>> c-span. our public affairs content is available on television, radio, and online. you can also connect with us on a twister, facebook, and youtube. -- twitter, facebook and youtube. >> tamara, a debate between the three candidate -- tomorrow, a debate between three candidates for the u.s. senate in california. we will have that debate beginning at 4:00 p.m. eastern, here on c-span. . .

icks >> there was an ovation and people were jumping up and down and embracing each other and the supporters obviously were very disappointed. can you tell us how the senate process works in utah? >> we got a unique process here, where the delegates go to caucuses and elected delegates

there. there's 3500 around the state and then they gather at the convention to cast their ballots. it is whittled down and bennett was knocked out and on the third and final round, if nobody gets 60%, they two to a primary in june and that was the case this time. if they got 60%, they would be on the november ballot. >> has bennett offered remarks since the voting and talked about his future? >> he didn't talk too much about it. he was a little retrospective about it. he said if he knew it would cost him his political career, he wouldn't change any votes he took. he thought they were the right votes. he -- unlike when lieberman was bounced by his party, there's really not an opportunity for him to run as an independent. that deadline passed and he said he would support the party's nominee, whoever it is after the

june primary. >> robert, we thank you for your time this afternoon. you could follow roberts and he's at the utah sthat race and follow it is for the salt lake tribune. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> now here are the remarks by senator robert bennett and the two men that will face off in the primary on june 22nd, mike lee and tim bridgewater. they're speaking at the convention in utah. this is about 20 minutes. >> my fellow -- my fellow republicans, today the countdown is on. we are 178 days away from taking back congress and retiring harry reid. no r no more taxes, no more

irresponsible spending and in more trampling of states' rights or telling terrorists you have a right to remain silent. no more apologies for the greatest nation on earth. do you want to take back our country? then vote tim bridge water as the next senator. the job won't get done by entrinched officer holders in washington d.c. or by more lawyer politicians. it'll take more maneuvering and more than seniorityy to secure our borders and reduce immigration and defeat the restrictions that keep us off our own land and forcing us to buy oil from our enemies. it is going to take an unflinching commitment to core conservative principles and

constitutionalist quho is also a capitalist. i'm a small businessman that created jobs right here in utah. i understand payroll and taxes and trade and economics, and across this country business men and women are rising up and running for the u.s. senate to defend our free market from the current obama regime that is crushing, that ah a crushing assault on america's capitalism. in pennsylvania businessmen will defeat arlen specter. and in connecticut, businessmen -- businessman peter shift will replace chris dodd. and right next door, a business man or woman will replace harry reid.

as a business man, i could explain reality to lawmakers who have never worked in the private sector, they don't understand industry. they don't know how free markets work. to progressives and liberals the constitution is a right-wing relic that -- that trial lawyers need to revise and reinvent every time someone mentions god. but to us the constitution is an inspired document that must be honored and upheld and it is undermined every time the left asserts that our rights come from government. and we -- we do not derive a single right from the federal government. that's an issue way above obama's pay grade. you know and i know that our rights come from god. we have all seen america

diminished, diminished by the party in power. we owe our children and future generations so much more. we owe them less debt and more free market opportunity. we owe them governments that respect the individual over the collective. we owe them leaders that put the best interests of the u.s.a. over the demands of the aclu. count on my unwavering support and limited constitutional government and the right to life. and count on me to say no to amnesty, no to cap and trade. and no, to further funding of the united nations. count on this gun owner, this gun owner to protect your rights and my rights to keep and bear arms. count on a businessman to

support free market despite government intrusion and to dismantle the department of education. count on this too. i will never undercut our troops. the u.s. military is notted a -- administering social programs, they're risking this -- their lives to protect this nation. we must say yes when we're asked to sacrifice. i'll ask all americans to reform sfwilements. i'm tim bridgewater, vote for me for senate. [cheering] >> hi, there. good morning. good morning. it is an honor. it is an honor to be among good

and women of good spirit. our traders have property olympic triumph and the causes we champion have even greater conskens. by our side, a man who has been so engaged in our battles that he rarely speaks up for himself. and that's unusual for politicians. today i want to speak up for him. you know his principles. he's a man of faith, and family and -- who loves freedom and free enterprise. and today he faces an uphill battle at this convention. some play disagree with a handful of his votes or simply want a new face, but with the sweep and arrogance of the liberal onslaught "today in washington," we need bob bennett's skill and intellect and loyalty and power. ed people of utah, the people of utah have always shown the ability to work together and

honor the spirit of fair play. and very few things come to us by right. including re-election to the senate. and you have to work for those things and sometimes to fight for them. and i like to introduce to you a fighter, a man of wisdom, a man that america and utah can't afford to lose, senator bob bennett. [cheering] >> thank you so much, mitch, your support is much appreciated because no one is better prepared to lead our party in 2012 than you are. now during this campaign, two questions always come up. first, bob, are you truly listening to us? and second, why do you want to do this again? yes, i am listening.

i have been strengthened and stimulated by your passion for america, for the conservative cause and the seriousness of the problems we face. and i hear you when you say you want a fighter who will reflect that passion. and telling the world that utahians love their country and are deeply concerned about its future. i know you want to repeal obama-care and i agree. i want to appeal obama. you want to take control of complaining away from nancy pelosi and reid, i not only agree but i believe we will do it. you -- you want to get more accountability in government and next week i will be leading republicans to vote for the amendment i cosponsored to audit the federal reserve. you -- you want to get deficits under control and i have authored bills to rein in entitlement spending that makes up two-thirds of the budget.

i'll make certain that this won't be turned into a tax burden for the democrats. our tax burden is already too high. i want to do this again -- i want to do this again because the fire in my belly is burning brighter than ever. i have an oath registered in heaven to uphold and defend it and i turn to it as the first checkpoint when considering a piece of legislation and then i asked mitt romney's basic question, will this action strengthen america or weaken america. that question should apply to every issue we contemplate. and fighting al qaeda in afghanistan strengthens america and returning power to the states strenkens america. and -- but locking up -- 9.4 million acres in utah weakens

america. so, i have supported the troops, voted against no child left behind and blocked the land grab every time it has come up. i can do this. i can do this because i now have tools that i lacked as a freshman. and give me the chance to use them as we face the current crisis of unsustainable debt. we can't postpone the day of wreckening anymore. that's why i don't want to walk into retirement enjoying testimonial dinners. i'll do that in six years when we solve the problem and i'm convinced we will solve it. we're americans. and americans have always risen to the challenge. and we have overcome worse times than these -- ron ooled reagan faced an unemployment rate higher than the one we have now. he was an optimist that believed common sense americans can do anything they put their minds to and so am i.

i do not -- i do not despair in the task ahead but relish the opportunity to -- to tackle it. i have faith in america and faith in god and i believe that faith drives -- drives out fear by voting for me, you will tell the rest of the nation that you -- utahians have not been taken in by the special interest groups that tried to take over the campaign. utahians reject the doomsayers and the fear amongers who say the country will fall. utahians have not lost their faith in the future because utahians remain convinced that god will continue to bless america. that's what i believe. that's what i believe. that's where i stand. and i ask you to stand with me. thank you very much.

♪ [cheering] >> my name is mike lee and i want to be your next u.s. senator. our federal government is too big because the constitution has

been ignored by complaining for too long. as americans, it is time for us to remember that -- that power is in our hands. this election is not about any one individual. it is about the friends and the neighbors we represent as delegates. it is about our children. it is about our grandchildren. and it is about the greatness of our past and the kind of country we will lead to future generations of americans. in order to move forward, i ask you to go back. back to a time and place that is not unlike our own. it was a time of great division and unrest within our republic. george washington recorded the events of march 4th, 1797. the second-term of his time as president of the united states. he wrote, it is with a deep and heavy heart that i left my room, thinking not so much of

ourselves but of our country. he continued as he was walking out in philadelphia, he said, i was playing george washington now, neither general nor president. suddenly i realized i was not alone. and people were following me. at first only a few. and then aswelling crowd. and for a long moment i stood face-to-face with them, the young toddler and the carpenter and the storekeeper and the laborer, and all of them said facing me and said not a word, i realized providence was showing me a vision of america, of what it would become. and i could feel assured that come what play, whether it be political bickering or any other evil in government, our country rests in good hands, in the hands of the people.

>> a similar but larger crowd has gathered here today. political stripe again divides our country and the federal government is expanding in ways that would shock the founding generations. as i look out on the crowd, i don't see toddlers or shop keepers but i see scientists and mothers and fathers and friends. as i look into this crowd, i'm confident that the fate of our country is in good hands, in the hands of the people. now what makes 2010 different than other election years is that the people have realized what has always been true. that the power of america is in the hands of its people. starting with tea party members, through 912ers to precinct

caucuss to individuals studying the constitution for the very first time, americans are reclaiming their right to a constitutionally limited government. this begs the important question. how do we insure that the power remains in the hands of the people? we insure that by returning to that document that placed the power in the people's hands to begin with. the u.s. constitution. that means we must ask ourselves the very same questions placed before the founding fathers. are we tired of the oppressive hand of an oppressive national government?

are we ready to restore power to the local governments? are we ready to get government's hand out of our pockets and off 70% of our land? that being the case, let's join hands with americans down through the ages and across the country who have proven time and time again that we could do hard things. will you join hands with me to fight for our future? that future begins today. together we will reject deficit spending. today together we will reform the tax code and restort the constitutional debate in congress and today we'll repeal government-run health care and when should we do that?

yes! because tomorrow -- tomorrow begins today. right here, right now, at this convention. as we recognize that constitutionally limited government un-- unlocks unlimited human potential, we reclaim that future. the constitution is central to every viable and practical solution with our federal government. that's why i pledged never to vote for a single bill that i can't reconcile, with the tax -- text and original understanding of the constitution. and i will -- regardless of what the supreme court says, congress can get away with, i'll fight every day as your senator for limited government to end the cradle to grave entitlement mentality, for a balanced budget to protect our flag and our borders and our national

security and for bills that can be read before they receive a final vote in congress. we're yet another crowd of individuals armed with the constitution in one hand and a ballot in the other and george washington was right. america's future is full of promise because our future is in your hands. and we're americans. and hand in hand, we can confront the challenges of our day. we can restore the constitutionally limited government. we can, we must and we will. >> tomorrow on washington journal, clarissa martinez from the national council discusses u.s. immigration policy and richard vigry chairman of h.g.com looks at the future of the republican party and its relationship with the tea party.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captions performed by the national captioning institute] >> now security secretary janet napolitano hears from state and local officials on the response efforts after recent severe a meeting and a tour, she and r other officials spoke at a news conference. joining her were the governor and the head of fema. >> senators and congress men have been in constant contact. through the process, i have had

