and offering opinions about turning the economy around when they are the sources of outsourcing. the other issue regarding mitt romney, why has he not offered his tax return? his son just just a day made jokes about barack obama. his birth certificate. i thought we already went down that road. with that said, i do not know why the media has not pressed on monday to offer of his tax returns. i think that will be a big issue. thank you for the opportunity to speak. happy new year to everybody. >> matt romney brought up the point of the press did it. he later apologized with a tweet.

mitt romney has not closed the door to releasing the tax return, he has just said so far he will not do so. cristina is on the republican line. the first real test in this gop primary process is the iowa caucus. what are your thoughts? caller: and encouraging everyone to vote for romney in the iowa caucuses on tuesday. it seems the only republican who can defeat barack obama. he is strong on the economy. that is the number-one issue to me. i have been overworked -- out of work for over a year now. i want to wish my family and loved ones a happy 2012. >> thank you for the call. we are at the vine coffee shop in ottumwa, iowa. our crew will be covering another event with rick

santorum later. you can hear it on c-span radio beginning at noon eastern time. at next, and we will be getting an overview on the history of what happens in the hawkeye state. he is a professor at southern illinois university. this is a portion from today's "washington journal." host: david has been a guest many times over the years. thank you for joining us again. we are hearing 40% or more of iowans or more are undecided

with just three days to go. what is your sense of what they're looking for? guest: this is true in every caucus. it is frustrating to reporters. some of the caucus-goers are professionally undecided. they're looking for a lot of things. they know the decision to support and attention to i know it is important to their party. they want to bet the candidates well. they want to understand where they are on the issues. they also carry a lot about electability. they understand campaigns are important. they want to see how it plays out. candidate may look good today but not good tomorrow. some get in and some get out. they are in no big hurry to make a decision.

they want to hear from their neighbors. political scientists will tell you that family, friends, neighbors are some of the big determinants in how people vote. to be able to sit down with your neighbors and talk, that goes along way toward helping some people make up their minds. they want to get every scrap of information and then they will decide. host: he is now the director of the paul simon public policy institute at southern illinois university. it seems fashionable every four years for some to ask whether iowa really matters in the caucus process. there is a tweet i want to show you to get your take. explain to the country why you think i what matters. what is the history and

importance, in your view? guest: it is the first place in america where the delegate selection process begins and where and rank-and-file activists expressed a preference for a presidential candidate. wherever you start the selection process for president will be a big story, especially in these days of technology where reporters can come from all over the world to cover the story. i have covered this. i understand the criticisms. i think the reason it's day's first is inertia. the country cannot agree on a different way to do if. -- i think the reason it stays first is energy. the country cannot agree on a different way to do it. the inability to come to some

agreement on how else to do the process keeps iowa and new hampshire at the front of the pack. reformers in both parties have come together and added south carolina and nevada to the mix of early states to bring some geographic distribution. one reason why i went and new hampshire becomes so important is that the other states in seeking to have an important role in the selection process are constantly moving their contests closer to iowa and new hampshire, earlier in the calendar. the unintended consequence is to make iowa and new hampshire more important. a candidate who wants to do well in florida has to do well in iowa and new hampshire. if they do not, they have no opportunity to recover. i think the parties are to be commended for doing what they have to compress the events so that more people in other states

have a say in the process. maybe this year on the republican side will be like last time on the democratic side where hillary clinton and barack obama have a nice long race that went through a number of different states. i what is important because it is first. -- iowa is important because it is first. host: we will go deeper into the caucasus as the segment goes on. let's take a call from michigan, a democrat. caller: thank you for your continued opportunity for this nation to stay well-informed. i appreciate your service. i want to tell david i appreciate what he is doing and his representation of his party. i think this caucus is, to many -- cockamamey.

every individual in the nation has the right to vote. they are saying you can walk into any of the caucasus and change your political party for the moment. the process of that is hilarious. if they decide to say i represent him, then they cannot go back and change it. this is ridiculous. we have seen this with president bush, the way they hijacked the boats. --votes. we need to get back to what the previous guest said. we need to have the process would boots on the ground. let the political parties put the boots on the ground and get those votes.

do not do this process. it is hijacking and wrong. let the people speak for who we want. host: thank you, dorothy. guest: i disagree with her on one thing. people can go in to the caucuses and change their registration and vote. the next day, you could change your registration back. there is not a big tradition in iowa of people going into another party's caucus and voting. there is not that much of it. there is anecdotal evidence from time to time, but there has not been that much of it. people can change the registrations after a caucus. host: washington, d.c., sean is on the line. he is an independent. caller: i am concerned about the role the media in picking candidate.

the media seems to want mitt romney to be the republican nominee. they will claim the other nominees are not in a couple -- delectable -- they will claim the other nominees are not delectable. they did the same thing with john mccain. during the general, they will per ande is a flip-flop ar you cannot trust him. guest: having spent 34 years as a member of the media, i understand the caller's frustration. reporters covering a campaign, they do not take sides. they are just trying to cover a story. elect ability is always part of the star. who the next president will be is on everyone's mind.

questions about the horse race and electability to work their way into american journalism. reporters would be the first to criticize the process of being too much of a horse race and not enough focus on issues. that occurs because a lot of american people want to know who is going to win. delegate count, campaign spending reports tend to crowd out larger discussions of issues sometimes. host: the des moines register final poll comes out tonight. how big a deal will this be for the candidates? guest: it is important psychologically. polls are not predictors. this is a picture of a point in time. the race has been fairly fluid.

it is margin of error stuff. it is important site glove -- it is important psychologically to candidates to be doing well. it will fire up your supporters. if you do poorly, it will be depressing to candidates who do not do well. psychologically, is very important. host: we have barre from south carolina. caller: it is like telling me i have freewill when i know i do not. it is like the wholesale molestation of america but trying to blame it on the victim afterward. host: what exactly are you talking about? caller: you bring me up here and put blinders on me. you put five choices in front of my face and tell me there are no

other choices that you are allowed to pick. here are the five choices we tell you that you must pick. guest: i am not quite sure i understand the point. reporters, c-span, and other news organizations are covering the candidates who run. if someone else is not running, that is their choice. that is not a choice of the media people. host: the headline of a piece you wrote says that negativity kills the iowa caucuses. what is the message of the peace, the question you are raising? guest: there is a lot of negativity all over american politics. we all complain and decry it. the fact is a negative campaign works. we have had some pretty negative

campaigns. you look at things said about abraham lincoln, for example. we have had some rough stuff in american political history. it is not a spectator sport or for the faint of heart. you want to have a robust campaign. what turns people off is not only the negativity and the volume, but also the way it distracts from other important issues. when we get into people's personal lives, then i think the electorate feels frustrated. they want to know how people are going to fix the economy. the changes that have occurred in american politics have placed a greater burden on the media. you go back to how the caucuses started. in 1968, the democrats had a horrible convention.

they wanted to reform the process and open it up to include more people. the caucuses are in response to that. in the democratic party, the open them up. they told people where they were. you could file amendments, run for delegate, participate in the platform debate. they broke the back of a lot of political machines and political insiders. they made it much more -- a much more democratic process. people get their information through media people. media people become the new gatekeepers. they become the people who that candidate. in the old days, it might have been a political boss or influential politician. now media people are doing a lot of the betting -- vetting of the candidate. that it's uncomfortable for people. we're talking about personal lives and issues of character. we have discovered what is

important about a president is not just their position on the issues, it is also about their character, where they make decisions, and where they may come down on a given issue. that gives personal and offends a lot of people. i do not know if there is a cure for that, but that is my best description of the way it is. host: pennsylvania is up. joe is on the line for democrats. you are on with david yepsen on the history of the caucuses. caller: i have two comments. my general legal comment is that i think we need a constitutional convention in the united states of america for a new constitution. i think we need a parliamentary system. about an been talking iowa caucus for eight or nine months. we have a campaign cycle going on almost as long as the

official electoral tenure. i think it is unconscionable that we have the ames caucus in september. we have another caucus in january. we are spending all this time and wasting a lot of money on a system that is dysfunctional. host: he is passionate about the process and timetable. dysfunctional, he calls it. guest: there is a lot to criticize about american political campaigns. i have heard other people talking about how we ought to have a parliamentary system. as a practical matter, i doubt we will ever change to that sort of a system. host: we have a little more than 20 minutes left with our guest. he is a longtime writer, columnist, and writer for the

"des moines register." our guest wrote for the washington post recently about what he sees about the iowa caucuses. you write that i will voters do not represent the united states. -- that iowa voters do not represent the united states. guest: iowa is 97% white. many people criticized it having such a big role for that. we're talking about what the activists in each party are doing. those activists do tend to reflect the kinds of people active in their party nationally. if you look at what goes on in a caucus in the party, they look a lot like the same groups of people who show up on the floor of the national conventions.

iowa and a lot of states do not reflect the country as a whole, but the activists to reflect their party. it is a party-building exercise. another myth is is a huge farm state. it is a rural state. manufacturing and financial services are a larger part of the economy now than agriculture. the farmers do not like hearing people say that. the gross state product is more driven by financial services and insurance than it is by agriculture. some stereotypes would figure incorrectly. i started covering campaigns

when jimmy carter was running. i was a young reporter assigned to cover him from time to time. this was a time when candidates would drive around the state with a driver and a reporter. they would meet with people in their living rooms. it was retail. it was one on one. just as american retailing has changed, so has retail politics. now there are hundreds of people. you have the internet and the way it delivers messages. we do not have a lot of things in american politics we used to have. instead, we have campaigning on facebook, the internet, websites, youtube videos. all the campaigns have truckers -- trackers trying to catch them in a gaffe.

i think the retailing has given way to a wholesaling campaign. host: perry is a republican from iowa. caller: i was a lutheran pastor the work in the farm crisis in the 1970's and 1980's. i ran in the republican primary. thank you for your work and reporting over the years. you have done a very good job. i am with the farmers for rick santorum. you are saying we're not significant anymore. american agriculture and iowa still feeds the world. some places have doubled in the last year because china buys so porkof iowa's corn and

products. we are still significant. i warned about the commodity markets and wall street in the 1980's. we did a good job of stopping farm family foreclosures. now we see another round of foreclosures on homes. with your years of experience, what do you think about family farms and their futures? rick santorum is backing american agriculture and the family foarm. i have ridden with him several times. he is going to homes. he is a grassroots man just like senator grassley. guest: as an observer, it is interesting to see rick santorum doing it the old-fashioned way.

he has had something over 350 meetings. he has been doing it the way jimmy carter did. now he is starting to pick back up. it is similar to canada's that do more than something we do something more than just -- it is similar to what jimmy carter did. maybe it says something about doing more than just running advertising and being on the internet. if rick santorum can rally people, he will do well on caucus state. he has picked up well in the polls. he is running in third place. that is far better than a few weeks ago. i think senator santorum has had some success as a political candidate.

big pieces of pennsylvania are rural. i think he felt at home campaigning in rural iowa. host: one of the myths you pointed out is that to win you have to appeal to right-wing activists in iowa. guest: both parties are captured by their extremes. if you are a democrat, you need to run to the left to win caucuses. republicans need to run to the right. there is a lot of truth to that. but if you look at the history of the caucasus, it is often people who are more centrist who wind up with the victory. there are moderates and centrists in both parties. they do not make as mmuch noise as people with more extreme views. they do have a voice. they are looking for winners.

you will see a phenomenon like howard dean in the democratic party. he will rise quickly with modest support from anti-war activists. then they started getting a second look and thinking they wanted something else. throughout the history of the caucuses, if you look at the field of candidates, often it is the more centrist candidate who wins. jimmy carter had people on his left. john kerry's certainly have people on his left. 1980 has a lot of parallels. george herbert walker bush won with a plurality because conservatives were chopping up their votes. ronald reagan, john connally. the same thing may happen here. if so, that could work to mitt

romney's benefit. you have to appeal to the base, but you have to not forget the great center of the electorate. host: a tweet wants to know if iowa will be a swing state next year. guest: iowa has for about the last five cycles been a battleground state. if you look at the presidential totals nationally and the vote totals in iowa, what happens in iowa tends to mirror the national results. in november, it is a battleground state. that is one reason why the democrats are working hard to have a good turnout in their caucuses. the organizational advantage

republicans will come out of the event with, a good list of bees of activists, that will a big help to the republican party in november to have people doing the things that when elections on the margins. a few percentage point will decide iowa's results in november. democrats are worried that they have to get their help to get the -- act together on caucus night to build their organization. host: we go back to your calls. mary, you are an independent. good morning. caller: earlier in the week, you had a representative from the occupy movement on talking about how they're going to get involved in the caucus project.

rackauckas process. he seemed to be reasonable and thoughtful. he denied they were there to disrupt the caucuses. he backpedaled when a representative of the socialist workers party called up to praise the occupy movement for supporting them. later on, you had a program showing the occupy movement rallying in iowa. it became clear that they were there to disrupt the caucasus and that was their plan. they are embracing the socialists. it was apparent from the rally that they are a group of really hateful people who refer to meet gingrich the newt gingrich as a double. they have plans to disrupt as many caucuses as they could.

host: do you love a perspective on the occupy people? guest: that will be something to watch. no one speaks for the occupy movement. they're using their constitutional rights to protest and make their point. there will probably be a few who tried to disrupt something. they will get arrested and call media attention to what they do. that is guerrilla theater. that is what a lot of american protests are about. there is no great tradition of people the truck in caucuses in iowa. i doubt it will be widespread. there may be a handful who try to do that. host: one thing people tend to watch on caucus night is the weather. you call it a myth. how come? guest: i have never seen it occur.

there was some evidence that occurred in 1972 with the first rackauckas under the early system in the post-chicago convention rules. the george mcgovern people did turn out in spite of a bad storm. a lot of other people stayed home. that allowed him to come in second. this is iowa. people are used to getting around in the snow. particularly motivated people who care about their candidate, unless you are just going down the street your precinct. it is not -- you are just going down the street your precinct. you are not helping to drive far. there is always a lot of chatter about the weather. this leads to some sort of myth. my old paper did a good piece examining this phenomenon in some detail and concluded the

same thing i did. it is just more talk than fact. it will be a nice day on tuesday in iowa. there is not likely to be a lot of precipitation. it will be warmer than normal. i would expect it to be totally irrelevant to the outcome. host: you talk about the motivation of iowans in taking it seriously. you say it is a myth they take it more seriously than people in other states. explain not for us. guest: i do not know how you measure that. iowans are diligent and care. i think americans everywhere are that way. i do not think iowa has a franchise on caring about issues. many of our callers this morning illustrate that point. there is a frustration but other americans that the iowa actors get all the attention and why we

cannot spread it around. i have never seen much measurement that shows iowans carol lot more than other people. the average caucus goer in iowa in both parties is higher income, better educated, a bit older than the electorate as a whole. but that is the nature of political activism. the act of going out to party event is a pretty high act of civic engagement. that is more engaging than writing a check for a candidate. you will have a lot of interest in politics with these people. i do not know the iowans are any more interested in issues than other americans. i never seen a measurement. host: don is on the line for democrats from pennsylvania. caller: why are you trying to bring everything on [unintelligible]

it don't make sense. you have people running for president with the child labor laws. they want to change that. the federal judge. that sounds like china. that is what i try to tell people. if they do not know how to vote, they had better learn. . i will tell you something. it is getting bad. the idea, mitt got the guy from new jersey. i could get myself killed for this. he is connected with new york and new jersey families, if you know what i mean. i want to thank you for taking my call.

