Transcripts For CSPAN2 2014 Eagle Forum Collegians Summit Part 1 20140726

Win our next speaker is the author of takeover the hundred year war for the soul of the gop and how conservatives can finally win it. Richard is a pioneer in the Political Landscape of the United States. In the 1960s he was the first to use Computer Technology in political fundraising. His marketing techniques revolutionized conservativey and campaigns. He founded American Target advertising in the 1990s. A group that specializes in helping conservative organizations and leaders sharpen their grassroots work. And now he runs conservative hq one of the leading news sites. Where is he . Oh, he is there please welcome richard vigory. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I jokingly refer to myself as w03. I have been active at the conservative movement longer than any other living conservative except two others. Dr. Lee edwards of the Heritage Foundation who i will introduce this afternoon and wo1 is anns mother the first lady of the conservative movement. So if my cup runs over and i will be with w01 and w02 and all of us are going long and hard every day to advance the cause of liberty. I wrote this book ann referenced takeover because in my opinion, ever since i have been in politics, which is well over 50 years, conservatives have had their political guns pointed at the wrong target. Harry reid, nancy pelosi or obama. Whoever it maybe. The number one point is establishment Big Government republicans. This is a 102yearold war. In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt sought the republican nomination for president , failed to achieve it, left the Republican Party and started the blue moose party that led to splitting the republican vote in 1912 and Woodrow Wilson election was less th 42 . And the Republican Party has been battling that every since. Sometimes it looks like ford, reagan, mccain, dole these are Big Government republicans. They are much more in common with democrats than they conservative republicans. Look at the extent Establishment Republicans went to in mississippi to hold on to power. They have much more in common with democrats than us. They engage in corruption, lying and cheating to hold on to that senate seat in mississippi. In conservatives and are like the biblical jews who could not get to the promise land until that group of flawed leaders left the scene. We will not get to the political promise land until we get new leaders. I think we are poised to do that. I have been involved for 50 years and i am more optimistic now than any time in my entire life. Over the last 50 years, periodically people ask me richard, is it too late and have we gone too far down the road to socialism to turn it around and can we still save america. And i had one answer and that is one answer. Things have to get real bad, real quick for america to get safe. Guess what . We are there. That water is boiling and the American People are jumping out of it. The one thing i didnt say all of these years that i should is it is takes two things. Things to get real bad very quickly and there has to be some political machinery to take advantage of that opportunity and that political machinery arrived on the scene in 2009 in the presence of the tea party. And the tea party has changed everything here in america. When anns mother and i were involved in politics back in the 50s and 60s the conservative movement rested on a twolegged school and that is not sturdy. We would win 4047 of the vote and very seldom getting 51 . But then under the leadership of paul wire, Jerry Fallwell and others conservatives began to reach out and bring the social issues. The twolegal school was National Defense and Economic Issues and that was the twolegged stool that got us 4045 percent of the vote. With the third leg being added in the late 70s and Ronald Reagan reached out and brought all of those people in the movement and that was the lace in the election of 83 and 84. We are getting 5052 percent of the vote but we are not governing america. With the tea party we are on a fourth leg and no longer sitting on a stool but at a big table. We have an opportunity to governor america in a way didnt see possible since before the tea party. Conservatives have made a lot of mistakes over the year but my opinion was the number one thing was we became an arm, or appendage, from the Republican Party. The tea party is separate. Reagan talked about needing new leadership and ran against the ford wing of the party and the rockfeller wing and the nixon wing of the party. Only two u. S. Senates supported him in 76 and 80. He said we need new leadership. Leadership that is unfettered by old ties and old relationships. The tea party is unfettered to old ties and old relationships. I spoke in dallas a few years ago to about 125150 tea party for the weekend. I was their friday night keynote speaker. I met with a dozen or so. There was a woman from corpus christi, texas. And she said they have meetings and the local politicians would call and say we want to come to your meetings and her response was great, we would love to have you come, but you dont speak, you listen to us. I dont have a friend that would talk to a republican politician like that. It is so refreshing hearing the tea party be independent and unfettered to the Republican Party. James carvel in 1992 famously said over and over to democrats it is the economy, stupid. He wanted to drive that point home for the democrats for the 1992 campaign. So i paraphrase and say it is the primaries, stupid, it is the primaries, stupid. Because in 20092010 we could see a wave coming and sweeping the democrats out. If all that happened is more Big Government republicans had been returned to office we would have wasted the opportunity of a lifetime. We could see that wave again. It could be a wave of tsunami porportions that will sweep the democrats out of office. That is why it is important we wokes on the primaries. A lot of copy has been written by our enemies, the mainstream media, about how bad the tea party is doing in this yours election. Do not believe them. The tea party and conservatives with winning. No republican out there other than maybe thad cochran and the only reason he did it is so we can appeal to liberal democrats to vote for him. Everyone is running as a limited government constitutional conservative. The republicans in congress are acting more conservative than they have in years. The reason we dont have a lot of liberal legislation is because of the influence of the Conservatives Tea Party types. But with a few exexceptions tea Party Conservative victories have come in open seats and open races. It is difficult to beaten incoming mate and where they are beating the Conservatives Tea Party they are outspending them 101 or 201. We are making a difference out there. I would urge you to think and realize we are winning and in my opinion taking over the republicans at the Grassroots Level is the most important political position in the world is a prestinct chairman and we must take it oversight and investigations over and build up. If we continue to focus on this, i think we can prevail in primaries in 2016, nominate and elect a principle smallgovernment leader and be g governing america by 2017. There is a lot of young people here and that is great. I am so excited to see so many young people. It may look like a dark period. I have been there when there was a darkness about the Political Landscape of biblical porport n proportions. It was tough out there Johnson Election and anything he wanted went through the congress. I was there when ford lost and carters four years and super majority in the congress. We didnt have talk radio then. We didnt have the internet. We didnt have fox or Cable Television and cspan. We didnt have the ability to go around the microphones. I was lucky many years to pioneer political direct mail that gave us the ability to go erran around the country and communicate with the American People. That changed 2010 comes along and rove, bush, mcconnell they are nowhere to be seen. People we marco rubio, mike lee, ran paul tea party and they liked it and gave the republicans their biggest congressional victory in 7580 years. I am going to wrap it up here, ann, so we can go to questions. One, twice, three times a day obama is going to do something to upset you. Take 30 seconds. Though something, get unhappy throw but get down and thank god he is president of the United States because i know no other way to save america. It is high risk. Lets take questions. Right here in to the lady. Hi, good morning, i am from georgia and thank you for being here today. As i am sure we have a primary coming up in a couple weeks between a business man and someone in politic and the common argument in this primary is whether or not we want someone who has been in politics for a long time with good relationships in washington or someone who is more in touch with someone running a business and an american working hard. Would you mind sharing your thoughts that the people that argue that people who are more in touch with running a business and what you might call the average american; is that better or should we rely on someone who has a better relationship and can give us a better chance of getting somewhere . Very good question. There is a runoff primary Senate Election in georgia between a longtime political leader and a business person. I am not in a position to endorse one candidate over the other right now but i will give you this piece of advice. I heard it from herman cane ten years ago. He talked about the qualities you look for and he said after you establish their conservatives bonafide the most important characteristic is you are looking for a boat rocker. Someone who is going to rock the boat. There have been a few high profile republicans who were not that conservative but they were fierce partisans. And we have leaders that are not able to articulate or fighters. We want leaders that will fight and articulate and someone who has been in office for 20 years that hasnt been outspoken in providing that leadership probably isnt likely going to start providing it in the 21st year. Let me take the opportunity to mention Something Else. Periodically i will have discussions with someone about a particular politician and they will say richard, why dont you think x or y isnt a conservative. And i have a full proof test of whether you are a conservative or not. And the test is tell me who you walk with and i will tell you who you are. I never saw Ronald Reagan in the late 60s and 70s and i saw him a far amount he was with us at the tables, sit at the tables with us and come to the meetings. But i never saw him, except i saw half a dozen stars of the conservative movement, you have saw reagan you saw dick alan and judge clark and Marty Anderson and when reagan moved conservatives all around him. So if you havent surrounded yourself with conservatives for the last 1520 years, when you move into office lets say you are running for president. I had this conversation with mitt romney in 2007 and i asked him about the people around him and he said you have to have con con con confidant times and i thought he blew me off because i said if ceos move in the issue is over. If they are not around conservatives they will not have conservative policies coming from the administration. When you started you were listing the Big Government republicans over the past century with nixon, ford and that makes it seems like the default position and the Party Leadership is biggovernment republicans with the two exception being goldwater and reagan. Can you talk about how they were able to defeat what seems to be the default biggovernment leadership and what that could mean for president ial nominees for 2016. I dont know if there is any secret sauce so to speak in terms of nominating and lect electing a Ronald Reagan type. I will say this, for recent president ial elections, maybe the last ever since reagan. We have had a few but only a few top tier really high level limited government constitutional conservatives running for president. We had good people but quite frankly they were not people that were going to get the nomination, okay . In 2016, we have a different problem. I think we are going to have a traffic jam of top tier high level quality candidates running and my concern is it will split the conservative vote half a dozen way and that is a serious danger. Many of the early primary states are in the northeast and in the northeast it is winner takes all. So if the establishment candidate gets 30 and the republicans get 20 they get hundred percent of the delegates. And to the south and west it is proportional. And sometime next year conservatives need to come together and unite behind one candidate as we did with goldwater and reagan in 76 and 80. And by the way, without promoting any one candidate and i dont have one that i think is absolutely superior to the others but i have one i am fond of. But anyway, let me just say, what i do is marketing. And i have been marketing for 50 years. I know that when i am trying to sell a developing Marketing Campaign for a candidate, a cause organization product, i want to position my client against the opposition or against the competition, if you would. So that in 2016 if we assume the democrat is going to be a washington insider Hilary Clinton i dont think that would be our strongest candidate. I think our strongest candidate would be someone from the states. A governor. We have half a dozen good governors. 