good morning and happy sunday tr everyone. welcome to the miami book fair international our 30th anniversary, as you all know. [applause] a number of you know me from previous years. it's my pleasure to be here to welcome you on behalf of the miami book fair international and miami-dade college, the college that really put forth maximum effort in terms of volunteers from all of its constituents, students, faculty and staff to make this book fair -- as it does every single year and for the past 30 years. .. o.h. aryan know and american airlines for their sport. i'd also like to thank our friends, many of whom are seated right here in front.

thank you so much for all of your support this year and for the past years that this fair has been made possible in part because of your generosity. the end of the session, as you know, the authors will be signing their books. they'll be autographing on this floor on the other side of the elevator so you can proceed to that end, and you will also have an opportunity to ask questions after the authors have completed their presentations. so we'd like to keep this fair be going for 30 more years, don't we? [applause] so let's do it together, and instead of asking you to turn off your cell phones, what i'd like you to do if you have not already done so this weekend is to take out your cell phones and text mbfi to donate to miami book fair international if you're so inclined.

doe that it to 41444. thank you -- donate to 41444. thank you so much. please consider donating $30 in support of the 30 years the book fair has been in existence making culture happen here in our community. it's now my pleasure to introduce dr. j.p. austin, a local physician, and he will make the formal introduction of our authors. thank you. [applause] and he will make the formal introduction of our authors. thank you. [applause] >> good morning. it's an honor and a privilege for me to introduce mark halperin and john heileman. the authors of "double down" game changed .12. i'm a political junkie and i do medicine sometimes on the side.

[laughter] but this second book of what i think of now as a franchise really is really inside baseball at its best. the original game change i think was the most insight of book of the 2008 cycle and "double down" does the same for 2012. i think it's a home run. it takes you into the weeds. it rings depth and background to the events that you saw in the news. it's a book full of details, juicy tip hits, inside and yes even some gossip. when a democratic operative told cnn that ann romney was quote never worked a day in her life end of quote, you guys remember that, the romney team wasted no time in saying how -- they were but if you read the

book you will find that the romney's were very happy that this happened and delighted because they thought it was a huge political gaffe. did president on obama and his team considered dropping vice president biden? well, read the book and see how far that discussion went. what was behind the clint eastwood disaster at the republican national convention? [laughter] we have this older man on stage, prime-time without a script. what could possibly go wrong? [laughter] well, what was going on in the background, you have to read the book to find out. you know i asked john heileman backstage, how do you get people to talk? it's amazing. i have read both books and my wife who has read the books as well, how do you get people the savings things? it's amazing to me. an amazing book and you guys are

obviously going to want to read it or have read it. ladies and gentlemen it's my pleasure and really a privilege to introduce mark halperin and john heileman. [applause] >> jp thank you for that gracious and kind introduction. you read it just like we wrote it so we appreciate that. [laughter] we are gratified and excited and thrilled to be here in miami. we have been on tour for the past two and a half weeks and have been in a lot of different cities and we can say without equivocation this is the favorite place. we love miami and we are led to be here. [applause] i promise you i have not said that in any other segue.

this is obviously an august forum and a great event that happens every year. being invited here is one of the most great honors that we have experienced and only compares since this book "double down" has been published is the fact that we have just received the endorsement of the north korean government. [laughter] and you are laughing. you think i made that up. that's not a joke. it's true. a couple of days ago i got a strange google alert on my phone that says something about korea and "double down" so of course i looked in the headline of the "washington post" article said north korea endorses "double down". as an an author there is nothing better than a blurb from a north korean state news agency and in truth there really is only one book club more powerful than they oppressed bookclub and that is the kim jong un bookclub for

his book of the month. [laughter] i'm going to talk and we want to take questions from the audience so i'm going to talk briefly and handed over to mark and we will get to your questions and your comments and address whatever you would like to hear us talk about. we wrote a book is jp mentioned four years ago or three years ago called game change. some of you may have read that book or seen the hbo movie. [applause] we preferred the movie to the book, but keep it to yourself. the book was our baby. and this book would we try to do roughly the same thing in the last book which is the people who put themselves forward in this american spectacle one of the great competitions in any sphere of life in our country or any other. mark will talk about how we go about doing these folks that we did set ourselves a bit of a high bar in the fact in the first book are its subtitle

