>> in maryland, we hear from david stewart on his biography american member about aaron burr. he becomes the vice president's political career in his duel with alexander healton and his plan for an empire in the gulf e of mexico. this is 40 minutes. on >> sometimes when you look back on it is amazing. stewart david stewart practiced law for 25 years justice lewis powell and arguing a couple of cases before the supreme court. his passion for law made for a great career also lead him in an unexpected direction. writing books. years ago, when stewart

suspected than 0 boant in a lawsuit was misstating debates from constitutional debates he spent a weekend reading james madison's notes from the con veption. had struck anymore that he had to tell l story. it lead to the book the men who invented constitution which was a fabulous book. stewart's legal experience which included a defense at work as a defense counsel in a senate impeachment trial of a federal judge played a big part in his writing the next book, "impeach the trial of andrew johnson and the fight for lincoln's legacy" the large i untold story of a murky figure many american history. aaron burr. we known as the burr of the politician and the dualist who killed ham l ton what about after the dual?

as you'll see with the wild teal of an outlandish plan. mr. burr had more in store for history books. one of the stranger than fiction situations. before i bring david up here, i want to acknowledge another wonderful endeavor of his. the law that writing when his involvement in the writing world called his -- so just over a year ago, david founded an online book review site called washington independent review of books. you can find it google it or they publish book reviews and features just every day of the week. it's good stuff. it's worthy of all of our support the volunteer efforts. please make consider making it a regular stop for insight into what's going on with books today. without further adieu.

a man who turned his passions for law, history, and books into a hobby for the rest of us. david stewart. [applause] thank you very much for the the generous introduction. there is a table over in that direction for the washington independent review on books if you want to go by and say hello sign up for the weekly e-mail. we'd love to enroll you in the raffle. you can get a free book. but i am here to talk about aaron burr. before it falls on us. i'm going to get to it. this story attracted me because of what judd was saying it's an outrageous story with a remarkable cast of characters beginning burr. it's important to start with what the united states was like in 1985. it's different that what we're used to.

the global power. well, in 1805 we with were a little country. a or 6 million people. 0% of them were slaves. dimensions of the were changing constantly just two years before in 1803 we bought the louisiana purchase which doubled the size of the country. we didn't know the western boundary of the louisiana purchase. it's a wonderful part of the treaty. there were no maps. the treaty actually says, france conveys the united states whatever france got from spain. they didn't know. they -- much of what is now the country was spanish coul knees in florida, florida and what was then called west florida where colonies of spain and texas and the west coast. and these were territories that many americans had their eye

on. and there was a -- even though we were looking to expand and just had expanded tremendously. there was an instayability within the country. we were going to grow or fall apart. there had been two repealons in the 1890s ten years in before. the whisk whiskey rebollon. americans haven't changed a great deal, they didn't want to pay taxes either. the year before the story picks up, several of the leading politicians in new england, senators and governors approached aaron burr. he was vice president of the united states. and they asked burr to lead new york in succession from the united states in joint new england by the story would also suck succeed and they would create new country. burr he declined to do that. there were many movements out west. at that time ohio, county,

tennessee over the appalachian mountains. people there didn't feel connected people on the eastern part of the country. they had been talking about creating their own nation. they needed to have good relationships with spain. they needed to send it through new orleans which was controlled by spain for much of the time. indeed, the notion of success was so deeply entrenched president jefferson wrote in two different letters. i was shocked find it. in two different letters he could describe what was bland indifference of the country breaking into two. i'm going to quote, whether we refrain one confederacy or conform to atlantic and mississippi conform seis. i believe not very important happiness of either part. those of the western will be as much our children and decent ends as the eastern. i feel identified with the country in future time as with this. an amazing thing if the president of the united states to say.

imagine if president obama were to say if california wants to go the own way, whatever. the president is supposed to hold us together. the government itself, though, really wasn't too swift at this time. it was small, of course. and it wasn't working terribly well. i mentioned, i wrote a book on the writing of the constitution. i'm a fan of the constitution. there were big problems l with. one of them was choosing the presidents. it wasn't working. the first two elections were georgia washington and that was easy, everybody was going to vote for him. then in our third election in 7194 john adams won and his opponent thomas jefferson became vice president. so just think about it today we have president obama and vice president mccain now this happened because the constitution didn't provide for any separate vote for vice presidents. the electors.

