Like arthur dan yells on the weekend polishing his white crown victoria. kenneth proctor with his beloved we mustang, the friendly face at store and sylvia frazier who took a second job at wal-mart because she loved working with people. and a diehard began you sat next to at the again, kathy loved her hockey and his cats ticket holder for 25 years. the volunteers who made your community better, frank kohler giving dictionaries to every third grader in the county and another leading the children s bible study at church.
journalism to join the academic world. he is now holds the white chair in journalism at the university of maryland and he has had also academic appointments and a number of other in universities including princeton, berkeley and duke. i don t know how many of you watch me the press on sunday when dan balz and haynes johnson had ruled out their new book. ever since then, i don t think there has been too many moments when during a 24 our period where they haven t been on tv or radio, granted some of it is recorded, since then. so i thought that they must be so exhausted maybe we will have to stop in the middle and give you all a coffee break or something. [laughter] i thought maybe we would have to do that on the other hand i think you have such a rush of adrenaline going through your veins because you have been so in phatic about this greatest story that you have ever covered that you are just so emphatic about it that you were anxious to share your story with everybody so here you are. [applause] thanks, barbara. the truth we have been running wildly and this is why you write books. you come to a place like this i love and see people because they want to listen. they want to critique it and we want to hear from you and i mean that. this is the reason you write a book, this kind of audience and turnout. we are very proud you turned out like this. sorry there is no sitting for a lot of people, but i can t do about that. i want to take a few minutes just to talk about why we did this book. a starter almost three years ago not quite. we were facing what was going to happen and 2008 looking ahead, and i think i had thought that this type of promise of being maybe the most important election of my lifetime and i said that because of factors that are obvious. the economy was bad and getting worse. the war on popular. george bush presidency had gone from the highest point recorded, 90% approval rating right after 9/11 and then sinking like this all the way down to nixon before he resigned and then the sense of anxiety in the country about the future politics wasn t working and we had a whole host of characters, and enormous testing time for the country and that was the background for the story that we embark on telling. and it turned out to be as barbara said it was the story of a lifetime. it was the most remarkable thing to cover, to watch, to try to understand and analyze the characters were remarkable and we will get into that later. i will just say one thing. in the interview when the president spoke as president-elect we asked about what he would look back on this election and tells the story. he said it was a great novel. [laughter] then he went on. it s quite extraordinary to hear the president talking the characters and who they work and it was just i can t imagine a president in my lifetime thinking and those narrative historical terms. so it was a great story and we are going to go back and forth. talk about some of the things we tried to cover, lessons learned and then we will open it up to questions from you. thanks again for coming. [applause] i would also extend my fingers to everybody for being here. as haynes said it s gratifying to see a group of people like this, old friends, people i haven t seen in a long time, neighbors, people we don t politically know but we know you are political junkies like we are. i have to say this preface, this book was a labor of love for both haynes and me. if you cover politics the way we do, to be able to write a book to try to write a book about this election was in many ways a privilege, and we felt all the way through from start to finish as though this was going to be one of the great experiences of our life in trying to do this book and it certainly was. haynes called me in february, 2007 at the paper. he said i d like to have breakfast with you. i want to talk with you about something so i felt okay. let s meet tomorrow with the mayflower and we will see. and we didn t talk any further than that so i went home that night and said to my wife haynes said today and he wants to have breakfast. he has got something he wants to talk about and she said if it is about a book say yes. [laughter] so we sat down at breakfast the next morning and haynes sketched out an idea about the book he had for the 2008 campaign and he got most the way through and i said it s interesting when you re talking about because i said i am about two-thirds the way through about a proposal for the 28 campaign almost literally identical in concept to when you re talking about. we knew we was going to be a very important campaign and had a great cast of characters. we had no idea what we were in for in terms of the twists and turns and trauma and everything we all lived and took a whole lot. what i want to do in my first segments here is two things, i want to talk about president obama and then i want to talk a little bit very briefly about the contest between president obama and now secretary hillary clinton. we all think we are very familiar with barack obama. he s certainly been in our lives a lot since he started running for president and since that remarkable speech at the boston convention in 2004. what we found and what we think you will find as you go through this book is a deeper understanding of barack obama both strengths and weaknesses, the type of character that he is, some of what he went through and we think that there is as you go through and digest this some relevance to what he s going through right now. obviously one thing important always remember about barack obama in addition to envision nobody runs for president particularly if you ve only been in the senate for 12 minutes. [laughter] if you don t have a lot of ambition that he is also very competitive and i think one of the best stories we heard came from robert gibbs about when obama s book, the audacity of hope was published in full, 2006 which as you remember helped create the build up for his candidacy. obama of course wanted this to be a big seller and so the book was about to come out and some of his staff went to him and said the book is going to do well by you should understand this book is coming out literally at the same time as the first piece of nonfiction by john grisham. so don t get your hopes up too four. you ve got serious competition and he said by understand but i want to do well. so when it debuted, when i first hit the new york times best-seller list it was number two and he called him and said this is terrific, senator, you are number two and obama said and that is the competitiveness that he took into this race. we know what john mccain as a gambling man. barack obama was a gambling man to get into this race as a very modest candidate on the stage. when we talk about what propelled him in the race he said he was at a good point in his life obviously very well known, successful books, he was doing things in the senate, the democrats taking over and 2006 he would have the opportunity to begin to do legislating but he said i thought there might be something i was in a position i ought to see what was out there that the circumstances had been created to make it possible to do this and i thought maybe i ought to try. he said i gave myself maybe 25 or 30% chance of winning the presidency then he looked and said for a gambling man isn t bad odds. one of the other interesting things was the advice he got from his advisers in that late period and 2006 and particularly david axelrod. axelrod wrote a memo we were able to get a hold of and put in the book in which he talked. it is a remarkable impression or brenau, it was written late november of 2006. a lot of it had to do with the state of the country. it was axelrod s view at the point the climate was ideal for a candidate like barack obama to run for president. in his view after all the country had been through, the war, and popularity of president bush, the country was clearly looking for change and big change and in axelrod s formulation the workers are going to be seeking a replacement, not a replica in 2018 he said you are situated to become that. he said hillary clinton obviously has some important strengths and assets but you are better positioned to take advantage of the public mood. he also said many have counseled you to wait. you are too young, to do, you need to get seasoning. you ought to think about running for years or eight years from now but then he said history is replete with candidates for the presidency who waited too long rather than examples of people who ran too soon and basically said this is your moment you ought to seize it. obviously he was a cheerleader for the string to get into it but there was another piece we found a particularly revealing because it went to the question of obama weaknesses. he said in experience is not going to be that crippling. and he said the more important thing is whether you can show strength. senator clinton has strength. there is no question about that. she has some parts of her character that might cause her problems in the campaign. people might not trust her but she has strength and you don t. she said the campaign can be proven ground for strength to demonstrate through the course of the campaign that he had what voters were looking for in a time of war. and then he said in a very poignant and a critical way the disarming admissions of weakness in your book, dreams from my father, will become fond for on flattering irritated in queries and then in parentheses he alluded to the kind of questions obama should expect if he became a candidate. how many times did you use cocaine and marijuana? when did you stop? who did you buy it from? did you sell drugs? have you broken any other law and he said this is more than an unpleasant inconvenience. it goes to your willingness to put up with something you ve never experienced on a sustained basis, criticism. at the risk of triggering the reaction that concerns me i don t know if you are muhammad ali or floyd patterson when it comes to taking a punch. you care far too much what is written and said about you. you don t relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty when the largely irrelevant alan keyes attacked you, you flinched we remember obama as a candidate of somebody who inspired great passion, devotion among his followers, use the internet to raise half a billion dollars literally from mostly small donors. what we don t remember so much as how difficult his early days as a candidate were. we look back now and think he was almost on a predestined path. his first months on the