important structures, trying to avoid building by troops and ultimately as they reached some cities that suffered severe looting by the nazis they became architect in -- art detectives chasing down the most important masterpieces' worth billions of dollars all the way to the end of the war. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> jonathan alter reports on the 2012 presidential election and how president obama's reelection team utilize and alex to open a deep gash that aided in the president's victory. this event from the commonwealth club of california in san francisco is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the commonwealth club of california where you are in the know. i am a professor of regal communications that sentence is this the university and

political analyst for cbs 5 in san francisco and your moderator for tonight's program. you can find is on the internet at commonwealthclub.org, program and schedule information and powered cast of past programs. now is my pleasure to introduce our distinguished speaker and columnist and writer, jonathan alter. editor, writer and contributing to the bloomberg few, author of the new book we are talking about the center holds -- "the center holds: obama and his enemies". jonathan alter is an economist, you see him on nbc news and ms nbc, a former senior editor and columnist for what newsreader where he worked for 30 years writing 50 cover stories, also written for the new york times, washington post, washington monthly, the atlantic, the new republic, among other publications and also author of

other books including but promise:president obama, the defining moment, fdr's 100 days and several new york times bestsellers and between the lines:a collection of his newsweek columns. cheese in my judgment let me just say probably one of the preeminent experts in this country on president obama and we are pleased to have him here tonight. our thanks to jonathan alter 11 for joining us. [applause] >> the floor is yours for 25 to 30 minutes. >> thank you very much and thanks to everybody for coming. feels like a homecoming for me. this is my third time at the commonwealth club going back to 2006 when my book about fdr came out. this has to be the most literate audience on my book tour, no

disrespect to the other cities i have been to but i didn't leave my heart in san francisco but i think my writer's heart belongs to you after chicago which is where i am from a regionally, born and raised there, relevant perhaps for this evening is i come from a political family in chicago and my mother was the first woman elected in cook county and the chicago area 40 years ago in 1972 and when she was in public office and county office, she knew young community organizer named barack obama who couldn't get his phone calls returned by the other politicians because he was a nobody and after she died five days after the 2008 election he was president-elect and a few other things to do.

and whatever anyone else says about him, he was nice to the family and remembered and some people like to say he doesn't have much gratitude and it is trudy doesn't reach out to other politicians as much as he should and i want to talk about that, but in my own personal case he did. i met him about 11 years ago or so when he was a state senator and was immediately impressed by his cockiness i guess you could say. he had just lost in the house of representatives and told me he was going to be running for the u.s. senate. and my aunt had just died, a friend of my cousin's and i said to him apropos of the moment, that is some chutzpah running for the senate. so i am, as you can tell from

the roosevelt book and other things i have written about i am interested in history and "the center holds: obama and his enemies" has a lot of history. it tries to put the 2012 election in historical context, what i call hinge of history. i covered nine presidential elections and this to me was the most important. every four years, jerry who covered many elections and was san francisco bureau chief at newsweek for many years and covered ronald reagan's elections and he can tell you every four years one of the candidates would say this is the most important election of my lifetime, and yes, because you are running. that is why you are saying that. i actually thought this one was because this is not your

father's republican party. we were at a moment where a lot, maybe all of the progress of accomplishments of the 20th century were on the line and these had become by prayers and accomplishments, whether it was social security and medicare, federal aid to education face, infrastructure, with added that as a republican idea under abraham lincoln when the republican party was founded and teddy roosevelt, big infrastructure man, dwight eisenhower built highways, this republican party didn't believe in fact, they saw it as wasteful spending trying to rebuild the country. so vice-presidential candidate on a republican side, and devotes say even now of ayn rand, libertarian philosopher, ryan plan was reflective of

that. the man who had a stranglehold over the republican party and to assert extent still does, grover norquist, he believes as he is famous for saying the government should be made so small that it could be drowned in a bathtub. so this was a big joyous election and i wanted to put it in some context, but there was also some personal history of some of the major players involved that made a series of stories that i wanted to tell the not known publicly. the one i wanted to start with actually begins on a pitch black night in the florida everglades in 2005 and a car runs off the

road and plunges into a canal and the woman driving the car, the car sinks to the bottom of the canal, some passers-by stop, one tries to open the door and breaks his arm, screaming for help and a 30-year-old man working at a motorcycle dealership near by heard the screams and sprint to the scene and is told she is gone, dude, she is gone, and he ignores what the passersby said and jumps into the canal and finally after several minutes manages to get the door open but then the woman is still strapped in with her seat belt so he gets back out under the canal bank, somebody has a knife and he goes back down again and freeze the woman, pitch black, she floats to the

