as we look out for the next couple of years, as we started with today around wind, it is important policy decision. and a quick final committent? >> short-term and long-term let's look to r and d and sell it around the country. >> please thank michael oh sullivan and willard kempton with the university of delaware. thank you for a wonderful discussion. >> former congressmonday viswas one of the former to endorse barack obama. then a hearing on the energy department's loan guarantee

program. the agency revoked a permit for a west virginia coal mine. that hearing alater. friday, supreme court justice talked about the term including the health care case. >> no court has attracted more attention in the press, academy and the ticket line outside the supreme court. a line that formed three days before oral argument commenced. some have described the controversy and they may be right if they mean the number of press conferences, prayer circles, protests going on outside the court while oral

argument was underway inside. and though our cldeliberations e private, my favorite among press pieces wisely observed at the supreme court those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know. watch the rest of her comments online. at the c-span3 video library. >> from the heritage foundation a political forum. we'll hear from republican congressman jim jordan of ohio. this is about an hour.

we are going to go ahead and get started. i hear we are out of food, sorry. i get it pays to show up early right? thanks for joining us. if it is your first time coming to heritage, thank you fortu tuning in today. for those of you who are new, we will have three speakers and we'll have them take your questions.

he was one of the first to endorse barack obama in 2008. today he has a different per sp spective on things as a result of some of the policies that were pursued in the aftermat h f the election. >> thank you. some may be wondering why the heck i'm here. thank you for listening in online. i thank you for joining us as well. i was telling rob that i did get the memo that you guys prefer the comments to be on the short side the only problem is someone

who used to be an elected official short may not mean to me what it does to you. perhaps to you it means i talked to long already perhaps to me it means i have six minute to go. we'll try to create a happy medium around that. >> let me say where we are, i turned 45 years old, to which, i'm thankful for the gray hairs in the room for making me not the only old person in the room today. i turned 45 in october. in the early 80s president reagan had just come to power. heritage was kind of the only game in town when it came to smart, creative policy ideas and

a lot of the thing that is president reagan did during the 1980s, a lot of the template for chan change, a lot of it came out of the advancement, a lot of the rest of it came in these hallways and from people who had been associatied for a long tim. as someone who had been a new convert for the republican party, but not such a new convert for conservativism, this is like being in a cathedral. rob eluded to a conversation weeks ago, and i've god ten some attention most of it mot not deserved, it is unusual for an

official to switch maparties ani get all of that, but, i want to put this in some per spspective. 2008 president obama got 53% of the vote. which by the way is the biggest margin anybody running for president of the united states has gotten since 1988 when president george h.w. bush. relative landslide. president obama's approval rating today depending on the poll you look at 46, 47%, he and governor romney have been pretty much tied with each other at 45 or 46 for the last several weeks, so davis is not the only person who is in the obama camp in 2008 who has been in

political migration. by my harvard math which is probably badly flawed. 10 million americans have shifted camps. and i brought these note was me, because i want to share with you these moments, all of these quote quotes are from people who identified themselves as democrats, or people who say that they voted for barack obama and don't identify their party. i want to read you this because it provides some clarity for why i'm a pebble in an ocean of change. one lady wrote me, i figured out in the middle of the worst economy in my life, how to start a business and make money. and i just paid one third of what i earn not to my kid's college savings or my retirement

but to the federal government and i'm tired of being told i didn't pay my fair share. another guy wrote me again and this person identified himself as an obama supporter four years ago. his employers sent out a notice that it is shifting to a higher deductible plan that provides benefits than ones that exist today. they told me their reforms wouldn't change my insurance. why did they lie to me? another guy said that he volunteers in the obama campaign. here is what he wrote. i'm tired of being told if i want the worst teachers out of my kids school and want state

employees to pay for their retirement the same as i do, that it means i hate teachers and despise public service. finally, another gentleman said i voted for obama because he said business was usual is over in washington. promise broken. a lot of our friends on the left wouldn't find that terribly poetic. nothing about this being the right when the oceans began to cease. and nothing about we are the ones we have been waiting for. but the comments that i have read to you, they are the way people talk around the dinner table. they are the way people talk to

themselves about politics and they are making a case and people like them who may not have access to a computer to write a guy like me people all around this country, a lot of them are saying we have changed our faiths because the people we used to listen to either didn't tell us the truth or they got it flatly wrong. so, i wanted to start by saying with my friends on the right. and that is not everybody here, but it is a lot of you, we don't have to heckle the other side. we don't have to shout down the other side and cut the president off his press conferences because the more the other side keeps talking, the more the other side keeps making it's arguments and the more people are beginning to move our way. i firmly believe that.

