>> secretary clinton was part of the obama administration and a key component of the national security foreign affairs team that people now disapprove of obama. it's going to be real tough for her to separate herself from an administration in which he served. >> sir? >> you talk about the agenda on the issues, minimum wage, but you also mentioned legalization of pot. were you saying it's part of the democratic agenda now? >> well, it should be. >> why? >> the voters are in favor of it. and our drug laws are a

nightmare. the unfairness of our drug laws in terms of incars efforting young american meams, this is an insane policy. we should be legalizing marijuana in this country. >> your comments with regard to the election outcome in the senate might have some impact on the president in terms of his judicial appointment and specifically if a supreme court justice decides to retire, over the next two years, how do you think that's going to play out both in terms of who he might nominate as a replacement and how the senate might deal with that? >> i was going to say, in some ways i think honestly on the next panel is more, i don't want to speak tour expertise. my expertise is nothing more

than i would have written in national journal, which is the place to read it on these issues. but i think many democrats hope that everyone stays healthy for two years. >> the quick answer is it's going to be a very different nominee who can get confirmed now than it would have been before. >> any more questions out there? i want more from the audience, please, could you quickly mention the biggest warning sign you saw in the results for your party. what was the biggest red flag for your party? >> i would say two red flags. well, is there irish whiskey for the coffee yet? so a couple of things. one, turnout. and we had unparalleled turnout

operations. and but i think two things, one i think we vastly underestimate and don't have enough respect to the turnout operations of the republicans. >> we have to lay out our economic plan and agenda for the future that ensures that everyone in this country can have a chance for prosperity for

themselves and their kids. >> you sound like clinton '92. >> let me second what she said about the republican turnout operation. the operation with the r. n. c. and senatorial committee, it's light years better than it was two years ago. we got our butts kicked two years ago and we've adapted. which is -- >> by the way, my column today will be on this, everybody make sure you see it this afternoon. >> which is one reason why no one political party ever has a lock on anything, because eventually you get tired of losing and the other party figures it out. the biggest warning sign yesterday was exactly what we've seen coming, and that's the inex-rabble march of demographic change. 2% less white this year than 2010. it will be 2% less white four years from now than it was yesterday. we got a third of the hispanic vote. we've got to do better with

hispanics, with asians. we've seen that coming. it's not argue usually. math is math. >> yes, ma'am. >> thanks, i appreciate your comments about the female voters. curious if you could shed some analysis on some of the female candidates that won last night. >> so i would love to comment as well, because and i don't intend to be an expert, so correct me when i get it wrong. but to me it seemed like the year of the republican woman candidate. and there are two things that i think, or three things i think, there are three things i think happen. one, republican women made it out of republican primaries better than they have in the past. our primaries, democratic primaries are about 58% female. republican primaries are about 45% women voters.

our primaries include some of the voters who are most in favor of women candidates. african-americans, liberals, republican primaries traditionally have included some of the voters who were least in favor of women candidates. born again christians who took a more conservative role toward that. so what you saw is republican women really having a hard time getting out of their primaries. and whether it was love in utah or ernst in iowa, they got out of their primaries. and i agree with joany ernst is a real model, she's a real right winger, and yet she was able to use her gender and bracket. not just for every faction of her party which was remarkable, but independent in her, independent women in her state as well. so these a real model for future republican women. last night was the year of the republican woman, and i believe we now have a record number of

women, still way too few, in congress and a record number of republican women in office. >> now the youngest republican family mel ever relengthed, 30 years old. >> barbara comstock won a huge victory yesterday in a swing district in northern virginia. >> what's happening? >> what's happening is that you have qualified or capable females that are running and doing well. i hope that in the future not all republican females will start an ad with the wore was straition in it, which gives some of us a little bit of the willies. but she carried it off beautifully and it was a hell of an ad and hell of a campaign. >> it was a good campaign. >> a question? >> i would like to end if we

could pull back a little bit, i'm so interested in how vastly changing the populous is and how it affecting all of our institutions. for a pollster, it's really got to be the cutting end of change and how you identify and poll quality information out of people. tell me how the polling industry has changed the last few years and where do you think it's going? >> i'll be glad to answer that question. i want to point out one demographic change that we haven't discussed today which is also huge and that is the rise of unmarried voters. half of america now unmarried. half of births under 30 to unmarried women. 42% of all births to unmarried women. we talk about education, it something we have to bipartisanly work on is in five

years, your kindergarten classes , half the kindergarten class will be of single moms. last night if unmatter women had turned out at the same rates as married women, we would have won a lot of shows seats. married women voted republican. so this is a huge change, and getting that vote is very important. in terms of polling, all of us, us -- both of us have more gray than we want to admit. we're trying to combine

methodologies, we on our sigh try much more a combination of cell phones, online, over the telephone. we call walk more, we're in the field for longer period of time, because it's much more difficult to reach people. >> where do you think poll willing be 10 years from now? >> our industry is in the midst of the same kind of transition that occurred in the 60's when we moved from door to door interviewing the telephone interviewing, and we had many of the same complaints then, not everybody has a telephone, for example. we're in that same sort of trants is now. if there's a survey that doesn't include cell phones, you shouldn't pay any attention to it. i'm not a young person any more, i don't have a land line. so the idea that you can do a legitimate survey without a significant portion of cell phones is fanciful. we've gone from 20% to 50% very soon here in our samples.

but then ultimately we've got to figure out how to go to online data collection. and that has all kind of challenges regarding randomness. you can have huge panels, but you've still got to opt in to the panels. so we are in that transition period 10 years from now, most of our data i think will be collected through some version of online data collection. but we've got a lot of challenges to sort out. >> i'd like the comparison to the 60's much thank you guys so much for coming in. >> thank you. [applause] >> more now on tuesday's election results from the national journal. we'll hear from former members of congress, including former senators, bob bennett of utah, olympia snow of maine, plus former house members.

>> after last night i think the big question is with this new alignment with the bigger republican vort, with a new republican vort in the senate, is this congress more likely to come together and agree on things and get the president to sign them, or less likely? senator snow, i'd be curious to get your thoughts. >> i think most certainly the message should have been heard

in this election. because it was certainly a broad and sweeping repudiation of the status quote of the dysfunction in the senate and presidential leadership and policies. it's true across the country. people are fearful of the political paralysis that exists in washington. so i think it's abundantly clear that congress is going to have to move forward and learn how to legislate and to govern. so move from messaging to legislating and governing compromise and consensus has to be the operative language. i believe that senator mcconnell underscored that last night in his own speech but also in a speech that he delivered earlier in the senate this year, where he outlined how they wanted to restore the senate to what it was intended to do, which was to govern, to deliberate, to

consider. legislative initiatives, to have robust debates on policies. have the committees considering legislation, mocking it up, reporting it to the floor and also engaging the ranking and file in the senate on the broad issues that face in country. so it's returning to the senate to its original purpose and founding. and i believe that that is going to be his underlying objective moving forward. >> does that mean that the house and senate republicans will be coming together themselves on things and then sending them to obama and seeing what he'll do? for do you think they'll be will to be work things out ahead of time? >> hopefully beginning this week when the police will be melt with the bipartisan leadership that is the first step in the process. both the president and congress have to learn to work together, to develop political compatibility on the issues that matter to this country. there will obviously be areas on