surface and as she is revived, somebody else, baby seat floated to the surface and the man dives down again and is feeling with his hands in the back seat to see if there is obeyed the and fortunately there was no baby in a car. he was decorated by the town for heroism and an insurance company also gave him an award and seven years later this man is name is scott, was working as a bartender for a catering company in south florida and he is told along with the others waiting for this catering company that bill clinton had been in the

area recently for a fund-raiser and had his picture taken, so this particular event was for mitt romney and he brought his camera along. i think you know some of the rest of the story but i tell in detail and try to convey the motivation and it goes in some ways back to that event in the everglades. at one point after many hours of conversation scott said to me i learned that night that if you can jump in you must jump in and he was going to do what it took to prevent mitt romney from becoming president. this was all lana class context because what actually first enraged scott that night was not the comments about the 47% which

came later in a 68 minute tape, but some very complimentary things mitt romney said about appliance factory in china that he had invested in and mitt romney said young women were being paid a pittance, 25 to a toy that, it was actually a hundred to a toilet and kept waiting for romney to say i bought the factory and improved working conditions that he never said that so it struck him that this $50,000 crowd, this was a good business opportunity and he felt maybe they will do this in ohio if this guy is elected so there's a lot more to that story. i don't mean to be a tease that i need to move on. there's more to that particular

story but just to give you a sense of the context, it wasn't the first time the forty-seven% were mentioned in a presidential campaign. 40 years ago in 1972 richard nixon did an ad in which he said george mcgovern would make 47% of americans eligible for welfare and the announcer says that is right, 47%. so i kind of realized these events take place along a historical continuum but we really haven't had many class based arguments in our politics in recent elections. nixon believed in the politics of resentment, mobilizing middle-class hard hat, a

construction worker, resentment against the poor and rich versus poor or rich versus middle-class really began i would argue in the election of 1896, which was william mckinley against william jennings bryan, and mckinley's campaign manager was mark hanna who is karl rove's role model. not a joke. i have discussed it with karl rove, a huge ad my error who went around to all the biggest corporations in america at the time and got huge donations and crushed him with money and he was famous for saying that are two things that are important in politics, money and i can't remember what the second one is.

this election, 116 years later, was partly about that. you had a fellow on the republican side who gave $100 million to one person. and spend quite a bit of time in the book explaining how the obama campaign used digital technology to win. everybody knows that they did but i wanted to explain how they did that to be one of the most interesting figures after they were able to increase their online fund-raising 10fold over a three or four months period turned down the average obama donation was $66 and the average

mitt romney donation, romney's treasurer wasn't exactly sure when i asked about that but he said it was over $1,000 per person so this one's a 99% versus you could argue a man who was eventually depicted almost as a poster boy of the top 1% kind of election, but it also was an election that in some ways the 1% probably should have won. not just because it seemed at the beginning like they had much more money but because the economy remains sluggish and on election day for the first time,

a president was reelected when the country thought we were on the wrong track. you know the right track/wrong track numbers. that was the kind of when barack obama was sailing in to visit year before the election, nate silver who eventually became a kind of security blanket for liberals, he wrote a cover story in the new york times magazine is obama toast? and he said if the economy didn't improve and it turned out it did improve some he had a 17% chance of being reelected so there's a little bit of an inclination now, i like this book a lot, makes it seem like it was a suspenseful election but it really wasn't. obama won by five million votes. i don't know if you remember but it was pretty suspenseful toward

the end and bill clinton, at the scene in the book for bill clinton calls of mitt romney after the election and says i thought you were going to win until hurricane sandy. clinton as been known to blow some smoke of people's you know what. but there was some real concern and mitt romney himself didn't even prepare a concession speech. paul ryan was so sure they were going to win fun the night before the election he said to two aids i spoke to that his only real concern was would he have to resign his house seat right away after he became vice president elect. there was a legal reading on what the constitutional interpretation was. was a little ambiguous and when they told him the next evening

he lost the was completely stunned. even the president at the hotel at 12 minutes after a 11:00, my network nbc news called the race for obama and valerie jarrett about who my apple chapter in the book, said he won, the president says i will believe it when i hear it from fox. [laughter] >> i am in a little bit of a spat with roger ailes over chapter called fascination. there was a kind of -- you remember what happened with karl rove, the hole back story to that. but you remember there was a

