>> barack obama will be gone in three years, but coal will still be in the ground. we are going to have a future when we get past this administration. [applause] >> i'm mitch mcconnell, and i approved this message. >> and this is don disney from clover leaf, kentucky, and he has a question for senator mcconnell. >> senator, i'm a retired coal miner. i wanted to know how you could have voted to raise my head care costs $6,000 -- medicare costs $6,000. how are my wife and i supposed to afford that? >> i don't think he's going to answer that. i approved this message because i work to strengthen medicare, not bankrupt seniors like don. >> mark putnam, i think that that ad was just called the question. i believe it's going to be one in a series. tell us, we'll give you the idea for what you're trying to do there. >> well, first off, she's celebrating regular kentucky people and giving them a voice and a platform that they would not ordinarily have.

senator mcconnell is notorious for, first off, he's not campaigning much. it's hard to find him, hard to see him, hard to ask him a question, so this is giving regular people a chance to ask him a question. it is; obviously, delivering information that people need to know about his record, but without the usual harsh attack ad with the figger in somebody -- finger in somebody's face. ..

tell us about the fire truck that was behind us. us. >> we shot these in small towns in kentucky and we found that location. so it's really trying to capture a little piece of kentucky americana. >> pod here -- todd you told us that a piece of spending -- >> not that there was a spending ceiling but there was an effective ceiling. spending is going up year after year, but i do think that you reach a point of diminishing returns when you have outside groups after outside group throwing these pure post spots and it just means spots with a

v.o. and editor uses the stock images. it is a stereotypical negative campaign ad. and i need these office in 2012 in the last two, three weeks we saw outside groups in the house and senate side from both parties literally just throwing money onto the airwaves with ads that if you had actually six months earlier kind of plot it out the spot that we want to put, you know, a million dollars behind the last week of the race come of answer would be no. and if i do think that there is a limit to how effective the outside spending can be in the current context that it's in and one of the reasons mark alluded to before is the only people who

control the candidates themselves is the campaign. we have the ability to take the candidate and put them to interview formats and put their kids in with their families and of this really matters in the statewide races. for congressional races if the bar to get to know actually who your member of congress is but people do want to have a sense of who you are and most super packs have a hard time delivering that kind of information. >> we all have tivos or some version of them and try to speed through the best work. what are ad makers trying to do to counteract that? >> i think broadcast has always been the broadest reach in television and certainly they

become more targeted at a more effective way to reach voters but it's interesting to watch the role of digital grow as well because we target both geographically and demographically through the advertising. and to me it is truly a combination of all and of course radio i think radio is also effective in different areas i think it is more about building an eco- chamber so that voters can see you through to tv and cable if they are according through the commercials you know you are serving them through ads online and the radio and there is having that eco- chamber. >> now we are going to look at a final set of clips. >> i've seen a tv ad of a celebrity and it made my dad a

little jealous. my dad gave me a good name. a lot of common sense. he said it don't spend what you don't have. stand on principle even if you have to stand alone if you have to eat you have to work. when you're done with politics give me a hand. i approved this message. >> are you a once a week christian? they say senator mark pryor is saying he made a negative statement about his faith challenging him on that faith. i'm not ashamed to say that i believe in god and i believe in his word. the bible teaches us no one has all the answers, only god does. i'm mark pryor and i approved this message because this is who i am and what i believe. >> break this down and tell us what works and what doesn't

work. what did you notice as you walked through the mechanics? >> i thought the father and son approach is an example of what works. you have seen a lot of ads over the years of the candidate and their parent and often times they are corny and forced into too much affection between the two and it doesn't feel real or there is tension between father and son. i did a series of ads with senator landrieu and her father and they are kind of riveting each other. there is tension that is reflective of how a family really is. so i like that piece of it. the congressman comes off as likable site features him in a personality to get a sense of family and i think that works. i think the response from senator pryor's campaign is effective that when you don't want to go into is questioning somebody's faith. that is a third rail that can get you into a lot of trouble. that is something the campaign

might regret. >> do you agree? >> it's probably accurate. >> we have a question on the flipsidflip side of what we havt been talking about that has ever been a political ad or is very well-known add not one of yours but one that is notorious in the profession that tested well but flopped? like t -- [laughter] >> i'm not going to name any names but they put a bio spots featuring the candidate and the only thing on the air and the negatives went up. [laughter] did that candidate win or lose?

>> the candidate won. they fire the media team. >> what other trend should people in the room we aware of either that you come up high in the air or that you picked up on? >> one of the things you and i talked about is reaching people in other ways than over the air tv. >> while i think i touched on this earlier that seeing the political ads in every medium and how they are going to start to follow you around and that echo chamber in targeting so that they are constantly being exposed to the message so that is near the cycle. >> of ththe different platformsr meetings. >> you will have broadcast tv which is the most effective way

to reach. and in cable if you can target a message with different voters and through online you have the banner and the targeting where they are now finding you and being delivered to you. i agree with all of that. the digital side is in a lot of ways the wild west and its technology and the ability to target people in a lot of ways is outpacing the ability to measure it and so it seems like there's a new story about whether it is the thoughts that

are jacking up the number of the views that the video has or that you are buying an online network and you think that you're going to be placed in a certain place and way and it turns out that what you bought was resold it to somebody else and by the time you get placed its not at all what you were getting and so you are making huge strides and the cycle was better than it was in the last cycle but when we buy tv we have a really good sense of what it is that we are buying and how many people are seeing it. digital is still getting their. one sentence. you told me that another trend that you are seeing is earlier spending. you told me they come earlier and this is an important conce

concept. the reason you are seeing more spending early on -- number one because there is so much spending now there's so much clutter being up earlier allows you to move numbers in a less competitive market so you can get lower rates, and the second is we are seeing this more and more, you know, there used to be a pretty even slope in terms of your spending where you max out your television spending. but now the add event of the billions of dollars from those being spent by outside groups everyone has a pretty good sense of when the outside groups are going to be polling. they are going to be polling at the end of august and september. so it behooves you to be doing really, really well when those

outside groups are taking the pole because that's when they will be deciding that they are going to invest in that race or not. and so, i know the campaigns that are kind of rolling the dice to get the numbers up ear early. >> last question. you are a marathoner. what is a running tape? >> i'm a swimmer. it's a long race usually and you can't judge a race in any snapshot in time other than a horse race it really is a long campaign in the pot is right. you have to play an earlier game and still be there at the end. and every race is different. >> they want to thank you for being here and mark putnam, ashley and todd here us. my boss at politico and all of

you for the interest in the campaign. thanks for a great conversation. [applause] [inaudible conversations] thanks to mike allen and everyone for joining us. before we get started on stage, a quick reminder to everyone

