at washington, they see it is broken. to say that the process is supposed to shut down? who does that respect? who does that honor? we need to work through these problems that everybody agrees are very important. senator bert is about to become the national poster child for obstruction in his party, featured in a national magazine. that is not the way we >> 2011 is predicted to be a devastating budget year for the federal government. what role should the government should help at state and government level. >> i know that we have been out of that mode for the past 24 months. we have sent money so that states didn't have to make tough decisions about what services they provided or how many employees they had. on top of employment benefits

and other benefits. we are out of money. the federal government is broke. we are $14 trillion in debt. can we just continue to borrow money and send it to any program that we want, or to states or localities? there has got to be a federal local partnership, but that partnership exists today. talking about expanding it only puts us in deeper financial trouble and jeopardizing the -- jeopardizes the opportunities of generations to come. i think we ought to roll back to 2008 spending levels now. under the president's proposal, he will double the national debt in .500 years, and triple the national debt in 10 years. i don't think that is the direction america wants to go.

that is why i have voted against 32 of the last 44 appropriations bills that have been introduced since democrats took control of congress. >> mrs. marshall? >> i have been -- i have a different take. when george bush was president, you voted to race the debt ceilings. it was ok spending then. america went to war twice. we gave a prescription ben -- benefit at the same time we gave tax breaks to millionaires. we can't balance the budget on the backs of the middle-class. the middle-class needs to be robust in this country. but we also can't continue to send down money to the states when we don't have it. our credit card is being held now by china. that is very dangerous to our economic security and overall

security that we have this level of debt. we have to have jobs. we have to have sound policies that will cut taxes on people that create here and not reward jobs being sent overseas. we have to end the tax brakes for millionaires out there. they have to pay their fair share in order to make this whole economy work. i do like programs like the race to the top. it is an incentive program rather than a payment on down. there are a lot of things, and i don't have enough time to talk about all of them, but we have to have jobs to grow our way through this. >> a rebuttal? >> i would hate for facts to come in, but in the bummings we increased the debt $2.5 billion. the bomings has raise the debt to $3 trillion.

the bummings will seem minor to what this administration has done on the debt. >> our next question goes first to ms. marshall. the race to the top has many people talking about ways to revamp our schools. of all the ideas being discussed, which ones do you support and why? >> well, i didn't know that was coming next, but i'm glad it came up. let's look at the role of federal government in education, because education is primarily a state function. probably better than 60% of our north carolina spending goes on education. and the feds do have a role. they have a roll in setting a goal, setting an achievement out there. we are in a global economy, and if america is going to be strong, our young people and workers have to be competitive with those of other countries. the no child left behind was a good-sounding name, but it required standardization, evaluation, teaching to test. the kids don't start out

standard, so you can't punish teachers for not getting them to a certain level. it doesn't recognize the educational situation. i truly like the innovation that is emphasized with the race to the top. it allows each state to figure out what is needed even county boy county, to be able to give teachers the individual support they need to do a good job. a lot of kids have difficulties in learning, and there are lots of pathways to learning. we have to experiment with those so that schools can turn out a better product. if we don't, we will be not the society and the educated, innovative country we want to be and not be competitive. >> mr. burr? >> i agree the race to the top is a good program if

implemented correctly. it is there to accelerate the creation of charter schools so there was competition in every state and community with the public school network. no child left behind, though it wasn't implemented like it should have been, was really designed to make sure every stumet had a qualified teacher in the classroom. now it has fallen well short because there have been efforts to derail and to eliminate no child left behind. but i think what we need to do in north carolina is look at the success that we have been. we have raised graduation rates. >> it is what drives economic development. it's why companies invest in north carolina, because they want to come here for our children and grandchildren, because the he cation level is

there. p pel grants and other grants are important. but even in our higher education system, we have some institutions that graduate only 29% after eight years. at some point you have to cut off the pel grants so the incoming student has what they need. >> rebuttal? >> what the federal government does not need to be doing is unfunded mandates. which is what no child left behind was doing. so unfunded mandates in the education arena has been ash for a long time, and i will work very hard to make sure we don't have those gotten. >> mr. burr, how important is green energy to america's future? >> i think it is very important. the important part is to make sure we implement what is possible. i think that we are going to see a tremendous amount of

resources devoted to things like electric cars, the transition of large trucks over to natural gas. i think we are going to see building codes change as technology allows them to change. even i have replaced my light bulbs with fluorescents. but the problem with energy is you have to have a buy-in by the american people. we have gone two decade without an energy plan. i wrote one. we introduced it in mid summer, to compete with the efforts in washington to do cap and trade, which is a transfer of wealth from one state to the other. i am confident that if we present a clear blueprint for the american people, they will buy into it, and as they buy into it as consumers, then we generate the interest for further development for green

technologies that aren't the cheapest, but they are absolutely essential to our future and our economic security in this country. >> ms. marshall? >> well, i sort of agree with senator burr on one part, that we don't have a comprehensive energy policy that we need. but the reason we don't have a comprehensive energy policy is because of the washington special interests that create the tax breaks that support the use of fossil fuel. we need a comprehensive energy policy. folks are more and more conscious. the next generation is coming up, about making sure we don't spoil our air, soil or waterways. it is incumbent upon us that we move to green energy, and north carolina is just really, really well situated. we've got wind and solar. we have the best minds in the country at our great research universities here. we have in my opinion the best

community college system in the country that can train the workers that are needed. it bothers me that when the best lithium-ion battery is coming from china. we ought to be able to do that right here. if wred energy policies that encouraged the research, development and innovation, we would be the leader in there. as we move to a green energy grid, those are jobs that will stay right here absolutely no matter what. we have to have policies at the federal level that direct us to that and encourage that type of growth in the green energy area. >> an energy plan seems like an easy thing to plush. we have done them. they have been five years long. you don't drive innovation with a five-year plan. if you want to transition to electric vehicles, you are not going to get there by the first generation platform. you are going to get there by

the third generation platform. that means we have 20-30 years investing in what the american people will end up buying. i hope we will have bipartisan support for that type of plan. >> ms. marshall, the next question goes to you first. do you support off shore drilling off the coast of north carolina, why or why not? are are even before the gulf issue happened, i spoke against drilling off the coast of north carolina. we have seen what happened to the gulf, the lifestyle down there. once they find another place to visit, they oftentimes don't come back. our coast is one of our most treasured resources. the tourism dollars it attracts

is tremendous. we cannot afford that threat to our lifestyle, that threat to our economy, that threat to our way of life. this has been my position since before the oil spill, and now we've seen what tragically has happened to the folks of louisiana because of what they said was going on tock. we had the technology, and it wasn't going to happen. but when folks fail and don't perform their duties the way they are supposed to, things like that do happen. >> mr. burr? >> well, i believe it should be left up to the people in the states that live on the shores. if the people in north carolina want to have off shore exploration, and the federal government is willing to split royalties with them, i think those states ought to have the opportunity to do it. it doesn't eliminate the federal guidelines any explorer has to follow. we will find out what happened in the gulf, whether it was a regulator who was a i sleep or technology that was flawed. but if you aspire to become

less reliant on foreign oil, if you see that as a national security interest in this country, let me assure you, you are going to still use fossil fuel long after i am going, and the question is, are you going to buy it from one of the most unstable regions in the world, or are you going to start getting oil from venezuela again? or are you going to explore for it here? we've got not deep water, but shallow water wells that we have more tormse on today. one of them is in alaska with possibly the biggest find in the world. the drilling equipment stopped in the philippines because the president put the moratorium on them and turned to go somewhere else in the world where they could be productive. we have to be productive in this country, and it should be left up to the states. >> a rebuttal? >> i do think it is a national

issue. there are certain aspects of it that are state issues. you are only as strong as your weakest link. what the real underlying problem is the cozyness between the government and big oil. again, the lobbyists that represent the special interests and their war chests for cam pains like senator burr's here, it is clear who they support and why they support them. when government regulators are asleep at the wheel, that is somebody's responsibility. >> this next one is about a big issue, another big issue on the minds of the people is immigration reform. where do you stand on immigration reform? >> we desperately need immigration reform in this country. we need an understandable legal pathway for people to determine how to come here and work or to seek citizenship. the problem that exists is that we have millions of individuals

who are here illegally. as soon as you talk about accommodating some pathway to citizenship for people that came here illegally, you begin to lose the critical mass you need to pass legislation. i don't believe that any individual should receive amnesty that is here illegally. i believe that every person that comes here for citizenship should come the same way, should get at the back of the line, should let those before them be processed. but that is not to say that we can't expand our guest worker program. in north carolina, we desperately need agricultural workers. you would believe that with unemployment 10%, it wouldn't be difficult to find workers. it is tough work. i know because i have done it. but we can do things that would allow us to take the economic steps forward. but there is no substitute for redoing our immigration policy where people outside this

country understand that it is easier to come here legally than it is to pay people to come illegally. >> ms. marshall? >> we clearly need immigration reform. i understand the frustration of the folks of arizona, but we need to be tough, we need to be practical, and we need to be fair. when i say tough, we do have to close the borders to this country, whether see port borders or physical entry. we need to enforce the laws that we have. after all, the folks arriving here is for the incentive of a job. we can't did he port our way out of this. that is what i'm talking about being reasonable. are there folks that have committed crimes here? yes, they need to be deported. folks need to have, not amnesty, but they need to have a pathway to citizenship. that means they need to pay up their fines. if there are back taxes there,

pay a pent, but get to the back of the line. we need more workers in certain sectors. that needs to happen. the imgreat lakes -- immigration agency itself needs to be reformed. this is not a problem that came up just last week. this has been festering more than 10 years, 11 years and 12 years. now senator burr wants to talk about it. >> mr. burr, a rebuttal? >> i don't disagree. it is not me and the federal government. it is your president. your president has stopped the inspection of employers. they are not going in and checking to see if people are illegal. and where they find them, they have stop did he important takes. it starts at the top. you've got to have the leadership in the white house to take seriously border security. we still haven't filled the

border with all the national guard that the president promised months ago. let's take it seriously. let's pass a comprehensive bill. >> the next question is what is the most critical issue facing america, and how will you address it. ms. marshall? >> i will answer that, but let me go back. this problem in immigration didn't start in the last two years. this has been out there for 10 years, and it is a little bit too late to be calling that one. the most critical issue out there is clearly jobs. folks that want to work in america should be able to find a job. we have to create the environment for job creation in small business, big business and the private sector. they need tools, about those tools need to encourage jobs here. i want to cut taxes for them so that they have the ability to

grow here. i am looking forward to seeing made in america again, and hopefully soon. i am encouraged with what i am seeing with enhanced textiles and some of the other manufacturing going on here in north carolina. folks have to have jobs. what separates us from the rest of the world is a great middle-class, and we don't have a middle-class if we don't have jobs for people. there is dignity with work and jobs. folks are just seeing the american dream slip through their hands. they are working hard, playing by the rules, and yet they can't manage because somebody is setting the rules above them that are taking all their options away from them. >> mr. burr, a rebuttal? >> i have the full minute and a half, not to correct the ambassador. >> you do have the full minute and a half. >> i would concur with the secretary that the biggest issue is the economy and jobs, and i think it's time we begin

to look at the economy and ask ourselves why do companies move? why do they not begin to hire back when we see economic growth even as anemic as it is right now. in washington, we threaten to change the rules in the middle of the game. we threaten to change the rates on taxes. the congress left and didn't settle what the tax rates are going to be for the next year. they didn't debate it, they didn't vote on it, and for that reason, the i.r.s. is going to have to print next year's forms with a tax increase on everybody in the country, and congress will come back an make an adjustment, and the taxpayer will foot the bill for the new forms. now, what is the reason that companies choose to go off shore? i believe it is because they can't be as competitive here. why? regulation and taxation. we ought to cut the corporate

tax rate in this country today. we ought to make this the most preferred place for a company to have a headquarters, to do manufacturing. but if we are the second highest in the world, i will assure you this trend of leaving here and going there will continue. >> ms. marnings, you get the rebuttal. >> thank you. why do companies move? it is a tax advantage for them to ship jobs overseas. the unfair trade agreements, senator burr voted to send those jobs away. and then to layer on top of it the taxes that make it hard on the middle-class. i want to give the middle-class a tax break. they will build a more robust economy when they have money in their pockets. >> we now have a closing statement from each of the candidates.

