the 1980's when we began to look at noriega's banking preference and ran across osama bin laden's name was that this was all interconnected. the opaque-ness is used by all these illicit entities including terrorist groups to move their money, avoid accountability, stay outside of the governing structures. all those entities outside of those governing structures are depleting the magic -- the ability of states to function and do what they're supposed to do. i i think this is worth raising the heat on it a little bit. because the same ones who do that will rape, pillage, blunder, move nar to thics, facilitate somebody's ability to get money illicitly that may blow up a bunch of people in some community square. so i think it is important to

fight back again failed statism. against the absence of governance. i view this as a component of that. am i wrong? what would you say to that both of you involved on the enforcement side? >> i think that's right. it's not an africa problem, it's a global problem because of all the connections you just laid out. what facile states that is the owe pass it-n -- opacity in the system. justice brandeis a long time ago said sunlight is the best disinfectant. he was talking in another era about a different issue, but that comment holds to this. without international effort, international focus, there's no global political will, this problem will not go away. neither will the problems of terrorism or transnational crime, because the connective tissue is the opacity and the

financial system, and until organizations like the g-20 and others really focus on this, we are going to be talking about this problem for quite a long time. >> comment, mr. secretary-general? >> just briefly. i think the interconnections you talked about are supported by what we observed through the convention. it's supported by what is being observed and is also observed by the u.n. commission on crime prevention and criminal justice and the resolutions they passed on the topic. >> dr. hamilton, you mentioned doing ma anti-possibility of thinking out of the box, can you just fill that in a little bit for us? >> i think the dogma have the intellectual resources, i know some of the people there, and we have discussed ideas for making the dream or putting up gunshot detectors on the hills

and integrating this into a system that's sort of demand and control system but at a local level. it's very easy to get the information sent back to a quick reaction force. in a way it's -- anti-poaching is like a minor guerrilla war. part of it is you have to reach out to hearts and minds, other part is beat people in the field. the more technical support we can get, the better. >> give the committee just a shorthand, one-minute version of the one, two, three things that you think will make the greatest difference here that need to be followed up on. >> i think number one is the anti-poaching in the field. which we covered fairly well. number two is controlling the transit points which have been dealt with well by the secretary-general and where we need to gain more tracking mechanisms for following ivory

and rhino horn because we have this huge gap of the middle men that we do not get them arrested, prosecuted, and put away. we don't even know who they are in many cases. the demand is on the one side and the supply is on the other. finally, demand. i believe that if china were to take bold leadership, it would be hugely in their own interests. at the moment they are getting a terrible reputation for their environmental record in africa by having fingers pointed as being the prime instigators of illegal ivory and rhino horn trading. it's a diney little trade that matters -- tiny little trade that matters nothing to china compared to other interests of building and developing. finally i would end there. >> when you say detracting of the iferery, are there mechanisms -- do we have any ability to track the ivory now?

>> there are gadgets that can be used at a certain level. the problem is that they have to be embedded within the ivory. there is also d.n.a. tracking which is an extremely promising field that needs work. you can trace ivory back to its origins through the d.n.a., but if we have little fences, they can be used. it's a question of which stage they get located. but i think, again, the technical abilities of having smaller and smaller fences are there, it's just that we need to apply whatever might be available to this field. >> well, it seems to me this may be the wackiest idea ever, but it seems to me it would be appealing to big came hunters instead of killing them, tranquilize them, embed them, and you wind up doing a service in the same process. >> if we had a program like

that, we call it green hunting, and the idea was to use the undoubted energies of hunters for conservation to put them to what i would say is a more ethical use, dart an elephant and use it for -- >> sure, the whole pay back of the entire hunt, etc., but you could leave there feeling pretty good about the future. anyway. let's pursue these things and we will pursue them. senator, do you have any more you want to ask? senator udall, go ahead. >> thank you, senator kerrry. i echo what you said. i think it was very eloquently said. i just want to come back to this law enforcement side where you have this total inequality. when you have 200 armed, heavily armed people moving out of sudan down into cameroon, they get into a national park there in cameroon and kill 200 to 450 elephants out of a total

of maybe 600, and then they take the ivory and move back up and it's part of their whole syndicate, if someone or entity or government doesn't confront that kind of activity, i mean it's going to continue. and you're going to see the elephant populations decimated in a variety of different places whether it's cameroon or the central african republic or others. is there the capability there, if we know that these armed -- heavily armed militias or whatever you want to call them r. moving across-country borders to engage in this kind of killing -- across country borders to engage in this kind of killing, is there a way to push them back? it seems to me if it happened a couple times it's not going to happen again. it's very decisively

encountered and confronted and pushed back. >> i don't know who would be the best here. dr. hamilton? >> i'd like to answer for east africa. it's not the same situation. you cannot have a roaming gang like that transposing through kenya and getting away with it. sometimes i feel that what we have going in kenya is a little bit taken for granted because everybody says, kenya's doing very well. they don't really need any help. which i would have bought until a year ago when these psychies showed us there are actually levels of poaching like in central africa. i think it's a different situation. and that band that just goes hither and dither across borders is very much a central and west african problem. >> mr. secretary-general.

>> very briefly. what we did do in response to the incident was we activated all of the networks we have through interpol, customs to try to seize their contraband at least these criminals got no financial gain for their act. we are also working with all countries of the region who look at how we can bring them together collectively, possibly through a wildlife enforcement network the same way it's been supported by the united states and other parts of the world so they can share intelligence and support one another. and the government of cameroon did ultimately deploy its defense forces to this park to expel the poachers. so they did act all be it it was the event we were hoping it will set a precedent for. i think regional support is necessary and through this consoshes yum we have with interpol and customs and u.s. drug enforcement, we need to improve that, their support.

>> i think it was the case here that the rangers in the park didn't have any weapons. weren't armed at all. here you have a heavily armed force that moves in and takes that kind of activity. you need to think in a whole different level in terms of law enforcement when it comes to some of these things that are going on. but we really appreciate your lifetime commitment to this, dr. hamilton. you have been working so hard and we really appreciate the secretary-general and mr. carmony here working on this. i don't know if you have any additional thoughts on what i talked about. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> folks, the vote is now on and we need to proceed to the floor in order to take part in that. i want to thank you for coming in today. i think this has been real fi helpful, educational, and important.

i think it sets out some interesting avenues for us to pursue both in terms of just diplomacy and work, between countries, but also some specific initiatives that we may be able to take and certainly some conversations that we can have with leaders in other countries in order to try and keep the focus moving in the right direction. doctor, thank you for your life's work on this effort. we really appreciate it and respect it. we are going to continue to stay focused on this i can assure you. thank you-all for being with us. we stand adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> on capitol hill today,

majority leader eric cantor release add memo to republican house members laying out the summer legislative agenda. among the bills next week, the military construction, veterans' affairs bill, intelligence programs, and the food and drug administration bill. he expects a vote on the bush era tax cuts before the august recess. we have linked to that memo online. can you read it at c-span.org. the house returning next wednesday for legislative work. wisconsin voters head to the polls next month to decide whether to recall governor scott walker less than two years after he was first elected. tonight governor walker debates his democratic opponent, milwaukee mayor tom barrett, we'll bring you the debate live here from milwaukee 9:00 p.m. here on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. after the wisconsin debate commencement address from graduations around the country. starts at 10:00 p.m. eastern with republican congressman allen west of florida addressing graduates at northwood university in west palm beach. supreme court justice sonia sotomayor at new york

university. republican senator john kyl at arizona christian. and education secretary arnie duncan at howard university in washington d.c. monday, it's memorial day and we'll have i bru live coverage at 10:50 a.m. as president obama lays the wreath at the too many of the unknowns at arlington national cemetery. also live at 1:00 p.m., an observance at the vietnam memorial. the president speaking there also. we'll hear from defense secretary leon panetta, interior secretary ken salazar, former senator chuck hagel and others. the master of ceremonies is tim. part of our memorial day coverage here on c-span. on wednesday, slate magazine held its political gab fest -- "political gabfest" in front of a live audience. it clull the political campaign, and the student convicted of hate crime against

a roommate. this is 90 minutes. >> great to be back here. i'm trapped already. >> it's a metaphor. >> good evening. >> i feel like there are backup singers, or we are backup singers. >> i don't think they would agree. >> the nude colored microphone. bill, where are you? are you ready? you're good? ok. you guys ready? let's do it. welcome to the slate "political gabfest," the washington is just awful, but you, dear listener, are wonderful edition. i'm david plotz the editor. joining me today are sharp as a

samurai sword, emily bazzlon, senior editor to my right, and john dickerson, as dangerous as an angry rattlesnake, slate chief political correspondent and political director of cbs news to my left. we are live in front of a gorgeous crowd. at 6th and i historic synagogue for a live version of the gab fest. john, please tell me, are these beautiful people i see real or figurements of my imagination? >> they are real to me, but our listeners don't know that you're real. [cheers and applause] >> i don't know if our listeners could tell but that's two balconies of people. it's not clear, but there are a lot of people. >> this is the biggest crowd, this is our biggest crowd here.

it's great. we're so glad you guys are here. >> that's why we got the headset. a exactly. >> that's awesome. go ahead, david. >> we have three topics today, naturally. the first will be the fight over capital ignited by new york mayor corey booker this weekend and how it will affect the presidential campaign. the second topic will be why is washington so dreadful? and the third topic will be the sentencing in the tyler clemente case. we'll have cocktail chatter, "q&a," we actually have a gabfest first today, our friends at c-span, the official public policy tv network, are filming this show for tv broadcast. you should prepare really eloquent questions that will demonstrate just how smart john and emily are.

>> don't make them eloquent. make them simple. >> answerable. >> did you guys see that study about the notionings that members of congress have a vocabulary of eighth graders, the way they speak -- >> that's good, though. they are supposed to speak in simpler sentences. >> it was interesting because it seemed like total bull. it basically seemed that -- what did you just drop? >> my microphone. it's gone. >> but it seems bogus. it seemed ridiculous because they were punished for speaking simply and clearly. and the met triment -- it was the longer your sentence is and more complex, the more intelligent it was supposed to be. >> i thought it was the opposite. there are plenty of politicians whose sentencing are long and meandersering. >> especially if they are asking questions on the judiciary committee. >> right. if you scanned it it would be like the postgraduate level, if you took the actual content it would be at the preschool transition level.

>> all right. america online that was a cheap shot. i thought we would get it rolling with -- >> that was a cheap shot. i thought we would get it rolling with -- >> corey booker, mayor of newark, superhero, rescues old ladies from burning buildings, shovels your sidewalk when it snows, and much lauded democratic politician made a lot of news this past weekend, why? >> he went on "meet the press" on sunday and they were talking in the round table it the political campaign and he spent a lot of time talking about the president, why he supports the president, what the president needs to talk about and his achievements, at the back end of his comments, he was very much on message, he talked about the talking point he had next to it, they were sort of a comfort to him as he was making his case, but then he said about the president's ad that week which attacked mitt romney for a steel company that bain capital had owned and managed

and then went bankrupt, that the ad said, the ad has a bunch of the workers at that point and one of them actually calls bain a vampire that sucked the life out of the company. booker said this was nauseating and compared them to the scotch set of ads a republican donor was going to run that were going to match up president obama and reverend jeremiah wright, his former pastor. and those ads never ran but there was a $10 million plan to maybe run them. so booker then got a lot of fast phone calls from the obama campaign at the democratic committee saying you can't say you're nauseated by the guy we are trying to re-elect. >> and the equivalency in there. >> exactly. he said he was nauseated because it was out of bounds. he said that the campaign ad attacked -- that it attacked basically what bain had done. that private equity was a good

thing. in the main bain -- in the main bain -- >> resolves mainly in the -- >> in the plain. >> created and supported businesses. another thing that was off message. by later that evening he put out a four-minute video, kind of recapitulating what he said but in a more favorable light. the president was then called on to respond to this the next day at nato. and the reason this was a problem is because it was not only corey booker but also steve ralter in who worked for the president who came out and said this wasn't a great thing and rendell, former head of the national democratic committee said this wasn't an ad that should run. >> now there's a romney ad that quotes corey booker, steve ratner, but i couldn't tell ford was criticizing the president -- >> right. that's the incredibly long winded explanation. >> emily, is corey booker

right? this is out of bounds? or is it a stupid attack for the president to go after? >> i think he's totally wrong it's out of bounds. he could have made the argument that in fact what romney did as the private equity chief was really good for the economy and important and we can't expect the protectionist attitude to our jobs, particularly at a steel mill. we talked a little about this last week, but private equity takes companies that are dying on the vine and turns them around and makes them productive in new ways. that's not -- the idea it was out of bounds when it's romney's career and he's taking -- steaking his campaign on the notion that this gives him the experience to be chief executive seems bananas. you wrote this piece this week but i am telling you you because i agree with it. >> god love you. i think there is an interesting debate to have about what private equity is and none of

us are finance people. i don't balance my checkbook. so i could use some private equity. it does appear there is a private equity -- there was a great column by matt miller who would make this point that there is private equity and of the sort where you take a really flabby company and you really -- it's a company that otherwise is going to die and you change what the company does. and miller makes the argument that actually what president obama did with the auto industry is a kind of private equity. he took these auto companies and said you have this business model which is not sustainable. you have to get lean earn lose workers and change how your pensions are funded. that was a good kind of private equity. and then there is the private equity which has surged in recent years which bain is a practitioner off which is financial engineering. you come in, you fund the buyout with loans from the assets of the company you are taking over, you pay yourself huge fees from this company, and whether this company lives

or dies, you are not that interested in because you are basically -- vampire is not the right word but you are sort of harvesting -- >> you are gutting it. >> not necessarily. in the main you want the company to succeed, but the most important part is the financial engineering of that transaction. and that that's what determines whether bain ends up making a ton of money on it. bain guarantees it's going to make some money and determines if it's going to make a ton of money if if the company does successfully turn around. >> then we have this investigation by the "wall street journal" this week where they looked at 77 companies that bain -- it was stated that they refused to give them information. but they found from portfolio accounts what the record was and they looked at these 77 companies and they found if they went out eight years from the time of the investment, longer than bain had owned some, that they came up with a higher rate of bankruptcy than is the norm for private equity.

if they stayed within the five-year time period that bain was arguing was more fair, then they came up with 12% which was still higher but within range. > here's what i wonder, so the reason the president said this is fair game and the reason he was probably right is that, it is fair game because mitt romney says i'm a business guy. he talks about his 25 years at bain. that's the first thing he talked about. that's on the trail that's all he talked about. he doesn't mention his governor as much. he even doesn't mention the olympics as much. so this is a central claim he's making. the question is whether it's a skillset he acquired in the 25 years maps to what he says that skill set is. his argument is i was in business for 25 years and that gives me unique insight into the economy and turning it around. and creating jobs. >> he takes credit for the 100,000 jobs even though almost all are created after bain sold the company. >> the question then is what did he do and tell us,

governor, what you did as a capitalist that gives us insight. tell us the story. that's what's interesting about matt. even though he says this is my core competencecy and this is the reason you select me, he doesn't talk about it that much. he asserts it and moves on. here's the de -- >> here's the defense i want to make to that point. are you finished? >> yes and no. the only other thing is -- i'm finished with that sentence. the other thing is -- >> not we go on and on and on. i'm waiting. >> he wants to keep the focus on the president. >> no matter what you say my point will be the same. >> i know. i just want to actually -- the point is to keep the focus on the president. so there is a tactical reason for not answering the question, too. if he had a good answer for why he has special insight into what needs to be done in the economy at the moment, he wants the conversation to stay on an up or down vote on the

president's stewardship and the economy. >> my defense of romney in this is, i don't think he can make a credible defense of this where he actually uses his work at bain to say my work at bain is exactly what the president of the united states does and therefore you should elect me because what i did at bain is analagous is the same. what he did is not. his job was to make a ton of money for investors and himself. by all accounts he appears to have been very good at it. in ways sometimes benefited workers and sometimes hurt workers. >> and always benefited bain. >> which was his constituency. the point i would make if i were sort of arguing for mitt romney, here's a guy who has had three jobs that we know about in his life. aim sure he's had more, the three main are he ran -- he was a consultian. he ran bain, then he did the olympics, and governor of massachusetts. in each of these jobs, which are jobs that require slightly

different skill sets, he was incredibly effective at his job. and whatever that job was. he's given a task, he's really good at those tasks. whether those tasks that he's had match to what the president does is the debate. but he is somebody when you give him a set of things to do he appears to be very good at getting them done. >> the better argument for him to say in three different instances i have taken complicated systems, figured them out, and turned them around. the olympics is not a steel k a steel company is not the state of massachusetts. so these are three separate things and i was able to go in, figure them out, and make them work efficiently. which is what i'm saying. at least he shows the attributes that he can say nobody is able to prepare for the presidency, but i have been in the situation where i have gone into complex places and

figured it out. send me in this situation and i'll figure it out. he doesn't even get that far. also with the thing he doesn't have, he's not a small business guy. he's not a guy who started out selling a thing out of his garage. you talk to small businesspeople they talk about, chain of restaurants outside of columbus, ohio, he talked about smoking brings kit in his garage worrying about going bankrupt. there are a whole bunch of people you tell a story like that to, they get it. >> maybe here's another argument, i think i'm stealing this from you, never mind, the president has been using against romney the idea he only cares about the select few wealthy. and romney has given him lots of ammunition. i'm sympathetic to that argument. what about the idea has president you need to be callous and -- callus and cutthroat and this will be how he slashes government programs? there are a lot of people asking for things from the government who shouldn't be

getting those things anyway. it will actually be good. we need an empathy deficit in our president. >> i totally get it. >> that doesn't make any sense. >> cold, analytical rigor. >> it doesn't make sense -- >> go ahead. >> the reason i don't buy that is that presidents are so -- i don't think the reason they don't cut the load is because they are worried about real people on the bread line. i think they don't cut because of all these constituencies they are pandering to. >> maybe, here's the one thing. the republican party has gone so loopy on economics and rony is the best probably mitt romney i see as the president is he's a hyper rationalist. you give him a spread sheet. he can read it. >> he's not going to raise taxes. that's what we should get out of this? he could bring the republican party back to the brink of

craziness but won't do it. >> he's much more likely to do it than some kind of weird crazed populist republican candidate. >> agreed. yet still won't do it is still not enough reason to elect him. >> you're probably right. i guess i had more -- >> he wouldn't take the 10-1 deal at that moment. >> in the midst of a presidential campaign. it may be, we'll talk about this in the second segment, washington is so broken when you are president you couldn't do -- >> read my lips, that's because of that moment in the debate. he can't do it he wouldn't be re-elected and he would be seen as the -- >> that standard there is no republican who could be president as far as you're concerned. i'm saying given the constraints of this republican -- >> whatever. >> don't pander, emily. just because you know your

crowd here. >> i do wander if at this moment it is possible for a republican to be a responsible president given -- it's not that the democrats are doing such a good job with our deficit and fixing the economy, either. i don't think that. but i do think that the utter rigidity about taxes is alarming. the numbers don't add up. your spread sheet is right, that's what the president should care about. i don't think romney would be that different. >> any chance, john? >> that he would be different? a yeah. >> well, it depends. if he's going to -- if the ryan budget -- let's say he's going to sign the ryan budget, depends on the makeup of the house and senate, it's not going to pass -- you can't pass it with republicans. he won't have the kind of majority the president had in 2009. and even the president didn't have the kind of majority the president had in 2009 because of ben nelson and other people. the question is, it seems to me what's wrong about bain and focusing on bain, it's

interesting, fascinating, nights way to figure out what attributes he has and whether they translate into the presidency. they don't match one to one, can he pick up skills and use them in this new sand box? he did try to do that in massachusetts. and the challenge in massachusetts was going to a place totally democratic and for a guy who is not a backslapper figuring out how to work with democrats. and he did it. he tried to do it and figure it out. he's going to have to do that at some level in washington even though he might sign the ryan budget, he won't get passed without coming to an understanding with the other side. that's seengsly what he did with his health care plan in massachusetts about which he used to be very proud until it became a liability and he had to reverse himself on it. bru what he -- but what he did in massachusetts, i was talking to a writer from "time" magazine, about his health care plan, as he described it it wasn't so much he was fascinated by the intricacies of health care polcy, what he liked was how he had gotten the

deal done. how he moved around obstacles. what david said, he wanted to get from a to z and he marched right down the alphabet and got there and when there were obstacles he went around it and got to that objective. if that's what's driving him, if his argument is to basically cut these large numbers or come up this large number and some kind of revenue piece as part of that, tax increase as part of that, he has shown what shall we call it, ideological flexibility in his career and so perhaps under the threat of getting nothing done maybe he -- >> i guess the other thing is if you look at the ryan budget and are ok with all the slapping of the government programs in it, it gets you part of the way to sustainability, right? it has serious cuts in it. it's not irresponsible on the expense side of the ledger. >> i don't think we should go

-- let's not talk about the ryan budget anymore. >> ever? >> just not now. >> we can talk about corey booker. do you think corey booker, his mouth started running and he didn't realize what he was saying? or did he really think that the bain, jeremiah wright ad were both nauseating? or pandering to the idea of corrupt political system? >> that one. >> the last one. he was sort of barack obama from 2008, which is why he was sort of the petty game playing and the disgusting political climate. we have to stop it. which is something that candidate obama would have easily said in 2008. >> he has to raise money from private equity. >> right. all the democrats who are against it have had to raise money from private equity. it must be said the president was raising money for private equity the night the ad came out which is why when he argued why the ad -- he was trying to thread a pretty --

>> i thought he threaded it. >> for the purposes of people listening. the ad goes right to vampire. the point of the ad -- >> the ad and threading of the needle -- >> it's an ad full of blue collar workers, trying to register -- it's an interesting question on the eastern part of ohio where the blue collar workers who haven't been voting for democrats historically but mitt romney doesn't have a strong relationship with, whether there's availability for those votes to go to obama, that's where this ad was aimed. it aimed at their gut and hit basically -- corey booker in the wallet because booker raises money from these guys and all the other democrats against it. >> do you think that also isn't just going after the steel workers in the ad but also the moderates and independents who feel -- the same people who were moved by the clint eastwood ad in the middle of the super bowl? right? >> was detroit, we're back.