10 at best in the polls so washington isnt poplar. We shouldnt chose one that looks too much like the washington insider like the democrats. I think it will be a limited government, good conservative who has done well as a governor. Next question . Over there. Hi. I am from france. I have a question about the tea party. Tell me if i am wrong, but the political the american political system is divided between republicans and democrats so as the tea party a chance to go through it . Or should Tea Party Leaders run as republicans to confer with the traditional system . Should tea partytype conservatives operate within the Republican Party . Some conservatives, myself included, have been there and done that and it aint good. I think conservatives, as i said earlier, we are so close to taking over the Republican Party and governoring america and it can happen in the next few years. I will be with a lot of libitarians for the next daws at an annual gathering in las vegas. I tell them i share your anger and frustration with the Republican Party. When they operate in my opinion in a 501c3 they make a wonderful contribution to limited government. But if they operate politically it is almost always a disaster. They divide the vote and it cost many republicans their election with the idea in mind they will try to show the republicans a lesson. I dont understand that. We had Ken Cuccinelli in november last november and tea party ran against him and got 7 and he lost by 2. 5 . I talk to the libishitarian leaders and i tell them i understand your frustration. What is your plan to get 51 of the vote and govern america . Everyone of them have an answer along these lines. No exception. Uh, uh, i will get back to you. That is not going to help us govern american. If all we do is divide the republican vote and allow the democrats to sweep the country and when they have super majorities at the federal and state level. If they controlled the congress with super majorities they will rewrite the laws in such a way we will probably never win another election. One more question . No . Okay. Great. Thank you richard viguerie. Hans is our next guest. He is an attorney and a former member of the board of advisors for the Election Commission and he is an ex pert on voter fraud and wrote who is counting. He is a staff member of the Heritage Foundation and frequently speaking and writing on election. Please welcome our guest. John fund work for National Review and he is a National Fairs correspondent and we wrote a book on Election Integrity and voter fraud and then we came out with this one in june. This is about how eric holder has run the justice worst attor general since mitchell under nixon. Mitchell went to jail. But holder makes mitchell look like an amateur. Part of what has happened throughout the department is they have been filling the ranks, the career ranks and remember the Career Civil Service system is supposed to be a system that hires people without politics, professionals and what they have been doing is filling the ranks with their political cronies and people from liberal advocacy groups. It got no attention from the press. Inspector general report talked about how in the hiring process for career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division, which is where i used to work, the division had overlooked and refused to hire lawyers who applied for jobs with sterling credentials and hire all of their lawyers from five liberal advocy organizations including the aclu. When i was at the Justice Department we saw the law within the fence we had to operate. The department doesnt see the law as a fence. Their few is they want to help the president change us into the progressive utopia that the president has the vision for and the law is a tool to do that. If they can ignore or bend the law or twist it to do it they will. In the book we talk about everything prom National Security, really big important topics, to other areas. But why should you be concerned about this. I will tell you. All of you are in college, about to graduate, go into the workforce, let me give you an example of how crazy they are at the Justice Department today. Last year the head of the education section of the Civil Rights Division who was hired in their career slot from the naacp and once told the United States stations at a forum that she believed in the United States School Officials should be able to assign students based on race, religion and immigration status. They sent a letter to colleges throughout the country last year setting up a new standard that they said colleges better follow if they didnt want to get sued by the Justice Department on claims of Sexual Harassment. Now, i dont believe belittle the importance of making sure Sexual Harassment doesnt occur. But the rules on that that have been established by the Supreme Court are pretty clear which is for someone to be guilty of Sexual Harassment they have to engage in severe behavior that is objectionable to a reasonable person. If you are a super sensitive person who is offended because someone asks you out on a date. That is not Sexual Harassment but that is the new rule the Justice Department said colleges have the fire. Any unwelcomed conduct should be considered Sexual Harassment. I am telling you if you ask someone out on a date and they are offended you could be charged with Sexual Harassment. And they were upset many colleges give due process to students. You are not considered guilty in america just because someone accuses you of something. And they complained in the letter about colleges having appeal rights. So if you are accused of this, and there is a finding against you, and you want to appeal it, they complained about the fact you wanted to appeal that. And they wanted colleges to put in the procedures that you may recall in alice wonderland the queen of hearts and he said lop off hair heads before there is a trial . That is apparently the procedure the Justice Department wants to put in because they put in the letter colleges should consider taking action before someones appeal has been exhausted. Now that can affect you directly. Another way it can affect you is there is a racialist attitude at the Justice Department and that racialist attitude is totally opposite of the way it was when i was there which was we believed in the race neutrality of our discrimination laws. For example, in the voting area, you cannot be intimidated when you try to vote or harassed on the bases of race and that protects everyone. Doesnt matter what your race is. If you are being threatened, intimidated or harasses when voting that is illegal under the law. This Justice Department believes it only protects people of a certain race and they have the same view toward employment discrimination. If you are discriminated against and you are white or asian they dont care about that. If you are discriminated against because you are black they will go after that. Anyone doubting that look at what happened in 2008 when members of the new black Panther Party stood outside a polling place harassing voters trying to get in yelling racial epithets that them in black paralegal uniforms with night sticks. And what did the administration do the moment they came in . They dismissed that lawsuit even though they had already won it. Something i have never heard of in the entire Justice Department. The black Panther Party didnt file an answer so they could have had a default judgment but they dismissed it. That tells you something about the attitude and why it is important we be concerned about it. The president picked the attorney general he wanted. They first met in 2004 when obama was first elected as a senator. They met at a small dinner party give in washington, d. C. And they, as the attorney general put it clicked from the first moment they met. They weboth shared the same vie of america and holder quickly became a part of the president s team. And that was a change because most people forget that today holder is the attorney general he was the number two guy in the Clinton Administration in the Justice Department and was expected to support Hilary Clinton but he changed his allegiance. He considers himself part of the president s Political Team and the attorney general a distant second. There is no question an attorney general is a political appointee and he is supposed to carry out the duties of the president. But there is a line he is not allowed to cross which is despite the priorities of the president the number one duty is to enforce the law on an objective nonpartisan bases. This attorney general doesnt believe in that. Every time the president has ignored, abused, twisted or changed the law the person at his side and telling him how and that it is okay and the attorney general of the United States, eric holder. And this is no surprise. He was confirmed by a very large vote. But we knew at the time this was going to happen. How did we know that . Well, i can tell you one incident that occurred during the Clinton Administration that should tell you what this attorney general is capable of . Towards the end of the Clinton Administration, all of you may recall that is when Hilary Clinton moved to work and said she was going to run for the United States senate. There were 16 convicted domestic terrorist in federal prison from the flan, which is a puerto rican terrorist group and they had engaged in over 130 bombings in new york city and cities and killed and murdered a number of people doing that. These 16 individuals were found, prosecuted and convicted. At the sentencing of these individuals they threatened the federal judge. Threatened to kill him and make sure he was killed. And in fact the federal judge said if the Death Penalty had been an option he would have imposed it. At the end of the clinton instruction, consultants were saying the puerto rican vote was important in new york and pardoning these 16 terrorist might help. So they went to their goodto go who was eric holder. And eric holder recommended that these individuals be pardoned. What you should know about this is that the fbi recommended against. The victims didnt want it to happen. And the pardons attorney was adimately against this because there is a lawyers in the Justice Department whose job it is to review applications for pardon that come in by the president. And none of these individuals applied for a pardon which is another issue. None of them. And in fact had never expressed the least apology for what they had done. Those pardons were issued and these individuals were let out of jail. He did this for political reasons. Pure and simple. And he did this, one reason, in addition to Hilary Clinton, was that he was hoping this would help him in the next administration become the attorney general because he was hoping that al gore would win the election. This should make you realize all things going on today are no surprise. There is a lot more in the book. I will tell you one other thing and then i will be happy to answer questions. There is a chapter about National Security and how for example in the Justice Department they have a division called the National Security division and who have they hired into the jobs there . All of these washington lawyers who volunteered probono to represent and help all of the terrorist held in guantanamo bay. Those are the people they hired. That is like hiring a mob lawyer and putting him into the organized Crime Task Force at the Justice Department and having him say what our policy should be to go after the mob operations. The attorney general has opened up more investigations of leaks of classified information than any other prior attorney general combined. But there is an interesting pattern and any time they can prosecute a lowlevel employee who leaked information to the New York Times they have done so. But avenue every time there is a major leak coming from the whitehouse and obviously intended to make the president look tough and strong. Such as the leak about the stuck neck virus . Probably the most successful Cyber Attacks the government has ever made. The cia engineered a computer virus and got it injected into the computers in iran that are running the computers that are extracting uranium. This was trying to because we know that because from the regular primary election the run off election there was a 17 increase in turnout across mississippi. So 17 more people voted in the run off than the primary. But if you look at majority democratic counties the increase in turnout was 40 . So it is clear democrats came in and voted. There is an easy solution to prevent that from happening in run off elections. But it is a state law and it is simple. You pass a state law that say only individuals who voted in the primary can vote in the primary run off. And that would have prevented this huge influx of individuals coming in to do it. Normally it isnt a problem because you have contested arguments on both sides. Kevin, did you have a question . The clashes between eric holder and congress with well public but he still seems to be proceeding on the same course he always has. Can you comment on the effectness of congressional oversight and what more oversight might look like . We have a great constitutional system. But part of the problem with that system is that it assumes that people will abide by it. And we have an entire chapter about eric holder and the way he has misled congress, lied to congress and showed utter c contempt for congress. When you have an attorney general who doesnt care about upseting congress there is not a lot you can do about i one of the only things they can do is try to use the power of the purse to make their upsetness with him known. That would mean targeted cuts they think will annoy the attorney general or make them understand they are upset with what he is doing. That would not be a