help us with any questions that get particularly complicated. you know, as i said in the speech, the chamber believes that the american economy is improving and that it's gaining momentum. we expect, as i said, growth to accelerate to about 3% by the end of this year. but doesn't mean at all that we're out of the woods. 21 million americans are still unemployed, underployed or stopped looking for work. american workers have not seen substantial increases in pay in recent years. obamacare, dodd-frank and other laws and regulations still creating a lot of uncertainty. our challenge now is to keep and expand the growth we have finally ae chiefed to create millions of jobs we still badly need and to extend those benefits and opportunities of the recovery to all americans. and, you know, the issue is how do you do this? first, by passing trade

promotion authority and then moving forward on the free trade agreements that we have underway. second by accelerating the energy revolution with millions and millions of americans to work. and it's bringing manufacturing back to the u.s. and if you ask me some questions about that, we have a lot of things to tell you. and the passage of common sense immigration reform will clearly add jobs. it won't at all take away jobs. it'll provide a lot of innovation and investment. monetizing the regulatory system and informing government process, that's an ongoing issue, but i think we can make some progress there. and getting our fiscal house in order is absolutely critical to us. by the way, you heard me talk about all that entitlement stuff. there's a series of charts on

your place that make it crystal clear. they're not our charts. they're charts provided by the government of the united states of america. we have to also address the flaws in obamacare. it's a mass itax bill, a massive rules and regulation system. a lot of people are wondering how to get the health care. we're going to talk about that. we're not going to get rid that have bill. so we have to devise ways to make it work. let me drive this point home. and i said this inside, there's a lot we can do to make a bigger pie and put more people to work. but if we don't get real serious about the millions of young people that we're leaving out of the system, if you can't read and you can't comprehend, if you can't write and you can't communicate, and if you can't count and you can't deal with some modest technology, you can't work.

and we -- many of the jobs we had before are not available yet. now. we have taken 44% of the jobs out of manufacturing, and we'll get more. they're gone. we don't need them. we have computer technology and robotics and engineering and supply-chain management. all of that means you have to be educated if you want to go to work here. so before i take your questions, just one other point, you may have noticed there are going on some elections, and you may have noticed that we plan to be involved. we've started preparing for 2014 on election day 2012. and we strengthened this institution. we have put more people in the field, we have strengthened many, many of the visions of the chamber. we're prepared for this election. we're focusing intently on

candidate selection. early involvement in the primaries is where we're going. early voting we're dealing, positively shaping races right from the begin. you know, we won in alabama, thank god, but there's a lot more to come. and our response to this will be very significant. and having said all of that, i'll be very happy to take all your questions -- whoops. remember, i told you a couple of times before i even knew the answer i made it up. i'll give it to the marty or one of the other. who's first. why don't we go right here on the aisle. yes. >> hi, this is jessica with modern health care. could you just be a little more specific about the fixes to the health care, the health care

taxes, the medical device tax? the delay, it's already delayed for the mandate, how much longer? >> the issues here are in four or five buckets. the tax and expense issues are very significant. second, the questions of -- remember, everybody was going -- and by the way, i'm not playing a political game here. i'm talking about what we have to deal with. one of the reason all the costs are going up is all the requirements that must be in every plan. now if anybody ever thought that we could fundamentally tell the health insurance people, or whoever's running even the government, that you could provide all those things at the same cost, no way to do that. and the individual mandate and the -- and the corporate mandate, each one of them come with very significant challenges that we didn't know were going to be there. and so when you put all this together, people are now getting

plans that say, hey, now you're deductible has got to be bigger, your co-pay has got to be bigger, and you're limited on which doctors you can go to and which hospitals and so on. and why is that? it's because of all the requirements. and so i'm not so sure it's a matter of taking a, you know, a sisser ises a si sor and cutting out whole segments of the obamacare process, it's what the requirements are, who's paying for it, how do i get my health care? i was talking to -- this is a bad idea to always go to personal things. i was talking to my daughter-in-law last night who was told -- they belong to kaiser -- they'll be at least -- she wanted to change an address -- it'll be at least a month before they can do that because they have so many backed up issues. and i think what we have to do is delay whatever we have to

delay for short periods of time where we look these things over, go through all the stuff serve talking about, keep what works fix what we can fix and get rid of some things that might not fit. now i'm being a little broad in those comments, but you know exactly what i'm talking about. and we would be very happy afterwards to have all the people sit down and talk to you. the bottom line is the way the system is now, it's not the computers that are problems because you can fix problems in computers, it's what you're putting in it. okay. go ahead. >> hi, abc. you said 2014 is the year for immigration reform. can you outline what you plan to do either differently or the same from 2013 to actually get things done this year? >> 2013 we liked. you know, we made a deal in the senate. we did that with the cooperative basis with the afl-cio and lots

of other people. and then we started working in the house where i believe we have received very positive response. 485 people, not just a hundred of them, and we brought in 600 people to one group, we brought in faith-based and -- and folks from all sorts of social activities, you know, people, community leaders. we're going to -- and we brought business people in who see opportunities to create jobs and to bring companies here. we may not be otherwise bringing here. and what we're going to do is a lot more of the same. and we're going to do it back home as well. and you see my own view, i think democrats and republicans alike would like to go home and run for office with something they got done that's significant. and i believe we're two-thirds of the way there.

i've been encouraged by a lot of the noise and soundings out of the house. and i'm not discouraged -- every now and then wake up in the morning and see a story about some reason it's not going to work. 435 people have to go home and run for office, and i think we're going to get this done. yep? >> hi, andrew ackerman with the wall street journal. you said on the regulatory side that you wanted changes to the dodd-frank law, and i was wondering on what specific parts you don't think are workable and what might be changed or what you might push to be changed. >> i think there's a little history here. you had this dodd-frank legislation was written in a hurry and written by people that were mad. and written by people that didn't want to have responsibility for why it happened. and -- and so we have been at this now for almost three years.

and we have been -- had made great success in negotiations with the sec and the other agencies. we have had great success in the courts. our real concern now is, you know, more than half of those rules three years into this deal haven't been done. so what we're trying to do is bring common sense to this. to -- we have all the issues on corporate governance, that's one bunch, we're working on those. we've had all the issues on the requirements on the financial institutions, and now we're in a sort of a difficult area. we're looking at insurance companies and other investment groups, by some of these regulators are being treated like banks when they don't do anything of the things that banks do. we have got -- we have got the

volcker rule now. which bit way, remember what happened, five agencies collectively set up a whole series of questions and sent them out to everybody who is being affected or might be affected. they took back all the responses. they didn't send out a proposed rule then, they just sent a rule out and said this is what it's going to be. well, where we are there, because this -- this originally, the volcker rule was originally snended for the large financial institutions to raise the question about what investment they could do with their own funds and so on, and now it appears that it affects every small mid-size bank and financial institution in the country. i'll let marty talk to you about that in a second. but the bottom line is we have to sort our way threw this. some of the dodd-frank stuff's fine. some of it, as i said, was

written in a hurry. and we're going to have to sort it out. the basic issue is you want to get a mortgage. and your brother-in-law who has a small company wants to be able to get a loan. and people want to be able to invest their funds and plan for their retirement. and if you go to every bank in this country and you have five regulatory agencies living there with one of them telling let's get the money back and lock it in the safe, and the other saying let's get the money out and lend it. this is a very complicated time. we'll be working on that. marty? >> the access to capital for small businesses is at primary concern. health care is there, they have to deal with it. but they don't know if they can get the capital to operate the business. the dodd-frank rules and the fed in the allocation in the system is a brand new ball game. we want clarification on where it's going, how to administer

