Chris Matthews, Arnold Schwarzenegger & Warren Buffet at The Women's Conference

Chris Matthews in the house!  Can I just tell you, I never ever miss his Hardball show.  After I left here last night I went home and watched the replay of it at midnight. 

Matthews says he just got in his absentee ballot application.  He tells us that this election will be watched all over the world.  He makes the crowd laugh by saying that he knows there are people backstage that live in a house where the vote will be divided.  Everybody's obviously thinking about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver.

He says he's not here as an interrogator but is here as a "father, husband, etc."  He says he's not the obnoxious guy he appears to be on TV!  LOL!

Moms, you know you have a lot of power, right?  Matthews is talking about how women today count for half of small businesses and 80% of all buying decisions are made by women. That's amazing!

Now he's introducing Arnold Schwarzenegger and talking about how Arnold's been incredibly dedicated to education.  It's true!  Ten years ago when I taught in Compton, Arnold visited Willowbrook Middle School and it was a huge deal for the kids!  Everybody in Compton was so impressed and STILL talks about it.

Now Matthews is introducing Warren Buffett.  Buffett's motto is, "Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful."

Wow, those are some seriously powerful guys on stage!  Matthews is gearing up for his first question...

Matthews says the stock market dropped 350 points (wowzer) this morning so he wants to know what people should do about that. 

Buffett says that he has no idea.  He can't really determine because everybody's situation is so different and the market is always going to go back up.

Aww, so sweet!  Arnold gives his wife, Maria Shriver her props for putting this together.  Now he talks about how he had his first business at the age of ten and he sold ice cream!  See moms, your kid's lemonade stand is the beginnings of millionaire-hood! 

Arnold is talking about one of the reasons he left Europe is because of the socialist policies that stifled his ability to make it.  He wants to make sure that America doesn't go back to the system of redistribution of wealth that some people are talking about.  Big cheer from the audience.

Matthews doesn't miss a beat and says we've now heard from all the Republicans in the audience,  "You have spoken out against what you see as the disproportionate amount of money some people make in corporate life..."

Warren Buffett says he has no quarrel with people making a lot of money.  LOL!  The crowd loves this! 

Buffett's talking about the bailout of all the financial firms.  Matthew's looks skeptical and asks Arnold if when he was selling ice cream in Austria if the government should have come along and helped him out if things weren't going so well.  Arnold says no because it makes people lazy.  He thinks you have to instead have that drive to switch it up and sell hot dogs (or something else) instead.  Another big cheer from the crowd.

Great question from Matthews: "Is capitalism a fair system?"

Buffett says yes because so many people have improved their standard of living in this country.

Matthews asks another good question.  If you don't think this country's exceptional, how come every ethnic group does better here?  Buffett talks about how the qualities in America unleash human potential and nothing unleashes it like the American system.  "We've developed talents like an Olympic qualifying event."

Arnold agrees that this is the greatest country in the world and anyone can make it here if you have the will.  What do you think, moms?  Do you agree?  Now he's talking about how California's been in financial trouble and we've been hard hit by the housing crisis.  (Moms, I know some of you have been impacted by this.  I'm just a lowly renter but I still feel for you.)

Matthews asks Buffett what happened to the American economy in 2008 and Buffett says we had 300 million people who all believed that their housing values were always supposed to go up.  And then you had housing lenders who'd lend money to almost anybody who'd buy.  -- It's so true.  I can't tell you how many times people would tell me I could buy a $900K house overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir for nothing down, interest only payments.  Even though I want a house, I'm glad I passed that up!

Arnold says how important it is that government act quickly and notes how the public lost confidence in the week it took to get the bailout vote.  He says we have to be really quick and work together!  He talks about steps the State of California has been taking since last fall to work with lenders and homeowners.  Great point, that you can't be afraid to answer the phone and talk to the lender if you get in trouble.  You get in trouble when you don't talk to the lender!

Matthews jokes that they're outnumbered being three guys.  This gets a huge, HUGE laugh from the crowd.  He references Title IX and talks about how when his wife went to Stanford and was an athlete, she had to PAY for all her away game travel.  He shares his hunch that leadership roles in athletics lead to leadership roles in business.  He asks Arnold if he thinks this is true.

Arnold says that being an athlete requires you to constantly improve yourself and follow through -- the same is in life.  He said lots of people can pass laws but then you have to follow through and make it actually happen.  You can apply the lessons from sports to everything.

Buffett talks about how this country hampered its development for so long by not recognizing the equality of women.  We ignored half the talent we have!  Such a good point!  Makes a great joke about Arnold having read the section in the Constitution about term limits and how it's the ONLY section that uses a gender pronoun "he". 

Matthews say moms know all the shot records, all the names of the teachers, everything but they're like secret CEOs.  He wants to know why we're really not running the thing.  What do you think, moms?  I think a lot of us aren't secret CEOs.  We aren't secret at all.  Or maybe it's just my house?

Buffett notes how Hillary Clinton has done a lot for women.  Matthews says that Clinton won over half the primary votes in California and now we've got a VP nominee on the other side with a very good clothing allowance.  A mixture of boos and cheers from the crowd on the reference to the report of the RNC spending $150K on Sarah Palin's clothes... but this is a state with poweful women, like Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi.  So can we break through the glass ceiliing? 

OMG, Arnold just joked that here in California we do have some men that want to turn themselves into women.  Uproarious laughter in the hall!

Matthews says he's amazed at the person he lives with and her ability to multi-task and her ability to think about things.  He's talking about how his wife is so gutsy about calling up bureaucrats and has dealt with such complicated things, "She's like a giant computer of knowledge about our family and I'm like this insect!" 

I just fell over on my laptop laughing out loud and missed like 30 seconds of what came next.  See, comments like that are why I love Chris Matthews!

Discussion with these three is over!  That was great!

Liz D. has a bigger crush on Chris Matthews than ever before.  When she's not watching Hardball, she's blogging at Los Angelista.  This is an original Los Angeles Moms Blog Post.