which they differ. but they have to find areas of common ground and reach agreement on some critical issues to move this country forward, most especially when it comes to the economy and also on the budget. so from that standpoint, it would be wise for the republican leadership and the president to be able to work in sing krone on -- synchrony on some of these issues. both in the lame duck, laying the ground work for the new congress, and then with the new congress beginning, obviously establishing those areas on which they agree him such as repealing the medical device tax, for example. or infrastructure, some of the issues that matter and then moving forward on how to proceed developing a budget, tax reform and perhaps entitlement reform. >> the two big issues that people wonder if they're right for a big bipartisan agreement,

immigration reform and tax reform. i'm curious, do last night's results make either of those deals more likely? >> first if i could mention that former congressman tom davis and i have written a book about the issue of partisanship in congress, it's going to be out in january and you'll hear more about it at that time. you correctly identified the two toughest issues and which will be the real test of whether you can have bipartisan cooperation. tax reform is a very difficult issue, because you have a lot of special interests who have entree to both side, to both parties, and to try and resolve this issue will be a real test of whether you can operate on a bipartisan basis. immigration reform, is horribly complex issue. i often tell people that immigration reform makes social security reform look like a walk in the park. it is so difficult to come to grips with. but those two are the issues

that will be the test of whether you can have true bipartisanship. i was in congress in 1986, we did have the last immigration reform bill passed. it wasn't perfect, took a long time to get it done. i think also the role of the president is very important here. because hopefully president obama will see these last two years as the opportunity to build whatever legacy he has as the president and that he will then want to work with the new republican leadership in congress. but that's yet to be determined how successful it latest be. one of the institutional problems you have is in the house of representatives, you have so many safe districts where people, the districts are safely republican or safely democratic because the way the lines are drawn and their institutional forces that push people to extremes in their own parties because they're worry about a primary challenge.

very few people actually losing primaries, but people change their voting patterns because they're afraid they might lose in a primary and that makes it more difficult to meet in the center, to compromise. so the jury is out, we are all hopeful, we would like to see bipartisanship and cooperation, but we can't tell you whether it's really going to happen. i think mitch mcconnell is a very able leader. and i think that he will want to try and get some things done. the question will be for him, just as john boehner has a similar question, how does he deal with the more extreme element in his own party. can he get them to be willing to join in this dialogue, and to do something that's constructive. and we can't tell that yet. the extreme element, the tea party element did have a veto power over what john boehner could do in the last congress.

we'll see if they still do in this congress. i'm holding out that i remember the cartoon when richard nixon was elected president in 1968 and he had a clean shaven richard nixon sitting in a chair and said everybody, everybody should get a clean shave, everybody should start anew. and i think that's where we are right now and we'll see if in fact all these folks can work together. >> congressman, the idea that the house republican majority has gotten bigger and the idea that a lot of tea party republicans are coming in gets a lot of press attention. but there are a lot of members elected from northeastern states, from upper midwest states, who might in fact be more sympathetic toward the main street group you're affiliated with. do those members push painer in the opposite direction toward compromise? >> i think they do. if you look at new york and syracuse and a couple of the

other, maine, for instance, you still have the tea party faction, but us also have what i call practicing ma tests. pragmatists. you're still going to have the hell no caucus, the folks that i refer to as chuckle heads. but if you can marginalize that and not let them get sort of the momentum, in mitch mcconnell and john boehner you have two people who are deal makers, who can put together the legislative packages. and some people forget, people always talk about the hastert rule in the house and it's been sort of bastardized. it not that you have to have 218 votes. you have to have the majority of the republican conference, which is 120. if you put together 120 republicans with a like number of democrats, and hoyer is a

great deal maker as well on the other side, you can get some of these things done. so we'll see. the president has to dance, but if the president dances, i think you with get a lot of stuff done. >> to follow up on that, the start of the last congress boehner had a bit of a square, there were just a few members in his conference who wanted to vote against him for speaker, embarrassed him a little perhaps. do you see that happening again? >> you're still going to have some people showing up on opening day, have their i pads open and say i think we can take him. but i think that will be marginalized. i think the speaker's troops have circled the wagons and made it clear if you look at boehner for speaker and the southern leadership pacs to the rabble rousers. they didn't get any money. and the other lesson they think in -- the establishment did a good job of making sure that normal people were nominated and when you don't nominate nuts, the

squirrels have nothing to eat and so it's all about, it was all about the barack obama and his record, rather than the nut running against this person or the nut running against that person. so i think that helps both the speaker and mcconnell. >> back to the senate, you know mcconnell well. he said if you became major leader he would have a more open floor process, a more free wheeling day that he says harry reid has not allowed. and i'm curious to get your thoughts on those issues. will he allow an open amendment process? and whether he revert to the old nominee rules or keep the current ones? >> i don't know exactly what he will do with respect to the rules. i do know that he's deadly serious about returning to regular order. he made that speech almost a year before the election. i'm told from people who were in the conference that members of

the conference, republican senators, came up to him and said rich, if you do not do what you just promised to do, we will replace you as leader. that is so essential to get the senate to where it ought to be. one the things that's been ignored in all the cutting of the data, half of the senate is in their first term. you have half of the senate who have never seen legislation occur in their lives. they have lived with continuing resolutions and omnibus bills and blocking of regular order. they have never attended a conference of any kind between the house and senate. they don't understand how that's supposed to be done. they don't understand how amendments have been handled. olympia and i were there, the normal pattern was a bill was put on the floor, you had a string of amendments, it was always much too long, you special your time as the manager

of the bill, or managers, because you have a republican manager and a democratic manager. negotiating with all the people offering you amendments saying will you leez not offer that for the following reasons. or saying, okay, we'll accept that, and then between the two managers saying and we'll drop it in conference. just so that we can move ahead on this. you end up with about five or six important amendments that are raised on the floor, debated, voted on. and then you take the bill to conference. half of the senate has never seen that activity take place. and mitch is determined to return to that kind of a world. when you go back to that kind of world, and start to educate the people who have come in, who think that all you do in the senate is make a speech and all of the legislation is cooked in the leader's office, and then

tucked in as a drop-in to a must-pass c.r. or something of that kind so you as a senator have no input whatsoever on any legislation, the leader takes care of all of that. for all of the historical analysis of lyndon johnson and how powerful he was. lyndon johnson never had the kind of legislative power that harry reid has aggregated within his office and his staff. and mitch is determined to change that. i think when that begins to happen, all kind of good things will begin to happen. again, if you have two managers on the floor, a republican and a democrat, you have to get together. olympia has done it, she's managed all the floors as a republican, i've done it. you can't be mad at your democratic counterpart when you're trying to move a bill

across the floor. all kind of wonderful things begin to happen, and that is mitch's number one goal. mitch has enormous advantage that is not available to most senators. he knows he's not going to be president of the united states some day. ( laughter ) subsequently he will focus on the institution and making it work. one other thing. if i were advising him at this point, i would say, do this to get rid of some of the difficulties that grip the senate, and i think the house. eliminate the sequester. go back to the days when appropriators made decisions based on what needed to be done, instead of being locked in the straight jacket of a sequester that says we're going to lower the spending across the board

without regard to any needs, all we're thinking about is the top line number, and we're going to force everything to that bed. if he can restore regular order and convince boehner to convince his troops, let's get rid of the sequester and go back to legislating intelligently, i think it will be enormously powerful, and i think it is the best thing the republicans could possibly do in preparation for 2016. because in 2016 the question will be, which party is capable of governing. right now the answer is neither one. and if the republicans by controlling both houses of congress and tamping down -- tamping down the chuckle heads, it can establish itself as the party that can win.

