Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20121025

Controversial comments on rape and abortion debate yesterday, paul ryan offered his ideas for rewriting the social safety net and helping those who call into poverty. We want to hear from you about which issue is driving your vote leading into election day. Did you make up your mind months or years ago . Let us know by calling in on the republican line. On the democratic line on the independent line you can also catch up with us on all your social media sites on twitter, facebook, or email us at. A very good morning to you. I want to get right to some of those polls on the horserace leading up to election day. This from last night. Two National Polls show the president s race remains a dead heat. Mitt romney gaining ground in one survey about losing steam in another. National numbers president obama seems to be retaining a significant lead in pivotal ohio. Yesterday afternoon, a news poll found the candidates nearly tied among likely voters. The results were flat from a week prior when the same poll showed mr. Obama ahead of his challenger. Both results were within the polls margin of error. The story goes on to note if the president s campaign was unnerved by new numbers from abc news, they may take part from gallup which shows the mitt romney lead dwindling three. Mitt romney outpaces the president among likely voters 50 to 47 . I want to take you also to a map in the New York Times today showing the travels of the two campaigns over the past 48 hours. On tuesday and wednesday, they visited a combined 11 cities in six states covering more than 3,000 miles each. The president started in florida into ohio, nevada, denver, colorado, out to los angeles for an appearance on the tonight show last night. The president traveling again back in that crucial swing state of ohio. Mitt romneys camp also going to ohio, out to nevada in rena and also to colorado. We will be tracking all those movements today. We want to know which issue is driving your vote. We will start on the democratic line. Robert, what is driving your vote . Caller the republicans made the statement that they refuse to work with this president and they were going to see that he was going to be a onetime president. Because of that, i think we should send this president back to the white house to work with republicans. Otherwise we would be perpetuating a dysfunctional government. We should put him back in the white house and forced the republicans to work with this president. If we do not, we are perpetuating the prophecy of this president being a onetime president. Host ward 2 mitt romneys trips yesterday, here is the article from the washington times. Mitt romney campaigned in nevada wednesday and had another stop in iowa. He now clings to a lead with less than two weeks to go. That story of course has gotten lots of headlines in todays papers. Here is a few of them from the chicago tribune. The lead story the Washington Post headline and the Arizona Republic i want to read to you from the indianapolis star, the headline on that story the story goes on to note i want to take a few more calls from you about which issue is driving your vote but we will continue to cover these stories. Winchester, virginia, is next. Caller a Pretty Simple concept but one that does not seem to get much coverage. Who is going to be picking the next batch of Supreme Court justices . We need to keep the Supreme Court as balanced as possible whether you are a conservative or liberal. It does not matter. We get closest to having the Supreme Court doing the job it is intended to do when it is balanced. Not all the way to the right, not all the way to the left. Supreme Court Justices may be getting ready to retire. Ginsberg is the only one on the left. More than likely, mitt romney is getting my vote so we do not end up with a more unbalanced Supreme Court. Host thanks so much. One other headline on that Richard Mourdock story dominating the news. This is from the abc news. Com site. I want to bring you a little bit from that debate on tuesday so you can see his comments. I believe life begins at conception. The only exception i have is in that case for the life of the mother. I struggled with it myself but i came to realize life is a gift from god. Even with rape, it is something god intended to happen. Host we are taking your calls this morning on what issue is driving your vote. Anita is next on the republican line. Caller hey. My issues is our president obama. He said he was going to unite. All he has done was divide. In four years, we have heard blame. He has played the race card so much, and class warfare. He is trying to divide the people. I just dont trust him. He spends money like it was water, and were ind ebt. So, my vote goes to romney. Thank you for calling this morning. James, thank you for calling the washington journal. Caller thank you. The issue i see going on is mitt romney is trying to win the election just because the majority of people in the United States are white. This is what i want the white democrats to realize. If you do not support president obama, it is going to be hard for African Americans to come out and support another white democrat. The white democrats are not supporting statewide black politicians. That is the reason why no black democrats can get elected in the senate. Look at florida. You best come out and support president obama because it will be hard to get blakcs out of [indiscernible] host a comment from joe on twitter a headline from the Washington Post today one other story, this from usa today this morning. We want to hear what is driving your votes with just 12 days to go before the election. Charlie from virginia on the independence lin t line. Caller i will be supporting the libertarian candidate gary johnson. The only candidate who can turn this country around. He wants to stop intervening in all these wars and balance the budget now. Our government is broke. Yeah, everyone should check out gary johnson. He is a libertarian and running for president. Host from tennessee on the republican line, you are on the washington journal. Caller thank you for taking my call. Voting for someone because they are black is just as racist as voting for somebody because they are not black. How come you guys have not covered the leaked emails . God bless america and thank you so much for cspan. Host which emails are you talking about . The ones dealing with the benghazi attacks . We will get to that right now. Eric schmitt is on the phone right now from the New York Times. The headline from his story today eric schmitt, bring us up to date on what these emails are revealing. Guest these emails revealed 3 emails that were sent out in the state Department Operations center within the two hours or so after the attack on the Diplomatic Mission in benghazi started on september 11. The initial emails are the embassy reporting that this consulate was under attack. Describing that they were under attack them been the ambassador Chris Stevens who was later killed said was in a safe haven in the compound and later talks about how the shooting has stopped apparently. One of the most telling emails comes atwo hours after the attack, that the embassy was reporting that a local Militia Group which has some ties to al qaeda is reporting that it is claiming responsibility for the attack on facebook and twitter. The significance of this is that this should have shown that the white house and the rest of the administration knew much earlier than they said that this was a terrorist attack. Intelligence officials have told me that there was a whole bunch of information coming in, some of its contradictory and some of it confusing in the initial hours after the attack. To place more of emphasis on these and that particular e mail really would put too much weight on one single piece of evidence. It does it feed into the narrative that some republicans have been voicing in recent weeks, that the administration did not blame the attack for too long on what they called it a spontaneous demonstration on the and the sea when in fact there was growing evidence that was later recognized that this was a deliberate attack by militant groups. Host along with these emails, has there been any further explanation from officials on the shifting explanation in the days after that attack about who was a shiftwhy there in opinion from the white house . Guest their explanation has been in the initial hours and days after an event like this, you are going to get a lot of information coming in from various sources and it takes a while to assess this information and to come out with an explanation. Most of the criticism focuses on the u. S. Ambassador of the un susan rice. Even though the ambassador mentioned there were extremist elements involved and possibly al qaeda from north africa. The administration within several days eventually came out and said this was a terrorist attack. Not months or years in planning, but much more opportunistic probably triggered by demonstrations that the militants in libya heard. In cairo, they breached the walls of the embassy and perhaps it gave those in libya the trigger to gather their arms. Host have you seen any evidence of a coverup from the administration . Guest no. It is a very modeled message after coming out. I think they were overly cautious, understandably not knowing what was the case. Different spokesman saying slightly different things, it confused the message and they were not as clear as they could have been early on that this was a dynamic situation on the ground. Host last question for you. What is the latest on tracking down the folks who carried out this attack . Guest the two nations announced they have one suspect in custody the tunisians announced they have one suspect in custody but the main investigation is being carried out by the fbi who has only been able to get on the ground briefly for a short trip. Security has prevented them from getting in there sooner. I think the investigation has not been moving forward. There have been a lot of obstacles in its way. I think american officials are frustrated they have no suspects in custody. Host thank you so much for joining us this morning on the washington journal. We will go now to marry and from ohio on the democratic line. Caller i am 47 of the people mitt romney was talking about. I worked and i paid into Social Security and medicare and now he wants to mess around with a customit . Flops around and sticks his foot in his mouth. I am voting for obama. I think he is doing the best he can do. I think the republicans are a bunch of racists in my opinion. That is all i have to say. Host a comment on cspans Facebook Page this morning lets go to the republican line. Nancy is waiting from austin, texas. Caller i find this conversation so depressing. I vote on somebody based on their adherence to the constitution. We are all now like gimme, gimme, and who can give me the most. Our government has bankrupted us. We are 16 trillion in debt. Both of them did it. We have 30,000 drones that have airspaced to fly in our of. We have a president with a kill list. No trial, no nothing. Pick you up and send you to gitmo forever. No trials, no lawyer, no nothing. Is this still america, people close to you are worried that you cannot get a government paid for abortion . Have we lost our minds . That is my comment. Host a common from bill