Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20121027

In ohio. Later, more like a Campaign Coverage as a Vice President joe biden travels to lynchburg, virginia. This weekend, booktv is will be in austin, texas. From 11 006 00 eastern, you can hear from Douglas Brinkley and others. Sunday from noon6, a book about ulysses s. Grant, infiltrating drug cartels and inside the house of representatives. The texas book festival, live this weekend, on booktv, on c span 2. Next, we will talk about covering president ial campaigns with political journalists who have moderated president ial debates. They talk about the impact of conventions, Television Ads and voters this campaign cycle. This is one hour, 10 minutes. [applause] thank you very much and a warm welcome to you. We are so pleased that you joined us, and Judy Woodruff, thank you for serving on our board. [laughter] i would like to ask each of debates that we just went through. We were not sure you would make it through the traffic on time. We decided to start off with one of the clips from the second president ial debate that you moderated. In other words, there was no coin toss. We could have done alphabetically and come up with the same order. Lets take a look at a couple of clips from the second romney. Roll the clips, please. Let me mention Something Else the president said a moment ago when he was describing chinese investments and so forth. Hold on a second. Speaking. Hold on a second. Speaking. Governor romney, of these people have been waiting. Any investment i have had have been managed by a blind trust, and i do understand they include investments in chinese companies. Your pension . I did not look at my pension. It is not as big as yours. I do not check it that often. That me give you some a device, but get your pension. He also invests in chinese companies, and outside of the United States. We are way off topic here, governor romney. [laughter] governor romney, thank you. I think it is interesting the president said something that on the day after the attack he went to the rose garden and said this was an act of terror. He said the day after the attack that it was an act of terror, not a spontaneous demonstration . Please proceed, governor. I want to make sure we got the for the record, because it took him 14 days. Get the transcript. He did, in fact, sir. Can use it got louder, server. Candy . It did as well take two weeks or so for the idea of there being a right which it right out there. Youre correct about that. The administration indicated this was a reaction to a video and it was a spontaneous reaction. It took them a long time to say it was a terrorist act by a terrorist group, am i incorrect in that regard . On sunday, the investor to the United Nations went on the Television Shows and spoke about and faster to the United Nations went on Television Shows. I want to move you on. People can go to the transcripts. [laughter] [applause] you both commented on this. This felt like playing to constituencies that were already democratic. We will come back to the convention coverage, but first, lets go to candys experience. I have seen this several times. It is interesting hearing it, and not watching it, and you recognize how contentious it is and you can really feel attention. What was it like from your perspective, candy . A couple of things. Actually, it was a blast. I have a great time. [laughter] i know that makes me peculiar, but it was fun. When the falcons tell you this, having been in as many debates gwen ifill can tell you this, incredible. I felt like i was pregnant. Every morning i woke up, and i was nauseouswhen somebody starts screaming in the debate, i felt nauseous anything that could go wrong had already gone wrong in my head. Once i got out there i know how to do this. Exactly. Once i was out there, i was conscious of the 82 people sitting there that had been there since 8 00 in the morning, and wanting to get their questions in, and i was conscious of letting them go at it when they wanted to go at it. We have now heard this six times, could we now move this on . Instinctual. You cannot go into the debate thinking i am going to be it is like. Parenthood. It is an organic thing, and you are reacting in a moment, rather than through any formula that people might set out for. Could you tell from the outset that it would be so contentious or did it escalate . We knew we had the two men standing on the stage, and honestly, they were so territorial, so when that started, you realize that there first, fullon argument was about whether we were drilling on public land, and i thought really . Prices. We knew going into this, and i am sure you commented on this, the president could not have another debate that look like he did not want to be there. We knew he would come loaded for bear, but i made the mistake thinking there are all these nice people there, and they will not argue in front of them. They will have to tone it down a little bit. Then, afterwards, when i was trying to figure out why so many of us thought they would be nice, they would not be overheated, i think we took this as a debate for undecided voters, and it was not. It was for their basis. Audience. Or the audience. That is where the questions came from but they were playing to their bases. That is why it was so heated. Candy and looking at gwen ifill, they are looking at people that will not be intimidated by the candidates, and can deal with the situation, whether they are very nice for the opposite. You have to have the skill set that candy, gwen ifill and others can deal with. I think that is a compliment. Never mind. [laughter] its a compliment. Were you ever tempted to come from behind the podium and no. You learn a lot. I thought it was fascinating. Also, it was less hot on the stage than on television. They looked much closer. Two men were looking and dead heat polls, they were territorial, and did not want to give an inch of argument. I did not get the hatred that everybody thought they saw. I have to admit that last question came from my time watching bigtime wrestling when i was a child. Your question on libya, in hindsight, would you have answered it ask the question differently than you did . I do not think i would. I saw them get wrapped around the axle of the words said in the rose garden, where the larger point was we still do not know what happened the benghazi think, you had two weeks, and said this. I thought we would sit here saying yes you did, and know you did not, so i was trying to move them on, but the larger point is this, that and the other thing. Again, i respect both of these men. They are both supersmart and have a tough job, but president obama is right here. One is to my right, one is to my left, and the president is sitting on the stool, and they are both looking at me, saying yes, i did, now i did not, and i felt like this feels so familiar. I instinctively said well, he kind of did, but, and then turned and said the larger point i wish i had then i wish i had been that was shorthand. A lot of people ask me about if i thought it was appropriate, and aside from you be my friend, i defended you anyway because it is not that you interjected, but that you had it right when you interjected. That is the key. It would of been bad otherwise. [laughter] than we had a conspiracy theories that i had a transcript with me. I knew that was willing to come up . As you know, as reporters, things stick in your brain. You dont know where they come from. They only do if you have done the work. I wish i had been a tiny bit more articulate in the second that i was saying to romney you are right, but, and when i said the first thing, people started to applaud, which startled me a little bit. Then, when i turn to the governor and said governor, you are right about the other thing, the other side clapped. So, in all of the clapping, people missed the totality of what was going on. Your observations, gwen ifill and Judy Woodruff, what is the role of the moderator in the debates, and does it vary depending on the format . Of course it differs edwin Judy Woodruff moderated it was a panel of reporters, right . That is right. Moderator. It was 1988. The difference is, solo control. I mean, you decide it was different with candy because she was moderating a town hall. I had the questions in my hand that nobody had seen, and i knew which order i wanted to go in. Nobody else knew that, so that put pressure on me to make sure i had it right, and bill everything they had said so that i could be fair. Every moderator has a different style and idea. You could bring all four moderators, and i think they would ask the question slightly differently. As i see the role, and i want candy and gwen ifill to speak for themselves, but the moderator is there to let the candidate come out on the most important issues that they ought to be dealing with, and the framework will differ from debatetodebate, whether it is domestic or foreign, and we can talk about what we think about that separation, but it gives the candidates a chance to speak up themselves, and when appropriate to probe when you feel they are not answering the question. Every moderator will do that in a slightly different way. Is a town hall format useful, do you think . I was surprised that the people in the town hall in this case that the candidates did not take greater pains to answer their questions. Im used to having politicians take a question and turn it around to whatever they want to say. I was a little not leave. I thought they would feel the need to do with bill clinton tobias, always answer the advised which was always answer the questions from voters advised, always answer the question from voters. You got the sense that they felt there was so much at stake that they could not afford to not carry out the mission, and in the president s case, to be there, ann romneys case, to continue to be president ial and in romneys case, to continue to be president ial. And to have smart answers to questions. I like the town hall format. I like the idea of of it. I guess the problem is there were many times the second question was about gas prices. The first question was neutral, im worried im not calling to have a job. The second question went straight at the president and said your Energy Secretary says it is not his job to keep Energy Prices down, do you think it is his job, and the next thing i know we were arguing about drilling in public lands. I went back and said the question was do you think it is the job of the government, and then they went off on the next public lands thing. Then, you have been up so much time in this, that leads to one, two, three less town hall people. I did it a couple of times, as many times i felt i could do it without completely blow in the format. With guns, we went off on something. They started talking about single mothers. Single mothers and marriage, yes. I will say that the format that has evolved is better today than back in the day when it was much more strict. We were told u. S. The question, no followup, two minutes, one minute, and i was told to interrupt it they did not. There was a red light and a buzzer. There were restrictions. Today, they are given more time to have a conversation, and you learn more that way. Come to the debate of every intention of ignoring the rules they have agreed to, there is very little the moderator can do. When i did the sit down debate with dick cheney and john edwards, who i would ask different questions of today [laughter] there was a light. They could see the light. They knew when they were over time. On one occasion, dick cheney said i do not know if i could answer that in 30 seconds, and i said that is all you have. People in bars across the country started clapping, and i was just thinking we need to set stick to the time. I was just trying to think what the rules are. Who sets the rules . The commission and the candidate. Do moderators have any input . They give you something that they ask you to sign. And you dont. I did not even get that, actually. Ok. Rules they said . Here is the problem with the time thing. I did not get into this to be the school monitor. If they are having a conversation that shows the something about the two of them, you do not want to artificially cut them off, or let them call on on something bad. It is a much more organic choice, what is going on in this moment right now. It calls a minute to use your judgment. When you feel they have exhausted the subject, and when you think the audience will benefit from hearing Something Else . Do you keep the time . To the moderators keep the time . It is kept by timekeeper people. You know the timekeeper people. In my case, you wanted to make sure that they were equivalent. Does the timekeeper not off . Not off . I hope not, because i was relying on them. Do you have any concerns about restraints . You are in the house of a First Amendment when it comes rules. It is not the ok corral. Its a debate. The goal was to get as many as much information as possible in the hands of the American Public. Rules are going to make sure that you have the equivalent exchanges, but it is not bound so tightly that you are stuck on the rolls, and you cut them off when theyre about to say i killed my wife. Sorry, you are out of time no, you want to make sure there is an exchange. I dont consider that restraint. We all function by rules. You raised the point about the structure of the debates on topics. Do you like the format, one is for foreign affairs, one for the economy . In an ideal situation, the president deals of great deal with Foreign Policy, domestic policy, it makes sense to make sure you will not be so heavily weighted one way or another. For example, in the 2004 election, iraq was a huge issue. That might have been a time where the candidates would want to spend a lot more time on Foreign Policy. Right now, most voters say the primary concern is the economy. So, i think maybe there needs to be a little more flexibility in combat. On that. I know candy was thinking about that on that. I know can be was thinking about that. They are given three debates. We did go back and look at what was covered thoroughly. One of them was education, and at one point the president but did meehan said looked at me and said we have not discussed education at all, and i said in my head, sorry, he spent the first 20 minutes of the first debate talking about education. We knew remember, the first questions all came from the town hall, so i could not just come off with a question that was not represented in their questions. We knew that syria, iran and israel would be thoroughly covered. We didnt feel the need to fill the hole. But immigration and gun control might not. It might not. You would assume that would be the last chance. How do you prepare assume each of you have an individual method. I make myself insane. I shut myself off in the house with a lot of cards, read books the candidates have written, stump speeches, right about 100 questions, knowing that i might get about 20 in, and i do not think i got that many then i rehearsed. Many. Then i rehearse. Then, after all of the, you have to stop. You have to know it well enough that you cant stand to we have the conversation. It is a debate, but it is a conversation. That is what we do every day, apply your instincts. Candy . The hardest thing i have ever done, by way. I did it backwards, because we got the questions at 9 30 that morning, so we did not know what was coming, but you kind of know what is coming. We have been doing this for one year and a half. We went backwards, and we try to game and say he said this before, so you need to know until suddenly a whole new thing happens. At one point, i said i needed to know 100 of the stuff, and i will use 1 , but i do not know which one . It should be said that i paid the price for reading biographies of joe biden and sarah palin the night before i was flying to saint louis, i was proud of myself, slipped, broke my ankle, and moderated the debate with my leg in a split. They built an elevator to get me on the stage, and i was escorted by two football players. [laughter] named bucky and tem. Tim. Not read the book. [laughter] how about you, juday . I am moderated previous debates, and you drive yourself crazy because you feel like you need to know everything. You try to think, what is important, but it depends on the format. It is different when you are the sole moderator, as opposed to one when you are calling on citizens. It is so much harder than what we do. We love our work, but it is hard. You love doing it. If you love being a journalist, you love asking politicians, and what could be more important, what form is more important than the two men that are vying to be president of United States . That is a huge responsibility. So, that is not only will that is why they not only pick people that will not be intimidated, but people that will be will have a great judgment. I moderated a debate between Justice Scalia they did not let you talk, did they . I was sure the audience would rather listen to them, so it is a judgment call, letting them go if they are on topic. I thought the exchange about their bank accounts, yours is bigger than mine, my brain is going [laughter] okay. Moving along. It was not until after the debate that i saw the president said i have to say it. He came armed. Absolutely. I am glad is over. I thought it was a good debate. If you care about the issues a lot of things did not come off. A lot of things did. It would have been nice to hear about Something Else besides the bill east, but they came with a goal in mind, and in the same with the president did not sure that the first one, he had to show a that this one, and make the case for leadership and credibility. Taken as a group, those debates did exactly that. Youve got to learn a lot more about these men, and how they interact sidebyside. When they shook hands last month, when will they see each other again, and voluntarily . A picnic. [laughter] right. I was reminded of how much it benefited governor romney to the dissipate in the 19 debates to participate in those 19 debates during the republican primaries. Participate in the 19 debates in the republican primaries. The president had not done it in four years. That works to governor romneys benefit. Done it innt hadnt four years. That is an interesting observation and it leads to my next question, which is in this campaign, what do you think has had more of an impact, the debates or Campaign Advertising . One year ago, everybody was talking about the money that would be put in advertising, and what kind of impact that could have on the outcome, and there was an escalating spending war going on. Do the debates have more of an intact, or is it too early to tell . It depends who you are talking about. If you are living in about one dozen states, those ads are killing you. Maybe less than a dozen, maybe eight states. Meaning there are so many. We get a little bit here in washington because we are right next to virginia and maryland has big initiatives on the ballot, but if you are in ohio, colorado, nevada, florida, he wants to kill somebody. You want to kill somebody. You want those ads off your tv. If you are living in the rest of the country, those debates, which were wellwatched, i think will have a much greater effect on you than advertising. Is there not a point of diminishing returns . You are inundated with so much, you tune out. They must have studied this somehow, or why would they spend so much money doing it . Well, i do think that pete advertising directed at governor romney and the bain capital seem theme, that they laid people off, money was sent overseas, and the attack on his business background, there is no question that did damage to governor romney. In a way it connects to the debate, because people were going around saying the debates might not matter this year. People were making their minds. Then, lo and behold, who would have predicted what happened at the first debate happened . It did matter and i would argue they do matter. Most. Mitt romney had had a bad debate, instead of the other way around, we would not see the race that we are seeing today. For the reasons gwen ifill articulated, they do matter in this broad sense, but we also saw movement in the swing states. I think there must be diminishing returns at some point. Sometimes the same advertisement is backtoback. The whole is that for . I am voting against that, im so angry at hearing it. Smarter people than me about advertising it is like groundwater, they just wanted to be in your consciousness in no way you do not even know it. In a way that you do not even know it. They would not do it if it was not still effective. How many times you talk to voters and say what do you know about this guy, and they begin to repeat to you wordforword advertisements, because it has sunk into their brain. They think it is their words. Interesting. We have two clips from your convention coverage, and there is a memorable exchange with mark shields, and then we will show the audience how you close out your coverage of the Dnc Convention in september. Lets roll those clips, please. You have commented on this frequently, that this is still very much playing to constituencies that are already democratic, not independent or swing voters, but at some point when does he turn the corner . From 7 00 until 10 00, it has been nothing but based. It has still been harassing the erogenous channel is it the verizon as zones of the political body. He is out of control. With that, we end our coverage of this final light of the Democratic Convention in charlotte. I am gwen ifill, thank you for being with us. Major funding has been provided by [applause] i think we did it after the republican convention. We just wanted it to be over. We had just spent two weeks in a tiny both with our dearest, closest friends. We got on the air every night at about 6 00, and get off around 11 00. We are on cspan, so i cannot say what i wanted to say, but say things did not happen because we were in that booth. Did you have a special sense of accomplishment . Because of the two women we really did not think about it that way. We