my name is amity shlaes. i am a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations and bloomberg news columnist. i'm your host today for the show about authors and their book. today our guests are two formidable outstanding political observers, scott rasmussen and douglas schoen. mr. rasmussen is founder and president of rasmussen report which collects and distributes public opinion polling data. mr. schoen is a consultant who said the first candidates from hillary clinton to mike bloomberg. mr. schoen is also a contributor to fox news. their book is "mad as hell out the tea party movement is fundamentally remaking the two-party system. welcome, gentlemen. >> great to be with you. >> we have a double author. so we are going to be a little short. could you each get 82 sentence description of with the tea party movement is? >> guest: the tea party

movement is a grass-roots movement that has been disrespected by people in the political class because fundamentally it is a rejection of the political class. >> and i would say it is a group of voters about a quarter of the electorate that is basically saying we are fed up with washington and spending, fed up with taxing policies that don't reflect our values and we want to return to core principles. >> host: house speaker been the policies of the tea party is in to grassroots and all it is an astroturf movement founded by a few rich people. what do you say to that? >> guest: the whole notion of the tea party movement offended washington. initially it was racist, astroturf but what happened was frustration and pushed over the top by the bailout legislation and people in washington never saw it coming because they still believed the bailout saved the nation. most people in america believe it was bad for the economy.

>> host: so it isn't really anything new at all? >> guest: there is a long land of antisystemic populist movements in america. some as you know better than me on the left, others on the right. but this to me is a continuation of what we saw in the mid 1990's, early 1990's and has greater fervor and i think after the e collection we are going to see it has had greater impact. >> host: i think you list americans for prosperity founded by david coke of coca industries as one of the major organizational backers of this movement. is that evidence of astroturf? >> guest: i think the opposite actually. my sense is that if there was not a grass-roots movement to fund their would not be boaters to mobilize. you could put a lot of money into campaigns and not get much response and the tea parties i think gargasz was set authentic a grass-roots movements that

really are itself created and mostly self financed. >> guest: there is a lot of money, politicians trying to jump in the tea party movement but that is because you have a movement like this that is it has two things going for it. has passion and its core ideas resume with a majority of americans. so a lot of people like to take credit and help it along but quite frankly if the coke brothers disappeared the move them would go on just fine. >> host: it is a kind of race to take credit. thank you. to emphasize the mainstream media and which under appreciated, failed to appreciate the strengths of the tea party movement. why did the old media overlook this trend? >> guest: they didn't want to see it. earlier this year scott brown had a stunning electoral victory in massachusetts where ted kennedy's old seat. poling was showing it would be a competitive race is the major networks never covered it as a competitive race until the final

couple of days because it just was incomprehensible to them the democrats could lose the seat. so much of the tea party movement is in the same category. they can't believe people are not happy with policies right now the federal government. >> guest: has a look at the the the i.c.e. level of optimism you can point to sharon hinkle and paul marco rubio for some reason the media hasn't wanted to give the cheaper credit. for goodness' sake you don't have to be a supporter of christine o'donnell or sharon ankle to recognize the vibrancy or authenticity and power and potency of the tea party movement. >> host: you tell an anecdote in your book about rush limbaugh, the radio show host and mr. steele of the rnc. can you tell the anecdote again and what you think it means?

>> guest: my sense is what the anecdote really means is that the political class, the political leadership just doesn't have a clue about what the movement is really about, and one of the thing this scott points to frequently and should talk about is the republican leadership is as alienated from the tea party movement as is the democratic leadership. >> host: can you repeat what happened with mr. steele and mr. limbaugh? this could have different views of republican voters, to party activists. mr. limbaugh would like to think of himself as the leader. mr. steel thinks they're a co-op for republicans and it doesn't -- it's not going to work. republican voters believe michael steele republicans in washington are out of touch with the party base by a wide margin. >> guest: he criticized limbaugh, he pushed back and steele sued for peace, and in a certain way, when that happened,

i said that's the part of rush limbaugh, in actual fact. while he is undeniably potent and powerful and influential but was ultimately an expression of the tea party power reflecting itself in the dispute. host committee it is a force of history that the tea party such as the repeal of the fairness doctrine that radio doctrine that made it very strongly opinionated shows such as rush limbaugh possible dating all the way back to the president reagan so that would be the decades ago >> guest: what is happening going back is the tea party movement. everything that is in the political mainstream today is built upon frustration that's been growing for decades. and this is the way the grass-roots movements had been in america. in the 1950's rows of parked didn't get to proceed on the bus and ignited a civil rights movement but the frustration was building for decades. even the founding of america for

