have different interests among the clients we do want progress. i'm interested -- i like the idea of governing and i would like to see the congress and the white house covered so that's what i'm listening for is to see is the fight going to start tomorrow. that's what i'm listening for. >> i hope that we will see more thoughtfulness and respect. i hope if this election -- one thing is the economic insecurity that americans feel, one out of two people still think that we are in a recession. figuring out ways to work together to address that is going to be the key moving forward. is that i'm focused more on friday's meeting at the white house. i think republican leaders and other members of the republican conference in the house and the house and the senate having a

dialogue and i talk back to 2011 where we all had a little bit of optimism that these folks could be in a row and come together on something significant and we know how that story went according to bob woodward to boulevard for different reasons but what is interesting to me is whether it bears the fruit of the dialogue in terms of the branch between republicans and democrats that is something we will have to wait and see but hopefully we will be hearkening back to that meeting in november 2014 as an opportunity to move the ball forward. >> i think the folks in this administration has been prepared for some time and they knew it was going to happen, and i think that we will hear a very good tone and the question then is what happens when the extremes of both parties turned.

>> i have a very helpful twitter feed that somebody has asked about infrastructure legislation and it may be tied onto some tax reform or kind of where -- are you pretty optimistic about? the >> there will be things that have been until march that will be the first vehicle and the question is will that become a catchall vehicle or is this too soon. there is no doubt making sure that we pass a highway bill. >> we may also see efforts to do something on the repatriation tax and funnel those proceeds to an infrastructure bank. >> what about trade and what is

the best possibility for the trade agreement moving forward? >> that is a place where you have to thread the needle and find the middle and metal and passage with significant votes on both sides of the aisle in both chambers. >> i think that house republicans are going to need to do some soul-searching in terms of what they want their trade policy to be in that it party has been somewhat divided and well they give the president -- i don't know dot without significant restrictions and what would that look like.

somebody was asking about the tax extenders. is that a lot of what you're going to be looking at. we do not want to end up on the wrong end. >> i think everybody wants the tax extenders to go away and they want this to happen and that is everyone's goal. the question is can they get to it. everyone is going to be focused and they want to get it done and it is a good opportunity. again threading the needle and getting the votes to get it done. >> we need that dynamic scoring.

>> we don't have time for that dialogue here being able to pick and choose which ones should be made permanent and throw away and i think the house started that process and the senate went in their own direction. we have to sort of look at how do we do another blanket package retroactive for going forward until we can have that dialogue in the spring. >> does anybody see a flurry of the senate confirmation in the lame duck? >> if we can get it done, yes there will be a big push by the majority leader reid to get as many nominations done as possible because it only gets harder and what that means is that the four-time will be consumed with nominations and it makes it difficult to work on

other issues. >> denominations are one of those issues that can give an indication of the republicans kind of attitude towards working with the president because he is the nomination to some degree express is a policy position and whatnot but ultimately these are people the president wants working for him. the senate should essentially pass most of the president's nomination. so i think that it could be a sign if they are willing to say yes let's vote on these. not all of them but -- >> do not have to deal with the nuclear option. >> we are going to do a line of question. >> i'm from the american association. in the first panel we talked about the disconnect with voters

showing leadership in education policy. especially k-12 and i know that it has become the third rail in the state elections of the common core issues in particular. but do you see the congress working on the margins in the k-12 education and is the authorization specifically can you talk about the house bills that passed the bipartisan support and whether that has any chance in this new political climate? >> i think that there is an opportunity for education reform in this environment. the last time that we did no child left child left behind, you know, it took a bipartisan approach. with k-12 it takes years and years and several congresses to get right the authorized

legislation. i am hopeful that we make progress on this point not only k-12 but also higher education. >> and i think that you are going to have a chair of health and patty murray who will be an advocate and who will really want to pass something or get something good time and get it done in a bipartisan way. >> it will be helpful not only in education but also pensions. >> what is interesting about this election is that for the first time in history the congress has 100 women and democrat and republican which is to be amazing to think about it if you look but if you look at republicans and see the challenges they face there are opportunities for the republicans to have a conference to engage on things like working families and other issues like education and attention that are related and i think on the labor front there are some