and they may be moving our way not on the wings of remarkable poetry but on the wings of their common sense. that is point number one. now point number two, i want to confess a deep envy i have had for a very simple reason. you guys won all of the elections in alabama and my side didn't. but there was a thing that i envied on the political right. this is a center right country. 40% of americans call themselvvs liberals. those of you on the center right spend your time arguing to people why their instincts are right and why they have a rote based on beliefs. my side we had to spend a lot of

our time telling people the things you think are not right you do not really think them. you do not think they are important to you and it was amazie ining how that worked ou my old side. if you look back at the history of elections again i know ancient politics to you is bush versus gore. but republicans have won a lot of elections. and republicans conservatives more or less won by telling people that the status quo was working and that it would give it a chance to continue. one time conservatives one in 2000 when the other side was in power and saying we are going to give you a more ethical version of it.

what always fascinated me, for all the elections you have won i have always had a sense that the election that you cared most about, could not have been more different i'm talking about 1980. 1980, ronald reagan came to the country and he didn't have the luxury of saying what we are doing was working let's continue it. because what we were doing had caused the u.s. to lose it's first war or caused the united states to fall second to the soviet union and for the only time since 1982 the early 80s since world war ii our side was

on the way and the other side was on the ascension. he also couldn't speak to a republican country because 52% of americans called each other democrats and the number of republicans were in the upper 30s. so instead of making an appeal to keep things the way that they are and not take a chance on risk. the election that conservatives care the most about the one that you trade the others for is 1980 when lon aronald reagan had to e appear to be losing our way we can be better if we recover what is always best in our tradition and for those of you who do not

remember that time, it was a very powerful call. the touch people working on ship yards and people living in the shadow of tie ran any from cue ca to china. it touched blacks in south africa and people all over the world who loved hearing the call of freedom. for all the people in your 20s who are here, people in the 20s in the 1980s were almost jeanetjese predisposed to be democrats. in love with a guy who was 70 years of age and spoke powerfully to their sense of

imagination. people who worked with their hands. who had been taught understandably that the respect party was the party of royalism and they discovered that there was a party that connected with their faith and goals with their lives and it was the republican party and blue collar people who worked with their hands found a home and party. i mention all of that for a simple reason. i have a hunch, that this may be 1980 all over again. the challenges we are faceing al of a sudden our leaders act as if we're weak. what do they tell us over and

over? we were elected to lead, never heard leadership in this country say that our fortunes depend on athens in madrid? this could very well be a time ladies and gentlemen 20 years from now, when the young people around this table are standing up here but i think this would be a time we'll remember. so, for those of you in the room who are part of the center right i'm happy to be here with you. the first president i remember is ronald reagan. yes, i do remember the preacher in my church telling everybody to vote for jimmy carter. the first presidency i remember

is ronald reagan's. i remember who we turned the country around. if you are in the camp of people who think we need to turn the country around right now. it means one simple thing, boldness matters in politics, boldness is rewarded in politics, clarity is rewarded in politics and governor walker can tell you that in wisconsin and governor christy can tell you that in new jersey. and the last thing governor romney needs is advice from a new guy. i think the american people are ready to here a clarion call. i think they are ready to hear the man who would lead us tell us that we can control our own destiny. and i think people are ready to

since talk to them again. that is my little spill at the outset. with that said, i'm going to take some questions and be mindful of the time and everyone introduce yourself so i know who you are. >> so, congressman, i wanted to see, there has been a lot of chr criticism, of eric holder. a lot of people are calling for him to resign. i know you were one of the ones with congressman shepp leading the charge. do you still have confidence in attorney general holder with everything fast and furious going on with him now? >> let me say two things about him. i'm going to try to not

