Latest Breaking News On - Jay morris - Page 1 : vimarsana.com

Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140103

establishment republicans. tea party republicans were, however, favorable towards mitt romney, a 77. paul ryan, a 79. ann romney, 77. even george w. bush, 72. more favorable even than the establishment republicans. so this is consistent with the last paper that said, you know, as we got -- when they really had a rally behind their candidate, the feeling thermometer questions indicate that perhaps they did that. so whether those divisions are going to persist is when we looked add the media question. so i'm going to turn that over to jay morris. >> well, it's clear that there's a division on several issue positions and on how tea party versus establishment republicans view, um, certain candidates, certain issues. do they get their news from different sources, we already know through the research on partisan media that democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, get their news from very different sources in today's fragmented media environment. when you look here just at tea party versus establishment republicans and where they get their news regularly, we can look at these several shows from fox news, and we could see a dramatic difference in tea party republicans, tea party members versus establishment republicans in whether or not they watch these fox news programs, and these are four of several fox news programs. regularly, the division is clear there. talk radio, nobody's surprised, i don't think. look at the bottom though. one part about the democrats, the very bottom in all things considered liberals versus moderates -- [laughter] okay, so the democrats also have their divisions, and i'm surprised there's 7% of the tea party that listens to all things considered. that's shocking. [laughter] >> by the way, it's worse with "the new york times," but we didn't put up all the numbers, so if you guys want some more, we've got 'em. go ahead. >> we wanted to look at new media as well. because the advent of social, social networking platforms has allowed the rank and file members of the tea party to be able to express themselves. the era of one-way mass media is over. and that allows the tea party to voice their opinion. and how did the tea party assess -- or how did they make their views known in the twitter verse? we're not looking at facebook. facebook, i guess my students tell me, is already passe. so we're going the look at twitter. [laughter] so we want to look at the sentiments of the tweets from conservative-leaning posters. and does it reflect divisions between those that post that are in the tea party versus those that post that are establishment republicans. so we did a content analysis of about a quarter million tweets with the following hash tags that you see at the bottom there. from october 1 through october 24th, we searched every tweet that hash tag top conservatives on twitter, hash tag gop, hash tag tea party. that gave us about four and a half million. we sampled it down, it got us to a manageable quarter million. then we looked at the entire sample we had over time from the 1st to the 24th, and you can see that our content analysis, which is looking at positive verse is us negative ratio in terms of the comments made in an individual tweet, you could see the top line is the positive to negative ratio for mitt romney, and the bottom is barack obama. the mentions of either one of these candidates. and you can see that barack obama momentum vary too much. but it's much -- doesn't vary too much, but it's much low or than mitt romney. and you can see with the positive comments, the positive sentiment spiked after that first debate. you can see that conservative leaning twitter posters, they were excited. and they were posting positive things, and it dropped off. then you could see it spike again with the debates. that's the overall trend. but we're not interested so much in the overall trend of how conservative posters posted during october of the general election. we wanted to look at tea party versus gop, and here's where our findings overlapped with that of the previous discussion. if you look in the far-right column, the positive/negative ratio of positive to negative tweets, tea party versus gop, they were equally as negative towards barack obama. it didn't matter if you hash tag gop or hash tag tea party. the differences were there. asylum thing with mitt romney. exactly the same positive to negative ratio, positive statements to negative statements. now, when you look at mentions of the republican party, the democratic party, now you can see a bit of a division. tea party members or were more critical of both parties compared to establishment republicans. um, what does that mean? it means we have a divided republican party when you look at issue positions and attitudes towards the candidates comparing tea partiers to establishment republicans. media habits clearly differ. we didn't show you all our findings, but fox and talk radio it's clear. but at the end, in the month of october at least in 2012 when it came to posts on twitter, the posters for the tea party, the gop -- the people that hash tagged those tea party and gop, they rallied around their candidate. and as i heard earlier, maybe more significantly they rallied against the opposition. and so that's what we show here. divided in some ways, but the rally effect at the end is still there. thank you. >> okay, thank you. next we'll have william miller from flagler college and michael john burton from ohio university who will discuss who needs enemies? the tea party impact on the republican party. >> thanks. and i also want to echo peter and say that it's great to be back at akron, and we always appreciate the state of the parties conference and the opportunity to talk about these issues. i think it's interesting to point out on this panel especially that if we go back to the 2009 state of the parties, i remember only one conversation about the tea party. it was at lunch, and it was not very kind. it was much more of a they're going to have these nice little rallies, they're going to dress up, they'll be gone in a few months, and instead a few months later we started to see the idea that robert boat wright talked about at that conference, of elected officials being primaried within their own party and the effects that could have. what we're going to talk about today is a little bit different at looking at actually speaking with activists or tracking money back to causes. instead, we want to discuss the intellectual history of the tea party and how what we're seeing today and hearing about today is not necessarily new to the conservative discourse, but instead is simply being present inside a new way with a little more organization than previously. and again, really focusing on the fact that when the tea party first came into existence, it was using the acronym taxed enough already, and the assumption was it was an economic movement. instead, what we argue is they are not the johnny one note necessarily, but it found kind of a consistent theme that allows them to apply the same principles to issues that are not directly economically related. so what we want to do, first of all, is kind of place the tea party into the intellectual -- place the tea party into the beis lek chul history of american conservativism focusing on modern beliefs and looking at how a lot of what we see really became cemented under reagan and has only altered since. and illustrate this idea of this unifying concept of constitutional liberty. constitutional liberty, allowing us to talk about the economy, abortion and drones and be using kind of the same language amongst the same individuals who bring that to the forefront of american politics. and also to show the strategic position of both traditionalists and libertarianism within the gop today and how together they're forming this tea party movement that is directly competing with the more prague mattive wing of the republican party -- pragmatic wing of the republican party. and the major claim, obviously, being that the intellectual history and strategic position of the tea party movement is going to allow it to have an enduring place in american politics as long as it doesn't self-truck. self-destruct. if we look at the reagan coalition and the republican party and what he was able to do, he was able to bring three rather diverse groups together for electoral gain. obviously, focusing on the christian conservatives, the free market conservatives, and then also the more republican-leaning pragmatists, moderate in their views but willing to negotiate and compromise as necessary to advance their causes. and what we start by arguing is that largely that's what we see today with a little more recognition that individuals can exist in multiple camps. this morning at the first panel we talked about rabid paul and how -- rand paul and how some identify him as a libertarian, some identify him as a traditionalist. and be at the end of the day, we say there's a middle ground where he can be both and still fit into the overall picture of the tea party. but it's not simply just the reagan era times. we've also seen some structural alterations to this design beginning with the decline of pragmatism. whether through polarization, reticketting, whatever cause -- redistricting, whatever cause you want to attribute it to, the modern republican party seems to be less pragmatic, fewer individuals. we see more ted cruzs and rick perrys than mitch mcconnells and john babiers. again -- boehners. again, tying into the idea of polarization where the moderation we used to see is being replaced, and as a direct result, the midling area becomes smaller and smaller which impacts republican policies and national policies. and then also perhaps most importantly, the traditionalists and the libertarians have grown closer together. there's more opportunities for this bridge than there have been especially during the reagan administration, and that alters not just the political discourse, but the political outcomes especially for today's modern republican party. with that divide in mind and with that configuration, there's really four ways that these three groups can cooperate in order to achieve their ultimate goals. the first being the idea of a supremacy inferiority split which we've seen within the republican party is not work workable. the traditionalists and libertarians are not willing to say you have control over this issue, you are in charge. there's much more give and take than that. second, you can have the simple split. and the idea of the simple split being we agree to disagree. also something we're not seeing within those two camps in the movement. third, you could leaf it ambiguous. finish leave it ambiguous. this is kind of the argument where activists sort of fudge the difference between themselves and in reality it's not there. what we argue instead is that we actually have a pattern of mutual reinforce bement between traditionalists and libertarians that they aren't even necessarily always aware it's occurring, and that mutual reinforcement centers itself on the concept of constitutional liberty. we can talk about divergent issues but do not necessarily have a common tea party economic thread, but at the same time, build off of each other in a way that allows for a, shall we call it a spirited discussion. um, and this just gives two examples. libertarian defense of traditionalism. ron paul, all life begins at conception, you cannot defend liberty without defending all life. and on the flip side, a traditionalist defense of liberty. stephen fisher, the role of citizen, of humanity is to take care of each other but not for washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country. so lincoln, the economic libertarianism and the -- linking to reinforce but ultimately making the same sense of an argument. and what we argue is these contours still come from a reagan-style conservativism. starting and building with the idea that we have families and markets having a symbiotic relationship. the idea being here that a good upbringing will lead to good workers, good workers will lead to the ability to raise a family, that family will lead to a good upbringing. and at the same time, we still recognize the government has a place at the margins. but most of the time we want it to get out of the way from a reagan conservative-era stance. powers to tax, spend be, regulate and incur debt need to be limbed, obviously, a discussion -- limited, obviously, a discussion we've had recently and that families should largely be left free to follow their dreams. ultimately, what we want from government is to protect security and liberty, including religious liberty, and not tell individual citizens what to do. um, and, again, the idea of constitutional liberty and mutual reinforcement. so if this is a strategic situation, what we ultimately have are traditionalists who revere old style politics. it is the moral base, it is the christian conservative base. we have libertarians who want primacy of individual choice in both social and economic matters, and then we have the pragmatists who understand the politics is sort of the art of the possible that are willing to compromise, that are willing to strike bargains and deals to get things done. and now we have a couple of different policy issues to kind of illustrate where we can see traditionalists and libertarians coming together and having the impact on pragmatic republicans that we've seen recently. and we'll start by looking at obamacare, the affordable care act, an issue that -- wow, it doesn't like me. an issue where we see all three sectors of the modern conservative movement in agreement. and, obviously, it starts here with we don't like obama, we don't like obamacare. if you want to dig deeper, for traditionalists you obviously have concerns with obamacare that have been raised related to birth control and other various issues. for libertarians you have government intervening on something that they obviously believe the free market can do better. and for the pragmatists, obamacare is simply a mess. funding, determining, figuring out the policy has been messy which makes it unappealing. .. >> there are other issues where we see one of these sectors coming out as an outlet. woulwe consult with traditionalm as the outlet, same-sex marriage. to the christian conservatives this is an important issue, one they're willing to fight for. for libertarians you can argue either it's not an important issue or government has no business regulating the idea of marriage. and for a patent dispute as somewhat of a bargaining chip and understating moderation not miss only a quid pro quo the something or they may be willing to make necessary arrangements such as pass it off to the states in order to assure the win in other issues. if you want to look at libertarianism as the outlet to consider the drone debate. you can look at this either domestically or internationally. if we look at internationally, drones are great. less costly, less loss of life. we a ledge we can get more targeted killings, that we wouldn't be able to do through conventional means. we protect american pilots. there was a famous atlantic weekly quote about six months ago, it doesn't matter how many innocent pakistanis die, the american pilot will be home for dinner. building on that idea. for the libertarians we still have a problem. this is unnecessary interference into international areas. domestically we heard the argument. this was rand paul's filibuster and all of his concerns waged on the idea that even for domestic security purposes we can turn these groups towards us. but then we look at areas where the traditionalists and the libertarians unite in -- and oppose the pragmatist and what that can mean for republican policymaking into the future. i'm going to speak to both the shutdown of the debt ceiling sort of in the same vein. the pragmatic republicans, the mitch mcconnell's and john boehner's understood that the folding on our loans was not going to be a positive solution to this problem. they willing to make necessary negotiating tools and necessary compromises to prevent that from happening. i suppose traditional sort upset with where funding was going, libertarians rebuild we sort of overspend for the sake of overspending. they reunified in the fight against the pragmatist on this which ultimate led to the shutdown. without that voice going against the pragmatist it likely could have been accomplished far earlier. the central point is all comes back to i guess it's good to november 2012 we had tons of media reports that the tea party was dead. we had tons of media reports this morning claiming the tea party is dead. we are arguing it depends on what lens you look from and for what the tea party is judging its ultimate success. is the tea party going to become their own party? no. they have made it clear that's not their stated goal or intention, whether it's mass level or elite level. they're having an effect even as the media is blowing the tea party off. at least we beat a rhino in a primary our lost the general election but we can feel good about ourselves being represented by a democrat now. this would be one of many headlines looking back into 2012 on the tea party into the death come near death, whatever experience you want to go with. kind of on this summary peace, what we argue is it strategically places and has the potential to cause headaches moving forward. what the tea party is talking about has been honed over the past 30 years. we can argue far longer. we go back to the 1960s, the idea of explicit racism within the republican party was rebuffed and told this won't work going forward. the idea being even for the tea party today if there's an argument made or a question asked, they have a response of something. and may not always be the strongest response but they know what lines of attack are coming and what they stand for and believe in. that's the intellectual history. then the simple idea that the tea party is not done. if you look at the report from this week, we can see where there are plenty of argument to be made the tea party is suffering. you look at the alabama house race with the chamber of commerce through in $240,000 over the last two weeks. chamber of commerce acted as a pragmatic actor prevented the tea party house member from entering the house. you go look at colorado with the koch brothers have gone to throwing $300,000 into school board races. you can look at the virginia gubernatorial race which was discussed earlier. you can even look at new jersey building on the data presented before we of chris christie who is by no means classified as a tea party republican, having no problem getting reelected despite some tea party individuals not being happiest with his potential. what it really comes back to his, and idea behind the law with the idea that they can't create their own party and be successful. as a third party they will never have the power they need to get elected on their own, what they can do is remake the party in which they reside. that's what they are attempting to do through the redesign effort. if you think about it, if at the libertarians versus the traditionalist opposed, republican influence as a whole ultimately suffers. but at the same time if you have an issue where the libertarians and the traditionalists together sharing sentiments and arguments against republican pragmatists, they have a chance to have a significant impact moving forward and policy areas. the pragmatist are beginning to realize they can't necessarily win without some minimal tea party support. but at the same time the tea partiers, whether traditional some libertarians or both have realized they aren't necessarily as relevant as it would like to be without some support from the pragmatists are. >> okay, thank you very much. our last presenter will be john berg from suffolk university will discuss the failure of the minor party movement, causes, consequences and the way ahead. >> i really did talk about the tea party so i'm not completely out of place. i do want to thank john green and janet, and ginny and all staff for putting on this great conference. haven't come the last couple of times. happy to be back it. it feels great. i only wish i could figure out a way to get your longer and accuracy akron outside this particular building. i'm going to step up to 30,000 feet and kind of take the stratospheric view of this. happy to see all the dated but i'm not used to seeing that kind of thing. here's how i see it. right now we've got intense party polarization as we been hearing all day. obviously, based on extreme disagreement on many issues. and yet i think the are many, several important issues, issues that are important not just objectively but the voters that are kept out of the party debates. a couple of examples, our lease at the presidential level kept out of the party debate. one example, time may be passed now but i'm not sure but during obama's first term, there were two nobel prize winters in economics, paul krugman and joseph stiglitz. robert wright, a former cabinet member who said what we need to do now is forget about, stop worrying about the deficit and spend more money. a lot of people agreed with it, wanted to do it. the major party debate was limited after the stimulus passed to, show it cut the deficit by raising taxes or by cutting spending ?-que?-que x important debate but left out the whole side of it. is easy to understand why you would leave it out if you're trying to get a majority. it's having to educate people if that view is correct about why i deficit might be good is always much harder. national security, you just mentioned drones. drones only made into the presidential debate because there was an online petition that 100,000 or so people signed and sent to bob schieffer saying please ask about drones. so we did editor cursory way. governor romney, what do you think that's romney said they are great. a lot of you were horrified by to inspect all national security thing, spying on people, assassinations. not so much the drones what they are doing. climate, right? we are seeing every day how serious it is. one of the debates spent time where both candidates talked about how much they were in favor of clean coal. we're here in ohio where they mine coal. swing state. you can see again in a two-party system why you might do that but it does mean we've got a phenomenophenomeno n going on that might destroy civilization, and is not entering any significant way into presidential debate. globalization, this is a free trade debate that's been going on a long time but it's not a debate that has polarized the party. that's a debate more splits the parties. but both parties are dominated by pro-free trade, pro-globalization people. whatever you think of the merits of those issues, they are issues in which a lot of people are not well represented by the major parties. in the past what you would expect to see from that is maybe a realignment of something like that, some kind of change in the party system where you get an anti-free trade party and a pro-free trade party, for example. it hasn't really happened, and i don't say anything about the reform party with ronald rapoport here with us because i would probably make a mistake. i would probably make a mistake. they had a run. and didn't really get, create a debate about free trade are diminished great the day they about the deficit which was solid economic growth. and, finally, collapsed sort of proving marxist statement that history repeats the second time as farce this time, the third time but it was enough to make up for. the green party made a smaller one, right? didn't make a difference in the 2000 election. and but, didn't get any leverage out of that at all, right? they might have in past cycles but this particular time it was just led to a determination to destroy them. well, this is sort of the context of what i want to say so i would be quick about it. there's lots of theoretical attempts to say why. you mentioned the law. it doesn't work for this is because it may, first of all doesn't seem to apply to any candidate over the first got the votes but also it can explain the long term what we don't have multiparty system. but it can't explain given that republicans came out of nowhere to become dominant, we had the people's party got very strong. it can't really explain why you don't get a short-term disruptive upsurge of minor party activity. so i think that the our multiple causes but basically it gets harder and harder as time goes on. peter hanson argument that is basically with the adoption of the australian ballot at the end of the 19th century, we got the situation where the government had to decide who the candidates were, it would be printed on about. once you decide that then you get to exclude people. for the next 100 years the major parties got better and better at creating obstacles so that, i mean, nader for example, after 2000 or 2004 spent years battling this loss in pennsylvania. didn't have much merit but it served the function of taking most of his time and trying to take money so it made it hard to go on. so that role has kind of block and that's reinforced about laws that control the presidential debates. it also has become reinforced by the media and by our political culture. so the bulk of this paper is meant to be about what happens now, and i think one reason we got not a tea party, i want to look at three massive protest movements. one reason the te tea party devp the way it did is because, i agree with you guys, that they see that there's not really much potential as an independent party and maybe they could have more potential primarily as a non-party for us, mostly within the republican party. i look at the tea party, the madison labor protest in 2011 i think, and occupy wall street. sort of reaction to the situation which argue that they are. i think probably people are fairly familiar with the way each of those movements developed. so i won't dwell on not on that, but i want to sort of compare them in several common dimensions. one is jack walker's idea, you can overcome the irrationality of forming an organization if you have a patron, right? and with the tea party i think that pretty clearly -- i have to be careful. there's a book out there this is the tea party never really existed. it certainly existed. it's a real thing, and it really did come out of grassroots and happiness and protests with, not originally helped it recover joint the stamos and the bailout. it got going before health care past but the protest in washington was focused on what she called the port deal is bill. but the idea the government was stepping in going too far may be violating the constitution but it was very quickly picked up by freedom works which i guess is the tea party group that predates the guard and is funded by the koc coke brothers and dik armey was a present for a while. and were looking, they saw the rant on tv happen, a couple of guys said this is big and then you put it on the website and created a whole apparatus where groups, interviews could write in and tell them where the nearest group was, how to start a group of cells and really attitude. and then fox news made a campaign, a crusade out of reporting on the tea party all the time and really helped it get going. the wisconsin protest, i think these people ask me with that. it sort of started with democratic senators leaving the state so they wouldn't be a quorum but also with the graduate students union at the university of wisconsin marching into the middle of the state house and sitting down, other people follow would've been a big demonstration around the building. it went on for quite a while. clearly their pitching was the afl-cio. which person really got control of the direction. it turned from a mass protest to a long, drawnout series of electoral campaigns. first, over a judicial election, and then attempts to recall very state senators and ultimately governor walker. most of which, they never recall state senators and none of, respond by trying to recall democratic state senators. didn't recall any democrats. some republicans but not enough to change the majority. and, of course, a failed to recall walker. a lot of the original activists were unhappy about that whole direction because they thought they were more interested in the protest. secondly, because once there was an electoral campaign, it looked just like any other electoral campaign. they lost the ideological thrust. looking for scandals. the people they beat were most because they found some kind of scandal and played that up. they lost him public support because result a lot of people were really not happy. some people were obviously and voted that way but some people were really not happy about the idea you're going to elect supreme court judge on the basis how you expect that person to vote on the particular case. some people said, remember reading a column. whichever she wished both is going to be terrible. it will destroy the. she didn't win. and a lot of people said in the campaign -- i'm told -- that they didn't think, especially for walker, they didn't think you should recall summit if he hadn't done something illegal. they might not agree with what he did what he ought to build a serve out his term and beaten in the next election. enough people thought things like that. he got reelected. it's still exist, still organizations and people getting up for the next election. but no longer what it was. okay, goals. the goal of the tea party i think to be this is not quite right but some don't want winning primaries. that's the primary culprit they want to win elections but they care more about winning primaries, about getting the candidates in, or at least giving republicans a don't like out. in fact, the first electoral activity of the tea party was not a primary at all, but supporting the conservative in the new 23rd to undermine -- throwing the district to the democrats. none of the tea party people i ever saw expressed any regret about that at all. they were delighted. wasn't getting a primary but it was getting rid of a moderate come in our case, probably a liberal republican. the goal of the wisconsin movement, the immediate goal was to reverse the budget repair act and restore the right to organize labor unions as it had existed. but a strategy for getting the goal became winning elections for the democratic party. and i would say that was somewhat of a blunting of the original thrust because the candidates, they ended up supporting for governor who is not the most prolific candidate coming in, and sort of the argument, and begin the arguments in the campaign, the advertising things were not really about the real issues that everybody was voting on. you could say they didn't have to talk about that, but it probably hurt them somewhat. the goal of occupy wall street was, everybody knows they didn't have any goals but they didn't have any demands. the goal of it was to win the war of ideas. for everybody participating, i think it was that. and for the core, the goal was to model and uses cited by having, by running these things for the genoa summit. i think outside of occupy wall street that wasn't understood very much. people were tremendously proud that they had libraries in the intent was, that they had medical clinics. they were furious, they thought it was just terrible when the police raided the library and threw away the books. it's like this was a major thing. and in boston they had major campaigns around, the city said you're serving food and it's not meeting sanitary standards. they went out and bought an industrial sink that apparently did meet the standards and tried to break it into they had a major confrontation with police over whether they could bring the sink in or not. and for the rest of it, as long as they stay the, every time to demonstration they would be holding up cardboard models of the sink, to demonstrate the silliness to the police. what they're trying to do was show here's a different way all the peoples, the stacking table for debate, that was all about modeling a new way of running society. that's why they were able to move into occupied same be said with a because