host: let's hear from david yepsen. gov. christie is in iowa on behalf of mitt romney. how motivated are iowa republicans to take part in the caucuses? guest: i think a lot of democrats are worried. obama has problems with some democrats. there are frustrations that certain things have not happened, particularly health care, the war in iraq and afghanistan. they went on too long. those democrats will come home. i think there will be a decent democratic turnout. i think president obama will be very competitive. one interesting phenomenon to watch for on caucus night -- i

have run into many younger people who said they supported barack obama next time and will now support ron paul. will they show up? will they change their registrations? the reason for it is interesting. they have tapped into with the last caller was talking about. americans are frustrated and angry. we are not happy. we are in a front -- funk. theicans are boon both ends of spectrum are looking for a president who can make a big change quickly. ron paul is appealing to some of those folks four years ago who were looking to barack obama. it will be interesting to see how many people change party registration or are first-time caucus goers. toly polling in thiindicated up

1/3 could be first-time caucus goers. that will be something interesting to keep an eye on. caller: go to ushijack.com. i was a republican for many years. i changed to become an independent. if a neocon gop wants to put up mitt romney, we will take our vote to ron paul. we're guaranteed 15% of the vote that way. we will not by republicans saying a vote for ron paul is [unintelligible] ron paul is better than any neocon republican who will give us more wars for israel, including iran. host: let's go to danny in louisiana. he is an independent. caller: to go back to the news

media, that is why the occupy people exist, because the news media has led us down. -- let us down. they have first amendment rights to oversee the other branches of government. the news media has lost its focus. it is a corporate entity and in it for money. it is not fair. it was intended to inform the electorate. corporate news media does not tell you the facts. to the worst, that completely twist the facts. there is no accountability. without an informed electorate, this country is doomed. host: more critique of the media. guest: and much of it deserved. one thing saving the country is that there is more media today

than there ever has been before. we are awash in information. it is not just three networks and major papers setting the news agenda. there are a lot of websites and sources of information. the good news is people who are not satisfied with information they're getting out of the mainstream media do have other places to go. there is a lot of media to choose from. the first amendment is great. it is allowing a lot more people to take advantage of it. host: jean is on the line from chicago, a democratic column. caller: i would like to know since there is a lot of voter suppression going on, will you help the people on tuesday to

show their i.d.'s? is it because they are 97% white and you trust they will not cross over and vote for democrat? my main question is to ask you, why is it your party is not satisfied with a lot you have? you are scrambling to find somebody to beat this president. you seem like a decent person so i will not blow you out of the water. i had never seen republican come on the air that has not bash the president. why is it you are not satisfied with your party and think we should be satisfied with your party? guest: i will let the republicans speak for themselves. i am a registered independent. to the question about voter

suppression, iowa does not have a big tradition of trying to do that. it is a small state. these are neighborhood meetings. you tend to know your neighbors. if anyone were trying to do a major voter suppression effort were trying to pass caucuses with newcomers, it would be very hard to do. it would be a large conspiracy. i think we would find out about it before it happened. every caucus, there are stories about anecdotal evidence that somebody has done that. it has never been enough to affect the outcome. we looked at the story after the 2008 caucus. there was concern people from illinois came into iowa for barack obama. he was never widespread enough. it was just anecdotal stuff. i want to address the question about iowa.

in many ways, it is not typical of the country as a whole. i think the activists are. barack obama is an african- american candidate who came to ottawa and won the caucuses. -- who came to iowa and won the caucuses. the fact the state was white help him. it convinced a lot of african- americans, particularly in south carolina, that this was a candidate who could carry white voters. the state may be predominantly white, but i do not think barack obama would tell you it hurt his candidacy. he did win the iowa caucuses. host: howard is calling on the republican line from illinois. caller: the person before me is drinking the democratic party, late -- party kool-aid.

the occupy iowa groups, will they be playing in the election? i am not sure what they're trying to prove other than this route -- disrupt. host: we touched on this. anything else you would like to say? guest: i think somebody may try to disrupt it. iowa does not have a great tradition of that. this has been a great conversation. it is an interesting process. i think it is a healthy process. it is the beginning of the race. it is not the end of the race or the whole race. i am grateful to c-span for being here and presented to the country. host: we're so glad you could come again. david yepsen has been with us many times over the years. a longtime editor and writer for

the "des moines register." >> tomorrow, the president of iowa's faith and freedom coalition looks at the role of christian conservatives in next week's caucuses. then simon conway talks about the latest in politics and the current republican field. after that, a look at the final results of the iowa poll with ann selzer. "washington journal" is live starting at 7:00 here on c-span. >> in the last 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 two months later. see what rackauckas looks like

with previous video online. through tuesday, our cameras are following the 2012 candidates evidence throughout the state. every morning live from iowa, political guests are taking your calls. we will show live coverage from two of the caucuses from the western and central parts of the state. will have the results of the nearly 1800 caucus's plus candidate speeches. atch videos of the candidates on the campaign trail. read the latest the candidates and people like you. >> more live political coverage later today as republican candidates continue to make their way across iowa before the

tuesday caucuses. this afternoon, rick santorum is in ottumwa holding a campaign rally with supporters. we will have that event at 6:00. you can watch both events online live or listen on c-span radio. tomorrow, mitt romney will be in the atlantic, iowa, at the family table restaurant for a meet and greet at 3:15 eastern time, 12:15 pacific time. you can watch it on line or listen to it on c-span ready. >> it is a three-day holiday weekend. the 3000 year history of jerusalem tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern. the scientist on free will and the science of the brain at 10:00 p.m. monday, he believes the u.s. is

destined for financial collapse anticline is current trends continue. on sunday, your calls and e- mails with former correspondent and pulitzer prize winner chris hedges. he writes about religion and war. book tv is on every weekend on c-span2. >> the clinton centered celebrated the 20th anniversary of bill clinton's announcement to run for president. he made that announcement in little rock. this is one hour and 20 minutes.

>> thank you for joining us of the discussion of the campaign. our esteemed panel will take us back to 1991 and the political climate that gave rise to bill clinton's eventual victory in the 1992 presidential election. our moderator is the renowned brownstein.oron he is the editorial director and coordinate's political activities across media publications. using regular contributor to "national journal" and "the atlantic." in addition to writing a weekly

washington outlook column, he is the recipient of several journalism awards. he is the author of six books. he regularly appears on national television. please join me in welcoming ron brownstein. [applause] >> thank you. i guess i should start by thanking president clinton and the foundation. i think i speak for the entire panel when i say i want to thank you for recognizing in this age of cable, internet, and talk radio that one of our great challenges is a shortage of opportunities for political pundits to have their views heard. [laughter] thank you for taking a small step towards rectifying that. as democrats began the process of electing a nominee in 1992, the parties lost the capacity to effectively compete for the presidency. republicans won by of the last six elections.

over the six elections from 1968 to 1988, democrats won only 43% of the popular vote on average. the situation in the electoral college was worse. republicans won on average 417 electoral votes. during the three elections of the 1980's, the democrats won a smaller share of the available electoral college votes than in any three consecutive election sequences since the formation of marty -- modern party system in the 1800's. strategists talked about a lock on the electoral college. when then-governor clinton stood in front of the old state house, that was literally the backdrop for his presidential announcement in october of 1991. i always thought the real backdrop was the legacy of

failure and regionalization -- marginalization. he wanted to modernize the democratic agenda to a dance goals through means and also rebuild the electoral majority for activist government. to assess how he formulated that vision and how well he implemented it, we have an extra or new panel of strategists and thinkers. pretty much anybody in this room could have been on this panel. we had to narrow it down to our magnificent six. don barrett was communications director in the white house. james carville was the campaign manager for the 1992 campaign. he is now an author, actor,

producer, a talk-show host, speaker, and restaurateur. [laughter] it is not clear what he is doing in his spare time. al fromme part of the council to rethink the democratic strategy. he is not a principle of the f romme company. he has not escaped d.c. for the other washington in seattle. vernon jordan, a former president and chief executive officer of the national urban league chaired the transition in 1992. he is the senior managing director and senior counsel and author of an extremely engaging memoir that i had the privilege of exploring it with them on public television in kentucky. we have the hometown favorite, the former mayor of little rock, former deputy campaign

manager, and former vice chair of the democratic national committee. welcome, all. [applause] al, let me begin with you. one strand of the story starts with the dlc. the democrats had hit a low ebb. some thought it was possible to resurrect the new deal coalition with the message about economic fairness. there was a competing camps on economic issues and trade. new democratic effort centered on the dlc. how did that differ from other competing traditions'? how did that she put bill clinton ran on in 1992? -- how did that shape what bill clinton ran on in 1992?

>> thank you for hosting this great union. -- this great reunion. when we looked at the statistics about a previous presidential elections and looked at a map, there was only one state out of the previous five elections that the democrats won four times. they had split a few. the others went to republicans. we decided we had to talk to people and play by the rules. we called them the forgotten middle class. we thought the traditional democratic principles with new ideas and modern ways would be the way to get people to start voting for us again. at was wement of th have to show we were different.

we were different in five ways. we promoted economic growth and not just for distribution. we grounded our policies in mainstream values like work, family, responsibility. we had a new ethic that was not just something for nothing or every man for himself. there was the concept of opportunity and responsibility going together, the concept of reciprocity. you got something from your country but had a responsibility to give something back. we tried to get beyond the isolationist image of the democratic party, reconnecting with the roosevelt-truman, wilson internationalism. we believed in an activist government but did not have to be bureaucratic.

it would serve people as customers. we tried to redefine the message on ideas like welfare reform and national service. ellis evidence we were different from the -- with the democrats for going against. -- that was evidence we were different from what the democrats were going against. >> we talked about the economy and middle-class families. how did the experience in arkansas shape his message and agenda in 1992? >> it was evolutionary from the s started tokansan hear about the clinton. from the time he started running for office, he was always talking about potential and what we needed to do to be better and have an opportunity to experience our greatest

potential. fast board to the 1991-1992 campaign, it was the same message. you got the sense that government have responsibility, but you also have a responsibility. that was one of the real changes we started to see an ad campaign. it was the beginning of someone saying, i am here to work with you. the book he put out about putting people first. these kinds of things resonated with folks. he was talking about giving new hope and making you feel that you truly can make a difference. you did not have to be ashamed of your government or yourself. i think that was the beginning.

>> there was an element of tough love towards the party in the message in 1991 and 1992. in one seminal moment in the campaign in cleveland in 1991, he said too many of the people used to vote for us have not trusted us to defend our national interests abroad or take their tax money and spend it with discipline. those are tough words about your own party. why was the party ready for that message by 1992 for him to be able to win the nomination even while offering a stern critiqued of where the party had been? >> the party was lost at sea. the party did not have much

leadership. bill clinton came in 1991. he was to the democratic party what rosa parks was to the civil rights movement. he was to the democratic party what the students in 1960 were to the civil-rights movement. he was to the democratic party what martin luther king became to the movement. it was change. it was different. it was fresh. it was young. it is also experienced. he had been governor for a long time. it was renaissance time in the democratic party. a lot of the older democrats had to be brought around. they had to be converted and convinced.

here we are. we're celebrating. [applause] >> by the time you get to the announcement speech in 1991, and you read that speech today, there are a lot of notes the will be familiar and traditional democrats about expanding opportunity and economic fairness. there are new notes about responsibility and mary in opportunity and responsibility. talk about the process of that speech, that landmark moment in the campaign and to what extent there was a poll about how far you went in a traditional direction versus how far you went in challenging the party.

>> one of the things you need to remember in that time it is that bill clinton had been on the front lines for 10 years in education reform and health care reform, doing the hard work in a tough state, by the way. so, he had a better understanding of how to communicate this new approach for democrats, and how to communicate opportunity and responsibility and a sense of community that we needed to restore to the country. i think it was based on his terrific experience in arkansas, his personal values and what he brought to the campaign, and the other thing, which was different for democrats, he was a good communicator. he had a message, understood the issues, the experience, but also the ability as a communicator. the speech and the reaction that he had at the dlc, the trial run

of the message, was phenomenal, and it is as relevant today. the speech he gave on the old statehouse lawn in 1991 it is as relevant today as it was then. [applause] >> james carville, we will talk in a few minutes about the general election and the innovations you pursued, but i want to ask about the primary, if i could. it was different than what you and most people expected. most people were gearing up for an ideological generational battle with mario cuomo, perhaps, representing the old new deal, and bill clinton running as a centrist. your main rivals came out of the neo-liberal strain, who ran at

president clinton mostly from the center in many ways to get how much did that scramble your calculations -- in many ways. how did that scramble your calculations and change your approach? >> well, we have some time before the primary to scramble. [laughter] [applause] >> anyone in a presidential campaign, everybody talks about the general. it is kind of easy. you have airplanes, staff, and federal funds pity's stayed in one place, and sleet in the same bed every night. the primary, -- funds, if you stay in one place, and sleet in the same bed every night. the primaries, you are always running.

you have staff meetings at 2:00 in the morning. >> that was launched i'm. >> -- lunch time. >> what struck me was the unbelievable fatigue. there is no idea of the things that president clinton could do in a campaign. if it was arsenio hall, you knew he could do it. if it was a town hall, you knew he could do it. very seldom did the campaign, but things and you just have the confidence that it is just like to be ok. that is just going to happen. [applause] >> even the week before new hampshire? >> i have never seen -- if you look a polling before new hampshire, i have never seen a human being performed to the

standards that he performed from monday, the final eight days. i will never remember that tom hall. it was one after another after another. by the way, that night, we actually lost to -- new hampshire. we lost the big thing by seven points. >> you had 19% of the vote. >> right. it was so funny. we actually ended up in new orleans after all of that, and that was the red shirt today show, and i just literally collapsed. that is the thing about primaries. they are so much harder than general elections. they really are. they are so much more intense. you just hate everyone. [applause] >> i hate them, you know?

remember the tirade against the fog rising from baltimore? -- tirade against the fund raiser from baltimore? [laughter] >> there is something we should never forget about the new hampshire defeat. that is that they came in late that night, and nobody was talking to everybody was quiet. you might remember this. somebody asked the question, governor, what do we do now? and the governor said take me to the people. that was his response the night of the defeat in new hampshire. he said take me to the people. he did not say call "the times"

or the journal, or the networks, he said take me to the people, because he understood where democracy ultimately reside, and it is not in the pages of local the times," -- ", the times," "the post," or the wall street journal. >> we went into new hampshire with research. we talked the message he believed in, the new approach, and took it into focus groups in new hampshire. this is actually before the announcement speech. democrats in those focus groups said thank goodness, this is what we have been looking for. the response was amazing.

