i'm a small business owner here in columbia, south carolina. independent voter. i recently applied for a loan and was denied and i have perfect credit.>> i know you has contract with america where you have supported term limits. the president has won, and i feel like all of our politicians are bought out by special interests, i don't care what party they are in. i don't know how you get special-interest money out of politics, that is really hard to do. i wonder if you support that. >> if you are a small business owner, we are working to develop the equivalent of a 12.5% tax ate for you as well as corporations. i have run four small subchapter s's.

your challenge getting money is why we should repeal dodd-frank. it is killing independent small businesses and independent banks. it is maximizing the likelihood of big banks coming bigger in a way that is totally disruptive. the small business owners that can't get credit when they are totally exactly what we used to give credit out, it is mind- boggling. i am not a big fan of term limits because we have now had 20 years' experience with them. in a place like sacramento, the term limits are so short that the elected officials never know what is going on and the bureaucrats and lobbyists run the city. i am in favor of the size of election reform that says anybody who wants to can give any amount of after tax money as long as it is reported every night on the internet so that you know where the money comes from. overnight challengers can raise

the kind of money to run against incumbents and you will see incumbents in trouble all the time. the current campaign finance law protect incumbents because it makes it so hard your raise money for a challenger. it is a fundamental impedimenta of democracy, in my view. >> you talked about jobs, what would you help the -- what would you do specifically to help the 50-64 year olds. nw protect social security? -- and how will you protect social security? >> social security for your generation is not in trouble. to hearinfuriating obama say in july that we might not be able to send the checks. this president doesn't routinely

and he seems to not care about the truth and no care about if he is scaring people unnecessarily. the money was there, they could have passed a provision to the congress that said that those checks would be the first line of credit on the federal government and they could have paid him in the debt ceilingraptr -- debt ceiling crisis. we fought with bill clinton because we were careful not to do damage. this president has no care about the number of people he frightens. i think that part is good. i think we ought to play -- increase the amount you can pay, people need to make up for lost decade. they have perfect plans for retirement under -- under any reasonable standard. what bernanke has been doing keeping interest rates this low really hurts everybody who has

saved. if you look at what you're getting on your savings, this is an attack on every saver in america. this is why i would like to fire bernanke as soon as i can. i will give you the same general answer i give to young people, how will i pay off student loans if i can't find a job? the best answer is to not fight some technique, why don't we have an economic policy that creates so many jobs that everybody gets tired? at 4.2% unemployment, virtually anybody on that -- anybody that wants to, they can have a job. >> how're you doing today?

i am a little nervous. how will it improve the lives of the minority community? the recession has hit us hard. how will it be any different than being a republican, democrat, forever, he will see -- to say something one time and do something different. the background is different, they left to this college or that college. >> they ran allegories campaign and at one time was the assistant for the delegate to washington d.c.. she will tell you that i was the most pro-district. we adopted policies that helped gentrified areas to come back

into the city. we adopted policies, we did everything to make sure they have a better future. >> if you truly believe that we hold these truths to be self- evident that all men are created equal and we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, we who are conservative have an obligation to go into the poorest neighborhoods in america, and at a practical, roll up your sleeves level, find out how we help every single american pursue happiness. the requires rethinking schools and the red tape and the tax policies. it requires making it easy for people to become entrepreneurs. i occasionally come out with some ideas and the left of those

crazy and runs in circles. time magazine once had me as scrooge holding tiny tim's broken crutch. it wasn't enough that i had stolen the crutch. i had broken its. and the title was how mean newt gingrich is. that was before i was sworn in as speaker. it sort of gave you some sense about how the elite media response to this. i believe in the poorest communities. we should really be creative in our schools, finding a way for young people to have a part-time job. i think it will reduce the dropout rate. they will have money, it will increase their sense of pride because they will have taken care of that.

there was an article that says gingrich wants to travel for people in the being janitors. he once 12-year-old to be in danger. you can't believe the distortion. the 16-year-old kid comes up to me. his father is an adviser on investments. this kid has undone the company at 16. -- his own donut company at 16. i asked, when do you start, he said a 11. he is 16-years old and his father is glad he can drive because he can deliver his own donuts. i want to go in with the idea that every person has a chance to become non-poor. i don't want to make life easier for the poor, i want to make them middle-class.

i will give you one other example. i want to modify unemployment compensation, you sign up for a business-based training program. we are not paying people to do nothing, we are paying them to learn a new set of skills and a new job opportunity. does that help? let it come back. >> i like that idea. the biggest thing is opportunity. a lot of times, people i know, they are the first to go to college. sometimes that weight is on them. when you talk about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, a lot of people in this audience, a lot of them have substance abuse problems. you can't talk about it, you know what i am saying?

my mother worked a lot, i had to run her bath water. it made me a better man, my father, both of them taught me a lot of values. a lot of times we don't have that, are you willing to -- who would like to make america a better place? people in your position say one thing and do another. i want real change like everybody else, that is why i came out here today. >> let me tell you the difference. this is very good and i am glad you have the courage to get out. -- get up. i am not for our reach, i am for inclusion. out reaches when five white guys told a meeting and call you. inclusion is when you are in the meeting. i can assure you, precisely because we want to decentralize back home, we want people that

come with a bigger responsibility. i want every community in america to have a better future, and i will tell you unlike some candidates, if the naacp invites me to the annual convention, i will come there and i will invite them to join us in getting america back on the right track. [applause] >> mr. president-elect -- >> and not yet, with your help, but not yet. >> over the last four years, the military being decimated, what will you do to ensure that we stay the strongest country and the strongest military in the world? >> the question on how to be strong as a very important question. the only person i know who is for a weaker military than barack obama is ron paul.