decades before the revolution of the frustration had built and that is what is happening today. frustration is being unleashed. but it didn't just start in april 20009. >> host: it reminds me of another story about when the wilky who is a surprise republican candidate in 1940 running against franklin roosevelt. roosevelt third term and they said he was a grass-roots candidate because they spring up all over the country and in washington they commented the grassroots of a thousand country clubs that was funded by the corollary >> guest: wilky was a utility executive. what we are seeing here is a rejection, explosively unabashedly of country clubs, eletes, business leaders, and when people say sharon ingalls, brandt paul, joe miller, margo rubio and try to derive them in

a certain sense i think this points to the power of the tea party that candidates who are hardly ideal are getting nominated because they are not traditional republicans, they are not mainstream candidates. they assure the mainstream and are supported because of their alienation from the system. >> host: in the debt is a central theme of your book the elite versus the regular. how do you define elite and what is the ratio of americans who are elite and who are not or who are mainstream and real? >> guest: we actually call it mainstream voters and the political class and the political class are people who support this concept we should be led by. we have three questions in the survey we ask people whose judgment to the trust more the american people, political leaders. we ask is the federal government special-interest group in big business and big government work together against the rest of us. seven out of ten people hold of the latter view that this alliance between big government and big business.

some are on the left and some are on the right. but overall loss of 55 or 60% of americans are consistently on the main street side of all of the questions. about 14% or even with the political class on two of three questions and you talk about a sense of scale back in the 17 seventies about one out of three colonists supported the crown, so in a group right now we have a very small level of support for the status quo in washington. >> host: how big is the political class or the elite group? >> guest: about 7% are in and 7% of the population lean in that direction. >> host: is it possible, dr. schoen went to harvard, is it possible to go to an ivy league school and not be in the political class or does the define you for ever in one side or the other? >> guest: we may disagree on this but i think if you go to an ivy league college, and you're part of the political class just

by membership i told your research associate before we began that i took a seminar with a late departed and much lamented senator daniel patrick moynihan who has come out with a terrific book you might also enjoy reading. but i remember that seminar some 30 years ago a guy got up and said he was a representative of the working class and moynihan said when you're living in the 02138 as it could i can assure you are in the political class, and i think that is the case and you lose touch very substantially with mainstream values. >> host: so everyone who ever attended, just to push further, senator moynihan would have said whoever attended one of those fancy schools, which i did, to act -- >> guest: you did very well. >> host: is always out of it forever. i think that is a little harsh.

[inaudible] >> guest: it took me 12 years to get my undergraduate degree >> host: going back a little -- >> guest: what you're saying is certainly if you are part of the elite institution if you have gone to the school, you do have advantages you don't even recognize. it is possible for someone with that background to recognize that the american people should be given more respect and the government should derive its authority from the governed and there is an attitude among some those recovering from this there is an attitude among some that i was at harvard recently and a woman said -- we don't understand why the people don't want us to leave. we've been trained to leave. that is the attitude people are upset about. >> host: maybe the problem as arrogance and not pedigreed. >> guest: that could farewell be to do you remember what erica said in a harvard man? she said the most arrogant thing in life is a harvard man with a

c average. [laughter] host committee the universities aren't as different as we would like them. >> guest: what he should understand but scott and his family is not withstanding what i would like to believe i've accomplished and you certainly have accomplished, scott and his father founded espn, soledad putative he is built on of the most respected companies in america, and given the level of success, and relatively young age, he may not want to be part of the elite but he has done more in the vast majority of eletes with a graduated from harvard or not. >> host: btu are the elite of innovation. >> guest: if you go back even to the founding days of the country there were eletes with a were doing is preserving this idea that the government shouldn't be run by the elites. the government should be run with consent of the government. there had to be popular component, and we seem to be moving away from that at this

point in time. >> host: thank you for letting me push on this question, been tolerant of that and maybe we should get a little bit more to the two-party. what are the -- the tea party itself has issued memoranda or documents. what is a big issue for the tea party as the to clear and as you perceive those issues to be. >> guest: i love when you see the tea party has issued these. there are lots of groups are part of the tea party and it's hard to define who is in because the president of the club and about one out of four or five say their part of the tea party movement. the things that unite them, fiscal policy issues they leave government spending should be lower. >> host: you mentioned first fiscal policy. in the sense that nobody is listening to. >> guest: i would go back to fiscal policy and say they believe that there is a effectively corrupt alliance