referred to the race of a lifetime. we have had in 2012 and people have asked how would you possibly top it. we would often say to people, there's not going to be as much drama in 2012. first of all there was a lot of drama in 2012. president obama himself said this election was more consequential. back in 2008 people were voting on a hope and a dream and kind of the historic promise of this election and in 2012 they would be voting on his record and syndicating or rejecting what he had done and a mandate to do more. he also felt he had done a lot over the course of his first two years. weather was passing health care reform deregulating wall street passing the stimulus, those are

huge things he did and he felt that the republicans won in 2012 it would undo his accomplishments have you thought the stakes in this election were much higher. it's certainly the case that a lot of republicans were dispirited and by the time he got to the end of 2008, there was not much suspense around who was going to win the election especially after the wall street crisis in the fall. in this election republicans were energized and they thought president obama was the most important thing to say the country so you had to energized sides playing for high stakes so there's a fair amount of trauma inherent and a fair amount of the other kind of narrative and that was a lot of comedy in this election. cert me on the republican side there was comedy. you all remember herman cain talking about uzbeki stan and michelle bachmann accusing the hometown of john wayne and serial killer john wayne gacy.

those were kind of funny moments and gingrich's southerner of course finishing his epic political career by taking a tour of american citizen being bitten by penguin. not certainly the most wonderful way to end his career and of course even the candidates that were not inherently that funny a lot of people don't think of is a particularly funny guy or rick santorum is a particularly funny guy but we refer to john mccain do is they funny guy coming to his decision about who he is going to endorse in yet made his decision and he felt like the republican nomination came down to the decision of the man on the breath guy with the a dog on the roof guy. there was some humor there. i'm going to extend a couple of minutes i have left and tell you about one story from the book that has drama and comedy and consequence and profanity which

courses you can imagine involves the clintons. we wrote a lot in 2008 about bill clinton and hillary clinton and barack obama and their complicated relationship. a lot of the story is the relationship between bill clinton and barack obama and the love story between barack and hillary. it's the love story of a rocket bill and it starts after three years in which the two guys didn't talk much and president obama didn't want to hear from president clinton and president clinton wanted to talk as he often does but they didn't have much collaboration or discussion until the fall of 2011 when obama's term was at its low ebb politically at that point. his approval ratings were down at 40% after the debt ceiling fight. he looked like -- ended in a state of desperation

he and his team did something they had never really thought they would have to do which was they started a courtship with bill clinton that courtship began as courtships often do on the golf course. they went to play golf at andrews air force base. president obama has an obama attitude towards goal. i'm the president and either busy schedule. i want to play the game and get that to work, two and a half hours at the most maybe three if i'm not playing well. president clinton has a different attitude. he is a retiree so he has a more leisurely pace and he not famously takes a lot of mulligans but thinks is the golf course is a place to expound and proselytize and preach and joke and tell knock knock jokes and all kinds of things. this golf round did not go particularly well. they were on the golf course for more than three hours. when president obama came off the course one of his aides said how did go and president obama set i like him fine but in

doses. [laughter] that was not a propitious dart to the romance but over the course of the next few months the two guys got closer and closer. president obama got to see president clinton speaking about him where he spoke with great passion and eloquence about president obama's record and ultimately president obama decided he would give one of the three nights of his convention as you all remember to president clinton. the first night was michelle obama's night in the middle might should've been joe biden's night. instead president obama decided to give president clinton a chance to get up there and do something no former president had ever done before and make the case for barack obama's term which president clinton did extraordinarily. it was a big moment for president clinton. he couldn't go up there and throw the high hard one but he wanted to show he had his