>> that's the same sense of the old america is being threatened. these people who are losing their jobs, these iconic american workers. it's not just those workers but also there is something that appeals -- >> you know what's interesting, this goes to one thing we wanted to touch on briefly, so there were a couple of primaries on tuesday night, you probably didn't notice but there were democrat primaries in arkansas and kentucky, and president obama barely won them. he got only 58% against and some random lawyer in arkansas he got 58%. because of a whole bunch of basically white guys in appalachia and the south who can't stand him although they are democrats. and they went out and bothered to vote against president obama in this primary. president obama wants to be sort of the representing the way america used to be, but he's clearly not perceived as -- he's perceived as -- >> a threat, yes.

>> all right. let's move on to our second topic in a minute. first, we are so glad that we are sponsored and we are sponsored this week by our friends at stamps.com. they are our friends. and they should be your friends because all businesses, big and small, have letters and packages to send out, but making a trip back and forth to the post office is waste of your time as i discovered this week as i had to go to the post office for something which was a waste of my time. you can either, if you are a business, you can leave the postage meter, expensive, hidden fees, long-term commitments, or use stamps.com. you can do much more than any beat meater at the fraction of a cost. you can buy and print official u.s. postage using just your computer and printer. it's easy, convenient, and the best part is you will never have to go to the post office again.

right now -- the folks in the audience, can you not do this unless you are on a device, we don't recommend unless you are going to stamps.com. if you use the promo code gabfest for the special offer, can you get a no-risk trial, and $5 of free post an. go to stamps.com before you do anything else, click on the radio microphone on the top of the homepage, i can hear people clicking on it, and typing in gab fest tammps.com. second topic. i have a long printed disposition here for our second topic -- >> we are allowed to interruptment -- interrupt. >> this is a topic -- >> three pages. >> very close to my heart. i grew up in washington, d.c. i spent my whole life -- >> stand up and walk around. >> i can't mess with the cameras. >> all right. maybe we'll stand up for cocktail hour. >> so i spend my whole life

here. we had congresses i like, congresses and presidents i dislike. the city itself is certainly livelyier than it's been. there used to be no sixth and i for example. i think it's safe to say that political d.c. is all of. i don't mean all of in like the funny --fall, like in the funny roy of tv shows. -- funny tv shows. it's awful in a nonsilly way, in a way that seems dark and poisonous to me. like late roman empire mark. and -- first a few of the facts and you guys can interrupt me here. >> i'm thinking late roman empire, how bad is this going to get? do i need to sharpen the bottom of my share?

>> there's really good evidence that the polarization of the house and senate is stronger than ever. john was mentioning the fact that the most conservative democrat is more liberal than the most liberal republican which is a new state. that's never been the case before. >> there used to be overlap and now there is none. >> it's also true, is it not, that both delegations have moved towards the extreme, particularly the republicans have become much more -- >> yeah. the line on the grass is more dramatic towards extremities for republicans than democrats. though we should say the democrats have moved as well. >> one explanation for this does not appear to be gerrymandering. there was a very interesting story that we looked at which is first of all the senate is just as polarized as the house. which would suggest it's not gerrymandering. members who come from swing districts, districts very tightly contested appear to be

as extreme as members from safe districts which was surprising. >> i don't understand that. >> why has this happened? i have 10 theories i don't know i should run through all of them. >> 10 was good, but i don't know -- >> can we just -- hold on. can we put this in a tiny bit more context. the ugliness you talk about, we have gone through a series of these kind of constipated moments where we dealt with extending the government funding, the debt ceiling fight, the extension of the bush era tax cuts, and now at the end of this year we'll have massive fight over two things -- the end of the bush era tax cuts, and the cuts that have been mandated by the debt limit deal of last summer. which require the adult behavior to keep those two things from happening that they did, the c.b.o., the congressional budget office, came out with a report saying if nothing's done and these tax cuts expire and these cuts

happen in their draconian fashion, it will send the u.s. into a recession, temporary one, but -- temporary recession just doesn't feel like it's a possibility. it's like a temporary amputation. and so that's why this matters. in other words, we have had these like serial poisonous and now we have another instance where people have to deal and they aren't. i should add one more thing we'll have a zombie congress dealing with this. you may have a president who has been elected out of office, has to deal with it. a bunch of members of congress who are either retired or lost who will be in congress to deal with this before the next term. >> january will be really interesting. >> this will be before january. >> november, december. now, they might some way to kick it into the next session, but even so -- so that felt -- >> emily, do you have any -- do

you buy this premise? >> i do buy the premise. i don't live here. i do buy the premise. it does seem alarming. i was most drawn to your theories. your theory about the big storm, people have separated themselves geographically and socially. we no longer spend time thinking through ideas people were being friends with, the people whose ideas we disagree with and that makes it easier to be self righteous and elect politicians who also don't traffic in diversity of the intellectual kind. that's really damaging. i'm trying to remember which other idea i was particularly drawn to. >> there's so many. it's such a long list. i want to say one other maybe honing of this argument which is in the last several years, though, you passed the affordable care act, right?

congress and the president did pass it. it was ugly. it's the first time a president and congress have been able to pass comprehensive health care reform in 50 years of time. they also passed a stimulus bill that for all of its possible failures and so forth -- hold on. it passed. and it passed and it was larger than people ever thought it might be. dodd-frank was passed. the question is not -- that seems to me distinct from the debt limit fight which was here are the biggest issues of the day and they actually can't get to an answer. >> does it pass with no votes from an opposition? zero. >> some kind of action that helped some people, you can argue it helps or hurts, but it seems to me to be a greater achievement than no action at all. >> it depends on a filibuster-proof senate majority which is not going to happen, and it depends on owning -- >> those overcame filibusters.

you could argue they were -- i'm just saying that we are not a parliamentary democracy. >> doesn't that call for the idea one of the big problems is the constitution is broken and we need a parliamentary democracy in which one party comes in and passes an agenda and gets thrown out if that doesn't work and this gridlock of the constitution leads us -- has become too dysfunctional because of these other -- the national media, because of gerrymandering to some degree, because you don't live near people who are different from us? >> i mean we are talking about -- the other theories about why. one is that there is a growing branch of sort of research which says there actually are no indpend voters, or very. there are a bunch of partisans on both sides and there is no actual constituency to be in the middle. you might as well if you are a politician, you might as well go to an extreme. there is no percentage being in the middle.

>> the people who call themselves independent -- >> they are not really -- >> that's always been true. it's just they are getting bert at targeting. >> and technology allows you to target people bet earn better. >> we do a real disservice when people like me talk about independents, a lot of people call themselves independents that never voted for a republican or democrat in their life. they like calling themselves that. it's better to talk about swing voters. people who actually might still have an open opinion and there are about eight left. >> you have interviewed every single one. >> exactly. >> i don't know if anyone will actually raise their hand. is there anyone in this audience who considers themselves a swing voter? wow. maybe the shyness not willing to respond. >> almost nobody -- there are half raised hands. some hands went up -- >> they just don't know how they feel. >> amazing. >> they are the remembering one

city council race which they voted for the green party. >> all right. another theory, is it national media, because of the rise of national media and particularly partisan national media, there are -- there's no local politics anymore. every congressman is a national politician and you can't be a congressman who has local constituency and does well locally and may be able to be ideologically diverse because are you so good at serving your local constituency. everyone face as national challenge if they dissent from the party line and fox will jump on them, or msnbc. but it's foesed very quickly by the nationalization of media and politics. that's another they'rery. another one which is kind of related to this is that washington politicians are no longer actual washington politicians. because of the ease of travel,

they don't have to spend that much time here and they don't know each other. particularly they don't know members of the opposing party. if you are a republican -- >> you are leaving, right? >> i wonder if that -- you know, joe -- it doesn't help you deal with your voters back home or the ones who are going to punish you. orrin hatch was great friends with kennedy and he's losing his mind -- >> but they did legislation together. >> that was then. but now -- >> now he wouldn't -- >> he's trying to do everything he can to stay on the right side of conservatives in his state because senator bennett also of utah was chucked out because he had the tell merit to work with a democrat on -- ron wyden, on a series of a couple pieces of legislation. and so those kinds -- patch and bennett -- hatch and bennett, had friendships across the aisle. that's not helping them with voters.

look at richard lugar. great friends with the president. got him sunk by 20 points. >> part of this must have to do with your decline of the roman empire theory. we are in this moment where there are very stark choices that seem like they have to be made in the near future and they aren't going to be any fun. this is going to be the moment your university president who has to shut down the french department and -- >> right. i think the sociology department, usually. >> you are the person who doesn't get to build the building. who wants this? right. and the country sin credibly divided about what to do. right? because the tea party's fair narrative about this we have to cut everything. that we can do -- if we just cut the government enough, we'll take ourselves back to sustainability. and they say that they are up for these big cuts to entitlement programs, which if you take them at their word, would get us a large -- at least a moderate share of the way there.

>> i think also part is for people in the middle or -- they look at -- i wonder if this is also true with media, there is no way -- no equality with politics. they look at what's happening in washington and they just think it's a total clam shell and so i'm not going to engage. and the people who do engage are the people who are most fashion gnat about specific ideological -- they have already picked their team. they want their team to win. and they -- and they are happy to engage in -- it's like when you go to a football game. i like to watch this sport. i don't want to sit next to the guy who painted his face and has shaved his head and the number of his favorite player. that might discourage you from playing if it's become such a clown show. therefore the people who might drag -- hold politicians accountable to kind of more middle of the road positions don't participate in the process. >> they are not running for office, either. >> no one is in the middle. >> yes.

>> emily, wrote a book the age of austerity, 60 years after world war ii you could paper over these differences because there was money pouring in. you want to spend, you want education, you want housing built, do it all. >> that was my point about the distinction between affordable care act, dodd-frank, and stimulus, and these decision abouts taxes and spending. they are where everybody -- i think also for republicans who feels like -- i went back and looked on c-span which is one of the awesome things about the c-span archive you can look up any event, in october of 1990 when bush put together the budget deal that went back on the no-new taxes pledge, here you had president saying that bob michel, the democratic leader had done such a great job. and bob dole saying richard gephardt had done a great jofpblet you couldn't imagine

that scene now. you can't put the current bodies on that stage saying -- >> why do they need each other in that moment? was it the camaraderie of washington? or was it they all needed the cover of being in this together? >> yes. they needed that. right, they needed to create -- also they lost 126 republicans on that vote. they needed all the votes they could get. also i think they did believe that a mix of revenue increases and spending cuts was the way to have actually solved the problem. what republicans -- what happened with republicans with that deal and the previous -- during the reagan administration they said we got hoodwinked. we made a prom his of $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. that promise always gets broken. you get the $1 tax increase and spending goes through the roof. we are not going to be suckered again. in talking to voters who are conservative, a lot of times people will say look i'll be happy to pay more if i had any

belief it would go to -- used efficiently, they hate taxes because they don't want to lose money out of their paycheck, but also they hate them because they think that everything that's done in washington is so inefficient. >> that actually is helpful the thing you said before about two to one for understanding the rejection of 10 to one. if you don't believe in the other side of the deal at all, then why would you say yes to that? >> i think -- sorry. i think this is obviously one of the other theories about why everything is broken. jonathan chase says because of this deal back in 1990, the republicans went down this crazy path where they have stayed and gotten more and more counseled by it where no taxes have become theological. once you have one party so weded to this one belief which it will not take from -- it's no longer -- you no longer have politics. >> it's not -- it's rational.

it's not theological if you buy this idea. if you are betrayed every time because government spend kg never be controlled and we have never really had any incentive to seriously control it before, then even if you are heading off the cliff, why would you believe that suddenly this time it's going to -- >> so their view is when you are making a deal with the president and you say, the republicans offer some revenue increases, they say -- in exchange they hope they'll get some kind of reduction in entitlement spending, they basically think the other side will cheat. why in the norkation where you believe both sides get something, why should i give anything when i know the other side cheats because the other side in this case is the normal washington increase in spending that happened on both parties. so that -- >> it's not the money we are spending, it's the government's money. it's always that problem. >> that isn't to deny -- there is a theological wing.

there is those who believe in tax cuts solve everything wing. but i think that's distinct from another group of republicans who as of negotiating matter feel like they are always going to be hoodwinked if they ever agree to tax increases. they'll never get the spending cuts they want. >> if you remember, agree with matt's reporting about the grand bargain and why john boehner pulled out of it, it was entirely that. his presentation of boehner is not he's theological so much he just thinks he's going to be betrayed and cheated. >> quickly there are two more. i have so many i need to get them out. there are actually three but i'll skip the last one. one is -- we talked about this on the show last week. there can be no more backroom deals anymore because the technology and the ubiquity of technology and the pan optic of technology and twitter in particular means any news that happens gets out and spreads immediately and there is no room to be private and secret. plus because of the -- there is

no trust where people think they can come together and make a cross ideological deal because they don't trust each other and they know this news will spread. >> i lost you at panopticon. that was awesome. i thought it was a medieval character in a role playing games. >> i don't think this one is right because of what you said last week some things are increde iably visible and other things go on. it's about the things we pay attention to that are so malleable. >> the export-import bank over conservative opposition. that happened, nobody noticed. it was like totally not topic a. topic a was whatever shiny thing at the moment. >> we even knew about that. remember? sorry, anyway. >> the last one i'll does it the white rage no, sir talgism theory which is white guys in

particular, which i am one, young one, are -- >> even our radio audience knows that. >> there is some level of fury about what happened in the world through the loss of their place in the world. and that the arrival of a african-american president has kind of set this off. and there's a component of just almost very visceral racial rage aimed at a black president. >> let's try to take that one notch down from racism and maybe -- so imagine this. you grow up in a part of the country where you are, because of the way the country has been arranged, you are not exposed to people of different colors and backgrounds, and the other party, if you look at the numbers, the democratic party is likely in the next -- not this election, maybe the next one, the democratic president wins it will probably be with majority minority support.

he'll get more minority -- >> that's very confusing. because minority -- >> right. maybe i'm using the wrong term. but the point is when you think of racism, you imagine people who are like basically card carrying members of the k.k.k. i don't think that's what you mean. i think there are people who can be threatened by a party that's increasingly declined by its non-whiteness and not know that they are threatened by it in that way. that it's the other, it's you shall -- its change. it's not what they grew up with. >> right. i agree. this is a very depressing discussion. should we -- >> it's all your doing. you get so animated by a depressing topic.

when have you ever done a list of 10? >> you had an author attached to certain ones. >> good lord, what preparation you would do for like the plague or something. next week -- >> so let's wrap that topic. we have another sponsor. can you believe it? yes. so -- we actually use this last week because emily often doesn't join us for a show. the shows are really, as i think many of you know, the gab fest is much worse when emily is not with us. when we cannot see her, hopefully she's in the room, but if she's not in the room, we can't see her, johan is on iphone. i'm picking my nose. and the encounter is much worse than it would be. >> and emily dahl -- >> really, the problem has been

in the very beginning before we start talking, they have a conversation with other people in the room that i cannot hear because no one's on site. i sit there waving until someone notices me. >> being able to see a face for me is important. it enhances our relationship. it improves the way we do business. and unfortunately because emily's moved to new haven, meeting all your clients and colleagues in person is impossible often. so that's why we are glad to be sponsored by go to meeting with hd faces which lets you meet face to face anywhere in the world. even on your ipad when you are on the go. go to meeting, take the webcam and click to collaborate on group hd video. the hd part is very cool because emily looks like emily not a blob. .

>> so, our you can try it for free for 30 days. this is a special offer. go to gotomeeting.com and use the promo code -- gabfest. third topic -- emily? >> a was a freshman at rutgers and he very sad the jump of the the gw bridge. they found a electronic trail on twitter of a his roommate talking about that and a web cam spying operation.

he invited over a male date but he was break out and turned on his web cam. he told other students about what he had seen and he was using tyler and his gayness to garner attention. it was really jerky, dreadful behavior. he was convicted of invasion of privacy in new jersey in the spring and that meant a 10-year maximum sentence. i watched the sentencing hearing and the celmente's spoke

movingly. his father was furious in a way that was jarring, his sense of powerlessnes. -- powerlessness. he chose not to speak and it meant this moment of cathatsis i was waiting for never happened, yet the judge was merciful giving a jail sentence, not a prison sentence. the case has prevented us because you can argue the facts in many directions. we have no idea exactly what the connection between his boorish decisions and tyler's

to kill himself. we do not know what the connection was, yet we can all see clearly that spying on your roommate's make out session was a terrible idea and something we want to discourage. what to make of this sentence, which was white. i wrote that it was light and fair, but i have to say that i felt much more ambivalent than i thought i would. i felt for a long time that it was not going to serve their real service for him to go to prison. because he just seemed so unlikable and never had shown that he had grown from the experience, i felt very ill at ease from the outcome. my brain knew that it was racing in my heart really could not feel it all the way. >> it was a mandatory or a

maximum 10-year sentence? >> a maximum. >> i probably just heard it wrong. >> what the judge did was remarkable, legally speaking. >> why? [laughter] >> we do not need to get into it. >> since he asked, first of all, he was offered a plea deal before trial of community service, no time, no plea only fleeing to invasion of privacy and year that a citizen so there was a question about deportation and they could not control that because it with a federal agency and they're going to recommend against deportation. it was a great deal and he turned down. there is a big price for going to trial and that is how they pushed them to plea-bargain. for them to have gone through this whole trial and it went

very well. they did a great job. there was some question about how much evidence there was that was biased. they won, really won, and got nothing. >> the judge wasn't in on it -- >> in new jersey, it says you have to go to prison unless it is a serious injustice. he had to find it was a really exceptional case. >> going to this case and then beat john edwards case, we're waiting on the jury verdict in the may go to prison or jail, it seems to me the fact that these men have been truly viciously punished should wait in on this.

is life has been ruined. -- his life has been ruined. i do not mean viciously. he's an asshole. edwards is even more so. his life is ruined. his life is destroyed. i'm not sure what massive further purpose there is in imprisoning him. >> how do said it is system. get all of the ruling that happens. three legal process that may put you in jail -- how do you get through a legal process that may put you in jail but never really does? >> in order to cause reputation of damage. >> right. that's not a factor. they say they are starting to do this as an example and that

makes it extremely nervous. we have to convict them of a crime. >> for a really stupid set of things they have done as a kid. >> sentencing it is still up to the judge's discretion and you can take into account factors like the person's views, a prior record, in this case that he had not committed a crime of violence. without explicitly talking about media coverage, what really adds to your argument is that both families talked with enormous emotion about being hounded by the media and what about was like. they had telephoned a lenses photographic people who came in and out for every day for week.

you could see that he was just as angry as his parents were. >> how does that go to my point? >> when you become the focus of a really notorious news story, it does not matter if you're the victim or the perpetrator, it is like having proper route to follow your round. -- following you around. it showed up on both sides. >> can the judge take that into account? >> i think you can. it is not an aggregating were mitigating factor in the law, but you think that almost maybe it should be and he should have some way of talking about invasion of privacy and something we do not just think of.