it. the fed is very good with banks and they're very good at kind of looking at the world through a central banker's eyes. but they really have to develop a different view to determine what is the best allocation, the best flow of capital. where should they intercede because there's an excessive risk, and where should they let the free market innovate and two in that direction? i think that's one area where we watch very closely on the implementati implementation. >> and we have a lot of new people at the fed. i worry that marty would go and run the fed. but we're glad to keep him. >> just aside from adjusting the contours of the volcker rule, is there specific legislation you are going to push for to eliminate portions of dodd-frank that haven't been implemented yet? >> i think i'd stay tuned on

that. >> kevin hall. i'll try to get a question with a marty angle in there. you talked about income inequality, and it sounded like you were calling into question in your state of the business the concept. i think you said opportunity, not outcome, is what you're after. how would you assess outcome since the whole debate on income inequality is because it's skewed. you have several republican candidates, paul ryan, rand paul, pushing things, we're going to hear from marco rubio today. it's resonating with republicans as well. where would you see the areas you would focus on? >> i think you have the short-term issues and the long-term issues and they're both important. i really believe that there are great opportunities to drive this economy forward in the short-term. the energy revolution, which we

all see and appreciate, the question that this administration in their second term has become very, very aggressive, and i congratulate them on the trade side, which will create a good deal of economic growth and opportunity. the reality that -- that we -- we are finally facing up to the fact that there are many, many job opportunities if -- if -- if we can get the government to -- to help make it happen. and that's, you know, as i said, energy, trade, the whole question of investment and where it's going. so i think we're going in the right direction, right? and now what's happening, and the reason you're going to see three speech this is week and what i said on the question of opportunity or inequality, is

because the white house has chosen, it appears to us, to make this their approach over the next year. and i think the real problem, if there is an inequality, is the -- the economy has -- the recession was over in 2009, and we have been sitting on our heels since then because the view across the street is that more government programs are going to create more jobs. our view is more freedom for the job creators is going to create more jobs. and that means dealing with some of the regulation issues, clearly dealing with the questions of capital markets, and how can we get capital into the hands of the people that will create jobs using the energy situation to move forward capitalizing really big-time on the questions of what an

immigration policy would do, and on and on. that's it. in the long run, though, in the long run, if we don't do something about the nation's education policy, if we don't do something about our job training after that, i -- i think we've got a real problem. you know, the core standards simply say three things, they say, okay, here's the deal. if you want to go to college, this is what you have to do. if you want to go into a community college and learn a skill, this is what you have to do, and if you want to just go get a job, this is what you have to do. and i'm telling you right now that we're leaving 30% of the people in a position, maybe more, where they just don't qualify for any of that, and if that keeps going for a long period of time, that is denying people opportunity. that is creating inequality, and that's something this country ought to do something about. oh, by the way, it all takes

money, and we need to deal with entitlements, because entitlements are going to eat all the money. i'll listen to them, but i'll get them all. >> it was clear from your speech, mr. donahue that trade is important for the chamber this year. i was wondering what you think is the likelihood for the trade promotion authority, and signals from the white house that the president is willing to expend the kind of political capital that is going to be necessary to get it through congress. thanks. >> the trade promotion authority will pass. it will be introduced sometime in the near future. it will pass. take a while to do it. it will have a little debate. it's the one thing that puts the congress in the game. and they're going to want to do this. and by the way, why all this trade? 95% of the people you want to sell something to don't live in this country. next? right there. >> -- as a retirement crisis,

and if so, what should the federal government and they do? >> the first retirement crisis is the entitlement programs are going to bankrupt this country if we don't do something about it. and i believe there are going to be so many people retiring, it will create lots of new industries, by the way, that's good, but we're going to have to look at the implications and what adjustments, not taking these things away, that we can make that'll make it palatable for those that are retiring and for those that have to pay. and you heard me at the end of the speech, this is the first time that we're basically calling on the young to pay for the old and we need to think our way through that. next. okay. >> thank you. ben with national journal. you mentioned the support for energy exports broadly. is the chamber looking to lift

the ban of the export of crude oil and will that be a lobbying focus for the chamber this year? >> the re strikss we were put in on the oil crisis, when cars were lined up to get to gas stations around the block. marty and i are old enough to remember that, maybe he isn't. and we need to take another look at those restrictions. obviously we want to use the energy at home first, but, you know, we don't restrict people from exporting airplanes we make, or exporting food products we produce or exporting technology. there are a few things you can't export. but i think it's important to look at energy as the next great american revolution that has the potential to help us on national security, oil and energy independence. to do it in a way that has extraordinary environmental

benefits. and i think you'll see us negotiating and working our way through that during this year. >> doesn't sound -- >> oh, i want to lift the ban. i just want to get it done in a reasonable sequence and i think everybody would be happy with getting the -- it's not going to happen overnight, but it's going to happen. all right, go ahead. >> rich with fox business network. a couple of questions, first, do you think congress should extend extended unemployment benefits, and be secondly, when you say you want to play in the primaries, how much do you want to play and pro-business candidate, is that anti-tea party? >> okay, let me start the first one. i think congress will extend it. they'll look for ways to pay for some of it. and even the president's chief economic -- the head of the council of economic advisers believes that the extended use

of unemployment -- the kind of unemployment insurance we talk about does not help create jobs as well. and marty has a word on that. but my view is we'll pass -- find a way to keep it going for a while. you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth. keep it going until we start to create jobs. now starting to create jobs, so shouldn't be put in for a long time. you want to say something about that? >> just quickly, on the issue of urn employment insurance, minimum wage, we are seeing a more disparate income destruction, but not as bad as the statistics show. when you adjust and use the right statistics, you see a much less onerous shift. so there's something that has to be done. but use the right number if you're going to affect the right cause and fix.

secondly, you can do short-term redistributions to affect the distribution after the fact, and if you're going to do that, then the earned income tax credit are the best way to go, not minimum wage. and extending unemployment insurance is not likely to help the distribution in any kind of long-term sense at all. and finally, if you want to fix the problem, virtually everybody that's studied it has come back to the education, training and skills and providing the opportunity for people to get on the band wagon and advance and move up. i think when you get into the whole distribution issue and the unemployment insurance, minimum wage and those kind of issues, you have to define the problem properly. decide if it's short-term, redistributive fixes, the symptomic relief, or cure the problem. we and thomas focused on trying to cure the problem. in order to do that, it is education, training and human capital. and virtually all the economic

studies show that. >> with all the unemployment we have right now, we could hire a million and a half people in the manufacturing business if we have the people with skimlls. we have to get them. we will be involved in the election and the primaries. right now -- open seats or whatever they happen to be. for the fundamental reason, the people that run have a chance of winning. we should get the very best candidate representing both parties for the purpose of ending up with the best result. we -- we probably now have a good half a dozen places that we're looking at in open seats and in primaries where people are trying to challenge -- particular lly long-serving and smart-voting people. and we'll be there in both the house and the senate. now you asked about the tea

party, let me make my -- if you're resting a minute, wake up. i have a very, very clear view about this. when the tea party first came out with who they were and what they believed, they talked about things that the chamber very much supports. sensible tax policy, they talked about reasonable -- reasonable control of federal costs, they talked about trade, the opportunity to create jobs and all of that stuff was pretty good. and then we had a lot of people that came along that had different views, and they tried to hitch their wagon to the tea party engine. and those were the people that wanted not to pay the federal debt and to shut down the government and to take more radical approaches to trying to get where we all to get where w

wanted to get. i think they're well-intentioned people, except when they get to washington they won't believe what we believe they need do, so why should we help them get here and help protect the people who are here. don't line me up as attack the tea party, because i'm not. >> tom, it's brian with bloomberg news. can you say specifically what elections you'll be focusing on and will tea party candidates be among those that you just mentioned? >> the first answer is no because what am i sending a lot of announcements out for? stay tuned, news when you see it. will tea party candidates -- i just segmented between the original -- i'm not trying to be difficult. this is a place i got to be very careful. i want -- you know, if -- i know a whole lot of tea party folks. if a lot of them are running, i'm going to support them. the question is who are we talking about when we absolutely get there? and what do they want to do?