like to think that we were chosen because we have a lot of experience, between us, what is it, a couple of hundred years . Wait a second. For me. She has only been active for a few years. Because we have been doing this for a long time, covering politics, we love covering politics and we were excited going to the convention. It is a fascinating campaign, even back when one candidate was way ahead of the other one, and now it is close, it has been fascinating the hallway. And we cover conventions in a different way. We are between cspan which is a fixed camera, and the networks which have people talking all the time. It is a mixed bag. As a result, we make more of an investment. Judy was at news hour and then left and came back. We know you were chosen on merit, but i would say you were an inspiration to young women all over the country. We will take that. It was great for them to see you, and for all of us who watched your coverage. The news media spends millions of dollars covering the conventions, but some say they have become more of a staged commercial for the candidate rather than a news event. I would be interested in your observations about that, and do you think the coverage of conventions is still important, and how has it changed over the years . I have an oldfashioned opinion, that it is not asking too much for each Political Party to get a few days of the four years to say to the believe. They do it in a much more stage, orchestrated and carefully scripted way than they used to. The First Convention i covered for a cds affiliate in atlanta was 1972 Democratic Convention in miami. I did not have a convention. This was the night George Mcgovern was speaking at 3 00 a. M. , except in the nomination. I was there to cover the Georgia State delegation, which was having tomorrow over who would be seated and who was not. Contrast that, which was so unpredictable, to today, where everything is by the book. Every day, we are given book that tells you by the minute, practically by the second, how long each speaker will speak. Ha ha and, by the way, they never do it. It does not work. We did not know about Clint Eastwood and the chair. We did not know about clint, and we did not know bill clinton would be the firstplace winner. Even though it is perfectly orchestrated, if you watch the Democratic Convention, it was fascinating, but in the end, the entire convention was about women, and it was about two states ohio and michigan. How many times did you hear about the auto bailout . I think it was the nun who did not talk about that. The only one. It was astonishing, what they are saying and how they are a story. He did not have to say lets open the microphone and let them say what they want. We long since given up on the notion that the nomination is taking place at the convention, so what do you want to know about these people that want to be present president . Because of the collapsed convention, because they thought the hurricane was coming and did not come, there were a couple of scheduling changes that governor mitt romney is still paying for. He had a wonderful video about his life that told you as much about him in the most flattering way possible that almost nobody saw it there were not watching pbs or cspan because it came on before the networks came on. Ok, cnn, too. Here was the problem. The night that ann romney spoke, that was the big night introducing ann romney, his secret weapon, but instead day ended with chris christie, who was mean, and left a different taste in your mouth. It might take some time to make up for those miscues. We do not want to suggest that we just put it out there and say here is what theyre doing. We are there to contrast and analyzed. Also, three days i think they will go back to four days. They had each done three days. I think it will get less and less. One of our favorite interviews was when Rick Santorum came by and he decided to be honest about what he thought about mitt romney. He said when i debated him, he was just talking like this, and we kept saying really . We said do you want to stay and talk more after the speech, and he said ok. It was clear that even after all of the republican debates and primary encounters, that the people who ran against mitt romney were not really fond of him still, even at the convention. We had Speaker John Boehner tell us, he may have said this elsewhere, but he said this to us i never read the platforms. This is after the convention. He said you are going to get it all on one page. Nobody reads the platform. We did. [laughter] what a waste of time. What can we look for in the next two weeks between now and election day . What do you anticipate . Fasten your seat belt. You have seen some of the silly rhetoric we will get for the next two weeks, but more than that, what you are not seeing is what is going on, and that is those getoutthevote efforts, and those are the most intense things. Both these campaigns are doing they have these 14yearolds talking to their friends on the social network, so there is a lot of stuff going out there that is not obvious to the cameras eye, and that is what the election is. This has always been a base election. It has always come down to this. Whose base is more excited . In 2008, they got their people out for president obama in a storybook turnout and election team. I do not know if it is there, because they are driven by energy and passion, and were not sure if it is still there. This is about the phone calls, the pickups we will pick you up at 8 00, bring four of your friends. And make sure you bring an i. D. To the polls. We looked at this through the veil of how can we tell this story, and it is hard to tell the story in hiding. We gauge what they think is important by where they campaign, the tonight show, letterman, a couple states in between. And mtv. Howe trying to figure out do we get to the story that does not want to get told. We were having a discussion, how do you get inside this voter turnout operation . How do you figure out how people are using technology to get to voters . What are we missing . That will be the thing where there will be some crazy thing that comes out of the blue, all those distractions will happen. Donald trump will say something. What is happening to drive to turn out and drive the outcome, i agree it is the base, it is who is more excited. Now that the republicans see a potential that they can take this, they are more excited. One of the things we can do, and all three of us have done it, and to the extent we can, is talk to voters. I will go out the last weekend. To me, that is the point of contact. If you can get voters to talk to you about what theyre thinking, if you talk to them enough, you will get a sense of what is going to happen. Granted, it needs to be in an area where there is a variety of views, but you will pick up from the diehard democrats and will come through. The vaunted i4 corridor, the motorcycle bikers, people in sun city, standing in lines to see their candidate. In the end, they are speaking in ways that strategists and pundits and we do not. If we are smart, we listen. I confess, i get this tingle on Election Night up and down my back, and i get teary when i think about we are one of very few paces, on the planet where we can change our leadership without firing a gun. For as many years as i have been doing it, i get so excited. It is amazing. [applause] i would agree, who is going to be most motivated to get out and vote. One of your observations, in the immediate aftermath of the primaries, the defeated candidates were not but they see more trouble now now that the race is close. It will be very interesting to watch what happens over the next couple weeks. Now i would like to take some questions from the audience for our distinguished panel, our own town hall version of the program. You mean we have to talk to voters . [laughter] as those from the audience approach the microphones to ask any questions they might have, i will ask you all if all three of you have twitter handles. Has the social media changed, affected the way you cover politics . We have decided i have a twitter account, and i have on occasion tweeted, but i feel like you are 140 characters away from being fired. It seems dangerous. Id look at it and i follow a conversation, but im pretty darn cautious about the sorts of things gwen does tweet. I use it as a newsgathering tool. You can use it as a promotional tool. If people say nasty things to you, you block them. There is no other reason to get offended. I find it useful. I find out things from twitter i would otherwise not know. It would take me to stories i would not otherwise read. It is useful. The campaigns are using it bigtime now. We are going to take questions from the audience, and as we do, i would suggest that our panelists, if you get up and starts circling each other, i will call the gendarmes to separate you. My name is emily. I want to thank the three of you for your excellence in journalism. I appreciate what you are doing for women in journalism. Im curious, based on your experience, what do you think needs to happen in contemporary society before a woman could be elected president . Someone has got to come up Hillary Clinton came close last campaign right up until the time she did not. There is always going to be something that is a block. None of us can say that this time four years ago or maybe five years ago that we thought that barack obama would be the first africanamerican president. It did not seem like society was ready for it. Society is ready for the case to be made. It can happen if it is the right campaign. I do not see any reason why we would not see a woman president. It could happen in 2016, very soon. Winning candidate. That is one of the things that came out of the conventions this year from both parties. Yes, please. I have talked to members of the commission that had been told one of the problems is with the journalists moderators is they want to keep to try to ply their trade. Im glad you are trying to ply their trade, because voters want advocates. I wonder, do you see yourselves as advocates for the voters, and do you see the commission or the campaigns trying to get rid of the problem of the journalists trying to ply their trades . You know, i do not know. I commit acts of journalism every day and it is a natural thing. They want journalists. The commission was great to me, and i never felt shmushed by the commission, like they did not want me to go out and moderate in the broad parameters of what they gave us. I did not have at all any problem with the way the commission did this. Look, i considered myself an advocate for voters. I consider myself incredibly privileged to have this, the frontrow seat in history, to have seen what i have seen, and i feel an absolute commitment to share what i see and to share what i learn whoever is willing to listen and in an honest way. Applying that to moderator, to me, bob is a journalist, jim lehrer is a journalist, i am a journalist, martha is a journalist, so we went there to be who we were and have a debate. I did not feel like they are trying to it is not advocacy, but it is doing what we do every day, which is providing clarity, asking questions, and hoping and pressing for answers. It is a different format for doing that. Yes, sir. This year we have seen the rise of the fact checker and increasing the statements in both advertising and by the candidates. It seems that that has been on an uptick for a long time. I wonder, the thought occurs that this might be the people in each candidates camp dont know each other. They say things that they would have tried out before had they been in contact with each other. Might it be a good idea like a Bipartisan Policy Center to sponsor a get together of a social nature between members of the Heritage Foundation and their families and the center for American Progress . I wish beer could solve it. Things are very polarized. I think all of the misstatements is literally ignorance. They dont look at things the way the other guys do and they dont understand the way the other guy looks at things. I think you have a point in this way where politics runs into this fierce kind of partisanship is wind motivation is subscribes to a position. These people feel this way because they feel they hate told people. These people feel that way because they are socialists. Once people begin to describe motivation to one another, that is when the partisanship comes in. I did a piece one time with senator leahy, a liberal democrat from vermont and senator lugar, the outgoing conservative senator from indiana. They came to the senate roughly at the same time in the same decade and virginia members on the agriculture committee. It is shaped in a horseshoe in those committees of they were literally looking at each other. They would say, mr. Chairman, what is that . The chairman would shut them up and they bonded over that peri. They did lots of agriculture legislation and other legislation together over 30 years in their time together. They have children whose homes back up against each other in the same neighborhood in virginia. They would find themselves in a playground in that neighborhood with their grandchildren and they called that the bipartisan playground. They do not look at each other as if the other one is evil. When you were standing on the sideline watching your son plays soccer on the same team as the other guys son, you know he is not evil but he has a different opinion that you may disagree with. They have huge, deep differences that are very hard to get together over a beer but the ferocity and the viciousness that we sometimes see has to do with the fact that they dont hang out with each other anymore. They look at each other as evil people who do not share their same values. That is a wonderful story because that is true. When i first came to washington in the jimmy carter a white house, we used to go out and go to dinner or any van to or an event, there were people and we tell the. We have got away from that over the years. Members of Congress Leave their families back in their districts. The other party becomes the other people you dont know. Familiarity does bring the opportunity for people to Work Together and work on the process. It doesnt mean youll drop your principles and suddenly work everything out but at least you can have a conversation. The other side is not evil incarnate. That is true in the talk about congress. When we talk of a campaigns, and someone says its wrong, candidates continue to say it. They meant to save remanded to not care if you call on it, they just keep doing it. This puts the onus on the voter and the consumer of the information to decide that this person is saying something over and over again that is not true. What is your judgment about that individual . Think they will stop making inaccurate statements because they like the other guy. They are doing with of forethought. Your right, on the campaign trail is all about messaging and framing the argument. That may mean you will exaggerate or embellish. Youll keep on doing that if you have to. It sounds like an increase in distortions since the rise of fact checkers. We just know about them. They were probably always there and did not know about them. Thank you to the three of you for doing such an amazing job covering these debates. Martha raddatz but did really well with the vicepresident ial debate. I would like to ask if your role as a woman especially in light of womens roles in this campaign in terms of the war on women or the statistical significance of that the country being female, as a woman and a moderator and a journalist, is it important to shed light on womens issues during the campaign . Asked this a lot since before the debate. Every day of my life, i have gotten up female. [laughter] i dont know what i feel how much of how i approach settings is because i am female or because i am from the midwest. I estimated the impact i didnt know it had been 20 years since a woman moderated the president ial debate. Gwynn had been out there and did two debates in a row with the vicepresident ial. So i wasnt computing vicepresident and president. I didnt realize it had been that long. It was nod until i started these young women, literally grabbing me on the street going, im so excited to see a woman up there. And then i would get older women going you go. If young people come away from judy and gwynns show and think i can do anything and if older women come away and say damn, i am still peaking. I am so for it. But i dont think its put so simply with your gender. I had add one thing. I completely agree with candy. I call it the veil of experience, whatever it is we are. When i moderated my viers vicepresident ial debate, i remember thick the way we all do, what can i ask that no one else is going to ask. What question can i bring up and i know my veil of experience, im an africanamerican woman, so you get the black thing, the woman thing, the short hair thing, you get it all. So im thinking what can i bring to this debate that i know nobody else would think to ask and that would shedd some light on shed some light on these individuals and i came across a statistic that showed that africanamerican women, heterosexual women had an higher increase in aidsh. I. V. Infection than any other group and i asked what would they do about that. Thats a statistic that might not have caught anybody elses ear, so i asked dick cheney and john edwards and they looked at me and dick cheney said, really . And john edwards by the way, i prefaced this by saying i want to talk to about aids, but not aids in africa. I want to talk about aids here at home and john edwards started, replied by asking about aids in africa, talking about aids in africa. He didnt hear what i had state because he came prepared thinking shes going to ask me about aids in africa, a black woman and he came prepared with an answer that he gave anyway. Now, i could have been depressed that neither of them answered the question, but years later, people still come up to me and say it was so interesting that neither of them had the answer to that question. Think was not a priority for either of these candidates. Ive learned so much that day, so time a nonanswer i take solace in this is an answer. You get more nonanswers than answers. Right. So we love those nonanswers. We have time for two more questions. Good evening. My name is it phillies cunningham, im with the joint center for political and economic studies. My question is, these days, youre hearing so much about the polls, every day theres a new poll out, one saying one thing, another saying another. Tell us about it. And im wondering, in your opinion, what impact do you think they have and which ones you put stock in, if any. Very good question. Well, first of all, there are way too many of them. There are zillions of them, we are swimming in polls and we hate them but we cant live without them. I find myself drawn to the polling websites several times a day, and i dont like that, because i think it begins to drive everything about your understanding and your concept of whats happening in the race. And on the one hand, polls as a whole, you can talk about which polls are better than other polls and which methodology is better than other. As a whole, they do tell you something about whats happening. In that contest and we do know that, so they deserve our attention. But should they be driving so much of the conversation . I dont think so. Having said that, do i think theres anything we can do about it . No. We just have to be judicious in our use of them. I mean, for example, i know in the news hour, we talk about the polls. When its appropriate, but it doesnt drive our constant coverage. Do you think it drives the turnout . But it does drive what the campaigns do and for that reason, we want to understand why they are going to this state, not that state, because theyre read egg the polls. One of the president s top advisers told someone in the debate last night, i read today, im waiting for the Outback Steakhouse poll next, because there are so many polls that we cannot judge the credibility. What the polls can do, use correctly she saw that on twitter. Thats why twitter is really useful. Actually, i did. But whats interesting about the polls, if you use them correctly, what they tell you not the horse race so much, but what it tells you about whos speak egg and why, why the president is who the president is losing ground, not just that hes losing ground, but horis he targeting, why is he targeting women, why are we seeing ads the way were seeing them, why are they speaking to this group and not that group and how theyre speaking to them. We could see the way that mitt romney behaved last night, which he said, i agree with the president , he was very mild. That was a poll driven, ill eat my hat. And thats important for us to know as well, but we have to kind of be careful about the ones we con sometime. I think the top numbers are less valuable, as the inside numbers. Why has this number dropped . Oh, because women think that mitt romney is too eager to go to war. And then you get the debate such as we saw last night. And again, i agree i hate the polls because i feel like they just suck the surprise out of everything. But they the campaigns have them, and this is what they are driven by, and so its important to know what theyre doing with them, and it does tell you about what messages are having resonance, but do i agree with you now . Of course the poll thats most preliable to cnn or c poll, but having said that, there are loads of polls. Theres real clear politics that they average the polls and cnn does this as well, where they throw out one of the highest one and the lowest one and then they average it all up and that will give you an idea, but i think as a viewer, you know, im not sure they mean much to you, except for in the interpretation as it applies to what the campaign is doing. Thank you. Last question. I had a question thats maybe a little bit off from actually talking about the horse race, but more specific to the skill sets that you describe that make for a good moderator of la debatend i