tv U.S. Senate CSPAN October 25, 2012 12:00pm-5:00pm EDT
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i remember when secretary clinton went on her first trip to china she had a forum with 16 women from different areas in china. was blogged, it was streamed, people would challenge the hiv/aids policy, incredibly brave women and secateurs clinton provided a forum for them to speak to a larger audience. these were the kind of things i think we can do. >> a question from right here in the room in the audience. president obama and governor rahm yo both said they want america to have a positive
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relationship with china but they must play by the rules. how well they pushed china if they think china is not playing by the rules, house specifically, dr. bader? >> how specifically will they -- >> push china if they are not playing by the rules? >> my last act in government, my last time around was second place in negotiations with a succession of the world trade organization. the world trade organization lays out in detail global rules. it was a 17 year negotiation for china, and it made extensive commitments. china used to live up to those commitments, and the u.s. and other countries particularly i would say in europe and japan
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need to call china on violations and work together. it's sometimes difficult. countries are fearful of retaliation and more specifically companies are fearful of retaliation but the old bin from gwyneth foundage of him together and hang separately i think is relevant here. if other countries feel that we are facing an unlevel playing field act together we have a better chance of affecting china's behavior. we also have authority under the u.s. trade law and we will continue to pursue that. but some of the trends have been positive. they're in a loaded to the increase in the size of the deficit in recent years, but if you look at the percentage increases in exports and imports, u.s. exports to china on increasing much more rapidly than the u.s. imports. it depends on how you do the
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math. >> professor friedberg? >> picking up on that issue of the trade imbalance i think it is important to look at the composition of the trade, and there are some oddities in the balance of trade. the biggest american export right now is waste and scrap. that is not an area in which we would seem to have the comparative the vantage, but the fact that is what we are able to export most easily i think points to some problems in gaining full access to the chinese markets for the middle range if not the highest technologies. again i feel we both agreed that the playing field as it currently exists is not level. china is systematically doing things that put its own
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companies and entities at an advantage and disadvantage to those other countries including the united states, that it is taking advantage of and finding ways around some of the rules and procedures that exist under the world trade organization and we have to use that mechanism but it doesn't deal with all issues. it isn't clear whether it deals with the currency question. it may be difficult to use wto mechanisms to address some of the things the chinese government is doing through the so-called state owned enterprises to give them an advantage and make it more difficult for outsiders to compete for a share of the market. the point i would make overall is we have to find ways to exert leverage, and we have to pursue an integrated strategy that deals with this full range of issues. i guess since i am thinking of it i have a third point that
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agrees with jeff to the extent it can be a multilateral effort because i think we share important interests with other and dealing on these issues. >> the final and concluding question tonight will be from garrey wong left teach for china sent to us by e-mail and the question is addressed to both speakers. how does the u.s. prevent perception among the chinese government? the u.s. is pursuing a policy of containment against china. >> we can say it again and again. i don't think that will have the desired affect but we can point to the history of american policy in dealing with china since the late 1960's and early 1970's to reiterate a point i made earlier no country has done more than the united states to
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try to welcome and integrate china into the international system. no country has done more to the purchase of chinese products and investment of american capital in china to assist in the development of china's economy so if the united states were pursuing a policy of containment, we would not be doing those things, and we continue to pursue those policies. however, if people in the chinese government don't like some of the reactions that they see on the part of their neighbors, and jeff mentioned a couple of them, the development by korea with long-range missiles and the development of japan in the united states and the missile defense system increasing cooperation between the united states and several countries around the south china sea increased difference on the part of the united states to strengthen its military position in the region it needs to look in the mirror and ask what it is china itself is doing that may
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be provoking some of those responses. it's not that the responsibility rests with china but some does. >> dr. bader? >> the policy towards the soviet union it's hard to think of the policies that can be more unlike each other than the policies pursued in the soviet union and we outlined very well what we've done to the last generation to encourage china's emergence and rise. they may have difficulty believing that, but we say it and we mean it and i've been to meetings with president obama with other asian leaders and chinese friends would be skeptical of chinese and obama reiterates as he does in public
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that we welcome china's rise as long as it conforms to certain standards. i think that in addition to the things aaron mentioned tonight and this fall full description of why our policy is not contained i think the chinese may want to take a look at all issues like the south china sea. if we were seeking a policy of containment that would be taking sides we would be siding with the filipinos and taking positions on specific claims. we are not doing that. we are talking about international principles and if standing up for international principles is containment, i think that is something china needs to wrestle with. >> now closing statements. professor friedberg after the coin toss will go first.
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>> let me again express my thanks to the organizers and moderator's for their very fair and interesting questions, and again to all of you here in the room and around the world. i don't know, jeff, if we've done our job. not on c-span but on a commercial network whether the ratings would be good. whether people have a little file that they do when they watched the presidential debates the numbers are red lines and green lines would be going up and down. so we need to both go home and get phone calls saying why didn't you say xy and z and why didn't you fight more? [laughter] but we have done the best we could. i would like to go back and closing and reiterate some of the points that i made earlier. we have many preoccupations of the world. we have many problems and
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challenges in the rise of china in the long run is going to be the most important foreign policy challenge but also opportunity that this country will face in the 21st century and we have been deflected by various events from really focusing on that adequately but that hasn't changed the way the world is going. as i said, we have to acknowledge that there are significant uncertainties about china's path and we hope they will continue to grow more prosperous and that will remain stable and that it will pursue culbert policies with its neighbors and that eventually it will undergo a process of evolution or transformation that will lead it towards greater political openness and greater freedom but we don't know that is what is the to happen. china may experience a significant economic setbacks in the near term or in the longer term. it may pass through periods of political instability and it may be even the future more like its
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behaved in the last several years and we may be in for it period we have to deal with china which is growing stronger and be leaving more certain perhaps past but we keep our eye on the longer-term objectives and the importance to the united states and the world the peaceful and prosperous region. the place of the united states and the role the united states has played in maintaining stability and peace in east asia and asia generally certainly since the 1970's has been absolutely vital to the ability of all of the countries in the region to the extent that they have to focus on economic development and growth. the american power and place in asia has been a central to the stability and prosperity that has come to exist, and i think
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it is going to continue to be essential for some time to come. our goal ultimately as i mentioned this to use the term that was used to refer to europe at the end of the cold war. but we have to use the right mix of elements, and this policy of mixing engagement with balancing i think is going to continue whoever is elected in november, but as i've argued i think the current administration has not found the right mix. it has not done enough on the balancing side, and its policies on the engagement side also have not been adequate to pursue american interests. so, i think we need change and i hope that is what we will get into weeks. >> i would like to thank the sponsors again and the audience, the moderator's, and the appreciation to aaron from my point of view a very civil and
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enlightened discussion. eight presidents since president nixon in china understood the importance of a positive and constructive relationship with china for u.s. interests. this has been a bipartisan policy that has been supported by and pursued by the presidents of both parties. ken dave obama and president obama have flown in that tradition and parameters. when i was in the obama administration, we consulted regularly with a wise man and a wise woman from both parties. notably some of the senior statesman in the republican party who have been so involved in building this relationship for the last generation, and i am pleased to say that they were very supportive of what we would do me and some of them have in
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fact been publicly supportive and particularly critical. president obama will continue that fundamental approach should he be reelected as we both hope and think he will. with governor romney that's the question and i don't have the answer. his position on the currency manipulator at 12:01 on january 20th gives me pause about his intentions and ability to do so. the obama approach the last ten years has featured for fundamental foundations. number one how welcoming china's rise as a successful and strong country. number two, ensuring that would
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be consistent with international law and international norms that means organizations like the world trade organization, the international monetary fund, the u.n. convention of the sea, the universal declaration of human rights. number three, ensuring that china's rise enhances the regional stability, and what we have done pursuant to that is we have developed partnerships and alliances throughout the pacific region vigorously from day one. there's no time to get into all of those but relations with korea and japan and australia i would argue have been brought to a new level, and last the economic issues have risen to a much greater place in the u.s.-china relationship than before, enhancing u.s. competitiveness, access and a level playing field and this has
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been an objective of the administration. time does not permit me to describe the accomplishment spirit of the administration i would say that i believe we have some notable achievements across the street relations we have assured the u.s. and china have worked together on parallel and economic stimulus package which presented a second great depression and china was the first country to welcome us to the stage a summit. looking to the future, it's important that the world understands that there is not going to be under president obama de g. to between the u.s. and china, nor should we aim at a zero some rivalry in which no country wants. what we need to do is aimed at a
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partnership as a long-range challenge that's not a call to the touch dillinger at one trend that is what we should be aiming at. >> thank you so much. you may have fought to that, yes, please. [applause] we will have another look at foreign policy today with a nonprofit national council on u.s.-arab relations annual policy makers conference blank >> would you support military action in iran? >> if need be, yes as a last option, yes. >> under what conditions. >> if sanctions don't work, if they are close to and about to
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have the ability to develop a nuclear bomb, we use every option possible as well israel and the would be the last option we would have to use but we would have it ready to use. i think we stand with israel. i think the military option should be on the table. >> under what conditions would you recommend? >> i can't tell you what would be right now would be better exhaust everything else, and at the end of the day if that is what is needed, i will be the first, i'd know what they need, maybe i can watch, but i would be the first we are going to have a got honest discussion about what is needed.
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lieutenant governor of north carolina. mr. mccrory is the former mayor of charlotte north carolina. this took place at north carolina wesleyan college and is courtesy of wral. >> moderator: good evening and thanks for joining us for this third and final televised debate for governor. one of these men will be the next governor. i am david crabtree along with wral's chief laura wral and kent smith. we are here asking questions tonight. the candidates are here and they're going to let us know specifically what their vision is to move north carolina forward for the next four years. so we welcome all of you and thank you for joining us. this is being televised all across north carolina so those of you we appreciate you being with us tonight and we are confident it is granted the night of information for those of you who either have already voted or plan to defeat the plan to vote november 6th. before we get started let's meet
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the nominees because as i said, one of them will be our next governor. >> walter dalton finishing his first term as north carolina's lieutenant governor. his legislative career began in 1996 as a state senator. he went on to serve six terms representing rutherford and clevelan counties. pat mccrory became the 53rd mayor of charlotte and served seven terms as the cities leader. he began his political career in 1989 as a city councilman. >> moderator: just a few moments ago we flipped a coin to see the order of how the questions would be asked tonight who would answer first and would have the last closing statements. mr. mccrory won the coin toss. laura? >> the first question about the economy and unemployment rate the number one issue for voters the last couple years as a sure you are both aware.
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north carolina has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. we realize as governor you can't make a lot but realistically speaking as governor, what can you do to fix this problem and what would you do in your first month's? mccrory: several things i would do first of all life and north carolina has to get into the energy business. we've been sitting on the sidelines for too long with natural gas exploration and offshore drilling and while other states have moved jury quickly and the states that have moved quickly have much lower unemployment rate in addition they are contributing to the nation's energy independence which north carolina ought to participate in. the second thing we have to do is reform our tax system and make it more competitive with neighboring states and other states in the united states of america. the third thing we must do is work on regulations. as i travel the state including rocky mountain north carolina, i am often told that regulations of strangling small businesses throughout north carolina and
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currently the north carolina government creates a small businesses as an adversary as opposed to a customer. in fact they often tell me they take small business and midsize businesses for granted. the last thing i want to do is completely reform our education system from pre-kate k-12 to the community colleges to the universities to make it more market oriented so when the kids get out of school they have the basic reading and math skills necessary but more than anything else they have the basic skills to get a job because right now there's a major disconnect even though we are the fifth highest unemployment rate in the country the fifth highest unemployment rate in the country we have employers that can't find qualified employees right here in north carolina and that is an unacceptable disconnect we have had in north carolina for far too long. >> those would take some time to implement. is their something you can do in your first month as governor?
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mccrory: everything i would implement we would have to think long term. one thing i learned as a mayor is the short-term remedies usually don't have long term solutions so one of the reasons i am talking about the big plans is because we are in the pits right now regarding our economy and as a leader you need to look at solutions are not just something that will correct a problem in a month or two and then you are right back with the same problem that we have had before. but long-term solutions to a very difficult and complex problem that we have here in north carolina. estimate mr. dalton? dalton: i want to thank you north carolina wesleyan as well as wral. first of all, the problem with what he just said by his own admissions of schroder oe list six to ten years out. we need jobs now. when he talks about his reform and the tax code he wants to say big corporations pay 0% and he has a tax break for people with
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more than $5 million. the budget and tax center says that will raise taxes on 80% of the people in north carolina. working families, the middle class, our senior citizens. when asked his campaign was asked what are the details of that plan he said they would ask. he said because i would be dead on arrival and that is the reason that it would be dead on arrival. now i have a plan that brings us back very quickly. the problem that we have, we have to reinvent our economy. iowa remember recessions and the orders would go down and people would be laid off and orders would come back to work. what we saw is the fast track paltry policy around 2003 and 2004 accelerate the loss of our jobs offshore. there is no reason to go back now at least there are far fewer places to go back to so we have to reinvent our economy. i have a specific plan that is on the internet.
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walterdalton bader word. there's a 2,000-dollar tax credit for business that will hi your those people and there is a train to high year provision that allows the businesses to hire somebody that is on unemployment for eight weeks, 24 hours a day, i mean 24 hours a week they draw a partial benefit that allows them to catch them out to make sure they would do well by doing that with that partial benefit. it gives a tax break to businesses but it also builds jobs for the future. there's a provision for manufacturing. there's a provision on how we expand the military's economy. a provision on keeping our best view is coming back to the areas where they came from and revitalizing the rural areas. we have to invest resources. that's how you create jobs of the future. many economies follow the cutting edge research. we have to encourage
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entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. >> moderator: did you have something you wanted to follow? mccrory: when i ran against lt. governor beverley perdue she said the again identical thing and he supported the exact same policies that was not only acted in the past four years but had failed miserably and has resulted in north carolina having the fifth highest unemployment rate in the country but he said would take five to six years to implement tracking or gas exploration. that is exactly what the governor said for years ago. had we started four years ago we would be within a year or two to do it right now hitting it so if you keep delaying, we are always going to be five to six years behind other states that have taken the leadership and initiative to take action >> moderator: very quickly dalton: those were my policies. i brought them up after research and looking at best practices
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and other states like just told you is not based on some political polls and top points. it's based on good research and analysis that uses best practices to bring north carolina back to this gimmick but you ought to stay with jobs and the economy and you mentioned it is 6% currently. that's about 400,000 people still without jobs in north carolina. looking ahead, based on the plans that you just mentioned what do you see the unemployment rate being a year from now? mr. dalton we will start with you. dalton: i think we can reduce it as much as 2.5 to 3%. my plan gets people back to work now. there are jobs out there. baby boomers are getting older. we need more nurses assistants. physical therapists, radiologists, people working in
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rest homes. we can grow them a letter the economy, the equipment coming back from iran and iraq is going down to alabama or georgia. we can do that in north carolina to save the federal government millions because the big bases are right here. a biotech we actually true to the two grew the jobs in the great recession. i have a provision in my plan that takes the growth in taxes, not new taxes but the growth in taxes and earmarks them to put them back so we can continue to grow that and and entrepreneurship has been great. some of the people that have been on the assembly line now they are out of four candidates had an idea of their life. they've put it to work and they've created their own business and they are thriving. we need to encourage that. so i think we can immediately reduce the unemployment rate rapidly if we do all of that but also in conjunction with that build the jobs for the future so that north carolina state's strong in this 21st century
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economy. >> what you see it being? mccrory: the benchmark against your competitors. within a year i hope we are at least beating south carolina. we need to at least be beating south carolina, shouldn't we? and then i hope within my term we are beating tennessee and virginia, because right now with the businesses are doing is they're moving to south carolina and tennessee and moving to virginia because we have been a non-business friendly state. under the regulations and taxes that mr. dalton supported and helped pass during the years he has been in office and it's made be very difficult. i might add this, employers will not hire someone regardless of the tax credit if you can't find qualified employees. they are not going to take someone that can read and have basic writing skills. what we need to do is -- i recommended in detail in the education plan is to have to pathways to success in our education. one pathway is a four year
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degree in the high schools and another pathway is the vocational degree curriculum. we are forcing we too many people to go to college curriculum when many of these people have skills to build things, repair things, six things, and this is the old type of thinking kind of an elite education that is hurting our marketplace and contributing to the unemployment rate in north carolina >> we talked about education but a year from now where do you see -- >> to be beating our neighboring states, but i'm not a predictor of national and international things and i think it is foolish. i am not going to predict the stock market either. if i could i would be a very wealthy man. >> what's talk about education because this is writing to all of this. it's always on the radar. they've grown on average of 9,000 units a year. 45,000 more students. yet people standing in the state
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consistently in the lowest year. oftentimes the lowest in the country. so my question for both of you has the state ever invested, spent too much money for education, and is there ever enough money for education? mr. mccrory? mccrory: there is no new money to look at the north carolina budget right now what we grow the economy. i'm being straight with the people of north carolina. we $02.8 billion to the federal government for unemployment insurance. my opponent at one time he was the budget chairman of the senate, they had over 3 billion-dollar surplus, and the leadership under easily and perdue and mr. dalton spent it all. spend it all with no long-term plan in case we have a recession. we spent the highway trust fund, we spent the reserves and we are in trouble with the fact of the matter is we have to live with what we have right now and the
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way to do it is to look at we've got four different silos of education right now. prix que, k-12, community colleges and universities. as governor william going to do is make those entities start working together instead of fighting each other and i am telling you one other thing that will change its called this. it's not only going to help provide better education, the ipad, and technology, but it's also going to help provide education to the rural areas and urban areas alike with the best teachers, the best technology and a land of reducing the cost of the education which we have to look at better ways to do things with your quality. >> have we spent too much on education and is there every enough money for education? dalton: we have never spent too much. i do want to comment briefly on the ratings. he talks about business ratings do it i want to go back to that
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because steve forbes ran for republican president forbes magazine says not carolina has the best business rating and site selection has this in the top five of south carolina on every one of those. we do want to do better and need to do better. a lot of our economy is that trade policy and the credit policy from the federal government eight years ago. but i would also say again on the $3 billion he is wrong on that and i would tell you we have spent some money $800 million for hurricane floyd to help the audience out there today. i will tell you that in today's world we are not going to of recruit any of the state or any other country unless we help educate them. it's a knowledge based economy out there and we have to invest in education. the quds that he supported would not help at all. we have to invest in education.
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i have a specific plan that does that. his tracking system defines a 15-year-old career before that 15-year-old has defined himself or herself. that's not right. i put the money back in that early childhood program. smart start to but i'm happy to have the governor's endorsement. he was upset about that. the courts were upset about that. he said it was an unconstitutional cut to education. we need to put that money back in. the federal reserve, the most conservative body says the best dollar that you can spend an education is an early childhood education. go to walter dalton.org tikrit we will begin to get them back to the national average on pay and treat them as professionals and give them the professional development to take the best practices into the classroom and we will align education both to the needs of the student and to the workforce needs of the future. that is the way that we will
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compete with every other state and that is the way that we will compete with every other country and that's the way that we become a global leader. >> moderator: in all fairness to talk of being a rubber stamp. he's not a governor. there is no way of knowing what he's going to support or not support, so that hasn't happened yet. there is no way for him to rubber-stamp what they're looking for. >> the speaker says he talks to pact every day. i don't know what they are talking about. but i assume that he is weighing in on these issues. he ran for governor four years ago and he's been running for four years and he never commented on the kutz other than i think by his silence. >> moderator: let's get mr. mccrory's response. mccrory: it's like i had more power not being governor am i opponent had when he was governor. it's amazing.
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one thing we have to be reminded of is the of largest cuts occurred when the governor was governor and the perdue and mr. dalton was the head of the budget committee and i also want to say that we give interest in education. there was no one that i know that is against education but one of the main responsibilities of the lieutenant governor is to attend community college board meetings and the board of the education meetings. his attendance rate was less than 40%. when i was the mayor of charlotte if they didn't attend a meeting two-thirds of the meeting they were removed from those committees and what we need to do and i am going to be working very closely with the next lieutenant governor to make sure that lieutenant governor is very engaged in the meetings and also governor perdue and the last three years the board of directors, the board of the major institutions of k-12 community colleges and universities it hasn't met for over two and a half years.
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we need a governor that is going to bring these people together to have a systematic plan for our students that should be our objective. >> a brief response. dalton: the wall says that the lieutenant governor and treasurer may appoint a sworn designee to attend on their behalf. i had sworn designee that attended i think 100% or very close to that and made almost every vote. that is an acknowledgement that we do have other duties, so my sworn designee that was a lawyer attend those meetings when i'm not able to be there. you look at my record in the north carolina senate 12 years in the north carolina senate and my voting record was well over 99 percent. i have attended to my duties and i do good job with that and that is a bogus hit as far as i am concerned.
