tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. first tonight, reaction to the president's state of the union address and a look ahead to the 2012 race for president. charlie crist is one of the most high-profile independence and american politics. also tonight, unique looked at the decline of american manufacturing as told by paul clemens. the detroit native spent a year in an automobile plant that was in the process of closing down for his latest text, "punching out." charlie crist and journalist paul clemens, right now. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a

difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, nationwide insurance is happy to help tavis improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] to win.e future is ours but to get there, we cannot stand still. as robert kennedy told us, the future is not a gift, it is an

achievement. sustaining the american dream has never been about standing pat. it has required each generation to sacrifice and struggle and meet the demands of a new age. and now it is our turn. we know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. we need to shut out innovate, out educate, and help build the rest of the world -- and help build the rest of the world. tavis: i'm pleased to be joined tonight by charlie crist, the former florida governor and u.s. senate candidate in miami. i assume he is enjoying his new life out of politics. governor, good to have you on the program. >> tavis, it is good to be with you, my pleasure. tavis: let me start by asking what you made of the speech. >> i thought it was great. i thought that president obama

delivered a speech that took us to a higher place, that talked about the fact we need to be unified, work together as a nation, republicans, democrats, independents, to pull us out of this economic difficulty we have been dealing with for several years. i thought that he had a high note. i thought it was reagan-esque in the way that he delivered it and the tunnel of the delivery. -- and the tone of the delivery. tavis: he seemed to build his entire case on innovation being the answer. is that in your mind the answer? >> no question, innovation is critical. it is what we have always done in the past. he talked about several examples, nasa following sputnik. but i also really appreciated the emphasis the president put on education and innovation.

i think both are critically important to keeping america moving forward. that we have to invest in education, invest in innovation, continue to make sure resources are available in order to have our education, whether it is at k-12 or higher education. he said in his speech that we have the finest universities on the planet, and people from all over the world want to come to attend universities in america. that is a strong point of pride, and appropriately the president emphasized education along with innovation to keep our country prosperous and moving forward. and the building, also, i thought was important as well. tavis: i have heard more of the state of the union address as i can count in my short lifetime and i cannot recall a single state of the union speech where i did not hear my president, republican or democrat, say that

education was critical, education is key. every president wants to be the education president. you had your own unique battles and flora around the issue of education, and it is true with all politics -- you had your own battles in florida. why is it that every president wants to be the education president, yet we are still lagging so far behind? >> it is an enormous challenge, no question. i think the president and the secretary of education, arne duncan, seized the moment to try to move america forward as a relates to education. i think one of the things i was involved with, as governor and a former education commissioner for our state of florida, was the race to the top that we just came through, a very competitive situation with all states throughout the country competing

for a grant, if you will, in order to invest more in education and are hard working public school teachers. while the first round, florida was not successful with what secretary duncan and president obama put forward, but we had the opportunity to try again. and we were successful, getting us about $700 million to invest more into education in the sunshine state, help our children for their future. that is why, as you say, every president, frankly every governor, wants to be in education president or governor, because the issue is so important feature, and that is what the president talked about, winning the future. in order for us to do this, we have to seize upon education, the competition and creates, the accountability that is necessary to have a better education system for children going forward so they can truly compete with young people graduating from universities all

over the world. tavis: cornell west says that education in this country ought not be a race, it ought to be a right, and part of the problem is we have made it a race where some are allowed to run, come out of the blocks the minute the gun goes off, others cannot take off until the first runners have gotten three-quarters of the way around the field, and there is no way that these people who are held back because of their race, community, gender, whatever, there is no way they can never get back into the race. do we have it all wrong, where we see it as a race and not as a fundamental right to an equal, high-quality education for all american children? >> that is a great point. in florida's constitution, it is laid out as a fundamental right, and it is important for anybody in public policy position, from a school board member, schoolteacher, governor, or even the president, to put an

emphasis on that education as a right, a civil-rights for every single -- a civil right for every single american, what everett their chosen endeavor may be. that is why it is so important that the president spent so much time on it. you are right, every president does, but last night president obama spent i think an extraordinary amount of time when the issue of education, and that they say a separate release daresaynd i base appropriately so. tavis: you are a former republican, proud independent. i am wondering if you heard anything that will accrue a political benefit for the president where independents are concerned. while the polls of late suggest the coalition that he put together two years ago, he does not have that coalition together at the moment.

of course, he has two years to pull that together again, but anything that you heard last night that might advantage the president getting that dependents back on board? -- getting the independence back on board? tavis: i think so, tavis. many of the cords that he struck reminded me of some things that we heard from president obama when he was the democratic nominee for the u.s. senate. remember him speaking at the democratic convention in 2004 when he said we are not the red states of america, we are not the blue states of america, we are the united states of america. it is clear to me that is where he is happiest. i really believe that his core is about being in the center. i think the more he has the opportunity, as he did last night in eloquent fashion, had the opportunity to talk about the need and desire and the importance of america coming together as a country, he will

do better and better. we have seen it just sends the lame duck. accomplishments that were achieved between the election, which was a difficult time for the president, and the end of the year, and his numbers have continued to grow. getting things done is what the american people really want. i am convinced is what the president is striving to do it, and i think the more he can reach out to republicans, democrats, and independence, it only help his effort going forward as it relates to the independents. tavis: i have asked this question of republicans and democrats, but not an independent. the problem with going to the middle is to get more triangulation, or capitulation, just so you can get reelected. sometimes the center is not all that is cracked up to be.

they say in the middle of the road is a dead armadillo, so why are we so excited about this? >> because people want to get things done in this country. i really feel, and i complimenta screening opportunity that you see so much in the media. it is unfortunate that you see this and other places, but where you could have intelligent discussion, realize we are all americans, in this together, and republicans, democrats, independents, all of us need to pull together to make our country successful and maintain the great leadership she has, and i think that is exactly what we will see. tavis: the former governor of the great state of florida, governor charlie crist. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, tavis. tavis: up next, a journalist paul clemens. i>> many people remember when

finding a good job. showing up at a nearby factory or business downtown -- when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or business downtown. the competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. if you got a job, chances are you had a job for life with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion. maybe you would have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company. that world has changed. tavis: the reality is the backdrop of the new book by journalist paul clemens, the detroit native who spent many months inside of a detroit automobile plant that was in the process of closing down. the book based on the experience is called "punching out -- one year in a closing auto plant." could have you on this program. it --good to have you on this program.

somebody walked into a police station in your hometown, shot for officers. at this moment, we did not know what was behind that. we know that in detroit, as has happened around the country, there is a direct link between people feeling the pressure of hard times, recession, and crime increasing. what is life like in detroit? i know that detroit is having a difficult time. >> it is like any big step city -- any big city. contains multitudes. but there is a lot of good news as well, just like talking about new york or l.a., not just one story. tavis: 1 does not get the good news reading this book. >> the story out wanted to tell was not really a detrick story. detroit is the setting, but the story is really blue collar

decline, and that is not unique to detroit. that is going on all over the country. i am from detroit, so i write about and although platte -- i read about an automobile plant and the city, but it could just as well have been about a mill down south. tavis: what you want to share with us, and you do a good job, is what actually happens when you read or hear that a plant is closing down. you wanted to know what happens next. what does happen? >> exactly right, you see the headline all the time that plant is closing. the question was, what is the process? my first step was to get in with the union. i got in with the benefit. at the uaw, and he took me to the plant right before it closed. i talked to a lot of the workers, and history of the

plant is fabulous it was built in 1919, built and assembled the thunderbird, a classic car. there is a rich history. after the plant closed, i got in there with the crew taking out the equipment. it was mostly stamping press lines, which stamped out the bodies of doors, ford, ford explorer, the lincoln navigator. what i discovered is that taking all of this part has sort of become an industry, or at least there are various industries involved. i talked not only to the rigging crew that was taking apart the presses, but the trucking firms that truck down to houston or mexico border, i talked with scrap crews chopping up prices being sold as scrap steel. there are all sorts of informing

the remediation. those are some of the different industries that get involved. the pitch line for the book to my publisher was a want to tell the story of the american working class mopping up after itself. that is really what i tried to do in the book. it is a skill set, taking these things apart, which could be applied to actually making things, but right now, because of the decline in industrial work, that skills that is being applied to taking apart the things that have made things. not totally obvious, because detrick is still making cars, but it is not the job used to be -- because detroit is still making cars, but it is not the job that used to be. tavis: a lot of the book is about process, but connect me to this humanity of these people. >> the book, if it succeeds at all, succeeds because of the

people i met. you discover things as you are going through that he did not expect. that is part of the fun of researching a book, and hopefully you convey that to the reader. one of the things i found is the deep respect that the people who are taking this plant apart had for its history, and the book includes -- the book concludes it mexico, where the largest press line in the plant was shipped and reinstalled. there is a monologue and the book by a guy who worked for ford once upon a time, talking about the care he was taking taking the press live apart. he said this press line had helped sustain american families, and he hoped it would do the same for mexican families. i found that very moving. you don't write things because they go against the greed of what you expected, but there is a perception i think -- because they go against the grain of what you expect, there is a

perception that it will, and that is not what i found at all. any given day, you have spanish from mexican engineers, brazilian engineers, and it was amazing how global it was. nobody had any real problem with that. as the same worker said, he was happy they were making things. tavis: that might be a charitable read about what these persons who were removed from a job or feeling, but what do you think the american people should take from a story that starts with a longstanding plant in detroit, closes down, and it ends of the machines themselves end up getting set up again, we purpose for a plant in mexico? >> another one of the press lines went to brazil.

i think we all know this in our bones. i don't think the book breaks new ground in that sense. industrial production being moved offshore is something that we know, but what i wanted to do was show that story. the old show, don't tell, as a writer. i want to show and as much detail as i could. it was what the people in detroit, industrialized towns, what to think about that? there is an overwhelming sense of sadness that cannot be airbrushed, and i am not trying to, but what the book does it is a eulogy for a way of life that is not gone. there are still plenty of good folk working industrial jobs, good paychecks, but the scale of the loss of those jobs cannot be priced this -- cannot be brushed aside. the book tries to eulogize that and the pride that went into the

20th century. tavis: you expressed sadness instead of tanker. i would not be sad about setting up my job. use a sadness. you did not feel any anger? >> the people i was with in the plants were not necessarily workers from the plant. these were guys to in better days would have worked for the big three or one of the many suppliers or machine shops around town, but there has been a lot of bad news. i think people are almost accustomed to it at this point. that is its own story. but i tried initially to get in with the company that owned the plants, and i cannot get into the plant that way, so i explored other avenues. sure, there is anger, but that wears thin in a book. you could do that in eight hobart words in an op ed. -- you could do that in at 800

words. people have their opinion on this. i am not trying to convince anyone. if people think unions are good or bad, if globalization is good or bad, nafta is good or bad, there is a lot that you could read on that. i was trying to eliminate an experience that had not been eliminated, -- i was trying to eliminate -- illuminate the experience. tavis: what does this book say about the strength or lack thereof of unions? being from detroit when the recession hit, the automobile industry started suffering badly, the debate kicks up about how much we're going to do to save the old mobile industry. there was great debate about the role that the union played in bringing down the town, that they had overreached. what does this book say about the power, strength, the future,

or lack thereof, of the unions? >> the people that i met at uaw are fantastic. i have nothing but good things to say about them. i think as far as the larger issue that you are getting at, the culpability for the bankruptcies and show one, -- and so on, i think there was plenty of blame to go around, both for the companies and the unions, but the unions would not have been able to get what they could for the middle class workers unless the companies worked with them. i am not sure if the book has much to say about that specifically. at there is pro-union and anti- union sentiment and the book, but the book does not have a stance on that. i allow people say what they say, and just articulated. itavis: i was just wondering if you had a take on it? >> it is interesting, my timing of going into the plant, i began researching it in 2006.

the great recession was 1.5 years and the future, the bankruptcy's at chrysler and gm, nobody had any idea that was going to happen. nobody had any idea of the recession's depth. if they saw it coming at all. it was an interesting spot to view the larger issues that surround it. there were strikes at gm and chrysler, but a lot of that is on the periphery of the book. tavis: what is it that you most want the reader, the american public, to take away from what you experienced watching this plant close? >> i think you want people to pay attention to what is going on not on the ground. -- what is going on on the ground. i think that the midwest is an important spot in the industrial midwest in particular, and if you just look at the numbers,

whether it is what wall street is doing or corporate profits, the picture that you get of the economy and how people are doing will be very different than if you are spending months and months in a closing automobile plant, and you want people to pay attention. this is going on, there are other things going on, but this is an important story and you hope that policymakers and politicians realize the difficulties in the blue-collar towns and cities across the country. tavis: i am from the midwest, so you could always pitched the midwest. when you cover a story like this, whether you get sadness or anger, as a writer, you get emotional at all seen this? >> absolutely. when you are day-to-day researching and writing, you are too busy to really feel too much. you just trying to get the story down and so on. but thinking about it now, as i

am talking about it, i feel sad and angry. but essentially the anger subsides. it is like a eulogy, because you feel like something is disappearing, and you want to do honor and justice to it. tavis: well, you did. the book is called "punching out -- one year in a closing auto plant. thank you for being on the program. that is our show for tonight. i will see you back here next time. until then, good night from l.a., and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time with oscar- winning actor anthony hopkins. that is next time. we will see you then. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes.

>> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--