we still have the system we're supposed vote twice for president. each one had one. whoever got the second most was the vice president. adam's opponent won for vice president. everybody recognized this was a problem. when the next election comes around, jefferson and burr are the candidates for the republicans what are then called the republicans. jefferson clearly spoke to to be the vice vice presidential candidate. nobody who wants to be the guy who votes for two of them. all the republicans electors vote for both of them. they finish in tie. nobody won. so the election was thrown into the house of representatives. suddenly in the house of representatives the federal really aists decide they like burr. they like him before than jefferson they start voting for adam witness i'm sorry burr. on the first vote, vote for

burr. there was a tie. they vote again, another tie. it for a week they voted 35 times and they tied every time. it was a crisis. they didn't know what was going happen. what john adams hang around a couple of day and open the mail? it was awkward crisis. finally, a letter comes from burr, he's up in albany serves as state legislature and he said nobody should vote for me. and jefferson wins. but this was not a well-established nation. it's important to keep that in mind as you look at the story. in the situation, we place aaron burr. our hero for this story. he frame a distinguished family. his father was the president of new jersey which is now price ton. he was jonathan edwards the great three low begans who said we are sinners in the hands of

angry god. he doesn't sound like fun but very powerful. burr was a very smart student, a gifted student, but he at the young age, demonstrated what really moved him was military matters. the revolution broke out when he was 19, he ran up to boston where the washington was faced off against the british, and he involve volunteered for one of the worst military expetitions we ever mounted. we innovated canada in late november and december. it was a bad idea. the weather was terrible, the hardship was brutal, burr was this small man, a slight fellow in a sort of fancy pants background and it was a shock to many of the soldiers to discover that he was one the toughest solder soldiers in the arm army. he thrived. he rose to the top.

there was an unfortunate battle fought at the gates of quebec. there were two offices commended at end of the burr was one of them at the age of 19. it by 21 was in the kern in the arm by by 2e6s 22 he was commanding. he was a successful soldier and it imprinted on that. that became his self-image. he had defected a martial bearing. he was called colonel burr. he was politically successful. after the war became a lawyer. he was a wonderful lawyer. he was a smart fellow. he became attorney general in new york and senator from new york, and finally vice president of the united states. he mastered the art of election'ring when he candidates standed to stand for office not run. he was too imwishes to do that

he ran for office. in the election he organized the canvas. he had poll workers sleeping at his house. they went door to door. .. jefferson really thought was a coward.conven he made unconventional choices in hisiv private life and hers married a woman ten years olderf than he. british she was the widow of the british officer and it took a lot of e wido guts to marry the widow of a

in british officer.epin wheng they first started keeping ompany she wasn't yet a widow but the demise wasn't connected to her in any respect and he hao a view of women had all the tal, perhaps more than that, of men. and he really made his daughter, theodocia, really an object lesson in that. he had her educated as any young man of privilege would have been educated at the time. she learned all the languages, she learned the natural history and philosophy. and when people met her, they would be dazzled by her, and she was often referred to as the best-educated young woman in america. i should also mention that he admired women not only for their intellect. he became a widower at the age of 37 and spent 40 years as a single gentleman. by all accounts, as an avid

enthusiast of female company. he -- after he died, one of his longtime friends said it was just as remarkable that colonel burr had achieved all he had since he spent all his time chasing women. and he had a charisma not unconnected to his romantic life which is very difficult to convey over the centuries. among his contemporaries, you had people like, a man like washington whose reputation was gigantic. he was physically gigantic. he would walk into the room and just dominate it by who he was. hamilton had a powerful personality. he would come in and just take over a room. if he'd had enough to drink, he'd jump up on the table and start singing songs. burr was not like that. he was a quiet fellow. he was reserved. he could be quite witty, he was charming, but there was a sense of mystery and secrets to him, and that's an important part of

this story. one of the things he always told his law colleagues was the three-word piece of advice: things written remain. and he didn't mean that as encouragement to write things down. he meant the opposite. so he didn't write much down. it makes it very hard on people like me who want to write about him because he left what is now enshrined in two volumes of political correspondence. well, hamilton, who lived 30 years less than burr -- which is not a coincidence -- left 35 volumes. so burr was extremely leery of writing anything sensitive, anything even not terribly sensitive down. we do get personal letters between him and his daughter, between him and his wife. but when it comes to business and politics, the trail is really quite slim.

