>> one magma at it will give obama a chance to go out there to get together and everything we have accomplished so far. i don't think it is bad. everybody needs to be humble. that was a the best things ever happened to his career it taught politicians who he is as a president but chicago is a place where he has some juice. i was at a rally at the saturday before the election when he asked chicago to

have his back and black community leaders responded. are in the south side the last numbers were awesome the last midterm election it was between 91 and 94% were voting democrats. >> i like to echo the sentiment that i respect tremendously when i was maybe a junior in college and he asked new-line was doing and from that point*, various structures and i think he has provided an example how can operate and we should just knowledge that going forward.

regarding the elections in the results of the midterm elections, that is a good point*. you mentioned over 90 percent approval rating and the 37% approval rating for the rest of americans. of one -- to get health care legislation aligned as a communist plot and people began showing up at town halls with weapons that summer that conjures very

powerful images for african-americans and almost since the mechanism kick din became very difficult to examine barack obama with oral questions. when i was in cairo three weeks ago, not national but international movement the other gentleman told me that the explicit language about his contempt for the george of the bush that i pity your current president and he said if you want to do good things but they won't let us. they being the republicans or white americans or whoever but this is seen as obama who was to get the guy to get something done and

aligned with said darth trader forces with the republican party who will not let him medicis that. also the question being, it is attributable to race, part of this is but also another part is not. if you look at those wounded six right the far extreme but the glenn beck people and so on and check the wane in some ways the john birch society's and those of 1930's and to tell everyone that franklin roosevelt was a communist and also goldwater republican but i think all those things combined then the active

ingredient the idea this person was not really american with the racial background and the upbringing. >> i want to say one more thing about white voters. especially the blue-collar far the biggest swing voters to have in the country especially in the midwest. having problems utter deeper than any politician can solve but we continually fire the politicians who cannot solve them. they lost four seats in illinois, four seats in ohio, five seats pennsylvania part of this is a very followed-- volatile swing electorate they will go against whoever is an office and it happened to be obama's this time. >> taka battle, losing the independence, that is a loaded statement because there are a lot of people who are independent.

technically i am independent and promptly went back to being independent. 98% of the time independence vote for democrats but but i think it is taking black people for granted i never want to be on a roll to be counted as someone's corner and there is a much narrower slight and those are independent then they vote for the libertarian candidate or whoever is that you find interesting. >> polling shows that somebody who'd did that this year because the rent was two dm hi. [laughter] i voted for the republican who would take obama's cdn one of the reasons is because he and the tea party

are very antagonistic and i thought there should be 19 crazy republican in the freshman class. [laughter] >> i am not trying to pick on you but do you think it is a relevant? was that intentional that you did not answer the question? tammet i tried to address the question of race when i talk about the white and blue collar swing voters. i don't think it was pacific because obama was black mayor just a hard sell and there is a constituency that will try to balance things out and this is part of the electorate that see in the economic power declined. and there is more that may be latinos and african-americans are.

there is not a racial bloc but i just don't think they were specifically reacting to the fact obama is the african-american. >> this is not on my eight list of questions but i you join the conversation. i struggle with analyzing the idea. we know obama clearly once of the white voters who it is hard to say the approval rating is only attributable to the fact he is black when it at the who voted for him but this is one of the few times in the last year i have agreed with what michael phelps said that he was asked to apologize but when he said similar that there is less room for mistake when you are a black person.

and then i feel he was speaking of himself but i think there is truth in that. i am curious and regardless with your a woman i there is truth in that and the curious to what your thoughts are on that? >> i agree. but there is another dynamic at that the wound is partly self inflicted. so frequently looking etfs looking at the handful of people over the last decade of the 20 years and that is akin to the gilded age a late 19th century where you get amazing amounts of wealth and power in the hands of a small number of people.

and steel conglomerate said and out of that came the american labor movement and the movement of the antitrust so there should not be that much power concentrated in the hands of a few people. cut out the crazy element, the tea party, the racial element, there is less breathing room. what you find there is too much chance in the power of individuals that when barack obama was campaigning very astutely but then people invested a great deal of

faith and those forces remain by and large unchallenged. with his stick of tim geithner and hard enough with the banks, those dynamics apartheid maybe leaving less room as the african-american but it is hard to ferret out what the active ingredient in this mix but i think that is part of it. who so i can tell you the hearing from people in bars, his mom was white, growing up in a white family we can trust him than a few months ago this i

italian american and barber shop in buffalo i heard somebody use the n word and it took a minute to click because my first experience of obama's saying he was not black enough. they'll like how he is doing so that is the word they used to describe him. >> there were comedians said joked about that he is by ratio now then wait until he messes up then he will be black. [laughter] it took a few minutes for that so now on to the books, doctor, . [laughter] i thought one of the most interesting observations in your book is the fact that blacks is directly have done better in states and districts where there are less black voters.