fastball and he did show that night in charlotte. a very consequential speech is as well as a riveting one. president clinton showed he had political skills and a few weeks after that he showed he also had punditry which i will come back to in a minute. by the end of the campaign president upon and president clinton when superstorm sandy was bearing down on new york city they were about to do a joint event together and president obama decided he had to go back to washington because of the storm. there were at the hotel in florida and clinton said you go back and be president and i will pick up the slack. president clinton covered the country has of his own name was on the ballot. he was out there and was effectively filling in for president obama. his advocacy was quite extraordinary. president obama felt he owed a debt to president clinton and

election night the first phonecall that rocco, made after governor romney called president obama to concede literally president obama hung up the phone and he said get the clinton on the phone and he said thank you. if you think about the arc of the clinton obama if relationship the idea a year ago or four years ago that would he how the election ended for president obama on the phone with president clinton thanking him is almost inconceivinconceiv able. there has been some rocking us in the last few days. obviously president clinton made a comment that was not helpful about the affordable care act and people wondered are things getting dicey between the two of them? we saw last week president obama getting president clinton the medal of freedom and said to him thank you for all of the advice you have given me on and off the golf course. that kind of lightness is there. i will finish by saying president clinton they said he was a great pundit and when we

think about 2012 would like to see the world sometimes through president clinton size. he was asked in september after the 47% tape came out and governor romney was struggling one of his friends said what do you think of governor romney and president clinton said i think he is a nice guy but he's in the wrong line of work. he said he should not a speaking to people in public. [laughter] and a similar commerce station at friends have what you think about president obama reflecting on the great gift governor romney given to president obama. i hope there are no children in the room right now. he said he thought president obama was luckier than a dog with two decks. apparently that's one of the luckiest things president clinton thinks he can be.

only bill clinton knows. [laughter] i'm going to stop with that because i feel as though it's a good time to get off the stage after you have referred to a dog that has to be mrs.. animal is my specialty. [applause] >> thank you all. as john said we are both happy to be here at the miami book fair. i have been here a few times, happy to be back. exhilarated for a lot of reasons. one is c-span2 cameras are there and i knew that john is was going to end with that story so i spent most of my morning anticipating what brian lamb's reaction was going to be after that trade i'm just going to talk for a little that because we like to leave a lot of time for q&a and as far as we are concerned start thinking of questions. nothing is off-limits about the book or journalism or anything you want.

you can ask about the details of of the implementation of the presidents health care law for what we have learned about the details of the clinton's marriage. all we would ask during q&a you do all of your questions in the form of true and false. if you could define them that way it goes a little faster. i'm going to talk about how we do these books in terms of crafting the process. i do want to do one housekeeping thing. i want to get a sense of the makeup of the audience so i'm going to ask a couple of questions by show of hands. if you are voting in other -- in front of others enclosure is of others you can close your eyes when your vote. raise your hand if you voted for president obama in the last election and raise your hand if you voted for governor romney in the last election. one, two, three, four. most florida groups we speak to

our diverse group of people. self-selected group. the second question i just want to get a sense of the book. how many of you have not read "double down"? how many of you have read it? not very many. normally talk a fair amount about what's in the book is so few of you have read it and i do want to give away the ending. [laughter] i'm going to talk more about the process of what senate. we had as john said the great challenge and doing a second book because of so many elements of the first book that were pretty compelling. we had great characters to write about and our joke was if you have a campaign where rudy giuliani is the seventh most interesting candidate you have some interesting people to write about. this time some different group

of people but there are characters who carry over and we like that continuity. what we try to do is to write about not politics although a lot of people write about politics and polls and focus groups in the detailed result of every primary caucus but about the relationships between people and trying to much is -- right as much as we can through empathy through the eyes of the candidates and their families as they go through the process. john mention one of the key relationships is between president clinton and president obama but there are lots of others. chris christie and governor romney and the relationship between hillary clinton and joe biden is a really important one. they are more competitors in 2008 when joe biden ran for president and in the white house worked closely together on foreign policy but obviously a lot of spec elation about whether they might run against each other in 2016. they are very close personally and we have written about that in both books. for example they often own --

