get sidetracked from the main issues of the day or the main arguments for the important things you need to know. >> move ahead to september, october, and your the moderator for the three debates that the two candidates will be involved in. what needs to be asked and answered in order for voters to have the best information going into the election? >> for both of these candidates, one of the things that needs to be answered in a more concrete way and a more systematic way is what would they actually do of their president. we're spending a lot of time re-litigating the past for the president is re-litigating the bush years concerned -- saying that mitt romney would take us back there and governor romney is litigating the record of the president. what most people want to know is why has this recession dragged on as long as it has.

technically, we're out of the recession in recovery but this is a recovery that has been very slow and very difficult and painful for a lot of people. result of unemployment above 8%. we should not think that it has become -- yet has come down a bit that we're at a good point in the economy. the economy is fragile and the percentage of people who are unemployed for more than six months is in the neighborhood of 42%. those are astonishing numbers. when you think about what the candidates are talking about, it is not clear that either the president or governor romney has laid out a plan that says to people that i have a path for them near the steps we will taken here are the likely results. >> what are some of the specific questions you asked? >> of asked president obama -- one of the major crises he had to deal with was the foreclosure crisis. why have the various things they

administration has tried not wort? what would you do -- what do you have left in your tool kit to deal with that? one of the realities of this period is that there are so many people under water in their homes that -- or whose homes have lost a considerable amount of value -- that they are in a sense froze and economically. -- frozen economically. why has the administration not been able to do more? that is one thing i would ask. for governor romney, i would ask why he believes that the kind of significant tax cuts that he is proposing would definitely stimulate the economy? the bush tax cuts that were passed in the beginning of the bush presidency did not lead to an eight-year period of robust growth. there was some growth but it was not as though it was an all out

success. i would try to pin him down on that. second, the question of whether his economic policy, the proposals he has put on the table, why they would not create continuing problems with the deficit? he has talked of the dealing with the deficit but i don't think he has been specific enough in dealing with the trade-off that he would have to deal with and the potential consequences of those. >> in the room, we have 18 students from purdue university. you graduated from other small school not to far away, the university of illinois. when you're there, did you have any idea where you would end up from 1978-now at "the washington post" covering presidential campaigns? >> i hoped i would end up in washington. when i was a sophomore on the recommendation of my brother who

is 3 years old and i and was at the university, joined the student newspaper. that following summer and did an internship in washington for the congressmen who represented my home district in northern illinois later ran for president as an independent in 1980. the confluence of working for the student paper and being out here in washington kind of hooked me on journalism and federal government being here in the nation's capital. at that point, i really want to come back here as a journalist. i did not know in what capacity. i thought working for "the chicago tribune" the bureau or a big newspaper bureau. i was lucky enough to get a job at "national journal" in 1972 and was able to get here relatively quickly.

i was there for five years and i was again lucky enough to get a job "the washington post." i pinched myself ever sent them over those years, which candidates do you remember the most? >> which ones were the most interesting? >> i think bill clinton was the most natural and gifted candidate that i have watched in the time i have been covering politics. reagan was a significant figure but i have very little contact with him. i interviewed him in 1976 for a project i was doing unrelated to "national journal." i was in texas during his first term and i was national editor at the post during his second term. i did not have a lot of contact with him on the campaign trail. i did the mondale campaign in 1984. the clinton campaign and bill

clinton as a candidate was a whale of a story politically given all the ups and downs he went through. to see the ability of someone who is under fire which all candidates are at one time or another and his determination to push through that. what he did in terms of re- imagining the democratic party after the losses in 1980, 1984, 1988 and trying to re-think what the democratic party needed to do to bring middle-class voters back to their side was intellectually a very interesting experience. every campaign is a fascinating campaign. they are unpredictable. the country is always in a different place politically and economically as we go through these campaigns. the human side of these campaigns is fascinating and one

