jimmy carter was the first president to have an aid in an aid in the aid in the white house specificallydesignated to handle political affairs. in the book by contrast the recent presidents carter, reagan, clinton, bush and obama with the truman administration. almost all political concerns rustlers to the national committee. the white house staff is smaller, different norms. everything is improper to someone in the government payroll, make an electoral planning decisions. the jimmy carter designated an aide to do with legal affairs not because the white house is political, but he was accused o handling politics and the whie use poorly. he wanted someone close to someone close to him who he could, who could help them keep in touch with key members of  y across the country and ronald reagan institutionalized it. it's on the white house office of political affairs, chevy president since has had none is given as the situation now where you're used to having the key campaign advisers by david axelrod david karl rove who a

jimmy carter was the first president to have an aide in the white house specifically designated to handle the political affairs and in the book by contrast the recent presidents carter, reagan, clinton, bush and obama with the truman administration. and in the truman administration, almost all political concerns or outsourced to the national committee. the white house staff was smaller. there were different norms. it was improper to have someone on the government payroll making ectoral planning decisions. t jimmy carter designated an aide to deal with political affairs not because the white house wasn't political because he was accused of handling e litics in the white house poorly said he wanted someone close to him he could trust, wh could help him keep in touc with the key members of his party across the country. and ronald reagan institutionalized it. he founded the white house office of political affairs which every president since has had, and that's given us the situation we have now where yo

thirty four and if you watch last night's debate very closely you might have seen ronnie reagan and jimmy carter going at it not mitt romney president obama and that's not a good thing i'll explain why it's still a take. a while come to your take my take a lie the phone lines are now open so if you want to share opinion make a comment ask question live on the air give us a call to a two not a four twenty one thirty four let's pick up the first caller the night leticia in richmond texas tissue welcome to the program. wow hi you're on the air so your comment question. you need to turn down your somebody and just listen to the telephone talk to me on the telephone. hello thank you i have found yes. thanks for having them my concern is this the malaysians the nerds out in houston texas. oh good you need to turn on your t.v. because the there's this there's a delay and it'll be confusing and there are just better yeah yeah you just just talk to me on the telephone and then after we're done you can turn t.v. back up so what's a science fiction. ok my concern is this i'm a registered nurse and you see

incumbent president jimmy carter or was it the challenger, ronald reagan? >> leaving cleveland this morning, the president had a message for anyone who thought reagan had come across better in the debate. >> i think the issues are more important than the performance. >> the president is visibly more relaxed today than he was on the stage with governor reagan last night. since there's no way to know yet for sure which man helped himself the most, it's likely that the president is simply relieved that the debate that many of his advisers never wanted in the first place is finally behind him. >> relieved that it is over. so that was the coverage the day after the reagan/carter debate. because reagan went on to win the election that year, retrospectively that 1980 debate has been inviewed with a lot of over the top reagan worship stuff about his there you go again line and his are you better off than you were four years ago line? but that enthusiasm for reagan's debate performance in 1980 has mostly been cooked up in subsequent years. in recent decades as conse

it worked for jimmy carter in 1976, and then it worked against jimmy carter four years later when, asged by ronald reagan. >> these are the kind of elements of a national health insurance important to the american people. governor reagan, again, typically, is against such a proposal. >> governor? >> there you go again. when i oppose medicare, there was another piece of legislation meeting the same problem before the congress. i happened to favor the other piece of legislation. >> that "there you go again" line is the line that mr. romney said he will be tempted to use himself against president obama. he of course will be tempted to use anything that will remind people of republican ronald reagan beating democrat jimmy carter in 1980. but when incumbent president george h.w. bush fumbled a question about how the national debt and the faltering economy affected him personally, president bush just could not give a personal answer to that question. but his challenger, a man named bill clinton, pounced. >> well, i've been governor of a small state for 12 years. i'll tell you how it's affec

