He said, i will need it, i will not meet with you, i will meet with you, and will not meet with you. They did not have a meeting. Bush left the country. Then later he held a conference and denounced bush for not meeting with them. I bet he regretted the way he acted when bush was there earlier. He had personal and intellectual reasons for supporting isreal. He only got 19 of the vote in 2000. Of the jewish vote in 2000. He got a big bond to 24 in 2004 against john kerry. Big bump to 24 in 2004 against john kerry. Bush really benefited from his outreach. I will come to a conclusion, but i want to talk briefly about obama and romney. Obama has a reputation as a reader. There is one time he was asked about reading a book, but he said, i only have time to floss my teeth and watch tv sports. Homeland, theorado la sopranos. He mentioned snooki a couple of times. It was suggested that obamas approach it does not necessarily suggest that obama read the book, but he said obama might have taken the idea that was in the air to account. There has been this trend of people giving obama jewish books. Benjamin netanyahu started it by giving him a but. Peter gave him a book. I wonder what would happen if we had a jewish president. But that is what we do. We give jewish books to our president even if they are not jewish. Mitt romney is looking to get a better president s of the jewish vote then became did. He is aggressively than mccain did. I was on a phone call with governor romney. He was talking to 3000 jewish leaders on thursday night. He has read a number of books related to isreal. It is a really important book in terms of making isreal about the Strong Economy and changing the perception of isreal to business leaders. What i have derived from the steady of both the bushes and the president s read is that it is better off to have a president who reads than one who does not. If he does read, it is better if he reads the right stuff. Thank you. [applause] thank you. We will called mr. Sheinkopf to the podium. Them we will take questions for the speakers. After that presentation, i am not sure how i can keep you busy for 20 minutes. I have made some observations about jews generally. I can talk about what i feel about it. I am a harry truman democrat. In defend the world as best as you can in setting the world tone. You make sure that this extraordinary nation does its job within reason. It takes up the job upon itself out of the second war ii to make sure that in is and people were not killed for their religious belief for freedom. Bill clinton did not fill in that regard. He had 1 fail. He did not do anything about rwanda. He had a long history with jews while he was the governor in arkansas. I was working in the 1980s when he was governor. He brought me to see the then governor. We got along well. It is a relationship that went on for a long time for me. He was committed to jews and was interested in them. The first day i remember going to the white house and going upstairs to the residence library. The white house is a peculiar place. There is this one door that goes upstairs to the residence. The place is like a museum. It is gigantic, but it really is not. The upstairs is kinda like living in a did chance like this in english . It is like a warehouse that is controlled on all sides and you have the inventory as and it is constantly being watched to make sure that nothing has been changed. It can be sold and moved at any time. It is precious and contained. Even if you are doing business, every few minutes and a sure will come in and say, x is happening in a few minutes. Y is happening in a few minutes. The president will be here in 15 seconds. Anything the president does have an extraordinary impact are around us. During the election campaign, we went up on the air against the republicans in may. We broadcast the ads in june in 1995, seven months before the election. It was a big story. I was next to double in those years. Devil in those years. In january of 1995, he was down 35 points. The democrats have lost about the house and senate. Same thing, history tends to repeat itself. Anyway [inaudible] 1994 . Correct. Both chambers were lost. We had a good shot until the romney campaign. Without being said, and 1994, both houses were lost. The president was down 35 points. I heard you. I got the correction. I got the criticism. Were done. We are moving on. I know it is hard. The president goes to dallas. Makes a speech. He says, i know that many of you think that i raised your taxes too much. The point is that anything the president does or says has an instant impact on the world around him. It is a serious thing. Often forget the policies have direct impacts. He was first of all very much a southerner. Very much of the son of an alcoholic. Probably the illegitimate son of an alcoholic mother. Broody. Of all the people i work with, the three starters are listed in the introduction and all the more extraordinary readers and extraordinarily smart and well versed. Clinton was very much committed to making the world better because of his own early background, which is not a lot of money. If you went to the residence library, the number of books on jews would crowd out the shelves. It was an extraordinary thing. Look at the team from 1995 and 1996. You had that was the primary group of people. In the levels of and by his mentor and matters of jews were very much involved. The moral behavior in public life and the use of military as a moral tool. That is an argument i will have with anyone. Jews were very much involved in that. You have a guy who is doing all of these things and he is a southerner. The republican response is that they want to kill him. No one who is a southern politician should be a democrat. Never tried to kill him large gift for that. He was opposite they were trying to kill him largely for that. He was the opposite of newt gingrinch. He was a guy who talked about human rights. He supported the state of isreal. He kept the economy running. He was not evangelicals. He was the south from the south. Look at the jewish vote. This is kind of the same problem we have with blacks and hispanics. It keeps saying, if only we can talk to those people