between the two parties in washington. to spend and tax more than they believe is prudent. when people say the key parties are no nothing's, with your is antikinsey in. they are traditional balanced budget from the government the way i run my household, i don't want debt or a deficit, i don't want excess of spending. i'm not against social programs if we can afford it, but if we can't i don't want to do it and i would like to protect the social programs we have because i needed them. they are not libertarian, and just small limited government people who frequently say i'm a new to all of this and i just am so angry and you know, that's i think pretty authentic. >> host: let's back up and say what keynesian is. >> guest: spend to prime the pump. you have written about this eloquently. >> host: what we want to talk

it through. i was just reading the economic consequences of peace, that is a very fine book. it is a great u.k. economist who developed the content of the modern stimulus as we know what also wrote a lot of other things, and one of the things he praises is inequality of income distribution because he says it is optimal win welford eletes have a lot of money. they will spend it all on watches like paris hilton. savitt, a large share of it they spend on investment which leads to productivity gains which in turn is the best kind of growth for the economy. but it is antikeynesian and i agree and it sort of a visceral and i can see in people don't just wake up and say i hate john maynard keynes, what they see is it doesn't make sense to me to spend more than i can afford with volume in the government or household. >> guest: first most americans

don't know who he is. richard nixon said we all can see and so there is a cultural kinsey in some most americans today believe if you cut government spending that will create more jobs and spending more. if you cut the deficit it will create more. >> guest: there's something else to it. the average american with your he or she be in the tea party or separate, basically believe that if you increase incentives to reducing taxes you're going to get more economic growth. if you say to the average american which is better, the government spending money to encourage both growth and consumption or the government cutting back and leaving more money in your pocket, they are going to tell you more money in my pocket and let me do with that money what i want and i am more likely than not to spend it in a way that is socially productive but goodness gracious

don't you tell me what to do. and while they are not trained economist and they may not know cannes or any other economic philosopher, they have a clear idea, and you will see november 2nd how they take those ideas to the polling booth and express them with what i think space would agree would be a repudiation of the obama administration economic policy. >> guest: it's not just the repudiation of the obama policy. this is for the third straight election cycle voting against the party in power and it's also the continuation of things that began in the clinton era when the president lost control of congress, president bush lost control of congress, president obama me do it again. there is a voting against. >> guest: degette tire sastre. we are going to get to the other issue of the tea party but just on the fiscal side, if they are not keynesian and they don't

like spending, how do they feel about taxes? art lovers says incentives matter and the lower rates can generate more economic activity, therefore bring more revenue than the government expected. this is the advisor -- >> guest: the other thing about this but i think is important to understand is the tea party members and supporters and the american people generally are compassionate people. these are not selfish mean-spirited people. but they lead a common sense life and common sense means you don't spend what you don't have, you don't overburden people and you give people incentives and they see these as core values that if they were more perhaps litter it they would express more eloquently but they are no less fervent and passionate than

a trained economist. and the other thing that happened, scott has pointed to this a bunch of times, they look at people in new york and say where do these people come from? what kind of value do they have? how do they think about things? they are just befuddled, angry, too, but befuddled. >> guest: you tie this back from a policy point of view, the thing that ignited all frustration that is now the tea party movement was the bailout. there were several things -- >> host: we have fiscal and now the bailout as a trigger of the catalyst. >> guest: it is part of the same thought process because what dog was saying about the common sense approach, all of a sudden the government says $700,000,000,000.1 reaction is you didn't know this ahead of time? another reaction that is deep is the sense of outrage about it. americans believe in this idea that if you do well in business you should keep your profits if

you do poorly you should pay the price and all of a sudden they say wait a minute, people change the rules to help their friends to bail out their friends with our tax payer money and was seen as an inside job, it was seen as political class alliance with the big business crowd in wall street and people were saying wait a minute. at the same time this is happening, the house and values are falling. only half of all voters believe their house is worth more than a mortgage and they see somebody wants to help the big boys and change the rules to hurt us. >> guest: the other part of this, which space has eluted to, again, you have written me enormously, eloquently about this, is this suspicion of eletes, bureaucrats and the washington arrangement. i remember writing about the jewish kosher butchers and i guess it was brought away who couldn't explain to the bureaucrats why they did what they did, how they did what they

did and why it was a rational, reasonable and supported the community in the market. it was seen as i recollect as a violation of the trade law and lead them to think one was even incarcerated if my recollection of the story you told in the book is correct. and i told that story because what you see in the tea party if it is that absolute sense that washington is just out, not only out of touch, but as space was alluding to is corrupt. but if you're a big thinker and get into trouble and you are bailed out if you are an auto company baled out and if you're a working guy who gets behind on a mortgage that they never should have taken out because they shyster banker foisted upon them, tough luck. host committee to see this in addition to the elite regular man as a battle of economic theory and started to say that the keynesian come and the battle of macroeconomics and

