Biographer talk about president ial politics. Go and to cspan. Org for the complete schedule. Next, the impact of the 2016 campaign. This roundtable with analysts was held at the Steamboat Institute freedom conference. Im going to introduce my wonderful candidates. They are very brave to participate in this conversation. This is a very divisive electionyear. Strong feelings about both candidates. So we have a diversity of opinions. The goal is not to change who to let your, it is understand the discussion that is going on right now. Ted of ahat, we have National Consulting company. He serves on the board of a ton of nonprofits. The third way Citizen Engagement board. And i hear he is an incredible rooftop garden or and has a knack for crawling things that dont normally grow in colorado. Next to him we have james toronto. An editor of the editorial board. Read his bestave of the web column. His entire living based on Critical Thinking and he has a taste in cigars and probably is singlehandedly responsible for and we have kelly. She is the executive Director Director of compass, colorado. And she has a pet wallaby. It is the cutest thing ever. I am a little bit obsessed. Thisthought we would kick off by laying out what we think about this election. I want to say thank you to jennifer and rick. A special thank you goes out to bob and claudia. Do, being thell resident liberal, i feel like a circus animal. Much, i am happy to be here. This is something i was looking forward to. So, when i look at the 2016 election, i think it is important to frame this in the context of what is happening in terms of the evolution of how we do politics and what is happening in terms of the evolution of our parties. There is such a level of disenfranchisement and trust. It is more than i have seen in the last 10 or 15 years. And that is why we ended up with donald trump on the republican side, and that is definitely why we had Bernie Sanders on the democratic side. And to my democratic friends, i say listen we have to Pay Attention to the far left. Because what happened to the Republican Party will happen to us if we dont figure out how to address it. Where thee a process width do electoral politics has overcome the way we do policy politics. I am the first person to say it is legal, i will do it in a race. That is what we have been doing in colorado for a number of years and it is why we have the resurgence of democrats that is here. Is one thing that we do here when it comes to policy, we do it together. It is easier to poison a well then dig one. We have too many people handing out poison and not enough people handing out shovels. So in this election. The bottom line for me, it is far too soon for Hillary Clinton to win. We should be watching the rise of gary johnson. Because that number now is north 15. I think this could end up being a competitive race due to the unfavorable at a levels of Hillary Clinton. That is the frame for me starting. I want to come back to the numbers that steve mentioned earlier. First off, thank you to the institute. I think we all attend a lot of these conferences and i see a lot of familiar faces in the room. We do often isgs that we will set it a room and surround ourselves who think like us and we all know it and we talk about the fact that it is the apocalypse but we havent really taken a lot of time to real, indepth, honest, tough conversations with our liberal counterparts. Is an evil genius. Largely has anyone in here read the blueprint. It is a great book about longterm political infrastructure and why it is so important. And that was largely created and tenant. D by so i think having this conversation this year, when we are all coming forward and disagree but in good faith to talk about what is an election isdly ugly something that we all have to face. We have never, in the course of what i remember in politics and i look like im 20 but im not. I have been working in politics it while. Clear never had a year both candidates are so hated by everyone. And frankly, the donald trump people will say that Hillary Clinton sucks and the hillary people will say that donald trump sucks. Both think that the other person bring the apocalypse and that is the argument. I have not yet heard a coherent. Nd consistent argument and based on voter disengagements, that tells me it is time for us to rethink how we do politics as a is, moving forward. Continue to do it this way, people will continue to be disengaged. Panel, we can before thinking and we can think about what a shining city on the hill for republicans and democrats could look like. James, do you want to take it . Sure, i thought i would be opponent view the here. Most people talk about how Hillary Clinton is going to win in a landslide. And so, i guess i assumed everyone but i agree with ken i reject the premise that the election has been decided. I think august is awfully early to declare a winner. But that said, i hate allege that Hillary Clinton is the soored based on poll numbers far. But to put that in perspective, if you go to a website to find probabilities based on bets that people are making in betting markets. People these things are not always right. Brexit was Something Like a 4 1 underdog and passed. The figure for trump is just about 20 . It sounds like not very much. This sounds like a very small chance. On the other hand, to put that into perspective, if i were to roll a pair of dice and guess what i was going to roll, your best guess would be seven because that is the most common combination. The odds of a seven are about 16. Which is a little under 17 . If i were rolling dice, there is no way you would say you are not going to roll a seven just give it up. Based on the probability, trump has a shot. The comparison does not exactly work because a pair of dice the probabilities are a matter of math. With politics, it is much more complicated. What you are measuring is uncertainty. Lets talk about some of the sources of uncertainty. One is