itself, and when i'm finished recording, i can touch the screen again, hit that button there, and actually recording is now completed. >> is this product right here on the market now? if so, what does it sell for? >> it is not available in the u.s. market yet. .

>> if you like to watch any of these past shows or any communicators, go to c-span.org /communicators.

>> the supreme court heard an hour-long oral argument on wednesday on whether to shoot down the federal law that makes it a crime for a person to lie about receiving military honors. and then introduced himself as a recipient of the congressional matt -- medal of honor. the court of appeals reversed his conviction and struck down the act as a violation of the first amendment. >> the united states versus au revoir is. -- alvarez. >> the military applies exacting criteria in awarding honors. congress has a long tradition of legislating to protect the

integrity of the honor system. the stolen ballot at continues that tradition by prohibiting knowingly false -- valor act advances a legitimate, substantial, compelling governmental interest that shows no protective speech. >> during the vietnam war, the signstors would hold up that say, i won a purple heart for killing babies. he did not win the purple heart. as a reader, i cannot be sure whether he did and is a combat veteran who opposes the war, or what he is a citizen protesting

the war. is that pursuant if he is not a veteran having received the medal? is he liable? >> it would depend on whether that expression was reasonably understood by the audience as a statement of fact or as an exercise in political theater. it is the latter, it is not within the scope of the statute. >> suggesting speech to the absolute rule of no protection. there are circumstances where this speech has value. i believe that is your bottom line. >> this court has said in numerous context, that it calculates its actual osgood has no first amendment value -- contexts that it has no first

amendment value. >> i do not know if that is correct. it is well understood that that speech can enter defamation. you think there is no value in all city. -- falsity. i think there is no -- falsity is a way in which we contrast what is false and what is true. >> i want to respond with precision. the court has drawn a line. false statements of fact have no first amendment value. that does not automatically mean a false statement of fact lacks first amendment protection.

>> you want to take the gertz case where it is understood that the definition is actionable and say that as a general matter, the government can in bay what is false. -- can invade what is false. >> with respect to that delays false statements, the government can recognize that factually false statements have no intrinsic first amendment value. there are substantial constraints that are satisfied because the stolen ballard act --radiate stolen valor act relates to a verifiably false claim that a soldier has gotten an honor. that punishes speech about

yourself. it is these that is uniquely within the individual. >> supposed the declarations were left out and congress had peoplee don't like saying they were in the marine corps for 25 years when they never served for one single day in any armed force. they have a statute like this one. it is directed to the false claims that what has served in the armed forces. i do not see in your argument that there is something special about the declarations.

>> i suppose your argument is that there is harm, not just all said. it is falsehood conjoint would harm just as liable is. in the example that justice ginsburg just gave, there is harm to those courageous men and women who recede to the declarations. in the example that justice ginsburg gave, there is harm that -- to be people honorably served in the armed forces. >> that is what i was trying to get at. >> out of the breathing space principle, congress would have to articulate an interest. >> where do you stop demo there are many things people know about themselves that are -- where do you stop? there are many things that

people know about themselves that are verifiable. is it a crime to stage you have a high-school diploma if you know you do not? congress can say, we want people to finish high school. we want to make sure nobody goes around saying they do and they don't. >> it is an objectively verifiable fact as a state legislature might enact and the state could articulate a substantial interest -- >> some states do have laws respecting false claims to have received a diploma -- >> that is for submiting resume is. that is broad. >> if i could get back to your point about the nature of the harm. you have the particularized harm. the common characteristic that allows the score to move from

declaration to privacy to intentional infliction of emotional distress in the call- up case to a baseless lawsuit -- distress in thought to a baseless lawsuit, it is not an analysis of the particular harm that existed in a defamation context. it is the calculated actual all stood. the harm here is different. >> they were in a context of infliction of emotional distress. here it does seem to me that you could argue this is something dal in trademark, a meta which the government and armed forces had a particular interest and we carved ou andt -- out a narrow exception to that. to say there is no value of all

speech, i cannot agree to the extent of that broad proposition. there is a recognized tort. >> that is true. this is a case in which one of the harms that justifies this statute is the misappropriation of the government-conferred honor and his team. that was real hard and significant harm. there is particular harm of the erosion of the value of the military honor conferred by our government. those are particular harmon's that are real. the kind of speech -- particular harms that are real. anchoring this argument in the tradition of this court's presidents --precedents, this is particular harm.

>> i took time going through the multiple pieces decided in your brief looking at the statutes that impose penalties for impersonation of some sort. virtually in every one of them except perhaps one, there was either an economic interest that was harmed by the impersonation either by the face of the statute or by the nature of the claim. a dilution of a trademark by taking on someone else's valuable property rights. i went back reading our cases. a justice said many years ago, falsehoods have no value. as such. but the breathing space concept is defined by those balsas --

falsehoods which cause harm to people's rise, the interest they have or the reputation -- rights, the interests they have or the reputation of others. there is a harm concept being permissible for recovery. please tell me what is wrong with justice story's view, number one. number two, how does the definition of harm -- what is the harm here that fits within that? >> if i could just make a general point in response to your honor's question.

as i read this court's cases, this court has never held or suggested in any context in which the government wants to regulate a category of copulated falsehood that it would have to meet such scrutiny -- calculated falsehood that it would have to meet such scrutiny. >> justice story said, if you want to regulate a falsehood, it has to cause harm this way. >> i want to respond to the point about justice story in the following way. there are a series of statutes -- the impersonating federal officers statues -- those are designed to protect the integrity of government statutes. >> they are intended to protect

the rights of the government to obtain truthful information. the government has a right to force you to tell the truth. that is a right that it's within story -- fits within story's definition. >> he was talking about private citizens. there is a category of long- recognized government regulation of calculate it actual falsehoods that serve systemic interests. with respect to the stolen valor act, it was built on a statute enacted in 1923 that was related to the wearing of medals. the reason the congress acted in 1923 was out of concern for the

misappropriation that would cause substantial harm. that has been on the books -- >> is your argument limited to statements a person makes about himself or herself? >> yes. that is the category that the statute regulates. the statute is limited to actually verifiable information. the person is -- actually verifiable information. -- factually arab bible information. - factually varverifiable information. >> what if someone said a spouse or a parent or a child was a medal recipient? >> that would be a case that

under the breathing space principle that this court applies when talking about actual falsehoods, you have to answer a question. -- factual balsa, you have to answer a question. -- factuall calculated all stood -- falsehoods, you have to answer a question. >> in punishing some all stood -- falsehood, you risk deterring truth. >> you have to answer the question of whether there was a material risk.

under the breathing space principles, that is the question the court would have to anser. -- answer. wered yes that it is only self. could be making a false statement of fact. just in service, leaving out the declaration, false statements. like i deny the holocaust ever occurred. >> a statute seeking to regulate

that would have discrimination statutes. you would want to exercise care. this is a specific verifiable statement of falsehood. >> there is no value in a false statement of fact, a statement intended to be understood as true. there is no first amendment value in that statement. it may be protected because of

the breathing space argument. in whatever context, there is no protection in that false representation as such. >> that is the position we have taken in this case. we meet the court's precedents. false statements of fact are harmful to first amendment interests because they impede the search for truth. calculated falsehood is no part of the expression of ideas or the expression of truth. >> what about the state statutes? no demonstrable balsas by eye clinic -- by a political candidates -- falsehood by a

political candidate in a political race. >> those would have a hard time getting through the court's breathing space principle. >> demonstrable falsehoods about yourself, your qualifications, what you have done in your life, whether you have been in military service, whether you have been to college. any demonstrable statement that a political candidate makes about himself. >> under the breathing space analysis, those statues will pose a particular risk of chill. this is a statute about verifiable -- >> i do not understand why one

statement would be more chilling than another. >> in a situation like that one, the government also power and authority is being trained on the political process, a statement in the political process. >> in the case of the state statues, the case -- the state feels it has an interest in maintaining the political sphere free of lies. >> the chilling effect seems to be materially different than a situation like this one where we are talking about a specific pinpointing of one thing. have you been awarded a military honor or not to? statements about yourself only, not about someone else -- have you been awarded a military honor or not? >> even in the commercial

context, we allowed a decent amount of lying. it is called puffing although making false representations to sell a product is unlawful, we do allow puffing, don't we? you will not buy it cheaper anywhere else. maybe we allowed a certain allow of -- amount of puffing in political statements. >> the court's breathing space analysis would call for that. >> in a political campaign, you have the deputy district attorney filing a prosecution two weeks before the election saying about this or that.

maybe there has to be a deposition or a trial. nothing like that is involved here. >> it seems to me your best analogy is the trademark analogy, the olympics case. you put that in as an afterthought or a secondary argument in your brief. it is the strongest one. the whole breathing space thing is almost backwards. it presumes the government is going to have a ministry of truth and breathing space around in -- it. this does diminish the medal in many respects. >> there are a lot of slippery slope type questions here today.

i would urge the court not to decline to make a sound decision about this statute based on concern about not being able to draw the line. this statute is as narrow as you can get. >> i have a problem. it is not as narrow as it can get. congress said it was protecting against fraudulent claims of receiving a medal. the example it used was someone who used be fraudulent claim of receiving a medal to get money. what harm are we protecting here? i thought the core of the first amendment was to protect even against it spends less speech. we have a legion of cases -- offensive speech.

we have been legion of cases that say your reaction to offensive speech is not enough. what i hear and what i think the courts below said is that you cannot really believe that a war veteran thinks less of the battle -- the medal that he or she received because someone is claiming fraudulently that they got one. they do not think less of being medal. we are offended that someone is claiming an honor that they did not recede. = = reci -- receive. outside of the emotional reaction, where is the harm? i am not minimizing it. i take offense when someone makes this kind of claim. i take offense when someone i am

dating makes a claim that is not true. [laughter] >> i have a 20 year old daughter and i agree. [laughter] no soldier charges up a mountain thinking, i will do this because i will get a middle -- medal when i get to the top. that is not what the honor system is about. it is about identifying the essence of what we want in our service men and women, courage, sacrifice, love of country, willingness to put your life on the line for your comrades. the medals say to our military, this is what we care about. it is what george washington said when he set up the honor system. it is designed to terrorist bay -- cherish the valor of

military service. the point of these medals is that it is a big deal. you get some you get one -- you get one for doing something that is a big deal. to stand by when someone makes a false claim to have won the medal thus devalue the battle -- the medal in the face of the soldiers. >> this gentleman was publicized. his public position was compromised, as is the case of almost everyone who is caught lying. >> this is a category of copulated actual all stood up -- falsehood.

>> did the military ask for this? you are claiming special interest in seeing that the military honor is not be based -- debased. >> it did not. congress has substantial authority to regulate our armed forces. it is not unlike the statute in the fairer case. >> did the commander in chief sign that legislation? >> yes, he did. >> thank you, mr. verrilli. >> thank you, mr. chief justice. the stolen valor act

criminalizes pure speech. it does not matter what did the lie was told in public meetings or in a private conversation with a friend or family member. the law punishes all claims regardless of whether harm results or is likely to result. >> what is the first amendment value in a lie, 8 shoreline? -- a pure lie? >> the value of personal autonomy. >> what does that mean? >> we get to exaggerate. we are often making up things about ourselves that we want people to think abouts. about. samuel clemens created mark

twain. >> no one is saying you cannot write a book or tell a story. it seems to me very different. >> when people tell lies, it allows us to appreciate to is better. >> do you really think there is first amendment value in a lie about a statement that a person makes about himself gemm? i was a rhodes scholar. the first amendment protects that? >> as long as it does not cause harm. >> that is not a statement about

one's self. >> the stolen valor act is more narrow than that. in that situation, you would not describe what the individual in justice breyer's hypothetical was telling a false statement about himself. it is not about someone hiding in the attic. it is not about himself. >> if a grandfather were to make up a story that he had won a medal to persuade a grant child-- >> that is missing the limitation be government has read into the statute. not for damage or for parity or

parody.order -- for it is a purely false statements about oneself. >> the purpose of the first amendment was a limit on government power. our founders believed that congress does not get to tell us what we can and cannot say. >> they do in countless areas. whether you are talking about defamation, trademark, perjury, all sorts of things. it cannot adopt that as a general principle. he must not apply it regardless of the situation. >> those are examples where we have harm attached to the falsehood. >> sometimes harm is for

governmental purposes. how it justified criminalizing making a false statement to a government agency. making a false statement and there is a government investigation. this type of false statement in paris the government also ability to honor -- impairs the government's ability to honor valorious actions. >> you have suggested to us that we should apply strict scrutiny to all of these cases. almost nothing passes strict scrutiny. -- should 1001 - pass strict scrutiny?

>> all statement laws do have a history in this country. the court could recognize a historical category of eminent harm or potential risk of eminent harm to government functions. perjury falls into that category. 1001 make it into that category. since the beginning of our nation, congress has passed false statement laws. when congress passed this legislation, it did so because it thought the value of the award that these courageous members of the armed forces were receiving were being diminished. by charlatans. that is what congress thought. is that on reasonable?

>> it is not entirely clear what congress thought on this. made a broad, general finding that false statements -- >> it is a matter of common sense that it demeans the medal. what did you do to the statute that prohibits the wearing of a medal that has not been earned? >> you are dealing with conduct. >> i am not so sure. if you prevail here, the wearing prohibition must also be in serious doubt. >> it may be in doubt under certain situations. congress has an interest in protecting non-expressive

purposes. >> the purpose of the person who puts the middle on his tuxedo is expressing a purpose. that is pure expression. >> it may be, your honor. we few -- we view it under a different prism? >> but why? if you wear the medal, you are saying, i am in medal of honor winner. >> if the court finds it is unconstitutional -- >> you think the wearing of a military declaration you have not earned it is quite simple consistency with the first amendment? >> it would depend on the

circumstances. >> most circumstances. you go out into the street with the memedal on you. >> if congress does not have a non-speech purpose or prohibiting the wearing of the medal of honor, there would be a significant first amendment problem. >> don't you think that is the case? there is no non-expressive purpose i can think of. >> that may well be. in this case, what we are dealing with is a content based regulation of speech. >> it first amendment allows the regulation of false speech if it causes certain kinds of harm. the problem i have with your argument is determining which harms count and which do not

count. would you say only to carry harm counts -- picuniary harm counts? going up to someone and saying, your child has just been run over by a bus. how do we determine which harms are sufficient? >> we believe the right way to look at this is to determine if there is imminent harm or the risk of eminent harm to any individual or to a government function that would result from the speech. >> when you say imminent, what do you mean by that. >> i am suggesting the brandenburg standard. >> if that is the standard, most of the prosecutions or making

false statements to a law- enforcement officer are not going to survive. >> the issue of 1001 and those false statements is a substantial risk to them unharmed could result from the falsehood. it may not result in a particular case. the substantial risk of eminent heart -- >> you are not talking about imminent harm. you are talking about harm. >> presumably, you are doing it to send them in be wrong direction. the heart may not be there. there is significant risk of harm that the government has the right to protect itself from. that is where you would draw the line. that is where the court appears to have drawn the line in those categories of speech that are unprotected. >> mr. libby, let's pretend i

agree with gertz and that there is no protection of false statements of fact. if that is so, how is it that this statute would show any -- would chill any truthful speech? >> it is not clear that it would chill in truthful speech. we could see that one typically knows whether or not one has won a metal or not. we can -- we can see that point. >> that is a big concession. you are saying you can only win this case if this court decides that the gertz statement was an olver exaggeration. -- over exaggeration.

>> we believe the statute cover someone that could be prosecuted for parody. >> the government has said that is not how we read it at it. the court reads statues to avoid a constitutional commission. let's assume we are not going to cover performances, a satire. it is just a lie. >> it is still our position that all speech is protected unless we go back to one historical category of speech that the court has found that is historically unprotected.

that has never been recognized by this court as being an unprotected form of speech. >> i understand them to argue that it can be limited under its breathing space rationale. it is not within one of the categories of unprotected speech. you have to analyze it under the first amendment. you analyze its according to its it chills protected speech -- it according to whether or not it chills protected speech. >> the government starts from the presumption that it is not fully protected speech. we should be starting with the presumption that it is fully protected speech, which this court has previously said it is in one of these historical

categories of unprotected speech. >> you are saying, historically, we have not protected false statements that cause harm. i think that is your argument. >> that is correct. >> the historical exception like defamation are those that cause harm. i go back to justice alito's question. you really have not answered his question. you have dealt with the government process cases. we could argue if that is protecting a process or protecting the government to the right to prove -- truthful information. the question is, how do you deal with the additional -- intentional infliction of emotional distress.

the damage requires injury and it is defined what kinds of an injury. tell me how you define harm in the non-governmental situation. then tell me why this situation does not fit that definition. >> in the situation with intentional infliction -- and infliction of emotional distress, you are dealing with the stress that results from the false statement. there is imminent harm that results in the intentional infliction of distress. >> what distress do the did medal middle winners feel in seeing false medal winners.

>> people are entitled to be upset by these false claims 3 i am upset by these false claims. -- by these false claims. i am upset by these false claims. what we are dealing with is a non-instantaneous harm. the government has suggested there is no harm that results from a single claim. falsehood did not cause harm to any individual. >> we should determine there are certain harms that are sufficient to allow prohibition of a false statement their respective of what judgment congress made -- irrespective of

what judgment congress may. >> there needs to be imminent harm. there needs to be targeted harm to an individual or to government functions. it cannot be the type of diffuse harm. >> why not? we are willing to protect the olympics committee when it falls person says he is the olympic committee when it might deprive the olympic committee of a pin. to win this great medal, the congressional medal of honor, the highest award a nation can give, it deserves the grandest possible respect. we do not even want you to have to think about somebody having taken that name falsely. we will criminalize its, -- rich criminalize -- criminalize

it. in my mind, there is real harm. i can think of instances where we want to protect false information. i want you to accept that as a given. that is not my question. [laughter] my question is, if i am writes that there are first amendment reasons the four. --acting -- if i am right that there are certain reasons for protecting false information, there are particular ways of going about it. what and why? >> there is time to fix the problem. there is time for them to be exposed. >> the government is going to hire people to follow?

is that realistic? when there is a sanction in place, you think twice before you tell a lie. if there is no sanction on the then you might be exposed, who is going to expose you? there are a lot of people who tell a lie. do you expect the government to hire investigators to go around the country outing people who falsely claim military honors? >> isn't that exactly what is happening with this law right now? the government is sending fbi investigators out to investigate these allegations. individuals here the statements and they think they might be false. e it and conduct their own investigations.

>> the threat of criminal prosecution might discourage from lying, who would never be caught? exposure won't work. you have a less restrictive alternative that helps some, but not completely. are there others? >> it you are never caught, then under the government also theory, no one has been harmed individually. >> not under my theory. my theory is that it does hurt the medal, the objective, the honor, for people to falsely go around saying they have this medal when they don't. i might be wrong about that. i asked you to assume that for purposes of argument. i want as big a list i can think about of what the less restrictive alternatives are or might be. >> the military could redouble

its efforts at binary those who are entitled to the awards. there was a hearing that suggested the military has been lax in identify true heroes and identifying -- and awarding them medals. the government could publicize the names of true winners. the government could get people know who has won them. >> how about giving been medal of shame to those who have falsely claimed to have earned the battle of valor. -- medal of valor. >> that is something that the government could do. >> what you get six months for a middle of shame -- or a medal of shame does not matter under your theory. >> exposing them for what they

are, which is a liar. mr. alvarez, whether or not he committed a crime, he was exposed for what he was, which was a liar. >> suppose the statute was amended to require an intent to obtain anything of value? >> that would turn the law into a trot statute. fraud is an unprotected category of speech. >> that would not reach this speaker. that would not reach alvarez because he did not obtain anything of value. >> mr. alvarez did not obtain anything of value. >> how do we know that? he was politically active. does it help a politician to

have a medal of valor? >> there are a lot of people who would consider that a great thing. there are also a lot of people who do not know what that is. >> your willingness to say the statute is valid as long as there is some benefit to the person who dies is an awfully big concession. >> if congress were to amend the law to require that it be done with the intent to obtain something of value, it becomes fraud. ron is something that the government does have the right to prosecute. -- fraud is something that the government does have the right to prosecute. >> praise and the higher esteem of your citizens is not enough. you are not going to get a penny out a bit, -- out of it, right?