sense on the right that they were in tune with the real america and it is understandable may be why they would think that because the obama coalition, young people, black, latino, women, gays, this coalition in 1972 in the mcgovern campaign carried to one state, won the election by five million votes but there was kind of a sense, and i think some people have this sense still, that middle america is conservative and these groups that i mentioned i just visiting. they are not the real america and i would maintain that now after the last presidential elections this is the real america and there is a minority

of americans who are obstructing the will of the majority. that is where we are now and for dispirited progressives i would just offer a thought experiment. imagine if romney was president now, if romney and ryan and won, and there are a lot of ways it could have gone that way. if scott hadn't turned on his camera is unlikely obama would have had at seven point lead in that first disastrous debate and got stomped the way he did. i also devotes a chapter to he might have slipped behind and in been very hard for him to catch up and there are a number of other factors that contributed to his victory but imagine he had lost and romney and ryan were president.

the economy is improving, not as sharply as we all would hope that is significantly improving and the deficit has gone down by $200 billion just in the last three or four months and is now below trillion dollars. it is quite likely that the ball of the ryan plan would have been enacted into law in the early days of the romney administration because the same way that obama was passed with 51 votes under an obscure senate rule that allows it for budget and tax related legislation, this plan would have very likely pass and actually somebody in the white house said he thought it would even get some democratic votes if romney won. this plan didn't cut budgets by 5% or 10% like the sequestration. we are talking 30, 40, 50, 60%

cuts, elimination of programs, planned parenthood, amtrak, being only the best known of them, privatizing medicare as they proposed during the campaign. if this bill had passed stay in the spring and the economy is going up, what would people be saying now all? reasonable people, would say we got rid of the jimmy carter/barack obama flu, got business friendly president, pass this legislation, cut taxes against the wealthy, slashed regulation, slashed social programs, the economy is going up, cause and defect. things are coming back just like ronald reagan, bringing things back. progressive ideas would have been discredited for a generation. whatever frustrations progressives have right now they

should look at the glass half full and see that the country dodged a bullet last year and but ryan plan went from being something that was a serious possibility to being a fantasy, revealing obamacare which they did 31 times, they could repeal it another 131 times and wouldn't make a bit of difference, the president has the veto until 2017, the demographics of the country continue to move in a progressive direction. so are these obstruction issues, there are these problems president himself has in getting his agenda through and being as he effective as his supporters would like him to be and we will talk about these, but something pretty big happened and i just

want to close with a couple of stories for this to end of the book. some of you remember donald trump's offer to president obama. obama and his enemies, quite a bit about super pac billionaires', quite a bit about what i call the voter suppression project which was an effort in 19 states, 43 states in 2011 to tilt the election to the republicans by making it much harder for democratic constituents to vote. i have the most complete account of this effort which bill clinton said was worse than we'd seen in the jim crow south

growing up and it is a harry story that i assembled on this. there was a backlash against it and there were no blacks for instance who voted in 2012 than in 2008. as al sharpton said, out of hope ranger, in 2012 they voted out of anger. so the result was a comfortable victory and all of the fears about a close election turned out to be false. but you did have until the end of the campaign these people suffering from what is sometimes called obama at the range and syndrome, people like donald trump, injecting themselves into our politics in ways that you could argue helped obama, obama

actually put his birth certificate on memorabilia for sale at the online store and when they didn't have mugs he said where are my mugs? i want my mugs. it helped him. but nonetheless, it characterized part of the year so donald trump says i am going to give $3 million to the charity of president obama's choice if he releases his birth certificate which he had done a year earlier, his college transcripts, those of the text of which is he is black and it was affirmative action acceptance that became editor of harvard law review and no reasonable person could possibly doubt his intelligence and some other things trump wanted released so couple nights later

my wife's boss, steven colbert -- everytime i mentioned this the audience says what is that guy doing the there? to tell us some good steven colbert stories. that evening steven colbert says i have an offer for donald trump. i will give $1 million for a better tomorrow tomorrow to the charity of his choice if he dips his balls--excuse me, i got the line wrong. this is why i am not a comedian. if he allows me to dip my balls in his mouth, because that is the only way to be sure nothing else will come out of it. so fast forward to after the

