or even ten or 20 years later. the degree of boldness and vision and willingness to gamble we underestimate today. that is also key legacy and lesson of bill buckley. we shouldn't expect -- shouldn't be utopian about what might happen but we shouldn't underestimate the chances for radical reform in a good direction either. we shouldn't be too practical. i think we know ahead of time the limits of progress in certain conservative or libertarian people and sensible constitutional and pro-american directions. in that respect bill's latitude if that is the right word about conservatism within certain limits and his willingness to change and take his guidance

from the market, the political market and public opinion which may not be rice in its entire 8. very impressive and important lesson over 0. [applause] >> thank you, linda, thank you, bill. are done it may indeed have a century ago so i will stand here. i am acutely aware that our stand between you and the bar so let me make a few brief comments. three things about bill and then i will plunge recklessly into the territory of these wiser men, who refuse to travel. that is what bill would think today. three things about bill.

one extraordinary personal courage in both the moral and physical forms. as one example, one measure of the correlation of ideological forces, i think back to my class at yale. someone in the late 50s or early 60s. we approach graduation, that glorious june day when john kennedy had the best of all worlds, harvard education and yale degree. we sought to show support for of emerging champion barry goldwater from a class of 1,000 young men, all men in those days. we had five supporters. not included in the number by was known for the historical record was our hard-drinking

classmate richard cheney. as far as my witness dick cheney was a 160 pound skagit bag on the football team. not included in our number was a quiet economy germain parter -- are there -- arthur laffer. did for our support among the faculty. the faculty, 700 strong approximately in those days, yielded two supporters. one was a feisty lecturer in yale law school named robert bork. the other was an asian scholar named david brown who contributed articles to the journal. we would have had 50% more support but for the recent defenestration of will more kendall after a long and

difficult battle with tenure. the second thing i say about bill is what rich mentioned. and a critical ingredient is joy. every buckley enterprise was aimed at high purpose but pursued in the honey spirit. the sound that rings in memory is bill's laughter. bill in the office with a colleague or on the phone with a delicious story. bill on the boat with many of his best friends. i will give you just one example. this is years after the event and i obtained experts -- excerpts of bill's interview with the fbi investigating federal deployment as these fellows know. at the end of the field

investigation with the agent asked his omnibus -- covering the question. would i candidate freeman be likely to embarrass the administration? witness buckley under oath is recorded saying i should think that the reverse is much more likely. [laughter] let me give you -- proceeding recklessly this is how it might proceed. he might march through the following agenda. first he would summon for cataclysmic instruction all of the public installments and my projection is it would go like this. mitt romney invited to dinner at 70 third street would have been given a pass on gun control, abortion, universal health care. bill believed every human being is an down by his creator with a

right to flip-flops. bill would have board in on what he perceived to be -- instead the latka, namely the widespread presumption that mitt romney can fix our broken economy with an economic plan that is unlike governor huntsman's manifestly inadequate to the challenge. bill might have asked his guests how do you reconcile mitt romney, that with is irreconcilable? mitt romney would have squirmed through the evening. bill would have barely survived it. he hated to drink alone. [laughter] rick perry's visit would have triggered the full buckley charm offensive. tales of the original w f b and his wild cat days in mexico

would have placed the evening. bill would have taken upon himself as a party favor to support rick perry's most indefensible action as governor. with the end of long article bill would have recast rick perry's initiative has not only defensible but in some ways laudable. as bill probed more deeply the blue intonation quite possibly to the world. rick perry would have responded with a dan rather sized texas. impenetrable aphorisms somehow involving parched land and poisonous snakes. bill would have segwayed into a discourse on why contemporary international chairs -- affairs called for a policy less parochial. the governor is here to for advanced. when sarah palin came to lunch bill would have been on his best

behavior. patty, his wife, might have persuaded him not to eat the salad with his fingers. after an hour and a half bill would have included -- concluded reluctantly under the unbending terms of the book we rule that sarah palin was sufficiently right but insufficiently violent. as they parted that afternoon bill would have accepted an invitation to go spear hunting for large mammals deep inside the arctic circle. a commitment that neither sarah palin or patti would let him forget. the session with newt gingrich would have caused speakers revision. is part with the bridge will broad range of reference and allusion might have caused bill to remember an observation by the late herman cahn whose said some people learn by reading through the eye of. others through the ear by

