very challenging disorder but more is needed to better understand the disorder and diagnosis and better treat those individuals who have it. i want to end by thanking you for your time and commitment and leadership and i am happy to entertain any questions you may have. .. for supreme court and i'm due on the

floor shortly but i wanted to thank you, mr. chairman, and ranking member cochran, for scheduling this hearing on this very important subject. and thank the witnesses for coming in. autism is a heartbreaking ailment. and of the many issues we have to face, among the toughest is talking to parents who have children who suffer from autism. and there's a real question of doing more. senator harkin and senator cochran and i have worked hard for funding on the national institutes of health and for a decade we were able to raise funding from 12 to $30 billion at a time when senator harkin and i have transferred the gavel. senator cochran chairman as of the full appropriations committee and regrettably that's not enough.

i note that funding for autism was slightly under $52 million in 2000. up to $122 million and estimated to $141 and cdc's spending has increased from a little over a million to a little over $22 million. we have been successful in getting into the stimulus package, $10 billion, as you know, and it is my projection that some of that will be coming to autism. these funding levels are set by nih in order to avoid what we call politization. our job is to get the money but not to distribute it. and i think there ought to be a bigger share for autism. and we're pushing to make that happen. and on comprehensive healthcare

reform, which we're working on now, we're trying to get $10 billion added. there's a base of 30 to start with 40 which would give us a better opportunity to do more on this very, very important ailment. so i wanted to express those views today. and staff will be here to follow the testimony. we'll have a chance to review it. i appreciate you coming in and you have our assurance that is we'll do everything we can on this very important malady. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator specter. and i understand you have to be on the floor for the nomination. and now we'll go to mr. cobbs. mr. cobbs, if i remember you're up in iowa up near sioux city. >> yes, i represent the sioux city area. >> you're the father of a 9-year-old boy with autism, noah. i understand your wife, tina is here with you. >> she's in the audience.

>> and two other children, ethan 16 and sydney, 8. and you were here at our last hearing. weren't you here a couple of years ago? >> i was, sir. i was in the audience -- >> you were involved in the telehealth project with a young boy with -- noah, right? >> correct, sir. >> well, i'm interested in -- well, what's happened in the last couple of years. so welcome to the committee and please proceed. >> thank you for having me. good morning, mr. chairman, and members of this distinguished committee. my name is josh cobbs. i'm a parent advisor to see now and most importantly a parent of a child of autism. i tried to better the lives and families affected by autism through insurance and education reforms. when i was last in front of this distinguished committee i spoke of the successful and cost-efficient services my son received using telehealth technology. these services were provided in

my home in iowa from professionals in florida through the celeste foundation federally sponsored natural research project. we were one of 15 families that participated in this demonstration across the nation. in this model after a brief phase of on-site face-to-face training which is crucial to build a therapeutic relationship we were linked to professionals that enabled live training, consultation and support directly into our home when and where we needed it. through this telehealth model we received professional support in teaching our son language, life skills and overall improving his quality of life. one of the main components of participating in this study was the reduction in our family stress through empowering us as front line teachers and therapists. additionally through training and education in this project, we had a better understanding of our child's condition and those things we could do could bring to bear to improve his life. not only did it improve my son's quality of life but it had an

impact on my life, on my family as well. also, as a family we showed a dramatic reduction in stress, anxiety and became more focused as a family unit. i'll never forget to -- i will never forget the call from my wife saying, you'll never guess what our son did. he went potty on the big boy potty. this moment was a monumental moment for the entire family. while many consider toilet training a milestone, it becomes a super milestone when your child is 5 years old with autism and has additional burden of societal rejection. through our telehealth connections and access to certified professionals, we were given the right teaching skills and unable to achieve what previously was unobtainable. our experience was chronicled in a two-part series by the cbs affiliate in sioux city, iowa and shown. we have copy of the footage we would like to share with the committee and it can also be

viewed at www.celestefoundation.org. i cannot stress enough that the needs of persons of autism do not conveniently conform to clinic hours or professional appointments. we were able to access these professionals' help when wement it and it made all the difference. also just having the support in my home allowed natural interaction for my son and allowed the professionals to see the behaviors as they really occur. as chairperson of the iowa autism council, i have the opportunity to speak with many family members and stakeholders within the autism community to learn their needs. from my perspective and my experience, these families are desperately in need of services. today as parents search online for appropriate telehealth services for their children, they are confronted with an array of unvalidated technologies and various individuals claiming expertise in treatment. unfortunately, there are no safeguards in place to protect vulnerable parents and children. for example, from anywhere in the world anyone with a personal

computer, a webcam and internet access can offer video services termed as advice. under these circumstances, any individual or group can claim qualifications in helping parents and children with autism. not only are families experiencing the emotional burden of treating a child with a disability but they also have the financial burden of paying for this treatment with no assurance as to the quality of care provided. when individuals or organizations that are collecting fees for services can distance themselves into the cloud that is the internet, what can families expect for recourse to failed expectations. the reality of standard-setting is evident because without standards there can be no reimbursements. while the method and systems are cost-effective, without a proper reimbursement model, they still remain unobtainable for most parents whose similar to the rest of the nation are struggling to find care for their children. there are millions of dollars being placed in rural telehealth

networks but there are few or any methodologies for reimbursement for autism telehealth treatments. additionally, the current wave of statewide health insurance requirements aimed to provide reimbursements for individuals with autism do not have well-defined standards for telehealth reimbursements. in absence of consistent reimbursement policy and standards, families and children are not granted access to proven and effective care. i know this committee through report language has recognized the need to assess, quote, best practice -- best practices and professional criteria standards and to make recommendations to the committee concerning national standards for telehealth reimbursement which advances and encourages this technology, end quote. i commend the committee's foresight in doing so -- and simply urge that this momentum continues. in closing, you may be wondering how my son is doing today. he's now 9 years old and my family is still utilizing telehealth technology. we're currently addressing such

behaviors as food selectivity, expressive language, academic skills, just to name is few. it is important to note that as my son grows, his treatment program continues to grow and addresses ever-evolving needs. we continue to use telehealth treatment because it's been an effective delivery system for our family. in fact, it has been so effective that now my 8-year-old daughter has become a mini therapist using teaching strategies that we learned in the telehealth program with my son. at this point my son's life, he continues in the role of student and teacher to us all. indeed, his future is bright. i'd like to thank you for your time and the opportunity to share our story and the stories of thousands of families here today. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. cobbs. we'll some of questions for you. now we'll turn to cole akin boyd. an attorney, mother of two

children, her second child spike developed regressive autism around 22 months of age. she was recently appointed to mississippi's department of education special education advisory committee. ms. boyd attended mississippi state and received her doctorate degree from ole miss. welcome to the committee. >> i would like -- >> oh, punch that button. >> i want to thank this committee and on behalf of many mississippians and families of autism i represent. and senator cochran's leadership as he's held meetings with various of us throughout the state of mississippi. in the late fall of 2005, our family was living in san antonio, texas, while my husband completed his surgical fellowship. my youngest child at the age of 22 months developed regressive autism. almost overnight he digressed from using words and sentences in two languages with fine gross motor coordination well above his developmental peers. to someone who lost almost all

of those skill sets. it was as though a tornado had hit our lives and there was no end in the foreseeable future. at age 25 months, my son began a rigorous program filled with behavioral, speech and occupational therapy that has continued after our move back to mississippi. currently we can see progress and we're cautiously optimistic about the future. he's quite verbal and his gross and fine motor skills have greatly improved. his medical condition is also tenuous as he's to believe to suffer from a mytrocondroal disorder. it will turn this high functioning child in this spectrum to a low functioning child within just a matter of hours. today he will attend his kindergarten open house in oxford, mississippi. he'll attend a regular education class and he'll have some classroom and resource assistance.

as the class of 2022 starts kindergarten, schools across this country are going to look very different. 20 years ago in this country, my son probably would have been his only child in his kindergarten class with autism or even his whole school district. however, his kindergarten class of roughly around 200 students will have six children diagnosed with the autism spectrum. all are very high functioning. if you do the math, that's roughly 1 in 34. now, in mississippi, according to the surveys we did on the task force, we know that children typically don't get diagnosed till much later than 5 so that numbers is probably going to go higher. this is a very high number compared to what we see as national statistics but, unfortunately, i think you will see this number replicated in kindergartens throughout this country and various places. we know that the rate of autism

goes up 10 to 17% per year. so this next decade can you imagine what autism is going to look like. the medical establishment as it often is gives itself a pat on the back for saying they are doing a better job diagnosing this. but we know there's got to be contributing factors that are the root of this autism increase. better diagnosis doesn't completely explain the explosion that we're seeing here in america. oftentimes we see adversarial relationships develop between pediatricians and family members who believe that their autism was caused by vaccines. we see also relationships, adversarial when parents don't accept the advice of physicians that there could be multiple causes of the autism. and thus we reach an impasse and help for the child as you pointed out, mr. harkin, is very hard to come by. the autism society of america

currently estimates that the lifetime cost of carrying for a child with autism is $3.5 to $5 million. taking those numbers, we're looking at facing almost a 90 billion annual cost in autism. the question that we have to ask this committee and this whole senate body is, can we afford not to put the money into research and treatment if these are the numbers that we're looking at? i'm glad you're sitting beside me. [laughter] >> the combating autism bill broke great hope to parents and we appreciate your work in passing that. however, we've got to move quicker. we've got to see the interagency coordinating committee look at all aspects and possible causes to autism. we've also got to see that committee quickly make some identifiers and look at

populations of these children to find out what are the general pictures that we see of these children's parents, their family members. what are some health indicators that we see? and it's got to be done quicker than we usually operate at government-bureaucracy levels. the other thing, too, i would be remiss in representing the parents that i feel like i represent even across this country. if i did not go back to your question, senator harkin, we have to look at the causation with vaccines. dr. bernadine healy whom i'm sure testified before this committee many, many times and really doesn't have any financially interest or pecuniary or otherwise has noted that there is a dearth of research in truly looking at the vaccine autism connection. there are some very good studies that are yet to be done. and i know this committee and this senate doesn't like to tell the nih how to spend those research dollars.

but on behalf of the parents across the america, i ask that you particularly look at this. particularly when you're confirming a new nih director. i want to give you some optimism, though, as we talk about autism. in this classroom, in the children, the group of 6, 5 of those children have been blessed to be able to receive intensive behavioral therapy. their families have -- one of the situations they've taken two jobs to afford this therapy and that's not the case with mississippi and. with mississippians the average income is less than $35,000 a year and this therapy runs most of us around over $50,000 a year. so it is impossible for many of the constituents back home to

afford the therapy that they know will make their child better. so on behalf of those mississippians, i beg you to look at ways that we can afford intensive behavioral therapy for all children. these children that i mentioned that have received this intensive behavioral therapy -- even at the age of 5, they already are requiring less classroom supports than they would have. it is -- you can see the financial bright spots down the road of investing in early intensive behavioral therapy. so the question i guess i will leave you with, if we know that we're looking at a $90 billion annual healthcare cost and we're looking -- and i put the information that i've turned into you, and we're looking at initial investments of around $32,000 a year and we know that over child's life we can see

healthcare returns roughly at about $2.5 million of healthcare savings for those children who get this, the question is, senators, can we afford not to make that investment? >> a very profound statement, thank you very much, ms. boyd. thank you. and now we'll turn to david miller, a resident of fairfax county, virginia, serves on the board of directors at virginia college where he cofound the community college consortium on autism and intellectual disabilities. he received his b.a. degree in boston administration and master's at northeastern and his law degree at george mason university. he's retired from the arm forces and he's the father of two 7-year-old us awk! -- austic t >> thank you very much for holding this hearing. as the chairman indicated i am a

college where i represent the fairfax community college..a! as you indicated again, mr. chairman, i'm the cofounder of the community college consortium of autouch which is comprised of 40 community college presidents of those states who have the highest incidents of autism in the country. the president from kirkwood college of iowa is a very active member of our consortium as well as dr. clyde views which he tells me repeatedly is the largest community college of mississippi. both of these respected leaders leaders could not be here because of previously scheduled board meetings but we do have some community college presidents here that i would like to introduce the subcommittee to. the first one is willie duncan who i believe is behind me. president duncan is the chairman of taft college and is the chairman of our consortium of autism and intellectual disabilities. the second president we have

accompanying me is dr. wayne burton who's the president of north shore community college based up in massachusetts. we have steve rose, who i think is here today. who's the chairman of passaic community college. also with me is mr. jeff ross, the director of taft colleges transition to independent living program, which in my opinion is one of the foremost post-secondary programs in the country for students with autism and intellectual disability. in fact, if you look at my testimony on page 2 or 3, i really -- the summary of the results the taft has achievedse% these last 13 years with respect to students with intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities is astounding. in fact, we at the community college level aspire to have programs as effective as the taps program. this hearing today has particular poignantcy because i'm the father of two austic twins. their sister sally katherine miller is the youngest of these

triplets and she's here today and thankfully she's a healthy, happy princess. sally, i know you're back there somewhere. my comments are purely those of a parent who's concerned about the long-term ability of my children and children in similar circumstances to live independently and to develop a career track that will enable them to support themselves financially while at the same time meeting and overcoming challenges that, frankly, i have never faced and probably you have never faced in our entire lives. i am not educated like president duncan or president rose or president burton. i'm not a therapist in the field as is jeff ross. nor am i well versed in the nuances of autism and as well-redwóp -- well read as my wife. she's a wonderful woman and a very accomplished woman. she frankly should be seated in this witness chair so when we do

the next hearing, she needs to be invited. i'd like to -- you know, people talk about take-aways and i'll go through the testimony in a second. i think that when this hearing -- when you go on to further activities, the two take-aways that i could add to my testimony is here. number one my kids are here. they are here to stay. i think what you're doing with respect to research is excellent. we need to have funds invested in screening and diagnosis and all that good stuff. i think that's tremendous. we need to do that but having said that, my kids are here. and all the panelists that have austic kids are here so what are we going to do with these kids? and i think the second thing that i find more and more as i talk to more and more autism advocates and more and more proponents here. what's the game plan here and the end result. what are we working for. it's true the kids are below the age of 17 at this stage but more and more of these kids are entering middle school, they're entering high school. at some point they're going to be adults. what are we going to do with niece kids? and i think that's a critical question that we all have to consider.