-- we had a chance to talk several times with the secretary here and she's been very helpful and wanted to come down, wanted to come down today to see things first hand. we have been traveling around this more than. and i think you know most of the people standing up here but we're certainly available it answer questions. right now i like to turn this over to secretary napolitano to give you a briefing on what she has seen and answer any questions that you may have -- may have. >> thank you, governor and as the governor said, this is -- this is a -- been a -- quite a large event this -- disaster in tennessee. so, it is important to see with my own eyes what the impacts were. and also to see what the recovery efforts are to make sure that -- that the administration is doing everything it can. and when i say the administration, that we're doing everything we can to link up with the quite impressive

efforts under way already in tennessee. and be it the volunteer effort that -- that you see represented here in the gym and the efforts of the mayor. and the governor and your federal representatives obviously have been very active here. so, i think tennesseians can be assured that everybody is really focused on this and paying attention and now we got to work our way through this. and craig is here and he's the fema administrator. he's the fema administrator nationally and he's been here i think three of the last five days. he's been all over the state and reporting back to me what he's seeing and we have been -- we have been, even as we have been traveling around today talking to the governor and the mayor about other things that will need to be done in the coming days and weeks to set up for example information centers where people could get information in other areas of the state to really begin

thinking through -- the recovery efforts that will need to be made and in -- in terms of housing and small business -- and you name it. this is a -- this is -- this is a big flood and it affected a lot of &s across tennessee. and some parts are -- are dry and open for business and -- people should know that. other parts are going to need long-term help. in that regard, let me just give you a few things. as of -- of 7:00 this morning, my time, so, in d.c., so there were 16,000 tennesseians that had registered for assistance with fema. as of 7:00 this morning eastern time, there were already 16,000 tennesseians who had registered for assistance from fema and more than 650 insfeckses already had been completed.

and the inspections are done and we know what the damage's number is for obvious reasons. and then more than 4.1 million dollars already had been approved for assistance individuals. that's not the same as the public assistance. the president has already signed every disaster declaration that has been submitted. we turn those around very quickly. and those resources, so those resources could be immediately available. and so, people watching this play want to know what they need to do to register for assistance. this is the keep number one step. we can't help if we don't know who you are and where you are. so, it is 1-800-621-fema. go to www.fema.gov.

or go to m.fema.gov. those are -- three easy -- i have this high-tech card we wrote with the numbers on it. and i will hold it up here. take a picture of it, put it on your screen. and because that is the first step. and then of course -- the volunteer centers located all around this area have all of this information and more. and as we begin to help people with their housing needs, with -- with their other assistance needs and recovery from this flooding. with that, let me just -- stop and see what questions there are. yes, ma'am. >> are you confident there will

be enough assistance to make -- [unintelligible] >> well your question goes to really one of the more difficult issues. we will be able to provide through fema assistance but only up to a certain level. in terms of -- cash. and we could, we will be working with people right now on where they need to live. for example, a lot of people went to live with relatives and they're staying in a motel. and we could help with that but as soon as we know who they are, who is out of their house and again, 1-800-621-fema will we will work with them and look at what their housing needs are going to be. are they going to need rental housing for a while? is their house reparable or not? that's the thing. >> and they there will be

individuals who no doubt are going to suffer financial damage from this. i'm not going to stand here and say, we're going to guarantee right now everybody is going to be made whole. we'll do as much as we can in every possible way that we can. >> there are limits. >> there are, unfortunately but tennessee is going to work with us. the secretary of housing and urban development, shean donovan is going to be here on monday. the small business administrator is going to come in and the secretary of commerce, coming in to look at what needs to be done by way of not just response but actual recovery. i can't hear you. ipal -- i'm sorry. >> some areas -- [unintelligible] >> we have inspectors all over

the state. we're working with the tennessee emergency management authority. they're helping guide us in terms of fema to make sure that every county that has been impacted is getting -- getting help and getting inspected. the administrator of fugat was telling me, if you go down a street and look down there and somebody says it is fine. that's not good enough. we want to make sure we're going into every area and we got eyes on the ground and maps on target in terms of knowing where the damages are and who needs help. i think fema will be here six months from now in terms of -- of assisting with recovery efforts but at some point in time this will not be a -- primary fema which, their expertise is what do you do immediately but it'll be these other efforts that i describe

described. with housing, and urban and -- and with business development and the like. >> [unintelligible] >> i will have the fema director talk about that. >> the recovery centers are similar to the centers already up but we bring the federal family together. we talk about fema but part of it is small business administration and other programs. one thing that is very helpful for a lot of people that have payroll taxes and stuff and they had loss this is year is the irs brings in and will help adjust your current tax payments, you may be eligible for a term based on your losss in this calendar year. and these centers bring the rest of the team to match up with state and local officials on all

of the programs that were activateed when the president declared the disaster. >> and look at this one more time. >> yeah. yes. the president has spoken with the governor personally about this. he's been directly briefed on a regular basis about the situation in tennessee. valerie jarret who works with him as a senior advisor directly there in the white house i think has talked to the governor every day during this flood. there has been regular contact. so he knows the extent of this. he knows the breadth and depth of this. and one of the reasons i am here is because the secretary of homeland security, we're kind of -- how do you say it? we're kind of first on scene if

a way from the -- at the cab get level making sure that we have eyes on the ground and maps on the target and it is in the right places. i'll be followed shortly with a number of members of the cabinet and these are, visits designed to sit town and go through, all right what do we need to do? what do we need to -- to -- to coordinate and collaborate on as we move from response to long-term recovery. i have been very impossessed, i must say, the response in tennessee, i have been doing a lot of disasters. tennesseians ought to be very proud of the response and its -- really overwhelming assistance already going on in neighborhoods and cut as cross the state. so obviously, very good leadership and very effective exercising teamwork already -- these things were already under way before these floods hit.

you can't respond unless you're ready. right? you can't snap your fingers and have effective response. so, tennesseians already had invested in that and had good plans and trained people in place and those people are working volunteers out as you see all over the state and all over nashville. so, we're very impressed with that. but -- we're now at some point going to move from response to long-term recovery. and that is why the centers with the whole federal family that craig just described need to be set up and again, why we need to start -- setting people's minds to, we're going to dig out of this but we got to build back our homes and our communities to where they were before the flood. >> thanks. >> thank you all. >> if anyone has questions, senator -- thank you.

>> tomorrow on c-span, a debate among three republican candidates running the june 8th primary for the u.s. senate. the candidates are former congressman tom campbell and state assemblyman chuck debor and carly fiorina and we'll have that at 4:00 eastern here on c-span. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] nppingnng [captions performed by the national captioning institute] >> >> discussion on political campaigns and journalism. among those taking part, obama campaign strategist and the strategist for the mccain campaign. this is about 90 minutes.

>> good evening, everyone, welcome to the university's first global symposium and sponsored by the institute of global studies and i'm ralph beg heighter. it is hard to believe that -- but it was six years ago in 2004 that using the internet to create interesting campaign rallies and canvassing of the public was a envelopeity. we marveled at a candidate named dean scoring big donations and audiences at something he called at the time meet-ins that were organized almost completely by high-tech knowledge e-mail. and youtube had not yet been created and facebook had just been born but was not yet a political communication factor. and twitter wasn't even a twinkle in the ideas and the minds of its young developers. just four years later in 2008 social networking technologies

became proven communication tools for fund raising and campaign rallies and distribution of political documents and position papers and speeches and other campaign information. grass roots advocacy and much more. and in 2008, the obama campaign bypassed legacy news organizations and used cell phone text messages for the first time to announce its candidate's choice for vice president, the university of delaware's own joe biden. that's an applause line. [applause] just 0 two years ago, a single internet advertisement called obama-girl was viewed on youtube by 10s of millions of potential voters, even before the democratic party had chosen its nominee. the video was created and posted, completely outside traditional campaign operations. by amateurs and in the by campaign professionals.

twitter born during the closing weeks of the 2008 campaign has proliferated dramatically since then and is now poised to play a central role in this year's elections, not to mention the fact that we have two twitter feeds operating in this room tonight. at least two, shall we say. maybe you're tweeting on your own. but this is a -- a global phenomena. it is not just in the united states as we'll see tonight. arab students in my video conference class in dubai this smessster discussed politician and other touchy top picks on facebook. in iran, last year's election was marked by extensive use of social networking tools by opposition forces. and by the iranian government itself and by exiled iranians and others to shape the election environment. often from thousands of miles away. and my colleagues here at u.d. said there was better information about the election campaign in botswana last year on facebook than in the traditional media.

in china, social networking is used by the government to shape public opinion. in burma, the military regime literally shut down the internet during a natural disaster last creer that prevents social networking citizens from disseminating images embarrassing to the government. our guests are well equiped to help us understand this political communication revolution. and we'll hear from them and then we'll take your questions. >> we need to welcome back two engineers of the 2008 u.s. presidential campaign. david pluff who was barack obama's campaign manager and accept out that famous joe biden text message. some of you may have it on your phone. david was a political science student here at u.d. in the late 1980's and steve schmitt who was john mccain east top campaign strategist in 2008 was also a political science major here at

u.d. in the late 80's and early 90's. please welcome david and steve back to the university of delaware. also with us tonight is mona. mona was born in egypt and reported from cairo for the reuters news agency for the guardian newspaper and if "u.s. news and world report." reuters sent her to jerusalem where she became the first egyptian journalist to live and work for a western news agency in israel. she's lived in saudi arabia and britain. she moved to the u.s. in 2000, mona's middle east commentaries have appeared in the "washington post" and the herald tribune and the jerusalem report as well as a number of arab newspapers and websites. she calls herself a proud, liberal muslim. she was award the -- awarded the cutting edge prize because her writing had broken molds in

reporting about the arab and muslim world. she's a graduate of american university cairo. and joining us through social networking technology, live from malaysia is jacqueline ann suran. she's founder of a website called the nut graph in malaysia and the motto is the point of the story in a nutshell. and jacqueline cofounded malaysia votes.com a website that plays a genuinely revolutionary role in malaysia's 2008 national elections as we'll hear. she studied journalism in the united states and written for two newspapers. i guess we'll say here, we hope the networking technology works fine tonight but if something fails, we'll plow on and hope we could recover. and first i like to ask -- ask for opening remarks and ask the panel i haves to comment on the