opportunities if they want to take them. >> apologies we must release the panelists but thank you so much. [applause] i want to thank you all for joining us today for actively participating. we are enjoying watching the stream of tweets and encourage you to stay part of the discussion at #dayafter. i am pleased to have the upper committee to introduce from the united technologies director of the government communications and has been incredibly generous in making a series of

conversations with charlie cook possible. so, welcome. >> thanks. we appreciate it. on behalf of the technologies team, we are proud to be here today. i'm always blessed to introduce c-charlie which is an easy introduction because he's a long-standing friend of many of us in the company. i also want to thank the national journal for our continued partnership. while there are winners and losers we are all talking about how we want to kind of remind everybody that yesterday, today, to celebrate as americans we have the opportunity to cast a vote for the member or the person that we wanted to elect let's not forget that because not every country gets to do that. if the united technologies gave 220,000 employees and we are in almost every country around the world. and in some of those countries people don't get that

opportunity. so it is also a day to celebrate one of those great rights that we have as americans. we have had a pretty good month. so i thought in the systems we have a particularly good month and i'm going to mention something is very quick. first the joint strike fighter which is built by lockheed martin we provide the engines and they did the first carrier proving that the navy will be able to land at the next generation of the fighter on the aircraft carrier. that is a pretty cool thing. we introduced last month the coolest and the baddest technology of any helicopter on earth and it's also the fastest helicopter. it's got the propellers, the push propeller in the back. it's the future in the game changing technology. it's twice as fast as any

helicopter in the market today so it was our honor to introduce that and we look forward to developing that further in the years to come. we also had what is a very unique aviation event. just in the last few weeks and one week alone on the contents introduced three new aircraft. the gulfstream did it here and the united states and mitsubishi introduced project in japan and in brazil. three new aircraft and continents all powered. that is a new technology and what is impressive about that as is it is the most fuel-efficient in the market today. 15% more fuel-efficient than any other engine. so all of us drive automobiles

we would like to get 15% fuel efficiency out of our automobiles so it's quite a week. then finally, i just want to mention the diversity of our company. that we have about half their aerospace and building systems. it belongs to the industrial systems group and you will know the air-conditioning's business that's been around for a long time. well, carrier recently got a contact to cool all of the artwork and assisting the vatican. that requires kind of going in and mapping all of the systems and the leave it or not they were 500-years-old, so body sweat and temperature comes from the outdoors. they affect the pieces of art that you have seen whenever you've been assisting the chapels. so they went in and mapped it

and design the system to provide a low filtering and cooling to protect so that the next 500 years people that want to visit can enjoy them the way that many of us have and it requires 70 monitors throughout the vatican just to take temperatures and readings and everything that's going on. so, i personally think that is pretty cool. finally, since we are on that note, let me introduce the coolest analyst of politics in america, charlie cook. [applause] >> that was the shortest introduction that i have had in a while. i always wanted someone to say charlie cook is someone who needs no introduction and then they just sit down so that's awesome actually. anyway, i'm teasing. thank you, marty and all of the

people at united technologies that have a chance to do a bunch of events for them and they are great, great people to work for in a great company. i long for the day that i can afford to have a house with an elevator and my own helicopter but not in this lifetime. anyway i can always wish. so, you are all observers. i'm trying to figure out how to do this. you are a observers of experiment and sleep deprivation i finished finished the path 2:45 and went back to my hotel and to ask it of my column for the national journal for friday and attend friday's magazine and showered and shaved and packed because i'd been up there i've been up there since friday and i took the 6:00 train down so i've had a 15 minute nap because i finished the column while i was on the train.

