least a weekly basis, the bookstore locate books on the shelves and finding books that i was read. >> find out with other members of congress are reading by visiting booktv.org and searching what are you reading. ... ... ... [applause] good evening everyone. welcome.

now also the mayor of harrisburg. [applause] it is a pleasure to welcome everyone here tonight for best-selling author dan pfeiffer but before we begin we have some guidelines to make us go as smooth as possible. please take out your phone and join me as a power off our cell phones we want to welcome c-span tonight they will be filming with a want to add any interruptions. so thank you. at this time i went to introduce our speakers but i want to quickly plug one upcoming event. there is a lot of great talks

coming up friday march 6 you may be interested driving while black a true story of the green book and its effects. that is at 7:00 o'clock. the number one new york times best-selling author. [cheers and applause] and author of god save america. [cheers and applause] one of barack obama's longest running advisers under president obama 2009 through 2014 senior advisor to the president and lives in the bay

area with his wife and their daughter. interviewing him this evening. [cheers and applause] civil rights activist focusing on equity justice born and raised in baltimore and from the college of art and the new book the other side of freedom the case for hope. [applause] and god save the people and then to connect individuals to provide citizens and policymakers with policies praising obama for his work as a community organizer and

continues to provide influences to make and impact so the book now is on trumping america. [cheers and applause] a playbook for how and is a call to be's more aggressive in order to make america add democracy. now nice welcome to dan pfeiffer and his book "un-trumping america". [cheers and applause] >> it's good to be here it's

always good to see other friends let's jump right and how do you feel about this moment in politics? >> that is the question on the ballot in 2020 the reason i wrote the book there is nothing more important than winning this election but i've never been more convinced that winning this election is not enough because too many democrats think that donald trump is an aberration i have come to the solution particularly since barack obama was elected and for donald trump to become president will still be present when he leaves we have to do that but then we have to take a very aggressive effort

to fix politics to allow to be present. >> talk about the distinction. >> to have every democrat everyone has been about medicare for all or medicare for some or the green new deal or whatever we need to get to 50 percent. that's great because it's progress with that substantive debate but that conversation is a little whistling past the graveyard because our politics institutional politics has a

very ruthless strategy to have the those use of the majority of americans and if we don't tackle those reforms it doesn't matter whether you are a revolutionary or want medicare for all or some or one single person in america it with the structures of to gerrymander it doesn't matter what politics we have so it's as much is how we get things done are doing what we can. >> one of the things when you talk about trump being the operation is interesting that

it seems like racial politics has allowed him to fit in this way so talk about the importance of the racial grievance. >>. >> the under way to understand politicians to understand the political incentive. the republican party is dependent upon a shrinking almost entirely white bass the only way they could win is to get as much as support as humanly possible and what they have discovered is the best way to do that is to scare white people about nonwhite people african-americans and terrorist and that has been going on for the history of the republican party. you can see it is the southern strategy.

ronald reagan given states right speech or george w. bush that all future racist ads our reefs for one dish referred to as willie horton ads. the reason why we have to be this serious is with every passing day the majority of the country becomes younger and more progressive so republicans need more and more out of that white bass so the racial grievance will get war and worse. they don't get away with that because of things they reduce their political power so when intel we address that. >> is that the strategy on the left that there is the argument that you address that they should be as aggressive

as the other side. what is your take? >> i refer to this that should we be like trump? and the answer is this because we want to look at the mayor in the morning but also with that strategy the republicans are trying to get a group of people that are likely to turn out democrats we hope we have to get our standard base and then also convince them to become voters and people who may be turned off so with the cynical strategies with that we will lose. >> so in the obama moment no

offense but people are worried about the mobilizing strategy. >> we have to recognize a lot has happened since 2008 and the way i describe it in the book that jfk has to refer to his foreign-policy. we have to be hopeful in the ideas to be more unified the very clear eyed who those in washington are. it doesn't matter if it was mitch mcconnell that will not happen we should try to aspire to something better but we have to be strategic about political power.

