David Axelrod: “The fact of the matter is that this is essentially a Tea Party downgrade.”

Unless the economy and his numbers rebound, Republicans are going to feel less willing to follow him blindly.

There's no doubt about that. But I also want to say this. You know, all presidents sort of feed off of perceptions of the person who came before and they want to position against what people found lacking in the person that came before.

The place where it has influenced politics is in Canada. Now, Justin Trudeau is not -- he's stepping down. He's going to step down. But there's going to be an election in the next few days for the new Liberal Party leader and then there…

I think there's a lot of concern among Republican officeholders. Governor Pawlenty could speak more readily to this than me.