folks that understand the value and importance of work and responsibility and people who understand the importance of family and faith and belief in freedom and limited government. you say those are conservative republican voters and in many cases they are not. a lot of them aren't voting at all because they don't want to see either party talking to them about the concerns they have in trying to create an opportunity for them to live the american dream and you look at the democratic part party and they k about these voters a lot and in fact talking of how they can give them certain things whether

it is free healt healthcare or subsidized both care or increasing their wages with government minimum wage increases, a whole laundry list of things they are trying to help but most of these folks don't want to be any government program. they want to work and have jobs that are well-paying jobs. they create an opportunity to support themselves and their families and that sounds like more of a republican voter but unfortunately the republicans the economic message -- and i think you have seen this over the years we talk about economists. we are sort of wrapped up in the rightness of our position that we talked about balancing the budget and about cutting taxes for high income individuals to create jobs and then cutting the government in particular a lot of benefits. if you are the average american listening to this economic plan you say where am i in that plan and what are you doing for me and the people that are seeing their wages stagnating and

increases not seeing the inflation and that is who the book is written for. for the republicans to understand why they are not succeeding in getting these votes. >> it's a little perplexing. why wouldn't the republican party be talking to and about the working class voters? >> because it really requires you not to think about macro to micro. that's a very difficult thing for republicans. at the republicathe republican s is the rising tide lifts all boats. i agree unless your boat has a hole in it, and then the rising tide is a very dangerous thing because then your boat sinks and you're not in a very good situation. depending on how high the tide is. and so you have a lot of folks that have holes in their boats and everything from not having skills to get jobs that are

well-paying jobs in the family and not having education, not maybe having a drug or substance abuse problem or having problems at home or difficult -- there's a whole laundry list of things and all of them have some holes in the boats, but there are a lot of americans who don't see this rising tide really necessarily helping them. so what i've done in this book and i try to do in the campaign is specifically addressed the areas where blue-collar america, where average americans would concede direct economic benefits to them or opportunities for them. that's why i talk a lot about the specific sectors of the economy where the large portions of these types of workers will find employment that's going to be family sustained employment in the area of energy, manufacturing and related spinoff service industries related to those and then focus on the other side because it's not just economics. it's one of the problems is

culture and the family is breaking down into the community is breaking down and so we talk a lot about the importance of marriage and famil the family aa part of building that held the american dream. >> president obama talked a lot about income inequality and the rise. is he right and should republicans be echoing those concerns? >> the numbers do not bear out the rhetoric. the fact of the matter is things haven't changed, they haven't gotten better and that is the issue. and in fact relative to europe and canada, the opportunity, though mobility in america is not as good as it is in some of those countries. and so, while the idea that there is an exploding out of income inequality isn't necessarily borne out by the facts are the facts are there her serious problems in america that need to be addressed and there are people in america who are not getting ahead. and i think it is sort of arguing the debate as to whether

we are better or worse when things are -- let's just focus on the fact that there are millions of americans out there who are not seeing thei their qy of life improved. and what can we do to address those? there are things we can do. everything from what i've mentioned, looking at the economy and the culture and education. one of the things i talk about in the book is providing vocational education and career tracks that lead to college. 70% of americans don't have college degrees and that number isn't going to change much. so what are we doing to provide the necessary skills in high school as well as technical schools after high school to provide the schools necessary for people to work with their hands as well as their head. >> how did this all happen? would have been to working-class america and rural america? why hasn't the rising tide in the stock market that is obviously on fire but it hasn't helped a lot of people in the interior of the country.

something has changed. what is it? >> a different idea for different things. the economy has changed. we have much more globalization and markets when it happened there was competition that comes from overseas and overall the argument is and there's probably a legitimate argument to evade that overall america does better. when we have the bad competition from overseas address some prices because the prices are low for everybody. and the competition is as we all know it is a good thing. so, globalization is a positive, but it's also a negative if you are a person that is losing the job as a result of the competition. and i make the argument i'm not against globalization. i understand the global economy. but we have to be understanding of the impact case-by-case of those free trade agreements and other agreements that we have to the american worker. and i voted for a lot of free-trade agreements. i didn't vote for nafta in the

american free trade agreement because i thought i would actually be very devastating more than it would be helpful. i think in my opinion that's been borne out. at least it certainly hasn't improved the situation for america. but we need to look at free-trade agreements. we also have to look at the fact that america has not been competitive because our taxes are higher. we have the highest corporate tax in the world. we have a very hostile regulatory environment in the country that has gotten multiple's worse under this administration. you look at the litigation environment here, you look at the educational gaps that we have for the workers training for the manufacturing and those type jobs. some of the government for the role the government has played in making us uncompetitive i think is pretty profound. that's why one of the reasons i wrote the book is that i think american manufacturers can be competitive in a global economy if the government creates a level playing field in our competitors. and so i have a whole laundry list of things i go through in the book that talk about how we can do just that.

