it's a little over an hour. >> good evening, everyone. my name is a john heubusch and i had the honor of being the director of the presidential foundation and it is my pleasure to welcome all of you here on this rainy evening. ..

[applause] >> also with us tonight is our cryptic congressman who is retiring after 26 years of service. thank you, sir. [applause] are ventura county supervisor, peter ford, peter, thank you for coming. [applause] now, for those of you who are patient enough to go through the book signing line just prior to the event this evening, you know that wonderful woman is with us tonight. she's a best-selling author of "the new york times" and the president of newt gingrich production. please join me in recognizing

calista gingrich. [applause] so we have with us tonight a very special guest. i know that if i were simply to give the typical dinner circuit introduction, the one where you list every accomplishment of the speaker's biography, i promise you we would be here all night and even newt gingrich would get for himself. [laughter] his list of achievements in politics, his involvement in lifelong learning, his expertise in national security matters, his business interest, his endeavors, the dozens of books he has written, the list goes on and on. allow me to presume that all of us here are well acquainted with the important milestones in the light of newt gingrich. because i would like to focus on

the future in some part. what i sincerely hope is that it's place in it as it relates to ideas is heard. let me explain. it is no secret to anyone here that the party of abraham lincoln and ronald reagan took a beating three weeks ago. republicrepublic ans lost the battle for the white house and the house and senate. most are singing badly from that defeat. i know this from first-hand experience as many seem to be visiting the reagan library lately. what seems to be in a quest to remember a great president and remind themselves of his ideals and optimism in what he did to inspire americans to greatness. we should remind ourselves that while our president had the uncanny ability to reach into the hearts and minds of americans, it was ronald reagan

himself who said i wasn't a great communicator. i communicated great things. today we can recognize that great things spring from great ideas and we can take heart that there are leaders in our times like speaker newt gingrich got great contributions contribution to make in the way of such ideas. there is plenty of precedent here. when he was first elected office in 1978 in georgia, his party, like the republican party today was in the white house. the house and senate were safe in their hands. republicans took control of the white house and the senate. in the house, where newt gingrich went work each day, he was badly outnumbered. now, i have worked as a hill

staffer only steps away. and i assure you that the representatives like newt, it was often a lonely place. the republicans haven't held the majority since 1954 they there. there was not a soul in life who could ever imagine the republican party being like that again, except for newt. with no seniority but a tireless work ethic, a vision, and a mind filled with ideas, it was newt gingrich who sat in the back benches of congress to make the republican party the party of ideas once again. it was him who devised the great contract with america. he gave him something to run for.

he had fateful ideas and took back the house after 40 years in the minority. he balanced budgets during his time as speaker of the house. he has been on the national stage ever since, pushing america and the conservative movement forward with his ideas. i would like you to join me to the speaker, newt gingrich. [applause] >> thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you. thank you all very much.

it is an honor to be back at the reagan library. i would like to thank john for the great job he does of providing leadership on a day-to-day basis. this library is a model of educating young people. it is really remarkable and a lot of that goes to the energy that drives them to be candid with john burns says. thank you so much for your work. [applause] >> thank you for keeping mrs. reagan in your prayers. she is a remarkable woman who has spent a lifetime serving this country. she continues to be active and playable here at the library. i couldn't come here and not mention her for at least a

moment. governor, we have done a lot of things over the years. from the mayor to u.s. senator governor, i look to them as great people who have a willingness to serve their country. it is always a family engagement if you're out there. thank you both for serving the country. it really does make a difference. it's wonderful to be back here. [applause] >> i didn't know you'd be with us, but we are thrilled to have you here tonight. we have launched what we call an american legacy book tour. we are very fond of the library, as you know. we made a movie about ronald reagan and i would like to recognize tonight kevin and his wife. he was the director of the film and kevin do such a great job in

the movies that we have done together. so when we come back to the reagan library, you may wonder why we talk about an american legacy and calista has created an alliance to introduce for an eight year olds in american history. join me for a moment. we would like to show you part of president reagan's farewell address. this captures perfectly what we have in american legacy book to her. >> there is a great tradition of warnings and i have one that has been on my mind for some time. oddly enough, it starts with one of the things i'm proudest of in the past eight years. the resurgence of national pride that i call the new patriotism.

