of our past programs online at booktv.org. another person who you mentioned, former congressman mark fott works here in d.c. i knew martin when i was covering politics in texas. but in the 1990s -- i'm quoting from your book -- seniority would now be based on money north legislative skill, and you attributed that cheng to him when he was in charge hoff the democratic congressional campaign committee. how did that manifest itself in reality, this notion it wasn't based on merit that you would get a very high ranking position in congress but it would be based in large part on your fundraising ability? >> this go back to the '94 election when the democrats lost. martin is one of the few people i've ever met in politics that didn't just like fundraising, he loved it. this was his life.

and he was very good at it. but i think what happened is, democrats convinced themselves that in '96 see we lad to have more money than he wad in '94 so this goes back to the dues to the democratic congressional campaign committee, and martin was part of a team that led the change. they would show up at a caucus meeting on a weekly basis with a list of members that paid their dues and a list of members that hadn't paid their dues and would raise money for the campaign and who hadn't and it became a system of approval that you wanted to be at the top of the list and somebody didn't want to be at the bottom. if you were at the bottom you weren't going anywhere inside house leadership. just a fact of the day you had to pay your homage to the committee in order to be considered to be a part of the caucus.

>> this is in in way an insignificant change because legislative action is happening day to day, week to week at the committee level. did this cause dam in your opinion, that matters shifted in the way they did toward money as opposed to legislative skill? >> i think caused a lot of damage to how congress works. this created a very partisan atmosphere. you had to race money to be part of the campaign committee. three years before this, you maybe gave $5,000 to the dccc. by 19969, it was 100,000 if you wanted to be considered part of the team. and that changes one, how you think about legislation, and it changes how you act with other members of congress, and it certainly makes you much more partisan because you want to be able to raise money, which is -- can be done through fear or

constant contact. it changed the entire dynamic how congress actually works. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> the c-span2 cities tour takes booktv and american history tv on the road, travel to go u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. this weekend, we have partnered with time warner cable for a visit to greensboro, north carolina. >> most of the seats were empty. remember when i got there -- except for college students, except for -- most everybody else was like, i'm not going down there because anything might happen. so there's these empty seats and it's quiet and we go in and sit down and wait to see what is going to happen. a waitress came by with a tray of knives -- she was so nervous

the knives were rattling. i was so nervous i didn't know what she might be doing with the knives but could i tell she was as scared as i was. we sat there with our textbooks, trying to study, i remember her saying we can't serve y'all or we don't serve colored. we're going to have to ask y'all to leave. so we had this instruction that just don't say anything just keep sitting don't say anything just -- and if they ask you what you would look, ask for a cup of coffee, about the never asked us what we want it because they knew they went serve it.

>> michael pills bury, director of the center on chinese strategy at the hudson institute write that china has a secret plan to replace the u.s.es as the world's largest power by 2049. next on booktv. [inaudible] >> good afternoon. i hope all of you can hear me. i'm the director of central asia here at the hudson institute and it's a pleasure for me today to host a discussion on the