i have a friend named jonathan nelson. we were skiing one weekend. i told him about my fantasy.e said that i should do it. dawn holliday and sherry sternberg. the four of us had lunch. he said we would start a festival. that was the genesis. it was not anything more complicated than that. in my own defense, and was not yet playing the banjo -- i was not yet played the banjo. the ulterior motive i was accused of did not exist yet. >> i would have thought it was because of your interest in the music and the instrument of the banjo that you play with a lot of love and enthusiasm. i would have thought that would lead to the founding of the festival. >> i have loved the music. much of my life. i really love the old time music. >> you mentioned dawn holliday. she works with you collecting the older music. >> she basically organizes the whole thing'. she decides who is going to be on. they have incredibly great bands opposite each other. i always worry about that, but she tells me not to. >> this has really grown in the number of participants. >> she kept asking what i would do about i

jonathan allen covers capitol hill for politico. thank you both, gentlemen. howard, it looked like it took some hand-wringing or arm twisting to get mccaskill, bill, nelson, joechin, jim webb. he did manage to get a lot of the ones. he got them to agree to at least vote to move it forward. >> well, i think that's important, chris, because i think the president, having talked to some of his aides over the last day. they saw tonight and today as a study in contrast. some up here in new hampshire where the republicans are debating and supposedly talking about the economy, while meanwhile down in washington all of the republicans voted against, or voted not to consider the president's jobs bill. and i think that's the contrast that the white house wanted to make. that's the point that the president wants to try to make out on the campaign trail, that he's not just dealing with a do-nothing congress but with a congress that doesn't want to -- you know, wants to stop everything. that's the message he's trying to put out there, and he got most of his democrats to support him on that strategy tonight. >> jonathan, not only got the democrats 51 with jeanne shaheen joi