-- there is so much money out there, and it does not move the numbers. and yet it is kind of mutual assured destruction. one side spends, the other has to spend, and it mostly cancels out. that will not stop the spending. >> what one state do you think will set the table on election night, one state you are looking at that will tell you which way it is going? >> iowa would be that one state. earlier in the night, it is north carolina or new hampshire. republicans, i think that is a good night for republicans. i neverampshire, expected scott brown to get this close. right now, we are expecting democrats to hold on to both house seats. carol shea-porter, it is not easy. ande see the senate race one of the two new hampshire

democratic members of congress, that would be a be indication it would be quite a good republican right. walter,othenberg, amy and joining us, stephen nyman of the washington times. thank you for being with us. [captioning performed by national captioning institute [no audio] which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> the student can competition is underway. the three branches and you, showing how action by a branch of the federal government has affected you or your community. prizes for0 cash students and teachers, totaling 100 thousand dollars. for a look at the rules and how to get started, go to didn't -- studentcam.org.

>> we will be live for the georgia senate debate between michelle nunn and david perdue. the candidates are running for the open seat of retired senator saxby chambliss. that is coming up live shortly. until then, more insight into the midterm elections with shirley cook. he spoke recently at the annual washington ideas forum about the election, as well as the state of the gop and democratic party. [applause] >> notice she kissed my microphone. >> i did. >> anyway, this is -- last year i spoke at this ideas festival and i looked around the room and the audience was just as impressive as the green room before. anyway, it is a real honor, a real privilege to be here. listening to tom fanning, he was outlining what a tax deal might look like, and i was talking to

some people with a very large company the other day, and asked them, would you go along with raising the minimum wage in exchange for lowering the corporate tax rate? without hesitation, in a second. those are the kinds of deals we used to put together in this town. let me get back on subject. i am glad everybody is seated because i don't want anybody to fall over and hurt themselves. we have this election coming up on tuesday. it is kind of a big one. if you are in my work, they are all big. this election, if you go back to early last year, early 2013, there were two very different plausible scenarios that we could have had in this election. one scenario might have been that some of the problems and challenges that plague the republican party, that hurt them so badly in 2012, might just flow into 2014.

so that was one scenario. and the other scenario was that this would become a classic midterm election, particularly second term midterm election, where it becomes a referendum on down on the incumbent president and policies. every once in a while, you will have one. mostly, midterm elections are up or down for the president and policies. the outcome is one of four categories. light losses, moderate losses, heavy losses, and extra crispy. the catastrophic losses. those are the basic categories. just to kind of look at these two, in terms of republican problems potentially flowing on in, if you think of 2012, there was an enormous disappointment for republicans. they were only three seats out

of the majority. they only needed three more seats to get a majority in the u.s. senate and it looked very plausible they could get at the same time, president obama's numbers were not very good approval numbers. every president that had a worse job approval than his lost re-election. everyone who had a better one won. he was in a gray area. we were coming out of a recession but the economy was stuck in low gear and people didn't -- the economy may have been recovering but most voters didn't think that their economy was recovering. after all, median family income had not gone up since 2000 and that had been under democratic presidents, republican presidents, democratic congresses and republican congresses. but it is stuck with whoever is there.

republicans had every reason to think they had a good chance of winning. what happened in 2012? instead of gaining three seats and getting the majority, they had a net loss of three seats and they came out of that election six seats out of the majority instead of just three. and mitt romney lost by a hair up under four percentage points. you can blame if you want mitt romney for the loss. certainly, mechanically and technologically his campaign was , inferior to the obama campaign. i think it also had some bad strategy. but there were broader, systemic problems that were plaguing the republican party and damaging the brand that also led to romney losing by four points, republicans losing the national vote for that popular vote for the house of representatives, even though they held their majority, and came up short in the senate. if you think about it, there are challenges with minority voters, young voters, women voters, moderate voters, self-described moderate voters -- these were

all real challenges. plus, this tendency we have seen in 2010 and 2012 for republicans , primary voters to nominate candidates -- my wife lucy is trying to get me to stop using the term wacko. so i am going with exotic and potentially problematic. [laughter] people that had the unique capability of seizing defeat from the jaws of victory, that cost them as many as five u.s. senate seats between 2010 and 2012. all these were things that republicans had to have it on their minds coming into 2014 to worry them. then you go to the other side and you say, well, ok, where are we right now? the poll that i watch the most , and i look at a bunch unlike a lot of them, but my absolute favorite is the nbc wall street journal poll. for 30 years, they have paired up.