and phone conversations with -- [inaudible] that shows you how close they are and to try to tease out how people relate to each other because they are human beings and we try to write again for insiders as well as a general audience. we hear a lot from people who are not interested in politics live read the books who say they like them and that is very gratifying to us but we also hear a lot of times from people who have worked on the campaigns are the candidates themselves. john did an interview with governor huckabee on the radio and governor huckabee said on the show is we capture as close as journalists can not only the facts of what happened the that kind of the feel of it the tactile sense of what is like to deal with the exhilaration and the pressure and often the heartbreak of being involved in a presidential campaign with a

particular focus on the candidates rather than strategy and strategists intact takes. we like to break news in the book. and to try to get a little attention for what we do but really what we try to do is to write a sense of the history of what happened by focusing on the big unanswered questions of the race. last time we had a set of unanswered questions and this time we have two. we think it's important to capture that when we do. some people complain and they say there are so much coverage of the election in your book doesn't come out for a full year after the election is over. i try to gently push back and say look it is taken doris kearns goodwin 100 years to write about roosevelt so cut us a little bit of slack. but it is important to get those questions answered as best we can in real time.

we do some elections during the campaign and some immediately after because there is not a lot written. there are contemporaneous recordings that we rely on but if you want to get to the heart of the facts and the feel of what happened it means you have to do it as quickly as possible and a year is in the span of the 500 page book is relatively quickly. one thing we are adjusting in is how to governor governor romney in depth as the party's nominee? he had -- not truly a candidate of the establishment which a lot of people are anxious to find someone else to get them in the race like governor christie are governor daniels former governor of indiana and governor romney didn't have widespread support although he has support from both camps. he had a relatively low ceiling on his overall support.

why didn't people like governor daniels? why didn't they run? we try to excavate that question. another question was why did the republican candidates including governor romney court the endorsement of donald trump? he thought about running himself but there were real reasons why mitt romney really focused on getting the endorsement in the day he got it it was kind of a bizarre day. he was happy we got it so we tried to explain why that was so important. the presidential debates a lot of focus in real-time on president obama and what he did so poorly in the first debate and then a couple of weeks later the second debate we write about the process which he recovered to do far better in the second debate that it was not a smooth process and the question of why

he did poorly in the first debate in why he did better in the second debate and clint eastwood why he got invited and why they let him on stage with no teleprompter and how he thought of doing the routine he did. we thought that was historically the most important question of the campaign and ended up getting so much media coverage for his strange imitation talking to this day that share that overshadowed a lot of governor romney's except in speech. while it's a quirky story it had real-world consequences. what we do is pretty old-fashioned in the sense that it involves a lot of reporting. we did 500 interviews for this look. as with the first book we received extensive cooperation for which we were grateful across-the-board from democrats and republicans and we asked people to tell us their stories.

our interviews tend to not be confrontational basically world histories. if you do 500 interviews it's a lot by almost any standard. it ends up being not just quantitatively what informs journalism but qualitatively because over time interviewing people and comparing stories you are trying to weed out things that reflect some sort of dies on the part of so many talk to or a bad memory and tried to be together a narrative that is compelling and accurate and benefits from repeated discussions with people about important events as we go through meetings which at times seem like they will be important the accumulation of discussions gives us a sense almost always dealing with people we have known for a couple of decades are short of that gives us a

sense of what's important to tell the story of what happened from the human perspective and not chronicling every caucus and primary and including the things we think are the most interesting and compelling with drama and a sense of importance of what the campaign meant to the country and as i said before for the people who ran. the challenge in this process and the last time the first book was made into an hbo movie people asked us on a regular basis it this book will be made into an hbo movie. we have had some discussions if they end up making part of the relationship between president clinton and president obama. casting that dog would be a challenge for them. [laughter] but as with the first book there is a lot they can base it on so

we look forward to thinking about that potential project and 2016. one of the things we stumbled into which we didn't anticipate is there is a continuity and at the end of the book we write about how the president's legacy and what it will mean to be the democratic nominee whoever will succeed him in the complexities of that. governor perry, governor christie, rick santorum, paul ryan, mike huckabee are people who have been in one or both books and part of the narrative going forward. we tried to do it in a novelistic style undergirded by high journalistic standards. we think some people like them because it's a serialization overtime to think about the same cast of characters stepping off the stage in smaller roles but other people stepping forward with a continuity has been

