education system. >> a moment ago -- given the church of england is the established church would he consider what parliament can do to insure the overwhelming wealth of members of the church of england as of this country is respected? >> i will look carefully at what the right hon. gentleman says. i would say the church has its own processes, it don't elections, hard for some to understand and we have to respect individual institutions and the decision they make but it doesn't mean we should hold back and say what we think. i think it is clear in the time is right for women bishops. they need to get on with it and get with the program but you do have to respect the individual institutions when they're getting a shark fraud. >> the big country, e.u. agreed to by the last labor government,

time for it costing taxpayers two billion pounds every single year. will the prime minister please confirm the forthcoming budget negotiations, he will not agree to any further reduction in this debate? >> i certainly give my hon. friend that assurance. the rebate negotiated by margaret thatcher is an incredibly important part of britain's position of making sure we get a fair deal. .. >> could i congratulate the prime minister on the wise decision to bring the gm summit. could i confirm to the prime

minister the enthusiasm with which it's been received. could i ask him if he believes that it will be possible to bring further events to northern ireland in the future? >> we'll look at that. it is the right decision for the ga to be based in northern island on the 17th and 18th of june. standing there with the prime minister and deputy prime minister in ireland, talking about the situation. something that would be unthinkable 20 years ago. to have that sort of event with so many world leaders coming to northern island. it would be a great advancement for everything in northern ireland can achieve. >> the triple a status when france lost it this week, shows the uk retains confidence in

international market because of the difficult, but necessary decisions that we are facing. >> i think my honorable friend makes a good point. because we've set out a clear plan, we're able to have low rates and confidence. it's line one, paragraph one for the uk. >> you've been watching prime minister's questions from the british house of commons. question time airs live on c-span2 every wednesday at 7 a.m. eastern.

>> governor cristie said the damage was unthinkable. we had fires, hurricane force winds, we had massive flooding, a feet of snow. if you look at that and the flooding to the subway systems and the shut down of the stock exchanges, you start to get a sense of the massive scale and scope. yet the networks performed. i've head dozens of stories about how for many consumers their only link for information and tie to information for people was through the smartphone. linking social media and their smartphone. while there was obviously an impact on cell sites, i think the networks performed really

pretty well. >> my assessment is some networks did well, some did less well. we don't really have solid information about this because there are in reporting requirements on the networkses, there are no standards by which we measure the performance, and it's entirely voluntary to talk to the fcc and state and local governments. i take their word for it they responded well. i've heard that some of the guys maybe did less well. i think the first step is to find out who did well, who didn't do well, and how we make sure that everybody is doing well. >> the impact of superstorm sandy on telecommunications systems tomorrow night at 8 eastern.

>> good morning. >> congratulations. >> thank you. after november 6th, you hid. you've been in montana. >> yes, yes. drinking beer. >> what else did you do there? >> i saw my beloved grizzlies play football, hung out, saw friends, did this amazing thing called sleeping. i've never done it before. it was great. >> right after this you are going back? >> i'm going back tomorrow for thanksgiving. then we leave for a month in italy on saturday. >> they love you on battleground radio. this is the first time you've been on camera national interview. why? >> it seemed like a very bad

idea at the time. but, look, you know, we had amazing on air people like stephanie cutter and my salty language didn't seem really fit for television during the campaign. we decided to try it out afterwards. >> okay. let's plunge in. at what point did the race become unwinnable for mitt romney? >> i'm not sure what that moment was. when i thought we were, you know, going to win the election was a few days before the election when the early vote numbers continued to look very, very good for us. >> you thought it long before a few days before the election. i know that. [laughter] >> but i was pretty sure. >> how long were you pretty sure? when cowed he he -- could he have turned it around? debate one? >> absolutely. it was a close election. we won by three points. it was competitive the entire

way. i think governor romney could have won up until the very end. i always believed in the fundamental truth which is we were building the best grassroots campaign. we had the best candidate and the best message. i believe we were going to win. >> in a way the story of the election is the degree to which you replicated the '08 results. many people putting on the republican pollsters thought that '08 was a once-in-a-lifetime result. you came close to replicating it. i think the best stat is african-americans in ohio. 11% of the electorate in '08. 15% of the electorate. you found 200,000 more african-american voters who turned out for you. mitt romney lost the state by 103,000. that was the election. finding the 200,000 extra african-american voters. where did you find them?

>> well, look, -- first back up. we won the election because much barack obama. people volunteered and people supported the president in historic numbers because of his message, because of the campaign that he built, and because they were making a choice about where they wanted this country to go. but from the very first day that he offered me this job, he said this has to be about the grassroots. we had to go back and run a campaign about the grassroots. that's how we got the turn out numbers that a whole bunch of people spent 18 months telling me we couldn't get to. we build the biggest grassroots campaign for the moment. to get more people involved, to do well in early vote and very well on election day. the results show that we built the kind of campaign that made people want to volunteer and made people want to support the president. >> you started very early on registering voters with the bb shop, barbershop program. how important was that like in a

place like ohio? >> huge. we learned from 2010 a valuable lesson. too many people thought they'd put his picture and the supporters would turn out. it doesn't work like that. you have to run a sustained operation, having an ongoing conversation about why they should support the president and get out a vote. we did that. we built the thing that we didn't have in 2008, which is operation vote. to target the key constituencies. democrats, youth, women, minorities, we spent a lot of time messaging to them. you talked about barbershop, nail salon, all to meet people where they were to get them to register. we ended up registering 1.8 million people on the doors, about 1.1 is million people online for under 3 million people. you don't do that if you aren't where people are. we built a campaign that was about meeting people on the

