Sarah Palin rocks the mic in Indianola, Iowa.

Former Vice Presidential candidate, Alaska governor and reality TV star Sarah Palin isn't ready to throw her name in the 2012 presidential race -- but she doesn't want to be taken out of it either. Palin continued to tease the possibility  of a White House run at a Tea Party rally in Indianola, Iowa Saturday.

Amid chants of "Run, Sarah, Run!," Palin gave a speech in which she criticized President Obama and the current slate of Republican candidates for "corporate crony capitalism."

"This is why we must remember the challenge is not simply to replace Obama in 2012. The real change is who and what we will replace him with. ... Folks, you know it's not enough to change the uniform," Palin said.

Afterwards, Palin spoke to reporters and insisted the event "was a thank-you-Tea-Party-Americans speech" rather than an official campaign event.

"I’m still not ready to make any kind of an announcement. ... I’m still trying to figure it out, if it’s the right thing to do," Palin said as she autographed a gun for an admirer.

Palin's presence on the '08 ticket and her regular participation at political events since then has encouraged rampant speculation she'll throw her hat into the ring next year. Her appearance in Iowa only adds fuel to the fire. The Hawkeye State is home to the first presidential primary, making it a favorite haunt of White House hopefuls. Palin's next speech is at a Labor Day Tea Party rally in New Hampshire, which is set to host the second primary contest.

It may be time for Palin to make a definitive announcement and stop teasing the possibility of a run as there's evidence her schtick is wearing thin on voters. A recent Fox News poll found only 25 percent of Republican voters want Palin to join the race while 71 percent would prefer she stay out of it.

Food is a great prop, right? Hand-held fair food is basically the opposite of national enemy arugula, and shoving it in one's mouth buys some time before answering a question. It's so charming it got us to blog about Mitt Romney!

So, what did the very hungry GOPillar eat his way through?

A pork chop on a stick.

A corn dog.

A hot dog.

He was, sadly, not seen eating deep fried butter. Not that he shouldn't! Debating burns calories. Speaking of which, we're going to go tune in. We're third-wheeling Bill and Emma Keller's date night.

If you two have a debate drinking game, tweet it!

But after his testimony, Colbert found himself on the defensive when Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) accused him of unpacking corn in his Colbert Report segment, "Fallback Position," rather than packing it. Or something. Colbert defended himself, but seemed uncharacteristically rattled by the interrogation—enough to put his foot in his mouth with an off-color and worse, unfunny, joke about gay Iowans. 

Here it is: 

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Contact: Aaron Gell / @aarongell

And therein lies Hillary Clinton's predicament: If she loses to Barack Obama on Tuesday night, she will have suffered back-to-back defeats in the lead-off states, both in raw numbers and in terms of media perception. Never, in either party, has a candidate endured such a fate and gone on to claim the nomination. And never has a candidate won both events—as Obama is poised to do—and been denied the nomination.

The same history applies to the Republican side, underscoring the do-or-die stakes of the John McCain-Mitt Romney contest in New Hampshire: the loser will have suffered clear losses in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Only one of them figures to emerge with the viability to challenge Mike Huckabee, Iowa's winner. And history doesn't smile at all on the waiting-game strategy being employed by both Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson.

Here is a look at how the Iowa/New Hampshire one-two punch has affected past nominating contests for both parties:

Democrats

2004: John Kerry wins undisputed victories in Iowa and New Hampshire and emerges as the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination. The party, eager to unite for a fall race against George W. Bush, quickly coalesces around him. This mood also makes it suicidal for his opponents to run negative campaign against him. Meanwhile, Howard Dean, who had been the front-runner before Iowa, watches his support evaporate with his back-to-back setbacks in the first two states. Three of Kerry's foes—Dean, John Edwards and Wesley Clark—stick around for a few weeks, mainly to be in position if Kerry stumbles. He doesn't, and the nomination is his by the middle of March.

2000: Al Gore follows up a 28-point win over Bill Bradley in Iowa with a narrow 4-point escape job in New Hampshire, aided by independent voters (who favored Bradley) lopsidedly opting to participate in the G.O.P. primary. A change of a few points would have made Bradley a contender for the nomination, but instead the twin defeats devastate his campaign. Casual supporters jump ship, the news media loses interest and Bradley is flushed from the race in the next wave of contests.

