questions from the audience. let me read them and see. will web 2.or successor lead to national or local voting or initiatives on the internet? do you think we're heading towards digital democracy? >> i love this question. >> go for it. >> i do think this is ultimately at least in this state, you know, potentially that transformative tool. i do initiative campaigns. i do them on the progressive side. i'm doing the campaign right now to raise the tobacco tax a dollar. we'll spend a couple million dollars. big tobacco will spend about 4 to 6 million dollars against us. we bring our slingshot campaign every morning. >> it's god's work. >> it is god's work. justice and democracy. but the initial process was put in place to be a bullwark or a

hedge against those interests that controlled the state house. it has over the house become a tool for powerful special interests views in any number of ways and at times progressive groups can cobble together enough money. but imagine if you gave the public the ability to do electronic signature over twitter or over facebook and it did not cost 2.5 to 3 million dollars which is the price tag to qualify an initiative. suddenly the public in this state and other states, 30 other states have initiative would get the initiative process back to the way it was originally designed and i also think, i think this will be a battle between, continue to become, you know, a bigger and bitter conflict is vote and do direct democracy online. i think all of those things are sort of -- i think there are tools in place. i don't think they have been

used in a transformative way. then the final one, i'm sorry to talk so long, earlier in this campaign there was that twitter debate. this is in south carolina. and you had romney and others and, you know, twitter basically gave a green and blue whether broader public was responding, whether the candidates were being honest or not honest and romney had a very difficult debate where he was in the red almost for the entire debate which set him up for four or five tough clalg weeks which set up his negative story lines throughout this last campaign. imagine if you're in a world where candidates will basically be able to get constant dial tests on an ongoing basis and you're giving a speech up there it can tell you how the public is respond organize the crowd is spongd. i don't think you're that far from seeing that technology used in that type of way. to me you can say that's used in a very good way.

people have to be trustworthy. people could become very good at understanding how they want to use that to their advantage. the tools are out there. i'll be very interested in how they ultimately manifest themselves zmup see a world some day where a politician sliis literally giving a speech and she says yes and the screen turns green and he says by yes i mean no and the screen turns red. [ laughter ] >> people talk about singulariyty. imagine to may have communications and process that in real-time. it sounds far fetched, science-fiction stuff but people are actively talking about it. this stuff will be integrated to your being. >> technology can library britain my inner bill clinton

and help me understand and relate to people. >> as long as you bring jobs like bill clinton people will be happy. >> we're getting into a slippery slope. >> i think we slid down it. >> i think there's probably a practical application in technology and the way it manifest itself in future the elections and it's something that chris has talked about before in our previous conversations which is we're moving towards a place where you'll be able to make more informed decisions because people can communicate and approach you in a mother-in-law way. the most important toish is fisheries. i bet you do not hear anything about fisheries in the presidential the election in 2012. now there may come a time very soon because of the targeting nature of political campaigning and advertising, they will be able to communicate directly to people that do care about fisheries about what their position is on restoring

wildlife and ensuring that cattle aren't destroying upstream fisheries and so, you know, in many ways i think there are going to be technological evolutions to way we're communicating with campaigns to help us make better informed decisions as opposed to necessarily giving rapid response feedback to the candidate which then they cajole to conform to. >> there's a question that deals directly with this. let me read it. communicating about complex policy issues using conventional media is almost impossible. have you seen any examples of using new technologies to do a better job of engaging the public in a policy debate that goes beyond simplistic slogans and talking points? [ laughter ]

>> great question. >> that's a question for tucker. >> what you were saying, i thought, was that, you know, through using new technology, you can get deeper into what people do believe about what matters a lot to you. that's what's being asked here. what do you think? >> maybe one of you guys can talk about the soapbox example. >> you want to talk about it? >> yes. >> i was going to say something different which is i can see and this sort of goes along with what tucker was saying i can see a time where campaigns or incumbents who are are in office, serving in the congress are so -- are able to be so targeted and so focused on what individual voters want to know and are most interested in that you could end up getting policy papers and speeches and constituent letters and sort of everything targeted to you on a very issue specific basis, which

i think is probably the targeting would be the best use of the technology that i could think of to answer that. >> i'll give a couple of examples. there's the challenge in a representative democracy how all of that plays itself out. but we did a campaign a couple of years ago where we actually did a challenge, you know, online for folks to come with the best tv spot and we just sort of put it out there and we offered to run the winner which was going to be based on crowd sourcing vote on the jon stewart program. shockingly, maybe not that shockingly the ad was better than any ad that the campaign was producing. it was a good spot. we ran it more than just on the stewart program. but we really enkbaegd a very bright audience. going through the process i had to call and buy our site from us because they looked at the a