doors. >> tell us about the targeted sharing. >> targeted sharing was an incredibly hard and long effort to build a piece of software that had a simple concept. which was in 2008 we really had two campaigns. door-knocking campaign that was sophisticated, and the online viral thing. in many ways, we didn't control. a lot of things people organized before the president announced by themselves. those two things didn't come together. we spent a year trying to build pieces of software that allows all of our different pieces to talk, it's called dashboard. >> i'm sorry what? >> dashboard. which was the hardest thing we did which said we're going to build a piece of software that allows you to organize whenever you are. if you are you want to organize at 3 a.m. online, you can do that. if you want to door knock, you

can do that. we're going to track every single piece of metric in the campaign. it's going to be in one place. after dashboard, then we said how do we use a supporter. how do we use jim messina to reach out to his world? his facebook world and e-mail list. our research showed clearly that the single most persuasive person was their friends and family. right. so this is very different than the traditional way of getting a list or even getting an app with the list of addresses and the voting history and knocking on the door. >> correct. >> this is talking to people that i know through facebook or what? >> yes, what targeted sharing was -- i think it's one of the most important things we did. it was a facebook app that allows you to go and match your facebook world with our lists. we said we think are undecided, click here to send them viral

content, fact sheet, click here to ask them to support the president. that sounds like a really easy concept. it's not. it's hard to do. it took us a year of some amazing work of our talented technology team to figure out how to do it. we were able to contact over five million people directly through their facebook world and piece that they knew. they were going to look at it because they know that person. >> if you asked me to do that, what was the likelihood that i would do it? >> our likelihood over half of the people that we asked to do it, did it. over of people, 80% of those people followed all the way through to make sure their friends did something. >> look at how you won. you can argue that campaigns will never be run the same way again. in the specific area how is that going to change how a sophisticated well-funded campaign will run? >> i think what we learned in the obama campaign is you can build a whole suite of analytics

to use your volunteers' time more wisely. it all comes back to the candidate and having a message that matters and have people wanting to volunteer. we didn't have the amazing numbers on the doors and unprecedented voter register -- we had it for one reason. people supported barack obama. in the future, i think what campaigns are evolving in to -- many ways return to the past. door knocking is going to be even more important in the future. here's why. you know this from your own work. the diffusion of american media makes it harder to get the message out. there's so much television. the citizenned united created the huge cacophony of television. people got so much of it, a simple door knock from a trusted neighbor really mattered more than anything else. let me tell you why i'm supporting barack obama. i live down the street. let me talk to you about an issue that you care about.

that was important to how people are going to vote. >> useing this they spent less time than what? >> knocking on doors that weren't persuadable. the best example was a friend of mine was door knocking for us a week before the election. he called and said let me tell you the story about why i think you are running a smarter campaign. i was told to knock on two doors. one was chasing absentee ballots and the second one was an undecided voters who i was given a persuasion script. i had a great conversation. i'm sure they are going to vote for us on election day. one block, two days. that's using them more wisely. it's honoring them. saying every contact you are going to make is going to matter to us. i think it allows us to hit more doors and more effective doors than the romney campaign. >> how big of a world did big data play in your win? >> a big role.

in the past two weeks it's been a little bit over played. i think the most important thing goes back to the president and his message. second we built a huge grassroots army. when you are building the grassroots army, you have this thing called data. and data allows you to do one simple thing. which is just use your time and money more wisely. and we use data for everything. we modeled everything. trying to figure out how to use our time wisely. >> what's an example of something you modeled? >> we modeled whether or not people were going to volunteer for the campaign. everyone has done calls to ask people to come out to a phone bank. we modeled every person about whether or not they would volunteer. your first call. >> what's something that could show my propensity? >> history. what we know about you. we had a whole bunch of data points. everything that we knew about my

calendar allows us to figure out whether or not you were going to volunteer. we even modeled whether or not people were going to be a better direct mail giver or online giver. we did a test about a year ago with a piece of michelle obama mail that we spilt the universe in to half. we did half the old way and direct mail consultants have been talking about and half using the data analytics world. both sides were convinced they were right. data analyticked performed by 14%, which in our world is a bunk of money. it allows us to use our data better. >> there's stories about sara jessica parker fundraising e-mail, there were seven versions. you mention she was a mom. what's another example of something that you split many ways to optimize further recipients? >> here's the truth, every

e-mail had been tested a variety of ways. our team -- our ridiculously talented digital director, teddy. >> what was the real honey pot? what was a dog? >> in every e-mail we had tests. they loved giving me grief and testing me against everyone. george clooney completely thrashed me. >> that was the most lucrative e-mail ever. >> talked about the clooney e-mail. it changed how money is raised online. >> that taught us a bunch. >> tell us about what you learned. it was a dinner with the president and george clooney. >> at his home. >> it was a lottery to get a spot? >> correct. >> how much did you wind up raising for that? >> we ended up doing on that event a little bit over $13 million. between the actual event and the online.

>> what was it about clooney and the e-mail. what was the perfect storm that after that every campaign tried to copy? >> who was it about clooney that you can see all of the women in the room nodding. no analytics there, mike. first of all, dinner with obama was the most successful program of 2008 and 2012. it goes back. can this be replicated for the next campaign? no. some of the analytics can. the campaign can't. it resolves around a whole bunch of people, whether you like the president or not. you have to admit that a whole bunch of americans are motivated by his candidacy. a whole bunch of people wanted to sign up and be part of things like dinner with barack because they supported him. >> tell us what works in e-mail and what doesn't work. >> that's a hard question to answer. what works is direct connection

to people. offering them something. we learned offering a chance to be the president, a chance to be part of history, a chance to sit down and break bread and have a discussion with the president. >> what about praising a format. >> makes a huge difference. >> where you put the donate button, all of the stuff is things we learned. >> what phrases work? >> come have dinner with barack obama worked pretty well. [laughter] >> you can over analyze that. it goes back to the original point. people want to care about your guy when you are a candidate. >> what was the biggest, most hopeful, sing the tool you had this time that you didn't in '08? >> we didn't have most of the things. i think targeted sharing was incredibly important to us. i do think we modeled better. we ended up being able to build support scores for every voter in the battleground states from 1-100 on whether or not they

were going to support the president. we did it on early vote. >> that would have included voting history and what else? commercial database? >> some. that's way over. the stuff that we knew after five years, door knocking, having a discussion, whether you slammed the door in our face, how you voted, how many primaries, things that most people had allowed us to model. we went in every day after early vote and sampled people to see whether or not our motto was right and why i felt good about the election is our motto and how people were going to vote on early vote was right within 1%. our models predicted the final vote in florida within .2%. >> you were very confident in your data partly because of the redundancy that you had. tell us about the data that you got every morning. >> we -- i hope we get in to my feelings on american polling very soon. especially the public ones.

