movement is a grass-roots movement that has been disrespected by people in the political class because fundamentally it is a rejection of the political class. >> and i would say it is a group of voters about a quarter of the electorate that is basically saying we are fed up with washington and spending, fed up with taxing policies that don't reflect our values and we want to return to core principles. >> host: house speaker been the policies of the tea party is in to grassroots and all it is an astroturf movement founded by a few rich people. what do you say to that? >> guest: the whole notion of the tea party movement offended washington. initially it was racist, astroturf but what happened was frustration and pushed over the top by the bailout legislation and people in washington never saw it coming because they still believed the bailout saved the nation. most people in america believe it was bad for the economy. >> host: so it isn't really anything new at all? >> guest: there is a long land of antisystemic populist movements in america. some as you know better than me on the left, others on the right. but this to me is a continuation of what we saw in the mid 1990's, early 1990's and has greater fervor and i think after the e collection we are going to see it has had greater impact. >> host: i think you list americans for prosperity founded by david coke of coca industries as one of the major organizational backers of this movement. is that evidence of astroturf? >> guest: i think the opposite actually. my sense is that if there was not a grass-roots movement to fund their would not be boaters to mobilize. you could put a lot of money into campaigns and not get much response and the tea parties i think gargasz was set authentic a grass-roots movements that really are itself created and mostly self financed. >> guest: there is a lot of money, politicians trying to jump in the tea party movement but that is because you have a movement like this that is it has two things going for it. has passion and its core ideas resume with a majority of americans. so a lot of people like to take credit and help it along but quite frankly if the coke brothers disappeared the move them would go on just fine. >> host: it is a kind of race to take credit. thank you. to emphasize the mainstream media and which under appreciated, failed to appreciate the strengths of the tea party movement. why did the old media overlook this trend? >> guest: they didn't want to see it. earlier this year scott brown had a stunning electoral victory in massachusetts where ted kennedy's old seat. poling was showing it would be a competitive race is the major networks never covered it as a competitive race until the final couple of days because it just was incomprehensible to them the democrats could lose the seat. so much of the tea party movement is in the same category. they can't believe people are not happy with policies right now the federal government. >> guest: has a look at the the the i.c.e. level of optimism you can point to sharon hinkle and paul marco rubio for some reason the media hasn't wanted to give the cheaper credit. for goodness' sake you don't have to be a supporter of christine o'donnell or sharon ankle to recognize the vibrancy or authenticity and power and potency of the tea party movement. >> host: you tell an anecdote in your book about rush limbaugh, the radio show host and mr. steele of the rnc. can you tell the anecdote again and what you think it means? >> guest: my sense is what the anecdote really means is that the political class, the political leadership just doesn't have a clue about what the movement is really about, and one of the thing this scott points to frequently and should talk about is the republican leadership is as alienated from the tea party movement as is the democratic leadership. >> host: can you repeat what happened with mr. steele and mr. limbaugh? this could have different views of republican voters, to party activists. mr. limbaugh would like to think of himself as the leader. mr. steel thinks they're a co-op for republicans and it doesn't -- it's not going to work. republican voters believe michael steele republicans in washington are out of touch with the party base by a wide margin. >> guest: he criticized limbaugh, he pushed back and steele sued for peace, and in a certain way, when that happened, i said that's the part of rush limbaugh, in actual fact. while he is undeniably potent and powerful and influential but was ultimately an expression of the tea party power reflecting itself in the dispute. host committee it is a force of history that the tea party such as the repeal of the fairness doctrine that radio doctrine that made it very strongly opinionated shows such as rush limbaugh possible dating all the way back to the president reagan so that would be the decades ago >> guest: what is happening going back is the tea party movement. everything that is in the political mainstream today is built upon frustration that's been growing for decades. and this is the way the grass-roots movements had been in america. in the 1950's rows of parked didn't get to proceed on the bus and ignited a civil rights movement but the frustration was building for decades. even the founding of america for decades before the revolution of the frustration had built and that is what is happening today. frustration is being unleashed. but it didn't just start in april 20009. >> host: it reminds me of another story about when the wilky who is a surprise republican candidate in 1940 running against franklin roosevelt. roosevelt third term and they said he was a grass-roots candidate because they spring up all over the country and in washington they commented the grassroots of a thousand country clubs that was funded by the corollary >> guest: wilky was a utility executive. what we are seeing here is a rejection, explosively unabashedly of country clubs, eletes, business leaders, and when people say sharon ingalls, brandt paul, joe miller, margo rubio and try to derive them in a certain sense i think this points to the power of the tea party that candidates who are hardly ideal are getting nominated because they are not traditional republicans, they are not mainstream candidates. they assure the mainstream and are supported because of their alienation from the system. >> host: in the debt is a central theme of your book the elite versus the regular. how do you define elite and what is the ratio of americans who are elite and who are not or who are mainstream and real? >> guest: we actually call it mainstream voters and the political class