adviser with the clinton transition. before founding the dlc in 1985 common was the directive head of the democratic caucus and with staff director of the u.s. senate subcommittee on intergovernmental congressional relations and he lives in annapolis maryland and his book you can purchase after we finish that story and catherine hall. it is my privilege and honor this morning to introduce to you former governor robert ehrlich. the author of "america: hope for change", the honorable robert ehrlich junior is a senior counsel government advocacy and public policy practice group at king and falling where he advises clients in a broader way of policy matters and interactions with the federal government. so he is serving as a civil

litigator, and he offered the chesapeake bay restoration act to restore america's largest estuary which suggests the base foundation, called the most important environmental achievement in 20 years, again, rare praise for a republican politician to say. he also created the government department of disabilities, for which he received the highest recognition award from the u.s. secretary health of human services department. he served four terms in the u.s. the house of representatives and he also served from 19 infantile 1994 representing baltimore county for the state. and if you can say this but a lengthy list of political contributions that he has made. so we are happy to have him with us today. going to start with asking her to panelist to share an overview of their books and we are going to begin with mr. from sumac

thank you very much, charlie. it's good to be with you. and i do remember another republican governor. but we won't mention it. [laughter] >> i'm noting. >> i may buy your book, too, so be nice to me. [laughter] it's really terrific to be here so it is so nice to be here with other individuals from annapolis. i really am happy to be here. by the time the party was supposed to start and we have lost over 30 feet in the house.

so everyone was supposed to come to the party was like me. they have lost jobs. there is no reason to celebrate. and fast-forward to june of 2000 in berlin leaders of 14 countries with centerleft government and they are defining their common themes for government. those things were opportunity, responsibility, community. something we heard many times from bill clinton. president clinton was completing his second successful term as president. and the new democrat wasabi was modernizing politics all over the globe. and my book tells the story about political dream.

from the wilderness in 1982 politics/countries in the democratic world in the year 2000. i wrote it in part because local memories are short. democrats control the white house now and have a demographic advantage in presidential elections. just a quarter of a century ago the situation was reversed. in the 1980s we had three presidential elections. the democrats want a smaller percentage electoral politics wrote in those three elections than any party has ever won three consecutive american election since the beginning of modern parties in 1848. it is not a stretch to say that my party, the democratic party,

was not had a palace out of ideas. and so the new democrats were political insurgents in their own party. vehicle was founded in 1985. when we began we were very popular. that was an understatement. the party leaders try to shut us down and we were determined. we read all the details about what we did in the book and in a few minutes. i'm not going to cover all of it. but i do want to talk about some of the highlights. the new democrat movement was an idea-based political movement. and that is the second reason that i wrote this book. ideas in politics today with social media, cable news, and all the other stuff that goes

around, ideas are just too underappreciated. we believe that the intellectual resurgence of the democratic party had to perceive the political resurgence. we can talk about candidates all you want. but if a party wasn't standing for things people wanted to support, people were going to vote for it. so when we think about the 1988 election when the democrats thought that they were going to win in the party image helped to bring down michael dukakis. think about 2012 where the fundamentals all favored mitt romney. but the image of the republican party has been pulled to the right in the primaries on issues like immigration that cost him the election. in 2012 mitt romney won the same amount of percentage of hispanic

votes as george bush did in 1994, he would be sitting in the white house are now. but his party pulled him down. so when he formed the dlc, our strategy was to shape a political message that someone, we have a pretty good idea who that might be, could run for president someday. and not only wrong but governed by it. her goal was not to accommodate. we didn't want to be acceptable with party leaders but we wanted to win. and we knew along the way that we were going to lose some of our friends and some of them would disagree with this and fall off the reservation. but that was a necessary price to pay. because our challenge was not to unify our party. walter mondale had done that in a sense. yet every interest group and the party behind him in 1984 and he lost 49 states. our count was to expand it.