>> they get to be reminded every single day that their son jumped of beverage because of the church behavior of this other kid. -- jumped off of a bridge. it was because of the jerky behavio. >> they were talking about the terrible tragedy of having to sit through this trial and it was an injustice. i would argue that he was exercising his right for a jury trial and we all have that. it did not feel like a terribly fair collateral damage. you can understand that. >> let's go to cocktail chatter. we had some awesome chatter before the show which could

explain the content of the show. what is the thing you would be chattering about? >> a the same problem. you do not want to get out. he wanted to do -- this idea.ot like >> wearing a suit, you look like a good additional speaker. you're going to teach and how to make 15-minute brownies in 10 minutes. i have two devices out here, one cannot download what i'm looking for an the other has run out of juice. >> fortunately i use that this thing to write it down. the other they have is going to talk about, we cannot do.

>> it is commencement season and everyone has their favorite list, steve jobs, conan o'brien, and i saw one from david foster wallace. there are some people for whom is that it is all you have to say and then it is a conversation about how great he is and it gets a little out of control. i am not actually a big david foster wallace fan. i think writing a self indulgent. i also had an experience with him when he covered the mccain campaign and he wrote a long account of the mccain campaign and much of it was fictional except was not written as a fictional account. i had all of these views. it is commencement address have this line in it that said a huge percentage of the stuff that i

am certain of that is correlate wrong and looted. that would stand in for my views about david foster wallace and it was a fantastic ramble through the constant focus and struggle in a live to break yourself out of your default settings in break yourself out of your automatic update today feelings about other people and the dead-eyed at drudgery of life and times edition constantly fighting against? because it will lead you to a richer and more fulfilling life. it was a fantastic commencement address, so i would recommend to all of you. >> i would like to speak about a story that will be in the "new york times" magazine that is

edited by my beloved, editor at the magazine about the group of the national childbirth -- guru of the national childbirth fad. she is delivered 3000 babies and has lost very few of them. [laughter] what? that is a totally important part of the story. >> the waitress said it was not encouraging. >> well -- >> that is not going on the leaflet. >> childbirth remains in a moment where things go wrong grade she is a self-trained midwives who chooses her patients carefully. >> many of whom are pregnant. [laughter] >> this is much more fodder than your jokes than i was planning.

it surely is that many of the things that go wrong in the hospital can be prevented if you have an excellent midwife and knows what she is doing. we have this notion that every time there is a home birth of that we see this as a terrible decision that the parents made not to go to the hospital. what about the deaths from hospital births? i was very relieved at the end of the story that she decided not to have a home birth and has it in the hospital but then she has an unnecessary c-section, which she saw as brutal. my older son was born in the hospital, but i had a midwife for my second son and itw as better. you have to dramatically go in

one way or another. you either have to have a doctor that will do whatever it takes to have the baby born in a healthy way, but in the and that's all that matters or you have to have a midwife that will really help you through the process. the bad. to have a doctor that does not know how to help you like a midwife but also does not take dramatic interventionist action. >> both of our kids were born with an amazing midwife. she was great with me because i am an important part of the process. >> wasn't in the hospital? >> yes. i needed summer to lie down. >> not in the taxi on the way. >> anyway, midwives are amazing.

>> this is why i sympathize with the home over people. our midwives hda to stop because hospitals will not take them anymore. they have made everything medical. >> it depends on the jurisdiction. >> they are all gone. >> were they in the practices with ob/gyn's? >> for a while, but it just became very hard. i'm unsympathetic to this medicalization of everything. it does feel like it there ought to be reasonable option for people who want to have children in a stage, on a field, in a taxi. >> what about vaccinating our

children? it is not clear that home births are unnecessarily less sick you do an apples to apples comparison. >> unless you can tell me, as a matter of medical certainty, that they're less safe, first of all, very few will choose it because people are emotionally invested in doing it in the way -- i'm not suggesting every person who is pregnant should have some boiled water. >> boil water and get some blankets. what was the water for? >> i do not understand it. look, you still have a higher rate of infection. >> it wasn't for a cup of tea for the husband? >> you may be right. >> a nice relaxing camomile. it can be very stressing. >> i think i would go out and

hang with her. >> i will pander to my father in the front row here. [applause] and well, you might applause. [applause] >> that's not pandering. that's not the right word. >> it must be that they cannot hold us responsible. >> he is a scientist in a position that just retired after 45 years at the nih and they are about to do a series of science education in ways late. because he has been eloquent and humane, i asked him to write a personal essay about how and why he became its finances. there is a passage that i felt really moving and instructive, in part because it recounts a different childhood than the ones that my children are

certainly having. he is describing himself out about 11. forgive me as i read your work. "a couple of my friends were dr. sons and became doctors themselves. i endorse it -- i found the ingredients of gunpowder. we did not have potassium nitrate. we walked in the door of a place that sold chemicals. we took the subway to a cd plays in downtown manhattan and bought it, and a questions asked, what we needed. back in the basement we did all kinds of things involving gunpowder. sometimes in a small crucible from the lab, sometimes noisy, smelly, often in combination. we did not know it. about lab coat, gloves, goggles. the moment i have never forgotten was igniting something rather in the crucible and a bigot plume of smoke to the

ceiling. the point is that through all this, my parents and my friend's parents, sensing that we were not psychopathic, left us alone. they did not hover as it did over my sons which is why, in part, they turned to words for a living and asked what we were doing anyway. in addition to being curious and skeptical, we were free and have been deeply informative. i became a scientist. and i just felt that was a lovely account. [applause] >> i thought it was a beautiful account of what a childhood can do and what may be we have lost. do your kids have gunpowder?

>> yours >> i have kids? >> let's finish there before the q&a. you can find links at slate.com/gabfest or comment on our facebook page, facebook.com/gabfest. subscribe on itunes and you can search in the itunes store. leave a comment. our twitter feed is #slategabfest. thanks to our host at sixth and synagogue.c we have t-shirts on sale. >> please buy them. >> they sit in my office like a

ghost. >> the editor of the magazine has to schlep them. >> for emily bazelon, john dickerson, i'm david plotz. we will be back with you again next week. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] we will do some questions. we will start with you. >> thanks for commenting. in our second discussion, you touched briefly -- whoa -- on the idea of a filibuster which i think maybe more of a roadblock than you gave it credit for. i was wondering to what extent that it that it is contributing to some of this?

how much do you think that would contribute and to what extent do see the challenges coming up to this and it may be successful? >> i wonder about the public option. i think there are a lot of people who are not so certain that democrats could have gotten the public option through. there were many democrats who wanted it and many who were not that excited. in the final bill in the senate, i do not know if it could have gotten through. >> it would be more equally constitutional. >> we know the private enterprise solution turns out to be. i know, i just could not resist. >> the problem with the filibuster is that the people who wanted are out of power. you never can get a coalition of enough people to get the votes

to reform it. >> you think it is a big problem. >> it has more power than it should. i am not smart enough to know about whether or not it needs to disappear altogether. we filibustered the motion to succeed, even the ability to talk about a bill. that is what seems to me to be bonkers. is just insane that you cannot -- fine. let it die on its merits or in the final passage, but you cannot even get to talk a rutted tracks anyway. get to talkven about it >? >> it's on-ish.

a corollary to the big story is that the people are not just geographically sorted and the most liberal conservative is further to the right than the most [unintelligible] >> it does seem like another

drop in the bucket. >> per the branding on your t- shirts, let's say the government decides to end pandas at the national zoo and in a savvy move they manage to secure council. how would the justices weigh in? david, what is the defense? >> what is their claim, the pandas? >> they have a right to be on display at the national zoo. john, how would polling play in? where do republicans and democrats come out on this issue? [laughter] >> pandas have standing.

>> they don't. they would be like this -- [laughter] >> they have a sitting. >> they have lolling about. >> they have a redress of all injury. i cannot remember the rest. anyway. the have a sitting, standing, or lolling about, but they do not have a right to bear a particular habitat. it is within congress's power of the purse to close that zoo. >> since politicians of both parties are no good at "pandering" they must be for it. [applause] >> good. that's good. >> this is an issue for

immigration services because they are here illegally. >> deportable. self deportation? >> this is an issue of black and white, david. [laughter] [applause] >> dickerson for the win. follow that, sir. >> i know that i cannot, so i will not try. my question boils down to you think will win the election, but i have a really great wind up. a couple of weeks ago, david essentially said that republicans could have nominated carpet that it could have

gotten enough electoral votes. >> did you really say that? >> yeah. >> the economy is not as strong as it could be or should be, but the president's policies have made it worse and that is what disqualifies it from being reelected. these democratic your advantages, a strong electoral state and still win. demographics are on their side. they have a very advanced data mining. given that vantage point in the process, do you think some of these can overcome what may be

in the economy this november? >> i think you framed it just right. i do not think we know. what you have is a weak president weakened by an economy that is not recovering fast enough and he has to convince an incredibly anxious and skeptical public that they should not turn him away when their inclination is to vote thumbs down on him and raise a candid it that is not universally liked but who they are liking a little bit more every day. there may be a ceiling to the rise in romney's favorability rating. the president has all those things you just describe which are quite right.

ron hunt -- romney has to win florida. he has to win ohio. there are a lot of states he has to win. obama can win out in the west and as you have mentioned the, the minority population has increased giving him a large share of voters he can go after. he has some were part -- super powerful legs but he has these ankle weights on him. i have no idea. it will be really close. the national polling has limited value, but it gives you some hints. the average is 45.6% and romney is up 45.5%. it is tied in ohio.

ronny is up in seven in florida, but the president is up by seven in virginia. is super close and will be all the way through. absent some crazy outside events. >> i think romney wins. >> i do not buy the car but the area of. i think americans look for individuals. they have to like the person. corporate.ood >> people were fine with him on the question that they may not like him, but it is obvious they are voting for the person they like. >> i hear you. i do not think you talked with a personality contest, but you cannot just be anybody. >> you have to be in nice plush carpet, not an objection all want. >> a few more questions. at the end of that line, i think he will miss. sorry.

>> he would not have made a good venture-capital list. >> you hear a lot these days about the obama campaign's secret plans, data mining, micro-targeting and everything else. it is kind of exciting. you think that maybe it can push the obama campaign out into the wind. i also wonder what are we losing as a society and as human beings when we've instrumentalize people that much and i would draw a connection with no child left behind and beat at this is on test scores. what are the pros and cons and breaking things down this much and supports pro-choice and we're really going to

target that. >> i would be more worried about this -- this is the danger of narrowcasting. we have this idea that people will only be exposed to the kind of thing that they wanted they do not believe it. while i do think you can be separated, you end up exposed to lots of different ideas and some people think they have the perfect target and they will be completely wrong. you do not actually want to hear about because there is some part of you that no equation will take into account and that can always spoil that enough. >> thank you so much for bringing the gabfest back to d.c. where it belongs. [applause] i have a process question.

i listen every week and to talk about the question of the moment and it talking points for going home and feeling smarter than i already am. everything seems 3 21st century until there are these strange interlude where it harkens back to the comedy hour where you have to schill for a product and talk about the sponsors. curious about the odds of that part of it. i understand you may not be able to give an answer, but is this a good solution for the genuine problem of your needing funding nad having legitimate costs.

>> i will answer that. why not? led to do it. the publisher says that it is very much like a 1950 proxy radio show. honestly, slate needs to make money. we do a lot of stuff. is this hair free? >> free in that it is leaving it's home often. >> we are ambitious and creative in ways we can get revenue displayed. we charged to do this show tonight because we're not making a ton of money, but it helps. we make the site, the podcast, everything available to our

listeners but we need to get paid, pay our salaries, our rent, things like that. welcoming sponsorship is what we do. every time i get another email about a sponsorship, my heart skips. >> even more than we talk about michael bloomberg. >> you may not like it, but it is essential. slate could not continue if we did not do it. it's a passion of mine. podcasting,um of there is something retro

but intimate, i like that idea. >> next to last question. >> another about d.c.'s poison atmosphere. they are fighting about the facts and you cannot break that if they are in a bubble that facts can't get to. [laughter] do you think that is more of a cause of the atmosphere or an effect? >> cause or effect. interesting. i will just go with cause. it is so hard to bridge that gap. one thing that strikes me when

i go down the rabbit hole that you almost do not have enough facts at your disposal. how many of us know everything in instant recall in debt to be able to go into it? that is one aspect of i find so frustrating. that is just not how the human brain works. >> recognizing that neither of you is right, this is what i like. your natural state is an illusion. you are marginalizing and it could be tentative. it could need some honing. if you approach and experimentation that way, you're

arguing in a way that you could convince the other person so your behavior makes it impossible to get facts across because of the way the conversation takes place. >> another question about d.c. awful?d.c. always been senators beat others within an inch of their life with their cane. it has flopped all sorts of civil rights legislation. aren't the 1990's really the exception?

>> that was the unspoken theory. >> 11.5 >> the media is more intrusive and knowledgeable than it used to be. i also think the answer to this is in the framework of the question where senators were beating each other. there is one example of that. it was a senator and congressman and it is in this moment just before the civil war. that is somewhat similar to where we are now. to the only time we have been as driven and felt like we were about to boil in the same way. i am i historians i may be wrong, but there were conflicting views about the world which were on reconcilable.

>> i think the normal caveat is that you can find all kinds of examples surrounding the civil war but even before about. congress was a total mess. there was all the corruption, bribery, and it was basically legal. if you look at the civil-rights space, that had a geographical component to it, not only party but geography. it could have them siding with each other in the south, but i think demographic is gone. there are no more southern democrats. it used to be ideology and then geography but now it is ideology in. >> thank you all so much. this was so fond. we will be back. -- this was so fun.

>> wisconsin voters had to the polls june 5th to decide whether to recall gov. scott walker less than two years after he was first elected. he will debate his democratic opponent, the mayor of milwaukee, tom barrett. that will be live at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and seized and radio. after that, commencement addresses starting at 10:00 p.m. with representative allen west at northwood.

then it justice sonia sotomayor york at new york university. then u.s. solicitor tom verrilli. then senator kyl at arizona christian university and an education secretary how were down 10 at howard in the d.c. -- howard university, arne duncan. at 1:00 p.m., an observance at the vietnam memorial. the president will be speaking there and we will hear remarks from defense secretary leon panetta, interior secretary ken salazar, and others. will those live on c-span on memorial day. a commercial space capsule docked at the international space station today, the first time a privately owned rocket has landed.

is a day that will go down in history. he talks about the obama's administration plan to replace the the program which ended last year. >> it is now my distinct honor to introduce our opening keynote speaker, the 12th nasa administrator, charles bolden. he manages their resources to and bans the agency's missions -- and goals. he spent 14 years in the astronaut office. after 1980, he traveled a board shuttles, commanding two, including the deployment of the hubble space telescope in the first u.s.-russian joint mission which featured a cosmonaut in the crew. personally, i have known

general bolden when we both were the uniform of the marine corps and as a naval aviator. our paths had crossed numerous times, and i was assigned to the 15th marine expeditionary unit and general bolden came aboard to fly with her squadron. we had a very candid conversation. it was on leadership, service, and really believing in something that is larger than yourself. i was one of the junior officers in the war room that night and came away with an even stronger degree of respect for general bolden as a leader and a man of principles. i consider myself very honored to introduce him today. please welcome me in joining

nasa administrator general charles bolden, jr. [applause] >> thank you for the very kind introduction. for those of you who are officially attached to nss, you could not be in better hands then a marine aviator leading the charge. i feel really good about where you are. it is great to be here. the theme this year of "onward and upward" could not be more appropriate. as we gather here this morning, i would like to mention buzz aldrewn is here. -- buzz aldren is here. [laughter] when you talk about us standing

on the shoulders of giants, i do not need to tell any of you about the giant status he has in the space program, particularly in human space flight. as we gather here this morning to talk about the future of exploration, that future is being defined -- and history is being made -- right now as the spacex dragon capsule is joined with the international space station. and while that berthing process is still underway and additional hurdles must be overcome, we are witnessing an extraordinary first in space flight -- a cargo re-supply mission being carried out by a

private company, an american company i might add! every milestone is a first. when we were down there for the launch, i said this is a revolutino. -- a revoluion. they are 30 meters awary from station and holding to the grapple point where don will use the station arm to reach out and grab it to pull it in and brt erth it.

this is truly a major milestone in president obama's ambitious space exploration plan, one that seeks to rely on private industry to take over transportation to low-earth orbit so that nasa can focus on the really hard stuff like sending humans to an asteroid and eventually on to mars. i said i would tell you a story. someone will find something to be critical about. i guarantee it. as historic as this is, we will see a negative report about how it was supposed to happen at 8:10 and not until 10:40. this was on the space shuttle discovery, which is now out at the smithsonian. i was the pilot for the commander of what was then scs 31, which does not mean anything

to anyone, but it was the hubble space telescope deployment mission and it was fraught with adventure. we were scheduled to unberth hubble. it was a very simple process that we have trained for for more than one year. we had a back up ready, but of course we would not needed because we put the vehicle in the proper position for deployed. we grappled hubble and everything looked great and all of a sudden, the things started coming unraveled. hubble was huge, 25,000 pounds. if you stuck your hand, you could get your fast into the payload bay, that's how big it

was. that is all the room that had. we notice that the data said it was starting to swivel. it was not coming straight out. we did not want to bang it. what was supposed to take 10 minutes took an hour. we put it in the pre-position where the ground team in houston was going to deploy the solar rays. we began to bring out the appendages, the high gain antenna. solar array? not great.

