now joining us on booktv is brendan dirty of the naval academy. his most recent book is called the rise of the president's permanent campaign. professor, who is packed iranian -- pat cadel? >> first and honored to be on your program. thank you. pat cadel was a adviser to the president-elect jimmy carter and he is a point of the transition memo that he wrote to the then president-elect carter in which he said the key to be effective as president is a continuing political campaign. and the notion was born then and was popularized by political consultant in the 1980's and it has since become a part of the common lexicon.

>> how would you define the permanent campaign? >> it can be defined broadly or narrowly. >> it is the extent we the president focuses on the electoral concerns in his term in office. so i focus mostly on presidential fund-raising, on dedication to the key electoral state in office, and the nature of electoral decision making within the white house itself in the recent administrations. some people look at the permanent campaign more broadly. you can look at the polling operations and efforts to sway the public opinion. but my focus is on the electoral questions the presidents contract and how the deal with it. >> so when we see president obama were president bush standing a lot of time in florida and in ohio, that right there is the key? >> right. what sparked the idea for this book is president bush's first term, president george w. bush, the time he spent in ohio, florida, pennsylvania, and you can certainly find examples of presidents attending to the

electoral concerns, but i said what we see if we look at it systematically, if we looked at it over decades, with the presidents do, what patterns would play out and is there a disproportionate focus on the electoral matters to the estimates and what did you fight? >> the short answer is that we have seen a substantial increase in the time that presidents devote to electoral concerns. and the clear indicator is fund-raising. if a president goes to ohio to years before the election is either because it is one of the largest states because he cares about the good people of ohio or because it is likely to edge in the presidential election? that is a bit harder to say, but what is unambiguously electoral is the presidential fund-raising. and that we have seen escalate over the past three and a half decades. we've also seen a rise in strategic travel and disproportionate focus on battleground states and the key nominating states. not just in the election year that struck the president's term in office, and we have seen an

internal location of electoral decision making in the white house, the decision that decades ago were made by the national committee, the democratic national committee and the republican national committee are now made by the aids that word in the white house itself that are on the government payroll. >> so, give an example when it comes to fund raising witho president obama. >> sure. certainly. president obama has broken all records for presidential fund-raising. i have tracked every president since jimmy carter. president obama has held about 301st term fund-raisers. the previous record before that was george w. bush who had held about half of that amount. he broke bill clinton's defense record and he broke george h. w. bush's records and so on. so it's important to note that it is a multi president story. president obama's critics have been quick to jump on him for devoting so much time to fund raising, and he absolutely has broken records.

but there is a very understandable reason why. what we have seen in the presidential fund-raising is an unintentional consequence of the rules of our political system that we have campaign finance rules designed to reduce corruption or the appearance of corruption, and to do that we limit the amount of money that presidents and candidates can raise from any individual or from any group. so the idea that you can't buy any election if you only give $2,500 to a candidate per election cycle but when you combine those relatively low campaign rather contribution limits within the rapidly escalating cost of campaigns, the presidents and candidates are forced to spend more and more time raising money and it's been an escalation. 20 years ago there were stories of the first president bush was a record-breaking fund-raiser. the same stories were written about clinton and bush and now about barack obama.

>> brendan doherty come he was sworn in in 2009. when did he start holding fund-raisers? >> that jerry springer was just a few months in. about april but it could have been may or march. they started fund-raising earlier and earlier in their terms as well and fund-raising not just for themselves but fellow party members about four to five presidential fund-raisers over the past three and a half decades has been offered the president of the committee that a fellow democrat or fellow republican. and the same pressures that apply to the presidential campaigns rising costs and relatively low contribution limits apply to congressional campaigns as well. so the members of congress feel compelled to spend so much time raising money in the small increments prescribed by the campaign finance laws and the presidents are party leaders, the party builder of chief as they say in the book. and they start earlier and earlier raising money for their fellow party members as well as for themselves. >> is this a bad thing?

