> is cain able? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, can rocky win? ♪ ♪ herman cain is the rocky in this republican race, the guy who came out of nowhere, who few respected as a full-fledged candidate, who suddenly has shown he can throw a punch and is a real contender. but can he win the most votes?

can herman cain turn his anybody but romney support into real campaign that actually wins caucuses and primaries? plus, here's a provocative headline we saw today, will mitt romney kill the tea party? conservatives winced at the idea of the born-again conservative romney as the nominee and there's some talk of a third-party challenge to him. on the other side of the spectrum, are the occupy wall street protests real? is there real anger here that can spread throughout the country? author michael lewis joins us on whether they can use that anger to change american hearts and minds. and if you're like me and grew up in a time of racial tensions and riots, it's amazing and gratifying to see a country that has a democratic 6 african-american president and another african-american at the top now of the gop field. how far have we come on this weekend that we do dedicate the martin luther king jr. memorial here in washington? and let me finish tonight with a call to action to those protesting on wall street. get something done.

we start with the rise of herman cain. david corn's an msnbc political analyst and "mother jones" magazine's washington bureau chief, and jonathan martin is senior political reporter for politico. gentleman, i want to know how this ends for this fellow, herman cain, who's come out of nowhere. you're chuckling, but let me raise a couple of questions here. i'm going to give you a number of questions, the scenario. this guy keeps going up. he's ahead now in south carolina. he's ahead now in florida. he's ahead of the field against a guy who can't do anything but flatline. mitt romney won't get above 23. he stays right there, like a dead guy, politically. whereas cain keeps going up. my question to you, if cain can even hold second place to romney, who gets ahead of him? who beats him? >> i tell you where it ends up. it ends up with herman cain on fox news and a lot of book sales. this guy will not be the nominee, chris. maybe rick perry comes back, you

know, it's true that mitt romney's in a weak position, can't get above, but herman cain, once mitt romney, or anybody else, starts spending millions of dollars to tell the american public that his 9-9-9 plan means tax increases for anyone making $50,000 or below, his campaign is going to flame out, if it hasn't already. he is so vulnerable on this and other fronts. he still can't talk about anything else other than 9-9-9. i don't see the republican party that crazy. >> let me go to a couple things. we've all agreed, i think you agree, that someone has to challenge romney from the right. somebody in the end will be in the race with him throughout the spring, challenging him as the alternative to a guy who's not a tea partier. so somebody will be the hero of the tea party. now you've got to argue that somebody has to beat this guy. do you think perry has the iq, politically, to get out there and fight against the guy who has won -- he's done well, let me put it this way, in every debate he's been in, who goes up in the polls every time, who can talk, something that perry can't do.

do you say his ads -- >> if we're agreeing -- >> look at this guy! have you heard anything out of this guy yet, his campaign? >> no, no, no. but if you're agreeing there has to be a stand-in for the anti-romney vote, i think you're right. maybe rick perry, as politically challenged as he might be -- >> political iq. >> but it's not going to be herman cain. >> you think you know a lot about the republican party, here's haley barbour on herman cain's chance of success. the king of the south. >> i have a theory on this too. >> let's listen to haley barbour. >> if this election is what it ought to be, and that's a referendum on how president obama's done, a republican's going to win. if herman cain is our nominee running against barack obama, i think he'll sweep the south. >> "he'll sweep the south." do you want to counter haley barbour? >> "if he's the nominee." will he win north carolina? virginia? i don't think so. but i don't think he'll be the nominee. we won't have to worry about haley's prediction. >> i want to go back to what you were saying.

he's not going to be the number two or the number one. my argument is this -- mitt romney is more vulnerable than herman cain as a nominee, because he is very vulnerable with 77% of the party who relentlessly won't support him, even in the polls. he's got a problem. it might be the religion problem, yongsz. i think it's the i dee logical problem. they don't trust him as a conservative. whereas herman cain, everything he's done has said, i am a conservative. and you think it's going to be going through the weeds of his economic program that's going to kill him. >> i think he can't sustain any scrutiny on his program or anything else, even for republican primary voters. >> let's take a look at him. here is haley barbour and what he had to say on laura ingraham's radio show after herman cain, about herman cain. let's watch. >> he's attracted a very good following, in my family. you know, i think if it were today, my wife would vote for herman cain. one of my sons -- i've got grown children -- from the first day said, dad, do you know herman cain? i said, sure, i've known him since i was chairman. he said, i like him, i like what he says.

and that's one of his great strengths, laura. he is likable. he does not give you the impression that he's full of himself. >> why are so many republicans in poll after poll saying herman cain? >> why so many? we've only had this for a week -- >> nbc's got the best poll in the country and he's number one in it. >> he is now. listen, we were going on and on about donald trump last spring, michele bachmann seemed to be the anti-romney candidate. there is a taste, a desire, a craving for someone other than mitt romney. but as anyone has come up, they've fallen very quickly. >> who's going to replace him on that job? that's my point. is he the last guy on the right standing? >> we haven't had a santorum bubble yet. >> i've been logical about this. i've watched what you watch. we've sat at think this table watching trump do his number. watched bachmann do her run, watch perry fizzle. this guy has succeeded all of them. who will succeed him, who hasn't already fizzled? answer?