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>> moderator: we were listening to people outside talking about their concerns. that included a 9-year-old that hand wrote a note. 9-years-old to read how can you keep not carolina's defense budget without raising taxes or cutting education? i just want to give you an idea that you don't have to be of voting age to be genuinely concerned to attend a debate and to try to ask a question. >> we have different formats. a slightly different question for each of you to refer to what you propose in the campaign. mr. dalton earlier you supported the temporary sales tax increase for education. you have changed your position since then and say you don't support the tax increase. you have also said that we need to spend more on education than we currently are. where would you find the extra money? dalton: i didn't change my position i supported the extension of three-quarters there was a sales tax was
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running out. the proposal was to extend three-fourths of that. the budget submitted was a two-year budget. my position was we need to temporarily extend the three quarters. i never supported it beyond that and i've always said as the governor i wouldn't raise that sales tax. if you go to walterdalton bald cord you will see how i found what i've talked about. it is about a billion dollars out there that i have identified that is real but will find that without any increase in the sales-tax. we would be taking back a tax benefit that the republican legislature gave to people making hundreds of thousands of dollars to work equity owners in things like dental practices, medical practices, law practices and things like that. when the governor vetoed the budget, she said i am vetoing it because we need more money for education. i said publicly that she should
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veto that budget and make them stand up $140 million more wisely. we cut education 6,000 students that need the financial aid were cut off. because the economic development funds and a billion dollars of healthcare and the refunding $140 million for people making up all over $100 that are not adversely impacted in the economy. that is where some of that -- the only tax increase in the plans i have and i think that is a far better use of that money and i don't think they should have spent at $140 million that way when we had these other needs. >> mr. dalton could you give more detail in the billion dollars where that money would come from? dalton: 140 would come from that and they are projecting growth at two, 2.5% but would be four or $500 million. there was also a provision that if you are a small business having to pay for your trademark logo the out of state company
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that owns that would have to pay tax in north carolina for that revenue. for that reason i never understood the have exempted that so that out of state company no longer pays tax in north carolina but that small business in north carolina still pays every penny. we take that back. we have about a billion dollars on the books in debt. taxes that are owed we cannot believe the had about 500 million a year but it comes back. when i was in the senate i supported technology that is now in place but it makes it much more efficient to i think we can collect $100 million public keep 100 million off the books if we do that right to read that's getting close to it and there's other things in the streamline sales-tax through voluntary compliance. catalog companies and internet companies it's no new tax it's supposed to be collected but they cannot require internet companies and catalog companies to protect it.
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the bricks and mortar companies are providing jobs for people and paying taxes but an out-of-state company gets an advantage. we need help from congress but in the voluntary compliance their 70 million identified on that. i am very specific. i have detailed plans for the economic recovery, education for ethics. i have seen nothing from my opponent dealing anything other than his campaign that they don't reveal the details on his tax plan because it would be dead on arrival. >> we are going to get into that with mr. mccrory. the question for you of course you said that you'd like to abolish the income taxes in north carolina. you pointed all there is no new money in north carolina and these bring in about 60 cents on every dollar the state receives so where would you find the funding to cut those taxes? mccrory: let me first correct
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mr. dalton and mr. perdue. they're the leading proponents of the sales tax increase. in fact, they lectured the entire state republican democrat for not following their lead. and thankfully no one followed them, republicans or democrats in accepting that 15% sales tax increase, which he now has changed his mind on. my goal is to update at a minimum our income tax and corporate tax be competitive with our neighboring states and south carolina and virginia. tennessee is in a different stratosphere right now but we ought to look at all the plans with regards to updating our tax system. the current revenue chairman who used to work in the legislature is a big proponent of updating and reforming our tax system what we don't need is piecemeal
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tax credits any more that he is recommending in his plans. it's confusing now who gets tax credits and who doesn't. let's have a comprehensive reform supported by republicans and democrats alike and that is exactly what i plan to do as governor is lead that effort to look at a modernization of the tax plan and i think it is going to be bipartisan and it's going to have to be bipartisan to get it passed. >> when it took about tax reform democrats and republicans like to use the term revenue neutral but they want to reform it but they don't want to make it to bring more money so how will that bring the money to pay for the kind of cuts that you are talking about? speed it should be revenue neutral because i'm not asking for more to pour into the system but what we have to do -- i would agree with mr. dalton looking at the internet sales which is a disadvantage if i
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hope to get money from the gas exploration. if you look at the states right now that are going their revenue is increasing so the goal of tax reform and simplification of taxes and the decrease to be competitive then you grow business and revenue and jobs as opposed to just asking for more and more taxes. when he got elected in the 2008 election the first thing she did was increase the corporate tax, the income tax and then ask for a sales tax increase and what happened? our employment took a huge step and that wasn't good leadership. >> if we could to be as concise as you can in your response is because we could spend an hour on each of these questions tonight and we want to get to
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the voters as many topics as we can. >> we are going to speak to a funding source. 180 miles plus run for north carolina. it's a major -- that is the i-95 where would you find that money mr. dalton lets start with you. >> what i've said is it should be the last place i think particularly for the excess inroads' like i95. we have seen purchasing. if you look of the federal revenue stream we have done the bonds to help that fashion and also the need to get more of our federal tax dollars from the federal government. we have been a donor state and send more money to washington than we get back so those are
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the avenues we would look at the very quickly he talks about getting money from and gas exploration, six to ten years out he talks about a plan that's pentecost and $11 billion. public-private partnerships, quote bond, let's get money back from the federal government and with the innovative ways and prioritize some of the traffic. if you look at my logistics task force that was the commission of republicans and democrats that went around the state and we talked about some of these things. one thing that we said is in the cities we should give a tax benefit of incentives for people to live within sight of the beltway that will get a lot of people off the belt line during those high traffic times which will allow commerce to try.
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islamic many of us probably used on an 95 to get here. >> the first thing i would do is look at other roads that are being considered for construction which some areas don't even want and where congestion or safety issues are not even an issue and we ought to take the money from the other projects to help on a 95. since 1988 we followed a program called the equity form. it's a great name from equity form it's almost like a term that the equity does not take into consideration congestion safety, economic development or the environment and north carolina is punishing those cities and towns that have major interstate highways going through them and putting in the rocky mountain because the current formula is if this diversion puts any money into
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i-95 connecting the self and the north that means they have no money for any other and this is not fair to those towns and cities along the corridor from the i- 75 or 80. this equity has got to be changed so we have a separate revenue stream and more equally distributed for those areas that have interstate highways going through them that serve not only north carolina but serve the entire region. i also do agree with the private public partnerships and some of the pay-as-you-go funding salt carolina has been doing for five to ten years at this point. >> moderator: we have a lot of voters submit questions online could get this one has to do with mental health and it came up time and time again.
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much of the problem the health care has arisen because the consumers of services and most quantified providers of the services have been put in touch bureaucrats that may influence the bureaucrats. this is for you both. how will you target resources more efficiently so the treatment is more effectively provided and the service providers are qualified. mr. mccrory? mccrory: i would try to change the rule that the governor recently signed to deal with the federal government which is pushing people out of senior homes and possibly out of the streets. these are usually older people many of them with issues and come january we could have a major catastrophe right now and especially in the rural areas that could close down because these people are going to be moved out and it's going to put more pressure on the state government. that is the first thing i think
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we ought to do. the second thing is i would not support right now immediately getting rid of the land that digs for the hospital was. this made no sense to me where we build a new hospital and closed down an existing hospital and frankly gained almost no new bids that made any difference. we also move them out of the areas where the greatest population as mental health patients and where those areas now are in our jails or emergency rooms so this has to be a comprehensive plan. there is no easy answer but i think this is when to be the most serious issue in addition to dealing with possibly the obamacare situation that the next governor has to deal with because right now there's been no improvement in the mental health system in the last four years even though the governor promised to fix it. >> moderator: mr. dalton? dalton: he has opposed the affordable care act and that actually would give some
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resources for this type of problem. what we've seen this and this is the way to go and was to prioritize the mental health system. it hasn't gone well. i've talked to the doctor in north carolina at the time and i told him this is not working particularly in the rural areas. they would leave the mental health system and form their own private businesses. in the rural area that i live they all left and so the police department became picking them up and taking them to the emergency room and that is the reason of the providers out there were concerned about this and we need to listen to those providers. but the one benefit of the affordable care that will be to provide more managed care in the him mental health arena and we need to listen to the providers and we need to make sure that there is managed care about
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their because these people can become a threat to the public if they are not on their medication or someone is not attending to their needs and with the divestiture what you found out is the case management was hurt. we need to repair that and one way i think will be when the affordable care act comes into play. this is one area that i do believe will be helped. >> i want to agree with mr. dalton and that is we agree to disagree. he made inaccurate statement. i strongly disagree with obamacare and what is referred to as the affordable care at the president refers to as obamacare. this is something the governor and mr. dalton departed from the beginning. they recommend it absolutely no changes in the legislation. the demint challenge the legislation and the impact this is when to have on north carolina is going to be dramatic. i am very concerned right now that we are going to have many businesses right here that could literally go -- we are not offering an insurance anymore to
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the we are going to pay the penalty of obamacare and let the federal government to get over and literally not offer insurance to its employees anymore. the impact of this also on our medicaid system which is already financially struggling in a three years could be staggering to the state of north carolina. so why do disagree with that. i think the states ought to come up with their own plan as opposed to the federal government having one fifth of all plans for all 50 states. >> i would it very much like to respond. first of all i do think the affordable care act need amendments to try to help small business come up but the reason i support it is because i think it is meant to be good for the health of our citizens and our economy. the first three years is without cost to the state. you say yes but it's our tax money coming back from washington, d.c.. i want your tax money to come back from washington, d.c.. i don't want to go to other
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states without cost to the state. we can opt out at any time, so it is very little risk. the next six years, 15 billion of your tax dollars will come back into the state actors and 800 million-dollar cost to the state of north carolina but all in all waiting it will create jobs and get a better health care particularly in the rural areas because that is where a lot of the medicaid base is and they operate on a very thin margin. this will help them survive but more than that it's going to get the mental health patients care and people can keep their child on their insurance until age 26. being a woman will not be preexisting condition because you can get pregnant. there will be no pre-existing conditions. we need to continue to look at that. >> moderator: i know you have a lot you want to say that if we can convince it would help all of us if you can.
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>> speaking of women's health issues the lawmakers passed the right to know act that added restrictions and made it more difficult for women to get abortions in north carolina. if you are elected governor, what further restrictions would you prefer to sign? i will start with you mr. mccrory. mccrory: none. [laughter] >> mr. dalton? dalton: i didn't agree with this restriction. i didn't agree with this restriction. no further restrictions on a woman's right. >> moderator: we are going to move into a couple of issues -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> moderator: no. thank you. i have a couple of questions that are individual questions. and mr. mccrory, the first will be to you and it is sort of
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am under the law question. i will try not to make as much time in asking some of the questions but in this political season in particular of voters are asking us to ask you for transparency come straight answers, no new wanting as we have seen in the presidential debates. can you set the record straight what your job is, what the work is the you do what is a typical day and if you don't mind, how much do you make doing this? the reason i ask this is to find the north carolina companies that have a working relationship with the government, the state government. so why not be open to talk about the specifics of your the next governor? ..
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mccrory: i provide business expertise and consultation and strategic planning on policy issues to lawyers. and sometimes lawyers need advice even because they're not -- they are lawyers, they need advice from nonlawyers, because i have over 30 years of business experience. i also worked with my brother, phil mccrory. just last week i was in philadelphia doing a sales training and consulting in philadelphia with a major software firm that i've been consulting with for four years now. i do a kind of strategic planning model for them that i came up with, it's very similar to a mckenzie model.
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it's a business model that we ought to apply to the executive branch. you know, one of the problems we have is we haven't had people with business experience and the leadership experience that i've had as mayor. this executive branch, we need a governor that understands business. we need a governor who knows how to read a balance sheet, who understands operating and capital costs and unfunded mandates. this is what i've done both in the public and private sector. i'm very, very proud of that, and i grew up in a family, by the way, where you don't tell each other's salaries. that's what my mom and dad taught me, and i'm not going to break my mom and dad's code in that regard. >> moderator: mr. dalton, you've said several teems you've not been at -- times you've not been at the helm. so what executive experience do you bring that will qualify you as the ceo, the governor of this state? dalton: i think my experience both in the senate and as lieutenant governor, you know,
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when i became lieutenant governor, you're not given that many constitutional powers, but you make out of the office what you can. and what i did, i immediately went on a small business listening tour to over 25 venues in north carolina. but it doesn't help to listen if you don't do something. i worked to create a small business assistance fund to help small businesses get through these tough times, getting a little bit of money from the legislature, going to the golden leaf, getting some more money, working with the sba to craft something that would allow small businesses to access about $28 million. in addition, in 2003 i had done the bill, the innovative education act, to create early colleges in north carolina, laid the foundation for those. today we have about 75 early college high schools. "the new york times" has said that is a model for the nation. seven of the top ten high schools last year for graduation rate for early colleges, the southern policy, growth policy council gave us innovator of the
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year. that's 13 southern governors, most of them republican, gave us that award. i know the state having served on the senate in state appropriations, i know the agency, i know every part of this state. but let me talk a little bit about the transparency he talks about a governor that won't talk five minutes and not be transparent. i've let my tax returns be seen out there. people know what i am doing. we know that there was a case back several years in the supreme court that he took special interest over a foreign family. that's what happened. used his position with the city of charlotte to help a special interest, his employer, against a farm family. what promises are being made? that's important. >> moderator: are you a rainmaker? mccrory: i love to sell. i'm a great marketer, and we need that someone in the governor's office, someone who can sell north carolina, someone
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who can bring jobs. >> moderator: you're accused of these things. mccrory: i help client development with my law firm and my brother's company. i'm in the private sector, and by the way, if i don't win this election, i'm going to stay in the private sector. we need to build the private sector instead of tearing down the private sector. and it's just ironic that, you know, this is the way business is being treated in north carolina. they're being treated as the enemy. the only way we're going to rebuild the economy is show the business sector that we appreciate them and that we want the private sector to grow because it's a private sector that pays the taxes for our teachers and our fire officers, our firemen and police officers and our roads. this is what we need. -- >> [inaudible] >> moderator: you know, we can debate that one all night long, and if you think they're being right -- there's no right or wrong in that, it's a philosophy. i have one more question for you, mr. mccrory.
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given the recent controversy now swirling around the republican nominee for state auditor, does she still have your support? mccrory: i'm very concerned about some of the things i'm reading. i think it's been disadvantageous to have things released while people are voting. there are allegations. i'm most concerned about the family members of all those involved who had nothing to do whatever you're reading about. but if there continues to be things and police reports that show behavior that's not appropriate for an elected official, especially regarding if there are any false police reports, and we're hearing rumors, but it's very hard for me to base knowledge on unfounded allegations. i will compliment the current auditor at the same time. i think she's done a good job. she at least had the courage to stand up to the purdue administration on some broken government admissions that someone needed to stand up to and, frankly, she was the only member of the council of states
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who did stand up to both administrations. >> as of tonight it's sort of a wait and see? orr record i think it is. i think it's extremely unfair to make a final decision based upon allegations which i don't have much information on, and i don't know if you do either. but right now i care deeply for the families that are impacted. >> all right. i guess i'll, to you first, mr. dalton, although this is for both of you. conventional wisdom says immigration is a federal issue, but some states have taken steps of their own, like arizona. just last month a federal judge, excuse me, upheld part of arizona's statute, the so-called show me your papers law that allows police to ask people for documentation if they think they're in the country illegally. if state lawmakers approved a similar law here in north carolina, would you sign it? mr. dalton, we'll start with you. dalton: i would have to talk to the law enforcement officials for the state. if you're talking about our highway patrol doing that, we
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have seen them cut the highway patrol. i think they lost around 200 positions. anything you do on illegal immigration at the state level is an unfunded mandate. it is a federal issue. i do think the congress needs to take this issue and do something with it. but if we do anything, we're putting a greater burden on our law enforcement officials that are stressed enough dealing with our state law violations. so i would consider it, i would have to look at the specific law, the 487g or whatever we did with the sheriffs' departments. we're doing that, but i think that was federal money coming down. and that's up to the local governments. but we have cut law enforcement because of these deep budget cuts very deeply. the last two highway patrol schools have been canceled. we're training no troopers to come in. i think they lost around 200 positions. anything we do is an unfunded mandate, i would talk to the highway patrol, i would consider it. i'm not going to give you a
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definitive answer right now. >> mr. mccrory? mccrory: based upon the recent decisions of courts, and it's probably going to go all the way to the supreme court again regarding some of the details laws, i don't think it's needed at this point in time because let's wait until those are challenged. i do know this, that as a mayor and as a governor, i'm sworn not only to uphold the constitutions of north carolina, but i'm also sworn to uphold the constitution and laws of the united states of america. and as mayor, federal laws were enforced by our local police. and vice versa. if federal law enforcement officials saw something that was a local law being passed, they have the authority to pull the person over. so there's got to be cooperation whether it be a federal bank robber, local police help with that and vice versa. i do think that i'm a big, strong supporter of what's called the 287g program. in fact, i supported sheriff friender gas' efforts in our county to use the program because one of the problems
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we're having right now with illegal immigration twofold. one is we do not know the identity of many people in our state because they have four to five to six different forms of identification. and what the 287g program did was make sure if we arrested someone, your sheriff arrested someone, we could find out who they actually were due to federal crime records. the 287g program is very important. i'm very disappointed that our current president is discouraging the implementation and continuation of 287g. i think the president is wrong on that issue, and i hope that changes. >> moderator: we're going to get into what we're calling a lightning round but, hopefully, the questions will elicit shorter answers, not so complex. and we're all three going to run through this. ken, you take the first one. >> gentlemen, you're both public servants, you're proud to be public servants. we solicited a number of questions from our viewers, and one of the questions was what
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impresses you about your opponent? mr. dalton, what's the one thing that impresses you about mr. mccrory? dalton: i think anyone who has been in public service should be commended to that, and he's been dedicated to his public service. >> mr. mccrory? mccrory: i liked his idea regarding some of the college prep programs in the community colleges. i thought that was a very original idea, and if i become governor, i will proceed with that and try to expand it more rapidly. but, you know, i'm impressed he's a great family man, and i know the people of this town have a great deal of respect for him, and i respect him, him and his family, for having the courage to run for these elective offices because it's not easy on the family. >> all right. north carolina, gentlemen, is what's called a right-to-work state meaning workplaces cannot require union membership. activists have said this is one of the least-friendly states in the country when it comes to organized labor. should state lawmakers consider changes to our labor laws?