>> so with china it has resulted as you put it out in the super consumer products and that's a good thing for everybody but certainly it hasn't helped american manufacturing. you almost never hear anybody complain about that. why? >> guest: because most people are not -- most people haven't lost your jobs or are getting lower paid jobs. a very small percentage of -- relatively small percentage of americans are actually participating in a manufacturing. certainly substantially less than it was before. and so if you are a professional or someone that works in the service industry in your looking at getting something for substantially lower price because it's been manufactured overseas, you're happy to go to wal-mart. as you notice how wal-mart is now very focused. we have an ad campaign for the last year almost talking about how they are trying to move things back to america to encourage manufacturing here in

this country. so i ca think even those who've benefited greatly like wal-mart from this globalization and having these products made overseas see the benefits of having these products made here. i think there's a famous conversation that occurred between henry ford and walter luther who was the head of the union that ford had to deal wi with. he was working through and said this machine is going to replace the forget how many of your workers. and he responded well that's great but how many cars? that is the tension is yes we can replace workers with competition or automation, but you've got to have wages to buy these products here in america. so there is an understanding now by wal-mart and many others that we need to look at how to be competitive. and i'm not looking to rig the game. if you look at the proposals

that we put in the book they are very conservative in orientation. they are not subsidies. they are tax cuts, they are regulatory reforms, education, which the government is of course heavily involved in. so there are things that we can do all consistent with what i would call conservative politics were conservative philosophies that give us the opportunity to be competitive. >> why no not read it again? the u.s. exists to protect the interest and to make america free and prosperous. so why wouldn't the u.s. government to do all it can to help americans even at the expense of other countries? >> well, first off, you've got trade rules that you have to deal with. so when it comes to the trade of law for example that's one area that i really don't get into much because when you start seeing with the tradable than you have the recovery efforts on the part of the other country particularly china could be encouraging a trade war with china or any other of our major trading partners. i think you have to be very careful that you structure it as

a level playing field and you did it consistent with what the trade laws that are in place and the limitations of other countries can do to favor manufacturing one country over another. >> you don't mention emigration in the book. you are persistently high on unemployment. why would you report as we do, 1 million low-wage workers from other countries into our country every year? how does that help unemployment? >> i do talk about the importance of having a trained labor force, but you're right. certainly with illegal immigration, illegal immigration is anything that we would do in my opinion it would solve the problem of illegal immigration by granting any kind of form of amnesty to these workers. it would flood labor markets in the country with more low-wage

workers. i mean, we have an immigration policy that is a two-day a fairly generous immigration policy. and we need to examine that immigration policy can see how it impacts the american worker. where are we bringing people in from, what are the skill levels of the people that we are bringing income and certainly factor that in and it comes to the labor markets in this country. i don't think that we do that candidly. we've done in the past. this is something that immigration policy has dealt with throughout the course of american history. and so it's not something that i think we should be afraid to do. we should look at it from the standpoint of the people that are here in this country and making sure that they have the opportunity. my focus was not on immigration policy per se although i think there is a point to be made. but i specifically didn't want to deal with the whole concept of illegal immigration because to me barack obama had two years

as the president of the united states with complete control of the super majority in the house and the senate and could have passed any illegal immigration law that he wanted and he never proposed a bill. to me that says this issue is not a substantive political issue. this is a substantive policy issue, this is a political issue that democrats and president obama want to use to trick to drive a wedge between republicans and hispanics. and so, my suggestion is we do not play that game. we do not get thrown into that. we actually say simply this, and this is what my position has been on immigration which is first and foremost its secure the border, take this problem afflicts a 12 million illegal immigrants in the country in which they get a finite problem. because if you don't secure the border to the point that you know you're not going to have another flood of immigrants depending on what you do then you've created another problem because you will now have 12 million more immigrants in

