review conducted in this. it is, of course difficult. we would always like to provide more compensation. but the compensation we are providing is much, much more than people expected. >> there was recently an article stating how effective it was going to be. does he share my frustration? >> i think it's a significant policy, because what it does is it puts an end to the system we in-- inherited from labour. which is a premium attached to children from poor backgrounds wherever they live. to lift their sense of

aspirations and improve the one -to-one tuition support they need to get the fair chance in life that all children deserve in our country. >> but tenants pay paying to landlords who are being investigated for tax. 53% of those -- what is the government doing to clunk down on private landlords? >> i strongly agree that we should come down very hard on those landlords who are profiteering from a system which was so poorly administered by the previous government. the rents dependant on housing have increased by 3% p that's why we need to bring sense and proportion to the way in which we administer housing benefits, which have more than doubled in size.

>> each week, the house of commons, we air it live wednesday at 7:00 a.m. eastern and sunday night on spann at 9:00 eastern. also, at spann.org, you can find a video archive of the prime minister's questions. >> next, georgetown black law students talk about the impact of the mid term elections. after that, "q&a." then, another chance to see deputy prime minister nick clegg standing in for prime minister david cameron at the british house of commons. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> monday, a hearing to determine whether any of the counts against charles rangel have clear and convincing evidence. we'll have live coverage on c-span 3. >> this year's video cam competition is in full swing. make a 5-8 minute documentary on this year's theme. a deadline of january 20 for your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. for all the rules on how to up load your video, go online to studentcam.org. >> now washington, d.c.'s delegate to congress eleanor holmes norton joins a panel of scholars and journalists to discuss how the political landscape has changed after the recent mid-term elections. the georgetown black law students association hosted this event. it is an hour and 25 minutes.

>> good evening and welcome. we would like to welcome all of you to our event this evening. i am returning general. we are thrilled to have a very distinguished talent with us this evening for the election results this past week. i wanted to begin by introducing you all to a brief overview of the results and then we'll provide to statements. on the 2010 mid-term elections held on november 2 of this year. they were halfway through president barack obama's first term in office. republicans made a net gain of 64 seats. this is the highest number of victories for a house party

since 1948. republicans defeated incumbent democrats in arkansas and wisconsin and won open seats in illinois, indiana, north dakota, and pennsylvania. this is the largest number of senate gains, and also the first time that they successfully won all their own seats. while the party controlinghe white house usually loses seats, the losses were above average. this has been attributed to many factors, including high unemployment costs by the global financial crisis that began in 2007. also unemployment rates, which hovered around 10% this year.

a higher than usual voter turnout for older and more conservative voters. statistically, the turnout was 3% higher than the last mid-term election. >> good evening, i am truly honors to be introducing this very distinguished panel this evening. it's sort of an easy job, because i'm sure if you're not familiar with them by face, you'll definitely be familiar with them by name and the organizations that they're representing this evening. so without further ado, our first panelist is congresswoman eleanor holmes norton, representing the district of columbia. next we have congresswoman donna f. edwards, representing the fourth district of maryland. we have a staff writer for

"politico." and last but not least, marcia johnson blanco. we'll give our panelists the opportunity to make opening remarks. >> first of all, i am used to coming every other monday to teach at georgetown, where i taught full-time. i remain a tenured professor by teaching here every other week. i'm not used to being here on thursdays. but i am pleased to come in this capacity. my students call me, as i insist, professor norton. here, i guess i really am congresswoman norton.

i am pleased to talk about democrats. it's a time for democrats to look at adversaries. i must say something about republicans, especially about what bhoast surprises me. as polarized as the country is, and it's just as unevenly divided as it was, what most surprises me is the opening of the republicans. there is almost unanimous agreement, and it's hard to get that, across lines on what was most important to the electorate. we are criticized for somehow not understanding that. i disagree with that. republicans will speak about the deficit. it's hard to get away from the fact that with the employment

about 9% that that's the driving force of an election like this. their opening is that we must repeal health care. hey, how do you get that as the message from this election? especially if you look at the exit polls. really want to relitigate health care and not get to the economy. i think there's a reason for it. actually, two reasons. one, the election was driven by the tea party and the friends of the republican party. and they don't really know what to do about the economy. so they believe that health care is unpopular. so let's repeal health care,

which, of course, they can't do anyway. it's important for all of us, particularly those of us who are democrats, to understand that these were mid-terms, and what a mid-term is, it is, by definition, a small slice of the electorate. it is always skewed toward those who feel most deeply about their parties. it is a truism that the party in power always loses seats during the mid-term. that's not so good for democrats, of course, because democrats represent people who are harder to get to go to the polls, even though they have most to lose. the democrats represent poor people and africans and hispanics. earlier in the day, i looked up what the rate of people your

age was in voting, this time versus the 2008 election. your rate was 30% in 2008 and 18% in this mid-term. you can begin to see why we didn't do so well in the mid-term. but you'll have a full body election in 2012, and that will almost look as if it's two different elections altogether. for example, clinton and reagan both were more unpopular than the president was in both won a second term. there must be really large differences between mid-term turnouts and full presidential election turnouts.

