in. finally, president lincoln said could it be that the civil war was the judgment of god? that every drop of blood that was drawn by the masters what -- whip would be repaid on the field of battle. we've come to the insane place where we have killed over 52 million of our children by abortion. that blood is crying out to god for judgment. we will never restore the greatness of this nation as long as we are killing our own offspring. terryfor- fgo to president.com. if you would like to see some of my television ads, go to my website. >> mr. wolfe? >> i am an attorney from chattanooga, tennessee.

thank you for all the graciousness of your invitation. i would like to say i do not think we are a socialist country. you have one-fifth of the people that own 94% of the financial assets. the top 1% may 24% of the income. i do not think that is proof of socialism. i am in this race because there is a progressive avoid laughter d left here by president obama. president obama is a democrat, but president obama has lost the promise of the democratic party. he has basically sided with wall street from the day he has been in office. most of its funding comes from wall street. he surrounds himself with people like ge. -- erskine bowles and jeffrey immelt. he has people around that like him and they have a lot of influence on the oval office. the finance his campaigns.

the outcome of that, the product of all this, it is an administration that has policies that are very favorable to wall street. but not to main street. president obama opposes a 1% tax on the wall street derivatives. especially the instruments that got us into trouble in the first place. president obama has not tried to stop that. we need a progressive who is going to get in there and fill the void. did the things the president has failed to do. that is the breach i want to fill. i hope to answer your questions tonight. >> thank you. that concludes at the opening statements. we will now go to our panelists.

45 seconds. the first question -- the clock is right over here. thank you. the first question is to mr. wolfe. >> thank you for your opening statement. he wrote all logic that new hampshire the first in the nation so i wouldn't have recommend you keep to his limit. following onto your opening statement, i think everyone agrees we have a really serious deficit problem in the united states. you have identified that as one of your big issues.

it appears that we can also agree that nothing seems to be getting down to address it. what specifically would you do to get our debts under control? >> the deficit is at $15 trillion right now. if you cut government spending, you would just heighten the recession. right now, we do not have the fear of inflation. i propose a $1 trillion stimulus. with an alternative federal reserve. it will not create inflation. it will go to small businesses. that is the way we need to handle this. we need to get people back to work. we cannot do that by contracting the economy. you are just going to -- with

an alternative federal reserve, you can give money directly to these local people. we can get america back to work. we cannot do it through an austerity program. it is wrong, and it is counterintuitive. >> thank you. the next question is for dr. greene. >> you talk about thorium as being a solution for the nation's energy problem. how do you get it? what impact does it have on the environment? >> you did it by mining, of course. it just so happens that it is a byproduct of uranium mining. you can start by mining already sunk mines. that is one way. you can also try the coal ash pits.

it is so abundant, it is actually in your garden. we have large concentrations of lead in the west. >> how do you use this to get energy? >> it is not radioactive. you have to put it into a reactor were you bombarded with neutrons. that is when you start to release the energy. >> the next question is for mr. terry. >> i have a two-part question. do you believe in states' rights? new hampshire is one of the six states that has recognized a marriage. -- gay marriage. do you believe the state's rights should control on this issue? do you believe there should be a national law mandating what each state should do?

>> the founders gave us the 10th amendment to keep the federal government for micromanaging the vast majority of details. however, it could never have conceived of a moment in which we would become so debauched that we would elevate homosexual marriage or civil unions to the level of marriage. did the states have right to have laws that protect slaveholders? the answer is no. there are some things that are fundamentally evil, like slavery. there is no state right to own another human being. there is no state right to kill your offspring. there is no state right to of homosexual marriage. it is a deal breaker. >> the next question is for --

mr. cowen. >> the government -- in the political debate, there has been a lot of discussion about wealth disparities and about the wealthy having more money and lower and middle class is shrinking. can you tell me what you would do as president to reduce that disparity? >> i think we need to alter the tax rates so that it goes after some of the money at the top. it lightens the load of the middle class and the lower classes. i had some experience working graveyard shift on the minimum wage.

you cannot begin to live on what poor people are making. there is tremendous disparity and it needs to change. it is certainly not christian. thank you. >> next question is for mr. haywood. >> i saw a recent full-page ad that your campaign took out. he criticized president obama for his on warranted, in your opinion, extension of the bush tax cuts. stating that president obama was eighth weekend and principled leader and calling for him to step aside so that you could be elected president and and the great recession. could you elaborate on how you do that? >> going back to the johnson-

kennedy tax plan. that was fair. it -- you have to redistribute the income. thank you. >> let's go to -- why don't you take a drink? i will come back to you. we will come back to you, is that all right? >> let's move on. the next question will be from mr. o'donnell. >> in your opening statement, you said there should be no guns. are you saying that all guns in the united states should be made illegal? >> including for hunting. in england, australia, japan, no one has a gun.

we had 30,000 or 40,000 wounded. there is no need for guns. >> how many of you folks believe the second amendment should give us the freedom to bear arms? anybody else? >> what is your question? >> guns? >> of course. >> let's try one more time. mr. haywood? >> i have answered the question by stating for the reasons why i think we should go back to the kennedy-johnson tax. it provides the end, -- the

income for the government. president obama has proposed replacing a lot of our infrastructure, but he does not have the money to deal with. that is all on my website. >> the final question goes to vernin supreme. >> welcome back. >> this is not your first rodeo. this is not the first time you have run for president in the new hampshire primary. i am asking you, do you still

stand by your pledge made in 2008 to provide a pony for every american? >> yes, i do. pre honey's for all americans. -- free ponies for all americans. my platform is a jobs creation program. we can turn their poop into methane gas. will be able to restock our soil. the important thing to realize is it is a federal pony identification program. you will need it with you at all times. thank you very much. >> that is our first round of questions. how many of you on the stage

tonight will support -- i have heard more variations with democrats than republicans -- how many of you will support president obama if he is the nominee of your party? it appears he will be. two of you? three of you? the rest of you will look for republicans -- what? >> undecided. >> anyone else? >> i am going to by myself in. i am the best candidate. -- i am going to write myself in. >> i will be writing and that randall terry as well. >> all right, looks like we may have found some running mates tonight. let's begin back with the second round of questioning. >> mr. o'donnell, and i understand that charitable

giving is very important to you. what, as president, would you do to help those on the bottom? >> every church, every synagogue, every mosque, every temple -- it's a coordinated, every homeless person could sleep inside every night with a nice matches, nice blanket, food, love, friendliness -- if they coordinated. the gwen is pennsylvania quaker meeting had six homeless people living in their meeting. that can be done nationwide. the greatest thrill in the world is to help a homeless person, a prisoner, turn their life around. >> the next question will come from the ambassador shumaker. >> good evening. this debate is taking place on a college campus.

because of the loss of equity in many americans' homes, loss of employment, and the ability of both parents and students to get loans, it is becoming harder and harder for students to attend colleges such as this. there is a serious threat that pell grants and other governmental funding will cut even more availability of funds for tuition. what are your solutions for this serious crisis? >> there is no question that universities and colleges in america are expensive. there are plenty in america, and that is one of the assets we have. i would like to see us lower tuition whenever possible. we need means of pumping money into education.

one way -- i totally agree we need to a absorb the federal reserve into the treasury department. it is a collection of banks, basically. we need for the federal reserve to be absorbent to the treasury department -- absorbed into the treasury department and have a lot more money available to colleges for tuition.

on we talk about raising we need to dump more money into colleges that we needed a progressive income tax people, we are going broke. this is a debt that will crush or children. it will never be paid back and this nonsense of taking moneys from the ridges based on jealousy and greed. god only says 10% across the board. so, these green regulations thae people are pushing from the green movement are going to cripple us even further us economically.ally. is welcoming the jobs and the money. -- china is welcoming the jobs and the money. how many jobs must we lose because we are bowing down to snails and polar bears? >> this question was submitted by a student.

as you know, because you live in new england, it is a very cold up here in the winter. our region is heavily dependent on heating oil. if elected, what would be your position on the drastic cuts to the heating assistance program that helps poor people keep their families warm in the winter. would you support those? >> i do not support those cuts. there is a lack of imagination in our fund raising ability. i would apply to 0.4 trillion dollars worth of new revenue that i could generate through three separate programs. they would be barely felt by

the populace. i would go to a royalty system on patents. i would go to tariffs and i would go to a different way of calculating corporate income taxes. new level of lots of zombies and we will dingell brains in front of them and they will turn the giant turbines creating energy>i

to lessen dependence on foreign. oil in america today. thank you.. >> thank you. the next energy production, i favor harnessing weave ygen power of zo questione working on, and we will have lots of zombies and just dangle brains in front of them, and they will turn the giant turbines, creating energy, to lessen dependence on foreign oil in america today. >> president obama has been in office for over three years now. opinion, and what would you have done differently as president? i would ask you to respond on some issue other than the tax piece you have already talked about. his biggest missed opportunity. >> to lead us into a national health service. >> could you elaborate please? >> insurance schemes, whether they be medicaid, medicare, united health, blue cross -- you name it. they are not the answer. they are the problem.

