sessions and the summit goes on for another 26 hours. senator, i was impressed with the concise, powerful, irresistible brevity of the debt relief amendment. you said 18 words. give us those, please. >> the national debt relief amendment is a state initiated nonpartisan effort invoking the rights of state legislatures to propose and ratify amendments to the united states constitution using the process wisely provided for us in article five. those 18 words are an increase in the federal debt requires approval from a majority of the legislatures of the separate states. [ applause ] >> senator, there's a lot of people of italian descent in north dakota and this is one of them. he's awfully proud of it.

the italian olefsons have had immense influence in america. senator, this is passed in a few states and you're starting to get traction in a few more. quickly enumerate the states. >> okay. we have passed the national debt relief amendment in north dakota and louisiana and we have prime sponsors in 20 additional states. i don't have the list in front of me right now. colorado is one of those. wyoming, utah, arizona. of course, all of the states that are fiscally responsible like the national debt relief amendment. so i would invite you to visit with me during the conference, to learn more about the national debt relief amendment and i would also invite you to visit our website, restoringfreedom.org. this idea was first proposed by a texas-based nonprofit corporation called restoringfreedom.org. i thought it was providential that james robison's first two

words were restoring freedom. that's what we are doing, folks. we are restoring freedom. we must exercise our rights under article five as our founding fathers intended and i just want to take the time to say this. it is amazing when you look at what our founding fathers intended with article five. they gave states the unilateral power to propose and ratify amendments to the u.s. constitution. they did not give that power to any other entity of government. they gave no power to the president. they gave no power to state governors. but they gave state legislatures the unilateral power to propose and ratify amendments. we have gone too long without using article five. our founding fathers had great faith in us. it's time that we had faith in ourselves. >> restoringfreedom.org, the national debt relief amendment. senator, hang out here up front as we break into the luncheon time and folks, please come on

up and meet the senator and learn how you can be part of what they are doing. certainly this week has reminded us in both the arizona ruling and in the obamacare ruling, those of us who thought that judges were some sort of magic savior to get constitutional government back in america, it isn't going to be that way. we're too far gone. we have got to save ourselves from the bottom up. this magnificent effort is going to be part of it. now, what about the path we go if things don't turn around in this election and indeed, day by day, not just on election day, what is america's future. those who have lived under communism as cal cardin reminded us last year from the cuban perspective, they have seen america's future because it is their past. they fled it at great cost. they are amongst us as witnesses. martin zuris is one such witness. he fled communism not once but twice. martin, tell us briefly about

how you not only fled communism once, but two times and what do americans need to have in mind and why do you hope summit delegates will seek you out in the next 26 hours. martin zuris. >> good evening. first of all i would like to thank mr. john andrews because he's the first and the only man with courage to give me a platform like this. after short conversation on the phone, especially how i look. okay. i'm not a cookie cutter anything. there's a reason for it, because i grew up behind communism. not like most that submitted, i became a rebel and i'm still a rebel and i still try to rebel against what's going on. if you think thursday was bad, if you think bloomberg banning soda is bad, that's nothing. this is just the beginning. if you don't wake up, you are

going to lose it all. it is worse than you think. but there is hope. that word is profound to me after 2008, nasty word, election, but you have the power. you have to start exercising it. you consent of the government, you don't like it, you really have to start working at it. you have to understand how dangerous the enemies of freedom within you in this country is, that you will lose it all and in november, that's it. if we don't prevail, we're done. >> tell us about your -- >> oh, first, when the russians invaded my country, my native country, this is my country now, proud american, not so much as of thursday. when the russians invaded czechoslovakia, i was a young boy and my parents brought me over here. i learned very quickly the difference even at that age. in 1973, my mom asked me do you

want to fly to seattle to see your aunt. go oh, yeah, of course. i was 9 years old. i woke up behind the iron curtain again. so then i worked on it since i turned 15 for ten years. took me ten years to escape again just before the fall of the berlin wall and i was at a demonstration, 20 years against the communist government, prague spring in 1989. so i know the enemy of freedoms better than anybody. if you want to know them as i do, come and talk to me. thank you very much, everybody, for allowing me this opportunity. >> god bless you. thank you. >> martin, the "d" is silent. dzuris. martin and curtis, martin, come on back up by the platform. i will ask all of you to clear the room quickly, please, and take your conversations outside.