listening. i learned through the mouth by talking. the summit meeting with herman cain would have excited high anticipation. bill would have relished the prospect of a cane/buckwheat alliance and only -- russell senate office building it's theatricality. bill would have spent his time with acquired inventory of the intellectual warehouse. what has he read? is it possible that cane could be that guy. beyond the political arena bill would have had advice for his core constituencies. to the hardy band of right leading scholars and the american academy including here. would have said be brave but until you have secured tenure, be no more brave than conscience

demands. reject and reverse the pro liberal council in st. agusta when he famously parade make me chaste but not yet. by all means concentrate your career energy on the edge of the evolving scholarship but celebrate loudly and redundant late the core values of the western ten. to the stewards of his movement's public diplomacy the editors and publishers, writers and producers bigger and talking heads, blotters, bill would say keep handy the metrics of fusion's. appreciate the vital contribution to our coalition made by each major strain of conservatism. avoid sectarian, adhere strictly to principle but labor without pause, the fresh formulation for a time as proposition. along the way remember to have

some fun. try to be a little less constipated. let me close by saying why i have chosen to support the buckley program. there are two reasons. the first is to keep alive a longstanding but fragile tradition at yale. decade after decade yale has done almost nothing to encourage but just enough to permit a culture of conservative dissent. i would like to think of it as yale's grudging but hon. acquiescence to the spirit of academic freedom. the second reason to support this program is that bill would have loved it. bill had the most complicated relationship with yale of any student since nathan hale. [laughter] he starts off as a golden boy

student in the line of potter stewart, sargent shriver, george h. w. bush and the like. but bill quickly became with the publication of god and man not a loving son of our sweet mother yale but the university's designated's estate -- apostate. described to me as long and censorious. they cared deeply about this place. not only where his political views but whether he formed the friendships that sustained him for a lifetime. for it's part yale possibly nudged by the alumni fund realized there was no upside in a long-term feud with america's most gifted controversial list. the ice began to melt.

the door opened wide and bilateral talks began in the 90s between the prodigal student and the forgiving university. what is it was not quite the treaty of vienna but an historic document nonetheless. invitation to join the faculty in new haven. his course in english composition which debut did it did it in the fall of 1997 became popular with both the students and their instructors. i can testify from his professorial turn bill took a deep satisfaction. the process of reconciliation was completed in the spring of 2,000 when yale awarded bill an honorary doctorate. how pleased was he? when word began to spread of the award are called to congratulate him. he picked up the phone saying

dr. buckley here. and he -- any metaphysical problems i can help you with? to which the answer is yes, actually, there are. and the buckley program at yale i hope you will agree is one way to address them. thank you. [applause] >> i have been reminded by a couple of remarks made this afternoon of a small incident that happened about 30 years ago that ties in with all these

things about liberals and neocons and bill's wide embrace. john p. roche was at one point not too long before a president or chairman of american through democratic action. extremely liberal institution founded in 1948 by arthur/injured jr. -- arthur/injured jr. --schelsin r --schelsinger. fred lee as the world changed at least on foreign policy he found himself much more in tune with national review than with many former allies. he and bill were talking

somewhere and john asked if he could write a column for national review and bill said delighted. please start any time. so john wrote this column on foreign policy but i assumed we were far apart on domestic policy. and then one day i forget when the subject came up but something to do with poverty or whatever and he gave an answer that led me to say john, you sound like an israeli conservative. that he said no! a catholics and nicholas --se i --sendicali --sendicalist. do you have any comments for each other or shall we invite the audience? with any questions or comments, some things up?