be honest, his positions are fundamentally wrong on national security. i do not agree that america is at fault for 9/11. i don't think we can ignore an iranian nuclear weapon and i don't agree that it is ok if israel disappears. we have to understand that america has a key role to play and the world. the world as a better place, because since 1941, we have been a stabilizing force that has enabled the world market to grow, enabled freedom to grow, and enabled people to get to know each other better. if we go isolationist, the world will become more dangerous. this president pulled out of iraq and such an abrupt manner that the place is starting to fall apart within days. it was barack obama overruling his own generals. i have great concerns about the campaign in the middle east.

i think we need to rethink it from the ground up, but i have major concerns for national security. china and the middle east. they are fundamentally different concerns. in the case of china, the number one challenge is us. we rebuild our science, we rebuild our manufacturing, we recapitalize the military with new equipment. that is what we have to do. it is not about the chinese. a problem in the middle east is fundamentally different. we to liberate our intelligence community from the mindlessly stupid laws that have been passed since 1975. we have no ability to run a genuine intelligence operation. we rely on pakistan for intelligence. this makes no sense at all. i am for fundamental reform, but

i want to say one thing. i am a hawk, but i'm a cheap hawk. there is no excuse for wasting money just because it is in uniform. when you have a rich germans process that is so long big you can't buy a new weapon in the time of the technology, it is something wrong. let me take one other person and i will come to these young men. >> i am an independent voter and i am curious about your position regarding the confederate flag of flying over the state house grounds. as a historian, you must have some opinion on the matter. >> i have a very strong opinion, it is up to the people of south carolina. [applause] let me be very clear. as a matter of personal and

deeply felt feeling, i am opposed to segregation, i am opposed to slavery, all of those things were terrible and i thought it was fabulous to come to a fund-raiser across the street from the largest slave auction site. it said an immense amount about america and how we have healed and come together. i also feel that if you believe in the tenth amendment, there is a lot of stuff of local people need to argue out and they don't need folks coming in and are doing it for them. these young folks, after the one there, come back because she will attack. this young man first. >> and you think he will win the war in afghanistan while your president? >> is a very good question. i don't believe we are going to win that war. the sooner we can find a way to recognize that the problems are

dramatically different and harder, the problems will be here our entire lifetime. try to root out and defeat a religiously based religious operation requires a new strategy. this is why we need the american energy policy. the saudis have more schools teaching more people to hate us more than any other group. i guarantee you i will never about to lay saudi king or walk arm in arm with one. -- bow to a saudi king or walk arm in armw it with one. the iranians have a religious system where causing a nuclear war will be seen as a positive event. pakistan has been lying to us. when we learned that bin laden

was in the military city, the only thing you know is that the government was protecting him. there had to be some elements of the government protecting him. what was the reaction towards killing him? it wasn't angry about the people hiding him, it was angry at the people of helped us find them. it is a fundamental strategy, and it will be a long, hard process. lots of things. it is not going to be accomplished by the military. in the end, just as in iraq, it will turn out not to change the country. one last thing the -- how old are you? your 12? a very good question. one of my leading debate coaches

as well. maggie is my granddaughter, she is 12, and my grandson robert is the other one, he is 10. you're doing a good job here. i wrote a paper in august of 2002 for the bush administration. it was called "operations which." i said we should go and defeat saddam hussein, it should take 21 days and it actually took 23. we should immediately hire the iraqi regular army and pull out of the city's immediately. we should be the real enforcers, but we should never be the enforcers because we don't know enough to police countries like that. we did exactly the right thing for the first 23 days, the ambassador made a huge mistake and decided to reshape iraq in december of 2003 and went on

meet the press and i said, we have gone off a cliff. we are now trying to do something we cannot do. if we put in half a million troops from the beginning and if we had been prepared to kill a lot of people, we might have done it. if you look at germany and that japan, those were total war. we were prepared to engage in total war. when you're dealing with a society which repels you, you crush it or you get defeated. we were not prepared to crush it, it would have second us to try to do that. we need a longer and more in direct strategy that modernizes the region and defeats our enemies, it does so with the recognition of how hard it is. and when he succumbed to her or she will get real upset. i am easily intimidated by these things. >> one of the best ways out of poverty is to and less than the

military. are you aware that the department of defense regulations prohibit anyone with hiv from enlisting in any branch of the armed forces? south carolina will always be in the top 10, number one and heterosexual cases, what will they gain bridge administration do to preserve the military for the future? the won't insist that military accept people that might lead to the transmission of a communicable disease. i will be happy to collaborate with the public health department to try to eliminate the transmission of hiv in south carolina which ought to be our goal. show everybody your sign. you have been waving it. go ahead. >> what is your friend in bringing the prayer back in schools. congress opens up with a

devotion and prayer before they go in session. >> i personally believe that prayer would be a useful thing to re-enter in school, even if it is only a moment of silence, you start down the world -- the road saying to people that there is a supreme being and we are subordinate to that being and the people around us are part of that same fabric and you change the way people think about themselves. the back to 1963 and the school prayer decision, what were the problems in 1963? one of the problems is pretty hard argue that the modern secular situation on discipline, let me give you self-esteem as opposed to earnings of this the model has been a success. not only do i think it would be good to have a moment of silence every single day, i think it would be good to establish the idea of discipline.

if your teacher has a problem with you, your parents should have a problem with you because you chose to be there learning from the teacher. >> i am a young student and as i find myself looking forward to careers in the future, i find myself facing immense competition from illegal immigrants and the threat they pose to our job market. what will be your steps as president to enforce the border? gosh we have a number of steps laid out, the first one is to have absolute control of the border by january 1 of 2014. we are drafting a bill that will post early next year. it reestablished as the speed and effectiveness, waives the environmental impact studies and all the other stuff that slows it down and says the person in charge of securing the border will get it done by january 1,