people that walk into the -- announce i'm going to run for the house or senate, my idea is to burn down -- i'm hyperbolizing, my idea is to burn down the town, i won't support them. people who believe in the things we talked about will likely to get our support. one little refinement there, if we have somebody that is an 85%, 95% voter with the chamber, we're certainly going to support them over a challenger. >> sir, sir, this is kevin baum from cnn. following up on that point, you are also entertaining supporting challengers to incumbents who have not been supportive of the tea party versus just supporting people who have been supportive of the tea party? >> take the tea party out of that question, say will we support folks that challenge

people we think vote wrong and have not been helpful? sounds like a good idea. >> so are you committing to do that or are you looking at it. >> sounds like a good idea. yeah? >> jim with a.p.. >> nice to see you. >> regarding the upcoming debt ceiling debate, you said the nation cannot default on its debts, you also said there's a demand to address entitlements, do you see dealing with entitlements as a precondition of that debt ceiling debate, or do you see it moving on a separate track? i had a follow up. >> that was a good question. we'll have a debate on the debt. so we did a little research. and round numbers, you know, in the last 30 years, we had 50 -- over 50 deals where they had go out and fix the debt. and in more -- more than half of those it became a debate among the house and the senate and the

administration. and, they ended up more than half of those deals where they made some accommodation on spending or taxing, or other issues. even the president of the united states who doesn't believe there should be any discussion about it voted against the debt ceiling increase about something he felt very strongly about when he was a senator, dealt with iraq war, i think. but the point is, you have to start out -- there is going to be a discussion on this issue, and the implications of spending, taxing, budgeting, expanding the economy and all of that as a part of what are we going to do about the debt? i do not believe we will default on the debt. i do not believe we will close the government. i believe we will move forward on this deal and find an amicable way to get it done. >> as you know -- >> he -- >> entitlement reform is a

difficult thing to accomplish. do you think it -- they can come to some time of agreement? >> i will tell you where i am on entitlement reform. they may put a couple of dollars in there to say they're doing it entitlement reform will not get done in a serious way for a couple of years yet. we have to own up to this. we have go and have a conversation with the american people. we don't want to scare them. we want to explain to them what the reality is. what it means to them and their children. find a way do it energy is part of that. the one thing i say is that sometime between now and we make a deal somebody will make a decision. are we going to use the energy or are we not going use it? if we're not going to use it, you have a real problem. i don't think in the next deal that we'll have great debate about entitlements. so maybe a little fix there, but when you look at the total

numbers, it will be very small. >> thank you. >> hi, katie o'donnell, cq. do you think tax reform is at all possible this year? would you support what some lawmakers have said which is the only feasible option, to separate out corporate reform? or do you think that punishes small business owners? >> what happened the last tax deal, which was at the end of 2012, is we -- we came up with an agreement to go forward -- the congress did. but the sub-s and llc folks got hurt. and i don't think anybody's of the mood to go do that again. would you think? >> no. in fact, we have tax principles that our board has adopted that call for comprehensive reform. so -- >> now, can i answer your first question? the answer is no. i don't think -- i think -- by the way, there could be -- they could be this tax or that tax or

something dealing with issues that come up. i don't think you'll get comprehensive tax reform in this election year. >> hi, doug palmer with politico. you just said you were confident that trade promotion authority would pass this year. i wondered are you at all concerned that some tea party conservative republicans might be inclined to vote against the legislation because they would want to deny president obama a victory? do you see that as a big impediment to its passage? and should it fail, are you worried that that would have a chilling effect on the trade agreements that the administration is trying to conclude? essentially making it impossible to conclude those agreements? >> well, the last part was exactly right. if you don't have at some point tpa, the people we're negotiating with are not going

to agree to a deal without the understanding of how the congress will participate. by the way, you mentioned am i worried about others going against it. not particularly because i have been astounded to hear my colleagues tell me there are a whole lot of people in that category that are coming out very much in support of it. look, it's going to -- you know, when will they send it up? send it up today? tomorrow? next week? how long we discuss it. it will take a little while. but we'll get it. the votes are there. we'll get that done. i'm doing this one right here. go ahead. what's the point in being up here if i can't -- >> i'm from the business times. [inaudible question] as you know many foreign

countries come to america to seek u.s. investment, but now that the time that come that you want to show that the u.s. its n attractive investment destination. in south asia they are interested in investing into america. can you shed some light on how america is, despite national debt, despite deficits, that america is still a safe investment heaven? >> the question is basically why is america still the safe investment, the favorable investment place it is despite our economic circumstances. i thought about that a lot and i talked to people around the world on it. if you just open the paper, any day you turn through it, there are a lot of problems around the

world. very concerning, and if you want to put your money someplace, you would probably put them in some of those places. probably want to put it someplace where it's safe, where it can be profitable, and where it will be protected. i think america meets that point. >> you got strong growth. you got a stable currency. a strong currency. your investment is going to retain if it's a good investment. it's going to retain its value. it's not going to lose it returning it to the home currency. you have a situation, we have a strong court system. we protect property rights, and we protect the right to earn a legitimate profit. that makes the u.s. the primary destination for capital in the world today. >> see why he probably should have run the fed? where we going? i'll do this.

go ahead. i'll get you if you speak up. >> my name is karen thurmur with the financial times publication foreign direct investment. my question actually is similar to his, but a little different. i knows there a lot of promotion for fdi both here and abroad. i'm wondering if you can tell me what the appetite u.s. companies have for foreign expansion? i'm not just talking about the big mega companies, but mid size and such. >> first of all, marty might have a word on this, too. first of all, the -- 95% of the people we want to sell something to, as i said before, don't live in the united states. so there is a lot of appetite in small, medium-size and large companies who sell abroad. and therefore that includes some investment abroad because in a lot of places to sell it behooves you to make investments

there, open plants do that sort of thing. and i think -- i think the appetite is strong, but there's one issue -- they're getting much more selective. if you sit down at a board meeting or in a senior staff meeting or you sit down with the two partners in a small company and you say we have x dollars to invest, this product or this service to sell, where will we do that? you draw a line don't middle of the page, you say the ones on the left side look like places we ought to think about. all the ones on the right side, let's not go there. let's not go there because they may take our intellectual capital and not treat us well. let's not go there because our currency won't be safe, whatever it happens to be. so i believe we have the same excitement and even more attitude for trade and investment around the world, but in a much more selective basis. >> the big companies have always

understood the value of selling abroad and feeding the markets abroad. we're finding the smaller companies, it's a more daunting task. it's complicated. it's complex. and many of them have done it, in the past. chamber has had a program here for years called trade routes where we go into the smaller companies in areas around the country and try to help them with their trade issues. so they become more involved. i think one of the areas in our tax reform principles is clearly that we have to have international competitiveness in the tax code in order to foster more of that. because it creates good jobs at home. it creates income flow at home. it makes for more stable corporations, it makes for stronger economic growth in general. so we espouse it. we push it. we try to help those not now doing it get into it in a bigger wa

way. >> john with cq. how would you like to see medicare changed to ease burdens on the young? >> that is a -- something we're talking a great deal about. talking a lot of people about it. think there are three or four issues. first of all, medicare costs are unbelievable for a lot of reasons. we have to find ways to provide the services that medicare provides with three or four changes. you're probably going to have to do something a little more on the copays. you have to look very carefully, you know. we had a great program that helped us on the pharmaceuticals, which is a huge issue. how are you going to do that? it's about costs and delivery systems. and it's really about intelligent use by the medicare

participants of the system. by the way, it's also about -- i hate to say this, because this is always everybody's argument how you fix government spending. they say get rid of the waste, afraid and abuse. there is a good deal of fraud in the medicare system. not by our every-day retirees. there are a whole series of things to work on. the real thing that will be looked at is medicaid. that's growing faster than others. i will tell everybody and take the last question. over against that wall on this side there are a whole lot of really smart people that know about trade, know about energy, know about medicare, medicaid, health care, they know about legal reform, they know it all. and i told them to come down here, they would learn something from you. after we finish, if you want to ask them what our views are, they're a lot smarter than i am. it's one of our rules around here is we don't hire people who