here. you can send questions at hash tag campaign pro. i have a great star-studded lineup of panelists here. we don't have visuals like you did the last one because they didn't make for good visuals. we mix the visuals and you will have to listen to us talk. i have two colleagues that are star reporters. senior political reporters for politico. john is the founder and ceo of social sphere inc. at the harvard institute of politics and the doctor later he at the university of virginia center for politics and editor-in-chief of the crystal ball and also a columnist for politico magazine. it now befornow before we get sw many of you are addicted to

politico? for how many of you is that your first read in the morning? the honest. and for how many is it your last read at night? and how many of you are politico readers? that's great. and you're happy with it? yes, no? good, good. well i can't tell you how to respond and the interest at starting something from nothing to something that's really become a must read for a lo a lf people so thank you for your support. now, today's an important day for all of us here because today is the day of the release of the second politico poll that we did with john's firm and its gotten

huge pickup around the country coming and we've been really excited about that. and i want to ask john to open up and ask first about how what's different about the pole and why we think or hope it stands out from others. >> thanks for having me. there are a couple of things that are different. i guess the first thing is it is a complete collaboration with frankly everyone on the panel between larry's coastal ball in terms of where the competitive districts and states are. we also work very, very closely with your team to tell us what they are hearing on the trail but what makes i think it's most unique is most of the polls in the country do a fine job of measuring public opinion on what all of the adults think or likely voters in the midterm elections. four out of four are likely measured in one form or another.

what this poll does is for three out of four people that are not going to participate in the competitive district or the house race while what we are doing is focusing on the people that are most likely to vote in the competitive districts only specially 25 to a third of all voters across the country their votes won't really matter in terms of shaping the short-term view in this country and that is what we are focused on. >> and we all sat down and did a journalistic exercise where we said what could the headline possibilities before the pole even before we went into the field? can you talk about that process click the headline ended up being stay out of ukraine. we didn't really know that would be the headline. >> we didn't know we had a hunch when we started talking about doing the pole. it was clear that things were out of hand in iraq and syria.

things were not as out of hand in ukraine as they are today but the trend lines were not great even a month ago and so it was clear that this was emerging as an area of vulnerability for the president and discomfort for the congressional democrats and within the republican party but we didn't really know what the voters thought about all of this. we knew that the president's approval rating on foreign policy was dropping but we didn't know what people would like to see him doing that he wasn't already doing so we decided to go in and in addition to a couple of the questions we asked on the previous poll of the presidential approval and the horse race ballot with the congressional races and the president healthcare law we did this much more detail policy question about the foreign-policy and national security, so not just do you like what the president is doing generally speaking but should we be more involved in iraq and less involved as we are now and ask that any member of the sort of global hotspots some of which

have gotten hotter since we went into the field. and i think that you might have guessed that the public is not overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the idea of the adventures at this point. i don't know that i would have guessed they were this enthusiastic about the engagement to the point that you have a big majority of republicans saying they support the plan to get everybody out of afghanistan across the age groups and geographically consistent saying what the rest of the world deal with its problems. >> how might this be relative? the foreign-policy as we know doesn't always play. [laughter] who was it that said that? >> tip o'neill back in the day. it's an interesting tension in that we ask people how important is the foreign-policy or is it important in the terming the vote and you had nine of ten respondents say it was somewhat

important or very important and many of those people are liars because they see that it's either somewhat or very important but then when you ask them what is the most important issue to you or what is the issue that comes to mind that is important to you and you can go down the list of jobs for economic growth, taxes, deficits from immigration before you get the foreign-policy described as the foreign policy is like 2%. if you add a foreign-policy national security defense spending, terrorism, you get to 11%. so the gap between buying of ten people saying it is important and 11% of people saying that somewhere in that set of issues there is something that might be the top three or a come of it is a huge gap. so i think you looked a couple of states and congressional districts in particular where maybe the military bases or big populations.

in mississippi last month and in the primarendedthe primary thera huge issue just within the republican party and as the democrats voted as well the state likes being conservative is a huge beneficiary of the federal defense contracts pending. so i think that you look to those places and then in addition to sort of moving individual votes you do look to these issues as setting up the larger atmosphere people feel like things are out of control. >> speaking of the foreign-policy, there was interesting findings about her tenure at the state department. >> john's numbers brok broke usn a way that you don't see in the polling done so far. typically it's been an up or down for the tenure of state. this is an excellent good fair and poor category. so if you combine the two difference is that most people tend to come of the net for good

was 43 i believe, 42, 43. and the net for fair or poor was 53. that was so that was a net majo. that is a big difference than host of the public polling that we have seen over the course of the last year and a half in the state department. and i think some of it is because it isn't being asked and up or down? the do you approve question tends to be easier and what category do you put it in and tell me if you disagree that takes you to refine your view of little bits. so you can attribute it to a couple of things. number one, as alex has said that length and he is right the world is a very messy place at the moment and the trends have been heading that way the last several months but have a feeling of growing up in the last couple of weeks now hillary clinton has been -- i reject the fact she isn't separating herself on the economy but she certainly has on the foreign-policy.

but i think what the numbers suggest is that isn't necessarily going to matter when things are very messy because she has been out there having to answer questions at having real-time about a foreign-policy issue that she is no longer involved in and having to defend for instance the recent that doesn't look so great right now in light of the current events. number two, the port number was the biggest one. for 32% and i think as much as there's been a discussion on twitter and blogs today about whether we were emphasizing the negative too much i think when you have a single category that is that high there is a certain definition and it's hard to take it away. i also think as much as i do not think that benghazi will be the reason people do or do not vote for her there is a case to be made with a lot of people have heard about her has related to that. either poor or positive. her folks will argue very

strongly that the negative isn't sticking that i think that the numbers do suggest there is at least some sense among the voters of something happening. >> you brought this story on the chapter in her book. how skillfully do you think they have handled were anticipated the attacks on her position? >> i think that's the benghazi issue and a lot of the foreign-policy pieces for the most part were not handled thatt well both in the book it's been swamped by the discussion of her gaps in wealth, but her critics have actually not laid out a huge glove on the book itself. they would also argue because there isn't that much in the book but generally speaking, in terms of benghazi, she gives a pretty thorough telling that at least gives a roadmap for democrats that are hearing about

this in the 2014 election. >> where is your crystal ball? >> i left it in charlottesville. >> can you still take a chance and help us without that? >> i can try. >> can you talk a little about your sense of foreign-policy and how that might be playing out in november? >> iab lead in analyzing both presidential and midterm elections from 30,000 feet actually after last week i don't think that is a safe place to be. but essentially, the higher your url looking down on the landscape of the election, the more likely you are to detect a general movement in one direction or another. the most interesting thing that i saw the most revealing as usual is a generic ballot

because i believed it was plus two republicans. it was plus seven, and i think that's about right and i think other surveys have been showing that, too. it's very important for the midterm congressional elections because it tells you basically where it is in mid-july so you have to be careful. but we take a couple observations that are important about the midterms and have nothing to do with foreign-policy and surprisingly little to do with most domestic policies. this isn't where i thought it would be at this time last year or even for that matter january. i didn't think it would be anything like 2010 because they are already scooping up in the house. they lost a few of them in 2012 but it i isn't what i thought it was going to be. i thought since president obama