so inefficiently run systems. we could save 42% -- the british system runs at 42% what we are paying. that will save this country $1 trillion a year. it is being paid as a regressive tax. insurance premium is not technically a government tax, but it is still a tax. it is something you have to pay for what you have to have. >> thank you. final question in this round is for mr. wolfe. >> as you may or may not be aware, one well-known new hampshire resident walked across the united states in her elder years to draw awareness to campaign finance reform.

do you feel there is more that needs to be done to rein in the amount of money being spent in national politics? >> the only thing we can do now, given the supreme court decision in january 2010 -- i think it was called citizens united -- we are going to have to go ahead and probably get a constitutional amendment, which redefines what first amendment rights are and excludes corporations. that is the only way we can do it under the present law. i would be in favor of that. it is hard to put a harness on

free speech wherever it comes from, but the amount of money that the people -- the corporate people, the fortune 500 people can spend every year -- it is now unlimited. they did not have to report it. it can come from any source. it will have a terrible and deleterious effect on law making, and it has already been seen. they can intimidate people who are progressive. people have to marshal that tune. they know if they do not marshal the corporate tenant, they will be inundated in money spent by their opponents to just swamp them. we probably need to go ahead and get a constitutional amendment. >> we are short on time for another round. what we're going to do is give each of you a 30-second close. not enough time for another round, but enough time to give each of you a 30-second closing statement. i will start randomly. we will begin with mr. green. you have 30 seconds for a closing statement, sir. >> thank you. i feel that i bring a totally different perspective, due to my background in physics. physics teaches you to do -- think widely and broadly and deeply, so i would recommend that as one of my qualifications. i think we need to send a message to the politicians that they have to talk seriously about energy. they are not doing that today. and if they have any discussion

that does not include the word thorium, you have not heard a serious energy discussion. also, the national labs have not served president obama well in this regard. >> thank you, sir. >> at the core of the cancer that is destroying america and the world, we find the banks sucking down the vitality of modern civilization, and it has to stop. finally, i would say to conservatives, jesus christ was a liberal, not a conservative or reactionary roman who loved killing machines and voracious capitalism. jesus christ was about love. >> thank you, sir. mr. wolfe, your closing statement, sir. >> i want to say that i want to be the progressive alternative

to president obama. i want to represent the people. i do not think that you all should have austerity. i do not think you should have to pay for wall street's mistakes. but a lot of derivatives, a lot of speculative instruments throughout the economy, and it ruined the economy and caused a meltdown. democrats and republicans alike are trying to impose an agenda of austerity on the people to cut their social security benefits, cut back on student loans and assistance to the students. that is wrong. we should tax wall street. we should tax corporations. we do have a progressive income tax. taxes now are the lowest since 1928 on the rich, and we need to correct that, or we will not have a good economy. >> every person in here is made in the image of god. thomas jefferson in the declaration said that our rights come from god. all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights -- the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of

happiness. if we are going to be restored as a nation, we have to be returned as a foundation to the source of ethics, the source of policy. nationoing to become a of people who kill their children and who put forth every provision and wickedness, then we will go the way of the greeks and romans and the other empires that have perished before us. but if we will be restored, we must return to life and liberty and justice under our creator. go to terryforpresident.com for more. >> i will address what i did not get to in my opening statement, which is the continuing veto of the united nations attacks against israel are not the answer -- those vetoes are the problem itself.

had our country not embraced an -ism called zionism there would have been no iraq war, 9/11, afghanistan war. my proposal is that we veto -- stop the killing united nations actions and let it do what it is supposed to do and free the palestinian people. >> thank you. mr. supreme, your 30-second closing statement. ♪ >> ♪ my name is vermin my name is vermin supreme and you can vote and you can vote and you can vote for me for president if you want to add my name is vermin ♪

thanks very much for coming up today. one more thing -- jesus told me to make randall terry gay. whoo! he's turning gay! whoo! >> mr. o'donnell, please take us out of this with 30 seconds of your final thoughts. >> jesus christ did one thing -- he helped people. go to mcdonald's new castle, delaware. gary and larry dickenson, they do that every day. >> thank you very much for your time. let's give a hand for all of our candidates. >> thank you. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] ..

[inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. my name is karlyn bowman nma senior fellow here at aei and i would like to welcome all of you here tonight and our first snow storm at this event and also i c-span not yet to tonight's bradley lecture. this is our first bradley lecture at 2012 and i think it's fitting that it has a political theme. but this is the 23rd season of aei redly lectures and they have been supported generously by the

hair eland bradley foundation. before introducing sean, i'd like to tell you that once bradley lecture that will be given on february 6 iaea's own charles murray. it will be one of the first public lectures on his new book titled coming apart: the state of white america, 1960 to 2010. it is a special pleasure for me to welcome sean trende to aei. many of. many of you know sean is shawn is the senior elections analyst for real clear politics. he earned his masters in political science and also jurist doctorate from duke and holds a bachelor's degree in political science and history from yale university. we had pei have a special connection to sean. he for he went to duke in 1997 in 1898, he was an aei research assistant, working for allan meltzer and his monumental history of the government reserve. while shauna said pei, we considered him an honorary member of aei's political

corridor and his passion for politics, political history with credit evident at that early point. we are pleased to help him launch his new book, the last majority 2008 and 2010 in america's political future at this very week for paul craig mcmillan. copies available for sale in the lobby and also at amazon. in december, gallup asked people which two statements describe their campaign. the first thing that was, i can't wait for the campaign to begin and the other was, i can't wait for the campaign to end. 70% nationally said they couldn't wait for it to end. it is an amusing finding, but i think it points to a larger truth. although we are interested in who is ahead and they want more than the latest polls and the prognostications from the pundit. sean's book provides that by inviting us to think about the larger sweep of american

politics and how the 2012 election fits into that history. some excel political majorities have made them like they are unlikely to be permanent. but i let him tell you about it. sean will speak for 45 minutes and then take your question amateur into a reception out that. sean. i have not [applause] >> hello, my name is sean trende. missing elections analyst for realclearpolitics.com and yes that is my real last name. i say that because not a month goes by that i don't get an e-mail from someone who thinks that it's a little too cute for someone who analyzes political trends has the last name trende. i will belabor this point, but i just love this story. someone pointed out to me that my title is senior elections analyst is an acronym for my

first name and suggested to me that i was just a monogamous people writing for real clear politics. it never occurred to me and i was such a record events. it was a bit of an existential crisis, like maybe he really do live inside the matrix. after reassuring myself i am rail, i try to convince them that he was just me and could not be five or six people appear to be restricted begin by thanking karlyn for the kind introduction and the opportunity to talk about my book, the last majority by the government's up for grabs and who will take it. it is truly an honor and privilege to be back here today. the staffers here today to argue in this outside and like to reiterate what a special place the american enterprise institute really is. speaking of course of the adams morgan on afternoons playing softball. but seriously, things you learn at american enterprise institute pop-up to write your life and strange indeed have kind of

provided the inspiration for my entire way of looking at politics than for this book. it was here, for example that i first learned from my mentor, duck or meltzer, but the work of a college of his named keith poole and developing a method of the ideology members of congress. my obsession with them not to turn turnout would be my master thesis committee does on blockbuster hit, the making of an ideological court application of techniques and supreme court ideology from 1901 to 1945. if you suffer from insomnia i'll send it to them that will do the trick with a masters degree soccer out of an opportunity that was supported by aei. after thumbing through an almanac of american politics in the aei library one day, this was another day in the aei library one day, this was another day in the aei library one day, this was another day in the aei library one day, this was another day makeup, and became convinced the gop was on track to become the first party that didn't hold the president

need to lose seats a midterm election in 1934. ask are unaffected to a friday form an issue, which is an opportunity for us doctors to present other staffers and scholars and she obliged. indies need to seek a masters degree along with the lottery for my career. as in every congressional elections saved as in 1997 since the civil war the president's party's last midterm elections. put up a have labeled this the rule, the rule of midterm loss, broken only in a highly unusual year of 1934. lead over this concept of midterm loss is another idea and this is the concept of the safety or hitch, or is highly to collect from the 60 minutes. it's a simple enough concept. every sixth year the president's term tends to be an especially bad midterm election. 1938 come the sixth year at the roosevelt presidency, 81 and a

republican case. 1946, the sixth year of the 76 years -- to use a duracell presidency republicans gained 55. in 1958, the six-year eisenhower and 49 democratic seats, 1966 and 47 republican seats. a pretty good trend. this is the problem that's endemic to political science. it overlooks the simple fact that most of these election losses resulted not because they heard the sixth year as such, but because they occurred in years for parties suffer from particular contingencies. in 1938 were emerging from that horrific obsession the roosevelt administration in overreached the packing scheme in the third new deal. in 1946 her struggling to deal with the wage and price controls. in 1958, we were emerging from a

bad recession. 1956 the vietnam war was living to increase salient in the democrat had overreached with the great society. and in 1974 of course we had the debacle of the watergate era also a very bad recession. in other words, these parties just ran into some horrible luck in six-year presidential elections. in 1998, none of that was true. there was a scandal obviously, the bill clinton's popularity wasn't suffering from it. the economy was going gangbusters and he actually reigned in his agenda for what was a very aggressive agenda in the first two years. as i touch myself, well, it's a contingencies had drifted midterm loss in the past or present them in 1998, then the experience we the experience we have in this earlier six-year elections would not be present in 1998. and this experience helps to solidify me thinking about political medication in general and emphasized the difficulty of doing projections based on present events.