>> first thought would like to say it has been a tremendous pleasure to listen to these distinguished speakers and to hear more personal as well as political information about bill buckley's life. i would say the one thing i would have liked to hear more about which i know about is bill's -- bill buckley's legacy and things which were musical and non-political. i knew mr. buckley for 37 years as both a mentor and a personal friend. and the core of his personality was always his deep concern for moral values. that was a tremendous part of his personality and make up. he became interested in

supporting me. the american composer charles ives was interested in moral values. he made a tribute to ralph waldo emerson, spoke about the importance of one's remembrance, one's eternal soul. i was the only woman in the world is ended up recording is complete solo piano music for fox records and william f. buckley supported me as a concert pianist for his entire life. imac him in 1970, 71. i was in that infamous class of women at yale in 1970. but i was very privileged to be

in that class. very privileged to have known william f. buckley has both a mentor and a friend and i am sure the reason that i became world-famous is because of his help and his guidance. i think you very much. my name is nina. . i will be happy to talk to you about what a wonderful person bill buckley was and what a kind and compassionate and brilliant person he was. thank you. [applause] >> questions? anyone want to tell rich he was wrong? don't tell bill he was wrong. >> i will tell rich he was right. and bill as well.

i had dinner with my long-suffering bride a couple years ago with somebody who had been very high in the losing administration that swamped the buckley forces in 1965 and he had been keeping score over the years. to rudy guiliani to bloomberg and all the rest. and in the campaign of 65, bill had recommended 22 specific proposals, all of them branded extremist by the new york times quite literally, every single one of them in serial fashion. they had all been adopted in the subsequent years but one and i was dying to find out which one it was. maybe it was -- >> buckley -- [talking over each other]

>> even though we got 13.8% or whatever it was we won. that is a message for all conservatives the specially you young people at yale. i know you feel your facing the chinese army but they're going to run out of food. think of it that way. >> short question. early life in cincinnati was very big. where did bill buckley stand -- [inaudible] >> he famously expelled them from polite company. whose line was that?

john burke society thought eisenhower was a communist? this was quite controversial within national review and it goes to when yale was referring to bill's moral courage. reading about this recently. bill rusher opposed it. a number of senior editors opposed it. in that situation, walmart high-level colleagues saying this is a disastrous mistake. don't do it. really hard pressed to do it but bill is bill and he did it and national review paid the short-term -- the cancellation. but he had the long view that it was important to help the movement. he was correct. >> we have been quite nicely -- i don't want to tell ridge he is wrong. he is my former boss. but i have to ask about

attention is one of his things. maybe you could address. rich said that buckley's anti stake was difficult to overstate and he would have supported rand paul and that is probably true but the john birch society shows he had a history of purging people whose anti state was inversely proportional to their persuasiveness. obituary ends mary robert believe in freedom the way david koresh believed in god. he clearly had a low of view, not necessarily of rand paul but his father. what anti bodies did he have from sliding into that fuel of conservative thought and how we stressed them? >> i didn't mean to suggest he would support 100% rand paul because although bill often times so far identified as a libertarian, a key dispute with

libertarian's throughout the cold war was they were wrong and that we needed a strong stage in order to combat the soviet union. that took priority over shrinking the state at home. defeat communism because if you were going to have any limited government whatsoever you had to save the west first. >> come of age when bill did, the complacency of progressivism and the liberal welfare state is so great that it would make one more libertarian or inclined towards the kind of libertarian -- perhaps would be the case today when progressivism is damaged. confidence that would have been there and bill captured that national review statement or

whatever it is, where he talks about suffocating complacency and conformity of liberal opinion. i have to think some of the attraction for bill a mix of libertarian and some of his books, that he actually got out the most, the mayoral campaign but not simply libertarian or small government. he is interested in limited government in the experience of the founders but in any case i think the attraction -- not really -- the attraction -- shocking individuals -- a lot of that came as a reaction to the incredible complacency of that strain of american political life and the philosophy back then. as far as when he actually -- in

the 60s and 70s he was obviously much smaller limited government which free up people and encourage them and allow them to govern themselves but not a kind of dogmatic libertarians sense of deducing the first principle were incredibly minimalist state or no estate at all. >> there is another factor here and rich touched on it in reference to the soviet union. bill talked about ordered liberty throughout his public life which started at yale. he talked about the western tradition and about america and -- as a particularly stunning example of that tradition so

even though he identified himself as libertarian and even though as someone else mentioned he didn't strictly -- he wouldn't have said -- the tradition, the western tradition was a very big part of his intellectual and personal makeup. he was inoculated by those things. >> one thing. we all act in hindsight as if this were a doctrinal exercise of surgical precision. when i was there in the early 60s no one knew what a conservative was. we were making it up. week by week. i remember the first time frank meyer came in, father of confucianism. he laid out the full thing.

