integrate values as a core component of positive change. so our state government and the institution of ethics, a nonprofit out of california, have come together for an education program introducing character education into hundreds of public schools, government agencies and sports organizations across the island. the program is built around six universal values of good character. values indeed that transcend any political, cultural consideration. trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. our program was designed to strengthen ethics and values to improve academic performance,

decrease dropout rates, reduce bullying in schools and contribute to a positive transformation in our society and we are already achieving results. initially launched in just over 200 pilot schools, the response was overwhelmingly positive from students, parents, teachers, and staff. based on its initial success, this fall we plan to expand character counts to 480 schools across the island impacting over 160,000 students. [ applause ] let me share with you some of the results. participating schools have reported an up to 90% reduction in school fights, reduction in bullying, cleaner school grounds and increased involvement from the parents. a comprehensive survey of school parents and principals says the

program is effective and they are continuing to develop the initiative and 89% told us that their students are more engaged in their education now. parent support -- [ applause [ applause ] let's ask those that actually matter the most. the parents. parental support was unprecedented. of the 18,000 parents who completed the survey, 93% said it was important to continue the program and 75% said the program had improved the quality of their child's education. [ applause ] we're also simultaneously expanding the program to other sectors of our society including athletics and our partners of choice for social services. not for profit and faith based organizations. in addition to elevating substance of what's being taught in schools, we're engaged in

changing the learning environment itself. we are demonstrating that our quest for communities anchored by core ethics and moral values is just as important as our march towards a balanced budget. at the national level, we need leadership that is capable of not only tackling our financial woes but also addressing the values crisis we face in our country today. [ applause ] this is the time for all of us to stand together. we must show promise, the promise of this country can still be realized by a younger generation who may be questioning the american legacy that we never before had reason to doubt. and importantly, the very same principles and values can be applied in reaching out and connecting with the hispanic community. president reagan brought many latinos into the party just as he inspired me to volunteer in 1980 campaign.

it was ronald reagan who famously said hispanic are republicans. they just don't know it yet. he was right. [ applause ] more than anything else, more than anything else, family, faith and freedom are what move us and keep us going. we want the best education for our children and we want our entrepreneurial endeavors to flourish. look at the polling data that shows light on the profile of our voters in puerto rico. when asked if marriage between a man and woman, 91% agreed. when asked go they favor parental notification in the case of abortion by minors, 85% agreed. asked if displaying ten commandments on government property should be allowed, 75% agreed. 78% identified as pro-life to support life saving alternatives to abortion i signed new laws.

in just two year's time we have tripled the number of adoptions on the island. [ applause ] when asked if prayer should be allowed in public schools, 86% agreed. [ applause ] so at the beginning of my administration with the support of both teachers and parents, we established a five-minute period of reflection at the start of each school day. [ applause ] my friends, these are hispanic values. these are conservative values. these are american values. they are the values that will turn america around with a commitment of each one of you here it can be done. this coalition can drive the change our nation sorely needs. i know many of us welcome that

partnership. thank you again. god bless you and may god bless the united states of america. thank you. ♪ >> for a long time i sat between the two grays and went. the pain i felt was my father's pain. my questions were my brother's questions. their struggle. my birth right. >> obama has a dream. a dream from his father that the sins of colonialism be set right and america be downsized.

>> you need to know what you project these things onto. >> it's been a long time coming but tonight because of what we did on this day in this election at this defining moment, change has come to america. >> america has a dream from our founding fathers that together we must protect liberty and so america grows so liberty grows. which dream will we carry into 2016?