>> as interesting as this one barack obama one and iowa if they had this hallelujah moment whinney in a state with 4 percent black population and of course, he would win with 4 percent population but the white voters in mississippi would not get within a cotton field of a black candidate >> 36% black population and it has the highest percentage of african-americans. if we look at the white flight the tipping point* when it -- dynamic you have one black family moved into the neighborhood and then what is this they get out? [laughter] that is the dynamic that we saw there. it is easier to win in those environments of the test is

when he runs in places with a larger black population with competition for forces there is not a significant amount of poor black people and iowa this is not the entrenched animus towards people who buy and large are invisible so when jesse jackson ran in 1988 he won the. by and large the same people that was one of the dynamics >> the other thing i found interesting with full disclosure they both know i did not finished their books but i was very engrossed and i made it halfway thought there both of those then scammed pertinent points towards the and then this is one of the rare times i can honestly say i am looking forward to finishing there's.

that is not always the case but being a political jockey they provide lenses there which he has not been examined before. one of the things both of your buck -- books had in common but there is even so much about the complicated relationship of white america and also with the complicated history of black america it is more superficial there is a real history there so i have noticed dr. cobb has experienced this but when you are a minority or a woman or statistically the majority but in terms of power, minority, you are undoubtedly compared to other minorities

particularly in your field for i have probably been on television a hundred times i either get confused with another black woman on television or they say i prefer you to fill in the blank and it was another black woman. okay you put me in the same category as james carville? when they you did a great job is complicated relationship with the men he has been compared to so to start by asking edward, you wrote about the deceit. can you talk about that and also his relationship today? >> when i was elected the first time i encountered obama december 1999 a staff writer for the chicago reader and my editor who is

now in new york who i saw last night set me down to the sell side and he just lost the race against mayor daley. >> so just a little background? >> bobby rush the congressman from the first district and this is the district has a but congressmen longer than any other district in the united states. and bobby ration the '60s from the illinois black panther party. he was not there when the police raided the way it -- west side home to kill march and 10 but rash went on to get into politics and became an aldermen and a congressmen. 1999 ran against mayor daley and for many years of it is

just racially polarized for which may happen again next year but that is another story. people thought rush was will marvell and he was a young state senator and pretty impatient and not able to get anything done and eager to move up so he decided he would challenge have bobby rush against the advice of all of his colleagues. i asked my editor like to ask me to cover this story? are editorialist told us everybody on the sell side was calling him barack your mama. [laughter] and in that election it turns out that-- thought he was not a black chicago into not belong on the sell side and was a tool of the whites

at the university of chicago there was the obama project masterminded by big university of chicago e the to push him up the ladder and it has a bad reputation with the black nationalist community behind it the issue is behind your renewal in the '50s and '60s that pushed a lot of blacks away from hyde park. donny trotter was in the racing gave me the quote i still see everywhere that obama is the white man with black face in our community. , really didn't do anything to dispel that. he was a stiff professorial candidate and was not inspiring performance see him in rooms with a dozen people and nobody got excited the way you see now. i remember asking him why should you be the

congressmen? you are not a native of the sell side and he said something to the fact someone like me, i was president of harvard law review and i could be doing other things or add a wall street law firm or back in hawaii so that proves i am committed to chicago i have to want to be here which is incredibly arrogant thing to say. he could not connect to the black community in the same my i saw bobby rash speak in he made a speech like the internet was like the bible because taking knowledge out that exclusively belonged to the lead see and gave it to everybody. rush to beat obama pretty badly 61%/30% and one obama decided to run for the senate, bob rash supported one of the white rivals a guide named player who was a

millionaire and have enough money to give his half-brother $12,000 per month job of the payroll and it was out of spite and he has admitted that it was out of smallness and he did not support obama in that election and as soon as obama one, he got behind him and was a big supporter of him to this day. >> dr. cobb, when you say in terms of the obama presidential campaign coming to see jackson could not decide if he wanted to be the madonna of the campaign year talking about the greek tragic heroine. [laughter] can you explain what you meant by that? >> did he want to be the madonna who gave birth to

this miraculously creation of the one who kills their own offspring? but then through 2008 and part of 2007, one of the things when he made the unconscionable statement he made on fox news we have good genitalia of a future president threatened. [laughter] by some of his stature. i thought there had to be something deeper. and it was not a hard to understand. 2008 and the relentless

