A combination of how far this anxiety anger frustration goes and where it gets channeled in the future. Thank you. Peter, why dont you take a stab at that, because you didnt weve spent time together, so i know you missed a Little Something also. Well, thank you for reminding me. If ruth had to do it, equal opportunity. Right, and i have the benefit if you missed it, Dana Millbank had to eat a column. No, that was the recipe in the washington post. If you dont get it, you dont get it. I read ruths columns, by the way, i want to say right off. I read them every day so i remember how i should think. [ laughter ] i mean, after all, i am an ethnic irish Second GenerationRoman Catholic from maine, so i have no business actually thinking any other way than the way ruth thinks. But if you look at the situation, you know, its the question everybodys asking right now. I think i look at it from experience. Ive been on president ial campaigns. Ive been a tough contested primary. I spent most of my time in New Hampshire during those times. You see the way a campaign develops. You see the number of candidates that the republicans fielded. You see basically and i had a candidate, and i will say it is and was marco rubio. And there were reasons for that. With regard to what we missed, i think most of us thought that this primary was on the level. And i had a sense there was a hostile takeover of the Republican Party starting some time in october. Based on what was happening out on the campaign trail. When i say hostile takeover of the Republican Party, i mean just what im saying. There where mr. Trump has gotten himself into, in terms of being the presumptive nominee, means that effectively the whole ground game has been changed with regard to the kinds of issues, policies and expectations that republicans have for somebody to be their nominee. Im kind of sick and tired of hearing about 1860 and, you know, 18 well, 1860 is one. I mean, its like guess what, guys, you cant look back on history and say its the same. The ability to get out free media constantly in a way that intrigues even us. Five. Five. Five out of six. By the way, shes a progressive columnist writing about a republican nominee because the readership wants to know whats going on. So did we miss it . We missed it. If you support mr. Trump as my brother whos a radiologist in maine, went to holy cross college, just kind of a regular nice sweet guy, thinks Donald Trumps great. You delve into the mind of them and you say, what is it . They say theyre frustrated. I promise im going to finish now. I didnt know america wasnt great. So peter, from your perspective as a campaign strategist, then well hear from ruth, talk about the role of the media. Ruth wrote that donald trump has got to be the most constantly available candidate to press and has still manageled to evade the questions. Peter, as a campaign person, how have you seen the change in the role of the media and its impact on campaigns and which candidates are elevated . Wow, thats thats a tough a tough question to break down in say, 60 seconds. Let me give you an example of the following things that are new to this cycle. Donald trump as a candidate was able to push just about everybody else out of the news cycle on any given day because of the things he said or the things that were going on. I mean, my god, we had coverage last week on cnn, a station i dont usually watch because fox is what i watch, just to make sure i need to be indoctrinated into the world. Theyre covering him coming out of the rnc. This is like o. J. Again. Why . So what happened is this, when youre a campaign operative. When youre working on a campaign, as many of you in this room know, youre doing everything you can to get ruth marcus to write about you. Hopefully favorably, right . Or to get on a television program. Or to get mentioned on a sunday show. Everything you can. Most of what youre having to do is get your message out through grassroots, door to door, knocking the oldfashioned way of doing things. Because to get that much Media Exposure is way too expensive. When you have a phenomenon, and theres been celebrity in president ial politics before, but there hasnt been the availability of the outlet. Of the outlets that are now available to candidates. The one thing about media thats different than how we would have handled a candidate before. I think john mccain was very different on the campaign. He invited press on the bus. Occasionally got him into a little bit of trouble. Because there was too much straight talk, but he was very comfortable with the media and had been. But donald trump doesnt have anybody handling him. We can come back to the editorial board. A meeting, what ruth and i talked about before, the transcript of that, which i highly recommend everybody in this room before the washington post. But youd never let a candidate go in blind to Something Like that. There would be prep. These are the issues you want to hit. The guy is going to say whatevers on his mind. Therefore he can do all the media he wants because he doesnt have any setup. So you said i had written i wrote a column a few weeks ago that was in part it was about the kind of littered landscape that were going to be looking at in november. And how free institutions are going to have to come to a wreckening with their role in this and where they go from here. One was the democratic party, one was the Republican Party and one is the media. And i think in a jewish audience, i can say even before november, i think that we in the media are going to have some atoning to do. Because i think in the you know, sort of put it in the framework of the prayer. We kind of went running to bear tales and to do kind of idey id gossip and we really failed the paradox of donald trump. Wasnt that he was so good at evading our questions even while being constantly available, its that the paradox of him is he was both constantly available and we failed to adequately question him. Because there was this kind of bright shiny object of his latest outrage. So whatever he dangled in front of us, whether it was intentional or unintentional, we