-- comment on the network revolution. >> it is great to be here. obviously the 2008 campaign is probably the first one where we saw social networking specifically, not just talking about this but it playing an instrumental role and i think it'll seem prehistoric compared to how future elections will be impacted as more and mare people spend a lot of their time sharing information with each other, and using social networking as their primary source of information. in 2008, social networks was the way a lot of people got involved in the campaign and so someone would say, we have -- we have our own social networking site and that was the place where most people involved in our campaign on the volunteer level and contributor level spent their time. so while there's plenty of people on facebook and myspace and other sites that were talking about that campaign and trying to lift people, most of

them -- that was great from our perspective. we could see it all. it was transparent. we could see what work was being done and what states and what precincts and what level of success. and it became a home for people. and it was a place where they could find out any information they needed and had tools they needed to help the campaign. it was a place where people gathered to share information. it is how a lot of people asked other people to contribute to the campaign. and it is how local -- our local organizers would be on our social networking site to ask everybody -- let's say you were in akron, ohio. our local field organizer would ask everybody who was signed up in the area and say we got a special weekend on saturday where we're trying to knock on 20,000 doors in the area. we need you to come on. when i grew up in politician, if you were trying to get people to give money or -- volunteer you called them on the phone. and in -- then you got into the last decade more and more often

you would e-mail them. so much of that happened through social networking sites. and it is a way, even in 2008 but it is more pronounced now. there were huge segments of the electorate that got information about current events and politician exclusively through social networking upon they will -- what is interesting is a lots of information that is shared with them or they share with others could be mainstream news. it could be i saw this article that rebuts the fallacy about health care and saw this interesting em speech that a politician did. this is interesting. this is not just people's opinion on social networking sites, they're referencing what we consider more third party and authoritative sources. if you're engaged in politician and i could only speak about this country and not others, where it is more pronounced elsewhere. if you're trying to reach people, you're increasingly going to have to occupy this space in a forceful way. this can't be well, there's an old adage in politician,

particularly if you're being attacked or there's a negative story, it was well, if it is not on -- the front page of the newspaper or doesn't lead the newscast, let's not worry about it. let's not elevate it. it may not -- may not be in the newspaper but there could be millions of people discussing it on facebook and other sites. the old rulse rules don't apply. i think going forward, you have to understand that first of all, sort of nonpartisan voters, just an average swing voter, you're going to have to reach more and more of them through social networking and less and less are going to be available exclusively through connections. secondly, this is a big part of the obama campaign. if you're trying to build a powerful grassroots campaign and you have people living their lives of the campaign and sharing your message and being ambassadors and organizing, and giving money, more of that will be done on social networking especially with more and more people fwravetating to mobile devices. more and more of us are using cell phones to check the

internet and to e-mail and to be on facebook. and this is going to increase extraordinarily fast in the next few years. what we get in 2008 where almost everybody on facebook was on a computer and tethered for to their desk or their home office -- people are going to be untethered. they'll walk down the street and walk to an event like this and be able to share information, get information and i think that -- it is going to really put a premium out there. it is great for democracy i think because it is going to be easier to get information to people and people are going to be -- able to share that more information more readily and find out anything they need to know. one of the great barriers and the last thing i'll say, for young voters and first-time voters, 15 million to 20 million people voted for the first time in the 2008 election. and truth is, among the people that voted in the 2004 bush election, mccain and obama

roughly tied, it was the 15 to 20 million new voters that caused obama to win. these were not all young but young and not politically attuned people. and it is so important to be able to get them basic information about how to participate and they're very digitally sensitive. they're not going to call an 800 number. if they can't find out an answer right away on the computer or internet or the cell phone, you'll lose them. they want to know in five seconds, how do i register to vote and can i vote early? and the basic information about participation in addition to information about the candidate's position. think about that. that's going to open up the process for people. what i still see and research is, is people thinking about the 2010 election, even those that voted in 2008, they say i'm not sure when the election is or i'm not sure what offices are on the ballot. do i vote in the same place? i voted by mail in 2008, can i do that in 2010.

these people will want that information instantaneously walking down the street and if they can't, you'll lose them. i think this has already revolutionized so many aspects of our society, consumed our chi, and the way people get information and -- it made huge impacts on the politician and i think over the coming decade, it is just going to be a more profound sense that will be the case. >> let's experiment here. how many of you. -- raise your hands if you know there's primary elections in the united states today? >> what state? >> and anybody know what state? >> indiana? and north carolina that? what is the other one? >> okay. what is the other one? >> ohio. >> and sounds good. >> there are primary elections today. this is a very informed audience. you talked about -- you talked

about old rules don't apply. are there any rules? >> sure. >> with these new technologies? >> i think -- listen, i think that -- you -- your message whether in a 60-second television ad or networking post needs to be authentic and it ought to be true, particularly now, because plist people police it. we got citizen sheriffs out there and the candidate made another sertion and they're frustrated this news stream media may not -- may not check it but they'll share it with friends and family members. here's what i think. if you're interested in reaching people, whether a political campaign or institution, a company. you better be in every space where people are. people still watch television, and they still read the newspaper and still on radio. but increasingly, you have huge segments of the population spending their consumption online and in social networking sites. you better be there. if you're a political campaign and you say, well, i gotnie

television strategy and my free press strategy and my radio strategy and i'll figure out the digital piece last, you're completely missing the boat. you got to be at the center of your operation. >> on that note, let's turn 0 jacqueline. jacqueline, -- at the same moment that steve schmitt and david pluff were engaged in the campaign, you were in a dramatic election in malaysia. tell us about your experience. >> sure. and thanks. and first, some background. malaysia is south of thailand and -- [unintelligible] as journalist i would say, there's no doubt it has changed the way it appears. and in malaysia. and as -- also -- [unintelligible]

[unintelligible] [inaudible] >> let me interrupt you. toif interralmt you. let's try lowering the volume in this room a bit and particularly on this speaker maybe. i think it may be -- may be feeding back. let's try again. jacqueline, would you start again, please? >> sure. is this better? >> just go ahead and talk and we'll get a feel for it. >> okay. first [unintelligible] some of you may be familiar with. >> go ahead. >> and malaysia. it ends with malaysia and truly asia and as journalist and citizen, i wonder what [unintelligible] the malaysia

here and government can be strong -- [unintelligible]ed government action can't be contested. and in 1987 three newspapers were shut down under a government crackdown and that same law that allows the government to do that still exists today. inkeyed it -- indeed there are 13 laws that oppress freedom and newspapers and tv and radio stations constantly receive instructions from government. and because their continued existence depends on the government, sensorship is common -- indeed according to steven howe [unintelligible] when it comes to press freedom. we have a media that is categorized as not free and in my own experience, in the press i know -- received instructions by code or fact or -- and yes, i

have had my fair share of stories. and which for me means i was doing a good job as a journalist. and what -- until three years ago, the prime minister was trying to get foreign companys to invest in -- invest. they envisioned that communication technology would be the next engine of growth for the country. in order to get the investments he needed he had promised there would be no sense e-censorship of the internet. this is in the guarantees that the citizens ned to be thapingful for. and the garland has a host of law it is can use against online media and bloggers. these include a whole range from the acts and the official secret acts to the communication and mark media act. so because one doesn't need a permit, before publishing online and because censoring the

internet could be futile, there has been a stredy growth of online participation by citizens. because the internet is free and gadgets cheaper, and it is easier to publish. and so the online news in asia. and purely the power has shifted from the institution to the vid july and from government to citizen because of the internet. and one of the things that struck me the most is how there was constitutional support i needed in order to publish an online news site. before we started the politics, a couple of us covered the last general election a few years ago to another online site called malaysia vote.com. we had no publishing permit. and all we needed was -- this is for cameras and -- and internet

connection and -- in order to start writing and publishing. so what happens when -- a state like malaysia suddenly experiences an opening up of public space that is sfaths less susceptible to government control. the center cannot -- and things fall apart. in late 2007 for example there was two street rallies that the media could not report on. the media were told they could only report what the government said. and as a result, the media, quoting the police reported that in one of these rallies only 4,000 people had turned out. and on the internet showed a number that was 10 times more. and additionally, a tv report by sal al jazeera was noted on you tube and circulated. this made the government claims that was trying -- that the

government was not trying to stop demonstrators a big fat lie. the way the media reported on them were critical in creating the additional momentum that was needed from the -- from the people to vote for the ruling party. what the internet did was show traditional immediate a the government to be untrustworthy and both suffered serious losss in credibility and as a result, our general election was historic in that it denied the ruling coalition two thirds majority. and only the second time in our 15-year-old history was there any nation that that could happen. and in -- and one aspect, it was example of -- assistance and several first-time ploggers were elected into parliament. at the same time, the -- the power of information minister who had publicly denigrated bloggers lost his seat by a huge

margin. and the power to determine what messages are inserted into the public domain has clearly shifted to the individual. indeed the more technology and politicians recognized this. and several facebook and -- connected to different things and maintain a topic that is independent of the media. and in one such recent example late last year, the youth chief of the dom tkphant party in the ruling coalition cleverly suspected that this traditional media was not supporting his radical message of repainting malaysia with leadership. he released his speech ahead of time to the online media so we could headline a-treat the speech as it was being delivered. and now true enough, the next day the traditional media completely ignored his message but it didn't matter because his message which was calling for a

less sfaths satisfy state in malaysia had been disseminate ooned line. the internet is possible to cause it to be possible for a [unintelligible] as a journalist and citizen, i say that's a good thing for democracy but the pressure from you remains rg how exactly was the immediate ya citizens embrace the shift in power so that the public interest is constantly served and perhaps this is the route we could tackle during the question and answer session. . .