general cut in the department of justice budget but for example you cut out his travel budget. In the past congress used those cuts to make their anger known. He is the first and only attorney General Health in contempt because they refuse to give over documents on fast and furious. The stupidest operation that led to the death of a Border Patrol agent and hundreds of mexican citizen and that shows frankly the kind of dismissive attitude holder has toward congress. Next question . Yes, peter . We are going into our govern election and our republican candidate is very interested in dealing with voter fraud in illinois and i know you have done a lot of research on that topic. He is trying to access all of the avenues possible to deal with voter fraud because that has been a big issue especially in the chicago area. What is your advice . What are the Different Things you have to hit and the methods to use to reduce voter fraud . Well the problem you have in illinois is it really takes the legislator to be willing to pass the kind of laws that will do something about it and plus you have a state election official like a secretary of state who is willing to do something about it. For example, illinois has no voter id requirement. I am not sure if illinois is part of the interstate cross check program. Another big problem we have in this country is i can tell you you can register in two different states and your chance of getting caught are nil and it is easy to vote in more than one state. The state of kansas started a crossstate intercheck program in which they let states compare voter list so you can get back a list of people registered in your state and their state. Illinois should be a part of that group and cleanup their voter rolls. We did a whole chapter talking about voter fraud including in chicago where in 1982 the United States attorney and a federal grand jury investigated and ended up prosecuting over 60 individuals, convicting and putting them in jail. And the esmate was over a 100,000 votes and it almost changed the governors outcome in the state. Next question . Still a little sleepy this morning . Yes . Down here. What is your opinion on the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding the vote rights act . Sure. I will be happy to talk about that. Last year the Supreme Court issued a decision in a case called Shelby County which has been controversial but it was the right decision. In 1965 Congress Passed the Voting Rights act, probably the most important law to the civil rights act, passed in the 19th century. It was needed then because of the discrimination. But people dont understand there was two parts to the act. Section two is permanent and applies to the entire country and makes it illegal to discriminate on the voting context on the bases of race. But congress put in a temporary measure called section five. And what they said was that okay a small number of states, at the time it was georgia, mississippi, alabama, they cannot make changes in their voting laws without getting preapproval of the federal government. The reason was because the Justice Department was winning lawsuits against local jurisdictions and the local jur jurisdictions would find a way to do it the way they were before in a different way. This was based on the fact that in 1965 the discrimimation was evident by the fact that black registration and turnout in mississippi was in the teens. Whe whe whe whereas white discrimination was in the 5060 percent. In 2006 it was renewed and the turnout rate of black americans in covered states in places like georgia and mississippi was on par with higher than white voters. So there was no longer any reason for section five. It wasnt needed. And in the rare instances where discrimination does occur the Justice Department can go to court and sue under section 2 the permanent nationwide p provision. No body who looks at reality today can say georgia, for example, discriminates more than maryland, that it has to be under federal supervision and maryland shouldnt. Hans, we have students in law school and students who might want to go. Do you have any career advice . The economy is tough right now for everybody but it is also tough for lawyers. I would encourage you. We need more folks on the conservative side in law schools because they are unfortunately predominated these days by liberals. It can be a very rewarding career. So if you want to do it, i would tell you pick a good school, go to school, work hard, and then get out into an area where you are doing things you find most interesting. I am not discourage you. Bring him a national reputationr his work on conservative principles and the american presidency. Paul kengor is well qualified to tell us what it means to be a real reaganaut. Please welcome paul kengor. [applause] thank you, anne. Hello, everybody, and my greetings to phyllis who i know is not here. I understand it took an operation to sideline her. [laughter] but she is, for those of you who arent familiar with her background, she is one of the true heroes of the conservative movement. I mean, i could stand up here, spend my 20 minutes just talking about her contributions and what she did. But i was saying out there earlier to ryan, i believe this is the 50th anniversary of her book, a choice, not an echo, it is. Which 1964, and that was on behalf of barry goldwater, the campaign, and it was also the year that reagan gave his time for choosing cheech, 1964. And those were absolutely pivotal to the conservative movement. Barry goldwater got creamed that year. It wasnt even close. But it launched Something Else much bigger, much longer and far more significant. So whereas the conservative Movement Lost in 64, in the long run it won. And it won because of people like phyllis schlafly, Ronald Reagan and others. So i want to talk a little bit today about what is a Ronald Reagan conservative. Thats been my specialty. Ive written more books on Ronald Reagan than i have on any other subject and any other person. And today in washington, wherever else, you hear republicans and people running for office, and you ask them what they believe, and they say, well, i believe what Ronald Reagan believed, right . How would you describe yourself politically . Theyll say im a reagan conservative. Including a lot of people who call themselves reagan conservatives who clearly arent. Just a couple weeks ago x this is being recorded, so ill try to be nice. I wont take shots at people. But i heard somebody a couple weeks ago describe himself as a reagan conservative who clearly wasnt a reagan conservative. But part of the reason for that, why so many republicans want to emulate reagan, look at the mans political success. It was absolutely stunning. Heres somebody who twice was elected governor of california in landslides, including in 1966, won against a Popular Democratic incumbent. 1980 runs against a democratic incumbent president. As youve noticed, the trend in america more recently has been that the American Public reelects its president s, right . They generally get two terms. Well, because of Ronald Reagan against jimmy carter in 1980, that didnt happen. Reagan beat carter so soundly, reagan took 44 out of 50 states. Pretty remarkable, especially for a very clear, conservative republican. Reagan in 1984 was reelected by winning 49 out of 50 states. 49 out of 50 states. Anyone know the state that he lost . Minnesota. Minnesota. Minnesota which was the home state of his challenger, walter mondale. So think about this, reagan won in 1984. The Electoral College vote was 52513. 52513. Combined Electoral College victory for reagan 80 and 84 was 1,014 to 62. Reagan, a conservative republican, twice, twice won california. Well, he was from california, he was governor. Okay. Massachusetts. Name for me the conservative republican whos going to win massachusetts twice in 2016 and 2020. [laughter] new jersey twice, new york twice, my home state of pennsylvania be twice. So just enormously successful. Gallup today does a president ial poll, a poll every president s day, and they ask americans who their favorite alltime president was. Reagan has won that more years than any other president since 1989. He beats lincoln, washington, fdr, all of em. There was a poll done in 2005 by Online Survey by time and aol, and it asked americans whos the greatest american of all time. Not whos the greatest president of all time, whos the greatest american of all time. 2. 4 million respondents, and they picked reagan. So i can give you poll after poll after old. 2013, february, after barack obama his second inaugural which should be at the height of his popularity by the way, obama got reelected, but got reelected with less Electoral College votes and less popular votes. First and only president that thats happened with. Reagan got reelected with 49 states, obama got reelected with 26 states, a bare majority. The poll done in february 2013, it asked americans right after obamas second inaugural if a president ial election was held today between Ronald Reagan and barack obama who, who would youe for . Reagan won by 58 . Thats higher than the percentage of votes he got against carter. And reagan also won in that survey among voters ages 1825. Which was the youth group that elected barack obama. So imagine that. So you could see why so many republicans would like to be like reagan and say that im a reagan conservative, right . Theyd like to emulate reagans political success, you know, first and foremost. But that said, that gets to the question of what did Ronald Reagan believe. So i endeavored a couple years ago to because i did a number of books on reagan, reagans faith, reagan and the cold war, whole bunch of things and there was a conference on conservativism, and my friend said is everybodys always calling themselves a reagan conservative, you should go out and lay out what exactly is a reagan conservative, what does a reagan conservative believe. I said, all right, ill try to do that. Reagan himself was asked what is a conservative. In february 1977, february 6, 1977, reagan was speaking at cpac. And reagan spoke at cpac more times than anybody else probably in the history of cpac or at least for the first 13, 14, 15 years, he hardly missed any. Reagan didnt miss a single cpac the entire time he was president , all right . As president he spoke to cpac every single year. And reagan said conservativism can mean Different Things to those who call themselves conservative, right . As you know today. If you ask everybody in this room for a definition of conservativism, youll probably get almost as many different definitions and answers as there are people in this room. So reagan tried to give somewhat of a definition. And by the way, he said its like what Potter Stewart said about pornography . Its hard to define, but i know it when i see it . Thats what he said about conservativism. Its hard to define conservativism, but i know a conservative when i see one. Reagan said the common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women working out their own lives in their own way, thats the heart of american conservativism today. Keep in mind, this is february 1977. Jimmy carter had just been inaugurated president. After defeating gerald ford, a republican who never won a president ial election. Who replaced a republican, richard nixon, who was pushed out of office, who resigned in disgrace. And the Republican Party at that time was completely ripped apart by nixon, rockefeller republicans, detente republicans, liberal, squishy republican, conservative republicans. A lot of the same divisions that you see today among what they call rinos, tea party, libertarians. All these things were still there. In fact, i would say it was worse then. In fact, it was so bad that Ronald Reagan whose 11th commandment was thou shalt not speak ill of another republican, ran against gerald ford in 1976 and tried to take the republican nomination away from him. I mean, thats how bad it was. Thats how bad the divisions were at the time. So reagans definition be february 1977. The common sense and minnesota decency of ordinary men and women, conservative wisdom and principles are derived from the willingness to learn not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. And think about that. That might sound like common sense, which i think it is, but progressives dont think that way. You know, they think that whats happened in the past, right, what our ancestors did and pursued and what were their norms and mores and so forth can be particularly it anderly irrelevant and maybe should simply be be flat out rejected. G. K. Chesterton called it that democracy of the dead, the idea that our ancestors should have something to say in what we do today. Our ancestors should have a vote in what we believe and how we think, because they lived. The previous thousands of years of Human Experience a conservative would not just toss all that out the window and say, well, you know, weve been to college here the last four or five years, and my secular liberal university, weve figured out we know better than them. They were knee neanderthals, the people. They really, they believe those things because they were stupid. And intolerant. But we know better today. But conservative thought says even if i do know better right now, maybe there is a good reason why they believed what they believed the past two or three or four thousand years. Maybe i should humble myself and at least consider what my ancestors believed. Reagan, the rells of conservativism are sound because theyre based on what men and women have discovered through experience and not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we conservatives say that we