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senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, before i proceed to speak on the topic, i would like to say a couple words about bob bennett. we all are deeply impressed with his sense of integrity and his commitment working for, you know, basic sound principles. and one i might say made a big impression on me is he came to my office i think on his own, or could be he was appointed to help find a way to make the senate more relevant, ways to change the senate rules to address some of the frustration that a lot of senators have. you know, people watching might wonder, gosh, why do senators think they are not very relevant. but i must say, it's because a lot of senators feel they want to get something done quickly and are sometimes frustrated by

the actions of other senator who has not quite the same idea. but i was very impressed with bob's attitude. he came and talked to me, what can be done, max, what ideas do you have. it was very, very refreshing. and i remember thinking at the time, this is going to be difficult. i told him it was going to be difficult. but i didn't tell him how difficult i thought it would be. but i was very impressed with his -- his freshness and his desire to help -- help adjust the senate rules. mr. president, i ask consent that the following staff of the finance committee be allowed on the senate floor for the duration of the debate on the tax bill. it's michael grant, cane misario, jack mcgillis, nicole marchman, inichi rodrigo, mary baker, greg sullivan, andrea fishburn and james baker. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. baucus: mr. president, about two years ago, our economy was on the brink. so one of the first things we did with our new president was

to enact the american recovery and investment act and we did so to jump-start our economy and we did so to create jobs. in the two years since, our economy has created and sustained more than 3.5 million jobs. 3.5 million more than would have been available had we not taken that action. 3.5 million. the economy is now starting to move in the right direction but we have a long way to go. the positive momentum in the economy is fragile so we need to work tirelessly to protect it, and our first priority must be to create jobs. more jobs. the lower tax rates enacted in 2001 and 2003, along with a number of other tax provisions, are set to expire at the end of this year. if we do not act, taxes will go up. in addition, last month, the emergency federal unemployment insurance programs expired. if we don't act there, then by

the end of next month, 2 million americans will be without critical assistance that they'll need. that's help put food on the table and to keep a roof over their head. the tax cuts and imunlt insurance -- and unemployment insurance both have the critical effect that we must have, the critical effect on middle-class families, our economy and on jobs. a little more than a week ago, the senate voted on two amendments that would have extended these tax cuts for the middle class and unemployment insurance. our amendments would have focused those extensions on the most effective ways to create jobs. the amendments that we voted on that saturday would have given critical relief to middle-class families. they would have provided unemployment insurance to millions of americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. these two amendments, the baucus amendment and the schumer amendment, would have extended tax cuts that would have benefited all taxpayers.

those amendments would have extended critical tax cuts, like the college tuition tax deduction. it would have made the child tax credit permanent. and they would have cut taxes for employers, freeing up cash for them to expand and hire new workers. those amendments focused on providing middle-class families the tax relief that they need. they focused on creating the jobs that our economy needs, and they focused on getting the biggest bang for our buck in creating those jobs. cutting taxes for middle-class families and extending unemployment insurance stimulate our economy. they do so because the families who benefit from those policies are the families most likely to spend that extra money. spending that money injects it directly into our economy and that helps the economy to grow and to create jobs. the best way to extend these expiring tax provisions is to focus on the middle class, and that's what my amendment did and

that remains my strong preference. there are some in this body, however, who want to extend tax breaks for the wealthiest as well. these folks have held tax cuts for the middle class hostage to get these tax breaks for millionaires and for billionaires. tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires are not the best way to create jobs. the nation's wealthiest are more likely to save their money rather than spend it and put it back into the economy. and permanently extending tax cuts for the richest americans would cost our economy $00 billion over -- $700 billion over the next ten years. that's too great a cost for a budget already burdened by deficits and debt. but despite this disagreement, creating jobs needs to remain our first priority. if we do not extend unemployment insurance, then by the end of the next month, 2 million americans who lost jobs through no fault of their own would lose their unemployment benefits.

if we allow those benefits to expire, families who currently receive them would lose much of their income. emergency unemployment insurance has benefited about 40 million people, mr. president. that has included, i might add, 10.5 million children. emergency unemployment benefits particularly help middle-class families. middle-class families received 70% of total e.u. benefits. these are folks with a work history. they lost their jobs through no fault of their own. unemployment benefits are the only lifeline that many workers in montana and across the nation have left in this tough economy. these benefits support americans who have worked, who are looking for work, and who will work again. if we do not extend unemployment insurance, we take some of the most stimulative dollars out of the economy. that would just hurt the economy's ability to create

jobs. the nonpartisan congressional budget office says, the unemployment benefits have one of the largest effects on economic output and unemployment per dollar spent on think policy. for every dollar spent on unemployment insurance, $2 are reinvested in the economy. the council of economic advisors estimates that as of september, emergency unemployment insurance benefits have increased the level of employment by nearly 800,000 jobs. that's just september. unemployment insurance goes to people who will spend it immediately. that increases economic demand. it's critical to extend unemployment insurance to support our fragile economic recovery and to help create jobs. and if we don't extend the lower tax rates enacted in 2001 and 2350 and the other tax provisions expiring at the end of this year, millions of

middle-class families will pay higher taxes next year. middle-class families are the backbone of our economy, and this recession has hit middle-class families hardest. too many middle-class folks who have worked hard all their lives have been knocked off their feet by this recession. too many middle-class families are still struggling. if we don't act, individual taxes will go up. if we don't act, the child tax credit will shrink, and the college tuition tax deduction will end. so will the state and local property tax deduction and the property tax deduction itself and a host of other tax breaks critical to middle-class families. now is certainly not the time to raise taxes on middle-class families. and if we don't act, taxes will go up on employers. taxes will go up on employers

engaged in critical research and development. that's r & dhavment our economy needs to stay comettive in the global -- to stay competitive in the gloacial market. if we don't act, taxes will go up on employers working on new sustainable energy resources like wind power. sustainable energy is the industry that could create hundreds of thousands of jobs. now is not the time to raise taxes on the employers with the potential to create the jobs we need. so we must act because if we fail, that is, if we stal fail o extend these provisions, we place our economy at risk. if we fail to act, we place middle-class families at risk. so while i strongly prefer acting in a way that focuses more on the middle class, that focuses on creating jobs and that gets us the most bang for our buck, inaction clearly is not an option. for that reason, i will support

the bipartisan compromise that the president has proposed. plain and simple, this bipartisan compromise is about creating jobs. extending middle-class tax cuts will help create jobs. not extending them would cost jobs. and we just cannot afford to lose jobs. job creation needs to be our number-one priority. our economy has come a long way in the last two years, but the growth is still fragile. let us keep the focus on creating jobs. let us keep moving our economy forward. let us pass this critical legislation. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: -- the senior senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, i think it's very clear that the

vote today will result in a significant majority vote for the pending legislation, the s so-called tax extenders. i will be one of those who will probably be voting as well. but i must say in the brief time that i have, i must say that there's almost an orwellian experience here on the floor of the united states senate, as compared with the rest of america. here we're about to pass -- here we are about to pass the tax extenders, which are necessary to give some kind of certainty to businesses small and large across america, to give tax breaks to people in these most difficult times, including my home state of arizona. and so what did we do? rather than just extend the tax breaks, which is what the majority of americans want, we engaged in the continuing practice, which has alienated

the majority of the american people, of loading up with unneeded, unnecessary, unwanted sweeteners in order to, i guess, get votes or satisfy special interests. i quote from "the wall street journal" this morning, entitled "the hawkeye handouts." "the tax bill is becoming a favorite festival starting with ethanol." and of course it goes on to talk about the ethanol extension is the bipartisan handiwork of people who -- and trade protectist plus mandates that force consumers to buy ethanol. this is a trifecta of government support and for an industry that is 30 years old and that even al gore admits serves none of its advertised environmental purposes." and i would like to point out for my colleagues on this side of the aisle what the one-fourth says. "the greater political risk here is for republicans who should

worry that the tax bill is turning into a special-interest spectacle. the bill revives a $1-a-gallon biodiesel tax credit and there's $221 million for 'incentives for alter national fuel,' money for maintaining railroad tracks and so on. it is precisely the business-as-usual behavior that republicans told tea party voters they wouldn't engage in." these business subsidies are greased for senate votes in favor of the deal so the only chance to remove them would be the kind of public outcry that attacked the cornhusker kickback and other obamacare fiascoes. call these ethanol favors 'the hawkeye handouts'."

that's what sphwhil all about. i say 10 my clerks i'll vote for t but it's not what the people said they wanted done on november 2. now, i understand that -- unless online gaming, poker playing, gambling legalization comes up, we will probably go toon omnibus bill. that omnibus bill is going to be loaded down with earmark and pork-barrel spending, which is a direct -- a direct betrayal of the majority of the voters on november 2 who said, stop the earmarking, stop the spending, stop the outrageous pork-barrel projects. we need -- this bill comes up loaded down with pork-barrel expanding. we owe it to the american people to stop t what we owe is the american people is a clean continuing resolution with no additional spending on it that would be good for 45 days so the new congress, in response to the american people, will act in a

responsible fashion. mr. president, this bill we're going to pass is -- contributes to the debt and the deficit, contributes to the mortgaging of our children's futures. i say to my colleagues, we should rise up against any omnibus appropriations bill and we should only enact a continuing resolution. and i say that to my colleagues on this side of the aisle that may not have gotten the message of november 2. vote to have a clean continuing resolution. that's what the american people have said they want. that's what they deserve. the american people deserve to be heard. let's reconnect washington and the american people. i thank my colleague from iowa for the time. mr. president, i yield whatever remaining time i have. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. udall: mr. president, i

rise to speak in opposition to the bill in front of us today. i just -- i want to start out by saying, in addition to all the many challenges facing our nation, a massive budget deficit and a crippling debt may priewfer to be the most difficult challenge that we face as a country. a deep structural defect like the one our government has accumulated because of these debt levels, not only threatens our long-term economic security, it darkens the horizon in a way that discourages innovation and investment that we need to spur american jobs today. and, moreover, our apparent inability to squarely address the problem in a bipartisan way is a signal to the american people, as if they needed more proof, that our democracy is not working, and that is as dangerous as any attack on our country. it is a time bomb in our midst, the ticking of which we cannot ignore unless we are comfortable knowing that it will inevitably

blow up on our chin. just last week a bipartisan group appointed by the president confirmed the seriousness of this with a metaphor. the president's commission called our national debt a cancer that is threatening our country from within. whether a time bomb or a cancer, the threat is real. and the commission confirmed it in the starkest possible terms. the chairman's recommendations for how to respond were sobering but if a way they were also like a strong cup of coffee after a serious drinking bing. americans sat up and listened, and for a few days before the release of the report and the vote by the full report the following friday, it looked like we might be able to set aside the id logical differences and could actually address this problem. it looked like we might be able to follow the old add ogee, "when you're in a hole, stop digging." however, the next week the

president announced a plan that he negotiated with republican leaders to extend the bush tax cuts across the board, a plan that would add $900 billion over the next two years. what's staggering to me, mr. president, it took just four days to switch the conversation from reducing the debt to adding to it, just four days after the most substantive conversation we've had about addressing the debt, we start arguing about the wisdom of extending tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that alone will cost $700 billion over the next decade. that's $700 billion of additional debt the people of the united states will owe to china and our other creditors around the world. to paraphrase one of my colleagues, i feel like we're operating in some kind of a parallel universe.

despite disagreements, our disagreements here and in the other harks i believe that we owe it to the american people and to one another to be pragmatic and truthful about the fiscal challenges confronting us. so i respect and even applaud the president's efforts to reach a compromise based on political pragmatism. but what i respectfully disagree with is the notion that this compromise is based on anything approaching fiscal reality or truth in accounting. which is the point i believe that the chairman of the president's fiscal commission, erskine bowles, and alan simpson, were make. if i might, mr. president, i'd like to remind my colleagues today of the history of the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. those tax cuts were passed after we experienced one of the strongest economic environments in our history. those who supported tax cuts for the wealthy believe that because we had begun to reduce our long-term debt we could afford them. they believed those tax cuts

would stimulate our economy further and create millions of new jobs. in the words of then-vice president cheney it was a time when -- quote -- "deficits don't matter" -- unquote. i did not support the tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001 or 2003. for much the same reason i don't support them today. i voted against them as a member of the house of representatives. now, i sincerely wish that those tax cuts had effectively spurred sustained job growth. i do. but, unfortunately, the next decade saw a decline in our economy like we haven't seen since the great depression. banks fraild, foreclosures reached a crisis point, we were forced to bail out financial institutions and insurance giant and the auto companies to keep the economy from crashing further. during that time, real income for average households decreased and the unemployment rate nearly dubilityd as millions of workers were laid off.

if tbilities for the wealthy among us were an efficient way to spur innovation and investment, i have to believe that economists would be telling us to continue them. but here's what they're actually saying: economisteconomists of all strie tell us us that extending tax cuts for the wealthy is one of the least effective ways to create jobs and build the economy. even some of america's most successful businessmen, bill gates and warren buffett, who are among those who stand to gain dramatically from the bill before us, have urged us to prioritize seniors, long-term economic stability, and job creation instead. they know what recent history has shown, that tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires don't help our economy. it certainly doesn't help our national debt. just over one week ago i stood here with all of my colleagues and voted to support a proposal to follow the advice of economists bill gates and warren

buffet and extend relief to middle-class families. to a family making $50,000 a year, an $800 tax cut would make the difference in buying a car. as more americans stand in the unemployment line, i find it hard to explain or justify last week's filibuster preventing middle-class tax relief so millionaires and billionaires can get an extra six-figure check from the federal government. we've heard all kinds of arguments for extending tax cuts for the wealthiest americans and we've been told this bill represents the best deal we could get in order to bring further tax relief to middle-class americans. but again, mr. president, those arguments are based on political pragmatism, not a truthful or objectively measured analysis of the actual impact on our budget deficit. that's why the cochair of the president's deficit commission,

erskine bowles, a university president who knows the effect of the budget crisis has had on our states, on education and on families, has spoken out against this irresponsible tax deal for wealthy americans. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. udall: mr. president we should be voting on a plan kroeuplsed negotiate -- plan compromised in good faith. i feel the bad choices we made will haunt us in the next decade. for these reasons the legislation before us is a step too far. that is why i oppose it. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: how much time is on our side? the presiding officer: 12 1/2 minutes. mr. grassley: this bill is about stopping the biggest tax increase in the history of the

country that will happen if we don't pass something between now and the end of the year. and that happens because the 2001 tax law, the present tax policy, was only good for ten years, and it sunsets. and so you go back to the big tax policy that we had, the high tax policy we had in the year 2000. we're passing this now because of a simple rule of economics. you should not increase taxes during an economic recession. and with nearly 10% unemployment, we're still obviously in a recession. some on the other side supported the president's earlier proposal when he wanted to maintain the existing tax policy just for those below a $200,000-a-year

income. the senate did not support that proposal, and it's clear that that proposal could not pass. i know that can be a difficult thing. over the years i've seen proposals that i thought were good and just and that i cared passionately about defeated here in the senate. but you just move on. and so that's what our president has done. he has moved on in a pragmatic spirit. he has put forward another proposal to prevent the biggest tax increase in the history of the country from happening. he doesn't view it as ideal, and few on my side of the aisle do as well. for all of us, it's a balancing act. we want to stay true to our deals. we also want to deliver practical results to our constituents. and i support that this bill -- i submit that this bill doesn't increase taxes.