who had occupied wall street when said it, this is what we do, went after and did it pretty much same way. the red cross odyssey eventually swamp them with the resources although they are still there but they were the first on the scene, almost. okay. so where does this -- i think i got into my next point. my next point is where does this go lead to? the tea party more ideological than republican party. the wisconsin movement just democratic victory, democratic majority. and again for occupy wall street, a new form of society. so let me go back to my original point which is how you evaluate the potential of these kind of shaking up the party system, making it more responsive to the issues i was talking about. first, the tea party. the tea party had some effect but if the tea party were able to take over the republican party even more thoroughly, i think we would see some kind of relentless probably to their disadvantage, but we would see things falling out differently in some other issues been addressed. where that's going is another question. i'm interested in that last paper, but your prediction, looks to me as if they're pulling back a little bit. that there is some talk about well, we got to maybe not knock off everybody in these primers. i'm not sure about that. where the wisconsin movement is pretty much delivered and defeated i think. it set an example and it will come back but i think the momentum is lost and maybe they will be able to beat walker the next time through. or not. occupy wall street obviously was dispersed, i can't say as an organization because it was in an organization, but dispersed as a phenomenon, that just about activist. i think there are still some general assembly's in the cities where it was that continue to meet and might decide to do something else. on the other hand, i saw somebody said, obama wouldn't have won without them. that's hard to establish, but you can make the cas a case fort there will injected the idea of inequality as an issue. the 1% versus the 99%, if you look at the history of the campaign, romney was not being attacked. he was torturing himself as a successful businessman rather than an and exploitative venture capitalist. that change. that really hurt him. the guy from indiana has come a been bought out by bain capital and lost their jobs, they had done the same thing when romney rant against ted kennedy for the senate about 10 years earlier. it wasn't a ministry but it wasn't a secret that they were around but it was just i think the impact of occupied made it more relevant for them to come out, you know, and give them more bite. are any of these things? i think we're going to be stuck in the same kind of stalemate situation for some time yet. i think all these things are kind of percolating comment and it's not really biting enough to make a change. one final thing. somebody mentioned, maybe nobody mentioned, earlier today somebody, maybe the tea party will develop on the left. people talk about that. i think there's a big difference, and that the tea party wants government to do less, doesn't really care. we saw figures about what happens about the government doing anything and people don't have health care, or for poor people. and so for them to shut down the government, to block action, it's not painful, right? actually it's getting a little bit of what they want, where as the democrats are really, the people in wisconsin, the union's, protesters in wiscons wisconsin, work for state agencies, there were teachers, health care workers, that the action believe in what they were doing. and wanted to protect their own working conditions. more generally, democrats are people are democratic as they want to provide social services. so for them that's why they end up supporting moderate democrats if they have a better chance of winning. because if the prospects of, for the tea party, the prospect of having obama being president, they hate him but they can keep fighting them. they are not losing a whole lot right now, whereas the democrats have prospects of losing control of every part of the government is too horrible to think of. >> thank you very much. we will move into the part of our talk here where we're going to involve the audience, and your question jeff on the tea party. i thought i would start off with a question i have of my own for our esteemed panel. a couple of you mentioned that you don't envision a situation in which the tea party could split and become it's own party. i have talked to some tea party activist here in ohio who have mentioned the idea of possibly joining with another minor party, like the constitution party, for example, and i just wonder, any of you for see that as a possibility or if you think it's more likely the tea party will continue working from within the republican party? >> i think it's very likely they will continue working -- i think it's likely they will continue working within the republican party. i think it has a lot more influence there. and i think as we heard this morning, it really hates the democratic party. so the choice is between a mitt romney or even a chris christie and hillary clinton, i don't think that's a real challenge to them. so i think the goal is only to take over the republican party. mav tv who is head of freedom works, the name of his book is hostile takeover. i think that's the goal and i think that the reason why they're willing to support candidates who might not be the strongest in the general election because i think that's all part of this strategy of sort of ridding the party of the writers come of groups that they don't approve of. i really don't see -- i think you may get a few rogue individuals doing that but i think that they've been very six vessel. i think it really would, i would be the surprise, and we did ask the question about how do you see the tea party and one of the choice was a third party. the only group that really bought into that at all whether ron paul supporters. and, of course, ron paul has run as a libertarian candidate. maybe a tad, but i think very, very unlikely. >> i think that they would obviously stay in the republican party. it's suicidal strategy to break apart. they would accomplish nothing more than splitting the republican vote and electing democrats. i'm going to quote david campbell and one of the earlier papers today, talked about this deepening reserve of negativity, and it captures i can what a lot of the findings were on this panel, that tea party activists are very much antedated -- animated by their dislike of the democratic party. at the end of the day, there's a motivation to the democrats lose, if that's how you feel. the most viable strategy out there would be to continue to do with your doing. after all, we're talking about the tea party right now. they had a major seat at the table during the whole government shutdown but it was all about satisfying the tea party. so what they're doing right now i getting involved in the primaries has arguably been a pretty effective strategy. they may not be getting everything that they want, but i would imagine that there are enough smart people there who would understand that staying the course makes a lot more sense than trying to jump off and form a third party. >> i agree. the same time david kimball was making for the sport, it was said it's not that we love our parties or would love our candidates, ability hate for the other side can be a powerful unifying force. i think when you look at mitt romney, the person who was the author of bromley care in massachusetts and was a moderate -- romneycare -- and 93% plus of the tea party supporters turned out to vote for him in the german election, there's your answer. >> okay. >> add one thing. i agree that they are not, but i want to start another part at all, and they now, originally they made a big deal that we are against the republicans and democrats both as far as the party establishment. we don't like george w. bush at all. that's what they were saying. i think their strength and they know the strength is that they are willing to lose, to see the republicans lose, so they're willing, i think that's a stilted if they're willing to put up a tea party candidate and a moderate district even if it will be harder to win for that candidate. that's where their unlike the democratic left. it's much more concerned with winning the general election. >> okay, thank you. there's a gentleman with a bowtie here. we'll start with them for our questions. >> i'm curious whether you have any data or anyone else does about the tea party and turnout? we just had data dropped on us but overall we know that white turnout was down in 2012. is there any evidence that tea party supporters stayed home and that could have hurt romney and republicans? and for francia and morris, a question that goes to david campbell's early date as well and to what extent is the drive-in behind the tea party movement race? >> one of the things that we just mentioned the paper was, ma there's the enthusiasm gap that we all heard about in 2010. it turns out if you run, and i just did this with gallup, that non-tea party republicans showed exactly to the decimal point almost the same level of enthusiasm as democrats. the entire enthusiasm gap was tea party republicans. so that's 2010. what we define, what we are able to look at is because we have overtime, they become and look at the freedom works. this is not a mass sampling. but the impact of the tea party activity controlling for 2010 activity, 2008 activity, is quite strong. so what we really defined is the tea party people -- i guess i see them -- this isn't one sende the right wing of the republican party but i think it's super energize right wing of the republican party but i think it's more active than was there before. i really see the tea party again based on our data as tea party identification did, among the activist groups, certainly to much higher levels of activity. among the mass grouping we can only look at and 2010, and we find some of the same things but that's a little different. i don't think you have this, i'll take my marbles and go home. i think this is a group that is committed, and i think that it is not diminishing turnout. i don't think the decline in white turnout was tea party people. i don't have real evidence on the mass assembly. allen may look at this more. >> to david's question, we put up the numbers for government assistance to blacks, but that could really argue will be about government assistance. after all, the table before show that tea party members with the most hostile to the government giving away anything. so i think we have to be careful there in a tipping that to race but it could be but i think in light of the of the number we have to be somewhat careful. i know some people say it's a good -- [inaudible] >> well, okay. [inaudible] >> well, there was one thing though i do want to say to be just a little more cautious here. we looked at the thermometer question on the feeling thermometer towards blacks, and the numbers were 60, for tea party republicans, 614 establish republicans, 60, 68, 72. not huge differences. now, again, social desirability effects may be in play here. people don't want to say that they are cool towards a minority group perhaps, but again, all we have are the data to look at. i didn't look at all the racial resentment questions for this particular paper. there was only so much we could present after all, but on the feeling thermometer we didn't really see. and with hispanic, similar numbers. 61 versus 60, versus 59, 65, 71. so again sort of all in the same range. from the numbers we ran i can't really give you a clear answer to that. >> okay, thank you. let's take another question from the audience. >> hello. i'm from university of akron. following up on some of that come it seems and we can establish that hating obama, aiding democratic principles really drives the tea party. and i'm wondering, now that it's possible or even plausible because of thei of the actions e of some of their leaders actions that they might actually lose the house in 2014. tough challenge but possible. and keep the senate, and then everything they hate would just be like reading mandated by the american people. i wonder, wouldn't have like a true sense of expanding everything they hate just got reaffirmed? wouldn't the small movement fall to pieces like a lot of them do, reform and another way but in this particular fashion it seems like a hate obama and the hate of democrats now really keeps them together? wouldn't a we mandate be a true ending blow? >> i'll take that spent sure, go ahead. >> all future events we're going to guess at what it would look at this week, the results in virginia have members of the tea party doubling down. if only the mainstreamers have backed this up we would have won this. there is a strong sense in which the end of days makes you more religious. i think that would be a pretty good parallel in which the way defeat might be seen. if you ask a tough question, they haven't answered. they have a libertarian tradition to a have a moral conservative tradition that will provide answers for why it is that you were defeated. so the next step is to defeat of those forces that defeated you last time and to stay and again. in the american system we have two parties for some fairly strong structural reasons. in a winner-take-all election, if you take your toys and go home, home is a lonely place. the desire to stay within the party, the desire to not lose your principles but to continue working harder, and perhaps even to blame those who didn't back it up in it in the first of i think will be pretty intense. >> also, i think to answer your question from a media perspective, the leaders, the media personalities that you can were look at and really say, these are the leaders of the tea party movement, they don't rally the troops from a strategic perspective, talk about how we might be able to influence the election to get more republicans in. know, they think they are right and they are claiming moral authority to rally the troops. at i don't think that's going to change under any circumstances of more of a mandate for the democrats or anything like that. those leaders are in play. they have the following but i don't think that's going to change anytime soon. as long as there's a democrat in the white house. >> okay. we have a question over here on the site. >> i am from ohio state university. i'm interested in having a comment on the internal dynamics within the tea party movement. i mean come we know there are a whole bunch of movements out there under different names with different leadership. some of them are, don't agree with each other necessarily. we also know that the movement started out in 2009 as a movement that had two targets. one was government, the other was wall street. and that wall street target has a long history of course in american politics. but that's kind of an were as the and the government part has expanded over time. receive groups like freedom force that is more a beltway group, at least its leadershileadershit'sleadershipf driving the movement in some ways and supplying a lot of the financing. so please comment on that. how do we sort all of this out? >> does someone want to jump in? >> i think part of what we spoke to at the constitutional liberty argument hits on that where they found the least common denominator thread so that you can have multiple groups that are taking somewhat divergent views on even similar issues, but still i get back to some broader peace with a look and said, and may not message to agree with the policy statement being made, but i sympathize with the logic behind it being it is back in some way, shape, or form to liberty. and they been able to successfully use of that. >> as we talked about the occupy movement, i think a serious case can be made that the occupy movement not only wasn't find it but it prided itself on an utter lack of central ideology. so if you have -- and there are no occupy movement panels at this conference. for a good reason. once it got cold, it's time to go home. in columbus, we had an occupy movement where they didn't seem to be actually occupying their kids but every time i walked by there was nobody there. perhaps there's more than one reason for that is you don't have a central unifying idea. and it's are difficult to rally people around that. if you do have ideas that can reinforce one another, the quote from ron paul, if you can't defend life, and you can't defend liberty. strongly speaks to the fact that they are finding ways that an outsider might not think can reconcile different views. so on one hand, libertarianism might tend towards anarchy, or that traditionalism might trend towards authority. but they're finding ways to bind together and you don't have a unified ideology, what i don't think would be passing on anytime soon. >> there was an ongoing discussion in occupied in campus after a while, we been doing this pretty long, despite losing its news value, it's probably time to move to something else and forget how. in boston, the proposal was that stay there until the first day of spring. primarily because a lot of homeless people have joined them and didn't want to leave them out in the cold. they were dispersed not because he got cold, but because the police raided and destroyed the enchantment. i'll make a prediction about the wall street thing is i think as the health care debate goes on, now we're starting to hear about some elements of business who were making money off of it. and i think that the tea party is going to latch onto that. because that was generally what they said about wall street. they worked for dodd-frank but they were for -- they did argue that a lot of these government programs that are supposed to be helping ordinary people are really pumping, taking our tax dollars and giving them to big business and wall street. >> let me just say one thing in response. this is something i've been concerned about based on our data. so one thing was, in the cces, again, we found that you really an awful lot of people -- to say that you're a subscriber to freedom works doesn't say anything except on a mailing list, which includes people who listen to glenn beck and people who do things that are sort of tea party. with a very large sample, over 12,000 to i was able to sort out people on the list who have done nothing for freedom works but have worked for other groups. and i found very, very little difference there. now, that shouldn't be totally convincing. i would love to have multiple groups that i'm working with, but i think that's a very good question. i was not able to find a lot of different and so that gave me more confidence in the. on the other thing, i would say that the occupy wall street movement kind of misunderstood the fact. they were inspired by herbst bring, if he didn't understand it was herbst bring and not arab winter in the probably wouldn't have been as successful either last night. >> what i remember most about the occupy movement was everybody saying, what are they protesting? and not getting a very clear answer. we have a question here in the middle. >> one comment and one question. the comet is about opinions of big business. there's a feeling thermometer question about big business in the nes. tea party supporters like big business better than other voters, better than other republicans, way better than democrats do. >> we also find speech that our pro-big business, not anti-big business. they might be against something like government subsidies to business or something like that. >> at least according to the way we coded tea party supporters they were 61 on a feeling thermometer versus 50 the fourth establishment republican. 44, pure independent, 45 for the moderate democrat and 37 for the liberal democrat spent my question that it's about looking forward a somewhat you've all seen, looking at these tea party supporters. how are they going to respond to a chris christie candidacy for president? and even in republican primaries and then looking, you know, will they rally behind a chris christie candidacy for president if he becomes the republican nominee the way they rallied behind mitt romney? >> chris christie is better from their point of view, isn't he? i have a full-time closer but he is more conservative. romney was governor of massachusetts and there's times. he was for gay rights. he was against, i mean pro-abortion. chris christie to have t to do s much transformation. so i think if he runs and wins it will be like the steins but they will try to put up their own candidate but when they lose, if it is a will, i think the we just as enthusiastic. [inaudible] >> right. [inaudible] spent one thing, alan, among people who, in december 2011, who rated not only do they not support romney, but they rated him below average. two-thirds of them were active in this campaign, and i think that's, you know, the last slide kind of -- >> i just want to add one thing that i thought was relevant. labor unions, tea party republicans on the feeling thermometer, 26 versus 41. the tea party republicans really don't like labor unions. was christie has made a reputation in new jersey for being very anti-labor. so clearly they didn't invite him to the cpac convention but that's an indication they don't love the guy. his numbers have gotten worse with tea party republicans since he embraced obama after the hurricane. but i think, if he ends up being the nominee, i'm not sure that's going to happen but if you were, there are these things there that they can convince themselves they liked. so i think in the general election will come around. >> i was going to mention, the one thing for christie that romney didn't possess is the art by begins of exact point where there's one thing they can point to and say we really like this. with romney that wasn't there. some of the chris christie videos of him going off on teachers and teachers unions, those could just play in the background of the tea party route and they could talk about nothing else and people would be very happy. with romney there was nothing they could do. >> and it doesn't matter -- democrats have to nominate somebody, and -- [laughter] hillary clinton will generate a similar amount of dislike, and so we'll have the same thing whether it's hillary or -- >> not by much. 29. >> weight. for now, yet. spin she had a high rating in december 2011, but when we were back in march 2013, a rating had dropped significantly. so i think that's -- >> we have a question here. spent bob taft, university of dayton. this may be too pragmatic but i'm going to ask the question of resource been tea party candidates and the impact of the mccain-feingold limitations on political party, unlimited donations to the local donations post since united, the rise of the old super pac movements. entrance of the tea party goals, to win primaries or to influence moderates in congress, seems to me the availability of resources is a huge factor because if i'm a member of congress, moderate, and looking at the possibility of not just an opponent, some opponent, unfunded opponent, now looking at some kind of super pac coming in may be recruiting a credible opponent and funding that happen. in terms of their day power and terms to move forward and stay prominent, resources seem to be a factor. just a comment on the. i don't know if anybody has studied that but i'm interested in that point. >> i would just add on computer dramatic republican you better watch what you say during the campaign for the lead up to the campaign or you could be calling, even by accident on a challenge that you don't expect community look around the landscape and see there's really no credible candidate who can get the funding u.s. the connections but with the threat of a super pac coming in. suddenly someone can come in from nowhere. >> anyone else? on finances. well, i think john is going to want us to wrap up. to be a time for one more question? okay. we have one more question from the audience. how about steve brooks? this better be good, steve. >> steve brooks from this isn't too. about six weeks ago john zogby was here promoting his research that he has been doing on the younger generation and response the question about politics, he said that he thinks the liberal conservative dimension is going to diminish and be replaced by libertarian communitarianism division. especially for the three circle guys. [laughter] do you see the tea party movement and that kind of movement moving to be more of a libertarian movement and the traditionalists being left behind? >> i think where that becomes problematic is that there is no one thing called liberty. there is no one thing called around the. the two concepts work want desperate with one another and we may redefine what needs to be a republican or democrat and to be a staunch democrat or start republican or a true believer. but the idea that we understand what liberty is, would liberty be for example, the liberty to get a good new at night, or the liberty to carry a gun as a side arm? we may be redefining those things, but to be honest, i think in seeing my students as they go through, they sort themselves pretty well by party. >> anyone else? okay. >> we need to do two things, ladies and deliver the first thing we need to do is thank stephanie and our panelists. [applause] >> tonight an encore presentation of our first ladies series featuring the life of rosalynn carter. she attended cabinet meetings and traveled to latin america. the life of first lady rosalynn carter 9 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> i think it's interesting to sit here and talk about how the republican party is less unified when we saw to think about this historical but i just think it's a really interesting time to be studying this because really for the first time in recent years we are seeing a republican party that is facing many of the struggles of the democratic party faced 20 or 30 years ago when they were tinkering with the reform of process every four years. >> the interplay of what happened, how can this can do with what happened in the context in which they're running all really matter. more than the underlying scandal itself when it comes to these comebacks. and especially if you're running in the context in which you can present yourself as an abuse, part of an abused group, abused by the system, you can really played out quite well. and whether that's the case that jeff talked about or whether it's roy in alabama who used the 10 commandments controversy as very effectively in terms of kind of an attack on christian conservatives. i think that's very much the case. >> this weekend on c-span the state of the national party and a look at the political scandals and the politics of recovery. saturday morning at 10 eastern. live sunday on c-span2, your calls and comments for talk radio host mark levin, best selling author of five non-fiction books and his latest, the liberty amendment. that's at noon on lpds in depth. on c-span3, american history tv looks back 15 years at the impeachment of president william jefferson clinton. saturday and sunday at noon eastern to. >> we are going to bring you live coverage this morning of a discussion on the national council of la raza public advocacy, but that event was canceled due to the overnight snowstorm. instead, a discussion on the future of tv news. the university of north carolina recently hosted abc news president and first television chairman for a conversation. students and faculty with new technology, whistleblowers, investigative journalism and choose the freelances and protection of content to this event from chapel hill in early november is an hour and a half. >> thank you, david, very much come and thank you susan. it's been a delightful day. i got here from new york last evening, and got up bright and early and we visited with class with some students and it' thats the second time that i've been on campus, and i am always impressed when i am here. i will go anywhere for weight. wade has been my friend for 25 years or so and also been my lawyer, and wade says i need you, i'll go where ever that goes and wade has also been my most trusted business advisor. so i the high appreciation and this is been something that's been on his mind for years. we talked about this over long nights, long night conversations and various industry gatherings. i smoke a cigar and he tells me that his vision for the university of north carolina. i'm delighted to be here. i also want to give a shout out to hang price. i'm not sure where he is but hank is my colleague over in winston-salem and the station we're very proud of and hank is one of our great leaders. i'm glad that he is here. and also a guy who was here who wore the hearst jury for a number of years, jim hefner who got on us and came to university for the closing chapter of his great career. but jim was an outstanding executive and made the company a lot of money. so good to see jim again. i've been blessed to work with first for 30 years, and i was a lucky guy that had an opportunity there to run the radio station. and i found the company to be a great fit for what i was all about. ours is a country that was founded in 1887. we've been at this an awfully long time and have been at the forefront of media as it has evolved over the last 126 years or so, first in newspapers and magazines, and in radio and television, then cable television. and we are very active in the digital media space and will have an opportunity to talk about this tonight. .. about what has occurred under local town and be plugged in. we can talk a while about national and international media. our business and bread-and-butter is local media and we will have an opportunity to talk about that tonight. another thing i think we have a chance to focus on is how the culture is so important in any organization i think it's particularly important in the news organizations and the notions of the core purpose and values along the built to last notion of transparency and honesty and integrity and reporting. our values that transcend strategic changes and tactical changes that occur in the media on a regular basis those are lasting values. there was a great piece in "the new york times" by the public at hurt margaret sullivan a couple weeks ago on october 26th that talked about values that don't go out of style. and one of the things that we as a company are very focused on is ethical decision making in a digital world. we will talk about that a little bit. i think that's terribly important. it's been a time of disruption. ours is a company that views this as a time of opportunity. and the hearst name and the visionary randolph hearst was a gentleman that believe in innovation. we tried to be innovative in the things that we have done and have associated ourselves with. that often means taking risks and risks are a good part of what we do and yet acting responsibly is in the journalism works that we do is equally important. i love the quote from none other than bob dylan who says the hero is one who understands the responsibility that goes with freedom and i think that ought to resonate with all of the journalists. in recent times just in the past year we've had experience with the boston bombing. we are a washington bureau who has covered the navy shipyard shootings will. there's all manner of these stories some of which have been poorly handled by people in the media. and i'm not here to criticize them, but i hope we take away learning from how people did things in the right way and how they did things in the wrong way. and there is an opportunity for us to be better as journalists. this is a great calling. i applaud the people who are engaged in the pursuit of their journalism careers and i think that you should be very exciting about the future holds. as an old guy now i wish i had the opportunity to wind the clock back and have an opportunity to enter the business at age 20 or 25 because i think it is a time of great opportunity. i think there are important careers available to people. i always think a lot of important role of the storyteller and the editor is, and i think about mr. hearst's father as a part of the gold rush in a part of the country and there aren't review stations or television stations and there were a few newspapers