women during the revolutionary war part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> next this week's washington class woom with guest craig crawford. he talked about past presidential primaries and the race for the 2012 presidential nomination. he's an editor in chief for the hot line and serves as publisher of his website, craigcrawford.com. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> on behalf of the students joining us from gettysburg college visiting here in washington, d.c. and students from the washington center, we want to welcome to the c-span classroom craig crawford, his latest book, "the politics of life: 25 rules for surgical vooifl survival in a brutal and manipulative world." thank you for being here. >> good to be here. >> let's talk about the primary. what impact do decisive primaries have on a general

election? >> it depends on how they're divid divided. generally as i think back over the past, if the base candidate wins in a divided primary, they have a better shot at the general election. the thing about this romney campaign, i can't recall a presidential candidate having this much trouble with his base, by that i mean the conservative and very conservative voters, which includes tea party and evangelicals. a candidate who has this much trouble with his base, even if he gets the nominee winning the general election, now you go back to, say, ronald reagan and gerald ford in 1976. there was the emerging conservative base in the republican party that reagan captured and almost won the nomination but lost and gerald ford lost the election. and jimmy carter in 19 -- what year was that?

>> 1980. >> 1980. having so much trouble. his base actually ran against him. ted kennedy and the democratic national committee ran against their sitting president. that was a divisive primary, but carter got the nomination, obviously, but lost the general election. i see that one tiplet for predicting how decisive the primary comes out in the general. >> let's look first at this current primary and then some historical perspective. you indicated two of the races we'll be featuring during this discussion. i want to go back to january when jon huntsman withdrew from the race and had this to say about the republican primary. >> as candidates for our party's nomination, our common goal is to restore bold and principle leadership to the white house. leadership that will reignite our economy and renew the american spirit. yet, rather than seeking to

advance that common goal by speaking directly to voters about our ideas to rebuild america, this race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the american people. and not worthy of this critical time in our nation's history. this is the most important election of our lifetime. this country desperately needs to begin a journey that will allow us to create and courageously tackle our two most urgent deficits. one is an economic deficit and the other is a trust deficit. only bold ideas will get us to where we need to be, and this campaign needs to be driven by those ideas. at its core the republican party is a party of ideas.

but the current toxic forum of our political discourse does not help our cause. and it's just one of the many reasons why the american people have lost trust in their elected leaders. today i call on each campaign to cease attacking each other and instead talk directly to the american people about how our conservative ideas will create jobs, reduce our nation's debt, stabilize energy prices, and provide a brighter future for our children. >> craig crawford, that was two months ago. we're still in the middle of this primary. >> and what a whiner. you know, i've never seen a candidate drop out and say i'm dropping out because my campaign sucked and i was a lousy candidate, which is usually why they have to drop out or they run out of money.

blaming it on the negative advertising, i mean, and toxic tone, i don't buy that. what his problem was, he couldn't sell himself to and didn't try really, almost was hostile to that social conservatives, very conservative tea party evangelicals. they didn't like him and he didn't like them. that's where they didn't get anywhere. >> we have jennifer donahue with a question and an introduction. >> hello. craig, it's good to see you. >> good to see you. >> i'm jennifer donahue, and i'm expert in residence for the eisenhower institute at the gettysburg college. i've joined with 12 students that are part of my women in leadership program this semester. my question for you craig is with santorum pushing romney to the right, in order to get santorum outd of the race and in order to please the evangelicals and base and tea party members,

does romney reach to the right for a running mate if he's the nominee? >> i think he'll be gutless and do that probably. i think the republican party has come to a point where they have got to break their addiction on some of these voters driving their party out of the mainstream. plenty of republicans tell me that. that's just not my kwd. i think romney -- i think he needs to go. i think it's more important to go with a woman, to tell you the truth, because the jerngender gs serious. i would mention olympia snow. there's someone who would appeal to independents. in other words, i think his tactic ought to be -- we saw what you're talking about worked for mccain, and it didn't work in picking from the right wing. but i think romney ought to, you know, show some guts here and make a hard play for the independents and the moderates who want to lean toward the republican party if they're

given a good choice and break this party's addiction on these voters who really drive the party crazy. >> jennifer, what you are your thoughts on that? do you think that boxes romney in. >> i think he can't do what craig is suggesting. i think he should do what craig is suggesting to bring the party back to the center so we'd have a party that resembles what the republican party used to stand for and the one that i think a lot of mainstream republicans miss very much. but i think that in reality romney is still not trusted by the base. i think he has to generate enough turnout in the base to get somewhere. to do that he can't take swuns pro-choice like olympia snow. i think he has to reach toward a male because there aren't any female republicans out there that fit the bill. maybe marco rubio, maybe pawlenty. i don't think he'd go as far as

