joining me now bruce williamson, he's the chairman and ceo of dynegy. mr. williamson, thanks for joining us. what does the deal get dynegy? what does the deal with ls power get you? >> well, as you said, it does significantly strengthen our finances, our balance sheet and at the same time we're redeeming 30% of our common stock outstanding. it's very unusual that you can do both things at the same time, leverage the ultimate results for the common stockholder and strengthen the balance sheet.t. >> when you say strengthen your balance sheet, you really mean paying down debt. it's going to help you significantly reduce your debt exposure. >> yeah. it brings a billion dollars plus of cash in. that will then enable us to pursue what's called a liability management program, really going after our 2011 and 12012 debt maturities, which are our next debt maturities.s. >> isn't it in a sense, though, you're sort of selling your seed corn by selling your power plants? you're a bet on rising energy demand, rising energy consumption. you need those power plants if dema

there was bruce williamson and sally jessie ralphal. we stayed away from politics like a plague back then. >> host: in 1987, this was precable tv days and precnn although they were on the air but they didn't have the kind of wide audience they had. prefox news certainly. preinternet, preblogs and so when rush limbaugh came on the scene right after the lifting of the fairness doctrine, what he did, what he was able to pioneer and then all of the fellow conservative talk show hosts like me -- we were able to see that the conservative point of view was not being expressed in any other media outlet, not newspapers, not broadcast television. and so it really gave the conservative voice a place to be expressed. >> guest: finally. >> host: finally. and the reason why it turned into a commercial success and i want to get into that with you momentarily there is because half of the country, you could argue -- half of the country, maybe a little bit more because we still are a center right nation felt that their views weren't being expressed in th

williamson. i want to say a few words about the election and tee up one or two qui thoughts on broader ises i'm sure tony, kim and brucewill delve into in more detail. let me just say a few words about the eltions. this is almost getting to be the sortf topic where you check the website every six or 12 hours to see what's developed. because it's a fairly exciting period nows w try to see not only who might be ahead andy how much but how the different forces within afghanistan are frankly vying for their proper role in this election process, withresident karzai and his office and sporter have said been quite early to declare overwhelming victory, that would be sufficient that no second round of volting would be required. you probably know you need 50% plus one to avoid a runoff. karzai has been out there along with his people saying we've got 70% of the vote. no nee to worry about the runoff. it's interesting to see the jockeys and the independent election commissn now saying today they've only counted -- or can only vouch so far for 10% of the votes. out of the 10% it's almost neck and neck between karzai and former fo