>> what about the party during the obama years we lost governorships and people in congress it seemed that there was something happening to the infrastructure of the party. and did the obama administration just dropped the ball? what happened? >> all of the above. >> those democratic losses were two things. people had the terrible economy the election was a disaster and unemployment coming two years after the bailout of the banks and people forget that citizens united decision happens in january 2010 the democratic ability to keep up campaign

spending went away that day and now they were washed away of corporate-funded money. having said that democrats need to be less obsessed with the white house that's a crazy thing to say as we sit here today but with a focus from us or congress on the races that happened down south because political power comes from down south if you control the governorship republicans to go over the state legislature after 2010 the very first thing they did was voter id laws very specifically getting rid of the days on the calendar and then they's randomly picked that out so

it's also policy when people's lives were saved and with the republican legislatures did not and raise the minimum wage. so to restructure the party the makes it easier for the party to focus on those things so what we have begun to see since 2016 and the successes in virginia is a product of that. >> what happened to obama in the sense he has disappeared from the public landscape? >> i think the role he is planning to play will be two rolls. i have not talked to him directly but i feel confident. [laughter]

so first is he is a person uniquely and may be the only person in a party with a capacity to unify the party at the end of the primary whatever that is. that is the reason he is not endorsing or putting his thumb on the scale whether there is division what we have to unify. so he can contribute to that. i know he is planning to spend a lot of time on the campaign trail in the fall. so silence is a product right now of preserving his ability to unify the party at the end of this process. >> so how does that deal with

messaging it seems like mainstream media is not as important as it used to be. >> i am deeply concerned that too many in the party are still adhering to the old way of thinking of communications of this model that a politician says something to the press and then it suppresses job to tell the public and the problem with that is with facebook driven disaggregated smart phone media world it does not have the credibility used to have not just for conservative voters for fake news it's all democratic voters that are more skeptical and then to play the role as recently as eight or nine years ago so

they are worried more how to get the message out for content strategy and how do i get the information i know matters to the voters to win the governorship. but the lesson of this with all media comes in to have a true a true vibrant infrastructure because in the world of facebook everything trump says is not just trump and his 15 million followers that trump says it and fox news says it and then what happens on fox news or what sean hannity says and to be a

tiny fraction of what really matters of what fox does on facebook there is huge propaganda feet pumping into facebook so the conversation automatically tilts right so those that are more likely to be exposed to right-wing because people in the network are sharing it so we have that infrastructure on the left but is happening way too slow that will have to continue long after the 2020 election if we have a democratic president

and then can communicate to their supporters he or she will be governing with one hand behind their back because there was so much more firepower it was just very hard to break through to have folks. so my hope we can do that. >> do twitter and facebook have the same effect? >> no. they are impactful but the impact is different. facebook is the largest of money in the world overwhelmingly more impactful to people individually and the way americans get their news and the news they are getting is conservative.

but you have a different impact with twitter twitter shapes the conversation but 100 percent of reporters and politicians have the incentives what they have on twitter is different from what it they are actually connected and they focus on things that are either really disconnected or counterproductive to that. so i say every day i should get off twitter but yet i cannot stop myself.

but if more people spend less time i will not describe the impact that twitter has on media as forcing reporters to be at the craziest convention of the world. >> in operation 2020 you outline the things candidates should be doing to push back on trump. acknowledging his failures. is there anybody that are doing these right now? i know you're not here to endorse a candidate tonight. [laughter] >> yes. yes and no. it is hard to know because

what works in a primary, particularly this primary is very different than the general election. they are going after committed democratic voters who are politically engaged. so talk about the best way to reach people is very effective if you're trying to win the iowa caucus to be on cnn and then to be seen by a lot of people that you care about so then to change their behavior they know but a couple of candidates have economic messaging if we win that economic battle with trump

bernie sanders and elizabeth warren have economic messages that work very well for them elizabeth warren and mayor pete have the most sophisticated understanding of how the media works they have helped to incubate and work with the progressive media structure pete buttigieg understands inherently those who is creating content and shaping the content is how he went from being unknown to a very small town to a front runner because he knows how to use the media like trump other candidates have done other things but that's why this primary is so hard because you have to get that data set of

who will do the best job in that environment. >> bloomberg seems to be running for president just because he can afford it. >> it is very hard because he is the only person that can do what he is doing. so is spending half a million dollars on advertising effective? yes. and an amazing statistic he has spent more money in three months then barack obama did the entire 2012 election.

