treating our citizens like a customer? it is exciting. this is the part where i think we are on the early edge of sending a message that there is a better way. there is too much negativity in politics. too many ways that people are fighting, and let's just solve the problem. this is not rocket science. >> one of the reasons michigan is not considered a battleground state is that the polls are not close. >> if you look at the detroit free press today, there's a new poll out that shows a dead heat in michigan. it goes back and forth. when you see a poll at this point in the race that is a dead heat, that makes michigan very competitive. so it is exciting. >> who do you think mitt romney was trying to court from voters in michigan when he brought up the birth certificate when he was there? >> he has had a great history in

michigan. i think it is part of his values. it is great. >> we will open up the floor of one last time for governor snyder. we will end on that question. >> most people see one of barack obama's greatest strengths as the bailout, but concerning the execution of that, can you talk about it a little more? you have seen in your state, with retirees, having their pensions stripped away. >> the whole bailout question in michigan, i have been asked that question lots of times. my response is it is good but it got done in some fashion. it could have been done in different ways, with bankruptcy and all these different alternatives. people waste too much time going back and revisiting that period of the bailout. the main thing is it is done, it is over, it is history, let's

move forward. when you talk about to talkder's, they want about, what will you do to create jobs today and tomorrow, and what about the future of our kids? the bailout, there are other ways it could have worked. let's move on. i'm here to talk about how we do the next round of jobs. do not waste a lot of time on the bailout. let's move forward. >> governor schneider, thank you so much for joining us. to -- governor snyder, thank you so much for joining us. we will bring in our other panelists. just a moment and we will be back any minute. >> we are doing a quick change in seats, so bear with us. we have a few seats up front for those standing in the back. i want to welcome and thank all

our friends watching on c-span as well. i think we are going to do a quick change. that was a pretty good session, wasn't it? for those of you watching on c- span, if you ever come to tampa, come to carne restaurant. this place is absolutely fabulous.

>> is great to have you here. great to have you -- the national journal. i'm major garrett. this panel is all about social media. we have some of the most important practitioners and voices, and those who use social media in the political context

and otherwise. joining me on the stage, from "the atlantic," sr. of the semantic -- of the atlantic, garance franke-ruta. starting on my immediate left is the zac moffatt, did the director -- digital director of mitt romney's campaign. adam sharp, many of you know, head of government affairs, news and social innovation, twitter. and daniel sieberg, spokesperson for google politics & elections. i will turn it over to my moderator, garance. >> the romney campaign -- and that we need her -- >> we need her mic back in the

back. technology is wonderful when it works. >> i want to talk to you about the study that norah raised to talk about the difference between metrotech and engagement. the question people were talking about, obama has many, many more followers on twitter, many more facebook friends getting their positions from facebook and so on. can you talk about that? >> we really see it a slightly different situation. we've broken this into actual metrics, and we consider the -- it has no bearing other than people have an opening line in an article.

it does not matter how many people follow you if you do not have many people actively engaging in your campaign. one is the premise that you have to be tweeting all the time or posting in order to be engaged, which fundamentally is a little bit of a different interpretation of how lead to different campaigns leverage zophar media. rigid of how the two different campaigns leverage social media. the supreme court ruling, for example -- obama has 27 million people on facebook, so the day the ruling comes out, 4 assistive 4000 lica -- 264,000 like it on the page. if you are going into an election with turnout, what would you rather have? that's the question we post to people every single time. it is not to knock the fact that there are a lot of people, but

we really we define whether they are engaged, active, and that is how we look to understand social media and define success. >> this will go to 11:00. we will do about 15 minutes of questions from the audience, so prepare those. we will give you to give some -- we will get you the opportunity to give some open comments. how would you change -- how has the political sphere changed since 2008? i want to give you send opening comments -- i want to give you a couple of minutes for opening comments. >> twitter was not around, there was no youtube, and now eight years later we have almost every elected official, every candidate, using it directly to talk to constituents and voters. we are finding that facebook --

facebook users are 57% more likely to get a friend to go to vote. it will be a game changer in this election, other than what we have ever seen before. >> just the sheer volume, the conversation has changed. there are more tweets cents every two days and have ever been set -- sent prior to the 2008 election. i was telling the other panelists that there are more tweets about the republican convention yesterday before it even started than during the entire 2008 convention period. that explosion of conversation is now allowing us to tap into conversations that a cycle of zero would have been limited to water coolers. you talk a little bit about what -- with governor snyder before that it has also changed

to a more nostalgic, retail central politics. the best way of connecting with a voter is still the old, "hi, i am such and such and i am running for office." connecting with 300 million people, it is hard to scale that 12121. so we have tv ads, radio ads, all down the list. and then we are surprised that pollsters say that members of congress are out of touch because they have never met them. now, like governor snyder, they're able to have these one- on-one connections. people like john cornyn and clare mccaskill, now having that one-on-one relationship, and that changes the tone of the conversation. >> we are obviously excited about the way people using tools to search for information about subjects, candidates, how the

candidates have the opportunity with google plus to reach out and have that two-way conversation with people. four years ago, the big difference was mobile. people can participate in a way that they could not four years ago. not on the scale we are seeing today. here in charlotte, we have our youtube, google-plus, ability to bring in voters throughout the country. even if you cannot come to tampa, you can feel part of the conversation. that is completely different from what it was four years ago. >> something the harbath mentioned about facebook friends, alliances, influencing elections. you said 2008, what is being used in 2012, now signs like a reid now sounds like an old- fashioned term. communicating to you about a

candidate something they you did not know, being persuasive in the ultimate decision. with that as a baseline assumption, do you find facebook and other social media a place to enhance that process, leverage that process? is it more important than other more traditional -- door- knocking, phone banking, means of communication? >> i do not know if it is more important, but a campaign is a holistic entity. but the scale of a facebook or twitter, it is such a big audience. from 2012 vs. 2008, there are so many more people involved in these networks. we have a unified kind of alignment of people talking about energy, pushing energy messages with facts and feedback. some art reaching an additional 3 million people. there is a third -- some are reaching an additional 3 million people.