thing i have always loved about being a political reporter is it forces you not to spend all your time inside the beltway and you get to know the country and the politics of different states and politicians in different states. as you are following the circus of the presidential campaign, you are getting a graduate seminar every four years on where the country is. >> from your experience, how many people have already made up their mind, what percentage? but probably 85-90%. we are a very polarized country and have been for some time. i don't think there's anything that has happened so far in this presidential campaign cycle that would suggest that is loosening. i think it is very much so. we are in the middle of a recall battle in wisconsin or governor scott walker is facing a recall on june 5. everybody i have talked to about

that race, it doesn't matter which side they're on, but everybody i've talked to said this is the most polarized state in the country. i think there was a recent poll the came out that indicated that in wisconsin on that race, they are less than 5% undecided at this point. these are remarkable numbers when you think about it. identification as republican or democrat has locked them into a voting pattern that we have not seen. i don't think there is a lot of mines that will be changed over the next five or six months but enough that can swing the election, certainly. >> i want to get our students involved. rob has agreed to ask the first question. >> thank you, i just graduated from purdue with a degree in history and political science.

how do sites like fact check change the job you do as a journalist? >>'s enterprises i think have had a huge effect -- those enterprises i think have had a huge effect on the way journalists operate and they are valuable for readers. they do what we are supposed to be doing in the routine course of business. as i was saying at the beginning, things move so quickly and you have to post something -- if you are out of the campaign trail and a person who is assigned to governor romney or the president or any candidate during the primaries, if something happens, essentially you are expected to post it quickly. there's very little time for a reporter out on a bus or driving in a car in the middle of iowa or somewhere to be able to really do all the background research that you would do if

you are writing a newspaper story. fact checkers have the ability and brain power and the knowledge to be able to go back and begin to unravel some of these things. the arguments that are made by campaigns these days are often over the top. they often stretch the truth. all campaigns do it and it is important to have a kind of rigorous and regular accounting of that in a place that readers can go to because if i do it in the context of a story, i'm a fact check in the 12th paragraph -- i'm a fact check in the 12th power but people only read six paragraphs, they will not get to that. the web, they may collect to the first page the not the second page. to have a fact check page makes a huge difference for readers. >> next question is from natalie johnson, a freshman. >> i will be going into my

sophomore year in mechanical engineering in the fall. i understand that your the co- author of two different books. is -- does co-authoring alter your style of writing? >> i had different -- two different co authors. i did a book after the 1994 campaign and then i did a book after the 2008 campaign with a former colleague at "the washington post." one of the challenges -- there are great things to say about collaborating with someone else. both of my partnerships were terrific. i could not have asked for better collaborators and co- authors. the one challenges to make a book with one voice.

frankly, it does not alter the writing style of either author but the process is u trade back and forth chapters. somebody always takes the lead on a particular chapter but that chapter then goes to the other co author and they do some writing and some tweaking and some restructuring and they do some smoothing. out of that, the two voices from the two co-authors blend into one. you would not have a good book if it was obvious who wrote which chapters. in both cases, i most people have not been able to figure out which one ones by road or the co-authors wrote. i am now working on a book by myself on this campaign. i wake up in the morning and think it would be nice to have a collaborator to work through this particular issue or problem. >> lisa - >> i am in political science and

communication. how do you approach book interviews differently than news reporting interviews? >> they are different. i think of the book interviews as gathering history. i think of interviewing when i'm working for the news side as gathering contemporary information. there's a fine line between those. when i am doing an interview for the book, i am dealing with settled in events, something that happened six or eight months ago and it is really to try to get people to put me back in the middle of that from their vantage point and tell the story as they felt that and lived it in those a white hot moments of any campaign. when you are reporting for the post, you are looking for where it is something going today or tomorrow or in the next couple of weeks.

