but the amazing thing s the real life is more interesting than the mythic one. that is why he is the most fascinating figure of the 20th century. >> pointing added fuel autodidacts to rightly so give them their due but as an aggregate america was more broadly educated? . .

if you listen to the radio, a great song by this woman at dell. the first time i heard it, i thought why didn't i hear this song from the 1960s? how does this escape meir? it's a real retro deal and i think there is a real lack of creativity and as far as giving these guys their due i think they deserve that in one of the reasons i wrote the book, when you think about iran he taught us so much about history and the story of civilization but historians have been you know not interested in history

whatsoever. heart of the reason i think is because he wrote and the red the historians write. he was writing to regular people and they are not interested in the sky at all. you would think there would be a book about will durant. there's not. you would think there had there would be many books about milton friedman as john maynard keynes but there is not. there's a book coming out about eric hoffer but there hasn't been a thorough biography of eric hoffer and i can tell you something eric hoffer is a lot more interesting than so many other people who have many biographies read about them. the point here is that non-blue-collar intellectuals have really overlooked the blue-collar intellectuals that i write about. they are not very interested in them because the blue-collar intellectuals for having a conversation with all of america and intellectuals tend to be distant people who are having conversations with other intellectuals and intellectuals

love to write about other intellectuals. these guys not so much. and that is one of the reasons why i wrote this book. red berry is not shakespeare or anything like that but you would think a guy who has put together 600 stores and had his own televisions show in the 80's and wrote for radio in the 1940s, a career spanning decades and decades that they would be more written about this guy. there is a great biography of bradbury but there's not a whole lot out there so i hope at the very least intellectuals have sparked some interest in the figures they have not gotten their due and i hope i have given them their due in my book. thank you so much you guys for coming out. [applause]

>> up next on booktv, so born in an hour-long program where we invite guest host to interview others. this week linda killian's new book "the swing vote" the untapped power of independents. in the political writer and columnist argues the growing group of u.s. electorate is more united than its party affiliate counterpart. she discusses the power of independence with democracy editor-in-chief, michael tomasky. >> host: linda killian, welcome to after words. great to have you. tell us what is the swing vote about? >> guest: well, "the swing vote" is about our political system. it is sort of where we are added where everything is right now, but the impetus for the book was that 40% of all american voters

are independents, more than either republicans or democrats, which to me means they are dissatisfied with the two parties. and i have been covering politics for a long time, and i wanted to address this. i wanted to get at what are these voters looking for who are these voters, what do they care about? what do they want and how can we -- is i don't think anyone could say that our system hasn't become fairly dysfunctional. so, this largest voting block in the nation has determined the outcome of every election since world war ii, the swing voters that the book is named for. and they are tired of being ignored and underrepresented and not having a say really and how politics and government is run. and, i begin the book with thomas payne and the end of luck

with thomas payne, not to be grandiose and someone accuse me of using the newt gingrich word when i use that word, but common sense, this sort of thomas paine book that looks at the revolution. there was a call for democratic republic by the people and i think we need to return to that. i don't think we are really there right now and so i think that was, i hope in some way to also light a fire under the people and get them going and get them motivated. >> host: to tell us why we should be worried about this and why this is a problem? >> guest: well, our system is fundamentally undemocratic and a number of ways. one of the ways is the closed primary. in half the states in the country, 40% of all the voters can't participate in the primaries and so they have no

say in who is nominated, and as a result, we get more and more extreme candidates on both ends of the spectrums. spectrum's. we are nominated by the party activist and then that is who is getting elected to congress. coupled with the way congressional districts are drawn. that is a problem, which is leaving out the middle. centrists are totally disappearing in congress so you have the far left in the far rate, unable to cut deals, unable to govern which is why i think congress has a 9% approval rating right now. >> host: my reading of of the book indicated that while you do certainly blame both sides for this problem, i sense that you blame one side more than the other. is that a fair reading and outside that site is the republican side. >> guest: i think you are right. i will say that i set out to

blame both sides equally. when i started the book, when i started writing the book, i felt both parties had leaned more to the extreme and had been ignoring the center, but i think in reporting the book and of course i was reporting the book for the past two years, the tea party had sort have been rising during that time in making its voice heard. so you had some very spectacular, prominent primary elections in 2010. for example in delaware where mike castle was challenged by a questionably qualified candidate, christine i am not a witch o'donnell. mike castle was a congressman for many years, very popular in the state, centrist republican and you have republicans saying being quoted, mostly tea party saying to my don't care if mike castle looses. i don't want him in congress. heats not the kind of republican