so because we couldn't prevail in the regular party form, we had to build our own playing field we could have our own home field advantage. the new generation of leaders included people like though clinton and al gore, joe biden. sam nun, belgrade. a bunch of new leaders are you and they developed ideas that challenge the party orthodox and reorganized our own forums and conferences around the country. within the first four years he became a political force. but what really gave us the impetus was lamplight lawsuit expected when in 1988. after that we really became an unstoppable force. in april 1989 i traveled to little rock, arkansas to ask a young governor to become chairman of the dlc. i told him i had a deal or him.

he would become chairman of the dlc, we would pay for his travel around the country and we would shape an agenda that i thought a democrat could win the white house on, and he would be president someday and we would both be important. bill clinton took that deal. and we immediately embarked on a four-part strategy. and if you think about where the republicans are today, you might want to think about this kind of a strategy. the first, i do not take strategic advice from the opposition model. i don't like to give it to them, but it's good for the country. and first i call it reality therapy. we told it like it was. when you lose an election, they say it's because we had a good candidate, it's because our candidate was terrible.

because they had better media. you know, all of a sudden we will find a candidate and have a sweeping victory. but when you constantly lose by over 40 states. it's not just because one candidate was bad. we lost three different candidates. and one of them had been elected president one time and the problem was we were trying to play everyday by the rules. who he called the forgotten middle class and we pointed that out in graphic detail. so graphic that one a professor at the university of maryland at the time presented one of our conferences in philadelphia, jesse jackson refer to your him in this way, as one spare. so we had to accept the political context so that elise the political press would say that these guys have a purpose

and they admitted when the reality was on the table for their party regulators to say, oh well. and the second thing we did was lay out our own philosophy and it was called the new orleans declaration. you can see my bowed his also new on separation. it was a very simple 20 cents in document that said what we believe. we believe that promise of america was equal opportunity and not equal outcomes. the private sector growth is really important for democrats. but it's a keeper opportunity. on and on, people have an obligation to give something back to the country. a set of principles. twenty years later at hyde park, president clinton said that the new declaration was key to the

success because it gave him both a platform and a framework for everything that he did and he tied every accomplishment that he made back to a principal in the new orleans declaration. so the third day we actually did the governing agenda. so bill clinton and i set out and went through 25 states together traveling the country. not raising money, not doing any serious political organizing. but we certainly were talking about ideas and that was the important thing. the governor and i, i don't think governors get to travel quite as well as presidents. but everyone thinks now about how it is tough for us. but clinton just did this in new york and he thanked me for putting this is part of their unsafe airplanes. so what we did was, we certainly

didn't have air force one. we had five people and we help them with anything that we could. and sometimes we retreated not like this would be the president of the united states. and actually we had flown in and learned that north carolina was playing north carolina and basketball. so we got tickets and went to the game. the state police told us to park her car next to the main entrance of the building and we went in and watch him beat kentucky in december of 1990. and when we got out the campus police had told her car. over 2.5 hours from the next president of the united states was sitting at the campus police station in chapel hill, north carolina, trying to get his car back to what the one we will

probably never forget. it was jim martin and probably the most harrowing of our experiences as a fight between denver and cheyenne, wyoming. it was april. and we had a blizzard. and we had a four seater with five people on it. so one person had to sit on the john. so the only thing, and i'm sure we understand, we needed two pilots. so what we thought were clouds were snow-covered mountain paths. and we were in trouble when bill clinton called hillary could tell her how much he loved her. [laughter] but luckily we made it. and some of these things are very important.