graphs and reading lists. here is how we are going to put together the traditionalists and libertarian and national security types and this will be one tight bond and march forward into the bright future. i am sure i wasn't the only one in the room who fought was preposterous. jim burnham always accused me -- i always tried to accuse someone else. somebody came up with the line which kind of stopped even frank meyer for a second. frank clarke could not easily be stopped. and someone said you mean you are going to make the whole the rulers lie down with the high rollers? [laughter] frank drew on his princeton background, author of seven

books and said roughly --dabb a --dabbadabbadab --dabbadabbadabba. the glue that held conservatism together was communism. the religious people, the economic people, security people. they all knew who the enemy was. the trick for these gentlemen is to find the glue going forward. we kind of zig and zag and maybe we will triumph. >> you have given up -- viral or holy roller party. each side thinks it is their kind of whirlwind. neal was talking about the question, bill was not a hater a roll. i think he disliked haters and disliked conservator realists.

that aspect -- the libertarian and to some degree ron paul for that matter would really have put him off. i don't even like -- is not quite right. not just personally i agree with -- sort of saying they can't be part of the conservative movement but that was because the berkshires -- i mean if you read -- they thought -- some of their particular policies -- strong birdie fence policy. the actual analytical claim is what eisenhower -- bill buckley thought there'd is a political movement friendly to people who are not just harmless way of i have a cranky view of economic policy but st. about saying impressively and honorably --

that is what the berkshires said. >> harmless nuts. >> that really offended bill. it came up a year or two ago posted on the web site, 1963 i think it was the bridge will denunciations of the berkshires and quite detailed and substantive. not just these people are terrible but he quotes at great length and shows that this is an untenable argument and not some kind of -- transforms difference of opinion and different strategies and values and denunciations of people when that was not the case. bill always had a distaste for those aspects. politics on all sides.

transformed different opinion into each side or the other. the one that people consciously are pursuing in order to do damage. there are those people. soviet spies and denounced actual rating agencies of the communist conspiracy which you thought was important and draw the line against those who were using that in the name of the conservatives. >> we published that editorial to kick the berkshires while they are down. >> oh yes. >> may be a logical following but to that subject i really like your thoughts since this panel is about energizing the conservative movement. the role of conservative talk

radio. your buyers came out of the fact that primarily a print journalist. i was listening to themes if you like values that bill buckley represented, conservative talk radio does not suffer -- it also doesn't seem to be -- seems to be very much attacking deviation from a narrow line. more generally in the kinds of -- are there things that you would do differently in some ways of energizing the conservative movement for or you see this as mostly valuable constructive role? >> we have a file of bill's views of these things. he reached out to many of them and became friendly with half a dozen. thought they were a critical

element but thought that it put even a greater burden on the -- the function confirmed by the print guy. if there is an imbalance in the public conversation and the totality of conservative expression is blaring from that particular megaphone i don't think it serves us well. bill's view was they were tactical allies but not great strategic assets. of course he was a great taxonomists. remember the last time i saw him, he was going through from sean hannity to rush limbaugh to all of them and have a really crisp and focused view of each one. i don't know how he did that. for most of his life he worked 18 hours a day. that was one day he would have done it but i am not sure how he got so informed about talk radio

but he knew it well. >> two things. i want to point out not only did bill buckley start his career at yale but he also had his last public speech here about a year and half or two before he passed away down the street from here. second, question for mr. freeman if he were still around would he have met with ron paul and if he did meet with him what sort of peace a and would he have about him afterwards? >> he knew ron paul. had him on firing line. if you are youtube savvy you can see a really interesting exchange between the two of

them. the reason he never sidled up to ron paul is the reason bill mentioned. absoluteism of any kind was off-putting to him. he was always -- saw it as his duty to define the conservative paradigm. but he always was flexible with it. people who work in flexible on whatever the issue, i had to be the tip of the speaker in the and rand campaign and i confess i went into battle for bill and slayed the dragon but i did not read atlas shrugged until last winter. i hereby apologize. the book has some merit.

