how to see the expanse because of traffic during the day and how all of the information -- there is an island that actually connects to global flows of how is this a real time? we have all this information and have to decide better what is going on. in the last couple of minutes, i wanted to share with you a project. it is about the situation side. we see the collection information and how this can change our buildings and cities.

there was a project in copenhagen. the mayor came to us with a very precise question which was how can all of this data and technology help us to change and make the city more sustainable. if the go to copenhagen, traffic in the city looks like this. you had a lot of cars in the city center. now they have 30% or 50s arm every day. -- 50% every day. you have this bicycle idea. i do not know if we can put the audio. this will give your energy.

despite changing the will you will save the energy. we can monitor what you are doing. the king collect information. -- they can collect information. all of these things you can share with your friends. a convicted on facebook. -- you can put it on facebook. it is a very good way to increase the number of sites in copenhagen. instead collecting air miles, you collect green miles.

this was the initial prototype. now we have these in cars. we are getting very close to its. publicly it will be here next year. read it carefully, it will be here next year. read it carefully, it will be here next year. -- hopefully, it will be here next year. >> come up on the stage. is the vice president and director of the metropolitan policy program at the brookings institution. he will be joined by a bunch of other panelists for how far can innovations take our cities. >> thanks. while they get ready, i wanted to thank the sponsors here and

think what you have done. you have taken a very broad view of technology and innovation. he said right at the beginning. it is not just about the next. it is about connecting the dots between technology and manufacturing. technology and innovation is dry cities. siddhis drive national economies. it took a long time for the -- it takes cities to drive the national economies. it took a long time for us remember that. we are joined by an adjunct professor at wayne state. most importantly, he works for city governments. gordon feller, michael littlejohn and you have heard from carla. it is very hard to moderate. all i want to do is tweet.

i wanted to start with a question that really build off presentation. this can be a very broad conversation. we are talking about efficiency and how we manage congestion and lower energies. we are talking about the integration of data. we are talking about participation was social media, co-production of solution. david mentioned this. the united states is not quite at the vanguard of this. when i think it can just in, i think about singapore. he brought the copenhagen. i want to start with the ibm and cisco part of the world appeared

word you see progress within cities? where is the u.s. -- part of the world. where do you see progress within cities? where in the u.s.? >> we can point to smarter transportation and public safety and health care. that is not necessarily a smarter city. as marchers city, and it was alluded to a number of times this morning, -- a smarter city, and it was alluded to a number of times this morning, is a city of the complex group of systems. how do you take advantage of the integration of those systems. this is where we are lacking. take a building. you can have a building and you

can implement the best building information management system that exists in the world. then you can implement the best physical security system in the world. you be doing pretty well. there is an opportunity there to even better your operation by integrating the two. think of the additional insight you could game and have you could run and manage the building more effectively. the same principle holds true for a city. why are we lagging other countries? sometimes we cannot get out of our own way. it is the way we are organized. it is the way we make decisions that it's in our way. >> do you agree with that assessment? are their pockets for the u.s. takes law enforcement?

>> there are exceptions. there are still exceptions. one reason let me now have concluded as the frame that is being used by policymakers, the frame is not about investing. it is about capital expenditures when should be about operating expenditures. the frame is about government as believed. we're trying to work with our customers in those cities where we see receptive ears a meeting the leaders are hungry for really profound changes in the way the city operates. some of these are not the usual suspects. chattanooga, not the city on because you would expect on the left bank or otherwise. they decided to make the investment in building out

broadband to every building in the city. piercing the economic benefits. it is not just the city government. it was their other vehicles. they read things mark -- a were being smart. ts are hard.he dock we're trying to break down the silo which tends to be the frame for which they think about it rather than looking across all of the boundaries to say what is it that is going to force collaboration and open the system to open engagement. some of the leaders have really done things that are pretty smart of things that harness not just the wireless networks but harnessing the public engagements. >> i wanted you to focus on

this, giving presentation. we're talking about networks. cities do not particularly function at networks in part because government tends to be very compartmentalized. buildings are getting wired. do you see at the u.s. at the city scale as the aspects of technological innovation? are there some real opportunities given what we are seeing in some of the other global areas? >> you have to do cities. they are made of bricks and steel and concrete.

how to combine all of this is something that we know how to do. it is more and more needed. this brings together different parts of city government. another issue is about integrating data. there are two ways to do it. one way is to do it at the top and promote integration at the top.

this will work to such an extent. i feel the other way is what we have seen more and more of. they are really using this as integrators. this is becoming the integrator for this intelligence. >> as we have come back, i want to go to detroit for a bit. this is for the entire day. where are those pockets of opportunity, particularly in the united states? the one thing about our system is that city x does something within two or five years and you see it spread through the system. and that regard we are highly entrepreneurial at the city scale with innovating and replicating innovation.

i want to keep coming back to what are those pockets. >> we are in a great city. we are in a great metropolis. in many respects it is the tale of two cities. complicated fiscal situations. depopulation over a long time. decentralization. if you take it up to midtown, all the is a sense of momentum. as you think about this question of the smart city, the integration of systems and data, what are the possibilities as detroit wrestles with some very hard fiscal and economic challenges? ?hat are the barriers ta that can potentially be removed.

>> first of all, thank you so much for asking. i have lived in detroit my entire life, 40 plus years. i've worked for the city of detroit over 20 years. there is definitely a focus on in condition of the cities america as well. what your overwhelmingly struck by is that there are so many breakdowns both with and city government and with in the region. the st. separate financial and government structures.

this looks better than i have ever seen it. the benefits of that are not integrated into the old neighborhood questions. within the city limits you have a tremendous overlap and overlay of governmental jurisdictions, a separate fund-raising abilities. within the region, as we try to address some of the environmental challenges, how do you bring all of these different entities under one page? i worry about the capacity for planning, the capacity to make use of a lot of these amazing innovations. that capacity is brought to make the reaching competitive in the development since. that capacity is with in city

government to make sure our inspectors even know what green roof is. how do you keep people's skill sets up to date if you do not have the ability or mechanisms for reinvesting? it has so many layers to the problem. we are in such a weakened position that it has forced us to open ourselves to any method, of the it outsourcing or complete privatization. >> what is the advice for detroit? overlap, overlay?

there is no unified government. there is the capacity issue with an government. they are thinking how do i get a tghhe city? 60 din the city will not be able to harness the talent that is there that would give the city to the next place. how are we going to bring them into the process sitting where they are in universities and the private sector that are dynamic and interested in the city of the future? the city has to collaborate, at

a harness that talent pool and give them the resources where is necessary. the city has the legitimization to say you are now the agent of change. it used to be the department of x and now it is another. this is hard to have. this might be years away. these are the years between now and when the city is strong enough to do it. this is part of the reinvention process, a figure out which types of public/private partnerships are possible. we have seen really interesting ways of inventing the process of partnering that do not involve giving away public assets and

public goods. >> the other thing, some structural changes will to the main to how government functions. right now there are very few cities that have any type of an institute that is tasked with looking out across. the way agencies are set at now, they do not foster innovation. you can go to any agency in any city in this country and their project plan has been set up for the next three-five years. it does not foster innovation. having created one that has empowered to find innovation and drive innovation across these agencies that has a budget is one of the steps to get there. >> if you created the office of innovation to get the process.

>> this seems to me that it could work. i am not sure if they will have the top-down solutions. there is something else. today there are a few ones to berlin. this is one of the magnet for people in europe. first of all, it has been cheaper in other places.

the city became like an open platform. in some sense in this exciting. it is allowing people in. people are using this for different experiments. a lot of people would be excited to come here and develop new services. it is very exciting. you can do it but then a requires a lot of investment. >> berlin is poor but sexy. if detroit wants to use that, if they can borrow it.

>> i am spent most of this time in berlin at the guggenheim. they are getting richer richer in the sense of the economic activity. but it is really booming. >> these are not competing visions. the are complementary. the state has a very strong role. they began to the compartmentalize -- de compartmentalize this notion of what taken issue on energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, which is very much of the building. thus began to move out the building space.

are these competing visions or complementary? we can begin to move some of this co-produced solutions quicker. >> co-production in this case will be possible when and if some things happen. some key institutions have to get together and say that we want transparency around energy consumption. what will it take to have it-or we can access on our smartphone or schoolrooms that will tell them which of these schools are cleaner and greener and smarter than others? something that would require collaboration that would open the utility to share the data, a lot of cities are now doing this to really change the game.

now i have access to knowledge that will then tell me which school is least efficient. i'm going to focus on why that is inefficient. is it not weatherized? are the kids going to be the drivers because they will convince their parents that kids and parents will get the school room cleaner and greener? one key ingredient will be the collaboration that makes data possible. >> you talk to understanding what the problem is. i just finished up a piece of work for a regional economic develop initiative. they are trying to recover in bring businesses and individuals back to the region. they want their an exhaustive process of really soul-searching to try to come up what are the top three barriers to migration

to that region? one was the transportation networks. how can we apply smarter transportation principles? the setup was access to water. huckabee borrow and what the water authorities and others are using? this is focused on what are the problems. let's attack those problems and take our breath and move on to the others. >> folks have questions. the microphones are here. think about the city as a network of players, some very

large. they can take their own responsibility. they can take the lead in partnership with the government around certain set of issues. the point about what is the right issue to tackle, and the southeast there is no water. last time i checked you have lots of water. there is any number of issues, whether it is around energy or education. this strikes me as a way to get around the challenge of government is dysfunctional and compartmentalize. you have a lot here. it seems like this might be part

of the solution. >> before i comment about that, i want to be sure that we do not forget those have been unemployed so long they are out of the workforce. real question will skill readiness. i do not want to forget them in the equation. it is music my ears to hear the definition of the problem and information. it is music to my ears to hear that. we have a piecemeal approach of a couple of initiatives. they're really attract well to analyze and a city that is depopulating. you're trying to talk about redefining wealth. i think of the outbidding the

police cars with the cameras, everybody has done that i think. both of those were seeded with grant money. when the grant ran out, we have not been able to keep up. there needs to be that money, whether it be federal or state. there needs to be this institutional approach that redefines. we have been praised cameras and police cars. we find a way even the technology at about 70% to the base price of the vehicle. they have the gps and whatever

the technology is. we have to keep that for so many reasons. it does lead to back to that institutional capacity to plan and redefine good services and to find them. >> i would like to ask the question of carlo. do you think keywords will do for the industry? >> what? >> keywords. >> e mean it through the city? >> for different industries and what people respond to. some people respond to google and other people respond better to craigslist. >> you are saying keywords.