was in the low 40s depending on the season and some other factors that this would be a predominantly maybe a very good republican year. >> i think it is mild. at least in mid-july. now it can be late. you can have them develop in late september and october sometimes they are developed in august in 2010. we were the first to call the house or the republicans what we said by the white margin at least 40 seats in august because the generic ballot was moving so strongly in the republican direction. well, that is not happening. when you look at the house and the republicans will probably pick up a few seats i think it will be a wash plus two in the

democratic direction of zero change and you will have some incumbents that will be the headline everybody says the western civilization collapsed into the fact of the vast majority of incumbents will be reelected. it is the senate that is revealing. and this is the best map for republicans since 1980. they should've run a big margin based on the conditions that ought to be present in the six-year election. it isn't happening so far. it isn't happening. i can't see them gaining fewer than four. so that will be a mildly good year. i can see them getting five and i can see them getting six and if you stretch me i can see at seven but they will not run up the margin big enough to sustained 2016 if the turnout is as democratic as it has been in the last couple of elections.

so that is my view from. it isn't as interesting. it's not nearly as interesting as 2006 and i'm sorry to say i know i said the wrong thing but that's my view of it. >> how is your view a little closer? >> the point that larry raises to sort of give you a back story on the poll, we got the numbers back last week. we were a little concerned about the sample that we ended up getting because what you do is you and you know, select a set of voters randomly in the ballot in the states and see the response to the polls. and you can wait the population going into afterwards you're not literally going to tinker with while we would like to see more women in the sample even though they want more women so we are going to multiply it by nuts and bolts kind of stuff.

.. >> all the movement was within a margin of error, so we're not going to just junk this poll because it doesn't feel identical to the previous of poll. and the reason for that is really simple. in 2012 republicans got a lot of polls with, we saw over and over again these public polls showing more democrats participating than republicans and a lot of us

in the -- than a lot of us in the media thought should be participating. and there was the whole unskewed phenomenon, right? if a poll came back showing more black people or more young people than felt right, the temptation was let's exclude this and go with what we think is going on. as it turns out, a lot more young people and african-americans participated than we thought we were going to participate. so sometimes when you end up with a different sample because the one you're expecting, that's because it's a different electorate than the one you're expecting. so we don't just throw out a poll because there's been movement in the margin of error. you interpret in light of that, but basically, i think, with the question this poll raises and it's the one that larry is sort of sketching out is maybe this isn't going to be the kind of election where democrats just stay at home and republicans come out with overwhelming enthusiasm. maybe it's a little bit more of a 50/50 test of wills. and i agree with larry this is

not shaping up to be a sort of epic midterm election the way we got in 2006, '8, '10, but i think what is interesting is what you see now race to race, we saw it in the mississippi primary last month, we see it in the georgia republican primary tonight, we've seen it in a couple of gubernatorial campaigns is that tactics wednesday up being worth a lot more. back to 2010, there were a number of campaigns we could say, well, this democratic senate candidate really ran a much, much better campaign than the republican opponent, but they were never going to win this 2010. i think that's much less likely to happen this year across the board. >> john, could you tell us some takeaways from the poll for november? >> yeah. one thing i want to touch about, talking about republicans, one of the reasons we're all kind of agreeing, at this stage 7% of republicans think barack obama, you know, is doing a good job as president, but only 53% think

republicans in congress are doing a good job, right? so unlike 2010 we see disapproval of republicans and democrats at a far greater extent than we saw in 2010. in fact, there was two times more disapproval both in our numbers when we look at, like, pew numbers kind of consistently, we see two times as much disapproval among democrats but three times among republicans. so just incredibly upset, volatile electorate, and we don't know who yet will, obviously, participate. we also see, again, in this all should be taken through the lens of one out of four or one out of three voters in america. so it's not surprising that, you know, as an example secretary clinton will be viewed harsher through this lens than if we included california, massachusetts, etc. so i guess what i would say is that democrats need to begin to reconnect over the economy. this is something that's very, very clear kind of throughout the poll, and republicans have a

hard time, you know, alex talked about republicans talk about foreign policy, but when you ask republicans what the policy should be specifically in russia and iraq and syria, they don't know. we have slightly more republicans thinking that we should be less involved in russia than more involved prior to last week. we see similar numbers for iraq as well as syria. so i guess the question, and it's still very volatile, rick. i do think foreign policy will play a more significant role than perhaps other people on the panel. not necessarily because of the specific issue, but because of the overall context in terms of do voters share the overall world view in terms of should we be engaged or should we not be engaged? not necessarily the policy, but especially among young independents. >> maggie, can we talk a little bit about the intersection of 2016 and midterms? one of the, some of the results also showed, talked about the hierarchy of surrogates that candidates or people want out there. can you talk a little about

that? >> sure. and i would like to, if i can also ask if, john, you would tell me whether you think i'm reading your numbers right. but president obama still remains the democrats' most potent surrogate which i did find striking given the fact that his approval numbers are not great, and there are people who would rather not campaign with him and begin this is a battleground poll. blibt and hillary clinton are the next -- bill clinton and hillary clinton are the next two. there was a steep dropoff for joe biden. 52% of democrats wanted him to campaign for them, and then very interesting, elizabeth warren had a much lower number, 30s, right? >> and 22% of democrats -- [inaudible] >> that's right. and i was very struck by that. one in five democrats and 22% in the overall sample had never heard of warren. so name id is a big factor here, and she is relatively new politically even among

democrats. among republicans it was still, you know, a former nominee, mitt romney was the most popular among republicans, next was, i believe, jeb bush and then rand paul. >> rand paul not far behind. >> rand paul not far behind was really striking to me given that he remains pretty much the most interesting person to watch on the republican side for 2016 right now in terms of the moves he is making. the other number that i was struck by, independents across the board said every single one of them would make them less likely to vote for them than more likely which i took as a throw the bums out approach defite the fact the share of -- despite the fact of the share of independents available has dwindled. that was a number that jumped out at me. would you disagree? >> no, in fact, it speaks to the mood. fewer politicians in my face, the better right now. right? >> but if you have to have one, have rand paul, the clintons or obama. >> and who is the most active

out there of the possible presidential candidates? >> not hillary clinton. the, among the possible presidentials it sort of depends. they all have different priorities in terms of where the intersection is. you had chris christie go to iowa last week to campaign for terry branstad which there's a gubernatorial race there. that is as much about the intersection between what chris christie needs in terms of a rehab and what terry branstad is trying to do in iowa with the republican party. you have had rand paul doing some midterm campaigning. i think you're going to see marco rubio doing a lot more. i think you will see jeb bush do very little because i think that he would like to not start the clock on himself as much. on the democrats' side, warren -- as i suspect most of you have been reading -- has been very active. joe biden has been very active. martin o'malley has been very active. you know, where people go -- going to iowa is easy and going to new hampshire is easy, but it's sort of the more surgical

targets that i find more worth watching. >> could you talk a little about as the foremost hillary clinton watcher on reporters, you were on her book tour, you've covered her for years, she's about to go on vacation for three weeks. are we going to hear from her at that point? are there planned -- >> one of the things, so one of the things that's been striking, there's a couple of things that she's -- she's been adding like crazy interviews which is not -- she has done this rollout sort of backwards in terms of the book tour, i would argue, for how you would handle it in 2014. i forgot what year it was, it's not 2016 yet. she just did jon stewart last week, right? i could make an argument that you probably would have wanted to start with jon stewart. so they're adding these events because the book is not, you know, lighting on fire. it's selling fine, but it's not selling the way living history did, and that's not surprising given that it's about a very narrow context as opposed -- >> and why is that important?