election and the kennedy center honors and steven colbert has been asked to introduce david letterman in his receiving line with the president that i have been in a few times but never had anything exciting as what happened this time and he says congratulations, mr. president and the president says thank you, stephen and thanks for the help of the colbert super pac and he says we can't talk about that, that would be coordinating. so the president says but we can talk about your offer to donald trump. and there is a picture of this in my book that has never been published before, obama laughing so loud he is falling into colbert who is a little uncomfortable about this because they have middle school aged

children who hear about all this. just then michele obama bounds of her and she's as we watch that video over and over and over again. to me that kind of told me a lot of times when they wanted to react they couldn't react without creating a dynamic that would be harmful to them but they enjoyed it when other people reacted. you could say you should take the gloves off more often especially right now, should be more confrontational, but there are a series of reasons why he didn't feel it was right for him to do that and he is playing a longer game and you could see that on a number of issues and just to take one for example, the gays in the military issue.

in 2009, took a lot of heat, why are you not doing something about don't ask don't tell, why people who made that criticism said that they thought he could with the stroke of his pen end don't ask don't tell. they didn't realize he had to have congress do it. it wasn't like harry truman desegregating the armed forces and implementing through an act of congress. he had to play a more clever game and instruct the military to take the lead and 7 congressional leaders take the lead so he admiral mullen of the joint chiefs testify and realize if he went out swinging it would arouse more opposition because every time he is for something, even if people on capitol hill have been for in the past there suddenly against it and there are many examples of this. so he kind of quietly

orchestrated it, a little bit like eisenhower's hidden hands president seek but by the end of 2010 they had gotten this done so i mention this because this frustration at the pace of change today, a lot of frustration, looks like the immigration bill might get blocked in the house, things john boehner said, but something barack obama has always believed is this line here likes to quote from martin luther king that the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. what i want for him is to have him thinking in pretty much everything he does about how he will be remembered. i am very upset about this thing

begun reporter asthma criminalizing of investigative reporting, a pea reporters, news reporter, and other issues we could talk about the nsa and the rest of if you want, but i do think that he is focused on the longer-term and his greatest hope for himself, and i would argue by extension for the country, is that he is remembered as something more than the first african-american president. so it will be a series of stutter steps, it will frustrate people across the spectrum at various points, but we will look back on this period as an exciting and important one in our national life. with that, thank you so much for listening. [applause] >> we got on time?

was that close? >> we actually have time -- is that right? >> giving me the hook. >> i will assume you can hear me. so we thank jonathan alter for bloomberg news, author of the new book figure out what to buy when you leave and those of you in tv land as well, "the center holds: obama and his enemies". we have a number of questions to get to. let me start with one of these. we were talking before the presentation tonight about a question a lot of people ask about the president which is his general affect. in the book you read interestingly about the first debate and most of this watch the first debate and if you were obama supporters you were more mad at him and romney supporters were because there was this sense that he did show up but wasn't interested in being

there. >> he didn't show. >> he wasn't emotionally in the game and this is a criticism that nags him periodically, that he seems very withdrawn, emotionally distant, doesn't seem to care. and before, if this is the enormous control he is exerting to enact a racial stereotype or is it just who he is? low blood pressure? that is >> >> that is a criticism that seems to fall in demand creates -- ability to govern somebody who is too withdrawn. you have fallen -- who is the true barack obama? >> as bill daly, former chief of staff said, this is a guy who will never have a stroke. part of it is -- >> you want to cigarette? >> he quit. he says he quit anyway.

i think he did. excuse me. so part of it is the hawaii culture, hawaii upbringing, part of his nature, doesn't go too high or low. we saw a different obama in the second and fair debate. he is not a very good actor. if presidency is a theater, he has resisted this, particularly good at the base. is real forte is a meeting which interestingly talk to people who were at meetings with him and how effectively you went to these meetings and you have some of that in the chapter on osama bin laden, but he thinks debates are unrelated to the actual work

of being president. one point in the debate from he was 0-6 against john kerry playing mitt romney and his debate coaches all told me they were certain, virtually certain he would lose. they were so terrified. >> what changed the second debate? >> this is obama getting the ball on the 3-pointer at the buzzer and he said to these people, he says i don't like the base, i am not that good at them, i will win second and third base. he said his friend patrick, and the viral video of samuel l. jackson where he shows up in a family's house and says this is c-span so maybe i'd better -- wake me up. >> with steven colbert we have