and i think we need to keep that objective in mind. we at the community college level are seeing our first beginnings of austic kids on our campus. your chairman by the way, chairman kennedy, obviously gets it. we've had a number of discussions. our community college consortium called it a tsunami. he said we've not invested with the infrastructure to keel with this coming tsunami as he described it. section 767 higher ed bill based on his authorship and that of senator enzi authorized the secretary of education to award five-year grants in support of model demonstration programs that, quote, promote the successful transition of students with intellectual disabilities at the higher education. there's no specific amount authorized and i have a letter -- i'm sure you've seen it sure you've seen it where he requested $35 million for fy2010 to fund these types of programs.

the reason for this funding request is that as it stated in the chairman's correspondence the majority of students are currently at community colleges and will attend community colleges because we have what are called open admissions policies. they graduate from a secondary school or they reach age 21 and they come on our campuses.d3b they are here and, frankly, we have no programs, effective programs, with the exception of taft to deal with these children. what they do they come in our campuses and they enroll in normal academic courses and they are soon put on academic probation and they are academically dismissed and that's it. they have no further contacts with respect to job training programs.u?+ i'll bet sheltered workshops and they have no further educational educations and that's it. so what happens to these kids after that? and then that's what senator kennedy has really focused on. schools like kirkwood will tell you like heinz community college will tell you these are expensive programs. they run roughly $30,000 a

school and the president tells me as does the president muze that they are limited by law to approximately 2 to $3,000 as far as tuition. they don't have access to any further funding. that's it. and with the reduction in state operating funds right now, they just do not have the financial resources to develop programs. to assist these students. i think one thing and i realize i'm way over miami. -- my time. they are essentially economically development funds and stimulus funds they are funds in community colleges in life skills training and vocational training. so again mr. chairman and senator cochran, we appreciate the fact that you've seen fit to put $15 million towards this program. and we hope that in conference that at the end of this conference, you will walk away at least with that minimum amount of money. again, thank you very much. >> thank you very much, mr. miller. and now we'll complete our testimony with miss dana halberstam.

part of autism treatments iowa. usually we don't say beat iowa. [laughter] >> i should have looked at that before i said that. [laughter] >> and that little clip could be misinterpreted. she lives on a farm in north wood, iowa. that's way up in northwest iowa with her husband and three children. her 7-year-old daughter robin was diagnosed with autism when she was 15 months old. she wants an associate's degree in applied science in veterinary technology from the university of minnesota and a b.a. in french from the university. welcome. >> she was diagnosed a little over age 3. she regressed between 15 and 18 months. >> age 3, not 15. >> the diagnosis was at 3 years and 3 months. >> would you punch that button on your thing there. thank you very much. go ahead. >> thank you, mr. chairman and senator cochran, colleagues, for

this opportunity to encourage more thought and action on autism. my name is dana havlerson. i'm a wife of a farm family. my days are filled with very early and very late with joys, blessings and challenges of. of my three children i have one daughter who has heavy metal toxicity. her original diagnosis at over age 3 was autism and mental retardation. although my daughter was given the label of autism, this term fails to describe the physiological nature of her disorder. shortly after her diagnosis, i discovered biomedical origins of her condition. over the next several years, we confirmed multiple medical diagnosis, multiple food allergies, growth hormone deficiency, metabolic dysfunction, pituity dysfunction, allergic colights, i-mun dysfunction and heavy metal toxicity to name is few.

we have only been able to help robin by struggling to travel all over the country and working with many medical practitioners, spending thousands of dollars on tests and clinical visits mostly not covered by insurance. the lists of diagnosis robin carries is long for such a young child. her healthy appearance belies the depth of her medical problems. based on her appearance, people expect her to be able to respond to them, speak to them and share with them. robin has come a long way but still has difficulties. i know of children who have fully recovered with the proper therapies for their medical conditions. and my daughter is on that path to recovery. i only hope that everything we are doing will be enough so that some day she can live a normal life. once we learned of robin's medical issues and sought out properly trained medical professionals for appropriate treatment, she began to improve. the symptoms we see in robin and

so many children like her are not psychiatric in origin. needing only psychological therapy. autism is a neurobiological disorder, a set of physical disorders with behavioral characteristics. many families hesitate to use the word "autism." we call it the a word because these underlying medical problems exist in our children and can cause the very symptoms that are labeled autism. i have been involved in multiple meetings with elected officials, doctors, parents and researchers for eight years. discussing the root causes and treatment issues. because no action has been taken, thousands more children have suffered damage and their family's lives have been destroyed. very soon the financial burden of their 24/7 care will not fall only to their parents and families but to taxpayers in general as a large wave of some of the oldest children start aging out of school, cannot work and must collect disability

checks. a lifetime care for a child will cost millions of dollars. i've accepted your invitation today because i want to set the record straight. you cannot address the a word, autism, without addressing some other a words. you should all be very alarmed that we currently have the sickest generation of children in 60 years with 1 in 9 children suffering from asthma, 1 in 6 children with some form of neurodevelopmental delay. and at least 1 in 150 with autism, the most severe disorder. posing the right questions to unbiased and unconflicted scientists is essential to obtaining constructive answers. agencies charged with protecting the health of our children suffer from serious financial conflicts of interest. these government agencies need to be held accountable. senators, it is difficult for me to sit at this table and tell you that you have been lied to. that we have all been lied to.

mercury levels exceeding epa's safe levels were in robin's vaccines and the injections while pregnant and immediately after her birth. the industry material safety data sheet for the chemicals effects as follows. the mercury component has caused nervous system effects in experimental answers including mild to severe mental retardation and motor coordination and impairment. you don't need to take my word for these scientific facts. dr. george lucere former founding editor of environmental health perspectives, the official journal of the niehs for 28 years considered the world's largest toxicology research and testing program is with me today. he has on many occasions shared his view of the dangers of thimersol.

the number of vaccines i was given when i was a child has risen from 10 to 29. those who create vaccines sit at the table vote to approve vaccines, reap the dollars from the products being used and that are immune from legal liability. where else in the world do we see the scenario of no accountability and conflict of interest? who is at the table demanding truth on voting of behalf of children. that is your job as our elected officials and for some very few are doing it. we need transparency, honest communication and once and for all as you suggested earlier, senator harkin, a valid, unbiased study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. congress scrambled to hold hearings about grown men voluntarily injecting themselves with steroids while thousands of children have continued to be injected with vaccines containing a known neurotoxin.

children's access to justice are barred by many legal obstacles. it needs reform. although i do not have time to describe the necessary reform, please take a look at the unfairly restricted three-year statute of limitations among other legal problems facing these families. heavy metals like mercury and other toxic substances should not be injected into people especially babies and young children susceptible to vaccine injury. vaccine safety certainly encompasses more than than concerns about mercury. however, mercury is so highly toxic that it is the 600-pound gorilla in the living room. it only takes 0.6 micrograms of mercury in the form of thimersol to harm human tissue. thimersol it continues to be used in some vaccines including at the timus and flu shots. that is a fact.

thimersol it's damaging at nanomolar levels. that is also a fact and has been documented, replicated and ignored. it is in front of us but we pretend not to see. those in power have not listened to facts and enacted on those facts to protect the health and future of the children of this nation. and instead have protected industry and government. my hope on behalf of this vaccine-injured generation is for action. can we really afford with continued inaction to risk losing another generation? thank you for listening and allowing me to share my concerns. as i return to our iowa farm, i will reflect upon what my daughter and my family have lost. and the many other mothers and fathers whose hopes and dreams have been crushed with this chronic illness. we will continue to hope for action. our children and our future depend on you.

>> well, i think we heard the whole gambit of everything now that we're confronted with. and dr. dawson, since you're first on the left here, i'll just start with you. you mentioned that virtually no comparative effective data has been done to identify the treatments of autism. we have to do the research and as mrs. halberstam pointed out and mr. miller, we're in the here and now, mrs. boyd, we're in the here and now and families are struggling and we're facing this whole generation growing up and what they're -- what's going to happen to them as adults. so we have to focus on what are the most effective treatments we have now. this committee provided over a billion dollars to hhs and the recent recovery act. dr. insel mentioned that earlier for comparative effectiveness studies, $1.1 billion to be exact.

now, again, we don't say exactly where to put them. but do you know if any of those dollars will be spent on autism? iom, the institute of medicine included one of the conditions that should be studied. and i just wonder if you have any thoughts on that. have you been watching or do you have any involvement in trying to see that some of these comparative effectiveness studies are done on early intervention programs? >> yes, i'm aware of the focus by the agency for healthcare quality on comparative effectiveness, and we have submitted recommendations in terms of the kinds of questions that we feel need to be asked. >> uh-huh. >> i think it's so critical that parents have a sense of, you know, whether one thing is effective more than another treatment. the other, i think, aspect of comparative effectiveness work

has to do with method of service delivery. so what we know now is that when children receive care, they often receive it by a set of professionals who will individually work with the child. and the parent themselves has to act as a case coordinator. there are other models for how to effectively work with the child with autism, which involve a multidisciplinary team, which has different kind of financial aspects that go to coordinating care. but we feel that this kind of model is much more effective. so that's another example of a comparative effectiveness study that needs to be done is look at different models of service delivery to find out what is ultimately more cost-effective. the other question has to do with this issue of personalized medicine. so what kinds of treatments work for which kinds of individuals?

we know that autism is not going to be a one size fits all kind of treatment approach. and so we need to understand the effectiveness of understanding underlying biomarkers, whether we're looking at mel -- medical conditions, metabolic conditions and so forth and how these can direct treatment approaches. so it's -- we're at a very early stage in understanding the question of which treatments work best for which individuals? and until we do that, parents go on to the internet. they seek out answers themselves and often are acting on nonevidence-based decisions. >> that kind of brings me to mr. cobbs and all of you here. i get interested in using telehealth some time ago for a variety of different things. i come from a rural state.

and we don't have a lot of the access to facilities that people in urban areas do, so i finished in telehealth in different areas and then finally when i became more interested and more tuned in on the issue of autism a few years ago, it became clear to me that a lot of families that have young children, they're diagnosed with autism, they are at their wit's end. they understand know what to do. -- they don't know what to do. and for older kids and transitional things like you're talking about. but correct me if i'm wrong, and dr. insel you can jump in on this, too. i think there's some pretty good evidence that the earlier you get to these kids and provide them with supportive services, interventions by trained people that know what they're doing, that they really do get over a lot of these.

they do get over a lot of the problems they've had. the earlier you get to them, the more effective it is. the problem is how do you get to them early if they are living in sioux city, or north wood or oxford, mississippi, or someplace like that. so we put some money in this project in looking at telehealth and how you could get together with a group of professionals early on and then with high speed internet, it's like you're in the doctor's office. it's like you're right there and so you get that 24/7. mr. cobbs, tell me a little bit about -- you know, you've been -- you've been in this experimental program for -- three years? >> since the last time we've continued on services to continue the studies so we can test the longevity and also to show that the program can grow with the child throughout the life span. >> now, have you talked with other people -- now, you're the

head of -- chairman of the iowa autism council? . have you talked to others about it. i don't know how many other people that are on this system. i don't know about others. what interest is there in this? >> chairman harkin, that's a great question. just this morning we were talking. it's an a-ha moment for parents. it's that light bulb that goes on. do you really mean i can get services when and where i need them? for instance, if noah is having a great behavior day and it's in-home, well, we can replicate that. we can start to build off that with a foundational of applied behavior analysis and other proven methodologies. or if he's having a bad day, it's not because we're in an abstract physician's office or a clinical environment. it's because he's in his own home and there is something that has triggered that behavior. so it's immediate response to track down what's causing the behavior. and we can get immediate results. when the behavior is happening,

both good and bad. >> that's the other thing that kind of got me thinking about this a few years ago. a lot of times kids with autism, you know, they don't act up or anything when they're in the doctor's offices but when you get home, they he do. -- they do. >> in our case it might be the exact office. the environment of a doctor's office may have too much stimulus in the area and so you're going to get the reverse effect. you're going to get -- maybe we went in for an earache but all of a sudden we have, you know, a behavior taking place and, therefore, we may even have to leave that environment without properly getting the care. so it's a really great adjunct piece to a complete behavior treatment program. and to dovetail on what ms. dawson said, it's also a great way to bring a comprehensive team together to treat the child in the natural environment. >> are we doing any studies to find out -- now, we've been

doing -- anything out there to show comparative effectiveness? or is this something maybe hopefully this billion dollars we put in we can start taking a look at. do you know that, ms. dawson? are you looked these are the intervention telehealth approach? >> not with respect to the telehealth program per se that i'm aware of. >> yeah, we've just completed a fairly large telehealth study. the good news is the recovery act has given us the opportunity to open up the doors for additional work and we do have some exciting proposals on just this topic, on telehealth for autism specifically that we're hoping we'll be able to fund. i can't say more until we actually have the notice of award. but i think this is the chance to see real progress in this arena and just again stress what mr. cobbs' statement had already implied. it's not only for the child. this is for the family.