really what we would look at within facebook is not only someone liking it but getting there friends -- but actually sharing at -- sharing it. 10,000 people are standing and saying i think you should see this, too. if they have 190 friends each, that will redefine the way the message is get out. we want to then make sure that we are sending e-mail and everything else, but we see it as transformative. >> i wonder if the others could talk about that exponential dynamic. when something has been retweeted or shared 100 times, what does that mean in terms of audience reach? >> it can go viral pretty

quickly with that sharing third we have seen photos and images doing well on this print messages, info-graphics, are giving people much more. quickly, you get a real-time response. you look at paul ryan's speech, the announcement. his page exploded. anyone talking about paul ryan that weekend was getting a tremendous amount of like comments, which helped boost to the announcement of him and helped him get good momentum coming into the convention. >> it is a powerful sentiment, not just that you shared it, which sounds nice, but you are in a sense becoming a broadcaster. you're pushing this out, feeling validated that you have this, that you can push it out to people you know, you trust, and others. that is an amazing opportunity that has happened in this election cycle. >> i think in a broad sense what

you are seeing is a democratization of access, that you don't need the same infrastructure to get a message out that you used to. we think back to the 1980 republican primary, the moment when ronald reagan took the microphone. anyone can have a microphone now and the microphone is free. if you years ago you look at captain sullenberger landing the plane on the hudson river. we look at the ferry boat going up to rescue passengers, and it was on the networks within an hour. it only had 30 followers. those followers tweeting that to their followers and then them tweeting it to their followers, then the papers took it. you see the spread in 2010 with the tea party movement, people able to use these tools to organize without having the

same top-down infrastructure that a major political party would have, for example. i think you are continuing to see this escalate as more and more people adopt these platforms. >> a good point about amplification, how that applies to metrics -- if that person has 30 followers, prior to that incident you might have thought that person does not have a lot of influence. they probably only have 30 followers. then we see what happens as a result of that implication -- of amplification, sharing it with others. everyone in this room knows how many followers they have on whatever social media. sometimes you use it as a comparison, a badge. i have a 1000, i have 4000. but what is the quality, the reach beyond that number. >> to go back to the opening question to that, sure, president obama has roughly 20 times the followers of governor romney on twitter. he tweets more often.

when we start building the political index back in april where we are measuring the actions of twitter users towards candidates through their tweets -- at that time there were four times as many tweaks per day about the president as there were for governor romney. today the ratio is about 1.5 to 1. at this rate we're probably a few weeks from there be a one- to-one ratio of conversations about the president as conversations about governor romney. the conversations about the candidates is equal. that might be a starter metra to compare the campaigns. >> i want to throw two concepts out. one is durability, one is persuasiveness. what is the shelf life, do you think, something that gets shared in any social media contest -- context? and is it correct there is sort of an assumption that durability is short, it is a limited value?

concept two -- is social media a place where persuasion occurs in the dynamic process, or more often than not people are already sharing a set of values or perceptions and just continue to talk to each other and reinforce one another? >> some messages will not last as long with the ecosystem that is out there. the thing you see also -- "you did not build this," as an example. that occurred on a friday. it was broadcast on monday. from that, we have seen now across the country people coming together, whether any event, getting merchandise. it has exploded and kept for 45 days a narrative going. that has a huge component. the challenges -- if there was a viral -- we would use it all the time. we would sit there and hit it

all day long. you never know what is going to work. you have to build the infrastructure and you do everything you can. when we tweet, it is in mitt romney's voice. he has a point of view and has a role in all of it. we cannot talk 27 times a day about what he puts on twitter. we have to keep it short, so we see that as driving his message. we have other avenues for other messages, so you're trying to find a balance between that. sometimes things come to the forefront, much more bearish region much more merit based. -- much more merit based. i am sure there are many people on campaigns that find that scary, but that is the reality. it cannot control twitter, all you can do is move it left or right. you know lager have the capacity of message control. >> how about the purse wages --

the persuasive message in all this? >> i think facebook was kind of the first party valuation in sharing. i think it remains to be seen how this all complement's a larger campaign and what is going on with your campaign day to day. it gives you a much further reach. that is the part moving forward for part of it. there is no one time it will work. sometimes it works organically. >> ok. >> particularly on the durability viewpoint -- when you are having a conversation with your friend, you are not always talking about one topic. you might bounce around a different one. continually building up that engagement, it is not always just about quantity. you have to have good quality about compelling that people

want to share. the stuff they're talking about already, the romney campaign does a great job of this. you are building up engagement, and it is building upon each other. the life of one post may be a day, but each post builds on top of it. on persuasion, we found that it is not really much of an echo chamber that everyone thinks it is. people have a diverse set of friends, and some get out the vote and they agree with you. but there may be votes on the fence. when you share that content because of the prize, it can have a persuading value as well. >> the persuasion peace first, just echoing katie's comments, a study out of texas tech analyzed campaign cycles and found several key demographic groups, particularly hispanic americans,

women, and those making under $100,000 per year. people who follow a candidate or elected official of their same general demographic group were more influenced by the candidate's tweets than by their own friends and family when they went into the voting booth in 2010 because they had that one- to-one personal relationship. in terms of that momentary nature, to order, in particular, with all of the platforms -- the 24-hour news cycle has become an 840-character one, if you will. consumers have more direct access to real-time news information than ever before. but real time is inherently momentary. that is not a bad concept. you will talk about what is in the news today, but it might not shape your decision on election day. but if you're having the same

conversation day in and day out, those trends build. we tracked president obama's approval ratings as posted by tweeted. one difference we saw was last may, following the raid that killed osama bin laden. as you would expect, there was a large discrepancy between the index number and the gallup number. when we dug into the streets, in the two months following the raid, there were more tweets about the economy than all national issues combined. if you think about this in a more common-sense way, it makes sense. a month after the raid, when a poster calls and says do you approve of the job the president

is doing, and you go with your flag members and say yes. about pocketbook issues, issues from before, your mortgage, your job. what these tools have created, and ability to tap into this public square conversation, the same with their radar did not replace but made it stronger. this gives reporters and pollsters a chance to look and say the national conversation is not match what they're telling pollsters, and what does that mean? >> i think on the persuasion side, you could make the argument about people being in an echo chamber, following their own beliefs through any type of media. for television, radio. it is based on our political beliefs and get stuck in that. i do think the question might be, would an undecided voter in

ohio in each of social media make up their minds based on the conversations they are having? maybe. that is possible. i think within persuasion there are degrees of persuasion. if you are somebody leaning toward voting for mitt romney or you are not sure about obama's issues, it will increase your desire to vote for them or change your mind a little bit. not necessarily to go to the other side, so to speak, but by a certain number of degrees. i think with regard to the permanent idea, of course we love it when people use our tools to search and find these trends, and we can see what folks are searching for. it is getting the poles of the internet, a publicly available tools. you can go back over time. in fact, you we have gone back to 2004. you can see what people were searching for in different candidates. very powerful tools, and we

encourage the media to submit as well. with google-plus, in particular, initially a hangout was not saved, not reported. it was a sort of temporary event. you brought people in, up to 10 people, a video chat, and it was gone. then we rolled out the ability to live-stream it on youtube. then it is content that you have later that can be shared somewhere else. it can be used on television. there is much more of that content than there was before. but certainly that challenge keep us afloat. that is right about the new model of the public square. people have come to accept it as relatively temporary. >> we looked at each of the primary debates and primary elections and saw that after primary election night, that night, whoever won the primary, sought a massive spike in

forward growth. i know people saw the same thing. i know the democrats saw the same thing. same with debates. people were in real time saying i want to know more about this candidate because they might not be the front-runner. >> you want to say something? >> one of the things the campaign has made a commitment to is this belief that there is almost one-third of the election that is this component of people no longer watching live television. so we have gone out to likely voters and said that one in three people in florida and ohio, their reliance on btr's s.tflix -- on tv dvr'

my mom does not think in terms of "modern family" as being on at 8:00 at night. and with commercials, she thinks of it as 20 minutes long. whether or not it is through twitter, facebook, through google-plus or youtube. if you do not have conversations of the platforms, you will just miss people. in would you want to go into election day having not talked to 2 million people? that is a huge risk for any campaign to take. that realization has sunken in. i don't think that has permeated down to the lower prices, or try to figure out how to get enough television to reach everyone. you can still change perspectives, but you cannot reach everyone with just television alone anymore.