his national feeling is good, but it won't count for much in it won't last unless it's grounded in knowledge. informed patriotism is what we want. are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what america is and what she represents in one history of the world? those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different america. we were taught directly what it means to be an american and we have a love of country and appreciation of its institutions. the family and a sense of patriotism from school. if all else fails, a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. movies celebrating values and reinforcing the idea that

america was special. tv was like that too through the mid-sixties. now we are about to enter the '90s and some things have changed. younger parents aren't sure if this is the right thing to teach modern children. for those who create the culture, well grounded patriotism is no longer the style. our spirit is back, but we haven't been institutionalized. we have to do a better job getting across america is freedom. freedom of speech and religion and freedom is special and rare. it is fragile. it into production. so we have to teach history based not on what is in fashion, but what is important. why the pilgrims came here. what those 30 seconds over tokyo

meant. four years ago on the 40th anniversary of d-day, i read a letter whose from a young gal whose dad fought on omaha beach. if we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. it could result in erosion of american spirit. let's start with some basics. more attention to american history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. let me offer lesson number one about america. all great change in america begins at the dinner table. well not in the kitchen, i hope the talking begins. children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an american, let

them know and nail them on it. that would be a very american thing to do. [applause] >> i would like to thank the staff of the library. i call this afternoon. and i said i have been thinking about how to introduce this talk. it occurred to me is pretty stupid for me to quote rate and if i could get reagan to quote reagan. i think all of you will agree that there is a power in what he did and how he did it. that is at least 50% of why we're in the mess we're in. those of us lack the courage to take on school board and the teachers union and the news media and the entertainment culture. it has crippled the country's

understanding. this is a country worth knowing its history. come here from haiti or somalia, china, mexico. and in my wife's case, they came from poland and ireland and in my case it came from places like switzerland and ireland. you can come here and learn to be be an american. but you to do that you have to learn to be an american. if you have a news media elite and entertainment only who oppose the teaching that, literally cut off lifeblood of this country. so that is the basis of what we have been doing.

that is why we have an american legacy to it. several people said that if i come out here and talk about george washington, which a lot of people seems a long way off, both of the books became a "new york times" bestseller. it is actually about the 13 colonies. her mother broke her and said you should not say this is for four to eight years old. this is for four years old to 80 years old. nobody has said he the colonies, so it's brand-new information for everybody. and then she said, okay, but what you should really do in order to engage washington and the national media is applied to the fiscal cliff. i thought to myself, at the reagan library, what better

place to go back to first principles. since i have written three novels about george washington, why not leave these two giants, ronald reagan after whom the soviet empire disappeared and george washington. after whom we became a country. i don't study history because it's an interesting habit. i study history to better understand the present and the future so that i can engage in making history by being an intelligent and informed person. that's what citizenship ought to be. what are some of the lessons? let me start with the fiscal cliff. how many of you have heard the term fiscal cliff? [laughter] in washington it will be seen as

heretical. i am proud of a number of things that make no sense in washington. there is no fiscal cliff. this is absolute and total nonsense. the best way to understand what happens to all that to read a great essay by thomas wolfe. this goes back to the 60s when he first broke it. now, he is trying to describe a particular pattern in san francisco. in which the welfare department has figured out that all of the senior welfare people should be on the second floor of the welfare office hiding from the people that they serve.

the newest and least be people the people should be on the ground floor screening the others. and this describes the samoan community in san francisco. having figured out what the demos. and so you have 6-foot five and 6-foot six samoans tearing traditional workloads carrying traditional clubs. they would start to shift the fourth with their clubs. and so you have a normal sized person staring up at this samoan with his war club. anything, are they pay me enough for this?

