>> rights. >> it is up there. are we high-tech or what? do you want to tell them what's up there? >> first of all, a lot of the candidate's headquarters are not in downtown des moines. they are in very discreet areas so we have to get together and know where we are going. at the welcome packets are a great reference. i have instructions written down to each candidate headquarters. definitely at the welcome desk -- pick one of those up. michele bachmann -- will we start with her? i would like to start with ron paul. he is on this map right here. >> is pick -- campaign

headquarters is in -- who is in urbandale. santorum is. urbandale. gingrich and michele bachmann may be? bachmann, rick santorum, and gingrich's in urbandale. rick perry is in west des moines, jordan creek parkway area. mitt romney has a little suite on ingersoll and obama is right here in downtown des moines. thank you for mapping that. what we are going to do now is break into candidate preference groups. normally what happens is you break into the preference groups and you realign because if you have less than 15%

attendees, you are not viable and have to go to another group. it will be a little different here. once we break into groups -- i have no idea how will go -- we will see what we have and maybe there are only five people who want to go visit rick perry and they can negotiate with of -- one of the other campaigns to get a few more people to make the group a little more viable. have the mitt's romney people over here, of the gingrich people over there -- ok. she is with the romney people, gingrich's over there. what? bachmann is all the way back with the tape -- at the table by the pool -- far right corner of

the building. santorum is backed by the rest rooms. ok? we will put ron paul by the food. and obama by the quick exit over here. and even if you do not plan to actually -- if you do not plan to get arrested, not a big deal, but if you plan to support the affinity group we encourage you to go to the caucus groups. no matter what your role is -- if you will be arrested, pay a visit, or merely support somebody who is going, please, consider putting yourself into one of the groups. perry, newt gingrich, bachmann, santorum, romney, a newt gingrich, bachmann, santorum, ron paul, obama, perry right here. i know i missed somebody.

chaos is a natural part of this process. you got to come up here, i think. mic check. let's all gathered together. it is like family gathering on christmas day -- you may hate each other, but, come on. pretty please? >> everybody back to the middle. >> a few quick announcements. i think heather wanted to make a pitch. heather?

one more pitch for gingrich. >> actually, i do not think newt gingrich got a pitch so i want to make sure everybody realizes how important is that we target newt gingrich. if you were not alive in the 1990's or did not realize what he did in the 1990's, he most -- almost single-handedly shut down the government which may not seem like a big deal when my husband was gone to school on the gi bill it made a big deal to him because he no longer that the gi bill so he had to drop out of college because he no longer had money. by the time he went back to college, the gi bill expired. so, i hope everybody will truly consider how much a beveled newt gingrich is and how well he is doing in the state doingiowa. if he wins, it will be a huge boost. we really need to bring attention to newt gingrich and how horrible of a leader he is. he works for the lobbyists, he

backed freddie and fannie but he took their money, over 1 million, and he is an arrogance prick. newt gingrich, everybody. >> for president. >> a quick announcement -- heidi and brian are looking for musicians. get in touch with santa baby, right here. steven has the numbers to read from what we have in terms of preference groups. and then we will talk about where it goes from here. >> hi, everyone. all right. we have over 100 people in this room right now who have committed to occupy. we hope the rest of you come join us because we know there are over 250 of you here. in our first tally -- this is an unofficial tally.

we've got to go back and count all of these groups. romney had 20 people, newt gingrich had 10, bachmann had seven, pour rick santorum, he only had one, ron paul had 18, obama had 30, perry had 10, and uncommitted had 10. thank you, everyone. >> mic check. tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. -- >> tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. -- >> is one we come back to start planning the direct action street protests. >> the street protests. >> right here, here in this room, 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. we will get back in our groups and start planning on how to make it happen on the streets tomorrow, thursday, and friday. if you have to work, come after work. we will occupy in that morning, in the afternoon, at night, we will occupy all day long until we get change in this country.

>> thank you. again, this is an important for step. we got a sense of how unpopular candidates are. who knows why somebody might support a candidate occupation. in any rate, start with the affinity group you ended up with today. be prepared to be -- i know mike wants people adjusted in people to help build issues that might be an issue in the caucus on the third. i am looking for art bain. again, we want to reiterate our important is this movement remain swat non-violent and this is a statement we referred to for a long time, and we will read it in mic check form so it

stays in our mind and our hearts. >> you don't need the microphone. >> i do. i need the mike. mike check. >> mike check. >> the occupy iowa caucus is committed to non-violence and nonviolent action. all participants in events and protests sponsored by occupy iowa caucus are expected to share this commitment to nonviolence and nonviolent

action, while non-violence is defined in different ways by different people in different contexts, and while error exists the need to continue the discussion and debate on how non-violence and nonviolent action is conceived, in the first in the nation occupy caucus, is adopting the following principles, for this particular campaign. we will act with a love, openness, compassion, and

respect toward all who we encounter and their surroundings. we will not be violence in our actions, words, or otherwise, toward any person or property. we will act fairly and honestly with people regardless of the situation or the role they play. we will remain calm and aware at all times. we will prepare ourselves before we act and will recognize our operation is to a system of

greed and economic exploitation, not to individual members of the system. we will keep a clear state of mind, refraining from the use of drugs and out call, other than for medicinal purposes, and we will not bring any illegal drugs or alcohol to any occupy iowa caucus events. we will carry no weapons, we will seek dialogue with those who may disagree with us and

maintain a spirit of openness, friendliness, and respect towards all with whom we engage. we will gather an act -- and act in a manner that reflects the world we choose to create. [applause] >> again, thank you, everybody for coming, for those who traveled from far away end vote -- and those who had other commitments tonight, this is a big commitment. everybody worked so hard to make this happen. it is amazing to see this come so far. let's keep the ball rolling. 10:00 this month -- tomorrow morning, we need to have people to make sure it a follow-through on the energy and commitment to raise tonight. be here tomorrow. i think it is 10:00.

yes? where? right here, 5 04 east locust, campaign's central. thank you so much for coming. clark is coming at me with a big piece of paper. this does not look good. >> the uncommitted group out there, we are focusing -- we will hit of all of the candidates but we are focusing our focus on solutions and issues, so if you have a statement to put on the board, we will take a balanced. -- ballot. internet neutrality is a civil right. end the war on drugs. i will not go into it right now because we are trying to wrap it up, but come on, bring us your "i"statements and we will talk

about solutions. >> ready, everybody? this is it. winter, all spring, occupy everything all winter, all spring, occupy everything all winter, all spring, occupy everything ♪ [crowd chanting] >> thank you.

>> live the road to the white house coverage today. republican presidential candidate rick santorum holding a town hall at 6:30 p.m. eastern, with live coverage of the meeting here on c-span. the iowa caucuses are tuesday night. here is a look at our coverage. it begins live at 7:00 p.m. eastern with a preview of how the caucus process works and a look at the state of the republican race. then, live coverage of a caucus from central iowa on c-span, and of c-span2, live coverage of another caucus, western iowa. afterwards, results and candidates' speeches. and you can join the conversation by phone on tuesday night's call in program and on our facebook and twitter pages. right now on c-span, conversation with a creator of a

musical about the iowa caucuses. >> in the heart of the city inside the civic -- outside the six center, the site of what is known as "caucus: the musical." y a musical about the caucus? >> politics is a lot of song and dance and it has a lot of musical theater at the surtout. we thought it was the perfect thing for a musical production. >> what is the main thought? >> an iowa farmer family deemed as typical caucus goers by the national press. and all of the candidates in the state to campaign are desperate to win over their endorsements so they will go through any lengths. >> for those who will not be able to see it, give us a sense of what the process is like. what are some of the experiences? >> they are basically featured

in one article in a national newspaper, and as the campaign season progresses, the candidates will do anything to win their vote, and that means they stop by their home, have dinner with them, and all and that having dinner at the same time, which is sort of the culminating in. candidates together in one house. >> what is the political lens you bring? how do you see it from the point of the creator? >> what i wanted to do is just show the world basically what the process is like here in the iowa, and what we are exposed to every four years as far as the candidate coming in, the media coming in. the frenzy and activity surrounding the caucuses every four years. i thought it was something that needs to be shown on stage because it is, in some ways, a bit silly at times but it is very serious. we take the process very serious as well. >> are there aspects of this political season that he brought in this production differently than four years ago?

>> the difference this time around is four years ago we had both parties vying for the nomination and this year we only have the republicans. we updated it so it reflects the current crop of republican candidates and the current hot- button issues as well. a mattel us how you chose the actors, what characteristics? >> the director was looking for people that brought -- first of all, some knowledge about the political process. that really helps. and we knew pretty much in advance to the candidates were this year, so we were looking for actors who not only had the look but also sort of the personality types of some of the current candidates. all of the characters are fictional but we try to represent everyone. >> 30 seconds left -- did reactions from democrats, republicans, independents mark >> we are an equal opportunity offender. we are certainly not trying to validate one party over the other. >> the creator of "caucus: the

musical." would you do it again and four years? >> we will see if we still have the first in the nation status and then decide. >> president obama and first lady richelle obama marking the 70th anniversary of pearl harbor attack in a wreath laying ceremony today at the uss arizona in honolulu.

>> ladies and gentlemen, may we have a moment of silence?

>> in the last iowa caucuses in 2008, barack obama won the democratic caucuses and went on to win the presidency. mike huckabee won the republican caucuses but dropped out the race just two months later. see what a caucus looks like with video from previous years online at the video -- c-span video library. tuesday, our cameras will be following the 2012 candidates with event throughout the state. live, political guests are taking your calls on "washington journal." tuesday night, live coverage from two of the caucasus, from central and western part of the state on c-span and c-span2. then later, the results of all of the almost 1800 caucuses. for more resources, use our campaign2012 website to watch videos of the candidates, see what candidates have said on issues important to you, and read the latest from candidates, political reporters, and people like you from social media sites

on c-span.org/2012. >> presidential candidate mitt romney campaigned this morning in iowa with new jersey governor chris christie. during the 40-minute campaign stopped -- stock we will also hear from the presidential candidate's wife, ann. ♪

>> just amazing. thank you guys. good to beat out here in the cold, the wind, and the rain and i brought with me chris christie, the great governor of new jersey. and, of course, about the future first lady, i hope, my sweetheart, ann romney. you guys -- nobody does a better than iowa. look at you with this rain, the cold, the wind. over 1000 people, august 15 hundred people out on a morning like this. i just cannot take off my hat -- i do not have a hat on -- but i would take off if i could for your willingness to get out and see who is running for president and support those you care about and take a close look to get a sense of the character of the people looking for the highest office of the land. i believe this race is not just about replacing president obama -- as important as it is -- but it is also a race about saving the soul of america. this is a time to decide what america is going to be over the

coming years, over this century, and there is nobody who has fought this battle more consistently and effectively than the governor of new jersey so i want to welcome the great governor of new jersey, chris christie. [applause] >> thank you all very much for being here this morning. thank you for coming with me to welcome the next president of the united states of america, governor mitt romney. america is watching iowa, as we always do every four years, we are watching iowa and you will be the folks to help start this process to get us going to make sure that the republican party nominates the very best person to take on president obama in november. when you look at that stage and you watch these debates, i think you guys have come to the conclusion i have come to -- there is no person better qualified by his experience and his character, to take on barack obama and to lead the united states of america, then governor

mitt romney. and this election is about our kids. it is about our kids and their future. and that is what governor romney talk about all across this country. he and ann and their family have benefited greatly from all the opportunities america has offered to them. they want the same thing for their grandchildren, and for your children. and the fight to take back the white house starts on tuesday night and it starts here in iowa and we are counting on you to get out there. take nothing for granted. elections are decided by the people who show up and the people who vote, by the people who care about their country and not to be out here on a friday morning in iowa in the rain and cold because you love your country and you believe this man can help lead the country back to greatness. now, listen -- the fight just starts on tuesday, and it is going to continue right through

november. and the president of the united states, he is going to be out here and he is going to try to tell you a story, a story that somehow america is doing better after his three years of leadership in the white house. we know that is not true. we know that is not true. and the president is going to try to convince you somehow that he deserves to be rehired. let's be real clear -- president barack obama came out to iowa three years ago and he talked to you about hope and change. let me tell you, after three years of obama, we are hopeless and changeless, and we need mitt romney to bring us back, to bring america back. so,, thank you all for being here this morning. i am thrilled to be in iowa. new jersey is watching you, too. we are watching you really closely. so, listen, i want to tell you something. i want to tell you something really clearly. i am in a good mood this

morning. i am feeling happy and upbeat. i love dealing with mitt and ann -- but let me tell you, you people disappoint me on tuesday -- [laughter] you don't do what you are supposed to do on tuesday for mitt romney, i will be back, jersey-style, people. i will be back. but i would much rather come back to iowa this fall, to come back this fall to campaign for mitt romney and to help you help him lead this country. all you need to know is this -- i am going to be there every minute that i can possibly be to help them, because i believe in our country just as much as you do. so, everybody, thanks for coming out this morning. i appreciate it very much. and it is my extraordinary honor to introduce to you the next president of the united states of america, governor mitt romney. >> you are 1%. >> we are lucky to have him in

the party and leading a great state like new jersey. this morning, i have a little someone i met in high school. i want to a party in stu white's house. i had seen this girl in elementary school but she was in the second grade and i was in the fourth grade. but when she turned almost 16, i thought she was pretty interesting. i went over to her and she had come with someone else. if i went up to him and i said, look, i live closer to ann than you do -- why don't i give her a ride home for you? he said, ok. and we have been going steady ever since. my sweetheart. >> mitt and i are thrille -- to see a mic that works --to see you all year. it is cold and windy. people may be watching on television -- but maybe watching

and television did not know. there is a brisk wind up here. thank you for coming. i want to express something to you that is deep in my heart, and that is my love of america and knowing that that is what you are here -- why you are here, too. you are not here for any other reason except that you love america. and we are concerned about the direction the country is going. and we hear you. we know what you are feeling, and we understand that there is someone who is coming that is going to help you. and i have all the confidence in the world in this guy standing next to me. the park as i can tell you about him are the parts you might not ever hear about -- and how he has -- which is how he has been as a husband and a father. to me, that is what really matters. it matters. you never know what decisions are going to be made in the white house, so you really want to understand the character of a man. this is a man who stands by and does the write always.

he has been with me for 42 years. we have five children, 16 grandchildren, and i trust him implicitly. and i trust that he will always do the right thing and he will do the hard thing. so, with all the confidence in the world i can recommend that this is going to be one the present -- greatest presidents ever. the next president of the united states, mitt romney. >> thank you, sweetheart. there is an entirely unbiased endorsement. i want you to know that. over there is a sign. it says -- in obama we trusted and now our economy is busted. you got it right, brother. the president said it could be worse -- that was his line, it could be worse. could you imagine hearing that from a president -- pessimistic present? that goes down like marie antoinette, let them in cake. he is in hawaii -- hawaii right

now here we are out in the cold and wind -- he just finished his 90th round of golf. we have 20 million americans out of work, stop looking, underemployed. home values have come down. the median income in america and the last four years has dropped by 10%. do you want more of barack obama? >> no. >> do you want more of obamacare? >> no. >> do you what promises of higher taxes? >> no. >> do you want the amount of regulation they are putting on the financial-services sector, health care sector, many factory? >> no. >> is it time to have real change in washington? >> yes. >> i represent a very dramatic change of what you have seen in the past three years. i have not spent my life in washington. i spent in the private sector. i am smart enough to get out of the rain i spent my life and the private sector. i know how the economy works. i want to use this economy -- this skill to get the american

people working again good why do i want to get in the middle of this? it goes back to my early days with my mom and dad and we drove around to the national parks. my mom and dad wanted me to fall in love with america, and fall in love, i did. i saw the mountains, the canyons, the amber waves of grain. i love america. between stops at the various national parks my mother would read to us from books about the founding of the country and dad would talk about the founders. there is a him i love -- "oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain." i think corn qualifies. but there is another verse "o beautiful, for patriot dream, who sees beyond the years." the idea was the patriots and their vision for america was not just for their time but for permanence. that america and the foundations of this country would not just

be a short experience but something that would last a long, long time, even our days. it would see beyond the years. i believe in the principles the yacht -- on which this country was founded. i believe that freedom and being able to choose our elected representatives is one of the key principles and i also believe in opportunity. when the founders drafted the declaration of independence they said the creator in doubt us with certain unalienable right -- among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. and that the pursuit of happiness means we are free in america to choose our course in life. we can choose to do what we want to do. we are a generic society, an opportunity society -- merit society, opportunity society. education, hard work, and our willingness to take risk -- we can see what we want to accomplish the. and we live to one another and

we lift the entire society. america's freedoms and our opportunity nature has made is the most powerful nature -- nation in the history of the earth. but this president and the people of around him have a different vision. they think instead of being an opportunity nation and a merit society, we should become an entitlement society where the government takes from some to give to others, where we would replace ambition with envy, they would poison the american spirit with class warfare. we want to return to the principles of that made america the hope of the earth and the strength of the earth. i believe in america, i believe in freedom and opportunity, and that is what we are going to bring back to this nation. [applause] this really is a battle for the soul of america. the question is, what kind of america are we going to be? what kind of land are we going to give to our children and their children? i convinced if we stay on the course we are on, you will see

america hit a wall like they did in europe. you will see us have the experience of like they see in greece and italy. that is not acceptable. we need somebody to go to washington and what chris christie is doing in new jersey, which is finally bring sanity, to work across the aisle -- and by the way, good democrats love america, too. i do remember, however, what ronald reagan said. he said it is not that liberals are ignorant, it is just what they know is wrong. [applause] we have to educate them from time to time and make sure they understand how we can work together to get america back on track. i will do that. i am not a lifelong politician. i did not spend my life in the political world. i did not spend my life in washington, d.c. you have a choice of a number of people on our stage, the republican stage, who spend their life in washington, d.c. that is fine. but i think to get america back on track you need to have someone who spent their life outside of washington, will understand how the real world

works, who understands how the economy works. i did spend four years as a governor. four years in government. i did not inhale -- i promise. i can still in business guy, a father, a husband, a person who cares very deeply about this country. i think our president takes his inspiration from europe. he thinks europe got it right. he thinks if bigger government, more intrusive government with more regulations, a government that takes from some to give to others, a government that racks of that higher and higher -- that that is the course. i do not think europe is working in europe. i sure as heck to not think it working. i believe in restoring the principles that makes america great and i will do it with your help on tuesday night. [applause] if you can get out here in this cold and is wind and a little bit of rain coming down, then you can sure get out on tuesday night and you can sure find a few people to bring with you.

and on the way to the caucus, you could tell him -- then just who you will vote for and you will bring the next few to make sure they do the same thing. i need your help, you guys. it is a battle for america. it is a battle for the future course of america. i don't want politicians running america anymore. i want to make sure we have citizen leaders going to washington, leading the country, fighting for the great soul of this country. thank you so much. great to be with you. thank you. ♪ ♪ born free ♪ appreciate that very much. thanks.

thank you so much for your thoughts. how're you doing? that is great. how are you? how are you? [laughter] >> going to do it this time. >> how are you? good to see you this morning. thanks for being out here in the freezing cold. you bet. turnaround.

flag out here, too. are you about the same age? how are you? where is my wife? i want to show heard this. where is ann? hi, there. how are you? nice to see you. take care. thanks so much for seeing you this morning.

>> thank you for coming out. mahmud thank you. -- >> thank you. hi, how are you? good morning. nice to see you guys. how are you? ♪

good morning, how are you? thanks so much. how are you? a long way to go. a good start this morning, i will tell you that. thank you. thank you. appreciate it. how are you? >> i met you four years ago at the iowa state fair. >> nice to see you.

the jacket, i love that. >> welcome to iowa. nothing for coming out today. >> thank you.

good to see you. hi, andrea. very enthusiastic. big crowds. a lot of excitement. i think people really feel they want a change in washington. a lot of support and energy across the great state of iowa. [laughter] terrific, isn't it. he is terrific. i am delighted to have him with me on the trial. you don't get better than chris christie. how are you? >> wonderful.

oh, good luck, good luck, good luck. on tuesday, i'll be there. good to see you this morning. good morning, good morning. thank you. thank you. i will need it. appreciate it very much. thank you. how are you? thank you. thanks for being here. you got a pen, right? how are you? thank you.

look at these guys. how are you doing?

i don't have any idea who is going to win. then how are you doing? -- >> how are you doing? >> not wearing about being reelected. -- worrying about reelected. >> yes, i couldn't care less about reelection.

thanks for your help this morning. thank you. i will do my best. thank you. thank you so much. hi, guys. thank you. making it real clear that we are going to bring real change to washington. >> running mate?

