we will be joined by a member of the council of foreign relations to look at the so-called obama of doctrine, the administration's position on multilateral institutions such as the united nations. good morning, it's tuesday, august 14. a live view of capitol hill to. its primary day in connecticut, florida, minnesota, wisconsin. a number of house and senate races. the primaries are in the balance. president obama is on a bus trip through iowa. vice-president joe biden is in virginia. republican vice-presidential candidate paul ryan is in colorado and nevada today. our question is based on a question you would want to ask one of the presidential candidates.

if you were opposing the questions, what would you ask? -- if you were posing the questions. the numbers are on the screen to call. the newspapers have stories on the debates. candy crowley is one of three moderator's. jim lehrer at the university. and bob schieffer of cbs with the final presidential debate that will take place in mid october. the vice-presidential debate will be moderated by martha raddatz.

let's look at the schedule, october 3, october 16, october 22, for the presidential debates. october 11 for the vice- presidential debate. if you were moderating, what question would you ask? you can also join us on our facebook page or send us an e- mail. or join us on our twitter page. meanwhile, susan page this morning with news of the morning after much speculation, chris christie confirmed as the keynote speaker at the republican national convention which will take place in late august in tampa, florida. she writes --

and there's this headline from the des moines register -- here's more from the president campaigning yesterday, part of a three-day seven-city stop in iowa with just six look for votes. we will have that in a moment. let me show you what some people are saying on our facebook page -- some other news on this tuesday morning, front page of the new york times -- we will have more highlights from his event in a moment. and from the washington post --

here's more from the president again on the campaign trail in iowa yesterday. >> they may have a plan to win the election, but they cannot hide the fact they don't have a plan to create jobs or revive the middle class or grow the economy. i do have that plan. i've got a plan to put you first. i've got a plan that puts middle-class families and folks striving to get into the middle class first. host: the president yesterday in iowa. this from "usa today" --

now on the phone from las vegas, nevada, independent line, brian. what would you ask the candidates? caller: good morning. the main thing i would ask is why do candidates, incumbents, and potential people running for political office lie about the fact they don't talk about how overbearing and dangerous the banking industry is? if you read history, this goes back to the 1700's, the founding fathers of george washington, thomas jefferson, abraham lincoln, james madison jr., andrew jackson, john taylor, the list goes on, they all wondered -- this is all written on what the banking industry would eventually do to our country. no political figure speaks on that.

why? host: thanks for the call. many people in in on our facebook page -- nick and also join us on our twitter page. dan is on the phone from georgetown, massachusetts, and independents. caller: good morning. i would like to give a shout out to the guy from las vegas. that's it right there. my question would specifically being for the candidates, are you familiar with the rothschilds and there and balance on western civilization

-- and their influence on western civilization's central banking? the american people have been warned from the beginning, w whoever controls the money controls the military and the media. i wonder if they are familiar with the rothschild family. i pretty much recently figured out the entire western civilization economic policies are based on a pyramid scheme. if you look at the back of a dollar, on the top of the pyramid is the eye that represents a group called the luminosity. -- the iluminatti. host: its primary day in wisconsin. a lot of attention on the senate race. there's a photograph of paul ryan on the soapbox, which is a

political tradition. the vice-president's election really defines swing elections. and this -- the wisconsin senate primary is today, four men squaring off. and this one says paul ryan, fiscal hero or budget bogyman? when the announcement first came --

there's spotter in the public record for each of these very difficult portraits, it says. if you were asking a question of the presidential candidates, what would you ask? sean, from lincoln, nebraska, democrat line. caller: good morning. i would like to ask why it is up to the future recipients of medicare to be able to pay for the shortfall of the budget? i would expect that the lawmakers built a revenue trigger in to being able to cover it. i disagree with what romney is doing and ryan. i'm voting for obama in 2012. host: thanks for the call. this from twitter --

the quad city in iow times -- and in the times-republican -- next is jay on our republican line in burlington. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like say obama has no record to run on. what has he done for this country? that's what i would like to ask. romney does have a record. he has a business background. we have seen him take businesses and turn them around and make profits. he does it for a living. that's how he makes money. host: the romney campaign this morning with a new ad taking aim

at some of the attacks by the president and the president's surrogates. here's the latest, just released. [video clip] >> what does it say about the president's character when his campaign trusties use the tragedy of a woman's death for political gain? what does it say about the president's character when he had his campaign raise money for the ad and then stood by as his top aides were caught lying about it? does america deserve better than the president who will say or do anything to stay in power? >> i am mitt romney and i approve this message. host: one of the off the record stops by the president yesterday, picking up snow cones in deccison, iowa. meanwhile, paul ryan is front page of the new york times as he campaigned at the iowa state fair.

and this piece about medicare -- that this morning from the new york times. tyrone is on the phone from south carolina. what would you ask? good morning. caller: good morning. i would ask mitt romney why he keeps flip-floping on issues just to get the american vote. and i would ask president obama why he does not tell the american people about all the blocking going on from congress to get america back to work.

mitt romney is saying anything just to get votes and is taking his orders from rush limbaugh, glenn beck, and fox news and is not truthful to the american people. host: from the style section of the washington post, more on janet ryan stepping lightly into the national spotlight. paul ryan's wife with degrees from wellesley college and george washington university law school is taking careful first steps into the spotlight that comes with a run for the white house. the two are from wealthy, well- connected families. his owns a construction company. her uncle is the former democratic governor and now president of the university of oklahoma -- that the profile of the wife of

congressman paul ryan in washington post. raymond is on the phone from orangevale, maryland. independent line. caller: my question would be directed to mitt romney pertaining to his release of tax statements. would it be more damaging to him if it was revealed that he had gained capital, reported income after the olympics from the bain companies? that would address the type of character running for the highest office in the country. host: thanks for the call. from the miami herald --

and from the tallahassee democrat -- "usa today" has -- that from this morning. next is mary on the phone from mississippi. good morning, welcome to the program. caller: hi. i would like to ask the

democrats of this country to ask themselves exactly why they want to vote for obama, because i feel like if you really care about the good of the nation, our well-being as a nation, you could not with a good part vote for him, because you would have to be totally naive to think that he is totally for himself and not for the good of the country. with our debt as high as it is, there's no way we are going to nibble to sustain this. pretty soon we will be bankrupt. are you voting for a president for what you can get out of him, for what the taxpayers can give you, or do you really care about america?

please certification your hearts and ask yourself that before you go and vote. host: front page of the "chicago tribune" -- back to the headlines from iowa. i would taking center stage again. the first in the nation primary or rather caucus. it was a state that the president won in the 2008 caucuses and in the general election. paul ryan when center stage at the iowa state fair yesterday. [video clip] >> i heard that president obama

is starting his bus tour today. and i heard he was not going to come to the iowa state fair. become so -- you , because, it's funny iowans and wisconsinites liked to listen to one another. these ladies must not be from 0 highfill or wisconsin. [ladies were shouting and interrupting him] like i said, you must not be from iowa. all right. congressman paul ryan

yesterday in des moines. jennifer jacobs is a political reporter. we have checked in with her throughout this campaign season, from the des moines register. she's joining us live on the phone from iowa. thanks for being with us. guest: you're welcome. a year ago mitt romney was at the iowa state fair as well. explain the reaction that paul ryan had yesterday. guest: you are talking about the hecklers? this is the same group of political activism that have done this a few times. they are pretty well-known group. they have really irritated both political parties. it was no surprise that they were there. it was really distracting. host: i want to show what

happened last year with mitt romney, but let me ask a question about iowa's role. the president's spending an unprecedented three days with seven stops tomorrow, and michelle obama will be joining him. six electoral votes. iowa is relatively small in terms of the vote when compared to other states, so why all this attention? guest: the president has said that he has installed a four iowa. it was a state that took the dare on him when some people in other states had doubts about him. buthe he does not want to lose iowa. both campaigns have said the path to the white house is the electoral votes. they are crucial to their overall plan. it's one of the few swing states that could go either way. both states -- or rather both candidates are really running hard for otiowa.

ryan had a huge crowd yesterday and republicans attending the fair said the reaction chuck grassley and others are getting is pretty favorable. it seems to been universally and jubilant. democrats had the opposite reaction. host: let me take you to last year's iowa state fair with a process was getting under way. mitt romney was beginning to dip his toe into iowa caucuses, appearing at a couple key events including the iowa state fair. in one of the most infamous lines of the 2012 campaign, let's watch for his reaction. [video clip] >> we have to make sure the promises we make in social security, medicare, and medicaid are promises we can keep. there are various ways to do that. we can raise taxes on people. >> corporations.

>> corporations are people, my friend. everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. [laughter] where do you think it goes? >> in your pockets. >> whose pockets? host: jennifer jacobs, wanted to show that to give context to what paul ryan faced yesterday. guest: i think that the reaction to mitt romney's comments last year, he has to be able to deal with impromptu complications like that if he's going to be president. some people thought he did a fine job handling it. paul ryan did the same thing. republicans afterwards said they were proud of him for not getting disconcerted by it, by the hecklers. the governor said this is iowa and people will be very engaged

and are very passionate about politics in iowa, so you have to expect this. host: paul ryan talk about some of his signature issues including his budget and reforming medicare and welfare. here is congressman paul ryan at the iowa state fair. [video clip] >> what is so disturbing about president obama's most recent action is he took reforms that were bipartisan, into law by bill clinton in 1996 called welfare reform. welfare reform was one of the most successful ideas, bipartisan policies in 20 years, because it said if you are going to receive welfare benefits, if you have to go to work or get ready for work or get a job training so you can get back on your feet. [boos] we believe in a safety net that is there for people who cannot help themselves, that is there

to help people who are down on their luck. the work requirement in welfare reform does more to help the poor, does more to reduce child poverty than any reform we've seen in generations. president obama just past a rule waving those work requirements, saying no longer do states have to have work requirements of its people receive welfare. that will send us in the wrong direction. that's the wrong way to go. we want to get people a hand up and not a handout. host: that the vice presidential candidate on the campaign trail. jennifer jacobs is joining us on the phone from the des moines register. this headline from the new york post -- is it a battle of ideas in iowa? is it a distinct difference among iowa voters? guest: i think so.

