tom foley is speaker and dick gephardt is the senate leader. george mitchell created a calm demeanor in terms of dealing with you was a cagey character in terms of dealing with some of the political issues and the combination of him and dick gephardt made it difficult for us. fortunately bob dole was around which was an anchor for us at that period of time. this was going on. this distraction was going on with the nomination of john tower as secretary of defense. the bottom issue was a question that sam and others reached the conclusion that we will answer this question for you, mr. president. who will control national security and national defense? we will. we will not confirm john tower who was involved in the armed services committee for a number of years. that leadership disarray. then we created leadership disarray in the house of representatives because when senator tower's nomination was defeated by the senate, the president chose dick cheney. he became secretary of defense. then newt gingrich beat a guy named ed madigan from illinois. t

tom foley is speaker and dick gephardt is majority leader. that is what we were looking at in the house democrats. there was somewhat of a bit of leadership stability in the senate but george mitchell, though he created a calm demeanor in terms of dealing with you was a cagey character in terms of dealing with some of the political issues and the combination of him and dick gephardt made it difficult for us. fortunately bob dole was around which was an anchor for us at that period of time. now this was going on, this distraction was going on with the nomination of john tower who was my political mentor, as secretary of defense. the bottom issue was a question that sam nunn and other democrats in the house -- in the senate of the united states reached the conclusion that we're going to answer this question for you, mr. president. who is going to control national security and national defense? we are, so therefore we're not going to confirm john tower, who had been involved in the armed services committee for a number of years. that leadership

looked up at him and said, you are a dick gephardt. i do not believe its. . bob dole shops here too. [laughter] degette part said, we do not know what bob dole was -- dick gephardt said, i did not know what bob dole was buying in the drug store. but we know now. if you will direct your attention to the monitors around the room, we have special video bank to the folks at wmur. >> let me start that answer again. >> if he never had a chance to meet david broder, that was your loss. >> he did not alienate anyone. he could not do it. it was not him. >> i have a stake wanted to see this political system of hours worked. >> he was a titan in washington political reporting. you would never realized they were standing next to a pulitzer prize winner. >> he wasn't the world's best dresser. he would wear a flannel shirt with a tie. he can across with an easy matter. >> a powerful outcome when he wrote that column. >> i think the media -- the late peter jennings looks to see what broder was doing. he was that mad professor out on his own doing a s

. >> lehrerr and there was tom harkin• >>>smmth: dick gephardt. &->> lehrer::paul tsongas -ick gepharrtnunn, those folks had decided not to run. >> smith: it sounds lot like frankly tte race now. >> lehrer: absolutely. >> smith: you know, where3 you• ú& -> lehrer::bob kerrr was in that group• >> smith: •group, ight. -> lehrer: and had reaaly table.& -ut the wweding went on, just likee t'ss3 &-gging on now. &--et me move away ffom, from the book nd the topic of debatts and ask you to tep ú& back and llok t the media. &->> lehrrr: yeahh >>>smith: you've been doing thissfor a long time, that's a great thing for all of uss >> lehrer: es. >> smith: but it also ives >> lehrer: sure. or bad about our profession some elements f oor profession..3 i don't feel so good about other elements of our profession. >> lehrer: okay.3 &-firrt of all we are in our profession is in the iddle of aarevolution. >> lehrer: and, being in the middle of a revolution is not terrific.3 you don't• >> smitt: right. well i caant that's the point. [laughs] iffyou could ask. >> smith: if i could ask, i >> lehrer: he's say

. >> eric schmidt spent eight years working for dick gephardt. >> it will be incumbent on the presidentere are two philosophies. the flip side has the president talk about what he has done to defend that and describe what the alternative course is. >> the question is not whether or not people are hurting. the debate we need to have in this election is where do we go from here? >> newt gingrich has a long way to go to win his party's nomination, but the victory speech in south carolina suggests he, too, has given thought to a choice election. >> the america, declaration of independence, america of sal alinsky. >> first, the former house speaker faces fears in the g.o.p. if he were to become the nominee he will also with the complicated personal past become the issue. and let obama off the hook. >> he would love for it to be against the opponent that 99% of america have a formed opinion about. then he gets to have it be a choice and not a ref rep dumb on him. >> tab choice election strategy carries risks for president obama. george w. bush after all, won re-election with the slimmest popu

>> dick gephardt, a guy i worked for, lived in the state two years, had his family there, did all 99 counties. we won the state. we got on the jet that night. i watched him as he pulled out a map of the united states and studied it for a few minutes and then pulled it down and said, how am i going to do this? it tells you how tough now the job is, if you are rick santorum to come out of this and take at this time rest of the way? >> karl? >> it's tough for all of them. they have been campaigning for a year and they have been exhausted and they are about ready to enter a brutal phase. george w. bush said the period from iowa through the time that he won the nomination was the toughest time of the entire 2000 campaign. some of them are airplanes as we speak, on the way to new hampshire. and they will be in a constant motion, lots of pressure, lots of decisions have to be made. you know, physically and mentally, it's as demanding as you can be in politics, even more than a general election because you are dealing with your own people and you are dealing with people whom you have come to