this country because you granted amnesty to the existing group. so from my perspective, let's have a discussion and as i just did on the legal immigration and how we matched it up -- i need to b leave the other immigration issue aside. >> let's just take the legal side. the democrats are for it because a lot of people become citizens in the democratic voters. republicans are for it because they get rich with cheap labor. but why is it good for the average american citizen working at wal-mart in the middle of the country western pennsylvania where you're from, why is it good for him to have to compete with someone from another country that just got here and worked for lower wages. why is that good for him? >> i would say this. one of the reasons the legal immigration is a good thing is because the country is growing. we now have -- we are now below the replacement rate of

populations in the country. so i think there is something to be said. they bring a vitality to this country so i think that legal immigration is a positive thing and i think the fact that but for immigration we would not be growing. i think america has lots of room and we want to be a country that continues to be growing and expanding. i think that's a positive thing. i think it's a positive thing for markets. csr these people competing against jobs yes but they are also consuming. they are working and buying products i don't se see this necessarily as a zero-sum game and do so in a way that you make sure you're getting it right if different workers and a variety of skill levels to be competitive. i don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. >> but if i am an employer and i'm paying minimum wage, no one can live on that and so it is taken up by taxpayers and housing subsidies, food stamps

and different welfare programs we have the taxpayer pays for that person in effect to be able to live. why should employers get what is in reality a subsidy from taxpayers to hire cheap labor? >> well i mean, the cheap labor is labor based upon what the value of the labor brings. and so i don't think that -- the subsidy is a decision that the policymakers have made. we have made the decision that if someone is making a certain amount of money than w then we e going to provide support for them, and comes apart. we are going to provide food stamps or whatever the case is created that a decision that i think is separate from the business decision. i don't think that we are subsidizing cheap labor. i think that we are basically saying that this is a value that the businesses have said that this labor brings to the enterprise and that if we are driving up the cost of that by higher minimum wage laws which is what president obama is proposing and i would propose

than what we are doing is driving the cost of labor which of course would result in unemployment and loss of jobs. >> there was a study that came out this weekend that showed the top 25 hedge fund managers made about $29 billion last year. $25 billion running hedge funds. when you hear that what is your reaction? >> the capitalist system works very, very well for people who have resources. and in fact president obama's world of economics is one that encourages that. why? because he's put forward all of this policy that favors to big to fail and divides backstops for people to take big risks. and if those risks don't come through, then th the federal government backs them up and so we have created a tremendous opportunity for wall street to do very well under this

administration and not a particularly strong efforts to help main street or small-town and rural america. so i'm not surprised to hear those numbers. that's part of the american dream. i have concerns about that when we look at the tax on capital versus the tax on labor, with ronald reagan attempted to do in a 1986 tax act was to say really back up one of the things he was very famous for saying. if you want less of something, tax it. if you want more of something, subsidize it. well, we subsidized labor we subsidize capital. we subsidize people that do exactly what you're suggesting by having the low capital gains tax rates and so one of the concerned republicans said we need to eliminate capital gains tax. what you're doing then is saying keep investing in capital because you are going to get a huge subsidy for doing so. but if you invest in labor,

welcoming you know, to accomplish the same purpose, to get a return on your money then you're going to get taxed. that labor will be taxed heavily and you will have regulations that will be costly for you. so what ronald reagan did is lower the income tax rate to 28%. so you had labor and capital being priced at the same thing from the standpoint of taxes which encourages investment and labor and employment. today we have a tax structure now 40% top rate and the regulatory environment at the obama administration has created. you have an economy that greatly favors capital over labor and that's why we seem high unemployment rates persistent. >> it also sends a message that we don't value work. you are a sucker if you work. why would you work for the wage when you are paying twice the tax rate as somebody that is investing money?

>> you heard this whole kind of warretimethat warren buffett isg millions with a tax and the secretary i'm sure she gets a nice salary. and so with that nice salary she's paying 40% of the top rate. it doesn't sort of make any sense. i'm someone who has been very blessed. i mean i love to work. i work hard and i have very little in the way of investment. i can't remember the last time i paid a capital gains. i have a fair amount of income coming in for labor and i get taxed. i had to work that much harder. if you have seven kids you have no choice but for a lot of people they say what's the point. why am i doing this? and so it is a discouragement for a lot of people. >> at a certain point don't you risk social instability?