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to be joined by a panel discussion of the 2012 election, the national political landscape. meet the moderator of the panel, ms. karen floyd. ♪ >> i will tell you it's a privilege to be here but it is really your privilege to see an incredible group of gentlemen that are going to give you a great indication of what's going to happen in the upcoming elections and we'll begin with luke frans. he's director of resurgent

republic. a conservative public organization dedicated to shaping the debate over the proper role of government. he guides the research projects, conducts message briefings and interacts with key policy and opinion leaders. and then there's a long history of all of his successes but in purpose of time, we will then look at one of the republican party leaders. his clients include leading political figures, fortune 500 companies and major associations. public opinion strategies has 19 u.s. senators, six governors, 71 members of congress and like luke his resume is significant so we're going to go directly to the founder of rasmussen reports, scott rasmussen. most of you know him from his

time on fox and a number of other television shows. she's a political analyst. "the new york times" bestselling author. independent opinion pollster. he is missing his book signing right now to be with all of us so as soon as we finish up here, i hope to merge everyone out there and grab ahold of that opportunity. he's known really worldwide for his predictions and i'll end on this, he will hold a nationally syndicated tv show, what america thinks with wcbs tv as the new york station. we're excited to see that. i'm going to open and end with the same question. a today question and a five months down the road question. we're going to begin with scott and we're going to -- the next person that will take the next question and rotate down and we'll be sure to keep everyone moving very quickly. the first question i have of course relates to this great big capitol and the white house.

the question is this. if you were to predict today, actually five months from the general election, today, who would be the winner and what the actual scope is or spin is for the white house and who would that be and why. >> for me the answer is easy because we publish a daily presidential tracking poll and we showed mitt romney at 47% and barack obama at 45% as of this morning. [ applause [ applause ] you do realize that means it's very close. a lot can happen. we'll talk about the future in a moment. one thing that is often abused in the process is this belief that somehow the electoral college moves to a different rhythm than the national tracking polls. if mitt romney wins the popular vote by two points, that would

mean he has a nine-point improvement over where john mccain was because president obama won by seven the last time. if mitt romney has a nine-point improvement nationally, that will translate to something close to that same improvement in almost all of the states. what that means is romney would win north carolina, ohio, many of the close states, virginia would become a tossup. and the question would be could he win virginia and if not, could he pick something else up elsewhere? i think it's important to recognize that a lot of talk of electoral college is premature. follow the national tracking polls. if a candidate opens a big lead there, he'll win the electoral college. >> our firm is the pollster for the romney campaign. by definition, mitt romney will be the next president of the

united states. [ applause ] >> i'm going to agree with that assessment. unfortunately we're five months out from the election and a lot can change. the reason why as many of you know, when incumbent is running for re-election, it's often the incumbent's record. three-quarters of americans say their family situation is not better today. you have a sense that 70% according to the latest national survey say that the economy is either not getting better or getting worse. so you combine those things and it's not a surprise that independent voters do not think president obama's economic plan is working. they don't necessarily blame him for the recession. they don't think he's put together the solutions to make things better. >> thank you so much.

[ applause ] >> this next one comes to you. i really want you to talk about methodology and i'll ask specific questions and pick up on any portion of this you like. is there a demographic group that is more amenable to being polled and what does that group look like and what races are easy to poll for? this is really specific to how you poll and what works and what doesn't work in terms of the data that is actually purposed. >> it might be helpful to look at a particular reflection. when i started doing this 25 years ago, we would dial eight people to get a completed interview. eight people. that number is now well over 100. so our industry has become much more difficult to actually get a real respondent on the line, someone who has a view, has opinions and is an actual voter and it is much more difficult. these challenges are not just

ours, it's the industry. i would say the biggest thing that we're focusing on now is how often and how much we can interview the people who will actually decide the race. america is more polarized now than ever. we spend a huge amount of time interviewing white independent voters who are disaffected with both parties. these are folks that will decide the race and even in a few states. you look at the fact is that new york or my home state of california, they're not going to decide this election and so much of national surveys have that built into them. unfortunately, if you win california by one point, or win it by ten points, you get the same number of electoral votes and so we spend a huge amount of time in methodology looking at just those voters who will decide the race in telephone interviews, which we are doing increasing number of cell phone components of that, and then we're also working -- we do a huge number of focus groups

where people even actually hear what they're saying and pick up on that anger that is out there. >> thank you. luke? >> what we have tried to focus on is policy testing. a lot of developing arguments between what we call he said/she said questions. congressman a says and we outline the message coming from the white house or coming from congressional democrats and then test that against a conservative message. something that is being said in congress right now or arguments that we want to see where independent voters stand on. something that we really look at closely is are those niche voting groups. for many in this room, 2012 presidential election started on january 21st, 2009. for these independent voters, there is a good chance many aren't even tuned in yet. that's something where they follow politics from afar. we spend a lot of time looking at those voters who voted for

