Report, ecma regularly on politics and she is the host as a take away with amy walter. Like many of you, i read a lot of political commentary each week. Amy is always fair and she does not follow the pack, she is getting people into poles and other data relating to insight that others do not provide. The cofounder of exelon insight, one of the most innovated and interesting of the next generation of polling analytics intelligent firms, he was a pioneer in the potable Digital World having gotten in the business 17 years ago. A recent paper for the 2019 states of change project how Republican Party can c demograpc the change. If you dont read his interesting stories called the intersection, you should sign up for, like amy he provides unique insights. Shawn trendy is a visiting fellow at a. I. For real clear politics, sean is a lawyer by training and has an mba, just finished a masters and for tenant interfaces sticks and has his phd in Political Science. He likes school. [laughter] sean was a coauthor at one of the additions of the almanac of additions politics that Michael Barone introduced to the world in 1971. The book tells us about americas through interest to i the politics, believes in the media stinker sees the 535 people in congress. It is not surprising that reporters before interviewing members of congress becausete a portrait, the almanac provides a rich detailed respectful and also goodhearted. After michael speaks, each of the panelists will speak for eight minutes, then i will pose a few questions, but i a want to make for all your questions. I want to thank them for all the help for putting this event together. Just a few weeks ago they were all column on the end of the worlds most successful Political Parties speculating as somebody before them on the death of the conservative party ingl england. Stan greenberg found a new book entitled gop rap. Before and during the 216 election many obituaries for the gop weree published. What i call death literature is not onesided, you dont have to go very far back to find the same kinds of stories about the demise of the Democratic Party after george w. Bush election. Against what seems to be a growth industry in the death of genre on both sides of the atlantic comes the slim, substantial volume that looks at the long giga video of our two Political Parties. Having deep historical knowledge and perspective. He is actually set foot in all 435 congressional districts and covered politics from all angles of the poster, the strategist, journalist and author of deeply researched and thoughtful book to explain our politics in ourur country. Our panel today has grown like detailed understanding of historical and contemporary politics and i know we will have a spirited discussion. Michael, the foragers. Thank you very much for your kind words, i want to think each p the panels who have come forward, im very complemented that three of the smartest people of the next generation are two political observers. We are willing to come in and discuss my book before the hazard to say on. [laughter] i have been studying with the stuff for a long period of time, the First Edition of the almanac of american politics in which i was a founding coauthor came out in november 1971 and thatst starting to feel like a long a time ago, that was before the impeachment of richard nixon. That was a long time ago. I guess i could go back to my political memory of growing up in detroit, once americas boomtown and the election of 1954, we lived in ward 22 precinct 21 as a child to know the voting was at the detroit public school, this was a key race between the republican and congressman in the 17th district and martha for the democratic nominee won that seat and she campaigns and my mother her. To the trailer to meet and, that was the beginning of 40 years of democratic majorities in the house of representatives with key districts in the middle income district being a key thing. That was a long time ago. Ar, i have been doing this and was inspired in part by having to live through the demise of our Political Parties. In fascinates me, the Democratic Party was founded in 1832, to reelect Andrew Jackson and sustain his veto of the recharter of the second bank of the United States. That is the Oldest Political Party of the world the Republican Party was founded in 1854 to get rid of the kansas nebraska act and in slavery in the territories and that party wasfu successful within a decade or a dozen years of achieving those and theyve gone on. The root publican is the third oldest party in the conservative parties of their goals. And they founded at least by blakes in 1846. I guess i looked at the recent polling and they will have a 58 vote majority if they never have another generalal election. So these parties have to achieve their early goals within a dozen years are nonetheless operating, 187 and 165 years after the founding in a time when america has grown from the nation of 20 million to 320 million peop people, we dont have many institutions aside from churches that go back that far in america. So i wanted to make the point that they have lasted a longom time and to argue that is true for some fundamental reasons. There are structural factors and ourm work and political system that tend to favor the Electoral College for president ial elections, the singlemember district which is not in the constitution, its a statue. In congressional and legislative elections, i think theres something for fundamentally more at stake. Something fundamentally of the longevity and the persistence of the two parties. We have seen the parties pain ce their positions on a whole variety of issues. They have adapted to emerging issues to new