that you have talked, but it is an act of personal courage. you are under direct threat periodically in the setting where you worked. you have saved your fear and gone back to afghanistan year after year. you really have our admiration for the whole of it. also, for your ability to use the words hoo-ha and kerfluffle in the same sentence. [laughter] [laughter] i thank you all very much. good night. ..

>> co-authored with matthew spieler. eleanor clift has appeared at politics and prose for all of her previous books, some written with her late husband, tom. eleanor, you are a friend of independent bookstores, and especially politics and prose. many of us were riveted by your two weeks of life, memoir of life, death, memory, fanatical politics. your insights on how we deal with death and failed to deal with death stay with us who read you to this day. nearly 20 years ago, eleanor and

tom joined carla and me and 20 or so others when carla's first political, first politics and prose trip. it was a literary political trip to what were some of the former communist countries. we met with offers from poland, the czech republic, hungary, and from the communist party of germany. we went to koch which -- arch which -- i swish. what eleanor at a author have accomplished in selecting a president is to make the election system understandable by breaking it into manageable parts, getting as history and wonderful stories, some of them iconic, and taking away any excuses for not being informed. we learn what happens if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral college. even in a two-person race there can be a tie where someone may

not receive a majority, as remote as that is. it is a book for the high school or college graduate, or near graduate. and having read the book i can tell you there is plenty for a family to discuss. eleanor, i loved your dedication to those who educate us on civics and respect for those who run for office. we know eleanor clift is a journalist, as a tv political commentator, and even as a person has been featured in movies. tonight we welcome you as an author. let's welcome eleanor clift to politics and prose. [applause] >> thank you, david. i do remember that trick. we went to several countries and we traveled by train. the cold war had just ended and have done you cross the border something would come in to the

cabin and shine lights in your eyes. tom and i actually shared bunks with david and carla. and carla wanted us to experience life as, at the level of average human beings. and we did. it was grand. it was wonderful. so politics and prose brings back so many memories. it's a neighborhood bookstore i'm sure for all of you here, and we love it. so thank you, david. this book is a little different for me because it doesn't express opinions, which is what i get paid to do on television, and also in print. and it is a straightforward account of how our political system works. and to be honest, the publisher came to me and saw a gap in our education system. they do not teach civics anymore.

i'm sure young people out there are wondering where the 527s and the the super pacs came from, who invented them. if they come from the founding fathers? how does the system work, the primaries this year certainly entertained us. but what do they have to do with how we select a president. so i believe, if this is successful, it will be the first in a secret if i'm not giving away too much, i think former senate leader tom daschle will be working with some wonderful researcher and writer to put together a similar book on how the senate works. and david obey, who recently stepped down from the house, is being contracted to you, i believe, right about how the house works. so we hope to fill what the schools no longer do. so for me, this was, doing the

research and working on the manuscript, it really is a refresher course for a little junkies. because nobody selects the president like we did in this country. and the republican primary season and the debates, sort in a case in point. although in egypt to actually stage a presidential debate, and they showed clips from some of the debate in this country to educate the populace. [laughter] i shudder to think that we are exporting some of this, but again, the way we do this is, it's got its drawbacks but it's better than anything else that has been tried. the crowded stage early this year on the republican side, i think only has two possible prospects, and that was mitt romney who is now the obvious nominee, and briefly jon huntsman. i think every else was in it for various reasons.

and maybe partly their own delusions, but that's the wonderful thing about running for president. you don't actually have to think you can when. there are lots of other reasons to run, and among them is to influence the party platform and shape what the eventual nominee will run on. so political primaries, the primaries, the proliferation of primaries that we saw now is really a relatively recent phenomenon. in 1968, hubert humphrey won the nomination without conceding -- competing in a single primary. kind of unimagined. party was in the hands of the power establishment of a dismissed the voter preferences expressed for gene mccarthy, and certainly bobby kennedy in the california primary, sadly assassinated the night he was to win the california primary. then humphrey's lost to richard