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mr. mccrory, i'll let you start. mccrory: no. no, in fact, recently my opponent spoke to the aclu, to the leaders of the aclu, one of the major labor unions of the united states of america here in north carolina, and i guess in a moment of maybe criticism he's called me the scott walker of north carolina. well, i embrace that for several reasons, because i think a right-to-work status for north carolina is extremely important for ongoing economic development. it's one of the reasons we're still somewhat ranked high as a business-friendly state. without that we'd sink even more. the second thing is collective bargaining. we cannot have collective bargaining. it would be our sheriffs, our police chiefs, our city managers, our mayors would have a terrible time, and the taxpayers' rate would also go up. >> gotta stop. dalton: very quickly, i have no agenda to change our laws on collective bargaining or right
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to work. scott walker said i will divide the teachers and state employees. they spent $30 something manager on a recall, and that state was torn apart. but i will have an advisory labor group because if you'll allow me just a little bit -- >> moderator: very short, we're almost out of time. let's stop it with you would have the group. dalton: sir? >> moderator: let's stop it with the fact that you would say you'd have that advisory group. dalton: i would have an advisory group, i'd love to tell you why. [laughter] >> question for both of you, and we'll start with mr. dalton. are there any republicans that you would bring into cabinet positions or high-ranking administration officials in a dalton administration? dalton: i would say so. i'm not going to give you names right now -- >> moderator: no names? dalton: i'm not going to give you any democratic names. you talk about creating a frenzy, that would be it. [laughter] >> moderator: okay, but your answer's yes. mr. mccrory, is there anyone in the perdue administration
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that you would consider keeping in a mccrory administration? mccrory: well, i've made a point not to promise anybody anything before the election, but i will seek the advice of the secretary of the dot who i think is a fine, fine man and knows a lot about transportation. i'm also going to seek the help of david hoyle who i know wants to -- believes strongly in tax reform. and the commerce secretary, if i do become elected, there's going to need to be a smooth transition with the current commerce secretary, so i'll be seeking their assistance and their help. you can't just cut things off, you've got to keep things running. >> moderator: time for one more question. >> quick question, so far the courts have not cooperated in banning gaming. as governor would you continue the push for an outright ban or regulate and tax it? mr. dalton, we'll start with you. dalton: i have opposed video gaming, it's on the way to the supreme court, but if they say that it's legal, we've tried two
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or three times, i would then look at taxing it. mccrory: i would concur with mr. dalton. >> moderator: okay, we have time, now we're going to our closing statements. again, it's a minute each. the coin toss said that mr. mccrory would have the last word tonight, so, mr. dalton, 60 seconds, why voters should elect you as the next governor. tal dahl thank you. and thank wral for hosting this debate, and i want to thank my wife lucille for her love and support. thank each and every one of you for watching tonight because this is an important election. do you want big corporations paying zero tax and increasing taxes on the middle class working families and our senior citizens? do you want to take money from the public schools and fund private schools and home schoolers? do you want to up the cost of health care for women? if you do, i'm not your candidate. but if you want to create jobs now and jobs for the future, if you want to protect and improve education and treat teachers with respect, then -- and if you
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also want to have women get equal pay for equal work, then i hope you will embrace my candidacy, and we'll work together to move north carolina forward. big corporations, special interests pay a lot of money for people to fight for them. i'll fight for you, and working together we'll build that bright future for north carolina. i'm walter dalton, i'm running for governor, and i ask if or your vote. >> moderator: mr. mccrory. mccrory: about a year ago when i turned a 55 years of age, i had to get my driver's license renewed at the dmv, and when i pulled up, there was a long line out the door. after waiting 35 minutes before i even got into the chairs that are lined up in the dmv, i was sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting, and i realized two things. one thing was this, is that nothing has changed since i got my first driver's license in 1973 in dmv. and the second thing i realized is, i gotta run for governor. we've got a broken government in north carolina. we've got a broken economy in
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north carolina. but north carolina is the best state in the united states of america. we have unlimited resources. we have to unleash those resources underneath the ground, we have to unleash our educational resources, we have to unleash the private sector, and that's why i'm running for governor. it's time for a carolina comeback, and that's why i'm running for governor, and i really appreciate the people for having us here tonight. >> moderator: i've just been told we have about a minute and a half left, so i have one more question. [laughter] but then we have to go. and it's a very serious question that an ethicist posed to me two days ago. how difficult is it to tell the truth with a capital t in the world of politics? mr. mccrory? mccrory: it's not hard for me at all. my dad, my dad passed away a week after i was elected mayor, and on election night he was very, very sick, and he hugged me in an embrace, and he said, do what's right. do what's right. and i think that's part of our
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culture that i value here in north carolina, and it's my track record of being a mayor, of being a city council member, of being a husband and family man, and i think telling the truth is very, very important. and in doing so, you've got to step on some toes, and believe me, identify stepped on a lot of toes. >> moderator: politics is tough, how tough is it? dalton: very tough. the north carolina supreme court questioned his veracity on an affidavit, i will tell you that. but i think it is absolutely critical to be truthful, and i have -- i've got to live within my own skin, is so i've always tried to be up front with the people. >> moderator: gentlemen, again, we thank you for being here. >> thank you all very much. >> ladies and gentlemen, we hope tonight's debate will help you make an informed decision about the next governor of our state. >> election day is on tuesday, november 6th, so early voting is already underway if tonight helped you make a decision. >> we do hope you'll take the
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time to vote if you haven't already. our thanks to north carolina wesley yang college for hosting this tonight along with the rocky mountain area chamber of commerce. for all of us here at this table, ken and lawr -- laura and all of you watching, thank you very much. thanks for joining us, and continue to send us your questions. we'll find a way to get them answered. >> and continuing our coverage of campaign 2012, we'll have another state race debate coming up at 9 eastern. the illinois 17th house district with republican congressman schilling and cheri bustos who served as an alderman on the east moline city council from 2007 until she resigned in the 2011. it'll be hosted by wtvp in partnership with the league of women voters and the institute for principled leadership. live coverage at 9 eastern tonight here on c-span2.
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and this afternoon the nonprofit group national council on u.s./arab relations will host its annual policymakers conference here in washington. we'll hear from current and former state department officials and a former cia analyst internalizing -- specializing in the middle east. that's live at 3 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. >> this weekend c than 2's booktv stops in the austin, texas, for live coverage of the 17th annual texas book festival saturday from 13 to 6 -- 11 to 6 eastern. hear from david westen, douglas brinkley on the late cbs news anchor walter caron cite, and michael gillette on texas natives lbj and ladybird johnson. and sunday noon to 6, h.w. brands, infiltrating mexico's drug cartels, and robert draper
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inside the house of representatives. the texas book festival, live this weekend on booktv on c-span2. you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs. weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events, and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our web site, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. a look, now, at the importance of the hispanic vote in the key swing states of florida, colorado and north dakota. this event was held in washington tuesday by the national association of latino elected and appointed officials also known as naleo. this is about 45 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning. we're going to get, we're going to get started with our briefing
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this morning. the presentation on election 201 by the naleo fund, the national association of latino elected and appointed officials. we're two organizations, one is a membership organization of ofe nation's latino public servants serving county commissions, state legislatures all the way up to members of congress and the united states senate. the naleo educational fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to promote the full participation of latinos in the american political process. that includes encouraging legal permanent residents to become u.s. citizens, encouraging all u.s. citizens 18 and older who are eligible to vote, we also provide training opportunities for latino elected and appointed officials, and we promote a policy framework to make sure that participation in our electoral democracy is accessible to latinos. today what we'd like to do is to
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share with you two new reports from the naleo educational fund with regard to this year's elections as well as go through, once again, talking about the impact latino voters will have on november 6th. i'd also like to acknowledge the ford motor company who is represented here by elizabeth brakeville for their support of today's event. after our presentation i'll be joined by two of the most prolific commentators on politics and latino politics who have joined us from their busy schedules to be here today, maria cardona and ana navarro, republican strategists, both very good friends of naleo, and i appreciate them taking time from their busy schedules to be here today. >> it's our pleasure. >> thank you. >> we love you. >> we love you too. [laughter] >> and we love teachers. [laughter] >> let's get started -- >> and big bird. >> and horses and -- [inaudible] >> just don't talk about last
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night -- the national league series playoff game. let's start, though, talking about the impact of the 2010 census. let's keep in mind this is first election since the 2010 enumeration where the census bureau counted 50.5 million latinos in the united states. now, the census bureau estimates that today we're up to 53 million. keep in mind that the census bureau, although it wasn't reported much by the media, the census bureau reported there was about a 1.5% undercount in the 2010 census of latinos, so even that 50.5 million figure that we're working with does not reflect the true presence of latinos in the united states. this census led to a continued reapportionment of congress and a shift of political power from the north ocean and midwest to the -- northeast and midwest to the south. and, in fact, every state that picked up congressional states did so on the strength of its increase of the latino
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population. let's also remember the big story of the 2010 census was the youthful honest -- youthfulness of the population. in states like texas and california, that proportion's even greater. in texas 48% of the entire population under 18 is latino, and in california 51% of the entire population under 18 is latino. which explains why our electorate is growing as young people turn 18 years of age and enter the electorate. oops. i'd like to talk a little bit now about the impact latinos will have on congressional races. first, there are two latinos running for the united states senate. in arizona former surgeon general richard carmona is facing congressman jeff flake in
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the general election to succeed retiring u.s. senator jon kyl. it's a very competitive race. the former surgeon general actually has, i think, pretty good opportunities to be successful on november 6th. it's a race that's being watched nationally and may increase the number of latinos in the united states senate. in texas former solicitor general ted cruz has excellent opportunities to be elected on november 6th, becoming the first hispanic to represent texas in the united states senate. i'll get this direction right eventually. there we go. in the united states house, there are currently 24 latinos serving in the u.s. house of representatives. two are not running for re-election, charlie gonzales, the current chairman of the hispanic caucus, is retiring from congress, and silvestre reyes who represents el paso lost his primary race. of the 22 hispanics who are running, either all of them are running for re-election and have
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excellent prospects or are being challenged by other candidates who also are hispanic. which leads us to our projections that at least five new face, latino faces, will join the u.s. congress on november 6th. leading to at minimum an increase of, net increase of three latinos in congress for a total number of 27 latinos in the united states house. now, those who are most likely to be elected in november include tony cardonas, a city councilman in los angeles, he's running in the san fernando valley, and juan -- [inaudible] both of these districts created by an independent district, and both of them won their primaries under the new primary system, so both have excellent opportunities of being elected
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come november 6th. in new mexico, michelle lujan grisham is the favorite candidate, she would be the first hispanic woman to be elect from the new mexico to represent that state. and we also expect two new faces from texas. in cd 20, wo wean castro -- joaquin castro will most likely win the seat, and vega has excellent opportunities of winning cd 34. keep in mind that texas was a big winner in reapportionment where it picked up four new congressional seats. however, it appears that only one will be held by a latino member of congress. there also are opportunities for latino candidates in competitive districts that are non-latino majority districts. three of these are also in california. former lieutenant governor mold mad doe, a republican, is facing
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the incumbent, lois capps. this, again, is a completely redrawn district from what lois capps has currently held, and it is a very competitive district, and it's one where the former lieutenant governor has a strong opportunity to defeat lois capps, and that's a district that's being closely watched for november 6th. in cd d 10 in the san joaquin valley, it leans republican, yet jose hernandez is a viable candidate. he has flown the space shut and is the son of farm workers and is now running for congress. in cd 36 which is the southernmost congressional district that includes riverside county currently held by mary bono mack, dr. raul ruiz is challenging her in a district that was redrawn becoming less republican, more competitive. in nevada the speaker of the
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assembly, oceguera, is running against an incumbent in the new non-latino majority district 3. today we also are releasing a new report about opportunities for latinos in the state legislatures. let's remember this is not just a federal election, it's not just an election about the presidency or the congress and the senate, it's also about elections and state legislatures across the country. today there are ha tee knows and latinos running in 39 of the 50 states running for senate seats and house seats. there are at least nine states where latinos and latinas are running for senate seats. currently, 67 serve in the upper houses of the state legislatures. our projections are we will gain at least ten new state senators after these elections leading to a net gain of ten for a new total of 77 latino state
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senators in nine states. in the lower houses, there are latinos running in 21 states where there will be a net change in the number of hispanics serving in state assemblies and statehouses ranging from arkansas to maine to florida. virtually throughout the whole united statesment -- united states. this chart shows the states that will have changes in their delegations. the bottom line is that there are currently 190 latinos and latinas serving in the statehouses and state assemblies. we project there'll be a net gain of 27 new latinos in those houses for a new total of 217 latino state legislators in the state's lower houses. ..
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and what the competitive race between senator obama and senator quentin, sending that down to the very last primary much of it on hillary clinton's strength of her latino support. so, they have an impact both in the primary and also in november. we expect to see them in 2010 latinos continue to get a significant impact on the american political landscape. in 2010 the latino republican candidates did exceedingly well
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increasing their numbers in the united states house from three to seven and also having latinos electives republican latinos in the united states senate and marco rubio from florida and the two republican governors of nevada and martinez in mexico becoming the first woman, the first latino to hold the governorship in the united states. latino voters also had a significant impact on the decisive u.s. senate races in colorado and nevada to giving the incumbent harry reid of the edge over sharon engel. the polls have suggested the race was tied for harry reid actually being behind sharon on election day carey won by five points. much of that because his support from the latino voters was over 90%. in 2012, we project that there will be 12.2 million latinos the will vote on november 6th. many of them are already voting.
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i've already filled out my ballett and i've mailed it and so i'm one of those early voters in the country that are taking advantage of the opportunity to do so. latinos will account nearly 9% of all voters in the united states and just as in 2000, 2004 where latinos gave george w. bush the engine for the and the opportunity to win the presidency and barack obama the edge in 2008 by carrying the same state of florida and other states we believe again they will be decisive in 2012. in congressional projections 12.2 million latinos voting in the united states, and these are the states with the largest share of latino voters. the largest share being in california, florida, and texas. as an indication of how
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intractable the vote can be, consider these five states where the margin of victory was smaller than the number of latinos who registered vote in the states. arizona was the state carried by john mccain with his margin by 8.5%. today we have nearly 70% of all of the registered voters in arizona being latino. in colorado, florida, new mexico and nevada, again the margin of victory is smaller than what president obama had in 08 than the number of latinos that registered to vote in each of those states. these are swing states today, and an indication of the impact of the latino vote would have november 6 and certainly something that we are going to chat about in a few minutes with our analysts. this chart shows again the turnout of latinos in presidential elections from 1988 b.c. steady and consistent increase in the number of latinos in every single persons election cycle and it attracts
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very closely to the number that are registered to vote. the fact is if we are able to register latinos, the chances are very, very good that they will vote. over 70% turnout of latino registered voters. but we also know that we have much potential among our electorate and the number that are eligible to vote continue to grow faster than the number that do both. much of that driven by the youthfulness of the latino population where every 30 seconds a latino turns 18 years of age on average 50,000 latinos entering the electorate every voting age. one of the things that has been of great concern to us, however, has been a move that many of the states to introduce new requirements to voting including proof of citizenship to register to vote, voter i.d. to vote at polling place in many states these have been efforts to make voting more difficult better
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than more accessible. how all of the states that have implemented these types of laws be in effect today more than a million latinos would have been directly affected by these proposals. our analysis in the report that we are releasing today shows in the states where these are in effect today because they have either been cleared by the department of justice or have been upheld by the courts where they have been challenged approximately to enter the 19,000 latino voters would be directly affected is november. 835,000 latinos could have been affected had they been prepared by the department of justice or not upheld by the federal courts. many are still in debate and some of them are being appealed
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and the states such as texas to read some of them will continue to be scrutinized and some of them may yet come into effect. so, these 800,000 latinos who are not directly affected in november may yet be subjected to the impact moving forward. the chart here shows which state has ball in effect in 2012 and the types of measures in each of these states and also the states where these measures may yet go into effect after november 2012. the education is doing all we can to meet the projections of 12.2 million latino voters. we continue to ensure first that everybody has a free and unfettered access to the franchise. we are a member of the election protection coalition. we are staffing the nation's only live full-time bilingual hot line.
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888-839-8632 anyone can receive in spanish or english about the voting requirements and the particular state. if they are registered to vote on election day they can find out where the polling location is and if anybody encounter any problems in voting if anybody is turned away from the ballot box, if anybody is pulled to vote when the voter believes he or she is in fact registered to vote they can call this number, 888-839-8682. we will we working with organizations of attorneys to make sure that we are able to respond immediately to any situations where people may be turned away on a fairly. we want to make sure everybody has a right to be heard on november 6th. we are also working in the campaign. they just finished their work
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and it's time and registered to vote as yesterday was virtually the last deadline. it's time to go and vote in the coalition working very closely with spanish-language media companies as well as a member of national latino organizations including the national council of la raza and of course the educational fund to make sure people have the information about voting and are motivated to vote. the educational fund is also part of another broad coalition called the national latinos of the engagement table where we are coordinating efforts across the country and in many states to make sure again we need and surpass the goal of 2.2 million latino voters. these organizations include the center for community change, hispanic federation, the labor council for latin american advancement, lulac, the national council of la raza and voto
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latino. this is the first time that these number of national organizations are actually working together in a coordinated fashion to engage in a non-partisan latino community which is why we believe that our projections of the 12.2 million voters could easily be surpassed on election day. any information you may have about the reports were being released, feel free to contact either my colleague for myself. other materials are available on line in putting this power point presentation. but i would like to do now is turn to my colleagues for a discussion about all of this means and where are we today now two weeks out from november 6. so, let me start with for both of you with the latino vote. we talked about it being a decisive and in tactful. we are now two weeks out. both campaigns have been engaging efforts to reach
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latinas particularly and targeted states but talk about florida it has been pivotal in the past cycles with the hispanic vote has made the difference. in your home state our things looking with regard to statewide and hispanic vote? >> we are looking at it a little differently than they were four years ago. before we start talking about for the coming you said we had to hispanics running for u.s. senate. and we can't forget bob menendez. that makes it three he's also in the race when eop wins in new jersey. florida has become more diverse within the hispanic community. we have seen an increasing number of colombians become citizens, become very active politically. originally from columbia. we've seen venezuela also become very active.
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puerto ricans in that crucial swing, and we've got americans that still the biggest kid on the block but they're not the only kid on the block some candidates today would not only have to come during the cuban crisis with a lot more like her targeting with other hispanic groups is why you see a lot of conversation going on about pre-trade and latin america and issues that i appointed like education and health care it's why you're seeing the government and for rico spending a lot time. white you are seeing them in alaska some of the puerto rican congress people come down. so we are seeing a lot of activity. i think president obama -- what we see today, and let's remember these polls are a snapshot of today, and we have seen that they can change from one minute
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to the next both today i would say that president obama is just off with just enough groups including hispanics where the lead that he had and enjoyed with john mccain four years ago has probably been great and the trend continues i would say president obama probably stands to lose florida, but you never count for velte because we serve a right to change our minds. >> do you agree? >> i certainly agree with the majority of what she said of the vote and how florida is different today than even it was four years ago. we have seen this coming. four years ago, each years ago, the cubans were certainly the biggest focus on the block and they still are. there is no question about the demographic of it is actually changing. and even within the cuban american population, the demographic is changing. a lot of the cubans are a lot
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younger. and so, a lot less into the issue in terms of being there only issue. so - coupled with the demographic changes that anna talked about with the puerto ricans and even the mexicans there is a lot of mexicans and florida -- mckeldin uzi the hispanic vote now and november? >> the race today absolutely incredibly tight. i think that in florida specifically one continues to focus on his message to those hispanic communities i think that he can take florida, but it is razor-thin and especially after the first the date we saw how that the dynamic has changed, absolutely razor-thin and the vote will be the deciding factor. islamic let's talk about the other factor where they can make the defense is different. mexico, colorado, nevada.
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you have all been around the country. how do these play out in your view the hispanic vote there and governor romney now. >> when you say the states we have the biggest population you talk about florida, texas, california i keep thinking if we want immigration down we have to fight the bullet and move to ohio. winter coats and just make the sacrifice for the cause. the west states, the southwest states you mentioned were so very important, such a crucial part of the candidate obama formula for winning they are all a lot tighter this year than they were four years ago as well and i think it is no coincidence that so many of the states including florida and nevada and the southwest states have been so hard hit economically, some of the states hit the hardest by
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the crisis by the construction must so the economic situation of the hispanics that have been disproportionately affected by the economic downturn in think that is having an effect on the sand i will also tell you the issue that is playing out here is mitt romney has a lot more money than john mccain did. barack obama was able to outspend john mccain 321, 4-1 even more in some of the states. right now they are pretty even had they are being -- that is making them have to work harder and smarter. both of these candidates -- it means we have a lot more boots on the ground, a lot more resources, a lot more money for the targeted hispanic ads and i am seeing a lot more activity. unfortunately it took mitt romney a long while to start this activity because he couldn't access the general fund
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money so after the election once he was able to i have seen it go running and it's been a much more interesting race the fact that the evenly matched on the rate. >> the president has been running since 08. so what about his infrastructure? walls connect that's exactly right. his infrastructure is still eons better than mitt romney. clearly mitt romney is eons better than what john mccain had on the ground. but the obama for america juggernaut is what is in place right now and i think it is what is going to be a lot as we get up to the president coming and i say squeak because it will be a squeaker but let's not forget that in all of these states in a lot of them are talking about this about how obama has built what they are calling the southwestern firewall and at southwestern firewall is because of the what t-note.