>> there are a number of people who would be terrific. >> pennsylvania, ohio -- bringing back those old moderate republicans -- reagan democrats? >> how are you? what happened to our black pen? >> governor, why did you call for -- >> marie antoinette, when she said let them eat cake -- he said, it could be worse. it can be better -- that is what i represent.

>> can you say let them eat cake in french? >> [laughter] >> i can, but i won't. thank you for being here this morning. how are you? it is cold out here this morning. thank you so much. i appreciate it. look at that. that is a great idea. that is terrific. today is the 30th, i think. you bet. i think it is easier on that side. absolutely.

>> thank you -- >> certification -- sir -- >> good to see you guys. >> we need some room. >> thank you. i appreciate your help. how are you? thank you. >> i one day hug, too. -- want a hug, too.

>> don't want to poke anybody. what is your name? stephen? >> president of the united states -- shake hands with him. >> 11? you are a big 11. thank you so much. good to see you. thank you so much for your help. you are so kind. thank you. appreciate your help.

i tell you -- thank you so much. good to see you again. look at these guys over here. look at this. hey, let's see. come on over here. hey, buddy, how are you doing? you know chris up here. good to see you. thank you. how are you, sir? appreciate your help today. thanks, guys. chris, how are you, buddy? >> my aunt came out. i am talking for you in the caucus and you will win. >> how are you?

you are so kind. thanks, again. one more time. hi, there, how are you? wow. good to meet you. how are you? good to see you guys. thanks for being here this morning. you are freezing -- >> we did not know you would be outside. >> we were going to be inside but there were so many people we had to meet outdoors. >> we are counting on you, man. >> thank you so much. thank you so much. good to see you. how are you doing? iowa state, huh? appreciate that. how are you? i appreciate that. thank you so much.

good to see you. this feels wonderful. i tell you, the crowd could not be more encouraging. hi. oh, my goodness, you are so kind. exactly right. thank you. thank you. great to see you. thanks for being here. thank you. and thanks for your help. you bet i will. what is your name? we have an event that we agree to do there and i will come back first thing tomorrow. all right. >> please, stop the wars and keep us out of any wars. >> there you go. it thank you.

hey, guys, how are you? >> this is jacob. >> hi, jacob. he is wondering why he is so high in the air. you've got a pen? j.k? some people who don't know how to spell, right? there is the top of your pen there. thank you guys. good to see you this morning. how are you? thank you. i appreciate that. thank you. take care. thank you. thank you so much.

thank you for being here this morning. thank you. to take a look at that. at thank you. -- take a look at that. thank you. good to see you guys. thanks so much. thank you so much. great to be here this morning. what a crowd. [laughter] oh, my goodness. oh, gosh, oh, you are so kind. >> i'm working for you. >> thank you so much. >> we will be back and forth all day -- or all week, rather. thank you so much.

appreciate it. how are you? good to see you. thanks for being here today and helping out. how are you doing? a little cold, huh? >> one more photo? >> ok. >> we have to get the governor to a live interview, guys. sorry about that. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> we have to get going. >> we have to get going, guys. sorry about that. thank you, guys. >> go get them. >> thank you.

>> thank you. >> what an honor. good to see you. we gotta get down to a live interview, governor. >> thank you. >> go ahead. >> thank you.

>> yesterday, democrats held a news conference in des moines. the democratic vice chairman was introduced by a student from iowa state university. >> when are we starting? are we good? my name is keith. i am a student.

i am here to address you about the growing concerns i have about mitt romney's presidential candidacy. i should be back home for the break. i made the decision to stay. young voters need a voice in this election. voters across america will decide about mitt romney's candidacy. his moral responsibility into the rhetoric does not match with reality. yesterday, he said, i am not going to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit. the fact is, his tax plan will result in $6.50 trillion in deficit. that is a deficit that would lead to disastrous consequences for my generation. in new hampshire, when a student asked him about rising college tuition, romney said the problem would work itself out. he is out of touch. wow college degrees remain the most important step to getting a good paying jobs, the cost keeps rising. two out of the graduates are

burdened with an average debt of $25,000. that is changing because of president obama's doubling the size of grants. as a result, students are paying less for college than they did with the president took office. romney knows that middle-class families -- they would see a 17-year political career of waffling and decisions that have led the middle class behind. the continued support of policies -- they would see the effort to rewrite history so that i will's working families do not realize how out of touch he is. president obama's landmark health-care reforms are helping millions of americans to finally get affordable, quality health care. this year, because of the

president of the reform plan, to 0.5 million young americans now have coverage. mitt romney has vowed to repeal health reform. he talks about moral responsibility. how moral is it to repeal health care coverage? for today's young americans, romney would create a path for the middle class. he would put the burden for tax cuts on the wealthy on the back of my generation. i would like to introduce you to the vice chair and thank him for coming to ames. >> thank you. you can stay up here with me. four years ago i came down to iowa and did what a lot of people did. we went door to door, listening to islands about what they thought they needed. they asked us -- to iowans about what they thought they needed. they asked us some tough questions. they wanted to know who was going to get as of of the war in iraq? they wanted to know if anyone

would take on a complicated issue that they knew was a huge problem, health care reform. they asked as the tough question. what happened in that time is barack obama went door to door and listen to iowans talk about their future. we are coming back four years later. we are saying, we were able to deliver on the biggest thing they wanted, which was kicked out of the war in iraq. we were able to have a president who had the guts to take on health care. more important than ever, from the beginning of his term to right now, the president has been focused on the middle class. if you ever wanted to see the contrast between that president, who was propelled by iowa, and a republican field, i want you to think about what is happening in washington over the past month. you have not heard a whole lot about it in iowa. if you were ever wondering if

the republican party was going to stand up for the middle class, you knew that what happened in washington clarified all of that. what happened was the president stood up for a middle-class tax cut. the republican party fought every way they could to prevent that from happening. they did not want to give a tax break -- raise taxes. we saw what played out was a mirror of what would happen in the next four years. we can either go back to president obama's view of what should happen in washington, which is to stay with the middle class, or we could go back to the policies of the bush administration, which is what you heard from the republican party. i have been struck by these debates. i have been a to a lot of them. we have heard the same thing

over and over. a lot of rhetoric, the streamlined -- through line is they want to go back to the strategies of george bush. they have said what we need to do is cut taxes for those at the top and and remove any oversight. that was the strategy of george w. bush. how is that working out that's not very well. that is what clout the economy in the first place. that is what -- that is what collapsed the economy in the first place. that will not work. the bush economy collapsed because it was focused on tax breaks for the very wealthy and removing oversight. when the president took office, we were hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month. now we have 21 straight months of job growth that is the strategy we need to move forward. it has not been easy. it has been tough choices.

think about the contrast between what these candidates would do and what the president would do. when the president took office, the auto industry was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. the president made a tough decision. he stepped in and took action and help save the american auto industry. 1 million more american cars were sold in this country. a total of 12.8 million cars were sold. romney has proposed that we should have let the auto industry collapse. 12.8 million cars would not have been made in this country. scores of jobs would no longer be here because the economy -- the auto industry would have collapsed. that is not the president we want. the same point about houses and home foreclosures. the economy was in deep trouble with the president took office. it was in trouble because the housing market collapsed.

president obama delivered on work to credit to try to prevent foreclosures and turn the housing industry around. the reports we saw the past couple days showed there are beginning to be signs of the industry turning up. caffé hard work with tough decisions. romney's the strategy, we should let the prices play itself out. what does that mean? that means that president romney would have stood back and but the housing market completely collapsed. that is not what we need -- and let the housing market completely collapsed. that is not what we need. romney talks about the president in remarkable ways. he says the president is out of touch. let's compare these two people. president obama, raised by a single mom in tough circumstances, got himself through college, came out with a big loan, he had great opportunities. he chose to go back to the

neighborhoods where people were suffering. he dealt with people who had been victims of factories closing, businesses being closed. barack obama really got his feet on the ground by being connected with real americans. he can back to iowa four years ago and continued to stay grounded. mitt romney, who claims to be about the real america, did not grow up in it, has not spent his time in it. his career was about reading of the committees for those at the top and while losing jobs for those who are part of working america. if you stop and look at the tax policies, it is the same thing. the drama we saw playing out in washington, with the present fighting tooth and nail, while mitt romney and the entire president field said nothing to protect the tax cut the middle class needed.

the extremists continued to drive their party of the deep end. we heard a deafening silence from the republican candidates who tried to pretend that they're going to stand up for the middle class. where were they? where were with a this past month? -- where were they this past month? thank god they had president obama. we are here in iowa to do what we did four years ago. the president got elected, not by having campaigns through sound stages, but by going door-to-door. we continue to do that. there is one campaign that has had a grassroots effort all the way through this. that is president obama's campaign. he has more field offices than any republican candidate. next tuesday, after the caucuses, we will still have

those offices. we will still be doing what the president obama into the office in the first place, going door to door, ringing the doorbell, listening to iowans. making sure we have a government that stands on our side. with that, we want to see if anyone has any questions and thank you all very much. any questions? >> [inaudible] >> mitt romney is leading the polls in iowa and new hampshire. he is the clear favorite here. it is presumed by mitt romney, who said anything less than a win would be a big loss, he has taken it for granted. the polls show him ahead. if he happens to lose in iowa after leading in the polls, after the rest of the field seems to have collapsed around him, if after having spent

millions of dollars on his own to attack everyone else, if he does not come through, i will spend plenty of time talking about another candidate. mitt romney is the clear front- runner. he has spent the money to do that. if he does not come through, then we will talk about other candidates. i am happy to talk about any of them. according to mitt romney, who declared anything less than a win would be a big loss, is clearly the focus. with that, we want to thank you. it is great to be back in iowa. thank you for your work. casey is a great example of why we are so cut of the folks who campaigned for the president. it was not just about when all the cameras were here. you of doing the private work. we have seen people do amazing

work, door-to-door, getting their work done. that is what the president got -- that is what got the president elected in the first place. thank you. >> the democratic party vice- chairman also joined us this morning on "washington journal." this is 40 minutes. host: we are live in des moines this morning. 1774 precincts in the state will hold a republican caucus tuesday night. there's also democratic action going on in iowa. the vice-chairman of the democratic national committee is our next guest, r.t. ryback, who is also the mayor of

minneapolis. explain what the dnc is doing these days especially to counter the messages the republicans have put forth against president obama? guest: based on your last guest, the first thing is to find that cupcake shop. the other work we are doing is a lot more serious. it is about the fact that we are there to make sure get our message out about what the president has been doing. we were there four years ago and i spent a lot of time going door-to-door. people are asking tough questions. if they said is this really going to be a president who will work with the middle class and get us out of this terrible iraq war, somebody who will take on health care, so i could come back and say the president did all that and did it in the middle of the worst economic catastrophe since the depression, but we have a lot more to do. we will carry that message and we have been. we are also organizing. the irony is, called it you are hearing about the iowa caucuses, there's one candidates more organized than anyone else, and that is barack obama.

we have more offices than any of the other candidates. it's a good example of the fact that the president knows the good people of iowa or able to open their doors and listened to his message. we're going back into that same conversation one-on-one. we are not about all the negative ads. if we are going to have an honest midwestern one-on-one conversation which propelled him to the presidency. host: we have a dnc memo that you folks put out there. "mitt romney tries to rewrite history and distract voters." what are you saying about the man who's on top of the polls

right now? guest: mitt romney is leading in the polls in iowa and new hampshire. he is the focus of our attention, obviously. what is important that you cannot say one thing in new hampshire and another in iowa and one thing a year ago ended pretend that -- and pretend that people cannot put two and two together. for instance, over this past month the most important piece a policy going on in this country was the question of whether americans would be able to continue to have a tax cut at the new year. the president has been fighting to make sure that tax cut continued. and mitt romney and the rest of the republican field or silent and quietly cheering on the zealots in the republican caucus who were trying to prevent the middle class from getting a tax cut. what is that all out? if you make a statement that you are from the middle class,

but if you are preventing the middle class from getting a tax cut, seemingly that you want to protect those at the top, then we should clarify that record. that is part of what we are doing as well. host: ron paul is up in the polls and rick santorum rising. might we see a similar memos about other candidates? guest: i am not sure what will be put out in the next couple days. one of the things that's happening is you have seen jockeying. one of band one down. mitt romney is in a little different situation. he campaigned extremely hard here four years ago and put millions of dollars into that effort and he lost. now he has put many millions more and his surrogates are spending many more to attack the rest of the field. most of the best of the field -- most of the rest of the field collapses. mitt romney can barely get over

20%. maybe he will squeak through with a victory. if he does not, that would be a big setback. you have to ask yourself if, after all the time and money, if he cannot win over the hearts and minds of republican caucus goers in idaho, that would be a question of whether he can connect with the middle part of this country. we don't like the idea of people saying one thing and being about another. we are the midwest. we don't like to elect whether veins as president -- a weathervane as president. host: good morning on the line. gwen on the democratic line. caller: a proud democrat. i am listening to these people

calling this morning. i cannot believe some of the stuff coming from some of these republicans. like a person who called about abortion. it is given this, some of the statements. also, wake-up. president obama was dealt a terrible blow with this economy. the man will get the economy back from the brink. and i hope america would wake up and look at what you have to nominate for the gop. it will never happen. host: on the economic point, how do you promote a re-election of seven obama in the economic situation that we are in?

guest: the caller was right about what the president inherited. you have to stop and say that when president obama took office we were beginning to see the collapse of. the of it primaril -- see the collapse of the economy. it was caused by heavy oversight on wall street, giving tax breaks to the very top end. so the president took office in a month where several hundred thousand jobs or being lost. we have had 21 straight months of private sector job growth now. we are moving in the right direction. if mitt romney and the others have said they would not take action that the president took in the recovery act which led to turning the economy around on many levels. let's look at the automobile

industry. that industry last year -- in this past year sold 12.8 million cars, which was 1 million more than the year before. if you think about all the people working in the automobile-related sector, 12.8 million cars a, that's a lot of people. mitt romney, said lead the automotive industry run its course, let it collapse. stop and think about that. if america was not making 12.8 million cars today, that's in large part because of the president's leadership, how much worse with the economy be? and do we really want to turn the economy back over to people like mitt romney, who are talking about the same strategies as george bush, who would let the automotive industry collapse? we will definitely talk about the economy now that we are better off than we were four years ago. and jobs were being lost the month that the president took office. much better now. and there was a war that had no mission or purpose the sucking

the economy drive. it seemed to be unstoppable. president obama refocused us and moved us out of that war and has focused the whatever, stopped bin laden, began to take apart some of the terrorist networks around the world. that is also an economic issue as well as peace. we cannot spend a lot on excursions abroad that have no purpose. that is what was being done by president bush and exactly what mitt romney says. he does not want us to get out of iraq. frankly, we had better get focused on building a peace around the world. and then refocus our dollars and human capital on our economy. after all the efforts in iraq and all the efforts that the brave americans put forward to fight a war that had no purpose, that we would go back and do that again, that is not sensible.

host: in north carolina, and jim is an independent. you are on with the vice chair of the dnc. caller: yes, there's a lot of talk about creating jobs, more jobs. even when we had jobs, for a long time they were not keeping up with the cost of living for the majority of the labor force. i wonder -- i have never heard any kind of talk from any politician on this matter. also, i would like to know if our leaders are doing anything during this recession as far as any kind of cutbacks they are taking in the offices themselves. guest: i think the caller is absolutely right about the idea we have to look out for the fact that more and more americans are feeling squeezed.

the idea of wage is being stagnant is unusual. there are certain things that a president can do. the first one is to make sure the main thing that the political situation is in charge of reflects the values of the middle class americans. that is the tax code. the whole battle that you saw going on during the last month in washington was all about that. the president from day one has been focused on the idea that people doing the hardest work, in the middle class, feeling squeezed, they should have a tax system that reflects that. the president fought like crazy and finally one after the zealots in the republican party -- and i am not talking about everybody in the republican party -- after they finally capitulated, president won. and the middle class americans during the tough work will continue to get the tax breaks. mitt romney and the others

don't want to do that. they want to raise those taxes. let's go back to any other issues where the president has put our resources. the small business administration is really where we need to get more starts for people who cannot only be working, but hopefully holding those jobs. that's the kind of economy the president is building. it is tough out there and there's no magic wand, but the president is moving in the right direction. the president is governing with the values of the people working hard in the middle class, the people with tough jobs. the republicans want to say that an economy that seems to have been raised too much at the top funds should be rigged even more. that is not what obama wants. host: we understand protesters were yesterday at the iowa democratic party offices

demonstrating. they said that the president received more campaign dollars from corporations than any other candidate, in their view. i want to play a clip from earlier this week. he has been an organizer 4 occupy des moines. he says that he's been disappointed with the party. >> the democratic party has left me. it is not a party that i once thought represented people's values. it is a huge disappointment. president obama, who i supported, is a big disappointment. i feel homeless when it comes to major party affiliation. guest: i think there's plenty of reasons for americans in the toughest economic catastrophe since the great depression to feel worried, troubled, disappointed. there's nothing surprising about that. i think all of us would like

the situation to be better. but the real question is who is on your side. there is no question about what the answer is. you saw that in the past month in washington. the president has been fighting like crazy to make sure that we stood up for the middle class. the republicans, the extreme wing of the republican party, fighting like crazy to prevent a tax cut for the middle class because they wanted to have tax breaks for those at the top end, because they did not want more oversight on wall street. if a person from an occupy movement has that question, stop and think, what is the debate going on in this country? it is about the tax code that i spoke about with the president siding with the middle class and it's about the idea that if an economist collapses in part because of a lack of regulation, then we should certainly have regulation if over industries that were gaming the system. the republican party is fighting that. if you are watching as a voter, attach yourself -- if you don't

want to attach yourself to a political party, that is your business. but it has never been more clear that democrats in this country are fighting for those who have the values of having things to be fair. the 99% slogan is a good and important one, but it is a value system that has characterized the democratic party and for many years. host: we have maybe 20 minutes or so with our guest, the mayor of minneapolis, r.t. ryback, the number two official at the dnc. caucus night is this coming tuesday. our guest is from des moines. our next caller is susan from north richland hills, texas, democrat. caller: i agree with everything your guest is saying, everything. what i found totally fascinating with truck presley, he has a personal worth of over