to go to your point, people forget that the first spot of the campaign was a 60-second spot. people said candidates can not do this. it was bill clinton talking about his message in his plan for america, and we went from 50% in the polls, in 10 days, to -- 15% in the polls, in 10 days, to 35%. at 35%, we had problems, and went back down, but we had a message from the announcement speech, all the way through new hampshire that was so welcomed by democrats. it was new responsibility, welfare reform, cops on the street. >> that positive response was one thing, but the idea of linking opportunity and responsibility, and the way he talked about responsibility and welfare, all of this was not

uniform we cheered. in 1991, jesse jackson was essentially leading a counter protest. there was a point where doug wilder suggested that bill clinton all the started talking about welfare after david duke sit -- did so well. racial reconciliation became popular with african-american voters, this was not welcomed by everyone in the party. >> i saw it from the perspective of the journalists that the tide. i was an editor and a reporter from sotheby's to called a national news magazine -- something we used to call a national news magazine. i was covering part of the campaign. i'm getting old enough where i am saying it was 17 years ago that this happened. it was exactly 20 years ago

today that i closed the first article that i ever wrote about bill clinton, and it was to go into the magazine the week that he was announcing his candidacy down here. i spent an extended time with him on a flight from washington to memphis, because you could not fly directly to little rock at the time. i do not know if he remembers as, but we did that whether or memphis and we could not land, so i got to spend three hours with him in the air instead of the one-and-a-half hours, and i remember the governor was meeting mrs. clinton in memphis, where they were flying back to little rock because chelsea was 11 years old, and she was going to one of the first boy-girl dances and they wanted to be home in time. there were to the boy will things that came through them as a journalist that were very --

two things that came through then as a journalist. every time i would come on the plane, with a democratic candidate, they would be out of our race two months later, and my reward for those sins was covering the bush white house. what i noticed, and i still have the transcript, mr. president, and your ticket, for your seat, which if you want it back, i could give it to you, but there were two things that came through loud and clear. the media covered that campaign. all started with ideas. as general and vague as that might sound, that was not usual. we have not had the ideas behind policy, things that come out of the work with the dlc that was court to that. the second, was this, and it

came out of this personal narrative -- the story of his life in arkansas. it was so clear that this was a person who was a genuinely, not artificially, not in a manufactured way, connected to a place and to real people he. deeply about, and as you progress and scratch, they. deeply about him. part of that was the african- american -- thought that he thought deeply about, and as you probe and scratched, they thought deeply about him. most people that could say these things were not in a position. it could lead credibility -- lend credibility. it was not seen as an attack, but rather how we come together to solve these challenges together. >> let me ask you, al from,

there were many mobile -- memorable moments, and what was the michigan primary -- one was at the michigan primary were the president went to a predominantly african-american church and gave a speech of responsibility and opportunity, and deliver the same speech at macomb county community college, which was famous for the reagan democrats. that was symbolic of what he was trying to do -- there was a common language that could appeal equally on all sides of the racial divide. talk about that, finding a language to speak to whites and african-americans in the same terms. >> i had a seven-year battle with the head of the editorial page at "the new york times,"

that we would find a candidate, and develop a candidate with the right message to talk to working-class whites and african-americans. i believe it was the day after the illinois primary where the heat in an editorial acknowledged that we have done region where he in an editorial acknowledge that we -- where he acknowledged in an editorial that we have done just that. bill clinton always went to the people. the first thing we did is laid out our philosophy. for historians, you ought to go to the speech she gave ed hyde park in 2000, -- if you ought to go to the speech he gave at hyde park in 2000, which shows everything he did as president came from those principles, something that is the deep belief that is important for the

presidency. the other thing we did is we went around and we were in 25 states. we were not doing political fund-raising. we were not doing political organizing. we're meeting with small cadavers' groups of people, and talking about the it -- beating was small, diverse groups of people, talking about -- we were with small, diverse groups of people, and they helped with these ideas. one of the things they're always struck me, whether we were in california, or montana, or california, wyoming, where ever we were, president clinton devoted two groups that were absolutely, 180 degrees of post on a simple idea, like charter schools, for example, and he would give the same speech to both groups, where-for-word, and

both might come out saying i might not agree on everything, but this guy is on the right side of the issue. >> bill clinton and i also grew up in the segregated south. we understood, i think, it took someone from that experience to bridge the gap between working- class whites and african- americans, and in the announcement speech he talks about "i know what they want us to do -- they want us fighting each other, staring across the divide, instead of turning to the people that are responsible because we do not have jobs for blacks, whites, working people in this country." that is what he wanted to do. he understood it because he lived it. >> it is very important, and to give credit where it is due, that was bubbling up across the

south among democrats who had figured out in the aftermath of desegregation how to get back in the game because republicans had taken over most of the state houses and most of the state legislatures. i grew up in north carolina, and that is what we have seen. it was democrats that realize there were these unifying issues like education that could bring people together rather than divide them. >> in the long run the coalition and the be more minorities in upper-middle class, or college dedicated whites, then working class whites. >> as you talk about african- americans, and one of the things that related so well was they knew when clinton talked to them he was genuine. this is not someone who had gone and written a script the night before, and try to spell it out for them.

when vernon jordan talks about the democratic party leadership, i think we must recognize the fact that even the democratic party nationally was undergoing change. ron brown had been elected in 1989. that was a change. . ron and the political director started -- [applause] >> they were going across the country to democrats who felt there was no hope, showing them how they could win. hi think you take that, coupled -- i think you take that, coupled with the clintonites, from the arkansas travelers, to the buffalo group, all of them who started in 1991, going across this country saying by

governor may run for president, will you take a look? we went into all kinds of places doing that kind of thing. so, i think that was the first campaign, i think, on a national level that started to embrace all facets, and it gave value to all facets and all groups because of the clinton, and because of what he said. >> even with the sharpening of this message and the success in the primary, by the time the primaries and did, you guys were bruised and battered. -- battered. there was pulling that had bill clinton challenge -- trailing george bush and ross perot. poco little bit about where you end up in the primary -- talk a little bit about where you end up in the primary and the

process you went through to reintroduce governor clinton to the country culminating in the convention speech. >> let me point something out i am the only person here who had to travel north to get to little rock. [laughter] >> why is he pointed that out? >> i would like to point that out. it was just a joke. >> something has to be clear. there was this impression that all democrats who grew up in a segregated society got the message. that is not true. bill clinton got it, but there are a lot of them that did not get it, and do not have it now. [applause] >> what happened was, i think people were saying in may of 1992 that there was some chance

you have to reach a certain threshold to qualify for matching funds there was talk we would not reach that threshold. it was 30%, or something like that. there was a front-page story on the 0: the new york times" theing democrats' worst -- " new york times" saying democrats were still looking for another nominee. that have been in may of that year. -- happened in may of that year. we went again and said we knew we were going to get the nomination. -- in and said we knew we were going to get the nomination. we referred to it as the manhattan project. we started something where we went and did i do not know how

many focus groups and everything, and what we found out was that people really saw that this was an extraordinarily talented person, and once we were able to connect the biography -- who is this guy? he exploded on the stage, he has all these things to say that we agree with, a lot of things flowing around -- who is the real blow clinton is a bill clinton? -- the real bill clinton? >> there was a finding in the focus group that found he was a child of privilege. >> they did not know. he was so articulate that they assumed he was. >> we have to reintroduce to he was and what his values were off

because they thought he was a rich kid with a silver spoon in his mouth. >> as james was saying, that culminated in a convention speech that was greeted in the arkansas experience. the argument was that he would defend the middle class because he was a product of the middle class. it was rooted in the arkansas experience. that became a metaphor for how he ascended and would help others assigned. >> he also very clearly when back to the new democratic reforms. when you have a primary in a state like new york, is sort of the fines you as opposed to you defined it appeared -- defines you as opposed to you defining it. >> he may have literally lost his voice in europe. -- in new york.

>> when he picked his vice- presidential candidate, he really broke a paradigm. he did not balance the ticket. he made it clear it was a message campaign. one of the things we cannot lose as we think about all the things the happened in the campaign is how message-oriented this campaign was. we were telling people we were different. by picking al gore to be vice president, are ever what he called me, and said it would be the changing of the guard. it was part of the message we were trying to deliver. he went to the labor organization and did a speech on reinventing government. in the platform we did not do what ever every democratic candidate had done, give the platform to the losers. we have to fight off a lot of amendments by others in the party, but we were determined to

run on our own platform. we did a bunch of things that drove the pro-growth down, because it made clear that clinton was not the same democrats people had gone up against. >> in addition to that, a lot of people tend to forget that on november 3, 1992, all these folks -- "i was there." you were? [laughter] >> people tend to forget that when the clinton campaign started, most of the movers and shakers, so tuesday, did not want to have anything to do with it. in practically every state, it was true grass-roots. these were not the molders and shakers from the political scene in these -- movers and shakers from the political scene in these communities care if these

or everyday people that believe in the message. -- communities. these were the everyday people that believe in the message. that was one of the truth means of grass roots. -- true meanings of grass roots. people were out there doing things that you never knew they were doing, but they were doing it because there was a sense of empowerment they had from the campaign. once clinton move forward from the primary, everyone just new -- that campaign will not stay in arkansas. what we did in arkansas -- two things. nobody got hired -- fired. they just kept hiring folks. we had more layers in that campaign than any other campaign i have never known, but

it meant that more people were in power. a lot of people did not come to work on that campaign because they did not want to lose little rock. little or, arkansas. -- little rock, arkansas. >> we talk about message and agenda, but in many ways the distinctive moments of the campaign were the tactics, using pop culture channels, all war rome, when he went on arsenio hall, there was a great debate about whether that was demeaning. even doing it town hall meeting on a morning show seemed like a step forward. at the cutting edge of 20th- century technology, the blast fax, which was like running for

president with the jets since. [laughter] -- jettsons. [laughter] >> did you feel like you have to try new things? >> that was the time when the cell phone was bigger than stan greenberg. [laughter] >> one thing you have to understand is the impression the michael dukakis campaign made on the democratic party. a lot of things work to some extent governed by that. if you go back to the cultural things that happened, and you are right, arsenio hall, the morning shows -- how many war rooms have there been since the 1990's?

everyone has a war room. it was actually hillary clinton that came up with the term. how many times, if you go giogl it's the blank stupid? bus tours became part of the culture, the change of all of that. if you look back, the one thing that you sort of knew was going to work -- the al gore thing, when they came to little rock, and there was a visual of the governor's mansion, you knew s soon as you saw that -- you just

cannot imagine the visual that that had. you're just sitting there, and everybody knew it. again, a lot of the things that we did were also -- they seemed so odd, the new cycle has become so compressed, and so often the first take is the type that it gets it. everyone will wait for someone to write a column or put and answered petition on a debate -- or look at a debate. one of the most aggressive, talented people in journalism were covering the day in and day out. it was an amazing time.

i do think if you look at it, the campaign was a sort of cultural transformation of american politics. >> certainly, in a general election, the bush campaign repriced some of the arguments that were to effectively over democrats -- tax-and-spend liberal, weak on foreign policy -- yet, partially because there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the status quo, they did not proved as effective. what was different, ultimately? did the new democrat position and give him a stronger line of defense? why did those arguments not work as well as they did in 1988? >> and to give him not just a great defense, but it gave him a great offense. they were actually leading the

pack. the other thing we all have to remember -- we were in a completely new context an election for that election. it was the first presidential election after the end of the cold war, and many new ideas people were open to. new perspectives. it was an opportunity to lift up our heads and think about national leadership in a whole different way, and finally, to step up and solve a lot of the things we have been facing that had been stuffed inside because of the larger national security considerations. i want to come out to this race issue. in the course of the eight years of the clinton presidency and started very much in this campaign, bill clinton systematically -- nothing ever seemed quite systematic, but systematically -- took off the table the wedge issue that republicans and conservatives had used to divide the country and part -- divide progressive forces for the 25 or 30 years before that -- welfare reform, crime.

any number of other things. not to sound pollyanna-ish about it, but race was no longer the driving force in american politics. >> the narrative against then governor clinton was his whole life was plotting and scheming to advance himself in politics. in order to run for governor of arkansas, he had two signature issues -- opposition to the vietnam war and a very aggressive pro-civil rights thing. that was how you got elected governor of arkansas. some excellent political consulting back then. >> can i start with you? we talked about how in the spring, there was a low bed.

was there a moment when you thought this really could happen? this campaign really could elect the president? >> you will not believe this because it will sound in little bit self-serving. i came to little rock in 1973 to speak to the little rock urban league. the president and hillary came to that dinner. it was the first time i met him. i went back home and told my then wife that i had just met the president of the united states. i knew it. and i was right. [applause] and what i liked about him is that he left law school and came home. i left law school and came home. he came back to the south to do something about race. i went back to atlanta to do something about race.

inve made that connection 1973, and we have been connected ever since. [applause] >> anybody else? 1992, what was the moment where you thought this could work? >> my moment was before 1992. i did a deal in the fall of september 1991, which was right before the announcement with archy, who was about ready to take over the "new york times." i told him the next president of the united states was going to be bill clinton. i was convinced when we were running around the country in 1990, 1991, that this man would be president. i had a few doubts as the numbers went down a little bit in may, but i thought he was

going to be president in 1990 and in 1991. >> i will say, and i remember i think it was san francisco where i saw you and hillary both speak at a children's dinner, and i came up and introduced myself. i said that this guy, this couple, these folks really had a message and really knew how to communicate. that was the key difference. they had these core values and core beliefs. i really believed from that point on, especially in the gubernatorial campaign i worked on -- it was clear that this, more than any of the democrat, was somebody who understood how to connect with people. by the way, the thing about taking it to the people -- the key turning point, many times when we were in trouble, was doing town meetings. getting away from the press

corps that were beating the hell out of us, and talking to real people, and those real people gave you strength, but also, it said, "this is what the message is about." >> it is going to sound like i am mimicing vernon, but given that it is him, i do not mind, and it was that trip that took in early september 1991. we had this long time. we landed. he and hillary went off back here, and i flew back to washington that night. washington on a friday night the way it was then and is now, i went to a dinner party at georgetown that had some journalists, very cynical kinds of people. a guy who worked on the white house staff of the bush administration. my wife was there, and i walked in, and i said to her and the people there, "i am absolutely certain that i just spend the next -- the day with the next

president of united states became my wife was very nice, and washington said, "you are out of your mind. it was absolutely clear and it did relate to something vernon touched on. this was somebody who had shown by virtue of where he invested his life that he was committed to people and was -- he had come home. i was a southerner, too. had gone to law school up north. did not go home to work on race and those things. i so respected that i knew he had given up -- what he had given up to come back and do that. >> he really also was a national leader. we make him out to be this wonderful leader for arkansas, and he was, but i also remember his performance at national governors' association meetings, at the educational summit in charlottesville where bush called the education summit, and clinton literally captive that

education reform movement. >> let me ask you -- everyone is saying they saw this, they could feel it. there was another speed bump in the fall. ross perot comes back in the race, gets in a surprising audience. he seemingly had disqualified and self in the summer, comes back in the debates, and suddenly, you are looking at a race that at one point was three or four points. talk a little bit about that and how -- what your interpretation was, why ross perot found an audience and what it meant for you in the final weeks. >> one think catholics and jews share in common is grit optimistic about lunch. on election morning, i was standing there, 6:30.

i do not think we ever showed it tightening. i just would not allow myself to think of it. and, you never knew what was going to happen. you just do not -- i am sure of it, i guess, deep down inside, but i would not even allow myself to think about something like that. it is just not the nature. i do think, looking back on it, the convention is when the thing kind of broke. i think there is a real reason behind that. i think people wanted to be with him, they saw something counted, and once you are able to connect that who you are with what you are saying, i think that was the thing that brought it back.

the agenda and the biography. >> yes, i just want to add one little aspect. consistent with what i believe about bill clinton, in 1991, i took bill clinton to the meetings in germany. they had been going on since 1964, sort of a north america, a european alliance. the two other u.s. politicians there were senator dianne feinstein and a governor. they were sort of laid back. the governor of arkansas cornered every person at that meeting. "what do you do? where are you from? how did you do it?" they were coming up and asking,

"who is this clinton guy, and where is arkansas?" [laughter] i said to the europeans, "he is going to be the next president of the united states." they said, "that is impossible. bush has a 90% approval rating." the steering committee came to washington in january, so i called the president up and said, "mr. president, they are here." he came to the four seasons hotel. the europeans felt like they owned him because they met him when he was totally unknown. >> they give him advice. >> i think we have basically consumed all our time. i want to ask one thing, the lasting impact of the campaign and the agenda and coalition. republicans have won five of the

six presidential elections from 1968 to 1980. since 1992, democrats have now won the popular vote at least in four of the past five elections. on the other hand, some of the problems that were there when bill clinton arrived are still there appeared democrats and one more than 43% of the vote among whites, and in 2010, the democratic votes among whites ran down to the lowest level ever in a congressional election in the history of polling. in a time after politics seem to afterde-rationalized -- politics seem to be de-racialized, what was the lasting impact of this agenda and message in reshaping the democratic coalition? has it evolved since president clinton's time? >> everything has evolved, but, i mean, there are so many lasting impact. vernon was talking about the

european leaders. during the 1980's, in almost every european country, there were conservative governments, starting with tony blair and new labor. this formula that really bill clinton developed changed the whole face of world politics. i think and there are some things probably where there may have been some black imaging backsliding in the party where the party has to work its way through it again, but i think there are a lot of other things that are really very important. nobody questions a lot of the ideas that got us through that cost us so much grief. i do not see people wanting to repeal welfare reform. the whole idea of americorps and national service. we changed the policing system

in the country with community policing and 100,000 cops. charter schools is the central element of president obama's reform agenda for education. i think, most importantly -- there are always some back sliders in any political party because we are a coalition party. we are not like republicans. everybody is exactly the same period the understanding that we are going to be a successful party, you have to grow the private economy so you create jobs for ordinary people -- i do not think our party has lost that, either. that may seem like a simple thing, but it was not a simple thing in 1991. >> that seems like a good, final summary on which to stop. thank you all for listening. i think the president would like to make a few final remarks. >> thank you. first of all, i want to thank

the panelists. i thought they were great. [applause] thank you for taking me down memory lane. [laughter] not everything they said was true. the truth is the day at a clip for president, my mother was the only person in america who thought i could win. hillary and chelsea were undecided, leading maybe. that is not quite true. but there is a couple of points i want to make. based on what they said. first of all, we could not win the election in new hampshire, but we could have lost it. new hampshire worked for me because it was enough light here -- like here. i just want to say, since we are

here in little rock, it would be a big mistake to -- here is what the deal was. republicans thought that i was the only person who had a theoretical chance to win, even though when i started running, i was fifth in the polls. they knew they could not with me on the issues, so they decided to go after me. that is what that draft deal was about. so i went up to 35, and i got down to 18, and i was heading down to single-digit. greenberg said when somebody has a pretty strong foot to put on the break with single digits, and 18 was not enough. hundreds of people came from arkansas spontaneously. i mean, literally, it was almost not organized. my friend told his employer he had to go, and he could not afford to fly, so he drove straight through and started going around rita station

saying, "you have got to let me talk about this. you cannot do this to that guy." 600 people from arkansas took out a full-page ad with their phone numbers saying, "call us collect. do not believe what they are telling you about our governor. we will tell you. we know him." new hampshire takes it seriously. thousands and thousands of people call these people in arkansas collect. [laughter] [applause] and then, with our volunteers that were already there -- james remembers this -- we bagged 100,000 1992 equivalent of dvd's -- i guess they were bid emax -- beta maxes or something, and would put 100,000 of them on the

doors of the voters we had identified as still personable -- persuadable. we start going down somewhere at 18% and one up to 26% or 27% or whatever we got, and the rest is history. that is the first thing i want to say. i am very grateful to the people of the state. [applause] second thing is having a narrative is really important. if one side does and the other side does not, it is a very bad deal. the one thing that people like me who are really oriented toward policy need to guard against is losing the forest for the trees. one of the things that really helped us was that we not only had a narrative, from the beginning, we had a theme song.

remember that? this man right here is responsible for it. stand up. it is the truth. [applause] a little known fact joined in american history -- this is sean landry. when he was an infant, practically, i flew to california to give a speech, not particularly political, and he said, "i think you are going to run for president next year, and i hope you do. you do, this should be your theme song." i have never met this guy before. he is, like, 12 years old. [laughter] it is a true story. he had a tape. we had those tape decks and it is fleetwood mac singing "don't stop thinking about tomorrow." i said, "you were not born when that song was made piquant

actually, he was two years old. if you were part of that campaign, you should thank him. he had a lot to do with it. [applause] you all talked about race, and that brings me to -- i want to come back to the narrative, but one of the things that always mystified me every time i will look back at something i had said in 1974 or 1976 is how all the media said i did not believe anything, and what they really said was, "how dare you not talk like all the people in washington? and how do you expect us to have to look at your record in arkansas as a governor to see whether or not you are serious about this?" they know how we want to talk about politics. a conservative is somebody who

despises government, hates taxes, and its regulation, thinks all programs would mess up a two-car parade, and a liberal is anybody that disagrees. you are confusing us, therefore you have no convictions, no soul, no conscience, no nothing. it did not work, especially with african-americans, who had a very good detector, the edges for which we cannot use on c- span -- the adjective for which we cannot use on c-span. anybody that has ever been worked over can tell if you are for the more not. it is not rocket science. i did meet and in 1973, by which time he had already been friends with hillary for three years, something which he never stopped telling me. in 1977, i became attorney general. i had by then taught in law

school in the university of arkansas 3/4 of the african- american lawyers that were practicing in the state. 20% of my professional staff was african-american. 25% were female lawyers. now, over half the law students in america are female. that was not the case then. i had one of the highest percentages of women lawyers in america and the highest percentage of african-american lawyers. when they went after me in the board rooms of the elite liberal newspapers, i told them -- i said, "15 years ago, when i was a fake attorney-general in a state that you continue to diss, i had a higher percentage of african-americans in my office then you do to a." when you catch up to me, come back and tell me how i do not believe in nothing. meanwhile, i will go back to work. [applause] the media than was coming to

grips with a problem that they have now. this is not a criticism. i am expensing empathy with them. it is tough running these tv shows today. the economics and newspapers are horrible. the economics of magazines are horrible. that is why you see these blurring of news and commentary and entertainment. if you are like me and semi- retired, you did not even have to watch the news at all if you do not want to. you can change the channel and watch a movie or sports or something. that is why they look for shorthand boxes to put people in. when president kennedy was in office, the average president, when he was on the evening news, talk for, i think, 30 seconds or something. maybe 40. now, it is down 46 -- down to six or eight.

anyway, i want to thank everybody, starting with the people here in arkansas. ron brown in his heart of hearts is really a new democrat, even though he is never with us. not a week goes by i do not think about him. thank god for his presence in my life. he was a wonderful man. i love him. [applause] but this idea of having ideas -- that is the other thing i was going to say. 2008 was the first time since 1992 -- i think because people were hurting so bad -- that they were starved for ideas. i put out this little booklet, and people were making fun of me, saying it was too detailed and to policy-wonky and the only

other person that had a book as my is the oned as who beat me in new hampshire. we got 60% of the vote because we said, "this is what we are going to do." it was very primitive, little mugs and sliders, and he said 50. we show up, there's 400 people there. the fire marshall will not let them come in the door. why? just because i said what we were going to do. very important for people to remember that when they hire you to be president, people understand it is a job, and they want to end of -- to know what the heck you're going to do. paul had a very detailed plan that was what he wanted to do, and it did not heard anything that he was from a town 5 miles

from the new hampshire border. [laughter] they made fun of us say after we did all the comeback kid stuff, that we were second. i said, "that is right. let's see how he does in memphis." 81% of the people voted for me. but i like him because he said what he was 4. that is important. it is important not to forget. it is very important not to get caught in all this labeling. it is very important to take it back to the people and make every campaign about the circumstances of the times. i go crazy every time i read the conventional wisdom, which the republican narrative is so much better at narrative than we are. i will give them that. they are. it is easier to have a narrative is the story is always the same -- government is evil.

taxes are bad. still, i will give it to them. they are good at it. part of the republican narrative is that i was saved from myself that -- by the election of the republican congress that forced me to talk about welfare reform and made the balanced budget possible. a lot of these folks in runs profession keeps saying this -- in ron's profession keep saying this, while overlooking all relevant facts. [laughter] fact 1 -- the budget was 90% balanced before the balanced budget act was passed. [applause] so it is not true that -- they say only democrats voted for the 1993 budget. when it comes to welfare reform, the first new democrat was bobby kennedy. if he had not been killed, the whole world would have known it.

the second new democrat on welfare reform was jimmy carter, who gave four or five states the right to start welfare reform experiments. i called the white house, and because i worked on the campaign, when i was governor, i beg him to make arkansas one of the test cases, and they gave it to us. fact three -- before the welfare reform bill was passed, donna and i had given 43 of the 50 states waivers to implement welfare reform before we ever had a bill. yet, i kept reading how this was a republican idea. just because president reagan had a good story about a welfare queen and a cadillac who did not exist. i am telling you all this -- i want you to laugh, but it is sad

-- i am telling you all this to point out we need a coherent narrative. [applause] it is the only thing i will say about the current circumstances. i thought the president did the right thing to lay out a coherent plan to jump-start the economy now and try to get the growth rate higher. i thought he did the right thing to tell the american people the truth. we are never going to balance the budget at this rate of economic growth, with this rate of low job formation and this rate of low business investment. you have to have spending cuts, new revenues, and economic growth. actually, my last budget was also a surplus budget. four of our budgets were surplus budgets, but it is because they sparked a lot of growth. you have to have all three things. i think it is really important for those of us who may look back at that time, to remember

what they said. the economy was not as bad then as it is now, but it was pretty bad, and we kept slipping back in. we would get out of the recession and slipped back in. we were not generating job growth. a lot of people were really hurting. we went to see a bunch of them. you remember that. the first rule of effective politics, especially if the people you are running against have a simple narrative -- the government is always the problem. there is no such thing as a good tax or a bad tax cut, there's no such thing as a good program or bad program cuts -- if you are going to fight that, your counter has to be rooted in the lives of other people. so they made that happen. the other thing i want to say -- i would be remiss if i did not do this -- i have deep gratitude

for every one of these people, but i have to tell you -- we were looking at total meltdown about a week before new hampshire. we were i am a little room, and james carville advanced the kind of -- he likes to act crazy because it helps him get speaking cakes -- speaking gigs. he figures if he goes around acting like he needs a rabies shot that more and more people will want to see him. [laughter] but we were alone. do you remember that? a handful of us in that motel room. they were saying i was dead. james carville stood up and said, "i served in the united states marines. i come from louisiana. i like people who believe in serving this country and come back."

he said, cassette and unlike all these people -- "unlike all these people who keep saying bill clinton is dead, i have read his letter, and i think we should take a full page ad out and print is the nom letter. it made me think more of him." he said, "do not let people define this." he was a kid. he said some things that he would say different today, but he loved his country and had a good reason to do it. he said, "if i served in the marine corps and i feel that way, then we can still win this thing. now, everybody get up and go back to work." he deserves a lot of credit for that. he stood alone in that room and said that. [applause] that is my thing. we always need a narrative. it needs to be people-centered. we need specifics so people know what we are going to do, and we need to understand that one of

the things that tends to tilt things towards the republican anti-government narrative is our country was born out of the suspicion of government. king george's government was not accountable to us. that is what the boston tea party was about. when it started out, at least they were against an accountable behavior from top to bottom. then it more into something different. if you want to go against that grain, you have to tell people it is a privilege and irresponsibility to spend their tax money, but there are some things we have to do together. that is what the purpose of government is, to do the things we have fitted together that we cannot do on our own. so that's the leading in shared prosperity and shared responsibility and sharing our membership in the community is better than you are on your own. if we can make that choice credible, then our candidates

starting with the president and our principles will be fine. we also have to always realize that we might be wrong about something. that also was a good thing. if one group, once you show your own strengths, says they might be wrong about a particular thing, and the other group never does, the average person thinks more of the honest side than the falsely proud side. i do not think that has changed very much. i was touched when frank said he read the speech and thought it was all relevant today. again, i thank all these people for what they did. i thank all of you who are part of it.

i want to thank ron, and i am upgrade it will cost him half of his new gigs, but when he criticized me, i took it honestly because i considered him to be a righteously honest person who had convictions about the way the world should work and look not at what he said through a preconceived smokescreen, but look at what you said and what you did. that is all anybody should ever want from the press. benjamin franklin once said our adversaries should be our friends for they show us our faults. and always play it straight. i am honored by your presence tonight. thank you all. thank you. [applause] h [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> 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 i know caucuses, but dropped out two months later. see what it looks like online through the c-span video library. our cameras are following the 2012 republican candidates at events throughout the state. every morning, political guests are taking your calls on "washington journal." tuesday night, we will show live coverage of two of the caucuses on c-span and c-span2. later on, the results of all 1800 caucuses, plus candidate speeches. use c-span's campaign 2012 website to watch videos of candidates on the campaign trail, see what they have said on issues important to you, and read the latest from candidates, political reporters, and people

like you from social media sites. >> our live political coverage continues today with rick santorum, live from a campaign rally with supporters in ottumwa, iowa. you can watch it live online or listen to it on c-span radio. tomorrow, mitt romney will be live from atlantic iowa at 3:15 p.m. eastern. you can watch that live also on c-span.org or listen to it on c- span radio. earlier today, rick perry held a meeting in great -- meet-and- greet.

we will show you that next. it is about 40 minutes. >> i think we can trust. not to have any california -- i think we can trust perry not to have any california bailouts in the future. >> my congressman is with $174,000. >> well, there you go. >> governor, how are you? >> good morning. [applause]

[inaudible]

[unintelligible]