king on twitter comment from bill came on twitter i want to also talk to you about the vicepresident ial nominee paul ryans speech yesterday on poverty issues. He expresss empathy is the headline from the New York Times. I went to give you a bit of that speech now. Governments approach has been spend a lot of money on top down antipoverty programs. The mindset is a nation should measure compassion by the size of federal government and how much money it spends. The problem is starting in the 1960s, this approach created and perpetuated a debilitating culture of dependency wrecking families and communities. This was so obvious that when a major Welfare Program was reform, the law was passed by the Republican Congress and signed by a democratic president. We saw welfare enrollments dropped dramatically as millions of our citizens gained new lives of independent. Child poverty rates fell 20 in four years. Fewer welfare checks going out. If it meant more money for states to spend on child care so more moms could go to work and support themselves. Welfare to work worked because it encouraged the best in people. It made major strides toward getting the government out of the business of fostering dependency. Here is the problem. Welfare reform mindset has not been applied with equal vigor across the spectrum of our programs. In most of these programs, especially in recent years, were still trying to measure compassion by how much government spends. Not by how many people we help escape from poverty. Host cq qeekly last week had a good chart dealing with the poverty issue, noting that the share of americans living in poverty has ranged from 10 and 15 . In 2011, the poverty rate went down for the first time in five years. The number of people in poverty sits at about 46. 2 million in 2011. The poverty rate was about 15 . We ask you this morning on which issue is driving your vote heading into the election. John writes in on twitter also, Independence Day writes in on twitter a will now go to kansas city, missouri, on the independent line. Caller hi. Thank you for cspan. A lot of issues are driving my vote. Social issues are driving my vote. I have a problem with mitt romney going back and forth. I think it is a war on women. I do not think it should be know where that a man has a right to tell a woman what she can do with her body. What have women ever done to men so bad that they start democrat and us so bad and poorly over the issues of abortion . I have a daughter and she is married. She has two kids. They planned their kids. They do not want any more kids. If you take Birth Control away from her, she is going to have more kids than she wants to have been been the republicans all they think about is getting the children here and after they get here we do not care nothing about them once they get here. It is a shame we are going to take away your health care and your medicaid. We just want them to be born when they are born. This is ridiculous. I am a woman and i feel strongly about this. When i heard what that man said, this is the democrats party. They have an agenda. Their agenda is repealing obamacare, getting rid of roe v. Wade. It is their agenda. It is not about jobs. Host this viewer writes in on twitter lets go to the republican line. David is from indiana out there where the Richard Mourdock campaign is taking place. Caller my vote is driving my vote due to obamacare and the risk distribution of wealth. I do not think someone should have to get in there and redistribute wealth. He dont care about the country. He cares about social values. If he is so concerned about obamacare, why did he exempts senators from that . Let him read this to be his wealth. There are a lot of people out of work let him read distribute wealth. Te hite his host of this from the Financial Times on bank of america. Bank of america rejected the claims of that suit. Bank of america has stepped up and acted responsibly. Again, we have been asking what is driving your vote this morning. We will go now to pensacola, florida. What is driving your vote . Caller voter suppression. I have listened to i dont know how many people now, and i agree with a lot of people that the women issues the guy that talked about abortion and god, that is just obtuse. I have never seen a more obtuse party in my life. I had four children then big three of whom are daughters. One i have one who lives on the street today. No food, nothing. Than you say people are victims . In the world. The only country that supports mitt romney is pakistan. There is a reason for that. They want more war, and they want to draw in more people to that koolaid from bush. Let me tell you something. You have to walk through Airport Security to get to him. He is in the civic center, saying he is going to come in and throw his people in there and give some jobs. Host a few emails that have come in on this question of what is driving your vote. Barb writes in one more email from jerry in iowa this morning one last call on this issue of what is driving your vote. Will go to New Hampshire on the independent line. Frank, you are on the washington journal. Caller hello. I believe we have one chance to we could fix all the problems in this country right now if the two sides could come together with some compromise. I believe we have been way too liberal for a decade or even longer. We have to change some laws regarding entitlements spending on the other side of things, we have to enforce fair business practice in this country. People are just in it to earn that buck. They are being forced into a situation where we are not into doing things for the sake of being the best we can be at it. We are just there to make that buck and take advantage of anyone we can. We went to a fair system when we were growing, and now we are fighting over natural resources. I think the people who have the power are reckless right now. We are not solving the issues. I think were going back to the middle ages where they want to take it all back. I think there should be some respect to sovereignty in this country. You cannot just let people come in here without a green card. If they do not have the education or the culture to be able to mix with us here, it does not work. We put laws into place for them and it is not fair to everybody. Host up next, chris will join Krist Novoselic will join us to discuss fairvote. But first, Abby Livingston from roll call joins us. Thank you so much for joining us from the roll call studio. What is the latest on the fallout from the indiana race . Guest not much has happened this morning but there is republicans have weighed in and the party is split on how they feel about his statements. This is not like last august when todd akin made objection of commons about rape. Host has this race changed since the comments this week . Guest my colleague was on the ground yesterday and my sense is that she did not detect an immediate change in the race. From washington, every Democratic House and Senate Candidate in the country and the people going after mitt romney are trying to put the Republican Opposition in having to distance themselves or apologize or having to verify whether they agree with Richard Mourdock. This blew up the conversation. It was all about abortion, rape, and womens issues. Host thoughts on how this story is going to play Going Forward . Guest one thing i thought about is democrats pay money to clip on ads. s the most interesting thing to me is the republican senator weighed in on this. She is a woman. This may die down in the next couple days. I cannot help but think this has an effect on house, senate, and president. Host take us to ohio with Sherrod Brown ahead of josh mandel. Guest absolutely. We have felt this favors democrats and Sherrod Brown. Josh mandel was a very prolific fundraiser and brown seemed honorable because ohio went republican in 2010. The president ial debate has put a big scare into anone everyone from ohio. Ohio. One from host the Ohio Senate Debate will be shown on cspan and c span radio. Water you watching for . Guest they have been snapping back and forth. Whenever someone is behind, josh mandel might get aggressive or provoke Sherrod Brown. It is going to be an interesting one. Often the most interesting are the first ones. As Richard Mourdock has proven, just a quick comment can blow up a debate. I am watching for anything that could break through on the national scene. Host what blew up the debate last time . Guest Sherrod Brown took exception to that. Mandel has been highly criticized. It was not receive very well by the democrats. Host Abby Livingston, thank you for joining us here on cspan. We will be right back with Krist Novoselic. Would you support military action in iran . If need be, yes, as a last option. Under what conditions . If sanctions dont work. If they are about to have the ability to develop a nuclear bomb. We will use every option possible. That would be the last option we would have to use. I think we stand with israel and we do not let iran develop a nuclear weapon. Under which conditions . We better exhaust everything else. At the end of the day, if that is what is needed, i will be the first to volunteer. Maybe i can wash windshields. I will be the first volunteer. Followed the key house, senate, and governors races. Washington journal continues. Host stepping back from the politics of the 2012 campaign, we turn now to the process of elections. We are joined by Krist Novoselic, chairman of the board for the collection reform group fairvote. First, talk about the mission of fairvote and your role. Guest fairvote is a group. We promote an interface between voters and our government. I got involved because i am interested in proportional representation which is a way to vote in the United States and is used internationally. We want to foster more participation, break down barriers, make elections more competitive, more choice. I got involved in it 1997. 1997. In the early 1990s, i was in the biggest band in the world so i was a part of the seattle Music Community. There was legislation in my state. These age restrictions on concerts. I started working with the Music Community and we made a group of advocates. That is how i got my civic education. Trying to break down these barriers with music. I recognized a lot of these issues with voting. Why are elections so un competitive . I dont know if i could answer those questions but i know if we could make some changes to the way we vote, we could work towards making those things better. I started working with fairvotein 1997. 