time. We have 74 days until the election. A lot can happen. Ted raised the possibility of a terrorist attack. Other things like if there is another attack on police were things we may not anticipate. The known unknown is the debate. Trump is unpredictable. Sometimes assumptions about how donald trump has done in a debate not even pan out. I remember an analysis of the first republican debate. Everyone did well except trump. They did focus groups and the voters said trump won. It may be that pundits dont always anticipate what trump is going to do. Also, the polls, you mentioned gary johnson. A lot of these polls consistently show clinton in the lead, but quite a few of them show a large number of people undecided or voting for one of the thirdparty options, gary stein im sorry, gary johnson or jill stein. I guess, maybe they will start including the sky, whatever his , whatever hisuy name is. The conservative alternative. Thirdparty candidates tend not to do as well in the actual voting as they do in polls. John anderson in 1980 was polling 26 at one point and ended up getting less than 7 . The one exception to that is ross perot who got almost 19 . He was a businessman, political amateur, had a tendency to say crazy things. He was running on a platform of skepticism about trade deals and immigration. A lot like donald trump. [laughter] maybe what we have this year is 1992 if perot had gotten the nomination. Who knows how that would have worked out . That is my take on the election as things stand now. It is well known that these are the two most hated candidates in american history. 53 of americans had an unfavorable view of clinton. 61 unfavorable view of trump. I want to know from you guys, how did we get here . Do you think that American Voters get the politicians they deserve . Are they really that bad . First off, to talk about hillary. If you have spent your entire life having dumpster diving going on in your alley and people try to dig up dirt on you and its written about you try to tear down your character and make something you are not, and for a while, a media machine that was going after her as well, of course you numbers will be down. Of course she will be defensive. I cant sit up. On donald trump, i think he is more of an example of the distrust and disenfranchisement. People are pissed. If we dont Pay Attention to the fact that they are, we will continue seeing Something Like that happen. That is driving more of the negative numbers on hillary and than it may be on questions about her or her character. I dont think that her numbers were that great in 2008. She was also the inevitable the democratic nominee. It was a little different because you had a talented young politician come in and actually beat her. The anyone but hillary vote on the democratic side was a grumpy old socialist. No one thought Bernie Sanders was going to be serious. I would echo your point earlier about how this is going on in both parties. I attended both conventions. I was struck that ted cruz got booed for declining to endorse the party nominee. It was my understanding that the people booing were his supporters. Bernie sanders got booed for endorsing his parties nominee. Sanders people were more bitter about the outcome than the from trump people. I was in the hall for trumps acceptance speech and clintons speech. Clinton was interrupted by hecklers at least a dozen times. You could tell they were these random chants of hillary. They were to cover up. They were trying to drown out the hecklers. Republicans get hecklers also but they are outsiders. Their delegates to the convention they are not delegates to the convention or whatever. I recalled trump being interrupted twice. He handled it very well. The moment i remember most of what was a rather forgettable acceptance speech, he said instead of encouraging people to them, he just said, isnt cleveland wonderful . He is learning. This is an example of the level of disenfranchisement and distrust, that took off later on the democratic side than on the republican side. Had that started earlier, it would have been a much more competitive democratic primary because when you think about it, this is someone who passed one bill his entire career. Spent most of his career as a independent. Describes himself as a socialist but does not get what that means. Ignited a base of people that really outside of his rhetoric dont have any real connection with him. What that says to me is it is less about the policies hes talking about and more about the rhetoric and the passion he was giving and people were attracted to that. That is the same type of dynamic we saw happening with trump. Not just that he did not spend much time as a democrat, before this year he had never run for office under the banner of the party. This goes back to a theory i have, which is that i think the Democratic Party is twothree cycles behind the Republican Party. I remember the 2006 caucus, 2008 caucus. I remember i was setting up a caucus and i had gone through Historical Data trying to figure out what is the highest number of people who would show up for this caucus. We were blown out of the water. Absolutely wall to wall people who had glommed on to these new libertarian, ron paul revolution. They just came in and took over our party structure, kicked out s. Establishment rino took over this resurgence. It was before the tea party. We saw the same thing in the caucasus this year in colorado with Bernie Sanders people. Just absolutely came in, blew the doors off democrat caucuses. Beat hillary at the caucus and then took over at the precinct level, the county level, and we will see what happens at the state level. I think the actual core of the democratic machine in colorado is fundamentally different than what we saw a year ago. What im hearing is there is a lot of division amongst the parties and it is important that they unify. What does that path look like . Speaking as a democrat, i think we are having a better shot