a republican strategist on the future of the republican party and the gop plans for the final years of the obama presidency. tonight on c-span, john boehner on republican gains in congress. political reports that nancy pelosi be seeking reelection to her position as house minority leader as democrats line a proposer, including a florida democrat who has come out publicly to say she will not vote for pelosi. election scheduled for november 18. the republicans will be holding , withleadership elections john boehner not expected to face opposition. he held a conference to discuss the midterm elections. this is about 15 minutes.

courts i missed you all. -- >> i missed you all. you did? i hope you did not believe it. >> never do. [laughter] >> good. i'm going to start by congratulating my friend, senator mitch mcconnell. as you know, mitch and i have worked very closely together over the last eight years and i don't think i could ask for a better partner or do i think the senate could have a better majority leader than mitch mcconnell. also, i express my gratitude to the people of ohio's eighth congressional district. you know, my mission is the same today as it was in 1990 when i was first elected to build a smaller, less costly, more accountable government here in washington, d.c. and right now i believe that means continuing to listen, to

make the american people's priorities our priorities and to confront the big challenges that face middle class families starting with the economy. you have heard me talk many times about the many jobs bills that the outgoing senate majority has ignored. those bills will offer the congress, i think, a new start. we can act on the keystone pipeline, restore the 40-hour workweek that was gutted by obamacare and pass the harm our re more heroes act that will encourage our businesses to hire more of our veterans. again, this is just a start. i'll be going around the country outlining my own personal vision for how we can reset america's economic foundation. the energy boom that is going on in america is real. i think it provides us with a very big opportunity, but to maximize that opportunity, i

believe that we need to do five things. that is fix our broken tax code, address the debt that is hurting our economy and imprisoning the future of our kids and grandkids, reform our legal system, reshape our regulatory policy to make bureaucrats more accountable and give parents more choices in a system that isn't educating enough of america's children. now, finding common ground is going to be hard work, but it will be even harder if the president isn't willing to work with us. yesterday we heard him say that he may double down on his go it alone approach. listen, i have told the president before, he needs to put politics aside and rebuild trust. and rebuilding trust not only with the american people, but with the american people's representatives here in the united states congress. now, this is the best way to deliver solutions, to get the economy going again and to keep

the american dream alive and well. this will be the focus of our new majority. i'm eager to get to work. >> mr. speaker, as the president moves forward on immigration and acts alone on immigration, is that going to poison the well for any type of cooperation between this new republican majority and the white house? >> listen, you all heard me say starting two years yesterday that our immigration program is broken and needs to be fixed. but i have made it clear to the president if he acts unilaterally on his own outside of his authority, he will poison and there will be no chance for immigration reform moving in this congress. it's as simple as that. >> mr. speaker, you mentioned obama care and the 40-hour

wallweek, in that your " -ed, youournal" op talked about obama care. how do you walk this balance without this being the predomen nant issue, or is it when freshman coming in who haven't voted for obama care or tweaking it to go for a full repeal? >> obama care is hurting our economy. it's hurting middle class families and it's hurting the ability for employers to create more jobs. and so the house, i'm sure at some point next year will move to repeal obamacare because it should be repealed. it should be replaced with common sense reforms. that respect the doctor-patient relationship. now whether that can pass the senate, i don't know. but i know in the house it will pass. we will pass that. but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do other things. there are bipartisan bills that have passed the house, sitting in the senate that would in fact make changes to obama care. you know, there is a bipartisan majority in the house and senate

for repealing the medical device tax. i think there is a bipartisan unanimous majority in the house and senate for getting rid of the ipad, the independent payment advisory board, the rationing board in obamacare. how about the individual mandate, there are democrats and republicans who believe this is unfair. just because we may not be able to get everything we want doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to get what we can. >> you mentioned different issues there, votes in this congress goes back into obama care and the numbers gets into the 60 and 70's in terms of roll call against obama? >> there are bipartisan majority in the house and senate to take some of these issues out of obamacare. we need to put them on the president's desk and let him choose. >> mr. speaker, you heard the president say that he basically gave you a year waiting for you to be able to deliver on immigration reform and that in this post-election period he is

ready to act, and then he would pull back the executive orders if you could have legislation that works. could that be a catalyst for you to actually get something done? >> no, because i believe that the president continues to act on his own, he is going to poison the well. when you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself. and he is going to burn yourself -- himself if he continues to go down this path. the american people made it clear election day, they want to get things done and they don't want the president acting on a unilateral basis. >> mr. speaker, how do you expect the president to trust that you really want to work together when out of the gate, you say that you want to repeal his signature law that you know has no chance of getting a veto proof majority. how do you expect him to trust you? >> my job is to listen to the american people. the american people have made it clear they're not for obamacare. ask all of those democrats who lost their elections on tuesday night.

a lot of them voted for obamacare. my job is not to get along with the president just to get along with him, although we actually have a nice relationship. the fact is my job is listen to my members and listen to the american people and make their priorities our priorities. >> mr. speaker, the "wall street journal" is out with a report saying that president obama has sent a secret letter to iran's supreme leader on fighting isis, your reaction, sir? >> i don't trust the iranians. i don't think we need to bring them into this. and i would hope that the negotiations that are underway are serious negotiations. but i have my doubts. >> if, having heard your reiterated threat, the president said suddenly, fine, i will take no executive action on

immigration. could you guarantee him that he will hold votes on legislation next year? >> i have made my position very clear. it is time for the congress of the united states to deal with a very difficult issue in our society. this immigration issue because a -- has become a political football over the last 10 years or more, it's just hard to deal to deal withtime it. >> can your party presidential nominee be forced to run if you -- >> this is not about politics. this is trying to do the right thing for the country. >> mr. speaker, isn't the idea of repealing obamacare third or fourth line in your op-ed today, isn't it in a sense poisoning the well from your angle? >> no. >> when you go to the white house -- >> no. our job is to make the american people's priorities our priorities. they don't like obamacare. i don't like it. it's hurting our economy. the president said i listened to what happened tuesday night. really?

>> how do you know it is hurting the economy? the economy, though, how do you -- >> well, if you spent as many nights on the road as i have over the last two years, you would hear from employers of every stripe, large, small, medium, every industry and you listen to the employers talking about the concerns they have of what it means for their workforce, what it means for their employees and you see them hesitate in terms of hiring more people, it's pretty clear to me. >> mr. speaker, you have a new crop of conservatives coming into the house who have suggested among other things -- thatn it needed to women need to submit to the authority of their husbands, that hillary clinton is the anti-christ and that the families of sandy hook should get over it. the hell no caucus is getting bigger -- >> no, no, no. >> how do you deal with them differently than you did in the last congress? >> i think the premise of your question i would take exception to. yes, we have some new members who have made some statements, i'll give you that.