i mean, book sales are nice, but why -- >> her people have been very preoccupied with the book sale issue for much of the last six months heading into the writing of it and then the rollout of it. they were afraid that if it didn't sell, that it would be viewed as and certainly described as a reflection of her popularity. that isn't what it is, but that is what they're worried about. and there is, as it happens, a pretty big chasm between what her last memoir sold in its first month which was a million copies and this one which has sold about 300,000 copies. so she has been adding these, she's got a facebook chat later, she's doing a twitter interview, she's been adding these events sort of on the fly. she is supposed to on saturday be the understudy for george w. bush at a paid speech for a financial conference, and then she goes on vacation for three weeks, and i don't think we'll be hearing that much from her. she has some paid speeches at the end of august.

in kentucky one local official said that he expects her to be campaigning this fall for allison grimes. i don't think that's a surprise given their relationship with her father. but so far they have yet to announce exactly what her targets are going to be, and i think they're going to be more limited than sweeping. >> larry, can you tell us about some surprises, upsets that may be in the offing for the fall that may not be on our radar? >> oh, i think most of them are on our radar. obviously, people are looking at iowa. we're getting ready to move that to toss-up. we were waiting for this partnership to begin. i think it's been obvious that it's become a toss-up. and colorado is close to a toss-up. i suppose that might be an upset. in some people's minds if it happens. you know, the key races in the senate have been well known for some time now. look, you never know when somebody's going to be indicted. you never know --

[laughter] when, you know, someone's tongue is disconnected from the brain and they say something incredibly stupid and it ends up throwing away a senate or a house seat. so, you know, those are probably the upsets we don't see coming because the event that will precipitate them hasn't happened yet. but, you know, again, we're focusing -- we've been focused for a long time on the maps. if there are so few competitive house races, it's pretty easy the gauge what's going to happen in the house. you're not going to get the numbers exactly right, but who cares? you can run the majority of the house on three like the republicans did in 2001-2002. so it doesn't matter. governorships matter a lot, but you've got a ton of incumbents, i think 29, running out of the ones elected in 2010, and they have a natural edge in the vast majority of cases. corbett's an exception, couple of other exceptions. but, you know, the senate's really what we're -- where it

matters, where an upset really matters. and, you know, it's obvious where both parties and the interest groups are going to pour their money, those southern states plus alaska. democrats are going to try kentucky and georgia. good luck, you know, with both of them because i think it'll be tough. in both cases. but they're going to try those two. other than that, there's really nothing the democrats can pick up. they'll be lucky to pick up one of those two. the republicans have all the opportunities. we already know, really, which ones they are. so it's a question of where the electorate moves, you know? does that generic ballot number move up or down between now and the time that things start solidifying in september and october? >> speaking of money, alex, what's different this time with the midterms and the big donors? >> well, i think what's, what we're going to see change over just the next three and a half months is that the balance of spending in this campaign is

going to start shifting away from the outside groups and towards the actual campaigns and candidates. the folks you heard from on the priest panel, you're going to -- previous panel, you're going to start seeing a lot more of their work and a lot less, or relatively speaking, less of the work of the very fine consultants not that far from here who are sort of cranking out these ads with unlimited money. a lot of people are talking about this news from cnn yesterday that sheldon edelson may spend tens of millions of dollars. i think we always knew the money was going to be saturated. what matters most is how is it going to get spent, and if the difference was going to be unlimited, outside money, we always knew that money was going to be in play. you do have among incumbents in particular in the senate and incumbent republican governors just unbelievable hard dollar fundraising. so you have these senators. i remember, i'm old enough to remember when it was a big deal

to raise a million and a half dollars in a quarter of two million or two and a half. this quarter you had people like mark udall and jeanne shaheen and allison grimes raising three, three and a half, four million dollars in a three month span. that's crazy. that's just a crazy apt of money. so you -- amount of money. so you do start to see more of that hand-to-hand combat between candidates mattering more than it did three months ogg, six months ago or a year ago. what mitch mcconnell does today and what allison grimes does today matters more. it's part of why iowa is more of a toss-up race, that joni ernst has been very, very clever about how she's run her campaigns, and bruce braley's been a lot more passive, and colorado, at least from the people i talk to, is not probably in the same category because mark udall, the very well funded democratic incumbent, has just been murderously brutal on his

challenger when it comes to these social issues that have been so devisive in colorado. and corey gardener who was correctly thought to be quite a strong republican recruit has taken time responding. >> thank you. maagty, i'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. you talked about how hillary clinton is doing all these events. how accessible is she to you, and how does that compare to the accessibility of another politician you cover a lot, that's chris christie? >> i mean, it's night and day. and for, to some extent for specific reasons, and some of it's stylistic reasons. but what has been really striking about hillary clinton's book tour is she has not taken a single question -- that i know of at least from the events i've been to -- from reporters who were attending. which is not to say that her aides have been difficult and/or unkind which certainly has been the hallmark of other campaigns, both hers and other people's she is giving very controlled

interviews, these are very controlled settings. there is very little that is sort of up in the air and unexpected about them. christie in iowa last week -- to be fair, it's not like he was holding a conference every day after bridge gait be, i mean, he -- bridgegate, i mean, he really shut down. he has started coming out of it more. but when you are traveling with him in another state, you can get right up close with him. you just can't have that with clinton, and i remain really amazed at the that that lance traveling with her. it's not understandable, but it does not headache you feel -- >> like how many, like, can you give a sense of the scale? >> she was on stage at a gw event recently for a q&a with someone, and at the end she stayed and was shaking hands with the audience, and there were four what looked like service people or security people but standing next to her. it was -- on the one hand, it makes her look like an incumbent

