thank you to greg and his team for partnering with us and for bringing us together with charlie cook several times during the election period. he leads all of the federal and government state of affairs for utc. his portfolio is even more abroad, that includes directing affairs for china and the you. please welcome greg ward. [applause] >> thank you, victoria and all of you. it is our pleasure on behalf of united technologies to be here. we are a pretty substantial company. about 210,000 employees around

the world. about $60 billion in revenue. you can see on the podium on number of the companies that are part of our family. we are about to add one more. that is the good rich corporations. we hope to have that in the family within the next six weeks or so. we are waiting for approval of that. it is our approval to be here this morning. it is always fun to work in collaboration and partnership with the national journal and the national journal family of products and people. i do not know how did it does it, but he seemed to recruit the best people to run his program and his division. it has been a great affiliation over a substantial number of years. it is also fun to be here again

with charlie and two premier and astute political observers. it is going to be a great panel. i have a friend named don and he and i go back a long way. he has a number of children. his four year-old was coming down for christmas looking at all of the christmas presents underneath the tree. he said, unbeweebable. that is the image that charlie has this election year with all begins he has been given. charlie, thank you for being here. congressman, thank you for participating as well. thank you all for participating this morning. it is good to see you. [applause] >> charlie, do you want to come up and i will continue the introductions. i think you all know charlie cooke. that is why you are here. charlie has been providing his insight and analysis to our subscribers and the members of the national journal. he has put together some of the best political reports in town.

he writes regularly for the national journal daily and for the national journal. he remains a political analyst for nbc news. at a time when news and information on local campaigns is so polarized, charlie remains one of the most respected political analysts in the country, providing a fair and humorous aspect to politics. please welcome charlie cook. [applause] >> i will talk briefly because i want to get martin and tom up here. i am afraid of what i might say. i do not want prejudice -- i am curious about what these guys are going to say about the same subject.

i look around this room and see people have been watching this stuff as long or as -- or longer than i have. some campaigns have ups and downs like elevators. sometimes they can power through their problems. sometimes they are chilled or can really take on like vertically like a sikorski. hamilton used to make propellers. they still do. sometimes they just get really tired. thank you all for coming out. i have cherished this relationship with national journal.

we are working on a new contract. anyway, nice to see all of you here. this is a fascinating presidential election and it is going through a lot of faces. i think one of the questions i will ask is, are we at a different place 60 or 90 days ago? is this an inflection point or is this getting exaggerated or is be -- it be conventional wisdom catching up with reality? i will go ahead and introduce them and get going. when you see panels in washington and you see former members, have you ever noticed there are a handful of people you see a whole lot. the reason is, out of the thousands and thousands of

former members of congress there are, there is a small number you can count on a hand better known as being really, really sharp, able to dissect political situations that are not just rubber-stamp being party positions and that had a brilliant expertise and an analytical ability that helps people -- i get it now. if you were going to put together five of them, martin frost and tom davis would be on the thighs.

i can only think of four. they are -- would be on the five. martin was in congress for 12 years. he was the dccc share. both of them have been on the inside, the innermost strategy sessions. they know where all the bodies are buried. sometimes they are tempted, but they never really tell us where exactly those bodies are buried. it is two members i have enormous admiration for. i think we should invite three members up and have one as a control group. say this is somebody else. somebody who is not so good. these two guys are really good and that other one is a clunker. that appeals to my perverse nature. why don't you guys come on up. let's just have a conversation.

i would rather do that than here myself pontificate. >> martin is so in charge of leadership -- martin tells me where to sit. >> it is obviously early in the morning because charlie did not remember to say what terms we were in. he said years. i was in 26 and tom was in 16. it's all right. it is early in the morning. >> dog years. [laughter] >> i want to cover congressional and presidential and what is going to happen at the end of this year. i will throw it open for either one of you to jump out. is the presidential race

fundamentally different from where it was april 11, the day romney nailed down the nomination? >> let me start, if i may. charlie and i have been doing these kinds of programs for the last few years. we agree that this was going to be a close race. other people were saying, obama is going to win by a big margin. as a democrat, i still think obama has a reasonable chance of winning. i have always thought this was going to be comparable to what happened in 2004 when you had an incumbent president who barely won the election. i have looked at all the material you have done on this and charlie generates more stuff than anybody else.