and the welfare issue ilya them. home with they definitely want to keep the welfare to work programs in place, but the obama campaign says we have not done anything to get rid of those. iowans are hearing different messages from different campaigns and sometimes very opposite messages, so it's hard for them to sort out exactly what's going on. i do think this will be a very policy-driven campaign and now want. host: we are asking our viewers what question they would ask the candidates if they were moderating one of the presidential debates this fall? you have been around the candidates and the president and vice-president joe biden. what the candidates want to know? guest: i think they want to know which tax breaks they would get

rid of or which tax breaks they would add. they would want more specifics on tax plans. that's probably one of the biggest questions. host: jennifer jacobs, a political reporter with the des moines register. my guess is we will continue checking in with you over the next three months. thanks for being with us. guest: you're welcome, david. host: back to your calls. if you were one of the moderators for the debates, what would you ask the candidates? on the democratic line in georgia, next. caller: the headline should of said paul ryan does not come out swinging. i want to ask c-span, when are you all going to do an in-depth look at the voter suppression that is going on in this country? they are stealing our democracy. c-span, i am serious about this and about the voter suppression

that is going on blatantly in the great state of ohio. i would like to ask paul ryan, he is not a fiscal hawke, he is a scal chicken hawk. the man voted for the $700 billion, the prescription. drug builthe put two wars on our credit card. -- he put two wars on our credit card. how can you call him conservative? he's another big government republican. how can you add that much to the deficit and all of a sudden snap your fingers and become h a become hawk? tell the truth about the man.

david served as a member of congress and the budget director in the reagan administration and has written this editorial for the new york times -- again, the comments of david stockman.

now this point of view from a former bush speechwriter -- that was in the washington post. ofyou're asking a question

the presidential candidates, what would it be? gary is joining us from albany, oregon. caller: good morning. my question is which candidate is willing to admit that still in america's buying power by moving manufacturing offshore does not actually ruin their chances of making a profit? america has always been the consumer the world. 75% of all consumable goods are purchased by americans. people overseas where they are moving the manufacturing has totally different values than we do, so they are not going to spend money like americans. i am wondering who is willing to admit that by taking away america's buying power they forestall any renewal of the economy. host: liz smith on our twitter page --

the president, day two of a trip to iowa. michelle obama will be joining the president for its final campaign event. last night the first lady appeared on the tonight show with jay leno and was asked about health care and the president's signature legislative accomplishments of the first four years. here is the first lady. [video clip] >> >> the number one thing you are most proud of? >> health reform, truly. [cheers and applause] something that has not been accomplished by a sitting president in a century. one of the things that struck me, i was on the plane when the supreme court decision came down with my team. the young people on the plane, a lot of the kids 25 or so per, they breathed a sigh of relief, because i did not realize several of them had pre-existing conditions.

they had been worried, what would happen. if they work for the government, they would not work for the government their entire lives, so they were worried about when they could ever get health care. that is no longer an issue for americans. you cannot be denied coverage. the first lady last night. the mother, our facebook page -- the question is, what would you ask the candidates if you could? we have our next caller on the phone from wilmington, delaware.

caller: good morning. why are you letting us go into third-world status it would be my question to the president? why are you embarrassing us in front of the world? why are you bringing us down? why is it you don't care for the society and for our country? my follow-up question would be i understand you don't want to release your records, that you really don't want to tell the united states who you really are. to answer the last caller's question about voter suppression, all you need is a regular idea that he would use to cash a check or show anywhere else. that id will let you vote. there's no voter suppression. it's just that there's a lot of fraud going on. i understand that you should show some kind of idea or something to prove who you are. i guess that is too hard.

then the excuse is we cannot afford it it and some states are giving it out for free. there's always excuses. there's no voter suppression in the united states of america. that would be my question to the president. thank you so much, steve. host: thank you, philip. john in north carolina proposes -- some other headlines -- next is dustin from north carolina. welcome on the democrats' line. caller: good morning.

anybody in that thinks president obama does not care about this country is simple-minded. first, when president obama came in, he said he could not do this alone. when you have the republicans signing a piece of paper and a certain book coming out saying that certain people told other people to be a do nothing congress, he cannot do it alone. i guess the next thing would be that [unintelligible] how republicans could vote for romney, unless you are rich. he sits on the board of marriott as an auditor. he was -- i think it was around $30 billion in a tax scam.

y ds like a piece of pla ough. it does not show anything for his backbone or his own personal opinion. host: thanks for the call. on twitter -- a look at janesville, wisconsin, the hometown of congressman paul ryan, and photographs of the community -- 2 is the number of times since 1980 that wisconsin has voted for republican nominee.

almost any factor has the potential to tip the balance in florida and it's hard to imagine how ryan helped romney in that state. yesterday he appeared in san augustine, florida, then late afternoon in miami, where he talked about the romney-ryan budget plan and the president goes in action. [video clip] >> this president ran for office. he said he was going to do a bunch of things, he was going to get us more jobs. he has not done that. 23 million americans out of work or stop looking for work or underemployed. i will get the jobs america needs. i know how to do it. he said he would help people be able to hang on to their homes. but we have seen a record number of home foreclosures. i will get this economy going so people will see home values going up again.

the president said that under his progress we will see more people start businesses and begin new enterprises. he has been crushing small enterprise. we are at a 30-year low in new business start-ups. i will help small-business keep growing and add jobs. the president said he would cut the deficit in half. i think it is immoral for us to keep spending our kids' future. if i'm president, i will actually cut spending and get america on. track to a on. host: mitt romney in miami, florida. this from the "washington times --

a number of editorials this morning, reaction to saturday's announcement of ryan on the ticket -- nbc news reporting this morning on the death of the wife of a former congressman, a familiar figure in washington, the wife of former congressman lee hamilton of indiana. his wife died saturday after she was run over by her own car. that's according to the indiana police. the 82-year-old nancy arrived at a parking lot of a veterinary clinic with a pat on saturday around 4:15 in afternoon, and her car was not shifting into park. as she walked behind a vehicle to retrieve her pet from the passenger side, the vehicle rolled backwards, running her over. the bloomington police captain

said that hamilton was alone at the time. he believes the incident was entirely accidental. a city council members said this is tragic. lee hamilton is 81 years old and represented indiana in congress more than 30 years. the joint indiana university in 1999 and remains a director of the indiana university center on congress. again, the passing away of his 82-year-old wife nancy allison in an accident involving her own car. -- nancy hamilton. travis is on the phone from battle creek, michigan. caller: i have not heard anything about ron paul. we have all forgot about him. i never thought i would say this, but i kind of agree with mitt romney. the president said he would do this and that and also said our troops would be home.

, butot going to send more he did. i cannot really trust him. he also said i cannot suspend deportation through executive order, but he's making it so if an illegal immigrant threatens national security, they can stay here little longer and apply for a visa. he is doing it. mitt romney, i don't even know why he's still in the race. he did the whole of votes for subs thing. offering sandwiches for votes. i don't see how you could support him when he's pro-life and then he's pro-choice and so on. host: thanks for the call. chris says -- in the baltimore sun --

the president taking aim at that yesterday as he campaigned in iowa. [video clip] >> i'm told governor romney pose a new running mate might be around this state the next few days. he's one of the leaders of congress standing in the way. if you happen to see congressman ryan, tell him how important the farm bill is to the the state and rural communities. we have to put politics aside when it comes to doing the right thing for rural america and for iowa. host: the president yesterday. and from the new york times -- the survey was conducted before paul ryan was elected. voters say the republican candidate mitt romney would do better on health care at 47%

among voters 65 and older. 40% say the president would do better in ohio. next call is stephen from arizona, good morning. caller: good morning. my question --actually, the guy from nevada kind of had it right i would say don't give up on our boss. he should be president. my question, if we are serious about ending the national debt, why don't we audit the fed? stop the banking cartel in

america. i want to read something from president woodrow wilson. "i have unwittingly ruined my country, a great industrial nation controlled by a system of credit. our system of credit is concentrated. the growth of the nation and all of our activities are in the hands of a few men. we have come to be one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. no longer a government of free opinions, no longer a government by conviction and the votes of the majority but the government by opinion of a small group of dominant men." your vote does count, so get out there and vote. host: thanks for the call, stephen. from twitter --

two other pieces we want to bring to your attention before we take a break. this is from the washington post -- that was from the post. and this from the financial times --

thanks for your calls and comments this morning on the question, if you were to ask a question of candidates, what would it be? we will be covering the debates in the fall. c-span will have live coverage of the conventions getting under way in two weeks in tampa, florida, republicans' gathering for four days. and the democratic convention the week of labor day in charlotte, north carolina.

in several minutes we will turn our attention to early voting. michael mcdonald will join us. an associate professor at the george mason university. later, richard geddes will join us from cornell university on what is next for the u.s. postal service as they continued to hemorrhage money. what it means for the mail delivery system in the u.s. in the next couple years and beyond? you are watching washington journal. it's tuesday, august 14. back in a moment. >> ♪ ♪ >> now the soviet bear may be gone but they are still loose in the woods. we saw that when sadaam hussein invaded kuwait.

the mideast might have become a nuclear power keg. our energy supplies held hostage. what we did was right and necessary. we destroyed a threat, freed people, and blocked a tyrant in the prison of his own country. >> tonight, 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work. tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. the incumbent president says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. but unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. square c-span has aired every minute of every major party conventions of 1984. once the republican and democratic national conventions this year, live on c-span starting monday, august 27.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: we welcome professor michael mcdonald from george mason university. guest: thank you. host: about a third of the electorate are casting their ballots before most americans go to the polls, in this case on november 6. why are we seeing this? host: guguest: more and more sts are giving the option to voters to vote early. also, people love doing it. in some cases, like washington, the state offers people to sign up to always receive their ballots by mail, a permanent absentee ballot status. more and more people signed up for that. so many people sign up that election officials in washington decided to scrap holding elections in polling places on election day and just run the entire election by mail. host: it in critical in a couple

of states including ohio on early voting and the military. what are some issues with the democrats are facing and the republicans in the counterpunch as they take aim at that? guest: one of the good things, and we had bipartisan support on this since the last presidential election, was the passage of the move act, which is the military and overseas voting empowerment act. as a consequence, all localities within the country have to send absentee ballots to overseas and military voters at least 45 days prior to an election, which in some cases moves the early voting period even further in some places where the election it started later. this particular issue with ohio involves a change to the laws within ohio that the republican state government passed, which would restrict early in person voting while people can also vote by mail and they can also vote in person at special polling places in some states.