which she is often seen as running like, but on the other hand, it does not create the feeling of being able to reach out and connect. >> let me ask you all just a very few quick questions. john, let's talk about polling right now. we're overwhelmed by polls every day. some reliable, some not. all kinds of methodologies. how do you personally know who to trust? >> i think we're certainly in a transition. two or three things i look to. national polling, i look to see, obviously, are cell phones included? so cell phone versus land line telephone is an important thing for me. also i also look at language. hispanics play an incredibly important role in our nation and about half of hispanic voters we talk to prefer to take their interview in spanish, so i look at bilingual polling as well. and like everybody else, i look at consistency over time as well. and why some of these barometers are of particular use if you don't have one poll you can count on. >> do you think the state of polling in america is getting

better or worse? >> i think it's better than it was, but it's still in a transition. it obviously depends who you ask. i guess one note, on most of the national polling that i do and certainly the polling we do together is done via the internet, so actually dialing the clock back to the days of george gallup when we went from door to door. that's how we're actually selecting the samples based on not what kind of phone you have, but where you live. they can take the poll whenever they want. they want to take it add midnight rather than during their time, that's the prerogative, and i think it's a more natural act. so is, but not everybody's able to do that yet. >> larry, i'm curious, how much do you personally get lobbied by candidates or or campaigns for saying why did you rate me this way? [laughter] >> that's why i have great people like kyle condit, tim robinson, they take all those calls. [laughter] i'm always out of town when they come in. >> what if it's a really big

name? >> i'm still out of town. [laughter] especially when it's a big name. >> but they try. >> well, of course people complain and whine, and they should, you know? their livelihoods are on the line. i don't blame them for that one bit. i mean, you got lots of calls, right, in your other role prior to this, and i'm sure maggie and alex get lots of calls. the key is to ignore them. [laughter] you know, unless they have interesting information. and just let me add one thing on this polling. i am amazed that reporters still write stories based on partisan polls produced by campaigns or parties. they are garbage. it's a joke. and why anybody pays attention to them, i don't know. they have ulterior motives. >> do you all agree with that? yeah, yeah. >> thank you. >> alec, i have a question for you that's a twitter question. what are the chances for romney to enter the 2016 race, and is

santorum next in line given that the gop convention history? >> well, i'll take the second question first, and the answer is, no. [laughter] you know, i think you can say that i think just this notion that republicans always nominate the next guy in line like, yes, that's true technically, but it's really more complicated than that. if it's true that the runner-up always got the nomination, then in 2012 which would have been mike huckabee -- which he'll tell you himself if you ask -- his delegate count was higher than mitt romney's. i think santorum has a constituency. is he the default candidate? certainly not. the odds that romney runs, i was talking to a republican recently who said they were convinced romney was going to run because he kept saying he wouldn't in the 2012 campaign, and that persuaded him you can't trust a word the man says. [laughter] now that's not my personal view of 2016, but, look, i think this notion that if you go to a

conference hosted by mitt romney and ask a bunch of people who are mitt romney's guests should he run for president and then they all say yes, that this is some kind of groundswell of support, the host, right? he's standing right there. of course you're going to express sort of interest in him as a candidate. the only scenario in which i can envision mitt romney running is like if every other mainstream candidate gets hit by a bus, right? and maybe not a bus, but it could happen that jeb doesn't run, scott walker loses re-election, marco rubio, for whatever reason, decides his family is not, you know, ready for the campaign, and then -- and right, christie, you know, continues to face the u.s. attorney investigation and then next thing you know you're looking at a lineup of candidates that looks a lot like 2012 minus mitt romney, right? and then if there's just sort of like you know in cartoons where wile e. kite owety will -- coyote will run through a wall,

there could be a mitt romney-shaped role where there's not mainstream, business business-oriented, inoffensive, conservative, you know, somewhat conservative man with terrific hair. [laughter] and then there's an opening, right? but the notion that, like, the wheels are moving or something like that just doesn't, doesn't scan -- i mean, correct me if i'm wrong, maggie, but that does not scan with what i'm hearing at all. >> no, no, no. i'd say everything you just said was absolutely on target. i mean, at a certain point be i think the moment you would start to see some of this run, many it, run stuff -- mitt, run, stuff, there are some owners who don't attend those conferences, but for those who are like, well, i could back him, i think the minute you would start to see that come to a halt would be when romney openly says i'm really considering this. so i agree with everything alex says. >> because really, i'm sorry, which is -- [laughter] mitt romney has a lot going for him as like a human being, as like a government administrator.

there are a lot of republicans, and it's easy to romanticize the 2012 election sort of in retrospect, right? but when you think back at what an amazing opportunity that was for the gop -- >> totally. >> right? and the fact that he didn't just lose, but actually lost by a pretty big margin in terms of modern history. only the second time in 25 years that any presidential candidate has won an electoral heart. you know, the argument for, like, strike up the band again and let's do this a third time starts to get pretty limited. >> right. and not just lost, to continue on this theme, but not just lost with a huge opportunity, but a lot structurally had not changed within the party since 2012. if you look at that rnc autopsy or whatever growth opportunity report they put out afterwards six months or so, eight months after the election, very little of it has been addressed including their endorsement of immigration reform. so very hard for me to see where romney becomes the candidate of the future based on what we're looking at. that having been said, alex did

say something i thought was very important, and i wonder ored about looking at your numbers, especially talking about the younger voters who now feel more warmly toward hillary clinton. there is a tendency when i talk to supporters for them to say, well, a lot of people have buyer's remorse about obama. okay, but that doesn't mean we're redoing the 2008 election. while i do think this is not 2008 again and i don't see a candidate who can do what obama did, i think that the idea that we are doing a reprisal is really a mistake. and so for her supporters who think that, for the candidate's sake, one hopes that's not something her advisers actually think. >> larry, one final question for you that came in. do you anticipate, i mean, the primary season's almost over, but do you anticipate any more mississippis? tight challenges but also outside pending wise? >> oh, you know, i think -- i don't think lamar alexander's in

trouble. pat roberts, i suppose there's a possibility there. if he had had one of the republican congressmen running against him, i think he would have lost renomination. milton wolfe is not the strongest candidate in the world , but you never know who's going to show up in a low-turnout summer primary. there'll probably be a couple more surprises. again, looking at the big picture which reinforces the idea that less is more in this particular midterm, we're well below average in the number of incumbent primary defeats in both the senate and the house compared to the entire post-world war ii period. that doesn't suggest to me an election that redefines american politics. nothing, nothing close to it. that doesn't mean 2016 will be boring. there's almost no connection between a midterm and a presidential election even though we all strain to find, to find some connection there really isn't, you know?