we want. and so there is this sort of cleansing of the centrist democrat, excuse me, the centrist republicans. they call them rhinos, republican in name only. the republicans do that, not the democrats. and then you have the election anna alaska where lisa murkowski was challenged by the tea party. a member of her own parties sitting with her as a senator raise money against her, her tea party candidate. she lost the primary and she said forget this, and she ran as a write-in candidate and she won. more than 50% of the voters in alaska are registered independent. i do think there has been morbid cleansing and morbid purity test on the republican side. i think the republicans have moved way to the right. the sweeping birth control debacle. 198% of all women, catholic

women and women of every other faith, think this is the kind of social you now, right-wing effort to inject religion into the public sphere and i think centrist voters, independent voters don't like it. and i think the economy is a big problem, the deficit is a big problem. there are other issues, but we have moved past issues like whether should be able to yet married or abortion should be a private choice. on the democratic side of think the democrats have leaned to the left in the 1970s when george mcgovern ran for president and i think they had their realignment i think bill clinton obviously was more of a centrist president, and not all the last democrats like him. but there is less standard fare before barack obama, and so i do

think it's tough for centrist democrats, that it's more question i think to tell them to get out of the party. that is my read on it. the moderate to conservative democrat from arkansas was challenged and lost her primary, the dimock reddick from arkansas. for the most part i do think the republicans hew to a much more litmus test. >> host: why do you think that is? is a psychological in some way or more ideological or is it about discipline, but the attitude toward having political how are? what is it? >> guest: that is a good question. i think it has been a strategy that has worked for them and coalescing and energizing their base. increasingly, think the republican party has to come and

i quote time davis, former moderate republican congressman from northern virginia in saying much the same thing, the republican party has become a party of older white male southern voters, and they are not a party of the birth control thing that has to appeal to women as much. they don't appeal to minorities. i think the hispanic vote, it very rapidly growing boat and a very important swing vote i think with their behavior they can kick the hispanic vote goodbye in this election, even if they pick someone like marco rubio to be the vice presidential candidate, from florida, the senator. i think they may win some hispanic votes but i think hispanics are very upset with the rhetoric on immigration and what is going on in the southwest. and a lot of southwestern

states, in arizona, you know some of the southwestern states the hispanic population is approaching, we are talking 50% of the entire state population so this is not a trivial voting bloc at all. so, i just think it is a ploy to play the bass but i think it's a mistake if they want to be a majority national party. >> host: let's talk a little bit about the book structure and the work you did in assembling the book. describe how you organize the book and the work you did to put it together. >> guest: yeah. first of all, the most important thing to me was finding finding the independent voters. that they were the bedrock. i wanted to describe who they were. i wanted to people to hear their voices, so that was critical to

the independent voters and i settled on four swing states that i would focus on. the book talks about more than that. there's a chapter on congress, the chapter on the presidency and berries of the things that there are four swing states, colorado, ohio, virginia and new hampshire, that i think are very key states in different regions of the country and so i began to reach out to independent odors in those states and i got voter lists from secretaries of states and registered the voters and call people on the phone at 7:00 at night instead -- >> host: just calling people cold? >> guest: just calling people cold because that is public information. >> host: by the way we should tell people in many states you can get that information because you don't have to enroll by party and how many states? >> guest: about half, about half. actually in ohio, in colorado

and new hampshire i can find the unaffiliated voters. in virginia and ohio, they don't register by party and i used other ways to reach out to independent voters. but i will call people on the phone and i will say i am working on a book about independent voters and you know in 80% of the cases they were very happy to talk with me. they were happy that someone cared, that someone wanted to hear what they thought about the political system and by and large, this came up at an event recently with the deputy bureau chief of "the new york times" and he and some other set will the voters, they don't know very much and they are not informed and i didn't find that to be chu at all. i find that independent voters may be more disengaged but that is because it's the chicken or the egg. that is because they are so fed up with the party practice.