>> welcome, everyone. i want to take a moment to wish you all a very happy new year, a little bit early. i appreciate you taking the time to come out. more important, we want you to caucus for governor perry on jan. street. -- on january 3. right now, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce a very special woman. i met her a couple of months ago, and i can tell you that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, and there is no finer example than the first lady of texas, anita perry. she is a native of the small town of haskell. she is a professional nurse, has been so for 17 years, and is just about the best asset the governor has. i hand it over to the first lady of texas. >> thank you. good morning, everybody. thank you.

great to be in fort dodge, iowa, where i understand i can get a great cup of coffee at bloomers. so thank you. thank you all for joining us today. we are so excited to be here. we have had a great trip. we're going to finish strong in iowa. i'm going to tell you a little bit about a man i have known since i was 8 years old. we dated for 16 years. we have been married for 29. we have our children with us today, and want to say there is not a lot about rick perry that i do not know. it is new year's eve. my new year's resolution is going to be i'm going to do everything i can to help get a true leader, a conservative leader elected to the presidency of the united states. [applause] he volunteers for the air force after he graduated from texas a&m. i am so proud of that.

i am concerned about our country. i am concerned about our children. we need to get america back working again, and i think he is the man that can do that. ladies and gentlemen, my husband, rick perry. [applause] >> thank you very much. reuss, thank you -- ruth, thank you. you and bob have been awesome. i could not have anyone better on the ground. you have been wonderful to work with, and these last few days, we have been crisscrossing iowa and going to some absolutely fabulous towns and little restaurants and some of the coolest names. i told somebody we were at the fainting goat yesterday, and we were at doughy joey's, and i think we are going to hit the giggling goat on the net stock.

with that many animal names, you had to come to the place where they have all the veterinary supplies. it made all the sense. there is a connection there. anyway, i want to set banks for my children being here. and sydney, the baby. and griffin has been a great hand out on the trail for us, giving lots of speeches and talking about his dad and someone he has known a long time, and the beliefs and values that we have. i want to ask all of you to join us on tuesday and caucus for us. i want to sit kigali thank you for coming out today on new year's eve. as we get 2011 finished up and go into 2012, i want to share something with you that i have always believed. in campaigns for president,

they're not just about the candidate. it is really that the people of this country. it is about the values that we have that we share that we have been taught. fact of the matter is, the vote is not really about me. this is about our children, about the future of this country, about a statement of your values. and who you are going to choose is a reflection of your values. i always would be honored to have your vote as a statement of that, of your values, and you see reflected in me the values that are important for you, for your family, for this country, and together, we are going to build a movement to take this country back, to get washington out of our hair as much as we can because washington is taxing too much, regulating too much, spending too much. this campaign tralee is about restoring hope for the next generation, by changing that

spending culture for washington, d.c., and ending the stifling debt that is on the backs of the next generation, making washington realize that it is we the people that are in charge in this country. america is not a class society like they have in europe. we do not want to import any more european values into this country. america -- and it is the people. we are not the subjects of the government. the government is subject to the people. [applause] so if you just remember one thing from today, from our little gathering here, i want you to -- i hope it is this question -- why should you settle for anything less than an authentic conservative who will share your values and your

vision and do it without apology in washington, d.c.? i hope that that is the question that you ask. i got the greatest respect in the world for my opponents, the men and women who are on the stage with me and that are asking for your support. i respect them greatly, but you have to ask yourself -- if we replace a democrat insider with a republican insider, do you think washington, d.c., is going to change any? it is not. i am here to say you got a choice. i am that limited government conservative that will give washington a complete overhaul, walked into washington, d.c., and truly give it an overhaul. there are other campaigns that campaign as conservatives, but their records do not always square with the rhetoric. senator santorum is a good man. he has got a great family. i respect him substantially.

but we talk about our differences, and those could not be clear on one of the most important issues this election, and that is spending. the economy and spending going on in washington, d.c., is probably at the top of most people's list of important issues. if you want to truly overhaul washington, d.c., we cannot do that with a senator who has voted to raise the debt ceiling eight different times, allowing our debt to grow from $4.10 trillion to $9 trillion on his watch. that is so much debt it even exceeds what president obama has done in the white house. and what is so important -- i got to ask rick -- i said, "what is so important that compelled to add a greater debt to our children's charge cards? what was so important? was it the bridge to nowhere you voted for? was it the montana sheep institute you voted for? was it the iowa rainforest you

voted for? was it support for the greatest entitlement programs since lyndon johnson's great society, which is medicaid part d?" now, rick is defending those earmarked on the principle of federalism. the pork barrel spending is not federalism. it is fleecing the public. in the in, elections come down the differences. i am telling you you do not have to settle for someone that is going to change or someone that is not going to change washington, d.c.'s culture. you do not have to sell yourself short by trying to tie your hopes to washington insiders. you can choose among the various folks who are on the ticket with me. 63 years of congressional time in totality. they are the ones that have been driving this debt. they are the ones that have been driving this year marks.

you have a choice. you can pick a governor resigned six balanced budgets over the course of my time is being governor texas, who worked with the private sector to create over 1 million jobs in my home state. i happen to believe the federal government ought to do a few things and do those things they're well and get out of the way and leave you alone. we need to end the remarks, and the bailouts, passed a balanced budget agreement. this massive debt cannot be allowed to go on. those who got us into this massive debt are not going to be individuals who get us out of it, either. i am asking for your vote because of your conservative values. i am asking you for your vote because it reflects my values that i learned growing up on the small farm out in the middle of nowhere. on that farm, i learned the values of hard work and family and faith. the government does not exist to provide benefits. it is there to protect the freedoms and the sake -- to safeguard our rights.

it was an honor to follow in my father's footprints to be in the united states air force. my conservatism spans the spectrum, from fiscal issues to national security to social responsibility. some talk a good game. i have delivered. i have protected unborn children by signing a budget that defunded planned parenthood and shut down 12 of their clinics in the state of texas. i signed a defense of marriage act into law in the state of texas. some candidates campaigned on their voting record on bills that never even made it to the president's desk. i am campaigning on ideas that i have signed into law. i will be the anti-establishment outsider who goes to washington, d.c., with a sense of purpose. the purpose is to make washington as inconsequential in your lives as i can make it. the key to getting washington

off our backs is to, i think, create a part-time congress that stops spending our children's inheritance. cut their pay. cut the time they spent in washington, d.c. send them home to get a regular job like everyone else has, and allow them to live under the laws that they pass. that is our mission. i hope you will join me in that mission. the fact is your country is calling, and your children are waiting for you to answer that call. when the lord said to the prophet isaiah -- he said, "home shall i send -- "whom shall i send? who will go for us?" as a as said, "sent -- hear -- isaiah said, "here are my. send me." i ask you to brave the weather

this to say, whether it is blue skies and sunny or whether there is a snowstorm going on. brave the weather. go to the caucus. caucus for us. i will make this pact with you. if you will go to the caucuses on tuesday and had my back, i will have your back for the next four years in washington, d.c. god bless you. thank you all for coming out and being with us. thank you. [applause] we are going to answer a few questions if we can. great. i will stand up. yes, sir. >> you alluded to your defense of the unborn by defunding planned parenthood. where do you stand on exceptions for rape and? -- rape and incest? >> i actually met a lady at the gift of life viewing that gave

me a real nuisance -- real new sense. i had had exceptions for rape and incest and life of the mother, and this was a lady who was conceived because of rape, through that act, but the conception that she shared with me was a wonderful thing. she asked me, as she looked me in the eye and said, "is my life not worth saving?" at that particular point in time, she really had an impact on me. those two exceptions, if you are truly going to be standing up for life, then having only the exception for the life of the mother is appropriate. i have not only signed that

pledge, but i am very comfortable that i made the right decision from the standpoint of modifying and strengthening my pro-life position. i am one of the most pro-life governors in the country. we have signed parental notification, parental consent. we passed a law this last session of the legislature that requires an individual who is getting an abortion to see a sonogram first so that they can see that young human being inside of them. i am very proud to stand up with our founding fathers, as i look at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as things that americans and america is supposed to be about. we talk about life. we are talking about all innocent life. [applause]

>> while still sitting governor of texas, will you push for a [inaudible] being the planning on sitting governor of texas much longer. [applause] but we will speak up on that issue regardless of where we are. let me share that with you. yes, sir. >> governor, i do not mean to put you on the spot. >> that sounds like a setup. >> are you familiar with a man named jacob howard? >> i do not believe i am. you want to familiarize me with him? >> he wrote the 14th amendment. i wonder if you could tell me something about the 14th amendment. i would like to read the first clause, if i may. it begins, "all persons born or naturalized in the united states are subject to the protections thereof."

[inaudible] >> the 14th amendment was -- might understanding of when it was written and why it was written was dealing with the issue of citizenship for individuals who had been slaves. so righting a wrong in our country's history is what the 14th amendment is about. the issue of should we be educated individuals who have come into this country illegally is a symptom of a bigger problem that we have got, and that happens to be that the federal government has been an abject failure at securing our borders for years and years. as the governor of the state of

texas for the last 11 years, i have had to deal with this directly. there's not anybody on that stage with me that has had to deal with this issue. they talk about -- "i would do x" or "i would do y." i have had to deal with it. i have had to ask the legislature for money to send troops to our border, constitute teams which we have sent to the border to fight the crime, whether it is the illegal drug traffic or the trafficking in weapons, or whether it is the illegal individuals trying to come into the country. securing our borders is the issue that would address all of these, whether it is the education of individuals who are hill -- here illegally or health care that is here illegally.

>> [inaudible] >> you are absolutely correct. we have been put in a situation, whether it is arizona having to pass a law dealing with immigration or whether it is what we have had to do in the state of texas dealing with individuals who are not citizens, but the federal government requires us -- here is one of the things i will tell you -- as president of the united states, you will never see me directing my justice department to go to another state and sue them on an issue that is their sovereign right.

[applause] >> i have an economic question i would like to ask you. the last candidate who was here i asked him the same questions, and i did not like his answers. if you answer right, i will vote for you. [laughter] them that is why we show up. that is >> david walker's office said obama will put out another $2 trillion into the economy. are you in favor of that? >> no. let me share with you why. all you are doing with this quantitative easing, which was put into place as an experiment in japan, and initially. i would suggest to you that it has been a monumental failure. it is a monumental failure

because quantitative easing is just printing more money. supply and demand is pretty simple. i am an animal science major, but i know that if you print more money, that makes the dollar in your pocket worth less. let me ask the crowd. are you better off today than you were $4 trillion of go? >> in the first 2 and a half years obama has been in office, we have lost 48% of the value of the dollar. that is hurting retired people all over. 77% of the people live paycheck to paycheck. i can tell you for sure it is 80%. people are hurting. >> frankly, we need to get the

fed back to single purpose. that is for no other reason than to control the prices and inflation. yes, ma'am? >> can you address our second amendment rights in regards to fast and furious? >> her question was twofold. what i address the second amendment and how this fast and furious effort -- there have been some individuals who have questioned whether or not this entire fast and furious operation was more about painting a bad picture of those of us who own guns and, particularly, but gun store operators than it was in tracking these weapons. either way, i would consider it

to be bad public policy for the administration to have been involved with it, for the attorney general to not have known about this. if he did know about it, he has misrepresented himself to the united states congress. either way, he should be fired. the attorney general knowing about movement of those types of weapons into mexico is an absolute failure of leadership, in my opinion. the second amendment is about gun ownership. it is not about having a militia. it is about the private citizens having the right to protect themselves and their property in this country. and make it always be that way. [applause] >> i have a comment as much as a

question. during the first two years of the obama administration, there was dire need of leadership. most of the current candidates were on the sidelines waiting for the starting gun to go off so they could step forward and tell us what leaders they are. there are exceptions to that in sarah palin and governor harry. -- governor perry. if you are elected, will you commit to being a leader 360 days a year and for your full term instead of just when it is convenient? [applause] >> i cannot wait to get into the fray. i cannot wait to get there to ask men and women who share my philosophy that are truly patriots who will come in and

head of agencies like the epa, that will go in and pull back every regulation that has gone forward in the last 5 years since 2008 and august whether or not they create jobs or they kill jobs. have men and women in the health and human service agencies who are committed to the tenth amendment. when we talk about a block granting back to the states and letting the states make decisions on programs like medicaid, i intend to have an individual as the secretary of education whose sole responsibility would be to dismantle the department of education and wipe it out, send those funds back to the state so that the members of the legislature in iowa can decide how best to educate your children. there are a number of those types of agencies that need to be dismantled and 0 funded --

and zero funded. >> i am from a small town in iowa. i was born and raised -- you were born and raised in a small town in texas. just because you live in the closest place -- >> just because you live in the closest place that has a post office, i would still pick the little community where i grew up. the world revolves around school.

it revolves around church and around boy scouts. every day was busy. every day was myself and lots of acres of cotton firm to explore. -- cotton farm to explore. it was not different than growing up in the mid-1950's in iowa. my president of the school board was also the superintendent of the sunday school and was also my scoutmaster. my football coach was the civics teacher. he was the principle of the high school. he was the basketball, track, and full ball coach and he drove the school bus. [laughter] people would say the house i grew up in did not have running

water until 1955 or 1956 or somewhere in that range. indoor plumbing, let me put it that way. there might be some people who say we grew up pull -- grew up poor. but we were rich. we were rich in family, experiences, in the community. i will forever be grateful that i had the opportunity that i had to grow up in that community. it is the same house we have been m2 -- in since 1967. >> on the issue of health care, it was given to me that we have a government -- when the

president ran for office saying he would have transparency of government, my desire is to see you or others like yeayou have meaningful input and people who are consumers -- meaningful input from people who are consumers so that we can get something that works for the government and for the people themselves. >> i agree. but you have to take obama care off of the book's first. [applause] >> i will let my wife expand on that a little bit. she was a nurse and her father was a general practitioner in our old community. yes, ma'am? >> misses perry, i would like to

know what your initiatives as first lady would be. >> i am not measuring drapes. it would be an honor for me to be in that role. my background is in health care. i have a master's degree in nursing. i have an interest in topics and issues related to health care. the i am is interested in returning -- i am interested in returning veterans. 1 out of 6 veterans is homeless. i have a variety of issues that i am interested in and would relish the opportunity to do that. thank you. >> thank you all for coming out. you have our back next tuesday and we will have your back the

next four years in washington, d.c. thank you. ♪ [unintelligible ]

>> i tell folks i went to college to be a veterinarian.

>> i work in health care. i understand. >> thank you for being here.

>> 35 missions. they are great guys. moving around today. thank you, sir.

sweetie. how are you? >> i'm having a little chicken salad. >> thank you for coming. >> this is third generation.

>> that is awesome. thank you all.

that is a young iowan who was killed. a navy seal. a great kid. it is an honor to be here. >> i want to get all of my names straight. >> i could go either way. we pay more attention to the cowboys now. >> you better get on the bus and find out how they are doing.

>> i have been here a couple of days. >> bless your heart, governor. you have lost weight, too. [unintelligible] >> can we get a picture here with you? >> thanks very much.