constituencies, Innovative Technology shifts and opinions, world events, new leaders, take one example, the democrats started off at the freetrade party and the republicans were for the tariff and by the 1970s or 80s they switched positions on that and with donald trump president they may be in the process of shifting their position once again. The Democratic Party in the 19th century was a limited government party, the party that tempted to favor local options, a party that was happy to tolerate slavery and segregation in the south in the saloon in the north. The Republican Party was more of a federal government party. So the parties have changed and adapted but at the same time, this is a central argument in my book, there has been a persistent basic character personality dna of each of the parties that in my view has been unchanging for 165 years and which is a significant launch in their resilience. The Republican Party has been concentrated around consistency of people seeing of typical americans. There never a majority. They change over time but it continues from yankee protestants in the 19th 1 century to white married christians today, but the basic character on a court of constituency has continued. The Democratic Party has been a coalition of out groups, different groups of people regarded by themselves and others and is not typical americans but when united make up a majority, Andrew Jacksons party was a coalition on the southern rights and immigrants in the big cities of the north. A good combination if you keep them separate, the democrats took 103 to nominate a candidate in 1924 in the convention into votes out of like 4000 votes declined the ku klux klan. In the fight there. Todays Democratic Party and the most loyal members include religious black americans and unusually secular liberals. They are going to Work Together to impeach donald trump so it appears when it comes to beto orourkes argument of taxexempt in the dont perform samesex marriage is going to be disagreementl there. Between the two groups. I think these two enduring charactersrs help to explain the longevity. It has been important in a nation that has always been diverse. You will hear a lot of commentary this is in the last three years or 12 years weve become a diverse country. We have always become a diverse country. Thee british colonies were a Diverse Group of colonies. The founding father recognized that when they created a constitution that retained power in the state and provided for freedom of religion also said thered be a federal government establishment but you could continue to have them in the state of massachusetts and connecticut while virginia got rid of the establishment. And they recognize, they knew about the religious wars, and then you like unlike the european countries, the United States was religiously diverse country in the provided you a framework. And my proposition, the existence of these two parties, one was concentrating on court constituency the other our correlation of selected out groups have given a large majority of voters in a diverse country, diverse economically or religiously, regionally, ethically, racially and so forth. And expression in a choice that will be continual to them and that is accounted for the consistency of her twoparty system. It is something that is fundamental about the United States, not necessarily transferable to other countries and its something that the two Political Parties which like to excoriate each other and both of which are excoriated by many citizens, ive been doing radio calling and chose her been hearing about that and nonetheless have perform over time. The question is often asked, why havent we seen third parties emerge, we have the example of ross perot in 1992 with the repriced in 1996 trying to become a Third Party Using his celebrity as a business person to try and create a thirdparty moment and for a few months be entrancing to be competitive with george w. Bush in general election pulling, donald trump may have taken a lesson from that since he decided as a business celebrity in reality tv that maybe he wanted to be president he may be better off seeking a nomination from one of the two parties thing going from an independent as ross perot had done 20 years d before. What could a thirdparty emerge. It amounts to a test case of that. I suspect nobody in this room remembers the election of 1912,. [laughter] but i see judge williams is laughing but we had that in 1912, this is the year when the articulate america was talking about the appeal of progressive ideas, there was a Progressive Party and ended up with a candidate named theodore tf roosevelt who got the highest percentage of the popular vote of any president just eight years before since beginning of the Republican Democratic bribery. So they had a celebrity candidateth with Proven Abilityn the national and Foreign Affairs and highly competent media candidate. The Progressive Party ran candidates and a majority of congressional districts in the 1914 election. It look like a third party was emerging as the competitor. What happened, by 1916 the Progressive Party does not exist anymore. Inin 1918 it is basically gone except for thirdparty movements and scandinavian and german, wisconsin and minnesota. Theater roosevelt acted as a o republican into the wind the republican nomination in 1920 and if he had not died at age 60 well short of the lifespan of our current president ial candidates by the way. If he had not died at age 60 in january 1919 he mightve been the fort term roosevelt president rather than his fifth cousin which is considered inferior. In any case, that was a good test case for thirdparty and it did not work. I think also both parties have