and the political class are people who support this concept we should be led by. we have three questions in the survey we ask people whose judgment to the trust more the american people, political leaders. we ask is the federal government special-interest group in big business and big government work together against the rest of us. seven out of ten people hold of the latter view that this alliance between big government and big business. some are on the left and some are on the right. but overall loss of 55 or 60% of americans are consistently on the main street side of all of the questions. about 14% or even with the political class on two of three questions and you talk about a sense of scale back in the 17 seventies about one out of three colonists supported the crown, so in a group right now we have a very small level of support for the status quo in washington. >> host: how big is the political class or the elite group? >> guest: about 7% are in and 7% of the population lean in that direction. >> host: is it possible, dr. schoen went to harvard, is it possible to go to an ivy league school and not be in the political class or does the define you for ever in one side or the other? >> guest: we may disagree on this but i think if you go to an ivy league college, and you're part of the political class just by membership i told your research associate before we began that i took a seminar with a late departed and much lamented senator daniel patrick moynihan who has come out with a terrific book you might also enjoy reading. but i remember that seminar some 30 years ago a guy got up and said he was a representative of the working class and moynihan said when you're living in the 02138 as it could i can assure you are in the political class, and i think that is the case and you lose touch very substantially with mainstream values. >> host: so everyone who ever attended, just to push further, senator moynihan would have said whoever attended one of those fancy schools, which i did, to act -- >> guest: you did very well. >> host: is always out of it forever. i think that is a little harsh. [inaudible] >> guest: it took me 12 years to get my undergraduate degree >> host: going back a little -- >> guest: what you're saying is certainly if you are part of the elite institution if you have gone to the school, you do have advantages you don't even recognize. it is possible for someone with that background to recognize that the american people should be given more respect and the government should derive its authority from the governed and there is an attitude among some those recovering from this there is an attitude among some that i was at harvard recently and a woman said -- we don't understand why the people don't want us to leave. we've been trained to leave. that is the attitude people are upset about. >> host: maybe the problem as arrogance and not pedigreed. >> guest: that could farewell be to do you remember what erica said in a harvard man? she said the most arrogant thing in life is a harvard man with a c average. [laughter] host committee the universities aren't as different as we would like them. >> guest: what he should understand but scott and his family is not withstanding what i would like to believe i've accomplished and you certainly have accomplished, scott and his father founded espn, soledad putative he is built on of the most respected companies in america, and given the level of success, and relatively young age, he may not want to be part of the elite but he has done more in the vast majority of eletes with a graduated from harvard or not. >> host: btu are the elite of innovation. >> guest: if you go back even to the founding days of the country there were eletes with a were doing is preserving this idea that the government shouldn't be run by the elites. the government should be run with consent of the government. there had to be popular component, and we seem to be moving away from that at this point in time. >> host: thank you for letting me push on this question, been tolerant of that and maybe we should get a little bit more to the two-party. what are the -- the tea party itself has issued memoranda or documents. what is a big issue for the tea party as the to clear and as you perceive those issues to be. >> guest: i love when you see the tea party has issued these. there are lots of groups are part of the tea party and it's hard to define who is in because the president of the club and about one out of four or five say their part of the tea party movement. the things that unite them, fiscal policy issues they leave government spending should be lower. >> host: you mentioned first fiscal policy. in the sense that nobody is listening to. >> guest: i would go back to fiscal policy and say they believe that there is a effectively corrupt alliance between the two parties in washington. to spend and tax more than they believe is prudent. when people say the key parties are no nothing's, with your is antikinsey in. they are traditional balanced budget from the government the way i run my household, i don't want debt or a deficit, i don't want excess of spending. i'm not against social programs if we can afford it, but if we can't i don't want to do it and i would like to protect the social programs we have because i needed them. they are not libertarian, and just small limited government people who frequently say i'm a new to all of this and i just am so angry and you know, that's i think pretty authentic. >> host: let's back up and say what keynesian is. >> guest: spend to prime the pump. you have written about this eloquently. >> host: what we want to talk it through. i was just reading the economic consequences of peace, that is a very fine book. it is a great u.k. economist who developed the content of the modern stimulus as we know what also wrote a lot of other things, and one of the things he praises is inequality of income distribution because he says it is optimal win welford eletes have a lot of money. they will spend it all on watches like paris hilton. savitt, a large share of it they spend on investment which leads to productivity gains which in turn is the best kind of growth for the economy. but it is antikeynesian and i agree and it sort of a visceral and i can see in people don't just wake up and say i hate john maynard keynes, what they see is it doesn't make sense to me to spend more than i can afford with volume in the government or household. >> guest: first most americans don't know who he is. richard nixon said we all can see and so there is a cultural kinsey in some most americans today believe