>> those who are more progressive are realizing they cannot rely on traditional media. we are using social networking as a means to get their message out. in terms of whether they are against online media, censorship is less so than traditional media, because the internet is so difficult to sensor. -- censor. the nut graph is not censored.

there is a much larger site that has profits -- that has had its office raided. lycoris said, it is really hard to shut them down. -- like i said, it is really hard to shut them down. you could shut them down for a day and then politics is 10 minutes for them to set up somewhere else. it is an exercise in futility. i think the government is trying to learn how to manage the shift, but it is not learning quickly enough. >> ok. i am going to turn to steve schmidt. i want to come back. you started your presentation with the description about malaysia. i am not sure everyone in the audience heard it. try to remind me about this later.

at what level of access do many countries outside the u.s. have to this media? steve and david make the assumption that virtually every target of your information has access. let me introduce steve now. talk about your experiences. >> i will respond to something you just said, which i think is going to become a more and more important political issue. there's a technological divide in this country between the haves and have-nots. there are a few country -- a few sections of the country which lack high-speed broadband, which is necessary in order to enable these technologies. as you look ahead, over the next decade, parts of the country are left behind -- are going to be left behind, not just in terms of the access to things like the ipod or blackberries or social

media. it will be increasingly left behind with regard to education, economic opportunity, and this is a very important public policy challenge. it is a public policy challenge that should be able to transcend the right-left debate that takes place in this country today. a lack of access to these technologies is going to turn entire parts of this country into second-class regions. that is an important part of this. when the television show "m.a.s.h." went off the air, 100 million americans watched that final episode. it was an era when a television series could bring together a huge part of the country for common purpose. that era is passed. it is never coming back.

a comedian had a late-night show in the late-1980's, widely considered to be a disaster on the basis that the only attracted an audience of, if i recall correctly, approximately 8 million people. if that were today, he would be the king of cable tv. [laughter] the top-rated shows are edging close to 3 million on some nights. what is transformative about social media in a media era, where the media is fragmenting, and people are turning into media through niche markets. they are finding on a 400- television channel universe the shows that they like. where there used to be one cooking channel, there are now five different cooking channels. the mediterranean, the italian

-- people want more. they will be in self-actualizing cocoons of information. there is no need to be exposed to anything that you do not want to hear or you do not want to learn about. it used to be, and i remember when you were making the sets in the late-1980's, of your favorite music. it would require hours of diligent listening to the radio to hit play when you wanted to capture your song. [laughter] today, on an ipod, you never have to listen or hear anything that you do not want to be exposed to, whether that is political or economic opinion, or your taste in food shows. the great equalizer about social media and what is transformative about it is that what matters as much now about what an institution says about itself is what actual people say about that institution or that candidate.

for instance, british petroleum tonight could release of $300 basilian advertising budget -- gazillion advertising budget talking about they're responsible, corporate stewardship and other issues come in 20 years ago, it would have had a positive impact. 10 years ago, it would have had a positive impact. five years ago, it would have had a positive impact. now, what it would do, is set off an insurgency, if you will, and social media sites all across this country and all across the world that would mock british petroleum for their advertisement. if you put out advertisements, if you make statements that are materially wrong, materially false, easy to be lampooned, then you will be exposed by a

social media that democratizes everybody's ability to be their own broadcast network. it used to be when there were three networks and three anchors that the news you got, the news you learned about, is the news that you were fed. you did not have much say about it. it was very small. in a lot of instances today, if you cover politics or follow politics, you can follow the coverage of politics -- in many instances, the trends that are being reported in the major newspapers are first revealed on social media sites. they are covering the actual live discussion and discourse that is happening out in the country. when you look at social media in the context of the 2008 campaign, one of the things that was just objectively true about the race was that there was huge

interest and huge enthusiasm for senator obama. it was organic. it was real. it manifested itself through people connecting together in pursuit of that common interest, through the hub that david talked about. the genius of the obama campaign was not that it created a social media phenomenon. the genius of the obama campaign was that it harnessed it. the enthusiasm, though, was real and it was organic. it could not be created. the moment i knew we were in real trouble on the mccain campaign was actually the obama girl video that you referenced. the obama girl video got a huge amount of attention. it was out all over the place. everyone watched the obama girl video in the mccain world.

what the obama girl video did -- begat was a parody video called "the mccain girl," which was a bunch of elderly women who were singing about their affection for john mccain. it was just devastating in an existential way. [laughter] you understood this was now being driven totally by forces outside of the control of the campaign. one of the impacts of this, as we go forward into the future, is the campaigns and the candidates themselves will control an increasingly smaller and smaller and smaller territory of their message. and more and more area of the campaign, more and more of the campaign's message is going to be shaped by outside forces in

this social media. all of the social media, in the next twitter, the next facebook, these next generations are going to be a profoundly important part of that. >> steve, i have this wonderful image of all the mccain staffers looking at computer monitors watching the obama girl video, fast forwarding, going back and forth. would it be fair to say that it is possible that consumers of traditional media, the major newspapers, the standard television channels, maybe even the cable channels, you were just watching those traditional media and the the u.s. during that time of the campaign, you might never have seen the obama girl video? you might have heard a reference to et. >> no. it absolutely was a phenomenon that cross-pollinated, if you will, and migrated into what was

mainstream -- what was considered to be mainstream journalism. the mccain campaign was a bit different in this regard. when the mccain campaign collapsed in july, 2007, and it was bankrupt, and john mccain was flying to-hampshire -- to new hampshire on a southwest flight. the issue in the campaign was about -- who has a gas credit card we can fill the tank up with? as opposed -- when he won the primary, there were 38 people working in the headquarters. it was $2 million. -- it was $2 million in debt. as someone who is a protection -- as someone who is a practitioner of " strategic communication, -- who is a practitioner of strategic communication, you just knew you did not have the resources to

try to scale it up. there was a general lack of enthusiasm. for republicans, 2008 just was not ur year for a lot of reasons. you watch all of this developing in 2008. you see in 2010,,the political cycle, there is some catch-up on the republican side, because the incense and the -- the intensity has risen and there is more activity on the social media side. the point that david made is very important. whether you are a corporation or a nonprofit institution, whether you are a political candidate, you cannot hide. there cannot be to it -- there cannot be dissonance between who you are and what to say about yourself. it is going to be exposed by this medium, which is fundamentally democratic. it is small "d" democractic.

>> i am going to introduce mona, and asked her to speak. mona eltahawy has been here at the university of delaware before. i am happy to have you here with us. thank you for coming back. [applause] when you speak about social networking media in the middle east, you will actually be able to draw together some of the things that you have heard from our previous three speakers. take it away. >> thank you. good evening. i am delighted to be back. i was here last year. i promise i will not speak for an hour as i did last year. i will speak for 10 minutes. it is a great pleasure to speak to you on the day of the birthday of the president of my country. not that i am a huge fan of hosni mubarak. he has been in power for 29

years. that is longer than the life span of most egyptians. the majority of people in the middle east are younger than 30 years old. where are those young people going? the dictatorship is still in power for 29 years. egypt ranks number one in terms of users of facebook in the arab world. they are going to facebook. something quite bizarre happened regarding foes -- regarding facebook and egypt. we know that kuwait is a country we liberated from saddam hussein. 17 egyptians had joined at facebook group for a man

mohamad al-baradei, who is back in egypt at the behest of thousands of young people who went on facebook and published a letter to ask him to come back and run for president. they were sick and tired of the president they have had for their entire lifetime. the iaea -- he went back to egypt and said, i want reform and democracy. i cannot run for president. the egyptian constitution bars candidates for raising money. i will work to end the state of emergency under which egypt has been living for the 29 years that hosni mubarak has been in power. we heard about the media and to controls the media. -- and who controls the media. the egyptian media was even more

controlled than the malaysian media, up until a few years ago. because the state-owned media tried to discredit baradei, saying he was just an upper- class aristocrat who was out of touch, he appealed to the internet kids. we had a bizarre situation where he was campaigning for reform. he was campaigning for this program of reform and urged the ending of emergency -- the state of emergency. he collected thousands of petitions for that reform. he was on a campaign outside a cairo. of cairo. as was addressing thousands of people, he said, some people say we're only popular online, but the thousands that have come out today show we are popular in the real world as well. >> sorry.

[laughter] >> i thought that was an earthquake at first. >> you never know what will happen. >> i got stranded in london because of that bloody volcano. any sound scared me. -- sound scares me. one thing that was being held against him was that he was only existing on the internet. here he was, saying, i am in the real world as well. it speaks to this wonderful interaction that young people in the arab world, especially in egypt -- what else is happening on facebook? if you think about baradei as a candidate was greeted by young people -- created by young people, there was also a political party created by young

people on facebook. what happened on april 5, 2008, was a huge strike by textile workers. egypt has seen at least 2000 strikes in the past two years. it is unprecedented labor unrest in egypt. it is part of the overall political and social upheaval in egypt. young people went on facebook and said, let's support this strike by going on strike and not going out to work on april 5. within two days, they had 70,000 members of their facebook group. today, they organized strikes. the organized political protests. in my new york apartment, i can follow what is happening on these protests through twitter. they agonized at least the zero protests in april, -- they organized at least two protest in april. this week about the people who were detained and arrested. -- they tweet about the people

who were detained and arrested. i could see pictures of students who were beaten by police. this is all part of the cross pollination it is between facebook, youtube, and water -- this is all part of a cross- pollination between facebook, youtube, and twitter. the muslim brotherhood in egypt is the largest political party. they hold the largest number of opposition seats in the egyptian parliament. i know several young members of the muslim brotherhood whose politics are completely opposite to mind. we have become friends because i follow their blogs and tweets. as testimony and proof of how potent their work is online, they were given the option by the government of either stop blogging, or leave the muslim brotherhood, because they were

criticizing the leadership on blogs, facebook, and twitter. to date at full circle to what is happening with mohamed elbaradei and, he does not want to stop -- to take this full circle to what is happening with mohamed elbaradei, he said, i was really impressed. the young man is 29 or 30 -- a generation which has grown up under hosni mubarak. i was seriously considering following him because he has created this national coalition for change. his facebook group has to wonder thousand people in egypt. i kept -- has 200,000 people in egypt. he is running himself by faces that do not deserve attention right now.