shown their resilience after devastatingin defeats. Those of us who grew up reading american political history that has been written on wellknown are very familiar with the republican devastating defeat in the Great Depression of 1932 when an appointment was 25 and Franklin Roosevelt democrat when smashing victories in 1932 1 in 1934 in 1936. To the point where there were fewer than 100 republicans left in the house of representatives and people were predicting the demise of the republicanth part. That story has been told vividly by new deal historians who were of roosevelt and terrific writers in his books were bestsellers. Its a familiar story. The republicans basically come back and they show resilience. By 1940 my contention, republicans were the one in 1940 if the election was decided and i thinkat the polling shows that the least silly likely outcome instead you had hitler and stalin allies seizing control of the landmass of eurasia when that election was decided and voters opted to stay with a Proven Ability and nerve of franklinin roosevelt. But the republicans were competitive with domestic issues of our time. The democrats devastating defeat is less well known. I think because most historians are liberals and they dont want to talk about the defeat of the democrats in 1920 after the Woodward Wilson administration. But it proved to be unpopular and he proved to have negative operatings after he had a stroke and was unavailable to anybody except for monthtomonth months. And he did not have his twitter feed either. He was you had americans involved in military action against the communists in russia in 1919, you had huge inflation and huge recession, a huge influence for epidemic which became today it would probably haveon resulted in about 3 milln deaths in the United States. This is a devastating time of uncertainty in the president s party got only 34 of the popular vote and four years later it was a 27 . The democrats held on in the south but not even all states in the 1920s. Yet the democrats did make some progress even though people were predicting they might not last as a party to try to unite a Coalition Party which is always difficult, they had assistance of rebounding from the Great Depression in 1932 but i think b the evidence is after the Great Depression the democrats will remain competitive and they will figure out how to multiply to in the north and varies democratic and the running mate on the south. In fact, they did come back. The Democratic Party, the Republican Party have both rebounded into an resilient from what seems to be devastating. Which they seem to recover. Today of course, we are facing what i call polarized partisan purity there about the same size. They are competitive and election, 30 years ago beginning in the 90s we were told the republicans had a lock on the presidency and they won five out of six times in the democrats had internal majority of the house of representatives for 40 years and then you get a couple baby boomers named bill clinton in yoking grades who come along and the locks are broken and democrats have one more president ial elections and one warehouse majorities in the democrats. But they have been close races much closer than the house and the republican domination of the presidency. So we have a lot of discord, negative feelings. I think however, looking past the controversy of the day the historyel tells us there will e be will continue to have the democratic and Republican Party around for a long time, sometimes it takes one or the other during some period of time to adjust to new issues and new personalities, its a political marketplace like the economic marketplace is not without its market failure and someone said has many more. Its when its continued to t wk overtime. I would just recall in conclusion, if you go back to the 1950s there was a committee of political scientist economics that said our party system is not really very rational. We have all the ripple republicans and conservative democrats wouldnt be more rational to have a liberal party and when clearly conservative party and one suspects these are liberal parties that they would win most of the time but they generally believe in a fact i got chapters in this book about the disappearance of the ripple republics in the disappearance of the conservatives democrats. Today the person been answered. In the political pundits and political scientist think it is terrible. So there is some ways you could not go pleasing academics but without you anyway there is other things in the book but ill leave to my colleagues for their commentary. Thanks for your attention. Thank you. [applause]ea that was a wonderful introduction to the book and as i said it will make a wonderful holiday present looking forward. Were gonna turn to the successor generation and will go in alphabetical order. I want to thank you for writing this book, it reminded me and brought me back to reading our country. You have brought over the years to life this vivid path work of democracy that has shaped the result of an election in the 19th and 20th century including regional diversity, religious ethnic racial diversity as well. But Ethnic Diversity being something that the definition which has changed over time and we had certainly elections decided in a country in europe and people were born in and now that looks different but the fundamental principle remains the same. Part of this i fear that we are losing a little bit of the electorate and it seems were headed to what seems like a political culture into perfectly sorted parties where there is very little complexity and texture and maybe a little bit within the Democratic Party missed the last texture within each <