1996: No primaries

1992: Iowa is not contested, making New Hampshire the first major event. Bill Clinton loses the state to Paul Tsongas but declares a moral victory in his concession speech, calling himself "the comeback kid." The media buys it and treats Clinton like a winner. Two weeks later, in the next big test for the candidates, Clinton scores a lopsided win in Georgia and loses narrowly in Maryland (to Tsongas) and Colorado (to Jerry Brown), leading the media to dub him the day's overall winner. Decisive Clinton victories on Super Tuesday the following week all but cement the nomination.

1988: Michael Dukakis finishes third in Iowa but is portrayed as a winner by the media, since his 22 percent showing is considered strong for a Northeast governor running against two candidates from bordering states (Richard Gephardt and Paul Simon). Dukakis then wins New Hampshire by nearly 20 points over Gephardt and Simon, establishing him as the clear national front-runner. With his momentum, Dukakis is then able to pull off his "four corners" strategy on Super Tuesday (the next major test), winning Maryland, Florida, Texas and Washington on the same day. Jesse Jackson and Al Gore (who largely skipped Iowa and New Hampshire) each win several southern states on Super Tuesday, but Dukakis, by demonstrating appeal in multiple regions of the country, is seen as gaining the most from the day. After a surprise loss to Jackson in Michigan the following weekend, Dukakis overwhelms his foes in Wisconsin and New York, sealing the nomination.

1984: Walter Mondale posts a three-to-one win in Iowa over Gary Hart, but the result nonetheless certifies Hart as the main alternative to Mondale, a role no one had yet assumed. Hart rockets to a 13-point triumph in New Hampshire and the press immediately declares him the national front-runner—even though Mondale had led his nearest rival by 49 points in a national poll just weeks before New Hampshire. Hart quickly reels off a series of small caucus and primary wins, setting the stage for Super Tuesday (then a much smaller affair than now) and his chance to finish off Mondale. But the former V.P. turns the tables on Hart in a debate in Atlanta, suggesting (sort of as Hillary now is about Obama) that his opponent is all talk and no action. "Where's the beef?" Mondale asks, quoting the then-popular Wendy's advertising slogan in reference to Hart's "new ideas" platform. Mondale scores life-saving wins in Georgia and Alabama and the media declares Super Tuesday a draw. That puts Mondale back in the game, and his machine slowly wears Hart down over the next few months (the nominating process was evenly spread out and lasted through early June back then).

1980: There is something of a parallel between the talk now coming from Hillary's campaign—downplaying a potential New Hampshire loss and portraying the nomination race as a long marathon—and the '80 campaign between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy. Carter, the incumbent president, wins clear victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, but Kennedy, who was more well-known and better-funded than most challenger candidates, refuses to fold and insists he'll compete through the convention. The race ends up lasting for several months, with Kennedy scoring enough wins at critical times to keep his campaign alive. But Carter, thanks to his early momentum and establishment backing, always has the upper hand, and Kennedy is always playing catch-up. On June 3, the final day of voting, Carter pushes past the magic delegate number with a win in Ohio. Had Kennedy won in New Hampshire, where he'd invested heavily, expectations might have shifted in the subsequent states.

1976: Jimmy Carter wins Iowa (which he alone contests), providing him with enough momentum to win New Hampshire by 5 points over Mo Udall (a significant setback for Udall). This establishes Carter as a credible alternative to George Wallace in the South, and Carter eliminates Wallace with a victory in Florida. Carter then knocks Scoop Jackson out in Pennsylvania and Udall in Wisconsin. Frank Church and Jerry Brown then enter the race and run to Carter's left in the May and June primaries, but their late success is not enough to deny Carter a first ballot nomination. Carter's path to victory is significant because it announces the predominance of Iowa and New Hampshire in a nominating process that is increasingly being decided by primaries and caucuses—and not at party conventions.

1972: This was the first year in which Iowa and New Hampshire both play meaningful roles in the nominating contest. George McGovern, who authored the new nominating procedures that went into effect in '72 gains credibility in Iowa, even though he finishes second to Ed Muskie. His second place finish to Muskie in New Hampshire is also deemed a victory by the press—and a repudiation of Muskie, a Senator from neighboring Maine who had been the overwhelming national front-runner. Muskie collapses and McGovern gobbles up subsequent primaries, surviving charges from George Wallace (who is shot before his Maryland victory) and Hubert Humphrey to secure the nomination.