microeconomics, microeconomics the experience of the firm was the firm say about what is happening to the economy? billable business say sometimes little about whether it wants to decide to how your again which is in the great problem we have had in this recovery, the jobless recovery that's very interesting. as we talk about the first bailout, just so the viewer is clear on that, that wall street bailout we talk about fiscal and a little about tax and maybe about the economic philosophy of economic philosophy that might be behind these impulses. are there other components you identified in? >> guest: when you talk about this it's not quite right as you describe it when you talk about it in the economic theory because people that are mad as hell aren't sitting there thinking in terms of economic theory. with your thinking is their sense of what's right and what's wrong and it happens to translate into an economic

theory but that's not the way that they are viewing it, and they are viewing what is wrong as moral sense. >> host: they are elite people of the of the institutions were more about economics in the past. one was william graham sumner who said don't forget the forgotten man whom he identified as what we would call today the tea party person, a person left out not receiving the special gifts of the special interest crowd. let me ask one more question then we will ask questions about yourselves since we are all interested in how you got here and all these books you've written and who you work with. is this tea party movement more powerful than other such movements? i'm thinking specifically for rick symbol i will read you a quote from the 1970's.

many have to suffer at the hands of a political and economic elite who shape to decisions and never had to account for the mistakes or the injustice. when unemployment prevails they never stand in line looking for a job and that quote is jimmy carter. this was an acceptance speech by him when he ran for president more than a quarter-century ago. so it sounds awfully similar. is the revulsion now greater than other revulsions we experienced in our lifetime or in american history? >> guest: the depth and the passion certainly is and what i would say is there are about 100 potential tea party congressman that could be elected. six u.s. senators and their about. two years ago but this time if we said we were going to talk about the tea party and its influence on the midterm election you would say what's that? and if i had said to you it's

pretty simple there's going to do this spontaneous movement it's going to grow up its way to take over the republican party that's going to be able to fundamentally influence our politics and that's all we would be talking about in the run-up to the midterm election to would say are you fantasizing? so i think it is extremely, extremely potent and powerful, and when the next question gets asked, and i'm curious of scott's reaction which is wilky party go away and if this question is addressed, i'm sure they will go away but i don't see any evidence that that is going to happen anytime soon. >> guest: you know, when you talk about the change from the 1970's, jimmy carter was tapping into a similar frustration. you had watergate and vietnam. a lot of the fiscal policy issues we are dealing with today have their roots in the presidency of lyndon johnson and richard nixon, said fiscal policy on an unsustainable level and people have been voting for four decades at least candidates

who promise the fiscally conservative policies and so i don't know if this is bigger or more powerful. it's an expansion of the same frustration that's been going on for a lot longer now. host could you have a left-leaning strand to your populism or maybe key party or not, i'm not quite clear and to have a -- what are the two strands and are the leftwingers in the tea party are they different kind? >> guest: they are with the call the coffee party. what they are is people who would agree with a critique of the tea party movement that washington is corrupt and serving big business and what we need is more regulation, more government, probably more redistribution away from the wealthy and powerful to ordinary people and they would argue that that was morally, economically and socially just and fair and the bonuses in the bailouts are a egregious violations of the

norms of american society and we should take those bonuses and benefits that can from the bailouts away from the corrupt elite. so the same analysis, different conclusion from the tea party movement. much smaller, however. >> guest: there's a couple other things. because there was the movement on the left and the right, there is a sense of lack of legitimacy of the government only 21% who believe the government today has the consent of the government. second thing is the populist wing on the left side of the equation tend to have more confidence in the democratic lawmakers and the people on the populist right in the republican lawmakers and so their level of outrage is directed a little bit differently. they may be upset the lawmakers on of our effective at getting things enacted but the people in the tea party movement don't think they have anybody on their side in washington. >> host: that's an awful lot of caffeine, you have maybe the

coffee already happened with the health care law that is a progressive law and tradition. >> guest: that takes a lot of steam out of the movement that is in their judgment a fundamental flow of that analysis. they would say the health care law was proven positive of the bankruptcy of the system because the public auction was defeated. insurance companies are still able to raise rates indiscriminately. there was a current view of the pharmaceutical companies and their view and all of this adds up to a health care bill that the left would regard as essential the corrupt and dishonest. the right has their own problems that are very different, but again, similar analysis, by a magical opposite. >> host: in your book you