$6 million, did not understand the question from the man talking about jobs. -- chuck grassley. it blew my mind. host: let's hear from a republican from nevada. don. caller: good morning. let me preface my question first. i am a naturalized immigrant and a veteran. this morning on the news i heard that the justice department's set up a hotline for illegals to make sure their rights are not trampled on and or if they have issues. i know that the obama administration specifically the justice department has been suing quite a few states that are inundated with illegals and would like to have some kind of i.d. card. my question to you is, is it the policy of the democratic

party to facilitate illegals? if so, will you facilitate all illegals come around a world or is it just a temporary policy? guest: i probably and will not be the expert on immigration for the long term. the number-one focus of the obama in administration is to secure the border it and we have to make up for mistakes made over many years of immigration in this country. the most realistic strategy if it is not to have buses lining up from the canadian border to mexico to return everyone. we have to figure out some strategy. there's no magic bullets. what the obama administration is about is making sure that we continue to have fairness and

the country. how that is done is it goes way beyond the skills and a of a mayor in the middle of the country. but what i do know is that we have a country that is powered by immigration. my city has immigrants from all over the world and they are part of an incredible economic renaissance that is taking place. you are an immigrant who fought bravely for our country and we thank you for that. it is important for us to get away from the hot-button issues in immigration and recognize that the country of the statue of liberty we have those values. i believe we are on the right path. host: with all the gop talk, there are democratic caucus gatherings happening this coming tuesday. what is the decency role and how will president obama be fitting himself into the picture on tuesday night? guest: president obama will be coming via videoconference to all those caucuses. we did a trial run last night,

so the president will be talking to all the people in all those different caucuses. i think it is a reflection of the fact that the president never stopped being a grass- roots organizer. certainly in iowa and all around the country. his values are to get into communities and really understand them. that is how he got elected. if that is why these caucuses will be really important. we will not have the same turnout as four years ago. that is often driven by people that want to be part of a contested race and thankfully we will not have one of those. but we will have people using this as an organizing strategy. they will hear from the president and hear a little about some of the work we are doing on the ground. if we are very organized in this state. we have more offices even in

this highly contested the republican primary. what is really cool is when you go to some of the different towns in iowa, i was in sioux city a couple weeks ago and went into an office, a quiet office where people may call after call after call everyday because they believe in the president, because they know how important the issues are in this country, they don't get a lot of fanfare if, they don't see big tv trucks interviewing them, they are just doing their work. it is really moving to see that. how many people are so committed to the idea that we are beginning to move in the right direction, but we have to continue that. we cannot slide back to the past, which is what the republicans are saying. the good news is when you turn on the television in iowa and you hear the most extreme right-wing adds, they don't represent the values of mainstream america, that has energized our base a lot, which is great. if we want to thank republicans for running some of those ads and some of the statements they made. we will have a good, solid

turnout. it will not be huge, but it will be a good place for organizing and to be part of the fact that the day after the iowa caucuses, most republicans will leave iowa and go on to new hampshire. if president obama has been on the ground there since the day began running four years ago. his office has been there. when everyone runs away from ottawa, -- iowa, we will stay there and keep going door-to- door, the same way that we won the first time. host: good morning, mary. caller: somebody mentioned illegal immigration. president obama has been trying to secure our borders. if bush had been a confident president, he would have immediately secure our borders after 9/11 if instead of leaving another mess for president obama. -- if bush had been competent. senator grassley said that corporations were not hiring because they were not certain

about the future. they are sitting on their trillions and profits, those corporations, most of which resulted from outsourcing and laying off workers. these corporations, like the republicans, they are not creating jobs or supporting obama's jobs bill because they want obama to look weak and lose in host: 2012 we will move on to an jane in tennessee. or would you like to comment? guest: susan had a comment that i did not get a chance to comment on about a candidate's wealth. there are people with wealth and without in public office. i get that. we are looking at a pretty unique situation right now. if mitt romney is one of the wealthiest candidates to ever run for president. he has enormous welcome. he is doing something unusual,

choosing not to release his tax returns. considering the business that he was in, in which there was investment going across the globe, is really important for us to understand what is influences are. when we know from some papers that have been filed that his investment company had some very significant investments in china. that's fine, but we need to know that. and we need to understand that if we make a choice about a person sitting in the white house with a tremendous wealth that is connected to global investments, of which he is still profiting. we don't know where that's coming from. i think susan's point is relevant about a candidate's wealth, if they choose not to do what certainly president obama has done and most presidential candidates including george romney, which is to release your tax returns. we would like to know what the tax returns are from mitt romney. i hope sooner or later if he will do what president obama did right away and most others do. release the tax returns. host: jane in tennessee,

republican, thanks for waiting. caller: mr. obama's job czar has taken all the jobs to china. these people obama has surrounded himself with have done nothing to help us in america. host: any more on jobs? guest: absolutely. one classic example. the caller mentioned jobs going to china. what it's really about is having americanist industry is fighting to build products in america. -- having the american industry fighting to build products in america. we build 1 million more cars this year than last year. that industry probably would have collapsed if the president and not had the guts to partner with the automotive industry. mitt romney would have let that collapse. if you want to talk about jobs moving to china, mitt romney not only has had a company investing in china, but he would

have allowed the chinese auto industry and the auto industry and other parts of the world to be the dominant auto industry and the auto industry that he grew up in would have collapsed. i don't think we need that kind of value system in the white house. as the mayor of this city, who struggled to get the economy back moving, i am proud to have president obama investing in the small business administration, which has led to small business loans for stores like that of my parents when i was growing up. they had a drug store. there were not rich and fought hard and the small business administration through president obama has invested in stores like that. doing energy retrofits for those small companies so that utility bills can go down, and other investments. the president has also been a

leader in saying that american industry depends very much on exporting. we're seeing one of the most significant parts of the growing economy in exports, which the president has been a laser focused on. there is great work being done in exports and the audit industry and others. any idea of fostering innovation in nuclear energy industries, all that is part of a homegrown economy. take that against the economic philosophy have heard from the republican base and time and time again, and they think you need to do is to give tax breaks at the very top and take off any regulation on those who are gaming the system. i have a better solution for you -- continue to work with president obama. do not go back to the economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place. host: independent scholar in new jersey. go ahead. caller: i want to ask your guests opinion about mentioning

israel's faults in any way. it is documented that they were doing organ harvesting in haiti. the third greatest arms dealer in the world than they are shipping to china. why is everyone afraid of israel. it is nationalism. all the advantages go to these foreign countries. we give them the money. host: two different points there, economics and policies towards israel. anything you want to react to their backs -- there? she was saying her view is that no one wants to talk about is real. that was basically what she had to say.

guest: the president is working hard to make sure we are partners with israel. i think that is pretty straightforward and clear. what is also important and i do not know what the caller asked, but i am happy to have questions asked about our relationship with the rest of the world. we need to find a way to go around the globe and bring peace. the president inherited a world in which there were two wars we were deeply entrenched in without focus were even our allies had turned very sour on our relationships and the president went about trying to build peace and has made tremendous progress in that regard, certainly in iraq and ending the war and try to come forward with better pacts already the world, but also reaching out to our economic allies from elsewhere. thinking about the caller's point about being engaged in the world than the points about

the most important issue right now, the economy, it would be wonderful if everything about the economy to be controlled here in the u.s., but it cannot. if you want an illustration, look at the european economic crisis. for better or worse, we need to be involved with the rest of the world and we need to rebuild some of our alliances. we have done that in europe and southeast asia and where many people in that part of the world are worried that america has retreated and will simply allow china to dominate the entire pacific region. the president understands that region than anyone who has been president of the united states. he has lived in that region and it gives him comfort ever were from south korea to australia that the u.s. is not going to withdraw from that part of the globe. we need a president understands things here at home and we have a community organizer in neighborhoods where people have

lost jobs. he is also a person who has the global perspective to help bring peace which helps with prosperity iraq home. host: earnest as a democrat from washington, d.c., and you are on with r.t. ryback. caller: good morning, mr. mayor. host: go ahead your question. caller: we have so many kids bullying in schools and dropping out. now we have people in the republican party running for the presidency of the united states and they are turning on each other. what would happen if they become president of the united states and other countries have some secret? we will tell that to? how can you put your trust in men tattling on each other?

guest: that is a good point. look at politics today and ask yourself who are the people that will be able to heal this country and bring us together and who are the ones that will bring us apart. if you turn on the television in iowa and you hear the speeches from these people, they are ripping each other's throats out, let alone what they're saying about president, you wonder how they could ever bring a country together. president obama walks into a crisis bigger than what any president has ever faced. he could have done things the old-fashioned way, the way where you just took your own side, worked with your own allies, and that's all you ever did. but the president tried to bring this divided country it together. he did a lot of things about compromise. it was important to get something done.

maybe he compromised too much, some would say. in a divided country, you need to find someone who will not be a democratic president or a republican president, but the president of the united states of america. the republican party, from the moment they got elected, their number one goal, and this is a direct quote, was to stop president obama. they did not want to help the economy, bring peace to the world but their number one goal was to stop president obama. what does that say about their motivations? the good news is that now they have to face the electorate. they have to defend their record that was all about saying their number one goal was about stopping president obama. they made it pretty hard for him, so we need to make it easier to get something done. we need to send him a congress that will work with the president. i was raised as a republican. i did not think every republican is a bad person, but the republican party has been hijacked by zealots who have

taken the party way, way off the extreme. the moderates are complacent because they are saying and doing nothing and letting these zealots tried to ruin our country may go you know what? we can change that. we are in charge. we have a president to is a leader, a unifier against a party led by people who are off the rails. they're competing with each other to go further and further and they cannot possibly try to run this country. you are right. i do not think we need a bunch of people acting like these republican candidates are in the white house. we have enough of that. but stick with the president that tries to bring this country together. host: larry on the republican line from elkhart, indiana, good morning. you are on the air. caller: why is the democratic party so scared of having the voter i.d.'s?

i think it is because of the fraud in indiana and new york, voters with the candidates. host: voter i.d., any thoughts? guest: i do not think anybody is afraid of the idea that voters should be qualified when they go in to vote. there has been a few keys secretary of states and governors across the country who have tried to lead what i would call voter suppression. they're usually places with heavily democratic turnout and they tried to lead to a widespread voter suppression. knowing the recap the to place during bush-gore and the scrutiny during the last election, we have the most

supervise the election this country has ever had. there has not been widespread voter fraud is certainly not the kinds that have been in these extreme proposals try to keep people from voting. i am a mayor who has gone out and try to get people to vote. i have seen many examples where i found someone who was 60 and had never voted before because they did not know how do it because it was complicated. they never got around to doing it. they are not perfect motivations, but the bar for american to vote should not be so arbitrary and slanted against people in certain areas that would prevent people from voting. it is the most basic privilege that american has and it , needs to be fair, equitable, and it just, and those are all the protections we have. some of these proposals are not

about widespread voter fraud, which we do not have, but simply trying to keep people from voting. i do not think that is the american way. host:, in virginia, and other independent. what do you have to say? caller: i am still looking for a way to lead. it bothers me when he said republicans did not want the extensions of the tax cut when they tried to pass a long-term extension but the president only wanted to extend them for 60 days. please explain. guest: the fact of the matter is that certainly, his speech with the jobs act and in the multiple other occasions, he has talked about extending the tax cut. the 60-day provision is because the congress has been so hard to work with. the president has been supportive of that on an ongoing basis. the president's proposal was not have a $1,000 tax cut but

it $1,500 tax cut for the middle class. that was his proposal. it kept getting chipped away at by the zealots in congress. republicans in senate and house are battling back and forth. that was not the president's issue. he wants a tax cut for the middle class. it should call your republican representatives to knock off the boloney so we can get down to business. let's make sure we protect the middle class and make sure the tax cut is for more than two months and let's all agree that is the direction we should go. host: last call from greensboro, n.c.. caller: i think the democrats really need to respond more to mitt romney when he makes false statements about the president. as a matter of fact, some of the reports i remember seeing from the associated press, they had to call met romney out on

actually telling lies. reporters say they are accustomed to reporters giving nuanced statements about things, but to tell an outright lie in an advertisement he made about the president, he took his words and construed them into something else. he said the president does not want people to have opportunities and the president but for everyone to have opportunities ever since he has been in office. yesterday he made a wise crack about the president saying, "let them eat cake," saying he does not care about people. these are outright lies and the democrats are not really responding to him about this. someone really needs to point out to the american people what he is doing. host: final thoughts from our guest before we wrap up. guest: i could not agree with

you more. i get incensed by seeing people say things about the president. my choice is to go throw a issue that the tv or go out and do something about it, which is why i am in iowa. those of you watching or listening right now, the thing we need to do is to recognize the president was elected president because of one-on-one conversations. we, as democrats, will make that to the broad audience. think about three or four people you can talk to to make that case. the baloney you see being tossed around here has nothing to do with reality. we stand up for a president who has done great things in the toughest of times against people who would have is going back to the old ways. carry that message to repute friends, and that is how we got president obama selected in the first place.

we will do it again in a way the president has shown he will do come a leadership, not with the same old policies to take us to the bad old days from george w. bush. host: r.t. ryback, mayor of minneapolis and the number two man in the democratic national conference. thank you for joining us. let's live road to the white house coverage from iowa today live on c-span with rick santorum holding a town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. eastern. live coverage, here on c-span. >> in the last iowa caucuses in 2008, barack obama won the democratic caucuses, and went on to win the presidency. mike how to beat when the republican caucuses, but dropped out of the races. see what the caucuses look like. now through tuesday, the c-span

cameras are falling 2012 republican candidates. every morning from iowa political test for taking your calls live on "washington journal." later on, the results of all the nearly 1800 caucuses, plus canada it speeches. for more resources, the candidate speeches. for more resources, see what the candidates have said on issues important to you, and read the latest from candidates, political reporters, and people like you from social media sites, and c-span.org. >> newt gingrich earlier today held a town hall meeting in des moines. the moderator asked mr. gingrich about his mother who died in 2003. we will show you that exchange next, followed by the town hall meeting in its entirety.

>> i do not think you were expecting the question -- i asked you to talk about a moment in your life, whenever moment you wanted to, that had an impact on your policies and beliefs. this is a group of moms. when you think of your mom, what special moment comes to mind? i know she is not still with us. what moment you think of? >> you will get me a teary eyed. i get teary eyed every time we

sing christmas carols. excuse me. my mother sitting in a choir. she loved singing in a choir. i do not know if i should admit this, but when i was very young, she made me sing in a choir. i identify my mother with been happy, loving wife, having a sense of joy, but what she introduced me to do was lay in her life she conducted a long- term facility. she had bipolar disease, and gradually acquired physical ailments, and that introduced me to the issue of long-term care, and that introduced me to alzheimer's.

my emphasis on brain science comes directly from dealing -- c, now you have the emotional. dealing with the real problems with real people in my family. it is not a theory, it is, in fact, my mother. [applause] >> i do policy much easier than i do personal. >> they will be mad at me, but if she were here today, would you tell her? >> if she were here today? >> yes. >> she would be talking to all these people. she would tell them how nice i was. [laughter] >> she was very proud of the most of the time, not all the time. >> and what would you say to her?

>> she spent 27 years as an army wife. she was in a culture that valued patriotism, duty, and took risks for this country. i would say to her that i would do everything i can as a candidate to be worthy of her. [applause] of ourselves. >> now the town hall meeting in its entirety. >> how many of you have only one child?

two children? raise your hands. who has four or more? who has five or more? how many kids do you have? you look much too young for that. how old are your children? [unintelligible] thank you very much for being here. the first time that's cafemom has brought together a group of moms. there is a level of fear in this room right now, and this is your opportunity to ask the presidential candidates questions that will affect your parents, kids, families, career, everything. cafemom as practiced together to be heard and to give the candidates a chance to respond, and i appreciate those who brought their children here said

they have a chance to be represented, because in the end, what they decide to do over the next four years will affect your son and other people like you, and i want to point out our mom in uniform. i want to thank you for being here. [applause] >> hi, everyone. we have about 9 million visitors at our website, and there are a lot of people eager to hear what you have to say, mr. gingrich. when the things -- one of the things that we have heard, they want to get to know who you are personally. you brought your family with you today. can you introduce us? >> my wife, callista, is here. [applause]

one of my two favorite daughters, kathy, is right here. and my other favorite daughter, jackie, is over here. my grandson, robert, is right here. my granddaughter maggie, i would say maggie has brought her friend georgia who is also here. >> are very close with your daughters. and your grandchildren. >> they are my two favorites. >> it is amazing. it is a rare find. given the fact that your daughters did not grow up in the most perfect a situation, how have you maintained that personal connection with them as adults and your grandchildren?

>> you have to work at it. you have to decide that your relationship with your children is a value, and you have to put the effort and the conversations and go on vacation, meeting together to solve problems, trying to do things that we get together and say, what kind of life the you want? we have continued that with maggie and robert. we want them to have a great life. >> now that you are a grandparent, in hindsight, what do you wish you would have done differently as a father when york girls were growing up? >> my daughters are so terrific. in a different world, it would have been great not to have been divorced. it would have been great to talk openly and to solve some of our problems more openly. all three of us work through it in ways that i do not think

single week when we did not try to do things together. they both have become tremendous. callista and i have enormous pride watching -- jackie is doing a great job with maggie and robert. kathy has been tremendous, she has had arthritis since 25, and watching her life -- jimmy is here. paul is here. these are my two sons-in-law. the other one over there, jimmy, is an atlanta falcons fans. the other one, paul, is a green bay packer shareholder.

i am not saying this means much, but callista and i do own one share of packers stock, but we love advantek and we love jimmy. -- we love atlanta and we love ginny. >> these moms talk with great in trepidation about the future. how many of you are afraid that your children will not have the same quality of life that you had? virtually every mom. this is something that the president can do something about. what would you do to address their anxiety, and so the next generation will have it better? >> i tell audiences that i do not ask anyone to be for me, because if you are for me, you will say you hope he fixes it.

i am less confident than frank is. presidents can have an impact, but only the impact that the american people give them. ronald reagan was effective because he could communicate clearly and the people then communicated clearly with the congress. it has to be a team effort. i share your concerns. if we don't have a profound change in washington, we are going to decay, and major reason clause that and i decided to run is i do not want to leave maggie and robert a country that is poor and weaker than the country our parents fought to give us. we have to have a new approach to politics, and we have to have a willingness to deal with very large solutions and to do it together and to bring people together to solve things. i think it can be done. if you go to newt.org, you will

see layer after layer. we have a country in this much trouble and it takes a fair number of ideas to get it back into shape, and that is what this campaign is about, setting a pact to create jobs, growth, national security, and assert the core values starting with that declaration of independence. if you could get right the economy, national security, and the core values of american exceptional as some, this will be a remarkable country, and you could feel good what you are leaving your children with. >> what are your three priorities? >> you have to fix the economy. >> by doing what? >> cutting taxes, cutting regulations, developing an american energy plan.

we took the reagan plan that worked, created millions of jobs, did the same thing i did as speaker. >> cutting taxes for everybody? including millionaires? >> i know how to create jobs. the best thing you can do to solve the distribution gap is giving every poor person a job -- and -- [applause] if they have a job and they learn the work ethic and start getting a better education, they will fix redistribution because they were rise and their children will be better off than they are. politicians taking from one group to get to another is a disaster. every country that has tried this it drives successful people out of the country. i would have a lot less regulations.

>> such as? >> such as an epa. a mayor and i was said there town will have to double its electricity rates to meet an epa requirement. it said i had senior citizens who were there could all day because they cannot afford to heat their house, and they want me to double the rates? these are uncaring bureaucrats who do not have any idea who might people are. this woman is the first female mayor of her town and has been mayor for 16 years. part of it is because she worries about the people in her town. take the epa as an example. the third thing you have to have is an american energy program, and i favor of biofuels, including ethanol, for practical reasons. my choice is the next billion dollars goes to saudi arabia or south dakota, i would pick south

dakota. iowa.ld pick by wha >> talking about the environment. that is near and dear to the hearts of many moms because we want our children to inherit a clean planet. in atlanta that is a big issue. people are asked to stay at home on very hot days. what would you do to ensure these moms are heard, that the air is clean, that the water is clean? >> we should part in perspective where we are. i taught environmental studies when i early 1970's, and was teaching the river in

cleveland caught fire. i tell my most conservative friends when you have a river so polluted it catches fire in a major city, you need environmental regulations in order to clean it up. i am for cleaning things up. i am for cleaning them up at a rational level in a way that is economically sustainable. i would not allow the epa to crush the electricity industry in this country, which will drive all manufacturing out of the united states. how do you go through a process of change? you now produce more electricity from wind than any other place on the planet except denmark. it has been successful. farmers like getting the money. nobody here has complained, unlike cape cod, and it is a program that is a piece of the future, but not the whole future. >> we have our first question,

and tell me the name of your son? >> kinnick? because he wasg named after a heisman trophy winner. >> if this were chicago, he would be voting. your husband went to iowa state and you got him to pick university of iowa? >> i'm a school teacher. i am a member of the union, but i have difficulties doing the things that that unions are doing. how would you handle education in the teachers' union, because i do it for legal protection. i have a huge problem handling

teacher seniority. >> most education things should be at the local level, and at the state level, not washington. i talked in a public high school -- i talked in the public high school and college. ught in a public high school and in college. i think we should bring things back home, not just to des moines, but all the way back home, to the local offices in the local schools. we should empower parents, but with the proviso that we need discipline in the schools and we need to reestablish the principal that students should obey teachers and that we go back to the old-time model that said basically if you are in

trouble with your teacher, you are in trouble with your parents. [applause] that me say something about the teachers union. i would encourage every state to adopt coop insurance program that was competitive with the teachers' union, so you could choose whether to pay your union dues or pay it direct, and that way you would not have to be a union member to get the protection you need, because in a lot of states it is seeking protection that gives them an artificially big number of members. we have to have a new argument about this. i believe the purpose of schools is to educate children. i did something last year that some people thought was daring, and i am sure some of my opponents would say it was dingy. i went brown with al sharpton,

and we talked about charter schools trick if you are in philadelphia and you are in a meeting where ever single elected official is black, had no standing. i am a southern republican conservative. how sharpton had a lot of standing. i was with him when he said to the officials, don't you tell me you are going to back a bad teacher. the biggest civil rights issue of the 21st century is every child's right to be in a room learning from a teacher who is competent with their parents involved, and we have to solve this. i would say, if you do not decide the children come first and you are not prepared to either retrain or get rid of their teachers, you will have lost moral authority to be engaged with education with our children. [applause]

>> another question. >> i appreciate your solutions, and i appreciate your specific answers. my question is, what is your strategy to attract democrats and independents and the general election? please be as specific as you can. thank you. [laughter] >> the pain of thinking that you would have -- [laughter] i first got active as a high school junior in columbus, georgia. i worked in the nixon-launch campaign as a volunteer. this room is bigger than the short republican party in 1960. when i started there were no federal elected officials. both my daughters can tell you they were used as child labor

because they were out putting of stickers and handing out brochures. somewhere around the seventh grade they had friends that do not want to the, and they said, dad, i hope you have a lot of fun. i have had experience my whole life. i worked with the reagan campaign. he drew in an enormous number of democrats and independents. i worked in 1988 when george h. w. bush was behind by 19 points, and we have to get independents and democrats in 1994 we ran a totally positive campaign and we ended up with the largest one- party increase in american history. the key to the campaign was you had to be positive because independents and democrats he did partisanship, so we

designed and stay with for six months it deliberately caused the campaign which drew in people. i would run on big issues. not running to be the republican president. i am running to be an american president. 79% of americans want an american energy plan. over 90% of the country believes our rights come from our creator and we should respect that. over 90%. if you pick the right -- i will give you an example. president obama has been the most successful food stamp president in history. it is a fact. i would like to be the most successful paycheck president in history. [applause] if you go into any neighborhood of any ethnic background in america, and you say, would you

rather your children have food stamps or paychecks? there is a majority of ma democrats and independents willing to work with you. >> if you take a look at you and that romney, among independents and democrats, from eight runs ahead of you in almost every versus barack obama. >> in 1979 run or reagan was running 30 points behind jimmy carter, because the news media image of ronald reagan was such he had a deficit. of the course of the year, as people got to know reagan, it turned out he carried more state against carter than fdr carried against hoover in 1932. i have a simple test.

october of next year, obama has a billion dollars to spend on the kind of negative advertising you have been watching here over the last few weeks. he comes down to a series of debates. who do you think could go on that platform against barack obama and effectively articulate your values, defend your beliefs, and to mitigate his failures without flinching? i want to suggest based on the first number of debates, almost everybody seems to think i am a more effective debater than mitt romney, not that he is a bad guy. i am a more coherent conservative. i first worked with ronald reagan in communications in 1974. i think i candidate barack obama and beat him decisively by simply telling the truth in a pleasant way that the country says, yes, we want paychecks, we do not want or food stamps.

-- more food stamps. [applause] i have a high level of anxiety about getting obama out of the oval office replacing him with the right person. could you describe what their plan would be to pay off the national debt so we did not pass it along? >> a good question, when the lights were about, because i do not want maggie and robert to pay for my credit cards. you have a generation of politicians that plan to leave their debt to their children and grandchildren. the first place you can start -- and i begin speaker, the congressional budget office projected over the next 10 years we would borrow an additional $2 trillion. or years later when i left, the congressional budget office projected we would have surpluses of $2 trillion.

$5 trillion swing. how do you do it? you control spending. you start by saying, how much money is coming in? that is how much we are right to spend. >> what are you going to cut? >> you could close the department of energy tomorrow and we would have more energy. you could dramatically trim the department of education and return to the student loan program to the private sector and have better education. you can apply -- people think they can save $500 billion a year. i think governor perry had a good idea. all foreign aid, but to be on the table and we should review it. [applause]

there are two phases -- control spending, or for assistance. we reform welfare. it is the most successful entitlement reform in your lifetime. the key to our balancing the budget is week got unemployment down to 4.2%. if we had an opponent today at 4.2% -- you take people off welfare, off food stamps, medicaid, public housing, unemployment, get them taking care of their family and paying taxes, you get an increase in revenue and a decrease in spending. the biggest single step back toward a balanced budget. >> christian evangelicals believe in second chances. you have stated you are not the same person you work 20 years ago, that you have changed.

convinced us that the change was a fundamental change of heart and not just political talk, and how was that change guide you as you have served as our nominee and our president? >> i do not know that i can convince you. i can be a witness and you can decide whether you are convinced. i would say i am a sadder and slower person than i was 25 years ago. 25 years ago, i thought if he kept moving fast enough somehow everything will always work. i have learned a lot of limitations of life. sometimes that it doesn't work. sometimes you have to go to god and seek reconciliation and with people you are close to. i do not ask people to approve of my entire life.

i ask you to look at a grandfather who has spent 53 years studying what this country needs and how to get it done and to look at my overall record and my willingness -- for example, just to endure -- i was told by a reporter this morning, 45% lot of the ads [unintelligible] just a willingness to stand there and take that, the future is not important, says something about which candidates have character and which candidate do not. i will let you decide which candidate that has been straightforward as more character to go out and run ads that are false and misleading. >> have you sought forgiveness from those in previous times in your life have had issues with you? >> i have talked to them, try to express my sadness at what happened.

and in the case of my first wife, we share daughters and grandchildren and have had a long relationship, which jackie has written about, which is the best i witness to the whole process. -- eyewitness to the whole process. >> d you feel that you're not running negative ads is responsible for your drop in the polls? >> if you have $9 million -- robocalls, direct ads -- >> i that ron paul is behind that. >> they may want to fix that because of looks very strange on

television. i would not vote for a person they are describing. you take all those negative i and line them up. here's my problem. i deeply believe that we should be worthy of our children and grandchildren. that we owe it to them to have an honest, positive debate. i do not mind debating po licy. i would be ashamed to run some of the ads that are being run. i will not purses bake in that kind of process. we as a people are going to face some real decisions. i cannot be a witness to america's future while smearing my opponents, and i do not believe -- [applause]

at i would ask every iowan before tuesday night to ask yourself, do you really want toward the consultants, the lies, the-this, where do you want to state the country, a brand new day has arrived, our problems are big enough we need to insist on politicians with courage? we do not have to agree with each other. we ought to disagree on principle in public, taking responsibility for what we are doing. i have told everybody associated -- we're talking in a positive way, i do not mind drawing a contrast with romney not ideology or paul on foreign policy, but there should be principled positions that all of you have seen that are not want to be these kinds of attack ads that are frankly false. >> i have a broad stroke

question. living in a democracy where the majority rules, i feel we are completely losing that. we have so many special interests and anybody who has -- have to pay attention to them, and i was wondering how you would turn that around. >> a culture which uses the work ethic and a culture which loses the sense of responsibility is hopeless. we really have to confront how serious that is. i am passionately committed to re-establishing that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. i always remind people, pursuits

is active. [applause] i said the other week, in the poorest neighborhoods, where you have children growing up in families where nobody is working, it would make sense to have jobs in local schools to pay them a little bit and give them a little responsibility. i cited something about new york city unions. new york city janitor's earn more than york city teachers and have contracts. is a great example of union power that makes no sense. we figured out that for one janitor you could hire 30 students and pay them $3,000 each during the year, poor children in a port neighbor heard, given a connection to the school that keeps them from dropping out, large caps it's like show up for work, it's

your money, this is how you budget it. people on the left say that king bridge once to ruin children. -- gingrich wants to ruin children. someone said it might job at 13 was cleaning out the toilets. i treasured every dollar i got a because i urge every dollar i got paid. robert is not quite as enthusiastic about that experience and my but my point is we have to it -- you need a president, because of the mess we are in, a president who is a cultural leader as much as a political leader because we have to reestablish patriotism, the work ethic, the responsibility, got endows week with rights, and got expects you to be

responsible for exercising -- god and dow's you with threats, and god expects you to be responsible. >> many of you have faith that washington understands you? of you have faith that washington understands you? >> i do not believe the elites in this country have a clue. they are arrogant, out of touch, they lecture us. [applause] >> how are you going to reinistill confidence in the future if you are attacking the institutions that are supposed? >> i am not attacking the

institutions. i am cleaning them up. this is like the stables. our job is to insist that the congress be competent. we are not subjects who are subordinate to that. >> is congress incompetent? >> when you pass a two-month extension of a minor tax cut and go home claiming victory -- is the most irresponsible washington -- they are the most irresponsible washington i can remember in my lifetime. >>[applause] >> but half of that congress is led by republicans, including people who served as part of your leadership. you are still saying they are incompetent?

>> this is an anti-team. the sum of all is less than the sum of the parts. >> you agree with this? >> the whole country is a mess right now and a whole country is currently faced with huge challenges, and we have to find a language that is to get there. this is why i am so angry at the negative commercials. we have to find a way to have a presidential campaign that is an honest conversation about how we are or to fix our country, and you cannot do that with consultants throwing mud every single day. have to think about what kind of campaign you want this year, because if we have the same coverage we have been getting, we will end up with the same kind of election, and next year will be worse, and their future

will be worse. [applause] >> my question is 3 part. if margaret thatcher was here in the united states and 30 years younger, when you consider her as a running mate? >> one at a time. margaret thatcher here today and 30 years gender, i would ask her to consider me as her running mate. [laughter] >> do you have a margaret thatcher-like woman in mind? >> i think we have to vote for people who are very competent, who are capable, tough enough mentally to do that. a ke suzanne m.

artinez in in mexico very much. she has done a spectacular job. >> would you consider condoleezza rice as a running mate? >> if you have never run for office, it is a very different business, but she is very smart. callista was with hurt the other week, and she is one of the people you would look at in terms of sheer talent and knowledge. >> i have a question that has come up. that business and government operate to benefit the 1%, and they are part of the 99%. what do you say to the armchair occupiers?

>> i would say the same thing as i would say to the tea party movement, you can have a huge impact by calling in to talk radio, of voting, the kind of questions you ask candidates. people should be discussed it with that. we should see an audit of the federal reserve which has spent trillions of dollars in secret. i would repeal dodd-frank. i would break up fannie mae and freddie mac, and i would like to wean them off of government sponsorship. >> when you have a former governor of new jersey said i do not know what happened to the billion dollars -- it is just really confusing. >> is there no sense of responsibility and accountability? i talk to someone who had some funds invested with that

particular firm. he said it is still a total mess. people have every right to say something is profoundly wrong about -- and this includes the bush administration -- the last three years, starting in 2008, what we did was fundamentally wrong because it protected the big at the expense of middle- class americans. >> you said you would use executive powers to overturn some of obama's policies. how can you be sure another president would not overturn your executive orders? >> you cannot. an executive order operates within all. you have wide latitude within the law. the first executive i would sign on in our current they would abolish all the white house czars as of that moment. [applause]

if you elected a future left- wing president and they wanted to recreate them all, they could, but that would take a positive action on their part. it would not be very popular. ronald reagan has what was called the mexico city policy that said no american money will go to pay for abortions overseas. you could reinstate that by an existing order. there are things you can do within the law that are powerful. >> do you think the president -- and you have been critical of obama i using his powers to get a round policies -- would it be good for you? >> in obama cost case, some of these orders have obstructed fault law -- the law.

the responsible thing for congress to do would be to cut off the funding. the constitution is designed for that kind of checks and balances. if you are going to have a president -- this is a real question for people to think about. if you think the wagon is in the ditch and you want a president who is strong enough to get the wagon out of the ditch, by definition, that preston is gone to do some strong things. otherwise, the wagon is going to stay in the ditch. if they want a timid president who operates in a way that avoids fights in washington, that is fine. you will not have many fights and you will not get much change. if jeff somebody who says i want to fix these things -- if you want somebody who says i want to

fix these things -- i would move the is really embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. that is a state department bias against israel. there are a series of things you can do inside the law that begin to reshape the government with remarkable speed. >> with moms and a lot of focus groups, they have concern you can create more chaos than what exists right now. if you take a look at the things you said over the last eight months, there 70 things you will do on day one, date to accommodate 100 -- is there a sense of priority, and could do not end up creating a battle every single day with so much chaos because of all this change? >> i do not know if it would be chaos, but it would be positive.

how many days should we wait for children to be trapped in a school that fails every child? how pageant should we be to talk with the folks who do not want to get rid of teachers who literally in some cases failed to educate every single child? how much should we say those ?hildrens' lives are worth that ron reagan thought he would say 87 people as a lifeguard when he was growing up. he understood action. you have got to look at -- when reagan wanted to call the soviet union the empire -- the evil empire, he thought it was important undermine the psychology of the empire.

he snuck into the national security council because he knew the bureaucrats would oppose it. when he wanted to stick to gorbachev tared down this wall, they were fighting him as a lalate as the morning he delivered the speech. all of you have been through this in your own homes and in a situation where you had to get it done. if you did not get it done it was going to stay a mess. if we are going to fix this we will have several years of rolling up our sleeves together and clean the place out, and it is like remodeling a house or spring cleaning. some of that will be messy, some of it will be confusing, but together we will get it done. >> moms are frustrated with the unwillingness to compromise they

see in the congress. can a bold leader compromise with other branches of government and find solutions? >> you have to find a way to have a win-win system. if i want to get what i need, i need to find out what you need. this is what clinton and i did all the time. he would say, i have to have this, i cannot do that. if you begin to figure out is there a formula that brings together. i will bring you a minor example. senator webb and senator warner are two democrats from virginia. they introduced a bill that allows bridgett to develop oil and gas offshore. -- that allows virginia to develop oil and gas offshore. it would increase revenue for infrastructure and land

conservation. i've been trying to convince republicans to pass the bill. send it to the senate a democratic-senate bill and then harry reid says to his two democratic senators, i will not let you bring up your bill because the house republicans just pass? there are ways to work together. you understand each other and figure out how to find an agreement that lets you move forward. i did it with reagan went to a o'neill was speaker, i did it as speaker when bill clinton was president. we could not have gone a purely partisan solution. it would not have happened. >> what is your plan for "obamacare"? >> my plan is to repeal it.

[applause] you then have to replace it with a program that is more focused on doctor-patient relations and your pharmacist and the people you rely on. i want to get power away from the government bureaucrats and the insurance company bearcats and get back to doctors and patients. >> what would you replace it with? >> with a system that is much more localized and people have more choices and you did not have bureaucrats writing regulations. there are more regulations on health care than -- >> do people have a right to quality health care? >> people have the right to access quality health care. that does not mean they have to have health insurance and does not mean we have to do it stupidly.

and amazing percentage of the poor people who go to emerge as the rooms do not have an emergency. if you put the equivalent of a clinic inside an emergency room door, you can triage and say, you have an emergency, you go over her, you need two aspirin, you go over here. he can save a% of the emergency costs by doing so. >> they give for coming today. when the government was on the verge of a shutdown we in the military were among the first [unintelligible] if there was to be a government shutdown, how would the military be affected if you were president? >> i am proud of you for wearing that uniform. [applause] my father wore that uniform for

27 years in the infantry. i grew up in army bases around the bar. this goes back to the conversation about how about washington is right now. bill clinton and i had a terrific fight and we twice closed the government. we did not affect the military, air traffic control, fbi, social security, because we designed the dance to not be stupid. these guys have done the opposite. they have tried to maximize pain in order to wind their way. it is truly bad government. i would say, -- i would hope we would not get to that, but i would introduce legislation to exempt all public safety personnel and to exempt social security so you did not have those engaged in the fight. we should be able to have a fight over here over policy without crippling our institutions and leaving people who already have enough to worry about -- military families should not have to worry about whether they are getting their

paycheck because washington politicians are stupid. [applause] >> and what about that paycheck? we're talking about significant cuts in military spending. what about veterans benefits and those who are serving our country right now? >> this goes against the tide of kerr police in washington. -- that type of current beliefs washington. you cannot live in a world in which china is modernizing and there are radical islamists who want to kill us and the north koreans have a nuclear weapons and the iranians are try to get a nuclear weapons and the pakistanis may have well over 100 nuclear weapons. if we cut the most expensive military have is the one that invites a war. the first duty of government is

to remain that strong. [applause] >> i do not think you were expecting the question, he will not expect this one. i ask you to talk about a moment in your life that had an impact on your policies and on your beliefs, this is a group of moms here. when you think of your mom, what special moments come to mind that -- i know she is not still with us, but what moment do you think when you think of your mom? >> i get teary eyed whenever we sing christmas carols. excuse me. my mother sang in the choir. she loved singing in the choir. i do not know if i should admit this, but when i was very young

she made me sing in the choir. [laughter] i defy my mother with -- i identify my mother with being happy, loving wife, having a sense of joy in her friends, but what she introduced me to come out later in her life, she ended up in a long term facility, she had bipolar disease and depression and a court physical ailments. that introduced me to the issue of quality long term care, which i did with bob kerrey. my interest in brain science comes directly from dealing with -- from dealing with the real problems of real people in my family. it is not a theory.

it was in fact my mother. [applause] i do policy much easier than i do personal. [laughter] >> will be mad at me, but if she were here today, what would you tell her? >> she would be talking to all these people and she would tell them how nice i was. she was very proud of me, most of the time. not all the time. most of the time. >> what would you say to her? >> she spent 27 years as an army wife and she was in a culture that valued patriotism, duty, took risks for this country.

and i would say to her that i will do everything i can as a candidate to be worthy of [unintelligible] [applause] >> do you have another mom question? we have about four minutes left, and i apologize. i do not need to put you through that. >> they are very helpful. >> and they are free. [laughter] >> that is a sign that you have not had children. >> would you like to close knowing there are not just a lot of moms in this room, but mom's

watching you right now, once you are connected through cafemom -- what would you tell them they need to think, they need to do, and they need to hope for, not just on tuesday, but for the rest of this election cycle going forward? >> women in general and moms in particular bear the brunt of the economy. when the economy is bad, the greater part of the pain is board try to figure out what to do and how to do it by mothers and by women in general. it is the way the culture has worked. mother's care more deeply about their children. one of the most powerful, i heard was a focus group done in cleveland about national security, and why people are so worried about things like the iranian nuclear weapon. it was a mother who said, on the morning of 9/11, she had three children in three different schools.

she had to decide which one to get first. she said she would do anything to never have to do that again. whether you are talking about the economy, talking about security, or values. mothers are the civilizing influence. we all get it. if you think these two guys are civilizing influences -- [laughter] mothers understand the threat of a devalued america more deeply than anyone. i would ask folks, to put it in a simple way, to think about how much you love your children and how much you love your country. try to help people like me figure out how do we get the news media and the candidate is

to understand that they should participate in an election were the of our children and worthy of our country, because we are in real trouble and we cannot stand politics as usual. [applause] >> thank you so much. we really appreciate you joining us here in front of all these moms, and we will be talking to more candidates in the coming weeks. thank you, speaker. >> thank you.