it got about 16 inches out and stopped. everyone's heart went "boom, boom," because that will not supposed to happen. for the next 10 hours of the day, this evolution was supposed to take less than one hour. the number of critical things come and i had to change your plan. the plan had been developed and perfected and then mike happens. really important things -- and then life happens. do not fire jets becasue you do not want to harm hubble. the orbiter is drifting for about one hour, two hours, getting out of altitude and we're starting to worry about temperatures on the telescope because everything was planning said it would have the right amount of sunlight on it and everything. after several hours, we had to

maneuver. we could not let it just hang out there and freeze. they went urinalysis and decided we could do some minor maneuvering to get the vehicle back in position. another part of the ground team kept trying to figure out what was wrong. it should not have happened. the crew had been to bristol, england, to the british base and we had used their water table to do a manual deployment of the solar array to get them all the way out. you literally cranked them out. we knew how, but we're hoping we would not have to. it would limit its life and a lot of other things, so we did not want to do it, but we knew it may come down to it. the flight control team said we needed to get them ready. my job was to get them in their suits. bruce, cathy, and i flew in,

broke out the space suits, and started to dress. begot they're ready come close the airlock, and started to depressurized. 5 minutes away and we were depressurized and 5 minutes away from opening the hatch to manually deploy so, as i'm told -- and this is relating a story. a young engineer said, "you know, i don't think we have a problem at all. there's a module called attention monitoring and it is to keep them from ripping themselves apart if they meet resistance. i think the tension monitor may have a bad zero. if we can override this, it would be ok."

that sounded absurd. bruce said the first thing in the morning. bruce knew hubble better than any human being because he had been through this in the design. he had said something about the tension module, but we did not think to ask him. we did not pay attention. then they said we were going to try one thing there and let us know what to do. sure enough, they changed a 1 to ar arraythe solla deployed. altitude,o get into get it released come and go on. we did not have time to get bruce and cathy out of the airlock because they had trained to be there with cameras and everything to see their babies

deployed. they could not see anything because there was a little bitty hole looking into the payload bay and hubble was gone. we deployed. we were jumping up and down and bruce and cathy are going, "what's happening?" they were not happy, to put it mildly. i tell you that story because that is sort of like what happened this morning. there was an incredibly elaborate plan put together by the spacex-nasa team. very simply, there are a lot of sensors on dragon. the two lidar sensors, every once in awhile, they started to

walk onto the module, so we had to figure that out and understand it. spacex has made some real time changes and everyone thinks we were ok to go. some of you may be getting more information than i am, but if i do not talk too long i will be down and you get to see the grapple. i just want to tell you that story so that when those who are skeptic write their stories tonight, just say, show me one of nasa's mission that went flawless? the final hubble service mission had back to back to back to back to back dba's. none of us thought we could do that. yet we pulled it off. it was not flawless. little things happen all through it, but the key was the team mark between the team on the ground -- the team worked between the team on the ground

in the team in the vehicle that made things happen. that is exactly what you're seeing happening today. there is no nasa team. it is an american team getting dragon in positions of that it can be grappled by an international crew, not an american crew, but an international crew to the international space station and further make history. that's a big deal. you can jump up and down here. hopefully will jump up and down and scream when it occurs in a few hours. now we've transferred discovery to the smithsonian, and enterprise is in new york awaiting its move to the -- you must be from new york. the want to know what new york has to do with space. i have to remind them periodically that tonight we

celebrate the 50th anniversary of scott carpenter's return to earth from space doing his mission. guess where he was picked up and brought back home? the uss intrepid. whatbethpage, long island, and e u.s. in treaded that picked up american astronauts, maybe not, but i think that connects them to the space program. access to birth or but is rapidly becoming a reality. our efforts in developing the technologies is picking up steam. nasa is making exciting progress in our earth and space science mission. our efforts and in our in aeronautics research.

while the program of 30 years undertakes a new admission to inspire the next generation, the space program remains very much a dynamic thing, a living history that we are creating every day. today is a date that will go down in history. the debate about our direction is over and we are moving into implementing exciting plants, the top with bipartisan agreement in the congress. if you're still wondering if this new era is real, i think the spacex success this week should begin to dispel those notions. our current plans call for orbital sciences to follow suit later in the year with its cygnus module launched on their antares launch vehicle. behind them are dream chaser, the cst-100, liberty, and other innovative private industry candidates to carry our u.s. astronauts to the iss and other leo destinations in the years to come.

i am not going to talk about it, but i hope you paid attention to my other lee of destination. there is a session today or tomorrow that talks about the industry, industry, and what makes that. while you are here, you need to focus on destination. we have a lot of launch vehicles, but they do not make an industry. what will make the industry viable is destinations, places where people and scientists and experiments can go and spend long periods of time in the microgravity environment of space. aboard an international space station or a vehicle that has a crew on it, that is not constant microgravity. every time i get on a tread and exercise, i disturbed

that vehicle. i know i do not have to be in that environment. some of you have to push for other destinations, places that have a state where somebody who is doing materials processing can put an experiment for six months, a year, or more, without having a treadmill disturbing the micro gravity. pay attention. in fiscal year 2013, nasa plans for at least three flights delivering research and logistics hardware to the international space station by u.s.-developed cargo delivery systems. as you've heard me say before, i am committed to launching astronauts from american soil on spacecraft built by american companies. i use the term "i," and i should not say that, but i mean nasa.

nasa is committed to launching american astronauts from american soil on spacecraft built by american companies because we are family. we are a family, and that is big to us. nasa's fy 2013 budget provides the funding needed to bring our human space launches back home to the u.s. and get american companies again. right now we're looking at proposals for our commercial crew integrated capability initiative. with these proposals, we're asking industry to complete the design of a fully integrated commercial crew transportation system that consists of the spacecraft, launch vehicle, ground operations, and mission control. these proposals are going to lead to space act agreements for initial development and will advance our efforts to help nasa and the u.s. achieve safe, reliable, and cost-effective human access to space. all of our commercial partners continue to work diligently and innovatively toward their milestones.

pratt & whitney rocketdyne, which is supporting the boeing company during the development of its cst-100 spacecraft in nasa's commercial crew development round two, completed mission-duration hot- fire tests on a launch abort engine in march. blue origin has successfully tested the aerodynamic design of its next-generation space vehicle in development, and the vehicle has completed a series of wind tunnel tests. throughout the field, i've seen tangible examples like these. another very important indicator of the future is that people still want to be astronauts. we had a near record number of 6,300 applicants for the class of 2013 and the 2009 class is already well into training for the missions of the future. their first stop is going to be the iss, now coming into its own as a laboratory and technology test bed like no other. nasa's robotic refueling mission experiment aboard the iss, for instance, recently demonstrated remotely controlled

robots and specialized tools can perform precise satellite- servicing tasks in space. we do great things on the iss. more than 400 scientific studies were conducted on station last year in an array of disciplines, health. there are probably five to ten investigations going on any given day. these studies are proving helpful with everyday problems of people of all ages here on earth and are also applicable to astronauts on long space voyages. thee learning a lot about human immune system, inner ear response and balance, visual- acuity changes and bone density loss, for example. some of this particular research is especially relevant to our senior population. the call for advanced development proposals for the space launch system just closed. j-2x power pack tests of varying lengths are slated through summer at the stennis

space center's a-1 test stand to help us learn more about the upper stage. the space shuttle's rs-25d main engine inventory has been relocated to stennis in core. i hope we have the opportunity to learn a lot from the sls panel this morning. paorion has been undergoing parachute drop and water tests and thermal protection system work for the module continues at ames. a lockheed martin-sponsored exploration flight test of orion will take place in 2014, with our first uncrewed nasa test flight of the integrated capsule and rocket scheduled for 2017. the 2014 flight will simulate about 80% of the speed of a lunar re-entry and will tell us a lot about the thermal protection system and provideour commitment to science remains strong, although there has never

been a time when there weren't more things on our wish pontifff list than we were able to pursue given our resources. but we'll be at jupiter with juno and pluto with new horizons before you know it. not to mention dawn's flight to the dwarf planet ceres, which will begin when it leaves the asteroid vesta this summer. i hope you have seen the amazing results dawn has continued to send us about vesta itself. much of this is unexpected data that will help inform our future missions to asteroids with humans. information is still flowing in y the terabyte from hubble -- somebody asked do i mean terabytes? probably. unlike any.

, lro, mro, sdo, cassini, swift, chandra, fermi, and many others. kepler is documenting an ever- increasing number of exo- planets, showing that our solar system is just one of countless others. the james webb space telescope is being developed for launch in 2018. as the successor to the hubble space telescope, webb will allow us to continue to revolutionize our understanding of the universe by peering across space and back in time to the formation of the first stars and galaxies. it recently reached a hardware milestone with completion of the backplane that will support the telescope's beryllium mirrors, instruments, and thermal control systems the mars rover known as august. there it will demonstrate precision landing technology, enabling us to probe the mysteries of the red planet in unprecedented new ways.

this mission is also an excellent example of the synergy we're trying to nurture between exploration and science as the rover performs amazing research using the most sophisticated suite of tools mars. at the same time, we are also developing an integrated strategy to ensure that the next steps for mars exploration will support science as well as human exploration goals, and potentially take advantage of the 2018 to 2020 exploration window for mars missions. in space technology, there are about 1000 projects developing the technologies we need for tomorrow's missions. in the nation's laboratories and test chambers, nasa is driving advances in new high-payoff space technologies and developing and maturing broadly applicable technology in areas such as in-space propulsion, robotics, space power systems, deep-space communications, cryogenic fluid handling, and entry, descent, and landing, all of which are essential for exploration beyond low earth orbit.

the space technology program has recently given out the second round of space technology fellowships to help us develop tomorrow's leaders and benefit from their work now. you should also know that we haven't forgotten the first a in nasa. in aeronautics, our investments are driving technology breakthroughs for cleaner, safer, and more efficient aircraft. the millions of air travelers around the world will benefit from our work and our partnership with the greater aviation community to transform our air travel system. we are accelerating the nation's transition to the next generation air transportation system -- nextgen -- and making commercial aviation safer, more fuel efficient, quieter, and more environmentally friendly through investments in revolutionary concepts for air vehicles and air traffic management. so with the retirement of the shuttle, nasa is not only still

in business, we're pushing the envelope of current capabilities and bringing new ones to life. you can do a lot with the $17.7 billion budget request we have for fy 2013 and we will -- we are. our budget is stable, and while some tough decisions had to be made, that's true for everyone these days, from government agencies to households. i believe we have the right balance to accomplish great things, now and in the future. to come. our bigger dreams are just starting to come to fruition. at its core, nasa is more than ever about american innovation and american ingenuity. i want to stop a minute. students, stand up. look around, those of you who are older than students. look around at you. this is our future, and they are

from all over the world, and they believe that we are going to do the things that we have been talking about for decades. thank you all very much, but that is the future. [applause] the about keeping the u.s. world leader in space exploration and showcasing our knack for solving problems and improving life here on earth. our international partners expect us to be the leaders. if you have an effort and there is no leader, the you are going nowhere. the partners depend on us to get this done. we cannot disappoint them. i believe this is going to be an amazing ride. happening right now, and nasa

intends to lead the march to it. enthusiasm and are willing to join us in this great adventure. i thank you very much again for allowing me to be but you this morning. i have enjoyed it. i have time to take a few questions. thank you all very much. >> we have several microphones brown the auditorium. i will take the first one. thank you very much for your speech and your leadership. and the recent hearing, it struck me, something that you said, about the dragon vehicle. can we pull that image backed up? that is the perfect setting for question, and for what mr. bolden said at this hearing, and the gravitas of what is about

that happen. when dragon is grappled, locked into place, the hatch is opened, those two spacecraft become one and they start sharing moments of an mercia. could you expand on that. >> when we can next -- connect drag it to the international space station and at the crew verifies pressures on both sides of the hatch are equal so we can open the hatch and they open the hatch, the breathing air is the same. it is one support system. that is really important. for the week or so that dragon will be there, our crew members will be going out as if it is another module on the station. it stops being spacex's module

and it becomes a part of the international space station. that is important. we get a lot of -- not say that -- we have a lot of detractors who will not let go of progress. and the fact that history is being made today -- while not the same as man's first footsteps on the moon, this is an incredibly prehistoric milestone and sets the whole tone for a new path on which the u.s. and our partners are entering. when nasa does not have to spend its time and assets on providing access to lower earth orbit -- that is what american industry will do, and you will see not just over time, industry from other nations, and that is what we're looking for. thanks very much. >> all right. the capsule is confirmed.

i was just told. [applause] >> is there a possibility of a sequestration later on in the year, how will that affect nasa programs. -- ? will that affect your programs? >> we do not spend analysis on what sequestration will do. we have been told to move along with the plans we have, work on what we hope to do with the budget when is settled, and if sequestration comes, which we hope the congress and the administration, all the reasonable people can agree on, we do not have to do that. sequestration is across-the- board cuts across the federal government.

i do not need to tell you what that will mean in terms of the programs we add. we're not planning for sequestration. we're not developing alternative plans for the budget or any of that stuff. we're being bold and the eternal optimists. >> a question about the terrestrial planet finder. what is the status put is that still operational, and a little bit about the after biology program? >> for some reason i was looking at my coffee cup and missed your first statement? >> terrestrial planet finder -- is that still online, and a little bit about astra biology, the future of nasa? >> i can tell a little bit about astro biology -- let me find out about the terrestrial planets guide because, i do not know,

but we will find out for you. astro biology -- i was premature in my assessment. feet is delayed? ok. -- the feed is delayed? ok. that is what happens when you look at pictures. many of you may know that our center forecaster biology -- for astro biology is at the ames research center, and i have visited there and there is incredible work going on. when you talk about sending humans to mars, the structural -- construction materials, food -- if you're talking about weight, you're trying to get it down. the more palaver areas of research -- more elaborate areas of research, producing

food, with microbes. they're showing microbes are developing to developed cement. it is as strong as cement samples we have gotten from the major cement makers here in the united states. aster biology is playing a critical role in that. >> i noticed that president obama has set us a goal of sending a manned mission to an asteroid in 200035, 23 years from now. is that a little underwhelming? i have the impression it will probably be cancelled. then there will be no goal after that. instead, should we not go to mars, or something more ambitious? >> it is 2025, and we did not

have an asterisk identified. it is very difficult to find -- i know it sounds like a piece of cake. we have got to do several things. we have to identify an asteroid that is bigger than the rocket ship, and right now there are a small number of candidates that will be available in 2025. the other thing about an asteroid mission, and like going to a planet, if you pick an asteroid that is going to be in your window for a short period of time and you miss it, then you have missed it. there is no polk ab will hold and wait until it comes back around. we will not do that. i do not think it is underwhelming to say 2025 for an asterisk. going directly to mars would be nice. he did not have the capability. there are other nations who think we should go to other places.

our ultimate goal is mars in 2003. that is why you see the heavy lift launch vehicle. all of this arm milestones on getting humans to mars by 2013. >> if we go to an asteroid, what are we going to do there? where not going to exploit it. >> i ask that you talk to the guys who are talking about mining pastorates. i do not second guess anybody. i try to facilitate the success of entrepreneurs and people who dream big dreams and people who talk about mining asteroids would want to discuss it with you. i am not the one to do that. >> a question in the back there. >> what can a grass-roots volunteer education advocacy organization due to best help nasa achieve our mutual goals?

>> one of your basic goals and objectives is that the fostering of education and the like. we have technical challenges with going to space. we have a major societal challenge in solving the plug shall -- puzzle of how to get kids interested in science, math and engineering and being able to track them. we do not have very good metrics right now. i can tell you about nasa, which of our programs are successful in reaching kids and bring them to stem-related jobs. the work the nss is doing is key. collaboration with other nonprofits, plus, american industry -- we talk about

industry now, trying to collaborate when possible because there are limited funds for everything, and you find that the first thing that gets cut is education. wrong. i do not think that is the right tack to take. we need to get around it right now. the work you are doing is key. >> good morning, general bolden. you mentioned during your talk about being an optimist, i have an optimistic question to ask, especially in light of the birthing going on here with a dragon capsule. is it possible or are there any plans for an acceleration of commercial space flight activities based on this success that we are all looking at now and based on the plans with the competitors, basically, of

spacex? are there plans to have a crewed capsule going to iss sooner than 2017 if these successes continue? >> that depends on the ability of the private companies to get to the development process with their vehicles. we have taken a guess. we have set 2017 as the operational ready date for a commercial crew because nasa's budget -- if we did support we think we can do, then this is technically where we think companies will be when they are able to provide support for crew. some companies say they will bring ready to years earlier. if that happens, then that is great. right now based on our funding alone, as an investor, if you will, we see 2017 as the date. that is too long, much too long,

i admit, but that is based where on congressional funding. we continue to work with congress, and i will say the bipartisan support we have gotten and continue to get in this day and age is incredible. everybody wants nasa to be successful, everybody wants the private industry to be successful. in spite of what you may hear and what you may think, is that everybody is not a believer at the same level just yet. after today, i think you will find that there are many more believers then there were an hour ago, because -- [laughter] think about it. at nasa, i tell our family, let's plan well and mets st. if we deliver things on plan and on cost, people will believe what we say. the reason we are struggling

right now is because prior to this administration we were not getting the funding requested, and we were not able to deliver on time and on cost. anytime you get less money for something that you forecast needing, a couple things happen. either you stretched it -- which means it is more expensive. it never gets cheaper. i think we are on the right path. 2017 is a conservative estimate, depending on how industry performs. we could be quicker. i keep my fingers crossed. >> one last question. >> can we get one more round of applause for this successful grappling? [applause] that is what i am talking about. >> question for you is you were

talking about how a contract for the -- were closed pit at you not selected somebody that could possibly be doing it would rocket boosters? >> if i said that i was in error. i did not say contracts were closed. i said work on the sls and orion continues. while we have prime contractors working, we still have that a number of things open. advanced boosters. when we sls in 2017, it will be with the existing five-segment solid rocket motor intended for the shuttle. it will have shuttle main engines that have been modified to be the core for a liquid

hydrogen-minute put oxygen main propulsion system, and the structure itself will be but we have today. you will have stainless steel tankage and the like. when we go to mars in the future with humans, ideally we will have composite tanks. we will have a lot of different components that are much lighter and more resilient than what we have today. that is the purpose of our technology data element program. when i tell people the system is and the evolving system, it is not something -- what we are used to in the past is we decide on a design, set the architecture, and we go with it. 10 years later you end up with a vehicle that is 10 years old and it has not even flown. the shuttle was that way. we made an upgrade to the shuttle when i was in the astronaut office, the inertial

measurement units. we took some from the be-one bomber in terms of navigation. we found the architecture was so rigid that you would have had to design the software package on the shuttle complete to accommodate the new inertial measurement unit. we could not do what we were able to do. what we said sls is we want it to be open market share open architecture. software decisions will not be made until a month out. spacex slid because they made some late software modifications, which meant incredible flexibility. nasa it is not ready to do that yet as flexibly as industry is. it took us a while. people need to understand this is a tema. spacex's name was in the

spotlight, but some of the delays were ones that we had to in part because we were trying to catch up. it is an incredible team. this morning, listening to the decisions being made real-time -- how do we deal with the things we're seeing? how do we deal with life when it occurs? things happen that we did not anticipate. in going through what are the failure modes that can occur, the team said we think we understand this, here is what we need to do. the first reversal came from hawthorne. they informed mission control that we are top and back out a little bit because we see something we do not like. that is great, that is what you want the team to do, and that is what they did. i want to thank you very much for allowing me to spend time with you, and hopefully you are as excited as i m.

the future is incredibly bright for us, and we just have to stick to it and the resilience and did not give up because we're doing ok. thanks very much. [applause] >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> we would like to present you to this -- with this small token of our appreciation. you see the earth surrounded by the moon, mars, and fittingly today, the international space station . please accept that on our

behalf. [applause] >> wisconsin voters had to the polls to decide whether to recall scott walker after he was elected. tonight he debates his democratic opponent, tom barr ett. you can see the debate at 9:00 p.m. on c-span. after the debate, commencement addresses from graduations are around the country. starting at 10:00 p.m., no. would university in west palm beach. then new york university. then the university antilock law school. later, paris and a christian university. finally, university here in washington, d.c.

