After discussing the Republicans reaction to President Obama's speech laying out his proposals for job creation and their scornful reaction to the President mentioning that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, Lawrence O'Donnell asked Rep. Barney Frank whether there was any chance of his bill passing through the House of Representatives. Rep. Frank stated the obvious reasons why it won't.
As Frank noted, Republicans do not accept the notion that government is capable of doing anything to improve people's lives, they don't believe in government, period, and they don't want the economy to get any better because that would mean President Obama's chances of getting reelected get better. And as Frank pointed out, the Republicans have already said their number one goal was to keep the President from being reelected.
O'Donnell asked Frank what he thought about the idea of President Obama going around to different Republican House districts and show the roads and bridges that need to be rebuilt there, the teachers that could be hired there and what not and whether that strategy might work or not.
FRANK: I believe the president should try and will try, but let me... let's go with the metaphor here. Air Force One is a transport plane, it's not a bomber. The president can't go over districts and bomb them into submission.
Frank also pointed out the other problem with that strategy, which is that the dominating force in Republican politics is their extreme right-wing base, that is pushing them further and further to the right and away from what most of the country wants in order to get Americans back to work, but they're the ones who show up to vote in the primaries, so the Republicans are beholden to them.
