this weekend on c-span's nukz maker, senator jeff bingaman will answer questions from reporters about the agenda in congress for energy and environmental policy. you can watch news makers on sunday on c-span at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern. c-span's washington classroom is a partnership with the washington center and george mason university. this week we look at the tea party movement. >> to the students at the washington center here in washington, d.c. and across the potomac at george mason university in fairfax, virginia, we want to welcome the students. we also want to welcome to the george mason campus peter mara of cbs news. he's covered the white house since the reagan administration and here in our studios a

professor at harvard. thank you for being with us. let's dig into the book, and one of the points i want to highlight as we focus the on the tea party, it's role in the 2012 campaign and the president's own re-election effort. you write in the book that the tea party p in all of its manifestations has pulled want the republican party sharply toward the right and shifted the u.s. public at a critical juncture, blunting the reformist force of barack obama's historic presidency. >> yes. i think we misunderstand, if we imagine the tea party to be a centralized organization that would be, for example, capable of nominating somebody for the presidency. it's really a set of grassroots forces and elite forces that have been pushing back against barack obama and the democrats since president obama took office and have also insisted that republican candidates hue the to the right on social,

economic and tax policies, and they've been very successful in that. >> why did it form? what is it in it's not one party? >> no, it's not a party. we might want to think of it as a sort of social upsurge and political push on the edge of the republican party. we found that most grassroots tea partiers and they've formed about 1,000 groups across the country are long-time conservatives who are feeling very discouraged, as you might expect, when democrats took the presidency and both houses of congress in 2008. so when they got a chance to rally around a symbol of protest, they did so, but the tea party also includes elite groups that have been operating in washington as lobbyists and as groups advocating for far right ultra free market policy ideas for quite some time. they jumped on the bandwagon, too, and we consider the right wing media to be part of it in

the early stages because they got the word out. >> peter mara, you have covered the campaign and candidates but also inside the obama white house, and many tea party activists indicate that the seeds of this began in the bush administration, but it really went full force in the spring and summer of 2009 as the president saw spending increase now approaching a $16 trillion debt. from your standpoint how has this evolved? >> well, for example, i have to say, steve, this white house rarely mentions the two parties "tea party." even when there are direct questions about it. i searched the white house website, whitehouse.gov. you find very few mentions. the president in his speech that he game in kansas, which became the template for the state of the union message, of course, did mention it. again, as he has a couple of times, folded it into a mention with the "occupy" movement

saying that the situation with the economy has driven people on the right and on the left to form these groups. so you find very few mentions of the tea party by the president. the administration, the obama campaign, more than happy to let the republic candidates fight it out for tea party endorsement if if you will and my own experience with e-mails and communications with tea party people ranges from thoughtful discussions about the issues you mentioned and spending increases and so forth and all of the other issues on their agenda to frankly visceral hatred often expressed about the president himself. i think the one thing that unites them is the professor at your side reflects on this better than i. the one thing that unites them is their desire to defeat barack obama. >> peter, let me follow-up on

this point. do you think that the white house in the summer and fall of 2010 fully understood the political implications of the tea party and its role in allowing the republicans to regain control of the house of representatives? >> i think that like the republican party itself, they were coming to gri with it trying to analyze it and figure out exactly how to play it. again, for the most part at least publicly they don't choose to discuss it much at all. >> bear with all of you a conversation we had with amy cramer. you write about amy cramer in the book. who is she? >> is she the one if tea party sfres. >> yes. >> flight attendant from south florida, single mother, angry because her own child was trying to get into the work force, saw what was happening in the economy. we had her in a previous class here at c-span in the fall of 2010, and she told us her story. let's watch.

>> well, i personally got involved about a year and a half ago when the tea party movement first started, but really it goes back a little bit before that the in the fall of 2008. during the campaign of mccain and obama, and even a little bit before that with the bush administration and the out of control spending, i was concerned about the direction of our country. i had a daughter that went away to college, my only child, and so i got on facebook in an effort to keep up with what was going on in her life. through facebook i became acquainted with twitter, and then through twitter i came together with some other conservatives. there were rumblings through the conservative world about the out of control spending, the excessive government intrusion into our lives, and people were saying maybe it's time for another american revolution, maybe it's time for another tea party. there were rumblings going on

through social media about those things. rick santelli had a rant on the chicago floor of trade about the mortgage meltdown. when he had that rant, what i say is that the fuel was already there, and he lit the fire because he had a platform na no one else had. that video went viral, and so the following day there were 22 of us that came together through twitter to hold a conference call. the purpose of that conference call was to plan for tea parties across the country one week later. we defined our success with ten tee parties across the country, 50 too 100 people in attendance at each tea party, and we all got busy the following monday morning planning our tea parties. on friday, february 27th we had 53 tea parties with approximately 30,000 people in attendance. >> i'll state the obvious. not foreign to the students at george mason and the washington

center, who are knee-deep into social media. she added this was not possible without e-mail, facebook and twitter. >> yes, that's right, and even more it wouldn't have been possible without eventually fox news jumping on the bandwagon. one of the things that happens when a social movement is getting just off the ground and there are widely scattered people who stair the senlts in in case, conservative anger, principally about barack obama and his administration, although festering worries about things that happened before that, a social movement, people have to know where to go to get together and they have to know that it's a big thing. a social media played a role in that, but so did national television and the right wing talk radio hosts who are very important in almost every community. >> let me go back to the book and share with us another excerpt from what she has written. she says tea party fears and

outlooks are central to american politics in a period of culturally polarized generational change. for better or wore, tea party style politics is likely to remain a pivotal part of the ongoing fierce disputes about what the u.s. government should do and shouldn't do. can you elaborate? >> what we did in our research is unusual. we didn't just drop in on public demonstrations. we got to know individual tea party people that sat down with us, and we visited groups in new england, arizona, and virginia observing what was happening in local groups. local groups are very different from tea party express, which is one of the national groups spun off of a gop political action committee. that's what amy cramer works for. she doesn't work for local groups. at the local level tea partiers are older white men and women

who have been conservative-minded for quite some time concerned about spending, but they're concerned about some kinds of spending and not others. for example, we asked them about social security, medicare and veterans been finefits which mae collecting. they know these are the government benefits, and they feel hard-working americans deserve those benefits. they're worried about spending, however, on welfare, on low-income college loans, on health care for people who haven't worked for it. that's what they think of as obama care, and they're very concerned about illegal immigration. those are the kinds of fears you might expect from conservative-minded people in my generation looking out at the changes going on in american society. i think obama symbolizes a lot of changes to them they find quite scary.

>> as the president and his white house strategists try to figure out how to get to the votes, they're looking at virginia, colorado, nevada, florida, states that they hope to win or need to win. so the president kind of framing the debate. he did so in a spech last month or in december in kansas. i'm going to share an excerpt in a moechlt. walk through what the white house strategy has been really since last fall as the president prepares knowing there are groups like the tea party out to defeat him. >> the same thing is going to be viewed through the election year campaign year magnifying glass from no on. we, of course, last week had the latest report on nationwide unemployment. this unemployment report at the end of every month is now as much a political document, a political report, if you will,

as it is an economic overview of the jobless picture. of course, the president in the latest one received relatively good news, and i think for the next month or so he's going to peg what he's saying to that. you heard that in the super bowl interview that he did with matt lauer from nbc where he was asked, you know, basically, three years ago you said if things weren't going to be better, just to paraphrase what he said three years ago in a similar interview, that you would be a one-term president. we heard the president start more directly than ever to make his case for re-election saying we don't want to go back to the policies of the past. so that, i think, is going to be the basis of the obama message. we hear it almost daily from the podium, from the press secretary, certainly not using it as a direct campaign platform because of the press secretary for an incumbent president is not in a position to do that. that is woven into so many

responses you hear from the president, the vice president, the various cabinet secretaries. let's not go back to the past. it isn't exactly the george h.w. bush stay the course mantra that did not resonate that year. it is, you know, more clintonesque if you will, and we were told going into the state of the union that day, steve, that the president and the communications team had studies that had been delivered by previous incumbent presidents. the state of the union messages and other forms of communication, and obviously they want to emulate the clinton model. >> let's go back to this speech the president delivered in kansas. it's important it to point out this is the same location where teddy roosevelt also talked about the middle class and pulling up all americans. it's been a theme that the president has really been pushing as he frames the debate on taxes, trying to call for tax

parity, taxing wealthier americans as a way to bring down the deficit, keeping key government programs in place to get rid of regulations that are burdensome. he's trying it to try ang late on a number of key issues. he outlined the re-election campaign in this speech. let's watch. >> by train, by wagon, on buggy, bicycle, on foot, they came to hear the vision of a mon who loved this country and was determined to perfect it. we are all americans, teddy roosevelt told him that day. our common interests are as broad as the continent. in the final years of his life, roosevelt took the same message all aacross this country from tiny osawatame to the heart of new york city believing no matter where he went, no matter

