are there any trends and themes that run through our relationship? and what the ultimate goal of trying to rights as an objective account of what transpired on both sides. ..

>> in a moment, author jason gainus. >> i think the internet is changing the fundamental ways we interact with government. >> then, in about 30 minutes, we go to carmichael's bookstore, a local landmark. >> the role in their local communities is what will keep independent bookstores alive. there's discovery that only can happen in a physical bookstore, and i'm optimistic that that is going to keep us and other independent bookstores healthy in the long run. >> and then to round out the hour, we learn about senate republican leader and kentucky leader, mitch mcconnell. >> i think they obviously disagree with him a lot, and

they think he is ruthless in some respects, but they also admire what he's done to build a republican organization in this state. >> all this and more as c-span and time warner cable bring you to louisville on booktv. >> the internet is revolutionizing the way people obtain and process information, and as a result, changing the fundamental ways that we interact with government. and as a result, you know, i think altering to the very core the way we think about politics, the way we elect official, the way we interact with government overall. until just a handful of years ago, i mean, we thought we knew what the internet -- how people were going to use it, we thought we had some sense of it.

facebook hits, twitter hits. not enough can be said about how much that has altered the way people gather information. there's political science theory out there that suggests people, that participation particularly in the united states has dissipated tremendously over the last 50 years or so just gradually declining and declining. and one of the theories asserted out there as to why is that social capital is on decline. and social capital can be, you know, in the simplest terms can be thought of an interconnectedness between people. and then if people generate social capital, they are compelled to participate in the process. one of the ways that social capital is built is through

social networking, and in a preinternet world, people thought of this as joining groups, as being, you know, being part of groups, parking lot of bowling leagues, you know -- part of bowling leagues, thunks of this nature. and since social media what my co-author and i argue in the book is that social media is reconnecting people. now, we're not going to assert that it can replace face-to-face interaction, because it doesn't. that said, it offers something that we dent -- that we didn't have prior to. and people are beginning to exchange information. most people have a facebook page, and they know, you know, they'll are some friends who are posting up political news, some friends who aren't.

nonetheless, you can begin to feel a part of a community. and facebook has even taken this a step further to where they're using algorithms to predict which friends you interact with the most. and so those are the friends that are going to show up on your home page. so if you're having friends who -- birds of a feather flock together. people who tend to have friends with similar political views might be those who are more likely to start showing up on their facebook page. and can so then the new stories -- and so then the new stories that they post, what ends up happening is a lot of people get information that reinforces their own predispositions. because they're getting things that are, you know, supportive from their friends. and what we found in the book is we, we use survey data and

measure how much and in what ways people are using social media and then test to see if it actually does increase political participation which was, you know, if social networking via the internet is stimulating social capital, then we would expect there to be a relationship between social media use and political participation. and we find that that's the case. even when holding constant sort of traditional predicters of participation. so if we, if we control for people's socioeconomic status, age, you know, income, education, these kinds of things, and the traditional predicters of whether somebody's going to participate or not -- even holding those things constant -- heightened social

media use predicts an increase in voting, in political participation, in a whole range of different ways. when we think about political participation, most people tend to think of it simply as voting. you know? if you vote, that's political participation. and, yeah, that's true. but we conceptualize sort of following scholars that came before us on this front political participation's much broader. signing petitions, going to rallies, writing letters to your congressmen or state legislators, contributing money to a campaign, a whole range of different things of that nature that, you know, we call participation. so what we end up doing is we actually create a measure that incorporates all of those kinds of things and then look at how online social media use relates to those and find that online

social media use predicts that type of broad participation. what i think the biggest ramifications are, it's around the way people process information. cognitively. most of the things -- sort of the form always that government -- formal ways that government uses internet to campaign or whether it be for open source kind of information, that kind of thing, that's all getting worked out. what we don't know a lot about yet is the way that it changes how people perceive their world. and i think that people -- any attitude that we have about our surrounding world is really nothing more, it's just a product of the information that we have cognitively accessible. i see some object whether it be political or a tree or anything, and then i draw upon whatever