10 years ago or so, i joined the board. In 2008, i was elected chairman of the board. Host where you always sickly minded civically minded even when nirvana was touring around the world . Guest i voted in every election and i try to Pay Attention. Read newspapers, be informed. Host even the band was civically minded . Was political activism in courage . Guest we came out of the punk rock music of the early 1980s and that was very political. Washington, d. C. , had a good punk scene. A lot of that was explicitly political, like antireagan and those things. There were broader themes of anarchism and as a form of association and being disconnected from the corporate state. There were those themes, too. A lot of it was about individuality and personal politics. Henry rollins there is a lyric that he has. Women in the mainstream is such a lame dream. It could be focused and there are these broader issues. I think we have brought that et hic. We were mainstream then. I guess we thought we should do it our own way, and we did. This record was released in 1991. Host how many millions of copies . Guest like over 10 million copies and a mcdonalds sells a lot of hamburgers copies. Mcdonalds sells a lot of hamburgers and every day i will be walking down the street and somebody will see me and recognize me. They will say that record changed my life. Thank you very much. I am glad to remember occurred cobain who is not with us. That is a Good Opportunity to chalk one up to him. Host what do you think he would think about the work you do now at fairvote . Guest he was a ford looker forward looker. Kurt cobain sent jerry brown 100. He was into jimmy carter. Does he sound like a radical anarchist . I dont know. Host we have a picture of you with kurt cobain. Do you remember when that was taken . Guest that was taken in seattle. We had a concert right before halloween. There were these evangelical buff weight lifter dudes who would rip phone books in half, and then they would preach the word of the lord in the meantime. Host if you want to talk to Krist Novoselic, give us a call on the republican line. The democratic line and independents can you talk a little more about the specific Electoral Reforms that you are pushing for at fairvote . Guest right now we are promoting our fair voting plan. Since we had the census a couple years ago, there has been redistricting throughout the United States in been some states had independent commissions. Some have bipartisan commissions. Some have legislators do the redistricting. If you go to fairvote. Org, you can look at the partisan makeup of the United States. Host we have a map of that here that we can show folks and the breakdown of current plans. This is a redistricting in the house. Only about 74 seats are balanced. Guest what happens is it that is the dynamic of a Single Member district for the United States house of representatives came back nowhere in the constitution it says there should be this for house members. The u. S. House there is a lot of latitude. In 1967, Congress Passed a law for creating a Single Member district. What are the effects of that law . One of those groups that i mentioned earlier who determines how the lines are drawn, they are determining who the majority or the minority is in the district. Sometimes it is an ethnic minority, but in most, it is gerrymandering. They will pass this text fall of republicans or democrats been than where they will crack a district. And favor it for one party or another. When i spoke earlier about my experience and how i became aware of these laws, why there are uncontested elections, all roads lead to the Single Member district. Why is there cynicism . Like my vote does not matter. With the fair voting plan, you can get a state like massachusetts and they choose the lines there that benefit democrats. Massachusetts has selected mitt romney for governor there. Instead of nine Single Member districts, at the fair voting plan has. Member districts at large. You need 25 of the vote to get elected. So, every republican in that district our analysis would be at least elect one representative. You would have three Republican House members host it is constitutional . Guest so, the key is not just at large districts. Proportional voting for proportional representation. There are three ways to do in that our legal. The limited though, the single, nontransferable vote, and Choice Voting which is you can see on the screen. There is a history of cumulative voting in illinois. So, instead of a single minoritymajority district, they will agree on an at large district with either cumulative voting or limited voting. Host another issue is youth vote. A viewer writes in on twitter guest that is a really good question. There is this book called millennial makeover. The thesis of this book there are these generational studies on how these different generations interactive, switching between civic generation anyway, the point is whoever can harness the energy of social networking with political association, because they are so related, will dominate politics for the next 30 years. That is what these scholars say. I believe it. I think there is a future with the internet. Host has won campaign got a better this time around . Guest if you look at the research, this is not some revelation. The impact of social networking has not had that tipping point. There has not been dead since at this same day they tried to do it with there has not been that synthesis. It is a great idea. It is kind of early. It is 1998 painting these kids come out on my door. Were doing a Search Engine called google. Would you invest in it . I am on altavista. Were going to do it better come at this and that. Look at what happens then bee. Social networking and politics and how to get people involved instead of just commenting on some blog some where they. The difference is taking that next step and putting it into action. Host the comments that you are talking about, matt writes in and says guest i am not an elections expert or a law expert. My experience is doing a lot of reading with fairvote. The answer could be these one person, onevote ruling a generation ago in the 1960s. Counties have different populations. Postcode lets take a few calls. Take a few calls. You are on with Krist Novoselic. Caller yeah. What he just said made perfect sense. You can have any eighth grader draw up a graph or a map to count the number of voters in each district. I think we really need to eliminate the alecto college. It is just too much room for corruption. I think our whole system is corrupt. I am scared to death for my grandchildren. I voted already for obama early but the rest of the candidates i voted for the green party. I am afraid. I am really afraid theyve be. Sometimes i think it is too late and then i think you so much, krist. Host thank you. Do not be afraid. There is always room to it is time for a change. Things are broken. Marys comet is indicative of people all over the land. Comment is indicative of people all over the land. Host do you think the comments is indicative of thirdparty candidates . Yesterday a lot of that has to do with voters. A lot of it has to do with voters. Instead of these technical and legal issues, a lot of the have to do with voters. Voters will tell you they hate the Republican Party, they hate the Democratic Party. Is what they do . It is like an abused spouse. They keep coming back, coming back, coming back. The third party, if it is done the right way, and there is technology involved that can capture the imagination of people host are you currently register with a party . Guest we do not have Voter Registration. We have a system where the candidate prefers a party. The can this says i prefer the Republican Party. I prefer the Democratic Party. There are opportunities for that. The state allows the kind of expression by candidates. It is wide open. There is opportunity for Something Like that. I studied the 2010 elections and the liberal and Democratic Party in the u. K. And how the breakthrough. They are a Major Third Party and they are super penalized by election rules. They never get their fair share in the legislature compared to votes. They are viable and they compete against the two major parties. It is the right message. Host again, we are talking with Krist Novoselic, a founder of the group nirvana and chairman nirvana fairvote. Org. Mike is waiting on the republican line. Caller do we need Electoral Reform . Sure, do. Have it on a saturday or sunday. Voter id cards before you can get in to vote. My big thing this morning is, who is this cretin telling me about Electoral Reform . The founder of nirvana. Host day want to tell him your credentials do you want to tell him your credentials . Guest i am a citizen of the United States and i have been working on election reform for the past 13 years. You are a republican in massachusetts and you feel locked out of the system and you are tired of politics like that versus Rush Limbaugh dole more. That is the level of partisanship in the United States. You turn on the radio and it is these talk him into going back and forth. People are dehumanizing each other. Here is krist stand seeking about this idea. You are a republican on cspan and you feel locked out of the system. Speaking a little bit outside of the box and you can have representation for every republican in massachusetts. They would have a representative in congress with the fair voting plan. Are you a democrat in louisiana it . We could have every democrat, every democrat in louisiana . We could have every democrat, ever republican. This is about ideas. This is of far this is not about partisan politics. Thank you for the 1 billion negative comment today. I am proud to be chair of fair vote and proud that we rise above the fray. We are a nonpartisan group. We are based in scholarship. We are the only group in the United States that for most proportional representation. We are not making this up. There is case law. How do you know who the biggest supporters are from my limited knowledge on the United States Supreme Court who have actually written eloquently about these kinds of reforms . The biggest supporters are Justice Thomas and scalia. Ok. I am kind of a centrist, a centerleft person. A lot of times you mention his Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas and they hit the ceiling. Mention Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas to people and people hit the ceiling. They do photoshop things and make them into funny things. This is so old and so tired. Host we are not working with fair vote, what is your day job . Guest i go to school. I like it. I needed a change. I study a lot. I play the accordion. I am obsessed with the accordion. People get obsessed with things. They can be dark or self destructive, right . My obsession is accordion. Host you are also involved in your local grange members. How do they feel about having a former musician and International Star in their local grange hal . L guest in their local grange hall . Guest there are different groups you can join in our community. My wife and i discovered the grange years ago. They have been there since 1902, 110 years. Gran in thege United States has been active since 1867. It is a good group. It is the one that closest fits out our values. Host lets go to alan from clearwater, florida on the independent line. Are on with Krist Novoselic. Caller one of the problems we get into is that we want all or nothing. The Electoral College, we have a guide a guy saying get rid of it. As an amendment. Wyoming has three electoral is. One is republican and one is democrat electors and what is republican and one is democrat. He did not have enough to win the election. That you point counts. Guest it is up to the state to determine the matter of how electors stay slim their all stays of their elector of fours into how the people vote. An interstate compact with this individual state agrees on the compact to give their electoral votes to the winner of the National Popular vote. California is on board, maryland, a few other states. When the agreement reaches critical mass, when there are enough states on board to have a majority of electoras host \ they need 270 host they need to under 70. Guest it is host thaey need 270. Bank