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there's no bones about that. the kind of support president obama and joyce has enabled them to build that firewall. and i think that that has given them is a lot more options to get to 270 the and what mitt romney has right now. regardless of the momentum and regardless of all that. president obama today enjoys a lead in the battleground state and that is because of the latino vote. there was a decision that cannot just a couple of days ago basically saying that president obama has expanded his support within the hispanic community. >> thinking about that poll yesterday the latino voters enthusiasm is up and one of the things we have heard much throughout this cycle is that the enthusiasm was down. latinos were disappointed but it's actually kicked up. >> there's a lot more
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competition in the last six weeks. >> last night's the date on foreign policy. one of the issues that did not get asked that all was u.s. foreign policy, the largest trading partner, we share the largest order. obviously it's important to so many americans here of mexican descent. >> it didn't surprise me. i was disappointed that mexico or latin america and i have to give kudos to mitt romney because he did bring it up proactively and in a way that is actually positive in terms of calling latin america such an important geographic place in the world for us and he's absolutely right. but i also think we have to be realistic. i look at it from the standpoint latin america didn't come up is very good because it means no
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one is about to start a nuclear war and latin america. it means there is no genocide happening in latin america. as bad people may disagree on that. >> but in terms of what you've looked at in a geopolitical global focal point. and i would have loved to have learned a very robust conversation. the president could have talked about the trade agreement in panama and colombia and he could have talked about and what have talked about if they are up 60% by 2009. but i was disappointed but not surprised. >> i disagree on that. i think there is a genocide going on in mexico. when they see a member of the drug violence going on across the border when you see with the states are doing in mexico, went you see the hundreds of thousands of journalists and
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activists under being killed, to me that qualifies as a genocide. i also think that the nuclear -- we are not developing a nuclear arms i hope. ahmadinejad has alliances and he's spending a lot of time in places like havana and that is some of that lives 90 miles away from cuba is of tremendous concern. so, i think there is plenty of reason to be concerned about what is happening in latin america. i am disappointed that it didn't come up in a way though. they didn't pander i've gotten a little tired of hearing every four years campaigns tell me how much attention they are printed page to latin america and our neighbors to the south and the closest neighbors and when they are elected they neglect the region so now the expectations,
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the reality is not going to match the expectations created during the campaign. i agree with maria that mitt romney has made it one of his talking points, one of his prized plants is trade and a lot of that has to do with trade in latin america. but i'm disappointed and i demand a pay attention to latin america. stomach one of the reports released today has to do with latinas running for state legislature and let's not forget that the elections will be important november 6th. we've had the opportunity for the treasurer at an airport of all places. a couple days ago she was commenting that the republican party had been successful in recruiting 125 republican candidates in the state house. what is the democratic party doing to support candidates?
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>> i think they're doing it much better this year than before. this has always been something that i shut about the party needs to do a much better job of supporting latino candidates. i think from the standpoint that you went through the whole list of the latinos that were running for congress, and that is actually an impressive number. but i always believed that both parties, and i've said this from the moment i started working in politics we need to do a better job of recruiting and supporting candidates to run and all of these races. and i think it is also incumbent upon us in the latino community to get out there and support people but also ourselves basically jump in the rain, put our name in there, make sure that we sort of look at where the opportunities are and there are a lot of opportunities to read a lot of groups to rely on the board as you know that
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raises money for latinas to run for office. i would love to see more latinas run for office and for both parties it is a big necessity. >> they've done very well with high-profile offices. governor shift an increasing number of hispanic gop's in congress. what is the strategy there that's working? >> i think the strategy that's working and you are referring to the amazing number when you take a look at the amount of the percentage of latinos the democrats and yet the fact that the overwhelming percentage of better democrat and yet we have five elected republicans statewide as opposed to the democrats that have one, bob menendez and we have senator marco rubio and nevada, you've
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got lease importer rico and short of a nuclear meltdown we will have the crews in texas to i think the success has been that they are not mitch candidates. in other words, marco rubio was a mainstream republican candidate that had appealed to the republican base, to the conservatives, and yes to the cuban americans and to the hispanics. but he is not a niche candidate and he isn't burdened by being put into a drawer where he is a latino candidate. i think that you can see the same thing for martinez who was also a star in the republican party and brian and some of the congressional folks that were elected like role. who would have ever thought there could have been a mormon puerto rican elected out of idaho in all places and it isn't because he ran -- that isn't a hispanic district.
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he isn't a hispanic or latino candidate, he is a mainstream republican candidate and we've given them the freedom to be able to do that and we have been able to develop stars that can use that as a platform. i think that is very encouraging to i don't agree with that policy but i see it as something that is healthy and wholesome. >> could i just added the flip side of that i think it's great. i do think it's great that we have more latinos running, but ironically these are not latino candidates who got the majority of the support. >> sometimes they are not even in the latino district. >> but let's talk about new mexico, nevada. those are huge latino populations, and the governors didn't get a majority. >> what's open up to the audience here. your vote with us in june in the
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conference when both president alana and president romney appeared in the officials and there were only two conferences this summer at which both candidates appeared. now, how have the campaigns evolved since we have had some conversation in june sure we are two weeks from the election, the campaigns ebal with respect? >> i think president obama's campaign has some historical well with latinos and the way that his campaign has revolved is the way that i would hope it would have and that is why you are seeing him expanding his support among latinos to be more than 70% which is incredibly historic. i was in my car the other day and i heard the ad where he is speaking in spanish for 30 seconds. >> you tweeted about that, ana. >> i thought it was brilliant
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putative he speaks very well. my daughter was like mamma, she was excited and wanted to hear it over and over. i had to pull it up on line and have her listen to it. she was enjoying it. so i think that that really speaks to the kind of commitment and the kind of investments that they have made. there's never been any presidential campaign that has invested as much money and resources into getting out of the latino vote. why? because again he knows the impact of this dialogue he knows it is this fire wall and the latino vote that is going to make sure that he squeaks it out on november 6th. >> ana, you referred to this earlier how the romney campaign has evolved. you must have seemed night and day june 2 today. what are his chances of capturing about 37% the campaign said they need? >> i don't think he's been to
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get that high a vote unless something dramatic happens in the next two weeks. and i am not sure that he is going to need that voted just because we are now so focused on the electoral map. i think mitt romney looking more likely can win with much less than the 38% that they have aimed for. i want to say to maria's point, that in his campaign now he's been very good at microtargeting with latinos. but i do hate to burst your daughter's bubbles but he doesn't speak spanish beautifully. >> that's okay. >> i think the message is we know he doesn't speak spanish or most of us know he doesn't speak spanish, of the effort counts
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for something and i think in our community you get points for ever so my advice to anybody wanting to run for office nationally or on some of these states where the vote matters is get yourself a rosetta stone now, start practicing, start doing your annunciations. we give you points for effort, and i think it was a smart effort by president obama. ..
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i got rich and hispanic efforts have to be long-term, continuous and strenuous. let me add one more thing. i agree with ana. the reason president obama is ahead is not because he spoke 30 seconds of spanish but his policies are the ones latino's support much more so than mitt romney and that has not changed from june until now. that is why mitt romney is struggling to get above 25%. thinking about this this morning, if mitt romney wins with less than 25% of the hispanic vote, what does that mean for us? i don't think it will be less than 25. >> the question, even if he wins
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with less than what john mccain has, and -- >> i don't think that will happen. latinos don't support all of obama's policies or his deportation policy. most of us don't support his economic policies that led to a sustained unemployment rate. when it comes this thing like a dream act that has been incredibly -- was a sore spot. most of us see through it and realize it is a political measure and political -- taken before the election but somebody like me before the dream act. >> before -- [talking over each other] >> you have a lot to do with it. you should take some credit.
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some of us like me say it might have been good paula ticks, bad reasons, good politics but a good measure. >> they were going to go -- >> i think latinos understand and there has been disappointment and deportation and not getting comprehensive immigration reform but also understand a few short years ago you had 23 republicans in the senate supporting comprehensive immigration reform. a lot of them, not one today will support comprehensive immigration reform because president obama is the president and -- [talking over each other] >> it would be night is nice if he drafted a >> [talking over each other] >> introduce it. [talking over each other] >> we will control the senate and house. >> coming up shortly on c-span2
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we go live to the reagan building for a forum on u.s./arab relations. we will hear from current libyan ambassador to the u.s. and former u.s. ambassador to syria on state department officials and analysts specialize in the middle east starting live at 3:00 eastern, an hour from now and we will have on c-span2. >> would you support military action in iran? >> if need be, yes, as a last option. >> under what conditions? >> if sanctions don't work. if they are close to and about to have the ability to develop a nuclear weapon we use every option possible as will israel and that would be the last option we use but you have to have it ready to use. >> we stand with israel and iran, the military option should be on the table.
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>> under what conditions? >> we had better exhaust everything else. at the end of the day, if that is what is needed, i am -- i don't know what they need. maybe i can watch but i will be the first -- we have an honest discussion about what is needed. >> with two weeks until election day follow the key house, senate and governor's race on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org/campaign2012. we will have more campaign 2012 coverage coming up later today. bobby shilling the base democratic challenger cheri bestoff hosted by the league of women voters and institute for principled leadership. up next the debate between freshman congresswoman ann marie buerkle, former congressman dan maffei and green party
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challenger ursula rozum. a debate on wcny. miss buerkle search the twenty-fifth house district but due to redistricting she is running for the 24. this is a rematch of the 2010 election it which congresswoman buerkle unseated dan maffei. >> from the studios of wcny this is an election 2012 debate. tonight the candidate for new york's 24 congressional districts. here are susan allbender and math mulcahy. >> good morning. we welcome you to this election 2012 debate. >> this is produced by wcny public television. imac mulcahy, managing enter and editor of wcny. >> i am public affairs director for wcny and host of the capitol press room. this evening we will hear the candidates for the 20 fourth congressional district seat debate the issues together for the first time. >> we welcome the candidates to
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our debate tonight. democratic candidate dan maffei, green party candidate ursula rozum and republican candidate and incumbent rep ann marie buerkle. welcome to everyone. >> here are the rules. questions will be asked by matt and me. each candidate will have 60 seconds to provide an answer. after the third candidate to respond finishes each candidate will have the opportunity to provide a 30 seconds rebuttal. >> we may ask follow-up questions. candidates will deliver opening and closing statements and that order was determined by a drop of straw's earlier. we begin with opening remarks from dan maffei. >> thank you for cosponsoring this debate. i am dan maffei and i was born and raised in syracuse, went to public school, graduated from ibm michael landon college work at my family's business, an
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electro plating factory on burnett avenue. i have seen the middle class struggle first hand. i think in central new york we have what it takes. we have what it takes to make it but need a fair shot. that means we have to balance the budget the right way, the way president clinton did when he was in office and cut tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas. we need to take oil companies subsidies and get rid of them. oil companies and making enough money. when our troops and treasurer is over in afghanistan nation-building we need to bring our troops home and instead of building a bridges and schools in afghanistan build bridges and schools here. finally we need to make sure social security and medicare are saves not just for this generation but for future generations. we can make our economy grow. we can make smart investments in education and research and transportation infrastructure that will help central new york create jobs. we can do it, we have what it
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takes in central new york. we just have to go do it. >> moderator: ann marie buerkle. buerkle: thank you for the opportunity for hosting this important discussion. two years ago or three years ago when i decided to run for congress it was because i believe that state new york lost its voice in washington and our campaign slogan was be heard. over the course of the last 22 months we health 16 mobile town whole units and talk to hundreds of people in the district of, business owners, hospitals, physicians, seniors, women's groups. you know what they did? take confirmed my instincts were correct. policies he voted for hurt real people in upstate new york. they heard our economy. in st. joe's they pay a $3 million penalty because of a provision within the affordable care act will not for a 2.3% tax
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on excise medical devices, or a company like tracy's because of the affordable care act as a bakery.8% on its passive income, icy upstate new york can afford the -- cannot afford to go back to dan maffei's policies. we need policies that bring us forward and create jobs and bring the economy in upstate new york. i am glad to be here and look forward to your questions and robust debates i am sure we will have. >> moderator: ursula rozum. rozum: i am ursula rozum, green party candidate for congress and my family came to syracuse in the 1980s. they fought the nazis in 1940s and the communists after world war ii and came to the united states be leading this is the country if you work hard you can have a good life for your family. that american dream is out of reach for most people. skyrocketing unemployment, strangling debt for too many people. that is why i support positive
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progressive solutions in this crisis. i support a public jobs program like we did in the wpa to get people back to work as soon as possible. i support medicare for all, health care is the human rights and not a commodity. i am running because my opponent suckers failed policies of major corporate funded parties. we get to washington and they're busy dialing for dollars rather consulting problems. i am here to offer progressive solutions because real solutions can't wait. >> moderator: thank you, ursula rozum, thank you to all our candidate. it is are to be a candidate and hard to serve the people. first question is about the fiscal cliff. the fiscal cliff awaits this nation as the tax cuts and sequestration cuts will expire in august of 2011. in december. both presidential candidates recommend we cut the deficit yet
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a partisan impasse remains. knowing 75% of voters told an nbc wall street journal poll this week that they want congress to compromise and end that impasse, what are you willing to offer on taxes and spending cuts to forge a deficit reduction compromise? or do you think compromise will undermine your commitment to voters? we go to ann marie buerkle first. buerkle: you are absolutely right. the end of this year will signal the largest tax increase and will affect 90% of the american people. we have to do something that will avoid that fiscal cliff. i have voted for the simpson-bowles budget. there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of room to make compromise and reach across the aisle. i was one of 38 members of the house who voted for simpson-bowles. with a bipartisan effort, the president's own commission put forth this plan. we are really i believe what
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we're doing to our kids and the future of this country is immoral. we have to stop spending and we cannot address this debt and deficit issue by increasing taxes. we have to put a pro-growth economic agenda in place. we can't cut our way out of this debt or tax our way out of this debt. we need to send a message to our businesses and job creators that you are the solution to this problem, not a problem. >> moderator: ursula rozum. rozum: the fiscal cliff presents us with a choice. we can either balance the budget by cutting the kinds of spending that provide programs that working people rely on will weaken going a new direction. i would support progressive tax reform to balance the budget and address the deficit and when ann marie buerkle says we can't cut and spend our way out of this crisis, she has come out in favor of cutting things like food stamps for example. i am not sure what she means when she says we can't cut our
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way out of it. i support progressive taxes. the eisenhower era of the rich paid their taxes and today we have seen in the past 40 years working people's income stagnate. i favor graduated income marginal tax rate on the top 10% of taxpayers and support progress of corporate tax rates and i support cutting the military budget by 50% and ending corporate tax loopholes and give aways for the fossil fuel industry and cutting the drug war. >> moderator: dan maffei. maffei: we need to balance the budget the right way, not on the backs of seniors as ann marie buerkle would when she raised the retirement age of social security. not on the backs of the middle class. the funny thing about the budgets that are going on in washington is they are one side or the other, they try to tax our way out or cut our way out. the question was about compromise. that is one of the central
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things lacking in our presentation today. ann marie buerkle and the tea party faction have kept the congress from finding agreement on everything. shea talked-about reducing the debt but it hasn't been reduced one penny since she is been in office because her and her faction won't work with president obama. if the compromises they say no, they move their position. we need to work together across the aisle. democrats, republicans and independentss. together we can find a solution. >> moderator: thank you, dan maffei. follow-up question for each of the beginning with ann marie buerkle. according to the state budget crisis taskforce which was a bipartisan task force led by former lt. governor richard ravitch and paul volcker, federal deficit reduction is threatening state economies and budgets because states depend on federal grants for 32% of their revenue. knowing that the cuts flow downhill from the federal government to the state government to the local government and knowing that the
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city of syracuse and many other municipalities in new york may soon face financial insolvency, what would it take for you to consider either voting to raise taxes or voting to raise the debt ceiling if it would help the city. buerkle: the burden our cities face is because of the federal government, because of federal mandates the government places on them whether it is with education or medicaid. that is a shared responsibility and the more patients are receiving medicare, medicaid, the higher the responsibility for the municipalities and that adds to their debt. about the problems are cities face are because of the burdens the federal government placed on them. i want to go back to this budget issue. the willingness to compromise. simpson-bowles was a good compromise, a place to start the discussion how to get the country best -- back and a fiscally sound point. that was bipartisan. the president's commission. he wants to call me a tea party
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republican when there was one of 30 in the house of representatives who voted for simpson-bowles who was willing to stand up to my leadership and say there's a better way. let's do this bipartisan approach. let's do it for the people of this country. >> moderator: ursula rozum, follow what for you. if there's a 10% across-the-board cuts in all federal grants, new york could lose $6 billion. according to the ravitch and volcker reports state interests should be on the table when federal reductions are being debated yet there is no standing arrangement in the federal government for analyzing the overall impact federal actions on state. if you win this election do you promise to support a mechanism for consulting with states about any upcoming federal changes and their impact on state and local government? rozum: consulting with people is
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key to legislation. no one wants bureaucrats in washington making decisions that are going to be affecting them. that is why i support progressive taxation and what we had in the eisenhower times when we had a balanced budget and were not talking about these deficits. dan maffei talk about compromise. compromise is important but it is also important to take a position and not compromise before the fight has started and he said that he would allow the george bush tax cuts to expire for those making over $1 million which is more extreme that what president obama and has proposed which is fighting the fire for 250,000 and we can't balance the budget that way. that only raises 5% of what we need to cover the deficit. >> moderator: continuing with follow-up, carries are crying out for relief from the burden of medicaid costs, the new health-care law you support will increase the cost of medicaid
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even further. how do you justify that on top of the fiscal crisis that municipalities are facing, due in part to unfunded mandates like pension and health-care costs? maffei: we need to combat unfunded mandates but the other thing we must do is work closely with our counties. when i was in office i worked closely with county executive jody melanie making sure we had excellent first responders on environmental issues. it is important that we do work together and compromise. i have been criticized for my position saying people who make over $1 million should go back to the clinton era of rates. they were doing just fine then. one of my opponents call that an extreme position. ann marie buerkle would accept that position. if you don't do that, if you're not willing to compromise where are you? at what point do we stop holding tax cuts for small businesses and individual families hostage to tax cuts for millionaires and
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billionaires? arturo to the bigger issue has been jobs, all the polls show it. you talk about it a lot. we want to start with ursula rozum. what will your legislative priorities be to increase jobs? what evidence you have that those ideas will produce jobs? for you specifically do you have an idea outside the public sector creating these jobs? how we do it for the private sector? rozum: an important question. my platform is modeled on the green new deal which is a program to put people back to work in public jobs transitioning to renewable energy economy and meeting community needs. during the campaign i have been focusing on public jobs and i would support legislation that is already in the house presented by john conyers, twenty-first century flimflam and dance training act that would put people back working public jobs along the lines of the w. epa. benefits of the public jobs program would be it puts money
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in the hands of working people that they can then go out and spend in their communities which is a stimulative to the private economy so i support those with direct government employment and that would have an effect on the private economy because if people don't have money they can spend it on private business so private businesses and have an incentive to produce and hire. >> moderator: dan maffei, what the you have for your prior term in the house that these programs could work? maffei: we need to balance the budget. no question. you cannot spend your way out of this or cut your way out of this but you need to balance the budget the right way and that means making sure you make the investments to create jobs. two areas, one, infrastructure, transportation. here is central new york. it is difficult to fly anywhere because you have to transfer various cities and be at the airport extremely early in morning. even to fly to another city on
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the east coast. we need another discount airline, we can't get it. in the long run we need high speed rail. this needs to put us back on the map as 2 and the years ago our fathers put us on the map with the erie canal. what will increase business is research and education. we need to make sure we have a workforce that can do the job. this is why i think education needs to be a national priority and why it is important that we make sure we have sufficient research funding. even mitt romney says he would vault by research funding by 5fold. >> moderator: ann marie buerkle, your priority to create jobs. buerkle: i would not vote for stimulus like dan maffei did that spent $800 billion of taxpayer money and keep unemployment remaining high throughout the last 40 months. in the calvin coolidge administration, jfk, reagan and bush knew they couldn't raise taxes, tax breaks help the economy and the economy as fragile as ours that is very
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important to do that. dan maffei wrote in 2010 to extend all those tax rates. what we have then is repealed the affordable care act because we know here in this district the affordable care act is going to -- small medical device producers, equipment to passive income, state medical centers lose $18 million a year in medicare in proportion, it is going to hurt the economy so i voted to repeal the affordable care act. beyond that we voted for bipartisan support, three free trade agreements will aid new york and increase number of exports from the district. >> moderator: we have time for rebuttal from dan maffei. what your thoughts on the stimulus act? they regret your vote on that? maffei: recovery act was essentially a time. lot of tax cuts for small businesses and individual families were essentials to those families. secondly, kept police on the street and kept teachers from being laid off and classrooms
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from going up in size and had firefighters. we had to do something. the thing i am confused about is that is bad but i did the right thing on the taxes apparently but now some of the economy is starting to emerge and it is fine for millionaires and billionaires doing the wrong thing by asking them to pay their fair share and yet we need to balance the budget but where's the money going to come from? where does it add up? >> moderator: your reaction to the congressman's remark about repealing the affordable care act? rozum: it would be immoral to repeal the affordable care act at this point. there are too many good parts and we need to move forward. repealing it right now wouldn't get us where we need to go which is medicare for ultrasound which would make it easier for employers to hire workers and provide health care for them because they would be paying a simple medicare payroll tax for example and the provision of the affordable care act to tax the
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medical excise devices hasn't proven to be true because there should be increased demand and to the affordable care for a medical devices. i am not compelled by representative buerkle's argument. arturo to your chance to rebut? buerkle: to lay off 10% of the work force is indicative of the affordable care act, howard will affect jobs and the economy. our largest employers in our district, we call it hospital -- the affordable care act is going to dramatically impact medicare reimbursement along with sequestration. you can have the most comprehensive health care plan in the world but if you don't have hospitals or physicians who can treat the patients than our health care system will fail miserably. we need to repeal the affordable care act for jobs and the economy. >> moderator: going back to ursula rozum did the administration try something similar to jobs for all programs
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with the stimulus package? you see some comparisons and how do you compare the two? rozum: the stimulus was not meant to be a permanent public jobs program and the cost of those jobs were sky high, almost $800 billion and a number of jobs created or saved only three million, the number we are talking about are similar, eight hundred million, eight hundred billion to create over ten million jobs. direct public employment is a little different than giving tax breaks to the company's who create jobs. the job creators are not getting it done. they're not creating jobs. >> moderator: a followup,. do you think under a second obama administration should you return to washington, can you create a more favorable tax environment for businesses or hospitals to grow so there could be more jobs? maffei: no question tax reform would be important and we need to lower rates but get rid of a
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lot of the loopholes particularly corporate loopholes that ship jobs overseas. these do exist. ann marie buerkle has voted to continue them and to continue the big tax breaks for oil companies. we can have more equity in our tax code for small-business and individuals. that is important. i do think there are changes that need to be made in the affordable care act. i am opposed to the device tax. i worked to not have it in the first place. we need to make those changes but we won't make any changes if we are not willing to compromise. >> moderator: would repealing the affordable care act affect jobs in anyway, ann marie buerkle? buerkle: absolutely. this country needs health care reform. everyone knows that. >> moderator: that you are going to repeal it. buerkle: and put in place something that will be bipartisan. the affordable care act is something democrats sat down and shoved down the of road of the american people. dan maffei never talked to the district and understood howard would affect the hospital for
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physicians. this affordable care act cuts medicare for our seniors by $700 billion. that means cuts of $1 billion for seniors. this lot was not well thought out. it was not bipartisan. it was a very partisan approach to health care. >> moderator: you have another plan? ursula rozum buerkle: yes we do. >> moderator: we can get to that with our follow-up question. this is about medicare. as the population ages the current cost projections for medicare are financially and sustainable for the nation. which of the several plans out there to put medicare on stronger financial footing do you support and why? we begin with dan maffei. maffei: extremely important that we save medicare as a guaranteed benefit. the way it is now not just for today's generation but future generations. ann marie buerkle says if you are over 55 don't worry. there are real reasons you should worry but she says don't worry. you are under 55 you better watch out because she wants to
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change it. the ryan budget she voted for makes it into a voucher program. that is one way to handle it but there are other ways. medicare need some adjustments. fundamentally it is a program that works. what doesn't work is a very high cost of health care. there's a lot more we need to do to lower health-care costs. obamacare started the process. it did start lowering health-care costs. we need to do a lot more. one thing we're pioneering in central new york is electronic medical records. that is one way to avoid repetition of different tests and things like that. we can work with medical schools and physicians to make sure there are more primary care physicians. that will lower medical costs. we need to work together. there's a proposal by family physicians to make a medical home. these are all ideas that will help. >> moderator: thank you, dan maffei. now go to ann marie buerkle. buerkle: of all the distortions and disingenuous advertising and dad campaigns that have gone on
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it is dan maffei's position on medicare. dan maffei and anyone who voted for the affordable care act needs to take responsibility that they cut medicare for our current seniors by $716 billion. that will dramatically affect the services of hospitals and our physicians we are able to give to our seniors. every senior should be concerned about the law of the land, the affordable care act dan maffei voted for. if you want to talk about lowering health-care costs, you have to hit toward reform. this law does not include any. and talks about electronic medical records. he should talk to physicians here. if you are a sole practitioner the burden of electronic medical records, this law was not well thought out. it did not have the appropriate parties at the table. we can do better for the american people. >> moderator: thank you. ursula rozum. rozum: we can do better for the american people which is why support medicare for all program
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like proposed in congress almost every year. most recently by john conyers. h r 676, a medicare for all legislation. we shouldn't have medicare the way it is. we need medicare for all. the medicare for all would transfer the $560 billion that are right now going to the growing bureaucracy and monopoly profits of drug companies to care. what we have right now is not a health care system but a big care system that is focused on insurance company profits that only go up when they deny us care. the best way to stabilize health care costs is to take those profits and put them in care with the medicare for all system. i want to talk about tort reform for one second. i would suggest ann marie buerkle discussed for reform with senator francisco who said toward reform is not a problem and medical malpractice, only slightly to health care costs.