barrage of media coverage, we see almost nothing about jesse jackson and the fact with his 88 campaign really open the door for barack obama presidential campaign. i don't mean that symbolic terms. and it is an amazing person with someone to read at howard university ron walters. >> he also worked closely with the jackson campaign. >> this is where was going. a chief strategist for the 88 campaign, i called him and asked him and when we see that complicated mask in when mispricing gets this

money are that many, that is one of the main things jesse jackson sought in the 2008 campaign to have a delicate system and did you have in mind to help pay by a presidential candidate? and no. we did not even dream of that. but we did believe it would help it would help more people's color to become delegates and thereby influence the direction of the national party. with the campaign's five of the people running for president anyone changes base this guy july have been bashing for the last six months just shy of being christlike and you get things in exchange for that. and what he wanted to among other things was a proportional system and not

for that proportional system they cleaned obama's clock and basically when we saw it was day wash and hillary clinton won the big states and cancel each other out then obama 1311 consecutive primaries and cost after that in february not for what jesse did in 88 bit he felt a particular way that nobody would acknowledge and was reduced to pitching himself which never should have happened. >> is that the media? >> i think it is. jesse jackson they make this story line that jesse jackson was making a racial. [laughter]

so with 2007 and 2008 it was the important story. i was part of the process and it came out in a particular way nobody would endorse but that was not the important aspect of the obama's story line. >> quickly how dr. cogs title came to be where he says obama was selling people on help but jackson said help is one thing and substance is another. jackson was an inspiration going back through 84 he saw him on stage with gary hart, walter mondale and began to think maybe this is something i could do to get into politics. one of the reasons he ran for president, a jackson took his place there is a

famous picture on election night jackson was trying to go through washington darman he is trying to force it back down. [laughter] >> a picture is worth 1,000 words. >> and after obama loses that campaign you have to learn to give a speech so he started to go to the rainbow push meetings and the jackson still a lot to give him streak read all over the sell side during the election and billboards of jesse jackson, jr. standing next to barack obama. >> also was also the national chair of the obama campaign which made thanksgiving very interesting in the household after those comments. [laughter] >> one of the things that was interesting was that's the way obama blackness came to be. never thought nationally african americans have the

blacklist tests that was alleged in the media. no other reason than we saw a number of candidates in the 2006 election that blackness was not a question but few trounced michael steele being one of them. also -- . >> that was better than most republicans. >> but less of the vote them the way to rival. so they saw it was no question of michael steele were he not to open his mouth people would not question the blackness at all but when swann was trounced in pennsylvania then in ohio these are americans who did not perceive the maturity of the black vote. not a question of lineage four epidermal affiliation but more complicated than that.

but in south carolina people had to deploy michelle obama for those who have heard his name and did not know that he was black. but with the primary, they took to putting his picture up as opposed to the sign that they had been people who would see him and his harvard background in the next question is who is he married to? than they put the picture of him and michelle together. [laughter] and the fact if he was unknown michelle robinson was known and a lot of african-americans knew her.

>> yes we do. >> and we say always joking that they have the ambivalent relationship to barack obama because the others could think they to be president. [laughter] but that was part of it this area it hundred -- introduce us to the black and will. >> but in the primary they had a quote from al sharpton who said something iran into michelle and she cornered me, i guess he had not announced to he was supporting and said i know that he could use a little bit more of her. [laughter] >> the same senator whose ass he threatened to kick on the state senate floor and was a tormentor for years said you figure out what call a war if he were white

or black in he was very reluctant to support obama. the state senate president who was also african-american brought him in several times. what is your problem? he said michelle finally convinced him don't worry about him. i have got him. and he said hearing that from a black woman, that was good enough for me. [laughter] >> but to piggyback on something we talked about a couple minutes ago mentioning the word post ratio, it comes up in your book and word and i will admit my bias i find it grading the use of the term post racial and i know obama thought they were ready for change opposed racial politician it also comes up in the title of your apologue. do you both believe we're in

a post racial time? i don't. so that is my bias that is out there. >> i meant by that, one thing obama found out in 2008 as a politician he was not meant to be the representative of one particular race for even at that time i thought he would be a better candidate for the senate because of a suburban whites would be feeling comfortable with the background of a white family and sells a cider sought after the debacle that is the best we can do. maybe transracial may have been a better word. >> one of the things that was most grating to me about the post racial story line was i pointed out to people that the 15th amendment

that gave african-american men to vote in 1870. between 1870 and 2004 african americans have been voting for candidates said to look like us for at least 134 years then won election in 2008, part of the white population voted for someone in a different race than it was like a hallelujah we are beyond race. if we had been waiting to vote for somebody that look like us we would have set out for over a century i think it was condescending in a way. also inaccurate. >> as we are seeing. >> the best deals of the civil-rights movement are african-americans who are interested in representing

causes and issues and not necessarily being quarantined in a particular identity are sets of causes. so to say this means your not opposed racial it is condescending. >> that senate race in 2004 that was the first in american history with two black candidates. i was taking from a columnist one they talked about this in which race was not one of the issues. >> alan keyes tried to claim he was more african-american and an obama but nobody was on him at all during that election. >> also oppose crazy. >> -- post crazy.