people in california are not our friend voters guest it changes the dynamic. The Current System is a good value for special interests and the people who fund the elections. They can dump all this money in a high of 81 not see any as in most other states just out of balance not see any of all this money in ohio and not see any in most other states. It is out of balance. Caller in missouri, we have high an todd akin republican rep. I believe democrats voted him in his and i know a lot of republicans who did not vote for him. I say, go head and vote for a kin. Ostracized for all republicans. Claire mccaskill has been the current politician. Then there will be term limits and it will stop all of this misinformation and voting across the lines. Scientists political also states that legislatures like sacramento lose their institutional memory it does not lose the institutional memory, it is like the staffers and lobbyists who are there continuously without term. They know how things work and they have longterm relationships. They get cycled around. I am not enchanted with term limits. There is a good boat called it is there is a good book out right now called it is worse than it looks. It talks about some of these forms that the authors do not agree with. I agree with them because they are the scholars. They agree that term limits are not what they are cracked up to be. Host a caller from the washington, d. C. Area. You are on with Krist Novoselic. Caller a lot of guys have the stereotype of sex, drugs, and rockandroll and do not care about anything. It is good to see this activity from him. I am against the Electoral College. Bush is the perfect example of how he did not win the popular vote. You took on a couple of points. A lot of people are not aware that Social Security taxes stop at 100,000. After that, you do not pay any more taxes. The bottom 60 percent pay 33 times more in Social Security taxes and the top 1 makes 60 of the income. If the top 1 had to pay Social Security taxes, we would not have a deficit. They get their income the of the stock market in dividends. The last running v stopia it and give a sense. Via stock market and dividends. Guest i am not well versed in the scope of the tax policy. There is a guilty party system in the United States and democrats are supposed to be the party for the little man or the common man. Drive to level the playing field. Where are the democrats trying to level the playing field. In 2008 and 2010 they dominated the federal government. Host he caller brought up stereotypes of musicians. What do you make of the current generation of musicians and their political activism . Guest there is research where young people volunteer. They are a civic generation and they are involved. Young people are coming of age. A lot of young people get their ideology and their politics from their family. That is generational. If we had more competitive elections, we would draw people in. It is like an economic theory. Competition drives and innovation, so people would be like, how do we look to these people in . Then you have gerrymandering. Is life , who cares . The thresholds then you have gerrymandering. It is like care, as . People do not want to it is like, who cares . There are american versions of proportional voting. Is that the parliamentarian system, krist day 1916 them has a parliament, but they have a system like ours that a parliamentary system krist. . The united them has a parliament kingdom limit, but they have a system like ours. Host a question from twitter. Wouldnt your proportional system create even more gridlock . Guest no. A professor in california has a plan for representation in california for the state assembly. Five member districts. He says that will bring moderation to california. Moderate republicans would be elected from the bay area in los angeles and moderate democrats would be elected from the rural california. This is not me telling you this, folks. Host an mail come and. As long as groups can bestow largess on groups of voters, the elections will not be fair. Obama has proven that votes can be bought. Guest that was a nasty comments. We have to have faith and hope to keep working or just give up. I am not willing to give up, especially when there are Viable Solutions out there. It is up to the people to want to do it. There was legislation when they would have this copyright legislation. Google got involved and took the black censorship mark over the goo on theg researchle engine. Mark on the googl it. E mark on the google Search Engine. We have all of these groups that dominate the discourse. How do we get through to Work Together . Go to thes independent line. Caller it is a privilege to talk to you. I am enjoying this conversation. Just recently, i was watching c span. I would like to say thank you for washington journal washington journal, where a citizen can come on and voice their opinion and not get rich to pieces. Ped. Ip i am register in a third party. The only registered i am not voting for her is because i am afraid it will take away from rock obama, who i am going to voted 4. I will become more it will take votes away from barack obama, who i am going to vote for. 52 million who will be voting in the coming weeks, if 90 million would go out and voted, the third party would have a chance to make a mark. The whole Electoral College and the popular vote and the redistricting why doesnt have to be so complicated . Guest one of the founders of fair voted was john anderson, who ran for president. He was the chair before i was. I have the privilege of working with john. He is still on our board. I have gotten to know him. I love the man. Moderate republican from illinois. Hes under the u. S. House from 1960 19to 80. From 1960 to acting 80. To 1980. A lot of liberal democrats will not voted because they feel they are voting their vote. Wasting their vote. Congress needs to pass a statute about proportional representation. A simple statute. You would have an election where they would where there would be three or four people running for three or four seats for congress. The threshold would be about 20 , 25 to get elected. There is this notion of shared representation. Not with these insiders and their supporters and political enemies. Republicans get a share. Democrats get a share. And there is a space for independents. There is room for independents. Check it out. Do a search. Host fairvote. Org, Krist Novoselic chairman of, board of fair vote. Up next, a look at the e of nevada. State here are some headlines at this hour. Colin powell is sticking with the presence of a choice he made that years ago. On this morning, colin powell praised president obamas economic performance. While he respects mitt romney, he thinks the former governor has been too vague of issues. Colin powell says he is still a republican. President obama and bill clinton will Campaign Together next week in three of the most competitive battleground states, florida, ohio, and virginia. Those rallies will be the first the two presence has held together during the 2012 campaign. They have previously attended joint fundraisers and appeared together briefly at tea partys convention. Some election researchers say the rise in popularity of mail in absentee voting is increasing the risk of mistakes, lost votes, and fraud. A study examined california absentee votes olver two decades. It found absentee votes are twice as over the cheek decades. It found that absentee votes are twice as likely not to be a study examined california absentee votes over two decades. Hurricane sandy is expected to remain a hurricane. The National Hurricane center says the storm in cuba as a category two with maximum sustained winds these winds of 11 miles4 per hour 114 miles per hour. Some of the headlines at this hour on cspan radio. This is the downsizing freeport. You are watching it live. One of the 10,000 homes they are trying to get down in the next four years. These are houses that are never coming back. Onefamily every 20 minutes moving out. This is going back to the prairie and these houses and disappearing with the landscape. Just recently, 164 firefighters were laid off as part of the downsizing, part of the effort for mayor bing control of the city bing to get control of the city. We look to find out with the money came from, it was from the department of Homeland Security that has the fund for things like that. I do not want to overstate. That is something you want to think about. The department of Homeland Security needed to step in to keith detroit as safe as it could be to keep detroit as safe as it could be. We have seen the Auto Industry bailout. We have seen the bank bailouts. Are we heading into an area of f ing out the city him of of bailing out the city . Host for the next several days, we will be highlighting key cities in election 2012. Today, we put the spotlight on the battle with its 6 electoral votes in this election. Today, we are joined by Karoun Demirjian according. A wall street report, toward the end of the gaza 6 and the end of 2011, 2006 a 2011nd , home values fell 2006 and 2011, home values fell. How about this election using those numbers in the backdrop. Guest this election is about the economy. These numbers can matter very much. The nevada Housing Market continues to be bad. Almost 70 of homes are under water at this stage. The Unemployment Rate has dipped below 12 for the First Time Since september. You are having a population contending with the worst br of theun economict crisis. Brunt of the economic crisis. When the candidates come to town the withthey come town, they hammer home the economicsi philosophyr is. The hammer home they hammer home their economic philosophy. There are anchors on the economy that will continue to weigh it down. The housing sector got so bad and there is so much that equity in the economy now and in the Housing Market that is going to take a while to buy that our it. Buy that out. Host are those numbers the difference for obama . In to us eighth, he won the state by 12. 5 . In 2008, he he saidwon by 12. 5 he won the state by 12. 