>> the point that you're making is when you have people making huge amounts of money like hedge fund operators that will get taxed at 15% for all of the work they did and coming you know, if you are working for that hedge fund operator and you are the secretary, the administrator, whatever committing 25, 30 to 35 or 40% depending on your income and you say how is that fair play woulisaacplay would make t, ronald reagan made the argument that really isn't fair that we shouldn't be reworking this. what i approach in the book is lowering the marginal rates is a very important aspect of increasing the demand for labor. some aching to tax code simpler.

it doesn't really tackle abortion or marriage. i'm one of the few that would be willing to talk about these issues. most of them when they come up with a dive under the table. it's funny that you know the social conservative because you are one of the few folks that actually answers questions on the subject and is willing to articulate a vision. >> i do as i mentioned earlier i talked about the importance of the family and marriage as an economic good for society. the word economy comes from the word that means home. it's the first hospital, the first school, it's the first everything in a child's life and

it is the central foundational building block of society. and so i do talk about marriage and the family as an important part of the economic well-being of our country. and that we as americans are losing this foundation of the building blocks. >> 40% of children are being born outside of marriage. if you look at the numbers i'm sure that you know these that you go into the prison in america and find 80% were raised in homes without a dad. we know the social consequences of large segments of society is where children don't have dad growing up in the home. so the question that i address in the buck is what do we do about that? is there anything that the government or the public policy can do and the answer is clearly

yes. if you look at the left, who in iowa tireland argue their sincee compassion to help people who are struggling particularly single moms, the structure all of these programs that depend on you not being married. now i'm sure that's not the way that they designed it, the net effect is command i use this example in the book in wisconsin if you're a single mother with two children coming at you are in $15,000 a year working part-time coming to get $38,000 in welfare benefits. if you get married, you lose them all. your husband would have to make 50 grand. i'm sure that's possible but it's not highly likely. so what happens if we create a marriage trap and barriers to marriage for the very people who it's important and i'm sure for many of them to have a stable

and solid relationship with a man that can help in the raising of their children come out but instead what we do is encourage that mother economically either not to get involved or if she does have a very dangerous relationship having a man living in the home and of course you know that's the most dangerous relationship for both the mother and the children of that mother. so, we are doing things that are destructive of families all in the name of helping people, when in fact we have to change these incentives to create incentives for people or at least stop the dirt barriers for marriage. >> i guess it is understandable that there is never a single time called for people to get married as a solution to poverty but why don't republicans talk about at? i don't remember the last time i heard a republican candidate talk specifically about the importance of tailoring policy to encourage marriage.

>> i do. and i did. i did in the last election. i took that this woman in wisconsin. i used that on the stump repeatedly and i had. you may remember a book i wrote back in 2005 called it takes a family. and it was in direct response to hillary clinton it takes a village because i do believe that the families of the building block of society and the marriage is an essential book in good. if you look at the work that has been done by arthur brooks and others to talk about the issue of happiness an and look at stus over time about what makes people happy. again i address this in the book. but it's not even close. married people are by far happier than single people. and have better economic prospects. the children do better with education, drugs, crime. there's all sorts of societal benefits.

and you are right. republicans have been reticent and downright hostile to embracing that and talking about it because they don't want to be seen as mobilized into telling people how to live their lives. nobody's telling anybody have to live their life. what we are saying is any more than we are saying you shouldn't smoke the government all the time has all sorts of messages coming out saying that smoking is bad. or texting and driving is bad or hiring veterans is a good thing to do. we recognize that certain public goods and the government as a society we get behind them and so what i suggested in the book is the popular culture, and talking about hollywood and the news media and the entertainment industry, the educational industry. i'm talking public schools as well as private and colleges, businesses, labor this is something we should all agree with that we want to develop it

positive coach or in america. hispanics it is a fear of seeming unfashionable that is what prevents republicans have seen the data anyone knows what the numbers are and you think they don't want to seem on cool clicks they don't want to be seen as moralizing. when i talk about this, that is the pushback i get immediately. what are you telling people? are you saying that the single moms are bad? i'm not saying anybody is bad. we are in a situation where marriage is failing as an institution and one of the reasons we're seeing the attempt to redefine it is because we've lost what it is. it's important for us to reclaim for what it is which is not just a man -- romantic relationship which it is but a contract people receive benefits because of that relationship. but marriage is unique in that it provides a very unique