campaign were difficult. he went to las vegas for a health care forum, performed badly. hillary clinton performed brilliantly. he knew it. he saw what she had done in comparison and realized the size of the gap between her loveless performance as a candidate and his. he was exhausted on the campaign trail. the pressure he was under being away from his family. he was irritable, he was unhappy, and there was a point when gibbs flew to chicago to get out to iowa with senator obama. the campaign was worried that he was to discourage that that point, that he was kind of just in the dumps and they had a very candid conversation and gibbs said to him you need to spend something you feel positive about. at this point about saying i am happy with my message and the advice of your smart people in chicago give me all the time that you think it s that easy. i now hear every day. he did not think the campaign was working well and he wasn t doing what he thought he should do. gibbs said find something positive and he said in essence there s nothing positive i can see right now. i don t like it. sitting next to them was reggie love, beyond personal assistant, who is still the personal assistant. a big strapping guy, played basketball at duke, like character. he s sitting there working his blackberry listening to the conversation and says if it is any consolation, i am having a blast. [laughter] and barack obama looked at him in a withering away and said reggie, it s not any consolation. [laughter] but other things we learned about him is he has resilience. he has patience. he has the ability to learn from his mistakes and as i say, his competitive drive and a person who wants to figured a way to succeed even in difficult times. so as you look forward, as you watch him go through what he has now gone through, remember back to the campaign, that every day wasn t a terrific day for him. he had a days that were successes and days that were not. he learned from those mistakes and figure out how to win the battle. we obviously don t know if he will win the battle he is facing right now. but as you read through this book think about what you are seeing in real time and how that compares to what he did during the campaign. let me briefly because we don t want to spend all of this time talking. i want to get to questions. the campaign between barack obama and hillary clinton was just the most remarkable period and political history that we ve witnessed. and rather than recount in any detail what i want to go through is go through in the book what churchill called the triple what ifs of history. what if this or what if that. what if something had happened. what if for example gonococcus is hadn t been the first event of the democratic race? threat out 2007, senator clinton was cruising in the national poll. she was doing well as a candidate. she was performing well in the debate in comparison to obama. by all measures she was as was written the inevitable nominee. barack obama was struggling hillary clinton always struggled in iowa. her husband never campaigned there when he treen in 92 the caucuses were irrelevant because tom harkin was running. they had no network there. she began the campaign with iowans quite skeptical of her. they did not feel. the most troubling state for the clinton campaign. had the race started in new hampshire we might have had a different outcome because new hampshire was as you know the place where bill clinton became the comeback kid. the clintons felt comfortable. it is what rate of eckert after i was in this campaign. had they been reversed we may have seen a different outcome. if obama had won the south carolina primary by only nine points rather than 29 points which was always for the clinton campaign, for the obama campaign the most difficult day on the calendar. also, what if the florida primary had in fact counted as a real event and had not been delegitimized by the democratic national committee? david plus at a harvard conference immediately after the election said in public florida had been a primary hillary clinton might be the nominee. and then might well be president at that point. but the rules were the rules, the obama campaign understood that. they were willing to take rules. they figured out how to play the rules much more effectively than the clinton campaign. florida is one exceed the caucasus or another example. when it mattered the most, the obama campaign operated very skillfully and the clinton campaign didn t. later the clinton campaign became better but by then it was too late. i will turn back to haynes for some further [applause] i just want to follow up on some of the things that dan was singing and talk about what we weren t watching this extraordinary campaign. and he has alluded to obama s personality. what you saw in the public was this confident, strong note worry about where he was going. in fact, he went through the times of frustration and that is the whole character part that we didn t know. number two, there were things that happened in this campaign particularly between hillary and bill clinton and ted kennedy that were extraordinary, contentious, and it s like shakespearean stories, these things. they really were the elements that played back and forth. i will just talk to you about when ted kennedy finally endorsed obama there had been obviously you know, this was just before the south carolina primary and obviously the clinton s 400, eager, passionate to get ted kennedy s endorsement. they called and called and called and realized they couldn t endorse at a certain point, but when it was time they put on the pressure and so forth and obama also did. but the calls than between ted kennedy and bill clinton in particular but also hillary are part of a novel in itself. they were angry, they talked about race, they were contentious. they were i don t want to see violent, but this was hot stuff. they went back and forth over days before finally ted decided he put in doris obama and he did so because it was and that he didn t like hillary but he had decided long before and the more he watched obama he said obama reminds me of jack and bobby. he s speaking to a new generation. she is bringing something i haven t seen. the family is reacting to that. so this angry contention took place. and in fact, that endorsement, the obama people will say now that was the catapult. at that point he really he also sealed and at that point the african-american vote. and it s an interesting fact that when this campaign began, we went to a lot of focus groups over the two years period that peter hart was holding the remarkably interesting. one of the very first this was an 2007 was a group of voters, they were democrats and there were three african-american women in that focus group. they all said they were for hillary clinton. this is 2007. as the conversation went on and on suddenly one of the women brought op i wasn t going to say this about really my first choice was barack obama, but he can t win, for hillary. so there was this thing. and the other candidates also felt that way. but kennedy s endorsement did was helped to solidify the african-american vote in south carolina and in the country and it was an enormous change and the angry aftermath, the bitterness that existed i think is probably healed now. who knows. i am not sure as a matter of fact because if you understand what was said to each other, it wasn t pleasant to say the least. the other thing is when the nomination finally came on, by that point you had hillary and obviously obama and the hillary story is to me part of the great novel. she starts out as the almost what in candidate, and visible, rising above the flow, so forth, and then the more she began to lose, the better she got. she was a fantastic candidate at the end. she lost 11 straight, and obama himself told us in the final interview she was just a terrific candidate. she was connecting, she was a loser, of a sudden she was humorous and connected with the voters across the board, so you had this thing has she started out that way, who knows. but it was fascinating to watch the ark of this thing go forward. the other thing, john mccain we don t want to ignore john mccain. [laughter] because because he was and i want to credit dan on this. by the way, i should say i meant to say early on, this, having dan balz with me, is the way the book became if it is successful. dan was insightful. it couldn t have been done without him. the john mccain story dan had said he is a shakespearean figure, trapped in a shakespearean background. it made him this figure remarkably so is his experience as a prisoner of war in vietnam. tortured, couldn t come out, can t raise his arms over his head. heroic, genuinely and it was the war that did him and and then when george bush crushed him in 2000 it was bush that crushed him in south carolina and the need years later he is running again, mccain for the presidency and he is defending the war policies of george bush. and he couldn t break loose out of that. it was he was trapped in this thing. i m not going to get into sarah palin. you can ask questions about that. [laughter] that s another story that kept on coming. [laughter] maybe we can wrap it up and take questions. do you want to take a couple more things? [inaudible] why don t we go to questions. there are so many people here that is what i was thinking. you are all standing and so forth. i want to say one thing. we tried to draw at the end of the book with the lessons we fought the election polis, ma just as reporters or journalists or writers but as americans and there were many and they will be lasting. but i would obvious the obvious thing is race. what this election said, and i want to read you just one thing. why the election was more than an endurance test for the candidates. it was a test for their american people and their institutions. first lesson, most obviously, was race. since 1619 when a dutch privateer peter henry can slow the of the james river deposited first african-american slaves on the continent, race relations have affected the character of the united states more than any other factor. black slaves laid the cornerstone for the white house and the capitol. so like chattel and a huge market that still on the side in washington with an national archive now, today this very moment, houses the declaration of independence and bill of rights and became the source of blood shed, civil war, discord, discrimination to plaid the nation through the history dishonor in its space principles of equality. this is the point i think we will always take away. whatever happens with mr. obama s presidency. whatever happens in his presidency, his election as the first african-american president will form a proud chapter in the american story. so what comes next is another aspect, but that was history in the making. and i think we should be proud of that. thank you. [applause] you want to come over here, dan? your questions? as i observed the democratic primary and 2008, one of the major factors that i saw that was a stumbling