it brings to mind the famous prime minister harold dylan when he was asked by journalists but could possibly keep up with government? he simply replied, events, events. what mcmillan had picked up on this something that's largely eluded our political class with its incessant focus on realignments and emerging majorities of both republican and democratic persuasion. political science teachers and this is the first month of most political science election classes. the elections moving 32 year appetites. it's fleshed out by the great and i'm not being facetious. he is great, walter dean burnham. we have your site 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932 and then things start to kind of fall apart. but i miss 28 to 36 year cycle where it seems like a different political party becomes the majority party in this country.

and i think this concept of permanent alignment and realignment has driven a lot of the conversation and discussion of the 2008 and 2010 elections erroneously. i'll get to that in a second, but i have just one quick thing to say about this are nice concept. it is my view at the end of the day that our politics are much more developed independent and short-term events, contingencies than they are in any long lasting coalition are realigned. while parties may seem to put together long-lasting majorities by a time when he three, four come even five elections in a row, that's really not that unusual. the outset talking neither side has her five or i was one of 16. with 55 presidential elections under her belt, a simple chance we shouldn't be surprised to see more than a few runs for a party under her belt and indeed we do have a few examples. not many, but a few winning 45 elections in a row.

so this idea that elections are largely due to short-term events is what underlies a lot of the electorate today. in my book i take things back to the 1920s to show political alignments, gone much by quickly than people appreciate what a great world chance plays in the elections. i could talk for three or four hours about this, but we don't have three or four hours. i love this stuff. but today a focus on what i think is the most salient and what people want to hear about. the 2008, 2010 elections and what this means for 2012. i will say my discussion of 2012 when i speak will be in the big picture. i anticipate a large number of questions from q&a will focus on specifics for 2012, so i'm going to have a generalized view of things and allow people to ask whatever specifics are interested in about 2012 or two scored two and come, who'll be first in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, general election we get to those questions.

for now there's three questions that i would like to answer. what exactly happened in 2008? how did things fall apart so quickly for the obama administration? and what does this mean for the future? not to understand where we were in the two in election we have to take a trip in the way that. you may recall opponents spoke of an historic victory, one that would transfer in the's policies. we can start with one barack obama the second, who spoke to transforming the nation's politics, and then a narrative history of wiping out politics of the past 30 years. now i have no evidence for this, but i don't think a 30 year references accident. i view obama and his presidents are keenly aware of the city of of thirty-year cycles. he's after on all an extremely educated man. believe reagan had relented country in 1980 as many suggest that we redo. this is after all the central

thesis of a famous book that was another two or three biblical books of the net roots in the early 2000 commend the emerging democratic majority by john jude and roy shaw. that look true directly and realignment and suggested at some point in the 2002 as he flipped from republican dominance to democratic dominance. i think obama and his advisers believe they have captured this. having won in 2008, 20 years after president reagan, he was destined to a fixed-rate major changes in our politics. this is what help drive that majority to its doom. as a site i should note in the book i'm not just picking a president obama. i'm sure he's relieved to know that, but the same idea took the bush administration as well. everyone remembers after the 2004 election, karl rove speaking famously of its title, william mckinley and mark hanna and how they put together a supposedly permanent majority in 1896. he believed he had accomplished

a similar majority in 2004 and i think that helped drive some of the bad choices politically speaking of the bush administration and its second term. again, i took effect at the 1920s is something that happens again and again in our country says terry. the last majority i discuss in the book is any number of less majorities. some have come and gone in our political scenes. some successful. the lesser for cycles. some like carter's win in 1976 and kennedy in 1960, coolidge in 1924 have only lasted one cycle before replaced by something else. coolidge was replaced another successful republican majority that only lasted one cycle. it wasn't just obama. in the republic celebrated the vindication of the emerging democratic majority thesis. we can go on and on. harold meyerson exhorted the president-elect to bring on the new deal while paul krugman said

it all the title of his postelection column, franklin delano obama. by all-time favorite has to be this "newsweek" cover. [laughter] as rick perry might say, whoops. things didn't turn out this way. the easy answer to why that's the case is obama overspent. americans turned against the health care bill in the tea partiers brought about a resurgent american right that helped to build his congressional majority. although this played a role to be sure. but the more fundamental question, if obama had really assembled an fdr like coalition time he should've been able to overcome these forces. after all, you will recall or maybe you want an fdr's presidency, democratic nominees from 192819241928 had all joined together to oppose his presidency but in 1834 midterms. a huge backlash among the

democratic party elite and a lot of republicans and it did no good because the coalition he dissembled in 1932 was a strong one and this method of governing in 1932 from 1936 please the majority of the country. obama didn't have a much shorter like this. iraq is, when in 2008, contrary to conventional wisdom, with nothing more than a narrower but deeper version of bill clinton's coalition from the 1990s. what bill clinton had done was take what had become a democratic piece of minorities, liberals and union members and and a bracelet should ascend to scherrer referred to as progressive centrism. use this new democratic ideology if you will to grab suburbanites onto the democratic majority and sure of democratic strength among jacksonians in the heartland of the country. these latter voters were white

southerners were scotch irish descent who is largely stuck with democratic party's to the 1960s and 1970s. they didn't vote for richard nixon in 1970 or george wallace in 1968. they voted for hubert humphrey. most successors of the democratic to humphrey did relatively well, these jacksonian voters, at least for southerners. if you look at a map of the county baconian mapping areas in eastern kentucky comedy central tennessee, west virginia, even across arkansas and into northern texascommittee's work areas of unusually strong democratic strength among whites in the south, even after the democratic party and flipped to become civil rights in the 1960s. obama change this coalition do not necessarily for the better. take a look at the maps. what i have done here is taken

basically states that were basically tied in 1996 or 2008. and as a republican gets to a point coming becomes a little bit better, and other reflate georgia in 2008, which is barely won by mccain is way better than mccain does a little bit better gets darker and darker with the democrats. you will notice that the blue states in 2008 look a lot like the blue states in 1996. why is this? because her 1996 to 2008, only three states moved more than five points with the democrats. vermont, nevada and barack obama's home state of hawaii. where is the change? the changes right in the middle of the map, just a fast talking about a jacksonians jacksonians. west virginia, kentucky, tennessee, arkansas, oklahoma and the changes in alabama and louisiana actually come most in the northern charity stays are

the most jacksonian. as i sees them as more than five points away from the democrats are in 1996 until 2008. obama didn't vote the democratic coalition in two in 2008. he merited. bill clinton carried by as much as 45 points in eastern kentucky and the republican in 2008. son for the first time since the new deal. what barack obama produced in 2008 was a narrower, deeper version of clinton's 96 coalition. what i mean by deeper versions of clinton's were the groups that bill clinton brought into the democratic party, suburbanites. in other words, fairfax county. that area became bluer peer barack obama had a huge turnout among minority voters, but that wasn't an expansion of the democratic coalition. i was doing better in areas that had also voted for bill clinton. to get a better idea of this,

this is the west south central and east south central regions of the united states. counties carried by democrats in 1996, 2004 and 2008. you see what i'm talking about. eastern kentucky 1996 as the democratic. you have the central tennessee, northern alabama, going across into arkansas and obviously bill clinton did well, but even at the dixie region of eastern oklahoma and across north texas, democrats manage to continue to win in 1996. the map becomes a whole lot better by 2004 and then becomes even rather in 2008. almost every county in because republican in 2008. what makes us all the more remarkable is than 2008, barack obama is running five points ahead of where john kerry ran in 2004. the country was shifting bluer as a whole is the series of the

country were continuing to abandon the democratic party. obama was enabled to build the coalition that enable democrats to remain competitive in the states, even in extremely favorable environment for the democrats. in this region the democratic coalition is now significantly. to engage in a little with obvious foreshadowing, democratic senators held from the states. after excluding minority majority districts, 15 democratic congress contained in the state. democrats controlled out the governorships in 11 of the 16 state houses. so with the trend we begin to see if the national level of the states finally been made with democratic party filter down to congressional and state level that foreshadowed the debacle of the democrats. there's a positive side to the ledger. obama rainbow against minority voters and suburbanites, but the overall result was a wash. obama actually ran slightly

behind clinton's 1996 vote. by the way when i talk about 1996, thanks voting the vote evenly. at least the barack obama's percentage is higher than bill clinton, but exit polls showed that ross perot was point about evenly to split the vote and have you come up with clinton running a little bit out of obama. this shows up if we look at the area to two thirds in a brief. even if we begin measuring from the beginning of june when obama clinches the nomination come to his league minus four points. for most of the campaign obama found himself unable to top 50% and wasn't until october 7 in the middle of the financial clout 31st of the 50% mark in the rcp average. mccain has successfully drilled the drilling issue during the summer and used that

to narrow his deficit with obama after the election david axelrod admitted the one thing they did poorly in the campaign is handling the energy issue in the summer. now, this was one of the major side effects of the financial collapse that it wrote the price of capsule ain't significantly by election day and took away the main issue that john mccain had set himself up to run on in the fall. this was the issue that was the reason he picked therapy limits his running mate because alaska has a lot of oil. and he was gone on september 15. on september 15, did they barack obama finally begins to substantially pull ahead of john mccain. i'm not taking about the post convention because everyone knows john mccain was that of barack obama after the conventions. in the first day of the democratic convention, john mccain was tied with president -- now president obama in the polls. what i'm trying to reiterate

here is not to take anything away from president obama. a win is a win is a successful when, but it wasn't this revolutionary when the commentators are falling over themselves to declare and i believe the obama admin is ration believed it had achieved. so now that we understand the nature of obama's victory that it did not represent a change in american politics, but rather is due to certain contingencies that came along in a narrow coalition, 2010 becomes hard to explain. a narrow coalition is ready for its problems. i'll use a simple analogy. as the u2 groups in the coalition started with both approving of you have 100%. over the course of your first term, one of the groups continues to love you, but when groups follows down to 0%.