information i have to evaluate what i think about it. and when it comes to politics, most of that information is coming from media, you know, conversations with friends, these kinds of things. that's where that information's coming from. and we are constantly updating this information. now, that's just sort of a theory about how people evaluate the world around them and how we process and why we would think one thing over another. so you could go in somebody's mind if you can measure, you know, that you have this type of information, then you can predict a range of things that they're going to think, okay? if that, if all of this information's coming from the outside world for the most part and we have this new mechanism, the internet, that, i think,

gets coupled with the fact that people do not like to take in information that challenges their own predispositions. it's uncomfortable. cognitive dissonance, goes back to, you know, the '50s, psychology theory. and we don't like information that challenges our predisposition because it doesn't feel good. this is why, you know, your fox news, your msnbc from two different -- why they're hits. because they just feed people information that reinforces their own predispositions. everybody's happy, everybody's comfortable. well, the internet facilitates this process because people can self-select even easier than they can by picking fox news. because even if you watch fox news or even if you watch msnbc, you're going to be forced to get some of the alternative view. the internet, not so much. i mean, it's very easy for

people to pick blogs, to pick a range of information that supports their own predispositions. their social networks from the people. so i think that the future, you know, like what's the future of this is that the internet as disseminators of information, media and what not, becomes more and more savvy to this and use it as, you know, for marketing that it is going to further polarize people. because what's going to happen is people's attitudes are going to become more and more crystallized because back to my original point, if your attitude is nothing more than, you know, sort of a summation of the information that you have accessible and the information -- and now the more and more you're constantly updating this information and the more and more you get is just reinforcing information, then your attitude's going to be crystallized from both the left

and the right. and so it creates polarization. and we measure this in the book and find evidence that people do, indeed, self-select information and that as a result their attitudes become more extreme and polarized. now, after we looked at that, that's one of the implications. everybody automatically assumes that a polarized country is a bad thing. you know, that that, you know, people think that's terrible, that means there's conflict, there's all of this. one of the other things we found that was one of the most interesting things in the book, i think, was that the more one one-sided information that people gathered, the more likely they were to participate in the process.

i know that most americans think that, believe that it's a good thing for us to participate, at least vote. it's a good thing for us to vote. you know, we know, we know that people believe that so strongly that if you look at a survey and ask post-election, survey the public on whether or not they voted, after every election somewhere in the range of 75-80% of the public claims to have voted. and we know even in presidential election years that it's only about 50%. so that means somewhere in the range from 20-30% of the american public is willing to lie to a complete stranger and say they voted when they didn't. now that's funny in itself, but what it tells us is that there is an incredible pressure in this country to, you know, that we are socialized into this

idea, you've got to vote. get out there and vote. so people are embarrassed if they didn't. so they're more -- they are more comfortable lying to somebody about it than they are saying they didn't do it. so that tells me that americans tend to think participation is important. and if that's the case, our results suggest that as the country, as people -- not as a country, but let's say at the individual level, as people's attitudes become more and more polarized, they are more likely to participate. and so if the internet is, indeed, polarizing people, a perhaps side by-product of that is increased participation. >> louisville has contributeed many cultural icons throughout history from the kentucky derby at churchill downs to the louisville slugger baseball bat. booktv visits many sites around the city with the help of our local apilluate, time warner

cable, to highlight the area's rich literary and historical culture. >> my maim is carol bessie, i am the co-owner with my husband of carmichael's bookstore in louisville, kentucky. we just celebrated our 34th anniversary in april. we sell a little bit of everything. we do, for space reasons, exclude some categories. technical books we don't get into very much. a lot of literature, history, a lot of children's books, certainly a lot of local interest. but we, we are a general bookstore, so we have just about anything that people are looking for. >> i think that, um, a small store is the right-sized store, and it took a while for that to, people to figure that out.

[laughter] but i think that's the direction, it's the whole shop local, it's supporting the businesses who are in your community because that keeps money in your community. people are starting to understand that message. also the personal service that you can get in a small store rather than wandering around a big box store looking for somebody to help you. so i think our size has really been an asset to us over the years. >> all right. [inaudible conversations] >> how many books are there going to be about -- [inaudible] our broken financial system? we were living in the chicago in the '60s, and she got just a clerking job in a bookstore called barbara's in chicago, and i was doing something else. and after a little while she said you should come to this -- you know, this is really a pretty nice life, being a bookseller. and we did that for about five,

six years and then kind of tired of the city a little bit. and decided, hey, let's go try this ourselves. we both had kentucky connections, so louisville was a good place to start, and we started small and kind of stayed small, but we've been at it for almost 35 years. certainly in the '70s the competition in the chicago was enormous because there were lots of old line bookstores that had been there for 60 and 70 years and some of the first discounters, crown books which some people may remember, were one of the first big discount bookstores, they had a lot of stores in chicago. so it was a little tougher, i think, to have an independent than when we first came to louisville, and it was before the superstores and everything.

