raleigh, north carolina and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/localcontent.

>> we followed mr. draper talking to guests and gave a brief presentation that featured photos from his book, "front row seat." this is about 15 minutes. >> john, how have you been? >> i was going to buy a camera. i don't know if they would have approved. >> i know. she's right there too. [inaudible conversations] >> it's about time.

[inaudible conversations] >> thank you. yeah, great turn out. yeah. thanks, john. >> thank you, sir. appreciate it. >> good to see you. >> chief? >> we're not going to see you otherwise so we just came to do this. >> thank you, steve. >> hi, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> great crowd, i'm surprised. >> yeah, this is awesome. >> what? >> you want to be on c-span? >> how are you? >> good. >> good to see you too. there was a big line to buy the book so we didn't, but i thought i bought one with the preorderrings but maybe not. >> is it on the way? must be coming. >> i thought i did, but i never got it so probably not. >> yeah. thanks for turning out. >> is this how it usually is? >> i've had different kinds of events, and this is parole the

best so far. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> definitely --there's a huge line outside. >> first one, we had beer and wine at. i think that's why that was a good turn out. >> there's a long line outside too. >> really? wow. >> yeah. >> okay. great to see you. >> first of all, i'm david, i work here at edelman, and thank you so much for coming out to support a good friend, eric, in liz haunch of the new book "front row seat," the bush administration had the honor and privilege of running the white house's website, whitehouse.gov, so every morning we started, obviously, almost like a blank slate waiting if the conference of the day and whether it was text, video, what have you, i told eric the photos were the paint every day that filled the day that helped tell the story of the george w. bush presidency. so good to see former

colleagues, and it's a pleasure for edelman to host the event here tonight, and with that, i'll introduce anit amc bride, former staff of laura bush. [applause] >> good evening, everyone. thanks so much for coming. this has been an incredible turnout, and, in fact, eric, as you know, he was on fox news as one of his interviews, and i went on facebook and said, eric, when are you doing your party in washington? he responded right back, would you be willing to host it? [laughter] >> immediately. >> david, thank you so much for hosting us here at edelman, and brian mccormick with the list, and all the cohe'ses here. i won't start with names because i'll forget all 30 of you that were willing to support this and also your book, so we thank you

so much for doing that. we know that we had an incredible turnout. we could fit about 200 people. we had responses, as you know, beyond a waiting list, so we know we've run out of books. i was just told, however, we were prepared that that was possible. you can still order the book, and eric will sign these. these are bookplates, nice and big and beautiful to go on the page where he's signing. he'll still sign tonight. take these, the book comes, and these will be in the book. we don't want you to wait anymore. books are selling out like crazy everywhere they are on sale. proud of you, eric. >> thank you. >> been great for bush and all the staff who supported us for eight years. >> thank you. >> we congratulate you, and look at this incredible turnout. >> thank you, yes, it's great. >> thank you. [applause] oh, okay.

those outside, please, if you get to the refreshments, you have earned it. there's beer and wine and wonderful sponsors who supported us as jim with the wine and rebecca who supported us with the beer that's here. we thank them as cohosts for making it possible nor us to enjoy a lovely evening so thank you, all. >> thank you. [applause] >> well, first of all, i thank david for hosting the event. overwhelming to see everyone here, and then most of all, anita for responding. i'm so glad i got that message from you. [laughter] and wonderful -- i mean, i can't thank you enough for you to do this for me, really appreciate it. you know, i never thought that something like this could happen to someone like me, ordinary guy, but all of you out there,

especially the folks that worked for the administration, i need to thank you all because you helped me with my success, and i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and i'm overwhelmed, and what i'd like to do, which i'm more comfortable behind the camera than in front of the camera, i want to show you photos, just a quick little presentation, and what i decided to do was to take a favorite photo from each chapter because one of the questions i get a lot is what is your favorite photo? well, i'll pick a photo from each chapter starting with -- [laughter] chapter one. [laughter] this chapter's called the beginning. a lot of you who know president bush remember how timely he is,