you are 50% which is a great, but better than if you only had one group or coalition and you're all the way down to 0%. when you have a narrow coalition, you don't have as much room for error among groups and by excluding jacksonians from the democratic coalition, democrats were in a situation for any loss among working-class whites, suburbanites, latino voters would be absolutely disastrous for their presidential coalition. in a congressional election in particular, a narrow deep coalition is very, very bad, especially democrats who were to start out with though concentrated minority, majority districts in urban areas. once an office of him as politics quickly became defined in the minds of the american voters. on february 17, 2009, defend the american recovery and reinvestment act better known as the stimulus, providing about $800 billion in spending.

the public supported it, but the support was heavily democratic, something we see again and again and the approval rating. they hold up reasonably well, but concentrated among democratic voters. only 20% of republicans and 56% support the law. a few days later the approval rating to below 60% for the first time to support among independents trickle down 54%. by june he had fallen to the 50s and while the economy was taken to london, it wasn't a major issue. americans approved of his job approval on the economy in june by a 55% to 42% margin in ballots. were they disapproved of him and what the president had been the most aggressive than he does promise to spending. the government decision to loan money to general motors and chrysler in exchange for government sharon to come to was highly unpopular. majorities approved of this move in every region, including the

auto producing midwest. at controlling federal spending, 45% of americans approved of the president's performance while 51% already a majority disapprove. the only other issue with the president was upside down was handling of the federal budget deficit, 46% approve, 40% disapproved. even at a time where americans still approve of the job he was doing on the economy, it was spending that was fairly untrue jadedness approval downward. share the country a of self-described conservatives should specifically significant uptick to 40% for the first time since the 1990s, plurality viewed the democrats too liberal. this is critical because what it meant was that bill clinton's rebranding of the democrats, party of fiscal responsibility and the progressive centrism that judith adzharia-based immaturity theory on had taken a

major hit in the eyes of the american public. by mid-july the president's approval rating in the rtp average was up 50%. once again, the leading issue according to gallup was the economy. 24% of americans claim they disapprove of obama's job performance because he was spending too much on another 15% cited leading the nation toward socialism such government take over such bailouts. the notions that the economic stimulus and wasn't working came in to a far third-place at 10%. by november, democrats were in serious trouble. the number who agreed the government was trying to do too much at stake to 57%. the highest number since the 1990s. this was not supposed to happen. this was supposed the resurgence of american faith in the government to fix things. six months later, americans are saying 57% the government was doing too much.

what this resulted in with the two dozen and elections he began to the clinton coalition come completely unglued and new jersey, which is largely suburban state that it gone overwhelmingly for george h. debbie bush in 1988 and quickly switched in 1992 and 1996 as the northern suburbs to democrats, becoming a democratic state. he moved back in ballots and chris christie by four points, by far the most conservative governor and not state that i can because quite frankly. in virginia, we saw bobby donnell win with 59% of the vote. the second highest number since the founding of the modern virginia republican party in the 1950s. i don't really count what we had before the. it wasn't a functioning party in any sense of the term. what happened in virginia was critical portions of the clinton coalition that had been brought on board due to president clinton's progressive centrism if you will love it.

the virginia suburbs had to go in heavily democratic went that. but donnell. the suburbs overall and did well in fairfax county, which had been subpoenaed towards democratic over a series of elections. the biggest changes came in western virginia. jacksonians in western virginia is cool mining country. it's mountainous. the counties voted for democrats in every presidential election since 1972 going back to win the uaw organize the 1920s. he didn't vote for barack obama this time. these are fairly underpopulated counties but when you add the method comes with two episodes. this is about maternal match put together 59% of the though, a tremendous total in a swing state. of course, in 2010, we had a bit of a shelter in massachusetts. but even now when, scott round

win came in critical areas. the liberal areas that the state western berkshires went for martha coakley just as strongly as they have for barack obama. it was the white working class areas and there is an island state. it swung towards scott brown and also the suburbs around the loop around boston. these are the areas that's one most heavily toward scott brown. these are the areas bill clinton at reinvigorated faith in the democratic party. in november 2010, clinton coalition of silly fell apart. democrats lost 66 house seats for picking up seats for republicans. we're showing for any party in the house election since 1948. or showing any party midterm elections 1938. we can see the types in c. this chart shows democratic classes by type in 2010. again, we see the clinton

coalition pieces i'm talking about, where democrats have for the greatest losses. writer appalachia, 14 democrats must be a world like that and we see the rural south nine from areas where bill clinton had invigorated popularity for the democrat. look at the northern suburbs. 13 democrats lost in the northern suburbs and for more than seven suburbs. we can debate about whether one client district, alan weiss in west palm beach county center of the two for all intents and purposes a nice of you. it is the suburbs and happily shove it to democrats and beard areas training democratic because they been the party of fiscal responsibility and social moderation. it swung back towards republicans and democrats took us doing to the left.

to put things in perspective, al gore and john kerry won 47% of suburban vote for barack obama improved to 50% in 2008. congressional democrats won only 42% of suburban tea party so. in further perspective, michael dukakis won 40% of the suburbs. we talk about a coalition that noted the end of 2010 have been put right back where they started from to the point where the women senators about the same rate michael dukakis won, but they don't have the strength michael dukakis had an grader alicia. it's not a good place for democrats to find themselves. among white catholics, democratic votes trump from 47% in 2008 to 39% in 2010. quite possibly democrats are showing among the group since 1920s. way voters without college degrees we can broadly generalize to be the white working class spawned from a 40% above the group in 2008 to 33% democratic group in 2010.

suburbanites appealed away from the democratic coalition in 2010. and skipping in the interest of time, but i do have to share one of my favorite quotes. rusty for the come, southeastern oklahoma running for seats his seat in the state legislature in the curtain county spent $170 on a state for the oklahoma state house against the longtime incumbent. this is a district radio 1% of voters still registered democrat and he managed to win. his comments on the race kind of sums up 2010 for any he said. i'm still kind of in a status to leave. i never thought of that to see the day when republicans could be like to do the county. if you let at the same jacksonians reaches over 200 years that are really being did mean today. so where do we go from here? i think the key thing to understand about this is nothing

that happened in 2008 or 2010 is written in stone to continue in the future. as i said, voters are smart. they know what is going on and pay attention to a politicians and parties are saying. they don't automatically attach themselves anymore to republican or democratic parties. they picked up on the leftward shift over the course of 1996 to 2008 and made a similar shift to republicans. if republicans are over reached, the local route back to democrats. but i think there are a few big picture things that i need to cover. a lot of what we have heard in the media, especially after the send is being released is kind of a resurgence of this emerging democratic majority, the idea that the demographic shifts are driving us inexorably to her dominance that will make it difficult for republicans to win in 2012. as i tried to emphasize, and

firmly of the opinion that demographics are destiny. i don't think you can be straight-line projections. this is why. there's four parts to emerging democratic majority is described. minorities and the white working class, women and people living in indianapolis this, which are upper-middle-class suburbs. later on they added millennial to the idea of which are younger voters who they say will maintain their democratic labels. a few of these i can take care of pretty quickly. the white working class and suburbanites have talked about quite a bit in the context of the clinton coalition. they've been abandoned the democrats because democrats are no longer seen as the party in social moderation. we can debate amongst ourselves whether that's a fair brand, but it's a fact he no longer the democrats that way. the idea of the women's vote or telling democrats that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. we can talk about a gender gap,

regardless did make a this or make a this, but like this and this. the flipside is that democrats don't do as well among men and men and women are about equally distributed in the population. a few more in the electric 52% of the electorate. but is still shifted up and down. as republicans do have a problem with with voters, democrats have a problem with male voters. as for millennial's, or just give the simple fact. in 1972, george mcgovern got blown out of the water. he lost by historic margins to richard nixon. but there was one group that pulled the lever for george mcgovern. who was that? those are 1820-year-old voters. who are the groups that is barack obama's strongest opponent today quotes it is the exact same 1829-year-old voters

going for george mcgovern in 1972. if you do the math, 1972 to 2012 is 40 years. a voter 18 tonight 29-year-old is 58 to 69 years old today. you cannot say what a kid is doing what is 18 to 29 will drive what he's doing in his 50s or 60s. a lot of changes go on. it may be the case. i'd be shocked if it was. i want to spend the last 10 minutes talking about the latino vote because it's incredibly important to our country's politics. and at the basis for a counterrevolution of thousands the 1960s and his famous book come in the emerging republican majority, kevin phillips noted that clubs have provided new level political consciousness for hispanic americans in texas to support the first roman catholic president. phillips estimated from 1960 to

the 1972, mexican-americans gave 84% of their vote to democratic anchovies. this is critically important. why? they don't get anywhere near 40% of their vote the democratic presidential candidates today. in fact, if we look at the democratic leaning of the hispanic electorate, i like latino better. by year from 1980, exit polls don't go back before 1980. you have to estimated out. this is relatively speaking. it democrats win 57% of the vote nationwide and latino voters 162% for democratic candidate, and say that the five-point democratically. you can see the transactionally towards the republican. gradually over the past few decades compared to the countries involved in latino voters have converge towards the center of american politics. this is contrary to everything you've you better bet in emmaus about latino voters.

you also hear latino voters are in the electric and it's just not true. in 2002, latinas 80% of the electorate. 2004, 8% of the electorate. 2006, 8%, 2008, 9% electric, 201050% of the electorate. but tina voters for rapidly as a share of the population, but they just aren't in train the electorate at the rate you would expect to see from the census numbers. in fact, judas had to shower are writing 2001 and 2002 at redacted by 2010 minorities that constitute 25% of the electorate while in 2008, professor alan abramowitz predicted in 2010 no more than 76% of voters will be white lilies to the set will be african-american and 13% either hispanic or members of other racial minority groups.

abramowitz on a step further predicted because republican candidates have given him a 60% of the white coats when 50% of the overall national popular vote in 2010 and because republicans hadn't done that since the very good republican year of 1994 and matter-of-fact family when 50% a year, it's almost impossible for republicans to take over the house in 2010. all these predictions were wrong. minorities didn't constitute 25%. whites are more than 76% of the 2010 electorate and republicans won more than 60% of the way the in 2010. in house races, which constituted 77% of these are non-hispanic whites. a larger share than in the 2004 for 2008 elections and democrats who see 37 of white votes. the team is made up 8% just as they had in 2006 and 2004. what is happening that goes beyond this is integration has

topped off in this country with the onset of the great depression of the modern depression or whatever you want to call it, latino immigration just isn't occurring. what is happening in this action shows up in the sent its members as well. while there's an explosion in latino growth, most of them children born to latino people already in the country. this is incredibly important to the future of american politics. why is this? let's take a look over the last decade. first of the republican share vote by ideology. liberal african-american voters, moderate african-american voters and conservative african-american voters vote heavily democratic. non-hispanic whites on the other hand sword etiology. you can see that white liberals get 10% to 20% of dutch republicans. moderates split 50/50 while conservative white kid 80% to 90% of their vote to

republicans. latino voters do more or less the same thing that white voters do. conservative latinos don't vote is heavily republican as non-hispanic whites do. liberal latinas but about the same and moderate patino so slightly more democratic than their white counterparts do. but latino voters cite a verse of the voting pattern. what makes latino vote heavily democratic is there and it's been a concerted latinas as conservative whites. we see the same thing if we do it by income. you see african-american voters regardless of income and talking about race is a difficult thing. i want to make clear that you have to generalize if you're going to talk about voting patterns. but it's clustered to bottom. similarly, white folks clustered towards the middle and richard white boat more republican.

they tried with latino voters. a bit of a shift downward for the whites voting patterns, but it's roughly the same. again, the reason the latino vote in heavily democratic as of late is there aren't as many wealthy latino voters says there will be white voters. this is going to change dramatically in the next 10 to 20 years as latinas become more assimilated into american society, as latino children go to college and graduate school and become doctors and lawyers, just like my italian and irish ancestors date, though eventually join the ranks of the middle class. and the statistics are just as do that they will become much, much more republican. and that is why we have seen from the 1960s and mexican-americans were voted 85% democrat to today would mexican-americans though 60% democrat, you see a large ship

because of the increasing assimilation into american society. i not see any reason the trend doesn't tinea. in closing, i think there is one other thing to keep in mind. we have seen again and again in american history the coalition of everyone just can't continue to exist. in a diverse country, different groups of the voting populace will have different interests in the outcome. this is one of the major problems democrats remained two and 2008. they had a situation where once they were given unified control of congress, they were forced to pick winners and losers and that always happens when you get in congress. it has been in the public is because and republicans in 1920s and democrats in the 1930s. we can see this, for example, in arizona. senate bill 1070, racial profiling bill absolutely drove

latinas that it jamborees governing coalition. she did not do well as john mccain had done. the flip side of the reason she ran a hundred john mccain is that it drove moderate white voters swung towards republicans that year. that is a potential problem for anyone to put together a coalition of everyone is that certain latino interests will line up with the way working-class interest in you go to keep posting your coalitions. we see this within the democratic party in inner cities or places like los angeles and denver was the multiracial coalitions, pirate because the tensions between groups within the democratic party in the states. so in short, as we move towards 2012, and don't believe the hype about where democratic -- demographic trends are sending us. i would not be surprised to see latino turnout spike. i would not be surprised to see it stay the same or drop a little bit.

if african-american turnout comes back to traditional levels of 11%, and that's to and barack obama's closed-circuit nitrate at the top in the 2008 turnout. i will say when it seemed. the president's approval rating among whites rate now is 33%. that is a huge problem because the minority vote in this country is very disproportionately spread out. you have a large contingency of states heavily looped because liberal whites lived there as well such as new york and california and in your states like mississippi and louisiana, where very conservative whites outnumbered. where this becomes critical in what the president's long-standing weakness among the way working-class and and now suburban voters is in the chair by the states, which are heavily way. states like iowa, wisconsin, minnesota, ohio and pennsylvania. if numbers don't improve there, the democratic coalition doesn't have a chance in 2012.

[applause] >> thank you. match, sean for a very interesting lecture. i'm sure provoked a lot of questions. >> my quick question is, what is a major issue in 2012 as for the election? the economy or race click >> it's not even close. the question is that the number one issue in the 2012 election will be. go after poll after poll says jobs, jobs and more jobs. everything else is going to be a sideshow. did i say jobs? you know, it is interesting because we saw -- we see this unemployment rate continued to trend downward for the missing a lot of hoopla about how it's great news for the president.

the problem of funding to keep in mind whenever you see economic numbers coming out is they are just measuring measuring a broader extent. so when you have a situation like today, where the unemployment rate drops that it's because people leave the workforce in the work force participation rate has been cratering, i don't eat the unemployment number of 8.5% has the same to the extent than it would have in other situations. it fueled the labor participation rates steady for barack obama's presidency, the unemployment rate .11.2% and that is what is really going to drive to america's perception of the economy going in 2012. >> wait for the mic. >> i'm just burning at georgetown university. to what extent did the falloff in support for the democrats and obama relate to health care?

i was astounded the democrats, ashley blue dugs didn't defend their health care vote, which is amazing. and i am wondering if the president and the democrats didn't sort of lucid narrative. there are ways of presenting what obama did that make them seem less liberal than maybe they are in health care reform is a good example. there's a lot of competition in there. a lot of cost saving, individual mandate, which was originally a republican idea. scituate x and does the presentation and framing of the issues that president account for his current and the democrats current dilemma? >> there's two important points there. the president was in between a proverbial rock and a hard

place. he couldn't come out and frame this as a portly conservative or moderate health care bill because he was trying to persuade liberals that the loss of the public option didn't make this site to insurance companies. that is a -- demonstrate the coalition. they have to win a district selling republican makeup of points because of gerrymandering. they will be four points not to the 2010 redistricting is done. so to have a large majority of two and 58 democrats coming to get democrats to represent conservative districts as well as d+ 45 districts. it's very difficult to have a message that would appeal to all these groups. but the health care bill absolutely illustrates the difference between the obama administration's approach. clinton waved the white flag and went back towards an incremental approach on health care that got quite a bit done.

affordability in 1997. in 1996 the kennedy kassebaum bill, introduction of as chip, a small program that's going to be significant program. this is but a moderate incremental approach can do i'm always trying to do something perceived by the american people is to out there in radical, even though it's arguably not. it leaves the party in a position where if you assume it's safe to effect the election, there's 50/50 chance this won't go into effect. so that is the difficulty the democrats find themselves in. >> michael perrone with pei and the "washtington examiner." sean connolly talked about how it difficult for a coalition to endure more than 50% together. but perhaps to confound prediction about 2012 coming to speak in the book about the eisenhower coalition and suggest

suggest -- use a jazz number one that exist in which most political scientists have not. eisenhower is an exception because he was a general with a smile. in your view, i think it persisted. can you say a few words about that? >> yeah, this is not some in college student should write on their exam because michael is correct as is my revisionist view of american history, political history. dwight eisenhower did -- it's approved. if you think of the nixon majorities in 68 in 72 in the reagan coalition, it is southerners, white working class voters and suburbanites. well, what was dwight eisenhower's coalition? he was the first republican president to come close to kerry himself. he carried the deep south state louisiana in 1956.