>> we're headed out. god bless you, sir. in 2002, i took the kids and we hiked. that little silver american airlines [unintelligible] >> thank you. come back.

>> back up that way. >> good luck to you, governor. [unintelligible]

>> wsso long. >> how are you. >> yes, sir. thank you for coming out. wounded.body get come on. get in here. [unintelligible] >> get in here. there you go. thank you.

>> okay, big boy. still doing all right? take care of yourself. >> a little combat there. it's ok. >> later this evening in iowa, rick santorum is holding a

campaign rally with supporters. see that event at 6:00 p.m. eastern also here on c-span. you can also watch the event live online or listen on c-span radio. our "road to the white house"coverage continues tomorrow at 3:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> in the last iowa caucuses in 2008, barack obama won the democratic kind -- caucuses and went on to win the presidency. see what a caucus looks like with video from previous years online in the c-span video library. our c-span cameras are following the 2012 campaign with the events throughout the state.

tuesday night, we will show live coverage of two of the caucuses on c-span and c-span 2. and later on, the results of the 1800's coppices, plus candidates' speeches. -- 1800 caucuses, plus candidates' speeches. read the latest from candidates, political reporters, and people like you from social media sites. >> our campaign 2012 coverage continues with a discussion about the current gop field and the caucus process in iowa. this runs 40 minutes. on your screen is dave fk, co-chairman of the polk county republican party in iowa. good morning. thank you for joining us. guest: great to be with you.

host: speak of the mobilization, couple of the headlines in iowa regarding iowa, getting folks out to vote. what's your sense of how the machinery is working to get folks out? guest: well, you know, in the past we've had a lot o face-to-face calls or when i say face-to-face i mean direct calls by volunteers. this year we've seen more auto calls, robo calls. i don't know that that's just technology take offering the caucus process in the ads or if it's cheaper to do a robo call on a penny a piece than it is to staff up and ramp up and equip a campaign apparatus to run a volunteer phone bank. so is a little bit of difference. i was out of town traveling most of the day on thursday around the state of iowa. my wife recorded 62 telephone calls that day to our house. well, when you dismissed her mom calling a a couple of personal calls, we have around 55 phone calls thursday to our home from the various candidates, issue

advocacy groups, that sort of thing so just a slight difference. i've been involved since about 1980 in the caucus process here in iowa. so you can just seat change weave hae happen over time. -- we've had change over time. host: for clarification, explain what polk county, iowa is. how many people what is it like there? guest: it's a typical midwestern city, about 450,000 people in polk county. the state capital, des moines is situated in polk county itself. pretty much a very good cross section of the state of iowa. you've got a good sized urban area with a mix of first and second ring suburbs, and yet we still have more than 700 farms across polk county itself. so it's a little microcosm of what the state of iowa really like and what most of america looks like. i grew up in buffalo, new york, yet i could ride my bicycle from the inner city out to my uncle's farm in about a 15-mile jaunt.

it's pretty much what polk county and des moines is like today. host: what exactly is your job in these final days specifically, mr. funk? guest: as the cochair, our job is not to be about individual candidates but about the logistics of pulling off a good caucus. i don't want a campaign to look at us in a month or so, and say, jeez, if you guys haven't screwed it up on caucus night, we would have won the iowa caucuses and would still be a viable candidate. our job with more than 108 precinct sites across the county, some with a population of 1,000 or 000 with a maximum population of around 3,500, we could he several hundred attendees at each of these precincts. so we've had to logistically find the spots do it. fortunately it's not rocket science. you know, they've been doing the caucus since the mid 1960's. so we have schools available. we have chuhes some businesses, community centers, that sort of thing, across the county. and then a few sites and areas where we don't have a big

republican presence. for example, some of the inner city sections of des moines. we have consolidated two or three caucus sites in one school so they'll be using various classrooms or assembly rooms within the school, the gyms. that's been our challenge for a year. we're thinking of this 18, 24 months out, how do we do the next caucus and what do we need to do in a presidential year, with an open seat in our mind where we know we're going to have several candidates competing. we want to logistically make sure that we have all the volunteers in place, which in this case is close to 20,000 across polk county. we not only have the volunteers in place, but we have all the documents they need at each caucus site an are prepared to do the party's annual business meeting which is what the caucuses really are. it's a big organizing function for us. in many state, parties around country, i'm sure are somewhat envious of our opportunity to not just walk into a ballot and check eye box and walk out -- check a box andalk out but you get to interact. and the arguments, face-to-face, from someone you've probably known for a long time sitting

to you that may or may not be with your candidate or maybe artrying to convince you to jump on to their candidate if you're undecided. so it's much more interactive it tends toake iowans a little sharper when it comes to the political game. host: our guest is live in des moines, iowa where the caucus meetings will happen three days from now. look for live coverage here tuesday night. he's dave funk, co-chairman of the polk county republican party. david is our first call. david is a republican from biloxi, mississippi. good morning. caller: good morning. how are y'all doing this morning? host: doing well. caller: good deal. i just wanted to say i heard a lot of callers earlier talking about mitt romney, talking about new nutt -- newt. i think mitt romney is just a poster child for health care. he did it once. going to do it again. he's not going to repeal nothing. newt is another one. he's been apologizing for his life -- i don't see how i could look people in the face, apologize for my pretty wife that's standing beside me.

so these guys right here are just telling people what they want to hear. and probably ron paul is the closest one to telling truth in the whole country. the psychology of this thing doesn't affect me none. there's psychology in politics. most of the country believes in the psychologies. i never have. i go right for the facts. these people ought to go for the facts. i'm not so for sure the popular vote counts. so i'm hoping the electorates are smart enough to do t right thing. thanks. host: interesting point, mr. funk, psychology versus the facts. any thoughts on what that call her to say? guest: you know, i've heard that before. but when you look at the voters, particular in iowa, they're pretty sophisticated group. in a coffeetting shop and literally -- in literally nowhere, small community outside of des moines. and a presidential candidate in, and you would be amazed at the quality of questions from people wh you

normally wouldn't associate with someone, you know, a farmer, a businesswoman a housewife some retired folks sitting around the smoky row, the original smoky row. and yet the level of the sophistication of the questions tell me the facts count. particularly amongaucusgoers. we're talking about probably 125,000, 130,000 people are going to turn out on 2nd, look theseolks -- you know, they've had a chanceo look these candidates in the eyes in man cases and take measure of them as men and women. so facts are clearly far more important to iowans and records than perhaps just the mob psychology that this gentleman just called and made a claim that was a big impact. host: that last caller sort of wrote off romney and gingrich in his mind but spoke highly of ron paul. we read a lot about ron paul's organization in iowa and h important it is and how strong it is. what are your observations of what he's doing well that others may not be doing well? can you speak to that?

>> well, both he and senator santorum have very good on-the-ground operations. senator santorum has somewhat been ignored by the mainstream press because he hasn't grabbed the national attention of the but when you make -- when you make 380 stops, individual campaign events across iowa, you're going to attract a lot of attention. i would not dismiss senator santorum's organization or for in a that matter what i see with governorerry or governor romney's operations. they're very well organized. paul will get some credit because he's very loud. and in a fewlaces he can tract very large crowds, particularly in the college towns, ames, iowa city, where you have relatively influenced, eisley influenced, -- easily influenced young voters. but the bulk of the caucus viewers are going to be 50 years old and older. that younger crowd tends to have less of an influence on the caucuses because they just don't come and sit for the two, three hours that is anticipated that

you'll have to sit down and stay and go through the whole process. in my own precinct, four years ago, there were more than 50 ron paul signs in the precinct area. it was a relatively large geographic area, one of the larger geographic precincts in polk county. i live in the country yet we had only one person vote for ron paul. just because you have an organization doesn't mean assume voters turn out. host: ok. mike, democrat, from north carolina. hi there. caller: how's it going? host: fine. caller: i'd like to say a young african-american, you know, with a recent increased interest in politics, whether or not it's because obama is in office or not, it doesn't matter. my thing is at, you know, it's kind of discouraging to see that there's so much racism involved in politics. and to hear all of these comments from callers who just wantbama out of office just because he's a black man. it's really dcouraging. i just hope -- actually, i really hope that he decides to

not run for a second term. i feel like the amount of criticism and racism that he has faced -- not just him but his family -- i feel like it's unfair. i feel like he's a berman than that -- a better man than that. i just hope that he deces to pursue other interests. you know what i'm saying? host: thanks, mike. dave funk, anything to respond to there? caller: you know, i go back to what martin luther king said. i'm going to judge the man based on the content of his character and not the color of his skin. that's the way we do things in the republican party. i could care less what the color of the skin is of the president of the united states. this current's president's policies are bad for america and the entire way he's operating his administration has been bad for america. and it's done more to drive a race wedge in america than to being inclusive. clearly he's not been successful as a president on those issues. host: from los angeles now.

mark, good early morning to you. mark is a republican. caller: hi. thank you for taking the call. i just wanted to say that i believe that listening to mitt romney over the years this man is one of the most insincere candidates ie ever seen or heard from. i am a republican. and that is a man that i could never vote for. ok? ever. i voted republican all my life. at every level. this is a man that has changed his positions for political gain so obviously on so many positions -- on so many different issues that how this man can even really be taken seriously by conservatives like myself is almost unbelievable to me i think he made a statement where you said you think iowa republicans are very

sophisticated. sure hope that's the case because otherwise we're going to have one big snow job in mitt romney. host: before we let you go, who do you like? santorum is the obvious conservative choice in this election. it's not even close. and a distant second would be newt gingrich. host: thanks, mark. dave funk, he hopes there's no snow job going on. caller: well, you know, let's talk about the weather. i'm not going to get into individual candidates. i'm here to represent the party and talk about the logistics. thankfully from a listical standpoint it looks like the forecast is going to be good on tuesday, unseasonably warm temperatures in the high 3s, low 40's at caucus time. so i don't think we'll have to worry about a snow job across the state of iowa. just interesting that when you look at the polls, as close and as tight as this race is i think

iowans are doing a pretty good job of vetting out these individual candidates. host: let me ask you a little bit more about the process. you mentioned organization for a caucus. you mentioned length of time. these things could take two, three, even four hours. but walk us through it from the individual standpoint again, this coming tuesday. what would they expect? how do they attend? give us more flavor if you could. guest: we actually -- we don't open the doors. we open the doors very early, 6:00 p.m., others at 7:00, the larger ones. you come in, check in because it's a private party function. it's not a state election. we mandate that you show an identification, prove that you live in the precinct. so it's very difficult if not on the republican side to stack up a bunch of folks into a precinct caucus to try to bring in fraudulent voters or people claiming they've just moved to iowa yesterday and they want to vote, participate. so once you get checked in -- and you're checking in with your

neighbors. you can only attend a precinct caucus in the precinct where you live. so you're going to go check in. you'll be given papers, different colors, different precincts. different counties do things to ensure the security ofhe ballot. use the paper we provide you. once you get checked in, your temporary chairs, both chairs of the party, will open the meeting. you'll ele a permanent chair. you'll establish your rules, generally robert's rule of order are used. then you begin the caucus process. each of the candidates is given a few minutes, actually a candidate oris representative. in both coactsiouses -- caucuses sites there will only be one representative speaking for each candidate. depending on what the rules of that specific caucus group that evening. they make their own rules. within a general set of guidelines most folks adopt the standard set of rules that we've used for many, my years. once the candidates have had their chance to speak, everyone

votes. the votes were pulled off to the side. each of the campaigns with a representative watch the actual vote counting, look at the ballots as they're tallied and stacked up. when it's all finished, the results are called in first to the state party where they record both by an automated line and a backup manual writing down to make sure we don't have any computer, logistical issues or prlems there. then once that's done, the results are announced at the caucus. many people at that point will leave. but the real interesting parties, to me, of the caucuses, stay, become a delegate, to become involved in the party difference, help introduce planks to the platform at the precinct level. we will elect a couple of committee members from each of our precincts. and then typically that will take two to three hours. democrats do it slightly differently. we just have a straighup or down vote. we record and report those results.

democrats will in their caucus, you have to have a viable candidate. i forget what the percentage of the floor they would set. joke about my wife and i being in a mixed marriage, she's a democrat i'm a republican, and she'll go over to her caucus site, i'll go to mine. and at the end of the evening i may be back in three hours, some nights she's been there for four or five while they wrangle on about to see who the top three, four candidates are going to be to have enough votes to be viable and report to the state party and go on to new hampshire. very kind of quirky system, but it works really well. it's a way to get regular line voters, just the average iowans, involved heavily in politics. a great organizing method or mechanism, for us ross the state of iowa for both republicans and the democrats. host: a lot of insight there from our guest. he's dave funk, co-chairman of the polk county republicanarty joining us from iowa this morning. the caucus happens in three days. tampa, florida, diana, democrat. thank you for waiting. much.: thank you so how are you? host: doing well. caller: i'm so glad to be on the show this morning.

i've been calling and calling. anyhow, i have been watching the candidates. i kind of think, to be honest with you, ron paul seems to be a little more sincere and honest. i'm a little concerned about his policies. probably wouldn't vote for him. we have to remember -- [indiscernible] as far as mitt romney, i just feel like in interviews he will say anything to get votes i think he's sort of a flip-flopper, so there's sort of a distrust with him. newt gingrich, i think he has a bit of a bitterness and sourness. i really wanted to see more candidates. i'm not real, real happy wh them. i don't know. i guess my feeling on it is as i see children grow older and our

country, we're getting more liberal. i wonder what happened our true republican party. i think the tea party holds some republicans from compromising with president obama and it concerns me. remember, the tea parties don't help make laws. they can s what they want, but they are not making laws. i have an open heart there for john boehner. i just feel like he was being held back so much. i'd like to e more compromise. let obama in there. i feel likeven in four years we might not be able to turn that economy around. host: diana, thanks for calling from tampa there. let's hear from our guest. guest: i hear people talk about compromise and i go back to the old phrase, how do you compromise tyranny? when you have this bigivide between what the democratic party in iowa or across the country today wants and what the republicans want.

and conservatives versus liberals. i simply look at that and say i'm not going to compromise my core principles just so the media is nice to me or they want to get along. at the end of the day we know it works. -- what works, less government, smaller government, local government works much better than large, national, dictatorial governments. so at the end of the day i'm always going to lean to the right myself and go with what we know works. as i said, you know, ronald reagan was able to turn this economy around back in 1980 his election. as i've heard speaker gingrich say several times on the campaign trail, the recovery will start the day the senate is flipped over and a republican goes to washington. until that time, we're going to hear reportsike we hear this when the closing be happens on wall street jedd, the dow up slightly for the year, the s&p neutral for the first time in 60 years finished in the same spot it then the nasdaq was down significantly. what that tells me is the dow, you know, big corporations get a

lot of flak in both the media and from people. we forget they're the only ones with another horse power and money to defend themselves from washington where main street is not able to do so because of our over reaching, huge, and unnecessarily large government. host: 20 minutes left with our guest. new jersey. independent caller named david. caller: hi. how are you? host: i'm well. caller: yes, i have been following social security, disability and have been for quite some time of i was very disappointed that for the two years prior to actually -- tomorrow, 2012, my cost of live doing not go up for two years. i had never experienced that loss. my rent went up $100. and what i lost, as far as losing my cost of living in my

social security disability, did not catch up at all to my cost of living that i've experienced. so i am still behind the eight ball one whole year. and i'm wondering where all of that money went for the past two years that i lost and i'm sure millions of people that are on legitimate disability have lost. host: david, can you connect it to the presidential race, to iowa? we have the co-chairman of the polk county republican party on. caller: well, i'm just curious curious -- i'm actually connecting it in sense that i wish -- i'm also leaning towards ron ul because it feels like he's a little more honest, a little more transparent, as far as where money goes. where is money going. i think lottery is a big scam. and i think not enoh people are informed as far as transparency in the government.