. earlier today eric cantor released a memo to republican house members laying out the summer legislative agenda. among the bills next week, the military construction veterans affairs bill, intelligence programs, and the fda user fee bill. he expects a vote on the bush- era tax cut before the august recess. you can see the memo online at c-span.org. next joe biden speaks to survivors of fallen military members ahead of memorial day. he recounted the difficulty of grieving for his wife and daughter after they were killed in the 1970's. this is 45 minutes.

[applause] >> a philosopher once wrote that french interest happiness and at abates misery. i bet we have some technical folks that can fix that. all right. how is that? not yet? i am glad this is happening with me now. [laughter] all right, how is that? i wanted to share a favorite quotes. a philosopher once wrote that franchot improves happiness and

abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief. you are loved, america remembers, and we are now here for each other. i am bonnie carroll, and this is a our family, a family we never wanted to be a part of, but i cannot imagine a more patriotic, a more passionate, or a pro uder group of americans than to be here this weekend. thank you all. [applause] we have come together with a lot of support and hard work, and i would like to recognize our amazing partners at the new york

--e foundation, prudential [unintelligible] please stand up. [applause] this is our time and we are so fortunate to have very special guests with us today to honor our loved ones and offer words of comfort. taps is proud to be part of the campaign and to work closely on a regular basis with the first lady and dr. jill biden. we also count the chairman of the joint chiefs and his wife as friends. ladies and gentlemen, taps families, it is with pride that i introduced our dear friend, a vice president joe biden, and jill biden, accompanied by the joint chiefs.

♪ >> thank you for that kind introduction, and good morning, everyone. i want to welcome you to washington, d.c., and i hope you feel right at home while you are here. i am honored to be with all of you. memorial day is just a few days away, and if i can say one thing to all of you and your families, it is thank you. you are our heroes. i have been truly overwhelmed by that bravery and courage of our men and women in uniform, and

inspired by the dignity and a sense of patriotism that military families like yours exhibit every day. each of you like our service men and women, veterans, and their families, have dedicated so much to your country, and we are truly honored by your sacrifice. it is our sacred duty to honor the service of those who have sacrificed for our country, and american banks you. our thoughts and prayers are with all of you. this weekend on memorial day and every day. and now it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce general dempsey, someone, along with his wife, who has done so much to support our military families. general dempsey? [applause] >> thank you.

thank you. kind, but we are here to honor you this weekend, as we try to do every day of the year. i want to thank the vice president and dr. biden for being here. we get to share the stage with them, and on many occasions, many events like this for families of the aggrieved, wounded warriors, and i can tell you that their heart is exactly where you would want it to be. it is an honor to share the stage with the two of you. i like to tell folks about this day in history because it helps us to connect our past, so on this day in history in 1986 you might recall the phrase hands across america, because 6.5 million people linked hands from

battery park in new york city to long beach, california, and they were doing it in the name of homelessness and hunger. i think about that in terms of what taps does, because what you are doing is linking parts across america. you have a special place in your heart for taps. we have a special place in our heart for the founder of caps who 18 years ago decided to link hearts across america, so why don't we get a round of applause for body. -- bonnie. [applause] most americans have not had a life-altering experience of being handed a folded flag, but those and this room have. you are the face of our two war

is. what we want to tell you is your example expert -- inspires us, that we understand and honor your sacrifice and what you have done for your nation and promised that we will never forget it. i had the privilege to spend some time with your children. they are and believable. they are great-looking kids, and now i know why there are so great looking. each of them has a soldier, sailor, or veteran mentor, and it is the highlight of my year. i told bonnie will not miss another one of these for as long as she continues to invite me, so -- [applause] we're with you. i promise you that. beatty's and gentlemen, i now

have the privilege and the honor to introduce a man who epitomizes service, and support for our military families, the vice president of the united states, joe biden. >> thank you all very much. thank you. thank you. thank you. please be seated. i am jill biden's husband joe, as i am known here in washington and in my household. general dempsey, i have been around washington for a while, and i was the folks who was once chairman of the foreign relations committee for a long time, and i have met a lot of incredible military personnel. and some remarkable women and

men. they have worn the uniform. they all had different qualities. i want to tell you just for a second about why i like dempsey so much and why i like his wife even more. i really mean this. these guys get it. these guys get it. you're not a number. you are not a soldier or a soldier's family. these guys wear it in their heart. have been with them when we visited bases where some of your heroes had fallen. i watch how deenie response, i watched the general. he is a tough guy, but i watch

him and you can hear it is heartbreaking almost. there is something special about both of them. i guess you know it, too, but when he says he will be here as long as he is invited, he means it. he is not here because it is his job as the chairman of the torre chiefs of staff. she is not here because of that. if you saw his family -- by the way, his children serve. they are in harm's way now. [applause] i watch jill and deeni =ee talk, and our son has spent a year in iraq. when he came home, is going to

sound strange to you, maybe to anybody but this audience, we felt a little guilty when he came home. because there are so many, so many funerals i have attended, so many bases i have visited, and, you know, not all losses are equal. not all losses are equal. what used to drive me crazy, i could be wearing one of those red shorts, but when i was a kid i got elected to the united states senate out of nowhere on a november 7, and i got a phone call like you guys got, someone

walking up to me on december 18. i was down in washington. a i was the first united states senator i ever knew. i got a phone call. my family had been in an accident. just like you guys know, by the time of the phone, you just knew, didn't you? you knew when you walked up pat, you knew when the call came, you just felt it in your bones, something bad happened. and i knew. i don't know how i knew. the caller said my wife was dead, my daughter was dead, and i was not sure about how my sons were going to make it. a tractor-trailer broadsided them going to christmas shopping and in one instance killed two of them.

well -- i have to tell you i used to resent -- i knew people meant well, they would say, i know how you feel. [applause] i know they meant well, let you knew they did not have any damn idea. is that right? that black hole you feel in your chest, like you are being sucked back into its, inc at your kids and most of you have kids here, and knowing it was the first time in my life i realized someone could go out and i should not say this to the press here, but it is so important --

[laughter] ift the first time in my la could understand why somebody could consciously commit suicide, because they had been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart they would never get there again, they would never be there ever again. that is how a lot of you feel appeared by the way, the moms and dads -- no parent should be predeceased by their son or daughter. i unfortunately had that experience, too. but you know what? i do not know about you guys, but i was angry. a man, i was angry. you all probably handled it better than i did.

i really mean it. i was angry. not that it is relevant, but i am a practicing catholic, and i was a practicing catholic at the time, but i was mad at god. oh, man. i remember being in the rotunda walking to get to the plane to go home to get to identify -- i remember looking up saying, god, as if i was talking to got myself, you cannot be good. how can you be good? you probably handled it better than i did, but i was angry. and i have a great family, and this woman literally save my

life five years later, but i had a great family. my mother, brothers, sisters, my best friend in the world, and they are all there for me. there is still something gigantic missing, and some of you, the loss occurred two years ago, some of you it occurred two months ago. just when you think maybe i am going to make it, you're writing down the road and you see a flower that reminds you, you hear a tune on the radio, or you look up in the night and you think maybe i am not going to make it, because you feel at that moment the way you felt the

day you got the news. and out of the blue i got a phone call one day from a guy, was a much older skype than me. he was a former governor -- [baby cries] you do not have to worry about it. [laughter] i got a call from a former governor from new jersey, and he said, i am calling to express my sympathy. i know what it is like. when i was attorney general, i was a young guy, and i lived across a green in trenton the state capital from my office. i was attorney general. one day i am walking back across the green from lunch, a block away, and a woman came running

across the green and said, attorney general, your wife just dropped dead. i remember what it was like. i started listening. he said, you know what helped me put he said, and i recommend it to you. starke to keep a calendar -- start to keep a counter, and every night to go to bed, market in that calendar whether the day was a 1, as bad as the day you heard the news, or a 10. for aill not have 10's long time. measure, mark it down. after two months, take out that calendar and put it -- and you will find that you're down days are just as bad as the first day, but here is what happens -- instead of being like this, it

gets further and further apart. that is when you know you are going to make yet. that is when you know when you are going to make it, when you realize, the measure of your progress, that is when you know might make it. and all of you -- i do not know all of you. bennett your kids and grandkids in the other room, and you know as well as i do that they need you. most people understand what you went through? you need them more than they need you. you need them more than they need you. you'll find something remarkable happened. my mother, a sweet wonderful irish lady, said something at the time the accident happened

that i thought was the coolest thing when i came out to identify them, and she said, joey -- adored my wife and my daughter -- out of everything terrible, something good will happen if you look for it. i thought, what a good thing to say. you know what you are going to find out? their relationship with your son or daughter, which is already close, is gone to be like a bond of steel that runs through your chest and there and wraps you together. you'll find with your brothers and sisters that they are run to beat each other's best friends their entire life, everybody's friends, their brothers and sisters. au're going to find there is degree of difference in death of relationship that you never thought could happen, and i was a good and caring father before the accident.

in a bizarre way, is almost harder for the parents of our fallen here as, because -- heroes, because no parent and expects a child to predeceased them, never. the irony is a wind chill, the most incredible -- when jill, most incredible woman in the war, makes a wreath for us on december 18, when we have a special mass at the grave site, when the bill on mother's day walks me out to the cemetery and brought flowers i bought for my mom and she brought the favorite flower for my deceased wife and daughter, what happens is that there really is hope.

ache in the back never goes away, but it gets controllable. when i asked jill to marry me, and i hope this is important to you, and i had to escort by the way, five times. [laughter] that is not a joke. that is the god's truth. this is five years after the accident, five times, and the last time i came back and i and id on her befodorr, said, you have now engaged my pride. this is the last time i am going to ask. i'm going to ask -- she is at the door, does not let me walk in. let me say to you, i am going to ask you -- don't say anything --

i am going to ask you will you marry me? you do not have to tell me when, you just have to tell me if, and if you say no, that's it. she looked at me and she said, yes. then she later tells my sister, when asked why she finally said yes, she said i fell in love with the boys. [laughter] it is too soon, it is not reasonable, it is beyond your expectation, and as a matter of fact, you're going to go through periods when after a while you may see somebody you're going to have an interest in and your car to feel guilty as hell, this awful feeling of guilt. but just remember two things -- keep thinking what your husband

or wife would want you to do. t is an keepg what i remembering that those kids of yours are him or her, the rest of their life, blood of my blood, bone of my bone the. -- of my it can and will get better. there will come a day when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. it will happen. my prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later. the only day i have more experience than you in is this. it will come.

you have one advantage over me. how can i say you have an advantage over me. you have that incredible thing called the military. you are not alone. just sitting around the table with people you did not know before. how do you say your prayers? what do you do when they asked about it? that is why i think what you have done, bonnie, is so critical. most of us go through what you are going through totally alone. after a while, it does not make the loss any easier. after awhile, you feel like you

are relying on your family too much. you feel like you cannot say to my mother or my sister who moved in to help me take care of my kids. if you have somebody to talk to , for what it is worth, i saw it help in how to deal with my kids. you have that advantage as well. it became solace for me to talk to people i did not know, but called me to say they had been through it. they gave me their number and i called. just to have someone to say, you can make it. and on to each other. -- hang onto each other.

i cannot tell you how deeply the five of us on this state feel about the sacrifices you have made for this country. that does not fill the black hole. but you should know, only 1% of you have fought these wars. much less, thank god, of those who have fought to the wars are going through what you are going through. we owe you more than we could ever, ever repay you. my prayer is that that smile will come sooner or later. i promise you that will come. god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. [applause]

>> a true message from the heart. thank you so much to our special guest. [applause] we are honored to have such special friends as the chairman and his wife and vice president and dr. jill biden. you could see from their words and their presence with us here today in their words of encouragement how much their hearts go out to each and every one of us and how much they truly know and understand. they are with us and they support us and we are pleased and lucky to have them join us today. thank you very much to our special guests. [applause]

it is now my pleasure to introduce a lady that most of you know. she is a person who has been part of the t.a.p.s. family since its inception. she gives us her words of wisdom, her laughter, and her humor. she is a dear friend and we all love her so very much. it is my pleasure to introduce dr. darcy simms. [applause] >> i will tell you, i have never

had to follow the vice president. [laughter] 4 give me a i am not as sparkling. -- forgive me if i am not as sparkling. how amazing for him to share his story. we have a couple minutes before lunch so i get to fill in while they are fixing the sandwiches. thank you all for coming, for your courage, for your patience today, for putting up with the extra stuff that has to go on when we have special guests. i am a military doctor. i am a military wife. i am its military -- i am and military duaghter. i am a military mother.

i have a dream and that dream was severed. when my son died when his father was dropping bombs in another war, there was no t.a.p.s. when you walk out our corridors, you will have a smile on your face because it was not -- out of corridors, you will smile because it was not acceptable cry. i see the suitcases under the table. you are going, i do not know if i am going to stay. i will give you another 10 minutes and maybe i will go. please give us the next 10 minutes. please give us the next hour and the next day. every single person in this room has been where you are now,

everyone of us. everyone of us who wears a red shirt has been where you are now. you see us hugging each other like a family reunion. that is what this is. this is our family. the opening speakers gave us a couple of tips. one is up a little patience. have a hugs. . hug of the other a lot. -- hug each lot. you need -- hug each other a lot. said in a chair in the lobby and snooze -- sit a chair in the

lobby and snooze. go and say, that was not where i thought it was. that is not where i am today. this is your time. do what you need to do to deal. be prepared for all of the -- do what you need to do to heal. sometimes we come with a heart that is heavier this year. you are going to need a lot of kleenex. kleenex is not enough. oh, but a box up here for short people. what i have learned is that this is not enough.

do you want to borrow a tissue? thank you very much. if people half tissue, they will give us one. i hope you are over that soon. it has been three or four days. you should be better by now. by the third or 14th -- third or fourth today, it is worse. as we go through the months of early greeks, it seems as if we are falling into -- early months of grief, it seemed as if we are falling into frosting. it seemed that i would like to carry 30 or 40 of these packs

glued me. every morning, go into the bathroom and gets some toilet paper. i loved them . you know i am going to do this. you just stick it into your pocket and out you go. is anyone going to notice? yes. everyone is going to notice that. are they going to say something to you? no. how do we know that? we have all seen someone come out of the rest room with a little bit on their shoe. but we do not say anything to them. so no one is going to say anything to you. if they do, i want you to say clearly, i am bereaved.

no one understands what that word means. they will go, okay. that is fine. if they continued the conversation, just say, i am prepared. i have never had anybody go any farther than that. -- furt thather. further than that. if you ever last with your husband or doctor -- daughter you can do, less than bring it back. -- d lesso no it back. -- no less than bring it back.

you have other choices. do i want to wake up this morning? what am i going to do with the stuff. as grief moves through us, we have other choices. can i put up with strange people with toilet paper in their pockets? what do you choose to bring with you? what do you choose to remember. you can carry ander and hurt and bitterness for the rest of your life-- anger and her -- hurt and bitterness for the rest of your life. you can choose joy. you can choose gratitude. you and i are blessed beyond any measure we can count because

someone walked into our life. but they were born into our life for we snuck into -- they snuck into our life, we are glad that they are here. i would not have missed a moment. the truly believes -- berea the worldved are those who have never -- bereaved in the world are those who have never loved at all. and we truly do. they are forever and always right here. we talk in the present tense in this room because they are still here. it is what makes the tears come down our faces in the beginning. i hope so -- i hope someday they will bring a smile to your face.

please turn to each other. please find that ishug waiting -- hug that is waiting. there are those who will sit all night if you need them to. not in sadness. but in gratitude, in gratitude that somebody loved them that much. they died, but i did not lose them. and neither did you. changing the language. yes they died, and that is a hard thing to say. what ever you believe religiously or spiritually, wherever you believe they are,

they are right here, right now, in our fabric to wrap around us in the darkness of night never to be forgotten. shoes and their -- anger for now, choose to read one more time. -- to breathe one more time. you and i are linked to the love of someone we still love. it is in this room. i want you to spend the weekend telling your story d. -- tellingg your-

your death story. you and i will hug for that. i choose to join at every single moment because i was loved by a and a old man and then a lot told -- a little dog. we now in this room are forever linked to the law of of our

husbands and wives and sons and daughters -- to the love of our husbands and wives and sons and daughters. we are in this room now a family circle broken by death but then did by love. -- mended by love. welcome home. you are in the right place. welcome home. [applause]

>> wisconsin voters head to the polls early next month to recall governor scott walker. tonight, walker debates his democratic opponent. you can see the debate on c-span and c-span radio and on c- span.org. after the debate, commencement addresses. supreme court justice sonia sotomayor at new york university. the u.s. solicitor general act -- at a law school and arne duncan at howard university in washington, d.c..

and monday, memorial day ceremonies. at 1:00 p.m., observance at the vietnam memorial. the president is speaking there and we will hear remarks from leon panetta, ken salazar, and others. the master of ceremonies is tomm selleck. next a discussion >> on the -- >> next a discussion on what is

in store for president obama or mitt romney. >> i am the director of the campaign 2012 project. this is six or seven of our series of events on the critical issues of the campaign and the critical issues of what the results of this campaign will have to manage. for those of you have not been to prior events, i apologize for this being repetitious. for those of you who have not been two previous events, i want to describe how this project works. we have divided up the world of the campaign into 12 major issues.

some of them foreign, some of them domestic, some of them hybrid. we have asked a brookings scholar or a pair of brookings scholars to write a paper situating the discussion of the issue in the context of the campaign. talking about the president's record on the subject and the critique of the record by the opponent and trying to synthesize the merits of the critique into advice for the incoming administration whether it is the second term of the obama administration or a mitt romney administration. we had to pretend we did not know for a long time. the subjects for today -- for each of these subjects, we ask

two groups of other brookings scholars to write a response paper. sometimes these were simply arguments, people who disagreed with the pieces of the main paper. sometimes it was to add texture or richness and look at the issue from a different point of view. there are 12 groups of three papers where we are having events like this where the author of the main paper and the author of the response paper gets together with a moderator from politica = to discuss the paperco -- politico to discuss

the paper. this is a subject that has been criticized and it has been playing a large role in decisions of american power. there is a volume called campaign 2012. some of these volumes we have already had the events for. some of them we will be doing events for over the remaining months of the campaign.

our response papers were written by homi kharas, a senior fellow. to moderate is isaac dovere. >> i have been playing -- pay a lot of attention to what the campaign has -- paying a lot of attention to what the campaign

has been doing. there are traditional ways for democrats and republicans to talk about during the campaign -- democrats and republicans to talk during the campaign. if you could set the table for us and tell us where you see the main issue and the relevance to the united states and how the different approaches that mitt romney and barack obama have taken might play out come 2013. >> we are in a moment of uncertainty and doubt about the nature of the world we are confronting. there is an awful lot that is

changing. the u.s. economy is changing at a scale that is -- was not true 20 years ago. there is great influence of united -- international security. the middle east is in turmoil. there are a number of things creating uncertainty and doubt in the american public mindset. this is part of a mischaracterized debate about american decline. there are a lot of discussions and debates about american decline. it is the wrong way to discuss the problem. there are new factors in the world. there are new economic relationships and we have to adjust our policies.

we have lived for 65 years with an international system characterized by two fundamental realities. our power, by our own choice, is embedded in a series of institutions, alliances, and arrangements for partnerships and collaborations. i do not see anything in either campaign that is going to change those two fundamental realities. the core tenets are likely to remain true over a long period of time. the reality is, we confront new challenges. india is asserting itself on the international stage. mexico and brazil are seeking new voices in the international

institutions. we are economically dependent on those countries in ways we were not before. we will hear a lot of rhetoric about this. romney will produce obama for apologizing for -- about of apologizing for america and not believing in american exceptionalism. each side will try to frame the other as not having the tools to manage america's role in the world. we do not know what mitt romney thinks about foreign policy, because he has not written about it. i find his world -- his stance

indistinguishable from obama's. >> the discussion of these issues on the campaign trail of facts these deeper things that are going on, the negotiations, the conversations with foreign nations and how it affects those relationships. >> thank you. i will pick up on what bruce said. we could not find much to dispute in bruc and his colleagues have said. e what he said is essentially

good news -- colleagues have said -- bruce and his colleagues have said. there is not a great deal of difference. that is a good thing. there have been a lot of positive features to president obama's foreign policy, which demonstrate some degree of continuity home with the second term of the george w. bush administration, which is reliance on the g-20. i do not think that we, the american people, nor our friends abroad, need to worry that there will be a radical breached. to go to the -- there will be a

radical breach. there is a tragic irony about american democracy. the function of american democracy that is most important and consequential to the american election coincides with the election of a third senate and an election in the house. that is a big day. it is consequential for us and for the world. often, the outcome is sensible and one that we can be proud of on a community, and non-partisan basis. the process by which we get to that, the nature of the national

discourse is pretty dreadful. it has been about as bad this time around as we have seen it in a long time. it tends to start as much more of a shouting match. we were already getting a sense of the charges that will be made in each direction. that guy is a fat cat who straps his labrador retriever on his station wagon when he goes on vacation and is not sensitive to the needs of the american people. ist addai's middle name huss -- that guy's middle name

is hussein. american leadership is what we have been asked to address. the most consequential function of american democracy is one of the most unedifying. we are the inventors of modern democracy. you must hear the same things that the four of us here when we travel. what is going on in this country and we are you going to get this over and go back to leading the world? the second consequence is it has

an extremely negative affect on the ability of the united states government and the president himself to conduct foreign policy because a lot of foreign- policy requires the cooperation of the legislative branch. it is not just difficult, it is impossible to imagine getting any major treaty through. maybe there is some chance of a treaty getting through. there are some optimistic signs. one of all of our favorite characters from american literature is often quoted these

days. we have met the enemy, and it is us. >> your paper take some issue with the ideas that have been late for work. the are different ideas and different pathways that have been laid in front of us. if you could talk a little bit about that and where, specifically, you see that river breaking -- where you see that -- reverberating.