already -- >> okay for c-span. so obama says to patrick, i didn't realize he was talking to me. he understood finally, it took a while but finally understood how badly he blew it and when he puts his mind to something he can be good at it. like a different person came out for the second and third debate. and that advice we go into in the first debate but as you said he didn't come to play. my wife called me, in denver for the debate. my wife called me afterwards and she said did you notice and i repeated this on chrismac use immediately, did you notice what he said at the very beginning about how this is his

anniversary? i promise you that next year we won't spend our anniversary in front of sixty million people. he was saying i would rather be out for dinner with you tonight than here because i hate this, i hate the press, i hate the whole thing and he conveyed that loudly in that debate. in danger of blowing the whole thing because people won't of like somebody who doesn't want it. not that he didn't want to be president but was not willing to make a concession to the theater of the presidency that is required. this is partly show business. at one point they said the moderator who was the chief debate coach, who is there in a prep with john kerry playing mitt romney, 30 seconds on infrastructure and obama throws up his hands, thirty-second on

infrastructure? i need 30 minutes on infrastructure and that conveys the attitude. he was also worried that his disdain for romney would come through and worried that it would be like another hillary moment, actually liked hillary and not the secretary of state but really respected john mccain, he did not respect romney and they were worried this was going to come through. we haven't had a chance to talk about all of romney's screw ups. >> i want to make sure you are not asserting that he disliked campaigning. he is good at campaigning. he didn't like the dating. >> didn't like the baiting. >> how is a different? >> one is a set piece. like going out and -- >> didn't give more than 30 minutes on infrastructure either. >> he has given many speeches for 30 minutes on

infrastructure. he would have his stump speech. he likes meeting people. it is needy politicians, and title donors, people who think because they have a lot of money there for what they are saying must be worth more than what somebody else is saying. those of the people he doesn't like too much. he doesn't get the same energy bill clinton does but he is very good at it when he sets his mind to it and this campaign energized him and when i was with him in the last couple weeks. >> let's talk about the republicans. i have some questions from some audience members. i think this is a pretty obvious question. you spoke about it when you talked about the disease that his enemies had. this is maybe a different way of saying it. one of the audience members rights why is, has been, why has

the republican opposition to president obama seemed at times so personal? in your opinion? >> first of all -- >> you agree it is personal? >> of course. this goes back longtime in american politics, the election of 1800 where they wrote about thomas jefferson saying slave mistress, more recently bill clinton was called a murderer for some drug deal he supposedly took part in in arizona. this has always been part of our politics, but the internet makes it more intense, it used to be we get these letters in newsweek, the red typewriter ribbon, some of this, but now there can be huge volumes of this stuff and the real

difference between the obama and the region does remand bush's the range and syndrome which happened on the left during the bush administration, that people suffering bush in the arrangement syndrome thought things like george bush knew about 9/11 in advance, ridiculous things like that. none of those people would never put on an nbc. but lots and a lot of people who believe the president wasn't born in the united states even though there's zero chance that that is true for reasons that we can discuss if you want, they were not leon fox, but john boehner was asked about it on meet the press. to president was asked about it by george stephanopoulos and at that point he said this is getting in the way of governing. this the arrangement has worked its way into the marrow of the campaign in a way that is harmful. that is when he went and was in chicago and rummaged through his

grandmother's possessions and found the birth certificate and i tell that story too. the degree of heat has a racial componentatred has a racial component but it is very important but it is unfair to critics of obama to say everybody who hate tim is doing so for reasons related to race. i don't believe that is true. people hate him for all kinds of reasons and they are not always related to race but they are also not never related to race. i try to go through and show how people like rush limbaugh really, he has a history of racism. beginning on a radio everyday, not a lot of people who actually take the time to write down what he says but when you pull it

together, it is pretty chilling. it is to be expected considering that he was the first black president but some of the thing they say about him and his wife are pretty much beyond the pale and the other thing that was at stake in this election is if he had lost a lot of that would have been validated and we would have seen as the fluke that they were depicting as, he would have been seen as jimmy carter but also the idea at after the repeal the obamacare the idea that obamacare had been socialism and would have invalidated. it is not socialism. howard baker and bob dole plan from 1995. it wasn't socialism. isn't socialism. mitt romney's plan for massachusetts. a lot of the myths about the president were also on the line

in this election. >> let me tease out a little bit more. ..

you know because when you get down to the particulars of obamacare, the whole idea continues to be somewhat unpopular, although it was critical to get in the latino vote, which is a whole other fasteners a story. but obamacare actually end up working for obama. but it just stigmatizes the whole thing. a woman should have taken ownership of the phrase earlier. journalistically it caught on because i use it in my book. the affordable care act over and over again? is a reason that it is simpler to call it that, and it is associated with them. i think he is fine with how it turned out. >> host: he mentioned as well that when one of our audience members asked facetiously, are you afraid of rush limbaugh?