block for hillary clinton was her vote on the iraq war. how much of that was a factor in helping obama and his campaign? she never got out from under that. the vote on the iraq war. she was trapped in it and couldn t break free. and one of the fascinating aspects of hillary clinton and the iraq war supporting the resolution to go into iraq of george bush, one of the things that her people felt very strongly, because she is a woman, they wanted to show she was strong. she could be a commander in charge to the co-chief, she could be in charge like the boys. so she couldn t step back from that and she, too, was trapped in the aspect. i wonder if he might elaborate a little on this question which i think so many of us found it interesting during this campaign. where the charge is he had no experience and i have all the experience. and in what will that played either positively or negatively with the two. and i will say as background to that that i served in one uniform or another from eisenhower, from under eisenhower to clinton and was around both the elections involved with all of these men before. and it always seemed to me in the way that i looked at my leader and most the people around me it was not a question of experience. rather, it was a question of judgment and, you know, and the choices he made for your positions in the government. what you all talk about this experience? it s a very good question and certainly a central one particularly in the democratic primary battle. as i said earlier, the obama campaign believe ultimately the issue of experience versus an experience was not going to be the crucial one. it s not that he had to deal with it and they tried. if you remember in the early stages of the democratic race, he spent time talking about what he had done as a state senator. they were doing constant groups and they realized this had no residence. it made no impact on anybody. what they realized was the issue wasn t experience or inexperience. the issue was capacity to lead, and what was important for him wasn t to say i ve passed this many bills were spent this much time working on this issue or that. it was to say to people i have the quality of leadership we need at this particular point in american history and it s when he began to do that, and i think he was able to do that there was an important turning point november, 2007, the jefferson jackson dinner in iowa. all the candidates were there. it s always a big event. senator clinton gave a good speech. barack obama gave a much better speech, and it galvanized not just his candidacy but his message, and it focused on what you needed at this point in american history to lead and white without ever mentioning senator quentin why he was fit and she was not. it was a sharp contrast again without naming her. .. he was able to do that if. i think hillary clinton it made a president obama in much better candidate. can you talk about why you think he selected her for the secretary of state? and how you think they are working together and how is this going to play down in her future political career? i have no idea about the future for hillary but it s being made right now as we re speaking. how the decision to pick her was mainly are not entirely clear. she was not going to be the vice president and there s someone will raise some of the obama people said you can t have to tell the dogs on the same ticket. [laughter] and it did not mean that they did in respect to larry. as a center of the and it, she was very loyal, she worked hard, or obama across the country, she was always there and she did everything she could to demonstrate that and i think, personally my own view was if a great choice and she has been an important position and she is now doing the work that i think shea is experienced for. the definition of what is one opportunity meat preparation an election essentially ended when wall street imploded and it president obama looked fall and john mccain sounded bought less, but my real question for you is and it is germane at the present time about health care. mrs. obama received upwards of 100,000 to $300,000 as a director at a university of chicago s medical center systemic and very little has been said it post has never hesitant to sade s anything when it sees fit, but right now with health care the issue really is about access to affordable insurance, but more important is whether mrs. obama accomplish, what her successes work, what her villiers or, what worked and didn t work? that is again extremely important at the present time. the post did some work on that during the campaign itself and i suspect that it was a kind of peace that very few people remember at this point because there was such a flood of coverage that was going on so we have not looked at it since and that s a fair point but we did look at it during the campaign and perhaps it s something that is worth revisiting although this point it s time to know what role she is actually playing in the development of the fight. probably very little of the university of chicago medical center was supposed to have been spiriting people away who could not pay their bills. thank you. in the riding of the book for you overtly or literally influenced by the classic theater why the making of the president 1960? [laughter] means had a great line which i will quote to you when we started that he said we are going to try to make this teddy white without the romance. [laughter] there is no question that teddy white was an influence, he knew him well. i met him once but his political reporting influence of us. we did not set out to be the teddy white of 2008, we want to read our on both. and love teddy white but we did not try to do the same thing. we were trying to do a narrative of a moment in history which he did so well but we had a different view on that. teddy would have done a great boat on the selection for shore apparent. it s up to me to ask the sarah palin question in. [laughter] we have been waiting. i & the sort of a fighter pilot it s not work in this way and the fed to do something to shake things up, but did and it reflects badly on him that she really could have become president and doesn t know a whole lot? well, you never know of the moment you are making a decision like that how it s going to work out. certainly it was a risk in it was a well discussed risk within the campaign. the haste with which the picture has been talked about a lot. is a more complicated story and i will get into the book goes into that line and is a more complicated story about how much they loved her but there s no question they have not spent any real time sizing her up directly until literally the night before senator obama senator mccain chose her and there is a great line the person in charge of the vetting process and he had spoken to her and in night before she went to see mccain as part of the vetting process. he gave mccain in repoire the next morning as sarah palin was making her way up to sit down and to meet with the senator. said she did very well in the interview. they learned at that point in that for daughter was pregnant and decided that was not a relevant issue, they would ignore that and he said she knocked some of the questions out of the parking has some sort of tricky questions to ask about the use of nuclear weapons and things like that and he said she did very well on many of those and better than some of the other candidates on some as well as others news that i think she has great capacity. wish to be ready to be vice president he said now but he said later i don t think most people who get into that position are ready on day one to be vice president, he said there may be a few have exceptional experience 17 takes this and he finally says what s the bottom line and he said in a high risk tire war. mccain says you should not have told me that, i ve been taking risks of my life and away they went. ino, in the immediate aftermath there was a controversy right after the convention, but in the first two weeks after the convention for mccain and i thought this was the best thing that had happened, they had energizing the base and turn around the polls, they re raising a lot of money and were drawing crowds that mccain have never drawn and then you had a the confluence of economic collapse and a cake rack interview and those two sealed the fate. economic collapse was ultimately by far the more significant factor in what decided the election, but there s no question that what happened with sarah palin had a huge impact on her since then and going for a. i just want to add one thing about sarah palin, one of the things the great miscalculations made it they were desperate to the mccain people and thought they were going to lose, they had to do something and they had seen hilary s voters and so forth may be going away from obama and the thought that was part of the equation, but women did not take that kind of way. to supporting palin. it was just and also they vetted her all of improprieties and so forth but as we say in the book they did not that her for the possibility of being the president of the united states. adding the whole campaign changed direction with a celebrity as about obama and mccain got away from his own best message which was his life story and got people interested in obama. am i right about that? am i sure i would agree with that. of the celebrity ads were obviously a great summer diversion in a campaign as long as the 2008 campaign you need educational version is the dummy lot and i think the mccain people realized what they were doing. in their view was that he had come back from that foreign chip which was an extraordinary 10 day trip that he had it, that he was soaring. they looked at him and steve smith put it this way and said innovate come a good candidate may get the 25 or 30,000 feet in terms of how well they re doing and how well the air may trade in the press. he said bill clinton at his best was that 25,000 feet and john mccain in 2010 in terms of press coverage was that. barack obama is at 50,000 feet and he said we had to do something, we cannot bring him down, he s too high up to what we have to do is elevate him up so he was out of the atmosphere and a sink of his own weight. [laughter] said that, but the idea of a celebrity ads. voters did nothing much of those ads, but the obama people were actually rocked by the ads. they were somehow sound with the idea that they were being that he was being called a celebrity. they thought we d better not play on this and it turned out that through the month of august mccain campaign kind of had the momentum, the obama campaign have pulled in their horns, they were doing smaller events as axelrod later said, we went small. we forgot what had made obama obama and we took the bait on the celebrity ads in one small. but the mccain campaign in new that was simply a diversion, that has been said it going into their convention they were afraid that obama could quit the entire election away before the conventions have been a. of the celebrity and stop that they knew they needed something bigger and that, of course, was what led to sarah palin. gentleman, thank you for taking questions here had senator mccain made it the less risky chinese say had he chosen for his running mate mitt romney or someone else, do you believe it would have made a difference? do believe that the history with such that a ragged edge was irrelevant or was that the choice that did him in? we both save our feeling is that no, mccain of was doomed when the economy tanks and the way he handled it at that point. it wasn t just the six. don t forget, he was i to a head in mid september. it s hard to realize and then the economy goes in the tank and the president is being warned by paulson and burning the we re missing a depression less than the great depression and so forth and a stimulus package and john mccain is perhaps his campaign and says i m coming back to washington to solve everything and nothing happened. then he said i am canceling the presidential debates and then he went back and forth and don t think he ever recover from that. i don t agree, i don t think some of the mccain people sent to one another we can run the greatest campaign possible if we pick a conventional choice, we still will lose. the conditions in this election despite the rise of mccain after the republican convention were very much stacked against impaired presidential approval below 30%. 