i leave but in one piece of history. i'm older than you are. yeah, i remember the -- 1964. the analysis after 1964 was that the republican party was doomed. and it was only a question of how quickly a new party would be formed to replace it. because of the tremendous she lacking the republicans had received in the '64 election. four years later the republicans won the presidency because of all the difficulties that were there and the inability of the democrats to deal with their biggest problem, which was the vietnam war. so i don't think the republicans are doomed for the future, i

don't think they're going to disappear. but if they're going to come back, they have to demonstrate that they can govern. and that means in the congress they have to department stray that they can legislate, and that is mitch mccon them's number one priority. >> congressman kramer, following up on what senator bennett said, i'm old enough to remember when appropriations idea to pass bills in regular order and all or most would get considered separately. it's been a long type since that happened. do you think that all republican controlled congress means that we're going to go back to that? >> we'll see. i sure hope we'll go back to that. there's a tendency for each of us to look pack on our service much i was 18 years in the house of representatives and it seemed like an eternity. i was there when we birthed what became known as the blue dog coalition after the devastate are the 94-95 election cycle.

i had a career threatening night that year, looked around me and saw a lot of blood on the table, a lot of my colleagues around the south particularly that were dicked out from their positionings. we put that centrist koo -- coalition together because we wanted to project that we were working legislators that we were there not to carry party labels or leadership agendas or the president's agenda. the president then was bill clinton but to pick up the pieces and say we're serious about this. each leadership put its thumb on its members. our leadership, we had committee assignments and that sort of thing that they threatened us with. i remember some interesting conversations about that that i'm trying to don't.

but we did come together as a democratic group. but then i made to it the appropriations committee. a series importanter with serious issues that affected my district, getting those bills done was important to me. mccon not, mcpeculiar ski, shelby, the appropriators over there are serious about returning to the day when those bill can be passed, the job can be accomplished and not done by c. r. next week we'll see. the dust will begin to settle, we'll see if we do another c.r. and what harry riefd's attitude is coming off this very bad night. and how they bin to pick up the pieces there. but quickly, because i want to involve the audience in this too, we will see if the next two years the message of last night is translated by new members and members coming back from the trenches, this is a time to

fight the president, this is a time to repeal obamacare, repeal obamacare. we've got serious legislative issues that need to be addressed. the appropriationings process certainly. then you've got a debt limit, you've got issues that will affect the economy of this country. can tax reform be addressed in a bipartisan way. steve and i are involved in different -- i chair a board called center forward. a main street partnership, we try to bring ourselves together to bring senate members across the aisle, house members across the aisle, together over issues specific topics to try to show what kind of give and take is going on. i hope we see more of that. >> could i make one observation? on the question of regular order and i was in the house for 26 years, we've had succession of speakers starting with newt gingrich, continuing through nancy pelosi, continuing through john boehner, all of whom have

said they wanted to return to regular order, none of whom actually did. because they decided that they needed to write bills in the speaker's office, they needed to have leadership bills. so returning to regular other, maybe that's possible in the senate. it is very hard to do, because leaders of the house are not inclined to go to regular order. they're inclined to have a strong speakership and to have a top down operation. i hope you're right, but it is very hard because you have both democratic and republican speakers, since 1994 who have said this is their objective and who has not done it. >> there are at the few centrists that moderate where their leadership is coming from. >> mr. frost, you were in the house, a house when president clinton was in office and one thing he did was take some stand and make some deems that his own party was not happy. i'm curious if you might react

by bucking his own party, by willing to do things that maybe a majority of his party doesn't want him to do. >> i don't want to give a long answer. but it really rests with the attitude of the present. if the president decides that he really does want to try and get things done on a bipartisan basis and he's willing to take some risk, then i think democrats will follow his lead. if he kind of just hides in the white house, if he doesn't take a strong role, then i'm afraid it will be much harder. i'm hopeful the president will in fact look to his legacy and try to provide some real leadership. >> senator snow what are the big issues that has bedeviled congress is the debt seal, it's coming up again. i know senator mcconnell has made clear highs not interested in a government shutdown, but the question of whether the debt seal moves in a clean way or

whether, as many conditions want, it has conditions attach to it. >> they need to get rid of this debt seal issue. they have a bipartisan agreement that that's not going to be where they spend their time. >> senator snow? >> i think certainly they don't want to repeat the fiasco of the debt seal crisis in 2011, which could have been avoided. if you think about all the crises that have occurred in the united states congress, they've been all self designed by congress. everyone was manufacture. so i'm sure senator mcconnell will want to avoid getting into a major conflict on that very question. establishing certainty when it comes to the debt seal is going

to be critical. so i'm sure they will find a way to pay forward, and that would also mean doing other issues, along the way, setting the agenda. what will be key for senator mccon them and speaker painer and the president is to agree on the areas on which they should take action. that's what's different today than was in previous times when all of us served much those meetings between the president and bipartisan leadership, and those communicationings will be absolutely essential. bottom line is they both had to have the motivation to make the divided government work in the

best interest of this country. so all of this will occur quickly in the legislative process. you've got to nail it down sooner rather than later. >> the task for senator mcconnell will be whether he is will to be tell ted from my state he's the leader. ted cruz is not the leader. he's got to make it clear that he's in charge and that ted cruz can't be the tail wagging the dog. >> to follow up on that, mcconnell may not envision himself as president, but a lot of other republican senators may indeed envision themselves as president. on the debt ceiling and other issues, is that going to make it harder for mcconnell to move

things smoothly when you have a lot of people wanting to make a stand? >> there is no cannier politician in washington than mitch mccon them. >> agreed. >> and yes, ted cruz represents a unsettling factor within the republican conference. my sense of things, not being there, this just comes from conversations, mitch has very carefully, very methodically, very much under the radar isolated ted cruz. he's kind of sealed him off, like the body puts a sack around some foreign matter that it would prefer to expel, but if i can't it can at least cut it off. and the tea party caucus was formed that was going to be so powerful.

we heard about that in utah when mike lee was elected and they said oh, you're not going to be able to do anything, he said oh yeah, i'm going to have all these buddies, all these women to take over and by the time they got through with the tea party caucuses, it was ted cruz and jim demint, and demint left. and rand didn't join, and rubio didn't join. and all these other people were saying wee just stay away from this. mcconnell, i do know some specifics of people who publicly say, oh, he's got to be for mcconnell, and i know privately they've had the conversation and now they're with mcconnell. and cruz is going to look around and there are not going to be that many people with him. mcconnell can deal with. this. >> we're a couple minute away

from the audience q and a section. there are microphones you can stand up at, if you want to line up. you can tweet questions at us. so we're just a couple more minutes of conversation here, then we're going to go to the q and a. i guess one more question i had when you talked briefly about health care and whether it's going to get repealed, i'm curious, do you think it's possible that the two fathers will agree on some smaller part of the affordable care act? >> i do. peel like ryan and boehner recognize that it's probably not good to have the 59th vote to repeal obamacare on the opening session in january. most people, and i think if you look at the election results, feel that there's some decent parts to the affordable care act and some horrible parts that the process was obnoxious. it was rammed down the republican party's throat. and any big change really requires that you have buys