rewarding for us. i'm going to stop there and part because i want to make sure we leave time for q&a and that is the longest i have spoken on the book tour without someone yelling out you lied. [laughter] it's super nice of you to get up early and come out and talk to us. we will take questions now. [applause] >> i'm going to moderate the q&a. please keep your questions reef if you can so we can get through as many as we can. >> hello. my question to either one of you or both of you is, what do you think hillary clinton's strengths and weaknesses for a presidential dead are? thank you. >> it think of hillary and then decides to run for president and neither mark or i assume anything about that, but that is

inevitable although she is clearly seriously looking at it. i think her strengths are overwhelming in terms of seeking a democratic nomination. her strengths are she has an incredible hold over the most important parts of the democratic coalition. there are many women elected officeholders in women at large who believe it's time for a woman to be at the democratic party is president and to have a high regard for hillary clinton. .. extraordinary ability to raise money would mean if you run shoe be almost entirely unchallenged. she may face a token challenge but she will be given the democratic nomination, something close to acclimation. a general election as a totally different kettle of fish and would depend a lot on who the republicans nominate. the first step i think would be close to in the bag.

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> you were talking about 2016, and my question is about the latins, which were an important factor in electing president obama, and were a detriment to the republicans. as i've heard, they kept saying they don't want to court the latinos. what they want to do is present what they are, republicans, the people will come to them. do you think that's a good strategy? >> that's less a true false question and more like a doctoral dissertation. [laughter] i'm going to try to give you a short answer. look, the president had horrible political times since the election in trying to get anything done. 's approval rating is down and it's a perilous time for him. at the same time the republicans have done much to increase, to

address the problems that caused him to lose the last election. cause of them to lose the popular vote and fight for the last six elections including the hispanic vote. republicans might decide to work on in a way that would help them with that rising electoral group. i think that there's lots of reasons why democrats have done better with the latino vote, but clearly some of it has to do with the most basic question of all in presidential politics and some extent national politics which is the question of does this person or the party care about people like you get and if you follow people in the latino community as most other groups that the president did just the portion about what, young people, single women, african-americans, that question is one in which he and his partner have dominated since president bush left office. whether republicans can do better with latinos on that

question simply by talking about their programs rather than customizing to the latino community i think is an open question but however they do it in style and substance i think that's the problem they have to slow. since the election i don't think they've made much progress, particularly winner so much focus on the latino media which the president campaigned tracks were closer than i think the republicans did on republicans in the house not being willing to afford with the copperheads of immigration bill. >> thanks for coming. it's great to see. what do you think of the political future of the well read sarah palin? [laughter] >> you know, i think mark and i know that the end of 2008 thought that had governor palu for all of her problems she had in 2008, had government then decided to pursue a different path, which is to say not quit the alaska governorship and take up a serious course of trying to remediate some of her

substantive weaknesses, she's not a dumb woman and she could have gone to school and learned a lot about -- should not a dumb but she has some weaknesses. national domestic issue of foreign policy. those are all things she could've ordered she decided to don e alaska gov and i think became someone whob is very well-paid, someone who has an ardent but relatively small on the scale of national politics and ardent but relatively small following that at this point i mean, i think the notion that she would ever be able to seek national office again without giving the path she's chosen is i think largely off the table. she, i think, you know, achieves the popularity she still has and will be able to live comfortably and marginally and influential life by continuing to take to the platforms that she currently

has on cable television in facebook. she will continue to be a presence in our lives, if not a central presence going forward. >> surprised there wasn't a rousing applause. i misjudged the audience again. [laughter] [inaudible] [applause] >> it seems to many that since the day obama was elected, the republican goal has been to say no and to appeal to the community that wants to see him fail at no cost yet obama feels very indecisive. there are a million things obama can do administratively without