and spend enough money, somehow this will turn around. It does not turn around. This thing has been going on for eight years. A person has been ready excessively about this that we are the only person in the world it is an extraordinary thing. We look for other values in our president s are we keep looking. We substitute what the magazine described as the 10 nonjewish values and an important article and make them part of our religion, but that on the face of the political people we see and vote for it because we want to deal out some kind of comfort. There was an important book written called the final embrace. Grwe lose our bearings of the rest of society. That is what happens to us constantly as a group of people. We do not have much towards about it because of our numbers. We do not match electoral college. The intensity of activity we orally. Matter elect for jews are incessant complainers. The amount of money and time being put into jews and getting them to vote is a waste of time. Trust me. You are not important. New york, california, they are now voting republican. If a not he was on a ballot, republicans in california do not have any power. It is the craziest thing i ever saw. They live in illinois. They are now voting republican. All i you . Not lately. But the shift in demographics across the country. Ohio. Not likely. But the shift in in the demographics across our country, the numbers are smaller in relationship to the rest of the body at large. Voting for republican in massive numbers does not make sense. It is not likely to happen. It is the last democrat that the jews felt good about it, was bill clinton. Were not killing good about barack obama. We have we are not feeling gd about barack obama. We felt that bill clinton was able to he was religious in a country that prides itself on religious freedom. The was a story this week in an article i read about the decline of religiosity. Is probably the last president when the country had a pretty apparent culture. Since then in the 1990s, it has declined. The and the local groups and the decline of religious activities that gay people this culture that defines this country. That problem is serious. There is an industry the original article is one that Robert Putnam wrote. About the decline of culture in results of tv viewing. It tells you where this is going, so people are not participating at levels that they normally would. What does this mean for us . As jews and as people who believe in democracy . During the clinton years and during the bush 1 and 2 years, and public discussion was less personal and more significant. It was more jewish. There is no place in the tomorrow that people say gomorrah that people say it does not work that way. This is a new era that is balkanized where expectation is that nothing will get done. Jews in their important because god has been them that way, but they are not important at all. What they are important for is check writing. They have Christmas Parties of the white house. I was there, as were a bunch of other people. Who are all of these people . There were a couple of people who work for the president of the level that i worked out. There were other people. They were well dressed and well mannered. I asked, what do you do . I make ads for the president. I do this. I am a writer. We are all writers. What do you write . We write checks. [laughter] they looked like me. Polish, jewish, and german. Something romanian and jewish. I felt it. Then i learned that the deep of every dollar comes from a percentage of every dollar comes from jews. We dont vote. It is quite odd to me. What are we doing . We are now the funders. A couple weeks ago, i got some flags pursing publicly in the newspapers that a myriad city was the atm for american politics flax for publicly saying in the newspapers that new york city was the atm for american politics. I am not so sure about that. Sometimes i wake up and say it is good to be part of this, but other times i say no. The meeting in the afternoon and the banks in the morning. The Conference Call where we get all 14 Million People on one call. The costs are huge. Try to communicate in that way. That being said, we are writing checks, but were not participating at the same levels. This has taken on a greater significance. And the last brochures going into the bombing years and Going Forward. What we are doing effectively in the obama years and Going Forward. We are not participating. Check writing is an important part of Public Participation rather than going to vote. It is kind of nuts. We are presiding over people like me that have created a political system. I talked about this this week in the wall street journal. Where a participating in a system that has become entirely run by cash with new ideas and the ultimate issue will be, what does it mean for jews and the jewish state. This is neither good for as long term or shortterm. We should have more hate that isreal the state that will survive should have more faith that isreal the state will survive. We came from places in response, we became great voters. Irish another dominant political cultures in which we lived in. We had no other place to live. We needed to be close to synagogues and all the institutions that we need. What we did instead was we became more organized and thought that we could organize and have access to power. The people for running for president understand that. Organizing and access does not mean power. The definition of power now are the people who write the checks. The clinton years, it was getting into the voting booth and shaking the president s hand. In the bush years, it was being able to put the extraordinary and still viable scheme data southern protestants of northern catholics. They were the people who put people in office. Are not important in that way. Bush understood that in the first term. Contrary to what everyone have a written, it worked out that way. Bush understood it. Clinton understood it. Jimmy carter got away with it. Richard nixon invented it. Nixon and the Great Southern strategy was putting seven protestants in one way and northern catholics in another place. It gave rise to the evangelicals and drift. Is that still