personalize the comments. you elude d to the controversy over the u.s. attorneys five years ago when i and others raised questions about the fires of those votes. i think the mild side kind of personalized it a little bit and we made a lot of it about attorney general gonalez and frankly we seemed so mad add him that people stopped hearing what we were saying about how u.s. attorneys were dismissed. i think we made a mistake in doing that. i want to say two things about the department of justice that caught my eye. the fast and furious, i was a junior federal prosecutor, i was 28 years of age. i did a lot of drug and gun

cases. i never got to work in the department of justice. we had a lot of basic principle. don't let guns and drugs walk. okay. for those of you who don't watch cop shows in the room. do your deal but don't let the bad guys leave with guns or drugs. i had to understand that when i was 29 years old. and i probably would have gotten fired if i had gotten that wrong. so i have a hard time understanding how if i had to get all of that right as a 29-year-old why people who are more experienced seem confused about all of it. i don't understand how it came to be and i think the republicans on the hill are right to get to the bottom of

it. and the second thing that bothers me. i have no idea how you may relate to this. i have no idea why we spent millions of dollars trying to figure out if roger clemens should be in the hall-of-fame. i happen to be a big fan of baseball. i care a lot about whether roger clemens cheated. i do not understand why when ten baseball players went before congress about being on steroids, the john edwards case, i know opinions were mixed on that, i saw that as a dispute on campaign finance law. i don't get the issues. these guys and ladies serve at

the pleasure of the president. the president gets to keep them. if he decides whether or not he wants to keep this person aren't that is his prerogative. vo voters can make their judgement on their own. thank you. >> thank you for comeing today. you have made courageous remarks based on the accusation that states are putting in place voter id requirements and purging the rolls from years ago. can you talk about that in detail? >> yes, sure. this is the only building i have been in, in washington that didn't ask me for an id. i may be outing the heritage foundation for doing that. this is the only building that i have been in where i have been asked to -- i guess i feel safe

standing here. most of you know this. if you go to virtually any building in washington, d.c., you get asked for your id. the department of justice that is in court right now telling three states that they cannot pass voter id laws, that same department of justice you can't get much past the guard gate without showing somebody you can't get past that without showing somebody an id. it is required. i did an interview with a tv station a few months ago. and the reporter, the reporter was pressing me about voter id. and the reporter was saying, isn't this a ptrojan horse, andi had to remind the reporter to get in her building there was a

sign saying photo id required no exceptions. if i had not turned around and got my license i wouldn't have been able to do the interviews. i'm for photo id. i think it is good, common sense. our lives as people who work and go into buildings and getting in planes. we are accustomed to presenting id. i don't think it bothers anybody. i think it is common sense. back of the room. >> university of alabama. great to see you congressman. question for you is this do you think there is anything that the democratic party can do to remain viable in statewide elections? >> i know they can't keep doing

what they are doing right now. those of you in the room who are from the south. your parents and grandparents i bet you they were democrats. everybody was prior to 1970 and things changed. the south became two parties. but, at one point democrats had strength in the south. it was irrespective of how presidential elections were going. richard nixon was re-elect iing- and democrats in the south had no problem flsplitting their brn when it kim to politics. i'm going to be republican when it comes to voting for the senate but they voted for democrats for all manner of

other offices. and that started to change and today you look at the party id numbers and i want to drag race into this but it makes a point. roughly 18% of white males identify them as democrats. you cannot win an election when one out of five -- why? democrats have tended to make two big mistakes. a lot of southern democrats make the tendency telling voters what you think is wrong. what you think is important is not so important. politics is a customer and consumer oriented business. customer is always right. and if you are campaigning for

office and your job is saying, you know that issue care about is a done issue. the thing that you think is important you need to realize that is not as nearly as important as the thing we are trying to do in the state capitol right now. the second and last point i will make is who were the kinds of democrats who used to win in the south? they were conservative democrats. there were virtually none left in the democratic party. i make this point about it. how many of you have heard somebody say in the last few weeks oh those republicans have gone off the far end. they are so extreme they have no tolerance for posing viewpoints. show of hands if you have heard somebody say that.