bob la follette was going to be the leader of the progressives challenging william howard taft for theepublican nomination. anti-taft forces start developing some strength, roosevelt changes his mind and throws his hat in the ring. la follette is outraged at this. he is not going to support roosevelt at the convention and takes his fight to the convention. william howard taft gets the nomination. teddy roosevelt runs as an independent on a progressive bull moose ticket. he did finally run for president on his own progressive ticket in 1924. la follette looked at the two parties, davis and the democrats, coolidge and the republicans, and said both are conservative parties. neither are running on progressive reform issues, and he created a third party that ran with burton wheeler, a democrat, as his vice president and la follette for president. it was poorly funded. they had about $250,000 to spend nationally compared to about $4 million the republicans have an about $2 million the democrats had. relied on his own speechmaking ability. should consider it his patriotic duty to build at le

theodore roosevelt, william howard taft and the golden age of journalist, she's doris kearns goodwin, this is overherd. [ applause ] >> actually, there are not two sides to every issue. >> i guess we can't fire him now. >> i guess we can't fire him now. >> being on the supreme court was an improbable dream. >> it's hard work and it's controversial. >> without information there is no freedom and it's journalists who provide that information. >> window rolls down, this guy says, hey, goes to 11. [ laughter ] >> doris so good to see you. >> i'm glad to be back. >> thanks so much, congratulations, what another -- another great book and wish you great success with it. >> thank you. >> i had to say you had me at journalism. [ laughter ] and the reality is, as much as it may be unexpected, a book about teddy roosevelt is a book about the media, about journalism. in fact journalism does play i a part. >> huge part. >> yeah. >> i mean more than i even realized. i mean i think the real success of teddy roosevelt was his relationship with the journal i, the congress was grid locked or actually c

conversations] doris kearns goodwin discusses her book "the bully pulpit" theatre roosevelt william howard taft and they aged journalism. [applause] >> we are very honored today to have doris kearns goodwin is our special guest in before i give her background i want to start some questions. how many people here have read a book by doris kearns goodwin? [applause] how many people have read two books? three books? four? five? six? all of them. how many people are going to buy her book today? and get it autographed. doris kearns goodwin is obviously a leading presidential scholar. she is a person who has written books on some of the most important presidents and today we are going to talk largely about her new book "the bully pulpit" which is about teddy roosevelt and william howard taft and the bit about the muckrakers of that time. she is from brooklyn. [applause] a big fan of the brooklyn dodgers and she wrote a book about them as well. the brooklyn dodgers don't exist any longer so she has shifted their allegiance to the boston red sox. [applause] and she was the first woman to go into the bos

theodore roosevelt, william howard taft and the gde

almost the exact opposite of william howard taft. taft theses constrained by law. taft also thinks he is not somebody like roosevelt woho had a steward theory of the president. instead, no, i'm going to stay within my bounce like a car, keep it in its lane. we are going to be very careful about how fast we go and where we go. withw let's contrast taft coolidge. coolidge inspires the meanest comment when dorothy parker learned of his death, she said "how could they tell?" hat coolidgetah conceived of legislative powers in ways that right -- that resonate with modern conservatives. tell us more about that. >> so coolidge is somebody who by large was a successful president. beingd'dn't like president. but coolidge has a very, very well developed -- coolidge believes -- and this is not so much a quote but a associated within the government that governs best governs least. government staying out of the way of business. try and not -- so he would not support a lot of regulation of disney's but would prefer government -- regulation of business but would prefer government

we'll talk largely about her new book, "the bully pulpit," which is about teddy roosevelt and william howard taft and a bit about the muckrakers. before we do so, a little more background about her another book she's written. she's of course written works on lincoln, eleanor and franklin roosevelt and a book on lyndon johnson with whom she worked when she was a white house fellow. she is from brooklyn. [cheers and applause] a big fan of the brooklyn dodgers that she wrote a book about them as well. clap back the brook when dodgers don't exist any longer come associate shifted her legions to the boston red sox. [cheers and applause] and she was the first woman to go into the boston red sox locker room. she is a graduate of colby college, phi beta kappa naturally. later when a white house fellowship and is a white house fellow was assigned to the white house and worked with president indirectly. after she left as a white house fellow, she went to harvard, finished her teaching assignment there. she taught at harvard, got a phd as well and then she began her career after teaching of writing extraord

our last of these president was william howard taft. you look at the man and again one day with women who will inherit this office, they are all truly physical specimens. i'm not even sure we can abide looking at presidents for somehow have physical flaws. so you add the intrusive media. fdr had the nation been aware of the extent of his disability, have they seen him carried through windows up and down stairs i'm not sure he would have been able to manage the image of the presidency. truly extraordinary. >> with the bosley medical clinics now it's not going to be an issue for future presidents. >> at two that are polarized politics and our mistrust of government. forget government big or small. what if there is so much mistrust about government as an agent of remedy and perform that presidents can no longer use it effectively and be appreciated for using it. those four factors i think have conspired to make the odds not arguing in my judgment sure it may be possible but the trend lines in my view are not running in the right direction.

. >> william howard taft. >> kennedy. roosevelt. >> george w. bush. obama. >> oh, my gosh. how would you do if we gave you that challenge? or how would you do if you were given that challenge by a team of researchers. interesting research that is part of a 40-year study that looks at the question how forgettable are u.s. presidents? if you ask people to name president, always a few they're going to give you. whoever is in office right now. but there have been 44 presidents in american history. the question is, how many of them do people actually remember? and how do those memories evolve over time? so this study what he did this week. we can show you the results from it. this will not make much sense. three or four different things going on. this is the overall results. we'll tell you how they did this study. we'll zoom in and look at interesting stuff. starting in 1974 and again in 1991 and again this year, the people doing this study took a group of college students, gave them a piece of paper and said, can you write down all of the presidents of the united states. and th