don't know it better than marty and i know it. the last question is -- >> tom, andy sullivan with voters. you mentioned education reform. i'd like to hear more about what specifically you think needs to happen. do state and local governments need to spend more? do we need to make it easier for charter schools to open up should there be vouchers to allow public school students to attend private schools? what other things need to happen? >> first of all, we paint or k through 12 schools through the same brush when we talk about it. you know, there are a lot of k through 12 schools in this country where our kids get great educations. tremendous educations. and they come out and they go to good colleges, or they come out and they go to good crafts, service industries, or they come out and just get a job. but they can read, right,

calculate, think about things, know something about the world. they got a great education. the real question -- i'd like to change your question is what will we do about that 30%, whatever the number, 40% that are disadvantaged? that are -- they lack equal opportunity because of those schools. and when you look at those schools, it's sort of like anything else we do. it's like running your business. it's leadership. it's quality people. it's a clear set of objectives. it's a way of measuring what we're doing. you know, the question about money, we spend more money on education than we ever did and more anybody ever did. we need to spend it smartly. i think charter schools bring something to the party. i think, you know, having some sets of standards. look, the core standards don't tell you how you have to teach

people. they tell you what these kids have to come out of your school learning. i think the how is there. whether it was the republican education department or whether it's democrats or whether it's -- though the union issues are a little different amongst those what we have to do are pretty clear. what i'd like people to focus ia black and white deal. we have a lot of good ones, let's see what they're doing. we're anxious on working on that. if we can get everybody first mad and then concerned about this on a specific number -- not only the whole system, that we can begin to make progress. look, thank you very much for your patience. thanks for coming to do this all the time. we appreciate your coverage during the year. those folks will be happy to talk to you. if you really want to know

what's going to go on in the fed, ask marty. thank you.

>> on the next "washington journal" we'll look at u.s. marijuana laws and the significance over the decision in colorado to allow the sale of the drug for recreational use. our guests are dan riffle and kevin sabet. followed by a discussion on the f.b.i. their budget and how they adapt to law enforcement and national security needs.

"washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. former democratic national committee chair terry mcauliffe takes the oath of office today o become governor of virginia. beginning at 12:0 5:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> it has disappointed all of us to see the deterioration of the security inside of iraq. you know, i spent a lot of my life over there. 2010, ix until september there i was to reduce the level of violence and the sectarian violence, i believe we left it in a place where it was capable to move forward. we have seen it because of several political issues sfworme

iraq -- internal to iraq. that is in my mind concerning. in my mind it is something we have to be cognizant of as you look across the middle east, what is going on in syria, lebanon, inside of iraq. it is this sectarian potential building of sectarian conflict between sunni and shia and the exploit action of that between al qaeda and other organizations who'll try to take advantage of this. this weekend on c-span, general raymond odiemo looks at the security situation in the mideast. mary day on c-span 2, matalin and james varville on their relationship. and on c-span 3, american history tv.

sunday morning 10:00 a.m. eastern. >> now a round table look at the 2014 election cycle and the upcoming midterm elections with the republican and democratic political strategists. this is an hour and 10-minute discussion hosted by the group center forward. cillizza moderates the discussion hosted by the group center forward. >> if everyone could take a seat, we would get started with the program. thank you all for coming today to the first quarterly event or 2014. i know it's bad weather. we originally federal the store late last year and it snowed. we originally scheduled this event for late last year. academicgs together find a common ground and common sense solution the challenges.

i would like to first introduce our moderator. we are delighted to have chris cillizza today. he's a premier political journalist. the washingtonh post. he covers congress, the white house, and all things white house in his blog, the fix. roll call.m the cookthat, aat political report. join me in welcoming him today. [applause]

is republicant strategist dan hazelwood. he is nationally recognized for his work in the areas of targeting andegy, persuasion theodore and -- persuasion. i'm not sure if i know what that is. targeted creative communications a republican based marketing company in alexandria, virginia. it works with campaigns in every state. it's past clients include bush cheney, dole kep, and over dozen members of the house of representatives. please join me in welcoming down. our next panelist is david wasserman from the cook political report, a dream job for a lot of us in the room.

he is responsible for handicapping and analyzing house races and also serves with the national journal. 2011, the cook political report pass comprehensive 2012 redistricting outlook. please join me in welcoming down. -- dan. [applause] our third panelist is jeff lis zt. he's a partner in a nationally recognized democratic polling firm and they do polling on political candidates on various officials including dozens of statewide officials. he is a veteran campaign operative who has experience in working with did the triple c and the democratic governors

association. in 2008, he was part of the campaign team to help elect president obama. join me in welcoming jeff. [applause] will turn it over to you, chris. >> thank you all for coming. i know in falls church, virginia, and was a little bit i see. i'm going to talk very briefly and let these guys do a bit of a spiel. i'm most interested if you guys have questions so we will do that. i was going through some numbers last night knowing i was going remarkableand it is the number of what we would identify as moderate either liberal to moderate republicans or moderate to conservative democrats. those who have left congress willingly or unwillingly on the

few years. winning bymcentire the closest margin of any democratic incumbent in the country in 2012 retiring. jim masterson in utah and a district representing that he absolutely should not. it's a remarkably republican district. suburbs ofn in the philadelphia also retiring. i don't think it's by accident. is a less thans pleasant place to be. at the moment, there are some members of congress who could dispute my theory, but i think it's not the most pleasant place to be right now. one number i was struck by, blue dog democrats and other members in the 111th congress, there the blue dogrs of

coalition. they are both members and retiring. this is one of my favorite fascinating information's, but the seven most conservative house democrats according to the voting ratings, all of them are no longer in the house. ,he seven most conservatives two lost primaries, from oklahoma, pennsylvania, joe donnelly redistricted out of his seat in indiana. think you, richard murdoch, elected to the u.s. senate. i don't think it takes a rocket scientist to conclude that less people who, whether through their own band or the politics of their district are inclined

to cooperate with the other side that if there are less of those of smallhe likelihood deals is less likely. we've seen that play out. , you may or may not be aware of this, but it's an election year surprisingly enough and that seems to make the deals that happen. typically it's not the way we everyonehis town as looks towards the reelection races as opposed to spending a lot of time on what would likely be a very controversial or a very difficult to reach across the aisle to get something done, you deal whether it is on fiscal, immigration, energy. i think the safe bet typically boar orngton is small

nothing. we all hold the possibility that we are surprised that we are often not surprised. the one other thing i will say as it relates to the senate, i think you have a combination of moderates heading for the exits but i think you also have massive turnover particularly in the senate, a place where there is not typically that much turnover. these numbers are amazing to me. 2008, 40 new senators, 20 democrats and 20 republicans. six years ago, 44 senators had served at least three terms. today that number is 32. the senators had served one full term or less. more than half served one full term or less. senatese-ization of the -- i know that's not a word --

but it is in play. many senators are more loyal and more aware of some of these outside groups than they might be of john cornyn or mitch mcconnell. these people are just new. there's not an institutional wisdom that exists. you can argue if it's a good or bad thing but it's a saying. you take huge turn under -- turnover with the departure of the moderates and we are where we are today. i will stop there because i'm interested in what these guys have to say and i will just question them as i see fit. i will go from right to left. dave. of veryit on a lot important points. 2014 is going to be another polarizing election in this country. the cook political report, my organization, rates them as competitive in a general

election and that includes 24 democratic held seats and 21 republican held seats. seats to take control of the house but they really need to pick up 19 republican seats because there is no realistic chance they can hold the north carolina seventh or the utah four. if you look at the mass and added up, they would need to win 43 of those 45 races be currently see as competitive in order to take back the house. that is something we've never really seen before. the likelihood is republicans will make a small net gain in 2014 for three reasons. first of all, simply the history of the six year itch election, the pattern in a post-world war ii era where the party and the presidency loses an average of 29 house seats. second of all, the terrain and