the state restricted that window of early voting and excluded the weekend prior to the election. the obama campaign is suing to undo that. the wrinkle is there was an exception put in that allowed military voters to continue voting during the early voting but the rest of the ohio citizens would not. be able not. so the obama administration or the obama campaign rather is suing to open that window back up for all citizens of ohio and the controversy is that within the legal documents that the obama campaign filed obamathey attacked the law itself. so the romney campaign countered and said you want to undo this law that allows the military

voters to vote during these three days? not really the position of the obama campaign. host: the wall street journal is keeping track of early voting in 2004 and 2008. a quarter of the electorate casting their ballots eight years ago. 31% in 2008. what prediction for 2012? guest: good question. some states like florida and ohio have been in the news quite a bit, restricting early voting. there's something else going in ohio, which is falling. under the radar falling the secretary of state has come to an agreement to send out absentee ballot applications to all registered voters within the state. in 2010 that increased the turnout in the counties where the ballot applications were sent out. we may actually see, despite one trend on the in person in early voting and in day mail ballots,

we may see an increase due to that change. generally, across the country, we are down to a handful of states that don't permit some sort of permissive early voting, either in person or absentee ballot. in the states where we do have it in place, we just see this increase every election cycle of more and more people opting to vote either by mail or in person early. looking at the trends, we're not going to add any more states to the mix, but when we look at the trends and if the states and the laws that are in place within those states, we are probably looking at somewhere around 35% or so of the votes being cast prior to election day nationally. in some states, we are talking about a very large percentage. like in colorado, maybe upwards of 80%. in florida, somewhere around 60%

of the votes or so will be cast prior to election day. the national numbers are one thing. but you can look state-by-state. especially in a critical battleground states, the early vote will be very important and very high within those states. host: i want to talk about states in a moment. let me talk strategy. the announcement yesterday was four moderator's of the upcoming debates. barring unforeseen event, the conventions and the debates are the two major issues looming in the campaign. the first debate is in denver, colorado, october 3. the final presidential debates is october 22 in boca raton, florida and. it's a town hall meeting format in an october in new york. a vice-presidential debate in kentucky and. if you look at those dates and early voting, some of these votes could be cast around for shortly after the very first debate. so the second and third debate will have no influence on those people who cast early ballots. guest: right. it is actually an issue in

primaries. you have people voting early and a candidate will drop out and they will have voted for that candidate and now their vote is wasted. you do run the risk that there could be some surprising information that would be made available through debates or just coming through the news media that might change your mind. the people who voted the earliest our people who are the most hard-core partisan. quite frankly, you can give any information about your candidate or the other candidates, but it's really not going to change their mind. for the people who are not sure or are uncertain about how they want to vote tend to hold their votes still very end? and they will cast it in the last few days prior to the election or on election day. the people who know how they are going to vote, these last-minute campaign events probably will not change their minds. it is the people who are not sure, they will stowaway that

information and cast their vote accordingly. host: my guest is michael mcdonald of george mason university, talking about early voting, its impact on the candidates and their strategies and in the overall election. you can send as a comment on our twitter page or send us an e- mail and we will get to your calls. the national conference of state legislators is looking at where early voting is taking place. we will show the map. the area in green as early voting and absentee ballot voting. the area in gray has no early voting. some states including new york, pennsylvania, virginia, pennsylvania and virginia been a key battleground states. the yellow area is no excuse absentee voting. in the loop you can see overall early voting. the majority is in green. this is early voting and no excuse absentee voting. that means -- guest: the map reveals there's a lot of variation across the states. even in the gray states there is

early voting. people must provide a valid excuse before they can receive their absentee ballot. what is interesting, in some of these states, the definitions are very muddy. in virginia, and many of the other states, you can vote in person early at your election administration office. you can go in and request an absentee ballot and actually cast your ballot all in one step if you go to an election administration office. in virginia in 2008, localities opened a special satellite locations within a local jurisdictions to do the same thing. essentially, virginia was having something similar to the other states that have special polling places for in person early voters. the difference was just you had to provide a valid excuse under virginia law in order to cast your ballot early.

as a consequence, because virginia really was aggressive about trying to increase early voting, we actually saw early voting in virginia but double digits, which was kind of surprising, because most of these grace states, the early voting percentage, the traditional absentee ballots must be requested, it's usually in the single digits around 84% of the of-- it's usually around 4% or 5% of the votes being cast early. what is interesting about virginia, also, is i have seen the target numbers from the romney campaign and what they think their early voting percentage will be. in some states like virginia they think it's one to be 20%. we are going to see a lot of early voters within va. host: let's go back to the map, out west in oregon, it's all by mail votingnd the same in

washington state, which is the area in orange. with early voting and by mail, how is fraud prevented? how do they do it and are there lessons for other states? guest: these are the states that have had a lot of experience with this. what these states do is they do signature verification on the envelope that is being sent to the election administrators. the states have an electronic database of digitized signature is. they can do the signature matched and they can identify cases where the signatures don't appear to match what was on a person's voter registration card. then the states can do a little bit more investigation, because sometimes your handwriting changes or something like that. they do a little bit more investigation just make sure the people are indeed the people that are sending in the ballots.

if you look across the country, and washington and oregon have good procedures for how to deal with this, there are many other jurisdictions around the country that don't have as robust mechanisms. that is where we see the voter fraud in the country. it is predominantly by mail. what is interesting about that observation is that it is easy to go around and falsely request absentee ballots, and have them returned with individuals never knowing that. there is no photo identification required for that. so, the area where the predominance of the fraud that we know happens in the country with absentee ballots, all of the controversy that we have

had around voter identification laws, they do not address where we know the fraud happens. impersonation fraud -- where somebody claims to be somebody else. there are handfuls of examples. most recently, a junior claimed he was the senior, so he was able to obtain a ballot. it happens rarely. it is not an efficient way to steal an election. it is seasoned through absentee fraud, and as a consequence, by the way, thinking about the ease of things and how people vote in the people vote in presidential elections, -- people vote in presidential elections, these predominantly have been in local elections where one of these

could change the outcome. host: our guest is michael mcdonald, a graduate of the university of california at san diego and studied at the california institute of technology in harvard. he is currently at george mason university. he is also, the inventor belt and the university of illinois. why it -- he is also taught at vanderbilt in the university of illinois. why is this an area that you have become an expert in? guest: i am interested in democracy. i watch c-span. unfortunately, people get caught up in the moment, and they do not understand democracy works best when everyone can participate. everyone has their say. how we have that through elections. if you care about the country, encouraging people to vote is

very important in having a well- functioning democracy. i know people can be wrapped up in the moment, the especially in a presidential election where passions run high, but for me i want everybody to vote -- military, for people -- the country is governed better when everyone has their state. >> you can go to gmu.edu the election and campaign was cited george mason. you are on the phone with -- you are on the line with michael mcdonald. caller: good morning. my question is, as far as voting fraud, i think it has been reported that in the last decade there were only 10 cases

of fraud. do you think that republicans come up with fraud to keep lower people like minorities, blacks, mexicans from voting? guest: it is interesting. look at the history of our country, and the specter of fraud has been used all the way back to the 1860's to introduce laws that are in some ways similar to voter identification. voter registration -- having to have one person swear that another person was the person they say are. that was what came out of the no-nothing movement of the 1850's, a movement against urban voters. we were talking about the

irish, because there was a moment where people were afraid the pope would take over the country, which is strange to think about. fast forward to today, and you see the same arguments. you cannot escape the potential effects on who might not have the voter identification. a number of studies have been done by states, so these are in pennsylvania, south carolina, where they have done their own analysis, and they found about 10% of the population does not have required identification. these are specific forms of identification. if you look at survey data and

who does not have that identification, you see it is predominantly young people, minorities, elderly as well, so you come to the conclusion that a certain group of people -- young people, minority, the elderly -- they are disfranchise somehow because they have to go through extra procedures to get the identification they do not have. most people in the country have the identification, so it is strange to most people to think how could you not have a driver's license, but if you look at the pennsylvania litigation, these are elderly people that do not drive now. unfortunately, because of the past, their birth certificate at some point has been destroyed,

maybe by fire or flood, so quite literally they cannot show they were born in the united states even though they have lived here for a long time. they are citizens. they have been voting for a long time, yet they cannot show the information they need to show to obtain the documents they need in order to vote. for me, i really want everyone to vote. i know voter impersonation is something that is very rare. i way these two things. there is some fraud in the system. it is not frequent as opposed to the rights of people to participate in their democracy. for me, the balance is more heavily in favor of allowing these people to participate, however i understand people have concerns about fraud. i wish those people would look deeply and see that where the

fraud happens is he in ways -- is it in ways where this voter identification will not address this. about votertalking identification with michael mcdonald in addition to early voting. this point, why do americans need encouragement to go? why are we such a disinterested, disengaged electorate? this is the concern, not fraud. michael. louisville, ky. caller: good morning. on early voting, are the results released or are they kept private until the election? host: stay on the line, mike. we will follow up with you.

guest: that is an excellent question. by law, and this is a supreme court ruling, election officials cannot open the ballots and look at results until election day itself. the wording from the supreme court is we consummate the election on election day. it is not until that moment that we can look to see how those people voted. however, that said, we still know who has pellets into has returned ballots -- ballots, and who has returned ballots. we can make informed assumptions about who those people are that are of voting early and who they may support you in a particular campaign. it is possible to look at who is voting early and get a sense of the campaign. there is a lot of information.