so again that works. also there is a theory of the media that he was trying to dominate the conversation thereby to buy the conversation but that today his campaign bought these billboards in vegas where trump was. and that it would be the route that trump had to drive by. and it would say hillary won the popular vote. [laughter] another one said trump eats burnt steak. [laughter] i off it is effective or not but he has the advantage for fierce advocates. but he doesn't have to make these decisions where a candidate says that we can run these ads. literally they are paying

people $2500 a month to post on social media about them. like that's a strategy to be available to democratic nominee like elizabeth moran they cannot afford to pay people to post on facebook for them. >> people confuse the dnc in the party all the time to say i supported and said we have a lot of problems. >> we can do this but we have to understand what it is when ever anything goes wrong anywhere in the party if someone had is a good idea about an ad to run but to understand the dnc is not sort

of superhero headquarters it is completely underfunded primary organization the job is to assist the state parties to help the democratic nominee raise money. the reason it is underfunded because citizens united happened and the dnc every year can raise the same amount of money with a little bit of an increase over 20 years while the cloak brothers or bloomberg can write a 100 million-dollar check. the dnc has a very limited role. one of the suggestions i make to be part of the problem to be overly focused on the presidency because the dnc chair serves a four-year term

tied to the presidential all cycles of every chair comes in i have a 50 state strategy i will fund all the state parties but also utah and arkansas and alaska. but what happens is they say that but the and the presidential election year comes now their job is to get the president elected so as soon as the nominee wins they take over the dnc they put their staff in their and control the purse strings so obviously what does the presidential candidate care about? the seven states they need to win so howard dean was the originator of the 50 state strategy when barack obama was running he tried to focus on it we won the nomination and

then i recommend we disconnect the chair from the presidential cycle and put them on a six-year term. the other idea that would help because really that's what we care about sustainable progressive infrastructure all over the country so we can begin flipping states that also houses the voter file which is the repository all over the country and candidates get access to that for free but to use it much higher in a more sophisticated way to pay for that the their ride a big check or they raise money and speak at a giant fundraiser. what we should do if the candidate wants access to the voter files it should be contingent upon adopting a red state that's not competitive

to raise x amount of dollars and we also encourage democratic donors to adopt a state were to give people or have people give ten dollars a month they pick wyoming or arkansas because if we ever want to win the election it will take time we have to start working on it right now. >> what is the advocacy to get them to do those things? >> it would be pushing the state party chairs because the 435 members of the dnc of the party chairs and those officials elected by the party to push the chair or the rules committee to change the rules.

>> and the easiest way for a democratic president to be elected. it's much harder when you are out of office. >> and then you address the senate so what do we do about mitch? [laughter] >> we can start beating him for reelection in kentucky this year. [applause] >> it is longshot. he is very unpopular in his home state. he has gotten very rich and there is a great candidate running. [applause] but if we don't beat mitch mcconnell then we have to

understand the senate is biased against democrats california has the same number of senators as wyoming. and those trends now it is actually possible for 18 percent of the population to control the senate seats for a very brief period of barack obama's presidency the only time there is a giant path for progression we will not have 57 seats anytime soon barely holding onto 50 at best for very long time so passing common sense legislation like background checks if saving

the planet from climate change if we can't compromise we are in big trouble so i advocate that there is risk because we may not control the senate. >> they exist you need 60 votes to do anything so we got rid of the filibuster for presidential appointments like cabinet secretaries because republicans decided barack obama again 51 percent he should not have a labor secretary so we got rid of it for all judges for the supreme court and then when trump got elected they got rid of it for the supreme court so democrats

should get rid of it and make 50 votes there will times republicans will have power and use it against us but i would much rather be in a world where republicans are judged on the things they do versus the democrats are judged on the things that they can't get done. also immediately they should make washington dc a state. [applause] >> because the people of puerto rico choose and that should be up to them because it is insane puerto ricans are american citizens but cannot vote for president if you establish residency in the their for three weeks so we

have to be very clear that it doesn't matter our policies as long as the senate stays the way it is conservatives will control the policy agenda and america for decades to come. >> the other changes you talk about it should be mandatory voting. >> i talk a lot about more commonly accepted ideas like same day registration to make voting as easy as possible for eligible voters to be open and as expansive. i read about australia which has compulsory voting. so therefore you have to file it if you do not use pay a small fine they and up with