that jimmy carter had made every american's life worse. because of his failed economic policies. governor romney has to do exactly the same thing. he has to make the debate about the president's failed policies on the economy and convince voters that it was those policies that's made their lives a lot worse over these last four years rather than let the president blame earthquakes or the, you know, president bush or the tsunami or anything. jenna: i have some questions about style versus substance, big questions about likability. we're going to take a quick commercial break and be right back with you for some more tips on debating, right after this. h. but things are starting to turn around because of business people like you. and regions is here to help. with the experience and service to keep things rolling. from business loans to cash management, we want to be your partner moving forward. so switch to regions. and let's get going. together. jenna: brett o'donnell is giving us a behind the scenes look on the debate prep as he has been a

trying to create this character of obama as the weak jimmy carter guy. i think at the end -- you just don't have anything to say. there's a great debate we could be having. romney will not be the one to have that debate. >> we go back to what teddy kennedy said, not pro choice, anti-choice, he's multiple choice. as you said, every election is about the economy, and every day that romney spends not talking about that is a day lost. obama in particular is extremely strong on national security. so attacking him on that is not going to be a winner. now he may be forced to do that because the 47% video has broken through in a major way and has damaged his ability to talk about the economy. but i mean like this attack on libya is a bit strange to me, are we saying that the administration is lying? >> yes. >> are we saying that the administration is incompetence? >> yes. >> intelligence community screwed the administration up. >> all of the above. >> these are not narratives that are not going to work that fit with the narrative that we've had for years that ob

this was a last lap i jimmy carter. i mean, and the iranians had figured that cost him his presidency. now they were going to deny him the satisfaction of seeing our release while he was still president. there is a conspiracy theory that says there he was in fact coordination between the iranian side and the republican, the reagan campaign of 1980 to prevent us from being released before the election. it's an interesting theory. i've never seen any documentation for it. i would think after 30 some years, something that's anything to it would've come out. >> words you fly out of? on what kind of plane? dram or senior fellow hostages? what was the reaction? >> the things i remember well. as i get older sometimes i can't remember where i left my car keys. but these things 22 years ago now i remember well. they took us to the airport. in tehran. edison buses. i was blindfolded, but i think they showed me to the bathroom of the russ, not out of any spite, just because that was the only thing that was there. but it didn't mat

obviously this was the last slap at jimmy carter. they figured it cost him his presidency know they were going to deny him this satisfaction of seeing our release while he was still president. there is a conspiracy theory that says there he was in fact coordination between the iranian side and the republican ronald reagan campaign of 1980 to prevent us from being released before the election. it's an interesting theory. i've never seen anything, any documentation. i would think after 30 some years something, if there was anything to eat something would have come out. >> where did you fly out of on what kind of plane? do you remember seeing your fellow hostages and what was your reaction? >> these things i remember well. as i get older sometimes i can't remember where i left my car keys but i can see things of 32 years ago i remember well. they took us to the airport in tehran. in buses i think i was blindfolded, but i think they shoved me into the bathroom of the bus not out of any site, just because that was the only room that was t

i believe if mitt romney does well and can sting the president like ronald reagan stung jimmy carter that he will immediately become the frontrunner and the so-called swings states will tighten up. most of them anyway. florida particularly will. that's my analysis right now. >> i think these state races probably will tighten but that's what happens in the final weeks of a campaign. races tend to tighten. this will be a closer race in all likelihood as we get closer to election day one senses though that look an incumbent running with a record like this with the economy in such serious shape many people predicting recession with all this trouble he he has been having overseas, with all of that he he ought to be in a lot of trouble. it's surprising to many people that he is ahead. we keep thinking something will happen. is he is not a great politician but seems honorable and decent enough man that if the people were ready to make a change they would not have a lot of trouble settling on him as a reliable change agent. however it hasn't happened. we keep waiting for something to cause i