know something about Political Affairs and that what we can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles that we hold dear are those that have been found through experience to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations. Let me give you an example of this. The elephant in the living room. I have in my book, my latest book, what is a reagan conservative, is i have the 11 principles, and one of the 11 principles is family. Reagan spent a lot of time talking about family and about marriage. And reagan was never asked if he supported samesex marriage, was in because in Ronald Reagans time the idea was completely unthinkable. And anybody in the 70s or 60s or even 3 the 80s who would have advocated samesex marriage would have been hauled off to a lunatic asylum as a public menace. No one was even thinking about that. So reagan was never even asked about that. But reagan would again and again and again talk about the ideal for marriage. He said marriage is, quote the loving lifelong relationship between husband and wife that is marriage. He said we should look to that define institution of marriage Divine Institution of marriage, he said, based on biblical and natural law. And reagan even went so far to say imagine a president saying this today and the trouble hed get into that our ultimate model is the holy family. [laughter] harry, joseph and jesus. Mary, joseph and jesus. But the family is the mother and the father and a lifelong relationship with a child. Now the conservative on an issue like marriage would think about what our ancestors had to say. And would look at marriage from a traditional, ancient, biblical and natural law perspective. Conservativism is first and foremost about conserving. You wouldnt expect a conservative to redefine marriage. So i would say that you could still call yourself a conservative if youre a conservative on 95 or 90 out of 100 different issues. But really the conservative position on marriage would be that you wouldnt, you wouldnt endeavor to try to redefine something that fundamental. A progressive who believes that there is no absolutes and that you can always change the definitions of everything and that everything is always evolving and changing and reforming, a progressive would have no problem redefining marriage. And a libertarian who might come from another per is spective perspective altogether might have no problem with it as well. But a conservative would stop and say, wait a second, this is something thats literally as old as the garden of e den. Even eden. Even the ancient romans and greeks didnt to that. Its been based on tradition, biblical and natural law. As samuel alito says, its not even as old as the cell phone. Im going to step back and maybe wait at least a but the generations if not a few centuries or a few thousand years before im willing to throw out everything from the past and redefine it. Redefining marriage wouldnt be a conservative thing to do. It would be a progressive thing to do. Progressives redefine life, they redefine when life begins, when life starts, all of that stuff. But conservatives dont. So you can ask me more about that one in the q and a. If youd like. [laughter] i dont have a lot of time, so in the book i lay out 11 principles of a reagan conservative. They are freedom, faith and family, sanctity and dignity of human life, american exceptionalism, the found beers wisdom and vision. Ronald reagan quoted the founders more than any other president , by far. I count 850 times reagan quoting madison, washington, hamilton, adams. Its just remarkable. You take the four or five president s before him, the four or five after them and combine them, they dont even quote them. Barack obama hardly ever quotes the hounders. He mended them a few years ago, referred to them as, quote men of property and wealth. When he referred to the founders. Lower taxes, limited government, peace through strength, anticommunism and belief in the individual. Im watching the clock. I see i have about eight minutes. No, you have two minutes. I have two minutes . Yes. Its the two minute warning. Okay, i have less than that. Let me say this reagan emphasized in that cpac speech which is an amazing speech and we reprint anytime the back of the book and no one even knows about it, reagan said conservatives need to be complete conservatives. If youre a true conservative, youll be an economic and a social conservative. And reagan argued that you can argue both, especially if you communicate in an effective and winsome be way and still win elections, all right . So reagan said that conservatives need to do that, they need to try to do that. So just a couple of examples. Lower taxes and limited government. Those are economic conservative issues. A conservative believes in lower taxes, period. A conservative would not favor upper income tax rates of 50, 6, 0 70 . The federal income tax started in america in 1913. It was put in place by who, anyone know which president . Speaking of progressives . Woodrow wilson. Woodrow wilson, all right. 1913. It started off, the highest rate for the federal income tax in 1913 was 7. 7 . On incomes of 500,000 a year or more. By the time Woodrow Wilson left office in 1921, it was 73 . It went from 7 to 73 . Fdr took it up to 94 . He considered an upper rate of 99. 5 on incomes over 100,000 a year. Absolutely true, i assure you. Its dock documented, believe me. I wouldnt say this stuff if it wasnt true. When Ronald Reagan came into office, he eventually took that top rate down to 28 , and the economy took off. All different income groups, races, genders, everything. Unemployment numbers completely plummeted, economy took off, did extreatmently well. Extremely well. Limited government. If you were to come up with a one definition, a onesentence definition of conservative, i think almost everybody would note that conservatives believe in smaller, limited government. But, and this is an important point to keep in mind especially in youre arguing with libertarians, conservatives arent antigovernment, theyre not against government. Conservatives believe in preserving order, having rules, providing for basic necessities. Conservatives are against antiexcessive government, theyre against excessive government, Big Government, cradle to grave nanny state womb to tomb government. They dont want government too out of control. And last one, Ronald Reagan was a huge proponent. He believed in the sanctity and dignity of human life and the importance of each and every individual. Reagan said the first and most fundamental of all human freedoms is the right to life. He said without the right to life, there can be no other rights. Without the freedom to exist in the first place, there can be no other freedoms. If you dont have the freedom to live and the right to life, then you cant have freedom of speech be, press, assembly. He said without those rights, without that initial right to life, no other rights literally have meaning. And he said every individual its a latin term is a res s sacra, a sacred reality. This is a completely different view from the progressive view of the world which sees every new individual as another mouth to feed, another drain on resources, another addition to overpopulation. Reagan said every individual has a soul. Think about this. And because every individual has a soul, each and every individual is incomparably more important than the state. Because states dont have souls. Souls make the individual eternal. States dont have souls, theyre not eternal, they come and go. And for any state, especially as reagan believed a communist, atheistic one, to get in the way of impersonalimpinging a sole we ultimate abomination. So right there reagan argued those economic conservative issues, those social conservative issues, he did it at a time when everyone told him everyone is against you on the abortion issue. He said, i dont care, its the right thing to say. He won 44 out of 50 states in 1980, and hes held up today as the republican conservative model. Okay, paul, lets take some questions. Got it, thank you. All right, questions . Fire away. Oh, down in front here. Ask me about marriage, its fine. You should see the things that people say about me online. [laughter] im used to it. And i have seven kids, so its i get beat up all the time. Yeah. Im Kirsten Thompson from texas. In your personal opinion, are there any political leaders at the forefront or on the sidelines that have these characteristics of a reagan conservative . Yeah, i think theres a bunch right now. We didnt have one in 2008, we didnt have one in 2012 as the nominees, and they lost. But i think in 2016 there are so many and so many good ones that the prospects for the conservative movement look better than ever. I would put at that list marco rubio, ted cruz, i think rand paul is pretty much i have 11 principles there, and he hits pretty much 11 of em. In fact, he read the book and endorsed it, so i guess he must agree with it. His father was libertarian. Rand awl is lib paul is libertarian leaning, but i think rand paul is more conservative than he is a libertarian. Haley oh, from South Carolina. Nikki haley, thank you. And also martinez as well. Thinking of women here now, michele bachmann, sarah palin although i dont think they would have a chance at the presidency, but i think haley and martinez arguably could. Bobby jindal, the governor of louisiana, scott walker, paul ryan. Governor Christie Christies actually pretty good on most of these 11 points. Hes very good on the life issue, pretty good on the life issue. And also christie has what rubio and ted cruz and rand paul have which is also what Ronald Reagan has had which is a be not afraid attitude. They dont care what the media says about them, and thats really, really, really important. Because no matter what, no matter what they say, theyre 234e6r going to never going to vote for you. They want us to nominate a jeb bush or another john mccain or a Charlie Crist or somebody like that. I like jeb bush. He actually has most of these 11 as well. But the media tries the pick out to pick out moderate republicans that they tell us to nominate that they think they can beat. But i think someone like a marco rubio, a rand paul be, ted cruz rand paul, ted cruz, a ticket with two of those three on it in 2016 would beat hillary clinton. Okay, next question . Oh, down in front here. Oh, no, shes got it. Go ahead, avery. Hi. Im maria [inaudible] from new hampshire, and so i will ask you about the marriage issue yes. What would you say is a good argument to defend marriage more towards the libertarian standpoint where they say it should be something not decided by the state . Right. Well, and because its decided whether its legal or illegal, the state gets involved no matter what. And i would tell libertarians, too, that by libertarians believe in small government, limited government. If you render unto government a power heretofore reserved to the laws of god and natures god which is the ability to define marriage, then ive got news for you, you support huge government. I mean, you support massive government. If youre willing to let the government define what is something that previously only nature and god defined and you call yourself a libertarian . I dont know how you can call yourself a lib ortarian. Thats like letting government redefine air. I mean, thats can youre giving government massive power. And then also the government will become a massive dispenser of benefits to samesex couples and so fort. I would so forth. It said, too, as conservative, might be notice how ive used the word redefining marriage. Personally, religiously, i would object to samesex unions, but from a legal, political standpoint thenar have just done that. If the Gay Rights Movement and progressives hadnt messed with marriage, there wont be a lot of this resistance from conservatives. As a key, marriage just means im against people redefining words that have always meant what theyve meant. I dont want like that. I believe in absolutes, you know . You dont call a wall Something Else and say its no longer a wall. I mean, marriage has always meant what its meant. So i would just say redefine it as Something Else. Now another crucial thing, seculars and liberals and progressives, libertarians will try to argue that conservatives are intolerant if theyre against samesex marriage. But if you think of it the way that i frame this and the way that i talked about it, if they just understood what conservatives believe and they know that conservatives are about absolutes, they base their ideas usually on biblical and natural law and other things, then a really sensible libertarian or liberal ought to be able to come up and say, no, no, no, no, no, he or shes not an enal rant bigot, they believe in biblical, natural law, and these are conservatives. They conserve. Why would you expect them to redefine marriage . Leave em alone. I disagree with him, but hes not a hater, hes a conservative, and a conservative would never redefine something as fundamental as marriage. You know, back off. Leave him alone. So in a way if we all just better understood each others ideology and if the left better understood what we believed, then maybe they wouldnt attack us so vicious and vehemently in the first place. But they as progressives, look how theyve progressed on the abortion issue. Margaret sanger started planned parenthood as the american Birth Control league. Around 1919, 1920. She wrote an article for the nation in january 1932 which i have my students read. And in that she said people say that when we talk about Birth Control, that we support abortion. We do not. She said there is nothing more abominable than aborting a child. There could be nothing more vicious than killing your offspring. She says were completely against abortion, all right . Well, Margaret Sangers american Birth Control league, which is planned parenthood, is initially just about Birth Control, and its not about abortion. 