95 percent turnout in every election. the people of australia love it they have parties on voting day. it is a holiday obviously. everyone votes and then devoting parties after you should see the youtube videos. it is wild. [laughter] you are required to pay taxes as a private citizen and send your kids for education so why shouldn't voting be a requirement of a citizen in this country? you should be required if you don't want to but i just think that ultimately all the ideas in this book are raised around the concept that only 60 percent of americans so how

could we possibly unify the country? they say you are naïve we are talking about that 50 percent. of that 60 percent 25 percent are republicans or democrats we don't talk about the 40 percent who don't participate in that would truly define the country and change the politics dramatically if everyone felt the stake of what we were doing. i don't think it will happen anytime soon they should be willing to push for big bold ideas but to shift the window of accessible topic conversation and have a lot of lessons from bernie sanders to push for medicare for all we

can move the conversation. >> some people say they pushed it too far they are not ready to be that progressive so what do you think about that? that we should be converting trump voters going down the middle and scaring people away quietly. >> every single person on that debate stage can be trump. absolutely they may not be my first choice but three days from now or three weeks from now at the convention eventually it will happen. [laughter]

and the best way to beat trump is to be unified it may not be your fifth choice but whoever you think is the weakest of those candidates, the weakest candidate with unified democratic party could be the strongest candidate. [applause] >> i do think to persuade swing voters or get the base voters is a false choice but if we had a national election to win the popular vote by a lot but unfortunately they are not easily distributed geographically so to get 270 we need a combination of the two. but i do believe it is possible because barack obama did it twice by seven points

iowa and ohio. you can do it with the same message can work for both we have this view in our mind that every swing voter we get we polls one base voter and that's not how it works and your policy is only as good as your story and if you can explain why this policy works. >> is there a role to get out and vote with aoc? >> yes i hope whoever the nominee welcomes her out there campaigning to even have a good sense of what she is starting to do but i would

guess she wants to make sure donald trump is defeated she may want to see him lose. [laughter] >> you asked me this question backstage and i told you know. [laughter] >> i said i could possibly may be one day many years from now running for school board. [laughter] >> you write for the campaigns what is the hesitation about running? >> maybe the school board. [laughter] >> i always see myself as be the person behind the person running for office but this is the way i would describe it i

once asked obama as if you would ever serve a third term. he said the constitution is of the issue that if he could go to hawaii but beamed into the policy meetings so he meant to the work is interesting working with really smart good people on tough problems that part is interesting to me. raising money all the other stuff. >> i miss the people so in the

campaign 2008 the people i worked with that you build these bonds that was a huge honor every single day i never once doubted the decision to question and working with supersmart people. so that part of it and to get up at four in the morning or to the office.

>> [applause] >> with the audience q&a portion we will start in this area will come to you with a microphone. >> thank you so much for being here. i am wondering what your suggestions are for the local state house and the state

senate and how to flip those. >> the recipe that has been working across the country is run someone for every office no matter how republican it seems. over january took the state senate and the state house because we had people running for office with her had been no democratic opponent in decades. you can buck the but one - - political trends so organize everywhere. and your comments on socialism the entire childhood was spent

with republicans as the automatic i win budget why we cannot have nice things. so what is your opinion when they take the i win but in a way? >> is not super effective because they call barack obama a socialist all the time and he one. it doesn't matter of the candidate because they will be called a socialist. so he also calls himself the democratic socialist. so 100 percent bernie sanders can win and how we navigate

that question will determine whether he can win. and the polls are very clear as of right now with that characteristic. so what is very important but bernie sanders gets 48 or 49 percent. so how do you square that? so 40 percent of voters identify as a socialist so the other part is and those that are not alarmed by it. and then to use that term in

presidential politics it is about identity and personalities. and to make bernie sanders try to make him see scary the best way to fight back is not spend all of your time through social means but who he is somebody who grew up in brooklyn he lived his life spending half a century fighting for or working-class people so we have to focus on telling his story to those who don't know him yet and then to

navigate that is a challenge for the campaign. >> and it is a funny thing to live in the middle of a swing state. i speak for many of us. but fears trump supporters. we haven't read the book at. and then to suggest around us. so what are those things? if you are immersed in this world what would you be doing?