you are always trying to pitch forward as best you can and you are trying to dig out things that have not been revealed. that is the essence of what we do day-by-day. we are trying to scoop the opposition and try to break news and find things out that the campaigns don't necessarily want to come out. there is a kind of distinct difference in that. ashley, my question is more in reference to your roots. how did growing up a relatively small midwestern town has shaped the way you cover and the politics? >> that is a wonderful question. i don't know that i can add to that directly. other than to say we are all products of our growing of place and years and the people around us. midwesterners like yourselves

tend to be pretty nice people. i think when you grow up in a smaller community, i grew up in a town of 27,000 people. it was not tiny but not a big town and it was well enough away from chicago that we were not a big city. i think there comes from that the curiosity about the world. what is the rest of the world like? you understand what the values are of the place you are in. i think carrying those with me through the rest of my career has been valuable because one of the things you try to do as a political reporter is to understand why voters are doing what they do. what are voters thinking about? the degree to which you have a contact for your own life with different kinds of people is important.

the other aspect of that is when you are in a place like freeport, what is life like on the east coast or the west coast. it feeds a curiosity to no more about other places as well as where you grew up. >> my name is paul rosenberg. how has the mitt romney campaign compared with his 2008 campaign? >> there are a lot of differences. the biggest difference starts with the fact that he began this campaign essentially as the front runner for the nomination and began the 2008 campaign as a little-known governor from massachusetts running against some people who were in essence nationally known, john mccain who would run in 2000 and was a significant figure nationally

and rudy giuliani to was the mayor of new york at the top of the attacks on september 11 and therefore had a national profile as a result, the strategy he adopted in that campaign was quite different than what he did in this one. the biggest difference was that he had a need early on that campaign to make a mark, to try to convince people, voters, donors, people who pay attention to politics that he could play in the same league as john mccain and rudy giuliani. he did some early fund raising to create a splash and the early advertising to drive his number up in iowa. he competed are in the iowa straw poll and was able to win that and that put him on the map. none of which in the and gave him the nomination. he started this campaign and said, in essence, we will not do it that way. he did not put in personal money the way he did the first time.

they ran a smaller operation than they did four years ago. if he went to the headquarters one year ago at this time compared to four years ago, it was night and day, it was a much smaller and tighter operation. they started more slowly. they paid less attention to the other candidates and decided we will run our race and if we can do that regardless of who ends up as our final competitor, we will be in good shape. there were a lot of significant everett's is between the two campaigns. >> i'm from jordan. how has social media change your lot of work in terms of reporting and vetting news information? >> significantly and i think the change between 2008-2012 has been one of the most dramatic we have seen. the internet has obviously, over a number of cycles, had a significant impact.

i think social networking has been one of the most significant changes. twitter in particular is a primary new source for anybody who covers politics. it did not exist four years ago for all practical purposes. facebook is important. the obama campaign in 2008 essentially created their own version of facebook with the help of some of the original facebook people. now it is the way the campaigns think about doing organizing, creating community, creating networks. those two facts alone have significantly altered the way we approach what we are doing. a real-time example would be when the candidates are having a debate, there used to be spin room and there still is were at

the end of the debate, the candidates handlers, and then tell you their candidate did best. it is a ritualized process. we all go through it. it is mostly useless but it is still done. the reality is in this campaign, because of twitter, campaigns can instantly see whether they be reporters ordinary folks and people would be creating the conventional wisdom of what was happening in that debate. by the time the debate was over, the spin room was irrelevant because people had come to conclusions as to what are the highlights of that debate and who had made a mistake to what extent is were important. that is happening in real time and campaigns mantra that closely to come to the conclusion that we got a problem on our hands or we have had a good night or we're somewhere in

between. it is much different. it is so much more real time than it used to be. >> i will be going through a senior electrical engineering working in india. the republican primary was the first election process to be impacted by the citizens united decision and the super packs. this probably resulted in a being dragged on and the republicans satellite on a candidate who they were not completely comfortable with. do you think there will be an effort or a consensus that the unlimited money is not a good thing and will there be any effort to curtail it? >> if you ask the average person what you think about the role of money in campaigns, they would answer there is too much of it. they would say that unlamented