>> things are not going that well in the global economy. the fundamental institutions take care of the world -- the economy is still doing its job and regardless of who comes in they will still be able to do their job. i am not sure that that is still the case. the reform of u.s. financial institutions has been going slowly. one of the big destabilizing

factors is that people have little confidence that the international monetary fund will come to their support in ways that they would find useful or reliable. a lot of that comes from the lessons that some economies have drawn from the intervention by the fund at the time of the 1997-1998 financial crisis in east asia. there is this sense that the imf and the world bank need to reform and they need to have greater weight given to the emerging economies as part of that process. that reform is going so slowly that it may be threatened.

the past the g-20 agreed on is most certainly not going to be -- the path that the g-20 agreed on is most certainly not going to be met. they came together with a coordinated fiscal stimulus. right now, the g-20 is floundering a little bit. the crisis has moved to being a global crisis to be an individual country crisis. individual countries are taking their own routes to thinking about how to deal with this. the degree of macroeconomic coordination across countries is limited. the traditional u.s. leadership role has been limited.

it is posing a problem. the question becomes, which administration is more likely to pursue a multilateralist approach toward global economic governance regarding the collective requirements in dealing with global economies. policy coordination at the macro level of our food security or climate change, quite frankly. -- food security hr cliveo dick cheneyr --- or food security or

climate change, quite frankly. at the end of the day, it comes down to a question of, do we believe the world's problems can be used fully solved their collective action -- useful lee -- usefully salt through

collective action. -- solved through collective action. you on thisrt with question. when you look at what mitt romney and barack obama have been saying -- we can discern what mitt romney's foreign- policy is even though he has not discussed it. statements that they are making that you are not sure makes sense in their understanding of the global situation. >> i do not know about specific

statements. in some areas, what i would say is backed -- that new alliances need to be created. last year was the first year since the war that the key 70 economy accounted for less than half of global economic -- the g-7 economies accounted for less than half of the global economic block. the thing that has held the global economy to gather, which was the g-7 and the trans

atlantic alliance is giving way to different alliances. will they be put together on the basis of economic agreements or security agreements. my guess is that is going to be quite different. when you think about the positions that have been taken on countries like taiwan and the relationship with china, it is likely to be quite different. >> have there been things that barack obama or mitt romney have been saying that do not make sense?

>> i would go back to my agreement and i do not think it will be all that different.

we are going to sail right between the two of them. that is basically following the essential comte source of the obama policy, which has -- is until -- essential contours of the george w. bush policy. there are signals out there that it would be a foreign policy that would have a lot of continuity. remember that governor romney presided over the passage into state law in masses -- massachusetts a policy on

climate change that was more enlightened than the rest of america. it is matched only by the emissions policy of governor schwarzenegger in california. who knows who his secretary of state might be. there are out -- there are a lot of names floating out there. one person mentioned believes that there should be stakeholders in an international economy. that is pretty close to bruce's paper. there is a lot of cheap bashing of other countries. every country have to hope and

pray it is never mentioned during an american presidential campaign. the two exceptions are israel and great britain. of course, china has come up a lot. russia has come up a lot. governor romney has decided to declare russia the no. 1 strategic threat to the united states. -- the clear russia the number one strategic threat to the united states. china is always mentioned. i can assure you -- all you have to do is read henry kissinger's latest book on china -- candidate romney is going to get a lot of advice between now until he gets anywhere near the

convention to go easy on china- bashing. that is not what is going to win in an election. it is the economy. >> there are a lot of things that he said that i agree with. there is a collective action challenge that is real. i look back at successive administrations. there is a clear pattern. republicans run as if american potter -- american power unfettered is how you will run the world. democrats run against that experience and say they will work within the mainstream. what is the biggest foreign policy success that obama has had? the unilateral killing of a

terrorist. probably a violation of international law. there are 29,000 u.n. peacekeepers in the world. the security council agreement on proliferation was extended hundred the bush administration. the tension between the unilateralism and the multilateralism ships within the administration is. -- shifts with end administrations. -- within administrations. these are independent powers. they have their own interests.

there are places where their interests are aligned with ours. it has proven harder than the massachusetts obama -- harder than be out -- the obama administration expected. which administration is likely to have the better administration to continue that work of nicotine together those challenges -- knitting -- knitting together those challenges.

>> what can we say for sure that president obama or a present romney would do? are there tea leaves we should be reading based on the rhetoric they are saying out on the trail? >> this is one of the issues where obama has tried to portray romney -- romney has tried to portray obama as too sought. what would be rounded's first step on iran -- portray obama as too soft. what would be romney's first step on iran? i think there is going to be a

lot more continuity on those things. >> one thing for sure would be the comprehensive test ban theory -- test ban treaty. the refusal of the senate to ratify it in 1999 was a dark day for the country. i think that is much less likely in a romney administration. climate, i do not know. for the reasons i indicated earlier, governor romney will have to revert to his pre- campaign mode in his attitudes and what he is willing to do. the idea is in favor of him picking up on the climate issue

are pretty strong. -- is pretty strong. >> it is interesting. it is possible, but by no means certain that a romney presidency would treat international institutions and alliances like the bush administration did in its first term, as read me to throw to the right wing of the party. it is not what romney says. if you read his speeches and in his talks, it is not what he says. it is possible that, depending on the contours -- he has to

protect his base. george bush did that in his first term and quickly discovered it does not work. and he moved back. he was one of the most multilateral presence in -- president in history. on the economic issues, i do not think you have any choice. there is no unilateral option now in any real sense of that term. >> you will want to respond to some of this. what sort of predictor the campaign rhetoric will be toward what they do once in office. -- predictor will be campaign rhetoric be once they are in office? >> to some extent, the >> at

works in economic terms when the -- to some extent, that worked in economic terms when the u.s. could afford to do that. a lot of the international financial institutions are in such a vulnerable condition that for two years, they continued without a strong reform. other institutions will start to crop up. they will be developed, run, and managed by people who exclude the united states. you will start to get a fragmentation of that global economic management. was that is set and france, it will become difficult to go back and say, -- set and framed, it

will be difficult to go back. the space for the kind of experimentation we were talking about may not be there any longer. not to be overly dramatic about it, one could kill off or severely damaged some of the existing institutions if they are not given the tender loving care they actually need at this particular moment. the only person who can give us that tender loving care is the president of the united states. >> we just had the president of dartmouth nominated to be the president -- there is talk about this perhaps being the last american president of the world bank, and there is also talk about what we will no longer

call to the met -- the developing countries, but the emerging powers, creating a related or somewhat separate facility. a word abouty to wor that? >> a couple of things. it will be found that he will take over the world bank and he will have to contract lending by 1/2, because all of the emanation is being shot off in dealing with this current crisis. he has got no mud -- budget increase. it is going to be a really tough situation for him to manage, but at the same time, the kinds of

challenges that the world bank was set up to deal with are if anything getting bigger. the infrastructure needs of developing countries, especially because of climate change and the need to climate-proof, have more adaptation, mostly on infrastructure, because those are the along with assets, right now developing countries are spending something like $900 billion a year on this path. people are talking about a number that is at least double that as being part of their needs. what agency is going to be able to actually do that in a sustainable fashion, generate that kind of financial channel, and if it is not going to be the world bank, and there are going to be other institutions

developing. whether that will take the form of the so-called bricks bank or not, i have my doubts, because the bricsa is a nice acronym, but as a political grouping, the challenges they face dwarf anything that the u.s. faces in pre together new challenges. bruce is exactly right. is not easy to have the convergence of interests, and i do not think on this issue that they do have that kind of conversions. that does not mean that the things they are talking about are not of the enormous importance and relevance, and they are saying we need a global institution that has a new mandate and in fact a mandate to actually do the something about

green grass, climate proofing. need a global institution that reflects the changes in membership, and partly that is the more significant weight of the emerging economies, but also partly a function of the fact that we're entering into worlds where non-state or quality state actors are important on the economic front. whether you are talking about sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, they have to be brought in to these kinds of institutions, and these institutions will only be able to operate if they leverage that kind of capital in a much more serious way. then finally, there needs to be and modernization of modalities. the idea you will take money from belgian dentists who save

to indian infrastructure investors, that is going to be the channel. for all the problems that it has brought us financially, financial innovation in the world, the way it has parceled that, has generated a whole range of new modalities. finance has to be modernized to these new kinds of risk factors and a new global institution probably would need to be much more agile in its deployment of those kinds of risk-bearing instruments. it could be headquartered in istanbul or in south africa. >> i would like you to talk as you do about how you see preston

romney or president obama sitting into that over the course of the next few years? >> two things that i feel strongly about. the first was when you look at things like the brics -- it is clear that each member of the bric, the relationship to the united states is more important than at the relationship of the others. >> this is brazil, russia, india, and china, an odd grouping. >> an odd grouping because it does not -- because it includes russia. the new actors on the international stage agree on one issue, which is they would like more power. they do not agree on any other issues. they can agree to poke at us if we do not give them more, but that is all they can agree with.

there is a huge opportunity for the united states in the terms that homi portrait, knitting together new alliances. i have to say it seems to me that obama has done less honest than i would have anticipated. i point to the difficulties, and it is not because his injured- office thinking was important, it was because it is bloody hard. these states are all playing chicken in that they know they have to participate in these systems and give something up, but they want to wait to see what terms they'd get. that is risky. the second point that i agree with is the two-year point.

should not be waiting now and we do not have two years to play with in terms of do we take that approach in order to tighten up these institutions. , i would put less weight on the formal institutions and more on the alliances, but even there the administration has vacillated between they are going to go all in on the g-20, and now they like the gee-8. neither of those bodies are well crafted. there is a lot of to be done in forging the international texture to manage the architecture we find ourselves in. i worry -- i have emphasized you cannot judge from the campaign rhetoric. it does worry me that the phrase "asia" does not come up in

wording when he talks. there is a talk back to a transatlantic picture of the world that is outdated. it is clearly the case that obama's life story is much better suited to a century in which a jet is very important and that cast of characters as change. obama has had it very hard to navigate that stage. >> i want to open it up to the audience. there is a microphone somewhere. if you could identify yourself and speak clearly into your becker frier. we have a lot of recording going on. we want to keep this focused on

the presidential election city's -- since these gentlemen can talk about others. keep it focused on mitt romney and barack obama. >> i want to pose the question in the form of a hypothesis. it comes directly from right down the line, if you think bruce's axle paper about the u.s. being a majority shareholder in the liberal democratic quarter. important point about the extent to which the electoral process itself, getting us to the first tuesday, has not only seemed, but makes government more difficult than ever. and to the point about the need

to form new alliances, and then you jump to the question of given all that, which president, romney or obama, can we predict what they would do and which one would have the greatest likelihood of doing the things that need to be done? the hypothesis i want offer is this -- very little difference, because presidents have far less room to maneuver. where the difference will be made is in the congressional elections, particularly in the senate. and particularly, given the effect of awhirl 22 in the senate and the unfortunate growing rule of minority interference in the governing process, which, depending upon how it comes out on the first tuesday, will make it as

difficult for a president romney as it would for a president obama, given the cast of characters that seems to be taking the place, and the most recent example of dick lugar being replaced by somebody who has a different definition of how to work. that is the hypothesis, which i think comes the question of -- is central to this panel. i will lead it at that. >> i am not sure i buy it, but i am absolutely sure that i am not going to say which of the two -- i think it really matters as president of the united states, and it will matter in january of next year, what the president of the united states says. the composition of the congress will be immensely important. the question mark about barack

obama is, will he in his second term be able to succeed to a degree that he has not been able to succeed in his first term to do a lot of things that he wanted to do in his first term? if you go back to his speeches on the campaign trail in 2008, grant park, in his inauguration, he kept talking about a planet in peril and how that had to be a priority. it was not a priority at the beginning of his administration. health care was the priority. the climate issue faded and ultimately failed to get anywhere. obviously, that was a joint mistake on the part of the handling, but of the say the branch and the legislative branch. the big question about him on that issue and he had some success on reducing the nuclear

peril, particularly with the new start treaty with the russians, but no such success on the test ban. the question will be not what his intentions are, but his ability to deliver. with regard to governor romney, we have to see what his priorities are, and hear how he lays them out. and then taken seriously in either case, if he lays out priorities that align with those of us as individual citizens, then he will be a strong candidate for the presidency, but there is one other point and it goes back to the economy. what is extremely important for our ability to lead in the world, but by example and also by having the resources, necessary to back up our soft power with hard power and of course leadership of

international institutions, whether we get our own economy back into shape. that means addressing -- restoring fiscal sanity. and doing something about the deficit. the big question about each of these candidates, as they go into the homestretch, will be, which one of you as a credible plan to do that, and the word tax will have to come up, and their judgment will have to be made, a, will they have the political will to drive those issues forward and will they have enough support from the congress, which takes you back to the ballot part of your hypothesis. >> d you want to respond? t to respond?t >> thank you.

i am struck by the conversation, including the word afghanistan, the mention of hard part. burris, he addressed a little bit of the ballots or imbalance between our power. one of the areas of not enough light and alternative approaches, coming out of this rhetoric, is this question of what admiral mike mullen set over militarization of u.s. foreign policy and a lack of ability to invest in and mustard the diplomatic solutions that we need, and the discussion here has been about the problems that require diplomatic solutions that the world is facing. part of that -- is it just that on the campaign trail this week domestic politics, not speaking to the realities of

implementing u.s. foreign policy, or is there hope that a next presidency, whether obama or romney, can help shift that balance and get out of it over u.s. foreign policy, which relates to the congressional question that was raised, relating to budgetary challenges. a final comment about a related assumption, there is no light between the two sides. the question of u.s. exceptional listen. until we can get out of an outdated idea for today's world, u.s. exceptionalism, we're going to be stock and not have the right solutions to our problems very is there any hope to get to a different approach?

>> this is one of the central arguments of my paper, i president has to invest more in the diplomatic tool. that does not translate directly into increasing funding for state departments, but investing heavily in the diplomatic tool to do exactly what homi talked about. this has become a partisan issue. you see republican congressional action to defund state funding, block funding of the state department. in fairness, the previous administration tried to increase funding to state. this becomes an important issue. do we have the right tools of government to forge together new alliances to manage issues in a much more complex stage? we do not have an honest conversation about this. do we increase or do

we not increase the funding for the state department. we need serious reform at the state department in terms of who we have there, backgrounds come out what languages they speak, but i think the entasis you make and the need for an end this on diplomacy, and diplomacy is not a soft issue. it is a question of managing alliances, institutions, organizing action, including military action, collective action using force is not a military action. it is a diplomatic action. i take your point. we do not know which one of the two would be more likely to do this, but i think the congressional point is real here. they're people brown romney who understand the need for serious investment in diplomacy. there are people around him who

clearly do not. >> de you want to take up that? >> i agree with you, the whole exceptionalism issue has gotten goofy. president obama debts of a helicopter and he is caught handed reading fareeh zacharia. a a couple months ago he says he is not, he is reading bob kagen. we like fareed, too. by the way, these two books are not diametrically opposed in their prescriptive implications. i noticed the speech that president obama gave at the air force academy, he went out of his way to do two things. one was to say this is an exceptional country. i guess he has covered himself

on that. the other was to say that in libya nato is out there, leading from the front, thereby leading to rest forever bear ryan line that was an unattributed about meeting from behind. the serious point here is we are an exceptional country. we are an exceptional country. if there is no country on earth that has the convening power, there's no country that has the global military reach or the diplomatic capacity on a global basis that we have, and with that comes responsibility, obligation, and lots of opportunity. we're stuck with it. >> one thing i wanted to add, it was interesting to me -- you talk about development and

diplomacy. there is much less difference there. one of the great legacies of our former president bush was in fact his prioritization and focus on development. he did quite a lot to raise the amounts of resources. that is something president obama has tried to do. in terms of their resources and the ability to commit in countries like afghanistan to a long-term process of support, i think both will probably be able to make that commitment and stand by it, hopefully, because there certainly will be a necessary element of moving

forward in any of the fragile states that have become so important and a part of u.s. diplomacy. >> you talk about president obama and his sense of exceptional as compared it was a major part of the republican primary campaign. mitt romney talked about it a lot and it is one of the main attacks on president obama. this is open to anyone. given what was said in the republican primary campaign, and where you see mitt romney, how does that affect his foreign-policy if he is the president in 2013?