think soften a debate and i think so often when journalists talk about the questions, we dont know cuss on the other side, the listening aspect and im always amazed, candiescandy, your ability to ad questions and then youre responding on the spot and in the moment as you responded before. So i was wondering the three of you, as being pros and journalists, what technique or intentionality is there behind your listening whether youre both moderating a debate or a high stakes forum like that or just simply interviewing people. I dont care about time. Theres nothing more important than listening, and you know, theres people in your ear telling you how many more minutes they have. When youre interviewing somebody and whos coming next and when the commercial is com coming, and there were rob obviy no commercials in the president ial and vicepresident ial race and theres a lot going on and you can be sometimes i get really angry, because a guy is going and so candy, thats why today im going to tell you and ok, when hes 15ished, would you have and someone is talking in your ear so its like youre crazy, so and sometimes i will flip it out of my ear because im trying to listen to whats being said. If youre not listening, youre not having a conversation. I wish i would have known this before we started tonight. But i was just going to stay, you prize directors, the folks who often give you the cue or the producers who do it briefly, they can say it and they know when to come in. They come in right after usually the best time for me is right after youve finished a question youre saying that and kathleen is sitting right there, our producer is sitting right there who talks in other ear. Kathleen knows how to do that. You know, the truth is, the other thing that makes you listen, is fear. Complete terror that youre going to miss something. That the guy will just have admitted to killing his wife while you were thinking, how much time is left and its true, and that you will and theres never a worse moment than than sinking feeling that someone just said something and you dont know what it was. You missed the last three words and you have to come up you cant say what . Sometimes you can tell whats happened. Watch someone go, oh, and they is that right looking at their papers, because all of a sudden youve lost your train of thought. But it is a the reason why we all said what a great question, its a real special skill which is learned and acquired. You can tell the difference when you watch people do interviews who arent listening to the answers, who are just plowing ahead and looking at the next this can on the list and thats not the person you want to be, thats not the interviewer you want to be, its not the husband horwife you want to be. You want to always be listening and then integrate that into the next part of the question. Its something which i never feel comfortable that ive gotten it done. I think its a continual learning experience. Im curious, are you a journalist or do you want to be a journalist . Good for you. What did we just stay . Were you listening. I think the other thing and i dont know what you all do, but i rarely will write down my questions. Ill write down a subject matter, like, dont forget to ask him about the auto bailout or dont forget to ask him this, but if you get so wedded to that next question, youre just not paying attention to it. Its a little i do sometimes think what if i run out of questions, but then you say hey, thanks very much, thanks for stopping by. Take questions from the audience. Im out of questions. 20 minutes to go. People do did in different ways, but i think if you 18th an interview is not heres my eight questions. An interview is heres my eight questions and lets have a conversation. Thank you all very, very much for being here this evening. Enjoyed it. [applause] i really want to thank you for all your doing to keep our citizens informed and engaged as Thomas Jefferson said, the best way to preserve our liberties is to have an informed citizenry and the three of you have done a superb job of that throughout your careers. Were just very pleased and honored that youre with us here tonight. Thanks for all you do. Thank you very much. Great fun. [applause] republican vicepresident ial candidate paul ryan begins his 400mile bus tour starting in philadelphia. Well bring you his live remarks in about 20 minutes. At 11 30 a. M. Eastern. Then later today, vicepresident joe biden will campaign with his wife jill biden and son, delaware attorney general bo biden, theyll attend a grassroots event in lynchburg, virginia. The Romney Campaign and Ryan Campaign have both cancelled events in Virginia Beach, virginia, because of Hurricane Sandy. And tomorrow morning, on our news Makers Program, kentucky senator rand paul will talk about his support for mitt romney. Hell also talk about his role in congress and his views on u. S. Foreign aid. Join us on sunday for our live news Makers Program beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern right after washington journal here on cspan. As we approach election day, cspan is asking middle and High School Students to send a message to the president. In a short video, students will answer the question, whats the most important issue the president should consider in 2013. For a chance to win the grand prize of 5,000, with 50,000 in total prizes. Thank you, st. Augustine. I brought the friends with me. This is miles. Say hi, miles. And parker, this is my other grandson, parker made his own sign. These are my some of my grandkids. Im so blessed. Its so wonderful to have them with me today and my gorgeous daughterinlaw mary. As you can see, shes expecting another grandchild, so were were thrilled about that. Its wonderful to have all these grandsons. Everyone knows i have five sons. Everyone knows a lot of you know i have 18 grandchildren. What you probably dont know, 13 of them are boys. We sure are glad that we like boys it in our family. It sure makes it a lot easier. I think that boys add such a dimension to my life. They taught me a lot of patience. You know the other things the boys taught me which is great. Hey it all on the table. And then its over. Its amazing what you learn from children. And its great. I am so thrilled to have had these extraordinary women that talked to you earlier. Are we not lucky to have such strong women . [applause] theres probably no one on this stage can appreciate the sentiment im about to talk to you better than cindy mccain, when after the last debate, when her husband won fair and square, i looked at the camera, i got myself a video camera and i looked at it and i made this video for mitt and i stayed sweetheart, im never doing this again. She understands that sentiment. And he looked at it, he laughed, he said, you say that after every pregnancy. So we women know what its like after we give birth. No, im never doing that one again. Gladly we forget. It was an interesting decision than as you might imagine, around the Romney Family table, when we had to decide whether we were going to step forward again. The first time it was quite easy. All of us daughters in law, the sons, great idea. This will be great, this will be a wonderful experience. You ask them again and theyre like oh, no, we dont want to do that again. And theres a real truth to that, and its really hard on families, and its really hard to step forward and its hard to see someone you love mischaracterized, abused, lied about, all these things that happen when you step forward. But why do you step forward . Its because you love this country. [applause] so this was the question i asked mitt, when we were making this decision, because all the boys were giving me all the good arguments as to why not to do it again. And i said, you know what . Its i know, its hard. I dont want basically, it was what i was telling them is talk to the hand. Were so famous for that, some women are, its like i dont want to hear this, just talk to the hand. This was the question i asked mitt. I said, i know the primary process is difficult. If you win, great. I know the general election process is difficult. I know its difficult to defeat an incumbent president. But i have to you have to tell me the answer to this, because to have gone through this whole process, this difficult process, and if you finally get there, if by chance you can finally get there, and you tell me, oh, its too late, its too late to save the country. I need you to answer me this question. Is it too late, is it past time to save america . No. Thats what mitt said. He said its getting late but its not too late yet and i said thats all i need to know. Go staff america. [applause] go save america. [applause] so we are down to the final days of the campaign and it is exciting out there. I can tell you the momentum is unbelievable. We feel it. We feel it from those folks that are here. We love that. You guys give us so much energy. Thank you so much. [applause] we love you ann thank you. So here we are, looking forward. Looking forward to the next, what is it, how many days, whose counting . Is it 11. Thats better than yesterday, which was 12. So were very excited, as you can see, the momentum is swinging our way. The thing i loved about the debates, guess what . An unfiltered view of my husband. Yeah [applause] ive been waiting for that for a very long time. When hundreds of millions of dollars, close to i dont know, half a billion dollars is spent on negative ads describing my husband as a person that doesnt care, a person thats out of touch, let me tell you, im here to tell you about the person that is in touch and that does care. I appreciated the fact that the audience got to see an unfiltered view thats how many close to 70 Million People turned in the first debate and all these things that were said about myth, they stayed wait a minute, thats not the guy i see on that stage. Theres someone else on that stage that i like. Hes the guy that has the vision for the future, that understands whats going on in peoples pocketbooks, that understands this is an economic recovery, that is not a recovery at all. That millions and millions of americans are hurting. And guess who is hurting the most . Women. Women are hurting the most. It is unbelievable that more women have fall then to poverty in the last four years than men. That it is more women have lost their jobs. Than men in the last four years. Women are hurting. And guess whos hurting the very most . Single moms. Moms that are having a tough time to begin with, theyre the ones that are hurting the most, show i have a message for all of those women out there. Help is on the wait a minute. Way. [applause] and to answer that charge that mitt doesnt care, this is the hardest one for me, because i know the man, ive been married to him for 43 years, weve dated longer than that. Ive known him for 47 years. That doesnt make me very young, does it . But live long enough to know this guy and i appreciated that at the convention as well and there was a terrific story that was told at the convention and friends of ours, ted was a firefighter from med ford, massachusetts and their son david, 14 years old, got diagnosed with a terminal cancer. And how hard that was in the family. And so my husband, here he is, now father of four at that time, very busy in his professional life, what does he do . He takes time out of his life to visit a 14yearold boy, just have time with the boy that is so scared and so frightened. Takes time to know that the parents of that boy, know that theyre not doing this alone, that they have friends with them that are going to suffer through this very difficult thing in their lives, so friends the bonds of friendship, that gets developed when you really go into the dark places in peoples lives, because we all know every one of us has a dark place that we will have in our life aft some point. We cannot escape this World Without having hardship and heartache. It happens to all of us. So where was mitt . He was at that boys bedside table, and as he got to know him, he found that david liked fireworks, so when david was in and out of the hospital by the way for about seven months, in and out, in and out and one of those times when david was out of the hospital, mitt made sure to get him a great big box of fireworks so that his fireman father could safely make sure that they were set off. Another visit. Mitt is with david and david asked a very, very tough question of mitt. Hes now recognizing that hes losing this battle. With life. And he says to mitt, whats next . Whats going to happen to me . And mitt, with all the confidence in the world, said david, do not fear. You are going to be fine and youre going to live after this life. Youre going to have an eternal life. You are going to have people on the other shied that are going to greet you and love you and cherish you. Youre going to be just fine, david. Youre going to be a valiant fighter in this life, but your life is going to go on. That gave david so much comfort. Another time mitt is visiting david and he knows mitt has a law degree and he said can you help me write my will . We all know that a 14yearold boy doesnt have many possessions but that was important to david. Next visit, mitt takes his yellow pad and sits down with david and says ok, what do you care about . What do you want to pass on . His skateboard and rifle, so he makes sure to write down that the skateboard will go to his friend and the rifle to his brother. Thats the kind of person mitt is. And so the final request that david makes of mitt as he really is ebbing his life is ebbing away, he stays mitt, will you please be the person that gives the eulogy at my funeral . That is the character of the person we need in the white house. [applause] so we never know the decisions that are going to come across a president s desk an we know that theyre hard, but its comforting to know that the person thats going to be sitting in that desk has integrity and decency and goodness. [applause] and i will tell you this about mitt. He will always make decisions and he will always decide what is best for america, not whats best for him or the polls. What is best for america. So were looking forward to the next 11 days. Were excited about it. I will tell you, another fun story that i had a few months back when barbara bush was introducing me and what a thrill it was for me to know that barbara bush was going to introduce me at something and i am such a fan of hers and by the way, when you meet her in person, shes just the same, outspoken, frank, but absolutely loveable. And she was so cute at this event because it was a fund raiser in houston, and she at the event, was chars tieing everyone in the chastising everyone in the room that had just given them money and she was telling them they hadnt done enough and only barbara bush can get away with that and i thought isnt that amazing. She really is just like we imagine her, you know. And you can just imagine her scolding the president of the United States. That would have been fun to say and he says that by the way. He says i watch my ps and qs around my mom, let me tell you that. She said Something Interesting when she introduced me. This is the most important election of my lifetime and i thought wow, shes not young. Shes about 86 years old. Never and you think of Something Else, shes been the wife of a president and the mother of a president. And this is the most important election of her lifetime. Wow. That was something. And you know what, it is the most important election of our lifetime. So we all know, thats why youre all here. You know why mitt is running. Hes running because he loves america and he knows hes got to get it right this time and we all know were running out of time. Just like we stayed when we started my thoughts with you, were running out of time. We have to get it right this time. We have to do everything we can. We have to listen to barbara bush. We cant just do what she says, just participate a little bit. You have to really participate. You have to really work, because this is going to make all the difference in the world. This is going to change the course of america. So here we are, were ready. Im excited and i will tell you one other thing and i said this at the convention. Ive seen mitt at all these different convention, ive seen him succeed at everything he does, as a father, as a business guy, at the olympics, as a governor. I will tell you one thing, he does not fail. And we will not fail america. Sore lets give him the chance to make sure that we get it right this time, that we get america back on track and lets make sure we do everything we can. Listen to barbara bush, get out there, do everything we can to make america prosperous, strong and good again. We are by the way going to win this thing in november. And im going to close with my favorite thing, which is god bless you, but especially, god bless america. Thank you. I was born free free, like a river raging strong its the wind im facing chasing a dream, chasing father time as Hurricane Sandy approaches the east coast, the president ial campaigns are traveling across the country in the final stretch to election day. The storm so far has affected the romney and Biden Campaign events in Virginia Beach. Vicepresident joe biden will Campaign Later today in lynchburg in virginia, well have that live for you at 4 30 p. M. Eastern. He then travels monday to key New Hampshire, where he will campaign with caroline kennedy. The vicepresident will then continue tuesday to worcester in ohio. Meanwhile, congressman ryan is in ohio all weekend. A 400mile bus tour and he will continue that trip throughout the state tomorrow and campaign with mitt romney in marian and then coming up of course in just a bit here, about 11 30 a. M. , about now, we will be taking you to Zanesville High School nancy reagahigh school inohio. A look at the battleground statements. Weve been doing a watch journal, this one, a short focus on wisconsin. As we focus on the state of wisconsin, and joining us also from milwaukee, is craig gilbert, hes with the milwaukee journal, mr. Gilbert, thanks for joining us. Nice to be with you. A couple of facts according to what weve gathered when it comes to the states, when itfact comes to wisconsin specifically, were looking at 10 electoral votes. Currently, were looking at an Unemployment Rate of 7. 3 and in 2008, the president won reelection. 13. 9 percentage points. Mr. Gilbert, can we start with the economics of wisconsin, specifically with the Unemployment Rate. Can you give us and elabor rate on the Unemployment Rate what it means for the state not only economically but politically. Sa the Unemployment Rate is below the national rate. If you really look at the trends in terms of job growth in wisconsin, our job growth has been actually slower than the national average, certainly slower than ohio, which, among has hadound states, pretty a pretty positive economic trend. Better than nevada at the other end of the spectrum, but youc know, kind of in that gray area, i think, for president obama and also in for governor walker, we just had a huge fierce debate over the recall of governor walker. Economy and jobs were central to that debate. A lotve of conflicting and duelg statistics, but the bottom linet that you know, sort of somewhat sluggish job growth, some positive trends in manufacturing. But nothing that would i think, either disqualify the president or ensure his reelection. Looking at individual people there in wisconsin, how does the state break down when it comes to republicans, independents, democrats . E we dont have registration bt party, so you really have to just look at our political history. Wisconsin is obviously a swing state, thats why were talking about it. Its voted democratic for president since in everyng election since Ronald Reagan was on the ballot. A little misleading though,es because its oftenid extremely close and often very close to t sort of where the country is as a whole. It was the closest state in the country in 2004, was even closer in 2000 than it was in 2004, but you had this sort of big blowout victory for president , for barack obama in 2008. For president for barack obama in 2008. Democrats tended to dominate the u. S. Senate election. We had a big republican tidal wave in 2010. If they win the senate seat this november, it will be the First Time Since the 1950s we have had thought to republican senators. The state swings back and forth between the two parties. Host as far as the math is concerned, what areas of the state trench republican and what areas trent democrat what areas of the state trend republican and what areas trends democrat . Guest the areas for the democrats are routed milwaukee and madison. The classic areas for republicans are in southeastern wisconsin around Milwaukee County and heading up along the eastern coast of wisconsin. A lot of wisconsin really does swing. There are counties in Northeastern Wisconsin around green bay and western wisconsin that swung huge for obama in 2008 and swung back in 2010 and the recall fight in 2012. There were counties that brothel, won signed 10 points and scott that barack obama won by 10 points and Governor Scott won. Those will be counties to watch in Northeastern Wisconsin and western wisconsin come election day. Host how does early voting factor into election day . Guest early voting is less of a factor in wisconsin than in the world the other states. It is technically known as in person absentee vote. The window for early voting is narrower and harder to track because we do not have registration by party. We have to figure out which side is winning the early vote and it is more difficult. I cannot say with confidence who has the advantage in early voting in wisconsin. The early vote will be significant, but it will not be at the level of states like colorado. Host art voters required to show are voters required to show i day . Guest they will not be required to show id. Host what is the system in place in the state when it comes to how the votes are tabulated . Guest optical scanners are the prevailing system in wisconsin. It has proven to be a reliable system. It has held up during