having to go to congress and yet he can't do that. he says let's have immigration reform which all of us are for but isn't going to happen and the question is why in stead of doing the life-changing administrative things he can do. i think that he is constantly pressing on his team to tell which one he can do. even more obstructing things even more and your point of view how much worse can it get. the other thing is the president as we write in the book in the context of the debate preparation, things like a

lawyer. there is a relatively frequent occurrence things are presented to him that he might be able to do and if my sins as his constitutional scholar that i couldn't actually do that, then i won't do it. and that is going to be the way that he thinks for the rest of his term because that is just the way that he thinks and there something out of our noble about that. but at the same time, it does frustrate people like you who believe that he has done having any reasonable prospect of getting republicans to do anything say he should focus on whatever he can get done through executive power and i think if things continue on the trajectory that they are on right now, you will see a fair amount of that. >> how did you get together for your first project and how do you divide up the work and do you ever have very strong disagreements during the process? [laughter] >> even lee and no.

[applause] but john may want to answer more. >> i thought that was awesome. [laughter] >> we basically decided to do the book in 2008. we decided to do the book in 2008. we had never written anything together prior to that. we have known each other for some years and we both thought that there was something to be done. we tossed around ideas about a movie script and ideas writing about how the primary dollar to have any skills in the screenplays or fiction we ended up landing on the notion to try to do nonfiction and we both saw that kind of leads to the second answer we saw the race in similar ways we saw the gap in what the coverage, what day-to-day coverage left out and in very much the same ways so we

had a shared sense about what a book like this and that is the game changed now in this book could do as we were talking about before running for president. we are astonished all the time that we fight about things like where to go to dinner almost not at all. in the 800 interviews over the course of the last six years and thousands of hours i can count on one hand the number of things where i thought something was important that should go into the core market is agreed and vice versa. when it comes to what is important and what's revealing and what's dramatic and funny and revelatory, whatever we almost always see eye to eye and it's the last answer we are shocked to learn we do all of our interviews or gets 95% of

them together. the idea of splitting up labor wouldn't be divided in conquering, it would be dividing into the leg. we go back and read each other's interviews that we have to do if we were going to go fully be on board for where we were in terms of what the narrative looked like. we would probably still be reading transcripts if we had split the interview up for this book. sitting for the interviews together, getting the constantly evolving and rolling a shared sense about where we are headed and what he wants to pursue, where we want to throw out the way it is a sensual and it makes it more fun because truth is i think we get more out of the interviews that way because in any given interview, there is the ability for both of us to be able to be hearing what these people are saying in real-time anreal timeand to be able to juo push and where not to push and what the credibility of the person is, we were able to back each other up and that's really

been invaluable. >> there's been a lot of media attention about the republicans basically being dead and the democrats -- if you look at the 2,012th nationally, there was some kind of event that a good economic report for obama, some crazy republican candidates. it was a 50/50 and there were a lot of republicans like in florida over the country that dominated the politics statewide. so, my question is it seems like in the recent years the republicans have been more and more hardball and extreme debt ceiling filibuster. but whenever the poll numbers go down, the democrats numbers go down right along with it. it seems like there is nothing almost policy wise that the republicans can do that is far

out where the democrats really benefit that much. and i guess i'm wondering why. why the democrats numbers always go -- is there a problem in the democratic brand or what is it? >> i'm surprised this a gentle man is wearing a t-shirt that says "don't blame me i voted for kerry." license is that the audience is with you and no one blames for that. it is a complicated question i will say. even the partisans in this country who feel very strongly about the president being thought, even a lot of people in those camps believe that washington is broken into the 13 parties aren't serving the public interest for a variety of reasons. i think it is difficult now to get any lift in either side because both parties are

together. john will help me if i get this wrong coming out of the debt ceiling by 2011 which led to the kind of low point in the presidency although now it isn't in the white house but it's the good old days the president felt like he had been wrestling in the mud with pigs come and we know that everybody gets dirty and i think that it's -- it was the promise and pledge into the goal of president clinton and president obama central to the first campaigns of the white house to change that and to elevate themselves and our politics. all three of them have failed. again, not all his fault by any means but he has been the biggest value of the three by political scientists use to measure politics. so it is a puzzle. and why allies had a lot of partisan republicans are concerned about this there are people who are engaged in politics but look at the mess in washington and just kind of spread out their disdain for