we will see if i have any coherence whatsoever. but anyway, so this is not a polished oration that i will be giving a few weeks after i'd gone to sleep. but we talk about a couple of things. number one, we've been talking for some time, a couple of months, that what we are seeing for the senate democrats was the equivalent of a perfect storm. four things come together. the least important of all of them was the numerical exposure. the republicans only had 15. so that was the least of the senate democrats problems. the second one was much bigger, the geography. and most of the folks in this audience because you were all very wired and a group of people you know the democrats had seven seats and republicans only had one seat in the obama state but more importantly, six of the

democrats were in the states that were carried by 14 points or more. so the map we knew up front was going to be ugly. the third turn out, and we know that increasingly in the presidential election, the turnout is big and broad and diverse and it looks like the country that in the midterm elections the turnout is more conservative, more republican, and a part of this is that when, okay maybe the older fifth in this room people 65 and older were pretty democratic and franklin roosevelt and the new deal and all that. 65 and older now are likely to remember in their unfortunate years under president carter and

better years during president reagan's day are likely to remember that 12 years and that under franklin roosevelt and so this is a different pool of the seniors and because they vote more often than anybody else, they drop off the least and so there is a gap between what happens in the presidential elections and midterm and it's getting wider. it doesn't mean they will always do well in the midterm elections because that isn't the case. if things happen of course we could have a bad election. of course they could have a bad election@knock stuff over. the fourth and obvious one is the environment. president obama's numbers being

lousy. but the four factors come together. so, to a certain extent we know that republicans are going to have some pretty significant gains in this election, but how far is this going to go? to be honest i thought that it was going to be at the bottom and four were five. right now where we are are setting are sitting in his seven seats which we get the republicans to 52. but it looks like a pretty good chance they will get eight or even nine depending upon the finish in alaska where they got the dogs left and have to bring the ballot boxes in so that it takes them a while to do that. alaska is a small-town state and what happens december 6 in louisiana. but if you look at the states and say okay montana, south

dakota, west virginia, those were the open seats that were easy and everybody knew where those were going. and then you have three more democratic seats that were also in the states. pryor in arkansas, and so he's already tipped over and it's on the republican side, so four of the games so far have been wrong me plus the 14 states and then we know that in the four purple states that we were all watching and my thought was okay for this to be a way that republicans need to pretty much win either six out of six or five out of six of the plus 14 states and agenda any to win three out of four or four out of four of the

purple states which they've done with iowa, colorado and north carolina. the one that slipped away with new hampshire. so that fits the text of the way, no question about it. then republicans kind of figured well, they could lose one but they could lose to. they held onto all three of their seats with mitch mcconnell in kentucky that ended up as a blowout and obviously nobody knew that it was going to be a blowout. it was 1.8 million a week or so ago so obviously there was doubt that it blew its sold out towards the big league leader on. then you had the other two with kansas and his numbers were awful. as long as the race was about pat roberts, he was in deep

trouble. it was only when the republicans sort of switched jeers and shifted from trying to paint paint greg as a evil human being and switch to something that worked better he is going to vote with democrats. and that is when roberts kind of came back in and it got really close and then in the end he was able to win. and it's always fun i think what they ought to do is escape the studio and put a camera in the green room or in a hallway in the studio. early on before any of the vote was cast or counted as talking to david axelrod and he was making the argument that look, clearly the republicans are having a really, really good night. it's so inconsistent for the republicans do have that good of the night and to drop an incumbent in a state that ought to be bares, kansas. i remember thinking yes but

these are unique circumstances with roberts situation and the civil war taking place in the turnout that he was exactly right. and then we had come i lost my train of thought. then obviously georgia where we knew there was a possibility that somebody could win without a runoff and i think most people assumed there was going to be. and so, for tom to win without a runoff that was a big surprise. so the republicans go in terms of holding onto their own state and that hits the wave test. so it is a way that the question is is that a tsunami. i heard a certain cable networks throwing this around, but the thing is good size, yes, but for me when you think of 1990 or 1980 in a landslide when you think of 1994, the newt gingrich landslide and you think about that democratic wave in 2006 and you think about the republican