who he was talking about, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance. and well into our third century as a nation, we have grown, and we've changed in many ways since roosevelt's time. the world is faster. and the playing field is larger. and the challenges are more complex. but what hasn't changed? what can never change are the values that got us this far. we still have a sftake in each other's success. we still believe this thub a place where you can make it if you try, and we still believe in

the words of the man who called for a new nationalism all those years ago. the fundamental rule of on our national life, he said. the rule this underlies all others is on the whole and in the long run, we shall go up or down together. and i believe america is on the way up. >> so peter marra of cbs news, let's begin with you. break down what the president's message is, and maybe more importantly for these students his strategy. >> well, you heard it right there. that speech did become the template for the state of the union, and as you put it, steve, the foundation for, i think, what's going to be the obama campaign mantra going fwartd. a level playing field, the various other economic themes of the president's stress there. the white house knows that this election is going to be

determined by the economy, and you know, when people out on the campaign trail talk to us, reporters about these things, they so often say those wavering say let's see what the unemployment rate is going fob in september and october. let's see what happens between now and then. so i think that those are the issues that are going to resonate for this white house, for the obama campaign. the very themes that the president emphasized in that speech and the passage that we just heard really summed up what that basic message is going to be. >> let's get to some questions. bob, if you want to get some students lined up at george mason and for students aat the washington center with your questions as we talk about the tea party, the president's re-election and the strategy moving ahead in 2012. brian, who is a student at george mason university, e-mailed a question in advance. he wants to know what effect the

tea party has had on this republican nomination process in the primary. >> you know, i think it's had a stronger impact on the primary process than you would believe from the political reporting. most political reporting is horse race reporting. it looks at the competition among the candidates, and there's a temptation to say, well, perry is a tea party candidate or santorum is a tea party candidate or gingrich is. actually, none of these candidates has quite fit everything that all the different parts of the tea party want. the thing that we fail to notice when we look at the ups and downs of all the non-romneys is how the entire field of presidential candidates many in the gop has moved to endorse many of the themes that tea partiers at the grassroots and the elite ranks believe in. they're all appealing to what are about half of republican

identified voters and the more active and attentive half. so they've been the audience for the gop primaries. >> i want to ask sarah and brittany if they could line up at the microphone at the washington center. i'm going to show awe piece of video from an event we covered. peter, i'd like to get your reaction as well, because it fits into one of the narratives the romney campaign is dealing with. this is an event we covered last august, it was in des moines, iowa, and it's called the des moines, iowa soapbox. they speak for five to ten minutes at the iowa state fair and take a couple of questions. one of the questions dealt with taxes and corporations, and it was one of the defining moments, i think, in in early primary for mitt romney. let's watch and get some reaction. >> and if we are ultimately not just this year but over the coming decades going to be able to balance our budget and not spend more than we take in, we have to make sure that the

promises we make in social security, medicaid and medicare are promises we can keep. there are various ways of doing that. one is we can raise taxes on people. >> corporations, corporations! >> corporations are people, my friend. of course they are. everything corporations earn go to people. where do you think it goes? >> in their pocket. human beings' pockets. number one, you can raise taxes. that's not the approach i would take. number two, make sure the promises we make are promises we can keep. >> let's begin with the washington center. sarah and brittany introduce yourself and tell everyone elsewhere you're from, and then we'll get your reaction. >> i'm sarah and i go to bradley university. >> i'm brittany felder and i go to university of pittsburgh. >> first, you heard mitt romney in his statement corporations are people, quick reaction.

what do you think? >> i think that -- i don't know if i necessarily agree with na, but i definitely think it showses a stark difference between the republican and the democrat ittic party. i mean, what we saw president obama say was pretty much the opposite of what romney is saying. i think that's going fob a major campaign issue. >> brittany. >> i agree with her. i think it shows a definite difference between democrats and republican and even independents and all of the different parties, even within the tea party themselves. i think that definitely it's going to be interesting. >> your reaction, and we'll get your point of view here. this has really become one of the narratives that the romney campaign has been dealing with. >> it certainly has. i happen to be about maybe six or seven feet away from mr. romney at that event in iowa at the state fair in des moines when he said it .