and that's where some of the big implications will be. >> now, ms. halberstam, i'm assuming that you're not on this telehealth -- >> no, our approach has been -- well, we really hit all aspects. we found out about the biomedical side first and then found out about aba. and we've used both. however, i know a lot of other families agree with me that at least exploring if you're child does have these biomedical issues, you're going to get better results when you're using the aba >> how would you feel as a parent if you had access in your own home with your child 24/7 so that anything that happens in terms of behavioral problems that you would have access, ready access, to trained specialists?

you would be in constant contact with. >> my daughter responded so well to biomedical interventions that behaviors really became not nearly as much of an issue. >> i see. >> for me and the medical care that she needs i can only obtain in our doctor's office other than supplements that we use. but if i'm taking her in as a -- well, as an example, monthly right now since the beginning of the year, she's been undergoing intravenous immune globulin therapy. that's a six-hour fusion in our doctor's office. so that has to be done for us. it's a drive no matter what. >> i see the difference, okay. i've taken 10 minutes of time so i would yield to senator cochran. >> mr. chairman, thank you. you're very kind. i appreciate your calling the hearing. it brings back memories of other hearings we've had. our efforts as a committee just try to tailor programs of

support, research that are needed that will help make positive contributions to solving the problems that all of you face personally or professionally. so i'm wondering is there something that any of you have in mind to suggest -- i know ms. halvorson talked about financial support and a willingness for government maybe to figure out ways to be more supportive, tangible benefits of some kind. insurance programs that may be -- the government can help support in terms of costs of premiums or disbursements of sharing of responsibility. it seems to me we have a lot of organic medical disabilities and frailties that come within the ambit of insurance that this challenge is just not being helped with. so i wonder if you have any thoughts along those lines. i'll start with ms. dawson.

>> well, i'd like to comment first on this notion of early intervention and actually tell you about the study that dr. insel was referring to. so this is a study that i was the principal investigator of this study and it's an nih-funded study where children began the intervention below 30 months of age. it's the first randomized clinical trial that has been conducted with toddlers who are at risk with children. the children were randomized into either standard care in the community or an intensive early behavioral intervention that focused not only on working directly with the child with the therapist but also taught the family how to use intervention strategies so that intervention occurred throughout the daily activities with the child. the intervention went over a two-year period, approximately 25 hours a week of structured intervention. all assessments were done blind with respect to knowledge of

whether the child had received early intervention. at the beginning both groups of toddlers with autism had i.q.s in the mentally retarded range and after two years, the children in the treatment group -- their i.q. had increased, the average i.q., to the extent they were no longer in the mentally reat that time range. -- retarded range. their diagnosis was less severe. many of the children went from a diagnosis of autism to what we call pervasive developmental disorder, which is a less-severe diagnosis. this is only two years so the children are only 4 and early intervention, you know, should continue for at least another 1 or 2 years. so we know these are effective. this study is in press in the journal of pediatrics. it will come out soon. what we don't have is two things that limit access. one is financial support for families.

it's absolutely essential that we get federally mandated insurance coverage for these. it's going to save us money. it's going to help families. and it's going to allow individuals to take advantage of some of the programs that we've heard about. the community colleges and so forth. the second piece is training for professionals and for parents. so many of the interventions that we're developing now because we're working now with infants and toddlers are actually teaching the parents to deliver the interventions. because many of these interventions occur throughout the day. we need programs such as telehealth or we're developing web-based training programs that we're using to train parents and professionals not only here in the united states but really around the world. we're working in india and africa and other developing countries to train professionals so this combination of insurance

coverage and trained professionals is really going to be absolutely key. then we're going to get kids on the right trajectory and then we need to look step-by-step throughout the life span how we'll continue to support people with autism to become the most productive citizens they can. >> i thank you very much. that's very interesting and helpful analysis of some of the options that we should seriously consider. i think we should, too. ms. boyd, you were seeking recognition and i wanted to call on you next. >> the task force looked at this in mississippi extensively because of our financial situation of many of our parents. and there were publicly early intervention programs presently don't cover behavioral services and it's already a program that is out there federally. it needs to now include behavioral services because many of these children are starting to be identified very early. i can anecdotally speak to the success of that. when we were in san antonio this

summer getting a therapy i met a precious toddler named catalina. her parents recognized there were signs and symptoms at 8 months. began therapy after a year. the child is 4 years old now and is absolutely amazing. senators, you would never recognize that she was a child in the spectrum. so i anecdotally saw that working. the other program, too, that has to be looked at is medicaid. the states have an option of whether or not they can give an autism-specific waiver. i would encourage you to look at that and not give states that option. because it is one of the things that could definitely reach out to these families who don't have the finances to do that. the other thing obviously that dr. dawson mentioned is private insurance. there are virtually almost no policies in our state that cover autism therapies. there's none. in fact, it doesn't only cover

behavioral therapy but senator cochran and harkin, it only covers 20 visits of any type of speech, o.t. or p.t. so usually by the first six weeks of the year, you've run through your insurance coverage for your child. because that is combined speech and o.t. so you can see why many of these children are not getting the assistance they need because the visits are kind of costly. so those are the things that we looked at as to gaps that had a to be filled in the state system and federal system. >> mr. chairman, i think we ought to introduce a bill to modernize our laws. [laughter] >> on medicaid and reimbursement. this ought to be included. >> yeah. how do people afford to do this? >> they can't. >> i mean, frankly, they can't. i don't have the exact figures but i know that we've been working quite a bit to get insurance in virginia. a number of states have

insurance coverage they've mandated insurance coverage within their states but it's a foxhole by foxhole fight. in virginia the average income which, unfortunately, is still rather modest is about 40, $50,000 and the average cost of services is about $85,000. these families have to do without. they have to do without. and again, it's being done on a state-by-state basis. how you can do some sort of insurance preemption would be an ideal way to go with the insurance people are saying to my local legislators that this is not -- this is an educational issue. it's not a health son. if you see my two sons who are wonderful children it is clearly a combination of an educational health-related problem. >> the other factor that didn't get brought up that i would be remiss if i didn't quickly tell you is the financial -- the financial stress what it leads to families. i was talking to dr. insel earlier is the divorce rates conservative estimates and we see this anecdotally -- all

these families do is at a minimum around 80%. there's some estimates -- there was a speaker from california last week and the group that the people that she counsels her divorce rates were among 90%. so -- i mean, these are absolutely incredible numbers. in mississippi, in our region, we lost two parents this year who could no longer handle the stressors of having a child in the spectrum.k? and one of them was a dear friend of ours. and so those are -- and that is not unique to mississippi. that is things that we foresee all around the country and we hear about all around the country. >> mr. cobbs? >> i would like to piggyback off that statement. again,b8b the government needs move rapidly to go ahead and advance great technologies such telehealth technologies and the insurance portion. they really work hand-in-hand.

it's easy to go ahead and pass a bill here or there, but in order to make true change we have to have the standards and we also) re model for applied behavior other proven therapies as ms. dawson said. in fact, applied behavior analysis is recommended by the surgeon general. financial payoff down the road is going to be tremendous. it's going to help with the

tsunami and the impact on families will be also tremendous so it's an opportunity that we must not miss in terms of a federal mandate for insurance coverage for these treatments that we know work and are cost-effective. >> she just told me durbin has a bill demanding -- >> we're going to introduce something together. [laughter] >> we'll find out the details a little later with the aid and assistance of our able staff. [laughter] >> if i can also add from the iacc perspective, we do have a services group made up of family members as well as someone from cms who has been leading this charge along with david grossman who's the president of the autism society of america. together they've been listening to families about these issues, trying to come up with some recommendations and so if we can

be helpful as you pull together some ideas, i'm sure that group would love to have an audience and give you some ideas that they've been grappling with as well. >> thank you. the other issue i want to make -- you just mentioned and i wrote it down, standards. someone mentioned about how you can go on the internet and get all kinds of misinformation. but now mr. cobbs, you've been on this telehealth for three years now. but you're dealing with trained professionals that you work with. now, when you mention standards, is that what you're talking about is setting up those kinds of standards? >> absolutely. and i think it's important to realize that when we started our treatment program, it was a comprehensive treatment program that first started with face-to-face interaction. unfortunately, right now families can pretty much pop up any internet search and type in telehealth treatment or video chat treatment and their first contacts video to video, which i

just think see how that's possible to form a true therapeutic bond and to see the child to go ahead and treat the child. it's very he disconcerting. and ms. dawson also touched on the fact that you can query pretty much anything with autism and related disorders and you'll get a myriad of different treatments kind of scattered amongst whether it would be somebody to repair your car, offer car advice or for somebody to, you know, go ahead and, hey, i'll paint your house. it's just so sporadic. parents don't have a consistent place to ensure that they're going to receive quality of care. i'm encouraged that you have folks meeting and talking about new treatments and -- but until we get a set of parameters for standards so when parents go to get treatment, especially, over innovative technologies such as telehealth which is reasonably new to a lot of folks, they have the assurance that they're going to get a trained, quality professional.

and that there's some standards that they can rely on. right now those just aren't there. >> i just wanted to mention a program that is, i think, a wonderful example of a public/private partnership that is beginning to address this issue of standards. and that is the autism treatment network. this is built on the cystic fibrosis model which as you may know decades ago cystic fibrosis was in the same situation of not getting quality care, no standards for what -- how a child should be treated. and so the way in which this model works, it's 15 hospitals that care for children with autism. that have come together to both look at quality of care, models of care as well as to develop standards that can be practiced standards published in journals that physicians then can guide

things like assessment, assessment of medical conditions, behavioral interventions and so forth. so there is a mechanism where this is beginning to be addressed but it's in the very early stages. it's cofunded by autism speaks and by hrsa. >> dr. insel, is your work working on standards, that interagency group? who does this? i asked my staff, who does this? who's charged with the responsibility of coming up with standards that have to be met so we don't have people out there that don't, you know, really know what they're doing trying to treat people. >> i think you stumbled on an important issue. it's not unique to autism. we built standards around biomedical interventions that are essentially overseen by the fda. >> uh-huh. >> but in the broad psychosocial intervention arena of which aba or behavioral interventions would be part of that, there is not an agency and there's not a

sort of licensing body that oversee he -- oversees this in quite the same way. and in this healthcare reform discussion, when you're talking about treatments that may not be given in a doctor's office or may not be at one of the 15 hospitals but it involves training families to administer care, 10, 15 hours a week, how does that get reimbursed? how do we look at quality measures for outcomes and how do we set standards for the degree of care and the level of care that's needed to be reimbursed? >> you asked me that question or was that just rhetorical? [laughter] >> i am a psychiatrist so i -- >> asking probing questions. >> how do i feel, doctor?