'from both parties. i think the smart people in the republican party get that there has to be an alternative. that you have to say, well, let's replace, repair and replace. so i think there's the opportunity to do that. i do want to go back to regular order and the appropriationings process for a minute. the dumbest thing that the house of representatives ever did was to eliminate earmarks when it comes to behaving in regular order. because people misunder it and say oh, i was bought off for a bridge or was bought off for that. that happened a couple times in my 18 years. but i will tell you that more afternoon than not if you were on the bubble on a 900 page bill and somebody said to you, we can take care of something that's important to you. it's long rolling, it's not bribe, it doesn't cost any more money, but in his crew say to end earmarks has done tremendous damage to the ability of the

leaders to get their folks in line. >> gentlemen, please go ahead. >> can the new congress bring consensus on infrastructure and roads, clean water, safe water? other infrastructure? >> bud may note more with that be anybody. >> thank you. >> the congress better address, those issues have internet postponed. we see with nick rayhall having lost his race that defast why will e -- difaso will likely end up as the the -- not to belabor the earmark issue, but that bill has been a, the service transportation part of that has been a hard bill to craft, without the issue of earmarks or directed funding.

so that's a perfect example of a serious piece of legislation that is overdue for bipartisan participation. >> there's a complete abdication of leadership by everybody in washington on the infrastructure question. we've known since we wrote the safety bill in 2005 that you have to have more money. and there's only a couple ways to get more money, you raise the gas tax, you tax important barrels of oil. but the president has been awol, and no one wants to take the mantle. and as a republican, trance continental railroad, panama canal, interstate highway system, the republicans known for building america. we should be ashame of ourselves. >> i wondered what the panel thought harry reid's approach is going to be in his new job as minority leaderrer. is he going to be obstructionist or a deal maker?

>> i served with -- you served with harry when he was in the house. i served with harry before he became senator. harry is a very able, skilled politician. i don't know how he's going to approach things, i can answer that. i think that he will, he understands that it's in the interest of everybody that there be progress on some important issues. he doesn't have the situation that he had in this election. he had so many democrats up, in difficult races this time in the senate. if you tried to protect those senators who came from red states of not having to cast a lot of hard votes, that's not the case in the next election. and of course he's not in control. mcconnell will now be in control. so i'm hopeful that harry will find a way. marry and mccon them are both very capable people. and it's just a question of whether they can sit down and work this out.

in a mutually degreable way. they are both skilled politicianings. >> i'll mix in one question from twitter. one person asked, how does trade including trade promotion authority, look as an area for bipartisan cooperation next year? >> it's a bad issue on bipartisanship. majority of democrats are heavily influenced by my friend in organized labor on trade issues. the republicans will have the votes, now that they're the majority. to pass trade legislation, depend on the president's attitude whether he's going to work with them and sign it. i can't answer how that will play out. but it will probably be easier to move trade legislation through republicans control of the senate but there's no guarantee. >> i think it depend to a great deal on how much leadership the president decided that he's going to exert. the president has been pro traded --

portrayed, kind of it. and the divisionings in the congress are strong enough that you can't get it done kind of. you've got to be very firm and very solid. and i think if president obama comes out and says okay, this is what we have to do, on the trade issue. and democrats get in line and support me on this, i think you'll get -- >> probably the best you can do would be to get a significant minority of democrats to agree. you're not going to get a majority of democrats on that issue. but if you have enough democrats to join with the president and with the republicans, you have a real chance. >> you can get that done. >> it happened with nafta and it happened with trade with china. the majority of the democratic caucus voted no, but there were enough democrats who were willing to vote yes that you could achieve it. but we'll see, this is a tough issue. >> what do you think the

election portends for what will get done during the lame duck session are very little. in the lame duck session. and we both, we'll all served in the lame duck sessions, they are frustrating and not overly productive. i hope they can reach an agreed upon omnibus appropriation bill rather than just punting this to the next congress, but even that remains to be seen. >> in 2010 there was a very productive session, but i wouldn't expect that to take place now. i think basically it will be what has to pass at this point between continuing resolution or an only -- omnibus. beyond that, maybe the internet tax freedom and several other i at thes. but i would doubt this would be

very productive. >> they're going to get in and out of town as quickly as they can. you've got the national defense authorization act, which has been passed every year as far back as anybody can practically remember, so you've got this the lame duck some serious issues that can be addressed. more funding for ebola, lose ends that present themselves. are they going to do a quick in quick out next we'll? or continue boo december. so something will begin to be addressed. >> if i were a republican sevenning in the senate, i wouldn't want much done in lame duck, because a want to defer as many thins as i can until our party would be in the majority. >> mcconnell has said he wants a clean slate. that is he would like to get everything put together and passed and so the republicans don't have to deal with the

hangover of the other congress. and it's interesting that two senators have sent him a formal letter saying they will object. >> i would like to ask what the actual insend tichs are for this congress to work together and cooperate. because it seems that you have constructionist congress in the last session, and republicans obstructing the legislative process in the senate. i'm sorry, i'm not really comfortable with party blaming. but what incentives are there with such a narrow majority?

and then the republicans lp shut down the government and then they regain the victory. >> wait a minute. the control of the senate was in democratic hands. the person who kept bills from coming to the floor was the democratic majority leader. you've got democratic senators, former, up in alaska, for example. furious because they couldn't get any of their legislation even discussed. any of their amendmentings even raised. so back to my opening statement, mcconnell is going to open that up. it's not the obstructionist republicans who have shut down the senate. it's been the strategy of marry reid, which i understand, i think he made a mistake, i can understand his motive for trying to go in that direction. back to an earlier question,

what will harry be like, harry works. and i think harry will recognize, okay, i had a strategy, we tried it, it didn't work, we paid a heavy police for it. i'm willing to change. harry is also a senator who knows he's not going to be president of the united states and has great respect for the institution. i think there's a great opportunity here for something moving forward. >> what incentives do they have? >> the incentive is bring simple. the public was going to from bones out and there were more democrats up than republican this is time. democratses gatt tossed out on the senate. if the senate isn't able to act, then a lot of republican senators will suffer. so there is a party 'incentive on the side of the republicans to try and get things done because they have so many people up in the next election.

>> also both side have an interest in getting something done. yes, the republicans are remaking their en image, but also the, the and the way they handled the senate, bail shut down. there wtion a denial of offering amendments. in fact i think the minority was only allowed to vote on 11 amendments for over a year. the amendments of the bridge towards consensus. if you can't offer amendments you can't offer -- they were all about messaging and not solving the problem. that's what senator mcconnell wants to turn to, and i think that the opening day in both the house and senate will be critical in terms of the message sent, the rules that are adopted. i know we've come up with a number of recommendationings in that regard in how to institutes alley change, a lot of which dovetails with senator

mcconnell's proposals. if we don't have a process, you can't move legislation forward. and that is what has been absent for too long on so many of the issues that the american people care about. so if either side becomes obstructionist, they do so that's air peril in 2016. that window is very limited in which they can function successfully and effectively. and it's true for the president in terms of securing his own legacy. so there's a lot of interest on a mutual basis. to be effective and not to view it as being obstructionist. >> don't think a the public's blood lust for throwing people out of office was satisfied just with the 2014 election. and if congress cab function, there are a lot of people that will be in trouble in 2016. so it's in both parties' interest to get some agreement. but it more so in the republicans' interest because they have an awful lot of their

people up in the senate in 2016. >> we'll have to en it there. i want to thank our panelists for joining us this morning. thank you. [applause] >> taking the stage is a conversation with the power place panel.