put your belongings if you want on your chair, but make it easier for the servers to get the room set up for lunch. the exception to clearing the room quickly is come on up front, meet martin dzuris or curtis olefson, restore freedom.org. we are adjourned. the doors will open again at high noon, 12:00 noon for luncheon service. >> ladies and gentlemen, please exit the ballroom promptly. remember, take personal items with you as the room will be reset. thank you. doors will reopen shortly. ♪

here on c-span 3, live at 5:00 p.m. eastern, the house rules committee holds a meeting on legislation to repeal president obama's health care law. the house vote to repeal the law could come as early as wednesday. you can read more about the health care law at c-span.org/healthcare. today, live on c-span 3 --

now analysis of president obama and mitt romney's positions on the war on terrorism. david schanzer looks at the effects of national security on current and past presidential elections. this is about 90 minutes. >> we're very happy to welcome to our stage david schanzer. he is the associate professor of the practice for public policy at duke university's sanford school of public policy. he's director at the triangle center of terrorism and homeland security and adjunct associate professor of public policy and also in the peace war and defense program at unc. he is also director for strategy

and outreach at the institute of homeland security solutions, based here in north carolina. professor schanzer did his undergraduate work in government at harvard and received his j.d. from harvard law school, where he also served as editor for the "harvard law review." prior to his academic career, professor schanzer worked as a law clerk for the department of justice and for the honorable norma l.shapiro at the u.s. district court for the eastern district of pennsylvania. he was a trial attorney for the department's civil division, counsel for senators william cohen and joseph biden and special counsel for the u.s. department of defense. he has also served as the legislative director for senator jean carnahan and the democratic staff director for the house select committee on homeland security. professor schanzer has parlayed his extensive experience in public service and policy analysis into an equally impressive journalistic and academic career. the author of numerous articles and op-ed pieces, professor

schanzer has weighed in on many of the weightiest issues involving homeland security, foreign and domestic policy and the intersection of legality and individual rights in the age of terrorism. a gifted teacher, his courses offered at both unc and duke on 9/11 and its aftermath and counterterrorism law and public policy are preparing a new generation of scholars and public servants to face the challenges presented by the post-9/11 world. professor schanzer is clearly a busy man so we are delighted that he has taken some of his time to brief us on how war, terrorism and national security will play out in the 2012 elections. please join me in extending a warm welcome to professor david schanzer. [ applause ] >> okay. thank you, max, so much for that warm introduction, and thank you, of course, to flyleaf bookstore. great addition to our chapel hill community for the last two and a half years, and thank you

all as well, the audience, for coming out on a warm north carolina afternoon. hope we'll have a chance to share some of my ideas with you and then your ideas with me as well at the end of the session. so our topic today is war, terrorism, national security and the 2012 election, and while i'm going to be talking about the candidates and their ideas and positions, i'm not here to represent one candidate or the other. you heard my background so you kind of know a little bit about which way i lean politically. that's okay. but what we're going to try to do today is really try to better understand where the candidates are coming from, what some of their positions are and look a little bit at the kind of back and forth, the thrust and parry of a campaign, shall we say, and try to analyze how the candidates are going to try to make their case on these national security issues.

i guess we're tempted to start at the beginning and a question well, is national security and terrorism and war, are they really going to have much of a role in this campaign, and i guess one could answer that question and say not much and we could -- it's all going to be about the economy and we could all go to our local eateries and pubs and call it an afternoon. but i think that would not be fair or entirely accurate. it's clear the economy's going to be the dominant issue. that won't mean it's going to be the sole issue. there's a couple reasons for that. first of all, national security, commander in chief is a threshold issue for any candidate. and that's especially so for the challenger, who has not served as president yet, and so for governor romney, it's a type of