[laughter] >> well, again, obviously, we have a whole range of interest here. and everything from the research into the causes. i mean, obviously dr. insel, there's a lot of talk about vaccines. well, you covered that in your testimony. we had a couple of questions here about it. about the number of vaccines and how we set up that kind of a study. ms. boyd had talked -- or not ms. boyd, i think it was ms. havlerson talked about that kind of study but i just don't know how you do it. as you said it would be kind of immoral well, your kids are not get immunizations because we're going to put them in a study. but if you wanted to determine it, i just wonder how you would go about it. >> one of the reasons i wanted to bring that up, mr. harkin,

senator, is that there are so many families right now and this greatly concerns me 'cause i actually am a vaccine proponent. i believe in vaccines. i think they are one of the greatest public health achievements that we've ever had. so i'm actually a huge proponent of it. what i am concerned about -- there's so many families right now that are not vaccinating their children. and we do vaccinate our children. but there's so many that are not vaccinating right now because of what they perceive as a huge risk. and so i'm concerned that the nih and the cdc by their failure to aggressively actually look at this and get good, valid scientific studies free of people who may have some interest one way or the other into this, that they are doing

more harm to lower the immunization rates than anybody yelling out there concerned about vaccines. there are -- there are so many people right now that are choosing not to vaccinate their children. i don't think that population is going to be as difficult as scientists perceive that it is. because within the autism community we see that going on right now. and that concerns many of us who feel that vaccines are very important. but we hear families all the time come up to us and say, we're not going to vaccinate our kids. and having a husband as a medical professional -- i worked as an attorney in public health, that greatly concerns me because many of these families that are saying they're not going to vaccinate their kids don't have any of the possible health

characteristics that some of us who did have children with vaccine issues that could possibly be studied. i think that the scientific community can find these people to do this. >> well, dr. insel and then we'll go to ms. halverson? >> i was going to -- >> punch the button on that. >> i was just going to mention, i don't know how many people you're thinking would need to be included in a study like this. but there's a physician in, i believe, the chicago area that has a practice of about 35,000 patients and many of them choose not to vaccinate and their autism rate is next to nothing. and so there are populations of people who are -- who have that documentation. i agree, i don't think it's going to be that hard to find, you know, the amish.

maybe it's more of a closed situation but this population with dr. isenstein is very broad-based. it's not from people from every walk of life. >> so let me just be very clear on this point because i'm representing what we know about the scientific evidence so far. and that's really unequivocal. it's not that cdc and nih and actually now multiple european and japanese studies haven't looked at this. this problem has been looked at over and over again. 16 large-scale studies that have plowed into this question at many different levels and many different populations. and whether you read those studies or whether you listen to the institute of medicine or -- >> excuse me, doctor, for -- >> studies on thimersol? >> both. the connection between

vaccination with or without thimersol and the prevalence of autism. whether this is a risk factor. studies have found no evidence of a connection. we heard that from the institute of medicine. who looked at this whole broad spectrum of studies. we heard it from the vaccine injury court which said there's no plausibility here. >> i thought earlier, dr. insel, you told me when i mentioned getting a study done of the number of vaccines, not the thimersol issue but the vaccines in the first two years of life but can we compare what would the incidents of autism among a cohort of children age 0 to 2 who received 29 vaccines compared to a core of kids that got 5 or 6 or 7 or eight.

i don't know any studies and you just told me there are no studies that have done that. >> so if you're asking the question has the prevalence of autism increased over the time when the prevalence -- the number of vaccines has increased, is there a relationship? >> i don't know that. >> we know they've both gone up. >> they've both gone up. but what we don't know is, is there any causal relationship between the number of vaccines that are given, now it's 29 over two years now. we know in 1980 it was 8 or 9. whatever i said. 8 or 9. i got the figures here from cdc. but what we don't know is, is there any causal relationship between the number of vaccines, 29 in two years? and higher incidents of autism? we don't know that, do we? because there's no studies that have -- >> so the way to do such a study clearly would be asking -- we'd

have to do a randomized-controlled design. you'd want to look very carefully at those who are vaccinated and those who are -- who are either unvaccinated or vaccinated in a different way. and that's where i said that we get into ethical problems. most because of the scientific evidence and i just can't stress this enough. >> but she just mentioned someone in chicago. i have no idea who this is who doesn't vaccinate kids. i'm interested in that. she mentioned thousands of them who have not been vaccinated. are there places like that -- and you mentioned ms. boyd, there are people in your area that are not getting their kids vaccinated. couldn't you set up a study like that? >> if you were to set up a study like that, i think the question that one would ask is, not only about does this have an impact on autism but what's the impact on measles and pertussi success

and rubella for which we know the vaccines can protect them. can we ask parents to protect their kids at issue in which you could lose the immunity so we can investigate for the 17th times whether there's a potential relationship here. >> ms. boyd? >> senators, this is where there are many people in the medical community -- and i mentioned dr. bernadine healy who feels like this issue has not been appropriately evaluated, particularly, also looking at subpopulations. of the autism community. to look at whether there are immunelogical areas and she's artic literally laid those things out that are missing from the studies right now.

and i think it is imperative that we look at those particular studies. i understand the ethical -- or the thing about asking parents to do this but senators we already have populations of families that are not doing this anyway. and absolutely we should look at whether or not their children developed measles. but, quite frankly, senator, measles and autism? >> if you had a choice? i had all those diseases when i was a kid. we had mumps and measles and chicken pox and i had everything like that. >> did you have hooping cough? >> i didn't have that. i don't think i had it. maybe i did. i don't know. >> it is important to recognize many of us were exposed to those illnesses and did quite well. they are also fatal in a proportion of children. and i grew up in a physician

watching children die with flu meningitis and watching children die with the ramifications of measles because we weren't preventing all those diseases at that point in time. >> we're going to leave this recorded program and take you live now to american university in washington where the annual campaign management institute enters its second day. this is the 27th year of the program which invites leading political strategists and researchers to train students for participation in political campaigns. topics today include the framing of issues, selective targeting of voters and compiling voter files. it's just getting underway. live coverage here on c-span2. >> the republican national committee as head of field operations. he was with the republican senatorial committee as a political director; is that correct? political director. and he was at the national republican congressional committee during the takeover of -- which did happen one time, you may remember, theover of

congress. -- the takeover of congress and he was at that time the director of the committee. and as i say, he's been in politics for 30 years and it doesn't seem that long. but at any rate he is an expert in the field and we're delighted to have ed with us to talk about framing your message. okay? >> thank you, carol. thank you, carol, it's good to be here today. as carol mentioned, i am old, experienced, mature, been around the block a couple of times. and what i've been asked to share with you today are some ideas about how to frame your messages as carol said or more likely how it is we take issues that are before us today and turn them into something that a campaign is going to be able to use in terms of finally making the proper end result for a campaign in getting 50% of the vote on election day come next year in 2010.

what i thought i would do today to do that is to spend a little bit of time talking about what makes good political communications. then spend some time on the underlying thinking that goes into developing a message and framing a message. talk a little bit about choosing issues and then i'm going to show a series of ads which hopefully will demonstrate the thinking behind what it was we've chosen to do these ads and how they affected the public and why they were successful. ...

>> that a walking, talking human being candidate was the totality of who aren't she was not just based on a biography but based on what people believe, what issues they present to the public. roger took that image, that thought and eventually develop some of the most famous advertising to that point in time with ronald reagan wanting an america advertising. which capture the flavor of america at that point in time, things going very well, tied ronald reagan's leadership i use that it promoted while in the white house to that campaign and eventually against water mondale

in 1984. so it's that thinking, with michael deaver who said that he thought a good political campaign was like having a conversation with the voters. that a campaign that was successful with somebody who was a campaign that was able to do interaction, that they were communicating something interesting to the voters, something that was important to the voters, something in which they have some feedback to which any 80s, there was some cause. and that was something they could coalesce around. and those two pieces of thinking that really influenced a lot of certainly republican indication, theories, practices throughout leading up to and including today, and certainly have influenced what we have thought

about. in thinking about issues, there really are sort of three levels of political kidney patients that take place. three levels of the way people think about where they receive issues that they will be able to make decisions on who they're going to vote for on election day. number one is obviously the most basic, and that is a campaign specific issue. something that's taking place that is very legislative if you're running for congress or united states senate or something very particular and very specific, usually has to do with passage or stopping the passage of something is taking place on the floor of congress. which inside a campaign then leads, from those issues you develop ideas about what it is that you would want to do if you actually and congress are what you would change about what's going on.

and the public that absorbs those ideas and takes it to one higher set of communications, intuition. and that is values. the ultimately political committee tatian is to find a way to communicate, shared values. when you have struck that, when you have captured that even forms of advertising, your website, from your candidate speeches or speaking, then you've hit a homerun to think about the great communicators with that in our industry over the last years, via president obama, president clinton, president reagan. they're the folks who took that speech just on this level of ideas, they were able to take these concepts and take them up one more level and value. do we have any racer? i wanted to take a second to sort of walk through eight

values that we tested over and over and over through the years. that we have found have been consistent as we have looked forward and looked, and looked around and try to crystallize what values are important to the american public. these were in the 1970s, they remain true the last time i saw tested in about 2005 at 2006. these eight values remain the same. value number one, your personal safety and health. that's why health care tests so high all the time, when people say what is important to. it's why crime is so high all the time. even though crime is not an issue as we'll see later, that you can use very often. the second value of the testify is having a better relationship with your family.

republicans always want to talk about family values. reason it works for us it's always consistently after person, the family is the second thing people think about. the third and always the most controversial one, a better relationship with your god. this is not tested as are meant to be a relationship with a specific denomination or even a specific religion so much as it with a higher being, a sense of well being, a sense of your god in the sense more like, more like jimmy stewart, the kind of

god, the kind of higher being that is there that is inside a particular domination. it may get different but when you think about your overall electorate, it's more of a higher being kind of thought. number four, always sounds interesting this one was up so high. everybody wants a better job. now believe it or not that's not all about making more money. is often about somebody sense of self-worth, the sense of doing something that contributes to society. it's about doing something that contributes to community. it's part of the reason the democrats, it takes a village approach to everything you do in your life including the work contributes to the greater good of kids and family, trying to connect the family and. as republicans we had a hard

time understanding, but the democrats flocked to the hill because of that. smack number five. i want a better place, a large part of the american dream is all you than based on each generation doing better than the generation before it. those of us who are parents, certainly if we do have one wish in life, that's always i want my kids to be successful. however they deem that, to succeed and have done better than we have in our station of life. number six, is being able to afford your own home. is why obama's numbers popped up when the homebuying dispatcher. it's been part of the american dressler. those of you that a chance to

have friends in europe or overseas, this is a concept that is very american in nature. it's a value that has been up there forever and ever. number seven, is a better quality of life. which is very materialistic. it's can i have a vacation, can i have a second car? can i have a game machine. whatever it is that provide you with your personal entertainment and your personal happiness, and from a materialistic stempler, makes the list here at number seven. and the number eight, more important to those of us who are my age, am i going to have a good and happy retirement. hasn't made the list for ever. social security and medicare or

issues which are always available to be tapped and used in campaigns. so these eight values have been part of the sort of american fabric, if you will, the fabric of voters, the fabric of who we are. the order hasn't changed much. jobs have moved up a little bit. first three have been the first three fourths long as i can remember. personal health, family, faith as you define it. and keeping those values in line as you develop your campaign issues is going to be the utmost importance to develop your campaign. what is it that i can do, thinking about developing my community message? i've often thought and we at greener and hook belief that a winning campaign is the campaign

which is best able to answer one question is the voters think they are asking when they walk into on election day. at some level, i'm voting for perl, but what questions are they wanting to solve when a walk in on election day? let's take a look at some of the presidential election candidat candidates. sometimes it's pretty easy to discern the. 2008, which candidate is going to represent the kind of change that i think needs to be embodied in moving this country forward. obama represent more change than hillary did. so obama won the democratic primary. mccain was sort of the anti-bush inside the republican primary. he ended up winning the republican nomination. you will remember, back after the republican convention, mccain was actually ahead during the first of september. at that point in time the public was thinking yeah, i want change but i want a little more stable kind of change.

than september 15 came along, lehman brothers collapses, the public says things really are bad. the kind of change i want needs to be more drastic. obama shoots ahead and becomes a heavily democratic. 2004, the first presidential election after 9/11, i submit you voters are asking which president is going to make us more secure, keep us more secure. the kerry people realize that. despite kerry's vietnam record out there. he got what's now become a verb here he got torpedoed, if you will, by use of his military record. but the kerry people agreed with the bush people at that point time and about what the question was that the people want answered that in 2000, we had a close election. still not sure what question they were trying to answer. republicans would say we need change. a lot of the country was saying things aren't that bad, i don't know how much change what.

we saw a very close election that year because not only was there not easy answers to a question, there wasn't an easy question. go all the way back to ronald reagan. ronald reagan won two elections by the exact same question. you're better off in 1980, you're better off today than you were four years ago? vote for jimmy carter if you think things are not as good, give me a chance. been 84 he stood up once did and he said if you think things are better off today than they were four years ago, though for me. if not, you can go for walter mondale. the beauty of ronald reagan was how direct and simple it was. think about your congressional races over the last four years. i think in 2006 and 2008 the republicans, the congressional question was kind of easy. how am i going to a vote against him or her. for the republicans, it was often about trying to change the message or change the question so that the question became something other than what the

national question was at the time. going in 2010, what things will happen now? there's a big anti-incumbent by still in america with frustrations taking place in d.c. collared by an antidemocratic bias seems to be developing at least in some parts of america that i flipped over in 2008. so as you are putting together your campaign plan for your particular races coming up here, part of what you have to decide is whether you want a question to still be, the big question out there, you know, should that change take place in washington, d.c., one more time, or do you want to try to change the question being asked in your campaign to something else that your candidate gives an affirmative answer to. you always want your candidate to give an answer, right? how to do the quick control the question being asked. when we hear people talk about consoling the issues, controlling the playing field that are being discussed in the campaign, because what we're

thinking about is trying to convince the voters of what it is they are deciding when they walk into the polling places and tried to decide whether they're going to vote for. okay. if that is, in case, the fact, that you see a am. if it is, in case, the fact that what question is being asked by the voters when they get to election day, there's a series that has to take place for the public to understand enough about my candidate who i'm working on behalf before they can even make that decision. so who in here has been involved in campaigns in the past? okay. how about -- anybody work on the hill?

downtown groups? those of you who work on.com who's been involved in writing one minute speeches for the member? anybody involved in that? yes, ma'am. you write one minute longer speeches? >> one minute or two. >> what was hard about that? >> it was hard to put your message in a really short speech that was basically one page lo long. >> what province? >> honestly i don't never. it was about two years ago. >> that i see some other hand. >> segments of speech is. >> what were the challenges you face in writing those? >> condensing the message. >> condensing the message. there sometimes, that's exactly right. who's been involved in a campaign in developing brochures? anybody help right --

>> not exactly brochures, but standard campaign e-mails. >> how long -- did you have instructions? >> one hundred fifty words, general message. these were fund-raising e-mails going out. >> to a core group of supporters. >> right. >> anybody been involved with writing web summiteers were either member or -- in the back? >> campaign. it was sort of general. >> so more about their bio and back? >> will try to work some issues in. >> so voters have an understanding of the they were? anybody else? >> i wrote a background issue. >> for the campaign website or the official website?