80 percent of the country saying we re off on the wrong track and that number rising and consumer confidence at an all-time low. there s almost no way you can win and of those circumstances. non like to talk about the election of joe biden. i like joe biden, he has some quirks, of course. [laughter] but at the time i was really pulling for richardson ended the obama people know about richardson s background? guess they knew about richardson very well in fact, and he really was not a patch in the selection process. joe biden was the conventional safe choice. he gave when obama needed, foreign-policy background from capitol hill, of respect among the democrats. forget whether he makes mistakes sometimes speaking rationally or whenever, much . [laughter] he was respected and he appealed to white caller voters and blue-collar voters might sense of for that and may provide sense and it wasn t going to be hillary and it wasn t going to me joe biden was the perfect choice. the mention of bill richardson makes it irresistible for me to read one passage of this book. richardson is a great character if you have watched him. he is a politician who has all sorts of energy in this month s big cigars and needs to match mexican food. he is talking about his endorsement of obama and how much he came to like obama and he talks about what he said was his casual elegance and a very odd word for him to use but he said: he would get calls from obama to endorse him and he said obama would leave messages on my own and he would send bill, this is barack, obama. [laughter] he said he will is was like that and he said he would leave these messages, we can make history together, come join teddy and we will make history. then he said one day he was on the bus with obama and he said someone brought out some fruit and he said obama says where is the symbol where. [laughter] so this is richardson talking, so they bring in the silverware. he gets a little played out and he starts cutting the orange and then he takes it in the opposite to me and i thought to myself, i just grabbed the orange. [laughter] is the last person in line? how many people do we have? those of the last three questions. i m sorry that we had to choose between obama and hillary clinton, they re both extraordinary candidates year ago i thought sarah palin could have been okay were as obama and clinton grew during the campaign. clinton found her persona and she really separated herself from bill. but palin did not seem to grow, she did not seem to gain in from the experience. the pugh in interviews with key kirchner devastating and at that point she was doing so well. before that she had turned on the republican race and she is a very appealing figure and so forth but frankly they just devastating n that team and the same time and the economy is going like that and i just think that point it was over. i have one quick observation on that point. which is when sarah palin went to arizona to talk to john mccain she had nobody around here who really have your best interests in mind. she s a very ambitious person as we have all bragging nuys in her and a person with some very natural political talents. the question was was that the right thing for her to do coming to take that off her and had she had a wiser people around here and there might have center for you should think harder about this, this may not be the right moment for you to jump into something for which you really not prepared and i think what we have seen since the election is that she has continue not to get particularly good advice from the people around her and i think that the time after the campaign has hurt as much as the time during the campaign. i have a question about president obama s agenda and how he will pass it and i think of like to draw upon the election last year. i went to dozens of rallies were the two candidates in nearly every single one there were both of quote clean coal representatives that everyone was getting out broke clean coal hats, they were distributing paraphernalia, they pretty much forced their message to both of the candidates. they got obama to say he supports finkel and mccain to say to and that they basically took over the agenda. the same thing for the insurance industry, they sent out operatives and i guess the term is astroturf, the election in a lot of ways and they did this with the messages. that was paying and that held both of those industries not an attack by either of the candidates and now that we re going into 2009 president obama is trying to pass a store a clean energy reform and health insurance reform and we re seeing the same thing happen again. insurance companies and coal interests in oil interests are sending average is to recess town halls and ambushing people. ambushing congressman. have you think president of, should react to these paid operatives amassing what seems to be public opposition to his agenda with their religious paid by industry? i m not going to give the president on how he should campaign advice except to say the faces some of the most incredible challenges any president ever since franklin roosevelt and it isn t just about the lobbyists that this event. when he has to do is persuade the people, stay with me is the beginning of a difference and really bring some change and forget about all the other stuff. we will see, we don t know the answer. the last question. this last campaign in appears to me is the most global campaign that we have seen in recent history. in one way don t you think that president obama has succeeded in utterly altering their view of america in people s minds, that he has brought credibility to american democracy which probably did not exist before. is an interesting question because it gives back two literally the time when barack obama first and its thinking seriously about running which came in the late summer of 2006, he took this trip to africa and it was on that trip he came from that trip back with a belief in coming a feeling that the election of an african-american and in coming him in particular obviously, would have an instant effect on how the rest of the world saw this country. even if there wasn t an important change of policy which you still advocating, that act alone would say something about america though mesa will look differently of this country and i think in some ways that has been the case since he got elected. if you look at a recent study that led to the approval ratings of president obama upon they re unbelievable. so there is that potential for him out there. i think that s the problem of the challenge for him is one thing to begin to make the overture, to talk about a different kind of america and giving gage met with the world and we have had under president much. i think is in getting to the individual issues whether it is how you deal with middle east peace process by which you do about iran for how you manage the war in afghanistan. we will have much more of event on that and not long run is simply the goodwill that existed when he dialectic. the sterns this grand enterprise with a lot of assets but as you look around the world the challenges are enormous and i think that he s continued of that goodwill and figure out a way to leverage it in order to be successful. with that we thank you, you been a great audience. things are coming. [applause] dan balz national political correspondent at the washington post, serve as national editor and political editor, white house correspondent and the papers texas-based south was correspondent. hayne johnson is a veteran journalist who won a pulitzer prize for his washington post s coverage of the selma march during the civil rights movement for almost 30 years panelist on pbs washington week. to find out more visit washington post.com derrin 2009 bookexpo america new york city 2009 at the yale universiity press with john donatich, director of the yale universiity press. what you have coming out this fall? we have a number of great books and of all starting with the making of americans, ed hirsch i think you re a member of the best-selling novel called cultural literacy and he has caring very much about what role education has and actually defining what it is to be american and in this book is run and i think a capstone of his career which includes many best sellers and decades of activism and education to talk about the centrality of information and knowledge in one a means to have a shared corpus of knowledge and how poor that is our national identity and how it is being threatened by the way education seems to be splintered across the country so it s a book that has a lot of argument and advocacy and a lot of ways to look for it to what the new administration can do about education. the other book is ellen s on the edge, when animals teaches about humanity? this is a marvelous book. it s very moving, very touching, what she does here and she has quite a platform into this. she has been on 2020 and 60 minutes and when she tries to do is understand the have human behavior of tax the global population of animals and wild and captivity and is a very touchy subject. i think people who have read it temple brandon and jeffrey masson on this kind of issues will really respond to this book because our actions to have consequences especially on those creatures who can argue themselves like elephants france and so she talks about elephants have nervous breakdowns, that is what the title refers to a in an emotional life of a and the most feared and actually how our own empathy toward understanding how they behave teaches us something about what is to be human so it s interesting sort of turnaround. in our efforts to understand animals will