host: thanks for calling. dave funk? caller: you know, we've got a really screwed up monetary policy right now under ben bernanke. until we move him outf the fed and put someone in there that's responsible and understands that we have to have sound dollars, people like david are going to continue to suffer as they see the value of the u.s. dollar deteriorate significantly. just in the last two years we've watched the price of milk double, the price of gas up $1 to $1.50 a gallon across most the country, even greater increase for diesel fuel which impacts everything we do. essentially anything you get comes to you on a truck in some way, shape or for so the lac of a sound fiscal policy sean monetary poll -- and monetary policy is clearly impacting people like david. the middle class is most impacted by inflation. we have a somewhat screwed up way that we calculate inflation which really gives the social security administration and the congress a chance to spend more

money, not have to claim we've had a big increase in inflation and yet guys like david, down at the bottom, he's kind of stuck where he is. he's disabled. he's on social security. the very people we need to be taking care of. he's the victim of these really poor policies on part of the bara obama administration. host: back to the process, and as that caller mentioned ron paul as well, there's a story published in the "baltimore sun" talking about ron paul courting party switchers. they write that adding an to all ofble element this, disaffected democrats are planning to switch sides and cast republican ballots. they write that caucus will limit participation to party anyone who shows up at a g.o.p. caucus, including democrats, independents, and join theans, can g.o.p. or switch their party affiliation right on spot. and some are suggesting that this cld help ron paul. in fact, his campaign, according to this piece, mr. funk, is distributing information sheets advising iowans that they can

register republican for a day, a day, on caucus night and then switch back. can you explain all of that? is this all accurate? guest: it's essentially accurate. the big trend we've seen in iowa is we are passed an increase every month. we have the reagan democrats back in 1979, 1984 -- 1979, 1984 elections, we had a larger number of democrats came out and caucused for ronald reagan so just because people are going switch parties doesn't mean they're automatically ron paul voters. i know several conservative democrats that are coming to vote for candidates other than ron paul. become ant to republican, we'd love to have you. it takes a little bit of evert. you can't register that night being be a republican, change your registration on the way out. you have to go back down to the

elections office later and -- to change your party registration. we found people tend to not do that. it is a little overhyped in the press. people become republicans, they is nbc-marist.republicans after look for the des moines register's final poll t come out, 8:00 eastern time we should see the results. illinois, randy, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. host: how are you? caller: i'm good. i got a few things for dave. first i want to thank c-span. and i'm a democrat switching for ron paul, too. just wanted to say, you know, newt gingrich is crying all the way to the bank. i want to know if dave is going

to support or stand behind ron paul once does win iowa because he seems to be deflected. you think?do guest: i'm going to work hard for whoever our nominee is. time, i'll tell you when i hear people -- with the exception of a few county chairmen across state of iowa, generally we remain neutral. it's one of those unwritten laws. story county, johnson county, a few of the county chairs across the state have come out in supported of specific candidates. i don't know how you can credibly look at your fellow -- at your neighbors. literally the folks that you live and work around every day. wh you're working hard for one specific candidate but then you claim you're going to be an inpendent arbitrator at the evening of the caucuses and make sure there's no logistical problems or no question about the integrity of the vote. and in almost every case that i'm aware of and in fact, every case that i'm aware of, where the party chairs or cochairs

have come out and endorsed a specific candidate, they've been doing that for ron paul. and i don't think that's appropriate. yodon't hear our state party chairman talking about who he's supporting. you won't hear me talking about who i will caucus for. you go to anything you want in your prite life. but when you're a county-elected official which you are when yore a chairman or co-chairman, i think it's very important that you stay out of the endorsement process preprimary. we get a nominee, i'll work hard to get him elected whoever that is. but until that time i'll remain silent as to who my choice isn a public venue. if my friends ask, i will tell them which way i'm leaning. but no one will know how i'm going to vote that evening. and i don't think any chair or cochair should be making those statements. members should remain neutral in this process. to protect the integrity of the vote here. .

i have been watching c-span religiously since i was put on disability. every time there is an election, i watch people how they act, how they talked. i just cannot vote for any republican because they act like they are talking down to us. i just do not understand. just to get iowa out of the way, come tell us what they think we want to hear and move on to new hampshire and on. if you watch the speech in other states, the change.

somehow they just think we are growing corn and that is it. host: >> thank you. republicans talk down to people like him. guest: as a veteran, thank you for your service. i had a chance to meet with every one of the candidates. i have never gotten both on a personal basis and having them into our county to help us to fund-raisers -- i do not get the perception you get that they are talking down to us. i see genuine interaction, letting it people look in their client -- eyes and take measure of them clearly, i do not get the same perception here is i lived in a florida, and is down the calendar a little ways. the difference where you are getting in the state of iowa is you know, we get a lot of opportunity for direct

interaction. a great patriot and great american -- the congressman give me a little dissertation when i was 13 or 14 years old back in 1972. he was talking about how iowa and new hampshire were chosen and the ability of these two states to prevent the candidates for the rest of the country. --vet the candidates for the rest of the country. lot of dollars. but in wa and new hampshire, those are places where someone like.carter could sleep on couches for a year and a half during the time before the iowa caucus back in 75 when he was working very hard to win that nomination, he was able to do it on a face to face basis. we're seeing similar results today with rick santorum where he's worked very hard just by

putting himself out there, 350, 360 as of yesterday, the news reports, i see candidates that can -- looking people in the eye, really is what iowa and new hampshire's role in this whole process. certainly barack obama would not be president today but for the fact that he came out boots on the ground, walked around iowa, met people and everywhere from my little town all the way to des moines and across the state. so i think it's a very efficient system. it's a good way to get the wheat and the chaff separated so we move e best candidates on for both parties. host: some additional information beyond retail politics and phone calls as we've talked about the financial times lists the ad purchases of the various candidates. talk first about rick perry.

$2.6 million spent. super packs on his behalf, 1.33 miion. ron paul has spent 1.3 million. mitt romney 1.1 million and super pack expenditures, 3.86 and the numbers go on there. what's your sense of the blanketing of the air waves as several callers have mentioned? they said they're just getting pounded. guest: we really are. if you didn't buy your tv ads for your small business, if you are running television advertising and locked it in, right now most everybody knows you make hey while the sun is shining. so major media and the newspapers, radio, television across the state of iowa we're seeing just a tremendous ad blitsd almost to the point where it becomes white noise. so that's where someone who has had a lot longer time on the ground -- maybe mid august last summer and before where they had a lot of time to build an

organization, clearly has an advantage because a lot of minds are made up. this morning listening to the news, they're still talking about 45% of iowa is undecided. so those ads are going to make a difference. >> let's hear from glenn view. caller: good morning. a couple of points i would like to bring up and have responded to. one of them --'m a democrat. one of them the gentleman talked about is how he quoted martin luther king and said this is the way we do things in the republican party. i want to bring out that ron paul has recently been endorsed by several groups and white power groups. that doesn't make him a racist but aan of integrity, it becomes his responsibility to come out and say you know what? i don't want your votes. i repudiate your votes and i

think you're going to be disappointed in me if i get elected. guest: first, i spent a lot of time in glenn view, i'm familiar with your city. it's a wonderful place. you don't have to accept the endorsements of a group. i think you're exactly right. when a white supremist group comes out and endorses you, it's a good thing to distance yourself from that. this is a guy in the 80's who walked away from the republican party and joined the libertarian party and came back and is now running as a republican again. take that as face value. but the republicans i know, the conservatives i know, we all look folks in the eye. i believe as my generation and i'm 53 years old, i look people in the eye and take measure of those men and women and take

their action not on the color of their skin. so it's somewhat of an insult to lump us in with this ron paul stereo tipcal taking endorsements from anyone and everyone who is out there and being proud of it. if i was a candidate i would not be accepting the endorsents of someone like that. >> we'll continue to have our presence not just in des moines but throughout the state as we're covering several candidates or spouses today, several live events. dave function, cochairman, taking another call here. mary, independent. welcome to the program. caer: the ads that are running in your state. one in particular rick perry. i would like to know what obama's war on religion is and what iowans think of that. and secondly, what happened to

michele bachmann as far as iowans are concerned? at first she won the straw pack and now you don't [inaudible] host: someone we haven't talked about too much. guest: on the ads i think i would defer to governor perry's campaign to answer the questions. clearly when the president of the united states when 99% are christians, to say we're not a christian nation is not an accurate portral of what america is. to follow up, though, to get into the backman question, michelle has been out working hard every day. i've gotten to know her a little bit and i have friends working for her and they feel like they're doing what they need to do to be as successful as they can be in the iowa caucuses with the events of the last week she's certainly been put in a difficult position when a state senator basically

jumps ship five days before the end of the caucuses really calls that state senator's judgment into question and his loyalty and three hours later seen wearing the same clothes at another campaign's events, that really knocks both the balkman and the ron paul campaign off messagfor a few days as people wonder what happened and it calls into question the integrity and judgment. i feel bad for michelle that happened but you can't control the people who work for you and in this case someone who has been a big disappointment but not just to the balkman campaign but to those who know senator sornson. host: governor gary johnson is asking iowa to vote for ron paul. he's the former nume governor announced that he is seeking the libertarian nomination for president.

guest: i met gary beck in the spring and had a brief meeting, a very intelligent gentleman who did a lot of good things down in new mexico. but at the same time you're now a libertarian. and a libertarian endorsg a republican is just fine but at this point you're not a republican. i would ask at you stay out of our affairs. if you want to move to iowa, change your residents, then you can have a vote but right now you don't have a vote in the iowa caucuses. i don't think that endorsement is going to carry a whole lot of weight. host: time for a couple moff calls. caller: i had a question about how iowa allocates their

delegates since it looks like no one candidate is going to get more than 34% of the votes. will one end up with all delegates or will they be allocated to vare candidates? guest: if i -- you have to remember, this is a private party function, and the vote is not binding. so if the winner of the iowa straw poll drops out of the race as for example mike huckabee did then those delegates are basically released to do as they see fit. that's why we go through a whole process of the county conventions, the district conventions, the state conventions to pick our national delates. that's got a big impact. at this point it's a test of organizing strength like the straw poll was and going forward it's who is viable.

who have we vetted to send down to new hampshire let those folks see how those candidates do at the next step and then south carolina and florida. but the convention delegates or the delegates are not allocated specifically to a candidate. they're free to do what they want when convention time comes because as many knows the winner of the iowa caucuses, top one, two, or three have come on to become the nominee. but the winner isn't necessarily going to get the dell gates down the road. particularly if they drop out. they're bound by what the state party members have pushed down to tampa in august to make their decision who they are going to support at the national convention. host: let's go to sarah on the democrat's line. caller: i'm calling from scottsdale and i'm just a little irritated and i'm going to try to get it out quick so

he can answer me. but i'm really tired of people saying that barack obama is hurting people, hurting the erledly, hurting people with disabilities all that crap. like what position are you twisting to make that point? that's just one thing. and then the second thing i want to say is you keep talking about less government. what does that mean? i just want my government to work for me. if we need health insurance, if my kids are sick, if something happens. and then another thing i wanted toay to you because i want to make sure you come to me after you speak is i am a christian, i'm a democrat. but i'm a liberal democrat. a lot are like me who believed jesus is a liberal. so republican talking points are getting on my nerves because you're saying all these things that everybody spouts out. i want facts behind things. host: let me jt in and get a response. guest: sure. i appreciate your positions but when you see 10% unemployment,

when the real number's probably closer to 16, not the u-3 number, when you see prices increasing substantially every day and people's incomes are t going up under the pelosi congress and senate still run by harry reid, the united states senate hasn't submitted a budget in over 900 days one of their basic constitutional requirements you can't govern if you don't follow the rule book. and the obama administration and senator reid and pelosi were not following the rule book the way our government was set up to operate. i'm all for you getting hins. but i would much rather bn managed in the state of arizona than in washington, d.c. where a one size fits all solution that doesn't fit all the framers were brim ynt where they created laboratories of democracy to figure out the best way to do things and to compete among each other and

grab as we do the best practice that is we see in this case to be used across the country. they're successful in the state of iowa with a program other states are going to adopt it. if you're successful in arizona with a program, other states are going to adopt it. i don't see that in washington. what i see is do it our way or else. and it's not working for the americ people. you know that. big government doesn't work. government is not the solution here. government is the problem. host: our guest has been dave funching. thanks a lot for your -- funk. thanks a >> rick santorum will be holding a rally in iowa.

you can watch the event live online or listen on c-span radio. our coverage leading up to the iowa caucuses continues tomorrow on "washington journal." we will speak with steve scheffler, and a breakdown of the gop field with simon conway. a look at the final i will poll with pollster ann selzer. that is live at 7:00 eastern. >> barack obama won the democratic caucuses and went on to win the presidency. my cubby won the iowa caucuses but dropped out of the race two months later. -- mike huckabee 1 but dropped out two months later.

every morning live from iowa, political tests are taking your calls on "washington journal." later on, 1800 caucus's plus canada and speeches. for more resources in the presidential race, use the campaign 2012 web site. see what the candidates have said on issues important to you and read the latest from political reporters and people like you on social media sites on c-span.org/campaign2012. >> "booktv" and american history

tv look at the behind the scenes of bad and rouge, louisiana. the -- ban rouge, louisiana. he was assassinated in 1793. >> is only aired once, but it may be the most famous political had ever used. on the american history tv on c- span 329 at 6:50, it served as the model for civil rights boycotts to come. at 7:45, tour the louisiana state archivist with materials from the louisiana purchase, the

1810 document that created the west florida republican of louisiana. louisiana state had documents as well. all this weekend on c-span 2 and 3. >> she met with iowans at the coffee house. this is about 20 minutes.