so what is different? republicans -- and this can only give us something to smile about. republicans won by taking back the very seats we took from them. so it means that it was driven from seats from democrats to republicans. that means they're hoding some seats where there are a fair number of democrats. so they can come talking about -- talking as if they were all right-wing republicans if they want to, but at least for those seats, and their majority is virtually the same as the majority we won in the last two elections plus 10. >> i was in the minority for 12

years. four years we were in the majority. the democrats were in the majority for 40 years before then. each election, the deficit is discussed very earnestly, but exit polls never show that the deficit was determinetive. i think it's because the country hasn't seen what they thought was so much spending in so short a time. the banks are already paying back, and so are the auto companies. we really do live in a country

where instantaneous relief is expected, and it has not come from the economy in part because there is too little understanding and politicians have done too little to explain the structural change in the economy. the economy has lived on bubbles, so it's flying back pretty quickly where we've run out of bubbles. it took 15% or 20% to put town on a house. that's what it's going to be like on the world. somebody's got to tell the people in america like that so they don't expect the kind of economy like they used to in the 1990's. the exit polls show something very interesting. for years now, decades,

independents have determined elections. the exit polls show that 58% of them had a negative view of democrats. 57% of them had a negative view of republicans. we lost the middle of the country. we lost the legislature. an opportunity for redistricting. a hugely defensive posture. the republicans are left with a mandate based on frustration. and an election driven entirely by a new fringe element of their party, which puts them in

a very poor position to win next time when the election will be driven by independents who are likely to be a whole lot less angry than they were this time. >> hi, everybody. i happen to be from a wonderful state and district that is one of the progressive districts in our country. and so this election cycle was not necessarily about the fourth congressional district of maryland. it was very much about the economy. i had the privilege to travel to aumber of congressional districts around the country to try to help people to get the vote turned out. i can tell you what i saw. traveling to places whe the real unemployment in certain

pockets and certain areas was hovering around, you know, the high teens to the low 20's in terms of unemployment. traveling to districts where the real unemployment is really solidly throughout a state at about 15% out in nevada. traveling to con gregsal districts where one out of every 20, 25, 50 homes is in foreclosure. that's what this election was about. people are trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. and so i think is this election cycle, i see several things. one, i see that we had volatility in the 2006 cycle. we had volunteertyty in the 2008 cycle. democrats happened to hold more seats in 2010 than we did previously, and so the

republicans did and so we lost a lot of those seats. some of these districts are where this the scheme of things, i look at the first congressional district in maryland. in that district, john mccain won that district in a state that went overwhelmingly for barack obama in 2008. it was going to be a tough haul. it didn't matter what was happening in the broader economy. i look at a state like virginia, where somebody who really strongly supported a large part of the president's agenda and the agenda of democrats in congress lost. also a state where rick boucher also lost. it tells us that there's a lot of volatility with the electorate. i know we have an awful lot of independents out there.

they're democrat leaning, they're republican leaning, they switch back and forth. that's what makes them independents. i also think that you look at something like the auto bailout that was largely portrayed as something that was to benefit only a handful of states and one industry, but i think about our street of maryland and look at the number of car dealerships that have been lost as a result of what's happened with the auto industry. parts suppliers in my state. it was critical to do something to revive that. i think we've been able to see in their performance, and this economy now in growing and billing back that we've been able to preserve what would have been a really lost american auto industry. it's a tough pill to swallow.

i learned that not only does our electorate indulge in very, very short-term thinking, but so do we in congress. what that means is it's tough to see when you're engaged in putting forward really tough economic measures at a really difficult time. you're trying to transform a health care system that has been widely viewed as in need of reform. people at home go, oh, my gosh, what's going on here? it's a lot to digest. and i suspect that what's going to happen is that we are going to see a 2012 election cycle that is as volatile as the three previous cycles we will have experienced. so is that a safe bet, the safe

haven for the flu new republican majority? i don't think so. i think it means that we have a lot to do as democrats to convince the american public that we're out there fighting for working families, for families who look like the people who are voting for our seniors and our young people. i mean, i knew it was going to be a tough election. winning my congressional district in my house. i was having a hard time convincing my 22-year-old that there was something in it for him to go out there and vote. let me assure you, i did it, but it wasn't easy. ifives struggling in my own household, can you imagine across the country can, you imagine the struggle that all the change they voted for wasn't going to happen right away. it's a really tough pill to swallow to convince seniors to forget all the scare tactics out there about social security, about medicare, about your health care.