begin to understand ourselves. to biographies coming out by two artists, charles dixons and in the warhol. everyone thinks about that we learned everything we need to know about charles dickens but there hasn t been a biography in over 20 years so this is a first full cradle to grave biography of dickens in a couple decades and we re really excited about this. there is information and research and i think that dickens is the kind of christmas eve those. andy warhol biography, who is arthur dan tote? he is in this distinguished art historian and critic and writes for the nation magazine and this is a 120 biography, really of a kind of posthumous legacy that in the warhol left behind. a lot of people think that is more interesting to think about any war hall and took his paintings in his art in this book actually talks about what war halted to the meaning of american icon and how he s become of her most vivid and american icons and such an unlikely one and he did it largely to work soon very sadly with iconographic subjects whether it is the campbell soup can warrantless taylor. this is a book that actually takes a look at how the. you are the director of yale universiity press, as director what decisions do you make on a day-to-day basis? baby easier when i don t, but basically all the permanence run up to me operationally and editorially, marketing and financially. so the starting, of course, with the books. we have a staff of about 40 editors and of the press is only as good as the books it publishes of us the most of poor decisions we made a today. we re the largest book based american university press in a country and the only one with a significant london-based as well. yale universiity press celebrated 100th anniversary last year, kikkoman history? started basically the left or of a lawyer in graduated from yale who worked on the lord of avenue and over the decades became more and more famous for is a humanities and our history and the 1960 s of the operating to the university itself so we re now department of the university. in the 70s there was a big london office that was billed as still there today and as i said we to about 400 books a year, mostly in the humanities and social sciences. john donatich, director of yale universiity press, thank you. thank you very much. .. ..
of the union. 27 government officials, politicians and analysts have had their say. u.s. ambassador to the united nations and the president s national security adviser, the senate s top republican, former chair of the democratic party. we watched the sunday shows so you don t have to. we ll break it down with donna brazile and ed gillespie. state of the union sound of sunday for august 9th. a dramatic statement this sunday from the senate s number two democrat, president obama says the so-called public insurance option is essential to health care reform. dick durbin tells us that if the votes are not there, democrats might have to at least temporarily scale back their goals. i support a public option, but yes i am open. just understand that after we pass this bill, and i hope we do in the senate, it will go to conference committee, we ll have a chance to work out all of our differences. so we ll see how this ends, but i don t want the process to be filibustered to failure. some democrats report town halls back home are being disrupted, but the senate s top republicans says those complaints are proof to him that democrats are nervous. to demonize citizens who are energetic about this strikes me as demonstrating a kind of weakness in your position. in other words, you want to change the subject. you d rather talk about the half trillion in medicare cuts, but instead let s talk about somebody at some town meeting who miss behaved. absolutely not. that is, in fact, ridiculous statement. we don t negotiate with terrorists, that s the policy of the united states. this was a unique opportunity for the former president, on a private humanitarian mission, to obtain the release of two american women who had been held for many months. oas you can see, as always, we ve been watching all the other sunday shows so maybe you don t have to let s break down the issues. joining me, former national committee republican chairman, ed gillespie, and donna brazile. let s start with that statement from dick durbin, which was in part startling and maybe a reflection of reality. he says he doesn t like t he wants a strong public option in the bill, but if the democrats don t have the votes, he thinks maybe pass a bill that doesn t have a public option, get a conference committee with the house and try to restore it there. that s a concession with a bit of a problem, isn t it. four out of five committees passed real strong health reform. we know that at some point the democrat also have to get together and try to figure out how to make sure that these bills are consistent. the public would like to see some option in the reform package that will lower costs, to ensure they don t get dropped from their current position. there s a lot of debate going on within the democratic caucus about the best way to proceed in september. i think the president would like to see the foregotten principles he put on the table remain intact, but i also believe the democrats, majority of democrats would like to see that public option stay in. there. what does it tell you again, i want to be clear and fair to senator durbin, he wants it, he hopes it s there in the end, but says if we can t get it in the first sweep in the senate, let s do something, lay down a marker and try to get it later. that s not what the president hoped we would be talking about. it s not what the president hoped we would be talking about. this reflects the drop in support and understandable skepticism about a public option that voters are bringing to bear right now on their elected officials, particularly senators while they re home for the town hall meetings and house members as well. where this is heading is to have a bill scaled back, focused on those who are involuntarily uninsured, where you can get some bipartisan consensus, drops the public option, drops these tax increases, drops the slashing of the medicare system. at the end of the day you get a health care bill that gets some republican votes, doesn t have all that the president wanted in it, but he signs it and tries to claim victory. i think it will be a victory for those opposed to these massive government interventions. i want to bring more sound into the conversation. first on this issue of the public option. governor howard dean, former chair of the democratic national committee who is also a long-time practicing doctor in the state of vermont, he said you need to keep the public option. if you re voting against having a public option, what you are voting against is something that 72% of americans in two polls want, which is a choice. most of them won t sign up for the public option, but they think they should have the choice. donna, what s interesting right now, is that this is largely a debate among democrats over what the next step is, is it not? well, john, the democrats have offered plans. the republicans, while there are some plans on the table, the leadership has not embraced it and made it clear that congressman ryan don t put forth your plan, let s debate with the democrats if we do nothing, insurance premiums will continue to go up. hold up. we have the most expensive health care system in the world, yet we get less bang for our buck. the other problem is that for the uninsured, they have the best insurance program in the world that is they can go to the emergency room, all of us have to pay for it. i think what governor dean is saying, if we want to lower costs, want to ensure choice and make sure that patie patients r their system, we need to keep that in the debate. donna is right about the cost. that s where the concern is that s where this white house got off on the wrong foot, because it made people realize that they will raise my cost f i have insurance, my cost will go up in order to pay for those who have no insurance right now. there are other ways do this to make sure we can help get those who are involuntarily insured covered in the system. but raising the cost of those who have insurance now, private sector insurance or medicare insurance is the wrong way to do it. look, the public option is not just a choice. it lend up siphoning folks out of the private insurance system into the government-run system. it s as simple as that. a friend of mine runs a couple car dealerships up in harrisburg, pennsylvania. he did the math. paying the 8% surcharge on his employees would be cheaper for him? he ll shift them into the public option if things go that way. the government program, the medicare, medicaid program will continue to rise over the next 10, 50 years because more and more american also start to retirement we have to do something to control costs and continue to provide choice. this is a legitimate and interesting policy to buy. what are your choicechoices, wh should they cost. the president has been adamant this must happen this year. for him not to get a health care bill would be viewed as a huge failure. if you come back, about a month from now, you don t have republicans on board, the democrats try to muscle this through. they have a nearly 80-seat majority in the house, 60 votes in the senate, so dick durbin also earlier this morning said if necessary, do you it the democrats way. if it reaches a point where we cannot reach a bipartisan agreement, i don t want to see health care reform fail. we only get a chance once in a political lifetime to do something. it would be a major challenge. would have the democratic president, the democratic majority muscling through on the republicans. could they do it. i don t think they can. the american people don t want to see something of this significance to be done with only one-party support. they want bipartisan consensus because they understand that day protects their interests. trying to muscle this through using some of these protected procedures in the senate would result in a huge backlash for democrats. i don t think they would get it done. we had 16 years to do something, nothing happened even when the republicans controlled both the congress and the white house. what the democrats want to do is lower costs provide choice for all americans and keep their existing insurance that they have we have the votes necessary. everyone knows that. we are moving it through committee. but the white house must revamp their message this coming fall to ensure the american people are coming along and how the american people will benefit from it. you say revamp the message. i want to move on to a connected issue, the border economy. donna brazile did not just bring her charts today, she s in the washington post this morning writing her views on what the president needs to do to restore the american peoples confidence in the economy. donna brazile writes the economy is getting better, but main street is not feeling relief. since most