at getting some of the unification. I dont think folks are going to run left. My concern is will they go out to vote. Particularly with younger voters. Making sure we figure out some type of connection. I do want to take off on one point that kelly made. This will be controversial. I think a lot of what the Republican Party and you are facing today is the result of seeds that you sowed. With the Tea Party Movement and afp, thinking this could be a way to reform the party, that took off more than i think some of the people initially made the investment thought. If i were you, i would be somewhat upset because a lot of the people who funded this effort are now hands off. Trump is not our problem. We will not do anything about that. I would be ticked off because you are getting to pay to clean it up. I got a column earlier this week asking if the Republican Party can survive a trump lost. The basic assumption of a Political Party is to come after the competition is over and after the nominee has been chosen, to unify behind and nominee. Everybody remembers the Rosie Odonnell moment. Nothere anyone who will pledge to support the partys nominee . Asking for a show of hands on a negative question. Only trumps hand goes up. This made republicans nervous. So they went out i dont know who initiated this all the candidates including trump in september of last year were induced to sign a pledge to support the nominee. Fastforward to march when it is down to trump, kasich, and cruz. All three of them say they no longer feel bound to the pledge. Kasich said it was silly of us to sign in the first place. Cruz said, im not in the habit of supporting people who say outrageous things about my family. Trump says the rnc has been mean to me. India, donald trump in the end, donald trump gets the nomination and kasich and ted cruz have refused to endorse them as has jeb bush and mitt romney and other elder statesman of the party. It seems to me that if one of trump had been the nomination and then refused to endorse the nominee, he couldve run as an end i think that party could not , recover from that. They would have said, this guy was never really a republican and approves it. The real republicans can get back together and rebuild. At this point, donald trump was the choice. The people who are real republicans, jeb bush, ted cruz, john kasich did not support the nominee. Does this not set a precedent . So if ted cruz and john kasich have a bitter battle in 2020 assuming donald trump loses, why should either one of them feel compelled to support the nominee . Lets say it is some young firebrand who challenges kasich and comes in a close second and sees ambitions for himself in 2024 and thinks it better suited purposes if the Party Remains divided. How can the party possibly continue to function if they can cant unify behind the nominee . Two points. Number one, i want to respond to teds controversial comment. The rise of things like afp and much of that has been a direct response to stuff that you made in the state of colorado and have franchised all over the country. Very successfully, by the way. I tend to think that a lot of this is a function of, im going to get nerdy, a function of Campaign Finance reform and a function of the fact that through campaignfinance reform money has moved from the candidates themselves to pieces of infrastructure like afp. Voters can no longer be can no longer hold the candidate themselves responsible for speech. They can say i did not say that, afp said that. Progress now said that. Without that voter accountability, without somebody looking at a ballot and checking a box and saying that guy was a super jerk, that has removed a lot of the response ability and has made the rhetoric worse. I want to start there. Also, you want to talk about holding your nose and voting for somebody. I think john mccain is a great guy. Im grateful for his Fabulous Service to this country. I think mccainfeingold was one of the biggest affronts to the first amendment. We dont talk about it a lot because it is nerdy but it is changing our political landscape. When i think about donald trump and that many people in leadership are choosing not to endorse him, i look back to colorado politics because colorado tends to be the microcosm of things that happen nationally. Anybody can remember dan maes . Anybody . No. Really . Nomination of the Republican Party here in colorado. A lot of people decided once they got to know him that was not the path for them and so another guy comes, a former congressman, he joined the American Constitution Party and ran third party. He created almost a crisis in the state by creating a different balance with what was considered a major party or not. I would like to remind everybody in this room that after dan maes, we got cory gardner. We have the ability to pull together. Maybe not on trump. I think there is a path to trump. We should be continuing to have those conversations and be pushing back on those people. Our polling says that 20 of republicans, and where the chairman is, his number said about 5 of republicans havent yet decided how theyre going to vote and probably wont until october. That is a base that if donald trump wants to win, must turn out for him. There is a path for him. There is also if the incoming apocalypse does happen, theres also hope on the horizon. I want to challenge you. Dan maes in 2010. You said people learned about him and decided he was not really their cup of tea. You cannot really say that that is what happened with trump. Jeb bush and john kasich and ted cruz and some other minor ones, including the guy from South Carolina they all signed the , pledge after having gone through at least one, probably two debates with trump. Everyone knew what they were pledging to. They signed the pledge on the theory that trump wont win. We had kasich in for an editorial, he said i dont take donald trump seriously. They signed this pledge knowing that what they were pledging was to