um, okay. the story really starts in 1804 which is aaron burr's very bad year. at the beginning of the year, he learns that he's not going to be a candidate for vice president for the next election which will be at the end of the year. it's not a complete surprise. he knows that he hasn't been getting along very well with jefferson, and jefferson didn't really enjoy that tied election they had back in 1800. burr decides -- but it's disappointing. he decides he's going to run for governor of new york and rehabilitate his political career. he runs, he gets crushed, he loses by the largest margin anybody's lost up to that point in new york history. while he is nursing that particular wound, he reads a newspaper article that reports a statement made by alexander hamilton during the campaign. now, just quickly, hamilton had been saying terrible things about burr for about 12 years. it was something he did. he said burr was corrupt, burr was a high car, and burr was

power mad. he had different ways of saying it, but that was his triumvirate of observations about burr that he repeated over and over and over. interestingly, there is no surviving record of anything nasty that burr ever said about hamilton. in any event, this newspaper story in 1804 says hamilton said the usual things, burr is corrupt, burr is a liar, burr is crazy for power, an embryo caesar was a phrase hamilton liked. but then it said something else. hamilton is supposed to have said -- and i have an opinion of this gentleman that's still more despicable. now, despicable is not a word that strikes the modern era as particularly terrible. but in 1804 it meant sexual perversion. now, don't press me as to what brand of sexual perversion, it apparently covered a variety.

but it was an extremely offense bive term to use -- offensive term to use, a corresponding term today would be viewed as extraordinarily offensive, and burr wrote a very stiff note to hamilton saying i see this report of what you said. you must retract that, explain it or meet me on a field of honor, a duel. burr had made such demands of hamilton twice before, and both times hamilton had retracted his previous or reported remark. on this occasion hamilton did not, and he wrote back a rather mealy-mouthed response, they exchanged more letters, and after about three weeks of foreplay, they met in the famous duel. now, we know that hamilton lost the duel. it's not as clear that burr won it. because he was stunned to find afterwards, just within a day, that by winning the duel he had converted hamilton into a martyr.

and he became a tremendous hero. hamilton's political career had been ruined by this point in his life, and suddenly he was the equivalent of a secular saint. indeed, within just a few days burr was indicted for murder in new york, and then he was indicted for murder in new jersey. so he really had to take off on the lam. and when he stopped for a moment, he's the vice president of the united states. and he's on the run from the law. he heads down to south georgia hoping for things to blow over a little bit. they do calm down a bit, and he heads back, and four months after the duel, he resumes his seat as vice president and presides over the united states senate even though he's under indictment for murder in two states. he can't actually travel in those two states, and he's at risk of being extra or dieted to -- extradited to face charges there.

but he finishes his term. but by now even aaron burr has figured out that his political career is pretty much done. and be he's going to succeed in the world and he has this vaulting ambition, if he's going to succeed, he's going to have to do it in some unconventional way. and he comes up with this remarkable scheme that he begins right after his term ends, like many americans through history. when his career went south, he headed west. he went through what was then the west, he went through ohio and kentucky, tennessee, indiana territory and all the way down to new orleans and then all the way back. he took seven months. it was a very tough trip. he was beating through the forest, sleeping out in the woods, eating what he could kill. but it turned out here's a man in his late 40s, and he's still a tough guy. he loves this kind of life. and hen he travels -- when he

travels to the west, he meets all the important people out there. he meets two future presidents, andrew jackson and william henry harrison, he meets three senators, he meets many militia generals. he likes militia generals, he's a military guy. he meets a fellow who not only has a great name, but will play a role in the story, i'll come back to him, but mostly he meets former members of the continental army. at the end of the war, we had not paid many of our soldiers well, so many of them we gave land west in lieu of money. they remembered burr fondly. many were older than he. he'd been such a young man during the war. so he was recruiting people for an expedition, a very exciting expedition, but it turned out he was usually recruiting the sons and not the people he had known in the war. but most important, he met a thoroughly preposterous figure, general james wilkinson. wilkinson, again, was somebody i couldn't believe when i

understood just what he was. he was general and chief of our army, and that sounds pretty grand. we only had 3300 soldiers at the time, so it wasn't a gigantic operation. he, at the same time he was general in chief, was a secret agent for the king of spain and had been a secret agent for ten years. he received regular bribe payments in return for which he produced reports on american political and military developments. now, i've read his reports. it's not obvious that the spaniards were getting much value for their money. they're not the most wonderful and fascinating reports. but it is an astonishing thing to find that the head of the army was, in fact, a traitor. wilkinson was a florid, hard-drinking fellow. he was usually by dinner time at least he'd had a bit too much to drink.