>> if you want to come up and grab a photograph or shake hands, here is your shot to do its. yes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

are >> mr. specker, thank you. mawae i get a quick picture? >> yes. >> let's do one more. >> did it work? >> yes. >> thank you so much. >> very good. >> thanks a lot. [inaudible]

[inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible]

[inaudible] >> in the last iowa caucuses in 2008, barack obama won the caucuses, mike huckabee won the republican caucuses but dropped out of the race two months later. find out what a caucus looks like with the c-span video

ladybird. now our cameras are following the 2012 republican candidates at events throughout the state. every morning live from iowa, candidates are taking your questions on "washington journal." at night we will show two of the caucuses on c-span, use, and later on, the results of the nearly 1,800 caucuses. for more resources, go to the 2012 website to watch candidates on the campaign trail, see what they have said that is important to you and read more. it is at c-span.org/campaignle 2012. >> more political coverage leading up to the iowa caucuses coming here on c-span with a look at look at rick santorum's day. he started at an early meeting with voters at a meeting in des

moines. then he hosted a pin stripe bowl football watching party in ames. tonight he will hold a town hall in marshalltown, iowa. we will have that live starting at 6:30 eastern here on c-span. >> with the iowa caucuses next week and the new hampshire, south carolina and florida primaries later in the month, c-span series, the contenders, looks back at 14 candidates who ran for president but lost you but had a long-lasting impact on american politics. tonight, george wallace, and then later, george mcgovern, followed by ross perot. every night at 10:00 eastern on c-span. >> in iowa, voters from each of the states -- state's more than 1,700 precincts, gather in

public places to discuss candidates and pick who should get the presidential nomination. cheaflcheafl was on this morning's "washington journal" to talk about the caucuses and the current republican field. >> i announced in october that considering there are so many candidates vying for the nomination, that i could be satisfied, first of all, that they could make a good president, and secondly they could beat obama, i decided not to get involved in this caucus

session this year. it is very unusual that i don't do that because i have been involved in several of bob dole's campaigns for the presidency in the iowa caucuses. i was very much involved in george w. bush's campaign to win the caucus. so sitting these things out isn't very usual for chuck grassley, but i just didn't want to choose between one or the other. >> phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for the senator. he has been on our program many times. this time he is from des moines, iowa to talk to us about the g.o.p. field and the situation out there in iowa. we have separate lines for republicans, democrats and independents. there is a fourth line we are going to put on the screen just for iowa residents. we will hear from some 6 your constituents, mr. grassley, and facebook comments as well. they have some questions for you. before we get to calls, what is

the mood of the electorate this time around? what are they thinking, feeling, and what are they looking for in those kits? >> considering that the economy is in such bad shape and considering the fact that most republicans feel that president obama is not doing as well as he could, i am not surprised that social issues have been put to the background and other issues foremost. consequently, that is one of the reasons why we have not had

the social conservatives really coalescing around one candidates. they are splitting among three or four candidates. when huckabee was running three or four years ago, they were pretty much solidly behind him. host: we know you don't endorse, but who do you like? what are you hearing that you like? can you compare and contrast some of the candidates for us? guest: i think it would be easier for me to say that one aspect of one opponent -- i mean one aspect of one candidate is about the only one where i find total disagreement, and that would be the foreign policy or the lack of foreign policy of ron paul. on his domestic policies, i don't find fault, and on the domestic policies of other people i don't find fault. i compliment senator santorum

for emphasizing foreign policies, and also i compliment him for having a balance between domestic, economic issues, social issues and foreign policy, unlike most of the other candidates leading have spent more of their time upon economic policy. but i think your most recent callers that i heard speak just before you got me on here, one of them talked about obama destroying the economy. another one talked about the necessity of limited government. another caller talked about economic freedom. i think those three issues that other people around the country have summed up that they are looking for would be pretty descriptive of what iowa republicans are looking for when they go to the caucus.

host: one more question before we get to calls, senator, and there is a lot to talk about. michael barone recently wrote a piece in the "wall street journal" that how republican caucuses have a poor record in choosing nominees. this is what he said -- so it gets to the importance of iowa in your view. what would you say? guest: well, he picks on iowa, and i don't disagree with his statistics, but i think you have to look at the process of iowans being involved in the republican and democratic caucus. there are two preem in the

democratic caucus that wouldn't be president of the united states if we hadn't gone through this process in iowa. one of those was jimmy carter, who lived here a couple of years before he became president of the united states. the other one would be president obama, if he had not defeated hillary clinton here four years ago, he would not be president of the united states. so he is trying to discount just the republican caucus, statistically he is probably more accurate. but if he is using that as a basis for discounting the legitimacy of the caucus system in iowa and being first in the nation, i completely disagree with him. host: first call for senator grassley. karen, democrat, thank you for waiting. caller: hi, how are you doing? hello, senator, grassley. my statement is the only thing to come out of you all's mouth, every time i hear republicans

speck, is to defeat barack obama. that is not your job. your job is to help america and do what is right for the people in america. we do not elect officials to defeat a president. how can this president when he puts anything forth for the american people, you all shoot it down. you are supposed to work with this president. you haven't even given his policies a chance to even hit the floor. it is no, no, no, no, no. guess what, senator grassley? president obama will get back in the white house, and the next four years, you have to do your job. this is what you pay for? god don't like ugly, and you will not succeed. host: that was karen from chicago. senator grassley, what would you say? caller: i would have two answers for that. number one, we are political leaders in the united states outside of being members of

congress. so whether we are grassroots republicans or whether we are office holders like i am, in the political process of choosing a new president, it is perfectly legitimate for us to talk about the necessity of defeating president obama. otherwise we don't have a purpose of existing. and it isn't just to defeat, because political parties don't exist just to defeat somebody else. political parties only exist because of the philosophical and ideological backgrounds and what do they have to offer. so what republicans are doing in the process of attempting to defeat president obama is to say that the pins pls of our party are superior to the principles of president obama or his political party. the second thing is she is talking about congress -- or republicans in congress not working with president obama.

you have to understand, for the caller that the democrats control the presidency, and they call the senate. the republicans only control one house of the plea political branches of government. so i don't know how it is very legitimate for her to say that republicans have to work with the democrats and not say that the democrats don't have to find common ground with republicans. it seems to me since they control the senate and they call -- control the presidency, that they have greater weight than what republicans have. the last thing i will stop with here is there isn't a dislike of republicans towards the personality of president obama. you can't help but like president obama as a person, but he has not shown the leadership that a president

ought to show. he has been very aloof. offense, the most recent things that happened just before christmas, he was totally aloof at that. then the president goes around the country talking in a political fashion, campaign fashion, at taxpayers' expense, telling the people of this country that you ought to write to your congressman and tell him to pass my jobs bill at the same time that he shuts down the building of a pipeline that would create 20,000 jobs. that is talking out of both sides of your mouth, and we can't stand that sort of disingenuous talk out on the campaign trail and then take actions back in washington that destroy jobs when jobs are what the people of this country expect out of the president of the united states, and unemployment is two million higher than when he became

president. we republicans would even admit to president obama that he inherited a very bad economic situation. but by every measure of the economy, whether it is inflation, or unemployment, or housing values, or the price of energy, every measure of the economy has gotten worse in the three years he has been president. two of those three years he has controlled the total political branches of government by big margins, and they still couldn't get things turned around. host: senator grassley joining us from des moines, iowa, four days to go before the caucuses take place. a lot more calls for the senator, including edward, an independent. good morning, edward. caller: i guess my question for senator grassley was where he was talking about ron paul's foreign policy and how it is terrible, i guess.

the one that really gets me with it, i saw yesterday where we are going to be selling f-15 fighter jets i believe it was to the saudi arabians -- and then with the national defense authorization act that senator grassley supported, how is ron paul's policy so bad, but yet we are going to be sending fighter jets to what i would say is our enemies? plus, i can be jailed for nothing and held until whenever? how am i saver with that kind of policy? host: senator grassley, more about ron paul. >> yes. guest: well, in regard to the f-15's, and this is a new issue that just came up. it wasn't part of passing congress, and evidently it

takes presidential approval for sales to be made. the saudi arabians are going to buy planes similar to that somewhere around the world. the question is do you want them to buy american planes that we understand, where they have to get parts from us and they have to rely on technical advice from us, or do you want them to go to the chinese, russians or english or wherever else? they know the needs of their military. do you want to sell them american planes or let them buy planes some place else? so when we have a chance to employ american workers, i think we ought to take advantage of that. i wasn't complaining about ron paul's foreign policy except the lack of our leadership in foreign policy or the absence of kind of a foreign policy issue. as far as the detentions of people, when you have either foreign war combatants, or even

if you have u.s. citizens that are fighting with a foreign entity to kill americans, it seems to me like it is just common sense that you're going to handle them like you would any prisoner of war, and their detention ought to be not in the united states where they are subject to the constitutional rights of americans. understand, these are people that wanted to kill americans. they aren't just common criminals. they are war combatants, and the only protection they are entitled to is what the geneva conventions give them. that is the legislation i voted for, the legislation that has passed, and the legislation that the president has signed. this is an example of bipartisanship when can get everyone to agree to something. host: more about the mood inside the hawk eye state.

not sure if you can read it, but we will read some of the polling information. cnn and time did the polling around christmas time. they have mitt romney fairly clearly on top in your state, the point being he is up by 1%. ron paul is up 5%, 22%, rick santorum is in third, up by 11%. the biggest story is newt gingrich at 14% now, nearly 20 points below the last time it was polled. give us your insight on these candidates in your state? guest: the last two months, 70% in iowa were undecided as to who they were going to vote for. as of yesterday, 30% were going to make up their mind in the last three or four days.

it is still a fluid situation. it seems like mitt romney is solidifying to some extent. it also seems like a person who has been last for a whole year, senator santorum, is coming on pretty strong. i would be surprised if next january 3, when we have our caucuses, that there is going to be a clear winner. i would be very surprised. i think you are going to end up with three or four people with between 17% and 24%. obviously a person is going to be number one, and they are going to declare victory, but i think that you're going to have three or four team. now it may be that mitt romney is coming on very strong here at the tail end. he may be a clear victor. and if he is a clear victor out of iowa, i think it is going to be very difficult for people to catch up with him in new hampshire, south carolina,

florida and nevada. host: there is a question via facebook for you, senator. will senator santorum, your former colleague in the senate, take votes away from these folks, gingrich, paul, and perry? guest: i think he can be a winner, but i don't think he is going to be number one. number one, hard work pays off. i have town meetings in each one of our 99 counsel every year for 31 years in a row. senator santorum has been in every cowen at least once prior to two months ago, and he is going back to several of these counsel a second or third time now. so he has worked this state harder than anybody else. the surprising thing is he was always at 1%, 2% or 3% in all of these polls. all of a sudden he is coming up into double digits and could

come in third or fourth, and could consider himself pretty victorious if he is close. it shows that hard work pays off, something similar to what we have seen in bob dole when he won. host: ploofing on to john, republican. you are on with senator charles grassley of iowa. caller: good morning, how are we doing today? guest: very good, thank you. caller: i have several questions as i can't get through my head. so far, none of these guys have talked about doing anything for the economy in terms of reducing the size and cost of government. many of you, including you, wants to do something 10 years down the road. our problems are not 10 years down the road. our problem is here today. and um we decide to cut the size and cost of government,

programs that have been around since the 1930's and 1940's, get ride of those programs today, like the department of education, the department of energy and all of these programs, if we don't cut these programs today, we will never get the problem solved as far as trying to get something to take care of our national debt. everybody talks about doing things, but very few people really want to do anything. they would rather sit there and blow smoke and say we are going to do this tomorrow. well, it is falling today because of the government taking everything from the people, their pay and everything else, lifestyle and everything else. yet we don't seem to understand what the problem is. host: thanks for calling. there is a washington times headline out of iowa that says spending cuts are number one for folks as they travel around the state. how about responding to that last caller?

guest: yes, it's very easy for me to answer his question, because he has detected something about how we talk in washington to lead him to believe that we are only talking about cutting something 10 years from now instead of right now. we are talking about cutting right now, but also, because the congressional budget office under the law of 1974, and i think, paul, you know this, the c.b.o. always has to look ahead 10 years. so we are making policy today that they look ahead and say what is it going to cost for each of the next 10 years down the road? so when we talk about cutting things today that is also protected ahead, how that is going to impact the next 10 years. and probably to the caller of san antonio, it looks like we aren't going to actually make any cuts for 10 years.

but each one of those years in the next 10 years has a certain reduction in the prospective expenditure. that doesn't mean we have to spend that, but if we don't make any changes, that amount of money is going to be spent. so when you decide in 2011 you're going to cut so much in 2011, it is so much in 2012 all the way ahead to 2021, each of those years. because that is the way accounting is done in washington. but it doesn't mean you're going to wait for 10 years to cut. you're going to start cutting right now, but it also is cutting projected spending. host: senator, here is one for you to remind our viewers. if you want to ask a question via facebook, our address is facebook.com/cspan. here is a question.

would you be willing to take a 40% pay cut to lower costs in our country? guest: if governor perry gets elected, and he makes the job a half time job, the answer is yes. from the standpoint of congress working a half year and being in business or having a job back home for half a year, being a citizen legislator, if that is the type of representation this country wants, then obviously there would be a 40% cut or maybe even a 50% cut. what we are doing right now under present law, congress just like social security recipients and federal employees, get automatic increases. we have frozen congressional salaries for the next two years, and probably for the next five years, although that

decision hasn't been entirely made yet. we have frozen civil servant salaries for the past two years and maybe for the next five-year-olds. congressional budgets have been cut 5% for what we run our individual offices, and that is where it is right now. but for the answer to the question about the specific 40%, i assume he is getting that from governor perry, and if that idea went through, obviously you would cut salaries not by 40%, but probably by 50%. host: senator grassley joining us from des moines, which is where our next call comes from. gary, you are on with senator depreafl. caller: good morning. ron paul stands for america. i think he is the only one that is going to cut the budget and is going to do the right thing for america. i think cutting back all these

foreign bases that don't do no good for us would be the best answer for america. thank you. guest: the only thing i would have to say in regard to that is there is a general feeling that the united states, offense by being involved in europe under nato, that we actually prevented a third world war with russia by our presence there. after world war ii, stall inn -- stalin was going to take over europe, and when nato was formed, he had already taken over half of europe, and he wanted to take over all of europe. is there a real feeling that knee has never invaded south korea because we have a mutual defense treaty with south korea . there is also a lesson to be learned from when iraq invaded

kuwait, it took us about four months to get all the material and individuals to the middle east to actually enforce the international agreements that we had already agreed to. if a country is going to keep its credibility in foreign policy, it has to live up to the agreements it has signed. if you say we shouldn't sign those agreements, that is a different thing. but the attitude after world war ii was the united states was the only superpower at that time, and if we didn't stay in the forefront of things, economist -- communists would overrun europe. and in the case of the persian gulf war, we learned response time was too long. so prethingsing troops and

material seems to have a way of discouraging people to take action against a weaker country if the united states is present. they think they shouldn't do it. you have to decide is it better for the united states to stay here in north america and let happen what happened at pearl harbor? the japanese attacked us, and we had to take four or five years to beat them back, or is it better to be out in front, ahead of it, and be better positioned to ward off attacks against us. you get to the point of do you want another 9/11. most americans don't want a 9/11. being in position around the world to stop terrorists from being trained to kill americans is one of the points of our

prepositioning of men, women and material. host: we have about 15 minutes left with senator grassley, who is live in des moines. all of our guests from iowa today. through the weekend we will have more guests. the caucuses are tuesday night. kentucky is on the line. johnny on the democrat line. hi, johnny. caller: hello. i have two quick comments and a question for senator grassley. host: go ahead. caller: respectfully speaking as an american citizen and christian, i am appalled every day that the senate and the house is started out by prayer from different ministers that ask this body of people to do the right thing for the entire country. every day when it is over with, i as a citizen feel like they only did the right thing for the richest or most important people in the country.

my response to that is our senator, mitch mcconnell said his only job for the next year and a half was to get president obama out of the white house. that is not why we sent him there. my question is what do you think is the most important thing that the republican party can do for the entire citizenship of the united states in order for us to get back to where we need to be, a productive, responsible country? that is my question. host: thanks, johnny. senator? guest: the most important thing is to turn the economy around, to get people ememployed -- employed, increase the number of jobs. to drill here and drill now, to keep energy as cheap as we can using our own energy, being less dependent upon foreign sources of energy.

getting the budget deficit under control, which probably is a forerunner to the other three things i have already mentioned, and should be number one, and put a moratorium on regulations. when i say put a moratorium on regulations, i should say new regulations. i'm not talking about taking everything else off the books, because a lot of new regulations put in place by this administration, or proposed to put in place, are very detrimental to getting people hired. and also the budget deficit is keeping people from hiring people because they don't know what the future is going to hold for the country as a whole. the other thing is not having the biggest tax increase in the history of the country, which is going to come up next year if we don't intervene in that. so high taxes, high def sit,

too much regulation, and not making adequate use of our domestic sources of energy is what seems to be hindering people from hiring, and people not being hired is what is keeping the economy from being turned around. most of this comes from -- you could describe some of this under one word, the word certainty. particularly small businesses, but even big corporations, aren't hiring because they feel the future is so uncertain. our job as republicans -- but right now working with the democrats, is to bring some certainty. so what we can show to get the budget deficit under control, keep taxes where they are, a moratorium on regulations, drilling here and drilling now, and all sorts of alternative

energy are the best things we can do to create jobs and turn the economy around. host: tim, a republican, you are on with senator grassley. good morning. caller: good morning. senator grassley, as your constituent, you are voting for the national defense authorization act. in my opinion it is shameful giving one person, the president, or even just the executive branch, the right to imprison or even kill an american citizen is atrocious. host: senator, explain what he is talking about, this vote, and your viewpoint on it. guest: i think i have explained this to a previous caller. whether it is an american citizen or a foreign citizen, if people are at war with the united states, and they are trying to kill you and me, or

kill other people overseas, or whatever the situation is, but to take action against their own country, they are not entitled to the protection of constitutional law. this goes all the way back to supreme court decisions of the late 1940's -- or maybe it was during world war ii when this court decision took place. but we had american citizens. two out of seven or eight people came here from germany, landed on our shores off of a submarine. two of them were citizens. they were here to sabotage, kill americans and hurt the defense of our country. they were tried by military commission and executed, and they did not have the protection of the american constitution even though they were american citizens. so that same principle applies. do they have any rights?

yeah, they have rights. the same rights that every other person who is at war against the united states has, and that is the protection of the geneva conventions. so i don't understand why you, the most recent caller, and the one previously, is upset about american citizens not having constitutional rights when they are taking up arms to kill americans. it just doesn't add up to me, and i'm sure to most americans it doesn't add up. host: to get the conversation back to iowa specific ks caller had questions on broader issues. evangelical christians in iowa said there could be a rift. it says the crucial evangelical vote in the state is fractured, potentially boosting former massachusetts governor romney.

what is your perspective or your observation on the evangelical vote in that state? guest: i think i know a lot about the evangelical community in the united states, particularly in iowa. i attend an evangelical church, so i am an evangelical christian. i see it from a certain standpoint, how the "wall street journal" story is accurate. they are intention is not necessarily to promote romney by being fractured. the fact is there are several candidates like rick perry, like bachmann and rick santorum, and maybe others as well, but at least though three, where they all stand for things that we call on social

conservative issues. so it is just natural that some evangelical christians like bachmann best, some perry best and others best. so it is natural to be fractured. but it has always got something to do with the economy of our country. the point is people are more concerned about jobs, more concerned about the economy, more concerned about america's leadership right now than about the social issues. not saying that the social issues aren't very important, and i think that senator santorum has made that as clear as anybody has made it, saying how important they are. but they aren't quite at the level this year that they were in 2008 when the economy seemed

to be a little bit better, at least at the beginning of 2008. host: let's hear from tampa, florida. gary, thank you for waiting. you are on the independent line. caller: hello. host: yes, sir? caller: i would like to commend the senator for one thing, i would like to ask him a question and then i would like to give him basic facts if i could. i would like to commend him on being one of the most long-winded senators i have heard answering a question. i would like to commend him on hitting every fear button that the republican has in their entire playbook in a paragraph answering a sentence. second i would reich to ask you a question. when you talk about how families sit around the table and decide what they can pay for and what they can't, and how everybody has to balance their budgets at home, i would like to ask you, sir, is one of the possibilities that those families have going out and

getting another job? yes or no. host: senator? guest: would you explain to me what his question is? i heard everything he said, but going out and getting another job doesn't fit in with everything else he said. what is his point there? would you help me with that? host: i am not sure i can articulate his point, but i guess he was miguel an economic one. guest: well, for a questioner who was saying how windy and how i was hitting every fear button, you would think he would have come up with a little more concise question so i could answer him. i can't answer him based upon what he has told me. host: here is another question. it gets to energy and ethanol, which has been a topic among the candidates. this is via twitter. he is asking you what iowa would do. this is the viewer writing

here. what would iowa do if it were not for ethanol and its government guaranteed use? can you put that in perspective? guest: well, the ethanol issue prior to four years ago used to be a very hot issue in every caucus for the last 25 years up to that point. ethanol, as twitter says, as you indicated it says, had a tax incentive to get this infant industry started. right now, in one more day, this incentive is going to end, and there is not going to be any -- if you want to use the word subsidy for tax incentive, there is not going to be any tax incentive on ethanol. so ethanol will have to stand on its own legs now, and that is perfectly legitimate after

all the years that there has been of government tax incentive to help this industry get started. but politically it is not an issue like it has been in the past. but ethanol is very, very important from this standpoint, that 10% of the fuel that people burn in their cars is renewable, and most of that is ethanol. so whoever is complaining about an ethanol subsidy, would they rather not have the ethanol industry and import less fuel from saudi arabia, iran or venezuela about where people don't like us? host: this call from georgia. jackie for the senator. caller: how are you, guys? good morning, senator, grassley. guest: good morning, jackie. caller: senator grassley, i

would like to ask you one question. can you tell the american people why it is ok for you and your family to have government-run health care that is paid by taxpayer dolores, but it is not ok for your constituents or none of the rest of american families to have government-run health care? host: senator grassley? guest: i am very glad to have jackie ask that question because i have been involved in this issue. first of all, when you say we have government-run health insurance. we have blue cross blue shield like a like of people in the united states. some government employees might have something else. the point is we pay a c.e.o. premium just like everybody else -- a co-premium like everybody else. you could probably have some people who have much better insurance than what government

employees have from the standpoint of the co-premium and the co-pays, but i am not complaining. it is a very good program. we would have the same thing in congress that the civil servants might have. in regard to why we don't have what you have, i just explained if you have blue cross, blue shield, we have something similar to what you have. what you are bringing up, jackie, is a debate that took place two years ago when president obama's health care reform bill passed. the issue then was just about like what you asked me. so in order to respond to that, i was successful in sponsoring an amendment that when the year 2014 comes and these exchange are set up under the health care reform plan for you to buy health insurance if your employer doesn't provide it for you, members of congress and our staff will have to go to the same exchange to get health insurance. so you can't ever say then again in the future that we

have a better health care plan than what you have. because we will have to go to the exchange just like you do. in other words, what we have today under blue cross would not continue the way it is. we would have to go to the exchange and get it the wame way you would. i didn't pass that bill just because of questions like yours coming to me. i have a history of the last 15 years of passing laws that congress had exempted itself from that we should not be exempted from. we are employers, and we should be subject to the same laws that any small business or major corporation is as well. prior to 1995, congress had passed about a dozen laws that we had exempted congressional offices from. so i got the congressional accountability act passed in 1995 to put us under those same

laws. so naturally when this came up with the health care reform issue as an issue, i did the same thing for the health care reform bill and conscience offices to be covered on the same basis as the conscience accountability office, brought us under those laws as well. host: one last call from tennessee. tony, an int, go ahead. caller: good morning, senator grassley. i am glad to talk to you. to tell you the truth, i have always had a lot of respect for you. you tend to talk in some good, common sense ways. however, this morning when i heard you say it is ok for the president to make a decision that you are guilty of being specked of being a terrorist, and you are going to put them in jail, that destroyed my view

of you, senator. really, i wanted to ask a question on the economy, but i want you to tell the people that you really truly believe this. it is amazing to me that you can believe that. host: tony, let me let you go. anymore comments on that particular issue before we wrap up? guest: what did he say that i said about the compli? host: no, it was your earlier comments about terrorism. guest: all i can say is i don't understand where people are coming from, that if an american citizen goes overseas or even here are working with foreign entities declaring war against the united states, where anybody says they have constitutional rights. are you going to read them the miranda rights on the battlefield before you arrest them? is that really what people want american soldiers to do?