three counts we have had. That is a virtue of being easy to administer and preserving a paper record. That is the system in wisconsin. We have had some close elections and we have had controversies and debates over the Voting System and the intensity of the election. Those will continue. If it is a close election in 2012, anything like it was in 2004 and 2000 when the margin for president was under half of a percentage point, i am sure those margins will continue. Thou shalt vote in wisconsin. That is the history of the state. To give you an example, our turnout was higher in 2004 than it was in 2008, partly because barack obama opened up a lead. It was still action in high. In 2004, we had almost three quarters of voting age adults vote in the state. The numbers were higher if you were looking at those eligible to vote. In some parts of the state when turnout was higher, we are talking about 85 or 90 of registered voters to voted. That is part of the political culture of even in not a central races, we have seen extraordinary turnout. We have had remarkable turnout for governor in the recall fight. We had a state Supreme Court race this spring, a nonpartisan race on a Spring Ballot in which the turnout was fired that in some states for governor in 2010. Host state of wisconsin, a battleground state and one of the focuses of us here on c span. Paul ryan is trekking 400 miles across ohio this weekend. He started this morning in new philadelphia. The gradeall Equipment Company. Next up is zanesville, ohio. We will take you there live. A look at the ground games of the obama and Romney Campaigns. Shes a National Political reporter and is here to talk to us about the ground game in campaign 2012. Welcome to the program. What exactly is a ground game . Mrs. The political component known as field organization, so all of the things that the campaigns do to connect with voters, individually, on the ground, through field offices, through phone calls, and knocking on doors, and trying to drive people out to the polls, so beyond, you know, what the candidates do, when theyre giving speeches on the stump, and beyond the ads that you see on tv and beyond the crafting of the message that the speechwriters and the ad writers do, this is the part of the campaign that comes down to connecting with voters, and making sure they vote. How important is the ground game this year compared with previous elections . I think it tends to be a pretty consistent part of any political campaign. Its something that democrats tend to emphasize a little bit more than republicans, although one of the most impressive field organized campaigns that weve seen in recent memory was the 2004 george w. Bush campaign. Karl rove engineered a very impressive microtargeting effort, where they started to integrate Peoples Consumer preferences, with their voting data, to try to more precise, so instead of just saying ok, were going to target everyone that we know is, say, you know, a latino woman, you can actually individually start to target people based on what kind of car they drive or what kind of cereal they eat, all kind factors from when you fill out surveys or that kind of thing. The Obama Campaign did that even more impressive in 2008 and theyve been building on that ever since, so theyve built a formidable, digital integrated data targeting effort that they have put together with this vast network of field offices on the ground, and neighborhood teams and volunteers and through facebook and everything else. So they know practically who all of their voters are. The millions and millions of people that they expect or hope they can drive out to the polls to vote for obama. Molly ball is a staff writer covering National Politics at the atlantic, here to talk to us about the ground game for both candidates. You can read her work at the atlantic. Com politic. If you want to talk to her in person, pick up the phone, give us a call. 2025853881 for republicans. 2025853880 for democrats. Independents, 2025853882. You can also reach us to us via social media, twitter, facebook, and email. So tell us, where is the ground gaming best and for whom . Well, what i did, in reporting this story, was i went out and visited field offices in a bunch of different swing states, and what i tried to do was pick sort of a random, many sort of a swing county, but to go to the same place for both campaigns, and to drop in unannounced and just see what i could see, so instead of getting a tour where you tend to get a dog and pony show, just to show up, and see what was there. And what you see is not only is there a yonttative difference, because quantitative difference, because obama has over 800 of the field offices concentrated in the swing state, 8 or 10 or 12 of the states that are crucial in this election, the Romney Campaign that is about 300, so theres a quantitative difference and there is some Political Science Research Showing that just having that field office, on the ground in a Certain Community does increase your share of the vote. But then theres a qualitative difference as well. The Obama Campaign, its almost like a starbucks or a mcdonalds, a franchise operation, where every office is very much the same, its all controlled by headquarters, theyre all working off the same game plan, right down to every Single Office has what looks like this sort of nice grassroots touch, a poster on the wall that says, i support the president because, and then everybody has handwritten in their reasons they love obama underneath. Every Single Office has that same poster, so its very standardized, very controlled, very disciplined and theyre all working off the same plan. Romney actually does not have his own ground game at all. Its the r. N. C. , the Republican National committee that is operating the ground game for him and thats not necessarily a disadvantage, but it means he doesnt have that standardization, he is much more at the mercy at the strength of the r. N. C. And the strength of the state republican parties that make up the r. N. C. And it means that when you go to these romney field offices, you tend to see and hear a lot more about the local candidates than about mitt romney. So most of these offices are dominated by literature and signs and Campaign Staffers for whoever the local congressman is. Or whoever the local Senate Candidate is, and if there isnt a long congressman horSenate Candidate, then there wont be as strong of an effort. Our first call for molly ball of the atlantic coast, from rebecca, calling from fort worth, texas, on our line for democrats. Rebecca, youre on the washington journal. Go ahead. Caller thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Im not surprised that mitt romney has the r. N. C. Handling him. Im so disappointed that we have gotten to a level where he has been so dishonest, where he has said and hes handled very effectively bill the Republican Party, and i think we americans are better than that, i think we deserve a better candidate than that who has been very misleading and has also been any dishonest with the American People. What sort of organization have you seen of the Romney Campaign there in fort worth . I see that the republicans handled the handled their candidate, mitt romney, and i see that theyre orchestrated, as far as all of his surrogate that have negative comments and responses by the Republican Party. Were going to leave it there. Molly ball of the atlantic, go ahead. Well, i dont think we should read too much into the different form that these campaigns have taken. Part of the reason that the Republican National committee is handling the ground game for romney is that the republican primary took quite a while to decide, and so they were able to Start Building this organization back in march, before romney was the nominee and try to catch up with the Obama Campaign thats been building this organization for six years. I do think the republicans are at a disadvantage because theyve had less time, but if they had waited until romney sewed up the nomination around late april, or even until the convention when he official my received the nomination, they would have been at a much more severe disadvantage. These organizations take some time to build. Next up is george in ocala, florida. George is on our line for republicans. Caller good morning everyone. I think that romney is up against the fact that half the American Public now, man, woman and child, is collecting some type of government check and then theres 10,000 advocacy programs that are also collecting some type of grants. I have want to clear up something that was on last week. George, before you go there. The fact that these people are collecting checks, what does this have to do with the organization of the Romney Campaign there in ocala, florida . Caller what it has to do, if they are collecting a check, theyre going to vote democrat. Wouldnt you . If youre getting a check the rest of your life, who are you going to vote for . Thats what im saying. But i have a couple other points if you would allow me to say them. Host were going to move on. Were talking about ground games with molly ball the National Political reporter and you can read her work at the atlantic. Com politics. Mark in california is our next caller, calling on our line for independents. Go ahead, mark. Caller hi. I just wanted to say, you know, as far as the ground game with the democrats and republicans, theres not enough coverage given to the alternative parties to actually make it a truly level Playing Field. Libertarian party doesnt get any coverage, nor does the green party. Host all right, mark in california. Does the size of the manpower in these various swing states dictate or attract a certain amount of Media Coverage from what youve been able to see. Guest i dont think. In fact, i think this is an aspect of the campaign that probably doesnt get covered enough, considering how important it is, how much time and money the campaigns spend on it. Its important not to overestimate the significance of a field operation, the sort of political rule of thumb is that you may get two points out of it. You know, over what you would get if there were no kneeled organization. Field organization and obama is at at a disadvantage when it comes to voter enthusiasm. Its very possible that romney can make up what he lacks in organization, just by having that enthusiasm of republicans behind him. But the organization can be a boost and especially in hand election as close as the one that were seeing where it really, at least in the popular vote, may be a tie. Having ra boost of a point or two can make a big difference. Next up is tiante in pennsylvania, pittsburgh pennsylvania, on our line for democrats. Go ahead. Caller hey, how are you doing . Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to just say that with the sciu, being majority democratic, they would be assisting barack obama, but my question also to the young lady on the panel is that i was wondering how this fares with the Electoral College, because a lot of us voters, we dont even know who the Electoral College is, we dont know, we never elected them, we didnt pick them, and yet, they decide whos going to be the president. Talk to us about the Union Organization and how he says primarily goes for democrats. What does the Republican Party do to sort of match that troop movement. Guest thats actually a really good point. There are outside organizations doing this field organization. On the left, you have the unions, the aflcio has a massive fieldorganizing effort. The sciu, the teachers ruin n i dont, these are all theyre all supporting obama and theyve all put a lot of resources in to organization. And on the other side, you have some republican groups who have seen how the party has sort of fallen behind on this particular metric since the karl rove days and are trying to make up for that, in particular, i believe americans for prosperity, which is matched by the coke brothers, has done a lot of ground organizing among republicans. Probably not as big an organization or as well resourced as the unions that have been doing this for years and years. So i dont think that someone asked me in those outside groups would make up for romneys deficit on the campaign level, and i dont think thats true. I think theyre on a par or maybe even more of an advantage for democrats, when you count those outside groups. Host the caller also mentioned the Electoral College, and because the swing states, florida, ohio, pennsylvania, virginia, nevada, some of these, have more Electoral College votes than some of the other smaller states, and that the candidates are spending more time in these particular states, do you see a smaller hora or a larger ground game in states that dont get visited, state like washington, hawaii, california, new york, i mean, those texas, those states are already in one column, or their Electoral College votes are so small, do you see a bigger ground game effort to make up for the fact that the candidate just isnt going to come there . No, your see almost no ground game in states that are not swing states. Now, there are some swing states that are quite small, in terms of electoral votes and physical size, like New Hampshire, iowa, nevada, both have only six electoral votes, but in the swing in the states that are not swing states, you do not see a ground game. The campaigns dont put ads on the air there, they dont send the candidate there and they dont really organize there either. Its just kind of pointless. Host back to the phones. Howard in california, on our lynn for republicans. Go ahead, howard. Caller good morning. Thank you. Thank you for cspan. Host howard, what kind of ground Game Organization are you seeing among republicans in california . Caller well, i tell you what, ive gotten my shovel ready shovel out, and im working the neighborhood, trying to convince people that it would be a good idea to vote. And now, living in the peoples republic of california, with a continual 16 billion debt shall i continue, sir . I have a question. Host ok. Go ahead. Caller and im sure you dont disagree with my political plan. Do you not . 55 wasted in my eyes. Electoral college, and for the gentleman that was confused about how the Electoral College works, and i might quote him, he said, ive never heard of these people. Well, this gentleman is voting. He is an example of uninformed voters. And while im at it, just a little bit more of housekeeping. We had a caller this morning that was complaining host actually, how warnings i want to ask you one more howard, i want to ask you one more question and then well let you go. Has anybody come knocking hat your door, have Campaign Workers come into your neighborhood to trying to convince you all of this available in our Video Library at cspan. Org. Well take you live now to zanesville, ohio, where republican vicepresident ial candidate paul ryan is at Zanesville High School. Good to see you guys. Let me introduce you to my family. Thats got give them a mic. Thanks, ladies. This is my wife jan habmap, our son charlie, sam, and our daughter liza. Say hi, everybody. You know, i almost slipped. I said, hey, hello, zanesville. I almost said hello janesville. Thats where im from. Go ahead, guys. You can have a seat. Im born and raised in a Police Called janesville, wisconsin. I went to school with a guy from zanesville, ohio. His family had some dry cleaners here if i recall. Yeah. Gus is one of my friends from college. And ive got to tell you, go blue devils, go red hawks. I just got to saying, the hospitality, the warmth from people in the Buckeye State has been tremendous. I spent four great years at miami, living in ohio, and the hospitality and the warmth that we had then there you go, go miami, go red hawks, we called it Something Different when i was there, redskins. What i see and sense and hear and feel are people who care so deeply about their country, who care so deeply about their community, and people who are bringing their kids out on their shoulders, who care about the next generation. Thank you for coming out today. Thank you for coming through the rain and the weather, and standing in line in the middle of the morning for doing this. Weve got a big choice. This isnt whos president for four more years. And were not talking about small things. We have Serious Problems in this country that require urgent, immediate, serious shoes. Let me solutions. Let me read you a quote. If you dont have any fresh high december, you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you dont have a record to run on, you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things. You know who shade that . Yeah. Barack obama when he ran for president in 2008 was saying that. Unfortunately, turn on your tv, thats exactly what president obama has become these days. You seal, he cant run on his record. You have 23 Million People struggling for work. We have factories that are closed. Weve lost over 600,000 manufacturing jobs, just since he took office. 38,000 just in the last two months. Were going in the wrong direction. The economy was supposed to be growing twice as fast today as it is, if only we had passed his plan. Guess what . The obama economic agenda failed, not because it was stopped, it failed because it was passed. He came into congress with full control of washington. He had the house and the senate and the white house. And he passed his agenda. He passed his stimulus plan with all the borrowing and all the spending. It failed to create the jobs they said it would. And then he turned his attention for a year and a half to have a government takeover of health care. And then he turned his attention to an Energy Policy where he tried to get a new National Energy tax on all of our energy consumption. He didnt get that one through the senate. He got it through the house. And then he started regulating, and so if youre a manufacturer, if youre a small business, what do you see coming from washington . You see more regulation, more red tape, you see the promise of higher taxes, you see a Government Spending money it doesnt have, borrowing beyond its means, borrowing more money from countries like china to fund its government, which simply means well have a debt crisis just like europe. We cant afford four more years like these last four years. We cant stand for that. The president is not giving us much of a second term agenda. Hes not staying here are my abcs. He put out astelic 20page brochure the other day, but you dont have to read it to know where were headed. We know that hes promising a 2 trillion tax increase starting in january. Of the 21 tax increases just in obama care, 12 of them hit middle income taxpayers. Remember when he stayed he wouldnt have a middle income tax increase . Well, there are 12 episodes, 12 examples where he failed to do that one. Remember when he said hed cut the deficit in half over four years. Weve had trillion dollar deficits each and every year. Remember when he said hed bring people together to solve the countrys biggest problems . This is the third president ive served with, its the most partisan atmosphere ive ever seen. Look, look at john casey. I learned a lot from that man. I came in as a young guy in congress, under his leadership, working on the budgets committee. Kind of basically following the same trail that he blazed. Heres a guy who sees a problem and runs at the problem. Thats what leadership is. Thats what leaders do. Weve got big problems. We dont want a president blaming somebody else for four years, we dont want a president ducking the toughish use, demagoguing the other party. We want a president who will lead and fix this mess in washington and run at our problems and solve our problems and get this country back on the right track. Plagu[applause] so its not enough for us to simply complain about the broken promises or to highlight the fact that president obama cant run on his record, so hes trying to distort ours, hes trying to distract people to win by default. This is why were offering specific solutions, specific ideas, and how to create 12 million jobs, how to get people back to work, how to confront our problems before they get out of our control. Number one, here in ohio, here in this part of ohio, we have so much energy in this country, lets use that energy in this country and put people back to work. Lets use our coal, our natural gas, lets use our renewables. If we do this, that means American Energy dollars go to american jobs, that helps manufacturers, that brings down our price of energy. We know if the president gets preelection hell keep regulating cool out of existence, hell keep shutting down federal lands, keep shutting downhill and gas exploration. Hell keep his war on coal and hell go back for his Natural Energy tax and you know what . On day one, when we have president romney and they ask him if he can build a keystone pipeline, he will say yeah, you can build the keystone pipeline. Lets get that oil coming into this country instead of going to china. Now janesville is not all that different than zanesville. Not just the j and the z, but in the kind of towns we are. In my hometown, we lost a big factory, and there were a few factories that fed that factory. We used to build tahoes for gm in that town. We said as gm goes, so goes janesville. We lost our plant and a lot of friends i grew up with who worked at that plant who thought they could get a good job like their folks did and make a good living for their families lost that. And that livelihood is gone, i have a buddy that went from 25 an hour down to 9 an hour without benefits. We have got to help these people who are stuck in between, who are in the midst he will of their earning middle of their earning years, when theyre supposed to be building for their family, saving for their family, putting themselves on the path of pursuing their idea of happiness, making the American Dream realized for themselves and their kids. We have 46 different job Training Programs coming out of washington, spread across seven different agencies and its nothing but bureaucracy. Get the bureaucrats out of the way, give people like john casey the ability to take