obama in 2008 that are undecided today and looking at other cohorts within that. young voters. you hear a lot of talk of that in the media and disillusionment they feel based on promises they heard in 2008 and the hispanic and latino community, something that in the news this morning as far as what the administration is trying to do for disillusionment and things people in that community feel based on promises they heard on immigration reform or other issues. a lot of specific cohorts and swing voter groups that will decide the path come to number. >> how many of you remember either saying or hearing someone say shh, it's a long distance call? anybody ever remember your grandmother saying that and picking up the phone and that was the world. people talked on the phone. that's why phone polling worked. that world is long gone. ten years ago the number of mobile phones passed the number of landline phones.

now hardly anyone under the age of 35 uses a landline phone. we'll be in a world soon where you will have to go into online and new technologies to reach people and it will be a real challenge for the industry. we're doing experimenting in this. you're not seeing results public yet because you experiment before you roll them out publicly. this is something that's going to be a change. what it means in practical terms is there will probably be in the next couple of election cycles more mistakes than we are used to. the way you perfect these technolotec techniques as you do a poll and compare it to what really happened. it's a change that's coming. something that we're working on and everyone else in the industry is working on in different ways to try to deal with this shift. in terms of what we're looking at, one of the -- it's similar to what i just heard but we tend and especially people in the city tend to talk about

everything in terms of republicans versus democrats. the people who are undecided don't. the way that i describe it and police forgive me for this, i'm a new york giants football fan. and i'm a fan even when they don't win the super bowl. but when the washington redskins play the dallas cowboys, i want them both to lose. i know it can't happen but that's what i'm rooting for. and a lot of these undecided, angry voters when the republicans play the democrats, they want them both to lose. they are fed up with both parties and they're not sure what to do about it. so the partisan appeals don't work and that's why it becomes a challenge for the campaigns to figure out how to reach them. >> that's great. thank you. >> luke, this is a question that kind of shifts a bit for us. the health care decision with the supreme court is obviously eminent and the question is if it's a game changer, what is the voting populous have to say

about it and how does that fracture niche markets? are there trends and projections that you can share with us? >> i think there's not a doubt that once the supreme court rules on the health care reform law, the political landscape is going to shift. it's just a question of how much and to what extent and is it different than we saw in the two-year debate that led up to the law or two years post that time roughly that people have been trying to sell it to the public. and what you see consistently is that people -- independent voters want health care reform. they want to deal with cost of health care. they feel like the law that was passed, obama care, doesn't do that. they feel like it makes the situation worse and raises taxes and raises their premiums and that it will add to the deficit and just decrease quality of care. so when you look at the fundamenta fundamentals, the challenge is it's not that swing voters in particular and women voters,

disproportionate number make health care decisions in their family, it's not that they don't want health care reform, they want it to address their concerns of cost. that is the tight rope they are going to have to walk. >> i think that the range of decisions have a huge impact. if it is all thrown out, i think that something that people aren't talking about is effect on markets. $100 million tax cut combined with $500 billion cut in spending and how the markets will react to that? before we used to -- we looked at what unemployment rate was and growth and economic predictors, but in the stock market crash of '29, fewer than one out of ten americans were in the market. now that number is over six out

of ten with 401(k)s and everything else that if we have a simultaneous cut in taxes and a massive cut in spending, you know, the markets will probably go over 13,000 points ins stata and the fact is the president could get credit for that. >> it's impossible to know what the response will be partly because we don't know what the ruling will be and partly because we don't know how the president and governor romney will respond. if the law is overturned, president obama could take a high road and say we had some technical issues before the court. you need to re-elect me to finish the job and that would be a compelling argument to some of the people in the middle. especially if there's no alternative vision presented. on the other hand, if the court overturned the ruling or significant portion of the law,