it was a stunning, bretath-takig moment for everyone there, romney supporters or not or reporters watching from the sidelines. those of us who were there covericove covering it, the buzz centered on we'll see this in an obama campaign commercial coming to voters sfim in the summer. of course, there have been other comments since then that will probably play into it, too, that mr. romney has made. i also think that, you know, getting back to your earlier question, steve, about where the obama campaign is going, i guess we probably overuse the term populist among the media, but i think that really sums up what the president's campaign is going to emphasize these populist themes we heard in the kansas speech and just counter to what we heard mr. romney say in that passage from the soapbox or the hay bales at the iowa

state fair, dh seems like five years ago but it was just this past august. >> let me follow-up on peter's point. i don't want to oversimplify this. the president is basically saying we're in this together. we need to work together. we need to help each other. we snead to pull up the ladder of success. the tea party vivists say government is too big. cut spending, cut government, don't raise taxes. we need to eliminate programs that are not around. the white house says, no. i don't want to oversimplify this because narz other variables. that's the approach of tea party activist that is say government is the problem. we need to cut it back. >> you know, politics is almost always about who we are and who they are. so that's going on in both these cases. the president is trying to say, america does better when a broad middle class is rising economically and there's fairness nin the tax code.

those teams resonate with most older tea partiers and a little alone with the business elites backing the tea party. they are principally concerned to keep taxes down in the future. there is an interesting twist here. most partake of some of the most expensive parts of american government. they get social security. medicare, veterans benefits. they don't know those are the most expensive. they want to cut somebody else's spending. >> let me go back to the book. who are the tea party activists. in her book she says tea party supporters overwhelmingly voet for republicans especially in a general election where democrats might otherwise win but not all of them will call themselves republicans, they are independents meaning they are more conservative than they think the republican party or they are center right people who lean toward the gop. >> that's right.

they're frustrated, many of them, with the establishment in the republican party. frustrated why? well, partly they don't want republican office holders to compromise. that's why we've seen so much pressure on the congress that was elected just this last time it to keep republican office-holders from compromising with the president over the budget or make compromises on taxes. indeed tea partiers really hate barack obama. i think that's fair to say, and they want him gone. what unifies them most is the desire to get him out of office and to make sure that republicans don't compromise with him. >> peter, you sat in on many background briefings with those so-called senior administration officials, and i had one around the state of the union. he happens to fly on air force two, but i won't say who it was. it's pretty common. the vice president has talked about this publicly as well.

he has said he can teal with john boehner. john boehner can't deal with his own republican caucus in the house of representatives. can you follow-up on that point? >> well, that's the feeling in the white house. they believe that no one has boehner's back, if you will, among his, you know, close deputies and so forth and the rank and file and what about, you know, the 85, 89 house freshmen republican who is owe their success in the last election to the tea party? yes, after what happened in the so-called grand bargain last summer, they feel that just what the vice president has expressed rather bluntly in several different, you know, points where he's been asked about this or sometimes where he hasn't been asked about it. so i -- you know, i think you're reflecting the feeling that they

have in the administration, and something else that's going to drive this campaign coming up? >> you know, our book is based on talking to people, and it's written in vivid english that anyone can understand. we do have some rigorous political science research behind it, and there's a figure in chapter 5 on the republican party and the tea party that shows that the house of representatives, the republicans in the house took the biggest leap to the right in measured history up by political scientists who measure the political position of legislators. so john boehner is dealing with a group of people who really are refuse necks. he has a deputy in eric cantor playing to that crowd. he can't deliver, speaker boehner can't deliver with barack obama. a lot of the drama is due to that problem. >> i'm going to ask tiffany and

lynnwood if they could get up to the microphone. i want to share what the president said last week not far from where you're at in fairfax, virginia. the president is referring to some people without mentions a certain republican, aka mitt romney, let's watch what the president said last week. the issue is housing, and there are a lot of other issues they're using in the general election. >> the truth is it's going to take more time than any of us would like for the housing market to fully recover from this crisis. this was a big bubble. when it burst, it had a big effect. home prices started a pretty steady decline about five years ago, and government certainly can't fix the entire problem on its own. but it is wrong for anybody to

suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the house market to hit bottom i refuse to accept that, and so do the american people. there are more than 10 million homeowners across the country right now who because of an unprecedented decline in home prices that is no fault of their own owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth. it means your mortgage -- your house is underwater. >> so linnwood and testify any, tell me what you're hearing from the president. first blush what's your reaction. >> i'm tiffany, and what i hear is that he's putting the blame more on the syst