5 . Guest people are extremely frustrated because it has been so bad and so hard for so many of the residence. You are seeing that gap, which was 12 points several years ago come down to something within the margin of error. Obama has been holding a steady lead. The closest from the darfur was in a tie. Romney got was within a tie. Democrats have a Voter Registration advantage in this state. Host going back to to thousand a, i want to talk about to 2008 statistics, from Bloomberg News says nevada has the largest swing state democratic shift demographi shiac since 2008, about. That is impacting this election demographic shift since 2008. Talk about how that is impacting this election. Guest 26 of the state is latino. This voting block has been shown to hear a lot about the economy, a lot about education. Immigration does not rank as the highest this year of interest to these voters. It is an underlying across the board thing. Are you saying the right thing on these topics. It is 2 3 versus 1 3 that the voters are split on this. This is what candidates are being candidates are fighting about. Obama made a promise to address it in his first year in office and did not do that. He said he did not have time and did not have a cooperative congress. That has not stopped republicans who say, we can bring a comprehensive immigration reform, which is a term both parties defined differently. They are trying to make that a sales pitch. If you turn on spanish radio, you hear nonstop commercials from both sides. This is a swing state for the president and it is also a swing state for the senate and one of the congressional races on here as well. Host if we are talking with Karoun Demirjian from the washington son. You can call in on the republican line. We have a special line set up for nevada residents. In talking about demographics out there, talk about the mor votesmon mormon vote in nevada. Guest you can count on the mormon to come outs. Mormons to come out. There has been a push to highlight how the democrats are making inroads with the community and how it is possible to turn out a mormon democratic vote as well. It is not going to be anything that will develop momentum or will really rock the boat lay here. It is not being despite any stretch of rauf lee vote rock the vot rock the vote here. In this election, it will probably still be a republican stronghold. Host talk about early voted out there. What are the rules for early voting . Guest early voting started on saturday. Early voting goes from october 20 to november 2. Not every polling station is open for the entire period. We have entirely electric Voting Machines in nevada. This is a state that is over 80 urban. Most people congregate around las vegas and reno and carson city. Voter registration went online. There have been more people turning out early in both parties than they did that on years ago because it has been drummed into them that this is a good way to go because it is the parties some peace of mind that people are turning out. You mentioned the recall, which is always a scary word. Three counts, which is always a scary word. Recount, which is all is a scary word. There are at least 5 of priests in the counties that are thought to be precints in the counties that are thought to be suspect. In the larger counties, it takes a long time. Nevada has not had issues with a recount recently. There was an extended cab that happened with the Republican Party in february extended counts that happens with the Republican Party in february because there were robbed the poor ron paul supporters who contested the results. That was not the same process that will be employed for the general election. That was just the Republican Party. This is now the whole state. Host as goes the data, often so goes the country. Here is the alleged as those nevada, often goes to the country. One of the big political reporters out there has put out a blog post on how nevada could really mattered. This is from sunday. He gave hypothetical on what could happen on Election Night that could make nevada be deciding state. It involves president obama winning ohio and losing florida, colorado, and most other battleground states. When the polls are open in the west leading it to 67265 00 267 265 for romney. I have callers waiting to ask you about nevada politics. Jeffrey is a democrat from low from North Las Vegas. Good morning. Caller i am calling in reference to the hinchey candidates. President obama i am calling in reference to the two candidates. President obama is considered to have when vanity. He has every type of finance president obama is considered to have win energy he has. The price in everything a president can do win energy. He has done practically everything a president can do for his constituencies. I have not seen anything from candidate romney. He is the one who stated, that the people go into bankruptcy and then we can read their property out for the rich. Host heres your story from the las vegas son from yesterday. Obama finds his old groove in the las vegas rally. What did he present talk about what he was out there yesterday . Guest he addressed many of the points jeffrey just brought up. He mentioned energy. That has been something of, has been pushing. There has been some push back that has been something obama has been pushing. There has been some push back from the republicans. There is a corridor of the data that is tapped into the california grid and there is a there is a corridor of nevada that is tapped into the california grid. Jeffrey also mentioned the Housing Market and the obamas certification its been in zero being in nevada the obama sarah gets surrogates being in nevada all the time. There was an Editorial Board interview last year where romney said the Housing Market should be allowed to bottom out. You cannot say that in nevada. There are so many people who need some sort of assistance. The parties cannot agree about whether it should take the fund if washington should be tried to force some principal reduction programs. Washington should be trying to force some kind of principle reduction program. They are not sure the bank should be pushing the government should be pushing the banks around. People criticize romney about being callous about the particular problems of nevada and how severe the problems were when he made those comments. Postbank we have another caller from nevada. El host we have another caller from nevada. Caller i am looking at the bat out of 50 states nevada being 49th or 5 in the0 educationth. Or 50th in education. I just moved to nevada. I cannot see where they are on education. Host carrie brings up some of the personalities in nevada. Guest education is a huge issue in nevada. Nevada has not qualify for a race to the top funds. It is a Turnaround School system. We will see where the education issue those. You mentioned the sheldon stveeve wynns of this world. Adelson has put a lot of money into this campaign against obama. That has been the new twists to this election. It is the Citizens United decision that allows this to happen. This is the full first full election cycle where that has played a role. You have ideological divisions and some people have enough money to put behind it and pushed the way this election conversation is going. Host a question from twitter. I heard the front hall supporters were so dissed by the gop that they may give from the some trouble in nevada. Guest many are disappoint disenchanted with the Republican Party. They want to stay part of the Republican Party. They will more than likely turn out to vote for around the. The question for the ron paul supporters is do they turn out at all. If they do, they were trying to make inroads into the Republican Party. If they do not, it will be because 2016 is not that far down the line. Ron paul supporters seem to be more interested in waiting for his son, senator rand paul, to decide to throw his hat into the ring than they are to find somebody else in this election. The 2016 cycle start sooner than we want to think about. Host another question from twitter. Has the population shifted out of las vegas from high unemployment and has that affected the core of the democratic vote . Guest that is an interesting question. I cannot say with full authority one way or the other. The nevada population has risen over the last several years. It is why we got an extra seat in congress and why we have an extra Electoral College vote. It seems to not be affecting the fervor with which people are turning out to vote. The early vote numbers are higher than they were before. You may have had flight at both ends of the political spectrum. Host we have special nevada line set up for residents in nevada. We will go to a caller on the democratic line from wisconsin. Good morning. Caller i have a problem with this whole election. You have one party who is only thinking of the middle class, only of the wealthy, only those that can benefit from the republicans being in office. What about those who were born into poverty, whose parents did not have the opportunity to go to school because they have to work . What about those forced to live paycheck to paycheck because of the economy or do to they are because they are a minority. Who is thinking about the drugs that are killing our people . What about those who are not financially stable enough to go to school . No one cares. It is all about who can benefit from doing what. It is completely unfair. I think something should be done about it. It should not be about who is going to benefit more or who is going to pay more taxes. It should become who is pointing prosper, who is one to make this country better . Know what to make it better if everyone is thinking about themselves. Host a couple more statistics from bloomberg insider on nevadas makeup. The ethnicity in 2011 is 53. 6 white, 8. 6 black. The annual Median Household Income in 2011 was 65,000. Larry from stockbridge, ga. You are lets go to larry eorgia. Ockbridge, ga they have a question about the nevada election we can talk about . Caller how do the latinos feel about that stuff. Upst what youve brought are issues that everybody in the nation is talking about a little bit. I do not know if they are the numberone issue for the latino block. Economic issues, family centered issues, immigration seem to be a much larger part of the conversation. And the caller before, she is right. Poverty is not getting a mention in this cycle. People are talking about the middle class and the upper class. There has not been a detailed conversation about the poor. Both candidates will tell you they care about people on the lower end of the economic spectrum, but it has not come up much or as much at all in the conversation in 2012. Host someone writes on twitter, is there a information on the results of early voting . The democratic firewall in clark county is at 25,000 25,000 as a result of early voting. Steal plea gop playing catch up. Guest the early vote numbers are oneupsmanship from both parties. If you are a registered democrat, you are probably going to go to a democratic and if you are a registered republican, you will probably vote republican. Democrats have registered more voters than republicans. It ends up being a 90,000 voter advantage by the end of the registration season. They are trying to push that out. The more they can do that before election day, the more momentum they build behind these candidates. This is a swing state at various levels of this race. Obama has had a pretty consistent holing his advantage over running going back several polling advantage over romney going back several months. That is something hope their registration advantage can push her over the top. There are congressional races that depend on that turnover machin host e. The republican candidate that turnover machine. Advantage is the northern part of the state. She has to perform well. She does not have to be able to win them. Obama performed well in that county that years ago. District 2 has always been in republican hands. We have another swing district ng. En the redistrictio obama has an advantage in the southern part of the state. The parties, when they go to these sorts of events, they are presenting a united front. Obama makes sure he mentions everyone on the ticket. Host we have a caller on the republican line. Caller i live in Colorado Springs and a lot of people that i know are out there getting food stamps or welfare. They laugh about it. They think the government owes it to them. Nobody knows you nothing. Nobody is talking about libya and nobody is talking about nothing like that. It is another thing that even spanish people i am status myself. I cannot understand i am spanish myself. They are not saying anything about