he did incredibly well the suburbs, which required part of the american medical scene pennies on the web in class voters and did very well among capital voters in union voters. he was kind of the proto- reagan majority. i would go so far as to say the reagan majority is completely based on the eisenhower majority if you look at county by county analysis went by the same counties. by this is able to persist so long? will come a of it is fortunate contingency, the coin flipping. the republicans happen to come in and times when the economy was on the upswing in democrats weren't fortunate -- i do want to get into that debate, she had johnson president the ended disastrously in in a carter

presidency that ended disastrously. more to the point, i think the cold war played a critical part in keeping eisenhower's presidency together. if you think it's a three-legged stool of the republican party, social conservatives and foreign policy conservatives, this continued existential threat that the democratic party had trouble dealing with gave some type of unifying band two of these groups in the republican party that persist to an unusually long periods of time. at the same time, democrats in the 1960s due to structural reform growing out of the commission they put together to reduce away to to congress for structured took a turn to the left unattended country was not going leftward. i think this also goes together with what we see at the end of the eisenhower coalition. once the threat of the cold war is removed, pieces of the republican coalition started to break. suburbanites began to exit towards the democratic party. bill clinton has sensed that the democratic party towards the center so suburbanites pitas

safer. bill clinton becomes harder and crying. there is that this idea will be sold out the soviets if you vote for democrats but i think persisted format of the 60s and 70s and helped keep the coalition together. >> loop mode from the institute of democracy. we said we towards that is the the obama administration has all but given up on the white working-class male. is there another coalition member that is looking to perhaps pick up the slack in your analysis on that. >> is actually a great debate that's been going on at the new republic and and a few of the other left-wing sites about whether obama should proceed in 2012 with what they call an ohio strategy, a focus on white working-class voters for what they call it colorado's strategy, which is the emerging -- kind of the

indianapolis, the upscale white voters. it is clear upon has chosen the latter strategy, the colorado's strategy of freedom bakery and suburban upscale suburbanites. i think it's problematic because i think without 401(k)s -- i think a lot of the reason the suburbanites shift is so hard towards democrats in the 90s was because of this perception of fiscal responsibility, perception taxes would go up appreciably from this perception that democrats wouldn't be roukema though. in 2008 when you added to that, what are the two things when you graduate from college and take your job at a consulting firm or go to law school and you're an associate of the law firm, with the older people there tell you to do once they've been initiated in the

upper-middle-class? they say start putting your money in a 401(k) and buy a house as a way to protect your assets. well, take it for me, that was in such great in 2008 and 2009. and i think that is the fundamental problem that democrats have right now as they are not received by this group is fiscally responsible as they were in the clinton years. fairly or unfairly, that's the perception. there hasn't been recovery in housing values and stockmarket furling case. a little better in the 401(k) area, but still not what she wants to see. it's going to be really tough to get the appeals of these voters to the same high levels as in 2008. >> dale johnson. you discount long-term trends that talk about short-term events. i can see that clinton may have been responsive. no new taxes and the ross perot

effect and that they override the man date, overstepped it only became fiscally responsible after 94. ..

nets would really broken with a back what he had a run on in 1992. as far as -- iain you are right about george w. bush and his presidency. i'm critical of it in the book because i think there was a sense among republicans the and finally overcome -- they elected a unified republican controlled congress for the first time since 1952 and then be elected for the first time in the 1920's and the trajectory would keep going up and i think that drove a lot of decisions in 2005 and 2006 that brought about a backlash. as far as where the republicans go -- and i think the compassionate conservatism of george w. bush did a lot to kind of reenforce the fraiman that many americans had and the party

of fiscal responsibility. the deficits are the most obvious and the democrats for the first time in history and the polling even with republicans on issues like prosperity and government spending during the bush administration. the tea party movement is a tremendous opportunity for republicans especially claims control presidency but it's also a classic example of what until 50 about the difficulty of putting together a broad coalition. republicans go faulty party are they going to be able to hold white working-class voters who depend on the programs like medicare to a disproportionate extent? will they be able to hold together christian conservatives who watched the social issues addressed once we finally get a unified control of government will they be disappointed if republicans don't deliver on the social issues? there's just going to be all

these conflicting portions of the republican coalition that will be making life difficult for the republicans as they take control in 2012. >> if your name went from sean to david plus, what are the three policy issues and would advise to barnstorm on or maintain your 2008 electoral map? >> i think obama at this point is pretty well tied into the path he has to take. if he has to count on the rhine in plan, which i think is a potential weakness for republicans to begin with and they've done a terrible job of selling it. you can even argue paul ryan has backed off the plan i think that is entirely fair. you need to barnstorm and african-american community cannot with the african-american vote fall down 313% to ten or 11%.

if you knock that 3% of the barack obama's total against john mccain, then against mitt romney the increase in the republican support among the white is just going to overwhelm it so it is not even an issue that you need to push, you just need to be very and reinvigorate the sense of excitement of the historic nature of re-elect in the first african-american president to help drive that because remember a lot of the voters that came into the coalition from the african-american community in 2008 when these were voters who haven't to the they voted before who were not driven by a particular issue but by the historic nature of the candidacy even though there's almost certainly wide scale the agreement on the issues among these voters and i think the third thing puny to do is absolutely unique to drive home the social issues because i think, you know, i will say this, people don't appreciate the strength the social issues

give republicans. white evangelicals give republicans more votes than african-american latinos, give to the democrats. so i'm not trying to denigrate the importance of social issues to the republican coalition but because barack obama needs to get -- needs to try to get to that upscale white vote which isn't so heavily interest but the social issues back up towards the 2008 levels and i hate to say this but he has to scare some people and i think that is the only way to do it. >> we have three questions right in a row here and then you in the front and we will take the three at one time so in the back and then in the front. >> it sounds to me as though you are describing a coalition that was driven by spending or a vote that was driven by spending over the last several cycles driven

away from the republicans and driven away from the democrats. but then you are saying this time it almost sounds as though you are saying that doesn't matter anymore that concern over spending is old jobs and they are not blamed. is that what you're saying if you're a republican how do you hold the coalition that came to you in 2010 to get there? >> well, two thoughts. first if i sound like i'm saying it is all spending i'm oversimplifying. the iraq war was incredibly unpopular by the time the 2006 election. the financial collapse in 2008 had major issues and i thought when the vote was cast this would be gone and forgotten and it was my troops in terms of the election prognostication because it reinforced some of the views that the upscale suburbanites

have about the republican party devotion to social issues so i don't mean to go full board spending. i do think it was a large part of it. >> [inaudible] >> welcome yeah, it is a job selection. the economy is so terrible to the extent we haven't seen -- i think since the 1930's if you dig down to the economic indicators it's just the overwhelming issue and as far as how you hold it together long term, the answer is you don't. it is impossible in a large diverse country like this to hold together a broad coalition of overseas elections you have to pick winners and losers among the coalition. i think there's a very important point that michael verdone made on the panel that i was on and that is actually referred to in the 2009 health care debate and this is important to keep in mind, it's not for winning the next election so there's a lot to be said for not keeping your

coalition together but spending the art of history like see the 1946, arrested for the republicans partly ruined that coalition and some of the of the things they did it made this country what it is today. we would be in a very difficult or very different situation today if the republicans played a safe in 1946 and tried to win in 1948. >> what's but these three on the table starting with you. >> i understand the number one issue is jobs and more broadly the economy, but within different demographic blocks of the electorate do you see other issues like legal immigration of latinos out way or rival the economy as the number-one issue? >> there was an interesting

article before thanksgiving by ezra climate talked about the difference between the way that fdr came into office and the way that obama came into office. the point that it made was that the depression had gone on for three and a half years before fdr came in one, and in obama's caisse it really peaked right at the election time and went on for another three or four months and then since then it's been a very tepid recovery so that is one huge difference, and the other one was that at the time roosevelt was being pushed very hard by mostly southerners, people like jimmy burns from south carolina who wanted the government to do more and not less because the south was suffering so badly. this all this suffering badly now but that isn't where the pressure to do something was coming from. i wonder if you would comment on that.