thomas wolfe was one of the greatest observers in our american generation. if you've never read this, you should. everything that wolfe described in his early essays. the left has continued to mutate and evolve and metastasize and become more broke than what wolfe first described it. so now instead of it being the local samoans at the local san francisco office, it is the national news media. they call it the fiscal cliff. if you are an intelligent politician and you say what i just said to you, the fiscal cliff is a fantasy. it is an excuse to panic. it is a device to get us running down the road so we expect whatever obama wants because otherwise we have failed to fiscal cliff and how can you be a patriot if you don't do what the fiscal cliff requires.

it is much like the land of the wizard of oz where there will be this person hiding behind a machine who will say, raise taxes now. if you don't raise taxes now, you violate the fiscal cliff. do any of you want to be the person who stands up and destroys america by averting the fiscal cliff? you want to go on the national networks and explain that you don't care that america is going to die late on thursday? it's all right if that's the kind of person you are. let the police know that now because we will never schedule you. you'll never be on television because after all you are clearly weird. [laughter] so let me say that there is no fiscal cliff. there are conservatives and republicans are demoralized. get over it. we did a number of stupid things. we faced a those who worked

harder, were smarter than we were, one of ronald reagan's most important statements was february of 1975 in washington at a conservative political action meeting. i was part of this and iran in 1974 and i had no sense of timing. so i picked watergate to run in. [laughter] i'm in georgia. i'm a yankee born army brat with a army accent. this was beyond belief. [laughter] this was like you know, don't give him money. just pay for the therapy. [laughter] >> in december 1974, the republican party was at 17%. and we talked about that the

party would disappear or be replaced. i was part of a group that came out of the wreckage and met with the guy at the republican national committee to do serious in-depth analysis. there was a series called republicans are people as well. i mean, you know that you are in trouble then. it was deeply moving. it was in this environment that ronald reagan said we need bold colors and no pale colored pastels. he said don't tell me you have to sell out. don't tell me that you're going to cave. don't tell me you have to do it over the left wants. there are moments in history when you draw a line in the fight. now, we have 30 governors. we have control of the united

states house of representatives and we have the legislature. the idea that we create a surrender caucus to be socially acceptable in washington is absurd. let's be clear, that is what people are currently doing in washington. how much money do i need to surrender so you won't be anymore? when i was finally elected to congress, by the way, in terms of bad scheduling, jimmy carter was at the head of the democratic ticket. it was the best campaign i ever technically ran. and it felt really good towards the end. i went through these moments when everything felt good because your candidate. so i went into vote at the library on election day of 1976. the city of georgia was very proud that jimmy carter was there. and i found myself standing in

line behind three people that have come from the nursing home. those who wanted to get revenge for sherman's march to georgia. [laughter] and i thought to myself, how likely is it that after they vote for jimmy carter, they will put their ticket for a yankee born army brat on the other side. and i thought -- this will be a long evening. and it was. i went from 48.5% in 1974 down to 48.3% in 1976. barely enough to survive. carter approved the left in government and when i came to washington, the democrats have been so dominant in 1973 onward.

they would saunter onto the floor of the house looking for republicans to be. republicans would hope not to be noticed. new generation banded together and went to the courthouse to find some democrats to be a. [laughter] we picked fights with him. but as i make that clear so no one says that advocate yet democrats. but i do agree with margaret thatcher's rule. so we get groups of people who go to the floor regularly and start debating. after a while, the democrats stop coming to the floor. because there were more of us that were prepared to debate a number of them that studied every and we studied it every

week because we didn't have to govern. they were running the house. it was once pointed out to me by someone who became a republican, if you're in the majority, hold hearings, that the bill, go to conference with the senate, get something done. if you're in the minority, you get to golf and vote no. [applause] [laughter] that becomes a self-perpetuating model. one of the things i would say to the house republicans is to get a grip. they are the majority and not the minority. they don't need to cave into obama were formed a surrender caucus. senators will do whatever they do. it is an institution which an eventuality totally dominates