those fast and furious guns. Remember, spanish people. If you mess up with any black people in your lifetime, obama is coming after you. He is the president and he cares about the black people and that is it. Host do you want to talk about fast and furious and policies play into nevada racist . Nevada races . Guest people are listening to the sequestration, stations to a point. Foreign policy does not seem to be driving this election. Fast and furious and has not come up to a large degree in this election at all. It ties into the cross border issues as a Group Package and is the other side of the immigration issue. Nevada is next door to arizona. We had a lot immigration laws have been a pervasive concern for people in the states. Your caller mentioned race issues as well. That is an undercurrent that has been around that no one discusses very much. It is an issue if you look at the numbers. Most minorityith categories in 2008. The same thing happened in 2010 when harry reid was running. The numbers are there which sometimes can contribute to the tensions you heard from your caller. Host key counties on Election Night itself. Guest like i said before, much of this comes down to two pockets of the state. Clark county i think has over 70 of the population. The northern part of the state with another 20 of the population. With the republicans are going to be making a huge push to turn people out from Rural Counties. Those are counties that count and will matter for the Congressional District 4 race which is the new district. I will be looking at different sorts of groups of. People have been talking to blocks of voters whether it is women, seniors, are veterans. I am going to be looking to see how these messages are playing out, how this war on women message is affecting people to go to the polls. How is the medicare conversation actually affecting seniors . They are another block in nevada that did not go for obama in 20008. If you vote in republicans, goodbye to medicare as you know it. I will be looking to see how and whom these talking points are really selling at home with. Host one more call for you from now that at this morning on the democratic line. Caller hi. Listen, what they want to know is that senator from indiana said that rape was preordained by god. I was wondering how that would affect the vote in nevada and that is such an offensive statement for you to make. Guest i cannot predict exactly how that statement is going to affect nevada but the Democratic Candidates, especially shelley berkley, have been driving that point home saying because the republicans are not disavowing murdoch, they are supporting him. They are trying to build this connection between these comments that have not really been very feminist. That have come out in the last few months. You have seen Democratic Candidates it just driving home this point bringing it up as much as icraftthey can. Host Karoun Demirjian, thank you for joining us this morning. Up next, Andres Ramirez will discuss the strategy for winning in nevadas Electoral College votes. Later, dan burdish will join us to discuss strategies for winning nv. First come at a news update from cspan radio. The Labor Department says unemployment applications dropped by 23,000 from a revised 392,000 from the previous week. Vice President Joe Biden will be among political figures gathered in south dakota today to celebrate the life of a former senator and president ial candidate who died sunday. Hundreds of people are expected to come together for a public viewing and prayer service. A new report says young adults are making big moves in the economic recovery, leaving College Towns and heading out of state at the highest rate since the height of the housing boom. A new decals look at mobility in the u. S. After sliding to a record low last year. The National Park Service Opening its lottery for free tickets to attend the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in washington, d. C. Those are some of the headlines making news this hour on cspan radio. I regularly watch washington journal. I watch the callin shows in the morning. Whenever there is a hearing that is of any significance, i will tuen in. Ne in. I also watch cspan online. It provides a source of information to us that is rare in todays spinoriented society. We cannot regulate get the kind of information we need to make decisions for ourselves. We often have to hear it from the left or the right. On cspan, you get in permission directly from the policy makers. Gregory evans watches cspan on time warner cable. Washington journal continues. Host we are back with nevada and democratic strategist Andres Ramirez to discuss president obama strategy for winning the silver state. Andres ramirez, we spent a lot of time in the last segment talking about unemployment and under water mortgage rates. How much of a liability are those stats for president obama . Guest no doubt that nevada has been struggling to recover from the Economic Disaster that has happened both with unemployment and on the housing effect. The area i live in is the highest for clues to zip code in the country. The unemployment numbers in nevada have gone down. In the unemployment in. And las vegas have continued to decrease which is a positive sign. Anticipated home values are beginning to rebound in las vegas. All of these things are happening at a crucial time in this election. Nevada voters are going to the polls. They are positive signs for obama. Obviously we would like unemployment numbers to be lower and the foreclosure crisis to be better, but the indicators we are seeing are showing positive momentum. Host mitt romney and paul ryan were on the ground out there on tuesday. Romney talked about what his time in all this would bring for the state. Can you afford four more years with 23 million americans looking for a good job . Can you afford four more years with housing prices going down . Can you afford four more years of doubling of the gasoline prices if you are paying . How about this . Would you like to have for years where we create 12 million new jobs . Four years where we create 12 million new jobs . How about four more years of rising takehome pay again . How about four years getting now that unemployment down to 6 or lower. Host your thoughts on some of his promises in that speech. Guest they certainly make for great tv sound bites but he has been on record saying he would prefer people to lose their homes and the foreclosure crisis to bottom out. Mitt romney has a good record of creating jobs but not in the United States. Most he created were offshore or overseas. Voters looking at this will begin to really look at what mitt romney is offering and what he is really bringing to the table. I think voters are going to determine that the economy is improving and it has nothing to do with what mitt romney has done and has everything to do with what the Obama Administration has put forward. Host we have the phones open for your call if you want to talk to Andres Ramirez, president of the ramirez group, and former harry reid staffer. The republican line the democratic line if you are in nevada resident, give us a call at can you give us a better picture of the nevada economy . Most people realize party time is limited. What else goes on the sides gambling and glitter . Esides gambling and glitter . Guest one of the Biggest Industries we have is we have a large mining industry. In the rural parts of nevada, they have been experiencing rapid growth over the past few years as prices have increased. We have been able to add new dimensions to stabilize the economy over the last several years. We have the hoover dam, red rock canyon. They are great avenues to create jobs and revenue in our state that are completely off the strip and have provided a diverse stream of revenue. Host zach is on the independent line. Caller good morning. I just muted my button as you started talking about tourism but that is an area that can be expanded. People back east probably do not realize how big the county is. There are a lot of possibilities. There are a lot of other issues that are coming into play up here this year. I want to talk about mitt romney. I think Everyone Wants what he says. I think obama would like to see 22 million new jobs but you have to say how you are going to do that. That is all my comment was. It is good to hear from you this morning. Host we will go to wisconsin on the republican line. James, go ahead. Did we lose you . Caller hello . I am from louisiana. Mitt romney makes and lot of promises. How is he going to prove what he is saying . I am going to turn down my tv. Host if you want to talk a little bit about how the Obama Campaign has gone after the Mitt Romney Campaign on nevada issues. Guest mitt romney as a lot of great platitudes and sound bites with the media but if we look at his record he constantly says what has obama done in the past four years . Mitt romneys record is not a positive record of creating jobs and improving the economy in the United States. A record of creating jobs and improving economies here in the United States, he does not have that record. Where is he going to create 22 million jobs . What are they going to pay . His previous record does not have a great indicator of helping to improve salaries of American Workers or the quality of life. Lets judge people on their records. Mitt romneys record is just a tragic example of what we would want in the white house to move our country forward. Postville another nevada caller for you from loss host another nevada caller for you from las vegas. Caller i want to know why no one is talking about the oil company that mr. Mitt romney ands in china na pumping out to iran. In illinois, he is closing down, sending jobs to china for his other companies. This guy is a liar. He lies all the time. Host something you can speak to . Guest sure. Again, mitt romney has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign and he thinks by spending that money on commercials and Campaign Propaganda people are going to forget that he has a record of shipping jobs overseas, hurting American Communities and workers, and hurting our economy. We have 24hour access to media and the internet and Fabulous Companies called google where we can access information independently. All of the money mitt romney thinks he is going to spend about his record, it is going to come to light. We know you are spending money to ship jobs overseas. We are not going to fall for it. We need strong leadership in this country. Host lets talk about the tens of millions of dollars being spent on advertisements in it that. Here are the top states overall. Ohio is number one with 177 million spent in commercial advertisements this year. How effect of is that spending at this point . Has nv been saturated . Guest nv is over saturated at this point. You cannot open your mailbox without being inundated with political mail. Now that is a battleground state. Nevada is a battleground state and it is notorious for being independent. We have a ticket splitters, libertarian voters. These candidates are investing significant resources to ensure they will turn out there bases and persuade undecided voters. The Democratic Party has invested significant resources over the past year so we enjoy a 90,000 voter advantage statewide. We have been able to turn out our voters in significantly larger numbers than republicans. These investments have continuing diminishing returns as more and more voters will vote early. Host for those of us not in nevada, i want to show some of the ads taking place right now on the air. This is a mitt romney advertisement. There is a soft spot in my heart in it nv. Unemployment is probably double digits. I voted for barack obama. I really lost faith in him. I am supporting mitt romney. I think we have heard enough excuses. I do not think we can afford four more years. Host just to get your quick take on that ad. Guest its sense like a very compelling ad. It sounds like a very compelling ad. It was surprising that he supported obama in the 2008 election. No surprise that he has left his roots and pushes the Republican Party agenda. Host i want to show you an obama ad that is being shown in nevada as well. So much is at stake. Comprehensive immigration reform, education, making sure every young person in this country has access to good schools, and i could go on and on and on. That is why the vote is critical. Host mr. Ramirez, a democratic strategist, i want to get you on the phone with michael from wisconsin. Michael, go ahead. Caller how are you guys doing today . I got some things i want to say. I am really heartbroken about that lady who said president obama is a racist. I am an independent and that offends me. Another thing is i dont understand how many latino in their right mind could vote for mitt romney because of everything he says and what he does behind closed doors. They will not respond to accusations of millions of dollars nbc d. C. N that is ridiculous and nobody wants to b. Nobody wants to be poor or on food stamps. We dont want this. If i am doing really well, i would not mind paying extra to help out my neighbor. Host could you talk about the importance of the latino vote in nevada this year . Guest the latino vote has been growing every election cycle. Then senator obama received 76 of the latino vote in the state of nevada. In 2010, the election was also extremely decided by the latino electorate here in nevada. We are expecting latinos to continue to play an important role. Over the past year, spanish surname voters have registered at a higher rate than the general electorate i. The general population only increased Voter Registration by 26 . It is extremely exciting to see latinos are engaged in this process. What we have been seeing for early voting so far has been very encouraging. A Record Number turnout for spanish voters for the first week so far. We are very excited about the role that latinos will play. We think they will exceed the numbers in 2008 and 2010. Both candidates are investing resources to communicate to the voters in spanish and english. To use one of the most well known figures in the Spanish Speaking community bodes well for president obama. Host a question for you on twitter. A viewer writes in guest yeah, well, we are blessed that we have a competitive president ial race. Nd senate torsenatorial race it makes for a very exciting opportunity for us who are political junkies. It is the home state of harry reid and could help determine whether the democrats keep control of the United States senate. A lot of money is being invested from outside groups, super pacs, independent expenditures. Shelley berkley is running against dean heller. The democratic machine who helped deliver harry reid to victory is in full force to help president obama and shelley berkley. We are going to continue to see positive successes up and down the ticket this cycle. Host i have a caller on the republican line this morning. Caller thank you for cspan. As a republican, i know most of us are concerned about growing democracies and so forth because it anybody who works for the government does not contribute to revenue and it takes more money away, compounding the problem. Which party would be contributing more to a bureaucracy and which party will try to cut down the bureaucracy in nevada as well as the country . Thank you. Guest that is a great question especially coming from a state like nevada which helped to grow las vegas and it billed ourselves economic determination several decades ago with the construction of the hoover dam. 85 of nevada land is owned by the federal government. The department of interior, the department of defense. We have the department of energy locations here. I take an negative reaction from people who say Government Employees do not contribute to the economy. I think most historians cannot republicans or democrats, would agree if not for the construction of the hoover dam, we would not see las vegas as we do today. We have significant resources being invested here and so forth. All these employees of the federal government are buying homes and paying taxes when they buy their homes. They are buying groceries and shopping at these private industries and it visiting our casinos. For people to suggest because you are an employee of the government you do not contribute to the economy or our community, i think it is a false statement. From lets go to emma texas on the democratic line. Caller good morning. My comment was for the mexican lady who called in during the last segment talking about president obama. President obama has done more for the mexicans than blacks. I am black. The mexican women have all the jobs here and are very disrespectful to black women. I dont know where she got her education. Host lets go to ohio on the republican line. Caller my husband happens to be mexican so i understand a little about the mexican community. They are hardworking, prolife, religious people and are all the things the democrats are against. They are all about they took god out of their platform. They are all prochoice. Everything i see the mexican people are not been been the only other thing i want to say about that is there have been democracies before hours. It starts out people are in bondage. They go from spiritual faith to courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to great abundance, from great abundance to selfishness. Host we have about a minute left for you to get a response. Guest i am an american with latino descent. As a Mexican American here in the United States, i like to have this conversation with my republican colleagues. Rim is Small Business owner and go to church frequently i am a Small Business owner and go to church frequently. These statements are simply a fallacy and it is untrue that the democrats removed god from their platform. I am a proud democrat and am proud of my religion and christianity. So far, i have not seen anything coming from the Republican Party that will make me feel they are better for the Latino Community then what the Democratic Party has to offer them that that is why we have the same poll numbers of latino voters choosing to vote for Democratic Candidates. Host Andres Ramirez, thank you for joining us this morning. Guest thank you for having me. Host up next, former executive director of the nevada Republican Party dan burdish. We will be right back. One of 10,000 homes they are trying to get done in the next four years. These are houses that are never coming back. [indiscernible] one family every 20 minutes moving out. These houses are just disappearing from the landscape. Just recently, 164 firefighters were laid off as a part of this downsizing, as a part of this effort for the mayor to get finances under control for the city. Firefighters, these guys are laid off. Two weeks later, 100 are rehired. When you look to find out where that money came from, the department of Homeland Security as a fund for things like that. That is something you want to think about them than the department of homeless security can step in to keep detroit as save as it can be for the moment. We have seen the Auto Industry bailout, at the bank bailout and are we heading into an era of bailout city . More on sunday at 8 00 on c span. This weekend, cspan2 stops in austin, texas, for live coverage of a book festival saturday. The texas book festival, live this weekend on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Host our last segment, were joined by former executive director of the nevada Republican Party, dan burdish. I want to go to a story this week from the las vegas sun. Predicting that mitt romney will lose the race in it now that this year. In nevada this year. I went to get your thoughts on that story and what you think is going to happen in the race this year. Guest it could very well be. I think governor romney has a good chance if we can keep democrats to about 45 in las vegas and republicans up around 35 . I think governor romney has a great shot. In 2000, the democrat came out with 51 in clark county yet george bush still won. There is a good chance that governor romney can make it. Host as the race come down now to one or two issues in nevada . Guest everybody is going after the last three people who have not made up their mind. We have such an ad war going on here. Both democrats and republicans are working like mad to try to get people to get out to vote. What is not too bad is republicans tend to vote later. You will see this gap closing, closing, closing the closer we get to election day. Host i want to play you a clip from president obama yesterday and some of the comments he made. There is no more serious issue in the president ial campaign then who can you trust . Trust matters. Who is going to look out for you . And here is the thing. Nevada, you know me by now. You know i say what i mean, and i mean what i say. We have not finished everything we set out to do in 2008 but you know every single day i set foot in that office i am thinking about you. Host do you think that argument is going over well with voters out there . Guest i dont really think it is. We have the highest place of unemployment in the country and the highest foreclosure rate in the country. President obama has not been good for nevada. All these statistics show that we are worse off now than we were four years ago. It is time to put somebody else in there. That is why you see the polls narrowing the closer we get to the election. Host we are taking your calls in this segment. This is former state Party Chairman dan burdish. Give us a call. We still have that line set up for nevada residents. Will go right now to joe in richmond, indiana, on the republican line. Caller thank you very much. Id appreciate you taking our calls them that i appreciate you taking our calls. Nevada definitely has a need as far as support and things like this. I truly feel president obama has had four years which we hear a lot of rhetoric anbut the truth is in the fruits of the person. We need to desperately turn our country to where our economy can be brought back. I feel governor romney would fill that for us and bank. Merica ned we need to take a stand for what is right. We need to take a look at what they have done. The background parts of the world with a reach out and do things that are right. I just enccourage all the voters in nevada to truly look at what their needs are and what promises have been given. Host will go to one of those voters in nevada on the democratic line. Caller how are you today . Basically what i wanted to know is when the democrats took the president ial race, they inherited a tremendous mess. Do you really think that the republicans could have cleaned up what was created by a Republican Party in four years . Guest thank you for your call them