2014. just do it. there is no question in my mind that if you are serious, to get it done. 25 years after reagan said we needed to do it, we still haven't got it. i still favor making english the official language of government. the third thing i favor is having a requirement to be a citizen, you must have a much deeper economic history -- and much deeper of american history that you require. it would be good before you graduate to have a deeper knowledge of american history that we require. i would modernize the visa program so its easier. if you want to come visit the u.s. and do business, if you are legally coming here today who does that, it ought to be fairly easy to do. it takes 174 days in brazil to apply for a visa.

the amount we cost ourselves in tourism dollars is astonishing. we ought to modernize that. the other thing that we should modernizes the deportation process. if you belong to a gang and over 70 american cities, we should be able to deport you in three days. you should not be protected under american civil law. i should then establish an american guest worker program so that people could come here to work with a guest worker card, but i would outsource the card to american express, visa, mastercard, so it would be very hard to have fraud and cheating. because the government is toklas running back. i would have steeper economic penalties for an employer that hired somebody illegally. then you get down to the one thing that has been

controversial. i think most people here illegally should go home. but when you talk about somebody that has been here 25 years, they have been working, paying taxes, not citizens, but working and paying taxes, part of a community. they might belong to your church and i don't think we're going to go in and read them out. there ought to be a citizen certification program built on the world war two draft board model where local citizens would review applicants, the applicant would have to be sponsored by an american family, and they would have to have proof that they have been here, paying bills, paying taxes. those folks should get a residency permit. it doesn't lead to citizenship, but comes out from under illegality. if they want to apply for citizenship, go back to their country and apply, be in line like everyone else did not

become eligible until the line is finally there. it is actually doable. i would not do it in a single, comprehensive bill. first of all, you will never pass it. nobody will trust the government until you can control the border. people will be much more practical about the steps. the last one is a certification. people say -- one of my competitors said it would be a real magnet. you have to be here 25 years. so that means that instead of going to the guest worker program, instead of applying legally today, you will try to sneak into the 25 years from now? it is not much of a magnet, but is a practical solution to a hard problem. >> you just pointed out to me --

but you have just pointed out to me why i so admired you in the debate. your lead, follow, or get out of the way with your solutions. mitt is like, "i'm not really sure." south carolina is obviously very important. and this was in the boston courier in charleston about the romney-bane connection. >> i have not seen the article. >> i don't believe in negative campaigning, but i will have this to your staffers, you can look at it. it amounts to that he supported this big conglomerate and what it in the billing was losing south carolina a lot of jobs, the guy that was behind it came out smelling like roses and he supported him. >> if you want to share them

out with a 6000), that is certainly your prerogative. i am not going to use that. the strongest thing i will say about governor romney is that he's a massachusetts moderate coming down and pretending to be a conservative. frankly, i think that kind of says it all. we don't have to spend time being negative, let's go back to being positive. i have one opponent, barack obama. i want to defeat barack obama. away at the very back. >> i am curious about the medical situation for the malpractice laws and what will happen in court with the settlement for the $100,000 and

stuff like that. what could be done and so on? >> litigation that affects health care? we did a study with a gallup poll and a jackson health, which interviewed doctors and found that the best estimate was that a hundred billion dollars a year is defensive medicine. -- $800 billion a year is defensive medicine. $800 billion, that is about 25% of all costs. if you're serious about health costs, one of the key things is litigation reform. gov. perry is a good friend of mine. the malpractice reforms in texas were quite important and effective.

>> mr. speaker, thank you for standing up. we appreciate the in th youre race -- that you're in the race. thank you for welfare reform. i am the chairman of your south carolina social conservative coalition. . . policies pushed by the nation called health and human services and education of the united states. they are indoctrinating the next generation and to give us a chance to push back. as a result pregnancy rates across the nation among teenagers has gone down almost 50%. you don't hear that on the evening news, so thank you for that. but there is a culture war and i wonder, if you given any thought to the effect in education has shown in reducing teen pregnancy under welfare reform and will you continue to support that? thane. >> the answer is yes i'm aware of it.

we help fund it and i would have fact -- though there's a guy in the very back. get his at times -- get his attention some way. somebody way back there. so i would support it. it's something i supported when i was speaker. the welfare reform is a good example of how i operate. because we actually brought in the governors, george allen and george engler and others and their staffs actually helps write the bill. so it was a very practical bill because we have the people who implemented helping right at which frankly offended some of the federal staff who didn't like the idea that we brought in these outsiders. go ahead, yes maam. >> thank you for being here two days before christmas. [applause] we understand how hard you're having to work at this and we appreciate immensely that your foe is obama. one thing i would suggest to

you, don't call him a target. that gets all of us in trouble. he is your adversary. i agree with you 100%. two things that i wanted to point out is you can have your researchers verify this. 60 gallup, 65% of all the nation are not concerned about big business. we are concerned about big government. i think you are right on with all of your proposals. that is something that should be hammered home along with the fact that you are opposing obama. secondly, i heard and again i don't know if this is true, it was reported from overseas, a publication overseas which a lot of times we can trust more than our own media. it was reported that an obama strategist indicated that he is not at all concerned about the white working class. he is not going to approach any

of us for our votes in the election in 2012. those are two points that i think if true, could be used to our advantage by you. thank you. we appreciate your effort. spiegel for take the last question, let me just say one thing about that last comment. i don't think about the white working class. i think about every american who would like to have a job. [applause] and i reject the racism on both the right and the left. i want to campaign in black communities and i want to campaign in latino communities and i want to campaign in asian communities. i'm going to campaign among native americans and i'm going to campaign across this country and i want to ask this simple question. would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks?

