he left the job eight years later a multi-millionaire. >> jan strasma: the road that hastert wants to will go through these farm fields right here. >> kroft: in 2005, speaker hastert got a $207 million federal earmark to build the prairie parkway through these cornfields near his home. what jan strasma and his neighbors didn't know was that hastert had also bought some land adjacent to where the highway is supposed to go. >> strasma: and five months after this earmark went through, he sold that land and made a bundle of money. >> kroft: how much? >> strasma: $2 million. >> kroft: what do you think of it? >> strasma: it stinks. >> kroft: we stopped by the former speaker's farm to ask him about the land deal, but he was off in washington where he now works as a lobbyist. his office told us that property values in the area began to appreciate even before the earmark, and that the hastert land was several miles from the nearest exit. but the same good fortune befell former new hampshire senator judd gregg, who helped steer nearly $70 million in government funds towards redeveloping this d

c-span: denny hastert, author of, "speaker," what's the granby roll? >> guest: the granby roll is a move in wrestling that you can score from the bottom. not many people do it. and it's good in wrestling, it's probably good in politics, too. if you can score when you're on the bottom and keep winning, that's what it's all about. c-span: where does the name granby come from? >> guest: granby high school in norfolk, virginia. they were the instigator -- coach by the name of bill martin was -- instigated it and taught it. and it kind of passed through the east coast. i picked it up in the midwest, and it was one of our trademarks. c-span: when was the last time you were in a high school classroom, teaching? >> guest: probably was about a year or two ago. i try to go back to my district and talk in a classroom from time to time. actually, teaching as a teacher, the last time i did it was 1981 c-span: and what were you teaching? >> guest: i was teaching economics, history, government. i taught a business course over the years. i taught a speech course. and

wasn't that long ago when we -- mae five, six years ago we came to the floor and that then speaker hastert was the longest serving republican speaker of the house and we made much adieu about that landmark. so i comfortably accept your kind words. since we could observe that, i think -- and i said long may his record stand at that time. that is the humor in certain circles. as the gentlemen were speaking, i was recalling when i was first speaker and sitting in the chair to welcome the president of the united states to the chamber for the fir time and it was president george w. bush. and presidenbush surprised me that day, too, when he opened his remarks by sayinto the gathered crowd that many speakers had the privilege of -- many presidents had come to the congress to speak to a joint session, but none of them had ever opened their remarks with these two words -- madam speaker. and he then went on to say, although my father served in congress with president roosevelt and president truman and that was a tremendous honor for him, that doesn't compare to the idea thatis -- he said something l

former communications director for speaker dennis hastert and chris, former chief of staff for senatoroe manchin. gentlemen, welcome. >> thank you very much. >> jamie: let's all take a look at that poll because it's fascinating to me that so many people, we may not be late in the game, but we're pretty darn close to november. 64% think there are better possibilities for both parties. ron, what do you think? >> i think that's because people want to hear the details about how each candidate is going to grow jobs and grow the economy. yesterday was a devastating day for president obama. not just because of the unemployment numbers, but because former president bill clinton said, look, mitt romney has a sterling business record. let's stop attacking bain capital. let's start talking about the issues. that's what the people want to hear. they want to hear, okay. what are your plans so they can scrutinize them, so when they go to the polls in november, they can say okay. mitt romney is better, or maybe obama is better than romney. i, of course, think romney will be better because we've seen

let's go back to the days of denny hastert. a majority of the majority needs to vote for a bill. but it doesn't have to be passed only with republican votes. we're not going to ever get a bill done if it's done a partisan basis. i thank the gentleman. mr. walz: i reserve the balance of my time, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee. mr. duncan: mr. speaker, at this time i yield three minutes to the gentleman from florida, mr. suggester left-hand side, a very active -- mr. southerland, a very active member of our committee. mr. southerland: i thank the gentleman from tennessee for yielding time. you know, as a new member of this body, it was quite aner to be appointed a conferee -- to be -- quite an honor to be appointed a conferee to go to conference. it's usually something that obviously senior members are appointed to. it was a great honor and it still is. even though we have yet to have a product that we can vote upon. you can imagine my disappointment when after attending five working group me

questions by want to remind people that they still can either e-mail your questions or trader at hastertt -- that's the most times i've ever said that in a 24-hour period. we have a question here that kind of -- let's start off with this one. what is the role of the tea party, and is the reason or how much of the reason at all do you think the republicans are extreme and how do you think the tea party fits in the republican party in this whole question of extremism? >> i already mentioned a little bit, but i think it is for the first time may be norm will correct me but it's a pretty substantial populist movement on the right universal conservatives out in the street much over the years. they do a lot of stuff, but that was unprecedented. >> they were all in the country club. [laughter] >> there's got to be a good joke about a country club of why it. >> this has been coming in a lot of time i will just violate the kind of little bit more. just as the new left and the war movement has a seceded parts pushed the democratic party to the left in the 60's and 70's and mcgovern the tea party i

wasn't that long ago when we -- maybe five, six years ago we came to the floor and that then speaker hastert was the longest serving republican speaker of the house and we made much adieu about that landmark. so i comfortably accept your kind words. since we could observe that, i think -- and i said long may his record stand at that time. that is the humor in certain circles. as the gentlemen were speaking, i was recalling when i was first speaker and sitting in the chair to welcome the president of the united states to the chamber for the first time and it was president george w. bush. and president bush surprised me that day, too, when he opened his remarks by saying to the gathered crowd that many speakers had the privilege of -- many presidents had come to the congress to speak to a joint session, but none of them had ever opened their remarks with these two words -- madam speaker. and he then went on to say, although my father served in congress with president roosevelt and president truman and that was a tremendous honor for him, that doesn't compare to the idea that his -- he said som