santorum, but i think there's pressure on him to avoid platform fights like we saw in '96 with dole by selecting someone ardently pro-life. >> a gree with that. that's probably what will happen. i'd love to see romney take the chance. when independent voters see the nominee as mccain did caving in, it just shows weakness and independent voters just tend to flop the other way. >> absolutely. >> that's the problem with that scenario. this party is playing the politics of subtraction. politics is about the mathematics of addition. you add groups to your coalition. you don't pull them away. you don't say hispanics, out of here. women, out of here. and that's what this party's doing now, and they're just going to lose the independent vote. >> casey foster is one of my students from moorehead state university, and julie whitney from suffolk university.

i'll show a short clip from june of 2008. i want to get your immediate reaction. let's watch. >> although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it's got about 18 million cracks in it. and the light is shining through like never before filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. that has always been the history of progress in america. >> casey, we'll start with you. that came at the conclusion of a long, tough, bitter primary time. her remarks here in washington in june of 2008. the primaries in 2008 began in early january in iowa and then in new hampshire. your reaction? then we'll go to julia next. >> obviously, as a woman

watching her speak that way, it's very encouraging. like she said, you know, i don't remember the number. she said the cracks in the glass ceiling. i think that's really representative of what's going on in the political field right now for women. more and more women are getting a voice. more and more women are becoming key groups in the electorate right now. >> and julia, your thoughts? >> it's definitely important for women to be able to be a force in politics, and i think hillary clinton, even though i don't agree with her on some things she does, i think just the fact she's out there and she ran almost successfully as a democratic candidate that it's a great thing. i think we can learn a lot from her. >> casey, it was 18 million cracks. that's how many votes she received in the democratic nomination. there has been this compareson, craig crawford, between what we saw in 2008 and what we see in

2012. fair comparison? >> i don't think so, and i'll tell you why. i did want to talk about a statistic recently i saw about women. the united states ranks 78th in the world in the number of women in its congress or parliament. they ranked all the nations. we're at 17% women in congress, and that puts us 78th in the world. here's why i don't see a comparison. it's that. one big difference i see is in 2008 that actually energized the party. they were pulling more and more people voting, because they were excited about the campaign between hillary and obama. they were passionate and they argued, of course, but it was really growing the party. we're not seeing that in this battle. it's shrinking. the turnout is going down.

republicans are pulling away. i talked to a pollster that said he saw a number in his polls he'd never seen before. with pollsters screen for likely voters, they ask who they're calling. are you likely to vote in the primary? he said he's seen double-digit increases in this republican primary of voters saying no, i'm not likely to vote in the primary, which he was rather stunned to see. the other thing is while it got intense and there was -- there were some personal moments, there were charges of racism that hillary and bill clinton and not by obama certainly and not really by his campaign. but in general it was an argument about policy. they argued about things like hillary supporting an individual mandate in health reform, which obama in the campaign opposed and ran against her opposing. but it was mostly about policy. it didn't get so personal, and you didn't get the sense that

they were rivals and at times it was a little hostility. in the debates and everything, they were basically respectful to each other. santorum and gingrich, they don't like romney. they really don't on a personal level. it's not just political rivalry. >> timothy hatten, i'm going to have you get lined up on the next piece of video we want to share with you. jennifer donahue if you want one of your students from gettysburg college. this is probably one of the iconic ads in 2008. it's one of the core issues hillary clinton tried to use against barack obama but it was an uphill fight because the emotion surrounded the obama candidacy. let's watch. >> it's 3:00 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there's a phone in the white house and it's ringing. something's happening in the world. your vote will decide who answers that call, whether it's someone who already knows the world's leaders and military. someone tested and ready to lead in the dangerous world. it's 3:00 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep.

who do you want answering the phone? >> i'm hillary clinton, and i approved this message. >> so, timothy hatten, we start with you first, university of mount union. your reaction. >> yes. thank you for being with us again, mr. crawford. i do remember when this ad came out. it created quite a stir and quite a buzz. but i think primarily it was hillary's way of kind of asserting herself as a powerful force, as somebody who is capable of leading the free world. somebody who can make decisions, especially in terms of foreign policy. as a woman she was doubted on those issues. so i definitely think this is kind of her way of stepping up her game and probably getting on the same playing field as president obama. >> of course, one of the great ironies is she's getting that 3:00 a.m. call as secretary of state. >> doing a pretty good job of it. >> we'll go to one of the students from gettysburg

college. if you could, introduce yourself. >> i'm elizabeth mueller, and i apologize if i repeat any of the questions. we can't really hear our friends in the other schools. i was just wondering when watched this clip on clinton and she said she made 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. it's obviously not true with this election year, because bashman didn't get nearly as far as hillary did in her campaign. what do you think are the reasons for that? >> jennifer mentioned something i find stunning. i mentioned olympia snow by process of elimination. who are the women in the republican party who have the stature to be a running mate in romney went that direction? it's amazing what a short list that is. i think in general, though, at the presidential level that glass ceiling is still intact, obviously, and i'm not sure why. i don't know why.

i think 51% of the voters are women. there we there are a lot of women in elected office. not as many as there ought to be. i really don't have an answer for why at the presidential level that still seems to be so tough. >> let me put another ad on the table. this is the ad titled "celebrity" used by the mccain campaign. it became one of those iconic moments in "game change" which is a new movie that came out. the mccain campaign had to deal with this phenomenon called barack obama. >> and in "game change" in the book and movie, they realized they were getting pummeled by his celebrityhood to they did their best to turn it into a negative. equates him with britney spears, which was in that ad, was something that wasn't plausible to most people. he wasn't that bad.

>> steven kenny from st. peter's college. i'll get your reaction to this ad, and we'll also get reaction from one of the students at gettysburg. let's watch. >> he's the biggest celebrity in the world. but is he ready to lead? with gas prices soaring, barack obama says no to offshore drilling? and says he'll raise taxes on electrici electricity. higher taxes, more foreign oil. that's the real obama. >> i'm john mccain, and i approved this message. >> let's start with one of the students from gettysburg college. if you could introduce yourself, your reaction to that ad from 2008. >> hi. my name is mikail sweeney. i'm a sophomore from gettysburg college and dpr upstate new york. i actually had a question about women candidates going for the presidency. i was just curious about what type of political atmosphere do

you think could be needed for this to happen? >> i tend to think it will probably need to be a conservative woman but as i mentioned earlier there aren't any. kay bailey hutchinson is mentioned, but she badly lost to rick perry of all people for governor of texas. i guess i've got margaret thatcher on my mind, because i saw the meryl streep movie. i just wonder if -- it's sort of like, you know, the counterintuitiveness. richard nixon could go to china because he was anti-communist his whole career. he was more trustworthy because they knew he wasn't a liberal or something. i don't know. i just wonder if that might be what it takes. >> let me go to steven kenny from st. peter's college either on that point or the earlier ad

from 2008. comment, question or thought. >> i thought that the ad was very interesting, because of beginning of it made it me believe it was going to be an attack on president obama's experience. he'd only been in the snamt for three years, and the first finger mentioned is is he ready to lead? after the question was skd the notion that he was a celebrity. i thought it was a missed opportunity by the mccain campaign to not point out he was inexperienced. they sort of mixed messages in my view. >> that's an excellent, excellent point. when that ad came out, i thought why are you talking about taxing and oil? i thought they were going to pivot to what you were saying, his lack of experience, which would have made that more of an integral ad. it would make more sense, but the mixed messages were the big problem in that ad. >> of course, the big issue in 2008, george w. bush, he was not popular, not even among the republicans.

he didn't even go to the republican convention. let me show you this ad from the obama campaign taking aim at john mccain with a direct or indirect reference to george w. bush. >> i'm barack obama, and i approve this message. >> wonder where john mccain would take the economy? look behind you. john mccain wants to continue george bush's economic policy. as president he'd provide no tax bras to 101 million americans but keep tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. he wants tax breaks for big oil and would tax your health care benefits for the first time ever. look behind you. we can't afford more of the same. >> reaction or comment? >> i don't think it's a good idea for the obama administration to compare mccain

and bush? it was a good strategy mplts even mccain had trouble trying to separate himself from bush. i think overall it was an effective commercial. >> let me turn to isaiah mohammed from dick kinson college. do you have a thought about this ad? >> i thought about while reading "game change," it showed the country definitely wanted something new. that ad definitely exploited that current in the country, that people wanted something different new and that mccain and the republican party couldn't provide necessarily. >> i thought it was a good strategy. >> which gets to the core points in gettysburg college before the class. a choice election versus a referendum election. >> yeah. you know, i'm really struck by how things change. now here four years later you hear republicans seriously talking about jeb bush getting in the race. they don't seem to fear the bush name anymore just these few

short years later. this campaign -- that's the question. if it's a referendum on barack obama, he might be in trouble. if he can turn it into a choice election, this is what democrats successfully do a lot of the time. a democrat operative one time called it the tehelma and louis strategy. you scare the middle so much, even if they want to vote for republicans, you don't let them. you make it to they're so afraid of what the republicans will do on banning contraceptives and all those other things, these social conservative issues, that you just portray them as krauzy people driving the country off a cliff. thelma and louise, and that's what obama would like to do with romney. he could easily do it with santorum, but romney has moved somewhat to the right.