americans are not likely to, for quite some time, it would be a mistake for the white house to start shouting the economy is working too loudly and too soon. donna, you re telling the president be cautious. we all know, history tells us, getting jobs back, job growth will take time after the recession. so i m urging my colleagues not to go out there and start popping the champagne because main street, they re still hurting. the banks are finally starting to lend. economic activity is starting to turn around but it will take time for us to get out of this deep recession. ed, you ve been there in the oval office with the president. presidents want to seize on any good economic news because they know they define how the people feel about the economy. you have to get the right balance of trying to foster people to understand that things may be turning around, at the same time not looking out of step with peoples concerns. we have to be careful here. the payroll loss was less than what was expected, but we lost 270,000 jobs. that s not gaining jobs. we have not gotten the sign right yet. we re not in the plus column. we need to get in the plus column. i thought it was a note when rahm emanuel said we are fixing the economy. we are not. people want to see president obama succeed. republicans need to be careful to make it look like we are hoping for him to fail, but i think his policies are a little too forward leaning now. i think i won t speak for rahm, because we know he will call me up later. he can come on in, if he wants. what he was saying, what most economists and others are saying is the stimulus helped rescue the economy from the brink it was going under. now we have some stabilization in various markets and various sectors of the economy, but we have not turned a corner. there will be a lot of twists and many more turns in the future. 500,000 jobs already saved as a result of the stimulus. that s something we should celebrate not be despondent about. not surprisingly, i m skeptical of the 500,000 job figure, but more importantly the american people are. people don t believe the stimulus package is turning the economy around. only 6% has gone out the door. the money going to your hometown is helping to save firefighters. the money going to new york city is helping to save teachers jobs. we know that is helping the economy. quick time out. we ll come back, much more to discuss. ed and donna both came feisty today. ayer aspirin out of my purse and chewed it. my doctor said the bayer aspirin saved my life. please talk to your doctor about aspirin and your heart. i m going to be grandma for a long time. geand that takes a lot ofeen arohard work.0 years. not just some cute little gecko waffling on about this, n that. gecko vo: i mean, i am easy on the eyes - but don t let that take away from how geico s always there for you. gecko vo: first rule of hard work equals success. gecko vo: that s why geico is consistently rated excellent or better in terms of financial strength. gecko vo: second rule: don t steal a coworker s egg salad, specially if it s marked the gecko. come on people. we re back with ed gillespie and donna brazile. let s move to the international stage. if you pick up the washington post, there is a story, the obama administration expands u.s. involvement in afghanistan. military experts are warning that the united states is take on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will day eclipse that of the iraq war. stunning lead of that piece in the washington post. the president s national security adviser was asked about this earlier today on another program. and he said not quite. here where the tipping point is, like we couldn t predict it in iraq. if it s done right and done cohesively, the tipping point will be much sooner. we will know whether this strategy is working by the end of the next year and maybe make some predictions at that time, but not before. he said know if the strategy was working in the coming months, but he didn t know how long the troops would be there. in a democratic party that picked barack obama as its nom nay but he was the most credible anti-war candidate when it came to iraq, if he is asking for ten years in afghanistan and hundreds of billions of dollars, what will the reaction be? they will question our commitment, how much it will cost and there s a large issue here, john, that is the capabilities of the afghan government. you know, there s an election coming up soon if that government can be seen as stable providing for its people, if they can update their security, maybe we will not be there very long. general mcchrystal at the request of secretary gates is doing an assessment right now sometime within the next week or two, we will hear from secretary gates, maybe the president and hopefully they will explain to us how long and how much. you came in, ed, after to the bush administration, after the beginning of the war. one of the big criticisms was that the president underestimated how long it would take. underestimated the cost in money, the cost in blood and essentially didn t tell the american people up front you re buying a pretty long war here that will cost a lot of money. has president obama explained to the american people what the stakes are and what the exit strategy is. i don t think he has yet. he has acted responsively to afghanistan. i think he properly i fied iide it as a threat to our national security. he has committed to be willing to provide more troops. i was disconcerted bay report that i saw that general jones told the generals on the ground in afghanistan don t come asking for more troops, because the president will have an adverse reaction to it. he did say this morning more troops are possibly on the table. i think the president, who is a very effective communicator, does need to do more on this front and does need to explain to the american people what are the stakes in afghanistan. why does it matter to our national security, why may we need to put more troops into afghanistan? why might we need to be there longer. what does it tell us? that you have republicans, conservative voices saying he s doing the right thing, he identified the problem, but he could explain the situation better. sometimes the questions and criticism have come from the left, people who are committed anti-war liberals who oppose all u.s. military involvement overseas. there s a resurgency of the taliban when we took our eyes off of afghanistan. we all know the price we paid on september 11th. no one would like to see the united states or any of our allies, anyone to pay that kind of price. so i recognize the sentiment on the left or the right or anybody else, the truth is that this is a very important strategic moment for us in afghanistan. we have to get it right. we need a definite strategy for ensuring that the afghan government can provide for their people. we stop the taliban, al qaeda, and we help afghanistan with nato and others to train their troops, recruit and train tops so the taliban is not the only game in town with their poppy money. we watched bill clinton return to the world stage this week. he took a secret mission to north korea, helped in the release of two journalists being held in a north korean prison camp. he returned home with them to los angeles. the white house and former president clinton have been hush hush as to any specifics. but some conservatives criticized this, a man you worked with in the bush administration, john bolton, saying it came pretty close to negotiating with terrorists. i put that question to the woman now in that job, susan rice this morning, was bill clinton negotiating with terrorists. obviously this was not a negotiation. i want to be clear about this. this was a humanitarian mission. we are grateful for bill clinton and his willingness to take this on. i can t predict what might transpire down the road but we will evaluate what he can contribute. two questions, take them in each order you wish. propaganda victory for the north koreans or the right thing to do to secure the release? what will we see next from bill clinton. first of all, this was a unique mission to free these two american journalists. former vice president al gore worked tirelessly behind the scenes, working with allies, with others, the state department, the white house, to get their release. and clearly bill clinton went on a private, humanitarian mission. and i know it s not seen as private because his wife is the secretary of state. but i want to applaud the president for undertaking the challenge, going and bringing home these two americans to reunite with their families. clearly we need to know now where do we go from here? will we get the north koreans back to the table for the six-party talks? will we figure out any more about kim jong-il s health, his status, succession plans, but nothing has really changed in my judgment. two things. first of all, happy for the two journalists being reunited with their families. but this was negotiated between the two governments that if he were to go, he would get the journalists back. that s a negotiation. i thought that that was a bit of an incredible statement that was made and characterizing the nature of the discussion. henry kissinger s opposition today in the post, while we are all happy for these journalists to be reunited to their families we now have three hikers in iran being held by the iranian government. are we going to send bill clinton tehran to get those three out? what is the outcome of that? this was a a definite benefit to kim jong-il and the north korean government, this photo-op with former president clinton. we ll see if better diplomacy comes of t better relations comes of it. ed gillespie, donna brazile, thanks for coming in. straight ahead, how do folks feel at eugene, or goegooregon, the unemployment rate has doubled in the past year? welcome home, man. hot! hot! hot! time to check your air conditioning? come to meineke now and get a free ac system check. at meineke, you re always the driver. . our traveling this week took us out to the pacific northwest to a state that back a quarter century ago was a swing state. this is oregon, back in 1984, when ronald reagan blue, blue, blue, blue, and blue. oregon now reliably democratic. let s look at that. there are 894,000 registered democrats. 