>> guest: am i afraid of him? >> host: yes. >> guest: well, he has attracted me -- attack me many times over the years and that like it when he comes after me because is pronouncing my name right. >> host: sell some books for him. >> host: that is the next question. roger ailes claimed there were some embellishments in your book. can you respond to that? >> guest: people can believe me or roger. is their choice. [laughter] for instance, of give you one example. roger told politico that he had never worked out of a supply closet as i wrote. i've read that the -- well, what i actually wrote was that rupert murdoch according to sources, they had to be confidential because they would have been burned at the state give roger

ever found under their work. rupert murdoch came to the office monday and said, roger is a wacky. i mean, he was laughing. so short that the news corporation building was bugged that he worked at of the supply closet. the only place it all was secure so i didn't say that he did definitely work at of the supply closet. i said murdoch told the meeting that he worked at of the supply closet degrees of rogers said, never worked in the supply closet. there are no supply closets that fox was it completely untrue. but this is true that rejecting some paranoid. this is what he said last week. basically confirming the threat of the whole thing. the tragedy that on a series of other things. none of them really stand up to scrutiny. think it's kind of boring.

rogers a bully. like a lot of policy condition out, but he can't take it. so anytime somebody does stand up to a bully it's pretty common that the kind of go to pieces. it's what happened here. >> take you down a different path on that just the tease out of the more some of your critics i say you appear to like the president's. i don't think your vector as a journalist. >> of me stop you right there. i've been of little journalist for a long time. the associated press. it is important that people keep that in mind. more than 20 years i've been paid to express my opinion. i believe most good books have a

point of view. if they don't they're not trying to be. thousands -- in my fdr but there's a lot of criticism. there's a lot of criticism of the president. a chapter called not so great communicator. >> host: you get into all of that speech to some of his inadequacies "in trying to work with congress and be more inclusive, which has been a problem for him. i think obstruction is a huge part of it. that shortcomings are important. so i get a little just frustrated, i guess, but people often who have not read the book say, well, you have just apologize for obama. if they want to redouble book and then say that, that's fine. they're entitled to their

opinion. i don't like people looking at an assumption before the read the book. at the that's fair. >> pete. >> host: i agree that there's a difference between writing the editorial comments and reporting. i reflected he was responsible for making a really important. michael dukakis. >> actually, in films, i believe in the sovereignty of facts. and this book is very, very heavily reported. it is not an opinion book. it is something that has not been reported before on every page. i can't give people money back guarantee. the work really hard to read what you just said, it's not true. a lot of liberals believe it. he was not involved in that. it was made by somebody else to

actually ended up working for one of the other. >> let me correct you. he did put together and add that did not mention horton. that was a cable and that someone else. the campaign. but the bush campaign did run. >> contact to cameras. >> committing murder. >> i mean, you can say that he ran of willie horton ad and he didn't. it turns up it was notorious, highly objectionable. kiddy these titos right is extremely important. >> your kill it -- carrying

willie horton in your mind. my point is for people like be critical of you, we don't have that in your background. bills was clearly on the other side and migrated. to me that becomes at this from a different background than from somebody who's been in journalism multi order where visa versa why -- >> i hope not too bad. >> is no comparison. >> it's frankly a little rich. >> let's go from the republican party. wherever they want to call themselves these days. this question to the audience member. to what extent do you think tea party backed republican senate candidates made better reverse could still affect in their selection? in effect you think the democratic senate its of what

faugh -- >> it's interesting that obamacare lead in the states but he did have a benefit from a very considerable gender gap. and that gender gap at various points look like it was narrow. remember it worked with white voters. and, you know, obviously better with white men. there were various points were it did quite well with white women. the publicity over these asinine comments in these two campaigns helped obama drive his message.