>> how that is ultimately interpreted -- could it be a non-monetary thing of value? yes. >> if he makes this statement at a debate and he is running for office, he can be prosecuted. getting into office is something of value. >> perhaps, your honor. it may come down to how the court ultimately interprets a thing of value. it is not clear that try to obtain 8 voted from somebody is necessarily anything of value -- obtain a vote from somebody is necessarily a thing of value. >> what if it is the cheers of the crowd.

they give him a parade down main street. is that something of value? >> it could be. it will come down to how that ultimately gets -- >> would the first amendment permits and that? -- permit that? >> that is a difficult question. >> that is sort of the question we have to answer here. [laughter] >> what if he gets a date with a potential which spouse? would that be enough? >> when you get into a situation where you are getting something like a date, i would not consider that of value. >> some people might have a different opinion. >> that may be.

should that become the law, we have to look at that closely. >> we have similar statutes. does it add enough to make it not your speech and to ward off the things we are worried about in the first amendment? powers duties and privileges. those are ways statues have of limiting these things. how does that work? >> when you get into the issue of impersonation, the court would have to assess its under the amount of individual armed to an individual. >> it is a way of walling off

things that are of concern to the first amendment. you know the language. it is written about in the brief. i just want to know how you would think about a statute that afforded that kind of language, which is limiting language. >> it would be important to limit the language as much as possible. you want to make it as narrow as possible. we are supposed to start from the presumption that we have the right to say pretty much what we want to say. then we start to limit where'd. -- where. it goes back to, is it one of these unprotected types of speech that is not entitled to constitutional protection? >> thank you, mr. libby.

mr. verrilli, you have five minutes. >> my only question is the slippery slope problem. could you address that? >> there is a substantial degree of work in controlling what your honor is describing as the slippery slope problem. the statute has to be narrowly drawn. as i said in my opening statement, i think that is a case in which you could argue either way. the government articulate its substantial interest -- >> government has a strong

interest in the sanctity of the family, the stability of the family. we are going to prevent anybody from telling lies about their extramarital affairs. >> in addition to the governmental interest, it has to be tailored in a way that avoids chill . >> the person knows everything about it. you either had one or you did not have one. >> that is a hard case. with respect to the chilling effect analysis, you would have difficulty sustaining that statute. that is not the kind of statute we have here. this is a target this statute designed -- we do not know what will come up, but i can easily think of an example. if this is lawful and

constitutional, then you have people in political campaigns suddenly worrying the u.s. attorney is going to come in. that is part of the chilling effect. >> i think the analysis requires that it not have that type of killing effect. this statute does. that is the key. >> it seems to meet you are asking us to value the speech in context. we are not talking about the effect of the speech. you are asking us to say a college can did it in a political campaign could be political speech. in that sense, you cannot sanction. but you can sanction that in a different contact. -- context.

if it does not show political speech, it may cause someone to date someone they think is more of a professional. >> the respondent has conceded that this statute shows nothing. that should be a sufficient answer to your honor's concerns that with respect to other statutes in the future that can be evaluated to determine whether or not they propose a chill that could lead to a conclusion. the respondent concedes there is no chill here that this statute is constitutional. >> the case is submitted. >> coming up this evening on c- span, republican presidential

candidates rick santorum and mitt romney. then, at a discussion on spending by super pacs. later, the chair and vice chair of the national government association lays out the issues are at the winter meeting in washington. all this weekend, we are bringing you live coverage from the national governors' association's winter meeting. it continues tomorrow morning at 9:30 eastern with efforts to end childhood hunger. among the guest, agriculture secretary. later in the afternoon about 2:30, the special committee on homeland security and public safety will explore the changing role of the national guard. general craig mckinley will join the governors. watched live coverage beginning at 9:30 eastern here on c-span.

>> we got started because there are a lot of conservative think tanks. there had been no single progressive think tank that worked on economic policy or domestic policy. >> neera tanden, president and ceo of the center for american progress. >> the ideologies behind washington have looked very -- have a very little facts behind them. part of our job is to make a factual argument and the evidence based behind on our own views. i do think sometimes the fact do not argue far our position. we examined that position. >> a look at the center for

american progress sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a". >> with michigan's primary election on tuesday, republican provincial candidates have been travelling throughout the state this weekend. but rick santorum and mitt romney spoke today at a forum in troy it, michigan. santorum criticized mitt romney par his health care policies in massachusetts. following the speech, which will fall -- we will have remarks from mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you. thank you so much. thank you for that great reception. i appreciate the opportunity to

be here. americans for prosperity, all the great work they do in supporting free enterprise, free markets, and limited government. i am excited to be here with you. i look forward to a good day on tuesday here in michigan. i am looking forward to big things. [applause] this has been a campaign that has had its ups and downs for me. this has been an amazing ride. two months ago, the pundits were asking me why i was still in the race. we will go out there and we will deliver a positive message for america. we will remind people why we are the greatest country in the history of the world. and why we will again be a shining city on the hill, the beacon of hope and freedom for the world. we have to -- [applause] we have to have a leader who believes what america was all about and why we created the

greatest country in the history of the world. we have to have someone who understands the greatness of america that is not in our military, not in our economy, not in our form of government. it is on the idea that from the very beginning, our country was founded on the idea of the dignity of every human life. freedom and opportunity for every human being to realize their potential. to be able to build strong families, business, and the community, and church, civic and community organizations. all the things that create a great and vibrant community. that is what made america a great country. we did not start as a country with a sovereign and a strong central government allocating resources and putting people

into classes and titles. we believe in limited government and free people. we built this great community. that is the secret of america. that is why you have seen other countries try to copy what we do here. even in the last couple of years, we have tried to help other countries be like america. they find it hard. they cannot quite do what we do. we are different. we are exceptional. we did it from the foundation the right way. we believe in free people. my grandfather came to this

country in 1925. when he came here, he spent the first two years, he left my father and his family behind. he came here as a proud italian-american. a shout out for the italian- americans. that is my name in italy, too. guess where my grandfather came. he came to detroit and he worked two years in the auto factories here in detroit. he was not a red wings fans, i just want you to know that. sorry. he came here and worked two years and then he went to the coal mines of western pennsylvania. when my dad came to this country, that is where he came. my grandfather came to this country. he was not promise any

government benefits. there were no government benefits. just one -- freedom. that was enough for him. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, there are a lot of things at stake in this election. but ultimately what is its stake is our freedom. we have the government and a leader who believes that he knows best. the elite in society who thinks they can manage your life better than you can. they can manage industries, sectors of the economy, and tell you that they will give you rights to health care and to all sorts of other things.

they will tell you they will take care of you. but what we find is when the government says they will give you rights, they will tell you how to exercise those rights. and the biggest example of that is obamacare. i would not be in this race if it was not for obamacare. to me, obamacare is the game changer for our country. it is robbing us of our essential freedom. [applause] it is the ultimate top down, i know better than you do. i will tell you what insurance policy. what benefits, but your deductible, everything. the government has designed five plans for you. it tells you what doctors and hospitals will be reimbursed. it manages your economic choices.

it landed some based on what the government thinks you should have. we need health savings accounts. the real answer is consumer driven health care. do you have any idea who was the original author of health savings accounts 20 years ago? [applause] i was for free-market health care before conservatives were for free market health care. that has been a leader on conservative, on the most fundamental issue, your health. it is what the progressive

nirvana has been from the beginning. they have seen it in other socialist countries in the world. when the government can convince you that you need to give them the power over your health, they got you. they got you. now you will pay tribute to them. you will give them even more power so they will give you more benefits. i saw that from the beginning. why? because i am a conservative. not because it is popular. it is because of who i am. i was never for a government run health care system. it is robbing you of your freedom and giving control to the government. [applause]

you look at this race, the big issue is government control of the economy of businesses, of the energy industry, health care, financial services and history, regulation, mandates, government programs. who has been out there on the big issues of the day? never buying into climate science. the only person i sit next to on the couch is my wife. i do not go out and crow that i proposed the first carbon tax on power plants. as governor romney did when he was governor of massachusetts.

i did not buy it. i did not buy climate science. [applause] i did not buy it because i knew climate science was political science. [applause] i did not blow in the wind when things were popular to be with the elite. i do not come from the elite. my grandfather was a coal miner. i grew up in public housing. i worked my way to the success that i have. i am proud of it. [applause] i will not let the phoney ideology to rob you of your freedom. i was not for obamacare.

you are the center of the health-care industry. i was not for bailouts. i was not for the bailout of wall street. we saw what happened to the mills in western pennsylvania. bethlehem steel, no longer. these are the big names that dominated the steel industry. most of them are gone. the steel industry is still here. pittsburgh is revitalized. there is a lot more there, too. capitalism works. free markets work. you have to believe in it. [applause]

i can understand how some people can panic at a time of crisis and believe that government is the answer. it was the wrong thing for them to do to bail out wall street. i can understand why people did it. what i cannot understand is why some people would bail out wall street and use a very different measure to not bail out detroit. if you will bailout wall street, and take care of your friends on wall street, and you do not have a principle against government bailouts, why do you pick one and not the other? you can criticize me for not supporting the detroit bailout. i did not support any bailout. i did not support bailouts in my own community. [applause]

what you have with me is what you see is what you get. as opposed to, what you see today is different than what you get tomorrow. i will be a strong consistent conservative. i will stand up for free people and free markets. i have laid out my 10-point plan of what i will do in the first 100 days. i talked about cutting taxes for everyone. governor romney's plan is to cut taxes. how will he pay for it? by taxing the top 1%. never thought a republican presidential candidate would adopt the verbage of occupy wall street. [applause]

he is in a primary where conservatives matter. to imagine what it will be like when the general election comes around. what you see is what you get. we will cut taxes for everybody. [applause] we will focus on creating jobs, just like we are doing in pennsylvania. we will talk about manufacturing. i know what manufacturing means to a community. i understand what it means to have folks who are at the bottom of the economic ladder. i know what it means to have those manufacturing jobs, it gives to the opportunity to accumulate more skills over time.

those opportunities for working men and women, not all folks are gifted in the same way. some people have incredible gifts and want to work. president obama says he wants everybody in america to go to college. what a snob. [applause] you are good decent men and women who work hard every day. they are not taught by some liberal college professor. [applause] i understand why he wants you to go to college. he wants to remake you in his

image. i want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his. [applause] we have an opportunity in america to stand up for working men and women in manufacturing and energy. create jobs from the bottom up. to go out in states like michigan, pennsylvania, and ohio and talk to minority communities. not about giving them more food stamps, but about creating jobs. [applause] we will cut the size and scale of government. i propose $5 trillion in cuts over five years.

spending less money each year than the year before. [applause] i have not been the advocate of expanding government with new entitlement programs, like governor romney. i have reformed entitlement programs. if you look at the rest of the programs, we reformed welfare program. instead of a dependency program, we made it a transitional program. food stamps and medicaid and welfare programs need to have happen to them what i was able to get seven votes and the united states senate and bill clinton's signature. we had leaders talking to you and you wrote to them.

that is great to see. i was at a tea party event just a few minutes ago. i am glad you are here. 15 years ago, you were not here. 15 years ago, we were pretty complacent. easier thaning was cutting things. why did you do all those things? where were you? the american public was not out there doing what they were doing now. we were not in the condition we are in now. i saw it coming. i was proposing reforms to social security and medicare. i was proposing reforms to a whole bunch of other programs. i turned around and all the people were behind the, way behind me. now you are out here. i am glad you are here. we need your help. we need your energy. we need your enthusiasm to do

the big things. if you want big things to happen, you have to elect somebody and nominate somebody who can draw a clear contrast with president obama. who was able to do big things. [applause] someone you cannot give away the most important issue in this race, health care. governor romney gives that issue away. he was the author of a bill that led to romney-care. he imposed his values on every business and every individual. just like obamacare and in some cases, worse. same mandate. mandated health care. same mandate for doctors, the

same thing. same mandate for fines. same mandate for catholic hospitals to handout morning after pills. he overruled his own secretary of health. if we give up every issue, freedom of religion, freedom of contract, freedom of the economy. the biggest issue of the day, we give up the issue on the bailouts. we make it worse here. he was for some and against others. against the one here in michigan. we give up the issue of cap- and-trade, government control of the energy and manufacturing sectors of the economy. disqualified, disqualified, disqualified. why would we do that? why would we nominate someone who is on qualified to take on

the big issues of the day? he would say, i have changed my mind. let me assure you, the money and the media will convince you he is not what he says he is today. he was not what he says he is yesterday. ladies and gentlemen, this election must be about career choices. -- clear choices. every time we have run a moderate, we have lost. [applause] every time we have run a conservative, a complete conservative on all the issues, national security, culture, and economy, we have won. [applause] every time, in a primary, all the experts say, elect the moderate.

you have to elect the moderates. otherwise, you will lose those key constituents. we won the 2010 election because our people were excited about our candidate and they came out in droves. that is why we won, not because we compromised. they say, a moderate, we need to worry about moderates and the issues. if you are a moderate, issues are obviously not the most important thing to you. otherwise, you would be in one camp or the other. that is why you are a moderate. how many moderates have you talked who say this -- i did not vote for the party, i vote for the person. who are you going to vote for?

are you going to vote for someone who says one thing one day and says anything else the next day to win? someone whose own party doesn't support? at least someone you know they believe what they believe. that is the difference. [applause] we have an opportunity to make this election about big things at a time when big things are extinct. -- at stake. you have an opportunity here in michigan to shock the country. we will stand up for limited government. we will stand up for a constitutional country. we will stand up for strong families and strong communities. thank you very much. god bless you. god bless america. thank you.

[applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

[crowd chanting "go, rick, go ."]

>> former massachusetts governor mitt romney had an opportunity to address the crowd at the american prosperity -- americans are prosperity forum. here is what he had to say. >> what a group. thank you. it is good to be back in the

place we called home for the first 19 years of my life and the first 19 years or so of your life. we were raised in this area. i went to a party when i was in high school. a girl i had seen in elementary school but have not noticed, suddenly became very interesting. she was a sophomore. she had come with someone else. i went up to him and said i live closer to her than you do. can i give her a ride home for you? he said sure. we have been going steady ever since. my wife of 20 years, ann romney. [applause] >> this is a great group. thank you. this is home and this is interesting. we bleed burners.

the other thing you do is listen to tiger baseball. i had a little pink transistor radio that i carry around with me and listened to piper baseball. i had the opportunity to come out once a week when i was in high school. i work at my father's company in troy, michigan. the back story on that is my grandfather, born in wales, and started working at age 6 in the coal mine. when my father was 16, they immigrated here. this is where we got our start. when you think about where we come from and who we are grateful for, we are grateful for our ancestors who made sacrifices and brought us to the greatest land in the world. [applause]

all of my aunts and ogles pulled their money together and gave my father a college education. with that college education, he started a company right here in troy. my father was a brilliant man. he engineered parts for aircraft carriers. hydraulic lifts that brought the .lane uppe my father was the inventor of a vacuum toilets. is that not exciting? [laughter] everybody in my house and moving parts. the door to the kitchen never closed. my father had a police system so the door would automatically close every time. right here in troy is where i work for him as a high school kid. i was so -- i was so proud of him and so proud of the progress they made, the sacrifices of my grandfather as a coal miner, and

that is the sacrifice would be to restore to america. i am convinced there is only one person who can do that. a year ago, when we were making the decision, it was tough because i told mitt four years before, i would never do this again. he laughed and said, you know what, you said that after every pregnancy, so -- [laughter] i guess i really did not mean it. a year ago, when we were making this decision, we were trying to figure out, was he going to run, we could not figure it out. i said, if you win the nomination and if you can beat barack obama, i need to know, can you fix america? he said, yes. ok, let's go. that is all i needed to hear. [applause] maybe i should just do all of the talking and let him stand here and watch me.

[laughter] i also decided no more debates. if we're going to do another debate, he will sit in the audience and watch me, and that will be it. but i have seen his whole life be successful in everything he tackled, whether in college, and he got a degree from harvard law at harvard business school at the same time, whether in business, everything he tackles, he did well. and he is the kind of guy who has integrity, intelligence, good judgment, experience. i am looking for a president will sit in that office, bring that experience, get rid of this deficit spending, and bring sanity back to this country. so now let's hear from you, mitt. >> thanks, sweetie. she is only slightly biased. it is good to be in michigan.

a lot of stories here, deep roots. i was both born here and raised here. i love telling my dad's funny stories. he was in mount pleasant on the fourth of july, just after being elected governor. he stood in front of the audience and he said, "it sure is good being here in mount clemens." [laughter] and there was this big "ooh" from the audience. and my mom went up and said, "george, it's pleasant, pleasant." and he said, "yes, it is pleasant here." [laughter] i was born in detroit, harper hospital. there were about 35 kids in my elementary school. my guess is that every parent who sent a child to kindergarten that morning in that school believed america's promise. they believe if they thought their job the right values and

the home and of the child got a good education, and if he or she was willing to work hard, take risk, and have dreams, they could achieve prosperity of some kind and security. that is something we knew. a part of america was the conviction that the future was brighter than the past, that our kids would live a better life than even we had lived and talk about our grandfather making the sacrifice to come here. she talked about the brothers and sisters, all collecting their savings, giving it to her dad so he could go to college and build a better life for his kids. this has always been part of the american experience. in the last few years, people beginning to wonder if that american promise will be kept or be broken. we have watched a president who has presided over, what, 36 straight months with unemployment over 8%. the 25 million americans out of work, stopped looking for work, part-time jobs that need full-

time employment. those are numbers but i have told you, but those numbers stand behind real people and real crises. it is seniors planning on retiring but who cannot. as a mom and dad, one has a day shift, one has the night shift. they rarely see each other, only on sunday. we have young people coming out of college who cannot find work, soldiers coming home from afghanistan, from iraq, and they cannot find good jobs back here. this is the greatest economy in the world, the greatest nation in the world? we have people really suffering. this president has made a lot of promises he has not kept. he said he would cut the deficit in half. he has doubled it. he is on track, by the end of his first term -- his only term, by the way -- [applause] he is on track to put together

as much public debt almost as all of the prior presidents combined. this is a record he cannot be proud of. he also said he would get people back to work. he said, if i connected this economy turned around in three years, i will be looking at a one-term proposition. we are here to collect. we're taking it back. he also spoke about the need to secure medicare and social security, but temperamentally solvent. and in three years, no meaningful proposals, not even one, to do that. extraordinary. here is a person who not only campaign for president, but has been president three years, and with no prospects of turning the economy around, getting america back to work, no plans to end deficit spending. he just gave a state of the union address in which he did not even mention the deficit. the massive debt this country has. how can that be? and no plans for medicare or social security?

this president is out of ideas, out of excuses. 2012, he will be out of office. [applause] the choice in this election will come down to very different directions. i just listen to frank beckman. what a hero, what a terrific guy, great american. i love listening to him. he was absolutely right as a talked about the different course that america could take. this president has put us on a course to be more like europe. europe does not work in europe, it's sure as heck will not work here. start with the deficit. the idea that he is willing to stand by and watch trillion- dollar deficits -- not just watch them but put them into law -- is simply unthinkable. we are on course to become like greece or italy or spain, and this president sits by idly watching. what i will do is cut spending,

cap spending, and balance the budget. [applause] i have done that. i'm not just talking about that. if you are in business and i was in business 25 years, with it to businesses are run myself, others i try to help, if you are not a conservative fiscally in business, then you are out of business. you have to balance your income statement. you have to make sure that your costs equal your revenues, or your revenues equal or exceed your costs. i went to the banks and did that. i went to my state of massachusetts and balanced the budget every year, without raising taxes or adding more debt. as i go to washington, let me tell you how i will do it. first, i will look at every single line item, every single program, and ask this question