the campaign's use this information. they are urging supporters to vote early so that they can mark them off the list and refocus efforts on people that have yet to vote. host: back to mike in louisville with a follow-up. caller: that is what concerns me, maybe that could sway people that it is already decided and their vote is not going to count. also, on the identification issue, i get government benefits, both the eighth and social security, and i headed the bid -- both va and social security, and i have a debit ca rd, and i do not know if they're making everyone switched to that instead of having the checks

come out. guest: you make an interesting point about the timing of all of this. there is a lot of information that comes out. in 2008, we had the polls prior to november were the election was breaking heavily to obama. you could have looked at the polls and come to a decision about the direction of the state of the election. early voting is just one part of this, and it is not the only part of information builders can have to come to these decisions. i understand -- of information voters can have to come to these decisions. i understand there are a lot of things setter important on the ballot. -- things that are important on the ballot. there are presidential

elections, but local elections effect your lives. it might affect your voting in presidential elections, but we would still not be certain about local elections. host: this question from twitter, as unlawful voting ever change to the outcome of an election? guest: that is a good question. we have had litigation, and i cannot tell you the exact instances, were they do happen is, again, in local elections where we have very low turnouts, and a few ballots cast its progenies -- fraudulently -- again, these are schemes, people requesting absentee ballots. in the worst cases, election administrators are in on this as well. and they make ballot boxes disappear.

it could mean that it has been a long time since we have had these things happen on a massive scale. when you look at the schemes that we have had, that are widespread, you have to go back to the 1980's to find examples of this behavior. in modern election, we do not see a lot of this, but that does not mean -- yes, in the past, dead people were voting, and if you go back further, all sorts of schemes were run by the political parties. the parties used to know who you voted for, and they would put pressure on people. we have taken a lot of the fraud out of the system. host: our guest is michael mcdonald of george mason university.

don richey on our twitter page has this to say -- why should i vote? my congressman represents 600,000 other people. i am too diluted to get any representation. he called the democratic and republican monopoly. georgia. republican line. good morning. caller: i had a couple of questions. his the guest -- is the customer with george soros owning voting machines, and also with the republican national convention coming up, does he know anything about the delegates being disenfranchised or coerced into voting for mitt romney as opposed to whatever else they might want to vote for like ron paul? is that something he is

knowledgeable about? host: thank you, alan. guest: the way we tell our election returns, they are done domestically in the administration offices. there is no vote-counting overseas. the balance better cast overseas have to go through procedures to be successfully test, and they're quite onerous in some cases -- successfully cast, and they're quite onerous in some cases. in terms of coercion, we have always had the possibility that delegates could be coerced or given side benefits to do something that might not be their first preference. in fact, even in the electoral college, we have had choices to vote for a candidate other than

the person they were elected to vote for in the state. there are state laws that punish people to do that -- who do that. in the convention, there is no punishment. however, someone who does act in a faceless matter might be sanctioned by their state party or local party. it will depend on the local laws. host: let me follow up on your earlier point with rich who says what are your thoughts on the future methods of voting in an effort to cut down on fraud? what has been done, what should be done? guest: again, some of the best practices, i would look towards states like washington that do the signature verification on their absentee ballots.

those are good innovations. digitizing signatures, looking for suspect cases in trying to identify those, because again, we know where fraud is happening, it is happening there. where we could also improve generally is a lot of states have moved to online, and a lot of people think that is a potential for fraud, but it has done a lot to improve costs and efficiency. federal law requires that if you are a first-time loader, you provide forms of identification -- voter, you provide forms of identification. that could include a utility bill, with a name and address, which is different than some of these states with identification laws, but there are procedures in place that prevent that sort

of fraud. there are always stories about people submitting fraudulent registrations and mickey mouse on the registration forms, they do not vote. they have to show identification to cast their ballot. move into on-line registration will help us with data entry and make elections run smoother. when people actually go to vote, your information will be correctly in the system and you will not have a backup trying to figure out if you are the person you say you are. host: republican line. lexington, ky. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. actually, i'm an independent, and i was told to call in on this line. i would like to go back to the

early voting issues in ohio. i have heard that the ohio attorney general, who is a republican, is working with right-leaning counties to keep their early voting powers, and voting with republican and democratic-leaning counties to deny early voting. host: have you heard about this? guest: i think she is talking about the secretary of state, who is also a republican, and when there is a tied vote on making a decision on how elections will be run, the secretary of state casts the thai-breaking vote. -- tie-breaking vote. he loaded with the republican members to limit the early

voting the three days prior to the election. there is another law in place now in ohio which also limits early voting only to military members. more generally, this raises an interesting question about the partisan administration of the elections in this country. there are some jurisdictions that try to keep the elections nonpartisan, but by and large, we have partisan elections administration. we're the only democracy that runs the election the way we do. everybody else does it with non- partisan experts who are tasked with running the elections in a fair and efficient manner according to laws within the country. hear, because there is so much room for interpretation and this goes both ways with republicans

and democrats, when those partisan election officials are in place they could make decisions that affect the election in some ways by changing the character of the electorate, either trying to increase or decrease turned up, especially among certain targeted groups. so, if we really value this democracy, thinking it through, a move towards more nonpartisan, fair, election administration, would be a good step for the country. host: let me follow up on a theme on the twitter page that dave humphries encapsulates. he points out in minnesota senator al franken's election was decided by 312 folks, when almost 400 convicted felons were found to have voted illegally.

your comments? guest: this is where there's a lot of information out there that is misinformation. the study found 400 allegations --felons who voted -- \ / who voted, and they looked into these allegations, and they found 10. they were people under the state law in minnesota where felons cannot vote, and there were some people who had then felons, and maybe they went to the dmv office and given a voter registration form and they did not understand. you get into motivations. were these people that were trying to vote fraudulently, or did they think they were

performing good, civic duty? so, if you want to address the felon the voting issue, follow the lead of states, a couple of them, that allow felons to vote. you do not have to restrict voting after people have done their time. there are other ways to approach this than just saying these people should never be able to vote again, which might induce them to feel on wanted it and commit more crimes down the road. host: we're talking with michael mcdonald about early voting. let's look at the map to give you a sense of where early voting is taking place. orange, ore. and washington, they're sending in early, and in the green and yellow, there is

some early voting, and in the grey states there is no early voting established. as you can see, in most of the country is there. wayne is on the phone from philadelphia. good morning. democrats line. caller: hello? host: yes, you are on the air. caller: yes, i just wanted to say there is no emergency for voter fraud. there is no big deal about voter fraud. i know this thing is just being rigged, and it is a shame.

host: we are getting some feedback, but on the issue of voter fraud, how prevalent is it? guest: it is a very rare happening, and the laws are being made to address this, and i actually agree that this is probably a diversion from democracy, and there are probably much bigger issues. unfortunately, when some people are effected by this, they are not able to participate in the election. one of the interesting side effects of all of this is a lot of unintended consequences. there are a number of states, or a couple of states now, that require people to show proof of citizenship when they registered to vote and we have these early

voting laws, and you look at the high propensity voters that will be effected by these laws, they are older people. when you look to the pool of people who are not going to vote, yes, there are going to be people who are going to vote, but when you s with the high propensity voters, the anecdotal -- when you actually look at the high propensity voters, the anecdotal evidence is these people are registered republicans. the unintended consequence is that they will be more republican votes than democratic votes effected by this. one other point on this is if you but the history of who votes early -- if you look at the history of two votes early, the people that usually vote early are people who look like

republicans. it is only the 2008 election where the obama campaign invested heavily in voting early and people were excited in voting for obama and were interested at the first opportunity they got. so, yes, in 2008, he saw for the first time more democrats -- you saw more democrats vote for the first time that republicans. we have noticed the mitt romney campaign compared to the john mccain campaign is going to spend a lot of effort encouraging people to vote early. again, the ironic, unintended result of the restrictions of early voting might be that on balance, although there are more people that are democrats that might be effected, the people that really want to vote, a high

propensity voters, they look more like republicans, so they will be effected by this. it is ironic that you see republican state legislatures advocating for this, and you see democrats often saying we want permanent absentee voting status for the entire country. those bills were introduced in congress by democrats. it is actually republicans that are going to take advantage of that. there are a lot of misconceptions about who actually votes early, and who these laws might impact that models the debate, but we boy oh it down into vote fraud, -- that model's the debate, but we boyd down to vote fraud -- boils down

into voter fraud and not boater fraud. host: san antonio, texas. you're on the line with michael mcdonald -- san diego, california, you're on the line with michael mcdonald. caller: i think we must protect our voting process and require everyone to prove who they are and verify their ballot. on the other side i do not understand why liberals have criticized the efforts to require identification. as a californian i must have my identification of the time to prove why am. anything that i am doing, i am required to show my identification, and the voting in this country, it is really the process of what this country is all about, so why would we not hold it to a higher standard

of proof, and my other question is why would liberals fight so hard against showing proof, and how do they benefit? host: thank you. we will get a response. guest: if i lose my wallet the day before the election, i am not likely to obtain the identification i need in some states. in virginia, fortunately, i can show my utility bill or something like that and be able to vote that way, but in some states it is a specific form of identification that is required, state-issued, and in some cases, where an earlier caller was talking about a va card, that would not qualify as acceptable identification in some states. in texas, a gun permit is

accepted, but a student identification is not. people are concerned that these laws are targeted on specific groups. you do not want those groups of people to be disfranchised, but to come back to my example of losing my wallet, we do not want people to be disfranchised in that way just because of a quirk of fate. some states, there is an alternative that allows people to swear in an affidavit to their identity, and the document lists plainly that if you are saying you are who you are not, there is perjury and other penalties that can be processed against you. again, thinking about the mechanism favoring the right for

people to participate in electoral system over the potential for someone to come in and vote in my name, i would rather be on the side of allowing people to vote and run the risk. yes, there will be a few people. we know of a few instances of people testing fraudulent votes, but we are -- testing fraudulent votes, but we are weighing thousands of people again a handful of people. that is where the balance comes in. i understand the concern that you think a handful of people is very important and we have to route those people out, but when you look in a 93-year-old woman in pennsylvania who does not have the required birth certificate and can never get it, and she has been voting for

40 years, why would we disenfranchise her? it would be just for small numbers that vote fraudulently. host: michael mcdonald, george mason university, of the topic of early voting. we will leave it there. we appreciate your time. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you, and thank you to your viewers as well. host: in a few minutes we will turn to the future of the u.s. postal service as it continues to face record budget crisis, with richard geddes joining us, and then later james traub to discuss the obama administration and our ambassador to the united nations. nancy tallow is in the c-span radio studios keeping track of other news on this tuesday

morning. >> there is more on the campaign this morning from republican national committee chairman reince priebus, who says that for the's senator marco rubio will have the key role of introducing -- who says that the florida senate. marco rubio -- says the for the senator marco rubio will have the key role of introducing mitt romney at the republican convention. c-span will have live coverage of both the republican and democratic conventions. meanwhile, on the campaign trail, energy is the focus of both with president obama on the second day of a bus trip through iowa and is expected to call on congress to extend expiring tax cuts for wind energy production, and the mitt romney campaign says the candidate will address what he is calling a war on coal waged by the white

house in ohio. the company is also a topic, and today word from europe on stronger than anticipated growth in germany. it is helping the markets even though the european economy as a whole looks headed for a recession. wall street is reacting positively. a u.s. monitoring agency says it a magnitude 7.3 earthquake has had off of russia's coast. we will keep you updated. those are some of the headlines. >> i started as a copy boy at "the new york times." "> this sunday on c-span's "q&a walter pincus talks about various jobs as a journalist and his criticism.