mrs. marshall, you go first? >> is the evening over? i want to thank everybody out there who has been listening and paying attention to this debate tonight. we will have another one or two other ones, and i encourage folks to pay attention. election day begins on thursday, october 14th. i think the differences are quite clear. i know who i have stood up for my whole lifetime, taking on the health care industry, representing ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and holding powerful interests accountable, taking on wall street. i know who i will represent when i go to washington. it will be the folks of north carolina, the folks who sent me there. i've got their stories in my head and my heart, whether i learned them as a school teacher or a small businesses own iror as a small town lawyer helping folks or as a public servant. in a lot of cases i have walked the mile with them. i ask for your vote in this united states senate race and

thank you all for tuning in tonight. >> mr. burr? >> thank you for marylanding tonight, thank you to the broadcasters and to unctv. when i was first elected, i made two promises. one, to be consistent and predictable. two, to provide the best constituent service that any member of the united states senate could offer. i believe i have kept those promises. as we get ready for the next election, i make the same promise. i will be consistent and predictable, and i will continue to offer the level of constituent service that not only only you expect, but you deserve. i need your help on november the 2nd and throughout early voting. thank you for viewing this debate tonight, we look forward to the next two with you. >> that concludes or debate. thank you, mr. burr, and ms. marshall for your participation. this public service program was brought to you by the north

carolina association of broadcasters, educational foundation. thank you for watching. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country as we look at some of the most closely contested house races leading up to this november's midterm elections. ♪

>> how are you doing? bless you, sir. >> teddy, and joe. >> good. >> i love this. thank you. i need your help on november 2 than. >> you got it. >> thank you. i appreciate you. >> when you get there, know what you know to do. >> i will. i am going to listen to you. >> you can look at it as a couple of things. sometimes no is a good thing. no on growing government, no on stimulus. the other one is know. the first districts of arkansas is a very diverse district. we have 26 counts, made up of the delta on the eastern part of the district, and the ozarks in the western part of the

district. this is one of the poorest districts in the united states. the folks here are good, hard-working people. they balance their budget. they provide a good living for their families, just good hard-working people, good people. >> voters in the first congressional district typically vote very conservative at the national level, but they will elect democrats solidly minus a few pockets at the local level. there has not been a republican elected to the first congressional district since reconstruction. the two primary candidates are republican rick crawford, who is a radio broadcaster with a mid of a media empire that crosses the span of the district. and chad causey is the democrat in the race. he is the retiring congressman marion barry's former chief of

staff. you have the quintessential guy who understands what is going on back in the district, verdicts first-time republican crawford, who understands the issues locally. if you asked on some up or down votes on the big issues that have been dominating the american political agenda this past year, health care, stimulus, cap and trade, card checks, some of those issues, i think you will find them in total agreement on those issues. how much of that is how they truly feel about the issues is debatable, but i think that is definitely the message they are sending to voters. >> this race is about the people of arkansas. it is not about me. it is not about my opponent. it is not about the national parties. it's about the values that the people here in arkansas have and what they want to see and the person that is going to fight for them regardless of

party. it is about sending someone to washington that shares their common sense and arkansas values, and i do. >> about where i do see deferences between the two candidates is chad causey has definitely got a more experienced and deeper working knowledge of some of the big projects that are going on in the district. one is a higher education issue and one is a water project. rick crawford has a broader popular appeal. i am going up there to oppose the bigger agenda items that are telling me is opposite to the wishes of the voters in the district. he would be that type of member of congress. >> what folks are looking for now is a citizen legislator that reflects the values of the district, that has been here, that has made a contribution here, that is not entrenched in

washington, not a bureaucrat. i am not doing this to try to get a job. i already have a job. i want to make sure that everybody in this district has the opportunity that i have had. >> i think the first congressional district is one that everybody feels like a coin toss may be your best way of guessing who is going to win that election. as voters decide who do i like in that race, as their television and radio ads run, you are not going to hear either one of them identify themselves by party affiliation. i wouldn't be spreesed a 50.1 to 4.9 final count -- to 49.9 in that race. >> the content vehicles are traveling the country as we look at some of the most 0 closely contested house races leading up to november's races. for more information on what

the local content vehicles are up to this election season, visit our website, c-span.org/lcv. >> there is more campaign coverage on c-span tomorrow. we will bring you a live debate for delaware's open senate seat. our coverage from the university of delaware begins at 7:30 p.m. eastern. then, a california governor's debate with democrat jerry brown and republican meeting whim. later, we will talk with a reporter about key house races. after that, hawaii's candidates for governor square off in their first televised debate. kneel abercrombie faces james duke iona. now maryland congress mal chris . welcome bac

chris van hollen, head of the de triple c -- dccc. let me read this headline in "the pladelphia inquirer" -- these for donations are being used buy ads agait democrats. as well, this allegation that there is no proof that foreign donors have been part of influencing this campaign. moveon.og put out and against mark kirk.

do you think this is a good idea, what the white house is saying about the chamber? guest:here are a number of issues here. first of all, we should agree that these groups should disclose to their donors are. ther was a piece of legislation called the disclose act. the chamber bitterly opposed it. it stood for the proposition of that said people who are trying to influence campaigns, the voters have a right to know who is donating to a campaign. you should have nothing to fear telling voters who is behind these ads. with respect to the chamber, a couple of issues. they receive in their general fund contributions from foreign tities. if they can isolate and segregate those funds, then they can run these ads withhose dollars, and that is legal. the point the white house is

making is they are all going into one general fund. you can use that money to pay your staff, which wl then free up other monies to pay for this. host: so you are not concerned at the white house is going too far with this? guest: no, it is important to remember the chamber bitterly opposed the idea tt they would have to disclose any of their donors. let me just say, the disclose act was supported by some of the very partisan groups, the league of women voters, common use, which has been for fair campaign finance reform, democcy 21. thes are nonpartisan groups who stand up for the public interest. we believe it is in the public's interest to know who is spending all this money, because they are spending it for a purpose. this is not charity. these groups are trying to buy a congress that serves their interests.

in addition to the disclose act, the chamber opposed our legislation to remove the subsidy that reward multinational corporations that outsource american jobs. that may have been a good subsidy for multinational corporations, but not for american taxpayers, american workers, theast majority of american businesses. host: let's stick with this allegation. ed gillespie writes this morning in "the washington post" op-ed pages --

is this just a matter of republican beating you at the game when it comes to some money? guest: no, and everyone should know that he is the former chairman of the republican national committee. he has been raising money for some of these groups that are spending lots of money here. the fact is, the monies that were spent in 2008, a vast majority of that was disclosed. they were disclosed under the rules we chose to operate uer. at we are talking about here is a massive amounts of secret money. i think all groups should disclose, left, right, or metal. that is the fundamental issue. -- or middle. it should apply across the board.

we should remember, this chamber opposed the disclose pact because they did not want voters to know who was funding these things. if you are a boater, looking at a tv ad -- let us say it is speaking against health care reform -- if it is funded by health insurance companies, you will have a certain impression. host: in this article, it says that you tried to jam through this bill, but you carefully adjusted the labor threshold's to benefit labor unions. guest: that is false. if you look at the bill, the same rules apply across the board. labor unions would have to comply, and they should, and will comply once the bill is signed.

once again, he tries to portray this as a partisan thing. i would ask fair minded people, is the league of women voters a paisan organization? common cause? i have supported disclosure in all forms in the past. i believe it is intrigueinhe int of voters to have that information. ironically, the position the republicans have taken to campaign finance reform is, they do not like any limits on what people can give, but they have already it -- always said, let's disclosed. let's disclose. maybe they can present a bill. that is the question here. there is this very toxic nexus

between the interests that are running these ads, special interests that have been fighting an agenda that, for example, would have stopped the outsourcing of american jobs, begin to rein in wall street. these companies have been hurt in the past due months, and now they are spending millions of dollars to try to elect republican candidates who will serve their interest, at the expense of everyone else. host: inside the newspaper this morning -- inside the "the new york times" -- can democrats win these races?

guest: yes, they can, and it is a good question in the context of the conversation we are having. what is happening in these races are, these groups with a nice sounding names, all these groups are parachuting in and unloading millions of dollars of secret money into these elections. they do not have the interest of the community at heart, i can assure you that. their focus is trying to get elected people who will support their agenda. the more we find out about these donors, the more it is clear, an agenda that supports big wall street banks, mortgage companies, oil companies. host: can we expect more money from the dccc to be coming in in

the next couple of weeks? guest: we will be helping anyone that need support. host: there was a guest -- there was a story yesterday in "the new york times" about mary kilroy looking vulnerable. will you put more money into this race? guest: we have already invested a lot of money into that race. we have a full bore effort there. we have been supporting her fuy. every day, she is getting more money through the state coordinated effort, which is ongoing. host: first phone call for mr. van hollen. larry on the independent line. caller: your guest keeps talking about people putting money into the elections, but i do not hear him complaining about the

union's donating to the democratic party. guest: as i was saying, i believe the principle of disclosure should apply across the board, regardless of what organization you are talking about. when the unions, individuals, or anyone else into bits to candidates, campaigns, number one, there are limits on what they can contribute. and it is totay transparent and disclosed. what we are talking about here are these groups who are secretly funding all sorts of campaigns. they go into a particular district and spend millions of dollars without telling the voters who they are. i would agree with you entirely, whether it is a unit organization, one of these other

groups, they should disclose. the fact is, you have millions of special interest money going into support republican candidates. what we are saying is, you can spend the money. and that is not the argument. but for goodness sakes, tell the voters who you a. why won't you tell them who is funding these republican candidates? host: don in minnesota -- sarasota, florida. caller: is a delight to get through. it is a delight to speak to this gentleman. i have seen him on some talk shows and he is heading of the campaign. i think what i have to say is the essence of the president's, democrat's problem.

this president, and his team specifically, the dnc, in general, have failed miserably, in my opinion, to communicate what ty have done, but their agenda has been, what it will be coming in clear and simple terms. nobody out here understands what is in the health care bill, and there are some very positive accomplishments in there for american citizens. while the stimulus was helpful, you have allowed the republicans -- as a john kerry allowed himself to be swift voted -- you have allowed the republicans to frame the argument and defined. this happened last year when the public thought that there we death panels. guest: obviously, there are

different views on how to best communicate a message. i think what the president is doing now is right. drawing a clear choices that people face in the election. as he said, the choice is simple. do you want to continue with the progress we are making on the econy, recognizing the day that the president was srn in and we are losing 700,000 jobs a month? we have now seen nine consecutive months of positive job growth. are we where we want to be? of course not. no one is satisfied with pace, but why would we want to go back to a set of policies that serve special interest at the expense of everyone else, and drove the economy into a ditch? i agree, when itomes to things like health care reform, we need to focus on the specific,

positive elements of the bill. a lot of it has been lost in the discussion. for example, as a result of the bill, today, children with diabetes, other pre-existing conditions, can no longer be discriminated against by their insurance company because of that condition. today, people can no longer be kicked off of their insurance policies after they have been paying their premiums month after month when they need it the most. i agree, we need to do a better job getting that message out. wall street reform, as the president made clear -- president bush and secretary paulson put into place the t.a.r.p. program. we ended the program. we also made it clear that taxpayers would not be left holding the bag for reckless gambling on wall street.