just give you an example. the e-mail that i got over and over again in different forms after 2010 was each my dog could beat president obama. well, we found out, didn't we? we found out how misleading a midterm election can be, and a lot of them are that way. >> final quick question for alec, just came back -- alex who just came back from california where he wrote a much-talked-about piece. it's time for some gen-xers, right? tell us about the political dynamic there is. >> it's a state that is younger than the country as hold, it is twice as hispanic, three times as asian, half the population lives in the los angeles area, and the two senators, the governor are 70 years old and up and all from the bay area. they're all white, and if you look at lineup of statewide

officials in california right now and then going back 20 years, overwhelmingly they have been from northern california. this is what you call, you know, it's what the folks out this at their fancy conferences call a moment prime for disruption, right? [laughter] this notion that you would have this state that is home to, you know, hollywood and silicon valley and sort of this, you know, allure of youth and innovation that they'd be represented entirely by this cast of characters literally from the '70s and '80s -- 1970 and '80s in addition to being in their 70s and 80s, that just doesn't line up. you're going to start to see this change. jerry brown will probably win this election this year, you're going to have a democratic bum's rush into that job, and in 2016 the question is will barbara boxer run again. you could have two successive psychs where the state attorney general, they all suddenly have to decide after playing this

waiting game for, like, ten-plus years they suddenly have to decide which of these available offices they're going to run for. and this is important because the next big democratic politician to get elected to a big, statewide job in california, you're looking at someone who will be ap immediate contender for the -- an immediate contender for the presidency. it's bizarre that it is by far the biggest state in the country. democrats get so much of their money from there. finish the only person that the democrats in california have produced who would ever for 15 seconds considered a presidential candidate was gray davis. and that, folks, doesn't add up. [laughter] >> final concluding question for maggie. and this isn't your personal opinion, or but if you -- i'd like to get your take. if you polled the press corps covering the presidential campaign in 2016, who would they want the two nominees to be from

a ourly, purely journalistic point of view just for the fun and the story? >> from the journalistic point of view or -- mac faction d. [inaudible conversations] >> i think for the fun point of view they would want an elizabeth warren versus a chris christie. >> no joe biden? >> sorry -- you know what? that's right. that would be a joe biden versus a chris christie and/or a ran paul, and probably the edge would go to rand because one of the things that people who cover him in the senate will often say is that he is very, very, very undies palined in terms of, like, what he says walking around the halls. and so i don't mean that that's something -- you know, he often talks to reporters, and i think his aides would rather he momentum, and he becomes hard to control. so for reporters that kind of thing would be a lot of fun. >> how about for crystal ball analysts in terms of who you'd like to see.

i think marco rubio would be interesting to understand where the future of the hispanic vote goes. so that would be of interest and a challenge for us. >> who i'd like? i don't pick candidates. that's up to the parties, so i'll work with whoever they pick. i'd prefer to think about the future of the country rather than the future of the two parties or what would make great journalism. god help us if that becomes the standard. >> larry's being modest, but in his heart of hearts, he would love to be able to say he called the scott walker nomination. [laughter] >> so true. >> thank you. by the way, the '70s were a great decade. [laughter] i need to tell you that. >> thanks, everyone. thanks for a great panel. we covered the water front here. appreciate it. [applause] thanks. thanks for coming and for watching.

[inaudible conversations] >> the associated press reporting today that the malaysian prime minister says that the leader of pro-russian rebels has agreed to hand over both black boxes from flight 17 to malaysian investigators who are in ukraine. the u.n. security council will be meeting today at 3 p.m. eastern time to discuss ukraine. you can watch that live on our companion network, c-span. more now on c-span2 on the election landscape and recent developments within the prospective field of republican presidential candidates for 2016. it's from this morning's "washington journal."

>> host: we want to welcome back david drucker of the washington times. good monday morning, appreciate you being with us. washington examiner, i apologize. let me start over again, david drucker of the washington examiner. >> guest: just so the checks keep coming. >> host: absolutely. >> guest: great to be here. >> host: yesterday we focused a lot on where the democrats are, and this is from a gallup pollpr that came out that said paul is ryan, rick perry best known, mike huckabee well liked among the republicans but, of course, it's very early. >> guest: it's so early, andamon everywhere i go whenever i go home to visit family, whatever i do it's who's going to run, who's going to be the nominee? we can speculate, but it's very, very difficult to say with any sort of certainty who the top candidates will be once the

voting actually gets underway and who the nominee is going to be. >> host: and this began to heat up this past week between governor rick perry of texas and senator rand paul in his response. let he just share with you a organization of what the governor said in an op-ed for "the washington post". quote: in the face of the advancement of the islamic state, senator rand paul and others suggest the best approach to the 21st century threat is to do next to nothing. i personally don't believe in a wait and see foreign policy for the u.s., neither would ronald reagan. reagan led proudly from the front, not from behind. and when he drew a, quote, red line, the world knew exactly what he meant. paul is drawing a red line along the water's edge, creating a giant moat where superpowers can retire from the world. that from governor rick perry. >> guest: this is a very interesting debate was it's one -- because it's one that have the republican party -- that the republican party is having internally all over the place. and that is should they have a more forward-thinking, a more

forward foreign policy, a more active and internationalist foreign policy in the tradition that reagan set in that 1980 presidential race? and that carried over with the party, or should they take a more libertarian approach as senator rand paul has suggested? what's interesting about this is that this was always -- regardless of what republicans debated for a good 30 years, this was a settled issue. republicans were a more muscular foreign policy party, bigger defense budgets, more active overseas militarily when necessary, and now you've had elements within the party that have started to question that. and senator rand paul represents that, as we know, because of the iraq and afghanistan wars. a lot of americans war weary, and paul's message sounds appealing. and so you have this debate going on. and i think, i think that

they're both fighting over what they're claiming reagan was for. and that's the interesting thing if you listen to rabid paul, is -- rand paul, is he also claims his foreign policy views are in the reagan tradition. i think perry is probably more right here than paul if their going to argue over who is carrying reagan's mantle, but it's going to be up to the voters to decide. particularly with all of these global con from auations going on -- conflagrations going on, is the republican party ready for a more hands-off, doveish foreign policy, and that is going to be one of the interesting parts of the 2016 campaign. >> host: and what's remarkable is ronald reagan has been out of office for 25 years. >> guest: and still, still affect the party, and it's one of the things republicans need to do in 2016 is stop talking about what would reagan do. and i think this happened with democrats, oh, 20 or 30 years ago where it was constantly

democrats trying to grab john f. kennedy's mantle and always looking for that next inspirational, all-encompassing leader. and you have to move past the past. and i think it's been a problem for republicans, that they spend be their primary campaigns arguing over who's more like reagan. they need to start argumenting over who is more like the party today, who can lead the party into the future, who is going to appeal to what voters care about today, not 30 or 40 years ago. >> host: here's a response from senator rand paul. i asked governor perry how many americans should send their sons or daughters to die for a foreign country, a nation the iraqis won't defend for themselves.

