they wrote about how their travels around were similar to the mayflower. despite this, they were not entirely successful. the west coast is not just another yankeedom, because they encountered another settlement. they and up with a hybrid culture. it combines yankee utopianism, the idea that we can and should create a better world, and make the world more perfect, with the appalachian emphasis on individual self-expression. and ended up being a unique combination. think of the companies that dominated 20th century life. apple, microsoft, google, amazon, silicon valley, it is all in that one little strip. that is like the population of romania.

it's a pretty outside influence for the size of the territory. it has been the staunchest ally in federal politics of yankeedom since it was established, but it dashes with the far western sections of the interior of its own home states -- clashes with the far western sections of the interior of its own home states. the next, this is the one place where i will admit that environment totally trumped ethnography. in this area, in the context of settlement and the technology available, it was so high, and dry, and remote, it stopped eastern nations in their tracks. with minor exceptions, it was only able to be colonized by the deployment of industrial scale

resources. railroads, dams, irrigation systems. we exploited it as an internal colony for the benefit of the rest of the nation's, in the far west people have been aware of this and resentful of this dependent status. if anger has been shifted back and forth through history between being directed at corporate masters of the union pacific railroads, and at the federal government. it shifts back and forth. it is an interesting phenomenon.

the next two, only have small enclaves, but play a major role in canada. the first with a score around quebec, new france --the traditions and values of the aboriginal people in northwest america, and the down-to-earth, egalitarian consensus driven. there are amongst the most liberal people in the continent in terms of social attitudes. not about speaking english in montreal, but getting along in the community. it was supposed to be a reproduction of the society in france. but it did not work out that way in the american wilderness.

the peasants from brittany and northern france discovered they had more culturally in common with ever -- aboriginal people. there are letters in the french archives where some person is writing, saying all the peasants have run away, i'm starving because i don't know how to farm. it did not work out -- it deviated a great deal from france, and created a unique society. finally, the last one, first nation at the top. i did not make this slide. a blogger expanded. it is accurate. an enormous and expansive area, the newest of the oldest of the nations, depending on how you want to look at it. it is populated by native american groups and tried, to -- tribes, who generally never gave up their land, and have largely retained their cultures. reclaiming their sovereignty now. they have pointed out, in the

late 19th century, when you would have expected treaties to be signed or land to be seized, everyone thought, there's nothing up there. it is frigid and cold. there's nothing there except ice. so it never happened. in recent decades, as the constitutional environments become more sophisticated, many tribes have pointed this out. we never gave you the land, so maybe it is still ours. the canadian constitutional court essentially said, you are right. that is where you have the territory, and vast sections of what you see is first nations, areas where the original traditional territories of these tribes has been recognized by canada, and they have a seat at the table in all the decisions that might happen in vast areas of the continent. it turns out it is not nothing there, it is everything there. they have all the natural resources. they trade it for manufacturing goods. it is the storehouse of north america's resources, and all the

stuff we need to keep life going. water, rare earth, minerals, and, petrochemicals, you name it. it is up there. the first nations are going to have a major role. the green one is not on this map am a but it's also part of north america. they are about to become -- they are becoming an independent nationstate very soon. they are already an autonomous part of the kingdom of denmark. it is 95% in units speaking. it is one of the only parts were the aboriginal language is not only official, but dominant. it will be a totally different take on 21st century life, and other nations and societies. i was in greenland a few years ago, and nobody owns any land. everything is community owned. your house is leased from the people. if you go out and shoot a walrus or a seal, you bring it to your village communal ice locker, and

anybody can come and take some, without any accounting. is a totally different take on things. and women have never been in a subservient role. it just never happened that way. because the scored his of drugs and alcohol are more harshly on the men, women tend to be in positions of power in greenland, from the government ministers, mayors, and lutheran bishops. speaking of the foreign minister, who was telling us this, she said here is what you have to understand. in the 1700s when the danish came, they said, we have god, and he looks like this and we want you to worship him. we looked at each other and said, he? she is now the prime minister. it would be an entirely different take on 21st century life.