just the fact that the house is very well sorted out right now. there are only 17 republicans left in districts that president obama carry it. only nine democrats remain in district that romney carried, two of whom are in this room .oday then you get to the third factor which is the midterm turnout dynamic and this is something that flies under the radar a lot in the media but will be destiny in the 2014 midterm elections. who votes in the midterm hence to be younger voters, wealthier voters. that never really used to matter because in terms of the generation gap, democrats and republicans were doing just about as well the voters 18-29 and 60 and older. what happens when you have president obama's approval rating 15 points better among voters in the younger age group than the older react os and as

you have a midterm election, you have -- younger age group than the older? you have a midterm election the presidential year without any opinions changing. we're looking at a republican gain in the house of the single were heldthe election today. democrats need to sustain momentum from the government shut down into 2014 in order to have a chance of picking up seats. we will see if they can move the needle back over the course of the next 10 months but i think we've gone from a place of talking about how moderates are a dying breed to moving on to the debate of if it turns around or if there are factors within the control of voices in the center. i think the first step for voices in the center and congress to realize is that there are societal forces at

work here that are much larger than simply one election. i would argue that there are three trends that have andsformed the landscape reforms that those in the middle can consider the kind of move away from this polarization that we've seen. i look forward to discussing those trends today whether it is self sorting in the electorate, a decline of straight ticket voting or split ticket voting across the country rather. or simply the prevalence of primaries and that force in the election moving members of congress to the polls. >> it's like a movie trailer. i have one very important thing to tail you but it will not be until the end. >> i would actually echo the plight and i would caution when they say

this is the most decisive election in the course of history -- of course it is. it's the one you are involved in. overu look at the trend our career in politics there is a clear trend in where we are and where we are going in terms of polarization and hitting a new level of quality in polling and respect on a national level. when i started it was inconceivable. i was a house republican guy back when we thought there would a republican majority in the house of representatives ever in my lifetime. it was inconceivable and we all wavered underneath that belief and thankfully that is far gone. this big trend where a lot is shifting. the number of the senate retirements and moderates, this just happens. we had to go through this process. if you look at the seats and a large number of these members

have, they will be senators and they will get to their third term in many places. they will be able to see the number of democrats this year because of the political environment and that's another cycle that we are in right now. this cycle back and forth of therization combined with mission of this organization, the center of the electorate. it is very fractured and not monolithic except for what? disconnectedlly and it feels like washington and the power everywhere whether it is business, big labor, politics , it does not give a rats you know what about that. they have been abandoned. that is the challenge going forward. it's one of the tremendous things obama brought in a candidate. suddenly there was going to be this different approach to things and named rahm emanuel and nancy pelosi as the vice

chancellors and we went back into a highly polar rise to world and we will continue and that's where we will go on till the get the next president. that is the fact of where we are and politically, unfortunately, obamacare is just a train wreck at the minimum from public opinion point of view edits created a great opinion. it will be a good year for all of the democratic reasons -- demographic reasons. we are looking at been gains -- we are looking at big games. we will talk about that. one thing i would caution both my party and the democrats is history is not the person trying to force you to do something different. it's going to be some outside factor that will pull people's attention away from obamacare. who knows what that will end up being. the old phrase it's a lifetime in politics in the next 10

months and it certainly is but it will be a fascinating year. >> jeff. my beliefs about 2014 are a little bit different. i think of you look at some of the recent elections that we've , the concrete settled relatively early. that was definitely the case in the 2006 wave year and largely the case in 2010. but i don't really believe that the concrete has yet settled on 2014 elections. i think republican numbers have rebounded since the government shut down which led to a sizable democratic advantage on the generic ballot. there was a cnn poll that showed republicans retaking an advantage on the generic ballot. i think there is still a great chance not only for an event- driven change in the generic like a problem stemming

from another budget fight but also from the primaries and what did republican primaries deliver this year? if you look back at elections, the story is only in part republican gains in the house but i think in a larger sense it is the feeling for republicans to take back the senate. until i see an example of republican primaries delivering centrist candidates who can win general elections, it's going to be pretty optimistic about the 2014 elections. one thing that will come into play is how macroeconomics intersect with party messaging. one of the things happening in america right now is that while productivity for workers continues to rise and corporate profits continue to rise, wages remain flat. if you are in a job and you are

trying to support your family, your perception is that you are working hard and you are not being rewarded in particular for working hard. you are not necessarily making more money. it's harder to send your kids to college. you are struggling in spite of how hard you are working. think that's a feeling among the electorate that cuts across party lines. if you look at the anger that animated voters in 2010 and delivered a lot of republican gains, it's not all that different from the anger that 2006er democratic gains in and 2000 date. it's the feeling we're in a society where others are getting taken care of and others are doing well. democrats made the argument that it was the wealthy corporations and i think republicans pretty compellingly made the case that obamacare is going to provide insurance to people who did not have it which is not the people

who were showing up to vote. the vast majority already had insurance so their perception was the government was delivering for people who were not them. also, i think we should not neglect the ways in which 2010 republicans ran to the left of democrats. republicans ran left of democrats on medicare in 2010. a tendency tois think that the 2010 electorate was really animated by different way,es and it was, in some a real repudiation of what had happened in washington that i'm not all that convinced that the anger animating the writing on the left has been all that different. there is a center that is less polarized than what you see in washington and the congress that represents it. to 2014, forwarded

we're going to keep an i am for some of the dynamics that we saw in 2010. one of which is seniors and which way they break. right after the 2010 election, use of a special election in new york and it was a race that was decided on medicare but on a very different way down the races 2010 had been decided on medicare. are also going to look at the people who have not really done all that well in this economic recovery in the disproportionate number of people without college degrees. we will see women without theyge degrees, which way break because 2010 was an important way in which they broke against democrats. they lost the edge they had had in terms of who's on your side. i think we're also going to look at a lot of suburban areas that i think after 2000 date,

democrats felt they had locked 8 like outside of richmond. optimistic. not only optimistic for democratic politicians and democrats like kay hagan in north carolina who are centrist, one of the most moderate members of congress but also for members as a whole. i want to just go around one more time and then we can take questions. >> this is what i come back to. gallup had a poll this week, the party id poll. independent, 42%, highest it's ever been. find --the effort to 42% of the country thinks there are independent.

i think we would all agree people don't like the two parties. if you say the late thing better at the moment than -- were standard democratic party is the republican party. people in congress, 33% of people -- everybody hates everybody. why when you have this large number of independent people do we have these efforts like in 2012, they tried to recruit an independent candidate, money behind it, and nominating convention and the person they picked was -- ron paul. he was not even actively trying to get the nomination. what is the disconnect between the number of people when we all the grease a two party system is people the number of identified as independent, unaffiliated going up everywhere and the fact that he attempts to be in the center ideologically

in a democratic or republican party or to actually form a center that is a part does not work. jeff, i will let you go first. the 42% independent number is inflated. and you ask people whether or not they lean towards democratic or republican, the independent number shrinks a lot. if you say you were independent but you lean towards one party, your behavior tends to be very similar to the people who flat out identify as being from that party. one of the other findings in that gallup poll was that republican identification is at an all-time low. that does mean -- does not mean that there are less but a lot of them are self identifying. a lot of them are tea party. those with no party today tends

to be more of a tea party universe and you had a third- party candidate on the ballot and how optimistic you were as a democrat depended on how much you expected a third-party most ofe -- once again, those voters went home to the republican party and they ended up doing well. looking at i'm people who self identify as a moderate and less that people who self identify as independent. >> i would say one of the critical things when you look at , people think that independent and moderate are synonymous and the data would not at that they are in all. one theinelli independence over terry mcauliffe. he lost badly among moderates. won the so-called

critical independent vote while losing the general election. we tend -- and i put myself in this category -- we say independent, moderate, they are not in fact the same thing. also add the label when someone calls them a swing .oter, these terms are fiction independents are more republican, moderates are more democrat, we differ on the degree. with the commonality of that 42% in this area of polarization, they are polarized against the beltway, polarized against everybody in this room because we live in the washington area, they are against us because they have been trained through repetitive, painful experience that their interactions with government cause them pain and discomfort.