>> there are more people who generate more stuff than anybody else. >> he showed the electoral votes almost exactly even among the states where you had solid d and leaning d and solid republicans and likely republicans. it is interesting. it looks to me, if everything breaks the way it looks right now, that is if wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania state democratic -- and that is yet to be resolved, the election is going to come down to three states. for romney to win, he will have to carry ohio, virginia, and florida. i do not know if he can carry all three of those states.

if he does, he can be the next president. that is where you will see an awful lot of action. what obama did on the dream act was important and helped him a lot. he was already ahead of him on hispanics and hispanics are important in florida and important in some states in the west. this is going to be a close race and it will go down to the wire. >> the unemployment numbers have gone up. we have had a narrative where unemployment was dropping in terms of the unemployment rate. last month, a job creation was under estimates and the economy was not proving -- improving as well as everyone thought. the commission a wisdom that obama was headed for a second term turned on its head. those metrics will determine who the next president will be. what martin just described in terms of the states at risk is basically the run of 2004. a few states on the bubble.

there were a few states in 2000 or and 2000. obama broke new ground last time with indiana, virginia, and pennsylvania. it is becoming a mobilization election in times of going after independence. i think they have a difficult time replicating their turnout model this time around. instead of running against bush, against the wars, and economic fallout on the republicans' watch, this time around he has had to govern for four years.

no president has been reelected with unemployment higher than 7.5%. that is not a hard and fast rule. the magic's of this race make it much more difficult for the president than anybody -- the metrics of this race make it much more difficult for the president than anybody thought. >> the percentage of the white vote continues to decline in the percentage of the minority voted continues to increase. the republicans are in real trouble because of that. they might scrape by this time, but if the hispanic vote goes to the democratic column and the republicans have done nothing to attract hispanics, the underlying dynamics of the election are not on the republicans' side.

they may win because of the economy. tom may be right about that. the turnout model from to cause a cannot be replicated. obama is not going to win by that kind of margin. he is not going to carry indiana. he is probably not going to carry a virginia. they have to win by just enough to be reelected. given where the two parties are -- i write for politico from time to time. if the national journal wants me to write for them, i would write for them, too.

about one month ago, i pointed out a real problem i see for the obama campaign. it is seen years, particularly white seniors. the democratic share among white seniors have been -- has been declining. while interest rates have stayed low, that is good for a lot of people. it is not good for seniors. sears would show up at my town hall meetings and i said, isn't it wonderful that interest rates are down. and they would say, you did not understand. low interest rates are not good for everybody. obama has got to figure out how to speak to seniors because they are trending in the wrong direction just as hispanics are trending in the wrong direction.

>> there is no question that some elements of the republican party have done everything humanly possible to alienate the latino vote. while there is an anchor toward the republican party and many -- among many latinos, there is a disappointment in democrats. you were on our side, but did you fight for us. did you shed any blood for the dream act. they are angry at one side, disappointed in another. that is one reason why, when you look at numbers, how likely are you to vote, latino voters are low.

the gallup poll is actually matching what he did against mccain last time in terms of support if they show up. >> what i said initially goes to the mobilization of the election. they are having a hard time expending their electoral base. they will have a hard time replicating what they did before. when you have had to govern and make tough decisions and you have disappointed people and have not managed expectations -- a different set of expectations. african americans. he will take -- he will come close to what he did before. the african-american community heavily invested in their present -- his presidency. let's get the students. these were sent gains for obama last time. -- cinch gains for obama last time. that is not there for him this time. where are the young people?

they are looking for jobs. the enthusiasm gap is down. among young registered in ohio and colorado, republicans are registering democrats in young voters under 21. if you look at their strategy, it is not a strategy geared toward young voters. let's get to hispanics, which you cannot just lumped together. puerto rican do not have the same interest in immigration. they are citizens. cubans behave differently than mexican americans. my district has salvadorans. it is a tough group to get out. i do not think they will be able to replicate that. long-term, that is a huge problem for republicans.