he survived multiple court-martials in the army, even as general in chief, he was court-martialed twice, and it was said of him he'd never won a battle or lost an investigation. wilkinson and burr together -- let me just tell one story about wilkinson. it gives you a flavor for him. when the louisiana purchase was being handed over to the americans by the french, there was a ceremony in new orleans, and jefferson sent general wilkinson down there to receive of the transfer. there was to be a big ball at night to celebrate, to mark the occasion. many of the people in the new orleans area were french-speaking people, they were called creoles. they were very unhappy at the prospect of becoming part of the united states. it was a foreign country to them, it had a foreign language, foreign legal system, foreign culture. and there was a lot of resentment. so to try to taper things over, they told the orchestra for this

event to play, first, one french song and then an english -- american song, and then a french song and then an american song. so they started to do that, and then general wilkinson got a little liquored up, and he demanded they play two american socks in a -- songs in a row. he's the general, so, you know, what are you going to do if you're the orchestra leader? one of the puzzling parts of the story is the second american song was rule brittania -- [laughter] presumably chosen for its ability to annoy french people. at the end of rule brittania, all the creoles jump up out of their seats seats and belt out a couple of choruses of a french song, at the end of which a brawl breaks out. and when that finally subsides, general wilkinson leads the americans out of the hall in triumph. and i know the thing you're all thinking is we're missing

humphrey bogart. it turn out that if you're a double agent, seeming to be a baa too far is a pretty good coffer, and he managed that -- cover, and he managed that. i think he managed to take in burr. they came up for a plan for an expedition into spanish territory. burr was to recruit private citizens to join this expedition, wilkinson was to bring the soldiers. and jointly they would invade, liberate the spanish colonies in this florida, in texas and mexico, and while recruiting burr would tell the people he was recruiting versions of the following story: the atlantic state, the original 13 states, were exploiting the west and that the west in 1805 was like the atlantic states had been in 1776. imagine a former vice president of the united states saying, basically, you should be rebelling.

he said that the separation of the west from the rest of the country was inevitable, that war with spain over mexico was highly desirable, and he would consider it a great honor to lead mexicans into mexico city. and that mexico was there for the taking, great piles of silver and land. mexico, at that time, did produce two-thirds of the world's silver. there was wealth in mexico. and he also talked about the opportunity to liberate the mexican people. exporting democracy has always had its appeal to americans. it has it today, and it had it in 1805. now, he also talked about the possibility of insurrection among the creoles in new orleans. so out of this melange of potential outcomes, he's creating an expectation of really an extraordinary expedition. and there's always been some confusion. it's one of the reasons i wanted to write the book. there's been confusion about what burr's goals really were. and historians tend to choose up

sides. well, he only meant to invade mexico and liberate them. well, he meant an ex-territory of the united states. or he meant to create a new empire. and the more i read and the more i studied this, i concluded that it wasn't any of those things. he wanted all of them. his notion was he would mount this ec we decision and -- expedition and see what he could get away with. that's sort of a glib way to say it, but if it meant annexing parts of the spanish territory to the united states, that would be great. he'd be a hero. if it meant creating a new empire, well, that would be interesting. if it meant creating secession of the west, well, that would be even more interesting. and there's evidence to support each of those, and i do believe he had this attitude of he would see what he could do, what was possible. i find myself thinking, you can

tell maybe that i have a too-cinematic view of some of this. when i think of burr's intentions, i think of marlon brando in the movie, "the wild ones," where he leads a motorcycle gang into this hokey california town, and he terrorizes them in rather a quaint way. about halfway true the movie the -- through the movie the sweet young thing says to brando, johnny, what are you rebelling against? and brando says, well, what have you got? and burr has that element. and to be serious for a moment, he had this need for fame, and fame was something that the founding generation was candid about wanting. people like washington, people like madison and jefferson and adams saw fame as the greatest thing a person could achieve. and it wasn't the sort of empty celebrityhood we see today with