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the medicare for all system we wouldn't have to worry about for reform because we would not be having lawsuits that would cover care. >> moderator: we have 30 seconds for dan maffei to rebut. maffei: i think it is important ann marie buerkle talked about a seven.six billion. what that was was cuts to insurance companies to provide services that they had to provide any way. didn't catch any benefits. this has been proven dead wrong by the post standard and the thing is this is what president clinton mentioned that the democratic convention. she voted for the same thing anyway. it is in derian budget. the ryan budget keeps these cuts. when ann marie buerkle talks about we need to do it differently, come she hasn't? she has been congresswoman for two years. where is the change? >> moderator: ann marie buerkle? buerkle: the affordable care act in its current form cuts medicare for seniors by $700 billion.
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dan has a cut of medicare by $250 billion and spend $300 billion in the cbo management to be even more. that does not have to cut insurance companies. medicare's a federal program. it will be cut to the services hospitals and physicians provide for our seniors. those will be the cuts and the impact on our seniors will be real. we are already gearing from constituents saying they can't find a physician who will treat medicare patients. israel and the real consequence of the affordable care act. >> moderator: ursula rozum, thirty-second rebuttal. rozum: this agreement of the federal -- the health care that leaves out medicare for all is indicative of the dysfunction we see in washington which is why we need new leadership and progressive leadership. the affordable care act is modeled after romneycare in massachusetts and developed by insurance company executives with the company wellpoint. what i want to hear from our
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representatives and i fellow candidates is how to get to a medicare for all system that provides health care of the human rights and stabilize health care costs. >> moderator: we have a follow-up for each of you. starting with dan maffei. i am referencing the richard ravitch paul volcker report. according to them the reduction in future spending under the new health care law will cut medicare prices for hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health aides, labs and other services over the next 75 years to less than half of the level under the prior law. according to the program's actuaries by the year 2085 medicare payment rates for in patient hospital services will have sunk to 33%, private health insurance payment rates causing a withdrawal of providers from the medicare market and severe problems with beneficiary access to care. how will you address that
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problem? maffei: i will read the report you are reading from. there are a lot of opinions about the health care bill, a lot of opinions before the supreme court ruled on it. the reason i am not sure that one is any more true than any of the opinions that say hospitals will get more patients and will actually be in better shape. what i will say is we have to keep working. the affordable care act is the law of the land. it is not going to be repealed but we can fix it and there are things that need to be fixed. medicare should be able to negotiate for the pharmaceutical prices just like the va does. that would save a lot of money. we have got to move forward. i think the trouble with this discussion is we are continuing to argue the past issues when we do have to move forward. there are people who are uninsured. there are still people who are not getting the kind of care they need even though at least now people won't run out of
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their insurance and have worse things happen to them. >> moderator: thank you, dan maffei. ann marie buerkle, this followup is for you. paul ryan's plan retains virtually all of the medicare reductions that are in the health-care law. the only difference is that he diverts the savings to his medicare overhaul. isn't it misleading to claim that these reductions are cuts that hurt elderly beneficiaries now while failing to inform voters the ryan plan incorporates the same reduction? buerkle: what you are saying is paul ryan because he had a third of the baseline of the affordable care act he took those $700 billion in cuts and put them back in the medicare program to strengthen the program for seniors. that is number one. number 2, the study just mentioned, all dan has to do is talk to hospitals and physicians and physical therapists and
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cardiologists, chiropractors, skilled nursing facilities, nursing home who are feeling the direct impact and are so concerned, so concerned how they would move forward with all these cuts they will feel with in the affordable care act and i think of all the parts of this campaign that have been so disturbing, the fear tactics used against seniors that we don't want to make medicare stronger and healthier. i have a 91-year-old mother. i am not going to hurt medicare for her. i know how important it is for her. >> moderator: ursula rozum. rozum: president obama attempted to prepare us single payer government auction and failed. how would you propose to do what the president couldn't? rozum: i am not sure it is true to say president obama tried to provide a single payer option. he campaigned on the public option in 2008 and gathered support of many voters who did want healthcare and the single
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payer was not on the table in 2009. what we really need is more progressive in congress that will stand up and fight for what we need with health care for all. united states spends twice as much on health care as other countries but we are somewhere between -- who and it shouldn't be that way because we do have some of the most skilled doctors and researchers here and with medicare for all, access to care and they choose doctors and hospitals, and patient choice in a free market, they're doing better and they don't have -- >> moderator: today in the news, u.s. senate candidate richard
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murdock apologized for saying pregnancies from radar something god intended to happen and accused democrats of distorting his comments. in this year the economy being the number one issue for voters, $6 million would be spent in television advertising and focused on positions on abortion when does life begin or reproductive rights? why is this issue so important? we begin with ann marie buerkle. buerkle: we just heard dan maffei say it is important not to look back. one way he doesn't look back and hold himself accountable the affordable care act, cap and trade, stimulus bill, to create and distort. this is a national campaign democrats are running, i spent 16 years, i understand domestic violence and the victims of
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domestic violence. i am a mother of four daughters and have four granddaughters, i would not do anything to weaken the statutes. dan maffei's ads were distorted and lied to women and worse yet, he stood behind the skirts of those victims of rape and that is reprehensible as a woman. >> moderator: ursula rozum, your response to this issue being a primary issue in this race in terms of the way it has been handled in the public television advertising? rozum: it is an issue that has been focused on in tv advertising because it is a very emotional issue and for the record i am pro-choice. anything related to abortion or how to deal with rape is a woman's personal decision. we need to be focusing on issues that matter to us all like the economy, like job than talking about real solutions and dan maffei's focus on this issue is
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a tax to avoid discussing real solutions to the economic crisis, how to get people back to work. it has been a way to avoid discussing things like progressive taxation because it is easy to hold on to any emotional issue and a lot more difficult, progressive policies solutions to turn around the economy. >> moderator: dan maffei? maffei: these are issues people are not comfortable talking about necessarily. i am sorry. it is ann marie buerkle's record that is the important thing here. rape is rape. it should never be parsed for any reason. ann marie buerkle co-sponsored a bill that did just that. when i was in office she made sure i read every page of every bill, the health care bill, thousands of pages. this was a three page bill and her staff says when they found that they tried to get rid of it. it is not who you are. it is what you do that we have to look at.
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here she was in one of her first bills, the first full day of session and her first was on this bill because it was on a particular social agenda. rape is rape. i know she is pro-life. that is fine. it is hair right to be. shouldn't pars rate for any reason. not to deny some rape victim's benefits and other rape victims not. i felt it was my responsibility to make sure ann marie buerkle's record were seen. >> moderator: did it reflect your record? buerkle: it did not. he had been in congress for two use and understand the way it works. the u.s. code has used and forcible rape when which were long time. hillary clinton, chuck schumer, they all voted for the same language. when we saw the language we said this is no longer acceptable. rate is rate. with my background and initiatives i have taken all my life being a pro bono attorney, here's the thing. no vote was taken on language
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that use and forcible rape. that entire h r 3 had with whether the federal government was going to fund abortion. there was the exception in the case of rape and incest. dan knows that. he has distorted this view and distorted my position and he owes an apology to every woman in this district who has been a victim of rape and has to listen to his accusations. >> moderator: are you willing to apologize? maffei: i brought this issue because women from the district came to me and said ann marie buerkle is not doing the job for ridding the economy. when she is here she talked-about that but when she is in washington she follows a particular social issues agenda that she has. she is saying as an as it was there she got rid of it. three page bill. every bill you co-sponsor you should be reading. it is a three page bill. she knew the language was in there and the reason she is against abortion, fine, even in the case of rape and incest.
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i am not covering that up. that is her position. she saw an opportunity to make it so that some women who are raped couldn't get abortions. that is not what she is saying now. >> moderator: ursula rozum. rozum: we have heard this discussion play out back and forth upon this issue of rape and abortion and as a woman i think it is important to realize lots of issues affecting women and it is not just reproductive rights that affect women. i want to hear us talk about climate change. i want to hear us talk about the drug war that enabled the u.s. to have more prisoners than any country in the world. more african-americans in prison now than we had slaves during -- before the civil war. we need to move forward and talk about issues that affect everyone. >> moderator: our next issue is about energy. we start with ursula rozum. governor cuomo wants to shut
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down indian point nuclear power plant west chester which supplies a third of the electricity in new york city. do you support him in that effort? >> i do support the governor's effort to close indian point and hope there will be a similar effort to eventually shutdown the nuclear power plant in lake ontario. nuclear power is an energy source of the past. it is expensive. is not be relying on federal subsidies anymore. the national academy of sciences has said that any level of rebel -- radiation from a nuclear power plant is dangerous to our health. moving forward, the cost of nuclear power are socialized and the health care costs we have for people exposed to radiation. i support governor cuomo's efforts and transition to a renewable clean energy economy, saves energy economy that does not rely on fossil fuel for
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nuclear power. >> moderator: would you support what the governor woulds to do by closing indian point? maffei: no question we have to work towards a clean energy economy. we are doing a lot of their research in central new york whether it is the university at the center of excellence or the queen tech center in the tech garden. in terms of nuclear power, we need to make sure nuclear power is safe and make sure it is environmentally sound. i am not sure we have done that yet but i wouldn't get rid of it in july have gotten rid of coal and oil first. oil we are dependent on other countries for, that we are beholden to them unfortunately and coal that is still living and so damaging. there's some priority here. i also think with the local community wants matters a lot. i don't live in indian point. i am not fighting to represent indian point. i think we have the constituents there, ask what they want. i talked to people where the
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power plants are, they are comfortable with it and a lot of jobs there. i do think it is very important. indian point, that might be a different situation and we have to ask the people care what they want to do and i presume the governor is doing that. >> moderator: thank you, dan maffei. ann marie buerkle, would you agree with what the governor wants to do about indian point? buerkle: know and i don't think and answered the question. this country needs a comprehensive energy policy, this administration, several administrations failed to put together. the energy policy needs to be all sources of energy and we need to do them safely and carefully while protecting the environment. we have oil reserves in this country, natural gas reserves in this country, we should be encouraging the development of nuclear power plants and if you talk to ontario, those
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communities embrace nuclear power. they see it as a safe and clean energy source and a great source of jobs. i am very much in favor of nuclear power with all the energy development. it has to be reasonable and rational and people sitting down talking about what is best for their community versus what is going to pander to each agenda and some of these are emotional issues but as a country we owe it to the american people to have a sound energy policy in place. >> moderator: we briefly touched on climate change. ann marie buerkle, do you think there's such a thing as global warming? buerkle: i think there's climate change. i said that earlier. what i don't agree with this there has been a consensus on whether or not man contributes to global warming. what i do know is to pass cap and trade legislation, vote for cap and trade as dan maffei would would paralyse our businesses and increase their costs and decrease the availability of energy. it is the wrong way to go.
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there are reasonable approaches to develop energy in this country and have to do it in a reasonable manner that doesn't pander to either extreme but to find the ground in the middle that will make this country energy independent giving all that is going on in the least we should be doing everything in our power to become energy independent. we can do that while we protect our environment and do what is right for the american people. >> moderator: you believe there's climate change but not sure it is because of man's interference with the climate. ursula rozum, how do you take a position on climate change and how it affect our decisions in washington? rozum: climate change is the most serious threat facing my generation and future generations. even the pentagon has acknowledged climate change is a serious problem that humanity is contributing to. and the u.n. intergovernmental panel on climate change that includes conservative countries that export oil have also agreed
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humans are causing climate change. as soon as we embrace the fact that we are contributing to the climate crisis for our addiction to fossil fuel than dirty energy and by dirty energy i mean coal and offshore oil drilling, the sooner we accept these realities we can start transitioning to a renewable energy economy because there is no energy independence like renewable energy. the son is free, the wind is free, there are four times as many jobs in the renewable energy sector as there are in the fossil fuel industry according to a recent university of amherst study. the time is now to acknowledge the problem and start moving forward. my opponent seems to embrace the policies of either party leadership which is all of the above energy policy and that is not acceptable. >> moderator: is there such a thing as global warming, dan maffei? maffei: we need to get renewable
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energy, and phase of coal and get to foreign oil and do this for future generations for the good of god's green earth. yes. ann marie buerkle used to say as she would ask a scientist there was global warming up the site this said yes. it is there and man-made. she didn't quite that answer so like many in congress, being in congress make you an authority on science. we do need to move off of fossil fuels and we are doing that work in central new york. where i taught for a year in the environmental studies department, at the center of excellence, all sorts of private companies are doing this and frankly i don't know what she was talking about. the legislation i supported, even the national republican party put out a map that said it will increase energy costs in a lot of states but it will lower them, new york and california. i don't know where she is from. if she were from central new york she would be going to clean energy policy.
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then she voted when she was in office to protect the coal industry. ann marie buerkle, we don't have any coal mines here. >> moderator: we are going to continue this scheme, hydrofr k hydrofracki hydrofracking. maffei: we need to continue the moratorium. we need a moratorium until we have a federal regulation, and to listen to the federal clean water act and make sure there is clean water but personally i don't feel we should have hydro fracking in upstate new york. i will tell you why. as people say it will create jobs. i haven't seen much evidence of that. may be a temporary job here or there. what will do is disrupt the new winery's sprouting up along finger lakes. conventional farming and organic farming that is going on. we have a clean water economy and i believe our future is
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because of clean water. when politicians say we have gold under our feet and need to -- clean water and not necessarily natural gas. >> moderator: your position on hydro fracking? buerkle: cap and trade that dan voted for, in new york state, would be desperately affected by increasing energy costs. his position on nuclear power at indian point was let's let the local government make the decisions and local communities with hydro fracking meeting federal policy. can't have it both ways. i believe the approach to hydro fracking need to be well thought out reason approach. the epa has a study that will be conducted by the end of this year. is important to look at that study to understand and embrace and do testing. i have an environmental advisory board, a panel of people opposed to fracking, for fracking and to a group they say to me it is a game change but we have to do it
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carefully, thoughtfully, we can't pander to the extremes. we have to protect our environment but also when we talk about an energy policy we have got to make this country energy independence. that is the right thing to do for the american people. >> moderator: ursula rozum? rozum: hydro fracking is the wrong thing to do for the american people and i don't think protecting our air and water and climate is pandering. is a responsible approach to protecting the economy and environment of central new york. it is surprising to hear dan maffei say he is opposed to hydro fracking. i would like him to join me in supporting legislation for a federal ban on hydro fracking just as they have done in france and bulgaria. i have been to pennsylvania and talked to people that have had their wells polluted permanently, experienced the death of livestock as a result of fracking in their area. the tp a is understaff and
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unable to do the examinations that are required. there is no way to do hydro fracking. it is an oxymoron. to close, the green party presidential candidate goldstein is the only presidential candidate that supports banning hydro fracking and the obama administration continues to support fracking? >> dan maffei, a rebuttal to what ann marie buerkle said? maffei: let's just talk about something she supported on her way out of congress. she supported a bill to protect the coal industry. as i mentioned in the previous after the coal industry is not -- there are no jobs about the coal industry. the coal industry is the most polluting of all the energy industries. there's more radiation out of a coal mine and a nuclear plant. in order to protect the coal industry she voted to weaken the clean water act. this makes sense because she said we shouldn't regulate
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anything. hydro fracking with you are for or against it everybody will agree we need to do it in the right way and that means regulation. >> moderator: ann marie buerkle, rebuttal. buerkle: dan seems to think because coal is not in our district doesn't affect gas prices. talk to women and families, the cost of energy is national and international. it is not state by state. a good energy, good sound energy policy. two of my opponents talk about renewables. face reality. green and economy account for 2% of the electricity being generated. not enough for the united states of america. we have to move forward with compromise, with well thought out positioning. >> moderator: ursula rozum. rozum: that may have been correct a few years ago but no longer correct. we are getting 14% of our electricity from renewable energy according to the u.s.