they are trained to fight a war. they are not law enforcement officers. and that's what you would have to do. would you think that if you arrested -- or if you captured an american citizen who was at war against americans, that you couldn't question them to get information from them about people they are working with to kill americans? remember, the number one -- host: go ahead and finish up. guest: is that you, paul? host: go ahead and finish up, senator. guest: ok. the number one responsibility of the federal government is to protect the american people. so if american citizens declared war against all of america, you surely wouldn't expect them to have the same rights that a law-abiding citizen in america would have, would you? host: one quick question. will you be attending a caucus meeting on cuss? what will your role be on tuesday night? guest: well, i am going to be

going around to different caucuses, so i will not be caucusing with my local precinct because as a republican leader, you have a responsibility to go around and encourage and thank republicans for participating in the process and encouraging them to work hard to elect a republican president. host: senator charles grassley, republican from iowa. thank you for joining us on "washington journal." we appreciate it. >> and on tomorrow morning's "washington journal," we continue to look ahead to the iowa caucuses. david funk, co-chairperson of the cowen republican party talks about the current g.o.p. field and expected voter turn out. then political editor david yepsen on the role of vote respect in the process. "washington journal" takes your calls every morning starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern here here on

c-span. >> in the last iowa caucuses in 2008, barack obama won the democratic caucuses and went on to win the presidency. mike huckaby won the caucuses but dropped out of the race two months later. see what a caucus looks like with video from previous years online. now our cameras are following candidates in the 2012 caucus. every morning from iowa, political guests are taking your calls from "washington journal." we will show candidates from east and west. for more resources, use c-span's campaign 2012 website to watch videos of candidates, see what the candidates have said on issues important to you, and read the latest from candidates, political reporters and people like you from social media sites, at c-span.org/campaign2012.

>> we have live events from republican candidates every day leading up to tuesday's caucus. today we covered mitt romney at a campaign rally at a grocery store in des moines. and newt gingrich talking with those at a coffee house. later, rick santorum hill hold a town hall meeting in marshall taun iowa. >> president and michelle obama marked the 70 anniversary of the pearl harbor attacks saturday at the u.s.s. arizona. they are in hawaii for their annual vacation and will return to washington next week.

>> ladies and gentlemen, may we have a moment of silence?

>> thank you.

>> while the president is still in hawaii, the white house has agreed to hold off on formally requesting a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt limit to give congress time to return from the holiday recess and vote on it. the vote could come as early as january 17 after lawmakers begins the second session of the 112th congress. house republicans will likely line up in largely symbolic opposition to another hike to the debt limit as one of their first actions in 2012. g.o.p. presidential candidate rick santorum will be live here

on c-span at 6:30 eastern speaking at a town hall in marshalltown, iowa. on this morning's "washington journal," david swenson talksed about iowa's population and the state's economy. >> why don't you start off by telling us more about the three million people in iowa. who are they, how are they doing, and what do they do? >> sure. iowa's population is about three million or about 1% of the nation's total. iowa's population is about 90%

white. we don't have that much diversity. the largest minority group in the state of iowa is 5%, our hispanic population. .

both in our population as well as in our economy. >> some of the details on the screen here, as we said, about three million people in iowa. the median household income about $48,000. you can see the racial breakdown here. and so on with the numbers. but to our guest, so iowa is growing at less than half of the national average as we've touched on here. what's the reason it's not growing faster, do you think? you used the word "steady," but how come not faster? >> right. iowa isn't a place that

strongly attracts people either by virtualoo -- virtue of climate amenities or our economy. people have tended to migrate to the south, to the west, to larger cities that are just simply larger historical growth centers. iowa isn't structured that way. we don't have a rich mix of the sort of amenities that draw people that way. also the opportunities are limited. so our rate of growth is slower . and the flip side of that slower rate of growth is iowa tends to ship its young workers, its talent, out to those other countries, or other states and other metropolitan areas. and so a relatively consistent and persistent flow of skilled, educated young iowans are

living in other places in the united states. the other side of that is that iowa struggles to bring in skilled, educated abandon -- and talented people as replacements. we tend to ship out our educated talent, our professionals, our scientists, our mathematicians, our accountants, health care professionals, people like that and on the net exchange we tend to attract production workers and construction workers and people that work in the food services industry. so you can see what we're doing in iowa and what we have been doing for decades is supplying the rest of the world with relatively educated, motivated, hard-working people. >> with that background, we invite viewers to phone in. it's america by the numbers, focusing on iowa. before we two to our first call for dave swens, -- swenson, if

you're interested in mitt romney you might want to turn to c-span 2 right now. live, he is holding a campaign rally at a grocery store in west des moines, iowa. this is live on c-span 2. we just heard from mrs. romney and new jersey governor chris christy is there. he has endorsed romney. you can watch that while we continue to talk about iowa here. but first, on the line from lansing, michigan, bruce? caller: thank you so much. i listin to the show off and on and i really do appreciate this show a lot. my comment is we keep letting people from other countries over here and there's no jobs, and why do we keep letting people over here and there's no jobs? we're defeating the purpose here, correct? thank you. >> maybe we can turn that ask

-- into a discussion of immigration into the state of iowa. remind us of what's been happening there. >> sure. iowa, as we said at the outset, is not was diverse as many other states. the largest group, minority group is hispanic at about 5%. now, that hispanic population has grown in recent years but that hispanic population has had two tracks. the first track is that it has been attracted to and been hired by and preferred as the employee by the states -- state 's very diverse and very well-established food processing industries, most importantly our meat-packing industry, meat and poultry processing industry as well as, along with our animal feeding operations in the state of iowa. so what we've had in iowa is an

in-migration of primarily hispanic workers into those areas of the state. the other area that we have in-migration of foreign-born persons and significantly hispanic persons is into the metropolitan areas, and if you are not a metropolitan area or you're not an area that is either feeding animals or slaughtering and butchering and processing meat products you generally do not have very much hispanic in-migration. the caller raised the question of these people taking jobs so there's not johns -- jobs. the hispanic migerapt actually filled a void in the 1990's and 1980's because we had high out-migration from our rural areas, as a consequence of 9 farm crisis and other things, just basic economic restructure sg and the native residential

workforce was slowly but significantly depleting, and people that were willing to work in the meat-packing industry, an industry that restructured in the 190's and whose wage scale declined sharply, the native work force was not willing to do that find of -- kind of work. eventually what ended up happening is they became magnets for hispanic workers. host: next fall, fay on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. my question is why in this campaign no one is really discussing the fact that iowa is number one in receiving foreign subsidied. we do hear a lot of arguments about entitlements and social security and medicare but -- >> what cuzz that -- does that mean to you? >> well, it means to me that

the politicians are protecting this subsidy issue. they're not discussing something that there is a lot of money being spent on. number two is taxes. number three is illinois, number five is indiana. when you have this mippedwestern state out there with a small population and it's getting a lot of money from the federal government -- host: let's hear from our guest dave swensson -- swenson, can you speak at all to the issue of farm subsidies? >> well, all farm producers, iowa, kansas, texas, corn, wheat, soybean formers, have all been beneficiaryies, but especially over the last 15

years, of subsidies. those were designed early on to be stabilizing subsidies. . usda and congress has wrest -- wrestled with what is the right amount of subsidy to be applying to that sector to achieve the goals it wanted to achieve. the flavor and nature of those subsidies have changed over time and they promise to lessen over time as well, moving away from a direct subsidy on a per-eaker and per-commodity basis to a more indirect subsidy, for example, use lg -- using a combination of subsidy arnold -- and market mechanisms and other stabilizing mechanisms like crop insurance. yes, it's generally agreed we have received a

disproportionate share of agriculture subsidies but that's because we produce a disproportionate share of the agriculture products the host: more on the statistics here as we continue. unemployment, 5.7% roughly. and as our guest pointed out, agriculture, meaning hogs, cattle, hay, oats, all at the top of the industry area the nonelectrical and farm machinery, cement production, finance and insurance. is there a significant military presence in iowa? >> oh, no. not very much. we have some relatively well-established national guard operations like any state. but other than that we don't have a major military presence. we do have what's called the rock island arsenal. that's out on the quad cities on the earn side of the

mississippi river the that's a combination of a military presence and again they're producing armaments and other kinds of products for the military and that's really the most significant presence of the military in the state of quawa -- iowa. host: denver, colorado, on the line. an independent the hey, tom. caller: good morning. i'd like to know why american workers and ones that have work still do not have health insurance and any of the republicans that are for the iraq warks why they didn't serve in the vietnam war as a gen-xers because our generation is going to pay for the worst mistake in history, the iraq war the host: not sure the guest can comment on the political questions and that

kind of thing. let's 3406b on to eddie on the line the we're talking -- taking caults on the state of iowa itself. looking at demographics. can you help us with any of that? caller: sure, my name is eddie home. i'm calling from des moines as a iowa residents. i was just curiousx being black and being in a state that only haze little over three million people, why are we considered the number one racist state in the united states in terms of the penal incars ray, the state jobs and things of that nature? and in fact i think it would be nice if you're -- your studio would sometimes take a look at des moines, iowa, as an example for the whole country in terms of how a super-minority does not get the play that it should.

i'll take your answer off air or i can stay on. host: dave swenson, anything you can add there? >> the state of iowa is significantly not diverse. the metropolitan areas, though, are significantly more diverse than the state average. we have areas of the state with, as the caller said, compareatively larger minority populations. des moines, waterloo, the quad cities, very much larger minority pop lakeses than we would find in the other metropolitan areas. 9 fact that we have issues associated either with poverty, minority issues or the state and these urban areas in transition, these are common issues you're going to see in all urban areas much the city of des moines has gone through cycles where it's had to deal with issues associated with its minority population, the

police, their treatment of the population the this is a point, and actually the caller makes one interesting or one good point here. we tend to want to put would -- iowa into convenient little niches and say this is iowa, i know it. no, iowa is complicated. its metropolitan area is a complicated metropolitan area. its rural area is undergoing quite a few dynamics. we look somewhat different if you look at average but if you come you aib little bit closer and focus on fiff communities then we start to take on characteristics of the rest of the united states. as to the issues in terms of

incarceration and all the -- all that i have to plead ignorance. i don't know anything about that. host:next caller, you're on with david swenson. caller: hi, how you doing? host: doing fine. caller: my question didn't about economics. it's actually about the media the i don't want top use sensorship -- censorship because it's too strong of a word, but why is our media so filtered? we have a couple you stories that have some grit to them but for the most part it's just feel-good stuff. when there is so much going on in the world and in our country, america should be look to.

host: thanks for the you shawl -- call. shawn? caller: just a quick question for you and not just on the economics of iowa but the examine -- country as a wholet president obama attempted to use a stimulus program. what would you do differently in order to help lower the unemployment of americans that might be different than we have done? not only this particular president but the last four or five presidents in creating new jobs? and i mean new jobs. thank you. >> boy, that's a loaded quesm it's an awfully complicated question. you know, when i give talks about this the first thing i try to get across to people is this isn't your father's recession we're recovering from.

this is a doozy. we haven't seen anything like this for 70 years. so a lot of our conventional wisdom about how we ought to responsibility to different types of stimulus, the timing of the recovering, the pace and slope of change we should be expecting, all those have been informed by previous recessions and i try to get it across, this recession is so much worse and the recovery is so much slower than anything we have had to deal with since the last, the great recession, that we really have shot all of our bullets. we've used every arrow in the quiver the we've done most of the things we could do. we've made money so cheap we're almost give it away in terms of lending policy. we've tried to stimulate the economy in the short run by basically underwriting infrastructure, creating jobs in the short run and hoping

that those jobs again help stabilize consumption the we have expanded unemployment insurance so that we maintain consumption. we back stopped local infrastructure so they didn't lay off lots of public servants again so we main tane employment and consumption in the state of iowa, so we're doing most of the things that we could possibly do to do this. now here we are and we haven't recovered fast enough and people want to say, well, it didn't work the it did what it could do given the gadge -- damage that was done to the economy. so what do i think as an analyst when i talk to people? i'm of two minds. i believe that households like you and me, we have to fix our balance sheets, consume within our means, we have to get the economy so it's getting the right kinds of signals from

house holds and knows exactly what to pro dus. there is no free lunch. i believe what we're stuck with is a slow, somewhat painful for many recovery that's going to rediscover a new, sustainable commercial some one, two, or three years down the road and that's kind of an anemic answer for kind of an anemic recovery. host: we have about 15 minutes left with our guest, dave swenson of iowa state university joining us about four days from when the caucus gatherings take place. that's tuesday night and you can watch live caucus events on c-span and c-span it. one thing is a chart of people 65 and older. here it is.

>> they're up there percentage-wise, mr. swenson. what does it mean if anything in particular to the state to have that senior population at a level of 15%? >> it means a lot. iowa it -- is a state that has a disproportionate share of the elderly and there are two things i want to point out. that elderly tends to be concentrated in the rural areas. rural elderly tend to be poor. -- they tend to be less mobile and tend to be basically stuck, many of them, in small commufpbletse the value of their assets of of whatever it is that they're doing just

simply precludes them from moving to other areas so they tend to be the they're basically residing where they grew up and have lived their entire lives much another thing about the elderly is we have the largest fraction of what we call the old-old. 58 and over. of those, they are significantly female and significantly poorer than the rest of the population the we have a dimension of that elderly population that is very needly, very frail, and very delicate, and so the state of iowa has a very well-developed and well-defined elderly services network in the private sector as well as in the public sector. now, in the last decade or so, the rural elderly just by virtue of all the things that are going on, those again,

we've seen a shift of our rural elderly moving towards more rural areas and the elderly are doing this because they're trying to access needed and necessary services. perhaps lifestyle changes too that they're making so we do see a change internally of the elderly to the medium sized if not the metropolitan areas the so there has been a slight depopulation of the elderly from the rural space. >> you can see on -- on this population map put out by the census bureau the population of iowa. roughly three million people in the state of iowa. we're fauging demographics here. -- talking demographics here.

we have a resident of iowa on the phone now. go ahead, please. caller: hi, good morning. my question is i think that all presidents since world war ii you might be able to classify them as [inaudible] , that is they engage in deficit spending to increase demand. my question about rick perry, he's been able to increase jobs by one million jobs in texas and been able to do that with a balanced budget? how has he been able to do that in terms of economics and why aren't we talking more about rick perry's plan for the country this is host:thanks. rick perry supporter there. let's move on to chicago, illinois, jay on the democratic line the caller: hey, i've spent some time in iowa in college and so forth and i've -- i'm an

african-american male. it's been a fairly enjoyable time but the average iowan has very little in common with a party that talks about very limited government, that does not support minimum wage increases. iowa is interesting in that it depends a great deal on the federal government and it does very well. it does not suffer the ills of global competition as much as other states. what i mean by that is a lot of their jobs shall agriculture so they don't have to woish -- worry bay lot of their jobs being moved to other countries. i think that's one of the reasons why it has a favorable employment level. and up look at the minimum wargese the minimum wage in iowa is fairly high. so you have a party that comes in, the people that are there now, they do not have a lot of values that are in common in

terms of economics with the average iowan so i want the iowa residents to just be careful the i know they have to be careful, to go through this process of selecting a candidate but to be honest with you, they're a very progressive state in terms of their economics. oftentimes they gow democratic and i assume they will again this year for the reasons i just articulated. having said all that, you look at perry. he's in texas and they get a lat -- lot of government aid. that's one of the reasons why he's been able to keep a very low unemployment level. so, some of president candidates are not being honest. barack obama's plan has been very helpful to a lot of states. host: thanks for calling. dave swenson, anything in the earlier part of his comments you can apply to the discussion

here? >> sure. i want to make one thing clear. iowa's economy is very diverse. it's not an ag economy. largest manufacturing sector in terms of g -- g.d.p. and employment, the second largest is pping finance and banking, then we move down the line and get agriculture. agriculture maybe explains about 4% of the jobs on the farm level. we do have an agricultureal products sector. that sector tends to be stable. during hard times, we eat. we don't have the cyclical fluctations in the hiring the the ag economy though over time is requiring fewer and fewer workers, more and more machines. that's part of the depopulation

of the rural area is that agriculture just doesn't need very many people to produce a lot be -- of the goods and services. we do have a manufacturing sector that's more stable. but the biggest part of iowa's manufacturing is durable goods. we make washing machines, windows, construction machinery, tractors, and recreational vehicles and that industry is very cyclical like the rest of the economy. it downturned sharply during this recession. manufacturing is the largest numerical component of the floss jobs that we've suffered over the last three years and we're just barelyry coring and we are very vulnerable, especially in those areas like electronics manufacturing and those types of areas to competition from overseas. we have had factories in iowa

relocate to mexico or to a chinese production system. so we are victims of globalization in as much as the rest of the nation the we're more manufacturing dependent than the rest of the nation. we also depend on the rest of the country and the world to buy what we make because we can't eat it all and we can't use it all, so our economy is linked at the hip with how well the rest of the nation is doing as well as the rest of the world and owe economy is basically where it is right now waiting for the rest of the country to get better so that we can sell more goods an services to the rest of the country. host: about five minutes left with our guest. michael on the independent line. caller: i have a question about gold for you. i know the american people own fors knox and it's full of gold. the question be at $1, 700 an

ounce why don't the american people take the gold and pay off our overall debt, the $15 trillion and reset our money to the gold standard in host: thanks for calling, michael. here's air tweet. i'm not sure if the information is accurate but i want your reaction to the tenor of it. "5% first of all, what's your sense of that 5% figure? if it's anywhere near true why do you think that is and can you correct -- connect it to anything else we've been talking about today? >> right we can break this down. generally speaking fewer than half of us vote and even if registered we don't all vote. the people that engage in the political process in the united states, at the state level and even the national level are a

minority of the adult population. that's disappointing, frustrating, but that's just the way civic engagement occurs. what you have going on with the caucuses, and remember you only have one real contest going on here, on the republican side, you are going to have the most tibly engaged, actively involved, issue-oriented, personally motivated geam to envaged -- engage in the caucus. caucuses are different than just going to your local k.c. hall and filling out a ball it. the caucus involves a commitment of an evening. it is a process, it's literally deliberative, sometimes raucous, confusing, you can be thrg for two, three, even four hours so you got to want to do what you're doing to go do it. it tends to be the most committed and most motivated

and the people that have the strongest feelings about a particular set of issues. host: let's hear from buffalo, new york where tory is on the line. question about iowa or a comment? >> caller: yes, mr. swenson, you are very farm tive and i have enjoyed -- informative and i have enjoyed listening to you -- >> more political coverage now leading up to the iowa caucuses with republican candidate rick santorum the he's going to hold a town hall meeting here at this marshalltown, iowa, the legends grill.

thank you, thank you, how you doing. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> hello, folks, how are you? good to see you? >> i like your look. thank you. i addressed -- dressed for the occasion the how are you? hello, how are you? good to see you. thank you. how are you thank you so much. thanks for coming out. good to see i again. i'm a hawkeye.

hello. there you go. don't want to trip that up. is chuck -- >> yeah. >> very good. i want to make sure he gets a chance to sigh hi to everybody. all right do you want to start, elizabeth? you want to get going in i'm waiting for my strser -- introo deucer. he's my good luck charm. the chuckster. all right. people sitting in the back -- absolutely, come up.

there thank you go. my pleasure. how are you? good to see you. how are you? good to see you the thank you very much. maybe go out and say hello to a few folks? how are you? good to see you again. thank you. hey, guys. yeah, yeah, good to see you again. thank you. there you go. thank you. nice to see you. >> can we get a picture in >> sure. sure.