i think jeff's earlier comments about the inequality issues, i think there's a lot to the idea that there's a group of people who are very distantly connected down the problem that the democrats have with that message into that audience is that those people no longer trust the democrats. a virus that been has convinced a large portion of that group of people that there is no solution that cares about them. they are trading one party and .he stigmas that people here there are massive differences between the parties. >> people don't feel that. >> daily criteria of the difference is someone looking out for me, there's 42% of americans who say parties are the same and they don't care about me which creates a big dynamic out there and it's what we will be fighting over the selection. >> that brings me to the same question.

environment, you would think would be ripe for candidates. i'm not saying why is there not a third-party right now? for a would be ripe candidate theoretically who said exactly what you just did. these people are not listening to you. i will. and yet, that kind of candidate that is a broad generalization, but that candidate does not seem to be emerging as often as you would think looking purely from a political darwinist expect -- perspective that it would be good to have. are independent more republican leaning? in large part is because the word republican has become similarly a dirty word like the word liberal decades ago. there are many self identified conservatives in the electorate

who have lost faith in the republican party establishment for spending too much over the last decade. they do not call themselves republicans when they are asked anymore. there is a slightly conservative tinge. this is why i expected 42% figure to only go up over the course of the next several years because younger voters have grown up in an era where they have lost the ability of them to come together and get things done. the majority or the plurality really wants to see this happen. the question that i really have is what is the overlap between that 42% of independents and those who are really deciding who comes here. how many of them participate in primaries? in the case of many elections, and congressional primaries, we see participation rates of about 20% which means in many districts, 10% or fewer are

actually selecting the member who comes to washington and votes on their behalf. how did those voices who were being underrepresented in washington, either enhance and expand participation in primary elections or open up the primary product altogether through the forms that the states like california have undertaken? >> it's all of the tall stories for a lot of primary voters, a lot of the most polarizing people to come out of primaries have been those who are angry at washington and talk about how washington is broken. >> i want to ask one more question and then open it up. political polarization may be bad for getting things done in washington but as several groups mostly on the ride at this point, having the white house makes it harder, but they have proven that it may be bad for

governance but it's good for business in that many groups have made their living and have the tedup by endorsing cruz is of the world, chris mcdaniel running against mississippi. is the rise of ted cruz, mike lee, rand paul -- i put them in a group even though i know there ,re quite clear the differences your point is that we are not really in and anomalous time. we just think we are. conservative republican and i looked at the federalist tapers and i think our government is not the sign to move fast. they fear a government of passions of the moment making

big radical decisions like changing 1/6 of our economy on partyline votes. >> i don't know what you are referring to. >> that's not what the founders wanted. i like the idea that it has complications, problems, slows things down. -- madison said the factions come by. you have tea party movements which are far more fractured which i'm sure moveon.org is more fractured than i realized. is good.any when you add what i think is a really smart system that forces all of these groups to fight, i think it's healthy that all of these are coming in. i oppose labour in a lot of situations. it's great that they are in the mix and trying to fight. the problem we have now and our large country of 300 million plus people is they have a political structure where it

takes a massive amount of name identification and resources to run a campaign for a congressional seat. you want reform, you want to change, all this talk about money and all of this stuff is irrelevant and my opinion generally bad. you want to unhinge the system in a healthy way, take the house up to like 1000 people over 1200 people and who knows what that cause for the seats but grassroots movements will be able to compete in their local elections. the math that you talk about is you will be able to have local candidates. you might see an emergence. a greens a time when party actually won an assembly seat and a few other isolated places. entity, you cannot hold them against the forces in our society. there are all of these other factors out there that are communications structures and others. make the seats smaller and the

grassroots will matter more. isolated causes will matter more. you will still have your large variety of colorful individuals in the house of representatives but you will have lots of opportunities. if somebody is wrong in the andunity and the relief -- it will be defined smaller whether this is a moderate, dynamic independent, whatever that will be able to seriously threaten that person which will then have a different effect on how legislation is in the house. >> did we have a poll on adding more politicians to washington? very much in are favor of expanding the house of representatives in 2012. in newmember when i was hampshire to cover the presidential and like every third person you ran into was in the state legislature because it is 400 plus people. it was massive. , is there ant

changereform that could who we send here? the problem is everyone gets here. why are they voting like this? that is what the people who elected them to do one. dave, i'm sure, has the number. the number of those who get elected with 55% or under is a pittance. that is including a lot of people who may not be in the party but it seems to me we are on the wrong end of the problem. they are doing what they are sent here to do. is there reform to change it in your mind? >> let me start by responding to the attacks on obama care which i promise is not off-topic. [laughter] >> i'm skeptical, but go ahead.

not onlycare part d, in terms of policy over passage but also in terms of the trajectory of the polling it was first introduced, there was a lot of confusion. they could not figure out how to sign up because a lot of the mechanisms were similar to the mechanisms of obama care the government created program where you sign up through a private provider. the toll numbers were exasperated. democrats shared the goal of providing prescription drug coverage to people. when you're out from the election, the assumption was medicare part he would be disastrous. one year later, it was working very differently and it ended up being a boon. you have 10 million people with insurance right now who did not have insurance before obamacare. kids onludes 5 million their parents insurances. people are going to have benefits that have accrued by

obamacare by the time you get to the next election and i think it's wrong to judge a program that has covered 10 million people after a few months and guaranteed coverage for those facing pre-existing conditions due to the failure of a website. there's a big difference between the perceptions of obamacare and whether or not they favor or oppose the individual elements of that. when you test whether or not they want a, b, c, d, contained within obamacare and part of that is now it's a couple of years old, but you had over 5 million sent through the elections not just on lobbying for obamacare but running ads attacking it. we live in the citizens united era of unfettered contributions from dark money. you saw the recent article that $400 million coming from the koch brothers -- crexendo to look out for my own. like strong journalism.

>> kay hagan has been the number one recipient of those dollars and the attacks coming out of those dollars. i remember asking myself at the end of the year whether we just live in a new era. people assume they understand the impact of citizens united because we saw it in 2012. that was a dry run. i started asking myself at the end of last year when we were seeing the million dollar ad eyes against hagan whether we live in a new regime where the ads are just starting the year before and they never go dark. they never calmed down. theink if you look at branding of obamacare, very different from how people feel about the individual component because of the money spent the fighting it negatively. if you look at the senate races and how much money has been spent thus far out, if you want to avoid that kind of polarization that we have right now, part of the solution and one of the reforms is .verturning citizens united

clicked the hugo chavez eliminating free speech in the country is the solution. that's a nice history, but for those of us who are maybe a little older, grayer -- >> you pulled that same line at my party. clicked he said it to my grandfather. >> 1995-1996 after we took the majority in the house for the first time, labor unleashed $35 million campaign in an off year of robo calls and tv ads blitzing all of the republican incumbents and this is not soft dark money because it comes from confiscated money held by labor unions. point where i go factionsetting the fight it out. get everybody into the arena. politics is not pretty.