would you rather they beat deep tendon or independent? anybody of any background who would like to have a paycheck and be independent i am going to reach out to and i want to challenge the president. this idea of dividing americans with class warfare and in videos rhetoric and using racism as an excuse for thought i think is absolutely totally unacceptable to the american people and of every background. [applause] >> mr. speaker, john steinberger. without the 2% payroll tax holiday the social security account will still be in the red by 46 billion in 2011 alone and we have got tens of millions of baby boomers retiring. how can we sustain social security for the 12.4% payroll tax? >> i will say two things. first of all what they should've done is apply the principles of strong america now who believes modernizing the government saves

$500 billion a year. obviously i would replace the money with those cost costs with the tax cuts of the tax cut would not increase the deficit. i would cut spending an amount equal to the tax cut. second, waiver program with over 100 college campuses where the young people who want the right to choose a personal social security savings account on the model of galveston texas and the country of chile. we have 30 years of experience and we know fewer like to have your money go into your own personal account, the built-up compound interest your entire working lifetime you have to do three times as much money. by the way this is all voluntary. if you want to stay in the current system and not have the extra money you are allowed to. the social security actuary is said 95 to 97% of them would voluntarily pick the new program because the economic return is so massive. you do that, and the other thing we do is we take -- this number is amazing. we take the 185 different

federal programs for the poor and we lock grant them into one grant to the states, eliminate all the federal bureaucrats. that saves enough money that you can afford to allow young people to have their personal accounts and you can take the savings and put them into social security and the whole system works out economically. i think the gentleman comes a very tall gentleman in the very back who was honestly fairly visible because he is slightly taller than the 10. i think you have the last question. >> yeah chinned in 1980 you came to washington with ronald reagan to help save america. during that same time governor romney was a proclaimed independent and announce his presidency as late as 1994. you created a contract with america american 94 that prove sweeping victories from coast-to-coast. governor romney said it was a bad idea. the same ideas got a lot of political calculations wrong over the last six or seven years in telling us he is more electable. this strikes me as sort of ludicrous considering ronald

reagan -- and governor romney lost by 27 points and you have created victories nationwide. my question to you is since governor romney has been lying to to you in iowa for the lesser aches will you tell the truth about him next week? >> that would be so painful. [laughter] what i've said to meg yesterday and the day before is, since he is determined to spend like a million, $40,000 in negative ads next week most of them enact red and since he does not want to, she said i guess part of what got my goat was when he said that i was not a reliable conservative. and i thought to myself, let me get this straight. as you point out the massachusetts moderate who did not support reagan bush and did not support the contract with america wonders if i am a reliable conservative. how would he know? [laughter] i have a 90% american

conservative union voting record for my lifetime and at 98.6% right to life voting record for my lifetime. i was honored by the national rifle association for lifetime legislative achievement in defense of the second amendment. i've helped balance the budget for four straight years. we were formed welfare and i voted against the two tax increases republican presidents tried to pass one of which led in houston that hit a certain unhappiness with me. i think i'm about as staunch a conservative as you have seen since ronald reagan but i said to the governor because i think we should be fair that i would be willing to need him anywhere in iowa between now and the third and have a 90 minute debate with a timekeeper, no moderator. i will bring his negative ads and he can explain them. and so far is not seemed as excited by the opportunities that i thought he might. all i can tell you is that i wish all of you and candidly i

wish all of my opponents and i wish the president and his family a very merry christmas and maybe for a few days we can slow down, enjoy life and then get back on the trail next monday. thank you all very very much. >> jote -- voters will head to the polls in south carolina january 21.

the courts recently reconquer the justice department recently rejected their law on primaries. south carolina can try to get the decision overturned by the courts or submit a new law enforcement >> there are 72 entitlement programs in washington, d.c. the vast majority of those are as far as money is concerned, are operated by the state government. why? because they're state functions. but yet somehow or another the federal government thinks they have a role to play in something that's a state function. >> phase those out at the same time, treat everyone the same. wind, solar, whatever it may be. the federal government doesn't need to be in the business of picking winners and losers in the energy industry. >> when this they wrote the constitution and write that the president is the commander if

chief, they knew what commander in chief meant. not explainer in chief or candidate in chief. >> link to c-span's media partners in the early primary caucus states and read latest comments in from candidates the >> from "washington journal," a look at the 2012 campaign and the g.o.p. presidential primary. this is about 15 monies. ashingt. host: our first guest on this friday, december 23, a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center a in washington, a regular blogger on all things political and social. what i will start with this morning, there's a new gallup poll on public satisfaction with the way things are going. here's a start. 15% only say they are satisfied

with the way things are going in the united states. let's look at this year over year. 1979 all the way through 2009. here's the current number. it dipped in 2008 after the financial crisis, below 15. we have been trending down since 2001 60% of americans were satisfied. let's turn to the lead editorial in "usa today." "what is there to cheer?" they say the world is getting more peaceful, troops are coming home, america is importing less oil -- what do you think is going right in the country right now? guest: social indicators have gotten better for about a decade

and a half. right around the mid-1990s if you look at the social indicators everything got worse prior from the 1960's. drug use and so forth. a whole series of indicators got better and most of them got much better around the mid-1990s and that has continued. droppedre welfare rates have and abortions have gone down. cheer andarea of good optimism. but the economy is very fragile right now. the public is concerned. they have reasons to be concerned. as far as the editorial, the world being more peaceful, in some places yes and other places

no. 18 bombings in baghdad in the last 24 hours. that is an area that concerns me allot. iran is racing towards getting nuclear weapons. it is a mixed bag. always is. the public makes judgments of where things are versus what they are used to and what they expect. the gallup poll is quite concerned for the president, because 1979, this is the second worst year. 2008 was the worst. 70%. we had 60% satisfaction, 1986, 98, and 2000. -- 1998, and 2000. do you see an