677 registered republicans. the unemployment rate is 12.2. nearly 17% of residents don t have helicopter insurance. so for our restaurant conversation, we chose brail s restaurant. it s a college town, in a community that went big for candidate obama last november, the concerns were quite telling. are we on the right track or is the country still on the wrong track? i see more people being more or ingenious with how they go through and the whole recession. my mom is a great example. she is being self-sustaining. she actually bought a dairy goat. and she is making feta cheese on her own. we are saving money any way we can. you depend on people coming in and spending money in this economy s your business down? for now, i m okay. i don t know how it s going to be later. is it is it getting better though or is it getting worse? i think it s getting better. why? it s not getting worse. we are not seeing new news that is bad. and i see people this year taking steps that are the kinds of things you wouldn t do if you thought it was really getting a lot worse. i have a bit of issue, medical issue. i m looking at it right now. you know, i ve been looking at it. i want everybody in my you know, full time wo-time workers have medical insurance. but medical insurance is way high. do you trust the government to make it more affordable, or when the government gets involved do things get worse? i think small business will be hurt. if we have to pay those kinds of amount of fees, you know, it s going to hurt. i have employees, and the crazy thing is, if i want to do the right thing and give them health care i do, too. i get basically basically all the tax incentives are against me doing that. that s crazy. and so if the alternative is mandating me to do it, that has a bunch of problems, too whether it s private or public, i don t know what the right answer is, but you should make it easy to give employees health care. oregon, minimum wage is 8.40. i think minimum wage is really high here. so the state is squeezing you? i think so. watching the new president for little more than six months, is there a big surprise for you? the biggest disappointment. i love how he went after lobbyists. lobbyists and big corporations, the golden parachute, ceos. at the same time we re giving them a lot of money. i think it was bill maher who made a reference that obama needs a little bit more bush in him. he needs to be a little bit more like bush. he has to say things, do things, not really care what people think. i ve noticed lately i ve noticed lately a lot of people, well, a lot of things are i don t know, kind of getting to him. he s slipping a bit more. the controversy. not a huge deal, he s a prominent man, but he slipped. he kept so cool through the election. that s what people liked about him. it s getting to him. it s the hardest job in the country, but we liked him because he kept his cool. i actually quite like the deliberativeness. i think wholly aside of what the decisions wind up being, the fact that there is evident thinking about it that we re really going to take time and think about it. that s a welcomed change if there s a disappointment, i can t tell what his small number of real priorities is. i fear that he s so smart that he may be getting into every issue that comes along. great conversation, trust me a great breakfast at brail s restaurant. when we come back, more sound of sunday. our reporter panel just ahead. it s the chevy open house. and now, with the cash for clunkers program, a great deal gets even better. let us recycle your older vehicle and you could qualify for an 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( shouting ) this is crazy. you. let s run a free upgrade check. see if you re due for a new smartphone. don t i need to go to my carrier s store for that? no, you don t have to. we sell phones and plans on all the major networks. ok. well, is time travel possible? yes, i am from the future. announcer: phones, plans, and advice from thousands of people eager to help. not long ago, this man had limited mobility. last month, this woman wasn t even able to get around inside of her own home. they chose mobility. and they chose the scooter store! if you or a loved one live with limited mobility call the scooter store! no other company will work harder to make you mobile or do more to guarantee your complete satisfaction. if we pre-qualify you for a new power chair or scooter and your claim isn t approved, the scooter store will give you your power chair or scooter free. that s our guarantee. they were so helpful and nice. they filed all the paperwork, and medicare and my insurance covered the cost. we can work directly with medicare or with your insurance company. we can even help with financing. if there s a way, we ll find it! so don t wait any longer, call the scooter store today. i m john king state of the union. drive verrs have recovered a fourth victim from the hudson rive river. president obama s national security adviser says north korean leader kim jong-il seems to be in full control of his government despite reports of declining health. that assess front jim jones on the sunday morning talk circuit. jones says former president clinton passed no official messages to north korea during his message last week to bring home two u.s. journalists. president obama leaves for mexico this afternoon for a summit of north korean leaders. he will meet with the leaders of mexico and canada. high on the agenda the floebl economic crisis and strategies to contain the h1n1 flu virus. that and more on state of the union. joining me now is ed henry, washington post reporter and arthur dan bald, he is co-author of battle for america 2008 and jessica yellin. that s the book right here. good beach ride. to read. excellent. i saw a dramatic statement from the number two democrat in the senate this morning, dick durbin. the house and senate both missed the president s deadline to pass health care bills before going on the congressional recess. dick durbin, want to be fair to him, he said he wants that government option that the president says is so critical. he wants it and hopes it there in the end, but dick durbin opening the door to a senate bill that does not have the public option. i support a public option, but, yes, i m open. we will see how this ends, but i don t want the process to be filibustered to failure, which, unfortunately, many senators are trying to do i want to make sure we do something positive for the american people. he sounded like the number two democrat in the senate. he s a close friend of the president of the united states, and he is essentially saying we may have to initially compromise a lot in the senate. i think it s another signal that that is where the debate is heading. that the only hope for the president to get a reform bill is not to have a public option. we talked about how there would be difficult conversations towards the end of this debate. the only way the president will get something that he can call bipartisan is if it goes through the senate finance committee and the republicans on the committee, as you were pointing out earlier and some democrats have signaled at least that a public option is very unlikely. now to have a leader like dick durbin to also signal that. as you point out, he still wants a public option but is signalling it will be difficult. the writing is on the wall. it s unlikely a public option will be there. is that an incremental concession and you try to get it back in conference committee and explain to the american people? the house passes something, the senate passes something. we know the house will pass something that has a public option. is dick durbin s goal, get this through the senate, then negotiate a compromise and we will come back with a public option in the end? if it s not in the initial senate version, is it gone? if it s not in the senate version, it most likely will not make it in the bill. one problem that the president has had over the last month is that democrats have been fighting democrats on health care. you have a disunited party at a moment when he needs unity. dick durbin is saying we need to be on the same page. this is a signal this morning of saying that. this plays out at a time when these guys are all home. some people have questioned who is sending all these loud people to our town halls. some say that s democracy, welcome to it. jessica, as you know, some say, no, no this is the insurance industry. this is republican critics trying to steal the debate, get flashy clips on television or youtube. some people i talked to who have voiced these oppositions, using the word socialism who are outraged, insist they are just americans who are upset about what they see the government doing. the problem is that this is giving voice to people who have already been dissatisfied with president obama, maybe didn t like him from the beginning and that his entire agenda smacks of socialism from the stimulus to climate change to this. the storyline is building that this government option that they are talking about is part of the broad socialist message that they think is coming from the obama white house. the only ba ma administration lost the upper ground in message control. that s part of the reason why they lost the ability to control the public option debate. one question they will face after the recess is whether to try to muscle through something more to their liking. they have a 78 vote majority in the house. 60 in the senate. one thing democrats have talked about is if we can t get a bipartisan deal, we will try to do it on a party line vote. newt gingrich this morning said if democrats do that, they will be in trouble. if we are going to try to rewrite 17% of the bill, i think a lot of democrat also rebel. you understand the party system as well as anybody in town. can they do that? is it that important to the president that if he doesn t have any republicans, just to try to ram it through? that s the big choice that he will face in september or october as this comes to a conclusion. first of all, for the democrats, failure is not an option. they remember what happened in 1993 or 94 when they couldn t get a bill to the floor to get a vote on that. they don t want that to happen. they want to show they can get results, get things done. the danger of doing that with only democratic votes is, as speec speaker gingrich says, not to have broader support risks real problems down the road if the implementation is not smooth, which it rarely is. this sounds like trash out there when you talk about reconciliation and things. what happened about denied claims? overpriced insurance? where has that discussion gone? until they get that back, you are bound to have a party line vote. and you re pointing towards the fact that the passion right now is on the right at the town hall meetings. so where are the people on the left? the unions said they will start getting people out there. when john was talking about democracy in action, the people on the left don t seem to be standing up. you keep saying a government takeover will result in people not getting the tests they need and die. people are facing that with insurance campaigns right now. no matter where you are in the debate, the current system is not perfect, but we are seeing the passion on the right, not on the left. there are more and more democrats in private, very ones close to the white house, saying this reconciliation option is more and more likely that originally when they looked at process of just 51 votes it was set up, they believed, so you could only do a portion of this, come back and do other bills later to fix the system. they are now saying in private that they think they can do more and more of this reform through reconciliation and they may be heading down