and we know how timely he is because he started meetings on time or early, typically early, and so this is a great illustration. this picture was made the first week of the administration, and the vp's together with the president, which is great. chapter two, this chapter is called "life in the bubble," and, by the way, this is not representative of the relationship between the president and mrs. bush. don't get me in trouble. i'll set the stage here. this is inside buckingham palace, and they are clowning around for me with the camera. this really helps show the president had a great sense of humor, and this is like the white house, but bigger, as you can see. [laughter] chapter three is called "family," and whenever the two

presidents were together, for me, it was like a imagine call moment. first of all, you have the history. the only second son of a president to become president, and one of the first things i learned was whenever you say mr. president around them, they both turn around. [laughter] i had to learn, you know, refer to president 41, 43. [laughter] chapter four, the western white house. this is probably one ever my favorite photos in the book, a great illustration of the president on the ranch, proud texan, and something about the picture you can't see, but barney is sitting on his lap [laughter] we'll all miss barney. chapter five is on 9/11. this moment here is very critical, and you might notice there's a clock on the wall there. it's around 9:25, and the president was so focused on

gathering information, gathering his thoughts, preparing for a statement to the country and to the world, that at this moment on the television, they are replaying the video of the second tower getting hit, and that horrific image of the fire ball, and we had not seen it at this stage -- at this time, and dan bartlett alerted everyone in the room at this stage, and the president turnedded around and saw that horrific image that burned into everyone's memory. chapter six, "war president," and this moment in terms of intensity is probably, obviously, 9/11 was off the chart, but this was the moment after the president decided to commit troops to iraq. he made that decision in the situation room moments earlier before this moment, and i photographed the beginning of the meetings, and i photographed

the president walking around the south lawn, and i noticed that he was very emotional, and i knew something was big. i didn't know exactly what was happening so i made this image, and you see the weight of the decision on his face. the president actually spoke to me right after i made the picture, and he said, eric, are you interested in history? all i could say was, yes, sir. he said, the pictures you are making are very important. the one in the situation room and here on the south lawn, and just as he said that, out of the corner of my eye, secretary defense rumsfeld and vice president cheney walk out of the oval office, and the the president greeted them, and they were deciding the timing of the start of the war. chapter seven called "to the world." i traveled to nearly 70 countries with president bush, and on this trip, i believe this is 2007, the president traveled to kosovo, and there's a small

town there, and he was the -- here's the first american president to visit that country, and you can see they are very happy to see him. it's such a unique moment. the only time i've seen this many hands on the president. [laughter] i'm sure the secret service, you see the agents there are -- [laughter] and the final chapter is called "sprint to the finish," and this is a moment the president leaves the oval office for the very last time, january 20th, 2009. i was there eight years earlier to the day when the president walked through that door for the first time, and through the years, i always wondered what would that moment be like. i thought it would be emotional. i thought there was crying and hugging, but it was very simple. the president around eight o'clock called for the coat, put his coat on, and he walked out without turning back.

that's my little slide show. [applause] again, i thank all of you for coming here, and a special thanks to mary diamond. [cheers and applause] what really is 5 dynamo getting me so much press. she's awesome. anyway, thank you, mary. [laughter] thank you, again, for coming out. [applause]

>> we are here in coil ridge books and music in raleigh, and we are surrounded by nonfictions of all kinds. that's one of our best selling sections. i'm happy to say we have a lot of nonfiction writers come and meet the customers and have an exchange of ideas. our customers are -- well, i just love them, of course, because they supported us so well over the years. not just for that, but we appreciate what they are doing. they are smart, of course, and they are not big into commercial books, although i carry commercial books, i have to if i want to pay the rent, and i'm happy to do that, but they are really interested in books and

specific books of different subjects, and lots of them just come in. they don't need to ask for help. they just know exactly where they want to go. they know where the new books are, and they, but we do our best to help and find what they want and introduce them to new thing. that's our job is to find those books that they would never hear about. we read hundreds of journals and reviews and hand pick the buyers here, hand pick every book that we put in here that's the difference in philosophy from other stores, and that's why we succeeded and why we are still here. we try to have high quality, up usual, unique selection of books. so far, it's worked. i don't think all independent

bookstores are as concerned about service and customers as they should be. we are absolutely devoted to being not only a store providing good quality service, but hospitality. that's the big thing. we want people to feel comfort comfortable here. we have many, many activities that cover a range of people's interest, and i'm not saying we are better than other people, but we have certainly withstood challenges that a lot of independents didn't. as you know, most of them -- half of them went out in the 90s when the chain started up, and the ones of us who have stayed the course and ben successful, i think, have found that that

correct my loss fee or formula, and we've had to learn business principles that i never thought i'd have to know. i'm not a business person. i'm a book and people lover and a reader, and so i think that's what has done it. we make everybody feel comfortable. we try to -- when i first opened the store when i was getting ready to, it was recommended that i read the book in serge of excellence, and there were a couple of other books that people recommended. more recently, i read dapny meyer's book on how he developed his restaurants and chains of restaurants, and he just hits it -- he's the one who kept saying hospitality, and i just stick with that principle, great customer service and great books, and the customer is always right.

i see that attitude in other businesses that is very defensive about customers. they just can't make themselves accept that they have to do everything they need to do to make the customer happy and to make them feel good about spending their money in an independent store, a store like this. they want us to succeed. they are very loyal people. economics changed tremendously as you imagine because of a lot of reasons. some of them positively. there's lawsuits that loose ped up the dis-- loosened up discounts that publishers gave to independents. they were giving them to the big chains, but they were not giving them to us, and thank goodness some people filed suit on our behalf, and now we get wonderful discounts from almost all

publishers, and, you know, those points of discount have a huge difference. we are a just in time ordering store. we converted to a just in time way of ordering back in 94, and that turned us totally around because we can order more titles, fewer copies, but by and large, we order in ones, and if they are something hot, we reorder right away, but we have a good ordering system, efficient ordering, so that enabled us number-wise, financially, to make a bigger profit, turn over the books more often. if you turn over your books three times, your invenn story, a year, you're breaking even with our profit margins, our margins, but if you go above that, you're making money because -- and you are selling

books. you sell the book, and you sell out, and we get it in in another day, and so we don't have the stock sitting on the stock for months like we used to before we were really making money. we were breaking even for years, but we got some good advice from people in the business, and because of this just-in-time ordering, our sales escalated, profits went up, and we've done well since. the thing is when you support a locally owned store, you are supporting the community. >> rob christianson is next onbooktive who joins us on the recent trip to raleigh to talk about the political history of north carolina. when i started out working years ago, i really wanted to read a

book that explained it all to me in terms of how the state got to where it was, why the state elects both democrats and republicans, who was connected to who? who was the political machines that dominated state, not just through the last few years, but the decades, and i wanted to connect things, and i went looking for such a book, and there was no such book, so i decided that i had an interest in history and so forth, so i decided to write that book so not only for my edification so i learn in the process, but others who came along, and it's written -- it's not only for the course of the scholar, but for the layman, the person engage who wants to know about north carolina. not only for the new people coming in the state, and north carolina's one of the fastest growing states. we have people coming in to north carolina from all over the country, but also for the people who lived in north carolina all their lives, who may know a little bit about the state's political history, but they want

to know a little more. well, a lot of people asked why i named the book "the paradox of politics," and the reason it's a bar doux -- paradox is people don't understand north carolina politics. how is it that a state elects conservative like jesse helms, the most famous politician the state produced in the recent years, except other than john edwards, and how can, also, at the same time produce progressive politicians like jim hunt, four-term governor, terry stanford, a governor and united states senator, or go back in trial a little bit, frank portergram, one of the leading liberals in the south. how can the same group of voters produce both conservatives and liberals? that is a paradox that the state has both liberal tendencies, has major progressive universities. it has progressive areas like the research triangle and a very

conservative tendency too. vast parts of the state are very conservative, and so it has -- it confounds people who live outside of north carolina. look at north carolina and say, really, is it a red state, a blue state? it tends to go republican in presidential races, and yet, we just until november, we had 20 straight years of democratic governors. that's the paradox. the state is really -- you look at it ideologically, it's pretty much middle america. it is -- if you -- one of the interesting things that the gallup poll organization does is they poll each state in the country, and so mississippi is about the most conservative state in the country, and hawaii and new york most liberal, and north carolina falling right in the middle. because it falls in the middle, it doesn't take much to push it in one column, the democratic column or the republican column, and so it goes back and forth

very easily. the slightest national win pushes it in the democratic coal lome. slightest republican win pushes it in the republican column. in 2008, for example, it was -- it went slightly -- it was -- the closest state that barack obama won. in 2012, it was the closest state that mitt romney won. now what happened in 2010 was the republicans won control of the state legislature, and that was a very critical election because that came just as redistricting occurred, and redistricting gave republicans real advantages because they could draw new lines making it more favorable to win the state legislature and congress, and so that has begin the republicans a leg up in the next election of 2012. right now, republicans, for the first time since really reconstruction have control of the republican -- of the entire state government, all three branches of the state government, but that's unusual. we have gone through a period of 20 years of democratic control of the governorship, which is

not only the only southern state that occurred, but it's the only state east of the rockies that's occurred. the only state that went through 20 states of democratic governors were the state of washington and oregon. the states go back and forth because it's evenly balanced. it's not a red state or blue state, but a purple state. from the democratic point of view, terry stanford, elected governor in 1960, president of duke university, and elected to the senate in 1986. he was important because he was governor of north carolina during the period of desegregation and, which was, obviously, a critical time in the south, so he was -- he was guiding state on the very moderate course saying that course in a time when george wallace in alabama was at the white house gate. at the time, stanford was pushing the state in ad moderate

way to integration. that set up the mold and opened up the state for the research triangle park, set the mold, different from the deep south state. he was critical setting the reputation for the state as a modern, progressive southern state different from the rest of the south. on the other hand, senator helm was very important because he was not only important in terms of helping build the republican party in north carolina, helping switch a lot of conservative democrats to the republican party and help build the republican party, a pourful party in the state now, but he was a national figure in building the whole thing, came to be known as new right and get elected president. reagan's presidency was very much in doubt until helm's organization saved his political career in the 1976 # primary here in north carolina. many of the republicans and state legislature, the fact that jesse helms is the role model.

helms was very much a critical figure. those are two figures that i think are very, very important for different reasons to the state's political history. robert reynold was popular senator elected during the great depression. he was actually a wealthy man down in nashville, a democrat, and he was a bit of a baa -- character who betrayed himself as a poor man. we assume, for example, travel broadens someone; right? makes them cosmopolitan, but that's not always true. he actually got -- you know, he traveled a lot, it actually narrowed him, and he became antiimmigrant and so forth. what he did traveling after elected to the united states senate, he visited nazi, germany and italy, and he saw that

germany and italy, the economies were booming and the united states was still in the great depression. of course, withdrawn of the reasons they were doing that is because they were rearming, they were about to go to war, and he became very, very impressed with hitler and mussilini which led to the down fall because among the southern states and southern democrats there was little isolationist sentiments. that sentiments in the country was among midwestern republicans, but among southern democrats, they were anglophiles. there was strong support for england, and event ily, the democratic party forced him to retire because they put up a lot of his shenanigans, but could not put up with the pro-nazi

sentiments. people can say what they want in sam. sam was a world war i hero. he was very bright guy. he was conservative in a lot of ways issue and he was one of the staunch defenders of segregation, which he sort of had to be if you were a southern senator of the period. he was a leading strategist. that's not how he's remembered today. he's remembered today through watergate because he led the hearings, and that helped bring down nixon, and being a conservative democrat gave him, i think, more moral authority among republicans to lead that investigation because he saw that as an assault on the constitution. he was not some northern liberal that was going after nixon, but a southern democrat, and he also stood up to joe mccarthy who was leading the witch hunt, and he was able to do this in part because he spent most of the life as a judge. ..

somebody you knew no fear. the major takeaways that north carolina is a little bit different from the rest of the south. it has conservative pulses.