money is not a healthy thing for the political system. and yet, there is no groundswell at this point to change that. as a voting issue, money in campaigns rarely rises to the level of the economy, health care, education, and a number of issues. the role of money in this campaign has been significant and different than we have seen. the existence of this-superpacs made it possible for newt gingrich and wreck santorum to stay in the camp and longer than they would have. it dragged out the nomination battle. it also made it possible for governor romney to put down the rise of newt gingrich and later rick santorum. his super-pac was instrumental in crushing the hopes of new

gingrich in iowa and when rex santorum rose up as a formidable employment -- upon a, the super- pac took him back down. they're not the only ones who brought the nomination to mitt romney but there is no question that had a significant effect on a long bidding process and changing it. when you have one family giving as much money as they did to the gingrich superpa eshooc, it changes the nature of the gang -- nature g of theame. the other element is that there is essentially no separation of people now take for granted that there is no separation. technically, the romney campaign cannot coordinate with suoer-pac working in its behalf of the people running it are all ex-ann romney people and the candidates are allowed to raise money for them.

is president's campaign now helping to raise money for priorities usa which is the super-pac behind the president's reelection campaign. the closeness of this is obviously a distortion because of the amounts of money. the other element of this year -- a lot of superp deathacs are taking money where their revealing with the donors are but others are are not. i have felt over the years that there's almost no way you can take money out of politics. no matter what kind of legal structure is set up, smart lawyers find a way to get money into the campaign insignificant amounts. until there is a radical transformation, that is a given. if that is the case, i think a

very strong case can and should be made for as much transparency as possible. we are in an era where transparency is easy to do. it can be almost instantaneous and i think if that were the case, at least there would be some greater check on it and the public would at least be able to say that they know where the money's coming from. now, in many cases, we don't agree we have suspicions but we don't know exactly who is giving it and in what amounts. that is important fact that has a distorting effect on politics and people's perceptions of whether this is an open process or not. >> i am jennifer. i'm studying political science. will the, maybe the biggest issue for voter consideration? >> -- will the economy be the biggest issue for voter consideration? >> if we had been sitting here four years ago, we have -- we would not have said the collapse of the economy will totally change the last six or eight

weeks of the fall campaign. it is always possible that an outside event can transform things and given the nature of where we are internationally, we could foresee something like that potentially happening. it is very likely that the economy will continue to be the biggest issue. whenever you talk to people about what they are worried about, is some aspect of the economy and is economic insecurity that's a many people feel. some people feel a little better than they did a few months ago pour one year ago, but they are not feeling truly comfortable. in one of our most recent polls, a significant percentage said they don't think we are truly out of the recession. when you have that as the overriding mood of the country, there is no doubt that economic issues will dominate. >> i will be a senior next year

and social education and political science. my question is about the republican primary in process. mitt romney had to appear more conservative to win the nomination. many people of already met their mind that there is a little that left that mitt romney can win in certain swing states to win the overall election. where does he go to move back toward the middle? >> for the most part, he will try not to focus on some of the issues that he ended up focusing on during the primaries. immigration, for example -- i think you'd himself further to the right and he probably should have. -- i think he moved himself for the to the right that it probably should have. the latino voters could be decisive and those rocky mountain states that will be in

play like colorado, new mexico, nevada. the obama campaign says they will put arizona in play and we will see if they can do that. nonetheless, the gap that governor brown is facing among latino voters is in part a function what happened during the primary. his pivot from the primaries to the general election has been basically to get back to where he wanted to be restored the campaign. if you go back to the announcement speech he made in new hampshire last june, that was an economic focus and it was focused on president obama. that is where they have always wanted to run the campaign and when you talk to the romney folks, they will say that we have sought to be consistent in the message and to have a message we started out with the message that works in the general election.