all people worried about were walden in the mall, you know? it was like the day of the mall in the '70s and how that's changed is crazy. i mean, so there was no book, big box store competition until much later. there was a struggle. it was really, you know, it was really tough because, um, you know, books aren't food. everybody eats, but, you know, buying books in a bookstore is a really small percentage of the population. so it was kind of a struggle. but that's true of every small business, i think. you know, you kind of, it takes a little while to build up critical mass and repeat customers, and you make somebody happy one time, and then they come back. you make 'em happy again, and then they tell three friends, and, you know, it takes a while to build a small business. a lot of the stores that i've

seen fail are stores that were opened by people who were interested in having a business, not that they were -- had an attachment to books or a love of books, but, you know, they were business people. and they saw an opportunity in books to have a business. i think you really have to have, like, kind of a gut attachment to books, to care enough about them because your customers are like that. i mean, they come because they really care about books. and so you have to have that kind of same wave length, i think, to be successful, to hand somebody a book and say i loved this book and have them come back to you and say, oh, i'm so happy you sold me that book because i loved it too, you know? it's, you really have to care about it, i think. it's not potato chip or bread or, you know, a product.

it really is you feel like you're doing something important, i think, with books. >> i think that the role in their local communities is what will keep independent bookstores alive. because people want a place where they can go and talk to people that is, you know, you still have that human interaction rather than just sitting at a computer and clicking. there's discovery that only can happen in a physical bookstore, and i'm optimistic that that is going to keep us and other independent bookstores healthy in the long run. >> and thousand from louisville, kentucky, we hear from local author or dewey clayton. his book is "the presidential campaign of barack obama." >> clayton, how historic was the campaign of barack obama?

>> guest: oh, it was truly historic. it was a transformative election. we had had 43 previous presidents in this country. they had all been white, and they had all been male. and so here comes a young senator, okay, who has a bold and innovative strategy as to how to win the white house. many people felt that it wasn't his time. many people felt it wasn't time for an african-american. he was running against in the democratic primary, he was running against hillary clinton who had the name clinton being, you know, the biggest, largest brand in the democratic party. she had a considerable war chest advantage as well as name recognition, and the fact that he was actually able to defeat her and then go up against war hero and a maverick in the general election, and america as such, was truly incredible,

truly historic. sometime between 2006, 2005-2006, sometime in the there, enough people began telling him in various forums that we think that the time is now right for you. one of his advisers said that, you know, timing's everything in politics. and one of his advisers i think in early 2005 said, you know, even though others may be saying that this is absurd, began saying that now might be your time. and clearly one pivotal moment was the speech that he delivered. he gave the keynote address at the democratic national convention in 2004, and when he delivered that speech, he became a rock star almost overnight. and that clearly sort of catapulted his stock and his

ability to sort of get known to voters. most people when you mention when did they ever hear of barack obama, many people will refer back to that speech where he basically talked about racial reconciliation. and many people think that in that speech he knew what he was doing, and he was laying the groundwork for america to move forward with a presidency. in 2006 when there were the midterm elections, congressional elections, he campaigned for democratic candidates throughout the country. and so not only did people get to know him in doing that, but he got to know the country as well. and i think at that point it just was nonstop. he knew very well that it would be very difficult. previous african-americans who had run for president had not fared very well. reverend jesse jackson had made two unsuccessful runs in the

