to the first point, government advocacy on behalf of of u.s. businesses in the global marketplace. as many of you may know, i do have the privilege, as was mentioned of sharing the exports council but i also share the business roundtable here in washington. both of which, along with other organizations, have offered a variety of proposals to create an economic environment that's more conducive to growth, investment, export, promotion and job creation. ..

and maintaining level playing field is absolutely critical to us. we know that for our part u.s. business must offer competitive products and services to global customers but we can not speak for our government, nor can we compete effectively on our own against companies that are noncompetitively supported by other governments. we welcome the president's and the secretary's strategic direction and always greatly value their mention of the importance of the specific issue or topic to another head of state or minister. and we are well awear that day in, day out, much of the

heavy lifting guests done at the working levels by dedicated foreign service and foreign commercial service officers alike as well as by ambassadors and counsels general. i see them everywhere around the world at every boeing employee appreciates their effort. the administration through the commerce department and defense department and on the defense side, to being flexible in its advocacy efforts all starts with the people sitting in this room. many of you workday in and day out with u.s. companies on the ground in your region. in this connection the business community appreciates and recognizes your strong and successful efforts to date in the area of trade promotion. congratulations in particular on the expanded free trade agreements with korea, colombia and panama. i understand that the, in

korea, we recently had the legislature finally pass that agreement, which were major diplomatic and legislative accomplishments, heavy lifting. as the next major step in trade, as madam secretary mentioned, we would like to see further progress with the trans-pacific partnership and other multilateral and bilateral free-trade agreements. i know i'm preaching to the choir when i point out that fdas are the part of the economic solution, not part of the problem. the united states has a manufactured goods surplus with its fta partners of 21 billion in 2008. 27 in '09 and 23.4 in 2010. the president's backing of the office of the u.s. trade representative and his expressed support for the wto's decision against market distorting launch aid subsidies to airbus is a

great example of engagement that will help level the playing field for all u.s. companies, not only boeing, but also the thousands of companies that supply us and others in aerospace and other, many other industries. strong -- >> live now to the new america foundation this afternoon. they're hosting the discussion on the impact of negative political advertising on the 2012 election. speakers will look back at history of negative ads. number of ads being put out this year and how those ads affect people's view on politics. recent "washington post" analysis show over 50% of the ads this season are negative. that is up just 6% from four years ago

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> good afternoon. hello. welcome to our first twelve into 12 event here at the new america foundation. my name is andr martinez. i'm director here at new america. twelve delve into 12 is a campaign issues being discussed or not being discussed as case may be on the campaign trail as well as looking at nature of discourse and emanates from the election cycle. before we begin, i want to have put out a few housekeeping rules which is to remind everybody that this event is being webcast and it is going to be on c-span. and it is being recorded so everything will be on the record, obviously. and, there will be a couple

of questions sessions. so please if you have a question, have a comment to make during one of those sessions, wait for a microphone and identify yourself. now i'd like to the have you please turn your attention to the monitor because i would like to kick off the day with some of the nastiest political messaging ever. john, are we ready? >> some political watchers are saying this could be the nastiest, most negative election season of all time. >> this campaign season seems like candidates taken dirty to a whole new level. >> when pundits start shouting and politicians start calling each other's names it can seem like return to civility is not possible. that the very idea is a relic of some bye gone era. >> john adams is a blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who wants to start a war with france. while he is not busy

importing mistresses from europe he is trying to marry one of his sons to a daughter of king george. haven't we had enough monarchy in america? >> i'm thomas jefferson and i approved this message because john adams is a hideous and character with neither force and firmness of a man or gentleness and sensibility of a woman. >> if thomas jefferson wins, murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced. the air will be rant with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood and nation black with crimes. are you prepared to see your dwellinging in flames? female hasty violated? children writhing on a pike? >> i'm john adams and i approved this message because jefferson is the son of a half-breed indian squaw raised on hocakes and hamilton is a creole bastard. >> nastiestest most negative

election. >> can seem like return to civility is not possible. >> so i don't know if you were able to see the attribution in the corner that was put together by good friends at "reason" magazine and reason tv so kudos to them. i want to show that to get us in the mood for discussions that are to come and give us some perspective. we always tend to want to believe that we live in the most interesting times, the most dire of times and i guess in some ways that things are relative. so it is kind of useful perspective. with so many tran sent ant issues facing the nation it may seem frivolous to kick off the delve into 12 on advertising. i would argue it is the perfect starting point. those of us in the proverbial beltway or literal beltway tend to mock 30 second commercials. we read policy papers put out by campaigns. we follow every single blow

in the campaign season on the trail and every debate and we dissect everything. easy to lose sight of the fact that for most americans, people out there in the real world doing productive, actual real work, this is how they engage politics for the most part. this is how people learn about candidates, and make tear informed decisions about. it is based a lot on these advertisements that some of us can sort of poo-poo as being superficial or what not. but for time-pressed americans this is how they engage politics. there is now doubt that the predominance of negative advertising is already becoming the distinguishing characteristic of this 2012 election cycle. i was a journalist. those of us in the media tend to bemoan and decry negative advertising. journalists love bashing politicians but we get squeamish when the politicians start bashing each other around somehow,

that's as a negative,. negative advertising is usually spoken about as a negative but it is not entirely clear this is something that is bad it our political culture. it does seem corrosive. it seems to erode public faith in our leaders. but i guess there's a case to be made that comparisonses and adversarial contests and advertising tends to bring out more core truths about candidates than do positive spots. so who is to say? so i don't think we are coming here today to presuppose that this is entirely a negative trend. but to put it into context, not just going back to the election of 1800, we wanted to start off by looking at who is daisy and how did the art of going nuclear in campaigns evolve from that famous spot that lyndon johnson ran against barry

goldwater? how did we get from there to today? what is the cumulative effect of all this negative advertising on our political culture? and if nuclear campaign ads, if these negative ads are so effective, why don't commercial brands use the same types of tactics ticks to go after their competitors? so i think that will be a an interesting discussion later on. so these are the issues and the questions that we're going to be considering today. i'd like to now introduce my partner in moderation, michael duffy is the executive editor of "time" and magazine's former washington bureau chief. michael joined "time" in 1985 as a pentagon correspondent. he has covered congress. he covered the first bush presidency and the clinton white house. he has won numerous journalism awards and written a couple of books but most saliently i should mention his upcoming book, the president's club, inside the world's most exclusive

fraternity, is coming out, it will be published by simon & schuster in april. i for one am looking forward to reading that. michael? thanks for joining us. [applause] >> good afternoon. my first job is introduce someone that actually knows something about negative advertising and advertising in general so i have to exit the stage quickly. and it is robert mann who has had a very interesting life and author of, daisy petals and mushroom clouds, lbj, barry goldwater and the ad that changed american politics. bob is director of reilly center and media and public affairs at lsu and has the quite remarkable distinction having worked for three different democratic senators from louisiana and a governor of lose. -- louisiana. one of those four was russell long which makes him almost as old as i am. and also, an expert to tell us who can walk us back all

the way through a much broader history of negative advertising in america than we might good from someone else. bob, come up and start us off. [applause] >> thank you, michael. i'm delighted to be here and. and elizabeth is cracking the whip today and urged me to keep this presentation to about 20 minutes. so this is going to be the speed reader's idiot's guide through political advertising. we'll go through this pretty quickly. 47 years ago, a little more than 47 years ago, night of september 7th, 1964 an innocent little girl transformed political advertising with a 60-second spot that exploded literally, figuratively the way american politicians sold themselves to the public. for years barry goldwater, the republican nominee for president that year, spoken recklessly about nuclear war. lobbing a missile in the

men's room of the kremlin. he suggested using nuclear bombs to defoal yate the forests of vietnam. he said the bomb was merely another weapon and made a number of other reckless comments that suggested he was not serious when it came to the stewardship of the nuclear arsenal. the attacks on goldwater by johnson in 1964, most of it based on goldwater's own statements reckless statements variety of issues not just nuclear war introduced into our politics a radically new way of communicating with voters. examine any of the television spots created for presidential candidates in 1952, 1956, 1960 and then view barry goldwater's 1964 spots, you will note i believe there is no real creative progression from 1952 through 1964. until you get to the lyndon johnson campaign. let me show you what i mean. first we're going to look at a few of the eisenhower spots from 19 52.

they are creative mainly in the sense that they represent the first spotted a advertising in american politics. we'll see those spots now. >> eisenhower answers america. >> they say we have never had it so good yet i have had to stop buying eggs. they're so expensive. >> no wonder. you actually pay 100 different taxes on just one egg. we must cut costs, which means we must cut taxes. >> eisenhower answers america. >> general, how would you clean up the mess in washington? >> my answer? it's not a one agency mess or even a one department mess. it's a top to bottom mess. and i promise we will clean it up from top to bottom. >> eisenhower answers america. >> can you cut taxes mr. eisenhower? >> we can and will if you

help. taxes have gone up steadily for 15 years. the democrats say they must go up still more. help me put the lid on crazy government spending. >> eisenhower answers america. >> my children hear so much about government graft they think everyone is crooked. >> i know. too many politicians have sold their ideals of honesty down the potomac. we must bring back integrity and thrift to washington. this we are determined to do. >> eisenhower answers america. >> general, if war comes, is this country really ready? >> it is not. the administration has spent many billions for national defense yet today we haven't enough planes for the fighting in korea. it is time for a change. >> eisenhower answers america. >> today they say i didn't have it so good yet my pension won't even feed me and my wife. >> it is not just your pension. it is the same with our bond,

our savings, our social security. they have all gone down. yes, it is time for a change. >> eisenhower answers america. >> mr. eisenhower, what are you going to do about taxes? >> we're going to bring them down and here's how. we are going to cut out billions that washington is wasting and put that money pack in the pockets of the people. >> eisenhower answers america. >> general, the democrats are telling me i never had it so good. can that be true when america is billions in debt? when prices have doubled. when taxes break our backs and we are still fighting in korea? it's tragic and it's time for a change. >> eisenhower answers america. >> general, just how bad is waste in washington? >> how bad? recently just one government bureau actually lost $400 million. and not even the fbi can find it. it's really time for a

change. >> eisenhower answers america. >> i pay $24 for these groceries. look, for this little? >> a few years ago, those same groceries cost you $10. now 24. next year, 30. that's what will happen unless we have a change. >> eisenhower answers america. >> can you cut taxes, mr. eisenhower? >> we can and will. today an average man with one child has $1200 in taxes squeezed out of his pay yet the democrats say taxes must go up. but we will put the lid on government spending. >> eisenhower answers america. >> i'm 66. i can't live on my social security. nobody can. >> i stand for expanded social security and more real benefits. believe me, sir, if i am president, i will give you older foals action, not just sympathy. >> eisenhower answers

america. >> we retired on a less than $2,000 pension and at today's prices we just can't live on it. >> with today's taxes and prices you need over $4,000 to buy what $2,000 bought then. that's why i say, vote for a change. >> eisenhower answers america. >> move ahead to the next --. okay. i'm sorry, that was many more than i originally wanted to play for you but you get the idea. he ran dozens of these, all 15 seconds. really first spotted a advertising and the first and maybe last for some time use of spotted a advertising like that in political campaigns. now i want to move ahead and look at an adlai stevenson spot from the same election.

while john is getting that set up, i'll tell you that, in between takes of that -- spot, eisenhower muttered to an aide, to think an old general should come to this. it was very degrading experience for eisenhower. ♪ . >> old macdonald had a farm back in 31. the nation's filled him with alarm back in 31. not a moo cow there. farmland everywhere and farmer mac doesn't want to go back to the days when there wasn't a moo. to days of 1931 when he didn't have bread when the day was done. farmer mac knows what to do. election day of 52. want to go out with everyone in the usa ♪. ♪ to vote for ad lay steven send to keep his farm this way. with a vote vote here and vote vote there and voting everywhere, for if it's good for mack you see it's good for you and good for me. all america loves that farm,

vote stevenson today ♪. >> okay. so, jingles were very popular, even kennedy used them in his advertising. we'll fast forward and look at some, at a spot by richard nixon and john kennedy. i think, kennedy spot may be the first one. >> this is the phils family. recently john f. kennedy visited the sills. >> mr. and mrs. sills are facing one of the big problems all americans are facing great increase in cost of living. >> our rent has gone up. our food. our cleaning of our clothing. buying of the clothing. gas and electric and telephone bills have gone up. >> what has been your experience, mr. sill, keeping those two daughters fed? >> we're very concerned with the future. we would like both of them

to go to college. >> have you been able to put much aside? >> no, unfortunately, not right now. >> one of the things i think increased the cost of living this administration reliance on high interest rate policy. my own judgement is we're going to have to try to do a better job in this field. >> yes, we can do better, but to do so we must e -- elect the man who cares about america's problems. we must elect john f. kennedy president. >> next is a nixon spot from 1960. >> ladies and gentlemen, the vice president of the united states, richard m nixon. >> i want to talk to you for a moment about civil rights, equal rights for all our citizens. why must we vigorously defend them? first, because it is right and just. and second, because we can not compete successfully with communism if we fail to utilize completely the minds and energies of and of of

all of our citizens. and third the whole world is watching u when we fail to grant equality to all, that makes news, bad news for america all over the world. now the record shows there's been more progress in civil rights in the past eight years than in the preceding 80 years. because this administration has insisted on making progress. and i want to continue and speed up that progress. i want to help build a better america. for all americans. >> so you'll notice that technically and creatively these spots don't really evolve much through the '50s, into the early '60s. they rely almost entirely on fact-based appeals. no real emotion. i want to move four years into the future to 1964 and watch a barry goldwater spot. can you stop, this john?

this is actually, out of order. this is the, this is a volkswagen spot. john kennedy saw the spots that ddb were doing for various advertisers include volkswagen. he told his brother-in-law, steve smith. find me the firm that did these ads. i want them to do my ads in 1964. this is how doyle got the account in 1964 for lyndon johnson. this is volkswagen ad they did.

>> [engine noise] >> have you ever wondered how the man who drives a snowplow drives to the snowplow? this one drives a volkswagen. so you can stop wondering. [engine noise] >> okay. those spots are a little bit out of order. that is my fault. we'll look at the goldwater spot and i will come back

and put this in a little bit of perspective. >> don't look now, young man, but somebody has his hand in your pocket. it is the hand of big government. it is taking away about four months pay from what your daddy earns every year. one dollar out of every three in his paycheck and it is taking the security out of your grandmother's social security. >> you know, that is a the great trouble with big inflationary government. it takes more and more of your earnings. slowly but surely destroys individual initiative and responsibility. government must draw its strength from the people and as it drains away this strength it must inevitably undermind the foundations of self-government. i ask you to join me in helping restore the individual freedoms and initiatives this nation once knew, to make government more the servant and not the master of us all. in this free nation, we do not choose to be ruled. we elect to be governed. >> in your heart you know he's right. vote for barry goldwater.

>> so as you can see the goldwater spot is kind of frozen in time. not much different from the spots shown a decade earlier. so now we arrive at the 1964 johnson campaign and the spot that quite literally changed american politics. what would become known as the daisy girl spot was produced by doyle was seen that dmit night by estimated 50 million people. i would like to note that one of the creators of the spot is it with us today. sid, would you stand up and wave your hand. this is sid meyers [applause] sid is a legend -- [inaudible] that will be determined later i think. sid is a legend in the advertising business. he was a senior art director for ddb in 1964 and was key creation in the daisy girl spot and some of the others in a moment. he is joined with some of his colleagues new firm, creative people. chuck schroeder at giles and

don and sid's wife bonnie are here as well. hope you get a chance to visit with him and talk to them. these are the original "mad men" you're seeing. we'll watch the spot, daisy girl's spot. shown one time, only once as a paid ad. >> one, two, three, four, five, six seven, six. six. eight, nine, nine -- >> 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. . .

>> and they're radioactive.

they can make you die. do you know what people finally did? they got together and signed a nuclear test ban treaty and then the radioactive poison started to go away. but now there's a man who wants to be president of the united states and he doesn't like this treaty. he fought against it. he even voted against it. he wants to go on testing more bombs. his name is barry goldwater and if he's elected, they might start testing all over again. >> vote for president johnson on november 3rd. the stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> here are another couple spots that build on the theme as goldwater as a dangerous radical. [buzzer] >> this particular phone only rings in a serious crisis.

even in the hand of a man who's proven himself responsible. vote for president johnson on november 3rd. >> this one uses goldwater's words against him. >> on october 24th, 1963, barry goldwater said of the nuclear bomb, merely another weapon. merely another weapon. vote for president johnson. the stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> nuclear war wasn't the only subject that they were using against goldwater. one spot that was responsible a goldwater statement about sawing off the eastern seaboard of the united states.

[water sounds] [sawing sound] >> in a saturday evening post article dated august 1st, 1963, barry goldwater said, sometimes i think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the eastern seaboard and let it float out to sea. can a man makes statements like this be expected to serve all the people justly and fairly? vote for president johnson on november 3rd. the stakes are too high for to you stay home. >> there's a minimum amount of information in these spots but they're very rich and memorable images. that's one of the colleagues received this year. there were 27 spots of them in

all were the first spots that used creative advertising principles in a presidential campaign except for those -- those 15-second eisenhower spots which were kind of a burst of creativity that went away. they were the first in a political era in which presidential candidates increasingly and effectively used in motion not reason to win elections. the daisy girl spots skillful manipulation of the fears residing in american viewers showed a new generation of political professionals that television advertising in campaigns was about far more than which candidate had the best facts. it's more about which candidate could give meaning to the facts and fears the voters already possessed and today the dna of those spots is clearly still a part of political advertising. allow me to show you just a few negative spots ranging from 1968 through 2008. most of them represent something important that sid and his colleagues created in 1964. first, i'll show you another

richard nixon spot from 1968. it perhaps was the first negative spot that went too far and backfired. it suggested hubert humphrey was indifferent to the death and carnage in vietnam. ♪ ♪ ♪

>> okay. the next spot we're going to jump ahead a few years from 1988. it's the famous willy horton spot that was aired by a third-party group on behalf of george h.w. bush. it's a good example of how an existing narrative about a candidate can be put to good use in an advertising campaign. it's also a demonstration that ads cannot only create news but can help create synergyism in which the ads and the news meld together about creating something larger than the sum of their parts. let's see that spot now. >> there's a bear in the woods. for some people, the bear is easy to see. others don't see it at all. some people say the bear is tame. others say it's vicious and dangerous. since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as smart as the bear, if there is a bear? >> okay. that's my fault.

that's ronald reagan's '88 campaign, the famous bear spot which i think is a very good use of parable in advertising and demonstrates like the daisy girl spot that existing narratives in the viewers' mind can be put to use and don't require lots of factual information. i think now we'll see the willy horton spot. >> bush and dukakis on crime. bush supports the death penalty for first-degree murderers. dukakis not only opposed the death penalty he allowed first degree murderers to go on passion. one was willy horton stabbing a boy 19 times. despite a life sentence horton received 10 lifetime pass, he fled and stabbed mann and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. weekend passes, dukakis on crime. >> jay wrote a very interesting piece in the new yorker recently about that spot and i commend it to you.

now, to 2004, one of the famous swift boat ads aimed at john kerry's ad in vietnam. they were originally cable but it's a great way to use negative tieing to create news. ♪ >> they had personally raped, cut off the ears, cut off heads. >> the accusations that john kerry made against the veterans who served in vietnam was just devastating. >> randomly shot at civilians. >> and it mutter me more than any physical wounds i had. >> cut off limbs, blown up bodies. >> that was part of the torture was to sign a statement that you had committed war crimes. >> razed villages. >> john kerry gave the enemy for free what i and many of my comrades in north vietnam and the prison camps took torture to avoid saying. it demoralizes. >> crimes committed on a

day-to-day basis. >> he betrayed us in the past. how could we be loyal to him now. >> ravaged country sides in south vietnam. >> he dishonored his country and more importantly the people he served with. >> he just sold them out. >> swift boat veterans for truth is responsible for the content of this advertisement. >> finally, here's a spot from 2008 in which the obama campaign uses john mccain's statements about the economy against him. it's in the spirit of the ddb ads from '64 in which johnson used goldwater's statements against him including those about social security and nuclear war and other issues to very good effect. ♪ >> our economy, i think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong. the fundamentals are our economy are strong. ♪

>> the fundamentals of our economy are strong, strong, strong. >> i'm barack obama and i approve this message. >> so as you can see from this very quick review, the spirit of daisy girl using emotions already in the hearts and minds of voters and bringing them to the surface lives on increasingly in sophisticated advertising campaigns. the 1964 campaign introduced fear primarily but not only fear but fear as a policy emotional in politics and it showed in many ways in this new era of political advertising and campaigning that virtual anything could be fair game if -- in some cases it's misused and i would think -- i would point -- hastened to point out that syd points out very persuasively that they did not mislead the truth. i don't think it has been. i don't think it's a political statement that most of the statements was bourne in the political campaign in '64,

emotion, especially fear in their advertising consultants as we will discuss in a few minutes is here to stay. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, bob, for that tour of the history and we'll go to the second part which will look essentially at the current environment. i'm going to retitle this segment goldstein answers america because our guest tom goldstein is really the go-to guy, if you're a political reporter about the current state of the political ads and i just want to say one thing before tom starts, this current campaign is only half over. and yet we may not get a better epithetthat campaigning is a disgusting nasty business. newt said when only 5 of every 10 ads of iowa were negative. many of them were aimed at him.

that late december the days of the 2010 campaign. tom goldstein used to be university of wisconsin as a political cites professor, director of the advertising campaign and knows more about the data in the race than anyone else. so come up, tom. [applause] >> tom couldn't be here so you have to settle for ken goldstein got the first name wrong but no big deal. let me start by showing a number of ads that are currently -- or currently aired in this republican presidential primary and then what i really want to do is not so much talk about what's going on currently but put into context what the use and effect of negative ads are. but let's first start by looking at some of -- some of those ads.