issue that if you don't get over the bar, so to speak, and convince the american populace that you are equipped to properly execute the office of the presidency of the united states, of course the most powerful office in the entire world, then you are going to hit the bar, it's going to fall off, you're going to crash into the pit and you are not going to become president. so since president obama has been president for three years and nothing calamitous has happened, this is really more of an issue for governor romney as having not served in a national office previously, for him to overcome. so clearly, that will be part of the vetting that the american public is going to be doing and an important reason why these issues are important in national security. second reason is an election at a time of war or not necessarily even war, but a time of national

unease and concern about foreign affairs and national security issues, during those elections, these issues obviously, they rise to the top. again, i don't think it's going to be determinative in this election because while we do have 60,000 troops in afghanistan and the concern of terrorism is still prevalent, i don't think the american public is feeling this is a time of war and national security. as a matter of fact, their insecurity is coming more from the economic troubles that we've experienced in the last three to four years than they do about national security. nonetheless, because national security issues are still very much on the forefront of the newspapers because we do have troops, again, that's another reason i think it's going to be important whereas not necessarily the dominant issue. there is some irony to that, as a matter of fact, that the economy is going to dominate

because when you look at the powers of the presidency, the president really has virtually nothing that he or she can do about the economy. the power to set interest rates and to print money rests with the federal reserve, which is independent from the president, and of course, fiscal policy, there's nothing that the president can do in terms of taxation or spending without getting the agreement of the united states congress. so the powers of the president over the economy are limited. however, with respect to national affairs, national security, foreign affairs, they're at its apex. the president, of course, has control of our nuclear weapons. the president can make foreign policy just by walking out of his office to the microphones in the rose garden and project and state u.s. policy without asking anybody else, any member of

congress, any other branch, what they think, and can state u.s. policy and that's it. obviously, the president's commander in chief of the armed forces and can use that power to project authority anywhere in the globe. so the president has the amazing powers in the areas of national security, limited ones in terms of the economy, so again, another reason why we're here talking about that this afternoon. so i want to proceed with my talk with that introduction, speaking a little bit about the history of national security and presidential elections. i'm going to talk about how the different candidates are framing, what i mean by that, what is the big picture that they see of national security issues through, how do they view the united states' role in the world and ability to shape foreign affairs and national security issues rather than the specific issues per se.

then i'm going to talk a little bit about the lines of attack. what are their positions, there's line of scrimmage in a local little football game but how will the candidates line up their arguments, what are they going to say, what are they going to say about their strengths and weaknesses of their opponent. and we'll look at it from both perspectives and that should leave us a little time for questions and discussion. so let's turn to history. as a first note, the period from 1932 to 1964, a 32-year period, saw the democrats win 7 of 9 national elections, and then the subsequent 20 years actually saw republicans win 5 of 6 elections. the time since then, we've had a number of very closely contested elections when even the winning candidate didn't even win a majority.

so what accounts for -- i'm not going to try to explain all of this change, but let's talk about how national security has played into that historical trend. so with lyndon johnson, as you all know, by 1968, when the election occurred, the vietnam war had become so unpopular, both on the left in terms of being anti-war and on the right in terms of disappointment at the prosecution and the way the war was going that johnson had really lost the country, and so much of an extent he decided not to run. the blame for vietnam at least then was pinned mainly on the democratic party. democrats then went on to move left and nominate a very strong anti-war candidate in 1972, after richard nixon had won the

election in 1968, and that was not -- that was not where the country was at that stage even though nixon had escalated a fairly unpopular war, security take root and also this notion maybe democrats aren't as strong as they need to be on national security and began to influence national elections. jimmy carter, who is not particularly experienced in foreign affairs, although he did serve in the navy, won a very tight election in 1980. excuse me. in 1976. you think about it, it should have been a route given the watergate and nixon resignation and then the very unpopular pardon, but he is generally perceived to have not been a strong candidate on national

security. the response of the soviet invasion of afghanistan was seen as tepid and although carter increased spending and military during his four years in office, of course as you know over the last year it was mired with the iran hostage crisis, which continued until the very day that he stepped down from office after losing the 1980 election to ronald reagan. and reagan hammered home this notion which has become until recent times embedded in national security that republicans were strong, they were pro-military. he wrapped himself successfully in the flag. patriotism. the idea that he used force for the first time since vietnam in grenada and not particularly challenging but nonetheless successful manner.

