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.

>> you cannot dictate details. if you're on the details side of the issue you're going to lose. >> he died this past weekend at the age of 63. he was press secretary to then house speaker newt gingrich as republicans took control of congress in 1984 and later worked as the conservative