an independent candidate for president runs against jimmy carter and ronald reagan. president jimmy carter absolutely opposed john anderson's participation, and the league had a choice. do they support the independent candidate's participation or do they capitulate to the demands of jimmy carter? the league did the right thing, they stood up for the united states and invited john anderson. passed for four years later. the walter mondale and ronald reagan campaign's vetoed 80 of the moderator that the league of women voters have proposed for the debates. never try to get rid of difficult questions. 8-0. 80. the league then held a press conference and lambast the campaigns for trying to get rid of the difficult questions. of course there was an outcry. the result was fantastic. for the next debate, the campaign were required to accept the lead's moderators. four more years later and you have the michael this caucus and george bush campaign's drafting the first ever 12-page secret debate contract. they gave it to the league of women voters and said implement this. they

called jimmy carter strategy and president obama well i see the hand of call rove behind this again and rove has been the party boss has become the party boss of the republican party he is not out front he's just a talking head on fox to a lot of people but he controls about a billion dollars in super pac bonds and there was a meeting in washington earlier this week in which the republicans and began to unveil what they're calling the jimmy carter strategy and they're attacking and this is a typical rove tack a tactic attacking obama at his strong point and then you may recall they did that with john kerry in two thousand and four with the swift boat veterans for truth and it looks to me like rove is thinking this is two thousand and four all over again and that was his last presidential campaign isn't this really just a variation on darrell isis failed attempt to harm the obama administration earlier with his now discredited fast and furious which i mean you know that didn't outside of the fox of fear that didn't really seem to catch hold any do you think that this well yeah i do i you

ronald reagan did not speak during the entire presidential campaign when he was running against jimmy carter about the iranian hostage situation except to support the president and now wants did he did he do the kind of thing that the mitt romney did you know from day one i just. seems remarkable i'm curious ari your thoughts on the movie this and do we do we yet know who paid for this thing the movie that that sort of similar ahmed movie the start of the demonstrations and this is a very difficult thing it's obviously if you see it it's a very low budget film if you even want to call it a film so it's unclear who exactly was responsible for the making of that film but but nevertheless whoever made it responsibility for the actions that happened in cairo and around the released that belonged to the perpetrators not to the people who make the film but just to reiterate your point we have a long tradition in this country of foreign policy stopping at the water's edge and that tradition has been eroded by the romney campaign over the last several months i've been curious your thoughts on iran t

. >> jimmy carter had his car again. if you were old enough -- there was some criticism but nothing like what women go through. we had some examples in the book. kathleen sibelius' told a story about being in the first debate when she was running for governor the first time and she had on pink toed shoes and the writer who is a very good political writer talked about the color of her toenail polish and this was the lead thing that she had shut up and was describing what she was wearing and if you remember when michele bachman was running there were photographs of her french nails and whether or not these were appropriate for someone running for president, the way they were shaved and the french nails were appropriate and nancy pelosi we mentioned -- it was somewhere in the book, when she first became speaker there was this series of pearls, they took nick shots in the first few weeks she had worn six kinds of pearls and this was -- nobody has done six kind of necklines. maybe because there's not enough variety. >> there'

when gerald ford debated jimmy carter there was a technical glitch. >> the broadcasters in philadelphiaorarily lost the audio. >> instead of leaving the stage to take a break, neither candidate moved. >> we know what has happened. we are surprised as you are. >> so they stood there for almost half an hour. >> ultimate fear is making a mistake. they were frozen. >> first was criticized for looking at his watch too much during the debate. >> he looked at at his watch. >> its non-verbal clue that says i want to get away from this situation as fast as possible. >> that hurt him. >> he was widely viewed as losing that debate. >> it overran the message. >> al gore was criticized for sighing while george bush spoke. >> this is major problem of social security. >> he looked like a dufas. he was castigated. >> the next debate al gore went the opposite direction and went out of his way to be do sill and agreed with everything that bush said. >> the governor and i basically agree with dick cheney. >> that, candidates practice a lot. >> these discussions go on for how long? >> for hours. >> for mos

what we saw with this power exhibited in the congress of 1978 under jimmy carter was a stark contrast from what we had seen before. people don't connection i think is vital and that is the prosperity of the middle class in the 1950's, 60's and 70's in america goes hand in hand with middle class power. what do i mean by middle class power? 197,020,000,000 americans were involved in protests in outrage over the pollution of america's waterways and air. they demonstrated and were demanding action from congress and the white house to clean up the environment. this was very much upper middle class college-educated suburban people who said this is intolerable, we want action, and literally within six or seven months the environmental protection agency was established by richard nixon who was no tree hugging environmentalists let me tell you. there were seven or eight major pieces of legislation that passed the clean water act and safe drinking water act and so on. a tremendous change. and this was done in response to public pressure. public pressure exhibited by people going out in the stre

jimmy carter ... stirring uu controversy innthe mideast.aying today in jerusalem that israel ii no looger purssing a cooprooise with the "that policy of prommting a two-statt solution seems to be deeply concerned about this move towards a cctastrophic, so-ccllee one-state choice." broker israel's peace ... has long beenncritical of - pow sayy the region is in a t - quote crisis ssage." carter says: "i would say that every i have known has been aa that - pursuer of the two-sttte solution and i don't know that president obama as found that pisraeli] rime minister petanyahu is willing to go that rrutee'' benjamin supported a two--tate solution palestiiian couutry ould be demiliiarizeddnetanyahu sayy: "i wwnt to make ittclear that we do not want to govern the pplestinians. we wann to liie in peace with thhm, we want them to ggvern themselves, absent a haadful of powers of issael." carter's &ptensiin between israel and h u-s is already high ... with president obama denying netanyahu's rrquest for a full schhdule... amid ga diiagreemmnts on howwt

liz: that was jimmy carter. >> jimmy carter, i fell ashamed, someone should ask what the heck these people are doing. pat thank you. next up fox, neil will be live in kentuy thursday night for vice presidential debate, this will start 8:00 p.m. eastern time. right here on fox business. >> president obama in california, raising big bucks. while california drivers handing over big bucks at the pump. gas prices, spiking 50-cents a gal an in one week. topping $5 in some areas, and governor jerry brown, taking emergency action, but gas prices barely budging and energy analyst williamiate ma yateman d this is what the white house should be focussing on because the $ 5 gas could be nationwide. >> ironic, the president was in california raising money, come iz rating with the rating given that gas price hike of cause of poor policy decisions. nationwide. liz: we're talking about the refineries that have been shoved off line due to fires and disturbances, could that be alternative to your argument saying maybe this will not go nationwide this is say local problem? a refinery issue? >> indeed those -

kennedy or jimmy carter? >> guest: well, jimmy carter didn't exist for me. it's as simple as that. john f. kennedy i admired; as i say, i voted for him. i thought he had the potential to be a great president, and then, of course, he was assassinated. i was somewhat disillusioned by the time he was assassinated. but why didn't i write about john f. kennedy? maybe i did at some point. i don't know. i think what happened is that he was out of the picture, as he had been gone, before i started writing steadily on current affairs, which really began in the late '60s, early '70s. c-span: today do you still have a relationship with the wall street journal? >> guest: yes, i still write occasionally on their op-ed page, a short essay. i used to write much more frequently. it--i think age is beginning to show, and also i don't want to keep repeating myself, so i don't write unless i feel i have something to say. but, yes, i'm still happy to have this wonderful relationship with the wall street journal. c-span: go back and trace, as you do in the book, all the connecting points with the natio

franken storms mile long tornadoes and levee busting floods all the more important a president jimmy carter created for fema when he did as he did so cities and states will never again be alone in rebuilding after catastrophes as famous mission statement reads the his mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build sustain and improve our capability to prepare for protect against respond to recover from and mitigate all hazards the keywords we work together whether you're cleaning up your neighborhood after a block party or cleaning up after a hurricane we all know things work out best when we're all in it together that's why we've included disaster relief efforts as part of our commons right alongside law enforcement and fire protection. these aren't services the work best would run for a profit or to maximize wealth for shareholders these are services owned by we the people to serve we the people and work best when kept in that pure small d. democratic form so it shouldn't surprise us the republicans have turned their chainsaws

jimmy carter was attacking him. and then he had this positively brilliant close about are you better off? and he did it so well. peter hart did a bunch of focus groups before and after. clearly reagan had a lower threshold. he had to prove to people he was acceptable. >> that's what mitt -- you're describing mitt romney. you're describing mitt romney because voters -- >> voters don't have the kind of negatives. he did not have 51% of people having an unfavorable view. secondly, you could say mitt romney is as good a debater all you want. gipper against mitt romney when it comes to charm, people saying i want to have this guy on television for four years, it's no contest. >> willie, following up on what mike barnicle said, the one thing mitt romney has going for him is who he is running against. there are a lot of republicans that voted for barack obama that are disappointed. there are a lot of independents that voted for obama who are disappointed. there are a lot of conservatives who don't want to vote for them thi

compare the president to a man who many think of as not a successful democratic president, that is jimmy carter, on domestic affairs. they tried, but they haven't succeeded. so they are desperate to make that carter analogy any way they can. they are probing for weaknesses in the record. what they should have been doing all along is running against president obama's record on the economy. that's what they should have down. the latest "washington post" poll shows for the first time, mitt romney is slightly better regarded on the question of who will do better leading the economy over the next four years than the president? that's through no good offices of mitt romney on his own. that's in spite of what mitt romney has done. >> howard, we have heard so much about the disgruntled folks within the romney/ryan camp. the way it's unfolding in the polls is not good. there's a report that says that romney is beginning to lose donors who were shifting their money to house and senate races. what's going on here? is this starting to take it its toll on the campaign? >> yes. in many ways what mitt romney'

there is a ronald reagan advertisement that ran in 1980 against jimmy carter, and if you were to listen now, you would think it was the romney camp complaining about obama on willing to stand up for america overseas. what you will see in the debate, though i do not have confidence around the will pull it off, but he will try to make -- that mitt romney will pull it off, but he will try to make the argument that the administration is the first since jimmy carter to abandon peace through strength. host: guy taylor has a piece in "washington times" recently. guy taylor and matthew lee are our guests. let's get to the phones. arkansas. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am glad to be on c-span this morning. my question is not so much in regards to the big guys the incident as being a terrorist attack, -- benghazi incident as being a terrorist attack, because it was the engagement through military action. to me, a terrorist attack is on the civilian target designed to create fear in the civilian population. this was not that. this was an attack on our diplomatic corps and

on this date in 1988 gallup poll had president jimmy carter with a three point lead. joining us is mike reagan of reagan.com. a gallup poll has mr. carter, a three point lead over your dad, that was two weeks before the election. but your dad reversed it. how did he do that. >> i was in pennsylvania that day. 66 airplane rides and along with my sister and what you saw was in 1980 the independents started to break ronald reagan. what you were talking about is image, like ability. that played a huge part in the campaign of 1980 towards the end and when people broke they broke for ronald reagan. they liked what they saw. he wasn't above warmonger the card read ministration and democrats had put out for the public to see. make felt comfortable, romney is ahead. i hope he hasn't peaked too soon. we peaked in the final weekend. stuart: you peaked, your dad and his campaign. i am surprised to hear you say that. i thought he was gaining momentum all the way through to election day and peaked on election day and won by 10 points. >> absolutely but we were gaining, but you start

and jimmy carter couldn't get along with congress either. ashley: we want to get along.b dietrich, bulls, bears and the ballot box. thank you very much. >> thank you. liz: the justice filing a civil lawsuit against bank of america alleging they saddled you the taxpayer with losses. we've got the very latest developments. don't go away. [ male announcer ] do y have the legal protection you need? at legalzoom, we've created a better place to turn r your legal mters. maybe you want to incorporate a business you'd like to start. or protect your family with a will or living trust. legalzoom makes it easy withtep-by-step help when completing your personalized document -- or you can even access an attorney to guide you along. wh an "a" rating from the better business bureau legalzoom helps you get personalized and affordable legal protection. in most states, a legal plan attorney is available with every personalized document to answer any quesons. get started at legalzoom.com today. and now you're protected. liz: the federal government suing the second largest u.s. bank by asse

this happened in 1919, when jimmy carter led ronald reagan and he painted ronald reagan as a warmongeromeone who could not be trusted and when they had their debate and ronald reagan came across as confident and reasonable the bottom goal out for jimmy carter. >>neil: what is the delay effect on a debate if there is, karl in a lot can change, with the lighter colored states not being as red or blue as they can be and the what do you look for? >>guest: well, i would not use the work prohibitively. since april, the president's list of hard states that are strongly in his column, that has dropped while mitt romney's is green. this is a very close race. if you look at the 91 polls that had have been in 30 days, thing of that, 91 national polls the margin between the two men is over 2 percent. by comparison, during that same period in 2004, there were 41 polls in the bush and kerry race and 5.2said it was a race too co call and the question was, can bush regain the momentum? this could be a very tight election. my sense is we will see some movement but not a lot. >>neil: could you see enoug

trying to paint obama as a weak, failed, jimmy carter-like president.g states that are sponsored by crossroads crossroads. >> cenk: and doesn't rove make a tremendous amount of money from all this? >> it's hard to know how much he takes home but as you say there are hundreds of millions of dollars being spent and there are vendors in the media business who take home millions and millions, and it's also a way he has a controlling power. rove, it seems is intoxicated by power. he sees himself as a great historic figure who is trying to usher in a realignment politically of a new permanent republican majority. his hero is a guy nameed mark hanna,, and rove sees himself the same thing in this election. >> cenk: one of the things about the 50 c 4 they're not supposed to spend their money on political ads. it seems that they're brazenly spending their money on political ads any way. is there anyone minding the house? is there anything that says this is legal or illegal. >> occasionally there are lawsuit, but the problem against crossroads gps but it takes so

now river blindness has been dramatically reduced partly because of jimmy carter more than anybody else. dracoma also it's is also on its way out. you don't have people in their 30s routinely going blind around the world. so many other elements of progress that we tend not to focus on. i think we in the journalistic community maybe we focus too much on the cup being half empty, and all the problems. the context is that, you know, over all progress truly is quite remarkable. >> gavin: you have seen that from--you mentioned jimmy carter but you've seen that from a non-government agreement or more from a governance framework that is leading and supporting and dealing with these gaps. >> i think they work together. governance itself is improving in some of the worst-off areas. governance is deteriorating in the u.s. yesterday we were talking about how burma could improve relations between the military and the parliament, and they were saying, i'm not sure that the u.s. is the place to come to study improving relationships among the executive. i'm not sure that the governance in the u.s. has

romney, and i'm not comparing it to 1980 and ronald reagan being an appealing alternative, but jimmy carter, not a bad alternative. i think that could eat into the president's support and more than just the undecided voter support. what do you think? >> not necessarily. because what voters too often and we see this and a lot of data. they complain and gripe, especially well as down in the polls. when it comes down to it on election day they usually hold their nose, suck it up and vote for their party leader. that is why we have undecided voters. usually if you're a member of your party by election day you aren't going to vote for the guy neil: i know you do this in far more exhaustive detail that idea, but i am old and remember 1980 and to remember that the undecided voters at the time, jumped either ronald reagan or jimmy carter. it turns out a lot more did. i'm not saying that there is some truth to what you're saying. those who are leery of that party or the candidate of that party would jump, could jump if they are disenchanted enough with their own who choice or intrigued enough by the

one year later, president jimmy carter signed into law a joint resolution to officially designate the annual celebration. 11 years later, president george bush extended the weeklong celebration to an entire month. you know and i know that our mothers say that every day is asian pacific american day. i want to recognize all of the milestones the api has made in the state of california and in the entire country. the caucus has a record of 42 members in the asian caucus in congress. one of their very first things we want to say is it was a young man who was the first member -- we want to make note of that. the reestablishment of the white house initiative by president obama was another accomplishment. president obama's cabinets has dr. steven chu. the very first asian-american -- as ambassador to the republic of china. we have a lot of accomplishments. it was not that accident, my friends. everyone of you know that you work hard. all these things are done on purpose. i want to let you know that we also can boast twice as many asian-americans on federal benches. those of us to understand