i always thought bill's principal grape was her atheism. and it triggered a response that had been bred in bill from the time he was baptized. he just went after her. but also she was an absoluteist and that was off-putting. >> i am a history professor at yale and i teach american politics and i want you to know that i saw a lot of bill buckley and my classes particularly early buckley. not a man at yale but mccarthy and his enemies and i frequently send students to the manuscript division to look through the buckley papers and this semester reading about the payroll campaign and the john birch society controversy. one student is writing about bill buckley and catholicism and

his relationship with whitaker chambers. the legacy is here. [laughter] i have two things one of which comes up often about early buckley and one that is sort of self interested question. the first is students are often quite interested in this idea of this outsider identity, alienation from what buckley articulated as establishment so the question of where that comes from. partly being a catholic and a place like ale or temperamental? because yale was liberal in certain ways in the 1950s but yale in 1940 was not franklin roosevelt. it goes for wendell willkie. we can overstate the liberal socialistic nature of yale and the 40s and 50s. i wonder if you have thought of where in those early years that

sense of alienation and outsiders comes from which is so important to his project and more self interested question is i happen to be writing a biography of j. edgar hoover. trying to think about the role of a figure like hoover in conservative politics and the conservative movement. spending time reading buckley's fbi file which is interesting although there's nothing too exciting but i wonder if any of you have any good anecdotes or anything interesting to say? >> in the fbi files? >> exactly. i want to know what you really thought of hoover. not what he wrote in national review or the polite letters in his fbi file. he had something of a relationship there. i am curious if you could tell me what he really thought of j. edgar hoover or anything interesting to say on that.

>> i will say one thing. bill was never so energized as when going after large authority. one of his great battles, he being a royal son of rome was to attack hopes. he just loved to get into a scrape with the vatican. when he went after the john birch society in history it looks like he was cleansing the movement of this irritant. at the time the john birch society was a major player. they had strings on advertising contract with a magazine and distributor deals for the magazine. they contribute the members wrote checks beyond the

subscription and bill while he was fearless, was also a lover of danger. you got story time here? >> when he flew deplane in the dark. >> as far as i am aware -- [talking over each other] >> he didn't -- [talking over each other] >> he didn't intend to fly it in the dark. >> surprised the ninth came. >> instead of putting down new port some place, up to boston. started to fall, he decided he

could safely follow new york, new haven and the railroad tracks. which he did successfully do and this put the plane down. there it was. he had a job to do. >> this is classic bill. remember the 60s? pretty sad time. people on the edge of political consensus not just getting criticized that getting shot. politicians were getting shot. we have our first briefing with our security detail. as the nypd. every cop in new york was for bill buckley for mayor. , white, hispanic. they trot out this horrific file of threats and the could tell bill was losing patience.

he begins doing this and he sits for it for a while and all of a sudden he hears something very important to attend to and he leaves and give me two directives. first, he has never attending a meeting of that kind again. i can attend them. the reports that he might be shot in the morning did not concentrate his mind. they bored him. the other was you have to take steps to be short patty never hears about any of this. this was early in the campaign. bill was still hoping that perhaps he would support him in the campaign. go-ahead. [talking over each other] >> thank you for being here. >> the entire panel.