as you see him making the move over last few weeks from fighting the primaries to fighting the general election, that's where he is trying to be and i think they're feeling is that even with latino voters, economic issues can overcome some of the problems that may exist because of his stances on immigration. with women, there is a significant gender gap that exists and he is on the downside of that. there are economic issues particularly with suburban issues and he hopes to overcome that. we will see of that is the case that is clearly where he wants to go. there's no question that for all voters, no matter how we slice and dice them, economic issues to have a resonance. if you can do that, he may be successful. the obama campaign, as we have seen this week, will do everything they can to keep him

pinned in a particular place, farther to the right they wants to be and also having a philosophy of economics that is geared toward helping the wealthy at the expense of or as opposed to the middle class. that is the battle that we began to see unfold and we will see that more and more as the campaign goes on. >> i just graduated from purdue with a degree in communications. i am curious to know how you tell your writing style for a book for book audience as opposed to your reporting audience and how you maintain what we as an audience might mess when we read as opposed to your personal experience? >> in doing the last book on the campaign and this current book i'm working on about this campaign, i think of this as trying to write a narrative about the campaign.

when i covered day today, i take a moment in the campaign and i tried to analyze it often -- where are we at this moment and why? what has happened today and why? what is behind the latest attack or the latest mistake? where are we in terms of the electoral map? it is an effort to step back half a step and try to make sense of it. when you are doing the book, you have a great luxury of on packing everything. and putting it back together and trying to get people to understand it in a much broader context. when you are in a moment, there are certain things you don't know. when you are able to go back and talk to people about what was really going on at that moment, you sometimes come away with a

better understanding. you obviously learned things about specific tensions are debates within the campaign. you see things in a different way and when you are trying to write for a book audience, you are trying to say here is the story in fall. we have told it to you a minute by minute but now you can read it hall and to some extent, we are putting to decide things that may have seemed important at the moment that i may have written three stories about the in the long run did not prove to be significant. and the book, you can say we don't -- in the book, we don't have to worry about those things but here are the things that matter. >> i am a senior majoring in political science. when covering an election so diligently, how difficult is it to remain impartial in your reporting cannot get caught a been thehype of one campaign or

another. >> it is not as difficult as you might think. when i learned journalism, i was your age, i had a lot of good mentors. this was an era in which the idea of being a reporter was to be as objective as you can be. we all know that everybody has biases and prejudices and a world views depending on how you were raised and where you were raised and where you went to school and who your friends were and what your parents politics of views were and all that. if you come to the craft of political reporting with the idea -- that i will try as best i can to give people as full an understanding of what is happening in this campaign -- it is not that difficult to put your biases to the site. i think a lot of good reporters

don't have that much ideology. there was a colleague of mine who covered the white house many years ago who passed away much too young an namedn devereaux, one of the best reporter evers. someone said her ideology was that she hated in confidence in government. she covered the white house in a way where there was incompetence, she would rule it out and bring it to the fore. peter hart who is a democratic pollster said something to me when i was just starting out at the post doing political reporting that i have always remembered. i think it is particularly apt today in a period in which everybody is trying to be a handicapper.

handicapping is a great sport and we have fun with it but he said the job of a political reporter is not to be a handicapper. your job is not to sit there and try to predict who will win the senate race or the house race or who will win the presidency and which candidate and the presidency will win ohio or which one will win michigan or nevada. he said what you should be thinking about is that when people are watching on election night or wake up the next morning and see in the paper or see on tv so and so is declared the victor in this presidential campaign, that you're reporting will -- would have helped them understand how that happened. another you predicted it but the world of understanding of the forces that were at work, that were driving the election. they will have an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses

of the campaign that made it possible for them to either win or lose. i have always thought that was sound advice. when you look a presidential campaign, you look at it in a number of different ways. there is the daily back and forth, the combat that goes on between the two campaigns, the effort to put a message out and knock an opponent of to decide or not him off their game. k --nock him off their game. all of those contribute to impressions of the character of these candidates. battle mother level, the country is always moving -- at a whole nother level, the country is always moving. demographics have an impact on where we're going. the economy has an impact. that is another element of the campaign that has a huge impact on how the campaign will turn out you watched different states

change over time. watch states like new jersey from being a swing state to one that is predominantly democratic, solidly democratic and presidential locations. elections. how did that happen? what are the issues that turned a state like that? how did california going from voting often too rigid for republicans to one the customer -- consistently votes democratic. one of the things you're trying to do is understand that. when you approach to campaign like that, i think you are not thinking about your own particular ideology. you stand back and try to do it that way. we are in and year were that kind of reporting is less prized than it was when i first started out and in some ways,

people are critical of it. their view is that all people covering campaigns should put all of their biases out of the table and talk about it. i disagree with that. i think there is a role for different types of reporting. reporting grounded in a particular viewpoints or a pole -- particular partisan viewpoints is fine but there are a lot of people in this country who simply want us to tell them the way it is unfolding and let them come to their own conclusions. >> named k isyle walker and i am a senior in political science. in the past, americans got their information from print media or the 7:00 news or the radio on their way to work. how do you think the evolution of western journalism will change the relationship journalists like yourself and your colleagues have with

reporting election issues in a meaningful way? >> if we survey did this room, i'm sure that have the room would say they get their political knows from jon stewart. [laughter] those who don't would say that most of what they get, they did p on theirhone. that is the way of the world and we are all adapting to that. at the post, so much of the energy and banking -- and thinking and creativity is in that how we make sure we are delivering information to people the way they want it. in a sense, the delivery changes. the news cycle is different. when i started out, afternoon

newspapers had been the dominant side of journalism. they were dying out because people were working at different hours. the morning newspaper was coming to the four but also television was becoming dominant in political coverage. we're now back, in a sense, in which -- by the time something lands on your doorstep if you subscribe to a print a copy of the newspaper, by the time that lands on your doorstep, much of the news in that newspaper you already know and you have probably already checked your phone or blackberry for your e- mail that morning so something is breaking, you are 12 hours ahead of the printed edition and yet there is still material in that printed edition that you did not know. whether it is smart analysis, a

deeper reported piece that was not based on yesterday's events -- in terms of the flow of information, it is instantaneous. that is why we do so much more. we do news alerts in ways we never used to think about not because everything we alert is earth shattering news but because people want to know about it and people want to know quickly. consumers change and we have to change with them. how that affects the way political campaigns are run or who wins political campaigns, smarter people than i will have to figure that out. all i know is that we are adapting as quickly as we can to the new world and all news organizations are. >> my name is scott oliver and i will be a senior studying communications. in 2008, the obama campaign successfully captivated the young audience and now these

individuals will be at the voting age. how well mitt romney identify with these individuals and capture the votes? >> i don't think you'll be able to do it easily. people who voted for the first time in 2008 were captivated by president obama. i would say they are not as captivated today as they were. the four years of the presidency takes its toll and it has clearly taken its toll on this president as far as how people perceive them. where he stands on issues, a lot of younger people identify more closely with that then governor romney. the younger generation is pushing its way through the electorate in a very significant way. we are adding lots of people to the voting rolls were voting for the first time and we will

continue to do that the election by election. the younger generation is a much more diverse generation that has grown up in the world is far different than i grew up in or brian core of ben or for that matter barack obama grew up in or governor romney grew up in. there are different experiences. i think the hope a number -- mitt romney campaign is that there will simply be overall less enthusiasm among young voters and therefore they will not turn out in as big numbers. i don't think there's a belief that they can significantly change the margin between the president and governor romney but that if fewer of them turn out, the composition of the electorate will be more favorable to governor romney that was before. >> i am a senior nuclear engineer anding.