but we decided to go deep in to the stuff. we had our analytics team do several thousand calls -- >> what was the analytics team? >> it was a department in the campaign that used data across the campaign to make everyone's job better. >> how many people? >> over -- we had over 60 full time analytics people. and so every night they would do thousands of random sample calls. every night i had a look in all of the battleground states about what we were building and every night they would run 66,000 models at the campaign. >> that's been said before. when asked what i should ask you, what does that mean? >> we ran -- we build a model -- lots of people do similar versions, to run the campaign over and over. it gives us the statistical likelihood of carrying the

percentage. it allows the media team to spend money wiser in the battleground state. >> what does 66,000 mean? >> it means you run that many stimulations of the campaign to get a relevant sample to make sure the data they were giving me was right. let me go back to the question. every night they did that. then we had joe bennettson. then we had state pollsters and each battlegrounds had a different state pollsters. we had three looks at the electorate that allows me as a campaign manager to just have a deeper look about how we were doing, where we were doing, and where we were moving. which is why i knew that most of the public polls you were saying were completely ridiculous. >> so, jim, what do you think about public polling? [laughter] >> thank you for the question. i think a bunch of polling is broken in the country. it's not more anyone's me

malevolence. look at gallop. it's been wrong for a very long time. only one presidential election in the last six has it been right. they had it losing the final day. everyone tried to get close in the final poll. look at the suffolk poll is announced. they were no longer going to poll in florida and virginia because the president couldn't win there. what data do you have to say that's true? a week later they had it died. >> what makes polls mosting a -- most accurate? >> can i have another question? >> where do you draw the line with data driven campaign? are there some privacy issues

and things you won't do? >> absolutely. we had a team inside of our campaign that tested constantly, you know, our privacy policy. the president believes deeply in this. >> the new york type thymes -- "new york times" reported on the front page that you would get a cookie and would tell you if i went to a porn site. >> that's not true. >> it was on the front page of the "new york times." >> it also would measure if i went to an evangelical sight? what about my surfing, would you use? >> that's not true. there was commercial stuff that everyone campaign purchases. the truth is the more we learned about data, the more we learned how important the connection

was. the door knocking, having a real conversation with people on the door. this really mattered. >> so the crown jewels. what happens now? >> a couple of days ago we went out and surveyed our entire list. we said what do you want to do now? what happens to us? the one thing that i know is people want to be involved in supporting the agenda. how it looks is a discussion that we need to have with the grassroots. you can't run two presidential campaigns and say we're going to do it from d.c. now. that's not how it's going to work. what's going to happen, the president has been direct, is our people are going to get to make some decisions. we're going to go through a process like we did after the '08 and sit down with them. part of the smartest thing we did in the 2012 campaign was go and have a series of town halls online with the supporters. what kind of campaign do you want to run? that's why we ended up doing

some things at the time i didn't want to do. get involved in local elections in wisconsin. because our people wanted to. it ended up being some of the best things we did. we're going to learn from our folks. >> what are the mechanics of that? this was an e-mail yesterday or two nights ago from you -- maybe it was george clooney. asking people -- the very interesting phrase we talked about the obama organization and how many hours per week i might volunteer for the obama organization. what is the obama organization? >> we don't know. that's part of the discussion that we want to have. people have said since the election that the president talked about this on election night. it's going to take all of us,

all of the people in the country. people spent five years and two elections. they are not going to walk away. they are going to help with the change they want to see. >> is it possible that an obama organization will remain in chicago as an entity? >> i think anything is possible. i think what's true is just from fcc law, the campaign needs to shut down. we cannot extent funds for not presidential activities. we have to figure out what we do next. that's the conversation we're having with our supporters now. >> there's an organization that could be called obama for america; right? >> it was during '09 and '10? >> attend could be separate from the dnc? >> it could. >> why not institutionalize it and make a candidate for the

next race or nominee? >> some of it will live on. the tools that we built, target sharing, dashboard, i hope every campaign uses and becomes important. however, the important thing to note is -- i want to be firm about this. you can't just hand this to the next candidate for president. you know, this organization was built for people who supported this president and who were involved. you know, we had over 32,000 neighborhood team leaders who basically volunteered full time. those people were involved because the issues and positions the president took. we learned this to our surprise in 2010. you can't just hand it to the next candidate.