>> it is always the uncle. [laughter] so it is good to be on social media platforms for those progressives to share on social media platforms. and on the policies in wisconsin there is a story about the dramatic increase of bankruptcies. and then to be very skeptical of the fake news. so how do i do with my trump uncle or dad and then don't

worry to convincing your own goal to stop beating trump just go to two of your friends who are not registered to vote. >> so to be very good at organizing the base so in any particular outlet for the media even in the obvious so to see they are doing a particularly good job. >> there is a very vibrant

organization like the intercept that does important work in the american prospect they have begun to move to donation base journalism. at progressive new sites and that is an important thing as local newspapers are guided to nothing. and that's not good in the short term because nobody has a good idea. so that leaves the giant gap

and with those pseudo- sites pushing propaganda. so this is like the daily planet. >> i'm just curious of the digital media and through the upcoming election and through social media that would be effective. >> i will give you the shorter version here but going to the content strategy that has to be completely holistic.

the new york times article from the bankruptcy problem the strategy begins one that appears so how do we get that story out that we care about we paid to put it in the facebook feeds to mobilize those supporters and here in wisconsin you know where your friends are or who to show it to. and the campaign posting but

the constant never ending strategy in someone's job on the campaign and whose job it is that the information that we don't need to see that information so the campaign sure did not shut down the next democratic president should be running digital ads all the time if they turn off their messaging operations the white house will lose their ability to communicate and get swamped. so using these advertisements to take pieces of the state of the union and show those to people that you care about. so that is an important strategy but not the only part.

>> at the end of the debate they went around to contesting the convention i see that as a problem going into that with the superdelegate with bloomberg so will that be a huge problem especially looking at bernie sanders who has the most supporters of that group? >> i was not surprised but that's because every one of those candidates right now has the most delegates in 2008 we had this challenge were obama was a leader in delegates from

those that you get in and the superdelegates that can pick anyone they want obama had a sustainable lead clinton could not catch up. they tried to get superdelegates to take the nomination from obama and then michigan and florida to move their primaries to close to new hampshire so they did not count because he did not run in those states in addition to barack obama to say that whoever had the most delegates should be the nominee. and then to have the different position the person who has the most delegates should do

it. and that would give the nomination but i find it hard to believe that the convention delegates will take the nomination away from the person with the most votes. i don't like predictions. [laughter] but that would be disastrous because of the second ballot whether bernie sanders or joe biden to take that away from that person not just hand the presidency to trumpet permanently fracture.

it would be a very bad idea. so i wouldn't worry about this too much yet because they need the expense to keep the campaign going but we should keep an eye on it. >> i miss state government employee here. i have worked in the legislature in the state agency that would surprise me but pretty much everybody state government we constantly get phone calls from constituents talking about how they have a problem with the policies are they really like it and they want their senator to vote on a certain thing.

the maybe you should call your federal senator and not your state senator. so if you have any advice in this. to have that strong competition for attention. . . . . state and local, people on podcast need to do it and getting people through, the

turnout in the elections have been incredibly high. people running for local office we have to continue to do that. is the difference between them. people were so bad barack obama for raising their taxes in 2010. that seems to be a fundamental problem that we will have to work on. >> thanks for being with us tonight. you think that reinstatement of the fcc fairness rule would be feasible? if so, what it do any good to alter the media landscape in which we find ourselves? mark i was writing the book, i wanted to explore this topic and i think one of the problems for progressivism is the media and

balance, despite a lot of liberals in turn of media outlets, the conversation is toward conservative. in my research on this, i eventually was so confused, no one seemed to know the real answer to it. i couldn't find a way to draw a conclusion from it. it's too far and trying to get them there as well. does this to get around the media, so i just don't know the answer yet but i will explore that.

>> thank you for being here. i'm a captain for our county democrats and november -- [applause] last election, we came with 4% of flipping our township blue except for three precincts. we have tried to figure out how to get these three precincts to turnout. if there's any i guess you can share, my area is pretty wealthy and people are very engaged politically but we have three areas where it's mostly young professional, it's apartment and the three precincts are what's keeping us from flipping blue. if there are any ideas on how we can move that needle. >> without knowing a lot more about those precincts, it would be hard but i think it is on organizing, which is constantly

having a presence there, finding ways to not just knock doors but host a gathering where you can get people to come, i think local parties do clever things with street festivals and things like that, or you can get people to come source not just the political part, there's also music or games for kids and things like that. you just need that, be able to break through for that person or action and build some idea of community within that group. if you work on some of the stuff that swing left has done from a particular regina and in california, there's interest think there ideas there on breaking through their. >> trump has done for child care