because wyoming had an early caucus. and in that caucus mikesell is the governor, kathy karpen was secretary of date, which in wyoming is the equivalent of lieutenant governor. and that caucus was held in her basement. it was clinton's first major win in the 1992 election. so they probably thought that the flight was worth it. so at cleveland we laid out our agenda and we were not very popular with democratic interest groups. the host senator actually created a whole different group called the coalition for democratic values to oppose this. we woke up having jesse jackson protested. the teachers unions were out complaining because we were for charter schools. the uaw was writing so many

members of congress and they said he said that he actually didn't want to have a packet, but we got through it all. and at the end we had done two things. we had outlined a political philosophy that seems opportunity, responsibility, and put it into the lexicon for welfare reform, community and a growth strategy that was based on fiscal discipline and people in technology and trade and also reinventing the government. the fourth part of our strategy was the market task. american politics unlike the orbits of some, you don't always decide what you stand for. you stand for what your presidential nominee stands for. so bill clinton resigned from the dlc and went in and became a candidate. and you know the story and i'm

not going to tell you chapter and verse of how he won the presidency. but let me give you three or four days a you might not know about. one is july 14, 1987. that was the day bill clinton decided not to run in 1988 if he had run in 1988, his miscounted politician may not have been elected. but he certainly would not be working at the dlc. he decided that david was not going to run. i had been in mississippi giving a speech. was supposed to meet with the former governor. and he canceled because he was going to little rock to launch the clinton campaign. silas surprised the next day when i landed in the natty because you can't get from jackson to anywhere without landing in the natty. that they had press calls asking why clinton dropped out. the best thing that ever

happened to me in the deals he and probably to him. the second was in december of 1990. it was not clear under sam nunn or bill clinton would be the candidate. most people thought that sam nunn would likely be the candidate. and bruce was the domestic policy adviser who wrote a memoir suggesting to clinton that they do a ticket. both of them liked it. both of them.they had to be on the top of the ticket. but what happened is we sat down in one of those house rooms and decided that we would spend five months on the road shaping this agenda. but because clinton had a legislative session in arkansas he would have to do a lot of heavy lifting. a funny thing happened on the way to the branch called the gulf war.

and clinton meanwhile got all of this legislative stuff done in four days, which was normal for him. and so as a result, he was leading the opposition to the goal or and sam took a terrific amount of criticism. in georgia and around the country. his approval ratings dropped from the normal 95% to 65%. for him it was too much and he called me and that i don't want to anymore of this up. so from that point on it was clear that bill clinton had to be the nominee. and i will just tell you one other story. and we will try to wrap this up. you have all heard that clinton had a few problems on the way to the nomination. there was the story that came on

in the tabloids about a woman named gennifer flowers. he had written a letter which some people interpreted as he was trying to get out of the draft during the vietnam war. but in january of 1992, i was going up to new york and i had just done an outward bound with arthur sulzberger who is the publisher of "the new york times." and in those days newspapers were really important. they were the whole currency of politics in so many ways. so i decided -- and arthur had just taken over as publisher and was my first trip to new york. i decided i was going to visit him. so i get up to the 11th floor and the executive offices and

arthur is at that the elevator saying that there is an emergent need and you have to call your office. so i called my office and somebody on my staff read me a story that was going to be in the tabloid, the star, within the next two days alleging a 12 year affair that bill clinton had with this woman named gennifer flowers. so i go back trying to talk about this. i go back to "the new york times" best, trying to be calm. he takes me down to meet with the editorial page editor at the time who is head of the times. and we had a bet that we would find a candidate that would do what bobby kennedy did to pull together whites and blacks in the democratic nomination and win it. so just as roosevelt was the eating thing that bill clinton

was the individual, i was sitting there on the determined not to say a word about what was going to happen two days later because i was not going to be responsible for that story getting into the mainstream press. along the way we had a few little bumps. clinton was elected and i think he served two terms, winding up with a 66% approval rating. the 6% job approval rating because of the good things that he did for this country. and i still believe that the philosophy of the new democrat movement, an opportunity with the mutual responsibility. the emphasis on empowering government that equips people to solve their own problems, the embodiment of values like family and faith in individual liberty and inclusion are as viable for many challenges today as they were then.