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energy information agency and the cost of renewable continues to go down, the cost of fossil fuels, especially and conventional fossil fuels going up because of the high risk, the accidents that are going to happen if we fracking and continue the policy of not stopping coal mining or arctic drilling. >> moderator: that ends the questionnaire response section of the debate. now we turn to closing statement. we hear first from dan maffei. maffei: i thank everybody for participating in this debate. this indeed has been a rough and tumble campaign. i do have to say i admire my opponents. the other day ann marie buerkle and i, all three of as were addressing a group of constituents on a few key issues and ann marie buerkle got up and told them no on their particular policy. wanted to raise minimum wage. it would take more courage if she told no to her tea party
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people and said no to her coal industry friend that aren't in the district. we need to judge the candidates, everybody should, by what we do, not what we say. not who we are but our actions that will judge us. when i was in office i fought as hard as i can for the middle class, to make sure we have a clean environment, make shore also small businesses can thrive. mostly to make sure social security and medicare will be protected. i work for daniel patrick moynihan and that is what he taught me. very important that we remember that we in central new york have the solutions in our hand. we just need our fair shot. >> moderator: ursula rozum. rozum: thank you for this opportunity to discuss the issues with my opponents. i will close by saying i believe i am the only progressive in their race and the only person who will work for real
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solutions, for public jobs program to put us back to work right now, not down the road when job creators decide they want to create jobs for us. i am the only candidate who will fight for medicare for all system, free health care as a human rights, the only candidate that supports funding for education, free public education through universities and we need new leadership in congress, progressive leadership and progressive taxes. neither of my opponents's tax plan would address the deficit. we can lay the $1.2 trillion of deficit through progressive taxation like we had in the eisenhower years. i close by saying our people and plants that need actions and commitment and that is why i ask voters to vote for me on november 6th because real solutions can't wait. ..
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this year we gave back at the end of 2011 over 100,000 of taxpayer money back to the general. we have been responsible. i have been independent. i had the courage to stand up to leadership and say that law isn't good for my district. i voted if the budget control act and simpson bowels to find comprise. we can't go back in the district to representative who has extreme liberal values who is disconnected from the district like dan in his two years of congress. i have been honored by being a representative from this district. i respectfully ask for the
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listeners vote for november 6 so i can continue to be the voice. >> we want to thank the candidates for their time and their willing tons share their ideas and want to thank you for yo watching the election 2012 debate. good night. here on c-span2 live at the reagan building in washington for a forum on u.s. air relations. this is the national counsel on u.s. air relations. the annual policy makers conference. among the participates in today's session is the current libyan ambassador to the u.s., and a former u.s. ambassador to syria. live coverage on c-span2. it's just getting started. >> dr. john iskander, the chair of the united states department of states foreign service institute.
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iskander heads the premier training program and educational program for all of american diplomats on route to the arab countries in the middle east. he's been doing this for a better part of a decade. comes from an academic background in atlanta, we're proud to have him for a third year in suck succession. dr. iskander. >> by premier he means the only institute. can you hear me? is this on? a pleasure to be here. we're going to proceed relatively quickly at the brisk pace. we have four speakers for our panel, the panel which has been spite latitude and longitude policy makings. iraq and syria. our boarder is going to be slightly different from how it is in the book. we are going to be starting with
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mona yacoubian. moving to judith yaphe, abdullah alshammari and david lesch at the end. to introduce them very quickly, again, not to take time for this to cut straight to this, but mona yacoubian comes to us as chief senior advicer in the middle east and project director pathways to progress for the simpson center. formally special adviser senior program on the middle east substitute of peace and north africa analyst department of state. judith yaphe is distinguished research fellow for the middle east institute for national strategic study. former senior analyst in the office of near eastern and south asian and directer of intelligence at the cia. abdullah alshammari is an adviser to the saudi arabia ministry of culture and information. fresh from -- and david lesch is
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professor of middle east history, trinity university author of the fall of the house of assad's arab-israeli conflict and more. the title of the first talk with of mona yacoubian is shifting the paradigm in syria, a role for u.s. leadership. mona yacoubian in. >> thank you for the national counsel and arab relations if the invitation. i would told i had ten minutes. what i'm going to do is unpack syria in five minutes and then do some u.s. policy recommendations in another five minutes. >> do you mind coming? >> i'm sorry. >> sorry, i didn't say anything. >> sorry. >> apologies, trying to save time. okay. as i said i'd like to start by talking about conflict in sir yab where it is today, and then
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talk about u.s. policy options. in terms of where the conflict in syria is today, it is now 19 months in to by far the bloodiest of the arabic risings. there has been more than 30,000 people killed, about 350 found in rough refugees in countries surrounding syria, one and a half million syrians internally displaced inside the country 28,000 syrians are reported having being demeanor -- disappeared. this is clearly a conflict of tragic proportion in term of the human cost. in addition, there have been significant spillover effects. we have seen just in the last few weeks incredible things happening in the region. there has been cross-border are till area fire between syria and turkey for about five days going.
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there has been, of course, the assassination last week in lebanon unclear yet who perpetrated that attack, it is widely seen as being yet another spillover effect of the crisis. we have seen a terrorist plot soil in jordon, in which extremist potentially connected to al qaeda were going to use armed they had gotten from syria to undertake terrorist attack inside jordon. so we have both the humanitarian dimension inside syria, we have the rough few go crisis and the necessary strain that has put on countries that are hosting syrian refugee, lib non, turkey, jordon, each of those countries host at least 100,000 registered rev few agree at the enormous cost and train to the infrastructure. we see the security dimensions. the spillover effect that has taken place around the region.
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it is an incredibly dynamic and volatile conflict. one in which i think those serves at continually surprised and overtaken by the pace of events on the ground. but that said, i think there are three constant factors that have been at play in the syrian crisis. from the very beginning, and these -- the interplay i would argue has much to do with why the conflict has taken such a downward spiral. the first is that from the beginning, the syrian regime has viewed this conflict as an exat the present time tal threat from the very beginning. as a result has not been interested in negotiating a solution, has not been interested certainly will not willfulfully step aside as we saw in tunisia, egypt, and even in gem men. i would argue it's not
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amenable. the second constant is that the opposition has beener. pettily divided, fragmented, unable to coe less around a unifying vision of a post assad syria. we have seen external opposition divisions inside syria, among the arms group, divisions based on personal rivalry and ideology, patron, and so forth. and the third factor is that the international community has remained at the stalemate. has been unable to reach a consensus on how to move forward in syria. we have seen three security counsel vetoes by russia and china. causing many to call the u.n. essentially ineffective in this crisis. it has been the interplay of these three factors, these three
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constant, i would argue that has lead syria down the path it has taken inspect terms of u.s. policy, u.s. policy is based on the open jective as having assad step aside back in august of 2011. the problem with u.s. policy is that it has continually been at conflict with itself in terms of how do achieve that objective while also achieving or protecting u.s. national security interest in the region. namely i would argue very understandable concerns about the impact of unseating assad and the potential for massive instability across the region. so at the crux of u.s. policy on syria has residing the tension of wanting assad to go but being
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concerned and fearful while how to seek the objective while seeking to maintain stability in a volatile region of the world. the debate right now on syria is focused largely on the question of whether or not to armt opposition, which is to provide more sophisticated heavy weapons to the armed opposition. they are already receiving some amount of weapon i are from countries in the gulf as well as from turkey, perhaps. it but the focus of the debate in the u.s. has been whether or not or frankly why not arm the opposition, why not have the u.s. either directly or indirectly provide sophisticated heavy weapons to the syrian rebels? that's one argument that's forwarded. the other argument that's forwarded is to use military force in order to establish a safe haven in the northern part
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of syria that borders turkey. a safe haven would necessarily require a no-fly zone. so the debate has been around these two military-types of interventions. i would argue that in fact what needs to be done is to shift the paradigm. that further militarization of the conflict in syria is not the answer. and it's not going to bring this country to a nor peaceful, rapid end to the or rend use conflict. let me provide maybe a few points on what i see as the dangers of arming the opposition, and they know -- then maybe just con cloud with a few more points on the idea of shifting the paradigm and having the u.s. assert for leadership in the realm of deputy. -- diplomacy. the downside to arming an
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opposition that is continually fractured and increasingly radicalized, there are several downside risks to this. one is even under the best circumstanceses and with the best vetting, it is very difficult if not impossible to ensure that these arms do not end up in the wrong hands. we have lessons from afghanistan in particular. that we should constantly remind ourselves of as we think about this. secondly in such a fractured environment, it's also very difficult to see or to guarantee that various rebel groups will not turn their arms on each other. unfortunately, the situation in syria has already deteriorated to such a point that evens a sad were to magically disappear tomorrow, that would not spell the end of the conflict and
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problems in syria. there are significant issues now at play. significant sectarian tensions as well as ethic tensions between ciewrdz and arabs and so forth. the third argument, if the u.s. were armed or helps to arm the opponent it will translate to greater u.s. influence over those who eventually run syria. again, history proves that is not the case. so let me -- with that my two minutes i have been told i have left. let me u try to end on the positive note. my own side sense is the military option in syria are significant. i also think the fact that we have reached the point we are reached with the conflict, which is to say such a significant escalation of horrific violence inside the country as well as such threatening regional spillover effects, suggest that
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we may be at the point where if the u.s. can leverage the leadership, can key off of these various threats to bring together the key party for whom none of the parties really is it in their interest to see syria dissent in to a years' long civil war. in particular, i think the most interesting potential turning point is the cross-border of fighting that took place between syria and turkey. because that brings with it the credible threat of the use of force by a nato and turkey's use of article r5 v in the nato treaty. backed by the incredible threat of force, the u.s. exerts the soft power leadership in the region and bring together key parties including russia,
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including iran, and if it's not the u.s. doing that directly, there is an interesting initiative that is taking place at the regional level being spearheaded by egypt. in which egypt turkey, iran, and ideally saudi arabia are seeking some sort of solution to the crisis. perhaps that effort being done at the regional level, the u.s. exercising its strength and diplomacy at the more global level, may help to bring the syrian crisis toward a softer landing. i would close by saying this, i think throughout the debate and the discussion around not just syria, but frankly u.s. policy more broadly on the arab transition with respect with egypt, libya, or elsewhere. there's been a constant refrain that the u.s. has been absent. i think there's a certain truth to that. but the second piece is that therefore the u.s. needs to
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engage militarily, or needs to engage in to hard power. i would argue that between within that spectrum or two ends of the spectrum, one doing nothing, the other exerting military and hard power influence, i would argue that the most powerful and effective tool and the one least discussed but one that i think provides the greater hope for syria and the region more broadly is for the tows engage using soft power. i'll leave it at that. [applause] our second speaker is judith yaphe with the title between iraq and a hard place, iraq and the conflicting dmapped for the syrian crisis. >> i apologize for the cliche. it was hard not to do that. talking basically from an iraq perspective and looking out at the crisis. i guess i could have called in a way let's talk about the duck building on the last panel.
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i won't do that. i think everyone is looking for lessons learned. well, didn't you learn any lessons from iraq? or afghanistan or you name the crisis? the problem be we always learn a lot of lessons a don't learn any lessons. if you look at this. what i want to do is lay out m some of the i did limb ma for those wondering what we are supposed to. i think you have to put a certain perspective on this as well. both 6 us who sit in washington find difficulty in putting the issues that are going on in the middle east in perspective. especially in an election year. good americas and take to short view of history. we can only think ahead to the next election, that's only two weeks. and many of us don't remember the last election. hard to imagine. i have students that don't know about the vietnam war. it's hard for me to take in. i think that our collective memory only goes about as long as a football game or if you
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don't like football a sitcom or whatever. the problem is many people also look at yesterday's enemy as tomorrow's trading parter in and tend think everything is relative. when you're in the middle it's not relative. how can we understand what the relationships are like out there? therefore fashion a policy. what we don't put together all the pieces that make iraq and iran parter ins or not -- part anywheres or not when iraq and syria are partners and enemies. in other words it's a complicated thing. but iraq, iran, and syria, collectively speaking have been rivals for power, for water, territory, the region for what i would say least 1500 years maybe 7,000 years. we all know what brought iran and syria together three decades ago, it was war against the common set of enemy. iraq and extension the greater
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and lesser. iran needs for lebanon, he's bow will hezbollah. syria needed an ally against the regime in baghdad, and money and cheap oil. and in the beginning it was a mutual lets get together because the enemy is my friend. now we have has been a change over time. there is no loeninger equal partners. haven't been for a long time. it's iran that is come nantd partner. what brought iran and the new iraq together. again a common enemy. saddam hussein first and then after 2003, the american occupation. i don't think -- if you think about the new baghdad, now saddam hussein is gone, and isn't that a pity. some of us miss him. it's difficult not to imagine life without him. it certainly makes these conflicts issues more simple by
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comparison. but the iraq he carefully constructed is gone. what's the relationship between persian and shii had, al wait? i don't think life in politics can be reduced to the simplicity of those kinds of formula. us against them, shii had against sunni, per persian against arab. i think the rivelly go back for a loing time. you can go back to the seventh century. they created the shii haddism as a -- you can go back to the rivalry. and assad i think you get the picture this is a rivalry of long standing and it doesn't change what relation don't get simple just because a greater hated leader is going. if you look at where we are now during mall lack i can he's been accused of a lot of things
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lately. my remarks don't need to speak for or against anything. these opinions my own. i have to say, paul, the government i work for or the over organization for that matter. but the thing is, mal lack i malaqui is giving us an important and interesting i did limb ma. he became prime minister in 2006. he was a member of the party. spend more than twenty years in exile first in iran and syria. it cannot have been pleasant for a young iraqi depend on the charity of the -- both of these states to survive and make do in these conflicts societies. so here is the i did limb dialimb ma. -- and an independent-minded
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politician. determine to reconstruct the strong iraq or at least stronger than the kurdish syrian and iranian allies or partners or cohabitanted in the state is a i did llama. he's accused of being the new saddam hussein or the muscular democrat. you can choose. i don't care. the point is he's got choices to make that are difficult. with the technology it's driving me crazy. now i think mal lackey is weary of syria. i think all iraqis are. extremist, al qaeda, across the borders since 2003 to smuggle weapons and conduct operations and stablize iraq. it stirred up the tribe, given safe haven to the family and the
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regime, let's remember antienemies -- and i think it's much more than being just baptist v baptist or arab v arab. there's a rivalry between the state leadership going back time. iran insist that baghdad support the regime. help it supply whatever it needs. permit air resupply operations. the syrians need it. as sanctions by deeper both in iran as well. back dad, where cousin -- does baghdad stand? they refuse to force an agreement with us. december 2011 withdrawal of combat forces, but i don't think they expected us to leave and shut the door behind us. they are awaiting delivery of 36 f-16 beginning in 2014. they are eager to purchase other
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arms as well. i think it is supposed to be -- of 18 and 18 but the point is the dates are starting to shift a little bit. but the u.s. is still a good place for the iraqis to shop and they would like to do that. baghdad is signed a $4.2 billion deal. they have a lot of money, again, they're out there with their suitcases shopping around. you remember the shop until you drop phase in the 1980s? it's back. they have money. money, by the way, they are now producing 3.0 million barrels per day. is that right, paul, for export. as much they are back to where they were in 1980 just before war began with iran. and they are way ahead of iran which is under sanctions. not bad. remember the oil energy issue?
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good. washington complains, washington has been complaining about the support for the a sad regime and iranian pressure to do so. and hence there could be problem and delivery of the f-16. it after all, baghdad violating internationally opposed sanctions. you know what that means? yes. right on the mark. so here's the problem for malaqui and the united states. what do we do? i don't think he's an iranian tool or an american tool, or anybody else's he. e he has his own strategy and goals. what do we do? if, for example, if i were in baghdad, making decisions, and like mal lackey i'm interesting in building a stronger effective iraq. i better rethink my policy toward assad. i don't know if he's think thanking or not. it could be.
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he's kind of cagey. if assad stays in policy. thinking in general, if assad stays in power. assad may be grateful to baghdad and cut off aid to the ambition kurds that will be a thorn in both sides but everybody waits until later to deal there w. there's a sunni and arab extremist. iraq, shii had, and mall lackey would never have to wowser eater the muslim brotherhood taking over damascus. i think the iraqis increasingly are seeing this as a growing possibly even crisis should it go on out of control. if assad loses, then what happens? the decision making in baghdad here in here. iraq could become -- will become more immeshed in iranian strategic thinking. it will be iran's strategic
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depth against the west, protecting iran from the enemy. it will not be a comfortable place for mall lackkey or iran and he could find himself under greater power. if, however, think about it from a washington perspective, and i don't care who is in the white house, it doesn't matter. the question becomes how far do we let baghdad go in helping assad without paying a price in u.s. support either military or civilian under the strategic framework, which we are now wanting to negotiate. now, if you measure, i think it was a famous recent secretary defense said the nobody and unknown. i'm stopping. it's my last sentence. [laughter] [laughter] i couldn't help that. losing syria as rumsfeld once
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said with measured to isolate bashar. if we ignore baghdad's support for us on the risk of a lingering dangerous civil war and spill over in to iraq and elsewhere losing syria will not cause a collapse of the government in iron. -- iran. it would weaken him even more. weakening baghdad by threatening mall lackey could have a major unintended consequence. it would push him in to closer to iran and away from possible -- with the iraq's neighborhood. which in my humble opinion is not a good idea. thank you. [applause] >> okay in my role as nonfacet
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moderator, inviting alshammari to speak. regional geopolitical dynamic of iraq and syria. >> for how many minutes? >> ten minutes. >> thank you. >> thank you. very good speak with you. and i will talk, i should talk about iraq and syria, but i think i will start with syria. this is an issue about -- my [inaudible] may be from american what they are waiting from from the united states for sure we are waiting
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-- [inaudible] we're not exaggerating or expecting united states to go to damascus like what they did with saddam hussein. but what i think united states did [inaudible] for an issue. saudi arabia since the beginning of syrian issue saudi arabia and the arabist was bashar al-assad, and you know we had a great relationship with half of assad and his family and even some interrelations so saudi arabia tried to -- what they called unknown -- that saudi arabia to do with some country. unfortunately many times -- many
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times bashar al-assad, but we can didn't hear any reaction or hear a response from bashar al a bsh a bashar -- with saudi arabia unknown through the that enough was enough and this was by our asset. i might surprise you that -- saudi arabia made it to stop the and we try to factual with them, but also that is was a negative with syria. so this is why we maybe also are more -- from american because i am sure americans they are not
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-- because we are close friends to americans. i think we don't hide anything from the united states. so and i think -- is very fortunate. so what we're waiting from the united states, i will tell you frankly, and i am talking -- in the fuel, i think the united states has lost an opportunity to work against bashar al-assad and continue frankly for the sir syrian issue -- the issue that both saudi arabia and religious extremist, they work together to agree again bashar al-assad. and also the issue so the saudi
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arabia people it was the first time since they were in one position, i can't say 100, i mean, the government again what bashar is doing. unfortunately the united states i think they were busy enough with some other issues, so now many people -- i should tell you that that is already a -- also saudi arabia we're also very surprised, i remember after many two months from the, i mean, around six months we started to use american -- that saudi arabia supporting syria. al qaeda, you know, everybody may be knows in the united states that we're fighting with al qaeda and al qaeda they try to -- at his house just last year and also we have the --
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yemen now and now -- we have hundreds of prisonerer ins in the prison. how come we are supporting al qaeda in syria? of course saudi arabia under the people, by the way, i'll tell you something, it's not -- my tribe i'm from a -- [inaudible] tribe around 200 people from syria are fry tribe. you can imagine my mother how she's crying sometimes in the evening when she see the news. [inaudible] she's thinking about syria. i think americans they can't even imagine how much syrian issue affect the people not just the -- but [inaudible] politicians we also may be politicians that who were not backed by the united states because some people are thinking
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that united states should be [inaudible] we are not expecting to be, you know, fresh out china. maybe unfortunately the united states is going continuing the policy things might be changed what we are seeing now in the region that russia, and china is trying to new allies allies with -- [inaudible] also,ly emphasis about one point, some people are saying that saudi arabia inspite -- spas of sectarian issue. because al wait and sunni, this is not true. we were -- bashar al-assad -- discover just last year that son is alawite? that's not true. it's just a political issue not because of sectarian issue. some people are trying to -- [inaudible] and other issues. some people think that we are thought to work against bashar
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al-assad to weaken iran and he boll will. it's not the true. the saudi arabia opposition against al-assad a political fuel, it was, you know, regarding maybe the people in saudi arabia. otherwise we could work against iran and work with ball share al-assad. so unfortunately there is a misunderstanding receiving many americans in jail. so finally, with syria, for sure i have to admit that syrian issue, it is approve that arab country and muslim countries are weak, yet, they cancel -- can't solve their problems without helping -- and i say damascus. we are divided. we couldn't do ig in. and it it gives you the future
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of [inaudible] with respect to my -- [inaudible] but we can't solve any problems under the -- [inaudible] so finally, saudi arabia did some it's mistakes or -- i think also so that [inaudible] was too much high in the beginning so maybe they were expecting something to be happened but they were not. nothing happened -- [inaudible] also the countries they didn't do the minimum for especially with china and russia to pursue them to let's say talk with them or even to blackmail them to get to some any -- but they did nothing with china and russia, and now we are evening things with russia. maybe going to syria, unfortunately one of the bad
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things that syrian issue we are becoming like enemy now with russia. we are -- russian -- just give me two minutes to talk about. so iraq also iraq i would tell you something again, maybe -- [inaudible] my tribe is a tribe. i'll tell you again from syria to iraq. so since the case, we didn't think about sectarian. and now i'm here to tell you that my cousin is the minister of justice in iraq. because of this sectarian. and because of that sectarian unfortunately we didn't see it or [inaudible] before the american to iraq in 2003. so saudi arabia, i think, they were much -- from american to ,
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i mean, iraq and it is not -- [inaudible] now controlling both political and religious decision in iraq we are not exaggerating. but also at the same time, i assume saudi arabia and arab countries they didn't do also that minimum effort to work in iraq yet iraqi alone. so iranians they were free to work with iraqi and -- [inaudible] that no arab countries like egypt or even -- finally, family in iraq iraq is now from a perspective it has become -- for saudi arabia and turkey. and it's not secret that iraqi, you know, american to iraq they should become issues of saudi arabia since we have hundreds of prisoners in saudi arabia that
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they were, you know, arrested and killed. so now iraqi prisoners becoming an issue in saudi arabia. and also unfortunately now iraq is becoming un-- saudi arabia and everybody knows what they did in syria and they are supporting bashar al-assad and also -- they are very and they have to stop. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you. our last of the speakers before we turn to our respondent is david lesch with the title of what guideses a sad and the syrian leadership? >> thank you, john. it's good to be here with my friend john duke anthony, and he was very influential early in my career about twenty years ago.