but not as we know them and at the end of the day of longer travel, people settle the campfires and talked to one another and a few among us are very good storytellers and a few among us are very good tellers of jokes. and to me were the journalists and i would say the same thing about the armies of napoleon crossing the world. the gift a storyteller has is a very important to the people we interact with and that's what you learn. there is a high prt on storytelling that is the centrally important to people in the society is that we serve. there is now an opportunity to go and pursue the individual pieces of information and different bits of media, video, audio and as a light but the notion of a media company that is an aggregate her and the notion of the media company that creates content and carries the content is still very important. on bedrock principles of the corporation as a media company, we've got to have a proposition for the viewers and readers. you say you are a media company and you don't put something on the screen or on the page that resonate with the viewers and readers you are not in the media business. harkin's on the line sam used to use from time to time that anyone who says they want to be a leader ought to look over their shoulder and be sure there's someone behind him as he marches on the road. that is absent anybody behind you you are just out for a walk and aren't really leading at all. it may be nice for the walk but that isn't what it's all about. we are going to have an opportunity tonight to chat about some things that i hope are in your mind and we will take some questions and i am delighted to be here with ben. it was good of him to come and join us. no one is more veazey than the president of news organizations and he's a young guy i think that he's the dean of the network news executives which tells you what a perilous job field and he is in. but he's a brilliant guy that has been a brilliant producer and he is about innovation in the work he does. he has made abc news a better place and has offered a better product for the affiliate's. he and i have become good friends and i am delighted he is with us tonight. so we will have an opportunity to hear his point of view about abc news and the important institution that matters in this country and in this world in the same way that the work that hank does at winston-salem and the stations in sacramento and albuquerque in many places beyond that that matters to the local communities. i just assert from the bottom of my heart people care about their towns and about the issues that occurred and it's important for us to be the storytellers in those communities. local journalism is job number one of the science and commercial -- fines commercial success and it makes us who we are in these markets where we have important businesses. and i am one who feels that it is an exciting time ahead. i think there is a great future for journalism were going to be serving people on a lot of different platforms. and we are adapting to how we produce and deliver our content. but it is an exciting time. and i believe the best is yet to come for this industry and we will have a chance to talk about that tonight. with that, i will be seated. the fit, come back and talk about ben. [applause] >> the second speaker this evening is ben sure what, president of abc news where he is responsible for all aspects of abc news broadcast including world news tonight with diane sawyer, nightline, good morning america, 20/20, this week with george stephanopoulos. he oversees abc news as radio, online and satellite services and he began his career in journalism while still a student at harvard college. in 1984 during a year off from college, he worked for the news and observer in raleigh. the "los angeles times" paris bureau and the united nations border relief operation in thailand. and i have to imagine a was especially hard for him to leave raleigh for that assignment in paris. [laughter] mr. sherwood launched his career in earnest when he joined abc news in 1989 and serving as an investigative associate producer and producer for abc news primetime live after a brief stint at the network with the peacock he returned to abc news and 2004 as executive producer of good morning america. it wasn't long thereafter that mr. sherwood was named president of abc news entire division. under mr. sherwood's leadership, abc news has been anything but complacent. last week it launched a partnership with yahoo! to create the number one use information as for online, reaching nearly 100 million people and serving up to half a billion videos a month. this year, he d.c. news and univision launched fusion recently. they stole one of my favorite lawyers that assures them of good legal advice. this is a network that is to serve and in power the u.s. hispanics. the fastest -- the youngest and the fastest-growing demographic in america. as if that were not enough, mr. sherwood is also the author of two critically acclaimed best-selling novels. the the death and life of charlie's unplowed, which was adopted as a feature film starring zach efron released in 2010. and the man who ate the 747, which is also being developed as a major motion picture and a broadway musical. mr. speed of's latest book is a exploration of the secrets about who bounces back from everyday adversity and who doesn't. who beats life-threatening diseases and who succumbs them. and who triumphs after economic hardship and who surrenders. i see some of these parallels there with tonight's topic on the future of television news. please join me in welcoming ben sherwood. [applause] >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. it is a great privilege to be here tonight. dean cain, of boger and professor packer, we appreciate your warm welcome. wade, c ante, congratulations on this great night, the inaugural might. as my colleague said we jump on planes, we will fly anywhere and especially for this wonderful institution tv digest have to say that it is extremely humbling to be invited to share the stage tonight with my friend, david barrett. we began to work together a few years ago when i came back to abc news in this role. david has been a friend and mentor. usually when we sit next to each other, it is even in the more contentious board meetings of the abc television network. sometimes we sit next to each other at a new york basketball game. but it is a privilege to be here and an honor. thank you, david plebeian i'm looking forward to our discussion. when i looked out tonight at this audience, i see a bunch of friends because as the professor mengin, 29 years ago, i packed up my car in massachusetts and drove a beat up to north carolina to start what was a formative experience in my journalism career. i began to work for the new census herber -- i mean the news of the server. laughter could they were a beacon of journalism. but i want to say is, an introduction, is that it very simple. i echo david barrett's observation that if i could do what all over again, i wish that i could start right here and right now. i wish i could begin a career right now in this highly disruptive, highly volatile and highly uncertain media environment because i think that the future of television news is very bright and i think the future of news and information is extremely bright. there is history to share with you very quickly about the disruptions that have taken place over the last thousands of years because i think it will give you a sense to come in the next five, ten, 50 years back to the communications on storytelling and david put it the best which is the news is essentially fundamentally in activity. and with the saber tooth tiger is worth and so fundamentally the news is coming back to the heart and saying do not hunt over there but over there. it is still social in nature but it took thousands of years to go to the first stories that were told around the fire to the advent of being able to write things down being on time to print among the press and people to create a radio recording was around 377 years. treen to 77 years and that another 71 years at the advent of television. and then about 40 years for the advent of the internet and about ten years before the advent of the social and local phone and some futurists predicted the way to change in the next 100 years what he called something like 20,000 years of change in human history. 20,000 years in change in the space of about 100 years. and we know that those discussions are coming fast and furiously. and at abc news, we welcome those discussions. we are excited about that change. and as the professor mentioned, we have begun to make the preparations to live in that new world. the new world of digital, transformation, the new world of demographics transformation in the united states has this country becomes a majority minority nation over the next 30 years. and so, the future is highly disruptive. that is one of the things i look forward to talking with david tonight, and it is also very, very bright. this is a thrilling moment for journalism. and it's an exciting moment to be here at chapel hill. my job in 1984 was to write the letter box. that was the first intern job and after that little leather box, i occasionally would get an assignment to go out and mop up after the great rot christiansen, the political reporter to leave and sometimes cover some even in some far-flung place where the reporters didn't want to go and they would send an intern and i would relish the stances. one of my jobs was to run around north carolina in my little car and go to every television station in the state and look in what's called the public file and see what the candidates for spending on political advertising. i write the things one of the few people in the room and perhaps in the state is regularly visited every television station in the state. it's where i fell in love with journalism triet i fell in love with north carolina. and in fact i called my parents at the end of the internet and i told them delhi was going to leave college for a year and stay in north carolina to see that 1984 senate race to the conclusion. it was the battle between senator jesse helms. at that time, the most expensive senate race in the united states history. at that time, the senate race of - national attention. and at that time that i then went on to write an honors thesis and college about the changing role of race in the north carolina politics, going back to 1898 and 1900 with the white supremacist and pains to 1950 when senator frank gramm ran against willis left and the democratic primary and then the runoff and in 1984 race. all for the conversation later but so the games began. and i would join david over here for the discussion. thank you very much. [applause] >> you get the first question. >> the first question. so today in "the new york times," bill keller, the former executive editor of the times, describes this as a golden age for journalism and in particular the golden age for international reporting. and my question for you, david, is looking at where we are today and looking ahead, is this a golden age for television news or is this a bronze age or silver age or what age is it in terms of what is in the news? >> i lean more towards being a golden age. i think as far as a world of opportunity out there for us to tell stories on all kinds of different platforms i am one who believes people gravitate to the best available screen. but there are so many of her screams that they can to get in touch of. that's an opportunity for people to engage with a journalism and engage with storytelling that is very profound. our company this year is going to generate 5 billion page views on our website. 250 million video clips of news and weather information and stations that cover 18% of u.s. tv households. 10 billion impressions. 60% of those are on smart phones and tablets. the migration to mobile is really extraordinary. so, my view that as a great opportunity. also, on each of these markets where we have tv stations, we strive to have the leading source of local information on the traditional television. and our markets about 80% of the newscasts are treated 81 or two. and we have go to television stations. so i think there is a world of opportunity out there. it's not contracting. hearst is involved of course in the newspaper business. and i see that business as contracting. our business is expanding because of the proliferation of all of these new devices and all of these new places to view the video. the world is interested in video and that is what we do for a living. >> do you think that some people would say that the number of people who are watching television, in the studies that come out periodically, people are asked, young people in particular asked yesterday did you watch television news? and six or seven years ago people under the age of 30 said that they watch television news yesterday. and that number out of the most recent statistics is somewhere around 30%. so, there is this sense that there is a decline particularly among young people. how do you feel about the changing demographics and the changing audience? >> people are migrating to different places. and if we are going to do right by our viewers, we have to go there for them and be there all the different devices so they will consume the media. it is very important that we have established brands. i talked briefly about the value of the editor, the value of the storyteller. and in boston wcc is the best television station in the market. he's expecting me to say that. i'm the boss. but it's a great television station. and we saw when the bombings occurred around the marathon that people's viewership increased. younger people migrated to words a known and trusted source for local information. the audiences were typically greater than that of our two or three largest competitors combined. so, sometimes it takes a big event in the city and there are tornadoes in that market and demographic patterns change. younger people who gravitate to watch local news and local information. it is a challenge to be remain relevant. you know, you say to me what am i worried about the next four or five years, it is maintaining that relevancy. and i think we tuesday invested in the business. we have to recruit the best and brightest people in the institutions like this and find a place for them and put their resources to this business in a pro-active way that we remain relevant and create reasons for people to watch our stations and to read our publications. so i think that the actual title of this conversation tonight could, building on what david said, could be slightly modified. because i think that we both share the belief that the word television is one that is of questionable relevance. because in fact, what these kids station is creating and abc news creates, we create video journalism, video storytelling that can exist on the television station. and they can also exist on an ipad or iphone or any smartphone. and so, the question to me is what is the future of the video journalism in the digital age. because all of the content creators and all of the students who are here tonight who are living in to television journalism, who are really going to be going into a profession that is video journalism, telling stories with pictures that will then be projected to all kinds of screening. some of them will be television screens. many of them will be the little devices, a little television stations in your lap that one can watch on an application on an ipad or tablet or iphone. so i think the future of the video journalism comedy this point is very bright and very robust. and in fact, there is clear evidence that more and more people are consuming more and more video journalism, not just on television on all kinds of devices. >> how are you adapting your story telling, your production for different devices? it's one thing to do gma, the diane show at 6:00 come 6:30 in the evening. how do you view the need to adapt the production techniques for all these different devices? >> once upon a time, when the web was bolted onto the side of the news organizations, and the digital was literally struck on to these broadcast organizations, the theory is that one would simply take the creations of the television shows and just put them out on the web and maybe make them a little bit shorter. and i think that it's not profound or a regional to note. they require their own content you can simply take what works on television and put it on a local phone or tablet. doug who as our product ingenious took the ipad out. they took that and they decided to look at how people use and consumer information on the ipad which is very different from the way the consumer and the television set. people get one experience in the morning which is short and when people like to snack more we create a different format for the lunchtime period and then we know people at home at night people like to curl up on the couch or in bed and consumer long form videos so we create three distinct experiences. that sort of approach which does not fit all we cannot take television and put it on the web where we are having to create content for a different experience. social media is a spectacularly interesting tool. the organizations are trying to figure out how to use it and they're responsible way. it's fraught with opportunities and also enormous challenges and risks. how do you manage your newsroom to read what kind of conversations you have in the newsroom about using the social media as the sources and the like? >> so, in 1984, in order to get that here grasp of the weather copy into the news of server is a circulation of a couple hundred thousand readers. they had to go through to editors that was running the gauntlet of two editors that seemed completely fears and ferocious and what we write all of the 75 words because they were not up to snuff. today at abc news, some of our younger people, right out of school, who are social media editors have access with the flick of eight letters which. they can communicate with literally millions of people without any editorial, direct editorial oversight or editing because they are the social media interaction with the audience. millions of people but world news, millions of people at good morning america, millions of followers at abc news.com. is this is one of the things we think about a lot. there are few filters and editing of the layers in the social media interaction but because it is branded abc news it has the same stand. it has the same as abc news and so we think about that. how about the stations, david, what is the relevant importance to the social media and getting your anchors and correspondents and television stations engaged in the audience? it is an important tool but it requires the real responsibility in determining how we use that tool. and we are very mindful about sourcing and using facebook for instance as a source that carries a risk with it. i would ask you to raise your hand if you believe that you are -- your closest friends facebook pages 100% accurate on everything that is portrayed on that page. yet in the newsrooms around the country people will go to facebook and use that as a source. it carries a lot more responsibility than ever has before in the after-hours that follow in their random reckless nature of social media posting accusations and implicating individuals who have nothing to do with what occurred in boston and mourned her death and this was portrayed on websites and some news organizations ran with it. the reporting by a lot of the news organizations about the apprehension of the bombers, the implicated a fellow in brown university who was connected in no way with the scene of the daily news ran a picture on the front page. and you have seen these people. and they were not the people involved in the bombing. the recklessness of it was frightening. >> our experience is that we have committed to an entire program that we call adc which is for accuracy and credibility. is whether it is the social media editors like i described earlier, who have to go by a series of extremely strict rules about what they can send out and what they can do for all of this different reporting, the priority is to get it right the value of this being first has declined rapidly has never been more significant. what are the things that you know during the attacks in kenya on that shopping mall is that very quickly the parity utter feeds began to appear in al-shabaab it's the modern social media as soon as that happened, there's all kind of valuable information that we can gather and collect from the social media about what is happening. everyone can send in pictures and see what's happened. and at the same time there are all kind of pranksters and other types that jump in there that want to have some fun and calls all kind of mischief. and so the importance of having on the receiving end. seóul filtering all of that information to find out what is real and what's not real and have checks and balances and be able to check out all these different accounts we have a team that mobilizes to begin to try to digest that information to check out what is verifiable and what is not verifiable. >> you have said it's better to be right the first and certainly i would agree with that. talk about election night in 2012 when ohio was up for grabs and everyone was clamoring to be the first one to declare president obama r. dee elected -- president obama reelected. we had the first on times square, we suffered right around 11 p.m. eastern time we suffered a massive power outage in our studio. thinkers, diane sawyer, george stephanopoulos and the entire team, literally sitting in the dark for 20 minutes of hitting it because we plugged in some heaters on the outside to keep the team warm and times square and they had just been struck into the wall. there were lots of power checks. one of the things that i've seen in my career is to see our electrical team running from the basement of the building at times square up the stairs with a cable to plug us back and to keep us on the air. this is our network. >> david knows the story. >> the second thing that happened that night is that we know what happened in the previous presidential election when they didn't call it correctly and we had said to the team and the projection specialist that we have to be right. that we just have to be right. and so there was a gap between abc news coverage and the projection of ohio and some of the other networks and summer between eight to 15 minutes and that is an agonizing time because one sees other networks proclaiming the president obama has been reelected president. and abc news is not there. and in fact on some of the screens behind our people, and the various headquarters the crowds are going crazy because of their organizations are projecting a winner but abc news is not there. so as i said to many of the people at the abc television networks, our job is to get it right and if we get it wrong, we lose credibility and trust. and sometimes it is going to take as a little bit longer. in other elections and in other situations we have been ahead of other people. so we have a great trust in our team and we cannot push the team. we have to let them come to that in our own way. >> was abc news damaged in any way because it wasn't first that might? i don't know the answer to that. we would have more damage if we would have gotten that right. people remember today i bring up -- i remember but i don't think that people remember who was first or second or third on the air. the consequences of being wrong are much more embarrassing and much more damaging. >> can i just interrupt there because you talk about path about the importance of winning. can you define winning because most people think that winning in television or women in television is designed by ratings. how do you define this on election night and on all other nights? it is about conducting ourselves with integrity, it's about representation and respect the viewer has for us. then it's about the top revenue and top profitability which allows us to reinvest in the business to provide the kind of service that means to be provided to employ the people that we employee and fulfill the nation as broadcasters. so it is a lot more than just ratings. and i think that there are some people in the narrow point of view that says you when and at whatever cost is worth the when. we do not want to put our name on the wan that came with a loss of integrity. we don't want to damage their duties and and the end doesn't justify the means in terms of how we conduct ourselves. the ratings are critical and important and revenue generation is important and profitability is important. we have been in business in the television space in the very first days since 1948 and we have been in business since 1987 and one's ability to stay in any business that long depends upon successful operation of the commercial enterprise. the idea is in the right way. and we are pretty greedy in this test that we have pretty high standards in terms of wanting it all but wanting it all to the right responsible way to conduct themselves as the business enterprise. >> in that context for the students that are here what are you looking for when you are hiring someone for hearst? what are the qualities among the young people you are bringing into your organization? >> not necessarily in this order. passion is really important. love what you do. i don't think that you can be successful in any endeavor unless you have got passion for what that is. i think the people that the higher are smart curious people. curiosity is something that i like to see when we chat with people and interview people. there are skills that can be developed and a lot of the skill development in this institution. but, you know, passion and curiosity and the sense of urgency are really important. i think a sense of humor is really important. and i think that eisenhower said a sense of humor is one of the most important qualities that a leader can have. and i look for that. and people that we talk to. but now i think the people who are most successful in any endeavor have a passion for what they are doing and they bring with it a whole package of skills that are required. writing is important. a good i pity the people of our photographers. how elusive the good judgment is for people. it is a quality that is hard to tell people and show people and educate people about how to have a good judgment. but it's terribly important. when we are in the newsroom and you have someone that has to make a decision about whether they go to air with a story, judgment is really important. so those are the kind of qualities that we are looking for. >> could have one quality which is sort of that inner go is what the historian lewis mumford described it. it is the fire from inside. but up from inside. salt start to read driven through that an hour ago and that in your drive to get things done to make a difference. how does the live news room learn from and respond to mistakes and i think that from the needy are shooting in d.c. last month a few weeks back and a few of your competitors is identified to the shooter was quickly or not so quickly when i have had to retract the name that they put out over the airwaves. how do you deal with mistakes? how much is the management involved in the control room for the breaking news environment? >> first of all, we take the trust that you described up the station at parallel. and we know the trust of the audience and the integrity is primary. we know that mistakes have been. we have the leverett systems in place to protect against making mistakes. we train and a drill for every kind of scenario so that we make very few mistakes. we also know that they do have been. and when they do have been we try to correct them as quickly as we can and then set about to learn from them and not make them again. so i think one of the things we know from our friends and newspapers and magazines is there is a little spot in the newspaper where mistakes happen in journalism and it's part of the process that we want to reduce as much as we possibly can. there's many good systems and people in training. and we try every single day to make sure that we are as we talked about being right not just first. >> we make mistakes we try to correct those. first you have technology made the mistake. that means there cannot be a sense of institutional arrogance in any station. but we try to address the mistakes as quickly as we can in the same spot and get out in front of that but it's also just a matter of common sense and that helps us preserve the trust that people have for the station. you cannot make excuses about the mistakes that the main. i have one experienced it is ugly to tell, but one of our stations some years ago the station was doing a story about pedophile priests. they went to the seminary your book and they selected the photograph father o'flaherty and next to him was father o'flynn and it was him that had a problem and not father o'flaherty. they called the television station and said you have the wrong guy. they said we know what you are doing. we went with the story at six and 11 and was a mistake that we had to correct and make a contribution to the archdiocese. it was a horrible mistake to read and i think that when people come to the station in these kind of circumstances you can't have such a high sense of certitude that i cannot be wrong. this is what i do for a living. and i fear the servitude wherever i see it. it is never creative. it is never thoughtful. and when people have that sense of certitude, the ware. it is a mistake, thank goodness we haven't repeated and in our universe, but it is illustrative of a problem that occurred in a pretty good station. >> no one disputes the importance of investigative journalism. but in this area of limited resources, it is hard to commit to the investigative journalism during what is your feeling about the investigative team set your station and their importance to the brand? >> i think it is terribly important. i think it is important that the newspapers diminished the investigative reporting that they are doing as they pull back the resources. i don't think that we do enough of it. and we are in the last couple of years we have had workshops with the reporters about how to do investigative reporting in any better way. there is so much competition out there. there is so much notion about the cost management. that you cannot starve good business is in our case could television stations or good news organizations. and i am one who believes that there will be a darwinian outcome here. in many markets there will not be as many stations doing the kind of news that we do and we have a responsibility to our viewers and to our shareholders to do everything we can to make these business is competitive and to grow and do things that the audience wants from us. the country, the society benefits from great investigative journalism. and god help us if we are not allocating the resources to do that. we are a company that believes in it and has the resources to do it. i think back to an investigative piece that we have that we did in maryland at wbal tv that resulted in the changes from the environmental law with respect to chesapeake bay and as a product of the kind of investigative work that we did at wbal tv. and i worry about newspapers not staying the course and doing the job they do. a friend of mine from detroit had a conversation the would observe that the corruption in the mayor's office which is somewhat legendary wouldn't have been uncovered without the enterprise work of the newspaper and i'm not sure that the tv stations would have devoted over a long period of time and resources to identify that kind of correction. i think that we as a society need to be sure that happened in the field of journalism. >> go back to your mentioning of baltimore because i think especially for an audience of a lot of students and people thinking about careers in the media. you do not arrive where you are without sort of taking some risks and having some wins. do you care to tell us some stories about your moments of taking big risks and how those turned out? and when you learned from them? >> ben is referring

Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20131231

we must keep the government functioning and address the out- of-control debt and the many challenges presented by the health care law, obamacare. for many months, and particularly the last two weeks i have worked tirelessly with , colleagues to find an agreement. i particularly want to thank are presented to ron kind, senators susan collins and joe manchin, and the many other members who participated in many discussions. this lays down a foundation to reach an agreement on issues that need to be addressed. i urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation and to join with those of us who share an obligation to govern and seek bipartisan solutions. i yield back. >> the gentleman from kentucky reserves. the gentleman from new york is that gentlewoman from new york is recognized. >> i'm very pleased to yield one minute to the gentleman from pennsylvania a member of the appropriations committee. >> the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. i rise to urge an expedited path. i join with the chairman and the ranking member of my committee and i agree with every word that has been stated by the majority chairman and the ranking member. this is critically important. this monday i was in a foreign country, i was in the state of israel and met with the president and with a whole group of brain researchers from around the world. they had difficulty understanding, given our nation's leadership, why several critical issues we could be in a paralyzed situation. i am happy that that the senate has acted in such an overwhelming way on this matter, with some 81 bipartisan votes. i would urge the house to act as i know we will. restore our government to pay our bills and to get on with our responsibilities as the most powerful nation in the world and the wealthiest country in the world. we can pay our bills and we can conduct the affairs of government in a way that gains us respect around the world rather than befuddlement. thank you very much. >> there has been a lot of discussion lately of the politics of the shutdown. let's be clear -- there are no winners here. these last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy. we do not know yet the full scope of the damage, but every analyst out there believes that families have gone without paychecks or services they depend upon. we know the potential home buyers about fewer mortgages and business loans have been put on small hold. -- small business loans have been put on hold. we know that consumers have cut hi back on spending and that haf of all ceos say that the shutdown and the threat of shutdown has set back their plans to hire over the next few months. we know that the threat of default of americans not paying all other bills that we owe on time increases borrowing costs which adds to our deficit. you know the american people's frustration with what goes on in this town has never been higher. that is not a surprise. american people are completely that the fed up with washington. a moment when our economic recovery demands more jobs, more momentum, we have got yet another self-inflicted crisis to set our economy back. for what? there was no economic rationale for all of this. >> as we wrap up our year in review series, a reminder that all of the programs we showed you in all of the video is available on our website at c- span.org. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> all this week, but tv is in prime time on c-span2, continuing tonight with memoirs and biographies, starting with malala yousafzai. -- yousef. and the life and opinions of gems for -- jane franklin. it is american, history tv, with 50th anniversary commemorations of three events. starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern, highlights from the august ceremony remembering the march on washington. after that, an event held in memory of 4 african-american the 16th street baptist church in birmingham, alabama. finally, we will take you to dealey plaza in dallas, for the anniversary of the assassination of john f. kennedy. the first lady's series continues tonight with a look at the life and career of pat nixon. she traveled abroad more than any other first lady before her, and led efforts to acquire more furniture, antiques, and art for the white house. she offered her husband's when the support watergate scandal broke. you can also listen on c-span radio. >> reporters in washington were recently given a tour of the u.s. capitol dome, which will soon undergo complete restoration. the outer iron shell has more than 1000 cracks caused by aging and whether. kevinl now hear from hildebrand about how the dome was built over the original dome that sat on top of the capitol building. this is half an hour. staircase wasar the original way to the first capitol dome, and continues to be the way we get to the walter dome. it was built in 1826. the original staircase was wooden. 1851, whenved in there was a fire in the library of congress. for fear that the fire would spread to the wooden dome, they cut it out. walter, when he did his changes, inserted a cast-iron staircase you see today. during the construction, when they were dismantling the original dome, they weighed every piece as it was coming down, so they could verify what the difference between the old and new dome was. it turned out, i think, the old dome was just under 12 million pounds. given how much larger the walter dome is, the fact it is only 20% more weight is amazing. it speaks to the nature of cast- iron, and the ability to build this large structure with relatively little weight. me, it is the merger of technology and the time. do many people who do not know architecture think -- would you describe why a cast-iron? >> i think walter's intent was that it look like masonry. he did not intend for this to be a modern structure. he intended it to be appropriate to the rest of the capital design. -- capitol design. because of the weight, it could not be built in masonry. walter had just finished the library of congress renovation. once it had been destroyed by fire, he went in with a fire crew to the interior structure, -- he went in with a fireproof interior structure, made of cast-iron. in building that, he proved the resilience and economy of cast- iron. you could make multiple pieces from a single mold. and was able to then create this dome without extensive cost, and aspectsugh light weight that it was possible. cracks -- >> much heavier wo od or a marble dome? >> it would not have been supported by the structure, so i think it was never calculated. the list to say, it would have been considerably higher than the 14 million pounds the dome and masonry additions were that was ultimately built. i think the point here is that the walls you are leaning against are the original for the original dome of the capitol. everything that walter added was above portis level at this edge. this would have been originally exposed to view from the east and west front. you can see overhead how did racquets extend out to pick up the columns. half the columns are drainage columns home and the other half are ventilation columns. and it would have been very odd to leave that cantilever condition exposed to view. so walter created a skirt of iron work that makes that transition from the cantilevered skirt out to the rest of the roof of the capitol. you can see the great condition we have been able to achieve with the restoration at this point. the skirt has been completely restored. the ironwork was repaired. the new paint system was installed. that, we cleaned and conserved and repainted the original bulfinch stonewalls. and this ring of masonry that is seven feet thick that is the foundation for the ironwork that extends above. these brackets -- we only see eight feet of them now. there is an additional seven feet embedded into the masonry work. that acts as a huge foundation that supports the weight of the dome and transfers them evenly onto the stonewalls below. here, you get a good sense for the bracket cantilever the on the old stone walls of the , and howdrum alternating columns are used for drainage columns. the others provide passive ventilation. how,an see to your left when it was installed, some of the chimneys of the capital were captured within the footprint. he used the hollow columns as a way to get the smoke exhaust out to the outside. i have seen a couple of photographs of the smoke billowing out of the ballast ron -- ballustrade. it is the chimney smoke coming out. you get to really appreciate the beauty of the rotunda, and the accomplishment of adding this additional height to the space. the actual interior coffered dome is not much larger than what bulfinch would have had here, and his dome would have rested on the stonework down , where you see a projecting cornice and a band of stone just above it. that is where the initial dome would have sprung. we are almost at the apex over the bulfinch dome would have ended. walter has listed -- lifted that on additional drums to give height and light into the rotunda. so here you can -- everything above the sandstone is what was added as part of walter's addition. for him the top of the sandstone to the balustrade we are standing on, it is predominantly masonry with some cast-iron elements. the coffers are cast-iron. the cornice below the freeze -- frieze is cast-iron. and below the ballast ron is cast-iron. everything else is masonry with a plaster coating. of, i woulde range say, close to 100 feet. at this level, you can also the frieze, the national frieze. he envisioned completing the death work but his early precluded him from finishing. workagini carried the forward to the california gold rush and when she gets the california gold rush, his work worksnd alan cox's continue to conclude the civil war and the birth of flight which takes us back to the discovery of america by christopher columbus where bermidi started his work. as you look across their attendant, you can see evidence of some water leaks that have occurred over time. the streaking below the lowest band of ornamentation on the copper dome, some of the staining on the sides of the blasters -- pilasters. and you can see on the evidence. some they were multiple tiers of gas jets that occurred, one above the stone cornice where you see light fixtures. one at the base of the balustrade work where you see remnants of an earlier lighting scheme, the conduit with sockets. there was a string of lights at the base of the kubla -- cupola and at the underside there was a ring of gas jets. they were over 1000 gas jets that would eliminate instantly with the click of a switch from a battery in the lower levels of the capital. you can imagine that night that must have been quite a dramatic all eliminatethis and once. as electricity was introduced to the building at the turn of the 20th century, this fixtures were replaced with electrical incandescent lighting and now we are using a more modern system. to eliminate the rotunda. engineers for the project, he had all of the lower-level pieces stamped with his name. you look at some of the nuts and bolts, it will say his name. sure you heard about the controversy between two competing a goes. walter being a phenomenal engineer. they both wanted credit for creating the dome. without either of them he could not have happened but it was the merging of their talents that allowed it to come into being. perfect building to deal with egos. >> exactly. let me show you this while we are here. we are passing through the boilerplate plan them -- plenum. we are on top of the colonnade. there is about any we do not public because it is fairly large and hard to control groups on. it does offer us an opportunity to show you graphically how thin the cast iron shell of the dome really is. justl lift this coffer enough so you can see the thin edge, 3/8 of an inch which is what the exterior shell of the dome is made of and the interior shell that you see the -- from the rotunda floor. ironically, this is also how you would get outside to change the light fixtures on that cornice. anymore thanksat to modern lighting technology. we do not get out there. it is always impressive to me to look through this thin layer and see for the first time just how the dome is constructed. let me know when you're done. >> how heavy is that? >> very. it is supported by the hinge. i am supporting it. please be careful when you come through. there is a window that sets into the staircase a bit and you need to watch her shoulder. you can also begin to appreciate here the structure and design of the dome with these enormous rib tresses, 36 in total that create structure and there are outriggers i go out and pick up the exterior skin and noticed that when you go through that the interior shell is not matching and aligning with the superstructure. it is suspended from it and the exterior shell is projecting eyond it. >> [inaudible] >> keep in mind when the dome was finished this wall would not have been here. this wall and window was added in the 1940's when air- conditioning was introduced into the capital. that is why you have a second railing on the interior side. people often wonder why this balcony needs to railings. this is why. you would have that view on the backside of the shell which would have allowed much more light to come through and through this balcony level. we are a considerable distance apart. you should be able to hear me pretty clearly. i think this is an amazing space. you have to be very careful what you saying when you're up here. anyone on the opposite side can hear you. the [inaudible] >> 12 of these windows will be removed and if you look above the pavilion winter tour you will see there is a bracket that extends out. during that phase we left that in place to be used as a lifting hoist for the 11 brackets that will be lifted. the 12 brackets will extend out over this railing and the system will beg suspended over the rotunda. the purpose of that knitting is twofold. it provides protection to the visitors so the rotunda can remain open while we are doing our work but it has a decorative drapery on the underside so that forooks appropriate ceremonial dance that can occur or for the visitors visiting the capital. we did not want it to look like an industrial safety netting. >> [inaudible] rather than replacing it we will be repairing it with any proxy system much like you would repair your windshield on your car if you had a crack. you use a heat and vacuum to infuse it with anti-proxy -- an epoxy binder. that is why the login stitch technique that we are using is so important to our restoration efforts. we want to save as much of the historic artifact as we can. >> [inaudible] >> unfortunately, all of them that were completed as part of the project have been overpa inted. that is the beauty is that you do not see them when they are complete. notice that we are over the painting and there is a tinned canopy on top acting as an umbrella to assure that if there is a leak in the exterior skin that it is caught and drained away so it does not affect the painting. at the level. as you go through. it is very low. the last thing you want to do is hit your head on this sharp edge. be careful and dock as you go through the doorway. duck as you go through the doorway. the capital is the focal point of washington. , marylandf the mall avenue, pennsylvania avenue radiating from the central point. the beauty of the city opens before you when you stand at this level. if you look at the top plate there are a series of through vaults that hold this together. as rest has developed and this railing has been pushed up by the pressure of the rust, the that isst crack and relieving the stress that is in the ironwork. what it also does is compromised the structural integrity of that particular piece. we are not concerned about it because there is a much redundancy in the ironwork design but we have put this here as a measure to ensure that until this work is repaired during this phase, we do not forcesy issues with any against the railing. to me it is symbolic of the joining of both parties in congress to come together to fund an effort that is incredibly important to our country and preserving the is not a question for discussion. it is something that has to happen. there is no more recognizable theol of the country than capitol dome. another good example of the thinness of the shell. it tells people how the structure works. the exterior skin of the dome and cast ironwork. >> [inaudible] >> i can tell you that i removed 180,000 pounds of lead based paint from the attic during our first phase so this should not weigh more than the amount of lead paint i have taken off. just as when you came out, watch your head as you come through the doorway. that is the convene light that is on at night when congress is in session. it is not one ball but four that is lit butulb that four. no person ise, permitted above this platform under any circumstance. make sure there is someone in front of you. if there is someone in front of you you can focus on it is easier. >> how far are we going down? >> we will stop here. let's stop here. one of the things i wanted to point out to you here as you are coming down the steps, you will 36's rib tresses that form the superstructure convergent -- converge at this level and go to support the statue of freedom. as you can imagine trying to merge 36 items into such a small space at the top was too great truss is the one that continues forward and the two that flank it merge into it for buttressing support. what you also see here is the enormous superstructure has very down tobands that reach suspend the shell below. and it has a very thin element that reaches out to the shape of the exterior dome. the brilliant thing about this design is that the dome is exposed to very harsh conditions on the outside, very cold in the winter of extra my hot in the summertime under direct sun. some plates may approach 130 degrees fahrenheit. because they are held away from the superstructure, that heat dissipates in the ironwork before it gets to the superstructure. tresses see very little temperature swing during the course of the year which helps to maintain the structural integrity of the dome. it does not move that much. a lot of the damage we are addressing are in the shells and that is exposed to wide temperature swings, a lot of expansion, and when the rest develops between the plates it removing andte's that creates enormous pressures in the ironwork that relieve itself by cracking. most of the work we will be doing in this phase will be addressing those cracks in the exterior shell. piecesge erector of coming from a remote foundry, they had to mark each piece of the installers knew where at what level of the dome each piece was to go. you seee surprised if these marks on every piece as you go down. there was a clear pattern that was made for each location and it was important that a go in at a certain spot and they use those marks to make sure the installers knew where to place it. there is the acorn finial that had cracked and had to be removed. there are a series of bolts i go through that plate above the octagonal window. there is a large ornamental piece that crests that window. that is where the acorn finial is from. >> [inaudible] all of that will be preserved. our goal is to keep as much of the historic fabric as possible. it is going to be repaired. yes. there will be 12 of these operators that go out to support the netting system that is suspended above the floor. >> is it a net? rex it is a multilayered netting that is meant to capture a load of 500 pounds and more. we start with a very large net and a layer of slightly smaller netting and a very tightknit to catch any small objects. all of that is concealed from view from the rotunda side i a -- by a decorative scrim. >> is there the worry that hammering will shake something loose? >> if a net word to fall or if there was a broken piece of protect thet to -- public. make sure there is ample construction barriers there to preclude anything from happening. we are expecting it to happen, we want to ensure that it does not. everything, the brackets, the columns, and the superstructure behind the skin plates was created in a foundry in pool and hunt.d once they finished their work up balcony, from that point forward, all the work was done by james kirkland out of new york. >> what are the wires? >> the wires are part of a he fun to bird proofing system. we will remove those as part of the work and install a netting system, passive netting system to keep smaller birds from nesting. project,tarted this there was a major water event in the fall of 1990 that deposited a large amount of water on the floor of the rotunda. it was through our investigations that we discovered bird nesting materials and debris from meeting on the dome -- eating on to dome that cause the water back up and cascade onto the rotunda. we have taken this on a series of projects to ensure that that drainage system is never compromised again by debris. developmento the of the master plan and the study of the ironwork and to the project that we are getting completed in the next two years. >> today, an encore presentation q&a" with cathy lanier. more from that interview now. >> a lot of things have happened. i think the initial decline of the 500 down to the 200 range, that drop or decline over 10 out of thehe burning crack cocaine epidemic. that was a run of sheer hell for most cities. the violence associated with crack cocaine markets, we had 200 open-air markets in the city. when shootings would happen they would be drive-bys. as the crack cocaine epidemic started to wane, we drop down to 200, 250 and we stayed there for some time. >> why did it wane? >> that is -- if you look at drug patterns, drugs tend to spike in popularity and they remain there about 15 or 16 years and they run like 20 or cycles and they go down. the crack cocaine epidemic is no more. there are people who use cocaine and there are some people who use crack cocaine but it is nowhere near it used to be. with the absence of that driving the violence i think that drop is down in the 200 range but we got stuck there for a long time. even when i took it over in 2007 169 in 2006, 181 and 200 -- in 2000. with gangrsistent violence and gang violence was born at accelerated during the crack cocaine epidemic. even when crack cocaine went away, the gangs did not. coming down from 186 to where we are now, in four years, a 54% drop in murders, it has been in constant focus on our gangs, the illegal gun offenders, and really staying focused on those two things and bringing in the community to work with us. that has been key. >> you can see the entire program today at 7 p.m. eastern here on c-span. seriess first lady continues tonight with pat nixon. she traveled abroad more than any other first lady before her. she also allowed more public offereduse tours and her husband steadfast support when the watergate scandal broke. the life and times of pat nixon tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. you can listen on c-span radio. last month the university of akron hosted its seventh state of the parties conference. this panel focused on the history and future of the tea party and its effect on the republican party. we will hear from political scientists and authors at this hour and 35 minute event. >> hello. hello, that -- everybody. for the local reporter akron beacon journal which is the newspaper here in town and i know john well. he was quoted on the front page in a story that i wrote looking at how poorly incumbents did in yesterday's election. we had 18 incumbents who lost in our county. that was quite a few. i am happy to be here. the tea party is definitely an interesting issue and i plan to start out with a joke but none of the reporters in the newsroom beingagree on anything funny or not funny so i will not start with that. with that i will introduce our first panelist here. to have brief presentations from each of them and then we will open up for questions. i know that you will have some good ones. first we have ronald rappaport from the college of william and mary. and walter stone from the university of california davis. they wrote about the tea party and the 2012 elections. rappaport from the college of william and mary. i am the second shortest percent you know walt stone. this project really comes out of our interest in understanding the tea party at both the mass level and at the activist double. we were struck by what we felt gap in the -- there is little done at the activist level study. most has been going around to different serving people in a haphazard way. these are parallel samples of tea party supporters in the mass public as well as republican non-tea party supporters and tea party supporters of the activist level. this study is based really on these two sets of surveys. there are many common questions, that is one of the real strengths but we are able to compare them activist to the mass space. -- ourour mass survey mass survey is based on this -- on a survey. respondent, 700 party-- had rated the tea very positively in 300 had not done so. the survey was done in december of 2011 at the beginning of the high mary. is based on ae survey of freedom works supporters. it is a tea party group which as we found out is the largest tea party membership group in the country. 12,000 ofsurvey of them which was a nice n and we did that in december of 2011 and we follow that up in march, surveyingtwo a 13, re- 2600 of them. there is very little bias even though the response rate was around 25% or so. this project was undertaken with walt stone and with meredith who will present it. she has been involved since she was a sophomore at william and mary. he graduated in may. she is with the education advisory board after a stint as an intern where she was the resident expert on the tea party for the pew center and people in the press. meredith is going to take this and go with it and make it sound far more intelligent than i could. >> thank you. to give you an idea of what is coming to my we will look at divisions within the local party and then we will compare rank- and-file republicans to tea party activists using that freedom works sample. once again looking at issues and political style. finally we look at the response of the tea party to the 2012 elections including perceptions of why may romney lost, change over time, and willingness to compromise, and evaluation of the republican party and its leaders. we begin by examining the actual conflict between tea party republicans and on-tea party republicans focusing on issue, positions, and priority using the sample. the first slide shows percentage of respondents taking the most conservative positions on various issues. striking differences between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans. for example, 76% of tea party republicans took the most conservative positions on abolishing the department of education whereas 10% of non-tea party republicans did so. of tea0 five percent party republicans took the most conservative positions on repealing obamacare compared with only 59% of non-tea party republicans. are looking at the top priority issue of respondents. seeing striking differences between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans in the mass sample. in fact, you can see that with the two issues, repealing obamacare and shrinking government, almost 40% of tea party republicans chose either one of those issues as their top priorities while less than five percent of non-tea party republicans did so. so now we are going to turn to political style. we asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement when we feel strongly about political issues, we should not be willing to compromise and we found that 23% of tea party republicans said that they strongly agree with the statement uses four percent -- 4% when you combine do agree.gree and when you comply -- when you combine the responses, that difference is even greater. only 32% of non-tea party republicans saying so. this is not surprising. when we consider that recent role of the tea party with the government shutdown. we will continue -- return to the freedom works sample. the percentagews of respondents taking the most roost -- conservative positions on issues but we are looking at tea party republicans from the sample and freedom works tea party activists. we would expect at the wrists to be slightly more extreme or even dramatically more extreme than just regular supporters. this is not the case here. these groups look very similar. there is little to no difference between them. the is true when we look at priority issues. once again, the group looks very similar. with as the exception group whose top priority was to shrink government was at 17% from the tea party republicans whereas it is 31% of the freedom we havepporters. and so shown the divisions in the republican party really exist between the non-tea party republicans and tea party republicans. as opposed to the tea party republicans and the tea party activists. turning to the 2012 election and the tea party's negativity toward the republican party, we would expect to see after any major election that the party that loses is pointing fingers at people and the reasons why they lost and how they avoid -- they can avoid that in the next major election and 2012 was no exception. in fact a report was commissioned that blamed third- party groups such as the tea party and the republican lack of andal to minorities, use, women along with other reasons for the 2012 losses. we surveyed freedomworks activists. these are the percentage of tea respondentsmworks ranking each of these reasons is very important as a cause of the romney-ryan loss. 54% of respondents ranked romney as being too moderate as an important reason for the loss compared with only five percent of respondents who thought romney was too conservative. when you add up all the reasons why romney lost such as the lack of minority outreach, and the association with the tea party, only 52% of race bond and selected any of those four items which is still less than 54% of respondents who said that romney was too moderate. so looking again at the question about political style and comfort mice we find that in december 2011, 32% of freedom work respondents agreed that --y should not compromise by and in the spring this percentage increased to 45%. now we look at the decline in ratings for the republican party and john boehner over the same time from 2011 through 2013. we can see that significantly more tea party activists who rated the republican party and john boehner below average in 2013 as compared with 2011. his below average ratings more than doubled to 57% in 2013 compared to 27% in 2011. on the side we show a factor analysis of republican congressional leaders in -- and candidates using the freedomworks data. this resulted in two factors. factor an establishment and the other was the tea party factor. those numbers that you see in parentheses are the net favorability ratings where the red dots represent a net negative rating and the green represent ant -- net positive reading. you can see that we find the republican party along with republican congressional leaders such as aynor and cantor -- john .oehner and cantor in addition, most of these people in the upper left-hand corner have negative ratings. hand cornerr right- we found the tea party and the tea party candidates such as ted cruz who were low on the establishment factor in high and the tea patty -- tea party factor. they had very high net favorability ratings. what might be most interesting is in the middle we find ryan and rubio who have net favorability ratings at least 81% for each of them. and they have almost as high favorability ratings as the tea party candidates in the lower right-hand corner. we would expect rubio and ryan to be in a really good position for the 2012 election at least when we are looking at tea party supporters. see that the tea party is very negative toward the republican party in its candidates, we find that they were still very active for romney in 2012. as you can see, regardless of who they supported in the primary, they still rallied around romney and were very active for his campaign. you can see that first bar, 86% of tea party supporters who supported romney in the primary were active for his campaign in the general election. you compare that with supporters and 75% wereperry active for romney. the one outlier might be ron paul on the very end. a majority of his supporters ended up doing activities for the romney campaign. we looked at the data from 2008 .nd this can be said the same true as well that tea party supporters who preferred a candidate other than mccain were still extremely active for him in the general election. as you can see, there is still a lot of unresolved conflict within the republican party. the government shutdown is one reason -- recent example. looking forward to 2016 we expect to see tea party supporters similarly active in the primaries, supporting a candidate who might not be all that electable or having a chance of gaining the nomination but they are in alignment with their issue priorities. the republican nominee is chosen, most supporters will likely rallied behind that candidate and be very active. that is more due to the antipathy toward the republican party. that is all. thank you. >> next we will have peter francia and jonathan morris from east carolina in diversity. they will talk about their paper, "the divided republicans." >> let me begin by thanking john green and everyone here at the university of akron. steph has been wonderful. i certainly speak for my co- author. wonderful.s been this is one of the most stimulating academic conferences that we get to attend so we are pleased to be here. you can see by the title of our paper, it is a little bit of overlap with the previous paper. it is always nice to see and you will get a chance to see this in a minute. even though we have used different data sets and looked at some slightly different questions, some of our conclusions are very similar. let's jump ahead, then. so, we are primarily again interested in intraparty divisions. partyvide between tea republicans and establishment republicans has come into full public view recently. any, political party loses an election, there is a little bit of that soul-searching that we all hear about. and so republicans were talking about what went wrong in 2012. there was the defeat not only at the presidential level but indiana and missouri, those look easy victories at least for time and they turned into defeats. karl rove get, we get who makes an announcement in 2013 that his super pack, american crossroads is going to support the conservative victory project. and for the purpose of the conservative victory project was to get involved in republican primaries and try to oust tea party republicans who were seen as costing the republicans some of those easy victories that i talked about. that was followed up by -- with tea party darling who need -- needs no introduction, sarah palin is funding, "of these experts who keeps losing elections and keep getting rehired and getting millions, if they feel that strong about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck up or stay in the truck." i am sure you all remember that. karl rove was not going to stay silent. he came back shortly after that hean interview and said that would serve out his term and he would not leave office midterm. speck between the karl rove and sarah palin. an illustration of these growing divisions between the tea party wing and what we might call the establishment wing. in fact it prompted this question. , it wass dispute illustrative of a larger civil war within the gop. is a term i am using, that term that a whole bunch of headlines have used. you pick up the new york times, they described this as a civil war within the republican party. we think this is an interesting question because previous accounts of parties have long described republicans a bit differently. republicans if you go back to the 1980's, joe freeman did a study and talked about the culture of the two major parties and talked about how the republican party was one and had a culture of being closed, quiet, and consensual. if you look into the 1990s, another study describes the arty , to this --has a homogeneous membership. wrote a book, "the divided democrats," an important book and one we were thinking about when we were doing this research. even more recently, the divided democrats book, howard dean when he was running for president which is within the last 10 years. he said that he represented the democratic wing of the democratic party. that is a reference to this ideological split them between the moderate democrats and more liberal faction of the political -- to credit party. it is the democrats who have been long divided. in light of the recent developments where we have been talking about republican divisions more so perhaps of the democratic visions we wanted to ask a few questions. our republicans pacific league tea party and establishment republicans, if they are divided, how deep are the divisions and what other issues divide the gop factions? debarred --also how how divided our they do. -- compared to democrats? do tea party republicans go out and grab political information from different sources than establishment republicans? i will get into some of those numbers in a minute. we were primarily interested in that question because we wanted to begin to try and answer if there are divisions are they just fleeting, are they going to go away? this is a temporary blip on the map or are these divisions likely to persist and so there is this literature out there that says when you only hear like-minded ideas, all the time, when you live in this echo chamber, your ideas get reinforced and people begin to he come more polarized. weooking at media sources were hoping -- by looking at media sources we were hoping to project that perhaps if there are divisions, they would persist if there are these divisions in media sources so that is the second thing. -- the second thing that we looked at. final question which i think was probably the more -- most challenging part of the project which was we wanted to specifically look at social media as well. social media, the reason we wanted to focus on that specific question was that the tea party has made really effective use according to some accounts of social media. so we were curious to see if the comments made on social media venues like twitter were significantly different between establishment republicans and your tea party republicans and that required getting twitter data and doing some content analysis. my co-author will talk about that in a minute. to get at the first two questions, we looked at the 2012 studies and to give you a sense of what we were using as our definitions, tea party republicans, it is based on two questions. questions.e party id anyone who is self identified republican or an independent who leaned republican, we included the leaners. if anyone wants to know why i will be happy to explain. it is pretty much in agreement ers -- leaners should be included. establishment republicans were self identified or those republican leaders but they were neutral or opposed to the tea party. for purposes of comparison we democratic categories. very similar to the republicans, self identified or independents who leaned democrat create moderate democrats, the same thing. we used the ideology question to break them apart. if you are liberal to extremely liberal than you were in that category. if you were slightly liberal or moderate you are in that category. we had the pure independents. let's get to the results. at the first look question, there are the standard seven point scale questions that nes has looked at for quite a while. we looked at all of them. i will not show you every single one but we did look at every single once i picked the most interesting for time reasons. you can see that it is the tea party republicans who answer in the most extreme categories. 31% in the one category and if you add the one and two, you are looking at 68%. the most extreme categories. it was eye-popping to see that that many fell into the most extreme category. it is interesting when compared against the establishment republican category. democrats are a bit divided as well. if you look at certainly the six category and you would add the six and seven, there are some divisions but the republican divisions do stand out. this was one that i thought was fascinating. nes asked for seven point question about whether the government should provide assistance to african americans and on the seven point african americans, should help themselves. that is amazing when we saw that. 51% answered in the most extreme category at number seven versus 36% of the establishment republicans. we were really amazed to see if you add the six and the seven together, you're talking about a huge number of tea party republicans. if you look at the health care law, this is unbelievable, right? not that terribly surprising given that there was so much frustration from the tea party rank-and-file over the health care law. law, 70%10 health care of tea party republicans fallen that most extreme category. by comparison again, the establishment republicans only 35%. i do not mean to be glossing over the democratic members but since that is not our focus we will focus on the republicans. the democrats have some healthy divisions as well. to be crystal clear here, we are not arguing that democrats are still divided, too but the republicans are very much divided as well. on the environment, you can see again some divisions but i put this one up to show you that the democrats, there is quite a bit of division in the extreme category. if you go to the number one on the seven point scale which is response.he role a lot of liberal democrats in that category, a much smaller percentage. if you look at the number seven, no regulation at all, 18% of tea party republicans versus only 4% of establishment republicans. again, pretty big difference is there. you look at other questions, president obama's handling of the economy. i could give you the establishment republican numbers . i wanted to give you the tea party numbers here. just to make the point. in the disapprove strongly, this is the most extreme category you can get, 92% disapprove strongly of his job is resident. 93% disapprove of his handling of the economy. 90% disapprove strongly of his handling of health care. 87% disapprove strongly of his handling of foreign relations. even on the afghanistan war you thought maybe there could be some disagreement. 63% disapprove strongly on that particular question. almost across the board on all the obama questions, we had a feelingnch of thermometer questions. obama, 16 from the tea party on that 0-100 gale, zero being the coolest and 100 being the warmest. you can see very low ratings. this number stood out so i had to put this one up. michelle obama, for crying out partyand 28 from tea republicans. even the first lady who is not even controversial, she cannot even break 30 with the tea party republicans and that compares to 45 for those establishment republicans. tea party republicans were, however, favorable toward mitt romney. 77. alright at 79. even george w. bush, 72. than themore favorable establishment republicans. this is consistent with the last paper. when they had to rally about their candidate, the feeling thermometer questions indicate that perhaps they did that. whether those divisions will persist is when we look at the media question so let's turn it over to jay morris. >> it is clear there is a division on several issue positions and on how tea party versus establishment republicans view certain candidates, certain issues. do they get the news from different sources? we are ready know through the research on partisan media that democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives come and get their news from different sources in today's fragmented media environment. at teau look here just party versus establishment republicans and where they get their news regularly, we can look at these several shows from fox news. we can see a dramatic difference. versusparty republicans establishment republicans, and whether or not they watch these fox news programs and these are four of several fox news programs. the division is clear there. talk radio, nobody is surprised i do not think. look at the bottom. one part about the democrats, the democrats also have their divisions. i am surprised that there is seven percent of tea party republicans who listen to "all things considered." more number so if you want some we have got them. >> we looked at new media as well. social --e advantage advanced of social networking -- advent of social networking platforms has allowed the rank- and-file members of the tea party to express themselves, the wayof one may -- era of one mass media is over. that allows the tea party to voice their opinion. -- how the tea party did they make their views known in the twitterverse? is already passé, as my students tell me. we wanted to look at tweets from aning posters.eadin we did a content analysis, about a quarter million tweets with the following hash tags that you see at the bottom. from october 1 through october 24, we searched every tweet that mentioned the terms. manageable to a quarter million. we looked at the sample we had over time. can see that our content analysis which is looking at positive versus negative ratio in terms of the comments made on individual tweets, you can see is thee top line positive and negative ratio for mitt romney and the bottom is barack obama. the mentions of either one of these candidates. you can see that barack obama does not vary too much. it is much lower than that romney. you can see with a positive comments, the positive sentiments spiked. after that first debate, you can see that conservative leaning twitter posters, they were excited. and they were posting positive things and it dropped off but you can see it's bike again with the debates. we are not interested in the overall trend of how conservative toasters posted. we wanted to look at tea party versus gop and here is where our findings overlap with that of the previous discussion. if you look in the far right comment -- column, the ratio of positive to negative tweets, tea party versus gop, they were equally as negative toward brock obama. it did not matter if you hash tagged gop or teaparty. same thing with mitt romney. exact same thing, the positive to negative ratio. positive statements to negative statements. if you look at this that you can see a bit of a division. tea party members were more critical of both parties compared to establishment republicans. what does that mean? it means we have a invited reprint -- divided republican party when you look at issue positions and attitudes toward -- candidates come part comparing tea partiers to establishment republicans. media habits clearly differ. we did not show you all our findings but fox and talk radio, it is clear. ofthe end, in the month october at least in 2012, when it came to posts on twitter, the posters for the tea party, the gop, the people who has party and gop, they rallied around their candidates. maybe more significantly, they rallied against the opposition. that is what we show here. divided in some ways but rally affected -- the rally effect at the end is still there. >> thank you. next we will have william miller flagler college and i call john burton from ohio university. enemies?" "who needs >> thank you. always appreciate the state of the parties conference. it is interesting to pat -- point out that if we go back to the 2009 state of the parties, i remember one conversation about the tea party. it was at lunch and it was not very kind. it was much more of a they will have these nice little rallies and dress up and be gone in a few months. a few months later we started to see the idea that robert boatwright talked about, or individual elected officials being primary within their own party and the effects that could have. what we are going to talk about today is a little bit different than looking at actually speaking with activists or tracking money back to causes. instead we want to discuss the intellectual history of the tea party and how what we're seeing today and hearing about today is not necessarily new to the conservative discourse but it is being presented in a new way with a little more organization than previously. and again, focusing on the fact that when the tea party came into existence, it was using the already.ax enough it was an economic movement. that implied if the economy improves the tea party will disappear. they are not the johnny one note but found a consistent theme that allows them to apply the same principles to issues that are not directly economically related. so what we want to do first of all is laced the tea party into the intellectual history of american conservatism. folks -- focusing on modern beliefs and looking at how what we see became cemented under reagan has only altered since. illustrating the idea of this unifying concept of constitutional liberty. allowing us to talk about the economy, abortion, and drones and be using kind of the same language among the same in the visuals to bring that to the forefront of american politics. strategicow you the position of traditionalism and libertarianism in the gop. the movement is competing with the more pragmatic wing of the republican party and pretty much every battle that comes through for congress. the major claim being that the intellectual history and strategic position of the tea party movement is going to allow it to have an enduring place in american politics as long as it does not self-destruct. look at the reagan coalition and the republican party in what he was able to do, he was able to bring three rather diverse groups together or a lecture again. obviously focusing on the christian conservatives, the free market, and also the more republican leaning pragmatists, moderate in their views but willing to negotiate and product -- compromise as necessary to advance their causes. what we will start by arguing is that what -- this is what we see today. the first panel, we talked about rand paul. and how some identify him as a libertarian, some identify him as a traditionalist, and at the end of the day what we say is that there is a middle ground where he can be both. and still fit into the overall picture of the tea party. it is not simply beginning with the decline of right it is him. whether through polarization, redistricting, whatever cause you want to attribute it to, the modern republican party appears to be less pragmatic. we see more ted cruises and rick perry's been john boehner's and mitch mcconnell's. the moderation we used to see is being replaced and as a direct result the middling area become smaller and smaller. it impacts republican and national policy. most importantly, the traditionalists and over terry and have blown -- grown closer together.

Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140103

2014. i hereby appoint the honorable luke messer to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. we lain conroy: loving god, give you thanks for giving us another year. we give you thanks, also, for e first session of the 113th congress and your sustaining us with your presence, wisdom, patience and love. we ask that the efforts of the first session might prove fruitful and the benefits redowneding to our nation and its people. we ask as well your forgiveness for the smallness of actions on some occasions and the inability to work together when so many were adversely affected. we know that this is not what you wish for us, not what the american people wish for our nation and not what the members of this people's house have been elected for. we ask now your blessing on each member of congress that they might be their bestselves and representing not only their constituents but also the entire american citizenry. they have taken oaths to do so, give them the strength and the izz dom to fulfill -- wisdom to fulfill those oaths. the important business of this nation has been done in the past and will be done in the upcoming second session. may the work to be done be inspired by the wisdom of prophets and the love of saintly people. may all that we do be done for your greater honor and glory. men. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i invite both those here on the house floor and those in the house gallery to join me in that pledge. 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. pursuant to section 7 h an of house resolution -- 7-a of house resolution 48, no organizational or legislative business will be conducted on this day. messages requiring action will be laid before the house on a subsequent day. bills and resolutions introduced today will receive a number but will not be referred to committee or noted in the record until a subsequent day. executive communications, memorials and petitions likewise will be referred and numbered on a subsequent day. pursuant to section 7-c of house resolution 438, the house stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m. on tuesday, january 7, 2014. >> news from across the street at the supreme court. toldbama administration the supreme court that a group of colorado nuns does not need a special judgment against the health care law because of contraception up because it can exempt itself from the requirement. the administration asked soto mayor to lift her order which you put into place on january -- on december 31. judge soto mayor court now rule uns'request. you can see the rest of the story in today's "washington post." university advocacy affairs will hear from jack the american university at 1:45 eastern on c- span. join us later for a conversation with amity shlaes. here's a brief look. >> the single thing that coolidge did is when he left office the budget was low worse than when he came in. that is the story for us now. how did he do that? 3%?economy grew more than unemployment was below 5%? the budget was balanced due to his own parsimony? how could he get the budget go lower? how did that help the economy? a lot, because he got the government out of the way. >> do you remember how big the budget was? >> the way he counted it was and that itlion, would be less than 5% of the economy. grail, his holy grail, and the reason this book is so long is because the middle section is about his effort with another new englander, general taxes.o cut the always tweaked them and you will see a photo somewhere had.o lion cubs he he said you cannot just cut taxes. you have to cut budget, and those lion cubs were named budget bureau and tax reduction. >> a portion of our conversation with amity shlaes. you can see the entire interview today at 7:00. later tonight, more from our first ladies series. rosalynn carter, first ladies, influence and image begins tonight at 9:00 eastern on c- span. is interesting to sit here and talk about how the republican party is less unified than the democratic party. history,ink about this it is an interesting time because for the first time in recent years we are seeing a republican party is facing with the struggles that the democratic party has faced 20 or 30 year ago. >> the interplay of what it can do in it the context all matters, more than the underlying scandal itself when it comes to these comebacks. especially if you are running in a context in which you can present yourself as an abused -- part of an abused group, abused by the system. you can play that quite well, and whether that is the case or whether it is roy moore in alabama, who used the 10 commandments under mercy, in terms of an attack on christian conservatives, that is very much the case. >> this weekend, the state of the national parties and a look scandals andcal the politics of recovery. saturday at 10:00 eastern. span2, "bookn c- tv." span3, a look back at the impeachment of president william jefferson clinton. ituniversity of akron hosted seventh state of the parties conference. this panel focused on the history and future of the tea party and its effect on the republican party. this discussion is about 90 minutes. >> hello. hello, everybody. i am the local reporter for the "akron beacon-journal," which is the newspaper here in town and i know john well. he was quoted on the front page in a story that i wrote looking at how poorly incumbents did in yesterday's election. we had 18 incumbents who lost in our county. that was quite a few. i am happy to be here. the tea party is definitely an interesting issue, and i plan to start out with a joke, but none of the reporters in the newsroom could agree on anything being funny or not funny, so i will not start with that. [laughter] with that i will introduce our first panelists here. the plan is to have brief presentations from each of them, and then we will open up for questions. i know that you will have some good ones. first we have ronald rappaport from the college of william and mary. they wrote about the tea party and the 2012 elections. >> i am ron rappaport from the college of william and mary. i am the second shortest person in this trio. you know walt stone. this project really comes out of our interest in understanding the tea party at both the mass level and at the activist level. we were struck by what we felt was sort of a gap in the -- there has been little done at the activist level study. most has been going around to different rallies or serving people in a haphazard way. our concern was in having parallel samples of tea party supporters in the mass public as well as republican non-tea party supporters and tea party supporters at the activist level. this study is based really on these two sets of surveys. there are many common questions, that is one of the real strengths but we are able to compare them activists to the mass base. one of our mass survey -- our mass survey is based on this survey -- on a survey. based on 1000 respondents, 700 of them were people who in the 2010 study they did had rated the tea party very positively in 300 had not done so. the survey was done in december 2011 at the beginning of the pre-primary. our lead sample is based on a survey of freedom works supporters. freedom works is a tea party group which as we found out is the largest tea party membership group in the country. we have a survey of 12,000 of them, which was a nice -- and we did that in december of 2011 and we followed that up in march, april, 2013, re-surveying 2600 of them. there is very little bias even though the response rate was around 25% or so. this project was undertaken with walt stone and with meredith who will present it. meredith has been involved since she was a sophomore at william and mary. she graduated in may. she is with the education advisory board after a stint as an intern where she was the resident expert on the tea party for the pew center for people in the press. meredith is going to take this and go with it and make it sound far more intelligent than i could. >> thanks. to give you an idea of what is coming, we will look at divisions within the local party and then we will compare rank- and-file republicans to tea party activists using that freedom works sample. once again looking at issues and political style. finally, we look at the response of the tea party to the 2012 elections, including perceptions of why romney lost, change over time and willingness to time and willingness to compromise, and evaluation of the republican party and its leaders. we begin by examining the actual conflict between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans focusing on issues, positions, and priority using the sample. this first slide shows the percentage of respondents taking the most conservative positions various issues. here we see striking differences between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans. for example, 76% of tea party republicans took the most conservative positions on abolishing the department of education, whereas 10% of non- tea party republicans did so. also, 95% of tea party republicans took the most conservative positions on repealing obamacare, compared with only 59% of non-tea party republicans. next we are looking at the top priority issue of respondents. we see striking differences between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans in the mass sample. in fact, you can see that with the two issues, repealing obamacare and shrinking government, almost 40% of tea party republicans chose either one of those issues as their top priorities while less than 5% of non-tea party republicans did so. so now we are going to turn to political style. we asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement when we feel strongly about political issues, we should not be willing to compromise, and we found that 23% of tea party republicans said that they strongly agree with the statement versus only 4% when you combine strongly agree and do agree. when you combine the responses, that difference is even greater. agree, and only 32% of non-tea party republicans saying so. this is not surprising. when we consider that recent role of the tea party with the government shutdown. we will turn to the freedom works sample. this figure shows the percentage of respondents taking the most conservative positions on issues but we are looking at tea party republicans from the sample and freedom works tea party activists. we would expect activists to be slightly more extreme or even dramatically more extreme than just regular supporters. this is not the case here. these two groups look very similar. there is little to no difference between them. this is true when we look at the top priority issues. once again, the group looks very similar. there is the exception that the percentage of a group whose top priority was to shrink government was at 17% from the tea party republicans, whereas it is 31% of the freedom works supporters. and so we have shown the divisions in the republican party really exist between the non-tea party republicans and tea party republicans as opposed to the tea party republicans and the tea party activists. now turning to the 2012 election and the tea party's negativity toward the republican party, we would expect to see after any major election that the party that loses is pointing fingers at people and the reasons why -- how they can avoid that in the next major election and 2012 was no exception. in fact a report was commissioned that blamed third- party groups such as the tea party and the republican lack of appeal to minorities, use, and women along with other reasons for the 2012 losses. we surveyed freedomworks activists. these are the percentage of tea party freedomworks respondents ranking each of these reasons as very important as a cause of the romney-ryan loss. 54% of respondents ranked romney as being too moderate as an important reason for the loss compared with only 5% of respondents who thought romney was too conservative. when you add up all the reasons why romney lost such as the lack of minority outreach and the association with the tea party, only 52% of respondents selected any of those four items which is still less than 54% of respondents who said that romney was too moderate. so looking again at the question about political style and compromise, we find that in december 2011, 32% of freedom work respondents agreed that they should not compromise, but in the spring this percentage increased to 45%. now we look at the decline in ratings of the republican party and john boehner over the same time from 2011 through 2013. we can see that significantly more tea party activists who rated the republican party and boehner below average in 2013 as as compared with 2011. boehner's below-average ratings more than doubled to 57% in 2013 compared to 27% in 2011. in this slide we show a factor analysis of republican congressional leaders and candidates using the freedomworks data. this resulted in two factors. one was an establishment factor and the other was a tea party factor. those numbers that you see in parentheses are the net favorability ratings where the red dots represent a net negative rating and the green dots represent a net positive reading. you can see that we find the republican party along with republican congressional leaders such as boehner and cantor. in addition, most of these people in the upper left-hand corner have negative ratings. in the lower right-hand corner we found the tea party and the tea party candidates such as mike lee ted cruz who were low on the establishment factor and high in tea party factor. they had very high net favorability ratings. what might be most interesting is in the middle we find ryan and rubio who have net favorability ratings at least 81% for each of them. and they have almost as high favorability ratings as the tea party candidates in the lower right-hand corner. we would expect rubio and ryan to be in a really good position for the 2012 election at least when we are looking at tea party supporters. although we see that the tea party is very negative toward the republican party and its candidates, we find that they were still very active for romney in 2012. as you can see, regardless of who they supported in the primary, they still rallied around romney and were very active for his campaign. you can see that first bar, 86% of tea party supporters who supported romney in the primary were active for his campaign in the general election. you compare that with supporters who preferred perry and 75% were active for romney. the one outlier might be ron paul on the very end. a majority of his supporters ended up doing activities for the romney campaign. we looked at the data from 2008 and this can be said the same. true as well that tea party supporters who preferred a candidate other than mccain were still extremely active for him in the general election. as you can see, there is still a lot of unresolved conflict within the republican party. the government shutdown is one recent example. looking forward to 2016 we expect to see tea party supporters similarly active in the primaries, supporting a candidate who might not be all that electable or have a chance of gaining the nomination, but are in alignment with their issue priorities. once the republican nominee is chosen, most tea party supporters will likely rallied behind that candidate and be very active. that is more due to the antipathy toward the republican party. that's all. >> thank you. next we will have peter francia and jonathan morris from east carolina in diversity. they will talk about their they will talk about their paper "the divided republicans." >> let me begin by thanking john green and everyone here at the university of akron. staff has been wonderful. i certainly speak for my co- author. this is one of the most stimulating academic conferences that you get to attend, so we are pleased to be here. you can see by the title of our paper, it is a little bit of overlap with the previous paper. it is always nice to see and you will get a chance to see this in a minute. even though we have used different data sets and looked at some slightly different questions, some of our conclusions are very similar. let's jump ahead, then. so we are primarily again interested in intraparty divisions. the divide between tea party republicans and establishment republicans has come into full public view recently. any time a political party loses an election, there is a little bit of that soul-searching that we all hear about. and so republicans were talking about what went wrong in 2012. there was the defeat, not only at the presidential level, but indiana and missouri, those looked like easy victories at least for time and they turned into defeats. what do we get, we get karl rove who makes an announcement in 2013 that his super pac, american crossroads, was going to support the conservative victory project. and for the purpose of the conservative victory project was to get involved in republican primaries and try to oust tea party republicans who were seen as costing the republicans some of those easy victories that i talked about. that was followed up with tea party darling who needs no introduction, sarah palin, funding, "of these experts who keeps losing elections and keep getting rehired and getting millions, if they feel that strong about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck up or stay in the truck." i am sure you all remember that. karl rove was not going to stay silent. he came back shortly after that in an interview and said that he would serve out his term and he would not leave office midterm. you got to see the spat between karl rove and sarah palin, an illustration of these growing divisions between the tea party wing and what we might call the establishment wing. in fact, it prompted this question. was the dispute illustrative of a larger civil war within the gop? not a term i am using, that is a term that a whole bunch of headlines have used. you pick up "the new york times," they described this as a civil war within the republican party. we think this is an interesting question because previous accounts of parties have long described republicans a bit differently. republicans if you go back to the 1980's, freeman did a study and talked about the culture of the two major parties and talked about how the republican party was one and had a culture of being closed, quiet, and consensual. if you look into the 1990's, another study describes the party as one that has a homogeneous membership. william mayer wrote a book, "the divided democrats," an important book and one we were thinking about when we were doing this research. even more recently, "the divided democrats" book, howard dean when he was running for president, which is within the last 10 years, he said that he represented the democratic wing of the democratic party. that is a reference to this ideological split between the moderate democrats and more liberal faction of the political party. it is the democrats who have been long divided. in light of the recent developments where we have been talking about republican divisions more so perhaps of the democratic visions we wanted to ask a few questions. our republicans pacific league tea party and establishment republicans, if they are divided, how deep are the divisions and what other issues divide the gop factions? also how divided are republicans compared to democrats? do tea party republicans go out and grab political information from different sources than establishment republicans? i will get into some of those numbers in a minute. we were primarily interested in that question because we wanted to begin to try and answer if there are divisions, are they just fleeting, are they going to go away? is this is a temporary blip on the map, or are these divisions likely to persist? and so there is this literature out there that says when you only hear like-minded ideas, all the time, when you live in this echo chamber, your ideas get reinforced and people begin to he come more polarized. by looking at media sources we were hoping to project that perhaps if there are divisions, they would persist if there are these divisions in media sources so that is the second thing. final question which i think was probably the most challenging part of the project which was we wanted to specifically look at social media as well. social media, the reason we wanted to focus on that specific question was that the tea party has made really effective use, according to some accounts, of social media. so we were curious to see if the comments made on social media venues like twitter were significantly different between establishment republicans and your tea party republicans, and that required getting twitter data and doing some content analysis. my co-author will talk about that in a minute. to get at the first two questions, we looked at the 2012 studies, and to give you a sense of what we were using as our definitions, tea party republicans, it is based on two questions. you have the party i.d. questions. anyone who is self-identified republican or an independent who leaned republican, we included the leaners. if anyone wants to know why, i will be happy to explain. it is pretty much in agreement that leaners should be included. the establishment republicans were self-identified or those republican leaners, but they were neutral or opposed to the tea party. for purposes of comparison we add two democratic categories, very similar to the republicans, self-identified or independents who leaned democrat, moderate democrats, the same thing. we used the ideology question to break them apart. if you are liberal to extremely liberal than you were in that category. if you were slightly liberal or moderate you are in that category. we had the pure independents. let's get to the results. if you look at the first question, there are the standard seven-point scale questions that the nes has looked at for quite a while. we looked at all of them. i will not show you every single one, but we did look at every single ones, so i picked the most interesting for time reasons. you can see that it is the tea party republicans who answer in the most extreme categories. 31% in the one category and if you add the one and two, you are looking at 68%. the most extreme categories. it was eye-popping to see that that many fell into the most extreme category. it is interesting when compared against the establishment republican category. democrats are a bit divided as well. if you look at certainly the six category and you would add the six and seven, there are some divisions, but the republican divisions do stand out. this was one that we thought was fascinating. nes asked for seven-point question about whether the government should provide assistance to african-americans and on the seven point african- americans, should help themselves. that is amazing when we saw that. 51% answered in the most extreme category at number seven versus 36% of the establishment republicans. we were really amazed to see if you add the six and the seven together, you're talking about a huge number of tea party republicans. if you look at the health care law, this is unbelievable, right? not that terribly surprising given that there was so much frustration from the tea party rank and file over the health care law. on the 2010 health care law, 70% of tea party republicans fall in that most extreme category. by comparison again, the establishment republicans, only 35%. i do not mean to be glossing over the democratic members, but since that is not our focus i am going to focus on the republicans. the democrats have some healthy divisions as well. to be crystal clear here, we are not arguing that democrats are not divided, too but the republicans are very much divided as well. on the environment, you can see again some divisions but i put this one up to show you that the democrats, there is quite a bit of division in the extreme category. if you go to the number one on the seven point scale which is the most liberal response, a lot of liberal democrats in that category, a much smaller percentage. if you look at the number seven, no regulation at all, 18% of tea party republicans versus only 4% of establishment republicans. again, pretty big difference is there. you look at other questions, president obama's handling of the economy. i could give you the establishment republican numbers. i wanted to give you the tea party numbers here just to make the point. in the disapprove strongly, the most extreme category you can get, 92% disapprove strongly of his job is resident. 93% disapprove of his handling of the economy. 90% disapprove strongly of his handling of health care. 87% disapprove strongly of his handling of foreign relations. even on the afghanistan war you might think maybe there could be some disagreement. 63% disapprove strongly on that particular question. almost across the board on all the obama questions, we had a whole bunch of feeling thermometer questions. obama, 16 from the tea party on that zero to 100 scale, zero being the coolest and 100 being the warmest. you can see very low ratings. this number stood out so i had to put this one up. michelle obama, for crying out loud, a 28 from tea party republicans. even the first lady who is not even controversial, she cannot even break 30 with the tea party republicans, and that compares to 45 for those establishment republicans. tea party republicans were, however, favorable toward mitt romney. 77. paul ryan at 79. even george w. bush, 72. more favorable than the establishment republicans. this is consistent with the last paper. when they had to rally about their candidate, the feeling thermometer questions indicate that perhaps they did that. whether those divisions will persist is when we look at the media question, so let's turn it over to jay morris. >> it is clear there is a division on several issue positions and on how tea party versus establishment republicans view certain candidates, certain issues. do they get their news from different sources? we already know through the research on partisan media that democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives get their news from different sources in today's fragmented media environment. when you look here just at tea party versus establishment republicans and where they get their news regularly, we can look at these several shows from fox news. we can see a dramatic difference. in tea party members versus establishment republicans, and whether or not they watch these fox news programs and these are four of several fox news programs. the division is clear there. talk radio, nobody is surprised, i don't think. look at the bottom. one part about the democrats, the democrats also have their divisions. i am surprised that there is 7% of tea party republicans who listen to "all things considered." >> it is worse for "the new york times," so we put up more number so if you want some we have got them. >> we looked at new media as well. because of the advent of social networking platforms has allowed the rank-and-file members of the tea party to express themselves, the era of one-way mass media is over. that allows the tea party to voice their opinion. how did the tea party -- how did they make their views known in the twitterverse? facebook is already passé, as my students tell me. we wanted to look at tweets from conservative-leaning posters. so we did a content analysis, about a 250,000 tweets with the following hash tags that you see at the bottom. from october 1 through october 24, we searched every tweet that mentioned the terms. that got us to a manageable quarter million. we looked at the sample we had over time. you can see that our content analysis, which is looking at positive versus negative ratio in terms of the comments made on an individual tweet, you can see that the top line is the positive and negative ratio for mitt romney and the bottom is barack obama. the mentions of either one of these candidates. you can see that barack obama does not vary too much. it is much lower than that romney. you can see with a positive comments, the positive sentiments spiked. after that first debate, you can see that conservative leaning twitter posters, they were excited. and they were posting positive things and it dropped off but you can see it spike again with the debates. we are not interested in the overall trend of how conservative posters posted. we wanted to look at tea party versus gop and here is where our findings overlap with that of the previous discussion. if you look in the far right column, the ratio of positive to negative tweets, tea party versus gop, they were equally as negative toward barack obama. it did not matter if you hash tagged gop or teaparty. same thing with mitt romney. exactly same thing, the positive to negative ratio. positive statements to negative statements. if you look at this now you can see a bit of a division. tea party members were more critical of both parties compared to establishment republicans. what does that mean? it means we have a divided republican party when you look at issue positions and attitudes toward the candidates comparing tea partiers to establishment republicans. media habits clearly differ. we did not show you all our findings, but fox and talk radio, it is clear. at the end, in the month of october at least, in 2012, when it came to posts on twitter, the posters for the tea party, the gop, the people who hashtagged the tea party and gop, they rallied around their candidate. maybe more significantly, they rallied against the opposition. that is what we show here. divided in some ways, the rally effect at the end is still there. thank you. >> thank you. next we will have william miller from flagler college and i call john burton from ohio university, discussing "who needs enemies?" >> thanks. we always appreciate the state of the parties conference. it is interesting to point out that if we go back to the 2009 state of the parties, i remember one conversation about the tea party. it was at lunch and it was not very kind. it was much more of a they will have these nice little rallies and dress up and be gone in a few months. a few months later we started to see the idea that robert boatwright talked about, of individual elected officials being primaried within their own party and the effect that could have. what we are going to talk about today is a little bit different than looking at actually speaking with activists or tracking money back to causes. instead, we want to discuss the intellectual history of the tea party and how what we're seeing today and hearing about today is not necessarily new to the conservative discourse, but it is being presented in a new way with a little more organization than previously. and again, focusing on the fact that when the tea party came into existence, it was using the acronym taxed enough already. it was an economic movement. that implied if the economy improves the tea party would disappear. they are not the johnny one note but have found a consistent theme that allows them to apply the same principles to issues that are not directly economically related. so what we want to do first of all is place the tea party into the intellectual history of american conservatism, focusing on modern beliefs and looking at how what we see became cemented under reagan has only altered since. illustrating the idea of this unifying concept of constitutional liberty, allowing us to talk about the economy, abortion, and drones and be using kind of the same language amongst the same in the to bring that to the forefront of american politics. also to show you the strategic position of traditionalism and libertarianism in the gop, the movement that is competing with the more pragmatic wing of the republican party and pretty much every battle that comes through for congress. the major claim being that the intellectual history and strategic position of the tea party movement is going to allow it to have an enduring place in american politics as long as it does not self-destruct. if we look at the reagan coalition and the republican party and what he was able to do, he was able to bring three rather diverse groups together again, obviously focusing on the christian conservatives, the free market, and also the more republican leaning pragmatists, moderate in their views but willing to negotiate and compromise as necessary to advance their causes. what we will start by arguing is this is what we see today. this morning at the first panel, we talked about rand paul and how some identify him as a libertarian, some identify him as a traditionalist, and at the end of the day what we say is that there is a middle ground where he can be both and still fit into the overall picture of the tea party. it is not simply the reagan era times. we have seen some alterations to this design. beginning with the decline of pragmatism. whether through polarization, redistricting, whatever cause you want to attribute it to, the modern republican party appears to be less pragmatic. we see more ted cruzes and rick perrys than john boehners and mitch mcconnells. the moderation we used to see is being replaced and as a direct result the middling area become smaller and smaller which impacts republican and national policy. most importantly, the traditionalists and -- have grown closer together. there's more opportunities for this bridge, especially during the reagan administration. that alters not only the political discourse but outcomes, especially for today's modern republican party. with that in mind, there are really four ways that these three groups can cooperate in order to achieve their ultimate goals. the first being the idea of a supremacy-inferiority split. there are not willing to say, you have control over issue. you are in charge. there is much more give-and-take than that. secondly you could have a simple split. the idea of we agree to disagree, something we are not seeing within those two camps. you can leave it ambiguous. this is an argument where activists kind of fudge the differences between themselves and reality it is not there. we argue that we have a pattern of mutual reinforcement between traditionalists and libertarians, that they are not necessarily aware is occurring. that reinforcement centers itself on the concept of constitutional liberty. we can talk about divergent issues that do not have a common tea party economic thread, but at the same time builds off each other in a way that allows for a spirited discussion. this gives two examples. libertarian defensive traditionalism, ron paul. stephen fincher. linking the economic libertarianism and the traditionalists values to reinforce one another in different ways but ultimately making the same sense of an argument. we argue that these contours still come from a reagan-style conservatism. starting and building with the idea that we have families and markets having a symbiotic relationship. the idea being that a good upbringing will lead to good workers, good workers will lead to the ability to raise a family, that family will lead to a good upbringing. at the same time we still recognize that government has a place at the margins. most of the time we want it to get out of the way from a reagan conservative-era stance. the power to tax and incur debt needs to be limited. obviously a discussion we have had recently. families should be left largely free to follow their dreams. ultimately, what we want from government is to protect security and liberty, including religious liberty, and not tell individual citizens what to do. again, the idea of constitutional liberty and mutual reinforcement. this is a strategic situation. we have traditionalists who revere old-style politics. it is the christian conservative base. we have libertarians who want privacy of choice in social and economic matters. we have the pragmatists that understand that politics is the art of the possible, who are willing to strike bargains and deals to get things done. now we have a couple of different policy issues that kind of illustrate where we can see traditionalists and libertarians coming together and having an impact on pragmatic republicans. we will start by looking at obamacare. an issue that -- wow, it does not like me. an issue where we see all three sectors of the modern conservative movement in agreement. it starts with we don't like obama, we don't like obamacare. you want to dig deeper, traditionalists have concerns with obamacare related to birth control. for libertarians, you have government intervening on something they believe the free market can do better. for the pragmatists, obamacare is simply a mess. fiscal responsibility much along the same way. you can go to benghazi where you have these groups in agreement. it brings them together in a way they otherwise would not. the key point with these is on these type of issues where you see the pragmatists, the libertarians, and the traditionalists in agreement. the tea party is having a minimal impact because their voice is one amongst many. it becomes a unified republican issue. we can start as traditionalism as the outlier. same-sex marriage. this is an important issue for christian conservatives, that they are willing to fight for and unwilling to compromise on. libertarians can argue that it is not an important issue or government does not have the right to regulate marriage. pragmatists view it as a bargaining chip. is not necessarily a quid pro quo, but something where they may be willing to make necessary arrangements like passing it off to states in order to assure they win in other issues. you want to look at libertarianism as the outlier, look at the drone debate. we look at it internationally, drones are great. they're less costly. there is less loss of life. we allege we can have more targeted killings that we would have through conventional means. for traditionalists, we protect american pilots. there is famous quote about six months ago -- it does not matter how many innocent pakistanis die, the american pilot will be home for dinner. for the libertarians we still have a problem. this is unnecessary interference in international areas. we do not need to be there. domestically we heard the argument. this was rand paul's filibuster. even for domestic security purposes, we could turn these groups towards us. we look at where the traditionalists and libertarians unite and oppose the pragmatists. i will speak to both the shutdown and the debt ceiling in the same vein. the pragmatic republicans, the mitch mcconnells and john boehners, understood that the defaulting on our loans was not going to be a positive solution . they were willing to make the compromise to prevent that. as opposed to traditionalists who are upset with where funding is going, libertarians who felt we simply overspend for the sake of overspending. they were unified in their fight against the pragmatist against this which ultimately led to the shutdown. without that voice going against them it could have been accomplished far earlier. the central point this all comes back to is, obviously if you go to november 2012, we had tons of media reports that the tea party was dead, and also had media reports this morning that say the tea party is dead. is the tea party going to become their own party? no. that is not their stated goal or intention. they're still having an impact, even as the media -- the tea party operative they are saying that at least we beat a rino in a primary. this will be one of many headlines looking back in 2012. on the summary piece, what we argue is that it strategically places things in the republican party and has the possibility to cause headaches forward. we can argue far longer. if we go back to the 1960's, the idea of explicit racism within the republican party was rebuffed and told this won't work going forward. even for the tea party today if there is an argument made or a question asked, they have a response of some kind. it may not always be the strongest response, but they know what lines of attack are coming and what they stand for and believe in. that is the intellectual history. the simple idea that the tea party is not dead. if you look at the reports from this week, we can see where there are arguments to be made that the tea party is suffering. you look at the alabama house race where the chamber of commerce through an $240,000 over the last two weeks. it prevented a tea party house member from entering the house. you can look at colorado where the koch brothers have been throwing $300,000 into school board races. you can with the virginia gubernatorial race. you can look at new jersey building on the data presented before. you have chris christie was no means classified as a tea party republican having no problem getting elected. what it really comes to, to some extent, is an idea behind -- the idea they cannot create their own party and be successful. as a third-party they will never have the power they need to get elected on their own. they can remake the party in which they reside. that is what they are obviously attempting to do. if you think about it, if you have the libertarians and the traditionalists oppose, republican influence as a whole ultimately suffers. at the same time, if you have an issue where the libertarians and the traditionalists are sharing sentiments and arguments against republican pragmatists, they have a big chance to have an significant impact moving forward. the pragmatists are beginning to realize that they can't necessarily win without some minimal tea party support. at the same time, the tea partiers are realizing they're not as relevant as they would like to be without some support from the pragmatists. >> ok, thank you very much. our last presenter will be john berg. >> i really do talk about the tea party so i'm not out of place here. i want to think john green and janet and the whole staff for putting on this great conference. i have not come the last couple of times and it is great to be back. i wish i could find a way to get a longer view of akron outside this building. i will take the stratospheric view of this. i'm happy to see this data, but i'm not using that kind of thing. i have been looking at -- i have to go fast. here's how i see it. right now, we have intense party polarization. it is based on extreme disagreement on many issues. yet i think there are several important issues, issues that are important not just objectively, but to voters, that are kept out of the party debates. at least out of the presidential level. time for may be passed by now, but during obama's first term, there were two noble prizes in economics. a former cabinet member who said, we need to stop worrying about the deficit and spend more money. we are the stimulus twice as big as what we had heard a lot of

Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20140104

this project was undertaken with walt stone and with meredith who will present it. meredith has been involved since she was a sophomore at william and mary. she graduated in may. she is with the education advisory board after a stint as an intern where she was the resident expert on the tea party for the pew center for people in the press. meredith is going to take this and go with it and make it sound far more intelligent than i could. >> thanks. to give you an idea of what is coming, we will look at divisions within the local party and then we will compare rank- and-file republicans to tea party activists using that freedom works sample. once again looking at issues and political style. finally, we look at the response of the tea party to the 2012 elections, including perceptions of why romney lost, change over time and willingness to time and willingness to compromise, and evaluation of the republican party and its leaders. we begin by examining the actual conflict between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans focusing on issues, positions, and priority using the sample. this first slide shows the percentage of respondents taking the most conservative positions various issues. here we see striking differences between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans. for example, 76% of tea party republicans took the most conservative positions on abolishing the department of education, whereas 10% of non- tea party republicans did so. also, 95% of tea party republicans took the most conservative positions on repealing obamacare, compared with only 59% of non-tea party republicans. next we are looking at the top priority issue of respondents. we see striking differences between tea party republicans and non-tea party republicans in the mass sample. in fact, you can see that with the two issues, repealing obamacare and shrinking government, almost 40% of tea party republicans chose either one of those issues as their top priorities while less than 5% of non-tea party republicans did so. so now we are going to turn to political style. we asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement when we feel strongly about political issues, we should not be willing to compromise, and we found that 23% of tea party republicans said that they strongly agree with the statement versus only 4% when you combine strongly agree and do agree. when you combine the responses, that difference is even greater. 58% say they agree, and only 32% of non-tea party republicans saying so. this is not surprising. when we consider that recent role of the tea party with the government shutdown. we will turn to the freedom works sample. this figure shows the percentage of respondents taking the most conservative positions on issues but we are looking at tea party republicans from the sample and freedom works tea party activists. we would expect activists to be slightly more extreme or even dramatically more extreme than just regular supporters. this is not the case here. these two groups look very similar. there is little to no difference between them. this is true when we look at the top priority issues. once again, the group looks very similar. there is the exception that the percentage of a group whose top priority was to shrink government was at 17% from the tea party republicans, whereas it is 31% of the freedom works supporters. and so we have shown the divisions in the republican party really exist between the non-tea party republicans and tea party republicans as opposed to the tea party republicans and the tea party activists. now turning to the 2012 election and the tea party's negativity toward the republican party, we would expect to see after any major election that the party that loses is pointing fingers at people and the reasons why -- how they can avoid that in the next major election and 2012 was no exception. in fact a report was commissioned that blamed third- party groups such as the tea party and the republican lack of appeal to minorities, use, and women along with other reasons for the 2012 losses. we surveyed freedomworks activists. these are the percentage of tea party freedomworks respondents ranking each of these reasons as very important as a cause of the romney-ryan loss. 54% of respondents ranked romney as being too moderate as an important reason for the loss compared with only 5% of respondents who thought romney was too conservative. when you add up all the reasons why romney lost such as the lack of minority outreach and the association with the tea party, only 52% of respondents selected any of those four items which is still less than 54% of respondents who said that romney was too moderate. so looking again at the question about political style and compromise, we find that in december 2011, 32% of freedom work respondents agreed that they should not compromise, but in the spring this percentage increased to 45%. now we look at the decline in ratings of the republican party and john boehner over the same time from 2011 through 2013. we can see that significantly more tea party activists who rated the republican party and boehner below average in 2013 as compared with 2011. boehner's below-average ratings more than doubled to 57% in 2013 compared to 27% in 2011. in this slide we show a factor analysis of republican congressional leaders and candidates using the freedomworks data. this resulted in two factors. one was an establishment factor and the other was a tea party factor. those numbers that you see in parentheses are the net favorability ratings where the red dots represent a net negative rating and the green dots represent a net positive reading. you can see that we find the republican party along with republican congressional leaders such as boehner and cantor. in addition, most of these people in the upper left-hand corner have negative ratings. in the lower right-hand corner we found the tea party and the tea party candidates such as mike lee ted cruz who were low on the establishment factor and high in tea party factor. they had very high net favorability ratings. what might be most interesting is in the middle we find ryan and rubio who have net favorability ratings at least 81% for each of them. and they have almost as high favorability ratings as the tea party candidates in the lower right-hand corner. we would expect rubio and ryan to be in a really good position for the 2012 election at least when we are looking at tea party supporters. although we see that the tea party is very negative toward the republican party and its candidates, we find that they were still very active for romney in 2012. as you can see, regardless of who they supported in the primary, they still rallied around romney and were very active for his campaign. you can see that first bar, 86% of tea party supporters who supported romney in the primary were active for his campaign in the general election. you compare that with supporters who preferred perry and 75% were active for romney. the one outlier might be ron paul on the very end. a majority of his supporters ended up doing activities for the romney campaign. we looked at the data from 2008 and this can be said the same. true as well that tea party supporters who preferred a candidate other than mccain were still extremely active for him in the general election. as you can see, there is still a lot of unresolved conflict within the republican party. the government shutdown is one recent example. looking forward to 2016 we expect to see tea party supporters similarly active in the primaries, supporting a candidate who might not be all that electable or have a chance of gaining the nomination, but are in alignment with their issue priorities. once the republican nominee is chosen, most tea party supporters will likely rallied behind that candidate and be very active. that is more due to the antipathy toward the republican party. that's all. >> thank you. next we will have peter francia and jonathan morris from east carolina in diversity. they will talk about their they will talk about their paper "the divided republicans." >> let me begin by thanking john green and everyone here at the university of akron. staff has been wonderful. i certainly speak for my co- author. this is one of the most stimulating academic conferences that you get to attend, so we are pleased to be here. you can see by the title of our paper, it is a little bit of overlap with the previous paper. it is always nice to see and you will get a chance to see this in a minute. even though we have used different data sets and looked at some slightly different questions, some of our conclusions are very similar. let's jump ahead, then. so we are primarily again interested in intraparty divisions. the divide between tea party republicans and establishment republicans has come into full public view recently. any time a political party loses an election, there is a little bit of that soul-searching that we all hear about. and so republicans were talking about what went wrong in 2012. there was the defeat, not only at the presidential level, but indiana and missouri, those looked like easy victories at least for time and they turned into defeats. what do we get, we get karl rove who makes an announcement in 2013 that his super pac, american crossroads, was going to support the conservative victory project. and for the purpose of the conservative victory project was to get involved in republican primaries and try to oust tea party republicans who were seen as costing the republicans some of those easy victories that i talked about. that was followed up with tea party darling who needs no introduction, sarah palin, funding, "of these experts who keeps losing elections and keep getting rehired and getting millions, if they feel that strong about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck up or stay in the truck." i am sure you all remember that. karl rove was not going to stay silent. he came back shortly after that in an interview and said that he would serve out his term and he would not leave office midterm. you got to see the spat between karl rove and sarah palin, an illustration of these growing divisions between the tea party wing and what we might call the establishment wing. in fact, it prompted this question. was the dispute illustrative of a larger civil war within the gop? not a term i am using, that is a term that a whole bunch of headlines have used. you pick up "the new york times," they described this as a civil war within the republican party. we think this is an interesting question because previous accounts of parties have long described republicans a bit differently. republicans if you go back to the 1980's, freeman did a study and talked about the culture of the two major parties and talked about how the republican party was one and had a culture of being closed, quiet, and consensual. if you look into the 1990's, another study describes the party as one that has a homogeneous membership. william mayer wrote a book, "the divided democrats," an important book and one we were thinking about when we were doing this research. even more recently, "the divided democrats" book, howard dean when he was running for president, which is within the last 10 years, he said that he represented the democratic wing of the democratic party. that is a reference to this ideological split between the moderate democrats and more liberal faction of the political party. it is the democrats who have been long divided. in light of the recent developments where we have been talking about republican divisions more so perhaps of the democratic visions we wanted to ask a few questions. our republicans pacific league tea party and establishment republicans, if they are divided, how deep are the divisions and what other issues divide the gop factions? also how divided are republicans compared to democrats? do tea party republicans go out and grab political information from different sources than establishment republicans? i will get into some of those numbers in a minute. we were primarily interested in that question because we wanted to begin to try and answer if there are divisions, are they just fleeting, are they going to go away? is this is a temporary blip on the map, or are these divisions likely to persist? and so there is this literature out there that says when you only hear like-minded ideas, all the time, when you live in this echo chamber, your ideas get reinforced and people begin to he come more polarized. by looking at media sources we were hoping to project that perhaps if there are divisions, they would persist if there are these divisions in media sources so that is the second thing. final question which i think was probably the most challenging part of the project which was we wanted to specifically look at social media as well. social media, the reason we wanted to focus on that specific question was that the tea party has made really effective use, according to some accounts, of social media. so we were curious to see if the comments made on social media venues like twitter were significantly different between establishment republicans and your tea party republicans, and that required getting twitter data and doing some content analysis. my co-author will talk about that in a minute. to get at the first two questions, we looked at the 2012 studies, and to give you a sense of what we were using as our definitions, tea party republicans, it is based on two questions. you have the party i.d. questions. anyone who is self-identified republican or an independent who leaned republican, we included the leaners. if anyone wants to know why, i will be happy to explain. it is pretty much in agreement that leaners should be included. the establishment republicans were self-identified or those republican leaners, but they were neutral or opposed to the tea party. for purposes of comparison we add two democratic categories, very similar to the republicans, self-identified or independents who leaned democrat, moderate democrats, the same thing. we used the ideology question to break them apart. if you are liberal to extremely liberal than you were in that category. if you were slightly liberal or moderate you are in that category. we had the pure independents. let's get to the results. if you look at the first question, there are the standard seven-point scale questions that the nes has looked at for quite a while. we looked at all of them. i will not show you every single one, but we did look at every single ones, so i picked the most interesting for time reasons. you can see that it is the tea party republicans who answer in the most extreme categories. 31% in the one category and if you add the one and two, you are looking at 68%. the most extreme categories. it was eye-popping to see that that many fell into the most extreme category. it is interesting when compared against the establishment republican category. democrats are a bit divided as well. if you look at certainly the six category and you would add the six and seven, there are some divisions, but the republican divisions do stand out. this was one that we thought was fascinating. nes asked for seven-point question about whether the government should provide assistance to african-americans and on the seven point african- americans, should help themselves. that is amazing when we saw that. 51% answered in the most extreme category at number seven versus 36% of the establishment republicans. we were really amazed to see if you add the six and the seven together, you're talking about a huge number of tea party republicans. if you look at the health care law, this is unbelievable, right? not that terribly surprising given that there was so much frustration from the tea party rank and file over the health care law. on the 2010 health care law, 70% of tea party republicans fall in that most extreme category. by comparison again, the establishment republicans, only 35%. i do not mean to be glossing over the democratic members, but since that is not our focus i am going to focus on the republicans. the democrats have some healthy divisions as well. to be crystal clear here, we are not arguing that democrats are not divided, too but the republicans are very much divided as well. on the environment, you can see again some divisions but i put this one up to show you that the democrats, there is quite a bit of division in the extreme category. if you go to the number one on the seven point scale which is the most liberal response, a lot of liberal democrats in that category, a much smaller percentage. if you look at the number seven, no regulation at all, 18% of tea party republicans versus only 4% of establishment republicans. again, pretty big difference is there. you look at other questions, president obama's handling of the economy. i could give you the establishment republican numbers. i wanted to give you the tea party numbers here just to make the point. in the disapprove strongly, the most extreme category you can get, 92% disapprove strongly of his job is resident. 93% disapprove of his handling of the economy. 90% disapprove strongly of his handling of health care. 87% disapprove strongly of his handling of foreign relations. even on the afghanistan war you might think maybe there could be some disagreement. 63% disapprove strongly on that particular question. almost across the board on all the obama questions, we had a whole bunch of feeling thermometer questions. obama, 16 from the tea party on that zero to 100 scale, zero being the coolest and 100 being the warmest. you can see very low ratings. this number stood out so i had to put this one up. michelle obama, for crying out loud, a 28 from tea party republicans. even the first lady who is not even controversial, she cannot even break 30 with the tea party republicans, and that compares to 45 for those establishment republicans. tea party republicans were, however, favorable toward mitt romney. 77. paul ryan at 79. even george w. bush, 72. more favorable than the establishment republicans. this is consistent with the last paper. when they had to rally about their candidate, the feeling thermometer questions indicate that perhaps they did that. whether those divisions will persist is when we look at the media question, so let's turn it over to jay morris. >> it is clear there is a division on several issue positions and on how tea party versus establishment republicans view certain candidates, certain issues. do they get their news from different sources? we already know through the research on partisan media that democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives get their news from different sources in today's fragmented media environment. when you look here just at tea party versus establishment republicans and where they get their news regularly, we can look at these several shows from fox news. we can see a dramatic difference. in tea party members versus establishment republicans, and whether or not they watch these fox news programs and these are four of several fox news programs. the division is clear there. talk radio, nobody is surprised, i don't think. look at the bottom. one part about the democrats, the democrats also have their divisions. i am surprised that there is 7% of tea party republicans who listen to "all things considered." >> it is worse for "the new york times," so we put up more number so if you want some we have got them. >> we looked at new media as well. because of the advent of social networking platforms has allowed the rank-and-file members of the tea party to express themselves, the era of one-way mass media is over. that allows the tea party to voice their opinion. how did the tea party -- how did they make their views known in the twitterverse? facebook is already pass?, as my students tell me. we wanted to look at tweets from conservative-leaning posters. so we did a content analysis, about a 250,000 tweets with the following hash tags that you see at the bottom. from october 1 through october 24, we searched every tweet that mentioned the terms. that got us to a manageable quarter million. we looked at the sample we had over time. you can see that our content analysis, which is looking at positive versus negative ratio in terms of the comments made on an individual tweet, you can see that the top line is the positive and negative ratio for mitt romney and the bottom is barack obama. the mentions of either one of these candidates. you can see that barack obama does not vary too much. it is much lower than that romney. you can see with a positive comments, the positive sentiments spiked. after that first debate, you can see that conservative leaning twitter posters, they were excited. and they were posting positive things and it dropped off but you can see it spike again with the debates. we are not interested in the overall trend of how conservative posters posted. we wanted to look at tea party versus gop and here is where our findings overlap with that of the previous discussion. if you look in the far right column, the ratio of positive to negative tweets, tea party versus gop, they were equally as negative toward barack obama. it did not matter if you hash tagged gop or tea party. same thing with mitt romney. exactly same thing, the positive to negative ratio. positive statements to negative statements. if you look at this now you can see a bit of a division. tea party members were more critical of both parties compared to establishment republicans. what does that mean? it means we have a divided republican party when you look at issue positions and attitudes toward the candidates comparing tea partiers to establishment republicans. media habits clearly differ. we did not show you all our findings, but fox and talk radio, it is clear. at the end, in the month of october at least, in 2012, when it came to posts on twitter, the posters for the tea party, the gop, the people who hashtagged the tea party and gop, they rallied around their candidate. maybe more significantly, they rallied against the opposition. that is what we show here. divided in some ways, the rally effect at the end is still there. thank you. >> thank you. next we will have william miller from flagler college and i call john burton from ohio university, discussing "who needs enemies?" >> thanks. we always appreciate the state of the parties conference. it is interesting to point out that if we go back to the 2009 state of the parties, i remember one conversation about the tea party. it was at lunch and it was not very kind. it was much more of a they will have these nice little rallies and dress up and be gone in a few months. a few months later we started to see the idea that robert boatwright talked about, of individual elected officials being primaried within their own party and the effect that could have. what we are going to talk about today is a little bit different than looking at actually speaking with activists or tracking money back to causes. instead, we want to discuss the intellectual history of the tea party and how what we're seeing today and hearing about today is not necessarily new to the conservative discourse, but it is being presented in a new way with a little more organization than previously. and again, focusing on the fact that when the tea party came into existence, it was using the acronym taxed enough already. it was an economic movement. that implied if the economy improves the tea party would disappear. they are not the johnny one note but have found a consistent theme that allows them to apply the same principles to issues that are not directly economically related. so what we want to do first of all is place the tea party into the intellectual history of american conservatism, focusing on modern beliefs and looking at how what we see became cemented under reagan has only altered since. illustrating the idea of this unifying concept of constitutional liberty, allowing us to talk about the economy, abortion, and drones and be using kind of the same language amongst the same in the individuals to bring that to the forefront of american politics. also to show you the strategic position of traditionalism and libertarianism in the gop, the movement that is competing with the more pragmatic wing of the republican party and pretty much every battle that comes through for congress. the major claim being that the intellectual history and strategic position of the tea party movement is going to allow it to have an enduring place in american politics as long as it does not self-destruct. if we look at the reagan coalition and the republican party and what he was able to do, he was able to bring three rather diverse groups together again, obviously focusing on the christian conservatives, the free market, and also the more republican leaning pragmatists, moderate in their views but willing to negotiate and compromise as necessary to advance their causes. what we will start by arguing is this is what we see today. this morning at the first panel, we talked about rand paul and how some identify him as a libertarian, some identify him as a traditionalist, and at the end of the day what we say is that there is a middle ground where he can be both and still fit into the overall picture of the tea party. it is not simply the reagan era times. we have seen some alterations to this design. beginning with the decline of pragmatism. whether through polarization, redistricting, whatever cause you want to attribute it to, the modern republican party appears to be less pragmatic. we see more ted cruzes and rick perrys than john boehners and mitch mcconnells. the moderation we used to see is being replaced and as a direct result the middling area become smaller and smaller which impacts republican and national policy. most importantly, the traditionalists and -- have grown closer together. there's more opportunities for this bridge, especially during the reagan administration. that alters not only the political discourse but outcomes, especially for today's modern republican party. with that in mind, there are really four ways that these three groups can cooperate in order to achieve their ultimate goals. the first being the idea of a supremacy-inferiority split. there are not willing to say, you have control over issue. you are in charge. there is much more give-and-take than that. secondly you could have a simple split. the idea of we agree to disagree, something we are not seeing within those two camps. you can leave it ambiguous. this is an argument where activists kind of fudge the differences between themselves and reality it is not there. we argue that we have a pattern of mutual reinforcement between traditionalists and libertarians, that they are not necessarily aware is occurring. that reinforcement centers itself on the concept of constitutional liberty. we can talk about divergent issues that do not have a common tea party economic thread, but at the same time builds off each other in a way that allows for a spirited discussion. this gives two examples. libertarian defensive traditionalism, ron paul. stephen fincher. linking the economic libertarianism and the traditionalists values to reinforce one another in different ways but ultimately making the same sense of an argument. we argue that these contours still come from a reagan-style conservatism. starting and building with the idea that we have families and markets having a symbiotic relationship. the idea being that a good upbringing will lead to good workers, good workers will lead to the ability to raise a family, that family will lead to a good upbringing. at the same time we still recognize that government has a place at the margins. most of the time we want it to get out of the way from a reagan conservative-era stance. the power to tax and incur debt needs to be limited. obviously a discussion we have had recently. families should be left largely free to follow their dreams. ultimately, what we want from government is to protect security and liberty, including religious liberty, and not tell individual citizens what to do. again, the idea of constitutional liberty and mutual reinforcement. this is a strategic situation. we have traditionalists who revere old-style politics. it is the christian conservative base. we have libertarians who want privacy of choice in social and economic matters. we have the pragmatists that understand that politics is the art of the possible, who are willing to strike bargains and deals to get things done. now we have a couple of different policy issues that kind of illustrate where we can see traditionalists and libertarians coming together and having an impact on pragmatic republicans. we will start by looking at obamacare. an issue that -- wow, it does not like me. an issue where we see all three sectors of the modern conservative movement in agreement. it starts with we don't like obama, we don't like obamacare. you want to dig deeper, traditionalists have concerns with obamacare related to birth control. for libertarians, you have government intervening on something they believe the free market can do better. for the pragmatists, obamacare is simply a mess. fiscal responsibility much along the same way. you can go to benghazi where you have these groups in agreement. it brings them together in a way they otherwise would not. the key point with these is on these type of issues where you see the pragmatists, the libertarians, and the traditionalists in agreement. the tea party is having a minimal impact because their voice is one amongst many. it becomes a unified republican issue. we can start as traditionalism as the outlier. same-sex marriage. this is an important issue for christian conservatives, that they are willing to fight for and unwilling to compromise on. libertarians can argue that it is not an important issue or government does not have the right to regulate marriage. pragmatists view it as a bargaining chip. is not necessarily a quid pro quo, but something where they may be willing to make necessary arrangements like passing it off to states in order to assure they win in other issues. you want to look at libertarianism as the outlier, look at the drone debate. we look at it internationally, drones are great. they're less costly. there is less loss of life. we allege we can have more targeted killings that we would have through conventional means. for traditionalists, we protect american pilots. there is famous quote about six months ago -- it does not matter how many innocent pakistanis die, the american pilot will be home for dinner. for the libertarians we still have a problem. this is unnecessary interference in international areas. we do not need to be there. domestically we heard the argument. this was rand paul's filibuster. even for domestic security purposes, we could turn these groups towards us. we look at where the traditionalists and libertarians unite and oppose the pragmatists. i will speak to both the shutdown and the debt ceiling in the same vein. the pragmatic republicans, the mitch mcconnells and john boehners, understood that the defaulting on our loans was not going to be a positive solution. they were willing to make the compromise to prevent that. as opposed to traditionalists who are upset with where funding is going, libertarians who felt we simply overspend for the sake of overspending. they were unified in their fight against the pragmatist against this which ultimately led to the shutdown. without that voice going against them it could have been accomplished far earlier. the central point this all comes back to is, obviously if you go to november 2012, we had tons of media reports that the tea party was dead, and also had media reports this morning that say the tea party is dead. is the tea party going to become their own party? no. that is not their stated goal or intention. they're still having an impact, even as the media -- the tea party operative they are saying that at least we beat a rino in a primary. this will be one of many headlines looking back in 2012. on the summary piece, what we argue is that it strategically places things in the republican party and has the possibility to cause headaches forward. we can argue far longer. if we go back to the 1960's, the idea of explicit racism within the republican party was rebuffed and told this won't work going forward. even for the tea party today if there is an argument made or a question asked, they have a response of some kind. it may not always be the strongest response, but they know what lines of attack are coming and what they stand for and believe in. that is the intellectual history. the simple idea that the tea party is not dead. if you look at the reports from this week, we can see where there are arguments to be made that the tea party is suffering. you look at the alabama house race where the chamber of commerce through an $240,000 over the last two weeks. it prevented a tea party house member from entering the house. you can look at colorado where the koch brothers have been throwing $300,000 into school board races. you can with the virginia gubernatorial race. you can look at new jersey building on the data presented before. you have chris christie was no means classified as a tea party republican having no problem getting elected. what it really comes to, to some extent, is an idea behind -- the idea they cannot create their own party and be successful. as a third-party they will never have the power they need to get elected on their own. they can remake the party in which they reside. that is what they are obviously attempting to do. if you think about it, if you have the libertarians and the traditionalists oppose, republican influence as a whole ultimately suffers. at the same time, if you have an issue where the libertarians and the traditionalists are sharing sentiments and arguments against republican pragmatists, they have a big chance to have an significant impact moving forward. the pragmatists are beginning to realize that they can't necessarily win without some minimal tea party support. at the same time, the tea partiers are realizing they're not as relevant as they would like to be without some support from the pragmatists. >> ok, thank you very much. our last presenter will be john berg. >> i really do talk about the tea party so i'm not out of place here. i want to think john green and janet and the whole staff for putting on this great conference. i have not come the last couple of times and it is great to be back. i wish i could find a way to get a longer view of akron outside this building. i will take the stratospheric view of this. i'm happy to see this data, but i'm not using that kind of thing. i have been looking at -- i have to go fast. here's how i see it. right now, we have intense party polarization. it is based on extreme disagreement on many issues. yet i think there are several important issues, issues that are important not just objectively, but to voters, that are kept out of the party debates. a couple of examples. at least out of the presidential level -- he said we need to stop worrying about the deficit. the major party debate was stimulus --r the past. an interesting debate. it is easy to understand why you believe that out. your having to educate people about why a deficit might be good. drones only made it into the debates because it was an online debate. we did it in a very cursory way. what do you think? were fiveeople were by drones. climate. we're seeing every day how serious it is. spent ahe debate significant part of time with both candidates talking about how much they were in favor of clean coal. we are here in ohio where they mine coal. it is a swing state. you can see in the two-party system why you might do that. it does mean that we have a phenomenon going on that might destroy civilization and is not entering in any significant way into presidential debate. globalization -- the free-trade debate has been going on a long time. that is the debate that splits the parties. both parties are dominated by pro-free trade, pro- globalization people. what a rethink of the merits of those issues, they are issues where a lot of people are not well represented by the major parties. in the past what you would expect to see is maybe a realignment or something like that, some kind of change in the party system. it has not happened. i don't want to say anything about the reform party with rapoport here because i would probably make a mistake. they had a run. they didn't really manage create a debate about free trade. they created a debate about the deficit which was solved by economic growth. it collapsed, which kind of proves that history repeats. it was farcical enough to make up for it. the green party made a smaller run. didn't make a difference in the 2000 election. didn't get any leverage out of that at all. they might have in past cycles, but this time it was led to a determination to destroy them. this is the context of what i want to say. i will be quick about it. there are lots of theoretical attempts to say why. it doesn't really work for this case because it doesn't seem to apply to anyone in canada or india. also, it can explain may be long-term why we don't have a multi-party system but he can explain, given that the republicans came out of nowhere to become dominant, the people's party became strong, it cannot explain why you don't get a short term disruptive upsurge of minor party activity. i think there are multiple causes. it gets harder and harder as time goes on. there is an interesting argument that with the adoption of the australian ballot at the end of the 19th century, we got to a situation where the government had to decide who the candidates were, who would be printed on the ballot. when checked in decide that you get to exclude people. for the next hundred years, the major parties got better and better at creating obstacles. nader after 2000, or 2004, the spent years battling this lawsuit in pennsylvania. it did not have much merit but it served the function of the state. it made hard to go on. that role has kind of been blocked. that has reinforced the ballot laws that control be presidential debates. it has become reinforced by the media and our political culture. the bulk of this paper is meant to be about what happens now. i think one reason -- i want to look at three mass protest movements. i think bt party develop the way it did is because -- i agree with you guys -- they see there is not much potential as an independent party and they have more potential as a non-party force. i want to look at occupy wall street as reactions to the situation. i argue that they are. i think people are fairly familiar with the way each of those movements developed. i will not dwell a lot on that. i want to sort of compare them in several, dimensions. one is jack walker's idea that you can overcome the irrationality of forming an organization if you have a patron. with the tea party, i think that is pretty clearly -- i have to be careful. there is a book out there that says the tea party never existed. it certainly existed. it is a real thing. it really did come out of grassroots unhappiness and protest. that originally health care. originally, the stimulus and bailout. kelly character's protest in washington was focused on what you call the "porkulus bill." it was cut by freedom works, which i guess is a tea party group. it is funded by the koch brothers. they saw the rant on tv as it happened in a couple people said it was big and they put it on their website and it created a whole apparatus were groups could write in and tell them where the nearest group was. it really added to it. and then fox news, which may campaign, a crusade about reporting on the tea party all the time and help it get going. the wisconsin protest -- i think people are familiar with that, too. it sort of started with democratic senators leaving the state so that would not be a quorum but also the graduate students union at the university of wisconsin marching into the middle of the state house and sitting down. it went on for quite a while. clearly, their patron was the fcio. they got control of the. it turned from a mass protest to a long, drawn-out series of electoral campaigns. first over a judicial election and then attempts to recall various state senators and ultimately governor walker. none of them responded by trying to call state democratic senators. they did not recall any democrats. they recalled some republicans but not enough to change the majority. they also recalled walker. a lot of the original activists were unhappy about that direction because they thought they were more interested in the protest. secondly, because once it was an electoral campaign, it looked just like any other electoral campaign. they lost the ideological thrust. they started looking for scandals. a lot of people really not happy. some people were very not happy about the idea that you are going to elect a supreme court judge on the basis of how you expected that person to vote on a particular case. whichever way she votes it is going to be terrible. it would destroy her. she did not win. a lot of people said in the campaign -- i am told that, especially for walker, they did not think you should recall someone if he hadn't of done something illegal. they might not agree with what he did but he should be able to serve out his term and beat him in the next election. the moment kind of still exists. there are still organizations and people gearing up for the next election. it is no longer what it was. goals. the goal of the tea party -- this is not quite right -- but it is summed up by winning primaries. it is a primary goal. they want to win elections, but they care more about winning primaries and get their candidates in. or at least getting candidates they don't like out. the first was to undermine a candidate. none of the tea party people i ever saw expressed any regret about that at all. they were delighted. there was getting rid of immoderate and, in her case, probably a liberal republican. the goal of the wisconsin movement -- the immediate goal was to reverse the budget repair act and restore the right to organize labor unions as it had existed. the strategy for getting that goal became winning elections with the democratic party. i would say that was somewhat of