>> garance. >> well, i wanted to follow up on what adam was talking about with listening to the networks, what people have to say. this is a very noisy campaign cycle. there is a lot of controversies and these moments that seemed very negative in the campaign. even with the engagement, i know that the content you are putting out and that the obama campaign is putting out, people are more likely to share things that are hot button, controversial questions rather than content on the economy, for example. >> i would disagree with you a little bit, because i think that hot-button issues are -- a lot of the red meat is what is being shared, but a lot of it is about the economy, the issues that people care about. they are sharing whether -- both

campaigns' platforms and what they are interested in. it is a broad spectrum, but they are talking about issues that matter to them. >> we have gone back and look at -- during the debates, for example, ron paul quoted bling about the constitution that maybe nobody really understood that the time. second screeners would pull out their demise and search "constitution" -- what is he talking about? yes, perhaps people are drawn sometimes about those hot-button issues, but it might be just to understand them better or to get better contacts with them, not necessarily because they want to pile on with whatever candidate is being discussed at that moment. maybe they just don't know and want to find out more information. sometimes it can be that simple.

>> one of the things we found with the twitter political index research is that the tone of the overall conversation on twitter is driven by the tone of the campaigns. when the campaigns are being more positive with the message, the conversation is more positive, and vice versa bid use such a large increase for governor romney on the day of the paul ryan announcement. you saw increases for both candidates on the day of the supreme court decision on health care, because people took to twitter to support their candidate's position more than attacking the other side. and you see these valleys in between when there is not that strong or collective push from the campaign one way or the other, and the conversation turns more to talking about ads you are seeing on tv and more reaction than proactive communication. i would expect with the conventions that you will see

respective candidates move up during the weeks of their programs. >> some of this is human nature. you mentioned paul ryan and the announcement. does anybody have a guess as to what the second biggest search term was with paul ryan? "shirtless." people were not just interested in it the policy or economist, but p90x. it is not that different from a conversation you might have with somebody here. it is just reflected on line. >> more and more people are going to engage and you'll see that -- i think you are exactly right. it is a testament to the obama campaign and their ability to have the dnc in 50 states that when you see the message, it can ripple across the internet. they could get talking points

out, which got this conversation going. we could identify the seven nodes of where things were coming from. i think that what you are seeing now with bigger events is that you can only manufacture that to appoint. what you see is that you move it from the social media to -- people using the social to find something. they are looking for more information. you go on facebook and look to your friends to see who was talking about paul ryan. that is where the validation, spread when you find more and more of your friends talking a certain way, that is more probable as a campaign. that is why we are building these pieces now. every single time we get another million people engaged, that is far more powerful to us. that is what we look at every single time.

you want to see people talking and getting larger and larger. >> i have a question for zac. i had this image in my head of a campaign monitoring television networks. do you see as more important to monitor the social media traffic and that way you are talking about and getting a sense of what is happening online versus tv? >> you still had your shot that is going to monitor the television, because that is able to drive up so much content. the digital shop integrates to get out what is going on on the social front. it gives you a holistic overview of what is going on. tracking social is a very easy way of seeing -- there are certain people will lead the charge on twitter, and you can see things coming much, much quicker. it is of the campaign to see who

they are and what they are pushing. it is a human element. that is why 2012 is a different. you look at 2008, and the mccain people, no matter how great their team was, could not compete with the obama people online because they were outnumbered 10-1. 87 total sap versus 750 people. do we believe our staff is better? yes. outdid told him, for example, is 110 people and growing. -- our digital team, example, is 110 people and growing. everybody acknowledges that this is an area of growth for the campaign. we are always finding more value coming back in than what we are putting out. that has changed the structure

of the campaign. >> before i eighth throw it out for questions, i want to ask zac, does governor write his own tweets? >> nothing goes out that he is not aware of. he was much more involved in the actual writing of the tweets, but more often than not, we get an e-mail with a photograph and it says, "this would be great to tweet out." >> so even at this harried stage of the campaign he will initiate the process? >> the world is going on even though he is so busy tracheas still getting e-mail from friends and people forwarding things. that is the reality of the social. it is ever-present come in your life. even at some as busy as governor

romney, it gets in his life. the boys a socially active on every platform. they bring a lot of things to our attention. >> i did promise to throw it open to the audience. if you have questions, please raise your hand and you get a more refine -- you get the microphone to you. we are relatively short and that one works. >> question for zac. you said that you saw higher engagement rate with the supreme court decision. people tend to engage more often with someone they disagree with than they agree with. do you think if the decision had come down to the other way, it would have a flip? >> the thing about the supreme court is that it is something that both sides are very active about. this was one of these inflection points of the campaign.

i would not expect that the obama people to mattress on the -- to match us on the vp day. the debates will be the one time when you see it head to head, the point where we are all building towards the four debates. i do not know if you would have moved them to 27% engagement. why do we talk about it so much? i feel like a broken record, because everybody wants to talk about these massive, large lists. if there was more engagement going on with the obama campaign, i would be far more nervous. i am only worried about how people see what we are doing. to answer your question, the supreme court ruling being different, many things would change differently. >> all social media clearly rely on free speech and freedom. those under attack around the

world and domestically by special interests and sometimes by part of the government, how do you think both campaigns are dressing their support for internet freedom? >> that is a great question. i think we all agree that is an issue, and google takes freedom of expression seriously. we have panel discussions talking to different folks about it. it is an issue that is very personal to google, but to a lot of technology companies, and in some parts of the world, it is threatened. we have something called the transparency report, where every six months or so we arrelease request made to google to take down certain information, places where in the internet is not made available to public. what is interesting is that it is not always the countries are places you think of the obvious ones that are requesting information be taken down. it could be in the u.s., the u.k.

it is not just happening in other parts of the world. it is absolutely an issue to talk about, whether it is sopa or pipa was something more valuable to other people, we are keen to talk about it here. >> we believe that open exchange of information has a positive effect on the world. the tweets must flow, and we make sure of that wherever we operate. a perfect example is during the arab spring, in egypt in particular, we partnered with google that, after the data networks were shut down, we build something called "speak to tweet," where people could call in number and dictate a tweet. that was an innovation we did with the google. we have been doing reports on a request from governments and media companies. we will continue in that

direction. >> we are really a platform for people to use it as they need to. it has been really powerful. we alone are not smart enough. we want to open it up to everyone, and it is amazing what has happened, like with the arab spring. we want to give people the tools to do what they need to do. >> from a campaign perspective, we strive -- we try not to engage -- sometimes it can come back and hurt us, because someone will see it and report on it. our facebook page, for example, it is facebook's terms that dictate whether we take something down. that is really something that we strive towards. if people see us starting to take down content, people start to tune us out. the market kind of self-regulate as it relates to politics.

if one person says something, you have nine people who respond on our behalf. it does not mean we don't keep an eye on it, and yet staff who se job is to keep us abreast of these communications. people to say some very crazy things on our page. >> right here. hold on, the microphone will be right there in a moment. >> we talk about the content you have been posting on facebook and twitter and google. have you been buying ads as well? >> for sure. you always want to extend the reach. that is what everyone on the stage here wants to do, whether it is a sponsored story, sponsored tweet. we are always want to put resources towards that. it is huge part of our team, and an area where we think we have a strategic advantage over the

obama folks. it would be crazy for us to cede that territory. in has to come within our overall social media -- >> why and do you think you have an advantage to there? >> being good at it in 2008 does not mean you are good at it in 2012. we believe the skills we have internally, that is what they excel at. we see online how we measure our success. that is what we see we are very good at. we have made on-line advertising a core component of our overall campaign strategy, and whether that means the boring reason from a digital and a data perspective, but we sat down when a first launch and had a strategy we were executing from then until now. technology gets better, but i.t. has a core part of what we are looking to do. we acknowledge that it exists, and we make a huge attempt to engage with them in the primaries and the general.

taking money off television and finding people who are not watching television and delivering advertising is so they are exposed to the measur -- messaging. you can tweet, poster facebook, e-mail them. it is not only one person watching the video, it is sharing it with their friends. they become our advocates and it is a more powerful form of communication. >> there are unique ways that the ads are working. if there is a mitt romney ad campaign video on youtube, and somebody does not watch more than 30 seconds of it, there is no payment in full. their capacity that engagement for there to be a transaction. -- there has to be that a patient for there to be a transaction. those are the kinds of net-roots and numbers that you can get

back and see the level of engagement with what people are doing. it is not just that they click on something. they watch the entire campaign video. that is powerful to see that those people are watching and how many are watching. >> garance, i will give it to you. >> one of the questions with it user-generated content of the campaigns and what you have crated, what he's seeing people creatively come up with the that you find surprising or delightful? >> the things that are visual. videos have a tendency to go in many different directions. instagram, graphics, things that captured people's imagination. that is what we've really seen as the interesting part. to kate's point, someone should

put a statement out there it is not go anywhere. that is why bank using interest in -- why you are seeing interest in instagram and others. that is the content that has defer this to reach that is not generated by the campaign. >> katie? >> everybody has a phone out where you can take really good pictures. people will time, whether they are volunteering or at a rally -- when paul ryan was announced, i had some many people in my news feed at the event snapping pictures. it is -- it is giving you a behind the scenes experience and it is not just the campaign doing it, but your friends. never before have we had at this point in time where you have delegates who will be live

tweeting and putting stuff on google and facebook, giving france and the viewpoint of the convention that they have never gotten before. >> we have only had cameras in the halls for about 60 years. we have only allowed the cameras to be physically on the floor for just under 20. now for the first time, people are not going to be seeing in the convention exclusively the regimented shot dead as on every single member, but they will experience the dimension through the eyes of a member of their community, from their perspective, and it is putting that user in the seat. those are the most delightful moments on twitter, particularly when someone you don't even know is that an event, but because of your like interests, twitter has brought you closer trade you build a relationship around that event.

do they have this there? they tweet you a picture of that. we saw that during the campaign, during an austin, in othe -- during the announcement, and other races. it is also a great opportunity for the candidates themselves. damage in claire mccaskill earlier. for somebody who -- i mentioned claire mccaskill clippard somebody who tweeted, "i saw my candidate at wal-mart." she responded, "i am still there. why don't you say hello?" they that personal connection to the senator. it is moments like that at increase engagement not only on fun moments, but in actual

policy engagement. you see the candidat -- your turn the candidate from this talking and on tv to a real person with whom you had real conversations. >> the barriers are coming down in so many ways. youtube is live streaming both conventions. i am working with our google + hang out studio space, and "national journal" is doing the first one at 3:00 this afternoon. one of the things we talked about is, compared to 2008, with regards to youtube, we were excited that people were taking flipcams and shooting video and uploading it. what we are hoping to do with the hang out at google plus is to have that two-way conversation and bring in people

who were not here in a way that was not possible this way before. with regards to mobile, we just recently announced that you can join hang out on air, one of these light streame -- livestreamed events, through your mobile device. you can have that live for everyone to see and share. that is an amazing shift from where we were four years ago. in 2016, who knows -- >> the thing that is interesting about 2012 is that we are embracing this convention without walls concept. it will be the youtube channel. we want the experience to occur on your youtube channel. you can stream at live, watch

highlights, watching videos made exclusively for youtube. everyone on this panel has worked to make sure that we are pulling in twitter, facebook, and the compositions occurring on youtube will replace the role of the site, which is a seismic shift, because you are embracing the fact that video will be driving much of the conversation at a convention, but social will keep it moving and moving forward. you will see an youtube channel launched at the entire convention through the youtube channel, which was not a possibility in 2008. >> this is not just about ticking the experience in the hall out to the public watching at home. it is about bringing those voices back into the hall. zac's news team and the convention team have done a good job, and you'll see it bringing it back to the hall on the

floor. that is absolutely transformative. we saw president obama a couple of months ago on his way to a speech in des moines, and on his way, he says, "let's try this. when i am done, i will take your questions for half an hour." he goes to a room and has a laptop in front of him and they post to youtube. somebody with a mobile standing in line at this market sees a tweet that he is taking questions. the president meets the question and replies and there is video of the president reading and replying all within the span of 30 minutes. absolutely transformative, when any citizen in the country can do that with the president of the united states or the republican nominee in that timeframe. >> zac, would you consider -- i

know this goes to the highest levels -- but during this conversation, bringing that to the governor or paul ryan and incorporating that in big speeches? >> i don't know if the speeches will change, but the conversations, especially when you are going into events like when the congressman is going into an event, it goes into the campaign. it is a different entry point into the overall discussion. we are a little way from going to the convention and incorporating it into his speeches, but we're seeing it more and more. you see that this is what people are talking about on twitter and facebook, because they wanted talk about something that is completely different. you look at national papers' headlines and the front page, it is a very different from what is on the regional papers' headlines in front pages.

that is more where it is incorporated into the campaign. >> i want to throw it out to the audience one last time to see if there are any questions that have yet to be asked. >> in "usa today," it said that obama's followers are fake. [unintelligible] >> filtering through the accounts that are created on twitter in an automatic way and developing the algorithm of determining who is real and it was not is very difficult. we continue to work on it and refine it. 40% of the people who logged in to twitter every day don't treat people use it every day as a pure consumption -- don't tweet.

people use it every day as a pure consumption experience. "the new york times" is not going to call you and say, "you are a longtime subscriber but you have not written anything lately so we will cut you off." the signals are not necessarily available for studies. >> the metrics -- we had an issue where we suddenly saw a large growth in twitter, and it was nothing the campaign was doing. it is on the and the kids percolating through it every once in awhile. -- it is something that keeps percolating through every once in awhile. i don't think any campaign minds that, because that is not how they defines success. nobody who is it doing at digital director's job would be concerned about that one way or the other. how many followers you have

cannot define your success. it is one of the questions you have to be careful about with these larger public numbers. we see a lot of traffic for our sights sometimes, and it might be someone posting something in brazil. interesting, but not much we can learn and do from that. that is why analytics and the back end date is so valuable. >> only 30-some followers, and i got everywhere, and then there were tweets sent to an account of tens of millions with no engagement. there are individual pastors who are just followed by members of their own congregations who end of having greater total reached than oprah winfrey just because of the quality of the message.

follower count is not the driving metric for campaigns or for anyone. >> i called all 50,000 of my twitter followers just to thank -- [laughter] thank you to this panel. garance, zac, katie, dan, you have been fantastic. >> on behalf of cps, "the atlantic," "national journal," this has been fantastic. tomorrow, same time, same place, we have moderators' from "nj" and cbs, and the best pollsters in the country are going to be here. i encourage you to join us tonight. not much to watch tonight.

[laughter] last but not least, we have an event at 2:00 this afternoon on the subject of health the cities. if you are interested, please join us. with that, thanks, everybody. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> that is all for "national this morning.nt

all part of the coverage you are seeing on c-span, part of campaign 2012. you are looking at an image of the tampa bay times forum, brought to you live from tampa, florida. continuing is ken jones, president of the two dozen 12 tampa bay host committee -- 2012 tampa bay host committee. how is this tropical storm affected you? guest: it is not affecting it as much as we thought. we started seeing a hurricane, then a tropical storm, and it has been a deterioration from a hurricane, and maybe it will be a bad rain storm. we looked at a lot of different contingency plans for this event. we knew we were having an event

in august and there might be a possibility of inclement weather. we did an abbreviated day to day. we will make up all the time we lost today. our governor is traveling around the state. other governors have been activated, and they will make sure their citizens are ok and make sure everybody comes out ok. host: tell us about security, how you are dealing with protesters. guest: the infrastructure for convention is phenomenal. you have a national security designation, done by the department of homeland security. you have local law enforcement,

about 4000 law enforcement officers in the downtown area. a lot of them are local, federal, some state police. the infrastructure is temperament -- tucked -- tantamount to the olympic games. the same company that did the transportation management for the olympics is in tampa, florida-based company. there are a lot of parallels between the olympics and the presidential conventions. it is an incredible feat to pull all the logistics off, but it has spent exciting and we have had a great time doing it. talk: if you would like to cal here are the numbers --

let's talk dollars. you get public funding, $18 million, from tax payers. what other money is going into paying this? guest: it is interesting, the way conventions are fun that is counterintuitive. you have three different pots of money that go into the makeup. the first is the federal security money, which comes from the department of homeland security. $50 million. that money comes from washington to tell about, and charlotte gets the same money for the democratic convention. you have the host committee money, $55 million to $60 million. there is no limitation on the

amount or source because the host committee is a charity, and few people realize this host committee is not a political organization at all. we can take tax-deductible is tobutions canbecause it promote the tampa bay to the world. you have the host committee money, and you get a federal grant for the committee on arrangements, which comes from the federal election committee, about $20 million. that is the $3 checkoff on your tax return. they give it to the federal election financing trust, and that is to pay for the conventions. host: the host committee's fund-

raising is a mix of florida and national donor. you can be taking in private dollars. we will not see the full disclosure until october. what can you tell us now about who you are raising money from? guest: an interesting question, and everybody wants to know who gives you money and what did you spend it on. not that we are being cloak and dagger about it. by federal law, we are only allowed to disclose donors on october 15. that is the date set in the act that covers the work we did. we have a report due, about 5000 pages long, and we send back into the federal commission on october 15. on that date you will see how much money we raise, who we raised it from, you will be able to see what we spent those dollars on, everything from

transportation to rental, entertainment for some of our local folks, but that report will come out 45 days from now, and full transparency, and everybody will see exactly what we raced and spent. host: let's go to the phones. hi, pete. caller: hi. i would like asking how you think it is possible that the republican mitt romney and a democrat barack obama could be tied in the polls right now. guest: i am not going to get too much into politics, but i will make a couple comments. polls have been inherently unreliable. and it depends on which one you look at. there is one that combines all the polls together that comes up

with a good average for each individual candidate. i have seen different polls in different elections, and i was a campaign finance attorney and have worked in a lot of elections, and i have seen polls that say you have somebody up by six points the day before the election, and then they lose by four points, a 10-point swing. i would not trust what you read. you have to wait until election day comes at a round. polls will tend to change, and you are sitting here, we are late august, you have a couple months before the general election. two months is like 10 years in dog years i would not read too much into the polls you see today. host: here is "the washington times" poll, 45.7% favorability

rating for each of the end. medicare, security, and you can find that more online. we're talking with ken jones about the convention we will see kick off today and get into full swing tomorrow. he is running things. is the president of the 2012 tampa bay host committee. give us a sense so our callers can talk about what your job is. guest: our job is to not get into the politics, but the reason we are allowed to get a 501-c3 exemption is to get a promotion for the tampa bay area. you have your olympic host

committee, and the idea is to make sure the infrastructure is in place. we want to make sure the venues are available, we have a good electrical supply, we pay for the end for structure. the forum you saw a shot of that had a bay times for more, and we have to rent that hauled out. that cost millions of dollars to do that. we will tear it out in seven days after the convention is done. our job is to make sure the convention functions as a convention, and for structure, delectable -- electrical. mitt romneyre that has got a form and venue to deliver his speech to his supporters, and we showcased at the bay to the world. when this is over is for the -- the best thing is for the

delegates to say i did not know that tampa bay had such good museums, beaches, so they come back and they want to spend more money. we look at this as the economy convention, a big economic stimulus, and we want to make sure we showcase it to the world and make sure we let people know what a great place tampa bay area is. host: there are mixed reports about how much money is pouring into local economy. guest: we have had some healthy debate, and you can take the numbers to the extent that you want to turn the numbers around, if you play with numbers long enough, you can make the numbers say anything. the one thing you cannot dispute because it is an absolute fact, the host committee will spend

$60 million in this area. the federal government has kicked in $50 million for security, to clothe and house and feed officers, and then the committee on arrangements spent up to $20 million on the build- outs. most of that money will stay in the tampa bay area. that money will get sucked out of state and go back to that corporate headquarters, but what i will tell you, while part of that might be true, those hotels employing local workers, front desk clerks, professional staff, drivers, taxicab people, all those folks with here in the bay area, they pay the mortgage to local community banks, pay sales tax, so this notion that somehow because some of the profits may go to an out-of-state company from a local hotel that that

has zero economic impact, i could not disagree that more. this convention will have a $200 million direct spending impact on this community, at a time when we could use it. we have branded this the economy convention. if anybody does not think that spending $200 million during a down economic times is not an economic impact, then they can open their eyes and take a closer look, because it will be great for our economy, city, and puts us on the world stage like never before. i disagree with those naysayers that it does not have a good impact. caller: host: -- host: let's get back to the funds and hear from steve. good morning. are you with us? caller: ken, how do you keep

such a large event green? guest: we work with a local tampa electric co.. we pull power of the grid that is green power. and we have flex-fuel vehicles, and we try to take steps that this will be a green convention. you cannot make everything green, but to the extent we can, we do. we have hybrid cars that are official. we try to make this as environmentally friendly as you can, recognizing you cannot do it 100%. also, coca-cola has been a good partner of ours, but they are the official recycler. in addition to making a contribution, they have