wave of 2010, the hallmark of these races is that you have upsets occur. and so, to me my test was going to be the republicans win someplace where they were not supposed to win. virginia, if ed gillespie have upsets mark warner which obviously it's still being counted but it's probably a margin but that almost happened. or mike mcfarland against al franken in minnesota or just merkley in oregon. to me that would have been the okay certifiable great tsunami whatever metaphor you want to use. that's where that would have been. but, so some of this was expected. but i think that when you look at some of the other races particularly in the house and

things were going on that we didn't expect -- we knew that republicans would likely have a turnout advantage but what we saw was a significant drop-off. there was a heck of a lot of democratic voters but for whatever reason they chose not to vote. whether they were upset with the president obama, whether they couldn't give a reasonable turnout, whatever it was called the house editor was looking up accounts last night saying you have some shockingly low democratic vote totals in a lot of these districts that cause huge problems for democrats in upstate new york specifically all the way up to california where you had the democratic losses where the democratic vote was really, really low. something was going on that was

in the democratic side. and obviously there was more than that going on, but it was just in some places there were some tickets. for example how many of you live in maryland? does anybody here think that john delaney was going to have a tough race? i heard there was a race going on. that was really close and he was behind for a good part of the evening. i think in maryland, and that is to the maryland governor's race, which i think that if you were going to say what is a real surprise, we knew that it was closing some. we knew that it was weak, and thank god for the internet where we can change the ratings four or five days ago we moved to the

tossup to be honest where he hogan was going to win, well know that we thought he is going to make it pretty close. why was that? i think there was a general lack of enthusiasm for the term and so i think i was maybe a third of it. that's the two thirds of it was the lieutenant governor, the democratic nominee was given exactly one thing to do as the lieutenant governor and that was the maryland health care website and that got screwed up so bad i think it is those two things together. but it seemed like in particular the sort of mid-atlantic virginia maryland up through new york something weird was happening. and we are going to be sifting through mountains of the election results and exit polls

for the next couple of weeks so we will try to figure out what happened. okay, quickly some implication talk. number one, if it stays at seven, which i don't think that will if it goes to 8:53 it will get 54. holding on in 2016 where you remember -- where is my cheat sheet? there are 21 republican seats and only 15 -- i'm trying to read upside down. i knew the statistic before i was sleep deprived. the 24 republican seats and only 24 democratic seats. and we are six of those

republican seats are up in the obama state. so they need a cushion going into 2016. but even between now and then think about okay let's pick the middle number and say republicans are at 53. let's see. we've got potentially marco rubio, ted cruz, rand paul running around the country running for president, and not there for some votes, the new majority leader mitch mcconnell and then we are going to have some folks, some republicans that are in some pretty challenging situations in 2016 and there is also a limit to what they can sign up for. mike kirk and illinois in the state that president obama carried by 17 points. how conservative legislation will he be willing to sign on?

.. and maybe very conservative, then comes over to the senate

where you might have up to three or more missing members, and then these moderates or these other ashman members in top districts, so that that's another obstacle for republicans in terms of getting things through. and then, do we think harry reid and democrats are going to just, you know, play dead and let things roll through? gosh, i don't think so. so it's, you know, this, i wouldn't just sort of this and because republicans have gotten majority and a majority by a couple of seats that suddenly congress is going to start becoming a productive entity. today we've got, this afternoon the president is having a news conference, and visa meetings later in the week or on friday. it will be interesting to see what the president does. because i don't expect, remember

right after the 1994 democratic disaster, and when president clinton sort of basically said there's a new way. i'm, i'm going in a different direction and sort of completely reconfigured the direction, whole strategy and started moving towards the center. i'm not going to hold my breath for this one. and part of it is i don't think the president feels any culpability, any responsibility whatsoever for what happened. and i think he deserves a heck of a lot of it but i don't think he thinks so. and so for him to say i need to do things differently, i'm not sure that, is in the president's dna. so you've got that sort of going on. will there be a shakeup? i think there will be sort of a moderate, moderately small shakeup in the white house. but again i think the president has people that he's comfortable