a blunting of the original thrust because the candidates that they are supporting for governor were not the most pro- labor candidates. the advertising themes were not really about the real issues that everyone was voting on. you could say they didn't have to talk about, but it probably hurt them somewhat. the goal of occupy wall street they did not have any goals -- they did not have any demands. the goal was to win the war of ideas. for everybody participating, i think it was that. for the court, the goal was to model a new society by running these things with a general assembly. i think outside of occupy wall street that was not understood very much. people were tremendously proud that they have libraries in the encampments, that they had medical clinics. they thought it was just terrible when the police raided the library and threw away the books. this was a major thing. in boston, they had major campaigns around the cities that you are serving food and it is not meeting sanitary standards. they went out and bought an industrial sink that met standards and tried to bring it in. they had a major confrontation with the police over whether they can bring the sink in or not. as long as they stayed there, every time they had a demonstration they would be holding a card will models that cardboard models of the sink to show the ridiculousness of it to the police. it was all about modeling a new way of running society. that is why they were able to move into occupy standing so quickly. when sandy hit, they said this is what we do and did a pretty much the same way. the red cross eventually swamp them with the resources. they were the first on the scene, almost. ok, so, where does this -- i think i got into my next point. i asked point is where is his goal leading to? the tea party are more ideological than the republican party. the wisconsin movement was democratic victory a majority. for occupy wall street, a new form of society. let me go back to how you evaluate the potential for these were kind of shaking up the party system, making it more responsive to the issues i was talking about. the tea party has had some effect. if the tea party was able to take over the republican party even more thoroughly, i think we would see some kind of realignment, probably to their disadvantage. we would see things falling out differently and some other issues being addressed. where that is going is another question. it looks to me -- i interested in that last paper, but it looks like they're pulling back a bit. there is talk that we may be need not to knock off everyone in these primaries. i am not sure about that. where the wisconsin movement is is pretty much diluted and defeated. it has set an example and it will come back but i think the momentum is lost. maybe they will be able to defeat walker the next time through. or not. occupy wall street was dispersed. i can say was an organization because it was not, but it was dispersed as a phenomenon. you still have the activists. i think there are still some general assemblies in the cities where it was that continue to meet and might decide to do something else. on the other hand, i saw someone that said obama would not have won without them. that is hard to establish but you can make a case for. they really injected the idea of inequality as an issue. the one percent sp 1% versus the 99%. romney was not being attacked. he was projecting himself as a successful businessman rather as an exploitative venture capitalist. that really hurt him. a guy in indiana whose company had been bought out by bain capital and lost their jobs, they have done the same thing when romney ran against ted kennedy for the senate about 10 years earlier. it was not a secret that they were around. it is just the impact of occupy made it more relevant for them to come out and give it more bite. i think we are going to be stuck in the same kind of stalemate situation for some time yet. i think these things are percolating. it is not really biting enough to make a change for one final thing -- someone mentioned that earlier today -- earlier today, someone said that there might be a tea party developing on the left. i think there is a big difference. the tea party was government to do less. it doesn't really care about what happens to the government doing for people about health care or for poor people. for them to shut down the government to block action is not painful. actually, it is getting a little bit of what they want. the democrats are really -- the wisconsin unions -- protesters in wisconsin were members of unions. there were teachers and health-care workers and believed in what they were doing. they wanted to protect their own working conditions. more generally, democrats are people who want to provide social services. that is why they end up supporting moderate democrats because they have a better chance of winning. the prospects of a -- for the tea party, the prospects of obama being president -- they hate him, but they can keep fighting him. they are not losing a whole lot right now. the democrats are prospects of losing control the government is too horrible to think of. >> thank you very much. we'll move into the part of the talk where we are going to involve the audience. i thought i would start out with the question of my own for our esteemed panel. a couple of you mentioned that you don't envision a situation in which the tea party could split and become its own party. i talked to some tea party activists here in ohio that have mentioned the idea of possibly joining with another minor party, like the constitution party, for example. i wonder if any of you foresee that as a possibility or if you think it is more likely that the tea party will continue working on within the republican party. >> i think it is very likely they will continue working in the republican party. i think it has a lot more influence there. as we heard this morning, it really hates the democratic party. the choice is between a mitt romney or even a chris christie and then hillary clinton -- i don't think that is a real challenge to them. i think their goal is to take over the republican party. the head of freedom works, the name of his book is "hostile takeover." i think that is the goal and that is why they are willing to support candidates who are not necessarily the strongest in the general election because they think that is the strategy, sort of ridding the party of the rhinos that they don't approve of. i really don't see that. i think you may get a few rogue individuals doing that, but i think they have been fairly successful. i think -- i would be very surprised. we did ask a question about how you see the tea party and one of the choices was as a third-party. the only group that really bought into that were the ron paul supporters. of course, ron paul has run as a libertarian. maybe a tad, but very unlikely. >> i think that they would obviously stay in the republican party. it is a suicidal strategy to break apart. they would a cop was nothing more than splitting the republican vote and electing democrats. i'm going to quote david campbell in one of the earlier papers today. he talked about a deepening reserve of negativity and it captures what a lot of findings were on this panel. tea party activists are animated by their dislike of the democratic party. at the end of the day there is a motivation to see democrats lose. the most viable strategy out there would be continued to do what they are doing. after all, we are talking about the tea party right now. they had a major seat at the table during the whole government shutdown. it was all about satisfying the tea party. what they're doing right now by getting involved in the primaries has arguably been a pretty effective strategy. they may not be getting everything that they want, but, you know, i would imagine that there are enough smart people there who would understand that staying the course makes a whole lot more sense than trying to jump off and form a third-party. >> i agree. at the same time david was making his point this morning, it was also said that it is not that we also love our parties or we our candidates, but hate for the other side can be a powerful, unifying force. if you look at mitt romney, the person who was the author of romney care in massachusetts and was a moderate and had been referred to a four years as a rino, 93 plus percent of tea party supporters turned out to vote for him. there is your answer. >> one thing. i agree they do not want to start another party at all. they made a big deal that they were against the republicans and democrats both as far as party establishment. we don't like george w. bush at all. that's what they were saying. i think they know their strength is that they are willing to lose, to see the republicans lose. i think this is true. there will to put a tea party candidate in a moderate district even if it is harder to win for that candidate. that is where their unlike the democratic left. it is much more concerned with winning the general election. >> thank you. there's a gentleman with a bowtie. we will start with him for our questions. >> for rapoport, i am curious if you have any data about the tea party and turnout. we just had data drop on us but overall we know that turnout was down in 2012. was or any evidence that the tea party supporters stayed home and i could've hurt romney and republicans? for francia and morris, to what extent is the drive behind the tea party movement race? >> am i on? one of the things that we just mentioned the paper is there was an enthusiasm gap that we heard about in 2010. it turns it -- out that if you run the data among non-tea party republicans show exactly, to the decimal point, almost, the same level of enthusiasm as democrats. the entire enthusiasm gap was tea party republicans. that is 2010. what we do find and are able to look at is -- over time, we have data. this is not a mass sampling. the impact of tea party activity controlling for 2010 activity, 2008 activity, is quite strong. what we find is that the tea party people -- i see them -- in one sense, this is the right wing of the republican party but i think it is a super-energized right wing of the republican party. i think it is more active than what was there before. i see the tea party based on our data as tea party identification among the activists leads to higher levels of activity. among the mass groups, we can look at it in 2010 we find the same thing. that is a little different. i don't think you have this, i will take my marbles and go home. i think it is a group that is committed and i think it is not a diminishing turnout. i don't think the decline in white turnout was tea party people. i don't have real evidence on the mass sampling. allen may have looked at this more. >> to david's question, we put up the numbers for government assistance to blacks but that could arguably be about government assistance. the table before shows that tea party members were the most hostile towards the government giving away anything. i think we have to be careful there in attributing that to race. it could be, but in light of the other number of we have to be somewhat careful. some people say it is a good -- >> there was one thing i do want to say to be a little more cautious here. we looked at the thermometer question on the feeling from honor towards blacks. the numbers were 64 tea party republicans, 61 for establishment republicans, 64. dependence, six d 84 moderate democrats, 72 for liberal democrats. not huge differences. social desirability effects may be in play, here. people do not want to say they are cool towards a minority group, perhaps. i did not look at all the racial resentment questions for this particular paper. there was only so much we could percent, after all. on the feeling thermometer we did not really see it. with hispanics, similar numbers. 61 versus 60 versus 59, 65, 71. sort of on that same range. from the numbers we ran i cannot really give you a clear answer to that. >> ok, thank you. let's take another question from the audience. >> hello. following up, it seems like we have kind of established that hating obama, hating democratic principles really drives the tea party. i am wondering, now that it is possible or plausible because of their actions or their leaders' actions that they might lose the house in 2014. it is tough, but possible. it would keep the senate but everything they hate would be remanded by the american people. i wonder, would they have a true sense of expanding if everything they hate just got reaffirmed? wouldn't this small movement fall to pieces like a lot of them do, reform in another way, but in this together fashion, it seems the hate of obama and the eta democrats now really keeps them together. wouldn't a re-mandate really be a true ending blow? >> all future events we are going to guess that. if we look at this week, the results in virginia have members of the tea party doubling down. if only the mainstreamers had backed this up, we would have won this. there is a strong sense in that the end of days may be more religious. that might be a parallel in which the way defeat is seen. there are -- if you ask a tough question, they have an answer. they have a libertarian tradition. they have a moral conservative tradition that will provide answers for why it is that you are defeated. so the next up is to defeat those forces that defeated you last time to stay in the game. in the american system we have two parties for some fairly strong structural reasons. in a winner take all election, if you take your toys and go home, home is a lonely place. the desire to stay within the party versus the desire to not lose your principles but to continue working harder. i think it will be pretty intense. >> i think, to answer your question from a media perspective, the leaders, the media personalities that you can really look at and really say, these are the leaders of the tea party movement, they are not -- they don't rally the troops from a strategic perspective. how they might be able to influence the election to get more republicans in. they think they are right and they are claiming moral authority to rally the troops. i don't think that is going to change under any circumstance of more of a mandate to the democrats or anything like that. those leaders are in place. they have their following. i don't think that will change anytime soon. as long as there is a democrat in the white house. >> ok. we have a question on the side. >> from ohio state university. i am interested in having you comment on the internal dynamics within the tea party movement. we know there are a whole bunch of moments out there under different names with different leadership. some of them are not agreeing with each other. we also know that the movement started out in 2009 as a moment that had two targets -- one was government, the other was wall street. that wall street target has a long history in american politics. that has kind of evidence where the anti-government part has expanded over time. you see groups like freedom works that is more like a beltway group. the leadership is their driving the movement in some ways. it is applying a lot of the financing for it. please comment on that. how do we sort all that out? >> i think part of what we spoke to at the constitutional liberty argument hits on that, where they found the least common denominator thread so you can have multiple groups that are taking somewhat diverging views on similar issues but still tie it back to some broader peace where they say i may not us earlier grew the policy statement being made, but i sympathize with the logic behind it. it ties back in some way, shape, or form to liberty. they have been able to successfully use that. >> as we talked about the occupied movement, i think a serious case can be made that the occupied movement not only was not funded but it prided itself on an utter lack of central ideology. so, if you have -- there are no occupied movement panels at this conference. for a good reason. once it got cold, it is time go home. we had an occupied movement, and no one seemed to occupy their tents. every time we were there no one seemed to be there. the reason for that is that you do not have a central unifying idea. it is difficult to rally people around that. if you do have ideas that can reinforce one another, to quote from ron paul, if you cannot defend life, and that you cannot defend liberty. it strongly speaks to the fact that they are finding ways that an outsider might not think can reconcile different views. on the one hand, libertarianism might tend towards anarchy board traditionalism might trend toward autarchy. they have a unified you ideology that i don't think we passing on anytime soon. >> there was an ongoing discussion in occupying tenants after a while, we have been doing this a while and we are losing news value. it is time to move onto something else. in boston, the proposal was to stay there until the first day of spring. primarily because a lot of homeless people had joined them and they did not want to leave them out in the cold. he felt a responsibility. they were dispersed not because it was cold but the police rated them and destroy the encampment. i will make a production about the wall street bankers i think is the health-care debate goes on, now we are starting to hear about some elements of business who are making money off of it. i think that the tea party is going to latch onto that. that is generally what they said about wall street. they went for dodd-frank, but they argued that a lot of government programs that are supposed to help ordinary people are really pumping our tax dollars and giving them to big business and wall street. >> let me give one thing a response. this is something i've been concerned about based on our data. the one thing was in the cces, we found that you have an awful lot of people -- to say you are a subscriber does not mean you are anything but on the mailing list. we had a very large sample, over 12,000. i was able to sort out people on the list who had done nothing for freedom works but had worked for other groups. i found very, very little difference there. that shouldn't be totally convincing. i would love to have multiple groups. i think that is a very good question. i was not able to find a lot of difference and that gave me more confidence in it. on the other thing, i would say that the occupy wall street movement kind of misunderstood the fact -- they were inspired by arab spring -- they did not understand that it was arab spring and not arab winter. that probably would not have been as successful, either. >> what are most about the occupied movement is saying, what are they protesting? we were not getting a clear answer. it seemed like the entire time -- we have a question in the middle. >> one comment and one question. the comment is about the opinions of big business. there is a feeling thermometer but -- to monitor question about big business in the nes. tea party supporters like big is this better than other republicans, way better than democrats. >> we also find -- >> they are pro-big business, not anti-big business. they might be against government subsidy to business. >> according to the way we coded tea party supporters, there were 63 for the tea party and, -- >> my question is about looking forward on based on what you have seen looking at the tea party supporters. how are they going to respond to a chris christie candidacy for president? in the republican primaries and looking -- will they rally behind a chris christie candidacy for president if he becomes the republican nominee the way they rally behind mitt romney? >> christie is better from their point of view, isn't he? he is more conservative. romney was governor of massachusetts at times. he was for gay rights, he was pro-abortion. christie does not have to do as much transformation. this time they will try to put up their own candidate, but if they lose, i think they will be just as enthusiastic. >> [indiscernible] >> one thing is that among people who in december 2011 rated -- not only did they not support romney, but they rated him below average --2/3 were active in this campaign. i think it is that last slide, kind of. >> labor unions. on the thermometer, tea party is really not like labor unions. chris christie has made a reputation for being very anti-labor. that's an indication he does not love the guy. his numbers have gotten worse with the party republican since he embraced obama after the hurricane. if he ends up being the nominee, i am not sure that it's going to happen, but if he were, there are these things there that they can convince themselves they like. in the general election, they will come around. >> i want to add to that. the one thing for chrstie that romney did not possess is that there is one thing they can point to and say, we really like this. that was not there with romney. i think the chris christie video where he was going off on teachers and teachers unions is something. they played at me very happy. with romney, there was nothing they could point to. >> the democrats have to nominate somebody. hillary clinton will generate a similar amount of dislike. we will have the same thing. whether it is hillary or -- wait, for now. >> she had a higher rating, but her ratings dropped significantly. we have a question here. >> university of dayton. this may be too pragmatic. i'm interested in the resources behind the candidates. the impact of the mccain fund and limitations on political parties. unlimited donations to political parties. the rise of the whole super pac movement. in terms of the tea party goals to win primaries or influence moderates, it seems to me that the availability of resources is a huge fact or. i am a moderate, i look at the possibility of not just an opponent, now i am looking at some kind of super pac coming in and recruiting an opponent. in terms of their staying power, and their ability to move forward, resources are a factor. i do not know if anybody has studied that. -- ifould add onto that you are a pragmatic republican, you better watch what you say during the campaign. even byd be calling accident on a challenge that you do not expect. you may look around and see that there is really no credible candidate. with the threat of a super pac, suddenly someone can come in from nowhere. >> anyone else? no? i think john will want to wrap up. do we have time for one more question? ok, one more question from the audience. how about steve brooks? this better be good. ago, john waseeks here promoting his research that he spent doing on the younger generation. in response to a question about politics, he said that he thinks the liberal conservative dimension is going to diminish and be replaced by a communitarian division. especially for the three circle guys. do you think that the tea party has met on that kind of movement? they will be a libertarian movement and the traditionalists left behind? i think that where that becomes problematic is that there is no one thing called liberty. there is no one thing called morality. the two concepts work with one another. we redefine what it means to be a democrat or a republican. but the idea that we understand what liberty is, what would bertie be to get a good meal at night? would it be to carry a gun? we redefine those things. students, they sort themselves by party pretty well. anyone else? ok. >> we need to do two things. one is, thank stephanie and our panel. [applause] >> a look this morning at some of the news from the new york times. the tangled role in the gop war over the tea party. an article featuring warmer ohio congressman on your screen. he is the president and ceo of the republican main street partnership. they are an advocacy group that he runs. he served 18 years in the house. the new york times he -- says he is emerging as a top general in the war against the tea party. his opponents accuse him of profiting from it the -- his presence in washington. and they claim he violated a statute that prevents lawmakers from lobbying for at least a year after leaving office. hear more about the republican party and the issues important to conservatives this weekend on newsmakers. we will talk with michael needham from heritage action. here is some of our interview. >> 72% of the american people do not like the republican party. i'm one of those right now. the republican party needs to find its soul. and it's find who it stands for. when americans look at washington d.c., they see a game. wealthy people have the tax code written in their favor. are a small business person or an entrepreneur or someone who wants to work and go home, you do not have a voice in washington. >> are you a part of the game? you score them. games and scores go together. you're part of the process of scoring members. republicans think you are stirring things up within the party. >> we ask tough questions of members of congress. we inform their constituents of the answers to those questions. we have opinions on pieces of legislation's. we thought that it was a bad deal when paul ryan and maddie -- patty murray cut a deal. we put out an argument for that. needham onh michael newsmakers, tomorrow at 10:00 and 6:00. former first lady barbara bush was discharged from hospital in houston this morning. she was treated for six days for pneumonia. she says she cannot think the hospital and nurses for making sure that she got the best treatment. married the longest presidential first couple. she will be home in time to celebrate their 69th anniversary on monday. years ago, we started looking at the census department data. something very strange pops out. when you look at where the profits are, if you look at a map, you see germany, france, ireland, italy. if you look at the data on where the profits are, italy, france, germany, ireland. hugely is proportionate amount of profit in ireland. that was one indication that something is going on. >> more with the chief economist for tax analysts. sunday night at 8:00. next, look at journalism and whistleblowers. new technology and political scandals. with abc news president ben sherwood and the chair of hearst television. a talk for one hour and a half. [applause] >> thank you, david. thank you, susan. this has been a delightful day. this is the second time i have been on campus. i am always impressed when i am here. white harbor has been my friend for 25 years or so, when wade says that i need you, i will go wherever that goes. he has been my most trusted business advisor, i have a high appreciation for him, this has been on his mind for years. we have talked about this. i smoke a cigar, wade bears with that and tells me about his vision. i am delighted to be here. i also want to shout out to hank price. hank is my colleagues who runs w x i i over in winston-salem, station we are very proud of. hank is one of our great leaders and i am glad that he is here. also another person i am glad who is here who wore the hearst jersey for a number of years, he got honest and came to a university for the closing chapter of his great career, he ran the station in pittsburgh for us, an outstanding executive who made the company a lot of money. so, good to see jim again. i have been blessed to work for hearst for many years. i was the lucky guy who had the opportunity to run the radio station. i found the company to be a great fit for what i was all about. our company was founded in 1887. we have been at this for a long time and have been at the forefront of media as it has evolved over the last 426 years or so. we are very active in the digital media space and we will have an opportunity to talk about this tonight. mr. hearst was one of the true visionaries. early in his life as a newspaper publisher he declared it was good business to be a good citizen. it has been a cornerstone of our value and has resonated at all the stations and markets where we operate television stations. one quote that is on my mind as i meet students is teddy roosevelt, who said far and away one of life's great religious is to work hard and have the chance to work hard on something that matters. journalism is important to this community and to all the communities around the country, aspiring to work in a business that matters, do business that matters in these communities. one of my abiding believes is that people care about what happens in their local towns. they want to hear about what occurs. men can talk well about national and international media, and we will have an opportunity to talk about local media, tonight. another thing to focus on is how culture is so important in any organization, along with these notions of core purpose and core values along the built to last theme, the notion of transparency, honesty, and integrity in reporting. values that transcend the strategic and tactical changes that occur in media on a regular basis. those are lasting values. there was a great piece in "the new york times" a couple of weeks ago, october 26, that talked about values that do not go out of style. one of the things we are focused on as a company is ethical decision-making in the digital world. then and i will chat about at a little bit. i think it is terribly important. this has been a time of disruption. review this time of disruption as one of opportunity. the hearst name, randolph hearst was always a gentleman who believed in innovation. we have tried to be gentleman in the things we have done and things we have associated ourselves with, which often means taking risks. risks are a good part of what we do. yet acting responsibly in the journalism that we do is equally important. i love the quote from the other than bob dylan, a hero is someone who understands the responsibility that goes with freedom, which should resonate with all the journalists. in recent times in just the past year we have had experience with the boston bombing. our washington bureau cover the navy shipyard shootings. there are all manner of these very significant stories that have been poorly handled by certain people in the media. i am not here to criticize them, but i hope we take away learning from the people who did things the right way, the wrong way, and see the opportunity for us to be better as journalists. this is a great calling. i have law of the people who are engaged in the pursuit of their journalism careers here. you should be very excited about what the future holds. as an old guy now, i wish i had the opportunity to enter the media business at age 20 or 25, this is a time of really great opportunity. there are important careers available to people. i always think about how important the role of the storyteller and the editor is. i think about mr. hearst's father, part of the gold rush when he came across the country. there were radio stations, television stations, a few news -- no radio stations, no television stations, and only a few newspapers as we knew them. i imagine that people sat around and spoke to each other around the campfires. few of us are very good storytellers. few of us are very good elders of jokes. to me they were the early journalist. journal -- journalists. i would say the same thing about the armies of napoleon, marching across the world. high priority on storytelling, it is essentially important to people in the societies that we serve. it is now an opportunity for us to pursue individual pieces of information, different rights of media, audio, and the like, but the notion of a media company that is an aggregator and creates and curates content is still very important. one of the bedrock principles of the corporation as a media company, if you do not put something on the screen or on the page that resonates with viewers and readers, you are not really in the media business. it harkens to the line that sam nunn used to use from time to time, that everyone who says they want to be a leader should look over their shoulder and be sure that there is someone behind the leader as he marches down the road. absent any one behind you, he said you are just out for a walk and not really eating at all. we will have an opportunity tonight to chat about some things i hope are on your mind. i am particularly delighted to be here with ben, who is so good to come join us here. no one is busier than the president of news organizations. ben is a young guy, the dean of music executives, telling you what a pair of us and brilliant producer he is. he has made abc news a better place. he and i have become good friends and i am delighted he is with us tonight. you will have the opportunity to hear his point of view about abc news, an important institution that matters in this country and in this world. the same way that hank does important work in winston-salem, the same as our stations in sacramento, albuquerque, it matters to the local community. people care about their towns, the issues that occur there. it is important for us to be the future in those communities. it makes us who we are in the markets with the important businesses. this is an exciting time. there is a great future for journalism. we will be serving people on a lot of platforms. it is an exciting time and i believe the best is yet to come for this industry, we will have a chance to talk about that tonight. with that, i will be seated. [applause] >> our second speaker this evening as the president of abc news, responsible of all aspects of the broadcasting, including world news tonight. in addition, he oversees their radio, online, and satellite services. he began his career when he was still a student. during a year off from college she worked for the news and observer in raleigh. the los angeles times paris bureau. and the united nations border relief operation in thailand. i have to imagine that it was especially hard for him to leave raleigh for that assignment in paris. [laughter] he launched his journalistic career in earnest when he joined abc news in 1989. after a brief stint at the network, at that network with a peacock, he returned to abc news in 2004 as the executive producer of good morning america and it was not long thereafter that he was named president of the entire news division. under his leadership, abc news has been anything but complacent. last year they watched content art ship with yahoo!, reaching nearly 100 million people, serving up to half of a billion videos each month. this year they launched fusion, launched just recently, stealing one of my favorite lawyers to run it, assuring them good legal advice. a network to serve and empower u.s. hispanics, the youngest and fastest growing demographic in america. as if that were not enough, he is also the author of two critically acclaimed best-selling novels, the death and life of charlie st. cloud, released by universal pictures in 2010, and "the man who ate the 747," also being developed as a broadway musical in a major motion picture. his latest book is an exploration of those who beat life-threatening diseases, who triumphed after economic hardship, and who surrenders. i see obvious parallels there with sites topic on the future of television. please join me in welcoming ben sherwood. [applause] >> thank you, professor. good evening, ladies and gentlemen. it is a great privilege to be here tonight. deans, professor, we appreciate your warm welcome. wade, sandy, congratulations on this great night. when he calls, we jump on planes. we will fly anywhere. especially to this wonderful institution in chapel hill. i have to say it is extremely humbling to be excited to share a stage, tonight, with my friend. bbn work together a few years ago. david has been a friend and a mentor. usually when we sit next to each other he is in the even more contentious board meetings of the network. sometimes we sit next to each other at a new york rockers basketball game. it is a privilege and honor to be here. thank you, i look forward to our discussion. when i look out at this audience tonight, i see a bunch of friends. as the professor mentioned, 29 years ago ipaq up my car in massachusetts and drove a beat-up round saab down into north carolina to start was -- what was a formative experience in my journalism career. i began working for "the news at the observer." a beacon of great journalism. what i want to say in introduction is very simple. i echo -- if i could do it all over again, i wish that i could start right here and right now. i wish i could begin a career right now in this highly disruptive, highly volatile, and highly certain media environment. i think the future of television news in the digital area at -- digital era is very bright. now, there is some history to share with you very quickly about the disruption that has taken place over the last thousand years. i think it will give us a sense of what is to come. if you think back to the beginning of communication and storytelling, news is fundamentally a social activity. fundamentally news is coming back saying -- do not hunt over there, hunt over there. it took thousands of years to go from the first stories that were told around the fire to the advent of being able to write things down on stone, paper, and then being able to print them on a press. the time between was around 377 years. and then another 71 years until the advent of television. then another four years before the advent of the internet. some futurists predict that the rate of change in the next 100 years, it could equal something like 20,000 years of change in human history. 20,000 years of change. we know that these disruptions are coming fast and furious. at abc news, we welcome the disruptions. we are excited about that change. as the professor mentioned, we have begun to make the changes in that world. a world of digital transformation, demographic transformation as this country becomes a majority minority nation. so, the future is highly disrupted. one of the things i look forward to talking about tonight. this is an exciting moment to be here at chapel hill. my job, in 1984, was to write a letter box. after earning my stripes writing the weather box, my job would you to wrap up for the political reporters and cover some event in some far-flung place where the reporters did not want to go and they would send an intern. i relished those chances. one of those jobs was to run around north carolina and my little car and see what the candidates were spending on political advertising. i would like to think that i am one of the few people in this room and this state -- in this room, in this state, who has regularly visited every station. i called my parents and told them i was leaving college for a year, that i would stay in north carolina to see the race to the conclusion. the epic battle between senator helms and governor jesse thorn. at the time, the most expensive in national history, i went on to write an honors thesis discussing the changing role of race in north carolina politics, going back to 1950, front senator lamb ran against senator smith in the runoff. all fodder for conversation later. i will go join david for the discussion. thank you very much. [applause] >> you get the first question. >> excellent. >> today in the new york times, the former executive editor of the times described this as a golden age for journalism, particularly a golden age for international reporting. my question for you, david, looking at where we are today and where we are going ahead, is this a golden age for television news, bronze age? silver age? >> i lean more towards it being a golden age. there is a world of opportunity out there for us to tell stories on all kinds of different platforms. i believe that people gravitate towards the best available screen. but there are so many screens that they can take advantage of, it is an opportunity for people to engage with journalism, engage the storytelling that is very profound. accompany this year generating 5 billion pages on our websites, 250 million posts on news and weather information. 10 billion ad impressions. 60% of those impressions are on smartphones and tablets. the migration to mobile is extraordinary. i view that as a great opportunity. we strive to have the leading source of local information on traditional television. 80% of our newscasts are rated number one or number two. i think there is a world of opportunity out there. it is not contract in or as involved in the newspaper business. our business is expanding because of the proliferation of these devices. the world is interested in video and that is what we do for living. >> i think some people would say that the number of people watching television -- there are these studies that come out periodically, young people in particular are asked -- did you watch television news yesterday? six years, seven years ago, 49% of young people said they watched television news yesterday. most recent statistics show that that is around 33%. there is this sense that there is a declining audience among young people. how do you feel about the changing demographics? >> people are migrating to different places. if we are going to do right be our -- right by our viewers, we will have to be in these different places. it is very important that we have established brands. i spoke briefly about the value of the editor, the value of storytelling. i am the boss of the best television station in the market. though you would expect me to say that. we saw the bombings occur around the marathon, people's viewership increased. younger people migrated to a known, trusted source for information. our audiences were typically greater than that of our largest competitors combined. so, sometimes it takes a big event. oklahoma city, when there are tornadoes in that market, as the demographic patterns change the people do gravitate towards watching local news with local it is a challenge to remain relevant, you know. do i worry about the next four to five years? it is about maintaining that. we have to stay invested in business, recruiting the best and brightest from institutions like this. find a place for them, putting resources to this business in a proactive way, to remain relevant and create reasons for people to watch our stations and rearm publications. >> i think the actual title of this conversation tonight could be slightly modified. i think that we both share the belief that the word television news is one of crushed -- of