credit -- [laughter] is not what i think the solution to the problem is and i couldn't watch the whole debate on whatever day but i've only heard universal childcare mansion for the once by elizabeth warren. whether it's universal or whatever, why isn't something democrats continue to talk abo about. >> when every one of them has a plan of some sort, quick and deliberate put forward that had the world's most democrats, i have a good answer. on the debate stage, your sort of somewhat dated by the question, there's one debate where they had a pretty good conversation about this, the questioners were interested in but they talk about it more because the numbers on it are

incredibly high. as important as the conversation is, it is blotting out the sun on other important issues, i do think it would be an important part. there's probably no difference between the price democrats on their but once you're contrasting with trump and why the plan who seem to not love doesn't work as well i think so i would hope to see it more in the general election. >> thank you so much for hosting here. i'm a librarian at the community college so thank you. [applause] i just want to give a shout out, i read the book on tierney, one of the ones i'm supporting are one of our authors library's books so i think you both for being here. i work where trump hold his rallies.

i was one of about 100 protesters that went to the hershey's and most recent one, thank you -- is one of those terrifying moments of my life. as i went back to work and i had a couple of coworkers who articulated a need to do something and if you're a caregiver, a single parent, if you're a responsible for anyone, don't go to one of these brothers. i really felt something could have happened. but my question is, i'm going to segue into your pot because you saved my standard. thank you so much. [laughter] both of you. [applause] i listen to you on my way to work my husband will attest, this is -- listen to his product today. what you see coming down the pipe? it's going to get a little more intense and rapid and everyday i

will challenge myself as to what i can do. do you plan each pod? are you going to be more proactive and less reactive? that's what i'm asking. what you see coming down the pipe for most of your both of your pods? >> we don't talk about it that much. we reserve trump. i think, i think we can have questions i will organize, can we actually organize and motivate people? can -- it's not just about beating trump, it's about having a vision of america bigger than him, can we offer that parks i'm interested. we'll see if i become a surrogate or something. i tried to get him to do it.

[laughter] we will see. most people -- most people are sort of in a good place, biden a little shaky but most people are in a good place. it's a reminder that i think you know, like 40% of the democrats, the debates are only 40% so majority black and brown. but you wouldn't know that if you watch tv. you wouldn't know that if we look at the way we correct the news and things, so i think they are home, that is a stretch. the people who listen to our pods, they are going to come and vote, she's raising her two kids, she's just not -- when i think about when i'm excited, have to get that 60% that

nonwhite community to believe. what the republicans done, if you make people believe, they've never went before, i voted my whole life, my phone got hacked and it wasn't because i didn't vote, i voted. a lot of people who are told voting is like the end-all be-all and it wasn't for them can we help them as if it's actual in the toolkit? [applause] >> an ongoing conversation about what is the most constructive thing we can do in this campaign? i think this training, we've

tried to be as neutral as possible in this primary and try to be honest but not try to put it on the scale and sometimes we have done a good job and other times supporters of candidates think we have onshore on that, one reason we want to do that, we can't figure out was the best present to beat trump, so we can't make a decision. we want to be able to help convince people to get behind the nominee, whoever it is. a slower platform and more influence, we can play a role in that. the second thing is, we want to get people to get involved. that's what the book is, how can we get them to volunteer, knock doors, fake phone calls, whatever it is they can do to make a difference. we also want to highlight, it's not hard to get people to focus

on the presidential race but how can we help remind people we have to take the senate? what can we do to direct callers and north carolina in arizona and iowa and all the others to get involved there? we also how to think about what to do about where we can draw attention, yesterday's pod, interview with challenging the progressive candidate supported by aoc and others running against a conservative democrat in texas in the primary. we can draw attention to people and expose them to that. it gives them an opportunity to make their case for support, volunteers and etc., we will do that. our main goal is doing everything we can to channel the anger and angst, mostly next. [laughter] channeled their angst into

activism in this election. >> specific education, i'm a government teacher in the high schools nearby here -- [applause] i was just wondering in the course of your career, if you have had a thought like man, i just wish people would have learned this in high school. [laughter] something i can focus on as a government teacher? >> that is a great question. [laughter] i think it is, explaining that even though we treat the president like a king and hopefully a queen one day, fast or the political power is. that is both at the state level and congressional level because we mythologized our presidents.

they are thieves to date, great men of history, by saying the right thing or having a drink with the right senate senator can get them in. that's not how it works. people understand progress can happen but it takes worse. it can be slow and it's an important thing, you have to do the work to get it done and ultimately, it is on here. helping students understand they have something in this process. if there's something you want to get it done, you have to participate to do it. make them feel like they are part of it is very important. >> i see a couple of, one hand over here first.