implemented a permanent recycling program for the city of tampa. when this convention is done, which will still have a coca- cola beside clean program in this town. another company has planted trees all along rail right of ways, so we have great partners and sponsors and we have an environmentally friendly convention, and we try to make it more and more so every year. host: here is a tweet -- guest: a lot of that information is kept classified because of the nature of the information. there is a significant law enforcement presence here from the federal government. they work well with local police. this event has been in the works

for more than two years. in combination with the secret service, fbi, local law enforcement, state, we make sure people stay safe. the idea is not to suppress first amendment speech. we want people to be able to protest. there is a misnomer that somehow we do not want protesters to come to our convention. i would said it would be the irony of all ironies to have a presidential commission and not allow freedom of speech, not allow a peaceful dissent, freedom of association. i have worked on some of these cases, and i think freedom of speech is critical to this process. we'd want to see freedom of speech, we want to see people give a dissenting opinion. we want them to do it respectfully. we do not want them damaging property. that is when federal law enforcement comes in, and they

will make sure we all stay safe. federal involvement is tremendous, and these guys have been a real pros tap the. host: good morning. caller: a couple questions regarding who built what appeared $40 million is spent on the tappan convention center rates. who paid for that? who built it? who paid for the roads that takes romney to his marriott proved to build those roads? who paid the workers who built their roads? where does this money come from? grand caymans? switzerland? who paid for this? guest: i can assure you grand cayman and switzerland did not pay for this. it is a political question, but it was a democrat line.

the $40 billion that you referenced, that was paid for by then named jeff andbennet, owner of the tampa bay lightning hockey team. he is a great guy. he moved to 10 but recently. jeff took $40 million out of his pocket and that all of the upgrades to the forum for free. he did them not just for the convention, but have a world- class hockey facility. he is on his way to doing the job of building a first-class hockey team. who built the roads? they were built by the government. we did road improvements. the mayor is a close personal friend of mine who worked

together the last two years to make sure all the city's roads are beautified, which is covered by the taxpayer dollars in tampa. the comment about the foreign dollars, there is a statute that says the only provision for funding for a convention on the house committee is we cannot take foreign money. i'm not sure what the caller is talking about there. all the dollars came from u.s. citizens, done here privately or to the tampa city government. host: baltimore, maryland, harvey. caller: a simple question, because there are so many jobs out there right now, and not a whole light -- lot in florida. how deep you go about -- how do

you go about jobs and money, and plenty of money being given for that event that can help people with jobs? that is visible as i can say yes. -- that is as simple as i can say it. guest: the build-out of the tampa bay forum took thousands of workers. we had 15,000 people at an event, and to get it prepared, we used hundreds of local workers in the area. a lot of workers who have not worked for a while. just for the event last night, we at 1100 workers helping put evan together. most of them were from the local area. inside the forum, there are hundreds of workers, said the money we spent on this convention, as much as we can we

want to use local workers, we want to include local businesses to the extent we can. the caller's question is a great question. how do we translate into dollars for the economy? we hire local workers, electricians, plumbers, production people, as much as we can use local people. we will continue that through the convention. we have a lot of money to spend this week, and we use local people, and the goal is to get people back to work, improve the economy, and make sure this is a great economic boost for tampa bay. this is the economy convention. let's get the economy going again. host: dayton, ohio, republican. go ahead. caller: hi. my question is basically in looking at this crisis you have

in funding issues like that, how much and where does the money come from? sometimes from homeland security, but what goes into measures for protesters? how much goes into that? where does the money come from? any input on that? guest: sure, and most of that money comes from the federal government, and that protects the event. what this event is called is a national special security event. there are only a few left in the united states. g-20 summits, the nato summit in japan of -- in chicago, and the conventions. those events have to be protected, and we want to make sure nobody gets hurt. most of the security dollars are spent by the federal government,

some by local law-enforcement, and the dollars are not spent to suppress protest activity or freedom of speech. the dollars are spent to make sure to the extent somebody wants to hurt somebody -- a few weeks ago they found potential pipe-bomb making equipment on the roof of a building. that is what the worry is here, people that are bent on causing destruction. those are the people we want to prevent from hurting people. that money goes in to keep people safe. that $50 million grant is what it is used for, local, state, law enforcement, to make sure we protect people and that they had a great experience. most of it comes from the federal government. host: a story from yesterday, details of all the parties and extra events that goes around

the event. how much are you involved in coordinating that or is that separate from what you are doing? guest: that was a person who talked with me the other day, and most people believe these are coordinated things, where the host committee gets involved with a private corporation to throw a big party. that is not the case at all. we are a charity, and we have hospitality, and the goal is not to take care of a lobbyist or to promote a federal issue in front of congress. the goal is to make sure we showcase tampa bay. we want to make sure when these folks come to town they had a favorable impression of our city and when they leave they'd want to come back again. a lot of those private parties are coordinated by somebody other than the host committee.

other political parties -- maybe joe biden was coming here this week, and i saw the chairman of the democratic national committee on the street and i said hi to her. she will host a couple parties this week, and i told her i thought that was great because democrats' money is as green as republicans'. all the money that it spent in this city, by security officials, private corporations, all of that is good economic development, great for the city, great with the economy. we do not coordinate that activity. that is left to other people. host: the article says what happens every day in washington expanse to a gigantic scale around the convention. -- expands to a gigantic scale

around the convention. caller: the major non cable networks have decreased their coverage of the conventions, all the cable news coverage has increased. can you talk about negotiations. i am not sure about how much a role you may have played, but can you talk about negotiations that the party goes through in terms of how much coverage the convention will get? guest: that is an inside baseball question. few people ask that one. these conventions have gotten more press coverage in some cases and less than others. we want the clock back to the 1984 conventions, and the advent of c-span, cnn, fox news, 24-

hour cable news network was just starting at to hit its stride. before that it was three big networks. they cover and a lot of coverage. it was on all the time and you got the opening gavel, you saw speeches, the closing gavel, and now big networks did not cover as much as the 24-networks do. those stations devote a lot of coverage to these events. that is important. these events are part of the democratic process. i think to the event -- could the event be shorter possibly, but they serve a final vital purpose.

let them make a decision. they listen to the speeches. a lot of people watch both images, so they are not just partisan events. i will watch the democratic convention next week. i know some folks in charlotte and washington will watch our convention. they are great events, and the need to confirm -- and the media coverage will continue to expand. it gets 16,000 media personnel. the only event that comes close is the olympic games. the olympics get six18,000. the coverage is great and i believe it will continue to expand. host: here is a story of who is looking at the convention. after a decades-long slide in ratings, the share of households watching rebounded in 2008.

partly because there are more television households that before, that average total audience in 2008 was the largest ever. c-span will bring you coverage of the conventions. william is our next caller in ohio. good morning. caller: a question for ken jones to concerning the economic impact of the convention on tap out. -- on tampa. due to the delay in starting the convention, you would have to assume there is not all delegates would arrive as early as if it had been the full four days. what if any economic impact does that have in dollar terms concerning the overall economic picture and the tampa bay area?

guest: i think that is a great question, and we were talking about that before we came on air, and is counter intuitive. i think that the lake is actually going to have a greater economic impact for the good on tampa, and here is why -- a lot of delegates -- the delegates were not delay. all of the delegates were here on time. what i will say is those delegates would have otherwise been inside the convention hall during their official business. now they will be shopping at malls, eating at restaurants, spending money, so i think that the lay of the convention by a date will have a more positive economic impact because these folks will be able to go out and do things in the community that they would not have been otherwise able to do. the impact will be greater because of the delay. i think people will also stay

late after the convention is over because it is a holiday weekend. we're going right into labor day. when you have a tropical storm come through, on the backside you have beautiful weather, so we hope everybody will stay in town, bowed to the beach, have fun, and come back real soon and spend money in our community. this is the economy convention, and we want to make sure we showcase our area to the world. a great question. host: ken jones is president and ceo of the 2012 tampa bay host committee. thank you very much. guest: thank you very much. we appreciate it. host: next, we will hear from dicky sokolik -- vicky sokolik. this is an occupy movement

march on the rnc, and you can see that crowds that have gathered. you can see articles in the papers, that's as the occupy wall street protesters are expected to take to the streets in the city of 10 but to voice their opposition to the republican party's national convention. thousands will descend on tampa bay today. we look at live footage from our c-span crew in tampa checking out one of the march is going on. another story talks about there being a senior movement, a diverse coalition from community organizers and activists. they joined up sunday for the first major march of that republican national convention.

the demonstrations went through the city, passing through store fronts, and it talks about the diversity among that group, and it was represented yesterday by senior citizens. let's listen to what is going on now in tappan. >> we know the actions of these two parties impacts the whole world. not just us. we are represented people all around the world in this fight for human rights, democracy, real democracy, where the 99% make a difference. i will say to you i have taken off my raincoat, i see the sun, i am willing to march on the rnc, and i will be in charlotte next week, and i hope all of you come to charlotte as well to make it clear the people of the

parties of just the 1%, that we represent the 99%. thank you. >> thank you. all of you have spoken, let's leave behind -- the next speaker is one of the founders of -- [unintelligible] >> thanks for braving the weather out here to make a statement against this political system that is failing millions of people, not only here in the united states, but around the world. i have the honor to meet many of those people living on our streets, trying to survive in an economic and political system that is a complete disaster.

we encourage you to join with the coalition with all groups like -- and the people who have come out today to organize against this political and economic system. there is a huge increase of the number of people needing food, not only the millions of homeless americans, which are typically undercounted, the millions of people trying not to be homeless have been put into the position of having to stand in soup lines to get fit. soup kitchens all over this country are finding they are running out of food. we are an effort to change society so no one has to stand in these soup kitchens to continue to eat. every american has the right to food. every person has the right to food. none of the over 1 million people going country every day

should have to face that. over 40% of the food produced in united states is discarded. how can we allow people to start when we have so much money available for law-enforcement, military, and an unnumber -- unknown numbers of wars? host: protesters gathered in a tip to make their voices heard. -- protestors gathered in tampa to make their voices heard. now we go to a resident of tappan, vicki sokolik, founder of a group, starting right now. thank you for joining us. guest: 84 having me -- thank you

for having me. we have 3200 homeless students in hillsborough county alone. you can imagine our homeless population here is very large. this got started not try to be a non-profit. my husband and i have a daughter who has epilepsy, and when she was in sixth grade we ventured to have brain surgery in houston, texas, and found ourselves among poverty in a teaching hospital in houston. my husband is a radiologist, so poverty was not part of our lives. having been among them for three 3 1/2 months, we help homeless families when we came back, and we started helping one at that time, and it turned into a non-

profit organization in 2008. we have about 100 kids in our program right now that we're helping in the area. host: 24.8% to about residents live in poverty. 7336 homeless in hillsborough county. what does that look and feel like? guest: it is interesting because the people that we have and homelessness are willing to help themselves get out of homelessness, and with a little bit of push and structure and teaching them life skills they did not know before, we are able to take the youth and family and propel them to the military, vocational training , or higher education. it is incredible. the kids are resilience and willing to make their lives better. host: mentioned about giving

them a hand, and you said they did not choose to be in poverty. how do you help them and what is the philosophy helping them take the steps? guest: our philosophy is unique. we are a one on one mentoring program. each student in our program has their own mentor. we help them learn life skills. none of our kids have ever had a bank account. we make them live in an apartment, teach them financial literacy so they learn to bank, learn what it looks like, how to do a budget, and from there we give them leadership training, we give them as 82 during. we take them on simple adventures, sometimes as simple as going to a restaurant, learning how to order off the

menu, doing things we all take for granted that these kids have never been exposed to. we take the kids on college course or vocational training course and let them see what is out there. by giving these kids exposure to everything from the circus to the debate -- to the tampa bay rays games, all the sun their world becomes much greater. host: the website says we are not a handout, we are not a band-aid. we're talking about starting right now with their founder, vicki sokolik. if you would like to join the conversation, here are the numbers to call -- host: you can also stand in

tweets, and this morning when we first put on twitter that you were going on our show, somebody asked how a group like yours is affected when we look at the threat of tropical storms? how are the homeless hurt by that in tampa bay? >> i cannot speak to that because we have a small population that we help in the city itself, and i am sure it the city opens up shelters and all sorts of other items to help the actual homeless. we are a very small group, so i cannot speak to what the city does to help homelessness when a hurricane is coming. host: let's go to the phones. hi, cameron. are you with us? last call. alright, we will move on.

vicki sokolik, let's look at the numbers of the poverty and homeless rates in florida at itself and see what they mean. when asked about how it feels for your organization, give us a sense of whether or not the homeless you work with feel like they are seen by society at large? how visible are they to the average american like you? when you got involved in this, you did not know about it? >> i did night. we are only at agency to help our county school district. the school district's social worker or guidance counselor or others realized a child is what we call house hopping. any% of the people we help our kids to the on their own without a parent or guardian, and they are couch hopping every

single night. they are worried about survival. as kids, we have 9000 of them accounted for in florida, which the number is staggering. those kids we put in their own apartment and match them with a mentor and the propel them on to their next goal, either higher education or vocational training. the numbers are fairly staggering. it is amazing how many kids are out there making their lives work. host: how hard is it for kids to focus on school? it is a difficult period when you have no idea where you are sleeping at night, where you're getting your next meal, how you are getting to school, how you are paying for your school supplies, it is impossible to be thinking about anything other than survival at that moment.

we have a student who did a talk for us one day and said to students, what is the first thing you do when you get home? they said, we get a snack. she said we do not get a snack because there's no dinner. their holiday was their only source of food. it is impossible to think of these kids living on their a own, and we are able to transform their lives and get them stopping the generational cycle of homelessness. host: ryan is calling us from new york. go ahead. caller: i am a former homeless kids on the street in new york city for a few years, and i go around the country, and i want to say that this is the first time i have ever seen

homelessness being talked about on c-span or on a large news network outside of new york. i spent some time in tampa as a homeless youth, at that point in time, there were no services for homeless youths at all. it is an issue that usually does not to talk about because most people did not know that there are over 2 million homeless youth in this country, and it is not even talked about within government, and the only time that we feel we are recognized as a population is when our funding is being cut. host: hell are you doing now? do you have a place -- how are you doing now? do you have a place to live?

caller: i got off the street last winter. everyone in my building are for more homeless youth or in the foster care system or they are runaways. host: as one piece of advice you would like to share with the audience in a way that's america can help kids like you? caller: being aware that there are youth who have no place to sleep at night, and if you see a homeless person, and either just saying high or recognizing them is very helpful, because the few moments, they are few and far between, where they can share humanity is when a person would actually stop and say hi even just handing you food or just a dollar bill.

those moments restore my faith in humanity. host: take you for sharing your story, and good luck. dicky sokolik? -- vicky sokolik? guest: what he says is so true. tappanery fortunate that recognizes there is a need to help these homeless youth in tampa. what is amazing to me all th time is that once you put someone in their lives who is dependable like a mentor we give them and show them the opportunities out there, these kids rise and do things that are remarkable. i can guarantee you some of the kids in our program today will end up being our future leaders tomorrow. like ryan said, there have been -- they have been tossed away like they did not matter at all

to society, and they are incredible kids. i am glad he found somewhere to go. i am thankful tampa has recognized we have an issue and is starting to deal with it head on. i know there is a lot more that can be done out there, and hopefully we're on the cutting edge of making a difference. host: welcome, frank. caller: good morning. i was wondering about the parents of those homeless kids, if there is any programs for them around to help them, because i live near downtown tampa, and it is a shame to see all the homeless people, and they are older than youth, but there are no programs for them, and the salvation army is a diseased center. you do one meal a day, and you

go at 10:30 in the morning, you get a coupon, then you go back at 12:30 to eat, and locks up your whole day, you cannot get a job, you cannot do anything, and it is frustrating to see all these people out on the street in tampa. i am so grateful that you are helping the youth. guest: yeah, our program focuses on the youth. we believe that we can take a younger student and change their lives and propel them to do something great. it is very difficult to take a 40-year-old woman and get her agitated when she only has a seventh-great-education and help her change her life. our success rate is incredible, that we can take these youth and enter them and change their lives completely, and they will not fall back into homelessness. host: dolores is a republican

from illinois joining us now. hi. caller: hi. i used to work with the people in the inner-causway in st. petersburg. people work sleeping in the bushes. i would bring them hot dogs and whenever i could and would sit and talk for a while. sometimes they needed to go to a hospital because they were a little disturbing . then near -- disturbed. then near a town we used to have dinner for the holidays, and these people never had a dinner for the holiday. i am not there anymore. i wish someone would pick up my people.

guest: i really cannot comment to that because we are by referral only to the school district and we focus on the youth, and our programs, there are a lot of organizations throughout the tampa bay area that help homeless families. our area is very blessed with people that help homeless people, and hopefully someone is helping them. host: vicki sokolik is part of a group called starting right now, which mentors youth, giving them a better sense of the world around them. how do people qualified to be mentors in your group? guest: actually, they identify us -- they notify us at the

website, and they are for two board members who have an interview with that. from there there are background checks, and they are interviewed a second time to make sure they really qualify. the main qualification is are you really willing to be dependable and give your time. these kids have had some people come into at of their lives, including their parents, who have not been there for them, and we want to be the one person who comes in their life and does not leave them. really, dependability and time are that two major focus is to look at for mentoring. host: democrats line, welcome. caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. we live in a poverty dichotomy of very extremely poor homeless to people who are making it all the way up to living quite well. we are in western colorado, a

nice place to beat. i was homeless myself for five years. i know how you are treated, i know what it is like, i know the life. i got back inside, so to speak, and began a small group called water of god that is meant to help people, and maybe gives us a reason to get together and find out what we have in common instead of what we do not have in common. also be able to help each other, because there is an extremely difficult homeless situation here, and i got my letter of good standing, and i am applying to become whatever icahn to start a shelter where people can come -- the shelters they have here were not adequate, the

nicest thing i can say. i am struggling here myself in poverty. i ask nothing but to be able to help other people, and it sounds like you and i have very strong opinions. i would like to be involved somehow in a way that might help me to solidify a grant writer or somebody to help the homeless people here in grand junction. they have been burned out, made illegal, there are signs that had been put out that say do not give, put it in a parking meter, we will distribute it. these people, once i give you a dollar, that is your dollar, and what you do with that, whether you buy a bottle wine, it gives you at least something that shows that i appreciate your life. i appreciate you are still here, and i would like to help you remain, and even if i have a dollar, i will give that to you.

there are signs put up here that say did not give. something they do not approve of, which is quite un-american, if you ask me. i have a right to give to whom i want to, and i am struggling here. host: let's get a response from our guest. guest: it is an interesting question, because our program is very different in that make everyone accountable. for example, with our view, if we put them in about an apartment, they have to work 20 hours a week. they get our program 30% of their income which does not pay a portion of their rent, but it is to show them how to budget their funds and learn how to bank. we give all of our youth a computer. they pay us $5 a month to use it.

we get all of our youth a printer. they give us $5 a month to use the printer. my philosophy and the philosophy of our organization is we have to teach people to be accountable. we have to teach people free, that you have to work hard, you have to be accountable for your money, and you also have to save for the future. there has to be some sort of pre-planning, which is what we also teach our kids, put some of their money away for savings. i'm not one to and out money. i think we have to teach skills and teach people how to fish rather than just handing out money. host: can is a republican in north fort myers, florida. caller: top of the morning. i agree with this woman wholeheartedly. i support her.

i commend her and her husband, and i commend what they say about not throwing more money at a problem just by getting things out to people. the american principles since the early days of this country, including the bible, tells you if you want to feed somebody, work. i also think that the defect you are seeing about homeless -- the efefct of seeing homelessness, bad government, the economy cannot and why is the economy bad? the regulations on businesses that take the business and decide it to approve it outside of the country because of labor, and regulations on what they can do and stuff of that nature. i was homeless myself, and i am now a disabled senior, i commend

her. one thing that is going for florida is they are enriched by one super resource that nobody taps into, and that is that seniors down here, who have retired from businesses, retired owning their own businesses. it is a national -- natural resource that is on tap, and instead of them sitting around watching tv, they can be teaching some homeless person how to build something. host: thank you for your call. how many seniors are involved in your press's -- in your organization? the you see that as a group that can help? guest: absolutely. we have a lot of seniors who are mentors. they are invaluable.

not only do they bring with them as a lot of time, because they are retired, but they bring a lot of knowledge. one thing that we have realized now in doing this for five years is that these kids only know what they have been taught. if you that and a family in poverty, you only know how to live in a family in poverty. these senior citizens can help them understand how to break that cycle by taken then skills that they did not get from their families. yes, i say please, we would love to have as many seniors as we can. host: vicki sokolik is the founder of starting right now, has won accolades, like has won accolades, like