that was one way i did focus in all four states. i reached out to people through groups like independent voting.org and they hooked me up with some of their voters in different states. i assembled these focus groups myself. you know, political consultants charge a great deal of money, so i was doing this and it was a lot of work and very challenging. i travel to the states a few times and i just said about the work of meeting these voters in finding out what they think. >> host: how many do you think you talk to? >> guest: oh my goodness, and i also interviewed in addition to these others i interviewed elected officials and activists about heinz of different people. i mean certainly at least 500. >> host: that is a pretty good sample size. let's get to your ford typologies of independent voters and you have four successive

chapters on the states and with each of the state you identify a group and the first in many ways i think the most interesting to people, to me, the ntr republicans. you associate with new hampshire but of course are everywhere. who are the npr republicans? >> guest: the mpr republicans are the people that we used to think about as the rockefeller republicans and i thought it was time for some of these names to be fresh and that. obviously nelson rockefeller has been gone for quite a while, so the npr republicans are really all over the country. they tend to be more affluent, older, socially moderate, fiscally conservative republicans. they would be appalled by this vote control discussion and they think abortion is a personal choice. they don't get into the social issues. they are very fiscally conservative. they were turned off during the

bush years by the mismanagement of government, by the growth of government under the republican congress and the president, by the iraq war so some voted for barack obama in 2008. but they didn't like the health care reform. they didn't like the growth of government so they are very much up for grabs this time around. i would have said that romney would be a perfect candidate to appeal to these npr republicans. i am not sure now. there has been so much disarray and in the republican primary, and by the time this ayers who knows where things will stand in the republican primary? but i will say the npr republicans are the fund-raisers. they raise the money for the republican party. there are plenty of them out there. they are out of office because of the move to the right. >> host: did you hear it from them, sadness or anger more? >> guest: both, both.

certainly in new hampshire, i talked to a number of former and current state legislators who had fallen to the mpr republican category. some had lost primaries and have been driven out of the legislature and some who were still in there trying to -- marginalized by the republican leadership in the new hampshire state legislature said they did feel the party had been sort of taken over and that there wasn't room for them. >> host: do you think there is a larger group? >> guest: not by a longshot. >> host: let's get to the other three groups. you have the starbucks moms and dads, and you locate them in virginia. >> host: . >> guest: in the suburbs of virginia. that is the largest group, starbucks moms and dads. they are the regional voters and the deciders of election. these are the suburban moms and dads, people who live in the suburbs. war than 50% of all americans now live in suburbs.

only in 1980 it was 30% so it's growing rapidly and the suburbs are very racially diverse, increasingly so, and the suburban voters swing. they care about the economy, number one, jobs, the deficit. they care about education issues. they carried out he'd been the country safe, and they have totally swaddled in 2006 they voted for the democrats. in 2008, they voted for barack obama but in 2010, i think it probably turned off by the health care reform and the growth in government and concerned about the economy. they swung almost 20 points to the republican. >> host: some stayed home also i think existed turnout was so much lower. >> guest: that's right, that's right in turnout among

independents were lower too. they are up for grabs this time around. >> host: how do you distinguish this group from the npr republicans? these people are probably enrolled unaffiliated? >> guest: the npr republicans are a mixture i would say of republicans. a number of them have left the republican party and become independent because of their frustration with the social agenda. the starbucks moms and dads would be independent, but they might also be center-right republicans and centerleft democrats. it's a little tricky because i am focusing on independent voters, and that is mostly who i talk to but there are also registered democrats and republicans who swing quite a bit too. they just haven't changed their registration or maybe they want to be able to vote as moderates.

>> host: 20% of democrats across the country called themselves conservative. ideologically, something most people might not know. we are using the word unaffiliated and independent. >> guest: that's right. i used the word independent for the more accessible but in most states, their registration category as unaffiliated or unenrolled. >> host: interesting. the third group, younger people. >> guest: younger people, the facebook generation, people under 35. they are registered in the highest percentage of independents of any other age group. now they voted big-time for barack obama in 2008, but i think there's a big question, not so much who the republicans are thinking of nominating i think, not so much will they

vote republican this time or will they vote at all? it's very hard to get young voters to turn out. where his voters over 60 turnout in the highest percentage and voters under 30 turnout in the lowest percentage. barack obama energized them but he sort of raise their hopes and with a lot of those independent voters that voted for him, he was going to be post-partisan and work with the other side and he was going to get things done in a new way, that he was not going to let lobbyists come to this white house but instead they come to the starbucks a block from the white house so i think there are little bit turned off but -- by what they perceive to be the lack of change and they are concerned about the economy. they told me, if you talk to places like rock the vote which is a liberal organizing group, they will tell you young people are liberal. they will just tell you that.