the hard work of doing this day in and day out, government relations does not change. you will see an administration that is activated by this election and a lot of activity on the regulatory front. we have seen a divided senate needs plenty of work for democrats and republicans. it doesn't really matter who is in control. i'm excited about this new approach that the senate majority leader and mitch mcconnell is going to take to the senate. i'm interested to see how long that actually lasts.

i think that we are in for some interesting times and appetites are big right now and once people remember how politics work and help us and it works and how the institutions work understand that we are still in washington. >> we are in an environment that has a lot of potential. on k. street and capitol hill and at the administration you are looking at the potential for activity. and like heather pointed out that there was a window of time that will occur. we have a chance to see whether this administration wants to work with republicans to the store and whether they can in

the majority. >> this is basically a full employment program for k. street and so do you pretty much see that as the way that it's going? >> the answer is yes and because there is a possibility that the legislation might be past that is going to create the activity that everybody is going to be worried about their bill and their piece of legislation passing but also the other activity that goes on the matter what is already also looking to the future that maybe we won't do anything the next two years that this might set the groundwork for what could happen in 2016 and beyond. so the activity does continue and in some areas it is going to be lots and lots of smoke that's not much five-year at the end of the day but lots of smoke. >> so far this administration and the congressional republicans idea of negotiating and we are going to have to see if both sides continue that road than we've seen what's going to

happen. nothing. but if they decide to get together and go out of the house with democratic support, let's not have to worry about the filibuster. let's pass stuff with 60 plus and if obama sits down and negotiate something that we have a great opportunity. i am skeptical frankly but i hope that it works. hairy reed invented the treaty that's been around for a while and i hope that we have an open process and -- we are going to until we don't. >> change creates uncertainty no matter what. what are your clients looking for? the morning after do you have to do a lot of pan holding or are you getting a lot of phone calls can't how does that work >> it is an understanding of what that meaning. -- what that means. we don't believe of answers.

we are at the status quo point where we realize a lot of the work whether it's on the regulatory side or the administration will continue to progress and it may be in the absence so looking at what the opportunity may be on the legislative cited the budget reconciliation over the next couple of weeks and months. please send out a memo to the clients now. what happens in the lame-duck. the lame-duck is when everything gets scrambled and crazy. if you are not in the room you may end up with some type of tax paid for. so it is this matter of all right are they going to do a cr, are they going to do an omnibus, or they are going to be policy writers, which tax provisions are going to go forward.

are we going to try to throw other tax measures into the mix because the end of the year that he didn't pay for the business tax cuts so it's sort of free money. these are all of the things our clients are asking about now and we are guiding them and making sure that their interests are protected in this very tumultuous environment. >> because we knew this result was not is not surprising what may be surprising was the number. and some of the things that happened. people are not necessarily panicked and it makes a good point. it's bigger than we thought what

impact what we have on the lame-duck session and will the new members push the old members to not do a lot just to kind of do a minimum, so is it a three-month cr, four month or something longer than that? that is where we are right now. i do healthcare and we can talk about that. >> the bigger problem, on a little bit of panic are the folks that lost champions for the cause and the constituent companies. i think that is the only bit of the rights so everyone else is what we thought would happen. >> you had mentioned the possibility of reconciliation. do you want to talk about -- >> absolutely. there is a sense of given where the numbers are good and more favorable than we anticipated. the fact of the matter is looking at next year as we can accomplish in the senate with 51 votes from mitch mcconnell and going through the budget reconciliation process and whether it makes us both through the chambers task is an unlikely proposition but in the short term, but we anticipate its clients like mine are concerned

about setting markers for things like medicaid cuts on the tax side so it's an opportunity for the lobbyists to engage and it will create a lot of anxiety the next six to seven months. whether or not it takes shape at the front of the conversation the idea being that it will set a marker for the future debates when we get it beyond. >> the biggest marker that will be sent is that we want to make

this political from the get-go and if the reconciliation happens, there isn't going to be something obama will find. it just won't have an answer that means the marker is out and we are going to campaign for two more years. >> i think most people assume tax reform, the energy. there is going to be a lot of activity. is that what you are assuming even if it isn't a big bill everybody wants a lovely large

solution to tax reform and even if we are just talking rifle shot is if your assumption this activity is going to be trade were where do you see the action coming up? >> will there be a move meant maybe, we will see. but there will be a legitimate chance to reform pieces of obamacare. if it is done in a bipartisan manner there is an opportunity for certain pieces to be done on a bipartisan manner i think that would be the focal point. >> and i think that building on what jeff said regarding healthcare, a lot of pressure will be on the congress to repeal it and we may see the bills. but i think that jeff's point about that is it isn't going to work so will we see the piecemeal pieces of legislation to repeal? the challenge by the republicans is doing it in a way that the president won't sign today also antagonize the president to your point, michelle, on the other place to be co- pieces they would like the democrats and republicans talk about if the president moves on immigration for the executive branch that would please indulge.

they could poison it if both sides do want to work together on health care by sending a stream of things he will not sign and he will veto. we will have to see. >> but we don't know is what road republicans will take. we won't know today or for a couple weeks. the road they could take his messaging, doing everything we can to show that we can't govern and we can't work with this president and therefore we would love to govern but we just can't so let's look to the president and things we can get him to say we are trying. on the flipside you can look at opportunities and to say things like trade, taxes, pension, obamacare off ramps, opportunities to look at things you can get 60 votes on the senate and appeal.

that takes a lot to have that conversation but again i don't know that we know which path republicans are going to take. they say i wanted to take that track. the political person in me says let's take the other track and wait until 2017. but there will probably be a combination of both of those things in play and i don't know how long it will last.

>> then you have the regular pattern of bills that need to be reauthorized. can we work on a higher reauthorization bill and are we going to do a telecom rewrite? transportation infrastructure, these are things where there are opportunities to lead and you can see the movement on them. >> if the president is planning to move forward without congress because he has expressed his frustration several times and take them out of these equations what does that do in terms of is the focus shift to the regulators and how do you handle that? >> it would be across the ballot

as well and i think that that basically is saying i am not really interested in giving it a bipartisan line just going to move forward. something very clear could happen and something happened to all of us up here today to. >> it's the president's fourth quarter. he's going to finish strong and he's going to put a mark on this country. he the country. he has the ability to use his agency to change the way that americans live over the course of the next two years and i think that you are going to see

a much stronger and forceful approach when it comes to issues like climate change on immigration and other matters. on immigration and other matters, and so congress is going to spend a lot of time going, what is he doing? how can we stop it? and that's when the sort of battles begin, but ultimately, right now he has the power to do a lot of things and he's going to use it. >> on the point about regulation, for at least 10 years, probably 20, folks in this business have realized that when you pass legislation and it is signed, that's not even almost half of what we do that is ultimately important. that is the regulatory process. it is ongoing. you have to be involved in the regulatory process. if you're not, you're going to miss a lot. i do health care and there is so much that is still to be done on the affordable care act, from a regulatory perspective. we're getting far enough away from passage that some of the original -- some the original regulation is starting to come around again. it's incredibly important to pay attention to the regulation and what more needs to be done. the president is going to be aggressive across the board when it comes to regulation, whether it's regulation that he has the clear power over, a or to push the envelope. having also served in the administration, you have a huge

amount of power and discretion when it comes to regulation and congress. it's much more difficult for congress to actually do something to stop or change regulations. >> staying on health care just for a second, you mentioned there will be votes to repeal. once we move past that, what are you most optimistic in terms of the tweaking, medical devices, little stuff like that? >> the opportunity for actual progress will depend on -- does the white house say bring it on, let's move past it and then get down to doing what we need to do, or whether that activity has poisoned the well and the president gets really ticked off. and whether the pressure on leadership is so great to not compromise at all, to just continue with these votes. i think at this point, we don't know. >> the other thing about it is, everyone assumes were going to go to dynamic scoring. how does that affect all of us, and does it all of a sudden become -- what sort of role does that play? >> dynamic scoring is basically magic at the end of the day. it is a slow walk in terms of opportunity people have talked about.