50, 60 years later it becomes americas largest provider of abortion services. What do they have to do . Progressives had to progress. To that. So what they were telling you about the unborn in 1920 they completely moved on to Something Else later. Progressives are always evolving and moving the goalposts and redefine things. And then after that my liberalprogressive friends were telling me 20 years ago just leave us alone. Dont worry, if we want to have an abortion, its none of your business. Believe me, we would never ask you to pay for it. We would never ask you to pay for it. Well, now here we are, the government subsidizes planned parenthood. The to be by lobty did you see what harry reid is doing about this . If you dont support the state supporting you, youre saying that you hate, yo youre guilty of a war on women. The progress is always changing. If you went to a progressive and just laid out what i said, american Birth Control league, planned parenthood, legalized abortion, forcing the state to subsidize hey, where are you guys going to be on this issue in 20 years . You know what theyd say . Do you know what would be the honest answer . We cant, we dont know, but well tell you when we get there. I think theres another question down in front here. Right. Oh, that was your question . You got answered . Well, 20 year ago the entirety of the Democratic Party supported male female marriage in the defense of marriage act. And now 20 years later if you disagree with them on that, they call you every name in the book. So where are they going to be in 20 years on marriage . Answer, they dont know. Theyll tell you when they get there. And if you disagree with them and believe what youve always believed for thousands of years, theyll call you the radical extremist, crazy person. We can tell them what we believe, they cant tell us what they believe other than they support change. How about another question . Yes, right down here, avery. Kay lin caruso from liberty university. Based off your research, what do you think Ronald Reagans response or solution would be to the common core state standards . Oh, yeah, thats a good question. He would, reagan would not like a nationalization, federalization of education. He was against the department of education to begin with. And the department of education, thats one of those things liberals talk about like it was chiseled in the wall outside of Independence Hall in 1776. It started under jimmy carter, and reagan wanted to abolish the department of education. And his first head of it was bill bennett, of all things. But reagan didnt like the idea of nationalizing everybody, its such a red herring were you against standards. No, no ones against standards. Everybody favors standards. But youd like, the conservative believes in decentralization and more of a balance in government. The one thing as a conservative you always want to do when your liberal progressive friends say, oh, this is something good, the government should do this. Well, ask does the goth really have to do it government really have to do it . And better yet, does the federal government have to do it . Could it be done by a state instead . Or a borough or a county . Or a charity . Thats the other thing you know about progressives and that they really know about themselves is they push everything into a federal central position. Everything. They dont want anything done locally, they dont want anything done by the private sector. They know that about themselves as well, so theyll never accept Something Like marriage or abortion being defined by each of the 50 states. They want it all done at the national level. They want everything done at the national level. Paul, later on today were going to have a program about one of reagans most favorite president s, so what portrait did Ronald Reagan put in the oval office . Oh, great. Well, he calvin coolidge, he likes Dwight Eisenhower no, were going to talk about calvin coolidge. The other true conservative president of the 20th century. Yeah, calvin coolidge, Charles Johnson . Yes. I wanted to give him a little youll like that. Thats very good. Thank you very much, paul. Thank you very much. [applause] all right. Our next speaker is senator jim demint, and i see that some other people are tiling in for it. But filing in for it, but i think hell allow us to take the seventh Inning Stretch by standing up and saying the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. [inaudible] thank you. So, now, senator jim demint, who has written a book called falling in love with america again. Senator demint serve inside the house, the u. S. House, from 992000 and then was a senator from South Carolina until he joined the Heritage Foundation as president in 2013. Demint has a long record of Public Service, of fighting for freedom and conservative principles. He continues to advocate for limited government, individual liberty, a strong National Defense and traditional american values. Jim demint is also the author of the book saving freedom we can stop americas slide into socialism. In the Senate Senator demint was a leader in the fight against obamacare, the misguided 2007 amnesty bill and against any intrusive United Nations treaty. Please welcome senator jim demint. [applause] hes not here . Hes on the elevator. Oh, well, i should have made the ledge of allegiance go twice as long. Okay. Well, as long as i have you as a captive audience, ill give you a promo to hear some of our next speakers. After senator demint we have senator Rick Santorum, and then we have a program on guns and gun rights given by emily miller, and the three speakers in the afternoon i think will be tremendously exciting, Andrew Mccarthy talking about a book that hes written about building the case for obamas impeach impeachment, ann coulter who i assume needs no introduction concern. [laughter] and then what im most excited about, a little story about calvin coolidge, one of my most favorite president s who if you dont know anything about him, he took a red line to the swire budget and entire budget and truly cut spending just in a tremendous way. So if you dont know your history, its worth brushing up on that. So that thats whats coming up today on this fabulous program. Now, senator jim demint. Come on up. [applause] you missed it. Be well, im glad i showed up. I am too. [laughter] well, great. Got everybody spread out. Thanks for coming. I guess i need to use the microphones here . Please. Because youre being taped. Oh, okay. Well, great. Thanks for being here. This is an opportunity every year for us at heritage to hear there you, but also to share a little news of the things that were doing. And i think its important and, first of all, i appreciate the group, particularly phyllis, for her longevity in the movement. So many folks who claim to be on our side come and go or tend to be tempted away to the wrong ideas, but i sure appreciate phyllis strong stand over so many years. So thanks, all of you, for being here. I i just wanted to take a few moments to just talk about this whole concept of being conservative, what does it mean. Sometimes political labels get confusing. Probably all of you here consider yourself conservative in some way, but sometimes we dont talk about what it is that were trying to conserve. And if you take the political labels off and think about what it is that were talking about, what is the other side talking about, it really comes down to two basic ideas. When you confront a problem or a situation, there tends to be a gut instinct of some folks if theres a problem, that we want to tell people what to do. Youve probably run into em as hall monitors in school or whatever. They want to have the rules, they want everybody to do the same thing, they want theyre not comfortable unless everyone is being told what to do. I see that a lot in washington. You see a problem out somewhere across the country, they want to make a law that forces everyone to do something. I mean, theres another gut instinct that comes from, you know, me and a lot of people who share my same beliefs. Whenever you can when theres a problem, let people work that out for themselves. Let them come up with their own solution. Let people maybe in different parts of the country come up with Different Solutions so that we can compare what works and what doesnt and what works best. And i guess the misconception today is that if you standardize everything and make everybody do the same thing, somehow thats going to make everything better, that thats going to improve life for everyone. When, in fact, its very often the opposite. When you standardize everything across 50 states, you lose the opportunity to have 50 states competing to do things the best way. And 50 states learning from the states next to em on how to do Something Better with. You know, in the Business World we call it continuous Quality Improvement and comparing ourselves with best practices in other companies. Always looking at the competitors and other people and what theyre doing. And what happens is one person will do it better, another person will do it better, and you keep Getting Better and better. But what weve seen happen in america when we began as a country that was very decentralized that so much of what is good about america was really built from the ground up. It didnt come from the government down, it came from the people. And the little platoons, as edmund burke talked about, of families, of church groups, of small businesses, of little shops, of volunteer organizations helping each other, building their communities. Thats not only what works in america, thats what made be us the best made us the best and greatest and most compassionate nation in history. Its also what creates our love for each other. Were not patriots and lovers of america because of a big federal government. We love our country because of the people that are closest to us. Our families, our commitments, the people that communities, the people that we know. The opportunities that we have to do things for ourselves. Its not what other people do for us. Its a very different philosophy than Central Planning and Central Management which goes back to where i started. The people sitting over here in the capitol, so many of them its not about making you free, its about controlling your life. Believing they know better than you do how to make decisions. And when you start looking at the different issues, you can really see how this breaks out. Because for several decades in washington the people who wanted to control things have been succeeded in so many areas. I mean, the federal government now be has so much control over areas of our lives such as education, certainly health care, managing our energy resources, our transportation system, our banking and mortgage system which means they control housing, a lot of the finance in our country which drives a lot of our total economy. And through regulations of almost every area of our lives, the control is coming out of washington. Under this idea that theyre helping us. There are a lot of good intentions here, but there is an old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And i can promise you the roads all around washington, d. C. Are paved with that same material. People here claiming that theyre going to help you by controlling your life. The difference in philosophy between conservatives and progressives is our ideas are based on those principles that we can see made this country strong and great, created the best life that has ever been created for humankind. It never was perfect, you can always find problems with it. But theres never been a nation like the United States of america. And we have done more not only to improve our own lives, but peoples lives all over the country, all over the world. Our ideas of free markets and Free Enterprise are doing more to lift people out of poverty than any Government Program in the world. You can look at the statistics around the world and our own index of Economic Freedom is keeping track of which countries are doing the right things to lift themselves up. And you can see what that does to improve the lives of people. And ironically and unfortunately, so many countries around the world are copying those principles that made us prosperous while were going the other way. But the key here is that were not talking about two theories, and were not arguing about things that were not sure about what works and what doesnt. As a conservative, you can go boldly out into the country and talk about this idea of limited government and a vibrant civil society, of how less taxes and less regulations actually improves lives for even. For everyone. And you dont have to argue theory, because now particularly now as you look at the policies of the left which have really prevailed in washington for several decades, because despite some republicans being in charge at present, basically theyve all been spend more, borrow more, grow the government, give government more control of education, health care, everywhere. Its been the problem of both parties. And we are not only seeing debt and dysfunction in washington where these ideas have prevailed in cities and states around the country, you see massive failures. You see cities like detroit that have been controlled by liberalrollive ideas for over progressive ideas for over is six decades. They cant blame that on a republican, there hasnt been a republican in