As we watch Republican candidates like Scott Walker and Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal and George Pataki, and even Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, guys who are either out or who are really struggling to stay in, it might seem like the Republican Party is no longer a very strong party. There may be people who use the Republican label, but the party itself might feel like it`s in a bit of disarray.
Melissa Harris-PerryThe folks like myself that do this for a living, we were expecting a regular campaign had built the databases, done all the new social media, learned our lessons from [Barack] Obama whipping us twice on how to do voter contact, and then Donald Trump gets in it and turns it into a national election.
Melissa Harris-PerryI do think that we have to be careful not to assume that getting a perm or wearing a blonde wig is a desire for whiteness. It may or may not be. Listen, I live in a poor black neighborhood where women wear blue hair, green hair, and all kinds of stuff. So, I simply see it as a different set of choices.
Melissa Harris-PerryI had a friend say to me the other day, I hate when I see Jonathan Metzl on your show because I know it`s bad news. I know that there has been a shooting.
Melissa Harris-PerryThe problem is that many of our policymakers want to base sweeping laws on those feelings.
Melissa Harris-PerryThe leading non-establishment Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, is just sailing past [establishment Republican candidates] in the polls. He is still surging. He is basically killing them all.
Melissa Harris-PerryIn a moment when young black voters were key to the election and the reelection of a black president, when the Department of Justice has been led these years by the first two African-American attorneys general, when many big cities boast African-American league prosecutors and police chiefs and mayors, even in this moment, why is it that it still feels to so many young people that there is more power for change on the court than in the courts?
Melissa Harris-Perry