everybody. so it is a challenge given the incentives today to fight the other side which they do fiercely and still elevate yourself with a wide electorate because once you yield to those incentives it is very difficult to them in terms of policy and rhetoric it is a puzzle and i think everybody in the country that cares about that, not just any partisan way but because we want our country to have a functioning government should be encouraging politicians of both parties to try to change a dynamic that we spent enough years promoting the dynamic andf how horrible that is in terms of our national image and getting things done and it's time i think to start to fix it. >> my question is i was fascinated by the romney campaign surprise on election night despite what a lot of analytics and metrics were saying coming in.

why do you think he was so blindsided by the results especially when they started coming in really quickly, and how much do you think the group played in that, you know, him being surprised into the campaign being surprised? >> there are two big reasons for that and yes it is the fact that congressman ryan and those around him thought they were going to win right up until the election date. part of it is one of the big areas that they felt succumbed to get some reporters succumbed to which is the illusion of crowds. if you are a presidential candidate out on the road, the main thing you see every day as you go from events to event and in the past, 2008 john mccain in the last day of the election would have small crowds and president obama is getting 30,000 of his events, governor romney was a different place heading crowds as big as president obama at some times bigger. he would see people outside of

columbus or cincinnati ohio a couple of nights out from election night. again, 30,000 people. one events in pennsylvania tonight before and there were 40,000 people there. so, he thought the crowd and the energy indicated to him that he would win and then you have the republican pollster's largest governor romney did it cross the republican party managing the electorate to convince themselves that it would look tk more like the electorate in 2010. in 2012 more than 20 of eight with the rising coalition that fueled president obama prevalence and dominant again in 2012. >> thank you so much. let's give the authors a round of applause.

[applause] >> spinnaker they will be autographing on the other side of the elevator on the same floor. thank you. ♪ >> this is booktv live coverage of the 2,013th by any book fair international and the next panel is due to begin in 15 minutes. that is george packer that won the national book award and jeremy, the author of dirty wars and of as you can see we are following mark and john to the signing area.

mark helprin is wearing a microphone and we will be able to listen in as he signs books and talks with some of the people that were in the audience. but we also want to get your reaction to what you saw mark halperin and john heileman talking about the reactions. this is booktv. as we wait for jon to get started, let's get some -- gets new calling in. here are the numbers (202)585-3990. 585-2891 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. and david in hopes on florida just up the coast, david, what was your reaction to that panel? >> caller: by reaction to the panel wasn't my reaction to the panel. they were actually fairly objective in their answers trade

but even they had to express their near discussed in my view with the audience to read the audiences that were getting at is the festivals are that festis proportionately to the left. and this is particularly true. here in florida we have a purple state that went for obama this last time that very, very, very narrow. yet that audience would have to believe that the florida was overwhelmingly in favor of obama and that simply was not true. and i think that the organizers of the book festivals have to have an affirmative action program to take part in the audiences. and that has them so disproportionately to the left. as you say i am right up the coast, yet i will not go near that place because if i dare

show my face there. thanks for calling in from hope south florida. let's listen as mark halperin and john heileman sign books. >> it is a game change. a classic edition. >> it's great seeing you guys. i love your stuff in new york magazine. >> thank you. how are you? >> in high school and college [inaudible] >> that's a very nice. where did you grow up? >> [inaudible] >> that's very nice. that's very nice of you. i will tell him. >> on morning joe with you. >> that was a good episode.