>> sort of the search. how to search the key words. >> yes. >> how to search the city? >> yes. with key words. you understand what i'm saying? i understand key words. >> a lot people respond to certain words, right? ok, keywords is words that a lot of people respond to, and in some people do not respond to. >> i understand, but you mean in terms of adding labels in the city? in which sense? >> organizing concepts and also as [indiscernible] >> i'm not sure and the best

person to answer this in terms of i'm not too familiar with detroit. you mean about key words in the city? >> in detroit, there are certain key words people respond to. it is kind of universal in a way or what language you speak, like keywords that an american would speak with and respond to a person that lives in singapore, more or less. where i live, more people respond to craig's list, say, then google or ebit or something like that because it is more attached to their economy. getting something for less. you know what i'm saying? >> i agree with you. to be honest, i'm not the best person to comment on the impact of this and how this could set in. >> i think you are also raising a broader issue, particularly

with regard to the application and deployment of technology in different cities that have very different starting points, right? in terms of race, ethnicity, employment. so this conversation, which we sort of engaged on about efficiency, allocation -- you know, it is hard to translate it times. the interface of individuals to the tech and innovative economy is radically different in different parts of the country. i think that is an interesting question, particularly as it goes forward in a city like this, and there's a whole range of cities that have depopulated radically into the united states, you know, and have large unemployment. it changes, i think, the nature of the deployment or the nature of the exercise. >> i asked carlos because i

thought he was more of a technical person. >> i may be the least technical person, though i do twi like a maniac. next question. >> does so a venture for america fellow in the city of detroit, and also at next energy center, and i have a question for all of you -- one of the things that i've heard talked a lot about here is that this technology, the software, the data collection is a means to an end, and one of the things that i've noticed within the under pressure community in the united states and the conversations surrounding it is that the end is some type of, like, social media application or some type of app. i wanted to ask you all what you thought about connecting the two because i think there's enormous power in social media as a means to an end, but the conversation is too often as an end in itself. how do you think we can bring

the two together? what applications or how can we get that conversation started? in my field, energy and renewable energy -- that type of leveraging knowledge technology or information technology could be incredibly powerful, but i think there is a divide between the two cultures. >> absolutely. great question. thoughts? comments? >> we talked to a lot of mayors who want to create networks of allies for the projects that the cities are undertaking. partly because they want to have access to all that knowledge and resources that that social network can help the city tap, and that is an understandable thing the mayor wants to do, but it is very opportunistic, a little bit mercenary. "i want to build a social network in order to accomplish my goals." we have to explain very carefully to the city leaders that often the people in the social network have different

ideas about how to go about the process of changing schools or improving buildings or making mobility and transit more efficient and more affordable in the city. often, you get results from the social network that you were not necessarily expecting when you ask them to participate in the conversation. some city leaders that we talked to who have been through this process actually realized that it probably was worth it, even though it was painful because they came under withering attack for assuming that when the study social conversation that that will result in a policy that you started your assumptions with -- that when they start the social conversation, that will result in a policy you started with the assumptions with. do not so with the ideas that your ideas will be the best ideas or that they will be acceptable. that is a humbling experience for city leaders, to realize that the social network the city is engaged in is actually not

going to deliver what they expected at the outset but may be something a lot better. >> i also think there is, to the gentleman's question, there is a growing opportunity to engage the general public in solving some of these problems. if you go back to the example i used about the southeastern region where water conservation was one of the bigger barriers to economic development, there are some things that the city and the region needs to do, but there are also things identified where if we were to distribute the data to the general public on water use, that would spawn behavior, so there's an opportunity there for social media, smart apps, to engage developers, to engage developers to help engage the general public in this big data umbrella around water conservation. >> i think that is critical.

it gets back to your other point about trying to set priorities, and the people where they are. people in the southeast understand water shortage. this is a huge issue, and it sweeps across a good portion of the sun belt. the crisis in regions like this one is the talent mismatch. the question that goes back to the earlier panel -- how do you diversify this economy? build off of this powerful production base and set a trajectory going forward? i think that is really the fundamental issue in most parts of the midwest, just given the last 30 or 40 years of industrial restructuring, so it gets to this question, this really powerful fusion of setting some goals, setting priorities, and then figuring out how technology is one of the vehicles for achieving that, right? which is really the power of all of it. an engaging the citizenry. absolutely.

crowdsourcing. these are different cultures now. really different cultures we're talking about, but they are pulled together, which requires leadership across a broad network, and then you do have a 2 +2 =5 kind of concept. >> most leaders do not understand this is the connector between citizen and city, and there has to be an intelligent way of engaging around the supercomputer we are carrying around in our pocket that is a social media device. it is a tool for transparency. i would like to know how efficient my municipal buildings are since i am taxpayer. those kinds of things do not connected yet. >> question over here. >> i am representing the school of business administration to wayne state. taking a to back a little bit to seed money. we mentioned the fed in the state and grant money. asking the state i feel right now is kind of a long shot.

i was kind of curious -- where can we channel some new funds? also, if anyone could shed a little light on the benefits of foreign investment as well. >> it is a great question. we are going to see the federal government scaled back in this country. not a question of weather, but how much and where. the state has got issues. how we think creatively about public/private financing vehicles. >> detroit has had a tremendous commitment from its foundations in the last couple of years, and that includes funding and massive planning effort, meant to address the geographic changes, patterns of the population in the city. the thing about grant funding is not about the puppet on the string. once the funding stream runs out because it is again meant to be seed money, you still have to figure out what is it that makes us to what we do better?

i guess i do not want to focus too much on the grant funding. i want it to be part of our operating. >> particularly at the end of the day when you do this right. you lower energy costs radically. not just for energy, but for cities. as a whole bunch of tangible metrics you can use to help seed private finance. >> responding to the previous question and to this, but we can look at this in two ways. one is kind of tone down. it think about that, then, of course, yes, indeed quite a lot of government investment to do this from the top down. but the other option is going to be how we see the city in a bottom-up platform? this kind of computing power.

each of us now has in our pocket. how can we leverage this in order to promote new behavior, no action? if you do this, you do not need that much money from the government. in the case, you just need to be, like, a catalyst, and then things will happen. may be small grants from foundations can be much bigger. >> i want to apologize to the other folks who want to ask questions because we have 44 seconds and counting down. i think this has been a very interesting panel to sort of break out of the traditional -- the government needs to do this. top down. we need a variety of interventions and the bubbling of energy in this city in the midtown, in the downtown, but detroit can be -- it can be a petrie dish for a lot of different kinds of innovations

if we think about it that way. i think that as part of the challenge. how do we send that signal that at this point in time in the city in this metropolis in this state, it is time to innovate and experiment? thank you very much. >> great job. thanks so much. [applause] >> you are a good moderator, bruce. that was a great panel. thank you to all of you. when we describe this conference, the first thing that always say is about u.s. competitiveness. it ties back to that. the next session, please come out panelists and moderators. a very good friend of mine, a fellow at the -- we organize this panel in conjunction with the council on foreign relations, and it is all about u.s. competitiveness. let's get it under way.

all right, jim. take it away. >> great to be here in detroit. first time in a while. have to make it happen more often. we are going to have a nice conversation. we have to cover a lot of things in 40 minutes, so we will start right away. you can look in the program and see the panelists and see their backgrounds. great panel. in the 40 minutes that we're going to try to cover, looking and infrastructure, education and immigration, trying to look at it through the lens of technology and the role of urban centers and take a look at what the current state is in the united states in each of these things, what some of our best practice competitors are doing, and may be a couple of suggestions on tactical things they can do to do a better job. it is a lot to cover in 40 minutes, and we will try to take

some calls at the end if we can. without further ado, i want to ask vivek to start. you got to see lots of things. you had a great perspective on these three areas of the united states -- immigration, education, infrastructure. good to pick one and comment on the current state of united states in terms of being competitive in the world? >> when you look at the story of america, it is a story of entrepreneurs and, the ability to disrupt not just at the local level, but the global economy. unfortunately, what you're hearing is too much of the gloom and doom in terms of where america is when it comes to competitiveness. my view is that it is still the best country on the planet when it comes to starting up a business, advancing an idea you have or access to talent. the challenge we have before us because we are the architect of our own destiny, that there are

key issues we need to confront. if you look at the next 30 years, if you do not address them, i do not think we can remain the most competitive country in the world. first, i think it comes down to immigration. it is broken. it makes absolutely no sense when we educate some of the smartest people in the world with advanced degrees and then ask them to leave the country and go start up companies elsewhere. why are we not stapling right to their graduate application a visa or a green card? second, when it comes to education, the challenge we have domestically is that that system is also broken as we look for the next 30 years. in detroit, for example, there were 3400 and the tech job openings in the detroit metro region. the challenge is that we have not done enough in terms of retooling the work force, in terms of transitioning from one career path to the other.

i know that there are some interesting programs under way that need to be scaled. for example, the wayne community college has a program where they brought in instructors from around the world. they trained people to actually move into the i.t. career track, and at the same time, this was done in about 16 weeks, and 73 people graduated from this program, and 27 of them have jobs as a result of that. when need to figure out from an education perspective how we become better at retooling the work force we already have domestically as we try to make sure we remain competitive globally when it comes to our immigration policy. >> it is a big challenge. you have to have a core group of engineering and manufacturing unions domestically as well as overseas. how you make that balance? what makes the united states and better place for you to locate things compared to outside of it?