what congresswoman norton talked about, it pretty much mirrors other election cycles to be sure. since there's a 3% margin of error, who knows whether there's any bump in turnout. we do know who didn't show up. the folks who turned up in 2008 and who need to be energized, they will be in 2012, they'll be the one that republicans and democrats will be strugling for in 2012. and so i say let's look at this over a period of time and look at the volatility. don't draw any conclusions about what this election cycle means, because it's been happening for some period of time, and i say lastly that

i've cautioned my progressive friends across the country, don't read into this that somehow there was this progressive force out there, because a lot of the progressives want our congressional district. sure we did. i think about carroll shea-porter in new hampshire. she's a solid progressive but she lost in that district. so this wasn't about some overall feeling within the democratic party. that there's this wide shift to the left or to the center. what it means is that we have some places where we're always going to struggle with the electorate to try to make sure that we can convince them that we're working in their interests. i think i take a pragmatic

approach to this. as soon as election night was over, that's what i was thinking about. let me look at all these races, let me see who won, who lost, where they are, what the percentages were, how do we win that electorate back, and i think we do it by being smart about recruitment. we do it by being smart about the issues that are raised. and we do it by being smart and tactical about our status as a minority party as we're going forward, because i don't think that all of those people in the middle are going to tolerate the kind of nonsense that is about not creating jobs, not creating opportunity, and not with that, i'll end. >> hi, i'm thrilled to be a part of this very distinguished panel and thank you for inviting me. i agree with a lot of the conversation, a lot of what the two congresswomen said about the demographic trends, the

natural cycles that we've seen played out over many election cycles playing themselves out during this election cycle. it's interesting to look forward to this effect of the election on the upcoming congress, and even more so on the 2012 election, because as we've heard a little bit here, this coming congress in many ways is going to be very much about the 2012 election, whether folks pretend it's not and push legislative initiatives that have no chance of passing like the republicans have talked about with the repeal of health care. that's clearly geared to 2012. and some republican leaders have forthrightly and probably regrettably from their perspective actually admitted that, in fact, the coming congress is going to be all about 2012 senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, the republican from kentucky, said his number one priority was

going to be defeating president obama in 2012. probably a little bit of candor that he regrets, but probably rell have atory. it's always a fascinating time when you have a new congress. when you have a change of power in one chamber like the house. we'll see a lot of power struggle between republicans, particularly in the house, the republican caucus where you have this sort of new insurgent force, the tea party, that in some ways have a lot to do with republicans retaking the house, arguably maybe had something to do with them failing to retake the senate. two of the lawmakers who lost their senate bids were tea party favorites who won over more establishment-backed republican candidates who probably were more viable in

general elections but we'll never get the chance to find out because the tea party candidates ended up winning the nomination and losing the general election. we saw delaware with chris coons defeating christine o'donnell. and additionally in nevada where harry reid was able to hold off a challenge from this tea party-backed candidate sharon engel. and we'll see the tea party really try to exert its power. what many activists and politicians see as a mandate to some extent in the house republican caucus, and that will be a problem for republicans going forward, because they'll feel a pull from the sort of -- the right wing of their party certainly on fiscal issues, which are some of the issues that the tea party has really held out as their number one priority. but i think across the board, on social issues, on abortion

rights, same-sex marriage, and gay rights, and issues that republicans probably would rather not talk about headed into 2012, but because the tea party really showed itself as a force, a lot of republican lawmakers and candidates who were going to be running for the first time in 2012 were some of the folks who won in swing districts, who defeated incumbent democrats in the house, are going to feel a lot of pressure to sort of cater to the tea party wing of the republican party, and that could cause them problems in their 2012 re-election campaigns, because it is -- it's going to be these same sort of set of swing districts that will determine the election in 2012. both at the congressional level in the house and potentially at the presidential level where there are, you know, key states

or key districts that have swung back and forth over the years, and just so happens that 2010 was the republican year, they swung republican. guess what, the democrats will be back making a strong case in 2012 for why those districts are better-served by having district representation in the house. democrats' perspective, i think they'll talk about their legislative agendas, but there's also going to be a lot of focus on 2012, democrats trying to get back in power in the house of representatives, trying to hang on to their majority in the senate, trying to hang on to the white house. one of the things that i write butt, i write about campaign -- write about, i write about campaigns. i'm not talking about policy, because it affects the campaigns. one of the things i found most interesting, i think both the congresswomen alluded to, was the outside spending in the

2010 mid-term election, and the way that some of these big groups were able to take advantage of the united states supreme court decision that came down in january in a case call citizens united versus federal election commission. the rules was that government -- that laws that prohibited corporations and unions from spending money on political advertising were >> hundreds of millions of ads attacking democrats, while from democrats' perspective, even they will have to try to mount the -- mount something similar in 2012 and raise money like

that from their supporters, or they will try to change the campaign finance laws to require additional disclosure with the hopes perhaps that this would scare off some donors who wanted to remain anonymous but still wanted to have an impact on the elections. it will be interesting to watch that play out, the decision between whether they want to toughen campaign finance rules, which could help them politically, but also it is a good argument there as well but you want the voice of the voters to be more important than that of large corporations, or whether they want to try to play on the same field as republicans headed into 2012. from a legislative standpoint, i think we can expect on a bit of gridlock. the repeal of health care being a prime example. if that is the number-one

priority for many republicans, there is really no way they can pass it. there is another argument year, but since it seems to be a little bit at odds with one of the arguments they made during the debate itself, that a lot of it was unfunded mandates. tax cuts, potentially there is debate over that, and we are already seeing some expressing unhappiness with the obama administration over what seems to be expressed as a willingness to compromise over some of the bush tax cuts to the wealthiest americans in exchange for also permanently extending the tax cuts for middle-class americans. other than a few areas where you see some work occurring, where the administration is reaching out to republicans, i think we will see a lot of gridlock that

is posturing with an eye towards 2012, which is where i am focused. >> hello again. thank you for inviting me on this panel. i am very honored to be here with very distinguished panelists. my perspective is going to be from that of a voting rights lawyer and the work that i do in protecting the franchise and also as an observer of elections.