detroit if in a long, long time. But this was americas premier state long before your time. This was the pride of america where our Auto Companies were the best in the world. And be people actually went to detroit to vacation just to see the place. And some of the wealthiest people in our country, wealth jesper capita of any place wealthiest per capita of anywhere in the world. Now its completely devastated, run by gangs. Theres not even major supermarket in detroit. Its bankrupt. And so are the ideas of the left. And if you look at other states, for instance, controlled by those same ideas like illinois hopelessly headed towards bankruptcy with all of their Union Pensions and everything that theyve been doing for years, california running businesses out with their high taxes and regulation, the policies of the left of progressives have failed. They are progressing away from the principles that create prosperity and freedom. Were building the future based on those principles, and by applying those principles that work. Steve moore, who works with us now, has worked with art laffer in putting together a book about the comparison of the states. And it just shows time after time how the ideas that we believe in are making life better and people more prosperous in the states where these principles are applied. Whether its less taxes or in some states no taxes, businesses flock there. When you have tort reform, legal reform, eliminating frivolous lawsuits, you see doctors moving to practice in places like texas where they dont have to worry about trial lawyers as much as they do disease. They can practice their craft. You see states that are going around the federal regulations on private land to develop energy like north dakota where only a decade ago was, basically, a wasteland, no one would consider going to north dakota for anything. Now people are driving from all over the country, in fact, all over the world to find a better way of life. You see it in northern pennsylvania and other places where energys being developed. But for years the left has kept us from developing the energy that would make america prosperous, help to solve our debt problem, our trade deficit, a lot of the issues that they complain about they make worse. But despite that, the innovative spirit of americans, the independent spirit of a lot of states, america has become despite this president , the largest producer of energy in the world. That creates so much opportunity for us when you push things down to the state level. States that are expanding School Choice are doing so much better than states that are following the federal regulations such as the new common core. Our ideas work. And it doesnt just work for rich people. If you look at School Choice, its closing the income gap of the most atrisk kids in our nation today. So you can be proud of what you believe, because what works. The left is moving ahead, away from the principles all under theories that this Central Planning and Central Management can actually work. But those policies have been on full display during the Obama Administration, and our economy despite spending more, trillions more than we ever have on economic stimulus we are still in a stagnant economy. Which puts people like you in a terrible situation; going through college, developing Student Loans and not even sure that therell be opportunities on the other side. But this is not something you have to stand for. Its not a permanent situation. These are things that can turn around relatively quickly. Because all of the things that made this country work are still at work, and theyre just not working as well because becausef oppressive federal government, oppressive taxes, oppressive regulations and those people up here who think they can control your life when they cant even run their own lives, and they certainly cant run congress. So, folks, i appreciate you. Its very unusual for folks at a young age to begin to understand that actually freedom is your best path to prosperity. And also your best path to security. The idea that governments dependency will make you secure is a fools e rand. Its not true errand. Its not true. Youre most secure when youre most free, and we prove it every day here at heritage, and so do you. So, thanks. Ill shut up and how about some questions . Yes, how about that. Please, lets have some questions. Thank you. [laughter] oh, come on. Answered em all. There we go, down in front here. Start us off. My name is carrie, and im from texas. I have a question about common core. As a future teacher, what are some ways as a grassroots activist you can push to get against common core and how to, you can lighten, lets say, other parents or other peoples eyes about the dangers of what it actually is . Yeah. This is one of those rams that on the programs that on the cover sheet just sounded wonderful in the beginning. It was voluntary by states or whatever. But after you saw all the regs and how they basically tied up all the money that states need unless they adopt this, its another example of good intentions gone awry. Jeb bush, who did a great job as governor in florida with School Choice, very innovative things which have proved successful. The problem is, is once you see that happen, you forget the reason it happened is that he went outside of the federal regiment and did Something Different in florida. But now if you want to take what happened in florida and start creating National Standards under that, basically what you do is conform every state to something instead of create an environment where states are trying to improve on what florida did and keep growing and keep making things better. So what we need to convince people of is this idea of federal standards which sounds wonderful, it sounds benign actually keep quality down over time and give the federal bureaucrats control over what happens at the state lem. Be level. The best way for schools to operate is for teachers to have more control of their classroom, principals to have more control of their schools, local School Boards along with parents to help to shape the curriculum there and to create a best practice situation that has worked in so Many Industries where you can compare what youre doing with others, adopt the things that others are doing better, share good and keep building a were the and better system a better and better system rather than creating a static, one size fits all federal system. It doesnt work. If it did, you know, we spend more per capita than any other country in the world on education, and every place around the country like washington, d. C. Where were spending over 20,000 per student per year, you get the lowest quality of all because of the bureaucratic nightmare thats there so i tell ya, if we could get more teachers to break away from teachers unions, that really hurts because the information that comes through teachers unions about political issues so skewed. And theyre a detriment to our whole education system. So, but i appreciate you being willing to be a teacher, and i hope you can get in a system where you can with as good as you can be and not be in some kind of seniority tenure system thats controlled by unions. Okay. We have a question back there. Thank you for being with us, senator demint. I was going to ask you your name, please . Hillary [inaudible] from texas. Im, on greta the other night you were talking about immigration reform, and i was just wondering if you could expand on that. Do you think the talks between president obama and governor perry will be successful, or do you think anything good will come out of those things . This is a human tragedy, and you have to recognize that first. I mean, a lot of these are teenagers, but you also have younger children. But what we have to go back to, the president mentioned in his talk right before i was on greta, the root causes. And he acted like it was funding. Like the root cause is funding. I mean, hes got half a trillion dollars to deal with on domestic issues, and that includes boarder security. Border security. The root cause of this is all of this talk of amnesty. If you make your way to america illegally, if you get here, youre going to get amnesty, citizenship and a better life. The human traffickers in Central America for the last two years have been using obamas own words as their Marketing Campaign. And its encouraged parents to do the unthinkable in many cases, pay these people money to put these kids on a death train as its called in mix coe, hanging mexico, hanging off the sides in many cases to go from Central America to our borders knowing that our laws and the president s executive order say if you can get there, they wont turn you away. So what weve done is created an invitation for people all other the world, particularly Central America, to make their way to our borders. And now what the president wants to do is, first of all, hes asking for thisser responsible amount of irresponsible amount of money that is not going to change things so that he can make it battle between him and congress. Hes smart politically, because the media always buys into this. And he said the solution is this giant amnesty that was proposed by some in the senate a while ago. When what you see on the boarders right now borders right now is just a small glimpse of what this massive amnesty would do to our country. Think about it. Hes saying he needs nearly 4 billion to deal with about 50 or 60,000 children. Whats it going to cost to deal with 11 million once you grant amnesty and get into the processing of these people and bringing them into the american system . It wont work. And what we will do with the situation on the border, itll be much, much worse. Back before your time and when Ronald Reagan made very few mistakes, but he said one of the mistakes was believing congress if they gave am necessary the city to three million ill amnesty to three million illegals who were here at the time that they would then fix the border and fix our immigration system. But all that did was encourage millions and millions more to come here illegally and create hardships not just for themselves and the families they left, but hardships for americans, those who emigrated here legally. We are a country of immigrants. We need to reform our immigration system to welcome those who want to come here and be a part of who we are. But to say that our immigration system is based on those who get here illegally is just wrong, its unfair to those who follow the legal process, and what we need to tell the president is to stop talking about amnesty, stop misleading people particularly in Central America that if they send their children with these human traffickers, that theyre going to get a better way of life. Theyre abused in many horrible ways as part of this process, and were encourage ugh it. Encouraging it. And it has nothing to do with what congress did or didnt do. All of this is at the feet of president obama. Next question. Oh, good. I am j. T [inaudible] from michigan. I was wondering what is your position on the Global Warming debate . Uhhuh. Well, you notice theyve had to change the name of that . [laughter] they call it Climate Change. We used to call that the four seasons. [laughter] but, you know, they run into problems with this warming phenomenon because the globe hasnt warmed in 15 years. And so the massive panic is a problem, and im afraid a lot of this Global Warming talk goes back to where i started. Its one way to get more control at the federal level of a lot of aspects of our economy and of Development Across the country. We need to take care of our environment. We need to continue to improve everything we do to our air and our water and our environment. But what were spending now even the folks who believe it say that these hundreds of billions of dollars were spending on Global Warming is not going to make a fraction of a difference. Within the next 50 or 100 years. Theres no ones claiming that what were doing is actually going to change anything in the near term or even long term. So lets dont confused taking care of our environment and making sure that we continue to reduce pollution in every way that we can. And i think were making progress in that area. But to do what theyre doing under this devise this guise ofwet change is complete of weather change is completely ridiculous. What theyre doing to raise the cost of energy in america. Instead of continuing to improve the Clean Energy Resources that we have. For instance, theyre so hypocritical, the left. Natural gas is a third less polluting than oil or coal. And we have it in abundance in shale. But as we start to develop it, who is trying to stop the development of natural gas in our country today . Its the same people pushing Global Warming. When, in fact, we could have cars and trucks running on compressed natural gas. We could have more and more of our electricity produced by natural gas. But who has been stopping that for years . And continues to . The same people who want to get more control of our lives with this Climate Change phenomenon. So i think we need to be all as conservatives in agreement that our environment is precious, and we need to protect it and make it better. But, frankly, a lot of the moves of the left in this area have actually hurt the environment more than theyve helped it. A lot of the additives in fuels that were supposed to make it less polluting have actually created more pollution. So i, frankly, think for most of it is, its a big power grab. Just about Everything Else theyre doing. So lets agree to take care of the environment. But if the globes not warming, lets dont panic and spend hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used