better for me different time. they used to be, you know, fruition and he had actually, in a budget showdown in 2011 because the speaker in his people wanted to end support for planned parenthood. obama said that as a deal breaker. sometimes to blast or the bottom line is. in april 200011 on something called a continuing revolution obama said there are a lot of women in this country who did

not abortion services, but basic women's health care services from plant. so all of these issues kind of contributed to his winning the women's vote. and their stories about all of these different constituency groups and the weight obama appeal to them, but in my mind the most interesting is what he did, so-called caved and i have a chapter on. in chicago where these twentysomething keeps. the prodigy, three professional poker players who reengineered american politics. so they could find obama supporters who felt very

strongly about those comments. and they could, through a very inventive facebook ed, targeted sharing of the night to find, connecting those supporters who felt really strongly about it to a good facebook friends, people they have, you know, in battleground states, and they could tell them friend to friend of or facebook friend to facebook friend when they went out and canvassed, they could say cut said not every house on the block, but know that mrs. johnson at 506 of part, you know, is interested in women's issues and literature about obama and women. work with the issue renter to redefine. that is big sigh sleep the

chronology. so this is a long winded way of saying there was enough for him to have these candid it's put their feet in the mouth because many people micro targeting. >> republicans, i assume, will learn from that. >> yes. they're closing what i call that the gap. they have cut, hard road because there's a scene or yahoo invented micra targeting, a republican goes to the romney campaign and it tries to say, obama's chief of what we did in the game. his wife was the deputy campaign manager for romney. and they wouldn't do it. they thought that one of their senior advisers said that -- he told me, they could not predict the sub prime mortgage crisis, how will they elector president.

they were just wrong. the self-described numbers back, mitt romney, it was not just that he put his foot is not a lot. he was running at 20th, may 20th century campaign, what his people called in madman campaign from the 1980's. some of the same guys were reelected. we are, obama is on the cutting edge of what technology can -- can do even though he has not come out of bin, but he ran that kind of campaign. the latest. >> in san francisco, that was maybe a black rock campaign. >> that's better. yes. >> staying on that, you mentioned in your talk and also in the book about criticism of the president in some ways, especially after the first a bit

and maybe now, for example, chris matthews yelling at him, not to get more involved, why are you still doing these things. this question from an audience member is may be in that spirit because sometimes her supporters can be harder on the then your opponents. if obama does not need to run again why is he still pandering to the right? why is still not manifesting a liberal agenda? for example, continuing to tory for the keystone pipeline, pointing monsanto and walmart expects. trending social security. horses are all interesting questions. so. >> i think that people need to understand that he has never really been far left. he's been a little bit left of

center, but when i said the center holds, it wasn't just that there was this conservative takeover of the government. it was that basically he's a centrist. and so something like energy, that was big in illinois. and when he included the largest plane the energy bill by oars of magnitude in american history, you know, he continued to be in all of the above president when it came to energy. i think sometimes there's a perception on the left. bella he meant, be like the warren beatty character.

that going to have a mental breakdown in the says every believes endo no. didn't just want to go off a yes the pipeline. into a problem, and get to hat a rational, what he considers to be rational solution rather than going off in an ideological way. i think that's a good thing. twenty plus years. single parents i didn't begrudge obama and all. his strategy on obamacare. again, looking to history, the idea of universal coverage was

first launched, the progressive party bull worth platform in 1912 when they nominated theodore roosevelt. in the seven presidents, including franklin roosevelt. the of this for all kinds of reasons. obama had to do some unpleasant things buying at various interest groups and the cutting deals of from a civil companies. but it got done what president said failed to give time for a century. and people will no longer have to worry about losing their house if they get sick. cancer survivor myself. this really comes close to home. i think that all the noise, the basics of it is obscured. it's a huge progress of a compass when. immigration reform not be more progress.

it the economy. nationalizing the banks was a good idea. make sure that was in the bill. just of this progressive question. this is an emotional issue. it became emotional, an emotional issue for him as it related to african-americans. there's a picture the speech at the national urban league. and he said to have, not progressive.

he's so angry. the woman they're standing behind all the people, the president was really angry. the cornell west view was wrong. especially the notion that it's not black enough. the african-american leaders, the vast majority support the president. meeting with him in the roosevelt room. one of them says, why not have a more pro black agenda. if allegis a black and a black, black, the son of god to help me get these things through. but food stamps helps blacks, health care of us likes. and at a later meeting al sharpton told the story that was

kind of relevant. he had a friend. my colleague, he says he the stains were. messes this isn't pork. it's a ham sandwich. and al sharpton says to him coverages because is not called pork doesn't mean it's not pork. leaders of the president says, mr. president, it's because your agenda is not called a liberal plan to -- pro black agenda doesn't mean it isn't. obama's says, like the "pork metaphor. >> and sam much. >> we may and fortunately be at a time. >> it's okay.