went chasing after that. He says a mean thing about john mccain. He says a mean thing about megyn kelly. March 21st, he came to the editorial page of the washington post. And i was part of that meeting. We had a very clear strategy, which was not to ask him gotcha questions, not to ask him nasty questions, just to ask him basic questions that the reader and god bless them because i think people do want some substance in their diet of, you know, cat videos. There really is ive clicked on the occasional cat video myself. We wanted to ask him really basic questions that you as voters and readers will think thats a legitimate question to ask somebody who wants to be president. Peter said they were softballs and hes kind of right. They were intentional softballs. Like what do you think about nato. The answers to those were illuminating but the problem isnt we did such a good job of thinking up those questions, the problem is that it was march 21st for goodness sakes and where was that kind of questioning beforehand. And so i think theres a lot of things to be said about the role of the press. But i think the grade that we get is not one that my father would have approved bringing home from college. Thanks. So, ruth, you talked about when we were asking whats going on in the hearts of voters, you talked about the anxiety. A main focus for all of us in this room is this rhetorical frame of us versus them. Real americans versus the other. And i want to ask you a little to tease out a little bit more about where it comes from. Who are the people who this appeals to. And also whats the responsibility of a candidate and a campaign to tamp it down. Its a question were asking every day. Id love to hear from you ruth and then peter. To tamp it down or at least not to gin it up. Thats asking a lot of candidates in the context of a hardfought campaign because candidates job is to well, its in part to find where the mood and energy of the voters is and to glom on to that and to be responsive to it. I think i distinguish between the candidates, some of whom say things that i find so repulsive and upsetting, which explains the reason i feel compelled to write about some of them near constantly. Because its not just that people are interested in it, but i actually feel like a moral obligation to speak out and to speak out again and to keep on saying something because if you do what i do, you have to believe that has some potential impact or at least you can sleep better at night. But i really just and there are certainly supporters of individual candidates who have horrible things to say and horrible views. As a general matter, i think trump voters and other voters are not bad people. They are people who have anxieties and who are hurting. And so i think and it is a very natural human instinct when you are feeling anxious and secure, hurting, economically stressed. Theres a very powerful cover story in this months atlantic about the remarkable number of people in america, including, he says, the author of this piece, whos a fellow journalist and a wellknown writer who could not scrape together i think its 400 on the spur of the moment. Its like about 40 of people are in that state of real seems to me extreme financial insecurity. And so when you have Something Like that, i think its its like having your immune system is low. Your immunity is low. Your instinct is to blame it on others, blame it on immigrants. Were also anxious about terrorism. Well, we know who we can blame for that, blame it on others. So when a candidate comes along who can kind of take advantage of that reduced immune system, you get what you get. Thanks. Peter, is it hard for a candidate . To . To address this, to fail to let it flourish or tamp it down as i said . Well, listen, again, i think that the dynamic has changed. I mean, this is i dont mean to sound like a prude, but, i mean, this is a country now that has fulllength Motion Picture called whiskey tango fox trot. I mean, if youre in the military, you know what it means. Apparently my 22yearold son knows what it means. Peter, he knew what it meant when he was a lot younger than 22. I mean, the bar has been lowered. Its almost like what bar with regard to decorum and, in politics. Maybe thats on the public side of the politics because a lot of things used to happen underground and people bring it back up and they speak to it. If you look at the landscape of republicans that ran for the nomination in our party this year, you had a lot of very good candidates. I mean, good people with diverse views and a lot of different choice. Whether or not any of them were going to be the ones that would be the best leader is a question that gets, you know, kind of worked out through the process. But i think i mentioned hostile takeover. I think the process was also hijacked. I go back to something i said before. Ruth made the point. I mean, it didnt matter who had the best answers to real policy questions. In the debates, it didnt matter at the end. Even on nights that some of the candidates other than mr. Trump did pretty well, trump still scored okay, no matter what he said and what he did. It taps back in to what you said. People they say people inside the beltway dont understand certain things and people outside the beltway understand them better. I think that the bottom line is what people outside the beltway dont understand right now is the system as its set up, barack obama in the white house, Republican Congress, Republican Senate, is designed to do nothing. Because the countrys equally divided. It can only do things that its closely aligned on. I argue to my friends who say the congress did nothing, that wanted certain pieces that the Obama Administration was moving forward that actually the Republican Congress did some good, it slowed things down. Or it stopped particular things that people were worried about. But today in our political system, no ones a legislator anymore. Theyre advocates. All they have to do, all you have to do is come back and advocate that im working hard for this issue. Im working for sentencing reform. Im working hard to keep peace in