not just hispanics, asians voters you buy date and their lifestyles are like republicans but do not necessarily vote that way. the economy is at default and it masks the traditional ethnic and social -- the economy is at the front and it masks the traditional ethnic and social alliances. >> the republicans give the hispanics the back of their hands every time there is an opportunity. >> the good days were the back of the hand. look at the presidential debates. gov perry was for the dream act and was for a reasonable position on immigration. romney moved to his right. more progressive moves on immigration hurt him inside the

republican party. now, some republicans are threatening to sue the president about his decision on the dream act. my attitude is, bring it on. let him sue -- let them sue. it will drive the point home that the republicans are on the wrong side of an issue that is popular in the hispanic community. did the president push hard enough early on? you can debate that. it was filibustered by republicans in the senate. all of the body language republicans sent to be hispanic community has been wrong. they have blown the opportunity because hispanic voters are culturally conservative. republicans have not given them

anything to hold onto. i think this is going to be a real problem going into the campaign. no one expects the turnout model to be the same as it was in 2008. >> earlier, you explicitly said and tom implied references to beat george w. bush's 2004 election. there is never a perfect analogy. there is an analogous situation in that you had two president that are -- two president that are facing ugly independents and how much effort do you make chasing after swing voters who, at the end of the day, are not going to go your way. in the case of bush, organically growing your base or, in the case of obama, how you get close as you can do that extraordinary turnout knowing you cannot completely replicate it. the wall street journal combined the first five months of this

year's polling. it was polls in each month. throughout the undecided voters -- throughout the -- and they threw out the under registered voters. they pulled out for comparison purposes and looked at just the undecided, the 7% of the 3800 who were undecided, which worked out to 260.

all registered voters -- among just the undecided, 15% right direction, 71% right -- wrong track. 48% approved and 46 disapproved. on obama job rating on the economy, register voters, 44% approved and 56% disapproved. on the generic ballot test, among all voters, democrats were ahead by two postal -- two points. looking at this group, they are older, they are hard independents. there are more republicans than democrats. looking at that group and saying, you are not getting half of this group. you are probably not getting 1/3.

if this is the case, doesn't that force you back to turn now and a george w. bush 2004 model? >> of course it does. bush won the race after an enormous turnout in the state of ohio. that was the ball game. you have to ask yourself where these voters are geographically. of course, these undecided voters in certain parts of the country, particularly in the south are going to break strongly against the democrats. you have to look at what is going on in ohio and what is going on in wisconsin and pennsylvania and michigan. you have the auto bailout and the fact that obama acted forcefully to keep general motors in business, to keep chrysler in business and all of their suppliers and the small businesses who rely on people

who have jobs in the automobile industry. you will hear a lot about that in those key states. that will have an impact particularly since romney was opposed of the bottle bill out. what makes the difference to undecided voters in those swing states? that is not an argument that will help in leveraging yet. the turnout model in virginia of maximizing his support from the last time made a difference.

florida is hard for me to call, hard to predict. i am not sure any of those factors will be in play on obama's site in florida. in virginia, he has one thing -- on obama's side in florida. >> the undecided voters are going to decide this. they had had three years to look at president obama and they are not there. when i was running, they knew me. i had been to their picnics and their parades. and kissed their babies. if they did not like me, it was going to be a hard sell to get them. the president is in a similar position. romney has to make the sale. but they are looking around and that is a dangerous place for a president to be. the more he caters to his base, the more alienated these groups become. it is hard to have a mobilization election. it is a state-by-state. every state has different coalitions to put together to muster a majority. the mall -- the obama team is savvy. they will not make it easy.

>> you take a look at registrations over the last decade. both parties have lost market share. many people are going to become independent or declining to state in droves. two failed wars, stagnant wages. people are looking around and the president has fallen short of the promises and hopes people have had in him. a long way to go. a small group that they will be catering to. i do not think they can mobilize the base like they did last time. they only got 52.9%. they will need some of these independents in the end. >> let me play devil's advocate. whoever wins the popular vote, wins day electoral college. if the popular old to a close

one way, my assumption has always been, a democrat might be more likely to win the popular vote and lose the electoral college and the other way around because democrats waste so many votes by winning california and new york by huge margins. you have wasted all those other votes and republican votes are more efficiently allocated around the country. besides the fact that this thing goes in the same direction -- looking at it state-by-state in the new world order means paying a lot of attention to some polls -- i will use the technical/political termit is anybody's race. i do think the metrics on the

economy are going to set the voter mood. they are probably the most important indicator. >> going to your point, we live >> going to your point, we live in the washington d.c. area, we