whee he comes back to egypt, i'm going to tell them this. if he does not get rid of these old faces, i'm just not going to support him anymore. some people say, this is a 29- year-old egyptian who is saying, this nobel peace prize laureate, but we hope is our new hope in egypt, he does not cut it with me, because he is doing politics as usual. this is what facebook and twitter are doing for young people in countries around the world, where we do not have the kind of arguments you have on tv. in this country, people from the mainstream media it -- and i consider myself one of them -- always look back on the good old days when we were in control and we told people how to think. there were no good old days when it came to the media in our world. the golden age is now. the golden age is being created. the more we remember how it was

the government and not the mainstream media that controlled everything. facebook and twitter are pricking those chains -- breaking those chains. this is a direct challenge. for a while, one of the most popular tweets was of a song made by an opposition poet a few years ago. it became so popular that people thought he really was dead. they're all of these urgent tweets saying, "is this true? is he dead?" it was just making the rounds on twitter. it was a program by the international surplus -- center for journalists organized by the state department. they recognize the power of

social networking in countries like egypt and others were the government has controlled the message. -- where the government has controlled the message. they engaged in the most amazing discussions over who is controlling their message. saying to the mainstream media, you guys do not count any more. i went on my blogger because i'm sick and tired. they are saying, who trusted you and believe you anyway? many of their newsbreaks come from the citizens. one of them, a 20-year-old, has been expelled from two universities because he has taken pictures of things that the state-owned media denies happens. he takes the pictures with his mobile phone and sells them to cn and reuters -- to cnn and reuters. he has been told he cannot study at universities anymore. he is 21. hosni mubarak is 81.

whose side would you take? [applause] >> alright. mona, just a follow-up question. is hosni mubarak's administration engaging in this through social media are they just attempting to ignore it? >> they are intimidating and torturing blotters and citizen journalists. for awhile, president hosni mubarak started to go on line and tried to have things like news conferences and facebook groups, but people just locked him out. this is the beauty of this -- these cat and mouse games that young people always win. busey people like the queen of jordan -- you see people like the queen of jordan. she is beautiful and sexy and good-looking and all that. the other guys just are not.

they're definitely losing that one. [laughter] >> i saw you laughing about that question of the government using the technology. is the government in malaysia anyway -- in any way attempting to fight fire with fire? >> absolutely. they are trying to employ the same social networking technology to fight fire with fire, to quote you. this is something steve mentioned earlier. you need to be true and authentic in your messaging, just because the technology is there and you know how to use it does not mean that people are going to buy into your message. what we saw after the last general election in malaysia was a ruling coalition suddenly employing a lot of these social technologies. they set up their own blog. they started going on facebook and twitter.

there was such a lack of authenticity to the messaging that people would not follow them. there is a huge gap between knowing how to be authentic online and just having the ability to be online. >> we're on to take your questions in a moment. if you have a question, -- we are going to take your questions in a moment. if you have a question, come up to the front, please. perhaps you could comment on the question of governments' usage of the technologies. you talked about from the point of view of being on the outside, if you will. is it as easy, or is it more difficult, when you're in power? i know you are not in the government, but is this something that is easier for oppositions to use than it is for institutions? >> there is always a lot of

energy when you are the insurgency. in the government, in our campaign, i think we had 90 or 95 people in our new media debarment. -- department. the white house is trying to reach people where they live, essentially, which is why you see a vastly improved white house website. the president has done some online exclusives and town halls. he communicates to a lot of his political supporters through videos. you have to understand that there is a lot of progress in transparency, where american taxpayers can now go on line and have a lot more information about how their tax dollars are being spent, about how many jobs are being created. that is where people demand.

-- what people demand. people are expecting transparency in more avenues of life. it was not too long ago in this country -- a couple generations ago -- that politics were bags of money. anre on an ink -- we're on inexorable path towards maximum transparency. we do not want to get steamrolled by it. there is a lack of trust in institutions across america. one of the ways you rebuild that trust is to provide more transparency. there is more of that happening. i think that is good. people expect -- should i go to this restaurant? let me see what people have said about it. should i go to this movie? should i vote for this candidate? they want information right away. if they go to try and find out information about the recovery act and it is just a series of

press releases and not just the real story, they will be very disappointed and angry. >> can you comment on the government versus opposition? >> correct me if i am wrong, but i think -- having worked in the white house, there are a lot of roles in the white house of what the white house can and cannot do -- rules in the white house of what the white house can and cannot do. it makes it difficult to get clearance through the white house counsel. the white house is a little bit of a different case. correct me if i am wrong, there has been some controversy on the part of the press being angry with the white house press secretary, robert gibbs, because he releases information on twitter, not going through the traditional avenue, which is, i, the white house secretary, will make an announcement, and then the wires will then announcement.

-- will then announce it. it is now its own broadcast platform. they have the technology and ability to communicate directly. it drives a lot of mainstream news organizations in st.. -- in sane. it is like being the last guy who made buggy whips and next to the ford plant. they are just out of luck. [laughter] you will see government, whether it is the white house or the democrat or republican minorities or majorities, they are able to be their own broadcast platforms and to communicate directly -- not even going around the filter. there is no more filter. for a long time, politics was how do you communicate over, under, around the media filter? it just does not exist anymore.

>> why cannot the hosni mubarak regime continue to use the same formula and say, never mind the traditional media, we will go directly to the public? what cannot the government exercise the power that you described -- ascribed to the opposition? >> they already do through their state-owned media and television channels. no one will believe them. >> it is not just technology. his credibility. it is a vital factor. >> people turn away quickly. this is why paul jazeera was so huge. -- al jazeera was so huge. there are infinite blog and facebook and twitter -- blogs and facebook and twitter. >> we're ready for our first

question. keep your questions concise. we want to hear mostly from our panelists and leased from you. -- least from you. how about that for being blunt? [laughter] >> i am a proud graduate of the university of delaware and i aactually attended an earlier series. world-class of political communication research by world- class faculty. if i go out and buy a book these days on social networks, i go to a library and read it to see if i want to buy it. i went to the library and asked if i get a copy of david's book, "the audacity to win." they said, we do not carry it. why do the famous, honorable graduates -- why did they not have your book in their library? is that an oversight in this

high-tech innovation world? >> my sister actually works there. my father teaches of there. [laughter] >> i did not know if you wanted to reveal that. there are copies of his book out in the lobby. you are all set on this score. there are copies of other books in the lobby. please, come on up. >> i, freshmen here. -- i am a freshman here. i have worked on a couple of state and municipal campaigns. this is a question about logging. how should campaigns to treat lobbers -- bloggers? the state campaigns may matter little bit less. how do you treat bloggers? treat bloggers?

>> you need to have your own campaigns blogging strategy -- campaign blogging strategy. we still have 13 e-mail addresses, 9 million facebook fans, and 4.5 million people falling as on twitter. we still blog -- following us on twitter. we still blog. there is a degree a propaganda associated with it. -- of propaganda associated with it. there was a yes, we can video that will.i.am put together that took off like wildfire. sarah silverman did a video that was wildly effective. we had a great relationship with

our supporters. the fact that it did not come from the campaign helped. there are professionals bloggers out there that need to being treated no differently than mainstream journalists at a cnn. because of a lack of trust out there but in government, at -- academic institutions, what people trust is each other. there are people from your towns who are blogging. you may not know the person and they may not be an expert on energy policy, but you trust what they are saying because you do not think they have an agenda. that is so powerful, whether it is a blog, facebook, e-mail. in this digital world, the lack of trust combines with that, so the power of the individual voice is so very, very effective. lots of african americans were

registered to vote for the very first time in 2008. why did that happen? they had some interest in barack obama. it was almost always because someone in their circle said, i am going to register to vote for the first time, why do you not, too? some of that was impersonal -- some of that was in person, some of it was visual -- digital. some people said, that is just an attack on a blog. before you know, that can consume the campaign. you need to treat it seriously, even if it is not an established person. in politics, you need to put out all sorts of fires. if something is percolating out there, you better deal with it. >> do you want to comment? >> i agree. >> do you consider yourself what david referred to as a

professional blogger? does the government in malaysia refer to you -- how does the government in malaysia erfurt to you? are you treated specially -- in malaysia and refrefer to you? are you treated specially? >> we consider ourselves insiders. we are able to self-publish without any editorial investing. the nut graph as a few sets of eyes -- has a few sets of eyes that looked at things before they are published. we have a clear correction's policy as well. we put out our policies about ethical behavior to the public. we do not necessarily have to do that. that would be how i would differentiate myself from a blogger.

there are so many levels. in terms of whether the government response to us, the government has been slow in responding to the online media. the online media was seen as theg in support of, the o opposition, so the government refused to abolish the power of the internet until the last general let -- refused to a knowledge -- acknowledge the power of the internet until the last general election. you'll see individuals in the government who may be more tax ech savvy and more in tune with what young people want, engaging with that online media. you also have the older ministers to refuse to have anything to do with it. there is a change happening, but

it is slow in government. the government has been in power for more than 50 years. it's hard for them to imagine they can do anything else. >> mona, how you interact with the egyptian government? do they respond to you when you write something? do you get any response from somebody in the government, trying to argue their way out of it or respond to you? are you considered a professional at what you do by the government? >> if i were to go back to it egypt now, i would not be able to get a press pass, because i do not work for are recognized news outlet. we have a ministry of censorship that controls who gets a press card and who has access to the president as well. you have to go through very rigorous security checks to get a presidential press card. where i get feedback from the egyptian government is -- i

published an opinion piece last year against the nomination of the egyptian consulate for the head of unesco. he lost, and i was very happy. one of them actually asked him, did you read mona eltahawy's piece? and he said, to show you how they respond, yes, i read it. the fact that she published it where she published it shows that she does not have an egyptian bone in her. he was accusing me of treason basically. that is how the government deals with opposition. >> the white house press corps members also have to get a press card. >> do you have a ministry of censorship, too? [laughter] >> the point was that they consistently put it on twitter and never mind the people. >> i would not say they skip it.

it is important in our democracy and government -- we have a lot of people who consume it mainstream media. --consume mainstream media. you mentioned vice president biden. >> did i mention that? >> you did. we released first to our supporters. that is a big group of people. we did not do that simply because we wanted to and with the news media or to get the message out -- we wanted to an media or to get the message out first. we wanted them to hear it from us first. it is a small thing, but it matters. i think that -- it is not an either or necessarily. as steve pointed out, it is

going to increase -- the ability to get your message out directly to a growing number of people without the first media filter is going to increase. >> let's take another question. please step forward. >> thank you for taking my question. i am a marketing and communications professional here in the area. i'm curious about president obama's popularity numbers, as they currently stand. it seems that his campaign ran on a certain level of transparency authenticity. unfortunately, the office itself prevents a lot of that from actually following through. social media seems to be an obvious tool to help rebuild those numbers, but i can see the problem with clear in every tweet. there is probably a huge backlog.