that it was not just the republicans. We had a republican president. Republicans and democrats created this mess and it is something that has to be cleaned up by both parties. The democratic president has not tried to clean it up. Jamhe has htried to do is down obamacare in our throats. The overregulation that we have been be. It is almost impossible tfor you to start a business in hawthorne or anyplace else to create jobs. What the president is trying to do is have the government do that. That is not the governments job. The government job is to create a stable economy said the individual can do that. Host a viewer writes in on twitter we have talk about the latino vote out there. I want to get your take on how well the Republican Party has done this time around. Done ast i think they have lousy job. We have marco rubio out here. Instead of taking him into the latino sections of las vegas, they take him out to green valley and anderson. We need to go to the latinos. We cannot sit back and expect them to come to us. The democrats have done a great job on this. They unions push their members who are predominantly hispanic to register and vote democrat. The republicans have not done that. Host is it too late at this point for republicans to get that vote . Guest i dont know if it is too late. We need to get latinos explaining to latinos why the republicans should be their choice then that i start to see that. Host let go out to california on the independenct line. Caller i think all american citizens should be protected. Nghazi isened in been gau our military was put on alert right away and our president made our military stand down and not protect american citizens because it is political. What is really going on . It is a new world order and we need to stop this. We need to think about america and america only right now. Guest i would think form policies should be focused on because we have such a large concentration. Up in hawthorne, we have the depot for munitions and a lot of servicemen but i do not see it as a major issue. We are hurting so economically that we tend to need nothing but jobs, jobs, jobs. Rites in on wing wirtes ino twitter again, we have about 15 minutes left in this segment on nevada. Opening it up to your calls. We will go to a new York Resident right now on the republican line. Good morning, bill. Caller hi. Could you remind the people of nevada how obama went after all the corporations, bringing their corporate jets into las vegas and stopped them from coming in which literally destroyed the economy of las vegas . I dont understand how people do not see through this. Could you Say Something about that . Guest do not comment throw your cash away in las vegas he said do not comment throw your cash away in las vegas. Host when did he say that . Guest in 2009, he was talking about corporations coming in here and having their my mind is not working. Pardon me. Bringing trade shows and having their annual retreats here. He said do not come to vegas and throw your money away on the table. That was a big issue in the 2010 campaign but is less of an issue here. It is not a big deal and it should be. When you have a president telling people not to come to vegas and you are in vegas, shouldnt that be a part of the campaign . Host what are you going to be looking for on Election Night to tell you which way this election is going . Guest in nevada, if they can keep president obama to 51 in the las vegas area, we can eek out a win in nevada. The race statewide races in this state tend to be won in the reno area. Las vegas always good democrat. The Rural Counties always go republican. They tend to even themselves out. We win or lose in reno. That is how it si going to be. That is how it has been since 1988. It is going to be that this year. That is why i think everyone is talking about how close the dean hellershelley berkley race is. I think that is going to be a fourpoint race for dean heller. Host lets go to james on the democratic line. You are on with dan burdish, a former executive director of the nevada Republican Party. Caller a lot of the things you are saying are misleading and incorrect. Mitt romney does not have a good jobs record. A lot of other things he claimed to have done bipartisan, i think democrats are more willing to Work Together. That has been shown throughout the years. As far as obama not having any jobs plan, republicans do not want to vote for them or put their own ideas into place. There is really nothing that mitt romney can do. That is just plain and simple. Guest it is not just plain and simple. Governor romney has a fivepoint plan to bring jobs to this country. You can go to his website and loka tit. Look at it. D i do not mean to put down government workers. However, you cannot build this country by putting us deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. It just does not worked. Host do you think mr. Romney can get to the 6 Unemployment Rate he talked about in that speech yesterday . Guest i would hope so. We have such a pentup demand in this country. Corporations are just looking for a reason to start rebuilding them that there is some much cash, like 500 billion in cash. A has to be more than that. I was thinking 500 trillion dollars but that is too much. There is so much demand and corporations have no idea what to do been that our congress is just sitting by being partisan. We cannot have that. Vegasgo to another las motor. Caller i lived in North Las Vegas. Leadership has been dismal. We are in bankruptcy right now. The city of las vegas is bankrupt. We have no republican leadership. The leadership here is in the tank. Let me Say Something else. If it were not for the jobs act, we would not have harry reid has been a great thing getting our watershed. That is federally funded money that is helping two areas, with the rain water and our roads. Outside of that, we have nothing. The swap meets are doing much better than anything else in the North Las Vegas. They do better than the casinos. Who want to spend their money in this economy in the casinos . Host he brings up harry reid. How is he playing in both the president ial and senate race out there . Guest harry reid has put together a machine that is second to none. I think that is the only reason barack obama is doing well here. He made a concerted effort to put together a machine for the Democrat Party that was going to do nothing but support him and who he wants to support. As far as North Las Vegas, it is near bankrupt for one reason. They have the highest public Union Salaries of any city in the state. Their city council and there may have rolled over to the unions and have done nothing but to increase salaries. That is why North Las Vegas is going broke the bank that and that that they had a perfectly good city hall and decided we wanted a taj mahal. They built something that is only 25 to 40 occupied at this point. Number las vegas was mismanaged and that is why is going broke North Las Vegas was mismanaged and that is why it is going broke. Caller above the other caller who called about las vegas and not going there and what obama said, i think that was in 2009 right after aig got the bailout. The only part of aig that made a profit and spent i think 700,000 or whatever, and then barack obama just slammed them. They never mentioned corporations toward their workers for being profitable. It is not free. They do pay taxes. I dont understand why they do not mention that. Host this is from february 3, 2010. Speaking about the economy at an event in New Hampshire, mr. Obama told americans when times are tough, you tighten your belt. That is from february 2010. Guest she is right. When you come out here for an awards banquet or a trade show, corporations do not just spend money to spend money. They bring people out here to increase productivity. A trade show let your competitors know what youre doing. We are the number one Convention Destination in the United States because we built that up. When you have a president s saying do not go to vegas, it hurts us. Host we will take a call now on the democratic line. Denise, are you there . I want to ask you about the question of ron paul voters in nevada and how they are going to play in this race. At the nominating convention, some of his supporters tried to challenge what the state was trying to nominate. Correct . Guest yes. I was an alternate to the convention. I was there. They voted against what our rules were. There is a controversy here on that. There are two different ron paul supporters. There are those who could care less who it is as long as it is not ron paul. Then you have the rational ron paul people who are going to look at barack obama or mitt romney. To those people, there is a major difference and they are going to come down on the side of mitt romney. The others are saying the Republican Party did not nominate ron paul so we are going to vote for obama. Host are there enough of this to affect the election . Guest i doubt it been that it is a very, very small minority. Host lets go to mary from ohio this morning on the republican line. Caller yes. I would like to question president obama on one thing. About the morality of he i supports abortion and all these things, but i am an evangelical christian and my bible tells me what things are wrong and what is not. He seemed like he is on both sides of the fence. He wants to have abortion but he does not Pay Attention to what gods words are. Host i want to get your thoughts on how the issue of rape and abortion especially after the comments from the republican Senate Candidate in indiana are going to play out their in nevada. Guest we do not have a big social conservative following here in nevada. We are more of a libertarian state. There have been times i did not have anything to do with a. We did not even take a stance on abortion. The evangelicals are not a major influence on the Republican Party here. What we are looking at four republicans and democrats is jobs, jobs, jobs. That is what it comes down to. We dont have Anyone Running on any of the social issues in this state and host want to ask you about the role of the mormon vote in nevada. Guest the mormons are about 11 of the population and tend to be both parties. Reed is a mormon. Some of our Major Political figures are mormon. I think a lot of mormons whether they are democrat or republican are going to be voting for mitt romney. Host lets go to michael from florida up on the independent line. Caller good morning. Here is my point. We are all americans. The Republican Party is like gangrelated. They fight and tell us this and that, but nothing gets done. I am going to vote for obama because he was handed a crisis and he has done his best putting americans back to work. Mitt romney says 47 . Then he goes and insults them and nobody says nothing about that. Host we went to give you the last comment of what you think will happen in the next 12 days. Guest i have been very impressed with the Mitt Romney Campaign. They are running on the economy and jobs, and i think they are going to do that for the next 12 days. Mitt romney was here yesterday and the day before. President obama was here yesterday. I think they are going to stay on message and stay on the economy. That is what they need to do. Host dan burdish, former executive director of the nevada Republican Party, thank you so much for joining us on nevada. Guest thank you. Host make sure to