-- is this program so critical to america that it's worth borrowing money from china to pay for it? if not, i will get rid of it. [applause] by the way, it does not take a leader to promise of free stuff. it takes a leader to call for sacrifice and get people to follow. i will be going to the american people and say, look, you may like these programs, but we have to get rid of them, and i will lead. we will have some sacrifice and we will get rid of programs and people like. one that would all agree to get rid of is obama-care. i will get rid of that from the very beginning. [applause] but there are others. we have a bill called davis- bacon. it says you have to use union labor or pay union wages. that costs $10 billion per year. i will get rid of that. we subsidize things like amtrak. we have to stop doing that. there are some things i like,

like the national the dormant for the arts, national endowment for the humanities. they're wonderful, but i am not willing to borrow money boat from china to pay for them. there is public broadcasting. i like pbs, i like big bird, my kids like bert and ernie. i do not think it's worth borrowing money against so our kids don't have to watch advertising. i think it is ok for big bird and kellogg's corn flakes to be on the same tv at the same time. we will stop spending on programs that are not absolutely essential. that is number one. i will cut a lot of spending by doing that. there is another way to cut spending, and i am sure you will appreciate this. that is by taking programs we will keep, like medicaid, the programs for the poor who need health care, and housing vouchers, food stamps or people in need. we will take those programs and instead of them being managed by the federal government and growing completely out of

control, we will send them back to the states. we will let the states run those programs, with specific limits on how fast they grow. [applause] and by the way, that saves $100 billion per year, by having medicaid grow at inflation plus 1%. there are other programs that are so on economical and wasteful in washington. you know how many job training programs there are in washington? 47. think of that. and reporting to up to eight different agencies. as somebody is looking for job training, think of all the programs that have to sort through, all of the bureaucrats and the waste. i want to get rid of all of it. take those dollars, send it back to michigan, and say, mich., you craft them and do a better job at much less cost. [applause] so balancing the budget. balancing the budget starts with cutting and eliminating

programs. number 2, taking programs we will keep, sending them back to the states, where there manage with less fraud, inefficiency, and more effectively. and third, with the government that remains, we have to make it far more efficient than what we have. let me tell you a story about efficiency in government. this comes from john lehman, former secretary of the navy under ronald reagan. he said in the second world war, navy purchasing was approximately 1000 people. he said by the time he became secretary of the navy, we were commissioning 17 ships per year, and navy purchasing had grown to 4000 people. he said today we commission nine ships per year. navy purchasing? it has grown to 24,000 people. we have to economize. i will cut at least 10% of the federal work force that

remains, through attrition, and i will link the pay of federal workers to pay that exists in the private sector. [applause] you do those things and we balance our budget. the other things? we have to get the economy growing again. this president does not seem to understand what drives growth. this president this last week announced a program where he will raise the marginal tax rate from 35% to 40%. you know how many people work in businesses where the businesses charge not the corporate rate but the individual rate? where businesses have flow- through, where they do not have the corporate level tax but the individual tax? do you know in the private sector work force, 54% of americans work for that kind of business? so if you raise the tax rate from 35% to 40%, you make it harder for them to grow.

i will cut the marginal tax rates for everyone by 20% and get this economy going again. [applause] he has his own plans for energy as well, and that is to say no to call, no to oil, no to natural gas, no nuclear, yes to his friends at cylinder. -- solyndra. my view is we have to say yes to the keystone pipeline, yes to drilling, yes to energy in this country that we can develop in this country. [applause] he believes in something i called crony capitalism. it is kind of phony capitalism. he takes your money so he can invest with his friends, whether it is fisker or tesla, money goes into businesses that happen to be big contributors to his effort. and not worked out so far, we will see how they do down the

road. what they do is make it harder for the private sector to grow and thrive because competitors of those businesses cannot get financing and go out of business. the right course for america is not having a president trying to direct winners and losers, it is to let the free market choose the best and to let those thrive and succeed. we are facing real challenges, a crisis of fortunes in the american family that is under stress, the economy, globally with iran and others threatening our security and our peace, and this is not a time for business as usual in washington. it is a time for principal, conservative leadership. i learned that in my home, the values i was taught there. i live in my home. i learned it in my business experience, where you have to balance your income statement. i applied to those principles as the governor of a state.

by the way, playing in michigan as a conservative is like playing an away game. i legislature was 85% democrat, yet we balance the budget every year without raising taxes or the debt, reduce the legislature tax rate 19 different times, and we also were successful in implementing english in our schools. we fought for english immersion, our kids are taught in english in our schools. [applause] i empowered our state police to enforce illegal immigration laws in massachusetts so we could deport people who come here illegally. [applause] i also faced a supreme court in my state that said john adams had written into the constitution the right to marriage between people of the same gender. we reversed that in my state. we were on progress to do that.

then we also had the legislature passed a bill that said we would allow cloning and our state. they want to change the definition of when life began. i stood up, said no, and veto that legislation. i'm a pro-life governor, a pro- life candidate, perot traditional marriage candidate, and i am a conservative. i test from my conservative traditions by quoting somebody who endorsed me and my 2008 campaign. santorum said, mitt romney, this is a guy who is really conservative and we can trust. he said he is the clear conservative candidate. he is right, i am the conservative candidate, and what we need in the white house is principled conservative leadership, and i will bring it. [applause] now, at the last debate -- and

that was a fun debate in arizona -- at the last debate, we heard something about business as usual in washington. when the senator mentioned sometimes you have to take one for the team, what he was describing was the circumstances where he disagreed with something on principle, but he had to vote for that because it was taking one for the team. we cannot do that anymore. we cannot continue to take one for the team. my team is the people of the united states of america, and i will fight for that team, not the partisans in washington. [applause] the list from that debate was extraordinary. he was opposed to planned parenthood funding and title 10, but voted for it. he was opposed to no child left behind, he voted for it. he voted to raise the debt ceiling five times without compensating cuts and costs. he described how he favors earmarks, including fighting

for the bridge to nowhere. he supported arlen specter's efforts. there was also 1996, where he supported arlen specter, by the way, when he was running for president. arlen specter, the only pro- choice candidate we saw in that race. there were other conservatives running like bob dole. he supported the pro-choice candidate, arlen specter. this taking one for the team, that is business as usual in washington. we have to have principled conservative leadership, and i have demonstrated that through my life and as governor. i listened to frank beckman a moment ago, and he was right on -- this president says he wants to transform america. i do not want to transform america, i want to return to america the principles that made us great over the years.

again, thinking about frank, he quoted the declaration of independence. those first words, carefully selected by the founders, changed the world. they said that the creator had endowed us with our rights. not the governor, not the state. and among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. those words meant opportunity here in america, and freedom. so freedom lovers from all over the world came here. this was the place of opportunity, where people could pursue their dreams. government would not direct how could live their lives, the circumstance of birth would not limit what to achieve. through work, education, a little good luck, their ambition, their dreams, that would determine their success. that brought people here by the millions of the centuries.

we have to restore those values. i love the words of the great american hymns that describe how much we love this country. "america the beautiful" -- "o beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain." "o beautiful, for heroes proved, in liberating strife. who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life." any veterans in the room who remember that? please stand and be recognized. [applause] thank you. thank you, sir. there is another verse. "o beautiful, for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years." the idea is the founders of this country did not just right for their times.

this all beyond the years. the principles of freedom and the preservation of life and the ability in america to pursue happiness as we choose. that those principles would not be temporary but enduring. they have changed american meat is the most powerful nation in the history of the earth. president obama and his friends are trying to change us, take us in a different direction, because more like europe, make us an entitlement society, where people think they're entitled to whatever they want. they want government to take from some and give to others. in that society, the only people who do well are the government givers and takers. that is the wrong course for america. the right course for america is to lower the burden of government, make it smaller, and the deficits, debt america on track to prosperity by lifting up the american people with. homes, great value is, toward the jobs, is soaring economy, with a nation that a second to none.

i will fight with all of my energy to install conservative principles, the principles of the founders, the principles upon which this nation was founded. there were found with berlin's and inspiration. we need to restore them so that america can remain as it always has been, the shining city on the hill. thank you very much. great to be here with you today. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> thank you. hi. how are you? >> [inaudible conversations] >> coming up next on c-span, a discussion on spending by super pacs. after that, the chair and vice chair of the national governor'' association talk about some of the major issues on the agenda during this weekend's winter

meeting. later, nascar driver danica patrick on the opportunity race in the indy 500 later this sunday. >> at 6:00, newt gingrich at rock springs baptist church in georgia. the former speaker of the house is on a campaign bus tour in his home state. watch road to the white house cover sunday on c-span. >> we got started because there were a lot of conservative think tanks that work across issues. before cap, there had been no

single progressive organization that worked at economic, domestic policy, national security. >> the president and ceo of the center for american progress on the mission of the washington d.c.-based think tank. >> we think there is often in ideologies behind particular arguments made in washington with very little facts behind them. part of our job is to make the factual arguments and the evidence based arguments behind our own views. i do think that sometimes, when the facts and that are due for our position, we reexamine those positions because we fundamentally believe the most important thing is to be right about what your views are. >> a look at the center for american progress sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." >> political reporter david levinthal and joined us on the "washington journal" this morning to talk about spending

by super pacs. according to "the washington post", in january, just five donors gave a total of $19 million, 1/4 of the money raised for the presidential race that month. this is 40 minutes. >guest: nobody is expecting them to exist, and here they are playing an outsider role off, compared to what they would be playing. s did notuper pac even exist, but nobody had heard of a super pac because it was

not in the english lexicon. but here they are, and they are outside groups that are nominally independent from presidential candidates, at least the ones supporting presidential candidates directly, and they can raise and spend unlimited sums of money. they could take it from special interest groups and individuals and spend that money on communications that are overtly advocating for or against a federal candidate. that could be presidential orris congressional or senate candidates. what we are seeing right now is they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars, but at this juncture in the 2012 election cycle, spending tens of millions of dollars and doing so in many cases, especially in the presidential race, but to tear the candidates down in and sometimes as a violent terms as they possibly can with negative advertising, with messages that

are some of the nasty as we have seen not only in this election cycle blood that was politics. host: explain to was how super pacs were created? now is just about everything people are talking about. guest: this stems from two federal court decisions. the first one was citizens united versus the federal election commission. this is back to years ago. decided at the supreme court level that effectively said that corporations or unions or anyone could go ahead and raise and spend as much money as they want to, directly or through an intermediary groups such as super pacs, and they could do so whenever they want, however they want, of in as strong as terms as they want to. they can make independent expenditures off. these are a half step further and then what groups previously groups would do, which are called electioneering campio

aigns. that could make messages that would talk about candidates but not overtly advocate for or against their candidate. this took the shackles off of outside groups when it came to their involvement and the federal elections. you had independent expenditures in the past and you had vehicles through which you could if, as an individual,, unlimited amounts of money. there was never a marriage of those two things going on in the way that we see things now. a second court decision, speech now, another of several court decision was the court decision that triggered the advent of the super pac as we know it today. effectively allow for these types of groups to spring into existence, and since then, we have seen a number of examples

going into the hundreds write no of super pacs being created. some do not do a lot, but we have others, like restore our future, super pac that has raised tens of millions of dollars supporting mitt romney. host: we are going to get into some of those of various super pacs, but first we want to let our viewers and listeners know that they can be part of the conversation with david levinthal but regarding, our conversation on super pacss. the number i s 202-737-002 for republicans, democrats -- you can send us e-mails and twitters and participate in a conversation that is taking

place on facebook. before we get to the phones, david levinthal, we want to look at some of the folks involved in this. we are using as are stepping off point an item from the cbs news political hot sheet -- meet the biggest donors. let's start with adelson. tell us who he is and what super pac he is contributing to. >> guest: he is a fascinating character and the presidential race. he is a las vegas casino mogul. he is a multi-billion there. he is already pumped what we know to be $10 billion into the super pac called winning our future, supporting mitt romney. he has been the ultimate super pac man because of the money he

has put in out, because of the promise of what he said could beat up to $100 million. a huge number there, obviously, that he would quit in to support newt gingrich. it remains to be seen whether newt gingrich after next week after super tuesday is going to be in a position to benefit from the money. his poll numbers have not been great. arguably, he has allowed newt gingrich to stay bad mother raice -- to say in the race. when newt gingrich won south carolina on january 21, largely his success could be attributed to the very negative advertisements that were coming from the winning our future super pac funded by adelson. host: the first call for this segment comes from florida. charles on our line for democrats. you're talking with david levinthal. caller: in the senate race in

florida, immediately after world war ii, i think it was 1945, pepper, the income that was opposed by a returning veteran. and a war hero. during that campaign, the tampa tribune in an article published on the front page said that claude pepper had been identified as belonging to a thespian society. of course, this ruined pepper, because the brilliant people in sort of thought that was a sexual perversion. so i would say there is nothing new under the sun in this sort of thing. the same thing goes on today. there is so much more media today. but thank you.

guest: any student of history knows that dirty tricks and negative advertising are as old as this country is. that certainly is nothing new. what is new this presidential election cycle is the megaphone that you have it in order to disseminate negative messages. what used to be a newspaper editorial or pamphlets if you go back far enough pashas morphed into anything you can think of. that is not just television or radio, but that is internet and any way that anyone is receiving their news and communications. it is a heck of a lot easier now to go ahead and get those messages of, not just in this city or state, and to do so instantaneously. this is not take a lot of effort when you have a well-founded political operation.

if you can pretty much go with you to the video in a matter of hours or minutes of that could be extremely negative on a campaign that you are running against. that message is picked up by every media organization and the united states that cares about those issues moments after it goes up. host: frank calling from california, on our independent linebacker. / caller: thank you for "washington journal". i have two questions. could you comment on the new yorker article on the guy that came up with the wille horton ad? man alive, and that is just a really good sexual article. if you have not read that new "new yorker" afticle -- it's a factual article. akaka what i have been worried about is on friendly nations secretly giving money to which

individuals or dummy corporations and we, the american people could have our tough elections subverted by a nation like iraq or north korea. we do not know where this money is coming from. in fact, a foreign nation and could actually give money to one of the secret pacs and have a mountain of willie horton-style ads. host: frank in frazier park, california. go ahead. david levinthal. guest: to your question, i have not read the specific article you cited but i will take it under advisement and check it out. the point you were making and your question, that plays back to the fact that campaigns and political operations have been using negative advertising for many, many decades, many, many years. going back on television, of

course. what is different this time around as many of those assets previously were coming from the campaigns themselves off. when an advertisement that was very negative was going on the air, it was the campaign that was funding or behind that. not always the case, but definitely the case many times. it is still happening today, but largely it has been the super pa cs that have been using the bulk of their money to promote negative advertising. this is true for the restore our future super pac for mitt romney. and it is important to note that really the landscape of campaign finance is changing. they are the bad cops of this election. not all super pacs are doing negative advertising but the big dollars are going towards that type of message. is there any sort of enforcement or any sort of oversight as to looking at where this money is

coming from? the caller is concerned that foreign influence if the money comes in from under the table or outside the united states that foreign influence could have a significant effect on the outcome of the presidential election. guest: that is less a concern with super pacs. by law, they have to reveal who is donating to them. if somebody writes a check for $1 million, that will be a matter of public record. one point on that which we reported in december, is that super pacs are of finding a loophole. i do not want to get too terribly technical, but they typically had to file on a quarterly basis. but many of them in december or january switched their filing from quarterly to monthly. for what that allows them to do is to avoid filing these pre-

primary reports that they would otherwise have to file prior to florida or south carolina. it is something nobody could have predicted. good lawyers were looking at this. they had to, did not have to reveal their donors until all the primaries were over. we got the numbers on january 31. to the point about foreign influence, less a concern with super pacs, , but that is a specter that has arisen with nonprofit organizations. these are organizations set up under the 501c4 code. it is an important point. many of these organizations have sprung up, some super pacs have non profit arms. these organizations are supposed to exist for the social welfare. they are not supposed to have a primary purpose of engaging in politics, but even members of

congress and government groups have a rally criticized some of these groups of for breaking that, for engaging in of politics, spending tens of billions of dollars on presidential or federal politics and these groups, the big difference between them and not have to thety do disclose their donors. there is no way for us to empirically say they are getting their money from domestic or foreign sources. they do not have to tell us. host: david levinthal is a political influence reporter. it is also co-writer of a daily column "political influence, intelligence and analysis on lobbying." you can find his work at politico.com. carney, nebraska. jerry on our line for republicans. caller: whenever i hear anybody talking about a super pacs, it

is about republicans. president obama has super pacs. nobody brings that up. he is expected to raise up to $1 billion for his campaign this year. back in 2008 when john mccain agreed to take federal funding for campaigns, obama decided he was not going to take federal funding, matching funding, when he found out how much money he could raise. i want you to comment about that. but nobody talks about how much money president obama is raising at his fund-raising deals. thank you. guest: and one of the guys we talked about earlier, jeffrey katzenberg. host: tell us about his donations as well as comedian bill mahrer. guest: we have been writing about consistently throughout the race.

because president obama, you must remember, he is the number one fund raiser in the history of u.s. presidential campaigns. if nobody has ever raised more than obama did or spent more than obama did in the 2008 presidential election. the issue of super pacs is not one of republicans or democrats. it is one of the political process. the republicans have been quicker to the punch. they have ramped up these efforts 3 super pacs better than democrats have. no better if number to throw out at you then what we saw from a group called priorities usa action, a super pac supportive of barack obama. it is run by two of his former aides that worked in the white house. if and what is happening there is that in january they barely raised $59,000. here we are talking about millions and tens of millions of dollars. and this super pac was not able to raise $100,000.

what happened? that was as of january 31. it was not long after that the president himself said, ok, i have been rallying against super pacs and against citizens united for a long time. you may remember the notable speech he gave against outside influence in politics during the state of the union address, when he got into as little fight with the supreme court. very memorable moment. here he is a couple of weeks ago basically saying, again, that hey, big dollar donors, whether it is jeffrey katzenberg, that funded half of the money the priorities usa had raised so far, you can go ahead and donate to the super pac for. i give you my blessing. i do not like the idea, but in order to compete with my republican competitors and compete in the general election, we will have to play by the

rules given to us, even if we do not like rules. it is sort of like to use a football metaphor, one team has to go 10 yards for a first down and another team only has to go two. some people view that is hypocritical. some will view it as the political realities that the democrats and obama is faced with. talking about jeffrey katzenberg, a big dollar money. bill mahrer just gave $1 million pe. host: we want to let our listeners listen to a super pac ad running in michigan right now. this is a group that is pro obama. the ad we are about to show deals with former governor romney and letting the detroit go bankrupt, a statement that the governor made when the auto industry was in trouble. >> his message was clear.

>> let detroit go bankrupt. >> mitt romney. there is no question he made a fortune from businesses he helped destroy it off. romney pocketed huge seas shortly before companies collapsed. >> bankrupt. >> even when businesses failed, romney came out ahead. are those the values we want in an american president? the priorities usa action is responsible for the content of this advertisement. host: our next call comes from michigan. iris on our line for independence. have you seen this ad < and how did it affect you? guest: i'd just saw for the first time and they make me sick. i am so tired of negativity. i cannot tolerate it anymore. it is the biggest turn off for a elections. and i think they should be

outlawed. i think it is a shame that washington does not live by the same rules that we have to live by in the real world. we could never get away with this. imagine going into the employment office and walking the people -- mocking the people in the waiting room. there would be a foot mark on your backside. it is revolting that it is happening. perhaps if these super pacs had to pay taxes, there would be a shortage of money to give to politicians. something needs to be done about our tax system so that everybody pays a rent in the usa michiganin is in prepar. guest: you do have to wonder if something is going to give after the election? the campaign finance system is in constant to mold. you have things like that

mccain-final decision in 2002. you have citizens united. you could start all these different names at different ts in time.in we have mitt romney calling super pacs a disaster, even though he is benefiting. barack obama has been critical of them and is now using them. on both sides, republican and democrat, people are not looking for a different way than the situation that we have. a situation that is upsetting to people like our caller. ultimately, whether anything is going to change in the future remains to be seen. it probably will not change for this election cycle but it does raise a point about negative advertising, that people will want to put restrictions to congress or the federal election commission or maybe the courts will get involved again in order

to change yet again the way things are prepar. host: tony is on our line for democrats. how are you? your question or comment for david levinthal. caller: great, thanks. i want to point something out. after the citizens united decision was handed down in the state of the union address, the president warned us of the perils of the judgment coming from the supreme court. and judge alito mouthed things like "not true." yeah, right. alito has not been to the last state of the union address. i am wondering if the president got reelected, ed do you think alito will actually show up at another state of the union. i think he is too much of a power to show up again -- of a coward to show up again.

guest: very difficult to say. he is a member of the supreme court. he has a right to do what he wants to do when it comes to whether he will attend the state of the union address. off to the broader printer of the supreme court's involvement and outside spending and the types of communication and the types of political groups that we are seeing right now, there is a school of thought that says the way things are today is, even if it is tumultuousness, it is a great thing for the first amendment, because it allows outside groups to involve themselves in the political process. a lot of people are not going to subscribe to that theory, but it is one that is out there. mitt romney, when we said a moment ago that he said super pacs are a disaster, this prescription for the situation is to allow political campaigns,

the campaigns themselves to raise unlimited sums of money to take the money in for their use so that at the end of the day when these advertisements go up that it is the campaign that is going bto be behind it, as opposed to an outside group, which is difficult to track who they are, why they are involved and who is funding them. as we have seeing right now with the numbers coming in and the groups that are finding these super pac organizations, some of the money, most of the money is coming from individuals, the owners of have to put their names on a piece of paper and say i and joe smith and i gave $1 million or whatever the dollar out maybe. many of these donations are coming from corporations, some of which are notoriously difficult to track down who they are and who is behind them. even in a few cases, this is not prevalent, but these corporations appera tear to be

shell corporations. set up to engage in politics. host: we want to show our viewers some of the numbers involved, particularly with regard to a presidential campaign fund raising through january 2012. the total of $315 million has been raised by the campaigns. the republicans have raised 177. the democrats and president obama have raised 137. and the break down the among the remaining republican candidates -- romney raised $62.3 million. $30.9. santorum, $6.7 million. these numbers are from the federal elections commission.

back to the phones and our discussion with david levinthal. indiana. bob ioon our line for republicans. caller: i am not so troubled about the super pacs as long as they disclosed. what i am troubled with is a corrupt media. you have this guy here, politico based on the obama network -- msnbc. i mean, the -- the head of ge is on obama's board for job czar. ge got a big deal out of the tarp fund. plus, they did not pay no taxes. all of this money that is collected, where does it go to but the media? host: sorry about depththat bob. guest: many people criticize the media as a unit.

people on the left think the media is skewed too far right. that is out there every single day. i can only speak to myself. i have been on nbc, fox and cnn. i think i can speak to my colleagues, what i want to do is report the news as best we can report it and make sure that on issues of super pacs and campaign finance, i give people the best they can possibly know about both sides. i would not want to do anything less. host: we've got a tweet from cnn junkie who writes --

numbers areul's not as big. he is getting some support from indorse liberty. guest: it is another super pac. all four of the maine republican presidential campaigns have super pacs that are independently supporting a campaign structure itself. indorse liberty is the all fit supporting ron paul. they have not spent quite as much money as the other super pacs supporting mitt romney or newt gingrich. pete teal is the founder of paypal. you have probably used it yourself. he has been very instrumental in giving about $2 million and perhaps more. to this super pac, funding what

for endorse liberty has been an on-line advertising campaign. it has been a different approach than some of the other super pacs to support and ron paul. there is a gentlemen, abraham in utah, who is behind the day-to- day operations of indoors liberty. i have talked to him on several occasions. he has said, we see ron paul is a different candidate. we want to take a different approach. we feel the best way to get people excited is not through millions of dollars worth of television advertisements or radio advertisements, but through on-line advertising, connecting with people in a virtual space as opposed to something that is broadcast to the airwaves. host: tennessee. donald anbar lines for independence. grateful we have

this kind of program in this country. i find it laughable, with all of these candidates campaigning about fixing the economy and being financial responsible, it is laughable about how quick they can burn up other people's money, which is exactly what we are trying to give a writ of in washington. -- rid of washington. on your irs form, you have a check who you want to give $1 to to a campaign fund? what if the federal government collects all of those dollars and tell the candidates this is all we have to work with for you to campaign on. i do not know. thank you for your time. host: david levinthal. guest: the caller was referring to a public financing system for presidential campaigns which has existed for many years but has largely become obsolete as most of the candidates involved in the presidential election this time around and was the case

with obama and 2008 have opted out of the system because there is so much more money above and beyond what they can get your public financing. so, the candidates, i would not want to speak for them, but it seems like their philosophy is why what i want to limit myself when there is all this money out there i can collect because if i limit myself and the other guy does not, then item disarming when i know that they have a big bomb. to the broader point of public financing there are many groups that think that public financing and radical reform that would change the way campaigns are waged in terms of fund raising is the way to go. this has been something that has been notoriously difficult to pass. it was easy, it probably would have happened. there are others calling for

constitutional amendments, even at a convention. not a lot of people are really happy on the right or if a left with the situation we have. there are some people who are, but many people or not. it goes back to the point, you have to wonder if after the election if, it is all over and we have a new president or we do not. we have barack obama again. that something is going to have to give, something will change. tweet--hhost: we have a guest: it's a good poin and one we've seen trendwise for a long time. wall street, banks are in a story -- a tour is the fickle and who they support. you go back to the 2008 election and you look at the individuals given money to the campaigns or to political action committees, wall street, the banks were

supportive of democrats. they were supportive of obama. what happened? around 2009, 2010, when financial reform is taking place, wall street for, the dodd-frank bill, all of these things that were designed to change the nation's financial structure. in the aftermath of the economic collapse we had, the money went the other way. the political money really started supporting republicans. and this is something that has persisted well past midterm elections in 2010 and has been for republicans.g host: we want to show an ad put out by the chamber of commerce attacking tim kaine and his run for the senate from virginia. when we come back, we want to talk about outside spending groups that are not super pacs and also, these groups that are putting big money into campaigns

that are not presidential. >> i think health care reform is going down in history as one of the great achievements of this president. >> obama-care could cost virginia $2.2 billion. for obama-care will kill jobs across america. >> it is one of the great achievements of this president heard >> higher costs, less jobs. these are no great achievement. called tim kaine. ask him why he continues to support obama-care. we need more jobs. the u.s. chamber is responsible for the content of this advertising. host: david levinthal, talk to us about that. guest: that type of advertisement is a notable because it is not coming from a super pac. the u.s. chamber of commerce is not a super pac. as a nonprofit business trade group which has the ability, so long as it does not exist to engage in politics, to make political communications, just like that one. that is called an electioneering

communication. an electioneering communication will not save voted against tim kaine or brigance barack obama. anyone watching that and will not mistake that f. for someone that is supporting barack obama or supporting tim kaine. at the end of the day. it is able to make a message that is based on an issue that mentions the candidates. and go forward and basically get right up to that line of advocating for or against a candidate without actually doing it. the chamber of commerce does not have to disclose its donors. we do not know where that money that fueled advertisement is coming from, because whether it is the chamber any other group that is organized like a social welfare organization, they just

simply, based on the laws we have right now which are very contentious and a lot of people disagree, they do not have to disclose the source of their money. therefore, we know less about these ads when it comes to their roots funding sources then we do about the advertisements coming from super pacs, which our a half step further in terms of how or dirt they may be about the support for candidates - about how overt they may be about the support for candidates. host: bill on our line for republicans. you are on w"washington journal". go ahead. caller: , what i wanted to find out is the amount of money spent on this campaign, and the amount of votes acquired divided into the amount of money spent by the amount of votes that were required, and what each

votree costs the campaign people running. host: david levinthal, when it is said and done, how much per vote is this going to cost the campaign, the winning campaign? guest: without a calculator, i will not be able to add up on the fly. you do have campaigns that are spending a lot more per vote then the other campaigns. it is easier to calculate those in the primaries when you can add up some of the votes. i have not seen the latest numbers for the ones, the primaries and caucuses waged in colorado and minnesota and elsewhere, but if you look back to iowa, new hampshire, you had canids spending 50 cents or $1 -- you have candidates spending

significantly more for the votes they are getting. that speaks to how expensive it is to run a nationwide campaign, how expensive it is to go state- by-state primary by primary, caucus by caucus, all across the country and be successful in a presidential campaign such as this. this is not a cheap in denver. this is not a cheap operation. doing it on the cheap is very difficult to do. rick santorum is learning that firsthand. , how difficult it is. he is doing a lot better, raising more money than he was before because he has to. host: our last call comes from homer in shreveport louisiana from democrats line. caller: i was wondering if all of this money they are spending, why do not put that in the treasury and lower this deficit. article,'ve got an

unfortunately i cannot find it, but the super pac that was supporting herman cain. now that he is out of their race, what can he do with that money or what can super pac do with that money? guest: wrote a story about it this week. it was a group called the 999 fund. and it gave the balance of its money this past week to another super pac, which is supporting not herman cain the presidential candidate, but the 999 plan. super pacs do not have to existed to support a certain candidate. it said, well, our work is done. we will give it to another group that is more focused on the philosophy that herman cain is promoting as opposed to the candidacy he is no longer running. >> sunday morning, our guests

include detroit news editorial editor nolan finley. he will discuss his paper's endorsement of mitt romney. in 2008, they endorsed john mccain. at 8:30, we will speak with governor bob mcdonnell who is participating in this weekend's winter meeting at the nga. he recently changed his position regarding -- requiring women to get an ultrasound before having an abortion. democratic pollster celina lake on the history of women voters and how women are trending in 2012. "washington journal" live sunday at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> this particular phone only rings in a serious crisis. it is in the hands of a man who has proven themselves responsible. vote for president johnson. >> bush and dukakis on crime.

bush supports the death penalty. dukakis a lot of first-degree murder is to have weekend passes. one was willie horton. >> if the accusations that john kerry made against the veterans who served in vietnam was a devastating. >> randomly shot at civilians. >> we can point to an outrage as commercial or two, but on average, at negative commercials are more likely to be factually correct and negative commercials are more likely to talk about issues. >> will 2012 be the most negative campaign cycle in history? a new american foundation discussion looks at current and past political campaigns and their impact on culture f. watch this and past panels on line at the c-span video library. search, watch, click and share. it's what you want, when you want. >> we got started because there

were a lot of conservative think tanks that work across issues, but before cap there had been no single progressive a think tank that works on economic policy, domestic policy, national security. what's the president and ceo of the center for american progress on the mission of the washington d.c.-based think tank requests we think there is an ideology behind particular arguments made in washington with very little facts behind them. if part of our job is to make the arguments and the factual arguments and the evidence based arguments behind our own views. i do think that sometimes when the facts do not argue for our position we we examine those positions, because we fundamentally believe the most important thing is to be right about wgahat your views are. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. and

pacific on c-span's que in it. >> the nation's governors are in washington for their annual winter meeting. next, their opening news conference with the chairman of the national governors' association, nebraska governor heineman. and m ogovernor markell of delaware. this runs half an hour. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] ." >> good morning and welcome to the 2012 national governors' association winter meeting. i am delighted to be here with delaware's governor markell, who serves as the vice chair of the nga and chair of the center for best practices. he is a good friend. we met each other 10 years ago when we were both serving as state treasurer is of our respective states. the unique bipartisan nature of

ngba allows us to have candid conversations with our colleagues from all across america. as governors be face similar challenges and our meetings offer as an opportunity to discuss the challenges we face governing our states. every day, but governors work with their legislatures to find real solutions to real issues. we are redesigning state government to work more efficiently and more effectively. we are finding ways to do more with less and to deliver better services to our citizens. our citizens expect us to find common sense solutions to their everyday challenges. inaction is unacceptable. do not get me wrong. we still have our challenges. we still have our differences. but our citizens expect us to work together to resolve our differences in a manner that keeps our states moving forward.

the overall fiscal condition of states has improved, but governors are very concerned about the growth of medicaid as it consumes an increasing share of state budgets. medicaid's rapid growth could result in less funding for education, transportation, or public safety. i do want to note the governors have made significant progress on several fronts. first, through the council of governors, and the department of defense, we were able to resolve longstanding concerns regarding the coordination of state and federal military forces in during a disaster response. the passage of legislation codifying a dual standard commander makes it possible for states to effectively coordinate with federal troops operating within their borders when responding to a natural disaster. we have also worked with public

safety communities to advance an issue that was first raised by the 9/11 commission, the creation of a nationwide communications network for first responders and public safety. currently, first responders must rely on commercial networks for mobile data services. dedicating a portion of the spectrum known as d-block to serve public safety provide our certification -- first responder is with a single communications network and device that will work seamlessly anywhere in the country. governors and first responders are pleased that congress has passed the legislation and the president has signed into law to reallocate it to public safety. the most important issues for us as governor is our economic growth and job creation. it is fundamental to our future. my initiative is growing state economies.

our goal is to provide governors and state policy makers with a better policy options to assess the economic environment and their state -- in their state and create strategies to designed to foster business growth. high-growth businesses are driving force of the modern global economy. and a primary source of job creation, prosperity, and economic competitiveness. as governors, we are looking for the best strategy is to strengthen state economic performance. we want to help the private sector growth and create new opportunities for our citizens. we held three regional economic summits on this initiative in connecticut, tennessee, and seattle, washington. i will host the final summit i n omaha in april. the summits provide an opportunity to learn about the

bus strategy is to create an environment focus on the importance of high-growth businesses in all forms. startup firms, scalable enterprise as an transformational corporations. and out -- it is my pleasure to as the vice chair governor markell to say a few words. >> for most governors, you do not care so much for a policy comes from as opposed to where the policy can take you. we all have budgets to be balanced, people in all of our states are looking for work, and frankly, they are looking to us as governors for answers. if kids in public schools across our states are asking what we are going to do to give them a better opportunity to have a

great future they could care less which party we come from. they do not care what part of the country come from. all they care about is that we get the job done. thankfully, a lot of good dancers start with the work that governors and do with each other -- a lot of good answers start with the work that governors do with each other as well as the center for best practices. i have the opportunity this year to serve as the chair of that center. the ideas that the center comes from drive a lot of the discussion that we will be having this weekend. and they result with a lot of the work the governors across the country have been doing as well as the very talented and committed staffs at the nga. the work of the center is funded for federal grants and contracts as well as private and corporate foundation contributions and the corporate fellows program. this is really the work of the

nga and the center. the reason that we come to these conferences is because we want to get things done. we want to figure out what might be working in other parts of the country that could be working in our states. i want to give a couple examples. with the help of the center for best practices, the governor of west virginia helped the state tackle a dropout prevention and recovery legislation. the center supported governor bob mcdonnell's efforts in virginia to assist a dislocated adults to earn degrees and remain competitive in today's economy. in delaware, we had the opportunity to participate in what we call the three band initiative, focused on adolescents in foster care. it included people from our executive, legislative branch, our judicial branch. they learned about some of the great models to connect young people who are in foster care, return home, connect with

relatives, be adopted and the like. and this is the work that government is supposed to do. when we can come together, particularly with the help of the folks at the center for best practices, we can make a difference. while this particular meeting in washington and the annual meeting we have every summer are the ones that are the best attended, if there are more than 70 formal summit across the year. there are policy academies. there are countless opportunities for cooperation and collaboration. i think if you ask any governor what three issues drive them the most, you would get the same answers from all. it is about building stronger economies. it is about continuing to improve our schools and it is about being good stewards of our taxpayers money. there are probably a dozen ways to do that. probably more like 50 ways to do that. if you think about the other members of guam and american samoa and , the virgin islands,

probably 55 ways. what is so great about this week and the opportunities we have with each other is to share those ideas. that is really what it is all about. i look forward to a very productive set of conversations, because we do not care whether a good idea comes from a democrat or republican so long as it puts people to work, helped improve schools, or helps us be good stewards of the taxpayers money. that is what it is all about. >> thank you very much. now we will be glad to try to answer your questions. if they are really tough, i will give them to jack. [laughter] >> [inaudible] for medicaid that go slower than the rate of inflation help you with the medicaid problems? >> from my perspective, the answer is yes. i would prefer more flexibility on a variety of programs from the federal government.

other governors may have differing opinions, but again, i would just like to have the congress act, as we do every day in our states, get a budget passed on time so we know we are dealing with. >> one of the great things about the weekend when we are all together as we have an opportunity to meet with the president. when we met last year with the president, the issue of medicaid flexibility came up. it came up because the president brought it. he was the first one. he said, i hear a lot from you about wanting additional flexibility. all you have to do is tell us what flexibility you are looking for. i think there is a responsibility to make sure we do exactly that. at the same time, we have to recognize that not all the answers are at the federal level. if governor patrick of massachusetts, who has been a leader on this, has legislation pending in his legislature right now focused on getting away from the fee for service provision, model of health care.

it is something that a number of others of us are following closely. it is really about finding the right partnership, figuring out the kind of flexibility we what from the federal government but recognizing that we have a responsibility in our own states, and bill. in my state of the state speech, i spent a fair amount of time talking about this, not just about medicaid, but the fact that we as state governments, if you think about the number people in delaware covered with health insurance, state taxpayers pick up 40% of them. so we have to do a better job and our state. my guess is most dates have to do a better job leveraging our roles as being a major procur services.ff health >> just as a follow-up question to that, under the welfare reform legislation pioneered by president reagan -- [inaudible] welfare was just treated

eventually as something that there would be cap put on and states would then have to work within a certain framework of funding. has anyone discussed simply, when the president asks about the flexibility, why not use the very model for welfare on medicaid? >> i think you'll see a variety of discussions on that issue and exactly where we will end up, who knows for sure? again, i think from a governor's perspective, we want more flexibility. if i try to remember that when i sign laws that local governments do not want one size fits all within the state. so we are trying to ask the federal government and what most governors do within their state. the more flexibility we have, because again, what you might need to do on medicaid or education and a state like nebraska or delaware, i would submit is different than

massachusetts, texas, or california. i understand that. they have different needs, different demographics. we need the flexibility and we believe in states' rights. >> fthe issue of flexibility is very interesting. as i said a moment ago, when it came to health care and medicaid last year, the president said to the governors, tell us what kind of flexibility you are looking for. i also heard him talk about it in the context of education. he has been very clear. 10 states have already gone flexibility in terms of the no child left behind waiver. but at the same time, what he had said is you can get the flexibility, but that should not be misunderstood to be relaxing any of our expectations in terms of absolute rigor and what we expect in terms of student achievements. so long as we continue to make progress in doing things the actually lead to student achievement, we will find the

flexibility that we seek. [unintelligible] >> the same with medicaid. >> the schools that have been most under-performing, it will not be good enough if we let them continue to under- performance in generations not live up to their potential. there are expectations of achievement at the federal and state level. >> let me address education for a moment. it is primarily a state and local responsibility, and in my state, i chair our p-16 effort, preschool through 16 years of schooling, and one of the goals is to eliminate the african- american achievement gap, or the hispanic achievement gap, wherever that might be. more rigorous expectations are critical. parental involvement is important.

those are the things we can best do with the state and local level. >> california, the governor is smarting a little bit because the obama administration rejected their waiver request. did that come up at the meeting, or can you characterize how the president is looking at that? >> i did not think it came up in the meeting yesterday. i think the president and secretary sibelius for that matter, have been very forthcoming in meeting with governors in what they are looking for -- what kind of flexibility we need, and how we are going to make sure we continue to take care of people? if we're just going to drop people off and they're no where to go, that would be a problem. they've been very open and continue to look to governors for our best ideas, republican and democrat alike.