overwhelming effect? guest: congress has the lowest rating ever. host: 9% right now. guest: their view towards the political class is very negative in general. it hurts the president's most because the president is captain of the ship. people believe he should be able to control things going on. sometimes that is fair and sometimes it is not. there's not a republican, not a specific republican who is going to help, some feel. if you go through the political metrics, he is clearly the

underdog right now. this is a race for the republicans to lose. they have a lot of advantages going into the election. host: a good week for the democrats and republicans this week. guest: the payroll tax resolution was good for the republican party. host: how how did they get to where they ended up? guest: good question. it was viewed that the republicans and primarily the house was opposed to an extension of the middle-class tax cut. the public viewed that as a middle-class tax. the house wanted to extend payroll tax cut deal for one year because they felt the two months was too short. they pushed the legislation sooner than the senate. the house was first, but the

democrats did a very good job framing the issue as the republicans in the house being obstructionist. speaker john boehner and senator mcconnell in the senate or at odds. the senate passed the two-month extension. john boehner thought that the house would do the same. then they opposed it. that went on a few days. it was tremendous pressure against republicans and now they have caved. guest: the crux of the argument was how this would be paid for. host: the crux of the argument was how this would be paid for. framedthe way it's got is republicans were against a tax cut for the middle class.

and president obama was framed as a leader on getting tax cuts. host: we will go to the phones. we welcome your participation in our discussion. we will look at some gop presidential candidates if as they get closer to the iowa caucus and get our guests's take on the public response to that. you can also tweet and e-mail us. there is an analysis of state voter registration and showing more than 2.5 million voters have left the democratic and republican parties since the 2008 elections --

implicationse the for the two parties? guest: there's a tremendous amount of cynicism with political parties in general. it is interesting because the public complains about stalemate and about things not getting done. but that is a product of the public's own view and votes. they voted democratic and the president got pretty much everything he wanted in those two years and that created an enormous amount of dissatisfaction with the public. then the 2010 elections, republicans controlled the house. that inevitably lead to a

stalemate. that is essentially what the public said they wanted. now that they have a stalemate, they look at the house and senate and president and say why can't these people agree on things? there is plenty to blame congress about and often partisan politics gets in the way of the public interest. host: he has spent a good deal of time in this city in official positions helping to strategize on policy. led me tell you a bit about his background. he was a speechwriter in the reagan administration and the department of education. the bush boarded one administration, special assistant to the director of policy. and an organization jack kemp

was very involved in. deputy assistant to the president and worked under president george bush. which of them influenced your thinking? you guest: that's a great question. reagan and bush in different ways. host: bush 43? guest: president reagan, i was a young man when he won the presidency, and there's a whole generations of conservatives that became conservatives in large part because of president reagan. and i think he was a monumental figure in american politics, not only a successful president, but a person who really embodied conservatism and was, at his core, a person who believed in a political

philosophy. often that doesn't happen with politicians or presidents. and the way he conducted himself, he was a man of tremendous principle and strength, but he was a deeply decent and civilized man. he very rarely got angry at people. his rhetoric was always careful. he was a kilingds -- he was a kind of model to many of us. he's grown in the imagination of the public, including democrats, who now cite him favorably all the time. that was not the case when he was president. president bush, i was closer to because i worked in the white house. and he was a man of tremendous personal integrity, and i think probably the greatest political courage that i ever witnessed in my time in government was president bush during the service in iraq. it was tremendously unpopular, the war was. the number of people who supported the surge in 2006 you could fit in a phone booth,

virtually. the senate majority leader came into the house to have a one-on-one with the president and said you've got to withdraw from iraq otherwise you're going cost the republicans the mid-term election, and the president said no way and essentially showed him the door. the surge succeeded. people forget now, but there were gale-force political winds against president bush, and he held firm, so i'd say those two. host: we're going to get calls and then mix in more discussion about the g.o.p. candidates as we go along here. maryland, george, independent, you're on the air. caller: hello. host: how long have you been an independent? caller: around seven years. host: why did you make the decision? were you a member of a party earlier? caller: i started off as a democrat, got tired of the corruption amongst the local political circles, became a republican, found out through rough experience it was a

closed club, just as capable of being corrupt as the democrats. i've been independent ever since. host: so, as an independent, how could you -- why do you stay involved in the political process? you've had some bad experiences on both sides. caller: well, the political process is a part where we can pressure for the country to go in the right direction. i was wondering whether your guest would care to talk about the ethics of a nation that has two million people being locked up in jail every night, a nation that has about half of its population, low income or in poverty, a nation where, you know, the dropout rates in urban high schools are 50% and greater, where there's a declining lack of social mobility where we can have the most expensive and sometimes most profitable healthcare system. and yet, on a ranking scale, we

have number 37 in results. if ethics and public policy mean anything, how can the average person hope that our political class can make things happen for the average person and their quality of life, the life expect at this, and their ability to feel that their children have a chance even in a competitive economy, be treated fairly. host: thank you, george. let's stop it there and get a response. guest: that's a good question. let me try to take them in order. in terms of the issues you raise, the two million people in prison and the ethics of that, of course, the ethics depends on whether the people committed crimes f. they committed crimes, they should be in prison. we talked earlier about rates going down. one large reason they've gone down is we've been locking up bad guys. the other issue is poverty. i'd simply point out that poverty is now at a record level.