argue over the issues. we can certainly argue over obamacare. pre-existing conditions, children under 26, they are powerful arguments for the democratic side and they been using it recently and in the past. the tab that fight. let's have everyone out there arguing as loud as they can. it's not pretty. it's unsettling to watch a family argument. how many of us have been at thanksgiving when a family arrived in a fight? it's good for the republican that is when we need. if you want to weaken that money, give the grassroots more power. clicked can i take this in a different direction you? began before citizens united. there are three causes icy out there that are worth addressing to chris's question. the first is really the notion of right marries. i think there ought to be more

discussion of what can be done to open a primary is whether it is a california-style to reduce the extent to which members of congress are simply playing to the primary base. that has become very prevalent as a result of the fact that we have such polarized district. what is polarizing the district cap go first of all, this is something that is beyond the control. you cannot tell people where to move. 30 8.6% of the american electorate lived in counties that were landslide counties them at least 60% of the two party vote. in 2012, the number was a majority for the first time. independent every district in in the last election, 76% of democratic leaning congressional seats -- this is the nerd coming out in me, but they got more 67% that even

more republican independent of redistricting. thatd to be a big believer redistricting reform was the answer. i still believe it's part of the answer. i think a majority of the andrization comes from it it has compounded that effect by continuing to eliminate seats where voices in the middle really cannot prevail or have an to vote a certain way in congress. third of all, i think we need to talk about the decline in split ticket voting we are seeing across the country the cousin used to be that if you had a member of congress or a candidate who had a background that was totally flawed, they would usually run under the top of the ticket. what do we see in 2012? there is a candidate in tennessee, an incumbent to basically admitted to having

relationships with patients while he was a doctor and trying to convince one to have an abortion. old system, maybe 10 or 20 years ago, i think you probably would have won 10 or 15 points below the ticket. he ran eight points below mitt romney and still won the election. i think the question for a lot of people here is how do you get voters to pay attention to candidate background and positions and evaluate them on a race by race basis rather than simply responding to the visceral attitudes towards national parties? part of that has to do with revising local media and making are attuned tos what's happening in the rent district rather than reacting to what's happening in washington. question,local media i'm not terribly optimistic until be revived because of the business model. anyone in journalism is well

aware of, but one thing i would say is that there's a huge amount of record that they have not had nearly to the extent of a family-owned newspaper or many other local newspapers and they work with people who chris christie repeatedly credited, oddly enough, breaking the news about what i like to call bridge-nado or bridge gate. i think they reserve -- deserve a lot of credit. , part ofrgen record which is the density and if you you either have to care about what the dictator of new york city wants to do or you have to read the bergen record to learn what's going on in your community. >> its uniquely hsinchu waited. -- it is uniquely situated.

i think the polls have consistently shown that a majority of the public either supported the affordable care act or thought it was not liberal enough. --this day, consistently it's never deviated, yet you hear the notion that republicans are positive this is the gift that keeps on giving and the polls are quite different. i'm wondering if you can explain it. the democrats have not done a good job. you saw this pew study that came out that showed a fairly substantial majority of republicans do not believe in evolution whereas democrats and sameendents were at the spot believing in evolution. you think the tea party would not be the one to do not believe in evolution yet evidence suggests they would deviate yet independents are lined up with democrats and it's gotten worse , fewer republicans believing in evolution.

not a lot of new data. i'm wondering if that kind of gives you any insight into the electorate that matters that they can seize upon. >> let's talk about obamacare. talked to,lican i dan included, says this is it. and things spending, if you have not watched it, you should. it's against jeanne shaheen. ins is an ad you will see thousands of very small iterations across the country and it essentially had the, if you like your plan, you can keep it. if the lie of the year according to politicize and at the end there's a picture of jeanne shaheen saying, if you like your senator, you can keep her. if not, you know what to do. absolutelycans are is theed that obamacare

issue that this election will be decided on and will elicit significant republican gains. then i will let jeff maybe disagree. >> i think there's a fascinating answer. if we press properly, we could do a four day examination of exactly your question because there are pieces of the affordable care act, pre- existing conditions, that are incredibly popular and people like the idea. all of us, myself included, no people for who this is a significant economic benefit for their family, but the larger picture of obamacare and the affordable care act has not pulled consistently popular. it's what you are looking at. right now -- and i think jeff would agree -- public reception at this moment, and even more so attitudes holidays,

are what they think they are doing to our country is really affecting the center of the electorate and telling them that washington, whether they had it for the right or wrong reasons, they botched this whole thing and it's a train wreck. democrats say they are going to get to a point where all the pain is behind us and the milk and honey is ahead. that is what they want in the election right now. they are about now and what we can shake to a degree. right now it's really unpopular amongst big chunks of the elect are at because people are losing and i think jeff would agree that there are pieces people .ike even in the same moment they say they dislike it but we saw this with medicare part the. people didn't like the government spending but they

like the fact that the paramedics -- parents were getting more. this is an example of washington blowing it. >> to your point, dave mentioned this earlier, about midterms being a very different electorate than a presidential, older him a wider, more favorable to republicans. level view this as some of bass election, the people who are going to turn out are not me casual voter, it seems to -- i will cite a post-poll from december, 88% of republicans had an unfavorable view of how president obama had handled the health care law. this was in the heart of it. were strongly unfavorable in terms of trying to figure out passion. , 42% or so ofide

democrats were strongly favorable. 77% versus 42%. is there not a passion gap? midterm elections is a base turnout model. that's not a difference for you and how you solve the? answer was in the question. the number on the affordable care act has always been deflated that some percentage of the voters don't like it because it did not go far enough. a publict include option equivalent of medicare provided by the government. dan, as a student of history, may recall that most of these were originally proposed by the heritage foundation in 1993, a republican alternative to hillary clinton's plan. this makes republican polarization seem more a matter

of anti-obama and less a matter .f policy this is due to the fact that the law was a centrist law that was designed to elicit republican votes but did not because of polarization in the senate chasing olympia snowe's vote. does that change? let's not dispute that. regardless of whether the and easy as him is because some feel they did not go far enough, does it change thedoes basic dynamic? republicans are going to go through freezing rain on

obamacare.y against the data today would suggest even some liberal democrats are less passionate. you guys are dealing in the realities of what we have now to persuade voters. you are not going to see lower democratic enthusiasm from 2010 where you had a record share of the electorate that self identified as conservative. you also have continuing demographic changes that lead to an electorate where, even if it looks more like 2010 than it does 2012, still does not look as bad as 2010. in a state like florida, the number of new hispanics since 2006 is higher than the number of jewish voters. if you look at nevada in 2010 where harry reid got elected, the percentage of hispanic voters was as high as it was in

2008. even if you have an electorate more conservative, more white, there's not a lot of chance it's going to be as bad as it was in 2010. >> we have not touched all that much on it but i think the 2012 election, i will give you a chance to not acknowledge it. problems for the party demographically. the electorate getting less .hite, more hispanic 71% amongobama gets hispanic voters. as dave and dan pointed out, the massive victory in 2010 did not redact a massive victory or a victory at all in 2012.

the same lessons from 2014 may carry to 2016. >> you have a point. they are less important in the short term than they are in the short term. i don't think they are necessarily doomed but it takes a new candidate who can actually connect and score well that tempe -- cares enough to revive the republican party with those voters. looking back at the list of democrats who voted against the affordable care act when it passed in 2010 and a kind of "where are they now?" 21 have lost reelection, seven have retired, and of the remaining six two are retiring in 2014 which leaves four. veryf whom has run effectively in his own district and articulated his own position against the law. well will both parties in

tough districts articulated message of fixing the law? to try and resonate with voters who are not black-and-white on obamacare but recognize there are big problems and want to see some action in congress to fix what's wrong with the legislation. >> let me take a few more questions. yes ma'am. >> thanks. is this on? about aca,ng obamacare. they say republicans are not fair to the obama administration. democrats say it would be so much better if hillary clinton would have won. a lot of the criticism is that the clintons know how to deal

with washington. they are from the beltway, and the beltway, know how to deal. it have been different in a clinton administration? would it have had less polarization than what we have now? wen she wins in 2014, will be less polarized going forward? you talked about the house- ization of the senate. if you could comment on the confirmation rule changes in the senate and how it makes it more like the house and potential repercussions of that? do we get to a point where that goes to the supreme court for nominees or will they stay where they are now? >> i will quickly do the second monday and we will go to these for the first one. it is my belief that if you think the wiping away of the 60- the vote barrier for executive

branch nominees and judicial nominees below the supreme court will only say that group of people forever, you have not watched politics for very long. it seems to me the door is now open. i would say harry reid, who opposed these changes for a very ofg time for fear apublicans in the majority as fanciful one for fear that the pendulum would swing. he went to the liberals pushing it and said -- look. we are opening a pandora's box. we will not always be in the majority. we may not even be after the selection. they probably said, we are ok with that. it's worth it to us in the near term. they have been pushing for years . it's got huge implications.