in 2008 the economy crashed. there's opposition to the bush presidency. now in 2010 there is opposition -- the voters who came out and voted were motivated by opposition to what they see as government playing to larger role in their life and that is influenced by the messaging that has been prevalent throughout since the obama presidency. we have this election that was decided by less than 40% of voting age population who participated. i see this as one of the most important elections in recent years because as was mentioned before, the legislators who are elected, particularly at the state level, and during this election who will be the representatives for the next 10 years. they will be shaping political boundaries and determining who will be the newly elected -- who

the voters will be choosing, members who will be in congress who have state legislatures and governors. you cannot discount the role that governors will play in determining what the congressional districts are going to look like moving forward and who will be representing the voters of those districts. on the federal level you have the debates about the role of the federal government at a time of economic crisis, jobs, the deficit. on the state level, we will have these legislators and in some cases commissions deciding who the voters are going to be choosing in 2012. obviously in redistricting, the

politicians are trying to protect their voters, because that is who got them elected in the first place. then how do you account for the demographic shifts, the changes in populations? it is going to influence that push pull that we are going to be seen in coming elections. >> as a country, we are facing very broad and deep problems, and how we address those problems? the electorate seems to want instant results, and when they don't get it, they move on to

the next party. the entrenched voters on the left and right, and then you tsve the middle of independenc who keep going back and trying to find out who is going to provide the best solution. you have an ongoing historical debate that seems to gain resonance which is the role of the federal government, what the government needs to do to address problems that voters are facing. we have an electorate that is very quick to change allegiances, and then we have a lack of confidence in our institutional structure. i think that influences and will affect how the elections are going to play out and how the governing process is going to play out during the next two years.

as we look at the political landscape over the next two years, and looking at who the motivated voters are and who are going to comprise the voters that the politicians need to convince that their agenda is the one that is suited for the voters, then we also couple that with a time where we have very polarized messaging. we have now a media infrastructure where i don't have to listen to any opinion that i disagree with. i need only focus on what i agree with and what will reinforced by the leaks. as was mentioned with the citizens united case and the money flooding into the system, we have a lot of money trying to convince me that what i believe is right, and anyone who

disagrees with me as an illegitimate position that should be discounted and not given any credence. when you have such a polarizing, at disparate, and very volatile environment where the opinion of the other is discounted, and added to that, when you have media that does not really -- not to disparage, but does not focus so much on new wants and depth, but on the horse race aspect, and voters are trying to decide who is telling me what is really happening? cap and i really find out what is going on? at a time when i am trying to keep my job and ensure that my kids get a good education, do i

have time to really get in depth and determine how the policies really affect me? i am influenced by what i hear, and what i hear is more on the atmospheric some of the candidates rather than really getting into depth about the policies they are espousing, then it really does influence and lend itself to the push- pull. it is too has the best message, who has an appealing frame on what i see as my reality. i think that also plays a significant role in determining how voters are deciding in choosing their political allegiances. from the voting perspective and the concern we have about the

implications of cases like citizens united, where there is a lot of money and a lot of messaging that is focused and does not always have a lot of depth, but is focused on getting one party elected and vilifying the other, it is how do you motivate the electorate to actively participate with an understanding of what policy best affect their interests. i think there has been a lot of commentary recently about was it that the democrats failed to get out the messaging about what they were doing, or it was not the messaging it was really the need to look at their policies and be aware of where the

country is, and then what motivates people to go out and vote. it is a very complex scenario, but i do agree that within the congress for the next two years, we are going to have a lot of hearings picking apart the first two years of the obama presidency and teeing up the positioning for the 2010 elections. i will leave it there. >> thank you very much. we are going to ask the panel a couple of questions that were submitted beforehand. if any members of the audience have questions, you can just line up and we will take your questions as well. >> president obama attributed the outcome of the midterm elections to frustration with the pace of the economic recovery. do you think the president should have done more in this area in the first two years of

office, and how do believe the republicans will act to create jobs? >> i think that frustration with the pace of the economic recovery, we came out of, and perhaps we did not clarify this for the public in the way that we needed to, but when the president came into office, we all know that we lost 750,000 jobs in january, that month. then we began this steady pace which we have undergone over the last eight or nine months of slow but steady recovery, clearly not fast enough. if the numbers are any indication in our last jobs numbers in october, indeed that pace is picking up.

i have been saying for very long time that we have a couple of different kinds of unemployment. some of it is chronic unemployment. for some people, this recession is not just one recession, it is the last three recessions. four other people, we have los jobs in industries that we may never recover, but we have not had a strategy for two decades about how we rebuild a different set of industries for the 21st century. i think if republicans want to seriously move forward on job creation, i will barrault, bed, are still one of their ideas. it is around the research and development tax credit that the president has said he supports. i think we have to ramp up our research and development tax credit. we have to couple that with incentives for manufacturing in the united states.