in better ways right now. Okay. Another question . Yes, on the end here. Avery. Hi, my name is katie trudeau, and im from richmond, virginia. Quick question, what would be the conservative argument for encouraging the Keystone Pipeline . What would you recommend that we talk to our peers about that . Okay. Well, the country is using energy, and were using oil, and a lot of it still comes from the middle east, okay . So getting more oil refined into gasoline from canada is not hurting the environment. There are in fact, moving it by pipeline is much safer for our environment than moving it in ships that can run aground, that can leak, and the whole transfer process where you get them loaded on ships, loaded in a harbor, theyre loaded many times on tankers or put in another pipeline in another part of the country. So the idea that somehow this pipeline is harmful to the environment is absurd in the first place. Canadas one of our Biggest Energy resources. Theyre an ally, theyre next to us, and whats going to happen is if we dont accept this, theyre going to end up having to sell it overseas which makes us more dependent on countries like venezuela, wherever, who dont like us. And thats a very vulnerable situation for us to be in. So its better for the environment to move from pipeline rather than all the tankers and other transportation involved, and its just good for it to have a north American Security here on energy. So even the president s own people that he put in charge of studying this have come back and said this has no impact on the environment. Its all political, and if you look back and you follow the money, some of his supporters who probably are promoting other forms of energy, solar or whatever, and just dont want the country to have, you know, more secure energy resources. The senate to get there. Is the author of blue collar conservatives recommitting to an america that works. I guess he is not wearing a coat and tie today. Rick santorum serve in the u. S. House and the u. S. Senate from 1995 to 2007 representing the state of pennsylvania. Leading contender for the republican president ial nomination in 2012 and during his time in Public Office Rick Santorum was a staunch defender of the right to life and traditional marriage. He is now ceo of exo light studios, a growing state and family Film Production company. After the 2012 election he cofounded patriot raises, grassroots and Online Community of americans committed to faith, family, freedom and opportunity. His other book includes it takes a family and american patriots answering the call to freedom. Please welcome former senator Rick Santorum. [applause] thank you for inviting me to be here, any time someone asks me to do something the answer is always yes, shes a great leader, thank you for participating in working, argued to be congratulated in helping for disorganization. And i will be back in this room to premiere in washington our next movie. We are a movie production distribution company. We make featurelength Motion Pictures and have done a couple one is we just a couple months ago released to hallmark movie channel, we felt, i felt that it was important for us to weigh in to a faith based Movie Company and i thought was important to way into an area that was the quintessential issue of our time with respect to face and that is a religious liberty. We put together a documentary coming out september 1st and we will show it later in august and we talked to folks at heritage and try to get an indication here but it is called one generation away based upon the speech Ronald Reagan gave, we are one generation from extinction and it chronicless seven eight cases, the hobby lobby case extensive interviews with the greens and the substance of that the also the cake baker in oregon, the force in washington, the photographer who wouldnt participate at samesex weddings, military chaplain issue, and eastern michigan because her beliefs, religious beliefs, it is the great chronicle. We have fabulous people, georgia is in it, probably the leading spokespersons this season in the movie quite a bit, mike huckabee, me and all whole list of other the other thing is the other side, barry lynn, and southern hobby law center, freedom for religion, we have all these peter singer from princeton. These folks are there letting you know their world view and is important to see them and cut, what they believe in. We are taking that out a little different way of showing our movies where we decided not to premiere our movies in theaters anymore. We are going to premiere our movies in churches because churches now have the ability to be theaters, a lot of them and instead of encouraging people to get their people to go to the theater we are going to have them be the theater in the center of culture instead of sending them to see petters and making hollywood lot of money and hope they make the church and does a lot of money by showing it so if you belong to a church and we call it acolyte cinemas, we get church to be involved in that, we would encourage you to do just that. Let me talk about the subject, a have been doing a book tour for the last couple months about this issue of what i call bluecollar conservatives blue collar conservatives recommitting to an america that works. When i ran for reelection in 2012 we did very well contrary to what every expert said would happen. We were i think given the least odds, we were at the bottom. No one had a lower chance of being the republican nominee when this started than me yet at the end we were right there and actually were leading the race at one point, after missouri, colorado, and minnesota where we won those three states we had an opportunity to potentially steal the election away even though we were outspent 671. People said it was because he was the conservative alternative band had a strong base among evangelical christians and that was where it was making a difference. It really wasnt what was making a difference. Being the conservative alternative, mitt romney was a good thing. What was making the difference and what we found overtime was making a difference was the message i was delivering across the country and the message was a message focused on workers, focused on economic populism, it was a message focused on the people in america who were being left behind by the economy today. 70 of americans do not have a College Degree. 70 of americans who are in their 30s dont have a College Degree. It is not changing. That number has been fairly constant. It may be going down and the reason it may be going down is the enormous expense of a College Education and you have 70 of america doesnt have a College Degree and yet if you listen to both Political Parties i might add, you hear the emphasis on technology, and on the new economy and all these things, they dont necessarily see themselves by either political party. They Pay Attention to these voters not in a way that was helpful, they redistribute wealth and send money. We dont speak to those voters, we simply dont talk to them. If you think of the economic message of the Republican Party it has been the same as it has been for the last 35 years. Hasnt changed at all. Think of three things, and you think of politicians, those three things, the three economic policies, you are going to see what are the three things republicans focus on in economic policy. Number one, come on. Cut taxes, right . Number 2, cut spending. Number 3, getting there, close, balance the budget. Reduce the debt, balance the budget. That has been our message for 35 years. Ronald reagan Ronald Reagan came to office that wasnt the message of the republicans, it was a new message, wasnt going to eisenhower, we wont do what eisenhower did. It was a new message. We are stuck. Ids bad messages . No. I am not suggesting they are bad messages but the problems Ronald Reagan was dealing with were different from the problems were dealing with today leisure from reagan came today and set your using the same message i was using 40 years ago what are you doing . Why havent you havent you look at america and seen a different america than we had 40 years ago . It is very different. I got my First Mortgage in 1982 for a house. You know what i paid an Interest Rate in 1982 and the firsttime home buyers got a discounted rate, 17. 5 . Mortgages were 20 mortgages. And all sorts of america, 70 tax rates. 70 tax rate cutting taxes, it went to 38 , 3844. That is pretty minimalists. 7030. Reagan had big ideas at the time, the problems that were in place that was fair. We dont need to be him. Most of these voters, particularly your generation, most dont even know who he is. What is the problem facing America Today . What is the economic problem facing America Today . Lots of people do really well. That wasnt the case in the 1980s. Overall things were really bad. There are a lot of people doing well but there are a lot of people who arent. A lot more people who arent than are. What are we saying to them . What is our message to them . What is our message to the average american who see their wages stagnating, who see inflation beginning to creep up, people who save zero interest on investments, getting involved in more risky ventures. What do we say to the folks living good responsible lives and are working. Balance the budget. Anyone could tell me how balancing the budget would help average american workers. If you do, do it in thirtysecond is. Good luck. We are on a message that doesnt connect with people. Heres a question you can all answer. What is your favorite word . Everybody has the same favorite word although it is different. Clue. Your name. With favor word . I have a little girl dallas, some of you remember her from the campaign. Of little girl with disabilities, has a lot of capabilities but she knows her name. When i sing her a song, it is great she likes me to sing songs of love to have me sing songs with her name in the lyrics. I changed the words around and say bell every four five or did she love the songs. Everybody loves to hear their name. They love to see themselves. If you think about the republican message, we paint this beautiful picture of the economy and most americans dont see themselves in that picture. Where is the firemen, where is the construction worker, where is the truck driver, where is the electrician . Where are they in this picture . They are nowhere. They are not hiring them. We focus on higher income because that is what creates growth and that is all we talk about. They may have their benefits cut because some of them may be lower income receiving food stamps or other government benefits. But they dont see themselves in this picture. If we are going to be successful in painting a future vision for america we have got to include people in the picture. We dont need to become them to do it. That is why i wrote this book. You know what . Following the 2012 election i can tell you of all the things i did in the 2012 election, the things i hear i gave thousands of speeches. I cant tell you how many speeches i gave. One speech always talks about is the speech i gave in des moines, iowa, and i got up there and talked about my grandfather who is a coal miner and talked about being at his funeral, the first funeral i had ever been to and i remember kneeling next to his casket, my eyes were i level with him when i knocked down there. Either that him and i saw his hands folded like this and my grandfather was a coal miner until he was 72 years old digging coal in a deep mine. He had the biggest thickest hands i had ever seen in my life. I have got a little spin the fingers. He has big tough workingman hands. All i could do is sit here, and worked until he was 72 digging coal. All i could think about was those are the hands that dug my freedom. I heard that everywhere i went. People who are not coal miners but their dad was or their grandfather was and they realized how important that work is to america. And dont honor that any more. America feels disconnected to its Political Class because we are aPolitical Class. We are not connected to the average worker in america. You want to connect to hispanics . Hispanics are like every other immigrant group in america. Start at the bottom of a ladder and work their way up. That is what every immigrant group does. Immigrants dont come here and take the top jobs or if you come your Harvard A Yale and mit do but the vast majority of immigrants like any other immigrant groups that has never come to america they are working their way up and when you are talking to bluecollar workers you need to talk to hispanics. You talk to workers. I know big issue, absolutely right in doing so. Immigration destroys the opportunity for average workers to get better wages. We as republicans never talk about that. We never talk about immigration and how affects other hispanics and their ability to provide for their families. We always talk about it in academic terms for cultural terms. We dont talk about it in terms of how it is going to impact working men and women in this country and how it is impacting them, keeping wages down, less employment. There is a message out there for us that is consistent with conservative policies the we contrived and be successful and that is why i wrote this book and why i wanted to come here today and share it with you. Is a vision. One final point and i am out of time. One final point. America is sick and tired of division. Conservatives are sick and tired of division, they are tired of the fighting, tired of nobody getting a long, tired of the vitriol, they are really tired of it. Even your most hard conservatives, enough with this. Is because we have the most divisive president in the history of this country. He