1980s, 1984 and 1988. reverend al sharpton had actually run in 2004 as well along with former senator carol moseley-braun. he knew it would be difficult particularly because in america one of the things that has existed and is changing now is the fact that a condition of racially-polarized voting very much exists in this country, and that is where white voters largely vote for white candidates and black voters largely vote for black candidates. and so barack obama realized that if he were going to win the presidency, he would have to run a different style of campaign than traditional african-american candidates ran. and so, therefore, he developed a -- he's not the first to develop this, but he decided to run a deracialized campaign and to downplay his race. and so unlike jesse jackson or

al sharpton who ran an african-american candidate, obama ran as a candidate who happened to be african-american. and there's a big distinction here. and so that was a large emphasis that he placed on his campaign from the beginning. and it was a successful one as well. that was just one tenet of his overall strategy. early on barack obama's team or team obama decided that they were going to run a grassroots campaign or bottom-up campaign as opposed to a top-down campaign. and one of the ways i think that -- one of the keys to this was using new media, social media and particularly the internet. and so early on they began organizing in an incredible way. in other words, back in 2004 howard dean as a democratic candidate had first begun using

the internet. but dean did not take it to the level that obama did. one of the things that obama did early on is that he hired one of the founders of facebook, chris hughes, and he hired him to be head of his sort of technology team as such. and so he decided that if i create this medium called mybarackobama.com, which is very much identical to facebook, then i will make it easier for young people to go on my web site and access it and get engaged. so to answer your question, the way he beat hillary clinton largely was by using social media and by outorganizing her. when hillary clinton and john edwards were going around iowa, you know, making campaign appearances, barack obama had already held numerous events where literally hundreds of thousands of people had been

mobilized and had begun organizing, campaigning, working with each other, recruiting others and the likes of which we had not seen ever before. in fact, joe trippi, who had been howard dean's campaign manager, said that the dean campaign's use of the internet was -- they were like the wright brothers, and he said that obama was like the apollo team. so he really took it to another level. in the iowa caucus, which was the first caucus held in january of 2008, out of nowhere barack obama won in the iowa. he won the iowa caucuses. had he lost the iowa caucuses, he probably would have lost the election because i think that hillary clinton would have been, had so much wind behind her sails that she would have been unstoppable. but by him winning there, i think that said not just to white america, but it said to black america as well that he

was a viable candidate, and people began to say, well, we'll take a second look at him. he also got some major endorsements which did not hurt as well. oprah winfrey early on decided that she was going to support barack obama and began campaigning for him. ultimately, jesse jackson, al sharpton, others came on. but i think, clearly, it was just a movement. it was a tidal wave, and people began to hear him, see him, plus there was the realization by many that this was an african-american who had a legitimate chance to win. and many people began saying i never thought i'd see this in my lifetime. so it was just, it was a wonderful time in american history. people clearly when i was going to campaign events and what not, i would begin asking people why are you here, people began thinking it was very historic, and there was an opportunity that this person could be the first african-american president.

>> host: can you compare his 2008 campaign to the campaign that he's running now? >> guest: you can compare it because there's still a lot of similarities. although some things have changed, clearly at that point we had, for the first time we did not have a president who was running for second term and the suspect was not running as well -- vice president was not running as well. so you had, basically, an open seat as such for the presidency. however, he was able to sort of run on the record of the previous president, that being george bush. in this time he's incumbent, so it's a little different ball game when you are the incumbent. it's very -- it's not as easy to sort of -- you have to take responsibility for what's happened. so although he's running the same type of campaign, the rules are different. for one, obama outraised

george -- i'm sorry, john mccain in the 2008 election considerably, and one way he did that was as i talked about, using the media and what not. and so he raised almost a billion dollars in that campaign. and that was unheard of. that was the most money that had been raised by a single candidate for a presidential election ever. but this time around it's a different story because in 2010 we had a supreme court decision, citizens united v. the fec, so that has changed the rules as far as money is concerned. so now we have the creation of super pacs who can raise unlimited amounts of money. and just this past quarter we found out that the romney campaign had actually outraised president obama by $17 million. and so already we see that the

advantages that obama had as a candidate in 2008 have probably disappeared. and that money advantage was very helpful for him if his ability to execute a 50-state strategy in 2008. so that's one change we've seen. one once again, he's -- once again, he's the current president. although he inherited an economic mess, it doesn't matter. many people still may blame him because unemployment is still up at 8.2%, many people are unemployed, housing values have fallen. so the strategy's different. and so the message of hope and change has had o -- has had to change. because in essence, many people are not satisfied with what he's been able to do. one of the things that as our american political system has made clear now is that the president cannot do everything unilaterally. and i think a lot of people had