timor. each senator somehow fashions out what they're going to do. and you will not organize the senate republicans in terms of actually being able to do something positive. but you're not going to get to come up with a magic formula because there will always be five or six different versions depending on how many senators are in the room. on the house side it is a different situation. you are the majority. you control the schedule and the committees and the hearings. and so my advice is simple, back out of the negotiating with obama. the president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media. you start setting up the definition of success and agreeing with obama come you just gave him the ability to save you it's not good enough. we sent where for welfare reform

dunklin three times. we didn't start by reaching an agreement. everyone of you is going to hold hearings on waste and government. so why don't you go back home and they can create 1-800-waste so i will let you eat the right number for the phone company. [laughter] and also have it available for a variety of other formats. so how many americans do you think can find one or two or three items of waste that they would be willing to suggest that congress hold a hearing on? so in the first two or three weeks, you have 5 million suggestions. and you can say, this is what he wants to raise taxes for.

someone sent me two days ago that their estimate is that the fema effort, the federal management emergency effort is that 1 dollar every day is wasted. for every taxpayer. it certainly was true in hurricane katrina. so then you start saying, let's have a discussion about how many billions have been thrown away on bad loans and solar power. let's have a discussion about why we are still sending money to egypt. about how much money is being wasted by various agencies. whether or not we want to give the epa money to a enact a radical program. they magically got the republicans into an argument over taxes. then i give obama great credit for this. i have never seen anybody better at finding trivial distractions in order to avoid

responsibility. [applause] but they just say it to give you a 2012 variation on ronald reagan's 1975 pastel colors, obama is not a winning formula for the republican party. i'm not so let's start with how the media operates. they act first to create panic. you are going to run off the fiscal cliff unless you're insane coming up with your bad person if you asked the question why is the fiscal cliff and will america be different on january 2 if we hold our breath and see what happens. secondly, we've been go to a distraction. the current distraction is grover norquist.

i have known him for a long time. i think it is a fine person. he wasn't elected president. he knows no elective office. so we have the president of the united states was responsible for figuring out how to solve our problems and who has not come up with a serious cost-cutting measure as of yet. tell me what you think barack obama will do? will he he say that i need a yes on this cost-cutting? instead of dealing with the fact that the president of the united states is once again failing to provide leadership, the president has gotten worried about whether grover norquist defines the republican party. as we all know, we are not worthy of the news media's perspective on. we are a party that will disappear. listen to the tone of the language when you watch morning

joe or even fox and friends. i just want to make two points. grover did something important. he came up with the idea of a no tax increase pledge as a way of drawing a line in the sand. i voted attacks increases under reagan. i voted against it for george h. w. bush. it was a disaster and a fundamental mistake. and when we balanced the budget in four years, we did it by cutting taxes to accelerate economic growth. so i clearly represent a different view. [applause] but i have no problem if someone wants to break this. if they are prepared to go home, there is this idea and several

senators have said i am not afraid of grover norquist. well, i have known grover for years. they didn't give their pledge to grover norquist. they gave their pledge to the voters in the state. [applause] now, there are circumstances where the raise taxes. ronald reagan, this great video -- ronald reagan said my feet are in concrete. seeing if he could get away with going to the press conference and saying that the sound you're hearing is concrete breaking. as governor, he concluded that he had no choice to meet a state requirement. but he was totally up front and went to the country and people in california and said here is where we are. i think we have to do this. he did that after creating a

commission which fundamentally cut costs and spending. nobody thought ronald reagan was doing not create a bigger government. if he needed it, he must be very serious. what we have today is no innovation for reform or new thinking and creativity and no hearings on waste. you live in the age of the ipad an iphone and google and facebook and twitter. in the face of federal government which currently runs at the pace of a manual typewriter. and you have no serious effort in either party to fundamentally overhaul the system. in that sense we are told by people who are running a disaster that we need more of your money to prop up a disaster that we can't perform. it's a bipartisan failure. now, the last thing i want to

talk about is how washington, i think, would have dealt with this. washington is a remarkable person. i think he is the most important single american. all this would probably not have won the american revolutionary war without him. we might have not gotten a constitution without him. we might not have this kind of orderly system of government. washington was very big on listening to people who knew what they were doing. i'm not against listening to people who know more than you do about the topic. especially consultants who get paid for telling you things and if they fail, it's their fault. so washington, for example, this is the second campaign.