these are the nations today. their affect on history has been profound. the map is echoed in the battle lines of the american civil war, the constitutional convention, and leading up to the u.s. civil war, the cultural wars of the 1960's, and any hotly contested election in history. since it is political season, let's look at that little bit. iowa is mostly in the midlands. in fact, there's no other state in the country so completely midland as iowa. there is no single state as dominated. iowa is the exception. you can see, if you really want to understand the red blue politics, you cannot look at the state level, you have to look at the county level. that is where you see the divisions. you can see it right there. presidential election maps. you can see yankeedom popping

out, western reserve of ohio, west coast appearing, monochrome in the deep south. i have not messed with the colors. the red is republican and the blue is democrat. this is the 1916 showdown between woodrow wilson and charles hughes. republicans, for the first century, was a party founded in yankeedom, and therefore a century. but the parties come and go. the current parties have swapped over the past 40 years. they switched constituencies and their program. it has shifted. trying to understand and historical timeframe what has happened, is an exercise in futility. the lasting difference is that really matter in the broader

time scheme are regional and cultural, and the parties end up re-donning their garb and shifting their priorities. there is the 2004 contest -- i'm sorry, the 2008 contest between barack obama and john mccain. it is a reversal of the counties. there is the western reserve again. left coast. but there are a couple of differences. one is, you can now see el norte, different from the surrounding counties. but also, south and tidewater are no longer monochrome. what happened between 1916 and 2008? hispanics and african-americans can effectively vote, and use the franchise, whereas they could not in 1916. many blue counties in tidewater

and deep south are majority african-american. you see the political references of the majority expressed in el norte in the way it would not have been in 1916. this is after the 2008 election. this is a map that asks, between the 2004 contest, john kerry versus george w. bush, and the 2008 contest of obama versus mccain, did each county vote more for the democrat than last time or republican? as you might imagine in the hope change election, most counties across the continent voted more democratic than they had in the previous cycle -- except for this red blot, almost identical to central appalachia. obama, and he knows this, has a greater appalachian problem, consider this. it is not just partisan, it is cultural.

in the most recent election, obama is sitting president, did remarkably badly in democratic primaries in appalachia against unknown challenges. in west virginia, the sitting democratic party leader, 41% of democratic voters cast ballots for a texas prison inmate instead. and kentucky, 42% of democrats in the democratic primary preferred uncommitted to the sitting president of their own party. in arkansas, obama won, but

arkansas is cut diagonally between deep south and greater appalachia. he lost almost by 50% in the democratic primary. 2012 comes around, the book has been out for a couple of months, and it would be great. i can discuss how i found the key to what has happened in the election. obama has an enormous weakness, that will throw the close election, right? unfortunately the republicans ended up nominating mitt romney, who also has an appalachian problem. barack obama was born in hawaii, but grew up in the yankeedom. mitt romney was the son of a yankee governor, in michigan, and the governor himself of the lf of the lf of the lf created a health-care plan that fit into the yankee does. however, he ended up having the same regional vulnerabilities and assets as obama. ended up being a wash in a

general election. romney did extremely well in the republican primaries in the same places obama did well in his primaries. against very regional candidates, rick santorum, who is the preferred candidate of greater appalachia, newt gingrich from the great south, and of the other real contestants, only ron paul did not have a clear regional cipher to look through. the others did. it was fascinating how on level, you can see that. romney, the yankee conservative, won in almost every single county in new england. every single one in massachusetts and vermont.

here is the republican primaries in 2012 and ohio. green is the romney victory. essentially, romney had one ohio, because of strong support in the western reserve. same thing in illinois. the yankee north voted for romney to get down stay, he had great difficulty against santorum. romney also clinched oregon and washington, coastal california. however, pundits started saying, the primaries are coming, alabama and mississippi, this is where newt gingrich will have his chance. the polls are too close to call. except, they weren't. in now them the blue is gingrich and the green is romney, -- in alabama, the blue is gingrich, the green is romney, the brown is santorum. santorum walked away with alabama, because he had gotten

those appalachian votes again. the posters were blindsided, because they had done polls based on gender and income level and race, but not by regional cultures. mississippi was a bit closer, only because the appalachian section of mississippi is much smaller. posters ignored these kind of things at their own peril. that is the most recent presidential election, just to finish the pattern. today, essentially we have two coalitions. they are two weak coalitions, which explains the brinkmanship we have been in. there is a blue coalition that consists of yankeedom, and the red coalition with appalachian and deep south.