nixon in 1968, triggered calls for reform. so we got the mcgovern fraser. george mcgovern, south dakota senator, and minnesota rep donald fraser. together, they worked to come up with a set of reforms and rules where women, young voters and minorities would be represented in proportion to the population to the 1970s -- 72, just four years later, 40% of the delegates in miami at the convention were women. that was my first convention. i was a telex operator for "newsweek." i worked in our suite in the fountain blue hotel, and i was really starry eyed. it was wonderful to watch the politicians, and politicians to me were stars and celebs. in a way they still are. in 1968, 13% of the delegates

were women, so that gives you an idea of how much reform occurred in that four years. so, george mcgovern, i live in a little vacuum myself. i thought everybody i knew supported george mcgovern, and i was rather shocked when he didn't win. but he got the nomination based on the rules he had devised and written, much like dick cheney getting the vice presidential nod after going out in leading the search committee. but george mcgovern lost in a rather way. he only carried massachusetts and the district of columbia. so, what came out of that? 1976, jimmy carter, he saw what george mcgovern did. he noticed there was that opening in iowa. so jimmy carter spent probably the better part of a year sleeping on couches in people's

bedrooms and getting known by the people of iowa. jody powell's memorial service, a couple of years ago, president carter told the story of how difficult it was to get any press in iowa, as governor, former governor from georgia. and he said finally jody scored a television spot early in the morning. and he said they are driving to the tv studio, and jody said, by the way, i -- jamie, do you have any favorite recipes? well, they get there. it's a cooking show and the host is wearing an apron and a shift cap. so i believe carter came up with a recipe because he was prepared to do virtually anything to reach his goal, which was to win the nomination and the presidency. carter, of course, one-term president, although i think his legacy will be seen in a much more favorable light than it has

been. i actually had a piece that will appear on the "daily beast" website over this weekend, which is about jerry ration convincing arena stage, th to commission a play called camp david which is about what happens when one devout jew and a devout muslim and a devout christian go behind the gates of camp david for 13 days, and outcome a peace treaty. so i think carter is going to look better in history books, and ration has really retaliated against some of mitt romney's characterization of carter as a weak president. but carter did lose big, real big, to ronald reagan. and so that triggered on a new set of reforms. carter loses and 80, 1982, the

democratic party establishment says we're not going to let another outsider like jimmy carter infiltrate our circles again. and so they moved a lot of the power a way from the delicate process back into the hands of party elites. so that 20% now the delegates are in hands of what we call the superdelegates. remember, remember them, they appeared in 2008, or we read about them a lot in 2008. they been there since the 82 reform. and hillary clinton thought they would rescue her candidacy, but the notion of the party now deletes overturning the will of the people is really unthinkable. so i learned in researching this a number of little, you know, factoids that get me through the day. we have had four presidents elected with fewer votes than their opponent. and i bet you probably all could

name them. george w. bush, that's an easy one to remember. john quincy adams, 1824. rutherford b. hayes, 1876. benjamin harris, 1880. so it's not enough to win the popular vote, you have to win the electoral college. and it's explained in there but i'm not going to go through it here. is stapled -- fabled dewey beats truman election does have similarities that are relevant to today. truman rather famously rant against the do-nothing congress, and president obama is doing the same thing. tom dewey was the former governor of new york, and a progressive. much like mitt romney once was, former governor of massachusetts, and some think mitt romney still this. in any event, julie was not as conservative as the republican-controlled congress

and truman successfully tied him to the do-nothing congress. and that gets me to today's politics, because mitt romney is broadly acceptable to the american people, in a way that his party is in. so his challenge is to establish himself as really a centrist conservative. and to keep some distance from his party, particularly the house republicans. the obama campaign's challenge is to morph the republican party and its agenda with romney, and to paint romney as an extremist. and to make him alone at the position he took to securing the nomination. he vowed to get rid of planned parenthood, funding for planned parenthood. he has taken some pretty far right positions on immigration in order to get to the right of rick perry during the primaries.

so i think that is attention -- the tension going on. you can see it play out day-to-day in the political rhetoric. president obama has demographics on his side. big gender gap, 90 plus support from the african-american community, strong support from hispanics, and to to one edge with young people. the wildcard is how many will get out and vote. the economy, the next six months are like the last two months. obama is facing a challenge. one thing i learned researching this book is that george w. bush was the first president to be reelected with an approval rating under 50% since harry truman. polls today, came out today,

have the president at 48%. hasn't really cracked 50 and stay there for any length of time in quite a while. he does win on likability over romney, and that matters, but i think you want to boil down the selection if somebody decide on two things, that unemployment number, asphalt as it is, is it going up or down? you know which candidate it benefits. and the debates. they've announced to debate three of them in october. october 3, 16, and 22nd. romney has got 20 of experience in debate and i think he did 20 of them. that's going to stand him in good stead. he's pretty good at it. i can't, there were a few moments he probably would like to take back, you know, the $10,000 bet and so forth. but for the most part he handled himself quite well.

peter hart, who probably everyone in this room is money with, democratic pollster, said in a memo to his clients a week or so ago, six months out deadline, that the president has no better than a 50/50 chance, with one caveat. and that's the supreme court ruling that will come down in june. these are tv -- peter hart's words, not mine. it could, it could be the moment that rallies minority, young people and the poor to vote. that could be wishful thinking, but i can come up with a scenario where obama wins reelection with 53%, because of the demographic changes in this country which have been really striking. but i think it's more likely we'll see a squeaker that could go either way.

in this book there are some iconic speeches of former presidents. eisenhower's speech when he declares he will go to korea, which basically turned around at election because, after all, he won world war ii your just going to korea would certainly solve the war. hubert humphrey is a favorite throughout the book. beginning in 1948 when he was mayor of minneapolis and he went to the 48 democratic convention, and basically told the democratic party to have to get on the right side of civil rights, to come out from the shadow of the southern backwards thinking. it took a long while for that to happen, but he deserves credit for getting under way. and then barry goldwater in his extremism, defense of liberty is

no vice. his speech is certainly worth revisiting. and president obama's nominating speech of john kerry in 2004, which foreshadows all the things that we didn't get the president reelected. and the things he is still trying to articulate today. so there's a lot riding on this election. i think the shape of the deficit reduction package, that they will forge after the votes in november. to the supreme court. in many ways elections, and go, and the supreme court is forever. failure until they are likely to be three vacancies over the next four years. whoever is in the white house looking to shape a lot of our public policy through who he or she, it will be a key, through see a point. and there's also the historic nature of president obama's

election in the first place, and i recently went and heard vernon jordan speak at the portrait gallery. you all know who burning is. he spoke here as well, and lives in the neighborhood. former urban me. is portrait now hangs in the portrait gallery. he made the statement that he thought president obama's reelection is more important than his election. he said because america is about reaffirmation. and then he talked about his personal experience as the only african-american in indiana, greencastle indiana. i don't think vernon would mine to give osh 5077 in august. so you can place the time. he said his parents drove him to greencastle where the university is located. he said his mother slipped $50 in his pocket, and his father

said you can't come home. he said what you mean i can come home? he said people here have much better education than you have had. they are going to be in the sixth chapter and you'll be struggling through the first. read, read. but you can come home. so four years later, vernon graduates, pretty big man on campus. his mother slipped in $100, and his father says, you can come home. so i think i know what he means. for me, i think a lot of americans are wondering if obama loses, we just say, it's the election, it's the election, stupid. and he was given a hand that probably nobody could have dealt with any more successfully. or we can do what ron decides, the african-american comedian said. she says if he screws up, we

will blame it on the half white guy. [laughter] so that's where, you know, a little bit of humor in politics always helps. and so, with that i would like to take your questions, and i see a very politically engaged audience you, so we can take this where ever you want to go. [applause] >> folks, don't be shy. >> thank you very much for your interesting presentation. i'm curious about what's going on with regard to civics in the schools. how has it changed over the years? i get the impression that's one of the reasons you are writing this. how has it changed and why? if you could go ahead and answer another question, is, how will you be marketing your book?

will be two schools or to whom? >> well, how it's change, i don't know if it's change. it's just been taken away. everybody is looking for ways to cut budgets. people, schools teach the test, and i guess civics you could tuck into another course. so basic civics education doesn't exist. sandra day o'connor, the former supreme court justice, she's turned that into her life's work, talking about the lack of civics education. it's become a crusade for her. and i lived up to the publisher having how to market this, but i think they would love to get into schools. i mean, it's not a literal textbook. it is more readable than that. and schools somehow, if it is readable they think maybe it doesn't count. so i think it's trying to bridge that gap, and do it in a readable way so that people might actually get something out of it.

but, you know, i do feel that it, we do a disservice to young people when we don't explain why things work. congress right now is a mess and i think it has gone beyond the point. but we did get a certain system, and that needs to be explained. and so, i think there really is, there is room in the marketplace for this book, i hope. >> i had a multipart question, which you talk much about third party candidacies, and in that light there was the experiment this year with the public nominating somebody, and they couldn't get the 100,000 vote for anybody. >> you're talking about americans if elected, and actually it was a process in search of a candidate. they had money backing them. they had some interesting people working with them.

they have offices down right where "newsweek" is right downtown. i spent a morning ltening to them. i was dubious of it because i never could see who the person was. they weren't going to get mayor bloomberg. they weren't going to get, i don't think jon huntsman, because jon huntsman probably harbors ambitions for the future. if he walks away and does an independent run, that unlikely to win, he poisons the well and his party. bloomberg, would look at it would take would be a spoiler. unlikely i could win. i could probably spoiler for the democrats, but who knows who? it's a crapshoot. so buddy roemer, former governor of louisiana can who tried in the republican campaign, it really didn't succeed, so that was about the best they could do. and i think he needed to get maybe it's 100,000 signatures,

to even be credible for them. and then their idea was whoever won the kind of lottery, they would pick somebody from the opposite party, or an independent, so that you would bypass politics. now again, it's nice to think that way, but we tried that. jesse, the former fighter, ventura, jesse ventura of minnesota tried that. and the thing is, you have no party base, and it's nice in theory but it doesn't work. so i think they were doomed from the beginning, but man, they raise a lot of money. and then they announced they were to give back big donations to the biggest contributors, but not to the little contributors. and if anybody had managed to get through the process they would have had to raise the money afterwards. you look at this sounds obama and romney campaigns are raising just for the campaigns, and then

for all their little subsidy or organizations, how could anybody else succeed in this climate? you have another organization of no labels. they are trying to find ways to actually make the congress work. they would like to see filibuster reform. so i think they are a positive organization and they bring people together from the right and left to the middle. but third parties, we will talk about the 1940 election. they were to, third parties there, one in each site. that's when strom thurmond walked out of the democratic convention, ran as a dixiecrat, carried for five states. then you had henry wallace as a liberal, also draining votes. so that would've been a great time. well, i was a life. now that i think about it. i don't remember paying a lot of attention except i think my

parents, who were german immigrants, i believe they supported dewey. i remember asking my mother why, and she said because he was younger. [laughter] site don't even know if he was. she wasn't going to tell me much. >> hi. i'm a little bit younger than vernon jordan, but i still have been through a lot of politics. worked in conkers or 10 years, a number of years ago. i don't recall a time when a political party, either the republicans declared its number one goal to get the president out of office, and to essentially blockages everything he wanted to do to promote that end. do you know of any -- i know there are bad elections, but do

you know of the -- >> i don't know of any parallel. when you think back to 2008, obama was such a phenomenon, and i think the republicans were really flummoxed. they thought we will be in the wilderness forever. how will we deal with this? and they came out pretty quickly in part, is reporting is quick, that franklin, the pollster who had been around for some time advising republican candidates, that on, i think the day of the inauguration he was counseling republicans just to oppose what obama did. and they did that and the sun came up the next day and their base cheered, and it paid off. and it paid off rather handsomely in 2010 as they took back the house. and so i think strategy has worked short-term for them. i don't know where it takes them, and i think if, if mitt

romney does when, it would be very interesting to see that he would probably then have a republican house and a republican senate, and romney will then have to really walk the walk. i mean, he will not be able to stand up to his party, and that's where every so often, even jimmy carter has said he would be comfortable with romney in the white house. listen carefully, you find a number of democrats say he was a good governor in massachusetts. i have a son who lives in massachusetts but he said he was fine as governor. they are not worried about him, but he would have that party testing and every step along the way. and, in fact, i think even now he is having trouble moving back to the center because every time he takes half a step, he's got somebody on the right complaining about it. so it's tricky.

.. >> politicians in general, and i do in the dedication, i do admire politicians. it's a tough life to get out there and fail so publicly, sometimes when you succeed it's wonderful, but that's not guaranteed. and, um, you know, they put their life on the line and, of course, romney has been running almost nonstop for at least seven years. and i heard myself saying the other night that's why he can fit into those skinny jeans.

[laughter] he does look very energetic. >> in the lame duck selling of congress which -- session of congress which might happen or might not happen, i believe it will happen, after the november elections we're going to be having a battle royale with the debt ceiling and the bush era tax cuts and probably at least one or two other items. do you have any predictions about what you think might happen this. >> they're calling it taxageddon, and it is. everything comes together. >> right. >> it's also a great opportunity because, you know, the wolf will be at the door. they're going to really have to decide. and here's where if romney does get elected, i think he will have a much harder time because he will have to make, he can't continue to believe there will be no taxes.

taxes are going to have to be part of the deal. and obama, you know, love him or hate him has not pinned himself down nearly so much. he can make a lot more compromises. he has a lot more room, i think, than romney. so i think if you're thinking, you know, for the better of the country which of these men would be better positioned, frankly, to make the compromises and maybe, you know, sell out some of their base, i think the president is in much better position to do that than romney. although i must say i kind of, i'd kind of like a front row to watch how romney would square all his campaign promises which would be so immediate with the demands of his party. he will be, that would be a real confrontation. but i do -- i don't think they can wiggle out of the decisions they're going to have to make. >> unfortunately, many of us in the democratic party especially on the liberal side have felt that mr. obama has given away so

much over the past couple of years, um, that i'm wondering how much more he can give. >> right. i think your point is well taken, but there will have to be give. and because of his personality and because of the fact that he hasn't pinned himself down as much as romney, obama's better positioned. but i agree with you. when the president first came in, remember, he ran on i can go to washington, and we can all get along. hillary ran on i can go to washington. they have thrown everything at me, and i'm still standing. i know how to fight the republicans. and the country understandably liked the idea of everybody getting along. and i believe it's sincere with the president. it's in his dna. and he reached out to congress, and they took it as a sign of weakness. and i think he's been, he's been battling that ever since, and it

took him a long time to realize that, you know, they weren't -- playing nice wasn't going to get him anywhere. >> jimmy carter may think it's okay to have a mitt romney presidency, but i don't. [laughter] and i don't think the young people in america today understand if mitt romney gets elected, what impact it will have on their lives, the generations to come because he may, he would appoint at least three supreme court justices, and that would be a disaster for this country. but i also don't understand why obama's advisers don't get him to go to wisconsin to support their recall vote. i mean, just him coming there would mean so much. all the votes that are going to count, getting people out to vote will be important for obama. whoever comes out, it's in the plus column.

i don't understand why he doesn't take a trip to israel and solidify a good portion of the jewish-american vote to come behind him. these are things that you look at and you say he would get these votes, and they are important now for him. >> well, to take those one at a time, wisconsin. i'm sure the strategists are looking at that. i mean, i read today that there are 37 undecides, and that's not 37%, that's 37 people. it is so polarized, and there is 1% separating scott walker from the democratic challenger, ray barrett. everybody is energized. if obama went out there, republicans would be crawling out from everywhere, i mean, i think that's the concern. he would totally energize the other side. i think everybody out there is worked up to the max. so i understand why they're not doing that. secondly, the supreme court. um, a democratic friend of mine

said she would not be surprised to see campaign ads that features the justices in red and blue robes instead of their customary black robes -- [laughter] because you need to get across what's at stake. and, you know, the supreme court is a voting issue for people in this room, but it isn't for most people. there are only nine of them and lifetime and all of that. it's never been successful as a voting issue. but you're exactly right about how much is at stake. and right now it's, i would say it's probably four and a half red justices. and you can see all of the issues that are lining up. they're going to do affirmative action, you've got personhood stuff lining up out there. the conservatives really -- they see the court as an arm of their movement i think in a much more visceral way than liberals do. and the court in a way reflects

that, but it also reflects who's been president. and so there will be, there will be at least one vacancy, possibly two or three. there are and then israel, i don't know if he'll go to israel before the election, but, you know, they may get a deal on the iran nukes, and that will avert the potential of attack, and he should get some diplomatic creds for that. so thanks for the questions. uh-huh. >> do you have any thoughts as to what's in hillary's future? is -- >> um, i think she probably wants to sleep for a while. [laughter] and she's probably hoping for a grandchild. but i don't know whether she'll run or not in 2016. but i think it's possible. and if you listen to bill clinton, i think it's pretty clear what he would like. [laughter] i mean, he's, a man -- they

practically had to shoe horn him out of the oval office. he loves it. i've never seen a politician who actually draws so much energy from the whole process, even on a bad day i think he does. and hillary has done a remarkable job putting a good face on america in these four years, and, um, i think, you know, she's energetic enough, and i think, you know, 60 and 70 are not what they used to be. pretty soon we'll be saying 100 isn't what it used to be. but i don't think the age thing is an impediment. and so i think if she wants to run, she can run. but i don't think she can expect that the democrats would clear the field for her. i think democrats are constitutionally unable to do that. you've got new york governor

cuomo out there not known to be shy, senator mark warner, maryland governor o'malley, and that's just three up and comers who are eyeing the white house, and there are probably more. and, you know, joe biden spending a lot of time in new hampshire, and as they say, the only cure for wanting to be president is embalming fluid. so -- [laughter] so anyway, if you get tired of 2012, you can always start fantasizing about 2016. [laughter] thank you. >> i wanted to get your opinion on rahm emanuel. he was touted as being an insider and knew all the insides and everything, and i feel he didn't do a good job at all because it seems like the republicans took the initiative, and when obama went into congress, he had this huge majority in the house, and it seemed like they just, just fell through. >> yeah.

i think there's mixed reviews of rahm emanuel. some people love him and think he did a very good job, and then he's got plenty of critics. he did restore the house to the democrats by going out and recruiting people who matched their districts. and so there were not a lot of loyalists in the people that he recruited, and they were easy to knock off. and in the white house it's as though he played, he was too cautious. and, you know, in this book we talk about, you know, what is a mandate, who has it and what is it. lyndon johnson had a mandate when he won with 61% of the vote in 1964, and he used it. george w. bush didn't even win the popular vote in 2000, and he acted like he had a mandate. and i think president obama was shy about using his power. i know there's one incident when he snapped at one of the

republicans, you know, we won or i won at john mccain, and everybody took that as a big sign of arrogance. i don't think he was arrogant enough. and i don't know how much of that reflects rahm emanuel's advice or whether that was how the president reacted naturally. we'll have to wait for rahm to write his memoirs, but his experience as chicago mayor may dominate his book because that's where he's really starring. >> before we close, i want to pose a couple of questions to you. >> oh, okay. >> those of us of a certain age remember an era when there was such a thing as a moderate republican. >> yes. >> and even a liberal republican who often, who often upped the ante, for example, on civil rights like senator javits and others. and one of the things that happened on january 20th, 2009,

as pointed out in martha draper's book which was discussed her recently was the famous dinner -- >> that's right. >> which you know and have written about put together with eric cantor and other people but not john baner in which the group -- john boehner in which the group really came together to be the disloyal opposition and to make sure that nothing happened constructive in the obama administration particularly domestically. if president obama is reelected and the house remains republican and the senate stays democratic, um, what are the chances of creating majorities to get something done domestically?

>> limited. [laughter] which is in part why presidents in a second term often turn to foreign policy, although i think this president has been remarkably successful in foreign policy in his first term. bill galston at brookings said every day the romney campaign talks about foreign policy is a wasted day. but i think you have to wait and see what the results of the election are. even if the republicans maintain their hold on the house, it will be by a smaller majority, by a handful of seats. i think a lot of those tea party types who see compromise as a dirty word may not be coming back. and if there's a leadership turnover in the house, i don't know that's necessarily a good thing. boehner now comes closer to resembling a moderate republican than anybody who