>> i really want to build off of vivek's comments. possibly a different perspective. it starts with a huge customer base here in the u.s., focus on really creating products the customers want, products to customers value, high-quality products that are safe, green, and smart, clearly, that runs around the world. as you mentioned, we have to maintain a global footprint in terms of our manufacturing and education. but in terms of a commitment to the u.s. and some of the things that are really happening here, -- we recently announced, for example, over the next four years, $16 billion of investment in engineering and manufacturing in the u.s. will announce the creation of 12,000 new jobs in manufacturing and engineering in the u.s. justice we, we announced another

1200 jobs at our flat rock assembly plant here in michigan where we will be producing the new fusion vehicle. a year or so back, we completely retooled our michigan assembly plant, and now, we are producing a whole range of vehicles. so there is a huge amount of good news, and it really comes down to working with all the key stakeholders to ensure that we've got world-class quality, world-class productivity, that we leverage all the local knowledge around with the customers here in the u.s. want, and really striving to make the u.s. not only a competitive place from a manufacturing and exports sense, but also from the sense of engineering great products. one other point that i would like to mention -- the point

around immigration, education, and so on. we as an industry are in a little bit of a crisis in terms of confusing critical skills and to the auto industry, particularly around controlled engineers, software engineers, and just in general, the stem disciplines. we are doing a tremendous amount to promote education, to promote the technical disciplines, to bring the best engineers to our company, and to give them a career that can last many years, can last a lifetime. i did just want to share with the audience some of the things that are already going well. >> michael, you have literally written a book on finance and engineering education, both in the past, and you are writing a book on it now. may be you could talk about what is going on -- what is the current state of science

education in the united states? may be some of your view of what we could be doing better -- may be some of your view of what we could be doing better. >> the u.s. is a prominent science and engineering producer in the world. you will get all kinds of dissonance in the numbers i feel quantitatively because of their large engineering graduation rates in some very large countries come up to believe china, but there's a lot of dispute about what those numbers actually mean. in terms of quality, the science and engineering fields in the u.s. at the university level are the highest, though others are catching up, as others have said, because u.s. was the only man left standing or only person left standing at the end of world war ii, and it had the free field for two or three decades. as far as k-12 concerned, things are quite different. you have a huge disparity in the

quality, even within 50 miles or so. i think of where we're sitting today. you would probably find outstanding quality, science and math education, and terrible quality. that is a microcosm of the u.s. as a whole, which has huge inequalities in its k-12 education system, so it is average performance on all of the indicators is medium among other countries, or some would say mediocre if they want to be critical. the top tier does extremely well, the top quartile of graduates does very well by international comparisons. the bottom quartile us terribly -- does terribly. the median is somewhere in the middle. if you are worried about the science and engineering work force questions, all -- almost all of those people come from the top quartile, and the k-will system with all of its problems

-- and there are a lot of them -- is producing plenty of people with very high caliber, who if they can be attracted to go into science and engineering will do extremely well, but we are leaving behind the bottom quartile, who are doing very badly, and that is an equity issue, a workforce issue of a non-science and technology sort. you want people to be literate and numerate in all occupations these days, so that is a quick overview. >> for those of you, cfr.org. there's a great program called renewing america, definitely one of the best places you will find information on this topic as it gets updated. may be you can comment on what you think the most important issues are and what we should be thinking about. >> i guess i will be thinking slightly gloomier than we started. there are two stories going on in the u.s. economy. one is of innovation,

entrepreneurship, start-ups -- the u.s. is on parallel then continues to be that way, but if you look in terms of spreading economic benefits broadly throughout the economy, we've not done terribly well in the last 30 years. a reasonable definition of a competitive economy is one that is creating a lot of high-wage work for its people so that their standards of living continue to rise. on that standard, we've not actually done tremendously well over the last several decades. a typical example, i did take the archetypal industries. you go back to the 1950's and 1960's when detroit was in the tape. the automotive industry employed millions of people directly and in its spin-off. you take the showpiece industry of our current era -- it is consumer electronics, aerospace phones, television -- the supply chain for that is a lot of -- is in asia. a lot of value added, a lot of smart people doing important things, but a lot of the work not expanding in the united

states. consumer electronics is not the enormous a ploy that the auto industry is. we are not seeing the same thing on the technology side, so i think a lot of the challenge, if we are in fact moving into another era of tremendously disruptive change, as they begin at the outset and i think is undoubtedly correct -- if we as a country have to be thinking strategically about how we do better for more of our people in this next era of disruptive change then we did in the last one. relatively speaking, we have not done well for a broad swath of our people for several decades now, and you can see the results in a city like detroit here. >> when you look at that view, you have got to think about the global population. there's 7 billion people in the world. there are only 310 million

people in the united states. therefore, the only way we will be able to compete in the global economy is to create a disruption of broad sectors of our economy. when you think about 310 million people competing against the rest of the world, what becomes really interesting here is that talent and capital is going to flow where it is most welcome. from a public policy perspective, we need to make sure we are advancing an agenda that welcomes both the talent and capital and companies that have been created in the united states, weather to go back and look at the auto industry, weather you look at what is happening with the semiconductor industry, what happened to intel when it came to manufacturing memory cards and shifting to chips -- we need to be able to think about the broader economy in that context. i think the big problem at the base of this pyramid is

fundamentally education, right? across the country, there are 3.6 million job openings today -- 3.6 million. we just are not able to find the talented workforce to be able to fulfil those jobs. >> one of the things -- what are the things that are uniquely great about the american system that work for you and what are the things that are not so great that you would like to see fixed? >> good question. some of the numbers you just threw out are some of the numbers i have spent a lot of time thinking about. that are only 300 million people in the u.s., but it still a lot of people. the numbers are big and absolute sums, and may be small in

percentages, but what is absolutely compelling for us is that huge installed customer base for the number of vehicles in service. the fact that we expect for the foreseeable future to have a very strong automotive market here. it really comes down to -- you know, you asked about what is uniquely u.s., and you could say the same thing for many other regions or many other countries around the world, but what i think is unique here is clearly an understanding of an environment -- if you come back to - 0, about focusing on the customer and producing products that our customers really want and value, it is an understanding in a sense of the economics, distribution, vehicles, the supply base. i talk about the 12,000 jobs at ford, the jobs in the supply

base and related engineering activities. i really just keep coming back to the market itself, the opportunity to put great vehicles out there, to focus on the things people really want, and to talk back to the high- tech jobs. historically, our industry, particularly the domestic manufacturers in the detroit area -- for now, competitors of rust belt. we made a commitment to engineer the highest quality vehicles that offer the best fuel economy in every sector the

we compete in every market around the world. if you come back to some of the investments i mentioned earlier, a very large percentage of those investments have been in very high-technology power trends, weather they are hybrid vehicles, battery, electronic vehicles. we now have six electrified the nichols we will be selling in the u.s. most of that engineering is done right here in michigan at our engineering center in dearborn along with the supply base, and a lot of the component manufacturing is coming into this area as well. it really comes down to this commitment to focus on the customer, the very best of

engineering. you need the market knowledge and you need the engineers. it ties back around to your point about education and a technical discipline. >> who, if anybody, is getting it right? can don't it right, that we learn from? >> i do not think there is any model out there. well, there are some pieces of the model. in some countries, in many countries, actually, the government can really determine what percentage of the university cohort is going to major or specialize by field. if you see the numbers coming out of china, the numbers of scientists and engineers being graduated each year, it is a very high number. 40% + of those graduating are in engineering.

33% of every graduating cohort are in engineering. that is not because one-third of them are saying i am going to be an engineer and i want to go that way. it is partly because of government policy is mandating or incentivizing high percentages going into engineering and it has to do with the chinese government being dominated by engineers in the government circles. you have to look at -- that cannot be done in the u.s., of course, i know. [laughter] you cannot say to stanford or the university of michigan, you will graduate 33% of your bachelor's degrees in engineering next year. you have to make it attractive. >> could we incentivizes? >> yes, you could, and we have

not done very well on that. one of the problems, i think, has been the really smart kids, highly skilled, sophisticated, talented kids are sort of voting with their feet away from engineering careers because they see what has happened to the auto industry in the u.s. may be their parents worked in the auto industry and it was a very successful industry until -- unfortunately, what their parents are telling them, often, is do not do what i did, because it worked well for my generation, but look at what happened to the generation after me. they got laid off. this eruption of industries, of cyclical sword that go up and down, up and down with big amplitude, is not a healthy way

to operate an industrial and educational system. the signals go back to the high school kids when there is a break in the industry like the auto industry saying, maybe you thought you wanted to be an auto engineer or systems designer, but look what happened. you should go into finance. that is where you should be going now. unfortunately, i do not know what the story is in michigan, but in many engineering schools, a significant number of the kids who are majoring in engineering do not want to be engineers. they want to go into finance. >> they want to engineer finances. >> they see an engineering degree as an entry into finance and that is not healthy. >> let me take the challenge to look at a couple of concrete things being done. we have the greatest free

enterprise country in the world , and it is completely socialized. it requires government funding, borrowing at the highest level. go to europe, and you see public-private partnerships. we need a national infrastructure bank. a small amount of money, a seed money from the government, the brings in private money sitting on the sidelines that is looking for investment in things that pay long returns. toll roads is a classic example. you do see things happening at a state and local level. new york is trying to do at the state level what is not being done at the federal level. chicago, rahm emanuel and the next -- in the last six months announce an infrastructure

project to bring in private money sitting on the sidelines. that is a very good example of what is being done. the u.s. is losing ground in infrastructure. the governments do not have an awful lot of money now, so if you are waiting and relying on government appropriations and government borrowing for infrastructure investment, that is not the best way forward in the current environment. a couple other things of low hanging few -- low hanging fruit. if you go around the world, every major country has a national effort to attract foreign investment. our share of foreign investment has plummeted. we of not lost it all to china. but we have lost a lot of ground. the u.s. is last in terms of the

effectiveness of our promotion efforts. we have to get out there and sell ourselves to the world. the assumption for years has been that of course people will come here. it is a big market. that does not necessarily play anymore. we have to go out and sell ourselves to the world's businesses. 60% + of our exporting is still done by multinational companies. we need to get that done by smaller and medium-sized companies. we do not offer any assistance to american companies in that. there are a lot of things we can do to sell ourselves to the world as an attractive destination to invest and exports from the we're not doing. >> back to immigration for a moment and then we can go back to infrastructure if you would like. are there countries out there