personally goes out and the tax people and the tax and goes after the other party like i have never seen a president before. Bill clinton didnt do it, reagan didnt do it, bush didnt do it, neither of them did, this guy is a divider. And we have made the mistake of going along and we are doing the same thing now. We are just as vitriolic as he is, right back at him and it doesnt tell. It doesnt help this country. We need a message, ladies and gentlemen that is a positive message for americas future, some things that includes all americans in that. We should be the party, the Republican Party is the party of the unions. We want to unite people. The Democratic Party wins elections by dividing america into a classes and groups. That is how they win. They go out and pump the folks with their own little groups. The Democratic Party is a collection of these groups, trial lawyers, abortion activists, environmentalists, secularists, that is who they are, all these little groups. That is not who we are. The Republican Party is. We are the party that is of broad based party that doesnt rely on any specialinterest group to fund this. If that is who we are then we have the message that appeals to that broad group and that is what i think we do in this book. Are you ready for some questions . [applause] we will start off here. My name is emily and i go to the university of dallas. My daughter graduated from there. Talk about the rising cost of College Education. That is one of the toughest issues out there. I can say a lot of controversial things if you want me to. Better left for private conversation although that doesnt exist in america anymore either. Look. First you have to question the value of a College Education in America Today. That is a fundamental question. You see a lot of folks encouraging people not to go to college. Peter t. O for example actually funds people who drop out of college to start businesses. Then you have to look at the nature of college, grove city, awesome school, they have some great schools. Most of them are liberal education mills. There is a study done by the university of texas, 62 of kids who coming to colleges in America Today with conviction leave without it. Are we doing a favor by sending all our best and brightest so they can be stripped of their faith . So they can be told the world is about moral relativism and joblessness and all the things they are pounded into. I gave a speech a Yale University during two months before the 2012 election, any eli here . I was asked in one of these old debating societies that had been around a hundred years to speak to the campus at the yale political unit, seven parties and if they like what they have to say they count on the table and if they dont they hiss so you know how you are doing and they are very active in that regard so they asked me, i spoke once before on radical islam, i will come back into was a fun thing to do, bright kids. I showed up, probably 200 kids, it was 2,000. The largest crowd ever had at yale political the topic was resolved, the government is destroying the american family. 2,000 yale kids showed up to here. They were loaded, they were ready. They were ready to pounce. I went out there and said lets define our terms. Define what the family is. What is the purpose of family . What service does it have to society . What is the state of the family today . Walk through it all. Not a person left, 90 degrees in the room, people came up to me 1acters the other, every strike you can possibly imagine and said the same thing to me. I never heard any of that before. One of the elite universities of our country and they never heard any of that before so it goes back to the fundamental question. How much do we want the federal government to continue to subsidize liberal education in america . And are we doing children, kids any favors by putting them through this and having huge bills to the federal government for what they are getting . The answer is i think there needs to be dramatic reform within the educational institutions of this country if they want to come to the federal government and say we deserve to have more support from the federal government. We have a question over here. Picked up by the Huffington Post and others. Thank you for coming to speak yesterday. Another good school. I was wondering if you were going to leave us now. There are a lot of good ones. I know them all and that is the problem. Use the about how republicans can tailor their message stresses the with workingclass families. Would you comment on the Exportimport Bank which is coming up for reauthorization in september and how that institution affect the little guy . It is a mistake for us to be out there focused i agree with the strain of libertarianism and republican parties and says government doesnt do a lot of things well, particularly when it comes to interfacing with the business sector. I agree and support most of that agenda. I think one of the problems with an ideology is that it is an ideology and it has no foundation in practical routes of what goes on in society. I always say the federal governments job when it comes to every business is to create level Playing Field. Government is going to be involved and needs to set rules. There might be some who say we dont need government but there are not many out there. Government needs to exist, on a Playing Field that is a level for everybody. Heres the point, i made this point, the problem with manufacturing is its different from any other business in america. Why is it different. The Grocery Store competes with another Grocery Store down the street. Walmart competes with target. Citibank and bank of america, go on down the list of any restaurant, they are all in competition, that is great, they have a level Playing Field but when you are a manufacturer your competition is the one from mexico or malaysia or china. So when the American Government looks at how to level the Playing Field for manufacturers we cant just look at other manufacturers in the United States, we have to look at how do we compete and how do we have a level Playing Field, the competition that exists around the world. That is why you have to look at our tax rates and say tax rate for manufacturers should be the same as any other business . Shouldnt be. We should look at tax rates around the world and see what our tax rates are compared to others for a letter belt Playing Field for regulations, same thing. Financing is another thing. Every major exporting country in the world has a similar or much more interested agency that subsidizes the financing of exports. To suggest because it is a Government Agency involved in this and we should get rid of it, we are tying the hands of our manufacturers, availability of credit especially for big projects small banks wont doing and a lot of bigger banks wont. So it becomes a real problem particularly for smaller manufacturers to be able to get the credit they need to be able to do these exports. So i understand the ideology. I dont know how many of you know russell kirk, but russell kirk was as conservative as you can get but he also understood compromise is not a bad thing and we cant be rigid in applying these principles to everything because not everything is the same. Mostly works. Sometimes you got to say in this case this principle needs to be amended and that is not a bad thing. In the world of interest politics, compromise, two is kind of compromise, good compromises and that compromise. It find in my career in the senate consistently this way. Bad compromise is doing less, and getting less of a bad thing. If you can work with ted kennedy and he wants to pass some terrible bill that you can water down so it doesnt hurt as much that is a bad compromise because you know it is going to hurt. If you have a compromise with 10 kennedy in order to when i was there in order to get something good done but less of it, that is a good compromise. We have to stop compromising on bad things and the building to compromise to get less good things. That is how the democrats and the left was able to eventually do what they are doing, they will always willing to compromise on taking a less and then come back for the next piece and we dont. We stand for if you cant get it we are not for it. That is just stupid. That is just stupid. It is not how you move the ball. Question down here. From st. Louis, missouri, i will be attending the college. I wanted to ask you you mentioned about how your message to Blue Collar Workers was what brought you so close to clinching the republican primaries in 2012 . I know you have a boat i wonder if you have a preview of what that message is and how you need to frame it going on looking at 2016 and beyond that. What i talk about in the book, the message i got is we need to have a message that focuses on three major areas. Number one, we have a message that focuses on energy and manufacturing. There was a company that was sold six months ago called wh whats app. For 19 billion, 19 billion, 55, 19 billion, 55 employees. Imagine 19 billion Manufacturing Company or health care company, those are jobs. Talk about redistributing wealth, create employment in areas that by its nature creates jobs for more americans. Technology is great. I am not knocking technology but 19 billion, 55 people, is not that good because of the Value Technology brings. It is not putting anything on the table for average working americans so if we can focus on energy first, why energy is important, because as we know, the principal cost of energy, energy cost to average working americans is a much bigger part of their budget that everybody else. We keep enterprises down, that helps and it creates an environment where manufacturing can survive. We keep we allow for this explosion of natural gas particularly on the naturalgas side and keeping Energy Prices low and stable. You will bring manufacturers back to this country. Theyre coming back already because of stable energy, wind have others things we need to do and i talk about tax code and the other things. First is energy, second manufacturing. I grew up in a small town in western pennsylvania. People did well because the mill was there. A place was there for average americans to have a decent job to bring home a decent wage and be able to support their family. That has 8 huge impact on the american psyche. I want to go through the political element. What do manufacturers locate . They locate Blue American and ran america. What is happening with demographically more and more people are waiting to be pulled into the cities and once that happens they are lost because they get involved in a culture very different from the small towns and rural areas they grew up in and theyre thinking becomes very different because they are surrounded by it. Creating opportunity for smalltown Rural America to have economic viability by having i come from pennsylvania. I wish every little town in pennsylvania that existed existed because of some sort of manufacturing or mining or timber happened. A mill was fair and that is where the town grew up. We need to recede those communities of people to live in the communities they grew up in and people want to get out of the rat race and the mess of the city and go to smalltown Rural America and raise their children in a way that is consistent with their values. Two other things. Second thing is education. In indianapolis, very proud of the fact that he is putting Vocational Education back in every high school in indiana. We allowed the left to strip Vocational Education out of our schools. 70 of americans dont have a College Degree and were not giving them the tools that are necessary. You are a generation that doesnt know how to use tools. The first generation in Human History that doesnt know how to use tools. Can fix anything. Right . So we need people who know how to work with their hands. As somebody who loves to go out in the garden to fix things i have been in politics and fix things and it is much more gratifying to. In politics you never know if what you did is any good or not. You can tell if the thing you just built works or not. There is something gratifying about using your hands and making something and building something that we are missing in america. Family. We need to focus on marriage. Not the definition of marriage but reclaiming marriage as a public good. Marriage is the most important all these things done by the Obama Administration but income inequality, what came back in every one of these local studies the number one determine our of what you economically successful not, number one by far, marriage. When you came from a married family or were in a married relationship. Marriage and family is central. Every family in america, is a little business. As a budget, income, expenses. The were economy comes from the greek word that means home. Every home is a little economy and when those bullied connie struggle at suffer because they are broken and there are not two people using their efforts to make things successful, only one, then america fails. Those other three things i would talk about and focus on in doing it and i am two minutes late. Sorry. [applause] that concludes coverage of the 2013 eagle Forum Leadership senate. For more on this annual event watch booktv tomorrow beginning at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. Cspan2 providing live coverage of the u. S. Senate floor proceedings and keep Public Policy events and every weekend booktv, for 15 years the only Television Network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2 created by the cabletv industry and brought to you as a Public Service by local, cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter