is a very long distance of journey. it is a journey that if we lose vigilance, we fought back. and we let those people who want to take this back occupied the public space, the public dialogue. we say, let's not have controversy. but the quiet about this. let's not get into controversy and if we are quiet we will not have all this conflict and this difficulty. when people are engaged in this rhetoric that is in designed to deny people of their rights, we have to do that. >> the year of the woman, it came on and he'll of the humiliation of anita hill. it was not appeased -- that t

hese women ran in reaction. >> i want to move on. how do women get compelled to exercise their agencies, because it is a sphere in which these issues are addressed. >> women have to support women, but sometimes we are our own worst enemies. when they go to their donor and

prospects to say, support me. i have to do my research to put together to run a campaign, and women do not find that resource available, and until we say, this is going to be over, we are half the population. there is no reason for our women and children to be in poverty, except complacency. >> women make up the majority. i was about to say the numbers are clear.

i want to come to cecilia. i want to come to you, because we have been friends a long time. suze was born on the south side of chicago, so everybody has some great stories. cecilia has a story that is mind-boggling for me, because so often we do not include our native american brothers and sisters.

we started this poverty to work on a native american reservations, and we asked for this documentary. you know what the women said? what recession? is always liked out for us. it is a wonderful story of single mothers exercising their own agency.

tell us what it is like trying to navigate life on a reservation. >> i am one of the women who run represents over 500 tribes. the largest is the navajo. the second-largest is mine. during the recession, i can recall my father and uncle tom kane, what recession? -- talking, what recession? there is a huge piece of land between l.a. and new york city, middle america, where we live. many native americans living in

middle america. the american indians are the only ones mentioned in article 6 of the united states constitution, where the quote is to honor all treaties by this government, so when we go to washington, d.c., and we are always trying to get one more penny for education. the question now arises if we are mentioned in the constitution, why are we always trying to get more money to address poverty in our communities? the majority of women, and the

majority are women. many of the position held in our tribal communities are women, so when you take a look at this huge leadership, people say wire our indian women and regionwide indian women? one thing we face is access. it is difficult to get from point a to point b, and then you factor in poverty. when we begin to take a look at where indian people live, we are looking at isolation and large miles between the waand 20pointd point b.

poverty has existed for many years in our travel communities, and it will continue to a zoser -- in our tribal communities and will continue to it says unless steps are made for young women to go to school. we change the laws. there are many tribal programs but may look good, but when you try to implement them, it makes it difficult for people to be able to use those services and programs one of the other things that is successful is getting our young -- that is not successful as getting our women into school. we have a high dropout rate. i could talk about everything, but in many tribal communities, women have stepped up to leadership roles.

have a glass ceiling. in indian america, we do not have a glass ceiling. we have a buckskin ceiling, and it works like this. buckskin is pliable, so it stretches. for many years we felt like we were making progress, and we would get only so far, and we were not on our rear-enders. there is internal pressure, and in our communities of color, we hold each other back. women told us back, but sometimes our men hold us back, and this is when the buckskin ceiling came into play. i took my oath of office.

i was given a knife, a symbolic gesture, to use this knife to cut through red tape and to go to places where there are barriers. i would tell the story because it is true. the first person who cut that ceiling was will man killer -- was wilma mankiller. there are women cutting the buckskin ceiling, but on the day of my inauguration, i took my knives and went to -- it opened up. the symbolic gesture with giving indian women permission to do what i did. >> i want to get to education, but i am curious.

give me a sense of what life is like for a poor child on reservation. what is life like for those kids? >> it is challenging. number one is cheyenne river. no. 2 is fine rich, and we have eight tribes, and they are both in south dakota, so many of our children are in communities where there are many challenges , and being a poor has been multi generational, and it has been ongoing. however, our educational systems, which are funded not only by the united states

government are the state of south dakota, our children have now access to pretty good education. they get on a school bus and come to the school. they go to a classroom and paid for by the government, so a lot of children go without. they go without the other things other children might benefit from, but one of the things i have noticed about poverty, everybody has a television set. they can find a way to put their resources together to get things the children could benefit from watching television, and because of poverty, we have many households that are mixed. we have many people living in one household, because it has always been a crisis, so we have multiple families living in one household. that creates another problem, so

the statistics are out there in terms of who we are. my sister talked about, there is very little data about indian women in poverty. i want to assure the tenacious this. indian women are so awesome and resilience. they are really smart, and they are also auto mechanics. >> you got me on that one. >> i cannot calculate that in the short term, but you go to a website everywhere, and you will find that data. >> as i said earlier, this conversation would not be possible if not for the generous support of the american federation of teachers. please welcome brandi weingarted.

the link of quality education and poverty is so well established. that is one thing we do not have to agree on. no debate here. the question is what is a link between poverty and a child ability to learn in the classroom? >> i am glad you are thought question, and my colleagues are so much better than i am, but let me start by saying thank you because we do not talk about poverty announced, and the fact of you are making this a priority so we shine a light on poverty so nobody can say it can be ignored, thank you very much.

i find it morally reprehensible but the debate is a false choice, and at the moment you over the word poverty, you immediately get that you are using it as an excuse. i want to mitigate it. i want to make sure we address it, and there are a bunch of things we need to do in terms of advocacy but in terms of interventions, which people do not believe we can do, so i wheat and -- i think we need to have both tracks of the same time. the question is about intervention. right now there is a 14% achievement gap between rich and poor kisds. that is double the achievement gap between black and white kids.

>> rich and poor is that much worse? >> that is before the recession. 46% of children in the united states of america agreed to 44% of children in the united states of america live in low income households. this goes back to priorities, and i want to give our to rural education as well. and we know about one-third of the achievement gap, whichever achievement gap you want to talk about, have been for a child between zero years old and five years old, because kids are so nimble then. we also know when there is a good early childhood program, everybody loves early childhood -- there is a rate of return on investment for $7 for every $1

you invest in early childhood. i do not know too many investments better than that, so less than 40% of 4-year-old are in a publicly funded 4-year- old pre-k programs in the united states, so we know it works. we know it is a great rate of return. we know particularly for kids who are poor, if we can get them in, is fantastic. it is harder to get into a pre- pay program here then is to get into harvard. when you talk about austerity, this is an intervention we know will work, and why are we not doing it? and not just doing it on a pilot program.

the secretary of education as a pilot program. the secretary of labor has been fantastic trying to find ways to put money together for these interventions, but that is the measure and the caliber and character of are we going to solve the problem. this is an intervention but works and can work well. rural poverty is the norm more. good night union is involved in an odd-as the experiment. goo-- my union is involved in an experiment. we have said the county, which is very rolural, and what we hae

said is, we have to improve the education system. we know we have done a lot of wrong things in the past, and we have to address that, including but we have to focus not only on fairness, but ensuring the quality -- e. quality. we have to give people the tools. that means more people have to step up and take responsibility. gooone we have done is said, it cannot just be the teacher. it just cannot be the parent, and we are looking at a multi strategy intervention. we are the lead partner out of 40 partners. we signed a covenant of says within three to five years we are going to revitalize the

community. we are going to talk about technology and do something about technology. we are going to talk about education and do something about education, because what we are seeing is kids are born. kids do not have access to what they have in urban settings. if kids are sick, 2/3 of kids have their only nutritious meal in schools. teachers are spending an average of $25 a month to feed kids. i would love to talk to you about this, because we can probably do something like this on some reservations. we are trying a way to wrinbring public and private together and bring schools into communities,

wrapped them around with services so we can do some college education on school premises, so we can open schools 24 hours a day, so we can have social services, so we can do the kinds of things that turned a community of around. that is what we have to do. bring it all together. hub.schools of su-- as the >> i have a number of follow ups, and you have done some great work. and we talk about education, particularly college education. there is no community pushing harder on this issue than our hispanic brothers and sisters. this act fast to get past.

-- house to get past. nellie is a latino. she is an entrepreneur. she has done a lot of great work to engage and involving women. just in case you're wondering where you know her from, celebrity apprentice. please welcome know nellie. [applause] with regard to women in your community, i have never seen a community people want to exploit more politically, socially, economically, culturally. people want to exploit them in so many ways, yet i have never seen a community madison avenue craves more. they are trying to get to lateen imams more than any other consumer in the country, and i

wonder if you would speak about being exploited on the one hand and being craved on the other hand. >> it is very difficult to read continual statistics about us the do not explain who we are a kind of our a downer, that make us feel like, that are framed in a way and makes us feel like something is wrong with us and we are taking something away from this country, and when you go to consumer-products companies and advertisers, they look at us like we are the greatest thing since sliced bread, and that is because their numbers show we are living in a multi-cultural society, and 16% seven of the group are latinos,

and by 2013, we will be 30% of this country. they look at us like the more money you make, the more money we make. i do not know if all of you know and -- nobody ever says, how do we think? you know we come from parts of the country where we have seen governments come and go, where someone like me could never grow up to be me. i could never be an entrepreneur and some other latin american country, so we come here in gratitude and hard work, so when we hear about poverty, it is a little shocking, because we do not live in a state of mind of poverty. we have been in and out of

poverty for generations. latinos do not see ourselves as stock in poverty. we are working towards the american dream, and we will do whatever it takes. the reason wall street is after clapton moms, because they took the same statistics about poverty. i saw how they look of statistics, and they drove on them to find a lifeline in the statistics. the number they found is in the middle of the worst economy in the united states, when everything was horrible, latino moms were starting businesses, and when they went further and said why, because they did not

want their kids to go under the bus, so when i looked up those numbers, i said, and what are they missing? the companies want us to make more money. they say, when will it take to go from here to here? what they need is a community. youthey need outside women. goothey need african-american women, white women, and they need to know how to access a captive of -- access capital.

they do not know how to access those people, so i decided i am going to start a movement for latinos. new move forward. i engaged advertisers. i do not have to explain it to them. let's talk to the people who already get it. advertisers know the most important thing we have in this country is our buying power. we have rights for power purchased power. and they do not know if we just thought from each other, we would be rich, so we started in december, and we are going to go to the country, and all the

information all the other people get, we are going to give it to latinas, and we have to remember, if we want to ask people for something, we have to come through, too. if we are asking a corporation to give us money, we have to buy their products. if we are asking to put more african americans and native americans on tv, we have to watch their shows. it cannot just be a one-way street. it is not just about them giving to us. we have the power to make or break their companies. we are bigger than mainstream. we are mainstream. >> but as a nice segue to suze

orman. suze's latest new york times bestseller, the money class. and last time you and i saw each other, you said something but arrested me. go was it, by the way. display device settings i have been using this line across the country, as i have

not been giving you attribution for this either. >> that there was a highway into poverty and there was not a sidewalk out. >> if that is true, how much more true is about four women and children, that there is a highway in but not even a sidewalk out? as i have been sitting here listening. aren't you surprised by how quiet i have been? i have been listening deeply because there are good reasons we are here. the commerce, education, native i'm listening deeply because they're all good reasons that we are here. the congress this, the education this, native american, latina -- the whole thing -- and it all, in my opinion, boils down to what is every single person in this audience today, what is every single person who is watching this program today, tonight, listening to it on the radio, what are you going to do for yourselves?

women are very interesting to me, and it is no doubt that women have the ability to give birth, in most cases. in most cases, women have the ability to feed that which they have given birth to. so on some level, it is a woman's nature to nurture, and she, in my opinion, will nurture every single person -- spouse, family member, pet, plant, employer, employee -- before she will nurture herself. but it is not until a woman is about 50, 55 or 60 and she is all by herself, her spouse has left her, her children now are grown and still living in her house -- it's true -- that she finally starts to say, "what about me?" now when women come together, rather than working against one

another, which girlfriend, they do. i cannot even begin to believe how much women love when i fail, as if when i fail at something it's going to make them a bigger success. their ratings will be better on their tv shows, people will buy more of their books. women, we have got to stand by one another. we have got to -- we have got to help one another. the solution, tavis, in a very strange way, is everything

everybody's doing right here on stage, but it's what you're going to do for yourselves as well when you go home. are you going to stop giving the store away to family members who could be working but they're not working, so you're supporting them? are you going to stop doing things that squander all of this money that you are making?

it can hinder their growth. crabi am not want to washington. i am going to her reservation. she is going to bring it together.

what can we do to teach them what they need to know about money? what they need to do so they can stay on the paid a bonus that are raping the majority of the people who are out there? it is everything everybody is doing. it is what you are going to do for yourself as well when you go home. for you of going to teach all these women have to open up a toiness tax they're going give it to their kids.

they dealt matter. >> i love having these conversations. this is the nectar and get 30 minutes to delve into these topics. -- this is the night when i get 30 minutes to delve into these topics. there's so much stuff to follow.

there's one other person who has not spoken. >> i want to hear from sheryl. sheryl has done expert work on global poverty, and so this is not just a domestic thing. i want women to know that they're connected to women around the globe. the gap in poverty between men and women is wider in this country than anywhere else in the western world. that tripped me up. someplace else, maybe. but not the western world. the gap in poverty rates between men and women is wider in this country than anywhere else in the western world. of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty around the world, 70% are women. 1.3 billion people living in poverty of around the world, 70% are women. please welcomethe co-author of "half the sky," she's pulitzer prize winner, sheryl wudunn.

the book is called "half the sky" because women hold up "half the sky." one of the things that we know works in terms of solutions is biker financing. we see women all of the world in various countries who are starting their own businesses courtesy of a micro financing loans. >> i am honored to be on a panel with all these women. there are many things here that echo what i have seen in global poverty. i am not in the field helping people. i am the messenger. it is a very broad view. in the first case, i think overall in this country we tend to look at poverty as a drag on the economy. julie and explain some of these statistics.

why do we have to pour more of our budget into this effort? what we have to do is move from the discussion of the problem. if we're trying to grow the economy, where are we going to get people to do this? you need education. i have seen solutions are around the world. they could really work well here. some places in kenya and cambodia have done a better job with education than they have here in the west. that is kind of embarrassing considering we have such experts here.

[applause] i would like to draw on the experience of china. and as a lot of people think china is run by dictators. they have a purity of also done something remarkable. -- and they have also done some been remarkable. 20 years ago, most of the were in poverty. they were under a communist society. not only did they have to come back to an economic challenge, but the king back to a political and social challenge.

-- but they had to cut back to a political and social challenge. there's a lot of bureaucracy in the world. the u.s. is still full of bureaucracy. there is so much bureaucracy. 20 years ago, and they said education was critical. if we can educate our girls, even if they can just get to the middle school level they can work in factories. there were the best alternatives that a lot of graduate had. they worked their butts off. the factories were located near the community. he could take something that gives a goal for the people in the impoverished community to look for. if they know that they can just graduate from middle school they can, even if it's a vocational school, they can just get that job at that local shop or that local factory. that's what happened.

so girls were educated, they actually were able to, as they became women, they were able to work in the factories. they started bringing home a paycheck, and that elevated their status in their household and in their local village and in their local region. that's what's so critical, is giving people a way out of poverty, and there are ways out. so i know, suze, you were saying the highway into poverty, you go on the highway, but there's no side streets out. there are side streets out, and i think that we need to make sure that the conversation focuses on solutions, not the drag that poverty presents. >> now, i want to -- thanks for being so patient. we're going to shorten these answers. i thank you for your understanding. madame secretary, sheryl said something now that i want to come back to you on first. for those who are watching this program right now who will invariably say that this is the absolute wrong approach, for government to be making poverty a priority, that we have already spent more money than we should have spent trying to life women and children out of poverty, to them you say what?

>> i say they're absolutely wrong. that we need to continue that safety net. you can't make choices about cutting back during a time when we are not fully in recovery mode. we still have very high rates of unemployment. you heard it here -- 8. 3 whatever percent. we know it's even higher in some communities. women have suffered the most. while we're represented in the workforce, we're not making the same wages comparable to where we should be and with men. i keep saying that. so the real answer here is about more investments and training and certification. that's why the president is putting a proposal forward to put in $8 billion to put into k- 12 and also community colleges. we want two million people to come out of community colleges after a year with certifications and licensing. employers keep telling me, and

when i travel around the country, "i want better-trained people, i want them to be flexible, adaptable. i don't want the ph. d. i want the person in the middle, the technician." there's a lot of folk out there that can be trained for these kinds of jobs. so i'm saying let's make it happen. but something that was said earlier about empowering women to run for office, emily's list is a good example of starting to help to give funding to support women. i was someone who ran for office and got early support, early money, from women, always women, but also learning that you have to build coalitions with other people. women look at issues and problems very differently from males. we look at not so much to get credit for the solution but how we work together to get that solution done well. that is what i say continually with many of the woman i serve with in congress. we lost more women in congress because we had a bad recession. more people had to work. it is still not easy for an elected individual or women to be able to balance everything. so let's have fairness in the workplace. let's treat women easier and

better if they decide to go into professional careers as an elected official. i don't want to say politician, i want to say elected official, because i take that very personal. there are a lot of women who ran for office that are not rich, and i know many of them. they gave up a lot of lucrative things, even the security of their families, to serve the public. we consider ourselves in many ways public servants. so i want people to remember that, that it isn't a bad thing to do, and there are a lot of good women that i know that serve in congress that care about domestic violence, that care about women getting an upper hand, getting a good job, making sure that they have retirement security and that everyone has a fair shot at education. >> randi, i'm coming in one second, i promise. dr. malveaux, since madame secretary raised this issue again, the numbers are clear. black and latina women are twice as likely to be in poverty in this country as white women. dr. julianne >> mm-hmm. >> the numbers are clear about

that. black women, the numbers right now are so abysmal for black women in particular - >> yes. >> -- for black people more broadly, the numbers are worse for us, but black women in particular. there's a deafening silence in black america with regard to the obama white house and this administration and what they ought to be doing about poverty across the board. to my mind, the president, respectfully, hasn't use the word poverty enough, hasn't talked about the poor enough. that's my own assessment and we can debate that another time. but what we cannot debate is that there has been a deferential silence on the part of black people more broadly, and black women specifically. i love barack obama, i love michelle obama, i love the two kids, i love the image, i love all of that, but there's been a deafening silence in our community about poverty. why, how, can black women be so silent about their own poverty

right now in this area? >> that's a great question, tavis, because when you look at melanie campbell and some people had a thing friday, and she talked about the voting patterns of african american women. we are the most loyal democrats that there are. we voted overwhelmingly, 97 percent, someone said, for president obama. now, having done that, what have you done for me lately? that's really a question that we have to ask. but i think there's a schizophrenia in the african american community about president obama. everybody loves him. i love to love him. the brother's fine, he's smart, he's got it going on. >> he seems a little bit. >> the singing does not impress me. i refused stereotypes of all black people have to sing and dance. the schizophrenia, we bought them on one hand. the law and is a lot of people

silent. this president has had enough challenges. people think he has so many challenges, why pyle its contacts you're not piling it on. your talk about what really needs to happen. -- you are talking about what really needs to happen. tactically, given the recession, i think that the president should have done jobs first and then healthcare. by doing healthcare first, he used up a lot of political capital, took a long time. then he gets these republicans and tea party people who do not understand that they get social services. >> yeah. >> yeah, tea party's people's mamas get social security, because [unintelligible] not supporting him. their kids go to publically supported schools, but they're sitting here saying, "cut, cut, cut, cut." as faye said, they diverted the conversation by talking about reproductive rights as opposed to economic rights.

if you don't like abortion, don't have one. that's all. it's real simple. >> the end of 2011 had district of high employment. they oppose the jobs bill. it is disgraceful. you saw mr. john boehner with his posse behind him. we're not going to pass the jobs bill. four days later, you saw him standing there pitiful by himself sagging "we will do it for two months." african-americans are extremely understanding of president obama but that should not prevent us from speaking in our own self- interests, and it should not prevent african american women from talking about this poverty, our children. president obama has done some wonderful things. he did the lead better act in his first week in office.

it talks about equal pay. the fact that you can see appeared she cannot sue because she did not know she is getting an equal pay until years later. she said the statute of limitations had expired. there was a pay equity act that was passed. that pay equity act has never been in force. under president carter, there were attempts to expand child care. everyone has talked about what happens with women. 3% of the fortune 500 companies offer chop here on site. some say -- child care on site. some say they say that but it is a hot line. there are things that women can say. everyone has talked about the way women have been working against each other. we do not have the coalitions among the as we need to have. -- among us that we need to have.

emily's list did not support her. we do have to be louder. here's the other piece. okay, can you imagine a president gingrich or a president romney or a president santorum? we might as well just check our wombs at the store if president santorum would be president. so for any flaws we see in president obama, i think in this season he is better than any alternative that we can look at. he needs to be turned up. we need to speak up. i am so glad that we have a latina on the supreme court. i'm so mad we do not have an african american women. if you vote for someone, give me seven.

>> this whole -- what is interesting, and their three things i want to say. this notion about individual responsibility and collective responsibility. they both have to happen. in terms of elections, let's be a little bit real about citizens united and how much money it costs to run. that is also a self-fulfilling prophecy we need to deal with. think about this do conference. it is not the people's house anymore. the one thing i would broaden is that -- look. i am part of the labor movement. i'm giving you one statistic

that is sobering. between 1973 and 2000, the number of people who were in unions went from about 34% to 8%. in the same time, income and inequality rose 40%. that was a way of creating a collective work, creating a community and labor together, having the coalitions. but the little real. -- let's be real. it is not a war on women. it is a war on voting. i looked at what was going on in terms of alabama.

worse than the war on the voter i.d. laws is the fact that in alabama we have the most vital anti-immigration law. if anyone that is perceived to be undocumented can no longer reach their house for fear of being arrested. what we have right now, and this is part of how we need to fight this, is you have teed of the zero very different philosophies. -- you have two very different philosophies. there is a philosophy that basically says we're going to take away rights from people. that is what we have to fight about right now in the next few months. >> i just went right to them. >> i want to get back to the question posed to julianne. whether they are the markers of health-care whether there are

studies that have demonstrated that we get the least desirable care, whether they are economic statistics, whether they are educational system six. what we have not discussed seems to be the political forum is the enormity of the power of popular culture and the media to define black women in terms of non-dignified, and non-working. that we're not worthy of being perceived as being equal. the characterization's and the stereotypes that are reinforced about black women in our society really deserve an uprising among black women at this point. the lack of are prevalent in closer and advertising and imagery that sends a very strong visual messages that say this is equal and the individual deserves the same respect and treatment are fading in a way for those that came about in the '60s and '70s is shocking.

the larger society values system is really something that we need to challenge. popular culture in the media and public conversation really all need to be challenged. >> give me one second. i am glad you said that. you are the honorary black

women. >> i am a black woman trapped in a white woman's body. this is the most difficult symposium my people have ever produced. that is why i am thankful for the radio right now. if you are watching on c-span, i think c-span.

if you're watching on pbs, i think pbs. because i've done so much of this, you put together a panel of experts. i got a few friends on the industry. it is not difficult to get the platform. this has been like pulling teeth, to get the focus and attention on this issue. what say you about this? poverty is just a question, part of the early women and children that we do not find sexy enough to talk about. >> what is interesting about me talking about money every week is that for 11 years now i've had a show. for the past for five years it has been the number one rated show on cnbc. you would not know that. even i hear anything about it. you will not seek the support that somebody truthfully of my stature should have. i am telling you i do not have

it. i have to fight and crawl and begged and scratch for every single thing that i still to this day create. women do not have a face in media. they do not have it the way that they should. women hold up half the sky. >> i take care plan. >> i wanted answer your question. it is very difficult to talk about poverty.

in a country whose god is money, and that's true, when you classify yourself as poor, you might as well be a bumper. no one wants to call themselves poor. i tell you why it is painful to talk about it. it is part of our collective. it is part of a collective that we deny.

what we see in the media with what's going on with the republican debates is embarrassing. and what we see in the media and what we've seen over the last few years in the media, what we put out in the world is that money is god and, if you don't have it and by any means necessary to get it, you're nothing. i think the important thing is that what we know is that women are the holders of the values in our families and we have to go back to upholding what is really good. when we say that immigrant children should not have education, what happened to a country that, from the time it

was founded, we wanted all children to have education? what happened to those values? i think that's why you're right. it's painful to discuss. it's very shameful. it's shameful in this country. it's not shameful to be poor in other countries. people don't ask you right away, "what do you do and how much money do you make?" they ask you, "who are you? who are you? who are you in our community?" [applause] >> sheryl wudunn, you respond any way you want to respond. i take nely's point and i agree with it. >> i just want to give the point of view from the media because i

do think that's why, in "half the sky," we say that the moral challenge of our time is gender inequity. >> exactly. >> poor women, poor girls, lead to gender inequity even in the u.s. as well, so it applies in the u.s. as well. but i think that one of the major problems why it doesn't get so much coverage, why people aren't so interested partly is, you know, the way we tell it. you know, so much of what is covered in the news media, in the television, is how you tell stories. i think much more investment and thought needs to go into how we tell stories.

so in "half the sky," what we do is we actually tell individual stories of women who have faced challenge, but also who have actually come out of those challenges. i think that's really important even when we talk about how to engage elected officials. you need to not only tell the story of the challenge, but also the way out. there are many, many ways of helping. we need to focus on that. >> dr. malveaux, if i say to you that, to my mind, there is a bipartisan consensus in washington -- and you know how difficult that is to get.

if i said to you there's a bipartisan consensus in washington, that poverty doesn't matter, that the poor don't matter, political or moral, there's a consensus in that town that the poor don't matter, it's just not a problem in this country, you say what? >> i say absolutely, tavis. i mean, one of the words, you've talked about the [inaudible] of discussion about poverty, but there's another word we don't talk about very much. that's capitalism. we don't talk about what the flaws of capitalism are. i know suze orman's going to come get me, but let's just be clear that what capitalism does is it creates poverty. i mean, the people who have the payday loans, they're making fun off poor people. -- making money off of poor people. the people who are using these credit cards -- you've got a great credit card product that i hope you'll talk about -- but

the people who have these prepaid credit cards, they're making money off people. we have seen the income distribution become more and equal. we're only seconds to the inequality of their income distribution. if you talk to the other people, said they will say this is class warfare. you talk about the differences

of who earned what. there is nobody harder working than a person is who is cleaning up somebody's house. >> tell us about what makes this different. > let me first say there is big business in people being poor. the more poorer you are, the more you pay for insurance, the more you pay for everything, the more money they make off of you. so i would not disagree with you at all about capitalism. there's a good side to it and there is a horrific side to it. that's true. when you are poor, you have bounced checks. in order to transact business,

you need plastic. you cannot have loads of cash. although, tell that to the latino community. they will not walk into a bank. when you have bounced checks, you cannot get a checking account or a credit union account. if you can't get a checking account or an account at a credit union, how do you get a card to transact business? you need a piece of plastic to order something over the internet, to go into the grocery, so you're not robbed. fine. came the big business where many people brought out what was known as prepaid cards, cards that you didn't have to qualify for, but they were issued and you deposited money on them and you used them.

many of them are highway robbery. they charge you $35 to $50 a month to use them. how many of you out there have one of those? uh-huh, quite a few of you. so i decided i was going to do something about it and i created it, funded it myself, something called the approved card. the approved card, if you use it the way that i ask you to use it, will not cost you more than $3 per month and that $3 per month is for four cards. the $. 75 a month, you can pay your bills online for free, blah, blah, blah. you can read about it at theapprovedcard. com. fine, do that. but here's the point. when i brought out this card, i have never in the 30 years that i've doing this seen such opposition of outright lies from the television community, from the newspaper reporters, from everybody because, if i succeed in this card, the banks fail.

if i succeed in this card, the other people who have these prepaid cards that are making a fortune off of you fail. your credit card determines the car insurance premiums you pay. your credit report determines if an employer will hire you. you cannot get out of poverty ifdo you understand that? you cannot get a credit score if you use cash or a debit card. i tried to make it exceeded.

trans union are going to look at the transactions to make on the approved card. to not go on your credit report currently. it on not increase your credit score correctly. if this experiment works, 24 months from now when you use a debit card, it will go onto your credit report and you will get a credit score, that you can be a viable human being. but you got to work with me here, people, because everybody else wants this project to fail. it's called theapprovedcard. com and, if it starts to succeed, the $3 a month that you're to pay, i vow to you, will go away 'cause i want a card that's better than cash. >> randi?

>> i wouldn't be accused here of class warfare, but i was just in china, singapore and japan. what is remarkable and, you know, we talked about the [inaudible] factories. i want to be clear when this administration took office, we lost about -- but say, the first month of the inauguration, 8 million jobs lost. as soon as we got the recovery act in and we were able to put more funding in as a safety net, 50 million americans benefited from that 12 million children. now we come back to another debate that we had almost a year ago because we had a struggle with this new congress that did not want to extend payroll tax credits, poor people, and working-class people. every time $1 of that benefit is used, it is bent back to the community and generates two more dollars. it keeps mom and pop stores open and gasoline tanks filled. it is a stimulus, if you will.

but there are still a lot of people in washington and other places that believe the program itself is something that keeps people at home, that folks are not looking for work, and they are just using that as an excuse. i tend to say that is not true. we need to make our programs work better and not give erroneous arguments to the opposition that say these people are slackers. i know there -- they are not. they're looking for jobs. but when you still have for people looking for one job, we are not creating enough jobs. we have to try to stimulate, but we have to have the partnership with businesses and corporations. a lot of them are sitting on a lot of money right now. they have made a lot of profit and we need to incentivize and have the public collectively tell the new members of the house and otherwise to get on the ball and make sure that we are passing laws that are fair.

all we're looking for in this administration is a fair balance. >> let me push back on this notion of incentivizing them. i appreciate this. that word trip to be up for a second. the word you want now, incentivize, the banks sitting on a trillion dollars, these are the same banks we gave them a trillion dollars to bail them out in the first place. and we did not have strings attached to the money that we gave them. now it is up to us to come up with another government plan or some other process to incentivize them to put money back into the economy? >> is not just the banks, though. we also lost over the course of three decades of lot of jobs that were out the door. when this president is talking about in sourcing jobs, getting

jobs to come back home. we should do that right away. i think this is something that the public agrees with. there are chemical oil companies, other big corporations. we want to bring that back and tax people appropriately. and if you are -- and give you a break if you are creating jobs here in america. i remember a conversation that president obama had when he met steve jobs. it caught covered everywhere. -- it got covered everywhere. and steve jobs said, mr. president, these jobs are never coming back. where are they going? and number two, where is the incentive for any american corp. right now to hire anybody if they can do more with less? the thing is to squeeze as much proper -- as much as you can for your shareholders.

where is the incentive to hire americans? >> let's look at the automobile industry. who said they wanted to make a difference and who said they did not? 100,000 jobs in two years, good paying jobs that put people back in the middle class. i'm talking about men and women, people and -- people of color, a large proportion. now they have profit sharing. you see assembly lines coming up. i'm not saying all of it is coming back right away, but because of the policies put in place to create an incentivize -- create new vehicles that will be competitive against korea and japan. now you have vehicles and batteries being created here, not abroad. that is what the president is talking about. and we need to do more. whether it is manufacturing overall, let's keep our raw materials here. >> incentivize is a back in strategy. -- back and strategy. they should be made to do it.

>> i would not be accused year of klas where it -- class warfare, but i was just in china, singapore, and japan. what is remarkable and we talk about the fox crowne -- foxconn factories. in our terms, they're sweatshops, in their terms, it's upward mobility. but they have in china an industrial policy. this lady over here, and the president -- and i have issues. i think it was put the right way in terms of what the stakes are in terms of the president and others. we don't have an industrial policy in the united states of america. there are a lot of people in labour who lost a lot of money because of the dual pay scale now and things like that. the auto companies could not access capital anywhere.

the government was the capital of last resort. if we lost the auto industry, detroit would be dead. what happened was, they took a risk. the secretary took risks, the auto companies took a risk, the unions took a risk, and right now you see this remarkable change. that was the closest we ever had to an industrial policy. i think we need more of that kind of industrial policy here. i think what we're saying on this panel is it's important to shine the light so people don't feel shamed, but then it is equally important to have a set of strategies that we go forward with, both capital strategies, industrial strategies, educational strategies, all underlined by values because it is our value in the united states of america.

look, we're right by lady liberty, which is "give us your tired and your poor." it is we are a country that will bring ourselves up, have the american dream, but we need those strategies. i think what comes out of this, as i'm listening to the amazing ladies on this panel, is that if we could actually collectively, strange bedfellows as we might be, end up having a set of strategies that we all pursue, that would be a change. teachers every single day see poverty firsthand. >> what do you say to those women and children watching and listening right now who have nothing against industry, but are waiting on some individual? americans want some fundamental fairness, and they see all this help for wall street and the auto industry. and i'm not saying that was necessarily a bad idea. i say that on main street and on the side street, there ain't no help coming in for women and children.

that does not seem fair. >> it is not fair. and part of white we said earlier to austerity, cart -- part of coming out of the deepest recession since the great depression, the worst thing you can do is austerity. we have to stimulate the economy. the fact that we lost the jobs act. there are thousands of schools that need to be repaired. teachers every day see poverty firsthand. they are on the front line of seeing it every day and we fight like hell -- sorry -- to try to keep schools open, to not destabilize neighborhoods. my members take money out of their pockets every single day to buy supplies, to buy food, to do all of this stuff. you're totally right. we see it firsthand, but we have to have long-term as well as short-term strategies. we have to have a job strategy,

but we also have to have a lifeline strategy. >> cecilia? >> that brings me back to this discussion of my reservation, which is 100 miles by 50 miles, 40,000. we have tribal schools, colleges. one of the things that we are doing in our community is taking a hard look at the existing way of educating our people. unfortunately, the western model created by somebody in washington, d.c. trickled down to our community. education, when it began in my community, was only to do two things, civilize us, speak english and be christians. so when the united states government first invested in education, it was not to teach us how to read and write. it was to say, "our father" and speak english. today we are taking a hard look. we have a captured audience and this is what i like to say. the boundaries of my reservation and everything that

goes on inside of there is our responsibility and it's up to us as tribal citizens of that community to look at where we've been, where we are and where do we need to go. one of the areas we're looking very hard at is the educational system. we say education is the key to get out of poverty. however, not everybody can go to college. not everybody's going to be a dentist or a doctor. when you take a look at our community, what kind of jobs do we need to train our people for? our community and our land, we grow hay, wheat, sorghum. we grow rib eye, we have a lot of cows. in our community we have to take a look at what it is we want our children to know how to do so they can also make a living and live off the land and provide for themselves and the community.

so part of the challenge is to take a look at what we can do to change how we do business in our community and that goes back to changing the educational philosophy of this country so that it fits the needs of everyone community in america. [applause] minutesgot less than 10 less -- left of this very rich conversation. two things i have not gotten to in no particular order. i will come to you first. >> just like there's a link between, randi, inadequate education and poverty, there's also a link clearly, faye, between poor health and poverty. talk to me about that link. >> well, there is an enormously strong link between poor health and poverty particularly among women, especially among women, and it's especially tragic

because not only do we fare less well in the healthcare system in our own experiences, but we are also mothers of children and, when we are not healthy, our children can't possibly be healthy. yet most healthcare policy programs are aimed at children as a way of legitimizing somehow taking care of women. speaking of policy adjustments, we need to change that. we are also the caregivers of our parents and other disabled. the affordable healthcare act, however, for the first time will provide preventive services without a cost-sharing, meaning that the individual or consumer doesn't have to put up a certain amount of money in order to get the care. who would have ever imagined that we would engage in a major national debate over whether contraceptive care would be included as a fundamental requirement under preventive healthcare? when i speak about healthcare, i think we have to also put into that category a freedom from

violence against women in our society. in 2010, 20% of women did not have coverage for their health care. what did that result in? that resulted in prescriptions not being filled. that resulted in postponing recommended treatments. it resulted in not going to specialists when we needed to go to specialists. it resulted in a general state of a lack of optimal health care. and when i speak about health care, we also have to put into that category, freedom from violence against women in our

society. [applause] the organization that i co- founded a few years ago published a survey among 3,300 women in which we thought that we were going to find the usual conversation that we've had here today for over two hours, economics, economics, economics. what came back when we asked what do you believe ought to be the number one issue addressed in this country, it was to stop violence against women. [applause] you know, it is a marker of how we value women in this country and our health -- i am speaking to the healthcare question -- when the only time that we're concerned about a woman's safety is when she has been physically injured or has been killed and that we really don't much care about the circumstances of her well-being with respect to her safety and security, her health security, unless there are just enormous threats to her well-being. >> but there's also data, as you know, that links that cycle of violence to poverty. >> to poverty, precisely, and that links that cycle of violence to the state of motherhood, that a homicide against women is among the highest, among pregnant women. it is important to link the status of health care in this country for those uninsured.

they are young women who do not have high school educations. they are women in the hispanic community much more likely than the african-american community. the subcategories of womanhood are still those we must address. i must say over and over again. these are not acts of god. these are acts of complacency. women -- women are not victims. we have the power to change the circumstances and help ought to -- health ought to beat the no. 1 agenda. >> thank you very much. i appreciate it. one of the other issues i wanted to get to today that we did not get to at all in this conversation, dr. malveaux. you referenced dr. king earlier and quote him a couple of times. king once famously said, as you well know, that war is the enemy of the poor, that war is the enemy of the poor.

that's true for all poor people, but is especially and particularly true for women and children because those resources that are being squandered abroad and not being available here at home for women and children's services, tell me more. i feel you agree with it. >> oh, absolutely. dr. king really looked at war, you know, as an act of violence. the combination between war, capitalism, because who makes money from war? what we notice is that, among women who are enlisted in the army, 40 percent of them are african american women. we're 13 percent of the population. there's an economic draft. we don't really have a draft, but there's an economic draft. people go to war because they don't have a job. we have women, tavis, who have left their children with their momma so they can go to war. you have people who have

enrolled in the army reserves or somebody's reserves because they could get an extra $250 a month and, the next thing you know, they're over there in afghanistan somewhere. i wanted to say to faye that, you know, we talk about violence against women. battlegrounds are breeding grounds for violence against women. the number of women that are great. -- raped. another thing we have not talked about is -- it's economic violence, patriarchy, another word we have not used, the power of men. patriarchy allows an economic violence against women with the situations that we're put in, the sexual harassment that so many women experience, and people say, well, just go away, quit. some people can't afford to quit. so we women have to be more united. we've accepted a structure that discriminates against us systematically. it starts with the culture, as you said, with the music videos? that's to say, tavis, what you end up with. as a president of a college, i had to tell some students one day that it is not against the law for you to cover your body [laughter]. nothing bad will happen to you if you don't show your body parts. the war piece is a huge piece

that's sucked resources out of our economy and women and children have paid for it. i tell my students some time, it is not against a lot to cover your body. >> i know the gond me -- the one quote that poverty is the worst cause of violence. tell me if you can why, in this particular moment, whether or not you are hopeful and whether women and children should be hopeful. >> i am hopeful. starting tomorrow, we are supporting the passage of the affordable care act. more uninsured children are being covered in phenomenal numbers. this is a 70-year span of time where we finally got something done. no one thought it was going to be this hard. but it was hard.

more people are reaping the benefits. i have told because i look back at the past 3.9 million private- sector jobs created in the span of three years and you look back at what the previous administration did, that president only had 11,000 jobs created per month. we have been able to take out the numbers and do a lot more. part of it is because people have confidence, optimism, and hope. i believe the numbers can improve if people believe that we can help work with each other, build coalitions that power each other, and make sure that we are sharing, standing up. the bottom line is, our destiny is wrapped up together. it is not what the white house in washington d.c. is, it is all of us in the community. >> i would like to thank you for being here today.

cecilia, may, suze, hilda, cheryl, and julianne. let me ask you to thank wbai please. and c-span. and pbs. and me! [applause] >> several political events to tell you about. on wednesday, the senate gop

primary debate between incoming richard lugar and his challenger richard murdock. that is live at 7:00 eastern on c-span. the primary is may 8. the road to the white house coverage continues friday when republican presidential candidates mitt romney, rick santorum, and newt gingrich addressed the national rifle association annual meeting. c-span.org. >> martin luther king is a man, of all the people i have spent time with over the years, a man , the american individual that i admire most of all. he is my personal hero. why? because martin luther king put

his money where his mouth was a period -- where his mouth was. >> mike wallace died this weekend at age 93. watch any of his almost 50 appearances in the c-span video library, and shouldn't -- including his interviews with iranian president. >> in a few moments, and aspen institute forum on race relations looking at race as a campaign issue and a discussion of what it means to be an american. after that, a look at iran's nuclear program. >> now, part of an aspen institute panel on race relations. it was looked at as a campaign issue and the voter i.d. lost. this is one hour.

>> good morning. i hope my microphone is working and you can hear me. think you for the kind introduction. i was thinking of those kind thoughts about myself as you were speaking. it is a pleasure to be here this morning with all of you. bank you for that introduction to this difficult topic -- thank you for the introduction to this difficult topic because it age and the divide are critical to the discussion of race and the 21st century. as david noted, the context of the discussion this morning is really set by the bruising political race that is about to begin, our race that patients firsttures that nation's african-american president seeking reelection and a race that comes at a time of tremendous shift in terms of attitude and and ideas in our country. to help it go through this

scenario, this landscape, we have some expert guidance this morning. let me introduce our panelists. charles blow, editorial columnist for "the new york times. he is also author of the blog "by the numbers." became the papers and design director for news before going on to national geographic magazine. he then returned to "the new york times" do his column. he has appeared on many tv shows. he is a graduate of [inaudible] university. -- grambling state university.

[applause] to my immediate left is karen, the immediate past president of the american past justice center. she was also vice chairwoman of the leadership conference on civil rights, the nation's oldest and proudest of rights coalition and chair of the rights working group, a coalition of civil, human come in the emirate -- immigrant rights groups were looking at the erosion of civil liberties. she is served on the board of common cause, independent sector. and she currently serves on the advisory council of wal-mart, nielsen media group and comcast. please help me welcome karen. to my right, norm ornstein. he is a resident scholar and long-time observer of congress and politics, and i think the best.

he writes a weekly column and also serves as an election analyst. the co-director of the brookings election reform project. i think it is pertinent again in a season in which we have so much money in the political system that you should know that he helped to shape the mccain finance law that was recently overturned in the course of the citizens united decision. he is author of several books, including the forthcoming "is even worse than it looks." please tell me welcome norm ornstein. -- help me welcome norm orstein. [applause] let me begin by talking of our race and politics in the american society. i want to throw out two names,

mitt romney and sherriff joe arepao. he set an audience nodding and smiling as mitt romney said he would take a little bit further. i can punctuate that with a third name, which is russell pierce, author of the bill that was recalled and bounced from office because of his extreme views who said just a few days ago that mitt romney's physician on immigration is the same as his own. now we see him pushing the reset button. he has changed the focus.

as we see it surveys that show mitt romney's support among hispanics has been hovering around 14%, about a third of what george of the bush thought, barely more than half, a little bit less than half of what john mccain got. if you look at the presentation that we had on the distribution of votes, this is a huge problem. what it tells us it is you have a set of forces in the country now, which is primary voters and the base of the parties poll of candidates in the direction that is the direction you have to go if you're going to appeal to the center and to a group of voters that are critical.

it will raise the issue of race with hispanic voters to a different level. i think what everyone feels about the specifics of that immigration law or other immigration bills a message out there, which is we do not want your kind here moves to a different level. it is not clear to me that if you pick a cuban american to put on the ticket that that will necessarily mitigate against the views for the mexican americans or poor regions or others that will be critical voters. >> you are referring to marco rubio i suspect. >> correct. there is the governor of new mexico, suzanne of martinez. -- suzannah martinez.

>> let me ask you, when you were speaking a moment ago about the potential for the hispanic population to change the racial conversation in this 2012 election, i was struck by the idea that the assumption is the black vote goes totally to president obama. >> i think the black vote will go in the same percentages or numbers it did the last time, which was something like 96-3. the question there is turnout. there has certainly been a lot of talk of what the enthusiasm level is.

the democrats have a disaster on their hands all across the country because the voters who turned out and dramatic numbers drop off. what happened to those voters? that means young voters, african-american and asians. my guess is that now that we have seen a sharper focus, some of those racial issues. today there was a front-page piece that looked at communities where some of the sharp divisions on racial questions that it will raise their profile here on those issues. they will change the dialogue we have in this campaign. >> i want to ask you a question, karen, to get your

position as you look at areas of expertise, and the question is, all of us know the tremendous growth in the latino community, but also in the asian population there has been tremendous growth. the question is, where do you see these populations? what is going on with the asian population? >> i do think it is the sleeping giant that the latino vote was talked about 20 years ago. the asian boat has not only grown exponentially, it has grown faster than the latino population and is spreading out. we are no longer in the gateways of california and new york, illinois. we are actually one of the fastest-growing populations in nevada, which is a battleground state.

clearly contributed to senator reid's reelection, and he knows that. he has been one of the view of the mainstream of elected politicians who is looking at the demographics and understanding in elections this community will matter. va went for our bomber lost time, largely because of northern virginia where asians are strong hold together with latinos and african-americans and they can make a big difference. in a lot of places like florida, pennsylvania, ohio, it is no longer smoke and mirrors. we are no longer portending agents can be a difference, they really are a difference. in california not much of made of the fact that in the last election of 27 the elections when democrat, even though the

white vote went republican. it was latinos and african- americans who elected to send the governor in those states. i think the republicans are making a big mistake. the latino and asian communities are groups still very much up for grabs. in the 2010 vote, we saw asians and latinos the other leading democrats. -- leaning towards democrats. it is becoming so harsh that even african americans, who anti-immigrants were hoping they would be able to get them in their column are so struck by how extreme the party has gone in parties -- places like alabama's that they have actually joined forces in forging a new alliance.

it will be interesting to see not just for each ethnic groups, but now the coalitions that are being formed in this new election. >> i was listening to you, and i was struck that everyone has focus so heavily on the hispanic vote. you said the smoke and mirrors are gone with respect to the asian community. you mention nevada with a substantial asian population. are there others? >> we're very much looking at virginia, which the democrats are hoping to hold, but it is unclear given how the 2010 election won. florida,king at pennsylvania, ohio. i think the other thing that is really important is that obama does not come and the democrats do not have a lock on the

immigrant vote. willre hoping republicans continue to be so anti-immigrant that they have no place to go but the democratic party. latinos are not that happy with president obama either. he has reported record numbers of immigrants and has enforced much more effectively banned bush did, all of the immigration laws. and they are upset about the racial profiling happening in these communities. latinos and asians are beginning to feel the impact of racial profiling as well. the question is, will either party really invest in a real way and getting out the votes. these are voters that vote on the issues. many latinos are looking at the african american community in san we do not want to be taken advantage, maybe we need to send a message. maybe we need to send a message to the democrats who cannot take us for granted either. >> what you are saying, i thought was, given the climate, there is no question the asian

boat is being forced towards the democratic column. >> what is the turnout going to be? is there going to be the excitement? yes, i think the majority of the asian boat will continue to trend democrat, because that is where republicans are pushing them, but how many will turn out to vote? the challenge has been to get the registration numbers up and get them out the door and boating. >> charles, you have been doing groundbreaking recording in terms of the trayvone martin case as a potential trigger in terms of black turnout, that it could excite a critical days for the obama campaign that otherwise might be somewhat nonplussed by his performance in office.

>> last time we have record african-american turnout. however, if you look at -- we elect presidents through the electoral college. if you look at the electoral college and look at how the state's editor, if every african-american had stayed home in 2008, barack obama would still be president of united states pierre de barack obama did not need the record turnout he got. this time he will need those of voters, because his support among the white population has gotten so soft. there is a portion of that group that is so hostile to him that to make the numbers add up, there are a few states where it becomes critical.

it is the virginians, the floridas where you only have three percentage boats, and basically you can shave off 1, 2, 3, 5% of the vote in a state where you are ready had a softening white vote. that means you actually need heavy turnout from the african- american population. that said, i believe you will have a high african-american turn out regardless. the obama machine is enormously efficient and enthusiastic machine. when it kicks into gear and they paint a portrait of a president under siege, you will

have the circling of the wagons among african-americans. it is true. people say that is just because he is a black guy. not necessarily. black people always vote democratic. they get republicans. -- hate republicans. even though on virtually every social issue they're pretty much in line with republican views. they're very conservative. because of what they see as a racially-changed kind of campaign push back against them ever since reagan -- reagan was the last person to win eddies set% of the african-american vote. no one has come close since then.

that was the big -- that was the last time i can recall a push to include african- americans and the dialogue included in the republican platform. that has not shown up again that goes to the core of the convention. after that what i always see in obama's numbers is that 10 percent about 10 percent among whites. there is the racial element. >> let me boil down two things that i think everyone will be interested in. there was laughter when you said blacks just hate republicans. i can go through this of rights act and all of that, but then you come forward in time, and i

think george bush did pretty well with black voters. i think of congolese a rice. and i think of the tremendous attack on george w. bush in terms of the james bird act. and but in the current environment, is it wrong to assume that because the incumbent is a black guy, that black voters would not respond to him? i have heard so much from people who say he has not performed for black voters. do you buy that? >> i do not buy that necessarily. you have a president comes in it -- this is addressed an extraordinary time in american

history where the economy was going off a cliff, and how you pull that back means you have to make choices, and you cannot sue to everyone's priorities. where there areas where people felt like he could have done better? of course. i am chief among those. are there places where he did make significant -- i think the affordable health care, obama care is significant piece of legislation that helps minorities, and in particular black people. you have to look at each piece of legislation come each victory from the white house and look at how that thing, even though it does have a black face on it or hispanic face on it, how it helps minorities communities.

so people then turned to its and say the black unemployment rate is much higher than the one of the unemployment rate. there are few times in history -- let me take that back, where the black and a plan rate is always higher than the white unemployment rate. the few times in history when it gets as worse as a possibly gets for whites does across the line of where it is as good as it possibly is for whites. we are always in recession. right? this idea that he was supposed to rectify hundreds and hundreds of years of the black recession in america is just

ridiculous. what we have to look at is saying when it comes to unemployment, the election will be about the trend line. is the line moving and the right direction? it will not be fixed. we will not be back to normal in a fire raged. -- normal unemployment rate. >> i think he got 43 percent of

the white vote in 2008. what do you think is the cause of the softening of white support for president obama? >> first, you have to look of voting in support as separate things. he gets 40 something%, but as soon as he takes office, his support among whites is really high. when he is elected, they like the guy. what we see now is they really like the guy. how that translates of the voting booth, i do not know. i think that people will line up and say this is a choice between two people. is it romney the robots or barack obama? i do not know which i am going

to go for. however, i do believe this has become, race has become such a partisan issue. if someone said today race has always had an underpinning in the political system. politics and laws were used to enforce people's beliefs about race, but there was a moral component to the racial discussion. the election of barack obama has essentially stripped away the entire moral underpinning of the conversation, so that all you are left with is this hyper partisan discussion of race as an issue. the moment you bring up race in america, you have people fall into partisan positions about

who is doing what for whom or to whom for a political perspective and not moral perspective, and i think that is how a lot of people have come to see this president. they do not see him over we -- their objection is not overtly racist. that is a loaded word. i do believe that race snakes

.

but this was not the case. people say, okay, it is a small program, about it. until we hit the reestablishment of uranium conversion in spring of 2004. again, iran crossed another red line.

the original agreement was no uranium enrichment related activities until iran is in full compliance with its international obligations. at that point in time, it was not. but the international community let this happen again. i think these are the lessons from this early stage. when you deal with a problem like that, you need to be clear that this is what is required, this is the red line. if it is passed or moved, as consequences. then in 2007, finally, or 2006 this deal finally collapsed. iran started uranium enrichment. this time, the enrichment went up very swiftly. today iran is even producing

uranium which is 20% enriched with regard to isotope 235. why it is concerning is the following reasons, first, iran is producing 15 kilograms per month now. partially in an underground facility. that means they will roughly halve its stock of 250 kilos of that material by the end of this year. if you take that and modified the centrifuges which are there in one place, you don't need to put any new centrifuges. just use the current ones and you can turn this 250 kilograms of 20% and maturing into highly enriched uranium in one or two months' time. so this is now a step or situation where we are today.

iran is actually heading to be able to or have the capabilities to produce nuclear weapons grade material if it so wishes. when you produce 20% interest uranium, and you want to produce high enriched uranium, once you have done 20% enriched uranium, actually, you have done 90% of the effort which is required. you have only that minor step left. this is why the concern is there, because if at the same time the iaea raised questions not only with regard to iran's nuclear declarations but certain military aspects of the nuclear program. what are those? they started already in 1980's, late-1980s when iran established

physics research center, which was located in lavisan and was associated with the university of technology in teheran. it became public in 2008. iaea was not able to access the place when it was there. why the concern about the physics research effort? if you go to their web site where the young lady was working before and i guess is still working, there is a paper that explains what the physics research center has been procuring from open markets or

equipment which is related to nuclear activities. there is equipment related to uranium enrichment, there's equipment related to uranium conversion, and uranium metallurgy and things like that. why would military research center acquire nuclear-related equipment? only equipment, some of it is dual use equipment, but when you put them all together, it looks like this institute was involved somehow on parallel nuclear studies which contributed to the development of nuclear fuel cycles, particularly the content of them. this installation was never declared as an installation to the iaea and does not yet been declared. then, when this became public, iran started to move the people to be racing that to other

institutes and today they are sitting there in another institute. you can read it from the iaea november report. then, when you look at what they're doing, it does not look like they terminated their activities after the first location was wiped away. they had continued studying nuclear physics and experiments which could be used if you are designing a trigger for a nuclear device. they have been doing experiments with high explosives, which are essential for the nuclear weapon research, if you pursue that route. iran has explained them -- iran has acknowledged this type of research is going on. if you look at the iaea reports in spring of 2010, it is there.

civilianilitary and applications. the iaea asked at that time, what are the civilian applications where you need microsecond timing for your explosions, but you have simultaneous explosions? unfortunately, iran was not able to answer this question, stated that these are military secrets and they cannot disclose them. but i have a hard time understanding why you cannot disclose the civilian experiments. maybe their argument is that these were military people who did this sort of thing. what is the lesson that we learn from here? that is a bit more tricky, but i think it's really important if. first, it has to do with the iaea access rights. if the iaea sees this kind of

experiments, which really appears to be supporting nuclear weapons research and development, it should have access to those sites and should have access to these people, documentation, and other studies, and to interview these people. why? if i read article 3, it says that the objective is to prevent -- conventional diagnoses of nuclear weapons or explosions. the job is to prevent and not to detect. once we detect, it is too latest. we have failed to note prevent proliferation. therefore, the iaea should be proactive, should be in front of the game and the u.n. security council correctly has supported this view of iaea secretary.

this is perhaps the gravest. lesson from gravest iran does not heed these requests. it has not heeded to this request of the iaea board of governors or the requests of the united nations security council. as a result of that, the authority of those two organizations diminishes when you get someone who does not comply. and syria, for example, has already used this playbook in stalling in answering similar questions with the iaea. so we have created a dangerous precedent. the first proceed and to this came from north korea, which not only did not answer questions or provide access to certain sites, but also led to the npt. what is its stake is the credibility of the whole npt

regime. let me talk a little more about military activities. actually, the iaea has been accused of using a third party information that it is not able to verify the authenticity. i don't think that's true. there are about 1800 documents related to items iran has been purchasing, procuring. it includes communications. these are coming from the member states of the iaea.

these are hard facts. those pieces of equipment have been ordered, they have been delivered, according to these documents. so these are hard facts. you cannot fake this sort of information from 10 different countries. you cannot fake retroactive things either. the iaea goes and corroborates those individual facts and companies and their papers and found out that indeed these did go there. these were the first ones. not in 2005 but already spring 2004 the iaea had first serious discussions with iran, in particular about the procurement things which took

place through lavisan. than these other pieces of an information. the iaea used the same way to authenticate the information, they follow the people of those communications, people who went to work with these people in a round. you have seen a scientist at the iaea has been talking with in several locations. the person indeed was there. he had explained according to the reports what he was doing and what kind of lectures he gave. i think the iaea probably knows with whom he was working. this is the way that you can

authenticate and corroborates the information which is there. you cannot ever say from a single document whether it is 100% true or not. but when you have this kind of wealth of information and let's say you have a 90% probability that it is authentic, when you put this whole group together and they are internally consistent and externally consistent, horizontal plate, vertically, existing people, existing locations, existing equipment which is relative to nuclear weapons, you can trust the conclusion that someone was indeed studying this. does the country break its safeguards obligations in these cases? yes and no. no in the sense that as long as these experiments, if they have been in this domain of nuclear weapon development, if they have not included any nuclear materials -- actually under the safeguards agreement, those

don't need to be declared, as long as no nuclear materials are there. you can do a lot of these kind of experiments using surrogate materials like tungsten steel or lead. so you are not in noncompliance in this particular item with your safeguards equipment. but certainly this is against the spirit of the npt. article 3 says to prevent nuclear weapons. the article 2 says you should not even acquire knowledge of nuclear weapons. in both cases, iran has apparently not been breaking against the spirit of the npt, in my view. then you can ask, what is the

legal authority of the iaea to verify this nuclear-related research and development, it does not involve nuclear materials? actually, that mandate comes from the security council resolution. that requires the iaea secretary to clarify the purpose of those experiments. that is why i the apa is doing it. this is also the reason why iran is today challenging the legitimacy of those security council resolutions. doing actually a very -- in a very twisted way. they say that since iran was never found by the iaea secretary of noncompliance with its safeguards obligations.

so passing this dossier was illegal and therefore the security council resolution is also illegal and therefore iran does not need to comply with this. this goes back to my statement, let's call a spade a spade. let's call black, black, and let's call white, white. if the report was written that iran was found in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement, it would have been ok for -- not okay of that time for iran and they cannot use this argument which they are now using. actually, they have read the document, because they went to the iaea and there was another kind of procedure which perhaps the secretary did not follow literally.

noncompliance, according to the iaea secretary, -- the iaea statutes is not the director general. in practice, it does not work like that. actually, the iaea board makes its own practices and procedures and rules. so there are precedents, for example, from north korea, but you don't need to follow exactly that way. it was not the inspectors who report. it was the director general. past practice shows this argument of iran is perhaps not the right one. but this is one of the lessons we need to learn.

so, what needs to be done next? well, first, there should be a meeting, the 5 + 1 next week, friday april 13. actually, someone asked me this morning how it is going to take place. i characterize it as i think it is still a royal mess. it appears to me they have not yet even agreed about the venue where this important meeting takes place. i have not seen anything on the agenda either. so we will see we're takes place. it is an important juncture in the sense that if we look where iran is today -- and i spoke about that they might have 250 kilos of 20% in maturing in by the end of this year or maybe

even more if they so desire. very often it is asked, iran has always been 18 months away from the nuclear weapons, so why is it always? like always actually, there are several reasons. the sanctions are biting the nuclear program in many ways. it is more difficult for iran to get equipment, raw materials, sensitive raw materials which you need to have when a manufacturer centrifuges. you don't want to produce yourself all small pieces in your own factory. if you do that, you slow down the program, because you it use a lot of additional intellectual talent for reverse engineering, learning lessons through how certain things are to be manufactured so they are durable.

this is one of the reasons for the sanctions. you have to put the original sources into the product. the other area is sabotage. there's evidently sabotage against the iranian. iranian this is nothing unusual. if you go back to the soviet military program, someone was sabotaging them from the 1950's. particularly during the 1980's. so that's nothing new. there has been also some unexplained deaths in the program. i don't think those have really much effect to the program, other than they have to use much more resources to protect

the people and to conceal certain. certain so it makes the program more effective, i would say. then, military threats. they have also impact of this. when you look for, example, the underground facility. iran says that there will build 10 such enrichment plants underground. once you build another enrichment facility, which is in this case fairly small, on top of that, you actually start to waste your resources. you waste your resources on planning, you waste your resources on acquiring infrastructure, which is hard to get you to the sanctions. and you use your best people to make those designs.

so they have an impact on the progress of the program. and we see it. the military threats at, you have to put all your assets. if you look now, they are caving in enrichment and uranium conversion, etc. when i say caving, they have also to protect those materials. there's more than 100 kilos of 20% uranium. almost four tons of uranium full riot enriched it to 3.5% level. a lot of talk has gone for the teheran research reactor and its needs for the fuel. i think that this is an artificial need. in 2003 when iran is close to the iaea that its building reactor. the argument at that time by

iran was they need this heavy reactor because the tehran research reactor is aging and is not safe anymore. and then, besides that, they also have the knowledge that it's located in earthquake- prone area and almost in the middle of town, because tehran has grown tremendously since the 1960's when this reactor was. bilked in 2003, they felt this reactor was not needed. i think that it is true and still today in a way. if you think that it's being built in the 1960's, the location. is not the location if i have to do this, i would build the reactor somewhere else outside tehran. i don't need to produce 20% and rich uranium to have a feel for that. as a legacy from the cold war, russia still has 100 tons of highly enriched uranium. i'm sure they are happy to sell it if they find a client.

you have 100 tons of high enriched uranium, you only need to take actually 20 kilos of that and then diluted it to the 20% level and then you'll have fuel for the tehran research reactor for the next 10 years at least. same thing with the production of the 250 kilos of 20% in its uranium. it is actually enough for the tehran research reactor for the next 10 years. more recently, iran has perhaps prepared the public opinion by also telling that they want to export these materials. if you remember when president ahmadinejad was here in new

york, he mentioned this is not economically viable. so it is a little odd that you produce something but it's not economically attractive. so why would you continue to produce? also, 3.5% in its uranium -- actually, there's very little need for iran on that as well, because they have secured the production -- or secured fuel for the next 10 years. if you have enriched uranium and you have enough, manufacturing is not an easy thing. i think the gentleman can tell you more about it. you need to have all the specifications and such kind of deeds in order to manufacture

this fuel safely. you cannot do all of this yourself. if you want to have it, this centrifuge is to produce fuel for pushel, pushel needs 20 tons of the richest uranium every year. so you need 10 times in order to feed pushel. if you do it, you need much different centrifuges in order to accomplish it.

then the last thing before i summarize the lessons further is how well we know the iranian nuclear program. the declared program is very well in handle, but if there is something we don't know, what kind of assurances do we have? i would not cheer to this end, because what iran is doing when it sees this assassination, military threats, and so on, what has been doing in recent years which is to establish an organization's sole job is to diversify, conceal, go underground, distribute the things.

the intelligence might be penetrating there, but the joy may not last long, because iran has the right to make counter measures, like any other country. i don't think that we can be sure, for example, one year or two years from now we can read the iranian nuclear program like an open book. they have taken measures and they continue to take them. for the international community, i think the solution is to find a solution for iran to stop this activity and that the r&d. sometimes they say the physics research center is protecting the people. if you are studying simultaneous explosions, it is nothing really to do with protection of

the civilian people, it is more looking the design of a nuclear weapon and what you need to do if you plan to go on that route. then the last thing there is that people say that this program came to a halt in 2003/2004. i would say, yes and no. yes, the people went to other jobs. but they maintained their capabilities and expertise and do some low-key experiments which apparently the original purpose. so i don't think we should be overly happy. but there's another reason why we should not be happy, because the last job of this team was to document everything what they have been doing it. why would you documents something which you don't plan to use? i think someone in a country decided one day we might go back to those experiments and we need to have these things documented. so it than the major lessons at the end, there are positives and negatives. first, i will start with the

positives. this is the iaea verification scheme. we have seen it in iran particularly in 2003, the detection of high enriched uranium particles and explanations put iran to disclose its's full program at that time. second, if the iaea uses all its inspection rights, it is a powerful set of tools. unfortunately, we have failed to use, especially inspection, i think we should use it in the early stages. in particular, it should have used it in syria. then, the third lesson here is that when countries have this kind of compliance problem, there are two ways to go. one is to stop, cooperate with the iaea, then at least you can beat closed in a fairly short

amount of time. as an example, libya, we went through this verification process a couple years we did in a couple years. the same was the case of south africa. it was not a compliance issue, but when south africa had dismantled if its old nuclear weapons program and the iaea and verify that in 1992. it was fairly swiftly when there was cooperation. but then when the confrontation is taken like currently in the case with syria and iran and north korea, things correct. at the same time, these countries, if they want to do, they can reach capabilities, and they are closer and closer, higher and higher on a ladder to get the nuclear weapons capability, if not capacity. there's also a difference in my

view of what is the nuclear weapons capability. actually, you should not do this sort of research which iran has done. i think we should not share that they stop some of the activities including 2003, because the information is there. this part of the program should be dismantled. it should establish what exactly took place, how wide it was. it should be dismantled or made not usable in a verifiable manner and then there should be long-term monitoring in place like was in south africa for couple decades, so that this -- these places are not used to reestablish those things. then the last lesson which irs said in the beginning, when we look at all these cases like iran, north korea, and syria, this is an area on the verification scheme that the

authority of the iaea poses a challenge and also the director general of the iaea at this time is acting in an and far away, a shooting targets by some the iaea members, they tried to undermine his credibility. i personally feel that he is doing the right thing, at least based on the information i had when i left in 2010 from the iaea. certainly, this has a role and the authority of the un security council is eroded. with these positive remarks, i am ready for your questions. [laughter] [applause] >> you are a national treasure, the japanese like to say.

i thank you very much for your remarks. i have two questions. you spoke about hardening, deepening, underground ,,in. wentot sure whether you caving in this way or a cave underneath. we all know the very prominent prime minister in the middle east talks about a limited time before which it will become to hard to bomb underground facilities i wonder if you have any views on that in terms of whether that limited time is six months for a year or whether every year it will be one more year. that is my first question. second, in your closing remarks, you talked talked weapon is as -- weaponization.

according to the press, the u.s. intelligence community does nots believe iran has gone farther in weaponization. does iaea track that? do we have a long time before a usable weapon can be fabricated? thank you. >> hopefully iran agrees to the 5 + 1 process to dismantle certain capabilities and provide more transparency and openness from the uranium site and explain the rationality behind a program in a very good way and provide by a a more

access. i think it is pretty much by prime minister netanyahu sees that the time is closing. i think this has to do more with what is rail can do alone militarily without help from the other states. so they have limited capability, so they have to strike when you can still stop the. program for while it but once it is all underground, it might be beyond their scope. we have to remember what is also happening now is iran has distributed this stuff too many places.

so the more they have time, the more there will be places, particularly manufacturing of centrifuges. i don't think i have seen anywhere in the open. what is the place where centrifuges are manufactured today, for example? you will see every now and then some new workshops. they have been distributed all over iran. you may have 3 or four targets where there used to be one target. if you want to eliminate such capability, as an example. so it's not only out one location or another. you have to select a lot of targets if you want to stop them by military means. i think this answers the difference between the u.s. and israel the u.s. has much more power. this is not like the reactor in iraq -- [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2012] >> surgical strike is a surgical strike. it is not a sledgehammer. if you really want to stop the program, you should use a sledgehammer. elimination. the community uses the sledge hammer and i iraq. we talk about the iraq -- the reactor. were stopped saddam's nuclear program.

he gave it up. two ways. he wanted to show, i have these capabilities if needed. weapon as asian andi -- what weaponization and iaea. you would erase the question period has all the nuclear material bent declared or not? in order to understand that you need to study that weaponization

part. this is what we went through with south africa. if this is a good example with the way it works. iaea started the verification in late 1952. what we did, we established a whole history until 1992. see how it developed from a peaceful to the weaponization. we went through the equipment. we went through the nuclear material, day-by-day.

it was very difficult. some of disinformation, south africa had destroyed. the regime changed. at that time, they thought was not good to leave the documentation. we had to interview the people in order to understand what took place and collaborate all this information. in order to get a picture. this is something similar that i think we at iaea is doing in iran. you need to have additional authorities, like security council resolutions. also, allowed to interview people web access to the sites

and equipment. >> thank you. i am afraid we will have to give him the last word for two panels in a row. your remarks are very illuminating. f. please and join me thanking the doctor. if i could invite our panel to join us here, we will get under way very presently. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> several political events to tell you about. we will cover the debate between richard lugar and his challenger, richard murdock. the indiana primary is on may 8. our road to the white house continues on friday went mitt romney, rick santorum, and newt gingrich address the national rifle association's annual

meeting in st. louis. live coverage on friday at 2:00 p.m. eastern. >> martin luther king is the man, of all the people i've met and talked with and spent time with over the years, is the man who is the most american individual that i admire most of all. of all of them. for me, he is my personal hero. why? because martin luther king put his money where his mouth was. [applause] >> his career spanned over 60 years. cbs's mike wallace died this weekend at age 93. watch his appearances in the c- span2 library, including his interview with the iranian president.

the c-span library. every step program since 1987. >> in a few moments, the aspen forum on the latino vote in this year's election. a "washington journal" is live. several live events to tell you about today here on c-span. the u.s. institute of peace host a forum on the afghanistan transition and peace process. that is at 10:30 a.m. eastern. president obama is that florida ic university at boca raton. he is discussing the buffett rule. and we will be covering mitt romney at an event in delaware. that is what is before 6:00 p.m. eastern. more of our coverage now of an

aspen institute forum on race relations in america. one of the palace during yesterday's daylong event focused on the latino vote in this collection. this is a little more than one hour. that last panelist. in this discussion on the state of race, looking specifically to the latino vote, we are happy to welcome our moderator, who is the news anger for telemundo as well as the network's national director of public affairs. he is a former washington bureau chief for telemundo as well as european bureau chief. he was formerly co-anchor of cbs this morning, the first journalist in the u.s. to anger both a daily spanish and english language newscast. the former anger in miami where he was the winner of two emmy awards and a peabody award and an alfred heisman dupont award. business magazine named him as

one of the most influential hispanics in the united states. and -- maria teresa kumar. [cheers] please welcome jose diaz-balart. >> thank you. especially being here with colleagues that i watched and admire and read constantly. this is such an important subject and a very timely one. let me introduce the panel before i get into things. maria cardona democratic strategists, principal at dewey square group,. leslie sanchez, political analyst and wonderful person. michael scherer, "time" magazine, white house, and author of this very important and significant cover story on hispanic voters in arizona.

you have it "time" magazine cover. there it is. we were just talking about how timely the issue of the latino vote will be in 2012 and how important it has already been in the elections. you are certainly welcome to be a part of the conversation. let's start with the time magazine cover. especially for people who don't speak spanish and who are not on a daily basis aware of the impact of 50.5 million hispanics in this country and the incredible purchasing power they have. why did -- was it tough to get that cover? >> a lot of it has to do with

that blocked at the end of the day of whether you can get a cover story versus another story. i think we knew late last year that this was going to be a huge demographic that would play a big role. what we did not expect is it would play a big role so early. the republican primary would bring this issue such to the forefront the polls would go so badly against republican's this early. it effectively magnifies what is the long-range demographic story. there is the long-range demographic story, which essentially says that by 2030 or 2040, if the republican and democratic parties remain roughly as they are now, the republican party will be waning. it will be going out of existence. it will have to shift. but the 2012 election, president obama has made a bet that he can use the latino votes in key states if, especially colorado, nevada, arizona, to really change the outcome of this

election. the republican party has so far not responded in kind. it basically said we are not going to worry about that issue right now, we are just born to play to the base of our party in the south and in the midwest. that means alienating. you've seen polls where mitt romney is getting low percentage points, which could be devastating. >> latinos applauded that cover. >> absolutely. >> people in the english language then realized 58 million plus people matter. you are correct in the fact that the president is banking on hispanic support their the

question is whether hispanic people will come out to vote. you have a president who went to spanish-language radio and spanish-language television and spanish-language whatever in 2008 and promised that within his first year, he would have comprehensive immigration reform and the response of silence on the issue has been deportation. a lot of people may not come out to vote even though they may like him. >> that will continue to be a huge challenge for this president. what is also true is this president continues to speak to the latino community, not just about immigration but on the economic issues, on health care, on education, talking about what he has done from the standpoint of his record in terms of giving hundreds of thousands of latino students pell grants to bid to go to college, giving 9 million latinos coverage through the health care act that they did

not have before, and giving them the opportunity to get a job where there was not before, out of the 4.1 million jobs that have already been created by this president. >> still just under 11% unemployment for the hispanic community. >> yes, but it has come down. a president who will be the first one to say this, we have more to do. but on immigration, he continues to talk to the latino community about how he wants to do this but he cannot do this alone. here is where the critical point of the discussion is. there is a lot of disappointment among latinos. >> i would use anger. >> that, too. pew research has found regardless of that disappointment on deportation and on the fact he has not kept

his promise, they still support this president. and because of what has happened within the republican primary that has become the issue of immigration and the way of not talked to the latino community, it has become so vitriolic, that harry reid will to this day say thanks to the latino vote, i am still senate majority leader. and michael bennett is there because of the latino vote and barbara boxer. >> you are saying mitt romney so far is the sharron angle? >> absolutely. >> republicans have to recognize there's been this vitriolic and insulting language in many ways in the primaries. let's not forget "operation wetback." and some words used on the

campaign like "anchor babies." both sides have said stupid things. but the republicans have not been open to a positive discussion. >> there's been a tremendous amount of damage in language. >> continues to be. >> by the many of those contenders have since waned. >> i'd think romney is pretty high up there. >> let's put some reality to this. we talk about the pure research study. i have just talked to hispanic voters in some swing states. with respect to the research, the president continues to have but a tremendous amount of support among hispanic voters of all kinds. what is also the reality is they don't know about the

deportations. >> who does not know about it? >> many of the hispanic voters right now. the awareness of the increase in deportations that the obama administration has had over the last few years, which is maybe on par with the bush administration. there are mixed signals that are coming within the hispanic community based on the state they live in and how long they have been here. some believe the deportations have been a good thing, some hispanics. we will agree on language. i wrote a book about that and we have talked about that. we have had talks about the damage it can have to the hispanic community.

we deserve to be treated with respect and not to be demonized individuals. >> that's the other issue you have been working on a lot is the fact of voter suppression and about maybe some of the things that are going on in some of the state's that we see covered in the media, especially, may have a very negative effect on voter turnout. >> you hit the nail on the head. the republican party recognizes that they need the latino community eventually and basically will need them, but they realize they have done such damage to their brand in the latino community that they basically say we're going to wait it out. the voter id laws that you are talking to is that on the surface, you have roughly 11 states -- 39 states are considering these laws -- but 11 states control two thirds of the electoral votes. they include texas, florida,

arizona, nevada and down the list. there's actually a pattern of these swing states. not surprisingly that these top five states also have among the highest foreclosure rates. when you start talking about voter id laws, does to get into the weeds, you say, if i was a voter, 18 million voters, i've lost my home in the key swing states, it will make it difficult for me to vote because i have to go get a new id, stand in line and pay $25. if you are living with your grandmother, in your mind, that is temporary housing. you will not want to go get that id now let's have the idea of latinos and african-americans and elderly people living in convalescent homes, this is the biggest issue right now of the 2012 election. if you ask me if latinos are going to go out and vote, african-americans, and young people? i would say they are permitted

their vote's going to count? that's a completely different story no one wants to get into because it is a lot more difficult because it is much more nuanced. as far as latinos and where they see themselves going into the future, they very much care about immigration, but it is the tone of immigration. for the first time i have done people calling to volunteer for colorado? saying i did not realize i was latino until i walked into a hamburger joint and the cashier asked me for my papers. those are real stories. it is that political awakening that i applaud your article, because for the first time it was the nuances. if it's not first or second generation, it is people being profiled as an american. >> is that new? >> it is as to the extent of how it's happening. i grew up in california and

everybody applauds the latino vote that came out against sharron angle. they voted for senator harry reid, but they voted for a republican governor. so it was about the new ones of language and the division that is happening. >> he did not win a majority of the latino vote. >> but he won more of it. ..>> we see this as an anomaly. we knew within the republican party that there was a strategic meeting that happened in 1999. if we did not earn more than 35% of the hispanic vote, we would cease to be a majority party. the census came out and said there were almost 600,000 decrease in registered american voters.

it has to do a housing crisis and frustration with the president. the economy was the underlying our. the dynamic of how the latinos are morphing into a modern americano. we have to be careful. tell republicans you have to be

on the defense. they believe all the rhetoric they hear. on english media, they are so pro-independent and they are disappointed in the president. there is a strategy that needs to be developed. >> we should not underestimate the ability -- will not quite beat etch a sketch. he was talking about his disappointment with getting immigration reform through. calling harry reid illegal aliens best friends. mitt romney is not going to do that. he will make the issue about the economy. one of the first ads that mitt romney put on line was called "bumps in the ro