and i think there are lessons for both parties and what we did and i write about that in my book. that sort of the third reason i wrote this book. very briefly for the democrats, we need to think they. you know, there is a lot of emphasis because we take advantage of identity politics. a lot of emphasis on what the republicans call class warfare in what they call inequality. so if you want to have golden eggs to pass out, the key for the democrats, we have to have a program to grow the economy and we have to talk about what i think that ought to be. and we also have to constantly reinvent the government to make it work because government unlike the republicans, we believe that they have an important role.

but an inefficient government and an effective government undermines our philosophy. so i think very simply, it's interesting to see that jeb bush and bobby jindal have formed a group called the new republicans. i don't know where they got it from. but it is important because they need a power center to take on extremist in the tea party. so that the candidates aren't out there alone when they tried to do it. in the second thing that they need to think about in this group may try to do that, they really need to develop some ideas that people want to support. they need to have an agenda and it can't just be against obamacare no matter what you think about obamacare. the third they need to forget about party unity. party unity is overrated. in both our parties if you just unify the base, you don't have a

broad enough appeal to the white house. you have to expand it. we learned that in the 1980s dealing with the left. and if you want to know what unity brings to the republicans today, think about the government shutdown or because we have a group that is on the left or the right. when you try to have unity and peace with them, they usually pull you outside the mainstream. and so, having the republicans does it become more inclusive and more tolerant. they need to send messages to hispanic voters, asian voters, activists women who may not agree with you on everything. but we welcome their support and debate within our party. i'm not in the business of advising republicans, but i do hope that they listen little bit and look at what we did. because as long as the tea party extremists dominate the

republican agenda, it will reduce pressure on my party as well. america deserves better than that. our democracy depends upon two strong competitive parties, debating ideas for making our country better and fighting for the privilege of national leadership area thank you. >> enqueue very much. well, we are now going to hear from governor robert ehrlich about his book, "america: hope for change." >> i disagree with everything you just said. [laughter] >> actually, i agree with a lot of what he said. and i'm very proud of, by the way, to the zen of public and governors here today. okay. a couple of observations and i will be brave. i want to introduce my press secretary.

she is my administrative assistant. so what he just said is why i wrote my book. he just redefined obama as the centerpiece and the foundation of the democratic party. a european-style leftist entrepreneurship that is anti-freedom, hyper regulatory approach to life, countercultural in this country. no one about six months, maybe not so much. but the bottom line is that you're absolutely correct. and i couldn't just stop myself because i think i did agree with a lot of what was said and ideas are underappreciated. and i think the strategic a that

you just heard is pretty effective. because nobody knew i'd hope and change really wise. so we had this african-american machine politician from chicago. and it was beyond politics, but he is a classic liberal democrat politician. and it's fascinating. and that is why i wrote my book. i grew up in maryland, as you all know. it wasn't a republican and 10 miles. but that democratic party -- got married up. she was republican from pennsylvania. [laughter] and that was a working-class lou

koller and marriage wasn't even an issue, hard-working word ethic germans, italians, irish, you name it. the local party. the local our onerous or in the legislature. they went down and represented their people. as for two today. i will get to it in a second. the local insurgency has been successful. no doubt about it. when i was growing up in this state, republicans, democrats, 13 republicans and 147. but it didn't matter if republicans were not exist. it was a very healthy stay

because they were liberal democrats, conservative democrats, and it was a healthy state so yeah, look at today. so by the way, we will call you and see see what is true and what is not. ..

and to do exactly what they do everyday. no social issues and after the 2010 election they became dangerous because barack obama lost. john boehner became speaker. we need to demonize that. we need to call them racists. and they did and they have been successful. it's anti-intellectual and it's emotional but it works. create a narrative and repeat the narrative. so there is all this intention given them by the way tactically i think in many cases the tea party or whatever you want to call them are wrong and i disagree with the government shutdown but that was tacked dix. as a disagreement over tactics not substance. by the way i'm no longer member of congress so i did read the bill.