>> they built a $40 million facility for the band and has separate rooms for everyone. if you spend $4 million on an elementary school, people would raise questions. >> more, sunday night it o'clock and c-span's "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to focus on the future of the u.s. postal service, and joining us from ithaca, new york, a professor from cornell university, richard geddes. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for inviting me. host: there are a lot of details we want to focus on with the fiscal crisis facing the postal service, but your recommendations include making the postal service subject to

private, corporate law, giving postal management commercial freedom, and congress could move them towards privatized company models. give examples. guest: well, it is useful to take a step back and consider the situation that the postal service is in as the backdrop to that. they just reported a quarterly loss of about $5.2 billion and they are looking at a loss for the current fiscal year that ends september 30, of $12 billion. i think a lot of people know why that is. many more people are comfortable using electronic communications. they're more comfortable paying bills online, purchasing things online.

all of fed is -- all of that is adversely effecting mail volumes and revenue for the postal service. first-class mail volume, which is really its cash cow, they make three times the profit on first plot -- first-class mail than standard, and the volume is down over 25% since the peak in 2005. so, the postal service is facing some serious fiscal challenges, and i think it is time for congress to consider some new financial models for the postal service. what i have proposed is really taking the next step in the process after the 1970 act that created the postal service out of the most -- old post office.

what we have now is not the post office. it is the postal service created in 1970 to operate in a business-like fashion in to break even, cover costs of the rates and fees it charges for the delivery of mail and packages. so, what i am suggesting and what many others have suggested is congress needs to take the next logical step in the process, which is to give the managers of the postal service the commercial flexibility to make the same decisions the managers in a typical private company like the united parcel service, or federal express, or others typically make, and also to be subject to private corporate laws. that is to have a true board of directors that has fiduciary duties to shareholders or a

shareholder, and a limited liability company, etc., in preparation for making it more like a typical business. some people just say privatize the postal service, and i think that is the correct end game for the postal service, and i can explain why that is in a few minutes, but there has to be steps taken prior to that in preparation for privatization. we need to make a private law corp. and we need to give managers commercial flexibility. i have enormous respect for the managers of the postal service, but i believe congress is asking them to do almost the impossible, run it like a business, efficiently, but, do not close these sorting centers

over here, the post offices over there, do not change the number of days of the week did you deliver. all of those constraints keep the cost structure high. what we would like to see is a response to the way a normal business and what, keeping costs in line and continuing to break even, given the lack of flexibility management has at this point is very difficult for managers to do this. i think they are doing yeoman's work in their capacity as public servants, but they are being asked to do almost the impossible. i believe the next step will have to give managers more commercial freedom, and down the road, down the line of little bit, it is important to realize that even though the postal service has some very serious liabilities on the balance

sheet, they also have some very, very valuable assets in the form of an enormous real-estate portfolio, physical structures of post offices, and an extremely valuable brand name. the postal service is a good brand name and have built that up over decades. those things have commercial value. most people believe the postal service on net remains a net positive valuable firm if it is allowed to adjust in the correct way. so, i think congress is either going to have to appropriate funds directly from the taxpayers to keep the postal service going, or congress will have to give managers the commercial flexibility that they need. host: our guest joins us from

the campus of cornell university as we talk about the future of the postal service. in april, the senate voted for some changes to the postal service that passed the senate by a vote of 62-37, reducing the number of processing centers processing252 to 125, but placed restrictions on closing rural post offices and put a two-year moratorium on the suspension of saturday delivery. david. democrats line. georgia. -- damien, democrats line, and georgia. caller: how're you this morning? let me start off by saying bain capital -- something about bain capital and comparing it to this postal thing. my wife works for the post office. bain capital goes in, strips company of their funds, filed

bankruptcy and blah blah. if you look at what the public has been doing for some time with these large funds, the senate or the congress made the post office to refund their pension plans -- pre-fund their pension plans, something no corporation has to do but them. now, when we start to talk about privatization, that means republicans want to strip that money. they have been doing this since reagan was in office. they got these companies, and that is what they are trying to do. they know they have the money there. that is why they are operating at a loss. host: you are a key issue of privatization, and a follow-up from peter, "i recently went to a ups/federal express store, and

were many times more expensive for my package." this follow up on the issue of privatization? guest: would you like me to respond to damien's points regarding privatization? there were a couple of useful things he pointed out. one, he is referring to a provision in the 2006 act that we form the postal service -- that reform of the postal service -- reformed the postal service, and included a provision that the postal service tests to pre-fund its retirement -- has to pre-fund its retirement costs and make payments annually to that. that payment earlier this month was the payment the postal service this, which was due to

the u.s. treasury. the postal management also explain that they expect to miss a $5.6 billion payment september 1 that is due to the u.s. treasury, so they are technically in default right now. regarding those payments, i do understand the thinking behind those payments. it is probably useful to go back to and april, 2010, general accountability office study that examined postal service finances and determined that they have about $88 billion worth of unfunded liabilities on its balance sheet, so those are most retiree health care, pension costs. there are some accounting issues regarding to the federal employee retirement system, where the postal service over-

pays, but they have other unfunded liabilities. the thinking in the 2006 act, as best i understand, it is people believed costs would be paid by the taxpayer directly or out of the revenues of the postal service. so, people negotiating at that time believed that it was better to have mailers the unfunded costs, rather than to put them on the back of the average taxpayer. so, the pre-funding requirements, some of which the postal service has made, have, i think, helped to take that money from the mailers, mostly advertising and commercial, and have them help pay down the underfunded liabilities identified by the gao in that

april, 2010 report. the gentleman mentioned privatization and the prices and rates associated with federal express and united parcel service and he makes a good point. the u.s. postal service, if you compare postage rates internationally, going across countries and adjust for exchange rate, you see the u.s. postal service is one of the less expensive postal services around the world and we have done tremendously good value of the postal service since it was created in the 1970 act, and as i said before, i think the managers of the postal service have done a very good job up until about 2006 of meeting the mandate to break even. even though they kept rates fairly low, they were still able to cover costs up until about

2006. at that point, i believe there were structural changes in the u.s. economy with regard to the usage of electronic communication that drove down the volumes of mail, and now we need to have a change. what some people think needs to happen is the postal service has to have more great freedom. in other words, they need to have more flexibility with the rates they charge, and perhaps they would charge higher rates for some services to cover those costs, and that would allow us to prevent going to the taxpayer at this time when we are running very high deficits, as everyone knows. i do not think the average taxpayer needs a further burden of the postal service. we all want the postal service to continue to break even, but it might be the case that they can only do that if they're given commercial freedom to

raise some rates. the other point that is worth making is a lot of people say the reason the postal service has had such success over the years is because of economies of scale, the larger it gets, the biggest -- the bigger its net worth becomes, and the lower the cost per unit. unfortunately, that also works in reverse. when volume is falling, and people using more e-mail, you see mail volume is dropping, which means the cost per unit for the postal service is rising, so economies of scale are working against you. that is another argument for why the postal service might need this additional rate freedom to continue to break even, which i think most people i talk to want to avoid -- big, direct taxpayer

subsidies. i hope that addresses a little bit of damien's question. host: richard geddes joins us from the university -- cornell university. a look at the postal service by the numbers, just one quarter last year the postal service lost in excess of $5 billion. the quarterly loss in 2012, $5.2 billion, receiving about $93.5 million in congressional appropriations, but is currently losing about $1 billion a month for the last six months, and has already defaulted on one annual retirement payment and another one is due in october of this year. another viewer says the free market has made the post office and obsolete and i do not want tax money propping it up so it can send me jump bail.

shut it down. caller: i am talking about page 5 in "de new york post." fedex will be laying people off, and these people were making decent wages, and now they will buy them out and bring in two people to work at minimum-wage. if you look at what is going on, as soon as minorities show up in neighborhoods, the republicans run away from them, and it has nothing to do with the post office. if i had half of management trying to tear me down, i would not be in business long. hats off to the post office. that is what i have to say. host: thank you. ann, connecticut. good morning. caller: yes.