>> , campaign manager for tom prior. [applause] [cheering and applauding] >> my question for you, do you have any thoughts on the negative partisanship theory in the trump era? also, do you think it explains dysfunctional 76ers this year? [laughter] >> i find rachel, and never met her but i follow her on twitter, a very interesting, i have a lot of interesting thoughts on this. a different perspective, most of our views on political data. [laughter] i appreciate the diversity there. i think as i understand her

theory, it must doesn't matter who the candidate is it is all about the turnout, i think there's a lot of truth to that in a national election. i think the hard part is, i want to dig more in her data, how you make that work. you have two challenges, which is, it's a very white state and also has very aggressive laws, if all things are equal where we made it easy for everyone to vote and it's hard for a certain group of people to vote, i think that theory could be very prophetic. i want people to take away for voter suppression, barack obama one mitt romney by seven points in wisconsin. he got less vote than mitt romney. that means they were able to stop that many democrats from turning out. others were stopped for voter

ids and everything. i do not think that partisanship explains the 70 sixers this year. [laughter] it's very important to have people who can dribble and shoot on the court and we have those most of the time. [laughter] >> two more questions. in 2018, we saw the voters of maine elected our first member of congress through frank torres voting. you might talk about this in the book but just wanted know your thoughts about whether or not you think that something the rest of the country should follow suit with. >> i'm interested in the idea i was in iowa during the caucus. [laughter] just like two weeks ago, i was there. [laughter]

is funny because i came to the conclusion, the idea that we should get rid of caucuses because -- i want the democrats to be the democracy party, if you use anti- democratic metho methods, not to mention you should probably take those in iowa but i spent a lot of time with him and i have a function for the iowa caucus. the guy who ran our site should be governor, he was so good. there are doing the math right and off the supporters were so great. there were politely asking the biden people come over. i was just like, this is great, this is actually cool and nice. by the time we got back to des moines, it collapsed. the next morning, i got up and i was like we need to go.

one of the things i recommend the democrats do, adopt ranked choice voting. one is to make iowa nice, because being someone's second choice matters, the campaign is more positive there. you don't want to talk someone because you think you may need some of the voters they can't have that threshold. if we have ranked choice voting, you can get that benefit for think you to appeal to other democratic primary candidates without the crazy idea of making people stand in high school gym for two hours and count themselves. [laughter] i try to understand more about how it would work nationally and it might benefit but i think it's interesting from a help to try to volunteer myself to help

think about how to redo the process. >> this will be our last question. >> my name is emily. i work in the state legislature legislature here. i got my npr and facebook about how voters in redding are not focused on voting because they have other social issues, they do have housing or education or a lot of other things. if there's anything we can do now to build up ways to engage the voters and also more social justice structures to help them in the future and also if there's a way to inspire them also if the candidates can inspire them and also if you believe in term limits and you think that will inspire the as well because it will inspire them to have kindreds entrenched

in the process and also that voting. >> inspiring people in the first part of the question. >> this one of the, i didn't meet the white house, did i? oh, you did. i was less notable. >> obama did these middle of the night meetings off the record, before the state of the union the speechwriters. i was at a 7:00 p.m. meeting, words that obama wanted to use of the state of the unit. >> the first was, he called the professors dogs. i remember something like who can't call people dogs. the police are engaging and genocide.