when we do that, those offer additional credit for research and development and credit for domestic manufacturing. that is enough of an incentive for someone to say we are doing all the technology here in the u.s., we can produce those products in the u.s., too. that is a good old-fashioned republican idea, but one that is about job creation. on's find some common ground something like that. i happen to believe that ideas like that, we saw that in the small business infrastructure measure that we pass were really did not get any republican support, and yet that was a republican idea. with the president experienced last year, reaching out and being slapped back, and that has been true on some of these ideas. i would like to see the president, and i think he is on his way to doing that, saying

okay, let's put your money and your ideashere your mouth has been. one of the first place to deal is around this idea of incentivizing domestic manufacturing. >> i don't believe we can make a deal with republicans on anything. not because we don't want to, but because the party is being driven by the tea party. it is difficult to imagine if the deficit is the only thing they are concerned about. it is difficult some -- to imagine something will stimulate the economy and some republican will be looking over his shoulder to see if he is going

to get a primary opponent if it looks like he has cooperated with democrats. i hope this is not cynical, but on health care, the president spent six months waiting for a gang of four to reach a deal. it set us back tremendously and put us into an election year and hurt us and hurt him. could the president have done more "? every new majority has a whole list of things they want to get done. we had a list of things. when bush came in they had a list. social security -- when they began to do their things that they held up -- they inevitably overreach.

did we overreach? we will never know, or they will never say. i think we did the same thing. we had a whole bunch of things we wanted to get done. health care reform, climate change, the economy, financial reform, and if you ask specifically is there more at the president could have done, what you really have to say, what you have to ask is, if he had done nothing but jobs and the economy, with the economy have been any better off? i think the answer to that is no. they were inclined to say no from the moment brought the stimulus down. you can argue that we could have spent all our time on the economy, and i will tell you that if we had, we would have no different result on the economy

because of the stance that the republicans took. if that is the case, why not try to do things that you know will help the economy, like health care reform? a tremendous effect on the economy. the most important effect of anything we did. climate change, with all the energy conservation. if you know that single-minded concentration on the economy alone will not get you where you want to get, and was sorely not get you anything from the republicans, all i can tell you is, i don't think the president, since he is going to be blamed, would have shared any better if he had said i am going to put these three or four things aside and do nothing but the economy. come to the table with become republicans. if anybody sees mitch mcconnell coming to the table and saying

that is what i really wanted to hear, i wish you would hold up your hand. >> the original question is whether if the president had focused more on the economy and done more for the economy, whether democrats would have fared better, i think the answer is a resounding no. what he did do, and what democrats and republicans were able to work together to do was the stimulus. that was the big economic legislation that took a lot of political capital, and guess what? almost every republican campaign against it and attack democrats and the president for supporting it. that is what he did on the economy. the impact of it is arguable, i guess, but clearly, if democrats came under such fire for supporting the stimulus, the

idea that if they had done more along those lines it would have helped them stave off this wave in the midterms is probably suspects. it is also questionable whether it would have helped the economy. i am not an economist, but various measures that have been proposed, the impact of them has been debated ad nauseam and probably will continue to be debated. i don't think there is a lot more that the president could have put forward to help the economy that would have passed. i think he pretty much got everything he could. what he got was roundly attacked our republicans. it was kind of a no-win situation for him and for democrats and are heavily for the country. the voters are upset because the economy is bad and they blame the folks who have the reins of power to happen to be democrats.

>> the frame from the right on stimulus was that it was an entitlement program that has added significantly to the deficit. i just think it would be interesting in the next two years when we look at the republican agenda and the focus on cutting the deficit and what is considered an entitlement program and what programs are going to be under the knife and how that will be received by voters and how that message will be framed from both parties. >> [unintelligible] i feel like most frustrating,

[unintelligible] i am wondering should the fed have pushed for reform of the filibuster even though democrats are close to losing their majority for the good of the country. >> can you repeat your question? your question is [unintelligible] to not campaign on -- and also on the filibuster. >> you are right, it is remarkable that we are the party that say the economy from

another great depression. that is what the stimulus did. we did a complete and total financial overall, including a new consumer -- a much-needed consumer reform as part of that overhaul. there has been 10 straight months of job growth. the small business tax credit when it was clear the banks would not lend to them, larger student loans and grants changes in decades, meaning that especially for those of you in

law school will mean it substantial reduction in the cost of paying off those loans. the new gi bill. thousands of young men and women are literally able to go to school, literally getting paid with their tuition, books, etc. this is the kind of thing that members look to run on. my own sense is that with the first election, where a great deal of money had to be spent immediately so shocked the electorate that you could no longer run on things that cost money. i have seen no other explanation for it. i have never seen any party not run on everything they did.