>> was there a discussion yesterday about changing the way the nga works with the agenda throughout the year [unintelligible] >> yes. >> can you tell us more about it? >> one of the things jack and i are trying to do is getting governors to decide policies, not the staff. we want governors to make recommendations. we began the process yesterday. it really started last fall when we had our first executive committee meeting, and we asked the various committees, what your priorities are, and we decided these would be the

priorities for the nga, based on what we heard for the governor's -- from the governors, and i think you will see the results of that monday when we vote. more governor involvement, more closely aligned priorities. >> the people in our states are not all that interested in the policies, committees, and the internal work of the national governors' association, but here's what they care about, and governor heineman mentioned it a few moments ago. one of the best examples of how we can come together across party lines is what happened with the d-block spectrum. it has to do with the airwaves spectrum. there was uncertainty with what would happen with this block of airwaves. it could have been used for other things, but democratic and republican governors came together with a talented staff and public safety teams and we

recognize that if these airwaves could be allocated to public safety, it could mean profound things for the people of our states. for example, imagine if a loved one is injured, in an ambulance, and a medic in an ambulance can have a video camera and can be showing the wound directly to the doctor at the emergency room who was waiting for the ambulance to get to the hospital? that could save somebody's life. they could be that ready. these are the things that our folks care about. the change in the process that governor heinemann talked about is not a change for the sake of change, but it is to make sure that we are focusing on the things that will make a positive difference in the lives of the people that we serve. [unintelligible] >> say that again. >> will this new approach allow

using the directors to lobby? >> first and foremost, we would use our own staff at the nga, but this will give and the staff a clear direction of where the governors are at -- what are the general principles we stand for? secondly, almost every state is going to employ their own people to effectively persuade congress, relative to a particular issue and how it affects their individual state. to the extent that we can coordinate state and nga staff, i think we can be more effective. it is a little hard for us to see. i'm sorry -- the lights. [unintelligible]

>> job creation could be a top policy, and a concern for chinese prudential -- provincial leaders, so you think there are opportunities at the state and provincial levels? thank you. >> i believe the answer is yes. in nebraska while i have been governor we have had a focus on education and jobs. ave been to china, about different trade missions and i'm probably going back to asia this fall. we try to work with a variety of countries relative to the opportunities to export more of our goods and services out of nebraska and other states, and have had significant investment for chinese companies into nebraska. i've learned this from another governor. governor markell was talking about how we learn from each other.

early on, when i was governor, i learned from another governor, a reverse the trade mission. i've done two of them where we have invited the world to visit nebraska. they have been successful. we have had over 125 business and foreign officials come to nebraska to learn firsthand what we have to offer, and as a result of those visits, many companies decided to invest in the state of nebraska, and we were very pleased about that. >> absolutely right -- huge opportunities for us to work together, and when we last met as a group in july, there were a number of governors or party secretaries from china that were part of that meeting. we think about that as an opportunity to promote exports, and to attract for investment, like the governor mentioned. i had a chance yesterday to talk with secretary of commerce

john bryson, so the u.s. commerce department has recently kicked off a new mission called select usa, and if you think about what the president has talked about with the idea of in-sourcing, and more companies coming back to invest here, select usa is an opportunity for companies around the world were thinking about expanding outside of their home market to make sure the u.s. is on their radar screen, and we as governors want to make sure our states are on the radar screen. >> governor heineman, there have been some governors, especially republicans, that have voiced concerns that federal government is getting too involved in education through the race to the top program, stimulus funding, and even no child left behind.

what is your view on federal and state roles? >> state and local governments have the primary role for education in our country, ok? it goes down to local school boards. the federal government has a limited role. i want to be careful here. most school districts welcome their funding. they would like a little flexibility in how we use that. i would argue that what massachusetts wants to do with that money is different than what nebraska would do. i think we can all work together when it comes to academic achievement. that should be the focus. more rigor, higher expectations, increased parental involvement -- that is what i have fought for in nebraska. i want the very best teachers i

can heavy and the classroom. -- have in the classroom. my wife has been a former elementary school principal and teacher, so this is one i understand well. i lived for over 30 years since we have been married. the commitment we need from teachers, administrators, and parents is critical. i have always said the formula works best, good teachers, plus good parental involvement, equals good learning. we appreciate the funding with as few strings attached as possible. >> to his credit, secretary duncan has been clear about that line, and one of the area's most dates have been involved in is the common core standards. there are some people that say this was a federal initiative. it was absolutely not a federal initiative. secretary duncan could not have been more clear that these were

not national standards. this was an effort by states superintendents of education, by governors to work together across state lines to make sure the kids in our state have higher standards for them to meet that are also clear. i think secretary duncan gets a lot of credit for putting forth policies. in delaware, for example, the state government funded about 70% of education. we have 19 separate school districts, and each of them has an independently-elected school board. it is our view that the people that are closest to the kids generally have a good sense of what is in the best interest of those kids.

>> one more question. >> go ahead, sir. you were pointing to someone that i did not see. ok. go ahead. >> one year ago, governors were dealing with severe budget challenges that were controversial. do you feel you have stepped back from the cliff in terms of some of the budget pictures? >> i think jack and i can remember that when your a new -- we were new governor, you are trying to learn the process, and all of a sudden you are presented with a significant budget issue. by and large those are addressed by governors across the country, differently, increasing taxes, controlling spending, but at the end of the day i get the sense that governors are feeling a little better that their budget pictures have been proved. -- have improved.

i will say this, i've gone through it for seven years, controlling spending is critical, but invest in priorities. we have done that. education and jobs allow your state to move forward. i think most governors are feeling a little bit better. for the new governor's it is probably just the fact you have a year under your belt and that does help. governor markell? >> of the last 23 months in this country, 3.7 million new jobs have been created, so when governor heineman says the governors are feeling a little bit better, the way we feel generally has a lot to do with the way our people are working or not working. that is what is driving all of us today. that is why governor heineman's initiative was about growing state economies. i have now finished three years. the first year, i came in 2009, and you talk about looking at an abyss, things were in

absolute free fall. i think we have stepped back from that. i would not say any of us are feeling great, but things are feeling better. we are moving in the right direction, and we also recognize that we cannot afford to just wait for things to get better. everyone of us is interested in doing what we can to put more people back to work in our states. >> thank you very much for being here this morning. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> sunday morning, our guests include editor nolan finley who will discuss his paper's endorsement of mitt romney. at 8:30, we will speak with governor bob macdonald, who is participating in this weekend's meeting. the government changed his position regarding a bill in his state requiring women to get an ultrasound before having an abortion. then pollster celinda lake on the history of women voters and how women are trending in 2012. "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. all this weekend, we're bringing you coverage from the national

governors' association meeting in washington. we continue tomorrow morning with discussions examining efforts to end childhood hunger. among the guests, -- later, a special committee on homeland's security and public safety will explore the role of the national guard. fema administrator will be a part of the coverage beginning at 930 -- 9:30. in his weekly address, president obama calls for the development of the new energy sources in addition to increase oil production in the united states. then, kay bailey hutchison talks about energy policy, citing high gas prices and urges legislation

passed by the house she says would help boost job growth. >> hello, everybody. in the state of the union, i laid out three areas we need to focus on if we're going to build an economy that lasts -- new american manufacturing, new skills and education for american workers, and new sources of american-made energy. these days, we're getting another painful reminder why developing new energy is so important to our future. just like they did last year, gas prices are starting to climb. only this time, it's happening earlier. and that hurts everyone -- everyone who owns a car, everyone who owns a business. it means you have to stretch your paycheck even further. some folks have no choice but to drive a long way to work, and high gas prices are like a tax straight out of their paychecks. now, some politicians always see this as a political opportunity. and since it's an election year, they're already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. i'll save you the suspense --

step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling. we hear the same thing every year. well the american people aren't stupid. you know that's not a plan -- especially since we're already drilling. it's a bumper sticker. it's not a strategy to solve our energy challenge. it's a strategy to get politicians through an election. you know there are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can't just drill our way to lower gas prices. if we're going to take control of our energy future and avoid these gas price spikes down the line, then we need a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of american energy -- oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels, and more. we need to keep developing the technology that allows us to use less oil in our cars and trucks, in our buildings and plants. that's the strategy we're

pursuing, and that's the only real solution to this challenge. now, we absolutely need safe, responsible oil production here in america. that's why under my administration, america is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. in 2010, our dependence on foreign oil was under 50% for the first time in more than a decade. and while there are no short- term silver bullets when it comes to gas prices, i've directed my administration to look for every single area where we can make an impact and help consumers in the months ahead, from permitting to delivery bottlenecks to what's going on in the oil markets. but over the long term, an all- of-the-above energy strategy means we have to do more. it means we have to make some choices. here's one example. right now, four billion of your tax dollars subsidize the oil industry every year. four billion dollars. imagine that. maybe some of you are listening

to this in your car right now, pulling into a gas station to fill up. as you watch those numbers rise, know that oil company profits have never been higher. yet somehow, congress is still giving those same companies another four billion dollars of your money. that's outrageous. it's inexcusable. and it has to stop. a century of subsidies to the oil companies is long enough. it's time to end taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's never been more profitable, and use that money to reduce our deficit and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising. because of the investments we've already made, the use of wind and solar energy in this country has nearly doubled -- and thousands of americans have jobs because of it. and because we put in place the toughest fuel economy standards in history, our cars will average nearly 55 miles per gallon by the middle of the next decade -- something that, over time, will save the typical family more than $8,000 at the pump.

now congress needs to keep that momentum going by renewing the clean energy tax credits that will lead to more jobs and less dependence on foreign oil. look, we know there's no silver bullet that will bring down gas prices or reduce our dependence on foreign oil overnight. but what we can do is get our priorities straight, and make a sustained, serious effort to tackle this problem. that's the commitment we need right now. and with your help, it's a commitment we can make. thank you. >> hello, i am senator kay bailey hutchison. as spring approaches, the super bowl is history, basketball is in high gear, spring training begins to open. there are 13 million americans who will not be talking sports at work. they are the unemployed workers who have not been able to get to

first base. earlier this week, at any event to highlight the extension bill passed by congress, " said, "my message to congress is, don't stop here. keep going. " we have six months before the elections. there is much we could accomplish, much on which we can agree. the president should send his message to the senate democrat leadership. for example, three of my colleagues and i reiterated our call to have the senate consider four bills that would make it easier for smaller companies to expand and hire. the key to moving from a monthly trickle of jobs to a tidal wave of growth is getting obstacles out of the way of our small

businesses. they are our job creators. the measures we have brought forward would remove outdated barriers truitt expand and new hiring. each of these bills has already passed the house with more than 400 votes, large majority of those republicans and democrats. each bill has also been endorsed by the president. yet, these bills have been bottled up for months in the democratic-controlled senate. " both also noted that americans are concerned by the rising costs of gasoline. they certainly are. gasoline prices have almost doubled in the three years and it is getting worse. last february, the average cost of a gallon of unleaded was

$3.17. the highest february ever. this february is $3.57 per gallon. forecasts are for prices to go above $4 a gallon during the summer season. families and businesses will be devastated. president obama's energy secretary has said, "somehow we need to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe." this administration is trying their best to do it just that. we cannot slowdown in global demand for oil and gas so we can do more at home to insure we have the energy we need and to halt skyrocketing costs. but, president obama's policy has resulted in a slowdown in

new exploration and production of oil and gas. offshore drilling permits are being issued at less than half the rate of the previous administration. the average number of leases issued on public land is less than half that during clinton's term. not only will the slowdown in domestic production drive up prices, it also takes away jobs from tens of thousands of oil industry workers. the same is true for the keystone pipeline. it would produce thousands of construction jobs and tens of thousands more at u.s. refineries and suppliers. that pipeline would insure the united states 830,000 barrels of oil daily. not from around the world, but from our friends to the north, canada. after four years of

environmental review and approval, the obama administration is still stalling. if we wait, the canadians have indicated they could shift their oil to china and a huge opportunity will have been lost. our message to the president is, we can keep going. 13 million unemployed cannot wait until after this year's election or next year's baseball season. we ask a president to help get a bipartisan jobs bill through the democrat senate and for an energy policy that puts american workers and families first. >> nascar driver danica patrick spoke about her decision to switch from indycar racing to nascar. she will participate in her first date, 500 on sunday, and

the third woman in the 54. year history . this is one hour. >> danica patrick has evolved to a racing sensation whose appeal it about every demographic. her 2010 nascar debut at daytona resulted in a 35% increase in television viewership. she is considered to be the most successful woman in the history of american racing. she is the only woman ever to win a race and holds the highest finish by a woman at the indianapolis 500, third place. she has been named the most popular driver four times. she was raised in illinois and began competing at an early age.

she won three world grand national chip -- national championships. she moved to europe to compete on the european road racing circuit. in 2000, she finished second in the formula for in england, the highest ever for an american. she returned to north america to race in 2002, becoming the first woman to have a top three finish in the first woman to win a major league open will race. most people probably first eric of her in may 25 -- 2005 -- heard of her in may 25, 2005, where she hit many records. it was the fastest by any woman in the history of the speedway. she qualified for the race, the

best ever starting position, and led the race for 19 laps and finished in fourth place, and other first for a woman. she received rookie of the year ehonors for her efforts. in 2010, she made her nascar debut, erasing part time in the nationwide series. -- racing part time in a nationwide series. this year she will go to a full time stock car schedule, competing in the nationwide series for j r motorsports. her first sprint cup series will be this sunday daytona 500. today, she will discuss her transition from indycar series two full time nascar racing and share her thoughts and how she plans to become the first woman

to win a nascar-sanction even to. please join me in welcoming danica patrick. [applause] >> thank you for having me here today. this is an honor. i crossed out all of my note cards after all of that. that was all i was going to cover. [laughter] i will have to add more detail. i am honored to be here. dynast nascar driver to speak was jimmy johnson. -- the last nascar driver to speak to the press club was jimmy johnson. he is up to five now. his situation has improved. i heard on the way here that the last driver to speak to the press club in this format was

dale earnhardt senior. this is some pretty steep company given the fact i have not done a sprint club race. thank you for showing up and showing some confidence in me. i appreciate that. i thought i might start from the beginning and start from, how did i get into racing. once upon a time, there was a family with my mom, my dad, my sister and myself and we were just looking for a way to spend time together as a family. my mom was lucky enough to stay home with my sister and i carried my parents recognize that i did not know my dad very well. he was gone at work before i got up and he got home after we went to bed. their first thought was to explore the option of buying a

pontoon boat and floating down the river. when they found a boat they liked, and they called a certain fellow, i have no idea his name, and he did not call us back. no talk -- pontoon boat. what do we do? my dad has a lot of history and racing. he raced motor cross, all kinds of motorsports. there was somebody in our neighborhood that raced go- karts. he took a trip down the street and went into their shed then check them out. he went to our local track and watched them race. actually, it was a sugar river raceway. they love it when i say their name. [laughter] it looks like fun. there were a lot of kids and my

dad was into it. it was my sister who wanted to do it. if any of you have kids, you cannot let the one and do it and not the other. i was the other one in this situation. i did not want to get left out. i said i would do it, too. i was a go kart number 10. that was the number i picked from day one which is why i picked it in the sprint cup. that is the significance of there. we got a go karts -- the go karts together. we took every can we can find. we set it up in a circle. my sister and i went out for a ride. we are going around and going around. it is really fun. all of a sudden, i went to hit

the brake and i had no break. without boring technical details, given my inexperience, what did i do? i went straight. when i decided to not continue to turn or spin. i went straight. i was headed for a trailer. it would have taken my head off. it -- the cart was up in the air, a twisted, bruises all over. if there was any. i could have said i was scared, that would have been a good one. i did not want to quit. i wanted to keep going. dad bought another go kart. that is where my mom picked up racing. anyway, i got out there and we started racing right away. i was terrible.

my sister and i could not keep up on the ones were you go-slow at the beginning. i kept practicing and practicing. my dad tells me the story now. there was a wednesday practice. i wanted to go out every wednesday and go testing. i loved to see the improvement. it is very easy because it is a lap time. you're getting better is obvious. that is probably why i like to have instant gratification like ironing and cleaning up. not like dieting. that is not instant gratification. i got really good. by the end of my first year, i almost won a championship. even with those first few of races, which i'm sure were spectacular. that progression continued.

by the end of seven years, you actually found some statistics i could not find on the internet. i was trying to find out how many championships i want. i had to make a guess. i figured, one year almost 40. i was betting over 100. so, i had some incredible success. something that also started to happen was i got media attention. it was fun for a kid to have cameras following her down the halls of her high school. the first program by was on was . show for abc pohjo it was myself, 14 years old, a figure skater, and a carol named

-- girl name anna. i remember having day sunday party. all of my friends came over. there i was on sunday afternoon prime-time tv. not far after that, and tv was following me downhauls of my high school -- mtv was following me down the halls of my high school. never did i think it was because i was a girl. i was taught about being the best. that is what i was doing. i wanted to be a professional race car driver. i wanted to get moving right away. at 16, based on some of the people i had met, i had the opportunity to move to england and race cars.

how this was where all of the best drivers came from all over and europe. i could learn more in one year than five years in the state. you mean i have to leave high school tax sign me up. [laughter] my parents are not going to live with me? sign me up. that novelty wore off. it became really hard. when i first moved, i was sleeping on a couch and racing on the weekends. it was not going that well. why, why? was it because i was the newest and driver? was it because i was an american? or was it because i was a girl? a girl in a voice sport. it was the first time that i started to feel at of place. it really started to make me

doubt myself, i doubt my abilities. it made me sad and depressed, as if the lack of sun was not enough. it was a difficult time for me. it was very character building. i stuck with it. you touched on it, but the race in england held every year, there are over 100 or so entries every year. it is the best formula drivers from all over europe, not just the ones racing in the british championship. they all come together for this event. i had the ability -- i got a great hand me down. the guy who won the championship was on our team. he was getting a new car. i acquired the championship car. i went out and finished second

in the festival. that was the highest for an american and a girl. the previous owner of that title was a guy named danny sullivan. things had started to turn well for me. i came back the next year for the championship. everything fell apart. i ended up leaving the u.k. and coming back to the states. i did not have a ride. i thought, i have accomplished so much. it should be straightforward to get a ride. i have been gone for three years. that task to earn me something, right? my dad and i would pound the streets and walk around every race track and talk to every owner and every mechanic.

anyone who would talk to us. we used to take field trips to the bathroom for something to do. i am not kidding you. we were pretty lost. it was a tough time but we kept working hard. it is something i am used to doing. one day and put a guy named bobby on the spot. he is a past in the 500 champion. i put him on the spot and said would you be willing to run me on your team? would you be willing to start a team for me? he said yes. i should have tried that earlier. he started a race team for me. we started to have some success. to make a good impression. what really started to kick into high gear was the media.

all of a sudden, what seemed to be something i did not notice, something that might hurt me was now helping me. being a girl was an awesome thing. i am glad i was patient. the media started me -- asking me about my idol or role model. that was a weird question because i never had one. i want to do be the first me, not the next somebody else. i always knew i was different. i was finally grateful to be a girl. i was able to use it to my advantage. in the second year of the championship, i finished third and my boss moved me up. i was going indycar racing. my dreams were coming true.

we started off this season fairly well. the third race was that japan 300, which i would go on to later when. i found myself vrying -- vying for the pole position. i lost it just a little bit. i went on to finish fourth. then we pick up at the indy 500. it really was like a fairy tale mont. every single time i came in from the track, including rookie orientation, where there was five cars running, there was a huge cheering section. i could see them cheering when i went inside on the pit lane. everybody pumping their fists in the air. i would come in and, it has

about 700 horsepower. it is pretty loud. if people ask if i heard the crowd, i heard them when i stopped the car. i got such a warm welcoming. the media blitz started. and they followed me everywhere. the opportunities kept popping up every single day. it was very exciting. to nearly halve the pole position -- have the pole position, i saved it. to keep that going and to lead until the final lap of the indianapolis 500, if it would have been warmer and if i had another gallon of gas, maybe i would not be here today. that would not be good either.

i believe that everything happens for a reason. the indy 500 came and went and danic-mania was born -- danica- mania was born. everything i do is broken down. i have learnt to embrace all of it. embrace all that i am. being a girl, being different, let's face it, if somebody is different, it is a story. just ask jeremy lin. it is really great. i am very fortunate. i was no longer danica patrick the driver, i was the girl driver. that is okay. you are saying all of the same

words and you mean the same thing. it is about intentioned. nisei it in a mean way, i cannot help you. -- if you say it in a mean way, i cannot help you. i encourage everyone to embrace all that is different about them. you need to use it and take advantage of it and give all you have to offer. i have never ask for special treatment along the way. i am never going to hide the fact that i am a girl, never. that is obvious. as i moved into my new chapter of racing being a full-time nascar driver, i am going to do it with the same will and energy and the same danica i am. i am going to be the best i can be. thank you. [applause]

>> did you realize all of your goals in open wheels racing? >> i think as an athlete you are always, you want to win every single time you take part in any event. that is natural to want. michael was to win in in the car and i did -- my goal was to win in indycar and i did. >> what changes would you make? >> that is such a loaded question. i do not drive there anymore. i will talk about the positives because there are some. indycar has a new car and i thought for them to create competition within manufacturers is something that

is good for the sport. it generates new money and story lines. from a racing perspective, which is the product you have, to look at the shoot out to the other night was awesome racing. the fans loved it. that is what keeps people coming back. when you can create competition, that is good for the sport. i think they are on a good track. i think the new car is going to serve them well. >> to you ever plan to compete in the indycar 500 again? >> i do plan to. whether it will happen is another thing. i planned to this year but in the future there is going to be more opportunities and more time to plan for it. i love that race.

it is the greatest race. it is where i came from. it made me who i am. the brand that i am. i would love to go back and when that. i felt like i was going to win the indycar 500. i would love to have another shot at it. >> what is the difference between open wheel and nascar racing? >> where do i begin. obviously the cars are different. the wheels are exposed. it took me a while before i learned that one. sad, right? stock cars look like road cars. the cars are different. indy cars are low and fast. nascar, the cars are bigger.

that produces the close racing we are able to have, bumper-to- bumper. it took some adjusting to be used to being really close to somebody. to coming to daytona and having my spotters say, one car back, halfback, i must be underneath him at this point. that ability to run close is a product of the fact that they work to keep the car on the ground. and you have the difference in language, the way we have the -- described the car. in nascar, it is tight and loose. perhaps even the way it is said. southern accent? [laughter] i enjoyed it. nascar racing reminds me of growing up and being a kid. we used tight and loose so i

feel at home. >> which driving skills and do you need to improve on to accomplish your goals? >> of the most important thing is seat time. i have obviously been involved in nascar for the last two years. i still have not done enough races that would equal one whole season. i just need seat time. i need to go to the tracks. i feel like a learning process will be quick to start with, to get going on the season. it is tougher when you get to the top. i think that the learning curve will hopefully be pretty quick, being able to be in the car every weekend. i need to work on getting familiar and comfortable with the car. getting up to speed fast. for you guys that watch and think we go out and do an

ordinary laptop, and they do things that make the car handled in a way that has not done all we can. for me to beyond the limit of that level and have the faith in that car, the first lap, that takes some confidence. that takes some faith in the car and a trust. and some history with a car. so i know what it is going to do. >> for the last two years, was a challenge to transition? >> i definitely got this question a lot. my first answer is no. it is like driving a van in driving a lamborghini. i like driving the van. i chose to drive the van. do not take offense to that. but i did not think it was very

different. i did not think it was hard. it was a lot of scheduling and things like that but more than anything, my nascar ventures suffered. i would not say michael -- my indycar racing suffered. in nascar, i would do a couple of races in february and no other racing until june. then one a month until the end of this season. it was very spread out. i am glad i did it the way i did it. it allowed me the opportunity to say yes or no. i had never driven a stock car when i said yes. i am glad that i took that time and started slow. >> if you had never driven stock car before, why make the transition and do that full- time? >> well, we worked in his deals.

i had a two-year deal to do nascar part time. after those two years, it had proven to me that i love driving stock cars. i get excited. i look forward to racing. i am nervous but i would say it has gone from this much excited to this much nervous and this much excited. it is a much more excited feeling. the racing is all lot of fun. i feel like i am tapping back into my childhood. when i could get aggressive. i feel like it gets my blood boiling in a good way. >> what is the difference between a lead in weekend to the daytona 500 and the indianapolis 500? >> they are very similar.

they are both enorm a sea vents. the indy 500 is not the -- enormous events. the indy 500 is not the, we did not start with a bunch of media like we do here. there was a lot of media throughout. there was probably more track activity at the indy 500. but we get more opportunities to race in nascar. that is nice because that is what we will actually be doing. what you feel is still long tradition. you feel the history. the significance. it gets every driver to a point that they really want to win the race. more than showing up on a thursday or friday.

whenever you put a lot into something, i feel like i want to do well even more. this is one of those events. >> how you prepare physically and mentally for the rigors of driving in a race? >> i just sleep a lot. [laughter] sleep is good. i am pretty good at it. eight or nine hours minimum. you are going to say that is why i look young. it is always important. a diet and working out is important. i was in the gym this morning. it is part of my life. i never want to get in the car and get tired. there is so little that we can control as a driver is that the last thing i want to do is let myself down in an area i am able to control. i do it to feel good about

myself. it makes me feel better to be healthy and fit. it makes me look better in that go daddy commercials. >> what is an example of your everyday workout routine? >> i lift weights and three or four days a week. anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes of cardio everyday. this morning i did 30 minutes of cardio and i did a lower body left. it was pretty quick. about 10 minutes. if you keep after it, it keeps the heart rate up. i needed to hurry and get pretty for you guys. >> how much weight do you lose in a typical race? >> not enough. [laughter] i hear from some drivers then they get the suit off and they

are lean and ripped. i do not get that. maybe i am drinking too much fluid. i know you sweat a lot. these cars are hotter than what i am used to. if you go outside and go running around, working out, you are going to sweat. in a stock car, i have heard it is 140 degrees. does anyone know what this debt is? can i get a thermometer? my watch as a thermometer. is that right. i think it has been at least 200 for me. 140, fine. >> you mentioned looking good for the commercials and you are a woman and you want that to be known. is it hard being taken seriously in a man's world when you are using your sex appeal to promote your career?

>> in this day and age, i have said this for a long time, it is about the package. can you drive, i can you speak? the jury is out on that today. can you talk to media, and meat sponsors, meet presidents of companies? can you be featured on commercials? it is a whole package. i am going to use the package. i am going to use it for all that i can and all that i am. the things i do are never outside of my comfort zone. i am fortunate that i am able to show different sides of my personality through kind -- things i am able to do as a race car driver. i very much enjoy shooting commercials and being made up all pretty. it takes the time at least two

hours, but it is something that i'd like to do. i enjoy being a girl. what people do not like about -- do not know about me is how much i like being a girl. at the track, i am pretty minimal. i am there to drive a race car. i am not there to show you my pretty mascara. >> you have broken into a male that dominated sport. what lessons have you learned? >> i never set out to break any ceilings. i was taught from a young age to be the best and to work hard for that. i never set any of those intentions of being the first girl to do things. about the only stat i ever knew it was that no woman had ever

won an indy car or a nascar. i would like both. other than that, things just tend to happen as i go along. i had no idea when i finished fourth in las vegas last year that was the highest finish for a female in history. i found out -- find out these things afterward. >> are you friendly with any other women drivers that are currently racing in nascar's other divisions? >> yes. i think some girls are friendly. some are less friendly. i might be one that is less friendly. i do not know sometimes there are girls you get to know. there are not a ton of them. when you go to the racetrack on weekends as a driver, i show up when i need to show up at the beginning of the day and then i get in the car, go out and race, and talk to my crew chief at the end of the day, talk to my boss, and get ready for the next day.

i have a hard time sometimes getting to see my teammates. there are a lot of drivers i get along well with, be it a guy or a girl. it is nothing uncommon or difficult for me to begin with. >> of all the nascar tracks you have not raised on, which one do you look most forward to competing on and why? >> i can tell you one i am not looking forward to and that is darlington. apparently that is a really tough to track. i am looking forward to going to end the in stock car. that will be roughly cool. i am really excited to see how indy car.orces anversus an i am looking forward to going to talladega. apparently it is a pretty great

fan of fast. i might have to throw a hat on and drive the golf cart around outside. it is always fun to be a part of big events that have lots of fans of there. at the end of the day -- as i learned from my visa to go to japan -- we are entertainers. [laughter] >> your racing career has taken you to some incredible places. do you have a favorite? >> i am it always loved japan. my husband goes with me every race. we love the culture and the people. not all of it, but most of it. obviously, i had great success there. i love japan. love indy and daytona. big events bring out an extra

something in me, just knowing how much is on the line that weekend. >> indy cars are much faster than nascar. will you miss that speed? >> when i am side-by-side with someone and cannot pull away, heck yes. i think there are other things. i have never raised for speed. some people -- i think is a common answer -- like to go fast. i like to go faster than the rest of them. speed has never been my thing. i do not mind going past, but my goal is to be faster than the rest of the pack. >> what would constitute a success for you in nascar? >> winning. [applause] hopefully you did not think i would answer any differently on that one. i know i have a lot to learn and

i will make plenty of mistakes, i am sure, but it is about getting to victory lane, running up front, gaining the respect of my peers and those around me. as i learned from a young age, they do better when i have more fun. >> you talked about the other drivers. who do you think are the three most talented drivers you will complete -- compete against this year? >> there are a lot more than three. the first name is tony stewart, who is my boss on the sprint corp. side of things. -- cup side of things. if you watch the championship, i doubt you would be bored. kyle busch is pretty good.

he won on the shoot out. he almost crashed a couple of times and came back. i guess -- there are lots of them. obviously, karl edwards is pretty good. he ran tony stewart for the championship last year and came up short. >> you talk about your experience of crashing into a concrete building. what other experiences of crashing have you had? >> i purposely left it out of the story of my first year in indy car. my first race in indy car, i had quite a big accident. i was running in the top 10 and things were going fine. it turned into quite a bit of crashing. i was going underneath the accidents and missing. a car with a broken suspicion

was slowly coming up and shot me into the wall headfirst. i do not really remember much. i remember waking up in the medical center to a blaring a bright light, looking up. my mom came up over my head and a priest came up over my head. i said, mom? what happened? she said i had been in an accident and i would be fine. i checked my legs to make sure i could feel them. i was very redundant. i was asking the same question over and over again on the right to the hospital. >> how do you decide which sponsors to accept? >> good question. there are lots of factors that come into a partnership with somebody. first and foremost, there are plenty of times i have said no

to brands that do not fit. they are just not me. it is unfaithful to my fan base that i would be partners with them. some people what the moon and they want you toot work lots and lots of days for them. sometimes there is not time to do as much as a sponsor needs to justify the partnership. for me, i have always found, and i learned this through experience, having partners that are ready to do and ad campaign, print campaign, and commercial -- if they are not ready to use me, it is a waste. you do not get r.o.i.

they do not have any return on their investment and all the sponsorships go away. the best unsers are those who have a plan for the media and for advertising and then they start to get some return from their investment based on my platform and my following. having a great partners is very important. >> do you have any funny stories to go with your godaddy.com commercials? >> it is all funny. i do not know. these girls are troopers that are not wearing what jilian and i are wearing. we always have a good time. the person who owned -- owns the company recently had investors involved. i said we should do a funny

thing where we find bob. he is in every commercial at some point in time. the commercial where we were doing a contract -- it was not the first contract won last year where we had these big godaddy balloons on us and had to do a funny dance. it was the one after that where there were tried to get me into a bikini. the really funny thing, i could not stop laughing. that guy was so funny. i have a lot of fun with the people who get involved with their commercials. >> have you and jilian become friends? >> yes. she is a pretty nice girl. she is really nice. my husband and i recently went to south africa. she had just come back from south africa. she went to all the places we went so i got some advice on where to go and what to do.

she is a good character. we play well together in the commercial. we recognize the ability -- how great it is. we have fun with it and try to get people to laugh a little. >> you talked a lot about the media role in your career. the you think they have been fair or unfair in your career? >> a lot of both. i think that is probably typical of every company and every brand with any kind of situation, anything you need. there are always going to be people who focus on something positive and people who focus on the negative. people are going to try to break it down. i think that is exciting. i do not mind it at all. freedom of speech. if you want to write an article that is negative, i might not give you a one-on-one interview,

but i recognized it is part of what is great about our country and part of what makes it interesting for the general public to read. not everyone is a fan of me. that is fine. you do not have a -- you do not have to be a fan of me. i'd like to see somebody with a danica patrick shirt on up in the stands standing next to a carl edwards or tony stewart shirt. that is what makes it interesting. >> do you hope to go into film or tv one day? >> i amatnot funny and not super-the upper pretty. i think i would like to be on the other side of the camera. i mostly get exposed to commercials. i love being on the other side of the camera, seeing it from

their perspective, looking at the image and the whole set together, the balance of it, the delivery of lines. i probably get too involved according to some, but i enjoyed that part of it. what i like to do -- what i would like to do is a walk on part or something like that. last year or the year before i played a race car driver. it was nice. there's a lot of standing around. there are long days. i think the more things we are exposed to it as people, the more well-rounded we are in the better perspective we have. >> did you play any other sports growing up? >> a lot of different sports. i was a cheerleader. i played basketball, volleyball, band, choir, track, tumbling, t-ball -- i have

played a lot of different sports. i think that is part of what got me to wear i am today. my parents were open to trying new things. they were not scared for me. they could have been scared for me being a race car driver, right? there are kids mothers who do not want them to be out there. they think it is dangerous. i am really fortunate i came from a very open-minded family and a family that bought it was good to try new things. i am sure that is part of the reason i am 8 race car driver. >> there are some questions about whether nascar drivers are real athletes. what do you have to say to that? [laughter] >> are we trying to see who can lift the heaviest dumbbell? no. are we trying to see it can spread of the fastest?

no. but do we need to be in shape? yes, absolutely. obviously it is very hot in the car. your heart rate is elevated the whole time you need to be on your toes. you need to be sharp and you cannot let anything take away from that. i have heard stories about drivers in nascar having their power steering going out in fear for that day. -- going out. i fear for that day. that would be hard to deal with. indy car has a different physical demand. there is no power steering. everybody runs out of gas. we know what that feels like. power steering going out is a handful. there is a little bit more physical strength needed in indy car.

in stock car, you need more endurance. these races are at least three days long sometimes, i think. they will be anywhere from 2.5 hours-4.5 hours. maybe even five. >> after a race, which part of you aches the most. >> usually my ego. that takes the biggest hit first. [laughter] after that, i suppose you could always go to be backed. -- go to the back. we obviously have a -- i hope that does not get taken out of context. i should stop doing it. we have a lot of repetitive motion. obviously it is arms from the death grip.

you do have to take care of those things. >> do you feel you have an unfair advantage because you are smaller than your mail racing counterparts -- male racing counterparts? >> do you see how small i am? they say it makes you a better race car driver. it is a pain in the butt. i am a little bit too small that the pedals do not quite reach me at the gear shift does not quite reach me and i cannot see over the wheel. when i get into a car -- a rental or anything -- i put it about as high as you can go and about as far forward as you can go. if there was really an unfair advantage to being lighter -- we

would have won every race in indy car and that did not happen grid it comes down to how you are on restarts, getting through traffic, how your team performs with a pit stop. having that fire to get through the pack at and try to win the race. >> how involved are you in outback racing? >> very involved. i hope that i am is one of those athletes that was to be involved. my agents probably no better. some athletes do not want to know anything. some want to know a lot apparently i am want to know a lot. i pride myself on authenticity and being real. for me, if i am not doing

things i believe in, partnering up with the right people and doing the right type of event, to me, it is not doing any favors for my brand. i like to be very involved. i probably bother my agents to much. >> how are you preparing for sunday's's daytona 500? the you have any pre-race rituals? >> i am usually norris before a race. i do not want to eat. think about eating when you are nervous. it is not good. i used eat eggs and toast. that is the most common meal before a race. it is easy on the stomach. for the most part, it is a pretty similar routine. i try to not break it. i sleep the same amount every night. i do not go to bed any earlier. i drink my favorite two cups of

coffee in the morning, have my nutritional breakfast or lunch, and get out there. for me, it is about preparing throughout the weekend, working with my crew chief, or watching some old races to see what it looks like from the driver's perspective. i think when you are not prepared is when you get the most nervous. i just try to prepare as best as possible. >> do you have a prediction for sunday? >> i sure as heck hope i am one. it is my first sprint cup race. i do not want to set expectations too high, but i think it will be interesting. for those of you who watched last year -- never mind. [laughter] we are bringing back some all- style racing. it will make it exciting for you. pillhead and watch this sunday.

-- go ahead and watched this sunday. lots of cars packed into a small amount of space. you are more than likely to have bigger accidents when that happens because you cannot get the heck out of the way quick enough. on race day, it is out of your control and you cannot avoid it. you might have been the fastest car in the race, but it is over. on these kinds of races where a lot can happen and a lot of drivers have the opportunity to do well, you never really know who is appointed do it. last year we had a surprise win who had hisr baines 20th birthday the other day. that is what is so exciting about this race. anything can happen. >> before we get to the last question, we want to present you with our official national press club coffee mug to help you get

started in the morning before your races. >> this will be my new coffee cup. thank you. >> i want to let you know about upcoming speakers we have coming to the national press club. on april 4, we have deepak chopra. on april 19, alec baldwin. i want to thank the national press club staff, the broadcast center and the national press club institute for their help in organizing this luncheon. i do have one more quick question for danica patrick. i want to know if you have ever had a speeding ticket or if you find it difficult to drive slowly on the interstate. [laughter] >> i have gotten this question a couple of times lately. i was doing some events are nationwide insurance. they were my insurance carrier so i found it a difficult question to answer.

the answer is yes, obviously. i think it qualifies me for the job even more. [laughter] [applause] >> thank all of you for joining us today. i want to thank danica patrick and wish her good luck on sunday. we are adjourned. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> we got started because there are a lot of conservative think

tanks. before captor, there were no progressive think tanks that worked on national policy and security. >> neera tanden on the mission of the washington, d.c.-based think tank. "there is an ideologies behind it. part of our job is to make the argument and the evidence-based arguments behind our review. sometimes the fact do not argue for the position, we examine those positions. the most important thing is to be right. >> the center for american progress sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a". >> michigan's primary election

on tuesday, republicans are in the state this weekend speaking to voters. rick santorum and mitt romney spoke today at a forum in troy, michigan. rick santorum criticized mitt romney for his health care initiative in massachusetts. pauling this speech, we will show you today's marks from mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you. thank you so much. thank you for that great reception. i appreciate the opportunity to be here. americans for prosperity, all the great work they do in supporting free enterprise, free

markets, and limited government. i am excited to be here with you. i look forward to a good day on tuesday here in michigan. i am looking forward to big things. [applause] this has been a campaign that has had its ups and downs for me. this has been an amazing ride. two months ago, the pundits were asking me why i was still in the race. we will go out there and we will deliver a positive message for america. we will remind people why we are the greatest country in the history of the world. and why we will again be a shining city on the hill, the beacon of hope and freedom for the world. we have to -- [applause] we have to have a leader who believes what america was all about and why we created the greatest country in the history of the world. we have to have someone who

understands the greatness of america that is not in our military, not in our economy, not in our form of government. it is on the idea that from the very beginning, our country was founded on the idea of the dignity of every human life. freedom and opportunity for every human being to realize their potential. to be able to build strong families, business, and the community, and church, civic and community organizations. all the things that create a great and vibrant community. that is what made america a great country. we did not start as a country with a sovereign and a strong central government allocating resources and putting people into classes and titles. we believe in limited government and free people. we built this great community.

that is the secret of america. that is why you have seen other countries try to copy what we do here. even in the last couple of years, we have tried to help other countries be like america. they find it hard. they cannot quite do what we do. we are different. we are exceptional. we did it from the foundation the right way. we believe in free people. my grandfather came to this country in 1925. when he came here, he spent the

first two years, he left my father and his family behind. he came here as a proud italian-american. a shout out for the italian- americans. that is my name in italy, too. guess where my grandfather came. he came to detroit and he worked two years in the auto factories here in detroit. he was not a red wings fans, i just want you to know that. sorry. he came here and worked two years and then he went to the coal mines of western pennsylvania. when my dad came to this country, that is where he came. my grandfather came to this country. he was not promise any government benefits. there were no government

benefits. just one -- freedom. that was enough for him. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, there are a lot of things at stake in this election. but ultimately what is its stake is our freedom. we have the government and a leader who believes that he knows best. the elite in society who thinks they can manage your life better than you can. they can manage industries, sectors of the economy, and tell you that they will give you rights to health care and to all sorts of other things. they will tell you they will take care of you. but what we find is when the government says they will give you rights, they will tell you

how to exercise those rights. and the biggest example of that is obamacare. i would not be in this race if it was not for obamacare. to me, obamacare is the game changer for our country. it is robbing us of our essential freedom. [applause] it is the ultimate top down, i know better than you do. i will tell you what insurance policy. what benefits, but your deductible, everything. the government has designed five plans for you. it tells you what doctors and hospitals will be reimbursed. it manages your economic choices. it landed some based on what the government thinks you should have. we need health savings accounts.

the real answer is consumer driven health care. do you have any idea who was the original author of health savings accounts 20 years ago? [applause] i was for free-market health care before conservatives were for free market health care. that has been a leader on conservative, on the most fundamental issue, your health. it is what the progressive nirvana has been from the beginning. they have seen it in other

socialist countries in the world. when the government can convince you that you need to give them the power over your health, they got you. they got you. now you will pay tribute to them. you will give them even more power so they will give you more benefits. i saw that from the beginning. why? because i am a conservative. not because it is popular. it is because of who i am. i was never for a government run health care system. it is robbing you of your freedom and giving control to the government. [applause] you look at this race, the big

issue is government control of the economy of businesses, of the energy industry, health care, financial services and history, regulation, mandates, government programs. who has been out there on the big issues of the day? never buying into climate science. the only person i sit next to on the couch is my wife. i do not go out and crow that i proposed the first carbon tax on power plants. as governor romney did when he was governor of massachusetts. i did not buy it. i did not buy climate science. [applause]

i did not buy it because i knew climate science was political science. [applause] i did not blow in the wind when things were popular to be with the elite. i do not come from the elite. my grandfather was a coal miner. i grew up in public housing. i worked my way to the success that i have. i am proud of it. [applause] i will not let the phoney ideology to rob you of your freedom. i was not for obamacare. you are the center of the health-care industry.

i was not for bailouts. i was not for the bailout of wall street. we saw what happened to the mills in western pennsylvania. bethlehem steel, no longer. these are the big names that dominated the steel industry. most of them are gone. the steel industry is still here. pittsburgh is revitalized. there is a lot more there, too. capitalism works. free markets work. you have to believe in it. [applause]

i can understand how some people can panic at a time of crisis and believe that government is the answer. it was the wrong thing for them to do to bail out wall street. i can understand why people did it. what i cannot understand is why some people would bail out wall street and use a very different measure to not bail out detroit. if you will bailout wall street, and take care of your friends on wall street, and you do not have a principle against government bailouts, why do you pick one and not the other? you can criticize me for not supporting the detroit bailout. i did not support any bailout. i did not support bailouts in my own community. [applause] what you have with me is what you see is what you get.

as opposed to, what you see today is different than what you get tomorrow. i will be a strong consistent conservative. i will stand up for free people and free markets. i have laid out my 10-point plan of what i will do in the first 100 days. i talked about cutting taxes for everyone. governor romney's plan is to cut taxes. how will he pay for it? by taxing the top 1%. never thought a republican presidential candidate would adopt the verbage of occupy wall street. [applause]

he is in a primary where conservatives matter. to imagine what it will be like when the general election comes around. what you see is what you get. we will cut taxes for everybody. [applause] we will focus on creating jobs, just like we are doing in pennsylvania. we will talk about manufacturing. i know what manufacturing means to a community. i understand what it means to have folks who are at the bottom of the economic ladder. i know what it means to have those manufacturing jobs, it gives to the opportunity to accumulate more skills over time. those opportunities for working men and women, not all folks are gifted in the same way.

some people have incredible gifts and want to work. president obama says he wants everybody in america to go to college. what a snob. [applause] you are good decent men and women who work hard every day. they are not taught by some liberal college professor. [applause] i understand why he wants you to go to college. he wants to remake you in his image. i want to create jobs so people can remake their children into

their image, not his. [applause] we have an opportunity in america to stand up for working men and women in manufacturing and energy. create jobs from the bottom up. to go out in states like michigan, pennsylvania, and ohio and talk to minority communities. not about giving them more food stamps, but about creating jobs. [applause] we will cut the size and scale of government. i propose $5 trillion in cuts over five years. spending less money each year than the year before. [applause]

i have not been the advocate of expanding government with new entitlement programs, like governor romney. i have reformed entitlement programs. if you look at the rest of the programs, we reformed welfare program. aid to families with dependent children. instead of a dependency program, we made it a transitional program. food stamps and medicaid and welfare programs need to have happen to them what i was able to get seven votes and the united states senate and bill clinton's signature. we had leaders talking to you and you wrote to them. that is great to see. i was at a tea party event just

a few minutes ago. i am glad you are here. 15 years ago, you were not here. 15 years ago, we were pretty complacent. spending was easier than cutting things. why did you do all those things? where were you? the american public was not out there doing what they were doing now. we were not in the condition we are in now. i saw it coming. i was proposing reforms to social security and medicare. i was proposing reforms to a whole bunch of other programs. i turned around and all the people were behind the, way behind me. now you are out here. i am glad you are here. we need your help. we need your energy. we need your enthusiasm to do the big things. if you want big things to happen, you have to elect somebody and nominate somebody

who can draw a clear contrast with president obama. who was able to do big things. [applause] someone you cannot give away the most important issue in this race, health care. governor romney gives that issue away. he was the author of a bill that led to romney-care. he imposed his values on every business and every individual. just like obamacare and in some cases, worse. same mandate. mandated health care. same mandate for doctors, the same thing. same mandate for fines. same mandate for catholic

hospitals to handout morning after pills. he overruled his own secretary of health. if we give up every issue, freedom of religion, freedom of contract, freedom of the economy. the biggest issue of the day, we give up the issue on the bailouts. we make it worse here. he was for some and against others. against the one here in michigan. we give up the issue of cap- and-trade, government control of the energy and manufacturing sectors of the economy. disqualified, disqualified, disqualified. why would we do that? why would we nominate someone who is on qualified to take on the big issues of the day? he would say, i have changed my mind. let me assure you, the money and the media will convince you he is not what he says he is today.

he was not what he says he is yesterday. ladies and gentlemen, this election must be about clear choices. every time we have run a moderate, we have lost. [applause] every time we have run a conservative, a complete conservative on all the issues, national security, culture, and economy, we have won. [applause] every time, in a primary, all the experts say, elect the moderate. you have to elect the moderates. otherwise, you will lose those key constituents.

we won the 2010 election because our people were excited about our candidate and they came out in droves. that is why we won, not because we compromised. they say, a moderate, we need to worry about moderates and the issues. if you are a moderate, issues are obviously not the most important thing to you. otherwise, you would be in one camp or the other. that is why you are a moderate. how many moderates have you talked who say this -- i did not vote for the party, i vote for the person. who are you going to vote for? are you going to vote for someone who says one thing one day and says anything else the next day to win?

someone whose own party doesn't support? at least someone you know they believe what they believe. that is the difference. [applause] we have an opportunity to make this election about big things at a time when big things are at stake. you have an opportunity here in michigan to shock the country. we will stand up for limited government. we will stand up for a constitutional country. we will stand up for strong families and strong communities. thank you very much. god bless you. god bless america. thank you. [applause]

[crowd chanting "go, rick, go."]

[applause] >> former massachusetts governor mitt romney had an opportunity to address the crowd at the americans for prosperity forum. here is what he had to say. >> what a group. thank you. it is good to be back in the place we called home for the first 19 years of my life and the first 19 years or so of

your life. we were raised in this area. i went to a party when i was in high school. a girl i had seen in elementary school but have not noticed, suddenly became very interesting. she was a sophomore. she had come with someone else. i went up to him and said i live closer to her than you do. can i give her a ride home for you? he said sure. we have been going steady ever since. my wife of 20 years, ann romney. [applause] >> this is a great group. thank you. this is home and this is interesting. we bleed burners. the other thing you do is listen to tiger baseball. i had a little pink transistor

radio that i carry around with me and listened to piper baseball. -- tiger baseball. i had the opportunity to come out once a week when i was in high school. i work at my father's company in troy, michigan. the back story on that is my grandfather, born in wales, and started working at age 6 in the coal mine. when my father was 16, they immigrated here. this is where we got our start. when you think about where we come from and who we are grateful for, we are grateful for our ancestors who made sacrifices and brought us to the greatest land in the world. [applause] all of my aunts and ogles pulled their money together and gave my father a college education. with that college education, he

started a company right here in troy. my father was a brilliant man. he engineered parts for aircraft carriers. hydraulic lifts that brought the plane up. my father was the inventor of a vacuum toilets. is that not exciting? [laughter] everybody in my house and moving parts. the door to the kitchen never closed. my father had a police system so the door would automatically close every time. right here in troy is where i work for him as a high school kid. i was so proud of him and so proud of the progress they made, the sacrifices of my grandfather as a coal miner, and that is the sacrifice would be to restore to america. i am convinced there is only one person who can do that. a year ago, when we were making the decision, it was tough

because i told mitt four years before, i would never do this again. he laughed and said, you know what, you said that after every pregnancy, so -- [laughter] i guess i really did not mean it. a year ago, when we were making this decision, we were trying to figure out, was he going to run, we could not figure it out. i said, if you win the nomination and if you can beat barack obama, i need to know, can you fix america? he said, yes. ok, let's go. that is all i needed to hear. [applause] maybe i should just do all of the talking and let him stand here and watch me. [laughter] i also decided no more debates. if we're going to do another debate, he will sit in the audience and watch me, and that will be it.

but i have seen his whole life be successful in everything he tackled, whether in college, and he got a degree from harvard law at harvard business school at the same time, whether in business, everything he tackles, he did well. and he is the kind of guy who has integrity, intelligence, good judgment, experience. i am looking for a president will sit in that office, bring that experience, get rid of this deficit spending, and bring sanity back to this country. so now let's hear from you, mitt. >> thanks, sweetie. she is only slightly biased. it is good to be in michigan. a lot of stories here, deep roots. i was both born here and raised here. i love telling my dad's funny stories.

he was in mount pleasant on the fourth of july, just after being elected governor. he stood in front of the audience and he said, "it sure is good being here in mount clemens." [laughter] and there was this big "ooh" from the audience. and my mom went up and said, "george, it's pleasant, pleasant." and he said, "yes, it is pleasant here." [laughter] i was born in detroit, harper hospital. there were about 35 kids in my elementary school. my guess is that every parent who sent a child to kindergarten that morning in that school believed america's promise. they believe if they thought their job the right values and the home and of the child got a good education, and if he or she was willing to work hard, take risk, and have dreams,

they could achieve prosperity of some kind and security. that is something we knew. a part of america was the conviction that the future was brighter than the past, that our kids would live a better life than even we had lived and talk about our grandfather making the sacrifice to come here. she talked about the brothers and sisters, all collecting their savings, giving it to her dad so he could go to college and build a better life for his kids. this has always been part of the american experience. in the last few years, people beginning to wonder if that american promise will be kept or be broken. we have watched a president who has presided over, what, 36 straight months with unemployment over 8%. the 25 million americans out of work, stopped looking for work, part-time jobs that need full- time employment. those are numbers but i have told you, but those numbers stand behind real people and

real crises. it is seniors planning on retiring but who cannot. as a mom and dad, one has a day shift, one has the night shift. they rarely see each other, only on sunday. we have young people coming out of college who cannot find work, soldiers coming home from afghanistan, from iraq, and they cannot find good jobs back here. this is the greatest economy in the world, the greatest nation in the world? we have people really suffering. this president has made a lot of promises he has not kept. he said he would cut the deficit in half. he has doubled it. he is on track, by the end of his first term -- his only term, by the way -- [applause] he is on track to put together as much public debt almost as all of the prior presidents combined. this is a record he cannot be proud of.

he also said he would get people back to work. he said, if i connected this economy turned around in three years, i will be looking at a one-term proposition. we are here to collect. we're taking it back. he also spoke about the need to secure medicare and social security, but temperamentally solvent. and in three years, no meaningful proposals, not even one, to do that. extraordinary. here is a person who not only campaign for president, but has been president three years, and with no prospects of turning the economy around, getting america back to work, no plans to end deficit spending. he just gave a state of the union address in which he did not even mention the deficit. the massive debt this country has. how can that be? and no plans for medicare or social security? this president is out of ideas, out of excuses. 2012, he will be out of office. [applause]

the choice in this election will come down to very different directions. i just listen to frank beckman. what a hero, what a terrific guy, great american. i love listening to him. he was absolutely right as a talked about the different course that america could take. this president has put us on a course to be more like europe. europe does not work in europe, it's sure as heck will not work here. start with the deficit. the idea that he is willing to stand by and watch trillion- dollar deficits -- not just watch them but put them into law -- is simply unthinkable. we are on course to become like greece or italy or spain, and this president sits by idly watching. what i will do is cut spending, cap spending, and balance the budget. [applause]

i have done that. i'm not just talking about that. if you are in business and i was in business 25 years, with it to businesses are run myself, others i try to help, if you are not a conservative fiscally in business, then you are out of business. you have to balance your income statement. you have to make sure that your costs equal your revenues, or your revenues equal or exceed your costs. i went to the banks and did that. i went to my state of massachusetts and balanced the budget every year, without raising taxes or adding more debt. as i go to washington, let me tell you how i will do it. first, i will look at every single line item, every single program, and ask this question -- is this program so critical to america that it's worth borrowing money from china to pay for it? if not, i will get rid of it. [applause] by the way, it does not take a

leader to promise of free stuff. it takes a leader to call for sacrifice and get people to follow. i will be going to the american people and say, look, you may like these programs, but we have to get rid of them, and i will lead. we will have some sacrifice and we will get rid of programs and people like. one that would all agree to get rid of is obama-care. i will get rid of that from the very beginning. [applause] but there are others. we have a bill called davis- bacon. it says you have to use union labor or pay union wages. that costs $10 billion per year. i will get rid of that. we subsidize things like amtrak. we have to stop doing that. there are some things i like, like the national the dormant for the arts, national endowment for the humanities. they're wonderful, but i am not willing to borrow money boat from china to pay for them.

there is public broadcasting. i like pbs, i like big bird, my kids like bert and ernie. i do not think it's worth borrowing money against so our kids don't have to watch advertising. i think it is ok for big bird and kellogg's corn flakes to be on the same tv at the same time. we will stop spending on programs that are not absolutely essential. that is number one. i will cut a lot of spending by doing that. there is another way to cut spending, and i am sure you will appreciate this. that is by taking programs we will keep, like medicaid, the programs for the poor who need health care, and housing vouchers, food stamps or people in need. we will take those programs and instead of them being managed by the federal government and growing completely out of control, we will send them back to the states. we will let the states run those programs, with specific limits on how fast they grow.

[applause] and by the way, that saves $100 billion per year, by having medicaid grow at inflation plus 1%. there are other programs that are so on economical and wasteful in washington. you know how many job training programs there are in washington? 47. think of that. and reporting to up to eight different agencies. as somebody is looking for job training, think of all the programs that have to sort through, all of the bureaucrats and the waste. i want to get rid of all of it. take those dollars, send it back to michigan, and say, mich., you craft them and do a better job at much less cost. [applause] so balancing the budget. balancing the budget starts with cutting and eliminating programs. number 2, taking programs we will keep, sending them back to

the states, where there manage with less fraud, inefficiency, and more effectively. and third, with the government that remains, we have to make it far more efficient than what we have. let me tell you a story about efficiency in government. this comes from john lehman, former secretary of the navy under ronald reagan. he said in the second world war, navy purchasing was approximately 1000 people. he said by the time he became secretary of the navy, we were commissioning 17 ships per year, and navy purchasing had grown to 4000 people. he said today we commission nine ships per year. navy purchasing? it has grown to 24,000 people. we have to economize. i will cut at least 10% of the federal work force that remains, through attrition, and i will link the pay of federal workers to pay that exists in the private sector. [applause]

you do those things and we balance our budget. the other things? we have to get the economy growing again. this president does not seem to understand what drives growth. this president this last week announced a program where he will raise the marginal tax rate from 35% to 40%. you know how many people work in businesses where the businesses charge not the corporate rate but the individual rate? where businesses have flow- through, where they do not have the corporate level tax but the individual tax? do you know in the private sector work force, 54% of americans work for that kind of business? so if you raise the tax rate from 35% to 40%, you make it harder for them to grow. i will cut the marginal tax rates for everyone by 20% and get this economy going again. [applause]

he has his own plans for energy as well, and that is to say no to call, no to oil, no to natural gas, no nuclear, yes to his friends at solyndra. my view is we have to say yes to the keystone pipeline, yes to drilling, yes to energy in this country that we can develop in this country. [applause] he believes in something i called crony capitalism. it is kind of phony capitalism. he takes your money so he can invest with his friends, whether it is fisker or tesla, money goes into businesses that happen to be big contributors to his effort. and not worked out so far, we will see how they do down the road. what they do is make it harder for the private sector to grow and thrive because competitors of those businesses cannot get financing and go out of

business. the right course for america is not having a president trying to direct winners and losers, it is to let the free market choose the best and to let those thrive and succeed. we are facing real challenges, a crisis of fortunes in the american family that is under stress, the economy, globally with iran and others threatening our security and our peace, and this is not a time for business as usual in washington. it is a time for principal, conservative leadership. i learned that in my home, the values i was taught there. i live in my home. i learned it in my business experience, where you have to balance your income statement. i applied to those principles as the governor of a state. by the way, playing in michigan as a conservative is like

playing an away game. i legislature was 85% democrat, yet we balance the budget every year without raising taxes or the debt, reduce the legislature tax rate 19 different times, and we also were successful in implementing english in our schools. we fought for english immersion, our kids are taught in english in our schools. [applause] i empowered our state police to enforce illegal immigration laws in massachusetts so we could deport people who come here illegally. [applause] i also faced a supreme court in my state that said john adams had written into the constitution the right to marriage between people of the same gender. we reversed that in my state. we were on progress to do that. then we also had the legislature passed a bill that said we would allow cloning and our state.

they want to change the definition of when life began. i stood up, said no, and veto that legislation. i'm a pro-life governor, a pro- life candidate, perot traditional marriage candidate, and i am a conservative. i test from my conservative traditions by quoting somebody who endorsed me and my 2008 campaign. santorum said, mitt romney, this is a guy who is really conservative and we can trust. he said he is the clear conservative candidate. he is right, i am the conservative candidate, and what we need in the white house is principled conservative leadership, and i will bring it. [applause] now, at the last debate -- and that was a fun debate in arizona -- at the last debate, we heard something about business as usual in washington.

when the senator mentioned sometimes you have to take one for the team, what he was describing was the circumstances where he disagreed with something on principle, but he had to vote for that because it was taking one for the team. we cannot do that anymore. we cannot continue to take one for the team. my team is the people of the united states of america, and i will fight for that team, not the partisans in washington. [applause] the list from that debate was extraordinary. he was opposed to planned parenthood funding and title 10, but voted for it. he was opposed to no child left behind, he voted for it. he voted to raise the debt ceiling five times without compensating cuts and costs. he described how he favors earmarks, including fighting for the bridge to nowhere.

he supported arlen specter's efforts. there was also 1996, where he supported arlen specter, by the way, when he was running for president. arlen specter, the only pro- choice candidate we saw in that race. there were other conservatives running like bob dole. he supported the pro-choice candidate, arlen specter. this taking one for the team, that is business as usual in washington. we have to have principled conservative leadership, and i have demonstrated that through my life and as governor. i listened to frank beckman a moment ago, and he was right on -- this president says he wants to transform america. i do not want to transform america, i want to return to america the principles that made us great over the years. again, thinking about frank, he quoted the declaration of independence.