Republicans

2000: Very similar to the '84 Democratic race. Like Walter Mondale, George W. Bush enters as the clear national front-runner and posts a sizable win in Iowa—as expected. But then he is thumped in New Hampshire by John McCain, who touts a reform message and attracts hordes of independent voters. Bush arrests McCain's momentum with an ugly South Carolina win, restoring his standing as the safe pick for establishment Republicans. McCain win
s the next contest—in Michigan—but only with the help of independent and Democratic voters, a fact that Bush uses to further his case that McCain is not a loyal Republican, but rather a tool of the party's opponents. In the next wave of contests (in more conservative states, and in closed primary states) Bush wins going away.

1996: Iowa introduces Pat Buchanan and Lamar Alexander (second and third place in the caucuses) as front-runner Bob Dole's chief rivals for the nomination, and Buchanan follows up with a shocking New Hampshire win. Dole finishes second, with Alexander just behind him in third. But Alexander is squeezed from the race, with the press focusing exclusively on a Dole-Buchanan race. Dole rallies the panicked G.O.P. establishment in South Carolina and fends off Buchanan, signaling the demise of any realistic Buchanan nomination scenario. Billionaire publisher Steve Forbes, who entered the race late and downplayed Iowa and New Hampshire, scores a surprise win in Delaware and emerges as a late alternative to Dole, but Dole—with the inevitability he recovers in South Carolina—crushes him on Super Tuesday.

1992: Iowa is not contested, but Pat Buchanan mounts a challenge to President George H.W. Bush in New Hampshire. He announces his candidacy 9 weeks before the primary but rails against Bush's reneged "no new taxes" pledge and his seeming indifference to the toll a recession has taken on the state and country. Buchanan scores a stunning 37 percent—initial returns have him running in the 40's—to Bush's 53. Buchanan presses on but his is regarded as a protest candidacy and not a serious bid for the nomination. He is handily beaten in subsequent states—but the damage to Bush reverberates in the general election.

1988: Like Hillary Clinton this year, George H.W. Bush enters as the overwhelming national front-runner only to finish a stunning third place in Iowa—behind Bob Dole and Pat Robertson, in his case. Bush's lead in New Hampshire, 20 points before the caucuses, evaporates in four days, but Bush goes negative and Dole stumbles in a debate, allowing Bush to pull out a 38-29 percent win on primary night. Dole's plight worsens when, in a post-primary interview on NBC, he snarls that Bush should "stop lying” about his record. Bush, his momentum recovered and his campaign backed by the state's formidable G.O.P. establishment, routs Dole (and Robertson) in South Carolina and cruises to the nomination. With a New Hampshire win, Dole might have rallied much of the party establishment to his side and thwarted Bush in the South. This may be why Bush begins his general election victory speech in November 1988 with the words, "Thank you, New Hampshire."

1984: No primaries.

1980: Ronald Reagan is the clear national front-runner who trips up in Iowa, falling to George H.W. Bush by three points. Bush emerges as Reagan's chief rival, but Reagan rights his ship in New Hampshire, trouncing Bush and re-establishing his national footing. After a string of Reagan wins, Bush engineers an upset win in Pennsylvania, but it fails to alter the momentum and Reagan runs the table.

The newspaper's bureau in Des Moines is a conference room on the third floor of a building which, in the large banquet room immediately through the wall, had booked Ron Paul's fifth-place victory party.

Hillary-beat reporter Pat Healy said that "one second it's the quiet hum" of computers clicking and then at the next moment the Allman Brothers came blasting through the room. He said it was distracting.

"Well, you know Iowa does not have the best track record in determining who the party's nominee is," Hillary said earlier today. "Everybody knows that."

Except she's wrong.

There have been seven meaningful Iowa caucuses in which the winner – or perceived winner -- has gone on to win the nomination.

Here is the history:

2004: John Kerry wins Iowa (both in terms of votes and media perception) and wins the nomination.

2000: Al Gore wins Iowa (again, votes and media perception) and the nomination.

1996: No caucuses

1992: Caucuses were irrelevant -- ignored by the media and candidates and as consequential to the nomination fight as North Dakota.