want to talk about tuitions with the fiscal clef. starting a group -- we did over thousands of gun in the campaign, asking people to call members of congress. ec is understandable -- i'm sure you will see our supporters start doing that. >> the legacy will use these online tours, use you base of

supporters to advocate for the president's agenda. >> they need to work tohether. i will be one of those folks volunteering. hat are you going to do? >> i wan to be involved in some way. i have taken one vacation in five years. it is time to restore my energy. the presidentand i were joking about how bad i looked. i said i thought he looked g

reat. >> is it possible you will go into the white house. is i think my future outside the white house. becoming a part of whatyeever happens. >> it is possible you will run it on the outside? >> we need to have a conversation first. >> what is the horizon? >> you will want to see a d inaugural. the >> i do not thing -- we had

disucssion with our people. it is lceal healthcare would not have pase d with out that. >> you were the first president since sdr to get 50% of the votwe twice. the country to talk to people. the truth is, the world had changed since 2008. all of those things have changed drastically. i went to see a lot of people and steven spielberg said to me, you have to blow up the 2008 campaign. you are on the the 1965 rolling stones once and then you charge too much for your ticket. it was an interesting way to think about that campaign. i said to the president i need

you to promise me it is not going to be 2008 again. he said, what are you talking about? we've won. i said if we run the same campaign, i think we will get beat. we need a new campaign because of technology. he said to me, ok, but as to be about the grass roots. >> and you have to win. >> so we -- he made the single most important scission to put us in chicago. i think that was a crucial moment. >> there was debate about this. some people worried if there was a natural split between the west wing and the campaign, why did it work? >> because you had a bunch of committed people who spent all day, every day, sitting in an open space in chicago, almost no offices, and built a brand

new campaign. the reason i knew it was going to work was in on august of 2011, somebody said is there's something happening in d.c. these days? what is happening? we were focused on building. we did not have you poking and prodding us. we were able to spend a year building a whole bunch of things becoming helpful on the ground. we were able to spend 15 hours a day, every day, building a grass-roots campaign. >> how many people were in the building? >> 650 in july. then we started putting people

in the battleground states. >> what was the most you had on payroll? >> a little bit over 4000. in october. >> and, did you -- can you imagine another campaign being that size? or is that what a campaign looks like? >> i think whoever has my job to blow it up and build their own campaign. everything is going to change again in four years. i think they should do what we did and spend a lot of time trying to dream their own dream. >> what is the smartest thing and the dumbest thing that the romney campaign did? >> the smartest thing, that is a great question. [laughter] i did not mean that snidely. i thought they were amazing fund-raisers. >> what, specifically --

>> more maxed out money, more maxed out checks. >> what did you learn from that? later, they got their checks earlier and you got your as a leader in the cycle. was that planning or necessity? >> we had a better model. our average contribution was $47. that has most of your money at the rnc or dnc, and that is a problem because you want to spend your money. our fund-raising allow us to do everything inside which allow us to spend our money on the ground. the majority of their money was at the rnc because they were raising $30,000 checks. >> what is a blunder, something

that was costly to them? >> the jeep ad. that was the biggest one. they spent the last 14 days of the election on the defense. day after day they had to answer for that. it put them on the defense for a long time because it was not true. >> the flip side of that, you put the events back in spring, defining him. a lot of regret among republicans about how early you define him. the kind of campaign -- why was that a brilliant insight? >> at the time it was risky because of super pacs. we were going to spend a majority of our money in the summer and not of the fall. we were going to get out spend because we believed that late tv did not matter as much.

it turns out we were right. >> based on what you know about the nation's mood and geography, everything you learned, what republican candidate would have had the best shot? >> that is a good question. we were honest about our concerns about jon huntsman. i think he would have been a tough general election candidate. as someone who helped manage his confirmation, he is a good guy. we looked at his profile and thought he would have been difficult. >> and you thought by bringing him inside, you would take him off the -- >> i thought he was a committed america and who would serve our country well. and he did. >> based on your knowledge of the country's mood, what of the

candidates out there has the best chance of doing well in this coming cycled? >> that is their discussion. their party is going to go through a soul-searching. that is a normal thing. my party went through that in the past. it? >> they cannot continue to hemorrhage youth and latino votes. the future demographics of this country are changing that is going to make their math difficult if they cannot appeal populace. >> we have already had an interesting conversation about reaching hispanic voters.

you feel like there is the degree to which they do not get it to? >> we will see. we will see the lessons they learned. whether or not they come together across party lines to deal with the fiscal cliff in a way that makes sense, whether they pass in immigration bill that makes sense for the country, those would be good signs. >> what was your immediate thinking about paul ryan and where did you end up thinking? >> my immediate was i cannot believe they're going to do this. just -- i -- axelrod always thought it was going to be paul ryan. >> he did not. he thought it was going to be tim pawlenty. >> ax looked at me and said they are going to pick paul

ryan. at the time i thought to myself, they're going to spend a lot of time on defense on medicare, medicaid, all whole bunch of issues. >> they were not divisive issues. >> did you see how close florida was? i think they spent some time defending it. important. we aired several ads. i thought he added some youth and energy. they had a base concerns and he helped those. so i am not criticizing the pick i just think there were other -- >> you are. >> i was giving an assessment of the good and bad.

>> was the helpful? he gave them excitement. he bought them silence from conservatives. did that help or hurt mitt romney? >> i do not think it did much of be there. here is the truth. we carried his home town. vice-presidential picks usually help you in their state or they add something to the national ticket. you have to ask governor romney. >> besides the automobile in the midwest, at what other regional issues? >> in iowa and colorado, wind energy tax credit. there was an issue that was important in both of those states. obviously models, jobs, the president jobs plan. and i think taxes.

we had a fight where you had the president advocating to increase taxes on people who made more than $250,000 a year. >> looking ahead at the agenda, how big is climate energy? >> if you look at what to this country needs to do to create jobs, having a sound energy policy makes incredible sense. i think there are it a lot of voters who cared deeply about this. voters have said repeatedly this is an issue they want addressed moving forward. from an economic standpoint and for the future of the country. >> you think the president will do something dramatic? >> he has a plan to move forward.