>> we will let walter ask the final question. >> one of the effective foreign policy and defense policy on the election? you mentioned the republicans may have their genesis of the eisenhower coalition and now for the first time since eisenhower you have an isolationist republicans getting a lot of votes for a place within the primary. what effect do you see on that? >> okay. issue one latino voters and immigration, the answer to describe them, know. poll after poll shows that latino voters top issues and new jobs and the issue of immigration with latino voters is one of the largest disconnect between the reality. if i have one request in the network about the debates would be please, please, stop bringing up the latino voter to ask immigration questions. it's condescending, but in 2008 to look at the exit polls 54% of

latino voters said that either immigration was not an important issue to them or that it was an important issue to them and they voted republican anyway. the first time you've probably heard about but if you dig down into the exit poll numbers it is absolutely true and again become increasingly born in this country instead of immigrating to this country. the immigration issue is going to stay just like it was incredibly important to my italian grandparents who came off the boat. to me it's not as important but in this election a pretty clearly shows the job in elections for latinos. fdr. probably the most misunderstood president for people who don't actually study fdr you are right about the relationship he had. the south was split up the time this today between really conservative people like carter, people dhaka with the tea party rhetoric.

in 93 he blasted the they addressed the transparent effort to transplant hitler on to the borders of the shores of our country. but yeah people like jimmy byrnes wanted the new deal to do more and part of a whole idea behind the new deal was to try to transform south to make it more economically mobile with the idea that as people became more economically -- which in the south they will be more like jim byrnes and less like carter glass but it didn't end up working out that way. i think the main problem with the analogy i think it is an important one think about what the new deal did. it was all relief efforts. the first 100 days and i can't name all of them did you have the banking act of the agricultural adjustment act, the national recovery act, you have the currency reform, the gold

standard, the reform of wall street and all of these things in the first 100 days and it's not until the second half of roosevelt's term after he has won this historic victory in the democrats expand their majority which no one thought was going to happen that's when he finally begins to turn to things like the labour legislation and social security. compare that with barack obama. what did he do in his first year of the presidency to address the economy? the stimulus bill and you can say the bailouts which were incredibly important. my personal view is the number one problem with the obama administration of least in the early days was it didn't split the bill up you should have had ten stimulus bill that added up to the but reach 70 billion-dollar bills that just hammered home the idea we care about the economy. i think first of hominy republicans standing alone would

against the tax cut bill? i'm sure some of them would but it wouldn't be zero like it in the that been for the stimulus. how many would vote against the port, the infrastructure spending bill was quick to have a lot of spending to leave chris jansing alone, a lot of them but it wouldn't be 100% and that would have given president obama some momentum like a 50 hour momentum and is still blows my mind the financial regulation was put off until almost the end of the first half of the term. if nothing else that's what the american people sent barack obama to deutsch and was put on the back burner. from the political perspective to be its mind blowing there may have been policy reasons and i don't want to denigrate those but i'm here to talk about the politics. final question about foreign policy it's not a foreign policy election. i find the ron paul phenomenon fascinating in part as a student of history, libertarian but i

see him like a resurgence of the bob taft way of the party probably due to the fact he probably came of political age when bob taft was running the party. is there a future for that in the republican party? i don't know. i think that younger voters are inclined to be. that is probably true across the generations. we will see what they look like in 20 or 40 years to. >> final question. >> when one hears of the voters talked about the electability as to who they were voting for does it matter? the personal characteristics on the outcome of an election?

>> people are saying they want to electability but that begs the larger question, write? no one votes for rick santorum and thinks that he's unelectable in the general election or ron paul. they are convinced that ron paul can win the general election and i don't want to fill up my in box with thousands of hate mail so i will just leave it at that. the personal characteristics of these candidates the white think it is something that matters to people. it is something that drives perceptions of the candidates and whether they can win. if someone is a mess i think it makes it difficult for people to convince themselves they can win an election. you will remember even in 1992 people had written bill clinton off. there's actually a great book that was written and i would appoint the money and as soon as i started talking about it but they have a great quote from one of his top advisers talking of

the early stages of the '92 election they were afraid he was going to miss the debate because he would fall below the threshold and the modern democratic party would end as we know it and a lot of that was due to the personal issues surrounding clinton. ross perot kind of came into the spotlight and give a chance to regroup but i do think that character still counts in american politics. i think the character drives perceptions of the candidates and whether they will let chollet do what they say they are going to do and actually be able to appeal to the american people. whether that wins out this time, we will see. we have a long way until november. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> please join us for the reception outside. books are for sale.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> c-span.org to the white house coverage of politics takes you to the candidate events. >> thanks again, governor, good luck. >> thank you very much. i appreciate it.

spread along the underside of the people of new hampshire right now. >> if you follow the campaign trail meeting voters. that is a big first step [inaudible conversations] tomorrow night watch the coverage of the results of the new hampshire primary with candidate speeches on c-span television starting at eight eastern and join the conversation by phone along with your comments from facebook and twitter and watch online at c-span.org/campaign 2012.

>> when they get all of this wonderful university they will have difficulty finding a job. we've got to clean this up, leave this country in good shape and pass on the american dream to them. killed six people and wounded 13 others including u.s. representative gabrielle giffords. a candlelight vigil was held to commemorate the incident at the university of arizona.

the congressman and her husband retired astronaut mark kelly were among the speakers at the ceremony. this broadcast this courtesy of the arizona public media. >> i want to welcome -- [applause] [cheering] i want to welcome all of you to this very special event as we gather once again as a strong and compassionate community to remember the tragedy of january january 8th and honor the good people who died from those who were wounded and are recovering, the citizen he rose to came to our aid, the first responders,

the medical personnel to acknowledge the unity, compassion, love and support that defines who we are. these attributes still surround all of us that we heal and rebuild our lives. we live in this beautiful place and it is not only the duty of the desert and the mountains that sustain us, it is the kindness of the people who live here and care about each other so much. this event is a gift of thanks and appreciation to all of you. the program tonight is the result of hard work by many people and organizations and they are listed on the screen. without them, this event could not have happened. i want to especially thank the

symphony orchestra and choir and the orchestra's executive director of the untrue and george hansen. [applause] >> jolie burns and john of calexico are very special and most giving local musicians. [applause] the university of arizona and the police department's, the community foundation under the leadership, the university of arizona, the university of medical center and one person in particular who guided the planning of this event with patience, sensitivity and a genuine concerns she is the relations manager for the university of verso medical center. [applause]

before we begin our program might think everyone is doing this any way but just a gentle reminder please do not activate your glow stick until we ask you to do so leader in the program. would you all please rise for the presentation of the colors by the air force base honor guard. [presentation of colors]

[presentation of colors] ♪ oh say can you say by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight ♪

♪ and the rockets' red glare ♪ the bombs bursting in air ♪ gave proof through the night ♪ dupnik ♪ oh say does that star spangled ♪ banner yet wave ♪ o'er the land of the free ♪ and the home of the brave [applause] [cheering] >> i would like to invite congresswoman giffords to lead

us in the pledge of allegiance. welcome home, congresswoman. [applause] [cheering] >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god in divisible with liberty and justice for all. [applause]

[cheering] [presentation of colors]

[presentation of colors] [presentation of colors] >> thank you to the air force base honor guard for the presentation of the colors. [applause] please, be seated. it's my pleasure next to introduce to you dr. eugene sander president of the university of arizona. [applause] thank you. tonight it is my privilege to welcome all of you to this candlelight vigil to remember

the victims and honor the survivors of the horrific events of january 8th, 2011. it's a time none of us will ever forget. i would imagine each of us in this audience can remember exactly where we were when we heard the news. what happened was a tragedy obviously for the families and their loved ones, it is a burden that they will carry for their entire life. it also was a tragedy for tucson. even so, these events have not defined us. what has defined us is the way our community has come together and as many of you i'm proud to call tucson my home and even prouder now as i look at the thousands and how they responded in the extraordinary ways to help the city shield. people all ages and walks of life have come together to improve our community to make this a kind more compassionate place to live. while we cannot undo the past but together we can make and we

are creating a better future. so again on behalf of your university of arizona and students and faculty and staff, i want to wish congress woman progress in her recovery so she can return home to the mountains and the deserts' which she loved so deeply. we stand alongside and extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of those who were lost a short year ago and let's remember this day is a symbol of our strength when we can work together for the greater good. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome arizona secretary of state the honorable ken benet. [applause] >> good evening. it's a pleasure to represent the state if arizona and bring the

regrets of governor brewer who couldn't be here personally. i was very pleased earlier in the week when i got a call saying that in the governor's absence i would have the opportunity to share a few words. but i have to admit i was a bit unsure throughout the week what to say. and then thursday my wife and i got a call that our second grandchild had been born and so we flew to salt lake city since he was in the intensive care unit and for the last couple of days we've been hovering as close as we could to the neonatal intensive care unit. and on a few choice opportunities over the last couple of days, we've had the opportunity to go in and be with him.

as i watch the lawyers and the tubes, i never once thought to even think or ask what political party, what religion, but sexual persuasion or anything of the nurses and doctors that were attending him. i just was amazed at the care that was shown -- [applause] we were just amazed that the care that was shown, and on those opportunities as they came along every four hours or so, they were arranged to coincide with the feeding times so that we didn't we can during the interim. on one occasion i got to hold him. and on other occasions just watch and caressed him. he's doing well.