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i'm catching up to you in gray hair. it's a privilege and pleasure to be here. i would say more but i only have ten minutes. glsh i agree with much of what he said is to present a view of the world from the damascus from bashar al-assad and the leadership. some of you know i got to know got al is allah fairly well. i met with him. a good much syrian leadership during that time and thereafter. i think i have a fairly decent idea about how they view the world. i think it's important in to try to craft a policy toward the particular leadership. obviously, you know, the popular idea is become the middle east tyranted. he unleashed the horses on the own population and reminded
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syrians he was more like his father than the reformer including myself hoped he would be when he assumed the presidency. that's the disappoint particularly in the west what i call the gap between the syrian leadership and the western world. i think from the beginning the expectations were too high and the disappointment was all that much greater. instead of creating a profile where he likes phil colins music and cam coachedders and things of those nature and studied in london. they should been looking at the fact he was child of the arab-israeli conflict. a child of the cold war. a child of the lebanon key brother flame of the alawite fortress, and most importantly, a child of -- a sad spoke in the first speech in the nation in response to the uprising, he branded terrorists spiritters armed gangs as the primary reason.
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he still does. most of those outside of syria scoffed at blatant. but many syrians even assad himself firmly believed this stuff. he -- i guarantee he was absolutely to be shocked in the arab spring to syria. there were -- he commissioned three study by the national security apparatus before the uprising in syria in march of 2011. on all three said it wasn't going to happen al-assad game an interview with the "the wall street journal" he basically said syria was immune from the disease in the arab world. and the mouthpiece of the syrian regime and various public indication in january and february even expressed support for the protesters in egypt and tunisia and elsewhere. it was in denial almost what was going on in the rest of the
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world. even on syrian, you know, paranoia wide spread by conspiracy of the past, the arab valley conflict brainwashing for the security sake it is large issue of function of living in dangerous neighborhood where threats are indeed around the corner. it is conceptual gap at the root between much of what the international community demanded of the regime and what assad is feeling he should do to end the violence against the protesters. i'm assure thatted as sad at any time during the uprising would have pointed he would have made confessions. he would complain he is not receiving any recognition or credit and as such he would have conclude that the united states have it out for him no matter what he does. it will not be enough. why even try. i think he was seriously believe. he doesn't trust the u.n., the west, arab league. and there are people here
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especially dick spent a lot of time in syria. if you spent any time in syria tremendously pair nowed with the normal good times. during the particular situation, the par paranoia was off the smarts. she the product of a authoritarian system. syrian system is not geared to respond to people controls people. it's not geared to im-- and survive. reforms are counter intuitive to the against things the authoritarian system i think i got to know him fairly well. i think the certainly the image seemed to be different than the middle east dictator. he would change the system. bashar was perceived by most to be relatively normal person who sanctioned the brutal crack down on the why uprising said something ability the behavior in general. so called normal part-time can scum to power. isassad lost his way.
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there are those who argue there was in never way any to lose. he was the gray the beginning. i would argue against that. either can convinced himself or was convince bid the that the well being was ceremony use with the well being of the country. what he was doing in putting down protest and not meeting the demand for change were necessary and corrupt. he in a way he had become more qferl power. i saw over the years. not necessarily a bad thing it's authoritarian system. you become more comfortable with the power you become more comfortable authoritarian leader. in the case, this is what roger written in the latest book on these authoritarian regimes and alternate real city constructed and or straited around you. you hear it a daily basis. you eventually believe it. it's human nature. i think he developed a very strong after 2005 after surviving what he called the worst bush administration could
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throw at him following the opposition to the u.s. innovation of iraq and after the the assassination in 2005. he survived it. he was righteous. he was on the right side of history. it played a scriewcial part, in my opinion in the response to the uprise ming believes what he is surviving, protecting those around him. the system he is saving the country. this is -- a significant challenge he will survive. if it takes ten years to do so, so be it. in another sense the syrian government crack down is a push butt town in the domestic threat. it's business as usual. it is not as though assad is not controlled a security force. it's the way it works under the assad. they reach in their historical pocket pull out what worked in the past. they found it's closer to 1982 than anything else. today he has not following for the uprising.
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-- [laughter] bashar, i thought it was a new signal. he has not been willing to reduce the tremendous amount of leeway he's given the security forces in his country to cancel with -- deal with the threats real and imagined hep went along with business as yiewcialt. understand instead of -- the regime simply do not make concession. they will only make concession of a position of strength. cracking down on the demonstrators while offering some political of reform are the two sides of the coin. there is the syrian way. it's very much so in the foreign policy. they like to play both sides of the fence. he did the job well. he constructer -- and stability. and as when of my good friends and student observer wrote last year he said, quote, for the regime and supporters and at
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ally syria is imimmature. syrian society shows semitarian fundamentalist that can be contained only by ruthless power structure. unquote. ultimately bashar and the followers cannot trust anyone else in syria. the initial strategic vision for the integrated syria became consumed by a syrian paradigm of political survival. he was either unwilling or powerless to stop in response to perceive threat. he typical syrian authority authority yarn mode of survival. to protect them in their power. many of us have thought he would change the system. it seemed to happen is that's the system changed him, in my view. three scenario, i see very
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quickly. continuing stalemate, continuing civil war, and paul aptly mentioned to me. getting bigger and deeper or what i wrote about lebanonization of syria. not exactly apple and apple. but various similarities. second, military intervention, i think mona yacoubian presented a case of the problems surrounding that. but that's the only way that the opposition, i think, will achieve complete victory over the regime. although it is teetering right now. it will be interesting to see if they fall in to rebel hands. the third snore owe is negotiates a solution. some of which mona yacoubian went over. and i think i do agree that it involves the russians and iranian. the thing that search ashumerring -- asiewfming they
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are going to listen to the international community. they may not. in fact, i would say the only one to have a chance to convince bashar immediate to a sense is stepping down from power and those around him are the ierp begans. that's radio active right now and maybe very difficult in international set. i think personally, not that i particularly like it, but any negotiated solution under the current circumstances will have to include bashar and the circle around him staying in power for some time. perhaps the 2014 election that is coming up. perhaps even thereafter with political reform. the -- there are signs that there are elements in international community that are getting weary of the conflict. the turks are a little weary right now. there are have been comments even from the obama administration shifting from the
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man key began view toward assad. so, you know, all of these scenarios don't present too much of a pretty picture. and obviously lead to more death and direction in the near term. unfortunately there no easy answers for this. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. we have two respondents. we have paul sullivan, professor of economics eisenhower school and adjunct professor and columnist for [inaudible conversations] we'll ask him to come first and then lastly we'll have ambassador theodore kattouf former embassy to the uae and syria. >> i have to admit that i've been more -- have not been more torn about a situation for a long time than the the situation in syria.
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this is syria's business. now when people mention the soft power, i think there may be some who get the impression that this is having tea and having nice discussion. soft power is hardballing. it's difficult. it can be very lengthy and to have an effectively used you need to have a credible threat of violence along with it. in order to get people to the table, and to listen if we're going use soft power and niceties, nothing will be done. it is indeed a whirlpool. the turks, certainly near the border are fed up this off and on. they mentioned maybe we'll go to war, maybe we won't. it's right on the border. if you remember the time of --
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the turks brought the military to the border to send a signal. this could kick in to an article r5 v nato. that would be a mess. the russians have the only naval base outside the former soviet union. ladies and gentlemen, the russians are a very big part of this problem. i would not assume that the united states is the main issue here. if the russians and the chinese play ball on this, this could have been resolved a long time ago. but my sense is pessimistic. my sense is probably too late to put the humty dumpty of syria back together again. it's festered too long. all of this time that something
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could have been done pretty much nothing was done except to make the situation worse. all of the talk in the united nations and elsewhere and the talk of a ceasefire for the [inaudible] these are not solutions. this is talk. it's too late. it's too unclear, it's too fact use. how many in the room could name the opposition? how many in this room have a clear view of who the opposition is? or will be? are they a danger to the united states to the gcc and others? do we know this? are we going to hand weapons to ?em i remember a reporter from the "the wall street journal" asking me as the revolution was going on in libya, who is the opposition? do we really know who it is?
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well, my answer was at that time, no. guess what, we're still getting surprises. one of those surprises happened on september 11th. and it was a unhappy one. to have soft power or anything works on a situation like syria, wow have to have coalition. i will be frank and i'm going to say as judy did, a caf caveat i'm speaking my own opinion. i'm about to hammer them. we do not have the kind of leadership that is required to have coalitions put together to deal with this situation in either soft power or hard power. and it may not happen properly any time in the near future. remember that caveat. now the other day i was reading through a book by the "save the children." it's about the children of syria, and if you haven't read
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the book, and you want to understand what's happening in syria, i recommend you read, but assure you you will feel very comfortable on page one. there are costs involved with the situation that could go on for generations. not just for now. generations. think behalf the children are going through now and how they will think about the west. the international community, their arab brothers, the iranian, the russians, the chinese and united states and everyone else. even if this might be over in the next year or so, it will definitely not be over for those children. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. ambassador theodore kattouf. >> i agree with most of what i heard from our panel today,
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although not surprisingly i don't agree with everything. i think professor david lesch has great insight in to bashar al-assad, and i agree with his analysis of the man, i think he came in thinking he could shape the regime, and instead he became a creature of the regime. there, you know, i don't csh comparing him to michael gives him too much credit for his savvy and senators. in one sense he is like michael because he came in believing he could reform an incredibly corrupt and truly -- [inaudible] like system. he found out quickly if he he was to remain in power, he couldn't do. we can speculate whether he wanted to take a softer approach than some of his around him like the late brother-in-law or
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brother, but it doesn't matter. it's immaterial. we see the situation, we know what it is. and it's going to continue. i think in increasingly there is consensus of what the situation is in syria and what some of the pitfalls are. you know, i think there's more realism now than there was a year ago about what's going on in the country. and a much more sober assessment on the part of u.s. officials and others as to what can and can't be done. certainly i being a former diplomat, you will not be surprised to find out that i believe that, yes, we should be leading a diplomatic effort, but i'm not a fan of those who want to blame america for the situation or blame american action up to now for the terrible deor it your ration that is taking place.
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russians have behaved, i don't think we can give up on russia because they do know the syrian military, and getting bashar al assad out of the country is not going to solve all the problems. if he leaves, particularly if he were to leave tomorrow, let's say, you would have fragmentation in syria. for both sides this is an existential struggle, and the alowite-dominated army is not going to give up because bashar gave up. and the opposition is not going to lay down their arms because bashar left. so i think we very much if there's going to be any hope for a resolution that keeps syria intact for the time being, we need the russians, and we need putin, and we need them to recognize that their any listic -- nihilistic attitude doesn't do them any good right
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now, and we might put pressure on russia rather than excoriating the united states. i don't believe in military intervention. i think we could very well find ourselves backing one side and then only to find that we're incapable of stopping them from massacring the other side if they defeat them. we've seen enough massacres in syria, i'm afraid there'll be more, but we certainly should not be a party to it. so i think there is no near-term solution. it's an ugly, terrible, horrible situation. it's going to continue whether or not bashar al assad leaves power tomorrow or not, and the united states needs to -- particularly after the election when there's less doubt about who's leading this country abroad including among the russians, we need to continue to
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work with, on diplomacy, soft power, certainly humanitarian aid, good intelligence on the opposition, all of that. but we have to recognize that we don't have the key to the solution. [applause] >> thanks to each of our speakers. i was going to ask if any of the panelists wanted to respond to their fellow panelists. i think we've in particular seen very strong divergences on the, on a potential role for the united states in syria. i think we've -- although the details of that haven't, have, i think, yet to be fleshed out for the panel as well as for u.s. policy as well. so that would be one thing. if anybody wanted to respond to that issue. did anybody have -- within the panel in would you like -- okay.
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>> i just assumed there were indirect saying that you are blaming the united states, why they didn't interfere. we are not just blaming. maybe we're expecting too much from united states. also in the same time i am sure that syrian issue now -- because i am coming from the turkish border, syrian/turkish border -- it's become not just for jordan or for israel or for iraq, it is real threat for regional security, and it might be one day like maybe afghanistan or yemen. it might even american interests. so we are not just blaming united states just because we are friends. it is real. i was there for maybe three
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times for the, you know, syrian/turkish border, and you can't imagine how much it's becoming a regional threat for the security region. the second thing i think united states has one responsibility. you're always talking about human rightses, supporting democracy, supporting kids' rights and women's rights. what about the syrians? now, i really was crying when i was seeing there are kids who didn't go to their schools for two years. and might be some of them, they might be terrorists. so my last comment is what is the -- [inaudible] if you are just going to stay in washington, -- [inaudible] i'm sure those will not be good news for united states. >> i think one of the things that we haven't heard at all here and yet should be uppermost in our minds is what went wrong with iraq, is what happens after
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the day after. it's one thing to think about how you defeat bashar or get him to be part of a negotiated solution, fine. but i think the one of the most telling comments was that of, that it could end, this crisis could end tomorrow, but the effects of it will linger on. you don't end the blood feuds and the killings and the violence and the factions and everyone goes home and lives happily ever after. and here i would look to, for example, the usip project on syria the day after. what do you do with civil service, what do you do with the state and how do you make it safe the day after so that syrians can determine where they go next? we haven't talked about that. >> are yeah, thank you. doctor? >> we have some written questions handed to us. in terms of empathy again, we
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talk about the 300,000 refugees and the larger number still of displaced individuals. would anyone focus on the syrians who work for the state? if there's regime change, that's one thing. but those who work for the state, namely those whose entire livelihood comes from their being a postmaster or trash collector or street sweeper or schoolteacher or person who works in the electricity power plant or any of the other industries, um, and whose entire material well being, standard of living, is linked to the state. it seems as though no one focuses on them. if you take the numbers of killed and the refugees external and displaced, those numbers are but a fraction of the, say,
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three million who work for the syrian state. anybody care to comment on that dynamic and dimension? it can't be wished away. >> yeah. i'd like to -- is this working? no, that's a great point. the so-called silent majority have yet to be heard from. again, many of these people just simply trying to stay out of the way. many who don't necessarily like the regime of bashar al assad, but don't see any other viable alternative which is one of the reasons why perhaps early on in this uprising international attempts -- and there were attempts, and there were, it may be an impossible task to try to carve together an opposition that has a vision for the future that's more inclusive that offers this viable alternative. again, maybe an impossible task from the beginning. you know, i was doing my own math through all of this, and, you know, it's a country of
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about 22 million people. let's say there are 2-3 million people that are supportive to a more or less degree of the regime. the amount of fighters, syrian fighters, you know, 100,000 would be generous right now. but let's say there's 300,000, 500,000, let's just say there's a million actively supporting in terms of medical support and moving supplies and so forth. we have four million, maybe five million. so there's, you know, 17 million if my math is correct. now, in are children, of course, many of whom are just trying to survive with their parents. but there are many, many millions, the majority, who really haven't been heard from and are staying as best they can on the sidelines, and there's some areas of syria that have not been hit as much. and where they go and how they see this and what they see is that, you know, the regime is not necessarily going to be gone tomorrow. it certainly -- both sides think
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they can still win, and many people think that the less, you know, the least worse alternative right now is the continuance of the regime itself in some form. and that's something that hasn't been talked about. and this is one of the big failures of the opposition as many had said on the panel. it is divided along so many fault lines and fault lines within fault lines that it's very hard to offer themselves up as a credibly alternative to many of them -- credible alternative to many of those who are the silent majority. >> yes, just for a moment. i think i would really just add, frankly, to what david said, and i think to judy's points about the lessons learned from iraq. and i think the notion, again, that one has to try to envision a syria in which the structures of the state are, in fact, still preserved. i would differ with david about assad and those around him staying on. i disagree with that point. i don't think that's tenable
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given the blood that has been spilled. but i do think it's essential to have a solution that does try to maintain the integrity of the structures of governance such as they are and security in syria. but i'd also like to make another point, and can that is that i think the notion that the u.s. is somehow responsible or that it's the u.s.' job to unseat the assad regime, i think i would push back against very forcefully. and i think it's important to underscore that what's happening in syria is happening as part of a much broader phenomenon that has engulfed the region of home grown, organic change. president obama made no promise of unseating the assad regime. i think the u.s. is rightly out of the regime change business. and i do think that in order for
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syria to have a sustainable, peaceful transition it has to be one that comes from within. and here i do put more responsibility, quite frankly, on the opposition to do a much better job of attracting minorities, christians, jews, alawites, curds, -- kurds, and o coalesce around a vision of a post-assad region where they feel not only would they survive, but they would thrive. >> john, i'm going to ask four questions quickly, and anybody can try to answer them. how would a variety of possible future maps of syria look if separatists and other extremist anti-statist groups attempted to and succeeded in dividing syria into multiple political entities, if not new countries?
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how, given these kinds of possible syria-centric scenarios, might one rank these yet-to-be-achieved or yet-to-be-attempted alternative, alternate maps of syria in order of probability? number three, how, if at all, does israel stand to gain from the conflict in syria? and lastly, how in light of persistent attacks on iraqi-american and other security forces in iraq contract security forces on the american side can one envision iraq regaining the degree of national sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity that it manifested prior to the american-led invasion and occupation? john, do you want to choreograph the response? >> why don't we, since this is our last round of questions, we'll start our way here and work our way this way. >> i'll just take a stab at that
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first question, because i think it's a very important one. and it is that as we contemplate various scenarios in syria, the notion of a syria in which the regime implodes or in some way collapses and we have a country that becomes segmented or divided along sectarian or -- and ethnic lines is, i would argue, very much a possibility. i don't foresee borders being redrawn or statelets starting, but i think to coin or to borrow david's phrase of the lebanonization of syria. i think that's actually quite possible, that one sees various groups retreat to their ancestral strongholds, and you see a syria that really is for many, many, many years beholden
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to a conflict. the one last comment i'd make is as i'm watching what happens in syria, i am increasingly struck by the notion that we may be seeing the unraveling of the post-ottoman era in the levant, and that that has huge implications not only for syria, but for the region more broadly. this is a part of the world that has really on its own never been able to reckon fully with its minorities and how as air abs -- arabs they would like to govern. and i think that that's a huge question that will be coming in the months and years ahead. >> paul and judith. >> uh -- >> paul? >> i think so. >> working that way. >> getting back to the question of the post-assad, i wanted to give an answer to that as well. i think one lesson that some may
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have learned almost by accident about iraq is you do not fire the people who know how to run the electrical stations, the water plants, the refineries and just about everything else. that makes absolutely no sense. you want to keep them on. of course, there'll be great tensions within the country if these people are still running it, but i'm also an energy person as well as a middle east person. i takes a long time to train up people to know how to run these things or to work them or fix them. if you just pull them out of the factories, you're going to have a collapsing economy which will drag it right back into stability. this is going to be a very difficult trade-off. with regard to the country splitting up and lebanonization, i would hope that would not happen. if there is a kurdish group in the north that wants to separate out, i can pretty much assure you the turks would not be el welcoming of that concept, so that might cause some difficulties. there may be some warlordism for
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a while, the brutal brutality of assad kept things in check for a time. what would israel gain? as far as i can see, it's losing on all sides in this one. it's at a very ip secure area, much more than any time in it history. >> i think the de-otto myization, if you will, of this nation is something that haunts everybody. the problem is a lot of people see different patterns. for example, will iraq break into a sunni-stand, and it is hard to see that. the kurds have have a lot of of ambitions, and the absence of power, the ab is sense of the state encourages -- absence of the state encourages ambitions pote in iraq as we've seen when baghdad collapsed and certainly in terms of what's happening in syria. i think that the strategy sister
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both -- whatever government follows in damascus will be similar to what saddam's was. you take care of what the most serious problems are first, and things will go back to the way they were before. ethnic and sectarian differences, it's not all about religion, it's about very complicated layers of this onion which makes up the region. as for the question about iraq, can it or will it regain? it's already there. um, part of the problem in terms of what the government in baghdad is trying to do, it doesn't matter if it's maliki or anybody else, he believes in a strong central government, certainly stronger than the constitution which is very weak and was written by shia and kurds who said never again to a strong central government. but can you have a government that functions and can protect
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the country and have it as weak as it is and not be able to defend its borders and to project national power. so there are people, and the ndi survey, polling survey that was published in april or may says maliki, love him or hate him, he certainly is more popular now than he was six months ago, and he's popular among sunnis and others who see him -- not that they like him, they don't have to like him. this is not a popularity contest. i think the iraqis know that. but he has taken strong moves to defend them and the country. and he who delivers at the end of the day is the one who's going stay in power right now. it's not a perfect system, but iraq is a work in progress. but i think to say that it doesn't have control of its -- it has its borders and its territory, needs to be able to control them against its neighbors, and it doesn't have that now.
