structural and they were up and down the economy from credit cards, which were basically a product of the deregulation of finance in the 1970's and 1980's. >> let's keep it short, guys. >> i am with the progressive change campaign committee. . . in your goldwater book, it seems to me that there was a lot of -- a lot in common between the goldwater campaign and the mccain nomination. what does that mean? i hear from people that we cannot just replicate the

structure and institutions of of the right. the right. we have to make new infrastructure that is adapted to the needs of today. what does that mean? people keep saying it, in my experience. >> the goldwater campaign in 64 and john mccain's campaign in 2008 were conducted by a very badly divided dysfunctional party. >> that is a good question about why can't the old tactics work? there were some organizational decisions that they made, some ideas about how they chose to""

one thing, i'm still trying to figure out how we do this. i think inside, we all want to have a relationship with other than our wives and mothers and real community. i think when we are able to do that, we can have the kind of conversations but really help. -- that really help. >> hi, my name is -- i am from the democracy collaborative and the university of missouri,

kansas city. for those of you know this one person, we know that the most aggressive and progressive reforms after the great crash and the depression took only about 50 years to completely have crashed. is there a mechanism we can build in to this new round of reforms that is going to prevent us from being destroyed again in 30 or 40 years? referring, i am from kansas city, so i am partial to your university. you are referring to what is

called -- the idea being euphoria leads to panic. the classic panic as the 1920's. you saw it in the recent housing bubble. euphoria causes crazy over building and then you have collapsed. how do you stop it? the central bank in our country, the federal reserve and regulators have the power to stop the ball. it has to be a part of their mission. up until now, it hasn't been. look at the various statement of chairman greenspan over the last 10 years as this was building up. the idea that it was his responsibility to keep this from happening, he said no way. plus, an orthodox circles they don't believe in baubles --

there can be no room for central banker to do this. i think 40 years is the best run we can expect. everything changes. economy and technology changes, society changes. we need to have these breakdowns every once in awhile, according to the new model. there are things in our world that don't work. any order that stands, has a finite stand. the idea that we will always have progressivism, whatever we build now will not last through the ages.

>> i think we all know that the movement of conservatism embraced extremism as a part of the death -- debt spiral we are in right now. it is not altogether, there is also a pragmatic aspect of it. even though it is guaranteed to marginalize and drive them further out into the political wilderness, it does have a certain practical effect. the best example is gun control.

everybody is so afraid of bringing up in control, because they are afraid it will set off not cases. it has a practical effect, when the doctor was assassinated yesterday, it took of one of the three doctors in america who actually performed those procedures. there are only two doctors left in the u.s. who will perform the procedure. . .

the notion that bill o'reilly would go on tv every day and say this man murders babies for profit, and for another reason, is beyond the pale. yes, one of the fascinating things about that is that now people are looking into what dr. tiller does, and finding that it is quite humanitarian, and no longer believing thei lies of te right, but meanwhile, we are left with a corpse, in order. -- a martyr. you get people who are really extreme and irrelevant and more and more frustrated and angry. it is a danger. that is why i think obama's rhetoric of inclusion is more important than i ever imagined it to be. that is my thought on that. >> what are the truisms about right wing extremism and

violence in the united states -- there are a lot of people who say, oh, they have a lot of power and in fact, they have so much power they are starting to go violence. that is not the story. the story is that they resort to violent tactics when they're losing power and they know it. this is a last-ditch effort of acting out and it is a sign of decreasing power and should be interpreted that way. >> in addition to being from kansas city, i'm actually from kansas. kansas city, you understand, spills over the state line. extremism has a history of being very, very useful on the right and very powerful. look at the language of what used to be 50 years ago considered extremism and today is commonplace. we have a whole tv network dedicated to this stuff, to constantly describing liberals and people like dr. tiller as

moral outlaws, as people who are beyond the pale. you know, we are not real americans, that sort of thing. in kansas, demonizing dr. tiller was a ritual of the conservative -- of the republican right. you have never cared about abortion before in your life, but he would get up on a platform and start bad mouthing dr. tiller and, lo and behold, he would be elected to something or other. that -- you would be elected to something or other. they made a demon out of this man, a member of their community, and they attacked him for 20 years. it is a testimony to some aspect of the kansas personality that the man took it. you know, he would not give up. he was stubborn and he stayed there, by god, in wichita, and they shot him in his church. it is monstrous. ok, i am being quiet now. >> i just have to say that i