sure, the progressive ran on this, but the people who most needed something to run on could not, or felt they could not run on this remarkable agenda. donna, you must've seen the ads for our colleague gerald connolly. it was just so amazing to see him. he comes from a swing district in northern virginia. he almost got beat, and he's the only one of those who came who did not get beat. he had to run in negative campaign, he fell from the beginning. he never ran on any of the things we did. he is himself a moderate. the republican before him, a good friend of mine, tom davis, was a moderate. i think in the past election tom

davis might even have voted for some of this. the fact that he was president of his class, could not run on anything that is nothe messaging -- we cannot just say what we have done for you. something happened that was very different as far as the electorate was concerned. when something this new happens that was impossible, apparently, for them to absorb, and we kept piling on with things that had to be done. they were unwilling to swallow all of it at one time. that does not leave me saying i guess we should not have don all those things. but it does say that if you are in -- the lesson, by the way,

we over learned from the last election. that is part of the problem. it does seem to say that, at least when it comes to spending money, because this is not going to go way, that if you get signals that people have had it, as we did august when some of our conservative democrats were hammered to debt, -- hammer to death, usually it that point you begin to think what to do. i was going over going ahead on health care reform. some of those who voted for healthcare reform, some of the conservative democrats lost and some one. and on what don't have an alternative strategy for you, because we live in real time, i

cannot at the same time say that i believe we did everything right, that any party benefits without debriefing yourself and without self criticism, and as a progressive democrat, i am trying to work up a self criticism that will satisfy me without pulling me back from the things i believe. i think the most dangerous thing you can say is so much for that. i have explained away how much i think can be explained away. it was not a totally unrepresentative electorate. we need a very serious critique of what was at work in this election and the kind of service analysis that we all do with politicians is not what we need.

we need somebody to look beneath the numbers and beneath the trends, to talk to voters, to come back with some data so that really know what was going on here. >> whether reform of filibuster is necessary possible, to some extent this is just a way that the dynamics between the two chambers of the congress has always worked. proponents would say it is consistent somewhat with what the founders intded, that an individual could flex more power to hold up or bring forward legislation. i know that is little comfort to progressives.

when you see legislation going from the house and passing in some cases quickly, like climate change. my wife works for joe lieberman. she worked for a year-and-a-half trying to put together a climate change bill that could pass muster. all it took was one republican -- they got lindsey gramm on board, and once he pulled out, that was it. in some ways it was just a way that the senate works, and you could argue that in fact it is anathema to smoothly flowing, efficient legislative process. you could argue that the filibuster has been abused, but it has always been the case and problem of wills will be the case that the senate is the slower moving body, and from the democrats' perspective, more foot-dragging, obfuscating body as well.

lot of see a whole prospects for reform of the filibuster in particular, nor much change in that basic dynamic. >> there is going to be some change in the rules, actually. i also think if we could argue that the filibuster had actually been used for the purpose of deliberation, that would be one conversation, but that is not the way it has been used. increasingly that has been true over the last several years, so it begs for some change that allows for a filibuster to be used when it is appropriate but does not allow it to constrain the process. i fully expect that the remaining democratic majority in the senate is really going to look to that as it sets its rules. i had this conversation with a number of my colleagues. i think we passed a very robust,

amazing agenda over this last congress, and these were not easy victories, in fact. at the end of the day, you have a d after your name if you or a democrat. if you are in an environment in which everybody is saying this was the wrong thing to do, this was a bad thing to do, you did it, you voted for it, your party voted for, your face is being morphed into s that have nancy pelosi coming through them. you cannot run from the fact that the d is part of your name and it was part of your agenda because it was part of your

party's agenda. i would argue that the more your runner-up and that agenda, the greater the likelihood is that people are going to believe you did something wrong. i would like us to take a different approach, even in some of these most difficult districts. i look at a district like arizona, with every old gifford who in her very tough district really did -- gabrielle gifford ran in her district and she won on it in her district, even though is only by a few thousand votes. we have other places where we see that, and when the most difficult parts of the election night -- in michigan where they ran on the agenda and it was a much tougher way to go for them, but when it is all said and done, it is not as if people

are ghana believe somehow your a closet republican when you are running away from the things your party did. >> i have to correct one notion. it is absolutely not the case that the filibuster has always worked. the question you raise is very important. the filibuster is in danger of paralyzing the political system. when i was growing up in d.c., it was used almost exclusively on racial matters. then it move gradually to be used more and more, and now there is no piece of legislation of any significance -- whatever you say about the filibuster, my good friend, nobody of the framers expected that there would be no movement on legislation whatsoever.

you can get unanimous consent on something trivial, but the filibuster has become almost a one-man item for the whole notion that after all the framers intended this is a historic -- of course it was meant to and slow or stop. it was not meant to paralyze a complicated country. this is one day going to be so serious that it is going to lead to a constitutional crisis and worse. there is no incentive for either party to stop it. just think about it. we found a mechanism that can nullify majority rule altogether. if you are in the minority, you

have no incentive to try to reinstate majority rule. of course if you are in the majority, that is what you want. the democratic party is not going to do it the republican party is not going to do it. the only way this can be changed, two ways, a crisis in the country, or a grass roots movement from outside of the congress itself. but it is very serious. it is not the usual kind of thing so be it used to it. don't get used to it, you will not be able to stand it. you get nothing done. at least your generation should not buy the notion that that is the way it was meant to be. this is so new that it is not even a decade old. >> thank you.