>> i would say that the best bet would be a perry comeback, and then say, a newt gingrich rise. >> a perry comeback? >> yes. he has the money, he'll have the consultants, and -- >> did you watch him in the debate? >> oh, i think he's awful. >> "the washington post" debate, he was a groundhog. >> he can't stay awake. this man cannot stay awake past 8:00 in the evening. i don't know what that is. >> let's put perry on tv right now with herman cain. who wins the debate? one on one. >> well, that's a really good question, because neither one of them have any policies to talk about. i mean, cain is certainly more personable and he's been a better debater, but do you think -- i'll ask you this. can he say 9-9-9 from here until election day and nothing else? >> we'll go in now, we'll go into the weeds with you, where you really want to go. timothy egan of "the new york times" describes cain's economic plan, which david is talking about, like this -- in essence, cain is proposing the largest shift in tax burden from the wealthy to the poor" -- sounds like the republican party to me.

sounds like what they want to do. he apparently would scrap the two great government programs that keep millions clinging to fragile middle class, social security and medicare, because he wants to eliminate the payroll taxes that now pay for those -- so here you have a guy whose impulse is to shift wealth to wealthy people, basically. whose impulse is to get rid of great society programs. i know i'm being a bit of a cartoon here, but these are the impulses of the party we're talking about. >> and he also wants to tax beer. i mean, the thing is, most republicans don't get out there and say, hey, if you're making more than -- making less than $50,000 a year, we're going to tax you more. they know, they try to cut the edges a different way. but this guy's plan is such a bald effort to redistribute wealth from the top -- from the bottom to the top. >> every time he's been in a debate -- his numbers have gone up. thank you david. coming up, the occupy wall street protest is growing. how much sway do they have with

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welcome back to "hardball." this morning, 600 to 700 protesters gathered as part of occupy wall street. they would have had to leave the park early. the protesters won. police later arrested 14 protesters who marched down to wall street. any political ramifications for the protests. charles rangel is joining me. i guess it comes down to there's a lot of support in this

country, overwhelming support for the feelings of inequality. my question to you, sir. is there any way that something good will come of this? >> of course there is. right now, like throughout america they are merely indicating their frustration. i really hope that as a result of this happening throughout these united states that we find some of our spiritual leaders joining with them and giving them some direction because in addition to the unemployment, we have a real attack on the vulnerable, the sick, the ageing and this is happening in the congress. we haven't heard at all from administers and the only way for them to be active is get active, register, vote, do something. right now, that leadership is

missing. i only wish our community leaders could see these kids. they are good people. many gone through college. they don't have a job. they know they'll never be able to aspire to what their parents have done. it's frustrating as hell to be that helpless and that hopeless. >> let's talk about two areas they are angry about. one is inequality of income. members of both parties have supported the differential on taxes. people that make money off capital gains pay 15% in taxes and the people who make money off work with sweat equity, they pay up to 35%. is there a way congress will equalize the rates of taxes? >> i hope so. they talk about the power of money and getting people elected. it's not really just the fact that there's a disparity in

terms of tax rate people pay on capital gains as well as on their income. there are two things, too. one of the things is the disparity exists where a handful of americans own almost half of the wealth in this country. and the middle class, which is really the heart beat of our economy, the heart beat of our country is shrinking and the poor are just growing larger and larger. one out of five kids in america is born into poverty. that is dangerous enough. the other problem is that it is perceived when the bankers were in trouble, when the financial institutions were in trouble, bush told us and obama underlined it that we had to take taxpayer's money, invest it into these fiscal institutions or the whole economy would

collapse and have international repercussions. while people saw that, they didn't march or protest, they just saw it. right after that, the people who pay taxes when they could lose all of their jobs, their hopes, their savings, their homes and you have the disparity there. there's enough to be angry about. >> well, i'm hoping you can get something done as a result of the street action. thank you u.s. congressman charlie rangel of new york. joining me now is michael lewis, who wrote "money ball" as well as "the blind side." his newest book about the global financial crisis called "book rang." i love what they were able to do with your book. i love "money ball." i'm not sure what it was about. it was bigger than baseball. we can't talk about it here. it's too deep and cosmic. shortly, can you tell me quickly