those first words, carefully selected by the founders, changed the world. they said that the creator had endowed us with our rights. not the governor, not the state. and among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. those words meant opportunity here in america, and freedom. so freedom lovers from all over the world came here. this was the place of opportunity, where people could pursue their dreams. government would not direct how could live their lives, the circumstance of birth would not limit what to achieve. through work, education, a little good luck, their ambition, their dreams, that would determine their success. that brought people here by the millions of the centuries. we have to restore those values. i love the words of the great

american hymns that describe how much we love this country. "america the beautiful" -- "o beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain." "o beautiful, for heroes proved, in liberating strife. who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life." any veterans in the room who remember that? please stand and be recognized. [applause] thank you. thank you, sir. there is another verse. "o beautiful, for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years." the idea is the founders of this country did not just right for their times. this all beyond the years. the principles of freedom and the preservation of life and the ability in america to pursue

happiness as we choose. that those principles would not be temporary but enduring. they have changed american meat is the most powerful nation in the history of the earth. president obama and his friends are trying to change us, take us in a different direction, because more like europe, make us an entitlement society, where people think they're entitled to whatever they want. they want government to take from some and give to others. in that society, the only people who do well are the government givers and takers. that is the wrong course for america. the right course for america is to lower the burden of government, make it smaller, and the deficits, debt america on track to prosperity by lifting up the american people with. homes, great value is, toward the jobs, is soaring economy, with a nation that a second to

none. i will fight with all of my energy to install conservative principles, the principles of the founders, the principles upon which this nation was founded. there were found with berlin's and inspiration. we need to restore them so that america can remain as it always has been, the shining city on the hill. thank you very much. great to be here with you today. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> more tomorrow with live coverage. at 4:00, ron paul will be speaking with small-business owners. at 6:00, new to gingrich and georgia. -- newt gingrich and georgia. watch live road to the white house coverage sunday here on c- span. political reporter dave levinthal joins us to talk about spending on super pac. according to the washington post

in january, five donors gave a donation of $9 million. host: on wednesday he had a particle of super pac as campaign got to live. explain that phrase to us. >> here they are playing an outsize perot compared to what a lot of people thought it would be playing. he'd have to remember back in 2008, super pac did not even exist in the presidential race. nobody had heard of a super pac because the term simply was not in the lexicon.

they are effectively outside groups that are nominally independent from presidential candidates, at least the ones that are supporting presidential candidates directly. they can raise and spend unlimited sums of money that can take from -- they can take from corporations and individuals. they can spend that money on communications that are over the advocating for or against federal candidates. it can be presidential and also congressional, house, senate. what we are seeing is that they are spending, at this juncture in the 20 job election cycle, tens of millions of dollars in doing so in millions -- many cases not to lovingly promote the candidates, but to tear them down in as pilot of terms as they can with very negative advertising. messages that are some of the nastiest we have seen not only

in this election cycle, but in politics over all. host: explain how superpacs are created and why we did not see them in 2008? guest: this all stems from two court decisions. the first was a decision called citizens united versus the federal election commission. this was a little more than two years ago right now. this decided that corporations or unions or anyone for that matter could go ahead and raise and spend as much money as they want to. i directly or through intermediary groups. they could do so whenever they wanted, however they wanted. they could make what are called independent expenditures. these are sort of a half step further than what groups previously could do, which are called elections and communications were they can use and limited sums of money to make messages that would mention federal candidates. that would talk about presidential congressional candidates.

not actually over the advocate for or against their elected or their beliefs. this took the shackles off outside groups when it came to their involvement in federal elections. you had independent expenditures in the past and you had vehicles through which you could come as an individual for example, a pump unlimited sums of money, but there was never a marriage of those two things going on in the way that we see right now. a second court decision, one called speech now forces the federal election commission was the court decision that triggered the advent of the superpac as we know it today. it allow for these types of groups to spring into existence and since then, we have seen a number of examples going into the hundreds of superpacs being created.

some do not do a whole lot but others such as we store our future, which is a superpac supporting mitt romney's -- mitt romney, which has raised tens of millions of dollars and has spent about $25 million in the presidential race for this state. host: we will get into some of those various superpacs and the people behind them. first, we want to let our viewers and listeners know that they can be part of the conversation with dave levinthal of "politico" regarding our conversation on superpacs. 202-737-0002. 202-737-0001. 202-628.0205. you can also send us e-mails and participate in the conversation that is always taking place on facebook.

before we get to the phones, dave levinthal, we want to go through and look at some of the people involved in this and we are using an item from the cbs news hot sheet, me the biggest donors of the 2012 campaign as our leadoff point. let us start with adelson. which tennessee is he supporting? -- which candidate is he supporting? guest: she is a multi-billion there. -- he is a multi-billion are. he has pumped more than $10 million into a superpac called the winning our future. not to be confused with restore our future. he has sort of been the ultimate superpac man if you will because of the money that he has put in

because a and -- and because of the promise of a hundred million dollars. a huge number. he would put that into support newt gingrich's candidacy. it remains to be seen whether newt gingrich is going to be in a position to benefit from that money. his poll numbers have not been greatly lee. adelson has allowed gingrich tuesday in the race at a level that he has been in today -- to stay in the race at the level that he has been in today. when newt gingrich won south carolina on the 21st of january, his success to be attributed to the very negative advertisements that were coming from the superpac -- winning our future superpac. host: let us take a call. the first call for this segment comes from florida. you are talking with dave levinthal of "politico" -- go ahead. caller: in the senate race in florida, immediately after world war ii, i think it was

1945 or 1946, the incumbent was opposed by george mathers, a returning veteran. during that campaign, the camp of tribunate in an article published on the front page said that claude pepper had been identified as belonging to a thespian society. that ruined claude pepper because the brilliant people in florida thought that was some sort of sexual perversion. i would say there is nothing new under the sun it in this sort of thing. the same thing goes on today. of course, there is a much more media. thank you. host: go ahead, dave levinthal. guest:-advertisement is all this country intel's. -- negative advertising is all

this country in tails. the megaphone that you have in order to disseminate negative messages is around. perhaps what used to be pamphlets, if you go back far enough, you have more -- it has more to any type of media that you can think of. that is not just television or radio, but obviously, that is internet communications and any one who is receiving very news and communication. it is easier now to go ahead and get those messages out, not just in the city or a state, but across the country and do so instantaneously. this does not take a whole lot of effort when you have a well- founded political operation. you can pretty much go up with the youtube video in a matter of hours or minutes that can be extremely negative on a campaign that you are running

against. the message is being picked up by every media organization and the united states -- in the u.s. that cares about those issues. host: next up this frank. guest: one of the things i have been worried about is on friendly nations secretly giving money to dummy corporations were already rich individuals.

we the american the people could have our bank -- our elections subverted by a country like iran it, north korea. we do not know where the money is coming from. a foreign nation could actually give money to one of these super pacs secretly. host: david, go ahead. guest: i have not read the article you spoke about, but i will take -- i will check it out. it goes back to the fact that campaigns and political operations have been using negative advertising for many decades and many years going back recently on television. what is different this time

around is that many of the ads previously were coming from the campaigns themselves. when an advertisement that was- was going up on the air, it was the campaign that was typically behind that. it is still happening today, but largely it has been the super pac said that have been using the bulk of their money to go and promote very negative advertising. this is particularly true for the restore our future super pac. it is important to note that the landscape of campaign finance is changing. not all super pac are doing negative advertising, but the big dollars are going to war that type of message. >> -- they are going toward a that type of message. host: is there any kind of

oversight to this kind of money? the concern is that if money comes in from outside of the united states, foreign influence could have an effect on the outcome of the presidential election. = guest: by law, they have to say who is donating to them. all the family, it will be a matter of public record and has become a matter of public record. one. on that, which we reported in december, super pac certification finding a loophole to effectively include their donors for an extra amount of time. they typically have to file on a quarterly basis. many of them in december or early january switch their filing from quarterly to monthly. that allows them to avoid filing these preprimary reports

that it would have had to file prior to hampshire, florida, etc.. it is something nobody could predict. but lawyers were looking at this. the bottom line, they did not have to reveal their donors until all of the primaries were over. to the point about foreign influence, less a concern about super pacs. that has arisen with nonprofit organizations. these are organizations set up under the internal revenue like -- internal revenue service's. i do not want to get too deep into the weeds here, but it is an important point. many of these organizations have sprung up. these organizations by law are supposed to exist for the social welfare. they are not supposed to have the primary purpose of engaging in politics. even members of congress and government groups have roundly

criticized some of these groups for engaging in politics, spending even tens of millions of dollars on presidential or federal politics. the big difference between these groups is they do not have to disclose their donors. there is no way for us to empirically say they are getting their money from domestic sources or foreign sources or wherever. we do not know because they do not have to tell us. host: he joined politico in 2011 and is co-writer of political influence: intelligence and analysis on lobbying. you can find his works at politico.com. back to the funds. gerry, you are on ". washington "" caller: whenever i hear people talk about super pac, it is

always about republicans. president obama has super pacs, nobody brings that up. he is expected to raise $1 billion for his campaign this year. back in 2008 when john mccain agreed to take federal funding for campaign, obama decided he would not take federal funding -- matching funding when he found out how much money he could raise. i want you to comment about that. nobody talks about how much money president obama is raising at his fund-raising deals. thank you. guest: one of the guys we talked about earlier, a film producer, tell us about his donation as well as the comedian bill maher. guest: to the caller pose a question, we have been talking about it throughout the race. president obama is the no. 1

fund raiser in the history of u.s. presidential campaigns. nobody has ever raised more than obama did or spent more than obama did in the 2008 presidential elected -- presidential election. this is not an issue about republicans and democrats, both parties are engaging in it. republicans have been quicker to the punch. they have really ramped up these efforts better than democrats have. no better number to throw out at you is from always saw a group called priorities usa action. it is run by two of his former aides that work in the white house. what is happening there is in january they barely raised $59,000. here we are talking about tens of millions of dollars. this super pac was not able to raise $100,000.

what happened? that was after january 31. it was not long after that president obama himself basically said, ok. i have beens railing have beens. i have been railing against the supreme court decision for a long time. you might remember the speech he gave when he got into a little fight with the supreme court as the speech going on. here he is a couple of weeks ago basically saying again, a big dollar donors, you can go ahead and donate to the super pac. i give you my blessing. i do not like the idea, but in order to compete with my republican competitors and compete in the general election, we are going to have to play by the rules that have

been given to us even if we do not like the rules. to use a football metaphor, one team has to go 10 yards for a first down and another team only has to go two years. some people will view that as hypocritical, and others will view it as what they are faced with. big dollar guy bill maher just give $1 million. >> we want to show our viewers and listeners listen to a priority usa action super pac added that is running in michigan right now. this is the group that is pro obama. the ad we are about to show deals with former gov. romney and letting the troy to go bankrupt -- the statement the governor made when the auto industry was in trouble. [videoclip]

>> there is no question he made a fortune from businesses he helped destroy. mitt romney pocketed huge fees shortly before companies collapsed. even when businesses failed, mitt romney came out ahead. priorities usa action is responsible for the content of this advertising. host: our next call comes from michigan. tell us, have you seen this ad on television? how did it affect you? caller: i just saw this for the first time. it makes me sick. i am so tired of the negativity. i cannot tolerate it anymore. i think it is the biggest turn off for elections. i think they should be outlawed. i think it is a shame that

washington does not live by the same rules that we have to live by and what they call the real world. we could never get away with is going into the employment office. you cannot knock the people interviewing for the same job. he would be thrown out and there would be a foot mark on your backside. perhaps if the super pacs had to pay taxes there would be a shortage of money to get to the politicians. something has to be done about the tax system so everybody pays rent. guest: you do have to wonder if something is going to give after this election. the 22nd history lesson is that campaign finance system in the united states is in constant turmoil. you have things like the mccain fine gold decision in 2002.

you have citizens united in 2010. if you go back long enough -- you could throw out all of these different names of different points in time when the landscape changed. on one hand now, we have mitt romney calling super pac said, even though he is benefiting greatly, a disaster. barack obama has been critical of them all throughout and is now using them. on both sides, people are looking for a different way than the situation that we have right now. it is a situation very upsetting to people like our caller. all tomalley, whether anything is going to change -- the future remains to be seen. it probably will not change for this election cycle. it does raise a point about negative advertising.

host: back to the funds. st. louis missouri. tony is on our line for democrats. >> good morning. >> your question or comment. caller: i want to just point something out. after the citizens united decision was handed down, in the state of the union address he warned of this of the perils of the judgment coming from the supreme court. judge kelly telesat and the audience at the mouth and things like -- judge alito set in the audience had mouthed things like "it is not true." i am wondering if the president got reelected, do you think alito will show up at another step of the union address? i think he is too much of a tower to show up again. guest: very difficult to say if

he would show up again. he is a member of the supreme court. he has the right to do what he wants to do or does not want to do. for the broader point of the supreme court's involvement in outside spending and the kind of communications and types of political groups we are seeing, there is a school of thought that says the way things are today in -- even if it is a tumultuous or very turbulent for a lot of people, it is a great thing for the first amendment. it allows groups to involve themselves in the political process and a way that they have not before. a lot of people are not going to subscribe to the theory, it is one that is out there. mitt romney saying that super pac says are a disaster, his prescription is to allow outside

campaigns to raise unlimited sums of money, to take the money and for their use so that at the end of the day when he is advertising -- when communications go out it is the campaign that will have to be behind it as opposed to some outside group that is often very difficult to track who they are, what they are all about, why they are involved in the process, and who is funding them. as we have seen right now with numbers coming in and groups that are funding the super pac organizations, most of the money is coming from individuals. donors who have to put money on a piece of paper and say " joe smith. i in jane smith. i get $1 million," or whatever the amount may be. some of these are difficult to track down or who is behind them. in a few cases, these corporations appear to be shelf corporations that operate to

engage in politics and not sell groceries. host: we want to show our viewers some of the numbers involved, particularly in -- particularly with regard to campaign fund raising through january of 2012. a total of $315 million has been raised by the campaign. republicans have raised $177.6 million. the president has raised $137 million. the breakdown between the remaining republican candidates -- mitt romney has raised $62.3 million. ron paul has raised $30.9 million. newt gingrich $80.1 million. rick santorum $6.7 million. these numbers are from the ftc. back to the phones in our

discussion with dave levanthal. caller: good morning. i have not so troubled abouts troubled as long as they disclose. i am troubled -- he's people like politico are based on the obama network, msnbc. the head of ge is on obama's board for job czars. ge not a big deal out of the tarp fund. plus they did not pay taxes. all of this money that is collected -- where does it go to? the media. host: sorry about that. go ahead, david. guest: many people criticize the media as a you can backward and

forward. people on the left think the media is skewed to far right and bring up fox news or vice versa on the left with msnbc. it is a debate out there every single day. for the caller i can only speak for myself. i have appeared on all of them. i think at the end of the day, what i want to do is report the news as we can best record it and make sure that issues of super pacs and campaign finance, people know the best impossibly know about both sides of the coin. i would not want to do anything less. host: we have a tweet from cspan junkie talking about ron paul. we have a chart here that shows the january balance sheet and the money raised and spent by

each of the candidates. not asl's numbers are big as the other numbers, but it does show that he is getting some support from a group called endorse liberty. guest: they are eight other super pac. it is important to note that all four of the main presidential campaigns have super pac that are independently supporting the campaign structure itself. indorse liberty is the outfit of supporting ron paul. they have not raised or spent quite as much money as the other super pacs supporting mitt romney or newt gingrich. peter theil is the founder of paypal. if you have ever made a transaction on the bay, you have probably used it yourself. he has been very instrumental in giving about $2 million and perhaps more when we see new reports next month to the super

pac. funding for indorse liberty has largely been an online campaign. the have taken a slightly different approach from other super pacs. there is a gentleman, abraham out in utah who is behind the day to day operations of endorsed liberty. he basically has said, we see ron paul as a different candidate. we want to take a different approach. we feel the best way to get people excited is not through millions of dollars of television advertisements or radio, but through online engagement, advertising, connecting with people in a virtual space as opposed to something being broadcast through the air waves. caller: good morning. i am grateful we have this kind of program and this country where you can still call in and put an two sense worth.

i find it laughable with all these candidates campaigning about fixing the economy and being financially responsible -- it is laughable about how quickly can burn up other people's monday, which is exactly what we're trying to get rid of in washington. there is a box of a " check here if you want to give a dollar." what is the dollar not collect all of those dollars and tell the candidates, this is all we have to work with for you to campaign on. i do not know. thank you for your time. guest: the caller was referring to, i believe, a public financing system for presidential campaigns which has existed for many years but has become obsolete as most of the candidates who are involved in the presidential election this time around -- and was the case with obama in 2000 a -- have

opted out of the system because there is some much more money above and beyond what they could get through the public financing system as the ran as presidential candidates for them to take. i would hardly one to speak for them, but it seems their philosophy is open " why would i want to limit myself when there is all this money i can collect that i can raise core of ?" to the broader point of public financing, there are many groups out there that thing public financing and radical reform that would change the way campaigns are waged in terms of their fund raising is the way to go. this is something that has been notoriously difficult to pass. if it was easy, it probably would have happened. there are others calling for constitutional amendments. the bottom line is, not a whole

lot of people are happy on the left or the right with the situation we have right now. it kind of goes back to the point where you have to wonder if after this election is all done and all over and we have a new president or we don't, something is going to have to give. something is going to change. host: we have a tweet. are to the big bank and many corporations supporting both candidates via pac "hedging bets?" guest: wall street, financial institutions, banks, they are notoriously fickle and who they support. if you go back to the 2008 election and you actually look at the individuals who are giving money either to the campaigns or political action committees, wall street and banks were very supportive of

democrats. they were very supportive of obama. around 2009 and 2010 when financial reforms taking place, all of these things really designed to change the way that the nation's financial structure was shaping out in the aftermath of the economic collapse that we had, the money went the other way. the political money really started supporting republicans. this is something that has persisted well past the midterm elections in 2010 and has been rolling just along just fine for the republicans through the 2012 election. host: we want to show viewers and listeners an ad being put out by the chamber of commerce. this is attacking tim kaine in his run for the senate. when we come back we want to talk about outside spending groups that are not spending groups. and these groups putting big money into campaigns that are not presidential.

[videoclip] >> obamacare could cost virginia up to $2.2 billion. it will kill jobs across america. >> it is one of the great achievements of this president. >> he's are no great achievements. call tim kaine. ask him why he continues to support obamacare. we need more jobs. host: talk to was about that. guest: that type of advertisement is notable. it is like we've talked about before, it is not coming from a super pac. it is a nonprofit business group which has the ability, so long as it does not just exist to engage in politics, to make political communications like that one. that is called an electioneering communication.

it is a kissing cousin of an independent expenditure. it will not actually go out and say "against tim kaine or barack obama." anyone will not a stick at a somebody supporting a barack obama or tim kaine. it is able to make a message in based on an issue that mentions the candidates. it will go forward and get right up to the line of advocating for or against the candidates without actually doing it. back to the point of the chamber of commerce, since it is not a super pac, it does not have to disclose donors. we do not know where that money is coming from because whether it is the chamber or any other group organized as the chamber is or organized as we were talking before like a social welfare organization is, it is simply based on the laws that we have right now which are very

contentious. a lot of people disagree with. they do not have to disclose the source of their money. therefore, we know less about these ads when it comes to their root funding sources that the advertisements coming from supertax, which are a half step further in terms of how it over committee for their support of candidates. host: bill on our line for republicans. you are on "washington journal." caller: what i wanted to find out is, the amount of money spent on this campaign and the amount of votes acquired divided into the amount of money spent by the amount of votes that were acquired and what each vote

costs the campaign people running. host: 1 is all said and done, how much per vote will this cost the campaign? guest: without a calculator, i will not be able to add it up on the fly. the broader point, you do have campaign spending a lot more prevalent -- a lot more per vote and other campaigns. it is easier to calculate this in the primaries when you can add up some of the votes. i i have not seen the latest number for the caucuses waged in colorado and minnesota and elsewhere, but if you look back at iowa, new hampshire, spending fifty cents or $5 or a dollar, there were spending siif