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that's why i tried to frame series of choices that iraq has to make choices about what it can best do. >> the remaining answers will be confined to one minute. okay. >> i think there's a great irony in that al assad particularly during the lebanon war, it's been a doctrine of the baathist regime in syria that if they wanted the fragmentation along sectarian and religious lines to lend greater legitimacy presumably to a state that was based on ethnicity or religion, take your pick. and yet maybe the alawite-dominated army that is forced to concede great swaths of syria to one or another group
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among the opposition and fall back on damascus in the coastal mountains along with the christians, etc., and as was said this, these fault lines, these religious and ethnic fault lines encompass lebanon, syria, iraq, bahrain. and overlaying all of this is a rivalry between the gcc and iran for predominance in the region. so, as i said, there's -- i think, unfortunately, i think that fragmentation, at least temporarily, is a very possible if not probable outcome of what we're seeing. >> david? john? >> okay. well, i think we've been reminded both of the human reality certainly in the case of
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syria, but also in iraq of what's happening, the need for policy, the difficulty of the choices. thanks to all of you for being here, thanks to dr. anthony and the national council for hosting this. [applause] >> will the panelists, speakers for the next session, please, come forward? north africa gets short shrift. [inaudible conversations] >> but here we have the chance to focus on it. [inaudible conversations]
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at this point in time, i'm going to call mr. chris branchard from the congressional research who is the chair of our session. mr. blanchard. >> hello, everyone. if you could, please, take your seats, we'll get, we'll get this maybe penultimate or ultimate panel started. i know it's been a long day, and we'll appreciate your attention for this insightful and, hopefully, thought-provoking panel for arab north africa. the current of change had its humble beginnings in arab north africa. the experiences of countries on the southern shores of the mediterranean offer competing visions of of the course that change may change. the in tunisia, we find a government faced with security
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challenges and debates over fundamental constitutional principles while economic struggles that helped motivate original calls for change continue. in libya triumph and tragedy have marked the transition that has successfully produced libya's first elected government in 50 years, yet libya remains haunted by its divisive legacy, and its new government has a long way to go to build its own capacity and assert national leadership. egyptians have taken the first steps beyond the political gamesmanship that characterized their early transition period, but president morsi and his allies find themselves grappling with the responsibilities of elected power and balancing competing domestic and international demands. in algeria, we see a durability of broadly-based authoritarian rule but looming leadership transitions and persistent economic challenges may place obstacles on the horizon. and lastly, in morocco, we see a model of potential change with many questions still outstanding
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about the limits of royal power and the durability of compromise with elected individuals. what do these different case studies teach us about the possibilities of lasting change in the region? how has each shaped the other, and how should policymakers respond to unique challenges each presents? indeed, north africa offers us a rich menu of interesting topics and questions to explore. to help us do that, we are joined by the expert panel of practitioners in front of you, and they're eager to share their experience and insight. their bios are available to you, so i will keep introductions to a minimum. in general, we'll proceed i think east to west, so across north africa beginning we egypt. i've asked our speakers to limit their remarks to roughly seven minutes in order to reserve plenty of time for your questions and answers. dr. anthony and the organizers, as always, have provided us with a series of thought-provoking
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questions, and question cards will be available as with previous panels. so, first, i'd like to call on mr. karim who's a visiting professor at the center and served as a career egyptian diplomat with direct experience in egypt's diplomacy towards arms control and non-proliferation issues. he's also a veteran of the egyptian military affairs office here in washington, so he offers unique insight into the delicate relationship egypt's leaders find themselves maneuvering in. thank you. >> thank you, and i'd like to thank the council for this thunt. it's a pleasure -- opportunity. it's a pleasure to be here with you today. i'd like to focus my remarks on foreign policy, particularly the challenges facing the new egyptian government in the foreign policy and regional security realm, but i'd like to set the context by talking a
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little bit about domestic policy. and here let me just start out by what seems to be a paradoxical situation when assessing egypt's domestic landscape. because on the one hand, on the level of politics we have truly momentous change in egypt. however, on the level of policy, i would argue that we have much more continuity than change. on the level of politics, the election of mohamed morsi was truly a landmark event in egypt's political history. he was the first civilian elected to the office of the presidency in egypt. he is also the first islamist to be elected as head of state in any arab country in free and fair elections, and the islamist movement in question, of course, is the muslim brotherhood, by far the largest and most well established islamist movement in the world of sunni political
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islam. so truly momentous change on the level of politics. however, i would argue on the level of policy we have much more durability, much more consistency. and the reasons for that are numerous, and i don't want to get too much into that. we can, of course, discuss this in the q&a session. but just to point out that this is rooted in a number of factors. first of all, the resiliency of egypt's institutions. the military, the national security bureaucracy, the judiciary, the media. they have all remained, to a certain level, very cohesive throughout what has been a very turbulent transition. all of these, of course, have afforded egypt really a measure of stability that has been lacking in some of the other countries that have undergone transition. we've heard, of course, about syria, we will hear in this panel about libya, bahrain.
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all of these have went through very turbulent domestic transitions, but i think the resiliency of egypt's institutions have spared egypt much of that. we still are, of course, very much in the period of political transition. despite the election of president mayor is si, we still have -- morsi, we still have a number of milestones to complete in egypt's postrevolutionary transition. there is still a new constitution that is being negotiated as we speak. that constitution will be put to a national referendum followed by parliamentary elections. now, in all of this, of course, we have seen what has been at times a very polarized or polarizing debate within egypt's domestic context between both the islamists and nonislamist forces, forces affiliateed with
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the old regime and forces affiliated with the new revolutionary groups that have emerged from the revolution. but there is still a recognition that consensus is key. i think there is a recognition that no party can govern by itself. there is a recognition that no coalition of forces can form a super majority that can govern egypt in isolation from other political forces. so i think that's a very healthy sign. but again, it accounts for the fact that there has been no radical departures when it comes to egypt's domestic or foreign policy. and it attests to what i think is a very healthy sense of political pluralism in egypt. now, the one area where we see this consistency most clearly is in the realm of foreign policy. we have the fundamentals of
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egypt's foreign policy orientation very much unchanged. the strategic partnership with the united states, the -- egypt's commitment to the egyptian/israeli peace treaty have all remained very much intact. contrary to expectations following the overthrow of the mubarak regime, there has been no radical shift in egypt's regional alliances. there has been no resumption of diplomatic ties to iran, there has been no drastic change in egypt's policy towards the hamas government in gaza or the border regime between the sinai and the gaza strip. there is a recognition, i think, on the part of the government of the need to leverage the network of relationships and alliances that egypt has formed over the last three decades to deal with what is a very difficult economic situation nestically, and i -- domestically, and i
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will talk about that a little bit further on. so we see on the level of foreign policy much more consistency and much more durability than any sense of radical change as was the expectation following the outbreak of the rev hugh. revolution. now, that does not mean that there will be no change. and i think what you do see on the part of the new government is a clear determination to reassert egypt's regional role. that was seen to have been diminished under the former regime. we have seen a much more activist foreign policy on the part of this president with numerous successive visits with china, a visit to iran in the context of the nonalign movement, reaching out to africa given egypt's interests there, egypt's water interest with the nile basin countries. we have seen a very bold
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initiative on syria that we could talk about further. we see a clear signaling to break with the old regime when it comes to the perception of egypt's subordination of its national security interests to foreign powers, and this was a very strong perception generated by the revolution itself. in all of this i think the approach of the new government will be driven by a clear sense of egyptian national interests rather than any perceived ideological orientation. and the one area you see this most clearly is in the sinai. and it was in the very decisive response by the new government to the crisis precipitated by the attack on egyptian soldiers in, last august that led to the killing of 16 egyptian border guards at the hands of terrorist elements within the sinai. we've seen in the aftermath of
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that a very clear, a very decisive response on the part of the government. president morsi ordering in the military to track down in a very wide-ranging sweep of the border areas between the sinai and the gaza strip and israel, very clear action in shutting down the illegal tunnel trade between the sinai and gaza. all of this were very decisive actions to the point that the hamas government in gaza vehemently criticized president morsi, calling him worse than former president mubarak. now, in all of this i think the new government will face three key challenges, and i will wrap up very quickly. first of all, there is the challenge of repairing and rethinking new or old alliance relationships. we see this in particular in the
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african context given egypt's national security interests in the nile basin region. there will be a need to rethink egypt's relationship with the united states. i think both countries recognize the critical stakes in this very key relationship, but i think there is a recognition as well that moving forward much of the substance of that relationship will have to be revisited in a way that takes into account the interests of both sides. finally, all of this will take time. it will take time for patient diplomacy abroad, and it will also take time to forge political consensus at home. now, the problem is, of course, we -- or egypt lives in the region that is prone to crisis. and prone to crisis in a way that can intrude on egypt's domestic political context in a way that can force very
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difficult decisions for the government. we see that potentially in libya, in lebanon, in syria, a potential crisis in the gulf. the one area where it will probably face an immediate challenge is in gaza, and we've seen lately the recent round of violence, rockets from the gaza strip into southern israel, a cycle of retaliation and counterretaliation. egypt, again, assuming its role in attempting to broker a ceasefire between hamas and israel. all of these things can potentially be explosive in a way that forces a very difficult decision on the part of the government. the last point i will make is about the arab/israeli context. i think one of the unrecognized developments so far when it comes to the arab spring is that the arab revolutions coincide with what is truly a fundamental transformation in the nature of
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the arab/israeli conflict. from a national conflict between palestinians and israelis to what seems to be an emerging ethnic conflict between raichs and jews. -- arabs and jews. it will pose a fundamental challenge to egypt's interests and egypt's stability, and i think if there is one potential challenge that egypt will face in the foreign policy realm, i think it relates to what will be a very difficult development when it comes to the future of the arab/israeli conflict moving forward. thank you. let me stop there, and i would be happy to take your questions. [applause] >> thank you, karim. karim's presented us with a framework to understand egyptian relations with the united states and the world. that stresses maybe a bit more continuity than change and reminds us to focus on egypt's
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rethinking of its alliances, counsel sill's patients and -- counsel's patience. we move now to libya, very much on everyone's minds here in the united states of late, and who better to present perspectives on that country than the libyan ambassador to the united states, ambassador ali. the ambassador's decades of diplomatic service around the world and in libya give him unique insight not only on libya's recent political changes, but into the currents and opportunities as they look to their future. we're pleased to welcome the ambassador. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you very much, national council u.s./arab relation, dr. anthony. this occasion, it is one of the
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most -- [inaudible] here in washington, d.c.. you bring all the scholars and professors and experts and politicians from all over the world. thank you very much for the invitation. well, let me start by saying i'm are proud to be here today to talk a little bit about what's happening in libya. and what is our expectation, and what are our challenges. i want to start with what happened in benghazi on september 11th. we last a great friend, ambassador chris stevens. he's not only friend, he's a tennis partner, and he is a champion, and he's part of the libya revolution. we lost him in a very criminal attack against the american consulate in benghazi. i want to extend my condolence or regret, sorry for his family and for the american people.
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it is sad that he is not around with us to see the democratic process taking place in libya. well, we have, with support of the united states, of nato, of arab countries to defeat the gadhafi regime which was libya for 42 years. but the challenges are still great in front of us. we have security issue. unfortunately, the government is still not under control of the libyan territories. we have very long borders. we have illegal immigrants. we have some terrorists, and is we have some groups that are having weapons in their hands. how can we control them? how can we bring them under the umbrella of the government? this need two things.
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one is support of our friend, the support during the war. and the second thing that we have to take these people as much as we can under the umbrella of government. we need to train them, the one who are ready the to work for the military or for the minister of interior, and we have to create jobs for them. this is a very young process. it will take time and need patience. but unfortunate, the expectation of libya is very, very high. this is -- without security, without security we will not be able to do anything. we need security as much as we can. security is number one for libya. with we need the american companies to come back, and we cannot ask them to come back without the security. the reconciliation among the
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libyan people, just last few days we still have a great crisis in one of the biggest cities, one of the cities in libya which is the national army have to deal with them. this is another challenge. we have to bring the employment down. it is more than 30, 35% among their people. then this is all the challenge. we manage now to bring the oil just about the level for the revolution, but libya is depending only on oil and gas, and and i think this is not what we want. the diversity of our economy is very important. we have to attract the investment, and we have to attract the foreign companies to invest in libya. but as i said before, without security we will not be able to do that. the reconciliation among our peopling it is also a -- people, it is also a big issue.
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libya is a big country but with a small population with the tribes, with the history, and we need to build them. gadhafi used the tribes against each other for his own benefits. the challenges are great, but also the promises are great. there are opportunities for the libyan people to build the country. the first thing we achieved is democracy. now the election took place to elect the first congress in the libyan history since 1969. and mr.-- [inaudible] is one of them. now he was elected as a member of congress. then libya now, they are enjoying the democracy. they're enjoying the elected people, but this also is not enough. the level, the standard of living in libya is very low.
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i am working for the government for 42 years. when i retire, my salary will be $400. i think you could not feed even a dog here in the united states. what about one with a family to take care of them. then creating opportunities is very important. but i am optimistic because the people now, you see that they are stand for democracy, they are stand for their future. and we have to, we have to be realistic for our expectation. but the government need to supply the service. educational system need to be reformed. economy, it need to be reformed. everything gadhafi left for us just destruction. in every libyan city do you find what gadhafi left is destruction behind him. i want to tell you that we are
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confident, that we will achieve our goals. but we cannot say we achieve our goals just by what i am telling you now. the new government, the new prime minister was lekked, and he has to present his government in the next few days. and this bears a great respondent for the new -- responsibility for the new, for this new government. i don't want the united states or our alliance or our friends to lose confidence. i want them to be confident in libyan future. the libyans are very serious about their future. they sacrifice more than 25,000 young people and children and women were killed during the eight months of war. well, again, the libyan people who stand for gadhafi, they stand for the terrorists also. we -- the one who take, who are
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responsible for the action against the american embassy are not the libyan people. they are small group of terrorists. but the libyan people, they went out to the street, they demonstrate, they show their support democracy, they show sport -- support for their friends, and they're committed to democracy. we are on optimistic that the region which witnessed changes from tunisia to libya to egypt, we will work together for the future for our people, for the future of our nation. and we have to make a lot of changes in libya. not on the economic level, but also on the political level. our relations have to be changed. we have more enemies before. we have no enemies at the present time. and then we have to look to how can we use our strategic location, how we use our resources, how we use our history to bring more investment to libya, to bring more friends to libya and create the libya
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that participate in the international community and play a positive role in the world. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, mr. ambassador. you reminded us that security, indeed, remains the first priority for libyans, and for those looking to take advantage of the considerable opportunities that ultimately we know the libyans in cooperation with the world will seize. we'll move now to dr. ottoway. he's well known to all of us as correspondent for "the washington post". he's returned to the woodrow wilson center as a senior scholar, and he's currently preparing a book focused on changes underway in the arab world. his recent travels continue his dedication to getting the story firsthand, and we look forward to benefiting from his wise
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perspective. dr. ottoway, thank you. >> thank you, good afternoon. i was given a list of questions that i might address and asked to talk about tunisia in the list, i think john drew it up. it was far too long for a seven-minute talk, so i chose two questions i wanted to address. the fest one is, is constitutional reform -- first one is, is constitutional reform from the bottom up through coalition politics as is happening in several arab republics likely to be more successful and enduring than reform from the top vastly preferred by the arab monoor around keys? and the second question related, to what extent these reforms serve as a possible model for the monarchies and particularly the gulf-area monarchies. now, in thinking about this issue, what first struck me is
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that what's happening in the three monarchies, i mean, the three republics i want to talk about today, tunisia, egypt and libya, how different the paths are that each is following. but of the three, i would say that tunisia has been looked to as the country most likely to succeed. if there is a list like that. as you look attu news ya -- at tunisia, the way they went about it, the sequencing of reform steps is now regarded as a successful way to go about a transition process. they set up a constituent assembly first to write a new constitution, and that body elected an interim government. and the idea they wanted to spell out first what the roles
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and powers of parliament, president, the government and the relations among them. and then afterwards hold parliamentary and presidential elections. neither egypt, nor libya are following this path. but i think the most interesting thing i discovered in my visit to tunisia was the role played by a institution at the very beginning of the upheaval and transition, the plight of ben ali, by the high -- an english translation -- the high body for the realization of the objectives of the revolution, political reform in a democratic transition. that's actually the name of the body. this was an incredibly inclusive group, was not elected, it was appointed, and it kept getting larger and larger. and it included everybody from members of the family of
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mohamed, the guy who chas freeman said the spark that started the prairie fire across the arab world, members of his family on. and with all the parties and political groups, i mean, it was really incredibly incollusion i. in talking, one of the most interesting things, and nobody -- very few people realized anyway is that at the very beginning of the tunisian revolution there was an attempt by leftist groups to seize control of the process. sort of a leftist coup. and this body served to bring other groups from the leftist groups into this high body and sort of moderate if furor and the attempt by these leftist group toss seize control.
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i find this fascinating that i've never heard discussed by anybody, and i know this all by talking to the head of this high body. but the important thing was that because this high body succeeded and prevented a leftist seizure of power is that the beginning of the transition there was a civilian body including everybody which lasted for ten months while they got the elections going for constituent assembly. and that stands b in really sharp -- stands in really sharp contrast to egypt where you have the supreme council of the armed forces taking over right away, and the whole process is different. so, um, what's really interesting, there's different paths that tunisia took from the other two, and this was the relative success, if you will, was sort of a blessing is that
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21% of the parliamentary out of 27, and they had to form a coalition government with two secular parties which really moderated the whole process and forced con seven sis: -- consensus. now, i won't go into the details of how libya and egypt have changed, navigating the process because you're hearing it from other people. but the point is there is no tunisian model replicable even among the other republics that are trying, going through this process. so what lessons do we learn from this kind of bottom-up approach for the arab monarchies? and are there any reforms that might be transferable or that the monarchists think about following? and i think there's one thing that they all share in common,
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and that is the monarchies and the republicans -- and the republics are facing a very similar existential issue; the need for a new social and political compact between rulers and ruled. and they're all going to have to do it. now, the way the republics have gone about it is a very messy, conflictual way of going about it, but i think in the end they're going to come out with a new compact. and the question is, how are the monarchies going to come out with a new compact, political and social? and what, what institutions or reforms are likely to be, are we likely to see happen or replicated in the monarchies? and it's very clear to me that the shuras, the consultive,
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nonelected shuras, are slowly going to become elected parliaments with powers of some kind. which they don't have now. and that's, i think, going to be the key similarity in what's going on, republics and monarchs. the other things the monarchies are going to have the deal with is the withdrawal of the royal families from running the goths. now -- governments. now, morocco, and you'll hear more about that shortly, has figured that out a long time ago. but in a number of the monarchies, particularly in the gulf, the royal families are still trying to run the government. and particularly in kuwait now you see this battle between parliament and the royal family about who's going to run, who's going to -- who the government's going to be and who's going to appoint it. but i think the royal families are going to slowly retreat, and the shuras that are appointed
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and nonelected are going to become elected and with some powers, and these are all reforms that you see happening even in the republics. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, dr. ottaway. that comparative approach, i think, is very helpful particularly in light of why, obviously, the focus on the gulf but also what we heard from the last panel about syria. um, perhaps tunisia may not be any more seen as most likely to succeed, but a rules-first approach that's inclusive and reflects the strengths of a bottom-up approach may be replicable elsewhere. we'll move now further west to algeria. my colleague, alexis aris, serves as an analyst with me at the congressional research service. her work there focuses on
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