with his popularity ratings as they are, i am curious as to how he would rebuild -- you would rebuild that stands in the public eye. what strategies would you use? how would you do that with a social media? >> would it be perverse for me to direct that question to you? [laughter] >> yes. look, i think that -- i disagree with certain parts of the president's agenda. what i would say is that, one way, for sure, that you did not rebuild or grow a president's approval rating -- look at poll numbers. a great predictor of your chances to be reelected or where

you are on your gallup approval, and the president, despite all the narrative that his numbers have tanked, the last poll num ber is at around 50. it is not as if his numbers have gone into the 30% or 40%, he is still in a structurally stable position, heading into a mid term where i believe the democrats will do poorly because of trends in a bad economy and other things. if you're the president of the united states, the way that you impact your poll numbers is by executing your agenda and communicating clearly what your priorities are, in a way that can garner mass support.

if you get down into the 30% -- and you can only do this once -- but the secret ingredient for a politician who wants to have a comeback after falling into the low 30% or 40%, they have to go out and say i am sorry. i am sorry, i should not have done that. i learned my lesson. i overreached. this is one of the principles from normal schwarzenegger's campaign -- from arnold inwarzenegger's campaign 2007. he said he was very sorry and learned his lesson. that cleared it all away. i remember telling him, it is ok to stop apologizing now. everybody has heard you. they have forgiven new. -- forgiven you. and in your numbers will improve.

i do not think the president is in that position. >> we had 52% of the vote. his approval rating in the polls i trust is more like 51%. pretty much everyone who voted for him. all of the narrative -- one of the reasons -- ronald reagan had a tough economy. he had an approval rating of 34%. people are having discussions, particularly the people who supported him, online. let's talk about the reality of health care and economic progress. i would argue that one of the reasons -- if you ask a lot of people who are students of politics, with the economy the way it has been for as long as it has been, they would have predicted that his approval ratings would have been lower. a lot of the people who voted

for him are communicating with each other. the truth is, there are a lot of good things that have happened. he has been true to himself and things that he said he would do, whether you like them or not. he said he would sign a health care plan. some people in our party did not like police and more troops to afghanistan. we talked about that for 720 days. that is one of the reasons that i think, despite the terrible economy, he has held up. there is no doubt that as we get into 2011 and 2012, that will be were much of the campaign is focused. the republican primary will be fascinating. social networking was a factor. it was not a dominating factor. in the republican primary, you will see a great laboratory about the power of social networking and what it means in an election. and if i am hearing you correctly -- >> if i in hearing

you correctly, you are saying social media is doing what it is supposed to do. it is being taken care organically and at the grass- roots level. >> there is a lot of that happening. that has been a positive development in our case. >> i would add to that. when the senator became president elect, his approval numbers, like they often are, were in the high 60% range. it is not an injury number if you seek to implement an agenda -- an enduring number when you seek to implement an agenda. it is wrong to judge the number which is around 50% as having fallen from 67%. actual election number is -- the actual election number is 63%.

>> i am from jordan. i am a second-year graduate student here at the university. my question is for mona. i attended the talks last year in which you mentioned how bloggers had an impact on sexual harassment laws. have there been any similar impact on government laws or social norms since then? >> yes, the egyptian parliament is supposed to discuss a law that will define sexual harassment and criminalize it. this will be the first time that happens. egyptian law is similar to the law in many countries that are basically post-colonial countries. it punishes social -- sexual- harassment according to laws that the british put into the system. has things to do with honor and all of this other stuff.

people think it are organic two arab culture, but they actually came from british -- people think they are organic to arab culture, but they actually came from british colonial times. because of pressure from bloggers, this is another direct result. people ask, is there any impact? this is another great truth of how it can impact what is happening in the real world itself. >> jacqueline, are using that kind of impact in malaysia -- a are you seeing that an impact in malaysia? -- are you seeing and thathat kf impact in malaysia? >> the government -- the news

first broke on a blog site in the west. the government acknowledged there was a problem and is set up a task force. they initially refused to release the findings of this task force. for an entire year, the nut graph went after the women and family minister and badgered her. we would call her up. we would go to her events. we would constantly demonstrate that the government was not wanting to release the report. it was publicly-funded. in the meantime, there were werets that the rapes continuing. i do not have any quantitative proof, but eventually the government had to release that report. when the mainstream in traditional media was not applying the pressure, for

whatever reasons, -- when the mainstream and a traditional meal was not applying the pressure, for whatever reason, -- and traditional media was not applying the pressure, for whatever reason, we went all out to push this particular issue. it was really gratifying to see that task force report being made public eventually. >> thank you. another question. >> i am a junior communications major here. you said that what the obama campaign did well was harness the energy that grass-roots people already have. do you feel that republicans have been there -- have done their best with people who are unhappy with health care and the tea party to harness that energy? >> out of the republican

national committee, certainly not. on the campaign by campaign basis, it depends. when you're in a minority party, and your leadership, elected leadership is the minority congressional leaders, it is very difficult to imprint the past -- imprint of personality or leader on the psyche of the country. it is very diffused right now. until we have a leader emerge, we will not be at our full potential as an institution in order to do that. that being said, a lot of this activity that we are talking about here tonight does not need to have a central institution to be taking place or to organize. it is decentralized. it is democratic. it is going to be impacting -- as people talk on facebook and

social media sites -- the congressional level or the municipal level. it is the next iteration of forward in the evolution of this. we're in uncharted territory. you saw it used very effectively in the presidential campaign. you're in the first midterm. the party that is out of power -- 170 days away from the election, it is the party that is up in intensity. there is a lot more activity taking place, but it is not out of a central hub. >> ok. is there another question? >> good evening. i am part of the communication faculty here. i have a media filter question.

media pundits are still influential. they do not seem to be getting the idea of being in every space. there was criticism that obama was overexposed, counter to the premise of the strategy that there is no "over exposure." if you are like those on abc, pounding that message all the time, does that mean they are just riding their dinosaur into the future and becoming obsolete? or are there still people they are influencing who are singing that same song? where does that disconnect totally become dysfunctional for them? >> well, you know, i think that this all works together. obviously, mainstream news , traditional

newspapers, they all work together with social networking. you cannot really compartmentalize. generally, and this is one of my concerns about washington -- i think that the sunday round average primefox's time number is only 3 million people out of 140 people who voted in that last election. the punditry, whether online or traditional, in washington, they view that as a reality. the truth is that most people who are not terribly interested in politics never watch any of that. sometimes, it is like you are in a fun house.

whatever the argument on cable is, that is reality. that is what we have to respond to, but that is not how people live their everyday lives. we will see. ratings for shows like that have been diminishing. they still sell advertising because they're reaching an important group. i think diversification is key. that is what sarah palin's and glenn beck -- sarah palin and glenn beck do. they proliferate. using more newscasters doing that. -- you see more newscasters doing that. they are on their sunday show, but they are tweeting 24/7. you have to do that if you're going to reach audiences. >> i would like to follow-up on that a little bit.

you mentioned that in a future election, maybe not the 2010 election, maybe 2012, there will be a lot of people who will be getting their information exclusively from social networking technology. that is all little bit hard for me to swallow. -- a little bit hard for me to swallow. there is an information gap between people who do not have access. is it possible we could be making decisions in this country and in others on the basis of only those who have access to the fast-moving, portable technology, and that people who are writing the dinosaur -- riding the dinosaur are going to be left out of the political process? >> no. if you are a political campaign, you know there are people you are never going to reach digitally. you have to go to their doorstep. you have to be on their local

radio. a good campaign will figure out how to reach the people they need to reach. you have to have a sense of the people you are trying to reach. you have to understand how they are living their lives and getting information and then go to reach them in that way. ideally, you reach them in a number of ways. you check the websites they go to. that is ideal. the divide is a serious one. it is not just about politics. people are epidemic -- people are economically less viable without access to broadband. .

it is the same way that you consumed news. at the end of the day, one of the things that nobody knows is who is watching what, and who is getting their information from where. it is something that people who work in our profession, or who advise corporate america, are figuring out how to do. on a personal level, i now consume my media -- i have apple tv. the only thing i watch on television allied is exports. i read the new york times in the morning. >> online para >> yes, -- online. >> yes. i do not touch a physical newspaper.

so i choose from a menu in a way that works for me. i do not think if you're the vanguard of this -- i do not think i am in the vanguard of this, but that is personally how i consumer information. i think in a few years' time everybody ought to do that. people who criticize the white house communications strategy a thing have a question about overexposure. -- i think have a question about overexposure. there was a total misunderstanding of how people consume news. the white house communications strategy has been brilliant. whether it is the president on "sports illustrated," or "parade magazine," or "people magazine ," he is spread out over areas

of the country. you will see more and more of that. the real issue here is that nobody knows who is reading what and watching what, and how to measure it. those metrics really do not exist. there will eventually, but they do not right now. >> jacqueline, do you want to talk about the digital divide issue in malaysia? will there be a time when people ignore the mainstream media completely and get everything completely from technology. >> we have a younger, much more media savvy and electorate. i have young colleagues in my youth group who rely completely on twitter for what is happening in the world and in malaysia.

for me, coming from a traditional media background, that is fascinating. however, we are trying to occupy that space increasingly it before the next election, because there will be a huge number of young people registering to vote before the next election. a thing social media is just another medium that can be used. i do not think it will replace traditional media. in a world malaysia there is no internet connection -- rural malaysia there is no internet connection. they have to rely on traditional media. >> what about the situation in egypt? >> you are talking about a

region in the world where you have massive differences in income levels. there are countries in the gulf that have high internet penetration rates, the united arab emirates being the highest, and then the poorest countries that have a very low rates. in some places, one person at shares an internet connection with 10 other people. text messaging and mobile phones are what people rely on using. you have to think about it as a diagram or everything connects in the middle somewhere. an egyptian researcher of the internet told me that he thought this was just for rich people.

he asked a worker if he had any connection to the internet. he said, "i do not, but my son does." everybody in egypt has a mobile phone. it depends on how proficient you are in escaping firewalls. in the united arab emirates you cannot access the gay and lesbian sites. you have to know how to get around firewalls. it depends on where you are, but in egypt, radio, which is isntrolled by the government', still probably as popular as television. i know that we could -- >> another we could have a much longer conversation, but we have to stop.