with, very comfortable with, maybe too comfortable with, and i don't think he's going to be pitching a bunch of people out the door. and so might not be, you know, as much change as there ought to be. i think that couple of years are going to be really, really interesting. be interesting to see how much patience that mitch mcconnell has with harry reid and democrats. i would have thought that democrats would be may be considering some changes in leadership, but, you know, we a hearing some people say no, no, schumer is on board lock in. okay, okay. little surprised but okay. and since i do think that on the one hand harry reid, his super pac was raising enormous amounts

of money, was a huge part of sort of the financial advertising apparatus for democrats. you can't say that he didn't do everything he could in that respect, but i also think though the argument we've heard for the last week or so that the senator reid in protecting, shielding his members from casting tough vote, that he may have done them a disservice. that mark pryor, the mark begich, that mary landrieu, that kay hagan probably could've used some opportunities to split with the president on sunday ticket high profile issues. that would've helped them out. in my column for tuesday, yeah, yesterday, wow, okay. a friend of mine reminded me of a quote from the late democratic congressman mike signer, where

some, you become if you don't want to run into buildings, burning buildings, don't become a fireman. the thing is that's part of the job of being a member of congress is taking tough votes. and so on one hand these democratic incumbents were not given the opportunity to create some distance and were running 97% support levels for the president because nothing particularly can can just cannot. on the one hand, but on the other hand, that policy wasn't happening. i mean we've got big problems facing this country and let's face it, you senate was voting on them. so there's some, but look -- looks like democrats are going to stay right there. anywhere, we are going to be sifting through this for a while trying to figure what in heck happened. because these things, anybody who is one simple explanation for what happened, i'm sorry, these things are sort of bigger

and more complicated. it's going to take some time to do that. i'm supposed to take some questions of them also post to look at this ipad. and what it should do -- where did it go? what i should do is raffle this "national journal" ipad off, but they didn't tell me i could. okay, so we've got -- we're supposed to have some questions year. i'm not a technology person. i mean, i haven't ipad but -- let's see. oh, this is nice. i would not want charlie cook's election we can sleep schedule. i am as bad as i thought. anyway, let's go down -- am looking for a question. i did see some interesting comments though, and it was some quotes -- well, that's all right. there are microphones here and here while i'm looking. it was a lot -- one of my

favorite people, somebody was quoting a line is that i didn't get a chance to hear that was right. steve on gop nominating normal candidates. when you don't nominate not scum you don't give squirrels anything to eat. wow, did steve really say that? no wonder the tea party hate his guts. but anyway, that was my favorite. let's go here and then you. go ahead. [inaudible] >> the republicans did so -- spent move to six inches. >> with the governorship race. corbett was the only and, republican governor who lost. picked up massachusetts, arkansas and illinois and maryland. the post said a couple days ago that their surveys indicate republicans go to pick up a number of state legislators to should legislate seats and take

control of couple more chambers. what is your view, do you think that this is showing now more of a trend at the state level for republicans to be more successful than historically they have been? >> good question. and just play on the governor think before recovered to the statehouse thing, is that each of these situations were different. we talked about maryland, then in massachusetts with martha coakley screwing up her second and presumably final statewide bid. and pennsylvania with governor corbett, you know, it goes to show how, we could watch from washington or anywhere. we can watch senate races, house races, and the dynamic in these races are -- there some linkage across state lines and regions and things, and i think we did pretty good, not perfect but pretty good at figuring out

what's generally likely to happen. but the governors races are so difficult because they are just sort of indigenous issues, local issues. and even if you know what they all are, you don't know how to weigh them. you know, a lot of times governors of a new governor will come in and they will do some tough, unpopular things to their numbers go in the toilet, and presumably in year two, three, starts coming back up, curls up and they get reelected. that happens a lot. but with corbett they just sort of went down, stay down. i've had friends from pennsylvania say, well, maybe it was the penn state thing, where the penn state loyalists thought he threw them under a bus and the critics thought that he didn't do enough early enough, as attorney general. and the thing is for those of us, how the heck do you figure out how much to weigh these things?