benefit for the society which is the joining of a man and woman together who are of all other options are the only two that can have children that are there children and have the natural mother and natural father raise those children in a home that is supportive. it does bring something unique and it is good for the public to have children raised in that environment. it's also very important for men and women. not just from happiness but for a whole host of other reasons where that relationship has benefits to men and women. so i don't think there's any reason for us to shy away from it. and in fact, buying hearing involving seeing as many on the left are recognizing this. they are seeing the statistics that came out in the last six months where we had all this talk about income and equality in every single study that talked about income inequality came to the same conclusion. the number one factor that

overcomes income inequality is marriage. and if people get married before they have children and people that are married to stay married that results in a bitter economic position than someone that is either a single mother or dad or divorced. >> from my perspective may be the debate is over. do you think that there is any chance that marriage won't be the law of the land pretty much everywhere? >> i sort of see this as a very similar debate that went on with abortion. 40 years ago the supreme court came down and decided that the motion for abortion was right and something that should be pervasive and accepted. if you look at this generation of young people according to most of the polls that i've seen, young people, the youngest cohort are usually the most pro-life right now. but now i think you are

recognizing that just because the court said it's so hard just because something that was affirmed or was proven up by the supreme court it's not a at leat in the case of abortion not true. you are taking a human life and more and more people recognizing that they are pushing back. as i said we've lost the definition of marriage because we have lost what marriage is. i think that it's going to take that may be losing something in the seeing the consequence of that losing it and seeing not just the consequence of losing marriage but the whole host of other issues for people to serve to recognize maybe we made a mistake here and we need to pull it back. >> it seems like you have a problem with libertarians. i remember you were on fox and

there was a call that you that u called, quote, disgusting and you take shots at libertarians. what objection do you have? >> i said disgusting because the way that he attacked me. i didn't call him disgusting but his attacks on me he was saying things that were ridiculous and outright lies about me and my record and i called it disgusting. i don't think that he himself is personally disgusting but what he was doing was. i do have concerns about the impact on the conservative movement because i don't think it's consistent with conservative thoughts. the idea that libertarians -- and i'm talking about libertarian conservatives there are conservatives that have a libertarian spin to it but are a little stronger on some of these issues particularly in the issue of the constitutional protections and limitations.

so i respect that. i think that is a very healthy debate within the republican party to the role of the government and how much the government does to the issues of privacy. i think those are very important issues into the libertarian conservatives are not as much of a concern that libertarian concerns and some of the folks who pretend to be libertarian conservatives are not necessarily so. they are more libertarians trying to change what conservatism is. there i have a lot more problems everything from their isolationist view of how we approach the national security. i think that we've seen over the last five years of the obama administration would isolationism in the america taking a backseat would mean to the world and to our own security and publicly to the best example of why it won't work has been in the last five years. yet they maintain. the other area that i am concerned about is just sort of the fundamental idea of how was the libertarian is based upon.

it's based on a flawed view of man. they see it and ultimately the view is if people are free to do whatever they want to do and the government is removed and people just have this freedom to exercise their own well, that the world would be a better place. i don't buy that. i don't understand why you have seen anything in human history that would suggest that would result in a good and decent and virtuous society. but baby levi think the fundamental understanding is that humans are essentially good and that if left to their own divided things would be fine. i believe that man is basically falling and needs to have both the family civic institutions and the government to have them all in place and conventions in place to shape and bold that individual. >> everyone agrees there were problems with the occupation in

iraq in the last decade but the original decision in the spring of 2003, was that a good decision do you think? >> i go back to -- i guess i could answer that at the time. when i made the decision i thought it was the right decision. i looked back and knowing what i knew at the time, i would have made the same decision. knowing now what happened in how the occupation and having "made in that area of the world and the complexities of dealing with the radical islamists and frankly just the muslim culture, you know, certainly going forward i would be a lot more cautious about engaging in this kind of activities in the future. i think we need to learn our lesson that once the long-term prospects of doing what we have

attempted to do when going into iraq is not optimistic about the positive results going and taking that type of approach again. >> do you think anyone has learned the lesson? they are still the leading light in a foreign policy on the republican side. no one has been ostracized. >> i think it's different to suggest that what we attempt to -- and again this hasn't been done. america had never done this before. and so the idea to say well these people were wrong and they should be ostracized by think it would've been -- i talked with many of them and are fighting a little chastened in venturing again into something like that. not everyone has looked at what happened and looked at the fact that like it or not the people that were involved in the initial invasion and managing