he needs advice. there are two people who are not part of the military. they are local farmers. that one-time others the longest-serving teacher in the military. it's been a long time talking about the art of war. the reason that washington had these two people in the room as they were farmers who actually knew the local neighborhood. they were the only two people in the room who knew that there was a sunken road south of trenton and you could go there and the british army women see you. they went there for social reasons. they were literally the only two people who knew what they were doing. so something you see almost none of in washington today -- that is a person who is prepared to

reach out to the person who knows. i spent years trying to convince the government in both the republican and democratic parties that we have between 70 and $110 billion per year of fraud and medicare and medicaid. the sources are very straightforward. american express, visa and mastercard. if you have the same level of fraud did you get an american express, you would say somewhere between 70 and $110 billion per year without raising taxes and without punishing any honest person. they don't fit the congressional budget office model, we have these weird private sector ideas, they want to use computers. [laughter] i mean, just a whole series of weird things about this.

and that's where we are. we are a country that could solve virtually all of its problems. i would like to close with this reference that washington for a second. i am listening to conservatives and republicans bellyache. can you imagine? crossing the delaware on christmas night, there's ice in the river. marching 9 miles in the dark with an army that has shrunk from 30,000 and 2500 and of the 2500, one out of every three do not have boots. they are wearing burlap bags on their feet and leaving a trail of blood. many are saying they don't know what to do and it's so difficult. you have any idea what cost to

become free? you imagine if washington had brought in his consultants? i have this idea that we are going across the river at night and can't do it. it won't work in a 32nd commercial. [applause] the second one is valley forge. if you want to see a congress that is truly incompetent, don't rely on the current model. go back and look at continental congress. 14,000 soldiers cross a bridge promised by the congress that they would have money and supplies and they would have equipment. they have one ask for 40,000 people. and we remind you folks it's always difficult to be free. washington, going through the bitter winter in the history of the american army, transformed

the army by bringing in people to innovate and teach european military tactics. and he was a prussian officer who immediately understood the most important thing. americans are not europeans. i would say this to the current congress and the current news media. we are not spain or greece were totally messed up like europe. this is a country, where we could get government quit screwing up, we would be fine the next 20 years. [applause] but if you imagine the reports. if they say, we have a value weighted situation and we think this is bad. [laughter] we depressed and consider

quitting. [applause] a congress that has been doing well enough doesn't deserve your loyalty, why don't you go home? welcome these people wanted to be free. they were prepared to die. when they crossed the delaware on christmas night in a desperate last effort before the army ceases to exist, the password is victory or death. and they meant it. it wasn't victory or i will cry for six weeks. it wasn't victory or i'm not going to watch fox news for a month. it wasn't victory, i think that i will pout. their passionate love the idea of freedom being the right that god had given him. finally we get to your account.