if you cut government spending that will create more jobs and spending more. if you cut the deficit it will create more. >> guest: there's something else to it. the average american with your he or she be in the tea party or separate, basically believe that if you increase incentives to reducing taxes you're going to get more economic growth. if you say to the average american which is better, the government spending money to encourage both growth and consumption or the government cutting back and leaving more money in your pocket, they are going to tell you more money in my pocket and let me do with that money what i want and i am more likely than not to spend it in a way that is socially productive but goodness gracious don't you tell me what to do. and while they are not trained economist and they may not know cannes or any other economic philosopher, they have a clear idea, and you will see november 2nd how they take those ideas to the polling booth and express them with what i think space would agree would be a repudiation of the obama administration economic policy. >> guest: it's not just the repudiation of the obama policy. this is for the third straight election cycle voting against the party in power and it's also the continuation of things that began in the clinton era when the president lost control of congress, president bush lost control of congress, president obama me do it again. there is a voting against. >> guest: degette tire sastre. we are going to get to the other issue of the tea party but just on the fiscal side, if they are not keynesian and they don't like spending, how do they feel about taxes? art lovers says incentives matter and the lower rates can generate more economic activity, therefore bring more revenue than the government expected. this is the advisor -- >> guest: the other thing about this but i think is important to understand is the tea party members and supporters and the american people generally are compassionate people. these are not selfish mean-spirited people. but they lead a common sense life and common sense means you don't spend what you don't have, you don't overburden people and you give people incentives and they see these as core values that if they were more perhaps litter it they would express more eloquently but they are no less fervent and passionate than a trained economist. and the other thing that happened, scott has pointed to this a bunch of times, they look at people in new york and say where do these people come from? what kind of value do they have? how do they think about things? they are just befuddled, angry, too, but befuddled. >> guest: you tie this back from a policy point of view, the thing that ignited all frustration that is now the tea party movement was the bailout. there were several things -- >> host: we have fiscal and now the bailout as a trigger of the catalyst. >> guest: it is part of the same thought process because what dog was saying about the common sense approach, all of a sudden the government says $700,000,000,000.1 reaction is you didn't know this ahead of time? another reaction that is deep is the sense of outrage about it. americans believe in this idea that if you do well in business you should keep your profits if you do poorly you should pay the price and all of a sudden they say wait a minute, people change the rules to help their friends to bail out their friends with our tax payer money and was seen as an inside job, it was seen as political class alliance with the big business crowd in wall street and people were saying wait a minute. at the same time this is happening, the house and values are falling. only half of all voters believe their house is worth more than a mortgage and they see somebody wants to help the big boys and change the rules to hurt us. >> guest: the other part of this, which space has eluted to, again, you have written me enormously, eloquently about this, is this suspicion of eletes, bureaucrats and the washington arrangement. i remember writing about the jewish kosher butchers and i guess it was brought away who couldn't explain to the bureaucrats why they did what they did, how they did what they did and why it was a rational, reasonable and supported the community in the market. it was seen as i recollect as a violation of the trade law and lead them to think one was even incarcerated if my recollection of the story you told in the book is correct. and i told that story because what you see in the tea party if it is that absolute sense that washington is just out, not only out of touch, but as space was alluding to is corrupt. but if you're a big thinker and get into trouble and you are bailed out if you are an auto company baled out and if you're a working guy who gets behind on a mortgage that they never should have taken out because they shyster banker foisted upon them, tough luck. host committee to see this in addition to the elite regular man as a battle of economic theory and started to say that the keynesian come and the battle of macroeconomics and microeconomics, microeconomics the experience of the firm was the firm say about what is happening to the economy? billable business say sometimes little about whether it wants to decide to how your again which is in the great problem we have had in this recovery, the jobless recovery that's very interesting. as we talk about the first bailout, just so the viewer is clear on that, that wall street bailout we talk about fiscal and a little about tax and maybe about the economic philosophy of economic philosophy that might be behind these impulses. are there other components you identified in? >> guest: when you talk about this it's not quite right as you describe it when you talk about it in the economic theory because people that are mad as hell aren't sitting there thinking in terms of economic theory. with your thinking is their sense of what's right and what's wrong and it happens to translate into an economic theory but that's not the way that they are viewing it, and they are viewing what is wrong as moral sense. >> host: they are elite people of the of the institutions were more about economics in the past. one was william graham sumner who said don't forget the forgotten man whom he identified as what we would call today the tea party person, a person left out not receiving the special gifts of the special interest crowd. let me ask one more question then we will ask questions about yourselves since we are all interested in how you got here and all these books you've written and who you work with. is this tea party movement more powerful than other such