functioning . Yes, but not in the same way. It is dangerous to us as a Smaller Group of people if this political system and its parties do not function the way they should. The plea with public life. We survived they played with of a glut. We survived. We survived because as long as that notion matters and no one has figured out that it has become a con job, this and bollix of symbolics of the voting that is the basis relief of the american system if all were doing is writing checks, we do not have much to believe in. A breakdown of the parties is a breakdown of ideology. That is not good. When Political Parties but down, certain things happened. Break down, certain things happened. I would note that the man driving of the middle, it is not that far off in the future. Why . Both parties i work in venezuela in the 1990s. Two parties functioned as. On trend. Functioned. Both parties had definitive ideologies when they began. Both parties became erect. Both parties and relied on excess of cash. Both parties became corrupt. Both parties relied on excess of cash. No to these things very carefully. They are not good for the jews. Theyre not good for democracy. They are the opposite of what either president bush or president clinton had in mind. They are dangerous to democracy for the long term. I close with this thought. You do not have to like what george bush did. I thought that the villain in bush was wrong. You cannot fight a war on the cheap. You cannot put american art risk on the cheap because you want to save 2. Eisenhower did not do it. He was organized. That being said, these two president s, because of their ages that they took office, they had a point of view in a particular sense of where the nation was going at the end of the 20th century. What we see as an end to the with that democracy functions and the way we see it. The legacy of either has yet to be seen. During the clinton years, but we remember is a country that was not at war. Most people work regularly. The dinner at 3Mortgage Rates were down. Americans were Mortgage Rates were down. Americans were at peace. The future the state of isreal is at risk because of an increase in an international a semitism. How do combat these things . I think you vote and you rail against the nature of money and politics and to call for Campaign Finance reform that shuts this done as quickly as possible. We will do we will lose a democracy that many of us find important. Thank you. [applause] i think he did feel 20 minutes. Fill 20 minutes. We have some time for questions. There is a microphone in the audience. Both of you talked about president clinton. I would like to ask you you talked about the support of jews for various president s. What has been the support of jews by these president s . Nothing was mentioned about clinton. The active involvement of sending hislinton defeatin political advisers there. I was with him. That is absolutely not true. He did that send anyone. That is false. That is not true. I was in the room. Shawn came into the room. He said, we have to bring him right away. He understands and he speaks the language. He knows the culture. Paris is in trouble. He said, that is your problem. That is your contact. End of discussion. That is the story. What you are saying is not true. Another was out of the white house. Has nothing to do with anything. That had nothing to do with anything. Whatever. Was that a policy that was good for the jewish state . I think hindsight is a wonderful thing. I cannot have a rational discussion about it. I do not believe that there are palestinian people. You are asking the wrong person about this. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. For who . Lets give other people a chance. Me again. Bill clinton and George Darby Bush are not on the ballot. What should we do george bush are not on the ballot. What should be doing . Do you really want to answer that . One guy is terrible and the other is a moron on the campaign trail. What would like to do . I have a rope and i have a gun. Which would you prefer it . I beg to differ. If i ran this campaign, i would be fired and never allowed to work again. I am voting for harry truman. [laughter] we have time for one more question. Get the microphone to the gentleman in the middle. Over there. Hank, i see the photo of Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu and president clinton. Why did clinton like to Benjamin Netanyahu in regards to politics . Lie to Benjamin Netanyahu in regards to politics . I do not know the answer to the question. You need to go to his house. He lives in maryland. Live on the lawn until you stop the nonsense he has been doing for the last 20 or so years. One more . I think that is about it for questions. Appreciate it, and gentlemen. [applause] Live Campaign 2012 coverage at 7 00 p. M. Eastern with the indiana u. S. Senate debate. The Party Candidates also debate tonight, including a libertarian, gary johnson, a constitution candidate, and another with the justice party. That is at 9 00 p. M. Eastern, here on cspan. But two weeks until the election, we will have another rally with mitt romney and paul ryan later today. It will be live at 9 of 5 00 p. M. Eastern in colorado. 9 05 p. M. Eastern in colorado. Heres what some viewers had to say. I was excited watching the debate. What i saw in the obama was president ial. What i heard was leadership. I appreciated that he was straight forward about his own positions. What i heard from governor romney was a parent. That did not interest me. Was a parrot. That did not interest me. I bet governor romney won the debate hands down. I am so proud of president obama. When a romney is ask the question, he looks like he cannot take pressure. Mr. Romney looked a bit where she washy. Early in the debate, he made wishy washy. The earlier in the debate, he commented on having a backbone. Later he said he wants to deal with pakistan. I want to Say Something about the moderators in the debate. They seem onesided. I believe in governor romney. I hope that people open their eyes and take notes of what is going on in our country. Mitt romney can answer the questions. He did not walk around them. People say that he tiptoes around them