and president were to attack the court, i think that would be very negative for his campaign. sometimes we get too wrapped up in these things. gene mentioned the economic indicators. the number to me that's the most significant in this election is how people rate their own personal finances. the question of are you better off than four years ago? we track that every day. in fall of 2008 just before lehman brothers collapsed, 43% of americans said their finances were in good shape. it collapse during the financial meltdown. it was at 35% the day that president obama took office. it's at 32% today. if that number does not improve, the president will lose. if the stock market sky rockets and people think things are getting better, perceptions of personal finances will improve and the president will keep his job. >> very interesting. we'll start with you, scott. this is kind of a fun question. what is the most volatile

question or poll issue that you've ever administered in terms of the responses? >> volatile is a tough word. you know, the question that we got the most comment out of early on, i'll go in that direction, we asked people -- we poll on every topic. when dolly the sheep was cloned, every polling firm in america went out and asked about morality and legality and ethics of cloning. we did those questions too but we also said if you could name just one person other than yourself, who would you clone? now some people to a question like that think nobely and mother theresa came out on top but among males was michelle phifer. >> i'm going to flip it around and go the opposite way.

what's the least volatile. our firm did a lot of work in both wisconsin and indiana on right to work issues and i have never seen an issue where you have 2% undecided. we are seeing consiste ifistente numbers where people were so polarized and there was no volatility and whether it was the recall elections of last summer or the most recent ones, it was the same effect. there simply was -- it was love and hate and nothing in between. there was no like. >> we asked sort of on the interesting side, focus groups we conducted recently in richmond and denver with obama independents, if president obama were a car, what kind of car would he be and why? really trying to get a sense of outside of job approval, we can ask if you approve or disapprove of his job on the economy and

those things but to get an open ended question. someone that's a family man and reliable, minivan, a family car, a sedan. you know the answers tended to skew the other way. looks good on the outside but not sure what's under the hood. a broken down sports car and a wide range of answers in between. it really gets to this question in the election that you hear narrative of. president obama's likability, that trump is his job performance. and questions like that you get a sense of behind the curtains of what motivated voters and what do they certificatperceive whether they like him or not or could someone do better? >> gene's approach talking about least volatility. president's health care law. in year and a half leading up to passage, a majority of americans opposed it.

we polled it every single week. when it was -- in all of those polls, republicans and unaffiliated voters didn't like it, younger voters did, seniors did not. the day it passed we started polling about repeal and numbers were exactly the same. majority favored repeal. seniors were more supportive of it. 54% on the day after it was passed. 55% now. the numbers, the demographics, have not changed. this is a bill that is firmly established in the public mind. people know whether they like it or don't like it. nothing has changed it. >> one point on the health care law. in my opinion, the health care reform debate and law put in place probably did the most single handedly to damage president obama's post-partisan image. when the stimulus bill was passed, it was a little support of republicans in congress but looking at polling, it still had

majority of support. that shifted as people began to see the results and what was in the bill and things that took place. but the way the health care bill came together, the general sense and focus groups we did in orlando at the time amongst independents, they were following the legislative process following inside the beltway debate you wouldn't expect them to be paying attention to throwing out cornhusker kickback and the extent that the administration put that forward. it really more than anything else in my opinion tarnished his post-partisan brand and he hasn't been able to recover from that. >> there's another part to this debate though that you won't like to hear but in 2006 and 2008 when we asked who do you trust more on health care issue, it was democrats consistently. a great issue for them to campaign on. from the moment the health care law began its path to passage, support for the democrats on the

health care issue fell. it was a strong republican issue in 2010. in january of 2011, our polling showed the republicans had a 14-point advantage in terms of who do you trust on health care. then paul ryan introduced his plan. it became a tossup. and it's been a tossup ever since. >> so each of you have talked about focus groups, polling, telephone surveys, you mentioned earlier, scott, you get one word, we'll start with you gene, what is the future of polling. it has to be a mode of asking the question. is it an app. what is the one? you have to predict it. you all are gearing toward this any way. what would that be? >> fusion. >> fusion. >> the current method of doing research has maybe another ten years in it tops.