describe a single pay group with the chicago basis the was not entirely happy with the health care law. it was too right wing, to compromise to. >> they wanted the action in the street to fight the health care bill. >> host: and there is a compelling story of a young woman who died in pregnancy, is that right? so all this is happening, but i want to stop now and talk a little bit about these are special guests, the of them quite a lot of work in their lives, not just this wonderful book though it is wonderfully interesting as we are coming up to the midterm, highly exciting. i'm a little anxious to ask this question because we already talked about, but where did you go to high school? >> guest: [inaudible] >> host: right here in new york. and where did you go to high school? >> guest: massachusetts. >> host: where to go to college? >> guest: went to harvard college. >> host: and where did you go to college? >> guest: to give off and then went to university connecticut and took more time off and the

university of north carolina and then i finished up at depaul university so it took me awhile to get there. >> of "the wall street journal" dow jones there were a number of competing cultures in the company and one was the culture of depaul. there were many, and this culture was the pragmatic culture. i think it is fair to say we had a number of hoosiers who seem to be the college of many of the hoosiers and many of the viewers will maybe remember george malone, the great columnist of many decades, and malone had that pragmatism and i wished he were here to talk about that multi-party now. what were your parents political views? >> guest: moderate. my mother is alive and is a left-wing democrat. my father was a more moderate democrat, and i was brought up to believe that my religion must jewish and my political party

was democrat and i was supposed to be both. >> guest: my views are different. my family made sure i was brought up to be a new york yankees fan and a giant fan. the political view never got too far into the equation. i guess some levels probably republican leanings, the politics was something never discussed growing up. >> host: i should mention since i write for blue bird news and you have worked for the year bloomberg maybe your mother is ambivalent -- >> guest: she waxes and wanes feeling he's been on balanced become a good mayor for the city but somebody who thinks in on the balanced forms of politics and somebody who is like mayor bloomberg more pragmatic calling it as inviting one of the

problems we find in politics today is the left and the right have become sufficiently distinct and it's hard for politicians in the center to build the kind of a biting and enduring coalitions that would demonstrate to people that the current arrangement the left and right talked about is not real but is illusory. >> host: is the relationship between sports and politics? are they similar? to the evin equals with a wavy line, or the almost the same thing? >> guest: the candian is the way i watch a giant game, and you get passionate and are upset with the calls when they don't go your way and one of the things that's happened we haven't become a sports bar nation in terms of politics. when we pulled on the space police people in the country, the enthusiasm that was the same everywhere in the country as it was in massachusetts because of your republican in california you are watching the race with this and excitement a republican

in massachusetts was. >> guest: i will tell you one story on sports and politics. one of the things i am the most proud of his having worked for about seven or eight years and the opposition to top molosovich one of the people i had the opportunity to work with and was a great pleasure was ambassador richard holbrooke and in the course of discussing the poll about political divisions in serbia, he looked at me and said 367. just stopped. i said 367? he said don't you know the lifetime batting average? and i said i guess i knew that but not in this context we he said like you i was a frustrated sports editor who turned to politics because to substitute one type of statistics for another. >> host: you also did work in

the u.k. and i believe your first book, can you tell a little bit about how and you also wrote a book about lenihan? and how you went on this political journey and when you found with the early leaders. >> guest: i decided when i was young that i was obviously interested in ideas and my doctoral dissertation was on the basis of support of the british electorate and for anyone who has any interest in what i've done the two-party was in a lot of ways the return intellectual at the same kind of questions that i faced in the u.k.. that was social less economic issues. this is purely if not exclusively economic so i wrote about free-market economics in britain and the impact of immigration and then turn to senator moynihan who had been a teacher of mine and obviously it friend of mine and i rode his

biography when he just came to the senate, and i guess it published its 1977 or 78, and it was absolutely thrilling for me as a young person to number 30 to have a chance to write about such seminal figures one in the case of britain and the other in the case of american politics so it was a great thrill for me. >> host: was a great thing about lenihan? >> guest: his intellect, brilliant man. i don't know if you have seen steve weizman's book it but it is extraordinary. the range and the depth of subjects he wrote and spoke about, and the problem we have in our politics is there are such few people who are able to do more than just now of the talking points. one more, and then we should certainly talk about his extraordinary background as well. i went to a breakfast this morning with former governor of new york and he's in his early nineties, well aware of what is

going on she is a firm in good shape and someone mentioned northern ireland and he said we had the horsemen their eluting to himself, senator kennedy and tip o'neill and one other. there aren't politicians like that anymore. and i think he's right. you can agree with people or disagree with them but i think what we are lacking in political life to a very substantial degree are transcended its figures able to bridge cultural, political and economic tides. >> host: people seem he is larger every year. >> guest: think that is true and we are lacking large scale figures in our politics of any world view and it is i think to our detriment >> host: tell us a little bit more about espn. >> guest: i grew up on the broadcast and my father was in it, my first radio commercial when i was seven. >> host: was that about? >> guest: some christmas