i think it takes a lot longer to use that as an effective mechanism. if i'm a democrat, i would demand that republicans pass with any repeal that they also have ready to go a replacement bill. i think that's going to be a cousin scoring and all the other things, extremely difficult for republicans to produce the legislation that they agree on that catches all the people who are currently having insurance as a result of the law. how are we going to make sure they don't fall through with the replacement? that's the huge challenge. >> the notion of being realistic when it comes to putting the toothpaste back in the tube when it comes to health care. i think leadership has realize they have to be able to talk about the four or five things that could really catch the president i in terms of rings he would be willing to do, things like the 30 hour workweek, opportunities were there could be changes that would not necessarily damage the integrity of the affordable care act.

>> as everyone knows, today is not just the day after the election, it is the first day unofficially of 2016. you have a very short window before everything is about 2016. does this mean a lot of your acts are completely frontloaded? do you feel the pressure to move early? >> we will see. march is a big tsunami of events. if they all are acted on, after that the campaign starts and we will see. what role does it have on the highway bill reauthorization? will they try to do something permanent? is all of it just moved to the summer to give more time to work on it? this odd year is going to be a big year.

>> we also have the dynamic of -- it will play a tremendous role in putting pressure on something they're not quite ready to do. >> i think the assumption is that there are about three that we can count on having a 2016 agenda in mind. does this make your life that much more complicated? >> i think for republican staffers, they're going to see what is actually achievable in this congress and in then it will pretty much be set in terms of what is doable on the agenda by next august. does that change the work that we do day in and day out? no, that is just sort of persistent. yes, we have 734 days before 2016. it's a lot of noise. it's a large distraction. it's something for the commentators to talk about, but in terms of setting public policy day in and day out in washington, that will continue to move forward. bake we have two democrats and two republicans up there.

how difficult is it when the other team winds up in charge? >> does it affect the agenda? sure. but you need republicans to pass anything. it really doesn't affect much. we have become a bipartisan shop, so it really hasn't affected us much at all. at the same time, i like to be part of a team that sets the agenda and i'm disappointed that we are not anymore. >> you talked about losing champions, but just in general, do you foresee -- there are a lot of changes in the senate. it is really musical chairs and where people land, it's going to be interesting. some folks have never held the gavel before and our earnest public policy folks and are excited about the opportunity. others are far more political.

bake we have two democrats and two republicans up there. how difficult is it when the other team winds up in charge? >> does it affect the agenda? sure. but you need republicans to pass anything. it really doesn't affect much. we have become a bipartisan shop, so it really hasn't affected us much at all. at the same time, i like to be part of a team that sets the agenda and i'm disappointed that we are not anymore. >> you talked about losing champions, but just in general, do you foresee -- there are a lot of changes in the senate. it is really musical chairs and where people land, it's going to

be interesting. some folks have never held the gavel before and our earnest public policy folks and are excited about the opportunity. others are far more political. this is why we love what we do. no matter what we predict our project will happen, something wild and crazy will happen because politics is always stranger than fiction. you are dealing with human beings and they do very human things. i never cease to be amazed that you think something is going one direction and you can have a u-turn. >> just ask anthony brown in maryland. that was the one race i said that if something crazy is going to happen, it is here. hoban won by over 100,000 votes. it was amazing. the one that will be interesting in the house is not due to the election but due to the term

limits, it is darrell issa and the term limits committee. then what does the senate to? today follow that pattern? this is where republicans could exercise a good deal of authority in a potentially good way or bad way. they can do real oversight investigation. it's not perfect, it never is. having someone look over your shoulder is not a bad idea. but if it is purely political in

nature and doesn't seem to have a purpose, then it is annoying and not productive it will be interesting to see where that goes. >> a sort of expect that under republican leadership they're going to shine a very right light on the administration and implementation of dodd-frank and the affordable care act, and really highlight issues. i think we can expect that democrats will be equally as activated only instead of focusing on the administration they're going to shine a light on industry. so expect to see senator ed markey, senator blumenthal, hyper engaged and sending letters and suggesting investigations into different business practices. an increasingly what we have seen is one senator using their

convening power to change corporate behavior. i think we will see this only grow in the months come. >> we have less than two minutes here, so if you have questions, we have mics up and i will be looking at twitter. we talked about how this depends on republican leadership and also the president. is there anything you're looking for in today's press conference that's going to make you nervous or that you're hoping for when

obama gets up there later today? >> as i was saying earlier, it's like a time of great grace. you don't have to actually do anything for at least the next couple of weeks. so i'm hoping to hear that they say all the things we want to hear about getting along and trying to work together. again, i think that even if we may have different interests in what we want to get accomplished among clients, we do want progress. i like the idea of governing and i would like to see our congress in the white house govern. that's what i'm listening for, or is the fight going to start tomorrow? that's what i'm listening for. >> i'm hopeful that we will see mutual decency and thoughtfulness and respect. i think if this election is about one thing, it's about the economic insecurities that americans feel. one out of two people still think we are in a recession. figuring out ways to work together to address that is going to be key moving forward. >> i am more focused on friday's

meeting at the white house, having a dialogue with the president. i harken back to the grand bargain days of 2011 when we all had little bit of optimism that these folks would all be in a room and come to an agreement on something sort of significant. we all know how that story went, it fell apart for a lot of different reasons. what is interesting to me is whether that meeting there's the fruit of real dialogue between republicans and democrats. it's something we will have to wait and see. >> i think folks in this administration have been prepared for this for some time. they have known it was going to happen in some number. i think we will hear very good tone out of this. the question is what happens when the extremes of both parties collide.