>> for the "washington post." >> right. for their campaign that they use. so you would do background or issue section? >> i did both. >> overlap? >> you can make it overlapped. >> .gif. i would say in thinking about your campaign messages, there used to be a series of phases we would teach about how a campaign would develop, and this sort of thinking about the campaign was much more prevalent to the access of electronic data we have today when the public can at anytime they choose go click on my campaign website and find out as much or little as i want to put up there. for the longest time, the only access the public had to campaign was again what we chose to put out there, which were in terms of what i would say in my personal phrases as a candidate, i put them on my brochure early on before the campaign.

so we had a series of phases that we would walk through any campaign, that we would build up. the phases with something like this. phase one, was billed name id. pure and simple. back in the days, you know, you still see lots of yard signs, billboards, that kind of thing which can do nothing but build name id. but phase one of your campaign was billed name id. phase two was start to develop your image. are you a nice guy or not, yeah, i guess that's kind of a favorite when they're running for office. but what is it about myself that makes me attracted to somebody beyond just my name. phase three, was what issues -- what is it i'm talking about, what problems do i think i need to solve in the office number

and four. what is it that i want people to understand about me in relationship to my office. phase for then -- 4 then was drawing a contrast to my opponent. if this is who i am, what i believe, and while i'm going -- what issues i'm going to promote, how is it that you should select me versus my opponent? i think i will take a step -- a little sidebar right now talk about negative advertising. i'm sure you hear more about this, probably heard about the strategy section. but to me, negative advertising is imperative in american culture. anybody watch tv, i didn't get a chance to watch it today, but who is seen -- is that luke wilson as doing the ad for at&t?

boy, those at&t verizon ad, kind of nasty. verizon is accusing at&t of not having covered across america. luke wilson has tried to divert it by attacking verizon back for not being able to use their phones and be on line at the same time. they have some pretty nasty stuff taking place that they are asking you to make a consumer decision, not based much on what their product does, but with the other product doesn't do. i still maintain the most negative advertising was back in 1980s when wendy's accused mcdonald's of not serving quarter pounder hamburgers. that's a sensei was using. she was picking up a mcdonald's quarter pound bun, lifting it up and showing a piece of meat about the size of a white castle or a krystal burger, for those of you who know, saying mcdonald's wasn't serving quarter pounder hamburgers. think about.

the american culture is impaired with not just what they're going to buy based on good product advertising, but what they are not going to buy, or buying a product based on negative opinion about -- politics no different. did they do the box, the grid? you saw the for box grid you talk in the strategy section. what am i going to say about myself, what's my opponent going to say about him or herself, what my opponent pointed about me. what am i going to say about my opponent. if i choose to impart any information my opponent chooses factor, you are leaving out 25 percent of the decision-making information that's available for people to decide to make their decision on who to vote for. can negative ads go too far? yes. can there be too negative in

tone? certainly. they have to be factual. you have to be based on something that people believe. and something that people understand. those are the three big things. they have to be factual, they have to be based on something that people usually already believe, and they have to be understandable. so when you think about contrast advertising, especially when you get to some income and working who are way ahead in the polls and sitting there saying i'm way ahead now, why should i be talking about my opponent? well, at some point in time your opponent is probably going to build enough id on the own where that's not their problem anymore, and you will want to frame your opponent in such a way that's more on your terms than on his. so hard for macinnes drawing contest. part five is assuming your opponent will draw contrasts with you, going to have your

retort section where you get to hit back at your opponent. then number six was a close. for years, we ran campaign space on this sort of six phases of communication. that you know, first i let me introduce myself i want to tell you about myself and eventually i will get to attacking my opponent. a couple of things have changed. number one is about of money involved in campaigns today. there is a lot more time and called and how much information that would put out there to the public. you'll have connecticut, missouri, pennsylvania -- pennsylvania, missouri and ohio. if he's in a primary right now, they were probably start running ads this winter. you know, mr. specter's going to

start him if he hasn't already. he will start anytime running ads are his primary. so the amount of time that we have two teeny k. to the public always begins to distort this sort of, then, here's a block of time, here's a block of time i'm going to use to go through these phases of campaign. then you add to that the fact that you go to any website today and if all you had out there which are named, kind of silly and irrelevant. so that in today's world, i think they're sort of a different set of criteria that you want to use in thinking about the entirety of your message all at once. its candidates on the same kind of background. they're sort of four things you always want to be thinking about communicating. the every piece of the medications that you put out there. number one, who am i? you know, so the total amount of

my personage, background, family, and core beliefs, history. number two, what do i believe? about me that i'm going to put out there from my background and heritage that makes the attractive to others. number three, what am i going to do about the problems that are facing the public today? and number four, what is it that makes me different from my opponent? and i would say that in virtually every piece of campaign to medications that you do you need to keep all four of these things in line as opposed to the sort of phase thought of building towards these things slowly. now, doesn't mean that you attack your opponent, every thing you do by saying what you

were different. but what it does mean is that from the time to stand up and say, my name is ed brookover and i'm running for president, that i need to be thinking about what it is that makes me different from my opponent, as we move forward in the campaign. okay. so if what we believe is that we need to develop a campaign message that's going to include issues, that are going to set up the answer to a question that we are the affirmative answer to, and that we keep these for sort of background thoughts in mind as we are developing stuff, how is it we choose issues that are -- that we're going to use in promoting our congressmen? so you guys, you had your groups already and you started

research? so ohio is my home state so i'm going to pick on ohio and. is anybody here from ohio that's doing ohio? brooks. which side are you doing? have you guys thought about -- think about what could happen back home, i'm sure. have you thought about what mr. portman's issues are going to be as he goes to the senate race next year? >> we've taken a little bit of look at the. ivy-covered mostly voter returns. >> who's the portman's issues person? have you thought about. >> a little bit. >> where are you headed with this or? >> so far just basic research and jobs and economic. >> jobs and economy. sure, that stupid anybody here doing mr. specter, the democrat from pennsylvania. back in the corner. mr. specter's issue in the primary headache after thinking

about that, which are going to be thinking about with mr. specter in a primary? anyone of you, start thinking about what you want to talk about with him? daniel? >> yeah, -- >> pretty basic. jobs important, health important. the economy is number one. >> we have to address the fact that he just switched his party. >> against. >> again. >> right. got you. >> they were going to aim to state it is always represented a moderate voter in that state howsoever that moderate voters that's what he's going to hang his hat. >> you're doing missouri, is that right? does someone have this carnahan? had to go start talking about what's going on in the senate? do you have the democratic side? >> yes. >> you're doing mr. blunt? >> carnahan. >> got you. had to go start document issues

and missouri a? >> right now we are pretty much focusing on opposition research, the health care stuff is coming out. >> and is well-liked different aspects, whether just be not just general health care but also for seniors and for certain population groups, especially in rural areas. >> is the blonde group together? so you have five groups, six? you have the primaries involved, got you. so somebody doing ohio? got you. what are we doing with mrs. burner so far? issues in a primary against mr. fisher? >> health care, jobs and washington versus ohio. going to try to tie order back to washington. >> i think one of the challenges that we all face in an election year like this is, if you just do a survey and ask people what the most important issue taking place in washington right now, one of two things going to come

a. is going to be jobs or health care. events like what took place over the weekend with a northwest flight in detroit made a national security stuff is going to pop up once in a while but it's probably right now only going to pop up based on defense, not based on others. so the challenges going to become than in an environment where everybody agrees was the number one issue is is how my going to make that issue mind. what is it about the issue that's going to become -- that's going to be my issue versus not some else's. let's face it. are you going to accuse mr. portman of not being the fact that he doesn't think people should have better jobs, or accused mrs. burner of the? that's tough to believe on the face of it all. so we need to be able to drill down a little bit further in the issue of jobs, health care on the lines have been drawn a little more just on a partisan basis in terms of people, at least congress' view of health care so far.

but the challenge to us is taking the issue of economy and jobs, which i think we'll end up surpassing health care as the number one issue next year and how is it that we will do something in my campaign and my candidate that makes me the answer to the question, next fall, of what the voters we as a. so we have put together a little formula that would use in trying, and then have it couple of tests against it and try to sort out what issue is that we think that we should use if we're running our campaign. part one is a comma is a personal enough that people are going to believe that makes a difference in my life, is there a solution that you are promoting that that family or that person relating back to those eyes, interpersonal safe and health number one, better job for me because there's something in it that makes me

believe that what you're talking about is going to make my situation better. and when we talk about relevancy, i think that's what it's all about. it's about are you going to understand that what rob portman is promoting an ohio is going to make a difference in my life if he's elected united states senator. so you add that in to the -- is this an issue that i'm going to be able to talk about any big enough way that i'm going to be able to grab a lot of people in a short period of time? lets another, even in today's electronic world, most people still want to get their information in a 32nd burst of advertisement of some type or not. maybe a little bit longer, but even those, even producing four-minute ads online because you'll lose peoples which is. still a short burst of

information that the best way to get that it's get back to shared values. usually can't do that by saying i'm going to improve the bridge down the street. we have to come back to issues like jobs or what it is about jobs. then you add that to how is that -- so you just can't stand up and say i'm for better jobs in ohio isn't quite enough. mrs. bruce going to be saying that mr. fisher is going to be saying that. mr. portman will be saying that. we have to go past this would offer better jobs, into what is it that i believe about that issue, that subset of issues that we're going to choose to promote, highlight, that is going to meet all three of those tests. because if you can do that relevancy, link it to shared

values, be different from your opponent, then you have what we think is a winning issue. now, how the heck can i figure this out? did they have their survey presentation already? i'm a big believer in research of all kinds. not only in research about what my opponent believes, but also what my candidate believes. i'm not a consultant. there are things that we should be telling our clients what they believe. i want a client who understand who he is, what his believes are, what his solutions are. we may help them frame the words they may be using. we may help them decide which issues to promote, but we also want to understand who our candidate is and what they're all about so we can make these decisions better. but then in a survey research would take those positions and test them in such a way so that we can figure out which one of

our issues is going to meet these tests. and we have come up in working with another firm, wilson research strategies, with what we call the abc test on issues. so that you can actually test three pieces of these issues about what's going to go on. beside your city, what percentage of the public agrees with that? we're always looking for -- loving to look for 70% number when we say drop or been supported tax breaks for small businesses for health care to provide better jobs. if we read that issue to the public in ohio and we get a 70% number, we may say we found step one as you something we may want to talk about work step to them would be the believability of the issue.

believability works on a couple of levels. number one, is it believable that that candidate is going to be able to actually do something about the issue we have chosen to promote. if i'm on city council and my hometown and i want to go out and talk about my solution to the middle east peace process, i may be right but i don't it's going to get me elected to city council in ohio. example in the far extreme, but going back to the rob portman example, do people believe that if rob portman is able to pass legislation, that would reduce health care cost to small businesses it would lead to better jobs? part two is not only could he do it, but the believability of would it make a difference. and so you have to, the believability skill has a couple of different pieces to it in terms of what issue i'm going to select and promoting to make sure that it's going to pass this enough for the public to

buy into it. been part three, the hardest one to get to, but in the long run what we are saying is even if they agree with our issue at a 70% level and they believe we can get it done and make a difference, do they care enough about the issue that they're going to make their voting decision on a. is there a linkage between my position on that issue as i've described it, and put it up against my opponent and then leading to their voting can. from a campaign perspective, i can have a great solutions in the world and the greatest answers in the world that everybody agrees with, but if it's not going to say i'm going to go vote for ed brookover inside the polling place, then it should be something i shouldn't be wasting my campaign resources on. >> how easy -- decanters ever

tried to make an issue that people don't care about into an issue they do care about? >> that is a great question. and it has been done. i would say there are a couple of keys to a doctor daniel is asking about candidates have tried to take an issue that the public may not care about and, a., can ever be done, and b., how can that be done. let me sort of those workers in reverse order that if it is ever going to be done we create an issue, if you will, it's done in one of about three ways. number one, if it is negative about your opponent. and so if the entire country is up here worried about jobs, but my opponent is drastically different in my district on those of issues i may be able to say, you know, here's something new you don't know about my opponent and introduced it to them, you know, i don't care what this person i believes about everything else. so number one is you can create a set of issues more easily on the negative side than positive

side. number two if it is on a positive side, it has to be linked to a shared value, very easily. at just can't be about the issue. it has to be something you can take up past issues and in essence depends the public, not that they're wrong about the issues they are believing in, that there is something bigger about this campaign that i want to run in terms of pulling it off. and number three, you also then have to have a high degree of i can get this done. it can't just be pie in the sky stuff that it can be i got the answer for world hunger, and you know, again, i'm not going to do my secret plan. i'm only going to tell you when i'm done with the campaign kind of thing. i think those are tests you have to ply to a candidate to sort of go outside what the public is telling you the issues are for right now. i think it's very hard and difficult to do any positive way. if we have candidates who want to talk up something else, we try to drag him back towards