analytics. tucker, i'm sorry to bring this up, during the meg campaign i ran i.e. and this was the exact opposite example from the person's question but there's some relevancy. we created something called megpedia which was opposition resource. we had folks that worked at e-bay and other places who poured stuff over the transit, a number of items which reporters later took, some investigative reporting and tested out and proved that. so that was an interest way to use crowd sourcing. that may not be the most constructive way to use it but it was an interesting tool to apply and do i think you'll probably see some elected officials begin to use those types of crowd sourcing tools as they develop policy. i mean the president, i think, has done it to some extent with some electronic town halls that he's done and the conversations

that he has had. there actually was some kind of an effort at the white house to involve the public. but i think, you know, you will see someone who runs for office who decides basically to have an open source campaign, he'll ask his followers to create the ads. he'll ask his followers to collectively come up with something based on his beliefs. that person gets into office and that's how they approach the governor. you'll see that. some kind of an open source campaign. >> i have another one for you. will what you're discussing and what's being discussed up here right now make campaigning bidirectional where kpands can respond to voters as much as they push messages to voters. >> you know, i was mentioning this before because it's timely recently. there was some debate about

access to the internet and this was a huge news story as i'm sure you all seen in the last month or so. and i think that was an example where these, i guess it's probably data to call them net roots but, you know, that was at least what they were originally called came out of the wood work and people were communicating to congress in really energetic and active ways to each of the individual members of congress and it was an overwhelming success for the technology community and i think that it goes back to an earlier point that sarah made which was like, we can talk about campaigns and the elections and that's great because there's so much information that's being pushed out to so many different people but probably the most exciting things that are happening are what people are actually governing doing with technology and getting feedback on specific policy debates that are going on so they can get a better idea in real-time about what positions

they should take into account. i don't think i'm foresaking any confidenced that there were some individuals that came and visited us that worked actively with the doing explain they actually had been able to determine that the traditional writing your congressman a letter and your congressman writing you a letter back has decreased dramatically as a result of facebook's product. because members of congress are on facebook and actively every day talking about the business that they are taking up in business and getting feedback from constituents in large amounts. they are able to communicate in a much fast and timely man sorry that they are not getting a letter about a bill that they voted on three weeks ago and then sending a letter back and by the time that, you know, somebody else gets it to consider, you know, it's in with the christmas cards and totally ignored. we're getting to a place where people can understand their government better and that's probably the back and forth conversation that people are benefiting from most. >> what do you think?

do you think that this is going to -- is this movement or set of technologies that are now available and seems like they are springing up all over the country at a rate that those of us who are not in the business are unaware of. is this going to make government at the end of the day more responsive because people are going to find out more quickly about what they really care about? >> i think it will. i think to the extent that a voter or a constituent even a citizen is interested in what's going on in washington, in the congress, with someone who is running for office, to the extent they are engaged and paying attention and don't involved they will receive a dialogue back. so, almost everyone has a voice with the person who is running or with the incumbent and they get a dialogue back from that person. one of the great things about facebook and twitter is that members of congress become real people. right? they engage with constituents on both platforms.

they don't typically only talk about the vote i just took on health care, they also say looking forward to being in menlo park this weekend for my family barbecue. or looking forward to taking my daughter to college next week. they become real people and they can interact with people, interact with voters on a more normal basis and in dialogue. i think it will be more responsive and also more human. >> is that dangerous? because when you become a real person then you path lot of things in play that, you know, none of his have perfect pasts that, you know, maybe would best be sort of left out of the public sphere? >> as long as you take the anthony weiner pledge. use common sense. people will start to learn those protocols. there's been a number of folks who have run for office and

suddenly there's a post on facebook they shouldn't have posted there. you're seeing in the higher process, i see with it my kids they are being taught and learning there's a whole cultural process. i want to come back, because i do think there's a tension right now between how social media and technology is impacting democracy and structural issues in democracy. there's so many structural issues right now that are effectively designed to push people not find compromise and not to get to the center from both sides and forcing people to go the opposite end of the field and i think -- i don't know what the answer will be in terms of whether social media and technology can help alleviate or address that, aspirationally. i certainly hope that's the situation for the benefit of small d democracy. but i think that will play itself out in a really interesting way because i think if you look at citizens united has created structural issues,

you saw the speech last night from the senate candidate who beat dick luger in indiana who basically effectively said i have absolutely no interest in reaching the middle ground or compromise, this is a war and there's only one winner. >> did you see luger's letter? >> i did. this is what's taking place in d.c. and all over the country so can social media and technology because the vast majority of the public is a lot closer in some form or fashion than our political process reflects and can social media be used as a tool and a vehicle to help actually cultivate that and provide an incentiveromi, to un there's an the election, the election end and we have to deal with big issues. >> do you both feel that? do you feel that the public as a whole is actually less extreme than the representatives that are getting elected? >> absolutely.