>> and generally speaking, it will probably be much more harmony as opposed to what they are saying. that was bruce's original point. i was interested when senator marco rubio was here last month. he is one of quite a number of up-and-coming republican political leaders who is talk about is it possible by president. he gave a foreign policy talk here. it was a very thoughtful speech. i do not want to ruin his chances for getting on the ticket, but it was not wildly different from a speech that i could a imagine coming out of the department of state, or even the white house, making a few amendments and a couple of

lines in it. this is a good thing. i and others have expressed some dismay about the polarization of our politics and the breakdown in civil discourse but i think there has been a shaking out process that has been going on. if you look at the field of republican comments, and mrs. truly non-partisan because it is and this is truly non- partisan because it is entirely about the republicans, there were two of those candidates who i think many americans, including independents and probably some democrats -- i am referring here to jon huntsman and mitt romney -- they were by far the most centrist, and that

is what the process delivered, which is a good thing. let's see if the process can continue reconciliation on foreign policy issues because the tough issues facing the next president will be domestic and economic. >> did you want to say anything? >> i think that is well said. >> a question in the back. microphone coming from the back. >> thank you. robert lerner, a consulting firm, mentioning uncertainty. given that europe has undergone three crises, and china could be going into a substantial slowdown, what you think their responses and the differences

might be between obama in the second term and romney with respect to that deteriorating economic and financial situation? >> i think there is a very serious debate going on about the best group out of the current crisis, and that is essentially on getting the balance right between fiscal consolidation and what is called austerity as opposed to new growth programs. i think that debate is joined in europe. europe is not unified in terms of where it is going to come out on that balance, and i think in this country as well, the two parties are quite different

in their positioning of this. china is rather different. china is, indeed, slowing down. i think china will almost certainly start to implement stimulus measures, both monetary and fiscal, to try to take care of it, and that the end of the day chinese growth probably will slow down but the probability of a very hard landing in china or their growth approximating the zero growth or the 2% growth in advanced countries still seems to be low. between the united states and europe, i think this is an active debate based on different philosophies on what generates growth in the short run. >> i want to take the question

and used it to make a slightly different point. which president would do a better job at educating the american public about the change in the world that we've lived in? i think we begin to understand that our economy at this stage rises or falls with the global economy. the days where for our own production and consumption were isolated are long gone. china, europe, they slow down, we slow down. china grows, europe grows, we grow. simple as that. i do not think that is understood in the american public. the question becomes which president can communicate that we live in a changed world and what that means for us? hear, i think it is a tough call.

certainly, so far, obama who clearly understands this reality has not done that good of the job explaining this. it is a hard argument to make been tough times, easier in growth, but with mitt romney we do not know. there could be a mix to the china element, or there could be this "you are a bain capitalist who profits from this while we lose jobs." we do not know what he will be liking communicating this. there is nothing in his campaign rhetoric that suggests he is good at it. >> this just came to be listening to that answer from bruce. the one-word summary is interdependence. by the way, the fate of the chinese experiment is

completely dependent on the house of the global economy. i think one reason president obama, who really gets it, is not out there making the case, is because in these tough times talking about interdependence makes you soft. this is a perennial achilles heel for democrats. they do not want to look soft. with the feeling that the europeans are going to screw things up, to say it is an interdependent world, you are not protecting us. that is a fundamental factor.

the president has no way around that between now and the election. he has to find ways to talk about it, where if they do not sound robust, at least sound optimistic. read the text at the air force academy speech. it was reagan. morning in america, sun is shining, we are going to be fine. >> i am curious, given the economic situation and how much it is part of your paper, the question posed about which candidate would be better able to explain to the american public the situation we are facing, what is your answer to that? >> you know, i have found it

interesting that on things like gas prices, which is a clear example of the interdependence -- there has been a suggestion that it really does depend on the president, and there were fascinating polls showing the way in which those views about the president's ability to control gas prices flipped over time, depending on who is in power. it is not a matter of a deeply held beliefs. it is about communication. it does seem to me that is enormously important. the fact of the matter is that not just in the united states, but in europe, the conversation around economic problems and the

diplomacy around those conversations is disappearing, and it is part of the reason they have not solved the problem. in germany, they still have the view that the greeks are lazy. greeks actually work probably 25% longer hours than germans. so, these perceptions become important in terms of the way economic policy is formed, and at the moment i think that is their real problem with the honesty in which the communication is happening. >> another question on this side. >> thank you. i'm with phoenix tv. i would like to talk about the issue on china.

mitt romney released an advertisement on china and the white house responded that they were tougher on china. i am curious if the china issue will intensify throughout the campaign, and will whoever is elected fulfil their promise? also, treasury released the exchange rate report and it claims that china's currency is still significantly undervalued, although secretary timothy geithner says it has dropped dramatically. thank you. >> we are running a little short on time, if we could keep these answers short, we could get to one or two more

questions. >> yes, the china question will intensify, and let's count on chinese patients and in january we will be back to something like normal on how we handle current exchange rates. >> this goes to the point i was trying to make about the facts of what is happening in terms of economics and the perceptions. u.s. exports to china have increased by about 50% cumulatively since 2008. chinese exports have increased. this is a trend that has been there since about 2004 or so.

when you looked at this in terms of growth rate, the u.s. is doing really well and last year u.s. exports to china surpassed $100 billion. despite the bilateral deficit cut is still substantial. what is actually the deficit, it is still substantial. >> you win elections in swing states, and if you are in los angeles, new york, miami, etc., globalization, the stock is ok. not so much in western pennsylvania. i think the nature of the election campaign focuses on

the downside of global integration, where there is a lot going on that drives investment ensure growth. >> gentleman in the middle. >> thank you. i am with "egyptian daily." my question is with climate change, the arab spring. what do you expect mitt romney or barack obama to handle the changes in the middle east, and whether it will just rely on security alliances or deeper and useful partnerships? thank you.

>> one thing that might come up before the election is whether there are differences between the candidates on issues like syria. so far, the obama administration has been very careful talking about the potential for military engagement, and he has been criticized for that by some parts of the republican party as well as parts of the democratic party. there is a hawkish alliance that straddles the two parties. i do not know whether romney would be a bit differently in syria that obama has so far. i actually doubt it. i think the idea that we would rush to military intervention is probably over-played. your question is more broad than that. there are fundamental tensions and stakes here, and the

ability to navigate what is coming will be a critical test of either president. i did not have a crystal ball. i do not know if strobe talbott has more insight. it will matter a lot who did it to be national security advisers or the secretary of state. there is a wide cast of characters on the potential list for mitt romney, and that will change things a lot, whoever it is. there is the economic rise in asia, the turbulence of the arab spring. >> if you might put iran on the list, to. >> i would put iran on the list. >> i think in countries like egypt in particular, taking an economic lens now will be

important for both candidates, and the big challenge that will need to be addressed is the real money and resources for helping countries in the arab world is likely to come from the gulf, and to what extent can those be merged with the support that could come in a variety of non-grant form, but trade alliances, investment alliances, etc. and multilateral institutions? it's that combination could be put together, there is a reasonable chance the support packages could be useful. if that does not put together, you will be faced with a situation where there will be

potentially significant economic risks and trying to forge security alliances with countries that are having their own domestic economic problems, i think we've seen that is a difficult thing to sustain. >> we have time for one more if the question is short and the answers are short. right up here, up front. >> state department -- since the presidency is often defined by what the president achieved in his first year or so, let me ask you about priorities each candidate might have, not just based on campaign rhetoric, but overall, and this is hypothetical, but assuming domestic and foreign policy constraints were not forbidden, what do you think obama and mitt romney would like most to do as their priorities early in the next administration?

>> keep it short. >> short answer -- either one's priority has to be fixing the problem that will not be fixed this year because we are having a presidential election campaign, which is fixing this country, particularly fiscally. as for the priority in the election, it goes back to the famous reagan question that allowed him to beat jimmy carter. mitt romney has already asked that question and barack obama will try to persuade the american people that since this is a referendum on his first term that we are better off than when he first came to office. >> i think it will depend on the state of the economy.

untraditional issues, i do not think they will have a choice the iranian situation will resolve itself or it will not resolve itself and will be the dominant foreign policy issue in the first year, 2013. where i think people will look to opportunities is in the tightening up the alliances with india, turkey, south korea, australia, and forging new patterns of cooperation with those actors, and i suspect either party would look to opportunities there. >> i am with strobe talbott on this. before looking abroad, fixing the fiscal and fixing growth is essential. both will have to think hard about how to do that. >> ok. what our program calls for is a

closing thought from each of these gentlemen. try to sum up all the things we have talked about, send us to the one or 10 things we did not. maybe we moved down the line, and a lover wants to go first, homi kharas? strobe talbott? iran came up towards the end. i will make one observation about the irony and perversity of the election nears on foreign policy. there has clearly then more progress than the pessimists expected, but maybe not as much as optimists' hopes for on iran. one of the constraints on president obama is dictated on the election. in order to get a big deal with teheran, he would have to give

away enough to where he would be was vulnerable to the accusation that he gave up to much. >> my sense is that whoever wins the election will have to quickly come to grips with how aggressively do they want to address the issues of global governance, and what to do about international institutions, forming new alliances, and whether that requires or not a major overhaul or a muddling through kind of process.

i think there will be a big question about whether the so- called tilt to asia can actually be implemented, or whether it is iran, syria, europ, something will be dragging priorities away from large, dynamic emerging economies in asia, and finally about whether the foreign policy of the united states will continue to be dominated by security concerns and military interventions, or whether it will become more driven by economics, development, global growth. >> let me make two points. if you look back -- and to do well or not in foreign policy, one question i would focus on is are we in a tighter, more

productive alliance with india, brazil, turkey -- critical emerging powers whose participation global structures and global economics is going to matter a great deal. china will be a different category that will be handled differently. below china, the other actors, the new swing states that could put us in a positive direction, are we in better shape? that is the test as we look back. the second issue we have to talk about is we have a pattern of global economic investment in this country centered in major metropolitan cities. i heard john warner talk about driving foreign direct investment in global economic

investment to rural communities and communities and outside of major urban senators for two reasons -- one would be how to kickstart growth, and to start showing a profit from globalization. in other words, educating the american public cannot be an abstract discussion about bricks or who is up or down. it has to be a reality that integration is a positive thing in terms of creating jobs. can we change the patterns of where it is globalization is generating profits and jobs, and will we be in better shape in terms of alliances with these new players on the international stage? >> ok. a lot to think about. kharas, strobe talbott, and bruce jones, and to all of you

for being here. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> wisconsin voters go to the month to see if they will recall governor scott walker. after the debate tonight, commencement addresses from graduations are around the

country. 10:00 p.m., graduates at northwood university at west palm beach. then new york university. then the university of iowa law school. later, arizona christian university. finally, howard university here in washington d.c. last night president obama completed two days of campaigning in battleground states in iowa. he spoke about the importance of winning that state and criticized mitt romney on his proposal to reduce the national debt. this was his first campaign event in all iowa -- in iowa since first announcing his presidential campaign earlier this month.

[cheers] >> hello, iowa! [unintelligible] i am definitely ready to go, definitely ready to go. we just had a chance to talk to the folks in the overflow, and

before that we were in newton, i was telling my team, there's something about coming to iowa -- [cheers] it just gets me going. this is my home away from home. i just love this place grea. even all those long drives, seeing all that corn, makes me feel at home. i want to thank a couple friends of mine. first of all, you're out sounding question your outstanding former governor tom milsack is in the house.

mayor franconi is here! your congressman linder boswell -- leonard boswell. mike fitzgerald. and i want to thank the folks who have been keeping this fired up since the very beginning. we are talking about when we had the dinner, we are going in together, and michelle and i were trying to dance, she was dancing, i was trying to dance. it is good to be back with my

friends and seeing all of you. four or five years ago it was you who kept us going, when a lot of pundits in washington had written us off. you remember that. it was on your front porch, it was in your backyard, where our movement for change began. >> we love you! >> i love you back. >> four more years! four more years! four more years!

>> you know, it was here where we claimed the basic bargain, that built the largest middle- class on earth. we believe that in america success should not be determined but the circumstances of your birth. if you're willing to work hard, you should be defined a good job. if you're willing to meet your responsibilities, you should be able to start a business. you should be able to give your children a better chance than you had, no matter where you came from, no matter what you look like. the matter who you love. that is what we believe. and we came together in 2008 because you could tell that our country or at least the

leadership in washington had strayed away from these basic values. we had a record surplus that had been squandered on tax cuts and folks who did not need them and did not even ask for them. two wars had been waged on a credit card. wall street speculators or making bets with other people's money, it was destabilizing our financial system. manufacturing was moving offshore. a shrinking number of americans were doing fantastically well, but a whole lot of people were struggling with falling incomes, the slowest job growth in half a century. it was a house of cards, and we sensed that, and in the middle of the campaign, we saw the most destructive crisis since the great depression. in the last six months, of 2008,

while we were still campaigning, nearly 3 million of our neighbors lost their jobs. 800,000 lost their jobs month i was sworn in. we have not seen anything like that since the great depression tr. it turned out americans were tougher. folks in iowa or tougher. -- were tougher. we do not equipped. we keep -- we do not quit. we keep going. and together we're going to fight our way back. when sunset we should let the trip go bankrupt, we put our money on the american workers, in american companies.

the plans for adding new workers and new ships, and the american auto industry is faring on all cylinders. this is the first time we have added manufacturing jobs since the 1990's, which created more than 4 million jobs in the last six months. here in iowa, farmers, food producers, manufacturers, renewable energy producers -- they are all driving new job growth, showing the strength of our rural economies. are we satisfied? of course not. we still got friends out there, family who are looking for work. all across america, the homes that are still under water, too

many small businesses still struggling to get financing. state that are still laying off teachers and first responders. this was a deep crisis that did not happen overnight. we never thought it was going to be solved overnight. we know we have more work to do. but we also know that the last thing we could afford to do is to return to the very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. not now. not with so much at stake. we have come too far to abandon the change that we fought for over these past few years. we've got to move forward. we can't go backward. we've got to move forward. that's the choice in this election. and that's why i'm running for a second term as president of the united states -- to move

this country forward. [applause] now, my opponent in this election, governor romney -- governor romney is a patriotic american. he's raised a wonderful family. he should be proud of the great personal success he's had as a ceo of a large financial firm. there are plenty of good and honest people in that industry, and there's an important, creative role for it in the free market. [laughter] but governor romney has made his experience as a financial ceo the entire rationale of his candidacy for president.

now, he doesn't really talk about what he did in massachusetts. but he does talk about being a business -- business guy. right? he says this gives him a special understanding of what it takes to create jobs and grow the economy -- even if he's unable to offer a single new idea about how to do that, no matter how many times he's asked about it, he says he knows how to do it. so i think it's a good idea to look at the way he sees the economy. now, the main goal of a financial firm like governor romney's is not to create jobs. and by the way, the people who work at these firms will tell you that's not their goal. their main goal is to create wealth for themselves and their investors. that's part of the american way. that's fine.

sometimes, jobs are created in that process. but when maximizing short-term gains for your investors rather than building companies that last is your goal, then sometimes it goes the other way. workers get laid off. benefits disappear. pensions are cut. factories go dark. in some cases, companies are loaded up with debt -- not to make the companies more productive, not to buy new equipment to keep them at the cutting-edge, but just to pay investors. companies may go bankrupt as a result. taxpayers may be on the hook to help out on those pensions. investors walk off with big returns, and working folks get stuck holding the bag. now, that may be the job of somebody who's engaged in corporate buyouts.

that's fine. but that's not the job of a president. that's not the president's job. [applause] there may be value for that kind of experience, but it's not in the white house. see, the job of a president is to lay the foundation for strong and sustainable broad- based growth -- not one where a small group of speculators are cashing in on short-term gains. everybodyke sure that in this country gets a fair shake -- everybody gets a fair shot, everybody is playing by the same set of rules.

when you're the president, your job is to look out for the investor and the worker, for the big companies and the small companies, for the health of farmers and small businesspeople and the nurse and the teacher. thinkingpposed to be about everybody -- and the health of the middle class, and what the future is going to hold for our kids. that's how i see the economy. of course, the worldview that governor romney gained from his experience as a financial ceo explains something. it explains why the last time he visited these very same fairgrounds, he famously declared that corporations are people.

"human beings, my friends." that's what he said. that's what he called you. "human beings, my friends." it also explains why, when a woman right here in iowa shared the story of her financial struggles, he gave her an answer out of an economics textbook. he said, "our productivity equals our income." well, as if she'd have an easier time making it if she would just work harder. now, let me tell you something. we believe in the profit motive. we believe that risk-takers and investors should be rewarded. sot's what makes our economy dynamic. but we also believe everybody should have opportunity.

[applause] we believe -- we think everybody who makes the economy more productive or a company more productive should benefit. and the problem with our economy isn't that the american people aren't productive enough -- you're working harder than ever. productivity is through the roof. consistentlyng up over the last decade. the challenge we face right now -- the challenge we've faced for over a decade -- is that harder work hasn't led to higher incomes. bigger profits haven't led to better jobs. and you can't solve that problem if you can't even see that it's a problem. and he doesn't see it's a problem.

and so this experience explains why he is proposing the exact same policies that we already tried in the last decade, the very policies that got us into this mess. he sincerely believes that if ceos and wealthy investors are getting rich, then the wealth is going to trickle down and the rest of us are going to do well, too. and he is wrong. you don't build a strong economy by proposing more tax cuts for corporations that ship jobs and profits overseas. but that's his plan. you don't build a strong economy by repealing the rules that are designed to prevent another taxpayer bailout of wall street banks. but that's what he pledges to do, roll those things back. you don't build a strong economy by offering another

budget-busting tax cut skewed to the wealthiest americans, while raising taxes on 18 million working families. proposing.what he's [applause] and then, he and his folks, they've got the nerve to go around saying they're somehow going to bring down the deficit. economists who have looked at his plan say it would swell our deficits by trillions of dollars, even with the drastic cuts he's called for in things like education and agriculture and medicare, even with the drastic cuts to the basic research and technology that have always been the strength of the american economy. he promises to do that on day one. [laughter] we don't need that. that's a vision that's going backwards.

we're going forwards. we're going forward. [applause] we're not going to double down on the same bad ideas that we've tried over the last decade. it's not as if we haven't tried these things. we tried them. they didn't work. we're not going to listen to folks who argue that somehow this time it's going to be different. i'm here to tell you we were there when we tried them. we remember. we're not going back. we're moving this country forward. [applause] and i want to make clear here, it's not like democrats don't have work to do. we've got work to do.

government -- we have to acknowledge government can't solve all our problems and it shouldn't try. i learned from my mom no education policy can take the place of a parent's love and attention -- and sometimes a scolding when you didn't do your homework. as a young man, when i was working as a community organizer with catholic churches, they taught me no poverty program can make as much of a difference as neighbors coming together and working together with kindness and commitment. not every regulation is smart, not every tax dollar is spent wisely, not every person can be helped who refuses to help themselves. but that's not an excuse to tell the vast majority of hardworking, responsible americans they're on their own,

that unless you're lucky to have parents who can lend you the money, you may not be able to go to college, that even if you pay your premiums every month, you may be out of luck if an insurance company decides to drop your coverage just when you need it most. that's not who we are. that's not how we built america. we built this country together. the hoover dam, the golden gate bridge, gi bill, the moon landing, the internet -- we did those things together. not to make some small group rich, not to help any single individual, but because we knew that if we made those investments it would provide a framework, a platform for everybody to do well, for everybody to succeed.

that's the true lesson of our past. that's the right vision for our future. and that's why i'm running for president of the united states. [applause] i'm running to make sure that by the end of this decade, more of our citizens hold a college degree than any other nation on earth. i want to help our schools hire and reward the best teachers, especially in math and science. i want to give 2 million more americans the chance to go to

community colleges and learn skills that local businesses are looking for right now. higher education can't be a luxury -- it is a necessity, and i want everybody to be able to afford it. that's the choice in this election. that's why i'm running for president. i'm running to make sure the next generation of high-tech innovation and manufacturing takes root in places like des moines and newton and waterloo. i want to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs and profits overseas. i want to reward companies that are creating jobs and bringing jobs back here to the united states of america. that's the choice in this election. i'm running so we can keep moving forward to a future where we control our own energy.

our dependence on foreign oil is at the lowest point it's been in 16 years. by the middle of the next decade, our cars will average nearly 55 miles per gallon. thousands of americans have jobs -- including here in iowa -- because the production of renewable energy has nearly doubled in just three years in this country. now is not the time to cut these investments just to keep giving billions in tax giveaways to oil companies. they've never been more profitable. now is the time to double down on biofuels and solar and wind, clean energy that's never been more promising for our economy and our security and for the

safety of the planet. that's the choice in this election, iowa. now, for the first time in nine years, there are no americans fighting in iraq. [applause] osama bin laden is no longer a threat to this country. [applause] al qaeda is on the path to defeat, and by 2014, the war in afghanistan will be over. [applause] and all this was made possible because of the courage and selflessness of our men and women in uniform -- which is why, on memorial day, we're

going to remember them. and i'm going to actually be talking especially about our vietnam vets. they weren't honored the way they were supposed to when they came home. and we're not going to make that mistake again. so as long as i'm commander-in-chief, this country will care for our veterans and serve them as well as they've served us. because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their heads when they come home. that's why i'm running for president. [applause] my opponent has got a different view. he said it was "tragic" to end the war in iraq.