it is a great problem, happened under a democratic president. and healthcare and the dropout rates, all those are serious problems, and they're all amenable to public policy solutions. of course, what politics is about is people with different views and policies arguing and debating and implementing policies and measuring which ones work and which ones don't. welfare is a great example. we had record welfare roles, the number of people on the welfare roles in the mid 1990's, the republicans pushed the welfare reform bill that president clinton signed on the third effort, and welfare roles dropped by 60%. the condition of the poor got better in almost every -- one of the great social achievements of the last half century. i want to also still make a larger point that the caller raised, which is a sense toward the political class and the corruption. this is of both parties. corruption is part of the human condition, and it's not

isolated to politicians. i understand the frustration with politicians and the political system. i have my own. but there are a lot of good and admirable people in washington and in public life. most people involved in politics are involved for the right reasons, which is to have certain views of what would advance the human good. now it gets mixed into politics and partisan politics because all human motivations are mixed. none of our hearts are pure. the i think not enough people understand that. the last thing i'll say is that the founder themselves set up a political system which put a premium on stalemate. and on stopping things, not on getting legislation through easily. they believed, and i think they rightly believed, that was the best preventive to tiering. and we have a system of checks and balances and the executive and judicial branch, and that

makes governing hard and frustrating. but the united states is the greatest nation on earth. it's not perfect, but there's a reason that that's happened, and i thinkkkkkkkkkk >> tomorrow on be be "washington journal" a discussion about the 2 -- 2012 congress with sam goldfarb. after that, a discussion with juan williams and then phyllis bennis. that's all live at 7 km on c-span. now a look at the life of charles evans hughes in our c-span series, "the contenders."

>> if he had been elected, our american history goes in several different directions. civil rights, women suffrage. would he have avoided that? he's the one you could write novels about. >> yet charles evans hughes, who was on the supreme court and then left the supreme court when he ran for president and then went back on the supreme court, one of the finest minds on the extreme court. >> a fellow justice called charles evans hughes the greatest in our great line of chief justices. >> why hughes? robert jackson provided part of the answer when he was attorney general. jackson said that huggedse, quote, looks like god and talks like god. end quote.

>> he campaigned soon after the republican national convention. tonight, "the contenders" looked at the life and legacy of charles evans hughes, who in addition to being a presidential nominee was a two-term new york governor, secretary of state and twice a supreme court justice. he is perhaps best known for his role as the chief justice during f.d.r.'s new deal. "the contenders" is live from the supreme court just across from the capitol in washington, d.c. .

are we prepared? are we being tough? are we weak? the secretary of state resigns from wilson's cabinet because he thinks we're being too tough. it is really a question of war

and peace in europe, war and peace in mexico. aside from all the domestic issues. war overshadows everything. >> how does he get from the supreme court to the nominating process? >> he gets there somewhat reluctantly because he enjoyed his position as associate justice of the court. he was quite satisfied with his role there. but then he felt called by duty after several candidates did not pan out for the republicans. he felt called to accept the nomination for president. in a sense, he was not a particularly gung-ho candidate. >> what was the republican party like? >> it fractured in 1912. there was the great teddy roosevelt/william howard taft split. teddy ran as the bull moose

party candidate. there is a real question. are they going to be able to put the republican party back together again? do you take roosevelt? roosevelt is still radioactive with the old guard. if you take someone too conservative, then the progressives will not come back. you have got to pick someone who is respected by both sides. someone who is not some wild man from the prairies or from the west like johnson, someone who was not a conservative like root, and the man to do it, also the man who has been out of politics since 1910, he was on the supreme court. he was not part of the 1912 battle. that is mr. hughes. and he is respected by just about everyone in the party. >> what were his politics at the time?

>> his politics were mildly progressive. he is not a wild man from the west like norris. but what he is, he had moved from the practice of law. he was never interested really in being part of politics. when he first comes to new york and establishes his law practice, they ask, "would you like to run for judge?" "no." "would you like a judicial appointment?" "no." but he is asked to investigate the gas monopoly in new york city. it is really gouging the customers. it has been going on since 1880. they come to him and they say, do you want to take over this investigation? "no, i really do not." but he does. he asks how much time he has to prepare testimony for the hearings. they say "a week." but with the brilliance this man had, he was able to pull it all together, to go through all the papers, grill the executives on the stand, bring the whole thing down.

ultimately what this leads to is a public service commission in new york state, and to have the gas bill and electricity rates cut by a third, and then he moves on to fixing the insurance agencies in new york state and he really becomes a national figure. this is 1906 until -- just before 1906. he is a progressive-type candidate who is opposed to the machine of the democrats in tammany, because they are protecting these monopolies, but also the massive new york state's political machine. and teddy roosevelt would defer to the bosses to some extent. hughes wins the governorship and puts forward a whole bunch of

reforms. then he moves on to the court for the first time. >> this would be unimaginable for someone to resign from this position and run for a national elected office. what was the reaction of the time? was it a surprise? >> i think some were surprised, but i think the office of the supreme court justice was not quite what it has become now. i think part of the reason people would be shocked if a justice resigned today is that the process is so much more difficult to get through and so much more difficult to confirm any justice. justices are appointed young and expected to stay for the rest of their working career. his first appointment as justice was actually quite uncontentious. his second one was almost the beginning of the contentiousness within the appointment process. in occurred early soon after there were new rules on the senate debate for nominees and garnered a lot of criticism from progressives, actually. >> we are on the plaza of the supreme court.

beautiful early october night here. we will be here for two hours tonight for our series, "the contenders," 14 men who ran for the presidency and lost but changed political history. charles evans hughes made his mark through many positions, but particularly in his role as chief justice. in the second half of our program, we will focus on that whole contentious era with the court packing and the new deal. he was at the helm during that. we will open up our phone lines for each of these programs and allow you to offer your questions and observations as part of our discussion. where was the republican convention that year? >> i think it was philadelphia. there were two conventions going on within a block of each other. that is the real interest in geography that year.