it doesn't cut anybody's taxes. and that that happens to be the right balance for the vast majority of us, but it happens to be what's right for the economy now that we're in a recession. just ten days ago the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.8%. since july it was at 9.5%. so the trend is in the wrong direction. we're in a fragile situation. the economy is clearly telling congress, handle with extreme care. economists -- the majority of the economists surveyed by cnn money says that preventing the 2011 tax hikes is the number-one thing congress can do right now help the economy, and the

survey -- the survey is here on the chart. 61% said preventing tax hikes was the best course of action congress can take at this particular point in time. we have the nonpartisan congressional budget office saying that g.d.p. growth will be far less if we let the biggest tax increase in the history of the country happen without congress intervening. if the tax relief doesn't maintain at the present level, the economy would go .3% less than if we do it the way the president originally wanted to do it, just for those people under $200,000-a-year income. in other words, the economy will grow at 1.4% if we leave tax

policy the last ten years in place as opposed to doing it, taxing people that make over $200,000 a year at a higher level. then the economy would only grow at 1.1%. so given the recession, given the high unemployment rate, given businesses' reluctance to invest and grow, we need to be especially sensitive to g.d.p. growth. if it were just a matter of either the government got the money or the private sector, that would be one thing. as the government does have a deficit problem. but in this case, it's a matter of money simply not being there because of the hit to the gross domestic product. we're talking about dead weight loss. for those of you that think taxing people more will bring in

more revenue, i would put up here a chart that expresses tax policy and the result of it over the last 50 years. you can see the red line here says that an average of about 18.2% of all the wealth -- is our 12 1/2 minutes up? the presiding officer: 7 minutes remaining. mr. grassley: i'm sorry. i thought you were talking to me. you can see the red line shows that for a 50-year average, about 18.2% of the gross domestic product has come to the congress to spend, regardless of what the high marginal tax rates were, going back to 93 in the eisenhower administration, going down to 70 in the kennedy administration, going down to 50 in the reagan administration, going down to 26 in the reagan

administration, back up to 40 -- almost 40% in the bush, h.w. bush's administration, and then down to the 35% where they are now, and they could go back up to the 40% if we don't intervene right now. what this ought to tell everybody here is that marginal tax rates don't make a difference, a big difference on how many money comes into the federal treasury, that the people of this country decided about how much they're going to give to us in congress to spend out of the entire national income. and it's about 18.2% regardless of where the marginal tax rates are. it tells me that people, if they don't want to work, if they

don't want to earn, or if they want to hire people to legally avoid taxes, they're going to do it and we're only going to get so much. here's what the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation says about this. "we anticipate -- -- quote -- "we anticipate that taxpayers would respond to the increased marginal rates by utilizing tax planning and tax avoidance strategies that will decrease the amount of income subject to taxation." and that chart proves exactly what the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation has said. we have known about these looming tax hikes for a decade now. we should have acted many years ago. now we have only 19 days to go before the tax hikes take effect. we're down to the wire, and we need to being the. we need to -- and we need to act. we need to act because that's what it takes to turn this economy around. the time to dither is over.

the national association of independent businesses had this to say recently: because of no action on expiring tax rates, there is a cloud of uncertainty loud and darker in response to consumer sentiment fell and owner optimism remained anchored solidly in recession territory. thus, spending stayed in main street mans -- in maintenance mode, owners won't make spending commitments when sales prospects remain weak and important decisions such as tax rates and labor costs remain high -- remain uncertain." end of quote from small business. uncertainty is the issue we have to deal with here. passing this bill so that the biggest tax hike in the history

of the country won't happen is one thing that will bring some certainty and maybe more certainty than anything else to our economy. so i ask my colleagues that the bottom line, as evidenced by this chart, is stop the tax hikes. it's time to leave the tax policy of the last ten years in place, so for at least for the next two years people know that they can hire and expand this economy and expand theirs. i reserve the balance of my time. the presiding officer: 2 1/2 minutes. mr. grassley: i think, mr. president, i'm going to take 2 1/2 minutes to address the issue of what the senator from

arizona said about some of the provisions in this bill. we keep having ethanol be referred to as a subsidy. well, let me tell you about some of the subsidies that are in this bill because you might think that ethanol is the only one of them. think in terms of the research and development tax credit. that's subsidy for big business. it's been around for 30 years. think about the indian employment tax credit, the subsidy for new market tax credits, the subsidy for railroad track maintenance credit, mine rescue train credit, subsidy for employer wage credit for employees who are on active duty in the uniformed services, the subsidy for 15-year straight line cost recovery for qualified lease

holder improvements, the subsidy for the seven-year recovery period for motor sports entertainment complexes. i don't quite understand when there's 72 provisions in this bill that expired on december 31, 2009, and they're just being continued, as some of them have been for 30 years, how somebody today is going to say that that's bad tax policy and they didn't say it over the last 30 years. and particularly when it comes to a time when we know that we need a balanced alternative energy program. balanced for whatever can be alternative energy because god only made so much fossil fuel. obviously we ought to be using petroleum. but should we import more petroleum from the 10% of the

fuel used in motor vehicles coming from ethanol? do you believe that we ought to have a good national security program that's less based upon the requirement of imported oil? i think we ought to look at this balanced program as being one of fossil fuels, one of alternative energy, and one of conservation. and ethanol and biodiesel and wind and solar and all of that is part of the balanced program and they all have tax incentives. i yield the floor.

>> i think we are ready. welcome. thank you for coming through the snow and metro five years and various emergencies. i am brooks jackson, the director of factcheck.org. we are a project of the university of pennsylvania annenberg public policy center. some of you may be familiar with our website where we try to hold politicians accountable for the

factual accuracy of their campaign ads and other statements, something we have been doing now for the past seven years. our conference this morning recalling cash attack 2010, political by advertising in a post citizens united world. let me explain what that means. what we hope to accomplish today. cash attack is the main gate to a special project at factcheck.org puna was made possible by a grant from the carnegie corporation of new york, a charitable foundation. we made a special effort to track the factual accuracy of ads paid for with corporate and union money freed up by the citizens united decision. the word attacked the is there because in our experience the ads by outside groups tend to be ads attacking a foe and not praising a friend. and citizens united, of course, is the supreme court decision

that lifted many of the legal restrictions on the use of money from business corporations and labour unions and federal elections. now, we will never know how much money might have been spent in the midterm elections of 2010 had a bad decision not been issued or how the money would have been spent. but here are some clues. according to the wesley and media project, spending on advertising and congressional and gubernatorial races, this is on advertising alone, topped $1 billion this year, a figure of the project, the wesleyan project called historic and house races ad spending was 50% greater than it was in 2008. and in the senate races, ad spending nearly doubled. there was a surge in spending by groups that don't disclose the identities of the donors. according to a report issued just last week by the new york

city office of public advocate outside groups that don't disclose work report spending $132 million including 85 million on senate races. several of these groups are represented here today. the groups are far more likely to run attack ads than positive ads according to the advocate's office, and that confirms our own casual and informal observations at fact check -- factcheck.org. what we saw in 2010 we can expect to see more of in 2012. yesterday the "los angeles times" reported that there is now a financial arms race under way in washington with politicians racing to form a new independent spending committees and to raise even larger sums of money for next time. according to the l.a. times command line in quoting, lawmakers say they fear the unrestricted independent spending is creating a congress even more indebted to

special-interest and prone to gridlock a and not likely to find compromise. now will vautrinot to be true? i don't know. i have learned over the years that sometimes predictions like that make good copy but for prophecy. it's just not given to us to be able to see the future but we can try to examine the recent past and learn more about exactly what happened in the 2010 elections which for the first be held in the post citizens united world. how was this used? what did it accomplish? what was the strategy behind those attack ads from the right and the left and what exactly did that spending in the unprecedented flood of political let for rising accomplish? what is the evidence show? is there polling data or other solid information that will tell the difference if any at all that new money made? to explore the questions today we have assembled to panels one on the democrat or liberal side,

one of the republican or conservative side to be we've asked our panelists to give a presentation discussing the campaign strategy, the results ho they take credit for and the evidence that leads them to believe they were accomplished. i'm happy to say panelists to the include representatives of three out of the five groups the reported the most, at least at the federal level, excuse me, the reported spending the most pleased with the federal level, as reflected by the reports of the federal election commission. by the way those are incomplete. we know some groups take the position they don't have to report, even though their ads were quite obviously in layman's terms campaign ads. on the liberal side we will hear from representatives of the service employees international union at least i hope our representative has been delayed but assures us that he's making his way here. the was the fourth highest

spending group of all of the federal level. we will also hear from the representative of moveon.org which among other things called for, early for a boycott of the target corporation after it was disclosed to have given money to a minnesota group that advertised in support of a republican candidate for governor. and we will hear from the head of the california labor federation which bucked the republican tide with a successful outside campaign in support of the democratic candidate for governor, jerry brown who faced a republican who spent $160 million of her own money, give or take. that is more than any other self funded candidate in history. on the conservative side after a short break, a leader this morning we will hear from the political director of the biggest spending growth of all, the american crossroads gps group. together the groups reported spending nearly $39 million on ads budget from donors not

identified. the action network the third this biggest spender according to the sec reports. it from immediate consultant and adviser to the national republican congressional committee which of course claims credit for demoting nancy pelosi to the minority leader status and elevating john boehner to be the next speaker of the house next month. we've asked our panelists to keep their presentations tight and give time for questions from moderator's. from the audience and from factcheck.org subscribers some of whom have some questions by e-mail. as you may notice, c-span is here in the conference is being carried live on c-span3. we are also reporting the conference on video for our own purposes and we will post that video on our web site as soon after the conference as we can. we are also producing a written transcript of the proceedings which we will post on the site when it becomes available. i'd like to introduce now

dr. kenneth of the annenberg policy center who will introduce our first panel and moderate. >> thank you. our first panel as mentioned is the democratic liberal panel, and our first speaker to my right will be the iyse hogue from moveon.org for political advocacy for moveon.org where she has worked for almost five years. contributed to moveon.org's campaign efforts in 2006 and 2008 and the most recent election cycle. she's focused on the debate about health care, policy, healthcare reform legislation and the reform bill and she will be telling us today about her efforts in the 2010 midterm. colleen pitts who is blocks away

from neely this e-mail will be here. he's the service employees international union directing is the strategic campaign stricter and he will be talking about sciu efforts in midterm elections and finally to my far right is arch pulaski of the afl-cio. they represent to plead 1 million members of 1200 manufacturing transportation construction service and public sector unions and does book mentioned, his union federation worked hard for the deck candidates in the statewide california e elections. so to begin with, let's hear from iyse hogue from moveon.org.

>> thank you. it's great to be with you today. it's a little odd to be the one to kick this off because moveon.org is in a slightly different categories and you have to integrate sort of everything that you hear. we are a pack which means we are engined by our members for small donors. our average donation is $42 everybody over $200 is disclosed through the fec by federal law. why this is important is because disclosure and the amount of individual contributions given in this election cycle became incredibly contentious elements of the debate about are for democracy moving forward. the other thing that makes us different than some of the groups you are going to hear on the republican panelists citizens united didn't actually affect us. citizens united brought the plea

infield and that didn't affect us, so when you will see and what's interesting about our experience in 2010, visa de 2010 or 2006, is because we take small donors, because we are operating under the same set of rules as we had in the previous five elections we've only been around since 1998, we had to think differently about how we spend our money because we were going to get about the same amount of money since we are fuelled by the small donors in a larger context of a financial arms race and advertising arms race. so that is to lay a little bit of context. it's always really interesting when i hear people say representatives of the groups that spent in the top five because moveon.org spent 1.13 million about on advertising in this cycle and that is true, that puts us on the top five outside groups of spending on the democratic side compare that to some of the

folks you're going to hear on the other side who spent 75, 80 million. so the top five on the republican side and the top five on the democratic side, there is the enormous gaps and that is a part of what we want to talk about today. so i went to the field of context. i moscow and to spend too much time on this because brooks covered a lot of it but what was new about this election citizens united, citizens united allowed on president levels of expenditures. the other thing it encouraged is the formation of brand new groups that could appear and then disappear as opposed to moveon or sciu that are groups that will be around before and after the election. some of their groups that will feed into the citizens united world will come up and into the background from a strictly for electoral purposes.

republican coordination, i will of the guys on the other side talk about this. it was widely reported the reason that i think it is interesting that people noted the difference of coordination on the republican side, the democratic side on message, is what facilitates that level of coordination is a very small number of decision makers that come from a more concentrated number of donors to the ads if that makes sense. we have got 5 million members who are funding our ads. lieber is very beholden to their constituency, their members. but when you have individual donors who can deduct your campaign strategy, it is facilitated much tighter coordination for the party. on this expenditure this is something i want to touch on and encourage you to look at it more deeply. i think everyone is trying to figure out what to make of what happened in the last cycle. there are things that have popped for me to read with the

pro citizens united decision, the flying between advocates and electoral adds has gotten very thin. so when you see a the accounting of the outside spending, that does not actually include millions and millions of dollars spent by the chamber of commerce post the energy bill for a simple, in july of 2009. because that, by law, was advocacy advertising. but what that means is we are still facing a dominant national narrative that is set by large corporations coming in and legislative fights and setting the narrative. the time span does the same thing. i usually see the last year accounting and really this started right when president obama started to pass his budget and the outside money started coming and then inside and outside a lot has been made and i will spend time on this because it is focused on

al-sayyid spending but a lot has been made about how democrats close the gap at the end and if you just look at the final aggregative numbers, in fact, democrats by some accounting did better. but what that negates is the party committees are only able to raise towards the end of the cycle so when you have lots of large donors and corporate money to have deep pockets you can start spending it the very beginning of the cycle and set the narrative and then the other side is going to be on the beach towns. impact media trend is very quickly. media is in disarray. everyone knows that. print journalism is trying to figure out how to read out television is as one could argue in a race for the bottom to be more sensational and all of it is in a grab for advertising revenue because the model is changing so much. the only reason i bring that up is that it's had an impact on our standards of accuracy, which is think of this we have got

people like factcheck.org actually checking accuracy. but what that means coming and i will get to an extent of this a little bit later, is there is less incentive for television stations to care about accuracy because they care about where their next dollar is coming and these are not legal decisions being made, this is discretionary decisions made by each television company. and then the ability to place at a which i will get to in the target campaign. so, we did a poll right after the citizens united decision. people don't like it. there is a lot, and i have the to go i don't want to spend much time on it. the reason i put our results of here because we took this in march after the decision what jumped out at us is the feeling of the supreme court and citizens united decision was indicative of a drift towards defending corporate rights over individual ordinary american

rights this did not break down across partisan lines. republicans believe is as well as democrats and so this gave us the sense one of the things we might see the cycle was a deep skepticism towards the corporate funding of citizens united allowed. our target campaign is what allowed us to take the citizens united frustration we were seeing from the intellectual to the actual oriented. that's what we do. we are action oriented. because minnesota state law still requires disclosure even though federal law does not it can draw attention early in august that target had given what was a very modest amount of money in the grand scheme of things to announce an outside group in minnesota to support a right-wing candidate for a republican governor who just ended up conceding like three days ago. and we started hearing about this from our minnesota members and so we said we should test this.