[laughter] i was like yep, i'm not the president. his like you're right. and i was like, i know. [laughter] he always thought he would get it. he would be like get out and vote. a lot of people voted forever. you didn't decide voting in the toolkit, i think that worked for a lot of people who are tighter for you change into voting or participating. they literally didn't just change. the second thing, i do think warren doesn't a little bit better, i think bernie opened up a little bit and kudos to him. we should talk about the things we deserve plainly. it's not like a radical idea that everybody practices that, it's not like radical to everybody, we shouldn't feed to terms like socialism things that

might be offputting there should be things that are simple. everybody can rewrite, it's like a simple notion and we should talk about simply and not feed into the hysteria of the right one. they talk about this idea that when you get people afraid, we sometimes participate in the fear equation by mistake. we talk about the differences between accountability and justice, people confuse the terms for accountability and what happens after the trauma of the idea that people don't have the trauma in the first place. we have to tell a story about whether trauma is. it's normal to everybody, we should stop yelling about the radical thing, we should normalize that and i believe people will come along, i think people have been promised a lot and delivered not as much.

how do we talk about like kindreds who can tell us off the things we want and also can help us get there? this is bernie in 2016, your member bernie tweeted that he would free people from jail, do you remember? he was like my dad, you're like not good. [laughter] the zika you telling me that what but not having an understanding of the house. a lot of people who are smart enough now to realize, people know much about what the what, they also know he should have an idea of how we should get there. people were more willing to participate but we are not helping people on the house. >> the other thing i think, when last year before the election, i interviewed a woman named

natasha, she works to organize particularly in the south, and rural communities and she said to me something that stuck with me, nonvoters, their decision not to vote is not laziness or that they don't care, it's a thoughtful, well reasoned decision. we have to think about why they made that decision and try to work with them on like an emotionally large level because too often, i've been guilty of this, there are two kinds of people. voters and people too lazy to care. that's not right. we put the onus on the voter for not voter and not the politicians were not giving the voter a reason to vote. that's not just having the writer, it's a huge thing that will matter a lot in 2020 as the turnout is delivering on your

promises. he's right, people are voting and it didn't get fixed. so how do you fix it the next time? understanding that, i think it's very important. it's like, this happens every election, april comes out and they will show the african-american latino community would not turn out as you expected to be. then her like, why aren't they putting? they yell at them in there like what have we done? what have we failed to do to convince them that it matters? i very much agree there are too many old people in politics. [laughter] that's a problem. [applause] when i'm old, i will revise that position. [laughter] i worry about term limits because what happened at the

state level, when it often does is it gives extra power to lobbyists. people -- this is very true in california where i live, people show up for a couple of terms, they are not really learning how everything works, senior members who have been there a while, they know how everything works so lobbyists and big numbers and they are just putting them up and passing them. i think that is a dangerous part. i think there are things, i think i would not be concerned if some are like you can serve three terms. eighteen years is plenty. or being more aggressive on term limits around committee chairmanship which we have some of but also making it less about senior status, the longer he

been in congress, the more power you have as opposed to the leadership of the congress saying the more talented you are, the more power you should have. i just simply think there should be reason to have lots of power. being a powerful messenger, if we have a standard way, i believe that aoc is one of the most pallid talented politicians we've had in a generation. [applause] she's the best messenger in the democratic party. she's going to have to serve for like two more decades before she gets to ask questions and judiciary hearings in the first hour. that's how long it will take because especially now that they've gerrymandered, people are just there. there's like a handful of like 20 people they lose in a year end everyone is just there until

they retire. if we can find ways to give their younger and more talented members a higher profile, they will also stay longer. those who stay in senate right away because they know there's nowhere to go. the entire congressional leadership is over the age of 70. so also are most democratic presidential candidates, we have larger problems or but i do think we have to think about how we push power down to some of the younger members who are more representative of the base of the democratic party. [applause]

>> this is my gosh i've been on this tour for five days now. i talked to a lot of people and i have sensed a growing depression among democrats. two months ago, most democrats thought we would win and now two thirds think we are going to lose this election. i would say to everyone two things. one, this the worst part of the process. we've been in this forever. the people we love are now fighting with each other. it may be the candidate we love most is not waiting. maybe the one we would love least is not is winning. trump has a lot of advantage as incumbent, this is a winnable election and we know exactly how to do.

i just want people to keep the faith. we can do this and don't let the last few weeks get us down because we are intimate next tuesday, you have to watch it. [laughter] it south carolina. [laughter] i would just say, everyone, keep the faith. we can do this. we'll get through this process, we can be unified, we can win. [cheering] [applause] >> tv continues now on c-span2. television for serious readers.