and i think that, you know, what chris mentioned is exactly right. you look and you watch cable television and you see two people that i can't determine what their relevance are to the political process yelling back and forth trying to be more b b bombastic in characterizing the other's views. and emails i'm getting from friends or news on my news feed facebook and i see people i don't agree with on a political issue or maybe i didn't know that they had that view on a political issue, it puts a human touch and i know that guy is a good guy. i know her. she's a friend of mine. she's a co-worker. the reason they are weighing in on that issue so strongly they have strong views on it and it makes me think about that issue a little differently. that dialogue is lost in a lot of what we're seeing right now and i think as online communications and social media grows i think it's a positive

force. >> so that's not a back to the future it seems to me observation because when people gathered around post offices which is where they gathered around the 1840s and 1850s waiting for the mail or newspaper they talked and they came to with the single exception of 1860 we had transit was power every four years or eight depending if someone was a two term president without violence. there's very few countries that can say that. with all the faults that our system has, it's worked that well. i think the question is, you know, you know, is this going to make it better? is it going to make things more of the same? i mean luger's letter which i only just saw before coming over here was quite interesting. this is the senator, five term senator from indiana, which is sort of a land of steady habits as far as i'm concerned and the

idea that he would lose a primary, four or five years ago this would have been would have been unthinkable and yet it happened and it happened because he lost to it an uncompromising opponent, an uncompromising people are easy to admire because they don't compromise, but when you get to washington if you don't compromise you have stasis. we have proof of that. so we're sort of in a catch 22 and what in heaven's name will get us out of that and what role does technology have in getting us out of that. i don't know. >> i think tucker's comments were right on. aspirationally i hope it serves as a way to actually elevate the course of conversation, helping people find common ground. i don't know how it will play out. that's one of the interesting dynamics. i do think as you touched on you

have communities where people know each other and are having conversations with each other. on the other hand you read an article that's provocative and you go online, and these sort of these comments and it's fascinating, reflective of democracy. but the language tends to be pretty tough and pretty strident. new have to pay attention to what's in people's ears and eyes. if you spend a large amount of time on facebook and in conversation with your family and friends and co-workers you're hearing generally back and forth and you're having a civil conversation, right. you turn on cable news and they are putting a spotlight on the most obnoxious, rudest, the person who can scream the loudest and then they put a spotlight on the next screen over which is the person who can scream the loudest on the other

side. and when that is -- when that is sort of the 24/7 thing that's happening on cable i think it brings out emotions in everyone else and makes people think that politics is like that and i think politics follows that a l >> nature imitates art to some degree, in other words. >> when you have a immediate that will rewards is poor behavior and enscreaming and partisanship and decides to put a live television camera on events that they know will outrage people and bring about fights like you know, the minister of a church population of nine people in arkansas or whatever who is going to burn the koran and put live tv cameras on something like that, that will drive a wedge, that's where we end up when it becomes put a spotlight on that versus the fact ta people are having a very civil conversation in most parts of the country. >> i think at the end of the day, this country as you touched

on has generally gotten the stuff right. i think sometimes we go through periods where we're feeling our way through. i do have great confidence of that you know, historically, sometimes we may make a mistake or two, but zwleenl country is engsceptionally good at getting it right. my sense is we're sort of going through one of those periods, sort of feeling our way lieu this process. ultimately i think you're going to establish a set of protocols and cultural understanding. in the future people won't either cover those events and just discount them and not respond. i think as people become more at tuned to how it works and hopefully, as you get more and more people, as you get the broad segments of the population living their daily lives online and engaging, the data will then serve that leveling process and work as a way to bring people together. i do think we've gotten it right over the long hall. >> we're running out of time. let me ask the three of you an impossible question to wind things up with.

let's say -- let's say for a moment that i'm mitt romney and i call you up, tucker, and i say i need some advice. i want to win this election. what would you tell me to do to win? >> that's interesting. >> yes, tucker, what? >> i would tell governor romney that he should probably check my track record and call someone else. i actually think that some of the things that we talked about are things that the romney campaign will internalize. and that they hopefully will avoid the temptation to drive people apart and wedge different constituencies. and address the problem that we're talking about which is how toxic the environment has become in politics.