>> guest: well, look, what i find most interesting about paul's remarks is that if you were to go on the air and say i want to read you something from a democratic presidential candidate and you read those remarks, everybody would go, yeah, that pretty much sounds like a democrat. and so this shows you what rand paul is trying to do. and let's be clear about paul here, he's a very potentially-formidable, appealing candidate. he's very shrewd. of he's not like his father this that he understands real politics, and he knows that husband approach to foreign policy generally -- his approach to foreign policy generally, his libertarianism is not necessarily an easy sell, so he's worked hard to try and couch it in a manner that appeals to rank and file voters. i think, though, it's still a big question as to whether he could accomplish that. >> host: story available online at the washingtonexaminer's web site. you make the point that he is really trying to thread the

needle to try to placate conservative cans, some of who have called for impeachment, at least sarah palin on the outside, and also deal with an issue i -- issue that they want to ding the president. >> guest: yes. it would cost the party seats probably in november, it would probably cost them any chance they have of winning the senate majority. it's a loser, all right? the government shutdown was politically a loser, and what the speaker is trying to do is hold people off on that front. but also, i think, there's something to understand about john boehner. for all of his rhetoric, and he's a politician not immune to playing politics. he believes in the separation of powers and the lifelong as a career member of the house and as its leader. and he started preparing for this lawsuit in january long before he mentioned it because he really wants to try and do something about the legislative

branch's loss of power. and this has been under republican and democratic presidents alike. congress has been in some cases willingly giving away its power by not challenging the executive branch, and i think boehner wants to do something about that. for him they've chosen a very narrow summit matter here that has to do with the employer care act and the mandate. for boehner it's not so much that it would have a negative effect on the president's policies, but that it would, the court would rule in such a way that the legislative branch would get its power back. >> host: if the republicans have the house and the senate, how does that set them up for 2016? >> guest: well, it could go well, it could go bad. on the one hand, it could create more party unity, and the party could end up looking more like a governing party because the house and senate could act as

one, you get into conferences with the president because he can no longer depend on the democratic senate. on the other soond, they look weak among themselves. i all thely believe 2016 will always and probably only be about the candidates running. this is from an nbc news poll this past week. governor christie who spent a couple of days in iowa, a third of iowa republicans dislike himful we covered him last thursday in davenport, iowa, and earlier in the day he traveled to marion, iowa, was asked by reporters whether he's going to run in 2016. >> oh, who knows, kelly? [laughter] i mean, you know, these kinds of questions are the questions that you guys are fascinated with. what i think happens is people get to know you and make a judgment. they're not going to put you in

any kind of box. the box they put you in, ultimately, is yes or no. and all the rest of the boxes really are meaningless in the context of yes or no. so every election i've ever run in i present myself as who i am, and people make a judgment. and sometimes i've won, and sometimes i've lost. so if i decide to run for anything else again in my life, i'll just come out, present heist, gentleman asked me a direct question, i gave him a direct answer. i don't know whether he liked it or didn't like it. i tell them what i think and then everyone else will get to decide. they don't go in there and shay are you conservative enough, liberal enough, moderate enough, that's not what people say? do i trust him, can i count on him to tell me the truth? that's the way people judge, i think, who they're going to vote for for president, for governor or for any other judge.

if i are run for anything again, if i get the same results, i'd be pretty happy. so i don't -- those questions don't bother me or matter to me at all. >> host: david drucker of washington examiner, they also vote, voters, on likable. if a third of iowans dislike him, iowan republicans, where does that put chris christie? >> >> in healthcare. >> host: where is where he's going to be next month. >> guest: right. i think the issue is whether he can avoid death by a thousand cuts. there have been some state budget issues in new jersey and things of that nature. and when he's running for president if he runs, and i bet he's planning to run, it's going to be a matter of, one, his record as governor but also his record as a leader which has all been his strongest opponent to any i potential candidacy.

he probable has as much if not more natural political skill than any potential republican presidential candidate. so for him particularly because he's coming from a blue state, the issue's going to be whether that quality of leadership can overcome some of the rare problems he's had over the test six, seven months. whether or not he can win aye is not all that relevant. the republicans are going to structure the campaign this time through the rnc. how does he do on two out of three? >> host: yet our focus on hillary clinton, vice president biden, senator elizabeth warren and other potential democrats running in 2012. today we're turning our attention to the republican

field. ben carson gets grassroots boost for a run in 2016. he certainly has a lot of buzz out there. >> guest: people like him. i talk to people, and they ask me about him. but i think what republicans need when any party leads, particularly republicans, so someone who has done this before. they need a professional billion decision who's gone the political wars of -- [inaudible] clearly, mr. car soften is an accomplished -- carson is an accomplished physician. intellectually, he could run circles around a lot of people. but when it comes to running for president, you need a professional. you don't need somebody who has come up by speaking as freely as he has and without the experience to put together national campaign because it just, it does something to you, and it's not as simple as just people liking you or just having

particular positions. it's about all of those things, it's about knowing how to play the game of politics. it's no different there a really good athlete. >> host: join us on facebook at facebook.com/c-span or send us a tweet @c-spanwj. this is the cover story out this week of governor rick perry, version 2.0. of course, if you google his name and go to youtube, his many gaffes including that famous oops moment will be first to pop up. is it, can he make a good second impression? >> guest: anybody and be, actually, if you look at the history of republican presidential campaigns, the winners tend to be successful the second time around. reagan was successful the second

time around. you know, in terms of winning the nomination. dole was successful the second time around. if you look at romney, he was successful at winning the nomination the second time around. i think anybody can do well the second time around. i think the issue for rick perry in some ways is, you know, what is going to be his national appeal coming from are texas given that the last republican president was from texas, and there still in some ways could be a political hangover from the idea of, oh, here we go again, another texas republican. the thing with perry is if he really wants to do what i think he learned from last time is you don't do it on the fly. you prepare early even when you announce later. he prepared late, he announced late, and it led to oops. i think he's probably a lot better at doing this than the oops moment would suggest if you look at his leadership in texas. and so it'll be, it'll be interesting to see does he jump in early next year or start to really lay the groundwork late

this year knowing that it takes prep work? >> host: and he has a new set of glasses. >> guest: yeah. look, people talk about that all the time. chris christie's lost some weight, rick perry has glasses. whatever. what do you believe in, can you motivate people to vote for you. do you present voters in the country what they're looking for at the time they're looking for it. >> host: david drucker serving as senior correspondent of the washington examiner. don in from york -- northern that from york, pennsylvania, good morning. >> caller: good morning. how are you this morning? >> host: fine, how are you, donna? >> guest: good, thank you. i want today ask mr. drucker a question. obama didn't have nothing when he come in, and i think -- [inaudible] the second time was about two or three people at a time.

so i don't think it has anything to do with this. >> guest: yeah, i respectfully disagree. if you look at the history of winning really big races whether they're senate races or presidential races or races for governor, it takes some level of political skill, but i think especially in the modern media environment when you're running for president, you need to have been through this war before, and you need to have an understanding of the blocking and tackling, just the fundamentals of running a campaign. you can be an outsider, but you need to find your way in, i think, at a lower level than running for president, otherwise you end up with a lot of problems, and your campaign doesn't go anywhere, and you, in some cases, can cause your party problems because you say and do things that may seem normal in the real world, but they just don't play well presidentially. and, again, especially in the age of twitter and facebook where, you know, every extended quote comes a one-sentence, cropped gaffe fair or not.