but you inman report a state legislature, i've gotten enough and republican legislative leadership group -- it was a really, really good night, but this is where the timing that i talked about comes in. because there are far more state legislative seats up and governorships up in the midterm election cycle, which is a good cycle for republicans, it really puts democrats in a disadvantageous because they're good years, presidential years, there's not as much up. and then when you think back to what happened this past time where republicans had horrific nights in 2006, in 2008. i mean, republicans were in deep trouble coming out of 2008. but did you ever want to have a good election, the best election you're going to have is one that

ends in a zero because that leads into redistricting, and republicans got this huge boost in 2010. and so they were able to do, due to democrats what democrats have been doing to them for generations. there's more to it than redistricting because the population, residential patterns and all that, by think we are seeing a pattern where democrats have some real, real problems in midterm elections, as long as the most enthusiastic democratic voting groups are just sort of a disinclined to vote in midterm elections. and so it's a feast and famine type situation, presidential midterm. something democrats, they have a real, real problem on the state legislative gubernatorial level which is huge congressional implications. i think your points are well taken but it's going to take you days before we know exactly but i think it's safe to say they had a heck of a night on that level, too. that's the thing, when you are having a night, you know, if

dogcatcher for partisan jobs, then democratic dog catchers would've had a really bad night. and people that have never even been to washington on a school trip got sucked out of because of what was going on in terms of democrats in washington. great question, thank you. yes, sir. >> the republican pollster talked about how hard it is reported to in the white house three times in a row. how do you see the atmosphere in 2016 given on the one and that along with obama's unpopular to come on the other hand, the demographic advantages the democrats seem to have in presidential your? >> what a my favorite pollsters. excellent point. let me throw out a couple things. number one, you were absorbed right. what we had, five times since the end of world war ii a party has at the white house for two consecutive terms and on time after eight years of president reagan to the party in the white house when a third consecutive

term. guess what? president reagan's approval ratings back in 1980 were very good coming democrats in their infinite wisdom nominated michael dukakis and sort of the rest is history. for 2016, the are a couple things we don't know. obviously, history argues that republicans ought to win the presidency in 2016, but the question is will they have repaired their brand? have they repaired some of the problems with minority voters, young voters, women voters, self-described moderate voters? and beyond this, with this year maybe a little bit but i would argue that some of those groups just safely schedule. it will be very interesting to watch, for example, to see whether latino turnout dropped disproportionately, for example,

with being upset that immigration has gone through and all that. so have republicans addressed their brand of challenges? will obviously make a difference on top of this obviously whoever the republican nominee is going to be. and on the other hand, what kind of shape is the democratic brand? that's where i would love to know what president obama's job approval ratings in the summer and fall of 2016, how is the affordable care act, you know, is it closer to even up rather than upside down where it's been? and, you know, third, what is the economy looking like? i'm not just that that how do people feel the economy is doing. because technically speaking the economy, unemployment is down below six and yada, yada, yada, but at the same time for a lot of people as far as they're concerned their personal economy

has turned around. all of these are things that are going to sort of establish what kind of shape the democratic brand is in. and so it's a great point and it's one that we will all enjoy chewing over for the next two years, but it's obviously an important question. over here. >> i think it's easy to pivot to 2016 but we have two years. we have seen a whole lot of action and commonality -- >> do you think? >> so my question is this. taking the premise of the president publicly is unwilling to likely express any element of culpability for last night, and then he has a minority in the senate side where people are really going to need to try to get something done in order to show some achievement for 2016, and if nothing else to break up the boredom of doing nothing. what do you see are some issues with the president and his democratic senate, a minority

that he has come is willing to give, work, a chief? so it doesn't wind up being more of the same do-nothing? >> several of us were talking beforehand about mcconnell's victory speech, which actually didn't sound like a victory speech as much as -- it actually sounded like the election hadn't been held yet, in the sense that it was sort of what republicans need to do and we need to look for things to work together and all that. we hadn't heard a whole lot of that and we'll see how serious he is about that, but do they look for some of the common denominator things? like infrastructure, which is august huge. there are things, there are things that could be done that are not divisive, but at the same time the big ones, they really are.

social security reform, the i can't say you could do that in an afternoon. it's pretty simple what you need to do. it's scary and painful to do that. but medicare, no, that's a lot more collocated. i just say that stuff's not going to happen. i don't have any reason to believe -- i think republicans in the long term interest of the party desperately need to fix their problems with latino voters and they desperately need to reposition themselves somewhat on immigration. i think if i were a republican strategist i would say, you know, first of all if i were republican strategist i would've wished the democrat had done it this past time. the best case for republicans is immigration reform happens and they don't have to vote for it and pick off their base.

and start working on increasing those numbers to remember in 2004 in the exit polls president george w. bush got 44% of the latino vote. there's some political scientists who think that actually the and supports were a little off, closer to 40, but hey, 40, that's a heck of a lot better 7% that mitt romney got. so sort of repair some of that over there. i'm going to have -- that's question i need to take up with more sleep, but i think we're going to hear more about it. and it will be what, you know, what are they willing to do. and do the more conservative elements of the party, can they come to terms with the infrastructure capital spending is not big government. it's just sort of something that

kind of neat stuff that nobody else is going to do. they need to get past that point. but thanks. my god, i've done that guy for ever. >> sunshine press. a two-parter. first, are the democrats, is the democratic get out the vote operation kind of atrophying, or other republicans just getting a lot better at get out the vote? and a second, this time what's happened to the money that was wasted in the campaigns speaks great questions, ed. we used to use transfer for back in the old days the prehistoric campaign finance numbers -- anyway. okay. first, i don't think the democratic get out the vote operation has atrophied but i do think what's happened, i think it is two different things. number one come i think republicans are starting to catch up and the effect have caught on some states have caught up. i think republicans have closed the gap but i don't think democrats of after the.

republicans getting back in the game. but the other thing is, there's always been a with him that i don't like, doubt it's ever been proven in academic research, but had a good ground game, a good field operation was good for maybe two percentage points. and whether it's do or three or four or one, whatever, but the thing about it is you are messaging and -- you have to be within that range for the ground game to pull you over the front, over the top. the thing is i don't think democrats, i think they were in a deeper hole than that so that the ground, the field was simply not able to save them no matter what they do. and you've got to think, take colorado with mark udall. michael bennet put together this amazing operation in 2010 when he was up for his first election but he had been appointed before that, you remember. amazing operation.

and then the obama campaign put their sin in 2012 in colorado. so the thing is there's no reason whatsoever -- and bennett as chairman of the docc and guy, executive director and manager before, you've got to assume that mark udall had a fabulous ground game. i have no reason to think it wasn't, but i think they had other problems, other issues. part of it was just maybe he was just into deep hole. to me that the path, and part of it was maybe there was some strategic miscalculation about being overly dependent upon women's and reproductive issues to the exclusion of other issues and that, you know, i think maybe -- and udall and democrats would certainly say he talked about a lot of other issues and the rent a lot of ads on a lot of things other than reproductive issues but it was tilted that way. but the thing about it is,

implicit is the dependence that democrats have had of late on that sort of women's constellation of issues. it's almost implies that that's all women are interested in. well, no. you know? you know, if a republican, if the shoe were on the other foot i think you would probably say republicans were condescending women by thinking of them in debt such a narrow vein but obviously it's not. so there was some issues there, but i think, to me the tip off that udall was going to have a really, really tough race was when, you know, kim bok who screwed up to discredit the last senate race when he is running against bennett. remember, he looked like he was going to be the nominee against mark udall. udall was only, what, four, five, six, seven points ahead so

when the republicans did a switcheroo to cory gardner, boy, clearly a superior candidate. i'm looking forward to meeting congressman election bloc at a reception supplies because i haven't been too charitable to them. but anyway, that was a sign that udall had some real, real real problems. so you know, again there's always more than one or two things there. but i would argue that colorado the last few years if you're going to put from the most republican state to the most democratic state that colorado was straddling the 50-yard line more than any other state in the union so that if republicans cash but if democrats are having a bummer year, that's a scientific term, a bummer year,

then dashed okay, actually this is your right. van colorado would understandably send a drift over that way. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry? [inaudible] >> which half. i would say the last half of the tv money. and which have -- which was which half of the money was wasted. let's face it. in television advertising within a lot of things there's a lot diminishing returns. and that, you know, once you've seen -- i'm making up this number -- but once the voter has seen 300 ads for, by, on behalf of a candidate, how much more persuasive will the next 100 be? and the answer generally not that much. and so i think what we are seeing now is campaigns are spending, you know, way more

than they need you, way more than is optimal on television. but at the same time, you know, some of this other spending is kind of on an embryonic level. they're trying to figure out how to do it effectively. the example that i like to use is my daughter who in 2012 was living in cleveland. so obviously ohio was like ground zero for presidential races, but she had no cable television, no rabbit ears, knowing tenant. she was, whatever apple tv is that these young people -- she had that, whatever the hell that is, and jihad, and then drove to work and choose either listen to npr or listening to music on her whatever. so that if your advertising television radio, you weren't

getting her. and that's the challenge. so digital was basically, you become one of the only ways to get it. we are sort of, and it's only, and begin talking way out of my level but there's only like that much -- what's the -- are you still over there? no. there's a word i'm talking about, sort of content -- inventory. there's only so much inventory right now available of digital advertising, marketing opportunities yet. and so we are sort of not, not there yet. but i think a lot of this tv is way over the top. i mean, in terms of just -- well, in terms of quantity but also quality. i think the quality of television political ad is way,

way down from 15, 20 years ago. i think there are a lot of media consultants in both parties that could -- i think a positive ad is much harder, a good, positive and come an effective and it's a lot harder to do and a negative ad. there are a lot of folks who couldn't do an effective, positive and if their lives depended on it. they are not filmmakers. they don't have a background in terms of constructing a narrative, telling the story, being persuasive. it's just slash and burn which is easy. but, you become it is sometimes a positive is nice, too. >> i want to ask you about your favorite state. did of louisiana say we will send the senior senator back to go figh five for issues or do ty just hope republicans? >> that's a great question about louisiana. okay, and i will take both sides

of the issue as i often do. does mary landrieu have a heck of a challenge? of course she does. what did she pick up votes in a runoff wind, between the tea party guy. with cassidy getting a lot closer than a lot of us thought would happen. she's got our work cut out for her, no question about it. and i think that a case can be made that for land or the worst case scenario was were right on the edge and this would become a red/blue vote versus communicable who do you want to represent louisiana. so arguably she made the advantage by that. but -- she may be advantaged by the. i think there is a devious path to winning, if you're landrieu,

and well, what the hell. if i were senate democrat, this is what i would do. i would have somebody said that some ohlone organization called louisianians for conservative values, or whatever. -- some baloney organization. cassidy is a conservative but he's not that conservative and he's not nearly as conservative as a lot of louisiana republicans would like him to be. in fact, i will tell, i know i'm over time, okay, i was down in louisiana, baton rouge back in march speaking at the school of mass communication's at lsu, if any the kids -- anyway, the school is very very, very good e my son's.

anyway, and i gave a talk and speaking to some class and this young man comes up to me afterwards, and he waits until all the other students have kind of drifted away. and he said, well, i'm volunteering for the cassidy campaign. and he's practically whispering to me, that's an exaggeration but it wasn't with a loud voice and those like he was confessing to having herpes or something. and asked him, why are you whispering? he said, well, conservatives have a hard time -- and, he's not conservative enough for most republicans down here, and i'm thinking, that's why he's got an excellent chance of winning because he's not over the top. you know, but anyway, i would come if i were senate democrats i would create all kinds of mischief of polling va