and you know say what you will about governor romney, he is an outsider to washington. and i do believe that he's been able to be effective in a very blue state and he's a person that understands compromise. i know that's unpopular to say, but i hope that when all of the cameras are on him, that he will go back to considering that being able to agree on certain things and agree to disagree on other things but wage a course forward that delivers real results is something that the electorate is looking for right now. and that else is just as well in ohio and florida and virginia and north carolina as it did in massachusetts. and i'm confident he will, and i think that will governor romney has a very good chance of being the next president of the united states. >> sarah, you've just heard tucker say that governor romney has a very good chance of being the next president. i assume you're talking about 2012, not 2016. so i'm barack obama. i phone you.

i've just heard this because the president watches c-span and we're going to be on it. >> live, okay. >> i need your advice on how i should run this campaign so i'm going to be re-elected. what would you tell me to do in. >> i would say that the way that you acted today is a perfect reflection of the president that people love and that -- and that i think one of the things that the president is -- that people love about the president is how authentic he is. he showed that today. and i think that people appreciate that and voters appreciate that. and i think you know, one of the reasons i have so much confidence in him is because of his record which i think that he'll run on. i also think he's an example campaigner and no one is better in a one-on-one fight than he is, and that he approaches campaigns that campaigns are important and they're decisions and decisions about the future. and you don't go down in a campaign for not saying what you

think or not saying what you feel or not saying what you think is the right way forward with the country. and so, i think he'll go in guns blazing, and i think he'll be the campaigner that we've seen for years. and i think he'll be the authentic president that we have seen for the last four years. i think that he'll be quite successful and do just fine. >> what do you make of the two comments that you've just heard? >> i would say this, as a democrat, tucker was very self-eface. we on my side were all excited when he moved into the private sector. we certainly hope over the course of this campaign he stays in the private sector. and that someone that wants to see the president get re-elected, i hope that sarah could take a little bit of a vacation from the private sector and baby move back over to the campaign for the remainder. look, i thought both comments were right on. i think the commonality you heard in both was exactly right. campaigns particularly this day and age we live in come down to

trust. who is the authentic candidate. who do you trust to make decisions about you and your family. i think the candidate that does the best job of that is going to be in the strongest possible position. sarah, you hit it out of the park. i think anyone who's on my side of the aisle who fundamentally believe the country's going to be a lot better place if barack obama is elected has to be thrilled for the historic steps that he took today but that means for our country and his re-election. >> i have absolute confidence in john holler. i'd like to ask him to come up, first of all, let me personally thank the three of you. i know you're busy. it's awfully nice for you to come here and educate us. let me turn the floor over to john. >> please join me in thanking the panel. [ applause ] i think you know one of my

favorite quotes about the museum was given to me by a member a couple of years ago who said this is the switzerland of silicon valley. so i hope we've had a very swiss but very provocative and wonderful panel tonight. so thank you to all of you for being here. richard, thanks for leading it. have a good night, everyone. >> thank you all. i'm going to take -- >> here on c pan 3, we are live at the hart senate office building where leon panetta and secretary of state hillary clinton will be appearing before the senate foreign relations committee this morning to urge congress to back the united nations law of the sea treaty. the house rejected funding for the treaty last friday. the senate now has to decide how to proceed. also participating and testifying is joint chiefs chairman general martin dempsey.

live coverage. the hearing should get under way shortly on c-span3. josh rogin writes for foreign policy magazine, he writes their cable blog. josh rogin, what is the law of the sea treaty? >> the treaty is an international convention that is sets rules of the road for oversea and undersea commerce and travel it was established in the '80s and then amended in 1994. to the 161 countries have signed on as well as the european union but not the united states. it's advocates say that in order for the u.s. to have mineral rights and rights for oil and gas exploration beyond the continental shelf, that the u.s. has to have a seat at the table in some of the international bodies that this treaty has established. its opponents say that nel agreement to join these bodies would be necessarily conceding some of american sovereignty and

freedom of action in the high seas. and they're opposed to it. the debate begins today into if it was established in 1994, you said 161 countries have signed on so far, what's been the stumbling block to getting it approve the by the u.s. senate? >> well, i mean, there's entrenched opposition on the gop side. had has come up in the senate in a serious way. in 2004, there were a bunch of hearings including the senate armed services committee and then in 2007, again, and the republican opposition was just enough to make sure that it never reached the 67-vote threshold required for senate ratification. again, this is a treaty that's been supported by both democratic and republican administrations dating back decades. it's got the support of almost all former and current military leaders. the navy believes it's constructive. but when it comes to ceding american sovereignty to the internna