CNN.com/parkerspitzer. Tell us what you'd cut in the federal budget.
PARKER: Thanks so much for being with us. Be sure to join us tomorrow night.
SPITZER: Good night from New York. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