including that in a list of things and try to get back to a list of values. let's say we had either a social conservative this time, social issues are not going to be high on the list. and my candidate wanted to talk about those issues on one side or the other. i would try to get into link that to a value and take that fight and bring it back to either health care or two jobs, to issues that are out there right now which allows them to express some of their personal feelings but didn't bring it back to what's important to the public. candidates don't decide what the issues are. this situation or the public most often decide what issues are. if the problem people are facing in the realized. political consultant as a class of people rank somewhere around lawyers or used car salesmen sometimes. very low, that's right. and for reasons i think more bad than good. but part of that is because we like to promote ourselves in a

way of saying we decided this campaign issue and we decide this campaign when in fact the camping issues are all beside by what the public is thinking about, what problems they want salt. and we are most often represent our candidates core set of beliefs and ideas that led them to office in first place if we're doing our job gruffly. those of you are thinking about entering this business, in terms of a campaign as a profession, get used to being -- you getting in this business because he believed that you want to expand or contract a second amendment rights of americans, big arguments take place on that all the time on the legislative front. there are many interest groups that promote both sides of the issue. i would say it's probably not the pays onto a place for you to spend most of your time. i get involved on the public affairs side of this big debate as we decide the direction of our country as opposed to the campaign site because it is held

that the gun issue is the number one issue that decides what's going to happen. particularly in the congressional level. that's very reasonable. you go to a western kansas, i guarantee you that they will agree on the second amendment positions that you go to manhattan and most likely a democrat and republican will agree on separate sides of that issue. the public decide what the issue will be. candidates, is to take those and try to package them in such a way that makes sense to the public to get people to vote for them. okay. one more set of tests to use in addition to this abc test in looking at your message. theirs for parts of this test as well. have to ply both tests, guys. the first test sort of get you

through the intellectual side, if you will. this is an issue that is worth using. the second site will get you to the mechanic sighed something that you will be able to put into a direct-mail piece on the website or an ad to get things done. number one is is it simple to understand? number two, doesn't have a personal impact on the voters? number three, are the fact easy-to-use and transferable? for the candidates and campaigns. and number four, for your supporters. now, standing up to an attack doesn't mean 70 percent of the people happen to agree with you

after you start down this path. standing up to the attack just means that enough of the folks that are in the middle core of voters that you are any most of your campaign at in terms of these issues will still believe my side of the issue even after they've heard the other side. . . couple thoughts on your choosing your issues and

then we'll start looking at some ads here and thinking about what it is that we did in advertising that followed these principles. number one, especially for 30-second tv ads, we've always thought it is more important what people say and believe about your candidate after they have seen their ad, than what we actually say inside the ad. it's more important what people say and believe, after they have seen your ad than what you actually say inside your ad. those of you had classes in psychology, i'm getting into dangerously close to cognitive disidence i'm more of a simplistic guy. i prefer to say there are things we project or cues we send to voters based on what we're talking about that is going to allow the voter to learn a whole lot more about a candidate than just what i said inside that 30-second

advertising. i will show an ad about that. we have tracked actual survey results how people's minds changed on issues we're not talking about based on what they have seen and said in one particular piece of advertising. corollary to this, i believe as a candidate what you say and what you talk about is who you are. what you say, and what you talk about is who you are. so you're going to see some michelle bachmann examples here in a moment. michelle, was first elected in congress in 2006. she was a state senator prior to that. biggest issue she had tackled in the minnesota state senate, there had been two. one she had promoted a traditional marriage amendment to minnesota's constitution, which she tried to get passed and did not get on the ballot for a vote. and secondly she promoted taxpayer bill of rights.

when she was in her republican convention to win the nomination for congress in 2006, it was her promotion of the traditional marriage amendment that garnered her the most support, got her the nomination and she was running against three other fellow conservative, two statehouse members and one a state senator from her congressional district. when we got to the general election without changing who she was, or anything else we stopped talking about traditional marriage amendment and started talking about taxpayer bill of rights. she became who she was talking with voters. still a staunch conservative not changing values. became a more economic conservative rather than social conservative based on what she was talking about and what we chose to emphasize within her election. that is pretty good and clear example how we take issues important to the electorate we're aiming at that point in time which during the convention process was the republican

primary electorate, traditional marriage side, taking her core values, conservative across the board on a set of things and making a decision totality of campaign what it was we were going to emphasize. what gets frustrating to those that, that are inside these campaigns are the shift of gears that is going to take place after you get through a primary and go through the general election. the pennsylvania campaign will be a huge shift of fweers on my mind on the democratic side whether mr. sestak or mr. spector win as primary. to run against pat toomey in the general election. the kind of campaign that amy and daniel is describe something mr. spector's way to victory in the primary. when he gets through the primary he has a whole different set of challenges for him running against mr. toomey. gotcha, those with joe sestak i'm sure he is

floating his long adherence to liberal principles. and which may be probably is his path to victory in terms of winning democratic primary in pennsylvania. when he gets to the general election against pat toomey he will have to shift gears, not changing who he is or what he believes but changing what he will be talking about next fall. the last note i would like to make about sorth whole nod of communications is the higher up you go in office running for president, running for senate, especially, your candidate has to carry whatever message you're putting out because there is going to be additional news coverage. there is youtube videos, wherever you go. there is so much public information out there, if you're putting out something which is not who your candidate is and what they believe, they can't carry personally every day when you're campaigning you're failing the candidate. this is good for american democracy and american politics the fact that there is more information out

there. to voters in this transition period will seem overwhelming to them. we want voters to watch web sites and 6-minute youtube videos and pound them with different web sites and alternatives to traditional, electronic advertising, mail we've had. i always thought more voters know about campaigns and positions more informed decisions they make they will get out of their government. i have a set of beliefs what that government should be doing. my democratic friends have a different set of beliefs. we want a fair exchange of ideas for people to make a decision. as we're thinking about these campaigns and thinking about issues, think about what it is your candidate is going to be carry. rob portman will carry a different message than arlen specktory based on how they walk into the room and how

they think. in addition to developing message in addition to everything else we've thrown on the table think about that how that candidate will be personally presenting this message. we've already seen the huge impact from the way candidates carry themselves in winning elections right across the river in virginia, the george allen campaign, when mr. allen made a statement about the person filming him that, a little bit of controversy and brought mr. webb up to a place where he was able to actually be competitive and win the united states senate race. final thing i would say is, let's, be thinking about who your candidate is, what message they can carry over the entirety of the campaign when you're picking issues. before i sort of move into the next section of looking at ads and then talking about the ads and how they relate to the issues in the campaign what it was we thought in putting this whole thing together and boiling campaign down to 30-second snippets we do, want to stop see if there

are any questions, comments, thoughts, things i left out. things you've thought about. yes, ma'am? >> could you talk about the transition from a primary to general election when you're obviously focusing on different issues based on who your opponent is. is that going to change strategy at all? >> i think it should change strategy at very beginning. in ideal world you will choose your set of issues in the primary you want to promote. at least the issues. maybe not the way you talk about them, that you can use both in the primary and in the general election in ideal world. if you believe that that, health care is an issue that can benefit you both in the primary and general but talking about different aspects of it, then you've got a homerun issue. i think you need to begin thinking about that when you're forming your primary election. so that is ideal section number one. reality part number two is, if you don't when primary,

like getting, can't win super bowl without getting into the playoffs. you need to win the primary first. so start from step one in the primary to figure out what issues i think can be beneficial to both. step two then is also, you can, think a little bit differently about what you've want to communicate with targeted audiences through mail, through online advertising through more targeted venues of advertising other than tv. so it is not you're going to say anything different but you can probably be a little bit more partisan or idealogical in nature and, in your targeted communications than you might be on television in terms of your primary election. again, not changing what you believe in but changing the tone and tenor of your advertising. so, during the primary, choose your issues wisely, think about your venue. then i think that as soon as you won a primary when you have to be quick and loud,

in trying to get you to define what you think differences are between you and your opponent. the day after you won a primary, your general election starts primary night. you're advising a candidate won the primary and want to make their announcement speech before the 11:00 news or 10:00 news that night and in your primary city where your headquarters is, that speech, that time forward is not about looking backwards. it is about looking forwards. you don't necessarily have to name your opponent but from that time forward your speech should be all about what you think the general election issues are going to be. if you need to pivot i start right then, start then, change your web site you have to right away. change your candidate's speech, what he or she may be talking about. changing issues you're talking about, you want to have a rational for why it is you're talking about the issues which may more encompass a general election public. so if you have to make a change, do right away. you don't want to give your

opponent time to saying see these things are stalking about things not important to the rest of us. you don't want to become irrelevant. allow your opponent to make you irrelevant. yes, sir? >> in terms of new media, like youtube or internet content, would you suggest those ads, how different should they be from ads that you would put in 30-second tv spot? should the message be different or still have the same amount of themes? >> i think that, if you're, if your internet message is able to be targeted somehow because key word messaging, or have been able to obtain, e-mail lists in which you're going out the door and have high degree of confidence interested in that particular issue, they can be different than a general electronic message because of the targeted audience. much in the same way direct

mail campaign can be a little bit different based on who is receiving it. in terms of, how -- i always try to draw back to the same set of shared values. there's only so much of the public is going to be able to, or want to absorb without your campaign. and, so let's, think about what you're putting out. if it is to a list of people already very politically active, they probably know enough anyway. gee we need to get this group more information. maybe. the truth is if they're very politically active they're getting their information already. it is group not as politically active but will vote. only so much they want to hear from us to tell truth. we buy so much tv time, shake them, pay attention, same online, send them mail, look at me. try to see me so you can learn something about me. so i think it depends, if you can target it. in terms of look, i have a online consultant say to me,

last year something that really impacted me. he said that the future of communications in this new world is going to start to come down to thinking about this in three ways. what does it look like on here. what does it look like on there and what does it look like on here. so as you're thinking about developing what it is you're putting out online, that on line will be on handheld pda or laptop. what does that mean? it will be a smaller screen. messages have to be simpler in terms of look, if you will, on tv, you see all these ads with the, you know, whirling graphics and all kinds of different stuff, in the background. show you a couple we did like that today. they look like a piece of crap on here. it would be too small. in terms of tactics you're talking about a simpler message to understand actually on here because you can't make vision walls too

complicated because there is too much to be seen seen. if that drives what message you picked it does have an impact on message itself too it will have impact on look of messages. you've seen that already in terms of commercial advertisers. we in politics do very little of our own research in terms of pure research on advertising. we usually follow what mcdonald's and proctor & gamble and at&t and people that spend even more money than we do on advertising are doing. you see difference they have in their advertising between their online stuff and what they're putting on tv in terms of the kind of look it has. i think more political operatives will be doing the same thing. yes, sir? >> often times the person who talks the loudest that is heard or believed, rather than the person who is right or even sometimes most emotionally appeal. the thing comes to my mind in the 2000 election in the primary, with bush

suggesting that mccain had illegitimate child or something and, is that matter of mccain team not responding quickly? how do you respond and cut through that kind of crap if it comes your way? >> first of all, i always said that particular example is a little sidebar but you make an interesting point about, level of campaign, if you will and how much the they're being hurt. i first of all believed that if you're a good candidate with a chance of winning, you should be able to attract enough resources to get yourself heard. so, you know, seldom is there the ideal candidate for a direct out there with the right answers that is not at attracting enough resources to be heard. part of the campaign, what you will spend your to figure out how to gather enough resources to get my message heard, whatever it means, tv or online or something like that. there are fewers case where

that person deserved to win didn't win if you will kind of thing. now having said that though, i do think that it is important that we take some of those same tests that we talked about for our own advertising, abc test, agreed, beliefs, cares and do they at apply that when we get attacked. if opponent attacks us, if their attacks pass that test, if colin is attacking ed brockover and passes a, b, c, i need to respond to it. if it passes two tests public will start buying into it and they will hurt my campaign. at that point i do need to have resources to fight back if i doesn't have resources to fight back, colin's attack is going to go not responded to, and i'm going

to get hurt and probably lose the election. i do think you have to have resources to respond. you need to respond in a like kind of way. you can get drowned out, but for the most part i think people get drowned out arnlt once going to the finish line for whatever reason anyway. does that answer your question? there. >> how do we you deal with issue of public policy extremely important but not at all visceral? something so convoluted and complex it is difficult to try to make the american people -- >> education? >> economic issues. there is so much, dollar devaluation or trade imbalance. it's not something a lot of people are passionate about but, if a politician knows that it's, very, very important in public policy, -- >> i think this gets back to sort of taking those, those, being able to walk the issue

into a place where you are taking it back to the value and dropping it down to how it effects you personally. if i believe, if you you're working, rob is a big guy on trade and big guy on the dollar. he would love, rob's personal background as a economics and what he has done, would love to go out and talk about that stuff. what you need to do translate how that personally effects somebody which are jobs or government spending in the long run. what you want to do, take those kinds of issues, relate it to somebody personally, relate it to an issue which effects people personally and get back to shared values list we had before. there are many members of congress on both sides of aisle would agree with you those are very important issues but they're not campaigning on them directly. if they campaign on trade deficit directly, it will be, get to jobs pretty quickly when they're talking about that.