the american consumer should not be held hostage to bad decisions made on wall street. we have closed many of the loopholes that awarded multinational corporations to ship jobs outside of the country. on a focused very hard make it in america agenda, where we invest at home in a clean energy, infrastructure, so that we can build things here. the president has also pointed out, what the republicans have proposed, is nothing more than a rehash of the policies that favor the special interest. they have a provision that would add $700 billion to our deficit, put it on our credit card, to be

paid for by everyone else. it would put us further into debt with countries like cna. that is wrong. we know it did not help produce jobs. after the eight years of the bush administration, we actually lost millions of jobs. i think the president is framing the choice clearly. before you rush out to the poll, stop, take a close look at what the democratic and it stands for, and what the republican candidate stands for, and make that choice. host: "the wall street journal" th morning has a sidebar story -- the dccc had not given as much money to that race, not because of a lack of a doozy of for her, but this is a tight race.

if you were to give her more money, would that put her over the top? guest: first of all, stephanie has been a wonderful governor for the people of north dakota. she had done a wonderful job contrasting the issues between her and her opponent. she is in a strong position now. the dccc has supported the campaign and is continuing. host: but if you gave her more money -- guest: we think she is in good shape. she continues to receive resources from day dccc. host: next phone call. go ahead. caller: i work in asia about nine months a year. i hear these guys talng about

wanting china to allow the renminbi to appreciate. basically, we are saying, we do not want to pay $5 for a product, we want to pay you $10. the products that we buy from ina today we cannot make in this country. those jobs are never coming back. nixon, kissinger, when they opened up china, they knew that we could not keep on polluting our country making those products. the great lakes were on fire. we could not keep destroying our country. those jobs will never come back. when i hear this, it upsets me because i know that i am paying more for those products. what we need to do is find out what china needs, and that is food. guest: of course, we should export more chinese goods to

china. and as you know, they have a lot of barriers to fair trade. one of the things we are focused on is creating an equal playing field for american manufacturers and businesses. i think it is clear, when the chinese manipulate their currency, it puts american products at a competitive disadvantage coming here in the u.s. andn export markets around the world. i think you now see the international community coming together in consensus, that what the chinese have done is distorting the international marketplace. all we are asking for is an even playing field, a fair shake, for american workers and jobs. when china manipulates its currency, it makes it more difficult for us to compete. the united states can compete with anybody, always has, always

will, if you have a fair and even playing field. but distorting currency, by definition, tilt's that field against american workers. that is why we pushed legislation thrgh the house to try to correct that issue. we were disappointed republica leadership opposed our efforts to oppose -- create that playing field. host: texas. julianne on the independent line. caller: i was calling in to talk about disclosing this foreign money for collections. how can this president say that, when he will not even disclose his own birth certificate, showing he is a u.s. citizen? he will not do that. as far as republicans, sending all them jobs overseas, this democratic party wants illegals

to come over here to work cheaper. that is all there is to it. guest: with all due respect, sir, that is nonsense. this president has reinforced border security. in fact, in the last few months, congress passed legislation to increase our resources for border security. the president supported that bill, encouragethat bill, and signed that bill. you're questioning the president's birth in the united states is just an indication that there are some individuals that can not face reality. it is unfortunate that in this country we are having that kind of debate when we have so many issues at stake. host: shelbyville, indiana. mary. independent line. caller: my husband and i have a

small business. i want you to know that this president's policies, y'all's policies have all of our customers completely frozen. they are not expanding, they are not buying our product. the president of the united states calls the u.s. bankers fat cats. this administration promotes the worst business policies that i have ever seen in my life. guest: the fact of the matter is, in the last 20 months, this administration, congress, has enacted a whole series of tax cuts for small businesses. small businesses have much lower tax liability today than they did 20 months ago as a result of this series of these actions.

we also just past the small business lending and the jobs bill. that lislation provided additional resources to community banks, with a caveat, the direction that they have to get that money out the door for small businesses that ar creditworthy. that bill was held up for months and months in the senate. publicans blocked it until one republican, a retired member of the senate, said, let's stop playing politics with this legislation and get it passed. and as a result, a few weeks ago, the president signed legislation tt would increase access to credit for small businesses, and which provides more incentives for small businesses to invest. under the bill, those who invest in the next 18 months will get a

significant write-off in terms of their capital gains. the president has taken a number of important measures to try to get small businesses back on their feet, make sure they have the support they need to support the jobs we need in this economy. host: a democrat of oregon, a longtime member of the hill, said in an interview that he may vote for someone other than nancy pelosi for speaker if the party keeps a narrow majority in the house. he said, any time you suffer losses in politics, you need to step back and ask, do we need to make any changes? should democrats do what others are doing in politics, others in business, look at who thei leader is? guest: the elections take place three weeks from today.

we will be talking to the american pple about the issues they care about, discussing the main issue between the democratic and republican candidates. the democratic caucus is a big tent. we have a diverse set of views. in fact, that is something that distinguishes ourselves from the republican party, who has a very narrow band of ideological purity. that is why you see what that is happening in delaware. have a diversity of the views, but there is a lot more that unites us than separates us. one thing that unites as is focusing on making sure that everyone in the country has an opportunity to succeed. that is why we want an even playing field in terms of chinese currencies. with wall street, we do not

believe workers across the country should be held hostage to bad decisions. the president has not said the bankers are fat cats. what he said are there are some major banks on wall street, insurance companies, like a.i.g., that made terrible and reckless decisions, but because they were so large, everyone else was hit by the fallout of their collapse. we are not going to allow that to happen again. we are not going to allow those institutions to blow up a big bubble that profited them, and then the burst hurting everyone else. those are the kinds of issues that have united the democrats. that is why you see these special interests fighting back because they do not like t steps of the steps that we have taken back to phone calls, paul

in -- host: back to phone calls, pauln cleveland. caller: 1 caller has said that they do not explain what the democratic party does for people like me. i'm 75 years old and a retiree. this is the first year that i did not have to pay federal income tax. i am on the board which is listed as poverty wages. 31,000 per year -- $31,000 per year, my wife and i live off of that. and this is the first democrat that we have had in ohio for a long time. he has lowered our senior citizens real-estate taxes 25%. if you people should have people like us standing by you and explain to the public what you

have done. bearith me -- host: i think we got your point. so that we can get some more voices in your, we will move on. thanks. guest: i think your caller raises a good point to and there's a lot of misinformation out there. one of them deals with the fact of taxes. taxes have been reduced since this president has b ee in fact, about one third of the recovery bill was providing tax relief to 95% of working americans. as i said, we have had a series of small business tax cuts. now, what the republicans are proposing is to hold tax relief for 98% of the american people hostage until they can get tax breaks for the top 2%, even though that will add $700 billion to the deficit.

it is interesting that one of the earlier callers mentioned small businesses. the republican argument says they need to make sure they don't do anything to hurt small businesses. absolutely not, we shouldn't hurt small businesses. we need to support them. only 2% of small businesses would be affected by that proposal. and when you actually look at the definition, it turns out that the republican definition of small businesses includes big washington lobbying funds, hedge funds, fortune 100 companies. that at the end of the day is who they are trying to help, as opposed to our tax measures who are provided to help to true small businesses and middle-class america. . . 4.7% to 600

texting $6 billion -- $687 billion. guest: what you have are two things going on. number one, you have the recovery bill, which is still helping generate economic activity. and if you were to cancel the recovery bill right now, as some have proposed, you would immediately cancel about 60,000 contracts and awards. i want to be clear, this is money heading to small businesses, having to economic development recovery efforts around the country.

if you want a sure-fire way to get people out of work, if you cancel tho contracts. if you want to send uncertainty as the message to e economy, that does -- that is what you do. the other thing is the unemployment compensation. the fact of the matter is, this is for people out of work. it makes no sense to someone who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and can no longer ma their rent payment that we are going to just say, see you later. that is not just that individual -- bad for that individual and the economy, it is bad for their landlord if they cannot get their rent and it has a ripple effect throughout the economy. yes, we believe that people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and areontinuing to look for employment, which is a requirement of unemployment compensation, should continue- to receive that. it has been suggested that people on unemployment, that

they like it. that is insulting host: -- that is insulting. host: but that does not argue with the fact that total spending is up in the last couple of years. guest: the big things are small social security and medicare. -- our social security and medicare. we have begun to curb the cur when it comes to health care spending. which is why the congressional budget office has -- the congressional health care office has an act of a plan that would reduce spending in the next couple of years because we do need to get a handle on those costs. that is also why we have enacted the pay-as-you-go legislation. it says the government has to do what families have to do. you have to increase the --

increased income or cut spending elsewhere. it is uortunate that our republican colleagues opposed it. it was in place during the clinton years and helped to put the brakes on spending, which is why when clinton left office we had a huge projected surplus in this country. finally, the president has set up the deficit reduction -- the deficit and debt reduction commsion, which i would point out is a piece of bipartisan legislation that had been supported by republicans and democrats. of cours when it came to vote on it, a number of republican senators who have their names on the bill voted against it, which means the president had to create the commission as a matter of executive order, rather than a matter of law. host: next call, good morning.

caller: good morning. mr. van hollen, did you pass bills that were never read and did manteca locy not to say that we have to pass this to see what is in it -- ended nancyelosi not say that we have to pass this to see what is in it? host: that has been pointed out quite frequently. guest: we have to read the legislation to vote on the gislation. much has been made of this in the context of the health care reform bill. the health care reform bill has -- was considered for a long time -- as you know, we had a big debate in this country. meers of congress read the bill, and they should read the bill. this notion that somehow republicans want to read the bill and democrats don't is just on its face ridiculous. everybody needs to familiarize themselves with what is in the bill.

do their homework -- that is the responsibility of a member of congress before he or she votes on these measures. the fact of the matter is, there has been a lo more transparency with regard to the process over the last 20 months than before. and we can talk about many of the reform measures that were taken, including on things like your marks where it looks like -- like earmarks where it looks like rublicans were born to do a lot to change the earmark process, but now it is nowhere to be found in their so-called pledge. because it is pretty clear from the last time they are in charge, there's a lot of pressure from their members to go back to that. we made significant reforms to that process, reduced dramatically the spending through that process. it appears that they want to

unleash it again. host: margaret in florida, independent line. hello. caller: i do agree about the disclosure of donations, but what i'm more concerned about is the electronic voting machines. i'm referring to an editorial in a local newspaper a few months back. it brought to light the recent merger of ef &f, the dominant voting machine provider. it raises alarm when one country -- one company has so much control over the equipment for the democratic process. senator schuler has called for a review of the merger. i do not like one company making

the voting machines. it opens everything up to fraud. i'm wondering what has been done about this. guest: thank you for your question. you are right, we need to protect the integrity of the voting process. everybody has a stake in this, regardless of their political persuasion. we need to do everything we can to encourage that. i have supported legislation that would make sure that we have a verifiable paper ballot where you have electronic voting. what we need to do is make sure that every state has in place a system that adequately reflects the people. and we will continue to support those efforts. obviously, tre are concerns wh you have a monopoly of voting machines, but i think we have to remain vigilant.