remarksongresswoman's lead into this perfectly. i feel like one of the main problems with the government these days is the political, two-party system. it is completely tearing with the government is supposed to be doing apart. nothing gets done. you have mentioned already that from now on, everything that happens will lead up to the 2012 elections. it is not about the good of the country. luckily i have worked in county and state government in new jersey. even though we have a republican governor and now, northern new jersey is a solidly democratic area. it is a very corrupt system. oh locally and nationally, the two-party system is failing the american people as a whole. in looking at the effects of the tea party on this past election,

determined as it may have been, do you think there is actually a possibility of legitimate, non two-party becoming operational? do you think the tea party can become its own party and stand on its own feet, on the democratic side, take blanche lincoln, for instance. there's a big democratic fight against her because people did not feel she was aggressive enough. my question is, do you think there is any room either politically, making it possible, or from the people themselves to the other parties entering into the system, which can then allow the filibuster -- the rule would not have to be changed because you can get around it in certain ways. there is more room for compromise to happen. is there any realistic possibility of other parties coming up in the next 10 years or so?

>> i don't. take the tea party as an example. there had certainly been some talk about forming a third- party, even in this election or in the next election if some of these lawmakers who were elected with tea party support go to congress and end up letting down the folks who saw themselves as the muscle behind their victories. the system is set up in a way that it is very difficult to access the ballot, to be able to have the type of infrastructure that is necessary to mount a third party or any real threat to the two main parties. i think you'll see more action in the respective party's primaries, which you saw with blanche lincoln in arkansas and some of the tea party backed

challengers to mainstream establishment republican candidates. we saw where tea party candidates defeated sitting u.s. senators in primaries in alaska and utah. that is sort of where we are more likely to see change. frankly, the change we will see from that perspective is change that in many ways it exacerbates the problem that you just described. we will see dissatisfaction with the two main parties manifesting itself in primary challenges from farther on the right or left respectively. those challenges are successful and blanche lincoln is defeated in arkansas and he wins the general election in arkansas, then you have a senator who is

even less inclined to work with moderates in his own party or republicans because he will see his mandate as being from the far left. if the tea party candidates are successful and go on to the senate, they will see their mandate as being from the far right in the less inclined to work with the center. unless some individual or interest is wealthy enough to provide the infrastructure and the boots on the ground necessary to get people on the ballot from that third party, it is unlikely. the interest that are likely to have the sort of political interests in financial well to do something like that tend to be heavily courted by the two parties so as to prevent the possibility of them throwing

their weight behind a third party whether it is obama having lunch with michael bloomberg and or the republican partgoing to meet with the brothers in the kansas to get them on board with their agenda or minimize the possibility that they would fund a 30 party. and not sure that answers your question. >> one more question from the audience. >> i have a question but i want to start off with a big thank- you to all of you for showing up tonight and participating, but a special thank you to congresswoman norton and congresswoman edwards for sticking to your principles. one of the big mistakes we could all make after the election

returns is to think that there was -- that was the substance of your policies that was at fault. what really need to be thinking about is how is it that so many american voters, and not just with this election -- how is it they get convinced to vote against their own best interest? you have been thinking and working for american working people, for american students, americans of all stripes and colors. but we have to think about the messaging. the content is not the problem. i think it is the messaging, and we need to think about it. not only on the level of individual campaigns, but in larger structures of our society, maybe this is just too big to tackle.

we need at least one station that is completely voted to campaigning against your interest. we have radio stations that do this hours a day. the structure of our society has changed in a way that makes the messaging or our ability to craft a message and get out our message that there were tax cuts that benefit more elections in the last two years than in a number of years. and people did not know that. so it is the messaging and the campaign techniques. we need to think about it on these levels as much as on the content of the policies. >> before i came to congress, i spent 20 years working on progressive policies in politics. i did not understand, why are these people voting against

their interests? undecided is the wrong question. in this last election, people actually for voting in their own interest. i will tell you why. they decided their interest is in having a job, having a home, protecting their families. the people who were in charge did not allow them to do that. they were not voting for republicans, but they were voting in their interest. i think the question we have to ask is whether we are doing the kinds of things that enable people to identify themselves as voting in their interest. whether we have shown them that whatever that stimulus projects on pennsylvania avenue, that was about a job for somebody in their community and creating jobs for them and ensuring that

young people can go to school and that the schools have resources. a lot of people want to say that this election was about voting for republicans. i don't agree with that at all. we just happen to have 288 seats and we lost 63 or 64 of them. some of these are still undecided. we were the party in power. people did not have a job while we are the party in power, and they voted their economic interest. they did not vote for republicans. it is important to keep that in mind or we will make the mistake in going forward with thinking that somehow we just have to go up there and convince people we have done things in their interest and they need to vote for it. they are not going to believe that. >> i think you know more than i do about getting voters to come

on your side. i picked up something that congresswoman norton said. there were more voters talking about deficit and the problem but deficit. people are not happy because there is government spending, but it is not on them. anybody who thinks that cutting theeficit -- cutting the deficit now is absolutely the wrong thing to do for the economy. we need to strengthen the middle class and get the engine of the middle class calling for economic growth. in that context, voters who have been hearing this message that democrats are big spenders when they are not, because we know when the deficits have been rising, or people who think the best thing we can do is to cut the deficit are voting against their interests. somehow that message was getting out and getting a fair amount of play last time.