and it is an extraordinary gamble. the country is exhausted. washington can't win the war by direct assault. the royal navy has so much power he cannot capture manhattan. one line had more artillery firepower than the entire american army. people in 10 shouldn't people forget how powerful these ships were. and so he's sitting there. and at a time when there are no helicopters or cars or computers, even though from the french army that says the admiral of the french navy leaves he could come with for six weeks. the entire opportunity was created because washington had

the courage to send one third of his army to the south to fight general cornwallis very cornwallis won a victory at the courthouse in north carolina that cost him so much that he said two more victories like this and we will not have an army left. and they were gradually tearing up cornwallis is army. and he retreats expecting the royal navy to save him. and washington has this note. the french general says i am under your command. he managed to mask the british in manhattan, so they don't know that washington is on the move and think he is still sitting there. washington have to raise that money to pay the army to keep moving. that is how close is this. the only time in the entire war

that washington is described as intentionally emotional is when he sees the french fleet where he is described as acting as though he was crazy and he has gambled everything. he had no way of knowing if it would show up. and they were there when the british one. when cornwallis surrender, the band plays the world turned upside down, and it was. it into the reagan library tonight, please made for man leaving freedom that this soviet empire disappeared. i came to talk about the man on whose shoulders we all stand, george washington. i've seen each of you and every republican in the entire country, find the courage to live up to the endowment the creator has given you. you are endowed with liberty.

you are endowed with the right to pursue happiness. it comes from god, therefore you have the responsibility to respond to that endowment. together we can do exactly what ronald reagan and george washington. first you win the argument, then you win the vote. he had his officers read the opening pages of thomas paine's latest pamphlet which washington had asked him to write. he was a great pamphleteer whose pamphlet, common sense, described the declaration of independence very vividly. now it was turning out to be quite hard. it had turned into a bhard. it had turned into a bitter and painful and depressing and demoralizing series of defeats.

it said these are the times that try men's souls. washington said it first you win the argument, then you win the war. people had believed. i just came to say to you that we have no reason to despair. we have no reason to back off. we have no reason to surrender. we have every reason to behave as americans. look for the questions. [applause] [applause]

speaker has been kind enough to give us a few minutes for some questions and answers. we have people in the aisles with microphones. you can wait until we get a microphone in your hand so everyone can hear it, that would be great. we will start over here. >> i would like to congratulate you and thank you for coming out and for being a man in the arena who is willing to fight the good fight. we do appreciate it. [applause] and i agree with you that we have not lost the war. we have only lost the battle. and we have to continue to fight. some of the things that i think we need to do is we need to make sure that the constitution is solid. people should be called out when they don't follow the constitution. we can't rule by executive fiat. i also think that calista is

doing a wonderful job with education. it starts in the schools, that's where we need to start. a long-term plan of 30 to 40 years of turning it around. we need to educate people and not indoctrinate them. and i think that we need to go after the media. i would like to see you come up with something along the lines of america, maybe the contract of we the people to define conservatism and to lay out a the fourth and i think we can win and conquer den. >> thank you. thank you, those are the comments. >> speaker, i sincerely appreciate your intellect. i like to ask you a postelection question. is problematic for those people who are coming to the nation's first interaction with our country are being completely ignored. are we running the risk of

inculcating a culture and am wondering we need to be concerned and how can we avoid this problem and solve this issue by not only strengthening our country, but hopefully avoiding further to my. >> i think whatever solution we find has to include control of the border and some kind of worker permit system, which is actually rigorously enforced. i happen to think people have a work permit that will not pass citizenship. at some point you have to be practical about what is doable. i don't blame people who show up here. we refuse to identify who you are and we refuse to please

ourselves if we find out you're here legally. it's hard for me to say you're stupid for taking advantage of the richest country in the world. so i think to some extent, we have to reestablish the rule of law. the other point that i tried to make during the debate, which i think had a significant impact for our side. especially in solidifying the degree which people adopt positions. we are not going to deport grandmother. you may disagree with that. but i will guarantee you that the idea that we are going to go out and find grandmothers and deport them, the churches will protect them. their families will protect them. it is not going to happen. conservatives should not write laws that are fantasies. there is obligation to balance conservatism in reality.