and so there is plenty of comment with regard to the right and the problems on the right but the reason i wrote the book was exactly what al said and where i grew up and what i see in all seriousness. this is not your father's democratic party. that democratic leadership that bill clinton moderate deal which was sold to the american people with regard to trade in charter schools is a reality and substance has become a european social democrat model for consumption in this country. counterculture with regard to economics and culture. it's far more progressive. it's far more public-sector union dominated. there is a profound distrust of markets. the regulatory state is ascendant. check out obamacare is all seriousness. there's a profound belief in the

power of government over the individual as you see articulated every day in washington and they are winning. so what are the constituent elements? each chapter the book is devoted to one of these elements. it's a secondary role in the world and by the way that's very popular with the american people these days. i get it. drawnout endless engagements in afghanistan and iraq according to the president one being the good one when being the bad war but both wars have drained the american public's enthusiasm for foreign engagement. i get it but the problem is if you read history and no history and care about this stuff is everybody here does and that's why you are here today when vacuums are created and the good guys who are the greatest force for good in the history of the united states of america today goes back and leads vladimir putin to fill that vacuum. that's not a big deal today unless you live in ukraine.

or you are a saudi or you live in israel or i can go fill in the blanks. the secondary stage is the anti-cowboy the world apology tour that the president began in his first year in his first six months, he went to apologize for american imperialism when america stands for what? as soon as we go somewhere ft. hood for the right reason what do the american people demand? an exit strategy. we don't conquer. sometimes it doesn't work out so well, vietnam. we are not interested in conquering other peoples and the present of the united states goes around the world and apologizes for this american imperialism where the american people the first thing they demand as an exit strategy. it's a great influence

environmentalism. it's a war on cowan climate change a basic religion. it's a regulatory state ascended and there's an entire chapter on obamacare is the book. obamacare is a big deal. a lot of people maybe don't care about benghazi and a lot of people don't care about nsa and a lot of people don't care about intangible things that up front center tangible is obamacare is. anti-market regulatory state ascended and it's a mess. it's a man-made disaster. it wasn't meant to be, shouldn't say that. i will come back to obamacare is second. its pantheon economics on steroids. all the shovel ready jobs worked it's class warfare and tax increases and raising the middle wage and adopting a living wage whatever that means whatever the local labor union says it means us of government can decide what a worker is worth to his or her employee.

and you know what? raising the minimum wage is great for some marginal workers and you're going to get a raise and that's a good thing but if you are worth $10 to your employer and the middle wage is $11 you are going to lose your job. as the government just said some will gain and some will lose. it's a heck of a way to achieve economic development in my view. it's a loss of sovereignty and opening borders. think about this. i have seasonal allergies. i blame my mother. people know who i am. i've been in the state legislature and i've been in congress and i was the governor but i go to my local cvs and i buy my claritin-d. guess what i have to produce every time? my maryland driver's license when i go and vote no, no, no. we do want to know who you are.

what kind of priority is that for a country? i exercise the franchise for the greatest thing in the world and no one wants to see you i am in maryland the free state. it's a changing social contract. there's an entire chapter in the book devoted to it. work is degraded in this country today. social security disability has quadrupled under a rock obama, quadrupled. that trust fund is almost broke. we have 50 million people. every time work requirement is built into a reform bill in congress the that democrats are out there screaming. work is degraded in this country. it is changing the social arrangement that we love so much. we also have this really interesting thing and i really want to hear your questions. i'm sorry, we are opinionated.

sorry. it's so secular. this country was not built on the idea that government is hostile to religion. it was never about that. separation of church and state at all that good stuff. it has all come out in last 50 years. i see this attack on religious freedom and obamacare is and it's fascinating. when i was a member of the legislature it was pro-choice legislature in the country and leading on abortion rights. not even the most liberal democrat would have attacked the conscious cause -- conscious clause. barack obama went to notre dame and said we are going to respect religious freedom. what did obamacare to? it absolutely ran over it. there's a difference in

religious liberty and tolerance mean something in this country but this is progressivism running our culture today is quite secular and it's dangerous. it's not what the social construct was ever about. the book has a chapter devoted to each of these subjects but the bottom line to the book and i want you to read it but i'm going to condense it into three comments from barack obama which i really shouldn't do because it's not smart. they cling to their guns and religion. if we could start over i would go for single-payer. they didn't build that. you didn't build that. three comments from the president of the united states. think about what they mean. is that really interesting intellectual arrogance you see.