that are not necessarily the people that are going to finish it out and i think when you look at the fact that there may be other administrations that have less of a stomach for finishing the job and doing it right you have to take that into consideration when you engage in the first place. >> you've raised seven children and to seem like you did a good job. don't you think that attrition and policy play a role? when you do that with the best of intentions shouldn't you apologize and get up and shouldn't there be a role for public humiliation and sanctions? isn't that a part? >> shouldn't h be apologize? >> i don't think that they should be apologizing. they should be candid about the failures that took place. i don't know how you look at iraq today and say that as a success. that doesn't mean that you need to say you need to take out and start flaunting your back in the public square.

that the decisions that were made at the time were very very different set of facts and circumstances and how that interaction with america and in that area of the world would work. i don't think that it is necessary. i think that honesty at this point into the analysis of what happened and what we should do going forward is a much better and more appropriate tact. >> one of the associates at the time was that the democracy is the best system for everyone and that democratic countries tend to be more peaceful. they don't attack one another and they lead to prosperity. do you still believe in that? >> i believe in that the question is how applicable is that in the various cultures. and i think we have to recognize there are certain cultures where this type of idea is more difficult to plan and sustained than other areas of the world and so we have to be realistic in where we apply that i think the idea is still the right idea and i think it is true.

the question is it possible and what extent are we willing to sacrifice to sustain the prisons in an area to finish the job, and i think we found that that is just not going to be possible in that area of the world. >> is the idea is true, then shouldn't we be pushing and agitating and we have some authority in this area for example saudi arabia to become a democratic country or jordan. >> would that be better for us or worse for us do you think? >> the question isn't whether this is better for us or not. if i think the ideal into the goal is a good one. the question is how do you get there and how long do you take and what measures do you take? were we ready when the united

states was formed to have everybody in the united states vote? our founders didn't think so. they limited the people that could vote for you and yo creaty that's horrible, that's terrible. maybe it was ordered closed and that it was a decision that was made to make sure that there were some continuity and stability in the government that was consistent with the values the government was founded upon. so we can't go out and say the objective is the free election. democracy is something that comes when it's appropriate to come. and we have to make sure we work with individual situations to ultimately it may take 100 years to get there, but the idea of rushing into these types of freedoms in the elections i think is not the right approach. spank what do you think we ought to do in afghanistan right now? >> i think maintaining some sort of presence we certainly have learned our lesson from iraq that leaving is the worst of all

possible situations because now we have chaos again into potential dangerous alliance between them and not a potential but between iraq the civic civil unrest, terrorism, tourist groups are active so it is not a positive situation and to the extent that we can continue to support the afghan military -- and again it is the stomach for the long haul and having an involvement that provides some sort of a possibility for the stability in the future that when we say this is hopeless, we should leave. then you get back to the situation that caused you to get there in the first place. >> this book makes me assume that you are running again because it lays out a worldview. this descriptor of philosophy or part of it.

>> i'm out of there in the public and i have been very clear that something i am actively considering trying to gauge both the level of support that's out of there but also trying to figure out what the father of seven kids is. i haven't gone through this just finished up two years ago. it takes a toll and you have to measure all of those things both politically and personally. but i have a concern about the future of the country and i think they bring something different from the table. and so, we are going to actively consider whether this is something we should do and we will make a decision next year. >> you have little kids at home still. >> our children, we have a little girl that is going to be

six in may. the three youngest and we have a 23 year old that is the oldest. they still need their dad around him and that's my challenge and something that karen and i think about to discern the right thing to do for our family and country. >> how hard is it to run for president? >> the absence. you're not there. for long periods of time you can bring the kids on the campaign trail, john and elizabeth were traveling with us quite a bit and now some of the older kids are probably the next in line and would be in the position to do more of that. but we still have younger kids and as you know, our youngest of our six-year-old is has a disability and requires constant care.