agree that it is incredibly effective because that is how they ended the old civil-rights thing, just by killing king and everything else. i mean, it is really effective. my question is just that, there is this missing thing, and i know this session is not about that, but i feel like it is, too, because the story that we write about the past is not include the people going to jail, it is going to -- you look at nixon and he did not get impeached for war crimes. had he gotten in peace for a carpet bombing cambodia -- and these guys, how can we write the story if nobody is going to go to jail? we do not want more extremism. we do not want to divide the country. we do not want assassinations, but every day there are people -- you are watching tv and you

know something is wrong. but this kind of inquiry is a punitive process. if there is one thing that we know about the truth and reconciliation process in south africa, or may the way it is conducted in many regions -- or in the way it is connected in many regions a round the world, it is not about the healing process. it is about getting the story straight. it is not about punishing people. the conservative's interpreted that way because it fits in with their world view. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> you can take this out of the realm of freud and take this out of the realm of anger and bring it into the realm of civic repair. there is a deep pattern in postwar american history and that is, every president has by lafave -- violated the constitution in an intense way and gotten away with it.

nixon did it, reagan did it, and bush did it. and the next one may do it and someone has to have the courage to stop the cycle. >> exactly, they're going to win again, is what i'm saying. they're weak, but they're going to come back again. >> i think it also undermines the public trust. there is a basic sense of integrity and accountability. we have this idea that we all respect the law. if there are these unwritten exceptions and there is a common practice around it, it is very dangerous. it causes people to be detached from government and not trust it. >> one more question, please. >> i work for a place called the high of leaders center. [applause] we work in the 13 southern states and i have to say a round the movement, that was not born

of the king's assassination. i went around talking and i was in the land of the libertarians because i live with libertarians who are so excited that for the first time someone talked about their kids being in art -- incarcerated, for the first time about how horrible their education system is, about the quality of their water. and beyond our middle class conversation to people who are actually struggling. not like oh, i cannot go on vacation. that, to for us to say "we need america back" when some people have never had any first place -- soap opera-middle-class language, which it sold middle

class language. -- so upper-middle-class language. those that just do not do what we do now. [applause] >> yes, i think one of the dangers, and this has been a danger of our world here in the progress of community is that we can win without winning without anybody. and who will win, and who wins first, and seconds, and third, and forth, -- and second and third and fourth, are we after certain candidates winning and maintaining control, or are we after empowering people? i think there is been a longstanding problem there. this is one of the reasons why i

think obama is great, is that there are folks who feel that they have a state who did not feel they had a state, and there are folks who are speaking up themselves, and part of what i do is trying to get these marginalized voices in the conversation. the progress of world on some level wants to be welcoming and didn't some ways is welcoming, but we have a long -- and in some ways is welcoming, but we have a long way to go. >> i want to give each of our panelists at a chance to plug website, books, whatever. tom? >> yeah, it is the "wall street journal" -- you know that. [laughter] >> but you wrote a book. >> yes, it is called "what is the matter with kansas." >> there is prsente.org, which

is focused on the latino community spirit -- of the latino community. >> my book on goldwater. >> thank you very much. and thank you all for being with us this afternoon. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> a discussion now on conservatism with mitch daniels, who is our guest this week on "q&a." this portion of the says it is about 40 minutes. -- this portion of the session is about 40 minutes. we need to think the long term. if we do believe we are right and that the policies that are being pursued by the congress and the administration are going to be disastrous, we should hope first of all and be first of all that that is a case we can make to the public and, second, but that is a case that becomes

evident over time. that is our political power changes hands. that is certainly a depressing moments, but as concerts is, we very often thrive on depression. [laughter] >> i will give you one. i think one of the most illuminating books was the decline of nations, in which the point was made that the society which has grown the most rapidly are those recovering from real disaster, a national disaster, war, that sort of thing. why? because old institutions get swept away, and more rapidly than anyone would have expected, new sprouts, up, and i think about that year. new people, new ideas, new formulations of old ideas, adapting to, as they must, to the problems of today.