speeto thank you. hello. thank you for buying this. do you want is made out for someone or just signed? >> [inaudible] >> thank you. >> hello. how are you, sir? thank you for writing the book. >> thank you for coming. >> thank you sir. >> we have a traffic jam. >> [inaudible] thank you. very nice. >> and as we continue to watch mark halperin and john heileman sign books after their talk here at the miami book fair, we want

to hear from a thread in washington. fred, what did you think about the author's? >> caller: [inaudible] i'm in washington, and i think that they are right. i believe they are oriented in the current scene, but i'm disappointed that the audience and why we never hear questions that would be hard for these people to address about all of the events and the amount of money that comes out of corporate america and goes right directly through the lobbyists were through campaign pledges into our congress, and how much influence that has on this middle that we are involved in. that's my only comment. i'm reading correctly a good book on the subject by one of

their colleagues, henrik smith, "who sold the american dream," and it documents very well with the influence of what money is and where it is coming from and i would say the single primary reason for the problems that we are having with this country now. including -- >> thank you very much. by the way, henrik smith was covered by booktv. you can watch that online at booktv.org. there is a search function in the upper left-hand corner to get let's listen in again to mark halperin as he signs books. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. hi, how are you? >> i have lent it to so many people that i've lost track of it.

>> thanks so much. appreciate it. thanks for buying the book. >> you laughed more than anybody at the events. >> [inaudible] >> i missed that. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> in about five or six minutes or so, the next panel will be starting here in miami. george packer and jeremy cahill. they just won the national book award this year. jeremy scahill will be joining for a call-in program, and dan ballz. next we want to hear from gary in kentucky. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i really enjoyed the panel. it was a great discussion. you know, the problem i see -- i am just a layman, but the first

call we got where he comes out so partisan, he's not welcome ... fair because he's a conservative, that's what i see wrong with the country. we are all americans and, you know, it is just destroying a country to keep us all -- i love c-span and i've been trying to call you for 15 years and i finally got through this morning. i cannot believe it. have a great day. >> gerry, before you hang up, how would you describe your politics? that's too bad. he had up after 15 years. i wanted to talk to have a little bit. cynthia in colorado. what is your reaction to what you saw thuseful the authors tag about? >> caller: i definitely want to read the book.

i have a kindle and i downloaded the sample. i think c-span is so fair. the gentle man, the republican or the conservative, whatever you want to call him that put down the fair and put down c-span doesn't watch c-span. i do, i watch it and i like the book fares. it's like book can be for me and i want to say as a conservative, you know, we can show up at these and also, many conservatives and republicans don't read. i am baffled by his comments. >> thank you, cynthia. jp is also calling from colorado. you are on book tv on c-span2. >> caller: i liked the panel i was surprised how simply they answer to the question about how

they work together and fight the. >> the last caller that suggested they don't read -- i think that it would be really appropriate to that first caller into that his simply i will leave you with that. do you consider yourself a liberal, progressive, what? i don't consider myself liberal,

i think it's dirty word but that doesn't mean that i do not respect conservatives of old like william f. buckley and barry goldwater. they just abandon the project committee. the [inaudible] provisions that abandon the leadership of the media companies ended their -- the big money and self-interest is really influencing a lot of media. >> thanks for calling in this morning. david from hope sound is a

regular caller to booktv. he will have a response at some point the next time he calls. the next panel is going to start in just minutes but we are going to work in a call from c-charlie and mary island florida. what did you think about mark halperin and john heileman's presentation? >> caller: it was the only entertaining but it was very informative. but like several other callers i was disturbed. i live u lived up the road a lie further up the road and attended many of the miami book fairs and there's usually a very high diversity of speakers including this year i think that dick cheney kicked off the events. so i think that they are doing a good job. it's. >> all right, charlie thinks for calling in from florida. all the calls from florida they know what a beautiful day it is on the east coast of florida. you can see it on the screen in just a minute.

this is live from miami. this is the 30th annual miami book fair international and at the 15th year on the air. and we have covered this festival life, a portion of it i should say for all 15 years it's about a weeklong festival, hundreds of thousands of authors attending and the last caller was correct, dick cheney was here yesterday morning. he was not in the room that we are covering, so unfortunately we were not able to cover him live. but we are going to go back. coming up, dan balz, george packer of the new yorker and jeremy scahill dirty wars. this is live coverage here on booktv. international. those of you joining us to chapman center in the lou harrison and absurd as a volunteer for many, many .. years. it's happy anniversary to the 30