this and get people the skills they need so they can get the jobs they want in the 21st century and have themselves back on the path to prosperity. It is so essential. Open up energy, get people the skills they need, and just like a little case of common sense, we just got to stop spending money we dont have. Weve got to balance this budget. We have an obligation. Because this debt hurts our economy today, because this debt, and lets remember, todays deficits are nothing more than tomorrows tax increase, because it threatens businesses in the future, because it threatens jobs today, and because we know without a shred of doubt, that these young kids in this room are inheriting an inferior standard of living. I know that when my three kids are my age, the size of government then will be double what it is today if we stay on the path were on. We know we are giving them a diminished future. We have never done that in this country before. Every generation. It teams weve lost our signal from zanesville, ohio. Republican vicepresident ial candidate paul ryan is insane in zanesville, were working on the problem, hoping to have it resolved. We will have Coverage Later today. Vicepresident joe biden is in lynchburg, virginia, and well have that at 4 30 p. M. This afternoon. We seem to have lost audio and were working on that problem. By the way, this tax increase hes talking about, not only does it not even pay for 10 of his proposed deficit spending, it taxes Small Businesses, 8 out of 10 of our businesses in america file their taxes as people. Thats what Small Businesses do. And their tax rate is going to go above 40 in january, according to the obama plan. Ive Groton Dorchester to tell you, ive got to tell you. Overseas they dont do that to their people. Overseas where i come from, that means lake superior. Our competitors on average tax their businesses at 25 or less. How are we going to make things, how are we going to bring back manufacturing jobs in ohio and wisconsin, in big 10 country that we all come from, if we keep taxing our businesses at twice the rate our foreign competitors tax theirs . That wont work. Thats why we have a fivepoint plan. Thats why we have this agenda. Get behind Small Businesses, lower our tax rates, stop picking winners and losers in washington. Thats sort of the essence of president obamas economic agenda. Take more from families, take more from Small Businesses, regulate everybody and then pick winners and losers from washington. It doesnt work or just the losers, if you want to look at his track record. Look, a person who works hard, who plays by the rules, can get ahead in america. Thats what we teach our children. Your business success, your success in your job, your success in your bills, should not be dependent upon who you know in washington. It should be dependent upon how hard your work. Are you getting ahead. Is your government getting those barriers out of your way. Can you compete . Can you be on a level Playing Field . Are we removing barriers for ohio businesses to compete . Are we cracking down on countries that cheat . Those are the things. This is it why were going to your and saying, look, theres a better way to do things. We know how to create jobs because weve done it in america before. And we know that if we simply give four more years of this strategy, following europe, well end up like europe. Weve got this window of opportunity. The next [no audio] again, were having some video issues with the paul ryan event at zanesville, ohio, at Zanesville High School. This is part of his 4hundred mile trek across the state. He started this morning in new philadelphia, ohio, at the gradeall Equipment Company and will wrap up the tour, the 400mile tour tomorrow in ohio with running mate mitt romney. Well see if we can take you back now to zanesville with ma l ryan. Hope and change has become anger, frustrate, divide and conquer. Were not going to fall for that, are we . So were gotten days to go here, and as you look at the Closing Arguments, were talking about what its going to take to get people back to work, were talking about the kind of leadership that mitt romney has provided throughout his life at running at problems to solve problems. There have been hundreds of millions of dollars of negative advertising from the spring on, trying to disqualify mitt romney. But what we learned at the debates is that this is a man of integrity, this is a man of principle, this is a man who knows how to create jobs, this is a man we will be proud to call our president. [applause] of all things we know about mitt romney, leadership comes to mind. One of my favorite historians just passed away a couple of weeks ago an he said the great characteristics of a leader, the common theme of leaders who step up to the plate to help their country in times of need have a moral compass, a bedrock of principles, a vision for the country, and the ability and the experience and the skills to execute that vision by working with people. Thats exactly what mitt romney has done throughout his life, thats the kind of governor he was, thats the kind of businessman he was, thats the kind of leader he was and thats the kind of president hes going tto be. [applause] but its bigger than just getting more jobs in zanesville or janesville. Its about what kind of country were going to be and when you think about it, america is so unique because we are an idea. Were not just a country with a flag. Were not just, you know, the badgers versus the buckeyes, which thankfully is after the election. We are not just, you know, wisconsin, ohio, maine or california. We are an idea. Thomas jefferson wrote it so well in the declaration of independence. Our rights as people, as human beings, they comeful nature and nature is god, not from government. Government works for us and not the other way around. Thats the heart and soul of the American Dream. Our founders created this. And every generation of veterans secured this for yours an we are in their debt of gratitude. We owe them a debt of gratitude and thank you to all of our veterans for that. 10 days to go. The debate is occurring. And november 6, you make the choice. And as you know, just like they used to say it, as gm goes, so goes janesville. As ohio goes, so goes america. I think you know that. [applause] and so lets think about not just the obligation we have on november 6, but lets think about how we feel on november 7. Lets look forward to when we wake up and we turn on the tv. What is it that we want to see . Do we want to see four more years in front of us that were staring at, like the last four years . Or do we just want to see 10 more days of this stuff and then were back on the road to recovery, Real Recovery with real reforms. Lets think about it that way. So that when we wake up, we know that we met this moment the way it needed to be. We know that when we tell hour kids and our grandkids about this moment, this was that inflexion point with america chose its path. We are unique, we are exceptional. Our country is a country of hard work. Its a country of playing by the rules. Its a country of entrepreneurship. Its a country of prosperity. The american system of Free Enterprise and freedom has done more to help the poor, more to help people extend and exercise their right to ride than any other Economic System ever designed. We dont want to replace that, we want to revitalize that. Thats whats happening. [applause] and so our commitment to you, our fellow big 10 staters, if you want to call it, our fellow citizens, were not going to run away from these problems. Were not going to blame people for four more years. Were going to take responsibility and were going to lead and were not going to try to transform this country into something it was never intended to be. Were going to reapply our countrys founding principles, were not going to replace them. Thank you everybody. Zanesville, thank you so much for coming out. John, thank you, great leadership. Thanks everybody and god bless you hall. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Through the mountains climbing, twisting, turning, further from my home beyond, watching a new moon rising, fears to the raging lightning, wanting, to this great unknown hand i dont want no one to cry, but if i dont survive i was born free i was born free i was born free born free free, like a river raging strong its the wind im making, chasing, dreaming dreaming, chag father time like the grandest canyon wild, like an unat the same timed stallion untamed stallion you can knock me down, watch me bleed, but you cant keep no chains on me i was born free i was born free i was born free born free and im not good at long goodbyes, but look into my eyes i was born free come facing danger lost, like an unknown stranger grateful for my time with no regret close to my destination tired, frail and aching waiting patiently for the sun to set and when its done, believe me i will yell it from that Mountain High i was born free i was born free i was born free born free and i will celebrate gods greatness i was born free i was born free i was born free born free oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh notes come on baby, give it all you got living on the edge of ectasy run away train run away train paul ryan continuing a 400mile bus tour across ohio this weekend, wrapping up in the state tomorrow, campaigning with mitt romney in marian, and then on monday, he plans to head to melbourne, florida, for a rally at the Florida Institute of technology. All of this is weather permitting, as sandy, Hurricane Sandy approaches the east coast. Its already cancelled events in Virginia Beach for mitt romney, and for joe biden. Vicepresident joe biden will be in lynchburg later today and then campaigning in key New Hampshire tomorrow or on monday with caroline kennedy, the vicepresident on tuesday. Will begin at ohio in worcester and gambere, ohio. That event later today in lynchburg, virginia, will feature his wife jill and his son, delaware attorney general bo biden and well have that live for you on cspan at 4 30 p. M. And temperature morning on newsmakers, rand paul will talk about his support for mitt romney, hell also talk about his role in congress and his views in particular on u. S. Foreign aid. Thats newsmakers live on sunday beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern and followed by the third Party President ial the third Party President ial candidates debate, held earlier this week, hosted by former cnn talk show host larry king, moderated by larry king and it features libertarian president ial candidate gary johnson, jill stein of the green party, now the candidate for the constitution party, and Rocky Anderson of the justice party. That is tomorrow at 10 35 a. M. Eastern here on cspan. With 10 days to go in the election, well continue our look at the president ial politics now. With Cook Political Report editor, charlie cook. He talks about what campaigns are doing in battleground states. Television advertising across the country, and also what Congress Might do in the lame duck session. Hes joined by abc political director, andy walter. This is about an hour and 20 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, i run the Congressional Program here and its a great honor to have you here and these great folks here on behalf of the washington round table series. I see some old politicians up front, theres congressman and ambassador tim roemer, congressman barren hill, and i know that there are others as well. Anyway, so we appreciate folks being here. Also, i recognize gary nell, president of National Public radio, who is here and a friend of mine, delighted that hes here, and we just have a great program. I wake up to steve and that soothing, wonderful voice. I will tell everybody it doesnt put me to sleep, it enliveens me, enriches my life every single day its on. You do a great job. Im going to let steve introduce charlie cook with the cook report, amy walter, political director odirector. Charlies son just game back from afghanistan in the last couple of days, he was in the 82nd airborne and im sure charlie is delighted that he is back safely and we all are as well. [applause] in any event, steve of course is cohost of morning edition, hes author and hes been involved in a lot of issues, reporting on the middle east, international affairs, and of course, domestic policy as well. So im going to turn the program over to steve. Well have 30 to 40 minutes of questions from you and then well turn it over to the audience for further q a. Go ahead. Secretary glickman, thank you very much, the invitation from the Aspen Institute. Its an honor to talk to both of you folks. I grew up watching abc news, i Pay Attention to abc news, and its great to meet the person amy walter who im sure tells George Stephanopoulos what to do. Whatever they say, its from her brain to their mouth and out into the ether. When i first moved to washington in 199 sick, very early on, i had some political question i was putting to a colleague and they shade, you really ought to just call up charlie cook, because he knows more than anybody else about that. It was true then, it continues to be true now and its great to be on stage with you as well. Mr. Cook, i should mention, for those of you who dont know, he is editor of the cook report and a columnist for the national journal. I want to grin with a really straightforward question. Im sure the answer is really, really simple. We are two weeks from the president ial election. Who is winning . You really had to put that out there. Ladies first. Thanks. So you look at the News Coverage and you look at the data and you get kind of two different answers, right . If you look at the News Coverage, especially since that first debate in denver, the it would be romney is now the guy who has ascended after that terrible summer and terrible september, and what looked like a race that was a runway obama victory, now the momentum is all with mitt romney. Look at some of these National Polls, he was ahead, there was a pew poll right after the not immediately after, but a few days after that first that debate in denver. Other polls showing the race now a dead heat. Momentum is going his way. And then you look at the data, especially and were going to get to this in a minute in these states, because as we all learned, if we didnt learn it in school in earlier in our lives, we learned it in 2000, that people dont hell lakeeffect the president. The Electoral College elects the president and when you look at those polls, the underneath numbers suggest that its still obamas race right now. That fundamentally, he has got an edge in this Electoral College map in some of those big states like ohio, wisconsin, nevada especially and that his path to victory has been always been hes had multiple paths, whereas Romney Campaign niche has really decided early on that they were going to try to fight on the same path rather than trying to expand it, so the fact that pennsylvania, michigan, minnesota, states that they will talked about putting in play, they never spent a dime there, means that it all comes down to those fire wall states. I hear you telling me, then well get charlies perspective, i hear you telling me, even though if i look at a list of polls, it may show romney plus 2, romney plus 5, romney plus 1. There are a lot of obama leaning polls as well, but even though i look at those polls, youre telling me that it sounds like obama has the edge and hes actually going to win the election . If you look structurally, he has an advantage right now. Now, if those states happen to flip, and they have gotten closer, and theres a debate of course and charlie, i know, will have a lot to say about this, about what polls to believe in, are polls even trustworthy now, everybody seems to have their hone poll. I dont know that there are actually that many people in ohio. I immediately like maybe there are professional poll takers in ohio, and if so, that would be a great business if your want to get in that. Sure, highly answer your poll, 5. Theres so much data coming out of there that you almost dont know what to believe, so you sort of have to read whats happening from the campaigns and its pretty clear that there is, again, when you talk about just a few of these states and we can go through them, where the obama edge, as slight as it may be, is still there. So thats where we sort of leave things at this moment. Charlie coke, who is winning in. Every time ive ever done anything with the Aspen Institute, its been a wonderful experience. The one time i took my son out to the global strategy conference in aspen, and over there was bob gates before he was c. I. A. Director, and over there is al gore and george soros and here i am from shreveport thinking, wow, how did i get here. But anyway, the Aspen Institute is wonderful and my old boss, bennett johnson, who i got my start working for a senate race in 1972 is it sitting here, so any way, thanks. The way i would like at it is it the popular vote, the National Polls, i think its about even right now. And i do want to get into a conversation of polls, but i agree with amy that the Electoral College situation looks a little different, and it is more uphill for romney. The way i would describe it is this. First of all, president obama was on the verge of putting this race away, going in to the first debate. It was all but done. And you had a lot of voters that juries werent even considering thinking about voting considering mitt romney, but werent terribly enthusiastic about president obama and so suddenly, it pushes romney up into the race, boem drops and then obama drops and then the next two races that president obama technically won, burr the feeling that sort of opened the doors for people considering romney in a way that they had never considered him before. So nationally, this is a very, very, very close race. Effectively tied. But i think that the there is a lot of scar tissue in the six, seven swing states that saw the brunt of the bain capital plant closings, layoffs, outsourcing, income tax, cayman island, switzerland, bermuda, all that stuff. I think the Romney Campaign, i think, made a huge error by not going in early on, as soon as they nailed down the nomination, and created, you know, tried to project a positive image, tell people about mitt romney. He was a blank piece of paper, and instead i mean, to me, one of the things youve got to do is define your candidate before the other side defines him. And it made me we think of the boy scout oath, the thrifty always hung me up. You really want to create a reservoir of goodwill in a teflon coating before the slime hits and the Romney Campaign opted not to do that. Their view was any day, any dollar spent, other than talking about the economy was a day or dollar wasted, so the Obama Campaign went in and the obama soup he were p. A. C. Went into a swing state and basically bead romneys brains out with a baseball bat, so theres a lot of scar tissue. After that first debate, romneys numbers im sure went up in all 5 who states, but theres about six or seven that they went less in because of that scar tissue. Now, and so you know, even if you assume that romney takes North Carolina and virginia is about even, and florida is about even, but even, you know, you its a tough path for him to get to 270, and you know, ohio, iowa, colorado, wisconsin, theres a lot of scar tissue there and so thats why its uphill for romney, even though it is an incredibly close race. Voltaics that raises the so that raises the question that people have been talking about in recent days. Is there a legitimate possibility that one candidate wins the popular vote, the other candidate wins the popular electoral vote . There is. Especially look at the states that are red, if you run up the score in a place like texas, theres a lot of people that live there, if you do win florida, North Carolina, virginia, even ohio, remember, he can win all of those, mitt romney, and still lose, a lot of people live there, and then look at the blue states, and this is where the Romney Campaign also says they are doing much better and the poll suggests this too. They are not going to lose by the same margins that john mccain did, even in a place like illinois, where mccain lost some of these districts by 20 points. Thats not going to happen this year, so you can see those numbers going up, even in states that romney will lose, but because some of the states are completely off the map, places like pennsylvania, michigan, that means his pathway again has to go through a place like colorado, nevada, or ohio. You know, one of the problems with writing a column a couple times a week is youre sort of on the record, and a fewer months ago, i wrote a column and i was talking about all these people that are spinning so much time parsing together combinations of electoral votes, like they were trying to solve a rubics cube or something and i pointed out that in 53 out of knife 6 president ial election 56 president ial electionings, the popular vote and electoral vote went the same way and that works out to 95 . Could it happen . Of course it could happen but its very, very unlikely, but now, i think that theres a fair chance of that, and if that happens, romney would be the one that would be more likely to come out on the popular vote side, and obama on the electric thoroughly vote side, because electoral vote side because of exactly what were talking about so i think all the republicans that saw that great benefit in the Electoral College back in 2000, may be rethinking that and and vice versa for liberals on the other side. Im glad you mentioned 2000, because one thing i remember about the 2000 campaign, there was also talk of the possibility between the popular and electric thoroughly vote, but the talk was, as i recall it, that al gore was surely going to lose the popular vote, but still had a shot at the electoral vote. It turned out to be the opposite. And im wondering if thats something to remember now, because even though were talking about this possibility, you see it as a real possibility, isnt arent the odds still against that really happening . Well, yeah. I mean, were talking about something thats maybe a 10 chance. 