[laughter] >> i think he hopes he could debate with alan keyes and take a look like this stage candidate. we will open for questions but i want to ask another because i thought this was interesting and to do a great job of painting a portrait you don't hear too much about that with so much focus with obama's the or raider and rock star but you talk about the legislator very eloquently and his work helping people on welfare that we don't think of automatically. sowed you think the image of obama so with that national per sonat? >> those parts are just not as interesting or exciting to write about as the campaign but necessary. there were these ballets in my book how after the 1996

republican welfare reform how he tried to craft a compromise in which the back-to-school while receiving welfare. that is how he has the anti-racial profiling bill passed and that was another. >> the last question is dr. kabi wrote that before ameritech could change and what did you mean? >> i was trying to tie him to the six changes that were happening incrementally yen some ways in the huge moments prior to his election for him to stand up to say the candidates hoping to represents united states that would have been a futile ambition is not for

her lots of things that happened prior to that. and then people began to understand and look at the campaign and it is hard to recall two years later but it was almost a spiritual dimension talking to older people and they would point* out these things and then talk symmetry about accepting the nomination on the 45th anniversary of the dream speech and of it coming 20 years after jesse's campaign and 40 years after dr. king's assassination and peoples of these strong ties and that is what i was trying to get out. >> one thing i learned with research is the number one cause of his political career is expanding access to health care.

with every session of the illinois general assembly instituting a constitutional amendment to guarantee health care to everybody in illinois and the last term when he was in the majority majority, he passed a bill to started task force to find out how can we move toward universal health care? also another bill that had 20,000 children to the public health care role in illinois. as he worked on the health care reform bill i found that resonated all the way through his career. >> in that will end up in the g.o.p. attack ad. [laughter] >> to make sure a body can go to the doctor. >> one quick thing now i

taught in moscow last semester. i am in moscow teaching on the fulbright african-american history. lot of questions as you can imagine about barack obama come up. then at one point this did it comes up very delicately to say is it true in america they call barack obama at a communist? i said yes. she was perplexed and then said i think perhaps they don't understand communism. [laughter] is saying i think you are right. [laughter] and in moscow reno communism

and he is not one. [laughter] >> a perfect way to end. we have microphones over here i had a whole speech prepared about regulating but we have a pretty intimate crowd we do not have to regulate to tie do not do a soliloquy or monologue. any questions? nobody has a question? >> i will call on people. i am a professor. >> i am a reporter i will ask you questions. [laughter] >> there is a microphone because they are recording. >> and based on what you saw

out of the obama as a young man and upcoming legislature talk about the need, what do you think his past indicates what we will see over the next couple years? >> did everybody hear that? >> i think we will see a president who wants to cooperate with the opposition more than he wants to cooperate with him and he learned to work with republicans while in illinois. been then with a state senator whose nickname was electric ed.

[laughter] so i think he will look like the levelheaded guy and he always looks like ll levelheaded guy and and even as the republicans will look this is where his coolness well what good budget and will be criticized but compared to the republicans say no compromise we will make you a to term president you look reasonable. >> if i could piggyback, what is interesting is obama gave an interview to "rolling stone" saying he had gone to propose a number of compromises and route to the

meeting they saw a press release saying the republicans would vote as a bloc against it. and i think one of the things that will probably play itself out in the next two years is ramping at the expectations for this particular part of the republican party now has the unsavory job of trying to pacify the group and they can't. so they will strengthen obama's hand. >> two questions. the word air against which we have heard quite a bit the last several weeks and i never thought since he has been elected but and the

tangent and black politics is there a vision for that? >> see what i've read about obama's arrogance? [laughter] >> definitely after losing the he became her again it or hide that arrogance. he has his chin up in the air and look like no patience with the senator that was debated him and the guy who was most respected and told me at that time thought barack is a smart guy but does not have a lot of success because he puts himself above other people

and once people to know he went to harvard. early in his career he thought all he had to do was to say i was the first black president of harvard law review and get anything he wanted and up to a certain point* that was the case. that is how he got his job, but contract thomas support to run for the state senate. and running for congress push that as far as he could. and then working on his colleagues and working with people he considered intellectual interiors and having a student who was very gifted is to your benefit to be the smartest% in the room but never to your benefit to say i am the smartest person here. [laughter] but regarding jesse jackson

i don't think there is a big place on the public stage and unfortunately the times have passed and i don't think it had to play itself out that way and it is even worse to me around to read it. so to be in that enviable position, one of the things that happened in 2008 is he blew his big opportunity to become the king maker hoping it is not too disrespectful reminding me of the 38 year-old boxer who has since the future of bay trainer

trying to get a title shot. a and i think that sums up. that historians looking at the long view, a jackson is responsible for much more change in the typically give him credit for and even if it takes a while people will recognize his influence and in many of those zero in a clinton the administration where place or handpicked to me there and ron brown but not to mention not to mention don wilder on the coattails of a 88 presidential run. also with the black electorate down the line people will talk about both

things and unfortunate things about him. >> i did not know we had another question but i will piggyback and dr. cobb knows i have a book that came out called party crashing specifically about generational differences between the hip-hop generation and one of the questions which a the following people most represents you or speaks for you? overwhelmingly the answer was no, by 70% for sharpton and a jackson and that is among the more controversial comments and debating where you say the photos from election night of jesse jackson and crying and weeping and wondering why was he crying and what was the motivation? it did you decide? >> i would like to be larger and think he was moved by

having then someone who saw dr. king on that balcony and saw barack obama give the speech and he and in the young maybe the only ones that could say he was there physically in both places. i read like to think he was crying. >> very diplomatic. >> it was talked about the rationalization about obama and a charismatic everything the other thing he is known for as a charismatic leader is his generational appeal and i am interested to hear the commentary on how that played out the most recent elections and how you think that will play out in the future if he could continue

to hold that place as the charismatic leader who holds from my generation and? >> one reason he appealed to me so much that he did not come of age in the '60s. i was asking where we doing in vietnam? party the party fighting the 60s that is not relevant i was not born until 1967 so i thought obama's the guy who could turn the page and hillary clinton would just keep it going. >> guy read a lot about this group of voters for my job and one of the things that i said and what i still believe one of the biggest problems of the midterm whose names was on the ballot was barack obama role

district seven districts to could not run far enough away how the favorability rating was hurting said candidacy but the second biggest problem is barack obama's name was on the of ballot because natalie black voters but young voters who would vote for him and i have been saying since the 2008 election the biggest mistake they could treat those bloc of voters like democratic voters as opposed to the reagan democrat blue-collar voters who are essentials a swing voters who may stay home if they don't care for the candidates and the democrats made a mistake and realize this late in the game that they made an error and a look at the voting rolls and assume we have hundreds of thousands of new voters who

were not party voters but obama bourse -- specific that will be part of the story and we see how much that turns out to be in 2012 because it has been hit very bad day worse than older voters but seven years ahead as somebody from college and what difference hasn't made with my job prospects? at least a have those few jobs to get the interview for the next one. and turns and never got the first job are really having a tough time. they voted when they were in college volunteering in the question will be no when they are the 23 year-old taxpayer, how do they feel? i think that is a question that is up in the air. >> that is an important point* and one of the other

things the maybe we said this before the bears repeating, the campaign the administration has done a terrible job talking about what they have done and the reforms with student loans that should be something they pushed we have not not -- with reform one of my good friends is an activist who is involved with anti-hiv organization in brooklyn and they were ecstatic when the administration brought together activists people in the community from government which the hiv strategy that the country has never had before. raise your hand if you knew that.

you would not have known that generally. but it was a roomful of a chevy activist. that was one of the things. also organizing for america has been curiously ineffective compared to what organizing we have seen on the right. and then organizing efforts at war resulting the coalition remaining vibrant and active. >> but as i was mentioning earlier than misunderstanding of voters to ms. identify them because there was the assumption getting the emails written by those who were never in the generation they were writing about.

when voting on health care that every voter who voted for obama voted for universal health care. they have a variety of reasons and that was a mistake on the part of the dnc to assume every voter was on board for every policy they tried to push. >> did he thing a 120 thank you for the interesting panel. and observation and a question of. there has been a lot of analysis by comparison with bobby rush or jesse jackson still looking at progress thinking it is reversible. and in view of the midterm elections, how would you know, compare barack obama is chances to the successes

jimmy carter had when he was thinking of reelection and seeking office again? >> obama will never be as exciting as he was in 2008. that was the romance and this is the marriage. and is that all they need to put him back out on the campaign trail and they're completely wrong and there are people love voted for obama now they graduate and don't have a job. thinking now was hoping for a job and change things there were no better than