1988: Michael Dukakis comes in third place, but -- and this is a key difference from Hillary last night -- his bronze medal is considered a moral victory by the media, since he’s competing so far from home (and against two neighboring state Senators). Finishing third gives Dukakis momentum and he wins the nomination.

1984: Walter Mondale wins Iowa and the nomination.

1980: Jimmy Carter wins Iowa and the nomination.

1976: Jimmy Carter wins Iowa and the nomination. (Technically, "uncommitted" came in first, but Carter was declared the clear winner by the media.)

1972: George McGovern comes in a surprisingly strong second to Ed Muskie and is declared the "winner" by the media. This propels McGovern to contender status and, eventually, to the nomination.

Which brings us to…

2008: Hillary Clinton, in contrast to all of the above-mentioned nominees, does not win Iowa and is not declared by the media to have posted a "surprisingly strong" showing. If she wins the nomination, she will be the only Democratic nominee in modern history to do so after suffering such a setback.

It's not an ideal analogy, though.

It is true that Clinton's first '92 win was in Georgia and that the state didn't vote until March 3. But it's important to remember two points:

1) Clinton may not have been the top vote-getter in New Hampshire in '92, but he was the "winner" of the primary in the judgment of the media, which fed into the "Comeback Kid" storyline. Clinton's campaign received a winner's bounce from New Hampshire in '92 -- something that his wife would not enjoy if she were to finish anywhere but first there.

2) Georgia was actually one of the first contests in the '92 cycle. Remember that the Iowa caucuses essentially did not take place in '92 (every candidate ceded them to favorite son Tom Harkin). New Hampshire came second, and the only contests between New Hampshire and Georgia were in Maine and South Dakota. In Maine, Clinton lost to Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas, but the contest was not considered a major event. And South Dakota was largely ceded to Nebraska's Bob Kerrey, who won it with 40 percent, a victory that did nothing to reverse his campaign's slide to oblivion. Georgia was considered Bill Clinton's first test after his "win" in New Hampshire, so he entered the state with his momentum intact. That is not the condition Hillary would enter the next round of contests if she loses Iowa and New Hampshire.

And no matter what New Hampshire’s proudly independent voters say, history shows that this verdict will spill over into the first primary state, which will vote on January 8. Iowa’s results—or more precisely, the media’s interpretation of them—alters, sometimes profoundly, the New Hampshire electorate’s perception of the presidential field.

Every Iowa “winner” gets some kind of a boost in New Hampshire. But the type of boost varies dramatically, from staggering to inconsequential. The variable is the degree to which the Iowa outcome represents a surprise: the more the media is caught off-guard by the results, the more the media will hype those results and, thus, the bigger the bounce will be.

How will Iowa re-shape the ’08 race? For some guidance, here’s a look back at the media’s interpretation of past Iowa results and how it has spilled over into New Hampshire.

Democrats

2004

The ‘04 Iowa results was greeted as an earth-shattering surprise. On the eve of the vote, four candidates—Howard Dean, Richard Gephardt, John Edwards, and John Kerry—were clustered within reach of the lead in Iowa. But on caucus night, Kerry, whose campaign had gone comatose in the fall of 2003, won with a staggering 38 percent of the vote—five points ahead of Edwards and doubling the total of Dean, who had been the front-runner in Iowa and New Hampshire for months.

Kerry’s triumph—and Dean’s surprisingly meager showing, followed by his infamously odd concession speech—dramatically reshuffled the Democratic order in New Hampshire. Days before Iowans caucused, Kerry sat at 12 percent in New Hampshire, lagging far behind Dean (35 percent) and even Wesley Clark (18 percent). But the jolt of post-Iowa momentum lifted Kerry to a decisive 12-point win over Dean in New Hampshire. The rest of the states tumbled like dominos for Kerry.

This is a textbook example of the potential impact of a sweeping win (and of an unexpected stumble) in Iowa.

2000

Al Gore won a two-man Iowa race over Bill Bradley by 28 points, but his bounce was minimal, since Gore had been expected to win Iowa handily for months. In fact, the Bradley campaign probably erred by contesting the state at all, a decision that resulted in a slight extension of Gore’s lead in New Hampshire in the wake of Iowa. But that bounce fizzled quickly and Bradley came within four points of winning New Hampshire, falling short only because independent voters flocked disproportionately to the Republican race, where John McCain was running.