first, let's think jacqueline who has to get up very early in the morning -- leet's thank jacqueline, who had to get a very early in the morning to be with us. [applause] i think we have explored some interesting territory tonight. and thank you all for joining us. i want to thank our speakers for being with us. we remind you that if you are not already receiving e-mails from us, we have a son and she in the lobby. please sign one. give us your e-mail address. also in the lobby are several political, non-partisan books that we have chosen. our speakers will be in the lobby this evening after the program if you would like to continue talking to them. join me in thanking them for

being here once again. [applause] [no audio] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> tomorrow, the discussion on in u.s. immigration policy, a look at the future of the republican party and its relationship with the tea party, and the author and editor

of a book about airline economics talking about the impact of the proposed merger between united and continental airlines. that is "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. >> senate majority whip dick durbin is our guest on sunday. he will talk about the effort to pass political -- to pass financial reform legislation, and the political landscape. a look now at u.s. relations with mexico. chief of international affairs gave a speech recently, hosted by the world affairs council of pittsburgh. this is about 45 minutes. >> thank you for coming here today.

i am honored to introduce to you a man with a significant influence over very important matters in an important country in the world. he is currently the chief of international affairs in the state of mexico. he has been a political adviser to the governor of the state of mexico. he has served as an honorary representative of the state of mexico in europe, as well as the united kingdom. he has served as an independent adviser to the secretary of economic development of the state of mexico, the european union, and several mexican political parties. is currently the president of the regional advisory council for the national immigration institute in the state of mexico. as a post doctorate degree in economic integration from the european university institute in italy.

the also holds a doctorate in political economics and a master's degree and development studies, but from the university of cambridge. in addition, he has given many talks about the role of industrialization in mexico. please join me in welcoming him. [applause] >> i would like to thank you all for being here. that was a very nice introduction. i had a lot of fun getting all of those degrees. the process was very fun. of course, i have to say thank you for this invitation.

i would like to the bank any -- to thank annie for all of the work that was put into this luncheon. i am deeply honored by this invitation. i would like to thank u.s. steel for their sponsorship, as well as the hispanic chamber of commerce of pittsburgh. and i would like to thank all of you, including your district attorney and many of the important people from the district. let me talk about the interest in mexico. this is my first time in pittsburgh. i always thought that my first visit to pittsburgh would probably be to behind stadium to watch the steelers. i am a great fan of the steelers, since i was 7 years

old. but i suppose coming to a heines' luncheon with u.s. steel is probably very close to that, so i am is still happy. i am really glad to be here. first, i think i would like to explain to what the state of mexico is. it is not familiar to most people. in mexico, complicated as we are, we have a country name mexico, a state in mexico, and a sitting in mexico. -- a state named mexico, and a city named mexico. imagine if we put virginia and maryland together and call it a state. that is what the state of mexico is. the state of mexico is where the

federal powers are. mexico city is located partly in at the territory. a bigger part of it is located in the state of mexico. that is what the state of mexico represents. in short, it is 1% of the territory in the country that contributes about 11% of national resources. we have about 11 million people living in the state of mexico prepared we contribute about 17% of -- in the state of mexico. we contribute about 17% of the industrial economy. we have a lot of manufacturing. to give you a short example, all of the pt cruisers in the world are made in my city. we have chrysler.

now that chrysler has been bought by fiat, many other cars will be made here. we have nissan, we have a board, we have bmw. we have a huge automotive industry. we have a huge chemical industry. we have it processed foods industry. you probably know a little bit about that. in short, the state of mexico is a very influential state. many people are very proud to be from there. the chief of international affairs, which is like the secretary of state, deals with migration issues. we have about 1.2 million people from the state of mexico living in the united states.

we do international economic promotion so, that is the state of mexico. i want to get into today's topic. i think it has generated a lot of interest. i think part of the interest that mexico causes today comes from a huge mystery. the mystery is, why is it that such a great nation -- because i think we all know that mexico is much more than what we see in the news today -- why does it go through so much? what is happening with the border that we have with mexico? how can we help or change or whatever?

i think that worries the united states even more because we are next door. a lot of american businesses are in mexico. mexico represents a huge market for u.s. products. i think we all see that mexico from the outside is a great opportunity for many things. it has great potential. but at the same time, there are things going on there that we do not quite understand. that is what i am going to try to explain a little bit during this conversation, at least from my humble point of view. first of all, i would like to say that the u.s. and mexico are inextricably linked. we are not going to go anywhere. we mexicans, we may not like

some things about the u.s. or u.s. policy. you americans may not like certain things about mexico or mexican policy. but the truth is, we cannot move. we are going to be there. you are going to be here. we have to find a way to reach across, because there is no way that we can move. we can move individually, but as a country we cannot. let me give you some idea of what mexico may represent for the u.s. i do not know if you know that mexico is the first trading partner, a of china, canada, india, japan, u.k., france, mexico is the first trading partner of states like california, new mexico, texas, and yes, arizona.

just to give you an example, last year, 2009, texas exported $56 billion to mexico. 32% of arizona prosoma -- arizona's exports went to mexico. this is a key piece of information i would like to give you. we are an effective trading partner. we are the second market for states like wisconsin, michigan, illinois, and yes, pennsylvania. we are the second market for pennsylvania. we are the third [inaudible] to pennsylvania. just last year, you sold as two

billion dollars worth of products. and you bought from us $2.5 million. we are third for new jersey and colorado. you can understand texas and california, but illinois, pennsylvania, new jersey? the states i just mentioned are not small economies. they are huge economies within the u.s.. that gives you an idea of the importance of mexico in trading terms. in terms of population, 12 million mexicans live in the u.s.. 12 million people with the mexican passport. 22 people -- 22 million people of mexican origin live in the

united states. 1 million u.s. citizens live in mexico. legally. [laughter] and about 300,000 illegally. why am i saying illegally? backpackers decide to go to puerto vajarta, and they just stay there. that is a huge number. mexico is the gateway to all of the central and south american and caribbean immigration. they go through mexico, yes. but something you may not know is that about 20% of those that

came for the united states and up staying in mexico. so we ourselves have a huge problem of migrants, central and south american migrants staying in mexico. we have the duty that many people talk about, naphtha -- nafta. nafta is there. i can talk a little bit about that later. it means that we all legally decided to be partners in trading. it is sort of like marriage. you may like it or not, but you sign something. [laughter] today, i would say we have a topic that is hot and that is right here, which is crime.

it may sound horrible, but we are united by crime. why is that? because throughout mexico, the drugs that people are consuming in the united states are marketed in the united states, but the guns that are used to kill people in mexico are bought in the u.s. selling guns is illegal in mexico, so they have to be bought in the united states. i would like to get into three questions, having set the stage for this. i will do so very quickly because i am aware i do not have too much time. i would like to go through three questions.

how did mexico get into the situation is in? what would be the options forward? what could be the future of mexico's relations with the u.s.? how did mexico get into this? you may remember that a political party called the pri and governed mexico for about 70 years. by the way, i belong to the political party. the government i work for belongs to that political party. we lost power in mexico in the year 2000. in the last 10 years, another party called the pan has been governing. one thing that has happened -- and i am not here to make

political statements. i want to explain that the political transition that mexico went through, did not come necessarily -- and by the way, i believe in democratic values. i am not but we lost, but i am glad that the fact that we lost created some sort of democratic transition. but we have been so guilty with our, let's say, and democratic -- un-democratic system in the past, that in the past 10 years all we have been trying to do is make clear that we are a democracy. we have expended a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of negotiation, a lot of political capital and will in proving that

we are democracy. what that created was that many of the institutions that make mexico or that make any country work, in mexico, or left aside. they are working the way they worked 10 years ago. under the democratic reality, that does not work well. to get a little bit into the public security, organized crime. when you have a very centralized system of intelligence, when you have a totalitarian way of preventing crime, when you have stromboli's institutions -- strong police institutions, you are bound to have a certain control of organized crime. the whole institutional structure is created for that.

it works around a centralized power controlling crime. when you suddenly open upper -- open up, and you have no way of coordinating police action, you have no way of centralizing intelligence, you have 3000 local police and under different commands, it is a lot easier to infiltrate the police. you have 3000 department under who knows what command. when the justice system was very centralized and decisions were made in a centralized way, and you do not create the

institutions to make it work under an open system, things are bound to go wrong. that is what happened in mexico. democracy is good. i still think democracy is good. i was glad when we went to a democratic transition. the problem is, how do you change during transition to work properly under a democratic system when you previously did not have one? institutions are designed to work under a non-democratic or partially democratic system. that has not changed. we have to push very important reforms if we want to -- if we want things to work better. this is the same portrait. this is the same for the economy. -- this is the same for trade.

this is the same for the economy. we thought that by getting democracy right, things would distort the fantastically well. but they did not. we have to go deeper into reforms that make the country work, that make the country effective. i believe that, first of all political reform. we need political reform and to find a way to agree. for example, let me tell you, there is a legislative paralysis in our country. there are no ways to get a majority, even if you win a majority in the ballot.