we should see what people are feeling about it. the response is overwhelming. this was the first test case of a corporation that is dependent on a broad diversity of americans to shop in their stores being caught were exposed meddling in the political system. it's hard to separate peoples attitudes towards that versus what they were madly on behalf of in this case it was a lot of incendiary issues. it was a republican governor who had a long history of the anti-immigrant, anti-gang, all of that combined means we saw this explosion of rage. we saw 500,000 people find a petition to boycott target at the next three days after a result will hundred protests at target stores and around the country and a lot of defense and backpedaling from the country even though they didn't ultimately end up taking that

money. the reason i put this up there is because it's often jury hard to measure advocacy impact on corporations. it's hard to affect the bottom line. they are huge, protest is fleeting but what brand data is to chart the impact on target brand values through the course of the campaign and this we know made the rounds at lots of other corporations so the domino impact was actually quite large. if you got your communications people passing this around in corporate headquarters seeing everything twice about whether we get involved in this even in places where the disclosures are mandatory because lots of people at this point were doing research about which corporations were donating, it needed an impact and someone in the introduction mentioned the new york city public advocates, worthy of this continuing organizing of the other side and right after this came out goldman sachs committed to not

spend under citizens united because they understood the impact on their brand. all right. i'm going to show you -- it won't show -- ♪ >> target and other big corporations are trying to buy a doherty elections. >> no way. ♪ boycott target. our democracy is not for sale. >> the reason i show that we need this to add and we thought it was fun we are going to spend a very modest amount of money to get the word about the boycott out. msnbc refused to run this ad. nobody was trading the the city of the claim. there wasn't much in there that

is not true. they did come to the money. we are promoting a boycott. they absolutely refused to run the ad and when we asked why our lawyers that can we see why they said we have a company provision against attacking corporations. it's interesting because we don't have a company prohibition against corporations attacking politicians. and we are still in the middle of this debate, but i really wanted to show this ad because first of all a pretty went ballistic. devotees like lagat moveon is attacking targets, putting a knife to their throat and i like this is an animated had the ad with people saying we don't like that but the alarm fire itself was stunning, and i feel there are two things to take from this. one is this is where the vulnerability is. this is the basic principle that if people knew that there consumer money was being spent to metal on the elections that

actually promoted causes that were not consistent with their values they would choose to do something else and that is so scary to them that they are going to fight this exposure to and mail. the second thing is this is another excellent part of why i can only offer a guest, our conversations with msnbc target has a lot more run of rising with model the msnbc but all of the constellation of press associated with them. they were trying to spend $50 million this was a deeply disturbing element of this campaign for us because of citizens have less and less avenue to actually make their voice heard the story dangerous for democracy. >> there we go. so i put this up because this is actually the fact check did this

one too. this is the impact on accuracy. this is a tad from american action network that he will hear my colleague i think who is here talk about, i don't know if he will talk about this end, nobody was saying that this was fair or accurate. this is an ad that basically said that people had voted in the house and the senate to give viagra to sex offenders in prison. you have to stretch the truth about 8 million different ways to even believe this is a possibility. why won't break down the fight for you but nobody agreed that this was accurate. we had made a decision going into the election cycle that since we couldn't compete dollar for dollar one of the things we were absolutely going to do is things like this. we don't have money, we have the people power better going to call the local stations, get out and protest when ads like this go out on the air. well, we did a lot of that. this was in a lot of different

places in the house and senate races. we had thousands of people, tens of thousands call the stations and show up at the stations. these are absolutely discretionary decisions made by the station managers. we didn't get this and everybody agreed was inaccurate, totally outrageous, completely damaging, taking down again because american action network spent 80 million we were spending 1.1. so it's just something to think about in terms of the impact on democracy as we move forward. >> this is a poll that we did in august, again will spend much time on it but you will see i have got three summaries of here and you will see what is consistent is when you get away from leadership of the republican party, rank-and-file republican and independent agree with all these attitudes about the fact that the corporations have too much influence already over the legislation and our elections. so the one i do want to pull out, there is a couple that were

critical and they are actually the bottom to. one is that we were in a fight for our life on the economy. everybody will agree this election at the end of the was about the economy even though the corporate money fight was for a prominent. one of the things we saw in august was people were starting to say that there is no way for america to fix this economy unless we get corporate lobbyists out of the system and that was like an ah-ha moment. and second is republican, independent and democrats, self identified, believed that corporate spending and elections, this was the fight, is a free-speech? no, most americans believe it is political bribery for the corporations to be able to extend unlimited amounts in the elections and this is when we started to see the shift and then narrative of people saying this is important. it's good political strategy if people believe it is primary and they already feel like we can't fix the economy if the

corporations are meddling that it's actually a fundamental principle that makes the american democracy is that there is the opportunity for an equal voice that democracy is not for sale to the highest bidder. so one of the things we did it again, didn't have the money that had the people, was we did about 150 report releases and senate and house races that broke this down. we started thinking money is pouring in we can't compete but what we can do is make the connection for people that we know people don't like this so we do these report releases that show how much money is coming from these groups and we can help to sway the voters what a contrast candidate is being supported by the outside groups. the reports actually got an enormous amount of press, the local reports are always like i don't know how it's going to go. he's gotten and the enormous amount of press showing the

pitch the issue is being debated. last poll the public wants to know, we did this in october, this is when everybody was like the beating 23 of the 24 hour news cycle whether people care about if the onerous to reverse or in the atty wanted to get to the bottom of that. we filled 84% of people, 84% of the voters believe they have a right to know who is buying the ads in the election because it goes to motive and notice goes to the candidates are responsible for after elections. 53 -- 53% of dependence know what it's like to vote for candidate of the new ads supporting the market for bye anonymous corporations and while the donors so this was key right where we get into moving forward if they know. we have groups like america action network or american

crossroads. they don't always actually know that those are groups that were just formed in this cycle that take anonymously so it was critical for us to try to make that connection. this one, so this is an unstable. it's just another 32nd ad. i was trying to make that connection. let me just say we spend again $64,000 to get this message out. crossroads, gps spent 4.4 million to win this race for mark kirk. >> mark wanted to reward tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. now the chamber of commerce is spending over $75 million to help republicans like mark get elected. where has the chamber been getting some of their money lately? from the corporations in countries like china, russia, india, the same companies that threaten american jobs. it's time to connect the dots. who is mark kirk working for?

it sure is not illinois. >> the reason i shall this ad is that we can't purchase the arms race. i said that the beginning. we were fuelled by our members many of whom are infected by the economic conditions, our average is 42 million. we spent about, you know, just over 1 million on ads more on the field. so what we can do is spend our ad money wisely so we took all that knowledge from all the polls and all of the trends and put it together to make this ad which was with the intent to expose the fact that there was corporate money behind our kirk's campaign. we didn't win. we just didn't win and i'm going to wrap up because i know my time is up but i show this at the end because we came very close. julie is which is one of the artist needs to announce in politics was a virtual unknown very young guy who went into one of the most high-profile senate

races. he came very close to upsetting the race, and i want to end by saying the couple of things. because the republicans took back the house, because they one -- and i will let it in many cases they want an dominant there have which is easy for the party to do. we did it in 2006, it is easy to make the mistake and say people don't actually care about the arms race. people don't care corporations and the donors are hijacking the electoral process and democracy. that is a fundamentally flawed conclusion to make. everything that we saw actually showed two things. one, people care. it makes them angry and if we do a better job of actually connecting the dots, to allow that ad, for the american voters there will be a backlash. the second thing is superior to me than a backlash. as a group that represents

5 million middle class working americans worried about their homes, worried about their jobs, i am much less worried about a backlash than about everyday voters looking at the arms race, looking at the money, looking at the anonymous donors and saying i don't matter to the shouldn't participate. i can't be to them because i can't pay as much. i protested, i knocked on doors, it didn't matter in light of the air war and that is fundamentally dangerous for our democracy. so we will continue to push forward. we will work to overcome citizens united in the next election, we are going to see that if we all don't get together and make these connections for the voters, we are going to see and disenfranchised electorate and a democracy that is increasingly for sale to the highest bid and that is not america. >> [inaudible] >> you do when you want to do. >> thank you very much. normally i would hold questions

on till the end, but our second panelist just arrived and i need to get his presentation loaded up into the laptop. so why all khalid comes up, we will put his presentation in. if there are any questions from the floor for ilyse, i welcome them now. >> [inaudible] [laughter] -- c2 >> wait, wait. >> do you foresee in the 2012 elections what amount of money do you foresee being spent on the ads? >> is this on? okay. you know, i think it is anyone's guess. we saw the other side berkhout threat and 400 million.

they didn't. the top cycle because they didn't need to. we just weren't keeping up in a way they're required them to spend everything they had in their arsenal. i receive starting now no break from the elections. right? campaigning starts now, ads will start now. what i perceive is certainly we are seeing on the democratic side more of a push towards big money fund raising. there has been one independent expenditure already announced. this is a divergence from what we did in 2006 and 2010 and in fact -- i'm sorry, 2008 president obama and asked asked no outside groups run ads but i think the voters sort of on obra side started to feel like the disarmament may have been a mistake. so i think we are going to see a lot more of everything from of the wall and our side fighting for disclosure, fighting for the

fighting against those that are inaccurate and really taking the fight to the tv stations themselves, sebastian where the voices can be equalized and we are going to see more money raised on our side. i believe in maintaining a the end of the day we will not raise as much money at the next panel. we just won't. the republicans have fundamentally carried the water for corporations and legislation and individuals and legislation that will -- there is not as much money on our side so while we cannot compete dollar for dollar i think we will see a lot more of everything in the 2012 act. it's all scary. it is. >> this will be the last question and then we will precede. >> i was wondering if there has been a lot of conflict over the tax agreement obama meet with republicans. you guys have been fighting that pretty hard. how much are you going to be

working with the democrats in the next two years and spread them to do what you want to do rather than working to protect their to campaigns and where is the balance between fighting democrats you may not believe with versus making sure republicans don't agree with. stick a little off topic but the tax fight we fundamentally our whole panel we work for our members. we make decisions all the time it to the extent our members believed that many of the democratic campaigns are not representing them in a genuine way we just can't support those campaigns. we sought out with the primary in arkansas this year so i think we are going to see a lot more assertion in the fact that much of the democratic base does not believe all the candidates are created equal, there is a large

concern about the corporatist democrats and so, to the extent you're asking specifically about the president to campaign you know, our members are frustrated. the things the republicans are dominating too much of the eight really think it is too soon to see how that is going to play out and so much to do with who is on the other side. certainly president obama has done more to help this country than president bush did in the last eight years so we will see how that plays out >> thank you very much, ilyse. now i am pleased to introduce thank you to pitts from the service international union to proceed with his presentation. >> thank you. it's an honor to be here on the panel. i want to apologize i am a first time that they have a first time nervous mother. i apologize for being late. it's great to be here talking

with elections even though they didn't turn out from this perspective how we wanted them to be. now we want to give a brief description of things sciu did in this season as well as an analysis of the gift business from our perspective and as well as kind of how we look forward to 2012 again looking at from our perspective what worked and what didn't work and lessons we kind of word that you third each cycle to do better the next election cycle. so i kind of don't this the good, the bad and the ugly. so first off were the goals for sciu? it's not just about electing democrats and you will see as you see in this presentation, we have internal goals and external. one of them can direct in engagement and is talking to the candidates making sure that we are trying to endorse and elect

the worker candidates with a be democrat or in some degree republican engaging. we wanted to engage the surge base voters in this election from the typical election to those that would elect majorities 2008 as well as president obama. we wanted to build the capacity of our members from their ability to talk about issues, educate about issues and we have members who actually run for office and wanted to enhance that and engage in a political discourse which we do every day whether it is talking about elections, talking about organizing, talking about a legislative issues like the tax cuts and then internally as everyone does we want to strengthen and expand our political infrastructures we can get better and more efficiently engage our members and the general electorate in that order. so, we are here talking about

media ads, so when we talk about the message influence getting across and try to become a broad heading the ten minutes to talk about. so, you know, we think about the elections we wanted to frame of the election in the sense that as a choice for those who voted for change in 2008 and continue that change going forward. we also want some of the contract between those again who are on the side of interest of the middle class and the onshore, and on corporate interests, and so in doing that we want to show there is at least kind of talked about both whether it is a crossroads or others there are some -- one, even thinking about some element of the tea party activists, there are some extreme conservative trusts that were backed by corporate money and

shadow groups like a crossroads and the feeling of the corporate interests take control of congress, you know, on economic issues we are going to see a return, you saw in some of those paul crotty and policies that were being pushed by republican members are in for congress, returned to the bush era policies and economic policies that got us in this mess in the first place that we are slowly digging our way out of. reefers on some major reforms that we have worked very hard on both in and labor and outside labor and moveon.org, and there will be a push for a policy that will continue the inequities that both her income for job creation and middle class and in looking at the senior policies the back to the issue of paul ryan poster child of the hurt

seniors, the that is there's a feeling on our and it is in deep jeopardy if the policies enacted by many of the republicans elected in this cycle go forward .. it's tough luck with sharing

angle. for retirement and social security, phased out. every stage would be worse for her, worse for all of us. sharon angle, too dangerous to have real power over real people. >> okay, but to the next one. before you go to the next one, you'll see the tab you will see after you cope. that is pac. you have lots of report about unions expending their members dollars and they don't have a say. our cope, are pac dollars order for a solitary by members. members to give an average of $7 out of their paycheck. and you think of a janitor in houston who is making about $5.25 an hour. that's $7 really mean something, so we try to be judicious in

very good steward of the money our members voluntary kids for election communication. next, we're going to go with tom ganley. i think this is a radio as i believe. >> car salesman tonkin is one for congress, but how much do we know about tom ganley quite winnow ganley was sanctioned for advertisement is used correctly scop ensued repeatedly for illegal employment practices. cantley also sent a pledge to support the republican agenda 100% in washington. what will that mean for ohio? one vote against unemployment benefits for workers who lost their jobs. one more vote to protect tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas. one more vote to allow insurance companies to deny coverage to children with preexisting conditions and one more vote to allow wall street banks to continue taking advantage of

ordinary americans. tom ganley will be one more republican votes against ohio's middle-class families. tom ganley is wrong for ohio. seiu.org not authorized any candidate or candidate committee. >> all right, tom ganley ran unsuccessfully against shelley berkley in ohio seven. again, try to pick out races that were either a big highlighted race on a national stage with senator reid. tim burns ran in virginia 12. john burks old seat. >> of timber thinks it's washington, who will work for? he's a tax loophole to make his company do for attacks on foreign earnings and while burns said he would never ship jobs

overseas, now we find out he took tens of thousands in campaign contributions from those who think u.s. jobs overseas. and support free trade deals in mexico and special trade status for china. temperance, good for corporations and special interests, that for us. seiu cope is responsible for this advertising. >> and finally, the big senate race in california, barbara boxer under harleston arena. not this was different in the sense that it was -- does not have seiu as a tagline. like many organizations, when elections have been wee while lost in the building with a site that actually put the candidates and text for members and then we have a site that actually does what we call the independent expenditure. those two sites do not talk, have no knowledge of what goes on. i am actually with the coordinated site, so i actually

did not see this out until it actually ran. i know the details of dissent in terms of where my how big it was until this actually disclosed to the general public. ♪ carlie c. arena laid off 33,000 employees, ship 9300 of our jobs overseas, while you walked away with $45 million in golden parachutes. carly fiorina, it's time to face the music. ♪ >> site you saw a different kind of -- some kind of start hitting contract as well as something more lighthearted. they said we come -- people have different things. with a red site about blue site.