and a lot of times it's not fair, but it doesn't matter. a couple of year ago in new hampshire mitt romney is giving a discussion to a chamber of commerce about the idea of being able to change health care providers if you want to and the freedom to be able to do that, and that's what he believed in. and he says i like to be able to to fire people that provide services to me. in the context of i don't want to get stuck with a health care company that adopt doing a good job. but at a time, you know, when people are struggling economically. that whole discussion gets truncated into i like to be able to fire people. and there's a guy that's actually one more st. before this is the kind of thing i think if you're the republicans

who have not won race for the white house since 2004 and have issues on the battle growpped map, you want experience, political experience at least. >> host: mitt romney insists that he has no intention of running. he has said that repeatedly. that has not stopped the speculation about a potential 2016 launch. >> guest: and i think part of that is just the unsettled nature of the field at this early stage, the fact that a lot of major republican donors haven't found somebody they could really latch on to. it was supposed to be chris christie, and then the bridge incident happened. they think maybe jeb bush is going to run, but they don't know. but the thing about romney is, again, i think the party needs to turn a page and be forward thinking. and romney probably has the skill to be president. if you take, just take the political positions out of it and policy positions, he has the executive skill to execute the job, but he has not proven that

he can be a good candidate. and so i think republicans would be better served going to somebody with more political, personal appeal. there's a lot of good about romney the person. he was never able to bring that out to the voters and really communicate that. he left himself open to being caricatured, and i think the party would be much better served taking a chance on somebody else rather than going for a didder time. some people -- for a third time. nixon didn't just go one, two, three. and i just think the republican party in its effort to find new leadership at the top and somebody to start of help the party redefine it and move it into the future would be better than somebody who hasn't won a race. it was only one race for governor since, i believe, 2002. >> one of our viewers saying rick perry is an ignorant

redneck. share your thoughts at c-spanwj. ryan from new mexico, good morning. >> caller: good morning, c-span, thanks for taking my call. is it drucker or ducker? >> guest: drucker. >> caller: by the way, your tie really looks good on you. anyway, my comment is this. first of all, you have paul ryan who was vice president candidate. to do you give any credence to the fact that he was in the spotlight -- >> host: what about paul ryan? >> guest: you know, i think paul ryan is an interesting figure. he is probably the most influential congressional republican over the last half dozen years at least. his, you know, his budgets have become now it's almost like an afterthought that he has become leader for the republican party on fiscal issues. he got a taste of being a national figure and really having a chance to exert be wider influence over the party's

direction, and he liked it. i don't tend to think he's going to run for president in 2016, but i know that he's considering doing so in a way that he wouldn't have done it before. leading up to 2012 he said, fine, you know, i'll think about it, but he was really never going to do it. just because i think given his family life and he's got some young kids, and he goes home to wisconsin every weekend, basically saying good-bye to his family was something he didn't want to do. he's set to become ways and means chairman in the house which is something of a dream job for him, and he can influence tax policy, fiscal policy from, you know, even a wider vantage point. and i know that that appeals to him a great deal. but i think he probably is giving more thought to running for president now than he did before in the sense that he got a taste of it, and i think what he could do with the job appeals to him. and be now that he has the kind

of name id and notoriety that you get from being a vice presidential nominee, he has to start building the kind of profile that would be required for some house member from wisconsin to have a chance of winning the nomination, he's a different sort of figure. the possibilities are greater for him. do i think he ends up running? i'd bet be, no, but he's considering it in a way that he did not do a few year ago. >> caller: caller from new york, good morning. i wish you'd put this idea into the thought paradigm of things. both parties are guilty as accused. i mean, the republicans are guilty as accused of being the partof the rip, but the democrats are guilty as being the party for the public employee unions.

my viewpoint is we need to start thinking in ohms of a safety net for all citizens of this country. and the idea of a flat cola, you know, just monetizing the national debt, we are basically postponing an apocalypse. >> host: francis, thanks for the call. let me take his final point. how big of an issue of the debt be in 2016? >> guest: i think it becomes how the americans feel about the economy at that time. the debt became a big issue as it fit into the economic crash, and all the it was at levels people had never seen before. income had stagnated, property value were in the tank, and it sired people that goth looked -- all of a sudden you look at the debt and what it potentially means for the future and the social safety net, medicare,

medicaid, social security, and it was a bigger issue than i'd ever seen. usually the debt historically really necessarily wasn't that big of an issue except for the people that didn't control the purse. so if you were the party not in charge, you really cared about the debt. if you were the party in charge, bell, look, you were spending your money on really good things. so let's see where the economy is in 2012, the job market, let's see where the debt -- what the debt looks like two years from now, and that'll kind of tell you. >> host: nancy from monticello, minnesota, good morning. >> caller: good morning. my comment is i'm really upset over the person who -- not that i would vote for rick perry, but the comment that he made in that, that he was a redneck, bigoted, whatever? well, let me ask that person and everyone else if they remember who hillary clinton really is and bill clinton. they were rednecks. and i remember all that.

and i remember when they moved into the white house. they thought the hell's angels moved in with all their relatives. so let the fight begin. get someone in there with some brains, some with high tomorrows, not so high that they're weird. but someone who can run this country. >> host: nancy, who is that candidate? who is that person? >> caller: let that candidate stand up. we're all ready, we're watching. >> host: okay, thanks for the call. nancy makes reference to hillary clinton, and a new quinnipiac survey -- again, it's early -- showing she has a lead over the likely gop field. you can get the information online at the quinnipiac university web site, and somebody we haven't mentioned, jeb bush. >> guest: jeb bush, i don't think, is going to run. i think that i could be wrong, but usually when you really want to run for president, it's something that you really plan

for and you don't have preconditions. and, you know, if you look back, for instance, at now-former indiana governor mitch daniels, he was thinking about it, but he wanted a truce between the fiscal and the social conservatives in the republican party and justify bush has talked about being engaged in a certain way, he would like it. i think jeb bush is as qualified as anyone out there, he won two terms as a governor of florida, he was very well received by florida voters. florida is one of the biggest states with one of the more diverse populations. he brings a lot of -- >> "washington journal" is live every day at 7 a.m. eastern. we leave it now as the senate is coming in momentarily to begin the first of the final two week of legislative work before the august recess. today members will follow a schedule as of late with general speeches until 5 p.m. or so and votes at 5:30 on several

nominations. confirmation for an 11th circuit judge, a u.s. representative to an international civil aviation board and confirmation of a new u.s. ambassador to niger. live coverage here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal lord, your mercy and loving kindness endure forever. thank you for the favor you have given our nation, for blessing us in seasons of prosperity and privation.