expectations that he could do so much. but in reality he has to work with congress to do a lot of things. and many people would argue that the current congress that he has worked with, particularly since 2010, has been largely recalcitrant and has been largely unwilling to sort of work with him to help create much of the legislative agenda that he has wanted to pass. so that's been a difficulty, and he's clearly facing those challenges. but as far as the type of campaign he's running, i think clearly he's still using the internet, i think he's still organizing in an incredible manner that i think his opponent may not even be aware of at this point. there's something called dashboard that the administration has sort of moved into now, and that's an ability to identify voters and target them specifically. so i still think that much of the way he campaigned before he

will campaign again this time. but the hope and change, the historic nature of the election, that's not totally with us now. and so he faces many more challenges, particularly as i said, the economy. and that's something that he's going to have to deal with. however, a lot of people still will more than likely see that in spite of the economy he's moving the direction, the country in the right direction. and so many people will not hold that against him, like i said, because we -- he inherited an economic disaster largely, and many people know that it takes time. the economy runs in cycles, and oftentimes no matter who's in office you cannot do but so much. so, but that's the challenge that he will face now. but i still think he's running that same type of campaign using -- mixing old media with new media, and even though job approval is not where he'd like

it to be, clearly he's likable. and i think his personal likability, he's still trying to ride on that. and social issues. i think, clearly, the democratic coalition that i've talked about, that coalition that he's built, i think that's still there. i think a lot of people are not really sort of pay much attention to that. but if you look at the latino vote, a large gap now between support for romney, governor romney and president obama. if you look at the african-american vote, i still think that's going to be extremely high for president obama. i think young people largely, that vote's going to still be high for him as well as women. i think that women and women's issues, i think that if you look at those issues, they're going to be supported by him. so i think that, ultimately, it's going to be a much tighter race than it was last time, but i still think that, um, given that emergent coalition, i think that ultimately he very well may still prevail. >> this weekend with the help of

our local affiliate time warner cable, booktv brings you a few interviews with local authors in louisville, kentucky. during the civil war, louisville was an important union base of operations and a major military supply center. after the war the city emerged even more prosperous than before. next, we hear from blaine hudson, author of "two centuries of black louisville." this is just over five minutes. >> well, we're located right now at second and main street in louisville, kentucky. when louisville was founded, it was essentially i'd say a child of the river which is right down the hill there. louisville was founded, of course, in 1778, grew very slowly. but from its beginnings it was a slave city, and african-americans and slavery played an increasingly important role here.

because kentucky did not support cotton agriculture, the climate was just simply too cold, kentucky developed into what some called a slave-trading state. you had african-americans here, but you also had a number of african-americans who were sold off every year down the river. that's where the term comes from. and on this street roughly from second street all the way down to eighth street, main and market, you had roughly eight to ten slave pens during the 1830s and 1840s. this is where the slave african-americans would be kept for shipping down the river to the cotton states, and this is one of the ways that kentucky -- and especially louisville -- maintained the profitability of slavery during the latter parts of the antebellum period.

kentucky was divided during the civil war. louisville was probably as divided as any part of kentucky. because louisville was the major population center on the river, it became a major installation for the union army. at one time or another, you might have had over 100,000 union troops here. william tecumseh sherman was commander here for a while. he and grant met to discuss strategy for the end of the war. this was a very, very important place. african-americans played many different roles during the civil war in louisville. you had usually slaves who enlisted in the army, some local african-americans who joined the army. and perhaps most uniquely you had the local free black community that embraced these soldiers, providing them with medical care, food, clothing and, of course, over time their

families gathered here under federal policy, and there was a 10-acre black refugee camp near where we're standing right now at 18th and broadaway. so you -- broadway. so you had the wives and childrens of the black soldiers, you had a black man who was superintendent of the camp, and he along with some black soldiers emptied out the slave pens on main street and market street that we saw earlier. so a very unique experience. in many ways the civil war was one of black louisville's fine e hours. now we're at fourth and chestnut street in louisville again, looking to the south. in my youth this was the main shopping district of louisville. and, of course, it was segregated. african-americans could buy but not try on clothes, could look