. >> host: doug bowman to refuse to work for dick gephardt? >> guest: i am not sure. it is possible to seven is there a professional staff has well that goes through the administration? >> guest: there is. interestingly nonprofessional like you would find with most federal agencies. first, dominated by a ph.d. economist that you cannot find in the federal agency usually but the cbo staff work at the pleasure of the director. of a director could come in to clean house on the number one if they wanted. in that respect the relation of the cbo staff and director is like the relationship of the congressional staff to a member of congress. no director has ever come in and decided to clean house and a number one because there's a lot of expertise that resides in the cbo staff so the practice has been for the staff to stay from one director to another but really because that is what the directors have chosen to do. there was one case when o'neill director was appointed just after the republicans took back congress 1994 that the assumption was she would come in and clean the p

dick gephardt another candidate i worked for won iowa by living there and moving his mother and entireamily there and a lot of the way that rick santorum did it. the interesting thing, i think, is going to be what does the organization do on election day. with the other candidates, what does happen to gingrich's folks, to the perry folks? they're going to show up, they're going to see in this room a lot of romney people, a lot of santorum people, a lot of paul people. they're going to applaud, people are going to applaud laud for those three people when their guys come up and you're going to have four people, maybe, be for pr perry let's say, in that caucus. those people are not going to stay, and what those people do, the organization has the right spokes people in the room and is the one that's going to pick off those people and probably win this thing. on that score, i give the edge to both paul and i think santorum may have the kind of enthusiasm in that room to pull some people in. >> gentlemen, we've got less than two minutes left and i want to get to both to get an answer to tha

>> dick gephardt, a guy i worked for, lived in the state two years, had his family there, did all 99ounties. we won the state. we got on the jet that night. i watched him as he pulled out a map of the united states and studied it for a few minutes and then pulled it down and said, how am i going to do this? it tells you how tough now the job is, if you are rick santorum to come out of this and take at this time rest of the way? >> karl? >> it's tough for all of them. they have been campaigning for a year and they have been exhausted and they are about ready to enter a brutal phase. george w. bush said the period from iowa through the time that he won the nomination was the toughest time of the entire 2000 campaign. some of them are airplanes as we speak, on the way to new hampshire. and they will be in a constant motion, lots of pressure, lots of decisions have to be made. you know, physically and mentally, it's as demanding as you can be in politics, even more than a general election because you are dealing with your own people and you are dealing with people whom you have come to i

dick gephardt another candidate i worked for won iowa by living there and moving his mother and entireamily there and a lot of the way that rick santorum did it. the interesting thing, i think, is going to be what does the organization do on election day. with the other candidates, what does happen to gingrich's folks, to the perry folks? they're going to show up, they're going to see in this room a lot of romney people, a lot of santorum people, a lot of paul people. they're going to applaud, people are going to applaud laud for those three people when their guys come up and you're going to have four people, maybe, be for pr perry let's say, in that caucus. those people are not going to stay, and what those people do, the organization has the right spokes people in the room and is the one that's going to pick off those people and probably win this thing. on that score, i give the edge to both paul and i think santorum may have the kind of enthusiasm in that room to pull some people in. >> gentlemen, we've got less than two minutes left and i want to get to both to get an answer to tha

in 2004, congressman democrat dick gephardt dropped out after finishing fourth in iowa.hris dodd and joe biden dropped out of the '08 race after losing big in iowa. lamar alexander, now a senator, dropped out of the 2000 presidential race in 1999. after a disappointing finish in the ames, iowa, straw poll which is kind of a fake thing. he didn't make it to the real voting. republican tommy thompson, former wisconsin governor, did the same thing in 2007 heading into the 2008 race as did former minnesota governor tim pawlenty. remember when tim pawlenty was running for president last year? that was fun. iowa can narrow the field on both sides. it can cause people to quit. this year, the candidates you could see as being least viable, if they don't do well in iowa, at least don't appear to be prepared to drop out as the result of a bad showing. newt gingrich, for example, says he knows he won't win in iowa but he definitely won't drop out no matter how he places. he's already announced his campaign plans for after he says he will loose se iowa. rick perry and michele bachma

in 1988 iowa democrats chose dick gephardt over eventual nominee michael dukakis.our years later bill clinton was humbled with less than 3% of the caucus vote. native son senator tom harkin won that year. democratic nominee john kerry won the caucuses in 2004. >> thank you, iowa, for making me the comeback kerry. >> reporter: and more recently, senator barack obama staged a caucus upset that catapulted him to the front of the pack. recall that senator hillary clinton was considered all but a shoo-in until then. >> hi. this is michele bachmann calling. >> reporter: what the iowa caucuses are good at is widowing down the field. >> who comes in second, who comes in third as well as who comes in first. if somebody else tuz surprisingly well, it could well launch their campaign. it's happened before. >> reporter: political upstarts have a chance here, because caucusgoers really do, as they say, kick the tires. >> what i want to know is if you get a republican house and a republican senate, in two years will you fulfill all those promises? >> the answer -- the answer is

a lot of pseudopopulists coming uprising but only eting so far, people for mike huckabee, even dick gephardtatic side and if he can marry the social conservative message with really an economic conservative, really, more populist working class message and just sent off a working class vibe he could well because the republican party is the party of the working class. >> rose: my sense about this is for both of you, my sense is that the is a re underway now and not just a political race, it is the competition between how fast mitt romney can somehow convince conservatives, because of electability, and other issues and he is truly a conservative. how fast he can do that versus how fast republicans can coales and be convinced he is not that, and they can come together and accept somebody as the alternativto him. >> well, i think that -- when you take a look at this race, right now is that the field n knows too quickly before he builds momentum he is in big trouble, that's a big problem for him, so michele bachmann leaving today, though rick santorum decided at the last minute he would stay in wh

i think dick gephardt had done right and you have to realize that the above who offer ourselves to public life are taking on one of the highest and most challenging roles and citizenship and we have to find a way to live up to that vision of a self-governing republic. >> how does that complicate things with blog and the internet? >> jefferson and hamilton each paid for a newspaper to the savage each other. the new york newspapers were attacking martha and accusing her of trying to create a royalty. there were scurrilous pamphlets. lincoln was called a guerrilla and was caricatured in nasty ways. this is a rough-and-tumble business and always has been a rough-and-tumble business and i think that with twitter -- we used to send people around to pass out pamphlets at saloons and now we tweeds and facebook and youtube and do 101 different things. its humans communicating to humans and some of it is a noble and some of it is wonderfully romantic and historic, some of this tawdry and some of it is disgusting. it always has been. >> from the debate in 2010. what is this election about and what w

in 1988, iowa democrats chose dick gephardt over eventual nominee michael dukakis and four years later. native son senator tom harkin won that year. democratic nominee john kerry won the caucuses in 2004. >> thank you, iowa, for making me the comeback kerry. >> reporter: and, more recently, senator barack obama staged a caucus upset that catapulted him to the front of the pack. recall that senator hillary clinton was considered all but a shoo-in until then. >> hi, this is michele bachmann calling. >> reporter: what the iowa caucuses are good at are winnowing down the field. the saying is, there's only three tickets out of iowa. >> who comes in second and third as well as first. if somebody else does surprisingly well, it could well launch their campaign. it's happened before. >> reporter: political upstarts have a chance here because caucusgoers really do, as they say, kick the tires. >> what i want to know is, if you get a republican house and a republican senate in two years, will you fulfill all those promises? >> the answer is yes. >> reporter: and iowans take this work seriously,

in 1988 iowa democrats chose dick gephardt over eventual nominee michael dukakis.as humbled with less than 3% of the caucus vote. native son senator tom harkin won that year. democratic nominee john kerry won the caucuses in 2004. >> thank you, iowa, for making me the comeback kerry. >> reporter: and more recently, senator barack obama staged a caucus upset that catapulted him to the front of the pack. recall that senator hillary clinton was considered all but a shoo-in until then. >> hi. this is michele bachmann calling. >> reporter: what the iowa caucuses are good at is widowing down the field. >> who comes in second, who comes in third as well as who comes in first. if somebody else tuz surprisingly well, it could well launch their campaign. it's happened before. >> reporter: political upstarts have a chance here, because caucusgoers really do, as they say, kick the tires. >> what i want to know is if you get a republican house and a republican senate, in two years will you fulfill all those promises? >> the answer -- the answer is yes. >> reporter: and iowans t

mike huckabee was the winner on the republican side. 20 years ago, dick gephardt was the democratic winnern iowa with 31%. bob dole, who went on to be the nominee, had 37% on the republican side. i would has a population of about 3 million people, generally about 100,000 people take part, depending on how competitive it is from year to year. one other thing people will be watching tonight is the actual attendance in those 1700 precincts around the state. if you heard that weather is often a factor and i will. not so much tonight. it is clear and cold in iowa, which they think will bring more people out to the polling places, to the caucusus assembly places throughout the state. president obama is not turning his attention away from iowa. we mentioned earlier that there are democratic caucuses, although they are not contested. today, the white house released a new campaign ads discussing in. 2008 iowa caucus whe let's listen to the message the president puts forward in this new ad. >> on this january night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the senate said we could not

actually beat clinton by a couple 10ths of a percentage point, that very night both chris dodd and dick gephardt- or joe biden, that night decided they'd had enough and got out. what normally happens here is if there's no money, you can't go on. some kind of take along for a while. four years before, that you will remember the infamous howard dean scream that essentially doomed his campaign. but he had enough forward momentum to kind of stay in for a little bit of time. but iowa does cut the field out. the people who got in to make a statement or they thought early, on they had a chance, it kind of exposes them because even after five or six months, it's easy to see who should get to go on and who not? >> right. four years ago, you were on the bus and you were working with fred thompson and, of course, before that, you worked with newt gingrich as well so you know what's going on on the ground there in iowa. what's interesting, though, that i got from your column is the fact that while we're doing a lot of talking about what's going on in iowa, not that many republicans actually show up to caucu