if they say, our trade imbalance is impacting what we make here, and what we buy here, depending which side of the argument you want to be on, how much we're spending or jobs sending overseas and not keeping here. they need to jump that pretty quickly. and you know what? it's not that the public doesn't sort of get that it's, those aren't important issues. i think it is also where there is buy-in we have representative government to tell the truth. i'm sending you up there to figure this out kind of thing. you're the person that will have to make sure that's being taken care of so my values are being protected. now if we get somebody wants to talk about it all the time you're in situation having to convince your candidate it is, there is better way to do this, where they won't come in second. until we get multimember districts not a place to be. other questions? okay, let's look at some ads. turn the light down a little

bit. okay. so, the first thing you're going to notice his name is spelled wrong on here. that's what i get not looking at intern work before the intern left for holidays. i will take you through different ads we'll talk a little bit about how our decision on issues played into making a, using this particular ad. first i'm going to use, miss fox's ad, priorities. virginia foxx. western north carol line. she was first elected in 2004. she won a multicandidate primary, both in a general and run i don't have and had a pretty competitive race in the general election. after she won the primary still had a lot of conservatives weren't happy with her partly because she had, believe it or not,

supported equal rights amendments in the 1980s. partly because she had taken money from a gay and lesbian pac during her time in the legislature and she voted to allow some communities the right to impose taxes upon themselves if they were on option elections in the state legislature. she had some conservatives were not happy with her. but these were not issues we wanted to deal with in the general public. this is the first ad we ran for her in the fall election. i will let it run and talk a little more why we chose this and what worked for it. remember, this is 2004. >> i'm virginia foxx and i approved this message. i support president bush and our troops. it is a mistake to let anyone or any country doubt for a second that we will do whatever it takes to protect our freedom and way of life. it is time to protect our borders, limit immigration

to numbers we can handle. why is it we talk about illegal immigrants the word illegal gets ignored in the discussion? >> virginia foxx real leadership, real results. >> before we ran that ad, we were getting lukewarm support for miss foxx in the conservatives in the district, about 60, 65%. after that ad it went up 85%. when we asked the same questions about what bothered them? a lot of those concerns went away, using immigration support of troops from that very conservative angle was convincing voters that that she agreed, they felt more comfortable with all the other eschews over here. earlier i talked about how you project and cognitive dizzy dense, and cues you send as politician shaun. i don't think any doubt after seeing that ad, virginia foxx is conservative. if you don't know anything about her is she pro-life,

pro-choice or pro-second amendment rights. whole series of issues you can ask question about seeing that ad and most likely assume mrs. foxx would take the conservative position on it. so we chose to use immigration and support for the troops in 2004, this is before immigration had become a hot national issue to project two things at that point in time. number one, to assure our conservative base that mrs. foxx is one of them. but at the same time, to get, to a broader issue in western north carolina, a very pro-military distribute and a district where they lost a lot of jobs overseas, we used immigration as issue to try to address sort of that all at once. by the way, along the way, ask questions about the ads from any aspect, about how we made or anything like that, please do. i'm going to focus a little bit more on, the, on how we selected the issues. this is one you won't see in every part of america but,

john carter after his first election was facing a primary in round rock, texas and district ran from outside of austin to just through texas a & m, outside of houston. he was being attacked from the right. and by people, couple of candidates who didn't think that he had been an effective spokesman enough on spending. many other republicans was being projected as somebody who is supporting bush budgets and therefore, not being vigilant on spending. so we chose to take a little bit different bent with him to try to get people again to say, he must be okay on spending too by using some other issues. >> you call me old-fashioned if you want but to me, a marriage will always be a union between a man and a woman. god, family and our community. those are my priorities in life. i didn't just move here to

run for congress. i have lived here for over 30 years. i raised my family here. i think i know the people of central texas. i'm congressman john carter and i approved this ad. >> congressman john carter, let's send them our best. >> so again after that ad runs, people who were upset with the new votes that judge carter may have cast on some of the budget votes that republicans were taking in 2003-2004, their concerns dissipated because they were reminded of conservative john was in a broad sense and assumed his basic values he was a conservative on spending issues as well. adrian smith. this is general election ad for adrian smith. adrian is a, was a state senator from western nebraska. he was running for an open seat in 2006. he was endorsed by club for growth in western nebraska. good news he was republic

being endorsed by club for growth, they help you raise a lot of money. flip side opponents attach views of club for growth to youing a a candidate. club for growth at the time was advocating reduction and or elimination of agriculture subsidies. as part of their budget act. and in western nebraska, not exactly the best thing to do. at least as far as general election was concerned. adrian was, we get into the general election. we're running against a democrat scott klebb. ran for senate two years later. promoting background with his family ranch and work he had done on his grandparents ranch in western nebraska. adrian is from town. those from rural parts, i'm from rural southeastern ohio. i didn't live on a farm. adrian is same kind of person. always lived in town. if you're from rural parts of the area, that means, you're not exactly same kind

of we talked about his numbers. lower taxes. less government regulation. we talked about pro-life views. one of the most pro-life districts in america. we take survey 2 1/2 weeks to go in the election and we're tied. democrats did a survey at the same time, and released it and showed us down one point. we're back now reevaluating what we're going to do in the campaign. we go back to the basics say, what have we missed? what is it about this campaign we've not done in terms of connecting to voters of this district? and this was the positive ad that we ran to trito reach adrian to the basic values of the district. >> i'm adrian smith and i approved this message. >> adrian named friend of agriculture by nebraska farm bureau. >> i know how important agriculture to our economy. >> what will adrian smith do

to help our farms? open markets. strengthen family farms. enshare fair prices for farmers and ranchers. it is more than our work. it is our way of life. >> faith, family community. those are my core have use. that won't change when i go to congress. >> state senator aid dreege smith. republican for congress. >> sound that again with the sound down a bit. sorry about that. >> i'm adrian smith and i approved this message. >> adrian has been named friend of agriculture by the nebraska farm bureau. >> know how important agriculture is to our economy. >> what will adrian smith do to help our farms? open markets. strengthen family farms. ensure fair prices for our farmers and ranchers. is of it is more than our work, it is our way of life. >> faith, family community. those are my core values. those won't change when i go to congress. >> senate senator adrian smith. republican for congress. >> so he with tried to take

those three issues we talked in there, fair trade, open markets, i forget the other two we mentioned in there, take those issues and broaden them out to the fact, hey, we do understand agriculture is the big deal here. the, fact is after that ad rain, adrian's numbers took off. it was as simple for us reconnecting what the core was in that district. we failed to see that in terms because we thought we were on the right track of district being conservative in sense of talking about low taxes, talking about some of the issues we ended with there, faith and family and campaign but not connecting adrian to the core of the district. going to show you the john linder ad. maybe favorite ad i ever done. this is 2002 campaign ad we did in primary against bob barr. those of you remember bob barr, john linder and bob barr were incumbent congressman. got thrown into the same district in 2002. result of redistricting in

the georgia legislature at the time. they have to run against each other in republican primary. both had been in congress for about, barr was elected in '94. mr. linder in '92. both had very similar voting records from the sense of acu scores and, national journal scores on about everything except for mr. barr frankly was a little more libertarian on some of the, on a few issues relating around the terrorist act and, terrorism acts. in republican primary most often candidate who wins is candidate seen as most conservative. our early surveys showed the public thought mr. barr was most conservative. we decided we couldn't let that be question that would be asked by candidates for who was going to win. we wanted to change the question to, they're both pretty conservative but who's, who do we think connects more with families and suburbs of north georgia? to answer that question of gee, they're both conservative we didn't think we could get in a shouting

match with bob barr. had endorsements of charlton heston and grover norquist and david keane, all the groups in washington d.c. mr. barr was leader for there they were endorsing him because he was more vocal spokesman for conservative issues than mr. linder was. we wanted to come up with some kind of ad which showed the public, gee, john linder is good conservative too and let's talk about other things. we had to do it in way mr. barr could not come back at us, yeah but not how you should be judging us right now. this is what we ad. this ad went up early in mr. linder's election and ran at low level on daytime television for the whole campaign. after you see it you probably see why we chose that target group. >> character of a person by the relationships they have with those they're closest to. >> i was june 16th, 1963. and my brother and i just finished playing a county league baseball game. a car pulled up in our front yard in this little bity

town. a young gal looking for directions to the resort. she said she just dyed her friend's hair that afternoon and turned blue and sent to town to get more dye to repair damage. i looked at my brother and looked at me, let's go meet the gal with the blue hair. we drove out to the resort. her dad came running out of the resort what can i do for you two guys? i said i like to meet the guy with blue hair. he invited us laughing. she was blue. it was angry. three months later we were married. it was 39 years ago. and every day, been better than yesterday. >> congressman john linder, a leader we can be proud of. >> we didn't think there was much better way to talk about family values and commitment to family john linder telling personal story how he met his wife and how long they had been married a little bit of grandkids in there. in a way we didn't get into any issue arguments with

mr. barr during that campaign. we didn't get any ratings. what we saw after that in surveys, all of sudden mr. linder is just as conservative as mr. barr is and we were able to put on to issues of effectiveness or who is more like i am in the growing suburbs of north georgia. and again, it was, this is an ad which makes the point when we go back to the, go back to the thought of more important what people say about you after your ad than actually what you say in it. people take their cues from what they learn inside this 30 seconds and apply it on a whole lot of different scales across your campaign. so when you're thinking about the tv parts of advertising in your campaign, not only thinking about what it is you're addressing inside that 30 seconds, in this case, 60 mr. linder told the story in 47 seconds and i couldn't figure out how to cut it down. inside what you say inside your advertising. want to think about impact it is having on all the other issues in the campaign.

how am i doing timewise? >> [inaudible]. >> okay. may end early. i mentioned to you mrs. bachman's first campaign which she had run as a social conservative in the convention process and then, wanted to present her as more of an economic conservative in the general election. but at the same time we wanted to send a couple subtle messages to social conservatives at the same time. so here is, here is the first administers bachman ran in her general election in 2006. >> i'm michelle bachmann and i approved this message. minnesota is a great place to raise a family. our people work hard, they dream big. all we want from government is just a chance to succeed. my husband, marcus, runs our small business. i worked as a tax attorney. i'm for lowering taxes and reducing government

regulation. that's a formula for creating jobs and you can count on me to stand up and do what's right for minnesota. >> michelle bachmann for congress. >> show it one more time. talk about a couple pieces of it. >> i'm michelle bachmann and i approved this message. minnesota is a great place to raise a family. our people work hard, they dream big. all we want from government is just a chance to succeed. my husband, marcus, runs our small business. i worked as a tax attorney. i'm for lowering taxes and reducing government regulation. that's a formula for creating jobs and you can count on me to stand up and do what's right for minnesota. >> michele bachman for congress. >> think about what all was in that ad. essentially one issue message in there. it was all about economics. talks about her tax attorney background. talks about her family business. talks about wanting to lower taxes and less government regulation.

filled within that are other cues for social conservatives. 23 foster children. think about that those remember how she campaigned taking many troubled kids. they were unwed teenage mothers. she had taken into a house for her commitment to the pro-life issue. family-run business. her five kids. there was other cues through that ad without cluttering it away from her economic message that sent message to social conservative friends we have not forgotten you either. again she was able to shift gears from being portrayed as just a social conservative to be being economic conservative without losing her social conservative base. same theories apply to both sides of the aisle. i'm obviously doing one withs i'm most familiar with and ones i happen to work on so i can talk more about the inside information. you can take with mediums of online mediums or, the television medium and, send a whole lot of other messages beyond just what the issue message you're talking about is.

michael? >> is there also -- [inaudible] is that also the expert status? >> exactly. >> in linder ad you put him in military uniform as well? >> military uniform was more of a slice of life with linder. with mrs. bachman, it certainly was i know what i'm talking about when it comes to the economy kind of thing. she has always been somebody, to this day, she will say what she thinks and say what she believes. we wanted to incorporate that whole thought. a lot of people support her because of that. we wanted to incorporate her thought into that campaign speech style of ad we did there with her. those kinds of little things there are hopefully to establish you know, the, you can believe me because this is easy fact. i'm a former tax attorney. you know, it just, sends some kind of signal you know what you're talking about in terms of economy. yes? >> behind putting her in a stump speech kind of setting and not in interview kind of

setting? >> that one we wanted to let people know there are others were for michelle, that it was okay to join this movement if you will. that we try to get them out among people, part of what you want to convey it seems to me, that if you're sitting at home watching this ad and you've just seen an attacked a from the other side and saying but i like this person, you want to let them know other people do too. so, sometimes you want to show that kind of setting it is okay. i'm not sitting here alone on tv there are other people out there that agree with me as well. some of the kinds of reasons you will see us put them in those kinds of setting or shaking of hands. you see somebody that is out, you know, see ads where people are out talking a bunch of different sets at once. a diner in somebody's lifing room or walking across a farm, wanting to convey the fact that many different people are on same side not only candidate on but you

the viewer is on as well. take that imagery and know it is okay to be for me no matter what else you're hearing. i think i'm going to jump to, let me show one of mcory. pat ran for governor of north carolina in 2008. we came in second unfortunately. and, this is the very first ad we ran in both primary and general election. race is for governor which i love because they're, about leadership, and, so you always looking to try to take that whole dimension of what we talked about in terms of issues and values and tie it back to leadership. pat had this story he told on the campaign stump quite oven when he did as mayor of charlotte in terms of an issue important to the state of north carolina at the time. >> why am i running for governor? last year i led a caravan of sheriffs, mayors and concerned citizens to the state capital to try to get help of growing problems of

gangs, crime and illegal immigrants. the legislators basically told us to mind your own business, and the governor would not even meet with us. that's not good enough. when i go back as governor, i'm bringing the people of north carolina with me. the difference is leadership. >> pat mccrory for governor. >> again, taking an issue or personal safety, crime, which is, often hard to use in a campaign. reason it is hard to use often hard to distinguish yourself from the other side. in this instance he was able to use an opponent, not his exact opponent. running against a lieutenant governor but able to use the person who was part of that administration to be the difference in the campaign. it wasn't directly attacking perdue, but he was attacking raleigh and what was going on in raleigh at the time. we had an issue important to people in terms of growing problem of gangs in north carolina, in all the cities was a problem. as republican if you do well in the cities you will win.

