i am hubert humphrey. i'm running for mayor. i would really like your vote. >> we need to go to barry goldwater. >> do we really need to? can i say one more thing about hubert? >> barry goldwater. >> ok. >> well, the beginning of modern conservatism. but also, an unlikely politician. some of these people seem to have absorbed in their water, a soup or whatever -- he should of been the head of the department store in phoenix. yet gradually, he takes this path that i think is true of some other politicians. they get into community affairs, and then, as you know, he is elected to the senate, and he certainly is a man of principles. he has given us one of our otations.orst qu >> involving the a-bomb? >> and he was the victim of a really dirty journalistic trick by the johnson campaign. i do think that is an unfair kind of political ad. >> the problem is, in some ways he set himself up for that. lbj gets 486 electoral votes to 52. coldwater barely carried his own state of arizona. -- coldwater -- goldwater barely carried his own state

hubert humphrey got it, and he and johnson were responsible for this war. i just could not get behind hubert humphrey. i am in ninth grade. what do i know? but i just thought nixon said at a secret plan to end the war and he was going to and it in six months and that sounded good to me. so i remember going out campaigning and i was actually going to the seminary at the time. i left home at 14. my parents let me go to the seminary because i wanted to be a priest. and i remember the bishop one day ask me to come over and do some yard work, and i think he had heard that i was out campaigning for nixon. he wanted to ask me, why are you doing that? he wanted to educate me about nixon's past and all this. his name was bishop hickey. he went on to become the archbishop and the cardinal in washington d.c. in the 1980s, very outspoken advocate against war in central america and all that. but it was one of those early encounters, where somebody is trying to set me straight and of course then nixon got elected and did all of these horrible things and continued the war

i am hubert humphrey. i'm running for mayor. i would really like your vote. >> we need to go to barry goldwater. >> do we really need to? can i say one more thing about hubert? >> barry goldwater. >> ok. >> well, the beginning of modern conservatism. but also, an unlikely politician. some of these people seem to have absorbed in their water, soup or whatever -- he should of been the head of the department store in phoenix. store in phoenix. yet gradually, he takes this path that i think is true of some other politicians. they get into community affairs, and then, as you know, he is elected to the senate, and he certainly is a man of principles. principles. he has given us one of our perhaps worst quotations. >> involving the a-bomb? >> and he was the victim of a really dirty journalistic trick by the johnson campaign. i do think that is an unfair kind of political ad. kind of political ad. >> the problem is, in some ways he set himself up for that. lbj gets 486 electoral votes to 52. goldwater barely carried his own state of ariz

. >> ifill: what about the vice presidents who ran and lost-- hubert humphrey, mondale, al gore, peoplewho were supposed to be anointed to rise? >> well, hubert is the president-- you asked richard who he thought would have been the best president who never was and hubert humphrey would have been my answer. i would say he's largely forgotten now by the young generation. he leads the way at the 1948 convention, democrats. he's mayor of minneapolis, and he lays down the gauntlet to those who said that-- don't rush civil rights. and he said we're not rushing civil rights. we're 170 years too late and it's time for the democratic party to emerge from the shadow of states rights ask march forthrightly into the sunshine of human rights. this is the the man who looks like all along he is going to be president. he is elect to the senate that year. he then becomes the vice president. johnson picks him as vice president, but the vietnam war bogs him down. he loses his voice as vice president and never becomes president. >> ifill: richard, who is the most consequential losing candidate who most pe

hubert humphrey gave a great speech in which put the democratic party as being for civil rights, which it had never been before, but we have no other parallel in american political history where someone august gives a good speech and gets the nomination. >> are there other politicians? >> i think obama's speech was similar. it brought him to national prominence. bryan had already achieved most of thought, but the sense of party unity both of them brought to those three shows and the kind of sincerity and speaking across a broad range of the public, both of them are able to do that in those settings. they are different in other ways, but there is a similarity. drugs william thomas is the chair of the history department here at home -- >> william thomases did share of the history department here at the university of nebraska. >> it was published in 2006. >> we thank you for your perspective on the life and career of william jennings bryan. special guests to the home, who open their doors to us, and the medical center, which makes the campus part of home. we will have more as we continue

ross perot, hubert humphrey, some of the other folks we will be covering in this series on friday night. phil, you are on the air. caller: good morning, c-span. only two central points. one is tax corporations and to get rid of some regulations, neither of which is going to help the real economy or unemployment. but that's understandable because those people are no longer involved in the real economy. they are involved in the financial economy. the real economy is the middle class and the poor. so real liftcally, what can we expect in president obama's plan will be gridlocked in congress. they will be gridlocked in november with the super committee. so what can be done? i think at that point it would be time for the president to take independent action legally and sign an executive order, expand the department of transportation and the department of labor and empower them to hire people all over the country to renovate material properties in order to stay within the law. they could also coordinate with the federal reserve to set up that infrastructure bank, and once the domino starts to

you have to understand, if it was good enough for hubert humphrey, a should be good enough for this gangves, but at any rate, what we must force these people to do it is get down to some discerning, discretionary choices. if you believe in freedom, you should expect from your the government added do nothing -- expect from a government that it do nothing except what is correct and necessary. if it is the right thing to do, and it is not necessary the government should do it, they should not do it, and when we start making a judicious decisions on what are the legitimate and necessary enterprises of government, then we will get below that 18%. there is a lot of fat, and blubber, and messing around with your rights and my rights at 18%. >> in our waning moments, let's ask jeff atwater to follow on exactly that point. how do choices get made under the cap of a balanced budget amendment? how does that change the dynamic? >> it is actually deliberating dynamic, because you are forced to prioritize. you can no longer hide behind who brought it to you, who wants it, who needs it. it is what you