very vigilant oversight is required in this area and as we make changes and i think we should make them nationally with respect to a verifiable paper ballot. set host: antonio, texas, gilbert -- host: san antonio, texas, gilbert. caller: most of the time when i watch c-span or the media, all you see is the republican point of view and they are trashing democrats. but i want everybody to know that not everyone in texas is just republicans. i agree that the voting machines are improper. we expect to have long lines in african-american communities throughout the nation because we feel like they're always trying to attack our votes. guest: you have a great candidate for governor, bill

white, in texas. with respect to the voting process, there were many components, we were just talking about the integrity of the voting machines. you raise another issue -- making sure that there are enough machines or the voting places are accessible so that you do not have long lines of voters. obviouy, when you have to wait in line for hours and hours and you are rushing back to or from work, it makes it harder. it discourages people from voting. and we need to make sure that there is a process. many states have moved to systems where you are allowed early voting. i think that is a good idea. many states are moving more toward absentee ballots, where they also in -- also protect the integrity of the process but allow voters to vote on their own time. host: oklahoma city, steve,

independent line, go ahead. , caller: losman, thanks so much for your great work. and you have done great things for -- congressman, thanks so much for your great work. you have done great this for the country. i wish the president would take advantage of the power that he has to reach the people and get out there and quit trng to play the middle ground and call them out for a they stood on bankruptcy laws, minimum-wage, as chip program, polluting the environment -- the schip program, polluting the environment. there are terrible for the country. guest: i think the president is doing a very good job about framing the issues in this election. he is obviously going a across the country to talk about issues that are important to people. it goes back to how we started this discussion this morning about all of these secret, special interest groups that are

dumping millions of dollars into these campaigns. as the president pointed out, they have an agenda, these groups. for the last 20 months we have reined in a lot of these special interes and what they are trying to do is to elect members of congress who will support their agenda at the expense of other people. there are 60 + organizations that we now know are funded by the insurance industry, obviously, upset that health care rorm passed, endicott in support of the republican budget that -- and in support of the republican budget that was voted on last ar. they want to privatize it and turn it into a voucher program and eliminate the guaranteed benefits. all of these companies stand to make tens of millions of dollars if candidates who support those

views are elected. these are the kinds of issues that the president is talking about and it is important. we just hope people will be listening. host: would you like to see more help from democratic outside groups in this election? guest: we would help -- welcome help from groups, but every group should disclose their donors. that should be to protect the democratic process and to let the voters know so they can judge. the voters are the best judge of whether or not the people wh are spending all of this money of the voters' interests at heart or whether they have is special interest agenda. and the reason they are not telling you was spending the money is because they know that, they know that if the voter has that information it will undermine the credibility of the ad. host: 1 donor to democratic causes in the past was george soros. he was quoted in the "new york times" in their view that he

sees an avalanche coming and that is what he is not proceeding in the this race. he tnks republicans will take hours. guest: i think voters will look before they leap and they will see that a lot of these republican candidates do support a special interest agenda. a double continue to allow multinational corporations -- that will continue to allow multinational corporations to get the jobs. wall street does want to turn back the clock. they spent a lot ofoney on lobbyists. george soros, richard b. pointed out, always disclose -- it should be pointed out, always disclosed his involvement. host: where you headed in the next week and in the coming days?

would you be going too specific districts and where? guest: i will be spending time in my own congressional district. i am one of the fortunate members of congress that gets to go home every day since i live in maryland. i will be going to an event in chago where the first lady will make an appearance to support a number of our candidates there. and i will be looking at the schedule elsewhere to see where else it makes sense to go. but again, my advice to every member of congress is to make sure that you have the time to spend with your constituents and talk about their [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> we are bringing you debates around the country every night on c-span. tomorrow, live coverage from delaware's senate seat. christine o'donnell faces chris

coons. thursday, we will go to las vegas for a debate between the nevada senator majority leader harry reid. our coverage begins a 9:00. >> live coverage from the texas book festival. and sam harris on sites in human values. puzzle authors on the obama is presidency. did the entire schedule at booktv.org. >> now a u.s. house debate between jim marshall and

republican challenger austin scott. for the debates were on sunday and were moderated by frank maloy. the rate of this race a tossup. before this, we travel to georgia's eighth district which is south of atlanta. >> they local content bagels are traveling the country as we look at some of the most closely contested i house races. >> how are year? it is good to see you. >> how are you? >> we have to halve -- nancy pelosi will rubber-stamp. she might allow them to

individually votes against one nerve to items. in the end, the blue dog to the crafts are delivering the bovots she needs to pass. >> i do not think it is realistic. what i do is that offer them not to pass a credit to the next generation burd. i did think the fiscal stimulus was appropriate. you hardly ever get exactly what you want in washington. cracks>> jim marshall is the challenger in this race. the district is there is a moral areas in south atlanta

suburbs. the district is a republican leaning district. john mccain picked up 57% of the vote here in 2008. if you look at the numbers, about one in four mccain of voters voted for congressman marshall in this case. he is not terribly reliable when it comes to things like health insurance. he is not terribly popular with the liberals. he has maintained a very strong connection to people in the meadow. he has tightened sell very closely to the air force base. he spent a lot of time with the

committee. there is a lot of folks down there. secondly, and he has a lot of good work of bringing people here. you want to see people coming back to the district. if you talk to county commissioners compel he works very hard for the district. austin spot is about 20 years younger than jim marshall. he is a state representative from an agricultural hub. he has been here for three terms now. he exudes a lot of confidence. there is a crowded republican field of governor.

palin slide to marshall might be somewhat -- it looks like marshall might be somewhat burnablmohawk willvelour noble - vulnerable. jim marshall is the chair of the house caucus. they talked about preserving the base. there is a visibility to the major employers. they talk about the service center in a good job of it. a think the main issues to be half the democrats. >> i do think that money will be about to start flowing into this race. it could provide the tipping

point for the house control. i think it is becoming more favorable from republicans perspective. there is a base of republicans. what their task is to do is convince republicans and not democrats that they want to vote for the republican candidates. i asked several republican friends do not vote for jim marshall. >> they are traveling the country as to book a some of the most closely contested house races. for more information on what the local content vehicles are up to comment visit our web site c- span.org/lcv. >> the 2010 atlanta press club debate brought to you live from georgia public broadcasting. the race for the eighth congressional district.

>> good evening. we would like to welcome our viewers aren't television and our live studio audience. this is the debate between the candidates from georgia's eighth congressional district. it is located in the middle and south georgia. it includes all of 21 counties. some of the largest counties include dublin and macon. jim marshall is the incumbent. his starting his fourth term. austin scott is the republican nominee our format tonight, they will answer questions from this provision in this era commit each can hit all ask a question of his opponents.

in the third round, they will continue questioning the candidates. finally, each will have 30 seconds to make closing statement. we would like to meet our three panelists selected by the atlantic press club. next to a half an editorial director for the inland said institution. we are down with formalities. let's the start of with this. the can and will be asked questions pitted the can it'll have 60 seconds to answer the question. >> you say he would have voted against the stimulus package. georgia has received $3.6 billion. but people here been better off if we are not received the money? >> out of the china receive $2

billion. i believe we would have done better to not oversee that stimulus money because of the dead on the backs of our children. >> andrea jackson is next. he will ask a question. >> in this collection, what distinction should voters see between fiscally conservative democrats and republicans? >> i have been independent since i had been in congress. i tried to do what is best for my country. i will continue to do that. i think people know that. they know i am a conservative democrat.

am honest. i tell the truth. i think that is what they will base their decision on predict that it is now time for the candidates to question each other. 30 seconds for the question. 60 seconds for the answer. >> you claim to be a fiscal conservative. you voted for barack obama's failed stimulus bill. he spent nearly $2 billion of that to create jobs in china. i want you to tell georgians, did you read it and not care to stop it? >> the stimulus bill has been lit several hard by different economists. one of them is a marked azande -- mark zandy.

they published about the recession of 2010. what would happen if we had done nothing at all epcot are with the monetary response? have you done nothing at all, we would be in a second great depression. our gdp would be 11.5% lower. we would be experiencing a budget deficit of $2 trillion this year, next year $2.60 trillion. the fiscal stimulus package that started with bush a continued their obama is responsible for improvement in the gdp. recently, he said we ought not extend the bush tax cuts at $250,000. he said that will cost is seven

and a 7000 jobs. crack>> you voted for the $800 billion stimulus and the bailout. you voted for 87% of the spending bills that have become law. you increase the debt ceiling. you are not being honest when you say you are for a balanced budget. >> it is now your turn to ask the question. >> you both did it against a law that would impose a transfer tax on people who were illegally here trying to transfer money out. you explained it in different ways. you said you believe immigration reform should be about protecting americans and not punishing individuals. can you explain it? >> absolutely. i read the bills before we vote on them.

if you had read a comic you would see they were all exempted from that wire transfer. it did not make sense to make western union the enforcer of what congress has failed to do. it is you and the others that have failed to secure the border. he failed to address the issue of immigration reform. some of you are going to have to be replaced. >> you have 30 seconds. >> you said it to be about protecting american and not publishing individuals. when he commented on the house floor, he said there is a specific transfer tax. you said that we should not be punishing these people. there does poor folks trying to help their family. can you tell us what he means?

>> that debate is very public. you have access to the transcript. you know is said congress fail to secure the border and that we need people in washington that will put more than lip service to this issue. >> we are now going to move on. >> we will return to our panel of journalists. the candidates will be allowed 60 seconds to respond. >> i am wondering what you would have been done differently.

are there any specific bills but he supported that you would have voted against? >> i would have never voted for nancy pelosi. i think that is the one thing you can start with right there. had she not been the speaker, i think he would have had it open and honest dialogue. he co-sponsored be voter for card check. you voted for an increase of the national debt. there are many issues and that we would have voted quite differently on. >> would you like to respond? >> i am sure there are many differences between us. i tried to take each vote as they come without regard to party interests.

in essence, that is the way i voted for a long time. i can talk about specifics if you want. that is how i'd do it. >> you have generally been very supportive of a strong defense. would you consider different cut in order to reduce the budget and the deficit? how do you do it? >> there are efficiencies. they are very cost-conscious right now. >> hopefully it is winding down. we are actively involved in afghanistan. we are going to have challenges where defense is concerned. i think people will demand we spend more on their security over all. i think it is well placed for

the future. i think the best thing we can do is get health care right. that would dramatically reduce our federal debt. >> our next question. >> which would be the largest burden on the u.s. economy? either maintaining the status quo on immigration are paying for an arizona sell immigration reform? they will cost of to $45 a day for inmates per person arrested. >> what congress has done is ridiculous. they have not secure the border. they are not protected the integrity of our laws or land. i think the status quo is the

worst possible thing. >> out by to ask mr. marshall having to do with immigration. it might include another pass citizenship for others who are already in the united states? >> i have a piece of legislation which does none of that. it dramatically enhances our electronic employment verification process. it increases penalties on employers. it gets rid of the subcontractor pension. i think the problem we have here is that people come here for jobs. if we can cut off the jobs, that

is the most cost-effective way for us to stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming into the country. i voted for every piece of legislation. i think the fundamental way is not for amnesty. >> if you had one legislative goal, one that differentiate from your opponent, what would that be? >> beckham only will write one piece of legislation, it to be the last time he failed a drug test of the the last time you receive an unemployment check. >> what should congress do to

further help result george's want her clothes? >> -- georgia's water woes? >> the three states in dispute cannot seem to get together. i'd tell my colleagues that they bore not plan to cut off the water supply. we are at the federal level in agreement that some reasonable withdraw it is going to occur. they can get together and resolve this preven.

there are a lot of different places that have the same issues. we are not learn to cut off atlanta's water. no one will vote to do that. >> i would like to ask a question. assuming no legislation passed that offered a path to citizenship, how would you choose to deal with the don undocumented workers who were here now? >> i think we have to return to our homeland in the way we do it right now. we would have to step up the number of people and resources in those positions. >> you are next in line for the candidate of your choosing.