he won't set a timeline to end the war in afghanistan. and i have, and i intend to keep it. because after a decade of war that's cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, the nation we need to build is our own. so i want to use -- so we're going to use half of what we're no longer spending on war to pay down our deficit, and the rest to invest in education and research, to repair our roads and bridges, our runways, our wireless networks. thiss the choice in election, iowa. i'm running to pay down our debt in a way that's balanced and responsible. now, i know governor romney came to des moines last week, warned about a "prairie fire of debt."

that's what he said. but he left out some facts. his speech was more like a cow pie of distortion. i don't know whose record he twisted the most -- mine or his. now, listen, the debt and the deficit are serious problems and it is true that the depth of the recession added to the debt. a lot more folks were looking for unemployment insurance. a lot fewer folks were paying taxes because they weren't making money, so that added to the debt. our efforts to prevent it from becoming a depression -- helping the auto industry, making sure that not as many teachers were laid off -- all those things added to the debt.

but what my opponent didn't tell you was that federal spending since i took office has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years. by the way, what generally happens -- what happens is, the republicans run up the tab, and then we're sitting there and they've left the restaurant, and then they point and -- "why did you order all those steaks and martinis?" what he did not also tell you was that after inheriting a $1 trillion deficit, i signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law. so now i want to finish the job

-- yes, by streamlining government -- we've got more work to do, yes, by cutting more waste, but also by reforming our tax code so that it is simpler and fairer, and so that it asks the wealthiest americans to pay a little bit more. [applause] oh, by the way, something else he didn't mention, something else he didn't tell you -- he hasn't told you how he'd paid for a new $5 trillion tax cut which includes a 25 percent tax cut for nearly every millionaire in the country. five trillion dollars in new tax cuts -- that is like trying to put a fire out -- a prairie

fire with some gasoline. so we're not going to do that. i refuse to let that happen to our country. we're not going to pay for another millionaire's tax cut by eliminating medical research that's helping people with cancer and alzheimer's disease. we're not going to pay for it by shortchanging farmers in rural america. we're not going to pay for it by kicking some kids out of head start, or asking students to pay more for college, or eliminating health insurance for millions of poor and elderly, and americans on disabilities who are all on medicaid. and as long as i'm president, we're not going to allow medicare to be turned into a voucher that would end the program as we know it.

we're going to reform medicare not by shifting the cost of care to seniors -- that's easy to do, but it's wrong. we're going to reform it by reducing the actual costs of health care, reducing the spending that doesn't make people healthier. that's the right thing to do. that's what at stake, iowa. that's why i'm running for reelection. on issue after issue, we can't afford to spend the next four years just going backwards. theon't need to re-fight battle we just had over wall street reform. that was the right thing to do. we've seen how important it is. we don't need to re-fight the battle we just had over health care reform -- having 2.5 million young people stay on their parent's health insurance -- that was the right thing to

do. cutting prescription drug costs for seniors -- right thing to do. we're not going to go back to the days when insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policies, or deny you coverage, or charge women differently from men. we're not going back to that. we don't need another political fight about ending a woman's right to choose, or getting rid of planned parenthood or taking away affordable birth control. we don't need that. i want women to control their own health choices, just like i want my daughters to have the

same economic opportunities as my sons. we're not turning back the clock. we're not going back there. we're not going back to the days when you could be kicked out of the military just because of who you are and who you love. we're moving forward as a country, where everybody is treated with dignity and respect. moving forward. we're not going to just stand back while $10 million checks are speaking louder than the voices of ordinary citizens in our elections. we recognize that's a problem. and it's time to stop denying citizenship to responsible young people just because they're the children of undocumented immigrants.

look, you know what, this country is at its best when we harness the god-given talents of every individual, when we hear every voice, when we come together as one american family all striving for the same american dream. that's what we're fighting for. that's why i'm running for a second term. that's why i need your help. you know, let me say this -- this election is going to be even closer than the last one. and by the way, the last one was close. people don't remember -- it was close. everybody remembers grant park -- it was close. we're going to have to contend with even more negative ads. we've got these super pacs and shadowy special interests, like the ones you've been bombarded with.

you guys just got hit here in iowa. we'll have to overcome more cynicism and nastiness and just some plain foolishness even more than we did the last time. but the outcome of this election, it's entirely up to you. i'm going to be working hard. michelle is out there working hard. but there's one thing we learned -- there's nothing more powerful than millions of voices calling for change. michelle and i, we were talking the other night over dinner, and i told her we were coming back to iowa, and she said something -- it's absolutely true -- she

said, i remember back in the first campaign that we would be reading all these news reports and watching the news, and everything looked terrible and everybody was counting us out. andthen i'd come to iowa, i'd see what was going on, on the ground and i'd be meeting people and talking to people. it wasn't necessarily that it was a sure thing that we were going to win. but what was being reflected out there, that wasn't what was happening here. that wasn't what ordinary folks were thinking. so she just stopped watching tv -- or at least the news part of it. she still watches hdtv and some other things -- "dancing with the stars." but this place taught us that not that we're always right, not that we don't make mistakes, but that there's just a core decency and strength and resilience to the american people, and that, ultimately, the conversations that are going on around kitchen tables and at

the vfw hall and in churches, those conversations aren't what's reflected in the cable news. and so, when i look out at this crowd, all these different faces -- different ages, different races, different faiths -- i'm reminded of that. and when enough of you knock on enough doors and pick up enough phones, and talk to your friends or your neighbors and your coworkers -- and you're doing it respectfully and you're talking to folks who don't agree with you, you're talking to people who are good people, but maybe they don't have all the information -- when you make that happen, when you decide it's time for change to happen, you know what, change happens.

change comes to america. it's always easier to be cynical. it's always easier to say nothing can change, especially after we've gone through such a tough time. and despite all the changes we've made, despite all the good things we've done, things are still tough. and so, the other side, they are going to try and play on that sense that, well, things aren't perfect, congress is still arguing, the politics is still polarized. but you're the antidote to that. and that's the spirit we need again.

so if people ask you what this campaign is about, you tell them, yes, it's still about hope. it is still about change. it's still about ordinary folks who believe that in the face of great odds, we can make a difference in the life of this country. don't let them tell you different. you proved it in 2008. without you -- i look around this place, i see folks who were out there knocking on doors and making things happen -- i would not have had the privilege of being your president. you were the first ones to make this country believe we could still come together around a common purpose. and i still believe that today.

i still believe that we're not as divided as our politics suggest. i still believe we have more in common than the experts tell us. i still believe we're not democrats or republicans first, we are americans first. i still believe in you. and i want you to keep believing in me. some of you remember -- because i've spent a lot of time here, i used to go around and i would tell you -- i warned you and if you weren't listening, michelle would tell you -- i warned you i'm not a perfect man and i wouldn't be a perfect president.

but what i told you was i promised you i would always tell you what i thought and i'd always tell you where i stood, even when it politically wasn't convenient. and i would wake up every single day, fighting as hard as i know how for you and your families and your children's future. and, iowa, i have kept that promise. i have kept that promise. and i will keep it as long as i have the honor of being your president. so if you're willing to stick with me and fight with me and press on with me, and if you're willing to work even harder than you did the last time, we'll move this country forward and we'll finish what we started. and we'll remind the world just why it is america is the greatest nation on earth. god bless you. god bless america. [applause]

>> the road to the white house continues now with a look at the bank's capital, the capital firm mitt romney co-founded. the issue of dain capital was also mentioned. this is 25 minutes. >> michael kranish is the deputy bureau chief in washington, d.c., for the boston globe. bain capital is the centerpiece of the obama campaign strategy. it has been front and center this week. take us back to 1994, the senate

race in which it just surfaced. >> in 1994, mitt romney ran for the u.s. senate against ted kennedy. his main credential was that he worked at this company for several years, made a lot of money, people knew that his father had been the governor of michigan. when he ran, he was unprepared for attacks on his record. the kennedy campaign ran some ads against mitt romney and mitt romney thought people were not interested or would not believe it. what we see is that they have responded very quickly. >> we are going to look at some of those ads. what is bain capital today? what was it back in 1994? >> it was the business consultant company. it is the business that invests and advises companies. they take a big stake in

companies and they do -- and they give them venture-capital. they run into existing companies, pay themselves a big management fees. and then try to build the company or spend things off. they were very successful for the investors in a fund that invested in some of these companies. some of the companies did well, some not so well. they made astonishing returns. it was an average rebound of about 88% a year. that is different than looking at the companies themselves. he was successful as an investment manager. >> here are two of the ads from the kennedy committee in 1994. and the response from mitt romney. >> mitt romney says he saved dain and company, but he did not tell you that on the day he took over, he had his predecessor fire hundreds of companies.

it was arrested with a federal bailout of $10 million. his company failed to repay at least $10 million. the rest of us had to absorb the loss. it caused ordinary people $10 billion. >> [unintelligible] >> i would like to show him -- i would like for him to show me where these 10,000 jobs are. >> these negative attacks are wrong. more than anything else, the cynical, old-style politics has

been in washington at toulon. the real people are more interested in getting serious about crime, reforming welfare, and creating real jobs. they want to hear our differences on issues that matter in our lives. you talk about your plans and i will talk about mine. >> the change we need, mitt romney. >> as he worked on this book, this issue and this race. what comes to mind? >> the first ad is about his former company. deborah problems in that company and he turned it around. -- there were problems in the company and he turned it around. what is interesting about the third ad is the government responded -- he does not respond specifically to the charges. what he is trying to do in this case is to respond directly and then talk about jobs. he has learned some lessons

from the 1994 race. >> in one of the debates, this is from october of 1994. richard monte going after senator ted kennedy on the -- mitt romney going after senator ted kennedy on the obeying capital issue. >>-- bain capital issue. i someone with no business experience yourself, how would you have handled that situation in indiana differently? >> first of all, mr. romney has characterized one of his qualifications for the united states senate is his business background. it is legitimate to look for what kind of jobs he has created. the kind of jobs he has created are part-time jobs and minimum- wage jobs that do not have any health insurance. that is not the kind of job i want to create. there different ways for venture-capital us to deal with the situation like indiana. either you close the plant down,

throw the people out of work, only hire back the younger workers, or you can retrain the workers, it brings them involved in further education and training, invest in those companies and create full-time jobs at good pay with good benefits. that is the kind of record that would have been pressed me in terms of creating jobs. what is wrong with mr. romney's companies providing the same thing? [applause] >> i have a lot of things to answer on that. in my view, that the attack on part-time workers not having health insurance is the height of the policy. senator kennedy and his family have a multiple real-estate empire across this country. that merchandised market has of

free clash -- cash flow of $20 million a year. i am sure you know that your workers that are part time to do not have health insurance, don't you? [applause] >> mr. romney, there is a major difference. you do not even afford access to your part-time workers. we at least provide the access and many of those part-time workers take it and it is a shared responsibility. " i do not know what you are talking about. you do not provide health insurance for your part-time people. >> gentlemen, gentlemen. you are going to have an opportunity to get back to this question. >> my impression is that you have followed a campaign as soon as the primary was over trying

to divert the voters' attention is on issues at hand. instead, making personal attacks on me. you said that my firm has 40 people and only one is a woman. you are wrong, 12 are women. he said we give no benefits to americans. we have 40,000 employees who give health-care benefits. only part time and do not have health care benefits. that happens to be the same as your firm. we are strikers in a company that was not even invested in. it happened six months after i left. your parade that around like it is my problem. i am in favor of the minimum wage. you have yet to produce any document that says i did not support the minimum wage. when will this end? [applause]

>> let me stop this right now. i think it is fair to ask each one of you to take your first minutes for both a charge and a question. and then we will open it up. is that fair? i am going to have the time account us down. that is your question. >> that is fine. >> mr. romney would have asked me what i was going to do for working families in massachusetts, how we're going to get our economy on the road, talking about the real measures that are going to affect children, working families, senior citizens. mr. romney, i will provide after this debate all the documentation that you asked for. i hope you'll tell me where you will provide health insurance for your company's overseas.

he is not -- he is a distinguished former member of the united states senate. when he made the character recent -- characterization, and he called the reprehensible and challenged you to withdraw it, let's put the ads aside and talk about health care. let's talk about education. let's talk about infrastructure. let's talk about our vision for massachusetts. that is what the people of passages is want to talk about. >> i want to know why -- what the people of massachusetts want to talk about. >> i want to know where you spend millions of dollars talking about staples their not having health care benefits when your companies do not help health care benefits. what you spend millions of dollars during that if you are so innocent and talking about

the issues because that is all i have talked about up until one week ago. >> senator kennedy? >> i will provide those in detail. i will provide them right after -- about the minimum wage, giving the document where you said you were against the increase in the minimum wage, you had a different opinion when you were talking about national television. i will talk also about -- i do not know why you would meet with the strikers. i am bothered about the pain of the people in massachusetts. you may be frustrated about it, but your pain and my pain pills -- pales to what is happening in this city.

people cannot get jobs. you take a great deal of satisfaction about exchanging papers about this. about your advertisements, about the kennedy interest in the washington investment, my nephew and i have a blind trust. we have no control over those trusts. we informed the ethics committee. the kennedys are not in public service to make money. we have paid too high a price in our commitment to the public. >> from 1994, michael kranish, the parallels to what the argument was against mitt romney. >> it is fascinating to watch the tape from 1994. there are a lot of similarities in the way that he is being attacked.

he said he had nothing to do with the company, i think he is talking about -- i am not sure what company he was talking about there. he was receiving financial benefits from the company. one of those things that will come up again. there is a question about jobs that were created and jobs lost. when he ran in 1994, he said that he helped create 10,000 jobs. now he is saying that he helped create 100,000 jobs. we looked at about 100 deals that he did over a 15-year period, you cannot say how many jobs were created or lost. 100,000 jobs figure, the campaign has said 89,000 of those jobs came from staples. most of those were created after bain cashed out. it is one of the smallest deals that they did when romney led

the company. the founder of staples -- other people would say, wait a second, they cashed out and most of those came later. he is taking credit for jobs that were created later. in some cases, he has said that you should not blame me for jobs that were lost after i left. there is a balancing there. the obama campaign has tried to point out what they perceive to be convictions. the basic issue is still the same. in 1994, mitt romney was not prepared to answer these questions. he did not answer a lot of them directly in a timely way. now he is trying to do that. the other thing i want to mention is that to mitt romney was hit by kennedy a lot about health care. in 2002, he pushed through a health care plant and standing beside him was ted kennedy.

it is really interesting to see kennedy attacking him over this. we know that years later, what happened and how it turned out and kennedy was very supportive about what romney did. >> in the same at the venue for the debate took place. let me show you what governor romney said to "time" magazine. he said, i understand how to read a balance sheet. having been in the private sector for 25 years gives me a perspective on how jobs are created. mitt romney in mid-october of 1994 had this to say about his experience in the private sector. >> one of the ads, it has been interesting to watch the ads my opponent has put out. i did not know how to respond to

them all. it suggest that my firm discriminates against women in positions of management. nothing could be further from the truth. of the 40 people in our firm, about 10 or so are women. our chief financial officer is a woman. we have women in key positions in the company. the company i read before that, when i left, i was instrumental in having a woman appointed as the new chairman of the board. when i was chief executive. women are among the senior officers and not from as well. in my venture capital business as well, you know what the venture capitalist do. backed not many who have a woman as a chief executive officer.

judy george had never run a company before. she came to us with a new idea and we provided the capital for that. she is the chief executive of the company and our relationship has been a terrific line. i had some people come to me for child care centers in the workplace. the idea was a terrific one. two young men had the idea, but i was not convinced they were the right people to be the chief executives. they agreed with me. i found a couple, a husband and wife, who had just come back from the sudan. they come back to the united states and i ask them to become co-chief executive officers. i do that other women as chief executive officers. one of the concerns i have had

is that there is a glass ceiling. we talk about that a lot. i believe is there. what of the challenges is knowing where it is in each company. you cannot really tell. one proposal i made is that in all public companies, when they file their 10k, they include a breakdown of women and minorities by in come inside the company. you can look at a company and said, are there any women in this paid group? that would allow us to see where glass ceiling is. i did not want the government to regulate quotas or whatever. i find that in corporate america, when injected as look at the information, they say, half -- when executives look at the intermission, -- information, they get the message all by themselves. you will see american change as

people see where the glass ceiling exists. i would be happy to have my own companies conform to that same standard. >> from october 14, 1994. mitt romney losing the senate race to senator ted kennedy. was there a consistency or a similarity to what he was saying back then about these issues to what he is saying today? are there lessons for the campaign that they take away from the 94 lost? >> -- loss? >> people do not know what bain capital is. you can listen to ads on both sides today. romney says the answer great. obama says things were not so great. he said, i did not actually run

our investment. that was left to management. that was from mitt romney himself and that gives you a better idea. he had an umbrella investments bought and they took in money that had $1 million or more to invest. that fund invested in various companies that they some talk -- sometimes, jobs were created. sometimes, they were lost. he did not go in there in most of these cases and run a company. he had an investment fund and his colleagues and the board of directors, they would direct strategy. it was not like his father, who ran american motors and turned it around. it is a different type of business. it is a leveraged buyout business for they are using debt to make profits for their investors.

that is the detail that tells you exactly what he did. it is hard to explain in the campaign. it has been the tricky pivot for the obama campaign. they do not want to attack private equity. did you want to attack some specific deals that he did. it is complicated. it is not the typical thing of going in and starting a business and then leaving. think of it as a super mutual- fund. they took money from investors and their responsibility was to improve the return. some of his partners said they did not discussed, would this deal create jobs? they did not see it in a negative way. they did not see themselves in a

job creation type of business. they were in a business that was intended to bid as high of a return as possible for their investors. >> let me show our audience how this issue is playing out in the 2012 campaign. one of the most recent ads from the obama campaign and the response. >> i was a steelworker for 30 years. we had a reputation for quality products. it was something that was american made. we were not rich, but i was able to put my daughter through college. >> it is important. >> let's start but the sale of the plant. i know how business works. >> bain capital was the majority owner. they were responsible. the influence he exercised over these companies. >> they made as much money off of it as they could. they closed it down and filed

for bankruptcy. >> they came in and sucked the life at a bus. >> -- out of us. >> it breaks my heart. >> i was devastated. it makes me angry. those guys were all retch. they all had more money than they will ever spent. they did not have money to take care of the people. >> bain capital walked away with a lot of money. >> he has destroyed thousands of people's careers. >> he is running for president

and if he is going to run the country the way he ran our business, i do not want him there. he would be so out of touch with the average person in this country. how could deepak -- how could he care for the average working person if he feels that way? >> i am barack obama, and i approve this message. >> have you had enough with president obama's attacks of free enterprise? cory booker of new jersey. former congressman, democrat from tennessee. >> private equity is a good thing. >> i do not think that there is anything bain capital did that they should be embarrassed

about. >> even obama's own supporters have had enough. >> enough is enough. >> michael kranish, as you look at these two spots, what is your reaction? >> as i watched some of these spots, if you had taken away who sponsored them, you would not know when the adtran. the last ad that we saw was an obama ad, but the basic message is still the same. their cases when mitt romney came in and factories were closed and people lost jobs. bain and raw meat made money. if mitt romney is talking about it -- bain and romney ma