top polling firms. fabulous poll. the poll from a couple of weeks ago, they asked people, do you think the country is headed in the right direction or do you think it is often the wrong track? it is the dow jones indicator of american politics. what does it show? 25% think the country is headed in the right election, 65% off in the wrong track. the president's approval rating is net -10. 42 approved, 52 disagreed. country, almost the same. underwater, upside down. in handling foreign policy, even though americans rarely vote on foreign policy, clearly over the last year, people have been thinking more and more, anxious about what is going on around the world for good reason and the president approval rating was -30. it was like 32 to 62.

so just horrible numbers. two different courses of action. it has now become very clear which one it's going to be. the thing is while there were , problems and challenges that hurt republicans so badly in 2012, they were real. they are real. and i think they may be big problems, challenges for republicans in 2016. but in the context of this midterm election, they have shrunk in significance. and instead, the problems that we are facing -- the potential problems for the democratic party are just as big and broad , as deep as democrats feared a year and a half ago. in the house, nothing is going to happen. 96% of all the democrats in the house are in districts that obama carried. 94% of the republicans in the house are in districts mitt romney carried. the house is kind of sorted out and not much is going to happen. the senate is where the action is. republicans need a six seat in that game.

-- net gain. if you think about it, it's like a perfect storm of factors coming together that go against senate democrats. they have more seats up, 21 versus 15. number one. but much more important, the geography. the democrats have seven seats up in the states romney carried. seven democratic seats up in romney states. there's only one republican seat in the obama state and that is susan collins in maine and she couldn't lose if she tried but more importantly, democratic seats, the same number republicans need for a net gain, six of those are in the state's mitt romney carried by 14 points or more. montana, south dakota, west virginia, alaska, arkansas, louisiana. so, given that romney lost the national election by four percentage points, you show me a state that mitt romney carried by 14 points and i will show you a state i wouldn't want to be a democrat running this year. so the bottom line on this is that republicans don't need a wave to run to get a majority.

obviously, they would love to have a wave. but all they need is people that normally vote republican, who live in the republican leaning states, to vote republican in a very republican year. that's all they need. now to the extent they have weird things going on for montana, south dakota, west virginia. they are gone. prior, landrieu -- they are facing uphill. it's like a strong swimmer with a real, real, real horrible undertow. the democrats are lucky if either one of them survives and the odds are probably not. so then, republicans obviously have some problems, but i think it is going to come down to besides georgia and pat roberts , in kansas, that will be those

in the purple states kay hagan, jeanne shaheen in new hampshire, mark udall in colorado into the open seat in iowa. that is what has come down. we think there's about a 60% chance that republicans could get the majority, but keep in mind there are a lot of close races that will be about a point or 2 one way or the other and it -- democrats, don't be stunned if democrats hold onto their majority, but the odds are pretty good that republicans will. now, for the first time in my life i have done this in ten minutes and 30 seconds. so i'm only 30 seconds over. thank you all very much. cities tour takes book tv and american history tv on the road, traveling to u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. we partnered with comcast for a visit to colorado springs, colorado. >> in 1806, montgomery pike was set to the american southwest to explore the region, similar to lewis and clark, who are sent to the northwest part of the louisiana territory.

was sent to this southwest part of the territory. from his perspective, when he came out here, he really walked off the map. he went to an area that was unknown. sees the peak, he thinks he will reach the top of it in a few days, but it takes weeks to approach. he reaches what he believes was a lower mountain on the flanks of pikes peak. he turned around. at that point, pike wrote in his journal, given the conditions, given the equipment they had at the time, no one could have made it to the peak. pike's peak inspired the poem that became "america the beautiful," by katherine lee came to colorado springs to teach a summer course at colorado college in 1893. the view down to the plains from

the top of the mountain inspired , inspired the images that are captured in that poetry of the united states. >> watch all of our events from colorado springs, today at 2:00 eastern on american history tv on c-span three. >> monday night on "the communicators," the author and former chief technical officer under president obama. pikes if there is one message in the book to take away, it is the state isat any characterized by handshakes and handoffs. the question is who should do what. the handshakes are what washington has been doing lately, maybe behind the curtain and not well reported in the media, that shaking hands on the key principles of an independent state -- opening up data, encouraging collaborative work around standards, issuing challenges, and so forth.

that means the opportunity to have a more open government starts with a bipartisan coalition to lay that foundation. what is critical is handing off to the american people, entrepreneurs, public and and to build more interesting by products and services. monday night at eight eastern on c-span two. >> we are going live to atlanta for the final debate between the candidates in georgia senate race. and crat michelle nunn republican david perdue are running for the seat. courtesy of wsb tv. >> from