at restaurants but not sit down and have a meal. we had some early demonstrations around 1957-'a 8 testing -- '58 testing segregation here, but it's really in 1961, the winter of 1961, that there was a major campaign against segregation here. we called it the nothing new for easter campaign. and you had high school students, some college students, some adults who would demonstrate here literally every day february, march into april of 1961. ultimately, this campaign and a voter registration campaign broke the back of segregation in louisville. in 1963 we had a public accommodations ordnance ahead of the 1964 civil rights act. we're standing at tenth and muhammad ali streets right now. muhammad ali was once called walnut street. when we think of old walnut at

least, this is the area. we're also standing, essentially, in the area of where black louisville was born. the late 1820s, two young african-americans who had inherited a little bit of money were able to get a young white woman to actually sell them some property that was then on the outskirts of town. this is that property here, going farther back up to about seventh street. and, of course, it's on this property that the free black community of louisville took root. by the 1850s you had about eight independent black churches in this area, a small but a thriving community and, of course, this is what gave african-americans in louisville their distinctive community. in later years, of course, this community would grow. it would never be entirely black until after about 1940, but it would become predominantly so. and, of course, by the ear

30s, '40s and '50s, this was the center of louisville's black business district as well, what we call old walnut street with the great nightclubs and joe lewis and duke elington and all those people hanging around. a lot of local color. your black professional class was based here largely. nowadays, of course, it's a struggling community with a housing project on one side, apartment complex on the other side, and we're struggling with the community to try to rebuild it. but this is where black louisville was born. >> the official seal of the city of louisville, kentucky, reflects its history and heritage. the fluor delee represents french aid given during the revolutionary war, and the 13 stars signify the original colonies. up next, "republican leader" takes a look at the life of mitch mcconnell who's served

as senator of kentucky since 1985. >> mcconnell is the senior senator from kentucky. he is the longest-serving senator from kentucky. he is the republican leader in the united states senate, and some would contend he is the foremost republican in kentucky political history. he was born in alabama, came to kentucky as a young person, got involved in republican politics, served as the county judge executive here in jefferson county which is where louisville -- the largest city in kentucky -- is located. ran for the u.s. senate in 1984 and ousted the democratic incumbent and has been reelected four times since then. it's been a steady, upward climb in the ranks of republican leadership in the u.s. senate. he came in with really no connections and no national reputation, kind of built his

reputation on issues like campaign finance reform, resisting a lot of measures of campaign finance reform. got into the leadership and now is the leader and would aspire to become the senate majority leader after the elections this fall. well, his primary legislative area of expertise is probably campaign finance reform. he's still active in filing briefs and litigation in the supreme court opposing campaign finance reform that he thinks would infringe upon the first amendment. but he's also done several other things. he is renowned as the foremost advocate for burma in the united states senate, and long before the issue of burmese reform became widely known, he's been toiling in this that vineyard for many years and, in fact, he recently went to burma to meet with awning song sue key, the

nobel laureate in burma. he had a measure to protect democratic institutions in hong kong. he was, during the bush administration, involved in a lot of legislation that had to do with national security, national security wiretaps, etc. he's a very soft spoken person. he is a big university of louisville sports fan. he reads a lot of history. he does his own grocery shopping here in louisville, and he's often telling stories of people he meets while shopping for the groceries. and i think that's one of the ways he tries to keep in touch and avoid becoming a politician who's washington rather than louisville. he does try to come home and stay in touch with the constituents both at ball games and doing things like his grocery shopping. but he's, he's pleasant, he doesn't manifest much of a temper. but that doesn't mean sometimes that he doesn't get upset with

folks. i think his reputation is that of being a very canny, very clever political operator. he is taught to be a master parliamentarian. in fact, he built his reputation largely on coming up with legislative strategies using parliamentary tactics, and he's thought to be a hardball political player. but i think senators would also say that his word is his bond. he's someone you can make a deal with, and once you've made a deal, it will stick. i think the democrats here in kentucky describe him with a begrudging respect. they obviously disagree with him a lot, and they think he is ruthless probably in some respects. but they also admire what he's done to build a republican organization in this state. it was -- and still is -- a