>> you mentioned it messaging. i will give you example about doing a critique of the democrats on messaging. we have the best messenger in the world. his name is barack obama. if he wanted to get down analytically to messaging, one thing that occurs to me, everyone sees a stimulus as pumping money into the economy. our stimulus was very well crafted. one-third of it went into tax cuts. the american people did not hear that part of the message. they don't think yet that that was the case. we are very clever. we did the right way.

we saw that bush had just given a lump sum that did no good. remember for the part of the recession that he had to deal with, this did nothing. the way we did was to put it in people's take-home pay so that every time you went home, it was a little bit more that you could then spend. did you hear anybody talk about that? the the american people believe that they got a tax cut out of the stimulus? that is a critique of our messaging. the people voting in their own interest, ever since southern whites were inclined too along with race is democrats who were the party of racism and the

conservative party, who always wore the spokespeople for conservative politics, i have understood that people don't vote in their own interests. they were voting almost entirely a racial ticket, which is why the southern democrats were so long in power and became chairs of all the committees. it really is important to see history as beyond one election, to see trends that are occurring. i see these trends beginning with ronald reagan, when the american people first began to believe that government should not be spending money, they should be out of your life. they were in reaction to the first -- to the post world war ii period.

in reaction to that attack the reagan era when democrats found it hard to get the presidency because the republicans have spent more than a generation now convincing americans that they should not invest in themselves, they should not invest in the economy, that their infrastructure will be fine if they don't invest in it, that they don't need to invest in their schools, that we are going to be on top of the world a matter what we do. above all, don't spend any money. that line began to be pumped into the american people in 1980. it has taken root and it is going to be very hard to get people to understand that just as business cannot reap a profit without investing, so the american people are not going to be able to benefit if they are

unwilling to invest in their own selves. >> to take it from the other side, i have to go to a meeting to another television network that is supposed to not support either party. you are right that there are certainly people who are lower in come who have bought into this republican messaging about cutting spending and cutting government as being somehow beneficial or in their interest or in the country's interest. that was a real victory of the tea party. for all the talk about the tea party as being extreme and fringe and even violent, there

was a move early on, and it was partially from the grassroots. it was also arguably from the top down and some of the special interests that solve the tea party as potentially for bring their own interests in electoral success to really limit the messaging in a way that focused on fiscal issues and on the deficit and the debt and government spending. by excluding some of the social issues and some of the national security issues that many tea party activists and many in the conservative base actually held dear, and just focusing on the message that government spending is out of control. it was a simple, straightforward message that resonated against the voters to embrace that it as

self-interest. there is no doubt that it was successful messaging. it is a down time of the economy that have so many feeling vulnerable. they wanted to hear a simple, straightforward message that they thought was one that pointed to the problems as they saw it that got us into that situation. >> i think the messaging is a victim of our sound bite culture. we are dealing with a lot of complex and very serious issues , and is hard to get into new nuance in a sound bite or slogan. we have gotten used to turning away from anything that goes over loan into explanations. that is one of the criticisms or

comments made about president obama. in explaining the policies, it is getting too much into the weave. just come out and give it to meet in 34 words, what is it you are doing? if you are coming from opposition, you can have a slogan or sound like that captures what you want us to focus on. if you are trying to make the case on what your doing, it is challenging. i believe that voters word about jobs and economy, just trying to exist and get by, what will catch your attention? the nuance are the slogan that seems to make sense? >> we want to thank everyone for your questions and the panel for

their participation. [applause] before we conclude, just a couple of brief closing remarks. first of all, thank you to the panelists. we will get to a small presentation, but also to the audience and to c-span and the georgetown media out with your covering this event, this is really a big event. one of the tenets of our mission in is to instill in our membership a commitment to the black community. the midterm elections are important for all americans, but a lot of the issues we talked about this evening disproportionately affect members of the black community. it is important that we continue to have this conversation and talk to other people that we know about the conversation he may be were not here and

continue to support balsa in this effort. we would like to formally thank our panelists for all the inside that they instilled in to us this evening with a small token of our gratitude. [applause] thank you for coming. thank you so much. [applause] that concludes our panel. if you all are interested, we will be live streaming on the georgetown law wsite. should be available immediately. >> next, "q&a" with opera

bethany mclean. then deputy prime minister nick clegg stands in for prime minister david cameron at the british house of commons. then james carville and mary matalin talk about the future of bipartisanship. see what people are watching on the c-span video library, with the most recent videos and most shared. is right on our home page. you can also click our special 2010 election analysis tab to be continuing coverage of the midterm elections. watch what you want, when you want. >> this weekur guest is book,y mca and her the hidden history of the financial crisis.