>> you voted against the health care bill. if you could write your own, what provisions would be in it and why? >> i would start where we are and my great forward toward a system that has a functioning market. we do not have one in our current health care scheme. that is because of the third- party payer system. what i had in the direction of is catastrophic policies with the insurance company not really being involved in health care and so you get to the catastrophic level. help savings accounts that role so more consumers are actively engage with their positions, talking about costs. the standard of care would change dramatically. costs would drop dramatically.

we could save as much as $600 billion of the year -- a year. i published a piece in the national review. folks can pull that up. i got it on my web site. >> use sat back there. you did nothing. you said nothing. he waited until their 218 votes. then you cast it a bonvote "no." after the campaign heated up, you referred to as a disaster. why didn't you fight to stop the legislation that you referred to as a disaster before it passed? correc>> i wrote about it befort

passed. i appeared on fox and local news shows. i talked about it in my town hall meetings. this started roughly july of last year. the bill as it was taking shape and the disaster for the country can help a lot of people. it will hurt a lot of people. it will dramatically increase costs. we cannot afford it. i had been a close to this. -- opposed to this. >> where going to move on. >> my question is for mr. scott. you mentioned repeal and your last comment. what solutions would you use to recover the uninsured? >> many simply choose not to purchase insurance. the idea the government should

be allowed to require them to purchase a product they do not want to purchase i believe violates their constitutional right. to the states have the right to do things? maybe predella of the constitution does not give the federal government the authority of the additional taxes and fees on citizens. >> i would like to follow up. are there any provisions of the bill as passed that you support? >> there are not. there simply are not. >> we will move on. >> mr. marshall, we can talk about healthcare and immigration. what a lot deeply care about is the economy. what plans do you have that would benefit georgians when it

comes to unemployment and helping our economy here? >> we have done an awful lot of the federal level. most of as i supported to stop it from becoming the second great depression. i just recited the pictures from marked zandy. a lot of economists have weighed in on this. at this time, i hope we would pay for the additional things as they did it. i think the economy is picking up now. you can see it in the stock market. i think we are headed in the right direction. the government cannot do all this for us. the government can stop it from slowing down. the government needs to back off

on the spending and show some confidence that if it can get the debt under control, the economy will take over itself. >> my question is for mr. scott. he talked about getting the federal government out of the way. what should washington champion? what should they be in front of that will give georgians back to work in a more competitive economy? >> i understand many to champion private sector job growth. the way to encourage it is to stop the discussions about cap and trade and this card check the bill that he voted for that is driving jobs overseas. if you look at america, there is a lot of cash sitting on the

sidelines. if we have a tax policy for 2011, i think that would have helped preven. how irresponsible can a group of individuals be? >> i do not know that a rebuttal is called for. the government had an awful lot to do with our trade policies are. it has a lot to do with exchange rates. they are used strategically by countries like china to disadvantaged us economically. our trade policies have been basically a disaster. it is largely a driven by money. this is a clear example of what the federal government can do to assist. >> my question is for mr. scott.

bipartisanship is something we hear a lot about what we do not seem to see much of it. can you name some specific areas where you believe the congressional democrats and republicans are close enough to make it gorda piatt -- make a bipartisan solution? >> i almost think it is a generational issue. from my generation, when i'm talking to a 40 year-old democrat we understand we have to work together. the generations ahead of us that have been in control for so long are not willing to work together. they are stuck in their ways. for those of us in my generation after 40 years old, we understand if we get to a position where we agree on 90% of it, it is time to move forward.

>> could you be specific about some of the issues that you feel are right? >> i think jobs in the economy. i think private sector job growth we are going to agree on reducing the federal controls of our business. >> it is not really a response. i sort of agree what ought to do with what he just said. it is the institution itself. very few have a record of my mind. this is not happen. they are only 40 or 50 of us spent do that. it is because there is so discipline on the republican side they do not vary. on the democratic side, there

are too many extreme views on both side. it is a real problem for the country. >> earlier, you said when it came to a legal immigrant you would send them all home. for georgians, a lot of the immigrants are very important for the agricultural community and many are not illegal. they are helping our farmers getting crops. is that kind of a blanket statement? is it realistic? >> we have the program that allows farm labor to come in and lead once the crop circuit bill agee crops are picked. those that are paying by the rules are at a competitive disadvantage than those who are not. i think we need to make some adjustments to the work permit program. i think we can make sure we

protect our agricultural economy and not have the continued expansion. i am adamant that we need to address this issue of birthright citizenship. the child as someone born here illegally should not be a united states citizen. fa>> what will be the largest to things in new york site to reduce federal spending? >> the first thing i would just -- if we a people that are unemployed because they failed a drug test, i would make sure that anyone receiving social programs was not using illegal drugs. if we are giving them a check and their purchasing illegal drugs, we are enabling that activity.

i think the procuracy as a whole new bureaucracy as a whole is the first place we could look for budget reductions. we get them back down to the level they were in 2008. >> i agree with most of what has been said. but it to be relatively painless. it would be win-win. it is huge money. they estimate the current liability for medicare in the future is about $37 trillion. we had to do something about that predictt. >> you alluded to the costly bureaucracy. you said you believe that drug

tests should be administered to wealthier recipients. earlier you said you thought individuals in the country illegally should be sent home. do you believe these two things to be accomplished without adding to the bureaucracy? >> i think you could turn around and reduce the bureaucracy in certain areas and hire people that are on the ground. i am talking about people that are carrying out the work. we have too many bureaucrats in washington telling bureaucrats in atlanta what to tell bureaucrat at the local level. i believe we could reduce the bureaucracy and still have the number of employed it to get the job done. >> i think if we did where

illegal immigration is concerned and cut up the jobs, you have a lead the people who would want to leave because it cannot make a living here. without the help, you are right. this is an enormous task. the most cost-effective way is to cut off the reason that people come here predict . >> you are considered conservative by democratic standards. what philosophies of years are inherently democratic? >> i do not think of myself as having a democratic or republican philosophies. i think of myself as worried about the country and the folks that i represent in the future for my kids. those are american issues. i go pretty strongly about them. what you see is that i just sort

of pick them. i never take -- it is rare that something controversial we vote on is ideal. they all have problems on them. they are not the way i would have drafted them precisely in almost every instance. i do not approach them from let me think about this to make democratic perspective but what is best for the country. i'm a little jaded toward the republican side in the democratic side. the middle is where ibm. you want ii -- i am. >> you vote with nancy pelosi 90% of the time. on the fiscal issues come to you vote with her on a higher percentage than that. you voted for the wall street bailout. you voted to raise the debt to

$14 trillion. yuri fiscal liberal. >> may i? they have these ads saying i both within to pelosi 90% of the time. the new york times has come out and said it is utterly false. they have said the highs. possibly it if you take into account all of the feel-good count is 66% of the time. the national journal rate the voting record on a regular basis. the national journal -- i was 55% no, 40% yes on year. -- and disagreement with her. >> we need to move on.

>> you spoke a moment ago about your where i used to about the future of this nation. what worries you the most about these that is a civil discourse? >> we have way too much sound bites of going on the people willing to tell untruths in order to secure political advantage. it is the end justifies the means philosophy. americans are really busy. it used to be pitied the turn on the television, you were going to see television shows. now it is all over the board. but americans do not pay attention. we have huge issues. the discourse is awful. there are very few calm and measured voices out there. i would say the new york times

is one of them. i do not waste my time reading a lot of what folks right. i know it is not intended to tell the truth. it is intended to speed things for a political advantage bri. i do not know how you stop that. it takes the people coming together and not tolerating it. ? >> this and justifies the means politick is something that my family and i are feeling right now. i want to go back to the fact. you voted for the stimulus. you voted for the wall street bailout you voted for 87% of every spending bill that became law. you raise the debt to $14 trillion.

>> we have time for one final question. >> mr. marshall, during the primary, 20% of georgians turned out to vote. the expectation is that it will be higher but nothing affected. do you believe the generally negative tone of the campaign has contributed to the low voter turnout? >> both sides tend to turn voters off. you can imagine mcdonald's and burger king across the street from each other telling the other one will kill you. we do that enough in the public does that go to either produce that kind of what is going on with politics there is an uncivil level of discourse. it is unfortunate. >> each of the candidates will

now have 30 seconds for a closing statement. >> as your congressman, i want to promise you i will vote in washington the same way i speak. all will go up there and create jobs in georgia. the economy is the number one issue. we are going to let them try this out to the date and get america back to work. >> thank you for all of this. i appreciate it very much. uygur up with the times. -- i grew up with tough times. my first job is for 77 cents an hour. i did what i could to make ends meet. if we can pull together and stop this on both sides and have sensible policies that work for america, we have great days ahead of us.

people need to believe that and have confidence that it will occur. >> that will wrap it up. thank you very much. we appreciate you taking times to speak with us. that does conclude our debate. the tuner of elections will be tuesday november 2. we would like to thank the atlanta press club for bringing this debate. for more information, you may visit atlantapressclub.org this broadcast has been screen like and will be available on demand at gpb.org. we invite you now to stay withgpb for another congressional debate. that is coming up next. >> this is made impossible by

donations. >> there is more campaign coverage on c-span tomorrow. we will bring you a live debate for delaware's open senate seat. christine o'donnell faces chrisco coons. then a california governors debate with democrat jerry brown and republican megabit been -- meg whitman.

after that, a wise can hit for governor square off in their first televised debate. neil abercrombie faces jane iona. live coverage from the texas book festival. . .

>> to i am victoria, the senior vice president. it is a pleasure to welcome you this morning. this would not be possible without the support of our underwriters. we thank them both for bringing the of van thieu this morning. leading us today is the editor and chief -- bringing you the event this morning. leading us today is the editor in chief. before becoming editor in chief, he was the editor of hot line on call, one of the leading

political blogs. he has served as a staff writer and has covered the supreme court and top political races across the country. davis is one of our new correspondence, and you will see her byline in "congress daily." she comes from "the wall street journal," hershey has been a lead rider for a plot -- a popular political blog. she covered congress, congressional campaigns. this is a bit of a homecoming of sorts. she previously worked covering the house and senate. her first stint began in the research department we will

become -- research department. we will be taking questions. we will pass around a microphone and asked that you identify yourself and your organization. i would ask you to silence your cellphone. if you would enable our conversation to flow common it would be greatly appreciated. >> i want to take a minute to introduce our panelists. she currently serves as the executive director of the senatorial campaign committee under menendez she worked for 14 years under jack reed, eventually rising to chief of staff. he has worked on campaigns including a 1998 senate run and the edwards campaign in ohio

also joining us, he was one of the first people corn and asked to serve on his staff. -- cornin out to serve on his staff. he previously worked on the 2008 mccain campaign and served as a southeast political director. his experience also includes campaigns in tennessee, mississippi, illinois, and minnesota. >> this is the guy who work with pete as a chief of staff in his personal office. he began working for pete sessions and has guided him to multiple wins, including after the taxes redistricting of 2004. good to his left is the executive director of the

campaign committee. he spent the last sessions earning back-to-back gains and one of the largest democratic majorities since 1992. he served as director of the program and directed an effort that played in 67 districts. he has worked exclusively on capitol hill. i want to start with the house gaius. guy, are republicans going to take back the house in 2010? >> i think the field is broad, and i think it's exactly where leader and was laughed at for saying we had more than 100 seats in play. i think that's pretty much agreed to by most political experts. i think we have enough races in the field to get this done. it's a question of execution in the last two or three weeks.