he called the soviet union the evil empire and on his watch the communist system although it didn't crumble until george bush took over, it was beginning to erode. so although reagan's foreign policy record was not entirely unblemish, he projected his notion of a strong president and that rallied people behind him and he was very popular in that regard and he won a landslide election after winning a close election in '84 and was really able to pass that mantel onto his vice president in 1988 and in that case we had a very experienced republican so republican running with advantages that democrats are weak and public opinion polls

showed republicans with a 30-point advantage in public polls about who do you trust on national security issues. while george bush was not only the vice president, he was head of the cia. he was ambassador to china. he ran against michael dukakis who had no national security experience and to prove he was tough he got in a tank with an oversized helmet. many of you will remember that. and that was a really defining moment, which would not give confidence to the american public and george bush, the first, sometimes people call him bush xli goes on to win the presidency. the economy, much like the election today, the economy was the big issue in 1992. the soviet union was no longer

so national security began to take a back seat and in some way open the door for bill clinton to get elected in 1992. again, republicans continued to have an advantage if those issues but because it was peace, other issues were defining of that election and a democrat came in. clinton's record on national security and foreign affairs was somewhat mixed. there was the tragic blackhawk down incident in somalia early in his presidency. there was controversy about gays in the military, which was not particularly popular at that point. 20 years later things have obviously public attitudes have changed. his failure to serve during the

vietnam ward which led this perception again that clinton was not strong on national security. he did successfully execute humanitarian military action in bosnia and then in kosovo. so he had in some ways a mixed record on national security and foreign affairs but still in the end even though he was president for eight years, that did not really translate into more popularity for democrats on national security still going into this century democrats were still being polled with over 20-point disadvantage and perception they were not as strong as republicans. al gore, another election in 2000 where we were in relative times of peace and stability, no major threats on the horizon. the cold war was over. even though al gore had more national security experience and military service than george bush, george bush wins and then

of course 9/11 occurs. bush goes on of course to start the iraq war in 2003 and in 2004 goes against john kerry, a war hero, a decorated vietnam veteran, but nonetheless pummels him on national security issues again taking advantage of the idea that democrats are weak, republicans are strong on national security. his success in preventing any subsequent acts of terrorism and then of course kerry did not do a good job of saying what he would do differently about the iraq war which led to charges of being a flip-flopper and then the swift boat advertisements and kerry really was a close election but many believe he lost the election on the national security issue. but interestingly during bush's term you can see for the viewers

on television this chart of polling about which party is better on national security after almost two decades of showing very strong republican support. unpopularity of the iraq war began to erode. literally a 30-point gap, december 2003 the saddam hussein had fallen. his statue had come down. but over time the inability for us to secure iraq, the rise of sectarianism, the advent of al qaeda in iraq, and what was seen as many stumbles and a lack of clear execution of leadership on behalf of the first bush administration especially as i said goes on despite that. wins re-election. but by 2006, the damage is done.

the gap is only five points in favor of republicans when the 2006 midterm come in, democrats win that election, take control of congress, and you can see that pretty much closer contest between democrats and republicans on national security prevails right into the run-up of the 2008 election. perhaps the nomination of john mccain and the war hero against the relatively inexperienced barack obama leads to a reopening of that divide. as the election goes on, people become more confident. obama passes the national security test in some ways. he gets over the bar from the last election. excuse me, from the last slide. you can see by december of 2008 when obama is about to take office, he has gained the support of the country on

national security issues. his promise to end the iraq war convinces the country that he is the person to take the mantel in the white house and at that point it's only a two-point gap. we see him with erosion in the early part of the obama administration but that really has not held and here we are again a recent fox news poll from june 7, just last week, 2012, shows that while romney has better standing on the economy, if you look at the last paragraph it says obama is trusted more on first education but then terrorism, 13 points over romney. foreign policy 11 points over romney. this is the first time in recent memory where a presidential candidate on the democratic side is walking into re-election with the democrats having a better perception on national security than the repca