who can emulate during gauge meant policy or steel aspects from it? -- emily their engagement policy or steel aspects from it -- emulate their engagement policy or steal aspects from a? >> there is not a perfect model. look at some of the work that is happening in india, for example, to try to attract foreign investment and entrepreneurs. i'm not sure -- it is still very early in terms of the results of their. for the last three decades, the u.s. has had, historically, a very healthy immigration policy, but in the last decade or so we have kind of gone the other way. when you think about it, the

number of immigrants that have come in and built amazing companies and created jobs in the hundreds of thousands, we cannot be looking at other markets because there is not a perfect model, but we need to look back of the 1970's in the u.s. as an historical model. we have a lot of immigration. a lot of people came in with science, technology, engineering, mathematics backgrounds. if you look at silicon valley, you see the results. >> i spent seven years of my life painfully on the commission of immigration reform which was chaired by barbara jordan and 1990's. i think the way to describe the american immigration system is, it is enormous. it represents something like one-third of the world's total immigration into one country with 7% of the world's

population. it is enormous but terribly unbalanced. it is dominated by family ties and skills based immigration is an afterthought in the current system. that is the problem you're referring to. it is also off balance as an expedient. we have a dominance now in the skills based side and a dominance of temporary migration over permanent migration. that is not healthy, and that is why we get these kind of peculiar outcomes that he was talking about. the system is enormous. needs reform. it is not that we need more immigration. it is that we need to have a better balance within the immigration system. as far as who does better, i never thought i would say this, i must say. i spent many years living in

britain and they had a hopeless immigration system, i thought, very badly administered, very badly thought through. they now probably have the most thoughtful analysis of skills needs driven by immigration in the world. they have leapfrogged everybody else. they have something called the migration committee, sponsored by the government, but independent. the government will ask is there a shortage of systems design engineers in the automotive industry? they will analyze that question and tell the government what they think in a very sophisticated way, and the government can say, too bad, we are not going to do anything about it, or we're going to respond to this set of

recommendations, but only part of it. the big advantage of that system is you have an independent analysis of claims of shortage or surplus. right now we have different claims of shortage and claims of surplus in different areas of high skills. if we had an independent force the said we cannot find signs of shortage in this area, but in this area we are seeing real problems, and a published that report, not just a private report to the government, but they publish it and make it problems, what it does is in the newspaper discussions of these issues in britain, they actually have an intelligent discussion based on data. whereas here, what we have is -- well, you know what we have. we have claims of shortage, claims of surplus, and nothing ever happens. >> if i could add, also, imagine

we could also apply that model domestically. so in the state of michigan, one of the work force centers coordinated closely with industry and said what kind of graduates do we need in the next 15-20 years? and a high school guidance counselors advised in terms of what the industry needs are. when i was in high school, i had no idea what industry to go to, no concept of what the future was going to look like. that is probably what most kids in high school are doing today, blindly picking professions rather than having some kind of data to decide. >> interesting. a lot of the analysis has already been done. as we look at wells, invest in education, and consider what

the future needs are, from an auto industry perspective, what does it take to make our industry attractive to an individual applying to companies, i think there is a call to action. >> my name is glenn oliver. our company operates a global procurement exchange for the water industry. in relation to our technology in cities, one of the things that is a challenge is that you have a huge amount of innovation out there, even here on a local level, particularly coming out of an arbor, that is available to cities, but you still have the reluctance or resistance to change in city governments. i would like to know what the panel thinks about the merits of

possibly the federal government using its resources like it did with reis to the top or with -- race to the top or digital medical records to provide incentives for folks to switch to technology that would help deliver services or manage infrastructure with some of the new technological solutions that are out there that they are reluctant to adopt. >> three questions. >> i will give it a shot. howink bruce's point about cities are looking at each other and seeing what the best innovations are and trying to adopt them -- but i think it is not a seamless process at all. i think if you have that sort of federal role where somebody is identifying best practices and offering incentives for technology adoption and

innovation, i think ugg could be very valuable exercise to try. one of the things technology does is allow for a high-speed traffic exchange of ideas. you do not see that in government the way we need. >> i think the federal government could put incentives and hardware the outcome that we're looking for as far as dollars are concerned in terms of infrastructure investment or investment in the cities. it is probably more important in terms of leadership that the city level, being open to technology, being open to innovation. i will give you an example. in the city of washington, d.c., when hoover first came in, the city council decided to say they were boring to pass along a law

banning hoovers because it would disrupt the traditionalists taxi system. it was sort of a clash between old and new, and in the end, the innuendo -- the new ended up winning out. but there are people with a stake in preserving the status quo. we need leaders who are willing to embrace technology and embrace the future in the name of jobs, in the name of a lot of other areas around procurement. >> as the last academic, i think i should say that one of the strongest defenders of the status quo is academia. since we are here at wayne

state in an academic institution, i think it would be useful to pick up on the point, to look at how our graduate degree structures intersect with the need of the non-academic labor market. right now, our graduate programs are focused on producing people with ph these for the academic for therket, -- ph.d.'s academic labor market, which is not expanding rapidly, if at all. yet you have companies looking for highly educated people they say they cannot find. academia does not have the kind of graduate degrees that intersect very closely with the needs of the non academic labor market. so, one thing to look at is the developing professional science

master's degree programs around the country. i think there are not that many in michigan, although michigan state university has been a leader nationally in the effort. there are now nearly 300 of these degree programs which are science and engineering plus basic business skills. >> my name is gary samuels. my question has to do with mentor ship and collaboration. it is relevant to the conversation now as well as the discussion earlier. if we educate and retool somebody, meaning the actually get placed in a position, there is still the risk of them really assimilating in being able to perform well. i would love to hear comments from the panel around, what can we do to improve mentor ship and collaboration programs within the corporate environment or a business environment, and then the same for the community, if you have an entrepreneur who has

great vision and great talent, he may be missing something. he may need a co-founder or person who can mentor him around the economics of business and so forth. how can we improve this collaboration for entrepreneurs as well as people who are being retooled? >> do you want to take that? you live it. >> it is a great question. one of the things we have been embracing at ford over the past several years is the broadest concept of innovation. partnering with nontraditional partners, established companies, is smaller startups, and so on, harnessing innovation to bring it forward. a lot of that is taking place right here in the michigan area. they do think a couple of things

are appropriate. one, incentives to accelerate seed money or callous money to kickstart -- catalyst money to kickstart these things. we have to be competitive in a global sense, both in terms of the technology and in the business model, to ensure that it is sustainable. the second question, as we ashley bring new engineers into our companies -- actually bring in new engineers into our companies and steer them through the first critical years, whether they're making the transition from another industry or from academia, are absolutely critical. there is often entering, ongoing career development, -- mentoring, ongoing career development, creating the type of work in burma and they expect coming out of college, all --

work environment they expect coming out of college. we also were collaborative lee with our industry partners. -- collaboratively with our industry partners. >> we have 56 seconds. can we ask a very quick question? quite sure. >> i am from the wayne state school of business. i received a grant to research consumption trends of young chinese in china. what are some things the united states is currently doing to help foster midsize companies to export overseas? >> not nearly enough, is the right answer. we have a commerce department, and that is part of its mandate, but the money that goes into it is pretty minimal.

there is not the kind of coordinated, a focused effort that you see for instance in germany. i think there are a lot of possibilities for collaboration. you have people working on the ground in china doing exactly what you are talking about. a friend of mine is working with state governments. a lot of innovation on this is taking place at the state level. i would like to see more on the state level. >> we are out of time. please join me in thanking our panel. >> coming in tonight, a discussion on investigative journalism specifically collaborative processes. >> i especially like watching

gavel-to-gavel coverage. it is really the only place to get the real deal. i also enjoy news makers and the book programs. i like that the commentary is only intended to let you know what is going on. there is analysis. there certainly is not opinion. i appreciate how i can really see through and understand the programming itself and get my answers. if you want to see how your government works directly, c- span is just about the only place to go. >> just and watches c-span on comcast. c-span, created by cable in 1979, brought to as a public service by your television provider. >> we continue our look at campaign 2012 battleground states. this morning, "washington

journal" focused on colorado. political operatives will explain how it looks from the colorado perspective. >> all this week and part of last week we have been focusing on the nine swing states. today, we put the spotlight on colorado, where it looks like it is a close race for the presidential election. you can see the colorado there with its four corridors. president obama won the state in 2008 by 9%. joining us from denver this morning is the editorial page editor with the denver post. what are the top issues for colorado voters?

guest: like everywhere else, it is the economy and jobs. energy is a big issue and immigration is a big issue as well. host: what are the demographics of voters in colorado? who votes? >> 52% are women. 48% are men. republicans have about a 20,000 vote advantage. the state is equally divided. one-third are republican, one- third are democrats, and the rest are unaffiliated. you try to figure out which way they are going to break. they will talk a lot about

appealing to women, appealing to latinos. throughout the course of the 2012 campaign, we have heard a lot about the strategy of appealing to women and latinos to eke out a victory for democrats. host: where are the traditionally democratic and republican areas of the state? guest: denver and boulder tend to be democratic. the fifth biggest county for democrats with voter registration is el paso county. that is typically viewed as sort of a republican stronghold, and it is. increasingly, we have seen the

ski area communities start to turn democratic. host: a lot of headlines and focus on early voting in this presidential contest. does colorado have it? guest: we do and we have mail in voting about two million people voted early absentee in the 2008 election. that is expected to grow to two 0.5 million this election cycle. keep in mind that colorado has

about 2.8 million active voters. about three-quarters of the vote should be conducted in colorado. host: on election day, how do people vote? guest: there are three ways, optical machines, scanning machines and paper ballots. host: can there be tampering? we have heard about that in other states. guest: in colorado, there is a mandatory recount if the challenger finishes within half a percent of the primary vote getter.

host: we are talking about colorado as part of our battleground series. if we could go through the denver post endorsements, who did you endorse, and why?