1996

No caucuses

1992

It only warrants mention since some news outlets and back-of-the-pack campaigns have been misleadingly calling attention to it, touting the fact that Bill Clinton received less than three percent that year, and yet still won the nomination with ease. What they don’t mention is that, for all intents and purposes, the caucuses didn’t take place in 1992, thanks to the entrance of favorite son Senator Tom Harkin. No candidate, besides Harkin, actively campaigned in the state, almost no one showed up on caucus night, and the final result—Harkin received nearly 80 percent, with “uncommitted” finishing second at 12 percent—was given about two inches of space in most newspapers the next day.

1988

Structurally, the ‘88 Democratic race is somewhat similar to the ‘08 contest, with three candidates—Richard Gephardt, Paul Simon, and Michael Dukakis—clustered near the top, just like this year. In ’88, each of the three passed the Iowa viability test established for them by the media and, thus, were deemed winners. The bounce was most pronounced for Gephardt, since he was unknown nationally and had poured all of his meager resources into Iowa. But because Dukakis—the New Hampshire and national front -runner heading into Iowa—also fared surprisingly well, his numbers didn’t measurably drop as a result. Because Simon posted a strong showing, both he and Gephardt essentially split the non-Dukakis vote in New Hampshire vote, freeing Dukakis to win a clear victory and cement his front-runner status.

1984

Like 2004, the ‘84 results came as a revelation to the media and instantly recast the Democratic field. It was in ‘84 that Walter Mondale won Iowa by a three-to-one margin, a showing that didn’t exactly hurt him, but also didn’t help him much, since it had been expected. But before Iowa, it was unclear who—if anyone—represented Mondale’s main challenger for the nomination. By separating himself from the pack and placing second with 16 percent, Gary Hart was anointed by the media as the insurgent alternative to Mondale. New Hampshire voters, eager to buck the Mondale machine, rallied to Hart and handed him a smashing 37 to 24 percent win in the primary. Hart went on to win nearly two dozen primaries and caucuses and would have swiped the nomination from Mondale had he managed to finish him off in Alabama and Georgia.

1980

The ‘80 Iowa race played out much like ‘00 contest: a two-man race between the establishment favorite, President Jimmy Carter, and a progressive challenger, Senator Ted Kennedy. Carter, like Al Gore 20 years later, handily won the caucuses but received only a modest boost, since he’d entered as the prohibitive favorite. New Hampshire was considered the true first test of the ‘80 campaign, and the stretch between Iowa and New Hampshire was weeks longer then than it is now. Carter ended up defeating Kennedy in New Hampshire by 10 points, but that outcome owed pretty much nothing to the Iowa result.

1976 and 1972

The first relevant Democratic caucuses, in both ‘72 and ‘76 a single Democrat invested in the state while the rest of the field mostly ignored it. (In fact, in both ‘72 and ’76, some candidates hadn’t even officially entered the race when Iowa caucused.) But the media coverage that George McGovern and Jimmy Carter reaped from their strong showings boosted their standing in New Hampshire and nationally and signaled the end of an era in which party conventions, and not primaries and caucuses, determined presidential nominees.

Republicans

2004

No caucuses

2000

Several candidates contested the 2000 caucuses, but the two heavyweights were George W. Bush and Steve Forbes. Bush won, 42 to 30 percent, over Forbes (and Alan Keyes was third with 14 percent), a result that surprised absolutely no one. Bush spent lavishly in the state and enjoyed extensive establishment support. Forbes also threw wads of cash at the caucuses, and benefited from the lack of any other big-name alternatives to Bush. But Forbes failed to deliver the surprise showing that he needed to convince the media his campaign was more than a shadow of his modestly successful 1996 bid. That opened the door in New Hampshire for John McCain, who had sworn off Iowa, in part to conserve resources and in part because of his supposedly lethal ethanol skepticism. McCain was a natural fit in New Hampshire, and since neither Bush nor Forbes received a boost from Iowa, the stage was set for McCain’s astonishing last-minute rise in New Hampshire, where he blasted Bush by 19 points, setting the stage for the ugly and decisive Bush-McCain contest in South Carolina.