the middle east, im doing all of these things and thats enough. No one anymore holds me accountable to what pieces legislation im getting done and therefore the judgment of washington and who should be the commander in chief or the executive doesnt favor the person who can get it done. Marco rubio said this on the stage. He said if this election is about a resume, we might as well all pack it in. Because secretary clinton has a resume that people would say has her head and shoulders above everyone else. However, the problem is, its about electability, its about likability and its about communicating that back to the public. And shes had her own problems getting her message out. So can they tamp it down . Should they is the different issue. And should a Political Party embrace a candidate in the end not just who wins the popular vote but if you want the support of the party, should there be a certain set of standards that you hold yourself to. And i think thats a reasonable question. Im sorry im going on. I want to say one thing though. This is really important. I dont i have a big problem with the current president for a lot of reasons, but theres one thing ive never had a problem with president obama on. I have never once been ashamed or cringed at the way hes conducted himself as a human being, as a father and as a husband, ever. [ applause ] probably going to get kicked out for that, of the party. [ laughter ] you always have a home with us, peter. So can you follow through . Can we look at the impact down ballot . What should im not going to ask any of us how something is going to come out in the end. Because well look at whats going to happen in the next few months. So how do the dynamics and the president ial and the primaries impact state and local candidates . You know, were really puzzled by this uncharted water of rank and file republicans struggling with what to do with their nominee. So what are you looking at in so we have key seats. We have one potential pickup in the senate and that is harry reids seat in nevada or nevada. [ laughter ] id say nevada. We have some friends from nevada here. How do i say it . Its nevada. Nevada. Nevada. There you go. From the horses mouth. Im trying to keep my maine accent out of it, right, esta . If you look at the other states briefly, and you come up the line, you look at the situation in which incumbent republican senators who are what they would call endangered, the other party would look at them as a key target for a pickup. The key it runs different in different states, right. You have New Hampshire, kelly ayotte is the incumbent. You have ohio, rob portman. You have pennsylvania, pat toomey. You have now missouri on the list. Thats roy blount. You have potentially a situation in north carolina, okay, thats getting dicier. Richard burr has always had a tough time. Then you have florida. You have other states that are potentials. I dont think i missed anything. Here are the questions here are the things we usually look at in a campaign. Look at how president did in each of those states. Look at where he performed in each of the different districts. Look at how the republican candidate in the past has either outperformed or performed behind the democratic president , okay. So if you looked at ohio alone, where rob portman is running against ted strictland, the former governor who has great name i. D. , and if Hillary Clinton were to win the state of ohio by seven points, lets say better than six ohio folks here . [ cheers ] hey, guys. The rest are home registering to vote. [ laughter ] sorry about the if you look at the state alone, the question is when we look at demographics, if Hillary Clinton were to outperform donald trump in the state of ohio by eight points, what happens to rob portman in that case. So whats going to happen to our candidates what would happen in the old vernacular would be that portman could not make up the votes he needed to make up. Unless of course you localize the races. What the nrc is saying, what the National Republican committee is saying. We want you to go back and localize these races which our incumbents are doing anyway. I would submit to you the fact that john sin knnknewu, the younger, lost to jeanne shaheen. Was probably 85 about they were tired of george w. Bush. Because his favorability as a senator was off the charts. So trump underperforming on any of those tickets will put in my mind the senate in play. Im not saying anything i wouldnt say to you if you were sitting at the National Republican committee. So everything that peter said. Plus, heres how its going to play out in the next few months. Your Republican Senate candidate. You wake up in the morning. You go to your first event. The reporters gather around you. And their first question is senator soandso or candidate soandso what do you think about donald trump said yesterday this morning about x . And youre going to have to figure out what to do. And the next day youre going to have to get up and go through the same thing all over again. So the advice to not nationalize the race and to run it as a local race and to run as your own man or woman is a very good advice. Its going to be very difficult for these candidates to take. Number one. Number two, it is perhaps not a coincidence that in a number of these Battleground Senate states, the republican is going to be running against a female challenger on the democratic side. Which just takes that gender gap that is going to be confronting trump and magnifies it to the i think at least hassle if not detriment of the republican candidate. So i think, you know, people like me should learn to get out of the predictions business but i think its going to be a very difficult fall for republicans in the senate. And talk about the role of gender also. Again, a woman nominee. And really one of the first kerr kerr full falls. Started last summer with megyn kelly issue and discharacterizations of women. I think its going to be interesting to watch how donald trump, to use his phrase, plays the woman card against secretary clinton. I dont he has been so canny in the way he has gone aft