in a sentence or two what was "money ball" about and then what was "boomerang" about. >> it's the way the markets misvalue people and the way people get misperceived. it's an astonishing story. they can be under valued and then they can come and take advantage of that. boomerang is about the financial crisis. i think what you are seeing on wall street is an expression of the fact the financial crisis never really ended. it got -- the debts that were -- the bad investments that were made by banks have been nationalized around the world. you have now sovereign states that are not credible financially. >> what are the people up in

those buildings looking down on people thinking right now? are they scared? are they chuckling at them? what do you think their reaction is? some of this stuff, people pushed around by police. a guy down in a crouching position. what are they thinking in the high-rises? >> if i had to guess, they think it doesn't concern them very much, yet. i mean, put yourself in the position of someone inside a goldman sachs or morgan stanley. you had your way with the world. you would have been out of business, but you got restored to health, then proceeded to wreak havoc with any attempts to reform you. what are the people on the streets going to do? they are wrong to think that, but i think they are viewing it with indifference. >> let's talk about the election coming up and what this

boomerang means. every day, i ask somebody, what is going on. obama can't move the unemployment rate. it's around 9%. he's not going to get anything through congress. what drove the european mess, greece, what do you worry about in the next year. if you were obama and gene sperling was sitting in the white house, what would scare the heck out of you between now and next november? >> well, you are right. he's not going to get anything through congress. he's going to deal with high unemployment. the thing i would be scared of now is another banking crisis. it's triggered by a greece default or italian default. the banks own large amounts of sovereign debt. the minute one of these places goes down, especially if it goes down nastily, greece announces you are going to get 30 cents on

the dollar back if -- french and german banks are under attack. you are exactly where you were in 2008 where you have to choose between letting the financial system go down or come in and look like you are friends with the fat cats on wall street. that's what they are afraid of, they will have to be put in that position again and it will show the institutions are too big to fail. >> the effort to bind up and reform wall street after bush left and obama came in, all that stuff around the time of t.a.r.p., the system with dodd/frank left us at the whim of the big shots? >> we are still vulnerable. the situation is a little different but if goldman or jp morgan walks in and says we need help or we are not going to open the doors tomorrow, i don't think the treasury is going to

have any choice but do what they did all over again. >> thank you. thanks. it's good to know we need the right people running the country. herman cain hoping he doesn't melt away like ice cream. i think he's rocky. you're watching "hardball" on msnbc.

back to "hardball." now to the sideshow. first up, when sarah palin first grabbed some attention for calling gop candidate herman cain the flavor of the week, the initial speculation was that the candidate would take offense to the comment. well, since then cain has turned the tables and dubbed himself the black walnut after what he calls his own haagen-dazs flavor of choice. well, if you haven't seen that option in the grocery aisle lately, there's a reason. according to the haagen-dazs customer service line, "we don't sell black walnut. the sales nationally did not

meet our expectations, unfortunately. it did not behoove us to continue with the product." well, there's a bad sign. a bad metaphor, if you want. apparently cain was not aware that his flavor of choice turned out not to be everybody else's. let's hear his thoughts on the matter. >> well, i was very disappointed to find out that it's a limited edition and they don't make haagen-dazs the way they used to, so i'm heartbroken over that. i now have my people calling haagen-dazs and finding out why they don't make haagen-dazs ice cream, when they gonna bring it back because it's always been my all-time favorite. >> i don't know how a flavor can be your all-time favorite when you can't even buy it. up next, allen west of florida attracted attention back in july for his nasty comments on fellow florida representative debbie wasserman schultz, who he called, quote, the most vial, unprofessional, and despicable member of the u.s. house of representatives. well, he's on the attack again.

this time against president obama. here's part of an e-mail he sent to supporters. "i truly believe president barack obama does not comprehend american exceptionalism. he does not fathom that in america, the station of your birth does not determine the station of your outcome. america is not about class or caste, it is about rewarding work and ideas." hmm. well, there's a tough sell he's got on his hands there. i think president obama himself is the clearest example of west's definition of american exceptionalism, isn't he, when you think about it? look where he is. and now for the big number. it might come as no surprise in this fall's gop debate since rick perry, who was dealt the most verbal punches by the other candidates. that's right, he played the role of piñata more often than all the other candidates combined. but, here's a shocker. who do you think threw the most punches at him? it was jon huntsman, with how many attacks on his opponents? 19. unfortunately for huntsman, the

whacks don't seem to have provided much momentum given his place in the polls. 19 times at bat for jon huntsman and that's tonight's big number. that's "hardball" for now. up next, "your business" with j.j. ramberg. [ male announcer ] cranberry juice? wake up! ♪ that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories -- plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. that's why i recommend

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