>> is the new democratic movement dead or no longer relevant? >> i think that our party has always been the big party and we have different views and that is healthy. that is exactly why i believe i am a democrat. i believe our vision of the country has a lot of people working across party lines and there are folks in our party who all want to do one thing. that is work to move the country forward. we just had an election two weeks ago. i feel great about the outcome. everybody needs to work together to deal with our challenges. >> a few more twitter questions coming in. rutherford b. haze, when did you think victory was all but certain? >> we call that going inside of

the jar. i thought 10 days before the election when early numbers did not cut into our lead, because early vote was predict of whether or not your segments of the population were going to vote. if they were going to take the time, it was likely they were going to do well. they were all over performing on an early vote. i thought to myself we are going to over perform on election day. >> something surprising this house that it was. there were a few moments, but it was pretty flat. >> it was. that is why -- going back to my issue, the public polls were crazy. they were all over the place. >> what searching and you need

to do? would you need to do to change about how they are conducted? >> you have to decide whether or not you're going to [inaudible] some pollsters do not go to party, deal with cell phones. you cannot auto dial cell phones. if you're not going to put them, you are going to under sample youth and minorities. that is going to make your samples, older than they should be and not enough minorities. that is why some looked so difficult for the president because they were under sampling. that is another place where they got it wrong.

>> the majority of public polls were closed. within the margin of error. >> their last poll got it right. i think the more descriptive thing was two weeks before that and a month before that. it is all up and down, inside, back-and-forth. that is people who are getting the sample wrong. >> you think the state of public polling is what? >> broken. >> what needs to be done? >> we have to have a discussion about getting more self loans into the sample, what the electorate looks like. it is expensive. >> politico -- what were you going to say? >> they give you a price. your prices more if you have a cell phone in it because it is more expensive.

you do because you want your poll to make sense. >> you think even more cellphone -- >> here is the truth. raise your hand if you have a land line. raise your hand if you have a cellphone. all those people -- i am not done ranting. [laughter] we did an experiment using the gallup electorate. 20% of people would have gotten thrown out. 20%. they said they were not going to vote. that is a completely wrong screen. you are getting a raw deal and a lot of people are putting these polls on the front page. in the lead of the news, obama is down and he was tied a week ago.

no, no he was not. he screwed up your sample. >> you mentioned cell phones. what else needs to change about the industry practice? >> what file are they using? are they doing random dial? are they using a list? are they doing a vote to file? are they doing something that has new registered voters? >> we registered a 1.8 million on the doors. most did not get those people because they did not by the new file. they did not know they were registered. the other thing, figuring out what to the alleged sort of

looks like. like 2004. >> what gave you confidence? >> of voter registration, enthusiasm, we can see our people excited. they were giving money. that was important. and early voting. when we started to see the numbers come in, we ran a campaign on the ground to do this, we could see our elector it was voting at the rates we hoped they would. more than that. we started to say if that is true, we are going to be ok. >> if you would write a technology book about what you learned, what did you learn? >> it would be a big book.

it would start with hiring really smart people, regardless of their age. give them a budget and support and hold them accountable. things. >> campaigns -- you hired technological people and people who were not political. >> one of the best pieces of advice i got from eric schmidt, the chairman of google. he said you do not want political people. you want people who you are going to draw what you want and they will build that. that was very true. we hired a cto who thought we were crazy be in from mars. and we thought the same of him. we all, to get there, spent a

year of learning each other's languages. then we would draw things on the white ford and say this is what we want you to do. build us a program to use facebook to get them to organize their friends. he said that is going to be hard and expensive. i complained about how expensive it was and then we built it. >> what did you learn from him a political person would never have seen? >> what did i learn? i think what he learned. he would say that in the end, they did a lot of things to make door knocking easier. that is what this is about. he said this to me, all of these people in his room and in every door around the country were doing it because of barack obama.

we got people to take pay cuts and giveaway golden parachutes barack obama. >> is that true, this was the most expensive in history? >> totally. we had to weigh more than last time. we registered with more voters. we had more volunteers. 2008 was a magical campaign. 2012, we finally got good at it. we spent five years learning how to do it. the best story, in august, i went to a convention in ohio. this amazing team leader said to me, the simplest thing about the obamacare campaign, i have been organizing for barack obamai know everybody in my neighborhood. i know the democrats who might forget to vote. i know the independence and i know how they make up their mind.

she looked at me and said, the rounding guy just came from out of state. could you think is going to be better? that was true. polls showed we got a majority of voters that this side of the final day of the campaign. in part that was because of the president and in part because they got a door knock, let me walk you through why i, your neighbor, why i support barack obama. they said i just saw this television ad and they said this about obama. the team leader said let me send you a facebook post why that is not true. let me make sure you understand. we could see those people were moving to west. they were moving to west at the

end of the campaign. in an incumbent race, typically incumbents lose undecideds. >> we are about to get the hook here. you're talking about how surgical you were in getting out your vote. will swing voters, are they passe? will they not give the attention they have? >> here is what happened. it is partially wide polling is screwed up. a lot of people do not vote like independence, especially on the republican side. you have covered this. people are registering as independents because of the tea party and other things. they look like independence. they are in -- they say they are independent but they vote republican.

moderates is a better way to define them. those are the people you're going to fight for. independence, we learned that a majority are not independent. they usually vote democratic or republican. left in the middle are moderates. >> how many were on the bubble? >> hard to give you an answer. i know the president one that grew by 15 points. >> one was the last time they decided? what was the triggering a for the group of true swing voters? >> 75% of voters that made up their mind by the conventions. >> what this typical? >> less than that. i know that is set an historic number. that shows the polarization the

country feels between the two parties. so, the moderates way to a while to make a decision and then they looked at taxes, the economy, jobs, and they went to the president. >> what is an emerging trend in technology or how people consumer information that will have implications for 2014? the leading edge? >> that is a good question. the prevalence of people getting their information online has exploded. you look as swing voters and how little they are watching tv, we all had three places you got your news from. now they get their nightly news from 15 sources. jon stewart is an important moment from that.