♪ >> it's the story of a lost city, lost opportunity, lost hope. a story of failed policies, failed leadership. a story of smooth-talking politicians, insider deals, games of he said/she said rhetoric and division. one man has stood apart, stood strong and true. voting against every tax increase, every unbalanced budget, every time. standing up to the washington machine, guided by principle, ron paul, the one with the plan to cut a trillion dollars year 1, eliminate the waste, balance the budget. ron paul, the one you can trust. the one who will restore america now.

>> i'm ron paul and i approve this message. >> do you know what makes barack obama happy? newt gingrich's baggage. newt has more baggage than the airlines. freddie mac helped cause the collapsed and they paid newt $30 an hour. $1.7 million. gingrich not only teamed up with nancy pelosi on global warming but together they corespond a bill that gave $60 million a year to a u.n. program supporting china's brutal 1-child policy. as speaker, gingrich even supported taxpayer funding of some abortions and newt is the only speaker in history to be reprimanded. he was fined $300,000 for ethics violations, by a republican congress. as conservative national review says, his weaknesses for half baked and not especially conservative ideas made him a poor speaker of the house. he appears unable to transform

or even govern himself. newt gingrich, too much baggage. restore our future is responsible for the content of this message. >> i'll give you a couple more here. >> the crime, medicare fraud. the victims, american taxpayers, the boss, mitt romney. romney supervised a company guilty of massive medicare fraud. that's a fact. $25 million in unnecessary blood tests, right under romney's nose. romney pocketed a half a million dollars. cost to taxpayers, 40 million. get the facts at mittbloodman.com. >> okay, good evening, newt gingrich came to power after all preaching a higher standard in american politics, a man who brought down another speaker on ethics accusations. tonight he has on his own record the judgment of his peers,

democrat and republican alike by an overwhelming vote. they found him guilty of ethics violations. they charged him a very large financial penalty and they raised several of them serious questions about his future effectiveness. >> i'm mitt romney, and i approve this message. >> okay. so let me jump and give you a short little presentation which puts some of what we're seeing now into context. so if i press that, will i get powerpoint? things are coming. i think they're coming. i think they're coming. here we go. let's just start with my favorite cartoon here. so mike was absolutely right. we thought it was sort of, you know, cute when it was only 50 or 60% negative advertising in iowa. and then it was 92% of the advertising in the last week in florida was negative, which is truly a very large number.

and this is actually a cartoon by pulitzer prize winner mike lucavich. i'm sheik abdul, a lying flip-flopper and i approve this add. american democracy is coming to iraq. and i'm going to come back to that slide at the end and perhaps put a little different spin on the point, i think, it was. but the fact of the matter is, people really don't have very nice things to say about negative advertising. and let's look at some press coverage from the "new york times," "washington post," the "boston globe," recent coverage about negative ads and you see it. the view from american living rooms is not a pretty one. these negative ads are killing our democracy. negative ads are more frequent. they also appear to be more vitriolic. there's a problem with this

document. well, if the other slide was there, it would have four other quotes from "new york times," "washington post," talking about how negative the campaign is. so implicit in that cartoon, okay, we'll try it one more time here. implicit -- i'll turn my back to it and you can tell me if it's there or not. implicit in that cartoon, implicit of those media quotes are that negative campaigning is bad. that it's gotten worse. that american citizens are worse. and that american citizens are worse because of all this negative campaigning. so i sort of lied. so you can do a negative ad against me. they were recent, i'm paraphrasing another great political ad by what you mean by recent. those are actually articles dating back to 1980. so front page, "new york times," or front page of "washington

post" going from 1980, talking about how this was the most negative ever and how all this advertising was killing our democracy. again, i think that reason -- reasoned ad that they put together also makes the same point. we can go -- we can go back even farther. look at thomas jefferson versus john adams, right, american children on the pike is what would happen if thomas jefferson was elected. you would -- think of the fun you could have had in the campaign with andrew jackson whose mom was accused of being a british whore. i mean, you can just imagine. i once wanted to give my students an assignment from that election. british soldiers slinking out of a room and then andrew jackson's mom standing there. you know, so the point is all of this talk about the most negative ever, negative advertising is absolutely -- is absolutely not new. so i think we can say both from those very quick examples, from

the examples that you gave, from the examples that campaigns are not necessarily worse. and that's not even going into the whole discussion of yellow journalism around -- around the turn of the century and the sorts of messages that were put out in american politics. and when you actually look at the scholarly evidence, there's strong theoretical reasons and actually pretty strong empirical evidence to show that negative advertising doesn't always mobilize, doesn't always inform but not only the work that i've done, the work that i've done with my colleague paul friedman at the university of virginia, with mike frand at bowden and travis at washington state has others have done like darrell west who used to be at brown who's now at brookings, a number of other scholars have done really there's been only one

major scholarly article that has found that negative advertising has a demobilizing effect. all the other work has either found sort of a null effect, no real effect or, in fact, negative advertising mobilizes, negative advertising actually informs people. again, we can all-point to an outrageous commercial or two or three or four. but on average, negative commercials are more likely to be factually correct. and negative commercials are more likely to talk about issues. you know, the other commercial, i guess, you could have shown which is my favorite ike commercial is a 30-second cartoon of people eisenhower eisenhower eisenhower eisenhower and i won't do it for the full 30 seconds, i promise you. that's a positive ad. we all agree that's a positive ad. now, it was a little, you know -- after the 50th 15-second ad it might have been tough watching the eisenhower ad and we can talk about how much

information there was actually in it but i'd rather have the daisy commercial, a negative ad, a nuclear ad, than that an ad just eisenhower, eisenhower, eisenhower on this cartoon. now, i am not completely pollyannish there are, obviously, serious things wrong with american democracy. but can we say that those serious things that are wrong with american democracy are because of advertising in general and because of negative advertising in particular? and i think the answer is no. now, i have all other sorts of charts and grafts that believe me this is the case. when i would be concerned is if one side had a voice and the other side didn't have the voice. so the swift boat -- every time i would give one of these talks and i would go out to the university of wisconsin and give talks to alumni associations and

various groups, and someone would always raise their hand well, what about the swift boat ad? and i said, listen, it's not my place to say whether the swift boat ad is right or wrong, accurate or not accurate, john kerry had plenty of chance to respond. they made a strategic choice not to respond. and, in fact -- i think the kerry campaign finally responded a couple months ago actually, literally. [laughter] >> the kerry campaign and move-on, the media fund on the other side actually out-advertised george w. bush in 2004 you may agree or disagree with what was said but it wasn't the case that only one side had voice. and we can talk about what's happened in american elections very significant changes in campaign finance law and how that has changed the

distribution of who airs ads between candidates, parties and groups and clearly groups are airing more ads. but when you look back at the 2002 midterms, 2006 midterms, 2010 midterms and you look at top senate races, overall, it was not the case in competitive races that one side had a voice and the other side didn't have a voice. people had plenty of -- plenty of time, plenty of chance to hear their say. in fact, the most one-sided advertising i ever saw was in the 2008 presidential race when john mccain took the federal money, barack obama didn't. that said, even though barack obama heavily outadvertised the john mccain campaign, you can't say that john mccain did not have a chance to respond. either through debates, either through free media coverage and he also had actually -- you were talking about point numbers, $70

million in advertising which will be a very quaint number this cycle, still had the ability to get his message out. it's a very, you know, famous quote from justice brandeis that talks about the remedy for bad speech is more speech. i would be more concerned about advertising in general and negative advertising in particular if it was only one side who was doing it, only one side had a voice. and then the other side wasn't able to respond but i think there is plenty of money out there for better or worse, for both sides to respond and plenty of access certainly in the presidential election, certainly in competitive elections for candidates to have their say. so look forward to continuing the conversation and very much thank everybody for letting me be here today. thanks a lot. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> i'll speak up in case you can't here. he's worked many places "the washington post" and the "wall street journal" and my own editor said many years ago who is that? find her. see if we can hire her. we didn't but it's our loss. welcome -- we're also perhaps going to be joined by jane

mayer. oh, jane, i didn't see you here. hiding in the third row. jane mayer of the new yorker and of the "wall street journal." thank you for coming. i'm going to start with jane. >> i've got this little one. >> okay. fine. jane has written a great article in the new yorker about larry mccarthy who is the original bad boy of advertising. and as you pointed out, willy horton ad in 1998. he's had a few in this cycle. is there one particular -- maybe -- >> well, you showed one the exploiting suitcases one, yeah. i mean, it seems like he's been hammering on baggage for newt gingrich and both gingrich and santorum are washington insiders

who can't fix the problems the way an outsider like romney can. you know, when you look at the continuum of these ad you begin to think, oh, god, nothing ever changes in american politics. it's unbelievable how the arguments are exactly the same. but in a way, i think when i looked at those ads of the -- the daisy ad in particular and the early ones, they were so much more inventive. i mean, one of the things about mccarthy's ad is a negative ad-maker is they're relevantly kind of predictive narratives. the narratives is not that exciting, not that funny. it's basically a bar brawl. you know, one big slap right to the jaw and not too subtle. >> in your article i was very interested because mccarthy is just kind of a normal guy. he doesn't seem to have, you know -- tell us a little bit more about him? >> well, yeah, i was expecting -- you never know what

you're going to find when you start to do a profile of someone and i was expecting kind of dr. evil and a hater and somebody who just reveled in anger and people kept telling me -- i'd call them up and say so what's he like? oh, he's just a great guy, he's so funny, you know, really delightful man. you never know he's making millions and he was living posh and he was living in the suburbs and he coaches his girl in soccer and stuff like that. it was really, you know -- not ordered up the way one might expect. but it's more interesting that way, in a way -- and the point of being a reporter is to try to figure out what the truth is and not make it up. so it was interesting because it really -- what came across was he was somebody for whom the end justified any means. and it's not a moral issue for

him to hit really hard and sometimes quite below the belt. and one of the ads that you showed actually today is false. it has a fact that gingrich funded the brutal -- china's brutal one-child policy. and he didn't. and that was just completely inaccurate. and there's no sort of no penalty and the thing i learned about larry mccarthy he has made a career specifically of doing ads not for campaign, not right to the candidates but for these outside independent expenditure groups and they are inevitably the dirtiest ads because the candidate doesn't have to say i approved this and i paid for this. the candidate doesn't speak in his own voice. someone who is out there who is not accountable and they tend to for that reason be unaccountable. and not held responsible. >> because of the explosion of super pac ads do we see a different kind of characteristic

or quality of those ads this year than we've seen before than when they didn't exist? can you kind of draw a distinction what a candidate will do and what his supposedly uncoordinated committees or committees in the case of most of these candidates have? >> yeah, i think that's absolutely the case. the super pac ads tend to be much more negative than the ones coming from the candidates themselves. and it winds up being very convenient for the man because he can be out there, you know, mitt romney the positive generic message and quality and introducing himself as a personality and meanwhile there's a super pac that's hammering newt gingrich, for example, in iowa and i think really damaged him there. and gingrich just didn't fight back against very much in iowa. it took him until south carolina to really have his own super pac fighting back. >> and then it made a difference. >> it absolutely made a difference for him too. but it is sort of interesting because a super pac if gingrich had to rely on his own

fundraising abilities i don't think he would have lasted as long as he has. and so the super pacs have equalized the field for some of these more minor candidates as well. >> i think it definitely extended the race but i would -- you know, ken, you were talking about how it's not a worry as long as there's equal money we tend to focus on the presidential race where there does tend to be equal money or at least on both sides so they can bury each other alive. but and you're more of an expert as i am but i went down to north carolina earlier to do a piece that was about what happened in 2010. i think after citizens united we're beginning to see unequaled money particularly in smaller races where you can really see people defined by secret groups who are putting up negative ads that they're hiding behind

organizations where you can't really identify who they are and they -- they sometimes in local races there's really not an quality -- equality to me. what do you think? >> when you look at 2010, the top 10 senate races, i have a little pretty picture that shows this. the 50% bar there's even advertising on each side, each of the top ones. wisconsin was one exception. feingold didn't want or permit outside groups to come in on his behalf but there's a couple where the democrats have a little advantage and a couple where the republicans have a little advantage and when you look at the top races what's interesting about 2010 we're usually talking about 20, 30 competitive races and we suddenly had 100 races in play. the democratic candidates and democratic party outspent

republicans but the republican groups eastbound that out. so when you looked at it it overall it was pretty even in terms of advertising spent in those places and there's other sorts of spending that goes on in the campaign and there's certainly some districts where there was a little bit of an imbalance but overall republicans maybe outspent democrats by a very slight amount in house races in 2010. >> i was watching the original ads from eisenhower, of course, the rhetoric is the same. in so many cases watching the more recent ones, bob, have you seen anything this year that really represents a distinction leap forward, you know, overall nastiness. that's an official technical term or are we in the same glide path -- >> no. just anecdotal, not a scientific what ken has done. i don't think so. i think certainly we haven't

seen anything revolutionary in the sense of this kind of creative toward negative attacks. the colleagues created -- you may have said it earlier, i think the real problem with political advertising is how unimaginative and how formulaic it is. these guys and when they are producing these spots they often are looking for a dozen more clients and you look and go from state to state and state and you go in the different spot. and i think political advertising is sort of ready for another revolution of creativity. i think it's very much in need of it. and with the fractured media environment, and daisy girl advertised one time. the three television networks aired it later that week so probably by the end of the week

100 million people saw that spot and a very small amount. an incredible market penetration. and, you know, now it's very hard to do that and i think that advertisers instead of running it one time they run it 20 times. they buy 1500 spots a week and they just reel it into your consciousness. i think there's a chance to do -- to do advertising that actually captures people's imaginations. and i think what we see now is a very boring formulaic. >> it will be formulaic because you're for change or against change. you can have all the creative wizardry you want but that's the essential choice is. but criticizing my own career -- i made a career out of counting bombs. the number of ads that were aired and how many gross rating points. the quality of the ad really matters. and especially now when there's

so much advertising, having a signal that gets through that noise makes that creative stuff even more important. so, you know, we showed a couple of ads from this cycle. people can think what they thought was the most effective one. but i think what we're going to see in this cycle are things like the -- and he'll be angry if i call it the tom brokaw ad and i think we're going to see more ads like that or more ads of candidates speaking in their own words. not as so much the creative wizardry or cool graphics or those sorts of things. but what we saw in the virginia race six years ago, the macaca moment. as short of time as it was 2000, presidential candidates were doing events which were not recorded which was there was no video there.

there is now no house candidates, senate candidates, presidential candidates who is doing an event no matter how small which is not being recorded by someone, whether it would be on their iphone or something else. and i think we're going to start to see those things come in to our advertising. >> i interviewed someone who was a younger republican ad maker said it used to be kind of against the rules to directly have the candidate attack his opponent by name in the ads but they're using much more using each other's words directly and i think confrontationally and there were two instances i came across where they not only have trackers who are following the candidate but there were two ambush interviews where the opposition did an ambush interview of the candidate they were trying to hurt showing up in a video camera and just asking a question -- the candidate hadn't thought about

at all and then using it and that is -- you know, it's getting to be like candid camera only in a much more negative sense. >> i was also going to say, we talked a lot about how these ads are directed at other people but it's also true in this cycle that some ads, negative ads, positive ads can backfire on even the person who sponsors them. there's the famous -- now famous rick perry ad where he's walking across a field and talking about his views on social issues and that turned out to be a sort of -- he hurt himself with that ad and i think he wrote about that briefly. >> yes. you know, talking about the -- when he was accusing the war on religion and it was directed towards iowa conservatives but i think because of social media now and there's no way to restrict local ads to local audiences anymore, it immediately went viral. the moment he put it on youtube and then it became a subject for mockery and people were doing all these response videos. there was a tumbler and people

did all these gifts and put them in these funny situation and it became this whole thing on line and i think the internet is this very sort of chaotic forum where anybody who doesn't like something can find a clever way to mock it and it really winds unto itself a collective response to an advertisement that really undermines the message. and creates a counter-narrative nationally so that perry was trying to speak to iowa conservatives, but he wound up having a message that resonated quite poorly with a national audience. >> can i make a point about that. that's a great example and another example of that is the spot that pete hoekstra ran against debbie stabenow and that spot pretty negative, racist if you want, if you will, but the response to it was so furious that it's probably -- it may end up destroying the man's campaign and i think that's a good argument for letting the markets sort of regulate itself.

everybody who's concerned about it, i tell my students who ask me, how do you know when you've gone too far? you'll know. [laughter] >> they'll let you know. >> it's sort of the long infomercial against mitt romney the king of being infomercial that was picked up by the pro-gingrich super pac as well really, i think, did not have its intended effects. >> a boomerjang did he recollect. >> and people stepped away saying we were not meant to talk about. and it being good for us and because of social media and how easy it is to find everybody nowadays as well. >> do you think it's being picked apart much faster, examined much more thoroughly than they were even four years ago. usually there's the ad that hits and you can almost have a predictable reaction period to where it's literally sort of

post-vetted. that couldn't have happened before. >> no, there was no -- i think youtube has revolutionized that for sure. it's interesting the little girl who was in the daisy girl spot, monique louise now almost 50 years ago she did not see the spot she was in the year 2000. can you imagine today -- she never saw herself in the spot and youtube has just revolutionized the ability to disseminate this. what would the audience would have been for daisy girl if youtube had been around. >> i was thinking of daisy and jane wrote in her story about ashley which was an ad that came in 2004 by the bush campaign against -- it would have been john kerry. talk a little bit about that and answer this question, was that a negative ad? >> well, it's been debated both ways. larry mccarthy made that ad. he considered it a positive ad. it's very -- he's very good at finding the emotional story line

and distilling it in 30 seconds and it's an ad who showed whose mother had been killed in 9/11 and bush -- and she met on like a rope line or something and he -- he was just wonderful in kind of putting his arms around her and telling her that, you know, how hard it must have been and how sorry he was and how much he would do to protect her. and then she speaks and i think her father speaks. it is -- it is -- it's an ad that really sort of goes right for the heart in one sense but the negative part is that it also creates a sense of fear. it plays on 9/11. and basically it -- according to the way it had been described it had a huge effect in delivering ohio where ashley lived to bush and ohio was a very important swing state for the election so bob shrum claims that ad, you know, made the difference in the election and he sees it as a

negative thing that played reprehensibly on 9/11. >> hope or fear. >> in the eyes of the beholder, i think, so, you know -- i thought that one was one that was more memorable than what we're seeing right now. >> mccarthy said he was the proudest of that one which is an interesting comment. >> there's an interesting story on that. i was working on a project with a friend of mine craig hillberg who works for the milwaukee journal sentinel that ad was made is a fundraising material. it was an ad by a group and they were using it to raise money and then it raised a lot of money and like, wow, this is a very powerful ad. and, you know, i think it is a powerful ad but we also have to be really careful of overascribing the effects of these ads. there was this one magic bullet that won -- that won the

election. the daisy ad fantastic. it did not win the 1964 election. the willy horton ad, powerful, did not lose the 1988 election for mike dukakis. in and 2004 it was that one swift boat ad or the one ashley ad that beat john kerry, no. when i think -- when you talk to the people who run campaigns, they're working at the margin. now, when you win a presidential election by 537 votes in florida, the margin matters in politics. but i don't think it's -- these wizards sitting around a holiday inn focus group and they find that perfect message to work and then you air that message and put a bunch of behind it and it automatically wins you the election. >> you want to see the evidence

trickling down i was looking at news sites they had some statewide, citywide elections and you begin to see negative advertising appearing in city council races in places like austin, atlanta, baltimore, seattle. is anyone studying the presence of those as this goes to the local level? >> so we definitely know in fracking the lower level one that there was a lot of negativity. this is a -- i'm a too-old professor but this is a terrific project for a graduate student or someone to write a dissertation on which looks at mayoral races, city council races, what the tone is and what the topic is and whether other sorts of strategies have peculated down. >> it makes sense because if you have to rely on television to put an ad on, it's an inefficient use of money to have to buy an ad that reaches a

whole station area. but if you can now do something cheaply on youtube or on the internet you could do -- >> cable. >> cable, whatever. i mean, there are lots ways of cheap ways to communicate the negative now >> that's another point about -- the target for a lot of these ads are you guys, the press. and it was always the case that campaigns would air an ad maybe once or twice and maybe try to get the press an article on it. swift boat was one. daisy was a great one and it's probably the most memorable ad ever. but the first swift boat ad that was aired, aired a couple hundred times in markets in ohio, and west virginia. it was very much not a national buy and then got huge attention from the free media. >> that's why didn't want to talk about it. he didn't want to give it a bigger audience. >> he wanted to control it. >> and i think the bush administration campaign -- you know, the bush campaign at the time was equally scared of that ad and they didn't want to be talking about vietnam war

records. it was equally scared at the time and it turned out to benefit them. >> with the willy horton ad neither of them responded they didn't have to. and dukakis all these years later he's still -- he's just beating up on himself, oh, my god, the biggest mistake i ever made was not responding to that ad, you know -- i mean -- >> it's a debate then. if your wife was raped and murder would you support the death penalty? no, empirical evidence shows. >> and the other thing -- when you talk to experts about the ads, they'll say -- and i think tony schwartz talked about how it has to play in what he called a responsive chord based at least -- this is the argument. and i haven't, you know, looked into every ad but the thing about the willy horton ad is it resonated about the narrative about dukakis as a wuss on crime

and a liberal and it wasn't a very important subject in the race. but it resonated with voters and undercut them and i don't know if you can do a negative ad and i'd be curious about someone that completely redefines them and get away with it. maybe in some ways that's what the john kerry ad did because he was considered a hero in vietnam and it turned him into a war criminal in vietnam or something. >> he simply chose to respond in the same way which dukakis had its own resonance. we've kind of been operating on the unspoken assumption that negative ads are bad. i want to just challenge that for a little while there. it's very good for all the business that we're in here, but someone wrote in after the 2008 campaign about a negative ad, he wrote, what would we glean about current candidates from watching only their positive ads? that mitt romney loves his photogenic familiar that john mccain is a commonsense

conservative, that mike huckabee is unbarbedly in favor of christmas. that rudy giuliani will kill terrorists with his bare hands or that barack obama's serene wisdom would make gandhi look like bill o'reilly? [laughter] >> what's wrong with them. they work. why so many negative ads, 1992, they work. is there any reason they're not useful information device for voters? >> well, i think sometimes they are quite useful. i think, you know, obviously there's one thing that was inaccurate in the super pac ads against gingrich from romney but i felt otherwise they were probably giving people useful information that they needed to have about certain parts of his background. >> the test for all these ads, are they true? and is it important? >> well, i mean, there's true and there's true. you know, mark twain talks about lies, and statistics and there's

a whole other category which i think are political ads which are kind of lies where something is, what mike murphy described as pejoratively true yes it's true but it's totally taken out of context so without the context it's very misleading and so, you know, dukakis, yes, that furlough program took place when he was governor. but it was invented by his republican predecessor and 45 states had the same program. so was that cogent as an argument against him? is that really fair? you know, without the context, it's very misleading. and i think that's what a lot of these ads are. i suppose,, you know, i think some of them have great information to them, i'm not against them categorically. i think that they tend to unmask to maybe make the whole product category look pretty sordid which is politics. >> a dirty little secret, political consultants, media consultants i think will tell you if you give them a couple of

beers that they tell -- a lot moralize are told in positive ads than negative ads. i mean, you can't -- you can't -- i'm a family man. i love my country. i love puppies, i love christmas. i mean, those are not sort of demonstrable statements that can be checked unless you can, you know, find someone torturing santa claus or something you're not going to be able to disprove that. the facts represented in these negative ads and occasionally, you know, maybe more often than not you have people like john kerry and michael dukakis who are incompetent when it comes to knowing how to respond in an effective way but there are many candidates out there who are very effective in responding to those and using -- marshalling to set the record straight and that's why i agree with ken that the negative ads are not a good thing. are a good thing they are engage people in a way that, frankly,

positive ads don't. >> i don't think any up here are pollyannish are there serious problems in america? yes. are there a lack of incentives for our political leaders to pay attention to long-term problems? sure. are statements taken out of context in political ads? yeah? are statements taken out of context or speeches or statements taken out of context in news reports are statements taken out of context 100 years ago in yellow journalism? absolutely. and, you know, i think the key thing is -- i grew up in massachusetts. with a mother in democratic politics in massachusetts. you but i think we can pick on massachusetts democratic politicians. our system at some point demands someone responding. dukakis had the money to respond. had the chance to respond, decided not to. professional decision. john kerry had the money, had the resources, had the access to the press to respond. they decided not to.

again, there are plenty of ads that i think personally are awful that i think are clearly inaccurate. but i don't think it's my job and i don't think it's your job as journalists to say, okay, i bless that ad, i don't -- i don't bless that ad. and yeah, sometimes the market doesn't work. let's be honest. but there's a lot of reporters out there, there's a lot of money out there. and i think it's hard to say that the sides aren't getting their say. >> we were talking about that michael -- it's important to remember that a lot of -- everything we're talking about are messages that are broadcast to a large audience. they're clearly targeted to an audience but it's not like that most people -- if you're flipping around the channel aren't going to encounter these negative ads and positive ads and these advertisements. the dark corner of political advertising is direct mail and is what i think is coming down the pike in this

nanotargeting -- google -- long tail in anno targeting and look at what al franken did in minnesota -- i think it was 140 distinct messages to 140 distinct groups that they slice and dice the electorate so that the messages are going to -- one message is going to your neighbor and another message is going to you and you may not know about that and mail i think is the most nefarious to do it. it comes to late in cases there's no way you can respond to it and it does its damage before the candidate who was the target of that negative attack even knows about it. >> we can schedule another session on google long tail targeting before the end of the year. i can feel it. it's a great idea. before we turn to questions i just want to talk a little bit about going forward in the campaign year which is -- this isn't going to get much different in the last few days i just note that the romney super pac has gone up in michigan with nearly $2 million of ads aimed at santorum. santorum's three, four super

pacs have come back and answered with almost half that amount. ron paul has kicked in another million dollars and i think in the last couple days barack obama's campaign has spent a quarter millions of dollars in michigan attacking romney. would somebody sort of like to sketch out where the next four or five months are going in terms of how much money -- i'm looking at ken might be spent? just take us through, say, august. >> you know on the austin powers time when he goes back in time, you don't give me $10,000 i will blow up the world. i sort of feel like that puts the conversation we're having now. we're going to see $2.5 billion conservatively. it could be as high as $3 billion spent on a spot on local television. that's dog-catcher to the united states.

the dog-catcher is not an elected office anywhere. >> i'm going to hold you to this but hazard a gas station how much of that will be positive and how much will be negative given current trends? >> well, i think that's interesting. i think the -- i think the obama campaign people have written about this will be very much like the 2004 bush campaign. i think the obama campaign will be overwhelmingly -- overwhelmingly trying to define whoever the republican is. i think the republican is going to have a choice whether they want to talk about themselves or whether they think they need to go after obama more. one of the things we saw in 2004 is the kerry campaign actually didn't air any negative ads. the democratic groups -- people forget the groups also existed before three weeks ago. so there were $20 million gifts given by george soros and peter

lewis those ads were overwhelmingly negative on george -- on george w. bush and i think if you talk to people on the kerry campaign they would say our allies would be more building up than going after an incumbent president. why is that the case? because attitudes are pretty well formed -- thank you were pretty well formed about george w. bush. thank you are pretty well formed about barack obama which people who like barack obama are going to like him and there's people who don't like barack obama and won't vote for him. there's a thin swath of undecided -- undecided voters and their attitude toward barack obama are probably out of the control of advertising. what's going on with the economy, what's going on in the world. and at the margin, how those people could be influenced -- i mean, we all pay attention to this stuff. there's still people who are going to decide the presidential election in november of 2012 who

absolutely haven't tuned in. i'll give you the example of the super bole not as an advertising example but people only watch the super bowl. if you're someone who watches every game of the nfl season you've got a favorite teem. so if you're someone who's watching everything going on the television and going on rachel maddox and watching rush limbaugh. you're not an undecided voter. you like one of the sides. and this election will be decided by my wife and the super bowl. my wife is very sophisticated in politics. she only watches the super bowl. at some point this election is going to be decided by people who only vote in presidential elections and are only going to tune into that presidential election two weeks out. >> i don't know. i think people of citizens united, and the ability of corporate money to flow into these outside groups you're looking at so much more money.

i mean -- >> how much do you think has been spent so far in the election? >> it's hard to tell. you can't see what's going into the certain kind of groups the 501c4 so it's hard to chart. but i wrote a piece -- >> most of the money in there now has been these big gives -- >> i think a lot of it is going to be privately held corporations because i think publicly held ones have to deal with issues of stockholders and a lot of public attention. but i think you see people like the people i wrote about like the koch brothers they have a privately held company that does billions of dollars of business and they have a strong political agenda and they can use as much as they want. it can make an actual difference in a race. we haven't really seen how it's going to play out but i think the outside groups are going to be what i'm going to be watching 'cause i think that's maybe what the amount of money they have to play with is more than what we had before. >> the story with outside groups the question is are the koch

brothers are going to spend more than they would have 'cause it's not like they don't have a lot of money personally also. >> there will be other people who get in as a result of the easier -- this is a lot easier -- it's going to be a lot easier to do this time around. >> they're a lot more argued around. >> i think we're kind of already seeing the contours of the general election while the gop primary campaign is continuing. and my colleague molly ball wrote a story whether or not romney has been predestroyed almost at this point by this sort of democrat effort to find him which has been picked up, very vigorously by his republican opponents. i have seen things that were written on tpm one day and were turned into a gingrich anti-romney add the next day i mean, it's just kind of amazing to watch to watch the democratic and gingrich message is being picked up by hess republican opponents at this point. >> you haven't talked about the anti-obama message and this is all sort of pregame. i think the real thing in the

general election is going to be amazing, i think. i think negative. >> i read somewhere that the president has 50 opposition researchers working for him in chicago and i'm guessing it's not because those 50 people are going to be going door to door. okay. we're going to do some questions now. we have 10 or 15 minutes so i'll start in the back, yes, sir, in the black. yes, sir. please wait for the microphone and identify yourself. >> jim snyder a former political science congressional fellow in communications policy and also one of the former colleagues, robert, maybe tim cook was one of my dissertation advisors in political communications. he was also a communications policy fellow in congress. so one, a comment -- a caveat on the 500,000 elected positions in

the united states, the presidential elections are clearly the most important but it's still only one and it happens that local and state politics are qualitatively different than federal elections. it's not just a matter of trickledown -- what works in terms of analysis at the national level applies to the local level. it's often very different and, unfortunately, as an academic who wants to go work at a major university or speak at a major think tank like this. you got to focus on presidential elections and that's what you study and it's unfortunate because sometimes we have to be very cautious about the inferences that we make from studying this one type of election. but my question relates to something different and that is in order to get these ads on the airwaves you have to go through a gateway which is your local tv broadcaster and i have never seen -- i haven't followed the literature in more than a decade a study about how broadcasters

exercise their discretion and possibly abuse their power. they have inside information as to when these ads are going to run. and many of the marketing directors at these local tv stations work for politicians on their campaigns, give them advice, giving them heads up on negative campaigns. it's a big issue. one of the commentators mentioned -- well, both sides can do this. well, not necessarily. broadcasters do exercise discretion. the issue arises most when they have a direct economic ownership interest on an issue. there are lots of anecdotes about broadcasters answering this discretion but there is no study. but the question is, do you feel that the gateway to getting on the air -- those -- the local broadcasters are significant players in any way in shaping what happens? i don't think it happens in a

presidential election but i do think at a local level they have a lot of discretion on what they carry and don't carry. [inaudible] >> they certainly have -- the third-party ads are -- they're not entitled to say anything they want. the broadcasters have more -- have more control over what they air and what they don't and i think in some cases those broadcasters, you know, ought to exercise their right to insist that this be accurate. a lot of times it takes a lawsuit by the candidate forcing the station to do that. and i think most stations don't want to get into the business of playing umpire but they have that right. >> yes, sir, in the blue shirt. >> hi, mark nadel. i'm just independent. the message i get from all of you is that negatives is not up this year. i mean, overall you look back to 1800 whatever it's been there. so that's kind of stable.

my question is what's going up. is it spending per capita on advertising? is it the negative ads or more misleading and that having super pacs advertised will lead to even greater impact of misleading ads? and lastly, i think ken mentioned that he didn't think his role was to criticize -- not criticize when there are misleading ads out there that it's the voters to decide. but i think it's the press that's going after misleading ads to correct things. >> well, i'm not the press. but i think the press does discuss these ads and i think they do. i mean, if anything the press probably discusses the ads too much. i mean, thank god. my career but it's like catnip for people in, you know, a journalists getting the

advertising, getting the advertising. what's different about this year? and i think this will actually be a nice segue into the discussion about why commercial advertisers tend to not go as negative. this is an unusually negative primary. and the reason why people tend to not go negative in a primary not because it's a family -- a family fight can sometimes be more brutal, right? it's because sometimes you'll have multiperson races and so the 2004 howard dean/richard gephardt it's famously called the murder-suicide in iowa. are dean went after gephardt and gephardt went after dean and kerry and edwards were able to take one and two in iowa. and i think actually a bit of santorum can be explained by romney and gingrich going after each other so heavily in iowa, there wasn't much advertising in new hampshire actually. in iowa, in south carolina, in

florida. and what happens is one of the reasons -- and i'm making this up. i'll hear from the people who really know what they're talking about. one of the reasons burger king might not go after mcdonald's if they go after mcdonald's it then benefits wendies. and in a general election where you only have two candidates, you don't worry about that. so there's no disincentive to going negative. so i do think there has been an unusually high level of negative advertising in this particular presidential primary. i think that's what's different. and also the ability of -- as jane was saying, the groups are obviously a big deal. you win a primary and you would have a little momentum and you would raise some money to go get on the air now a win can be a $5 million check within 30 minutes. and that can be wired right to the television station. so also the speed of which that momentum can happen and change is different i think.

>> you were talking about how you can see something on a website one day and an ad the next day. the willy horton ad that you were talking about was surfaced by al gore, the information months before mccarthy ran. that seems like a quaint period of time now. >> third row. >> wasn't it a democrat debate. >> a democratic debate. >> under citizens united, is there disclosure how do we know if foreign entities are putting money into american politics? >> well, under citizens united is there disclosure? it allows -- the super pac -- it seems to me people are confused to think there's no disclosure of who's giving to super pacs. that money is disclosed and you can figure out how you know about foster piece and aidleson and people like that. but there are -- there are other categories that are on the

margins the 501c3s and 501c4s and the 501c4s you do not know where the money is coming from and they're not supposed to be explicitly involved in electioneering but the lines have just gotten so muddy. they were somewhat muddy before citizens united but what people tell me is that citizens united was seen as a green light. that basically told people with a lot of money that might want to give it secretly, don't worry, you're not going to be prosecuted. before it was kind of iffy legally and a lot of people didn't want to take the risk. now no one is worrying about taking the risk. they're just throwing the money out there. that's at least how i read it. >> yes, sir. third row back. >> hi. don, former ddp creative and now with senior creative people. we were talking about the history of negative advertising and we see how far back it's gone and that it continues and

that it's not in many ways very different. however, due to citizens united, isn't there much more of it along with the connectivity that we have today with the internet and everything else? isn't there a much greater flood of it so that while it may not be different in content, it's different in quantity? >> you know, listen, i think one would have to -- and, you know, i'm careful of speaking about things without -- without the data. but you know, i imagine if you went back to the '30s, 40s, '50s, '60s one you would have a much more robust print journalism, you know, multiple newspapers in particular markets. some of those markets, you know -- and some of those newspapers were more directly partisan than we would be used to having, newspapers now. fox news as a tv station or msnbc as a news station that was sort of the norm for many

newspapers in how they did coverage in this country. so is there more negative television advertising? you know, absolutely. are there more negative things being said? i don't know what was said at the bar before? what was said in speeches before? what was said in places of worship before. what was said in partisan newspapers before? what was said in newsletters before? what was said on the radio before? i don't know. i don't have the empirical evidence but i guess i'd be suspicious that it was -- the good old days. >> it was available is what i'm talking about. >> yeah, the money just keeps going up and up. you're talking about 2.5 million. what was it last time in 2008? on ads? it was nothing like 2.5 million. it's one of the sectors of the economy that's booming apparently is political ads. >> what you're seeing in the advertising -- i mean, the

biggest act of a lot of these campaigns finance decisions sort of the twin of mccain-feingold, the bipartisan campaign reform act and then the citizens united decision is what we've really done we can party. if you look at the size of the pie, the size of the pie in terms of spot advertising on television has not really grown tremendously. now, there's obviously the internet and there's other ways of communicating but the slices of the pie are different where the slice at the party controls has gotten much smaller. the slice that candidates control has stayed about the same but the slice that these groups have are bigger. so the decision in mcconnell versus fcc and they made it difficult for the parties to be major players in terms of the message ad wars.

>> if you look at the groups the group that's gotten amplified are the group of the super wealthy, the people who can give a million dollars is a lot louder this time around than it's ever been before or 10 million. >> we have time for one more. i'm going to go right here. >> edward mcbride with the economist. can you tell me about people who try to be positive? i mean, obviously we've always discussed the example of gingrich said he wasn't going to do negative ads and getting hammered and then it was a great thing but what about 2010 hickenlooper in colorado who did that spot of him in the shower which some of you saw it. if you trumpet yourself as being positive does that -- does that make any headway with voters? is there any evidence on that? >> the entire campaign was based on that. i mean, yes, arguing about the

economy but the whole thing was based on hope and change and it's sort of interesting to watch the very few videos of the obama campaign has actually put out so far where they're trying to figure out how to -- to continue that positive message and highlight his accomplishments as a president and put that out there in an environment, you know, where there's a lot of criticism of him. >> i was struck by how bad can the negative ads really be if in a debate in which we saw tuesday night, wednesday night, ron paul simply looked at rick santorum and said you're a fake. [laughter] >> that's going to conclude. i want to thank ken and bob and jane. i want to thank new america for doing this. we'll do it again. [applause] >> thank you, michael. the speakers were wonderful. i have an opportunity to make a

segue to our second delve of the event on tuesday on fact-checking. it will be featuring steve call our president, folks from polit fact and our media policy. we're going to look at the role of media and playing umpire which was alluded to in this panel. another thing that was alluded to in that discussion about checking facts and playing umpire, was this idea that it is somehow more difficult to fact-check positive commercials. in other words, a candidate saying -- i believe it was robert mann who said if you put up ads i love my family, i love my country, it's harder to put that to the test and ascertain whether it's true. our next two speakers might take issue with that. i think if a candidate asserts that he or she loves his or her family, opposition researchers are more than happy to put that -- those claims to the test. so we're going to now segue to

michael and alan huffman who are the archeologists, if you will, in terms of coming up with some of the raw data, the dirt that gets dug up that goes into these commercials. and one of the things that i learned in reading their fantastic book which is entitled -- i'm burying the lead their the authorize we're with nobody two insiders reveal the dark side of american politics and one of the things that i learned in reading the book was that oftentimes a lot of the due diligence and research that they do is for their own candidates. it's sort of a preemptive scrubbing, i suppose. michael and alan just published this book. and they are -- they have been the beneficiaries of the highest -- the most august stamp of approval in washington these days which is to have been on jon stewart's daily show this week so congratulations. they both spent 20 years in democratic candidates running

state and national campaigns. they are partners in the research firm that focuses on such opposition work. michael has worked as a journalist in texas and mississippi. a director of communications and political advisor for the office of mayor for the city of jackson and even a political advisor to the attorney general of mississippi. alan has worked as a farmer in the bio here and that oftencologist up at washington's think tank events and people are often -- that's interesting. a farmer, a newspaper reporter and aide to the mississippi attorney general and a mississippi governor. we're really pleased to have you both. michael and alan are going to give a short presentation and then we're going to continue the conversation. thanks a lot. >> well, first thanks for having us today. we are those guys that are out there, i guess, for lack of a better phrase digging up the dirt on each candidate. having done this for 18 years

just in a nutshell because we're going to have a long time to tell you what we do is when you start a campaign we're the guys that you hire to go out and tell you everything you need to know about the person you're running against but equally as important to tell you everything you need to know about you. and so we don't win a lot of popularity contests as you can imagine because sometimes the thing that we find in our candidate are -- is damaging or worse than the guy running against. so we're going to show you a couple of ads and kind of explain those how -- how the stuff you see in these ads get there. you know, y'all are watching these things today and probably with a different eye this we do and we're looking at these ads, you know, we're not looking at all the great music and the images and the voices. we're looking at the sights, we're looking to see where this information came from and if these campaigns gave you that information. so i'm going to show you two first. on a campaign we just got through in november and then

kind of talk about that for a secon second. >> u.s. supreme court will decide about health care. as it should. as attorney general, i'm using our courts to lock up criminals. >> what steve simpson been up to? bought a yacht the same year he failed to pay his property taxes. he put a lien on his house he spent $74,000 plane, including 22 trips. and then wrecked the plane. steve simpson living it up at our expense. >> this is steve simpson. this is his yacht. the same year he bought his yacht, simpson failed to pay his property taxes. his taxes were so late they put a lien on his house. simpson said paying his taxes was not in the budget but buying a yacht was? and as public safety commissioner, simpson took a pay raise to 138,000 while cutting

the state highway budget. steve simpson, living it up at our expense. >> obviously, this has a lot of negativity in it as you can see. you know, in 18 years of doing this, the reason i want to show this for a couple reasons. we have never had an opponent that had this many negatives on him. i've never seen this. it was like going into the campaign office every day and opening up a folder and saying, okay, what do we want to use today? and it just kept going. now, what happens is these commercials were based on information we had put together at the beginning of the campaign so they were sent to the pollster which the process -- you know politics as you know is a very defined process ideally so our information goes to a pollster. they do their questions. they test it they see what resonates with voters and then couple degrees to the media guys and they put their scripts together. i don't know if any of you know jay or bill but they're the ones who did those ads. so during that process, the poll

questions will come back to us to look at and we'll check those and make sure they're accurate and they kind of jive with what we gave them in the report and also the scripts will come back to us two one last time before they're produced to make sure those are accurate so what you're doing is, you're taking a 200-page research report and distilling into a 30 or 60 second spot which is always amazing to me because every word in those spots is a story unto itself. and you have to be so careful with those things to make sure it's not getting distorted and it's not somehow lost in translation. now, these things around these two ads we already tested so we knew what was going to use. those who have those campaigns are fluid. they're changing by the day. so most of the work was done, you know, when these ads were produced but in july like i said this campaign we just got through in november. in july, there was a newspaper article kind of an obscure newspaper article from the

mississippi gulf coast about a priest who had been murdered and so we looked at that and said, you know, our guy -- what used to be a judge on the cuffs, let's just -- you know, check it out and see if there's any connection with this guy. maybe he had been arrested before. so we go down there and we start looking at the wreckers and it turns out that our judge, mr. simpson, had previously seen an individual -- the individual who had killed the priest. he had come before court on a child molestation charge. he could have given him 14 years. that was the maximum sentence. he gave him one, okay, so he gets out of jail. because he was out of jail, he had the opportunity to kill the catholic priest. this happened right in the middle of the campaign. so, you know, you hate to say this is like christmas but you don't get these things very often. i mean, you don't -- you don't -- you don't get those willy hortons very often so we had that.

and to just continue this story, we weren't going to use it because we had so much already and our candidate was afraid of the blowback of using this because we were talking about a murder and we did have a lot of information already on this guy that we could use. two factors changed that. just so you guys know how these things go on and how they get on tv and it's not just some kind of willy-nilly process. two factors changed that. number 1 our candidate was and still is the only -- is the only statewide democrat left in mississippi, okay? and this election year we were going through a lot of change. republicans were mounting an incredible campaign to take -- to take -- to take both houses. we were worried about this because we didn't understand what the impact on our race was going to be even though our guide, the incumbent was very popular. most times with a popular incumbent you don't have to do much negative advertising. you can just one on your record but we were worried about that. but that was one thing and we

had considered that. and then two weeks out from the election, i remember we got a call from our newspaper reporter asking us to respond to this incredibly outlandish charge against our candidate about misappropriating, misspending money that had absolutely no basis in fact to it. and i remember sitting in that campaign meeting and talking to everybody about it and finally the decision was made you know what? let's just do this and let's just make sure this is over with. so two weeks out, i don't have that ad to show you but we did produce an ad talking about the catholic priest in our judge and we won with 62% of the vote and we also had 30% of the republican vote which is pretty unheard of in a republican state like mississippi. so the work we do ends up on tv. without us -- we travel the country. we work on mainly congressional

campaigns. we've worked on, you know, races and research projects from presidential appointments all the way down to local school boards. so without the things that we do, you wouldn't have -- you could still have but you would have less documented factual information to go with and the way we operate, we don't give anything to a campaign that can't be documented. if we can't chase a piece of paper down and give it to them, it's useless to us. we talked to many people, many of them whom you would consider just like out there and somebody you wouldn't take seriously. some of them have good information. give us that information, if we can't go somewhere and support that with documentation, then, you know, you're not -- you're not doing anybody -- doing anybody a service and the blow-back from that can be worse it would have been. so you have to be very carefully about that. i'm going to turn it over to alan because most people have

questions about the some of the crazy things we do so i want to talk about that. alan has a segue to the current presidential campaign. >> yeah, when i'm listening to everybody talking about, you know, whether or not negative ads are good or a bad thing, i realize we're kind of outside the margin -- in the margin, i guess, since because our basic premise is that no one is fit to rule unless proven otherwise. [laughter] >> that's sort of like what we do for a living. so our -- and we're kind of negative by nature. i mean, michael gets on my nerves big time when we're traveling together. and the feeling is mutual. this is just the way we roll. and so we go out there and we're looking for what's wrong. that's just what we do. and as -- if any of you saw us on the daily show you know the last question jon stewart asked us was, who is beneath us, you know, in the political hierarchy of negative campaigning and we were like, hmmm, there were a

couple of guys in a pickup truck that were harassing us, following us for two days, but we didn't bring that up in that case because the truth is, we're pretty much the bottom level in that regard. that's what we do. so we're out there gathering this information. and so if you're running for office, you know, we're just trying to see what are your -- yeah, we want to know your strengths, sure, but we really want to know your weaknesses because if you've got someone leading you, their strengths are great but their weaknesses can be devastating. and so we always look at everyone that way. we look at what have you done wrong and like michael said, we look at our own candidates the same way. we don't win any popularity contests because of that. sometimes we see that our candidate is the worst of the two. it's very disconcerting when the best thing you find in the campaign is that the guy threw a pipe bomb at a high school float and he was our guy so that's

happened to us. .. >> wandering around the country just behind the scenes and politics, and the other reason was that we feel that, when you look at these ads, someone made a statement earlier that it's not really our role to question, or the media's role to question whether there was any truthfulness to these ads, and that's what the things that

bothers us is, it's fine to be negative but you need to know, when you watch that add, is there anything underlying it? and often there isn't. that really distresses us because the ads are so much, especially now, so much slicker and impress. when we were on fox news last week, they showed some ads in had this critique them. the one that stuck with me was, it was just, i don't know what it was about to tell you the truth. it was really impressive and i was like against the guy when it was over because it had great graphics and cool music. it was really an impressive ad, but i looked at it. i had no idea there was any underlying documentation. one of the things we wanted to do with the book was sort of show people that it is still possible to try to know what the truth is, and we're not trying

to be bossy and put herself out there, you know, the finders of the truth. well, that is what we do really. we want everybody to do it. we want everybody to question what they're being told has any factual documentation. so the ad will show in just a second is an old ad. it's from 2004, and we don't generally name names in the book because we didn't think it was crucial. some candidate for congress in 1998 got a dui, do you really need to know his name? the point for us was just to tell these stories about how the system works. and we did want to get into the position of trying to break it down to personalities. because i think that just wasn't our role. we gather the information, we give it to the campaigns and i go out with the. in this case, he was tied to some notoriously racist groups, that had donated money to his campaign, and and they had done some really weird things.

it was pretty strong stuff, and so they ran the ad and it was in kansas, and they ran the ad, and so even though you could figure it out, which is what happened in the book, we never named it out right, a couple of people figured out who he was. and we hadn't really followed him lightly. we tend to just go into these things. we immerse ourselves in these campaigns for a period, and then we move onto the next kill. that's just the nature of the job for us. [laughter] we could realize this guy from 2004 is now secretary of state in kansas, and is mitt romney's immigration advisor. so, when that came up were talking to a reporter at politico and were like, you know, i think we should just tell somebody this, because even though we did make a point of naming this guy in the race, it

kind of mayors who he is now. and so we put it out there. and politico did an article about it. like i had an opportunity to respond but anyway, this is what this ad is about the ran in 2004. y'all can go ahead with it. >> why arkansans drink from chris? look was supporting them. people and groups tied to white supremacist, one even hired him to industry. and extremist group hired him to file a frivolous lawsuit against the state of kansas costing taxpayers thousands. now his campaign will return the contributions, says absolutely we're going to keep it. kris kobach, wrong for mainstream kansas. >> i have to say i do love seeing the taglines and in because now when you don't see them, it kind of bothers me. i bet they are all -- what will happen with the super pacs.

so that's pretty much -- i really would open up for questions now. you want us to sit over here? >> one question i have is -- [inaudible] has there been candidates that you've looked into and you report back saying, this guy or this woman is totally clean? [inaudible] >> we remember. that we remember. everybody makes mistakes, and the higher you go in elected office the more opportunities you have to make mistakes, and the more scrutiny you will come under. so it's not unusual that we find things on people. especially in congressional races. but every now and then you do find someone, there's really nothing there. even though we're begged

negative by nature, we're always thrilled by the. you know, we do well in all the negativity. it's nice to find somebody who is just there to make the world a better place. but it doesn't happen very often. >> and when we hear about political opposition research, i think people tend to think of guys sitting to the trash is some candidate, as oppose to the public record. but i'm sure, i know it is a mixed episode of how, what percentage of your time is spent, in a, column for the record, may be mistaken supporting a program that may be cost some taxpayer money. but maybe the mistake was, you know, something more in your personal life. what's the kind of balance be? [inaudible] i don't want to get in there. most of our days are spent, they are long and they can be boring,

sitting in accordance going through minutes of sun, or city council minutes and looking for that one little tidbit of information. it was discussed earlier, not most often the silver bullet kill somebody forgets all the shrapnel that adds a. that's what you're looking for. you're looking for arsenal. so we will be digging through records, talking to people, alan our member one night was on the front porch, that i had a shotgun on his lap he was worried somebody was going to kill him for talking to us. we talk to ex-wives, or ask anything that makes pretty good sources. [laughter] but it's a culmination of those things. and get any cash they talk to someone and have good for information them to back it up with documentation then we really don't have much. >> at a certain point in the process, you mentioned you handled the information to the campaign and advertising people.

do you feel, do they come back to you? do you have sort of the right to sort of sign off on the end product? or other occasions when you feel that something you might have found got exaggerated or blown out of proportion? >> it bears. sometimes when we finish the report, they are done and we just move on. sometimes they will keep us close by. like michael mentioned earlier, they will run the poll question bias, but it's rare that anyone says, shows us the ad and says is this truthful or whatever? by that point we really usually have moved on, but hopefully it's based on -- we have seen a couple of occasions where something -- you know, we are print journalists by training, and so to us when everything has to fill a 3415-second soundbite but we always cringe but there's

so much more that needs to be told. that's probably why they don't ask us about that. >> i can relate to that. let's take a question or two from the audience. here in the front row. >> elizabeth brownstein, retired historian, writer. i spent a lot of my life researching for accuracy. do you people have a staff? do you have a board? do you use the internet? how many candidates do you work on at once? i'm just intrigued that the to do might be doing all of this stuff. incredible. >> we enjoy doing that because it allows us to go to these places. in general we sort of whatever else is on the intercom and we build a foundation and it gives us a roadmap, but as you know the internet is notoriously unreliable. so we have to go to where these people are from. we go into the towns and we get the information we need and wear

out before anybody even knows we're there. however, as the name of the book is "we're with nobody," that came from two different reasons. number one is every time i go into a courthouse, we raise red flags with the clerk or somebody, we're going after tax records on an incumbent congressman. that raises a red flag right there. so the first question we always get is who are you with? and our answer is, we are not with anybody. we are with us. the second reason is because when we are doing this, we have to be extremely objective. we can't get caught up in the passion most people get caught up in politics, because we have to research archive with the same vigor we're doing his opponent or her opponent. so we are not objective. if we don't look at him with the same scrutiny, then we end up with a bad report. it doesn't do our camping any good. we will do as many as 10 or 12

campaigns in a season. go to these places and work with them. we are in and out pretty quick. having done it for 18 years, you get it down to kind of a science. you know what you're looking for. you know how to do it. but it changes. it is fluid, like everything. what are people upset about in the current environment. we also look for those things. a few years ago worldcom and enron. we are looking for campaign contributions from those groups, whether or not an incumbent had legislation to help the giant corporations. so really a lot of it depends on what people are upset about at the moment, jobs and that, obviously. so yes. >> in the back. >> my name is jonathan the i'm an independent i'm curious, you mentioned you two are pretty --

you deal in the muck of the issue. you mentioned your both pretty, not, not better, but -- [laughter] not bitter. >> you look at the dark side of everybody's past, the underbelly of the system. i'm wondering if you see, is there a connection between kind of the increase in looking, the negative advertising and people's perception of government being not, perception of government not working for them, and he had this approval rating? d.c. those connected or do you think that connecting the two gets to a whole nother thing that is separate? >> michaelmas something to say about this, too, but my answer would be, there's certainly a connection, but the connection, is it only between negative

advertising and voter dissatisfaction? or is it just increasing knowledge about elected officials? whether it is from advertising or news report or for whatever. we just know everything about everybody now, and that's never pretty. and so, you know, i do think you can blame negative advertising alone for people's dissatisfaction with the government. i think we just know a lot more. the old adage, never eat sausage if you can see being made. everybody can see being made now. and so i think that's part of the reason everybody is a little disenchanted. >> let's take one last question here in the middle. to questions. the lady -- the two of you. >> i have a question for mike and for alan. you can answer them at your own

choosing. mike, you said that we were in the midst of the campaign and you have a candidate that you are working for, you were working for him, and he came up with this terrible thing against them, and you had a choice, you said you sat in on the campaign meetings. you could have responded by denying what was said against him, proving that it was wrong. but you said we'll pull out the dead priest thing and said. so i wonder how that comes to be, that you don't care about this -- discrediting what was said but instead you put something even dirtier and worse. and, alan, what concerns me most about, i admire that you try to find truth behind what you put it to your clients because it's so important, but the concern like in this newt gingrich thing that they said he supported the one child policy in china, which his agents had was totally untrue, is there no legislation, is there no board that has to be

passed before these things come out, no retraction necessary to make such a broad, sweeping and damning statement as that, and let it sit? how can newt gingrich doesn't try to say something against it? >> i'll try to explain the reality of the political world here very quickly. we did challenge it, and we did get, there was a star in a newspaper, but two things happen. number one, the story was in the newspaper. so the guy sitting on the witness stand and the attorney says do you ever rape your wife or something even though it is not true, it's still out there. we still have the story in a newspaper. the second thing is, people who are in this business know you're not going to get a fraction of coverage in free media as you are on a television commercial. you were just not going to. and so our fear again was the

unknown who was going to happen with this republican onslaught that was on its way. and at the end of day, yeah, we did lose the house and senate, the democrats did. so we could have been in a lot of trouble if we didn't really, we did know what was happening. so if you know, in a campaign you want to leave all your cars on the to. you don't want to come back at the end of the day and get beat and say, man, if we had only done that, do it. you know, do it if it's true. do it if you can back it up. everything we had we could back up. we felt good about it. to answer the other question, i thought this might come up in the discussion about ads, are made we still that ahead of us, i'm not sure, the discussion of commercial advertising versus political advertising that they are different animals. there really is no mechanism for calling and elected officials past, or campaign to task for uttering an untruth,

essentially. there's freedom of speech, and so you can't, where as you would get sued is for false advertising if you did it commercially. you're protected in many, many ways, much greater level in politics but this is frustrating to us also, he does we want everybody to rely on the truth. but it doesn't always happen. it's rare. the median or the other campaigns are the most likely to call them unto. there's nothing to prevent it. >> i have the last question. in terms of saying that you're with nobody, you are researching for the opposition though, aren't you? really with somebody? >> well, our reports go to the different stats. we do work for democrats and we have worked for some republicans and in elections, primaries when there was no democrats. go ahead and i wish is going to

ask him and how do you wind up with his candidate versus that? are they choosing you? are they searching you of? >> the universe is personal. you tend to work with the same people over and over again. you work with the same pollsters, the same media guys, the same campaign guys. they go from campaign to campaign until he reaches certain age and decide they want to do something different. so yeah, we end up, it is a lot of work of mouth and work with the same people. >> thank you, michael and alan. thank you very much. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations] >> talk about the commercial

realm. this panel is entitled so why doesn't coke do the pepsi what mitt romney did to me gingrich? i'm very excited for this conversation. one palos is greg dinoto, a partner and chief creative officer for deutsch new york could not be with us today to it last minute situation india. we do have jayme, who i was told is natively digital. very intrigued by that. i know you're a key part of the interactive division at deutsche, an advertising firm, that has been associated, represented clients such as microsoft, kodak and volkswagen and many others. we also have with us michael hughes who's the president of the martin agency. mike has been hailed as one of

the nine best in america, his agency is one of this creative agencies in the world, according to adweek an ad agency and many others. is clients of his firm's clients include geico, comcast and wal-mart, and i'm sure none of us have seen in a geico ads recently. [laughter] [inaudible] play an ad or two if we are ready, that are quite different from the others we've seen today. >> hello. i'm. i mepc. >> it was very easy to set up if we speak each other's language. >> this is that new dish. i'm from japan. >> do you speak our language?

>> absolutely. it just works with a mac. >> bongiorno. hello. >> do we have one more? >> i am a mac. i am a pc. >> we can't do as much. >> mac, why don't you say something positive? >> easy. pc, you're a wizard with numbers and you dress like a gentleman. >> mac, i guess you are a little better at creative stuff. >> thank you. even though it is really juvenile and a waste of time. >> maybe you should come in twice a week. >> the reason i chose to show those, and this was -- was to dispel a little bit of the idea that there's no such thing as negative advertising in the

business realm as opposed to political realm. it has obvious if those are the best campaign that most of you have been for me with, was a pretty edgy comparative, you know, negative take. but again it feels very different. from all of the political ads that we've seen here today. so mike, if you could just get us going by talking about the extent to which you feel the are such negative, such negative advertising exists when one business takes on another. and one is at a press we see a lot less of it than we did in the political sphere? do we see less of it that we used in the past? i admit i don't have a historical take there. >> what i think happens is, in our business we tend to say that what we do is sales overnight and brand over time. so we care about both of those things, building the overnight sales and building long-term plan. so when you come away from those

ads, you kind of like, kind of like the mac. then he might be pretty tough, the commercials themselves might be pretty tough on their competition. but you come away liking them. pepsi often has taken on coke over the years. but they do it in tongue in cheek and you come away liking them. i think the difference is political advertising is rarely, don't build a brand over time. it's for that one day of the primary vote, and that one day of the election. and then everybody is on their own again. and so you come away, you come away thinking well, this helps me with my choices. i know i don't want to vote for this person or that person who took that stand. and it makes the immediate connection. but after a while you don't feel

as good about the people who are doing it. so we don't feel as good about our politicians as we do about apple. will feel good about our politicians as we do about pepsi. and i think that's an inevitable result of going for the one time sale, at any cost. jane mayer's wonderful new york article, she quotes, if you're in this business you have to figure out if i don't -- if i don't win this election, i died. well, all these things, they read about the emotion, like armageddon if you vote for the wrong person. and they go for that one day vote. as opposed to building a long-term meaningful plan. i think that perception in the last 30 years was reagan wanting and america. that actually helped his long-term brand because it was pretty positive.

on the coke-pepsi example that we threw in a headline for this segment, i am thinking as you are alluding to, i was taking the super bowl ad where the pepsi ad, i think from patsy max weber show the coke distributor trying to sneak a pepsi in the store and all of the cans come down. this year, the coke i went to some suite six oh pepsi people, and he sort of modified. so do you have to have come is there something unwritten rule? maybe it is written summer into handbook that there has to be humor if you're going to go negative? >> i think her point about the long-term branding is important. negative advertising for a politician can just bring down their negative, and that's why. that's why we see the trend for political negative appetite to go to to the third crew. for us when we have to defend a brand we want a brand to stay likable. it's very rarely a binary choice

but we talk about coke versus pepsi but i'm just as likely to go buy gatorade or orange juice. it's not a forced choice. and because of that we've got a different need to keep you liking the brand, keeping your liking the ad. and they think humor is one of the tools that we use to get some bike but usually it is satire can't get the message across. but it keeps the brand likable. you don't want it to blow back on you. blowback is one of the big reasons that brands don't go negative more often. we do it but we use as a much more controlled technique and it's a lot more infants. >> fake airline names, skyline to get the charges were back. they don't even you mentioned mention one of the delta or americans pick it is to avoid that binary choice. it just made the point and lisa take what about your brand but not necessary always to have the negativity associated with it. in one of the aria discussion, ken goldstein made the point,

not in the case of this cycle, but historically primary advice were more civil, particularly if i were six candidates, maybe for the reason that you alluded to. he mentioned as example 2004 when gephardt and howard dean been in iowa did a pretty good job of destroying each other, to the benefit of john edwards and john kerry. so i guess that's part of the dynamic that you're talking about. but other examples, to both of you, of other negative campaigns or comparative campaigns in the commercial space that, you know, might provide good lessons and models for political candidates? >> there's a famous case back in the 1950s when people were getting into pressure cooking, and slow cook them through pressure cookers. there was a case where one or two of the pressure cookers blew up, and the maker of the

pressure cooker ran a full-page ad in the paper said, will not blow up. nobody bought a pressure cooker for five years because they hadn't even heard, yeah, this one or two cases. so it can come back and bite you. they can come back and bite you. >> it's like airlines don't advertise about the fact that there were no crashes last year, which is an astonishing feat but not one that -- [inaudible] >> the reason they don't get it is god forbid did they should crash the next become the next month but i think there's a lot of keeping our powder dry for brand, rather than risk a gotcha back and forth, they will choose not to advertise. i think what's happening more and more is light comparison. local advertising feels like it is gone to the extreme. super negative, superquick. for brand advertising i'm intrigued watching premium car brands. they are taking on being dead and trying to de- positioned them as the premier choice but

doing so through humor, doing so through promoting their brand, not by going all the way negative, not icing that is a bad car. just our car is better to. i think that kind of argument works better in the commercial arena than it would in the presidential arena. >> we are amazed, as we watch the movie allstate, state farm courses that take on geico these days. it's unbelievable that the shoot companies will take on little geico. our client. >> full disclosure. >> yes. so when they do that, we don't try to respond. we think, i can't believe we're in this same commercial with these people. and they sometimes call as geico and sometimes cause 15 minute company or something. i think, i think that has actually helped raise the level of humanity in that whole category.

aikido category with the use to tell you had to buy this insurance if you love your children. and now it's i look at the one that makes the most sense financially. and don't make it so heavy. >> do you find you often have to talk to clients -- talk client out of mixing it up more? to become do sometimes and say we can't leave this fast food chain is charging 25 cents more for their burger? let's go after them. you have to talk them out of the? are they a verse with and on the country you have to push them into some comparison? >> clients love their brands, and we love their brands for the but often they believe they have the better product, or the better brand. so often they want to draw out the distinction and make that argument but i think for us will most effectively sell your product and sell your brand. to mike's article, so for the long-term, not just the short-term but there's always a quick get. but does that stand a vision to

get you to buy the second time, the third time? the other thing that's important between for local advertising and commercial is the timeframe. one of the things as an ad guy in the commercial, i have been blown away, it's the speed of response and the speed of tv advertising. it feels like there's the ride of this new instant ad were literally 30 minutes, 45 minutes after it is, i'm watching a youtube of an ad cut by the camping either rebutted by promoting something negative that was said. bat speed to market belies what happened on commercial goods are just the layers of approval, and speed is how long would that cycle be in the real-world? >> the chairman of the coveted real angry at a competitor, i want an ad that says this and this. i've the time it comes back to us and goes back to their lawyers, 20 people have said you're not going to do that. and it does not because we can do things very quickly, but not

many big corporations are built to handle. they can't go through this agency our mind and add overnight. but you couldn't get it approved. >> in as little as 10 days, i've done digital ad in a day. but the approval cycle always towards the amount it takes you to get approved. and i think that's the difference. political campaigns by the nature have abbas. when the boss says go, you can go. this is not true in the world of brands in the world of commercial advertising. >> we are more concerned about being taken to court, not saying something negative. >> we don't have the same first amendment protections when you represent a grant in a public or private company, you have a much greater challenge to me that their standard, is what you're saying true. and i think that that level of scrutiny means that the comparisons we make are often more valid or at least more clear. >> yes, i think it was some question earlier about whether

there are checks and balances. remedies and the political sphere, and there are, but the bar and the burden of proof quite different when you talk about public figures, and also there was conversation earlier about the extent to which local broadcasters assert their power to say, you know, don't think this is factual. they don't want to get in that business. so it's true. i was wondering about, you know, we talked a lot about the phenomenon of independent groups in this cycle, it's super pacs that are powered by citizens united. eight years ago it was the 527. there've always been these independent unaffiliated groups that can go a lot nastier. for reasons that you also understand all of the, there's some blowback. and i suppose we don't really

have anything akin to that unaffiliated third party that can go nuclear in the commercial space, but i'm wondering if that might be changing or might change with come again, you, jayme, are natively digital. so are the kind of guerrilla campaigns? [inaudible] >> are the sort of guerrilla campaigns that brands can engage in, not over the spot you see in the super bowl but something is happening online that might begin to resemble the dynamic of having arms length with the group that can get more negative? >> we talk often about brand and unbranded campaigns. so often a company will launch an unbranded campaign to either see or unseat a point of view, a perspective. pharmaceutical drug might want you to start take interest in the bladder disorder and that might be an unbranded ad which allows a little more latitude in what they can say about blood disorder. that would be followed by a branded advertising for their

bladder solution having paved the way. so i think there's an analog in our commercial world where brand in an unbranded. in terms of attacks, i don't think there's a perfect analog but certainly in the south was example and many others we will take on a mythical company or theoretical company, i think those are the two analogs. >> i think there's a sense that people feel at corporations that, for example, our wal-mart client is always very sensitive to the fact that they can't feel like bullies. they can be out there saying we are doing for sustainability thing. what they have their customers say is that customers stay low, all 200 million wal-mart shoppers, if we always is, we will make a difference. the customers get credit. because he the company like wal-mart has to worry about the whole perception. and there aren't other people

who will come to wal-mart to rescue for that kind of thing, when it's unfairly charged with something. >> different from the advertising world, ken talked a bunch about their being -- both cycles would spin. that's not true of the commercial world. that's certainly not true of many of our categories. there's a lead competitor, a number to. and often there's a great distance between a top order to competitors and everybody else. so we don't have that same burden of ask and answer, or ask in response to i think that changes very often as the leader which are going to say. from some of the earlier examples, often the leader doesn't want to respond to the guy that is a 5%, even if he makes negative ads. on the other side i've done the challenge add and been thrilled when someone response. many years ago we did some printer work that was meant to provoke hp. it was the dominant leader in what hp responded to our 1%

share, it was a win. they were talking about our printers and getting reporters and tech reporters to consider buying the printer, at least with the printer is better. so that's one of the differences. there's no real parodies. what you can afford to spend and that is driven very often by marketshare. >> one of the reasons they are heroes, everyone in that business, is not just what they did -- their agency great kind of a humanity for advertising. that volkswagen had. his agency's volkswagen ad in the super bowl last year with the kid as darth vader. there's still the humanity, the great humanity that our clients want to own. the politicians, you know, it is a tough business and they do have to be thick skinned. >> have you ever done political ads, either one?

>> i have not. >> i did. back in the '70s, a long time ago. we got a call from a billionaire, i guide who is in the top 150 people in the forbes billionaire list, a couple months ago, asking us, i like your geico ads but i want to go after barack obama. would you guys do this? and it took my partner in a couple of minutes to say no, we are not going to do that. i thought why wouldn't i do that? but it's not the kind of business that you too could about in the morning. you know? >> is that the recent? or is it just if you're in one business it's hard in the other because you might offend your corporate client? >> both of us have the same parent company.

the parent, they don't let you political advertise. >> our client presumably -- the last thing they want is their agency, you know, to represent only one point of view and then all of a sudden commercial world you limited your client to those conservative companies, to those progressive companies. so it's also bad business i think. >> we encourage our people to work with their own outside the agency. you can give him some time off, but we don't dictate what the policies, what their policies should be. >> i asked earlier if coming in, if you could point to political, i'm sorry, commercial ad campaigns that politicians can learn from. when you look at political advertising, and we've seen a lot today, dating back to those incredibly painful eisenhauer

adds, do you see, to pick up ideas or trends that might translate, or are they just a whiner and the black and white and so vicious that you just kind of laugh at them? >> i deathly think house are you in some of the quick turn, some of the quick response, mark go -- microtargeting, i think there's feedback. i'm struck this cycle by the lack though of branding. commercial advertising is so much about building a brand over time. when i look at obama's success in winning that election, to be part of what he did was build such a strong brand all the way through the primary, the democratic convention, relaunch the brand. in this cycle i don't see any kind of consistency from any of these candidates how they want to show up but i think that's an analog from our world that feels to me it is sorely missing. it's very today's needs versus that kind of longer-term deal.

>> i'm not a fan of ron paul but it do think it's advertising has been the best. because he has a consistency about him. which i personally think is crazy. [laughter] >> to the point where he -- >> on point. and his messages are on point. you can understand why so many people find that attractive. it's an interesting question in there's a reason we don't encourage brands to change the campaigns every six months, or every year. there's a reason that tony the tiger is still tony the tiger, that we built what he local looks like and what the commercials look like. relatively slowly because that familiarity is what builds favorability. and i think that familiarity is not happening for some of these political candidates in part because they keep changing their message. i think you're dead right. ron paul has been super consistent.

i know what statements, even in the debate, what he will hop up and the cisco. i think it really works until those voters who will vote for him what they should vote for him based on but i think some of the others, and this i think is a real interesting thing, the rise of social media because they don't get to say one thing in kansas and another in florida and a different thing in iowa. i think that's true in our commercial for a long time because most of the brands our national. it feels relatively new that pacifism easily dispersed. the iowa candor, then in florida a month later. >> i don't know if you saw ron paul, i think -- when cnn, the moderator asked each candidate to define themselves with one word. one word ron paul chose was consistent. so it's interesting to hear you all probe into the visit of branding seeing that messaging. is there one commercial, michael, that you wish you had

done, that you didn't? to end the political -- >> not in the political world necessary. in the commercial, camping. one commercial said you admire the most and you said i wish i had done that. >> the one that is on everybody's mind a big apple commercial. think different. wouldn't it be nice if a political candidate could find something that inspiring? and so i think back, i think everybody just loves that. and i think, you know, going back a number of years, the people who did the bayer commercial for reagan with the same people who did the bartels and james commercial and ge brings good things to life. they were some of the really

professionals, top professional people in the industry. and it showed that maybe people should get maybe agencies like ours should be doing this, but when it's unregulated, and it is an encouragement to exaggerate and take things out of context, it's just too uncomfortable for us to what ever happened to the wine coders? i remembered those ads. jamie, is there something you've -- >> the business has change. i was struck, i love the daisy and. i'm a political junkie and it was such a transcendent moment in political advertising where it all changed in an instant that i was struck watching for the first time in a while the similarity that daisy ad to 1984, just that fundamentally different message, a message that again -- an apple ad, just

the death of being able to run a commercial to be re- aired i think is something that is not being thought about enough, particularly in this cycle. so much of this stuff is sort of what were going to put out there versus what is the response of what we put out there is going to draw. then what conversation will that bond? i think the publishers have started to wake up. it feels like there's more than ever before a commercial need for the 9:00 hour on cable news but i think there's still more need for that kind of race bonds based advertising. don't tell me what you want to kill me, let me draw my own conclusions. >> i think a take away from the conversation for me that i haven't thought about was the absence of branding that we're seeing in this cycle of advertising in the primary season, where it's quick reaction and let's bring down the latest candidates who might've seen a surge in the polls. and i suppose a candidate that eventually got the domination is my hope that there might be a

moment there between that moment and the convention and the general election season. to engage in a positive brand. watch that going forward. but that insight that you provided is really helpful. i do want to open it up. >> one more thing. very consciously, after the election when it's all over, we do a dramatic -- we do a dramatic run up debt when you say we? >> we, the country. the reason we do that is to make the president -- [inaudible] i think branding is important for the candidates but think it's equally important that we take that step back and make them above the ugly mess of politics. this feels like it will be an uglier year than ever before. but interesting to think about the deliberate choice to read than the present as the president, not as the candidate.

increasingly, i would argue that's happening. with the campaign numbers. and the legitimacy of the president's question by the opposition more. but i get what you're saying. >> now, candidates for their whole lives have to be careful that they are always against the other side. and they don't want anything coming back at them. might agency did the commercial with newt gingrich and nancy pelosi, that gingrich now says is the biggest mistake of his life. and what was our poll at that time was, we called it the we campaign because we wanted all americans against global warming to explain what that was for. >> al gore is part of the alliance climate protection. he put together a board that was head of republicans and have democrats, and we competed for the business and we won.

the whole idea of the campaign was that we were going to bring both sides together on this. there was some naivety on our part. it's impossible to separate political politics. it's impossible to separate politics from al gore in most peoples minds. did mitt romney send you a thank you note? let's open it up. here in the front. >> al milliken. what do you know as far as the market research, scientific study that's done in your commercial world as compared to the political world? and also, what influences their from other nations, other cultures, as far as what works with advertising, and how has that affected are not affected political advertising?

>> well, i think one thing, you know, one thing that's happened international and less on american advertising i think we're getting more visual in our storytelling. is based on articulated position. for better and for worse. i think in politics it is, it is, we know from a lot of research that consumers are overwhelmed by choice. they have all these choices, how do i narrowed down so i don't choose keep putting it off a day after day after day. and the negative things won't work them. i would be hard-pressed if i can if local campaign not to tell the person to run the negative ads because i think that will get them elected faster. because it will help eliminate the competition. in the choice procedure.

>> to answer the second part of your question, the range of research we do for a particular client or a particular campaign varies greatly, but often it's pretty in depth focus grouping. share it a work in progress, reaction, gauge what is good, what is bad code was working from what is not working to revise the ads and go back to the script or even be more of a core and ted is testing. understand what works and what doesn't. another kind of client will look at them and can look at an idea and make me that, and one on air in a week or two. so it is a big range. the different is it feels like the polka world she is a little more quickly to the perception of brand is pretty ingrained, and it was shipped but it won't shift overnight so we have a little bit of a longer time than in which to do that research to put a campaign in marker for politicians. when i look at the world that rick santorum is advertising to this weekend versus for weeks

ago, the ad campaign would've been cut for different times in the four weeks based on who he thinks he is at the moment and who he needs to reject who he is going forward to win an election. >> you didn't have to explain how the process works because we've all watched. we know how it works. don draper called steve and his office. seeing a surge in applications for people who want to work in your firm since the madman? the glamorous life you all leave? >> i'm confused. [laughter] >> not just the drinking. it seems like a lot of fun. in the back in the blue shirt. >> retired physicist. there seems to be one analog in the commercial world, the super bowl ads. i mean, the minute the super bowl is on and it's over, a lot of press response to those ads.

how is that changing commercial advertising? our super bowl ads getting better or worse as a result? >> i won't say better or worse. but the thing i wanted is super ever told pricing starts to before the super bowl, not the minute the super bowl and. literally a year ago we released the fourth spot about 10 days before and it had 10 million hits, views on youtube, before the super bowl have ever started. a good percentage of the come have seen it and decided they liked it. "usa today" poll is one of the big ones was in many ways influenced by that social media vote of what was good before. sigh to think that there is, the super bowl is an unusual moment for advertising but we don't care, we'll ask about advertising. we tell ourselves it doesn't affect us and we don't pay attention. the super bowl is the moment we tune in and watch ads. this become a great dash that which has will be affected. in terms of preparation, just

the sheer -- draws a long cycle of what is created that we should put out there. is also not that many moments on network television anymore where you can get an audience of a billion people. there's only one or two in the whole year. so it's a moment to break into new campaigns, to launch a product. so it doesn't, in general it requires way more preparation than the normal font. >> i just want to thank the foundation. this is fantastic for all of us political advertising junkies. the one thing i was time to think about when you're talking about rock 'em sock 'em robots is only -- boeing and lockheed with some of the contracts happening in town you. but you're right, there were very few willing to go head-to-head because the damage of the blowback that will come from a company like that.

what i was curious about was, if you apply this to a different industry, okay, i'm in higher education. one of the things that we are facing is for profits, which is getting a lot of headway because of the advertising, and because it's overwhelmed, probably a not with state farm and allstate are with geico. is the amount of money has been throw out to advertise. does that change perception, and how do you avoid getting blowback as a sector? because i think that is where some of the brands tried to play is okay, we can't do a head-to-head but if i can do it as a senator, do it through a trade group or issue advocacy group that is treated as a coalition. saw was when if you could talk about that? >> be very careful and talk about education. i think the sector, it's an interesting dynamic. i think there is enough money in the education field, whether on the union side, reporting public

workers, doctors the ability to land a perception. if the discussion was can we get advertising, can we change the perception of the business, i think that is possible but i would also think we are talking about advertising, we're in the business of marketing. through social media, there's many ways to plan your message. i think there's an opportunity for education to get out in front and tell the story. i think what's happened is educators, i'm a big fan of teachers, lost control of the narrative. if you lose control of the narrative and you're forced to answer someone else's narrative, whatever the field is, you're in trouble because you are left to rebut what are you getting paid so much, why are you measuring as if here's how successful we are, how can we improve. so part of it is grabbing control. i were to advertising is only one of the ways to do that. >> i appreciate the reference of

the boeing, lockheed martin because that is a peculiar type of campaign that sort of bridges the commercial space and political space in that we have these fight for government contracts that have a zero-sum winner take all and they can get quite nasty and people riding the metro in washington, ads on the metro for things they have no clue what is being referred to unless they happen to be a capital back. so there's this very strange washington phenomenon. [inaudible] >> if you're in nebraska an eternity of 55 a.m. you see a farm show where the farm chemicals are saying this is the one -- this is the one you ought to buy. they are pretty competitive. they take each other on because the all real product differences. we really have to work hard to find a meaningful product.

>> right behind you. >> i'm with the germany business daily. somebody earlier said that obama has difficulty situation right now. known for mostly positive campaigns. but yourself, you said negative ads do work. so i was one, do you have any advice for his campaign, how should you react going forward? >> i was asked in 2008 by hillary clinton, barack obama and chris dodd's campaign to work with those campaigns. so i thought about this a lot. i didn't do it but i have thought about this a lot your and i think is obama is in a good enough position that he can do some things that does lift up america, the way good morning

america did for reagan, i think that could help him the more effective. if he wins but if he knows he is going to win. reagan was in a position, it was pretty clear he was going to win again, that kind of confidence is rare. if you're not as confident about that, then you're going to have to spend your money on negative because you need to win. and so the long-term brand can be uplifting, commercials would be fabulous, both sides. [inaudible] >> it gets at it, doesn't it? it really does. >> think about the benefits of president obama. i think we talked a bunch about the special interest groups and all the unaffiliated groups that will get to speak this cycle, and i think if i was advising

president obama i would keep them totally policy. i think he is the president of the united states, a country coming out of recession. jobs are getting better. things are getting better across, and i would have him tell that story and only that story. and leave for others to do the drawdown. i don't think there's any reason for him to get his hands dirty with that kind of a debate. that some of the difficulty with her disgust. he may well do that. he may be able to stay positive and that has nothing to do with what the democratic machine will be choosing to say about whoever the nominee ends up being. so i do think from a brand perspective i would do the same thing. he is starting to run and will run times too. is a second term president. no doubt with a tough first term, tough situation very much analogous to what reagan face both when he entered office, and now as the economy is turning around. it may be a replay and i think he has got a strong brand with the hope and change that he ran on to pick back up and refocused and. it's interesting to see what he

does as the race tightens very much like we talked about before, he may have to go negative. i think that does have an impact on your competitor but we don't do in commercial advertising. .. it is possible that you could go a long way with positive advertising. >> there is a good pro bono advice. it's interesting the extent to which candidates are going to be able to i think going forward to retain this arm's length

relationship with their unaffiliated supporters. increasingly we are seeing, we have seen this already and the cycle this cycle you know, newt gingrich will demand of mitt romney, tell your people to stop it and then that romney says, well if there's anything that is inaccurate yes i will but i'm not so sure. of course he went on to say it in the end, but you know this sort of narrative fiction that while i can control it. we have seen it in past election cycles too. it would be nice as you suggest jamie at the if the candidate can pretend there is no blowback from the intended expenditures. it will be an interesting thing to see going forward if that actually prove to be the case. >> the overall candidate's authenticity, we asked these guys to be real and honest with us and we asked them to pretend their biggest donor, their whole career so by the time they get to be running for the presidencs

and we asked them to pretend they have no idea what that person is doing it they would never stoop to talking about them so i think we have trying this really weird behavior that we ask of our most senior candidates and then they're left to play the part. he cannot say i will turn out at off. that would violate the law so it's a really weird structure for their friends versus what the law asks them to do. >> we will take one more question. >> chuck schroeder, former copywriter and now a senior creative people. one of the things that i was really trying to hear you guys say and meaning no offense to mike the research guide if he is still here or whatever. he made a point that advertising wouldn't really affect the outcome of an election and to

frame that from our perspective where we come from, research guys were always people who came into a meeting with reams of information and were always very smart guys in the creative person would take one page out of that massive stack of information and say i like this. it would infuriate them and demeaned them and make them feel as though all the tremendous work they put in was for not. so you have just said and i want to make sure we underscore a point, that good advertising and the sliver you are talking about, is persuadable. and if you could elaborate slightly on that, whether you think it might have worked? >> obama specifically will getting the people out to vote who voted last time because now that he is -- by every part of

the spectrum by all the conservatives. i think he has to inspire people that were inspired last time to go out and vote for this different looking, different sounding kind of candidate. >> is no longer as unusual in his position and the people on the left have taken some of the muster off so he needs to restore that kind of muster and that kind of thing. nothing will work better for him than to get some joy into people's hearts. if you can go back to the inauguration speech or the speech he gave in chicago the night he won the election. that is the kind of spirit that will drive people out. >> i would also think a lot of the positive stuff he ran in the 08 which got him to win the presidency, think he did an awesome job of rebutting republican trying to make him be

the other are make him seem like something outside or something strange and he ran positive ads but positive ads that reinforced his family, reinforced him as an american and he has a way of coming into your home and creating a family or the. his advertisement helps create that familiarity so i think advertising is usually powerful. i think advertising at its best pushes you the way -- it reinforces the perception that you think to be somewhat true. that is why veterans was for truth was you felt there was something a little wishy-washy. was there something suspect and they pushed on that point but it was early in the public persona and i think that is where advertising both for brand of politicians is awesome. can help cement the perception that lingers in people's hard work of the hardest thing to do in any advertising is you have to create a brand-new reception or a brand-new behavior of but that kind of lead i think is

ready made for television advertising. >> thank you and unfortunately we do need to wrap up now. [applause] i wanted to encourage everybody to come to our next event next tuesday february 28 at 5:00 and hour and a half followed by cocktails. it's on the political facts of life. is a new america research papers on fact-checking in the media. it will be a good time and thank you both michael and jamie for broadening the conversation today. this was fantastic. thanks a lot and thanks all of you for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

the co-founder of the fiscally conservative tea party patriots mark meckler has resigned along with a party board member. no specific reason was given for the resignation but the article does say he felt was necessary to step aside to pursue other endeavors cole unquote. you can read more about that in politico this afternoon. republican presidential candidate rick santorum and feels his economic plan tonight at lincoln park michigan. the plan will focus on revitalizing states like michigan where unemployment stood at 9.3% back in december. you can see live coverage starting at eight eastern on c-span. >> there are millions of decent americans were willing to sacrifice for change but they want to do it without being threatened and they want to do it peacefully. they are the non-violent majority, black and white, who are for change without violence. these are the people whose voice i want to be.

>> can you remember in the depression those of you who are my age when the door was unlocked? now we have the most violent crime ridden society in the industrialized world and i can't live with that, can you live with that? cease these -- c-span.org/the contenders. one of the trickiest things about writing this book for me was thinking through the way

that particularly in the context rights were straddled with the moral imperative and aspirational ideal and a more practical in formal mandate. >> the world economic forum

recently met in davos switzerland and up next a discussion on the future of women's leadership roles and the gender gap that currently exist exists within the corporate world. panels include the former president of chile, thailand's first female prime minister in the chief operating officer of facebook. this is about an hour. >> i have to say that this is something of a milestone. there has been a tradition regarding women's empowerment as something that is worthy and nice but also a soft tissue in secondary and to have this discussion with this extraordinary panel being held here in this large hall is really a reflection of the degree to which this issue has grown up and graduated to a perception that if you want to address the world's key issues, whether it be global poverty or economic development, climate change, insecurity, then you have to do it via educating

girls in bringing those educated women into the labor force and into power whether at the world economic forum or all over the world. we have a terrific panel to discuss these issues with. from my left we have tried minister chenault walked of thailand. [applause] we have archbishop desmond tutu the peace prize laureate and chair. [applause] michelle bachelet the first women's president of chile and now head of u.n. women. [applause] talal al-zain the ceo of -- holding in bahrain and a real leader in empowering women in the business community not only in bahrain but around the world.

[applause] and cheryl sandberg the ceo of facebook and worldwide a voice for focusing on women's talent and bringing him to bear on all kinds of global issues. [applause] when economists try to explain the economic dynamism of asia, while there are many different business models country by country in asia one thing they pointed to is the way countries have made increasingly good use of female half of the population as part of the economic recipe for success across asia and i would like to invite prime minister yingluck shinawatra by giving us her sense of how it taiwan has used the female population as part of this extraordinary economic dynamism. yingluck shinawatra.

[applause] >> i want to make sure i deliver all of the content clearly. >> translator: good afternoon distinguished guests, it is a great honor to be here to have this opportunity to say some remarks and to join the debate on women as the way forward. i am especially happy. i feel very lucky that i was born in the tiemack society which has gender equality between the men and women. i had the opportunity to have education and to work in the private sector as a high-level

executive and most importantly today, i have the opportunity given by the. tai: people throughout the country to be prime minister, the first prime minister of thailand. even though i feel that i have great fortune but the reality today is that in all regions around the world, women still face many challenges such as gender inequity and inequality. women have less education and studies have shown that they have had to receive less education than men. they have less access to capital. it's more difficult. it makes the income that will be less and therefore unable to help the family. more than that, there were women who have sexual violence. with regard to their physique

and their strength, i can see that being a woman there are many advantages which can make us equals and work with men, whether it's the understanding of problems, the ability to be conciliatory, and also the mother instinct. which understands children and youth. and understands the weakness and frailties of women which will result. another study has indicated that women have -- to make savings. 90% of women that are coming from -- come back to the family. if women have the opportunity to express their strength equally

it will help pursue economic development and also promote security. the population of thai women around the world are 50%. this is another gap. they can contribute and have a role to play whether it is in society, economics and politics or for the creation of the empowerment of women must begin with changes in culture and society, these perceptions and we should attack the problem at its grassroots. for my government, the policy is clear in which to create a national fund, first time ever in thailand and we hope that this will help women become a major force in building a

society in the country. this will not only resolve basic problems within such as to get access to funding and to resolve the violations of human rights that happens with women but it will also be an important factor in developing the potential of women so they can contribute and esteemed themselves and develop networking of women throughout the country. in addition to helping women, i have been able to support the idea of the -- effect so they would have education because it girl, when you educate a girl, is valuable and you can create a strong contributor to society in the future. from the statistics we have seen women with an education have -- violence against them has been

reduced. it gives opportunities for women to have education, especially girls and enhance opportunities for the generation in the family and this will increase. therefore i underscore the fact that girls and youth are an important aspect of the development of society, the economy and global policies. i hope that the exchange of views that we have today in this debate which comprises both men and women with great success in these areas and those who understand the problems of women, it will be another important step to increase momentum forward to develop a role for women and to have them as a higher role as an important force, equal with men. and finally, may i take this opportunity to say that thailand will be the host of the world

economic forum on east asia in bangkok from the 30th of may 2 to the first of june. under the topic, there'll be discussions on the economic development and other aspects in the role of women and that is another important aspect we will discuss. i would invite all of you to understand thailand and join us in this world economic forum in and also may i take this opportunity -- that is 7:30 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. tonight and you will see the cultural thailand and also the potential thailand. thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. [applause] >> thank you very much madam

prime minister. and a little bit i'm going to invite questions from the audience to keep in mind,. michelle bachelet in your new role to the degree to which even sees investing women as how to invest in global problems. you have been very articulate about the fact that this is a matter of charity but a matter of actually solving problems that women are not the problem but the solution. can you talk a little bit about how investing in girls does actually solve global problems? >> first of all the prime minister mentioned some of them. we know for example when investing education particularly not only primary education but also secondary education we will see an important drop in early pregnancy and that will lead to a drop in -- the mite not turn

it -- minority of maternal may be between 15 and 19 years old so that is an important issue. the other thing is early measure particularly early forced marriage and it has been seen in this ministry also the risk of eating infected with hiv or acquiring aids. the second thing that is very important is an extra year of primary school produces a girls -- wage of 10 to 20% and the secondary school has an important effect of 15 to 20% of future wages for girls. the second thing when we know according to cultural organization that if we would give women the same asset not more than men in terms of access to credit, it at sense to technical assistance and so on it will increase the national

yield crops by 4% and prevent hunger to 100 to 150 million people. there's so much evidence in investing in girls and women is not only the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do. it is the smart thing to do. >> if there's an economic return here, this is a pretty smart community of investors here and if there's an economic return then why doesn't the market invest in girls by itself? why do we have to intervene? >> i have been asking myself that question because as you see, not only on international community, in any politically correct statement, women are essential. you mentioned it. women are essentially in the development as a whole, but it is not happening. why i believe that probably because we need to him work much harder in the business community

so they can increase the opportunities for women to have the possibility of better jobs. we need to increase the opportunity. we need also to i would say work at the country levels in terms of how we insured and women not only study the traditional study usually as caregivers with low salaries but also much more in science, technology and so on so there is the part here that must be done by the private sector but also by government. >> archbishop, you and elders are addressing all kinds of global problems all around the world and get one of those you and your colleagues have really chosen to focus on has been the empowerment of girls and in particular the end of child marriage. why do you give such priority to focusing on girls? >> i would have thought actually the answer is obvious. we have our ready heard, when

young girls are involved in sexual activity, infant mortality increases, but fairly straightforward, the evidence is if we do not in fact and child marriage, we can kiss goodbye to six of the eight millennium development goals. we will not be able to do anything about poverty because a child bride has to drop out of school usually. that means she is not going to be employable or if employable, at very low salaries. v. universalizing primary school

education. maternal health. it seems like, i mean, why don't we get into our heads? the solution is straightforward and simple. we won't make it without the women. [applause] god told adam you know. it's not good for this guy to be alone. [laughter] it is part of who we are. it is that for instance things like compassion, gentleness, it

caring. i mean, those are part of what it means to be family and i think hitler happened because his mom did not care for him and so he ended up with no sense of security and went out to try to prove that he was someone by clobbering others. women are totally indispensable for the continued existence of all society. >> thank you. [applause]

>> i need help. i'm looking at the men. please make sure that they don't have weapons. [laughter] >> everybody has been disarmed i hope. i would like to turn the conversation a little bit to what specific kinds of interventions will actually make a difference? we can agree on the need for much greater equality but of course whether we are talking about south africa or whether we are talking about the corporate suite in new york there is profound inequality and we all know that so what can we actually do to go about creating that greater equality and to the extent that any of the people here come to the business community, yingluck shinawatra -- talal al-zain you are someone who has pioneered this. what can we do and what are the returns from a profit-making point of view? why does it make good business sense for a company to take those kinds of steps?

>> first of all i'd look at it from two angles to try to close the gap. one is as michelle said it is the right thing to do but second, and what really motivates me even more is my ability to generate better performance and better profits for my institution and for the whole of the economy. if i look at the world population, females represent over 50% of the population. if we do not incentivize that big portion of the population to participate in the development of the global economies, we are never going to achieve. we are never going to achieve. we need the whole population. forget about male or female. all of us are part of the same global economy.

and the world. so we need to work hand-in-hand. of course, how can we close that gap? it is definitely a different way. one way that i am trying to follow which is an individual interest, because of the second reason that i pointed out, the economic reason, so i make sure that i hire people based on merit, not because they are male, not because they are female, but i do want to have that diversity because i truly believe that if i am sitting around a table with my executives and they are all male, if i add another resource, the incremental value will be minimal and eventually it will

diminish actually. if i bring in a female to that table, and that person will add different ideas, different angles, and probably, not probably, i know that person will improve the performance of the whole team. now the way i tell it is it's the responsibility of the government, of the policymakers, to initiate from the beginning, from the youth level, that education of the youth to show that male and female are both equal and those that contribute to the well-being of each country. second, and i know it's a controversial area, but i really believe that of course to tie it

with merit. .. >> looking at the issues, and i really encourage you to go and google it, but can you talk -- >> really? [laughter] >> it's on youtube. >> can you talk a little bit

about not only what the corporate sector needs to do to create greater opportunity with employees but also maybe what women themselves need to do? >> yes. so i think all of these relate and what we basically have is an ambition gap all around the world. we have equality nowhere for win. we have two very different forms of an ambition to in the debugging world many people sit here, we have an ambition gap at the societal level. we say we want to educate our girls as much as boys but we don't need. we don't really do the things we need to do. in the developed world we have an ambition gap at a personal level. the data shows this super clearly. in the united states women got 60% of the college degrees in 1981. 30 years ago. 31 years ago. ever since then women have made progress at every level, every year they get more college degrees. the into more jobs, they become more junior managers.

it stopped making progress at the top and the last 10 years. we are basically stuck in corporate america, 15% to 60% at sea level jobs and more jobs but if you look at the numbers around the rest of the developed world, the numbers are way worse, not better. they're still stagnation. if you polled women in the developed world, they're not as ambitious as men. so whether there's a steady, if you ask you ask women to self identify as very ambitious, in the united states 36% will say that. in china or brazil, brazil is 59%, china is 66% in india is 85%. and so ironically in places where have the equality of education and women are exceeding men, you don't have a personal ambition levels. i could go all day on the reason of the root cause, but i will take them very quickly. we don't raise our daughters to be as ambitious as ourselves. last month, there were t-shirts

sold at this generally which is a very large chain of like kids stores, smart like patty for the boys, and pretty like mommy. not in 1951. last month. little girls are called bossy. anyone who saw this? you guys at davos. i was to i challenge you, go find someone and watch them go a little boy bossi. you won't see it. they are not policy. that's the natural order of things. then it goes all the way through. we tried it because things in the work force. we haven't equalized thanks in no. in the united states intracouple go to work simply full-time the woman does more than twice as much in him as the man. you can get to equality we are not in no. the most important point is that success and likability are positive correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women. the man gets more powerful and successful, he is better like.

as a woman gets more powerful and successful, she is less like. so from early childhood through marriage, through adolescence, all the way through, we'd reward men every step by the way for being the leader, for being assertive, for taking risk, for being competitive. we teach women as young as four, way back, the communal, and until we change that at the personal level, we can't change this. we will have to go out there and say, there's an ambition gap. you want girls to be as efficient as voice, as boys to contribute in home and we need our girls to be as ambitious to achieve in the workforce. [applause] >> yeah. >> point taken, share. but isn't there a danger than you're letting ceos off the hook? they can say well, i would love to create greater recalled in workplace but until parents raise their daughters with greater equality, and i can't achieve it? i don't want to let people hear

off the hook innocents. i. >> i never let anyone off the hook. good point. how do expect our husband to as much as the lives if they don't get equal? it's okay women in the workplace to leave and take the chair. we need to let men leave and take care of the chill. we need flexibility of all types. we need men who understand that the success and likability point with win. it's super important. if you watch and entrepreneurs had this experience, you watch the ceo, typically a man, talk about his senior team. he talks about everyone strengths and weaknesses. they need us to the woman, the one woman reports to him and he says, she's great at her job. she's just not as well liked as the men. with no understanding that, of course, she's not. that's what the data shows really clearly. we need to understand that women negotiate for their own salaries, everyone wants to work

with them or. when women negotiate for their own salaries, everyone, men and women, want to work with them less. you teach people that. i talk about this usually openly, and the next under woman sitting across from a man and she negotiates, they have a different reaction. that really has to come from the top, and understand that there are different challenges and the structures to support them have to come from the very top. >> guys come your back on the hook. now, we all agree about the importance and benefits of educating girls, of achieving greater equality. and the world economic forum believes in that and yet 83% of the people here are still male. and so, i will raise the issue of course. i would like to the issue among the rest of you. is that a way to accelerate progress? would you recommend that? i want to open to whoever wants to grab that.

michelle? >> it's interesting. five, six years ago first of all, offer voluntary quota. it didn't happen so they had to meet by law. but after five years when they finish all the boards of companies, all the studies show higher performance. so it's not because, one other thing is it's not quarter after quarter to its want our women can contribute, what can they do better? and all the studies show that women can improve the performance being inboard, being in senior management team, being in different positions. and all time politics the same thing. women can improve the quality of politics, can prove also the kind of policy they can implement. and really i think it's true that we have to link a quarter with marriage. widely only ask when we're talking about women? we also need men imposition to

be with right capacity and with marriage. so i think it is a false dynamic. because women can we ask them to be perfect. we need everyone to be as good as possible. >> and as you know, indian has passed legislation to require one-third at any one time of the local village council to be headed by women. and there's been some very good research showing it result in better outcomes, and particular more investment in water which traditionally, different perspectives. what anybody else like to tackle the issue of quotas? >> i have lived in a society that judged me on something very silly. the color of my skin.

and people talked about us. they legislated about us. and then, lo and behold, they were surprised because they have not invested in us. they have not asked us how we feel about whatever. they are able to pontificate about us. what we are saying really with women, we were discriminated against on the basis of something about which i can do nothing. i can try and tell i'm blue in the face -- [laughter] i can't change the color of my skin.

we move from there, and we penalize people for something about which we can do nothing to ginger. and it was surprised that having made laws that benefit others, that the performers on the side, it will satisfy, look, they are not so good. well, then the world looks up and you remove the artificial barriers, and the world discovers, hey, nelson mandela, you know, coming out of this community. and i believe we are

impoverishing ourselves, when we do what we do to women. you know, we are actually made for this interdependence, that each brings to kill your gifts -- peculiar gifts and attribut attributes. when we are dealing with the commission, someone studied and found out something very interesting. they said, when the men came to the commission, almost invariably they told a story about themselves. equally, when women gain, -- when women came, almost all of

them told a story about someone else. we are really impoverishing ourselves. gifts, gifts that were developed as they mesh into other gifts. we find ourselves very interesting -- [laughter] i'd like to now open it up to some questions from the audience. it's hard for us to see. raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question. we have a couple of mic scratcher. if you would hand it to somebody with their hands up, that would be great. >> hi. my name is staunch you can. >> there is another mic coming toward you, i think.

>> i am from asia, korea, where very much women are discriminated because of traditions, korea, japan just to be the worst-case. suggestion or comment. sheryl sandberg, i appreciate what you said. i wonder if it should always be based on ambition but we don't have to imitate men. more based on, we want to inherit better future for our younger generation, therefore our fishing should be succeed to serve. that's my motto. it's not -- that's got to take an entry. anyway, not the same mission. look at what happened with all this banking in world. and touch up michelle, i look at -- such an important entity. a good friend of mine, just such a sad to see, such as important

coworker, like a treaty failed because not suggest. why is that? we have an analysis. [inaudible] i'm wondering, how you can take on women's initiatives, creating and facebook or twitter or whatever, women can talk about this issue if you in cannot pass this and violent issue for global issue. how can they empower this using i.t.? >> we are short on time. the last comment. can i last comment? if we want to ask pashtun will to give several people a chance to -- >> what can i do? that's one. >> ten seconds. [laughter] >> i know one-fourth of the men traveling section try thinking.

while your prime minister, could you start with -- [inaudible] thank you. >> you know, so i think your question on ambition to lead and ambition based on vision, they are not mutually exclusive at all. in fact, a lot of people, men and women, who want, had a really big ambition to change the world, i understand they need a leadership role to get there. but we really do, in order for women who have vision to be able to have impact, it has to be okay for them to have the ambition to lead as well. because without it, i promise we'll stay and work that is completely run by men. >> i just, i want to add one little thing to that question. i think that is important to the ambition. it's important the location as you said on the whole, but its import also in the society to have big models. i want to just --

[inaudible] she was nine years present in switzerland. she asked kids what to want to be when they're older, and the typical answer, firefighter, doctor, economist lawyers and so but then she asked a little boy, six years old, and said don't you want to be president of finland? had asked a very serious, not in this country, men cannot be president. [laughter] >> because all his life he had seen women in the presidency. [laughter] so we need people creating this. i mean, in my country, ambition south bend for women because we were taught that way. ambitious can be positive, depends on how you use it for. very quick because i took my time, on climate change, we have an opportunity. until we have a high level of summit, not only climate change,

sustainable development on the three pillars, social, economic and environmental. we will do, we're working very strong, to make a reality all these political -- central, social and develop it issues. so we are working very strong, have a very high level, head of states, head of government, female head of government but also men. as bishop tutu said, we need men and women working for women's rights and women's empowerment. >> madame prime ministers. >> and the problem of woman in thailand, so i think on the positive point, the first thing that we get back to the root cause of the problem that the education must be, given the chance of study and equalize between male and female, so we have to bridge this gap. so that is why i like the policy

in china, we set of salvation of female. the first of the foundation is the first thing that helped female on finest it because they need asic of financial. i don't think that lady that will do something that is bad for ourselves, even if they don't, even without money. so this is the first thing, that's what our foundation is for health woman to success on financial. and second, that if given opportunity to get knowledge and help them with legal, because sometimes without education so they don't understand how to survive, how to understand have to protect them. so if they use years, this is more important. so that's why with education, comes, goal longs with female. and last thing that we need to

keep the role of everyone to understand that underneath of the female, it in fact, that our female and myself that i can say that, if as long as we give opportunities to them, and, of course, that male and female, male and female must be compliment together. and ambitious is important, but qualification and capable for this job is even more important. then that will be, that we cannot be separated between male and you know, so that needs to be equalized. so we have to get the chance for both male and female in politics, especially in thailand for female will be the symbol of nonviolent.

so i saw that it where the proportion of male and female mixed together, first on the personality so we can fulfill on the thing that man did cover. but, of course, if male cannot do better than female cannot do better than male in some areas. so that's a covenant. and not, help especially in thailand, mr. tutu will say that. so i use as family to come up with other people. and moved thailand forward for legislation and the peace for my country. thank you. [applause] >> and madam prime minister, i also have to say you speak better english than i do. [laughter] >> we will take maybe a couple more questions, and and entire and to them collectively because we are running a little low on time. >> thank you very much. i am from kenya.

i want to agree with sandberg and that our children -- whatever it differs is great on homefront, it gets carried over for a very long time. we in the past our heard a politician the of the day, new politician in kenya. all position should go to women. but we are still fighting for those women to come forward. in spite of the fact they've given us greater number of women. i wanted to ask out of the thailand experience, how did you do with the socialization, cultural, in the years? you say that you don't have, you have a quality at this level. did you have that issue and how did you deal with it? >> we will go ahead and, i must say there is no ambition gap

here in this audience. i'd like to encourage other question. will take a few questions and then address them together. >> you and cheryl brought out the subtext of violent abuse, depression that exist really permeates the life of the poorest women and the girls in the world. and just interested in signs of hope or interventions that work in that area. >> hi. i'm a playwright and screenwriter and i'm very interested in sex selection and how that very fundamental and choosing of girls before they can even prove themselves and provide models for other women in the world, how that affects you and what thoughts you have on that. >> let's take those questions, and also let me just a mixup a little bit, throw in one more, and then each -- the question i would like to throw out is

whether a world in which there is greater gender parity would look particularly different. and in particular, i'm a, it always strikes me that in the most, the strongest best advocates i know for greater equality are not bleeding heart columnists, not any of us here. it's these hard bitten american generals in afghanistan because one of the things they have learned is if more girls are going to school, in a particular district in afghanistan, there will be fewer attacks on soldiers there. and so you get these general sitting around a conference table, one bogotá but airstrikes on taliban and the next month or try to figure how to get more girls in school. because they know the difference that will make insecurity in afghanistan. and so why don't we go with you, cheryl, and work our way back? with this kind of the world look different? would it be different? >> i started my crew working at the world bank and worked on --

in any. and the singapore bank of the time in the early 90s was you have to give money to make sure the money goes to the women. because the woman will spend on their children and the men will spend it on whiskey and other women. not anyone here would do that. but the data is clear that women spend 90% of income on a chilled and then i think it's more like 40. 30 or 40%. is going to say 40 so glad you corrected me. 30 to 40% i think will make a difference. i think it would be a more peace for world. if you talk to the nobel peace prize laureate winter. and after what will change coaches are clear and she said women in power don't have guns and don't rate people. and so i also would say we might as well try it. it can't get worse. but i really think that a world where we are, a world where using the population, the gift of our population. warren buffett famously and jesse said one of the reason he

has succeeded so much alive is because he only had to compete with half the population. [laughter] why not use the talent of the entire population to address the very considerable needs this world has? >> thank you. [applause] >> for me, i mean, i go back to my original point, if i look at it from an economic point of view. the world bank, they came up with a study that showed that this direct correlation between growth and gdp, and better gender parity. so, for me, if i look at it from just global economy, it has to be better. >> thank you. michelle? >> two words, because the ask experience we do two things. first of all, early childhood education, that's very important because boys and girls learn as

they grow with the same size and same opportunities, and second and very important, look at the textbooks, look at the films, look at the television. which are images they are sending? in ours it was always man. and the system was always sexy with very short skirt. we change all of this stuff and we put women and girl imposition of power. we don't have time to look at that but i think we need to look at it. economical route is very important issue because many of the families, when they have a son, the older stay with them. when they have a daughter, the daughter goes to live at husband's house and the parents don't have nobody to take care of him. i mean, we can see differences but i think all these issues, we look at things we need to change so we really can have worked for all. and, finally, everyone has spoken here, and since we'll

have, i will say, a world without hunger, without poverty or at least less other, less poverty. hopefully, more peaceful, and, of course, more equal and balanced. [applause] >> there's no question that italy should be a more peaceful world. as i said, i can't think of a matter who carries a child for nine months in the womb, happily and readily saying i don't mind if the child becomes -- [inaudible] i think, i think that women in

and of themselves are those who bring to life, and our nurturing and help, help, help us to become more -- i mean, the expression, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world is true. ..

>> revere. it doesn't turn out with much. i mean, you could -- you could say many things about mother teresa but marshal wouldn't be one of them. and even when you look at someone like mahat ma-gandhi, it's a gentleness, a tough gentleness something -- i hope i

might before i go into the grave see a world which is more gentle, which is more caring, which is more sharing. in our country, we have an expression that a mother can share even the eye of a fly. women generally are those who nurture, who bring to life and who hold life together. and for goodness sake, we've tried for centuries we have made a mess.

let them try out. [laughter] [applause] >> all right. >> i think all the things have been expressed but i would like to asking if the -- if the movement have more chance to be leaders or i think the first thing on the social i already mentioned that we'll feel from the area of male don't have and the other thing that is social, you will see the world have someone who caring all the male and caring all the children and that's a good combination between the male and female. and for the movement to be of more of the leader, the leader can be both on the private sector and government. the private sector if all you have two combination between male and female, good thing for

female is female more detailed and more concentrate so i think this is the thing that sometime in terms of the business needs someone to be like -- we have vision and concentrate in the details. that's the area that i see the strength of the female has. body, politics, politics, of course, that are the nonviolin and he also does symbolic of the nonviolin and she find for the democracy so this is the world, real world of democracy need the police officers and if we have full combination sometime the passion of female can help the world and can solve all the problems as long as we sit down and talk together but anyway

equal between male and female is that significant on the number and for someone who have the position to help the country and especially have more chance to be the female and we have the chance to increase the establishment of the committee. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> i must say this panel in a sense addressed the question of whether greater female participation diffuses violence. here we have a panel that's half female and as i say it's more civil and less violent than world economic panels. don't you think? i periodically said that the central challenge of centuryth century with slavery, the central challenge of the 20th was totalitarianism in this century it will be to achieve greater gender neutrality and i

want to you to help me thank this panel. [applause] >> thanks. [inaudible conversations] >> all this week we've been featuring booktv's weekend programing in part-time. well, coming up tonight on c-span security and privacy and

>> one of the trickiest things of writing this book is thinking through the particularly in the international human rights context where they were straddled a moral imperative and aspirational ideal and more practical and formal mandate. >> on "after words," from distributing food to the poor in india to sex trafficking in japan, richard thompson ford defines human rights and how well meaning western reforms can lead to increased exploitation saturday night on 10:00 eastern. also this weekend on booktv, saturday at 7:00 pm house historian looks at the african-americans who served in congress. he's joined in the discussion by former congressman ron dellums and a book party from shooting from the lip by al simpson written by the former press secretary and chief of staff

donald hardy. >> we got started because there are a lot of conservative think tanks that work across issues. but before cap there had been no single progressive organization, progressive thinking that works on economic policy, domestic policy, national security. >> neera tanden president and ceo for the center of american progress on the mission of the washington, dc-based think tank. >> we think that there's an ideology behind particular arguments that are made in washington with very little facts behind them and part of our job can make the arguments and the factual arguments and the evidence-based arguments behind our own views and i do think that when the facts don't argue for our position we re-examine those positions because, you know, we mentally believe the most important thing is to be -- is to be right about what your views are.

>> a look at the center for american progress sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q & a. >> we return now to the world economic forum in davos, switzerland. in this session u.s. lawmakers discuss the future of american power in the 21st century. republican senators bob corker and saxby chambliss were joined by democratic congresswoman anita lowey from new york a special advisor to president obama, michael froman. this is about an hour. >> okay. good evening, everybody. i'm the dean of the school of public policy of the national university of singapore and i'm sure the first question in your mind is, why is this man from falling on the future of american power. i think that i want to say that

it makes mistake. you are addressing an extremely important topic today. what i propose today that i'm just a traffic cop. i will make a few brief introductory comments and then i'll post maybe one or two rounds of questions at this very distinguished panel that i'll introduce in a minute and then we'll open the floor for questions. and i hope you're ready for some good, tough questions because the tougher the questions the better the discussion. and i'm sure the panel will be very happy with the tough questions. let me begin with the state-setting kind of way made three broad points. the first point of obvious point is in some ways the question of the future of american power of the 21st century is probably the

most important question of the day. because if you look at how the 20th century evolved, much of it was, you know, driven by american power. the whole history of the 21st century was driven by american power. and, of course, their debate was it good? was it bad? but in very many parts of the world was very benign. just yesterday right on this stage if i'm not mistaken, the prime minister was being interviewed from singapore 24 hours ago and the prime minister of singapore said as a matter of fact american power in the asian pacific has been extremely benign and, frankly, it could even serve as a model for china at some point in time. and so that's the first reason why this panel is so important. the second point, of course, is that while american power, of course, still remains number 1 in the world, the big questions about the future, is it going to

keep on rising where it remains stagnant or, heaven forbid, will it even decline? and i know that decline is not a word that is used a lot within the american discourse but as i told the panelists it's, unfortunately, been used outside quite a bit so we're getting the internal perspectives of where american power is heading. and the third point i want to make -- in that sense it's really fortunate to have this distinguished panel here is that as you know, within america, the political system, let me put this very gently has become quite polarized. and this polarization within the american political system is perceived by the rest of the world to affect american power with the rest of the world. so you have two distinguished republicans and two distinguished democrats on this panel i think gives it a

tremendous amount of power, in the discussion that is you're going to have. so let me just briefly, briefly introduce them. on my immediate left is senator saxby chambliss, the senator from georgia. he holds of the vice chairman of the intelligence and a member of the arm services committee so when we discuss, for example, the announcement made by secretary panetta today there will be $500 billion cuts in american defense budgets we can talk about the implications of that. we then have bob corker, the senator from tennessee. he's the ranking member on the senate committee on and if the republicans win the senate in november he might become the senate committee. next we have dr. michael froman who's the deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs

and also the g20 and at least not least is she's so he got it from the district of new york and she's in charge of foreign aid and to the role she's played in the house appropriations committee. so we have a very wonderfully well balanced panel so let me start the discussion by asking the first question about how each and every one of you see the future of american power in the 21st century? do you see it in a sense constantly rising? or do you see that the concerns about it declining real or misplaced? so senator chambliss, we'll start with you. >> well, first of all, let me say, you know, perceptions are just what they are. they're perceptions. when you look at the realities of what's going on in our world today, the world is a very changed place from where it was

five years ago, certainly it's a very changed place from where it was 10 years ago. the advent of the internet has made dramatic changes. we're now seeing the unfortunate military conflicts being brought into everybody's living room all across the world on a regular basis. there's just any number of things that have contributed, i think, probably to what i truly believe is the perception. does the united states have issues that we have to deal with? you bet. we have very, very serious issues. are we operating from a governing standpoint the way that i would like to see or probably any of the four of us would like to see, i think the question is no. but that being said, i would say this. i think there are three areas where the united states has always provided not just the

right kind of image but from a practical standpoint we have been the leader of the free world. first of all, is with the economy. in spite of our problems now we still have a very strong economy and we have the world's largest economy. we got to fix it. we got a real problem with our economy and it needs fixing and what we do is going to impact the economy of every other country in the world. and we've got to make sure that not only we do it right but you do it soon and we are not there today. secondly, we have been the military power of the world for several decades. certainly going back to the conclusion of world war ii. and we have knot necessarily the largest army or the largest military but from a

technological standpoint we're certainly the most advanced military and that gives us is huge edge and the numbers of individuals that wear the uniform of the united states today are different from what they were 10 years ago, just in numbers. but there's another difference that is of more importance to citizens of the united states, and that is that our military today does not operate on a draft system. every young person coming in to -- or coming out of school used to have to go to military unless you had a physical reason why you couldn't. today our military is an all-volunteer military which means that the men and women that wear the uniform of the united states of america are there because they're patriotic, they want to be there. they know today and they know over the last decade that when they raise their right hand and swear it up over the constitution of the united states, they're getting ready to go into a military conflict. so the makeup of our military is

very, very patriotic, very, very committed. and we're going to remain the world's strongest military power. we can't afford to be in second place. i know we'll talk more about these -- the cuts and whatnot, but just -- just know that will be the case and then thirdly, the united states from a leadership standpoint has always had individuals, whether it was the president or members of congress or whatever that have been in prime leadership roles again for decade. and right now if you had to point who is the leader on the republican side, who is the leader on the democratic side, obviously, the president is a democrat and certainly that's where their leadership comes from. on the republican side, it's probably a little bit of a mixed bag because we have control of the house and we have a speaker there.

maybe he may be the leader on the republicans but we're the minority on the senate side and the minority leader is that leadership role is he the guy leading the republicans? well, if you watch presidential debates, you know, you'll get a mixed bag of all of that, too. but i think the fact is that america has not provided the right kind of leadership on world issues over the last several years and i'm not just referring to this administration. but i think we've got to step up our game there. we ought not to have a president who feels compelled for whatever reason to go around the world and apologize for actually the united states. which is a little bit infuriating to a number of us. so from the standpoint where we're going to be, from an economic standpoint we're going to rebound, from a military standpoint we'll always be the world's strongest military from a leadership standpoint.

i'm confident that we'll continue to provide the world with the right kind of leaders that exhibit true leadership worldwide. >> thank you for that very careful nuanced presentation pointing out the strengths and weaknesses in challenges. i'll go to the democrat we agreed we would alternate. so congressman lowey, would you like to talk about american power in the 21st century. >> certainly. and i thank the world's economic forum for holding this session. i've been very pleased to serve on the state department foreign operations, appropriations committee. and when the democrats are in charge, i would chair the committee. now kay granger is chair of the committee and those of you who haven't seen the article the odd couple, it stressed the two democrats that gets along. and, frankly, i was very pleased during the appropriations

process that we were able to turn out a very strong bill. george bush made it very clear that our national security depends on defense, diplomacy and development. and i do believe that this bill that we produce does reflect our strong leadership in the world now and commits to our strong leadership in the future. and i am very pleased with the leadership of our president internationally and if you've ever traveled with secretary of state hillary clinton as i have, if i didn't want to undermine her seriousness i would say that she is a rock star and has the respect of all with whom she meets. i don't think there's a place

that she hasn't traveled and i would dare say the same for vice president biden. now, i'd like to add one other dimension to this. number 1, we have to keep strong and even though there are proposed cuts, there is no question to those of us who have looked at the defense budget. my colleagues on the senate side would say and i'm not going to go back to the $600 toilet seat. it's too serious an issue, but there are places that can be cut carefully with discretion and maintain our strength. and certainly with regard to the foreign aid budget, we are providing very careful oversight because we know how important it is to spend our dollars wisely. i'd like to mention another area which i think is absolutely essential when you talk about american power in the world,

senator chambliss talked about the economy. what we do with our infrastructure, what we do with our educational system, how we train our people for the future. we import many students from all over the world to our university system and we're very proud of that. but i do think that we have to do a lot more within our elementary and high school systems to maintain our power and our status around the world. i was saying to our distinguished moderators some of you may know scarsdale, new york, and we're doing singapore math in scarsdale, new york, and we had a discussion before this panel began about education in singapore. so i'd like to just say that i have a great deal of confidence that american power, american

respect in the world will be maintained and i'd like to sum up not just with our military because i do believe that our military will maintain the edge and we'll be a leader in the world but i do think we have to continue to invest in our diplomacy and our foreign aid programs as well. i'm very proud of the work that we do in lifting up people throughout the world when it comes to diseases. through the global fund, through other programs that fund tuberculosis, malaria, et cetera. i'm very proud of the work that we do in our villages everywhere throughout the world, again, to help alleviate poverty. and our foreign aid budget and our diplomacy budget along with our military budget must continue to reflect the tremendous needs internationally

because that is the responsibility of a world power, not just to be strong militarily but to make sure that we are capable of facing the many challenges to help people, help people fulfill their dreams. help people reach for the stars. that's the image of the united states of america that i want to continue to project. >> thank you and thank you for the plug for singapore textbooks. >> thank you. you know, a century is a long time and, you know, we're talking about relative american power the priest in the front row might say, you know, comparisons are odious. we have a term in our country that describes american exceptionalism and do i believe that america will demonstrate continued exceptionalism in the world over this next century, absolutely. i do. your question -- your comment

regarding the third item and that is where we are politically. no doubt it's affecting us in the short term. we as a country are faced with the same challenges that so many western democracies are facing right now and that is we've had politicians on both sides of the aisle for decades that have made commitments to citizens that cannot be honored. and they're difficult decisions that we know reforms have to be made. europe is facing that. our country right now is somewhat paralyzed over those issues because of the partisanship that you talked about a minute ago. both sides are very much at fault. it is my belief that -- i know that you read the publications from the outside and you read about sort of the negative things. i see a centrist group forming in both the house and the senate to deal with these issues that we have in our country.