10 , 15 chance, but the thing is statistically it ought to be just a 5, so its greater than it normally is. I mean, if you have didnt even know who the candidates were or anything, i would atomb normally, that a democrat would be better off in the popular vote because they run up the score in enormously populace states like california and new york and while the only populace state that republicans run up the score is texas, so democrats waste more votes than republicans do, so to me, that would be the norm if you had a divided electoral popular vote. But this time, this time its different. If it happens this time, it would be more likely to go the other way, because of the Electoral College difficulties that were talking about, that romney has. Ok. I want to mention amy talked about pennsylvania being off the map. For whatever reason, the electoral map we have here, pennsylvania is put as a swing state. I know some electoral maps have it that way. In politics has in life, follow the money, right . So if a campaign had spent approximately zero dollars on television in a state, that says to me that they are not invested in that state. And consider it a battleground state and thats exactly what has happened. The Romney Campaign, they talk about they have people on the ground there, and you know, organizations. Thats nice, but nobody has put a dime from either campaign recently, the Obama Campaign in terms of advertising. Some of the outside groups put a little bit of money in there but very little and again, you just figure out where most of this money is going. I mean, again, the poor people of ohio, have been inundated for months and i completely agree with charlie, which was when you saw these ads going up, just going after bain and mitt romney, you said well surely, were going to get a response ad from the Romney Campaign about, you know, heres what a good guy he is, or heres what his business experience was. And you know, charlie and i listened to some of the same focus groups and wed hear it hover and over again where you had these swing voters, disappointed in president obama, but they kept saying, i just dont know anything about mitt romney and then sometimes, they would just say things, without being prompted, that were from ads. I remember sitting in one group where a woman said, yeah, i mean, that mitt romney, hes a businessman and everything, i think that could be good. We have problems with our economy, but then didnt he like shut factories down and stuff and in Northern Virginia where swing voters are the suburban women, number of women talking about, yeah, you know, romney, the economy, i think he could do a good job but really worried about Womens Health care. Why is he doing that with abortion and stuff. So it was penetrate, and there was no and the outside groups, i mean, for all the talk were going to have about Citizens United and the influx of money from these outside groups, two things to remember. One, they dont get as much bang for their buck as the campaign does. If you look at how much spending, even this week, where weve talked about the massive amount of money going in from out side groups, the Obama Campaign has more ads on television than all the republicans combined. Thats number one. Number two, all of those ads that the republicans put up were negative too. So nobody was giving any cover to mitt romney. And when i talked to 1 of them the other day, because theyre now putting up these positive spots about here was mitt romney with the boy that we heard about during the convention that died of cancer and mitt romney was with him and helped him pick out his boy scout uniform to wear to his own funeral. Its a really touching story. Why did we never hear this story before and i asked them about it and they said we didnt know about that story until the convention. Thats a problem of being an outside group. He dont know your own candidate because the candidate is the one thats supposed to be telling the story. There was an obama ad that is been airing in the last fougasse that has one of the most brutal tag lines ive seen, mitt romney, not one of us, airing in ohio. Thats an alienating line literally. And if a republican had run that ad, yeah. I think we would know what the interpretation of it might be. But yeah. But it sounds its an outstanding point and it sounds like that is what youre saying. They would not have gotten away with running an ad like that about mitt romney, had the ground been prepared in a different way. Thats what youre saying. It wouldnt resonate perhaps. I mean, you know, where theyve done the most effective job, we see this in our national polling, that we just got out of the field with and if you look at a place like ohio, where mitt romney has closed the gap on who do you think would do a better job in the economy, hes tied in the most recent ohioquinnipiac poll, but who do you think represents middle class values. Theres like a 14 or 16 point gap there, so there are people saying, i know hes good at what he does, obviously, he made a lot of money, and thats good, i guess, except that is he going to make a lot of money and then think about me, right . Like how am i going to be part of this equation. But at the same time, coming out of the debates, you know, nbc and the wall street journal had a survey and they asked, you know, who has a plan for the future, and to create jobs . And while the net numbers improved somewhat for Romney Campaign any, when you looked among independents, you know, its sort of like 20 something points. I mean, the thing is that romney hahasnt closed the sale with these people, but hes opened up the conversation. And thats true focus groups in columbus, ohio, i think it was on that was fascinating, where this one woman said i look at romney through new eyes. She was still undecided but still looking and thats whats different from where things were back romney had a horrible summer, he had a horrible trip to europe. The convention, he got one lousy point bounce out of it. September was horrible. The 47 was a disaster. Basically, until october 1, after winning the nomination, nothing went write, but then you had that debate on october 3, and october was a great month for it. Amy mentioned early on something that i want to follow up on. You talked about the narrative, basically, you referred to the fact that everyone everyone went through the events you just described, charlie cook and then after the first debate, the narrative changed. Its been a narrative of romney on the rise. The question is, how long people in the media will stick with that or if they stick with it through the election or what will happen. How important a factor is that in the real world, simply the way that political reporters assume the story is going, and the way that they cast their stories as a result . In terms of swing voters, undecideed independent swing voters, i dont think theyre hearing it at hall. The thing about it is, independent voters typically read newspapers less, they watch Television News less, they listen to npr less. I mean, they they dont follow well, the way conservatives and republicans have passion. Liberals and democrats have passion. Moderates and independents have lies, and they are not theyre not spending their lunch hour in a room here in washington hearing discussion about this horwatching on cspan. I mean, no offense. No offense. But people you know, they this politics that they typically dont like politics, they dont like politicians, theyre very cynical about washington, and they show up for one of two reasons. Either out of civic obligation or theyre angry. At somebody or a bunch of people or one whole side. Theyre not watching fox and theyre not watching msnbc. And so much of the chatter thats going on, its going past these people, the people that really make a difference. Because theyre not watching rachel and theyre not watching sean hannity. Thats not where moderates, independents, undecided voters live. It was written the other day the way the narrative changes, basically political reporters take a look at the polls and write their stories. Theyre like a bunch of birds on a telephone line. When one takes off, they all follow. No offense. Fine. Fine. Obama gets out there and says romnesia, to describe romney supposedly forgetting his past positions and if you per steve obama as winning, thats a great dig and if you perceive obama as lose, its an embarrassing sign of desperation. It teams to color once independent voters do get around to paying attention to the news, does it color the news that they get . Well, again, it does depend on are they getting the news by watching something on saturday night live, which we use ago a great arbiter of now where a lot of folks who are very passive, and i completely agree with charlie on, you know, you are all wonderful people, but no one in this room is norm ham, right . Normal, right . Including people on this panel in we just spent how many minutes talking about the possibility of a popular electoral vote split. I would love to go poll people around america, how many times theyve actually thought about that in their lives. So any way, so that show, for many people who are like passively watching this rails, does give them an image of that, and look, the image that was created was crafted of mitt romney, both on the comedy shows and then in traditional media, and of course, by the ads, was that mitt romney was kind of first of all, hes stiff but this super rich guy that doesnt really know what its like to be an average person. And thats what you hear in those focus groups too, that peter harwin goes through and asks, what would mitt romney be like as a neighbor, right . They said things like, im sure hed n nice and pleasant and everything, but i dont think id be good enough to be invited to his house, you know what i mean. Hes going to have a really big house and id be embarrassed bringing the casserole over. Who did they stay they would most like to have come to a backyard cookout of the four people. Come on. You know who this is . Joe biden, because hed bring the beer and everybody would have a great time. It would be so fun and they would also love bill clinton to come by. They love bill clinton, joe biden and i they that gosh, i would so and thats why this race isnt over. The door did open after those debates and there are a lot of people getting a second look at what they see from mitt romney, but the question, and this goes back to the earlier point that charlie made about, you know, defining yourself, what is the Closing Argument then that mitt romney is it making to them, and for many of them, theyre saying, ok, things arent getting all that much better, or they are getting a little bit better, but i dont know that i give obama much credit for it. But if im going to switch horses, what do i get in mitt romney and they still havent really answered that question. And one of the things we havent talked about is sort of which mitt romney. The guy that came by our office, and i dont say that in a pejorative way at all, but the guy that came by running for the u. S. Senate in 1994, very bright, analytical mind, you could tell he was sort of a problem solver, here was a Management Consultant that would say, you know, i would like to get my hands on this government thing, i think i could do a better job and i would have characterized him as fairly nonideological. If i had to put him on a scale, a football field, i would put him around the 35, troupe yard line on the right side, but nowhere near the red zone and, you know, thats the guy that was then and that was the guy that started running for president in 2007. And then somewhere during the 2008 campaign, i think he realized that plan a wasnt working, and that he had to go hard right. And so for the last four years, he had been running as far to the right as he possibly could and thats what he had to do to win the nomination. And when you had the fox news debate in september of last or, if you were offered a budget deal, 101, 10 in spending cuts for a dollar of tax increases, would you go and not one of the eight republican candidates raised their hands, not even huntsman or romney. The thing about it, 101, thats a hell of a deal, but raising his hand would effectively be cutting his own throat, and the thing is he didnt pivot back not even at the convention that much. It was really at the first debate and so this was a different romney and people have to sort out for themselves, you know, which is it, to me, this is it closer to 1. 0, but that mitt romney would win a general election, but couldnt win a nomination. The other mitt romney could win a nomination, although, you know, it was a struggle, but couldnt possibly win a general election. Let me ask about his opponent here, because youve described mitt romney doing a lot of things that you just looking at it professionally do not think is necessarily the high deal behavior having an Effective Campaign run against him, having a terrible summer, having a terrible september, the 47 , and after all that, the president , with all the advantages of incouple bentcy was only up 6 or 7 points. If we go back six months ago, you look at the economy, you say incumbent president s dont get reelected in economies like this and so the fact that romney was behind, with a lousy economy, was really quite remarkable. Now, i think you also had, starting in augustseptember, a period of time where the stock market hit near a fiveyear high, Consumer Confidence started shooting up. Granted, the stock market was moving up more because of the fed and anticipation of fed moves and things, but healthy market, finally started to shine some light. Consumer confidence jumps up, and we started seeing in the polls that amy and i follow so closely, right direction, wrong track. And you have some argument that the economy would lean towards an obama win. The millstone around his neck was getting lighter. I mean, it wasnt no, it wasnt going to be an asset, but it was less of a liability and that was sort of and then 47 was you could you could look at the polls and see what day that happened. It really and where it hit, my colleague at national general, ron brownstein, did a lot of looking through the data and said it was noncollege educated white women, that took a huge dip after that 47 remark. And that thats been that was a group that was holding out. Noncollege educated white voters are a problem for the president. Noncollege educated white men is like a nofly zone for the president , but the women were sort of more they didnt really like obama, but they werent comfortable with romney and 47 really hurt, but after the debate, you started seeing some of them moving on. What does that say about the strengths or weaknesss as a president or candidate, that he has had an improving economy, has the advantages of incumbency and had the advantages in the campaign . Here is the issue. He has two things that i think are working against him. The economy is one, but the other is, this is especially true for the suburban women we kept hearing about in denver, here in virginia, columbus, ohio, and he was going to change washington, right . That people voted for this guy, i remember talking to people, especially out in the ex burbs of virginia, i cant believe ive voted for a democrat, ive never done this before, but i have really believe hes going to be able to change the way this place works. Not completely, but ears going to make some inroads, so its the frustration that he said he was going to go and make thing better and its 100 times worse. Congress is much more polarized than ever, so what you keep hearing from them is i get it, maybe the economy is improving, things are getting a little bit better, but why are the next four years going to be any different than the previous four years . How are you going to actually work with this congress that you seem to have now completely dismissed . And that in that wall street journal poll which is fascinating, they ask the question, if obama is reelected, what percentage of you want to see major changes, minor changes, no change at hall, during his next four years . 62 said major changes. So you know, this is this is a group, theyre a group of people out there, again, take away the hard partisans on either side who are going to very reluctantly pick the next leader of the free world. This is not out of passion, this is not out of thinking things are going to change. Its sort of the least bad option. You know, the thing that disappointed me the most, just sort of as a somewhat more informed citizen than i mean, all three of us have unusual vantage points living here and watching so closely, but watching the president s acceptance speech, and the three debates, i kept waiting to hear him say, you know, i have some regrets about how ive handled things. And if reelected, i would like to do some things differently. And the fact is, this president has virtually no relationship with congress. I mean, when politico ran a piece back in may that pointed mouth that the president had not had a single conversation in person or on the phone with kent conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget committee, or tom harkin, the chairman of the senate health, education, pension committee, which also does student loans, not a single would george w. Bush have been different or Ronald Reagan . Ive had Democratic Committee well, i dont want to get too specific. In the clinton administration, in both Bush Administrations, there were better relationships. I mean, a Democratic Senate chairman say he had been to the family quarters under both bushes, as well as clinton, not on this one. And there is i mean, go around the hill and ask members of congress, what kind of how often do you have any kind of interaction at all with the president and you would find its shockingly small. Maybe its just because i just finished reading the book on lyndon johnson, but Ronald Reagan came to town. He didnt know a soul when he got to washington. But he had the personal skills and the desire to build relationships and to work. You mentioned waiting for the president to say ive made some miss taxi, heres what im going to do differently. Didnt he attempt that in the first debate in his closing statement, he said something about how im not a perfect president and he was massively panned. My heres perked up. He didnt finish the statement basically. I think what they do want to hear, its not so much, oh, boy, i really messed up on the economy, like, wow. That was bad. It is, you know what, i came to washington, i really wanted to institute change, i thought i could do this. Its really hard. I need to do a better job of it, you know, and i think people are willing to listen to that. Now, he also has to believe that and say that to the people on the hill, both on the republican and the democratic side. But this sense of like, you know, things are going to change because they have to, right . We cant go through another four years with a paralyzed washington, and thats what, again, for all the people in denver and virginia that high listened to, where the economies are better, they are arent giving the president much credit because they think that he failed on that measure. Quick related question. If people are reluctant to embrace the president for a second term because of gridlock in washington, are they also reluctant to embrace their incumbent senators and representatives at this moment . No. That hasnt translated. The whole system is broken. Charlie is right. They think theyre hall, you know, they dont like democrats, they dont like republicans, they think the system is broken. But theres not a wholesale, throw everybody out. Now partly because, i think the i mean, listen, the great irony is, in 2006, democrats got in to control of the house in large part because they defeated a bunch of moderates. Moderate republicans. Republicans gained control in 2010 by knocking out almost all of the blue dog, moderate democrats. And so voters did believe they were making change, right . They said throw these bums out, throw these terrible democrats out, and in their desire to send a message of change, what they created essentially was an even more polarized congress. They threw out the very wrong people. And that is where you know, and thats why i have also get frustrated when you have, you know, the Campaign Committee chair people of each side saying, oh, congress is so terrible and i said well, thats because you beat all those people you could have worked with. You targeted them and painted them with a broad brush. This is just another bush republican, this is just another obama democrat. Well, you get what you pay for. There is no silver bullet, but if you if i could wave a magic wand and do two things, redistricting, reform, so that we dont have all these customized districts, you know, these are designed for democrats, these are design for republicans, because when you do that, you get far, far less democratic district, far far right republican districts, and the other thing is, open up primaries. In states that have closed primaries so the independents can vote either way. California just did both. And we are seeing more competition in california than i would say the previous three decades combined. Just in one year. And it may not be the perfect reform, but i tell you what, youre getting competition and youre having members that have never tried to talk to voters in the other side or independents. You know, youve got two you know, sherman and berman, i mean, you have running to the run to go try to beat republican and independent voters, because theyre two democratic incumbents facing off against each other. Youre seeing some very interesting things happen. But that would do more to fix washington than any other two concrete things i can think of. I want to ask about one or two other things and then throw it hope to your questions, so have them ready and i believe there will be a microphone passed around as well. First a followup. Both of you have referred in our conversation to polls. Now when you refer to what polls are saying, is that before or after you unskew them . You go, charlie, because i know you have i have very strong opinions. Very strong opinions on this. Should i just sprain this for the cspan audience. Were talking about that the polls were skewed, they were showing obama ahead when he wasnt and there are websites now hey justing the polls. Jonathan martin of politico referred to it, choose your own adventure campaign, where you can decide who is ahead, who is behind, you can make your own poll, have your own debate winner. Actually yesterday i saw a video going around where you can even rearrange the debates to have the argument go the way that you wish. And actually, rasmussen has a subsidiary Pulse Research or something, where you could actually go online with la credit card and give them your credit card, write a question and it will get asked on a robo poll the next night, which im not sure why i even decided to bring that up, because i probably shouldnt have, but anyway, heres sort of to me the common sense. Number one, cherry picking. People who think that they go for the one poll that tells them what they want to hear and thats obviously the most accurate poll. Any other poll is obviously flawed, so the cherry picking. And the other which is worst among cable bookers is the latest poll. The latest poll must be true. Now even if its inconsistent with 10 our surveys that they seize on the latest one and then the third and the way to combat that is to go with aggregation, where they average a bunch of polls together, but the problem is, half the polls that are going in to the average are what is my acronym, computerized response attitudinal poll. Check the initials. Where theyre either internet or robo polls. Computer is asking the questions rather than a live person. They cant call cell phones. 