>> nope. it cuts both ways. it is certainly -- a presidents time is his scarcest resource. and when the george w. bush white house his time was scheduled in five minute increments. there are always more important things a president can be doing than he has the time to do so more time spent fund-raising and on the electoral concerns doesn't mean less time doing something else and we should be careful about what that is. we don't know. i haven't looked carefully to see just what gives the president may be simply spending less time of their families, they may be getting less sleep. critics are quick to say they are campaigning instead of doing their jobs with the president's do this because it's how they can get closer to the more perfect union in our political system. in his policy goals and to enact the goals they need more of their fellow party members in congress. the need a second term for themselves, four more years in the white house to have a chance to make their political dreams reality. and so, the fund raising and the focus on the electoral concerns

is the means to an end and they? make the decisions how to allocate their time based on the rules of the system, and if the? want to make the world a better place, they see this as something that they have to do. >> professor, was a different before jimmy carter? >> can you see a real distinct difference? >> yeah. it's a very good question. especially i start my systematic analysis in the book with jimmy carter because in the 1970's we change the way we nominate our presidents, and we change the rules of our campaign finance system. so, jimmy carter was the first president to be elected under the system we know well, in which the candidates attracted to a u.s. and new hampshire, and they submit their feet to the will of the people. and in a series of primaries and caucuses they are the chairs and nominees are selected. before jimmy carter, presidential candidates were chosen by insiders at the national conventions. and they could run in the primaries and the caucus but

they didn't necessarily have to. it was an inside game. presidents now must raise a lot of money to take their money to their case to the people in the way that they didn't need to before. and in terms of the travel and the president's focusing on the key states, you have presidents now who are key to the political success taking their case to the people and now that you're in the office, they have continued to do so as president.o in the book i talk about examples of the presidential aide saying when a president needs to get back to his winning a game or does he want to do? he wants to go back to the people and the have and to do it in the key electoral states that better disproportionately in the coming election. in terms of how the white house this structure, it was very different before carter. jimmy carter was the first president to have an aide in the white house specifically designated to handle the political affairs and in the book by contrast the recent presidents carter, reagan, clinton, bush and obama with the truman administration. and in the truman

administration, almost all political concerns or outsourced to the national committee. the white house staff was smaller. there were different norms. it was improper to have someone on the government payroll making ectoral planning decisions. t jimmy carter designated an aide to deal with political affairs not because the white house wasn't political because he was accused of handling e litics in the white house poorly said he wanted someone close to him he could trust, wh could help him keep in touc with the key members of his party across the country. and ronald reagan institutionalized it. he founded the white house office of political affairs which every president since has had, and that's given us the situation we have now where you are used to having the key mpaign advisers like david axelrod and david plus and karl rove who are in the white house on the government payroll. they are there to help the president do his job, but there are certainly the concerns that you have a perception of a politicized white house and a

politicized presidency. >> brendan doherty is a professor of the u.s. naval academy. this is his most recent book th rise of the president's permanent campaign, university of kansas is the publisher. professor, do states and aren't battleground states, do they ge the short shrift because of this? they do. they certainly do. and in chapter four of the book i look at places the president' never go or at least rarely. the states that systematicall neglected by the parties tend t be small states, that is in the population so the lesser populated states -- >> murf dakota. >> north dakota, south dakota vermont, wyoming, nebraska, kansas and on and on. the states tend to vote republican and tend to be removed from washington. i've looked at all of the presidential visits to the states over the past three and a

half decades and how they are spread out by state and i said with a few actually allocate these according to population and i look at the ones that get more states than the population would predict and more visits rather than population would predict and fewer visits. and it is the key electoral states that tend to be disproportionately visited. we see this not just in electio years, but throughout the president's terms in office. and we have seen this consistently since ronald reagan. but we have had despite and the sproportionate focus on the key states in the last few presidencies, george bush's presidency at barack obama's presidency. >> what do you teach at the naval academy? >> courses on the presidency and campaigns and elections and american public attacks generally and occasionally of course in the congress.  is a wonderful place to teac and it's an honor. >> are those required or elective? >> the introductory to the

course is a required course. every student at the surface academy must take a course on the u.s. constitution's we do that on the political science department. the other courses are the upper level elective courses for the majors also for students from other majors across the naval academy. >> so, what are some of the frequent questions you get from e cadets? >> they are midshipmen. yes, indeed. 's a common name they are connected at the west point air force and coast guard.  mideast. >> yes. so, the mids have lots of questions and they are particularly curious about the president's role. this fall in teaching the campaigns and elections class and they are very interested in the questions of influence. who has influence in the presidential election which the states are particularly important, how the candidates are targeting particular groups. the attention that they give to the questions of the role of commander in chief, and there

hasn't been as much emphasis on that in this presidential election as there are and others. >> can members of the milit donate to the presidential campaigns? >> yes, they certainly can. e are restrictions of what they can do while in uniform. they can attend political rallies and put bumper sticke on their cars. they can do need the political campaigns, but they can't do anything in uniform and a capacity that would lead people to believe the military is pporting a candidate or another because the military is n-partisan. >> professor have you looked at e question of why it seems re military members are republicans rutka democrats at all? >> i haven't. it's not something that i s systematically. but i would say that while the statement on a broad level is supported by evidence, there ar a lot with a net. so you see the variation in the older veterans tend to lean mor republican than younger veteran

and you'll see the variation among the ranks and officer corps. so, it's not my area of expertise. i don't want to go into great depth but as with anything like this is not a monolith in the military. members of the military that are serving us all and putting their lives on the line hold a wide variety of political views. >> finally, professor speed, the permanent campaign. has it led to a more responsive government? >> that is what alexander hamilton hoped when he wrote the federalist papers. he made the case that having presidents eligible for free election would make them more responsive to the public and better incentivized to do a good job as president. the -- is certainly has been getting out of washington are to be more in touch with the american people. not all of them. george w. bush's press secretary said if you don't like the current system and want to see more you should move to a swing state and then you will be able to as your president more.

it's our system has incentives for some places and some voters matter more than others. the permanent campaign has kept the present closely in touch with voters. fund raising keeps him in touch with certain more than others. those that are able to offer financial support for his campaigns. and there's certainly the permanent campaign is an important part of the political system, but it does raise questions about whether the system we have now is the system the we want to have. >> brenden doherty is associate professor of political science here at the u.s. naval academy. the author of the rise of the president's permanent campaign. you are watching book tv on c-span2. book tv has over 150,000 followers. follow book tv on twitter to get publishing news on a schedule of dates, author information and talk directly with authors during our live programming. twitter dhaka,/book tv.

i would say that i'm working from 9-3. most writers who say that they write for seven or eight hours a day are exaggerating. you just can't. you sort of lose it after a while. you certainly lose it when you are working on a novel because the edges of your imagination start to blur after i would say best case about three hours. but even when you are writing a nonfiction book, you know, you may put a net three hours of pounding away. and then the rest of it is research, looking at e-mails, making another cup of coffee, that sort of thing. fiction usually begins with a theme. you know, identity, redemption,

art, fame, things like that. but the whole process really picks up steam when i start to ground some of my thoughts and a character who will become the protagonist. and that character becomes sharper and sharper to me. i think all lighting is affirmatively good. if only because it leaves a piece of yourself behind. let's say you are blogging all for your 20s, and let's say almost no one reads your blog. but 20 years from then you have children and you can show them what you wrote and they will understand things about you that they might not understand otherwise i always say even in its most basic form a letter, of holum to someone, it is a immortality. we've all had that experience of loving someone and of losing them and opening a drawer and

finding a card that they've signed or a letter that they wrote and thinking still alive, still alive in some way. so i think the more writing, the better. >> any regrets about anything that you have written? >> you know, i think regrets are things that a good columnist -- and i like to think i was a good columnist, gets out before she publishes. in other words, you spend a fair amount of time at the computer back stopping yourself. when you are writing about your family constantly. even when you are writing about events, part of your brain is thinking how will this deal than ten years? how unequivocal do i want to be about certain things? so why can't you do a lot of --

i wouldn't call with censoring. it's more taking the long view. and because of that, i don't really have any regrets about anything i've written. >> any advice? >> don't wait for inspiration. i don't know where she is but she's not coming or at least she's never coming here. i never see her. occasionally there's like a fly by and then she's gone again and again it's all just about hard work. the hard work part just doesn't largely consist of thinking about it. people say to me all the time i'm thinking about writing a book and i think nobody ever gets written by thinking about it. at a certain point you just have to sit down and you have to sit down whether you feel like it or not. i think too often people and give you are going to write well it must be because you wa