1996

Here is another example of how candidates can win the caucuses without actually winning them. Technically, Bob Dole was the Iowa victor in ‘96. But his 26 percent showing was a letdown, since he’d earned the nickname “the President of Iowa” after a smashing 1988 triumph in the state. Instead, the post-Iowa momentum belonged to Pat Buchanan (second place with 23 percent) and Lamar Alexander (third with 17 percent), who both exceeded expectations. Dole had enjoyed modest leads over those two in New Hampshire polls, but in the days after Iowa, New Hampshire became a three-way tie. On primary night, Buchanan won with 29 percent, ahead of Dole’s 26 percent and Alexander’s 23 percent. Early returns actually showed Dole in third place, behind Alexander, and Dole later said that he’d been ready to drop out of the race if those numbers had held.

1992

No caucuses

1988

Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush had been the clear front-runner nationally and in New Hampshire for a year—but Iowa damn near sank his entire operation. That Bush lost the state to Bob Dole was not a huge surprise; the Kansas Senator’s “I’m one of you” message had resonated. But no one anticipated the magnitude of Dole’s win (he notched 37 percent) or the identity of the second place finisher: Pat Robertson, whose 25 percent placed him comfortably ahead of Bush (18 percent). Since the media regarded Robertson as more fringe than mainstream, the post-Iowa momentum almost exclusively went to Dole. The outcome also yielded a flurry of “Is this the end for Bush?” stories. Bush’s pre-Iowa 20-point lead in New Hampshire was erased in four days; on the Friday before the primary, Dole took a 32-29 percent lead in the state and seemed headed for victory—and the nomination. But Bush saved his campaign with a massive last-minute blitz of attack ads, ridiculing Dole as a “straddler” on taxes, a poisonous charge in Live Free or Die New Hampshire. Bush recovered enough to beat Dole by nine points, which allowed the V.P. to recover his inevitability and to finish Dole off in the South.

1984

No caucuses

1980

The term “Big Mo’” was coined in ‘80 by George H.W. Bush, who claimed it after he upset Ronal Reagan in Iowa by two points. Bush, a former U.N. Ambassador and C.I.A. chief, began the race with about as much name recognition as Duncan Hunter has now and campaigned to the left of Reagan, who’d been the clear ’80 front-runner since his narrow loss to Gerald Ford in 1976. Other notable Republicans, including Howard Baker and Bob Dole, had entered the race, but Bush’s Iowa win marginalized them. There was a month-long gap between Iowa and New Hampshire, and it initially looked like Bush would use that time to overtake Reagan. But Reagan reversed his slide at a debate in Nashua when he angrily shouted down the moderator (“I paid for this microphone!”) for cutting him off as he railed against the exclusion of the other candidates. It was largely a scripted moment—Reagan’s campaign had coordinated with the other candidates, who stood behind Reagan and Bush on the stage as Reagan pleaded their case—but it was devastating for Bush, who awkwardly and silently sat in his chair even as Reagan, the crowd urging him on, shook hands with the other candidates as they were ushered off the stage. Reagan went on to win New Hampshire decisively.

1976

President Gerald Ford narrowly bested his sole challenger for the nomination, former California Governor Ronald Reagan, but Iowa was a meaningless exercise. Neither candidate invested in the state, and the “results” reflected the results of polls conducted of about 500 caucus-goers at a few dozen sites around the state. Still, this was the first time Iowa played any role at all in the G.O.P. nominating process.

“If he thinks there is a vacuum for good ideas, I don’t think he has looked at the candidates carefully, including his own senator,” said Weiner, who is all but certainly running to succeed Bloomberg as mayor. When I asked him if he thought Bloomberg would run for president, he suggested the mayor would be shirking his current responsibilities if he did so: “Hillary will be our nominee and then we’ll see. If the mayor wants to run, that’s fine, some of us are focused on the candidate we support, and the future of the city.”

But Weiner made it clear that a Bloomberg candidacy would have to be taken seriously, because of the money he could spend and because it would hurt Clinton’s chances.

“Just like no one knew what 150 million in a mayor’s race would look like, no one knows what a billion dollars in a presidential race looks like,” Weiner said. When asked him if Bloomberg’s run would adversely affect Clinton, he said “The polls don’t show that, but I think yes.”

Weiner also took issue with Bloomberg’s assertion that none of the candidates were offering serious proposals on health care.

“You can make an argument that no one on the Republican side is engaging in health care in a serious way,” he said. “But on the Democratic side, look there is a full throated debate drilling down into the real complexities of the issue. If the mayor hasn’t noticed that, he is not paying attention.”