the republicans went through a series of ballots. i think hughes's third on the first ballot. he moved up until he is nominated on the third ballot. meanwhile, the progressives are meeting just a short ways away, and what they are doing is debating who they can accept. t.r. is basically saying "i am not going to do it." he throws out a couple of names. leonard wood, a big army general, an advocate of preparedness. he has gotten in trouble with the wilson administration. or henry cabot lodge. neither one is acceptable to the progressives. he is throwing out that poison pill. in the end, the only one they can agree on, a progressive, to any extent, is hughes.

but they still are in a great tiff, and they kind of dissolve the party. the party just evaporates. they go away. they do not run a third party. this is one of the great things of the legacy of hughes' race. we take the republican for granted as a continuing thing since 1916, since lincoln. it did not have to be in 1916. if he is not a guy willing to put it back together, maybe the progressives go back and we do not know what happened. maybe the republicans do go the way of the whigs. maybe the progressives replace it. who can say? the thing is, hughes takes the position. he did not want to do it. he is uncertain what to do. he walks away from the supreme court. what he had said when he had

taken it and they were talking in 1912, he would be the compromise candidate to avoid the taft/roosevelt split. he said no, no, no, i will not do it. the democrats fully criticize nominating a judge for the presidency. and there is a reason for that. in 1904, they take alton b. parker and run him for the presidency. >> does he get the nomination on the first ballot? >> parker? no, hughes. no, he gets it on the third ballot. >> so they come to the court and sit down with him and say here is our offer? >> the elected candidates would not go to the convention. there was a nominating process. a week later, they have a speech and, surprise, you are our nominee. the fellow doing it that year was warren harding. the chair of the convention. he was really undecided. his family members, his closest associates are not sure what he is going to do.

they had people in the early days of the republic who resigned from the court to take a position. there was a david davis bid to a judicial senate nomination back in illinois. but not since then, and now, not since hughes. >> can you tell us -- how was he as a national campaigner? >> that campaign is probably the worst thing he ever does. in his life really. not just his public career. he excelled at everything. that campaign, he got off the mark slowly. he is doing a dance. it is the dance that jack kennedy and richard nixon do in 1960. we have the black vote in the

north, the southern white vote. what do we do? kennedy carries both. the same thing occurs with the peace votes and the pro-war people in 1916. wilson runs a campaign "he kept us out of war." and it's hughes doing this dance. and he ends up losing both sides really. he loses the pro-war people and the people who want to stay neutral. he is branded as being pro- german. you see these editorial cartoons from william randolph hearst, with the irish nationalists and all those.

and at the end of the day, the german-americans vote goes to wilson. he does not elucidate the campaign themes well. he is opposed to the tariff. it is not a popular position for the republicans that year. there are labor issues. there are labor issues that are very important. there are two things that cross him up. even though as governor of new york, he has an admirable record. he establishes cases, that entire system, the first in the country. there's also labor regulations put in place for the first time. he is really a champion of labor. but there there are two things that happened. the infamous california trip, which we will get into later, there are two things that happen. the one thing that is never talked about, he blunders into san francisco, and the chamber of commerce was trying to break the unions, particularly in the restaurants, wanted them to be open shop. in other words, you do not have to join the union to work there. they wanted the restaurants to offer up open shop signs. where did they schedule in his appearance? in a restaurant, an open shop sign right on the door.

this is a problem not only in california, but around the country. union members around the country. also, in september, there is a national rail strike threatened. the administration and congress passes the adamson act, which establishes the eight-hour day, first time nationwide. the constitutionality is threatened later. hughes opposes it. again, this cuts into his labor vote. so he has got problems and he really does not -- he is not able to come out and say what he would do better than wilson. >> here are the phone numbers. we will get calls in a few moments. in addition to labor issues, there were also women's suffrage issues. women did not have the right to vote at the national level.

can you tell us about that aspect of the campaign? >> wilson had already changed his position to some extent on women's suffrage. initially he was opposed to the notion women would have the vote. both of his wives were actually of this view. one of his daughters though became quite active in the suffrage movements, and his views were gradually shifting. at the time of the election campaign in 1916 he still believe women's suffrage should be decided on a state-by-state level. rather than by a national commitment. hughes went far beyond that. and far beyond all the republicans. he claimed that there should be a women's suffrage amendment. and this is puzzling because the states where women could vote actually went for wilson rather then hughes, which is somewhat paradoxical.

there could be many reasons for that, one of them being this issue of the war and the women's peace movement. >> 12 states have given women the right to vote at that time. for his support of women's suffrage, a group of supporters of charles evans hughes formed a club, campaigned for him, and they went by the hughesettes. kind of modern if you think about it. we have some interesting things to show you. one of the nieces of the hughesettes has put together a hughesettes website. we are showing you some history of her aunt in the 1916 election. just to further explain your position, his law firm where he practiced in private practice does exist today. we went there and spoke to one of the senior partners to talk a little bit about charles evans hughes and his support for women voting. >> also very proud of the

original edition of the independent weekly magazine that came out the week after justice hughes got the republican nomination for the presidency. mrs. hughes, she is on here in support of women's suffrage, which she supported as well. one of the things we were not aware of -- the republican party platform in 1916 was that each state would have the right to determine whether or not women would have the right to vote. justice hughes said he would go beyond the republican party

platform and support the susan b. anthony amendment to the constitution that would give women the right to vote. it would not give each state the right to determine whether each woman could vote. >> and from not we will move to the election. i know that some of you will have questions about the outcome. i read that woodrow wilson went to bed on election night thinking he had lost. >> i would not say he was resigned to it. he was about ready to either give up the presidency nobly or in a huff. it is your call. he has a plan where it is like, ok, i have lost. i am getting out. back then, presidents did not take office in january. they had to wait until march before they left office. you had a big interregnum.