i thi i think the thing about romney moving to the right is a lot of independents know he's just playing a conservative on tv because he does it so poorly. there's almost a certain logic or asset in that that he doesn't lie very well. he's a terrible liar. you can see right through him. when he's like playacting that he's a southerner and i eat grits and all this stuff, people know he's faking it. that could help him with independents. they don't believe he really is a kwefsh conservative. >> the new yorker had this, and the bartender said governor romney what would you like? that's the core issue of his ideolo ideology. >> let's go tie student from gettysburg college. you're next. >> hi. i'm sarah hayes from concord,

new hampshire. i had a question about the change issue in the 2008 election, which obama eventually turned into an asset. to what degree do you think that jeopardized the mccain campaign in the general election and the clinton campaign in the primaries? >> he used it successful. you're right to mention it. he started trying out the change message within the democratic party pour trag clintrtraying c establishment of the party. it's interesting within primary campaign the establishment of that party can actually be a boogie man, and that's what we're seeing like gingrich and santorum talking about how the party elites, which is how they rover to it all the time, are anointing romney. so obama did that successful. it was a good tryout, and that's why having him as the nominee probably made him the better change candidate because he established that message within

his own party, and it was very easy to broaden it out to the rest of the electric rate with mccain on the other side. >> this is another ad from this campaign cycle by the democratic national committee which very early on taking the gamble that they expect mitt romney to be the republican nominee and using his past words as campaign fodder for 2012. let's watch. >> from creator of "i'm running for office for pete's sake" comes the story of two men trapped in one body. mitt versus mitt. >> i will preserve and protect the woman's right to chous. >> the next step is to get row v. wade overturned. >> we put together an exchange. >> baha obama care is bad news. >> see it all at mittvmitt.com. >> first to brittany and

brianna. your reaction. >> i remember hearing this ad on the radio before. i think it was a well-placed ad, because a lot of people have a problem with mitt romney saying he's a flip flopper and that blatantly shows what they're talking about with examples that are his own words. i think it was very well-done. >> anna. >> yeah. i think that the biggest problem for romney is it going to be obama care and it being similar to romney care. so i think that it's an effective tool to use a candidate's words against themselves. i do have a question, though. i'm curious about with media and the access to media that it tends to be biased, is there any safety guards that you believe are still left in place for integrity and journalism? >> c-span, and steve skully. they're right here.

my big beef with the public is so many people in the public only want to hear what they want to hear, and that's a huge problem. there's a market out there for that on both sides of the spectrum, and if the public isn't demanding middle of the road responsible, honest brokered journalism, then it's not going throb. i think we shouldn't let the public off the hook. >> let's go to gettysburg college. >> hi. my name is mallory hewitt and i'm from connecticut. my question is regarding the campaigning this year, there's much greater focus on social issues. i was wondering what you thought how that would play out both in the primaries and also the general election later on. >> i think the tea party ended up doing a big disservice to the republicans in this cycle, because they pulled -- everybody thought -- along with the polls

that have been around before, but everybody thought these social conservatives were so powerful and big within the party that it was an embarrassment of riches because what happened is they learnedur many candidates into the race to try and target them. so they split up that vote so much that here is romney right up the center, and that little center right, i suppose, to scarf up the third -- look, he's only needed a third to 40% of the vote in these primaries to win them. and start running most of the delegates. so i think it backfired in a way because so many candidates wantswant wanted that niche of the party they split it up. >> i'll share a couple of moments it from three campaigns, 1960, 1976 and 1980 and use this as a way to illustrate what we've learned from past device primaries and how candidates and

campaigns try to pivot into the general election and come back with more questions. let's go to 1916 researching for today's class. i came across something quite fascinating. this is from july 2rd, 1960. president harry truman who was out of office sinresigning his position as a delegate from missouri because he was upset with john kennedy. let's watch this, and then i'm going to show you afterwards john kennedy's response and then we'll get your reaction. >> as you already know, i have resigned as a delegate for missouri from the democratic national convention. i did this because i have no desire whatever to be a party to proceeding that are taking on the aspects of a prearranged affair.