>> ok, chuck, we're waiting for you, bud. how you doing? very good. thank you so much. thank you. all right. how are you? is >> hello, everybody, hello. good to be here a few days from caucuses the my name is chuck lautner from a little town up north called rockford. i worked for congressman steve king on the campaign side and four years ago was executive director in charge of building the straw poll and caucus. so a couple things near and dear to me collide here on january 3.

the first is the issues. i'm an issues guy and a campaign guy. that's the first thing. another one is this process, it's ut -- our responsibility. a lot of port -- reporters around the state as we get around the state ask me why iowa? >> hey, where you been? they say why iowa? i say why do you play the rose bowl in pasadena? because this is where it is! these people right here tell you why iowa goes first. because we're engaged in the process and we understand that there is a two-way responsibility. we ask the candidates to come to the state because we want to get a sense of who they are, look them in the eye and come to our debates and forums and town halls and i guarantee you the -- folks you iowans ask a

heck of a lot tougher questions than the national media does. you should get the first choice. in a couple days we're going to meet for about an hour, hour and a half. at the beginning of that hour, we're going to tell the whole world watching exactly who we think should be the next president of. united states. at the end of that hour we're going to put the planks together that create our platform. i volunteered for the santorum campaign for that hour. everything we're doing, building this momentum, building something special is for that hour. i intend to do everything i can to make sure the vote at the beginning of the night matches the votes pe take at the end of the night. that those things we stand for, life, soskrinti, limited constitutional government -- sovereignty, limited constitutional government, all the things that create the rock-ribbed platform, that

those votes michigan thed -- candidate we put ford to be the next president of the united states. ladies and gentlemen, there is only one person in this race that i have faith in, who i have trust in who has the record, not only the record but will fight for every one of these issues that's important to us. one candidate that embraces every one of the pillars of american exceptionalism, one candidate that can take america to the level -- next level of our destiny. ladies and gentlemen, senator rick santorum. [applause] ? thank you. thank you very much, chuck. chuck's been a little bit of a good luck charm for us. i don't know if you saw it today, in "the new york times," i know a lot of people don't read the norge tivepls, i

happen to be one of those that don't, but neverthelessing in the "new york times" they had a lit --lyion of all the moteds of transportation the candidates are taking the at the top they had buses, cars, s.u.v.'s and the different number of people in the caravan. then the neppings person way bus and a birch other people and cars and another with, romney with an airplane an the caravan and bus. so all these, i mean stretched halfway across the page one after another and another and then it came down to me and it was chuck's truck and one other person. usually it's my john -- son john, who is here with me today, or my daughter elizabeth, who is here with me today. so we're very, very proud of the fact that we've done this the way you would think that republican candidates would run a campaign. like every dollar mattered and

that we weren't going to go out and waste a lot of money on a bunch of people running game round with earpieces in their hands and clipboards, not doing anything. but in fact we actually put your dollars to work to actually get a message across and that's what we did. don't travel with a lot of staff. we have a very lean machine and we focused on putting lead on the target, that is, making sure that we ran an effective campaign that went out and got that mental across and that we spent our dollars wisely on radio and television as limited we had. that's what we did and we believed ultimately that money didn't really matter in this race, that what mattered is talking to iowans because i was told, i remember coming here swe -- very, very early in this process and i was talking to governor brantstead and chuck grassley and others and i said

i'm probably not going to have a lot of money. the and the consistent statement to me was you can't buy iowa. you've got to earn the votes of iowans. and i can tell you through this entire process, week after week after week, this is my 361st town hall meeting in the state of iowa and for all this year except maybe the last five days, i got this question. why are you still doing this? you're the only one out here meeting with iowans? you're the only one who's gone around and spent -- we spent two hours in davenport in a town hall meeting as -- and took questions. they said why are you doing that? because i want to earn the trust of the folks of iowa. they're going to make the first call. they said well, you're not moving anywhere in the polls ms

one reminded me at the last event, she said, you know, about two months ago you told me you would get your bump the last week of the campaign from the people of iowa. no national media coverage would do it, no glib answer at a debate, no fancy slogan, but the hard work be communedating a strong, principled conservative message across the board, having the record to back that up and having the courage to be able to fight for that as president and deliver the kind of change that iowans want to see happen in washington, d.c. well, ladies and gentlemen, this race is not over but we're seeing signs that the people of iowa are doing exactly what governor and chuck grass -- grassley and so many others said, that you can't buy iowa, you've got to do out and work for iowa's votes, you've got to

have the right principles, the right record and prove that you can get the job done. but if you have those things shall the people of iowa are not going to defer their judgments to pundits would don't even ever come see a candidate speak. the only people the pundits listen to are each other. iowans take the job seriously. tchuck made the point correctly, and that is that you have a big responsibility. you're firt -- first. you fight to be first. so what i have been saying over the past few weeks is do not defer your judgment to national polls. there was a poll taken two months ago by pew and they asked the question can you name any one of the republicans who are running for president? 4% couldn't name one. yet they're the ones the national media chase as round and says oh, look where the polls are. it has nothing to do with what

you've just done, which is serious people who are going to be going to caucuses, taking the time to find out about the candidates. how many of you here have met at least once one other candidate, republican candidate running are for president? that's the difference. don't defer to people who 95% of them haven't met anybody or even bothered to look into them. lead. lead this country. lead and provide to the people of new hampshire and south carolina and on forward, give them your best judgment as to when who the vite person is to take on -- right person is to take on barack obama and go out and lead this country. we, and the second point i would make, we would all love to defeat barack obama, but we don't need a siric victory.

we -- pyrrhic victory. we want a victory that results in fundamental change that america needs. so i would ask you to make sure that when you are voting for this candidate that you vote for someone that you know can do the job that makes the mum -- fundamental changes that are necessary. so those are the two charges i give to you. am i hearing myself in the background here? oh, sorry about that! sorry for those of you out there getting twice of me. so let me just say to you that i obviously believe that i'm the candidate that can do just that. we wouldn't be out there and tramping around the state of iowa -- look, i like the other folks -- folks who are up on the dais with me at the debates. they're all really good people and would all make better presidents than brofpblete no doubt about that. but your job is to make the tough call, that slice, if you

will, as to who should be at the top. i would just say if you're looking for someone that's got that strong record of being a consistent -- be -- this is going to be harder than i thought. [laughter] if you're looking for someone who's got the strong record of being a conviction conservative who has that -- this is really hard. [laughter] i feel like i'm doing one of those remotz from australia, you know? someone who has the strack -- track record of being a conservative across the board, someone who's been out there be in the trenches fighting for life and for people, someone who's been fighting for reforming our entitlement programs and balancing or budget, someone who's been fighting against rad i can a.m. islam and very voted for --

their time not just as a congressman but outside, writing, lecturing all over the country, who's held those conservative values and fought for them and been able to do it in pennsylvania, that is not a republican state. here i am, i went out and not just once but twice won a heavily democratic congressional zrifpblgt -- district. not once but twice went out and won a state with a million are more democrats than republicans. let's see what we can do to win in the districts we have to win the state to win the presidency. who's been able to get those reagan democrats? the reagan democrats who are going to make the difference in this race. why do i say that? well, if you look at the states that are going to be in play in this election, basic lib the states that run from pennsylvania to iowa with the

exception of illinois, those are in play. pennsylvania, indiana, michigan, wisconsin, missouri -- those are the states that are going to decide this election. well, i come from one of those states. it's very much like the rest of them, the ones that if you can hold on to the republican base and build with independents and particularly blue-collar democrats you can win these states and you can win them against any candidate. ladies and gentlemen, i've got the track record to do that. i've got the policies to do it. we put forward a bold economic plan, but the focus of that plan is to get the economy going, simplify the tax code, get rid of the death tax, but on the corporate tax side we cut the corporate tax in half but for manufacturers, that key part of that industrial midwest i'm talking about, we eliminate the corporate tax. why?

because we want marshalltown, we want des moines, we want mason city, we want sioux city, we want davenport, those towns all over iowa and all over the country to be able to two out and -- go out and compete again for the jobs that built those towns. [applause] we won't be abe to do that unless we make america more competitive and the only way you are going to do that is to deal with what makes business uncompetitive versus the rest of the markets we have to deal with. we are 20% more expensive to do business in, in america, on a manufacturing basis than our nine top trading partners. and that doesn't count labor cost. if we don't do something to reduce that cost, then we're going to continue to see our jobs migrating over -- overseas. i was on "kudlow" last night

and larry sort of came after us, he said what are you doing? not the supply-side model, you cut everything across the board. why should florists or restaurants or banks pay a high corporate tax and manufacturers not pay corporate taxes? you know what my answer was? because this restaurant isn't moving to china. right? the florist isn't moving to fina. we're lowsing jobs because we're competing for making things. you can make things anywhere. we have to create an environment where we can not only create the new technologies, the new microphones, cameras, the newspaper ipads, whatever they are. we're creating all this new technology but not making that technology here, by and large. so we're seeing a lot of wealth accumulate but not trickle down

to the blue-collar folks. you see it in the unemployment rate, 4.4 for college educated but over 10% for blue collar workers. 9 folks at the bottom of the income scale don't rise as fast as we used to. there are many european countries that have more income mobility than we do now. why? because we've government -- lost that base. if you want someone who is going to help blue collar america and going to go into michigan, into wisconsin, into ohio and missouri iowa and get votes across the board to be able to take on president obama and his elitist policies of government knows best and we're going to tax rip people so we can make a dependent grown people on the federal government who won't pay taxes

but get government benefits, that's the model of obama. it's not my bo model. it's not the american model. it is speckly un-american. ladies and gentlemen, we have a chance not only to do something right for the economy, we have to do something right politically for us to win this election. that's why i need your hip. i need -- help. i need your help to go out there on caucus day. i'm getting all this, you see we have a few cameras today -- getting all this attention because the people of iowa seem to be moving in our direction because of the message i've been delivering. i talk about faith, family, and freedom. i actually changed this, but we didn't have enough money to reprint the poster. to faith plus family equals freedom. we're not going to be a free

people, a strong economy, unless we have families who are together to nurture children in faith and virtue and morality so we can have limits government and free people. [applause] our economy will not be strong unless the foundation and right there are the foundations of this economy. right now we have to understand that the economy is weak. i was talking with chuck colson earlier today and we were talking about this very issue and chuck said to me, you know, he said almost everybody in prison, almost all of them, these men in prison are there because this has broken down. they didn't have dads in their life. you know our prison population has increased 10 times, 10

times who -- what it was in 1975. we had a little over 200,000 people in jail. we now have over two million in jail. you chart the increase in the prison population with the decrease, what's happened in the last 30 years? the last 30 years, report just came out a couple weeks ago. 30 years ago, the percentage of people married over age 18 in america was 71%. today it's 51%. as the family breaks down, we have to build more prisons and as long as the family breaks down, we're going to continue to build more prisons and we're going to be less free. ladies and gentlemen, this is what's at stake. we have a president who specifically rejects this. president of the united states that was on bill bennett's show the other morning, his radio

program, he was talking about his wife elaine who runs a program called best friends, which is a program that focuses in on young girls to try to keep them from having children out of wedlock, and they, a big part of their program is abstinence. they've now been informed bit obama administration that you can't talk about abstinence, can't use that word anywhere, because of course who are we to impose our values on these young girls? secondly, you can't talk about marriage. you can't say wait until marriage, because marriage is one of a variety of lymph -- different lifestyles, none of which is better than the other. i -- i hear this all the time from the left. santorum, quit imposing your values on us. what's that? their values are just secular

values that are antithetical to the basic foundation of our country. they're imposing their morality, but that's ok because it's secular, because it's not based on any biblical principles. ladies and gentlemen, this is the crossroads of american civilization in this election. the people of iowa have the opportunity to strike the first blow. i ask you to strike the blow for someone who understands these foundational principles, who's got a track record of going out and fighting and winning not just elections but winning in washington, d.c. on these principles. that's why i ask for your vote today and i'd be happy to take your questions. [applause]

how do you like the iowa state vest? pretty good? i was over at a sports bar in ames ans -- and sporting that. i'll be at another establishment tonight and my guess is i'll have a plaque and gold vest on the plaffer ha -- [laughter] just so you know i am absolutely nonpartisan in that regard the the hi. >> hi. thanks for being here and thank for putting in all the time in our state. i deserve it. my question is about national service programs like amer i corps and senior corps. it helps out really well known nonprofits like habitat for humanity and teach more america -- i see you nodding so i know you know what i'm talking about. right now hundreds of iowans work in the community,

mentoring chirns -- children, helping out with habitat. recently i helped out in hamburg with the flood recovery there and was very beloved. i was wondering if you would be interested in strengthening these types of programs. >> yeah, i was someone who was a very ardent supporter of these programs for a long time. i actually engaged then in -- the the senator i defeated when i became u.s. senator, he was appointed the head of. -- ae -- americorps. harris wofford. he reached out and said i know you're a strong opponent of this but can we work together to reform this program so it can be more broadly accepted within the correct me if i'm wrong -- congress? and so i did. i worked with him and we took

it out of what was really just another government program that supported government agencies to a program that did work primarily with nonprofit organizations and tried to be a value-add. my concern with this and with a lot of these programs in washington, d.c. doctor washington, d.c. right now is not that there aren't some very valuable and important programs being done in washington, d.c. and some that actual hi work reasonably well, but is it the role of the federal government to do this when you are running a $1.2 trillion deficit? when we're going to cut as i have said $5 trillion, there are going to be a lot of programs that have a lot of waste and inefficiency that have every reason to be cut and have to go. and there are going to be programs like the e -- ame river. i corps program that you could argue benefit a lot be things

but we just don't have the resorse -- resources. why? this isn't something that needs to be done at the federal level. this could be done at the state or local level and we don't need to have the federal government involved in things that can be done at a lower level. the point you make yourself is that they work with folks at the lom level. the states could do that. the localities could do that if it's a value program that does in fact help the local community orp state, i would make the argument that they pick up this idea and use it. it's not that i think necessarily it's a bad program. there are a lot not things that go on in washington you could say this is well run. it does -- just doesn't need to be done at the federal level. it's not the function of the federal government to do it. anyone who thinks you can just go in there and slash and cut

and there are things that aren't going to be cut, it's simply not true. .

>> what can we do in america to get government working again where there is less of the tree all? -- vitriol. >> the question was what was in the 1980's that work then and cannot work now? we are dealing with a different situation in washington. tip o'neill and bob dole were able to work together on a lot of things. both sides were willing to compromise. the problem was with the compromise was.

until the welfare reform bill of 1996, what we had was republicans compromising on doing less of what the democrats wanted to do. i used to call republicans to democrats. if the republicans wanted to do something -- instead of saying, this is the wrong thing to do, we need to put this back into the private sector. it was always grow in government, but less so. that has been the case for decades in america. one caveat was welfare reform, which i was the author of. i was on the ways and means committee. i was the ranking member of the subcommittee that had responsibility over welfare. i was charged by newt gingrich to draft a bill, which i did. ultimately, i came over to the

united states senate through a quirk of events and banished to sponsor the bill in the united states said. instead of growing government, we said we would do things the other way around. we would shrink government. we block granted this program and the entitlements. aft -- 82 families -- aid to dependent families with children -- that as much as children with mothers working did. we said we would capet and freeze the funding and give it to the state. we had two -- cap it and give the money to the states. putting time limits on welfare and putting a work requirement on welfare.

what did we compromise on? they vetoed it twice. the left was going apoplectic. the left was absolutely going berserk. clinton continued to veto it. the fall of 1996 rolled around and bob dole was beating him over the head for not passing welfare reform because he promised to do so. what did clinton do? he made a deal. he made the deal to add a little bit of money on day care and transportation to get folks to work and we passed the bill. he signed it bank. we got seven democratic votes to move government in another direction. except for that, we do not have major accomplishments for shrinking the federal government. now we have a group in washington, thankfully as a result of the next election.

we have candidates running for president who are saying, no more. we are not going to compromise on doing less of what the democrats want to do and call that a good compromise. in the last couple of years, you have blown the door is open on expanding government. now we are saying the era of big government is over. that was a line then u. under rick santorum, we will make it stick. we will make sure that the compromises you have to have are less of what you want to do, which is shrinking government. we are going to propose $5 trillion. we will take program after program and we are going to cut those programs. we are going to change things. the reason we cannot get compromise is because republicans are saying enough. we are not doing this anymore.

the media pulls their hair out. what happens to the good old days? what happens to the good old days is we are tired of doing more bigger and bigger and bigger government and more taxes and spending and bigger and bigger deficits. we are not going to do its bank -- do it. there are fundamental disagreements. we finally have enough conservatives and the public is realizing, what have we done? that is why we need a leader who is willing to go out and be honest with the american public about the problems we face so we can start to make some big changes in washington, d.c. it we reelect president obama, that will not happen. if we elect someone who does not have a clear vision and a track record of being a strong, courageous conservative, washington and will roll them

like they have rolled presidents in the past. that will not happen under my watch. [applause] anybody else? go ahead. >> i am curious about some things you said a while ago about the things going on. would you explain to us what happens? you were being accused of voting for a lot of pork. i would like an explanation for that. >> the question is, adversaries in the process have noticed that my poll numbers have ticked up so they are starting to level the attacks. the question is about pork barrel spending. let's walk through this. tax dollars are sent from iowa

and every other state to washington, d.c. the senators -- in the constitution it says who has the power to appropriate funds. congress does. we appropriate that binds. we appropriated funds. we are levying taxes. we are not going to appropriate funds and give it to the present and let him spend it any time he wants. does that sound and reasonable? i do not think so. people railed against earmarked. earmarks were not the problem. congress can allocate resources. you make sure resources get allocated back to pennsylvania for things you believe are important for your state. that was the case for a long time. what happened is that there were abuses as spending exploded. they tied the abusive earmarked

to the voting for bigger spending bills. this became the watchword. you were either against earmarks or you work for big spending. i said, fine, let's end earmarks. the person who was the big ender demint,arked, jim for the first years of his term, he had earmarks, too. at some point, we said we have got to stop this. i agreed and have agreed in this campaign to do so. for governor perry to point out that this was some egregious practice and that congress actually spent money when he hired lobbyists to get money for the state of texas through earmarks, this shows a little

bit of hypocrisy. i apologize. i said, look at my earmarks. look at the ones i advocated 4. i will not take responsibility for everything in every bill. look at the things i advocate is for. i am proud of the fact that we put some things in there. there was one example. it was four or five years in the defense department budget. i advocated for money for something called the institute for engineering. it was in my home town. it was the genitive -- regenative medicine for growing back fingers and spines. a lot of our troops were coming back badly hurt and having great damage in their bodies.

