manifested itself through the politics? the last year has been a relentless plush against the idea of the public. is that because it is a question end of organization? i feel like it is easy for someone to say they are just college students but if they were late 20 somethings organizing for better wages or better jobs? . .

20 minutes.ipated. >> ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats and direct your attention to our screens for a special presentation. [inaudible conversations] [cheers and applause] >> since capturing a strong majority in 2010, republican governors have already transformed the nation's

politics. they've provided a clear contrast between republican executive leadership and barack obama. lower taxes. balanced budgets. >> we can create an environment in ohio where we can create jobs rather than listing them. >> a laser like focus on jobs on one hand. >> versus higher taxes, record deficits and uncertainty and indecision on the other. but in 2012, the republican governors association's impact will grow even larger. republicans love a governor or election for governor in all but one of 2012 critical swing states. in the rga will be on offense in aid of the 11 states holding governors races next year. of those 11 states with governors races next year, nine

of them will also be holding a u.s. senate race. given the strong correlation between a lack in a republican governor and picking up a u.s. senate seat, it won't only be democrat governor candidates who fear the rga investing in their states. >> 89 times taxpayers expense. >> quickly from the states, no organization is a greater influence on our nation's politics than the republican governors association. >> your state capitol, republican governors say the effort to cut government spending and keep taxes low and get our economy back on track by making our state more competitive. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome governor haley barbour. [applause] >> good afternoon, y'all.

good afternoon and welcome to our first recession, where we are going to talk about politics of all things. and i am joined by two great professionals in politics business, make lutz, maybe the best known focus group cannot tear since mozart or some kind of conductor. and glen bolger has done tremendous work for rga and glenn's public opinion strategies one of those premier public polling firms. want to say thanks for the work you've done, including what he presented to us this morning. and then maybe tell us a little something about politics. bobby jindal was held at 66% of the vote in his reelection campaign. you may think 66, the other guy

got 34. actually the person who finished second finish 48 points behind bobby. so i think you're going to enjoy hearing from each one of them. and i'm not going to let them have an opening statement. we are going to straight out and regular discussion. i'll just start off with you, glenn, because of the survey did this morning. the 2010 election was the biggest repudiation of the president's policy in a midterm election perhaps in american history. the election is almost exclusively about jobs, the economy, taxes, spending, deficit, dad. what about the 2012 election? >> well, those are the same reason issues along with health care, obamacare to that coming to your list of issues. and look, and this is a situation where the price against approval rating, when they get reelected, presidents have an approval late in the

mid-50s. when they lose its around 40% on average. this president's approval rating is 43% right now. and when you look at measures like consumer confidence, for example, he's right at the level where jimmy carter was at this point in november of 1979 from our consumer confidence is. he also by the way where ronald reagan was in 1983 at this point, obama is 25 points lower than where reagan was. so he's got real problems with the economy and how people feel about him overall. one of his drinks though as he is a rocksolid base. the african american voters are strongly behind him. he does well with hispanics and other minorities as well. so demographically, that is his best hope of getting reelect bid from the political environment standpoint. he is running in to head with emily to a jimmy carter had in

1980. >> and obama run for reelection on his record and went quiet >> on his record, but he can run and attributes. >> one of the things i've been going on for the last couple years as a political people to move away from traditional issues of budget, taxes for governors, education, transportation and focus on the attributes, and accountability, personal responsibility. i give you an example. two examples in terms of language. if the fight is over the middle class, which is still an attribute, not really an issue, democrats are going to win. they spent the last 30 years fighting over the middle class to try to demonstrate that they represent them and they have an edge and with what's happening in our economy with wall street they could win on that one. they cannot win if the site of some hard-working taxpayers. we can say we dend