you had a situation where the country was moving towards war. what do you do? his plan was he would appoint hughes as secretary of state, getting the jump on warren harding, because secretary of state was second in line to the presidency. once hughes -- or secretary of state lansing was shuffled aside for hughes, then the vice president would resign and then wilson -- it was sort of a three-point plan -- then hughes would become president until he formally took his term. >> what happened was it was an incredibly close election. >> oh, yes. incredibly. >> tell us about the electoral vote. >> it was about a quarter of a million popular vote. not that close in the popular total. what it is, it is so close in california. that is the key. it is divided by 13 electoral votes, and that is what the situation was in california.

the second incident that occurs in california, and really the particular nature of the incident is overplayed, because again, back to that progressive party convention that kind of dissolved and left the field open to hughes. they're in a bad mood. they are not resolved as to who they would endorse. one of the people with a bad temper was the senator hiram johnson from california. he is a very ornery guy. in those days of limited travel, hughes has to get to the east coast. he swings through california before the primary. johnson is the governor. the californian republican party

is so split. they cannot make decisions of who will escort who, who will chair the meeting -- it is worse than the palestinians and israelis. the feelings are so bad. finally what happened is, there is an incident in long beach, california where hughes who has still not met johnson goes in to rest in a hotel, does not know johnson is there. johnson knows hughes is there. they leave the hotel. they never meet. it is claimed that hughes had alienated johnson in this. really johnson could have made the move. he knew and he could have gone over. right after that, hughes through an intermediary invites johnson to chair a meeting in sacramento. johnson refuses.

and hughes loses the state by about 3000 votes. they do not know until the next friday after the election that he lost the state. they do not know he lost the election until that friday. meanwhile, hiram johnson wins the primary in the state of california by something like 300,000 votes, an immense amount. so, a lot of people blame hiram johnson, they blame that specific incident, but in fact in the first meeting of the progressives when johnson goes back to california, they endorsed him, but then they split up. they split up and hold separate meetings -- we will be for hughes, we will be for wilson. he could not have swung all the progressives if he wanted to, but he might have swung more than 1600. >> wilson won nine of the 12 states where women could vote. what does it say about charles evans hughes, that he was not as much of a political tactician? >> i think he was much more of a principled person and a principled lawyer than a

politician in certain respects. i think part of what i mentioned before -- some of the women did not vote for him because of the perception that he would bring america into war. wilson had promised -- pledged to remain at peace. but one of the things about the hiram johnson incident that it shows about hughes's character is he was not interested in currying favor with other politicians or the party machine. it shows in a very demonstrative way through the gubernatorial career, he tries to oust some people who have cinecures within the administration, and that is met disfavorably because people think they deserve loyalty from the republican party. i think that cost him the election.

>> we have our first call of the evening from duncan. hello. >> hello. i was curious about any bad things and charles evans hughes might upset about woodrow -- might have said about woodrow wilson. >> any bad things he might have said about woodrow wilson? >> he criticized wilson for preparedness, not having an army and navy up to speed, in case war came. he was also very critical of the wilson policy in mexico. or you have the revolutions overthrowing the diaz administration and the country devolves into chaos.

you see the movies, "viva via" or "viva zapata." you just see one revolution replacing another. hughes is very concerned that general guerta not impose another dictatorship in mexico. he sends marines into veracruz to block german warships. there is -- there are these crazy incidents over will they come in, the flag flew here or not there. but the troops go. mexico gets worse and worse. and then you get the columbus, new mexico incident where pancho villa killed some american nationals. america sends the expeditionary force into mexico. that is another disaster. there is a lot of controversy

about mexico. there's a lot of criticism about preparedness and the wilson administration. these are things that hughes played on. >> welcome to the conversation. this is curtis. >> thank you. i just wanted to talk about a very important assertion that hughes wrote about. i will get through this quickly. the national industrial recovery act was ruled unconstitutional in 1935 and a year later the national labor relations act was passed and they thought that was going to be ruled unconstitutional, but then it came to the high court in 1937. jones and laughlin steel. i think the high court was under pressure to change their position from ruling new deal

laws unconstitutional, and hughes wrote that decision. it ruled that the national labor relations act was constitutional. i think the moral to that story is even the high court can be put under political pressure to change their position. thank you very much. >> thank you. we're going to spend more time on that later. a very brief answer. >> it is a crucial point and a crucial point of contention among historians, the question of what defeated the court packing scheme that franklin roosevelt had proposed. was it politically motivated? was this consistent with an evolution of some of the justices, including chief justice hughes. i think we will get into that later. >> louisville, kentucky, what is your question? >> i am just wondering what were hughes's views on the new deal? what were his views? and thank you for "the contenders."

>> their basic outlook of the new deal programs was? >> at the beginning of the new deal, they were striking down a lot of new deal legislation. others of the justices, like brandeis, were quite far to the left. others were swing votes. they might strike down various new deal legislations. then there was a fairly radical switch where the new deal programs began to be upheld. >> we will talk a little bit more about charles evans hughes the man. he was described as looking and sounding like god. would you add more color around this? >> he was 5'11".

interestingly enough, he was very slight as a young man, very thin. he weighed 127 pounds. they would not write an insurance policy for him. they would give him the physical and say, we cannot find anything wrong with him, but he is just too thin. so they would not give him a life-insurance policy. he lived to be about 85. so he was very vigorous, very active. he reaches an adult weight of about 173 pounds. it was measured very carefully. at breakfast he would have a pile of toast in front of him. if he was putting too much weight, he would remove a slice of toast. if he did not weigh enough, he would put another slice on. but this fellow was so slight and not vigorous, but he was a good mountain climber. good mountain climber.