the people in the gossip columns. this was people knew who you were because you were important because you did something important, because you were a person of character and integrity. and it was a measure of your worth that you were known. and burr needed that. he needed that in a powerful way. um, the expedition, that the expedition had a dark side, i think, is demonstrated by a variety of facts. one that's very important to me is he went to the ambassadors from spain and mexico and described his intentions. he asked the british ambassador to send a fleet to new orleans to support him. you don't need a british fleet if you're just, if you're not going to do anything against the u.s. government. and he asked for $100,000. ultimately, the ec we decision was a botch -- expedition was a botch. there were -- i'm pressed for time. there were a number of things that turned against him. the men who were supposed to

show up, he expected 1500 men to show up, only a hundred did. by the time he got down to mississippi, wilkinson had double crossed him. wilkinson decide canned instead offing with a double agent -- decided instead of becoming a double agent, he'd become a triple agent. burr was brought back to richmond in chains and stood trial for treason. here you had a former vice president of the united states facing trial for treason and possible hanging. the trial itself was an electrifying event for the country, it was on the front page of the newspaper, the whole transcript of the trial, for four months. burr was a better lawyer than insurrectionist. he got off. he managed to bury an astonishing amount of evidence against him. and ultimately, he was acquitted. he actually then went to europe, tried to talk the british into underwriting him to lead an expedition to liberate spanish america. the british passed. he went to france and asked

napoleon to do it. napoleon had other things to do. and he came back and finished his years, 23 years, just practicing law in new york. a rather quiet life. i've to telescope a lot and skip a lot, but i hope you get a flavor for what this extraordinary episode was, and i'd be happy to take a couple of questions. yes, ma'am. [applause] yes. >> how do we know about wilkinson being -- [inaudible] >> the question is how do we know about wilkinson being an agent for the spanish? i've actually read his reports to the spanish government. indeed, they read a little like get smart in the early 9th century because he's -- 19th century because he's secret agent number 13, and he writes them to el numero uno. and there's also documentation of the payments he received

from -- >> [inaudible] >> the question is, did anybody know about wilkinson's treasury then? >> it was widely rumored, and i mean widely. when adams appoints him general in chief in 1797, he writes this astonishing letter. wilkinson, he says, you know, they say you're a spanish agent, but they say that about everybody out west. you know, just having people say that would probably disqualify, it seems to me. and there were a lot of reports that he was, in fact, the spanish agent. it is puzzling how he remained in the job. the army was not very important in this time. it was tiny, it just policed the frontiers with the indians. but it is a great puz be l. puzzle. yes, sir. >> my question has two small parts. a, it was my understanding that in those days if you say, okay,

we're going to have this duel, the winner of that duel is not going to be accused of murder. and yet he was. and second part, he was wanted in two states. when on the lam, what became of that? >> okay. duelists were usually not prosecuted for murder, you're exactly right, because the winning duelist has a spectacular self-defense argument. the other guy had a gun, and he was pointing it at me. what was i supposed to do? now, there were very few times they tried to prosecute a duelist, and it was never successful. so you're right about that. the charge, criminal charges against him were really politically inspired, they were not intended as serious charges, to be honest. the charges in new jersey were finally quashed in 1809, a buddy of burr's got those removed. the new york charges seem never

to have been removed. when he comes back from europe in 1812, he's not quite sure he can come to new york, and he sort of tiptoes in in the middle of the night and, you know, and then he doesn't get arrested. he never gets arrested, and we don't know what happened to those charms. sir? those charges. sir? >> i wanted to ask how close is the historical burr to the burr in gore vidal's book, and in particular i got the implications, if i remember, that the despicable behavior was some kind of incestuous relationship between burr and his daughter, so i was bond everybodying what you could -- wondering what you could tell us about that. >> the question is how accurate do i think gore vidal's version is in his novel of 30 years. i didn't want to read it when i did the book because i didn't want gore i vidal polluting my mind. i admired the book then.