people look at politicians and say that all political calculation. and you talk about the family * an excuse because the politics aren't there. it may be the case for some, but it's not the case for mine. >> how physically grueling as a two-run? >> i loved it. i was asked a question are you a night owl were in early riser and my answer was both. i run pretty hard and i like the taste of the campaign. pace of the campaign. i love doing seven to nine meetings a day in iowa and traveling the country and talking about things that i think are important that energizes me. so it isn't as much of a toll on me as it is the toll on the family that comes with it. it's not a big problem. the problem is the attack and the cruelty that comes from

exposing yourself to the american public at least a very unfortunate small segment of the public that now because of the social media has the ability to speak much more loudly than what they should. >> i know that the potential candidates ar always hesitant to critique other candidates. what are you impressed by the people that run for president, anyone? >> i thought that in 2012 we had a bunch of really good people. >> david? >> guest: i did. >> but running for president is hard. you look at the folks that say this person didn't do very well with that person didn't do very well. >> i always say don't try this at home. you know you look at candidates to drop him as someone like rick. last time dropped in and found out we are not in texas anymore. this is a very tough environment in the day in and day out you

have to be mentally and physically and emotionally prepared for it and so i guarantee you that two years from now when you are looking at the republican field you are going to say that isn't quite as good as we thought it was going to be. because, it's a hard thing to do and everybody has faults. everybody has weaknesses and they get shown very clearly in the presidential race. i'm sure you will say this isn't true but after reading this book my perception is that you have some measure of contempt for mitt romney or you don't see men pressed by him much. a couple of his aides were talking about the possibility of another run by him for president. what do you think of that? >> i don't think it was unkind to him at all. i think i said a lot of very positive things about him. i just think that he was miscast. i supported him in 2008 with a different election, but in 2012

he just wasn't the right candidate. at the time of the 99 versus the 1% we didn't need to nominate a wall street multimillionaire 1% who unfortunately was never even able to drop the primary or sort of deal to get comfortable with his wealth and how to explain it. and if you throw on top of the whole issue othatthe whole issud the fact that we have a candidate that took the most important issue that told us when. but when it was up for the person that instituted obamacare we never talked about it. so that's the reason i was so passionate about running and got engaged in a campaign we needed somebody that was better on those two fronts and i thought maybe someone that grew up in the steel town as the son of an immigrant in this wasn't fo bene

wall street bailout and who actually had put forth a lot of good free-market private sector ideas on healthcare it would be a better choice. >> what do you think of jeb? >> as the governor of florida he has a pretty good record. a good and decent man. i don't know that much more. >> as you know, romney one of the seven biggest states he only won texas. and if they don't win in texas i don't think there's a way mathematically that they can get the requirement for the electoral votes. so a lot of people who are watching this carefully beneath texas could pretty easily go blue indicate an epic state over the next ten years. at that point with the republican party seems to be a national party in practical terms? >> i think that's important why we expand the basis for the republican party. if you look with ronald reagan

did in 1984 you say that's not possible we position ourselves get has a plan to make their life better and the reason i wrote the book to speak from the people across america and those that have the set of values but also speak to the republican establishment that we need to stop and focus on adding extreme just issues and the idea that somehow or another we have to abandon the family and we have to abandon life. they had to share our values on those and really devote for us if we can show them that we actually care about them. and i fight this in the book that in the exit polls there

were 23% of the population on the exit polls that said the number one issue for them was does he care about people like me come and barack obama got 81% of those votes and they were by and large people on the lower middle income areas. and the fact that they produced writing about the opportunities and the chance of the american dream. we policies not just rhetoric that policies that connect and i think we can reestablish an entirely new map that states that pennsylvania and ohio and illinois and wisconsin and michigan back into play. >> of a huge percentage of the voters are receiving the government aid in one form or another. is it to say to those voters that may have a cultural infinity on the guns or abortion or whatever to say elect me and

i will cut your disability payment order i will create an opportunity for you to have better paying jobs and an opportunity for you to take better care of your family to work one job instead of two to have maybe your spouse not to have to work a job that if she wants to be able to stay in the home to stay in the home where he wants to stay in the home and have your wife work either way, whatever it is. but to give options for your families because the jobs that you have no you don't need those government benefits. part of it is as you know the reason for a 7% of people receive benefits, that is an all-time high. before the recession was 31 or 32%. so it's the economy that is driving up the benefits and getting more and more people involved in getting the government benefits. so if we can grow the economy and to say we need a pro- growth agenda that's what we are trying to lay out. >> at some point someone's going