if you are a democratic-leaning woman, you love rachel maddow. getting to those people is harder. they are way more online than anyone. you have to go to where they are. campaigns will spend more and more of their money online than ever before. until it reaches parity with television. >> and you think television will still be big in 2016. >> it is going to be the dominant media but online is going to catch up very quickly. i think it already is catching up for young voters who are looking -- >> within a couple cycles? >> no question. i think the next election is

going to have to decide, as we did, what percentage you spent online, it is harder than ever to reach people. there is a magical place you can reach every american voter and it is at the door. that is why the future of campaigns is going to go back. we beat them badly on the doors. >> karl rove says republicans should reverse engineer but once they got into a general, and you could spend all of the money on tv, and we were outspent on tv, but i believe they're going to look at our campaign and realize the

messenger matters and we had a better messenger. and that we'd beat them on the doors. that really matters. >> if i am planning a 2014 campaign, what can i learn from you? what do i need to do differently? >> i think you need to look at online in a new way. in 2008, online was about putting everything through barack obama.com. in 2012, we had a world where we program content to different places. we did not care where you consumed the content. on election day, we sent out one tweet. now it is prevalent. he did tumblr, a whole bunch of things that did not exist in 2008 just to get to people. i think you're going to be

cross channel in a way that we were not at all. cross channel means you are going to be wherever the voter is. you're going to program content for facebook, google, wherever they are. >> let's pull back from online. if i am planning a 2016 campaign, what do i learn from obama for america? >> hugh learned the need for an online don't base that allows you to -- you learned the need for an online donor base that allows you to raise money. >> this time he raised 1 billion tax 70% online. -- you raised $1 billion? 7% online. >> the most important thing i would say to any campaign is it

is about your candidate and the message. what they're going to bring to this country. that is why millions of americans signed up. it was not because they got a t-shirt. they did. it was not because of a bumper sticker. they believe in the vision barack obama has. that is why we won the election. >> we thank our hard-working politico colleagues and bankamerica, c-span for being here, those of you streaming, thank you to anybody who got up early for this conversation. national captioning institute] national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> next a speech by fed chair and then the president of the american federation of teachers. and after that a discussion on china's economic, military and political power. >> if you listen to mayor bloomberg that the damage was unprecedented maybe the worst storm the city ever faced, governor christy said the damage in new jersey was unthinkable, we had fires and hurricane force winds and massive flooding and feet of snow. if you look at that and look at the flooding to the subway systems and the shut down of the stock exchanges, you get a sense of the mass of scale and sense of scope of this storm yet networks performed.

for many consumers their only link to information was through their smart phone, linking social media and their smart phone. while there was an impact on cell sites i think the networks performed well. >> my asays sment some networks did well, some did less well. there are no reporting requirements on these networks, there are no standards by which we measure their performance and it's voluntary whether they want to talk to their state and local governments or not. so i take their word for it that they responded well. i also have anecdotely heard that some of these guys did less well and i think the first step is find out who did well and who didn't well and how we make sure everybody does well. >> the impact of hurricane

sandy on telecommunications systems. >> federal reserve chairman talked about the fiscal cliff urging congress to negotiate a deal that will begin to take effect next year. he said the central bank will aid recovery but can't offset the full force of the fiscal cliff. from the economic club of new york this is about>> thank you very much. 50 minutes. good afternoon. it is nice of you to join me for lunch at this intimate gathering. i know many of you and your friends and neighbors are recovering from the events of hurricane sandy -- i want to let you know our thoughts are with everyone who has suffered during the storm and its aftermath. it has been a very challenging

time for new york city. i think you have shown quite a bit of fortitude in coming back and getting back to business. my remarks today are going to focus on the reasons for the disappointingly slow pace of economic recovery in the united states, and the policy actions that have been taken by the federal open market committee to support the economy. in addition, i will discuss important economic challenges our country faces as we close out 2012 and move into 2013, in particular the challenge of putting federal government finances on a sustainable path and the longer run while avoiding actions that would endanger the economic recovery in the near term. the economy is continuing to recover from the financial crisis and recession, but the pace of the recovery has been slower than fomc participants and others had hoped or anticipated when i spoke here last, three years ago. indeed, since the recession

trough in 2009, growth in real gdp has averaged only a little more than 2% per year. similarly, the job market has improved over the past three years, but at a slow pace. the unemployment rate, which peaked at 10% in the fall of 2009, has since come down 2%, to just below 8%. this is a welcome decline, but it has taken a long time to achieve the progress, and the unemployment level is still well above its level prior to the onset of the recession and the level that our colleagues and i think can be sustained once a full recovery is achieved. many features of the job market, including the historic high level of long-term unemployment, the large number of people working part-time because they have not been able to find full-time jobs, and the decline in labor force participation reinforce the conclusion that we have some way to go before the labor market can be deemed healthy again.

meanwhile, inflation has generally remained subdued. as is often the case, inflation has been pushed up and down in recent years by fluctuations in the price of crude oil and other globally traded commodities, including the increase in farm prices brought on by the summer drought. with longer-term inflation expectations remain stable, the ad and flow of commodity prices have led to only transfer movements in inflation. indeed, since the recovery began about three years ago, consumer price inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditures index has averaged almost exactly 2%, which is the fomc longer run objective. because ongoing slack in labor should continue to restrain wage and price increases, and the expectations of inflation continuing to remain well anger, inflation over the next few years is likely to remain close to or a little below the committee's the objective.

as background for our monetary policy decision making, we add the reserve have spent a good deal of effort attempting to understand why the recovery has not been stronger. studies of previous financial crises proved one good place to start. this literature, as many of you know, has found severe financial crises, particularly those associated with housing booms and busts, have often been associated with many years of subsequent weak performance. while this result allows for many interpretations, one possibility is the financial crisis or the deep recessions that typically accompany them may reduce an economy's potential growth rate at least for a time. the accumulating evidence does appear consistent with the financial crisis and associated recession having reduced the potential growth rate of our economy somewhat at least during the past few years.