predominantly democratic state, but mcconnell while making his way upwards in republican senate leadership has also helped build a much stronger, more effective republican party here in the states. you can't describe him as a beloved figure by any means, but i think you can describe him as a widely respected figure. he's been elected five times, he's done it with bipartisan support in this democratic state. the people of kentucky appreciate someone in leadership. you know, it'd been a long time since a kentucky jan has been in leadership, and i think every local community can point to something and say mitch mcconnell had a role in helping us get that. and he's also been flexible. mcconnell has not been just an

idealogue who won't move or change with the times. he has, basically, mirrored where the republican party has been. george will described him as thoroughly marinated in the institutions of the senate. he is a creature of the senate. and the only other position that i thought he might be well suited for is secretary of state at some point. but he's -- unlike a lot of senators, he's never really wanted to be president, and i think that's been very much of a factor in the his success -- in his success in the republican senate leadership. he's always been a creature of that chamber and has never really thought he was of a president when he looked in the mirror in the morning. i worked on the book for about five years, interviewed countless people that know senator mcconnell, had a lot of interviews with him.

i had met him before, but we weren't by any means close acquaintances, and i probably would not have done the book if he had been unwilling to cooperate. the book is not an official biography, but the senator did cooperate with it. sometimes i would share with him something i was thinking of writing, and he would offer his opinion as to where he thought that might be wrong, but i thought to his great credit he would always say, you know, it's your book, and i'm not trying to tell you what to write. but here's my take on it. sometimes i thought he had a good point, and i would modify what i had, but there are parts that remain in the book that he doesn't agree with, i would have to say. >> like what? >> well, for example, whether president reagan had coat tails that helped senator mcconnell win his 1984 election. senator mcconnell disputes that, but i happen to think that

there's something to it. there are also some criticisms in the book, some stands he took on various pieces of legislation that i'm sure he would dispute. the medicare prescription drug benefit that was passed during the bush administration is an example of where our perspectives are somewhat different. but as i say in the book, for the most part i'm in agreement with the mcconnell political philosophy. i'm a republican, but there are instances in which we part company. also i was just very impressed with how this person who came from another state, was not a kentucky native, and kentucky can be a very provincial state. it's not ease i sometimes for -- easy sometimes for outsiders to make their way here, had done all this. his focus and his tactical thinking all intrigued me. >> for information on this and

other cities visited by c-span's local content vehicles, visit c-span.org/localcontent. >> well, recently booktv toured a new library of congress exhibit called books that shaped america. we're going to show you that exhibit here in just a minute, but we also want to issue an invitation to you to participate in an online discussion about books that shaped america. what books you think may be included or should be included. we're going to show you what the library of congress came up with, and if you're interested in participating in an online discussion with us, e-mail us at booktv@cspan.org. now here's the tour. well, there's a new exhibit at the library of congress, and it's called books that shaped america. booktv is taking a tour of that exhibit, ask joining us is roberta schafer who is associate librarian for the library of

congress. ms. schafer, why do you call it books that shaped america? >> well, we actually call it books that shaped america as opposed to some of the other words we considered like changed america. because we think that books slowly have an impact on american society, and shaped seemed to be the better word to imply that kind of con connotat. >> when you think of the word shaped and what you just said, what book in this exhibit comes to mind -- >> well, actually, that's the fabulous part of this exhibit. no one book is shaping america. so many books have had such a profound influence on american culture and society and, indeed, the very essence of what america is that it would be impossible, and it really would be improper to pick one book from the 88 that are here. >> okay. there's 88 books. it starts out, the exhibit starts out with "common sense." >> yes, it does, although the earliest book is actually ben franklin's book on electricity.

that's 1751. so we have two books about "common sense" in the show. one is dr. spock's book on raising your child in a common sense way, and, of course, thomas paine's book that really kind of sparked or saved the american revolution. >> now, when we see these weeks, are all these -- these books, are these all first edition decisions or very rare? >> they're not, although we have many books in our library of congress collection that would be very rare if not one of a kind. but we've selected books for a variety of reasons. some of them have inscriptions by other famous people or by the authors themselves. two books in this collection that i just adore are books that are part of the armed service, um, book outreach to people who are serving in the military. and so we have two examples of books that soldiers are sent or were sent, i should say. i believe now they are sent books to read at the war front