they cling to their guns and it's the eastern shore and western maryland. obamacare is ms because they couldn't get single-payer passed by a democrat senate in a democratic house so they threw all their ideas into 2300 pages of the bill and now over 11,000 pages of regulation going to 20,000 soon with all sorts of ad hoc exceptions that are done in an ad hoc manner. but they really want to single-payer because it has worked so well. and then you didn't build that. yeah you did. that is what the country is about. the national labor relations board is now adjunct to the afl-cio for a reason and this sort of anti-entrepreneurship

anti-opportunity society anti-work culture is the reason i wrote the book. thank you all very much. >> well as you are hearing where having a feast of political ideas and i think it's fantastic we are having so many thoughts shared and i hope that each of you is thinking of a question you would like to ask. but i'm going to exercise my moderators prerogative and seize the opportunity to pose the first question so i'm going to start with mr. from. as you told us how after 1984 you have the democratic party to through two decades of national success by connecting with moderate voters. looking ahead into the context of what we heard from governor ehrlich are moderate voters still the key to victory for the democrats and if they are or if they aren't what issues will have the greatest strategic value for your party in keeping

a national majority? >> first of all boy i listen to governor ehrlich and i was trying to listen to what country i'm living in. >> so mi. >> you know in 2009 when i left the democratic leadership counsel president obama was elected and i might just add for people who know history that president obama has won the majority twice. he is the only northern democrat other than fdr to win the majority of the popular vote for president and get elected. samuel p. tilden for those history buffs samuel tilden won an majority in 1876 the congress gave the election away and gave it to rutherford d. hayes.

but you know i just listen to governor ehrlich and the american people obviously have a much different attitude, but what do i think? of course i believe that voters go to work every day and play by the rules are the key to election and i've might say democrats after george bush left our country in a very difficult economic situation which was not all his fault but a good part of it was, we are starting to build back a little bit and the

unemployment rate is going down over the last four years about 3.5 points. i just love to hear conservatives rant and rave about obamacare. you know they are the ones who must want socialized medicine because obamacare is it private insurance plan. it was first proposed by the heritage foundation. if you're going to have private insurance, if you want to cover everybody and most people think it's a good idea to give everybody a chance to buy health insurance then you have to organize the market. now the obama administration did a great job of launching their system? no, but we went through this with president bush's prescription drug deal too and overtime the reality comes to the front and people will judge it on whether it works or not. we are not quite there yet but

there are now indications that maybe some good things are happening. the alternative -- and people want their pre-existing conditions covered which is expensive because it's telling the insurance companies you have got to pay benefits for somebody who isn't premiums are going to come close to covering those costs so that's why you have to get young people so that you pool -- so young people pay for the health care of people who are sick so when they get older and sick older younger people pay for them through that is what insurance is about this is a private insurance plan. there is not a public option in this. it's a private insurance plan with an attempt to organize the marketplace so we can each by our individual plans. you can have the alternative if you want but that isn't socialized medicine. i look back and i think the last time we were in charge and we finished art administration we

created 22.5 million new jobs and inequality was going down, budgets were balanced until president bush came and decided to give them all over -- all the money away to his friends. crime is down. the policing system in the country who is community policing. we created something that bob ehrlich supported which was charter schools ended my book i have an agenda that to me the issue is you have to grow the economy and make sure everybody has a chance to take advantage of that group then you have to go for middle-class voters and people who go to work everyday. i have some interesting ideas. some are pretty radical. i do think president obama should've taken advantage of the simpson-bowles agreement because