Transcripts For KNTV Early Today 20140307

good morning to you. i'm richard lui. we start with fast moving developments in ukraine. u.s. fighter jets now in the region after crimea's parliament votes to join russia. a move that did not sit well with the u.s. secretary of state john kerry is growing visibly irritated at the lack of progress and diplomatic talks and just hours ago, more countries including the baltic states condemning russia's actions. adding to regional tensions. nbc's jim maceda is in moscow watching the story for us. presidents obama and putin have that one hour long phone call, that happened thursday. some asking what's next now. >> hi, richard. that's right. president obama reached out this time to president putin at the end of that thursday day, a busy one it was, that saw the crimean peninsula voting to secede from the -- from ukraine. that was followed by obama's executive order to slap sanctions on all those who threatened ukraine's sovereignty, at least in theory. potentially, by the way, including putin himself. it was the second long call in six days but, again, there was still a huge gulf between the two leaders, just how to resolve the crisis with obama calling the pro russian crimean government illegitimate and putin returning the favor by claiming that the government in kiev is unconstitutional. now, this morning the kremlin issued a statement here at moscow saying that while the two sides were far apart, putin did stress that u.s./russian relations were too important to be damaged by differences over any one, albeit, a major issue. but diplomacy did continue in rome led by u.s. secretary of state john kerry. even he failed to bring russian sergey lavrov, the foreign minister, into the same room with his ukrainian counterpart. that said, lavrov has reportedly carried the proposal by the u.s. and eu back to moscow for putin's consideration. now, that plan, the u.s. calls for direct talks and new elections in may. the russians want a completely different deal, return to the february 21st accords, signed by viktor yanukovych, the outed ukrainian president. he would form a unity government and elections in december. moscow doesn't admit that russian forces are in crimea. folks are talking past each other. >> jim, so ends another week there of back and forth as we look at what happened there in ukraine and russia. appreciate it. jim maceda, nbc reporting there for us in moscow. now to the senate, blocking a change to military sexual assault cases. lawmakers coming up five votes short of removing commanders of their authority to prosecute rape cases. pentagon leaders who opposed the effort said it would undermine commanders. senator kirsten gillibrand sponsored that, the new york democrat spearheading the year long campaign. >> we know that the deck is stacked against victims of sexual assault in the military today, and today, sadly, we saw the same in the halls of congress. >> the 2013 fiscal year had about 5400 reports of sexual assault in the military. that is a 60% increase compared to the year before. and that as two top military officials face sexual assault allegations of their own. opening statements are expected today in the court-martial of brigadier general jeffrey sinclair. he pleaded guilty thursday to improper relationships with two female army officers. and committing adultery with a third. in addition, the married father of two pleaded not guilty to five other charges stemming from a female captain's allegations that he forced her to perform a sex act. also, the army suspending its top prosecutor for sexual assault cases. a woman claiming lieutenant colonel jay morris tried to grope and kiss her at a conference. that conference's topic, ironically, sexual assault. the army is investigating. more on the court ruling in favor of the practice known as upskirting. the massachusetts legislature has now made -- voted here to make it illegal. it comes a day after the state supreme court sided in favor of a man who had been secretly taking pictures up the skirts of women. justices said it was okay because the women were not fully nude. the new bill makes it illegal to take, quote, intimate photos of women or children in public. in south africa, emotional graphic testimony at the murder trial of blade runner oscar pistorius. this morning, pistorius' neighbor resumes testimony. the doctor says he saw pistorius weeping over his model girlfriend reeva steenkamp. he said pistorius was trying to help her breathe. pistorius shot her last year. he said he mistook her for an intruder. the freakish weather pattern called el nino could be returning to u.s. shores. here is anne thompson. >> reporter: this is why the words el nino strikes fear. houses collapse and the ground gives way in california. weakened by the intense storms of 1997 and '98, the last major el nino. southern california's rainfall totals more than doubled. farmers now praying for rain in some parts of the west, and took a big dip 16 years ago. the losses from that el nino cost u.s. agriculture as much as $1.7 billion according to a study by texas a&m. so just what is el nino? >> el nino is basically a warming of the sea surface temperatures in the central pacific. that warming of those above normal temperatures anywhere from half a degree to a degree, which doesn't sound like a lot, can actually change weather patterns not just in the united states, but all across the world. >> while el nino could send california ricocheting from drought to downpours, in the northern half of the country, it could mean miserably frigid snowy winter will not be repeated next year. >> el nino may help mitigate the brutally cold weather that we have had in the northeast, the midwest and the northern plains. however, you're not going to be able to say, definitely that this is going to get knocked out. why? because even though there is a forecast of an el nino, it doesn't mean it is going to happen. >> it could also mean fewer hurricanes in the atlantic because water temperatures would cool, depriving the storms of some energy. good news for the oil and gas industry in the gulf of mexico. >> nbc's anne thompson reporting for us. there is only a 50/50 chance of an el nino if we had to put odds on it. nbc's meteorologist bill karins joins us now. >> there are different grades of el nino, there are strong ones like in the mid-'90s or weaker ones. everyone thinks of california. >> that's what i remember. >> exactly. let's talk about what we dealt with so far this march. we're at a neutral weather pattern in the pacific right now. we're just getting drenched up in the pacific northwest. this is off to the wettest start ever in seattle for a rainfall first week of march. over 3 1/2 inches, portland over 2 inches. and we got the rain in the beginning of the month in l.a. and san francisco. good start to the wet weather for this month. don't have any huge storms on the way. you see on the far left-hand side of your screen, a few clouds over british columbia. doesn't look like any wet weather arrives until the tail end of saturday, especially in seattle and then it could have a lingering shower into sunday and monday. it is not as wet as the last couple of storms. today looks like a dry day everywhere. mild and breezy in los angeles today at 74. that's your national forecast. we'll see how the el nino develops. >> okay. thank you very much, bill karins. coffee cup leads to the capture of a suspected sexual predator. we'll tell you how big a refund your neighbors are probably getting this year from the irs next. transferred money from his before larry instantly bank of america savings account to his merrill edge retirement account. before he opened his first hot chocolate stand calling winter an "underserved season". and before he quit his friend's leaf-raking business for "not offering a 401k." larry knew the importance of preparing for retirement. that's why when the time came he counted on merrill edge to streamline his investing and help him plan for the road ahead. that's the power of streamlined connections. that's merrill edge and bank of america. ♪ [ female announcer ] unlike ordinary diapers pampers stay up to three times drier, so babies can sleep soundly all night. pampers. can you dance? ♪ bum ba bum no. can you make campbell's chicken noodle soup? yes! [ wisest kid ] every can has 32 feet of slurpable noodles. mom, you're awesome. ♪ bum ba bum ba bum [ gong ] [ wisest kid ] m'm! m'm! good! welcome back. police in washington state have suspected sex predator brian johnston in custody all because of a starbucks cup left at the crime scene. it had a stick we are where he bought it earlier in the day. so then police used surveillance footage from that location to identify him. johnston is accused of kidnapping two women and assaulting them behind a motel. the fda is saying yes to lsd. the last time it did that was in the 1960s, almost half a century ago. the purpose, to study how the psychedelic drug can reduce anxiety from life threatening illnesses. the trial's reports say patients see a sizable and sustained decrease in anxiety after taking lsd. chrysler has ordered 93 first generation dodge vipers to be destroyed. two of the nonstreet legal prototypes that were donated to schools have been involved in accidents recently. that cost parent company fiat millions of dollars. one community college in washington says they have the fourth viper ever made, and cannot believe they have to destroy it. the white house full of soul music last night. patti labelle, melissa etheridge, aretha franklin, the women of soul there, performing before the first couple, among other special guests, for a pbs special. boy, that must have been something. time for business and cnbc's sima moody. >> safe way strikes a deal. they own several supermarkets including albertsons, the fifth largest chain. safe way has 1300 stores. american's household wealth jumped more than $10 trillion last year due to the booming stock market and rising home values. household wealth measures real estate, stocks, bank accounts and other assets. the irs says the average tax refund this year is more than $3,000, survey shows most americans plan to use that cash to pay down debt, but other people are more likely to spend their refund on shopping are going out. back to you. thank you very much, sima. staples.com is doing better than the staples stores operating worldwide. the company is hoping to save about $500 million by closing 225 brick and mortar stores in the u.s. and canada by the end of next year. legend has it that buffalo wings were created 50 years ago this week at the anchor bar in buffalo, new york. the story goes that the bar's owner thought cutting up some large chicken wings would make handling them a little easier. then she deep fried them, covered them in hot sauce and added some blue cheese dressing on the side. the rest is history. food history. and now my favorite dish. just ahead, lebron and company hit a brick wall in san antonio. what the heck was the south carolina basketball coach saying that had to be blacked out? got that coming up next. save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.ould yep, everybody knows that. well, did you know the ancient pyramids were actually a mistake? uh-oh. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. other things, you don't. [ female announcer ] charmin ultra soft is so soft you can actually see the softness with our comfort cushions. plus you can use up to four times less. enjoy the go with charmin ultra soft. [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. [ m'm... ] great taste. [ tapping ] sounds good. campbell's healthy request. m'm! m'm! good.® this morning on "today," their children were buried in an avalanche in their own backyard. but somehow survived. one family's terrifying experience. the miracle in montana live this morning on "today." now to sports. college hoops. number 24 iowa at number 22 michigan state. michigan state down in the first half by two. in the second, they come on back. senior keith aptly ruling the game, double digit scoring and this assist. alley-oop, michigan state, 86-76. villanova ending a 32-year drought at winning the big east championship outright. none of the players even alive the last time this happened. they beat xavier 77-70. south carolina men's basketball coach will be suspended. frank martin on camera curses out aplayer during a time-out on tuesday. he is suspended for saturday's regular season finale. good thing we blacked that out, right? talk about passion. hawaii and uc santa barbara. santa barbara fan charging on to the court. where is the security, right? he yells at the coach, gets escorted out and could be expelled if he's the studena st. hawaii loses 63-61. lebron james struggles again. he decides to ditch his face mask. that helps a little bit there against san antonio. he takes a turnover for two. not enough, though. san antonio wins 111-87. shapes saying you know the jersey sleeves, they're so constricting, i can't move. no big, evidently. miami number two in the eastern conference. indiana clinched a playoff berth. san antonio is in second in the west. oklahoma city leads. clemson football, setting their only bcs bowl game win in program history in stone, right there? as tradition goes, they unveiled a tombstone in their graveyard that has the biggest wins at the orange bowl. they beat number seven ranked buckeyes. they should have, right. >> pitchers playing dressup. tim lincecum at 170 on the left, 6'8", cameron lowey, 250 on the right, they're swapping uniforms. and they're probably talking like this right now. just ahead, a weekend weather forecast worth waiting for. nicole kidman does her best princess grace. details when we return. ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour 1 on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour 3. [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] zyrtec®. love the air. [ female announcer ] this week only, save up to $10 on zyrtec® products. see sunday's newspaper. [ clears throat ] hi. what did you do to deserve that thin mints flavor coffee-mate? it's only one of the most delicious girl scout cookie flavors ever. i changed the printer ink. [ male announcer ] try coffee-mate girl scout cookie flavors. still running in the morning? yeah. getting your vegetables every day? when i can. [ bop ] [ male announcer ] could've had a v8. two full servings of vegetables for only 50 delicious calories. innovative cc cream from nice 'n easy. our advanced treatment helps keep highlights and lowlights shiny and luminous. cc cream, find it in every box of nice 'n easy. the most natural shade of you. in every box oi cthis year aloneore places offi hit new york...ist. and texas! see, hotwire checks the competition's rates every day... so they can guarantee their low hotel prices. ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e ♪ hotwire.com welcome back. as we head through the weekend, get ready for a warmup in southern california today. 74, windy in the morning, especially higher elevations. over the weekend, we're going to jump up into the 80s. 82 in l.a. and sunny. san diego, should be warm. phoenix should be nice. next frontal system will linger along the northwest coast, though. there will be a chance for on and off rain. not going to be too heavy. rainfall amounts less than two inches in the mountains. will linger with clouds into sunday. southern cal, arizona, nice weekend. >> windy, come on. 80 degrees there. >> a little taste, just a little. >> it has been seven years but the 300 sequel some of you wanted finally here. trying to cash in on the massive success of the original 300 rise of an empire. expected to hit theaters at number one this weekend. expected to haul in around $42 million while mr. peabody slides into second with an expected $37 million. queen hits the road this summer with american idol alum adam lambert as their freddie mercury fill-in. speaking of music icons, first footage from a jimi hendrix biopic hits the internet thursday. it looks at andre 3,000 in the lead role. always entertaining. remember isaiah washington, he's making a one episode comeback in gray's anatomy. he was fired from the show in 2007 after on set clashes and anti-gay remarks. >> i didn't know it was still on tv. >> a series that has a lot of legs, my friend. the new trailer for grace of monaco features nicole kidman doing her best impression of the hitchco hitchcock muse turned royalty. the princess of monaco. >> you think she can pull it off? >> i think she can. it is a story that everybody in america loves to talk about. >> she has the grace. everyone loves a -- >> and looks good, so far. we'll see how it turns out. i'm richard lui. this is "early today." we hope it is just your first stop of the day right here on nbc. [ male announcer ] v8 v-fusion plus energy. natural energy from tea packed with real juice from delicious fruits and veggies. it's what you need for that extra boost! oh and did we mention it's only 50 calories? need a lift? could've had a v8. in the juice aisle. everything life throws my way. except for frown lines. those i'm throwing back. [ female announcer ] olay total effects. nourishing vitamins, and 7 beautiful benefits in one. for younger-looking skin. olay. your best beautiful. leading the news in the new york times, abortion law pushes texas clinics to close doors. yesterday two clinics run by whole woman's health were shut down as a result of the new law, maki . officials sleent on mass release of detainees. immigration and customers enforcement officials are still refusing to reveal the names and criminal histories of 2200 detainees who are suddenly released in the u.s. over a year ago without explanation. stories we're watching for you on this friday. is this the founder of bitcoin? his name is dorian satosh satoshi nakamoto and they say he's the face behind this digital currency. the man himself telling the associated press, hang on a second, it's not me. he said he didn't hear of bitcoin until his son said a reporter contacted him three weeks ago. >> what do you think? >> since 2009, the currency's creator has been a mystery. they say they stand by their story. i guess he wants it to be remain anonymous as the currency kind of is. this is not anonymous here. remember the spat on capitol hill this week? the one between representative issa of california and cummings of maryland. issa called cummings, a democrat, to apologize, for cutting off his microphone during the irs hearing. cummings says he accepted issa's apology. that's a bit bipartisanship now. see if they can move ahead on that. using marijuana now legal in colorado. but a series of new psas remind users that drivie ining under t influence is not. the commercial's use of light hearted approach, light hearted humor much more of a carrot than the stick. the colorado department of transportation hopes the psas educate pot smokers without alienating them with an overly stern tone. now for a look ahead and a look back. newsweek returns to newsstands after being online only since 2012. the cover piece revealed the unconfirmed identity of bitcoin as we talked about. publishers are hoping the die heard readers will cough up $7.99 per issue. alexander graham bell patented the telephone. won't buy a telephone either, probably, bill karins. he finally got it to work. it would gain worldwide attention in philadelphia. don't forget to change your clocks for daylight saving time. i'm richard lui with bill karin. thank you for watching "early today." have a super weekend ahead. it was scary. fire, fire, then all of a sudden i see the top of the roof. it was terrible and the people jumped out the window. >> a 3-year-old boy thrown out of a second story window to escape flames in the east bay. good morning to you. i'm scott mcgrew. >> i'm peggy bunker. laura garcia-cannon has the morning off. fire broke out at a hayward apartment complex on seventh and c streets. >> christie smith is near the scene. christie, how is the boy? >> reporter: you know, amazingly he was thrown from a window but all things considered he is doing pretty good. if you look at the front door of this apartment you

Despite push from Landry, Constitutional Amendment to Weaken State Worker Protections Fails

Louisiana may require Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools

Louisiana could become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.

Louisiana may require Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools

Louisiana could become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.

Louisiana may soon require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments

Louisiana may soon require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments