campaign, they're almost 100 flavor packs at that point, giving 4000 or $5000 providing you more than enough money to run for congress. do it from a $300,000 campaign to a million and a half dollars campaign, push a little bit to the side. you see that now. writer ron, something like keystone. i actually have no opinion on whether we should build it or not. ..

it's the candidates that actually run for congress. 25 years ago it would have been a working class person that could actually come together with enough support in a local district to run for congress. today it's not that person. you can't afford to do it. so unless, you know, a person who has a lotñi of money, democrat, doesn't have a lot in common with the labor movement. it's just not who they grew up with, they didn't grow up in a working class family, they weren't milk truck drivers or teamsters, and there's no relationship there. and when you get to congress,

you can meet with them, you can get to know them, but it's not the same as coming from out of that woodwork. >> host: you know the adage as well as i do, time is money. you talk about it in the book in a different sense, slightly different color which is that time is money in a political realm when politicians are spending hours every day dialing for dollars, conducting fundraisers. beyond labor, beyond any discussion of any specific constituency, talk about the time element strictly and how big a factor that is when politicians are spending that much time fundraising and not legislating or not working with their constituencies and what, how that changes a politician and how he or she will interface with the people who have elected him or her to come here to d.c. to do their job. >> right. you know, the time problem is certainly new. twenty years ago you didn't

spend as much time as you do today, you didn't have as many fundraisers. you know, and we're the only dem rahs in the world in which -- democracy in the world in which you can take a vote, two minutes later step outside the capitol and make a fundraising phone call. in fact, 44 states in the united states restrict that. you cannot raise money when you're in session. but that's an issue of the time. but it changes who you are because you can be elected from texas as a democrat or republican, and you get to d.c., and, you know, it's almost like it's a secondary issue now, is what your district cares about. because you're on the phone or in meetings or going to lunch with folks that represent, you know, new york or california if you're a democrat or kansas with the koch brothers if you're republican. these are the people that you're actually trying to represent, because you're spending your time on the phone with them or in meetings. and you're not as concerned with your home district. >> and are democrats and

republicans both doing this equally as far as you're concerned? >> guest: absolutely. i don't think there's any difference, you know? you can't say democrats are cleaner when it comes to raising money. as far as the time they put in, because they do put the time in. you know, down the street at the dccc, there are phone banks set up, and they're actually making calls every single day, especially the more vulnerable ones. the less vulnerables ones are doing it, too, because now they have to give money to their friends in the caucus. it's changed. 25 years ago you would have come to washington, especially as a young member, and gotten to know the issues that you cared about, how the city works, and you actually might have gotten to know the other party because you had the time, you know? you didn't have somebody to go to dinner with. now you're going to dinner, you're going to dinner with a donor or somebody that can get you a donation which is a change from the '80 and '90s.

>> and how quickly did it change, in your estimation? are we talk a couple years, are we talking a decade? was it a rapid shift? >> guest: i think '94 was the marking line of the shift. the '96 cycle you saw an increase, in '98 you saw a bigger increase, you know? it's gone up every year since. and, you know, i think you are told when you get to washington as a fresh member of congress especially -- freshman member of congress that the most important thing for you is not the committee you're going to sit on on january 5th when you get sworn in, depending on when it is, it's that march 31st filing deadline which is your first financial fec filing deadline. and if you don't show some money, 50,000 or 100,000 or 200,000, then, you know, you're going to be targeted to be defeated by somebody, either somebody in your own party or somebody in the other party. that's what you're told when you

get here now. that means you have to go make phone calls, you have to meet with donors, and you have to change who you are, unfortunately. >> host: we have the marquee legislation proposed by john mccain, russ fine gold, bipartisan, assigned by josh -- signed by george w. bush, changed the way at least money in politics in the country. there have been other pieces of legislation that have gone effectively nowhere, more lately there have been overtures about amending the constitution to overturn the very seminal citizens united decision of 2010 which truly owned the gates in a major way to unlimited amounts of spending and fundraising to advocate for and against candidates. but you don't see any of these as real solutions. you talk about there being a time fix. talk a little bit about what you mean by that and how time more so even than money could be, in

your opinion, a solution to what you describe add the problem. >> sure. i mean, you can try everything you want to try to limit the big money in politics. it's going to find a way in, you know? i think the folks that were so behind the mccain feingold bill of 2001 were told that this would happen, that something along the super pac would happen because that money wasn't going to just disappear from the system. these folks wanted a say, and they found a new way, which is super pacs. you know, i think when you look at, you know, not that i want to become a european democracy, europe actually limits the campaign. you can't raise money, you can't do campaigning, and it changes the way they work with each other. it's not always right. i think we could do a better job over here. but i think, you know, all these other solutions, i mean, you know, the disclose act, that's great. it should be transparent. but how's that going to change

the system? it still means you've got to raise money nonstop. you're under the pressure as soon as you get reelected to start raising money the next day. i just saw a sheet of paper for the democratic fundraisers in november and december. there's 25 members of congress that have fundraisers in the next six weeks after the election. it's unheard of. that's something you didn't do before. >> host: for debt? for 2016? for both? >> guest: i saw, and i can't remember the names right now, there are plenty of members that don't have campaigns that don't have challengers that are actually having fundraisers in november and december. i don't understand the logic behind this. you know, you just got reelected. how about actually trying to do something before you start appealing to people to get you reelected in two years? >> host: you talk to some conservatives, and they say, look, there's an overriding issue here. it's the first amendment. it's abilities to speak freely -- the ability to speak freely, and money they equate with speech. and if you have a million dollars or a billion dollars or

whatever the figure is to spend on politics, who am i or who are you or who's the government, certainly, to say you can't use the money to advocate for whoever you want to or advocate for a politician who believes what they believe. what's your response to somebody who believes that? >> guest: it's an easy answer. i also want a first amendment right for people that are elected. you have to have the right to say no to somebody. and when you have that much money over, when that money's available every day, which is nonstop campaigning, you don't have a right to say no as a member of congress or even at the statehouse level. yet you can't say no when there is no time limit on that money. you know, i think conservatives, there is a point to it, but does that mean that you have to raise money every single day? you know, the billion dollars when these folks -- i think we're looking at almost a $4

billion midterm here. >> host: yep. >> guest: that money's going to find its way into the system. but if you actually restrict the time on it that that money can be put in the system, it'll start decreasing a little bit because there's a lot of waste in the system. there's also the opportunity for a member of congress to not have to raise as much money this do now. >> host: so if you could snap your finger and restrict the amount of time politicians were spending raising money, what would it look like? what would the system be? >> guest: there'd be a slight transition because i think a lot of members of congress wouldn't know what to do on a wednesday night in d.c. they'd find some new astronauts, you know -- restaurants, that, you know, some fundraiser wasn't paying them to go to. but i think you'd see more compromise, more solutions come out of washington because you're not tied to, one, a grassroots appeal where i can't compromise with the other side, and you also have, you have the opportunity to take your time

and work with the other side or even in your own party. so you come up with solutions. there is no time for that now. you go from a committee hearing to votes on the floor to the phone bank. or to your fundraising lunch or your fundraising dinner. you need -- the process in d.c. needs to change. it's not about the amount of money right now, it's about the amount of time -- >> host: so are you suggesting a dedicated period of time, say, before a primary, before an election when that would be fundraising season, and everything else would be legislating season? how would it look on the calendar as far as you're concerned? >> guest: it would, you know, i don't know the actual answer for the time, you know, i suggest 100 days, essentially, before primary is the first time you can raise a dollar, you know? legislating is not governing. i mean, legislating is governing, campaigning is not governing, and we've, you know, we don't separate it right now. and, you know, what's wrong with having a 100-day campaign? i don't think, you know, you're

still going to end up with incumbents being reelected, they're going to have advantages. they just won't have as much money as they have. you actually give an opportunity for somebody who doesn't have a lot of money to actually compete more. you don't have to raise $2 million or $1.5 million just to be competitive. if you're a 100-day campaign, a half million dollars is a decent chunk of change to make a difference. but governing and campaigning are two different thing, and we don't separate it today. >> host: barack obama came in in 2008 on a wave of reform. he talked about money in politics a lot, he talked about, in his opinion, how it was corrupting the process. we're here in 2014 now, and since 2008 we've had the citizens united decision, had the speech now decision, we've had the mccutcheon decision and various others that have systematically made it easier to put money into the political system. they have deregulated the process of putting money into the political system.

what happened? >> guest: um, it's washington. it's a city that a lot of people make a lot of money off the system. and part of that system is campaigning, and part of that system is raising money. there's a lot of vested interests that don't want to see it changed at all. but i think the most important thing right now, especially for democrats, is we have to admit, you know, money is a problem for us also. and, you know, i think the reform efforts have -- especially coming out of congress and, you know, barack obama hasn't really said much about this in the last two years besides speaking about the evils of big money, but the reform efforts in the congress have blamed republicans without looking at themselves and saying we are, you know, we have to change how we do this too. >> host: democrats this election cycle in 2014, they have one of the most successful super pacs, majority usa is a

nonprofit organize, doesn't have to disclose its donors. they have various other successful, big money operations that were animated by the citizenned united decision or, as we mentioned, the speech now decision which effectively created super pacs. are democrats trying to have it both ways? on one hand, you'll get fundraising e-mails from democrats saying citizens united is horrible, we need to overturn it, it's awful; but give me money, and the superpacs are doing their things and soliciting huge dollars from hiewrnlings massive donors. can democrats go forward and survive in this environment while trying to work both ends of the argument? >> guest: they can't. and they have to admit that, you know, we raise as much money as republicans. you know, we may not do it the same way they do it, you know? we're, you know, i think i got 20 fundraising e-mails yesterday from senate candidates, three of which don't even have campaigns,

you know? they're up by 20 points. you know, at the same time we're complaining about big money from republicans, we're raising money, we're spending all of our time raising money. we're spending our time appealing to folks that are not what we should be as democrats. you know, coastal used to be more of the democratic party than the working class man, and that has changed because of money in politics in the last 0 years. and we have -- 20 years. and we have to start thinking about what do we want out of our democracy. if you're a democrat, if you're progressive, you know, we want governing. and you can't campaign and govern at the same time. and we've let that happen a over the last 20 years because we associated winning with money. >> host: do you expect that president obama during his final two years, he's not running for re-election, doesn't have to worry about that anymore, do you think that he is going to go back in a way to the roots of his campaign in 2007 and 2008 and