you know, i feel better than we did a month ago, and i feel better than we did two months ago, but it's still a matter of execution. we've done everything we wanted to do which was to have a very large playing field. many races in play. and had enough resources to fund all those. >> john, are democrats going to keep the house? >> yes. democrats will keep the house. if you look at the anatomy, we have a 39-seat majority right now. we will pick up at least four republican seats, including in louisiana, in illinois, picking up a seat in hawaii, picking up the delaware seat and potentially picking up the open seat in florida. that brings the majority to 43 seats. the back of a major gain usually happens from opens. there are right now 15 competitive democratic openings, so we give them the benefit of the doubt, they get eight or nine of them. they still have to beat 35 democratic incumbents which is a

very, very tall task. they've got to put at least 70 of those into play because unless you're roy halladay, you're not pitching a no-hitter here. and they don't have the candidates, frankly. if you look at the news breaking over the past couple weeks, you know, their big time candidate against betty sutton turns out he was involved in a sexual assault case. you know, the candidate running against chris carney in pennsylvania turns out was investigated by the department of justice when he worked for them and was forced to leave. so as those things start to come off the table, they have less and less opportunities to pick up those seats. and if you look at the strategy, and i think the republicans have started to understand that because they've recognized they don't have enough seats in play, so they're now trying to expand the field. but they're going into places that are relatively safe for us. you don't go after tim walls unless you realize that your assault on harry mitchell was not successful earlier on. they just don't, frankly, have

the numbers to pick up those 35 incumbents. >> let's move over to senate side, essentially the same we. rob and j.b., where do you see the senate playing field narrowing to in the final stretch? >> i think that there's still a dozen races at very least that remain competitive. we started with probably the largest field we've had in some time, and now we're getting to a dozen competitive races, arguably five of them are tied, i think, to races where republicans probably didn't expect them including in kentucky. there are probably five races that are particularly close in places like nevada and colorado, illinois. all of these places you're going to see play out going into election. we expect them to be tight. republicans have a, the wanted task of trying to take it back. they're not going to do it this

cycle. the mat's too hard. out of those dozen, they would hope i'd win only two. that's just not likely at all having strong leads in several more than that so far. >> well, i agree with j.b. that there's probably a dozen seats in play although i think all of them are democratic seats. i expect to hold every republican seat, there's not a republican incumbent that's in serious trouble. and according to real clear politics, we're up in nine democratic seats this morning. senator cornyn has been clear this is probably a two-cycle process. but i think there's a path, and j.b.'s right in this sense, we would need to basically run the table. but, you know, there's a path there depending on how things shake out. >> i want to follow up on that just to talk about a couple races specifically. one, obviously, being nevada. senate majority leader harry reid, sharron angle's not the candidate that republicans initially wanted to get, but

she's the candidate they have. there's been some skepticism that she's going to be able to beat him, but what do you see, rob? what does sharron angle need to do, what are the dynamics in that race that you think she could win? >> first off, i don't know what republicans are referring to that she's not the candidate. she won the primary fair and square. reid did an excellent job, and that was his opportunity to really knock her out, and he didn't do it. he's constantly stuck at 43, 44, 45%. and i think j.b. and i probably agree on this. this is going to be an exceptionally close race. our internal numbers basically match the public numbers which are usually a point or two ahead, but some days we're tied. i just think this is going to be a really, really, really, really close race. >> yeah. no. we don't really see this race at

all alike here. i think august was probably the key time, july and august. right after that june primary we had a good six to eight weeks on our own to be able to define sharron angle, introduce her to nevada voters, somebody who right out of the box was up front in saying she wanted to phase out social security and medicare, didn't think it was her job to seek jobs for the state of north dakota. that's all -- nevada. that's all come as news, as a result her, almost shockingly, her negatives are much higher than the leader. when you ask voters the key questions about who's on your side, who do you trust, who's going to fight for you in nevada, who's going to fight for jobs, those are all arguments that the leader wins hands down. obviously, we have a lot of confidence with what we have on the ground here. this is a terrific operation, a

great campaign. i think it'll be close, but i see it differently. i think the leader's had a lead here for two or three months and will hold that right through election day. >> let me ask one more, go back to guy and john for a second. guy, you mentioned -- john, i'm sorry, you mentioned republicans expanding the map going into places like minnesota's first district with tim waltz, ben chandler's district, sanford bishop's district, i don't think a lot of people expected them to be competitive at the beginning of the cycle. guy, let me direct this to you. isn't that an indication, or in your mind is that an indication that the map is expanding favorably? >> you know, i think it's interesting the way the dccc sometimes says, hey, we, we're completely fine here. they said they were completely fine in new york 20, they said there's no chance we could make that into a race again. next thing you know, they're buying time and defending their candidate. ohio six i fully plan on them

coming in and spending money because they've already spent money in illinois 17. mississippi four, maybe they don't care about gene taylor, maybe they don't care about the fact that he's in the low 40s. i would say this, every single one of these inp couple bents we're going to discuss on the democrat side is probably under 46 on their initial ballot, and i don't think that's a good place to be a month out. we went through '06 and '08, and we found your initial ballot has something to do with the ability of you to win at the end of the day. so i feel like we're expanding the field in the right places. you know, are we going to have some candidates that are going to lose? of course. because that's the only thing that prevents us from having an 80-seat gain. obviously, we think we have a good opportunity, and we feel confident in the places we're investing in. >> jon, isn't expanding the field late exactly what the dccc

did in 2006 and 2008? >> we focused those resources on making sure we won where we needed to win. what, clearly, the republican party is doing is they've decided to spend a lot more money up front, and they tried to take out a lot of people early on, and they were not success. if you look at the outside groups spending and the nrcc's spending, they made a full frontal assault on people like harry mitchell and bill foster. they were not successful. so in order for them -- all the the,. [inaudible] declared victory in the house, but in order to get there, they need to expand that playing field because they don't have enough out of our front tier races to get there. >> let me ask one more real quick. jon, you just mentioned a lot of people think the republicans will take over the house. guy, are expectations for republicans too high right now? >> no. they're exactly where they need

to be. the fact is we have the opportunity to take over the house, we started this cycle saying our mission statement at the nrcc was retire nancy pelosi, and we wake up every day focused on doing that. the facts are about a year and a half ago everyone laughed at us for looking at that, but this is exactly the plan that we had in place to expand this field, and, you know, i guess we haven't retired enough races. i think we're at 16 or 17, and it'll be interesting to see how many praises the dccc pulls out of today. i guess they pulled out of yesterday, you know, the shack bits seat, and i'd look forward to knowing where you're pulling out today. [laughter] >> jon? >> we're not -- look, we invest in our races in multiple different ways. we have a very strong ground game going right now in ohio's first congressional district, and we're constantly moving resources around to meet the threat of unprecedented

third-party spending that's going on against us, and we have to be flexible in our spending because there was a change in the law that made this cycle different than any other previous cycle. >> i'm sure you're very excited about those block walkers you have in the district. >> i want to ask about president obama. how would -- i would open this up to all of you -- how would you characterize the role the president has played in the midterms and whether or not he's been an asset or a hindrance to your candidates? >> the president's been a huge asset for us, and i think he's been very good at defining the choice between what the republican party has to offer and what the democrats have to offer. the democrats, clearly, fighting for the middle class, and the republicans continue to side with corporations out there. the president has made that very clear, and what he's doing over these next few weeks is energizing our base. what we saw in the special

elections was that there was an enthusiasm gap, but as it got closer to the election, that began to close, and the president now is very focused on energizing the democratic base, and he'll be successful at that. >> i have some districts i'd like the president to visit. [laughter] >> in the ads that we've seen running so far this cycle, we've heard about the outside groups, but the candidates themselves are running ads that are largely negative. i talked to one democrat, i think, before labor day there were what, jon, 46 house democrats up in the airsome. >> somewhere around there. >> is and i asked him how many of those ads were negative, he said, i hope all of them are. why aren't the democrats running more positive ads? j.b.? >> i guess i disagree with your theory. we've got candidates all over the country that have had a good balance of ads that have

something to say about framing what this race in november's going to look like, making the argument as jon just put out between one where going forward on one side you've got fighters who are going to avoid tax breaks for overseas that are going to stand up against privatizing social security, against cutting medicare. they've got an argument to make as democrats, and for some republicans -- [inaudible] >> i think our candidates are out there. well, i think two things to answer this question. one is i don't think the cycle is different from 2006 or 2008 in terms of the mix of what our candidates are running. they're delineating the choice, and they're making it a choice between what they stand for as a candidate and what the other side stands for, and that's what they're doing. so it's not just throwing dirt at somebody, but it's saying,

this is where i stand. i'll protect social security, my opponent wants to privatize it. my opponent wants to give tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. that's the choice out there right now. >> on the republican side we've heard about the referendum election the democrats are trying to bring up, and we have seen republican negatives in polls going way up. sharron angle's negatives are higher than her positives. the same thing for a number of house candidates too. guys, are the, is the democratic strategy of making this a contrast election working? >> well, i mean, i think this is clearly a referendum on the president and unchecked power. and the reality is are you better off today than you were a year and a half ago? is the country better off after spending $800 billion on stimulus, 10% employment, is it better off raising taxes? they couldn't even pass a budget this year. they didn't even -- and when they had an opportunity to

extend tax cuts to the country, they failed to do it. and so if i were them, i wouldn't be on the record either. it's not very good. so, you know, if you think the country's better off with how things are going in washington, then the republican candidate in your state isn't the choice for you. >> but isn't this a -- they're trying to make it into a contrast election? we've seen republican negatives go up. guy, are you seeing that in your campaigns? >> we always figure that -- [inaudible] incumbents which had about an $800,000 cash-on-hand gap between the incumbent and challenger was going to be able to disqualify some of our candidates. what we found is for the most part we survived the month of september, and now we're to the place where we'll have equalized money. of course the nrcc spent some money during can september because we wanted to make sure that we could equalize that massive spending disadvantage.

but i'm not seeing our negatives get to a place that we're disqualified. and, frank, going back to the last question, i view both pelosi and obama as a huge asset for the nrcc. every time pelosi goes on television, she creates a new downer, she creates a new republican voter. of so we encourage both obama and pelosi to visit all of our swing states. i'm sure they'll be nowhere near any of them, but i'm sure the dccc will find the two places that they've gone to, you know, secretly and quietly in a meeting they'd never shared with the public. so, you know, i think we have -- this is a referendum on them, and, you know, we've been through this. in '06 and '08, we tried to use all the arguments that my friend over here is using, and the fact is we knew those arguments were specious then and they're more specious now. >> actually, i think voters are

smarter than the litany we're getting right now. republicans were faced with a couple of challenges here that hasn't gone away from them. they came into the last two years carrying a tremendous burden from their share of the accountability at where the economy stood. voters instinctively understood that republicans were responsible for the direction and melee of economic misdirection, and as a result even to this day when there's talk of the tea party, the ratings usually are a little bit higher because the republican party ranks so low in the minds of voters. this further played out in the republican primaries over the last few months where, essentially, the fight we're having or the discussion we're having here is what happened in the primary where tea party candidates were turning to the establishment and saying, hey, weren't you the guys and gals

that created this mess in the first place? and that's the question our candidates are asking. >> with very few exceptions, i can think of a couple, almost every democrat that voted for the health care bill is either not running on their vote or not bringing it up in their election. obviously, this is not a good time for the policy debate, but do you think that the health care was a political miscalculation for the democrats? >> i don't think that. i think it's been interesting to see the way the health care debate has shifted. you're just as likely to see on television a debate on where republicans are in terms of their seemingly eagerness to phase out medicare than you are on the president's health care policy. oh where, oh where did repeal and replace go? that sounded like a good pithy line on behalf of the senate republican leadership, but you don't hear it out there in their