guest: we endorsed president obama. especially on the debt and the deficit, the president's proposal was more realistic and it would have less of a shock to the system in the country and lead -- in that it would balance spending cuts. we like is more balanced approach to energy. we are in favor of obamacare. the editorial board was in favor of a public option so it did not go far enough for us. on social issues, immigration reform, women's rights, birth control, the editorial board aligns more with the president's policies. that is where we came down. we said that the voters are being asked by both candidates to take a leap of faith. given what we know about the previous four years, we decided that it was going to be an easier but to go with the president for four more. host: how many times have you seen president obama, governor romney, or their surrogates in your state? guest: president obama has been here eight times this year, governor romney has been here 6. paul ryan may be eligible to vote, he's been here that much. joe biden has been here once. we have had a lot of its from michelle obama. we have seen plenty of action this cycle. host: bill clinton could be coming to your state. he is scheduled to campaign for the president today in colorado. he was supposed to be in

colorado springs tuesday but cancelled due to the storm. guest: pending the outcome of the storm on the east coast, we will see both candidates later in the week. governor romney was here last week and held a rally at red rock and thousands were turned away. the following day, he held a -- president obama held a rally in denver and drew a crowd estimated at 16,000. the governor this week has reserved an amphitheater in the southern suburbs of has a capacity of 18,000 people. there were looking at going to boulder to hold a rally there. they're certainly trying to turn out a lot of voters with momentum. >> one week to go and following on -- host: of one week to go and looking at the momentum in colorado. the numbers are on your screen. with every special one from

colorado residents. kathy from pueblo, colorado, an independent scholar. you're one of those unaffiliated voters that both campaigns really want. what are you thinking about in this presidential election? i caller:. the election has been bought by the democratic party, by all those trillions of dollars that obama has borrowed to give to the state of ohio. we cannot buy a coffee pot that is now bought in the united states. of the can talk about our autoworkers, teachers, and firefighters. there are a lot more people out there than that demographic. host: curtis hubbard? guest: it sounds like she is unaffiliated but not undecided. she has made a per mind in this election. host: what about the amount of money that is being spent in

colorado by the presidential campaigns and also outside groups? guest: we have seen significant spending by both campaigns and their surrogates. wesleyan university did an analysis of television and ad spending in the denver media market and it led all in the country as far as television time and the cost of advertising. we have seen significant attention here in the presidential race and we have a congressional race during signet attention as well. host: here is a breakdown of the numbers. obama for america spent about $9 million on spots.

aziz said the congressional races getting some attention as well. democratic caller. caller: mr. hubbard, who chose ashley mosier? so many people around this country are being shot. a lot of young kids, teenagers. why is no one talking about gun violence? not just about guns, but why are we treating people so bad? why are we planning to be on afghanistan for two more years? young people come back from afghanistan and we are the spending all this money, poverty everywhere. the guy who wins in the theater and shot it up, the university near he was kind of crazy and we are a better country than the situation we are in.

you have a good day. there are people out there who are depending on a real review of where the country is going. host: curtis hubbard. guest: you mentioned a really sorry tragedy for us, july 20th s, the gunmen in the theater in aurora. he killed 12 people and injured 58 at the midnight showing at the premiere of batman. there was a discussion in the days after that about what can the nation and colorado do as far as the gun laws. we on the editorial board at "denver post," we supported reauthorization of the weapons ban and we support the elimination of the high- capacity magazines that people use for those guns. there's a point made here by the democratic gov. which is that gun-control laws will not stop someone who has an ill

intent from acting on it. it's a difficult position for democrats, particularly in the west where second amendment rights are held tightly by voters across the spectrum. democrats have learned in colorado across several election cycles that running on gun control is not a winning proposition for them. we saw several pieces of legislation passed in colorado after the columbine massacre, but since that time politicians, especially on the left, have been loath to take part of the issue. republic host: in color from st. augustine, fla. -- republican caller. caller: i would like to see them spending more time letting people know about other things going on in the government and have been mentioned. the activities that they talk about are not necessarily all the things we should be concerned about.

there's hardly any mention made about the comments joe biden made to the man who came to pick up the body of his son. i don't know that these are the kind people that we should ever presented last but no one will touch these issues. guest: if nobody touched those issues, you would not know about it. there's no shortage of information these days. these campaigns are being covered like never before and you can get a lot of the daily horse race aspect, but there's plenty of coverage of what the candidates are saying of the campaign trail and how that equates to the previous statements, policies they have enacted. i think that there is plenty of information for people.

they just have to be willing to sit down and find it. host: here is "the bloomberg insider" take on colorado put out on august 27th. can you explain? guest: in our last legislative session, for the third time, lawmakers tried to pass a bill that would recognize same-sex of unions. for the first time, they got republican votes in the house, the chamber controlled by republicans in a one-vote margin. it was essentially filibustered and the final night of the regular session and did not pass. the governor called a special legislative session in order to address several pieces of legislation. it was killed in committee

there. the democrats, especially a prominent democratic fund-raiser come the founder of a court software put money into state house races to find candidates who would pass that issue. gay marriage works into the conversation here. as many of your viewers may know, we passed a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana. in the last four years, we have seen huge growth in the medical marijuana industry in the form of dispensaries. their places where people who have been authorized by a doctor to use marijuana for medical care can get their marijuana. subsequently, for the third time since 2000, we will have on the ballot an effort to legalize marijuana. we're one of three states this year without on the ballot. in early voting, it was polling above 53% support in favor of legalizing it in colorado. it has dipped down in some polls recently, but that is something to watch on election night.

there is a theory of their that a lot of young voters especially are motivated by those two questions and that they will drive them to the polls whereas they may not be as interested in the presidential election. host: who would that help in the presidential candidates? guest: it would help president obama. i was talking to someone on the issue of colorado amendment 64. it is a republican stronghold but support for legalization down there was high among both democrats and republicans. that is a testament to the libertarians. -- the libertarian spirit. it's really not the government's business what i do in the privacy of my own home and a

lot of them look at the nation's war on drugs, specifically marijuana and things were a lot of money has been wasted on the effort. people were pushing the legalization efforts here equate marijuana and alcohol and the measure calls to regulate marijuana like alcohol. our newspaper has supported legalization. we came out in opposition to amendment 64, the legalization piece this year, because we did not think this was the right vehicle. host: what about third-party candidates in colorado? guest: a lot of us in colorado who have already received their ballots and saw the number of candidates on the balance were surprised. we have 16 here. former new mexico gov. gary johnson running as the libertarian candidate is the most prominent of them. it depends on who you talk to. some people say governor

johnson's it support for marijuana legalization could cost president obama votes. others say they tend to pull unaffiliated voters that could go republican, so he is one to watch to see what kind of vote totals he will get. the biggest third-party candidate in colorado history was ross perot who pulled in, i think, 23% of the vote. host: curtis hubbard, what will you be watching for on election night? guest: the suburban counties around denver. you will hear a lot of talk about arapaho and jefferson counties in terms of which ever candid it will win those counties. they will have a much easier path to running the state of colorado. i will be looking closely at the number of republican votes coming in from el paso county, douglas county, mesa county. another swing county is a clear emmer, northern colorado, fort collins, colorado state university -- another county is larrimer. we are going to see if they get the numbers the way they want to.

they will pay considerable attention to the southwest corner of the state. durango, ft. lewis, so we will see how they are doing in that corner of the state as well. host: off twitter. larry in colorado, democratic line. go ahead. caller: i just want to give a shout out for obama. i'm a pretty strong supporter of his and i think is a real no-brainer when you consider that he pretty much saved us from a depression. the american recovery act was obviously a success. of course, the auto bailout. i do not think anyone can vote against obama because he had not save that the auto industry

would have been lost. i cannot see how any woman in her right mind would vote for a man who would not support the lily ledbetter act, equal pay for equal work. that is another no-brainer for me. i just hope every democrat in colorado would get out and vote. we have three votes in this house hold for obama. in a few days i will be mailing my ballot in. that's my comment. guest: we literally the same town. it's lewisville, colorado. it's the greatest small town in america. a great place to raise your family. there is a pitch my friends in city council will be happy for. a lot of others have already made up their minds. both sides can look at the recovery act and make strong cases for wire why not it did not work. we do not have enough time

today to dispute that, but the point that we make in the editorials are that it provided significant spending to the state of colorado. it funded teacher jobs and other government programs to lessen the impact of the great recession here in the state and stimulus spending allowed for many of those schauble-ready -- shovel ready project to move forward. in recent history, we have had a hard time finding some of these on our own. women's health issue will be a big one, especially in the suburbs around denver. the automobile industry one does not play quite as strongly here, but it is certainly something to consider. we have a healthy manufacturing sector, not tied to the automobile industry, but it's one of the key pieces of our economy here. host: one other issue people are pay attention to are the

congressional races. can you sum them up for us? guest: the hot race will be the newly drawn sixth congressional district. it was heavily republican four years. many of your viewers probably remember tom holding that seat. mike kaufman was elected two districts ago. it was redrawn in redistricting and it now includes the city of aurora, the third largest city in colorado and it has a slight democratic edge. they have a democrat running in that seat. the congressman stumbled in to some trouble earlier this year when he made comments at a republican fund-raiser about the president and questioning

whether or not in his party was an american. it was caught on videotape by a supporter who posted it to the internet because he agreed with the congressman's sentiments. he has been having to walk back from that view and being a member of the tea party caucus ever since. the difficulty is that he is not a known quantity and colorado politics. he represented denver in the state house, not aurora, so he's not well known in that district. he is probably a little further to the left than a lot of the unaffiliated voters, but it is a race i mentioned that has drawn considerable attention from the democratic congressional committee for spending in television markets in that race and it will be one to watch especially because of the experts looking at that in colorado saying that's a district that obama will likely carry moving forward. can congressman kaufman, the incumbent, hold onto his seat and face the challenge?

it's interesting because he's a veteran of both the iraq war and the persian gulf war. he had military experience and he has served in the house in that capacity and he is one of the few republicans who looks at the defense budget and can make a strong case for ways to cut spending on defense. he is intriguing to a lot of voters as a result. host: let's talk about this race for a second. guest: ed is one of the hardest working people if not the hardest in the coming negation. joe coors has put in $3 million into his own race and he is

from the coors beer family. he has made a point of saying that he built his own fortune in the manufacturing business. they are also competing in a newly we don. -- a newly redrawn district. it includes points west of the city of denver. all accounts are that the congressman has a fight on his hands but he is up to the task. this is the third congressional district, southern colorado and what we call the western slopes, west of the continental divide. that has incumbent tipton and sal pace. pace is also from the state house of representatives. eye's another to keep an on. host: next caller, jan from louisville, tenn. caller: no one ever mentions ever mentionsbenghazi. -- about benghazi. i have not read any newspaper articles about benghazi.

i'm concerned about the four men that were murdered with no help from the government. they refuse them, not one time, not two times but several. this is very heart warming and it hurts to know that our government will not stand up for our men overseas. this was our ambassador, a place -- it is just disheartening that we have something like this. host: we will have curtis hubbard answer that. the front page of "the new york times" this morning has a piece on this and what the government knew and when it knew it. have you guys cover that story? guest: we have it in the news pages and the editorial pages

and we have written several times on the administration's need to fully explain to the american public their response, what was known beforehand and what changes will be made moving forward. we did a piece to set up the foreign policy debate. like many of your viewers, we were surprised when governor romney some -- presented that as the first question in that debate. we made a note of the day after that debate. host: do you think this issue is one that is in the top five for voters in colorado? guest: no. for voters who are opposed to the obama administration, it makes their top five, but the top five for most people, three out of those spots are the economy, the economy, the economy. after that it would be energy and social issues, women's access to health care being

chief among them. host: curtis hubbard, thank you so much for your time this morning. guest: thanks for having me. >> we have the managing director of our and our partners joining us this morning. this is the financial times this morning showing that colorado is pretty even. some have shown governor romney ahead. the denver post notes that president obama has been to the state more than any president in 40 years. he carried it more than any other democrat in 2008. how are republicans responding?

guest: republicans are very energized right now. i think you're seeing now from governor romney and paul ryan. host: what the need to have in place in order to win colorado? guest: typically, you start building your ground game about six months out from the erection.

clearly, our candidates, mitt romney was still engaged in a primary fight, but they have quickly made up a lot of the ground. you need to have thousands of volunteers in place dispersed among -- along the i 25 corridor and in the pocket communities along the western slope of the mounds. four years ago, hats off to the obama campaign. if they did a tremendous job and had a lot of enthusiasm. but this year, that has been negated in the last couple of months by the republicans. host: where do they feel they can get ahead? early votes? absentee voting? guest: absentee voting, clearly. and right now, the advantage is to the republicans by about 40,000 active voters. right now, you are seeing a

disproportionate amount of republicans returning their absentee ballots. four years ago, you did not see that a return rate amongst absentee among republicans for john mccain. host: on the ballot issues and bloomberg insider rights this a -- guest: the civil union issue, i think that is accurate, by the way. i have not see the civil union issue pop up in to the contras as of the average voter. on the margins, -- into the consciousness of the average voter. on the margins, it may pop up. although, it would traditionally break into the democratic party since they have been the sponsor of this type of legislation in the legislature. the predominant issue around the country is the economy. host: the bloomberg insider

also reports -- guest: can we do a better job, absolutely. and we must do a better job for one to remain a relevant party on the national scene, and particularly in the west. the latino vote, the hispanic vote as we like to call that in the west, it had shifted toward the republicans under president and former colorado gov. bill once actually won the hispanic vote here in 2002. it began to slip away. we had some issues with one of our congressman, congressman tom tancredo pushed away some of those votes.

of the active voting provision is about 16%. the -- the acting voting population is about 16%. the romney base has hundreds of key hispanic leaders throughout the state of organizing and helping him get out the vote. host: in 2008, exit polls show that president obama won the hispanic vote in colorado, two- thirds of colorado's hispanic vote that year. it is a big part of the campaign for this election. what about that for gary johnson on the ballot in colorado? guest: he was our governor to the south. he was very enthusiastic on those issues. on the ballot this year is the

issue of legalizing marijuana. gary johnson was for the decriminalization of marijuana. i think you'll have some on the fringe of voters, not a libertarian, but others as well that will gravitate toward gary johnson. he does not have the money to get his message out. also, of boulder county, which is a key base for democrats, you have a green party on the ballot. gary johnson will roll become in a distant third, but come in third in colorado. host: we have a democratic caller on the line. caller: i want to know why the congress is not being held accountable for what they're doing. they're holding the contras --

the country up and everybody is blaming obama. he can only do so much. guest: you are seeing the frustration the town hall meetings, that the candidates particularly in the more competitive districts, the sixth congressional district that you heard about earlier, which is one of the two key counties they divided presidential campaign. and over in the third congressional district, which is the western slope of colorado with scott haggis and tooten, they would probably say that as a key frustration. they're hearing it out on the campaign trail. how about translates is that it comes back to the economy and jobs. host: this is barbara on twitter.

guest: correct on the tax-cut and hopefully get the economy moving. i republican for my issues, which are limited government and lower taxes and less regulatory environment. in colorado, where you find is in her to give her as he moved west across the united states, and republican voter is a quasi-libertarian type of voter. it is limited government. it is kind of an old west at it, keep government out of our lives. i think you also see others that will move toward the center as well. it is limited government and

less washington d.c. involvement in our lives. host: what is the makeup of the state legislature? guest: we have a slight majority in the state house for republicans. we control the state house. and the senate, a slim majority for the democrats. the attorney general and other statewide elected officials are republican. and our governor is a democrat and very popular. it is representative of the voting population we are little helter-skelter. host: mary and westfield and new jersey, independent caller. caller: can you hear me? host: my fault, go ahead. caller: two questions. the president says that north

america will be energy independent. how come the press does not realize that includes at canada and mexico? and allegedly, he has holdings in china and mexico. before cannot see a tax returns, we cannot see his holdings in mexico. i want people to consider a third-party candidates. i hope the press begins to do a thorough job host: any response to that caller? guest: in terms of energy independence, which would probably be the most salient topic today, particularly here in colorado, with the direction

of drilling and fragging and new technologies that are coming on line as we involved our energy exploration efforts. here in colorado we have what is similar to the balkan information. all down the front range as were the niobrara a formation is. i think god will -- i think that will motivate some orders to turn out. -- i think that will motivate some voters to turn out. you'll still see a gravitation with the folks in the suburbs where there are high-paying jobs. host: one of the many aspects colorado is see in, it is playing in that state as well as other battle ground states is

from the body -- the obama campaign. [video clip] >> pluribus to close to call. >> the difference between what was and what could have been. this year, if you are thinking that your vote doesn't count, that it won't matter, back then, there were probably at least 537 people that felt the same way. make your voice heard. vote. host: is that having an impact? guest: you know, it is a great advertisement. it is driving right to the heart of what president obama needs to throw colorado, but also the about brown states. it is to get the same coalitions, the youth, the women, both on a phillippe -- unaffiliated and republican, minority provisions need to turn out in historic week

disproportionate numbers. denver has a very young population, which is also a democrat stronghold. i have seen that had three or four times in the last couple of nights spirit -- i've seen advertisements three or four times in the last couple of nights. host: are you seeing what lawyers are doing to prepare for that? guest: modern campaigning since 2000 with the florida recount, it seems that one of its first things you do is hire gorda attorneys, between good election law and getting ready for the challenge. on the republican side i'm confident. the democrats have a well oiled machine, not only nationally. but on the republican side they

are very well-organized. their two legal strike teams in a lot of the counties, not all 64, but the key ones. they will have teams of lawyers on the ground actually watching the palace -- the ballots be processed. it is all feeding into the central to our center, the obama war room and the brahney war room. host: which are the key ones in colorado? guest: jefferson and arapaho, west of downtown denver. and then i-25, which is our main interstate going north and south, down to the south, pueblo, larry, adams cannot -- adams, and then one of them except the big 11 and that is grand junction. that is essentially 85% of our

state's population in those 11 counties. host: kevin in houston, texas, in europe next. -- you are up next. caller: i am a young man and a live in texas. i went to college in 2001. i had to go through a bunch of banks. it took much of my time in college to go through all of these banks just so i could go to school. my mother has a loan through countrywide. i'm noticing the the republican party keep saying things like, we are going to keep the government out of this and that, but at the same time, talking about gay marriage and

women's rights. why is it that banks can do whatever they want, lenders can do whatever they want, and the republican party thinks that is ok, but if somebody decides they want to be in a same-sex marriage or if a woman decides that she cannot afford a baby that she has to have that child? one more before i get off the line. i have gone through a series of jobs in the last couple of years. i've noticed that when i work, i'm getting my hours cut like crazy. a lot of businesses that are making it a priority to save money on the top and so that they can have more cash in their pockets and those people at the bottom are struggling to make money. host: i've got to leave it

there. and what did you get from the first part abbottabad callers' comments? if guest: that -- the first part of that callers' comments? guest: that relates a particular lead to colorado and other battleground states. less government involvement is where the republican party is out in the west. and i would say more so than either coast. as you get into student loan issues, business issues in particular, as you were talking about at the end, employers cutting deck hours, if we lower -- cutting back hours, if we lower taxes, that in -- that allows employers to hire more people. if we continually pushed down on the entrepreneur and disincentivizing them through

higher taxes or regulation, you'll get less and less money coming to the employees. and you can expand that to health care. you can say to employers, you have this additional $20,000 or $30,000 cost per year, they will hire less people. few are regulations and less government involvement in the private sector. and we could become a leading nation again in the world. we are sliding right off the top 10 scale right now as far as competitive places. the capital will move to places that are more competitive overseas and start creating jobs. we want those jobs here. host: comment on twitter -- guest: our secretary of state launched a campaign roughly 68 months ago to go through -- we have two types of back -- of all voters in colorado.

active voters and inactive voters. active voters are those the board in the last couple of elections. inactive voters either moved away or are just tired of the system. he has been going through the inactive voters and purging the registration rolls that are in question. i do not know how many were actually purchased through the system. and typically, there is a big fight of even taking the inactive borders of the roles between the two big parties. right now, democrats are carrying more inactive voters on their roles than republicans. host: ron on the independent line. caller: i would like to find out how sean thinks the two- party is influencing the outcome. i am a former tea party member. they were supposed to go in and get jobs and all they did was

33 bills. it was for abortion and nothing about jobs. i went to a rally saturday and there were something like 500 people. in 2010 there were about 3000 people. guest: i would concur with the caller. i would say that the two-party peak in 2010 in particular. -- the tea party peak in 2010 in particular in colorado. i've one time we had over 86 individual chapters throughout just colorado. someone getting plugged in may have a horrible experience in one part of a single county and a great experience at the other side of the county.

i think that experience led people who wanted to stay active to migrate back into the republican party fold, for the most part. some were members of the libertarian party. and some in the green and in the democrat party. but i think where the tea party is still very relevant, or ticket early in colorado and in many other states, -- particularly in colorado and in many other states, it is providing the gasoline for the parties that are on the ground, walking the ground, making the phone calls, on the street corners. that is where the tea party has been funneled into the republican party predominately, and then also to the democrat party. host: marvin in chicago, a democratic caller.

caller: how you feel mitt romney can be qualified as president -- you say he could create 12 lovain jobs when he was a -- 12 million jobs when he was governor of massachusetts. he was 47 perata 50 in job creation there. and he left office with low job approval. and then he made those comments about the 47%. as president, you are president of 100% of the people. how do you feel he is qualified? guest: if we are going to be rewinding the tape, with shorter won back a little over three and a half to four years ago when our president claimed that if he did not get unemployment below 5% that he should not be reelected.

i think that is the barometer that people are looking at president obama. we have soaring residents -- rhetoric and great expectations for this president. in the first couple of months in office after the stimulus, the president took his eye off the ball. these are worrying about cold warming conventions in sweden. he started working about card check. and then doing health care, all very partisan issue. when we were looking at our worst economic scenario since the great depression, our president and his administration was focused elsewhere. if we're going to rewind the tape and use the 47% comments, we should use the 5% comment. that is the most relevant comment in americans' lives today, which is, let's get the american economy moving. host: john hickok lipper, a a a former democrat and former denver mayor has high approval.

are you worried about that? guest: governor hickenlooper is wildly popular. he has ratings rival in former gov. bill owens. what you see in the west as far as successful politicians, which are those that represent the people, republicans, democrats, and phillips, john hickenlooper understands many natural resources. he has been a strong advocate for the energy industry as well as education reform. but not in a way that created a huge protest of the capital. today, he has been only mildly active for the president. i think he has made a couple of

endorsement on tv. he has not run at -- run any spots that paid media and shown up sparingly at rallies. he wants to maintain best cops -- that 70% popularity rating. host: lisa, good morning, your on the air. caller: my question is common -- is, they say they are doing a strategy, i would like to know what that is to help us with jobs. here in massachusetts, romney abandon us just like the republican party has abandoned bush. i would like to know what to

look for that? guest: again, looking at how republicans differ from the democrats as far as job creation, the tax code. more money to invest in your business, or in your home. all of the things that families are grappling with. maybe pay your employees more if they are your family. also getting tough on the trade policy. american workers -- i travel the world quite a bit during elections abroad as well as business. the american worker is second to none.

let's take back those things for change. let's compete evenly in the global marketplace. lastly, pulling back regulations, as well as oversight in every aspect of our business as it is more and more creeping into our personal lives. >> host: talk about the congressional races. what is your prediction for the commercial district that folks are watching inside -- the critical the districts that are being watched inside the state. guest: roughly the size of the state of florida is the third congressional district. it is currently held by republican. he won it in a tough year. voter registration numbers republican vs. democrat have increased on the republican side of the aisle, and performance-wise, it performs at

a + 12 republican. i think it is a tight race. i think scott tooten will retain his seat by a comfortable margin. mike coughlin, they we drew his district. both the romney and obama campaigns have put a tremendous amount of resources into this congressional district for the turnaround models. congress and -- congressman mike kaufman is very identifiable with voters as being a combat veteran, served both in the army and marine corps in desert storm as well as the iraq war. i think mike kaufman wins that and he has always take his opponent 4 to 1. -- he has out-raised his

opponent 4 to 1. i think he maintained his 67 point margin. -- six to 7 point margin. and then switching over to the district that was traditionally held by republican, and then the democrats held it for the better part of eight years. this will be an up the hill battle -- an uphill battle for joe torre. -- joe coors. this will be a hotly contested races both at the presidential all the way down to the district. this could go either way. i give a slight advantage to his challenger. it will be people on the ground in that district. host: thank you for your time.

guest: thank you. >> if i can just show you to headlines here from recent articles, the be sent insider, obama's lee has completely evaporated and the key swing states, one of them being colorado. here is another piece, election 2012. president obama was 46%. guest: we always knew that races like this would tighten up. they always do in october and november. and we have been working hard with daud. we have 60 obama offices across colorado to deliver a strong

ground game. we are still sure that he will take colorado's electoral votes. host: tell us about your ground game. guest: like i said, we have 60 offices spread around all four corners, from small towns like during go and ridgway and fair play in the mountains, -- durango, ridgway, and fair play in the mountains to the metra offices. we have paid staffers and literally thousands of volunteers in every single neighborhood to try to bring people out of their homes to vote, to get their mail-in ballots turned back in. it is an incredibly strong operation. frankly, i've never seen anything like what we have here in colorado right now. host: when it comes to democratic voters, president obama one last time with the youth in the states.

here is something from the l.a. times -- guest: i would say their enthusiasm across the state is actually quite high. it was not just the young voters i took them over the edge in 2008. it was all of colorado coming together to share a vision. we have seen a bold leadership style from the president that people expected some historic achievement in health care reform, in pulling our troops out of iraq, and the end of don't ask, don't tell, wall street reform, the list goes on and on. i think what people were excited about in 2008, they continue to be excited about in 2012. we have enthusiastic supporters that are working very hard to reelect the president.

there is no doubt that this will be a close election. the election i will be a long one, no doubt. -- the election night will be a long one, no doubt. but i trust that the people of ottawa help to put the president back into office for another four years. host: how are you all preparing for a possible recount? what do you think the likelihood is of any dispute? guest: what we are preparing for right now is just getting all of the mail-in ballots that people have on their counters, getting those turned back in. we are ensuring that people who can vote early can go down to their polling location, whether it be the clerk's office or the voting center to cast their ballots. and those who want to wait until election day, willie pushing them to cast their votes

on november 6 -- we will be pushing them to cast their votes on november 6. host: we just had a republican strategist on who said both parties have to be prepared since the 2000 election with lawyers and all of that to be ready to go. are you saying you do not have that in place? guest: what i'm talking about are the canvassers on the ground, the thousands of volunteers. i'm sure we have an incredible team of lawyers that are prepared for any scenario as it happens. right now, our primary focus is just getting people to turn their ballots back in and getting them to vote on election day. host: this was a piece that was written on, robert daly's website. -- colorado daily is a website.

what is your reaction? guest: i would say that gary johnson sounds like a nice guy, but not something that we are concerned about right now. again, it is about getting people to return their ballots back in and getting them to vote. at the end of the day, i don't think that gary johnson or any third pair of -- third-party candidates or minor candidates will half an effect in this election. the taurus that people have right now are between two very died -- the choice that people have right now are between two very divergent leaders. they can either go with the trust of leadership of president obama or go back to the same failed policies of the past and vote for mitt romney. that is the choice in this election. host: up next is thom, an independent caller.

caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a 30-year c-span watcher. i would like to say few words to my fellow americans. i am a descendant of the revolutionary war heroes. our founding fathers gave us something new. it was called petricone up economics, where all of us would share -- it was called a trickle up economics, where all of us would share in our country's bounty. now there is trickle-down economics. there is not a farmer who would give seed to one more senate expect it to -- give seed to one source and expected to warm all of his herd. you cannot give all of your love and teaching to one child and expect a whole family to grow. reagan's trickle-down economics

is what has ruined this country. trickle up is what our founding fathers gave a spirited -- gave us. host: thank you for your comments. guest: whether you call it trickle-down economics or voodoo economics or whatever you call it, we have been there and done that and we have the teacher. and that is what mitt romney is in favor of. host: next caller from louisiana. caller: i would say that with all that obama has done, all the lies, all of service, why would anyone want to vote for him again? he has also called mitt romney a liar. he wins michem -- key wins first place.

host: what has he lied about? caller: he lied about ben ghazi. and when they passed the health care bill, that it would save money. it is going to cost more money. democrats and him have done all the carnage that has ever been done in this country. supporting him was the biggest mistake of this country's ever made. guest: is certainly respect your opinion, but i think you are wrong. there are a myriad of things, and i can go through the list. health care reform is actually saving the system money. it is also saving american families money in their health- care premiums. i am just as much concerned about ben ghazi has anyone else, but i will tell you that i

am not a privilege to the top secret and confidential information that our nation's leaders and military are. i will not sit here and try to be an armchair quarterback in this instance. i trust in the leadership of our president and i think the majority of americans also trust in the leadership of our american -- of our president. he does not take pack seat -- back seat when it comes to foreign policy. on his first trip abroad he decided he would offend our closest allies in the world. host: i want to show our viewers an ad that is running in the state of colorado. [video clip] this president can tell us it was someone else's fault, but

this president cannot tell us that you are better off today after he took office. >> hearing got a, we are not better off under obama. his defense cuts have 20,000 jobs. strengthen our military and bring 200,000 new jobs. host: how do you respond to that? guest: is essentially a falsehood. the president has not made defense cuts. he has applied the military leaders with exactly what they need. again, i will say again, the president does not take a back seat when it comes to military issues or as it relates to veterans and their care. to blame sequestration, and of assuming that is what this had

is about, to blame that on the president when it was the congress to actually pass the sequestration act does absolutely false. -- the congress who actually passed the sequestration act is absolutely false. host: next caller. caller: mendon pendant and i think i have made my mind to vote for obama. having said that, i have noticed a tremendous mistake. sitting in my home i can see it. and great minds, professionals in this business do not seem to see it. he has all but left out white working-class men. the only thing i have seen it is little tidbits about the job program. why is it that -- and by the way, i should say that no matter what anybody says, race plays a role in the spirit of the last person i called, the polarization i see is

ridiculous. they will not even open the door for consideration for some white working-class men. some of them even voted for them -- for him in the last go around, but they have closed the door again. i have not seen anyone reach out to white working-class man on the democratic side, or very little. maybe in certain states centered on the auto industry and so forth. what people do not realize is the loss of jobs in this country are now encroaching on white-collar. engineers, for instance, people who do marketing. some very good paying jobs are going abroad as well with all of this. it has just not become so widespread it's like with manufacturing. host: ok. guest: the point that i would make is that in the last 30 months or more, this economy has grown, has produced nearly

5 million private-sector jobs. we have consecutively and consistently produced jobs over the last 30 months. it is simple. and regardless of where you are from, whether southern colorado like myself and you come from a hispanic background, or you are from st. louis and you consider yourself a white, middle-class male as the caller just did, we are all in this together. we do better as a country when everyone has an opportunity to prosper. host: on our line for democrats, brian in madison, ohio. caller: good morning. i am a really disgruntled democrats. i'm going to vote for president obama.

i do not understand why the democratic party does not look back to 1994, to contract america, which republicans did not affect -- did not fulfil. when the republicans had control of both houses, nothing got done. this year, they cut out early. i do agree with the last caller about reaching out to every race. host: rick palacio? guest: again, this is not about one ethnic group, one racial group or another. this is about to ensuring policies in place by grow our economy. this is about making sure that we have policies in place to make sure that every child has an opportunity to get a quality public education and to go on to get a college degree and be part of the american dream. this is not about a racial divide.

we achieved, we move forward if we are all in this together. that is what this president has done and will continue to do. host: if you look at the demographic of camaraderie, our last guest told us that the hispanic vote makes a 25%. and what is your prediction on the way the election goes? guest: the hispanic population in colorado was only 21%, and that is the population on the whole. the voting population of the hispanic vote is roughly around 12%, somewhere in there. no doubt, latinos and al-nahda, as the rest of the country, are going to be a big part of -- latinos in colorado, as the rest of the country, are going to be a big part of the election and what i have seen is very similar to what is happening across the country, the enthusiasm for president obama amongst latinos is through the roof. if you look pacquiao -- look

back at the latino poll that just came out, enthusiasm is hired now that it was -- enthusiasm is higher now than it was in 2008. there is no doubt that it will have a huge impact. the more that latinos and turn out, they can have a much bigger impact in this election than in any other previous election we have had. host: independent caller from garland, texas. your on the air. caller: can i go ahead with my question? host: please do. caller: hello? host: i'm going to put you on hold. you've got to turn the television down. laurie in houston, texas, democratic caller. caller: i would like to thank the host for informing one of the callers that your show is

not paid for by the government. it seems to be a lot of people who call in our very uninformed. i feel like i'm hearing a lot of comments that come from fox news. i also feel that the president is doing a great job. have people from what happened before he came into the office where the stock market was crashing? millions of people were going into foreclosure, the car companies getting ready to go out of business, and obama's hands have been tied by people who wanted to get him out of office on day one and look what he has been able to do. and people are asking is why we are still willing to vote for him? what does romney stand for? host: i have a feeling you agree with her, going to move on to the next caller from new jersey.

susan, go ahead. caller: the first thing i would like to take up is reverse discrimination. the people who call into your show, mainly democrats, who are very much in favor of president obama, they seem to have forgotten about the problem started with the democrats. people in congress who pushed for most citizens who cannot afford it, never will be able to afford houses. that is where it started. the next problem, you denied that the president had anything to do with an ghazi. that simply is not true.

for two weeks after it happened, he shut everybody out to cover up for him and say that it was a protest. and it was not. >> ok. guest: i would have to disagree with the caller on who started all of this. if you look at historical data, economically, americans have done better under democratic administrations than the house republican administrations. during the years of bill clinton, 23 million private- sector jobs were created. george bush's numbers in comparison were quite paltry. again on ben ghazi, i said before that i am not privileged to some of the information that i am sure our president and military leaders have right now

i would put money on the fact that our last caller is not as well. i trust wholeheartedly the leadership of our president. he takes a backseat to no one when it comes to military issues or foreign policy issues. he has taken very bold steps when faced with threats from other nations or from terrorists. a leading example, of course, is taking out osama bin laden the first moment he had an opportunity to do so. host: this is a tweet from one our viewers, who says much obama disenchantment is due to 2008 voters as attributing medical traits to the candidates. their fault, not his. let's go back to anthony in garland, independent caller. caller: all i am trying to find out is why -- my name is anthony. i'm a first-time caller. i have a comment and then a

question. my first comment is why democrats are not really looking into the people surrounding governor romney, like those who took care of jabr bush and everything got messed up. and why is running not winning in massachusetts? he claimed to be popular while he was the governor. host: rick palacio? guest: i think i understand the first question, which is why we have not investigated the previous administration. i think is important to move forward. that is what this president is about, being forward-looking. we have a ways to go with the

recovery. in massachusetts, mitt romney likes to talk about his experience as a business person, but rarely talked about his experience as governor in massachusetts. when he was there, massachusetts was 47th in job creation. he likes to talk about education. the massachusetts was number one in education when he took office. it was number one when he was in office. it continues to be never won today. the most that he can say right now about his edge -- his record in education in massachusetts is that he did not mess things up. it is interesting to note that he did not run for a second term.

i would guess but he did the analysis and realized he could not win a second term. i would guess that massachusetts is going to vote for president obama roughly around 65%. host: next call is a democratic call. caller: i have been listening to you for quite awhile. this is the first time i have called. i do not think you realize that obama going into office as president, he wholeheartedly thought he could make a difference across party lines. but what he did not realize was that this was a "no" congress who decided from day one that once he was elected they would not let anything passed. but so much has done by this president and has never been done before. they find all kinds of things to complain about.

i never realized how much it has to do with race. but you did not realize how much until after he became president. host: i'm going to jump in right here and try to get in one more phone call from john in dearborn, michigan. caller: good morning. my question is, against the democrats and republicans in the senate and house, obama decided to let terrorist go in guantanamo bay when he was told they were going to kill servicemen and women overseas, and he still let them out. and he still offered police to be under were, when he tried to -- offered pleas to the underwear bomber when he tried

to blow us up. does does sound like someone we want in office? guest: i'm not sure what the caller is referencing. again, i would say that i fully trust in our president's leadership when it comes to foreign policy and military issues. he has shown that he can make incredibly bold decisions that need to be made to keep us safe. and to keep our interests abroad save as well. host: thank you for your time in talking to our viewers this morning. guest: thanks for having me. >> i was like to ask you a question similar to the vice-

presidential candidates. as a catholic, how has your view on abortion been shaped by religion? >> i am not catholic. i am episcopalian. my husband is catholic. my children are catholic. my grandchildren have been baptized in the catholic church. but i would be happy to talk about my view on abortion. my view is that it can be safe, legal, and rare. >> a valid point, it is a difference between us that is not manufactured. we have babies in america and and i love being aborted simply because they are little baby girls. the mother once a boy instead of a girl. it is coming from the asian community as well. with legislation that prohibits

sex-selective abortion, she thinks is ridiculous to talk about and i think it matters to the little girls that are being aborted. >> find key senate races across the country on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org/ campaign2012. >> in 30 minutes, a discussion on the future of the news industry, including investigative reporting and collaborative journalism. hurricane sandy is to blame for at least 48 deaths. more than 8 million people without power. the house met today for a brief session at tucker on those that killed in the -- took on the bill for those killed in the storm. o rise and observe a moment of silence in remembrance of those who have perish in hurricane sandy and to remember those as well who continue to suffer.

>> someone to the grocery store, i see, and purchased some things that these families will need. ira appreciate your generosity. part of the american spirit, the american way, to give to people in need. your generosity touches my heart and i appreciate what you have done. there is more coming in and we will box these things up and put them on trucks. we will send them and the new jersey, a site that we have identified that can take these goods and distribute them the people that need them. we won't be able to solve all our efforts this morning, but people will be looking for goods. one of the things i have learned in life is if you can make a difference, you can. you can't always solve the problems yourself but you can

make a difference in the lives of one or two people. i remember once we had a football game at my high school. the football field was covered with all sorts of rubbish and pape rgoods from those that -- paper goods from those that had a big celebration. how are we going to clean up all this mess on the football field? the person responsible for organizing the effort said, just line up along the art lines. -- yard lines. just walked through and do your lane. if everybody claims there lane, we will be able to get the job done. -- cleans their lane, we will be able to get the job done. we are cleaning our lane. we will get some goods for some people and get the job done. [applause] i am proud of you for showing up

in such large numbers to help out. i remember in my state of massachusetts when katrina hit, some of the people were evacuated from new orleans were brought to massachusetts. we gathered them at a military base on cape cod. they thought they were going to houston, by the way. the plane said that they were going to boston and they were not very happy. we told our citizens that we have people coming here that have been affected by the hurricane if you would like to help by providing supplies and goods that they might need. you know what? there were cars lined up, people dropping off all sorts of goods, some things that were temporary like food. others that were permanent like tv sets, clothes, and it was amazing to see the turn out.

it is part of the american way. we have people having hard times because of this terrible hurricane. your generosity will make a difference. i want to thank you. we have work to do. to make this an enjoyable work setting, we have asked a great entertainer, randy owen of alabama to be here. [applause] extraordinary guy. he will probably tell you this story about a tornado that hit his county in alabama. we appreciate the fact that he has agreed to come entertain. he has brought in goods as the cover charge. and thank you for your help and generosity. if you have a little extra, if you have more, bring them along to the victory centers.

if you can write a check to american red cross, that is open as well. we are looking for all the help we can get. i am going to go to work at the table, get things started -- sorted. enjoy the concert that randy will put on and thank you very much. i love you and appreciate you. [applause] [no audio]

[indistinct conversations] [no audio] [chanting 'mitt']

>> hey, everybody. how're you doing tonight? put your hands together, everybody, let's have a good time. e,, two, one, two, thre four. ♪

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