as the blue site at bad work with coalition partners, pull them together. again, elise talked about the enormous amount of resources that were on the other side. forcing a lot of organizations to pull the resource together. and so, we did not spend as much money as you saw from corporate interests and individuals. we still just don't even know. so each of those ads was different in the way. they showed a contrast between the two candidates on issues that were important to attend middle-class, two women, it dbase orders come in to independent and swing voters, whether talking about choice and the angle at, talking about temperance that, talking about, you know, voting and supporting jobs overseas, pointing out she was a corporate ceo, putting that connection within the

voter's mind. in the ganley and again, talking about shipping jobs overseas, you know, talking about some unsavory employment practices of him as an employer. again, ohio being a tad state facing tough economic times. but as well, talk about wholeheartedly at the republican agenda, unemployment sharon is kind of. talking about giving blank checks to insurance companies. and again, and shipping jobs overseas and letting corporate interest kind of run things. and in the carly fiorina ad, it laid out the issue of the mass layoffs that she had hair of 33,000 that's our company engaged in. 9300 shipped overseas. again, she worked with $45 million golden parachute. again, showing that, you know, the average joe in america are

not good or getting the shaft, while those at the very top work and still living high life. so what are the results? of course, you kind of know the results. but again, i'm going to show from that perspective, a house in the senate are very important. but equally important to union particularly and to individuals or governors. and so, we targeted -- again, want to focus solely targeted at. that's where we spent money, we endorse, we engage her members. they walked out and volunteered, made phone calls. in those races we had about 19 races that we endorsed. we won 11 of his 19 races i believe. you see the purple state of their. we all have forgotten our geography. that's the state of wyoming.

it was perfect because it was a republican governor we actually endorsed bair. so let that be said that unions do not endorse republicans who support republicans. and in fact, i mentioned earlier that we had members who run for political office. we actually a site to members who ran for state office in new hampshire, both republicans and both a father and son team. for that kind of wraps at my perspective from the state level. we saw some major ones in california and new york and illinois, but some tough losses in michigan and pennsylvania and ohio. very, very close races in ohio and florida as well. again, folks remember we spent money, where we endorsed, where we focus our attention. i have to say before i came to seiu, i worked many years in the gun-control movement and the nra

used to cut off the scorecards and an 85%, oftentimes they'll endorse them and races on the house side that were noncompetitive and we endorse or influence, but we actually do very, very small level is where we spent the money in it in of either paid media are paid mail. so again, you see some big wins. we saw california for the add. new york is purple lifecare because we actually had two seats open. both senator gillibrand and senator schumer were up. so we had some, you know, some big ones out there. colorado is a big win. again, with some tough losses in a sense. illinois was a tough loss. wisconsin was a top five. let go when a two-term senator for someone who sat on the

campaign trail that he didn't know enough about some of the issues to speak about them. so sometimes so much for experience. it was a very volatile electorate. were talking about a little bit more here. briefly in the house, i didn't want to go to "the new york times" or "the wall street journal" or the "washington post" who have a big media design team and put their little craft together. but on the house side, where we saw the biggest volatility, we went about 38% of the races you're engaged in. fifty if or governors, 50% for state. again, taking the whole state and on the district level, where we know districts had been cut sometimes to protect incumbents, sometimes to create a swing district. we saw claudius, races and swing districts in those districts that kind of trend republicans,

trent democratic case to go to a national trend. a lot of democrats picked up in 2006 and 2008 were lost. a lot of seats were held for a long period of time, long-term incumbents were defeated or decided to retire the rope and three, which side. but what worked for us is again direct candidate engagement. more people participate in these issues. but we do for the most part, particularly in a national level, you've got what we ask is a candidate walking in the shoes, and in the life of one of our members so they can feel what it's like to be home care worker come a janitor, to be a service worker, to be a nurse. seiu is more engaged. more people volunteered. more members were engaged in cope. but there's a good engagement as surgeon base voters,

african-americans are critical in illinois, particular governor races. potatoes are critical in california and nevada and senator reid's race. and they continue to move any race. i just want to click on again one issue that may be an ad for some of the work, but i'll talk about the message with a messenger lets say. >> my daughter has special needs. she faces a lot of health problems, so i worry about health insurance. that's why i'm so upset that senator blanche lincoln voted to allow them to deny people of existing conditions. i guess blanche lincoln decided to big insurance companies that they could afford being campaign contributions. we need a senator that's going to truly stand up for what the working people need. >> transfer cope is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> i shall decide because that

is actually brought in doing thunder primary race, with bill halter. you know, in retrospect, i don't think -- you talk about a race that we should have gone into, but it was the race that i think we were the wrong messenger. a great message, but the wrong messenger. we don't have the members and to some degree we were the wrong messengers because it allowed lincoln to damage, but also allowed her to say that corporate interests are coming into -- specials were coming into arkansas and trying to something we want to represent. we respond to represent what our members actually want to do. so a quick analysis. retention of the senate control. with key governors races, some

key ballot initiatives that really affect how state governors are funded, how elections are run, how many things happen in the state level because the gop gained 64 seats. we lost a lot of state legislators. and the governor on the senate side. i think we lost a message around the economy. i think from our perspective, some of the reasons why i'm in claimant security, no clear national jobs program. it's a failure to take action. i think in the correction the middle-class tax cuts are having right now to failure to connect with the general public on jobs. corporate contributions are through the roof because of the united decision. we can see continuation of that. we saw intense attacks on our public union members out there. the new speaker of the house is very much anti-public against unions.

redistricting battles can be tough because the governor races and chamber races be amongst. on the governor side, you know, lawson stays that were important to obama three-legged and from pennsylvania's michigan, ohio, wisconsin. it's much easier when the governors of the party to work for a party apparatus. and then some disturbing trend in some of the exit polling. the one thing you want to point out is the very end, although you see union house is still strongly supporting democrats as they have before coming union house is really about 17% of the electorate. in the past they've been about 22% electorate. we saw a decrease in terms of union participation, but also what is happening with the labor movement and something we'll address. and finally, i want to look towards 2012. i just want to say two things. one, it's sometimes easy to be right-wing. you know, people to come and

escape problems. my issues differ from your issue. no kind of collective body. america was founded based on freedoms. you know, leave me alone. its government get out of my life. and so, i see two dozen 12 looking forward to a lib dems are going to be doing. i think you're going to see redefining, reasserting. i think you'll see it reasserting the democratic core principles readers who missed on the battle of the tax cut. and you know, kind of the opportunity and equality, not sort of a mythic past the gc many of the conservative side pushing in terms of the pass of the green path of america were not going back to. but what i see on the democratic side is i think you're winning the battle document exit poll. song about ethnic and generational politics. again, this country is turning brown or it's going to continue to turn browner.

those constituencies are supporting progressive policies. again, you're seeing the young turning out to support progressive politicians. when you talk about some of developing a retain come you didn't see that continue on to their lives. so this was a tough election and we need to we were going to see it again from a perspective of our union, it's time to get back to work. we serve core values about progressivism is about an family and equality. so, thanks. >> thank you very much, khalid. i'm going to return back to my original format of pulled the question until after the session and i would like to introduce pawlowski from the california federation. and i am going to hope with his

media. >> where were you when we needed you? >> i'm going to talk to you and so i appreciate the invite and especially want to thank the annenberg public policy center and fact check for doing this and also inviting me to participate in it. i'd like to say from the beginning that even though unions in california are independent expenditure operations probably spend $30 million. imports and i say that we believe that big money is a bad thing for american politics and that in particular citizens united is a travesty that it encourages encourages more of that. now we see more shadowy organizations with an unlimited amount of honey and often with

anonymous contributions, really been destructive to the future of our democracy. and if there should be allowed, there could be a lot i would say he should be our politics must be grassroots politics and public expenditures. given not, we had a stay competitive and how we are engaged for this year. we have several challenges that we face unions, as we face elections in california. not the least of which is the fact that we were dealing with meg whitman, who had bragged that she was going to spend $150 million of her own money and the way she ended up spending $170 million or of course as ken said earlier that any candidate has ever spent on a statewide race in the history of america.

as opposed to jerry brown, would you walk into his office's campaign headquarters, you would find a sparse, small almost abandoned warehouse, the center of which was a picnic table with wooden benches, where they had their meetings. so is really quite a dramatic difference when you compare the well-funded army of campaign consultants for meg whitman as opposed to the way jerry brown has more people in this campaign headquarters. so, our priority in our campaign were always his first our members. and how do we engage our members and grassroots politics? we have 2.1 million members. as a result, our members graded right it worked than two to one in the governor's race here but we had to do with the enormous analysis and resource is. so we had to do much more this

year than engage our members and get them out though. we put together a blueprint that we shared with all of our unions in california because we had to have some way to represent the different independent expenditure and member communications programs that we were engaged in. so to show that many dimensions of our campaigns, we have this blueprint, which showed the various sub campaigns that we were doing. the first of course as i mentioned was the member communications program. the second is the independent expenditure operations are unification anchor unified and coordinated way. the third is something i'll talk about a minute and that is because a million more voters. and finally, our earned media efforts. but let me take you back to an important piece of this campaign in terms of timing and that was back in the spring.

to understand the challenges we face, we needed to let back at the previous gubernatorial election in 2006. and there we had a similar -- we had a number of similarities. and the first was that we had a well-funded campaign by arnold schwarzenegger against angeli deese. selegiline use did not have the resource to be with them arnold schwarzenegger. but the other thing was that in early spring of 2006, arnold schwarzenegger let it fill angeli deese by 40 points. an early spring of 2010 culminate with and lead chariot drawn by four points. so there were similarities in both of those cases that were important to us. as soon as -- before the final vote was counted in the primary 2006, arnold schwarzenegger engaged in a project advertising that not phil angelides off of his feet. phil angelides could not counter

those that until labor day because he did have the money. but by labor day, the election was done and decided then there was no way that phil angelides could recover. so, we were determined that we were not going to allow the same thing to happen again. and that was important for us that we maintain during the summertime a competitive advantage that our candidate remain competitive with meg whitman, so that he would not be knocked out of his seat and therefore be unable to recover. and the fact is that during the summer, meg whitman had 112 days of advertising without any response from the brown campaign, conserving its resources until after labor day. so the key brown competitive during that critical time of the

summer, labor stepped up in a number of ways. the biggest engagement we involved in was what we called california working families for jerry brown, who is an independent expenditure campaigns, which launched a number of ads hitting meg whitman where we knew she was vulnerable. those ads were paid for primarily by -- actually pay many of our unions, but especially by seiu, the building trades unions and the state firefighters. we have several unions who are also supporting similar independent expenditure campaigns, including the nurses union and a series of radio ads and asked me which related tv advertisement. that really it's spent about $9 million. the asked me campaign on tv spent about $2 million. they had a hundred million

dollars during the summer and advertising to have meg whitman. i want to show you one of those sad and if you can hunger with this, we're going to show you and not the california working families put forward, which was called crumble. crumble. maybe we can start it again and pick up the sound. >> over six years coming huge losses from failed -- for 28 years, she didn't bother to go. no government experience at all. but then says ebay qualifies her to be governor. what is the record as ceo? overhead standing up 2000%. fees hiked six times in six years. huge losses from failed vergers

and after she resigned, the new ceo cope with men's spending and lowered fees. california is in crisis under meg whitman, it could crumble. >> so in addition to the paid media, they said, it's very important for us to engage in grassroots candidate tbd. there are a couple of things having simultaneous and one was a programmer put together that was called wall street written. and that was -- we actually have been negotiations with "the wall street journal" because apparently our program -- our ad programs on the internet looked an awful lot like a "wall street journal." the mastermind behind the two-day affair to litigation director steve smith. and so, we engage in some earned media and the online media that supplement and the paid media activity. and also, there was a brilliant program put together by the california nurses association

called queen made. and though the street theater kind of thing for a woman made to look like meg whitman, but more like a queen followed her everywhere. it was the.whitman campaign committee smoker up until the truth about what she really was and is a really brilliant program going on. and that can grassroots stuff is what we try to do the most of. the result of all these combined efforts is pretty profound. and over the summer, photos and to question meg whitman. her negative roles and importantly, the more money she spent, the more her negatives at that point begin to go up. in spite of the fact that over those 114 days she was engaged in a nonstop saturation bombing of radio and tv ads without any response from the brown campaign. that's why we think it was so crucial for us to keep them competitive during the summertime. as we headed into labor day, the

race is a dead heat. in the fall, we were also dealing with the likelihood that they dampened turnout by democrats. and so, we had to calculate how to engage in making sure not that we advanced persuasion, but also how we make sure that we also turn voters out. this is where the next i.e. and what i think it's probably ultimately our most important i.e. came to play. this is the million more voters program. for years earlier we had to put together some micro-targeting efforts with people like larry christiano and can stress not, who hope to find -- was originally intended to find a million voters in the excerpt and areas of the state. that is, the traditional strength of our labor movement of courses in the major cities on the coast. but there is a population

growing of voters in the inland areas of the state, the more conservative areas of the state, the saint areas the state. so we engaged in this process of micro-targeting to begin to find people who work labor simply, agreed with us on our issues, but were not union members in the more conservative areas of the state. and unlike the traditional independent expenditure operations, we again wanted to think of ways that we would reach out to voters on a very personal basis. i do this, by the way, they said to a couple folks back home, the micro-targeting that we engage in to create many more voters were started as a million voters, became a million five, 2 million is now 2,000,008 and growing. it's a very significant population portion of california. it's a good versus evil of micro-targeting. meg whitman's micro-targeting

was going into committing afterwardstogether and bring the meal pieces she sent to them. you would find mail pieces of people next door to each other, competing with the mail piece that she sent to another neighbor. contradicting herself. that's the evil portion i think of micro-targeting. for us, our purpose was to engage people as assured values to give them a voice, let them know they're not alone and i think that the good part of micro-targeting. the million more voters impact was engaged on that. and we did extensive field and i might targeting between voters as well. for example, the california school employees association had a program called paws for education improvements. they trained 8000 liters to recruit 10,000 activists, just

within the 200,000 member union, to go knock on doors in their neighborhoods, to begin to talk to people. so they found the micro-targeting technology that we put together. and so, we have this really an attempt to move this back down to the grassroots, the personal contacts of engaging people together to give them a voice and commonly shared issues. this is the exciting part of what we think about in terms of independent expenditure operations, not tv ads. although, we had to engage in us to stay competitive as well. another example of how we used the micro-targeting of million more voters. this is what the asian-american -- asian pacific api community. we found that there was unusually high percentage of undecided voters among the api community and they were getting little information on the governor's race. it would targeting truncation of 200,000 api community folks,

where we found them for micro-targeting universe. we then communicate with them in four languages mandarin, cantonese, korean and pekingese. we found by talking to those people around these issues when they voted for years earlier, there is a 25-point margin in favor of arnold schwarzenegger by the apa community. as a result of our two indications with these folks, it completely turned around from a 25-point advantage to republicans to a 17-point advantage for jerry brown. he was the most renick turnaround we have seen in any community in terms of the election of the governor's election in california this year. so we think the republicans really took the api community for granted this time and we actually moved the program. the latino project was also very germanic. and seiu was the primary theater

in california, the latino project. they're a couple others in los angeles and california but at the federation does well. but as a result of that, the percentage of voters in the governor's race among latinos rose from 12% to 22%. in other words, 22% of all voters in california this time were latino voters and that is a growing thing. and so, does it for sure crucial i.e. when they the revelations about whitman's housekeeper, nikki diez and how that affected latino voters and seiu's program took full advantage of that in terms of indicating to those voters. so then we go to geo tv.