i was a post office for a long time, and about one decade ago i said we were going to privatization. everything they did was done on purpose. we would have businesses that come in and buy rolls of stamps, and all of the sudden we would get no stamps in. we had to turn customers away, and they would turn around and say we could not order stamps. when did the postmaster said you could order all you -- one day the postmaster said you could order of the stamps you want, and the next thing i know, the numbers come out, and look how much we lost. every time they cry poverty, somebody gets a contract for them to make t-shirts to advertise. then you have these late night things that showed shipping and

handling, and if you buy one, get one free, they are making a mint on that, paying pennies for what they have to pay for the shipping. then, overseas, we used to do first-class mail overseas, and a lot of people used to send packages overseas around christmas time, and wanted turned to first class mail, everybody stopped sending it. this is been a systematic thing. there is a class-action lawsuit about disabled people removed from the jobs for years going back to the bush administration. host: thank you for the call. we will get a response from richard geddes. guest: many thanks to ann for public service as a postal service employee. as i stressed, i think that was an important role. a couple of things -- for the

vast majority of postal employees after six months of the job there is essentially a no layoff policy. it is not as though postal management is at liberty to lay off large numbers of postal employees. they do have permanent as opposed to casual employees, a lot of whom are hired from the holiday season. the postal service ramps up around the holidays, keeping excess capacity in the system the rest of the year so let it can handle the heavy load during the holiday season. there are some part-time employee use there. i have to say, again, i have -- employees there. i have to say, again, i have admonished -- tremendous and minute -- admiration for being able to do a lot of good things

without layoffs, and that was the postmaster. is not that they are evil people or mean, but they have to live within the law, and they have to break even a talent and your revenues are declining and -- break even, and if your revenues are declining, if you have to reduce your workforce. jack potter was able to do that without layoffs through natural attrition in the workforce by not replacing people who retired or people who voluntarily left the job. now, ann speaks to some basic, strategic behavior on the part of the postal service in advance of negotiating labor contracts with the union, and i am sure some of that happens, but i

think overall the postal service has done a very good job of operating within the confines of the laws it confronts now with regards to abilities to control costs. a lot of people believe that postmaster general potter was was able to do the simple things, get the low-hanging fruit, and they do not have the structure to do those things. now, they will have to go and do other things to reduce costs in the states of these deep -- steep declines in mail revenue and volume d.c., which is optimizing the network, reducing -- volume we see, which is optimizing the network in reducing the number of sorting

centers. services to not have to go away. the postal service might contract with a convenience store, some other outlet to provide window services -- the selling of stance, the mailing of parcels, etc. -- but it would not maintain physical structures, the rural post office buildings or the land. it could least those or sell those to offset -- it could least those or sell those to offset its unfunded liability, and is important to note that other countries are ahead of the u.s. postal service in doing this. in england, royal mail is in the process of privatization, having closed 95% of its offices and

has contracted to provide services with local stores. the germans privatized along time ago, and my understanding is that germans have literally two or three post offices still open in germany. they contract those services. they saved a lot of costs just by not maintaining those physical structures. again, the contract for those services. so, i think it is important. we all have to realize that all types of firms throughout u.s. economic history have had to adjust to the realities of the marketplace. my grandfather ran a stable in baltimore when people used horses for transportation, and when the automobile came in the stable was no longer in demand, so we have to adjust to the realities of the marketplace.

i view that as fundamentally driven by technological change, and i think that is what we see here. i would note that the u.s. postal service, if you compare to other countries post offices, even though we are using less mail because we are using more e-mail, still, the amount of mail we have a per-capita is still relatively high compared to, say, the netherlands or to germany, etc. we i believe under a new business model the u.s. postal service could be financially viable but we have to undertake reform in a responsible way. host: richard geddes a visiting scholar at the american enterprise institute and a professor at cornell. we are talking about the u.s. postal service.

it is a constantly growing drain on the federal budget. on the phones from twin lakes, colorado, republican line, good morning. caller: i have a comment in a couple of questions. first of all, in regards to rural service, it is not only the windows services but the danger of the rural mail carriers. the get eastern colorado, kansas, the dakotas in the year they had all the blizzards. it's downright dangerous when you start having these people driving so far and to increase the distance because you are closing the local post office. my second question is how much is the bonus is that the postal governors get? why is the rationale that they should even get anything since

they have not fixed anything given the financial situation the post offices in? third, when can a postal service person retire? is the pension based on the last three years of pay, five years of pay? that is one way we could fix it is to look over the last 10 years and do it as a percentage of that payment. host: let's jump in and i will get a response. first on pension for retirees. when does it kick in? sure i understood the question exactly, steve. host: many years do you have to be an employee? when does it kick in? is it based on your final two or three years when you are at a higher level of income? guest: i would have to go back and checked out, steve, to see how that varies. there are different types of postal employees.

there are letter carriers, or rural delivery people and they may different types of contracts. there are people who may be under yet another different types of contracts and there are a number of different labor unions within the postal service. it is not as though it is a one size fits all type of arrangement. i would not want to speak out of school on that. i would want to check that out. i believe her name was karen and she brought up a good point. initially, the point about the delivery of mail during rough weather and rural letter carriers continuing to make those rounds even though the weather was nasty. she gets to a really good point

which is what do we, as a country, believe the role of physical mail delivery is in the electronic age? do we continue to believe that we need it to serve all routes six days a week in the united states? that is the current definition of universal mail service. the postal mail service says they have a universal service obligation and it essentially is to serve all route 6 days a week including saturdays despite the fact that mail volume is declining and even, as best we can, in rural areas. the postal service will tell you about the difficult route that they serve in alaska in the world parts of alaska, parts out west, etc. where they continue

to do their best and meet their universal service obligations despite the fact that we're seeing large declines in mail volume. i don't have the answer, but it seems to me that a rational response to that would be to reduce the number of delivery days per week to relax that universal service obligation to allow the postal service to reduce its costs. of course, they have to use a lot of fuel to run the mail trucks around all those routes six days a week. they would save on that fuel. sunday block about cutting saturday delivery. the lightest day per week is tuesday. it seems reasonable to me to eliminate tuesday delivery and allow the postal service to adjust its universal service obligations to those new market realities. i think that discussion needs to

take place and we need to realize that either we're going to allow the postal service to adjust in that way or we're going to be talking about large direct taxpayer subsidies, which is a pre 1970 situation when they got dry subsidies from the taxpayers. i'm not sure taxpayers are going to want to do that in these times of very large deficits, or we have to start rethinking the nature of that universal service obligation in this electronic age. she brings up a good point. host: cutting back of the postal service is the wrong idea adding that email is digital technology and needs standards and setting up. on the fund in winter park, fla., on the democratic line.

at the i'm very upset republicans wanting to privatize everything including the post office, medicare, social security. the republicans always talk about the constitution. well, in article one, section 8, the post office is referenced. they say they will establish post offices and roads. i think the roads and post offices were intended to be a public service. host: thank you for the call, janet. rick geddes. guest: i would just ask her to back up. it is not clear exactly how the politics of postal privatization will be cutting. we saw an article by peter orszag who, until recently, was

president obama is director of the omb advocating privatization of the postal service. he was very clear on why he believed that. that is a very senior member of the obama administration advocating for this. we recently saw an article in "slate" advocating for privatization. a lot of the people who seem to be in opposition to it seemed to be republicans. is anot clear that this postal privatization or postal reform is necessarily a clear cut republican-democrat issue. i just view this as a solid, thought through, carefully considered policy response to a fundamental change in the nature of the u.s. economy.

the second point the caller makes is directed to the constitution that it states that congress shall have the power to create post offices and post roads. we have the boston post road and others that were created as a result of that clause. i do not think anyone would begrudge congress that power. of course, that clause does not mean that it has to be provided through a government-owned monopoly, which is another issue we have not really discussed, steve. the postal service continues to have a monopoly over the delivery of anything designed -- described as a letter within certain size and weight limitations that are better defined in the 2006 act. the clause regarding the postal powers does not restrict. i do not think anyone believes

it restricts us to a particular organizational firm to deliver those services, nor should it. congress should be able to adapt the organizational form, just like it did in 1970 when it created the postal service. it should be able to adapt the modern organizational form to the realities of the communications marketplace. one thing i will note, in the most recent report you sided with the postal service has lost $5.20 billion in its current quarter, more it lost in the same quarter the year before, at also recorded a 9% increase in shipping and delivery services, so there is a bright spot in that report, which is also, in my view, a function of the changes in the economy. people are buying more things online. those things have to be shipped.

buying books through amazon have to shift. -- be shipped, so we're seeing some aspect improving. under a newic that form the postal service could be viable. host: a follow up on the issue of the constitution on twitter. last call from grand rapids, michigan. good morning. caller: i have a brief question. does your guests feel that the post office long term would be better off without the union? host: we have about a minute left. your response? guest: that's a tough one, george. maybe the postal managers would think they would like the union to go away, but i think the

unions to provide a lot of valuable functions. of course, people have that right to organize, so i would not advocate that. i would say that the postal workers do appear to earn a wage premium of about 28% if you control for their education, tenure, etc. i think the unions have served postal workers pretty well over the years. host: rick geddes a professor at cornell university and a visiting scholar at the american enterprise institute. views on the u.s. postal service. thank you for being with us here on c-span. this is "washington journal" and coming up a focus on syria, libya, foreign-policy in general with a member of the council on foreign relations, james traub, to talk about the obama

doctrine. first, and nancy callow from c- span radio in the c-span radio studios. good morning. >> economic news in from the commerce department shows retail sales rose in july by the largest amount in five months rising 0.8% in july from june. the increase followed three months of declines including a 0.7% drop in sales in june. all major categories selling increases showing that consumers may be showing confidence after the longest stretch of declines since fall 2008. wholesale prices increasing modestly in july from june but food prices rising sharply led by the biggest increase in corn prices in nearly six years. the labor department says the consumer price index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.3% last month.

it is a sign that the severe drought in the midwest is driving costs higher. an update on the bottom industry, the treasury department says the auto industry bailout will cost taxpayers $3.40 billion more than previously thought. the treasury now estimates the 2009 bailout will eventually cost the government over $25 billion according to a report sent to congress last week. the treasury had so far recouped about half what was extended in loans to gm, chrysler, and their partners. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> the soviet bears may be gone, but there are still bears in the woods. they may have become a nuclear powder keg, our energy supply held hostage, so we did what was right and necessary to destroy a

threat, free people, and loch a tyrant in the prison of his own country. [applause] >> tonight, 10 million of our fellow americans, they work harder for lower pay. they say unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins, but unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. >> this year, what the republican and democratic national conventions live on c- span starting monday, august 27th. host: joining us from new york this tuesday is james traub, a member of the council on foreign relations and a contributing writer to "the new york times"

magazine. he has written a piece called, "the point guard." we will be talking about this in just a moment. let me ask you a larger question about the president's foreign policy. is there and obama doctrine? if so, what is it? guest: presidents have a tone, a style, a way of thinking. his is idealism about ends and the realism about means. in ends, you think about the extremely idealistic position he has taken on a number of broad issues, the idea that you may actually have to reduce nuclear arms to zero, a world without nuclear arms. that's a visionary idea. he has passionately embraced the idea called the responsibility

to protect and prevent atrocities in other countries. you look at what he does directly realize these things, taking modest steps. look at syria now. obama is under a lot of pressure to make good the kind of moral doctrines by bombing syria, but he takes the view that things can get worse. he has, i think, and explicitly post-george bush awareness that things can be worse. i think that is the moral he took from iraq when he took his own instinct to oppose the war was right. i think has learned this in the aftermath of afghanistan where he trusted the generals who had this magnificent idea, counterinsurgency doctrine, that would transform afghanistan. he was skeptical.