[talking over each other] [applause] >> today a discussion of the state of u.s. business. u.s. chamber of commerce president thomas donahue will lay out his annual policy priorities for the business community. that is live at 9:00 eastern on c-span2. over on c-span the head of the white house council of economic advisers, ellen cougar will talk about imbalances in the u.s. economy. also outlined the president's economic agenda. live coverage at:00 a.m. eastern. 10:00 eastern. a discussion of the political changes in the u.s. following the 2008-2010 election. sean trende is the author of

"the lost majority". he spoke at american enterprise institute forum last week. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> good afternoon. my name is karlyn bowman nma >> my name is karlyn bowman and i would like to welcome you here tonight to our first snowstorm of the season. and also our c-span audience. this is our first bradley lecture of 2012. it has a political theme. this is the 20 third season of the bradley lectures and they supported generously by the harry bradley foundation in milwaukee. before introducing sean i would like to tell you about next month's lecture which will be on february 6th by charles mary. it will be one of the first public lectures on his new book titled coming apart:the state of white america 1960-2010. it is a special pleasure for me

to welcome sean trende to a p i. you know him as senior election analyst for clear politics. year and a master's degree and doctorate from duke. hold a bachelor's degree in political science and history from yale university. we have a very special connection to sean trende. before he went to due in 1997 and 1998 he was a research assistant working for alan mills and on the federal reserve. we considered him an honorary member of the political choir and his passion for politics and political history was clearly evident at that early point. we were especially pleased to help him launch his new book "the lost majority" 2008-2010's political future out this very week. copies are available for sale in the lobby and also from amazon.

in december, two statements describe attitudes about the 2012 campaign. the first statement was i can 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 amazing finding but it points to a larger truth. although we are interested in who is ahead and we want to read -- we want more than the latest polls and prognostication from the pundits. sean's book invites us to think about the larger sweep of american politics and how the 2012 election fit into that. he looks at how political majorities are made and why they're unlikely to be permanent. we will take your questions and adjourned to a reception.

[applause] >> hello. my name is sean trende. i am senior election panelist for realclearpolitics.com and that is my real last name. i say that because not a month goes by that i did get an e-mail from someone who thinks it is a little too cute that someone who analyzes political trends as a last name trende. i won't be labor this point but i love this story. someone pointed out that my title senior election analyst is an acronym for my first name and suggested to me that i was just an amalgam of people riding for real clear politics. that never occurred to me and that was a weird coincidence. a bit of an existential crisis. maybe i do live inside the matrix that after reassuring myself that i am real i tried to convince him it was just me and could not. he still thinks i am five or six

people. i would be remiss if i did begin by thanking karlyn for the kind introduction and talk about my book "the lost majority" and why the government is up for grabs. it is an honor and privilege to be back here today. staffers are here today viewing this outside of want to reiterate a special place the american enterprise institute really is. speaking in the late -- what afternoon playing softball. the things you learn at the american enterprise institute pop up in strange ways and indeed have provided inspiration for my entire way of looking at politics and for this book. it was here for example that i first learned from my mentor about the work of a colleague of his named keith poole in developing a method for measuring ideology of members of congress. my session turned out to be my master's thesis. the 2001 blockbuster hit the

making of an ideological court application of 9 metric supreme court voted ideology 1901-1945. if you're stuck with about vince tommy armour send it to you and it will do the trick. a master's degree itself throughout opportunity afforded by a e r. after going for an almanac of american politics one day this was another gem that they introduced me to. considering the makeup of the seats the gop was vacating i became convinced the gop was on track to become the first party that didn't hold the presidency to lose seats in a midterm election in 1934. i asked if i could do a friday for a money issue which is an opportunity for staffers to present other staffers and scholars and she obliged. this attempt at prognostication induced me to seek a master's degree along with my law degree. in every congressional election

as of 1997 won since the civil war the president's party lost the midterm election. political scientist labeled as the rule of midterm law broken only in highly unusual year of 1934. lake over this concept of midterm loss is another idea. this is the concept of a six year itch or as i like to call a vote 6-year-old is. a simple enough concept. a six fear of a president's term tends to be an especially bad midterm election. 1938 the six year of the roosevelt presidency, 81 seats. nineteen 46, 6 year of the second six years of the roosevelt presidency the republicans gained 55 seats. nineteen 58 the six year of eisenhower 49 democratic seats. 1966 47 republican seats. bill 1974, 49 democratic seats.