and the final several weeks of his that brown was in a pretty good position. he's a few points up, but we've got a. using million more voters technology again to reach out to do a blitz of voters through media, through field and through mail. we found that among those coming to million voters via targeted 3 million more voters and technology, about 750,000 donated persuasion and about 1.55 million of them needed just to get out to go. so we figure out how to communicate most of those votes. and again, we ended up reaching out to people, not just by mail, not just ip gods, but by the community of people and volunteers we have developed over the six-month period. and we probably not on the doors of voters in 1500 precincts plus 800 precincts, so 2200 precincts

out of some 30,000 precincts in california. so significant number of precincts we had appeared beyond what our normal membership would do in the grassroots political action of our union members but of course we do precinct operations as well. so, the results of all of those was the historic sweep of statewide candidates for the first time ever in california's history from a statewide constitutional officers. in a number marginal and rational districts, there were probably four or five marginal congressional districts that we protected, that we saw major money coming from conservatives, especially in the fresno area. we moved resources around and saw that happening. a million more voters was we did 10 days out among a statewide candidates, just to see how they were positioned. are candidates for attorney general, tom paris was behind. and so, we moved an extra

million dollars over two in i.e. in the los angeles basin on tv ads for pamela harris. as a result she went by the thing that took us two weeks to figure out the final vote count that she'd want. but the million more voters technology applied for that base also come amid the difference in the election in a very clear way. so we probably, they said said, labor spent $30 million on independent expenditure programs. for serbia to do that. we hope someday what let's do that. we think we need public financing. but for a service to the we have done. we see that the way for the future for us and that is union members gently and plus can latino voters, to me and plus, a million more voters to million plus. african-american voters about 900,000. asian-american at 800,000. put that together they comprise

the most of the 5% of all voters in california in the last election. and so we're onto something in terms of the communities for interests were playing together and type needs to pull them together in a such a speed media tv. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. and we are a little bit behind schedule, so i'm going to go right to questions from the floor if anybody has a question. >> thanks. ken vogel, "politico." i wanted to follow up with a lease for move on. you guys obviously have your route in large anonymous contributions. i understand that now your part and are intended to make this a sort of big issue. i am wondering though, given president obama's really aggressive statement and policy preferences on this issue if there's any risk that democrats

come if they do in fact engage in this kind of politically committee, whether it be anonymous or not is kind of big money, outside group advertising in 2012, if there's a risk of them sort of looking hypocritical. i guess as a preface to laugh too, how much of an effect do you think president obama's data policy preference is on this pad? >> so two parts to that question. first of all, move on broussard of the pack. we were in 1988 by 200 those individuals who give small donors. we did open a fee for those called the voter fund and to purchase 2004 elections. and i'm only going into this because we were at eight transfix.

every time your territories, he gained a one-time donation of 2003 and was never taken money from him again. never used the c-4 for electoral purposes beyond the 2004 election. so every election repurchase has been a part driven. we could experiment a large donation. we figured out it actually did work for a comment that our strength came from our members direct ownership over campaign. that was part model of organizing. that is what provided strength, not only during election, but in the legislative site tracks to make a difference in policies the country. for that is one. the second question is a figure of two more at ms, but i'm thinking about the last one which is about upon this data policy had a lot of impact in 2008, a lot. some in 2010. i can't quantify it, but i think to the extent and impact of this

because democrats and certainly move on and i heard art say this. we believe in the principle that democracy should not be for sale at the highest bidder. so when obama had the platform and said let's do this the right way, let's give every american the chance to have an equal voice in who governs them. we wind up right behind him. you think that is the best way to govern our country. now, unilateral disarmament that this time we left the house. well, you can't actually govern your country if you're going to not have the representation in there. so there is this dynamic tension. i think that was part of your backlashcometh us pray for. >> like the potential -- >> absolutely. you know, people like to believe the left is a lot more ideological than it is. the caller members pragmatic progressive. i think the american people are sophisticated enough to recognize that we've got a fight

on a couple different fronts. i mean, it's no good to actually look the principle that every american child an equal voice of you are not going to ever have any chance of implementing a touring of the three branches of government. so you know, that's like i heard this man saying i think we going to see a lot of things thrown at the low. i think to the extent that we are supporting candidates whose stated preference is to actually level the playing field for every voter to have a say will make strides. but yeah, it's an ongoing struggle and on a sequential one. >> would move on consider -- and i don't know, i think he still actually have the 501 although not active as was the 527, would move on consider shifting its activity to those groups which could be funded by a large contributor if there was the appetite among donors?

>> we no longer of a 527. we do have a c-4. i don't think we will consider shifting our life toros work there. there's other stuff we've done to their corporate advocacy and stuff like that. i don't think warships are electoral vote. you know, it's both a principle and pragmatic take you to work best when her members actually have ownership of our work. >> and khalid would like to add to train a's response. >> as a longtime move on member was given small duchenne for many years, this is about an issue of giving. the about-face talked about on the left, to continue this political discourse or until we can get money out of the election, i think we have to understand that many will serve a purpose in election ticketing way some of other issues for candidates. there were just want a level playing field. i think what you're seeing --

what you saw in 2010 is a representation of corporate interests have decided as part of their business motto is to give to conservatives and create conservative institutions in vehicles with a can funnel money in. it's good for business to elect conservatives. you see this issue right now on the tax debate going on break now. chronic tax credits to the wealthy come expansion of the estate tax as opposed to continuing unemployment insurance and 82 more needy -- needy families. so i do think you'll see over the next two years because the elections are kind of retrospect. what worked last time and what can i do the next time to improve upon what the next new thing in spirit that you think you will see a tension and debate about interest in terms of more progressive side going

into institutions. for one thing, i think it goes both on a corporate level and both of large individual donors has to be of the mind that because i'm giving for immoral cause or he could do. and i'm giving because there is a voice that is representative of their and i need in my people like me need to be engaged in that discourse. and part of the way to be a geisha discourses on institutions that could help amplify voices at move on and members of the other labor organizations. >> other questions? >> yeah, this is jill lawrence and this is for kelley. how much did seiu spend in 2010 and do you think you're going to be able to keep up with the corporate level of contributions in 2012? and my other question is, is it important to you that people realize that these contributions

are voluntary for union members? right now it seems like you're losing that irritates. >> so 2010, we are still trying to kind of gather that. kind of two things. we both do things on the national level and then we have states. with the locals in states who actually engage in political discourse, both on the state level. there were so giving some of that information back, but we spend upwards of over $40 million in the selection. nowhere can close even, you know, abrogated all of the labor community did not compare to what was falling into some of these newly formed, you know, see three/c-4 communications. in looking up, i think as i said some of the things were to give our members more engaged. part of that engagement is again

voluntarily raising funds against her members to speak at electoral discourse. we saw a dramatic increase in this election cycle. we have a strong political program in a number of programs talking to members of why it's important to be engaged in elections in both from your feet and your voice, but also with your pocketbook. and it's extremely important for us to get the message out there that these are voluntary contributions. in fact, if you look back in october, there was a series of letters to the editor from our former national political director that actually spoke to this issue, try to clear distortions made on the right about union contributions about money we spend. we spend money.

money make it very clear. we spend money occasioning two different conversations. conversations with our members internally in speaking to the general public. the money we used speaking to the general public is money better members voluntarily give every year. in fact in fact in the state lake michigan, we actually have to go back to his members every single year and ask him again to sign off that we could use the money to speak to the general public. but i feel good about it as you go forward, i took at about where are you guys positioned in terms of resources? and think it will fight again as i talk about is what this congress, current republican congress that the republicans are very antiunion sentiment and you will see republicans going

after making public employees the bogeyman and the reasons why we have the fast and coming up the that they want to get tax cuts to a millionaire and not be a janitor making 525 an hour and trying to feed his family. >> hi, john worked on a daily color. two things, khalid, if you could expand on ken's question and whether it's hypocritical for the last to allow more money to come and perhaps anonymously or not. and then, when you just said that business is giving conservatives because it's good for business, is that about an? president obama himself has said the private sector is the main engine for job growth. >> know, give me think it's a business model. what small businesses out there is for them a decision. you know, the money they spend,

their shareholders or the employees have no say in how they spend the money. so it was interesting how the right likes to point that, try to indicate that union members who for the most part you see more than two to one support progressives and progressive policies and seem to not have an issue with how the units of the money. of course you're going to have outliers up there, but again for americanization, for an individual to get money from our union, particularly a conventional governor or senate, it has to be endorsed it has to be endorsed by the local unit within that state. he got five local unions that of a process for endorsing. that's how we go out and decide who we can support. in terms and back to ken's question, again, this is a debate that's going on. you know, we can take the moral high ground and turn the other cheek.

it's the only time that cheek is going to get slapped. and you can't -- the battle of issues and ideas come you can't go into it with your arms tied behind your back. it is a question that the rest is going to have because the labor movement cannot continue to bankroll the entire progressive side of political discourse. it's very difficult to an sec, what trends are happening in terms of the percentage of union household trinket income is going to be increasingly harder to do. >> we have time for one final question this session. >> i'm playing the prerogative -- [inaudible] i have to know, two of the as we saw here presented by our panelists were asked that we chart out being false or misleading. the move on, art scene corporations with finance the

ads attacking democrats, congress says that's not true. there's no evidence did use money to finance those ads. they say they don't. do plenty of money from domestic corporations, which now as they go to finance that sort of thing. and the service employees accuse blanche lincoln of voting against requiring insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions. we thought it has she cast a key vote in favor of that. i'm going to go to a question to one of our subscribers and i'll frees you to turn on some of the rather strong language. does it bother you are conscious that all or do you believe that the end justifies the means and his win, win, win the only end? >> we stand by that ad.

and as did every television station without the proper mode of the given what we were spending. to the specific, the chamber of commerce is taking donations into a general fund and paying for ads out of the general fund. money is fungible and the greater point that was being made that we thought resonated actually across the rates across the national discourse was that when you've got multinational corporations who interest actually transcend that of the american voter, who have far more money then the american voter, playing in these races, if it here to point that out so that the voter can discern for his or herself whether that candidate being backed will hold their interests at heart? absolutely. not only does my conscious not bother me, i feral a moral

imperative to point out on behalf of our members because a more informed like it, where every voter has an equal voice is a stronger democracy. and at the end of the day, that's what we're about. >> thanks, just in the blanche lincoln not, i think we can go back and look at a procedural vote in what we use for characterization description of her vote, but she did make those that actually were wrong on that issue as we pointed out. we did several ads, pointing out where we thought blanche lincoln was out of step with progressives and constituents. at least all democrats are late. if you look at seiu's book, when we make our final seiu, you can see where we got our money from, we center money. we don't see in cases of the chamber of commerce over there

getting their money from, how the fungibility of the money internally is being used in going back to blanche lincoln. i'm glad you brought it back because in a "politico" is turn other organizations. i want to make it extremely clear that seiu does not believe it was wrong. it was right to go into that primary election with blanche lincoln and bill halter. i want to make clear that we felt like it was possibly the wrong messenger. the message was right. she was, you know, her years in the senate, she was trending and continuing not supporting issues on wall street or accountability, whether on health care insurance companies. and as we said, all democrats -- all progressives come all democrats are delayed. as we go forward, organization will continue to support those progressives and those candidates to support pro-worker issues and families and not supported those ones who don't.

>> okay, thank you. please join in thanking this panel. we are going to take a short 10 minute break to set up for the republican and conservative panel, who i'm sure will have a response to some of the things that were said earlier. so we will be back around 11:00. [inaudible conversations] ming ourle conversations]ou. conference, cash attacked 2010

with a republican conservative panel. we'll be agreeing first from the carl forti, director for american crossroads with grassroots gps and affiliate organization and is reported according to figures, nearly $39 million about five spending in the 2010 elections, making it the largest outside spinning group by that measure. ..

obviously our goal is to help candidates meet federal office. we think we did a successful job of that this cycle. our sister group is a vital 1c4 it is the tension how many times earlier today does not disclose donors and the primary mission is more conservative issues and engage in the issue debate. secondarily, thanks to citizens united we are able to conduct efficacy in certain campaigns around the country. we raise and spend over $70 million. we had a goal of 50 million early on and were able to exceed that both from large donors as

was pointed out earlier this morning in a large number of donors which was unforeseen, but i think we were very successful in what we were able to accomplish there. where were we active? and about 11 senate races around the country paid as you can see from the map in nevada, colorado, kentucky, missouri, florida there was a major senate race this cycle we were there and that was part of our initial mengin to engage early to make sure the we have an impact that the candidates were able to benefit from that intact and we were trying to engage with so at a time mothers may not be able to around two days after the republican primary when chariton did not have any money and harry reid started pounding her and needed some support so we were there. the salmon color of in other instances around the country. in terms of house races we were

involved in over 20 house races. throughout the country and our goal which i will get to in terms of the coordination with other groups is to expand the plea field. dhaka was the goal. obviously, you know, what movie nrcc and other groups were doing was available for the competitive information the tv stations provide its we were able to get a read of where they were and go other places. this was -- i've never seen a cycle like this we were attracting hundred 20 different house race is that we saw as potentially competitive. and that's couldn't french and six months ago that it would ever be that big. in addition we also use our resources for efforts. we did pay phones and mail and the nine states you see here. we did microtarget and identify who was likely to support our issues, who was likely to turn

out to vote and those were the folks who targeted. in addition to doing the paid male and phones we also did door-to-door in washington, colorado and nevada and experimented with online eds, e-mail and taxing which is something our side hasn't done a tough and very successfully i might add. and this is really what i wanted to focus on in terms of what american crossroads and the other outside groups were able to accomplish and that was the coordination. never before had the number of outside groups on the republican side coordinated to this extent. as you can see outside groups were in 55 different districts on tv, with where the nrcc was the was over 80 districts that we had somebody on tv for the final two weeks with absolutely no overlap and that's amazing

and that is i think that is by far the untold story not on hold, you guys mentioned in the that is the highlight of what came out of the cycle was the coordination and whether it was the american action network 50 plus their pour many crops the table we were talking to that showed in set aside all the egos, interests and accommodating for themselves and the goal was and that was what we did. we also accomplished the goal line sure brad will talk about it each will see the spending places they didn't want to in the fact they are talking about succeeding in arizona seven arizona seven shouldn't have been on the table. california 20, we see of the cycle it wasn't the district of wisconsin. that right there in september told you it was going to be a rough cycle for democrats and is set to do with the angry electorate. we to get advantage of the angry electorate and made things

possible. people didn't get angry because they saw our tv ads. it's been growing for two years. people aren't happy. we fit into that unhappiness. we helped to direct it but was there all of the vehicle it wasn't something we were able to generate. wish we had that kind of luck. what did we learn? we learned it's a good model in the works in this cycle that hopefully we can do it as well as the democrats did in 06 and we continue to try to accomplish that goal but we also learned we are not the party committee and we are not a campaign. the impact we could have on the field is limited, but going door-to-door and organizing that ring you can't coordinate with the local or state party or the campaign is hard and in the end the candidates matter. candidates in arizona or i'm sorry, nevada, colorado,

candidates matter and there is only so much, doesn't matter if i spend 10 million, 50 million, 100 million there's a dead candidate they are going to know that. voters are smarter than people give them credit for and so that's one of the lessons we learned. but what is our future? our future is continued to engage in the issues to date. we've made no secret of the fact and you will be hearing from us sooner rather than later from american crossroads we are going to continue to be active and shapely field for 2012 and that's our goal and as some people pointed out it is now an impact on that and what happens legislatively and how the big impact on that and we are going to be flexible enough to taken advantage of it however those opportunities arise and american crossroads gps. thank you.