we need to have long-term fiscal stability in this country. but we also need tax reform. i personally would eliminate the payroll tax attacks on work and replace it with a grain tax and if that's not enough to cover social security and medicare i use general revenue from a reformed tax code. but i would also look at how we deal with the entitlements. you know, both parties demagogues the entitlement issue but to me if you want to save social security you have to modernize it. franklin roosevelt would be the leader of the pac for modernizing social security because we had a program that dealt with 16 workers paying for each retiree. when social security was past the retirement age was i think 65 and life expectancy was 63.

things have changed a little bit so you have to modernize and maybe it means raising the retirement age. that might be the easiest way. actually before it got all politicized because paul paul ryan was the republican vice presidential nominee ron wyden the new democrat head of the finance committee and paul ryan had an interesting idea for medicare which said for people who want to keep the current medicare you can keep it in if you are under certain age and you want to be in a private insurance will be can do that too. that was a pretty good idea. i mean there are a lot of things that i would say because i happen to believe that this country is built on the civic ethic and everyone has an obligation to give some back to the country i would tie all college aid to serving the country in the military or civilian service. i'm proud that americorps was one of our main ideas and more people serve in that than any other service program than a

history of the country. spam going to cut in because i think you have given a good sense of where you're look for the future politics is what i want to make sure we have time for the people in the audience to ask a couple questions. let's take a minute. governor ehrlich gave us i think it pretty exciting picture of his political thinking a few moments ago and as i listened to it particularly the phrase european socialist government -- thank you, social. it made me wonder if there is still a role for moderates in the republican party and i thought i would ask the governor to say a few words about will the republican returned to power be by appealing to the center of the political spectrum or more to the folks who are already in favor of policies such as he has spoken of? >> i think we have to send the dogs out to find moderates in the democratic party first. the reality of it is both parties are more ideological and

i think we would agree on this for a couple of reasons one for which a couple people in this room may not have thought of. because of the courts and because of politics state legislatures are drawing safe route lines around the country. so when i was a member of congress there were northern liberal republicans in southern liberal democrats. they are basically wiped out now because of reapportionment. in texas by the way it was the flipside. maryland democrats voted for morell -- it's a blue state. i lived in mays chapel and i was a member of congress and i came home from congress when danny went to bed in the next morning i awakened and i was still a member of congress but no longer in my district. they got a pen out and drew a line to the boardwalk because they had so much in common.

and then texas republicans did it to democrats. so now it's a 71 state and texas is two-thirds republican. it used to be -- and of southern democrats. the bottom line is if you create safer seats driven by courts in minority districts as well you get more ideological party in each party so you have very strong liberals and what al said and by the way i might vote for him but what he is talking about has no relation with what the democrats in washington are doing today. george bush won out there with social security and got slaughterslaughter ed so let's not reinvent history. we can talk about charters but poor african-american kids in washington d.c. are far worse off because barack obama cut

those vouchers. those kids need a shot at life. romney started charter schools over the objections of the maryland teachers union screaming bloody murder. both parties are ideological and what happens is you go back to your district on the weekend and congress is at minus four approval rating but the cause the lines to the state legislature art drawn few have a safe seat. so you go back in power to washington with no motivation to compromise. none nonbecause you just heard from the town meeting. shut the government down. we will raise taxes. that is not freedom. that is not the arab big government. that is the era of large regulatory government telling you what to do. >> let me just say i agree with

governor ehrlich about what has happened to the parties. we have basically become parliamentary parties ideological parties and their system is adult for it. our system is built for parties that old coalitions before the elections not after the elections and so the redistricting is a big part of it but it's also important, republicans will do well this year. listen to this. democrats won 1.8 million more votes for congress in the last election than the republicans and the republicans the way has it the way that ushers are drawn and there were more republican governors and legislators in 2010 republicans had a 20 seat majority so this time the vote will be closer and maybe it will be even and the republicans have a little edge so they will when the house.