promotion in amherst massachusetts. >> host: can use it for us? >> guest: i just remember being so nervous looking into the studio. >> host: did a.q. read? >> guest: i memorized my lines and i also remember i did my first television mug can tell you about was then employed with the boston patriots and the american football league leader on captain of the only other and that data was a long time ago but my dad and i did lots of broadcasting and we love to read stuff, high school hockey playoffs when i was in high school because my team wasn't good enough to make the playoffs so $20 everything to do with it, but the hockey team came to town and my dad was working with them, i became an announcer and actually had from a pure performance point of view the greatest thrill of my life. my childhood idol hockey player came to play with his two sons

and had the 50th birthday i stood center right in the spotlight with my childhood idol on his 50th birthday and to make it even better his birthday is today after mine so it was our joint birthday celebration and just a great thing. in those days you couldn't get things on television. only one college game played a week on television. hockey games couldn't get on much. my father and i were trying to find ways to do it and we heard about this new thing called cable and a satellite. we learned we could send the signal or of america with satellite for less money than to send the same signal of its state of connecticut over traditional land lines. >> host: using to identify the new medium of the messages to get through that somehow for some reason shut out before. this could you're talking of wendell willkie before and what is happening today. it's the internet. the social networking. the way you get messages out

changes everything. >> host: the publisher is harper collins to read that as my publisher, too. who is your editor? >> guest: adam miller. >> host: can use a word or two since they don't get talked enough on tv? >> guest: the great genius of a good editor like adams is the ability to take an idea and helped craft it to suit both the current environment as well as feeling as closely as possible to the underlying intellectual trends that are driving it and adams helped us do that immeasurably, and i think we have a much better book as a result >> guest: there were two things that haven't. doug and i met in a wendy's to start talking about it and have all these ideas. >> host: and to work together before? >> guest: we had been on tv together. we started with this idea and

then when adams came, she was very nice about the way he did it but he reorganized our thoughts and put together a much more compelling way. >> guest: and i would say this, i don't know if you collaborated with anybody on a book -- >> host: it is hard. [laughter] >> guest: we cooperated and collaborated. the only thing i have to say is i assume people would see my genius would run through every page and it pained me to realize scott has gotten as much if not more well deserved credit for an argument i must confess that day he said unless we get into the distinction between the political class and political elite and what it means for public opinion and we will not be doing justice to my idea and what i want to do. i think we did it, scott, and

i'd think the book is immeasurably better as a result. >> host: did you each write chapters or did you write them together? >> guest: we wrote different sections, we put them together and if it. chris could you use skype or a regular telephone or blackberry? >> guest: we used pen and paper. we sat down face-to-face a couple times, scribbled things out. we actually not so much pain and paper but e-mail and word documents, and there were times when i would get a document and say there is no way this can work because doug has missed this completely and then i would go back and talk about it and realize that he had some critiques of mine, and eventually we found a way to work it out and i think it is a much better product. >> host: or e-mails or chats on the phone? >> guest: mostly email and a few chats, but the great benefit of the collaboration, having done another look where the collaboration was not as seamless, to put it politely, when we talk things out it took

only a few minutes to try to resolve things. but the important issue is in addition to the timely alagiah i think the work product benefit from that which is why you want to collaborate. >> host: >> guest: we started out in different places on this, and so when i would say things i would realize doug was hearing something different than i intended to say and i'm sure you the same experience. as we try to articulate to each other it became a little clear what we both men. >> host: we are coming into the final part of the shows are going to ask a couple questions about substance and then about politics. here we are close to an important election. there is a chapter in your book where you talk about populism and say you use the word rigged to read the system is rigged and one of the quotes you are renting out the law that change the banking investment banking structure, gramm-leach-bliley

from 1999 using it repealed the glass-steagall act and a lot of commercials investment bankers to merge. this is what struck women to benefit the elite but it did a benefit some of the elite we can clearly see that. was there an intention to that? was it -- uzi meant to benefit of the elite that means not to benefit other people. do you see a motive or do you just see what comes? >> guest: first of all most people see motive. host could use the motive? >> guest: yes. he sees motive and i see the outcome. >> host: the famous -- >> guest: we reached an accord how we would analyze it but it's clear to me the repeal of glass-stegall did little for ordinary people, and a lot for some very, very wealthy bankers.

scott when he critiqued my view set with a process that got here and look how people think about that. you have to do that if you are going to understand what is going on. >> guest: when i see a motive, part of is there is a corrupt process. most of the tea party activists as they went to washington and stayed long enough, they would end up being just as corrupt or just as wrapped up in the system as people are today. >> host: power corrupts -- >> guest: i want to see something on the word rigged because normally when you do polling you don't throw in supercharged words like that and we were trying to find out how deep this was and we asked people how did the members of congress get reelected so often and we actually asked of the options is it the system was rigged and a majority of people said that is the way to get reelected is bring the system to benefit themselves, so there is a deep level of distrust.

>> host: the distressed to think everyone agrees on. it's just to find intention is a brave strong thing to do. much of the banking crisis that we have in the united states is a good part of it had to do with people borrowing too much with adjustable mortgages that were not the right decision for them to make. >> guest: what about financial and institutions, are going to much at 35-on to invest in the underlying assets of those mortgages that are wrapped in two different charges of debt so that somehow a house of cards that is shaking his presumed to be more stable because a rating agency that is not corrupt is certainly in confidence. how about that? >> host: it's all in there but i wouldn't say -- and just questioning the causality to it. the mainstream man or woman who is internalizing the

non-keynesian economics knows you probably shouldn't borrow that interest rates may one day go up or he may think of that or she, so that's all. this is a question from john. i asked this of "the wall street journal" i said because he is one of my political friends, like to hear what he has to say. he says politics is a marketplace that conveys information just like the stock market, i am paraphrasing him, but somehow the marketplace didn't seem to give the political parties the right information about the popularity of their policy because the party seems to be surprised the voters don't like them. is that your elite is a monegan? >> guest: i think markets needs to have some rules to operate by, and the market can be well designed or poorly designed. my argument would be right now our political system is poorly designed to transmit information from voters to the political

party. >> host: now we get to the most important part of the book of what to do. we know people are "mad as hell, the phrase is there, we can see it not only in your fine work but also of their works, and you have some very interesting recommendations and before i say the three step plan, i wouldn't say especially to put ideas before people, which is to say u.s. instead three for a plan to be put to the voter rather than a politician to be offered up to the voter. could you describe that three step process you recommended the end and the conclusion of the book? >> guest: i know we are short on times i want to make sure we go quickly on this. one part of it is the politicians need to level with the voters. they need to get the information to them that our idea was to put up a major issue because there is no trust in congress, no sense of the governed. politicians proposed change in social security or medicare or raising taxes they should do their best effort and submit to a vote of the people and try to

win approval. submit the legislation -- >> host: and in that sense the legislation could be shorter. that could be good. >> guest: less special surprises for people in nebraska or other places. >> host: we are also oe think getting close to the conclusion. can you tell what you think is going to happen in the e election? >> guest: the seats in the house, eight or nine in the senate republican route. i agree with those numbers and i will also say there is a string of governorships in the midwest that are going to shift from democrats to republicans because the white working-class voters who voted for hillary clinton over barack obama are getting ready to vote for republicans. >> host: and will there be a change in the tax law or the health care law? >> guest: the house republicans will repeal the health care law. not because they want to but because they're too afraid not to. then it will go to the senate and there will be all kinds of political maneuvering to try to

avoid looking like you're supporting the status quo but it will become a campaign issue of 2012. >> guest: on the tax law be good this gracious who knows what will happen. obama seems absolutely intent on raising rates on the income of 200,000 from an individual, to 54 families. the republicans will be intransigent against that, and goodness gracious, i fear for our fiscal health if we have the kind cataclysmic conflict i feel will result from that battle. >> host: the battle will be negative. >> guest: it will be huge negative for the country because i don't think there will be agreement. >> guest: >> host: very exciting days ahead. "mad as hell's new book, very timely before the next election. our guests are scott rasmussen, doug schoen. thank you. >> guest: thank you. very good interview.

why are white people called caucasian? haveniy if you asked yourself that? do you know y why? no. nois is when the rush was still happening, the russians and the chechens in chechnya and the caucasus were having tremendous struggles, so why are white americans called the chechens? [laughter] well, i did find the answer. the answer to me to germany, took me to germany in the whichk 18th-century.e and now the idea of race was invented in the 18th century.enn it doesn't go back to antiquity.