>> thank you. our next presenter, brad tauter, is the founder of on message, he is a media consultant and adviser to the national republican congressional committee. brad? >> i appreciate you having us here today. i'm going to focus on the changing role of party committees and independent expenditure campaigns in the week of citizens united but i also want to add an amendment in the wake of citizens united bipartisan campaign reform act because if you are not happy about citizens united you need to get rid of. one shackles the other one and if you are upset with the wake of the change campaigns, the only answer is to bring and how were candidates in the committees but i will get off my soap box and go back to an

office before i get to engage. i'm going to focus on the house side of this year independent spending was a very big factor both on the party committee and third party groups to read part tested with the fact the campaigns typically aren't large enough to make their own weather wear as many senate campaigns are. the house campaign's budget or to the smaller and some outside groups tend to play a bigger role. real quickly leading the jogging changing jobs or the party committee especially is to drag out the spotlight. show both the donors and other third party groups. this is where the races are and where it matters. this is the agenda in the race we can win. and keeping with that, we ought to take a minute and look at the scoreboard what happened in money to i would like to puncture if i could this popular message we heard especially this morning from our friends on the left that there was that republican money had so much money will is us we were so underfunded. the sharks want them to become

vegetarians. the democrats have plenty of share. the dcc has $60 million, the nrcc has 40 million from major groups that spent more than half a million dollars and major issue groups on the house side only there was a republican of vantage, slight one but you look at candidate spending democratic candidate had 60 million more than the republican candidates in the top 92 races. drc served to level the playing field this year and give the republican campaign's a chance to get their message out. the party committee spending this year returned to a more republicans for a 43% disadvantage to democrats at the party committee spending on the house side. that is a big change from the last cycle in 2008 when they had a 221% advantage over republicans and perhaps that is why the democratic friends are so exercised this year is because they didn't have the advantage they did in 2008 they think it is a fair fight when

they are 200% ahead of us we think even money is a little bit fair. house many ward shul in each category, and again i sure brooks is going to help me pour over the numbers and fact check then leader. there are estimates with the sec data is reported. you can see basically republicans have essentially 60 million-dollar advantage on the independent side that i could candidates have a $60 million advantage comes of it gives democrats, i'm sorry connecticut had a 60 million advantage of the candidates i become independent spending was relatively even, a couple million for republicans. but to call your attention to the so-called area major democrat groups, $50 million off this year. major democrat issue groups and another $18 million off. what happened this year was democratic donors to the third party groups did not stand up in the way they did in 2008. yes republican donors increased the activity, democratic donors

despite the fact barack obama took the country hard left did not respond and that is an unwritten story and it needs to be focused on this year. 85 million-dollar gap on the left and 39 million-dollar increase on the right. it's not how much you spend its when you spend it. we believe september is the new october and frankly lesson we learned from democrats. the dscc spent its entire budget before october 1st. it worked. i was involved in 2008 north carolina and watched this and democrat, up and put away elizabeth dole before october, isn't one. that was a principal for us this year. it was for many other republican of such groups as well. uzi the nrcc out spent the dccc and many groups were active in september guess what happened? october 1st if you were a republican campaign ahead or even you were going to win. the democrats who were ahead of

these were recently tracked in the irecc. they won about half of them. almost of the other ones. we were ahead by october 1st and we've won. i dwell on this because most democrat money was spent on after october 1st. the simply waiting until too late in the campaigns were already behind. case study for this, florida's said in the district allen boyd the nrcc invested three and $20,000 in the media market and 320 grand goes a long way in north florida. our candidate got ahead by six points in october and you can get an incumbent democrat adel with e3 in front of a solid number in october he's not going to win. despite that the dccc chased bad money after good and finished in the last two weeks didn't win. our theory is if you build it today will come. the reason we did that is to commit the june 30 if category and the top 75 house races the

republican candidate was at a cash disparity against his democratic incumbent of $600,000. we had to get our candidates in the game. that is why such republican activity over the summer. byes of timber 30 if the gap dropped remarkably. what happened next in the two weeks of october is the republican challengers outraced the democratic incumbents. think about that, two weeks in october longtime veteran incumbent like rick boucher chet edwards are getting out raised by the republican challengers first two weeks of october, 72 reasons. the benefits of dollars of timber spending for stuff we got third quarter rates and in a lot of damage freights as anybody watching tv sees the christmas advertising fourth quarter is the next kaput of corydon in advertising circles we saved 13 to 15% by spending in a september as opposed to october when you have less money as we did its party committee level of 30% is important. next we have to set the agenda,

the tattoo, the voting percentage for each democratic candidate how much they voted with veazey policy on their forehead in september they had to carry them around all through october. that was important. last as karl talked but expanding the field democrats canceled fields and 37 dhaka different districts. noting that the districts they didn't want to become a paid rates they didn't want to pay. early places we targeted we look for cheap markets and return of orie in georgia, alabama, we go, texas, springfield, missouri, walsall wisconsin, those are the places we targeted we're a little money can go a long way. equally surprising a place of democrats gave with little or no money. here are nine seats on the board for democrats through the dccc spent a $0 on advertising. these were must win seats. steve treehouse, a top recruit for us, steve sires and 16 top recruits for a summit, in kansas, we would have broken the bank to save the seeds.

democrats let us get them for nearly nothing and those three races i mentioned we spent nothing on the air because democrats didn't put any pressure on our resources early. we are original budget and they have $7 million allocated for incumbents. we spent less than half a million. democrats never made us do things we didn't want to do. last, i will start to transition to what we said and kind of put a summary of our messaging. if i had to put it into words, i would say lost independence was the key phrase for how we conduct the house campaigns. we didn't have to convince the voters that john's bread or evans for bad guys. we have to convince them they changed and since nancy pelosi took over there were not as independent as they once were. on the house side we were voting in a lot of red districts, so we had this scenario to deal with of people have been survivors have tough races before. i will give you a good example of one of those ads.

>> for years, congressman john spratt was listening to south carolina but since mazie pelosi took over, he has become a rubber stamp. the energy tax, and he voted yes. the wall street bailout, yes. the wasteful stimulus bill, you betcha. and obama's health care bill? spratt yes, it is, every time. john spratt is not our congressman any more. he works for her to read the national republican congressional committee is responsible for the content of this advertising. spaghettis to be independent know he's not. here's how many times he voted with aids pelosi and a big six votes he voted on. one key thing we had over the democrats as voters were already agitated over things we were saying. democrats have to say things the voters were not educated about. we try to make or can't handle it for watchable. we didn't use personal slurs. we tried to stay away from character hits and attacking motive. it was a big mistakes democrats made this year. their campaign was he is a bad man.

he's an on ethical businessman. she hates you. a very nasty tone. we tried to be more matter-of-fact and benefited from it. >> when nancy pelosi pushed the national energy tax, tom told the line. when president obama pushed the wasteful spending bill, he told the line. kristen national democrat fine, yes. and when congress passed the takeover of health care, tom told the party won every single time. the government got bigger, taxes and higher. your burden got heavier. party-line perriello is making it worse. >> the committee is responsible for the comer content of this effort is in your estimate of the reasons they made that mistake is they learned rall listens. it was a watershed moment. democrats thought it was a watershed moment because of their neighbor told the majority. terms of it was a watershed moment the next day they got together for the post mortem and drew the wrong conclusions. they concluded the tax on pelosi don't work and we can change the

race late if we throw enough advertising the last two weeks and included the way to win this week the republicans on ethical. the lesson that they missed was that mark chris went on tv and said he would be a check and balance on his own party and in the end, god is the only contained no worked. washington is out of control i'm going to be a check and balance. >> in washington one party has absolute power, out of control spending. national energy tax, a government takeover of health care and he voted for it all. opposing party won spending on our economy, on monday 4% of all of the votes he cast too far, too fast and the absolute wrong direction. put the brakes on pelosi, replace mark schauer to the stomach the national republican committees responsible for the advertising. islamic to put the argument on the check and balance we are familiar with about question asked by both parties and every reason the country and the 75 races we were tracking and

degenerate about this policy 11 points republican. however, when you leader in one more component that president obama it goes to 20%. the same survey, seem 75 surveys aggregated do you favor republican candidates who are a check and balance of president obama or who will support president obama's policies? 20-point advantage. that is a little bit about the republicans as it needed to be a also says this entire election is about the gas pedal make clear differential to lead to show how that worked in a race this is a pole in front ike skelton in the fourth district. one of our hardest races to win this year he had been in office since the 70's and had a deep report for a lot of good reasons. we ask that question the check and balance question do you want a check and balance or do you want someone who will support the president's policy? we didn't cost have that with a different question which says he is independent, he votes for our troops and voted against health care or is not independent

because the cap-and-trade, the debt limit, the stimulus, etc. and if you were a voter who said we need to check and balance on obama but i think like skelton is independent it was 17% of the electorate and that is the target. everything we did on advertising is based on those 17% thought. we did it increases of the country. again the check and balance was the only argument for a democrat that allowed them to be reelected is what joe donnelly did which is independent i think we are going to far i'm going to be a check and balance on my own party. that's the only way they can win in a tough race. it could push in the last slide here we talked about since the election what could have been done differently? when did this election change? when did they win the majority? frankly, it wasn't because the republicans have so much more money. it's offensive to hear that out of my colleagues on the left because it says they were duped. they were not do it. voters knew what they were doing

this year. it wasn't advertising that spun the voter. they were angry before the had started and on election day and they did something about it. three days matter. october 1st when the democrats let us expand the field without engaging us was an important day. we always feared in september they would open a lot of new friends and we would spend money where we didn't want to and we knew the opposite was coming to happen. may 19th we mentioned the day after pennsylvania 12 when they took off in the wrong direction with the campaign and march 21st the data health care bill passed the house. the stimulus bill and cap-and-trade in the debt limit made a lot of the appearances in the ad let's not be mistaken they gave up on the democratic governing majority did they pass the health care bill. we ask and 75, 50 district was a hesitation of voting for the candidate blamed on the democratic side we let the voters get their open-ended answer because they held up there. for the scripps in the ten

hardest races and every single one of the raises it was very clear to the voters said they didn't listen. we told them not to pass it and they did it any way. we can't get them under control. bader had it that we march 21st and finished october 21st. >> our next presenter, rob collins, president of american action network.

>> welcome. thank you for having me today actually. these reforms are important and i'm going to stick to the topic which was discussed the thinking behind the ads and the results. i will make one comment which is kind of collaborates with the folks in this panel this year we caught lightning in a bottle on the right but i would say was calling the road map laid out before us and not for all of us the book that i wrote about 04 and 06 shoup ed venture on the left side was really kind of impact will it showed what is possible, so we are glad to be part of an effort to kind of catch-up and balance the plainfield on our side. but i work for the american action network, we are a 501c4. the goal we are trying to create

a center-right policy organization that in tax policy and policy makers. how we do that? has a number of goals and objectives, the first is policy development in conjunction with the american action for on, kim smith over there. they are building the policy and we are working with them to develop not only to aggregate senate right policy but defined revenues and new places where we can only take our principles and apply them to challenges of today but also make it relevant not only to people who support us about as you have heard time and time again those critical independent sr. and swing voters. we build on that with education through methods of the element, advocacy which we are going to dhaka today. we do a host of other things at the american action network about i would say the advocacy in as we gransta we will stick to that as we move forward but i want to highlight we have a policy and messaging are that is robust and something we are looking forward to developing in the coming year to the gentry 13

did 14 we are adding a national hispanic policy forum cochaired by jeb bush and secretary carlos gutierez as a further dixie belle of our organization that continues to always impact policy and policy makers and last technology the network only to communicate with people that educate. as 2010 and going to talk about the methods how we got to the ads you're going to see. first we looked at the national issue colin we want to find out where the landscape was, some of it was public polling and some we did on our own. really to identify the key issues. one surprise i found a buyer will get to it in the second is how vibrant the house, the health care issue remains months after the vote. if you ask me and june i would have said the offer will be in the rearview mirror, and health

care stayed at the forefront of the american people decision making as they went to the election. after we got to the identification leah benefit candidates and areas where strong issues come advocacy contains could be affected and conduct research in both analysis and try to match up local issues with the national issue pulling measures we identified and then we did a deep dive into the polling. some of you may remember our sister organization did three rounds of polling each on the east coast, the middle of the nation and the west coast those polls were not only helpful in identifying in races where we thought there was an opportunity but also really showed a couple things and i will get to those in the second. like i said, health care, jobs and government spending were very critical. coventry was effective

regionally, and spending issue which i will show you that was regionally very powerful. it was interesting and different places. in wisconsin that was the issue. in washington state it was not the issue. it was an interesting in washington but not as interesting in wisconsin which i think is what all of those races and wisconsin turned on which is the size of government, growth in government and debt and spending in the government. next we move into a creative concept development and that is what we produce ads and scripps and all the stuff that we try to frame issues in a creative way to break through and then we did something which i was new to which was one of the most impact of things. we went to suburbs of a krin ohio, pittsburgh, pennsylvania and showed folks over ads in draft form and what the results and what was interesting to me, and you will see i broke into will call summer advocacy and fall advocacy is in the fall

people didn't want conflict ads or big picture adds, they wanted the facts. they wanted to know what it my representative vote for and am i for or against it. so you will see the two flavors at it and they go for more the broad issue eds to a focused critique of their voting record. after that teamwork we talked to our friends to make sure we knew where they were going, make sure we didn't have overlaps and we had a number of groups. we went into 80 bases and there was no overlap and there was excellent communications we understood what everyone was doing. and then we would go into the efficacy phase. like i said, we want to talk about the tv phase or are going to. we did a number of other things including using the internet, grassroots, phones, all kind of different methods to motivate. summer efficacy like i said these are big concept. i'm going to show for ads.

these are designed to break through in the summertime when people aren't necessarily thinking about elections. there is a tone and you will see the ads are dramatic and designed to get you to see and pause and say whether the talking about here? a little more on the creative side and a little more kind of like i said graf your attention. we start out with a positive ad which i know will make brooks happy and we are talking with local businessmen talking about his local congressman in philadelphia area. next to washington. this is an ad that is trying to grab you. patty murray came to congress in 1992 so we wanted to not only frameup her record but take away the ability for her to recapture her before she had 18 years ago. florida was a very popular to speak for itself and in hampshire is a ed we talk about cap-and-trade. cap-and-trade is one of those regional issues. pennsylvania talf voters didn't know what cap-and-trade was then

you go to west virginia and new what it was and new hampshire even though we were in december were excuse me, in the summer in the midst of a hot time in d.c. and i was afraid we would be criticized my friends at new hampshire said and the late summer when they would buy their heating oil so this ad was powerful and riss agreed with folks so i will run through these quick. we are good? , ♪ >> my work takes me to every part of pennsylvania. it's hard to stay afloat. >> we work hard to keep jobs here. they understand what business need. they stand up for responsibility and keep a sharp of eye on washington spending and keep my taxes down. call the congressman and thank

them for standing up to fiscal responsibility because our days are long enough. ♪ >> i'm patti. we have such high hopes that you were different, one of us. then you were your tennis shoes on our backs. washington families and children. he pushed the largest increase in federal spending ever, vote taxes on small businesses, you cost us jobs. sorry, it's time you bought off our backs. learn more. ♪ ♪