there has been a lot of talk about swing states in this election. if you had to play devil's advocate for a state that swung one way, what would be your perception of flipping a state? >> that is all that mitt romney has to do. the president does not need to flip states. if the president were to flip a states, they would say in chicago arizona would be their first target. because john mccain was the candidate four years ago, the senator from arizona, and i did not put a lot of effort into that and the latino population is growing their. therefore, they think that state comes into play for the democrats. they will spend some time and money probing that. we will see in the end whether they do that. for governor romney, there's a whole slew of states. karl rove has this shorthand

version of what mitt romney has to do called 3-2-1 for winning the electra college. the three is to win back three states that have traditionally gone republican that obama fled last time, north carolina, virginia, indiana. in the almost certainly will go back to the republican column this time. the obama team thinks they can still hold north carolina. marginn a it by a slim last time. virginia will be the big battleground and i think it will be the big battleground through to the end of the election. historically, i has voted republica since 1964 until 2008. that status changing demographically. it is a true swing state at this point. beyond that, mitt romney has to look at the two big states that have often been the key states in winning elections in this

last decade, ohio and florida. ohio can be tough for president obama. there's a significant portion of white working voters in that state and that is not his best constituency. that will be a competitive state. florida he did pretty well in 2008 but we will see whether that is as easy this time. i think that'll be a tough state for him. then he has to when summer else whether it be iowa -- the mitt romney campaign says they will try to put michigan in play. in the last five elections, it has voted democratic. the mitt romney campaign because he was born and raised there, they have an opportunity to put that state implies. i think a lot of wriggle put that state in play. some are skeptical if they can do that.

the romney campaign will begin to probe that and see what they can do. >> my name is juse wachovie from niger. my question has to do with the vice presidential candidate for mitt romney. do you think f. of the disaster was sarah palin you have to take extra care in picking a running mate? >> yes, i think the experience john mccain went through with sarah palin has made it much more difficult and frankly highly unlikely that governor romney will sit there in the last couple of weeks before he makes a decision and says we really have to roll the dice so let's take some they not on anybody's radar and elevate them to vice-presidential running mate. i also don't think that is in the dna of mitt romney. there was a wonderful moment in

the john mccain campaign. sarah palin is on her way up to meet him at his home in sedona, ariz. for the interview. he is on the telephone with bill lawyer who hasthe vetting process. he had just come t pleadedhe vetting of sarah palin and it was done rather hurriedly and some people not -- don't get was done thoroughly. the last thing john mccain said was give me your bottom line. the lawyers said high-risk, high reward. john mccain said you should not have told me that, i have been a gambler all my life. mitt romney is not a gambler. he is solid, staid and everything signal that has come out of the romney campaign to

date is that they will not go that route. they will pick a governing choice, somebody who will be instantly seen as capable of becoming president in the event something happened. we're looking at a different model influenced both by the problems that occurred four years ago but also the difference between the two nominees. >> thank you. >> i nuclear engineer from austin, texas. howl as the excess media coverage of health care -- how has the access media coverage of health care affected other topics? >> sometime this summer we will have health care come roaring back as the presidential campaign when the supreme court hands down its decision on the

obama health care law. health care was a significant factor in shaping public attitudes about president obama. it was a combination of the stimulus package but also the health care plan that helpedre- polarized this country quickly after he got elected. health care is an important issue to people simply because of the cost and affordability and availability of health care and the absence of insurance for roughly 45 million americans. it is a bread-and-butter issue but it is also a politically- charged issue. when the court makes its decision presumably sometime near the end of its term at least for a time, that will be front and center. it will reshape the way the

political debate carries out. by the time we get to september or october, i don't know whether how may swing voters we will have front and center or whether it will be another aspect of the economy that will drive it. it is obviously a big issue and will have its moments sometime in the next few weeks. >> this class is from purdue university. their leader is sitting right here. i want to ask her to explain to our audience listening to this discussion who these folks are. >> it is a very diverse group from purdue university in that we have liberal arts represented, communication, political science, psychology as well but we also have a group of engineers. this is the second year this class and the first year we have had them and the feeling is it will help to round out the