candidates. rob has ten senate republican candidates that are on record as wanting to phase out medicare, and as a result i think seniors are scratching their heads and recognizing that the real threat is on the republican side. >> i agree with j.b. that voters are smarter than maybe we give them credit for, and nobody thinks the republicans are going to phase out medicare. it's a ridiculous argument -- >> position, nonetheless. >> -- up in nine democratic seats right now and in every republican seat. nobody's run -- and feingold's running on stimulus and health care and getting throttled, and everyone else isn't talking about it. it's totally -- it's incredibly unpopular, the process was terrible, the outcome was worse, and i wouldn't run on it either if i were them. >> let's focus for a minute on, you both just brought up russ feingold. a guy who's been in office a long time, he's cultivated this

image as an independent, somebody that's not connected to his party's leadership in washington. j.b., why is feingold in trouble this year? >> well, i think a couple of things that, obviously, is a toss-up, remains a competitive race. we're going to see that be competitive all the way through. johnson, a self-financed candidate, got off to a good start. voters had no idea who he was. as we get closer to election day and we get a little closer to the guy that told us that sun supports cause -- sunspots cause global warming, we're seeing somebody who has a penchant for fitting right into the tea party platform of privatizing social security and others. we're -- i think russ has done a terrific job of creating a contrast here. here's a senator who has a record on standing up for debt

deficit, a moderate, thoughtful senator that's going to hold his own on election day and win. >> rob, what's going on in that race? >> i mean, i just think his act is up. he's been there for 19 years, he's been talking about going to washington and shaking it up, and i think he hasn't done it. he voted for stimulus which is, you know, again, $800 billion down the drain. and he just -- people aren't buying what he's selling anymore, and ron johnson, i mean, this is the problem the democrats have, i think, generally. they live in an ivory tower in d.c. and look down on ron johnson, a guy who created a business, employs people, a pillar of his community, just a good, decent guy. but it may not be good enough up here in the cocktail circuit. ron's a great guy, and that's why he's consistently above 50 in wisconsin, and i think he's going to be the next united states senator in wisconsin. >> guy, last month republican

leaders unveiled a document called the pledge to america which was their governing agenda. but we haven't really seen that translate out on the campaign trail. we haven't seen republican candidates talking about it or embracing it. do you feel that the pledge was necessary? >> of course the pledge is necessary. i mean, we need to have leadership and the conference state where they think we should move the country forward. but the fact is right now this race is about the democrats, not about us, and we're going to keep it focused on their record and what they have accomplished or not accomplished. i mean, i think, i think going back to the health care question, you know, the one thing that we found in congressional races is everyone is against health care. both the democrats and the republicans. you can see it in their ads. so, as usual, just like the rest of this democrat answer the only bipartisan answer to the democrat agenda is no. we saw it in the stimulus, we saw it in health care, we saw it in the cap and trade, and the

fact is there's a group of independents, republicans and democrats, that want to stop this agenda. eventually, i guess, some will wake up when you've got peter defazio saying, you know what? maybe nancy pelosi shouldn't be speaker. i guess that is now, i guess we've now gotten the full caucus to say probably she shouldn't be speaker and, listen, our republican candidates out there believe that as well. >> what is it about nancy pelosi that you've mentioned her a couple time, why do republicans have such a visceral reaction to her? >> it may be the fact that she closed -- [inaudible] spends a trillion dollars, pushes a cap and trade bill that's going to ruin the energy sector of our economy and tries to push a public health option on health care. but other than that, i think we're fine with her. [laughter] >> i would give jon a chance on this one. >> republicans have tried this act before, and it was not successful. i mean, they must have run 10,000 points behind going after the president and going after speaker pelosi in the

pennsylvania 12 special election. they were not successful. they tried the same tactic in the new york 23 special election, they were not successful. you know, there's one ad up across the country that's running right now from republicans and their outside groups, and it's trying to tie people to the president or to the speaker. and, frankly, people vote on their individual member on the ballot, and they vote on the candidates they're running against. and the problem with the republicans -- the problem the republicans are facing right now is that they have some very flawed candidates out there, and clearly, there was not a serious vetting process going on. when it comes out on friday that one of their young candidates was a nazi reinvestment enactor, that's kind of a problem for the committee. when it turns out that one of your candidates was accused of sexual assault, i mean, we can go through the list. it's multiple layers of people out there, and that's going to be on the ballot. the voters ultimately ask themselves, well, who's on my

side, and whose direction for the country do i believe in more? when you layer that together with either the republican candidate promoting outsourcing of american jobs, abolishing medicare and then personal ethics issues, you have a serious problem. >> the key -- democrats have tried to turn out these new surge voters who voted for the first time in 2008. the key to that seems to be getting, having president obama himself energizing these voters, massive investment from the dnc, field programs that both of your committees are running. what do you both see right now that indicates that those surge voters are going to come out and going to vote democratic? >> we're getting an incredible response. i mean, just in terms of the numbers, we're knocking on over 200,000 doors a weekend, and we're just getting started in terms of that. we're getting a good response from the ground in the early vote, and more of the democratic-leaning areas are coming in our direction.

>> and i think you're right. i think the president is key to it. he's been terrific on the stump. the dnc's been real thoughtful in programmatically helping campaigns in states get ready. we're just a few weeks away, and as jon says, a lot of emphasis on door-to-door. it has a lot of energy, and a lot of the polling both the generic ballot and the so-called enthusiasm gap closing. a lot of this activity, and the president's leadership has a lot to do with it. ..

>> i don't know who the personal assaults are the fact is there is this idea that that is ok through 20-year-old divorces an other things. i guess we need to dump out our apple file as well and i'm sure that will be coming soon. >> tom gantley running against sutton, he sued, he settled for $25,000. the police are investigating him. he pulled his television biospas last night. that's the candidate i'm referring to. >> what has the nrsc done to

improve the field? >> the ground game we find we're not going to win or lose any seats based on the democratic ground game, we'll be in good shape there. i find it amusing that 21 days before the election, the president's major initiative is to launch a tax -- attacks upon its u.s. chamber of commerce. that's going to get people fired up and motivated. i think people out in the country look hat -- see what 10% unemployment and a trillion dollar deficit and a $13 trillion debt and they see the president talking, who spent $750 million getting himself elected president, talking, attacking the u.s. chamber of commerce, 21 days before the election. and you know, it's like bob schieffer said to david axelrod, is this the best you can do. so if that fires up the voters, let's have at it, but the rest of the people, just, it further

this image of the white house of being totally detached from what's happening out in america. >> rob, you referenced the u.s. chamber. obviously, that's in regards to the citizens united campaign finance decision, there's been a lot of debate about that in the closing weeks of the campaign. how is that de -- how has that decision affected your campaigns this year? >> well, i don't think it's affected them that much, in the sense that campaigns still to run -- they still need to focus on their campaign and what they can control. i think the chamber along with move on.org, and emily's list and several other groups left are engaging their constitutional right, it's the country we live in, that's fine but at the end of the day, the campaign is responsible for their campaign and that's what's happening. >> i think there's something important here that feeds into the larger nair testify. if you look at the groups that are spending money and for the places we do know what they stand for, it kind of delineates the clear difference between the

two parties here. you have a group called 60 plus, spending millions of dollars. the group 60 plus is funded by insurance companies, who will make billions off of privatizing medicare, so there's hand agenda behind their ads and why they're pushing these advertisements. you know, its chamber has and again, that's aimed at professor motoring the outsourcing of american jobs and they're spending money against those who stood against that. >> wait. wait. the chamber's is outsourcing u.s. jobs? the u.s. chamber of commerce? >> let's separate -- >> wait. wait. i want to make sure. i mean, that's ridiculous. >> tom donahoe talks the b the values of outsource and what it does for efficiency in the united states work force. >> u.s. chambers job is to outsource american jobs. we have jumped officially to shark. good job. >> well, i'll remind you, i can send you over tom donahoe's quotes and the fact that they stood up against our efforts, and opposed our he was. >> if you wonder why people think democrats are

anti-business. thank you. >> all right. well, moving moving quickly on. john, 15 jibe. >> i think you need to separate the home chambers who have endorsed our candidates, versus the u.s. chamber who is spending money in this agenda and there's a difference between those two. >> we need to separate the small businesses i didn't y'all care about which is anywhere between 10 and 15 jobs, and if they get to 16 jobs, we don't like that small business and if they make money, we don't like the small business. what is the small business that y'all like? >> we're going to go back and forth monday this. >> no. let's -- >> let's refocus the question on citizens united. the issue is the outside money being used in the 2010 elections and in a way, outside groups are affecting the way campaigns can control their message. >> i appreciate probable's passionate defense of individual's constitutional rights to use undisclosed checks

to influence the election's outcomes. so far on the senate side on the republicans, we've seen at least to date $44 million on the republican side. almost half of it is cross-roads, karl rove's group, in karl's mind, the folks here in this room don't matter, and state party organizations matter. what matters is that living room at weaver terrace where the states organize and go from there. cross-roads is an interesting development. when rove started the group in january, he made a big deal about their intention to disclose its donors and they did that until about july. the openly problem was they had only raised $3 million, and they had gotten it from three oilmen from dallas. they quickly changed their tax status and formed an undisclosed gripe. most of the money, most of the energy is surprise, surprise on

that mysterious group of undisclosed donors, who continue to pour money in to the psych em. >> but what -- cycle. >> but what republicans are doing, you may not like it, why are democrats engaging on that playing field? >> it's -- i'd say a couple of things about it. it may not be illegal. but i certainly don't think it's amusing to ask where's the money coming from. where's the money channeled to. you have a majority of democratic donors and frankly democratic institutions, republicans are pointing to labor and move on. what they don't tell you is a lot of those are financed under p.a.c.'s and not the 501c's where the donors are disclosed. there's a lot more openness, a lot more disclosure with the

federal p.a.c.'s. that's where the packs is. >> and most of the action has been on the senate side. it's something that rob and j.b. have had to deal with. guy, are you concerned at all that some of these outside groups have not poured the same resources into the house contests as they have the senate contests? >> you know, we've -- all the way through, we've had to make sure that we focus our donors on where the best rates as possible. to be frank, it is hard to keep our list up, and we added, you know, six to seven new races on a week. you know, last week we added the ohio six, tennessee four, minnesota one. missouri, four. and then -- but, you know, i think at the end of the day, we're going to feel good about where the races we've run, with the presources we've had, and outside groups can fund either

way. i do think it's kind of funny to watch the democrats talk about all the big money that's in there. you know, we have 25 who million dollars -- $250 million that the unions are spending that's conscripted from union members. they get no choice over where that money is spent, but hey, $250 million versus however much karl rove is going to spend. i'm sure it's an equal amount. >> john, let me direct this next one to you. in all these, you know, independent expenditure reports we're seeing, we're really not seeing that much, union money coming in yet. are you concerned that the unions are sitting on their wallets? >> i think the unions have been very engaged in what they need to be doing to communicating with union members and doing the member to member program. >> but nothing in terms of the -- i mean, j.b. -- >> you know, you're exaggerating what has occurred in the past. the fact is probably in terms of labor money, behind campaign ads, probably at the same level it's always been. i expect that maybe hule see

between $7 million an $10 million, that's what it was in senate races in 2008, the number wasn't far off in 2006. a majority of labor's energy, not unlike companies and corporations getting their own out, ed kidding their own -- educating their own votes. that's the way labor and corporations does it. what we're talking about lear is $44 million that comes out on top of it that isn't about educating their own, but about hiding undisclosed money and running negative ads. >> back to the democrats turnout model happened the money that they're spending. organizing for america, the outgrowth of president obama's campaign, sort of the second generation of the howard dean 50 state strategy perhaps and sending staff necessary to various states, has that met your expectations, john? >> we've been very pleased with