obama is someone people have trouble getting a hold of because of his unusual combination of a genuine idealism about the ends and optimism about the means. host: that me ask you about some of the news of the day. the front street of a "the wall street journal" talking about using russia as part of an emergency effort to sidestep american and european sanctions on oil as well as sanctions on financial transactions. kim guest: this goes to a bunch of different things. this is the multi-lateral wasn't.

not just the work with other countries but you work with multi-lateral institutions, above all the u.n. this is where obama and mitt romney are quite different. they had in part only come to see the limits of the u.n. security council because russia and china have refused to take strong measures. they have used their veto and declined. today's news is just another example of the overall problem of trying to use the u.n. security council when the key nations to serve on the council are divided among themselves. this has been a big problem. y that thetant to save

u.n. just does not work. obama does not have good options in syria. it's not clear what we would do it rusher was compliant on the security council. to go back to when i was saying before, there is a moral sense that the u.s. needs to act to prevent the unspeakable atrocities being perpetrated by a regime. the prudential thing is the realization that we could do a libya-style air war and it could produce something even worse, say, a sectarian civil war. what obama would like to do is constrained by russian opposition but it is really constrained by his own concern that acting could be worse or acting militarily. that could be worse than not doing so.

host: our guest is a free-lance writer for "foreign policy magazine." send us an email or join us on twitter @cspanwj. his piece is entitled "to point guard aren't: policy -- "the point guard on foreign policy." using the president has embraced the u.n. -- you say he has embraced the u.n. guest: i wrote a profile on his views back in 2007. i said to him later that it was really surprising to say that

the u.n. was considered toxic. he said he believed in it and give me a whole explanation for why. i noticed a few days later he is said to you once to say up and save america is back-- he wanted to stand up and say that america was back instead of the u.n. was back. he has expressed both of those things, but in general he is, i think, the most unambiguously pro-u.n. president since george bush, senior. host: republican line, good morning. thanks for reading. are you with us? john from atlanta and? caller: the president of the general assembly of the u.n. was educated in beirut university around the time the 200-some

people were murdered in their bunker. i do not think he would let obama do anything over there in syria. i would like to ask one other thing. why does the u.n. want $400 billion to give to the indigenous people of brazil? if you look at brazil on google, they're doing just fine. host: banks for the call. professor traub, if you want to respond? guest: i have no idea why they are giving money to the indigenous people of brazil. it's important to remember the u.n. has a lot of different parts. when we talk about issues of conflict, the active part is not the general assembly. it is just a big talk shop. the security council is the

place where the u.s. and four other permanent members have a veto so nothing can happen in the security council that the u.s. does not want. by the same token, nothing can happen that russia and china do not want. there's not a danger that the u.s. is going to it -- the u.n. is going to do these dangerous things, but there is a thought that the u.n. will not do what the u.s. wishes they would. by obama's calculation, and other presidents, is that for all the difficulties it entails, the thing you get on the other hand is worth it. that thing is two parts. one is there are many things the u.s. does not want to do by itself, peace keeping in war- torn african countries. it is in u.s. interest to have it done. the second thing is what they would call a very subjective legitimacy, very much in the eye of the beholder. much of the world does view the

u.n. as being a source of legitimacy on big international issues, especially conflict that the u.s. can ill afford to do without. we proved all to well in the case of iraq when u.s. sought that approval, did not get it, went to war anyway, and that based consequences as obama concluded. host: should russia continue to function as one of the five permanent members of the u.n. security council after the collapse of the soviet union? why is it that russia and china have such a large role on the security council? guest: alas, this is a kind of heritage phenomenon. what are they doing there when brazil, india, japan, and germany are not? the answer is that it's a club.

the membership rolls are extremely reinforcing. one bad thing is that it is almost impossible to change the composition. there have been proposals forever. they call you when as the open- ended working group on u.n. membership. that means on ending. -- unending. china should definitely be there. for now that russia is all humbled, it still a great power. it's not wrong they are there. it's wrong that they have not been able to extend membership to change geopolitics. host: a piece on kofi annan. "annan and on and on."

there's a specific point i want you to respond to. whether or not he was the reason why the agreement failed or whether he had nothing to negotiate with when there were no consequences if, in fact, syria did follow along with european nations? guest: i have a long history with kofi annan. i wrote a book about him as the secretary of the u.n. in 2006 so we spent a long time watching him negotiate. he risks making himself look ridiculous because he goes before some awful dictator, whether it is a dumb hussain in iraq or president basha of sunda and he tried to get them to behave-- bashar of sudan. you do not have something to threaten them with it you are

the u.n. secretary-general. you can say you will enforce sanctions, affect trade, but you do not have an army. then the question becomes, should you not do it? should you not do it if you wind up feeling and looking ridiculous yourself in the bargain? it should be said on behalf of kofi annan that he understands that really well. the alternative is to do nothing and let the situation fester. plan to get the six-point plan failed. president assad of syria knew that he could outlast that kind of demand so far as he had important countries at his back.

it was not thinking he could unpursuade assad, but he was hoping he could move of russia's pressure on their side. that part fail. you could perceive it would fail. is that a reason not to do it? there was not a better set of options out there. it was the right set of things to do. host: james traub has traveled extensively to mali, sierra leonne, georgia. he made reference to his earlier book on kofi annan. james traub joins us from new york. steve is on the phone from connecticut on the independent line. caller: thanks for letting me have my say.

i'm not really impressed with u.s. intelligence in syria. especially this allocated coming across the border -- al qaeda coming across the border. what's the deal with them? why can we not set up a no-fly zone? guest: those are two really good questions. on intelligence, the difference between what you know and what you can do, actually the u.s. probably has more assets on the ground than we know about. we know there is al qaeda coming across the border but it cannot do anything about that. all they can do, at this point, is to look at who the u.s. wants to back and who they do not. a large part of syrian

intelligence is to help direct the flow of weapons coming in syria as well as telecommunications. we have not been hearing anything about american intelligence because we are not supposed to. there are a lot of places a good look around the world to see that intelligence has failed. let's not call it a no-fly zone. let's call it what it is. if you mount an aerial campaign like native did in libya, you do not do it to prevent planes from flying. once you see tanks advance, you clearly take them on. it would be an aerial war like we did in kosovo in 1998 and libya last year. why should we do it or not? the answer so far is to not do it.

syria is using their air force. clearly, the united states has the capacity to knock down their air force quite quickly. it can also knocked down their tank formations quickly as they did in the villa. -- did in lybia. the amount of damage and harm he will do to syrian civilians in the freedom fighters is much greater because in libya you had a big dividing line with the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other. two, there's a fear that he could wind up creating a situation where you have even more violence than you did otherwise. escalating the war would turn this in to an all out war which would take the form of the regime, allah light, against a shi'ite opposition. that horse has already vaulted

the stable on that one. in that way, the argument for military intervention has gotten stronger. i'm still not convinced. the argument probably should be that the u.s. and others are not doing an effective job of supplying the opposition with weaponry. i thought the saudi and others would provide the weapons. i'm not fully understanding why they have not and there may be a strong argument that if we are clear we want the opposition to win, we have to be prepared to do more to help them win. i do not think there should be a no-fly zone. host: the recently traveled to mali. from senegal -- guest: another really tough question.

this is where we come back to the idea of multilateralism. this means it involves a sub- regions as well, like not a whole continent but a neighborhood. one of the strongest sub- regional institution is a west african institution that has mounted military campaigns quite frequently in the past. you get west africans as well. this is a case where you get a neighborhood that is really come off really worried as this being their own afghanistan. i suspect that what we are talking about is international assistance to a military effort that would be mounted by west african soldiers under the banner. we're not going to see american soldiers, american planes, french soldiers, french planes.

i think it will be assistance to some kind of intervention effort that is mounted by them. host: rockport, ill., you are on the phone with james traub. caller: it's lockport. like lockport, new york. we have a canal here that empties lake michigan. host: i apologize. we have you on the air. caller: i have a two-part question. the first is the council on foreign relations. is this a government-sponsored entity? or is this person who is on tv now, is he like an independent kind of person? or is he a government employee?

that is the first part. the second part is right now hillary clinton is promoting an anti-constitutional move by making our fire arms subject to u.n. approval. is she committing perjury by doing this? she took an oath of office to protect the constitution. host: thank you for the call. our guest is a member of the council on foreign relations and injured in writer to "the new york times" and "foreign- policy" magazine. something had been talking about extensively, this u.n. issue on guns and the secretary of state. can you elaborate? guest: [laughter] no. she's the secretary of state. she is not responsible for

firearms. i actually do not know what specifically "un issued" means. you can be sure, given the hypersensitivity of the gun issue, that president obama is not about to authorize his secretary of state to authorize in a serious form of gun control under the guise of the united nations. no, i don't know what it is but it cannot amount to much. as for the council of foreign relations, i'm a member of a lot of things that have the word "council." it was founded in new york 80 years ago by a bunch of bankers and lawyers involved in foreign policy. you go to the meetings, meet interesting people, hear them talk, get to ask questions. host: let me ask about the position the secretary of state hillary clinton has stated by

stepping down. if president obama is reelected, how likely is susan rice or john kerry to be elected? guest: this is the fun game we like to play. i indulge in that game. i talked a lot of people about this. what is the handicapped? they would say there are three people on top. susan rice, senator john kerry, and tom donelan, the current national security adviser. the general view is that tom donelan probably does not want the job because he really likes being national security adviser and he has been very effective. kerry is kind of not in the family. people think he is too long winded. he's probably running a little bit behind. susan rice really has succeeded

and she has not had any serious failures that are attributable to her. she has been a terrific team player. she does not found her own chest, do victory laps, touchdown dances, or anything like that. she is a very shrewd political player. she even knows she is responsible to secretary of state clinton as a u.s. diplomat. she sits on the cabinet as a member of the u.n. and she has strengthened her ties in the white house on the national security council. i would say she would have the shortest odds. host: and she served in the clinton administration. guest: if not the youngest ever assistant secretary of state when appointed to that position in 191997 he at age -- in 1 997, then close to it.