education that perdue provides these young people. we also have an international contingent. five of our students are not u.s.-born. they are foreign students and clothing from el salvador, nigeria, china, india, and i missed one -- jordan, thank you. the experience they have been having has been in many ways what i call washington from the i outsiden. for many of them, it is a first look at the capitol. we have had meetings at the white house, capitol hill, the state department, launched yesterday ed " the new york times." i hope next week it will be "the washington post." the question we have been asking often is formulas for success. you come to a town which is very competitive on many levels that you made a huge success doing a

very tough job, political reporting, in a political town and you had staying power and you have had monumental success at a huge newspaper. what would you revise the students who are thinking of coming to washington themselves? >> hold that thought. carolyn is a former washington poster. >> speaking of success stories. you know - i guess the advice i would give people and i am not one who was good at giving advice. -- who is good at giving advice. we all have talents we were given and we all have doors that were opened and we all have

people who were mentors or gods -- or gods or people who gave you a push along the way and i o --r guides for people to give you a push along the way. i look back at some professors were fabulous and some who were practicing journalists and some were not but were enormously helpful. people that i met in washington when i first arrived, people i worked with at the post beginning and end in with dave broder who was four years the political reporter in this town who defined what political reporting is and always should be and who was the most generous colleague that any of us ever knew. he made time not in a heavy- handed way of saying here's how

you should do it but just made time to give the space to do what you were trying to do and gentle encouragement along the way. for anybody starting out, i had a sense of all want to do so i was lucky. i knew fairly early on that i wanted to try to get to washington as a reporter and i was lucky enough to be able to do that. every door that is opened opens up the doors. every door that is closed on new moves you in a direction or another door will open. my first experience as a reporter after graduate school was at the foot -- at -- and "the philadelphia inquirer." i left to their about 12 weeks and it was not particularly happy experience. -- i lasted there about two weeks and was not a particularly

happy experience. there are not enamored of may. it was a difficult summer because it was clear to me that this was the not a goodfit. it was not because -- i did not think it was because i was doing things i should not do are not measuring up but we had a different world view. luckily none ", national journal" camelot and i leapt at the chance to do it. -- came along and i leapt at the chance to do it. everyone has moments of success and moments of either setback or worry and stress. have confidence in yourself. if you don't have confidence in yourself, others won't. believing a. yourself -- believe in yourself. have a sense of what you want to do and find something you really like to do.

it sounds obvious and it is obvious but if you like what you do, it is easier to get up every morning and go do it. you'll do a better job at it. those of the things to think about. [inaudible] are constantly forced to learn things. you are always learning. the education of any journalist should never stop. it keeps on going from the time you leave school and take your first job until the time you quit working. all of that is the way i have approached things. i feel i have been lucky. i landed at the post as an editor and ended up as a reporter. the people at the post -- it is a big and competitive place with

enormously talented people. it is competitive against its competitor and competitive internally and yet "the washington post" has been a collegial place to work and i have counted as one of the lucky things were landed. you don't with the inside of an institution is likely to get there. >> dan balz, chief political reporter at "the washington post." produced ivins, thank you very much. -- perdue students, thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> for a dvd copy of this program, call - for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, a visitor us

atqanda.org. these programs are also available as podcast. >> coming up on c-span, your calls and the man "washington journal out on" fall by live coverage of the supreme court as we wait to see if there is a decision on health care. later in the day, the u.s. house is in for a pro forma session. today i "washington journal," the reporter of talking points memo will discuss the farm and transportation bills in congress and look at upcoming decisions by the supreme court. at 8:30, the heritage foundation talks about a report examining the effects of the bush era tax cuts on states and congressional districts and in the final hour, "