many of these soldiers, without the medicine we have a bill now would not have made it. people were able to survive horrible injuries at war. there was this technology available that could help restore some functions that could be there. i went to the army and i said, you have to find this. they said, we don't have the have to fund- said, you this. i kept as it for four years. now there is a huge program. folks are getting much better care and much better treatment and doing much better as a result of this. sometimes bureaucracy is wrong. sometimes they make a bad mistake. sometimes congress has to step in and say, we are going to do

things differently. earmarks, yes. they were abused and we should end them. we cannot trust the bureaucracy to make the right call. i know it is not the most popular thing to say. for a president, it is easy. i get to spend all of the money because congress does not have the chance to do so. the right thing to do is to listen to the people in the community, listen to members of congress and see what they have to suggest and recommend on what might be a better way to spend that money. i will not approve earmarks, but i will listen to congress and what their recommendations are. sometimes the chuck grassley knows better about what to spend in iowa than a bureaucrat in washington, d.c. [applause] yes, sir. >> i am and maureen.

thank -- marine. i bought my trulls year-old daughter tonight -- brought to my 12 year old daughter here tonight. what can you do to make sure she is not deployed? >> to make sure america is strong and to make sure we finish the job and that we protect our values throughout the world with all the relationships we have. in particular, i believe if we do not deal with the situation is particularly with iran right now, there is a much higher probability that not only will your children be deployed somewhere, but your children are likely to be harmed in this country. if we do not stop iran, the greatest purveyor of terror in the world today, from having a

nuclear shield that will protect them from being attacked, you will see terror explode not just in the middle east, but around the world. iran has systematically attacked this country. they continue to do so. you say, what do you mean? iran has been at war with the united states since 1979. they captured the hostages, as you recall. the parallels with this president and jimmy carter are eerily similar. you see iran developing a nuclear weapon now. during the carter administration the iranian revolution and the hostage crisis. america was led by a president who was frozen, feckless, unable to deal with crises on his lap. here we have barack obama, where

his own party passed a tough sanctions bill, obama frozen, unable to act, afraid to upset anybody. he refuses to impose those sanctions. this is a parallel that is startlingly apparent. we need a president to come in as reagan came in. our enemies knew that what we said we would follow through with. barack obama has said that iran would not get a nuclear weapon. he has done nothing to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon. they are running military exercises. what is the president doing? the iranians tried to kill the saudi arabian ambassador on our own soil? what was president obama's response? iranian are killing our men and

women in uniform in afghanistan today, supplying ied's to the rebels in afghanistan. what is the president of the united states doing? ladies and gentlemen, they are developing a nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver it. what is the president of the united states do end? >> playing golf in hawaii. >> he is afraid that if we upset iran it will hurt oil production and hurt the economy. that me assure you, mr. president, iran with a nuclear weapon will hurt the economy a lot more. he is helping iran will not develop a nuclear weapon between now and november. he is afraid to do anything that

will hurt his reelection chances. he is hoping that iran is unable to get a nuclear weapons so he can get elected. this is the sadness that i feel deep inside for our country, that we have a leader that does not have the courage to protect our country, does not have the courage to do what he says he wants to do, which is stop them from getting a nuclear weapon. he is frozen for his own political gain. if you want to protect your daughter and protect men and women in this country and around the world who are deployed, the best thing we can do is to adopt those congressional sanctions, work with the pro-democracy movement, tell scientists around the world working on the iranian nuclear program that we will treat you just as an al qaeda member, an enemy combatants. we will use code words ---

covert activities. iran has said repeatedly that they want to destroy the state of israel. we need to say that unless you open up those facilities, unless you begin the process of disbanding what -- disbanding would you have built, we will use whatever means to do so with air strikes. that is action that backs up the policy. that is what presidents are supposed to do. [applause] >> my question is, how is your stance on abortion different than your fellow republican candidates? how are you going to draw in the conservative voted? >> the principle difference is a

question of leadership. there are a lot of candidates who are running and who check the box and say i am pro life and i am against its embryonic stem cell research. you can go through the list. most of them now are saying -- mitt romney was openly pro- choice at one point. now he has decided that he is going to be a conservative and be against abortion. i welcome him to the team. the question is, do you feel comfortable going out there and advocating for the culture of life? number 2, are you going to lead an advance the culture of life? if you look at the track record, we have the best track record of actually doing both of those things. there are few candidates to go around and talk about the things

i talk about, who talk about the importance of the foundation all rights of our country, life liberty and the pursuit of -- the foundational rights of our country, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. they say life begins at conception. i do not believe life begins at conception. i know life begins at conception. [applause] it is a biological fact. we concede ground when we use terms that sound like a belief or an article of faith instead of a description of a biological fact. that is what we need. we need someone who is going to go out and beat unapologetic in laying out the truth to the american public not only on

family life, but on all the issues we are dealing with. this is the most critical time in our country's history, economically, morally, culturally, national security. the reason president obama has divided this country is that he has not told the truth to this country. he hides the ball. he plays games. he puts groups against one another. it is a political chess game. i get a lot of critics who have been calling me at our town hall meetings. they say, santorum has not figured out what it means or what it takes to be president. he gives these long answers. he actually describes the problem and tries to bring people along to the solutions instead of crisp sound bites that the media can cover and that will get him attention and he will look like a leader.

i do not want to look like a leader. i want us to leave. -- to lead. if you are a leader as a president, you have to motivate the american public. the best way to do that is to be truthful, to lay out the problems and say, here are the problems that we have. what are we going to do to join together and solve those problems? it is hard enough to get the american public to join as divided as we are. there are common things we can agree on. one of those, things we should agree on are the basic foundational principles of our country based on the declaration of independence. do you, as an american, believe as an article of american civic religion that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that

all men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. do we still believe that? [applause] if we still believe that, at the heart of american exceptionalism, that dictates a certain course of action. if everyone is in doubt by gugod, not any god, but the god of isaacs, abraham, and jacob, to the right of life, and that is something we need to have. what comes with freedom? freedom and responsibility.

freedom is not an open checkbook to write whenever check you want, to perform whatever actions you want. some who run for president be the freedom is to do whatever you want to do. freedom to use drugs, as long as you are not hurting anybody else, just do it. i call that no-fault freedom, freedom without responsibility. we cannot long last as a country with people going around living lives that are not irresponsible. freedom comes with the responsibility to do not what you want to do, but what you ought to do. that is the freedom of our founders gave us.

if you look at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, happiness in the karnak either today has a different meaning than -- the vernacular today has a different meaning than it did at the time of our founding. happiness is enjoyment, pleasure, what makes you feel good, what makes you happy. at the time of our founders, one of the principal definitions was to do the morally right thing. think about what our founders envisioned, the freedom to do the morally right thing. rights given to us from god to serve him and his will. can we get americans to agree on that or not? i would think that the vast majority of americans would agree with those foundational

principles. how do we build upon that? we build a culture of life. we tried to do so with those foundational principles in mind, we build a culture of freedom, freedom to do what you should do, not what you want to do. yes? go ahead. >> i would like to know what you are going to do about immigration on the border of mexico and the dangers of the drug lords have cost down there and the killings that are going on on the mexican border? . >> i believe we are a country of laws. we should enforce the laws of our country. if you look at the situation in america today, we have a law that says the border of america

should be secure. according to the general accounting office, the border is 42% secured. if you have a fence 42% around your property, do you feel secure? is either secure or is not secure. we should get a border that is secure. i do not mean we need to build a fence. there is private property that goes across. you have to have the personnel, the technology and the physical barriers to a coppers 100% security. that is in the best interests of our country. we need to execute that and as president of the united states, i will. number 2, there are laws about coming to this country legally. newt gingrich said that if you

are in this country for x number of years, we will not break up your country and you have lived here a long time and we should not break up families who have lived here for all these years. first off, if you have been here for 25 years and he said you have been working and be productive, you have been breaking the law. you are not allowed to work here if you are here illegally. you probably still somebody's social security number. you are talking about continual violations. we have families who have been in this countries for 25 years. if they break the law and if it is a serious enough laws to break, you get separated from your family and you are sent to jail. so we do not send anyone to jail who has a family. would that be against our family values? no, there is justice. when people do something wrong,

there is justice that has to be meted out. we are not sending them to jail. we are sending them home. the majority of people who come to this country illegally are from central and south america and from mexico. mexico has a faster growing economy now than the united states. i would just say that i am is a first-generation american. my father and grandfather came to this country. my grandfather came in 1925. he came after serving in world war i. after world war i, he saw mussolini come to power in italy. after three years of that, he says, i have seen this story before. i would not live up and i will not let my children live in a country where the government is telling us everything to do in our lives. he left a beautiful town in

northern italy and came to the united states and moved to somerset county, pennsylvania and worked in the coal mines until he was 72 years old. he wanted to go to a country who believe in him. he made sacrifices. he left his family for five years, earned his citizenship, and brought them over. there are people right now who leave their familie hind -- families behind because america is worth the sacrifice. it is nothing against immigrants. it is not trying to be hostile or mean. it is just try to be fair and try to make sure we maintain ourselves as a country of laws. [applause] anybody else?

out here in the peanut gallery. cheap seats? >> i want to thank you for coming here today. the question i have for you is, there has been a federal takeover of education in the last few years. i was wondering if you have any specific plans in taking on the federal takeover of education and would that include appealing no child left behind and abolishing the department of education -- include repealing no child left behind and abolishing the department of education? >> i have been a strong, consistent conservative. i use the term consistent, not perfect. i would not claim i am perfect in all of my votes. the 1 vote i look back on and wish i had not cast -- i was not a big proponent of this bill.

it was one of the bills i voted 4. i am convinced it was not the -- it was one of the bills i voted for. i am convince it was not the right thing to do. it gave us some incentive to try to make local and state government to propose changes in the way we educate our children. it has been a bureaucratic mess. it has been a huge cost. it has been an enormous amount of growth in the federal government. the federal share of education went from 3% to 11%. the paper and the mandates and the government control from washington, d.c. has been a disaster and something we should get rid of. i would propose the repeal of no child left behind. [applause] i would say we need to replace income -- we need to replace to focus on the

customer of the education system. who is the customer of the education system? the parent. why are the parents the customer of the education system? because they are the ones responsible for educating their children. we have this idea that government is responsible for educating children. they are not. you are responsible, as parents, to educate your children. the government is there to help you, not take the job from you. does the government, in any real way, cooperate with you in educating your children? no, they do not. you either take the offering the government provides for you, or take your children somewhere else to be educated.

we have seven children. elisabeth and john id two oldest. they were such good kids that we wanted to have more. -- a as bit and john -- is dea elisabeth and john are the two oldest. home schooling is hard, but freedom is hard. it takes a lot more work than if you are willing to hand off to someone else to do for you. we send our kids to schools and we send our kids to different schools. why? because elizabeth learns differently than sarah maria does. we were fortunate enough to be

able to have that choice. why doesn't every american parent have that choice? because the bureaucracy says you do not. they say, take the money and do with it what we say. with any business in america survive with that attitude? with any business or by its they said, this is what you get -- which any business survive if it said, this is what you get. did you do not like it, go somewhere else. we need an education system where the federal government and thet a bof it president in powers parents to take the responsibility of educating children and working with administrators to give every child the best chance to get the kind of education that will lead them to be successful academically.

this is the other problem with education. focuses on the narrow area of academics. not spirituality or character or other things that help form a well-rounded child. they are left out of the education process in most cases in america. why would we not want our children to get a complete, a full education so they can be not just academically achievers, but good decent moral people. what is the problem with customized education? the problem is we have leaders who have not fought, leaders who have not tried to rally the american public. you have my commitment. i will not impose any solutions on this country. i will rally parents to demand the kind of solutions they want

for their children. [applause] how many more questions do we have? 1, 2, 3. three more questions. we will start with the peanut gallery. yes, sir. >> i am a believer of states rights. i did not hear the answer about what you would do about the department of education. would there be departments that would be more properly administered by the states? >> what i would do with the department of education is i would take -- i get a kick out of people saying, i will delayed this department that department. if we eliminate the energy department, there is a whole body of bills or acts that the energy department executes. say we get rid of the energy

department. who is going to implement these bills? we cannot have laws on the books and not enforce them. the idea that we are going to eliminate the energy department is the list. we would just shipping them to someone else. you do not eliminate the department, you eliminate the functions of the department. when i talk about the department of education, you did not hear me say i would eliminate the department of education. eliminate the federal government control over primary and secondary education. there are things that the department of education does, some of which i agree on getting rid of. fisa i will eliminate education, you get the impression that you do not -- if i say i will eliminate education, you get the impression that i do not care about education. if you say, i will get rid of this department, everyone is

asking about it. fors talk about my decision taking a lot of federal programs and putting them back on the states. the biggest ones are means tested entitlement programs. there are 72 different means tested entitlement programs, the most expensive of which is medicaid. the next is food stamps, housing programs, training programs, and a long list after that. what i would suggest is that one by one by one, we do exactly what i did with welfare. block grant them, send them to the states, put a requirement of work and a time limit and give the states the flexibility to design a program. when we did this with welfare in 1996, across the river, the mississippi, in wisconsin,

welfare rolls went down 92%. people were transitioned off. we got them to work. newt gingrich said poor people cannot seem to learn the work ethic. then he talked about the great work he did on welfare. obviously, he does i know what great work he did on welfare. what we did on welfare was put poor people to work. lot of folks went to work who were on welfare who were making minimum-wage and slightly above and were still considered working poor. but they were working. when did gingrich says, kids do not see mother working our parents working, that is not true. single mothers work really hard. people in job of two

a household. unfortunately, they have a failure rate. you would expect that because it is really hard. what do we need to do with our means tested entitlement programs is give back to the states and help them design programs that transition people out of welfare, transition them out of poverty, and give them the opportunity to rise in society. the one thing our states should be able to do is go out and talk about the things that are necessary. for children to stay out of poverty. there was a 2009 brookings institute study. it was done by a guy working with me when i developed to the welfare bill. i always say two things. the third thing is obvious. you do three things in your life. you will have almost a zeroth

chance to be in poverty in america. -- a zero chance to be in poverty in america. one is obvious. you have to work. it cannot stay out of poverty if you do not work. what does the other two things? graduate from high school. not college. a graduate from high school. what is the third thing? what did you say? i heard it over here. get married. you get married before you have children, graduate from high school, and work, the chances of being in poverty in america is 2%. the chance you will be above median income, 77%. do you want the key to success in america? work, a graduate from high school, get married before you have children. we have the federal government

telling young girls that they cannot talk about marriage and a cannot talk about having children out of wedlock. why would we tell children or fail to tell children -- or nurtured them with the ticket to avoid being poor. maybe we do not care if they are poor. or maybe it's worse than that. this is the brookings institute. this is a liberal think tank. we need a leader who is willing to be honest with the american public. tell the truth and lead this country in a direction that is consistent with our values, which made this country the greatest country in the world. [applause]

>> senator santorum, it is so predictable that when conservative candidates -- whether they are governors or any kind of executive -- says we are going to make these necessary cuts -- our national debt is on unfathomable. it boggles the mind. -- is unat the mall -- unfathomable. it boggles the mind. every single time, we have seen at the state level or the federal level, somebody immediately said, you cannot cut this because you are not compassionate or you are going to put people out on the street. you cannot cut this because this is important. every single group does that. up until now, for the most part,

we caved. they say, obviously, we cannot cut back. we are seeing -- are seen as not being compassionate. saying,we get back to save no, i will take this away from you so that you can get it back. that is the pioneer spirit. >> we need to start telling the narrative of who we are and reminding us. the president has to provide a vision. hopefully, you have got from this discussion where i want to go, what kind of america i want to live in. are we still the country that believes in the founding principles and the declaration of independence and the country

that builds the government that structured a country that build the greatest country in the world? do you still believe in that america. president obama does not. if you read his speech in america and listen to -- and see what he is doing and he believes that america never works and needs to be fundamentally restructured. that is why you see little accommodation. we start out at two different point. the president thinks america is fundamentally flawed. traditional families and free enterprise is a failure. it is wrong, it is broken. and that we have a different model that works. it is hard to find compromise. this is why this election is so important. which merited do you believe? do you believe the narrative -- which now are tens -- which

narrative do you believe? do you believe we should be like the rest of the world's? world? smart people should manipulate the market place and dictate to folks how to run their firms and how to run their businesses because they know better and they are best to allocate resources. i will use two quotes, one that president obama said at one that mrs. obama said. he went out and talked about all of these entitlement programs, unemployment insurance, medicare, medicaid, social security, welfare. he said america is a better country because of these commitments.

he said, i will go one step further. america was not a great country before these commitments. america is not a great country because the federal government decides how much money to take from you and then distribute to other people who they believe is more worthy -- are worthy than you. the president of the united states did not think america was a great country until the government micromanaged your life. america was born a great country, but he does not believe that. remember what mrs. obama said during the campaign actor husband started during well -- doing well? she said, for the first time i am proud to be an american. this is who our present is. this is his vision. when he said hope and change, he meant change.

he believes america is a broken model and always has been. when he went out around the world on his first trip and apologized for america -- he thought america needed to be apologized for. we need someone who believes in the narrative of american exceptionalism and can go out and promote that. we need a big wave election. three times in american history big changes have happened in washington. one, the new deal. second, the great society. third, 2009 under obamacare and the obama administration. they were the only three times that the president, the house, and the senate where of the same party but the senate having a

filibuster-proof majority in the senate to get whatever the president wanted done. republicans have never had that. they have a chance of getting that in this election. all or all of those listening on c-span, you go out into the states where there are elections this year. there are 23 democratic senators up for election this year. we pick up 13 of those scenes -- of those seats, then you will see the kind of changes that will happen almost certainly. the better we do, the bigger the change. and the better the president we elect to be able to weave the narrative to the american public, the better chance of getting those things done. last question.

>> something i would like you to expand on. >> i never have trouble expanding on things. >> how would you preserve your values when you are operating in the washington machine? >> when i served in the united states senate, people said, stop talking about your record. i think people believe past practice is a pretty good indication of future practice. when i served in the united states senate, i was proud of the people we surround ourselves with. i had one keep a staff for 16 years. i had a staff that was as good as anybody in the united states senate. we gave them a test they had to fill out. i wanted to see what they believe and why they be the

-- believed it. i wanted people who could execute based on the commander's intent. you find people who want to be in that foxhole with you and see the cause and can go out and perform those duties consistent with that cause. that is just leadership. if you provide that personally and if you demand that of everybody else, then i think you are going to have an administration that will be faithful to the mission that i articulate it to the american public when i ran for office -- articulated to the american public when i ran for office. there is no office that had more things that it accomplished for the conservative cause on national security, on moral,

cultural, and economic issues than we did in the time that i was in the united states senate. if past practice is an indication, we had a great group of people around us and they accomplished a lot for the causes that everybody around believes in. finally, to all of you, caucus day is coming up. it is just a few days away. we have passed out a little paper. we are looking for folks to help us out. if you would be willing to sign up, there is a place for you to sign up. we are looking for caucus captains. i do not know how many caucus captains we have here. this is the piece of paper. if you could fill it out, please do. if you can sign up to be a cop is captain, that means you can go to because the site -- caucus captain, that means you can go

to the site and speak. we have stickers for you to take. you can put it on your coat when you go to church or to be new year's eve party or to the grocery store. it is a conversation starter. this is the time of year when people are talking about going to be caucus. we have signs. put it on your yard. if you find a cornerback is a good place, put it there. it is all the -- if you find a corner that is a good place, put it there. that was a joke. take signs, put a bumper sticker. you can take it right off after the caucus and put it back when i come back to campaign in the fall. help us out. this is the important election in your lifetime. we have to defeat what is going

on in washington, d.c. right now. iowa casts the first vote. you send a signal to the nation. send it loudly, strongly. our founders, at the end of the declaration, said, we pledge our lives, our fortune, and our sacred oath. the four tent part -- on the back of -- the fortune part is on the back of this card. you can take a little box. i know this is the season of giving. i cannot think of any better gift you can give to your children and grandchildren and to the grandchildren you may not even know of that to step up at this point in time in american

history and giving your all to make sure you keep this country free and safe and prosperous. thank you, god bless you, happy new year. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> i want to help you. >> thanks. >> i have to get a picture of that steeler guy. >> would you mind taking a picture? i would appreciate it. >> your finger is in the way.

>> is anybody better at this than i am? >> thank you very much. >> i appreciate your help. >> excellence speech. thank you very much. >> where do you live? you can help us in south carolina. good to see you. thank you. help us out. ofhould probably gerget out the way. >> would you mind taking a picture? great. thank you so much.

>> does that work? >> yep. thank you. >> i have a rick perry sign in my yard. it is coming down and yours is going up. >> thanks for coming. >> thank you. >> rick, we have a young republican here. he needs to take your picture back to third grade. >> you have got to be kidding me, sir. >> 1, 2, 3. best of luck to you.