in particular, slower growth of central output would expand why the unemployment rate has declined in the case of the relatively modest output gains we have seen during the recovery. output normally has to increase at about a longer-term trend just to create enough jobs to absorb new entrants to the labor market. trend growth is usually needed to reduce unemployment. the fact that unemployment has declined in recent years despite economic growth at 2% suggests that the growth rate of potential output must have recently been lowered from the roughly 2.5% rate that appeared to be in place before the crisis. there are a number of ways in which the financial crisis could have slowed down the greater growth of the economy's potential. for example, the extraordinarily severe job losses that fog the crisis, especially in housing related industries, may have exacerbated for a time the mismatch between jobs available and the skills and locations of the unemployed.

meanwhile, the very high level of long-term unemployment has probably led to some loss of skills and labor force attachment among those workers. these factors may have pushed up to some degree the so-called natural rate of unemployment. the rate of unemployment that can be sustained under normal conditions. a reduced labor force labor force participation as well. the pace of productivity gains also have been restrained by the crisis as business investment declined sharply. increases in risk aversion and uncertainty combined with tight credit conditions may have impeded the commercial application of new technologies and slow the pace of business formation. importantly, however, all the the nation's potential output may have grown more slowly than expected in recent years, this slowing the scenes at best a partial explanation of the disappointing pace of the economic recovery.

in particular, even though the natural rate of unemployment have increased somewhat, a variety of evidence suggests that any such increase has been modest and a substantial slack remains in the labor market. for example, the slow pace of employment growth has been widespread across industries and regions across the economy. that pattern suggests a broad base shortfall in demand rather than a substantial increase in mismatch between available jobs and workers. because greater mismatch could imply that the demand for workers would be strong in some regions and industries but not weak across the board. likewise, a mismatch of jobs and workers -- if that were the predominant problem, we would expect to see wage pressures developing in industries

related demand is strong. in fact, wage gains have been subdued in most industries and parts of the country. the consensus among my colleagues at the fomc is that the unemployment rate is still well above its lumber run sustainable level, perhaps by 2% or 2.5% or so. a critical question, then, is why the significance slack in the job market still remains after three years of recovery. a likely explanation, which i will discuss further, is that the economy has been faced with a variety of headwinds that have hindered what otherwise might have been a stronger cyclical rebound. if so, we may take some encouragement from the likelihood that there are potentially two sources of gdp growth in the future. first, the fact of the crisis on potential output should fade as the economy continues to heal. second, the head winds continued to dissipate, as i expect, growth should pick up further as many who are currently unemployed or out of the labor force find work.

one of the headwinds slowing return of our economy -- what are the headwinds slowing the return of our economy to full employment? some come from the housing sector. previous recoveries have been associated with a vigorous rebound in housing as rising incomes and a decline mortgage interest rates have led to sharp increases in the demand for homes. but the housing bubble and its aftermath have made this episode quite different. in the first half of the past decade, both housing prices and construction rose to unsustainable levels, leading to a subsequent collapse. house prices declined almost one-third nationally from 2006 until early this year. construction of single-family homes fell by two-thirds and the number of construction jobs decreased by nearly one-third. the associated surge in delinquencies on mortgages helped to trigger the financial crisis. recently, home prices and

construction have moved up. these developments are encouraging and it seems likely that residential investment will be a source of economic growth and new jobs over the next couple of years. however, welt historical low mortgage interest rates and a drop in home prices have made housing exceptionally affordable, a number of factors continue to prevent the sort of powerful housing recovery that is typically has typically occurred in the past. lenders have maintained tight curbs and conditions on mortgage loans, even for potential borrowers with relatively good credit. lenders said a number of factors, including ongoing uncertainty on the course of the economy, the housing market, and the regulatory environment. unfortunately, while some tightening of the terms of mortgage credit is certainly an appropriate response to the developments of earlier excesses', the pendulum appears

to have swung too far, restraining the recovery in the housing sector. other factors slowing the recovery in housing include the fact that many people remain unable to buy homes despite low mortgage rates. about 20% of existing mortgage borrowers owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, making it more difficult for them to refinance or sell their homes. also, a substantial overhang of vacant homes, either for sale or in the foreclosure pipeline, continue to hold down prices and reduce the need for construction. while these headwinds have clearly started to abate, the recovery in the housing sector is likely to remain moderate by historical standards. a second set of headwinds stems from the financial conditions facing potential borrowers in

credit and capital markets. after the financial system seized up in late 2008 and early 2009, global economic activity contracted and credit markets suffered. although dramatic actions by governments and central banks around the world help these markets to stabilize and begin recovery, tough credit and a high degree of risk aversion remained. they have restrained economic growth in the united states and other countries as well. measures of the condition of u.s. financial markets and institutions suggest gradual but significant progress achieved since the crisis. for example, credit spreads on corporate bonds and syndicated loans have narrowed considerably, and equity prices have recovered most of their losses. in addition, indicators of market stress and illiquidity, such as short-term funding markets, have generally returned to levels near the scene before the crisis. one gauge of the overall

improvement of financial markets is the national financial conditions index, maintained by the fed reserve bank of chicago. this index shows that financial conditions viewed as a whole are now about as accommodative as they were in the spring of 2007. in spite of this brought improvement, the harm inflicted by the financial crisis has yet to be fully repaired important segments of the financial sector. one example is the continued weakness of some categories of bank lending. banks' capital positions and overall asset quality have improved substantially over the past several years, and overtime the balance sheet improvements will position banks to extend certainly more credit to back dependent are worse. indeed, some types of credit, such as commercial and industrial loans, have expanded notably in recent quarters. nonetheless, banks are being a conservative in extending loans to many consumers and some