>> i also think quite seriously if barack obama has run on this agenda that he has actually implemented, i have very serious doubts that he would have won last fall. he won on fiscal cutting out the waste, and he was excoriating the deficit spending of bush, and he ran on tax cuts, and what he has done so far is the easiest thing is to do in washington, which is to spend and spend and spend, and eventually, the tough part comes when you have to pay for that, either through tax cuts or inflation or some combination of both, so i think the conservatives, this is a very distressing time. he has 65% of an approval rating, and i think that is because there are a number of things that he has done that are as bad as we ever imagined. but for most part, it has not

really done anything wrong yet, and he has not done anything really to upset them yet, and what he has to pay for his agenda or does not pay for it, and we see some practical consequences from that, i believe and see things turn around. >> this is the traditional jewish case for optimism. it will get worse. >> so i will roundup. just heard. there are two reasons why you should be optimistic. number one is that everyone knows that good things come to those that wage, and number two, the democrats will blow themselves up, ultimately. let's go to the next. >> i am mona, a syndicated column this. you all talked about the family and virtues in one way or another. we have new data that shows that there is a 40% rate of something of rock, and much, much higher

in a number of communities, in the black community and in the hispanic community. in light of that, and in light of the importance of the family, how do you all think that we can make the case either in the election or through government policies for strengthening the family without seeming to be something else? >> well, mona, first of all, as you have for a long time directed the number one social problem facing this country. i tell audiences all of the time that if they gave me a want, the proverbial what, my wish would be the every child in the state -- if they gave me a wand, the proverbial wand -- we all know this.

what what our policy to the most honorable. when i say that to african- american audiences, as have i done on dozens of occasions, there are some kids that at $100 sneakers but no one to read to them at home. they have a electronic gizmos that we did not have years ago -- they have electronic gizmos. every head in the room nods. it cannot be a way of scolding. it has to be spoken on behalf of the senseless, and there is a common sense about it, but it is in empirically this way. a lot of people who argued are

those sorts of privilege that actually can get by without respecting the traditional forms that have existed for so long, but i think it is a really important question. >> it is one that is kind of hard to get your hand around. once in the i would suggest is talking about it in terms of economics. if you want to succeed, this is what you need, and as long as we have such a high illegitimacy rates, we are looking at a permanently bifurcated society, and the people i hung up with bad pun out with on the upper west side, but they support libertinism and all of these areas, but there are rich, and they're walking around pushing baby strollers with their wives and husbands, and it is good for them, but they do not relate to live what they preach and i think one message that we have to get out, if you are really concerned about economic

equality and you want to help people get ahead, we have to have a two-parent family. this could otherwise seems golden on the one hand or something else on the other. this is the reason to care for social mobility, the reason to care. the attack on the family, the feeling of the family, is an attack on the rich and the poor. it is not about -- it is not about glass works agreed in as a failure to see how our culture survives and thrives. and we think it is an agenda that most people need, and white caring about the people most in need is not a matter of figuring out who is tax money should go to who wells. this need not be scalding.

but it is a challenge. it is hard to argue that without seeing that we are lecturing. >> it is not a lecturing. i think our panic -- panelists are telling us. they make the conservative movement the movement of optimism we are here. >> thank you, roger. gov. daniels, is a sign that was music to my years, which is that we have to speak to young people, and in the opening comments, there was the rasmussen polling data that was depressing that came out. can you speak to that of the more, governor daniels, on how we speak to young people missing to be caught up in this culture of obama. >> well, i am not particularly

surprised or that there was something vertiginous socialism or other views like that among the young. who in their room from their own experience does not remember how malleable your experiences are when you are young? mineworker. first of all, as a practical strategy, we cannot forfeit the ability to speak to the next generation, and secondly, when you do, i think as we said earlier, you are simply stepping yourself as a movement that is facing ford and is thinking about the future, and there is so much to say to young people right now. specifically, the debt that has been piled up their.

if they think their student loans are a problem, just wait, and they are becoming aware of this and i probably recklessly gave a speech where i said this business about standing on the shoulders of the best generation, do not do that. you want to hear something very depressing? martin, maybe you do not want to hear this, but i went back, and i was reading the biography of reagan, and there is a passage where he is talking about reagan in 1983 or 1984. he had an 82% approval rating among the young. 82%. there is this discredited incumbent who was an office at the time this is an amazingly

articulate figure promising change. at some point, through this litany -- we have the exact opposite happening now, and that you kind of crack the nut of appealing to use again, i am not sure i have an answer, but a lot of it comes about, i think, from having answers to the key questions of the day. it is not as though reagan explicitly what out of his way to a parent -- appeal to youth. he just seemed to have a better way at a forward-looking attitude. folks are in motion as opposed to reaction of some tlc's motion. >> and i think being evidently and touch of the problems of the moment is something we of that a problem with, and it is something that younger