my parents don't have any clue what cloture is. they just don't. it is not a persuade issue. washington works, this is a sea change. ok. jeff, let's start with you. >> would things be different if hillary clinton was president? >> if i was seven feet tall, i would be in the nba, but hypotheticals are hypotheticals. ord paul or marco rubio

chris christie. is there a candidate out there on either side that breaks that? if elected in 2016? well, first, i do not think there was anyone at the time when clinton was getting impeached, looking at that as an error of less polarization. >> the golden days. >> the golden era in washington. i think you did have a lot of people with experience from the clinton white house in the first term of the obama administration. also, you are always fighting the last war. try to passntons health-care reform, the complaint was that they had handed the law down on high, and they had ignored the prerogatives of congress, and so the approach this time was different. framework, a bipartisan framework, largely because it had been built on the republicanrom the alternative to hillary care, and

they thought that if the details were worked out, they would be able to do something in a bipartisan way than if it were a president handing things down from on high. theink they underestimated degree of resolve on the part of republicans. republicans came out scorched earth against the stimulus at a time when the economy was in freefall. i mean, this was the bill to prevent us from going into a depression, and not only was it the bill to keep us from going into a repression, it was part infrastructure spending, which is what democrats wanted, but also more than one third tax cuts, which is what republicans wanted. i look back on the bush era, and i do not remember getting anything in legislation passed by george bush. there was a political decision that they were going to go scorched earth, irrespective of -- or what they were currently four.

i think it is wrong to suggest anyone else would have gotten that result out of them. >> the amusing part of the stimulus reinventing the that is where we thought we were going to let where and her chairman the people i tried, and i had people who tried to do business with the obama administration. they were rebuffed by the house democrats. and i think are they better or smarter. it goes to what occurred right now, which is, if, indeed, if these were policies that came from republicans, which is weferent from being popular,

would still be passing jack kemp laws. you hear the democrats saying these were democratic ideas. they proved they were in competent, and the health care execution and what we have seen so far proves the levers of government him and the massive spending that has gone on under this president and the failure to competently execute stuff, and while the country is not keen to paying attention to what there is a overseas, lot of nervousness that this administration was getting us out of the conflicts we were in, which i think the republic -- we doing. all of the talk of hillary will be smart, she will be the good one. she will be the smart, organized one. this undercuts all of the efforts by the democrats right now to say trust us for two more

years. say,heard a friend of mine and i think this was appropriate, the last two w presidents had been president for half of the country. they have doubled down. , barack obama from illinois. who were the presidents before them? bill clinton from arkansas, a culturally conservative place, and ronald reagan from hollywood, so the question is who isher party nominate from their own corner of the country, and on the republican side, what i think is so dangerous is that there are republicans from blue states, whether it is a scott walker or a chris christie, who are legitimate contenders, whereas hillary clinton, for better or worse is seen as a new yorker. they do not have a bench.

those who are in the mix right now, but i think that is a challenge, which is to keep alive that team in states where democrats do not particularly wins senate or presidential levels these days, so they do have a bunch of people who can reach across the rest of the country. >> we would like to speak to that. >> i will say one thing, but i think one of the stories, 63 seats in the house, his store, by the number of takeovers republicans. that matters no matter what in terms of policy. it matters much more in the year

before redistricting. i think that was a huge moment there, and we will let these guys. >> let's just go in order. >> i think of the democrats had and 2010, the006 majority in the house, i think they would be in a majority in a lot more legislators. , and before a redistricting cycle, it will not be a midterm election. it could be where they do fairly well. worseis cannot get any than it was during this decade when you saw any this iteration of modern democrats. i was on the democratic and there council, were democrats across the world. i would guess that less than 1/5 of them are in office today. i would caution anyone say it

can never get any worse. >> [laughter] glad we have that behind us. we can look forward to 2008. media, the cable culture, our politics at the national level, that is pushing our polarization down. you can see it. the wisconsin legislature was not necessarily a legislature a year ago of warm friends across bil, so that is a lot. ifin, i come back -- even you go to states where we have single party domination, i come back. california is a great example, where a state senator represents more people than in congress now. those seats are functionally driven i whoever nominates the next person in an open seat.

you have california term limits, where there is a lot more open seats, and that is where we need to go back and create smaller districts and bring more people in the process. every thirdg about person in new hampshire has been a member of the state legislature. they give you a drivers license, and here is your membership in but that isure, healthy, not just for a small new england state, but you get more and more people involved in the process, so if it is an issue with a garbage dump, there are people who lead community as thets, and communities are disintegrating, and we are becoming the social facebook electronic communities, we need to rebuild that. i think that is where the challenges are in that society. with spent a lot of time the house and senate, and there is a majority debate, which is intriguing.

would it be unwise for democrats to not at least think about nominating a governor, given the past record of success for governors? it seems that everyone basically on the democratic side has said, well, if hillary wants it, she can have it. is that healthy for the country? are governors not a better bet? >> well, this is not a slight against brian. >> you do not want to get on the wrong side of that guy. >> i do think hillary clinton will be the strongest nominee thinke democrats, and i it would be a powerful election to have a woman leading the presidential ticket. i do not think that you can discount the inspirational fact that hillary brings to the table, in addition to policy gravitas and world right presents from the secretary of so even though i think

there are some strong governors out there, i do think hillary is the strongest nominee. what is going to be interesting, to me, is looking at what happens in the next round of gubernatorial elections, because you're going to see a lot of republican governors who make budget decisions to cut education early in their terms but who may be running for reelection with a rising economy behind them in their states, and you are going to see a lot of these congressional races and even u.s. senate races possibly being affected by the state political dynamic and what has been going on in the state legislature and the statehouse which may either reinforce or cut against this. >> he saw a little bit of that in virginia, how the republican party got branded, with bob mcdonnell. the huge, important states with competitive races,

pennsylvania, florida, michigan, ohio. it is not insignificant who wins those races with both the house and senate races but also the presidential. >> we will stop there. >> sure. you to the panel. a round of applause for them. [applause] and on behalf of the board members and journal" "washington is live with your calls and tweaks. followed by remarks from the army chief of staff about the future of the army. then a discussion on health care spending for the past year. and later, live coverage of the inauguration ceremony or urging governor terry mcauliffe. firstcy reagan was the

first lady to address the united nations. she had a joint appearance with the president. great, but not when you cannot see it. open your eyes to life. see the vivid colors that god gave us, the precious gift to his children. enjoy life to the fullest. make it count. say yes to your life. when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no. >> first lady nancy reagan as the original series "first ladies" returns monday night at 9:00. on c-span and c-span 3. moment, your calls in today's newspaper headlines. followed by a roundtable discussion on marijuana laws. riffle ande with dan kevin sabet.

then a look at the federal bureau of investigation. tariche. is reynaldo journal" is next. the wall street journal is reporting that the federal reserve is unlikely to alter its course when it comes to a bond buying program because of the release of yesterday's job numbers. also, for the first time since 1995, the u.s. military has sent advisers to somalia. good morning. it is january 11, 2014. this is a three-hour program today. we will start with dennis rodman. he has spent a lot of time in the news over his exhibition in north korea. statements that he made about the american missionary be