>> it's a sure sign the campaign season has begun. they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a one week list against murray. it's hard to miss those commercials and now our poll indicates they may have had an effect. >> washington families -- >> if you watch any television at all use of the ad portraying senator murray's shoes walking on the backs of kids. it didn't work? in our poll in june, 49% statewide residents polled trolled a survey of a say they approve of her job performance. 44% disapprove. in the poll this week her approval rating dropped dramatically in to the , 31% approve and now 54% disapprove. the ad came from a conservative group called american action network which claims she has been bad for small business. ♪

>> you better not mark charlie crist's policies and eink. its job killing taxes on the proposed energy tax chris changes as often as the tide. you can't trust charlie crist on jobs either. he's afforded obama's budget busting stimulus bill and said he never did. no wonder. its new with record unemployment which we trust charlie crist to fight for jobs unless it's his own job. ♪ ♪ >> the numbers seven and six

respectively plead for by the american action network. this is a third-party group run by former republican senator norm coleman of minnesota. he's targeting a guy that is what to popular in republican circles these days. former republican charlie crist to read in the number in washington state republicans think they have a strong candidate and they are going after senator patty murray in this new ad. those who remember patty murray got to the u.s. senate as the mom in tennis shoes therefore that is why you see the tissues. [laughter] ♪ >> congressman who has never spent nights sleepless unable to pay utility bills. why else would he vote for the cap-and-trade tax? raise electric rates by 90%, increase gas to $4. cost us another 2 million jobs. kelly would stop the attacks

cold. the american action network is responsible for the content of this advertising. ♪ >> you will see the difference between what i can do and what our interns can do, so that is a version of what they can do and they had some grassroots stuff we did on the of pennsylvania 12. all the advocacy ads are different. they -- we are not trying to get someone to stop buying coke and consider another. they are ready for purchase and we want to give them the facts and make sure we are direct and we want to make sure this was critical in what we learned our focus groups. they want sources, they want it cited and want to know why the person did this and they want a very direct access to information. also, these ads are designed and very busy political season with

governors and senators and other elections coming on to the will to break through and the memorable, and the first is the statewide and called [inaudible] it highlights that regional issue on spending in the next is the ad that did the best on our focus groups. we call it secret. it talks about health care and you will see the opening clip with pelosi this is a very powerful statement coming and for them it summarized everything wrong with health care debates. next is a backpack add you will see very strong with women voters, independent women especially if it did a great job with future problems. last is a funny ad designed to break through the clutter we found very effective and it was able in the closing weeks to be

able to grab your attention a listing to will be able to see why. our focus group conductor said one thing you never want to do is show too many negative ads in a room people want to start fermenters if you and i run that risk and apologize but i want to stay true to the topic and show you some of the concepts we use. >> [inaudible] what is russ feingold do with it? $800 billion for the jobless stimulus, 2.5 trillion for health care plan seniors, a budget forces us to borrow $9 trillion when he had a chance of reform he voted against the balanced budget amendment. russ feingold and our money, what a mess. american action network is responsible for the content of this advertising.

>> speenine cui have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it. >> now we know what is a trillion dollar health care debacle with a job killing taxes they had 500 billion for medicare for seniors and spend our money on health insurance for the illegal immigrants. congressman betty sutton, a big spender, a job killer. now we know. american action network is responsible for the content of this advertising. it's been a there's a lot on the backs of our kids today thanks to congressman gerry connolly. he loaded over kids up with nearly 800 the ligon of wasteful stimulus spending and then added

nearly a trillion more for the health care takeover. a debt of 14 trillion. now the congress wants to file more spending. how much more can our children take? call congressman connolly and tell him to cut spending this november. it's just too much to the american action network is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> how can you tell the taxpayers of martin's district? not just a spot. he stripped us of the wasteful stimulus, spent the shirts off our backs heinrich is taking money from our pockets to put in washington's pockets. now i don't have any pockets. now congress wants to strip us bear with more spending. call congressman heinrich and tell him vote to cut spending this november. the american action network is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> so, i guess we will go to the

key findings. based on what we saw we had access to about 240 polls and we watched both public polls that were -- i mean we had a private polling and public polling and things we found to be impact on jobs in the economy was number one across the nation. it popped up in almost every race wherever we were. health care as i said, on a would have guessed that would have been in the rearview mirror but it was front and center and was a deciding factor in a lot of races. cap-and-trade was a symptom that was recently stronger in other places. deficits i've already talked about that as a big issue and factored into every race but it was interesting to see in some states how it was really a major issue and i unbelievable motivator of voters. fact based arguments, as brad said earlier personal attacks,

divorce, lawsuits, we didn't get into that. we didn't have to. this election was about policy and we thought we could win on a policy. speaker pelosi was in tactful and that continues to surprise me. we didn't build ads around it, but he thought she was present in a lot of that what was done. we didn't build up to that. that was what we inherited and what we to get advantage of. i was surprised but our polling really bore that out and if you saw it with other stuff that was done. and it mattered. there's talk about the enthusiasm gaps. some of the reasons we looked at especially in south dakota you would never have gone in there because christine went head-to-head but if you're motivated voters we always felt good about that race. and then last social media online was critical. not only did it magnify and expand efforts where we would target our ads in every ad you saw there was a site set up so

if they were at work they would see a banner that looked similar to the ad they were seeing on tv. we started with zero facebook vince and now we have over to under 20,000 these are folks we can carry forward and as i say we create adorable policy organization and one way we can't continue that is to talk to folks that are interested in what we are talking about and the social media was a powerful, powerful tool the ideological issues too long, this wasn't about our reverses' blue, this was about results and getting things done and as brad said, being a pump on the brakes on the washington, d.c. leadership that had been in for two years. president obama was always around the election but in particular the house races

believe he wasn't as input fall as the anc pelosi. he hadn't acted, i'm not sure, going in that last week a share a media market with virginia five, the robert race and it was in pretty good shape and then it just fell off the table and i will really know why. the only thing i can really point to which doesn't really impact this conversation but if i was at the white house i would be very concerned about north carolina, virginia status in the next election. like i said, corruption and scandal and personal attacks and sometimes the messages are delivered in a tough labor there fact based is with the number did. like i said we felt we didn't need to get into the politics of personal destruction. we focus on building efforts and we felt that was an effective way. are we going to lose these trees is because we aren't being hard enough or tough enough?

you know, speeding tickets issue was known, some of that person, that businessmen, doesn't like america stuff that the left was running was tough stuff and personal and was going through people's private lives and we never went there. we all had a conversation which is are we missing something and going to regret it and i'm glad we stuck with where we are and i thought in the end it made a difference. so i am through and i will take my seat. >> before we go to the audience for questions i want to make one comment. i think brad contador statistics show kind of the shortcomings of the federal election commission data for this sort of thing because what carl told us is his organization's collectively spent $70 million. i don't think that you saw that much on the entire republican

side. house recently, a good point. thank you. but it's true federal election commission sews 38 million, 39 million for the crossroad cbs so there's $30 million there that doesn't have to be reported or wasn't reported in the federal election commission, just a cautionary note. before we go to the audience i want to ask this group is specially what difference did citizens united make? of all the money that you spent and the things you did, what could you not have done had it not been for citizens united? >> i will take the first crack at that and say in my opinion they did little to impact the gps was able to accomplish and what you had this cycle you didn't have an 08 was a committed group of donors that wanted to get back in the game.

they were deflated in the 08. and similar to the message president obama gave his message we heard about since 2010 that he didn't believe and didn't want the owners to participate that was in 08. well, they were all back this time. so i think yes on citizens united help some of them give things personal but a lot of money we raise come over whelming amount we raised was personal and that money is coming anyway. >> were their messages that you ran that you couldn't have run without citizens united? >> the gps was able to direct at to see if an of citizens united hadn't passed, they but have done issue ads which we did in august some yes, we did adopt to the law but that wouldn't prevent us from doing advertising in the fall. >> you think he would have spent the same amount of money with the same affect? think so? >> i think you are right. law changed which a lot for

forced to go into the limited efficacy but i cannot remember our conversation where a dillinger cared about that. they were just scared. >> the earlier panel of course i think told us that the same thing. they did nothing because of citizens united they were doing the same thing had a bad decision not happened on their side, but i -- one of the reasons we asked ilyse to come is to talk about the boycott that happened early on. but i'm curious is target definitely took a lot of heat for making it publicly disclosed administration of the race. the chief executive if i'm recalling it right is a sort of apology to their employees. did you see the effect of that and was that in any way one of the reasons why so much of the money that your groups raised is not disclosed, was given anonymously?

>> i think people are overestimating the amount of money that was involved at all. estimate i be happy to have you tell us exactly how much -- >> you could let the legislators change the wall. groups like target, not only when they became public that all these corporations have to answer to their shareholders. even once they gave the seat for they felt they still had to disclose but they chose not to give so there was all this corporate money from the companies that flew in or came and i think that is a gross misrepresentation of what happened. >> rob? >> do you think corporations were because of the target of boycott and the heat they took were corporations coming to you saying we want it to be a nation that we don't want to be public?

>> because of what -- >> did that sort of thing make any difference? was a motivator for them to give anonymously? >> i think carvel is right about his analysis on corporate money and people do their due diligence and ask a lot of questions and say what if you they are going to get involved in and they felt that the network based on the policy matrix we set of dealing with energy, health care, education, national security and the government growth of taxes felt comfortable with our issues we have three former senators on our board on the house and the board and to ambassadors that felt we were in organizational was credible and willing to intact for the movement the policy makers and policies and in the way that they are comfortable with

>> we are required to report to you think that you would raise any less? >> no, i mean the folks coming to us felt we focus on the house. they felt that this president and the stomach leadership has taken the country in the wrong direction and they were legitimately scared. they felt the things that made them successful or being taken away from them and the people that followed and the number one concern from folks who supported us wasn't about confidentiality. it was about the future of the country and they were anxious about that. >> we are going to take questions from the audience. we have microphones. please identify yourself before you ask.

>> my question is for rob collins. i saw the patty murray tennis shoes act and a solicitation back up that you put up to the source of your claims in that ad for when you have patty murray standing on a child i thought the citation was her vote for schip. as someone who leads in the serious policy think tanks can you explain how stepping on a child is akin to voting for health insurance for children? >> can you summarize the question -- >> the summary is the ad had patty murray stepping on a child and the back up claims for that added in the citation is that she voted for schip. can you explain how a single child or voting for schip is akin to step in on a child? >> i think that you are trying

to make a point and i appreciate that point and we have a different point of view. estimate as a leader of a policy think tank could you explain that to me? >> our point of view is expansion of government decreases the ability for this country to have economic freedom, the ability, this ad was about small business and as you increase the size of the government to decrease opportunity. i mean, you have to forgive me, you are talking about an ad and we did 63 individual ads. spirit you're pretty proud of it but can you explain that at all? >> like i said, i mean, you are trying to make a political plight and i appreciate that. islamic this is not politics, i think it does matter. >> you can't defend this at all? >> i can absolutely defendant. we defended the ad, we defended it to the four different tv stations and we feel very

comfortable. you are trying to make a political point and that is good for you. >> you had a back up but said he voted for schip and that is like stepping on a child. you can't say anything to defend that? >> we can take another question, please >> wait for the mic. we've got three or four of them up here. this gentleman was first actually. >> thank you. politico again. actually, two separate questions. one, just open for anyone, one particularly for carl. you guys talked a lot about how this is an effort to even the playing field with with the left has done prior year the election cycles but by 2004 when they sent the most on the types of efforts outside of spending they were not successful in the main goal with the white house had in wondering what makes you think that you will be successful as

influencing the the presidential if that is even a goal and the second more specific question is for carvel. early on the folks behind crossroads and eventually the same folks behind crossroad gps talked about how they expected the disclosure of transparency to become an issue in the campaign, and as such were committed to transparency and committed independent what they thought it was an issue which wanted to take it off the table as an issue and would be disclosing their donors and i am wondering what change that precipitated formation of a c for doing the same types of things without disclosure. >> weld answer to the second question is disclosure was important is why the 537 was created but some didn't want to be disclosed and thank you was created. >> so there were donors who wouldn't give of their names were disclosed and want to give them the opportunity.

>> whether they're giving alternate or not labeled with a more comfortable giving to the sea for so we created one. >> and did you do that with the c4 was kind of the explanation that was offered when gps was formed that would be focusing on different things, to what extent does that play into the consideration or was it just merely -- >> no commodities if you look at what gps did and continues to do the majority of the works to be a grass-roots lobby or issue work and that is what we spent a majority of the summer doing despite the limited efficacy which we did with you guys and questioned in terms of the disclosure. there's a lot of other work that went on and continues to go on and we will be active in that space over the next year or two. answering the first question and then i will let rob answer that

i think we also pointed out that in 06 it was like 221% the democrats spent more than the republicans, and in terms of the presidential campaign, i mean right now i have no idea what american crossroads will be enacted in 2012 and focus on the presidential campaign or the reason the senate like they were this time. that needs to be determined. >> just a follow-up and i do want to hear the response to the same question and i will get to the other ic anxiously sitting here. when brooks asked if there would be -- if you thought you'd be able to raise the same amount of money were you not to offer anonymity it sounded like the thought process was as you thought you would be able to, but clearly that is not you're thinking. >> i don't know if those people would have given it the 527 as an option or not. that is impossible to know.

>> this keeps pushing back if it were not for the 2400 dollar handcuff these would be up against a candidate. the rather give it to the party. the fact is they can give a limited amount to both of those entities. it's crazy, a complete violation of the first amendment. the donors, the voters seek other ways to play in this process and to engage in political speech because we have this crazy abstract artificial system that changes them down and keeps them from exercising their constitutional rights and we can ask these all day with this donor have given to the organization, they all get to the candidate. that's what they want to do so the answer to this is to repeal those limits and increased disclosure. >> i'm curious about the longer-term plan of the organizations if you could flat shot a little bit more to this seems to me without arguing the

specifics most of the ads were focused on opposition to the administration, the democratic agenda on a range of issues without talking about specific issues republicans would support and where they would want to take the country and i wonder if since the election that has been flushed out in the issues you're going to be lurking about in the policy proposals. >> the future of the network and the american action for lummis we feel very solid. we have an outstanding new group of policy experts and a health care forum where biden came and we had a bunch of health care experts talking about different ways to redo the health care

bill that was passed. we plan to continue that and to engage outside experts in congress and policy makers. i mentioned our national hispanic network where the best and brightest minds of the movement are going to get together and talk about how we can expand access and opportunity from the center-right perspective of the hispanic community and vice versa how can we get them talking. there is a number of things we are going to do along those lines and continue to deliver our message where we take what we find out through polling and focus groups and freeze it in such a way that makes them as i said principles and policies relevant to the average american. i think sometimes when you come from a strictly theoretical kind of think tanks and arena it's

hard for folks making a living working every to understand what you're talking about and why it matters, so that is something we are really focused on and so, yeah, we plan to be a durable organization that's around for a while. ..

>> our ads were not based or telling voters who that care about. they told us what they cared about, and that's what we talked about. >> [inaudible] >> that's a huge part of the agenda, and the voters demanded it. >> one more question from the audience here. >> margaret, thanks for doing this. i had reallimented to does you -- i had reallimented to ask you about 2012. is the issue whether you're going to play in the presidential at all, or is the issue whether you're choosing offsides in the primary weight in general. a quick follow-up, you mentioned north carolina and virginia. if you could take both of those out of play for president obama or maybe even just virginia, that would be it; right? that would be the 2012 election. is there thoughts about your groups focusing on one or both states alone?

thanks. >> it was rob that brought up virginia and north carolina, but to the 2012, i think, we are, you know, in the process of determines what we'll be doing in 2011 and then worry about 2012. we're not looking to the presidential race right now. i would find it -- it's difficult for me to imagine we would be involved in the republican primary. >> with regards to virginia, yeah, i mean, you look at, you look at the obama coalition and there are some problems with what they are trying to do is his map is starting to look a lot like john kerry's map. it doesn't mean, you know, it's a fore gone conclusion, just some of the states like i understand, wisconsin, virginia, and florida, you see the election results of 2010 showing

some real challenges to that coalition and you wonder if obama can recreate what he did in 2008, and you start looking at states where he's strong and it starts to shrink. i guess that's the point i was making is that it was a real question to me how rick was seemingly in pretty good shape, and that race was called before the election night, and it was a shocking turn of developments for us. i thought it would be close, but like i said, i didn't think the race would be decided before perry, but then i guess, you know, conversely, obama had the desired effect with perry that the voter model said 52% of the voters would turn out, and it turned out to be 57%. he elevated his vote, but in boast elections, his side was unsuccessful. the sides that traditional voted

with republican presidents snapped back to where they were historically. it's just a challenge for them. they have to look and say we can't run the same program, and if we have a smaller map, how do we do it? it looks more traditional to me than what obama was able to accomplish in a way. >> well, i'll give the last question to a sub scriewber. -- subscriber. charlotte sent one in, and i'll preface this that we found fault with many of your ads, including the patty murray add you showcased here. aren't you embarrassed by putting out false information in order to win an election? basically the same question we asked of the earlier panel. >> tv stations have no obligations to run the ad they believe are false. therefore, i think that all of our ads are accurate.

>> if it tv station takes your money, the ad is accurate. >> they have a responsibility to prove, but no responsibility to run the ad whatsoever. >> i'd further say by saying two things. one, we deponent have the protections that canada ads have. two, the other side fight you tooth and nail legally. they tried three times through legal counsel, and their message to get the adds pulled, and they were unsuccessful. factually, we were accurate. we were not saying these were bad human beings. we said they voted this way, and we thunderstorm think it's wrong. >> thank you for atepidding. -- attending. i'll invite my boss to make a

few concluding remarks, and then we'll be done. kathleen? >> thank you, everyone. i want to start with one observations is we're talking in terms of dollars, and dollars generally, but a dollar doesn't buy the same amount of access or the same amount of impact in one situation that it does in another. media can target and microtargetting makes a difference in dollars, and with that, a dollar now buys more impact than it once did because that allows you to find a per persuasive voter. different immediate yom matters. what we saw in 2008 with the election survey is that internet use even in the presence of controls which should take all other effects out of the equation predicted an obama vote. they made a use of the interpret

than mccain. it was about as strong as talk radio's exposure was for conservatives. we saw that the obama's campaign started with moderate women in radio produced a disproportional effect of dollars spent of dollars spent elsewhere and with cable. as we talk about money mattering, money may now be far more effective than it once was as the capacity of microtargetting increases. i want to raise two questions. first, what's the relationship between campaigns not in getting someone elected, but in creating climate in which that person can lead or in which can govern? does, for example, the high level of attack in campaigns, a high level increase we presume by increased expenditure by those in independent advertising increase the likelihood people are not casting the vote for a

can date, but casting a vote against the other side, and that the eventual winner has won, but at the cost of weathered a large number of attacks that increased the person's trustworthiness. does the climate of campaigning increase polarization in a way that it makes more difficult once people come into governing that make the decisions collectively that the electorat accepts especially in situations where there's no good choices. last point. everybody's made the point in the last panel in answering questions that stations don't have to accept independent expenditure ads. they don't. he's two questions for the community. one, are the stations actually scrutinizing the ads for accuracy before the opponent puts their argument in for the

lack of accuracy? that is, are the stations performing a policing function on their own, or becoming sunket to the cross pressures of two campaigns on whether something should air. are they applying standards to every ad that comes in place? are all ads created e qualm from the station's perspective or any indpliewns if the station's advertisers are part of a community that is advertising? i think it's an interesting and potentially important question with those questions only table and that observation, thank you for joining us and thank all panelists. they are pleased that you joined us today. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> great, well, welcomement thank you all for coming to this evenings dialogue. i'm tom friedman from the "new york times". i want to welcome you all here, and first of all again thank our terrific hosts for getting this together. it's been one great event after another, so thank you so much. [applause] it's a great weekend, and to martin and dick and the brookings institution, thank you all as well, so great to be here. [applause] so we have a really great panel, i think, this evening to talk

about issues of politics, culture, and society between the united states and israel. to my right is marsha, a philosopher and teaches at the university and nyu. next to him is a columnist extraordinary. to his right is my colleague david brookes from the "new york times". i've been just having a little side conversation with people for the last few minutes and yesterday, age i'm struck at the number of israelis that ask me, what's this tea party? i'm struck at the number of americans who ask me, tell me about lieberman, and it straiks me as a moment -- it striebs me as a moment for the first time in a long time, there's new elites crashing through the leadership in both countries who not only don't

know each other, but are really unknown to their respective allies on the other side of the ocean, and i want to begin the discussion tonight to our israeli and american friends, what does america look like from israel, and what does israel look like from america? what does israel look to you right now sitting here? >> i guess i would say three things. first thing is israel looks to me like is country that needs to be defended. defended not just militarily, but i think that there are for the first time in a long time there is a real genuine controversy about the legitimacy and of its means of self-defense. i think that, and again, it

needs to be defended because it shared two borders with islamists and as far as i can tell they are doing their very best to make sure there's going to be a third border that may be shared in that way. there is iran, i don't have to go through everything we've heard, but i'm talking more about culture and the so-called war of ideas. i think the generation of the two-state solution is one of the most dangerous things to happen for israel. the two-state solution is of israel, not palestine. the one state that comes between the river and the sea will not be greater israel, but a greater palestine. i think many jews, i think, in this country don't sufficiently appreciate that the defense is defending israel. i think that the legitimacy of israel's means of self-defense needs to be defended. we saw this in the aftermath of the gaza war and the fact is

that israel is called upon to defend itself in ways that are complicated and it's a cold way of describing the issue here, and this is something that needs to be -- the realities of israeli self-defense in this new climate. #eu look at -- i look at israel and say it needs to be defended. the second thing is i see a society that swings in a way between extremes of joy and dread in some way. i see a society that swings between an extraordinary openness to the world, and in some ways an increasingly closingness of the world. there's the bliss of tel-aviv, and you know, the extraordinary vitality of the place. israeli culture and literature, journalism, film, music, scholarship, it's the most extraordinary thing, and on the other hand, i see a phobia.

i see loyalty oaths for nonjewish citizens of israel. i see it absolutely, i think insane, never mind immoral expulsions from palestinian homes. i see the religious establishment run amuck with antiarab sentiments, and there is some feeling -- you know, i never can tell -- again we're talking generalities. i'm a humanist and don't look at numbers of. i don't look at things and break things down this way, but i see a society as i say it's paradoxical in this way, and it's volatile in this way, and the third point i make is that when one surveys the various realms of israeli life, societies, economics, culture, politics, one sees extraordinary exemplary vitality and

creativity. i'm not one that thinks entrepreneurs are going to save the world like you do, -- [laughter] even if they do save the world, they do a lot of great things. culture, ect., the one realm of israeli life that seems to me to be in a state of complete decadence and dysfunction is the political realm. that worries me enormously. i'm not referring to the electoral system they suffer from, but there's a kind of steady user pages. every long term historical problem is short about in short term political ways. you know, the thing about -- the thing about pro dearn cial thinking, people tend to think prudential thinking is a short term way of thinking. pro dearn cial -- prudential thinking is long term

thinking. what i see more and more is major his cor call questions that -- historical questions that israel has to face. if it is the case that everybody everyone is serious and everyone in the political spectrum agrees, two people, two states and the democratic clock is taking quickly and it's dissac trass, and all if this is known and if it's the case that i believe and always will that the israeli population would by any small approve a referendum on a peace treaty, i look at the political leadership, and i think, well, go. i mean, last night we heard hillary say a way must be found and we must show courage. i think, fine, show it. show it. i worry there is a kind of inbred trifle yalizing -- triviaizing problem.

this anomalous to me because in the other realms of this life, israel seems to me to be exemplary, exciting, ect. ect.. in the political realm, i don't really have an explanation. >> israeli view of the america, you've just been to peoria, and what does america look like to you? >> i'll start with a joke i told everybody. i serve prime minister, once a head with one of his assistant, and he said to him, mr. mr. prime minister, i have bad news. we're going to have a drought this year. he said, what do you mean? immediately? he said for a moment i was really worried. i was afraid we were going to

have a draught in the midwest. [laughter] there is one in washington and it is chicago. back to what we in israel or at least i can talk about myself sense about america. there is a real worry that america is losing its greatness, maybe temporary, maybe it's not so temporary, but the basic, our life, especially the people who are older than others here were saved by a basic admiration to the united states, saving the world twice from extinction, and they saved israel from various

things, and for us, united states is really, done something about israel's prime ministers. every time they realize how dependent they are on the united states. they forget -- they try to complain about the united states, but when they come back, -- they realize, again, with the lying of israel officials who are waiting in order to ask the prime minister to call the secretary of state, to call the secretary of defense to do something because we are, we have the operation or something, small thing. we just had a fire and the first

from the israel prime minister to the united states. you specialize in fires, so if you ask me how united states or how israel should look at the united states, some of them do. we should look in a kind of concern to the united states because of your economic situation, and we hope today that the spending be cut. i believe it's not the major problem israel should face. what is it they should face or what to be concerned with is the reasons why you're going to cut foreign aid. so in one word, remember, the

joke. can he describe russia in one word? good. can you add two words? no good. [laughter] look at the united states, no good. >> interesting, interesting. >> david, what does -- you were in israel this year, and you've heard all this debate going on. what does israel look like? >> it's conflict and community. u.s. a a nation held together by argument. this was made clear in tel-aviv. i was driving, and a bus honked at me. i backed up into the car behind me. the israeli guy is furious, runs past me, up to the bus driver, and he's screaming at the bus driver, and he comes to me and

gives me a hug because we are brothers against the war against bus drivers, and we do paper work, and another bus drives by, and that guy curses and screams at him. [laughter] this argument is personal because israelis don't understand the difference between the personal and the public. the stories i have about that, i'm sure everybody in the room can tell better stories than i, but i had a friend calling directory assistance, and the operator of course says, no, you don't want to eat there. [laughter] i actually wrote about that. my friends tell me a version of that story. in those days you have to use an international operator. nixon makes a position and the israeli operator says you're both wrong. [laughter] so, these arguments are

ferocious, and those of us who have been there see these arguments and snap as one in one direction, and it's like the people are just hurt all of the sudden, and yet, i guess as an observer, i'm left confident that those invisible filaments that create the herd in the time of crisis are as strong as they used to be, and that's evident. if you point to causes of that, it's the income disperty, the social segmentation, political segmentation, and narcissism. the fact that people are proud of their own opinions and less likely to defer to others. these happen to be the same question that others face. i'm less confident that there's a strong triable unity behind all of this. >> you go back and forth and teach harvard later in the

year. what is new, if any, in your perception of where america is today? >> well, i remember it took me a time to understand the united states coming here, and i thought always almost theologically american religion is the biblical religion before the book of job. by that i mean, it's unrealistic. if you have a heart attack, that means you didn't eat right. if you have a cancer, you didn't jog. you take the world, and you take the american constitution, and it is the right courthouse be rewarded and the wrong be weakened. this is why failure here is almost a sin. it's something you are responsible for, so, and i think the ultimate scene of this

country is cynicism. this is why americans do not tolerate cynicism, and it's great etic is trust. trust that you should thank the constitution and the world that it is. it's a good working world. there's no of what ought to be and what is. this is something israelis think is actually naive, but it's a great source of power. what i saw in this great sense of american seat might give the idea that something went wrong. it's a sense of concern not so much the connection. i think -- i think i was very confused in the sense of what it ought to do, and that the moment --

i remember that moment where it became the previous administration that the way to fight the problem and changing the political con -- concept of the arab world by lending them. i told them a friend of mine, and i said look, we both don't know, none of us know whether there really is good willing people, but i'm not him, and i know different places in vermont lem. i can assure you, if you lend fight brigades for two weeks, you're not going to make them vote, so the -- what i sense is there is a big confusion that cost a lot to american power, cost a lot to

american power which would be based on that if you just remove the tyrant and this idea of democratization, that i call baptism by ballot and you're dunked and then are a believer by ballot. i dropped something there that weakened deeply the american power by this trend. it's an idol project. it's like marxist believed it was always there. there is a middle class there, you know, so that, i think also

that's shifted. it's a way to respond to this signature, and yet not clear about where it's going, where it's going. it dropped the idea of transforming the arab world, and i think rightfully. it didn't name its enemy in a serious way. i remember when bush said are we going to fight evil? i said, wow, evil is everywhere. in the bedroom. are you going to engage -- there was -- it was kind of a deep, and i still feel america still dealing well with that moment, then, i

mean, i think the other aspect is a wonderful presentation, and i believe -- but i think we are taking it for granted too much, and i think you made the point a few times. i think israelis are taking it for granted that vital support is being taken for granted in a way that it's becoming dangerous. we have managed in, i would say in the last year to make our major political issue said, now

this is something we can't explain to anyone, to americans, europeans, to ourselves, so if our government would say, look, our real interest is, i don't know, having certain security, but the way we were kind of dropped into this, this is extremely harmful, and truly harmful for our standing here and in the world. i have two worries. it is what they call for all of us in the sense that i would say as a jew that this sense to this place. it's knot a nation state. i have to worries.

first of all, for america to regain orientation to the world. these are the 9/11 issue. they are still not yet clear, and second, for us to understand that that type of kind of secured place that is so vital for us, it's something we have to nourish. it's not something that can be taken for granted. it's too precious to play with. we have been a little bit too, too glib about it and thinking that we can somehow work out the problem. i was talking about the israeli students to tell you everything. in israel, nobody reads and everybody talks.

[laughter] in america everybody reads, and nobody talks. [laughter] that's a big, you know, as a teacher, that is something you see as a teacher, the big cultural thing here. we are reasonably the americans as the greatest ally. we count too much on this kind of resourcefulness, that we kind of outsmart the system somehow if we don't get along with the president and go through cock and all of that -- congress and all of that. there is a moment where the basic foundation of the attachment is questioned. if we play with it too much. >> well, i was just thinking because anne and i drove in by the national christmas tree, but if you were here a week ago, there was a giant my minora in that spot. a great power would have a view

of the minor ray in the view of the president. that's an amazing thing that we can sometimes take for granted. to pick up on anything you want, but you alluded to something. what's going on within the orthodox movement in israel with what seems to a lot of people some very disturbing wasted expressions? >> oh, well, that's an ugly subject. i wanted to first to i just wanted to develop on something that was said. when you talk about the american, about so-called american naive trust and the most perfect example i know of what you're describing is just across the street from here in the supreme court. there is a famous old portrait of john marshall