my sense is from my recollection, i think he probably got burr reasonably well. the questional asked what about the -- the question also asked what about the element of that novel where he suggested that hamilton was implying that burr was sleeping with his daughter, that there was incest. and that's when he said he had an opinion still more despicable, that's what he meant. vidal has been very clear in interviews saying he made that up, he has seen no evidence to support it. i have seen no evidence to support it. i actually think that's a very smart hunch. because nothing would have upset burr more than that implication. but we don't have evidence. yes, sir. >> so you mentioned one of his primary motivations was fame. did he have a particular ideology? >> the question is, did burr have a particular ideology? and that's a great question because that was hamilton's other complaint about burr, was that he didn't actually believe

in anything. and that was, his concern was that burr would do whatever seemed to make the most sense at the time. he saw him as an opportunist. i actually think he was sort of a classic moderate, sort of the person that ends up being hated by both sides, and that is what happened the -- to him. the federalists didn't trust him, the republicans didn't trust him because he seemed to sympathize with the federalists. you know, the vice president casts the tie-breaking vote when there's a tie in the senate. he cast one tie-breaking vote, and he cast it for the federalists. now, this had to drive jefferson nuts. but it is a measure, and he took great pride in this, that he was not a partisan. that was his view. and i think it was an element in his lack of political success, ultimately. one more. >> [inaudible]

>> the election of 1800, my understanding was that the hamilton as leader of the federalists that told the party to vote for jefferson because he loathed burr more than he loathed jefferson. >> the question is, and it's a very appropriate one, that isn't hamilton the guy who shifted the federalist votes away from burr and towards jefferson? hamilton tried, like, as hard as he possibly could to do that. and for many years the accepted wisdom in american history was that hamilton's the guy who won the election for jefferson. as people in the last 20 years have gone back over the record, this story doesn't hold. he wasn't in washington, he wrote a bunch of letters against burr two, three months before the house of representatives

voted. and after they got his letters, all the federalists voted for burr. they didn't pay any attention to hamilton. and when they finally broke, it was much more this response to burr's own remark and to the fact that they had this terrible stalemate crisis. so i think although i remember learning that as a kid myself, i don't think it's true. it's one of those myths we're trying to get out from under. so thank you very much. [applause]

>> gibbs was a very shy, shy child, spending time tinkering and doodling at his parents house. his father wanted to be a lawyer. well, his senior year of harvard, calamity had been any family had severe economic reversal. they lose the mansion and his kid is forced to drop out and he basically said if it wasn't for the fact my father had not gone bankrupt, i would not have had the drive i have today to remake myself. so he ended up working his way to colombia to get his ba and then got his law degree. he practiced law for one year, hated it, and admiral called

david taylor taught him what he needed to learn. gibbs eventually move to new york and started a very successful practice, not just designing ships, but also naval ships, he designed a 20% of all naval vessels in world war ii, which is an incredible achievement. destroyers, cruisers. he was also the man responsible for the liberty ship. the iconic liberty ship, which is a mass-produced cargo ship that helped win the war. basically those ship faster than the germans. that was basically a good way to build his mindset. even throughout his very successful career, he still remains furthest on the grand site, building the longship.

>> the republican primary has caused romney to know so far to the right he's across-the-board. so have 10 candidates appearing in new hampshire. the question is would you agree to 1 dollar of taxes for $10 of cut? anybody in the civilized world, how do i say backman may be data excludes the base would say of course i give you $1 in taxes for $10 in cab. not huntsman, not anybody. it was a well-kept secret, but i ran for the republican nomination in the 1996 april. and i was in new hampshire. there were nine people were the question was, how many of you promised to abolish the

department of education. atn sprang up instantaneously. ridiculous question. you can't abolish the department of education. you just can't do it. so here you have a herman cain and michelle about when -- michele bachmann one after another pushing mommies so far to the right. senator santorum, prodigious worker covered all the counties played right into a spring with the evangelical right. but as soon as the people of america find out about it like the people of pennsylvania, dear he went. and romney has changed positions so many times, belmar had it right the other night when he said romney has changed positions more often than a or the queen.

[laughter] and i am not, who am i going to support in november? and i say well, i am not senator arlen specter anymore. i am citizen arlen specter. i am not happy with president obama quite frankly. this policy in afghanistan is absurd. i spoke out on the senate floor against 30,000 additional troops. there are no al qaeda they are. i was part of the delegation that visited president karzai and he's not somebody you could do business with. you have the tax cut. obama extended it. i spoke out against it. should never have extended the tax cut to the rich.

alan simpson on the deficit and national debt. doesn't pay any attention to that. how about romney? well, which romney is going to appear? which etch-a-sketch will we know? but the answer to your question in my opinion is that the primary process is the republican nominee so far to the rate he's going to have to make a sharp u-turn, a persuasion besides the sharp one.