a point you really make at the start of your book, "nixonland," about how the really came a time in america. richard nixon was particularly gifted in developing the strategy that republicans demonized their democratic opponents as the enemies of america. we see that still in use in politics today. talk a little bit about how they got started and how you see that playing out in today's politics. >> well, i think an important part of the establishment context was the timeframe in which a steady in k-9. 1965, and every pond and every kind of educated wise observer is presuming america to be a center-left country. the liberal consensus, and it is permanent. it is the way the world works. and the evidence for this is lyndon johnson's resounding landslide in 1964 election is the self-declared conservative barry goldwater. he gets 66 percent of the vote. he gets 44 states. all the pundits are declaring that unless the republican party purges the conservatives from their ranks not only will the republican party be threatened by extinction, but the entire two-party system will be threatened by extin

he is author of nixonland and his recent role, writing articles i just quoted.lso he wrote about how obama needs to change. rick, great to have you on. i want to ask you about that last quote there. why do you think president obama might be embedding the republicans here. >> i mean if obamaism is a strategy where you say the guys from the other side believe this, and i'm going to reach out to them in the spirit of living kindness and fellowship and maybe we can come together, the problem is if that's always what he's going to do, the republicans can just say we can put out a position out there that's so extreme we know he's going to ratify it by saying that its a reasonable negotiating position and every time they do that, they move the center a little more to the right. we saw it textbook, textbook perfection with this contraception fight where literally, history changed in the last month or so, a month ago, if you told someone that they were going to be debating the legitimacy of contraception on the front page of the new york times they would have said you're