this is a problem endemic to political science. overlooks the simple fact that most of these election losses resulted not because they occurred in the sixth year as such but because they occurred in years when parties suffered from particular contingencies. in 1938 the were emerging from a horrific recession and the roosevelt administration overreached in the third new deal. in 1946 we were struggling to deal with the postwar economy and price control. in 1958 we were emerging from a bad recession. 1966 the vietnam war was increasing salience and the democrats had overreached with the great society. in 1974 we had the debacle of the watergate year. also a very bad recession. in other words these parties ran into some horrible like in the sixth year of presidential elections. in 1998 and none of that was

true. there was a scandal obviously but bill clinton's popularity wasn't suffering from it. the economy was going gangbusters and he reigned in his agenda for what was a very aggressive agenda in the first two years. so i thought to myself if none of the contingencies that have driven midterm losses in the past were presence in 1998 than the experience we had in these earlier six year elections would not be present in 1998. this experience helped solidify my thinking about political education in general and emphasized the difficulty of doing projections based on present events. it brings to mind the famous proposal of british prime minister harold macmillan when asked by journalists what could derail his government. he replied events. what macmillan picked up on is something largely muted our political class with its incessant focus on realignment

and emerging majority the republican and democratic persuasion. political science teacheres and this is in the first month of most political science election classes, elections move in 32 years cycles. walter dean burnham, years 1800, 1860, 1896, 1932 and then the things fall apart but on this 28-36 year cycle where it seems 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 2008-2010 elections erroneously. i will get to that in a second about one thing to say about this generalized concept. it is my view at the end of the day that our politics are more developed dependent on short-term events.

these contingencies than they are on any long-lasting coalition or realignment. parties may put together a long lasting majorities by a time winning three report five elections in a row it is not that unusual. the odds of tossing five heads or five tales in a row is one in 16. fifty-five presidential elections under our belts by simple chance we should not be surprised to see more than a few runs for a party under our belt and we have a few. not many but a few parties winning four five elections in a row. these elections are due to short-term events is what underlies a lot of the lecture today. i take things back to the 1920s to show how political alignments have come and done more quickly than people appreciate. what a great role chance plays in an election. i could talk for hours about this but we don't have three four ours. i love this stuff.

today i will 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 will be in the big picture. i anticipate a large number of questions will focus on 2012 so i will try to lay out my generalized view of things and allow people to ask whatever specific they're interested in about 2012 and who is going to win or come first in iowa or new hampshire or south carolina, the general election when we get to those questions. for now there are three questions i would like to answer. what exactly happened in 2008? how did things fall apart so quickly for the obama administration and what does it mean for the future? to understand where we were in the 2008 election we need to take a trip to the way back machine. you may recall a historic

victory, one that would transform politics. we could start with barack obama ii misspoke of transforming politics and bending the arc of history and wiping out the politics of the last 30 years. i have no evidence for this but i don't think the 30-year reference is an accident. i have -- obama's precedents were aware of 30 years cycles. he is an extremely educated man. believe reagan realign the country in 1980 as many suggest and that we were due. this is after all the central thesis of a famous book that was one of the two or three biblical books of the early 2,000s, the emerging democratic majority, that book relied on realignment theories and suggested we would see a flip from republican dominance to democratic dominance and i think obama and his advisers believed they had captured this.

having won in 2008, 28 years after president reagan he was destined to effectuate major changes in politics and this helped drive that majority to its doom. i should note in the book i am not just picking on president obama. i am sure he is relieved to know that but the same idea drove the bush administration as well. everyone remembers after the 2004 election carl rove speaking famously of his idol william mckinley and how they put together a supposedly permanent majority in 1896. he believe the have accomplished a similar majority in 2004. that helped drive the bad choices politically speaking of the bush administration in the second term. and again i take this back to the 1920s and something that happens again and again in our country's history. the majority are discussing the book, any number of lost majorities. some have come and got on the political scene.

some successful lasted three or four cycles. some like carter's win in 1976 and kennedy's win in 1960 and coolidge in 1924 only lasted one cycle before they were replaced by something else. coolidge was replaced by successful republican majority that only lasted one cycle. it wasn't just obama. john judas celebrated the vindication of his emerging democratic majority. we could go on and on. harold meyers ignore the president-elect to bring on the new new deal and paul krugman said it all in the title of his column franklin delano obama. my all-time favorite has to be this newsweek cover. as rick perry might say, groups. things didn't turn out this way. the easy answer to why that is the case is obama overspent. americans turned against a health-care bill and the tea

party is brought about a resurgent american right to hold the rail his congressional majority. all this later role to be sure. but more fundamental question, if obama had reassembled and fdr like coalition he should have been able to overcome these forces. after all, you will recall or maybe you won't in fdr's presidency the democratic nominee 1920-1924 and 1928 all joined together to oppose his presidency by the 1934 midterms. there was a huge backlash in the democratic party elite and a lot of republicans and it did no good because the coalition he had assembled in 1932 was a strong one and his method of governing in 1932 from 1936 leads the majority of the country. .. 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. ..

bill clinton had a false start from '93 to '94, got shellacked in '34 because he overread his mandate and had the good sense to learn from that mistake, and that's what really brought back the progressive centrism that he he had run and won on in '92. and you're right about george wa bush and his presidency. i'm fairly critical of it in th book because i think there was a

sense among republicans that they had finally overcome, ip mean, they had brought -- they had elected unified republican control of congress for the first time since 1952 and then reelected it for the first time since the 1920s, and i think that drove a lot of the decisions in 2005 and 2006 that kind of brought about a backlash. as far as where the republicans go, and i think that thelash compassionate conservativism ofi george w. bush did a lot to kind of reinforce the frame that many americans had of the democrats, of the clinton democrats as the party of fiscal responsibility. i mean, the deficits, obviously, are the most obvious comparison, and the democrats for the first time in history in polling drew even with republicans on issues like prosperity and government spending during the bush administration. i don't think that's accidental. um, the tea party movement is a tremendous opportunity for republicans, especially to claim

control of the presidency, but it's also a classic example of what i'm talking about, the difficulty of holding together these broad coalitions. if republicans go full teaf party, are they going to be able to hold white working classthey voters who depend on programs like medicare to a disproportionate extent? will they be able to hold together christian conservatives who want to see social issues addressed, especially once you finally get unified control ofl government? will they be disappointed if republicans don't deliver on th' social issues? there's just going to be all these conflicting portions of the republican coalition that'll be making life difficult for tb republicans if they take controt in 2012. >> question right here. >> sam. if your name went from seanu trender to david plouffe, whatu are three policy issues you'd advise your boss to barnstorm on to maintain their 2008 electoral map? >> i think obama at this point

is pretty well tied in to the path he has to take. i think he has to pound on the ryan plan which i think it's a potential weakness for republicans to begin with, and t think they've done a terrible job of selling it. f you can even argue that paule jo ryan has since backed off then ryan plan. i don't know that's entirely fair.in you need to barnstorm in african-american communities because you absolutely cannott let the african-american vote fall down from 13% to 10 or 11%. if you knock that 3% off of barack obama's total against john mccain, then against mitt romney the increase in republican support among whites is just going to overwhelm it.p and so it's not even an issuew that youhe need to push in african-american communities, you just need to be there, you need to reinvigorate the sense of excitement of the historicry nature of reelecting the first african-american president to help drive that.ct i because, remember, a lot of then

voters that came into the democratic coalition from the african-american community in 2008, it wasn't -- these werei marginal voters who hadn't typically voted before whohen aren't necessarily driven by ato particular issue, but by the historic nature of the candidacy even though there's almost certainly wide scale agreement on the issues among these voters. and i think the third thing you need to do is you absolutely need to drive home the socially issues because i think, youm know, i will say this, peopleno don't appreciate the strength that social issues give republicans. white evangelicals give republicans more votes than african-americans and latinos combined 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 toub get an outside -- needs to trykb to get that upscale white vote which isn't so heavily enthused about social issues back ups towards the 2008 levels, i hate

to say it, he has to scare some people, um, and i think that's the only way to do it. 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 wl