in the senate in part constitutionally because there are small states and each small state gets two senators republicans have an advantage and this time a lot of those anti-obama states are coming up and they may win the senate but it's very different in presidential politics. and the republican problem as a party is it's too homogenous. we are a diverse party and i don't always like what people in my party do but we are diverse. we are 40% liberal and the rest moderate conservative. we are racially very diverse. republicans hit the all white button 80% conservative vote and that is why in the end if they don't broaden the little that they are going to have a hard time winning the white house. because of demographic

advantages they will keep the house. >> what else that did not play out in the presidential election of 2012. barack obama lost independence. he got his base out in a very big way. >> but bob the issue isn't independent voters. >> i'm just saying he did a great job getting the base out. >> the number of independents are basically going down a little bit because more people are in these polarized parties identifying with him but basically look, it used to be that this country had a slight center-right majority. i always used to think that if no other factors were involved in aegis for two candidates up the republicans win 52-40 for the presidency and that is what it was through the 80s. that is changed now and it goes to the other side. on issues like marriage i would

not have said this five years ago. look at the way young voters are registering. the republicans are getting killed because they are viewed as an intolerant party. they have got to become more accepting. it's important for the country that they do that. >> that's a good point to cut in because clearly our two speakers would have a lot to say to each other but we want to hear from you so if you have a question you would like to ask please go to microphone. we have five minutes for your questions that keep your questions brief and i will ask the speakers to respond briefly so we can get this many short questions in as possible. maam would you please ask the first question? >> thank you very much. you've certainly done what you were supposed to do which is to discuss the polarization of the american government so my question to you is instead of why do our legislators just knock each other why can't they ought to get together to work to

fix what is wrong with this country? >> that has never been the case ever. jefferson and hamilton hired surrogates to trash each other in the newspapers. what makes it so and i think we would go a agree on this what makes us so in your face so real time these days is social media. the smoke-filled room is no more. it had it's place. just from running for the legislature in the 1980s to running statewide in 2010 the difference in parades. it used to be -- parades are weird and politics. i hate car so we always walk and we would have fun. we would just have fun with kids and parents. the republicans kids here you

get the candy. you can't do that stuff these days. somebody is filming. somebody is videotaping and recording. someone puts a hit out on the internet five minutes later to take all of the fund all of the humanity out which is a problem. and when you defund what is a very human endeavor as human as you can get, it's art not science. i think you have a problem so i think when people say why can't we all just get along? we started as a revolution. a shooting revolution. now that is not to say the definition of leadership and as republican governor of maryland i had to do this. i was never going to get 100% what i wanted, never so was i getting 2% -- 62% of what i wanted in a bill or 41%?

the 62% i might sign the bill and with 41 i might not. it is a compromise but sometimes in politics a bad deal or no deal is better than a bad deal. >> let's move to our next question. quickly though because we only have a couple of minutes. >> i agree that politicians have always called each other's names sometimes worsen today but we used to have times and i grew up in the united states working in the united states senate where people work together. a month ago we were down in florida for spring training and we had dinner with my friends from annapolis bill and sandy brought. senator bill brock is there republican senator in the 1970s from tennessee. when i worked for senator ed muskie senator rock and senator must be were analyzed on every

piece of legislation and senator muskie the committee chairman had a rule that we would not do a major piece of legislation without a member of the other party being the principle co-sponsor. you can do it. bob is right about the social media and cable news. i mean those guys are a disaster for good sensible public debate but you also need leadership and unique leadership -- i mean who are the great giants of the senate today? i don't see very many. and frankly unique residential leadership. we have had it twice in my lifetime. one was ronald reagan with whom i disagreed and the other was bill clinton and both times you had successful presidency and i might also add that both came to the white house with an agenda they fought for that challenge their own parties and change their own parties. >> now for everyone i'm going to use my moderator discretion.