you win a majority, but you do not have a majority, because the system was created to avoid a majority, because there was one party rule. whenever pri 190% of the -- won 90% of the seats in congress, there were methods in place to put other people in congress just to avoid an overwhelming majority. rules were put in place. now if a party gets a 60% vote, they still would not get a majority, because the system was set up for a totalitarian system. but it does not work for a democratic system. what you end up having is a congress that is constantly unable to pass anything. they just go there and talk, and

fight, and this and that, and no one has the authority to pass anything. i am hearing the voices but i will not get into internal politics. [laughter] just to give you an example, from 1994 to 1997, it still pri years, 60% of the measures sent to congress passed. 60%. from 1997 to 2000, the opposition made a huge advance. but it went from 60% to 40%, the number of bills and initiatives approved. to a dozen--- 2000-2003 it went

to 41%. the next three years 30%. the next three years, at 28%. now it does not matter who the bills come from. they do not pass. if we have a system that promotes the disagreements instead of agreement, you're bound to have this issue. we need political reform because we need to find better ways to reflect our newly forged democracy in institutional ways. we need a system to work better. we need economic reform, but we also need to make the country grow. you are still going to have children finding it much easier

to enter as a drug cartel and then to start a business. -- and then to start a business. -- than to start a business. if they have no hope that their personal initiative will be simple, they will find it very easy to enter a drug cartel. when you have a police system that does not work too well, you have all of the incentives wrong. you have negative incentives not to be a criminal not working, and you have incentives to be a criminal working quite well. that is a very dangerous conversation. i do not mean to say that every child in mexico wants to become a drug dealer. that is not the case. i am saying that for some people who are under poverty,

and there are extreme and social circumstances, this is a feasible way of getting out of their situation. i am going to go to my last point here, because i think i am more interested in your questions than my own remarks. what ever happens, however this important process continues, however we continue this strategy which, by the way, and i say this as a personal remark and not on behalf of any government, i do not agree with the way the strategy against crime is being run, but that is another subject. i think it had to be done. you have to fight crime, but not

precisely the way that it is being done today. anyway. whatever we do with the security, with economic policy, mexico cannot and should not do it alone. we just cannot do it alone. we are just too linked to the united states. we are just too late to central america. and we do not have -- we are just too linked to central america. and we do not have the resources to do it alone. we need a degree of cooperation and integration in the world. why should we do it alone? going back to my initial figures, i think we should do it with the u.s.. the u.s. is very important to us. we are very important to the u.s. for reasons that are not always known by the general

population. but again, let's go back to our wedding. we signed a contract. we are partners in this. and again, we are married, and we are cannot undo it. why should we do it alone? when it is affecting you, it is affecting us, when you're worried about what is happening. i see for the future, i would hope, a much broader and deeper agenda of cooperation with the u.s. i think many times the problems between the mexico and the u.s. is that we talk about the things that interest us. we talk about the things that interest you. but we rarely talk about the things that interest the other.

i am going to be critical here. mexico is always about migration reform and why do you treat the mexicans there like -- ? but i think we should talk about being a true anti-terrorism partner. that is one reason we have to start talking. the other way of a round -- the other way around, i see a lot of cooperation in the future for anti-drug fighting. i see a lot of cooperation for nafta.

you can teach a 20 year-old to be different. you cannot complain because when he was 16 he did something wrong. nafta is accepted as a treaty the way it is. we cannot just opt out. the companies are there. the people are there. do we have to learn from the mistakes that we made? of course we do. i think we have to compensate the losing industries. but to say, ok, we're not going to talk to you anymore because you want this and we want that, we could keep going in and never ending discussion. anti-terrorism, community development, not only in mexico but again, the migrants come from mexico.

we should maybe have a fund that helps mexico develop so that migrants do not come. but we should also have of fund to have communities in the u.s. be compensated for migrant workers arriving there. that would create an incentive for people to accept a better this inevitable flow of people. i say inevitable just because the circumstances are so big in some communities that it is almost impossible to kick them out. just to conclude, i am very optimistic person about mexico.

but i think i would have to be, and i would love to be more optimistic about how mexico interacts with the u.s. i think there is a great room to do this. i think potentially there will be cooperation. i also think that encounters like this one are real point of contact between our two countries to get to know each other better, to understand each other better, and to know, once again, the we are connected. thank you very much. [applause] >> we are going to the question and answer session. we are going to do this, people can raise their hands. there are also part on the table with pens and you can write your

question, for those of us who are very shy. we are also protesting this on the web, so we will have some questions from our web of yours. we have a question here. >> welcome to pittsburgh. you will have a great time if you stay away from hard baseball team. i will stay away from the hot button issue of the arizona immigration law. there seems to be an inconsistency in our war on drugs. a war has been declared on drug gangs in mexico by a public official. thousands of people have been killed. but at the same time we are spending billions on sending troops to a country in

afghanistan where we basically ignore the poppy fields. is there is inconsistency there, and should the war on drugs be viewed like prohibition? should we consider decriminalization? >> i will go question the question. -- question by question perio. i am not fit to talk about local politics and the war that the u.s. is raging on other countries. however, i do believe that the strategy of providing in mexico has been very difficult because, precisely of what is happening to the u.s. troops in afghanistan, for example, or in

iraq. what we have is cartels in mexico that perhaps before this war, we had four or five big cartels with somewhat visible head. with the war on drugs, and that is why i was talking about the strategy that i do not agree with personally, when you cut off the heads, and i do not mean it literally, but when you get rid of the top five guys from the four or five cartels, instead of having four cartels, now you have 30. when you get rid of 30, instead of having 30, you have 100. what is happening is that in many cases, these smaller gangs are now fighting over territory and market.

to me, and again, these people are being fought by the army. after four years we still have the army in the streets. it is very difficult to fight gangs with the army. there are going to be civilian casualties as there are now. this is a huge topic in mexico. when you have the army fighting gangs, the army is trained to shoot. the army is not trained to do intelligent and pick the gang leader and take him out. the army is trained to shoot. what i believe to be a much more sensible approach would be to have specialized groups of civilian police being prepared,

very specialized, with intelligence, with the latest high-tech, with the knowledge of new crime-fighting met this -- methods, prepared to enter this civil war. i think it is the time to do it. that is where the u.s. can come in. in my opinion, my personal opinion, i do not think that the eight or the help -- the aid or the help that the u.s. is providing this program should be equipping the army to baltimore or shoot more. -- two bomb -- to bomb more or

to shoot more. i think that this high-tech equipment that we do not have been mexico, all of this lab equipment for the prosecution of criminals to make better cases so that they are in jail, all of this is something the u.s. could very easily commit. not very easily, but should hopefully come in. that is the way i see it. that would be my answer. i am not sure that the answer is the army. help us strengthen civil police methods and groups so that we can fight much better organized crime. we're not fighting an army. we're fighting gangs. that is what they are.

>> would you give us your opinion about how the situation with the law in arizona might play out with respect to the relationship between the two countries? >> is very unfortunate what happened in arizona, particularly given the importance that mexico has. 30% of the workforce in arizona is either mexican or from mexican origin. however, we also understand that it has a huge political charge. the governor's election is coming. we also understand that it is not approved by americans in

general. we also saw the voting, the very divided voting. we also have hopes that things could be reversed or at least modified. however, in the end, and that is again my opinion, what we would need in the end would be a much clearer federal immigration policy and law. when you have vacuums for certain issues, and that is what happened in terms of immigration, there is a vacuum, local tolerance, local groups are bound to fill them up. you have a very uncertain outcome of how they will fill

them up. will they fill them up with the best of their interest? i think, in the end, deep down inside, the proper solution would be federal regulation. that is an internal debate. that is something that the u.s. and the american people have to decide, how they're going to do it. men but i believe that this shows that there can be no more weight for national immigration act of some sort -- but i believe that this shows that there can be no more wait for a national immigration act of some sort. >> is there not a significant amount of corruption in the local systems?

what would you do to prevent the systemic corruption? it seems to me that there is a tremendous amount of a bribery, infiltration, as you stated, but i have to commend the calderon government since he had the tremendous amount of courage, and the people under him as well, that even federal police were being attacked. >> i totally agree with you. i am not saying that the war on crime should not have been done. i think it had to be done. and i think it has to continue. it cannot be a war on administration policy. there has to be a national consensus, and i think there is a national consensus that we

have to fight organized crime. to answer your question, there have been recent moves come at last month i think -- you have something like a national governors' association here. there is something like that in mexico. it is a national conference of governors. they all of greed to create -- they all agreed to create state police instead of local like city police. i think it will be much easier to coordinate 32 police departments and then it is to coordinate 3200. there are moves toward

that. even if it was the historic responsibility of the federal government to take this into their hands and try to solve it, there also should be moves toward professionalizing this policy through civilian groups that could be federal. i am not saying there would have to be state groups. in fact, my personal opinion is that they should be federal, but not the army. that is running. -- that is what i mean. >> how has the financial crisis impacted mexico, and do you see mexico recovering any time soon?

i was talking to someone in the morning that when the u.s. cost we get pneumonia -- when the we get pneumonia. we are so linked, we export 80% of our products to the united states. we buy 80% of our imports from the united states. that has a lot of problems, of course, being so concentrated, but it gives you an idea of why, when the u.s. has a downturn, we have a much steeper downturn. last year, mexico had a 6.5%

loss of its gdp. we did not grow. this year, with the partial recovery, we're probably going to grow more. again, you see the imbalances. if the u.s. rose 1%, we grow 4%. the u.s. falls 1%, we fall 6%. one thing we should talk about is how crime has impacted the economy. we do not have specific measures as to how organized crime and drug programs have directly impacted on the decisions to invest in mexico. i know that we can all guessed that it has an impact. but what we do have is local figures, state by state, and how

they have been behaving in terms of foreign investment in the last couple of years. what we do have is that in those states where the perception of organized crime is high, yet losses of 400 direct investments that have reached, in some of them, 50%. in states where the perception is not commonly held, for example, the state of mexico, we are not known for having a huge organized crime problem. we had a rise in foreign investment. that shows you the people somehow know that mexico is strong.

the drug and violence programs are somewhat localized. they affect certain areas, and they avoid those regions, but they do not avoid others. even if i asked you here, would you go to mexico city? you would say, yes i would. you would maybe ask if there was a safety problem. if i asked if you wanted to go to juarez, you would say, why don't we go to el paso instead? >> we have a number of years not only in the united states but in mexico as well watching our web cast.

this is a viewer of the web cast pose a question. -- webcast's s question. >> i am not an expert on security or crime. i am more of an international relations guy. my guess would be that organized crime is different from the crime that comes from not having a job. when you lose your job when most of your life you have been working, if you do decide to become a criminal, you probably steal to eat. you would not fit into higher forms of organized crime. this i know.

there are studies that show that crime escalates. whoever starts by may be stealing a package of cigarettes and does not get caught, the next time will still the mirrors of a car. if he does not get caught you will still the car. he does nye get caught -- if he does not get caught he will get in to kidnapping. in other words, entrepreneurship gross if you do not get caught -- grows if you do not get caught. organized crime was there before the crisis. that is why they were fighting. they have been there for many years. what i think is that now there is a huge fight between smaller gangs for roots of distribution

-- routes of distribution. that is part of the price -- that is part of the problem. i do think the economic crisis might have made it worse. >> we have time for one more question. >> and thank you. i was wondering if you could speak to social enterprise and what role there is in mexico right now to aid economic development? >> literally, 97% of the companies in mexico employ it