that road. let me ask you, dan, something you write about in the book. looking back in time in the book, but then bring its to the moment this talks about when barack obama, the candidate, got ted kennedy s endorsement. you write in your book, his endorsement came with conditions. kennedy wanted a commitment from obama that as president he would push for universal health care. he wanted that to be the first priority of an obama administration. obama agreed. i assume the president does not regret that commitment but as we have this crumbling on capitol hill, he misses senator kennedy. i think the absence of ted kennedy in this is crucial for the administration. ted kennedy, known as one of the strongest liberals is also one of the most savvy legislators in the senate. not having him in the middle of this is a problem. for obama to have made that problem miss is easy. he certainly wanted the endorsement of ted kennedy. it s always easy to say, yes, we remember john edwards asking for poverty to be an issue. but this is something obama wanted to do as much as ted kennedy. we ll be right back. don t go anywhere. we re back. let s stay on health care for a moment. let s elevate it to the bigger debate and what we are learn being our president a little more than six months into office. dan is with us, his book has just been published, he should read it. you talk about getting into the race. the memo david axlerod wrote to then senate obama about whether he should run for president. he wrote you care far too much about what is written and said about you. you don t relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. a lot of not nice things are being written about the president and his health care bill. this combat is personal and nasty. i think david axlerod was right at the time about barack obama. he was not somebody who took criticism well, whether it was external or even from some advisers. his memo also goes on to say the campaign can be a proving ground. in many ways i think it was. it was a learning experience for barack obama and a proving ground. fast forward to todays. i think he s use to the criticism. he doesn t particularly like it but knows better how to deal with it there s no question he had a tough july. i think august is a point where he has to sort of rebalance the presidency and get himself back to where he needs to be. how do they see the moment, ed? sometimes the president says this is all cable chatter, things will be fine. they have to understand if they do simple math among their own members on capitol hill, they have a problem. they do notice it in the president s demeanor. he has been getting much sharper in how things are getting under his skin. a couple nightses ago in virginia for craig deeds, he gave a fiery speech that almost harkened back to the campaign but was talking a lot about what the critics were saying about me. you can see the sort of calm, cool obama that we know so well from the campaign. he is starting to fray ever so slightly because he is getting tired of the he wants to take over your health care, he s a socialist. and other issues that are out there. and, seems like he s lost his greatest skill here, which is i jiu-jitsu ability to see what critics are seeing about him and get on their case. he has not found a way in this instance to win the debate. he is really at a loss in this case. one of the things, one of the president s advisers recently told me that has been difficult is to try to do what the president is going, which is communicating n the middle of a legislative battle. i think that caused them some difficulty. they tried to work through it and i think they look forward to congress being away for a few weeks so he can have the stage for himself. we talked about the big economy, big job numbers, afghanistan this morning that war, it, in some ways, look like it s spinning out of control. there s a lot else going on. let s talk about that the afghan elections are 11 days away. it s presumed president karzai will win re-election. there s doubts about his confidence and corruption. more u.s. troops are on their way now, and it s possible the commander also say they still need more. lindsay graham, john mccain s best friend in the senate saying if the commanders want more troops he would agree to send them but he doesn t know if the would. i m one republican that would support more troops in afghanistan. i do believe, quite frankly, i ll be shocked if more troops aren t requested by our commanders. afghanistan has deteerioratedde. in july, the president said, when he was candidate for office, that afghanistan was the central battle in the war on terror. afghanistan is now the central battle on the war on terror. that means more troops, more political engagement, more economic engagement. more questions from the democratic party with why have troops in an exit strategy? he is going to take a lot of heat over the left wing if he does that, especially with those numbers you showed this morning when you were interviewing susan rice. why can t we bring the rest of the world along? what did you learn in studying how he campaigned that carries over now as he faces these difficult challenges? one of the gifts he had as a candidate is when he did make mistakes and missteps, he recovered so easily. he was not a particularly good candidate, he was not a happy candidate, as we learned. he went through a process of learning how to become a candidate. i think he has to go through a similar process, and he s going through it, of how to become the most effective president possible. that takes some time, and we can see some of the frustrations, as ed was talking about, in his presidency, but you can also know, from having watched barack obama on the campaign trail, that this is somebody who is thinking about what am i doing wrong, how do i make this better, how do i make this message more effective, and we re going to see more of that. you do a good job in your column this morning about it s been a bad summer for the president in so many ways. however, he got the first latina court justice, history made, and those job knonumbers on friday, while more people lost their jobs, it s looking perhaps like it s starting to hit bottom. if that starts turning around, the picture of this president is going to change rapidly in a positive direction. all of you stay right where you are. when we come back, the lightning round. the topic today, howard dean versus sarah palin. - others buy the car of their dreams. - ( beeps ) during the lexus golden opportunity sales event, you can do both. introducing our best offers of the year on the vehicles intellichoice calls the best overall value of all luxury brands. it s an opportunity today. it s a lexus forever. it was tough news to hear. everything changed. i didn t know what to do. right about then, our doctor mentioned the exelon patch. he said it releases medicine continuously for 24 hours. he said it could help with her cognition which includes things like memory, reasoning, communicating and understanding. (announcer) the most common side effects of exelon patch are nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. the likelihood and severity of these side effects may increase as the dose increases. patients may experience loss of appetite or weight. patients who weigh less than 110 pounds may experience more side effects. people at risk for stomach ulcers or who take certain other medicine should talk to their doctor because serious stomach problems, such as bleeding may worsen. mom s diagnosis was hard to hear, but there s something i can do. (announcer) visit exelonpatch.com for free caregiving resources. but there s something i can do. so, april. yeah? you know, your charger is still using energy when it s plugged into the wall, right? yeah, but that s not my charger. i don t even have a cell phone. [ballad ringtone playing] uh-oh. um. [music stops] heh. announcer: millions of kids are using their energy wisely. i think i ll go with the basic package. good choice. only meineke lets you choose the brake service that s right for you. and save 50% on pads and shoes. meineke. i m joined by ed henry and jessica young. this is sarah palin on her facebook page talking about the health care plan. the america i know and love is not the one in which my parents or my baby with down s syndrome will have to stand in front of obama s death panel so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective assessment, whether they re worthy of health care. such a system is downright evil. she s not going quietly. no, and that s a low blow that s not an accurate assessment of what this panel is, but it definitely will get attention. jessica is right, it does get attention. it s not the way to debate this bill, and it s another example of sarah palin having difficulty figuring out how to enter a serious debate about issues. people think a sense of oo euthanasia is going to be allowed. but the long time governor of state of vermont was asked about sarah palin s posting earlier this morning. what s your reaction to governor palin s comments on her facebook page? about euthanasia, she totally made that up. there s nothing like that. i promised medicine for a long time, and of course you have to have end of life discussions if your patients want that. there is euthanisia is not in this bill. i think it actually is a bigger part of what we were talking about before, that s a serious allegation that s been out there for weeks, and it sort of built and built on talk radio and other venues that the president is pushing euthanasia. it hasn t really been encountered until now. the charge is one that is probably easily refutable, but it s out there now and is difficult to get any traction. to add on, there will be discussions of end of life decisions. that starts to muddy the waters. they should just stop with, not true. you all say sarah palin is misconstruing the facts here. is this what she wants to do, interject herself in debates like this? if she does, she ll be very effective at it, because it really is helping to drive the message. i m not sure i entirely agree with that. i think she needs to figure out a way to become a part of a national debate in a more substantive way. i don t think you can do it with twitter or facebook. you ve got to engage in that debate and stand up to criticism and back and forth and she has yet to do that. it s almost like the ad the palin-mccain campaign ran. she s a big celebrity, but she has to figure out how to go from celebrity to serious person, and attack it in a certain way, not just on the fringe. are you waiting for a palin campaign to be announced, though? i might be out of work. we ve been watching the theater of these town halls. some organized by political organizations, others just coming out to vent their positions on health care, whether it s sing payer advocates saying it doesn t go far enough or conservatives saying it goes way too far. what is the one thing or the one person you re going to track over the next couple months of this recess to see if this