to have to cut the benefits somewhere sometime. people don't want to give it the benefit. >> i talk about this in the book. book. there's certain things we can and must do they love of the programs that are in place that are fiscally unsustainable and are not going to be continued in the social securitie social secs way to bankruptcy created medicare is on its way to bankruptcy and medicaid is not sustainable as we have to begin to address those issues. if we can create a healthier economy and we can begin to create economic opportunities i think it's a pretty good trade-off and hopefully we can make that argument. i have a lot of faith in the american public that if you actually lay out a vision for america and make the case and you are given the opportunity to

do so as a leader and you call upon america to step forward and do their part to make america viable going forward, i have a lot of confidence in the american people that can happen. >> i think you came to dc the samdc thesame year that i did i. i wonder if you notice this. for all those 23 years to have conservatives around the country spending money into the politicians in dc and all of these conservative nonprofits in the hope that they would help make america more conservative. but over that time the country has become anything but. by any of the measures you can just today. >> what happened to all of that money? >> one of the things i've done when i left the political race for president is he became ceo.

and one of the reasons you've seen the change in america is because the popular culture. you look at the attitudes. we talk about the attitudes for marriage and that's been driven completely by a popular culture media television news and all of it just pounding away, pounding away. on this is the way that you're supposed to think and if you don't think that way you were intolerant. that has a huge impact. that's great of a public policy -- if you give money to the republican national committee, that's great if you want elections but elections are downstream from the popular culture these days and so i would make the argument and i think that you are seeing this now. it's not just in the popular culture but particularly in the

church. we have to energize the church again to start fighting back in a way that is creative and positive. if you look at the frances. i'm encouraged by what i see by him because he's captured the imagination of young people on a lot of cases. why? because he's out there preaching to the positive uplifting news. if you look at the creatures doing well on television that is positive and upbeat data we have to be warriors. we can't back away from what we believe in but there's a way to go out and presented in a way that is true and beautiful that will change hearts and minds. >> so you want to clear the picture assessment of your opponents and use of popular culture has worked affirmatively to undermine the family. why is that? what is the motivation behind that attempt to? >> well, it's always delete. you go back to the days of william and go to any great culture and go back to the roman empire. the elites always want to be able to do what they do and don't want any constraints

because every problem in the world always comes down to a problem in the first commandment. you put a false god before god. so you do things for you and you don't really care about any other consequence created just whatever makes me happy at the moment. and that's the sort of materialism that is unfortunately rampant among the elites. in every culture and history of man. so this isn't something we should be surprised about. it happens everywhere. and so, you see the plaintiff view being expressed by the elites and the culture that they create. none of this should be shocking and surprising. everyone in history has gone through this. william was one of my heroes back in england. that was his fight could after that you eat and the problems and the example they were setting up for society. and if you look at the exampless the celebrity culture exhibits to the society while it isn't

one that is all about living a good and decent life and so people tend to imitate that, particularly young people. >> the book is blue-collar conservatives recommitting to an america that works. thanks a lot for joining us. that was really interesting. >> thanks a lot. appreciate it. >> that was after words in which authors of the nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policpublic policy maker, legislators and others familiar with their material. after words airs every weekend at 10 p.m. on saturday to 12 p.m. and 9 p.m. on sunday at 12 a.m. on monday. you can also watch online. go to booktv.org and click on the book tv series and topics list on the upper right side of the page.

>> george is an extraordinary man, an engineer who grew up not too far from the university of pennsylvania. his parents were immigrants to the country who didn't have a lot of money. his dad was actually a janitor. but he went to college, studied engineering and then got a job working for the rca. while he was an engineer he actually discovered the technology that would allow liquid crystal displays. the problem however is that george discovered this in 1964 and of leadership at rca wasn't convinced it was all that interesting. so why have you tried to persuade his colleagues come in the end he wasn't successful. and the u.s. lost its competitive advantage. it was the japanese that rotten liquid to the marketplace in the 1970s and 80s.

they changed human history. he still gets the credit for coming up with the invention. most people don't even know his name. institutions that are far more than i expected starting in the study. i thought interviewing 550 people would be studying about extraordinary personalities and people that have a certain persona. actually, when what i found ist most of the power in our culture is housed within the institutions. and so if you don't have that kind of inside connection in the leadership position with institutions committee have little chance of making a long-term impact on call sure. .. ..

>> >> i of the ticks italy thrilled to see mrs. bernstein seated here tonight with her daughter. thank you for joining us. [applause]