the activity we've been working with them and it's frankly a very different program than howard dean's program. but i mean, they are in all of our -- the majority of our targeted races, they're organizing volunteers, they're organizing get out the vote efforts and i think that that will show through on the election day results. >> j.b., have you been pleased with what the d.n.c. has done for senate candidates? >> yeah. i got to that earlier. i'm especially pleased with not only the tools and technology that's going in to targeting and getting out voters, but the d.n.c. has put a lot of energy into full-time organizers that have been out there a while. they're now part of the fabric of campaigns, and i'm -- i'm playing a big leadership role. >> i want to ask something maybe a little less controversial. sarah palin. obviously there's been a high level of interest in the media

whenever she gets involved in house races, senate races with endorsements, but from where you sit what, is the impact of a sarah palin endorsement? >> it's putting someone on the fringe and there's three proehl impacts of the tea party movements on the house election this cycle. the first is where the moderate candidate in the primary election is defeated by the person on the far right and whether or not that be the delegate at large seat or that be jesse kelly winning in arizona eight, you know, essentially many of those of places take those campaigns off the table for the republican side. that's one element. the second is where it forces the republican candidate, who wins its primary, to have taken positions that are not popular for a regular general election, and then the third is, where you actually have they're continuing the tea party candidate continues to run in the general election where it no longer requires a 50 plus one vote if

win on the democratic side. we're seeing that play out with the third party candidate clark taking up a substantial amount of the vote and that's happening all over the place. >> i think governor palin is obviously an important member of our party and actively campaigned for a lot of candidates up and down the ballot, and frankly, she's probably -- it's probably easier for her to go in to most places than president obama. president obama is going to connecticut, he's going to washington state, you know, with the exception of missouri and ohio for fund raisers, and doing anything public there at all, because i think people don't want continued unchecked power of president obama. >> go ahead. >> kind of leads to the segue about the tea party. the tea party movement has sort of captivated the attention of the midterm election cycle. als we head into the final days, do you feel the tea party has become part of the republican party, or do you feel that they operate on sort of maybe a dual

track? >> i think they're one of the many pieces to our coalition. we obviously have candidates that can appeal to a variety of -- variety of these coalition members, and whether that's veterans, tea party members, or sportsmen. that they -- you know, we have to -- we have to always look at coalitions and try to figure out a way to get those individuals involved. i also would really like everyone to stop preferring to the tea party as this one big monolith. every single tea party group is different. they have different opinions and every time the national media or the democrats try to paint them with one big brush, they're really missing the point. the fact is the tea party movement is filled with a lot of people with of independents, republicans and democrats that are upset with the three main votes and you want to talk about disqualifying issues. the fact is cap-and-trade is a

disqualifying issue, health care is a disqualifying issue and that's a reason the democrats aren't running on it. you can talk about phantomish use out there, but these are issues voted on in the last three years and we will continue to talk about them and we will continue to win because of them. >> let's talk about the tea party a little more. if it is this sort of hydra organization, how does the national republican establishment interact with them and really harness their energy? >> i hate the word national republican establishment. >> you have guys. >> we're not the democrats. we don't vet our candidates and pick out our candidates. we actually have voters do that for us and i know it's shocking to the democrats that we awill you voters to pick our candidates, but that's what we do, and i think the american people, is ready for that as well. >> but you do have -- what you do do is you choose who you're going to support and when you're supporting people like alan west, who is calling for the violent overthrow of the united states government, that's a choice you've made. when you support team like tom

ganley o is in trouble with the law, that's a choice you've made. >> you can go after a lot of people, but going after a man who served, please, at least honor the people who have served like al west and the fact is he's done more than any of us sitting at the table have done for this country and don't denigrate him by putting words in his mouth. >> let's get back to the -- aside from -- >> so anti-business. >> aside from how you like to characterize, whatever the republican groups here in washington are, there is a republican national committee, there is a house republican conference, there is an nrcc, there is an nrsc, how do you as strategists, harness the energy of the tea party movement if they're not a -- this monolithic movement that can be dictated to from the top? these are people who are incredibly distrustful of washington, d.c., how do you help without scaring them away? >> you know, this reminds me of

the rest of the republican party, we are distrustful, we don't like stimulus, we don't like the health care plan, because it's washington knows best, and listen, our party has been a group of individuals that believes that local decisions are better made, and i know that's shocking for the cocktail circuit in d.c., that we don't want to run everything out of here, but we do believe every candidate has the ability to bring something to the table and that's the reason why we, when we were recruiting, which is the best thing you can say been the establishment side, we were looking for business leaders, not community organizers. you know, we are looking for people that actually have done something in their lives and they can bring, that that -- that opportunity and that know how to washington, make it -- make it function better. >> rob, you've got, among your top candidates, it seems like you've got a mix of folks who closely identify with the tea party, folks like ron johnson, sharon engel, and folks who

don't associate with the tea party as much, rob portman, rob kirk, how do you see that balancing act, especially once they come to d.c., if they do. >> that's not my problem, if they come to d.c., but i think -- i think that they -- all these campaigns are running individual campaigns, as guy said, i think these people, they're certainly an important part of our coalition. the good news for us, almost universally they're leaving their democratic opponents, so while, you know, my friends, in the democratic party like to make fun of these people and talk down on them, the reality is, they're hard working americans who are getting involved in the process, because they're very frustrated the way the country, the direction -- the direction of the country. and so as senator coyne said, do you think they're mad at the republican establishments, wait until they have their shot at the democratic establishment on election day and i think it's a great l way for the republican

party. >> gentleman we're listening to a fascinating reinvention of the relationship between the tea party and establishment republicans in washington, and of course, for us to believe this version would be to ignore the seven to 10 month primary process that happened before us and to see nearly eight of rob's, to use the phrase earlier, and picked candidates, tea party friendly candidate party backed candidates running out there. a lot of talk about the language towards tea party candidates. ignoring what we saw in the republican primaries, where particularly delaware, where the establishment got so strident that the state party chair was often quoted as saying that

christine o'donnell could never get elected to anything, including dog catcher. i don't think the kind of mentality that these folks say exist is really there. you can still see the tension and it's parts of why some of these races are stalled. >> rob, i just want to follow up on that. j.b. did raise a point, but we did see in a lot of the primary processes, canned that would be more centrist, cabbed dates that were favored -- candidates that were favored to win but could not get out of the primary system. -- >> i think party has become -- look, primaries matter, campaigns matter. clearly, the selection process demonstrated that. i think that with buying republican party is fiscal policy outlook and the rule of government and i think if you're generally speaking on the right side of that for smaller government, less taxes, you're

going to be fine, and you know, if you're not, you're going to have troubles, but i agree with guy. look, people on the state, they know best, they got to pick their nominees and we're supporting all of them. >> we've got time for about two more questions before we'll open it up to all you in the audience, so prepare your notes. former speaker tip o'neill said all politics are local. we've now seen three election cycles in a row in which politics seem to have been nationalized. is it the invention of social media, the proliferation of cable news, what is it lately that makes all politics national, guy? >> i think this is an economic issue, because i mean, essentially, what you've got is local newspapers are struggling, local tv stations are struggling, you're seeing more people getting their information from a national news source, whether it's cable television or network news, or on the internet. so i just think technology

allows us to look at a lot of things, rather than just being focused on the local area as much. >> i think it's 10% unemployment, you know, a massive deficit, even a bigger debt. i think the country is going through a very privatal time and i -- pivotal time and most people see us at a fork in the road. are we going to get this country back in gear and back to a place where people are allowed to prosper and businesses are allowed to create jobs. are we going to go, continue on the path we are now, which is the best way to get the economy going, taxpayer dollars, we need to pay back from china and employ government workers. you know, the one place where the economy is not hurting is d.c. the government workers are, you know, they make way more than average than private sector workers, and i think most people around the country say the way to get the country going is not to expand the federal government, so that has created

a national environment, which i think is very favorable to us. >> john, what do you think, why is all politics national? >> i think there's two points to be made. the first is it when democrats pick up 55 seats over the past two cycles, no matter what happened this cycle, we are going to be playing a lot of democratic seats and a lot of members are going to have tough races, because you're naturally playing on the republican field. so it may be over amplified about how big a national environment is going on, but the second is, we all recognize that there's a a lot at stake with te economy right now, you know, over the past -- before the obama administration took over, you had an economic disaster, the memberdown was happening, we -- meltdown was happening, we started to correct that and people are looking at what is the direction and what are people offering for how you have get out of some of this economic funk. >> j.b.? >> i think you can go back all the way to 9-11, and i don't think you'd find a single federal election since then that you could argue is anything but quote unquote, nationalized, an we all agree on this panel that

the single galvanizing issue of this election cycle is where our leadership is going to take this economy. clearly, people are -- continue to be wanting eager to see the economy moving, and the question before the voters is, do we want to go back to those old time policies that got us in to trouble in the first place, or do we want to continue to move them forward. >> i just love this argument. the democrats are in charge, this is for nearly four years, they have been in control of both chambers of congress. they've had unchecked power for the last two years. i mean, at some points, you would think they would take responsibility for something. they pass the stimulus, they say it would keep unemployment 8%, it's now 10%. they threw $800 billion down the drain, and so voters aren't idiots. i mean, they should take

responsibility for being in charge, for several years. and i think voters are going to hole them accountable in a couple of weeks for that. >> all right and our final question before we open it up to all of you, there are going to be races that -- when we wake up on november 3, or in i guess all of your cases, when you realize the morning of november 3 and you haven't gone to sleep yet, in which we say, how did this guy win, how did this guy lose, we're all going to be surprised. j.b., give me the best surprise that we're going to see on november 3? >> well, the best surprise is happening in kentucky. that would be -- that would great my disturb leader mc mcmcconnell, who has already predicted that republicans would win every single red state they're defending. he's sitting on a surprising kentucky. polls remain pretty close here. my candidate jack conway, seems to be two, three points back

from rand paul. kentucky voters are befudd he willed by paul -- befuddled by paul. his comments on med compare, privatizing social security, not think that there's a drug problem in kentucky, are leaving voters with a head scratching and you've got a real race down there, one to watch. >> guy, go to you, what's the house race that we're going to see that's a big surprise? >> you know, it's hard to pick out the surprises, because so many of them that were surprises last week, like the before massachusetts 10, i mean, those are all now kind of tried to -- i'm going to continue with the ohio 6, charlie wilson is in trouble, our candidate is both a distinguished veteran and a small businessman, who evidently, you know, my

counterpart, he doesn't like small business or veterans, so i think we've got a good shot there. >> rob, what do you think? >> i noted that j.b. didn't pick the louisville trial lawyer jack conway to win because he's not going to. >> jack conway is going to win. >> i think -- i appreciate that. this is ridiculous. he's not going to win and i believe rossi and firoreno will be elected to the senate. >> my problem with the candidate is not that he owned a small business, but he decided to fire 300 of his workers an send those jobs to mexico to turn a profit. that was my problem with him. but turning back to our surprise -- >> he built a business which is always shocking to anyone in d.c., it doesn't come from government, it can't come from anyone. >> john, give me your surprise. >> my surprise, i think -- i'll

give you one of two to choose from. either bara or the are charlie 10 seat. >> we'll open it up to questions. please raise your happened. we have some folks with microphones coming through the audience. >> matt benjamin, med my global advisers. it looks like we're looking at the very likely prospect of consecutive wave elections, with voters listing from party to party, clearly, and even with the tea party, those kind of energetic segment now, they routinely say they don't like either party. i'm wondering what this says for any of you, what this says about the entire system. voters are very unhappy and they keep just kind of jumping back and forth, tossing whoever is in power out. is that significant? >> let's start with j.b. >> you're right. i think you continue to see a level of dissatisfaction with both parties. in terms