30 to 40 , some states close to 50 of respondents. Youve got huge met logical problems, so the thing is it if youre averaging garbage in with the good stuff, its not so you know, what weve started doing on our web site is we just go through for at least just for the president ial, National Polls and battleground states and say, ok, were just going to show polls that are live people calling real people with acceptable methodology and putting that on and the thing is, for conservatives that dont want to trust the liberal media, ok, fine. Why dont you just do this. Watch the fox poll, because to be perfectly honest, foxs polling doesnt look much different from the other networks, but thats ok. Look at fox and look at nbc, wall street journal. Wall street journal, i dont think their one of the liberal, an one of the two pollsters doing it was one of romneys pollster two years ago and the partner of romneys current pollster, so theyre probably not in on the conspiracy, so just look at those if you dont want to look at any other. But those look like most of the represent taught National Phone polls with live people, and but in the states, you know, the days of the largest newspaper in the state commissioning a Quality Survey Research Firm to do a real legitimate poll, that tonight happen anymore. One of these robo firms, that was a piece in the new York Magazine a couple weeks ago, it was a threeperson firm in North Carolina that puts out over 800 polls a year. Far off. Pick a swing state, ohio. Lets see. Came to mind. Maybe we can pick a more interesting one next. Two pollsters one has it obama by 6 or 7, one has it up by 5. Three republican pollsters one has obama up 1, one 4 to 6 and one has it even. Sounds obamas ahead three or four points. Somewhere between even and seven and probably split the difference, yes. I mean, so by looking at sort of the shoe leather like amy does and some of us do, talking to people on both sides, you can get a feel for where this probably is based on high quality research. And would you recommend that people as the New York Times might recommend look at these state polls rather than National Polls . No. Because 90 of the state polls are robo or internet. Because the quality is not there. Now, when you see the cbs New York Times thats a good poll. The nbc wall street journal, thats a good poll. The Des Moines Register has their own. Joe an seltser does that. There is some high quality, a lot of people calling live people but its very, very little. And thats what plutes the averages and whether its pollster. Com or whether its real clear politics or talking points memo or nate. Nate as really bright guy. But i think you need to be a little more discriminating in terms of what polls youre plugging in because otherwise its garbage in, garbage out. The last question before we go to your questions. Given we are in a choose your own adventure environment tell me your instinct. Its a very close election. Do you think that the public at large of the losing side, whoever that might be delared to be is going to be prepared to accept losing . No. No. Certainly its going to feel very different than it did in 2008 where mccain voters certainly wanted their guy to win but also you talk to a lot said boy on Election Night right you sort of felt a sense of we just america just made history here. That was that hopeful moment you saw the president s moments spike up. Right direction, wrong track, spiked up. And then it crashed back down to earth. So that has been completely wiped off. Now the real question is, is it going to feel like 2004 where theres the frustration and the hand wringing and the i cant believe this from democrats. Or is it going to be like 2000 where we get to the position of well this race was tolen . Theres an ill legitimate president . And thats going to come down to are we going to have another hanging chad piece of all of this . Is it going to be as close . And even in 2004 as close as that was, i had a bunch of some lefties e mailing me, you know, that it was the election was stolen. Youre going to have denires in any close race theres going to be some grassy nole deniers who are not going to be willing to accept losing and thats just y society is. But it sounds like youre talking about something larger than that. Theres a potential of that it doesnt i would say even in 2004 which was a close race but about as cut and dried as a close race can possibly be. But there were people that were saying that ohio was stolen from kerry. But we are more importantlyized even than that date. So the intensity is much more. Let me invite your questions. Heres what i would like you to do. Ill be calling on you. If you would stand up so peek can see you and say your name. And where youre from. A little about yourself. And ill start in the back row. Someone raised your hand. Yes. The whole reason i listen can be sum rised by the great stoory sitting all this week about the contest puts a spring in my step. A story about sheep. Did abc have a story about sheep . Thank you very much. For charlie. The senate. Going to be very close who is going to control it and which two or three races will it come down to . Charlie go first. If you were a republican a well, we were saying a year, yearandahalf ago republicans had a 60 chance of picking up a majority in the senate. I try not to use control because in the senate that begins at a six and doesnt end in a zero. But they have had some tough races whether it was olympia snows retirement or todd akin becoming a biology instructsor. Although that actually raise is still pretty close. So some republicans that i thought were firstrate candidates not panning out so well like linda in hawaii and Heather Wilson in new mexico. I think its about a 40 chance of republicans taking a majority. But i think its going to be a lot of onetwo point races so that i would not be surprised if wednesday lunchtime we may not be positive. Remember, six years ago the last time this group of senate seelts were up you had missouri, montana, and virginia still up for grabs. And that was the majority of the senate. And in those three states, senator editor figured this out, 4. 8 Million People voted in those three states and those three states were decided by 60,600 total votes and there was the majority of the senate. I think we could be in that kind of situation. But basically once you moved nebraska the nelson open seat from the democratic side to the republican side thats a done deal. Basically, republican seats, three if they win the white house or two if they win the white house, three if they dont if nebraskas moved over and you have five democratic tossups, five republican tossups. And keep in mind that those last group of tossup states usually dont split down the middle they have a tendency to break two thirds one way or the other kind of likedom knows. Funk about it this if you think about it this race is a gust of wind and they typically break one way or the other so democrats have an advantage but theres 40 chance of republicans getting it. Fing if you want to know who has control of the majority of the senate, virginia certainly is a place to go. Right . So if republicans win virginia, i would argue theres a very good chance that they won the senate. Even if they lose massachusetts even if they lose maine because it would suggest to the two thirds point theyre winning in states where it was really close but maybe romney came over the top. Right . So then they win in north dakota, montana, nebraska. And maybe they do pick up i dont know what to think about wisconsin but thats another one people often say that about wisconsin. Says the guy from indiana. A little jab. People dont think about indiana. I do. So that really to me is the state that will tell us the most. If theres a theme in the senate race this year is people in very close races and really nasty states. And whether its scott brown a republican in massachusetts or hide camp in north dakota or in indiana or linda in hawaii, its a bunch of people and i think of it as its like you could have an olympic gold medal winning swimmer but how bad can the undertoe get before they get sucked under . And you take massachusetts where browns got to basically win 100 of the republican vote and 100 of the independent vote and one out of five democrats. Or win every romney voter plus maybe 200,000 obama supporters have to split their tickets. Wow. Thats really hard. But that goes to the point, too. If all those people did win the senate would look very different because they are opposite parties in a very right . In states that dont traditionally let someone from their party. So there would have to be those down the middle need to compromise people and this is where massachusetts is a great case study because scott brown loses hes going to lose with very high positives. People like him. Not because people think hes a terrible person. Just the idea of i dont like the idea of republicans having control of the senate. There needs to be a parliamentary system where a party could put them someplace where they could actually win where you have an extraordinarily good candidate in a really ugly place. Lets go to this side of the room. I worked on the hill at d. O. D. A couple of things if you can bear with me. I whats going on with Voter Protection and how much of a difference do you think thats there were horrible Horror Stories people dumping ballot boxes in the river and so whats the sense of that . And my second question is you mentioned that people have to sort through who romney is and a very important question for those of us who live here, is romney going to control the tea party or is the tea party going to control romney . And sorting through that is difficult for those of us inside the beltway but certainly outside the beltway one would hope that the Obama Campaign had made that particular point particularly in high intellectual states like massachusetts or some place else are they doing that out there . I mean, i saw Elizabeth Warren and scott brown go back and forth in a debate talking about control of the senate and what that meant. And so is the Obama Administration we dont have access to advertisements like you can see across the country. Are they doing something to define it that way out there . Because the president really does need some control over the tea party. Ok. So the first question about Voter Protection. What does the battle look like there . I mean, yeah i just will i will say this. Every year there are problems in every single state with voting. Those of you who go to voting places know primarily what those problems involve. There are nice sometimes most often elderly people whose task it is to help people get to the voting place. Sometimes, those remember Montgomery County nobody taught them how to turn on the machines so people showed up to vote the machines werent turned on. This is not a imcl conspiracyy to deny people the right to vote. This is a fact that a lot of nice people had no idea how to work a machine. That is 99 of what goes on. Every year we put people we task them to be ballot watch. Watch out for whats happening and weve got to reports of any problems anywhere. Every year somebody runs out of ballots in some county, some jurisdiction. Every year there are debates usually in big cities about should the polls be open later because the lines are too long . And at the same time, we know that the following things will happen. There will be mistakes made. There will be votes miscounted. There will be things that we found these ballots on the bottom of the the this room that we didnt we forgot to check. That is going to happen. But im going to tell you that its 99. 999 about hons to goodness mistakes. Its not mall lass. Could i i couldnt agree with amy more that what youve got moves counties spend more money on food in the county jail than on administratoring elections. Ok . So we get all the accuracy that we pay for. You want it down you want prepigs were going to have to spend a whole lot more. But basically we have a system thats based on part time temporary oftentimes elderly workers using new technology. Now. We love all of those people. Think about it. And sure theyre going to be theres the acorn people on one side or this clown in virginia. Look, its a big country. There are going to be examples of that. But there is not a serious voter fraud problem in this country. Widespread. I mean, the Bush Administration in eight years they found fewer than one case per state per year for all 50 states. Now, thats pretty negligible. And this is not its people that want to deny its people that will not accept that they lose elections. You either win or its stolen from you. And you know, believe what you want to believe but this in the scheme of problems in this country this is way down the list as far as im concerned. So you put voter fraud you said specifically which is more republican than democratic concern way down the list. Voter suppression which is what democrats have talked about would you also put that down the list . I think running ads to try to depress the supporters for the other side is something that virtually every competent campaign in both parties in competitive races do. You want to get your people out and you want to have give your opponent supporters conflicting emotion soss they maybe they stay home. And but thats conventional voter suppression. Not some mechanical thing changing the rules. Thats rare. Its great i mean so the vote stealing that is of concern to partisans you feel will be overwhelmedly bi the normal human errors of the election . Right. Ok. All right over on this side. My name is doug. Both of you are expert election watchers of the highest caliber so i was wondering if you can talk about super pacs and the new world of campaign finance. I cant wait for the real auts city when all is said and done about this. But as i said a little bit earlier the amount of money thats being spent especially on the republican side has been astro nomcal and the only reason why mitt romney isnt getting outspent by a great margin. At the same time, flooding money into the stms as an outside group is not always particularly helpful. First of all, no matter how smart these groups are and believe me, theyre a heck of a lot smarter than the outside groups that used to be. They had a cause and they were going to spend a jlion dollars even if it was on some crazy thing. We need more jelloo in schools. Thats what were going to care about. Now its they are strategic, they have their own polling, they have their own media shops. They think they know, ok, heres how we need to move voters to our candidate. This is how we have to help mitt romney even though we cant coordinate with mitt romney. But what theyre focused on is oftentimes focused on is different than what the campaign wants to be. But the most important thing is that they have to spend more un money to get an ad on tv. So if youre a candidate tv station has to give you space. They dont have to give it to an independent group and you get a lower it costs less to be a candidate. So youre having in some places an and then theres a whole other complicated thing if you buy early and reserve. But buying ad time isnt much different where you want to look for bargains and be smart and strategic about it. They go in to have to buy ads theyre spending sometimes ten times as much. Theyre paying retail while the dam pains pay whole sale. Better way to say that so all that is to say that they have made an impact but at the end of the day they didnt do the one thing that we both agree could have helped mitt romney at least early on which was defining him as opposed to letting him be defined. There was lots of ads saying that president obama was a terrible candidate and terrible steward of the economy. People already knew that. What they didnt know about who mitt romney was. And finally i think its the senate is another big piece of this. Right . After all is said and done, if all these republican super pacs that supposedly they were going to buy this election, if mitt romney does not win and if republicans dont take control of the senate, thats not a really good return on investment so i will be very curious to see what the reaction is going to be like from those in those circles. Its not new for very wealthy people to have through spending disproportionate influence. And whether you want to go back to 72 where or way before that or soros and peter lewis, you know, it happens in one election there will be on one side another election will be on the other. But youre right, its not quite as sufficient as spending. Do i wish that the Supreme Court had not decided that Campaign Spending is a form of speech . Sure. But the super packs were a logical extension of that decision. It is what it is. And frankly i dont think theres a lot we could do about it. So you know. But i think its right that if this if money was determinative, then a lot of different people would be in Elective Office now. And but what it did do, i think the most thing it did this time is it extend it had republican nomination fight. Is that the super pacs for san tax reform for gingrich kept them going. Romney during a couple of thin patches financially got financing that but that race would have been over a lot sooner had it not been for super packs. Let me ask about questions. You mentioned the idea that the Romney Campaign made what you see is a mistake in not defining him early, spending a lot of money to explain to people who he was. Surely youve asked people about this. What explanation have they offered this have they said calm down we know its not conventional but heres what we want to try to do. We want to be focused, we want to be disciplined. We tested it and it didnt move the meter. About the economy. This is an election fundamentally about the economy. This is a referendum on the president. And that they will also say and we didnt have is the kind of resource that is the president did. So you know were going to get outspent two or three or four to one. Regardless of what ad we put out there they were still going to get the hat. Thats the problem with being a challenger is you dont get to go in i t campaign will say we had to fight off these six other people in a primary while president obama got to roll together all this cash and then just dump it. It also might not have worked. That was the this is the gamble that both sides made. The Obama Campaign gambling that defining romney early was going to define this race. Then if they lose the gamble did not pay off. And romneys was first weve got to get through the primary and the other is this is a race about the fundamentality and one guy is president of the United States at a time of incredible economic despair and thats what we will be focused on. This is going to be a referendum up or down on president obama and the economy. And i think its a little more complicated than that. To me people are asked do you want to renew this president s contract for another four years . Yes, no, or maybe. And if the no and maybe combined equal 50 or more, which it has, then the second question, do you feel comfortable replacing the president with mitt romney . And they just view this first part of the equation as important and not and determine that part. And not the second. My view was i thought the American People would know that the economy sucked without any help from the Romney Campaign. But its a Political Science term. Ok. But they wanted to stay focused through discipline. But thats which leads it to then why didnt the super pacs come in . And they said thats not our job. And in fact actually restore our future the proromney super pac actually had a really nice testimonyal spot that i thought was really good but they only ran it for a while. They stopped running it may 27 and i think they it popped back up. What you said also explain romneys debate performance in the Foreign Policy debate on monday where he seemed restrained, where he seemed even to adjust his positions . Is that basically the Campaign Thinking we dont want him to get in the way of the message . Thats not his lane and i think he decided to take that pass fail and he passed. You know, that was a lower risk and i think it worked fine for him. The thing is i dont think he needed i dont think he was going to win a Foreign Policy debate. I mean, thats not an area that his area of expertise. And so i think he opted to go a low risk strategy. Let me ask the gentleman in the bow tie here in the front row sir. I want to pick up on an earlier question about romneys shift to the center. Because although im not an undecided voter if i were and if i really believed that romney would be willing to take on the right wing of his own party to arrive at pragmatic compromises, that would be v a big effect on my vote. My hunch is he would sort of like to do that but my other hunch is hes a hostage to for tune and hes not going to be able to get grover nor quist off his back so easily. But i would be very interested in your sense of who is the real mitt romney and if it is what i hope it might be, why he doesnt say so more directly. Well, i would argue that first you can make the same statement about president obama. And that you know, i think there are a lot of idea logs that believe that compromise is a four letter word in both parties. And i would say its over half of the members in each party in congress are qualified in that. But and actually the other question earlier about the tea party. First the tea partys business, what less than a third of the freshmen joined the tea party. I mean, less than a third. And when given the choice less than a third, i think its 19. Is that right . 19 freshmen. John boehner the tea party . No. Maybe the white wine party. Merlot. And i dont really consider eric canter or Boehner Tea Party either. I mean, canters more conservative than boehner is. But the thing is youre basically taking an old wine called conservative republican and putting a new label on it called tea party. The tea party movement, the best i can tell i dont think it exists any more. I cant remember the last time i saw. But weve had conservative republicans for a really long time and find me a Tea Party Voter that voted for obama in 2008. Find me one. Or that voted for john kerry in 2004 or for al gore in 2000. You know, there arent any. Or arent many. But no. I think real would a president romney be able to stand up to the more conservative elementses in his party . Good question. Could would president obama stand up on entitlement changes . And domestic spending . I mean, i think were looking at just two sides of the same coin. And theyre both problematic. Well, and voters get the joke. Thats the problem. Right . And thats where we keep coming back to who is going to be able to do that work. To your point about hes now tacking to the center, now we have moderate mitt. This is the mitt romney that the Obama Campaign did not want to face. They did not want to make the race about the flip flopping because ultimately people would say they need to get on their side. They needed him to be extreme mitt romney the severely conservative mitt romney which is why these ads you look at the most over the top negative ads come Frome Barack Obama not from mitt romney. These most of you sit in the washington, d. C. Media market youve seen the ads saying i will not have contraceptives and i will get cancer and die because of mitt romney. Right . Thats essentially what theyre saying because hes going to cut off planned parenthood. So they cant let him by b like this one way and this the other way. Thats not the argument they want to make. They want to make the extreme argument why you saw him at this debate doing it for both reasons. One its not his territory and he didnt need to get himself tripped up in this debate. But also because those very women hes trying to talk to they dont didnt want to be a george bush, doesnt want to be put into category hes just a george bush neo con or hes beating the war drum. So he distanced himself from almost all of that as well. And one of the first things he said is we dont want to see another iraq. Right . This is raising the larger question. A mitt romney 1. 0 could not possibly have won a republican nomination. Ok . Some of you are democrats, half the room are democrats. Lets talk about 2016 for a second. A lot of people in this room i think mark warner spretty good. You know what his chances of winning the democratic nomination are . Zero. Its the same thing. That these parties have gotten so ideological that you cant that was actually what was so remarkable i think about the obamaclinton race was that it wasnt a race to the left. I mean, it was generational, it was social economic, i mean, it was a lot of things but it wasnt about ideology. But i think thats sort of the specifics of that race sort of masked the larger thing. The democrats have the sasme problems. Let me ask a related question to follow up on the question that people asked. There is a saying that regardless of what you believe as a politician you will have to govern as you campaign. There must be some relationship. If you buy that notion how would each of these guys have to govern given the way theyve campaigned . Given the way theyve demagogued on two issues theyll have to deal with in the immediate future entitlements and taxes. So theyre going to have to make that change. Look, their hand is in some ways forced already whether they want to do it or not. We have the fiscal cliff coming up. We have the reality of sec stration. So theyre going to deal with it one way or the other. The question is how ugly does it get . Now, i didnt real the whole piece today. There was the Des Moines Register noted late last night that they had an interview with the president that he wanted to be off the record and they complained it shouldnt be and now its on their website. I think thats one of the points that the president makes too about how its going to be pretty ugly the fight but thats whats going to have to happen. I was talking to a Republican House member where they had a conference phone call and apparently they were asked and i dont know specifically whether it was boehner or who, but basically in terms of the but dont commit to anything. Basically dont commit. Just say as little as you possibly can on this because things are going to have to happen after this election. And i think hopefully after the election sort of the adults sort of take over on both sides because obviously some things have to happen or some pretty ugly things happen on december 31. And i think those conversations are happening. Folks that i talk to on both sides seem pretty committed to the fact that leadership is going to be at least right now theyre talking in a way that suggests that they do not want to see another debt ceiling sort of meltdown. And the senate side i think is very plausible that some kind of a compromise gets worked out. The house is just very, very problematic. Youve got just a lot of really exotic members on the right and the left. Talk about a youve mix. Not that theres anything wrong with that. Yeah. That are going theyre pretty hard to get those people to the same table. Weve got time for two or three more questions. How about here. Weve had lot of analysis about the three debates and the impact it might have on the election. But if i have this rights theres actually four debates. Is there any analysis or views about what the Vice President ial debate . I think the Vice President ial debate did give a boost to a very depressed Democratic Party. Came out of that first one wringing their hands and oh this is over, its disaster. Eor came out with the head swinging i cant believe this. But it didnt have an impact on the actual numbers themselves in part because voter are still picking the president theyre not picking the running mate. And so it was a good morale boost for a Democratic Party that needed one. But beyond that i dont think it had much of an impact. I thought the network should have a disclaimer. This debate is for entertainment purposes only. And will have no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the election. And it was. But amys right that you had after the president S Performance the first time and i love jay lenos line that the only people that thought the president won the first debate were the n. F. L. Replacement refs. But you had a bunch of democrats that are standing on the window ledge and biden got them off the ledge and got them back into the room and to safety. So you know republicans were obviously worried that medicare or Social Security or education dr it would blow up and it didnt. So both sides were very, very relieved with how the Vice President ial debate went. One or two more questions. The gentleman right here also on the aisle with the glasses. Go ahead. I have kind of a long question but im going to make it short. The first one is going back to the debates in general and substance versus style versus the shaping by the media. I talked to some people and ive heard even on interviews that people when they heard obamas rhett oric they felt more specifics versus governor romneys statement. So thats one. The other one is the issue of term limits. Wouldnt it be better to have a sixyear president so they could just have one Short Campaign . Jimmy carter had that idea years ago. How did that work out for him . Sixyear term limit was the quefment and the other question was about the debates about who was more specific, who was more particular . If you ask democrats theyll say president obama was more and if you ask republicans theyll say mitt romney was more specific and if you ask independents they probably didnt make it through most of the debates. Right. And first on the sixyear term limit. It would just mean we would have a longer campaign season. And we would spend more money on it. Right . So i dont doubt that for a minute. But to charlies point beyond the partisan let me say my guy won regardless of what happened except for the first debate, it is very different to go through and like the dork that i am read transcript of the debate especially the first debate and then watch it. Its a very different debate. Its the same as the whole nixon if you listened you thought nixon won if you watched on tv you thought kennedy won. So style does matter and i think thats where from the for the vast majority who even tuned in for five seconds what they saw was a ppt who didnt want to be there and again for a president who was already teetering on the charlies question of no maybe . Well do i want to see him back . It sure did not make them feel like theyre going to change their minds on the no maybe part. So style is important. Thats why these guys spend almost as much time learning about which camera to look at what kind of face do you have. Right . Going on a tour of hoover dam. Explain that. The president skipped one of the debate prep sessions to go to hoover dam. Yeah. Who doesnt want to see the hoover dam. But the thing is its been there for a while. I guess so. Post presidency tourist visit. I guess thats right. One more question. How about you maam right here. Please go right ahead. Gloria. So you two are whats going to be the big surprise when we wake up the day after the election . That its not over. First of all who gets to wake up . We will not have slept. So theres that. Beyond the first to sell it back from yeah thats the question number one. But you know look theres always some candidate that loses we didnt expect. But it seems in this day and age if theres a surprise it is something that literally broke like the day before. Right . But you know, is there going to be are you thinking about like at the president ial senate race . Well were always chasing after you hear this, you hear this, try to figure out there is anything to it. And after every shocking upset i can usually think back to some conversation i had with someone somewhere who suggested were thinking about this race in yaste. Right. And they always say it sort of offhand. But there were 67 others saying youd better watch that one and nothing happens. So that the one lets say take this morning. Democrats Senate Majority pac, the super pac, they just went up on the air in pennsylvania for bob casey. Not a race that weve considered particularly competitive. There have been a bunch of polls that have shown it close up but most of them were polls of shall we say dubious credibility. So do you believe it or not . And so were going to spend today trying to chase down and figure out whether the Pennsylvania Senate race is competitive or not. But were chasing these things all the time and who the heck knows which one eppeds up being the one. Well maybe thats a good point to stop this. Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking our guests. Thank you. Im sorry that you didnt actually answer my question when you were addressing it. Your question again 15 seconds make it a question please. Thank you im endorsed by planned parenthood of washington because of my consistent support of Womens Health care and access to womens right of choice contraceptive services. You have been reluctant to state your position on any number of occasions about this so ill ask you in a different way. What have you done to safeguard a womans access to choice and a womans access to contraceptive services and health care in general . Well, its a good question. Of course the premise is false because you suggest that i havent clearly stated my position. In fact, i think i just clearly stated it let me think a few days ago the last time we had a debate when i was asked this very question. Follow the issues and candidates in key house, senate, and governors races on cspan, cspan radio, and at cspan. Org. From the Womens National Democratic Club in washington, this is 50 minutes. I dont believe i have ever seen a list of awards, honors, and accomplishments that is as impressive. Im sure that she has won every possible honor that there can be bestowed for a stellar legal career including the american bar associations Margaret Brent award for 2012. We can all be thankful that most of that legal career has been spent in advocating for women and in establishing the National Womens law center an organization that has been instrumental in the womens legal rights for the past 40 years. I do want to mention some of our speakers other accomplishments to give you an idea of the breadth of her interests and commitments. This year, she was a member of the u. S. Delegation to the third u. S. China womens Leadership Exchange and dialogue. She is the Founding Member of americans for a fair chance. And the Founding Member of the National Coalition for women and girls in education. She is on the Trustees Council of the university of pennsylvania women. And has been appointed to the executive committee of the Leadership Conference on civil rights. She has authored many publications and articles including for u. S. A today and the New York Times. She has served as counsel in major litigation cases dealing with sex discrimination in schools, Sexual Harassment in the workplace, sex discrimination in intercollegiate athletic programs, and pay equity. Among other issues. They say if you want a job well done, give it to a busy woman. And it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you a most accomplished and very busy woman. Here to talk to us today about the importance of the womens vote and the 2012 election, the founder and copresident of the National Womens law center marsha greenberger. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for that extraordinarily generous introduction. From the incomparable judy 11. And i have to tell you what a pleasure it is to be here and i must also confess to a personal relationship that i think had something to do with this invitation. The National Womens law center has an incomparable ms. Lee vine on our staff. So we are very, very blessed by having extraordinary staff and sharon epitomizes the wonderful staff and individuals who have given their heart and soul to work on behalf of women. The National Womens law center is a nonpartisan organization, so we dont take positions on elections on candidates. We are not bipartisan. We are nonpartisan. And im here really today in my own personal capacity and i want to tell you a little bit about that just for a minute. Its especially poignant to be here today. In 1972, i had my first real experience working in politics and i was a staffer on the mcgovern campaign. So the fact that George Mcgovern died just this, so recently, makes it especially a poignant time for me. I dont understand it, because i was in charge of the desk as they called it. And for the region that included massachusetts and the district of columbia. And some of you may recall that George Mcgovern only carried massachusetts and the district of columbia. So i dont understand why i was never picked up as a political genius or pundit. After that experience. But in fact, that was my last political experience. So im very much out of date for progress noss kating or anything of that sort. But in those days, i met extraordinary venerable woman named poly shackleton. And some of you may remember her well. She ultimately was elected to the d. C. City council. And she took me under her wing as a young aspiring lawyer at that time and she told me about a wonderful organization, club, the womens Democratic Club. And it was through poly that i first learned about this institution and first saw this beautiful beautiful building. And so all of those memories came back to me and make it especially a special time to get the chance to talk to you about women and this election. And ok. So i must also say in the 40 plus years that i have really both been in washington and followed the political scene at least as an observer, i have never seen the emphasis that we have seen in this election on women and the public acknowledgment of the pivotal role that women play in this election season. It is just been extraordinary. And this morning as i had the tv on getting ready to go to work, one of the commentators literally said its women women women women. I thought, theres my theme. Its women women women women. After all, when you think about it, it was in 1980 that the womens vote first emerged when women got the vote the expectation was well if they vote at all theyll vote the way their husbands tell them to. And that was pretty much womens vote was not different than the mens vote until around 1980. And for a long time the fen nonto the extent that it was recognized was often not termed the womens vote but weve got a problem with men. If a party was doing well with women, then they said well whats the problems that youve got with men now its got weve got to attract women. And womens turnout has often been dispositive of elections up and down the ballot. So its not so surprising at the end of the day that after every debate, after all the issues, the pundits talk about, well, this was an appeal to women. How are women going to react to it . And as i said were a nonpartisan organization. But theres nothing partisan about urging everybody to vote no matter where they stand. And especially this election cycle. It is so important for people to vote. Men and women. And nobody has bigger stake in the outcome of this election than women. And thats what i want to talk about today. When you think about what are the major issues confronting this country, needless to say there is no such thing as a womans issue. War and peace. The economy. What issue isnt a womans issue . But there are also particular issues that have enorms sailionsy and direct impact on women that they women experience and need in ways that are different than men because of their economic circumstances and their personal circumstances. Women comprise in their and their children comprise the largest percentage of poor in this country, they are in the majority of teachers, often employed in larger numbers in the Public Sector than men. Theyre a larger percentage of those who earn the minimum wage. Theyre the largest number of people who are the ben fisheries of Social Security. It is women who have Social Security not only more women dependent on Social Security than men, but more dependent on Social Security as the largest percentage of their income than men. So when you these debates around our safetynet programs, our social programs, our economic polls yizz, where our taxes and tax brackets ought to be and tax rates ought to be, women have a particular need for many of the programs that are supported by our tax dollars and they also as taxpayers have a particular need for tax fairness and tax justice. And there are some particular deductions in the tax code now like the Child Tax Credit that some who have argued against raising any taxes somehow are willing to eliminate the Child Tax Credit. And thats somehow doesnt count as raising taxes. Well, that has an enormous impact on women, especially single women, but women broadly. So let me go through some of the specifics of some of these issues, many that you know, and that we hear throughout the debates as with varying degrees of intensity depending on the particular candidates, the particular locations, whether they are national, federal, state, local. But all of these levels have impact dramatic impact on the lives of women. Let me mention just a couple. The pay gap. 77 cents on the dollar is what the average woman earns today working full time compared to men. Now, that has been the figure that we have tried to budge. When i first started working on these issues it was 59 cents on the dollar. So weve made some progress. One of the first people that i worked with was elly newmans wonderful husband who working for a union was bringing lawsuits to deal with the issue of equal pay and there were companies historically in this country that had a specific policy which he turned up in litigation to pay women one third of what they would pay men or would discount womens pay by one third because they were working either for pin money which was the expression often used, or they were working to supplement their husbands, or until they got married. So they just did not need the salary that a man needed. So its not a surprise that these pay disparities were so embedded in business practices, consciously in the old days, perhaps unconsciously or subconsciously now that it takes enormous effort to dislodge them. The first law we had that outlawed pay discrimination was the equal pay act of 1963. And then theit