i am for figuring out a path to residency and its people within the law, gets them to be non-exploited and ends this. we will never appeal. when you have a candidate who basically says to the entire group of people, remember, we lost asians by a bigger margin than latinos. this cannot be a gift problem, as one of our leaders describe it. the asians are the hardest working, most education oriented and most successful group economically in america. so they are not the people who are going to stand around and say give me a gift. but when you walk in and say hello, i want to talk to you about economic liberty, but first i have to kick up your grandmother, all of you who believe in family understand that that is a very high barrier. it's tricky at that point you have the rest of the

conversation. somebody has to have the guts in our party to stand up and say i am for a conservatism that enforces the law within the framework of reality. and i am for conservatism that is based upon facts. and i think that will require we find a way to say yes, i am for enforcing the law. but from where we are this morning or this evening, i want to then compose and i'm prepared to be tough about it. once there is a 24/7 instant verification model based on your atm card, you hire somebody who's not here legally and we will hear you economically until it's irrational. i think you can create a contract that works. but you can't continue to go down this road of trying to find a contract that is impossible and isolating yourself in a way that guarantees what with level

two. what the left wants is unlimited illegal immigration prevented to be citizens and vote. that is the fundamental difference. >> in california it is virtually possible due to demographics and due to skew registration to have republicans elected to federal offices. and for the governorship as well. this skewed demographic is becoming more and more important every election and how can we do something about that to better elections in the future. >> that's a great question. theodore roosevelt, an 1880s, he decides he wants to do with politics. all of his friends said when he

doing? and roosevelt said, i am going to the german and irish bars. and they said how can you do that. there are germans and irishmen are. [laughter] and he said, local power in the city is decided in those solutions. and you can sit set up their and your penthouse only one. i want to be in the room where the decision is made. this is where i so deeply disagree with our consulting class and the comments of our last nominee. i don't see demographic problems. what do you think are asian-americans won't? want a good education. they are passionate. they love their children and they invest heavily in them.

they invest more heavily in him than any other ethnic group in america. i saw a survey this morning they came out. guess what the number one validation of achievement as seen by college students is today? twenty-five or 30 years from now, how do you know you will be successful? by owning house was the answer. if you are are a left-wing collectivist that woman to herd everyone into apartments or they could be close to the subway, so they wouldn't need a car, which is a terrible thing to give some independence, can you imagine how depressing it would be to know that obama's base wants to own a home? they want to have possessions? be economically independent? we, as a party have to humble ourselves. we need to relax a little bit and listen to the people of california.

you think the average latino likes the fact that l.a. unified school district is a disaster? that sacramento is owned by the lobbyist? do you think they are thrilled to pay higher taxes for fewer jobs? or do you think perhaps they don't have any sense that they are allowed to have a conversation with us? and that starts with us sitting down and saying, tell me about your dreams and hopes. i think that you would be shocked. i cannot use the gentleman's name. he is a democratic consultant and it wouldn't be fair to him. he told me that he happened to be hired by the traditional party, which had run mexico since 1929. and he went down. this is just before the reform ticket. he went down because the candidate was in deep trouble and they wanted clever american advice. and he did a series of focus groups and he said that you have a real problem called corruption.

[laughter] that he was talking to were the guys that were corrupt. [laughter] and they said to him, this is his description not mine -- there are a number of guys very overweight smoking cigars in this room. and you don't understand this. people don't mind corruption in mexico. he said, when they get this straight. you think the average mexican getup on monday and goes to work, thrilled at the idea that to a five-day salary will be stolen by some fat politician that is out of touch with reality? than they lost the election. there is a message there. people do not come to america to re-create that government. they are watching sacramento reinvent very bad government. [applause]

>> we have time for two more questions. right here? >> and you were coming, mr. speaker. i was really looking forward to you debating barack obama. [applause] [cheers] >> that would've been amazing. [applause] one of the things that was really noticeable and culpable in the last year of the presidential debates and the candidates was the lack of media objectivity. as a media person, would you suggest this next wave of television and bloggers in order to combat violence this mainstream or lame stream media that we have today? [applause] go back and look at the debates

amah i did a fair amount of policing. you lose five out of six elections the popular vote. they got the minority vote in 2000. .. [applause] >> why