rural areas are more republican. we had shared values in terms of better safety for my family and better safety for myself. we had a differentiation with our opponent wasn't draebt directly our opponent, republican outsider what was going on in state capital we could use there. help keep us in game in general election which we lost point and a half. that ad helped us win the primary. let's go, take a minute and jump to, mrs. bachman's 2008 campaign. if i can get this to work. there we go. 2008 presented a lot of challenges for republicans, shall we say. we're going into election year with a president who was unpopular. with a set of issues which

were working against us. and, with a public who was not trusting us on some republican core issues, especially of government spending which, favorite issue for republicans run on and public thought we lost our way on. if the question was going to be asked in a swing district like mrs. bach mann represents suburbs of minneapolis who was doing job in washington we sent them to do we wouldn't get answer to the question. we wanted to change the question early on, others are doing things in washington one way but mrs. bachmann has different idea how things should get done. if you remember, early on, before september 15th, 2008, the biggest issue on capitol hill was? remember the days before, around the convention last summer, year ago, 2008, gas prices energy, right? our very first ad we ran for michelle's campaign this one right here talking about the issue of the day then.

this ad started right after labor day during the republican convention in minneapolis in 2008. the first ad we ran for her campaign. >> lifting the ban on offshore drilling is the right thing to do. we have the resources in anwr and offshore to cut prices at the pump. we must do all we can to make sure we have the energy we need. >> if we have the energy here, we should use it. >> michelle has the right ideas to help minnesota families. >> i'm michelle bachmann. i approved this message because america must produce more energy. >> congresswoman michele bachman. >> we're talking her positions drilling in anwar and offshore drilling, a position which was, had its opponents in that district as well. using her position, assuring others that agree with her and putting larger context of she not only wanted to do that for energy, she wanted to do even more to keep

energy costs down for families. again, trying to get her out front of an issue in early 2008 what was issue of the day. so we have that add up. and, we had done early survey work prior to doing that up. we had ourselves up six points. we were ahead 44-38 in a district michelle won 50-42. mccain was way down in the district. mark kennedy running against amy klobuchar, is this klobuchar year. this is wellstone year. this is franken year. franken was ahead of coleman at that point in time in distribute as well. the fact we're ahead at all makes us feel pretty good where we are in this election cycle. the september 15th happens. all of sudden now we're back to, we're back to a whole different set of issues because energy is going out the door and everybody is worried about their jobs.

so michelle was somebody who voted against both versions of the bailout bills. and, we wanted to explain that vote in terms of why it was she would vote against something. if you remember, right after those votes, there was a lot of talk that was taking place about where special interests once again in control in washington. this is the ad that we put up to show michelle's viewpoint on, michelle's point of view what is taking place in washington and why she is a little different than most of the other republican members of congress. >> seems every day my boss tells me the same thing. get some political pork from michelle bachmann today. so i go to michelle's office to plead with her again. michelle, bail out the wall street executives, give us some earmarks. michelle, time it raise taxes. and every day, michelle says, no, no, no, no. once again i watch my dreams of lobbyist gold disappear as michelle tells me she is just looking out for minnesota families. >> i'm mi -- michelle

bachmann and i approved this message. >> we wanted that to be noticed that it is different than other political ads. i think we accomplished that. we wanted to put her in the position even if she is attacked voting against what some people, conservatives were calling a bailout, others were calling rescue package for the economic community at that point in time, that michelle's reasoning for that grounded in something more than just her being attacked as being somebody who doesn't care about families. we put in terms of her standing up to special interest groups. we're rolling along. doing okay with this. take another survey comes into our campaign october 16th the we're ahead by 14 points 45-31. we feel pretty good where we are. things are gotten better in the district. mccain is even. coleman slightly ahead. part of our improvement in the district, republicans started to come back a little bit. october 17th michelle goes on hard ball with chris matthews.

has an interview with chris matthews. after interview accused wanting to investigate members of congress, pro-american, anti-american. you and i go back and forth what michelle actually said. how media portrayed in minneapolis she had said she wanted to investigate members of congress. firestorm breaks loose. her opponent raises $800,000 in 24 hours. moveon.org and other groups get involved in michelle's campaign. "minneapolis star-tribune" run three days of stories about it. she is lead stories on ail three tv stations six straight newscasts. gee, we should pay attention to this what a shock. we're bright political consultants. we decide to do three things on sunday night which is october 18th. we go into the field to take a survey. and we prepared two ads we want to go on the airbased on survey coming back as we thought. we get the survey back tuesday morning. she is down 6 points. we've seen a 20-point net

movement in six days inside the campaign. even more disturbing was that, about 30% of the electorate had yet to hear of this controversy taking place. meant a lot of our loss was among republicans as well were saying gee, she is not the person we thought we were. our opponent at the time, was a former state senator and a former mayor and former commissioner of transportation under jesse ventura. had a couple of potential weaknesses we saw. been for tax increases. but also had a little ethical lapse while he was member of the department of transportation. so, we thought that based on the survey, we needed to do two things immediately. get michelle back on the air to remind people why they, why her supporters liked her before and try to begin to attack tinkleberg do it in such a way we're not political. when michelle fallen so quickly. we didn't think a straightforward harsh political tact would work.

we show ads we run at same time in minnesota after this took place. the first is michelle going back on camera. >> once again, our nation is at a crossroads, and it's a time for choosing. we could embrace government as the answer to our problems, or we could choose freedom and liberty. i may not always get my words right but i know that my heart is right. because my heart is for you, for your children, and for the blessings of liberty to remain for our great country. i'm michelle bachmann and i approved this message. >> who did that appeal to? i mean, our conservative base, right? we lost a part of our conservative base in that survey. so we thought we needed to get her back out there to remind our supporters why we're still okay and michelle was still the same person no matter what they were hearing from the news media. if we doesn't cover our core supporters first no way we would get back to winning

with election. part one of our strategy, recover our core supporters with michelle back on camera reminding our supporters why it was they supported her. this is the first attacked a we put up against mr. tinklenberg with his ethical problems he had. >> when l. tinkelberg ran the department of transportation. the star trib said he broke the law. federal authorities called it tainted. and when el was mayor, he supported a plan to increase property taxes by whopping 24%. el tinkleberg. he is not up to the challenges today. >> i'm michelle bachmann and approved this message. >> we go back in the field on sunday night nine days before the election. a lot has actually happened even though the ballot hasn't moved. we're still down six points. what happened we're up 95% of the people now heard about this controversy. so we're topped out on new

people learning about the controversy. second thing that happened, even though michelle's negatives were up 50% they were starting to looking more like a normal set of, partisan, partisan cross tabs inside there republicans, conservatives all company could back home to us. independents were a little bit mixed but leaning against us and democrats didn't like us very much we could live with that as long as we win the independents back because we now have a election which was back to something we can deal with in terms of partisanship which the first ad did for us. second thing we found inside the attacked a was that the parts about him breaking law and cronyism was more important than the tax part of it. so i did something i never had the money to do inside after congressional campaign before, we ran three ads the last week of the campaign. we're going to put michelle back up on camera talking more about issues this time than about the that values, very personal ad she did. and then, two attack ads against mr. tinklenberg.

at the same time we launched ads we put michelle on conservative talk radio how moveon.org was attacking her. and we raised about a million dollars online in six days. so we had, enough money to put enough ads up we could carry three, different ads at once. we didn't want the viewers to get tired of seeing the same attacked a against our opponent all the time. we wanted two different looks at it. first here is michelle's positive ad we talking about issues of day reminding people what they liked about michelle in first place. >> former tax attorney, business owner, mom of five and foster mom to 23 great kids i know nothing hurts our economy like high taxes. that's why i voted against bailing out wall street executives. it is why i fought wasteful government spending corrupt

pork barrel projects. i'm michelle bachmann and ai proved this message because i want to work to make our economy strong so we can all have a better life. >> again, reaching back out to our base remind them why they liked her but getting back to the economic message, that was economic message of the day. and, then we ran two ads against mr. tinklenberg. one of them was, a little bit, sort of trying to capture the flavor of the day and just the facts ma'am. >> check out el tinklenberg's record. says here he was transportation commissioner. and he handed out unbid contracts to his favorite consultants? huh. an official review found 45 allegation allegations wrongdoing. fed said it was tainted process. the star tribune reported that tinklenberg broke the law. i think it is time i i can ared off el tinklenberg. >> i'm michelle bachmann and

aproved this message. >> try to use third party. official government investigations going back at his character. we had decided that at this point in time that if we're going to win this election partly about making michelle acceptable again and making tinklenberg unacceptable to the electorate. then because we had that ad which was little more fact-based up, we were able to run tougher ad at the same time. >> i'm michelle bachmann and i approved this message. >> el tinklenberg broke the law. tinklenberg handed out no-bid contracts to his favorite consultants. wasting taxpayers money by lining pockets of his political cronies. an official review resulted in 45 allegations of wrongdoing. the federal authorities called the whole process tainted. but the star tribune reported it best. el tinklenberg, broke the law.

>> even inside that one a little tougher in tone and everything else try to get the facts back in there in terms of using third party credibility to substantiate attacks we're making on tinklenberg. michelle won 47-43 on election day. one of the two closest congressional races in the country that republicans won. it was one of the races where we think that our issues selection through what she did on positive side first taking chance on printing ad up back to camera talking about her core values and then, making the decision to bring her back up on camera even when people were telling us gee you can't go positive at all. you have to stay negative. we're being told, no. we've got to give people a positive reason to vote for her as well. in terms of going back to the economy i think a key part to her winning again. i think we'll close out, close out the ad section now. finish up and take any last questions or thoughts about this before we close up. yes, sir? >> i just, i noticed that the last ad you put her

approving message before the ad s that because it was tougher and all the other ones approving at end? >> that is always debate that we have about where to put, this, verbal disclaimer you have to have on ads with tax stuff. theory a put at beginning so they forget about before they get there. detractors say announcing as political ad. theory b goes, you know, wait until the end and get all the facts out first before they know who it is from. i have not seen any data to show which one is better or worse. only one worked naturally on google ad, we clicked off to go to her. so, that had a little bit of flow to it all. but i have yet to see any data says, if there is better or worse to it all. almost personal choice right now i think. other questions or thoughts? if not, yes, sir? >> -- put together an ad like many of these really? >> in the post-production process we do all of our

stuff in a day or less. and which is one of the things that makes, political advertisers different than some of the comercial advertisers. in fact we did, actually did four ads for michelle. also did the signs ad you see which had in pocket if the tax side, about him raising taxes if that proved more effective, we did all four ads in one studio, two days. generally most political ads, once you have and approved script and go into the studio, usually one day process. yes, sir? >> talked about approved scripts. do you screen any of these? >> sometimes. testing them, out in the real world or? >> with a sample audience or whatever? >> sometimes. you see that usually depends on size of race and how much money they have. what we would hope to have tested at least themes themselves and our data ahead of time so we know themes are working. in michelle's case during that tracking process the campaign of our surveys, we're asking a very specific questions about the attacks

on tinklenberg and which pieces then people were agreeing with and working better. parts of michelle's positive message working better. presidential races often run tests in small markets. fresno, california, favorite people use. lafayette, louisiana where they actually run ads and test the general pufblt you're seeing much more now online testing services coming, that, both commercial and political advertisers starting to use. verifying the sample is always a challenge in the online testing. but i think you will see more and more online testing of advertising. senate level quite a bit will be done. congressional level all a matter of resources. so. little different than the commercial side of advertising in that regard. >> are when planning for a campaign do you say we'll have a ad about this issue in this point of campaign an ad about this issue at this point in the campaign, or, do you kind of plan ads and create them as needed?

>> it is sort of a combination. your budget should tell you about how many flights of tv you will be able to have. i'm sure at some point in time, people will talk about gross rating points and how to budget for campaign advertising. you will be able to tell will i do three ads or five ads or seven ads. that is big decision number one on television side. big decision number two, how many of those do i think can be positive or negative, okay? and in a senate race most of these senate races will be well-funded. you will have money to quite a few positive and negative ads. little harder in congressional campaign where four or five ads we do. we make decision how many ads we'll do and make a decision between mix of positive and negative. from there, we'll do two things. we'll shoot a bunch of b-roll background footage with topics we think will be important for the day, seniors, kids, everything will be education and different job settings that you saw