she served eight years in the clinton administration and then ofame obama's coordinator his foreign policy advisory team when he was running for president in 2008 the way condoleezza rice was. by the way, the two are not related. host: from new jersey, good morning, on the independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. let's take a look at this for a second. a brilliant military victory on the army of khaddafi. but we have now is a country with about 100 cities of potential size and each city has its own government, its own judiciary, it's own set of jails, and its own army.

they come in those jails to be language and the torturing. there is constant talk of splitting the country in half with one half of having the capital in benghazi and the other half having the capital in tripoli. if we sought military action against syria, we would be [unintelligible] i would say we would lose 4 million lives are gone, 5 million christians are gone, and that may be the final result of our intervention. host: we will get a response. thank you for calling in. guest: libya is not quite as bad as he said. i'm moderately hopeful. if you have a country that has

essentially been in imbibing portion -- poison for 30 years, it's a horrendous place. if she had just died all by himself, whatever happens, the country's going to go through an awful and tumultuous period matter what. at the time of the intervention, given that we knew what would happen, to prevent atrocities, was this the right thing to do? a look at where they are now, it had an election that was much more peaceful. they elected a gentleman, a pious muslim, who they support all over the country. the separatist movement is essentially dead. no one thinks that libya is going to be divided in half.

clearly there will have to be some regional autonomy. i do not know which will come out on top. that'll make you cautionary on syria. when the arguments against a full-scale intervention is that you may make things worse. the gentleman is quite right. you may make the worst in that assad, whatever else he was, protect the minorities in the country, the same way in egypt protected the coptic christian s. they felt like they are protected but now under the muslim brotherhood they are not. that's a huge problem. the middle east does not have an example of a successful multi- ethnic society. it will not be easy to create. in syria, the alternative which

is keeping assad in power, the syrians will not permit it. how can you create the least bad outcome on the other side? host: a quick follow-up from joke. -- from joe. guest: the merits of the case are not the issue anymore. assad must go. we do not know what will replace him. syria does not have the equivalent of a shadow government. it is very fragmented. syria is a far more ethnically diverse country than libya was so much much harder to have a coherent alternative. we know we do not need hearings to find out that assad must go. host: on the phone from kentucky

-- actually, alix joins us on our international line from fiji. thank you for waiting. you're on the air. go ahead. please go ahead. caller: i'm sorry. issue of libya, you are right on. it is a success story. khaddafi was waging wars and creating havoc by bombing airplanes and causing issues in europe and america. with regard to china and russia, both are very oppressive to their people so they see a free syrian people as a major issue so human rights do not exist in china, as you know, if the syrian regime gets defeated,

it would be a major blow to iran and i think the west should do everything they can to remove this group. i like the model, the devil we know, which is assad. i think it is on track to be a successful story. one question, professor traub. i watched the gop and they're extremely shallow when it comes to foreign affairs. it's very depressing to see some potential leadership that has a very narrow minded view. host: alex from the fuji islands. what role will foreign-policy

play in this campaign from the republican and democratic points of of you? guest: i do not think the republicans will want to take me on as their foreign policy adviser, but i appreciate the endorsement. this will be the least foreign- policy-related campaigns certainly since 2000. in that sense, it's something as a return to a historic norm as foreign policy has often not played a big role. are republicans shallow? i think so. it's a combination of two things. when you're the one not in power, you can pose simple- minded solutions and when you're in power, you realize things are more complicated. i think obama in 2008 said he had a different view and presented it. people bought it. they were sick to death of bush's world view.

republicans taking on foreign policy right now is very split. they are more split than the democrats. they have a so-called realist tradition which basically says, in places like libya or syria, we have no dog in that fight. we should do whatever good for our own national defense and forget about these issues. then they have the opposite of this, and the new conservative position, which says they must assert their power under the moral power of america. they are the ones saying we should have a no-fly zone in syria. there is also a big tug of war inside republicans which is not true among democrats. host: a follow up on campaign priorities.

guest: i do not know where afghanistan as. it is probably 18th. it is not top of the mind. host: kentucky on the republican line. caller: hello. i have a major question. with us having problems with iran, syria, and all of the countries in the middle east, the united nations is possibly thinking about going to a one world order. will that control all the situations in the world that would control the situation over in the middle east? host: get a response from james traub. guest: people attribute some much power to the u.n. it is such a pretty weak instrument. if they ever wished for a one-

world order, it does not matter because the u.n. cannot do anything. like i said earlier, the u.s., russia, china, france, england, but they cannot do anything unless we want to. maybe it should be stronger than it is, but in that regard, it is kind of week. host: david from new york city, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm like to know from mr. traub with the job is of the united nations. it seems like they did not do anything like bringing nations together. guest: actually, let me say a few things in defense of the united nations. they have 100,000 peacekeeping troops in places we do not pay attention to, sudan, liberia, the condo. some of the mission to work better than others -- and teh

congo. they keep these countries from falling apart. that's a really important thing. the u.s. does not want to do it. if europe does not want to do it. but we wanted to be done. the u.n. also does really good things in relation to health care, the world health organization, epidemics, inoculation of children all over the world. if they did a lot of specific things, but, yes, it also has the very embarrassing public problems that we read about. it is russia and china that have blocked action not only in syria today but in darfur and other places and that's a problem in relation to states rather than the u.n. host: let's go back to the earlier point about the idea of another, doctrine.

you have written extensively about human rights. how much of a part is that when the president looks at foreign policy issue and our relations especially in trouble spots whether it is libya, syria, or elsewhere? guest: you know, obama is really torn on this one. interestingly, i think presidents become, in most cases, more realistic and less human rights-oriented as they discover that america cannot do as much as they would like to come up for example, to bring human rights to china. obama started off thinking things like george bush's democracy promotion, the freedom agenda, was a big failure. he told the world that we would behave towards you with deference and respect. that characterized the first year or year and half of his term. i think he realized that it did not by you as much as you thought and there was a cost. you look at his role in the air

of spring. -- arab spring. he wanted to be more outspoken. in 2009, obama did not say much of anything about transparently rigged elections in iran because he did not want to make the situation worse. in a ditch, he wanted to preserve an ally and being on the bright side of things. in general, he has kept the u.s. on the right side. if you look at countries where u.s. interests collide with the interest in human rights, for example bahrain, and it is clearly abusing the rights of the shiite majority citizens run by a sunni king. we have done nothing but words. in the end, the administration has chosen the strategic thing over the human rights thing.

that tension will always exist. host: richard is on the phone from prairie grove, ark. caller: there is one point i would like to make about nuclear arms. you can take all of them and destroy all of them, but as long as the knowledge to make one exists, the threat will exist. you cannot destroy an intangible thing like knowledge. so the arms saying is -- arms thing is moot. it's not worth pursuing. i'm like to hear your comment. thank you. guest: well, you know, you could always recreate a smallpox vaccine, but it was worth trying to destroy and minimize as much as possible. the gentleman is right that the knowledge with someone who is

sufficiently determined may try to create a weapon though it is really hard to create a delivery vehicle. that is more tough. if the goal is to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to prevent them from getting in the hands of the wrong people, then every country that has nuclear weapons has to make enormous efforts to do that. part of the american effort is to say we recognize we cannot tell me to stop proliferating nuclear weapons we have a colossal stockpile, so we will try to drop hours down and agree with the russians to drop the bears. as we get lower, we will do the same thing with china, france, england, and others in order to get as close to zero as possible. that, in turn, makes it far easier to put pressure on countries thinking about creating nuclear capacity or

countries that might give it to others, in the case of pakistan. our own nuclear reduction is a larger policy of trying to prevent nuclear arms from ever falling into the hands of the kind people who would use it period for any reason. host: on the farm from corpus christi, texas -- on the phone. caller: really enjoying the conversation this morning. looking at the situation in, i'm sorry. i've got nervous. ho iran but --\ host: iraq? caller: for some reason i want to say siberia. guest: i'm not sure which you mean.

caller: just below iran? guest: well, there's -- host: syria? caller: syria. i'm so sorry. i'd made a fool of myself on national television. guest: we won't tell anybody. you're ok. caller: thanks. as far as syria is concerned, this just reminds me of the cold war. it just reminds me of the .ussians verses' americans host: which touched on that earlier. a quick comment? guest: i'm not sure what to say except that on like the cold war, it's not like containing a superpower.

in the case of syria, its stopping someone doing unspeakable things to his own citizens which is a much harder problem. right now, we're not doing a successful job of that at all. host: have we been successful in trying to restore a sense of civility in hait? as you well know, -- in haiti? have been hit by extreme poverty and weather conditions. guest: stability is asking too much. haiti is a bad story. they are so bedeviled by their own problems. 200 years of that history. haiti is an example that even though the world has done a lot to try to do "nation building" they're not even after the earthquake but back in the 1990's, not a lot has worked.

his is also an example that unless the country is willing to take difficult political steps, we really have to try to create a relatively democratic, relatively honest country, it's hard for outsiders to build on that quicksand. there are terrible misfortune on top. host: james traub, a member of the town of foreign relations, a contributing writer for "the new york times" magazine, thank you for being with us on c-span. guest: it was a lot of fun. host: vice-president joe biden in virginia today and all campaign coverage is available on our website, c- span.org/campaign2012. two weeks until the