if you overlaid the electoral college and senate and house of representatives, that does not give a lock on anything. you control federal power, you have to have filibuster proof, senate majority. neither of them can do it. each of their respective political platforms have not really one over the other sections that much, especially the midlands. there ends up being brinksmanship, a fight over trying to bring in one or another of the swing region, which is why the elections are nailbiter's, and why it is you can have a swing election, with a lot of switching. neither one has a stable coalition, and neither one has a platform that can reliably win

over a regional super majority to actually govern. throughout history, that is what has happened. regional super majority coalitions that have allowed one political platform. in the past, usually not explicitly sorted by party. cross party coalitions would form. today, we don't have that. ideology and party are together now. political formation or another can come up with something that can win over the swing regions or pull a weak part away from another. it's not a good spot for america or the world to be in.

how would you do it? for the red coalition, the obvious play, the one that george w. bush wanted to do, was for el norte. a group of people who are family oriented, rather conservative. but that is against part of the republican base, that has a very narrow vision of what the american identity is. donald trump has made it even more difficult. that is really a difficult spot for the national republican party to be in, because the demographics, el norte is growing rapidly. if texas flips to being blue overall because of relative demographic changes, the republican party is doomed on

the national stage. it is something that i'm sure it keeps a lot of them up at night. for the blue coalition, there are more paths to forming a supermajority. trying to win over the midlands, but the other is the far west. there is an opportunity there. tidewater seems to be falling into their lap i default. far west, obama in 2008, he got invited and new mexico and colorado, but he almost got montana. he missed it by two points or something like that. the number of candidates -- a number of democratic candidates have won, because there is that libertarian essence, but there is a concern about fairness in economics plays very well. so you have progressives. if the argument is about, americans are individualistic, we struggle for the fittest,

there's also an emphasis on a fair fight, that plays very well in the far west. there are opportunities there. zooming in on the midwest, i was asked earlier this year to give a talk at an academic conference in grand rapids called finding the lost region. it was billed as the largest academic conference in the midwest. in an expression of this new movement, within the academy to try to reinvigorate the study and interest in the midwest as a region. after the prairie historians disappeared, there has been kind of a loss. to have been too focused on midwestern study -- the ones that were focused on midwestern studies have largely

disappeared. there is a movement to try to bring that focus back. the conference asked two questions, among others. one is, geographically speaking, what is the midwest? the other is, why is it that it's identity has been more ambiguous and less resilient than new england or the south? i provided a couple of answers from this paradigm to those questions. one obvious one is on the map. there are really three competing cultural streams that came from the east, through what we think of as the midwest. before we start counting the area of the great plains. in american nation terms, there is no single coherent regional

culture that fills up that. base -- that space. that is part of the reason why it is more difficult to maintain. you can see these differences in the region. this is a map of cultural diffusion of ideas, using largely material objects, like construction and building styles. you can see how you ended up with a separate stream, each going back to an initial cultural heart. -- cultural hearth. here is a detailed map of dialects, from the much discussed internet project. the detail is from crowdsourcing. millions of people connect with him via the internet, and record what they sound like, and a location. this has allowed him to actually crowd source and incredible detail how people speak today, and sort it out as a linguist, into different domains. this was published after my book, so i did not talk about it, but you can see at the domain level, you have the same

thing. three areas, plus the great plains. north, south, midland. again, the midwest at a fundamental level, it is how people speak. and there is a cultural geographers classic map of the religious dominant zones in the country. you can see again, the east-west division. the midwest does exist, but it is a federated entity. it is one that i would argue -- obviously there is a midwest, but what is it? you have three separate settlement streams, who all experienced the same historical challenges, and were trying to settle this remote area at the same time, and experiencing common externally imposed political frameworks. that started with the northwest

ordinance in 1787 or so. that meant a whole rolling section of u.s. territory, the future states of ohio, indiana, michigan, wisconsin and illinois, would not have slavery. that meant that the midwestern side of the ohio river ended up evolving in a very different political framework. also, the northwest ordinance is ended up creating a firewall that prevented the expansion of tidewater from the kentucky bluegrass into the west, and also with the missouri compromise, set-aside misery as missouri as a slave state, but said that all of the

territory that makes up the future states of minnesota and iowa and kansas, and nebraska would also be free. it created an additional firewall. there ended up being a creation of a common set of experiences. the midwest is absolutely real, but it is something that is a federated entity, which i think is helpful in the effort to reinvigorate regional studies. we can realize where the achilles heels were as we work out how to define it. the takeaway of this is early settlement can matter a great deal in subsequent history. this is a map of the location of the congregational churches in 1860. each dot is five churches. this is a marker of yankee settlement in 1860. notice the close correspondence to the yankeedom boundaries. but also check out iowa.

the yankees try to make it their own, saving them from the kentuckians, and so forth. they created these universities throughout the midwest. but they were not able to achieve dominance. however, their influence was felt at some level. i was definitely in the midlands, but i sometimes wonder -- this may be a reach -- but if you look at iowa and match it up with political behavior recently, it is amazing how much the congregational church map matches the blue red fissures. i've been asking people, why is this, why are the rural farming counties on the eastern part of

the map, why are they voting differently? that may be part of the mix. i will open it up to questions now. anybody? don't be bashful. >> thank you very much for coming in tonight. my employment with microsoft has caused me to live in many different places around the country. when i read your book, it was very interesting to me to note that the places i have enjoyed living are places that are very similar to my beliefs

politically, and things that i like culturally. guess that's why i am ambivalent about iowa. it is very pluralistic. but i like it a lot better than the deep south, for example. as you have gone through and learned so much about the subject, is that a common experience for people? mr. woodard: yes, i hear that a lot in talks. another interesting question that comes in, the early settlements of the patterns explains what are happening now, a lot of people say, but they were moving around. all of the immigration in the 19th century, and today we had mass retailing, mass broadcasting in the media, the internet. certainly that must making everyone more homogenous, right? except, it's not. by any measurable technique, the

divisions are getting wider. part of the reason is what you explain. when people started looking at this question, one of them is bill bishops "the big sort." in this book, they talk about how they realized in the 1970's, the number of counties in the u.s. that were landslide counties in elections where they always voted for the same party, winning by 20 points or more, it was only like 15% of the counties. fast-forward to the early 2000, it has grown to 50% or 60%. how could that be? they started looking at where people were moving, and what people were doing. they discovered that people, statistically speaking, when they move around and take jobs elsewhere to the extent they can control it, they tend to move to places where they are surrounded

by like-minded people. sometimes they are doing that because they do not feel quite as home in the place they started, and choose to start going and sorting themselves, self-selecting, in communities where they feel like they are surrounded by like-minded people. we are talking about dominant cultures, and every single one of these counties you have a full spectrum of political beliefs. even in the bluest of the blue and reddest of the red, you still have 20% of the electorate voting for the wrong side. there are all sorts of people everywhere. it is whether or not you feel like the culture is around you. with everything feels right, or you are completely frustrated, saying, why do people think this land act like this? may be if the combination for some people of those things. but then you get a chance to move, and statistically speaking, people try to end up

moving where they want to go. others realized that migrants, politically speaking, tend to resemble their destination more than their point of origin. in other words, the people who move tend to be different than the people they left behind. the big sort is actually part of the reason those cultural differences are remaining resilient despite the challenges of mass media and people moving. yes sir. >> good evening, thank you for coming. i also enjoyed you on the podcast when you are on that. in your book, you mentioned what happened in kansas, another book that was written. i noticed kansas on the map had three equal parts of raider appalachia and the

midlands and the far west. i kind of want to pose the same question. what did in fact happen to kansas to create one of the few states that have a three region divide. mr. woodard: i am not an expert on kansas politics, and there is a rather controversial experiment in whether or not arthur laffer's idea of trickle-down economics would work, but why would the experiment take place in kansas? i'm not sure. i would be guessing. the midlands is a swing region, and can shift around, depending on changes in the climate. you have a large, but sparsely populated far western section and a big chunk that is also greater appalachian. it is an environment where the possibility of experiment does not seem impossible it would happen there. why it happened there and why it happened now, i don't know about kansas enough to answer. i'm not shocked, given the

regional fissures that that could happen. thank you. yes, please. >> hello. being from iowa is very interesting to look at this map. i feel like we are have greater appalachian and half yankeedom. how the counties were selected for this map. the northern part of iowa is in um, so imb -- yankied was wondering what statistics you were looking at. mr. woodard: in terms of deciding what county a given

place is going to be in. a project is incredibly accurate and easy to do as you are on the right side of the map. as you work left, it gets harder isause the depth of history shorter, the speed of settlement becomes more rapid and the populations are often more sparse. it took oneing that generation to get from one county to another. the next generation, you are jumping states forward. the challenge becomes greater. iedom youhing like yank could get individualized data. large external migration was happening. it became important to some people to establish that they were there first and they went back a long time ago. daughters of the american revolution. the mayflower society.

they were trying to establish that they and their families came on the original votes. m, someown in yankiedo local luminary put together the history of my little tiny town in seven leatherback volumes detailing the history. in the back third of the history, would be a genealogy of every single person living in the town in 1883 or 1891 or whenever they put the book together. every single family traced all the way back to the old world. scholars have tapped on these. together, theyll are literally on the individualized level able to know which town was founded by which people. that was made incredibly easy.

for everyone else coming getting closer and closer to the midwest, which is roughly where folkegular agricultural could not sustain themselves, they collapsed from lack of water. somewhere along the way, you need large-scale artificial watering systems. the furtherrickier west you go. there are often not those detailed genealogies available. is inherently, the character or a stick is that there is no one ethnic group in have multiplecan communities with their own language and cultural stuff being side-by-side. you can have a danish village

here and a german villages there. that was just part of the egos. ,f you did that in yankiedom you would have someone trying to get you to the public schools and you would be scolded for having a beer garden. pot. a melting there is an anglo protestant identity but not in the midlands. that makes it trickier to --ntify the middling county midland county. sometimes there are markers like the congregational churches that show where yankiedom stops. sometimes it will show a particular election that was highly polarized by regional culture. where one regional culture would

vote one way. that teases out the map. a placer, by how people speak at the county level. andtake all of these things you overlay them and you go back and there may be some areas where you are unsure. you try to go in and read local history in those areas and do the best you can. messy, culture is a business. it does not fall in straight lines. the map is solid on the right. you kind of have to make some decisions and do the best you can as you get closer to the 100. the dakotas were hard to do. yankees of iowa, the material building culture slices through the hilly section of northeast iowa and all of the dialect maps you get a bolt of kinky speech that goes from

dubuque and goes north from there. the region going from the lutheran calvinist, ordered freedom approach to things had an overflow in the top counties from minnesota. minnesota overflow into the northeastern part of iowa which is why i categorized it that way. a kinky effort. you see that in the congregational churches and in the early history of iowa. iowad not succeed to make part of yankiedom. curious what people from iowa, particularly the northeastern section think about that. gets always good to crowdsourcing from individualized places. yes please. >> my question is -- you

times,ed that in modern people are becoming more ideologically condensed and it is fighting off the social media affects.nize in texas, there have been more movements to separate texas from the rest of the union in an old civil war secession manner. woodard: the mayor was talking about that. it plays into the zeitgeist. regional location are all starting to sink up. people get frustrated. you are from this place and all of the opposition are those people over there.

you will get into a political atmosphere. that is geographic rather than just partisan differences which will lead you to say, maybe muttering about, we should have .eated -- ceded somek at your map and people say it would have been easier if we broke it up. it might be true in theory but i have a more tragic view of the human condition. europeesponds to eastern and the balkans and collapsed communism. i do not have faith that it would all just happen easily if you started going down that road. i am very much of the opinion that we have to work out a way to continue to work together. not only because the american experiment has been successful. but the cliche that the world is

under our leadership is true. in.e is nobody else to step it is important that everyone -- to everyone on the planet that we succeed and carry on. thank you. leftwas wondering why you miami in south florida. and -- mr. woodard: question. telll write one book and the entire sweep of american history and have a go back 400 years. ,s a practical manner -- matter i had to put some limits on it. i had to define how far i would go. i needed to have a definition as to where i would stop. my definition was the cultural

hearts were landing point from which things extend outward would be the united states and canada. that leaves out hawaii. newfoundland. -- and thesociated southern part of florida. the reason is the book is a history. 400 year history. it starts at the beginning of each founding culture. each one that is added, i would have to be telling the history -- great stories, great celestial navigators, setting up cultures, but it does not intersect with most of the it doesn't intersect with most of the americans story.

hawaii doesn't even enter our r sphere until the empty missionaries go out there. they only lost my little bit. still to this day if you are on newfoundland you can get on the a constitutionally established ferry that must connect to newfoundland to the rest of the country. when you are there, everyone says i'm going to canada. they are serious. also south florida. it is really important in today's political environment because florida is a swing state.

florida did not matter in politics until the last 40 years .r so the deep south definitely settled the northern part of florida. it did not form the founding settlement of southernmost florida. that came from spain's maritime culture. all the treasure ships they were coming in from the mountains. they put them on the psychiatric ships across the entire pacific these floating fortresses. it brought all these incredible treasures. havana andme up to they worked their way up to the florida straits.

this was a big deal culture. i would have to tell that entire story to bring south florida into the equation. it's not that it doesn't exist. it is not what i'm saying. it is just not part of the original culture as it was established. >> thank you very much.

a budget reconciliation bill that would defund planned parenthood and and obamacare. the senate returns the following week. it will consider a u.s. circuit court nomination in pennsylvania. paul that would require an audit of the federal reserve. the senate is on our companion network c-span2. congresswoman mimi walters travels back and forth every week from her california district to washington every week. she talks about the issues she focuses on and the unique challenges of representing a district on the other side of the country.

>> you spent 10 years in the california legislature in the minority. now you're in the majority is a member of congress. walters: it is awesome. i really feel that i have a seat at the table now. my number one issue is creating jobs. i am a mother of four kids. one of my kids biggest concerns as they graduate from college is will they have a job. 1984 it wasated in pretty easy to get a job back then. born in pasadena and raised in california. i was number five out of six.

politics was not part of my family life but i really got involved in public service when i was in high school. to a brand-new school for me. i wanted to make some friends. i got involved in student government. i had my first exposure to public service. i took my experience in student government and came to washington dc when i was in college. i knew i would love to come back to congress. i interned with congressman bill thomas from bakersfield. kevin mccarthy has replaced them. i did your typical internship work where i spoke to constituents and answered mail and went to hearings. i can relate to in terms that

come to my office now. i try to be very nice to them. i met my husband when we worked together as stockbrokers back in 1988. we had an interoffice romance. .e were engaged for 10 months married four months later. we got married on my parents 37th wedding anniversary. we have been married 26 years. we had four children. when i first ran for office i was pregnant with number four so he literally grew up with me in politics. i think my kids are proud. i try to serve as a role model for them. i think they are proud i hope

therey are. city served on the laguna council for several years. in california we have term limits. once the state assembly seat decided tolable, i run for that seat. i was being term limited out of my city council seat. it was the natural progression to run for state office. back then we have a closed primary in california. it was a safe republican seat. a search for four years in the assembly. there are pros and cons to term limits for congress. it gives someone like myself are real opportunity to run.

incumbents have an advantage. term limits give people an opportunity. on the other hand, the downside is that the limits are too short you lose that institutional knowledge. the staff and the special interests gain more control of the agenda. they would look to see when somebody was going to be term limited out if they can get what they wanted. goodnk term limits can be but a pal they were too short. in the state assembly it used to be you can only serve six years now you conservative of 12 years. in the senate you can only serve eight years now you conservative total of 12 years.

i spent a lot of time on airplanes. now they have wi-fi on airplanes so i can work. the time change is a challenge. it is a three hour time change obviously it is sometimes difficult when i get here in the beginning of the week. i have to be flexible. i'm doing ok. i have a love for this country. i am very compassionate about the future of this country. i dedicated my life to public service for the last 18 years. when john campbell decided that he was not going to seek i jumped at the opportunity because this is been a lifelong dream of mine. i sell my kids you only have one

life to live and you need to make the most of it. passion has been public service and this is the natural progression of it. the job is what i expected but so much more. i am honor to be able to represent the people of orange county in congress. paced.re is very fast my days don't and until late at night because i am dealing with california. my days are very long. i try to make the most of my time when i am in washington dc. or five days per week. i go back on the weekends.

i can relate to him wanting to spend time with your kids. this job has come in really good time because my kids, i have three in college and my oldest is now out of college. my time commitment at home is not what it was when they were younger. ,hat is why this opportunity when john said he would not run for reelection, it was just perfect for me. i have a little more flexibility in my time away from the house. every has to make their choices. ryan believes that family is very important. his country needs him as well. aheadputting his country of his own personal ambition. i don't think he really wanted

to be speaker but the conference came to him and he knew he had to do this for the country. i feel same way. he probably has a great partner in his wife as i have a great partner in my husband. we work together as a team. and i was in the state legislature i had to commute from southern california to sacramento. we made it work. my husband is in the investment business. he said always be true to yourself and don't get too big of an ego. when i come home he says you are home now. we are very grounded. i come from a very big family. six kids. all of my siblings and nieces and nephews, we all lived close

to each other. my parents are still alive. young from a big family, say very grounded. my parents told me that they were very proud of me. and they wish they could have been here when i took deals of office. my catholic faith is important to me. i attend mass on sunday mornings at 7:30 a.m. with my mother which we have done for 20 years. you try to tell teenagers that they have to get out of bed and go serve it mass. it wasn't easy.

there was a calm this over the chamber when pope francis walked in. i can't explain it area it was as if suddenly we were all at peace. when he entered the chamber. i was sitting very close to where pope francis walked in. at the back of the chamber. i waved to him and he nodded to me. i had my rosary beads i was holding. my brother had had surgery. i said a special prayer for him. it was an awesome experience. the pope said we need to all help each other. we need to remember we are all human beings. we are all children of god. we need to teach each other with respect.

we have competing interests. it is not that i don't believe that republicans and democrats want the same things. do.lieve ultimately we we believe in different ways of achieving things. withg to come together both sides can be challenging. that is ok. , that is allideas good. it is trying to come to a resolution.

i was living in a world as a young person learning my way but i remember seeing president reagan. first president i could vote for when i turned 18 years old. i was awestruck by reagan. to see them face-to-face. the closest i got to see reagan was when his motorcade drove right by me and i waved to him. i still have that feeling today. when it comes to seeing the president of the united states even though the president is not of my party. the amount of responsibility that the president has is unbelievable. that office deserves respect. i respect the office. i tell my children that the sky

's the limit. if the opportunity arises to seize the moment. i try to live my life the same way. right now i am happy being a member of congress. i would ask the president to work with congress more. obviously the republicans have control of the house and we have a majority in the senate. i would like to see us have more dialogue. there is too much partisanship. i think we can all accomplish more if there is more dialogue. on both sides.

relationship good with members of the democrats. especially those that i served with in sacramento. we have a relationship and we have a dialogue. i think perhaps if there is more of a dialogue with this president more things would get .hem i am conservative but i am also very pragmatic. we need to get solutions to our problems. i would not put myself as an ideologue. i render what president reagan used to say. if i can get 80% of what i want that is a win. women have to serve as role models to younger women. i take that very seriously. to train women and help bring

them up through the ranks. i started at the very grassroots. i started as a volunteer on the holiday parade in laguna. i worked on campaigns. i started at the very bottom. i try to encourage young women to be involved and give them the tools that they need for a run for higher office. one of our biggest hurdles that women face is trying to raise money. outside the home i had a lot of business connections but then i left my job. i stayed home with my kids for a while before i ran for office. i lost a lot of those business connections where i could of gone to them to raise money. are at a disadvantage if they stay home with the kids. people like me need to encourage them and give them the network that they need.

in the democratic party have it too. hillary is running on the democrat side and we have carly fiorina. been in general haven't office as long as the men have. we only got to write to vote in 1921. it has been a while for us to ultimately have a seat at the table. government doesn't move very quickly. i get up around 6 a.m. and i go for a run. i need to start my day off with a run. i feel so much better after the exercise. a marathon back in 1987 when i was 25 years old.

one marathon and i will never do another one. it was a lot. i was psychologically prepared for that. my life is too busy now. my husband has run a marathon. my kids of run marathons. i enjoy running for the sake of running. i write about three miles a day. i have meetings here at the office. scheduled back-to-back. meetings with constituents or lobbyists who want to talk about certain issues. want to make time if i have people from the district who are here. i will get interrupted for a meeting if i have someone who has come from the district to say hello. meetings all day. of the day there are dinners. some fundraisers. i had back to my apartment. and get ready for the next day.

i usually have to deal with some stuff in california. i raised about one $.5 million dollars. about 850,000 i don't think about the next campaign every day. i try to focus every day on taking care of my constituents. we run every two years. so you have to be prepared. fundraising is a part of that because you can't your message out if you don't have the money. it is unfair advantage for those who have a lot of money because they can just give themselves money. we have to go out and raise the money. to be prepared to run for office.

i am given briefings on issues. i have a great staff. they are extremely knowledgeable. they will go through a particular issue and we will sit down and discuss it. mustache is a fantastic job at making sure i'm up to speed on what i going to vote on. we sometimes vote three times a day. we have to be very flexible in our schedule. overe to walk all the way to the floor to vote. i rely a lot on the staff. we are excited to know a lot about a lot of different issues.

in this are new position you are trying to find your way around and you are trying to understand the procedures as well as mastering all the issues. i want to have a seat at the table. i was involved with paul ryan on trade promotion authority. free trade is a very important part of our economy. one out of five jobs is because of free trade. 95% of the consumers are outside of this country. .eing involved in the process the issue ofk on

children graduating from college and having to deal with student debt. i was very surprised by speaker boehner dropping out. i don't have the history of everybody else. when speaker boehner had said to the leadership team that he planned to step down on his ofthday, this was all part his plan and he just decided to do it a little earlier because we were having some issues with people in our conference. i thought that it was very selfless act. i thought kevin was going to be the next speaker. i had worked with kevin in the state legislature.

he was my leader in the state assembly. i know kevin mccarthy very well. effect of the freedom caucus wanting a fresh face and .ooking at the leadership everybody was taking that next step and they said we want to change. kevin recognize that. when kevin decided to take a step back, that is when the conference really rallied behind paul ryan. it was a tough decision. i am very happy. i got to know paul when i was helping with trade promotion. he's very bright. i am very excited for the chance to work with him. the only female speaker was nancy pelosi. i have spoken with her little in in-depth

conversations. i haven't spent a lot of time with her. two boys. girls and girls works forwork at&t. and 19.oys are 20 they go to school at villanova in pennsylvania. they were all very involved in student government. my daughter at middlebury college ran for student body president. she lost. she ran as an outsider. it was a great experience for her. any of them will ever pursue this line of work.

nobody in my family was involved in public service. the amount of walking you have to do has been a surprise. nobody prepared me for that. i will usually wear flat shoes. although i have high heels on today. here andpaced it is how flexible you have to be. in the state legislature things were organized in a way that we knew when we would be voting. floor in done on the the state legislature. the flexibility and the long days.

my real name is marion. mimi is a nickname from my great aunt. she never married. at the old age of 27 they were worried if i would ever get married. thank you for having me.

>> c-span has your best access to congress in 2016. the house and senate will reconvene on january 4. 5 the housesanuary back from legislative work. on monday, january 11 senate 2:00 p.m. to :0 live coverage on tv and radio. republican congressman mark walker is a new comer to politics. he talks about the 2014 campaign

in which he defeated a number of well-funded better-known opponents. you represent north carolina's sixth the district. a baptist minister and a former car dealer. this is the first elective office you have ever held. mark walker: out of college i did spend a little time in sales. spent the last 15 years as a baptist minister. build what it takes to better relationships. genuineness is what needs to be here to matter what your vocation is. p point paul ryan who have an ability to talk about policy but

can do it in a very genuine way. iran strictly with no political experience whatsoever. didn't have the political connections. have was something that crossed community lines. i spent time in the inner cities. new york and baltimore. trying to build these weren'tships that always consistent ideology wise but knowing that the relationship always comes before the policy. when you build the relationships that you can share what you believe. what i would tell somebody who wants to be in congress is to follow your heart. many people told me this was impossible and i shouldn't do this. but i believed it was something i was being led to do.

i got about 40 or 50 people that i trusted in the community. he built an organizational chart from scratch. began to establish those relationships and we were able to get through three elections. i went from 25% in the initial election to 60%. our message was about returning power to the people. that shouldand that not accompany vitriol. or name-calling. it is a very strong leadership aspect to be would talk about these issues and build coalitions without going to the place where you are talking down to people. i think some of it is six

similar to what i expected. one thing that surprised me was everyny people would meet day to talk about the overreaching arm of the federal government. sweet potato farmers. get out froms under these regulations so we can be free to prosper in the way that we want to. it is a tradition. minister so mark is a biblical name and bradley is not. i have a son who is 20 and two daughters, 17 and nine. i do miss them. i got to spend a little time with them on saturday and sunday before flying back to washington dc.

my wife has spent two decades devoted her time back into the community. i think my family was pleased when i became a congressman. is part of parenting. i want to make sure that their world is not a place where they can't pursue their dreams. down. to keep attempt when i go back home i was make sure that family is a priority. a golf game is not what used to be because i just don't have the time for it. we have many constituent services and events. last night we were at an event where we had 113 world war ii veterans. going out there and thanking those guys in being part of the commun