m. white is president obama change on this issue? >> well, i think he realized that the country was changing. he was a little bit behind the bid. a little later. we would just read think about how far the issue has come in such a short amount of time. the president. the inaugural address for the first time. the big deal. so he looks at a low bed like lincoln. that really an aberration. he can with the party. you have to kind of control the competing forces. i think the decision will go in the right direction.

and this one means that a lot of states will move forward with these just really offensive builds. >> and obama would not have been elected if the statues were not on the books. so this is a very important struggle that is coming and will require a lot of organization by a lot of people. so that thing and that was first launched, right after the 2010 midterms when my books start after this vote -- shellacking in these the advantage. the legislatures redraw the maps , locked in their house majority until 2020. pedicab. a million more votes. the house and republicans.

does business as usual. but image to the dark as used to do that. it would redraw the map. but what was different was this idea of targeting certain groups to make it harder for them to vote. and that would maintain that it is an american. and that struggle will continue. anybody who wants to think of the background of that border suppression stroke, i try to bring it all together in one place in the book as well. >> well, on that note please join me in mission -- thinking jonathan author. [applause] >> for more information, visit the authors website. >> book tv is on location at book expo america, the annual publishers' trade show held in new york city.

and we are talking with the publisher of shikar review press about some of their upcoming titles. what do you have coming out this year? >> we have the last war lord, the legend of the rostrum. afghan warlord who led the u.s. special forces to avert topple the taliban. a very interesting to help tier of character. our author is a professor. he embedded and live with them and got to know his family. he has a really unique access. with the u.s. forces pull out of afghanistan, fighting that taliban for all these years, let me to come back and be a major player again. >> she has been an ally of the u.s.-soviet be in afghanistan? >> and that is him right there at the center. he also is kind of a unique character who believes in the

education of women in afghanistan and is a bit of -- yes, and liberal tendencies. very much against the taliban and extremists. >> what was it like to write this book? how well did you get to know him? >> you really did get to live with them and get to know some of his family's. so i think it was a very unique experience. and of a unique view of the world. >> is there any chance that he will be coming to the u.s.? >> no, probably not. >> what else you have? >> redefining. pretty excited about this. parents can fight the sexualizing and stereotyping of young girls. a lot of books on this subject as far as the issue is concerned. but this book is very practical and give strategies of and they go into the halloween store looking for costumes and cannot find things appropriate for young girls, what steps they can take, writing letters, finding a manager, what practical steps

that they can take. also gives parents to think about starting very young had not. the author has a blocked, very popular blog. redefining the early and capturing turnover again. >> and that is coming out of the volatility 13? even 2013 we're facing the same issue. find wholly customs. but it goes. it's hitting more and more.

>> a bin in the publishing for 30 years. the owner of the company was aggressively at the university of chicago. he worked for the poetry. hugh wanted to do them on his own. >> and bamut the company for 25 years. a study of the accounting department. >> about the ten of war. >> this is picture like state. the afghanistan. really met with people there and talk to them. what the feelings are.

but if -- different people there >> another boat that caught our eye was sabrina lambs new book. >> yes. financially responsible african-american children, and it's very practical and really about financial education and starting in with your kids about understanding money and have to be responsible but is pending. it's particularly interesting in the african-american community. they tend to spend a lot of money on cars and fancy jewelry. this is really kind of looking at your issues as a parent with money and how you spend it and how-to pass better habits of your kids. >> one more wanted to ask about before we leave you, home front grow. >> this is a wonderful dirae. a diary of a woman from chicago, grew up in chicago, went to the university of chicago. during the war she was a teenager and kept a journal and was very politically active as a teenager and really smart,

started at the university of chicago as a 16 year-old, got then. her daughter founder journals much later in life and published them. so published the journal as a teenager during wartime in chicago. really wonderful little glimpse of what it was like to be in america on the home front during the war. >> now from the libertarian cato institute in washington d.c. his book global crossings. the booklet sets the reasons people risk their lives to move to foreign lands. compares migration trends over the past decade. this is about 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome, everybody, to the cato ins