the tax reform elements that have to take place, the entitlement reform elements that have to take place. the long-term deficit issues that have to take place. and before we'll be able to be the country that we all want to be around the world, those are going to have to be dealt with because what's happening internal to our country a lot of negativist feelings are coming out. people want us to sort of step back from the involvement that we have in the world because of the issues that we have at home. so i think the most important thing in the short term for us is to get our balance sheet in order. i think we will get our balance sheet in order personally over the next two to three years. i wish we could get it together this year. i don't think that's going to happen for a lot of reasons but i do believe regardless of who is elected president we're going to deal with those issues over the next two to three years. on the military side, i would say, look, i don't think there's

any question that united states of america will project itself around the world, but there has to be a rebalancing that does take place. i mean, you look at where we are with nato right now and so many of the countries there -- there are countries that are honoring their commitments. but nato is built on the fact that each country was going to commit a certain portion of their gross domestic product to nato and in many ways our country has become the provider of protection and many countries have been the consumers of protective services. and so that has to rebalance. but i absolutely believe this will be a century where america demonstrates exceptionalism. there's no doubt there will be economies that just due to demographics are going to be different relative to ours. you look at countries with a billion people that's growing rapidly. that's going to change. but i think we will be an economic power house. we will lead on democracy efforts. we will lead in being a force

for good in this world. and the quicker -- the quicker that we can deal with our balance sheet issues, the more energetic in the near future that will be. >> well, first of all -- >> your first comment and then we'll move on. >> great. let me thank you for having you on the panel. you really have three of the most effective and most internationalist legislators in our country here. doing great things on foreign assistance objects new start, on a whole range of intelligence and defense issues. it just really is i think a very -- a very good group to talk to that. let me just say a few things. one, when president obama came into office, he set out as his top priority to restore america's reputation and to strengthen its influence around the world and that had many parts to it. one was to strengthen the alliances. i think we can say right now our alliances both in europe and in asia have never been stronger. and i point to korea, japan

where we're seeing real strengths in those areas as well as the nato action. two, that it was critically important to get the great power relationships right. that if you don't have russia and china in a good place in your relationships, it's very hard to get anything else. and that's what the restart was about. that's what engagement with china was about. and that's what allowed us, i think, to work very collaboratively including through the u.n. security council on issues like iran and north korea and to build a coalition globally to address those issues. third, there was a desire to do a strategic rebalancing. obvious reasons there's been great focus on iraq and afghanistan previously and there was a desire to re-engage with asia which we see as the fastest growing region for our economic potential but also a region that's incredibly important to us strategically. fourth, we set out to reform elements of the international architecture precisely because having a rules-based system that

reflects our values as well as our interests is our most effective way to exert influence over the long run. and things like the creation of the g20 or the institutionalization of it is the premier forum for international economic cooperation or the president's engagement with the east asian summit are just two examples of how we tried to build a domestic -- examples of how we tried to build rules-based architecture that reflects the new realities of the global system. and finally, none of this could be done without solving our economic problems at home. and it had to be dealt with proactively and forthrightly in the midst of the crisis in 2009. through very difficult political steps like t.a.r.p. and recapitalizing the banks and things that were not popular politically but also to promote growth and to commit to rebalancing our fiscal situation, consolidating our fiscal situation over the medium term and let me just conclude with that because i think what's

remarkable what you've heard so much is how much convergence there is to republicans and democrats both on the nature of american power, the importance of protecting it going forward and the importance of dealing with problems like the balance sheet that senator corker referred to. there's no disagreement between republicans and democrats on the importance of doing that. we may have differences on exactly the right balance between taxes and spending, but there's no disagreement that's what we must do as a nation and i share his optimistic that we will get there. >> wonderful. now, we have about 10 minutes in our panel discussion before we come to you on the floor and so far, everybody has been very good and restrained. maybe i will make the discussion a bit more difficult by posing a very difficult question. and, you know, we're talking about american power in the 21st century. let's say fast forward 10 years from now and this is quite by all estimates of goldman sachs and other estimates in the year

2032, the world bank announces the country with the largest gnp is now china. in the same year china announces it's about to send a man or woman to the moon. so china has the most dynamic space exploration in the world and it's been perceived by the rest of the world to be the number 1 power and united states would then be perceived to be the number 2 power. now, how ready is the american population for such a kind of perception-shift if it happens? i don't think it will happen but if it happens, how ready are you? >> well, thank goodness it's a hypothetical. >> maybe a bit more than a hypothetical. >> well, there's no question that china is progressing and as their economy grows and ours goes to this slow process, it makes it easier for them to gain on us. i think the facts are, though, that even china is seeing a

various slowdown of their growth economically right now. but i think a couple of things have got to happen. i say this in my stump speech that i've been all over the country talking about with respect to the budget and our deficit and our debt that we've got a window of opportunity as united states to fix our fiscal house. it's going to happen. our fiscal house is going to get fixed. now, we either take the initiative to do it on our own terms or those individuals or those countries that buy our bonds and right now the chinese are the largest foreign purchaser of u.s. bonds, they're going to dictate to us what we're going to do to fix it. so so you is the opportunity for us to do that but if we don't, then that's an area it could play out.

i think america is not prepared to be in second place. and americans are not prepared to be in second place. so i think you're going to see a stronger economy develop over a period over the next couple of years. i share the optimism of bob and mark and we're going to get -- we may have our differences of opinion of what -- what policies we enact to get there but we're going to get there. that's what politics is all about. that's what elections are all about. and irrespective of who's the next president in the white house, the current one or another one, there's going to be a rallying around the effort to get our fiscal house in order and not allow that scenario to happen. >> great answer. congressman lowey. >> i agree with my colleague enthusiastically that we will get there. i think we may have differences

as to approaches. i do believe that we have to deal with our long-term debt and our current deficit. but i also would agree with economists like dr. alan blinder or mark zandi that at a time when an economy is weak that we have to first invest here in our infrastructure, put people to work and have a long-term plan to deal with the debt and the deficit. we have to put people to work here in the -- not here. i'm sure we want to put people to work here as well. but i think it's essential to put people to work. now, one of the challenges is and in talking to my chinese friends, they will admit that we have the creativity we produce americans with extraordinary creativity. we can look at apple, google, et

cetera, and they're extremely good at taking that creativity and do a super job of manufacturing and taking the business from us. the president addressed some of these issues in his state of the union and i know it's going to be a continuing debate. but i'm very proud of our creativity among our students and our workers and the question is, how do you create the jobs at home? so i would agree with our colleagues that the debt and the deficit are serious issues and we have to plan to do it with the seriousness of purpose. but right now i am very concerned about jobs, investment in education, make sure we're training our workers for the jobs for the future and i will put my faith in the creativity

of the american people and look forward to positive dealing with the debt but right now invest in our people. >> do you still america being number 1 then? >> without a doubt. >> senator corker, i'm trying to see if there will be anybody here who -- [laughter] >> so an american value, is it not, that we want people throughout the world to do well and to live with a high standard of living. so if you look at a country like china with the number of people that it has, i think every american would want people in china not to live in poverty but to have better lives and history has shown countries that aren't able to generate that for the people who live there end up having social unrest and sometimes turn their attention to create outward problems to

consolidate people's thinking within. look, i think americans would want as they think it through for people in china to do well, if people in china do well, if you look at the demographics, as an economy it's going to be very large. and so i think all of us can do the math. we all look at the growth rates. and yet i'll stop there because i'm not going to take your -- i'm not going to bite at whatever it is you're trying to get me to bite at and tell you but i'll agree with saxby that the american people absolutely would not be prepared psychologically for an event where the world began to believe that it was not the greatest power on earth. and should an economy end up being bigger than the american economy, my sense is that maybe

a focus then would be on the type of innovation, creativity, you look at a goldman sachs-type operation just to use financial operations versus some sluggish other kind of large bank that really -- i mean, you might look at america in a different way but i don't want to look at it that way today. i'm not going to say that's the way it's going to be. but i will tell you that the american psychology certainly is not prepared to deal with that. >> thank you. dr. froman, you've been an academics and they are allowed to say the i couldn't sayable. >> i'm against my colleagues here. [laughter] >> now, this is something they accomplish by the debt but in davos they can. >> the mountain air but i certainly agree with what senator corker said. we welcome the rise of a

prosperous, stable china where millions -- or hundreds of millions of additional people are lifted out of poverty. at the same time, i think the question is what kind of china will we face? and will it be a china that plays by and abides by the international rules and norms that have governed the international system for the last 60 years and have allowed for countries like china to grow and prosper? or do they follow their own set of rules that puts at risk the prosperity of other -- of other peoples in other countries? and i think -- i won't rise to state on the number 1 question. i'm convinced we will be number 1 as entrepreneurs in our education, our higher education system and our ability to be creative and come up with new ideas and to lead the global economy in all of those -- in all of those factors but it's very important that we help encourage, not just us but the

international community that as china grows and becomes a bigger play on the international system that they abide by international rules and norms as well. >> thank you very much. i think you've add good discussion. now the floor is open. the dean of the harvard kennedy school very wisely said the questions should have three elements. one, the name of the questioner, two, very short presentation. three, end with a question mark. so please. >> identify yourself. [inaudible] >> you say you are not prepared for the second wave and to say we are not prepared for the first wave. >> you're so modest. [laughter] >> and maybe but allowing of per capita of gdp is pretty low. we're preoccupied and with the

internet, the poverty reduction. and without the u.s. policing maybe we all have problems and for the security and that kind of thing but we have some contributions to the global economies in case you say we are too selfish making money at the expense of your efforts. >> so you don't have a question and it's a comment. the gentleman back there, please. yes. >> can i get a sense how many questions are there roughly. one more here, two, three, four, okay. great, great. [inaudible] >> your microphone is not working. just try. >> is that good? >> don freeman atlantic council of washington, dc. there's one area which i likely

to remain so is the cost of health care per capita. but america is definitely not first in terms of infant more biltmore -- mortal tilt and it was a donnybrook between the president and the congress. these are very leading members of the congress. what are we going to do about american health care? >> does anybody want to take a stab? >> i'll take it first. there's no question that the rising cost of health care in the united states is a major contributor to our current economic situation and there's no question about the fact we have frankly done nothing over the last several years to try to curtail that rising cost and it's a cost within the private sector as well as in the public sector that's rising every day and it's a cost that we've got to get our arms around. that being said, it is very difficult from a policy-making

standpoint to enact measures to, let's say, reform medicare. we have outside groups who as soon as we use that term, reform medicare, they go ballistic and say, well, you're going to cut medicare. we're not going to cut medicare. we can't cut medicare. we owe it to people in the united states to have that valuable program. but if we don't make the right kind of changes in this very valuable system, then the system's going broke and it's not going to be there. so it's -- it's health programs like that that have got to be addressed. the other side of that is, that americans have gotten very spoiled because even though our health care costs are significantly higher, percentage wise, than in other industrialized countries, i would submit that the quality of health care that america get is unsurpassed than any other

country in any part of the world. but overall americans get very good quality health care. a lot of them don't have to pay for it. that's probably going to have to change. there are individuals who receive whether it's medicare and other health care benefits that are high end income earners who may have to start a little more skin in the game. there are a number of ideas like this that are floating around in congress right now, but there is a general agreement among republicans and democrats that we've got to make sure we protect this program for the long term, and that is a very, very difficult political thing to do but it's got to be done. i'll leave obamacare to bob and the rest of the folks here. >> congressman lowey, a short

answer because we have lots of questions. >> i have a very short answer. it took a while to pass the health care bill. a health care bill that 8 million federal employees have and all members of congress have. and the pejorative are calling it obamacare i think is really unfortunate. most of us would not say it is perfect. but most of us would say let's amend this. let's make some changes in the health care bill but it's taken a long time for the house and senate to pass anything that approach universal care so i personally would be happy to work with my good friend senator chambliss in all the issues he was talking about. but let's not try to repeal a bill that took so many years that is the kind of plan that 8 million as i mentioned health

care workers and all of us have right now. >> okay. thank you. >> let me just briefly -- we don't mention the health care debate. >> i don't want to debate. i'll make some quick points. number 1, obviously, we don't know what's going to happen because we have a supreme court ruling that's going to occur this summer. a presidential race that will have an effect on all of us. it's going to have an effect. but what we've done in america is we focused on access which is very, very important. we have not focused on the quality side of it and that takes long, tough work. you need somebody at cms for 20 years to see the kind of changes that need to take place. one of the big frailties is this will a bill that 535 congress people created. i mean, what a disaster, okay? there's no way that you can create something that doesn't have three or four focus points and that's what this bill became. so my sense is that this bill

will definitely evolve. there's no question. i don't think there's a thinking person in washington that believes as constructed it will continue. i don't think there's anybody on either side of the aisle but a big part of it will be to determine this summer but we as a country have placed our sole focus on access and not done the tough work that's necessary to focus on the quality that the gentleman just mentioned. >> i'm trying to shift the american power in the 21st century. and the gentleman over here. yes. and maybe i'll take three questions if you don't mind. so we get a sense of the questions on the floor. one from here, one from here, and one from there. >> eric kramer from the u.s. and i would like to take on this point about american exceptionalism. isn't it a question as a restore cal advice american exceptionalism is extremely counterproductive because, a, not supported by the facts, america is not at the top when

it comes to broadband, health care, internal health, you name it. and doesn't it also really undermine debate and experimentation that we need by suggesting that the only good answers come from within the borders of the united states. i find that it's shutting off the american mind and, therefore, i feel it's cutting off opportunities to improve our political debate. >> the gentleman in front there. sorry. >> hi. i'm rod beckstrom of the internet corporation for assigned names and number, of the global internet coordination body. we have a hard time foreseeing technology in the year 2, or 3 and it's important in the world and the relationship for the world and geopolitically so my question for the panelist is how do you see internet and the integration of humans through the internet changing where we are in 100 years and won't that have a huge effect on this

equation? >> then i'll come to you over here >> i'm david. i'm actually really upbeat about the u.s. political process since the crisis, both president obama and both parties i think you have done a pretty good job in the end and i especially appreciate the fact that you haven't really whacked programs that helped poor people including the international programs and the four of you have all played important roles in the governance over the last couple of years. the brinksmanship last year really did us a lot of damage. so i was interested in your comments in, senator corker, about a growing centrist coalition. i'm interested where you see that happening? >> let me come to the last question over there and i'm glad you posed the question to a specific senator or member of the panel. it makes it much easier. >> i'm from turkey. you all seem to have a consensus

on the fact that american military power should remain the world's strongest military. i'm wondering what is the criteria that an american government should use to use that military power anywhere around the world? >> okay. so maybe -- can we start off with senator corker with a specific question about the brinksmanship? >> so first of all, the simpson-bowles commission began a beginning framework for some very good discussions and around the issue of tax reform, i think we will see in our country regardless of the rhetoric that's occurring right now, i think you're going to see a flattening and an elimination of lots of what people would call loopholes. we call them tax expenditures. a lowering of marginal rates but an increase in the amount of revenue that's generated and i think there's a tremendous

amount of consensus that's building around that, both on the individual and corporate side. i really believe that. i believe there's in kept 60, 70 votes in the senate for that type of thing. now, you know, the details they're tough. on the medicare piece i'm seeing proposals now where let's leave -- let's leave fee for service in place for people who worry about things like premium support but let's have an alternative track that basically looks a lot like medicare advantage. i see some breakthroughs taking place there so i really do -- on the big picture, if i didn't believe this, i would not run again for the united states senate. but i believe over the next two or three years you're going to see real tax reform that generates economic growth. you're going to see entitlement reform that saves these programs, saves these programs which i think is something you care deeply about.

the average american family today pays over their lifetime into medicare $119,000. and the average american family -- when they begin receiving medicare takes out 357,000 and that formula is not one that's sustainable. so we got to figure out a different way of making it work especially for people without means. but i see -- i see it. and i think we -- i think we're very, very close and i think regardless of who is president, you're going to see major tax reform, major entitlement reform. and as a result, long-term deficit reduction. i just believe it. >> dr. froman can you respond to the question of american exceptionalism? >> sure, i'll be happy to. i think i fundamentally disagree with the premise of the question because i don't think american exceptionalism means we have all the answers, we're always right and there's no debate and we don't respect the right of

others. i think one of the part of american exceptionalism and how open we are internally whether we are headed in the right direction and whether our values are in our interest. i think we went through a difficult decade where there was a lot of people didn't like what was doing in iraq and what the u.s. was doing in world affairs but i'm struck that whether it's the g8 or the g20 or in travels around asia or engagement in africa or engagement in the middle east, people want us there. and they want our engagement and they value our values. and that's what american exceptionalism is. to me if we go back to our moderator's opening point and it goes a little bit to the last question's point, we're seen largely as benign, as keepers of the system. and we are constantly taking actions that we view -- not that they're not in our interest but

also in the interest of building a stronger, a fairer, more just international system. and not every country does that in the world. and the u.s. does, whether it's republican or democratic administration and i think that is what held us well in holding us in the world. >> i want to be very brief because i know i agree so much with what michael said. first of all, i want to say bred to the world reflects the very best of our nongovernmental organizations and i want to thank you and i am proud that the u.s. government does support these organizations. this is a critical part of our outreach to the world to help lift people up. secondly, i did want to respond to the atlantic council because many of us appreciate you and others who are always there to give us advice and support when we have to make difficult

decisio decisions. now, to respond to the gentleman from turkey. one of the things that i'm most proud of in this administration is the leadership of president obama and the secretary and the vice president in operating not solely as a unilateral country. we should be strong. i'm proud that we're strong but reaching out to the u.n., building coalitions and addressing the many challenges i would hope as i look forward in a peaceful way. i just wanted to make the point that although we have said america must be a power, the power, i would hope we can use that power to move the community in peaceful ways to achieve goals through consensus. >> okay. i think senator chambliss as chairman of the senate service committee, why do you need the world's largest military? >> well, i think it's important that as the leader of the free

world that we're able to respond militarily when we're called on. i mean, look, it's not just the leader of the free world from a military standpoint that the united states has been a position of because if there's an international crisis, whether it's a health care crisis whether the cdc is at the forefront, whether it's a natural disaster, where our national guard may be called and sent to some other country, or whether it's the economic crisis that we're going through now or whether it's a military conflict or a military issue, the united states is always the first country to look to and the reason is because we always respond. so we've got to be in a position to respond from a military standpoint. the one thing we know about military conflicts is that very smart american military

personnel have rejected over the years where the next conflict will be and who our next adversary is going to be. and we've been wrong 100% of the time. [laughter] >> so what we have to do and why it's important that we remain a powerful military is that we know we're going to be called on to respond somewhere. but who would have imagined 10 years ago that we'd be firing 50-pound hellfire missiles as a part of a military conflict and we could do it in such a precise way as what we're doing today? who could imagine that we would be in afghanistan? most americans had not even heard of afghanistan 15, 20 years ago. so it's important that we remain diverse and it's important that we remain powerful militarily but bob corker made a very good

point that, you know, we got a lot of friends -- friends around the world where it's members of nato or otherwise who have provided military assistance in both iraq and afghanistan and i think you're going to see more and more of that in the future because we can't afford to expend u.s. taxpayer money being a policeman of the world. it's going to be in concert with other countries and i think that's good. i think that even though we provide the right kind of leadership, the right kind of technology, the right kind of weapon systems and the right kind of manpower, it will always in my opinion in the future be in concert with other nations. and turkey has been a great ally, by the way. >> any questions and if you are short we can take two or three questions before the final round. i saw a gentleman in the back to

the left. no more questions? i don't believe it. >> there's one over here. it's nice to think of some different questions, you know? >> i'm from denmark. for 10 years the countries of the world at least 153 of them have been negotiating the doha round. so in looking at the 21st century from an american point of view is the doha round dead? and if so, what will be the u.s. trade policy going forward? ..