[unintelligible]

>> good afternoon. i'll come over and say hi. about that. sorry thank you. ok. thank you, all. we should all be getting out getting ready for new year's. a copy of all figured out what you are going to do for your resolutions this year. i will tell you what one of my resolutions is, is to be more grateful and to express more of my gratitude.

i will express the gratitude right now. i am grateful to this country that we live in. i am grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy it. i am grateful for my ancestors that made sacrifices so that i can live in this great country. we talk about this amazing country. we forget sometimes all of the people that make sacrifices so we can be here. i am grateful for my grandfather who was a welsh coal miner at age 8. he started working in the cold mines and he would go to work in the dark. he would come home at night in the dark. he saw the sun on sunday. his job when he was a little more was to open the the door for the meals as the tropical in and out. -- as they brought to the coal

in and out to. my father heard of this frequently from his old father, it is a study hard or it is the pick and shovel for you. i heard that when i was growing up as well. i did not believe those were my choices, but those were my father's choices. i am grateful for my grandfather that came here and gave his children and his grandchildren a better opportunity in life. giving them another option beside working in the coal mines. grandmother is standing here today who is married to somebody that might be the next president of the united states. this is an amazing country.

i also like to remind people that there are lots of different lenses that you can see a candid it through. the lands that so many people see mitt romney through is on his professional accomplishments. we are all familiar with that. he was a wonderful guy at the olympics. he did a turnaround at the olympics. he was a great governor. i say that there is another lens you can see the man through and that is his family. we have been married 42 years. we were high school sweethearts. we have five sons. i am the grandmother of 16 grandchildren. we have been blessed in life. in my early years of marriage when i had that those five -- i

like to remind people very naughty boys, i felt sorry for myself when i went to the house where there were young the girls and that they would be baking cookies, helping their mother in the kitchen, washing dishes. i would say, woah, this does not happen in my house. mitt romney would call home on occasion and he was in consulting on his early years of marriage. he did not like it and i did not either. he would hear a very exasperated wife at the end of the telephone. i do not know what i will do with these boys. they are killing me. there are so naughty. he would remind me that what i was doing it was more important than what he was doing. i really appreciated that. by the way, he really meant it. he said a job is temporary. the things you are doing and the things you are building on will bring us forever happiness.

the kids knew that. did they knew how much mitt saw in me an equal partner with my husband. i will tell you that i have great joy in knowing that my sons are behaving like their father. it really is a great thing to see my son's been wonderful husbands and fantastic parents. i am so grateful for my sons and how wonderful they are with their own children. mitt and i , and frequently that they are actually doing a better job than we did as parents. the other thing that i would like to have people see a different lens view lensmitt is how he behaved in my darkest hour. some of you know that i was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. it was a difficult time in my life. i have been very athletic.

i'd love to play tennis and be active in doing things. over a number of weeks, i started thinking, "what is wrong with me?" i took a nosedive. i could hardly walk. i was fatigued. i had this horrible ms fatigue. the i was not aware what it was when i was going through it. it nearly crippled me. i cannot get out of bed. i did not have enough energy to do anything. it was a frightening time in my life. when i finally got the diagnosis that i had multiple sclerosis, it was pretty devastating. i was a bit overwhelmed. i was overwhelmed in a way with thinking that my life was over. this was the way i was going to always be. i was really feeling pretty sorry for myself.

at that point, i really appreciated mitt because what he did is say, look, this is not fatal. we will be ok. i do not care that you cannot make dinner every night. it does not matter to me. i can eat peanut butter sandwiches and cold cereal for the rest of my life. as long as we are together we can handle anything. then give me the permission just tick -- to just be sick for a while and except that i had to learn how to deal with this. it was a great time in my life where i had a lot of self reflection. i started to think about what was most important in life. it was also a time that mitt started running the winter olympics. we've moved to salt lake city. i was 100% convinced we should do this. i left my family, my doctor, my

youngest son. we went on a completely different path in life. when we left to do the olympics, i was barely able to walk. i was barely -- i was very weak. mitt took the job of running the olympics. over the three years we lived there, my health started to get restored. i started to figure out medications that helped me. i started to figure out exercise programs that could bring my strength back. i started riding horses. they brought me great joy. when it was time for the olympic torch to make its way across the country, mitt romney decided that he would have the torch run be about heroes. he wanted people to nominate he rose in their own lives that would run the torch. it had run all across the country. thousands of miles of was being run.

people were taking turns running the torch and they were all heroes and somebody's life. they were wonderful stories that came from this courtroom. unbeknownst to me, mitt romney had nominated me as his hero to run the torturer solid city. -- torch through salt lake city. it helped me realize how sick i was three years ago to having strength and resilience three years later. it was with great emotion my children and husband that surrounded me with tears in his eyes, he handed me the torch. i was able to have enough strength to run that torch into solid city before the start of the winter games. that is the side that i like to tell people. he has such an ability to figure out what is important, what

matters, and to really be there and stick with you when you are in your worst moment. that is what our marriage has been like. he has been a guy that has been steadfast and wonderful and a loving and. i love the fact that he values his children and grandchildren as his most -- the things he can be most proud of our his on grandchildren and children. he does not look at things he has accomplished in life. he looks at his children as his most valuable treasure. i appreciate that and love him very much. i look forward to him being the kind of guy that will have the strength to sit in that office were difficult decisions will be made. i will trust that he has the kind of character and the kind of strength to do the right

thing. he will make the right decisions and make the tough choices. we never know what decisions will come across the president's desk. if we trust the man and know he has good judgment and good values, that to me as an important characteristic. i am looking forward to this election. you guys have an important job to do effective tuesday. it is coming up very soon. we are feeling this momentum building in iowa and new hampshire. we are very excited to get going and to do what we really need to do and make barack obama a one-term president. with your help, i hope we can do this. [applause] thank you so much.

[applause] i will make sure he hears that. i will tell him that. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ♪

[unintelligible conversations]

>> we take you live now to a campaign rally in ottumwa, iowa, for republican presidential

candidates ricks santorum. we're writing for him to arrive at the bridge beuse center. the city of adana is about 35 minutes southeast of des moines, iowa. -- the city of ottumwa is about 35 minutes southeast of des moines, iowa. according to an nbc news poll released this week, mitt romney drew the support of 23% of likely caucus goers in iowa, ron paul with 21%, rick santorum was at 15%, texas governor rick perry at 14%.

>> again, a live picture from ottumwa, iowa where republican candidates or extend warm is going to meet with potential voters. now a look at a newly released data running in iowa next week. -- this week and will also start running in new hampshire next week. >> who has the best chance to beat obama? rick santorum. rick santorum is rock-solid on values issues, a favorite of the tea party for fighting corruption and texeira views. more foreign policy credentials than any candidate and his "made in the usa" jobs plan will make america an economic superpower again present form, a conservative who gives us the best chance to take back america.

>> i imrick santorum and i approve this message. -- i am rick santorum and i approve this message. >> again, we are waiting for read -- republican presidential candidates rick santorum to a drive to meet with supporters in ottumwa, iowa. we're bringing this to you live from the bridge view center in ottumwa, about 95 minutes south east of des moines.

>> we are waiting for republican presidential candidates rick santorum to ride at this campaign event in ottumwa, iowa. while we wait, some more campaign news. the results of a final de lemoine registered i 0 -- a des moines, iowa if it is registered poll before tuesday's caucuses will leave you least -- will be released at 8:00 p.m. eastern. according to an nbc news poll that was released earlier this week, mitt romney drew the most support with 23% of likely caucus goers in iowa, ron paul second with 21%, rick santorum in third place at 15%, texas governor rick perry at 14%, newt gingrich at 13%, and michele

bachmann at 6%. while we wait for this event to get under way, let's take a look at some of the latest ads released by all of the republican presidential candidates released in this contest. >> i spent my life and the private sector. i have competed with companies are on the world. i have learned something about the way economies grow. we will not balance the budget pretending that all we have to do is take up the waste. i am in favor of comic -- cutting spending, capping the gdp taxes. the right answer is to stop the growth of the federal government and start the growth of the private sector. >> when it is showtime, you want could cut. budget crisis, no problem.

department of education, gone. interior, energy, hud, commerce, gone. >> ayman polland i approve this message. -- i am not ron paul and i approve this message. >> some people say the america we know and love is a thing of the past. i do not believe it. because working together, i know we can rebuild america. we can revive our economy and create jobs. we can shrink government and regulations that are strangling our businesses, and replace the tax code with one that a simple and fair. we can gain the world's respect by standing strong again, being true to our faith, and respecting one another. we can return power to the people and the states that we live in so that we all will have

more freedom, opportunity, and control of our lives. yes, working together, we can and will rebuild the america we love. i am nuking rich and i approve this message. -- new to gingrich and i approve this message. >> it looks like rick santorum has arrived at the bridge view center in ottumwa, iowa, to meet with supporters this evening. the live coverage here on c- span. >> you want to start? >> however you want to do it. [applause] >> sam is a talk-show host from sioux city. and if you do not mind

introducing him to get things greg up. we have a routine going. -- to get things cranked up. we have a routine going. [applause] >> thank you. and thank you for coming out. good to see you. how are you? good to see you. nice to see you. thanks for coming out. how are you? good to see you. thank you. good to see you. thank you. thank you. how are you? good to see you.

oh, wow, thank you very much. thank you. the good to see you. it's good to be back in ottumwa. thanks for coming out. hello, young lady, good to see you again. how are you? good to see you. hey, guys. good to see you. it's great to be back. thank you. good to see you. how are you? how are you? thank you so much for coming. nice to see you. mdot thank you. how are you? how are you? good to see you.

>> on behalf of my wife and my eight children, we live in wisconsin, but we are originally from iowa. >> thank you. >> hang in there. >> hanging tough. >> thank you. thanks for coming. how are you? >> she can clear from new york. >> my goodness. how about that? good to see you. >> who better to spend the evening with the then rick, right? [applause] when we started this a while ago in the county, you know, i was a little worried. i did not know if we would have turned out. i did not know what was going to

happen. but rick shot up in the polls and people showed up and his conservative message truly got out. i have the opportunity and privilege to introduce tonight the man that you all elected as the state secretary of state. he is giving his endorsement to rick santorum. we are honored to hear him, give him a round of applause. [applause] >> it is great to be here with you tonight. before i introduce another individual, i want to talk to you about why i am endorsing rick santorum. i know i am pretty down, but when i was younger, i was an intern on capitol hill. and i entered format -- four center mike crapo. -- i interned for senator mike

crapo. mdot across all i found out about this strong conservative senator, rick santorum. everyone talked about him and said he might get to meet him one day. just wait around in the halls and you might get that opportunity. i never did get that opportunity at the capitol, but i did a couple of years ago in council bluffs. ever since then, i have been following the senator and i have been watching him. he has been to all 99 counties. he has been working hard, talking to iowans and talking to us about issues that are important in this country. he is a strong conservative and he does not shy away from issues that are important to family. he has become a great friend. [applause] but before i let the senator and

sam clovis talk to you, i want to encourage you in joining me to endorse rick santorum. i want to grab a sign and throw it in your yard and all your family and friends and neighbors that this is the man who is going to the next president of the united states. [applause] i want to actually introduce a great conservative up in northwest iowa who is a professor and also host a radio show. sam clovis, come on up. [applause] >> thank you. i have had the honor all day today to introduce matt. we were running late. and we got stopped outside the last seven years and had to answer a question. i used to live in this part of the country. in fact, my wife used to live

and work -- used to work at indian hills right here. this is like coming home. i want to tell you a bit about why indorse rick santorum. i did so on the 19th of december on my radio show. i have taken a lot of heat for this. and because a lot of times people who are commentators or in the media, oftentimes they tell you to be quiet, you never know who is going to be on your show next and all of these things, and i said, that is not me. that is not why did this. i had a chance to meet him back in march of this year. it was in some city. davi came out there with another candidate at the time -- it was in sioux city. i came out there with another can take up the time. i challenge them both. icet, why should we vote for them and why should we -- why

they have the credentials. in my lifetime -- i have been following politics for 50 years -- i cannot imagine any time in my life when i have seen things as desperate as they are today for us. i am talking about the nation. i'm talking about the very culture of this nation, our fundamental political system is at stake. all of these things, i think, iare going to require someone to come out and lead. that is why i chose works and warm. one of the things -- joseph rick santorum. one of the things you have to focus on is the person who is the most consistent in message, sharpening the message every day, and who has been front to back, top to bottom, the most consistent conservative that we have had a chance to observe

here in iowa. everyone wonders why we still have such a large undecided crowd. the crowds we see today, there are not too many. i have challenged the reporters -- i said, you all feel you got the short straw dealing with present form. you are going to be hearing from your editors. this is the guy that is going to carry the dave for us. he did not come here to listen to me. -- this is the guy that is going to carry the day for us. he you did not come here to listen to me. you came here to listen to ricks and warm. [applause] -- rick santorum. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. you got them fired up, sam.

thank you very much. i do not know how many times i have been here, at least three times, two times to ottumwa. we have trouble -- traveled to many, town hall meetings. 370 town hall meetings. indianola to knoxville and the other side of marion county and to ahoskie and now down to a tom watt. -- ottumwa. ande going to work hard around the center of the state to drive home the votes on tuesday night. my son is here with me in the back. he is famous because he's got his youtube video out there. my son john.

we went on a pheasant hunt on monday. within a few minutes, a bird pop up and the first time out and he knocked it right out of the air. he made his dad very, very proud. [applause] we had a great hunter. it is my second time hunting here in iowa. i'm a great lover of the second amendment. i would say the second amendment is there to protect the first. [applause] my nray proud of membership and the a-plus rating from the nra. we have been working on a lot of issues in our bill of rights to make sure that those rights, freedom of religion, and all of

the things that are so important to this country. diyala is in german, i'm very proud to be traveling with -- ladies and gentlemen, i'm very proud to be traveling with math and sam today. this is something you are going to have to do, which -- if you have not done it already, which is to make a decision on tuesday night, go to caucus, and start this process. i mean, start this process. everything else has been spring training. you start the process. all of the polls and pundits and people telling you what is going to happen and where the races between, i mean, -- who the race is between, i mean, if you go back to june, it has been between two candidates, but the problem is that it has not been the same two candidates for any two months in a row. [laughter] i will tell you the candidates is between, who you say.

do not defer your judgment to everybody else. everybody else is not doing what you are doing. everybody else is not coming to these meetings. how many people have been to see another candidate in this process? the vast majority of the folks in this room. the bottom line is, you know more about these candidates than any of the pundits. and any of the folks that are answering these national polls. my first charge to all of you is to lead. do not differ. -- -- defer, lead. you are not quite finished. lead. and this is important.

do not settle for what america needs at this critical time in our history. [applause] you are being told by some and that we have to find someone that can win, and this person can win, and we have to be sure to vote for this person because they can win. we have heard this many times. every time the republican party has done so, guess what, we have lost. we win when we established stark contrast, bold, bright colors that point to the problems that this administration and his leftist policies, his stated policies have brought this country. the weakest -- the weaknesses that he has brought on this country. we need someone who can contrast to obama, someone who has been a warrior on all of the issues, not just one, but has been a

conservative and has fought for limited government, fought for freedom, fought for the family and faith, fought for a strong america. that is the kind of contrast that we need with president obama. it is important to understand is not just winning, but winning and putting someone in place who can take on the very difficult issues, and do so with a vision for america, a bold, strong, conservative vision, confident with our values. please and gentleman, sam, and first matt, step forward after all of these town all meetings in 99 counties, matt waited until the 99 counties for -- before he endorsed me. [laughter] it is true. he waited. he wanted to see if i finish what i started. he stepped forward and start