on ipods and other things. but at least in the olden days -- >> what are the two books that you have? >> i believe one of them is tarzan, and i'm trying to think now what the other one is. um, but -- oh, my goodness. >> well, while you think of that, in this exhibit, roberta shave e a lot of novels. >> yes. and novels are a critical part of american culture. not only the novels that the common people read, but some very high-brow and complex novels. some novels that appeal to people of all ages. some children's books that appeal to people of all ages, so "the wizard of oz," "charlotte's web," hardly limited to just a children's audience. >> and "gone with the wind" is here as well. how did those books shape america in. >> well, many of them identified who we were becoming or the aspirations we had as a nation. others told about experiences that we had uniquely as

americans like the diaries of lewis and clark. many others really defined our dialect. huckleberry finn talks in dialect, so they really shaped not only our ideas, but how we speak today. >> now, you also have some social-cultural books, and i wanted to ask you about those such as you mentioned dr. spock. >> yes. >> there's a couple of cookbooks in this collection and a book called the big book, alcoholics anonymous. >> yes. well, we also thought it was very important to look at nonfiction and books that either were self-help or kind of broke barriers of certain kinds. so we looked across the broad spectrum of books that shaped america. we did not want to limit ourselves to a particular genre or a particular kind of book or even a certain kind of author or writing style. we looked for many books that were innovative, that kind of

showed america as an innovative country, as a country that looked for practical solutions, that shared her experiences broadly, that used books and stories to inspire going to the frontier. and that could be literally or intellectually. >> here at the library of congress are you in charge of the winnowing process? >> that's an interesting question. it was definitely a very large committee with no chairperson, which i think is really interesting. we had a number of discussions as people brought forth titles. of and believe it or not, it was not all that difficult to sect these book -- select these books. because i think as you've implied, this is not a definitive list. there is no article the books that shaped america in this exhibition. so we really decided what we wanted to do was choose books that would get america talking

about books. and, um, that was not as difficult to find consensus on as maybe choosing the 50 books or the 100 books. and so we didn't need a chairperson. >> with some of the books in here have created social movements. i want to -- i was thinking ida tarbell, upton sinclair, rachel carson? >> yes. i think one of the interesting things about many of the books here are that they not only created social movements, but some even led to legislation. o so we see that the jungle in here, and we know that it really created the forerunner legislation to the food and drug administration being created. so not only social movements, but actually legislation, actually social change. >> and why 88? >> 88 is really just where we, where we decided to stop. we were worried about using a number that's commonly associated with a definitive list. so we avoided 10, 25 and 100.

beyond that it was of kind of up for grabs. and when we got to 88, we said, you know, we think that's a good number. it won't give anybody the impression that we mean this is the 88. >> poetry, religious books, are they in here? >> they are. we have quite a few exemplars of poetry sort of running the span of at least two centuries, so we've got walt whitman, we have alan ginsburg. so we really tried to be very clear that poetry has been an impressive part of america's history and that americans have been very committed to to both writing and reading poetry. and i think that continues today. >> what about religious books? >> well, we do have a holographic bible. a lot of the books while they wouldn't necessarily be associated with a religion have a moralistic or a kind of a do-good tone to them. and we really felt that that is

more representative of america than, and our values than would be a particular religious book. so we tried to look at the values of america, her spiritual sort of persona rather than looking at particular religious books. >> roberta schafer, how did you get your start here at the library of congress? >> oh, my goodness. well, i started here over 30 years ago as the first special assistant to the law librarian, fairly fresh out of law school. i absolutely fell in love with the library of congress, and 30-plus years ago as today you cannot keep me away. i run to work every morning, and i think that working here and being here surrounded by books, manuscripts, musical scores, movies, the whole gamut of what really is knowledge in the america is such a thrill and such a privilege that you really

are going to have trouble getting me to retire. >> is this exhibit open to the public, and how long is it -- >> it's entirely open to the public. it'll be open through the end of september. but let's say you can't come to washington. we have a virtual version of our exhibit on our web site, and part of this exhibit, part of this conversation is an open web site where we're asking people from all over the world to comment on the books we've selected, but also to tell us why you think something we selected shouldn't be on our list, and even more important, why something you think should be on the list should be added to the list. and we want to hear from you. so far we've heard from over 5,000 people, and we encourage everybody to go to our web site, www.loc.gov/book fest, and you will find the list of the books, you will also find the opportunity to complete a