>> we will put it out to questions that anybody may have out there. and also i have the very helpful twitter feed. somebody has asked about infrastructure with legislation, may be tied to tax reform. are you pretty optimistic about that? >> that will be the first vehicle. it marks, that's the deadline and that will be the first vehicle. the question is will it become the catchall vehicle. there is no doubt that there's great bipartisan support for making sure we passed the highway bill. >> what about trade, as far as what is the best possibility for

some kind of trade agreement moving forward? does anybody have a sense of that? >> that is definitely a place where you're going to have to thread the needle and find the middle and pass something significant on both sides of the aisle, in both chambers. >> i think the house republicans are going to need to do some real soul-searching in terms of what they want their trade policy to be, in that the tea party has been somewhat divided, and will they give the president -- i don't know, not without significant restrictions, and what does that look like? quick someone was asking about tax extenders. is that a lot of what you're going to be looking at instead of a huge, grand bill or whatever? >> is this something that's going to be a big focus? >> that is everyone's goal, the question is, can we get to it?

everyone is going to be focused on it and people really want to get it done. it's a great opportunity in a bipartisan way. >> where do you find a half trillion dollars though? the idea of that lame duck conversation is the hope is there would be a dialogue, being able to pick and choose which

ones should be made permanent and which one should be thrown away. i think the house started that process and the senate went forward in their own direction. retroactive are going forward until we have that dialogue. >> does anyone foresee a flurry of senate confirmations in the lame duck? >> if we can get it done, yes. i think there will be a big push by majority leader reid to get as many nominations done as

possible, as it only gets harder. that means for time will be consumed with nominations, and it makes it difficult to work on other issues. >> yes, a nomination to some degree expresses a policy position or whatnot, but ultimately these are people the president wants working for him, whatever the job is. unless there's something really awful, i think the senate should essentially pass most of the president pause nominations on. it could be assigned if they're willing to say -- go ahead and vote on them. >> were going to do a live and in person question. >> someone in the first panel

talked about the disconnect with voters, in leadership and education policies, especially k-12. and in state elections in common core issues in particular. do you see congress working on the margins, specifically can you talk about the house bills that passed with bipartisan support and whether it has any chance in this environment? >> i think there is a real opportunity for education reform in this environment. the last time we did no child left behind, it took a

bipartisan approach. with k-12, it takes years and years and years, several congresses, to rewrite and get right the authorizing legislation. i'm hopeful that we make progress on this point. not only k-12 but also higher ed. >> i think were going to have a chair of help in patty murray who will be an advocate and will really want to get something good done and get it done in a bipartisan way. >> i think the alexander murray combination will be helpful not only in education but also tensions.

>> i think what's interesting about the election is for the first time in history, the congress has 100 women in it. if you look at republicans and see the challenges they face in the war on women, there are real opportunities to engage on things like working families that are relatable on the labor front. >> we are out of time and we must released our panelists. but thank you so much again. [applause] >> more on tuesday's election results from the national journal.

>> that was the shortest introduction i've had in a while. i've always wanted someone to say, "charlie cook is someone who needs no introduction." i am teasing. thank you very much to all the great people at united technologies who i've had a chance to do a bunch of events for them and they are a great company. i long for the day when i can afford to have a house with an elevator and my own helicopter. not in this lifetime, but i can always wish. i'm trying to figure out how to do this. you are all observers of an experiment in sleep deprivation. i finished up in new york at 10:45 this morning and drafted my column for national journal friday and then showered, shaved, and packed and i've been up here since friday. then i took the 6:00 train down.

so i have had a 15 minute nap. and i finished up the column while i was on the train. so we will see if i have any coherence whatsoever. so this is stream of consciousness, this is not the whole polished or ration i'll be giving it up you weeks. we have been talking for some time, a couple of months, really, that what we were seeing from senate democrats is the equivalent of a perfect storm. the least important was the numerical exposure. that was the least of senate democrats problems. the math, the geography, and you are a wired in group of people, the democrats had seven seats up in romney's seat and republicans only had one seat up in an obama state. six of those democrats in romney

states were carried by 14 points are more. third is the turnout. we know that increasingly in presidential elections, the turnout is big, broad, diverse, it looks pretty much like the country. but in midterm elections, the turnout tends to be older, whiter, more republican, more conservative. maybe the older fifth in this room, when we were growing up, the seniors, people 65 and older were pretty democratic voting group. they grew up in the great depression, the new deal and all that. 65 and older now are a lot more

likely to remember the rather unfortunate years under president carter and eight somewhat better years during president reagan. they are more likely to remember those 12 years than the 12 years under franklin roosevelt. seniors vote more often than anybody else. this gap between what happens in presidential elections, it's getting wider and wider. it doesn't mean that republicans will always do well in all midterm elections, because that's not the case. between hurricane katrina and the war in iraq being so unpopular, of course they can have a bad election. so there is the turnout dynamic. and the obvious one is the political environment. president obama's numbers being lousy, the six-year itch thing,

these factors coming together. to a certain extent, we knew the republicans were going to have some pretty real, significant gains in this election. then how far was this going to go? to be honest, i thought this was going to be at the bottom in four or five, at the higher end, six or seven. what we're seeing now, it looks like a pretty good chance they will get eight or even nine, depending on the finish of the count in alaska where all the dog sleds have to bring the ballot boxes in. it takes them a while to do that. i'm teasing about the dog sleds.

but alaska is a small town state. and then what happens on december 6 in the louisiana. but if you look at these states and say montana, south dakota, west virginia, those were the three democratic open seats that everybody knew where those were going. then you have three more democratic seats that were also in these romney plus 14 states. big edge in alaska, prior in arkansas, landrieu in louisiana. so four of their games so far have been in romney plus 14 states. then we know that in the for purple states that we are all watching -- and my thought was, ok, for this to be away, for republicans to pretty much win six out of six or five out of

six of those romney plus 14 states, then they would need to win three out of four or four out of four of the purple states, which they have done, with iowa, colorado, utah, and hagan in north carolina, the one lived away with new hampshire. republicans, i kind of figured they could lose one in a way here or they could lose two. they held onto all three of their vulnerable seats, with mitch mcconnell in kentucky that ended up as a blowout. obviously nobody knew it was going to be a blowout. obviously there was some doubt, but it blew itself out. then you had the other two with kansas. roberts, his numbers were awful. as long as that race was about thad roberts, he was in deep

trouble. it was only when republicans sort of switched gears and shifted from trying to paint reg warm as an evil human being, he's going to vote with democrats. that's when robert came back in and it got really close. i think they ought to skip the studio and just put a camera in the green room or out in the hallway. i was talking to david axelrod and he was making the argument that clearly republicans are having a really, really good night. it's so inconsistent for

republicans to have that good a night and to drop an incumbent in a state that ought to be there's, kansas. i remember thinking, these are just unique circumstances with the roberts situation, and it turned out axelrod was exactly right. i lost my train of thought. then obviously georgia, where we knew there was a possibility that somebody could win without a runoff, but i think most people assumed there was going to be a runoff. and for tom purdue to win without a runoff, that was a big surprise. so clearly it's a wave. the question is, is it a tsunami? a good size wave, yes, but when you think of 1990, when you

think of 1980, the reagan landslide. 1994, the the newt gingrich landslide. the democratic wave of 2006, the republican wave of 2010, the hallmark of these kind of races is that upsets occur. to me, my test was going to be do republicans win someplace where they are not supposed to win? virginia, if ed gillespie had upset mark warner, and obviously it still being counted. or mike mcfarlane against al franken in minnesota, or monica

webb b against jeff merkley in oregon, that would have been the certifiable great big huge wave thomas senomyx, whatever metaphor you want to use. some of this was expected. when you look at some of the other races, particularly in the house, when things are going on that we didn't expect, we knew the republicans would likely have a turnout advantage. what we saw was a significant drop off. there were a heckuva lot of democratic voters that for whatever reason chose not to vote. whether they were upset with president obama, whatever it was, our house editor was looking at the accounts last night. huge problems for democrats in upstate new york, all the way over to california. you had some democratic losses or near losses in five or six

districts out there, where the democratic vote was just really loud. something was going on with the democratic side. obviously there is more than that going on, but there were just some weak tickets. for example, how many of you live in maryland? did anybody here think john delaney was going to have a really tough race? i kind of heard that there was a race going on and he was having to spend more money, but it was really close. he was behind for a good part of the evening. think in maryland, and it gets to the maryland governor's race. to me the maryland governor's race was one. we knew that anthea brown was we, and thank god for the internet or we can change our ratings late.

did i think that larry hogan was going to actually win? no, but i thought he was going to make it pretty close. and he won. why was that? there were two reasons. there was a general lack of enthusiasm for what in effect was a third martin o'malley term. i think maybe that was the start of it. two thirds of it, the democratic nominee was given exactly one thing to do as lieutenant governor, and that was the maryland health care website. that got screwed up so badly, i think those two things together, but that was really something. virginia, maryland, up through new york, something weird was happening.

we're going to be sifting through mountains of election results and exit polls for the next couple of weeks. we will kind of figure out what happened. number one, republicans, if it stays at seven, which i don't think it will, it will be 52 seats. if it goes to eight, 53. they are going to need every bit of that for holding on in 2016 where you remember -- where is my cheat sheet. this is where the sleep deprivation is kicking in. there were are 21 republican seats up. i'm trying to read upside down here. i knew the statistic before i was sleep deprived. only 10 democratic seats up.

six of those republican seats are up in obama states. so they needed a cushion going into 2016. but even between now and then, think about, let's take the middle number. let's say republicans are at 53. let's see. we've got potentially marco rubio, ted cruz, rand paul, running around the country running for president, and not therefore some votes. then you are going to have some folks, some republicans that are in some pretty challenging situations for 2016. there is probably a limit to

what they can sign up for. mark kirk in illinois, there he is in a state that president obama carried by 17 points. how conservative legislation will he be willing to sign on? kelly ayotte, new hampshire, where obama won by six. obama won ohio by three points. there is kind of a limited by how far out there those folks are going to go. the new say ok, speaker hastert

has his work cut out for him with so many exotic and potentially problematic members of his conference with the hastert rule, so that only things that have the support of the majority -- so stuff coming out of the house almost by necessity is going to be may be very conservative. in comes over to the senate, where you might have up to three or more missing members, and then these moderates or these other members in tough districts, that's another obstacle in terms of getting things through. then harry reid and the democrats are going to just play dead and let things roll through? gosh, i don't think so. i would just assume that because republicans have gotten a majority by a couple of c that congress is suddenly going to start becoming a productive entity. this afternoon the president is

having a news conference and meetings later in the week or on friday. it will be interesting to see what the president does. remember right after the 1994 democratic as astor, when president clinton sort of basically said there is a new way, i'm going in a different direction and reconfigured the direction, his whole strategy, and started moving towards the center. i'm not going to hold my breath for this one. part of it is i don't think the president feels any culpability, any responsibility whatsoever for what happened. and i think he deserves a heckuva lot of it, but i don't think he thinks so. for him to say i need to do things differently, i'm not sure that is in his dna. so you had that sort of going

on. will there be a shakeup? i think it will be a moderately small shakeup in the white house. but again, i think the president has people that he is comfortable with, very comfortable with. maybe too comfortable with. i don't think he's going to be teaching a bunch of people out the door. so there might not be nearly as much change as there ought to be. i think the next couple of years ago on to be really, really interesting, to see how much patience that mitch mcconnell has with harry reid and democrats. i would've thought that democrats would be may be considering some changes in leadership, but you know, we are hearing some people say no, schumer is on board, walked in.

ok, a little surprise, but ok. i do think that on the one hand, harry reid, the super pac played a huge part of the financial advertising apparatus for democrats. you can say that he didn't do everything he could in that respect, but i also think the argument we've heard for the last week or so that senator reed, in protecting, shielding his members from casting tough votes, that he may have done them a disservice. that mark pryor, mark begich, mary landrieu, kay hagan could have used some opportunities to split with the president on some big-ticket high-profile items. that would have helped them out. in my column for tuesday, yesterday -- a friend of mine reminded me of a quote from the late democratic congressman who said something to the effect of, if you don't want to run into a burning building, don't become a fireman. as for the job of being a member of congress is taking tough votes.

on the one hand, the democratic incumbents -- nothing particularly contentious came up. on the other hand, that policy wasn't happening. we've got big problems facing this country and let's face it, the u.s. senate -- it looks like democrats are going to stay right there. we are going to be sifting through this for a while, trying to figure out what the heck happened. anybody that has one simple explanation for what happened, i'm sorry, these things are bigger and more complicated. it's going to take some time to do that. i'm supposed to take some questions, and i'm also supposed to look at this ipad. where did it go? what i should do is raffle off this national journal ipad, but they didn't tell me i could. we are supposed to have some

questions here. i am not a technology person. i have an ipad, but let's see. this is nice. let's go down, i'm looking for a question here. i did see some interesting

comments. there are microphones here and here. >> when you don't nominate nuts, you don't give squirrels anything to be. did steve really say that? no wonder the tea party guys hate his guts. anyway, let's go here. [indiscernible] >> move over six inches. >> corbett was the only incumbent republican governor who lost. they picked up massachusetts,

arkansas, illinois, and maryland. the post said a couple of days ago that they were indicating republicans would pick up a number of state legislative seats and they need to take control of a couple more chambers. what is your view? do you think this is showing now more of a trend at the state level for republicans to be more successful than historically they have been? >> good question. just to stay on the governor and before we go over to the state house thing, each of these situations were different. we talked about marilyn, massachusetts, martha coakley screwing up her second and presumably final bid. in pennsylvania with governor corbett, it goes to show how, we

can lock from washington or anywhere. we can watch senate races, house races, and the dynamics in these races, there is some linkage across state lines, regions and things. i think we did pretty good at figuring out what is generally likely to happen. the governor races are so difficult because of indigenous, local issues. you don't know what they all are or how to weigh them. a lot of times governors, a new governor will come in and there will be some -- they will do some tough, unpopular things. the numbers go in the toilet, and then starts going back up and they get reelected. that happens a lot. but with corbett, they just sort of went down and stay down. friends from pennsylvania say maybe it was the penn state thing. critics thought he didn't do

enough early enough as attorney general. how the heck do you figure out how much to weigh these things? i've gotten e-mails from the republican legislative leadership group. it was a really, really good night. but this is where that timing i talked about comes in. because there are far more state legislative seats up and governorships up in the midterm election cycle, which is the good cycle for republicans, it really puts democrats at a disadvantage because in their good presidential years, they are not as much up. when you think about what happened this past time where republicans had horrific nights in 2006 and 2008, republicans were in deep trouble coming out

of 2008. but if you ever want to have a good election, the best election year to have is one that ends in a zero, because that leaves in the redistricting, and republicans got a huge boost in 2010. so they were able to do to democrats what democrats have been doing to them for generations. obviously there's more to it than redistricting because there are population patterns and all that. but we are seeing a pattern where democrats have some real problems in midterm elections. as long as the most enthusiastic democratic voting groups are disinclined to vote in midterm elections, so it is a feast and famine type situation, so democrats have a real problem on the gubernatorial level which has huge congressional implications.

the point is very well taken. it's going to take a few days before we know exactly, but it's safe to say they had a heckuva night on that level. when you're having a good night, if no captures were partisan jobs, then democratic dog catchers would've had a really bad night. people who have never been to washington on a school trip got sucked in because of what republicans are doing to democrats in washington. good question. >> a pollster talked about how hard it is for party to win the white house three times in a row. how do you see the atmosphere in 2016, given with obamas unpopularity, on the other hand the demographic advantages the democrats seem to have been residential years. >> that we throw out a couple of things.