[applause] thank you. we have a flight to come back to phoenix and plenty of time to get in the car and drive down here but the flight was delayed because of mechanical reasons for a couple of hours and finally i had to call a different airline and get another ticket in order to be here tonight. and as i rushed home and changed clothes, i went to grab a pair of scissors and remove the little wristband that we have worn i guess to kind of show that we were especially enough to be invited in and be with him. and when i saw printed next to his name it occurred to me that maybe this was a message was supposed to bring and that is the mittal to letters of course

our ic, intensive care. i think the message i would like to share is that no matter what we are doing, no matter whether we are arguing over politics or city planning or the direction of the state are especially in our families and friends and communities working on a variety of different issues and learning how to love each other i think we need to show a little more intensive care to each other and that lesson i hope we have learned as we have watched for the last year and have remembered those that were lost on this date a year ago those the we got to keep and are recovering, those that assisted them, the medical personnel and the five-year and the police and hospitals and others who befriended complete strangers

and came to their aid that day so may we all use a little more intensive care with each other from now on. thank you very much. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, our next speaker is the new mayor jonathan rothschild. [applause] >> good evening. i'm honored to be on the same stage with ron barbour, secretary of state bennett, dr. sander, dr. reid, rabbi and marked and i'm thrilled to be reunited with my longtime friend and now my hero, congresswoman giffords. [applause]

i want to thank everyone who has come out tonight. much as we did and in much the same way we did not, a year ago tonight in the early evening vigils of january 8th, 2011, and thank you not just for coming to remember the tragic event of one year ago, but for what you have done every day in every hour since the shooting. the zimmerman family has created an image of a light bulb but the heart in the middle and inside is the word hope. and below that they have inscribed an expression helping people is a good idea, plugged in. this community has demonstrated that spirit every day since

january 8, 2011. tucson has shown who we really are. we are the child who sold his so he could send money to help the victims of a senseless attack. we are the soldier who handed his purple heart to a congressional staff person because her boss now needs it more than he does. tucson is all of us who lit candles and sent letters of comfort and hope. we are the spontaneous memorials, and tucson is all of us who have worked for a year to create a more civil future and stronger city. we are the love of the community that the zimmerman lift for. we are the kindness of phyllis.

we are the work ethic and the sense of fairness of judge john. we are the commitment dorothy and george morris showed to each other and most of all, we are the hope that is embodied in the spirit of christina tayler green this weekend has been one of sadness and reflection. we have more on the new all we lost in 16 short seconds. but at the same time one year later we find inspiration. i will tell you the way that our community has come together over the last year has not just inspired our neighbors but people throughout the country and the world. this morning at 10:11 a.m. bills

ran in tucson and across the country in remembrance of our loss. it was a moment of unity and reflection. so let us continue to know, and let the country continue to know who we are as a people in tucson united, compassion that, 1 million strong. and let us continue to be inspired each day by the lives we lost and our communities strength and sense of togetherness. [applause] >> in just a few moments we will last you to activate your glow sticks. you've been very good. i haven't seen any yet but you will have your chance very soon and this will take place after the last candle is lit kuran

stage. as the tucson symphony orchestra plays, a campbell will be licht for each person who died on january 8th and each person who was wounded. just want to make sure the candle lighters are here. please wait until the 19th kandel has been lit and then we ask all of you to activate and light your glow stick. following the music and the glow stick lighting our next speaker will come up. please, come the end of light the candle. thank you. ♪

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here. you look magnificent. keep those logistics going. you are very good. i don't think that i saw any of them that before. except maybe a couple of children that were peacekeeping over here. [laughter] our next speaker is a man who is known nationwide and worldwide for his leadership on january january 8th. when the university medical center received most of the wounded with great skill, he and his team cared for the wounded and saved lives that day. please welcome dr. peter, director of the medical center. [applause] [cheering]

>> thank you. on behalf of the university medical center and all the personnel, thank you for the recognition and the respect. it is a privilege to have a job that you treat everyone no questions asked. [applause] once that aspect of my job is to see something with violence. one day as i answered my 11 year old daughter's question i said yes the big picture of life all violence and gun show the because the six gunshot wounds whether it is a in the backyard. [applause] like any large city in the world in the united states, we have

our share of sense of violence. however, what happened last year was a tragedy. tragedy in tucson. 19 people were shot, six were killed, some were critically injured. people died senselessly that day and many lives were forever changed. the world watched as closely last year but tucson should not and will not be defined by what happened in that shooting. [applause] it's obvious we will be defined by the response with the community and that response was overwhelming, sincere and has shown the world how much we care for each other. it made me very proud, immensely proud to be in tucson.

[applause] nowhere near as much as tucson. [applause] [cheering] you may just so proud and happy when just months after your injury your back in congress casting your vote doing what you love best wishes to represent tucson. we are looking forward to having you back. [cheering] mark kelly i met you a year ago today. i learned a lot of things about you, learned that you are a good

father, you are a selfless devoted husband and a great man. [applause] my wife and i think it is pretty cool because you were in the navy as well. but you are an example of how trauma affects everyone. it's not just of the injured but it's the family, friends and the community. ..

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udall -- mark udall and one of the first people to come to the hospital, senator jeff flake. [applause] >> and those who gave us gabrielle giffords. courant and spencer deferreds. [cheers and applause] this next grew by would introduce they have been faithfully carrying nonsense generate without a pause. the congressmen -- congresswoman staff from the washington d.c. office would you please stand? [cheers and applause]

thank you. what an honor it is to serve with do. now is my distinct pleasure and honor to introduce a person who by now needs no introduction. congresswoman giffords has been of constant source of support and encouragement, mark kelly not only tended to the congresswoman, but all of those who lost loved ones or were wounded on january 8, a man of incredible strength and resolve, please welcome capt. mark kelly. [cheers and applause]

>> thank you. it is a little chilly out here tonight. [laughter] i thought this was the desert? good evening. as often happens in tucson, the son was seen rising up over the mountains this morning but unlike one year ago today we all suffered a terrible loss. those of us who survived were forever changed by that moment. law for the past year, we have had new realities to live with. the reality and pain of letting go of the past. the reality of letting go of

the year friends in family members. there is also the pain of knowing that with adequate mental health intervention in treatment, we may not be here tonight. [applause] the reality that for many of us their dreams for our families future that we will just have to let go. the reality that life is unpredictable and even the best of times, the good and caring and in no sense, the closest and dearest and the people the we know could be taken from us in an instant. that is a reality we can do nothing about. but yet, even with the painful realities, there is

this, the sun still rises over the mountains each and every morning. tucson still remains a great city. a special place, the oasis in the desert where our bonds of community were strengthened under the stress and the sadness of a horrible moment. we have all seen the healing possible and we have seen that with ron barber when he returned to work when bill badgered took a trip back to pennsylvania and even here tonight with my incredible wife gabby lead us in the pledge of allegiance. [cheers and applause] we were reminded of the strength that ordinary people can show under

terrible pressure, daniel hernandez, bill badger, peter rhee and so many others that showed us with realty there is also strength. so with these lessons in mind, we remember those we have lost. christine agreement, dorothy morrice, judge role, gave the zero men and end door when stoddard. remember their spirits and good story that each of us brought to us. thank you very much. [applause]

>> please welcome to the stage this 78 orchestra playing for us tonight. [cheers and applause] ♪ ♪

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♪ [applause] >> we love you zero gabby. we love you mart. welcome back. >> all right then. [laughter] and they rock. that song is a very special song for the congresswoman and markka and it was a song

that you sent up on the previous mission to wake up mark kelly and his group. do you think it woke him up? [laughter] thank you very much all of you for joining in. we ask you one little bit of housekeeping. you all have close six. but if you would not mind for those folks who have to clean up after us if you dispose of it find a been a or take it home. our closing prayer tonight will be delivered by rabbi a aaron she has given s much comfort. please welcome rabbi

stephanie aaron. [applause] >> >> source of all life, a god we share we draw closer to gather as the sun has said on this day of remembrance. we remember this day last year, our town shattered, stunned, grieving. our town, a courageous and holding one another up. praying and encouraging to be with one another. we reflect on the stage today our town healing courageous holding one another up our town strong

moving ahead together with kindness on our minds intensive care and on our hearts, civility and respect in our hands, our hearts and our souls. many years ago my teacher, i gave us the teaching a blind hearing sirens pretty asks us to think about the time we hear of the sirens of but emergency vehicle to on this the recall are reactions when we drive to work and how we were interrupted by a rescue vehicle moving quickly down the road lorain day sleeve was disturbed by this is since. if we were i know a door and asian by the sounds of rescue?

he suggested whenever we hear sirens, we pause for about and we make a prayer to god asking that the ambulance arrive on time that the fire engines can help the people in danger and their workers and fires can put out the of wires. that no firefighter is injured during the rescue and we implore god that the police are able to respond in time to the emergency. from that time on come a when i hear sirens and make this prayer. please god, please be with those who rescue. made each one cross over to safety. if i am with my daughter sometimes she makes the prayer this is a practice

that we now add to our prayers appealing for our town. when i make their prayer i feel i am connected with the bond of empathy to everyone in the town. it is the way to encourage the ball. god forbid ask you were in an accident, the home is on fire, or you are shot imagine if you know, everyone in the town is sending out prayers from the entire town for your recovery and the strength in presence of mind and the men in women carrying out their jobs of rescuing and protecting. may we reach out our prayers' upon hearing sirens for the continued healing of our city.

we've prayed that you sent down your healing and compassion in strength and support to gabby and mark kelly and her entire family and all the victims of the shootings into their families. made they continue to heal, and they they have a complete healing and, a healing of spirits, and healing of body. and in god we prayed that in concern that everyone has food and shelter and plenty of books to read. everybody who was ill or injured they received a health care mental and physical that he or she needs to return to well less.

and we pray on a visit to our town the music continues to cominco with beethoven and bach. [laughter] the cowboy poetry as whitman and dickens then that the wild west means that we protect what is wild, what is shared here, the land land, the birds comment that animals and wild flowers that every voice is heard from our babies to our elders for comment for crop. ♪

[applause] >> they do once again for a wonderful night of music. [applause] thank you to acquire. [applause] and to our speakers and congresswoman giffords it is so good to have you back. [cheers and applause]

>> i think that this town of zero. i know that it does. be safe under the almost full moon and to drive safely and a figure for coming. of