but when you look at the vast majority of the new members that are coming in here, they're really solid members. whether it's the youngest woman to ever serve in the congress to another african-american republican from texas, we have done a very good job of recruiting good candidates and we're going to have a very good crop of good members. >> on immigration, for example, you tried to act in the last congress and your conservative members yanked you back. >> no, no, no. >> how can you work with the president on an issue like this? >> no, i would argue with the premise of the question. what held us back last year was a flood of kids coming to the border because of the actions that the president had already taken. and let me tell you what the american people from the right to the left started to look at this issue in a very different way. that's why i made it clear, the president, if he continues to go down this path of taking action on his own is inviting big

trouble. >> that but of kids was -- that flood of kids was the last six months, what about the 18 months before that? >> i could regale you with all of my challenges of trying to get members on both sides of the aisle to deal with this. they were numerous. but hope springs eternal. >> thank you, mr. speaker. harry reid, the republican party has done what it said out to accomplish by firing harry reid. is he no longer an obstacle of getting the agenda of the republicans through this congress? >> you might want to ask mitch mcconnell about that question. listen. >> do you see him as still being someone who has power to thwart. >> of course, you know how the senate works, it requires 60 votes to do almost anything in the senate. and so clearly he is going to have some power. but if you look at the, let's

take the 46 jobs bills that are sitting in the united states senate that have been held up by the democrat majority in the senate, almost all of those passed the house on a bipartisan basis. and i believe that almost all of them enjoy bipartisan support in the united states senate. if you're doing, as you have heard me say this before, i tell my colleagues all the time, if you're doing the right things for the right reasons, you don't have to worry about anything. the right things will happen. next. >> will you compromise on the 30, 40-hour workweek -- >> on the next "washington journal," analysis unlimited elections and the future of the democratic party with jonathan cowan, president of third way. john publican strategist on the future of the

republican party and the last few years of the obama presidency. "washington journal," starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> more reaction to the midterm elections. on saturday night at 8:00, a debate on the future of the internet. sunday evening at 8:00, tavis smiley on his latest book. friday night at 8:00 on c-span2, amherst college professor ronald on german occupied paris in world war ii. saturday at 10:00, just chatting on the idea of racial progress in america. sunday at 10:00, a winner of closer prices on what makes us pulitzert pulitzer -- prizes on what makes us human. saturday at 8:00 on ledgers in history, the social prejudice --

lectures in history, the social prejudice that immigrants faced. and then the anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. found -- find our schedule on c-span.org. e-mail us, call us, or send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. 2015 student cam video competition is underway, on the theme "the three branches and you." showing how the action of one of the three branches has affected you or your community. there are 200 cash prizes totaling $100,000. for a list of rules, go to studentcam.org.

>> today, stuart rothenberg analyzed the tuesday election and discussed what the results mean for republican legislative priorities in congress. his remarks were a part of a conference on the midterm elections. mrs. 15 minutes. -- this is 15 minutes. >> good morning, david. >> good morning everybody. are you? show some life, please. i have to feed off of you. it is a pleasure to be here and welcome again to what should be an interesting day. you see an old guy a pair with a a lounge innd i see the sands hotel in 1955 and me as a part of the rat pack. [laughter] i do not have a lot of time and i have a lot to cover and a lot of interesting people after me who you want to hear.

so i won't run through what happened, why, and look forward. three touch on two or things that folks litter the day will going to more detail on. -- later in the day will go into .ore detail on re what happened actually we had a wave election but by what if i had to you going to credit me with the statistics i would've checked to see if they were right. i just figured what the heck. you are right. what happened? we had a wave election. senate will be nine senate seats i believe at the end of the day after the louisiana runoff, probably nine senate seats will flip to the republicans taking them from 45 to 54. the last house numbers suggest a -- suggested somewhere in the mid teens. there are a whole bunch of recounts, some races are too close, too close to call for weeks probably but somewhere i don't know, you want to say between 13 and 17. that's probably somewhere in there. a handful of governorships all went to the republicans.

so it's a terrific night. now, there were plenty of surprises. there was one or two races -- i'm still stunned by them, but the overall outcome should not a have shocked you, stunned you, left you, your mouth open in unbelieving. a very smart person who i sometimes don't, don't always but sometimes agree wrote this in september, september 8, september 8. i'm not expecting a substantial -- now expecting a substantial republican weight in november with a net gain of at least seven seats but it wouldn't be shocked by a large again. the combination of a piper -- unpopular president and a midterm election can produce disasters results for the president's party.

given the president's standing, the public's disappointment with the direction of the courage, the makeup of the midterm electorate and the 2014 senate map i'm expecting a strong breeze to the backs of the gop and, and if there's a strong breeze most of the race is now regarded as competitive will fall one way, toward republicans. this doesn't happen all the time but it's far from unusual. right now this cycle looks much like 2010 when democrats with reasonable profiles got crushed in republican leaning in swing states. with the president looking weaker, the news getting worse, democratic candidates in difficult and competitive states are likely to have a truly are in some albatross around their necks but that was written in september 8 by someone i often, not always, agree with. me. [laughter] now, if i could see that on the horizon, i think most people could see it on the horizon. it's not like i have all of these superduper insights that other people don't have.

thank you. what we saw was why did this happen? mood. most midterm elections are about mood. it's different from presidential elections which are much more about the two individuals running for office. their qualities, their backgrounds, their preparedness, their agendas. midterm elections tend to be referenda on the sitting president, not on congress which is why we people look at the congressional job approval and say, well, congress is unpopular and republicans control the house so maybe election will be about the house. well maybe, but no. because it's never about that. i'm not saying the next election couldn't be that way but, you know, this is the black swan theory. we don't have those kind of elections. midterms tend to be about the president and when voters are angry, disappointed, frustrated, uncomfortable, worried, anxious, nervous. those elections tend to send that message to the president's party. that's exactly what happened. so we had mood. we had the senate states that

were up. republican recruiting was quite good. they had strong candidates this time. and then there was turnout. it's a midterm election to its fundamentally different from a presidential year. different people vote. so i looked at the house national exit poll the other day. i made this point on the "newshour" but i will make it again. comparing the 2014 electorate to the 2012 electorate. is elected the turnout tuesday, i know this comes as a shock but not everybody votes, and what's important to me as a handicapper is who votes. not what the national public opinion is. so i compared 2014 to 2012. the 2014 electorate was more male, older, less liberal, more republican, wealthier, and more of them said that the country is headed off on the wrong track than the right direction. probably shouldn't surprise you that those voters then voted more republican. but there's even more than that.

in 2012 the exit polls and do -- said do you approve or disapprove of the job barack obama is doing as president? and the exit polls, presidential exit poll in 2012 was approved 53, disapprove 46 to shock a lot of us that the national posted -- polls did not show an obama job approval rating in the low '50s. it showed him in the mid-to upper '40s but when people voted that's who voted. this time you approve or disapprove of the job barack obama is doing as president? 44% approve, 55% disapprove in a different electorate with a different mood and get delivered -- it delivered a different opinion about the president of the united states. so we had a wave election because the country wanted change, that everybody wanted change. there are people in who think the president is doing a great job, the country is headed in

the right direction? this doesn't make you wrong. they just make you different. than the people who voted. ok? it's simply a matter of opinion. but it's important who votes the -- and what their opinions are. ok so what does it mean now , going forward? can't have much time. i think of already over but i started late. what does it mean going forward? well, i have rarely found a politician who won an election who didn't think that was some kind of mandate or affirmation of that person's agenda or priorities. i've heard so much cockamamie analysis in the last -- not analysis. i get press releases from every group claiming that they are the reason why either the republicans won, or very creative press releases, or why they're the reason that democrats didn't do even worse, ok? and it's rare you get a politician who says, you know,

this wasn't about as at all. is just about the president so we don't have a mandate to do anything to what to expect? i expect coming out of this election republicans will over read their quote-unquote mandate. now, not all republicans will do that. many including many in the leadership understand that their mandate is more like a negative mandate. don't do what the president wants. do something else. but there are going to be -- i think the house and senate republican leaders are still going to have problems with the rank-and-file. now, the republican majority in the house is bigger and that may give speaker boehner more freedom, but don't kid yourself. i know there was all of us talk about how the senate, the establishment guys won the primary, so mcconnell knocked off bevan the tea party guide. , thad cochran won in knocking

off, defeating chris mcdaniel. lamar alexander defeated a tea party guy. pat roberts defeated a tea party guy. so yes the establishment one, won, but in the house the chamber and the republican establishment didn't fight as much in these individual braces, and the electorates are different in house races than in senate races. and so yeah, paul brown is , leaving from georgia, a very libertarian, antiestablishment, anti-his own party establishment, republican congressman from georgia these been replaced with larry loudermilk in georgia. and michele bachman is leaving but tom amer, an male version of michele bachman is coming in in minnesota. [laughter] and so there's still this problem and john boehner love to -- is going to have to tread very carefully. over in the senate i have three big question marks, and their names are dan sullivan in

alaska, ben sasse of nebraska and tom cotton in arkansas. they are all smart and personable an interesting and thoughtful but i'm not exactly sure where they fit in this question of what is your role as a legislator. this is increasingly an important question, to put on republican side. how do these people were elected -- who are elected officials see their role? is this to come here and part of a diverse institution and, representing constituencies, and therefore, we need to compromise and compromise could? -- good? or is a we've been compromising the last 50 years, conservative republicans, we elect presidents, even our own party, they tell us they will shrink government and instead it gets bigger and we get medicare part d and we get federalization of education and we are tired so are not compromising. what our cotton, says and sold in going to do. the reason i picked those three is all three were endorsed by the club for growth, economic leverage in the the club is

enthusiastic and the club intends to support candidates who view principle over pragmatism. i met with all three. i could see them going either way. i don't know how they're going to behave. it will be interesting but if they joined a ted cruz, mike , let's call them, this is a neutral term i've just come up with in the last eight seconds, let's call them again totally neutral, the troublemaker caucus in the senate. let's call them that. [laughter] that would make things very difficult for mitch mcconnell. so i think there's still lots of questions. i'm rather skeptical that the republicans that now, they will be able to get on the same page. -- the on some things, will on some things, certainly, and it will be interesting to

see the relationship with the president. finally, and then i will stop, did the president get the message? probably not. you know, there are some, bill clinton got the message after 94 i think and he made it abundantly clear that he was upset that people didn't like it him and he wanted to be where people were. i think this president is very confident that he knows where the country should go, moscow, -- must go, and he is right about that, and just the koch brothers spent a lot of money and a lot of people didn't vote. so i don't expect a lot more flexibility out of the white house. i think congress will continue to be, i think washington will just continue to be the place where it's difficult to get things done. some stuff will get done. lord knows we have got a lot of -- not got a lot of stuff done but the economy has come out, it's not growing fast enough, i agree, governor, but it has improved from a couple of years ago but is so going to take a lot of effort to get things done, a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of goodwill. and i'm just going to say let's

keep our fingers crossed the thanks, now i turn this over to you, david? >> yet. >> all right. now here comes david. thanks. [applause] >> more now from the rollcall conference on the midterm elections. this next panel look of a political reporting on the campaign, the accuracy of polling, and the unexpected results. this is an hour. >> so imb politics editor at "rollcall," and this panel is entitled what happened. is nathan today gonzales, the deputy editor of the rothenberg medical report and it including writer to "rollcall."

nbc news political reporter and previously reporter for time and the "washington post" and he covers domestic policy and politics and you can follow him on twitter. to my left is mark blumenthal , the senior polling editor at the huffington post and founding editor. if you would like, you can follow him on twitter at mystery pollster. if you would like you can sign up for the newsletter simply add pollster.com and then on my left is anti-livingstone who focuses bby livingstone who focuses , on the house create you can follow her at rollcall addie and she's also been a producer at cnn and nbc and very importantly, she is one of the star players of the bad news softball team on the press side. the members of the press take on the members of congress and it's a great fundraiser for cancer research as well. so. pitcher.is a great

i have a couple of questions for the panel and then for about 30 or 40 minutes and we will go to the q-and-a stood to go so start thinking of your questions now. the one thing i keep molding aftertuesday night is democrats took a huge dropping -- drubbing and the president was largely held responsible the blame that's been put is for the congressional democrats could have done to avoid this political slaughtering. nation wide don't we start with you? >> i feel like every cycle we come to the same conclusion about the campaign committee that when things go right the committee's gets more credit than they deserve it when they go wrong they get more blame than they deserve. but to me that doesn't mean they have no control over what's happening. and i think that this election was a fascinating election

because we have an answer to the question of how much does local politics matter and can a well-known politician with a family name and family brand in the state, can that overcome the national trajectory of an election? we have an answer now and it is a pretty clear answer and the answer is, no. note the national trend in the state louisiana isn't quite done but the family brands that were supposed to save these democratic members are not enough to get them reelected. and, in terms of specifically what could democrats control, i just do not buy into the inevitability of the sixth year of the presidency being terrible . i think that there are choices and decisions the administration makes up to that point. and a good example as president bill clinton's term that was a

-- wasn't a disaster for his party. and when you look at the democratic members they made a choice with their vote and republicans did a good job of highlighting those votes with a few million, tens of millions, $100 million of advertising and highlighting the democratic members took in favor of the president's agenda. one key ad i remember in the wave wase, the 2010 congressman joe donnelly in the indiana second district and he was running against the problems . the narrator says there is a problem with the washington crowd as those -- as the narrator was saying that they had a president obama and nancy pelosi so a democratic member of congress running against the

washington crowd with the two leaders of his party. and even though i thought i was stunning but joe donnelly made the decision that in his competitive district and in a competitive environment training against his party, he wasn't -- he was not just going to distance himself from the president that run against the president and he survived and ended up catching a couple breaks in 2012 and being elected to the senate but democrats could have made a strategic decision to run more adamantly against the president and say that would hurt the turnout but look at where they ended up in the current strategies of that is something where we don't know the answer. but i could have been something that might have affected a few of the races. >> harry, what do you think? >> i would think, and i think the fundamental thing to make a

big difference here in the six-year how on the popular the president was you had the place where someone like mark warner in virginia, who won as the governor, built a political brand where he is the guide goes to the communities and does really well. not this time. his voting was similar to terry and tim kane and for that matter president obama. his personal brand that made no difference in the environment. you have allison grimes of kentucky who wouldn't say if she voted for the president and her numbers were the same. she won by three more points than he did. the democrats didn't pick her. she had not voted for obamacare, she was young, she was a woman. she was like the perfect candidate. not at all. the results were almost word for word and vote for vote they ran a few points ahead of him but not very much in both of those states. none were as sustained as obama

in georgia and grimes rand three points ahead and they don't know what they could have done in this environment. i would like to say that i'm i am not sure that a strategy would be so anti-obama win at the end of the day the president's approval rating had a lot to do with how you you do . this notion that in today's environment you can separate from the president and say i'm not sure if i voted for him or not and it's not believable it -- believable. it could have been useful to think about if the president is going to be an anchor why don't i say if you are kentucky or arkansas the data shows that the rate of uninsured dropped tremendously because the health care while walking back may be prior and grinds should have said the health care law is working as opposed to try to run away from it because they lost so many planes anyway. -- so many points anyway. it is not like what they did work. -- worked. >> mark?

>> i agree with everything i've heard so far and the political environment in any given election with the national candidate for senator and member of congress is largely defined by not just who the president is but their policy. it drives everything. in particular in the races for u.s. senate, these tend to be elected officials you pay the least attention to did go away -- to. they go away for six years and depending on where you live they might get more attention or not. the mayor or the governor gets governor gets attention and the senator pops up and they engage once every six years for a couple months so it is very hard , and i would argue next to impossible to disengage and make those races local. you saw that very vividly. my colleagues on the numbers geek beat illustrated this in

the last 24 hours. scott had a piece yesterday where he took the exit poll and looked at just two columns, the vote for the democratic senator and obama's approval rating at almost every instance they ran a little bit ahead of obama's approval rating but not much, two or 3 or 4 points. the one that ran the most ahead was warner, which ended up being just enough. the took the county level vote nate took the county level vote for i think there were six southern states where there were senate races and five included democratic incumbents and lost all that warner and he plotted that against every one in a perfect diagonal line so they were successful and it is very hard. i think it should be hard for anyone to sit up here and say they could have done this or

that to somehow -- they saw the reality facing them which days if they embraced president obama in their state they were going to go down. they tried in different ways. some of them, you know, more in retrospect laughable or workable than others but it didn't make a lot of difference either way. >> anything to add? >> i might go anecdotal, but this summer i moderated a state at the greenbrier that is a huge luxurious complex in west virginia and it's the treasurer of the state that has a lot of economic struggles this is the wealthy bastion and they take a lot of pride and i was talking to someone i that worked there -- someone who worked there. and there was a strange thing going on in west virginia. there are a lot of new orleans saints fans. there are also steelers fans.

i confirm that. [laughter] >> the reason is because they do the summer workout so they have adopted them because they've -- the saints have acknowledged that the greenbrier is there and west virginia is there and it's a forgotten state and as i continued to walk around they had a video that you could watch in your hotel room and it's like all these luminaries tuesday -- who have stayed there, all of these presidents. and they have photographs of movie stars everywhere you go ned on me i think the last president that stated there was eisenhower and a few days later i thought what if president obama had come here to play golf? it's his favorite activity and he could have gone to play golf and i don't think anything would make west virginia like president obama. he is reviled there. nick held them to the end of the race but it was 22% and i just

thought if president obama had golf there,ayed they would have hated him less. it might have made it a little easier to be there but instead i'm not saying that he had a mandate to do that but if there had been some kind of outreach just to say if he had been the first president to say this is a great golf course i think it would have brought a little pride, like the saints. that was just my observation, that it would've made it a little easier. i don't think that race was ever when the ball. shelley moore capito was like the michael jordan of west virginia. but it could have been less hard. hill is seething at president obama. the other anecdotes i feel ok saying now that when i a while we saw what was happening with bruce braley it wasn't that he wasn't doing well but the seats below him were going down. i talked to a democratic operative, and i was like its

been most days like today and -- disliked man and it's like he created an environment that made it that much harder and harder and so people made a tactical mistakes and i think that they probably made some mistakes along the way but at the end of the day that's what it came down to. >> so, perry. it has been five years since the supreme court ruled on the citizens united case. what can we see that the expanded role of the money and the politics. what is the take away? >> you've seen $4 million spent on this the most ever. if you think about the reality. 300 million people live in america. that is $12 a person. it doesn't seem like a lot for one person but in reality of course most people are not

getting the money at all. and we saw this like a big change we hadn't seen before according to the center for responsive politics. the amount spent went up, but the amount of the donors went down so in 2010 there were about 800,000 individual donors to campaign with 700,000 individual s. the numbers are getting money even though the actual money went up. we are getting the picture of what the campaign finance looks like in this environment. and we saw in 2004 about 96% of the money spent in politics was by the groups that disclosed how much space and. this year, about 65% for which meant one third of the money was spent meaning of the money where you can actually track the

donation and that's benefited republicans a lot because it was very number heavy that you saw in terms of the campaign commercials about 23% of the commercials that were the democrats were funded in some ways by undisclosed donors . half, 48% of the republican ads in the millions of dollars was spent on the ad where the donor isn't required to say where the money came from. and i spent a lot of time in kentucky during this cycle, and you could see this. because i went up to the voters and people kept telling me he is boaters and people kept telling me about mitch mcconnell is really caring and i thought that's interesting. i've heard he's a strategic. she's ambitious but he had never heard this. but then i watch tv and mcconnell, because he had one of these groups running these ads , the independent groups spent a lot of money saying grimes, obama, grimes, obama, in this aggressive way.

and so mcconnell was able to run all kinds of positive ads that show him bringing money back to the state and how nice he was and is smiling in the way that you can rarely see. if you are around him here. >> he had the adware he was surrounded by cute dogs. --be spending amount allows -- the spending amount allows -- remember we had the campaign financing a few years ago and the goal is if you had a negative ad you would have to say they can develop a terrible person. but you don't do that anymore because you can have the outside group talk about how bad he is while i run positive ads saying how nice and caring. it's a big change. >> nathan one of the things we , cover that i love is the house races. i am a house girl at heart. i know you love covering the house races. house republicans about recently solved a number of women in the conference of dwindle. what do they do in terms of diversifying the republican caucus, and do we think that

-- have an effect on effect on the course of speaker better's leadership? leadership? >> this question is all about what's new opponent she's going to have in the softball game next year. [laughter] one of the things because of the women's issues and their dealings on the hot topic i looked before the election to see what what art thou races and will there be more republican women in this congress than at the beginning of the last congress and the republicans started from a little bit of a deficit of emerson at the beginning of two years ago. so they are down one. shelley was running for the senate, so she was just which into the other side of the help. michele bachmann was retiring. in order for the republican stupidity one of the congress it would have to gain three. and it looks like they will be four women added to the caucus. barbara here in northern virginia and mimi walters in california.

that would be full-time -- so that would be four so that would be gaining one. right now in the second district in the 30 votes there's a chance there's a lot to be accountable -- and a lot of votes to be counted in the democratic and republican counties. so we will see-- if martha mcsally is coming as well. so for some of those women even though the number of women are so low in the caucus they will be getting a lot of attention. she is 30-years-old and the youngest woman in elected and so she's going to get a lot of attention. mia love is going to have a fairly high profile in the party just they will get a disproportionate amount of attention. re isrms of diversity, their

also another well heard in the 23rd district. it's pretty remarkable because the democratic peak in the majority and so i think that he will get some attention. another latino, carlos in florida's 26th sixth district will be coming to congress and then we will see carl's who is an openly gay congressmen but that race is still close to call. in california's 52nd district. so republicans there is an opportunity to be -- the house promotes diverse members outside of the typical stereotype that -- typical old white male stereotype that they have. >> we should point out that even with the additions, we are talking about a house republican conference -- caucus that is 10% female. >> the republican caucus actually my colleague and friend and competitor had a great breakdowns on the deterioration of white men and the increase of the minorities and of the women

in the democratic caucus compared to the republicans. i would encourage you to check out his thing. >> i thought we could go around and talk about the biggest surprise from tuesday night. abby why don't we start with , you? louise, thesay the fact we don't know if she's coming back to congress, her name wasn't mentioned to me in this entire cycle by democrats or republicans to try to catch these sleeper surprises and that came out of nowhere. i called a couple of the republicans and this is the kind of thing you were keeping under the radar and you didn't want me to report it and give it away. and they said, no, we didn't see this one coming created the other. in the post-redistricting race it was in the maryland gubernatorial race and there was a point tuesday night where

anything seemed possible. it is feasible i would say that with what we were seeing, the crazy numbers, but i would say the least waters -- lopuise waters and john delaney. >> my panelists, how many live in the deep seeded area basically everybody in the room? how many of us would have predicted that we would be talking about the potential recounts in virginia and the six or seven points of the wins. i mean, the two biggest surprises were right in our own backyard and certainly i didn't see them coming and i should have. so, since we were misled by the polling, and since that is what i cover, let's talk about both of them. maryland is a classic case hearkening back to harry truman.

as they wrote yesterday. the air quotes trustworthy independent media poll stopped at the beginning of the month. the "washington post" poll was in early october and i think "the baltimore sun" did one even earlier than that. there wasn't a lot of polling. there were some robo polls. now the internal polls were released by the hogan campaign and had their candidates down a week out and had in the final weeks of water that included looked at with a grain of salt. i remember staring at that and thinking we should look at this more closely but wait a minute i have eight senate races and 23 8 other pieces to write. so on i went. so that's one is kind of classic. virginia, similar. there were a number of polls and i think that this gets into the more systematic issue. involving polling that we make it to later. -- may get to later.

but there is a situation where it shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody and that isn't to mean that he would finish closer in the end when they had a classic income than -- incumbent challenger situation where an incumbent with a whole lot of money would dominate the election in northern virginia which is always crucial wasn't going to be able to start spending money towards the end with the voters that engage at the end would see him and he would consolidate republicans but for me the surprise was how well warner seemed to be doing in the in weeks two, three and one. i was expecting to see it closed down to three or four points . and it was surprising that it didn't. and even more surprising when winds up with the nailbiter that we did. i want to give give an opportunity -- >> those are the biggest surprises and we will come back to the polling was. it is almost to the point why do

we cover the race he lost the prior race by so much. >> the margins were stunning and when you look at the house races in new york's first district, the long island district with congressman tim bishop that is normally a district that is very tight for the last decade but a very tight race and he won by ten points. when you go up further than the 24th district and the republican there is a race that we knew was breaking breaking at republicans -- breaking might. te.lat5e= republicans for spending and they had the advantage and we thought things were tightening

created the republican won by 20 points just a complete collapse that gets down to the states where the turnout operation just wasn't there but the margins were. another thing i was surprised with on the house side is the incumbent. the incumbents that survived. like ann kirkpatrick. if you would have told me that republicans were going to gain 13 seats and that and ann kirkpatrick survived. i think that is a stunning. and on the flipside someone like john barrow from georgia, who the republicans have been targeting since he was first elected over a decade ago i -- ago. he is a white southern democrat. i think that he's amazing as a politician because you have a harvard educated lawyer and when you look at that it is a terrible southern accent but it starts getting deeper and deeper and he has been a survivor and for him to lose by considerable margins i think it's telling and i believe only white white males of the democratic left is good -- going to be david price of

north carolina since x-xray -- nick rayhaul lost. those are some of the things that were surprising to me. >> you mentioned arkansas. pryor lose by 17 points, 18 points, lincoln lost by 21 points and income bird of the race completely differently. >> we were told the entire cycle mark prior is no blanche lincoln mark pryor is no blanche lincoln. it was drilled into our heads. >> that is a perfect segue to the next question. sue rothenberg wrote a column this morning about the results and what happened and i'm going to read a small portion and you can read the whole column on rollcall dot com. a plug. either the polling has significant problems or the operatives were intentionally misled reporters and handicapped about what was going on during the cycle. republicans had a tough cycle in 2012 of course and went through a process of public reflection and self-criticism. it will be interesting to see

whether democrats will see the same thing. so i think that i should ask the poster first of this question. first this question. do you think democrats will have a reflection after this moment where do you think the problem is more widespread? >> i think it is more widespread and the democratic and the media pollsters have been having moments of reflection for the last ten years. we used to do what we do by calling land line phones and now we are in a situation where more than half of americans either don't have a landline phone or they don't answer when it rings. so in this moment of incredible challenge to the polling industry, i have my on the one hand and the other hand. on the one hand if you took all of the senate polls as we did at 5:38 and so on and you aggregate than or average them then you would have in the senate race

called -- and just looked at who was ahead or behind you would would have the race right and -- all but race right and that one is north carolina and it didn't miss by much. our estimate was plus two and she's losing by a little bit. on the other hand, there was a consistent understatement of the look and vote, nearly -- theent, not 100% -- republican vote, nearly consistent, and i wondered 100% in mostot , states in the senate and that meant if you repeated the same exercise for the governors the good news is we had four races at the end that were half a percentage point separated the top candidates and less than two-point separated and that situation you're going to miss a lot. a half a point does not mean much. and three or four of those were missed. anrall, there was overstatement of democrats and an understatement of

republicans, and that meant more of the mrs. were the republican winning. there were some anonymous isses.g mrs we talked about maryland and virginia. to put it in context, four years ago the polling was often in nevada. the pre-election polls had a sharon engel and there was a six-point error on the margin and we thought that's incredible . is this the beginning of the end. well, the error in arkansas was 11 points on the margin. the error. the difference between the final polling average and the results was 11 points in arizona and arkansas, ten in virginia and kentucky, nine in kansas and 17 in the maryland governor's race. so what is that about?

any time you have a polling error it is like a engineering error it is not usually just one thing but its multiple things that are all going wrong in this -- in the same direction. so maryland it would have helped to have its leader as a trend and in arkansas you can look at the chart and see the almost 45-degree line so there was a trend and there may have been more of a trend and kentucky. i think if you look at the averages around labor day, and then look at the final averages and as we did on the newsletter monday morning you can see republicans increased the margins of almost every one of the states. were the democrats lost. -- where the democrats lost. it usually is the republican number going up every two points for the democrat went up as the undecided went down so there was evidence in play that is democrats were cast in the race

is to a greater degree and republicans who were lesser-known challengers and gaining recognition or going up so there was an effect going

they can be >> they can be enormously helpful. i started to get some tremors in covering in colorado. you should shift her focus to see -- to steve southerland in florida.

then an independent group put out a poll saying that sutherland was in trouble. it fit what i was hearing elsewhere. i have to balance am i being spun? what is the value to the reader? there are so many scientific , the qualitynto it of how was conducted, did it include english, did it include .panish, so there is a balance my loyalties to the reader and i'm not going to write it up just to write it up. fort pressure from people being fair. i don't trust yours. that is a hard thing to say. balancedifficult because it is a hard piece of evidence to show the state of a race. you have to use instinct.

i usually end up to say what do y'all think? that is my final verdict. >> do you have anything to add? >> one thing that has not been after the 2012 republican debacle, a lot of the top-tier republican posters -- pollsters made a concerted effort to change, making sure they had 25% to 30% cell phones in their samples. intorepublicans were going the field and getting very hot numbers, that almost seemed too good to be true, there's a todency to wage those back the 2010-2012 electorate. there was a fear of being wrong again, like we really messed up. we can't afford to be wrong again.

even some republican polls that , it made itadded to difficult to identify the margins we saw on election day. think 2010, republican pollsters did a better job of identifying what type of cycle was going to show up. 2012, democrats did a better job. republicans did a better job. 2016, which pollsters are going to be the most accurate in identifying the trend? that is going to be an open question. >> underlying the polls is something i don't totally understand. 2012, the voters are over 60. 37% of the voters are over 60. only 12% are under 30. i just don't know.

i don't want to blame the millennials. young people don't turnout admit terms. but it is growing at a large rate. democrats trying to make sure these voters who showed up at the midterm, it doesn't appear that work. i'm curious about why. tv, doingm was on this rock the vote. focus on this vocu getting out the vote. it didn't help at all. >> i want to ask about new hampshire. new england in general. rightlling seem to be relative to other races. >> i will answer. i can't leave it hanging.

we were talking before the panel about being cautious about making too much of the exit poll estimates of demography. .t is a poll we will have other ways of looking at this coming from the senses. there is a cap, it has more to do with the fact that there is been a higher turnout among younger people than a change in the way the midterms have gone. one of there was handful of states where there was understated shaheen. , to was interesting to me , you didn'there was see the understatement of republicans. it happened to be less in new hampshire, massachusetts,

connecticut. which is interesting. not in maine or vermont. i don't know. one theory that a smart pollster ran was that massachusetts and new hampshire has a lot of homegrown polling. locally based outfits that only all massachusetts. it's interesting. if you look at, it's always dangerous to judge by one survey. it is nearly irresponsible. the folks who did came out looking good. my former partner charles franklin who runs the marquette

university law school polling, who have is the governor's race right there. we can pick others. lot in new hampshire and that maybe part of it. lover,llow house raise house democrats took an drumming. there are younger members of the caucus. we've heard indirectly they are worried about the future of the house democratic party. as what coulde possibly happen as a result? what direction is the house democratic caucus chair going? >> the gamble was clearly not in contention. did matter. the hope is democrats can make a few gains.

or maybe just mitigate the losses. in 2016 they could make up the difference. i talked to one member and the person cap saying we have lost 70 seats in six years. that is a staggering number. hittingthe reality is it is going to be without foreseen ways democrats are going to have a hard time getting the gamble back before the next redistricting map. i'm sensing restlessness when i talk to people on the hill. that she isies running again. i don't foresee any challenge to her. there is a younger generation getting restless. they have been there for a long time. 2012 ishman class from

very ambitious. tier, and thenxt you already have coming up a group that wants to be in leadership. you have three generations impacting each other. publicly in how the elects -- execute, but it will be interesting in the next few years how these forces collide. >> we are going to go to q&a. i thought we should go around and round robin about what this election was about. what is the big story? was it about the economy? >> it was about president obama. there was so many stories before the election, the election about nothing. shadownt obama was the

was cast over the entire election. underneath that umbrella, there was the economy. or how people felt about the economy. .here was the foreign crisis it all kind of fit under the umbrella of president obama. >> i think that is true. i'm grappling with not many people have ebola, isis have been delayed. 10 million people have health insurance. i can't say that till president obama. is the stepin what in politics, the other thing is i was in louisville with senator mcconnell. we were asking what his agenda going forward. he talked about tax reform and trade agreements. i don't think i heard that

during the campaign. it is disconcerting the campaign was not about issues to the we asked what are you going to do? we should have known what your platform is once you are running. we shouldn't be guessing. the third thing, a lot of the big issues didn't,. you want a campaign to be about some ideas. obama says climate change is one of the biggest problems in the world. i didn't hear that from the candidates. the republicans say spending is huge. part of that.big is there some plan on medicare? issues in the election was supposed to be about it.

did you hear anything about that on the campaign show? that shows some racial challenge in the country. i didn't hear any proposals to deal with it. the election was about who was going to win. issuet like it was an with the big issues were delayed until later. i'm not sure it should have to be that way. >> i think it is obama. it is anger. the american public has been disappointed by the government time and time again. ebola was a tiny thing but it was one more thing that went wrong. cable news blew it up. it's all these forces. i don't know if it is possible to lead but the public is not feeling good about obama now. >> i will go back to what we were talking about when we started. the president's agenda defines what we talk about in washington

and defines what politics is about. benghazi, nota or these little stories we get assessed with. the bigger picture, six years since the economy crashed and although the economic indicators are coming back, ordinary people feel like things are not good. are things headed in the right direction, 67% say we are on the wrong track. that is what helped shape perceptions of how the president is doing and what is driving politics. open it up to you all for questions. do we have a microphone? excellent. i'm a former policy director on a couple of statewide campaigns. i want to ask you, why is it

that someone like me who writes of these things about what we should do on this issue finds the press release is about the whole? race stories horse versus issue stories is surprising to those of us who work on the issues. what drives that being the thing that becomes more covered and talked about, given that we find pop that problems with polling? >> candidates, there is an generally generic in their policy proposals. there is little that is outside the box. the more specific you get with your policy proposals more likely you are attacked by the other side.

to read a democratic proposal say we are for working families and better wages, ok. what does that tell you? to reporters it is tough to make news of that. [inaudible question] >> the reality is for me, media is a business. stories about in-depth polity details don't get the same amount of attention. as one of the core challenges. the candidates talk about what they think the media is quite a cover. when i tell someone i covered elections, it is not what is the problem america. it is is hillary running? i would like to write stories about policy details. the interest is in the horse race. better,he balance be

perhaps. anythinghink there's wrong with coverage of the horse race. the candidate will comment a roll call and we will interview them. we talk to them for an hour. , a vaguegle one i ask question, what do you think about foreign affairs? all they want to talk about is their issues. abouton't want to talk the facts they will have the power to declare war on someone. policyn discuss in-depth. sometimes would put it up for the public. if something catches my ear we will put it on video. we often do that. the videos get washed sometimes. sometimes not. still write it out. we had a candidate at what she would do.

a press release is sometimes hard for reporters to make interesting because it can evade. often we asked direct questions and try to nail them down. we give it best we can. >> i wanted to chime in last. i have achieved answer. covering holes and polling is my feeds. i do.s what the reason i have this job, for people to read huffington post, that is what they want to click on. given that we are in the internet age, we have a good idea of what stories people click on and read grade they like to read about the horse race. which they? people like you in this room. bb10-50 percent who really liked reading about all it takes.

how their team is doing. he wants to know if their team is going to win. it doesn't address your question, the hard question. how do you get this engaged people? vote aree who don't not engaged in politics. they are not clicking on policies stories. they are not following it. how'd you get americans who don't engage in politics to engage? that is a hard question. -- we chasing rrb ensigns are chasing our audiences. >> two of my there were stories was education in the north carolina senate race and we teamed up with a reporter to look at the role of health care in minnesota, which is

interesting. theou had mentioned democrats lost 70 seats over six years. ga sec conference lost 70 mes, why do the democrats keep their current leadership? there's no challenger. she has the vote. she has california delegation behind her. day, there isthe no challenge. >> we will argue the president drives the results. a losey became speaker because bush was unpopular. they lost seats because obama's

agenda is unpopular. calls in the phone past 36 hours, much of the caucus is angry and president obama. >> thank you. >> the spending this year was huge. turnout wasn't that great. our campaigns finding it harder to reach voters because the media is so segmented, and has either party done much to or aree participation, they missing half the voters in off years?

>> i want to speak to it a little bit. enormous -- as you the democrats spent an unprecedented amount of money on get out the vote and technology aimed at enhancing those things. question is implicit, while that didn't work because turnout was down. where they spent that money, it was up. i'm looking at a map that was produced from my friend michael mcdonald at the university of florida. in north carolina, it was up five points in wisconsin. , and there were big races a lot of money being spent, advertising, get out the vote, there was higher turnout. it wasn't presidential level.

i don't think anybody who had the money spent on them doing this was claiming they could replicate presidential level turnout. the people that sell this are perfectly willing to say they may lose a pointer to their way. it comes back to the last question. who arepeople engaged not in an election is a tough thing. >> the campaigns are about two things. mobilization of the base and persuasion of the middle. spent onthe effort was the mobilization of the base. dore's only so much you can when people aren't excited. you can contact them and send them as many e-mails, you can call them, you can text them.

if people aren't excited, money isn't the issue. spending begets more spending. when one party goes into a district and start spending the other party comes in to respond. the television rates get higher and higher. i bet it was more expensive to air an ad in cedar rapids van las vegas because those where where the ice -- because those were where the races were. there is a larger question about how the campaigns and parties are struggling with television advertising being less efficient , where'd you, how do you contact people online? they are focusing on digital. the dietrick will see was proud in the final days they owned the

local webpages of local media. parties are becoming more sophisticated. has the keyk anyone or the right answer to how to reach people and motivate them 100%. >> may be time for one more question. >> joel packer with the raven group. .ou mentioned the telesis race education is something president obama mentioned yesterday working with republicans. polling has shown it is a high priority for the public. didn't plan any other races?

>> are you asking me? >> in that particular race it wased because thom tillis passing in education bill. i would be hard-pressed to think of many others where it took a leading role. houston the crest might have used it to help drive out the male voters. can you think of any other examples? >> the pennsylvania governor's race with tom corbin. changes, so that was the other one where education comes to mind. >> i can't think of a single ad. they're really just were any dominating issues like that. it was scattered.

>> can we give our panelists around of applause? [applause] thank you everyone. part, panelists look at the makeup of the new congress born in in january including new leadership, new committee chairs, and how republicans and the president may handle the new issues. >> thank you. these. my 10th one of this is my favorite part. this is my favorite panel every year. let's get to it. have two institutional experts, and to policy experts. the policy experts know about the institution and the institutions not about the policy. david drucker, a veteran of roll

the senioren congressional correspondent for the washington examiner. go tol turn to him as our guy. to his right, megan scully has been part of the defense team for the last three years. to her right, roll call senior senate correspondent. he has been doing various things for the last seven years. etheridge, andly our policy expert for this discussion. explains, it has

been backward looking for the morning to understand what just happened. now we do the immediate event -- pivot.ate hav if you want to talk lame-duck i'm sure we can do that. already, your program, this is especially useful. great baseball program that explains who the players are in the new year. that is fully want to talk about. we will do the house first. of thate is getting rid discussion first. cataclysmict the turnout. are familiar with the

leadership, the top leaders. tell us a little bit in your own estimation how does having the largest majority since herbert hoover was president what does that do to the life of john boehner and kevin mccarthy? >> when you win it's only good because when you lose it is always a bad anyway. they won big. what a lot of people were not aware when they were looking at the house playing field they had the seats in 2010 and only lost a few i think it was about 18 and 2012 they were playing in the purple or blue turf. so the pickups across the board were in the seats where you're more likely to have people that probably think of themselves as governing in the election so it's going to make it easier for john boehner and his team to get

to the 218 then it was so far that we could usually get to 200. if you couldn't round up those you had 20 of the 200 that said i don't know if i want to be stuck out here. to 180.as back it is a consequence of lending for leadership, they were pretty safe after the shakeup after the summer because of cantor lost. the alleviated tension that had built up. the leadership team had been in place for so long. something needed to burst one way or the other. the alleviated some tension, had a big day on the far end, on the high end of their forecast.

the leadership team slides into the next congress. >> no change to john boehner? >> nobody really wants the job. [laughter] the guys who wanted the job lost his primary. the votes tound of be john boehner-a.k.a.-i run against him. -- they run against him. done the work. the way you win these races is you work with your colleagues, raising a lot of money, put in your time, even if it is quick, then you go to them. you don't say i would be a great leader if you give me a chance and i am new. it doesn't work. he doesn't have much to worry about. down to every

elected member of the leadership. >> we will do the micro view from the senate side. we have word from nancy pelosi that they are going to spend the next two years separating the minority. that will being the generational push to get rid of all of the median age of democratic leaders. like something will give. , i'm putting my cells in their heads. i don't really know what is going on. is, 2016, hillary on the ballot. we win big, it pulls the house across the finish line. i don't know i see it that way even with a hillary victory.

that is their thinking. there has to be a full-scale rebellion. they lost on a mass nobody thought they could. even though they were losing, they raise a ton of money. they probably did all they could. pretty big but still picked up three seats. i think we're going to have another shot. >> what is the big picture, so every newly elected public and senator gwen on television yesterday was asked the same thing, do you support mitch mcconnell. they seem to be given the same talking points. as far as i know no one else is running. >> david and i were in the same airport terminal in bowling

green, kentucky. inator mcconnell was still campaign mode. he was talking about the potential of republicans taking control of the senate, was asked whether or not he had any concerns about senator cruz having told one of the leaders of the conservative flank a .ikely 2016 contender mcconnell was asked, because crews had told something to the washington post, but was noncommittal on supporting mcconnell. he was after that concerned him. he said no. that was the end of the answer. elaborate, asked to essentially he is going to be the leader. he is going to the majority leader.

there is a vote that will be taking place a week from today within the senate republican conference for their leadership in the next year. -- nohas been now signed sign of any fig leaf of a challenge to senator mcconnell. i don't think anyone expects one because it is not like this is going to be a narrow republican majority. they are going have 54 seats when all is said and done. be a lot of these people elected, there were a number who were conservative but in some sense, they are not -- many are driven from arnment interest conservative perspective, but not necessarily people who want

to burn the place down. >> i thought nobody wants the job. anyone want to do what mitch mcconnell is going to have to do when he is going to have a block of confrontational types with their avatar in chief and this is one of those numbers everyone is going to commit to memory, six first term republican senators running in obama stays. >> one of the things we are going to have to absolutely look at is, the way the senator is going to be operating in the next two years, and the way that the senate is envisioned to

operate, we don't know how this experiment is going to work. appearsnnell doctrine to be a return to what we used to call regular order or some semblance of regular order where you process bills through committee. he got a laugh from the press. he held a news conference at theay afternoon mcconnell center on the campus of the university of louisville. >> paid for by the united states government. >> he got a laugh line from the grass when he said something to the effect of believe it or not the committees have to function. when bills come out of committee on a bipartisan basis as they traditionally would do in years

past, those bills should come to the floor. they've been particularly talking about bringing back the appropriations process and ,rying to pass all 12 bills which hasn't happened in recent history. so, that comes with it difficult votes. to no availverse obviously, senator reid attempted to do, to protect his members from casting difficult votes. ,t sounds like the new universe those difficult votes are going to happen. 2016 will have to look at that. segue into theod functioning of the committee system. maybe we should talk into the total revamp of nothing changes at the capital when a partisan

turnover happens like the committee structure. every ratio will be more or less reversed. it has gone from 55% democratic to 54% of all in. every race will be flipped on its head. 20 gavels change hands. some office space changes hands. staffers lose their jobs. obamae first time since has been president the republicans get to set the agenda. who will be the people who do it? we go to the people who are not returning from the louisville bureau. were competitors covering the mcconnell reelection race. >> the bergen bureau -- the bourbon bureau.

>> he likes manhattan's with 2 cherries. >> what does john mccain lie? ke? >> i would hope it would be beer. >> it is a bitter beer. [laughter] hops. the pentagon and the white house , and the defense industry are watching as john mccain prepares to take the gavel of the armed services committee. you're going to see more friction than we have seen. carl levin, the longtime chairman. mccain is going to be aggressive . the isis operations, to individual weapons systems.

you're going to see a muscular committee. one that is doing a lot of oversight and digging. you have this interesting conflict within mccain himself, while he is a watchdog, he is also an old-school hawk. he may want to take the pentagon to task for spending money in ways that he doesn't find to be a priority or appropriate. you are not going to see him call for a decrease in defense spending. the pentagon will have an ally of sorts there. >> and to break the sequester. >> there are always moves to break the sequester. i don't know you're going to come up with any kind of deal

even with the two chambers controlled by republicans. we will see. he has been working for the past -- carls with leaven levin to do away with it. they have not come up with a deal either party could agree to. >> he and jack reed get along. the new ranking democrats. as long asfirst time i can remember, to military academy men at the helm of the armed services committee. mccain is an annapolis grad. jack reed is a west point grad. they both have very different approaches. supportive of the white house. they both know and understand

defense. there is a mutual respect. they worked on the seapower subcommittee. they have a long history of collaborating. which one do you want to discuss first? policy the domestic czar. >> the health committee, health education, labor, and pensions. we have lamar alexander ascending to chairman of the panel and the retirement of tom harkin, who was the leader of health and a lot ways, devoted his career to help. involved and been cares about education, has positioned himself to oppose obama vocally. which makes him interesting to

watch, not only will he a those in obama policy, he has an idea of what he wants to do instead, and he pushes those ideas. he thinks them through and tries to make them work. he is not just a guy who says no. you're going to see a lot of his ideas coming through. if we return to regular order you can expect to see a lot of bills out of the health committee. he likes to legislate. in finance you have utah taking the helm harry hatch and alexander, they are old school. they come from a world where you would reach across the aisle and make a bill and write legislation. you have laws with hatch's name that have been around for decades. this is a similar approach we don't see as much. these are guys that are two very

important and eager to start getting things done. >> this is an interesting point you make. one of the things i've been saying in my head is for those expecting a confrontational tea party wing of the senate republicans to assert dominance, they are going to run into a team of chairman and elders who are not from that school. who is in a position of power in the senate now is formal power, is a tea party revolutionary? >> a lot of these members are still young in terms of their senate careers if you're looking at the tea party wing. one dynamic, if it affects , the republicans have

until now been in a position of opposition, even in the house for they could pass things. they were always trying to hold back a democratic senate. senate republicans since 2010 have only been in a position where they could vote no. they can never put their own agenda on the floor. retention,t attitude because you can only oppose, basically said we were elected to stop the president, it is not like we can put on the floor and vote for anything forward thinking because we are not in control of the floor. let's oppose. i wonder how much pressure it might relieve and change their behavior when it is like we get to vote on our bills. we like to move them through committee. we get them on defense. there is a chance it could

relieve pressure on the house side. the frustration with the guys elected in 2010, in 2012 we had a schoolhouse rock vision of how this place was supposed to work. conversation about what has been your frustration. the senate won't even vote on our bills even to kill them. i can't believe it. welcome to washington. they don't like your bills. now they have an opportunity to legislate because they have full control of one third of the government instead of one third of one half. let's see how that impacts things. about equally conservative. where thetter of

tension to govern versus philosophy meets. it will meet at times and there will be some tension. for the presidential candidates are running for president versus legislating, which will create tension. this new dynamic may make things more difficult. >> on that last point, one of the things we might seeing, because some of these new were members, many of whom may be running for president, probably ,ill not have full committees sub committeehave gavels. some of which could be rather interesting places for them to be. for instance, to pull out one , i was of something talking the other day with

senator qual. i asked, what would you like to when the committee level you have a majority situation? he pointed to the possibility he was going to be the chairman of a subcommittee of the homeland security committee that has broad authority to investigate government waste and corruption. which pretended to me the possibility of investigations and hearings. if you are an administration official, or if there is someone who pipes administrations for hearings, expect to be turning up at the senate a lot for hearings. that thise something tension gets relieved that may not be done through legislation. , take youre out shots of the white house and the

administration through hearings and investigations and subpoenas that you may not do through legislation. >> macconnell made that clear. >> think of the oversight. darrell issa will no longer be the chairman of that committee. all that you have seen in the house, that was more in the senate. and the house will do their investigations. it is a great way to make your point. even if they haven't stuck with the public, and you are making your message and remind people of thehat your causes time, because there were a lot of them, this is a use of people. you tie up their days. you make them come for staff meetings. one way they hurt the

health care law, by bringing in hhs officials testifying and not actually building a website or doing other things they needed to do. it's a good way to get the administration. >> you are going to see a bit of that in the last few months. almost every day the pentagon and state department officials were coming up to brief in subcommittee armed services, foreign relations, on nsa surveillance. anything across the board. it does tie them up. she'll amount of time people all the way up to the people are having to put into that. you will see that increase. quirk in how they chose their committees, john thein might also chair

subcommittee on investigations. >> carl levin did that in the past congress. he could do that in going forward. >> which would be stunning. one other question about rand paul and mitch mcconnell, my understanding was mitch mcconnell doesn't want rand paul to take the senate seat. now they have reached an uneasy peace. point i'm not even sure if it is uneasy. they seem to be able to get along quite well. one of the things is you saw toator paul actively working get senator mcconnell reelected. inre is a political benefit kentucky to being aligned with the operation of senator mcconnell, which is top-flight. think,s a distinction i

one of the other things when i was talking to senator paul, , it'sing he has said going to be a potential concern for him and senator cruz or whomever else may want to run for president, senator mcconnell is insisting the sin is going to work longer hours. there are going to be votes on friday. we don't know what voting on friday looks like in the united states senate. there is a problem with doing that intentionally if you are someone running for president who is supposed to be at a luncheon in des moines on friday at noon and you have to cancel because the senate is voting. there will be this back-and-forth that will go on in that regard with the way the senate schedule works. point, there are

two different characters. they are not always going to agree. that they have formed a strong partnership whose strength play off each other and no when one should defer to the other one. >> if we can start from the premise mitch mcconnell is going to at least at the start of the year, when this argument between the let's just send obama things we know he's going to veto versus left shot and do some, do you see happening first? >> i think there's going to be a

little bit of time where we take a few votes, also in the house to say no to all, so everyone can make sure constituents know i said no 12, first thing. we will do that for a couple of weeks. especially on health care, which is something republicans have been dying to take down. saying what hes really means than having to say something else. he is going to vote to repeal the bill, which they will vote. and they will actually vote to repeal parts of the law. devices,he medical which is a funding mechanism. it doesn't impact people be on medical devices manufacturers. you can see this change where they are going to define full-time work as 40 hours.

those are things that have bipartisan support. they would have passed the senate if harry reid allowed them to be voted on. but, was going to let them be voted on. it is going to be taken up as law. some don't like this approach. they think it is improving a law that is inherently flawed. they are taking away the bad parts treatment, is saying let's talk these up as victories, change the law in some way. let's chip away at it. >> it might be a good sign if he , especially the medical devices tax. it doesn't really matter that much anymore. it seems interesting to me in the last week, we haven't discussed this.

war,ic state, the march to that is going to wear it had soon. -- rear its head soon. anhe wants to ask for authorization of military force, the first since the iraq war resolution more than a decade ago. the president said he would ask for an authorization. senate,e those in the senator kaine who wants congress to debate that. house republicans have said no, this is not something for a lame-duck. we are going to kick it to the next congress. which is when you're going to see them have to grapple with much stringover how to give the president. you've seen democrats want a much more structured a umass. -- aumf.

we want something with a time limit, and then you see republicans gives the president more flexibility. then just this specific operation. it is going to be an interesting issue to seeing the new members of the senate tackle. when they first come in, it is the first debate on this since 2003. >> is it your sense that congress gains have made the republican party on capitol hill more hawkish, more isolationist, or mullah omar is whatever obama is for or against? or more against whatever obama is against?

>> i think you will with the threats that you have obviously isis. it kind of become more prominent the issue of war, the issue of spending. i think you will see them, particularly with john mccain and bob corker who are very vocal. >> does rubio fit in this discussion? >> yeah, i think so. i think you will see him. if you're running for president, you have to show that you have national security credentials and foreign policy credentials. you will see in particularly rubio try to assert himself here. >> i