there were not white people in g antiquity but since so many people thought that, i thought should address it. so my book actually starts with the greeks and romans, and their commentary on people who becamee europeans.urop and with the greeks and romans discovered is people who lived m in various ways with the greeks they talked about what we call t culture, and for the romans who were in various ways because the romans were in the surrealists b rod were very interested in who was a good fighter and could help and who had to be vanquished. had t i followed this german idea intn the united states of a french intellectual, and thomas

carlyle, who was a british intellec intellectual, and rauf emmerson so i spent a lot of time with rolph emmerson who was a kind ow genius of nineteenth-century white race at ury. ralf will emmerson didn't have a great deal to say about black people, but he had a lot to say about white people. in the 19th century the idea prevailed that there were many white races so there were people considered white. no one can question theirconsid witness very clearly the irish were white. people descended from english people were scottish people or white, german people or white but they belonged to differentft races. they were white but they belong r to different races. so for instance, the irisho

catholics were thought to belong to belonultic race and people descended from english people were thoueght to belong to the saxons, and the saxons were better than the celts. was not until the middle of thee 20th century, which many of usrh remember vividly, that the idea of one big white race came into being, in which everybody was who was white was the same as ia reveals -- as everybody else. it's not an accident thatn accid haven't through politics. it happened through the nationah mobilization of the greational depression, the second world depres war,si and the federal policy crafted after the second world war.

based in politics. to watch this program in its entirety, go to the booktv.org. since we took the name of the title or the author name in the top left of the screen and click search. now sttingportion of one of our programs. >> what do you think about it oe now? the fac >> it's off to new lows.hop the inspiration for this but i started thinking of the idea --

[laughter] >> the inspiration for this book -- i started thinking about the ideas -- >> sunk to new lows, you say? >> i do. i started writing this book -- well, i wrote the op-ed in 2007. and i believe the dominant artists at the time -- not the sole artist but the artists that were really driving the media coverage of the genre and that were really setting the cultural tone were soulja boy and others. if you compare that either to like the so-called gangsta rappers of the early '90s or jay-z or biggie that's such a decline in artistic quality. >> so you're cool with biggie. >> i have problems with biggie but i think he had a lot more complexity than what you see right now. i am kind of interested in watching -- in watching a guy like drake.

but i don't think that, you know, one artist guides an entire culture. >> so you say it sunk to new lows. explain to me why you feel that way. i mean, these are our street poets, okay? why do you feel that they've sunk to new lows if they are expressing their reality? >> well, it's debatable if they're expressing their reality. a lot of them are simply propagating some of the worst stereotypes about black people. that ever existed. [applause] >> but if that's their reality, should they be silent? >> it's not many of their realities. some of them do have pretty gritty realities. >> but there's been a movie about biggie and we can clearly see that he rapped in the streets. >> biggie was a guy who observed more other realities than he rapped about his own. i lived in the fort green area of brooklyn for a few years and

the part of clinton hill that biggie comes from is quite nice compared to the parts of the rural south where a lot of -- it's much nicer than what james baldwin grew up in and ralph ellison grew up and far more -- >> the guy was a drug dealer. >> i grew up in the suburbs around guys who chose to deal drugs because it was very cool. >> right, right. >> his mother was a school teacher and he didn't to have deal drugs to feed himself. >> right, but that was his choice -- >> it was, exactly. >> so let me ask you this. what is good hip hop to you? >> well, i want -- i want to be very clear about this. my book is not about music. it's not -- it's not a critique of the artistic merit of hip hop which i don't dispute. >> well, let me repeat your title. losing my cool: how a father's love and 15,000 books beat hip hop culture. >> it's about a system of values that the music doesn't create but it provides a soundtrack and

an echo chamber -- it magnifies often and it glorifies and romanticizes these things i'm not -- a lot of older black critics of hip hop have a problem with hip hop on a musical level and find it inferior of black music. that's not my feeling at haul i'm trying to attack ideas and cultural values and critique them and talk about what i really see as the secular religion of hip hop which is it's a way of living. it's even a way of reaching for a cup of water. it's a way of greeting someone in the street. it's a way of dismissing certain ideas that's not real. i'm not talking about whether an artist like andre 3000 has ability because clearly he does. and i think that the music -- i wouldn't even need to critique the culture if the music was trash because one of the reasons the culture is so powerful and seductive and the music -- the culture is aesthetically pleaseing in a lot of ways.

>> but that's the history of african-american music in a sense -- >> well, not really. i mean, if you listen to a love supreme by john coulter there's no similarity in something like gucci mane and the burr print, too. [applause] >> so -- am a john coltrane fan. >> me too. >> i am. so i want to go back my question which i want you to answer directly. what would be good hip hop? >> i could -- we could spend the rest of the panel listing good hip hop. >> what would be good hip hop since you're saying it's -- >> good hip hop music is like reasonable doubt by jay-z. it's ready to die by biggie schmaltz. now, is the content and the message that's involved in some of that great music poison, yeah, it is. if you try to liv