they are simply a group of conservative young people who would be hard-core republicans but the majority of young people are liberal. what i found is if the republicans gave them a reason to vote for them, there is a republican candidate, because obviously young people under 35 have totally moved on from that debate about marriage or abortion or this kind of stuff. they are totally in a different state on that but they can be conservative. >> host: kind of libertarian, right? >> guest: that's right. that is why they like ron paul. ron paul wants to legalize drugs and that i think -- i think they like ron paul and his libertarian views and they like him because he is a dandy of a truth teller. they want a politician that tells a straight.

>> host: interesting. in the fourth group, a slightly older group, group that you base in ohio. >> guest: the american first democrat. these are the reagan democrats traditionally thought of as reagan democrats. these would be the rust belt of the midwest would be a place where you would find a lot of these. although massachusetts, that is where scott brown was elected to the senate. there a lot of independent voters in massachusetts. it is a liberal reputation. >> host: there are more liberals than democrats? >> guest: yes, there are. these would tend to be lower, middle class, manufacturing-based employees, policemen, firemen, teachers can be america first democrats in the midwest, and they are more

socially conservative than probably any of the other groups. they are very concerned about the loss of manufacturing jobs. they were hit hard. for example in ohio, they were hit very hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs and i think barack obama, he didn't really carry this group in 2008 but i think he sees them and wants to add them to the coalition in 2012 and so i think some of his language about companies that create jobs here and not allowing companies to write off their expenses when they move jobs overseas, a lot of these things were brought up recently and are designed to appeal to this group. and i do think some of the things republicans have done in states like ohio and wisconsin with antiunion legislation have turned off this group.

and so i think this group is more in play than they would have been at the republican governors did not overreach. >> host: putting all for these groups together and thinking about the two parties as they now exist, what do the democrate democrats, what with the democrats need to do to win the allegiance of these groups and when doing those things necessarily alienate existing democratic base as you said? >> guest: well, i think, to tell you the truth, the democrats and the dumb -- republicans could do the same thing to win this group. i think it will to a certain extent turn off the base, both of their bases but i think that is what we need. that is the kind of change in the shakeup we need in the system. what these voters want is they want the two parties to work together. they want to see some options. i'm getting ready to write a

piece in "the atlantic" about the fact that we may see virtually no legislation passed in the next eight months with congress in session. we can realize congress can't do its job. independent voter said to me, listen, i don't get paid if i don't get my job. they have a piece of legislatio. this is don't pay the members of congress that they don't pass the budget. they want to see them work together. they want action and they are concerned about the deficit. they are concerned about the economy and they think they understand that the two go together and the day will come soon that they have got to deal with the deficit and this incredible -- hanging over our heads.

they are happy that they are getting out of our foreign entanglements because i think they know that we have problems here at home that we need to be addressing. they like to see less money in politics. they would like to see congress being more responsive. i do think they are concerned about fairness as it relates to perhaps the tax code into the benefits that the wealthy and the elites get. they don't feel that they are getting, so i think these are all issues that they would like to see congress and the president address. >> host: let's talk about the president. let's start with congress though. why do you think it's become such a dead-end? is that ideology? is that the kind of partisanship that started in the '90s? it's all of those things of course but what is the main

thing to you? >> guest: i don't know if there's one main thing. i think they are all factors. my first book was about republican revolution and i wrote about newt gingrich quite a bit in that book and i've written about him recently. i think it is spared that he is the architect of our current congress. it is true that the democrats, when they were in control for six years of congress they were a bit dismissive to the republicans, said in the corner and be quiet. i think when gingrich he came speaker was a thermonuclear war. he ticket to a whole nother level and he thought the way that he could win that congress with republicans was to demonize the democrats. it wasn't enough to say we have a better idea. we had to say they were terrible

people who wanted to wreck the country. and so, that escalated the negativity, the hard feelings, the inability to work together and it also, the constant drumbeat in the republicans constant drumbeat that government is bad, inefficient, bad, terrible, i think it's sunk in a way that negative campaign commercials sink in and they think now the american public has gotten onto the bandwagon about government is bad. there are a lot of things that are inefficient about congress and about government. it's obviously very necessary and the ideas to make it look better so i think the regular partisanship, the isolation and the congressional schedule was sounds like kind of a minor thing and you know members of congress now on tuesday

afternoon for the first vote, fly out thursday night so they can be home holding meetings are campaigning and they never socialize together. i live next door to a former member of congress who is a democrat and i would mention a republican and he didn't even know who he was. if they're not on a committee with someone they don't know. there is a trust their if you don't develop a relationship. the leadership is a basic problem. mark warner, the senator from virginia, the moderate democrat from virginia, was very involved in the gang of six in the deficit reduction effort and ceaselessly over the past year with saxby chambliss of georgia, a republican. they just got their heads beat in by the leadership who wasn't remotely interested in this

bipartisan effort to work on the deficit. it didn't fit these right, we are going to make the other side with adam were not going to work together and were going to fight for every advantage. you know, rick santorum in a recent republican debate, something about him explaining that politics is a team sport. another was he had to go along with the leadership is the leadership wanted his boat and he was part of that. >> host: he was talking about "no child left behind." >> guest: that is the mindset on capitol hill and largely male, a majority of men and they have this mentality. there are winners and losers. we are going to beat their brains out you know, and that is the mindset. not that we are going to work together and try to get something done. >> host: how about money?

>> guest: money is a very difficult and intractable problem. i thought the mccain-feingold was a good idea. the campaign finance reform and it has driven to maybe not be so good in terms of unintended consequences and then we have the supreme court citizens united decision. there is no doubt the money affects outcome on capitol hill. money buys access. money buys tweaks to the tax code. it's a lot easier to come -- put in a tax loophole of benefits for corporate entity than it is a government program and there is a lot of that that has been going on. i talked with former congressman dan glickman about this and he said to me, mom -- money isn't just a yogurt in politics, it's the yogurt and cottage cheese too. i don't know how we deal with this.

money always finds a way. one of the theses that i have in my book, i say an independent voter can make all contributions, 50-dollar contributions to candidates they want. independent candidates that they think are doing the right thing, or trying to work together, are coming up with solutions and if you think about 40% of the electorate making small contributions that could be a lot of money and of course barack obama raised a lot of money. >> host: but it's not just campaign contributions. it's money spent lobbying. i think they spend nearly a billion dollars lobbying against the health care bill, against the inclusion of different elements of it. >> guest: same with wall street reform. >> host: that is really a bigger problem in a way. >> guest: and i really have to say i'm not sure how you deal

with that. is a first amendment right. i don't really know how you deal with that. except voters, i mean members care about money, because they want it to pay for campaigns that is a means to an and. mostly they care about votes, so the money is just a way to get the vote for their advertising. the voter showed up and made their voices heard. i like to believe they can make a difference if they ran against other incumbents as candidates. >> host: who are people in both parties that you think are admirable. you mentioned mark warner and you mentioned the book you have talked with mark warner so he is obviously one. talk about him a little bit and who on the republican side and you are some other. >> guest: obviously olympia snowe and susan collins from maine or centrist republicans

who -- >> host: what are they actually done? >> guest: here's the thing, to tell you the truth, think they have been kind of -- olympia snowe is running for re-election this year and i think they have been kind of cowed into you know, she will undoubtedly have a tea party challenger. >> host: the republican party is very tea party. >> guest: they had cowed a lot of the moderate republicans. someone like senator lugar from indiana, another person, especially in the area of foreign affairs with a long history of working in a bipartisan way. even orrin hatch from utah who is nobody's moderate just like robert bennett who is terrified of the tea party challenge.

>> host: and the base primary. >> guest: yeah and soy think tom coburn, who is not a moderate, who is definitely a conservative, very fiscally conservative. he took some time off and became a senator from oklahoma. tom coburn was in the gang of six and i think, i have always found him a republican. you asked for a republican. i've always found him to be very honest, very straightforward and worked in the gang of six. i think he has a good relationship with barack obama. i think he respects him and i think he has always tried to be honest and work on the deficit and cares a lot about deficit reduction. he is not running for re-election. he has announced that he is not running for election. >> host: some of this has come from the sense that he is retired. >> guest: that's right so he

is free to say and do what he wants. the republican party can't do anything about it. >> host: let's skip ahead a little bit and talk about solutions. they are hard to come by. i will be honest with you, it's a little brief but i don't blame you because it's hard to figure out what they have to do about this. let me talk about two categories of solutions. the first one that occurs to most people when they think about are deadlocked system is they think about a third party presidential candidacy from the center. do you think that is the solution or without -- could such a person actually when? >> those are sort of two separate questions. >> host: the right wing people that care about the should be extending their energies. we will put it that way. >> guest: i will say, and were going to hear more about an

independent challenge this year as this group of americans gets going. this is a group that has raised $20 million. they are on the ballot in all 50 states. what they are doing is collecting signatures in getting on the ballot without it candidate right now, just for a blank spot on the ballot. they will be alphabetical so they will be the first line on the ballot publicly and they know who the candidate is going to be. >> host: do you have any idea what kind of person it might be? can you give three hypotheticals? >> guest: well i've heard names and i've not giving people of interest but condoleezza rice or general petraeus or certainly john huntsman john huntsman is the kind of candidate that i think would. he said he has no interest in running as a third party candidate so i'm not sure who they are going to approach. it's supposed to be any

registered voter can go on line and nominate but if her she can't nominate a candidate who is completely unwilling to participate in go along with it so they have got to find someone who is willing to do this. of the independent voters that i talked with, there was no unanimity. some thought we needed a third party, fourth party, parliamentary system. others thought that will never work and we have just got to reform the system as it is an influence the democrats and republicans so independents are all over the map on issues and i think they are all over the map when it comes to whether or not we should create a third party. i do think a third party candidate, i think this time around it would seem virtually impossible that it could be successful. it could be something that could build over eight period of years. i don't think that's out of the question are going to do think ross perot in 1992 got 19% of

the vote, an insignificant amount of the vote, and i think that reflects the frustration and another thing he did was raise the issue of the deficit to the national debate. i think i've heard bill clinton say that it brought her to the floor and help make it a national issue that they dealt with. so i do think the influence of the third hearty candidate might be in the issues they talk about and in raising issues that the other candidates are not talking about. >> host: the deficit, i want to ask a question about what you heard from people about this. and others concerned among independent voters that there is the argument that with the private sector so strapped and so straightened and with credit so tight, just like we are hearing about auto bailout and the debates about that in the primary, was the private sector

so strapped that government had to be the vehicle to pump money into the economy? did you hear any the people you interviewed you know express any sympathy or understanding with that? >> guest: do you mean with the president stimulus bill? >> host: the group generally, the idea that the private sector didn't have any money and somebody had to put money into the economy to keep things flowing. >> guest: well i think they were aware of the fact that the stimulus bill helped keep teachers, firefighters and police in a place where it at a time when state government which had to balance their budget or cutting very severely. i think you know, dealing with the deficit is going to take a lot of discipline and some sacrifice from everyone, and i was actually just talking about this and if you think of world war ii and the kind of sacrifices, so the circumstances

were a little different. people were really willing to sacrifice and i think if people think it's fair, i think if people think the system is reforming itself, if sacrifices going to be shared, we will raise taxes on the wealthy and raise capital gains and then maybe we can also tweak medicare and tweak social security and trim the mortgage interest of action and do things that affect the middle class. i think if it's explained adequately and if they feel every everyone's in it together i think they will be willing to do it. >> host: do you think the democrats are just as resistant non-entitlement reform as the republicans are in taxes? >> guest: of co-yeah, the leadership. and so i think -- >> host: obama was floating a

grand bargain with john banner over the debt ceiling negotiations but obama tried to get a little ground on entitlements and the democrats in congress would not have gone there. >> guest: i do think the simpson-bowles commission, which at the end of 2010 released its report and was very substantive and conference and the president kind of ignored it and just sort of let it lay there. i think that was a real missed opportunity and i think some of those proposals may be, i think in 2013, and of course it will depend on who is elected president but i think we are probably going to have to deal with tax reform in the deficit. ..

>> structural reform is that you think needs to have been? for a sample you talked earlier in the book about

opening up the primary process. what does that do? >> guest: i think what i talk about is fairly modest. i don't say we need a third party. my reforms are fairly modest because they are realistic. those other kinds of things that average citizens can push for. opening the primaries is one that is very doable. i think citizens should push for this. district of columbia is one place. nine existed to begin with but it estate that does that have open primaries it should push for them. , all-out -- also about what initiative process to do it that way.

with rehab open primaries the candidate would be very different. across the board we would have much more centrist candidates. >> host: does the evidence show was that? those in open-door primary states? do they say those ones are more moderate? >> i think it does i did not do the quantitative analysis. it would also take participation. they would have to show up and vote to. >> that is that have been developed over time. i do think it makes a difference. are also talk a bar redistricting. these things that california is working on right now. it has adopted said t. your

top two system. i have reservations about that because when you run state why it -- state why did the independent it could get on the ballot the bar was not as high but statewide california we had multimillion-dollar campaigns. the top two, i am not sure opening the primary to voters but not candidates and challengers. also redistricting eight -- redistricting reform anybody could apply for or participate. we will see better districts the way they are john now is

both parties. typically the public has nothing to say about it. most of the deals are cut in the back rooms and the public is cutout of the process. any estimate of truly competitive districts those from the country. then again to appeal to the broad spectrum of the voters. not just the democratic or republican constituency. as a mentioned making small contributions, money is a retractable problem. but that gets to the heart

to of making contributions and having their voices heard. letting your elected officials know what you care about. i talk about no labels, the coffee party, people support the group's. none of those have a significant impact with they can start with their own community. they can blog norstar to newsletters and again to be more activist. i name my last chapter battle cry to use of quote that barack obama used in his when sworn and as president.

if democracy is a participatory sport we did not talk about the media which is a big problem, they're very skeptical and dismisses of these independent voters. they don't get much attention and are credit. how do the swing voters vote? that is the attention. they need to approve the pundits wrong. this is what i am hoping 47 the book is called the swing vote to. now we get to the fund segment. where did you grow up? >> i grew up in connecticut on the shore line. about 10 miles east of new haven of very idyllic community. and has the most beautiful

green and all of new england. >> host: you were a journalist at npr for how long? >> guest: the editor of all things considered for a few years. i had a traditional media career that somebody my age would have. newspapers, the telegram in massachusetts, "forbes" magazine, than npr. then i left to write my first book the freshman. and for some years after that i was the good director of the center here teaching journalism. then i left to do this book. >> host: you are with of wilson's center? >> a senior scholar their.

it is created as a living tribute to woodrow wilson who was the only ph.d. president we have never had. he was president of princeton the four elected president. my dog is named to will send in his honor. [laughter] it is a center where scholars from around the country and international scholars can come to do research. to think about various issues affecting the u.s. future and global issues. >> host: are you doing much traveling with the book? >> guest: i am. i will be in ohio before the fair during super tuesday week. i am very excited about that.

i will make a trip to england at the end of march. i'll speak at a few colleges in new hampshire and at the main block festival march 31st. i am going to the swing states. hopefully also colorado. let me ask about the president. what is your assessment from this perspective of his job performance? >> guest: i am little critical of him. people think i am the eco- opportunity critic they think i am overly critical of the republican party but i am fairly critical of

former speaker pelosi who i think in danger done necessarily her centrist democrats and more conservative democrats with the votes she made them take. i was right thing about that at the time and predicting exactly what would happen as a result. >> host: what most notably? >> guest: cap-n-trade, climbed unchanged and of course, health care. that passed without a single republican vote. the democrat decision to do that as opposed to focusing on the economy i personally think was a mistake progressive democrats are not happy with the health care reform they wanted a single payer system.

not so much the democratic base and it angered lot of other people who have health insurance to say there are more pressing issues we need to be dealing with the the worst recession since the great depression. to some extent barack obama of relative lack of experience before elected president, we have seen the results of that. he has not shown as much leadership as he should have. obviously he was dealt an extraordinarily a tough hand. with that terrible situation the threats with iran and we don't know what will happen in the middle east.

he could have shown more of leadership relating to the deficit commission and should have embraced simpson bowles to be out in front and knocked some democratic leaders hence to say this is the way we will do this. >> host: is why didn't she? >> it is not in his personality. not the way he looks at the world. he is consensus, not confrontational. and to a certain extent his relative lack of experience in the senate before herb being elected president. >> host: talk about the republican race so far. [laughter] >> guest:. >> host: it is not controversial to say the party has gone further out to the right to this time.

what the use the is the future? i am very curious to one. >> host: what might change the dynamic. >> guest: i don't know. on his way. one year-ago i would say mitt romney would be the kind of candidate to appeal to the center or the swing voters to be a good candidate to challenge barack obama but but they have done everything they can and mitt romney has spun himself 1 million times to appeal to the conservative right to make of the republican primary voters. and i said we did not talk