businesses, likely even beyond the restrictions on the supply of mortgage credit i talked about earlier. this caution in lending by banks reflects their continued desire to guard against risks posed by economic weakness. a common risk at present any major source of financial headwinds are the couple of years is the fiscal and financial situation in europe. the situation was not anticipated when the united states recovery began in 2009. elevated levels of stress and european and economies and uncertainty about how problems will be resolved are adding to risks that institutions, businesses, and households must consider when making lending and investment decisions. negative sentiment regarding your appears to have weighed on u.s. equity prices and prevented u.s. credit spreads from narrowing even further. weaker economic conditions in europe and other parts of the

world have also weighed on u.s. exports and corporate earnings. policy makers in europe have taken some important steps recently and in doing so have contributed to some welcome easing in the financial conditions. in particular, the new out right monetary transactions program of the european central bank under which it can purchase sovereign debt of vulnerable euro area countries that agree to meet prescribed conditions have helped. european governments are also strengthening their financial firewalls and moving toward a greater fiscal and banking union. greater improvement in financial conditions will depend in part on the extent to which european policymakers follow through on these initiatives. a third headwind to the recovery and one which may intensify in the coming quarters is u.s. fiscal policy. although fiscal policy at the federal level is quite a expansionary during the recession and early in the

recovery, as the recovery proceeded the support provided for the economy by federal fiscal actions was increasingly offset by the adverse effects of a tight budget conditions for state and local governments. in response to a large and sustained decline in their tax revenues, state and local governments had cut about 600,000 jobs since the third quarter of 2008 while reducing real expenditures for infrastructure projects by about 20%. more recently, the situation has to some extent reversed. the drag on economic growth for state and local fiscal policy has diminished as revenues have improved and pressures have eased for further spending cuts or tax increases. in contrast, programs have led federal fiscal policy to begin restraining gdp growth. indeed, under almost any plausible scenario the drag

next year from federal fiscal policy on gdp growth will outweigh the positive effect on growth from fiscal expansion at the state and local level. however, the overall effect of the federal fiscal policy on the economy in the near term and the longer run remains quite uncertain and depends on how policy makers meet two daunting fiscal challenges. one by the start of the new year, and the other by no later than the spring. what are these challenges? first, the congress will need to protect the economy from the full brunt of the current fiscal tightening built into law, the so-called fiscal cliff. the realization of all the automatic tax increases and spending cuts that make up the fiscal cliff absent offsetting changes would pose a substantial threat to recovery.

indeed, by the reckoning of the congressional budget office, and that of many outside observers, a fiscal shock of that size would send the economy toppling back into recession. second, early in the new year it will be necessary to approved an increase in the federal debt limit. the threat of default in the summer of 2011 fueled economic uncertainty and badly damaged confidence even though an agreement was ultimately reached. a failure to reach a timely agreement this time around could impose even heavier economic and financial costs. as policy makers face these critical decisions, they should keep two decisions in mind. first, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path. the budget deficit, which

peaked in 2009, is expected to narrow further in the coming years as the economy continues to recover. however, the cbo projects that under a possible such a policy assumptions the deficit could still be greater than 4% of gdp in 2018, assuming the economy has returned to its potential by then. moreover, under the protection, the deficit and the ratio of federal debt to gdp would subsequently returned to an upward trend. we should all understand that long-term projections of ever increasing deficits will never accept underpass because the willingness of lenders to continue to fund the government can only be sustained by a responsible fiscal plans and actions. a credible framework to set a better fiscal policy, one in which the ratio of federal debt to gdp eventually stabilizes or

declines, is urgently needed to maintain stability. even as policy-makers address the urgent issue of longer run out stability, they should not ignore a second key objective, to avoid unnecessarily adding to the head winds that are already holding back the economic recovery. fortunately, these objectives are compatible and mutually reinforcing. preventing a sudden and severe contraction in fiscal policy early next year will support the transition of the economy back to full employment, and a stronger economy will in turn reduce the deficit and contribute to achieving long-term fiscal sustainability. at the same time, a credible plan to put the federal government on a plan that will be sustainable in the long run could help keep longer-term interest rates low and boost confidence, thereby supporting economic growth today. coming together to find fiscal

solutions will not be easy, but the stakes are high. uncertainty about how the fiscal cliff, the raising of the debt limit, and the longer-term budget situation will be addressed appears already to be affecting private spending and investment decisions. and may be contributing to increased caution in financial markets with adverse effect on the economy. continuing to push off policy choices will only prolong and intensify these uncertainties. moreover, while the details of whatever agreement is reached to resolve the fiscal clip are important, the economic confidence of market participants and the general public will likely also be influenced by the extent to which our political system proves able to deliver a reasonable solution with a minimum of uncertainty and delay. finding long-term solutions with sufficient political support to be enacted may take time, but meaningful progress to this end can be achieved now if policy makers are willing to think creatively and work

together constructively. let me now turn briefly to monetary policy. monetary policy can do little to reverse the effects of the financial crisis may have had on the economy. however, it has been able to provide an important offset to the head winds that have slowed recovery. as you know, the federal reserve took strong easing measures during the financial crisis and recession. cutting the funds rate, the traditional tool of monetary policy, to nearly zero. we have provided accommodations from unconventional policy tools and putting downward pressure on long-term interest rates -- asset purchases that reduce the supply of longer-term securities outstanding in the market and communication about the future path of policy. most recently, after the september fomc meeting we

announced the federal reserve would purchase additional mortgage-backed securities and would continue with the program to extend the maturity of the treasury holdings. these additional asset purchases should put downward pressure on long-term interest rates and make broader financial conditions more accommodative. moreover, our purchases bring down mortgage rates, provide support directly to housing and thereby help mitigate some of the headwinds facing that sector. we announced he would continue purchasing, undertake additional purchases of long-term securities, and apply other policy tools until we get the outlook for the labor market has improved substantially in the context of price stability. although it is still too early to assess the facts of our most recent policy actions, yields on corporate bonds have fallen significantly on balance since the fomc's announcement.